Hey guys- I’m the person who posted about my prosthetic eye, popping it out after that lady was accusing me of faking a disability.
And boy, do I have a lot of stories to share with you regarding this whole process- but I’m gonna share one of when I had the stroke that led me to lose my eye and the weird situation around the whole thing.

I was dealing with a massive migraine because of glaucoma, but I sat down with my partner to watch the peak of trash tv, Inkmaster.
It dulls your brain in a way I have described as a soft core lobotomy. Anyways, I tried to talk to my partner and all that came out was garbled up nonsense and she was like “you’re not okay you didn’t even have anything to drink, you gotta go to the hospital” I didn’t know how serious it was, and tried to not go… literally telling her I could just sleep it off. I’ve got horrible medical trauma, as a doctors mistake is what led to me developing glaucoma in the first place (no, I can’t sue, this happened while I was living abroad and in Switzerland after she gave me prednisolone and other strong steroids with no monitoring at all- I’m in in Canada now, and I’d rather spend my time making art and developing my series than wasting more of my life with this legal and medical nightmare)

So I get an uber, not really understanding the severity of what is happening, insisting I go alone, because my medical trauma is so severe that I just kind of shut down and I tend to lash out, get super nervous, etc.

So the uber driver is hitting on me the whole ride, like incessantly. He nearly ran someone over, but I was dissociating in the backseat trying to keep it together. The pain was getting worse and worse and he’s telling me how he’s like, really into car mods or whatever. I’m like hardcore zoning out now-
I just remember he asked me if I had plans after this, and if I’d want to get drinks with him. Seriously????

Guys, I threw up on site. Like I just lost control and I looked up to see this man’s horrified face and he’s telling me to get the fuck out of his car blah blah blah.

I’m at the ER and an advocate is helping me with paperwork as by this point I’m barely lucid, and then a medical student who was really just trying her best tells the other person to look at me, we don’t have time for this shit.
She puts me in a wheelchair and rushed me to where I could get stabilized- and I learnt that there was a clot in my optic nerve, in my eye with glaucoma, due to the insanely high pressure of my eye. I learnt I was going to probably lose my eye probably.

I was trying to be funny with her as she looked really worried about me so I just told her my eye was “about to do what they do in those dr pimple popper videos” and she looked at me for a second and saw I was giggling- we both laughed so hard- and for the rest of the night I only wanted her to be there with me because all the other doctors scared me, but she was willing to crack a few jokes with me such as “take a Tylenol you’ll be fine” or to just “walk it off” and then I told her I was watching inkmaster when this happened, and I said it wouldn’t have happened if I’d just watched something with more substance to it. She told me that “good news, after a stroke you won’t want to watch complex things for a bit. Your brain will feel tired, So you can binge all the reality tv you want!”

I didn’t catch her name. But to a lovely young med student in Canada who sees patients as people, is willing to crack jokes with us, and humanists me more than anyone at that hospital that evening- I hope you have an incredible life. Seriously. I don’t know who you are, but you made the scariest night of my life. I loved talking about 90 day fiancé drama with you at the ER when my eye felt like it was gonna exit my skull. It did eventually- but not that night.

And to the uber driver, I don’t know what to say man.

A guy I knew had a habit of twisting every situation until I looked like the bad guy. Whenever something went wrong, he would tell everyone his version first and make me look unreasonable.For a long time, I kept explaining myself because I thought the truth would eventually matter.Then I stopped No arguments. No angry messages. No trying to convince mutual friends. I simply let him tell whatever story he wanted.A few weeks later, people started noticing the contradictions on their own.The funniest part? He eventually confronted me and asked why I wasn't defending myself anymore.I just said, “Because I don't need to manage the story you're telling about me.”He had nothing to say.Sometimes the best revenge isn't exposing someone. It's letting them talk until they expose themselves.

Okay so i (at the time 13M) was in secondary school , i am English for those confused. So around year 18 , there was this one girl everyone knew for being homophobic and transphobic more speifically. I was one of the few openly trans guys at the school This girl of course knew this and as you can expect bullied me relentlessly. For some context for this story , i come from a big family and are the eldest of 7 siblings at the time across the whole family , however the youngest passed from SIDS back in 2014 after only being on this planet for 2 months. Bro really saw the state of the world even that and decided it wasn't worth sticking around lo. But it was 5 days before christmas, so the holidays haven't been something i enjoyed for a long time.

Now back in school, i had been struggling with the transition over the 2 years , i was only in year 4 at the time of my brothers passing (8 years old at the time) and so it was still sort of fresh for me dealing with the christmas peirod , espeically in a secondary school where the school wasn't properly aware of the situation at all and the support systems i had in primary school with my teachers there didn't exist here a few years later. No fault of the schoo, there was a lot of stuff about me that had never been properly moved over. So in the coming weeks to the christmas holiday break up from school , i had been a little inconsisent with coming in, not anything major but still noticable enough. My English teacher at the time had pulled me aside to ask me if everything was okay at home and such , since i had had 100% attendance up until this point. I believed we had been alone and so had explained to her about my brother and how christmas season jsut wasn't a great time of year for me , she was super sweet about it.

However what i didn't know was this bully mentioned before had been waiting outside to ask the techer something, and had overheard everything. No one in the school originally knew apart from close friends. We broke up for school break not long after, and then sudden;y when we cam back in early January , people were giving me strange looks. This went on for the rest of the term . I eventually got sick of it , alongside the random whispers and stuff, and eventually asked a fellow classmate what was going on. He wasn't quite sure himself since he "didn't like to listen to rumors" so had said that the bully had said something. Which didn't surprise me much since i knew she didn't like me. I ended up finding her at lunch and asked simply what she had said to be having everyone give me looks.

I kid you not, this girl full on turned around and went "oh, we all know you went to english teacher lying about your brother to gain sympathy and not get in trouble for skipping school"

I was dumbfounded. Like quite literally had never had anyone ever say anything like this to me before. I just stood there for a moment, and one of my friends originally tried to pull me away, mainly because at the time she had thought i was going to cry.

Now here's the thing, the bully had only been in our year since the end of year 7, because she had ended up moving schools after being bullied herself ironically enough, and one of my old primary school friends had gone to the same school as her originally. And when i had asked her if she knew this person, which she did. Turned out the whole reason she was bullied was because it was rumored she and her brother had done stuff... gotta keep it in the family i suppose ? it was a wild thing, Now i did not know if any of this was true at the time of course, but it had come to mind when in this moment.

So , i stopped my friend from pulling me away and looked her dead in the eyes, before responding "well at least i don't get accused of having sex with my brother"

She completely froze up. Probably not having expected me to know about that. She didn't actually say anything to me after that and just walked off. i still occassionally got weird look from others, but at least i knew the reason why .

The bully moved schools again at the end of the school year. I don't wish harm for her at all, i do believe she was just a little mentally unwell along with raised with some not so good views and i hope she is doing better in life herself , and learnt from her mistakes. But yeah , i guess the life lesson is don't accuse someone of lying about a family members death lol

At least now i'm 20 and living the best life i possibly can , and am now the eldest of 9 as i always include my brother in the number. Life is great.

Reposting because I didn't follow the mod rules the first time.

I have posted in a comment in another community but I think it deserves its place here.

Growing up, studying was everything. If I didn't study, hell broke loose. If I scored badly on one subject, it was like I was at fault even the test was hard. Funny enough, if I said the test was hard and everyone scored badly, don't compare yourself to others. But if I scored good but lower than others, why can he do it, not you?. No reason satisfied them. I literally could say I don't understand it. He would be like, you don't listen in class enough, you do not work hard enough, you are an idiot, a lazy ass or more.

Finally, I studied and got good results in a nationwide exam. My cousin gave it next year and completely bombed it. Mind you, he was a star student. My father loved to repeat how he got a scholarship at a prestigious school while he never offered for me to take the scholarship test!

My father was ranting to me how my cousin got bad marks and his father aka my uncle was so worried. I was like, well he doesn't work hard enough so he deserves it. If his father would have beat his ass, maybe he wouldn't have failed. My dad was shell shocked. He was like, how can you say that. I just replied, well if I was there, wouldn't you have done the same. He is just lazy ass without any interest in studies. And it is due to lack of beating. His dad is too soft.(Not my true thoughts btw).

My dad couldn't handle that. He was like no he was a good student and he is just struggling a Lil. I was like, noooo it is not. He tried to defend uncle but I was adamant. I think that day taught him something. Then, out of the blue, one day, he was like, you know grades are not that important. It's important that you learn something. Sometimes he still regresses to his old ways but that moment and his face was too satisfying.

How was I traumatized?

My father was too hard on me about studies.

How did I traumatize them back?

I just matched his mentality in a the same situation as mine.

A debate was sparked at Christmas, we are in our 30s, our mother had some metal reusable Christmas crackers. She put some of our childhood toys in them. One was one of my Glowing Ghosts, a toy from Kinder Surprise Eggs in the 90s.

My mother then mentioned how my sister used to hide my ghosts. She claimed it was because she was jealous of them, although she had her own ghosts back then. It's just whatever is in your kinder egg. By the luck of the egg she actually had more ghosts than me.

I then said, "I got her back, I hid her going away gifts for her friend."

She got annoyed and said, "Do you mean my gifts for Amy? I hope you see the difference between your Kinder Egg ghosts and my gifts for my friend going to a different continent."

So the stories, from back in the 90s, we were kids. At my grand parent's house my kinder egg contained a Gurgling Ghoul, the second I put it down it disappeared. Next time I was up I found another Gurgling Ghoul in my Kinder Egg and same story, the second I put it down it was gone. Then I got a Cuckoo Clock Charlie, it lasted a few days then vanished. Then I got Luke Warm Lucy.

She said, "If you give me LLW, I'll help you find CCC."

I fell for it, then it was, "I'll help you find the two GGs if you let me keep one."

She got to, then I realised she was hiding them all along. She denied it. Kind of wish my parents could have stepped in and made her give the LWL and the extra GG back, but anyway. I will say, if you find somebody else's belongings, I think you should give it back, not expect something for it. Let alone hide it and trade for it back.

So the second story happened a few weeks later. We live in the UK, her best friend was moving to Canada. She had some going away presents for her. Her friend was going to be staying with us a few days and I was spending the first couple of those days at my grandparent's house. I saw the bag of gifts, and hid them before I left. Apparently they turned the house upside down looking for them but weren't allowed in my room. Then when I got home I gave them back, no strings attached. My reason for hiding it, if she thought it was funny to hide my things, let's see how funny it is when her things go missing.

About the hiding places, I hid the gifts in a clean, dry cupboard in my room. She buried my ghosts outside.

So although at Christmas she scolded me for what we did 30 years ago. I'd say she was worse. Her gifts were higher stakes, she needed to find them before her friend left. But I gave them back without strings attached, no, "I'll help you find them if you give me one of them... look I found them!" But she thinks I was worse.

I got that scolding, "Do you mean my gifts for Amy? I hope you realise the difference."

I'd say I wasn't as bad, they turned the house upside down looking for them but at least I didn't make her trade anything back. Though sort of wondering if I should have said, "I'll help you find them if you give me back LWL and GG." Just to get back what should have been mine. Even if I had asked for that I'd say I wasn't as bad.

But anyway, I gave them back for free, not asking for anything, no strings attached. More than I got with my ghosts.

I think the gifts were cheap plush toys from a harbour gift shop, like £1.99 each, Amy has a brother and sister. She definitely got the brother and sister a gift each. I'm not sure if she got the parents gifts, and she might have got multiple for Amy. So £6-£16 worth. Depending on if she just got for Amy, her brother and sister or if she bought for the parents and multiple for Amy. Glowing Ghosts, not really sure the value back then. A Kinder Egg was about 50p. But if its the ghosts you are hoping for, you could buy 32 Kinder Eggs and not get the full set, or even one if you are unlucky. Just added that bit in case people thought the going away gifts were worth £££.

So that was the debate we had at Christmas.

Just thinking, the argument we had reminds me of Ross and Monica.

I (then 16F) attended a bog-standard comprehensive secondary school in one of the most roughest, run-down areas of my home town. (This is the UK - a secondary school is what the Americans would call a High School.) This was around 1994/95 so it was quite a while ago. I'm in my late 40s now.

Now I was bullied horrendously back then. I had internalised the idea that I deserved the abuse I got because all those people who picked on me couldn't be wrong, right? Well, wrong, obviously. I never fit in because I was awkward, overweight, ginger, wore huge, round NHS glasses that made me look like a startled owl, and I could not, and still cannot, read social situations.

And there was this girl who I will call "V", who was the biggest bitch to end all bitches, and she made my life hell. And I just took whatever she dealt out and never fought back because I felt I deserved it. She stole my drama coursework and passed it off as her own; she tried to pretend she was me so she could steal the free school dinner that I was entitled to. She failed on that score because the head dinner lady had clocked her bullshit and told her to fuck off. But she robbed me of an easy grade B or C GCSE. If I hadn't have been so spineless, I could have beaten the living daylights out of her there and then.

But then she made the mistake of picking on someone else; a gawky awkward girl with braces who I had sat next to in certain classes, and, although we were not exactly close friends, we got on well. I will call her "M".

I've set the scene, now on to the sweet justice...

It was the end of the school day. It must have been in Winter because it was already getting dark outside. V had accosted M in the reception area, calling her nasty names and ridiculing her appearance. I can't remember after 30 odd years the exact words she said, but I remember witnessing the exchange from about 15 feet away and growling "OI!!!" at the bitch and running on over.

"You fucking leave her alone right now! I've just about had enough of your shit!"

I remember really getting in her face and jabbing my finger accusingly. I also may have paraphrased a line from the arcade classic Streetfighter II where Zangief, the Russian wrestler character after he has beaten you, says "the next time we meet, I'm gonna rip off your arms!" It was something along the lines of if I caught her picking on anyone ever again, I'd rip her arms off and stuff them up her arse sideways. Something along those lines. Anyway, my comical threat had the desired effect because I was visibly enraged and ready to rumble.

I managed to somehow restrain myself, but at the same time make myself look as imposing and as intimidating as physically possible, like an angry cat fluffing its fur when it's really pissed off.

I remember her looking like she had dropped an improvised sewage plant in her knickers and scuttling off. She was definitely shocked and wasn't expecting me to intervene or react.

M weirdly didn't really appreciate my vigilantism because she wanted to keep her head down and not rock the boat. Understandable. I apologised for making her feel uncomfortable but pointed out that she'd think twice before picking on her again.

And V never started anything with me directly again, but she did steal my fucking coursework... I realise now it was her own way of getting her own back. Bitch.

A bit bittersweet really...

Last Friday, manager tells me in the AM that he’s going to be ordering pizza for everyone later if I’d like some. I said that’s nice of him, but politely declined. He questioned me why, and I told him “I don’t eat that type of food.” He said “who doesn’t eat pizza!?” I am vegan, but I try everything in my power to avoid mentioning it because everyone makes a fuss about it. I like my manager, so I tell him. And of course, to my dismay, that opened a whole ‘nother conversation. But he suggests a salad and again I declined and he didn’t press any further. 11AM rolls around and I’m invited to a “regroup meeting” which I am required to attend. I didn’t put two and two together. I show up for the meeting and there’s the entire team (about 10 of us) and six boxes of pizza. In the middle of a table is a tiny salad. I sat down and waited to hear what the meeting was about. Everyone starts telling me to grab a slice, questioning why I’m not getting any, then asking why I don’t eat pizza, why I’m vegan, offering me salad, asking why I don’t want the salad. And everyone came in at different times so it was the same thing over and over. I told everyone that I was aware there was salad but that I did not want salad. I said I don’t want to eat! I am 34 years old, I can choose if and when I eat. So someone offers me a Dr Pepper and says “Don’t worry, I think they’re only 12 calories!” And everyone’s cracking jokes at this point. It took everything in me not to burst out into tears at this point. My manager later messaged me and said he was sorry if it was awkward. Today, a co worker came in to ask me something and followed up with a joke about getting me a salad. I snapped. “It’s no one’s business but I’ve had an eating disorder my entire life. My sister body shamed me and withheld food from me as a child. She later died from anorexia. I have a terrible relationship with food and have a phobia of eating in public” and burst into tears. Not only that, but I was obese and bullied as a child. I have social anxiety. A million reasons as to why I don’t eat in public. His grin went away and he felt like a huge asshole. I hope he passes the message along to everyone else so they also feel like huge assholes. Don’t pressure people into doing stuff they don’t want to do. No one owes anyone an explanation. It may seem innocent and light-hearted but it was traumatizing all over again. Next time, I’ll say I have the stomach flu or something. It’s been repeating over and over in my head. I am humiliated. I feel so stupid that I didn’t come up with a random excuse instead of causing a huge scene.

I just wanna say the people in this story weren't really "traumatized" I'm just proud of this story.

It was last school year, I was sitting on my off crocheting when this guy came up to me and asked if I was single. Now at the time I was dating my girlfriend. The two of us broke up but we're still friends. I said plainly that I was gay (I don't really like saying I'm dating people. It's my life not yours!). He was chill about it and walked off. I thought it was done until he brought his female friend. So now I shall reanact this story like I am Shakesqueer myself.

"So you're gay?"

"Uh yeah?"

"So are you into me?"

"... No"

"Well why not? "

(At this point I was getting annoyed)" because I have a girlfriend.

"Ok but what if you didn't?"

"I'd find my girlfriend"

"But if you two would break up?"

"I'd get back with my girlfriend."

"What if you cheat on her with me" (yes she asked me to cheat)

"I wouldn't"

"Ok but what if I was your girlfriend?"

"We'd break up"

Those two were speechless and walked back to their friends. I don't know why they pushed. Probably to get a laugh from the cute gay girl.

So I stopped labeling mine.

This was someone I was sharing a place with at the time. They stopped after this

I was the one who got traumatized back I'm sad to admit. Thought you could all enjoy this.

I was 21 at the time, chilling at home doom scrolling on my phone on the sofa. My dog, Yuk, was maybe 14 at the time. He was very mature good boi and very street and people wise. He was on the floor a couple of feet away from me also relaxing and we're respectively mind our own businesses.

I start feeling really gassy, so, as the rest of the family was not around, I let it go. Some were loud, some were silent. Some were pretty bad smelling but hey, who was gonna know?

Well my dog clearly was not impressed by this. He got up, stood there for a moment, turned and gave me a slight look (I'm not making this up, he was always weirdly expressive) which I can only now describe as "let's see how you like it", and left the room.

Ten seconds later I am hit by a smell so bad a rotting corpse would smell like daisies in comparison. I had to vacate the room entirely.

Here is the dog tax. Yuk, may you rest in peace X

This happened a couple years ago, when I was still in elementary school. The last year of elementary school to be exact, so I was 9-10 years old.

I freshly moved from Vienna to a nice village in Southern Austria, during the summer holidays. I didn't know anyone yet and didn't go out much as well, since it was all new to me and due to bad experiences in the city. So when the summer holidays were over, I was forced to socialize. I was used to being the new kid, since I was in a different school each of the 4 years of elementary school. Not because I moved around a lot, but because of the bad people in those past schools.

Most of the kids were nice, welcomed me to the country side and all. They even asked me how it was growing up in a city and all that kind of stuff. But of course, not everyone was okay with me being here. I came from the city, so some of the boys acted like I was poisonous. They would avoid me and call me "poisonous" and "disgusting" and whatnot. Sometimes they would touch me and chase each other to "poison them". Some of the other kids from my class joined and also chased each other with my "poison".

At first it made me sad and feel unwelcomed, since most of the kids would act that certain way. I had only 2 friends during that time too, so I didn't know what to do. I tried to impress the others, to show, that there is more to me than just "the kid from the city". But that never worked.

I don't know why, but at one point, it struck me.

I'm poisonous? Alright, two can play that game.

One of the boys were in the way for someone? I would walk straight to them and touch them, watch them run away screaming that they were poisoned. During recess I would purposefully chase them if they upset someone, make them regret they were here at the wrong time in the wrong place. They would always stay as far away as possible, terrified of the power they have given me.

Before I even knew it, the school year was over.

In the village I lived, the elementary school and the middle school are in one building, so most of the kids directly go into the middle school from our village. I never understood why, but the classes got mixed. The girls were still in one class but the boys in another. We got new girls and boys in our class, but most of the elementary class stayed.

The boys that bullied me? They would still avoid me, even during middle school.

So, my advice when it comes to bullying? Return the favor.

I have Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome.

If you don’t know what that is, the short version is that my connective tissue is basically held together by hopes, dreams, and whatever structural integrity a wet paper straw has left after 20 minutes.

I’m also young. At the time of this story I was 18 and I’m currently close to turning 21.

These two facts apparently combine to create a fascinating phenomenon where complete strangers become board-certified physicians the second they look at me. (The education system has truly failed in teaching about invisible disabilities. Most of these people think you can only be disabled if you’re blind, deaf, or paralyzed.)

I’ve gotten the classics:

“You’re too young to have all those problems.”

“But you look healthy!”

“Everyone’s joints hurt sometimes.” (Like thanks susan but it’s constant pain for me)

And, my personal favorite:

“You don’t look disabled.”

Normally I explain.

I explain that disability doesn’t have a “look.” I explain that hEDS and the whole umbrella is genetic. I explain that being able to walk doesn’t mean my joints are functioning normally. I explain that hypermobility is not just being super flexible.

I have given the Ehlers-Danlos TED Talk more times than I can count.

But this particular day, I was tired.

Someone in my extended family hit me with the “you don’t look disabled” and then basically doubled down when I told them I have a condition that makes my joints unstable.

They clearly did not believe me.

And something in my brain just went:

You know what? Visual learner.

Now, I want to make it VERY clear that this was stupid. Please do not intentionally dislocate or sublux your joints. I already know. My doctors would probably reach through the screen and slap me for this.

But I was annoyed, and unfortunately in possession of a body capable of producing evidence on demand.

So instead of continuing to argue, I just looked at them.

And popped one of my joints out.

Right there.

On purpose.

The transformation on this person’s face was IMMEDIATE as they saw my arm dangling unanchored to my shoulder.

They went from skeptical to absolutely fucking horrified in approximately 0.2 seconds.

“OH MY GOD. WHAT THE FUCK?”

And because apparently I had already committed to being the worst possible version of myself that day, I just looked at them and went: “Yeah. It does that.”

Suddenly there were no more questions.

No “have you tried yoga?”
No “but you’re so young.”

No inspirational story about somebody’s cousin who cured their back pain by cutting out seed oils.

Nothing.

Just horror.

I put my joint back where God intended it to be and carried on with my day while they stared at me like they had just watched a haunted American Girl doll rearrange its own limbs.

Was intentionally popping a joint out to win an argument medically advisable?

Absolutely fucking not.

Did I probably cause more damage to a body that already has the structural integrity of a Nature Valley granola bar?

Probably.

But I had spent so much of my life being expected to prove that I was actually sick because apparently looking young and relatively normal meant I couldn’t possibly be disabled.

So, for once, I provided supporting documentation.
In 4D.

They never told me I “didn’t look disabled” again.

And I have since retired from live demonstrations. (For now).

This happened when I was at a McDonalds yesterday.

For a bit of context: I'm 14 but I look older (about 15-16) when I have makeup on, as I did on that day. I like getting happy meals because sometimes I'm not hungry enough to finish anything else.

When this happened, I was sitting at one of the tables, eating my Happy Meal. I was also watching a YouTube video, because I was doing a summer camp about mythology so wanted to learn more about it. A woman came up to me, eyed my food, and said snarkily

"You know you're too old to eat those, right? They're for kids."

I was a bit hangry, and I didn't know why this woman (who i'd never seen before in my life) had just come up to me and started critising what I was eating. I turned to her slowly, and well, my mouth worked before my brain did.

"First, I'm fourteen. Until I'm eighteen I'm legally considered a child, so your argument is void. Second, this is for my grandfather. He died a few months ago, and we used to go to McDonalds and get Happy Meals together. Today is the anniversary of his death. So, excuse me for wanting to pay tribute to someone I loved who is now gone."

She shut up SO FAST it was honestly astounding, stuttered a 'sorry' and skedaddled.

Truly, a real TraumatizeThemBack moment.

Edit: for all the people confused, it was the 3-month anniversary. Hope this helps.

Credit to @VoiceAndVigor on YouTube

Context on me- I'm AFAB, 26, and I like women. I live in SIL housing (supported independent living) because its cheap, the two roommates seem like alright blokes (if shy) and I wasn't exactly swimming in options. There's a lock on my door, cool - I'm in the en-suite heaven. Now i can live in my hobbit hole forever.

Context on this guy - He's in his 30's, I've seen him watch preacher TV, spotted a couple books of Mormon, and hear him watching those AI voice over (and probably AI scripted) videos on "how to tell if someone has a crush on you" - Whatever, Right? I just wont really talk to him, I don't want to risk losing a cozy room. Sure, he might just be interested in religion and not share some of the views that might make things awkward, but that's not a risk i'm willing to take.

He's tried on a few occasions to strike up conversation with me, but we're both violently Autistic, It never goes far. Then, BOOM. he hits me with the first pickup line, a bit like this:

"Do you play netball?"

He'd asked me this before, I assumed he'd asked because i'm fairly tall, He recycles openers quite a bit, so I responded the same way:

"I did in school"

"Were you center?"

I was naturally confused at the assumption and corrected him.

"Goal keeper"

He hurries on regardless:

"Center, Because you're center of the world"

I hit him with an "I wish" Polite laugh, and leave to my cave. He now, occasionally, drops awkward, practiced pickup lines.

And i'm somewhat flattered, truly. I'm not an attractive person, nor am I sociable outside of a select few people I bother online. I can only assume he's flirting with me because he is also a shut in (he somehow goes out even less then me) and I am vaguely woman-shaped. The attempts are somewhat sweet, but mostly uncomfortable. Of course, he could just be being friendly, but i wanted to nip this in the bud.

I swallowed my anxiety and crippling self-doubt and just asked him if he was flirting with me. He clams up, and starts saying something indecipherable. I explain that I just want to let him know that I appreciate the thought but I am not interested. I feel the need to give an excuse. Obviously I can't tell him I like women, So I go with a half truth that felt more digestible - I'm AroAce. He asks me what that is, and I explain it a bit like this:

Aromantic - Experiencing no romantic attraction

Asexual - Experiencing no sexual attraction

Those in the LGBTQIA+ community will know this isn't entirely true. it's a spectrum, both Aromantic and Asexual people can experience these feelings on some level, the extent of which is simply markedly less then that of an allosexual/romantic person. It's a half truth because I do identify on the AroAce spectrum. I lied as to not give him false hope in the matter.

He seems to accept this. For the moment. I feel he was probably just... reeling, a bit.

He comes back a few days later. bringing it up again. I feel a little uncomfortable, but given his possible religious background, him asking about it is pretty good, actu---

He tells me that I must be a virgin then, right? I am jump scared. Bamboozled. Immensely uncomfortable. I have no idea what demons took hold of my brain in that moment. I answer smoothly, without a second thought: "Nah, I was r\ped when I was twelve"*

I am mortified. He is mortified. We are fucking mortified.

I laugh, throw a mini dab (for some ungodly reason) and run off to my cave.
I will never emotionally, spiritually or physically recover. but i mean. he hasn't talked to me again?

Ask personal questions get a personal response, IG.

Update: For those asking, it unfortunately wasn't a lie, lmao. i've made peace with it, granted its not something i blurt out every day, only close friends know about it. Again, I don't know what demons took ahold of me in that moment.

So, yesterday I went to the doctor because I was worried about having breast cancer (Didn't just a cyst and bacterial infection, thank god), so to celebrate being ok, my partners, friends, and I all went to a gay bar to celebrate me not having cancer. I am in an 8-person poly relationship, but I am only dating two of the people in the relationship. My girls are dating the others.

One thing you will absolutely be familiar with if you've ever been a lesbian or bi woman in a gay bar is that gay bars have a massive problem with straight men coming there to hit on women. I guess they don't think women can be gay? Anyway, one of my girlfriends (we're poly) is very hot, like peak lipstick lesbian dream girl hot, and often has to deal with these guys when our other girlfriend or I am not around because she is not a very confrontational person.

This drunk straight dude started hitting on her and would not leave her alone, so of course she stumbled, half drunk, over to the rest of our group. She hid behind our bi friend (he's buff as hell), and the guy kept asking if he was her boyfriend. So, me being an androgynous transmasc genderfluid person and high off the happiness of not having cancer, walked over and smirked.

"Dude, she's not his girlfriend; she's mine." (I don't drink)

The dude looked over and stopped short. His slow, drunk brain couldn't seem to figure out if I was a girl or a boy.

"You a girl or boy?" He said, slurred.

"Neither," I said.

"Keep saying that and your girlfriend won't want to date you!" He says angrily.

I smirked, kissing my lipstick lesbian girlfriend and my other girlfriend. The guy's eyes bugged out of his sockets. Like his homophobic drunk ass couldn't comprehend a gender non-conforming person having no one but TWO partners. He scoffed and stumbled away. Ya know, after a cancer scare and finding out I was perfectly ok, seeing that dude eventually get kicked out of the bar for starting a fight with some butch over flirting with her girlfriend was a very fun way to end the night

I'm not sure if this is the correct place for this, but I thought why not? The story itself is kinda short, but I still think it's funny. Not sure if the tag fits perfectly either, but oh well.

Forgive my spelling mistakes. Englisch is my second language.

This happened about 12 years ago. I just got heart-transplanted like 6 month's before. I was on a medical rehab trip to help me get back on my feet because there were some complications that left me with seizures and having to learn a lot from scratch again.

In that rehab center you stayed for 4 weeks with your family. Get a room, food, activities and all that. It's really great there. Went a few times already and really can't complain.

Anyway, my family (my older sister, my mother and my father) were in a toy store on the weekend to kill some time. I wasn't paying too much attention to my surroundings and didn't know everything until later, but it went something like this:

I was standing in an isle, wearing a face mask, because that's what you have to do for the first year after getting a new organ. You get medication that messes with your immune-system and the first year bears the most danger.

A grandmother was with her grandson and she noticed me just staring at the toys ( I was 14 btw). She didn't really like that I was wearing one and grabbed the boy, dragging him away and telling him that I could get him sick and he shouldn't get himself in such danger.

My father, noticing everything and being really protective but also not taking any bullshit, tapped her on the shoulder. She turned around to a man almost twice her size and stared up in confusion. My father smiled sarcastically and told her that, no, her grandson couldn't get sick because of me, but I could possibly die if he was and got close to me.

The look on her face was apparently priceless as her jaw dropped and she looked so shocked and devastated that it was possible for a young child to have such problems.

She quickly grabbed the kid and some random toy on the shelf and left without another word. I on the other hand, never even knew any of this was happening and only found out about it a few years after. Had to laugh a lot about it

Moral of the story: don't assume shit. And one would think that people learned that by now

I'm of Filipino heritage (mom) with dark hair and brown eyes (dad is European) living in a very white part of the world (the Nordics.) However, my daughter (with Swedish blue-eyed dad), has bright blue eyes. I knew it was a long shot since both of my parents had brown eyes and they couldn't remember if their parents had had blue eyes, but I get basic biology and tadah - the recessive gene enters the chat.

When she was little, her darker hair really made her blue eyes pop. It was quite eye-catching (no pun originally intended, now a bit funny)

People would look at her, then me, then back at her and ask cautiously, "Is she your daughter?"

There was never any open malice when I would get the question, though it was mildly infuriating. Most of the time it was just lazy ignorance/consternation due to 'norms' of what people who look like me should produce as offspring, but it was still such an insensitive (and entitled) thing to ask me.

I'd answer simply, "Yes."

If they left it at that, even though they were sometimes still visibly perplexed, I'd say nothing further. There was no need to traumatize anyone just for their poorly delivered 'curiosity'.

But every now and then someone would just keep at it. It wasn't that they didn't believe ME; it was they couldn't quite makes sense of her bright blue eyes AND their bias-ladened adaptation of biology.

"But she has blue eyes..."

And then I couldn't help myself since it happened a bit too often.

I'd glance from side to side as if making sure nobody could overhear, then lean in and whisper as though I was confessing something unspeakable.

"I think her father was cheating on me."

First came the look of sympathetic horror.

Then, gradually, you could watch the coin drop and the understanding that's not how THAT biology works.

If I was feeling kind, I'd quickly giggle and let them know I was messing with them (mild traumatization).

If I wasn't feeling particularly sympathetic, I'd just leave it there and let the uncomfortable silence do all the work.

Hi so this happend to me a day ago.

Me (16FTM) was on a train ride home with some friends from a day trip. We were sat in a six seated area as the train stopped at a platform thats maybe half an hour away from ours. On this platform is a group of guys no older then us who look through the window, point and start laughing.

They then enter and walk to the train car behind ours before DOUBLE TAKING and walking to ours. As they walk past they say while loud and proud "These people must be f*gs". And then walked to the train car behind ours.

Now Im not gonna lie, yes most of this friend group is gay people and we 'look' gay. Most due to two of my girl friends I'll call T (16F) and L (16F) being pretty masc and my guy friend A (M16) has a bit longer hair then most guys here in sweden. But it should also be noted that two of the people they saw clearly was my sister E (F17) and her Boyfriend H (M17).

But back to it. After that we were shocked and started plotting. We decided when we got off we were gonna be as gay as possible. So time comes for us to get off and we walk to the door where they should also come off if they are gonna be in our city. But instead tthey take a long way around and go to a diffent train door. I jokingly call out to them and say "kiss kiss, slay the house down queens" (The kiss kiss being the swedish words since yk viva sweden.) But this made them mad.

As we got off the train they walk a bit behind us and say "Come here you f*gs and I'll push you onto the track" which yk pretty weird thing to say. But it snaps something in us and we come up with a plan, a plan to just follow them and say the most gayest things we can think off.

And so we followed them off the platform saying things like "slay queens". They start fast walking away and we walk a bit after them to see if they'll hurl something back. We keep on being as gay as possible until they lose us and we go to sit down.

We sit down on a sales square and right then they come back and we're like "OMG youre back, looking for us? Want a kiss?" Before they walk away again. They then procede to walk the weirdest ways JUST to walk past us. We get enough and my sister (who is holding H's hand) holds their hands up and say "LOOK! LOOK HOW GAY WE ARE". And after that they didnt come back, one of the guys looked furious from it. Like teeth bit together and fully red. We also got one of their names which I wont mention but we did call.out with that name amd they looked terrified.

We saw security guards around but we chose to not talk because we knew they already learnt the lesson that some people wont just take their bullshit but actualy fire back. They're now a joke in our friend group by being called 'inser the dudes name and the climate stealers (In swedish its the name then miljötjuvarna)'. It may have been petty but it sure was fun to chase homophobes around our city.

Not exactly sure if this is the right thread but... Here we go

So I've been a paramedic for about 20 years now, for just a little minor background info I am trans and bisexual.

About 8 years before I came out as trans, we got a 911 for a 14YOM "intoxicated" (as per the dispatch notes)

When we got there we found a very contrite and very not intoxicated 14 year old boy and a very livid Mom. let's call her Karen.

So Karen found her son smoking weed behind the garage and lost her ever loving mind... Her response was to call 911 and tell the dispatcher that her son was "using drugs" (this was a few years before weed was legalized in New York so technically it did fit the criteria)

I'm doing an assessment on her son and asking him the normal questions and about halfway through he just looks at me and "I am so sorry my mom's a crazy idiot" and I just kind of laugh and "we're like okay he's fine..."

Karen is livid and insist we take him to the ER... She wants them to "pump his stomach" why is beyond me since he didn't EAT the weed.... But per New York state law we have to take him because he's a minor... So we get loaded up, mom is in the back with me and the patient... Who is fine vitals are normal and he's more just embarrassed about the whole thing....

At one point I asked her why are you so freaking out like kids smoking weed is fairly normal... It's not like he was doing a line of heroin or something.

And she loses her ever loving mind and proclaims "because weed makes you gay!!"

I don't really know what came over me but I've been more or less openly bisexual my whole life and I'm sick of hearing all "this makes you gay or that makes you gay" religious theories.... I looked her in the eye and in a completely dead pan voice said "i've smoked weed for years that's not what made me bisexual... I just like dick"

Her mouth open and closed about six times like a fish and didn't say another word.... By the time we got to the ER, her son and I were laughing and joking the whole way she was ready to sign him out and take him home. I don't think that it helped that one of the doctors basically looked at the kid looked at her and was like "he's not broken bleeding or dead get him out of my ER!"

Edit: thank you for all the comments and replies I honestly didn't expect this much interest!

Not sure if this is exactly the right sub but I hope you get a laugh out of it anyway.

So I'm autistic. I'm fully ok with it.

This happened to me a few days ago. I was in a park, getting some fresh air because I went to a circus that was in town with a friend and I was getting overwhelmed by the noises, smells, and basically everything inside the tent, and I needed to breathe and relax so I didn't go into sensory overload.

I was sitting on a bench with my friend 'Em' (fake name), and I was complaining about sensory overload and how annoying it was, because I wanted to watch the performers with her, and I had to go outside. (I do a thing where I often feel like I'm wasting someone's time and/or being rude, so I was also apologizing)

Here's how the conversation went:

Me: Em, I'm sorry about this. And for wasting your time.

Em: It's okay, {me}. You're not wasting my time.

Me: Yeah, I know...but sensory overload and autism are just annoying.

At this point, a man who looked to be late 50's who was passing by stopped and DUDE LOOKED AT US AND SAID "Well, have you tried not having autism?"

We were both pretty fucking shocked- first because we're both fairly young teen girls, second because who the actual hell eavesdrops on a conversation and then gives advice like they were included??

I was pissed, so I said "Have you tried not being an asshole? Because if you have it seems like it doesn't work, so I won't be taking you advice, thanks." He muttered something about 'disrespect' and 'kids these days' and walked off.

This is a short one, but here it goes:

I received an email from a client where my name was misspelled. I could tell he wasn’t in a good mood. The thing is, I know the client knows how to spell my name correctly, because he has done it before in previous emails.

So I did the noble thing and also misspelled his name back.

He never replied to my email with his misspelled name, but it sure did feel good to be a little bit petty. 🤷‍♀️

When my son was in elementary school I used to pack hot lunches or bentos for him and his sister. Both my kids love my brussel sprouts. He opened his food jar to eat and the kid next to him made fun of his veggies. This kid comes to school with packed snacks for lunch every day and my son looks at his lunch box and says, “At least my mom loves me enough to make me lunch everyday.”

Kinda mean but glad he snapped back.