• 5 Posts
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Joined 9 months ago
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Cake day: December 24th, 2023

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  • I mean say what ya want but running with friends is great.

    At least you thought it was.

    Sam was just next to you a second ago, and then all of a sudden his heavy breathing went silent. You want to call out but the sound of gunfire silences you. You serpentine through the woods to try and avoid the bullets, but one grazes your shoulder. You keep sprinting as you hear the gun reloading. You come to a ravine as the trees get thicker. This is your chance to lose him. You zag along the stream for 50 feet and then run up to the wooded forest. You keep moving, never letting up. He who hesitates is dead.

    In the clearing you find a shed- perhaps you can find something to hide under. You open the doors and you step back in horror. Sam was separated into 3 distinct pieces. Your heart drops as you see your friend, your brother in arms from the 22 battalion, lifeless in front of you. You go to leave the shed immediately, but when you go to open the door, it’s locked.

    He found you.

    You look to the shadows quickly to see where he is, but the shed is empty. You go back to the door but again, it won’t budge. As you go to the windows, you begin to smell gasoline seeping in under the floorboards, and then the sound of a match strike.

    Within seconds the shed was ablaze. You begin to slam your boddy against the door- it needs to open. It must open. It starts to become hard to breathe, but you can’t stop. The flames are beginning to lick your clothes as you feel the burns developing on your body. You keep rushing the door until finally you hear the wood splinter. Your burned body breaks through the door, but you fall immediately to the ground. While the fresh cool air comes as a relief to the lungs, the bark, twigs, leaves and dirt tear through your fragile skin. You yell in pain as you roll over to see the shed collapse from its own weight as the flames consumed the rest of it.

    There was no doubt now that Sam was dead.

    But that thought quickly broke as you felt the heal of a boot come down on your chest. You look up into the barel of a shotgun, and behind it is who you feared the most. The one your father told you about every night in his ghost stories when you were a child. You thought he was just a myth, but there he was.

    Shia LaBeouf

    Also usually when I run with my sister I play music and we have a traveling dance party, it’s great!


  • Honestly, that’s the way to do it. Just dress right, but push through. It doesn’t matter if it’s cloudy, rainy, snowing, hailing- you RUN. You know you can’t stop. You have to find a way out. You pull out your phone to turn on the flashlight, but just as you get the flash to turn on, the At&t logo came up and your phone died. But in the flash you could swear you saw a barn in the distance, or at least something metallic. You keep moving towards it until you hear a car pull up. You didn’t realize there was a road so close by, but as the headlights scan across the trees, you see what you thought was a Barn.

    The cold lifeless eyes of Sam gazed past you as you are forced to see what remained of him. He had bled out from the throat, and it was clear that an animal didn’t do this because the cut was clean and the knife used was pinning him into the tree. You shriek as the your friend who you knew since a child lay before you, but immediately find cover when you hear the car door slam shut. The light from the headlights stayed on as blades of light streamed past you into the forest beyond. You could hide in the shadows, but you don’t know if they saw you, so you decided to stay put while you hear footsteps stumble through the forest. The leaves are crunching around, but not in any particular direction so you might have a chance. You press yourself closely to the tree when you hear the footsteps stop. Any hope you had of hiding was done and you knew it. It’s time. Run.

    You bolt out from the tree and run to the car that was still running. You hear an animalistic roar come from the thing that found you. You had a head start, and you are making the most of it. “Push push push” you tell yourself. You were a runner since a child and this is what you prepared for. You sprint to the car to find it’s a 1990s Ford pickup truck. There’s rust on the hood but the door is open. You get inside and close the door. The keys were left in the ignition so you slam reverse, turn around, and speed down the road.

    You are driving as fast as you can as you hear the gravel popping and flying as you go. You look down at the fuel gauge and see that you are almost empty. You panic. Where are you going? You don’t know, you just know you are going AWAY. Your heart suddenly lifts as you see a freeway sign ahead. You head for it, when suddenly the rear window smashes open. In your panic you hit the gas more, but the road curved. You swerve to catch the turn but you over steer. You slam on the break but it’s too late. You see a tree flash in your headlights just as you smashed into it. Your head hits the steering wheel and you blackout for a moment, coming back dazed and confused, but you feel a hand at your throat. He had played the long game. He set the trap, and you took the bait. He waited for you every step of the way, and even when you pulled off the impossible, he still had you. Through the mashed window, the bloodied hand pulls you back out into the darkness. You finally get a good look. You heard the stories but you never wanted to believe them, but here he was, flesh and blood taking you to your death. Here he was.

    Shia LaBeouf.

    So basically you get to choose the kind of day you have, no matter the weather.


  • This reminds me of how when I was young, my dad would get us an extra order of desert when mom left to use the restroom. It was the best dad move. Ofc I was an anxiety case while trying to eat the ice cream before mom got back, it was that intense anxiety where it felt something was following you. Do you know? No. All you know is that every fiber in your being told you you needed get out of that old warehouse as soon as possible. You keep running, avoiding roots and rocks. You keep second guessing yourself. Where we alone? You look to see if Sam followed you but he’s nowhere to be seen. You swear you two looked at eachother with the same chill just moments ago. You call out to him, but you hear nothing. You slow down and turn around but the sun has already set and the trees shroud any sense of direction. You call out again, but regret it instantly.

    The weight of something big is coming.

    You pick a direction and go in an all out sprint. You don’t know where you are going but know whatever has been tracking you is behind you. You are now shrieking call for Sam but he is long gone. The ground below you shifts as you come to a steep decline. You stumble but catch yourself, only to find the moss on the ground won’t hold you. You slip and roll into a ravine, and as you fall your ankle hits a rock. You don’t know if it’s broken but at this point you know that whatever is behind you is worse than the pain of each step. You are limping but moving, but now you are losing ground. The bushes burst open behind you and in the shock you fall back down, firmly breaking the leg you tried so hard to ignore. You turn over while you writhe in pain to see what remained of Sam being held by what couldn’t be a man but couldn’t be a beast. He comes forward smelling the air furiously. You didn’t want to believe it, but Sam was taken and soon you will be too. In your final moments, a face finally comes 2 inches from yours.

    You didn’t want to believe things could go south so fast. You didn’t want to believe Sam was dead. You didn’t want to believe you never would sleep in your bed or eat rainbow Sherbet again. You didn’t want to believe your eyes when you saw him-

    Shia LaBeouf.

    Anyway when mom came back dad would always take the heat for us, but he’s a funny guy and mom couldn’t stay mad for long.




  • I guess the problem with that argument is that it doesn’t consider there are a variety of approaches to therapy that don’t all work on some “core function”.

    Of course, Hank Green to the rescue once again!

    Some therapy is designed to ignore deep trauma and rather focus on the most surface level things. We could go in circles all day about how 9/11 made you terrified of flying, but even if you found some answer, it wouldn’t necessarily help. Instead maybe some exposure therapy or psychedelics or idk some other strategies can be used here and now.

    I also think that even conservatives have differing worldviews within their own, so lumping it all together as a bad worldview doesn’t work. Not all conservatives are angry and pissed off at everything and everyone. Not all liberals are the embodiment of enlightenment. When it comes to therapy, I think there is no one size fits all, and a conservative therapist may help a conservative patient in ways that a liberal therapist couldn’t.


  • The other thing to note is that these Republicans believe it is in their best interest to endorse Harris.

    When it comes to how politicians act, I quote my old political science advisor, they say “I’m not dying in that ditch”. The bottom line is re-election. Everything else is secondary.

    These Republicans, like any politician, did the calculus for their political survival and decided their chances are better speaking at the DNC- that is not to be ignored.


  • I consider people who disagree with me human, and deserving of access to healthcare. As a former childhood conservative, I also understand that changing views is a long process and we need guiding hands that can meet us where we are. I didn’t change my views because someone hammered different views into me, I did it through conversations with people I agreed with on some things, and disagreed with on others.

    Political affiliations are not monoliths. My conservative dad now supports a $20 minimum wage. My left wing uncle argued blackface theater is acceptable. Again, we are not monoliths but divisive propaganda wants us to believe the otherside is all bad and we are all good- from politics to religion to our favorite sports teams.

    My “shithead” conservative aunt would ABSOLUTELY benefit from therapy. She has an eating disorder, trauma from losing her mom at 6 then living with a physically abusive father, and most likely undiagnosed BPD. I know for a fact I will never talk to her again because we’ve cut her off, but I also fully support her access to therapy that, while different than mine, would still be beneficial.

    As far as the “shithead” comment; I will say to you what I said to my “shithead” aunt and uncle at the dinner table when asked “don’t you just agree that conservatives, in general, are smarter than liberals?”

    “I believe idiocy knows no bounds”

    Edit: you said “shithead” not “dipshit”


  • So I was curious and looked to see what percentage of conservative men seek therapy, and while I didn’t get a number, I came across this interview with a conservative therapist.

    At least according to the article, 90% of therapists have liberal values, which in my personal experience makes sense. But the problem is that it makes it difficult for conservatives to find a therapist that they can feel safe expressing their political views, but of course with therapy so frowned upon in conservative circles and they use the church for counsel (not counseling), it’s tough for a conservative therapist to get work. It’s a bit of a catch 22.

    The therapist in the interview has so many stomach turning comments that personally I would not touch her with a 10 foot stick, but the point I do sympathize with is that therapy should be accessible to everyone, no matter your religious or political beliefs.

    I think this really hits with the “I go to therapy because of people who don’t go to therapy”, but that article gave me a perspective of “oh, the people who don’t go to therapy usually don’t have a therapist they could go to to meet them at their level.”









  • Nope, they confirmed it was him.

    My take though is that it was ~4 years ago- he was 17. My politics between 17 and 20 did a 180 so I don’t see it as any damning evidence of his political affiliation.

    They looked at his search history and he also was looking up Biden and other politicians of different political affiliation- this is just conjecture but he may have chosen Trump merely because he was the easiest to get to. The kid was angry at the world and wanted to kill someone in power.

    The only thing we know for sure, is that we don’t know and can’t know the whole truth. It died with him. That take generally too scary for most people to accept, so any explanation gives us comfort.