#and I can't blame her attitude on covid.

[lemememeringue]

I've been having some uncharacteristically violent dreams since I got sick

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

I (27F) am still living with my parents due to financial reasons and covid pushing my college education back. I've either worked or done full time college since I was 18 and i have helped my parents out. I'm fully moving out, hopefully, this fall, but things have been sticky since.

My mother is controlling and has very little respect for my boundaries. For 13 years, she has made comments about my phone having a password she doesn't know. She regularly remarks about all the "self restraint" it takes her to not go into my room when I'm not home and reorganize my dresser and bookshelf. I feel like I can never relax because of having to justify my free time to her. I am 27 and have had fights with her over my bedtime. In the past back when I voice chatted people, she would get angry when I tried to set aside any time at home to not be interrupted. She's yelled at me when I was on mic for stuff like not opening a window, which she then did and had no reason to yell at me for except to embarrass me.

I'm Queer and my family knows but pretends I'm not in daily life, and she makes incredibly judgemental homophobic, transphobic, and sometimes racist comments when watching TV or when there's something LGBT related in the news or going around her feed, yet she thinks she isn't a bigoted person/that she's been a great parent. When I had a trans male friend over 5 years ago she launched into a tirade about fake gender and me "pulling a prank" on her and a lot of things I won't repeat but it was bad enough I haven't had a single person come by since. Any friend time is outside of the house. I keep all my friends away from her.

Thing is, she also blames me for never going outside or having her own life. She wants to rely on me or other people for everything even though she can drive. She lost an eye to cancer, something I took care of her all the way though, but she has driven, has a fake eye so no one can tell she's missing an eye, and has a special mirror on the car so she can see in her blindspot. But she won't go out alone and even before he vision loss she always wanted someone with her out of anxiety.

So all this summer she wants me to be her valet, basically, saying she'll get into the habit of going places if I go with her, but saying any "attitude" from me in the past is the reason why she stopped caring about herself or going outside.

I want to have very basic boundaries respected and have my own free time, but she keeps making her living at all on me and expecting sunshine and rainbows while being controlling and only accepting very certain reactions. Any time I try to be assertive about things like my own bedtime, she asks me why I "turn everything into a power struggle" when she's the one who starts things.

I don't want to spend time with her, even though I know she has gone though things and has lost an eye. I feel miserable, isolated, and like I can't even have resting bitch face without being accused of something. I just want her to live her own life and not need me to escort her everywhere because of her paranoia, and I'm trying to spend time away and give pushback about boundaries. AITA for trying to swerve her?

What are these acronyms?

[the-firebird69]

We're starting to get really bent we have about 87% of the factories back up and running after covid-19 and 35% new factories and all the essentials are 85% covered meaning that people get stuff 85% of the time and it's increasing rapidly that's where the money is. You won't let her son have anything the economy is recovering and everybody is doing better and just sitting there laughing at him thinking that you got here by pulling him we got here because we took over the factory so we forced it to happen and you think we'll take a fall from Tommy f I've seen on the cake that is icing on the cake now we're coming after you to and the max bomb due to Oblivion for your stupid attitude towards us and he going to see it in the letter tonight. Add the fact in that in the letter it says several things about your attitude and demeanor it says that you are wrong it almost everything you're doing and that kidnapping him does not have a positive effect and you will not be trusted with him we will not allow you to kidnap him that's what the max say because you're fools and we're not going to terminate him or put him on the court that's your idea to imitate us anywhere you go and it did not have any effect and he's sitting there saying he knows you are so you shut your stupid mouth that's what they're going to say and then they're going I get used to it I can't stand it you'll be so f****** dumb that Daddy says and it's right you ruined him and he his plan was brilliant it was dangerous the clans planned was dangerous but not as dangerous and what you're doing is making the max fail and yourselves but not in that order you won't be around and see what happens to them and good we don't want you to your heinous who cares what heinous idiots say everything out of your mouth is disgusting your f****** pigs every night is a bad night when you're around and every day no one can have it any fun or relaxation and you blame everyone that you're not it's just that you're a huge pain in the ass evil people we've ever seen you like primates you're so dumb it's absolutely true and we're going after you too for all the stuff you're saying right now.

The letter goes on to say and it is only 4 hours and 20 minutes away, that you will be executed for treason and you will be brought into trial and hung and burned and all of this will start becoming public because of what you're doing and saying is so damned rude

The letter is pretty harsh once they do things you can't do so you do a few you can and see this one now and that's the thing

They're trying to exacerbate you and you're such f***** you just go around ruining everything for you and them it's greatness really is our son and daughter recognize it and the pattern and it's real and they also help make you stupid because it was a lot easier even though it's hard and we used to defeat them because they're trying to use you to defeat us in the process you're going to be gone before they will and that brings us to this topic that he is yelling at us about hey started yelling it and we do respond to it by doing mostly what he's saying yeah and her and we're taking territory above and below and elsewhere and it is good lots of it and we need it now because of their master plan and it's not really complicated but you guys can't figure it out ever. So that's what we're doing with it but further in the letter they say that you're going to be smoked but they go through this big list of things that you're doing wrong half of it is Satanist stuff and it says that you're truly sacrilegious that you don't hold hope and people who don't have much and you cause damage to yourselves in US they have hope in us being damaged and you being damaged not in that order and it's saying it different language finally at the end they say this we're going to come get rid of you until you're all gone because what you're saying now is gibberish you have like no power and you got really a power exchange the sit around and be these asinine jerks that you are saying stupid things to people. It goes on so you'll be fine every time and more and you're declaring war on us and it is a declaration of war if you do not comply by 9:00 p.m. and they're in the letter they give you a time frame to respond and I believe it's 24 hours and come Monday are y'all start talking about it round and round and round and son says you don't have a damn deceptive phone in your damn body and they said we want to be honest I said for Christ's sake even Dan tries to fool me a little then got up and said you're right you're a bunch of fools I want out of this we got three days extra who cares and he sat down they said you don't have any scrupels and you don't have any values. You say you're wrong he has scruples and he values his people Trump stood up and said it and you don't even know what the hell you're saying you're going headlong into a war with a huge group we can't win against in any way and sat down now finally other people start standing up say what's wrong with you you sound like complete knitwit and saying we're going to go we're going to go through this and allow them because we want to be stubborn jackasses and it's that down and people from the Senate and the Congress started talking we don't want you elected to anything we don't want you here you're worsening than he is and you're causing it to happen to him just like your nephew said and you're a bozo some CIA pro and you don't know how to do anything and it's all your stupid gay little kid s*** it's souped up and amped up and it's ruining us. So bja was not laughing he was in tears and he said if you don't like it leave just leave and he said they've been saying that to us the whole time. So corky will say you encourage them to do it CAA and our son says back to him shut up butternut squash. Opens his mouth and said you finally got a package of it they said we're going to beat you to text you so damn dumb we have to respond with something other than the middle finger you a****** so here are some you send a diplomat and apologize it says we need to restructure and we need some time to do it it started writing something up and the letter says you have this amount of time it's like 24 hours so you want to try and draw it out and BJ's saying no so going up to him one by Wednesday no to you you can do what you want with your group but you can't do with ours and they're different Mac gifted they're like him and he has a large number of everyone he's like 30% Trump is like 20% still and shrinking and the rest are miscellaneously outnumber him and the kids on saying to him

Few things else you're not listening to here because you're not you're getting hit people say do not go through the traffic light as if no one's there and they're arresting people for attempted homicide and don't sit there at a red light cunn. ing your engine trying to get people to race you to pull them over it's illegal. The proceeds to say that we are declaring warn you and these things will be taken and these steps will be taken against you and we are sitting up internment camps all over Florida and the United States and we are going to fill them all the time and you'll be treated as enemy combatants and moved off to your Islands will ship you there.

Well we get this too they said other things about people aidting and abetting and more and we were we don't really help them

Thor Freya for us and

Olympus

[stanley578]

This was going to happen eventually

My sisters ended up cutting me out of their lives. I cut them out of my life as well. For this to happen on the day after my birthday makes it so much worse.

My convo with one of my sisters started out nice in Messenger. She asked about the photos I was tagged on Facebook and I said those are my friends from the LGBTQ+-affirming church that I’ve been attending for 2 years. I told her about the church hangout event I wanted to go but mom didn't let me because of COVID. She suggested having the hangout take place virtually. I kept explaining to her that these events can only be experienced thru physical gatherings. She asked, "Don't you think that's kind of selfish?". That was when I felt offended because she used the word “selfish" tactlessly.

And then she thought that I was being pressured by my friends to go to that event, but I insisted that I wasn't and it was my choice to want to go. And then she came up with a scenario where I always go to events and suddenly, my mom got sick and has to go to the ICU and asked if I will take care of her. I wanted to end the convo because I didn’t want to answer the question, but she wanted to keep the convo mature.

When she brought up her sick dad (I'm not related to him), it triggered me to say he deserved it for abusing my mom many times. She said no one deserves to be sick and what I said hurt her. She furthered that taking care of him impacted her financially and she used up all her savings because of that. I wouldn't have hurt her if she didn't talk about her dad or reach out to me in the first place.

She accused me of gaslighting. And then I retorted, "So are you! Like every other conservative Christian ever!". She then accused me of being close-minded. That made me really want to call her out, including my oldest sister and my dad, for weaponizing religion against me in the 2010s. My religious trauma returned as a result.

I eventually called out the 3 of them and how their actions negatively affected my mental health. I even told her that I've endured her toxic attitude for so long and I wrote a suicidal note on Dec. 2014, but I threw it away a week later because I couldn't bring myself to do it. At that time, I decided to block her on Facebook for a long time. She didn’t respond to my last DM.

I used my mom's iPad to look at the DMs between my sister and my mom, including the screenshots of DMs between my sister and my dad. She said to them she and my oldest sister have given up on me.

She claims that they have been loving and caring for me. But truth be told, I never sensed any love from them because their way of showing love is thru religious indoctrination. And she noticed that when mom and I go to my oldest sister's house, they sensed that I was forced to go there.

She sent my mom a screenshot of my last DM to her. She already apologized for her toxic attitude, but was angrily dismissive of my mental trauma and claimed I was "playing the victim". That wasn't what I was doing. I merely shared my personal experience as a victim of religious abuse.

My dad said to her not to argue with me anymore. He understood her concern and admits he was the one who allowed me to go out and see my friends as long as I wear a mask.

My mom understood her concerns too and told her to let's all be patient with me and to let me express my feelings because it's my way of letting out what's irritating me. I'm sensitive to these kinds of things and I can't be blamed for saying what I said about her dad. And she can't be blamed for feeling hurt.

I took time cooling off and came to my senses, realizing that it was wrong for me to say that her dad deserved that. I was driven by anger that led me to throw words I should've never said. She was also driven by anger which led her to disregard my mental trauma and suicidal thoughts. It's going to take a long time for me to recover from this whole ordeal.

As of today and for my peace of mind, I don't want anything to do with my sisters. I blocked their accounts on Facebook and Messenger. She blocked me on Facebook.

[ressieking]

quarantine :(

I found out I have covid and I have been quarantined for one day

im not surprise, my mom had covid and she really didn't quarantine well because its she's like allergic to just staying put for 5 days.

5 days is when you are no longer contagious.

I can't put all the blame on her though, I made mistakes too like still going in the room to shower even though my room has a shower. I just didn't want to deal with my roommate catching an attitude every time I went in there.

speaking of that, covid also messed up my plans because this week I was going to ask for my room back.

so the way them staying here is set up right now is that we stay in my mom's house because she works in other city for majority of the week, my roommate stays in my room and im in my mom's room. when my mom comes home for like weekends or long breaks, I or my mom go on the couch. usually its me.

well, im starting college and I want my room back. I don't want to have to move back and forth from couch to room every week, my mom said that she'll just start staying on the couch but that's not fair to my mom because she literally pays the rent and my half of bills till my living money starts to come in.

I also want my desk. my mom's room doesn't have a desk however we have one downstairs but it's not MY desk. I also don't like working in synthetic lighting because it hurts my eyes and downstairs has basically no outside lighting. my room does, it actually has great lighting. which is also good for filming because my friend and I are starting to do visuals for our podcast and need better lighting.

I don't want to share the bathroom with my mom anymore there's no reason truly but I just liked my setup more than my mom's. I miss my closet too, my grandpa tore down a wall that separated my two small closets so now I have a pretty long, decent-sized closet. in my mom's room I have one small closet, one drawer, and all my shoes are in a basket so I can't even see all my shoes.

I don't know I just want my space back because right now I feel like all my stuff is just everywhere.

I also feel like if they go on the couch it will push them to find somewhere for them to live. they told me last time they had to pay their half of the bills that after they paid they only had like $70 left. they had already lived in the house for 2 months and they didn't pay the first month, they should've had way more than that left after rent... you know? but they told me recently that they were bad with money, they should have told me that before. they probably didn't because they know I won't have invited them to stay and I wouldn't have.

I wish I could say I felt bad but like I really don't think they are a good roommate. that was not the the point of this post though.

like I said school is about to start and I get out quarantine is the day before classes start so I have 5 days to get ready. the day im out im going to my campus and look to see where my classes are. all my classes are on Tuesday and Thursday and my first 3 classes are 10 minutes apart form each other. I want to make sure I can get to my classes on time.

that's all for now I guess.

[hellenic-reconstructionism]

Fear, Respect and the Gods

First off, I want to make clear that this perspective is written with the Greek gods in mind, so that will flavor the conceptualizations here. That said, I do think this could be applicable to gods from other pagan pantheons.

People raised in Christian households often are, understandably, cautious of being told that the gods have a lot of power, or are to be respected and worshipped (as opposed to worked with).

If you’re reconstructionist, there is no historical justification for opposing the word “worship”. But if you’re not reconstructionist, there’s still some reasonable argument to be made against the equation of “fear” with the most extreme, evangelical Christian kind. Again, while this is something I can empathize with, I have some critiques of this attitude.

Worshipping is fine in and of itself. Worshipping does not imply an unhealthy relationship between the worshiper and the worshiped; it describes an imbalance, yes, but this is due to the scale of power the divine have, compared to us humans. I think this is also why some people are hesitant to refer to their worship as worship and call it things like “deity work” instead (setting aside the issue of "deity work" being a subset of witchcraft instead of something that can be apart of it). The jump to assume "worship" means a spiritual abuse sort of situation is both historically untrue and and just plain wrong.

The kind of fear held by ancients wasn’t fear of upsetting Demeter because you gave her the wrong kind of wine -- it was fear of bad harvest, famine, etc. Most of the gods (if not all) can cause as much harm as they do blessings -- a fact that ancients used to explain when bad things happened. Apollon can cause diseases, but that doesn’t mean he’s created COVID -- rather, it means he can both create and cure illness. I've seen both extremes where gods are blamed for COVID or defanged as to be pretty much powerless. I don't think it needs to be that extreme.

The gods are morally neutral, but this has not and should not stop people. Worship is how you secure their good blessings, yes, and it doesn’t have to be fancy. You don’t need to grovel on the ground before them, either -- you just have to treat them with the respect you would a teacher or a mentor you are indebted to.

It’s worth noting that appeasing the gods was a communal responsibility, not just one person’s, and the gods can be appeased by paying them their due respects -- offerings, celebrations, etc. I also think it's important that the sort of "mistakes" ancients were told they made were told to them by oracles like the Pythia at Delphi -- something we no longer have access to. It would therefore be unreasonable for the Theoi to hold us to that same standard, especially when most worshippers are solitary and community responsibility doesn't make any sense.

You don’t have to laugh at the gods in order to avoid the trap of unhealthy fear (that's not to say you can't joke at all -- it's about whether you're making fun of them or not, which would be plain rude even in a human friendship. Laugh with, not at). You don't have to imagine yourself hanging out with them as you would hang out with the spirit of a friend, either. The main point is that fear doesn’t have to be unhealthy: I have a pretty healthy fear of getting in a car accident, for example, but if I drive carefully and wear my seatbelt, I’ll probably be fine. I think I might’ve stolen this analogy from someone, but it’s a good one, so I’m rephrasing it here (please do let me know if you find it). You can use that seatbelt, respect the driving rules, and be fine.

And again, I deeply sympathize with those with religious trauma. The path to healing, however, does not lie in chastizing others for their word choices or religious style, or in being disrespectful to the gods. It does not lie in imposing a false equivalency between all worship and spiritual abuse. It lies within yourself and with therapy.

[wonderlandentertainmentllc]

I know there is a lot going on right now. So much uncertainty, confusion. I've been watching several different 'news' sources. The reason why that's in quotes is most 'news' sources you can't trust them these days. And that is very sad. It's very hard to find unbiased news sources. You can't trust CNN, MSNBC, NBC, ABC, CBS, you name it. Sometimes I worry about FOX as well. It's either leaning to the Left or the Right on the political spectrum. Why can't y'all just report the news?! Especially right now during a national pandemic! TBH, this has been perculating in my brain for a while now. It's so hard to have any type of conversation with anyone these days because they turn it political, especially if you disagree on anything! Our nation's politicians are so out of touch it's mind boggling. Take Nancy Pelosi for example. Did you see the woman's refrigerator? Did you see the $12 ice cream in her freezer? That fridge probably cost over $10,000. And as she sits in her California Mansion, she has NO IDEA whatsoever how people are truly struggling right now. People are starving. People don't have jobs. And God Bless em, there are folks without homes or just lost homes due to the tornado! Lady, get your heiney out of your rich mansion, and go walk the streets of your city where your constituents are. The homeless population in California is beyond sad, ridiculous and dare I say, desperate. The politicians of the "big cities" like New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New Orleans, Houston, Seattle, you get it... they have NO IDEA. They are blinded by their money and greed. Get off your pedestal, quit blaming President Trump for everything and do your job! The President isn't perfect, he makes mistakes, and yes, he talks way too much sometimes. But the Mainstream Media of our country, all they do is stay on him, lie, cheat, steal, etc. The MSM of our country is pathetic!! Especially Don Lemon of CNN! That guy is horrible!! You're not a journalist, sir. Neither is Chris Cuomo. God help the two of you!! Your attitudes are nasty and mean. Y'all want to blame him for COVID-19? HA!! You can thank the Chinese Communist Government for COVID-19. I get it, y'all HATE Trump. That's your business. But you have no right to get on air, with your cushy job making millions, while we are out here trying our best to take care of ourselves and the ones we love, and trash our President and our Nation. You don't like it here, LEAVE! PLAIN AND SIMPLE. *rant over*🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬