I'm a 30 year old male. I have been having, what I now believe to be night terrors since I was 18 years old. Due to ADD and lack of sleep this post may be a little scattered, but I am trying to give as much information as possible so maybe someone knows something - I cannot continue like this.
I don't know why it's taken me so long to write this or reach out for help but here is my timeline, when I was 18 I had a major panic attack, which I still do not know the cause of, I was rushed to hospital as it was so bad even my Dad thought I was having a heart attack. I was prescribed beta blockers and tried them for a while but I had panic attacks due to fear of the panic attack as I was convinced it was heart related. At this age I was not using drugs, alcohol, was a very healthy weight and active in sports nearly every day.
Anyhow, the day panic attacks stop, and one random night, I jump out of my bedroom, running down my hall naked, screaming to my parents sweating with my heart pounding through my chest screaming to call 999 that I am dying. These episodes were hit and miss for a few days a week, some days I would sleep fine, sometimes I would sleep better in other houses etc.
This of course affected my relationships etc until I realised that if I had a few shots of whiskey before bed, I slept just fine, I employed this many times when seeing partners. (Important to now note that to get the same desired effect years later it takes at least 35cl of whiskey or a bottle and half of wine to sleep through).
A few years back I got tested for sleep apnoea as my doctor thought it could be that and it was determined that I have mild sleep apnoea, I couldn't get onto the machine at all and I just turned to alcohol. I could do with losing weight yes but I don't believe this is just sleep apnoea, I wake up screaming, in pure terror, shouting "no, no, no" "I'm dying" "I'm gone, tell mum I love her" - If my mobile is close to me I will call 999 for an ambulance, sometimes I am quick enough to stop before the call goes through, but more often than not I will get a concerned call back (they know my name and number now) so they're a little more chill. The worst ones I will run up stairs and into other rooms, naked thinking I'm dying, sweating and high temperature.
I can NEVER remember the dreams etc before this. Is this sleep apnoea, is this night terrors, sometimes if I stayed up all night and went to sleep around 7am I would actually sleep like a baby to the point where I just flipped my sleeping schedule, but when I have to switch it back, it happens without fail. Some of the worst ones have come from daytime naps at home, I wake up, screaming and running, I've injured myself repeatedly, even writing this has been therapeutic.
I seriously cannot even speak to people about it as they don't get it, they recommend teas, breathing, meditating, this happens me at different weights, different diets, areas, time zones - the only constant is if I get drunk to the point it knocks me out, it doesn't happen and that isn't sustainable.
Should I just save up and get a polysomnograph? Any advice of ANY kind is so so welcome, even just to know i'm not alone. Its so exhausting, I just want a normal nights sleep like when I was 17. This happens EVERY night without fail. I never get a break. Hopefully this post can be the beginning of my journey to getting out of this nightmare. If you've read this, thankyou for taking the time, it means the world.

My mum passed very suddenly about a month and a half ago. She went into cardiac arrest and passed five days later, it's been a shock to all of my family. I've kept my cards pretty close to my chest for the sake of my dad and siblings, because it's hit them pretty hard, they need a rock y'know? I sort of have always been that role in the family.
The issue I have is that I'm planning my wedding, and every time I want to do anything related to it, my mind keeps going "oh I should ask mum what she thinks" because that's what I'd been doing up until.. well up until I couldn't anymore. And then I remember she's dead. And it sends me into sobs almost every time. Last night I made pages and pages of invite/RSVP cards and when I was happy enough and ready to edit them I just.. broke. I asked like 4 people (including my MiL) but it's just not the same as asking my mum and it took me until 2am and making a pitcher of sweet fruit tea to be able to calm myself down to sleep. My work has EAP services but I'm not even sure what I'm supposed to press for the automated menu when I call them up so I've just avoided it completely.
I suppose the advice I'm looking for is how is I'm supposed to cope? Every time I want to do something for this wedding, I'm reminded of the one person apart from my fiance that I actually want there.
I know it doesn't get easier, grief is a ball blindly hitting a button in a box, I won't know when it hits, but it will. I just don't know how I'm supposed to help myself not totally shut down/start sobbing uncontrollably everytime it lands on the button. I just need help managing the symptoms of the grief I'm feeling.

I'm a 30 year old male. I have been having, what I now believe to be night terrors since I was 18 years old. Due to ADD and lack of sleep this post may be a little scattered, but I am trying to give as much information as possible so maybe someone knows something - I cannot continue like this.
I don't know why it's taken me so long to write this or reach out for help but here is my timeline, when I was 18 I had a major panic attack, which I still do not know the cause of, I was rushed to hospital as it was so bad even my Dad thought I was having a heart attack. I was prescribed beta blockers and tried them for a while but I had panic attacks due to fear of the panic attack as I was convinced it was heart related. At this age I was not using drugs, alcohol, was a very healthy weight and active in sports nearly every day.
Anyhow, the day panic attacks stop, and one random night, I jump out of my bedroom, running down my hall naked, screaming to my parents sweating with my heart pounding through my chest screaming to call 999 that I am dying. These episodes were hit and miss for a few days a week, some days I would sleep fine, sometimes I would sleep better in other houses etc.
This of course affected my relationships etc until I realised that if I had a few shots of whiskey before bed, I slept just fine, I employed this many times when seeing partners. (Important to now note that to get the same desired effect years later it takes at least 35cl of whiskey or a bottle and half of wine to sleep through).
A few years back I got tested for sleep apnoea as my doctor thought it could be that and it was determined that I have mild sleep apnoea, I couldn't get onto the machine at all and I just turned to alcohol. I could do with losing weight yes but I don't believe this is just sleep apnoea, I wake up screaming, in pure terror, shouting "no, no, no" "I'm dying" "I'm gone, tell mum I love her" - If my mobile is close to me I will call 999 for an ambulance, sometimes I am quick enough to stop before the call goes through, but more often than not I will get a concerned call back (they know my name and number now) so they're a little more chill. The worst ones I will run up stairs and into other rooms, naked thinking I'm dying, sweating and high temperature.
I can NEVER remember the dreams etc before this. Is this sleep apnoea, is this night terrors, sometimes if I stayed up all night and went to sleep around 7am I would actually sleep like a baby to the point where I just flipped my sleeping schedule, but when I have to switch it back, it happens without fail. Some of the worst ones have come from daytime naps at home, I wake up, screaming and running, I've injured myself repeatedly, even writing this has been therapeutic.
I seriously cannot even speak to people about it as they don't get it, they recommend teas, breathing, meditating, this happens me at different weights, different diets, areas, time zones - the only constant is if I get drunk to the point it knocks me out, it doesn't happen and that isn't sustainable.
Should I just save up and get a polysomnograph? Any advice of ANY kind is so so welcome, even just to know i'm not alone. Its so exhausting, I just want a normal nights sleep like when I was 17. This happens EVERY night without fail. I never get a break. Hopefully this post can be the beginning of my journey to getting out of this nightmare. If you've read this, thankyou for taking the time, it means the world.

So I have already heard this happen to one other person. Mum cries for help and knocks on the car while seated inside. Dad speeds a bit to frighten us.
I think this is really sad and traumatic. It's definitely proof of severe depression. When I saw my mother do this as a young child it was very traumatic. Why would your very own mother knock on the car window to plead for help from strangers while seated inside?
I really want to know if this is common. Just a upvote will do if you don't want to comment.

I'm a 30 year old male. I have been having, what I now believe to be night terrors since I was 18 years old. Due to ADD and lack of sleep this post may be a little scattered, but I am trying to give as much information as possible so maybe someone knows something - I cannot continue like this.
I don't know why it's taken me so long to write this or reach out for help but here is my timeline, when I was 18 I had a major panic attack, which I still do not know the cause of, I was rushed to hospital as it was so bad even my Dad thought I was having a heart attack. I was prescribed beta blockers and tried them for a while but I had panic attacks due to fear of the panic attack as I was convinced it was heart related. At this age I was not using drugs, alcohol, was a very healthy weight and active in sports nearly every day.
Anyhow, the day panic attacks stop, and one random night, I jump out of my bedroom, running down my hall naked, screaming to my parents sweating with my heart pounding through my chest screaming to call 999 that I am dying. These episodes were hit and miss for a few days a week, some days I would sleep fine, sometimes I would sleep better in other houses etc.
This of course affected my relationships etc until I realised that if I had a few shots of whiskey before bed, I slept just fine, I employed this many times when seeing partners. (Important to now note that to get the same desired effect years later it takes at least 35cl of whiskey or a bottle and half of wine to sleep through).
A few years back I got tested for sleep apnoea as my doctor thought it could be that and it was determined that I have mild sleep apnoea, I couldn't get onto the machine at all and I just turned to alcohol. I could do with losing weight yes but I don't believe this is just sleep apnoea, I wake up screaming, in pure terror, shouting "no, no, no" "I'm dying" "I'm gone, tell mum I love her" - If my mobile is close to me I will call 999 for an ambulance, sometimes I am quick enough to stop before the call goes through, but more often than not I will get a concerned call back (they know my name and number now) so they're a little more chill. The worst ones I will run up stairs and into other rooms, naked thinking I'm dying, sweating and high temperature.
I can NEVER remember the dreams etc before this. Is this sleep apnoea, is this night terrors, sometimes if I stayed up all night and went to sleep around 7am I would actually sleep like a baby to the point where I just flipped my sleeping schedule, but when I have to switch it back, it happens without fail. Some of the worst ones have come from daytime naps at home, I wake up, screaming and running, I've injured myself repeatedly, even writing this has been therapeutic.
I seriously cannot even speak to people about it as they don't get it, they recommend teas, breathing, meditating, this happens me at different weights, different diets, areas, time zones - the only constant is if I get drunk to the point it knocks me out, it doesn't happen and that isn't sustainable.
Should I just save up and get a polysomnograph? Any advice of ANY kind is so so welcome, even just to know i'm not alone. Its so exhausting, I just want a normal nights sleep like when I was 17. This happens EVERY night without fail. I never get a break. Hopefully this post can be the beginning of my journey to getting out of this nightmare. If you've read this, thankyou for taking the time, it means the world.

It truly is just so chilly lately and I love it. I enjoy summery days too, I just prefer them few and far between and I like feeling cosy and rugged up as opposed to wanting to shed my skin for some relief.
It’s my honeys birthday :) I’m going to make a concerted effort to not be too much. I can’t be too much anyway from here but still. I wanted to send him an ubereats voucher for his dinner tonight but it turns out I can’t send it internationally :( It has to be the same currency. I also don’t have his bank account so I can’t just chuck some money in there either. I just want to make him feel special and loved and I thought that was a tiny yet cute gesture. Oh well. It’s his birthdaaaaay! I’m so happy he was born and became who he is and the fact he’s all mine
I’m struggling with my mood a bit recently. Or depression. Whatever you want to call it. I don’t like either word. But flat or empty doesn’t always cover it, just because I feel depressed doesn’t automatically equate to flat/grey/empty/numb/etc. They’re a specific feeling, I can be and feel depressed and not feel any of them - I can just feel detached from life, I guess. Idk. It’s hard to put into words, I’m sure I could find some writer who articulates it perfectly but even then, that’s their feeling, not mine. But I really like reading and hearing relatable feelings, I can feel alone a lot and hearing others feeling the same as me makes me feel less so. Truly Captain Obvious over here. But anyway. I’m struggling more again lately. The last few days. It’s not PMS related, it’s deeper than that. There’s a difference.
Truly anyone can have a podcast, can’t they? I’m listening to one now about book theories and they’re just talking over one another and being quite rude and dismissive and then I realise this is just content I disagree with but their theories have so many holes in them. SO MANY. It’s basically one hole with a flimsy fabric of theory around the outside. So now I’m hate listening because it’s making me grind my teeth and my eye twitch, but no one else has any podcasts about this and I wanna listen to some. It just sounds like they don’t even like each other? I felt so awkward for a lot of it. Also they’re so unprepared, like if you’re going to spout theories then a) know what you’re talking about b) back it up c) look for holes in it and point them out because that’s half the fun and d) you can’t base a theory off of something you don’t even know. Eg. One of them was talking about how X was Y’s dad but neither knew if X was even alive. Like… ? Also none of them are original theories which tbh I don’t care about, it’s just nice to have them condensed into an episode to listen to, but they were so rude and dismissive of the original poster or whatever several times, it made me feel quite uncomfy? So bizarre. I want to not like these books anymore. It’s not fun anymore, everyone’s so hateful and I was reading how people are literally sending death threats to one another because they disagree with their ship or whatever it’s called. Like here’s a thought, THEYRE FICTIONAL AND WHO CARES, GET OFF THE INTERNET AND CALM DOWN. Says me, all in caps, on the internet. I love irony. But so it’s just not an enjoyable fandom anymore which is a shame because I think it’s my first ever I’ve been a part of? And now it’s just… ruined. I also don’t like how divisive it all is, like if you love one character then you hate the other and things. Like here’s a thought everyone, each character is nuanced and is not perfect - stop expecting them to be. And stop bitching and moaning like jfc. So anyway it’s not very enjoyable anymore which is a shame but I’ll just enjoy the books themselves in private and wait til the next is released in presumably the next 8-10 business years. I also don’t have high expectations after the last book in her other series, it was terrible. So rushed and so… it was terrible. Enjoyable enough but I will never reread it, I’ll never reread that series full stop. We’ll never say never but I would be incredibly surprised if I did considering I didn’t like it at all and just read it because I’m a sucker fan girl and they all eventually link together so I kind of have to.
I hate computers and technology and all of it. And by that I mean it’s all excellent and amazing but I am cursed with it. I tried to switch my monitors and things around this morning to be better but now everything is just… wrong. Laggy.
Am I a bad person for considering applying for other roles purely for leverage with my own? Yes. I already know the answer to that. I’m open to working elsewhere, but I’m also not. I’m frustrated right now with what I get lumped with workwise but ultimately we have excellent benefits, I can wfh x3 days a week and my manager is super understanding of my… issues. I kind of want a new job elsewhere because I think it would force me out of my comfort zone, but also… Is that the best thing? I would normally say yes but some days I find everything so so difficult and taking on new processes, a new team, a new environment… it’s a lot. And I know I get very easily overwhelmed. And the fact I have more or less unlimited paid sick leave which tbh I don’t really utilise at all and easily use less than what I’m legislatively entitled to but it’s there. So I feel kind of stuck. And I also feel unsure. One part of me wants to be leading large nationwide change processes or being entirely responsible for project work, but the other part of me knows I’m probably not currently best equipped for that… issues wise. I’m sure I could, but I just struggle so much some days and what if that day I had 5+ redundancy meetings? Having a god awful day and then telling multiple people their role has been disestablished…? Being a part of that process is one thing and I’ve done that and it’s fine, it’s tough at times but fine, but to be actively responsible for the whole process? I just don’t really think I can handle that. Which holds me back. And also the delegation of work SUCKS. And I get stuck training and basically managing the junior team members because my manager can’t seem to do it. Which tbh is fair as she has a tonne on her plate but still, she had that all on her plate before becoming all of our manager so I mean… yknow. Sometimes I wonder if I could go people leadership route, a small part of me thinks I would be good at it, I can definitely listen and I definitely show compassion and patience with our junior members and I can delegate work out easily enough buuuut do I have the confidence to advocate for them? When it comes to pay/promotions? I’m not sure. I’d have every confidence in them but not in myself and if I have no confidence in myself it makes brig bold and pushing for something impossible, like impossible. So. I wouldn’t want to risk someone else’s progression because I’m a damn baby. So idk. So what doI do? I mean I don’t even want to specialise in ER, it’s too much. I want to get involved and build my experience and knowledge more and more, but it can be really tough. Even the other day I was talking to a young woman, younger than me, with cancer. Or rather she was telling me she’s now in remission and pregnant and I honestly couldn’t stop smiling it was such lovely news, but things like that, or an employee displaying shifts in behaviour and it being a result of domestic violence and then having to handle that or just the process of disestablishing roles aka making someone redundant, I guess there’s redeployment which would feel good but still. It’s an emotionally taxing side of HR that I’m unsure I could handle long term. I’m only thinking about this again this morning because I saw a job which does less than I do now getting around $10k more than I earn. Anyway I’ll just keep at it where I am a while longer. It’s probably better for me, right now anyway.
He showed me his recent favourite music last night, it’s one of my favourite favourite things. I tend to like/love majority of it, some I don’t but that’s fine like everyone has different tastes - I think it would be weird to like all of it. It baffles me how controlled his Spotify is, it makes mine look utterly manic… which tbh it is. I just get so.. something, and start making new playlists or adding new things or whatever it might be. Anyway I’m listening to some of the ones he sent me last night today.
He took basically half an hour to call me last night and I know he said he had been talking to his mum but it just felt… weird. And then he didn’t pick up his phone at midnight when I called to say happy birthday, he admittedly called back really quickly but idk. It made me feel uneasy. Like what’s he doing at midnight that he can’t pick up his phone? When I know he’s awake. I know I’m feeling weird about nothing, so it’s fine. It just felt… I don’t know. His sleeping patterns are slipping so quickly lately, it feels like it’s every two weeks not every month like it used to be, and it makes me wonder why. It makes me think things like he doesn’t have a weird sleeping pattern ever and he just uses it as a reason to avoid me because he’s with someone else and how would I know. I don’t think these thoughts are true, I don’t think he’s lying about it all, but it’s just a recurring thought lately. Ever since it became more frequent with less time in between. It’s fine. I know it’s fine. I know there’s nothing wrong, it’s just sometimes idk. I think it’s more fear and worry than anything relating to genuine belief and mistrust.
I love him a lot. A whole lot. The entire lot. I hope he’s having the best sleep with the sweetest dreams. Baby.
I really don’t feel well this afternoon. I feel vaguely crampy and tired but my mood has dropped significantly. I’m trying to perk back up so I don’t wreck his birthday though. It’s not just general it’s entirely work related. I feel like I need to cry and punch a wall and just throw my computer at the window but in a sad not angry way. I am fed up. And so many stupid questions. Like twice today I’ve had PEOPLE IN MY TEAM be like “what’s the link for this” like here’s an idea why don’t you go find it and use some fucking initiative. It’s just pure laziness. So I said you can find it on X and then didn’t help further because what the actual fuck. And it’s literally a link to the system login - how the fuck do they not know this. Which leads me to believe it’s pure laziness. Because they have f all cases either. Anyway I’m just lashing out because I’m frustrated and in a sad mood. Everything’s fine.
I love Jeff Buckley so much. Not all of his stuff, I could take or leave much of it tbh but some of his music… all time favourites. I wonder what my top five would be? I think: - lover you should’ve come over - Last goodbye - Forget her - Lilac wine - Nightmares by the sea I didn’t include hallelujah because that goes without saying, I much prefer it to Leonard Cohen’s one however I would really like to try give Leonard more of a go because mum loves him, I think she saw him live last time he was here, I was going to buy her tickets as a random present before she beat me to it - unless I’m confusing it with someone else? I don’t think so. Maybe. Or was it Nick Cave? Idk. I already like Nick Cave a whole lot, I had a big massive A2 poster of him on my wall as a teenager. Anyway. I also left out so real and grace and I know it’s over and mojo pin to some extent. And dream brother. Okay so the entire grace album + some extras. His only proper album :( anyway I love him and he soothes melancholic little heart and has for a long time. Since I was… 17. 16? Something.
I don’t click easily with people. I was thinking about that today because I felt more lonely than normal. I find it easy to be personable and friendly and all of that, but it’s rare that I feel at ease with someone and like I can somewhat be myself/not overthink into oblivion. And I don’t know why some people are different? It’s not a time thing either, because the people I find myself more at ease with I felt it more or less instantly, whereas I’ve been around the same people for YEARS and… nothing. Like M, I felt at ease with her from day one. K too a bit. Andy definitely. But other women at work? I’ve known them for years, spoken to them daily, I still feel uncomfortable and anxious and paralysed with them. Paralysed in the sense I can’t think of things to say, I can and do but it can be such stilted conversation. Even my own family members, my brother and his wife? Just like that. I don’t feel at all comfortable or anything. I know I naturally find it easier with talkative people, M and Andy for example - both could talk to a brick wall and either not notice or get it to talk back. I don’t mean the not notice in a negative way, I just mean… idk what I mean. It’s a good thing though. I just don’t find it easy. I know a lot of it is due to my social anxiety and the worry and all of that. I think it’s also that I don’t like surface level relationships, but I don’t tend to allow people in enough to get anything further than surface level. I can easily have those conversations, I just don’t really enjoy them. But it can be impossible to go further because I’m so closed off and I’m so riddled with anxiety over saying the wrong thing, unintentionally offending someone or showing how stupid I am that nothing happens. I also don’t like to talk that much, I do but in bursts, and I think that doesn’t help me either. I know I’m the problem. Another thing to add to my list of difficulties.
I wish I could just escape myself sometimes.
I’m due to start reading HP3 now, why don’t I feel psyched about it? I want to. Maybe when I get fully into it I will? I’ve been apprehensive about books in the past and went on to become obsessed and it become a part of my identity, if even for a short while. And if I know anything in life, it’s that HP fans tend to turn it into a personality trait. Maybe that’ll be me.
I don’t really want to journal anymore. I feel sad and it doesn’t tend to help me perk up and I need to force myself into being chirpy and perky and all those sorts of adjectives so I don’t ruin his day. My baby.
I ordered dinner - tofu stirfry with roti yummm - so I’ll have that, maybe start HP3 and then have a shower and then spend time with my honeybunny. Night night

Hi there! I'm in the process of helping my father apply for PIP. I'd like to write a supporting statement to send off with his forms but the content will be emotionally damaging to him. I plan to explain in a letter to the assessors how my dad's challenging behaviour due to his mental health has caused many of his children to distance themselves from him and strained the relationships. My dad is unaware of his role in this.
Will my dad be shown this letter? Should I ask that they not mention it to him?
Thanks for any input you can give. I want to be able to give the fullest picture of my dad's condition but filling the form in together has been distressing enough already for both of us.

I 20(f) loved my father he was the best person in my life always. He provided me with everything a child could want. As i grew up my perspective changed about my father and i noticed alot things in him. He talked to my mom very disrespectfully and called her names dumb and alot more. My mother is a saint. She is the best person who cares for everyone more than anyone especially my dad. I started to get little distant from him few years back because he started to compare me to our pets dog and a rabbit. He said things like ‘you would be so much better if you listen like stokey(dog)’ or ‘see he listens to me unlike you’ or ‘look at him(rabbit) he is so sweet then there is you who is nothing like him’ it made me hate thise pets. I told my mom i dont lile this comparison she said its not like that he loves you the most in this world (does he though)
Recently i returned from uni for vacations and was sitting on sofa my father asked me to do something and i said sit down i will do it in a minute as i was writing something.i don’t know why He choked me with both hands. This is not the first time this happened. I don’t have bruises and he claimed he did it as a joke. Something in me changed after this I don’t like him. But he has given me everything i have now i feel guilty for hating him. I can’t talk to mom about this she won’t understand. They have always told me they have sacrificed so much for me. I hate myself for hating him. I dont know what to feel or how to deal with this.

First Chapter/Previous Chapter
The birds chirped loudly outside and woke Tamara from her sleep. At first, she tried to ignore them and hugged her goose feather pillow hard, but it was pointless. She opened one of her eyes, and her pupil immediately contracted so much that it became paper thin.
While awake, she was in no position to get up; her body was far too cold. Tamara extended her arms and spread herself out on the bed, slowly absorbing the heat from the sunbeams that poured through her window.
As she lay there, she used this time to think.
“Why was it taking longer?” Tamara mumbled half in her head and half through her lips. When she was young, she was adamant that it took half the time; Tamara would ask her mother when she got up.
Slowly but surely, she absorbed more and more heat so that with each passing minute, she became more alert until, finally, she felt uncomfortable, and her skin flushed. It was time to get up.
Tamara slid out of bed and propped herself up; she swayed from side to side like a sapling in a breeze, her eye half open and made her way to a chest of draws. She pulled off her white nighty, shivered slightly in the chilly air, and then rummaged around for a tunic.
“The green one?” she asked herself; she shook her head, “Not today.” In the end, she settled on a crimson top and crawled into it.
Apart from a few hair accessories, this was it. Apart from Samuel, no one for miles wore more than one article of clothing. Besides the drawers was a small table with a chair arranged on the top were several items, a hairbrush with several bronze hairpins, and a collection of small stones; her favourite was a clear, shiny green one all fat at one end which ended in a sharp point at the other. A stack of papers with several writing supplies was at one end of the table.
There were also several figurines carved from wood. They were all gifts from Samuel, but the one she loved most was a terrible attempt at a Lamia; this was the first present she had received from him.
She picked up her hairbrush; she had no mirror. In fact, Tamara had no idea what a mirror was, but she did not need one and began to brush—every time she woke up, her hair appeared as though she had been struck by lightning.
Tamara ran her fingers through her hair, ensuring that she had removed all knots and that her hair was smooth. The hairbrush was placed back on the table, and a few pins were picked up. She took her hair and carefully wrapped her hair into a bun. When she was done, she gave it a few pats to ensure it was satisfactory.
Leaving the table, Tamara took a few moments to make sure she had not forgotten anything. Her room was pretty sparse, just the bed, the table and cupboard, with a small chest underneath the window; it contained several things she no longer needed but did not have the heart to throw away. Lying by its side was the same leather pouch she had used yesterday, but she would not need it today.
She turned around and left the room, gently closing the door behind her. To her left was another window, and to her right a hallway with one other room beside hers. She listened in as she passed the door but could hear no signs of life.
“Mum must be downstairs,” she thought.
At the end of the hall was a set of stairs; a faint but broad mark was visible leading down to the bottom, made by Tamara’s and her mother’s tails. Tamara added to the stairs wear, and as she reached the bottom, Tamara heard, “Finally up?”
The warm, smiling face of her mother, Pancha, was the source. Pancha was a Lamia with the same golden scales and hair. Her face was similar, except that her eyes were hazel instead of emerald green. Her hair came down to her shoulders with two plaits on one side. She wore a purple tunic with the same diamond pattern on the chest.
They both stood in the kitchen. Pancha was in front of a large metal stove beneath a window. The reason was twofold: firstly, they did not have plumbing or a boiler, so all hot water came from the stove, and secondly, it was warm. Tamara sat at the table in the centre of the room and began drumming her fingers on the wood.
“Would you like a drink?” Pancha asked.
Tamara nodded and replied, “Yeah.”
Pancha returned to the stove and filled a clay cup with hot water.
“What flavour, mint, orange, apple?” Tamara stopped for a few moments as she considered her options.
“Umm, apple, please” she answered.
Her mother carefully placed the cup in front of Tamara; there was a fine haze of steam drifting from the water, and floating inside were several slivers of apple peel. She blew on it and took a small sip; the flavour was subtle, and if she had not seen the peel, she would have thought it was plain water.
Pancha sat down opposite her daughter with a similar cup in her hand, except this one was brewing orange peel. This daily ritual was designed to add the last bit of heat that the sun did not provide, and as far as Tamara knew, every Lamia and Cicindeli in the village did it.
Outside the window, a new sound was overcoming that of the birds; it was the unmistakable sound of chatter of people.
“What do we have to do today?” Tamara asked Pancha. “Well, first, we will meet up with Odalinde and Handus in the market.”
“Why not the town hall?” Tamara interrupted.
“Because it’s too warm today,” she replied, “then we will wander about town and ask if anyone has any problems, and after that, we have the last few hours to ourselves.”
Pancha was the representative of her race just as Odalinde was for the Boreray and Handus was for the Cicindeli. They made most of the executive decisions for the village. The last major one was two years ago when Handus called for everyone not to kill Samuel on sight. Tamara was expected to take over from her mother when she was older, just as Pancha had done for Granddad Eesa.
The last few drops of water were gulped down, and the cups were given a quick wash in the sink. The stove was put out, and a small puff of soot dirtied Tamara’s face; she wiped herself down with a washcloth.
They left the kitchen by another door, which led into another hallway. To the left was the sitting room where Tamara and Pancha would spend their evenings and entertain guests. Straight ahead was one final door; beside it was a coat rack with three hooks; the two closest to the door had thick, heavy coats; the third remained vacant.
As Pancha tried to close the front door behind her, the hinge tended to jam a bit; Tamara walked into the middle of the street. Right in front of her house was the home of Mrs Caltha, Mr Davin and one of Tamara’s best friends, Becanda. The house was two stories tall, made from solid wood, usually oak or mahogany, and covered in a waterproof paste to stop the rot from setting in.
In the distance, Tamara could hear a steadily growing noise; this was the market where people met and conducted their business. Tamara felt a tap on her shoulder; she turned to see her mother smiling at her and holding out her hand. Tamara took it, and the two of them headed toward the crowd.
A few streets later, they entered the market, which was packed with Lamias, Cicindeli, and Boreray. People moved from stall to stall, picking up items they needed and chatting with their friends, which was to say, everyone. They ducked and weaved through the crowd, trying their best to avoid the dozens of people who wanted to spark up conversation.
Ahead was a series of benches arranged in a circle; several people were sitting on them talking, but no sign of Handus or Odalinde.
“Mmm, those lazy snails aren’t here yet,” stated Tamara.
Pancha turned to her daughter and said, “Don’t talk about other people like that; it’s very bad.” After which, she smiled and let out a slight snigger.
Pancha and Tamara sat down on a free bench and took the time to enjoy the peace, if not the quiet. People walking past would stop to say hello, ask how they were doing and now that they knew they weren’t late, they could indulge them. Pancha was busy talking with a turquoise Cicindeli woman called Lupita, so Tamara decided to take a little walk.
“Don’t go far!” Pancha called out.
“Yeah, I know” she replied.
At the centre of the bench circle was a giant sundial. It was scarred, carved from granite, and had been here long before Tamara was born. She ran her fingers over the stone despite the warmth of the sun beating down upon it; it was cold to the touch. It was indeed a magnificent thing, beautiful and providing a valuable service, which was a shame because hardly anyone ever noticed it, let alone used it.
Tamara remembered the story her mother had told her: around seventy years ago, there was a Cicindeli man named Lamuel. According to the tale, he was an inquisitive soul, always asking questions and hardly ever satisfied by the answers he got.
One day, he asked, “Why do we only have names for three times of the day morning, midday and night time?” “What about all the bits in between?”
After which, he divided the day into fourteen bits and built this sundial to display them.
However, despite this monumental effort, the only thing anyone had ever said about it was that it was a pretty statue.
As Tamara remembered the story, she also remembered the moral her mother had taught her, “Don’t put effort into pointless things.”
Tamara felt that the story taught two different lessons: people don’t like change, and they never notice a good thing when they have it.
The shadow cast by the gnomon pointed at the second marking on the stone, but there were no symbols, letters or numbers. Until Samuel showed up, they did not exist.
She did not know how long she had been staring at the shadow when someone behind her said, “Seen anything good?” Tamara turned around to see the smiling face of Handus.
Handus was the representative of the Cicindeli. He was a tall, well-built man with deep crimson hair, and the chitin on his arms and leg was the same. Today, Handus was wearing a deep purple tunic; on the chest were five circles stacked on each other.
Just behind him was another Cicindeli, a young man with the same crimson hair wearing a butter yellow tunic with the same pattern on his chest as Handus; his name was Tide, and he was Handus’s son.
“Good morning, Mr Handus,” Tamara said with a smile. “I was just thinking about Lamuel and why he made this,” she added, pointing to the sundial.
“Yes,” replied Handus; he paused for a moment, deep in thought and then continued, “I never knew Lamuel; he was before my time, and I won’t even pretend to understand him, but if I believe there is anyone in this village that can, it would be you.”
“What do you mean?” Tamara asked, a little confused.
“From the stories I have heard, you and Lamuel are a lot alike. You constantly ask what no one else even thinks of, and you always, always try to find your own answers,” Handus clarified.
Tamara was quiet for a few moments until she had a big, broad smile and said: “thank you, Mr Handus.”
Handus nodded and walked over to Pancha while Tide followed behind. She liked Handus; he always knew what to say and was incredibly wise, almost as wise as Samuel.
Now that she had been distracted, she could no longer focus on the sundial, so she headed towards her mother.
“Do you know what is taking Odalinde so long?” Pancha asked Handus.
“Well, if I know her, she will be fussing over Ezra and Wacey,” he said with a chuckle.
Tamara sat down beside Pancha; as she did so, Tide looked at her; he gave her a warm smile and said: “hello, Tamara.”
Tide was fourteen years old, fairly tall for his age, and carried himself with a quiet dignity; when she was younger, Tamara had found this annoying, but gradually, over time, she had come to respect it; it also did not hurt that he was easy on the eyes.
She smiled back and replied, “Hello, did you have a good morning?”
The four of them talked for several minutes, discussing mundane matters, when they were called from behind, “Sorry that we’re a little late. Wacey refused to put her dress on.”
The group turned around to see the flustered face of Odalinde. Protruding from the sides of her head were a pair of cement-coloured horns curling around once in a graceful spiral. Her hair was a gentle gold, only slightly curled and tied into a short ponytail, which was unusual for a Boreray.
Covering her chest was a thick blanket of fluffy golden wool that grew in such a way that it almost resembled a swim top. This wool also appeared on her forearms and lower legs, ending in cloven hooves.
Unlike the Lamias and Cicindeli, Boreray did not wear tunics; instead, whether male or female, they wore a skirt that came down to their knees. Today, Odalinde was sporting a white number, and on its hem were two triangles arranged parallel to one another.
Behind her trailed two others, a girl named Wacey and a boy called Ezra. They were twins and Odalinde’s children. They had the same wool as their mother and a pair of tiny horns on their heads. They had started growing when they turned six and, in the past year, had steadily gotten bigger.
They wore matching dresses, a deep shade of amber with a green symbol on their hems. “I don’t want to wear this dress; I want to wear the green one!” Wacey exclaimed, stamping her hooved foot on the floor.
“Well, tough, and don’t you even think about taking it off, or you won’t get any juice!” Odalinde replied sternly. Wacey said no more but had a deep scowl on her face.
“Well, if that’s all sorted, perhaps we can get started?” Pancha said, smiling at Odalinde.
“Yes, well, let’s begin,” Odalinde replied, clearing her throat.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------If you like what you've read so far and want to know where it's going you can find the complete story by following the links below.
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English is not my first language so forgive me for any mistakes.
So this happened to me in year 2022 and at that time I was in tenth grade. The quarantine was over just couple of months before this and schools had re-opened. And it was like a month before my tenth finals. So our teachers had loaded us with practical written assignments and for this I had to be awake till 3 in the morning to complete it. ...
So a Lil background before I tell u the story. So my mother had recently started to do mediation. And if u know if someone believes in spirituality they can connect with spirits much more than others because in spirituality u attract positiveness and it's said that even negetive souls or vibes try to come in contact with u to stop u from doing it. So my mother used to do intense meditation because she was facing something of her own which I will tell later on. So yeah my mother was so much into it that if she used to wake up at 2 in the night and can't sleep she will start meditating by folding her legs in Indian style (of that's what it is called). And we knew her this habit so we weren't really bothered or freaked if we woke up at night and saw her doing this.
So what happened that night was that my father was on a night shift and as I had to complete my work I was in my room alone. My mother and my younger brother were sleeping in the other room (we three sleep together if our father is on a night shift). So I just greeted them night and went to my room and it's door was open and u can hear someone calling u from anywhere in the house. I put on my headphones and was playing music while completing my work when I heard like my brother said in a loud voice (he is always loud though)......"E ladki tu phone chala rhi hai n!!"(Girl I know u are using ur phone instead of doing ur work).....and I paused my music and sat still for a moment thinking if it's just my imagination or he really said that....but there was no voice of him after that so I again went to do my work. Then again like just I started writing there was again a voice "ladki tu padh nhi rhi hai n!"(Girl u are not studying right!).....I again paused my music and sat still thinking of again it's my imagination or what.....then I thought maybe he is really calling me so I shouted "Kya hua?"(What happened) ....but there was no response again. I again thought maybe it was my imagination only. Then again I started to do my work while listening music and same happened again and then I screamed from my room what happened but this time I was irritated so I got up and went on their room stomping my feet but what I saw there scared my like crazy.....Both my mother and brother where sleeping, like in a deep sleep(I can tell that)......but then but scared and shooing my thoughts that this all voices of my brother was my imagination only I went again to do my work but this time I was pretty freaked out or cautious u can say.....I didn't wear my headphones this time and started writing. But the next moment I hear someone walking in the hallway through my mothers room to mine.....and meri phatt gai bhai (sacred the shit out of me)if that's what it is said . I just closed my copies and went out of my room. With my phone and jumped on my bed and slept on the corner near the wall and pulled the blanket over my head......I didn't turn the lights off ......and from under the blankets I can still hear the sound of the feet walking thorough all of the house and mostly near to the bed ....I just played holy music(Bhajan) and prayed to the god and then I didn't know when I slept again. Next day I shared this incident with my mother and she just told me to remember God more and meditate too.....and yeah it helped though. After this I didn't feel anything after that and so grateful to God for this. And it wasn't even that late like only 12:30 in the night. My family sleeps early.
So what happened with my mother was that , from past few months suddenly she was facing some paranormal activities but she didn't tell me or my brother but my father and my aunt knew about that..... that's why suddenly she joined this meditation center. The things used to happen with her were that she had recently started seeing a Lil boy running in the house.....like she is sitting and someone just passed from the hall to the room running. And then she used to see that boy in her dreams too. And then when she used to go to sleep she felt like someone ticled in her ear or struck something painful inside it. And when she would wakeup she would feel nothing but again when she would lay back to sleep this same used to happen. When we used to go to school she would be sitting outside our house on the bench and when we would come then only she used to go inside. Like it became dreadfull and frustrating for her. Then only someone suggested her to do mediation otherwise she used to pray daily and she was like a big fan of lord Krishna. But once she started meditating this things escalated ,like this time the child in the dream started to talk to her and calling her or asking her things. He used to call my mum mother and my mother used to say but ure not my child and was terrified of the kid in the dream while that kid used to behave like he was my mothers child and sleeping while hugging her. So once my mother started meditating she used to feel someone is always disturbing her or some energy. When she would almost fall asleep she used to hear as someone ringed the doorbell. And she would wait like if someone is really there on the door then they will ring the door again but for 5 mins no sound so she will try to sleep again but then again there will be a sound of someone ringing the bell but after that no response till she is up.....so she would then get up play meditation music and start meditating.
And she told me that once I and my brother were studying before her and she was meditating wearing headphones when she heard someone ringing the doorbell and she stared at us but we had no response like we heard nothing and she understood it's again that bas energy trying to distract her from getting peace and meditation. But once she started meditating alot these all things stopped happening. But once we were leaving this house cause my father used to get transferred at different places and we used to keep shifting with him, we got to know from some neighbour when my mother shared this all happening with her then she said that this all used to happen with other women's too who were living before us. Like all of the ladies of the house who previously lives here used to face some issues or health problems which were unexpected ( my mother faced health issues too while she never had them before). This all incidents used to happen late in the night like at 2 or something and when it got worse it started happening in the afternoon too.....but now nothing like this happened again and yeah she meditates now too.

Found this article after doing a quick deep-dive after this post from u/evilez:
https://www.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d33m4l/does_anybody_remember_what_podcast_this_was/
"Hello fine ladies and gentlemen! I remember listening to a podcast less than a year ago. The main subject of the podcast was UFOs (I think)... anyways the guest told a story that a congressman or senator wrote a bill that was against the CIA or going to defund the CIA, in the 80's... and shortly thereafter, someone broke into his home, dragged his wife out into the street and stuck a gun in her mouth and told her to kill the bill."
Some light Googling brought up this article about the history of the CIA, the OSS, and Daniel Patrick Moynihan's attempts at defunding the agency in the 90s.
Here's an article about that attempt brought by Moynihan published on the Carnegie Endowment Website on December 20, 2005.
https://carnegieendowment.org/posts/2005/12/the-case-for-abolishing-the-cia?lang=en
Here's the New Yorker piece about all of this from October 3rd, 2022.

Spooked -- What’s wrong with the C.I.A.? -- By Amy Davidson Sorkin -- October 3, 2022

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/10/10/has-the-cia-done-more-harm-than-good
According to the article regarding the resuscitation of the OSS as the CIA immediately following Roswell and the Twining Memo:
"Many of its officers moved straight to the new C.I.A. Most consequentially, perhaps, four future directors of the C.I.A. were O.S.S. veterans: Allen Dulles, Richard Helms, William Colby, and William Casey."
Here's the New Yorker article in full:
"On January 4, 1995, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, of New York, introduced a bill called the Abolition of the Central Intelligence Agency Act. It had been a rough stretch for the C.I.A. The year before, Aldrich Ames, a longtime officer, had been convicted of being a longtime mole for Soviet (and then Russian) intelligence. Despite having a reputation among his colleagues as a problem drinker who appeared to live far beyond his means, Ames had been given high-level assignments with access to the names of American sources in the U.S.S.R. When the F.B.I. finally arrested him, he was in the Jaguar he used for commuting to work at Langley; by then, he was responsible for the death of at least ten agents. Moynihan said that the case was such a flamboyant display of incompetence that it might actually be a distraction from “the most fundamental defects of the C.I.A.” He meant that the agency—in what he considered to be its “defining failure”—had both missed the fact that the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse and done little to hasten its end.
He gave a diagnosis for what had gone wrong. “Secrecy keeps mistakes secret,” he said. “Secrecy is a disease. It causes a hardening of the arteries of the mind.” He quoted John le Carré on that point, adding that the best information actually came from the likes of area specialists, diplomats, historians, and journalists. If the C.I.A. was disbanded, he said, the State Department could pick up the intelligence work, and do a better job.
Moynihan was, in some respects, being disingenuous. As he well knew, even if his bill had passed, spies and spying wouldn’t have gone away. The State Department already had its own mini agency, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. The Departments of Energy and Treasury each had one, too. The Defense Intelligence Agency conducted clandestine operations; U.S. Army Intelligence, Air Force Intelligence, and the Office of Naval Intelligence kept themselves busy as well. The National Security Agency was nearly two decades away from the revelation, by Edward Snowden, a contractor and a former C.I.A. employee, that it had collected information about the phone calls of most Americans, but it was a behemoth even in Moynihan’s time. So was the Federal Bureau of Investigation. There were about a dozen agencies then; now, after reforms that were supposed to streamline things, there are eighteen, including the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (O.D.N.I.), a sort of meta-C.I.A. that has a couple of thousand employees, and the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis. The Drug Enforcement Administration (which currently has foreign offices in sixty-nine countries) has an Office of National Security Intelligence. Four million people in the United States now have security clearances.
It can be hard to sort out which agencies do what; players in the espionage business aren’t always good with boundaries. Both the C.I.A. and the N.S.A. make use of satellite resources, including commercial ones, but there is a separate agency in charge of a spy-satellite fleet, the National Reconnaissance Office—not to be confused with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which deals with both space-based and ground-level imaging, or with Space Delta 18, the nation’s newest intelligence agency, which is attached to the Space Force. Abolishing the C.I.A. might do nothing more than reconfigure the turf wars.
[NOTE: both Sean Kirkpatrick and David Grusch worked for the NRO and at least Grusch worked for the NGA]
As the senator from New York also knew, a large proportion of the C.I.A.’s resources are devoted not to intelligence gathering but to covert operations, some of which look like military operations. In “Spies, Lies, and Algorithms: The History and Future of American Intelligence” (Princeton)—one of several recent books that coincide with the seventy-fifth anniversary of the agency’s founding—Amy B. Zegart, a political scientist at Stanford, writes that it’s “getting harder to know just where the CIA’s role ends and the military’s role begins.” Yet the agency’s paramilitary pursuits and related covert activities go back decades. They include the botched Bay of Pigs landing, the brutal Phoenix Program in Vietnam, and a long list of assassination attempts, coup plots, the mining of a harbor (with explosive devices the agency built itself), and drone strikes. These operations have very seldom ended well.
Moynihan’s bill had no more luck than another that he introduced the same day, aimed at ending Major League Baseball’s exemption from antitrust laws. In each case, people understood that there was a problem, but both institutions were protected by the sense that there was something essential, and perhaps authentically American, about them, including their very brokenness. A sudden turn of events can convince even the C.I.A.’s most sober critics that the agency will save us all, whether from terrorists or from Donald Trump. But, seventy-five years in, it’s far from clear whether the C.I.A. is good at its job, or what that job is or should be, or how we could get rid of the agency if we wanted to.
How did we end up with the C.I.A.? A familiar explanation is that the shock of Pearl Harbor made the United States realize it needed more spies; the Office of Strategic Services was formed and jumped into action; and, when the war ended, the O.S.S. evolved seamlessly into the C.I.A., ready to go out and win the Cold War. But that narrative isn’t quite right, particularly regarding the relationship between the O.S.S. and the C.I.A.
[NOTE: We know how ended up with the CIA. ROSWELL.]
The United States has always used spies of some sort. George Washington had a discretionary espionage budget for which he didn’t have to turn in receipts. In the early part of the twentieth century, the State Department had an intelligence-analysis unit, along with a cryptography group called the Black Chamber, which operated out of a brownstone in New York’s Murray Hill until it was shut down, in 1929. The Army and the Navy had cryptography and reconnaissance units, too. When the Second World War began, their operations ramped up dramatically, and, as Nicholas Reynolds recounts in “Need to Know: World War II and the Rise of American Intelligence” (Mariner), these units, not the O.S.S., handled most of the code-breaking. The problem became the volume of raw intelligence. The task of making sense of it and of turning it into something that policymakers could use went to an office within the Army’s military-intelligence division (or G-2), which, Reynolds says, produced “the country’s best strategic intelligence” during the war. That office’s work was directed by Alfred McCormack, a former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Harlan Stone and a partner at Cravath, Swaine & Moore. Many of the people he brought in were young corporate lawyers; the theory was that their training in plowing through mountains of documents made them ideal intelligence analysts.
William J. Donovan, who led and largely conceived of the O.S.S., was also a Wall Street lawyer, but one with an aversion to the “legalistic.” What Donovan envisioned was essentially an array of commando units that would operate stealthily and behind enemy lines. In practice, what he tried to build, according to a colleague, was a “private army.” His escapades often risked too much and gained too little. In late 1943, one of his own officers wrote to him that “the set-up has been incredibly wasteful in manpower and, except for a few spotty accomplishments, has been a national failure.” And it had produced “chaos in the field.” Donovan’s nickname was Wild Bill, but his staff called him Seabiscuit, after the thoroughbred, because of his tendency to race around, engaging in what was basically war tourism. In the end, though, the O.S.S. made real contributions, including through its contacts with the French Resistance. But Donovan’s complaint about D Day was that there was “too much planning.” Counterintelligence and strategic thinking bored him, and the O.S.S.’s analysis division was seen as secondary to its operations.
When Harry Truman became President, in April, 1945, he took a look at the O.S.S. and, in September, 1945, abolished it. About two years later, he signed the National Security Act, which established the C.I.A. (and the Department of Defense), but he didn’t want the new agency to be like the group Donovan had run. Instead, it was supposed to do what its name suggested: centralize the intelligence that various agencies gathered, analyze it, and turn it into something the President could use.
[NOTE: I tried doing some research after reading something yesterday about how the NSA was developed in 1952 under Project Sigma to try and decode "alien" communications. If anyone can offer anything, you'd be helping humanity.]
“It was not intended as a ‘Cloak and Dagger’ Outfit!,” Truman later wrote. He also had to deal with public apprehensions that he might create what a Chicago Tribune headline called a “Super Gestapo Agency”—which is why, in its charter, the C.I.A. was banned from domestic spying.
Reynolds’s book is the best of the recent batch, and the most readable. It does not retrofit the history of the O.S.S. around the assumption that the C.I.A. was the inevitable lead postwar intelligence agency. There were other contenders, including a version of McCormack’s office in the State Department—something like what Moynihan wanted. J. Edgar Hoover argued that “World Wide Intelligence” should be turned over to the F.B.I., with military intelligence subservient to him. In some alternative history, he might have pulled that off; by 1943, he was running undercover operations in twenty Latin American countries. And so things could have been worse.
[WHAT UNDERCOVER OPERATIONS WERE WE RUNNING IN LATIN AMERICANS COUNTRIES IN 1943.]
Donovan was an adept publicist, but what mattered most, in the end, was that he was good, or lucky, when it came to hiring people. Despite the “pale, male, and Yale” stereotype, the O.S.S. was somewhat more diverse than other units, and certainly more eclectic. Among its ranks were Ralph Bunche, Herbert Marcuse, and Julia Child. Many of its officers moved straight to the new C.I.A. Most consequentially, perhaps, four future directors of the C.I.A. were O.S.S. veterans: Allen Dulles, Richard Helms, William Colby, and William Casey. Each seems to have had glory-day memories of the O.S.S., which is to say that each, in various ways, was afflicted with what a general in Army intelligence called “the screwball Donovan effect.” Casey, who put a picture of Donovan on his wall, said of his old boss, “We all glowed in his presence.” Wild Bill lost the bureaucratic fight but won the personnel and mythology wars.
And, of course, the agency found customers and collaborators in the White House. There was no mention of covert action in the law that chartered the C.I.A., but Presidents—starting with Truman—began using it that way. One of the agency’s first operations involved meddling in the 1948 Italian election, to insure the victory of the Christian Democrats. The subsidies and outright bribery of Italian politicians, some of them on the far, far right, continued into the nineteen-seventies.
Almost from its creation, though, there was a sense that something about the C.I.A. was off. The split between covert action and intelligence gathering and analysis was part of it. The director of the agency was also supposed to be the leader of U.S. intelligence as a whole, but, invariably, the person in the job seemed more invested in preëminence than in coördination. That setup remained in place until the establishment of the O.D.N.I., in 2004, a move that thus far has mostly continued a tradition of trying to deal with the C.I.A.’s dysfunction by setting up ever more agencies, offices, and centers. (The N.S.A. was established, in 1952, in response to a series of cryptography-related failures.) “Legacy of Ashes,” Tim Weiner’s 2008 history of the C.I.A.—and still an invaluable overview—takes its title from a lament by Eisenhower about what he’d be leaving his successors if the “faulty” structure of American intelligence wasn’t changed. Since Weiner’s book was published, the ashes, and the agencies, have only been piling up.
Zegart’s “Spies, Lies, and Algorithms” aims to bring that history to the present. Zegart has served as an adviser to intelligence agencies, and she provides a decent guide to our current bureaucracy. Throughout, her book is clear and well organized—maybe a little too well organized, one feels, after taking in the “Seven Deadly Biases” of intelligence analysis, the “Four Main Adversaries” and the “Five Types of Attack” in the crypto area, and the “Three Words, Four Types” that define covert action. (The covert-action words, incidentally, are “influence,” “acknowledged,” and “abroad.”) Not a few paragraphs read like PowerPoint charts; contradictions are displayed without really being reckoned with. She observes that the balance between “hunting” and “gathering” seems off, but, in her telling, the fact that Presidents of both parties regularly turn to the C.I.A. for paramilitary and other covert tasks constitutes proof that doing so is part of the order of things. The impression she leaves is that if it all goes wrong, it’s because some checklist has been missed. One of the top priorities of U.S. intelligence today, she thinks, should be persuading tech companies to get with the program and help out. She moots the creation of yet another agency, to deal with OSINT—open-source intelligence.
In one chapter, Zegart provides a list of scandals involving spying within the U.S. by various intelligence agencies—notably the N.S.A., the F.B.I., and the C.I.A. “All of these activities violated American law,” she writes. “But that’s the point: domestic laws forbid this kind of surveillance of Americans.” How is that the point, exactly? She depicts the Senate’s 2014 Torture Report, which detailed profound abuses in the C.I.A.’s so-called black sites, as a they-said, the-agency-said, who-knows case. She turns it into a parable about the problems with Congress—suggesting that, although the committee structure may have needed rejiggering, the moral compass of those involved in the program of torture was just fine.
Another new volume, “A Question of Standing: A History of the CIA” (Oxford), by Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, a professor emeritus of history at the University of Edinburgh, offers the insights of a more distant observer. He can be astute about how “false memories” of the O.S.S.’s accomplishments have led the C.I.A. astray. Part of his argument is that the agency has acted as if its influence depended on its standing with whoever is in the White House, thus motivating it to offer Presidents quick fixes that fix nothing. The net effect is to reduce its standing, and that of the U.S., with the public at home and abroad. But Jeffreys-Jones is prone to rash generalizations and pronouncements. He theorizes that, in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, George W. Bush’s national-security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, may have been susceptible to “war mongering” due to her status as “a descendant of slaves,” and that the working-class background of the C.I.A.’s director, George Tenet, made him more likely to vouch for the faulty intelligence on weapons of mass destruction used to justify the war. “Social mobility so often leads to conformity,” warns Jeffreys-Jones, himself the son of an academic historian.
During the Vietnam War, the C.I.A. had discouraging intelligence to offer, and, when successive Administrations didn’t want to hear it, focussed on being helpful by providing those supposedly quick fixes. That meant abetting a coup in 1963, spying on antiwar protesters, and launching the Phoenix Program, an anti-Vietcong campaign marked by torture and by arbitrary executions; in total, more than twenty thousand people were killed under Phoenix’s auspices.
Phoenix was run by William Colby, the O.S.S. alum, who was soon promoted to C.I.A. director. At lower levels, discontent about Vietnam fueled leaks. In December, 1974, the journalist Seymour Hersh told the agency that he was about to publish a story in the Times exposing its domestic spying. Whether in a miscalculation or (as Jeffreys-Jones somewhat breathlessly speculates) as an act of personal expiation, Colby gave Hersh partial confirmation. Amid the scandals and the Congressional hearings that followed, Colby angered some of his colleagues, and Henry Kissinger, by laying bare even more. It emerged that, in 1973, Colby’s predecessor had asked senior agency officials to produce a list of things the C.I.A. had done that might have been unlawful. The resulting document, covering just the prior fifteen years, was known in-house as “The Family Jewels,” and was almost seven hundred pages long.
The question of how much it matters who works at the C.I.A. is a perennial one. The influence of Donovan’s acolytes shows that decisions about whom you recruit can, in a formative period or at a critical juncture, make a big difference. But, once an institutional culture has become entrenched, it can be easier to see how the institution shapes the people within it than vice versa.
“Wise Gals: The Spies Who Built the CIA and Changed the Future of Espionage” (Putnam), by Nathalia Holt, comes at the question from a different angle. It’s about five women who worked for the early C.I.A.; three also worked at the O.S.S., and one, Eloise Page, began her career as Bill Donovan’s secretary. Holt is also the author of “Rise of the Rocket Girls,” about women in the early years of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and “The Queens of Animation,” about women at the Walt Disney Company. Her book contains fine material for a beautifully art-directed streaming series, with set pieces in postwar Paris, nineteen-fifties Baghdad, and nineteen-seventies Greece, where Page was the C.I.A.’s first woman station chief. It even has a framing device in the form of the “Petticoat Panel,” a working group of C.I.A. women that convened in 1953 to document their unequal pay and treatment. Holt quotes the transcript of the meeting at which the leadership of the agency summarily rejected their findings. Helms, the future director, says, “It is just nonsense for these gals to come on here and think that the government is going to fall apart because their brains aren’t going to be used to the maximum.” (In 1977, Helms was convicted of lying to Congress about the C.I.A.’s machinations in Chile.) What the book is not, unfortunately, is a coherent history of the C.I.A., of the era it depicts, or even of these women’s work.
Holt’s research does turn up evidence that Jane Burrell, one of her subjects, was the first C.I.A. officer to die in the line of duty, in a plane crash in France, in 1948, a fact that the agency itself apparently missed. Holt ends her book with a call for a star honoring Burrell to be added to the C.I.A.’s memorial wall. Of the hundred and thirty-seven officers represented there, she writes, forty-five died accidentally, the majority in plane crashes, meaning that Burrell’s case would be fairly typical. Burrell was on the return leg of a trip to Brussels, where she’d been sent to talk to war-crimes investigators about a mess the C.I.A. had created by relying on an agent who turned out to have worked with the S.S. and was now in custody. In that respect, too, Burrell, who had personally handled the agent, was typical of the C.I.A. (After Burrell vouched for him, the man was released.) The subject of the C.I.A.’s postwar relations with former Nazis—some of whom, like Reinhard Gehlen, it helped to install in West Germany’s new intelligence service—and with collaborationist émigré groups is, no doubt, a morass. Holt, alas, manages to make the story even more garbled than it has to be. In the end, she basically treats the whole sordid episode as a learning experience for the Gals.
The problem is that the agency doesn’t seem to learn much. Holt credits Mary Hutchison with helping to build a network of émigré Ukrainian nationalists. Beginning in 1949, the agency parachuted some of them (including one whom Hutchison apparently distrusted) behind the Soviet border, where they were quickly captured—and repeated the same procedure for a number of years. “Despite the catastrophe, the Ukraine operation would serve as a template moving forward,” Holt writes. “The C.I.A. had more success with back-to-back operations in Iran and Guatemala, where covert action was able to deftly oust leaders considered undesirable.” It’s odd to describe these coups as deft. One of Zegart’s handy lists is of the “unintended consequences” in Iran: “religious extremism, a revolutionary overthrow, the American hostage crisis, severed ties, regional instability, and today’s rising nuclear dangers.” Guatemala is still dealing with the violent legacy of the coup that the C.I.A. visited upon it. Then there’s the question of the intended consequences, which were, respectively, to elevate a shah and a military regime. Secret wars tend not to be so secret in the country where they take place.
It was, no doubt, frustrating for Hutchison when, a few years later, her colleagues on the Bay of Pigs task force failed to make use of her Spanish-language skills. But are we supposed to think that the whole misconceived enterprise would have gone off without a hitch were it not for the C.I.A.’s misogyny? One of Holt’s minor themes is that women in the C.I.A. were seen as more natural analysts than operatives—with analysis, in turn, seen as less manly, and less valuable, to everybody’s detriment. But she is more intent on showing that these women were also daring. The main point of “Wise Gals” is that it’s cool that women were in the early C.I.A., and therefore that the C.I.A. itself was cooler than we’d realized. Holt celebrates a big promotion Page got that afforded her access to the secret of a safe containing shellfish-derived poison. You don’t have to be pale, male, and Yale to be complicit in a bungled assassination plot, or, for that matter, a program of rendition and torture.
Why do so many books about the C.I.A. have trouble getting their story straight? It can’t just be the secrecy of the work itself, at least with regard to the earlier years, about which much has been declassified. (Much remains under wraps: Moynihan complained that classification created more than six million supposed secrets in 1993; Zegart writes that the number in 2016 was fifty-five million—not all of which can possibly have been critical.) The aura of secrecy, by contrast, probably does distort the judgment of its chroniclers. And the scope of the agency’s work is a challenge: it’s hard to write expertly on places as far-ranging as the Democratic Republic of Congo (where the agency initially planned to poison President Patrice Lumumba’s toothpaste, and instead ended up handing a quarter of a million dollars to Joseph Mobutu, the country’s future dictator, who facilitated the assassination) and Afghanistan (where the C.I.A. has had forty years of illusory gains and worse losses). But the biggest problem may be the agency’s own pattern of self-deception. Holt, for example, sometimes seems to go wrong when, rummaging through the archives, she gives too much credit to contemporaneous internal assessments of an agent’s or an operation’s worth.
In truth, the C.I.A. has had a “defining failure” for every decade of its existence—sometimes more than one. For Moynihan, in the nineteen-nineties, it was the lack of foresight about the Soviet Union; in the two-thousands, it was the phantom weapons of mass destruction, followed by torture and, in still evolving ways, by the drone-based program of targeted killings, with its high toll of civilian deaths. Barack Obama’s rapport with John Brennan, the C.I.A.’s director from 2013 to 2017, seems to have brought him to accept the view that the killing of American citizens abroad was acceptable, if managed prudently. The overuse of the agency on the battlefield is due not to a military-manpower shortage but to wishful thinking about the benefits of secrecy and of a lack of accountability.
It’s difficult to know, at this point, what the C.I.A.’s next defining failure—or, if one tries to be optimistic, its stabilizing success—will be. Donald Trump has had a complicated relationship with the intelligence community—increasingly capitalized and abbreviated to I.C.—which is presently conducting a damage assessment regarding documents with classified markings that he kept at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida home. He might, of course, be reëlected, and have the C.I.A.’s tools at his disposal again. If the C.I.A. isn’t the place to turn for an expedient solution to foreign-policy problems, neither is it bound to be the place to turn for a solution to our democracy’s political problems.
“If you ask intelligence officers what misperceptions bother them most, odds are they’ll mention ethics,” Zegart writes. She quotes an official who complains that “people think we’re lawbreakers, we’re human rights violators.” She insists that “officers think about ethics a lot.” She portrays the agency as being filled with hardworking moms and dads who do a great deal of “agonizing.” No doubt she’s right. But if the C.I.A. keeps falling down all the same, something must be tragically amiss in the agency’s structure or culture, or both. All the talk of coups and assassination plots, Zegart worries, distracts people from understanding the C.I.A.’s more basic intelligence mission. In fact, the party most distracted by such activities—and by the military role it has taken on—seems to be the agency itself. ♦
An earlier version of this article misstated the numerical designation of the Space Force unit dedicated to intelligence.
Published in the print edition of the October 10, 2022, issue.

I've never had a decent relationship with my mum. It isn't due to lack of trying. I think my mum is narcissistic and abusive. Since I was 4, I've been hit/slapped with the hand or multiple random objects, yelled at, locked in dark rooms, been chased with a burning hot item to get burnt, been chased with an electric bat, had my shoes and clothes thrown out of the house, would get hit more because my mum claimed her hand hurt when she hit me, made to drink milk with ants, are among the physical harm I remember. She'd often be nasty when I score a 17/20 instead of 19, call parents of guys in my class who were extremely violent and make a systematic plan to scare tf out of me, would call parents of children who'd fail and cry about how much of a failure I am, call the parents of top scorers and ask them what did they do differently to make their child score better, plan to drop me at my uncle's place (my uncle is extremely physically abusive and has almost beat his child to death) she'd plan to drop me there so that I get abused too, she'd cry and yell when I'd not draw or colour, sing, dance or play as well as my cousin, humiliate me infront of guests, expect me to thank her everytime she gave me food, milk or water I'd get yelled at or hit if I would forget, make a behaviour evaluation chart and I'd get 5 starts based on how much of a submissive puppy I am, take credit for all my accomplishments list goes on ngl. When I was around 10, I was forced into this music class and for pressured into taking part in reality shows. Both my mum and the music teacher were abusive and when my music teacher humiliated me, my mum would feel humiliated and abuse my physically and psychologically at home. I've never been allowed to go out and play as a child because I was always supposed to study or do co curriculars. While the physical abuse continued for 8-10 years, the mental extended post the same. I'm 21 rn and I'm not allowed to go out with my friends for more than a couple of hours once a week, not allowed for sleep overs, none of my friends are allowed to come home etc. The constant abuse led me develop a phobia towards anything competitive including exams. Even looking at a question paper makes me want to puke. I feel like fainting while studying. I've survived 7 ODs including one which almost took me to a state of coma a couple of months ago and God knows how many SH attempts since I was an 8 yo. I used to be a deans list student until 2 years ago but after that, something snapped. My anxiety makes me puke and faint before exams and i end up missing them. I ended up missing 19 exams over the past couple of years. All of which I should give before i graduate next year. I'm under 5 pills for severe anxiety, depression and OCD which make me physically exhausted. Yesterday in the midst of a fight, among a plethora of things my mum yelled a couple of them went like, "I wish you and your grand mum died", you make me want to commit suicide. "I will commit suicide just so you regret not loving me and to prove that something bad can happen to me too" "you are the one who's ruined your life. You can't don't have the audacity to take responsibility for it, which is why you blame me". While I've told my father and sister about the abuse, nobody seems mad at her because she'd do it when I'm alone. And honestly since the time I left home for University, my sister is not the same person I once could confide in. My mum constantly cries and victimises herself infront of my sister giving her an impression of me doing something bad to my mum and making her feel the necessity to protect her. I genuinely feel lonely and I don't know whom to confide in. I don't think therapy is taking me anywhere and my partner gets very aggressive when I tell them and says they hope my mum dies. That's not what I want to hear. I probably need a bit of gentleness and acknowledgement because that's precisely what Ive never received. I have an exam day after tomorrow and I'm just stuck with what she said yesterday. She doesn't even let me use the word abuse and starts crying endlessly the moment I confront her. But tbh I really don't think she has any remorse. I'm so worried that my bad academic record might get me stuck with her and the thought makes me sick to my gut and want to puke and pass away. I really don't know how I can help myself atp when even getting out of bed feels heavy and like a chore. Is this normal? Am I overreacting or something? Any words or suggestions would help. This is probably the tip of the ice berg. I don't think I can type out each and everything here. Is this all my life is/will be? Also, if I go no contact with her my dad and sister will probably go no contact with me and i genuinely love them.

I've never had a decent relationship with my mum. It isn't due to lack of trying. I think my mum is narcissistic and abusive. Since I was 4, I've been hit with the hand/slapped or multiple random objects, yelled at, locked in dark rooms, been chased with a burning hot item to get burnt, been chased with an electric bat, had my shoes and clothes thrown out of the house, would get hit more because my mum claimed her hand hurt when she hit me, made to drink milk with ants, are among the physical harm I remember. She'd often be nasty when I score a 17/20 instead of 19, call parents of guys in my class who were extremely violent and make a systematic plan to scare tf out of me, would call parents of children who'd fail and cry about how much of a failure I am, call the parents of top scorers and ask them what did they do differently to make their child score better, plan to drop me at my uncle's place (my uncle is extremely physically abusive and has almost beat his child to death) she'd plan to drop me there so that I get abused too, she'd cry and yell when I'd not draw or colour, sing, dance or play as well as my cousin, humiliate me infront of guests, expect me to thank her everytime she gave me food, milk or water I'd get yelled at or hit if I would forget, make a behaviour evaluation chart and I'd get 5 starts based on how much of a submissive puppy I am, take credit for all my accomplishments list goes on ngl. When I was around 10, I was forced into this music class and for pressured into taking part in reality shows. Both my mum and the music teacher were abusive and when my music teacher humiliated me, my mum would feel humiliated and abuse my physically and psychologically at home. I've never been allowed to go out and play as a child because I was always supposed to study or do co curriculars. While the physical abuse continued for 8-10 years, the mental extended post the same. I'm 21 rn and I'm not allowed to go out with my friends for more than a couple of hours once a week, not allowed for sleep overs, none of my friends are allowed to come home etc. The constant abuse led me develop a phobia towards anything competitive including exams. Even looking at a question paper makes me want to puke. I feel like fainting while studying. I've survived 7 ODs including one which almost took me to a state of coma a couple of months ago and God knows how many SH attempts since I was an 8 yo. I used to be a deans list student until 2 years ago but after that, something snapped. My anxiety makes me puke and faint before exams and i end up missing them. I ended up missing 19 exams over the past couple of years. All of which I should give before i graduate next year. I'm under 5 pills for severe anxiety, depression and OCD which make me physically exhausted. Yesterday in the midst of a fight, among a plethora of things my mum yelled a couple of them went like, "I wish you and your grand mum died", you make me want to commit suicide. "I will commit suicide just so you regret not loving me and to prove that something bad can happen to me too" "you are the one who's ruined your life. You can't don't have the audacity to take responsibility for it, which is why you blame me". While I've told my father and sister about the abuse, nobody seems mad at her because she'd do it when I'm alone. And honestly since the time I left home for University, my sister is not the same person I once could confide in. My mum constantly cries and victimises herself infront of my sister giving her an impression of me doing something bad to my mum and making her feel the necessity to protect her. I genuinely feel lonely and I don't know whom to confide in. I don't think therapy is taking me anywhere and my partner gets very aggressive when I tell them and says they hope my mum dies. That's not what I want to hear. I probably need a bit of gentleness and acknowledgement because that's precisely what Ive never received. I have an exam day after tomorrow and I'm just stuck with what she said yesterday. She doesn't even let me use the word abuse and starts crying endlessly the moment I confront her. But tbh I really don't think she has any remorse. I'm so worried that my bad academic record might get me stuck with her and the thought makes me sick to my gut and want to puke and pass away. I really don't know how I can help myself atp when even getting out of bed feels heavy and like a chore. Is this normal? Am I overreacting or something? Any words or suggestions would help. This is probably the tip of the ice berg. I don't think I can type out each and everything here. Is this all my life is/will be? Also, if I go no contact with her my dad and sister will probably go no contact with me and i genuinely love them.

i feel so alone i dont know what im doing in the world. i dont know what i can do anymore other than give up. im (20F) an only child, i have a bad relationship w my parents, we moved a lot throughout my childhood so i dont have any extended family where i live. most of my extended family arent good people anyway, all of my grandparents are divorced, theres a history of mental illness in our family and most of them have become bitter and taken it out on others. just negative, unsupportive people. my mom tries her best in her own way but shes extremely religious and homophobic (im bisexual and id say im spiritual but definitely not religious) and my dad is very strong minded about politics, he was a trump supporter and has very conservative views which i dont agree with at all. they dont even get along with eachother and i grew up w them screaming at eachother almost constantly my whole life.
my high school experience was ruined by covid and i lost the friend group that gave me a will to live bc i dated someone in it and when we broke up they all took his side (it’s a lot to explain but there was only 4 people in the group, the other guy only took his side bc of something along the lines of bro code, and my best friend took his side bc she had secretly liked him and ended up taking him from me). i already had trust issues but this is where it started to get worse. since then ive had so many friendships and relationships that i truly dont have the time to get into the details of, and i really dont want to come off as having a victim complex at all when i say this but i’ve been continuously done so wrong by people. im a very self aware person, ive grieved so much, ive looked for every fault in myself and blamed myself for so many things but at the end of the day i had nothing but good intentions for every single one of those people and i loved them and gave them everything i could.
i just feel so lost and alone now. i dont have a support system, no family, and my trust issues are so bad i dont think i’ll ever be able to feel secure in a relationship or even friendships again. im so tired of watching everyone except me experience genuine love platonically, romantically and from their family. when will it be my turn. if i marry a girl my parents will cut me off. i dont know if i even want to marry a man at this point bc i feel like every guy ive been with has used me for my body. my ex told me the only reason he liked me was bc im “hot and always dtf”. i never cry in front of people but i sobbed in his arms after hearing that bc it triggered something so deep in me.
i dont feel lovable. im tired of living and knowing that i will never truly be loved. i dont know what im doing wrong. im “conventially” attractive, dyed platinum blonde hair and green/hazel eyes, 5’1, not under or overweight. i have good style imo (for reference kinda maddy perez style, eyeliner mostly black and light blues and more on the feminine side). im very emotionally intelligent and strong bc of what ive been through and im loyal, im the type of person that if u have me u 100% can count on me and i will always be there no matter what. everytime ive been in a relationship i dont entertain or talk to other people at all. i hand make really personal gifts for people i love and am really intentional about buying things and will go all out and write long letters. i have a good aesthetic, im always clean and always smell good, im not overly friendly to people in a people pleasing way but i think im really sweet. i was really quiet for a long time bc my mental health issues made me feel unlovable (i have cptsd) but at my core im an extrovert and i feel like you can tell when i talk bc i do speak loudly and im very bubbly. i love being around people too and going out clubbing/to raves, drinking, sm0king. typical things that people consider extroverted ig. im also very artsy, music has been my passion since i was a toddler and ive made songs and tbh i have a lot of potential. i hate saying im good at music bc it makes me feel like one of those wannabe soundcloud rappers but i really am and ive made really pretty songs for someone who uses garageband. im good at artistic things in general.
i kinda suck at school but i feel like my mental health made academics take a backseat in my life a lot of the time and i wish i was better. im currently in college for psychology but i dont know how im ever supposed to help people when i can barely help myself. if im being honest psychology is not my passion at all, theres no college degree that i can see myself working as but psych suited me the best. i moved far away from my hometown for college to a popular tourist place but recently moved back bc it was expensive and couldnt see myself living there long term. i still have two years left, probably more bc im behind on classes.
i just feel lost. i feel like what’s the point of life if im not loved? i dont want all i ever do to be studying to get a degree for a job im not passionate about. when i think about how i wont have family or friends cheering for me at my graduation it makes me even less motivated. ideally i’d want to pursue music and start my own fashion business. ive heard enough about that being unrealistic and i understand, but at the same time im extremely creative and it would be possible for me to succeed at those things if i really put my all into it.
now that im back in my “hometown” my parents are planning to move again to somewhere cheaper w less taxes and its making me sad bc even though i hate this place my room in this house has always been my safe space. i painted things on the walls, put pictures up everywhere, my window opens to a roof i can sit on. i dont think id even be able to recreate this and if they moved i wouldnt want to recreate it anyway bc im 20 now so id rather work towards my own place. but even that is so unrealistic in this economy and i dont know if i can achieve it. college is not my thing and i have a horrible work ethic when it comes to anything but artistic things.
the conclusion i came to was to just ghost everyone and work on myself, (workout, make music, attempt to start a small clothing brand on insta/etsy) while taking online classes so if all that fails at least i have a degree. thats what i decided to come back home to do and ig it logically makes sense but i still feel so alone and unloved and im scared.
i dont know what type of answers im looking for in posting this, i just want to know what other people would do in my situation. thank you if you read this far, i appreciate you so much <3

I'm a 30 year old male. I have been having, what I now believe to be night terrors since I was 18 years old. Due to ADD and lack of sleep this post may be a little scattered, but I am trying to give as much information as possible so maybe someone knows something - I cannot continue like this.
I don't know why it's taken me so long to write this or reach out for help but here is my timeline, when I was 18 I had a major panic attack, which I still do not know the cause of, I was rushed to hospital as it was so bad even my Dad thought I was having a heart attack. I was prescribed beta blockers and tried them for a while but I had panic attacks due to fear of the panic attack as I was convinced it was heart related. At this age I was not using drugs, alcohol, was a very healthy weight and active in sports nearly every day.
Anyhow, the day panic attacks stop, and one random night, I jump out of my bedroom, running down my hall naked, screaming to my parents sweating with my heart pounding through my chest screaming to call 999 that I am dying. These episodes were hit and miss for a few days a week, some days I would sleep fine, sometimes I would sleep better in other houses etc.
This of course affected my relationships etc until I realised that if I had a few shots of whiskey before bed, I slept just fine, I employed this many times when seeing partners. (Important to now note that to get the same desired effect years later it takes at least 35cl of whiskey or a bottle and half of wine to sleep through).
A few years back I got tested for sleep apnoea as my doctor thought it could be that and it was determined that I have mild sleep apnoea, I couldn't get onto the machine at all and I just turned to alcohol. I could do with losing weight yes but I don't believe this is just sleep apnoea, I wake up screaming, in pure terror, shouting "no, no, no" "I'm dying" "I'm gone, tell mum I love her" - If my mobile is close to me I will call 999 for an ambulance, sometimes I am quick enough to stop before the call goes through, but more often than not I will get a concerned call back (they know my name and number now) so they're a little more chill. The worst ones I will run up stairs and into other rooms, naked thinking I'm dying, sweating and high temperature.
I can NEVER remember the dreams etc before this. Is this sleep apnoea, is this night terrors, sometimes if I stayed up all night and went to sleep around 7am I would actually sleep like a baby to the point where I just flipped my sleeping schedule, but when I have to switch it back, it happens without fail. Some of the worst ones have come from daytime naps at home, I wake up, screaming and running, I've injured myself repeatedly, even writing this has been therapeutic.
I seriously cannot even speak to people about it as they don't get it, they recommend teas, breathing, meditating, this happens me at different weights, different diets, areas, time zones - the only constant is if I get drunk to the point it knocks me out, it doesn't happen and that isn't sustainable.
Should I just save up and get a polysomnograph? Any advice of ANY kind is so so welcome, even just to know i'm not alone. Its so exhausting, I just want a normal nights sleep like when I was 17. This happens EVERY night without fail. I never get a break. Hopefully this post can be the beginning of my journey to getting out of this nightmare. If you've read this, thankyou for taking the time, it means the world.

im 16m and my mum is 40 something and my dad is 55.

• no phones allowed in room
• one hour of screen time per weekday and 2 hrs total sunday and monday together
• absolutely no girls
• no fast food ever
• my netflix profile is age locked so i cant watch titles aged 15 and over
• my internet useage is monitored from the second i start to the second i finish
• my phone is tracked when i am out of the house
• after school come straight home (the tracking enforces this)
• no allowance whatsoever, not even for food
• if i want to go out with friends i have to tell my parents exactly what we are doing, i can only go out with friends my parents know and like and my parents must communicate with my friend's parents before we go out
• no tiktok, snapchat, instagram etc
• no password allowed on phone so my parents can check my phone easier
• phone is checked every night
• if i want to watch yt i can't watch ytbers that curse

are my parents strict?
edit posted this on the toilet i cannot move out until i am married my reddit is disguised as a dictionary app on my phone

I remember at the age of 7, I snuck ice cream and my mom beat my ass and I got mad and wrote in my diary in great detail of the event and I need it saying, "she's a bitch". She then showed my grandmother and father and all 3 of them were sitting on the couch and my mom called me downstairs and my diary was in her hand and she just kept asking me, "so I'm a bich? I'm a bitch? And I didn't know what to say because it was the truth, she was an evil, wicked, abusive bitch.
Later that year and many years later my dad beat me for any reason, I remember he beat me with a 2x4 because my school socks weren't up to my knees, instead they were down by my ankles when he picked me up from school and bc he told me about keeping my socks up to my knees I was beaten for dam near an hour at the age of 8 by a man that was 200+ pounds and 6"0 over socks and my mom did nothing. So I wrote on a piece of paper, "I hat my dad" and of course for some reason they love searching my room as if I had anythingore then a bed, a desk and a chester draw. He came downstairs in the kitchen waving the paper around, walking so fast his robe was flying like he was superman and he said you wrote this? And I read it and said yes. He said you can't even spell, hate is spelled with and E and you wrote hat and not hate and he said I was on punishment and walked away.
The beatings and punishments never ended but I stopped writing and that was the only way I expressed myself. I held on decades of anger because I STOPPED writing being terrified that someone will read it. FUCK THEM NOSEY ASS BASTARDS, WHOEVER READS WHAT I WRITE DESERVES TO GET THEIR FEELINGS HURT. The fact that I didn't say it to you, should've been respected and love enough. Reading how people are terrified because of nosey ass people irritates me and it brings back memories.
I'm investing in a journal with a lock on it and in my journal, I'm going to be cussing mfs out🤣🤣🤣🤣fk 'em

So I think I got a skin condition (Hidradenitis suppurativa) that my mum has, I more than likely have got it because l've had lumps show up, her dad had it but my mum and her dad has got a lot of scarring on her face and arm pits like really bad and this might sound bad but I'm so worried about my skin going like my mums, always have been toh, I'm on Lymecyne antibiotics long term there for acne and stuff it causes lumps like tissue build up or something, in my arm pits, on my bum and l've had a few on my face. I'm only 21 years old this effects me so deeply l'm so self conscious about my skin and body, the ones on my face leave a purple/ deep reddish colour scarring still feeling a little lump under the skin, and the scarring on my bottom the scarring is deep purple and has little holes, my partner actually asked me before are they cigarette burns, so that speaks for itself really & I've read online that turmeric and zinc is good for this skin condition and I would like to know if anybody has tried these and what there input is please. Any advice on the skin condition Hidradenitis suppurativa would be highly appreciated, I am still waiting for dermatology to contact me, my GP referred me a while back. Also if you do feel the same way as i do in regards to skin and body wether you have a skin condition or not. You're not alone and i will always be a good listener for you if you need . Thanks

So I think I got a skin condition (Hidradenitis suppurativa) that my mum has , I more than likely have got it because I’ve had lumps show up , her dad had it but my mum and her dad has got a lot of scarring on her face and arm pits like really bad and this might sound bad but I’m so worried about my skin going like my mums , always have been tbh , I’m on Lymecyne antibiotics long term there for acne and stuff it causes lumps like tissue build up or something, in my arm pits, on my bum and I’ve had a few on my face . I’m only 21 years old this effects me so deeply I’m so self conscious about my skin and body , the ones on my face leave a purple/ deep reddish colour scarring still feeling a little lump under the skin , and the scarring on my bottom 😢 the scarring is deep purple and has little holes , my partner actually asked me before are they cigarette burns , so that speaks for itself really 🥲 I’ve read online that turmeric and zinc is good for this skin condition and I would like to know if anybody has tried these and what there input is please . Any advice on the skin condition Hidradenitis suppurativa would be highly appreciated, I am still waiting for dermatology to contact me, my GP referred me a while back . Also if you do feel the same way as i do in regards to skin and body wether you have a skin condition or not. You’re not alone and i will always be a good listener for you if you need . 🩷 Thanks

Due to personal reasons I will not be revealing me and my mom’s age not just to protect me but also to protect her.
My Dad has been coming in and out of my life for ages now he would pop around out of nowhere every 2-3 years and disappear again until he didn’t say happy birthday this year I completely blocked him.My Dad has done a lot of horrible things to my mother…very upsetting things and he is the reason why I’m an only child today☹️ when I was younger I would always see my mother cry and it was always because of him,and my mum doesn’t cry in front of me she is a strong woman or at least she tries to show me that.
I truly love my mom even though we have or major fights and stuff I still love her truest and she has done so much for me🥹
But to the main part of the story and when I decided to never see my dad again, is when he texted me on a random number telling me it’s hi your dad I was so shocked and thrown off it was him that after class I started crying in my friend’s arms.I wasn’t upset he hasn’t texted me in a long time,it just threw me off because everything was fine before he came a long.Fast forward to a couple of days and he offered to take me to eat and shopping and my mom came with me ofc! After we ate and he had PAID for our food he then starts talking to me about child support,money,and court and how it’s my mom’s fault we can not go out shopping.After I caught out my dad in a web of lies and questioned him he then talked to be in such a cold time he switched so quickly and I saw another side to him,he was talking to me how he spoke to my mother and I was calm,cool and collected and stayed that way me and my dad were going back and forth to every excuse he had,I had a solution and for every lie he had I gave him a truth,since my dad is clearly narcissistic after he knew he lost a mind game with a 15 year old child at the time his 40 something year old self got upset and started causing a “I’m so sad scene” and said “I wish you all the best” and got up from the restaurant and left I laughed because he’s hilarious,I honestly don’t have a connection with my dad every time I look at him I don’t feel anything like any feelings,but my mom on the other hand was very upset with him because she said it reminded her of how he used to talk to her but she was also very proud of me for handling it very well.
Fast forward to my birthday which is on a special day I blocked him because he didn’t say happy birthday and because of his dramatic exit I truly felt like he meant it so therefore I blocked him,my mother says I was being a bit harsh and I shouldn’t be like that but no!!!! He’s put us through so much hell,he’ll I didn’t know we were going through due to my mother being soo good at hiding things and made sure I had a fairy tale like childhood all because he didn’t pay child support.
I know I’m going to be successful one day that’s why I didn’t care if he doesn’t want to talk to me anymore,he probably thought I was going to beg him but we don’t even have a connection for me to beg him or miss him 😂🤡 I thought having one parent was normal and it’s only recently I found out it’s really not.When he comes back begging one day I’ll leave him like a stray and deny him just like he denied me when I was a new born .He honestly narcissistic piece of shit he doesn’t deserve anything but eternal suffering.
So,AITA??

I (15F) lost my father (62M) just last year now. The pain doesn’t go away.
My dad has always been on the older end of the parental spectrum so not many people fully understand the impact and severity of his death. My father had a history of depression and was on alot of pain meds when he passed, he tried to keep his children (19F, 14F, 14F, 11M and 11M(at the time)) in the dark about all this but I saw through it.
My father was a very intellectual person, he was a civil engineer and did alot of government t related jobs so he wasn’t around a ton when I was little. However he got laid off from his last job and had a ton of trouble finding one since, this sparked the mental health issues.
He used to love to cook with me specifically and had a special glimmer in his eyes when he explained mathematical concepts which I fee we shared quite deeply. Out of all five of his kids we were definitely the closest.
Over time I started viewing me helping him as a chore and one fateful day as we were eating dinner he had gone down to his room as per usual. All of the sudden two cops knocked on the door to do a wellness check on him, as it later turns out his financial advisor had gotten an odd phone call from him and got worried, when they found him he wouldn’t tell them which of his meds he took. At this point I wasn’t aloud to see him in this state, but I tied not to think much of it, I regret that.
After a couple days unresponsive in the hospital my mum called me and my sibling because the hospital staff said it might be a good idea to say our goodbyes. When we got there I wailed, the only thing keeping my father alive were a bunch of machines, his body was being thrusted with each breath the machines forced him to take. I didn’t say goodbye, instead I repeatedly begged him to wake up, !!SPOILER IT DIDNT WORK!! After a while he was said to be getting alot better and we gained hope. I had picked my brothers up from school and when I got home my mom and older sister were there waiting and my heart sank. He died suddenly, my sister was called from her practicum when it happened but not me cuz I was at fucking school.
My dad died, my image of him keeps being tainted by my moms attempts to comfort me. She told me to understand that he had to force himself to have conversations with me and that he no longer enjoyed them, but that is besides the point right? Her and my older sister are being over secretive and my sister says she isn’t allowed to tell me ANYTHING!!!!
But I know my dad killed himself, I just hope my brothers think it was some big accident and that their Papa would do anything to watch them grow up into fine young men.

Rant

My 6.5 m old seems to hate everything, wants to be held every single moment, fights sleep, wakes up as soon as I try to leave the bed and doesn’t like anything more than 2-3 minutes(not wishing to sleep train) She hates: -being put-down & playing independently -going out in a car seat,carrier,stroller -she cries in the mall or at friends house and wants to sleep with boob in mouth the whole time (but she liked going out as a newborn) -she cries after a few minutes when we want to go for a walk and has to be carried the entire time - started solids, seems to be ok with purees & fruits but hates the feeding chair for more than few minutes -sleep (unless attached to boob at all times) -noisy gatherings which is understandable but why are other babies so chill?
She likes: -boob but is becoming distracted -dad carrying her around everywhere -our adult friends who visit & don’t have kids
That’s about it. I’m so so so tired, frustrated and stressed because I can get nothing done, somehow we manage to cook some meals and I have 0 time for myself (my husband does all that he can after work and he has no time for himself either.) i don’t go out with other mums because I know in 10-15 min she will become cranky & I’ll become stressed (I have hypertension since after giving birth)
She seems to be teething now but this overall has been going on since when she was 4 months.
It’s summer in EU and I see mums doing so many fun things or just being out & about with seeming chill babies. Where did I go wrong? 😭😭😭😭😭

rantover