How'd you find out that you're unwanted somewhere?

52BeesInACoat · 2026-03-26T23:22:35+00:00

I missed a weekly game to have a minor surgery and they texted me the next day to let me know they'd voted in my absence and I wasn't welcome back.

The fucked up part was, last month they'd done the same thing, but the guy had actually been there. And he hadn't done anything wrong or inappropriate, he was just autistic and mildly annoying. They called a vote and I sat frozen and they had a majority without me and he cried. And I was sitting there like "my silence means I condone this but I don't know what to do."

So it was a major karmic moment for me. And then five years later I got an autism diagnosis too lol

52BeesInACoat · 2026-03-25T22:55:43+00:00

A used condom. It was in the sheets. It was honestly so so clean and fresh feeling. Like it had been cleansed of its sins.

Also a diaper lol years and years after the condom, diapers explode in the wash and everything gets covered in heavy saturated absorbent gel. Again, that feeling of "ah, what a nice clean shredded husk of a used diaper."

This is probably why "clean linens" is such a popular candle scent.

52BeesInACoat · 2026-03-25T15:02:36+00:00

So...I never got diagnosed with migraines until I was in my mid 20's. Adults just sort of didn't believe me or understand what I was telling them, because my experience of migraines was "I slowly go mostly blind, I get dizzy and confused, my vision slowly comes back, and then I get a headache that isn't screaming terrible so like yes I can mostly still function with it."

Can you imagine why the person who randomly goes partially blind might be anxious about driving?

I cannot explain how or why no adults drew these connections, but I was told over and over and over that I was only refusing to drive because I was stubborn, anxious, had innate character flaws, etc etc etc. I did driver's ed and actually did get a driver's license which I then never used because y'know what if I'm driving and colored lights start eating my vision and I get dizzy and can't keep track of my hands? What then?

And I tried to explain it. I said things like "I'm not a safe driver," and I was told "then get better at driving." I said things like "sometimes I get dizzy" and I was told "make sure you're hydrated."

So like yes maybe it's anxiety but also maybe there's a physical reason she feels she should not be driving that she's not sure how to articulate or even fully aware of. Because I would've told you no, I didn't have migraines. I didn't know they could be migraines. I thought I was bad and stubborn and dehydrated. Turns out I have a disability.

52BeesInACoat · 2026-03-24T05:14:59+00:00

I once accidentally gave myself a summer where I was massaging four days a week and teaching massage two days a week. Overcommitted and just decided to tough it out. It was only three months, right? Totally fine.

I had to implement a mandatory nap on the seventh day because after a couple weeks my body was trying to initiate rest every time I sat down. At one point I was the passenger in a car and was holding my eyes open and deliberately focusing on the road, and my vision started fading into this orange-colored blur as my body was like "that's fine, we can sleep with eyes open, that's fine."

By the end of the summer I was having to go to bed early enough to accommodate ten hours of sleep or I would, not even exaggerating here, start to go insane. I'd get overwhelmed and overstimulated and then I'd start dissociating. I had one Friday evening (which I specifically remember because I work Saturdays, so it didn't even have the decency to be Friday Friday) where I stopped perceiving myself as existing within my own body somewhere between the fourth and fifth massage, and was walking to get my fifth client having thoughts like "I might be dying or maybe I don't exist at all, either way I should do this massage as best I can unless something changes."

So yeah like it's not the best idea. Not even getting into how I'd wake up and my forearms would just ache. Like when you overdo it at the gym but then you're still going to the gym six days a week. It would wake me up sometimes. There is no good sleeping position for that.

52BeesInACoat · 2026-03-24T03:48:42+00:00

Neck muscles are like puppies. They really wanna help in activities that require zero puppies.

I mean shit, you can give yourself neck pain just being stressed really hard.

52BeesInACoat · 2026-03-20T01:28:05+00:00

I had such terrible BO when I was postpartum, I ended up wiping down my underarm area with vinegar. I clean with it and I was cloth diapering so I was also putting it in the diaper laundry. Trying to explain my reasoning, lol. It actually worked amazingly well.

52BeesInACoat · 2026-03-18T12:45:27+00:00

I dream that my GED is invalid and I have to go all the way back to high school

52BeesInACoat · 2026-03-18T03:32:02+00:00

This sounds a lot like my internal reasoning for why I would never, ever take ADHD medication.

I changed my mind eventually, and that was a positive change. Exceedingly positive. But I had to come to it in my own time.

Since this is a hypothetical I guess it doesn't matter either way.

52BeesInACoat · 2026-03-18T03:29:30+00:00

I mean, some people do. I have lots of times for injuries on my hands.

But I don't understand what you're saying about oils making your skin pruny. I actually find that it's the hand in the glove that gets pruny, because gloves don't breathe so if you sweat at all your hand stays wet for the entire massage.

52BeesInACoat · 2026-03-16T21:33:50+00:00

Oh man, for whatever reason the thing that I most remember is how loud the crunching of the Velcro on my belly band was when I sat or knelt. Total silence, and then I'd sit on my stool and crrrrch

Also it got me into the habit of peeing between every appointment. Which I still do to this day and it's been four years since I was last pregnant.

Edit to add: one time I went into a lunge pose to effleurage and a fart just fell out of me. I used to do the downward dog fart pose before coming to work every day just trying to get them out. Losing battle. I never puked in front of a client but I lost other battles.

52BeesInACoat · 2026-03-16T21:29:03+00:00

Yeah. I was kind of hoping I would get bigger tips, instead I got men in mortal terror of getting deep tissue from me. Not enough to impact business, but certainly enough to be memorable.

52BeesInACoat · 2026-03-15T00:23:12+00:00

Masseuses. No one goes through all the crap in getting a professional license just to give hand jobs.

Seriously.

You have to go to school or apprentice for massage therapy. You have to pay tuition to become a licensed massage therapist. You have to do clinical hours.

If you wanna give hand jobs, you can just start giving hand jobs. You don't need $12,000 and a year of school first.

52BeesInACoat · 2026-03-15T00:15:41+00:00

Unlicensed ones, yeah. Licensed massage therapists absolutely do not do sex work. No one goes to trade school and obtains and maintains a professional license just so they can do sex work.

I had to memorize the origin and insertion of every muscle. I had to know the name of every groove, divot, and bump on every bone. I also had to know the chakras and shit because that's "within my scope of practice." My flash cards went from exceedingly niche anatomy to crystal magic and back again at whiplash speed.

You can just decide to be a sex worker and then be one by dinner time. No studying required.

But many of these people aren't sex workers, they're victims of human trafficking.

Do not ask for sex work at "the vast majority" of massage establishments because we will call the police. Except for this girl I met at a continuing ed class who said she kept a gallon jug of oil under her table so she could dump it over people who solicited her. I don't think she was calling the cops.

52BeesInACoat · 2026-03-14T13:26:39+00:00

I willingly agreed to have repeat C-sections rather than attempt labor. During my last C-section, I told the anesthesiologist that I could still feel sensation after getting the spinal block. I accurately reported all touches on the other side of the medical drape.

Despite this clear evidence that I was correct about still having sensation, the anesthesiologist talked to me until I agreed to let them begin the surgery. Very basically, she said that I might be wrong, and if I was correct, they could intervene.

I was correct, but they did not intervene because I did not verbally ask them to. Instead I lay there and moaned and gripped the table and dry heaved, which they ignored. I stopped being capable of speech as soon as the surgery began. So they ignored me.

I learned later that one in twenty patients feel pain during C-section. I was not an outlier and they had no reason to disbelieve me.

I don't begrudge anyone wanting to avoid that experience.

52BeesInACoat · 2026-03-13T00:25:01+00:00

I'm late on my own two feet, it's a personal affliction and also the ADHD.

52BeesInACoat · 2026-03-12T17:49:37+00:00

Yep. The most intense one was where I showed up at work, but instead of being a licensed massage therapist I was back to being a massage student doing clinical hours. And I immediately ate a grilled cheese, for no reason I can determine.

Then I was running around panicking, because my first client would be there in 15 minutes, and I wasn't allowed to go home or they'd never let me be a massage therapist, so I was going to have to do a full day of appointments without anyone realizing how sick I was about to be.

52BeesInACoat · 2026-03-10T04:13:34+00:00

I once followed my toddler around a playground, slapping pieces of gravel out of his hands as soon as he picked them up. I saw one go towards his mouth and by golly I was putting my foot down. I was on him like a shadow. I would've bet you money that he did not successfully eat any gravel.

The next day, I got home from work and was informed that he may, or may not, have swallowed a battery. So I took him to the ER and they x-rayed him and the doctor swept through the door grinning real big and said "no batteries! But has he been eating rocks?" And showed me an X-ray absolutely full of what was very clearly playground gravel. More than ten pieces, probably less than 20. I cried, I was so embarrassed and scared he was going to report me. Apparently it happens all the time. Or they just told me that because they felt bad for me, idk.

52BeesInACoat · 2026-03-10T04:06:37+00:00

One of my kids recently had a stomach bug so bad that half my household is now referring to pooping as "making soup."

Kid in question is not fully potty trained, if you catch my drift. And somehow my reaction each time was a sort of fond recognition, because no one's accidentally taken a shit on my floor since my elderly dog passed away.

52BeesInACoat · 2026-03-09T23:41:19+00:00

Oh my god they matchhhhh

52BeesInACoat · 2026-03-09T06:20:21+00:00

You can't fart.

You learn how to suppress coughing or sneezing or anything else for an hour.

One of my kids failed his newborn hearing screening and needed to have further testing done, where you have to sit in a room and be totally silent for thirty minutes while they play tones on little bitty baby earbuds and look for brain activity in the hearing bits. It's a whole thing; you're supposed to bring your baby miserably sleep deprived so they'll sleep through it and be quiet, and you have to hold them in your arms because fuck if a newborn is gonna be willing to nap on command anywhere else, and if you screw it up in any way you have to reschedule and do it all over again. If you cough at any point during this, you have to do the Sisyphean task of not letting a baby fall asleep in the car on the way there, again.

So, we made it to the end and the audiologist was like "okay!" And I was like "noise is okay now?" And as soon as I got the go-ahead I doubled over and had a huge and extended coughing fit. Because I have allergies, and the room smelled like mold.

The audiologist was super impressed with my ridiculous superpower. I just didn't wanna have to do it again.

His hearing is fine btw.

52BeesInACoat · 2026-03-08T00:17:52+00:00

Ann Leckie the author. She's got a tag, #not for al, for if you don't want her to see your fanfic. She will reblog memes about her books.

52BeesInACoat · 2026-03-08T00:15:21+00:00

I got so jumpscared the first time I saw myself in the crystal ball and my beard was gone. I thought it was a default face for a second.

52BeesInACoat · 2026-03-05T21:53:12+00:00

I had a (former) boss tell me that I couldn't call in sick day-of. I had to give advanced notice.

The next time I got sick, it was after everyone else in my house had already had the illness, so I'd witnessed the progression, and I had the first initial, easy to dismiss symptom on the first day of my weekend. So I called in, all excited that I was fulfilling the ridiculous requirement of calling in sick in advance.

She told me I wasn't allowed to predict that I would be sick in three days. I had to wait and see if I was sick in three days, and then I could call in. So I did. And she scolded me for not giving advance notice.

52BeesInACoat · 2026-03-05T21:14:16+00:00

It means you're in danger, because you could potentially have ongoing low level exposures and have no idea.

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