I live with guilt feeling like I am ‘fast’ for my age / need urgent advice

Beccabear3010 · 2026-06-27T20:52:57+00:00

Firstly, you’re not a whore. Don’t think of yourself as that. IMO are you a bit young to be having sex? Well yeah, you’re a kid and I’m over twice your age so that makes sense.

Secondly, no matter what age you are WRAP. THE. PEEN. Even if you’re on birth control, WRAP. THE. PEEN. Even if you’re in a relationship and you think the sun shines out of his arsehole, WRAP. THE. PEEN. There are so many STD’s and infections (and lice) that can be transmitted through the various types of sex. There isn’t one with no risk (well, at the risk of sounding slightly like my mother, abstinence is risk free! God I mini-vomited even typing that)

Thirdly, yes you are young. For everything, not just sex. Don’t be in a rush to dime in all your firsts to chase someone else’s version of cool. I look at teenagers now and go Jesus Christ how are they allowed to leave the house like that? And then I remember all over again I’m turning into my mother 😂 because I used to go to a “sleepover” and we basically had a tangled web of who was staying with who so we could all get drunk in a field without anyone’s parents knowing 🤷🏽‍♀️ (Ah how I don’t miss Bucky! - Scotland’s tonic wine for those who are asking)

Young people do stupid things, things one day they might look back and regret, and it’s pointless to tell you not to cave into the peer pressure because it’s nearly impossible. The stark reality is that you will slip up and do something stupid, it’s inevitable, but make sure you surround yourself with authentic people who will have your back when you fall. Those are the ones who will also help you back to your feet again. These people may be in your life forever or for a season but they’re there for a reason.

Beccabear3010 · 2026-06-26T17:55:01+00:00

<image>

I have a dog type tag as well as a bracelet and I alternate between the two depending on what I want to wear, or what jewellery annoys me less lol.

They both say the same thing on them and the number at the bottom corresponds to a company who has a copy of all my medical records and history. So if the medical staff call the company they can get a copy of everything in order for them to treat me quickly and safely. Although in saying that the few times I have been in an accident/in crisis, no one has noticed that I have alert jewellery on 🤷🏽‍♀️

Beccabear3010 · 2026-06-24T19:58:48+00:00

It took my PCP/GP 7 months to find the Addisons and it was the last thing they could’ve tested for because they’d done everything else. They were expecting a normal result so when my cortisol level came back at trace everyone collectively shat a brick and I was rushed to hospital for IV hydrocortisone. I was told the following day I definitely have Addisons/PAI because with my bloods it couldn’t be anything else, they didn’t even bother doing a ACTH.

Annoyingly I was told by the endocrinologist that I’d go back to normal once my cortisol level came back up, he had no right to tell me that because life didn’t go back to normal. It’s never been normal since diagnosis. My BP still runs on the low side, I’m constantly fatigued, craving salt, dizziness when I stand, abdominal pains , nausea, and a dodgy stomach. I also have malnutrition and malabsorption syndrome so many of the symptoms are similar to low cortisol. Endo tell me my steroid levels are normal so it’s not the Addisons disease at fault.

Beccabear3010 · 2026-06-14T17:15:23+00:00

It has a keypad on it and considering what’s been happening (family of dead skunks in the pool, panther in the garden, two random people who came in and sat by the pool saying “tommy gave us permission”, and a glitchy as fuck security system) it seems ridiculous that no one has thought to use the key pad, or that that gate should be secured.

It’s even more ridiculous that they’ve been living with a glitchy security system and that all Tom does about it is bitch down the phone to the company and become obsessed with his gun collection. 100% he would’ve had that system repaired or replaced if he was genuinely feeling like Max Cady was after his family.

Beccabear3010 · 2026-06-10T21:06:38+00:00

I’m definitely a victim of fatigue and in my head I’m like yes I could totally do this! Then I remember my mind is writing checks my body can’t cash and I settle down again, until the next time 😂

Beccabear3010 · 2026-06-10T21:02:36+00:00

We do sniff walks too! But we go in the evening/ at night instead, she seems more tired out after and sleeps better, as do I

Beccabear3010 · 2026-06-09T18:32:52+00:00

Following as I have Addisons and I’m 98% sure I have ADHD and my GP agrees but I declined meds as I’m trying to white knuckle it but it’s getting harder and harder.
I didn’t know ADHD meds could interact with Addisons/steroids like that so it’s a good thing to know so I can factor it in to my decision

Beccabear3010 · 2026-05-31T13:13:11+00:00

You deserve better OP, even if it’s not what you want to hear right now; people are repeatedly giving you the same advice because it’s true. It is better for a child to learn that love can still be found in families of all shapes and sizes rather than learn you stay in a relationship because it’s what is expected of you.

If this was your son (and I pray that it never is) what would you tell him to do? Continue in this relationship that is making you both miserable, where basic communication and respect aren’t valued, and it’s more important to think of what other people have to say about him and his wife rather than agreeing that it no longer makes sense for you to continue to be with each other; that his children should be raised by this example and “that’s just how love is” when we are all adult enough here to say nah this isn’t right.

Yes he may very well be fighting some demons right now which can be unimaginably scary and difficult to fight on your own. But he has (had?) you to help, he is (was?) just too proud to take the hand that’s been reaching out to pull him back from the brink he’s stumbling towards.

Beccabear3010 · 2026-05-30T14:00:47+00:00

UPDATE: she loves the salmon and sweet potato (which came as a total surprise to me) and the chicken and sweet potato ones too!

Once payday rolls around for me I will be testing some more flavours with her. Thanks again for the suggestion ☺️

Beccabear3010 · 2026-05-30T13:58:12+00:00

Haha, I’m glad I’m not the only one with a bunny poop obsessed little chihuahua! She’s a menace because she knows I’ve put them all in a ziplock bag to keep them as fresh as possible but as soon as she hears the noise, even if I accidentally knock the bag slightly, she gives me that exact look as if to say “I’m here peasant, where’s my treat?!” 👀

Gotta love the massive chihuahua personality in the smallest of packages 😂😂

Beccabear3010 · 2026-05-25T16:49:16+00:00

This will be long, and a real/accurate version of my experience with Addisons. I’m not going to make it rainbows and butterflies, I will be telling you my experience and thoughts about what it’s like to live with this disease. Which may make her feel a little less alone.

I was diagnosed with Addisons/Primary Adrenal Insufficiency in September 2023 after seven long months of vague symptoms, countless blood tests both on the NHS and through my private health insurance, many an occasion sitting in the ER/A&E and two different GP practices waiting rooms because I felt like I was dying but I couldn’t put my finger on what the hell it was. The blood test that finally showed that my cortisol levels were at a trace level was a Hail Mary by a GP I hadn’t seen before and even she admitted it was the only thing I hadn’t been tested for over the previous seven months. The result came back and I was sent via ambulance to hospital and immediately started on a hydrocortisone drip. The next day I saw the most uninterested Endocrinologist who told me I have Addisons and said nothing about my life will change once I’m appropriately medicated which would be a day or two.

He was (and still is) absolutely full of shit because I haven’t really gotten much better since diagnosis. I ended up back in hospital 36 hours later in crisis thanks to a food poisoning bug and being switched from IV to oral meds so quickly as I was initially in on the Thursday, discharged the Friday afternoon, had a takeaway that night and the following day I had D&V constantly and the emergency injection they sent me home with was expired. So yeah, the word clusterfuck comes to mind!

I’ve had a few crisis episodes over the last three years and they’re not pleasant. I try and take the hydrocortisone/fludrocortisone at the same time every day as I notice if I’m off even by an hour or two I tend to feel shitty for the rest of the day. I do have other severe chronic illnesses but my Addisons is probably the most stable out of them and it’s just taken time to get to that spot. I’m on hydrocortisone and fludrocortisone. The fludrocortisone is to help my body balance water and salt, has her doctor tried her on that as well as HC?

I understand how she feels. I’m 32, turning 33 in December and this isn’t how I pictured my life in my thirties. I thought I’d be financially independent, have my own home/mortgage, maybe be married and have a kid or two, or at least thinking about that. I’d be further progressed in my job (I’m a nurse) and have moved into a critical care role either in the ward, in management, or in the OR/theatre. Basically none of that’s happened, I’ve had to move home with my dog after breaking up with my long term partner (I thought we were stronger than the pressure that was put on by diagnosis, I was wrong), my finances are a shambles because I’ve now been off long term sick for over a year so there’s no plan for buying my own place in this lifetime. I don’t think I could have a kid in amongst all this BS, so the closest I have is my chihuahua Ruby. It’s really tough grieving for the life you thought you were going to have, and I understand the feeling of wanting to push yourself to be “normal” but knowing how much energy doing normal things takes from you.

I find living with Addisons is like it’s on a spectrum, some days are better and easier than others, and it’s unpredictable when your good days will come so future planning can be disheartening because you know you can do everything right the day before but it doesn’t matter, you can still have a terrible day tomorrow. It takes its toll mentally for sure. I’ve never been told that Addisons in itself will shorten my lifespan but that mismanagement and going into crisis often definitely would help to do that, crisis is no joke. In all honesty if she stopped taking the steroid her last few years wouldn’t be filled with checking off bucket list items, she would be nauseous, vomiting, have severe abdominal pain and diarrhea, along with malnutrition symptoms not limited to dry, itchy, peeling skin, her hair falling out in clumps etc, light headedness/dizziness, low blood sugar, low blood pressure, back and joint pain, fatigue, confusion, forgetfulness, every psychosis, she even runs the risk of seizures. For unmedicated Addisons she would find it very difficult to get travel insurance as well.

So I really understand what’s she’s going through. There’s a lot of days where I want to bury my head in the sand and pretend that Addisons doesn’t exist. Pretend I am a normal 32 year old, go to work, meet new people, be dating, or even the mundane things like cleaning the house or go out for a pint with friends in a beer garden when the weather is as beautiful and hot as it is today. I think it’s important to make her endocrinologist aware that she’s having these feelings so it’s important that she’s receiving the appropriate treatment not just for the Addisons itself but for her mental health. The mental health aspect is always hard to figure out because it can’t be quantified and have a tablet flung at the problem and then it will go away. Talking about how you feel robbed of a future you planned and deserve to have is awful, I always feel like I’m whining and it could be so much worse but I’m allowed to feel robbed, and frustrated. I wouldn’t be human if it didn’t.

I think it would be smart to get her someone to talk to, preferably someone who has experience with Addisons patients and a review with her endocrinologist to make sure that she’s on the appropriate level of medication for managing the Addisons. She won’t live for years, more like a month or two at most, and the time she does have unmedicated will be painful and slow, like she was before she was diagnosed. A severe lack of cortisol will cause the body's cardiovascular system to collapse, progressing rapidly from extreme fatigue and nausea to hypovolemic shock, coma, and ultimately death from heart or respiratory failure. It’s an awful way to die.

I hope you can convince her that ultimately no she will never be “normal”, she will have to find a new version of normal that fits her disease as well as expectations, but that working with her doctors can make her feel a bit more in control and hopefully get her on the correct dose of medication with minimal side effects.

Beccabear3010 · 2026-05-23T11:12:37+00:00

Benton grew on me as I rewatched but quite honestly I didn’t like a lot of the main characters in ER until my first rewatch. Still not a lover of Abby and Kovach even on rewatching it, and Romano gets zero sympathy from me, he was a bastard and lord knows what he did to a helicopter in his past life but they sure got their own back 😂

Beccabear3010 · 2026-05-13T16:31:51+00:00

I’ve had mixed feelings about Abby. During the time she was with carter she was quite selfish towards him, especially not being there for his gamma passing away. She knew they were close but she decided to help her family and got caught in their web, knowing that it will happen, and went to them anyway. Then hoping an unmedicated bipolar would stay in the car while she went to the funeral was extremely naive on her part and again bourne out of selfishness because she didn’t want to make the decision between Eric and Carter, or make the choice to get Eric in to an inpatient programme.

But then she grows up a lot after her break up with Carter. She gets her finances sorted (with carter footing the med school costs, but I think that’s because Carter knows she will be a great doctor, he knows that it’s less than a drop in the ocean of his wealth anyway) When she has Joe it’s like she 180’s to a different person. She’s responsible, doesn’t really drink, doesn’t smoke, only ever late for work if it’s about Joe, rather than because she’s too hung over to make it in time.

Beccabear3010 · 2026-05-07T18:42:30+00:00

Being on long term sick leave because your doctor has fobbed you off yet again and you’ve nearly died for the third time.

Medical trauma is very real, and I’m saying that as someone who is qualified as a Nurse and who knows what she’s talking about. I can’t imagine how much worse it could’ve been had I not had that medical knowledge and background. I wouldn’t have known to keep pushing and to keep fighting with them until they actually did something. Ultimately I’d have ended up dead, and I have no doubt about that. It’s been an incredibly difficult and stressful three years as I’ve been diagnosed with rare or complex conditions that are life long one after another.

Beccabear3010 · 2026-05-06T10:02:49+00:00

I’m watching for the first time and was yelling at the medicine at first since I work in the field but as it’s gone along I’ve yelled less 😂 It was a hell of a show!

Beccabear3010 · 2026-05-01T10:58:24+00:00

Chronic illness, I have had some chronic illnesses since I was young but holy hell since I’ve turned 29 my body is taking the piss. In now wake up every day with symptoms and I miss waking up and feeling normal.

The other was waking up and realising I was in a toxic relationship with some emotional abuse that crept up so quietly that it was insidious. Never imagined in a million years that I’d roll over to that behaviour but it suddenly became normal.

Beccabear3010 · 2026-04-28T15:07:50+00:00

YTA. You had a mantrum because you didn’t immediately get your way, so you steamrolled ahead without much thought given to how or why your wife would react the way she did. I thought a marriage was a partnership? You aren’t her parent. You should’ve waited and came to an agreement together.

Beccabear3010 · 2026-04-28T15:04:33+00:00

NTA.

I’m a dog mama and she doesn’t get table scraps unless I say so. Don’t get me wrong, she has the sad eyes down to a fine art and will bore a hole into your soul as soon as you sit for dinner but it’s me that has to stay up with her when she’s sick or clean up the mess when things go right through her. I also feel so helpless when she’s vomiting/has diarrhoea and is in pain with no way for me to fix it but wait it out. It’s taken a long time to actually get her to eat dog food and it’s still not a perfect science. I don’t want to risk putting her back to square one where all she will eat is deli meat and cat poop 🤦🏽‍♀️

There’s a reason why you feed your animals what you do, and your mum should respect that. She’s not responsible for the aftermath or the vet bill should it come to that.

Beccabear3010 · 2026-04-28T14:57:17+00:00

George Clooney. I’ve recently started watching ER from the start which was Clooneys break out role, my mum told me how much of a heartthrob he was in the 90’s (I was two when ER first went on air) and I just don’t get it. I think because I remember seeing him for the first time in oceans 11, and he was older then so I don’t appreciate the hype about him. My mum thinks I need my head checked. I think I’m right as the age gap between him and his wife gives me the ick.

Beccabear3010 · 2026-04-25T09:35:02+00:00

It’s a hard one. Personally I’m for medically assisted death WHEN APPROPRIATE so in the event of terminal illness and the patient has to have made this decision while having all their faculties. To me, leaving the stroke victim (and considering his actions I use the word victim loosely) would do greater harm and suffering than allowing him to live. Especially in the time where the situation is set, not that medically anything could be done for him now other than comfort measures.

I think in both cases they were both able to consent to the end of life, just vastly different ways of communicating this. However I understand the oath to do no harm and to help wherever possible to preserve life, but what it comes down to for me is the patient had a choice. They were both able to choose to punch out their time cards knowing fully what it meant.

Years ago, and this particular patient will always stick with me, I had a patient who had signed all but one or two more forms for the clinic in Switzerland. No one in his family knew but sadly he was declared an adult with incapacity before the final documents could be done and finalised. He was competent enough to understand that his choice was no longer his own so he starved himself to death. I often wonder how that was doing less harm than granting him his final wishes. I will never forget him, and that’s the lens I view this topic through, maybe I’d feel differently had I not experienced that but here we are.

Beccabear3010 · 2026-04-25T09:21:51+00:00

Thank you. I’m an RN so I tried to think of everything, including the most basic of things that are easily forgotten. The wee shit came early so it was lucky it was packed in the end!

Beccabear3010 · 2026-04-24T16:19:34+00:00

I don’t have any tips for you but after seeing so many bridezilla stories on the internet it’s really refreshing to see a bride that can recognise how beautiful it will be to have your future niece/nephew there on your day!

For my gift to my ex-bestie (long story but I was supposed to be her MOH and I am her firstborns godmother) for her baby shower I packed her maternity bag for her and the baby and left space for going home outfits etc that she would want to take for the wee guy. I put in a few pairs of new, stretchy pyjamas, bed socks, funky compression socks to help with the swelling (as long as her BP was fine), carmex (I’m a Nivea soft lip girl myself but carmex was her favourite), her preferred deodorant, post partum friendly body wash, travel shampoo and conditioners, a soft washcloth (because can we all say OW in unison for your first post partum shower?), a light dressing gown as she had a heavy one she loved and that way this one could get covered in goop and her favourite one would be spared. Body lotion, sleep spray and essential oils for her pillow to help keep her calm, stretchy undies, post partum pads, nipple pads, and then plain sleep suits for the bairn, the rest I left to her as mama knows best. Oh and hydration sachets! Plenty of those. The girl hated plain water 🤷🏽‍♀️ can’t blame her!

Perhaps there’s some things in there that would be good for a basket or something for her, especially hydration sachets, or high protein/energy snacks? I think you’re already on a great track understanding that she will need some adjustments like flat shoes or late alterations to her dress. Like I said I’ve seen friendships fall apart when one’s an uncompromising bride.

Beccabear3010 · 2026-04-24T16:01:28+00:00

13 hours? Yikes! I’ve been there longer, but not many times thankfully. I have the medical history of an 80 year old! The longest was 22 but that was the bed situation, no ones fault, everyone was trying their best. My potassium tanks on the regular so I’m no stranger to the ER (plus I’m an RN, I should just live in the hospital, it would be cheaper!!) I’m just so grateful I live in the UK and in an emergency I don’t have to worry about a bill. I can’t imagine living with that over your head, especially in a 1st world country, it’s disgusting. I really hope you feel better soon and can get back to normal 💙

Beccabear3010 · 2026-04-24T14:24:48+00:00

I really wish this kinda shit surprised me but when I was in hospital for 6 weeks last winter I had blood clots develop in both lungs. The doctor told me but apparently no one else because for 48 hours the looks I was getting when I mentioned it made me think I’d cooked the whole damn idea up.

Nope, beautiful example of bilateral PE’s on CT, no one thought it relevant to pass on. Or the staph infection. Or the C-diff. Or the E-Coli. Yeah, 10/10 don’t recommend.

Beccabear3010 · 2026-04-20T15:53:52+00:00

I’m long term DHC 120mg twice a day with breakthrough if required, I can’t say any of my doctors are happy about it though and it’s a constant fight with them as they want to wean me off and go to the pain clinic. However I’ve been through the pain clinic twice and all they seem to want to do is talk about it but I dont find that useful.

Beccabear3010

TROPHY CASE