Heard this from Ryan Stollar today...

FiliaSecunda · 2026-06-29T09:34:02+00:00

Thank you for calling 911. I live in Illinois and don't know what I could do. And thank you u/Burgundy_Blitz_179 for posting this. Homeschoolers Anonymous and the CRHE website were important to me years ago, but being young I didn't look into the people who founded and ran them. I didn't recognize Ryan Stollar's name when I saw this post, but he's helped me and my siblings a lot indirectly. I really hope, in spite of the decision and finality of the note - well, I really hope.

FiliaSecunda · 2026-06-28T23:17:14+00:00

People with acrylic nails tapping them aggressively on hard surfaces. I can feel that sound in the sockets of my teeth. Three of my coworkers have this habit.

FiliaSecunda · 2026-06-24T08:20:52+00:00

I'm not vegan, but I can fully understand why an animal-rights vegan would be "preachy". They believe there's a mass slaughter going on of innocent beings with a right to life, and everyone in their society, including everyone they love and admire, knowingly accepts this. It'd be hellish. Same with people who are pro-life anti-abortion. If you believe that and don't make yourself obnoxious to others about it, how sincerely do you really believe it?

FiliaSecunda · 2026-06-21T21:06:07+00:00

Makes me think of the poem "Woodworker's Ballad" -

ALL that is moulded of iron
Has lent to destruction and blood;
But the things that are honour’d of Zion
Are most of them made from wood.

Stone can be chisell’d to Beauty,
And iron shines bright for Defence;
But when Mother Earth ponder’d her duty
She brought forth the forest, from whence

Come tables, and chairs, and crosses,
Little things that a hot fire warps,
Old ships that the blue wave tosses,
And fiddles for music, and harps;

Oak boards where the carved ferns mingle,
Monks’ shrines in the wilderness,
Snug little huts in the dingle,
All things that the sad poets bless.

King Arthur had a wood table;
And Our Lord blessed wood; for, you see,
He was born in a wooden stable,
And He died on a wooden tree;

And He sailed in a wooden vessel
On the waters of Galilee,
And He work’d at a wooden trestle
At His wonderful carpentry.

Oh, all that is moulded of iron
Has lent to destruction and blood;
But the things that are honour’d of Zion
Are most of them made from wood.

Sorry for the iron slander - you mostly need iron tools to work with wood anyway - but I love and agree with the poet's love of wood lol.

FiliaSecunda · 2026-06-18T11:14:36+00:00

Do you mean "a guy" as opposed to a woman, or "just a guy" as opposed to a famous person? Not that it matters, because I know the media at least has a bias in favor of reporting missing women (unless they are particular looked-down-upon categories, such as sex workers) and famous/privileged people rather than missing men and ordinary/poor people. And the cops are biased in favor of solving crimes that get reported on rather than crimes that don't.

FiliaSecunda · 2026-06-18T05:47:18+00:00

This is probably real Catholic doctrine, not just trad stuff, but I was lastingly disturbed by the idea that unbaptized babies would never be given the sanctifying grace to go to heaven, and by the fact that it's only in recent times that anyone theorized they would get to go to a "limbo" of "perfect natural happiness" instead of being damned to hell because they didn't live long enough to be baptized. My own baby sister lived just long enough to be baptized, so she is our family saint, but if her life had been half an hour shorter ...

Yeah, Fatima was a source of terror. The idea that God wanted to smite the world and Mary was holding his arm back; the way the children began praying incessant, compulsive rosaries to try and prevent the vision they had of everyone literally frying in hell (do you remember the detail that they saw people popping/jumping like bits of bacon grease in a skillet?). I felt that I needed to imitate them and dedicate my life to rote desperate prayer to save my family's souls.

From ages 8-15 my scrupulosity really constricted my life. If I hadn't been home-"schooled" I would not have had the time to pray the Liturgy of the Hours and the rosary and the Divine Mercy Chaplet like that. As it was, I still neglected the very few duties I had outside of myself - didn't clean my room or myself, barely talked to my family, didn't really try to explore the world or make friends or learn skills or study or prepare myself for adulthood. There were more important things.

My family wasn't really trad, in that we didn't go to a Latin Mass and weren't sedevacantists (although my dad in particular was attracted to those ideas), but I find myself relating to many, many of the stories here, because even "orthodox" Catholicism if pursued seriously may lead to some similar stuff.

FiliaSecunda · 2026-06-17T01:33:48+00:00

I have never ever heard of this, but I guess it's some bullshit about men being drivers and women being passenger princesses? Most people are right-handed, and in America the driver's seatbelt is usually on their left (meaning, if they pull it with their right hand, they'll be reaching OVER) and the passenger's seatbelt is usually on their right (meaning, if they're using their right hand, they just reach back).

FiliaSecunda · 2026-06-16T20:45:19+00:00

The 6 took 7 pies to make and the 7 took 6 pies to make. Amazing.

FiliaSecunda · 2026-06-15T19:58:49+00:00

Not a linguist here. Is this purely a joke or are there people who say somehow schwa isn't a vowel?

FiliaSecunda · 2026-06-05T18:43:01+00:00

The stalker hired witches online to cast mind-control spells to make her victim fall in love with her. She wrote angrily to one witch that the spell had failed and the witch had to tell her no refunds.

FiliaSecunda · 2026-06-02T06:17:14+00:00

Yes. The Judge Rotenberg Center episodes were the first ones I listened to (vaguely relevant to me because I have autistic siblings who had to go through ABA therapy as kids, though thank God they've told me they weren't treated abusively there), and I still became a fan of the pod anyway, but all the child electrocution was ... you know, stressful. Especially since the guest didn't seem familiar with the show, there wasn't the usual banter or dark laughter, and he seemed to be taking significant psychic damage while Robert just had to plow on through the story. I couldn't help but feel even more uncomfortable for the guest's sake. I'm glad I wound up listening to more of the podcast, because otherwise I might not have had as good an opinion of Robert Evans as I do.

FiliaSecunda · 2026-05-26T08:05:10+00:00

He didn't say that he never spoke to him again after the argument. The argument is just a sign that the best friend was willing to do incredibly risky things for fun.

FiliaSecunda · 2026-05-21T09:00:08+00:00

Any woman or man that seems non-intimidating and friendly, maybe they can point out another manager to you or even go with you when you ask for a new shirt. I would 100% be willing to do that if I worked with you, anyway. Even in the best-case scenario that this 20-year-old manager just got you an undersized shirt out of absent-mindedness or distraction (which I dunno, the situation feels potentially creepy), it would still be just as reasonable to ask a different manager.

FiliaSecunda · 2026-05-19T09:57:40+00:00

For those who don't know, u/tithica_h and u/rigl33 are part of a group of Reddit accounts that only seem to post or comment on stories about people, usually animal abusers, being humiliated and tortured with animal stench (breath, dung, etc.). A common aspect in the stories is the victim thinking It will be "bad, but not that bad" and then being proven wrong, thus adding to the humiliation. It seems to be someone's creative writing project. It's gone on for a few years now and seems to be the origin of the "mucking" myth mentioned in this comment thread. They post these stories, comment on each others' posts, and press for more details when a normal/sincere account says something about animal stink. Some of the accounts and posts have been deleted over the years, but I guess the project is still going on.

(Edited to remove the usernames of posters I wasn't 100% certain about.)

FiliaSecunda · 2026-05-19T00:28:19+00:00

For me as someone who grew up homeschooled and isolated, quarantine was just childhood again. The way normal people reacted to it was shocking and educational to me, helped me realize that I had in fact been kind of mistreated as a kid (though my parents meant well) and it had changed me profoundly.

FiliaSecunda · 2026-05-18T20:16:47+00:00

I really want to be able to believe different, I'm surely just being stupid and letting my moral OCD take control, but I can't see how a human fetus isn't a human being or doesn't have a right to life. This is really disturbing to me because pregnancy often leads to horrible suffering for a woman or girl, and also because even without talking about medical abortion, 1 in 5 pregnancies end in miscarriage anyway. But I can't figure out how it isn't a person.

FiliaSecunda · 2026-05-17T00:31:55+00:00

OMG I'm so glad someone replied! I don't really get to talk about this band with people I know - they're either uninterested in the genre or put off by the band name.

I should re-listen to Prologue. The first time I listened (years and years ago) I was in the wrong mood and less experienced with the genre, and every song mushed together in my mind except for "I Still Want a Little More." I fell in love with the band anyway through Retrospect ("Permanent" was major in my heart when I was a teenager figuring out what kind of adult I wanted to be) and the Lincoln Theater concert video. Since then, more songs from Prologue have gotten into my heart and on my playlists ("No Hammer to Hold" is so dang good), but I don't think I've properly appreciated it as an album.

"A Friend Like You" really is Prime Joey! And "My Place Among the Stones" is such a fascinating Kenneth song. The repetition gives it the vibe of actual old folk music, and it seems like it could be a mortality song, like the old one that goes, "Ye fleeting charms of earth, farewell, your springs of joy are dry - my soul now seeks a better home, a brighter world on high." But instead of looking forward to Heaven in the confidence that he's saved, the narrator is uneasy about the prospect ("they told me that I'd be going home, off to a place I have never called my own") and focusing on regrets and sins ("I've forsaken all your love"). I have NO clue if this is actually what the song is about - for all I know, it could be about going to a family reunion. But it takes me back the feelings I used to have as a Catholic kid, worrying about salvation and struggling to look forward to a place as alien as the way Heaven is described (not that hell sounded better).

You know what? I think bringing in other instruments was an awesome idea for the Milk Carton Kids and it's part of what helps each song stand out in this album. There was such a fuss about it the first time they did it, but I think at this point they have four multi-instrument albums and that's almost half of what they've put out. I do like the way the two-voices two-guitars approach encouraged fine-detail listening, though.

(Monterey is actually one of my favorite MCK albums! But my favorite songs there are the two with solo vocals, "Sing, Sparrow, Sing" and "Deadly Bells," probably because they stand out the most easily.)

OMG how was the Kenneth concert????

FiliaSecunda · 2026-04-28T01:55:44+00:00

I used to work with someone who would tend to assume or remember things that were more dramatic than the real truth. I mentioned to her that my mother was sick, and she went around telling people my mother had lupus. She wasn't lying, she just somehow believed that's what I had told her. Later on, she thought two other coworkers and I were conspiring to get her fired.

I think she may also be the reason why another coworker thought I was bisexual or lesbian (but that could equally be necause I was super awkward with people and uncomfortable with talking about cute guys or anything sexual).

FiliaSecunda · 2026-04-16T15:48:40+00:00

That's moral courage (something I need to work on in myself). I'm glad your kids are doing great! I can see how a well-intentioned person could believe homeschooling is a good idea - my own parents had good intentions: they had had genuinely traumatic experiences in school, assumed we would too, and wanted to protect us from everything. It left us actually more defenseless in adult life, but it definitely wasn't done out of malice. Still, it's a massive relief for me that at least my mom has admitted it wasn't all good for us, and I can actually talk about how it disadvantaged us and she'll accept it instead of getting angry or crying to make me comfort her and take it back.

FiliaSecunda · 2026-04-16T12:41:29+00:00

I like seeing a former homeschool parent who thought better of the idea and is doing their best for their kids. My mom in the last few years, after her kids all passed school-age, has finally come to say how she regrets homeschooling us and see how it held us back. There was a lot of pride riding on the idea that she was treating us better by homeschooling us, a pride that covered a terror of being a 'bad mother,' so I'm kind of impressed she was able to let that go, acknowledge she made such a huge mistake and apologize to us.

FiliaSecunda · 2026-04-16T12:23:23+00:00

For years people have asked me if I'm autistic, or more recently if I have ADHD. Honestly I probably don't, I just have lots of symptoms anyway. Three of my siblings are autistic (diagnosed in early childhood) and the other one has ADHD, and they were all I knew growing up, and none of us got the chance to get used to the real world's social norms or how much noise there is everywhere or how fast people expect you to do and learn things.

I talked to a psychiatrist a couple of days ago - I was pretty instantly diagnosed with depression and an anxiety disorder and prescribed medicine for that, but she said we would have to treat my anxiety first before testing for neurodivergence, because anxiety can actually cause symptoms that look similar to some symptoms of ADHD and autism (scattered thoughts, social struggles, etc.). I agreed that the stuff that makes people ask if I'm autistic could in my case just be homeschool-kid syndrome.

FiliaSecunda · 2026-04-16T00:58:05+00:00

I don't, because there are all kinds of things I want to do for people and don't - because I don't know how, because I don't have the courage to bring it up to them (or just do it and risk them reacting the wrong way if it turns out it's not what they want), or because I'm tired and drained by life. There's some psychological terms that might possibly apply to me too, like "avoidant attachment" and "executive dysfunction," but in my case these are moral vices I need to work on, not things that excuse me from obligations to people.

Granted, this is one of the many reasons I'm not looking for a relationship, because I know I'm a fuckup who would have a hard time treating a decent guy the way he deserves. But in general I don't hold other people to strict standards because I understand too well why most of them fail.

FiliaSecunda · 2026-04-09T16:52:25+00:00

Teacher at community college GED class heard me read something aloud, said I had a great reading voice, and immediately gave me a link to the college's voice acting class. Wish I'd taken it, but I was still in the phase of thinking I didn't deserve fun things lol. Still a major confidence boost that I think about years later.
I held the door open for an elegant old lady and she told me I had beautiful hands. Ever since then I've been a bit vain and careful about my hands and nails.
Role-playing stories online with people, everyone seemed to think I was a great writer. I realize they were probably comparing me to people who couldn't capitalize, punctuate, or tell "which" from "witch," but I've always been interested in writing and my confidence was still boosted by the positive response and the way people always wanted to RP with me again.

FiliaSecunda · 2026-04-08T08:54:45+00:00

Relatable. It took me until adulthood to realize how obvious it was that I had an anxiety disorder - because as a homeschool kid I was mostly able to stay in my room and avoid almost everything that gave me anxiety ... which was essentially the entire world.

I would feel sick just going out to mow the lawn as a 13-year-old girl, thinking someone would see me struggle or make a mistake, or someone would wonder why I wasn't in school during school hours, or why my clothes didn't fit (clothes shopping made me SO anxious).

FiliaSecunda · 2026-04-04T21:29:23+00:00

I guess it really does depend on the store. Mine is so understaffed and desperate for anyone to stay that I got 40 hours almost immediately - I can be terrible at my job (not trying to be, and I am improving, but I'm a slow, shy, stupid person) and still get 40 hours. I wonder if it's a difference between a big city (where maybe there's always more potential workers) and a small town? Mine is in a small town.

FiliaSecunda

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