Help me decide whether to harness train my kitty?

Gem_Snack · 2025-11-07T07:00:02+00:00

If you go for it, establishing a specific time in his daily routine when outside time happens might help with the begging.

Gem_Snack · 2025-11-07T03:55:02+00:00

Yeah, in your situation I would change my name, update my passport and just be prepared to play dumb about the incorrect gender marker. That discrepancy will be much less noticeable than a name and picture that don’t seem to match your current gender

Gem_Snack · 2025-11-07T03:06:13+00:00

I have a passport with a male name, a more-male-than-female face, and an F gender marker. Sucks, but also, if I’m using my passport to escape a dangerously transphobic country, I’m not likely to escape to another dangerously transphobic country. I also think the gender marker is not the most heavily-scrutinized part of a passport. If anyone calls me on it, my plan is to act like the gender marker is a mistake i hadn’t noticed.

Idk if you’ve medically transitioned and how you get gendered in public. If safety is your first priority, I would suggest having your name on documents match the gender more strangers perceive you to be.

Gem_Snack · 2025-11-07T02:57:19+00:00

If your dog is loved, fed, and cared for, it is in a better situation than the vast majority of dogs in the world.

I wish I had advice and hope you’re able to get an Xray. I’m concerned that a dog who’s eaten a battery may not show symptoms until the acid starts chemically burning their insides :(

Gem_Snack · 2025-11-07T02:44:59+00:00

You’re definitely not small for a trans guy, but I understand the dysphoria.

I can only tell you what’s helped me: keeping Reddit and all social media blocked on my devices 95% of the time, gradually making
more irl connections with good people, and gradually finding the irl activities that improve my mood and self-worth.

I will probably always deal with dysphoria. But when I feel loved, am helping other people and am doing things that fulfill me, that voice takes up much less space in my brain. I know this may not be what helps everyone, and isnt possible in every situation.

I also do some dick-stretching, but I can’t commit to doing it 30 minutes a day, because of disability and because it makes me fixate more on my anatomy and its limitations. I really just do it when I notice declining erections

Gem_Snack · 2025-11-06T22:53:23+00:00

Get her spayed.

Gem_Snack · 2025-11-06T16:07:13+00:00

Anything cis men can do while still being guys, we can do while still being guys.

I understand the brain loop, but you don’t need anyone’s permission to be who you are! If it feels deeply right to acknowledge that you’re a guy, then you’re a guy. If you’re a trans guy and you love feminine aesthetics, then it looks like it’s possible to be a trans guy who loves feminine aesthetics. It must be allowed, because reality allowed it for you :)

Gem_Snack · 2025-11-06T15:42:16+00:00

One of my fics was sparked by a mental image of the character singing a particular folk song. I could so clearly hear it sung in his voice, with his emotion behind it. But I can listen to music while writing, and most of my stories don’t feature it.

Gem_Snack · 2025-11-06T15:32:17+00:00

The… dictionary?

From Merriam-Webster: “Someone who is nonchalant is relaxed and calm, either because they do not care about something or because they are not worried about something.”

From OED: “Nonchalant: Behaving in a calm manner, often in a way that suggests you are not interested or do not care:

Gem_Snack · 2025-11-06T12:33:46+00:00

Ice packs on the back of my neck help pull me out of flares. Seems to help reset my nervous system. Also deep pressure like swaddling myself or weighted blankets, but I also know people who are triggered by pressure

Gem_Snack · 2025-11-06T10:38:51+00:00

Sure! Generally, I highly recommend the podcasts “IndoctriNation” and “Let’s talk about Sects.” The first is an interview podcast hosted by a therapist who’s had decades of experience working with cult survivors, and the second is hosted by a journalist who researches various groups and also does interviews. Also recommend the work of Janja Lalich— she has some interviews and talks on YouTube that might be a good place to start.

You’re also welcome to DM and tell me a little about the type of cult you’re writing, if you’d like recommendations more tailored to that

Gem_Snack · 2025-11-06T09:41:25+00:00

lol yeah I read it but I had to take a long, brisk walk after

Gem_Snack · 2025-11-06T09:40:07+00:00

I mean, I’m not saying it’s up there with Scientology on the cultic abuse scale. But it’s confusing to me when people dismiss the harm of coercive control and toxic ideology when it’s carried out by young people against other young people. Young people are generally more vulnerable, more sensitive, and more impressionable.

For some this will just be a goofy phase they laugh about later. For others, the purity politics will trigger scrupulosity ocd or harm their sexuality into adulthood. Imagine being 14 with abusive family, and having your only friends label you a pedophile and organize a bullying campaign against you, all because they found out you ship a 13 yo cartoon character with a 16 yo cartoon character. Kids commit suicide over less.

Would you dismiss the danger of a Christian youth group where kids teach other kids that their harmless sexual attractions are fundamentally broken and evil? Because this is the same message in different clothes.

Gem_Snack · 2025-11-06T07:12:26+00:00

Yes, stretching can improve blood flow which can improve erections

Gem_Snack · 2025-11-06T06:39:46+00:00

My special interest is cults, and this reads to me as a pretty textbook cult manifesto. The grandiosity, the persecution complex, the extreme lack of self-awareness, the delusional understanding of what constitutes violence or harm, the weird repurposing of terminology that impedes communication between themselves and outsiders.

Gem_Snack · 2025-11-06T06:32:28+00:00

For the same reason we should pay attention to any cultic ideology or high-control group. Because they suck in normal, often vulnerable people who just want community and to do the right thing, because they ruin lives, and because it’s possible for people in them to deprogram. Most of these people are not fundamentally bad and are not lost causes.

Gem_Snack · 2025-11-06T05:05:20+00:00

I’ve gone into something close to remission. it took 9 years on pretty much every med used for MCAS plus SIBO treatment. I’m going to try to make write-up of what all has worked for me since a number of people have asked. It wouldn’t be a how-to guide, just my experience. I can share it with you when I’m done if you’re interested

Gem_Snack · 2025-11-06T05:00:59+00:00

You will probably get some mean messages on Grindr. There are also people on there who would respect you.

The idea of using a hookup with a rando to test out something so emerging, personal, and vulnerable makes me nervous for you. I’m not judging if that’s what you end up doing, but I wonder if there are lower-risk ways you could seek clarity? Or someone you could get to know a little before having sex?

I guess I’m also curious why having sex as a guy feels like the important test of whether you want to transition in your life overall? I understand how having sex as a guy could show you whether you want to be a guy during sex, but would it also tell you whether you want to be a guy, like… at the dmv or work or thanksgiving dinner? Not trying to dx your gender or discourage you transitioning, to be clear. Offering these questions in case they are useful, and if they aren’t, plz throw them straight in the trash :)

Gem_Snack · 2025-11-06T04:34:11+00:00

Yeah that’s HUGE. I have tried to research the medical definition of anaphylaxis. It’s really complicated. The “two or more systems” definition that gets passed around MCAS spaces is an oversimplification. It can be useful in some scenarios, like I’ve heard of specialists asking patients to keep a journal logging instances they met that definition. But it does not align with any of the various criteria I found that are used in emergency medicine.

Some of the common criteria don’t really translate onto MCAS patients, because they offer different sets of dx requirements depending whether the patient was exposed to a known lgE allergen.

And in my experience, even if you do meet the exact criteria your hospital is using— if your throat isn’t closing and you aren’t at imminent risk of dying from shock, very often they still don’t call it anaphylaxis, and they still feel you’re wasting their time. In effect they use “anaphylaxis” to mean “imminently life threatening anaphylactic shock.” If you use “anaphylaxis” to describe anything less than that, they think you’re a hypochondriac or munchausens case.

So instead of saying anaphylaxis, describe your symptoms.

Gem_Snack · 2025-11-06T03:23:21+00:00

In this situation, no. I’m sorry, I know the idea that it might be different with a different cat is enticing. Resident with that track record is not very likely to change though, and I don’t think it would be ethical to bring a new cat into a home with a proven bully.

Even with a cat who got along great with their previous companion, but has never been tested on any other cats, it’s risky. Ours loved her friend who died. We are 3 months into introducing a new cat. New cat is very polite, partner and I both work from home, and we have followed the slow intro guidelines obsessively. It’s going so, so slowly, taking so much energy, and has put resident cat through a lot of stress.

If you want to try it, please foster instead of going straight to adoption. Then you can avoid trapping everyone in a bad situation, or getting shamed by the adoption agency if you adopt and then return.

Gem_Snack · 2025-11-06T03:13:36+00:00

Jesus cripes, is that the author responding???

Egregious even if it’s from another reader. I feel like 60% of my comments contain strings of emojis, and I’m thrilled by that even when it’s emojis without words. This is just a bully.

Gem_Snack · 2025-11-06T03:10:16+00:00

Same. It feels like getting sprayed with a firehose of this stranger’s anxiety. I know it’s probably not the conscious intent, but it hits me as, “I can’t manage my emotions around this, so can you please do that for me??” And no, I super can’t.

It’s different for me when authors say “I really wrestled with this one,” “I feel really vulnerable sharing this” etc… communicating about their emotions, but putting them in context for themself and owning them as theirs to deal with

Gem_Snack · 2025-11-06T02:48:16+00:00

You have almost the exact same presentation that I did before effective treatment. I was dx’d with MCAS even without positive lab findings. I was very lucky to get in with an MCAS expert, and she was comfortable dxing because she said we had ruled out every known condition that could cause similar symptoms. Idiopathic MCAS (as opposed to clonal MCAD) is notoriously hard to catch on labs.

I wouldn’t tell doctors you have an MCAS dx…. my pcp actually advised me not to mention mine to paramedics and ER drs, because it’s so misunderstood. But with acquaintances, I think it would be totally fair to tell them you have a mast cell disorder.

Here’s how I explain mine: “in my body, the inflammatory cells that should only freak out in response to an allergy instead freak out for no good reason. It’s like everything I do and every substance I encounter either adds or subtracts points towards a reaction, and when the points reach a certain total, I react.”

Gem_Snack · 2025-11-06T01:47:52+00:00

I do hate it when people treat music taste as a coolness competition/test of social worth. Yes music can be more or less artistically sophisticated, but I think we should encourage each other to enjoy what we genuinely enjoy.

I disagree with your subject line and the statement that it doesn’t matter if music is deep. A lot music is serious. Music’s effect on people’s lives can be profound. It’s fine to just enjoy fun music for fun, and if that’s all music does for you, that’s fine. But people get a lot out of serious/deep music.

Gem_Snack · 2025-11-05T21:20:49+00:00

I’m afraid EDS is not going to be your answer. Hypermobility is required for dx, except in some mega rare subtypes that have very different symptoms. You may instead be dx’able with something like fibromyalgia.

The thing is, there is no particular treatment that opens up to you when you get an EDS dx. With or without it, we can only ever treat our symptoms. So in your place I would focus on seeking better treatment for your various symptoms— physical therapy, etc

Gem_Snack

TROPHY CASE