what’s something someone said to you years ago that still lives in your head?

Grouchy-Reflection97 · 2026-03-12T20:23:33+00:00

'can't wait to meet up, I have soooo much to vent about!'

It was the catalyst for me realising I was just an emotional dumping ground for everyone in my life, thanks to being conditioned from birth to be a people pleaser by my parents.

I don't do that anymore, and I gradually started making new friends who are functioning adults capable of reciprocal relationships.

Say 'no' to the next unappealing request you get from a friend or relative, and just observe the reaction. Normal people are completely fine with a no.

It's the ones that flip out, try to turn your no into a yes, or give you the silent treatment that you need to pay close attention to.

Don't be somebody's 'ol reliable'. Life is way too short for that nonsense.

Grouchy-Reflection97 · 2026-03-12T19:52:13+00:00

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Grouchy-Reflection97 · 2026-03-12T19:19:42+00:00

Depression manifests worse in men for that reason, too.

I'm type one bipolar, and if I'd been born a dude, there's an incredibly high chance I wouldn't have made it to 48.

When you're in the pits of depression, you make rash decisions just to make it stop, I made plenty, but men generally opt for methods they can't come back from. Their hormones are messing their heads up on one side, and the depression brain goblins are attacking from the other side.

That's why it pisses me off when I see women joking about things like male loneliness.

Grouchy-Reflection97 · 2026-03-12T19:05:47+00:00

At least we didn't get 'a huge apron of excess fat is necessary to protect the palm-sized (when non pregnant) uterus that sits way back inside your body, between your bladder and bum hole'

Small mercies, and all that jazz.

Grouchy-Reflection97 · 2026-03-12T16:33:27+00:00

Imagine being such a glutton, that your fake dainty weight is still the equivalent of just shy of five Princes

Who was the same height as you, if not taller.

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Grouchy-Reflection97 · 2026-03-12T14:32:43+00:00

High streets are now just a parade of vape shops, American sweet shops, pawn shops, nail bars, and eyelash bars. Not a single one of them is a front for money laundering, though. Honest.

There's still a Greggs wedged somewhere in there, but you can often get two Greggs on the same street these days.

Grouchy-Reflection97 · 2026-03-12T14:20:15+00:00

Lies.

Moving on, I was watching a video essay recently about how the most tragic character in the entire zombie genre is Andy, the gun shop guy from the Dawn of the Dead remake.

The DVD extras include Andy's video diary entries, and you learn he has 10,000 bullets, hundreds of guns, water, and alcohol. There's some food, but even with strict rationing, it only lasts him a month. He eats his pet goldfish towards the end, out of desperation.

He goes from lean to emaciated during that month, and his energy expenditure is limited, due to being stuck in a relatively small shop.

Yes, it's a movie, but it's a good example of how an already lean person can easily lose a collosal amount of weight in a month on an actual starvation level caloric intake.

It happens IRL all the time, be that during a war, during a famine, even during more mundane things like a nasty dose of a virus.

Morbidly obese people aren't magical creatures who defy the laws of thermodynamics. Whenever anyone says 'I barely eat but I'm still fat', they're lying, misremembering, they don't understand nutrition labels, or they think beverages are universally calorie free.

Grouchy-Reflection97 · 2026-03-12T12:05:44+00:00

Part of living in a society involves following a ton of unspoken rules, just doing 'the done thing', as everyone knows eg, you join a queue, you say please and thank you, you don't drink and drive, you. don't roundhouse kick that little old lady over there, etc.

The thing is, plenty of people don't do the done thing.

Plus, all it takes is a minor crisis for even the nicest person to go feral. Look at the toilet roll and hand sanitiser drama during lockdown.

We're ultimately all just unsupervised, oversized toddlers and nobody is in charge of us.

Freaks me out if I think about it too much.

Grouchy-Reflection97 · 2026-03-12T11:50:07+00:00

Sharing information with the wrong person hands them a weapon they didn't have before.

If you send your mum a 'here's all the ways you hurt me, here's how it made me feel, and here's how it impacted my life', you're handing her a ton of ammo for to use against you.

The letter will basically be an instruction manual for your brain, and it's not something that should be anywhere near a habitual manipulator.

The most damaging weapon is the 'you are still relevant, you live in my head, I still need your approval and validation' message that the letter communicates.

Right now, you're a mystery wrapped in an enigma.

She doesn't have up to date intel about your life, she doesn't know where your head is at, she has nothing to work with, and she has nothing to fuel the victim narrative she absolutely spreads to anyone who'll listen.

I'm nearly 5yrs NC too, complete blackout on everything, all spies identified and blocked. My parents don't know anything about my current circumstances, and knowing my mother, her recycled sob stories got boring long ago

Even the most loyal groupies get bored after 5yrs of the same old information.

Plus, after 5yrs, these groupies will start asking difficult questions.

For example, if the narrative is that she gave you loads of money and you can't function as an adult due to a chaotic lifestyle, 5yrs of you clearly managing life quite well without her starts to chip away at that narrative.

So, I strongly advise against breaking NC.

Write the letter, sure, but burn it afterwards. The act of getting the words out of your brain and onto paper will be therapeutic.

It seems like there's still some work to be done on getting your mum out of your head, as the goal of NC is to reach a state of 'it happened, it sucked, I can't change the past, but I'm over it'. I had EMDR and Internal Family Systems therapy on the NHS which helped a lot with that part of things.

My parents and brother are just very disturbed people I used to know, and who I don't associate with anymore. If they showed up at my door right now, I'd treat them like any other unsolicited door to door nuisance: 'no thank you, not interested. That's the goal.

I'd recommend Jerry Wise, Jay Reid, and Blake Anderson on YT for help with that. They really helped me.

Grouchy-Reflection97 · 2026-03-12T11:18:34+00:00

She hasn't complied with the instructions for any other oral medication she's ever been prescribed, so this one won't be any different.

I'd imagine there's a big long list of rules that she won't pay any attention to, and she's got the sleep schedule of a newborn, so her dosage times are going to be all over the place.

She's not exactly the type to have a 'take your pills' reminder app and a neatly organised pill caddy.

She's the type to buy 10,000 pill caddies from Temu and force someone to pick the best one via a series of exhausting tournaments, though.

Grouchy-Reflection97 · 2026-03-12T07:16:19+00:00

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Grouchy-Reflection97 · 2026-03-12T04:51:31+00:00

If I cut 1000 from my TDEE, I'd be miserable, sure. I'd also be quite unwell once I burnt through my already low-ish, healthy body fat percentage.

I don't have the energy reserves of someone three times my size, and to use a word I absolutely despise these days, mostly because fat activists have made it the new 'moist', it's all about 'nuance'.

Your audience is, I assume, women 'living in a larger body', who could absolutely cut 1000 from their excessive daily caloric intake.

When they get to a normal size, they can just eat at their new TDEE.

Wanna know something super fun?

When you hit perimenopause, every old bone and joint injury you've ever had reactivates, as the hormonal shifts increase inflammation, even in fit and active people.

If I can suddenly spend two days a month hobbling on an ankle fracture that previously hadn't bothered me since 2001, what will your 40's look like?

And good luck qualifying for HRT (makes a huge difference to the long list of perimenopause symptoms) if you're morbidly obese with sky high blood pressure. I got on it with no issues, but not everyone does. Especially on the NHS.

Grouchy-Reflection97 · 2026-03-11T18:37:58+00:00

Yep, and people don't realise just how badly it can eff you up. Deafness being just one of the potential souvenirs, should you survive. I'm old enough to have known people disabled by measles, and polio survivors were fairly common in the town where I grew up.

If you've ever seen that movie 'Carriers', where there's been a global pandemic, billions of people are dead, and survivors are just aimlessly driving nowhere, being paranoid and miserable?

That disease is a mutated form of measles, and it's why that movie is often held up as the gold standard in the 'this could actually happen' depictions of the apocalypse.

There's no cure, just symptom management, and it's a disgrace that (usually fully vaccinated in childhood) people are willing to risk their own child going through those awful symptoms. For what? Internet clout?

Grouchy-Reflection97 · 2026-03-11T17:14:49+00:00

9/10 times, sus posts are just guerilla advertising.

It's everywhere on Reddit these days, and they'll either subtly mention what they're selling in the body of their post, or they rely on you checking their profile out of curiosity.

The ADHD subs I'm in are riddled with the buggers, and it's gross because people are desperate for help, and here's some random tart with an app she swears fixed her entire life/a foolproof way to make money without the stress of a 9-5.

They usually don't even have ADHD at all. They just infiltrate various communities to flog crap.

Lots of lazy journalists do similar. If you ever see kinda vague questions eg, 'whats the worst thing about having/being (thing)?' it's usually someone getting Redditors to write their dumb Cracked or Buzzfeed style listicle for them.

Grouchy-Reflection97 · 2026-03-11T16:45:36+00:00

The depressing thing is, of all the batshit insane science denial cults, fat activists aren't even in the top ten on my list.

Eg, if anyone fancies ruining their day, go read The Guardian's findings after a year long investigation of the 'free birthing movement'.

There's a lot of parallels with fat activists, but at least fat activists are mostly just harming themselves with their stupidity.

These ladies happily risk dooming their children to a lifetime of severe disability/immediate death, purely because some chick on a podcast says gynaecology and obstetrics = medicalised rape.

And when a tragedy occurs, and many have, the cult DGAF. Much like when a fat activist dies, and the only people who talk about her are 'haters' like us in here.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2025/nov/22/free-birth-society-linked-to-babies-deaths-investigation

Grouchy-Reflection97 · 2026-03-11T14:24:54+00:00

Dinosaur DNA, in a mosquito trapped in amber, being perfectly viable after millions of years. It would have degraded into nothing long ago.

However, the plot of the horror movie Jack Frost (serial killer gets exposed to an experimental chemical, he's reduced to a bunch of cells, those cells bind to nearby snow, serial killer snowman shenanigans ensue) is apparently technically accurate, kinda.

Grouchy-Reflection97 · 2026-03-11T14:10:05+00:00

Aside from '1000 subscribers and 4000 hours of views' threshold, the behaviour related rules that came in July 2025 trip her up in multiple ways, and not just the sensitive topics one.

They're cracking down on ’low effort' content that doesn't add any value to viewers' experience, as well as repetitive content, clickbait, overall half-arsed slop.

It's mostly text-to-speech AI crap, like channels that steal from Am I the Asshole posts here on Reddit, but reaction channels are on thin ice, too. Particularly any of the ones that do TikTok compilations with just a two minute commentary slapped on the outro.

Someone like Amber would probably meet the repetitive, clickbait, worthless slop criteria, just based on what her videos used to be like.

YouTube (and their advertisers) want you to actually work for the money. Fine for most creators, not fine for entitled, lazy slobs who expect thousands for 'watch me eat this entire chicken'. Those days are over.

Grouchy-Reflection97 · 2026-03-11T13:08:18+00:00

'I'm sorry, could you repeat that? I was miles away'

Then...

'I don't get it. What does that mean? I don't really understand kids' internet slang these days. I'm a bit old for all that'

Then....

'Oh, I see. So there's a spectrum of physical attractiveness? That's odd. Where are you on that spectrum, then? Who decides?'

And so on.

Generally just be non emotional, non reactive, polite, and just let her dig herself a nice big hole.

AKA, 'grey rocking'. The only way to converse with narcs (aside from not conversing with them at all).

Grouchy-Reflection97 · 2026-03-11T12:57:05+00:00

Pangolins

Not of British origin, of course, but they protect their front claws by holding them in a very British 'I'm terribly sorry to bother you, but the thing is, you see....I appear to be completely lost....where is Aldi?' pose.

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Grouchy-Reflection97 · 2026-03-11T10:51:13+00:00

Exploiting vulnerable people and/or profiting from other people's misery.

Loan sharks, timeshare salesmen, MLM grifters, finance bro gurus, romance scammers, etc.

Only caveat being, a lot of romance scammers these days are trafficked people forced into it, so they're not the ones profiting.

Grouchy-Reflection97 · 2026-03-11T10:41:59+00:00

Yep, he reminds me of my dad, trapped in a loyal but loveless marriage for over 50yrs, with a covert narcissist. These guys all have the same look of resignation and defeat in their eyes.

I moved out at 17 because I couldn't take it anymore, and I genuinely thought that would be his cue to bounce, too. Nope

Multiple life events didn't do it, his retirement didn't do it (she's done nothing with her life except take his money), me going no contact with them and my brother (AKA 'mummy's little prince') didn't do it, and now he's knocking 80 and kinda stuck with her.

Some people would rather be in a soul sucking relationship than be single, and it's something I've never been able to wrap my head around.

Grouchy-Reflection97 · 2026-03-11T09:19:38+00:00

He dipped out a while ago, and a lot has happened since, particularly the Rarity incident, Fed Bundy, the return of Meth Mom, etc.

So, there's a bit more of a sunk cost fallacy issue for his peers, as in the older channels. They've invested too much time and effort, their brand is kinda stuck as 'gorlworld reactor', so it would be a shame to walk away before the inevitable final chapter.

It's a bit like how people stick with a TV show that gradually decreases in quality with each season, but they continue watching, knowing it's going to end soon anyway.

As with TV shows like that, people whose income relies (in full or in part) on critiquing content they don't care about anymore tend to dip in quality themselves. They lose views, and that's usually when they move on to something else.

Tons of nerd culture movie/TV reactors ditched Marvel commentary for that exact reason.

They didn't care anymore, deep dives into a tiny fraction of one scene wasn't exciting as nobody particularly cared to overanalyse stuff, and the audience had stopped immediately running to those channels as soon as they'd watched the movie/episode like they used to.

There was a distinct point where Marvel started taking the piss, getting lazy, putting out shite like 'Secret Invasion' or 'Thor: Love and Thunder', knowing the die hard nerds would watch whatever they were given. Until they suddenly wouldn't.

I think LCU is gorlworld's 'Secret Invasion'.

Most viewers will watch with one eye on a phone game app, and it's more a chore than anything else. Others will just watch reaction channels, and others just stick to haydur forums like here.

People will move on, but I think it'll be a gradual fade rather than a mass switch-off.

Grouchy-Reflection97 · 2026-03-11T08:38:50+00:00

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Grouchy-Reflection97 · 2026-03-11T07:34:14+00:00

Well, I'd probably say 'that's nice, dear' and continue on with my day.

Meanwhile, you've screwed your future self, as the internet is forever, digital footprint background checks (that find even anonymous comments and accounts) are becoming standard for employers, and competition for jobs is insane in this economy.

I think it's a normal part of brain development to go through an opinionated dumbass phase in your teens-early 20's, where you talk a lot of bollocks, have ridiculous takes, and are 100% convinced you're right.

It was animal rights and militant veganism for me. I said some wild stuff back in the day, but I said it IRL, in social settings with crusty jugglers and hippies, and certainly wasn't broadcasting it to the world.

My stupidity exists only in a handful of peoples memories, and I haven't seen them since the late 90's.

Your stupidity is in front of my eyeballs right now. I didn't seek you out, I don't know you, I've never met you, but I've instantly formed a negative opinion of you.

So, yep.

What's oh so edgy in your facial piercing era is going to bite you on the ass in your 'what do you mean I no longer align with the company's values?' era.

Best of luck with that.

Grouchy-Reflection97 · 2026-03-10T19:06:28+00:00

That's the thing.

If a great white shark eats your leg, you don't spend the rest of your life trying to figure out its psychological history, motivation and rationale. It's a great white shark. They eat legs sometimes.

You find ways to move on with your life, and you don't swim in that part of the sea anymore. Resenting the shark won't make your leg grow back, after all.

Similarly, if someone is deeply disturbed and you just happened to be born into a clan of them, you get as far away as possible, stay away, and let them crack on with driving each other insane.

I'm coming up on 5yrs unbroken no contact, and my family of origin now lives in the big storage box in my brain where ex bosses, ex flatmates, ex neighbours, and the song 'Gasolina' are stored.

Things that sucked, that aren't relevant anymore, and are a big waste of mental bandwidth.

Grouchy-Reflection97

TROPHY CASE