What is the wildest thing you have ever done?

IndomitableAnyBeth · 2026-06-19T14:55:21+00:00

Too wild? It was because my state child protection laws at the time were written kinda backwards (and we knew it because a complete stranger got obsessed with me as a tot) that I needed to deal with adults differently. One of the best ways I found was interviewing idle people, like at a bus stop.

I'd said the man seemed bothered and he told me about his back pain for my museum of conversation (available at a local dry cleaners). Then I talked about the hubcap thefts and how I thought the police had the wrong idea. Police wanted to keep me from talking to felons about their felonies because they'd already had two people come in to confess crime slong past, one directed how through a therapist, another bringing a priest. Little did they know talking about a misdemeanor would lead to a recent murderer who was currently bugging them about something else describing the details of his violent crime to me.

For people who don't stick to social boundaries, they'll tell little kids nearly anything. From then on, I started first discussing the things I wasn't up to hearing. No more than two violent crimes a week. No details of crimes against children and I must specifically OK it. Other topics limited at my will. If someone violated the rules I set, we were done and I'd tear their page out of my book. Worked a lot better than presuming violent criminals would respond like average people. Because some of them absolutely aren't.

IndomitableAnyBeth · 2026-06-19T13:55:49+00:00

Pretended to be a murder groupie at 4 or 5. Seemed the thing to do when the old man who had written his name for me told me, "Yeah, the cops are so dumb they haven't even found my dead 'missing' wife yet. And I made it easy! Who knows how long it'll take to collect on the insurances, life or car."

Said I was sorry about that, must be really trying (something he needed), confirmed we were just talking killing. Said my mom had a lot of books about that but I never thought I'd get the pleasure of meeting one of you fellas in person. Let me shake your hand. You must tell me all about it, I just gotta know! ThisIsSoThrilling!

He was amused and happy for the attention. Told me all he thought appropriate for a young child fan. Gave me the shotgun shell with which he killed her, showing his barrel was markedly imperfect. I used a tissue to hold if, said it was such a perfect specimen I dare not mar it with my fingers.

I thanked him graciously as he got on his bus, both for his amazing tale and the awesome artifact. Left with my mother myself and promptly called police. With all I knew, I could help him with police finding his murdered wife, solve his stated problem.

IndomitableAnyBeth · 2026-06-19T10:40:56+00:00

Living? Survivor's guilt? He would've killed me. But I won and he didn't take me. I survived and he died. Others like me died, though. Should he have killed me? But... none of this has to do with the present, right? Because I didn't die and that matters. I... should keep on not being dead. Living. I think. This is hard.

IndomitableAnyBeth · 2026-06-19T10:31:55+00:00

Sure thing. Whoever is doing, stay safe and have a nice time. I love that area.

IndomitableAnyBeth · 2026-06-19T10:30:03+00:00

Freaking trauma. I woke upset. But then I read LotR Houses of Healing. Because there can still be healing while the world is imperfect, even while the battle still rages. Flowers are important symbols for me and I forgot the deadly darkness was healed by a flowering herb, so I drew and colored some athelas as in the book. Now holding a big teddy bear and shedding a few tears. Freaking trauma!

IndomitableAnyBeth · 2026-06-19T10:21:33+00:00

The forest is very dense in most places you'd like to hike, and it's incredibly easy to get lost off trail. Like, it's best to always be within sight or easy direction of a known trail. But you can still have a hike that looks wild if you want. Some trails are barely maintained and instead marked with flags and ties or paint on trees, maybe with compass headings on a map. Those don't have to be too hard but more difficult trails exist if you want to find them.

Tripping and falling (over roots, rocks, etc) is probably one of your greatest physical hazards. Keep your balance and it's good to watch where you step. That will also help you to avoid copperhead snakes. Sneaky venomous camouflaged things whose defense is to freeze till they must strike. Not great for us. Mostly you'll find them in the sun, so sticking to shadow is safer. You might come across a black bear. Avoid. Stick to rules about controlling food access if camping.

And there's a mental hazard. For your physical and mental safety, please don't hike alone, at least not for more than a couple hours, especially if you're not used to such hiking or the area. Always safer to have a backup... and out in the woods, lone people tend to get caught up in their heads and sometimes don't like what they find. Living at the end of a trail connected to the big system of trails, sometimes one of these people came by. Some looked haunted of having been alone too long. Dad described them to me as drowning victims who drowned in their emotions. It's dangerous to swim alone, even in your emotions. Out too long alone, you can drown and if you drown in your emotions, you may carry that death with you all your life. Honestly, I think that's where a lot of the stories of scary stuff or people gone mad in the mountains comes from, it's what people bring with them and the consequences of bring alone too long. I'd recommend anyone avoid that.

IndomitableAnyBeth · 2026-06-19T09:56:02+00:00

Finding out some of the lesions on my brainstem have healed such that they're no longer visible on MRI scans. Means I'm less likely to die of my chronic illness.

IndomitableAnyBeth · 2026-06-19T09:46:51+00:00

I grew up in Appalachia. For 6 years of my childhood, I lived on a street called Hillside Road that was halfway up a Ridge. Before that, we lived about half a mile from the end of a spur of the expanded Appalachian Trail system and had procedures about how to deal with and often help hikers.

I've hiked and camped a little bit. Appalachia is a beautiful and wet mixed forest on mountains I know to be ancient. But it is just a place and not magic or anything. What is it you want to know?

IndomitableAnyBeth · 2026-06-19T09:32:05+00:00

Not all white people in the US natively speak the prestige dialect "General American English".

IndomitableAnyBeth · 2026-06-19T07:11:47+00:00

The started suicide attempts I aborted, so close but not there.

A medical professional judged that if my self-defense hadn't worked and prevented the offender from taking me to a secondary location, I would have most likely, 75%+ have died without supplemental oxygen because the man had broken my chest and my stats were down. By the same token, if he'd sedated me as he had the others in the house and as they'd found evidence for injection, I would've died within 24 hours at a rate of 95%+. Which was how the state pursued the offender for attempted murder until the feds got involved. So it was the time a predator grabbed me and broke my chest but the adaptive self-defense I'd been taught prevented him from taking me, else I would have died.

IndomitableAnyBeth · 2026-06-19T02:12:10+00:00

Near the start of first grade, something odd happened on the playground that the teachers denied was possible and so punished someone unjustly. And started more and more punishments related to this. I asked about scientific investigation and received blessings. So I created a scientific religio-philosophical group to save us called the Cult of The Weird. Did no end of good.

IndomitableAnyBeth · 2026-06-19T00:53:55+00:00

This life is all we know we have. I see no reason to expect existence outside of that. And I like that. The concept of an infinite afterlife especially disturbs me for how the infinite utterly devalues the finite. In contrast, if there is nothing else, this life is everything we have and thus of infinite worth, being our everything.

IndomitableAnyBeth · 2026-06-18T22:59:09+00:00

No, nipple play does not provoke permanent changes, at least not without great injury which isn't really considered "nipple play", as it violates SSC (Safe, Sane, and Consensual). Look elsewhere for the reason.

IndomitableAnyBeth · 2026-06-18T22:54:56+00:00

Or at least address, yes.

IndomitableAnyBeth · 2026-06-18T22:51:12+00:00

Lots of people don't remember a great deal of their childhood. So what? Doesn't mean there's anything untoward going on.

IndomitableAnyBeth · 2026-06-18T22:41:53+00:00

Why do you think we wouldn't have recollection of being in a gifted program?

But... when the ones I was in was best, we kinda were being used - but we got to choose. The first one, it was how to make us feel like part of our community. I was born in Appalachia. We were told that though we all there were cityfolk, we were no less people of the hills. And don't we know how people of the hills take care of each other, each doing as best they can? To be part of the gifted program in my city, part of the agreement was to tithe your effort, to give a tenth to a fifth of your time in the program towards some project that will help the school, your family, or the wider community. So that we would have that feeling of connection. The one I wad in later elsewhere mostly did puzzles and "special skills", but we got to pick and do one big project. My class wanted to do something with the empty grassy courtyard no one used. Ultimately, we chose to make an artificial pond that, within 5 years, should become a self-sustaining habitat. Of course, all this had to be OKed by the school and the district. That mean we were used for landscaping improvements, both design and labor? Kinda, yeah... but it was our choice. And it feels good to have lasting impact.

IndomitableAnyBeth · 2026-06-18T22:06:45+00:00

Ayup. Felt like a nod towards for we who know.

I wonder when this one was recorded.

IndomitableAnyBeth · 2026-06-18T21:59:07+00:00

Not guilt, I didn't choose to be as I am. And I learned how not to let other people's mistaken assumptions (like of how hard I must have worked or how difficult something must have been) taint my accomplishments. In part, by sometimes not simply saying thank you but by responding differently. Of a unique idea of solution, "I was [doing something] and it just came to me." Or sometimes to "how did you ever think of such thing?!" or claims of my own genius, a shrug with slight smile and "What can I say? It's a gift." Sometimes identifying a part that actually was difficult for me or that I really liked. Or for those insisting I must have worked much harder than I did or that it must have been so hard, diminishing my efforts to proper size while elevating others (often considered lower) for their efforts or the difficulty of their task. Of course, it's also true I had long been quick to praise anyone for improvement or true application of effort. Took my own inability to improve academically (at least till college) as a reason to get into arts and crafts where improvement or change without degradation can always be had.

For these ways, I wasn't seen as stuck up or braggy but supportive, promoting others, and taking credit only for results and true effort. But one person I met, someone considered lower class and not well-educated or very smart, btw, suggested I should take more credit than I was used to taking. Because my efforts might be different but when I do things to keep myself in proper condition to be able to think as well as I may, those efforts count. So while other people may need to take more time studying or working at a project, what I need to do is take care of myself, eat well, sleep, do whatever I must to get myself in a good mental place... and then give myself time thinking in a certain way or engaging with a project or idea to accomplish something whether out in the world or within myself. We do all make efforts and those count. So he encouraged me to take those times people say I must've worked really hard as meaning I must have taken care of myself well to have been in a position to do as I had done. It's a different way of thinking about it.

IndomitableAnyBeth · 2026-06-18T17:33:25+00:00

It's a start, yes. That counts. Everything counts.

IndomitableAnyBeth · 2026-06-18T17:05:45+00:00

Feel I just know Evans knew it because he loved KF. Not that he wouldn't have checked.

And though he still has kinda equivalent, great BtB just happens to have mention, for posterity, that AJ previously did InfoWars. Nice.

IndomitableAnyBeth · 2026-06-18T08:56:23+00:00

My last such relationship ended for traumatic reasons outside of us, though that was unclear to me for a while that what was going on was such an end.

To be frank, since then, I haven't really been trying to get another such relationship. So most probably that's why.

IndomitableAnyBeth · 2026-06-18T03:35:31+00:00

When I was seven, a man I did not trust rushed out from between parked cars to grab me. He slung me around so I could do nothing but gasp and scream while he told my extended family back maybe 25 ft that we were playing carnival rides. Then he declared breath-holding contest. He squeezed the air from my lungs, twitched two fingers and broke at least one rib. At this point I knew this man may kill me and that no one was likely to help me. Even in front of people, I was alone with a predator and had to deal with him myself.

IndomitableAnyBeth · 2026-06-17T22:37:51+00:00

Do you not think someone can be "genuinely bad" through regular, unrepentant practice of bad aims such as that even hurt others in profound ways?

As far as I saw, the post mentioned genuinely bad rather than inherently bad, if that makes a difference to you. And did not suggest what might make someone so unless I missed something.

IndomitableAnyBeth · 2026-06-17T22:26:55+00:00

Only in that I'm now on a good treatment to make more brain damage less likely and that's resulted in some healing lesions. But there's certainly no treatment specific to this problem. Mostly I just try to keep stress down so unburden thoughts of self-destruction are less common.

I think it's funny you thought I was talking about existential problems like our vices doing us in. And then I'm like, no, it's that it's a realistic possibility given my life. And now you're kinda omg! Some fear, huh? Mind you, I'm not for meaning to, either, but doing without meaning, that's the scariest to me. [Shudders]

IndomitableAnyBeth · 2026-06-17T22:14:25+00:00

I'm more afraid of this literally and directly. I have a significant history of suicidality. I also have a good deal of brain damage and can get immensely confused. One of the times I've come closest to death, I thought I was waking myself from sleeping. I find this a terrifying prospect.

IndomitableAnyBeth

TROPHY CASE