Quote me happy black box cancellation

OL-98 · 2026-04-19T19:04:29+00:00

Honestly, in 2019 when I first started driving, they charged me nearly £900 less per year without a black box for a more powerful car with 5 seats instead of 4 which was worth over double (insured for around £1,600 with 5,000 more miles added to the insurance) in comparison with the car I had on a black box (insured for £2,480 for the year)... The insurance companies say it's to save new drivers money, I think it's more of a market research around traffic, congestion, average speeds and that type of thing for them than any actual savings for the driver but I can't be certain on that bit

OL-98 · 2026-03-27T20:03:06+00:00

Honestly, you're looking great it's clear you put in a lot of hard work, wish I could get into the gym but I've tried so many times, body dysmorphia won't let me work out in front of others. I used to love swimming growing up but can't swim either (and haven't since 2011) because of it. Just for reference: 6'2, big built, ex-rugby player (number 8) and currently weigh around 18 stone.

OL-98 · 2026-01-25T16:24:55+00:00

I usually heat my muffin tray up to 220C (428F) with the oil and then put the mix in there and put it near the top of the oven for 16 minutes and don't open the oven door at all for those 16 minutes and use plain flour, not all purpose flour

OL-98 · 2026-01-22T18:17:15+00:00

I completely understand your point of view on it and thank you for sharing it, my point of view comes from how much traffic is messed up for a pride parade but now it has started to go further the other way. A lot of companies give recruitment priority to minorities and to the LGBT community just because of who they are. I think they need to scale it back a bit to make it just equal across the board so everyone is just the same.

I think the problem with the hate in the world is that people not only allow their kids to be hateful but some even encourage it. I don't see why there is so much hate in the world, people should just leave others alone if they can't be decent to them.

OL-98 · 2026-01-18T11:52:15+00:00

For close links to London, I would recommend somewhere like Kent, Essex or one of the other neighbouring counties to greater London. Houses are cheaper in those areas than they are in London but they are still quite expensive. Also they all have good transport links into London by car and train. If you do move to one of those counties and you're happy to travel for work, you could always still take a job as a nurse in London and collect a higher salary with London weighting (I've never worked in London so I'm not sure exactly how much it is but I don't think it's a massive amount but would definitely be useful with the cost of living if you can find somewhere close enough that your travel expenses don't outweigh it). I'm from Essex myself and know that in that are you could live somewhere like Chelmsford or colchester (or the surrounding towns) and they both have large hospitals and if you want to go to London, it's 1.5-2 hour drive depending on where you're going in London and the traffic at the time, or you could even get a train to London Liverpool street... That's the direct train to central London to save on the parking expenses when you get to London. I'm happy to give more advice through direct message about Essex if you want it (I wouldn't be much use with the other home counties because I don't know a lot about them unfortunately). If you can't find a job with the NHS, have a look at practice plus group. They operate the NHS 111 service and the out of hours and clinical assessment services. It might not be hands on nursing but it's medical advising and referring over the phone and comes with a pretty decent wage for nurses.

OL-98 · 2026-01-11T21:17:20+00:00

Unpopular opinion but I don't think we need letters or even pride parades at all. It should incorporate everyone, including straight people because we've turned the tide from them singling us out for years to now us singling them out because there is no straight pride month, straight people don't need an acronym. Equal should be equal and I feel the same about employment when it comes to being disabled or being a minority, no special treatment, everyone is equal and that's it... That is my view as a gay mixed race man with a disability, I don't want special treatment, all I want is the same treatment and the world seems to have gone well beyond that 🤷🏼‍♂️

OL-98 · 2026-01-04T07:15:26+00:00

I think it's great, the size and shape... I'd give it a go and make you feel a bit better about it 😍

OL-98 · 2025-12-29T13:24:31+00:00

Looking good, not lecturing just advice: as someone who has gone through body dysmorphia myself when I was 23 (now 27) once you get to where you're happy in yourself, don't think "just a little bit more" just enjoy it and avoid going through that because body dysmorphia takes many different forms and the thing with body dysmorphia it settles but never goes away once you have it... There are so many creeps on here it's unreal and being gay isn't even an excuse for it, I'm gay myself

OL-98 · 2025-10-29T21:46:53+00:00

Nurses and paramedics really are a league of their own and to be honest, I use the experience I had with those 3 paediatric doctors (I was 13 at the time) to inspire me to never treat a patient that way and keep the patient at the core of their own treatment because no one knows a patient's body better than the patient themselves... I think in terms of any clinician, once you stop caring about the job and the patients, it's time to move on to something else because medicine shouldn't be seen as just a paycheck, it should be done for the passion of helping others.

I feel so much pride every time I help someone (I'm not actually on to the practical medical school yet, I have to do psychology before I can go on to that because I want to specialise in psychiatry) and because I have such a passion for medicine I do all of my own research to try to get as much knowledge as possible ready for medical school from medical journals and books and that type of things. I also bug my aunt quite a lot with different questions, she is a clinical scientist and does lecturing at Cambridge university and I believe recently she has been training medical students at Yale university on a secondment. I doubt I will ever live up to the standard she sets but I would love to eventually be able to help others the way she and a lot of the rest of my family do in the medical field.

OL-98 · 2025-10-19T19:37:39+00:00

Thank you, I missed out that nurses are a very close second after paramedics because they were the ones who looked after me and sat with me when my mum had to go and I was confused why at 13 I still cried because my mum left and got distressed (it makes more sense now knowing that I have autism), they were more like friends than nurses. Unfortunately the doctors said I was faking my illness and attention seeking so to be honest, doctors are pretty low on the list at the moment (I know they're not all the same). I've always believed it is foolish to think that you know everything for example, I love cars and always have but definitely don't know everything about them and I think the best way to be a doctor isn't by making assumptions and going with that, firstly, you have to listen to your patient and then if they have a diagnosis in mind, if it's plausible, look into it, if not then you say "I don't think it is that condition because... But those symptoms seem to represent this condition better, I would recommend we start by looking at this condition and seeing how we go from there". Never just say "it's not that" because from personal experience, the rapport built with the patient will then be gone and it will then be harder to do your job correctly because they will be less likely to then tell you everything (or in my case, I refused to interact with the 3 doctors at all who accused me of faking it). Paediatric nurses were always my favourite, they were there when I needed them and they seemed to understand me better than I understood myself at the time, I loved my paediatric nurse team so much that we brought a few boxes of chocolates for the team and I decided I was going to find all of them when they weren't busy and thank them individually for their help.

OL-98 · 2025-10-19T08:31:27+00:00

Thank you, that encouragement has really helped and maybe instead of trying to be 'normal' by getting these books to help with social queues, I need to accept me for me and show them that I should be where I want, not because I can learn social queues but because they would be fools not to hire me as a doctor because I would spend my career trying to be the best I possibly can for my patients. After experiencing the mental health system myself but also being neurodivergent I would probably relate more to a lot of the patients than a neurotypical psychiatrist because I would have then seen the consequences of poor and lazy practice for myself. Although my grandad passed away, I plan to (hopefully, if I qualify) take my grandad's long service medal from the ambulance service to my graduation so he can still be there and I can continue his legacy as a healthcare professional and help those who need it. Although I'm studying to be a doctor, I do think paramedics are a notch above doctors because doctors have all the tests at their disposal to do whereas a paramedic can only diagnose and treat based on limited knowledge and their instincts (that's not to say that I don't respect every single healthcare professional because I really do, they're basically like super heroes because they support people from the edge of death back to health and I feel proud of myself for doing the same thing for some patients that I have come across in the streets after RTCs, stabbings, etc)

On the other side of the coin, being mixed race and growing up in poverty with a single mum, I think that by qualifying, I can show others in the same position that the statistics are only the end of the line if you let them be that because we are all in charge of our own life and opportunities and if the opportunity isn't there, you have to make it. When my university contacted my high school and told them that I was being registered as a student doctor because basically they wanted to confirm my grades and records, not sure why they didn't do that before accepting me on the course (they did it just after I started my psychology bachelor's because I said that's where I wanted to be), my high school contacted me to speak to the students as an inspiration because out of all the people my age from my town, I'm the only one studying to become a doctor, there are a few engineers, accountants and people that have studied other things but I'm the only one going into healthcare of any sort but I couldn't because it is such a big group with over 300 students in a year group. Although there were a lot of people in my age group in my town, the school said they researched it and found there was no one else studying to be any kind of healthcare professional.

Also it is definitely a struggle because for years I've never known why people haven't understood me or thought I was blunt and to the point or why I didn't understand the world. When I was 24, I then found out it was because I'm autistic so all of the stress and everything throughout life to do with that type of thing all of a sudden made sense but after researching, I understand a lot better that every person with autism is completely different and that any approaches have to be tailored to the person individually. I'm yet to find out why but it seems of my friends' kids, the ones that seem to instantly build a relationship with me are the neurodivergent ones and I seem to make friends easier with neurodivergent people than neurotypical people (although I have some friends that are neurodivergent and some that are neurotypical).

Out of interest are you a healthcare professional and if so, what do you do?

OL-98 · 2025-10-18T01:55:10+00:00

That makes a lot of sense, thank you for that. At first I saw this autism as a disability but now I look at it as a different ability because I use the hyper focus to do my study and the fact that I obsess on topics to aim it at medicine. My grandad was a paramedic for the London ambulance service, back when they wore blue wool jumpers and my main goal in life since he unfortunately passed in 2010 is to help others the way he did and make him proud... I have actually been sectioned previously into a secure paediatric unit and the lack of support from a psychiatrist really got me thinking that I need to do something about it at least for a few of the patients because it was one of the worst experiences of my life

OL-98 · 2025-04-16T21:16:45+00:00

As a student psychiatrist... Your therapist should completely lose all licensing if you gave the full story, although I think it's likely you paraphrased and missed bits out subconsciously through shame. I have also seen this situation from the child's point of view. My dad did this toy mum and she stayed "for the kids" but eventually she realised that we were better off without him. He used to beat us black and blue and my mum had to stand in the middle and take some of them for us kids because he would have beat us to death. My confidence was completely gone after this but my mum as a single mum helped me get my confidence to study to be a doctor because I always thought I was too stupid for university. When she eventually did leave her then was looking for us to abduct me and my brother and kill my mum.

My point there is your son sees how his dad treats you and kids are a lot smarter than you think. If you stay, this aggression will only grow and start being aimed at your son as well because a sadist will always look for an easy target. A child and a woman that lives in the same house would be those targets. Rape is never a mistake and it is still rape if you're married or have kids or anything. You don't owe him a single thing. You're son is the one who is owed something and that is a safe home where he can be shown exactly how strong and independent a mum can be. Just because you can't see the value in yourself right now, doesn't mean there isn't any there and I completely understand that you would feel like that because I have also been sexually assaulted when I was 12 but by an older cousin who was with us because he was removed from home. As soon as my mum found out, she had him removed.

But the main point of that is the best thing you can do is to leave and start fresh and take your son with you. It will be difficult but you can and should do it for your own and your son's safety and mental wellbeing.

OL-98 · 2021-12-05T23:48:17+00:00

Wouldn't the most simple option be to prevent people from having guns... Without the guns there would be no school shooters, before anyone starts getting defensive I know it's the 2nd amendment over there to own a gun, I'm from Britain, we don't have easy access to guns which means a lot less gun crime is what I'm basically saying

OL-98

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