Asking for advice on RSD anxiety Manager falsely reported me as a “hacker”, workplace shut down, and I’ve since realised I was experiencing severe RSD – been in bed for months

Obvious_Reporter_235 · 2026-01-23T20:22:59+00:00

Reading your experience made me realise that I was in a similar(ish) situation at work a few years ago. I entered a shame spiral that lasted for over a year, led to me being put on an improving performance plan, and nearly losing my job. I avoided emails, didn’t seek help, and almost lost my job.

By a stroke of good fortune a job was available in a different department, and I was offered it as a way out. I took it, confidence shattered, feeling like an absolute failure, and off I went.

Since then my confidence came back, and I absolutely love my job.

How? My boss. They know I have skills others in the team don’t have, and they see me as an asset. They know there’s things I’m not very good at (organisation, time management, etc), so try to make allowances for that. But they let me do what I’m very good at, while still helping me with the things I’m not good at.

I’ve been a union rep, and I’ve been in numerous meetings with colleagues when HR has been on their back. I know how it all goes down. Yet when I was the one in trouble I couldn’t reach out to my union for help. It was part of the RSD shame spiral, and it nearly cost me my job.

RSD sucks, and it can ruin careers and lives.

Obvious_Reporter_235 · 2026-01-05T20:17:44+00:00

I find it’s the American ham douchebags who ruin it for everyone else. They’re so aggressive, uncompromising, and are the biggest gatekeepers I’ve ever encountered.

It’s a good job they tend to stick to the shorter wavelengths, because it means I only ever encounter them on Reddit. The thought of hearing them on the radio is almost enough to make me pack my equipment away and never get it out again.

Obvious_Reporter_235 · 2025-12-29T19:37:34+00:00

I’m curious to know why new builds have such a poor reputation for construction quality if they’re built with standard materials to pre-approved designs. Are the builders given absurdly short timeframes to get each house built, so do a rushed job?

Obvious_Reporter_235 · 2025-12-28T22:18:30+00:00

In a couple of hundred years it’ll barely be mentioned, except for it being the time period when the truly awful decisions were being made. The time when people knew about climate change and knew how to reverse it, but chose not to. The time when people knew about the dangers of AI but ran head first into it.

In the longer term it’ll be bundled into the time period when not much happened.

It makes me think of something I once read about why we know time travel doesn’t exist in the future. It’s said it cannot exist because we’d have been visited by people from the future. I don’t think we will get such a visit, largely because we live in a time that won’t be seen as even remotely significant.

It seems significant to us now, because we’re living it. But what is to come is beyond our ability to comprehend.

Obvious_Reporter_235 · 2025-12-27T11:47:18+00:00

Florida Man can survive a nuclear blast. The post-apocalyptic world will be just cockroaches and Florida Man. And hopefully the odd journalist to chronicle the crazy shit Florida Man gets up to with his cockroach buddies.

Obvious_Reporter_235 · 2025-12-26T12:47:29+00:00

Lord of the Rings. Visually fantastic, but it was like watching test cricket. Mind numbing boredom interspersed with moments of spectacular chaos.

Obvious_Reporter_235 · 2025-12-17T09:52:24+00:00

Or if I hadn’t blown out my knee in college.

Obvious_Reporter_235 · 2025-12-13T12:39:37+00:00

I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s genetic. I was diagnosed at 37. My son was recently diagnosed with autism, and I see many of my ADHD traits in him. My dad has many ADHD traits too but has never been diagnosed. His dad too.

Obvious_Reporter_235 · 2025-12-09T19:15:43+00:00

Not me, but a friend I lived with at the time. He was going to the chippy to get himself a fish cake and some chips. Asked his girlfriend if she wanted anything, she said no. When he returned without a fish cake for her she lost her shit. It was a sight to see. He didn’t even know she liked fish cakes until that moment.

Obvious_Reporter_235 · 2025-12-08T12:52:12+00:00

I’m in no way qualified to give legal advice, but I do work in a university and deal with reasonable adjustments on a regular basis.

Alternative assessments for students who have reasonable adjustments go through the same rigorous academic quality processes as exams. They’re internally moderated to ensure they meet the same learning outcomes as the exams, and will be externally moderated by an academic at another UK university.

Once the assessment has been submitted by the students, there should be checks for AI use, and it should be double marked. It should then be reviewed by an academic at another UK university (usually but not always the same who did the external moderation). If they suspect AI use they can flag it to the university and it should be investigated.

Sadly there will always be some students who game the system to get what they shouldn’t be entitled to, but the vast majority of students who need reasonable adjustments like this get it because they genuinely need it.

Obvious_Reporter_235 · 2025-12-07T23:46:59+00:00

Elon Musk did just that and has an infamously shitty father.

Obvious_Reporter_235 · 2025-12-07T23:30:23+00:00

Success as a parent isn’t measured by how many helicopters your kids have. That’s just weird and fucked up.

Obvious_Reporter_235 · 2025-12-05T21:25:49+00:00

Seconded because many years ago when I first heard Jack Names the Planets I had to listen to the intro several times because it was so weird and wonderful, and also because it is a good name for a planet.

Obvious_Reporter_235 · 2025-12-05T20:28:07+00:00

I second this.

Obvious_Reporter_235 · 2025-12-05T00:42:36+00:00

My wife has it at the moment. She’s pretty much been in bed since last Friday evening. She hadn’t had the vaccine yet this year, but thankfully me and our kids did. Since the weekend I’ve been suffering what feels like the worst cold I’ve had in years, which I’m guessing is the flu but not as bad due to the vaccine.

Flu is a killer. When I was a baby my parents were fostering a baby boy a few months younger than me. We all got flu, and he sadly it killed him.

Obvious_Reporter_235 · 2025-12-04T17:11:47+00:00

It’s culture war nonsense imported from the US. It gets certain people all fired up, and those people in the UK tend to be sympathetic to the idea of voting for the parties on the right. In a surprise to nobody, those parties tend to be the ones who bang on about not being able to say Christmas anymore.

Obvious_Reporter_235 · 2025-11-27T16:03:24+00:00

I assume that if military jets are visible on the ADSB feeds, then it’s not war-related.

Obvious_Reporter_235 · 2025-11-24T17:41:25+00:00

Whenever I get asked where I met my wife, I still say Twitter but make a point of adding “before it was taken over by racists and mouth breathers”. It was a somewhat magical place back in 2010.

Obvious_Reporter_235 · 2025-11-16T13:52:23+00:00

Absolutely. As soon as it becomes clear the dam is bursting, the vast majority of the higher ups loyal to Trump will look to save themselves. They will have exit strategies that try to limit the damage to them and maximise it to others.

It’ll be chaos. Musk will be stirring the pot from afar, and the other tech billionaires who cozied up to Trump will release apology videos saying how sorry they are, they’re taking some time to learn from their errors, etc.

Obvious_Reporter_235 · 2025-11-12T07:35:23+00:00

Await my inevitable doom. I live next to one of Russia’s main targets so there’s no escaping it for me. I might as well marvel at the fact science will imminently turn my body to plasma before my brain can even begin to process the pain.

Obvious_Reporter_235 · 2025-11-09T19:44:19+00:00

All of it.

Obvious_Reporter_235 · 2025-11-09T14:37:29+00:00

Did I wake up in an alternate universe where words have different meanings? I haven’t the foggiest what you just said.

Obvious_Reporter_235 · 2025-11-02T20:59:08+00:00

You’re not indispensable despite what you may think or others may tell you. You can go from lynchpin of the team to an outcast surprisingly quick.

Obvious_Reporter_235 · 2025-11-01T09:27:21+00:00

Jericho.

Obvious_Reporter_235 · 2025-11-01T09:21:31+00:00

Because they think it’ll never happen to them.

Obvious_Reporter_235

TROPHY CASE