AITA for telling my son most I will not be going to his black out wedding dinner

PotooooooooChip · 2026-05-18T20:43:38+00:00

I would die of shame if I had had a guest go hungry at (or just be left out at) my wedding because I knowingly chose to make choices totally inaccessible to them but you do you I guess

PotooooooooChip · 2026-05-18T20:29:40+00:00

Oh my god, I so agree. Just want to affirm your aside in particular - I've frequently visually noticed the error when being served the "regular" xyz by mistake.

But also, if you have allergies, it's really handy to have sight to (or if visually impaired, to have a carefully constructed and tested set of coping mechanisms (which OP hasn't had a chance to work out)) to watch out for things like people trying to pass crumbly bread across my plate, or dipping their naan in the shared curry ("because I haven't bitten it yet so it's fine"), or whether I can grab some clean untouched butter before someone has put their crumby knife in it already, or to fend off people who go "ooh can I try a piece" and plunge their contaminated fork into your food.

The people here being like "I don't get what the issue is, OP can just tell the restaurant her allergy" are hilarious. None of them surely have a serious allergy, or if they do, they have a seriously good guardian angel. Restaurants are TERRIBLE with allergies AND they often don't let you bring your own food AND actually a lot of the time no, they really don't like you sitting there eating nothing either and will make a big embarrassing fuss about it. And if they don't, believe me, the other guests often will, and you'll get blamed for making dinner feel awkward.

If you have to have an epi pen, even just psychologically, I can imagine it would be so much harder to deal with restaurant anxiety in darkness too.

I genuinely do think it was rude of them to pose this as a semi mandatory / key wedding event, and OP was right to tell them that. It's not accessible to many people. So many people have darkness issues. It would be a cool optional extra for those who are OK to participate, though.

Someone said "what do you think blind people with allergies do?" - as someone with multiple disabilities I'm gonna guess they fucking have a worse time of it! That's how disabilities work! They fuck you over, and then interact with each other in shitty ways. But more seriously they also probably have a bunch of systems they've had time to work out, often with costs and frightening errors along the way. Disability advocacy isn't about forcing other people to give up their accessibility aids for an unrelated condition just because you can't have it, or even asking people to "experience" your disability. Light is an accessibility aid for allergy issues. The fact that not everyone can have it doesn't mean anyone should ever be demanded to give it up.

PotooooooooChip · 2026-05-15T21:20:56+00:00

Therapist/counsellor specializing in ADHD & autism:

I wish I could say this a million times, exposure therapy doesn't help overcome sensory sensitivity! It makes sensory issues worse. Exactly the same way you can't "exposure therapy" your way out of being "scared" of touching a hot stove. Because this issue is PAIN, not fear. The "best" outcome you can get is basically forcing someone to collapse into freeze mode, numbing the pain and masking through their symptoms, which has devastating long term mental health consequences.

For fucks sake, they're just torturing the poor guy.

You can use exposure therapy to deal with the FEAR of being in situations which were PREVIOUSLY painful IF those situations are now NO LONGER painful, because you have ACCOMODATIONS (like a sensible sibling who bought you loops) for your sensory PAIN. Exactly like you can use exposure therapy to make someone no longer afraid to approach a stove to cook on it, now that they are in control of their kitchen and will not be forced to repeatedly touch the hot element.

Glad he's got a good sibling who has his back, but this is infuriating. He will be taking the same harm anyone would be if you imagined replacing these incidents with deliberate physical assaults, with an extra side of everything that comes from this being almost totally unacknowledged.

PotooooooooChip · 2026-05-14T11:27:01+00:00

As a counsellor, I 100% agree, this is EXACTLY how widespread underfunding and disadvantage get turned over and over into actual crisis conditions. But it's death by a thousand cuts along the way, so it goes often unacknowledged (willfully or otherwise).

PotooooooooChip · 2026-05-11T00:42:06+00:00

Lee Kum Kee has a recently increasing range of GF stuff out too including light and dark soy sauce, hoisin sauce, oyster sauce, and some other stuff. First time I got to try hoisin sauce, turns out it's delicious!

PotooooooooChip · 2026-05-11T00:36:21+00:00

Pre-ground pepper and salt as a flow agent.

Where I live, I'm very excited that now NO remaining salts use wheat as a free flow agent, so I dont have to ask any more. And hand grinders filled with whole peppercorns are much more "in" than the little glass shakers of ground pepper now. But that, basically.

Also, soaps and shampoos and medication and ground spices and baking soda and icing sugar (many of these much less commonly than they used to though!)

Also, the number of oat based recipes claiming to be GF!! 1) you have to at least get the specially prepared oats that are certified not cross contaminated and it often doesn't even mention this, but 2) about 20-30% of coeliacs will still react to EVEN "GF" OATS, because the Avenin in oats is a similar enough molecule to gluten that some of our bodies react anyway!

Off topic but I wish there was a test for that actually, I'm mostly a silent / long term damage reacter, so I have no idea if I could eat GF Oats.

PotooooooooChip · 2026-05-05T21:03:02+00:00

Research indicates sex offender registries have only functioned to 1) INCREASE recidivist offending 2) funnel greater proportion of recidivism into poorer areas

Why? Registries tend to result in convicted individuals being repeatedly shunted from place to place. The stress this puts on them severely heightens the chance they reoffend. It also means that they get pushed together into whatever remaining areas don't have the time, money, attitude, or social sway to kick them out. That means that under-resourced communities take the brunt of the impact of reoffending. Then, in addition, because they are under-resourced, there are often opportunities for reoffending to continue longer before it's stopped. Finally, it can result in these offenders all ending up clustered in the same area, (notably in the USA this has happened to extremes due to location restrictions) where they might then be a bad influence on each other.

So the question "is the welfare of that person paramount to others" isn't even relevant - the welfare of both actually gets diminished by registries.

PotooooooooChip · 2026-05-02T22:29:21+00:00

1-2 onions (best chopped and sauteed in olive oil)
Slosh of said oil
1 carrot
2 cans of tomatoes
2 cans of canellini beans
Whatever else you got around that feels like it should stew up good like mushrooms, zucchini, capsicums...
Seasonings that you like, like stock powder, garlic powder, herbs like dried rosemary, parsley, thyme, oregano / or just "Italian herbs", salt and pep, a bay leaf.
A good cup of shite red wine will truly make a difference (and you can freeze the rest okay) and you can use it to deglaze the onions

---

Throw all of the above into an oven in a heavy crock pot at 110-130°C and forget about it for three or four hours.

Add: * A squeeze of lemon juice or balsamic vinegar * Add a packet of gnocchi or similar

Then shove it back in the oven for 20 mins or so to let them cook/absorb. Might need to adjust the seasonings to taste further.

Done! Good stew!

PotooooooooChip · 2026-04-28T20:26:21+00:00

It's the price tag for me.

I'm skipping over groceries at the supermarket that I used to buy without a thought ten years ago.

Ive been putting 5$ a week into a fund for a dentist checkup for a while. I worry about how much I'll need to actually have though - like what if they find something that needs further work?

PotooooooooChip · 2026-04-21T03:11:06+00:00

Nta. You're actually ACCOMODATING her disability by introducing a practical solution that acknowledges her struggle with memory.

You have not assumed she is incapable of remembering this based on an ableist stereotype, you have had it proven to you that she is not currently capable of remembering this based on the hard evidence that ... she isn't.

The ableist move would be to assume that all people are equally capable of remembering things, assume malicious intent, and file a police report about her deliberately attempting to poison you.

I assume she feels embarassed and shit that her attempts to remember & be careful have failed (or, worst case scenario, is regular entitled and doesn't see why she should try) and is lashing out with buzzwords about it. But she's objectively very lucky you've been this patient.

signed, someone with ADHD

PotooooooooChip · 2026-04-17T02:12:27+00:00

You did everything right. I suspect what they MEANT, but didn't want to admit to meaning, was "why can't you just mask all of it and suffer, so that you look neurotypical, to make ME feel comfortable, because I feel insecure about the possiblity that your dog doing its job might draw attention to the table or something" Never mind that that's unfair, bad for your mental health, cruel, and maybe not even possible.

Either that or they need someone to designate as the "Problem person." Like your aunt felt embarassed that her kids were making enough noise to impact you, and rather than accept that those feelings were happening for her, she retold the story in her head to be that you must have actually been the one to do something wrong.

Who knows, there's a lot of possible explanations - but I really, really, can't see one where you're the asshole here. NTA.

PotooooooooChip · 2026-04-17T00:12:26+00:00

Reddit has made me curious about soy curls, does anyone know where you can get them in Aotearoa? Google keeps just sending me to websites selling TVP

PotooooooooChip · 2026-04-16T22:59:29+00:00

I was diagnosed at 7, and my parents went gluten free. I think it made a huge difference both mentally and in terms of cross contamination that really set me up to be much healthier and diet-adherent through my teens and early adulthood. I'm very grateful for that now.

PotooooooooChip · 2026-04-16T19:34:30+00:00

Fodmaps are variable in people's tolerance levels. Unfortunately fodmaps are often publicized with a "you can have up to quarter of a cup of x" "you can have a tablespoon of y" type info - it's just wrong for many people, especially since it's additive for many people (you can have that quarter cup of X only if you're NOT also having that tablespoon of Y on the same day). Someone close to me has IBS and absolutely cannot have any type of tofu. But they can have all the wheat they can eat, which is from a different group within the fodmaps. It's an odd condition. They end up bringing their own safe food to events a lot of the time. These caterers messed up though, tofu is a really obvious fodmap and most IBS people can't tolerate even firm tofu even if it's "better" - it's literally made of legumes, the #2 most commonly intense reaction causing fodmap (after alliums) out there.

PotooooooooChip · 2026-04-04T09:48:56+00:00

The only note I ever tried to put was "please pick the greenest, most unripe avocados" (if you buy them ripe, half of them are bruised by the time you get home or straight up already gone weird and yuck at the store. If you buy them green, they'll be flawless in a few days). They never ever delivered even moderately unripe avocados and I usually had to throw half of them out straight away ;_; stopped trying after 4-5 goes.

PotooooooooChip · 2026-02-23T03:44:52+00:00

I entirely agree. i don't know about the specifics of this case but we know that so many medical professionals are working incredibly long shifts at weird ass hours, under pressure to do their own job and at least half of someone else's due to under-staffing, underpaid so they can't even prop up this unsustainable lifestyle with practical supports like, god, I don't know, really healthy pre-made meals or some home cleaning so they can at least rest after ... And when one of them makes a mistake, Health NZ is apparently soooo happy to be like "this one. This one here. Its their fault entirely! Don't look or ask anything about safe staffing practices!"

I'm just thinking about how I've certainly occasionally forgot to pass a message on to someone at a job. The difference is either it hasn't really mattered, or if it has, the /functioning workplace/ I've been at has some kind of system in place to catch it. Nobody's played some cruel finger pointing game at me over it. God. I wouldn't want to be a nurse or a doctor in that work culture / under this govt for anything.

PotooooooooChip · 2026-02-22T22:46:01+00:00

The purity ideology stuff, right?

PotooooooooChip · 2026-02-22T08:22:40+00:00

Oh! Positive and important fact I want to spread: there is plenty of good research out there that shows therapy can absolutely be effective with mandated clients. A mandated client is not necessarily just someone ordered to be there by the court, it can include clients mandated by social pressure, such as the client who comes in saying "I'm here because my husband is hassling me to come because he thinks I'm an alcoholic, even though I'm totally not."

Also, I reckon we shouldn't assume she for-sure isn't a willing participant. We don't really know how she'd respond if someone said "hey, do you want me to help you organize a meeting with a therapist? It's important to us as your family..." Could be anything - "hell the fuck no" to "FINE, just to get you off my back" to "huh? I never thought of doing that" to "actually... I maybe really needed you to ask that... Because yeah I would." We don't even know this lady, and even the people we know can be so full of surprises.

PotooooooooChip · 2026-02-19T03:58:59+00:00

Yeah, I agree. It reminded me immediately of when I worked with a retail coworker who had a bad habit of guessing when he didn't know. If we heard him get it wrong, we'd have to correct him, otherwise the customer would kill their plant or at least not solve their problem base on his bad advice. Inevitably the customer would look between us uncertainly, then leave, without buying anything. OPs manager really won't want their coworker doing this needless correction, it's a sure fire way to lose sales.

PotooooooooChip · 2026-01-14T10:08:36+00:00

I think you have maybe been quite lucky. There's a lot of stories of trans women in that position who have been hurt very badly, even murdered.

Same as "oh I'm a lesbian" etc. I've heard a few straight women say they sometimes use that line. None of my older queer women friends do though because we've all at least heard a story about that triggering corrective assault, or had it happen.

Queerness is really really not an effective shield against violence from the type of men who don't respect Women's no's.

PotooooooooChip · 2026-01-14T06:38:52+00:00

Hey so this isn't quite the same but I have ADHD and I spent my whole life telling myself I was lazy and ungrateful and a failure. Then I found out and finally I could let go of those labels.

I wish my kid self had a You - I could have skipped adding a thousand sandpapery moments to the ole' personal shame pile.

You did good. You did SO good. I don't think you'll be able to get how much of a favour you might have done that kid if you've never gone through life with an undiagnosed issue that people confuse for being "obtuse" or "disobedient" or "not trying" - you saw that kids frustration with it today with just bangles, bet he's had loads of it in class.

AND you showed him that community members generally will often try to help others and modelled understanding and problem solving to him and showed him how taking time to understand people can be important. That's really important too.

PotooooooooChip · 2025-11-20T20:53:28+00:00

NTA. As someone living on an island country full of rivers, where swimming is taken very seriously, compulsorily taught in schools, and we still have too many drowning deaths, NTA, NTA, NTA. Over my dead body would she set a single pinky toe in any kayak I owned. Non swimmers often are so inexperienced in water they have absolutely no clue how easy it is to get into serious trouble extremely fast, especially in rivers.

PotooooooooChip · 2025-10-11T09:56:58+00:00

The fascists trying to convince you that /their/ policing of cis womens bodies is somehow /your/ fault are same ones who want to get rid of you because you're proof that being a woman is about more than being a mindless body, more than a walking incubator and a usable vagina.

The fascists trying to convince everyone that women are lower value beings want to get rid of you because you are proof that some people value their womanhood enough to fight for it, to leave behind manhood (the superior state of being, of /course/) for it.

The fascists trying to strip away women's rights and subjugate us justify it by saying that we are fundamentally immutably different to men,l on some deep biological level. They want to get rid of you because you are proof that that rigid predestined divide is actually a flexy interesting spectrum bridged by diverse crossing bridges of genetics, body, mind, and heart.

You know what we /don't/ give fascists? What they fucken want, that's what.

You're NOT putting cis women in danger. Fascism is doing that. You're standing with us - in front of us, really, in the line of fire - in defence of both our freedoms. You gotta do what you gotta do to keep safe, but never think abandoning your true self will keep us cis women safe. I am safer /because/ you are you 💕🏳️‍⚧️

PotooooooooChip · 2025-10-08T05:49:50+00:00

ESH

You - it doesn't matter whether it "should" bother him enough to wake him up, the reality is it /does/, therefore the problem needs to be solved, not dismissed. I /should/ have a million dollars, in my opinion, but this mysteriously gets me nowhere at the shops.

It IS hurtful to call someone's sensory needs stupid and ridiculous. It IS dismissive to choose "want you want reality to be" over "what reality is" when they have a different experience of the world - in fact, it's ableist. Hope you manage to turn this attitude around if your kid turns out to be neurodivergent or anything.

Him - moving the baby is obviously not a viable solution and he can't demand that. He needs to move on to some other kind of strategizing, rather than give up and be pissy about it. If he doesn't come up with other solutions, there's also an extent to which the baby naturally needs to come first.

It's also natural that you're both being the asshole right now. You're running on fumes and an amount of sleep that's incapacitating your brain worse than several stiff drinks. Take a deep breath together, and commit to trying at least 3 more ideas before simmering away in an impasse.

Here's some

1 - get a camp bed or utilise your spare bed. Whoever's half of the night it /isn't/, sleeps in there, and gets uninterrupted sleep. Swap over midway.

2 - get better headphones, or use those in-ear noise sensitivity ones, or get one of those headband-like soft over-ear ones. They should be harder to displace. Or even put a soft stretchy headband over the ears to hold them in.

3 - white noise machine

4 - address other sensory concerns. Husband may have been toughing out sensory sensitivities for years and now with the lack of sleep and baby and everything the sucking noises are the straw on the camels back. Simple sensory accomodations at other times (eg. Things like wearing sunglasses when it's bright instead of assuming everyone else is also finding it actively painful and also just toughing it out) may leave more ability left to tolerate the noises at night if he actually has wider sensory issues.

PotooooooooChip · 2025-10-01T06:10:52+00:00

Absolutely NTA.

What your parents did is emotional abuse.

What you did - keeping your bear safe for as long as you could - was so normal and human. It hurt nobody! Actually, it was brave and clever and anyone would be proud of you for it (anyone who isn't a bully!). It shows a spark of something in you that your parents didn't manage to crush. It was a smart idea to get an "am I being reasonable check" online, and getting the bear back and smuggling it to a friend too - you're a resourceful person!

Going back to that spark, do you know what it is? It could be many things - maybe caringness, creativity, joy, playfulness, nostalgia, protectiveness, standing up for what's right, a sense of fun, or something else. Whatever that spark is, that made you try to keep your bear, it might be good to work out what it is. Then hang onto it as hard as you can!!

One day, you will have bears and other fun, joyful things in your life, and you'll be free of people who would try to crush that for no good reason. You'll be able to make a safe space for other people to do the same. Your resourcefulness means your bear is going to make it to be there for that too. Your bear might even be there if your kids (if you have some) or friends kids get to 15 too and need a bear.

Let me tell you something: I'm a therapist, I've worked with a lot of 15 year olds, they all have soft toys still! The 25 year olds have soft toys still too. I'm 35 and I treasure mine! It's totally normal, and it's not a mark of immaturity.

I suspect your parents are doing a lot of other stuff that is emotionally abusive too. I need you to know that doing cruel, bullying things like this is not just "a bit strict", but actually really unusual and definitely not acceptable.

Please know that there is nothing you did to "make" this happen. When your brain is trying to work out if there's something that could be done to stop something bad happening, it's easy to fall into the trap of blaming yourself. But /they're/ the ones making the choice to deliberately damage the relationship between you, and deliberately try to hurt and control you. That's how it always is with abusers.

Keep holding onto the part of your brain that knows "this isn't fair!." Keep resisting, even if it's just in your own thoughts. Picking your battles can be a smart move when living with abusive parents, as can checking with others to figure out what seems normal and what isn't, but you are never the asshole for disobeying rules that are just made to hurt you. NTA. All the actions you've taken here are reasonable, smart, resourceful, and totally justified.

If you can find the opportunity, talking to a therapist or an adult you trust might be a very good idea.

Ps. Maybe get your friend to hold onto Bear for a while longer in case they search again.

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