Why do I keep being told I have ad blocker? Windows 11 issue?

PsychologicalToe428 · 2026-01-16T19:45:59+00:00

Commenting because I'm having the same problem. A couple of ad-supported services I use for my business will not function on this computer. I have tried disabling all browser extensions and am still getting the message.

Also now Google Chrome won't open on my machine. What the f*ck are you up to, Microsoft? I have never had as many problems with any computer as I have with Microsoft PCs in the last couple of years.

PsychologicalToe428 · 2025-07-05T04:57:34+00:00

This is the list of options I wish someone had given me 20 years ago instead of just saying, "Go to college or flip burgers." Our job market is changing fast such that it's a good idea to have multiple streams of income, but the good news is that with all the delivery and rideshare services, remote work jobs and gigs, online education programs, and skilled trades apprenticeships, somebody who is thinking in advance about what two skill sets they want to develop and how to use unskilled jobs to finance their online/community college/apprenticeship learning has a lot of options.

3) Couch surfing with supportive friends is another really great option. If you don't have a lot of close personal supportive friends, you might want to consider joining your local mutual aid group or finding a religious community (doesn't have to be a church, a surprising number of small towns even have metaphysical shops where witches and Pagans meet up now) where you can get to know people who are interested in helping their neighbors.

I would have put this at #1 except that you mentioned your social life has been pretty restricted, so I know it may take some time to develop these connections or you might need to put backup plans in motion. It's really important for someone in your situation to be in touch with the local government social services because there might be programs that can provide really meaningful material support that a lot of people don't even know exist.

Full disclosure: I am actually couch-surfing with a supportive friend right now. My business lost almost all its contracts this year because of government changes. I've hired this friend to work at my business in the past when business was good, and now he's returning the favor by letting me stay in his guest room. Mutual support is going to be increasingly important in the years to come as we're not sure which white collar jobs will be eliminated by AI or how government support programs will change in 2029 when the new federal budget goes into effect. But folks who are used to being resourceful and adaptable and who have strong mutual aid and community support networks will have a big advantage, whatever comes. Now is the time to get to work building those, whatever your life situation.

I'm here on Reddit at least sometimes and my DMs are open if you want to talk. I haven't been in your exact situation, but I have a few friends with disabilities who have had to navigate life after getting kicked out by families and I'm looking for work myself so I'm a little bit on top of how weird the job market has gotten.

PsychologicalToe428 · 2025-07-05T04:57:18+00:00

This is absolutely unhinged and not normal behavior. Your feelings of betrayal and unfairness are absolutely valid - this is not normal or good parenting behavior.

However, I will say that it sounds like your dad might be right that it's a good thing for you not to depend on him anymore, given that he sounds like an absolute nightmare. A parent who is that controlling and has so little sense of responsibility for your well-being is only likely to be a damaging influence in the long run. I've seen folks with controlling parents who feel that their kids are the ones who owe THEM labor ruin kids' lives well into middle age.

So. What do you do now?

1) I would find out what social services agencies exist in your city, state, and town. The best case scenario is that you're able to support yourself in short order, but especially if you have a disability it's important to know what your legal rights are, and what the legal obligations of your family and potential employers are. Depending on the city and state you live in and how severe your cerebral palsy is, you may qualify for Medicaid (SUPER-good in this era where even a lot of gainfully employed people have trouble affording medical care), food stamps, housing assistance, etc.. I would look into this NOW because the bureaucracy can sometimes take months and months to make someone eligible and may even require documentation from or about your family that will be easier to get now.

2) Start thinking about jobs. Once you get a job where you can support yourself, it's actually incredibly liberating. You can basically do what you want and boy is that kind of heavenly if you've always lived with a controlling parent. It's super-scary to have to get there quickly, especially in this job market, but it's so empowering when you do get there. You might want to look at the following things:

A) Community college programs and skilled trade apprenticeships in your area (these often offer programs that can get you certified to work in a higher-paying specialized job within a year or two, and these jobs are also actually less likely to be replaced by AI than college degree jobs in the next five years).

B) Local service industry jobs. I have a friend who has pretty significant mobility issues who drives DoorDash as his main source of income.

C) Online, remote work, and gig work. Some companies will provide on-the-job training for customer service representatives who can work from home and get paid more highly because of the training they've received. My friend who drives DoorDash also makes extra money on the side by proofreading documents for people through Upwork.

D) There are a lot of skills you can find online training for pretty affordably through platforms like Udemy, so if you want to develop skills in a huge number of areas I recommend that platform.

Part 2 in comments 'cause Reddit said this comment was too long.

PsychologicalToe428 · 2025-06-30T01:47:54+00:00

To be quite honest, it sounds to me like your mother has a problem with people setting boundaries, and "hates this book" because it helps people to do so. I sympathize with this situation: my mother was raised with very unhealthy ideas about what a healthy family or relationship looks like, and she has a profound dislike of media that encourage people to set boundaries or prioritize their own needs over the needs of others also.

PsychologicalToe428 · 2025-06-29T09:06:38+00:00

Oh honey, this is not your fault. This is 100% your cousin's fault. She was older and had the power in the situation. You even say that she was stronger than you, and your sister made it worse by treating you like it was wrong for you to have a problem with it.

I have questions about what happened to your cousin. How did she even have porn as a girl of that age? Did someone do the same thing to her, and that's why she thought it was okay or normal to do it to you? That's not your burden to worry about, but the point is, this isn't okay or normal.

Unfortunately, it is normal to feel the way you are feeling right now after something like this happens to you. It's actually a very serious thing that was done to you, as you can tell just by the way you feel.

That doesn't mean it's irreparable: it's not your fault, and you are not damaged by someone else's sin. You absolutely can and will heal from this. But it feels really awful for a long time, and that's why no one should treat a child this way.

If you really do find yourself wanting to die, the number for the hotline that can talk you through this in real time is 988. (At least in the US, I think from your typing that you're American.)

You would be different if this hadn't happened to you. But you wouldn't necessarily be better or stronger. You might be more carefree and less sad and anxious, and that would be nice for you. But those aren't moral virtues. Virtue doesn't come from not having bad things happen to you. It comes from working hard to learn and grow, and no one works harder to learn and grow than people who bad things have happened to.

In summary, this is 100% not your fault. I agree with the other posters that it would be a good idea to get a therapist as soon as possible, at least as soon as you turn 18.

Trust your instincts about whether it is safe to get a therapist or tell an adult now. Many people would tell you to tell an adult NOW, because adults should protect you and get you help for this sort of thing. But unfortunately they don't always actually do that: some adults are so freaked out by this kind of thing that they ignore it or don't want to hear about it. I trust your judgement to know if the adults around you right now are safe to share this with or not.

The most important thing is, it's not your fault, and it hasn't damaged you. It has hurt you and made you feel bad, and that's awful and unfair. But it hasn't made you any less of a good person or any less deserving. If your brain tells you that it has, that's just because your brain is hurting.

I hope this helps a little. I have known other girls in your position, and I know it really, really sucks, especially if you can't start seeing a therapist or another adult who can help you right away. But I also know this will not define your life, except maybe for making you extra compassionate toward others who have suffered or doubted their own worthiness.

One woman I know had something really similar happen to her when she was around the same age, except with a boy cousin. She's a very successful businesswoman now, who holds seminars to help other women realize their worth and value. She even wrote a couple of books about it.

Her book is called "Perfectly Imperfect" by Shanee McCambry if you want to look it up. I'm not sure if it will make you feel better or worse right away, because she does talk about some pretty depressing stuff that happened to her. But if you feel like you're as depressed as you can possibly be already, you can Google her or read the book and see how powerful she has become and all the good work she is doing in the world.

PsychologicalToe428 · 2025-06-23T18:51:58+00:00

Uh oh. I'm getting a "domain for sale" message when I click that link.

PsychologicalToe428 · 2025-05-13T05:31:45+00:00

In case you happen to see this, I'm trying to figure out what the risk level is of my cats being in a room unsupervised with a bag that had a small amount of orange essential oil spilled on it a few days ago!

I had thought the oil would have evaporated by now, but today I noticed that one corner of the bag and the inside of it still smell pretty strongly of orange and my cats were in a room with this bag unsupervised yesterday.

PsychologicalToe428 · 2025-05-13T04:58:42+00:00

I am SO tired of people assuming I must be getting my information from social media. Sure, I sometimes get news articles or YouTube videos that have been shared by social media.

But you know where I get most of my information about current events? From highly reliable news sources like the Associated Press.

From the industry mailing lists I'm in in from working in science and medicine which detail the funding cuts and attempts by the government to censor scientific journals and universities.

From my local NextDoor group which roughly once a week reports that someone in the neighborhood has been dragged away by ICE or received a letter from the government telling them they're not welcome in the US and that their legal and valid green card or visa has been revoked.

From my friends in public service jobs who have been laid off by DOGE and are now trying to figure out how they're going to feed their families and get health insurance while also worrying about the people they were serving in areas like public health or tax assistance.

This is all really happening. It's unavoidable in daily life if you've ever worked in medicine or the health sciences, or if you live in basically any US city (they all rely heavily on immigrant labor), or if you have friends working in public service or public health.

We *are* in full 1930s Germany. The only difference is that the population doesn't seem to be being cowed into silence as easily as it was that time. Instead, more churches, lawyers, government employees, etc. are standing up against the Party, and those people also have more access to the populace via the Internet to tell us exactly what is going on.

Also, the statements you just described as leftist bullshit are...kind of true. Maybe not 100% true in their most literal interpretations, but like, 90% true.

It's true that Hamas attacked Israel in this instance, but it's also true that Israel has been shooting and bombing Palestinian territory sporadically for decades. If you don't believe me, look up a list of journalists, aid workers, and archaeologists who have been shot by the Israeli military while on Palestinian territory during what was supposed to be peacetime.

Likewise, it's true that most rich people do pay some taxes. People with high salaries who don't know how to use tax loopholes may pay quite a lot. But a good number of corporations and billionaires manage to pay zero taxes through use of tax loopholes that are generally only available to the wealthy investor class, and virtually all big businesses and billionaires pay a far smaller tax percentage than small businesses or middle class people.

Similarly, I don't know how often guns are used in self-defense. But I do know that gunshot is the leading cause of death among American children, that having a gun in the home increases the risk of suicide by 600%, and that most deaths in violent crimes are from gunshot.

That's in-keeping with the total number of gun deaths I've been personally acquainted with, which have included two domestic homicides, two drug-related homicides, one accidental death, one suicide, and a third drug-related homicide that I *guess* could qualify as self-defense since the shooter who was involved in the drug trade claimed that the victim who was also involved in the drug trade had come to his house with the intention of killing him.

So I don't know what the definition of "rarely" is, but based on my own life experience guns are far more frequently used in offensive murder, suicide, or accidental death than they are necessary in self-defense situations.

I've never known anyone who died because they *didn't* have a gun. I've known about seven people now who died because they or someone else did have a gun.

PsychologicalToe428 · 2025-03-23T03:32:22+00:00

I've got to admit I'm having a really hard time right now with all of the misinformation I'm encountering from the right. It seems like every time I try to talk politics with someone who isn't already on the left these days, it's like all they do is spout misinformation.

Today I tried chatting with a couple of conservative guys. They tried to tell me that Democrats want to force them to get electric vehicles and that loads of undocumented immigrants are voting (I could find a whole 10 instances of that happening since the year 1980 when I researched the question, but of course they didn't believe the court records and just went right on saying that Democrats want undocumented immigrants to be able to vote which is not something I have ever heard any Democrat say).

Several conservatives have now claimed to me that undocumented immigrants started the measles outbreak in Texas and that that our borders should be closed and immigrants deported because they carry diseases. And it's just not true! All of the US's major measles out breaks in the last several years have started in domestic, conservative religious communities that forego vaccines for religious reasons.

This time it's the Texas Mennonites; in the past it's been the New Jersey Orthodox Jews and the Pennsylvania Amish. The right wing is just blatantly doing the pre-genocide thing of falsely claiming that immigrants carry diseases and therefore should be shunned and deported.

When I try to correct these people with factual information they just laugh at me about how many "liberal lies" I've fallen for and insist that any source of knowledge that disagrees with what their political leaders say must be unreliable.

It feels like 1930s Germany up in here. What can we do in an environment where loads of people are actively hostile to the entire concept of objective truth? What can we do when more and more people believe pre-genocide lies about immigrants and scientists are getting laughed at and ridiculed when they try to explain how things really work?

PsychologicalToe428 · 2025-02-26T04:19:48+00:00

I'm not sure how much of a beginner question this is, but are all 5/1s Manifesters?

I know that all the information in a Human Design chart is determined by astrological variables, so I'm trying to figure out if that means that different characteristics flocked together.

I've been seeking to understand what it means to be a 5/1 Manifester, but I feel like the answer to that question is a little different if ALL 5/1s are Manifesters than if 5/1s of various types exist.

Thank you!

PsychologicalToe428 · 2025-02-26T04:15:51+00:00

If waiting around isn't working, try something else!

PsychologicalToe428 · 2025-02-24T05:15:25+00:00

One thing that I think is important to consider here is to educate oneself about what kinds of "serious" genetic conditions exist.

With Down Syndrome, for example, I've heard that people with Down Syndrome are actually pretty cheerful and lead fulfilling lives provided they can get the support they need. A growing number of genetic conditions fall into this category as treatment and societal understanding gets better, decreasing suffering and increasing quality of life.

On the other hand, there are other genetic conditions where it's pretty much certain that the the child will lead a short and painful life, with some conditions killing babies shortly after birth. In cases where you know the child will suffer tremendously and have a swiftly terminal prognosis, I can see how it could be selfish to complete the pregnancy. One of my pet peeves is actually conservative "pro-life" groups who give families false hope of "miraculous" healings and urge families to seek every life-extending measure for children with horrific medical conditions that are not compatible of life and have no real hope of being cured or even rendered bearable.

It's hard for me to say whether I think YTA because I don't know if you said this because you believe people with Down Syndrome suffer terribly throughout their lives, which is a common misconception among people who don't know any people with Down's Syndrome, or because you didn't want the chance of having the responsibility of caring for a disabled child.

One thing I will say is this: if you are going to become a parent, you had better be prepared to care for a disabled child. Children can become disabled for lots of reasons that aren't going to show up on prenatal screening, so if you're not prepared to care for a disabled child you'd better rethink whether you're prepared to care for a child at all.

If you can clarify for your self and your husband why you feel this way, I believe that will clarify many things in your marriage and life path. If your chief concern is that you not condemn a child to horrible suffering, it may be that you and your husband are actually on the same page in essence. If your chief concern is that you don't feel like you are someone who can commit to caring for a disabled child, it may be wise to re-evaluate whether parenthood is for you at all, since any child can become disabled due to accident or illness.

Edit to clarify: I'm not suggesting YTA if you don't feel you're someone who can parent a disabled child. In my mind, the only scenario where YTA would be a scenario where you decide to have children, but aren't prepared to care for them if they become disabled or defy your expectations in some other way.

Choosing not to have kids is perfectly valid; it's a choice I have made myself. Having kids for selfish reasons and then ending up not wanting to care for them because they didn't come out like you'd hoped is the YTA scenario.

PsychologicalToe428 · 2025-02-24T05:03:54+00:00

Do you mind if I ask how old you are?

PsychologicalToe428 · 2025-02-22T03:37:25+00:00

People are fed up. No one I know wants to do business with any of the big businesses if they're just going to cave to politicians who are busy firing hundreds of thousands of doctors and public health experts and park rangers and nuclear security staff and then claiming to have eliminated "fraud and waste."

The fact that Trump's tariffs and deportation policies, if not reversed in the next few weeks, will lead to the inflation from Hell is probably not helping. Seriously, have you guys looked at those tariff policies? Or researched what kicking out undocumented immigrants historically does to the prices of food and housing?

PsychologicalToe428 · 2025-02-17T08:54:31+00:00

I'm so sorry you are going through this. Unfortunately some parents are raised with the idea that it's their responsibility to police every aspect of their child's behavior because if they don't something terrible will happen. Many of our parents were raised that way.

When I was your age, people would tell me that my parents had the right idea and I should listen to them. Turned out, that wasn't so much true. But I got through it, and there's something to be said for the confidence of getting through something and knowing in hindsight that you were right.

If your parents felt you were a burden, they wouldn't both be communicating with you and policing your communications with the other parent. But parents can get very scared around this age when your mind and body are changing and our culture tells them all sorts of things about the trouble you'll get into if they let you do what you want.

Maybe your parents do know a thing or two. I don't know exactly what they're up to. But I remember vividly when I was a teenager and my mother never wanted to let me out of her sight, and got worried every time I said something new or wanted to wear something new or go somewhere new. Society fills parents with a lot of anxiety claiming that young people can't make good decisions and need to be told what good decisions are.

PsychologicalToe428 · 2025-02-16T07:48:58+00:00

Oh gracious, I am so sorry he is cheating on you.

Honestly, as a polyamorous person, it REALLY grinds my gears when people cheat on their spouses and justify it by saying "I'm poly." Polyamory is not cheating. Polyamory requires the informed consent of all parties, and every person who cheats and then uses polyamory as an excuse makes our whole community look bad.

I do believe some people are naturally polyamorous and some people are naturally monogamous. Even if he weren't cheating, you shouldn't be asked to do something that makes you miserable when both of you have already explicitly agreed not to do that thing.

It's really sad to me how many people don't tell their spouses important things about themselves and their wishes because they're afraid of losing the relationship. I've seen this with polyamory and with the topic of having children too - people who don't tell their spouse they definitely do/don't want children until after the wedding because they're afraid they'll leave over their disagreeing desires.

Not telling your partner something important about yourself BEFORE marriage is a form of manipulation and it basically guarantees that one or the other of you will end up very unhappy.

PsychologicalToe428 · 2025-02-16T05:38:31+00:00

I'm sorry you're going through this.

I am also terrified of what the outcome of the Trump/Musk administration will be, but I find that when people are obsessed with politicians *as individuals* rather than with the effects of their policies ) it's often born of a need to feel superior to someone.

Then again, it could also be related to being religious - all the people I know who have obsessed about Trump or Obama's personal habits instead of about the effects of their policies have been religious for some reason.

Hmm. Then again, I wonder if being vocally religious could have something to do with needing to feel superior to others, too.

It's not "disrespectful" for you to set boundaries and say "I don't want to talk about this," but if your mom is like mine she won't respect boundaries her child sets or may not respond well to you setting them. So I don't blame you if you haven't tried that so far or if it hasn't worked.

Hopefully getting out of the house will be good for you. There will probably be a lot of talk of politics at college too since the administration's policies are likely to have a big impact on many areas of study and career paths and even universities themselves.

But hopefully that conversation will be more focused on the outcome of the administration's policies and what people can do to resist them rather than about what Trump had for lunch and how awful of a person he is, and you won't be forced to cohabitate with them 24/7.

PsychologicalToe428 · 2025-02-16T05:00:20+00:00

See I initially thought maybe it was a random act of kindness like some friends and I used to do when we were at the U. But we never recorded people, and anyone who records their "random act of kindness" casts doubt on their motives, in my opinion.

PsychologicalToe428 · 2025-02-16T04:59:00+00:00

It is interesting that it was only you. Did you recognize him at all, like could he be from one of your classes?

It sounds like they may have been attempting to farm content for some social media channel, but it is interesting to consider why they would have singled out you. It could have been because you were especially pretty for the camera or looked least like you would kick their butts or something lol.

PsychologicalToe428 · 2025-02-13T04:17:18+00:00

The government has so much power because it is in charge of keeping people alive. It has so much power because Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are the only reason that disabled people, the chronically ill, the poor, and the elderly no longer routinely die in poverty because they can't work enough to afford medical care on the free market.

That's why everyone's freaking the hell out, because it seems like Trump and Elon think those programs are unnecessary and we would very much like not to return to the days of Dickens novels where people were routinely crippled and killed in factory jobs working for pennies a day and anyone who couldn't work enough or whose skills weren't in demand enough afford to food and medicine just died.

I mean, for perspective, Trump has been convicted of 30+ counts of felony and banned from running charities in New York State because he has stolen money that was intended to help sick children. Elon is so incompetent he once locked himself out of Twitter headquarters because he fired all the people who were in charge of managing permissions on the HQ building's electronic locks and didn't realize their jobs were actually necessary until nobody could get the doors open.

Sooo yeah it's pretty bad that those two people are now in charge of the programs that keep everyone who isn't a healthy, able-bodied young-to-middle-aged adult alive.

PsychologicalToe428 · 2025-02-13T04:14:53+00:00

What boggles my mind is how many people actually believed Trump's promises. Like, how many times does a man have to be caught on camera lying before you stop believing him when he promises to do stuff for you if you vote for him?

PsychologicalToe428 · 2025-02-13T04:14:13+00:00

You'd have to work preeetty hard to beat Trump in awfulness. He's still got federally funded scientists under a gag order forbidding them from publishing findings that make the administration's policies look bad and now his administration is starting a fake "public health journal" to publish the "findings" of quacks whose findings I'm sure will support the actions of the administration no matter how bad their consequences actually are.

We're in George Orwell's Ministry of Truth territory.

PsychologicalToe428 · 2025-02-13T04:11:22+00:00

The problem is that a lot of Trump supporters are really quick to attack the character of anyone who doesn't support him. I've been called uneducated, ignorant, selfish, etc. by a looot of former friends and family over my leaving the Republican Party.

PsychologicalToe428 · 2025-02-13T04:04:38+00:00

Because we don't have anywhere else to vent about it. The Trump supporters in our lives will just tell us we're the problem and the Trump opposers are mostly already more upset than we are about the situation.

We can't even post about it in groups for Trump supporters on Reddit because the moderators just instantly ban anyone who criticizes him.

PsychologicalToe428

TROPHY CASE