Obligatory disclaimer for sensitive and distressing content. Please don’t continue reading if topics regarding abuse, specifically systematic abuse upsets you. I would also like to clarify, I consider myself pro-western and pro-secular on just about every topic. I’m from the west and I’ve just been studying our war in Afghanistan quite a bit lately. I also disagree with this cultural practice completely. My only contention is with our coverage of this phenomenon in the west.

So for those of you lucky enough not to know, Bacha Bazi is a Central Asian/Afghan pederastic practice in which young boys are coerced into sexual abuse by influential adult men. It’s been a practice for centuries and has popped up throughout history in the region.

Western media outlets have taken it upon themselves to, ad nauseam, inform the public on this practice and what it usually entails, this is usually done with an intention to display the inherent “barbarism” in Afghan cultures, and larger Muslim societies.

I’ve seen podcasts, news reports, and internet debates bringing up this phenomenon constantly—-and almost all of them conveniently ignore the fact that our western coalition outright revived the “Bacha Bazi” phenomenon with our invasion of Afghanistan. When it was previously outlawed!

I learned of this quite recently when researching the legal administration of the Taliban when they first came to power, apparently, the practice of “Bacha Bazi” had been outlawed by the Taliban when they first took power. Most instances of this practice occurring at the time, took place within the territory of the Northern Alliance, the very coalition who we supported when we invaded the country.

When the formal Afghan government was established, the practice was outlawed on paper, but in reality, Afghan field commanders who fought alongside us practiced “Bacha Bazi” on numerous children across Afghanistan. And though it was controversial, it basically occurred constantly throughout the war.

For western media and podcasters to highlight this practice as an Afghan phenomenon, without mentioning the fact that we basically spurred it back into existence and let it continue is insane and hypocritical to me. It’s also an example of how our current political debates are absolutely braindead.
I don’t even think most westerners realize we were the ones to bring this practice back to life.

Obviously our governments and military weren’t pro-pedophile. And the Taliban are certainly not a morally “good” entity. But the western coverage of this issue is completely unethical and washes away the very real role we as a coalition had in this practice.

I hate when this happens!

THIS HAPPENS TO ME LITERALLY MUTLIPLE TIMES A DAY FUCK OFF STOPP NAMING YOUR SHIT MOVIES AFTER WORDS OR COMMON FUCKING SAYING AND PHRASES AND SHIT

FUCK YOUR MOVIE AND FUCK YOUR SEARCH ENGINE I CANT SEARCH COMMON SHIT LIKE BOILING POINT WIRHOUT YOUR FUCKASS MOVIE

Title

Lost my job February due to illness. Did DoorDash until July, when my vehicle was ass-ended, hit and run. Insurance did fuck all about it.

Got a bike, been using it to scout around for potential means of employment. Two months later, FINALLY secure something. It's not great, but it's something.

Coming home from my first day of work, I get hit by a car. Can't recall the event because one moment I'm on my bike, and the next I'm in the hospital. Reports claim I'm "not at fault".

8 staples in my head. Left hand is immobile except my ring and pinkie fingers. Jaw hurts so bad I can't eat/chew. Left torso hurts with every move I make. Getting in/out of bed is a 10+ minute journey.

Attorney's been hired to look into it, and I really hope they can work something out for me.

fml

my insurance or whatever recently CHANGED what they consider a normal ferritin range...

MEANING MINE HAS BEEN CHRONICALLY LOW THE ENTIRE TIME!!!!!!

Once mine BARELY reached 13, they decided I was fine because it was "normal" ?!?!?!

I have been dealing with debilitating health issues since high school (chronic fatigue, dizziness, lightheadedness, easily bruise, presyncope, etc.) and doctors always say it's just "anxiety." I think if you were once 17 and near blacking out mid APUSH test but had no choice but to push through and suffer and that being your normal everyday, you too would be stressed!!!

Most of my labs are "normal" range but barely passing or the lower side of the range by a few points.

The last doctor wouldn't even take my hair thinning/loss seriously because I have 3b/3c hair. My hair is very dense but I've noticed how thin it's gotten over the past few months. INCREDIBLY thin. My hair has always been thick but I'm genuinely worried I'll be bald this time next year........

It's exhausting as a black woman trying to figure out what the fuck is going on with my body because I KNOW something is very very wrong and no one will believe me.

Every time a doctor say "oh it's probably just your period" i wanna slap them with a fish cartoon style!!!! No Robert, my periods are actually really light, IT'S NOT MY PERIOD AND I AM NOT CRAZY.

I am in my early 20s. I should NOT be losing my hair. I should NOT be this chronically fatigued. I should NOT be forced to wait until my body is in crisis to know what's wrong with me.

I wanna curl up and cry. It's just getting worse and worse. I can NOT pull off being bald y'all, i just CANT.

This past month has honestly been hitting me like a looney tunes villain. I just need a break, one break, one time where someone believes me and acknowledges how much this hurts.

I'm pretty sure I got covid back in Feb 2020 (have never been sick like THAT in my life, still dont know what the hell that was but nearly 40% of my high school was out with some 'mystery flu' at that time so....*shrug*) and my body has never been the same since. I just wanna scream.

Was supposed to get a sleep study next week because I’m constantly exhausted. Mercy Hospital already kinda sucks because they always want their money NOW, even if they make a reminder call they’re always like “And we’d still like it if you could pre-pay….” I actually left an appointment after getting checked in once because they told me after the fact that insurance wouldn’t cover it, and I’m still getting multiple calls, texts, emails, etc. a WEEK asking me when I’m paying for that service I never had.

Now insurance is leaving me with this massive bill for a sleep study I NEED. I literally cannot afford it so I have to cancel it, but the scheduling people I need to confirm that with won’t call me back until after lunch at the earliest.

I hate this system so much. But I know it’ll never change because literally every politician benefits from it. That’s why we’re all so sick.

So I am out of dog food I'm unable to go to the store myself my husband is at work in the car and I'm in a wheelchair and so I decided to see about delivery I get on door dash first and get the shock of the dog food I buy at a usual $9 in store price is almost $30 to have it delivered thru door dash so I go to the Albertsons website and it's the regular price I go to check out on Albertsons and it's even less I paid $6 for it to be delivered thru Albertsons seriously wtf is the deal with door dash?!?! Crazy

Posted it on r/instagram but mods removed it for some stupid reason

I genuinely need to know if I’m fucking cursed or if dental pain just isn’t taken seriously.

This started with ear and jaw pain, so I went to urgent care. They told me I had an ear infection and gave me ear drops and 600mg ibuprofen.

Days later, I was still in pain, so I went back. This time they told me there was fluid behind my eardrum and told me to take Claritin-D.
Then, a few days later, it became VERY obvious that the pain was actually coming from my tooth.

I got an emergency dental appointment. The dentist saw a dark/black area on the X-ray that she said could be decay, but told me the tooth itself looked healthy. She gave me antibiotics and 800mg ibuprofen.

At this point, the pain became absolutely fucking unbearable.

I mean not a second of relief. Throbbing, shooting, relentless pain. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t function, couldn’t think. I was curled up crying. Ripping my hair out of my head.

My mom had a couple hydrocodone left over from previous dental work and gave them to me. That was the ONLY thing that gave me any meaningful relief in DAYS, even if it only lasted a couple of hours.

Then my dentist’s office was closed for several days, so I went to the ER because I could not handle the pain anymore and needed some kind of pain management.
They gave me three pills. THREE. Each one was 2.5mg oxycodone.

They did absolutely nothing for the pain.

I finally got back into the dentist and told them I absolutely needed a root canal because I could not keep doing this.

They told me it would be $300 upfront because insurance needed time to approve it. Fine. I didn’t even care. I said yes.
I go in. They start drilling into the tooth. I already had a huge old filling in that tooth, and when she removed it, she found decay underneath it. Then she decided NOT to do the root canal. She said she suspected the large filling with decay underneath was what had been causing the pain, so she cleaned it out and placed another filling instead.

They still charged me $150 even though my insurance covers cavity fillings. About an hour later THROBBING. UNBEARABLE. PAIN. AGAIN. Possibly even worse than before.

I immediately called the office and told them. They told me the pain was “normal.” I BEGGED them to just do the root canal. Then I find out they’re closing for the next FIVE DAYS for Labor Day weekend.

I begged them to at least send something for pain because I start my new job as a teacher Monday. My first day is a 10-hour day. How the fuck am I supposed to stand in front of a classroom and teach for 10 hours when I’m literally doubled over crying from tooth pain?
They told me the ibuprofen should be fine.
IT. IS. NOT. FINE.

I have now called around 30 different dental/endodontic offices trying to find someone who can do an emergency root canal.

Either they aren’t accepting new patients, they don’t take my insurance, or their next available appointment is WEEKS away.
So what exactly am I supposed to do until then? Just fucking suffer?

I have no history of drug abuse. I’m not asking for a month’s supply of narcotics. I’m asking how the hell I’m supposed to function until somebody can actually treat the tooth.

This pain has been so severe and so relentless that I seriously considered ending my life just to make it stop. My 12-year-old has had to watch her mother curled up crying in pain for days and doesn’t understand why nobody can help me.

And apparently an inflamed/dying pulp doesn’t even necessarily just conveniently “die” and stop hurting on some predictable schedule, so I can’t even tell myself, “Just make it another day and the nerve will die.”
I have NEVER experienced pain like this in my life. Not even remotely close. It’s been 9 days of hell.

I’m expected to somehow live, sleep, work, parent, and function through excruciating pain.

We've heard about the situation on the USS Lincoln, ain't nobody got time for that!

Conditions so bad that 'MAN OVERBOARD' is watercooler gossip.

Don't let this become an american 'Kursk'.

Just deleted Tiktok. I've always known the algorithm prioritizes engagement over user wellbeing, but this bid to feed insecurities over aging was too on the nose even for me. I'm tired of it's increasing attempts to bait me into irrelevant online controversies and cancel bandwagons. Now that I've deleted it, I look forward to fewer targeted ads based on text convos I've had with my husband 💀

Diabolical.

You can report an issue on Apple Maps, which include wrong name, for Lake Ontario. It is disabled from reporting.

What really is very infuriating is that I wanna rant and can't post in most communities cause my account is new lol

Anyway here I go with my equally as infuriating/saddening topic:

I have different health issues. At 16 y/o my doc told my I'd never have kids. Was really unempathetic and just told me like that. Cried a ton.

Then new doc since adulting, doc tells me I can have kids with the right hormones to get the folicles going and what not. I was SO HAPPY.

Cut to now (quite some years later). Just had my first gynological appointment. The ultrasonic shows that I don't have any folicles. And ofc no amount of hormones/pills can get folicles going if they don't exist. I'm honestly shocked. The doc this time was an absolute GEM tho. She also gave it the benefit of the doubt since the ultrasonic was done from my belly and not downstairs, so maybe there is a folicle somewhere, who knows. But she made clear that she didn't see any. She also told me about all the other options (non-biological) but although I appreciated it a ton it doesn't hurt less.

I'm nowhere near getting kids. No partner etc. But it still hurts. Well, at least now I know.

Edit/Addition: it's just so hard cause after being told NO at 16 I grieved and was done with it. Closed that chapter. And at 16 (maybe it also was 14 idk) I had the wish for kids but not the whole future mapped out in my mind. But because the other doc as an adult said it would be possible I started having hope again and dreaming. All to be crushed now.

Also my sis is gonna deliver her baby next month and I am SOOOO happy for her. Somehow it's nice to know that I get to (at least) experience being a godparent, but oh boy, to see her breastfeed and love on her child and all knowing that will never be me...
Anyway I won't tell her or anyone for now cause I don't want those sorry-for-you-eyes and awkwardness. And most importantly I don't want her to think about me. I want her to enjoy it and share her joy and all without it being dimmed...

My mom's favorite snack was Raisinets, which are chocolate covered raisins, so whenever I see them I usually think of her and her hilarious obsession over them.

But looking at them today made me feel something different. Instead of thinking back at happy moments with her, I ended up replaying a traumatic incident in my head regarding her ex-husband.

Her ex-husband was a manipulative and conniving son of a bitch. Often leaving me, her, and my little brother behind to smoke crack, cigarettes, and end up in jail constantly, which was often a financial burden for us so we ended up moving in and out of houses, apartments, and hotels a LOT back in the 2000s to early 2010s.

One night in particular haunts me to this day. We were in a hotel. My mom was making a sandwich and had a box of opened Raisinets in her hand to help with her blood sugar (she was diabetic). Her ex-husband walks in pissed as hell for some reason, starts getting upset and yelling at my mom while my little brother and I (who were 5 and 9 respectively at the time) were hiding behind one of the beds, watching the argument unfold. Her ex-husband gets so angry he slaps the sandwich and box of raisinets my mom was eating out of her hands, reducing her to tears as she begged him to calm down. He eventually did but at that point the damage had been done. Mom's crying. Little brother and I are shaking. It was rough. He's been physically abusive before so we were all worried he would lash out and beat us again.

Fast forward 15 years later. I'm doing some light shopping, getting some hygiene stuff, then I see the Raisinets and I got triggered.

What's worse is that my mom passed away in 2019, three weeks before I graduated high school, and her ex-husband got custody over my little brother. The ex-husband is my little brother's biological dad but not mine. Since lil bro was 14, his father got custody over him and we parted ways. They moved across the country. Haven't seen him since.

My mom's dead while her ex-husband gets to be with my little brother. I'm homeless, flunked out of college with outstanding student loans, and suicidal, while the ex-husband gets to be happy. Great. Just fucking great.

How is this possible? AI generated Child Porn is okay? Like what?

This goes mostly for the elderly who, for some fucking reason, behave so badly towards their children or hospital staff when they're trying to help them get better.

Literally every scenario always goes down like this:

"Dad, please take your medicine."

"YOU DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!!!! I'M AT THE PRIME OF MY LIFE! I FEEL FINE!" then proceeds to get their leg amputated due to severe diabetes.

i live in alberta, canada and there’s been a huge push of gambling ads in the last couple months (yay corruption) and i was literally talking to my therapist last night about how the ads are affecting me and today i got this voicemail

The glasses were just purchased and I no longer have insurance. My sketchbook is irreplaceable and the Stanley is no longer sold. Actual trash is left around the building daily, but my items were discarded. After no help, I asked to speak with HR. Two hours later I was fired. They said I didn't align with the same company value I had been awarded for, and would not elaborate.