Test

Joined July 2023

67 stories

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Runner-Up Place in Ode to Ordinary Challenge

Stories (67)

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Are They Dismissive Avoidant or Just a Dismissive Asshole?
The call was initially supposed to be you apologizing for blowing off our cybersex date. I knew it made you uncomfortable to talk dirty, but I’d been gently pleading with you to try for the entirety of our time as a long-distance couple so far. You’d finally agreed to set aside time so we could practice. An “undress rehearsal”, if you will.
By Test2 years ago in Confessions
Buckets of Betrayal
It's not uncommon for the trauma experienced by victims of intimate partner violence to spill harmfully onto other relationships in the victim's life. Abusers use increasingly manipulative and violent tactics to isolate victims, often while putting on a wildly different public persona to fool others in their lives.
By Test2 years ago in Psyche
Urine Trouble Now
Neglecting our shared spaces only worsens our collective misery. As a relatively new resident of this bustling apartment building, I’ve spent my existence yearning for a friendly greeting or nod of recognition. Countless passersby navigate around me every day, seemingly doing anything they can to avoid acknowledging my existence. Entire families shuffle awkwardly past with their eyes averted.
By Test2 years ago in Chapters
Baby, You’re a Firework
My ex secretly hated fireworks. In the weeks leading up to the Fourth of July, we’d hear them sporadically throughout the neighborhood despite their illegality within city limits. Verbally, he defended them with all the patriotic chest-puffing you’d expect from a veteran-turned-cop, saying he’d fought for people’s right to shoot them off or whatever. He’d even accuse those who admitted to being sensitive to those jarring sounds, many of them veterans like himself, of being “soft”.
By Test2 years ago in Psyche
Asthma Has a Branding Problem
What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of someone with asthma? Is it the nerdy hypochondriac from It, Eddie, who found out years later his inhaler was fake?*
By Test2 years ago in Critique
I’m Lemony Snicket-ing. Content Warning.
What do you do when your love life has been a Series of Unfortunate Events? 👁️ You start spilling tea about your trauma on your blog (under a pseudonym, of course).
By Test2 years ago in Poets
Healthy Relationships are Bizarre
The Aftermath of Abuse Beginning a new relationship after surviving abuse can feel strange and uncomfortable. You may have developed coping mechanisms during the abusive relationship that helped you survive, but those same strategies can sometimes sabotage your chances of a healthy relationship going forward.
By Test2 years ago in Chapters
I Saw the Sign
Don’t you dare apologize because you didn’t know I was being abused. When I escaped my abuser of five years, “M”, I was left with many damaged relationships due to his varied efforts to isolate me from my loved ones. This isolation was a control tactic and a method of ensuring I didn’t feel safe telling anyone about the abuse.
By Test2 years ago in Humans
I Felt Like a Writer Today
I've been writing professionally for over 10 years, but my job title has never been Writer. From highly-detailed investigative reports to lighthearted advertisements for brands, my writing ability was always considered a technical skill, not a passion.
By Test2 years ago in Writers
Healing, Unleashed
Every evening around 9 p.m., my dogs and I take our anxiety medication. When they hear me shake the pill bottle, they come scampering to the edge of the kitchen counter to sit and wait like the very good dogs they are.
By Test2 years ago in Chapters
The Inciting Incident
There’s still time to stop reading this if you don’t want to hear a story about another college student being raped at a frat party.
By Test2 years ago in Chapters
We Both Reached for the Gun
I did try to take the gun once. I forget why we’d even been fighting; it was just kind of what usually ended up happening. We’d been drinking, but as usual, he was way ahead of me and beginning to slur.
By Test2 years ago in Chapters