Not all partners are understanding and compassionate when it comes to anxiety and anxiety attacks. There are those who understand, who go through it themselves and can relate. But, there are also those who have never dealt with anxiety—and, they believe the go-to mechanism is “relax.”
We all know—there is no worse trigger for anxiety than hearing the words, “just relax.” So, if you’re someone who is in a relationship with a girl who has anxiety and panic attacks—strap in, we’re here to help you out.
Relationships are full of surprises. The more time you spend with the same person the more you learn about them, especially once you’ve moved in together.
Living with your significant other teaches you a lot about who they really are—what their weird habits are, what annoys them, and sometimes you find out they have some very odd vices. So odd, in fact, that you seek advice from the internet.
At least, that’s what one boyfriend did after he discovered his girlfriend was wiping herself with his gym socks…
Redditor u/whattodobedroom recently shared a story with the online community about something very odd that happened with his girlfriend.
He titled the post: ‘I (28) think my girlfriend (26) has been using my gym socks to wipe after going to the bathroom.’
Feeling disgusted but curious, we continued reading and um, brace yourselves…
The post reads:
I don’t even know where to start with this. I’m dumbfounded. She just stormed out the house and I’m sitting on the bed asking myself A LOT of questions.
I live a pretty normal life, and I thought so did my girlfriend. We’ve been together for a few months and after things got serious, we moved in together. We started sharing a lot of the household responsibilities, but the one thing she was adamant on doing was the laundry. She would come home and find me in the bedroom getting the laundry together and would quickly ask me to go do something else. I’d come back to finish the laundry and she would have already started it. I always thought it was sweet and never her job to do it alone, but hey, if it makes her happy to do it all the time, I wouldn’t stop her.
This is where it takes a turn for the weird.
I keep all my socks and underwear in the bottom drawer of my dresser. I also go to the gym frequently, so I always keep a good supply of clean gym socks ready to go. I never kept count, but I know by just a visual glance I several pairs. This morning when I went to grab a fresh pair to pack for the gym, I noticed there were several dress socks, but no gym socks. Again, not weird, they must have been in the laundry. I went to check the laundry basket and it was empty, so I checked the washing machine and dryer. Both were empty. I couldn’t figure out where all of my gym socks had gone. So, I did the very natural thing of asking my girlfriend what had happened to them. After all, she is the one who does the laundry all the time. She went silent, turned red and ran out of the room. When I went after her to see if she was okay she wouldn’t talk to me. I told her I wasn’t mad, I was just looking for my socks. She kinda mumbled “I’ll don’t know.” I still wasn’t mad, of course, but I was super confused. Socks just don’t disappear. So I asked her again, even laughed about it and she just looked at me and got mad and said “I’ll buy you new ones!”
The first thought that went through my head was she had somehow managed to destroy my socks while washing them. I thought the sight of that was actually pretty funny, so I joked with her about ruining my socks. Wrong. Thing. To. Say. She started immediately crying. Like, full on sobbing. At this point I don’t care about the socks anymore, I want to know what’s wrong with my girlfriend. I sat down next to her on the bed and put my arm around her and asked her of she was okay. She just kept saying she was sorry and that she would buy me new socks. I tried assuring her again it was okay. Even went so far as to say I would buy new socks and she didn’t have to. I sat with her for a few minutes trying to calm her down and eventually had to get ready for work. I told her loved her and got my things together to leave for the day.
On my way out I grabbed the garbage to take outside. When I got outside I lifted the lid off the garbage can and I noticed a small plastic bag sitting on top of the garbage already in there. I could see through the bag (kind of the semi see through ones) there were socks in the bag. Since I was sure she had somehow managed to ruin the socks washing them, I wanted to see for myself. I opened the bag and immediately regretted my choice. There, inside the bag, were several pairs of my gym socks covered in what looked like poop. As soon as the smell hit me I knew it WAS POOP.
We don’t own any pets.
We don’t have any kids.
WHOSE POOP WAS ON MY SOCKS?
Work could wait. I couldn’t go the rest of the day wondering why my gym socks were covered in poop and inside a plastic bag in the garbage can. I grabbed the bag and walked back inside. As soon as my girlfriend saw the bag she flipped out and started yelling at me. She said I shouldn’t be going through the garbage and that I was disgusting for bringing it back into the house.
I asked her to calm down and that I just wanted an answer as to why there was poop on my socks. I wasn’t blaming her of anything, but she started accusing me of blaming her. That’s when it clicked. I don’t know what it was that lead me to ask this, but everything leading up to this moment had just been so crazy. I asked her “Is this your poop?” She started sobbing again and ran out of the house. I didn’t go after her this time.
So, now I am sitting on my bed with a bag of poopy socks on the floor and a lot of questions in my head. The only conclusion is that she used them after going to the bathroom. Which that alone has its own set of questions above everything else. I sent her text asking her to come back. She hasn’t responded yet. I don’t even know what I’m going to say when (IF) she gets back.
We can imagine the author felt something like this:
Fortunately, it wasn’t long before he posted an update:
I had to leave for work and am now at work. Yes, I threw away the bag of poopy socks. She texted me back and she’s clearly embarrassed but felt she owed me an explanation. She said she didn’t want to talk about it in person and that we could discuss it over texting and to NOT bring it up in person. I’m condensing the conversation and filling in some gaps as best as I can. Her responses are super short, but I’m getting the idea.
I flat out asked her if it was a fetish. It is not a fetish. She confessed to using the socks after going to the bathroom. I found the reason she always does the laundry is because she was hiding the fact that she uses socks to wipe with, primarily her own. I had no reason to question the amount of socks she ever has because who pays attention to that kind of thing? She thought I would notice and think it was weird since she doesn’t own many socks. She admitted she has done this for a long time. Her reasoning, as best as I can understand, is that because she is a germaphobe (her word) and she is afraid toilet paper will tear and is afraid of getting her hands messy in ANY WAY. She uses socks because it covers her entire hand. After she’s done with them, she throws them away. She used mine because she didn’t have other socks.
So, my girlfriend has a fear of getting poop on her hands so she wipes with socks, and has done so for a lone time. It could be worse, I guess. I hope we can laugh about this later. I’m trying to find the humor in it now, but I’m still weirded out.
And people have a lot to say about his situation.
Now, if you’ll excuse us, we need a minute to erase this from our brains.
Prolific Twitter user and independent journalist Yashar Ali has a knack for going viral whether he’s tweeting about politics or towels.
So when he opened up about the realities of living with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, people payed attention, and pretty soon everyone was talking until the topic was trending nationally on Twitter.
The entire thread can be read as a Twitter Moment here but here are some excerpts:
Ali described some common misunderstandings about the disorder.
1. I want to talk about ADHD. I was diagnosed with ADD when I was 13-years-old. To say it's misunderstood (both by people who have ADHD and people who don't have it) is an understatement. What people need to understand about those of us who have ADHD is we are not homogeneous
6. Whenever someone brings up ADHD. It makes it seem like it's is just an issue of distraction. Wrong! For example, I read 2-3 books a week! I don't know many people with ADHD can do that. But for me taking clothes out of the dryer & folding them, that's like climbing Mt. Everest
And how it makes supposedly simple tasks complicated.
8. For example, people will often say that people with ADHD tend to procrastinate. That is a total misunderstanding of what ADHD is about. Procrastination has a connotation of intentionally putting something off for various reasons. We don't want to be this way.
9. For people with ADHD the issue is often the difficulty starting things. It is enormously challenging for us in certain categories. The simplest things can be exhausting and feel impossible to begin/finish. It's stuff that doesn't make sense to people without ADHD.
10. Which is often why we hide these things that we find challenging because they can be embarrassing. I once had someone with ADHD, who made a good living, tell me that for years they would pay bills when things got shut off. It was a cycle they found nearly impossible
11. To get out of, it destroyed their credit, and it was only when they got married and their wife took over that they fixed their bill paying issue. People with ADHD hide a lot of shame in this and we hold it in because people don't understand our diagnosis.
Ali also discussed how ADHD can affect relationships.
7. Those of us with ADHD don't need your sympathy, we need your empathy. We need you to understand that we are capable of so much but just need you to understand what our limits and challenges are. We don't want you to see our limits/challenges as excuses…they're explanations
Today’s internet is a fast and vicious place dominated by scathing personal attacks and political combat, some of it justified some of it mere digital bloodsport. So people appreciated Ali’s candor and vulnerability in discussing a serious issue that affects a great number of people.
Awesome thread @yashar. I also have ADHD and wasn’t diagnosed until I was 20. I still get nervous about people judging me for it or questioning why I don’t fit whatever expectations they’ve created about what it should look like. Really appreciate you writing this.
I read this little comment thread and had this thought too! My people! I wish more people understood the tunnel vision portion of ADD. I am incapable of intense, prolonged focus; I am also not always able to choose what I will focus on. It makes the struggles even tougher.
Thank you, @yashar, helping us all better understand ADHD. In order to fully appreciate one another and our differences we must all be willing to both share and listen.
Worst part to me is the racing mind that don’t shut off then frustrates you. A Person is telling you a story and you bring up something else. It makes the anxiety unbearable sometimes. Red box and having people behind me because I didn’t think I was fast enough would cripple me.
This sounds just like my teenage son… I’m still trying very hard to understand what it’s like for him. And bigger tasks, like schoolwork, that require strong executive functioning must be even more daunting. I would love to hear from AD(H)D adults any book recommendations.
It's a hard thing for people to understand because many don't believe it is real, but it is…and based in genetics….and yet, every person with ADHD is unique… and many have additional disorders like OCD, depression, dyslexia and other things which make life more complicated
Yashar thank you for this thread. I have ADHD and was diagnosed as an adult after years, years, years of misery, depression, and anxiety. This thread gives me another way to share some of my life experience with my friends and family. I hope others find it as healing as I do. TY!
They don't understand that hyperfocus isn't the same thing as being able to focus. That I hate myself when I interrupt and I am constantly trying not to. That I'm not ignoring their messages, they truly just…blipped out of existence in my brain.
And those tiny things that are easily accomplished tasks for other people? They literally (actually literally) cause dread in us because the chemicals in the reward centers of our brain are off, so things we don't find fulfilling or interesting are mentally excruciating.
Good stuff man. Also under appreciated aspects of ADHD: -sensitivity to criticism/rejection.. tough for anyone; traumatizing for ADHD -lack of impulse control.. Engaging in same behavior/habits you know are likely bad for you, because changing is basically insurmountable
I’m all about baskets myself. And I couldn’t pay bills on time until auto pay became a thing. I haven’t balanced a checkbook in 20 years—I had to come to grips with the fact that’s it’s just something I can’t/won’t do.
— Imani Gandy (Orca’s Version) ⚓️ (@AngryBlackLady) February 26, 2019
It almost felt like a meeting of ADHD Anonymous, AKA Twitter.
Does it seem like maybe there are a disproportionate number of people with ADHD (incl me) congregating on Twitter… ? Probably not coincidence…It’s my zone.
If you’re a die-hard Friends fan, there’s a pretty good chance you’ve seen the series hundreds and hundreds of times. You watch it when it’s on TV playing reruns, you throw it on Netflix in the background when you’re doing other stuff, you watch it when you have nothing better to put on—”I’ll be there for you,” is constantly coming out of your TV and your pores. But, no matter how many times you watch the series, there are some things that you just never pick up on because you’re just not looking for them.
As fans continue to re-watch the show in 2019, there are a ton of PC-flagged issues with the show—like tons of homophobia and transphobia. We get it—shows in the ’90s don’t always age well because we’ve all become much more woke. While people continue to drag a show that was created over 20 years ago—others have found little mistakes that have been made in filming (not writing).
This time around, the episode on trial is The One With The Screamer. True fans know this episode revolves around Pheobe chilling in Monica and Rachel’s apartment for days because she refuses to hang up on the phone company after they put her on hold.
NBC
The friends all go out to see a play that Joey is in, and, Rachel brings along a date (Ben Stiller) who ends up being a huge douchebag. Ross tries to point it out the entire time, but, they don’t realize until Stiller’s caught in Joey and Chandler’s apartment screaming at the duck and the chic.
NBC
If you look closely at the still shots from the original episode, you’ll see that there’s probably a good reason why Pheobe was on hold forever. A Reddit user pointed out that the phone happens to not be plugged into anything…at all.
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There are about 4-5 ports in which the phone should be hooked up to a phone jack in order for it to make calls at all. And, before you ask, this is the ’90s—when you needed to have your phone hooked up to the jack in the wall in order for it to work. I remember because my mom used to ground my sisters and I by taking the plug with her to work so no one can use the phone at all.
NBC
So, basically, the producers and directors of this episode f*cked up big time. But, I’m sure if you watched every single episode of a TV show hundreds of times and paid attention to every little detail, you’d find hundreds and hundreds of mistakes made by the filmmakers. Who has time to pay attention to every single tiny detail like that?
Since the story broke online, multiple people in the Kardashian/Jenner circle have made comments online, basically confirming the reports to be true. Additionally, sources close to the family have stated that Thompson admitted to Khloé that he did hook up with Woods after she confronted him, and, that Kylie Jenner has since asked Woods to move out of her home, where she was living with Kylie and her daughter, Stormi.
Now, on Thursday, Khloé broke her silence through her Instagram stories by posting some cryptic and heartbroken quotes and images for fans and followers to see. The four images are incredibly telling to the situation she is currently in.
The first image is a quote that says, “the worst pain is gettin hurt by a person you explained your pain to,” which, clearly is directed at Jordyn Woods. It’s no secret that Woods has been close with the Kardashian and Jenner family for years—she’s even appeared in early seasons of Keeping Up with the Kardashians alongside a young, teenage Kylie Jenner. It’s probably true that she’s been around when Khloé had spoken about her relationship and situation with Thompson, so, seeing that she betrayed her like that—hurts.
Instagram
The second quote showcases that Khloé is trying to look at the betrayal—both from Thompson and Woods—as a blessing. She now knows that Thompson cannot be trusted, even after she was kind enough to give him a second chance. And, she knows that she’s not only helping herself, but the rest of the Kardashian and Jenner family (especially Kylie) by exposing Woods’ true colors.
Instagram
The third quote really tugs at the heartstrings, as a direct message to Thompson. She’s basically saying that she loved Thompson with honesty, truth, and patience, but Thompson continued to dog her and break her heart. This one hurts.
Instagram
The last image Khloé posted on her story was of a woman crying—one that looks like a cartoon version of KoKo herself (nails and all).
Instagram
People on Twitter were feeling for Khloé in her time of need and despair, feeling as though they wanted to nothing else but help her and send her positive vibes during this hurtful time in her life.
Came across this on Khloe’s Instagram, and I really feel for her. No woman should have to go through something like this. I hope you find what you’re looking for; I’m rooting for you!! Wishing you nothing but the best. Your fans love you!!! ❤️❤️❤️ @khloekardashianpic.twitter.com/r1I0nCSKGK
In all honesty, I feel for Khloé. Sure, it’s hard to be surprised that Thompson cheated on her again after she had already been cheated on by him with multiple girls (on camera), but, to be betrayed by someone who has been apart of your circle and your family for years—it hurts twice as hard.