By David Futrelle
I‘m going to take a brief break from the usual to play internet matchmaker.
So I was looking through r/relationships.txt’s old tweetings to see if any of the horrible stories of Redditor relationships gone wrong that are the mainstay of the account might be worth writing about. Instead I found two strangely complementary stories of love and selfishness; they were almost mirror images of one another.
In the first, we have a fellow asking if he was an asshole (answer: yes!) for deserting his very sick girlfriend at the emergency room to go to the gym. (Click on the screenshots for the whole story.)
The other tweet told the story of a girlfriend threatening to kick her injured boyfriend out of his own apartment because she was sick of taking care of him.
Now, it seems unlikely that either one of these relationships is going to last. But I think we can pull a happy ending (or four) out from the wreckage here. We just have to shuffle the couples a little.
Clearly Smushed-Foot Boy needs to drop his ungrateful girlfriend and get with Bacterial Pneumonia Girl instead.
Meanwhile, Mean Girlfriend and Narcissist Boyfriend need to start dating each other so they can be giant jerks together.
Ta da! Problems solved. You’re welcome!
OBLIGATORY NOTE: These stories are from Reddit, so there’s always a chance that one or both are completely made up. But I’m a romantic, so I choose to believe.
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Pneumonia Girl needs rest! How can she get that if she has to look after Smushed-Foot Boy?
Maybe the girl whose boyfriend was terrorizing her with a ventriloquist’s dummy could stay with them for a bit and help out. I feel like her relationship might not last too much longer. AITA is a total time sink.
I’ve been stuck in the ER in the middle of the night in incredible pain. Gall bladder colic is hell.
I had called the out of hours GP, they sent someone, he took a look at me and sent me to the ER, as well as giving me a taxi voucher.
Arriving at 3am at the ER means it’s mostly empty.
It also means that the hospital works with a skeleton crew, so you STILL wait hours.
I was alone, because I live alone, it was 3 am and didn’t want to wake my friends, and my parents live 2 hours away.
If someone had accompanied me and ditched me?
That person would be kicked off my Christmas present list at least!
Also, Powerpoint Girl #1 and Powerpoint Girl #2 are made for each other.
I love this idea. I loved even more reading the gf-pneumonia comments.
Powerpoint Girl #2:
https://imgur.com/t/funny/jPnOk
Of course it was lifting that he went to the gym for. Of course it was.
I broke my wrist snowboarding last winter and my stepmom dropped me off at the emergency room and left. For which I am incredibly grateful, because being fussed over drives me up the wall, and also because I’d probably rather have gnawed my broken wrist off than be subjected to hours and hours of inescapable interaction with my stepmom (she is… unpleasant.)
Instead, I got to read quietly for a few hours. It was nice.
That said, I’m not exactly a model person when it comes to social interaction (my mom found out about this whole thing later and was like “you were left there alone?!” before I even realized there was a different option than that.). And also I had a sore wrist but was otherwise fine, no wooziness or anything. If I wasn’t in full control of my faculties, then I probably would have wanted someone with me to watch over me.
I’m reminded of the experience that helped me to really see that my mother is an awful person.
I am a disabled kidney transplant patient, living with my mother. Shortly after my father passed away, I experienced severe abdominal pain. After five hours it had gotten worse rather than better, and I did not feel safe to drive the half-mile to the ER. So I explained the situation to my mother, who at first dismissed my complaint, saying that the hospital would think I was just after opioids and refuse to treat me. (My only record of opioid use was following major surgery with five-day prescriptions after each, so there was no reason the doctors might think such a thing from my records.)
I eventually get her to agree to take me to the ER. She said she would let me know when she was ready. I stagger back to the couch and collapse in pain.
Thirty minutes later, I haven’t heard anything, so I check on her. She hasn’t even moved. She then says that we need to wait a few hours to make sure that the pain doesn’t improve – even though I had explained to her that this was EXACTLY what I had already done. She finally agrees to take me to the ER now, and will “get ready” immediately.
“Getting ready” to take her son to the ER for a medical emergency included the following tasks:
– feeding and watering the pets
– feeding and watering the outdoors birds
– feeding and watering the outdoors cats
– changing into a “nicer shirt” (this took fifteen minutes)
– a trip to the bathroom (twenty minutes)
– fixing her hair and makeup (ten minutes)
All of these were far more urgent to her than getting her son emergency medical care. Which I did turn out to need – they had to admit me and surgically remove my gall bladder.
This was not an isolated incident, and looking back over her behavior helped me to realize that she is emotionally abusive, constantly sending the unspoken message that I didn’t matter.
My therapist advised me that in the future, any time I did not feel able to drive to the ER, I should call for an ambulance rather than relying on my mother. When I had a GI bleed this year, I did call for an ambulance and it turned out that, if I had not gotten the blood transfusions that I received in a timely manner, i.e. had I relied on her to get around to driving me after she finished more important tasks, I might have died.
I need to once again thank Mr. Parasol for everything he’s done for me since my stroke back in 2016.
I’ve begun to feel like there’s two kinds of requests for advice:
A. My neighbours are calling me a racist just because I burnt a cross on somebody’s lawn. Can’t they take a joke? How can I get them to stop being so mean to me?
and
B. One of my loved ones keeps putting arsenic in my coffee, even though I’ve repeatedly asked her not to. Everyone else in my family says “oh, that’s just her way” or “she’s too old to change now.” Are they right? Am I overreacting?
r/” … why is everbody always pickin’ on me?”
re: hospitals, waiting, opioids, etc…
I’m a recovering drug addict (7 years n change), and my last trip to the ER (for three blown spinal discs) led me to the Land of Nod, as a veinful of Fentanyl did it’s legendary thing. No sooner than was THAT tech outa the room, than another was in, asking what my pain level was… of COURSE it was 11+, so here comes another dose of Fanny….
That tech leaves, and HERE COMES ANOTHER, again very interested in my pain level. After another dose, not only was I unable to lie about my pain, I was unable to do anything BUT “lie about.” IP They could’a cut off my leg and I wouldn’t have known it, much less felt it.
Guess they were tryin’a use up the stock so’s they could get another kickback from Big Pharma….
After I was clean 6 years, I crashed my scooter, and back to the ER I went! I made sure to tell ALL the techs I was in recovery, and to please leave the hard stuff in the jug.
Re: opioids
When I had my wisdom teeth out a year ago, I had it done with local numbing but no general anesthesia. After the surgery, I was prescribed Vicodin even though I told the doctor that I wouldn’t need it (this was at the height of the opioid epidemic, so I was rather frustrated that he was trying to foist opioids onto patients). My pain wasn’t quite bad enough to need it, and I didn’t want to get addicted (I have a family history of alcoholism, so I didn’t think it would be a good idea to take opioids), so I didn’t take any.
Now I still have a full bottle of Vicodin sitting in my medicine cabinet. Not quite sure how to dispose of it, since I heard you’re not supposed to pour it down a drain.
I ended up on A&E a couple of years ago. I collapsed at the GP’s office because I could barely breathe and went to hospital in an ambulance with the nee naws on.
I was completely alone and not in pain. Once they slapped an oxygen mask on me I was total zen and a bit giddy. I had to phone my mum from the hospital’s phone cos I didn;t have a mobile then.
I was in there for hours, but it felt like no time at all. Someone brought me a baked potato with tuna mayo and it was like the tastiest thing I had ever eaten.
Turned out I’d had a dual bilateral pulmonary embolism. My lungs were filled with tiny clots any one of which could have travelled to my brain or heart. Ah well, another medication I need to take for life.
Mum and one of my sisters and nephew no.1 came to visit the next day. That was nice.
All through the experience I just kept thinking, “Thank fuck I don’t have to pay for this”. Love the NHS.
As for opiods. I am prescribed two. A fentanyl transdermal patch and codiene for breakthrough pain. I can’t stop taking them because my spine is so bollocksed up I need a walking stick if I do (I’m 44). I’ve been on them a decade and never escalated my usage, so I reckon I am OK.
If she’s gone beyond anger to indifference, it’s over. “Just go” doesn’t mean she gave him her blessing to go to the gym and is fine with it. It means she didn’t have the spoons to deal with his selfishness right at that moment.
Nobody likes long ER waits, but it’s much worse when you’re alone, sick, and scared, without even a ride home. Having a caring person there for support and distraction makes the wait more tolerable. Not only was she physically miserable, he inflicted emotional misery on her as well by abandoning her at a crucial moment for something nonessential that could have waited. The message he gave her was “You don’t matter as much as my gym routine.”
I hope his (probably ex) girlfriend is healing and that they both move on and learn from this. He doesn’t sound redpilled so much as self-centered and clueless. A true Redpiller would have phrased it as “My GF shit tested me by needing to go to the ER, but I held frame and went to the gym. Gainz before damez!” and then gone on to brag about how submissive she was the next day. At least this guy was honest about what happened and didn’t try to turn it into a field report.
@Naglfar,
Ask around your local churches/charities and see if any of them have a low income drug donation program. Some churches in my area have it set up where they’ll take your unwanted/unneeded drugs and give them to people who need them but can’t afford them.
Or if your bottle is massively out of date, see if your local police station will take them. Some stations will take unwanted meds just to keep them off the street.
@varalys – Whoa, a dual pulmonary embolism? You’re fortunate it was caught in time and you survived. I’ve lost three loved ones to pulmonary embolisms, and very nearly four. Clotting disorders run on both sides of my family, lucky me.
Re: opiods, after my C section I was on oxycodone for several days. It was absolutely horrible. It made me incredibly sick, woozy, and disoriented. I kept throwing up, couldn’t keep anything down, and lost another 5 pounds on top of the 11 pounds I lost during pregnancy (thanks to 9 months of morning sickness). I couldn’t get off that stuff fast enough and on to acetaminophen. No danger of me getting addicted to it.
That being said, I was so grateful for the friends who came to visit and keep me company, and for the kindness of the nurses. When you’re sick and/or recovering, it makes such a huge difference to be surrounded by people who care.
@Varalys
If you have drugs you don’t want, then I highly recommend taking them to a nearby pharmacist. They should be able to dispose of them properly.
I think that there may be potential legal problems in giving prescription drugs to someone else, even if you don’t take money for them.
Wow. These tales of narcissistic partners and family members are more than a little sad and just a bit triggering. But they’re kind of interesting, too. I learned about British hospital food. Hmm.
And it’s good to read you’re recovering, varalys!
@Naglfar:
Catalpa beat me to it. Drug stores around where I am actually advertise that you can bring unfinished drug bottles to them for disposal. They are required to know the proper handling procedures, after all.
I’ve been on a morphine drip precisely once, and have every intention of keeping it that way. Probably nobody wants to hear about the particular issue that necessitated that.
@Varalys:
Ack. Had a friend with a situation like that. Putting him on blood thinners to break up the clots made him spring other leaks. When the doctor says that inducing a coma is the best chance… well, you know it’s bad.
Thankfully, this was in Canada.
@Allandrel:
Gall bladder pain is quite horrible, isn’t it? And quite scary even if you’re not a transplant patient.
I can’t imagine being so cold to a spouse. Even if you weren’t in love with them anymore and trying to find a time to break it off, I couldn’t imagine being so cold to someone who you spend so much time with, have so many memories with, especially when they need comfort and support the most.
Opioids, got addicted to them when I got shingles at age oh 15 or 16. Started on one half of my ass, went to my private bits and anus and onto the inners of my thigh a bit. Left me with some nerve damage, I can hardly feel the half of my ass the shingles were on lol. You got to hit my hard enough to leave welts for me to barely feel a sting. No one explained to me how easily it was to get addicted to them. I had no idea I was in that deep until my prescription ran out and I was buying them elsewhere.
Despite all the pain from the shingles, hell almost any pain I ever had, did not compare to that of my withdrawals. I went cold turkey and detoxed complete from it. and for 2 straight weeks I thought I was going to die before it started to slowly get better.
Any ways that’s my story that I’ve got pieced together. to be honest the four year period from 14 to 18 is such a blur together I’m amazed I can distinguish anything from that time period.
@Naglfar
I had to hang on to it for several years before doing so was possible, but I eventually put the full unused bottle of Vicodin from my own wisdom-tooth extraction in an unwanted-medication disposal dropbox in the lobby of a hospital about 10 minutes from my house (at the time of the extraction, the hospital was an outpatient medical center-they’ve since added beds and an ER and become, AFAIK, a full-service hospital). If/when you have the time and ability to do so, it might be a good idea to check on whether any hospitals, medical centers, or pharmacies in your area have such dropboxes.
@Naglfar
If all else fails, Vicodin is on the list of medicines that can be flushed down the toilet:
https://www.fda.gov/drugs/disposal-unused-medicines-what-you-should-know/drug-disposal-flush-potentially-dangerous-medicine#FlushList
@WWTH:
And of course he had to mention that.