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I work as a morgue doctor. Our janitor can stop a family's grief in two minutes, but his price is horrifying.
I am a medical doctor, specifically a forensic pathologist. A few months ago, I landed my first official position at a large county morgue. After years of medical school, residency, and brutal hours, I finally had a steady job with a clear routine. The work is not glamorous, but it is necessary. I examine the deceased, determine the cause of death, and prepare the reports. It is quiet, methodical work, which is exactly what I wanted. The facility itself is located in the basement level of a massive hospital complex. It is a sterile, cold environment, filled with stainless steel tables, bright fluorescent lights, and the constant, heavy smell of chemical cleaners and formaldehyde. There are only three of us who work down here during the day: the senior medical examiner, myself, and the janitor. The senior examiner is a quiet woman who spends most of her time in her office reviewing files. We barely speak unless it is about a specific case. That leaves the janitor. He is an old man. His skin is deeply wrinkled, resembling weathered leather, and his posture is severely hunched. He wears a standard gray maintenance uniform that always looks slightly too large for his thin frame. He moves slowly, dragging a mop bucket down the long, tiled hallways, keeping entirely to himself. He never speaks to me or the senior examiner. He just does his job, cleaning the floors, wiping down the stainless steel tables after we finish our examinations, and emptying the biohazard bins. I thought he was just a quiet, isolated man working a miserable job. But within my first three weeks, I started to notice a pattern. The morgue has a small viewing room. It is a space where families are brought to identify the bodies of their loved ones, or to spend a few final moments with them before they are transported to a funeral home. It is, without a doubt, the heaviest room in the building. As a doctor, you learn to detach yourself from the emotional weight of death, but witnessing the raw, visceral grief of a mother or a husband in that viewing room never gets easier. People react to sudden death in terrible ways. They collapse on the floor. They scream until their vocal cords tear. They hyperventilate. They beg the doctors to tell them there has been a mistake. It is loud, chaotic, and deeply tragic. But I noticed something impossible happening whenever the old janitor was working near the viewing room. The first time I noticed it, we had received the body of a young man who had died in a motorcycle accident. His parents were brought down to the viewing room. Through the heavy wooden door, I could hear the mother sobbing hysterically. Her wails were echoing down the tiled hallway. It was the sound of a person breaking apart completely. I was standing near the reception desk, filling out paperwork, feeling that familiar knot of heavy pity in my stomach. The old janitor walked down the hallway, dragging his mop bucket. He stopped outside the viewing room door. He left his mop leaning against the wall and slowly pushed the door open. He stepped inside. I assumed he was just going in to empty the trash or clean a spill, completely oblivious to the grieving parents. I considered going in to pull him out and tell him to give the family some privacy. But less than thirty seconds after he entered the room, the screaming stopped. It did not taper off into quiet crying. It stopped entirely, as if a switch had been flipped. A minute later, the old janitor walked back out of the room, picked up his mop, and continued down the hall. Shortly after, the parents walked out of the viewing room. I braced myself to see their ruined faces, prepared to offer them water or a chair. But they did not look ruined. The mother’s face was dry. The father was holding her hand. They looked calm. They looked incredibly, deeply peaceful. It was a genuine, relaxed relief. They thanked the receptionist politely and walked out to the elevator. I stood there, completely confused. You do not recover from the sudden death of your child in two minutes. Over the next month, I watched this exact scenario play out dozens of times. A grieving family would arrive, broken and screaming. The janitor would slip into the room. A few moments later, he would leave, and the family would emerge in a state of profound, unnatural peace. I never heard what he said to them. I tried to stand near the door once, straining to listen, but all I could hear was a low, rhythmic whispering. It sounded like he was speaking a language I did not understand, the syllables thick and harsh. Whatever he was doing, it was erasing their grief completely. I asked the senior examiner about it one afternoon. I asked her if she had ever noticed how the janitor interacts with the families. She did not look up from her paperwork. She simply told me that the old man had been working in the morgue long before she started. She told me he had a "gift for comforting the bereaved," and that I should leave him to his business. Her tone was sharp and final, making it clear the conversation was over. But the pattern with the families was not the only strange thing about the janitor. There was also the rule about the night shift. There is a very strict, unwritten rule in our facility. No one is allowed to stay in the morgue past six in the evening. The official explanation is that the hospital cuts the ventilation and power to the non-essential basement sectors to save money, but that is a lie. The power stays on. The real rule is simply that the medical staff must vacate the premises before nightfall. Only the janitor stays. He is the only person authorized to be in the morgue overnight. I learned how strictly this rule was enforced during my second month. We had a backlog of reports due to a large pileup on the highway. I decided to stay late at my desk to finish typing up the autopsy notes. I watched the senior examiner pack her bag at five-thirty. She told me to make sure I left before six. I nodded and kept typing. At exactly six o'clock, the door to my office swung open. The old janitor was standing in the doorway. He was holding his mop. He looked at me, his deep, dark eyes locking onto mine. "It is time for you to go," he said. His voice was incredibly deep. I told him I just needed another hour to finish my reports, and that I would lock up when I was done. He did not argue. He simply stepped fully into my office, walked over to my desk, and reached down to the wall outlet. He pulled the power cord to my computer directly out of the socket. The screen went black, instantly deleting an hour of my unsaved work. I stood up, angry, prepared to yell at him. But when I looked at his face, the anger evaporated. His expression was completely blank, but there was a heavy, dangerous tension in his posture. He looked at me with a cold, predatory focus that made my skin crawl. "The work is done," he said slowly. "You leave now." I packed my bag in silence and walked to the elevator. He stood in the hallway and watched me until the doors closed. That incident planted a deep seed of suspicion in my mind. The unnatural comforting of the families, the rigid isolation at night, the strange behavior of the senior examiner, it all pointed to something deeply wrong happening in the basement of the hospital. I could not let it go. My scientific training demanded an explanation. I needed to know what the old man was doing when the doors were locked. The opportunity to find out came three days ago. We received the body of a young woman in the early afternoon. It was a tragic, sudden medical failure. Her family arrived shortly after. There was a large group of them, parents, siblings, a fiancé. The viewing room was filled with absolute agony. The wailing was so loud it penetrated the thick walls of the examination suites. I watched from the end of the hallway. The janitor, moving with his slow, dragging shuffle, pushed open the door to the viewing room and went inside. Less than a minute later, absolute silence fell over the room. The janitor walked out, picking up his mop. Five minutes later, the large family emerged. They were holding each other, talking softly, wiping away a few lingering tears, but the heavy, crushing despair was entirely gone. They looked relieved. They looked like a heavy physical weight had been lifted from their shoulders. I made my decision right then. I was going to find out what he was whispering, and I was going to find out why he had to be alone with the bodies at night. At five-thirty, I packed my bag just like always. I said goodnight to the senior examiner and walked out to the main hallway toward the elevators. But instead of pressing the button to go up to the lobby, I slipped through the heavy fire door leading to the old supply storage room. The storage room is filled with dusty boxes of outdated medical supplies, broken rolling chairs, and old filing cabinets. It has not been used in years. I squeezed behind a tall metal shelving unit, sat down on the cold floor, and waited. I checked my watch. Six o'clock passed. I heard the distant sound of the heavy main doors locking for the night. The hum of the daytime activity died down entirely, leaving the basement level in profound silence. The cold began to seep through my scrubs, making my joints ache. I listened closely for the sound of the mop bucket, or the heavy dragging footsteps of the janitor. I heard nothing. then, a new sound broke the silence. It was a heavy, mechanical clanking, followed by the squeal of metal hinges. It was coming from the cold storage room. The room where we keep the large, stainless steel refrigeration units that house the bodies before and after examination. I stood up slowly, my legs stiff. I pushed the fire door open just a crack and peered out into the hallway. The main overhead fluorescent lights had been turned off. The only illumination came from the faint, green emergency exit signs mounted above the doors. I slipped out of the storage room and walked silently down the tiled corridor. My heart was beating rapidly against my ribs. I felt a deep, instinctual warning telling me to turn around and find a way out of the building. But the need to know, the terrible curiosity, pushed me forward. I reached the door to the cold storage room. It was slightly ajar. I pressed my back against the wall next to the doorframe and listened. I heard a wet, heavy, tearing sound. It sounded like thick fabric being ripped apart by bare hands, mixed with a sickening, squelching noise. It was followed by a wet, rhythmic smacking sound. Someone was eating. I slowly leaned my head forward and looked through the gap in the door. The cold storage room was illuminated only by the small, internal light of one of the open refrigeration drawers. The drawer had been pulled all the way out. Lying on the metal tray was the body of the young woman who had been brought in that afternoon. Standing over the metal tray was the janitor. His pale, wrinkled back was facing me. He was leaning heavily over the body. Both of his arms were buried deep inside the abdominal cavity of the corpse. My medical training tried to process what I was seeing. He was not using a scalpel, or even using a bone saw or surgical retractors. The woman's chest had not been opened through a standard Y-incision. The old man had simply forced his bare hands directly through the skin, muscle, and ribs. I watched in absolute, paralyzing horror as his shoulders heaved backward. He pulled his hands out of the chest cavity with a wet, sucking pop. Held tightly in his long, blood-soaked fingers was a dark, heavy mass of tissue. It was her liver. The janitor raised the large, dark organ to his face. He opened his mouth. In the dim light, I saw that his jaw seemed to unhinge, dropping lower than humanly possible. His teeth were sharp, jagged, and completely black. He bit deeply into the raw tissue. The sound of his chewing was wet and loud in the quiet, echoing room. He swallowed a large piece whole, his throat bulging unnaturally, and then took another massive bite. I felt a violent wave of nausea hit my stomach. I clamped my hand tightly over my mouth to stop myself from gagging. My brain was screaming in panic. I stepped backward, pulling away from the door frame, desperate to run back down the hallway and find a way out of the basement. I was completely terrified. As I moved my foot backward, my heel caught the edge of a heavy, plastic biohazard bin sitting against the wall. The bin tipped over. It hit the tiled floor with a loud, hollow crash, spilling plastic gloves and empty syringes across the corridor. The sound was deafening in the silence. The wet chewing in the cold room stopped instantly. I froze. I did not breathe. I stared at the open gap in the doorway. A heavy, low growl vibrated out from the cold room. It did not sound human. It sounded like the noise a large predator makes deep in its chest when it is disturbed at a kill. "Who is there?" the deep, scraping voice asked. I did not answer. I turned and ran. I abandoned all caution. I sprinted down the dark hallway, my shoes slipping slightly on the polished tiles. I ran past the reception desk, heading blindly toward the back stairwell that led up to the emergency exit. Behind me, I heard the heavy metal door of the cold room smash violently open, slamming against the concrete wall. Then came the footsteps. They were heavy, incredibly fast, and accompanied by the sound of long fingernails clicking rapidly against the floor tiles. He was moving with terrifying speed. I reached the end of the main corridor and turned sharply into the autopsy suite. I thought I could cut through the examination rooms and reach the service elevator in the back. I pushed through the swinging double doors, plunging into the dark, stainless-steel room. I scrambled behind a large examination table, crouching low to the ground. I held my breath, pressing my back against the cold metal cabinet. The swinging doors burst open behind me. The janitor stepped into the autopsy suite. The dim ambient light from the hallway caught his figure. He was covered in dark blood from his chest to his chin. He was breathing heavily, the air whistling through his jagged teeth. I watched him from under the table. His posture was completely different. He stood tall, his limbs appearing too long for his body. His fingers dragged against the sides of the tables as he walked slowly down the aisle. "You did not leave," he whispered. His voice echoed off the tile walls. "You broke the rule. I told you the work was done." I pressed my hands against my mouth, tears of pure terror stinging my eyes. I was trapped. The only exit to the room was behind him. He walked slowly past the table I was hiding behind. He did not look down. He continued toward the back of the room. I thought I had a chance. If he moved far enough away, I could slip out from under the table and sprint for the swinging doors. I waited until his back was fully turned to me, the sound of his footsteps moving away. I shifted my weight on my knees, preparing to crawl. Suddenly, a massive, blood-soaked hand dropped down from above the table and clamped violently onto my shoulder. I screamed. He ripped me upward, lifting my entire body weight effortlessly with one hand. He threw me across the room. I hit a metal rolling cart, sending stainless steel tools crashing to the floor, and collapsed onto my back. The breath was knocked out of me completely. I looked up, gasping for air. The janitor was standing over me. His face was a mask of cold, predatory anger. His dark eyes were solid black, lacking any white sclera. Blood dripped steadily from his chin onto my medical scrubs. I scrambled backward on the floor, kicking my legs away from him, my back hitting the solid concrete wall. I had nowhere left to run. "Please," I choked out, raising my hands defensively. "Please don't kill me. I won't say anything. I swear." He looked down at me, his jagged black teeth exposed. The heavy, rotting smell of raw meat and old blood washed over me, making my stomach heave. He crouched down, bringing his face inches away from mine. "Do you know what I am, doctor?" he asked. His voice was no longer a growl, but a calm, raspy whisper. I shook my head frantically, completely paralyzed by fear. "I am a ghoul," he stated simply, "I consume the flesh of the dead. It is my nature. It is how I sustain myself." I stared at him, my mind unable to fully accept the impossible reality of the creature crouching in front of me. "I have lived in the dark spaces of humanity for a very long time," he continued, his black eyes unblinking. "For centuries, my kind dug in the dirt, breaking open wooden boxes, hunting in the mud and the rot. It was difficult, dangerous, and humans have always hunted us when they catch us." He reached out and grabbed the collar of my shirt, pulling me slightly closer. "But the world changed," he said. "Humans became organized. You built places like this. Massive, cold rooms where you gather your dead and lay them out on silver platters. You made it easy." "Why..." I stammered, my voice barely a whisper. "Why don't you just kill me?" "Because of the arrangement," he said. "I do not kill the living. Killing draws attention. It brings police, lights, and finally... hunters. I only take from the dead. Specifically, the liver. It is the richest organ, holding the deepest essence of the body. I take the liver, and no one notices. Your senior examiner signs the paperwork, attributes the missing tissue to decay or trauma, and the bodies go to the fire or the earth." The pieces began to click together in my terrified mind. The senior examiner knew. She knew exactly what was happening in the basement at night. That was why she was so strict about the six o'clock rule. She was protecting him, or protecting the hospital from him. "But what about the families?" I asked, desperation pushing the words out of my mouth. "What do you say to them in the viewing room? How do you stop them from crying?" The ghoul smiled. It was a horrific, skin-stretching grimace. "That is the price of the arrangement," he whispered. "A transaction. Grief is a heavy, toxic energy. It poisons the living. When I consume the essence of their dead, I create a void. I whisper the ancient words of transaction, and I pull their grief into that void. I take their pain, I swallow their agony, and I leave them with peace." He leaned back slightly, tilting his head. "I eat their dead," he said softly, "and in exchange, they do not have to suffer the weight of the loss. It is a fair trade. I get my meal, and your hospital gets a reputation for miraculously peaceful grieving processes. The administration ignores the me, the senior doctor turns a blind eye, and I eat in peace." "And now you broke the rule," he said, his voice hardening again. His grip tightened on my collar. " You are a loose thread." "No," I pleaded, tears streaming down my face. "I am not a loose thread. I understand now. I understand the transaction. You need me to process the bodies. You need me to sign the paperwork during the day so you can eat at night. I will help you. Just like the senior doctor." He stared at me for a long, agonizing minute. The dark, black eyes searched my face, looking for deception. I held his gaze, terrified, projecting every ounce of sincerity I could muster into my expression. I was begging for my life. "A new arrangement," he muttered softly. He leaned in close, his cold, wet lips pressing against my ear. "If you ever speak of this to the living world," he whispered, his voice vibrating directly into my skull, "I will not wait for you to end up on a metal tray. I will come to your home, I will tear you open while your heart is still beating, and I will eat you whole. Do you understand?" "Yes," I gasped, nodding frantically. "I understand. I promise." He released my shirt. He stood up slowly, the impossible height returning to his posture. He looked down at me one last time, a look of complete, predatory dominance. "Go home, doctor," he said, turning away. "The work is done." He walked back out the swinging doors, his heavy footsteps fading down the hallway toward the cold room to finish his meal. I lay on the floor of the autopsy suite for a long time. My entire body was shaking uncontrollably. When I finally found the strength to stand, I stumbled out of the room, ran up the back stairwell, and burst out into the cold night air of the parking lot. I have not been back to the hospital since. I called in sick for the last three days. But I know I have to go back tomorrow. I know that if I quit, if I run away, he will think I am going to break the arrangement. He will think I am a loose thread. I am writing this here because I need someone in the world to know the truth. I need this terrible secret to exist somewhere outside of my own head, because the weight of it is crushing me. I am a doctor. I took an oath to protect the living. And to do that, to survive, I have to feed the dead to a monster. Tomorrow morning, I will put on my scrubs, I will walk into the morgue, and I will nod to the old janitor with the mop. I will do what is necessary to survive, so, I will never, ever stay past six o'clock again. submitted by /u/gamalfrank to r/stories [link] [comments]
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r/stories |
gamalfrank |
Apr 14, 2026 |
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AITAH for "terrorizing" my brother making him live in his own filth?
I am NOT the Original Poster. That is ThrowRA-Hanshotfirst. She posted in r/AITH Thanks to u/BakingGiraffeBakes for the rec Do NOT comment on Original Posts. Latest update is 7 days old. Trigger Warnings: abuse; religious abuse; infidelity; Mood Spoiler: good ending for OOP Editor's Note: OOP explains this later, but I wanted to put it here now since I know reading the first post will make some people annoyed. She grew up in a sect of mormonism that was very conservative and is still learning how to break out of some habits. Let's keep things civil and not be assholes in the comments, yeah? Original Post: March 15, 2025 My brothers are all pigs. We had a very traditional house where girls cleaned and washed dishes from the time, we were old enough to walk and stand on chairs and my brothers never did anything and as adults cannot even turn a washer on. I very much resenting how I felt like I had to raise my own father and how holidays and weekends were always spent with my brothers and dads laying around and us cleaning. Even Christmas they got to play with their toys and we went in the kitchen. I do not care about excuses like "I was never taught", we are all adults now and they can YouTube and google whatever they do not know. I learned how to patch walls, change tiers, change oil, etc. All the gendered stuff I was never taught so I do not see why he can't as well. My brother got put out by his girlfriend after they just had their first kid because he does not help with anything. Since staying with me I have forced him to do stuff. When he first moved in my house went from my tidy, clean utopia to a disgusting mess. He would spit sunflower seeds on the flood, hide his food and dirty dishes around the house, spit chewed gum behind the coffee machine feet from the trash can, hide snack food everywhere, smoke on the toilet and put cigs out on my floor (which is a slap in the face as I asked him to not even smoke inside because I do not smoke), leave his dirty clothes everywhere even on the living room floor, etc. Even when he ordered food for himself, he would eat at the table then leave it for me to put away for him. Anytime he took anything out of the fridge he would leave it on the table and would often leave the fridge open. I am not joking, I found maggots 3 times from his mess. I lost it and told him to change his behavior totally or get out. Well, he started doing stuff but as badly as he could. He would put bowls in the dish washer so they would be filled with nasty water, mop with the same water for days on end leaving it smelling of rot, do his laundry by putting it in the washer and leaving it for me to finish, put food away by throwing it all over the fridge spilling food everywhere. The best was when he put the syrup away upside down on the top shelf with no lid on coating my entire fridge in syrup that took hours to clean, etc. Then he would say "I am trying you are just being a b&tch". I lost my temper, and I know I couldn't leave him on the street, so I divided the house. The cabinet doors all have locks from the previous owners, so I got him from dishes from goodwill and forbad him from using any of my dishes so he is eating off his filthy dishes. I made it very clear that anything left on the floors (clothing, etc) gets a one-day grace period then it will be thrown away. Same with the few dishes he has as he would leave them in the sink until they started to grow mold. I started locking my bathroom door and he has to use the one in the basement which I refuse to clean. If his clothes are in the washer for more than 8 hours and I need to use it, I dump them wet on his bed. Any trash he leaves laying around goes on his bed. If he orders food and gets up and leaves his leftovers, I leave them to rot, then they get thrown away (though twice the idiot has left food out overnight and came out and started angry eating it whilst glaring at me. Both times the idiot got food sickness). He destroyed my fridge again putting juice in upside down with the lid barely on once again destroying my food, so I mopped it up with towels and dumped the towels and all my ruined food on his bed then put a lock on the fridge. He hates me and says I am terrorizing him. I say I was forced to mother him as a child but was never given the parental control to actually teach him how life works. And since my brothers used my childhood to treat me like a maid, I will no longer parent them. My view is, some lessons have to be learned painfully. I will not gentle parent a grown man who cannot close a fridge door. ATIAH? Some of OOP's Comments: Commenter: Ages? Who’s house is it? Why haven’t you kicked him out already? OOP: (downvoted) I am 30 he is 33. This is my house. I guess family is family just got beat into my head a lot. Commenter: Suggestion: put a time limit on his time with you. Either he starts actually working towards a solution (and away from the weaponized incompetence that he's engaged in with the juice and syrup), or he gets moved out. Is he paying rent or for food? Utilities? I assume that you'd be fine without any of his additions towards these (because you seemed OK before you invited him in to disturb your peace). OOP: (downvoted) He isn't paying anything because he lost his job during covid and says he cannot find work, I was letting that go because I make really good money and didn't need any of it from him but he needs to contribute something, and he is not. I think I will figure out a timeline and tell him he has to do better or go. I am sure he can find some other woman to raise him. That is his usual move when his girlfriend puts him out. Why she puts up with it IDK but I can't say anything because I do too. Mini Update (Same Post): Later that Day UPDATE: I could not believe my eyes when I opened reddit and saw the number of notifications. Wow. So just to update everyone, things came to a head today. I had to work the early shift and had session with my table tonight at 6 (I am DM'ing a few DND games) I begged my brother to keep the living room clean. I came home and the house was more than trashed. I mean it looked like a bomb went off. He even dropped a cup of milk on the floor and left it. I flung the whole milk jug at his head and screamed at him to GTFO. He tried to bulk up to me and I lost it screaming "get out" over and over and I guess he saw how unhinged I was because he stormed out. I cleaned up the milk then jumped online to message everyone to cancel and saw the 700+ notifications. You all gave some really solid advice, and I knew reading the replies last night that this was over. I was gonna give him a few weeks but seeing that milk all across my new floor was the last straw. IDK where he is going, I don't care. I Thank you all! I love reddit people. End of update. Some of OOP's Comments: Commenter: really why are you doing this? i absolutely do not have any sympathy for you. you really can’t be that dumb. OOP: Jokes on you I really can be lol. No, I think growing up how I did family was just pushed into my head and all the old ladies use to say that men couldn't help it. In my church if you yelled at a man for any of this you would be viewed as insane. Regardless check my update, he is gone now. Commenter: It seems like he actively hates her, right? It's the syrup in the fridge that would've sent me over the edge. What a pain in the a** to clean. OOP: It was horrific to clean because I was gone for 3 days and by the time I got back it was like molasses . I ended up having to shove all the fridge drawers in my bathtub and scrub them. I was bawling I was so upset. Commenter: I would be willing to bet so much money that he listens to Andrew Tate and Joe Rogan and thinks "women and men should have strict gender roles" which the men are always conveniently exempt from holding up their part of. Your brother is a piece of shit. OOP: He adores Ben Shapiro and Tate but things Rogan is a "little b$tch that needs to pick a side" he is super into Nick Fuentez too or however you say his name. But his favorite is the one guy that got in trouble for screaming at his pregnant wife (I cannot remember his name) Commenter: She was conditioned as a young child to accept shitty behaviour from men. Even putting in this boundary is likely a big step for her. Of course I hope she takes from this thread that he’s abhorrent and she doesn’t need to accept this behavior. Though I get why she may not think she can just kick him out - even though she can and she should. OOP: This is 100% it. In my church if you complained about men not cleaning people would think you are insane. I posted this 10000% thinking I was going to get roasted for being a b%tch lol Commenter: I'm so sorry, honestly that sounds like a really toxic culture and I would try to find a more left leaning church, but I understand that may not be possible in your area. OOP: I left the church and the area lol I am way libbed up now lol when he called me needing a place to go, I think I regressed a lot mentally. Commenter: Your childhood church sounds like one of those culty outfits that has youth leaders sleeping with underage teens and pastors grooming young girls. Thoroughly gross. OOP: Our church is #1 for those scandals recently. I was groomed by our youth leader. It was fairly standard for the elders to go on mission then marry a barely legal teenage girl when they were late 20's, to 30's. it is rampant. Commenter: How do you even put syrup or juice in the fridge upside down & open? The syrup alone would have to have the too closed to try and balance it on the top upside down. The juice could be in several containers but again, probably needed a top to balance. Doesn’t make any sense. OOP: At the top of my fridge I keep drinks (like juice, milk, etc ) he left it upside down laying across the top of all the drink bottles. So it was not perfectly upside down but rather at a sever slant with the top at the bottom. He did the same with the juice. Parents OOP: You are not going to believe this but one time I did 10000% get grounded because my brother got cysts on his ass from not cleaning and my mom said I needed to "set a better example for him" that is 100% true and totally sounds like an insane lie. Editor's note: OOP was sort of asked to prove she wasn't a bot and it made me chuckle here Update Post: March 19, 2025 (4 days later) Hello everyone, I considered leaving the situation with my brother at the original post, but this post has blown up and is being covered outside of reddit so I figured I should tell you guys what has happened. To start, I know a lot of people seemed incredibly perplexed I even allowed this. To this all I can really reply is that I grew up in a very toxic environment. They are Mormons, and not the modern kind. When I was a kid, I was not allowed to wear pants. In my childhood if you asked a man to clean you would be looked at like you were insane, and if you got mad at a man being messy it would even be implied you could possibly be corrupted spiritually for attacking the original design. Obviously after I left the church, I understood that things are different, but I am not as healed as I thought. I obviously need a lot more therapy. I also got a few posts asking why I didn't include that I am autistic in my post, this is just because it is not relevant. The actual update: My brother is MIA. For anyone who missed it the day after that post I came home to a trashed house and a glass of milk spilt on the floor that had obviously been there for a while. I lost it and lugged the milk jug at his head (thankfully missing) and screamed at him over and over to "get out". He tried to square up to me, but I screamed so loud it was hard to talk the next day. I think he got the hint then and took off (almost ripped my door in two doing it, I had to replace a hinge) I know some people wanted to me to sue him but during this whole situation I was confronted with a health scare (just some weird looking moles but I am still worried) so I do not want to deal with that. He left, get this, and went to the house of his 19 year old girlfriend. Apparently, he met this girl when she went to the bar for her 18th. I had no idea this was going on but all my brothers did. To recap. he had a baby with his GF of 8 years, THIS MONTH. [editor's note- the girlfriend of 8 years is different than the 19 year old] I told them all to fuck off, when mom messaged me crying because "no one knows where your brother is he just left with some girl" I told her I do not care. I did (call me crazy) message the girl to tell her he is bad news but she called me a crazy c%n and blocked me. I also messaged the girls mom who seems worried but basically said she cannot do anything because her daughter is legal. I guess they took off and skipped town and will not tell anyone where they are, outside of worry for this girl I do not care. I am too busy chilling with his EX and my wonderful niece. I am going to take care of my health and focus on my life. Some of OOP's Comments: Commenter: I hope your two posts are real, that you have actually taken those actions against your brother, and that you will never allow anybody else to walk all over you. Kudos to you and your new backbone! OOP: I actually wish more and more that I had been taking pictures so I could prove I am not lying because it is so unreal. After reading all the comments. I kind of woke up and now it's like "girl tf were you doing" More info on OOP's former church: The church has splintered a lot because of the sex scandals (mainly) but also just because the church is so extreme in its worst forms. As a result, a lot of the churches updated to become more modern and to leave behind a lot of the older actions. As a result some church's operate not different from any other religion institute and a lot of the members are lovely people. Still, I am never shocked when another scandal happens. Commenter: Hope it's clean. Sounds like lots of work to fix. OOP: My friends all came over and we had a cleaning party. The basement toilet was the worst as that was the only area I was not monitoring. I mean it was horrific. I sprayed bleached all over every inch of that room. Commenter: Wait! Your brothers gone missing and you sprayed bleach all over your basement as part of a "cleaning party". Well played. Loads of folk to take the fall with you.... Just kidding, but seriously well done on turning your life around and standing up for yourself when you'd been conditioned to never do so. Very impressive. OOP: I didn't realize how that sounded lol Commenter: Did you change all of your locks and get a good security system? OOP: I put on a new padlock. He wouldn't hurt me but I 100% could see him robbing me. submitted by /u/LucyAriaRose to r/BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]
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r/BestofRedditorUpdates |
LucyAriaRose |
Mar 26, 2025 |
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I [27 F] think my boyfriend [29 M] booby-trapped our apartment, I found something and don't know how to bring it up
I am not The OOP, OOP is u/woodtotheface I [27 F] think my boyfriend [29 M] booby-trapped our apartment, I found something and don't know how to bring it up TRIGGER WARNING: gaslighting and abuse Original Post March 9, 2018 My boyfriend Alex and I have been together for two years, living together for less than 6 months. I would say that we have a fairly average relationship, we make each other really happy most of the time, but we do have our ups and downs. I am honestly so conflicted in writing this post because I feel a little insane even thinking about the possibility of him trying to hurt me intentionally. We've been fighting a lot lately because of conflicting work schedules. I'm currently in my intern year of residency, doing a night float month, so I'm at work from 5pm-8am roughly. He works during the daytime, regular hours as a CS engineer, and we haven't spent a lot of quality time together in several weeks, because of the lack of overlap. I'm going to work just as he's getting home, and vice versa. I have never had any issues with physical abuse from him, he has raised his voice at me on more than one occasion, but he's always apologized and it's been during very stressful times in our lives (his dad passed away last year, our dog was killed in an accident on the street shortly thereafter). Recently though things have been happening in our apartment that makes me feel a little crazy, I've been getting hurt a lot, and Alex keeps reprimanding me that I need to be more careful and not be so clumsy, but honestly it feels like it's not me, but that things are being done/moved/placed? About three days ago I came home from work and was preparing something to eat in the kitchen, right after he left for work and I was getting ready to sleep. I opened up one of our kitchen cupboards and the heavy door flew off one of the hinges and smacked me in the head. I have a huge goose egg and a giant bruise near my hairline, enough that several co-workers have asked me about what happened. I honestly think I had a very mild concussion from it, based on my symptoms this week. But here's the thing, as I tried to put the door back together - I couldn't find the hinge or three screws anywhere afterward, they should've been on the floor or the counter, and they weren't. This morning when I got home from work and I was getting ready to go to bed, I opened up Alex's underwear drawer to get a pair of socks to wear to bed, there were the screws, the hinge, and a screwdriver. Last week I got up in the middle of my sleep schedule to use the bathroom, and I slammed my shin into the edge of our bed. There is always enough room for me to shimmy by, but later on, when I looked at the bed and my leg, there were carpet marks like the bed had been shifted about 12" towards the wall, making my space smaller. I honestly feel insane even thinking about bringing this up with him, but I don't know what to do. tl;dr I feel like my apartment is booby trapped, and maybe my boyfriend did it on purpose to hurt me, but I feel insane bringing it up. TOP COMMENTS unicornSporked Judging in my 10 years with a narcissitic psycho, you’re not crazy. Start writing these incidents down, take pictures, etc and keep it all logged somewhere he doesn’t have access (your phone) in case it escalates. Having proof will mean a huge difference if you end up having to go to the cops blackrose Also taking picture records just for yourself will help you maintain your sanity. Upload them to a secure, hidden cloud account your programmer bf doesn't know about. Frankly he sounds like a fucking psycho from what you've written here. I could never forgive someone for hurting me like that. Sure he didn't punch you, but is it really that different? He wanted a giant heavy piece of wood to fall on your face ~ sanguinare12 There is no good reason for those hinges/screws to be in his underwear drawer. Nor for moving the bed. Something is decidedly wrong here. It's time to pay attention. Two incidents are bad enough, you don't want to suffer another. While he's not around, take advantage. Search. Examine those things you use often for signs like these. Find anything which confirms your suspicions, bail on this relationship. Update March 18, 2018 (9 days later) Copy of the post Hello all - I just want to start off by saying thank you to everyone who messaged me with advice and input about my last post found here. Like the title states, I suspected my boyfriend was boobytrapping our apartment for some unknown reason and gaslighting me, and I was right. Two days after I posted, our shower head came loose and sprung off at me / smacked me in the back of head, and due to the water pressure, I needed 8 stitches to close the wound. I texted my bf about what had happened, and that I needed to go in to work for stitches (I'm a resident), and he was way too nonchalant. He asked if I had bumped it or anything to cause it coming off. I'd had enough at that point. I wasn't going to ask him about the things that were happening, I was just going to move out / on before I ended up dead. I made a plan that on Thursday I would have a friend come over as soon as Alex left the apartment, to help me pack my things and leave. I was worried about any potential cameras he may have hidden, so I flipped the breaker and turned off the power in our apartment. About three hours into packing up, Alex came home. In the six months that we've lived together, he has never once come home for lunch so there must've been a camera planted somewhere with an external power source. He doesn't even pretend to waltz through the door, he bursts open and gets furious and asks what the fuck we are doing. Not sad, not confused, straight up angry. That was the only sign I needed. All I said was 'I know about the cabinet, and the bed, and the dresser, you watching me, and my jewelry, and it's done. we're done.' He responded with the standard 'You're F****** insane, you're crazy, this is insane, etc etc'. This is the point where I am thinking, am I going to end up on a Dateline NBC episode? I yelled to my friend in the next room that she needed to call the police to come supervise while we finished packing. Alex decided to take this moment to call the police and claim that I was 'insane and stealing things' from our apartment. Two uniformed officers rolled up within what seemed like only a minute and came upstairs. I explained that I was moving out, and there was abuse, I wasn't interested in pressing charges, but they needed to supervise and file a report for documentation. I ended up finishing packing and then spending nearly an hour down at the police station hashing everything out with the officer who arrived first. I took personal leave from work for the second half of last week and tomorrow is my first day back. I'm staying with a friend right now until I move in with another resident near our hospital in about two weeks. Overall I'm really relieved to be out of the situation, but I'm generally still pretty afraid of Alex and anything he might try to do in the future. Out of an abundance of caution, I took both my iPhone, iPad, and laptop to the apple store and had them do hard resets/wipes just in case he had planted anything. I'm not sure how I should be feeling right now. But I'm just going to say that for anyone out there questioning whether your situation is abusive or not, go with your gut, and trust your friends and family. TL;DR My boyfriend booby-trapped our apartment, and gaslit me, I moved out and I'm safe now. THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP DO NOT CONTACT THE OOP's OR COMMENT ON LINKED POSTS, REMEMBER - RULE 7 submitted by /u/Direct-Caterpillar77 to r/BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]
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r/BestofRedditorUpdates |
Direct-Caterpillar77 |
Feb 22, 2025 |