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[martinuzz]

Just got a call from the hospital's pharmacy. They wanted to know if I use any kind of medication, because I have a scheduled appointment in a few weeks.
I told them 'yeah I'm on metformine and simvastatine since about 5 days'. They were genuinly surprised.

I am worried now. I have an appointment in 3 weeks now, to look at the results of my adrenal gland blood tests.
A voice in my head tells me 'they would not call you to obtain that information if that is going to be a good news talk'.

Somewhat worried.

[Lord Shonus]

Even minor problems can use drugs that conflict badly with other medications, so them checking could just be routine due diligence. I'd advise not borrowing stress until you know you have something to stress over.

[martinuzz]

Yeah I know thanks. Trying.

[Loud Whispers]

I wouldn't worry. In the UK every general practice, hospital and clinic routinely asks for medication information direct from patients because they just naturally assume all the information on their system is inaccurate, out of date or wrong. Because it usually is.

[martinuzz]

The weird thing is, I have had 3 hospital appointments at the same hospital in the past 2 months, one including a blood test that needed me to take dexamethasone. They never called me for those appointments to ask about medication.

[Vector]

Necro. Serious cw for school shootings. Also it's a Vector liveblog or greentext or someshit.

> Dude X has been bullying queer and especially trans students since January
> I have to personally kick him out of the queer group chat he begged to join b/c he had been namecalling and misgendering. Ppl can't take it anymore. He's abusive.
> I tell the lesbian program chair, she's satisfied once we delete the politics channel on the Discord that he's been using to abuse us.
> We're all scared of him.

> Go to queer party last Friday and find out X has been taken away today in handcuffs by three police officers and didn't seem surprised.
> Everyone is happy but no one knows what is going on.
> Someone sidles up to me and is like, "Seriously watch out for X, I know what happened. We're warning women, don't be in the room alone with him no matter what. I'm going to carry pepperspray now."
> Me: "OK, he raped someone or smth. Fuck! That sucks."

> On Monday tell a female student, Y, after the class that we take with X (from which he's missing) that he's been arrested and it sounds like it was sexual assault and he might have hurt a couple people.
> She thanks me for the warning...
> And says "I thought that when he was just bullying you guys, he was still probably a good person."

Right. It's a way to get his power by attacking acceptable targets.

I think: "Next time I'm trying to stop a bully, I'll tell this story. It's clearly fine for him to attack queer students on moral grounds, but if you don't stop him there, maybe next he'll try to hurt someone you care about."

> That afternoon new person Z, who shares my office, tells me that I have completely the wrong idea, she knows what happened and it was horrible but it isn't sexual assault so I shouldn't spread rumors.
>
> "I can't tell you anything else."

> On Wednesday X is still missing from class. I go back to my office to participate in a zoom session for marginalized students getting support from a peer mentorship program.
> Z and three other blonde women turn around from their laptops and tell me I need to leave.
> Get help from IT dude for advice on an office I can use because I'm already late for the mentorship program meeting.
I'm pissed! I got kicked out of my own office. Again?! What the fuck is going on?
> Go to undergrad study lounge
> Z is like "sorry, we needed the space!" on Discord
> Me: OK, but warn me if you're going to do that b/c you kicked a trans person out of one of the two trans-friendly offices on campus.
> Undergrads come in and want to use their lounge (valid), I go to IT guy again and end up in an exam room, meaning one with those library style cubbies.

Back on Discord:
> Z: I thought you understood. It's an emergency and we're filing a police report that has to be done within an hour to prevent our friend from being shot and killed. I might be shot and killed with in the next couple days. We need a locked office that X can't open.
> I am not in a locked office that X can't open.
> If he decides to escalate this from domestic violence to a mass shooting, which is what it sounds like, I'm a great target.
I've been getting in X's path to prevent him from abusing others for the past 6 months.
I organized folks to make sure he didn't win a down-ballot student body election.
Shit!
> Get up and barricade the door, turn out the lights, turn down the audio on my laptop, and make a decoy of my stuff by a desk I'm not hidden under.
> Hide under a desk with a wheelie chair pulled in and try to breathe quietly.
> Z is still ranting about her feelings on Discord. I tell her that if it's an emergency situation she needs to shut up and stop msging me.
> Participate in marginalized student meeting while hidden under desk.
> I'll leave if I hear gunshots, it's cool. I've had a lot of school shooting trainings and I have very good hearing.

I left the building while carefully checking around corners and listening for distant footsteps. I got on my bike and left as fast as I could. I went to buy coffee and a sandwich, and when I went home I was sick with diarrhea.

> That afternoon, Z tells queer student group chat that she'll go find a new office because she's not trans.
> I tell her "forget about it, use the office as HQ. I won't be in it for the rest of the year."
I'm not stupid.
It has my name on the door and there's a directory in the lobby.
Pepper spray isn't going to do shit.
You can shoot out a lock.
Also, if there's an office that's all trans people and you clearly hate them, that's a good target for a shooting. You wouldn't have to hesitate.
> Carefully think about situations where it would be easier vs. harder to find and kill me and make changes accordingly from home. Emergency announcement to the class I TA: "we're going online for the rest of the quarter."
> The class I'm in with X is still a problem, but he has a friend in that class, so maybe he'd stop to aim, and I could run away.

> Z tells the group chat finally after her little freakout that X is banned from school grounds for 14 days.
That is, he's coming back for finals.
Holy shit!
I don't wanna take a final exam in the same room as this guy!
I'm afraid!

If it comes down to it, people who I trusted to protect me would expose me to a gunman by kicking me out of my own space. That's part of reality. I'm disposable.


My gf comes over later that night. It's a blur. I bought her some chocolate cake to celebrate her signing a lease finally and found a romance novel by her favorite author from a Little Free Library when I was getting coffee and the sandwich. GF has a baked pizza. I have to open the windows and can't look at it because I'm so nauseated. She takes all of it home.

All I really remember is that she got mad at me for not being supportive of her business school imposter syndrome or something when I was walking her to her car.

Or maybe she's mad because she said that she'd been a nitpicky bitch early in the relationship and I agreed?

We laugh a lot of the time about what a little instigator she is. She starts fights when she's not getting enough attention.


Thursday is almost impossible. I do therapy and spend the whole time telling the therapist the story I just told you. I can't focus. He says I'm surprisingly calm and that we need to talk about this situation after it's over.

Later in the afternoon the GF seems to be angry over text so I ask what's wrong. She says we need to talk about my hurtful comments and about how I can be more supportive of her.

Dear reader, she knows she needs therapy and promised to get it two months ago, but that hasn't happened yet.

I start emotionally shutting down. I can't work and I can't rest. I can't eat. I call my mother crying uncontrollably (anyone remember "Vector's mother?") and tell her not to drive down from a couple of states above this weekend. She and my dad were going to meet the GF, but the GF is sulking, I'm afraid of being shot, and I can't fix things with the GF because I'm so fucking scared my body is barely functioning. How am I supposed to deal with the gf yelling at me for failing to meet her emotional needs and failing to support her correctly? I just can't do it.

That night I can't sleep either, I finally fall asleep downstairs with one of the cats and wake up at 3:30 in the morning. I can't relax. It's impossible to read, study, or play video games. I keep reading about the Texas school shooting so I can study it and learn from ppl's mistakes.


Friday announcement in the queer group chat from Z, who is finally communicating: X is going home from now until fall.

(Yeah... unless he decides he's done with life and wants to kill a bunch of people).

> It is still not public knowledge that this dude X is talking about shooting.
> Apparently it's localized to one of the blondes who, idk, he wanted to screw and said no?
> But then why was Z so afraid?

> Why are all of my friends so afraid? We've been afraid for months!
> I started checking local crime reports to see if he came up in them months before this even happened!

I spend this Friday going to classes, showing a prospective student around the school and ignoring the GF's text messages on WhatsApp because I'm tired of her controlling little game of looking at my texts without responding to them in order to let me know how upset she is and it feels like lightning is crawling up and down my spine. I can't breathe. Or eat.

Finally she calls and then texts me normally to ask if I'm alive, which I am, technically, although Wednesday-Thursday-Friday all feel like one day, I'm sick, and I can't breathe or eat. I'm exhausted. I go suck on a piece of ice and start crying uncontrollably, but I don't feel better. I can't feel better. nothing works.

I'm very afraid.

"I'm alive" I write in a text, and she asks if I can at least say what's going on.

I can't say anything ....

How am I supposed to say anything?


Then I wrote a post on Bay12. But that's not going to do jack shit!

[Frumple]

... yeah, probably not. Wish I could, like... offer much of anything, but I'm poor and literally on the other side of the country, so. Can't, really. I see you, though, y'know? If it helps any. What you're going through is legit. You're not worried over nothing, if saying that counts for much.

If it means anything, just a day or two ago one of my cousins called my grandmother, basically breaking down over related issues far less direct than you're dealing with. They got school age kids, yet another reminder just... terrified them. Can only imagine lots of people are going through similar things. Not being alone in an abstract sense on a specific-ish issue probably doesn't help with the immediate problems, but. Maybe some? I'unno. This fucked up country doesn't make it easy for anyone, and especially not anyone that doesn't fit into the common molds, but "not easy" is downplaying shit so hard the language fails to describe it accurately...

[Quarque]

Did you tell your girlfriend that you're in serious danger of being shot? If you did, she should be helping you, emotionally and practically. If she knows what is going on and still nagging you for attention instead of helping, seriously break up now. That's not a girlfriend. Her need of therapy isn't your problem. You've got enough to worry about.

Could you call off sick on the day of the exam? Do you have any way to check what Z has been saying?

[Kagus]

Did you tell your girlfriend that you're in serious danger of being shot? If you did, she should be helping you, emotionally and practically. If she knows what is going on and still nagging you for attention instead of helping, seriously break up now. That's not a girlfriend. Her need of therapy isn't your problem. You've got enough to worry about.

Seconding this. Although I can understand if it's been too difficult to talk about with her privately and therefore hasn't come up; but I do think she should know about it if that's the case.

It's really fucking tragic and horrifying that there are folks like Y and Z around who don't seem to give a damn about trans/queer folks, but in Z's case there may at least be a small explanation in that they're probably freaked as hell by the threat too and aren't acting rationally. Not an excuse by any means, just an explanation.


Also, if it's any comfort at all... It's actually really quite difficult to shoot out a lock in any way that will actually open the door. That's mainly just a media trope that's gotten stuck in the collective consciousness.

[EuchreJack]

For what it's worth, there is a reasonably good chance all of X's guns have been taken away, and X's ID has been flagged as "Do Not Sell A Gun To This Person".
Various states have various laws.  Red Flag laws are fairly new, but Order of Protection/Domestic Violence laws have been around for quite some time.

If you are comfortable talking to Law Enforcement about your concerns, they may be willing to give some info.*
I'd avoid signing a complaint, as most people are released after arrest these days.

*By which I mean, Law Enforcement may let some information slip during a conversation.  Their official answer is probably going to remain "We are unable to comment on ongoing investigations".  But they may have some unofficial and completely off the record comments.

Z may have an Order of Protection regarding X.  That Order of Protection may order X to surrender all firearms and not possess any firearms.

[Vector]

Did you tell your girlfriend that you're in serious danger of being shot? If you did, she should be helping you, emotionally and practically. If she knows what is going on and still nagging you for attention instead of helping, seriously break up now. That's not a girlfriend. Her need of therapy isn't your problem. You've got enough to worry about.

She knows. I was texting her when I got kicked out of the room and then told her the whole thing that night.

in Z's case there may at least be a small explanation in that they're probably freaked as hell by the threat too and aren't acting rationally. Not an excuse by any means, just an explanation.

Z definitely isn't being her best self and isn't usually deliberately transphobic, she was just scared. That doesn't help me but

Y wants to be an ally but there's a lot of presentation of hurting and killing trans people as a "reasonable" or "normal" thing to be happening on the news right now, so I think she sort of also sees the bullying as a normal type of bias.

in Z's case there may at least be a small explanation in that they're probably freaked as hell by the threat too and aren't Also, if it's any comfort at all... It's actually really quite difficult to shoot out a lock in any way that will actually open the door. That's mainly just a media trope that's gotten stuck in the collective consciousness.

Thanks, that's actually really helpful. I didn't know.

For what it's worth, there is a reasonably good chance all of X's guns have been taken away, and X's ID has been flagged as "Do Not Sell A Gun To This Person".

I really fucking hope so.

If you are comfortable talking to Law Enforcement about your concerns, they may be willing to give some info.*
I'd avoid signing a complaint, as most people are released after arrest these days.

*By which I mean, Law Enforcement may let some information slip during a conversation.  Their official answer is probably going to remain "We are unable to comment on ongoing investigations".  But they may have some unofficial and completely off the record comments.

Yeah, I know that women are most likely to be killed three days after filing a restraint order ... I don't need that, I think, mostly I need to deal with the "you can be in a room that doesn't lock, we'll stay in here" emotional fallout. I had some of my own students make a "credible threat" on the school where I was teaching a few years ago and I know that when this is over with it that part of it will fade eventually, but being told to go out into the hallway is a new and freshly painful kind of thing.

Z was terrified. For sure. Definitely losing her shit, talking about maybe dropping out of school RIGHT NOW to protect her life.

Could you call off sick on the day of the exam? Do you have any way to check what Z has been saying?

I can't call off sick on the day of the exam without taking an incomplete, and it's a class where I'm actually finishing an incomplete grade from too much isolation during COVID. I've begged the professor to switch to a takehome exam instead of an in-class timed one but that was no dice.

Z is keeping a stranglehold on information and for political reasons (I just became the president of our grad association, another fear because I don't wanna be Harvey Milked lmao) I can't tell other students generally what happened or that she kicked me out of that room.

I'll probably complain to my initial advisor/grad chair because she knows what's going on, I don't need to know the nitty gritty of what's happening or to have anything confirmed so much as I need to tell someone in the dept just how terrifying things are right now.

[heydude6]

Don't know if this will help or not, but I felt the need to at least make an attempt.

I'm considered to be a student with a disability at my school and as a result I am entitled to certain accommodations. One of those accommodations is that I write my exams separately in a different room. This room generally tends to be pretty far away from where the exam is held.

If you are looking for a private place to write your exam where X won't immediately find you, it's probably your best bet assuming your university has one of these. They are bound by policy to keep such appointments confidential.

The problem of course is that these rooms are meant for people with disabilities. You're not going to get access to one of them by default, so you're gonna have to pull some strings. In my University, these rooms are managed by a completely different department, so I doubt the department has any idea of there being a threat. But I believe your grad chair may have the authority to advocate on your behalf. Universities are rife with office politics after all. And the best part is that your professor can't say a single thing about it. That department's authority overrides his, though I don't think he would have minded that much.

Ultimately, this won't do much to stop the underlying threat of an attack, but the University has already committed to doing nothing. You'd be surprised by how far people are willing to go to appease naysayers and keep them silent.

Give it a try at least. They definitely have a spare. You just have to convince them to let you use it.

[Vector]

Yeah, they definitely have rooms for that. It's a great idea that would really help my peace of mind. I'll ask.

[bloop_bleep]

Jeez, Vector, this reads like a spy movie. Take care of yourself, ok?

Firstly, make sure you're in a place mentally where you can think through this calmly, since clearly you're under a lot of psychological pressure. Take a pit stop, go home, drink a lot of water, look at the trees. Perhaps you could try another way than Z to find out more information on the situation, say by asking the police or consulting public records. Obviously you have a legitimate personal safety interest in this matter. If you think it would help you with the police, don't mention you being trans as a relevant point to your interactions with X, say instead you're a relatively high profile figure at the university who has had personal conflicts with X and you are concerned for your safety. Mention you feel there may be a threat of a mass shooting. The police officer may likely tell you what measures they have taken already so you can plan accordingly.

Secondly, don't worry about your girlfriend's needy behavior, your situation is far more important and if she won't acknowledge that then that's on her. If she's willing to listen you could tell her, however. Maybe also find somebody else to explain the situation to, commiserate, and assist in coming up with solutions.

Ask for a separate room like heydude suggested. Make it clear to your dean, your professor, the building security guard that this guy may be a threat to you, mention he's been arrested for a violent crime, that there are mass shooting overtures, that he may have a vendetta against you, don't be shy to do so. Practice personal safety, just common sense, I imagine you are already confident with that but if you want some tips here's a list: https://police.ucla.edu/prevention-education/personal-safety-tips . A restraining order may draw attention to yourself and it's not a magic forcefield anyway, it would have to be responded to by police for enforcement which may be inadequate. Ask the police to extend his ban from school grounds. Also ask the dean and whoever else can make that decision.

[EuchreJack]

Thanks for the reminder bloop_bleep about public records.
If criminal charges are pending in the local community, the local court would know. They're often pretty open about that sort of thing.
Town/Village/City Court most likely, otherwise County/Superior Court.