So I'm 21 years old, and starting in July, have been having lower back issues. I have no clue what caused it, but it progressively got worse (to where it was very painful to even stand up from a sitting position). I did a number of exercises suggested to me by some friends to "re-align" things as well as strengthen the muscles.

My back slowly got better, and I quit doing the exercises. Despite stopping the exercises, my back stayed better. Now, about 3 weeks ago, I had to lift a bunch of heavy items into a customers car. Since then, it has started to get progressively worse again. Multiple days, I have been taking 2-3 Aleve pills to dull the pain just so I can get through an entire shift working (all while standing) without my back becoming too much of a problem. I didn't take the Aleve today, and low and behold, my back got to where I couldn't stand without pain unless I held my lower back with one of my hands.

I asked a team lead what I should do, and he said talk to a manager. I didn't particularly feel like doing that, so I just went over and started working (1 handed). A couple managers walked over to me and asked what was up, so I explained to them. They immediately sent me home. Told me it is probably a pulled muscle of some sort and I need to ice it 20 minutes on 20 off.

As much as I hope that is all it is, I have an incredibly hard time believing that I pulled a muscle in my back twice, and that it has more or less been an issue for the last 5 months. My brother has said before he will often have the same thing happen, to where his back hurts very bad...and my mother had to get surgery on her lower back a number of years ago because she couldn't sleep, and at times, would have to hold her back to walk around just like I do sometimes now.

Part of me says I should just start doing exercises again, but the other part of me tells me that I should stop delaying seeing a doctor and make sure that nothing is seriously wrong (granted this gets expensive as I have a very high deductible insurance....like 5 grand).

Good to see this still around.

Been doing renovations at home, just finished crackfilling, never been so happy to finish a job. Clean up everything today getting ready for paint, everything looks great now that it's clean and not cluttered. Tried moving this huge desk away from the wall, the damn thing was so cheap the legs broke off and everything fell apart the walls of it, EVERYTHING, along with 50 million books that vomited out of it. I can probably commit murder right now.

Why not do both? Set up an appointment with a doctor in the future. In the meantime, do some exercises to try to get better.

Dumb chem lab final. I could be home if it wasn't for that thing.

I started doing exercises again tonight. I can definitely feel them stretching stuff like crazy, so hopefully that is good. On Thursday (Thanksgiving), I get to see my aunt who works for a PT. I'll talk to her about it, and see what her opinion is, and she will likely give me some additional exercises to complete.

Additionally, Wednesday is my last day of work, so after that, I will be putting a lot less stress on my back for a month, hopefully giving it some time to recover including the exercises.

At this moment, the only thing I wish was that I could actually have a normal relationship with my girlfriend. We're basically just good friends now.

Unless you mean sexually, I'm very confused by what you mean with this.

When I find a girl I'm interested in, and start dating her, I WANT her to become my best friend (with benefits of course). I feel like if I don't marry somebody who over time became my best friend, I would simply be just settling.

Think about it, do you really want to spend a super prolonged period of time with somebody who isn't a good (or best) friend? This is the excuse that my ex used on me when she broke up with me (she felt we were just becoming friends), which I thought was incredibly BS, because that is why I thought our relationship had been working out so well.

The sex part is just a part of those problems as we've never had intercourse in the 10 years we've been dating. That's wouldn't be a problem, per se, if we had chosen it to be that way, but we didn't, there were problems that appeared in that aspect and she's unwilling to even talk about them, even though she has my full support and comprehension. 

Don't get me wrong though, she is my best friend and i'm really glad for it. If she wasn't, this relationship wouldn't last 10 years, I wouldn't have moved halfway across the country to be with her and live near her for the past 8 years and try to spend each moment that I can with her. She's the person that I most love in this world and I can't see me with anyone else.

It just hurts sometimes when you're willing to put everything you have in a relationship for someone and see that the same isn't reciprocated, in some aspects, at all.

My girlfriend was drunk and kicked me really hard in the balls tonight. I don't know if I can ever forgive her

I love thinking of creative things to gift to important people for Christmas. The girl I have been hanging out with a lot absolutely LOVES my pillow I still use that I made from 7th grade. She has straight up said that she wants one of her own.

Knowing that she is in love with the Beatles like no other, I have been searching for a fleece fabric. Low and behold, I found a pretty cool one. Obviously its pretty spendy, but I see no issue in spending $30 plus some good hard work of my own on a homemade pillow that she will love to death. Now I just to need to think of something relatively inexpensive that I can accompany it with, as I don't really want to give her just the pillow.