You Did What To Yourself?!

[AccountingDrone]

I detach them as you've all described, always getting the head, then wrap em in a tissue, take it outside to the cinderblock steps, and then set the tissues on fire. One of the biggest Lyme hotspots in my county is literally the intersection right beyond our property. We're VERY careful about it here.

... And it gives me an excuse to indulge a lil pyromania.

As a side note, I once actually felt a tick bite me. I was half asleep, and felt something crawl on my leg. As I was reaching down to brush it off, I felt a sharp stabby pain. Turned on the light, looked down, and there was this tick embedding itself in my leg.

Had to pull down as well as outwards and felt the jaws detach. Ended up with two tiny but visible fang marks on that spot. I swear it must have been a dog tick. >.< Pics exist, I just have NO clue where they've gone.

They make a special thingy to get ticks ... which works amazingly well.

And if you are extremely careful with one of the really long hatpins, you can impale a tick by going through one side only, and then using a lighter heat them up until they will launch off the pin. Rocket tick FTW =)

[Seshat]

You don't even want to know what I've witnessed at the prison. We have a lot of cutters and self-mutilators.

In both the psychiatric illness and the chronic pain illness communities, you get a fair bit of that. The 'understandable' pain distracts you from the 'weird' pain.

The medical people try to encourage less harmful sorts of distraction - funny, that!

[Sapphire Silk]

That's priceless! I probably shouldn't be laughing at it, but

When the dad came in for himself, did he tell you how he pulled it off? I must admit that I'm rather curious as to how one could fit a matchbox car up a nostril (though not curious enough to try it out myself, of course. )

I was still a student at the time, so I really don't remember other than he was working it up there and suddenly he couldn't get it out.

I was not curious at all after that

Like the time I ignored crippling abdominal pain for 12 hours thinking it was probably indigestion? And when I did finally break down and go to the ER I found my intestine had ruptured due to a condition I didn't even know I had? And if I had waited much longer, my body would have gone toxic and I'd have died? Yeah.

You don't even want to know what I've witnessed at the prison. We have a lot of cutters and self-mutilators. I think Ghostbusters said it best: "I have seen shit that would turn you white!"

Amen, sister! I worked as a correctional nurse. I could not believe some of the things those guys did to themselves.

I'll have to start a new thread and post a few