Datasets:

R-Arfin

/

Depression

like 0

Used by my best friend

I (M) met my best friend (F) three years ago and we got along great for about a year until she met her first bf. We'd call hours upon hours a day with two mutual friends, but once she met her bf, she became incredibly distant until she ultimately removed all contact from us. Naturally we felt as if she had used and then replaced us. Fast forward 9 months, I find out they had broken up and it turned out her bf was abusive and had forced her to cut contact with us. I forgave her, but our other friends were more suspicious. We slowly became close again and the friendship went back to how it was before. At this time, she was living on her own in the home in which she'd been abused and appeared to be quite lonely/depressed. She'd beg me to call every single day, telling me her problems. If I couldn't call at a particular time she'd guilt me into doing so. We'd hang out often but it would always be me travelling to see her. No offers to travel or cover any expenses. One time she had resorted to self harm and confided in me, I stuck by her and travelled down after working a shift just to get her out the house. Late last year, she eventually had enough of living there and couch surfed at her brothers for a few months. Start of this year, he kicks her out while giving no notice, so I loaned her money for a deposit on a new home, which she agreed to pay back within 2 months. Things were going well, she was happy in her home, and she pays me back a percentage of the loan. Now things take a turn. She calls me one morning, worried that she may be pregnant (history of casual hookups) and does a test. Turns out positive. She then contacts the guy she'd hooked up with, and they decided to keep it. So this guy starts coming over to her house every night and it was clear he wanted a relationship with her. For months she was adamant she didn't want that, and she'd still call me every day. I'd talk to her after all her scans, she showed me videos of the baby moving around, and I went out and got a couple gifts for when it was born. Months went by, and she started catching feelings for him. The story is about to go full circle. She starts going distant, I point it out, get removed off everything. Still with 90% of my loan unpaid. Eventually I had to go through her family and email her just so that she would unblock me and pay me back. She still refuses to talk if it is not related to the money, and is now in a relationship with this guy. Feeling pretty hurt and used, I seem to be kept around when she needs me and discarded once she doesn't. The gifts that I bought for her baby are still in my room, which she no longer wants. I will also never get to see her baby, despite supporting her throughout the pregnancy and seeing him grow.

Update: I finally told my therapist I’m a compulsive liar.

I made a post about a month back talking about how I’m a compulsive liar and have been since I was very young. I’ve lied about most of my life to most of the people in it, including my girlfriend of two years whom I am extremely close with. I was terrified to tell my therapist. I’d lied to her about most my past and a lot of experiences as well. She said I’d likely meet criteria for factitious disorder among other things. I was terrified of the judgement she’d pass me and thought she might even drop me as a client. I thought the rest of our therapy sessions would be a lecture on how I need to tell the truth and make amends with the people in my life. Surprisingly, she hasn’t pushed me to do that at all. Weighing the damage it’d cause to my life and the fragility of my mental state, she actually has encouraged me to wait until I build a better sense of self. I hold a lot of guilt and shame for what I’ve done, and I just generally think I’m a bad person who deserves nothing. We’ve worked on this as well as some of my past experiences (REAL ones this time) that have lead to my compulsive lying. Ask me any questions you may have. Also I’ve really struggled to find any resources at all to help me so anything is appreciated.

My fiancé lied about being trans and I don’t know what to do

Throwaway because he knows my main. I would also like to point out that I wrote the title wrong, he lied to me about being a cis man. I don't know why I didn't notice this before I posted it but thank you to the kind Redditor who pointed out my mistake. I (24f) met my fiancé (25m) at university 2 years ago. For some background information, I am Muslim and have never dated anyone in my life before him. He said that he was a Muslim revert and that his parents did not accept him, which was why they were never in the picture (they live abroad too). He told me that he liked me last year and I explained to him that he should go and talk to my parents because I didn't want to be in a relationship without their approval. Religion is important to me, like very important as I feel calm when I pray and I find that I've been a lot happier since I started focusing on it. Hence why I asked him to go talk to my parents. It took my parents a while before they agreed because they didn't really know him and couldn't talk to his parents because they weren’t in the picture (according to him). But eventually, they got to know him and we started dating last year and got engaged in January (this year). Everything was great, he was amazing and spent time with me regularly. He always went out of his way to make me feel comfortable. I guess what I'm trying to say, is that he's an amazing person and I have nothing against him. Here's where the issue comes in, we were hanging out with a couple of friends casually before one of his friends, who I’ll call J, started naming everyone's red flags as a joke. Then he got to me and said “Is religious but is planning to marry a trans man”. At first, I laughed it off because I thought he was joking, but he was serious. I have nothing against the LGBTQ+ community, I believe that they are humans just like us and should not be discriminated against at all. But I didn't understand why he didn't tell me. I asked him about it after we were leaving and he confessed. His family knew about his transition and were in fact, in the picture, fully supportive. He would call and message them regularly and they knew that he was engaged. They knew he reverted to Islam. They paid for this surgery that helped make his voice deeper and paid for his sex reassignment surgery. I asked him if he was planning to tell me that he was trans to which he responded “Not until the marriage was over”. I don't know what to do. Religion is important to me and as per religion, I can't marry him. But I love him so much. And at the same time, he lied to me, he told me that his family hated him for being Muslim and cut him off completely. He told me he was from a poor country and had issues gaining weight. I never thought that he was lying to me, not once. I really don't know what to do. I want to tell my parents but I'm scared they'll cut him off for good. I'm scared ill lose all of my friends because they'll think I left him because I couldn't handle marrying a trans man. I don't know what to do. I feel stupid. I guess I just needed to get this off my chest for now. ​ Edit: Hello everyone, thank you so much for your kind words. I really don't know how to begin with this but I just want to let you guys know that I will be leaving him. I am scared he will find this thread before I get to approach him, as I didn't expect it to blow up as much as it did. But thank you so much, this means a lot to me. For those of you asking how I didn't know he was trans and that there are always signs, yes, I did notice that he was very underweight for a man. But I felt terrible after I asked him a couple of months ago. He told me he grew up malnourished and had issues gaining weight because of this genetic disorder he has. He told me that Allah gave him this weight as a test and I believed him and didn't pry him further. I never suspected anything else, because of his surgeries. For those of you asking, I was and am saving myself for marriage. So we’ve never had sex before, as I don't want to lose my virginity before marriage. I’m planning to consult an imam about all of this before going to talk about it with my mother. I don't know his my father will react, as he was always hesitant for me to be engaged with a man whom he’d never heard of. Thank you so much for all of your responses, may Allah bless all of you, this is a very hard time for me but reading your responses has made me feel better about wanting to leave him.

I can’t stop myself from binge eating and I hate myself so much

I am so hungry all the time, I lost 20 pounds in 5 months but ended up not losing any more and even gaining some for another 3-4 months because all I do is binge eat. I’ve tried every single tip and trick, listened to the podcasts and read the books people recommend and I still do it. I’m so disgusted in myself and hate myself for stalling my own journey. I think about how I could nearly be at my goal weight by now if I didn’t binge and I’m disgusted at how pathetic I am. All I’ve wanted my entire life is to be thin and beautiful and to experience life in a thin body but I keep ruining my own progress. I’m disgusted in and ashamed of myself and how weak and broken I am for constantly giving in to my temporary urges. I cry almost everyday and have a breakdown every time I binge but it’s not enough for me to get serious and officially quit. I’m mentally and physically exhausted from the battle I’m constantly fighting with myself. I want to be thin so deeply it hurts, I don’t look in mirrors, I don’t hug my family, I don’t go out because I’m so ashamed of my looks and am exhausted of seeing beautiful thin girls. But I keep ruining it for myself and I’m mentally disgusted and destroyed with how weak I am. I’ve tried to use extreme measures to get rid of the food but I’m too scared, I exercise heavily the next day but I can’t commit because it’s painful and exhausting. I can’t stand my own weakness, I am the sole source of my own unhappiness.

For The Streets

I, 24 female, am home after one of the most confusing nights of my life. So I am recently getting a divorce my husband 22 male, was cheating the whole whopping 2 years of our marriage. So at this point, I am emotionally unavailable and I'm trying to break off these ties. In pursuit of this, I got on Bumble, thinking this would help me feel attractive and meet some new people. I put on my account that I was not looking for anything serious. I matched with this really handsome man 24 M, and we texted for a week I ghosted him after I agreed to meet at his house to see my ex-husband. I know stupid. After I got through all my grief I started to message this guy again after he tried reaching out two or three times after the fact. I was messaging him and I sent him another picture of myself so he wouldn't think I was a catfish. He opened my message and left me on read on Snapchat. I texted him like, "Wow I knew that you'd have this expectation of me." He then apologized explaining that he was talking to his grandma. He proceeded to take a picture of them together and message me, "Here is proof I didn't want you to think I was lying." That right there hit me. He had no obligations to me. Nevertheless, haft to send me proof. That night I got the courage to meet him at the bar. He was amazing. Better looking in real life, great conversation, he complimented me didn't get on his phone. Just great company. We both explained why we were not interested in a serious relationship, and that we just wanted to date casually. No hooking up since that is not what I want. After my aunt called me since it was getting late and I needed to get my daughter we cut the night short. Then boom we kissed. Holy shit. It was one of the best kisses I have ever had, but I also knew at that moment he was definitely for the streets. It was almost too good. Not to mention he did tell me the truth about how he was talking to other girls and going on a lot of dates. So fast forward he is asking to see me every day, trying to take off work. We even made plans to go out of town for my birthday in a month. Finally, Tuesday comes around when it's time for our next date. We meet at a restaurant we planned to play bingo for 3 hours and go to the bar afterward. I only did Tuesday since that's when both of my girl's fathers have each of them at the same time. We sit down and talk for a while, then boom I get a call that my grandpa was in the hospital, cutting the date short. I asked him if he wanted to meet the next day since I didn't have my girls and I knew he was off. He asked me what time and I said at 5 when I get off work. He tells me, "I'll let you know." I said to him, "You have another date don't you?" He admitted a girl from like 4 hours away was coming down but if she canceled he would let me know. Mind you I don't want to be the second choice. I told him it was okay and I would see him another time. Later that night after my grandfather got the surgery I decided to go by his house to hang out it was 11 pm We watched a movie. We started kissing and things got intense. I told him that we could have sex but if that happened I wouldn't talk to him anymore since I'm trying to protect myself. He got off of me, sat up, and said, "Then I don't want to have sex if that means we can't see each other anymore." This took me back and boom right there I got feelings. Fuck. Getting divorced and we already established boundaries of nothing serious. The next day I told him I knew he'd be busy on the date and essentially told him I didn't want to see him anymore since I was already crossing boundaries I set for myself on the second date. He told me he understood and if I wanted to talk he was there. Me being me we went back and forth and I asked if he wanted to meet up tonight if we were not going to see each other anymore and that girl already canceled. He then told me he was going to the movies WITH A WHOLE OTHER GIRL. At this point I got upset. I said that he'd fuck anything that would smile at him. I have such a special gift of self-sabotage. He said he didn't want to flake and let me know if she cancels. That means I would be the third choice. I know he can get better-looking girls than me. He has no kids, a great job, great credit, good looking, and charismatic. Even on the second date he was holding and kissing me like he was in a relationship and I explained to him how the other girls he dated could get confused and so could I. (Before he told me he'd rather not have sex than see me) Mind you he was talking about sex a lot. I'm fresh back into the dating game and I just ran into something so confusing. My husband told me I jumped on his ass too soon and I should apologize and put in effort to him. I apologized and he told me he was still interested in dating me. My last message to him was at 7 pm and still nothing. I know he is on a date and how he is they are either sleeping or just making out. I really don't want anything serious, but what he told me last night has me utterly confused.

My relationships always end the same way

Well, it's happening again, another breakup. I (26M) have always worked very hard to be a good man who reads a lot, works hard, stays in shape, and constantly looks for life-enrichening experiences and that has lead to three very fulfilling relationships, each one more mature than the last. I'll admit to have a pretty high intellectual standard for the women I would like to be in a relationship with so when I've found a woman who I think is a good match I commit to a relationship for the long haul, because women that meet the intellectual standards I'm attracted to are pretty rare where I live. My most recent relationship was getting close to four years, and for the most part it has been some of the best years of my life. I had a powerful connection with this woman, she was my best friend, and we had the kind of bond that I think can last a lifetime. Unfortunately, I've noticed a pattern that once the sex slows down, the romantic part of the relationship goes downhill and turns platonic. Every time. First she doesn't want to do oral anymore, then she doesn't want to have sex anymore, then I notice she becomes depressed and I even propose couples therapy which gets rejected by her, then the relationship turns into an imbalanced affair romantically speaking in which I'm the only one trying (keep in mind that I know about the depression and I'm trying to be supportive) but such imbalance probably means I get taken for granted romantically even if the friendship side of the relationship is still strong, until I get cheated on, and everything comes crashing down and there's no way back and things must be ended. This is the third time this has happened, though I will say that the infidelity event was her getting drunk at a party and having a guy kiss her, unlike the previous times I got cheated on which were sexual. My therapist suggested that I don't end things, and that I should try bringing up couples therapy again. To my shock, she was relieved and was willing to try a session, but our therapist suggested that we take about a month apart for her to go to therapy on her own, I agreed, giving her space to work on herself and come back ready to bring the relationship back to life. Well a little bit before the month passes it turns out she says she doesn't feel prepared to be in a relationship anymore and wants to end things. If I had a gold coin for every time I've heard "you're just too good for me" or "I don't deserve you" and "I need to find myself" and other similar jargon, I'd have a pretty heavy coin purse full of gold coins. The shocking part is that these women have all come back asking for another go at the relationship after they're done "finding themselves" which in the past has meant f-ing a handful of guys, I'm expecting it to be the same this time around again. Well, no, you made your choice, you confused my patience and kindness for weakness and thought you could get away with doing irreparable damage and still fall on a comfy safety net after giving away for free what used to be valuable intimacy. I'm pretty frustrated. I'm starting to think the juice is not worth the squeeze when it comes to relationships with modern women. The thing is, I've got money in the bank, exciting work, a good chunk of free time, I take very good care of the people in my life and the things I own, and while it's true I don't have many friends, those who I do have are very good people, but I also want a fulfilling relationship with a woman I love and I'm tired of being heartbroken the exact same way each time. I could get away with fulfilling my sexual needs with casual hookups but I have no interest in engaging in promiscuity. I already burned that phase and it was just meh. Casual sex isn't enough to satisfy me. I just want to vent a little but advice would be welcome, I'm just tired. If you read all of this, thank you so much just for taking the time, by doing that you've given me your valuable time and that means the world to me.

Want to get this off my chest

My married cousin(M) kissed me once and said he sees kiss as a non-sexual thing when I resisted it. He said he would like to kiss everyone he likes and talked me through it. Later he kissing started to become smooching to which I was not comfortable but stayed silent. This happened for a few meets. Then he slowly progress to touching my boobs to which I said NO. But he said he liked touching and sleeping on them. Last night he kissed my boobs and tried to suck my nipple. I feel disgusted about myself to let me into this shit, which I didn't even enjoy.

I fantasize about all the people I hate being murdered so often

I cannot stand them and I genuinely wish they’d die. I know this isn’t an exaggeration because I have experienced people I hated dying before, and it pleased me so much. Sometimes I feel my parents should die as well. They’re a crooked pair that had no business doing what they did. Or rather, my extended family for making them. I watch videos of people being killed just to feel some satisfaction, pretending it’s people I know

My girlfriend of 3 year cheated on me multiple times

I am 21 and i have been in a relationship with my girlfriend for about 3 years. We have built a relationship that i was very attached to and i have always gave her everything i got and put her on first place. She told me she wanted to experiment more. I am her first boyfriend and i she was my first girlfriend. So we both didnt have any other experiences, but she wanted more. About half a year ago we had a lot of discussion about it. she wanted to be free to kiss other people without concequences. I didnt like this at all but if this made our relationship stronger okay. She made a few new friends, a very kind lesbian couple, and she told me she wanted to experiment with same sex in bed. I told her i didnt like it at all, I have already accepted making out with other people but this crosses my line. i have always been fatefull and gave her my everything. she did it anyway. Okay fucking horrible situation she did something i asked her not to but okay it happend i can live through this even though it hurts after everything i put in this relationship. TODAY she told me it didnt happen once it happend 3 times she told me the first time but the last 2 times she kept hidden from me. I feel fucking horrible i saw myself building a future with this girl and she betrayed me, and treated our relationship like its nothing. Its not a tiny mistake that happend after a night of drinks. its something that happend multiple times. I am absolutely broken i feel so horrible i dont know what to do i never wanted anyone else in my life than her. Now she made a hand written apalogy to my were she told mr she really want to commit. she is really sorry and regrets everything a lot. But the damage is done. i don't know what to do i am so stuck in my head, how could she do this to me? she know i have a history of mental problems and she still does this to me. I have no idea what to do i feel so hopeless and broken i have gave her everything i had and always put her on first place for 3 years and she treats our relationship like its nothing. Even though she regrets everything, she wants to commit and she is so sorry. I am absolutely stuck i have no clue what to do. Sorry for my english it isnt my native language. I am very happy to get this off my chest i feel absolutely horrible she told me just a few hours ago. Thank you

Call centers are just an excuse for the higher ups to throw you under a bus and call it being supportive

Does anyone else feel this way? Because that's definitely the impression that I got last year when I worked at a call center. I worked from home and it was a virtual call center, but still...same thing. It really feels like the higher ups don't want to get their hands dirty or deal with the verbal abuse from assholes on the phone. So they just hire a bunch of people and throw them on the phones will little training. Then the higher ups step back and are like..."Not my problem", while pretending to be supportive. All while you're dealing with the horrific stress and abuse from these people on the phone. My job felt like getting run over by a bus while bystanders are just watching and don't even bother to help me. Getting blamed for things that aren't your fault, cussed out, threatened, yelled at etc. And then we're expected to be OK with it. There's a reason the turnover rate at call centers is so high. They can't keep anybody because no one wants to deal with the abuse. Fuck call centers.

I'm crushing on a straight guy.

as title says, and this is a burner account I (teenage male) have a friend (also teenage male) who's straight- as far as I'm aware and he's said. I am not. I have a partner, (teenage undisclosed) and while I love them dearly it's been rough recently with emotions, I've been feeling left out and just overall unhappy. When I am affectionate, they're upset, when I'm not affectionate, they're affectionate. it's been taxing and draining and I've had a hard time adjusting as I feel like I have to play therapist or middle man most times. I will refer to the straight guy as G for typing sake. I met G recently, and I started off thinking he disliked me before realizing that's just how he messes around. I like to think we've developed a friendship, but there was around a 2 or 3 week period with my partner where it was constantly me playing therapist and not being paid too much attention to, so I did things in the server with G. I realized how funny he is, and how I like his laugh, and that he makes me feel safe. I love my partner still, I really do, and I've not done anything to damage his trust in me. I would never think about cheating on him anyway, regardless if G wasn't straight. But, selfishly, I wish G felt the same way back to me too. It is wishful thinking, I am young and dumb and my brain has latched onto this guy and rocked my life.. but he makes me happy, and stable, and I love trading songs back and forth. It makes my day. I don't have to beg to do things with G like I had with my partner, it is not a fight doing something semi social with G and i feel comfortable and natural talking to G in vc, whereas with my partner I can feel overlooked or forced. might be wishful thinking, but with G, he's started getting friendlier with me. Picking on me more but talking in a sweet tone when we're talking casually. Making jokes about each other, sending music when we haven't talked in a bit, inviting me to some things, etc. maybe that is just what true friends do, but my wishful heart hopes otherwise. my brain just wants to forget this whole thing is happening I dunno, I guess I'm just writing this because I want to get my words out there. I hope G likes me back, but I also do not. I hope my relationship figures itself out, and I hope with time the right answer will come to me!! if anyone reads this, I hope you have a lovely night :)

Not interested in my future at all

I guess a trigger warning for s**cidal thoughts or thoughts of that kind. Im in my early 20s and just, am not interested or looking forward to my future at all. Totally completely apathetic to the thought of it. And, it’s not like i have plans of wanting to kill myself, I’m not looking to commit suicide and am averse to the thought of going through with it… just lately I’ve had a complete disinterest in doing.. life things? The thought of having a job, taking care of a house once I’m on my own, living the day to day, maintaining friendships, heck even going out to eat or eating at all is daunting and just completely uninteresting to me. Sometimes finding something to eat is just frustrating because i don’t have an appetite at all anymore. I don’t know how to describe it, i have just no emotion to my life anymore. My hobbies don’t make me happy, even when i complete a project of some sort (i like to crochet and I’ve completed a sweater) it invokes no emotion in me. No pride, no sense of accomplishment, nothing. I’m just floating through my life and i really feel like I’m an outsider looking in, to my OWN life? I feel like I’m watching someone else all the time. I have intense moments of paranoia and what feels like depersonalization occasionally but I’ve never had issues with extreme anxiety to that point or any other mental health issues attached to those feelings. (For example i have these irrational fears of home invasions, am terrified of being home alone, that stem from nothing. I frequently feel like rooms change, occasionally ill miss my turn into my street because it LOOKS different even if its not. Sometimes the body im in feels foreign and strange, for hours at a time.) I just want to feel alive again. I want to be able to take agency in my life and enjoy it. I used to! I got into college to push me forwards and to ignite that feeling in me but its just made it worse. These are supposed to be the greatest years of my life but i just dont feel ANYTHING. I know how bad it is to slack off, and these thoughts have made me extremely selfish no matter how hard i try to push through them. I feel so mentally closed off, like theres a barrier between me and the rest of the world. I feel like an alien that got dropped on earth for the first time and im trying to figure it all out. Im trying to break through but i cant.

It’s her birthday soon

Since I can’t say this anymore, figured I’d lay it out here early to get it off my mind in case I forget. Didn’t think I’d find peace writing out these thoughts in a place they’ll never see Her birthday is coming up on the 18th and I wanted to wish her a happy birthday. I’d been hearing about the person you’re becoming and I’m so proud of everything you’ve been doing and that you’re pursuing your dreams. Thank you for making me the person I am today and for setting me up, I literally owe everything I have to you. I wouldn’t have been able to start if you hadn’t pushed me to be better. Keep doing good and I hope you have a really fun day. Everything works out in the end if things seem tough so keep moving forward On the other hand, writing this out made me realize I’m getting old. I’m turning 24 and doing adult things has been hard. I hate taxes

So many issues in life, i'm just exhausted and terrified.

I just wanna cry out into the void tonight. My whole life has been so difficult so far. I was bullied all my childhood long. I had an abusive father. There have been 3 suicides in my family. My best friend has betrayed an backstabbed me. I have heart issues that terrify me. I feel like I've been born the wrong gender, and being trans is fucking terrifying as well. I'm very ugly, people tend to avoid me because of it. Social anxiety, eating disorders, depression. Almost accidently starved myself to death because I hate eating, I dont want to have to eat anymore. Been poor my whole life, but we always had food so far so its fine, just have never been able to experience luxuries. Probably have Autism or ADHD, but after 1 year of searching and getting rejected everywhere I'm just gonna self-diagnose that i have one of those. Insomnia as well, never allowed to get a good sleep. I'm just exhausted man, I'm 21years old, and soon I'll have to get a job. I can barely survive on my own when I don't have any external task, I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to hold a job. I want help, I'm trying my best, its not good enough though. I'm not gonna commit suicide, I've seen firsthand how much that fucks up the people around you. I miss the people that have left me this way. Its just so exhausting, I'm so traumatised by my past. I just want a break, I'm doing everything I'm supposed to do and more. I'm doing whats right, why isnt anything working? I'm searching for help, but no therapist will take me, i've searched for 3 years. I'm just so scared, I've allways been, and I'll always be.

I’m a bridesmaid in my “best friend’s” wedding next week and I want to drop out

We used to be best friends, but over the past couple years she’s gotten extremely self absorbed and tone deaf. Her fiancé is so rude to me for no good reason and always commits small microaggressions to put me in my place but she believes he’s God or something. They both ruined my college graduation last month by basically turning it into another pre-wedding event/celebration for them. Maid of honor is a nightmare, two of the other bridesmaids and I have planned the entire bachelorette party and she’s done nothing but argue, then takes credit for everything. We were called uncooperative and difficult for not working with the MOH even though BM5 and BM6 haven’t even responded to group texts from anyone or paid their shares. I’m emotionally drained, everyone keeps dismissing my feelings because she’s a bride, and I’m so tired of the drama. My boyfriend said he’d support me dropping because he can see the toll it’s taking on me, but I don’t want to be the one to ruin someone’s big day.

i think i have a crush on my online friend

a bit of context. i’m 13, i go to a specialist school with 15 people where you don’t learn anything besides the differences between facts and opinions and stuff for kids quite literally 4 years younger than us, that i don’t even need to go to, (trying to get into mainstream but it’s taken well over a year, plus i don’t think i’m academically capable enough) got diagnosed with emerging bpd last year but got no help, moved house 3 years ago and i’m still depressed that i’m here, have next to no friends in real life, am getting bullied by my ex-friend and so much more. last year, i stayed inside for almost the whole year because of bad derealisation. during that time, i got super invested in cartoons, specifically adult animation and i used it as an escape. first it was shows like family guy and gravity falls, but then my two favourites were south park and a show called inside job. this is where brett comes in. it’s not his real name, but he reminds me of brett hand from inside job so i’m just gonna go with it. we started talking on instagram, (i’ve been making online friends since i did climate activism on twitter at 10 when i wasn’t in any school at all) turns out we were both absolutely terrified to talk to each other at first, but turns out we had almost the exact same interests. we liked the same shows, had the same love for all of matt stone and trey parker’s works etc etc. i then went back to school a few months later after almost a year off, and someone whom i considered to be one of my only friends started relentlessly bullying me and other students, but the teachers didn’t give a fuck. i also had a partner, i’ll call him noah, but i really didn’t feel close to him anymore. back to brett, he invited me to a server of people who all liked matt and treys stuff and adult animation in general and we all bonded instantly, specifically with 3 people. we’ve all had so many amazing conversations and video calls so much, and they’re like my family. brett is like my dad, i refer to him as such most of the time and i love him so much, then he’s platonically “married” to two other people in the server whom i think of as my dads most of the time as well. before you ask, i know about internet safety, i have video called with these people multiple times and i trust them. anyway, there’s this person in the server who’s my age, super fucking pretty, has the exact same interests as me, and has a love of deep conversations about adult animation, just like me. i’ll call her avery, but she’s genuinely the sweetest, funniest, prettiest person i’ve ever met. i’m a manifestor, and i sometimes use subliminals, one of which i used to manifest a partner. and when i tell you that avery has the exact voice i pictured when i pictured my ideal partner, i’m being serious. i told the server about the adult cartoon i’m trying to pitch, and avery asked if she could help, so now we’re co-creating the series (i felt a weight being lifted off when she asked to help, because honestly i’ve really needed someone to help me with this and get it pitched) together. she honestly just means the world to me. she also feels isolated, and isn’t in the best situation academically so it’s nice to meet someone who’s similar to me in that sense too. but she’s from canada and i’m from england so we’re incredibly far from each other lmao. last week, i broke up with noah because i just didn’t feel any connection with him anymore and i really really like avery. we’re still really good friends, the relationship just didn’t work out, and i’m glad that noah didn’t take any offence to the breakup. i really really wanna tell avery i like her now but i’m just so scared that she doesn’t, and that it’s gonna be awkward and i don’t want to get my heart broken. if i’m honest, i’m just absolutely terrified because i love her so so much and i know she most likely doesn’t feel the same way.

Was I raped?

I was hanging out with this guy and we were making out. it got pretty intense, but I wasn’t ready to have sex yet (20F and a virgin). things are picking up and it’s to the point where he’s on top of me trying to stick it in. I say no out loud about 8 times, and I physically kinda try to pull his penis out of me/try to back away each time. It never went in all the way, but I feel like he definitely tried to and the only reason it didn’t go in was bc I was a virgin and not relaxed. afterwards, he even made a comment about how “he kept trying to push it in but it felt like there was a wall there”. in my head I was like ????? maybe bc I said no 8 times? why would you keep trying to push it in if I said no? what if it had gone all the way in, then what? you would have fucked me without my consent? I still feel like it was rape/borderline rape in some way. at the very least I wasn’t respected.

I tried to reach out to my childhood friend and she stopped replying to me

We hadn’t spoken in 6 years and I know this is her way of saying she doesn’t want to pick things back up from where we left off or attempt to patch things up. And that’s okay. I would never force that on her. It just doesn’t change the fact that it hurts and I miss her dearly.

To my November Rain

Dear R, I’m not really sure what to say here. I feel like I’ve communicated well enough and you know how I feel and where I stand on things. Unfortunately, I truly don’t know what I did to upset you. I’m assuming I upset you because you haven’t responded to me and you blocked me on Facebook. I don’t know how to feel. You told me you loved me, but you pushed me away. You told me you were thinking about a relationship, but now it seems like you don’t even want to be friends. I’ve missed you so much, but I’ve forced myself to move on. I still don’t understand what happened. I wish I knew more. If it was just a matter of feeling like you had to just be single at this time of your life right now, I get it. You don’t have to justify it. It just is what it is. Are you upset with me because I asked more about why you didn’t want a relationship and was kind of challenging you about it? One of my favorite songs is “November Rain” by Gun’s N Roses, and I think of you when I listen to it. I associate music a lot with you actually, but that song does express a lot of how I feel. One line specifically: “So if you want to love me, then darling don’t refrain. Or I’ll just end up walking in the cold November rain…”. I wish that if you do love me, that you would just let yourself love me. But above all, I just wish I knew the truth. It feels like you’ve hidden a lot from me. I’ve thought of you constantly, always wondering what you’re doing and if you were okay. I want to be with you, all the time it feels like, even if it’s just cleaning the apartment or watching a movie. But above all, I just wanted that connection back that I feel like we lost. I felt lonely last time we spent time together. I felt like I keep knocking at a door that has been shut. And then I realize that, and I’m sorry for not understanding I wasn’t welcome. I never wanted to make you uncomfortable. I really, really care about your wellbeing, I always will. I have meant everything I have told you. I still love you. Hearts can change. I can adjust those feelings and really focus on just being your friend. We can play games together, work on our classes together, and get together occasionally and have a good time. I’d still love to do all those things we talked about. It would be different but I’m confident we can find that shared friendship and be someone you’re comfortable with. But I feel like I’ve read the writing on the wall. You haven’t responded and you blocked me for reasons I really don’t understand. Did I hurt you? Why don’t you want to still be friends? I feel like now you don’t want anything to do with me at all. You do not owe me an explanation or a justification. As of now, this seems to be your decision, but I still wish I understood why. Is it just too awkward or confusing to go back to just being friends, or is it something else? Do you actually fall in love with me, or did you just say that? Are you pushing me away because of feelings you have for me? Like you can’t handle having me as a friend? Those are the questions I’m left with. All I really have to say is that if you want to love me, or anyone else, don’t refrain. I will always respect your boundaries and your decisions. But know that the way I feel about you hasn’t changed. I’ve been confused and frustrated too, but we can work this… if you want to. If you don’t want to and you just want me out of your life for now, it is what it is. I still can’t be mad because I still feel nothing but love for you honestly. I hope to hear from you in the future. I’ve taken my previous job in Minnesota and will be leaving very soon. I’ll still be visiting Florida about once a month. I’m going to take the time to really work on myself and get my life in order. In terms of communication, my door is still open to you, but I won’t be knocking at your door anymore. Not because I don’t want to, but to give you the space and distance I sense you want right now. There may always he a part of me that still hopes our story isn’t over. I know there’s a part of me that always wants to be your friend and feels guilty for creating circumstances where I lost that with you. Much of this could be off base but unfortunately I don’t have much to go off of. I wish you the best. Please take care of yourself, and don’t give up on everything you want out of life. Yours, M

What do I think of you?

do you wanna know what i really think. i .. don’t know how to talk to you. this whole time i’ve never been able to talk to you. you think i’m quiet because you don’t know me and you have never made the effort to get to know me. i’m just an object to you. i feel like i can’t be myself when talking to you so i can’t have a conversation with you.

My boyfriend is my soulmate

My boyfriend and I have been dating for over a year. We are both in our teens and he is just my best friend. Love is a very overused word that can apply to almost anything. “I love my dog.” Or “I love this sandwich.” Many people have their things that they love for a reason. But I didn’t love my boyfriend for a reason when we first got to know each other. We met as kids but met again in middle school in which led to me being one of the first people to talk to him at this new school, due to the fact that he was a transfer. I’ve always had a thing for him. Every year, I’d confess my feelings toward to him which would only end with him saying he didn’t feel the same way. I never held that against him. I always respected him even more because of it. He wasn’t by any means perfect and I didn’t view him as that. I just enjoyed his company. Every year since I’ve known him, my feelings for him would resurface consistently but I didn’t think much of it cause I was just a boy crazy girl but I just always ended up liking him. Even when he had a mustache. Even when he had short hair, and even when he still had those librarian glasses. The type of love I have towards him isn’t the one from the movies that just came out of nowhere and it ended up becoming a huge plot twist that he was in love with me too. I’ve loved him since I’ve officially know him. I fell even more when I found out he finally decided to give me a chance. He didn’t make me regret my past decisions nor made me feel shame. He is my safe space. I can tell him about anything and he would listen. We fight often but it’s always about the most stupid stuff and end up laughing our butts off afterwards. He is my imperfect soulmate and I could never be happier. Even if this might just be a fun teenage romance.

A toxic Splatoon/Ninjala player lied and the Ninjala community about everything.

I don't want to say my game name age or and or anything else. But please try to understand, this is something I want say something about this, but it's eating me alive like. I don’t have anytime to explain this, but the reason why I’m saying this is because I'm sick of the drama, I'm sick of the toxicity I'm so sick of the negativity, I'm sick of the lies, backstabbing, lies, betrayal and also I'm sick of the trolling that's been going on in this small community, you want to know why I'm saying this? You want to know why?! This ninjala/splatoon player goes by name “inkbro” made up a disgusting lie on one of my friends (I can’t say my friend’s name for safety reasons) on twitter as a result, he lost half of his mutual friends as a result. And seeing him going through all this harassment, all this pain, all this hurt he’s been getting through it's becoming too much for me. One of his other friend try to explain this situation to inkbro that it was all a misunderstanding but inkbro blocked him. Just like that. If I try to speak out, then I would be the target of bullying, and harassment, It really pains me that half of the community took sides with the toxic player who spread lies of a strong player who got bullied and harassed rather than hearing the bullied player’s side of the story. I just can’t believed that just one false accusation, just one false accusation can ruined someone’s life and reputation, how can a roleplay on discord an roleplay with Ocs on discord is considered “gr00ming a minor” I mean my god this has to be the most ridiculous excuse I’ve ever heard! Inkbro’s proof of “gr00ming” is absolute bs, there’s not a single piece of evidence not even any NSFW stuff, asking for nu3es online is gr00ming, complimenting soneone’s oc cute is not gr00ming. It's been 4 days since this whole drama had occurred, since July 1st, I missed playing with my mutual friends on team battles. I want to say something to inkbro or any other toxic player on the game, but to inkbro in particular, you ruined everything for me, you ruined my friend’s and reputation life, you ruined everything for me! Is all that hate for a strong player is all that worth to you, all that trolling all that B.S., that jealousy meant anything!?! And and for what you just had to throw out this false narrative on somebody that you don’t even know! Well you what you got what you wanted! Inkbro you are nothing more than a absolute liar, you turn Ninjala into a cesspool of hate and backstabbing and I hope everyone see how as slimey manipulative liar you are, when the truth comes out! I want ninjala to be a welcoming, drama free community that no one shouldn’t be afraid of playing as they are, but if we continue on with the level of toxicity and hate that's going on then players will stop coming, and the game will be no more. This has gone far long enough.

You cease to be yourself past a certain point

Money and status and achievements are what you're about. You are nothing but these things. In fact I burst out laughing when I realised this. Nothing about the person that I am matters. My personality, my hopes and dreams, my fears, my feelings. I miss being a child and a teenager. I'm dead inside. I wish I was dead. More precisely, I wish I had never been born. Nothing about being an adult excites me anymore. I feel terrible and this feeling of being terrorised into doing something I hate every day will never go away.

I feel toxic

This is just a vent post, advice would be nice but isn't necessary. I F(19) am talking to an incredible guy for privacy reasons we will call him Aaron. I met Aaron on Tinder I wasn't expecting much to come from this since he is in the military and I haven't had the best experiences with military men like ever, but Aaron and I have been talking for almost two months and have already hung out twice and he has met my mother which is something very important to me. My thing is around this stage of the relationship things seem to go down hill it happens with every guy I talk to, we start talking get close I say I'm not gonna get attached but the guy will do stuff that makes me get attached and then around the two-month mark I get ghosted or fucked over, so naturally that's what I am expecting from Aaron but he's absolutely perfect only downside is he's a little but of ways away from me so we are only able to see eachother once a week depending on our work schedules. I have started distancing myself from him like I am still texting him and calling but not as much as I did and not being how I was which is a bodily reaction because of what I have dealt with in the past. I did tell him what I stated in this post but I feel like venting to a bunch of strangers on the internet is easier than talking to my friends because they don't get because they are all in happy relationships and I am the only that can never seem to get it right when it comes to guys. also to add i've never been like fully single I am always talking to a guy which is probably a factor and I should take a year off from dating but I want to try to make this work and not drop him because I'm "finding myself"

I think I just had an epiphany that I’m in a transactional marriage with someone who doesn’t actually love me.

TLDR: Finally realized I'm not loved, I'm being used, and decided to Uno Reverse it. We’ve been together ~10 years. In the beginning, I was a single mom of a toddler with a low paying job. He was newly divorced with no kids and a very high paying job. He took care of us as I worked my way up the corporate ladder, but he always maintained that I was the love of his life, his best friend, he constantly showered me with praise and adoration (I know now that this was love bombing). I took care of the housework and budgeting, I did all the errands and cooked all of our meals, all the while working full-time and taking care of my child. We had a very exciting and fulfilling sex life and social life. We vacationed and went on so many lavish dates. Fast forward several years, we’re married and have kids together. I STILL fully take care of the house/budgeting/cooking/errands/childcare. He’s had about 4 stints of unemployment where my now higher paying job was able to provide for the family and keep us afloat until he found another job. For the last half of our relationship until recently, even when he had a job, I've made *more* than him. While I used to only make a little money, I have NEVER been unemployed. His longest stint with unemployment was 8 months, where he received no unemployment insurance and I solely supported us, at one point taking out a huge loan from my 401k (that I am still paying back) to keep our heads above water. And mind you, he did not pick up slack with childcare/housework/etc. I still did all of that. Now the tables are turned. He is back to making big bucks, and I still take care of all the aforementioned tasks. He’s on a new fitness kick and mentioned he wishes I could become his dietician and plan his micros and macros whatever tf that is, and I replied with exasperation, that I really didn’t feel up to doing that. That’s a job people go to college for and I have such a huge mental load as it is, I don’t really want to take on ANOTHER role when tbh, all he contributes to the house is 20% of childcare and a paycheck. He then asks “Then what do I even have you for?” In the past, I laughed that off as a joke… he’s said it too many times now that I firmly believe he’s serious. When I’m not in the mood for sex, or if I don’t feel like becoming a DIETICIAN, it's always "What do I have you for?" So I respond, “Um, Idk, companionship?” He replies “I can get that from my friends.” I ask “Then why ARE you with me?” He replies “Because in the beginning you took care of a lot more.” I snap “I already do everything! What do you do? What ball have I dropped that you’re picking up the slack on?” He replies “I bring in money and you take it all.” I’m flabbergasted, all I do is pay bills and take care of the kids. I buy NOTHING for myself. He has to beg me to buy clothes when they start falling apart and get my haircut because I’m constantly prioritizing him and the kids. All I do is work and take care of my family. I have offered on numerous occasions to pass the baton back to him and have him take care of the budgeting/finances, he declines every time. According to him, I’m “better” at it because I work in finance. (How convenient) This afternoon I’ve been thinking and stewing… and as much as I want to sit him down and let him know that when he says “Then what do I even have you for?” that it hurts me deeply and ask him if he really loves me… but I think I already know the answer. I truly believe he isn’t being cheeky, I think he’s being honest. I am essentially a servant, a “Bang Maid” if you will, and truthfully, I don’t think he likes me, and I don’t think he truly loves me. His “love” is extremely conditional on what I do for him, and while he resents being treated like “just a paycheck” …he basically is. If you’re not cooking, cleaning, taking care of the kids, and your only contribution to the family is money, then yes, you are just a paycheck. So, I’ve decided to just roll with it. Fine. If I’m a “Bang Maid” then he’s my “Sugar Daddy.” Tit for tat. I’ll keep doing everything I’m doing for the house, and him, and the kids, and I will no longer feel badly about doing things for myself. I’m going to regularly get my hair done, and buy new clothes, and treat myself to nights out with my friends. All things I’ve resisted doing in the past because it felt selfish. And before you ask, “Why don’t you just leave?” We both make decent enough money, but I think he and I are very well aware that our lifestyle only works together, especially in this economy. The house we live in, cars we drive, the brand name clothes for ourselves and the kids, the vacations, the private school for the kids, etc… we can’t go it alone without sacrificing all of that. He knows it, too. Which is why last year, when I had enough, and we nearly split up, he came crawling back and was adamant we make it work because he loves me and I’m his best friend. His work schedule and traveling does not allow for him to have the kids 50/50, he knows he’d be on the hook for serious child support. Seems like this is it for the foreseeable future, at least until the kids are out of college. The Bang Maid and Sugar Daddy. What a pair…

I'm at the end of my rope

I'm bipolar and I have GAD I've been struggling with the symptoms of one or the other for the better part of this year. They'd probably be easier to manage if my life wasn't such a fucking mess all the time. Beyond the typical family and pet deaths I've had several additional stressors. This month I was the victim of a hit and run. My car is probably totaled. I had an unhealthy emotional attachment to that car so the loss is devastating. Not to mention the trauma from the accident triggered my PTSD (this was not my first car accident), and now I'm genuinely anxious every time I'm in a car. Like to the point where I really shouldn't be driving because I'm shaking in the seat. I'm now on my last chance at work because my attendance has been garbage because of days I'm so depressed I literally cannot physically drag my body out of bed. Or manic episodes so intense I don't know what day it is. I'm also chronically ill and prone to infections so I'm out sick a lot and the company doesn't have a sick leave policy, so I've been taking occurrences for that too. I hate my job. I'm overworked and underappreciated and only ever get berated for mistakes I make and never get any kind of encouragement or acknowledgement when I do my job well. It's a huge corporation whose main concern is production, so the environment fuels burnout at an incredibly fast rate. Our turnover for employees in my department is horrible, we struggle to keep 2 of the three shifts staffed and we just lost another new hire. The burden of the workload is placed on the rest of us but not everyone does their fair share. I'm exhausted and burnt out and I genuinely dread going into work because the vibes in the building are just so toxic. There's so much in-fighting and drama and no one has done anything to address the problem with morale. On top of this I was assaulted earlier this year and ended up getting pregnant. I had an abortion and I'm not going to justify my choice here becauae i just need to get it off my chest. I hid it from my family because I didn't want them to hate me but after my car accident my parents found a card from the clinic so they know about it. They're definitely disappointed because of their own beliefs but they're also worried about me. Because of that and the car accident. My mom told me she's worried I'm in "survival mode" which is ridiculous because I've been in survival mode for the better part of this year, but i get that she wouldn't know that because we don't really talk. We're not close and i don't go to them with my problems, ever. I've been struggling to sleep lately. My brain won't settle down until the wee hours of the morning and I can finally crash but then it's so hard to wake up when I'm supposed to because it's only a couple hours of sleep. So I've missed a couple of therapy appointments and my therapist hasn't responded to my emails. I think she wants to break up with me and I'm not saying I couldn't benefit from a new therapist, it just feels like I'm losing everything all at once and it's just a lot. I want to quit my job and I probably will because if I don't I'm going to kill myself. There's no way I can stay here much longer. But I don't know if I want another job in my field. I mean I spent my whole academic life just trying to make my parents proud because I just wanted to be loved. And so now I genuinely don't even know if I like chemistry anymore. I spent all that time and money on this degree and I think I hate science. I don't know what I'd rather do though because I never really got the chance to explore my own interests. I was so focused on just doing what was expected of me I never stopped to think about what I actually wanted for myself. I'm fucking miserable. I hate my life and my job and I don't want to live like this. But I don't know what to do. I don't even know what makes me happy. It's been so long I honestly don't know that anything makes me happy.

Adulting Life.....

I am feeling extremely exhausted once again. The responsibilities and demands of adult life can be quite draining. It's disheartening to wake up already feeling tired and worn out. It can be quite overwhelming at times

Maybe I’m not meant for this.

Life in general, yes, but many things. Specifically though, relationships. The relationships I’ve been in always fail, but even this one makes me really think. You; the best, most loving relationship I’ve ever been in, the closest I’ve felt to finding a soulmate. But I still wind up paranoid that you’re a liar. That you aren’t who you pretend to be, that you’re taking advantage of my kindness. Maybe it’s just happened too many times. Or maybe the common denominator is me. Maybe I’m not supposed to be in a real, practical relationship. Maybe I’m supposed to spend the rest of my life fantasizing about someone who doesn’t exist because my standards are unreachable. Maybe I’ll just live and die alone, however soon that may be, because my silly brain and it’s silly issues can’t handle being loved. Maybe this just isn’t right. Maybe I just need more. I don’t know.

I’m scared of falling into the sky

I’ve never had too many irrational fears, but I have this super embarrassing phobia of falling into the sky that I’ve never told anyone. I remember discovering it when I was about 11-12 years old. I was at the beach with my family and I remember just looking up into the pitch black sky, and this sense of dread came over me. For some reason I had this feeling of being exposed, and that I might just get sucked up into the sky/space for some reason. I get it’s physically impossible and never gunna happen. But even as a 24 year old my legs still get insanely shaky whenever i stare into that void of mysterious nothingness. Do y’all know anyone that’s experienced this? Or have any experience with it yourself?

I don't know what to think

Hi everybody, I just wanted to get this mainly off of my chest since none of my doctors seem to say anything when I mention this. I had my daughter over 10 months ago with a planned c-section. I got the epidural or whatever they give you and all was fine until they got my daughter out. Her head was stuck under my rib so they had to push down quite hard to squeeze her out and the second I felt her come out. And I kid you not. My entire body was in pain and it was as it the epidural wore off completely. They had gotten her out within 20 minutes so I shouldn't have even felt any pain or been close to it because they told me it last over an hour. I kept telling them I was in pain and that I could feel everything they were doing, the staples and everything and anything else they were doing to me. Now I have a fear of needles, hospitals, any kind of blood work or urine tests. Anything medically related. I've been having horrible pain for 3 months, nausea, vertigo, dizziness, I get sick when I eat, I can't walk straight, my legs go numb randomly and a list of other things and I've been running back and forth from my OBGYN to my GP who all say I don't need an MRI. But my physical therapist who my OBGYN sent me to for a keloid I devolved said she won't continue until I get an MRI. She seemed to be the only one checking in one me and making sure I was ok and if I got the MRI. I called a different OBGYN office and after speaking with a nurse who told me all the steps I need to take to get a second opinion. Literally called me back 30 minutes later and asked for more detail so I explained everything to get and she bluntly told me I need to get an attorney, a second opinion and an MRI. I'm in Texas and it's a sucky state for womans medical malpractice and I never thought I may be having these problems at 21 years old. Thankfully after 2 months I finally got an MRI after seeing a different GP and I feel relief. But it's all settling in my mind and I just needed to get it off my chest. I know it's not normal to feel pain during a procedure like that and the fact they kept threatening to strap me down cause I kept moving (even tho I was in extreme pain) just. I don't know. I'm at a loss of words at this point. I feel so defeated. I'm happy I'm going to see if I really do have nerve damage but if I don't then it's something else and i am afraid of what's to come. I never thought I'd be terrified to go to another hospital or to get test results. I just needed to get thus out , I am sorry if this is all mumbo-jumbo writing it is late and my brain is fried.

I want to call off my wedding

I get married next week and my fiance is ecstatic. For context I'm f and he's m. I have epilepsy and dropped out of college after my first semester because the stress was affecting my epilepsy and the final straw was having a seizure while driving. No one was hurt, I had pulled over and parked and then seized. I don't think I want to get married. I can't drive because after that last seizure I got my license revoked (safety reasons). I'm 3 hours away from my family. I want to go back to college. He goes to work at night shift for 12 hours and I stay home and clean. All my friends left me because I didn't stay on the college path even though I had to drop out to figure out my epilepsy situation. I don't want to get married. I feel if I call it off though that I've wasted his money and his parents money, as they've paid for all of it. I'm unemployed and have been for over a year because I either have seizures at work and then quit because they treat me like a porcelain doll, or I tell them in the interview that I have epilepsy and they don't want the liability of something happening. I try to bring up pushing the wedding back to give me more time to wrap my head around things and find solutions but my fiance tells me to calm down or that I'm acting "irrational" and that everything's gonna be fine. I don't know what to do and needed to tell someone, anyone, how I feel.

I got groomed and can't do anything about it

When I was 14 I came into contact with this Australian woman who ran a memepage, about 20k followers, we quickly became friends, she was 18 at the time. I have mommy issues, my real mother was bipolar and addicted to crack cocaine, she abandoned me Christmas 2016 to indulge even harder in her vices. Since then I have had a bad habit of imprinting upon older woman affectionate to me, and this was no different. In April of 2021, an almost exact year after we met, when I was 15 and she was 19, our relationship changed. I was in 6th period PE my freshman year doing jumping jacks, when she texts me, I check my phone to see a completely out of the blue message that read "When I'm intimate with myself, I cannot help but think of you." I had no idea what that meant, so I asked, and she said "When I touch myself, you are all I can think about." Our relationship was never sexual or romantic before this, completely out of the blue, but I won't lie, I am an incredibly lonely guy, and the fact someone was showing me any affection at all, I was determined to ensure I wouldn't lose her, so I reciprocated, despite knowing I shouldn't. I truly loved her. For the next few months, our relationship continued, I would always talk about us getting married, to which she would always say we couldn't, because it would be wrong, yet she would not even 5 minutes later start talking about how she wanted to beat me up, pin me down, tease, and edge me. She was, and even now, has been the only person that has given a shit, and shown me any sort of affection and care. One day, she texts me about how she found out a male friend of hers, who was her age, was edating a girl about my age, and how disgusting it was. She then said it reminded her of our relationship and she told me we had to stop for the time being. So we stopped. I still talked about us getting married, but no sexual stuff. It was like this until April 2022, when she revealed to me that she was dating someone, and had been since October. It was a hard pill to swallow, but I did, atleast, until I found out he was from Texas, the same state as me, which upset me greatly, although he was actually her age. In June, she said she would be my mom, which made me ecstatic, she called me her son and leaned as hard as she could into the maternal role, wasn't romance but I was content, hell its all I wanted originally before the romance shit. During this time, her art account and twitch grew tremendously, she at the time of writing has 4k followers on twitch, 89k on tiktok, and 97k on instagram. It was hard knowing I was not the love of her life but I was happy she was happy and that she still loved me. But during December, she told me she wasn't going to be my mom anymore, and this broke my heart, she used to text me all the time, and now she won't respond to me for weeks, The guy from Texas flew to Australia to live with her, he proposed, and they are going to get married. During this time I've begged her to be my mom again and she gets mad, I've tried my best to become independent of her and I can't, I am so isolated and alone, my family doesn't care about me, she was the only family I had and she left me, my own mom left me, I don't know why this is happening to me. I can't even do anything about this because the instagram account I had during all of this was deleted, and all the screenshots I had were deleted, Its just my word now and nobody would believe me because her fans are infatuated with her because she is le cute innocent sweetheart wholesome autistic girl who draws cute anime girls, she acts so cold to me now and I hate it. I am just rotting at this point, I am dependent on her yet she and I basically aren't even friends anymore and everytime I try to move on I fail horribly, I have tried to commit suicide over this whole situation multiple times, but I couldn't follow through. I just hate how selfish and pathetic I am and despite everything I still love her, she has been the only person in my life who genuinely ever gave a shit about me.

Daughter told me and my wife she’s Trans and she is becoming a problem.

I’ll try to keep this short and this is my throwaway account. So our oldest daughter (We have 4 in total) Penelope (14F) told me and my wife that she is trans a couple of months ago and she was was just doing what they call (Socially Transitioning) which was alright with my wife even if I didn’t totally agree with it behind closed doors. But recently she has been acting up in school and at home, like the usual teenager stuff, mouthing off, not doing her homework, getting caught skipping class. Nothing really too serious as I had done that crap too as a kid. Also she has become physically violent towards her sisters who really don’t understand what all is going on as they are really young. Last week she hit our youngest (8F) with a shoe and gave her a black eye. Telling my wife that she said that “I know you’re still a girl” and that was a good reason to hit her. Obviously I got pretty upset with Penny and told her that she needs to stop this nonsense but she outright refused and shut herself in her room. This is where it gets really upsetting and I’m still absolutely fuming about it. Today she tells us she now wants to fully transition and if me and my wife refuse to sign off on it she will call CPS and that they will all be in foster care or she herself will be emancipated( Not a chance of that happening in our state due to the laws) My wife broke down and bolted towards our room leaving me alone with her. I know CPS won’t do anything to us as we have a clean slate both criminally and mentally so I’m really not concerned with what a sexually confused teenager will tell them but i was pissed that she would go that low and I wanted to say so much more to her but all I could before I stormed off was “Go ahead, see where that gets you.” Will update as situation progresses. *Update: My wife arranged therapy for her on Monday and now Penny is really pissed off and locked herself in her room. My wife is still pretty upset about the whole ordeal but I 100% back her on this. However in the event this doesn’t work out or she assaults one of her siblings again it will be my turn to give her a (Rapid Unscheduled Attitude Adjustment)

I’ve fallen in love with someone

I really have. I love this person and think of this person all the time but the guilt is hanging over my head because I’m in a relationship. This is wrong but I’m lying to myself about how I really feel. This isn’t right. I haven’t done anything to pursue my real feelings, ´and I’ve been pushing my feelings under the rug for almost a year and a half. It’s not going away, I haven’t been in contact with my crush and it’s probably unrequited too. It’s like a drug I can’t get clean from.

Each day won't be the same anymore

I just lost the man that I love after he got into an accident. He's the person that I talk to almost every single day and since he passed, I wake up crying, feeling like there's a hole in my chest and still in disbelief that he's passed. I now realize that this is what each day would feel like from now on. I can't see life the same way as I used to. I try to think of things, scenarios that could make things better but it always leads back to me wanting him back and I can't change what happened. I terribly miss him and I don't want to move forward without him in this life. We don't even have to be together, I don't care if I get hurt, I just want him alive again.

How do depressed people date?

I don’t understand it I’ve seen so many depressed people who can still find love but I can’t seem to because I hate myself so much. I just wish I could be one of those people but I can’t even put myself out there

I don't want to go on this cruise

I had a horrible, year at college. I was always so sad, I just alluded it to I miss my GF, but then I found out hey, I have depression, so the whole year I was depressed only 3 times, the 3 times I was allowed to go back to Canada, why my GF, we are doing long distance, she can't come to see me because of her parents but I can go see her. Now the week-long breaks were never enough, and this Summer was perfect. I was going to: Workout, visit old friends, hang out with my gf, play video games. It wasn't until my mom told me we were going on a cruise that my Summer fell apart. I hate the feeling of not knowing what happens next, I hate how it feels like I don't get a choice here because If I got one I wouldn't go. I am aware the cruise is just for a week but it isn't just the cruise, right after the cruise we go home, and none of my friends come back home, so I am going to be alone again. In my first year of college, I didn't really have friends, these guys all hung out without me, never wanted to do stuff with me etc. It wasn't until I'd come back to Canada that I'd hang out with old friends, early in the year I got diagnosed with social anxiety and depression, the shock of the diagnosis made me quit therapy altogether, but what made it worse was that I was doing it all by myself, I had no one to open up to in person, I had no friends. So imagine the utter panic attack I went through realizing that I'm going to go through that again. Quite literally I want the exact opposite of this cruise, but my mom is so excited, that I don't even want to say anything. But I feel so sad right now that I am getting mad, and anxious. This is just so she can push my brother off to my sister and I, and it pisses me off.

i feel so lost

i just got back from an out of state vacation with my friends and it was so fun. it went by in a flash and i already miss it. i’ve been looking forward to this vacation for months and idk what to do now that it’s over. all of my friends will be moving to school in another month or so and i’ll be commuting to school. if it’s anything like last year i’ll be just kind of existing instead of actually enjoying myself. my friends are so excited to get back to/start college and i’m happy they’re excited but i’m already dreading the fact that this year will probably look a lot like last year. the nostalgia i feel for our trip and all of our memories from earlier kills me knowing that some day we won’t be just kids hanging out in the summer or that maybe one day we won’t hang out at all. i wish i could skip to summer right when the fall hits because i don’t know if i can do this again.

My bf doesn’t have to work and its making me resent him.

My (28F) bf (25M) has been on short term disability for a few months now. It was ordered by his psychiatrist so its undeniable that it was needed for his mental health. I still have to go into the office every day. When I come home he’s done nothing all day but play games, read, or watch TV. Occasionally he will clean around the house or prep drinks for when friends come over, but most days he has done nothing. Most often he eats around 2-3 pm so when I get home from work he isnt hungry, and no dinner has been cooked or bought. I offer to cook but its always the same response of “I recently ate, thank you though.” He is still getting a paycheck so it isnt like we’re struggling with finances, but I cant help but feel like I resent him now. He gets all this free time to do whatever he wants to do, while I have to go into the office every single day. My job unfortunately doesnt offer short term leave benefits so I would have to use my PTO to take any time for myself. I feel stupid for having these feelings since he obviously needed the time away from work, but I cant help it and its getting worse every day.

My job is dehumanizing, stop telling me I'm 'made for it'

I fucking hate my job. I work customer service for a bank. I work in fucking customer service. I make shit money. Stop telling me I am good at it. Stop telling me some people are "made to do that". You are telling me some people are made to be shit on at every possible turn, in every possible way, micromanaged, demeaned, condescended to, threatened, constantly with fucking bullshit metrics. Stop fucking tell me me I'm good at being a fucking modern slave holy fuck. I am not good at it I have fuckin self control, what am I going to do scream at every fucking person who calls in and have a mental breakdown and lose my job are you fucking stupid? What the fuck would you do What the fuck would you do if you have no other fucking choice just choose to be homeless? Yes, some people are made to be a piece of shit god

I’m still experiencing debilitating levels of shame over something that happened a year ago

There’s one particular day in my life that brings me immense amounts of shame whenever I think back to it. I still haven’t gotten over it even though this day was over a year ago now. I even remember the exact date of this day because it was so significant to me in all the wrong ways (I’m not posting the exact date here out of paranoia that the person I’m talking about will somehow find this, but it was mid 2022) Here’s what happened on that day: I was at a social event, and my best friend at the time walks into the event a bit later crying their eyes out as they were stressing over a situation that happened about 5 minutes prior. People were scattered around the room so not everyone immediately noticed or paid attention so I was the first person to go up to them and console them and ask what happened. And well, basically the reason I feel so much shame over this day is because I said ALL the wrong things to try and make them feel better. I didn’t have many friends at all growing up and had no experience with emotional support but holy jesus fuck I said the most ridiculous unhelpful shit and I look back and I just think wtf was I thinking and I hate myself so much for being such an idiot several times in a row saying the most unhelpful things several times in a row. I remember being so so nervous trying to do the right thing but instead just making everything worse and I’m not even gonna repeat the kinds of things i was saying/doing to try make them feel better because I’m so embarrassed by it Eventually things got too much for my friend so they told me to leave them alone and that they dont want to talk to me because im stressing them out too much and was making things worse. I was really hurt by that but I did as they asked and left them alone. A moment later I saw someone completely different walk up to my friend and try to console them and she seemed to do a much better job because my friend was smiling again within 5 minutes. On one hand I was glad my friend was feeling better, but all the severe guilt and shame I felt in that moment was overwhelming. I felt so inferior to the person who made my friend feel better. I felt so useless and problematic that I almost started crying myself because I couldn’t take it and I hated myself. I remember coming home from that social and crying my eyes out in my room for hours on end because I felt so useless and inferior and horrible about myself for not being able to help my friend and for saying all of the wrong things. I also remember this situation coming up again while talking to my friend several months later, and I took that as a chance to tell them how I felt about it (though i didn’t tell them everything because I didn’t wanna make them feel guilty). They told me that even though i might not have said the right things I still tried my best to help which they appreciated a lot especially when most ppl in the room didnt even acknowledge it. They were very accepting of my feelings and dont hold anything against me which helped a lot … but i don’t think that anything they say will free me from this residual damage that I’m still feeling a year later because of this event. Me and this person are no longer as close and honestly a big part of the reason why is because I feel ashamed whenever I’m around them because I feel like I’ve messed up too many times in this friendship, even though it’s all in my head and my friend clearly doesn’t care nearly as much about these fuckups as I do. I know I need therapy and am getting it soon, but I have so many issues in my life that idk where to even start :(

My boyfriend has an autoimmune disease and it sucks

I (25F) have been with my boyfriend (25M) for about four years & we have been long distance for one year. My boyfriend got diagnosed with myasthenia gravis (autoimmune disease) about two years ago and he’s had a lot of Hosptial visits, but I’ve tried to roll with the punches the best I can. This last year, for the first time ever, his symptoms got EXTREMELY bad (as in was hospitalized for multiples days at a time on different occasions). his disease consists of extremely fatigue & muscle weakness. It’s been months and he doesn’t seem to get better. He’s been spending the last couple months just trying to heal and feel better… it’s so fucking exhausting being a partner to someone who is sick. I never thought that at the age of 25 I’d be helping my boyfriend get up from a chair or spend my weekends in the hospital. A lot of our conversations consists of me providing support to him & trying to cheer him up because I know life’s been so tough for him lately… but it is so exhausting. Sometimes I’m not feeling good either. There’s weeks where he’s really tired & (obviously) love & romance take the backseat. Some weeks all I do with him is just sit for hours on the couch and rub his head.. sometimes days doing that. I see couples my age doing all these things we can’t do: go on vacations, go on walks, have sex, etc. i just get so jealous that we can’t have these normal relationship experiences. I never thought this is what my life would look like at this age... it’s exhausting. My needs and happiness always take backseat, i constantly worry about his health, and there’s so much pressure to make a lot of money & be the healthiest person because I can’t care for him if I’m sick & if I don’t make money, neither of us will have money. Sometimes I just want to be taken care of. I’m so exhausted. I miss how things were before he was diagnosed Being in a relationship with someone who is sick is so hard and it really really sucks. Sometimes I wonder if I’m strong enough to do this

I want to walk out of my job, I never thought I’d be that person.

I’ve been working at this job for over 2 years now, it’s my college job so I work full time on all breaks/ occasional weekends during the school year. (my college is 3 hours away) - I told my boss I only wanted 3-4 days a week over break because it’ll be my last break at home and I’m moving out of state soon. She has me working 5-6 (9 hour shifts). Twice now (this summer) she hasn’t gotten me off on days I’ve requested off, for very important things. The entire month of June I didn’t even get two days off in a row, and it’s not much different this month. We’re short staffed by 3 full time people, so I get it. But I’ve also told her what I wanted and she didn’t listen. I can’t control that so many people quit/ don’t apply. -the work environment is so toxic, I work with 40-50 year old women. They gossip and talk shit about everybody. They will go to x person and talk shit about y, then they will go to Y and talk shit about X. All while acting like they’re best friends with them. I’m so sick of it it’s ridiculous. We have one woman who is 65, and still working (she’s a little squirrelly but tries her hardest to get everything done) and one of the other women talks crap about her not doing her job everyday and will be mean to her to the point she’s bawling. I’m stressed out and fed up and literally everyday just want to walk out. I know they talk shit about me, because they talk shit about everybody else so why wouldn’t they talk shit about me? I don’t know what to do, I still have a month and half left that I’m scheduled. I don’t want to leave them short staffed because I do care. I don’t want to just walk out because I don’t want it to impact my future, but I don’t want to spend another month and a half crying because I hate my job.

My good friend died of a fentanyl overdose.. I keep wondering if he was scared.

For context he was a (25m) and I (26f) have been sober for the better part of 9 years. There has been this thought crossing my mind non-stop.. "Was he scared and knew what was going to happen?".. We had been talking at great lengths on and off since I got sober and we had known each other since elementary school. He never pressured me into doing drugs again so I kept him closer then I would others.. My heart aches because I remember when I overdosed on m\*th and was brought to the hospital I remember full and clear as day knowing I was going to probably die and begging God for forgiveness and a second chance (I am not a very religious person) and it was something that has haunted me for 9 long years now and has kept me from doing anything ever again.. I feel awful that I didn't pressure him more to quit, and I even remember one of the last conversations we had was about another friend of ours who had passed from a fent overdose.. I remember saying "You best be safe man,. I don't want to wake up one day without you there and find you on the news like him.." and it happened. ​ What was weird was the NIGHT he passed (we hadn't talked since March) I had a dream where we were sitting on a dock on a vast stormy lake talking about some of the many friends we have had that died of an overdose.. It was such a surreal experience the next day when I found out, and one of the more weird experiences Ive had. ​ and now I'm sitting here.. Drinking cinnamon heart tea while he's dead. it hurts. I hope it wasn't scary for him but I really wish I knew if it was.. idk. The truth often hurts.

My extended family makes me feel like shit

I am an university student in my mid 20ies. I also still live at home. My parents, despite having little money, are fine with it, since I pay for at least most of my own costs. Who is not fine with it? My extended family. Who keeps signaling me that I should never have gone to university, that I am lazy and a burden and just don‘t want to work. To which I say, bs.. Yes I went to university while not being certain about what to do. I am even still not sure. But I am getting my effing degree. And I am tired of getting called lazy by them. I was diagnosed with depression two years ago and it does indeed take me longer to finish my degree, but damn.. can a girl not try her best in peace? I am so sick of being made to feel like I am not doing enough. Yes, I need a lot of rest. Yes, we are in a cost of living crisis. Yes, I could probably work more, but god. Just give me a break. Not that I would be able to enjoy my breaks, cause all I do is beating myself up about not doing more. God I am so tired.

I didn't learn to swim until 20. I'm not afraid of water I'm afraid of people.

I have always loved the water. I have always loved being in water and being at the beach or at pools. My entire family always thought I was terrified of it. I was terrified of THEM. I didn't learn to actually swim until I was 20. Nobody ever taught me. My family would argue that, they all would tell you they tried so many times to teach me. My family would just continue to throw me into deep water all my life. Any time we were around water, on a boat, in the ocean in the lake in a pool, if they were near me they'd be throwing me in saying stuff like "it's time you learned!" They'd snatch me right up from playing with my cousins and sisters with no warning and toss me. They were all convinced id just start swimming. I never did. Id panic and take in water and drown. 5 times I had to be taken to the hospital because actual professionals were around to get me out of there. Each time my family acted like everyone was being dramatic and I would be fine. I was unconscious. One time I was thrown into a pool that wasn't very deep and broke my foot and no matter how much I screamed and cried and begged for help they all just stood there saying kick your feet you're fine, no one's coming to save you you gotta learn. I still panic if people are around me in the water or at the beach. I know nothing is going to happen it's just reflex. I don't like putting my head under water, I like to be able to see everything around me. And it's a shame, because I love swimming and I love being in the water. I learned to swim after I had my son. I learned in a class that was teaching toddlers how to swim. The things they thought the kids, I'd practice on my own and I picked it up instantly. Id go to the pool early when no one was there and do laps and just enjoy myself, but I wanted my son to learn in a safe environment, and I wanted to learn so I could protect him. I learned to surf. I kiyak and recently tried windsurfing. I learn on my own because any time someone's with me, I reflex back into panic mode. I'm still unlearning it at 35 years old.

Baby fever murdering me rn

I’m ovulating right now. Scrolling through a bunch of babies on tiktok. Reminding myself that I’d have to be pregnant and go through birth. For some reason, ovulating me doesn’t care. I’m about to literally wake my husband up from his slumber and tell him to give me a baby now. Someone remind me about all the reasons to not get pregnant and have a baby before I let my ovulation cycle take over.

I'm extremely paranoid of my mom getting killed by her abusive partner

So, I'm trying to cope the best I can right now and my paranoia is killing me inside. My mom has been living with this guy for 2 years -we do not live together as of rn and I see her weekends, I pick her up-, it's not working out and she wants to move out. Of couse I need to help her since I'm her only child and she'll come live with me. This guy is very sexist, but gotta clarify he's never hit my mom, he's just an extremely controlling dude, for instance, one time, I could not drop her off so she took an uber home and she got kicked out for a couple of weeks because this dumbass thought some random hook up was dropping her off, without even asking my mom about the situation, he just made up the story in his mind that my mom was cheating on him. He also installed cameras outside with the excuse that some weird people have been going around his property -never seen anybody- and makes me believe is just to make sure I'm the one dropping off and picking her up. My mom wants to leave and he's already aware of it, his reaction was just a chill okay and did not beg her to stay nor annoyed her with anything, he's been distant and quiet which makes me extremely anxious because I keep thinking what if he does something to her? His reaction is so unnatural of him and I'm starting to get scared to go pick her up and help her move her stuff in my car, what if he has a gun and just shoots us both? I keep thinking about this at night and I honestly lose sleep over it. Any words of encouragement are welcome as well as any advice on the situation. I am diagnosed with anxiety by a medical professional.

Family or not, I hope you get a taste of your own medicine.

Family or not, I hope you get a taste of your own medicine. I (18M) have been working most of my life, almost my Entire life to get the things I have including the basic necessities because no one was willing to do it for me. Around about a year ago my sister and I had to share room and I was absolutely wasn’t satisfied at the time let’s just call Her (16F)Chelsea. Chelsea has never missed a birthday, events, gifts you name it, everything she wanted, she got it and is always had a close relationship with our mom. When She doesn’t get what she has a tendency to guilt trip And hold a grudge and I’m sick of it. She sleeps on a bed when I get blankets and sleep on the floor. Never has to work as when I was her age I’d walk miles just to work. Always got money somehow when she never does a thing. One day me and my older brother were in the car she had money to grab everyone something to eat but got mad and said “never mind” just because I sat in the front seat, expecting that I got everyone else something to eat but her since she wants to be a brat but That’s not all. As I’m playing the game with friends she complains and tells me to turn off the game and gets our mom to go Ape shit on me and I get annoyed and do it yet when I try to sleep she’s on a phone all night talking about useless girl drama yet I don’t complain. Our mother then proceeds to ask me to help out with some cash so she can have a new phone and I refuse she can work for it herself as I ask my mom why can’t she work for it she says because she’s a girl.

My boyfriend is off to college and I don't think I can do long distance

My (25F) boyfriend (25M) is leaving to get his Masters next year, in a different country. He and I have lived together for over 3 years now, and we have been together for more or less the same amount of time. I don't think long distance works, and I am afraid to risk it, since we have never really been apart, barring a few work trips or family vacations. I love him desperately, and we've discussed marriage, kids, life together, etc. I'm just so scared to see all that crumble because of long distance. I wish he wouldn't leave, but this Masters is important to him and he's found the college of his dreams. I don't want to hold him back, but I don't know how to make a long distance relationship work.

I needed to get that out

Hello ya'll. I'm not much of a redditor, so please excuse me if the formatting is bad and excuse my english, it's not my first language. Also be warned: This contains self-harm, emotional trauma and this will be very long. I figured I could let out some emotions, thoughts and memories here. Even if no one reads this, I think it's good that I type it out. I am also aware that most people will write things that I am about to write in their favour, I will try to not do this as I hate that. If I am not honest, how could I be helped/adviced? I will start somewhere in my youth and will propably jump years alot. I was born in august of 1993 and raised in a small town in germany by 2 parents that shouldn't have been married. I have an elder sister, she's 4 years older than me. My grandparents were like a 2nd pair of parents to me, I spend half my time with them. Although I had it real good compared to others, a father figure is not something I had in my life. I was overweight pretty much from the age of 1 and am struggling with morbid obesity today. To put this in perspective, in 3rd grade (age 8) I weighed 67kg (147lbs). At age 17 it was 180kg (396lbs) and today I weigh 230kg (507lbs). As you can imagine I didn't have many friends growing up, I couldn't do many of the things other kids could and no one in my life gave enough shit to actually help me lose weight. Primary school was sometimes difficult but I reckon that's the same for everyone, just different things really. Nothing I couldn't handle. My life took a hard turn in high school (I was in a german gymnasium at first) in 7th and 8th grade. In the span of one year both of my grandparents (who were like parents to me) died, my father left my mother so as a result of that my grades dropped hard an school said I had to transfer to a different school (a "Realschule"). I can not stress enough how much of a culture shock that school was for me, looking back I was a very sheltered kid and I was two years behind other kids in mental maturity. I don't want to dwell too much on this period, but the important things that happened here are the following: I started to skip school, alot. I started to avoid my mother because she fell into deep depression, laying on the couch all day like a crying potato (sounds heartless, I know). One time it got a bit better and a popular guy in my class greeted me every morning, talked to me in recess, little things really. Until I found out our class teacher told him to do all that. After knowing that I shut myself off completely (and been doing it more or less since then). I had to redo 9th grade. I started cutting myself. At first I thought it was to show my mother how bad I'm feeling, hurting..but after I did it I felt ashamed, dumb and hid it from everyone. My mother started to get better and go to work again. After my 2nd run in 9th grade I had to do 9th grade again, this time in another school (a "Hauptschule" regarded as the lowest form of high school in germany). My class was a nightmare but luckily I could skip onto 10th grade because my teacher noticed how bored I was, because I knew all the stuff already. I managed to graduate with acceptable grades, though I still had many unexcused absences. Afterward graduating I went into a day clinic (Think of going to schoo/work but you work on your problems, in my case it was the school skipping) because my mother and I thought it would be best to do that before going into college or work. This was the worst and the best thing that happened in my life. In there I met my best friend (we have been friends since meeting there, 2010) and my, now, ex-wife. Let's call her Liz. When we met she looked like just another angry teen, led down a dark path by life. I noticed she took an interest in me, unlike any other human being I ever had met (before and after that), but didn't think much of it as I was a fat, bleak guy, never even hugged by anyone but my mom when I was a child. So when I finally had confirmation that she had romantic feelings for me it felt like a fucking movie. I felt like the world suddenly got more colourful, more vibrant, alive and bright. Everything had meaning and purpose, or better even, if it didn't I didn't care. Over the span of 2 month we became boyfriend and girlfriend. I got out of day clinic and was waiting to go to a clinic specialized in eating disorders. In this time frame I had my first time hugging someone besides my mom, first time holding hands, first kiss, first sexual experience and finally my first time having sex. I was ecstatic. Some of her actions or thoughts I saw as weird, but shrugged it off as me not having experience with humans and human interaction. She was the most sweet girl in the beginning but got progressively more mean and aggressiv the more we spent time together. Sometimes I had the feeling she enjoyed making me cry before realising what she did and comforting me. Then shortly before my stay at the clinic for eating disorders she broke up because she said she didn't love me anymore and had found another guy. You can imagine what that did to me. The floor under my feet cracked and swallowed me whole. That night I cut myself again, something I had last done in my 2nd run of 9th class and I wouldn't stop doing that anytime soon afterwards and I tried to throw myself under a train. I'm glad that it didn't work and I got scared the last second. The clinic helped me alot in that time period, I met awesome people, I lost 20kg and most of all, I had a ton of fun..still the cutting habbit remained and I noticed I liked getting the attention. A couple of month after I was done in the clinic (2011) I started chatting again with Liz, she had broken up with her boyfriend not long ago and wanted to meet, talk about things. I was a bit reluctant but I also was pretty lonely (my best friend was in college and had a girlfriend, I had most of the day free because I was trying to find a trainee job in a company) so I agreed. Turns out she wanted me back, lonely, horny and dumb as I was, I agreed. Our relationship was sometimes toxic but it also had very enjoyable sides so I was okay with it. At the start of 2012 I moved into her room at her parents. This was because she (as I now know) put a wedge between my mother and me, but to be fair: It didn't take much to do that. So we lived our life as young adults with no responsibilities, doing what we wanted when we wanted it, and carelessly having unprotected sex. She forced me to eat right (forced yes, but I complied easily) and drink only water, we were outside running from place to place most of the time, so I lost a lot of weight until I only had 134kg. This time the weird behavior, the aggressivness and the demeaning attitude were not hidden by her, but me being a timid and peace seeking guy, I just chucked it down. I'm honestly surprised it took that long but in february of 2014 she got pregnant with our daughter. The pregnancy was challenging and I guess that's normal, but honestly? Her behavior was WAY better than before, I was ecstatic again, felt like the first time I fell in love with her. We got married in september that year (only formally, no ceremony) at her request. At the time I was doing the occasional odd job while trying to get into a good trainee position in a respected firm. After learning of the pregnancy I immediately looked for full time jobs that hired unexperienced workers. I would end up doing time restricted jobs most of the following years. Our daughter was born one week before christmas and it was the most mundane extraordinary thing I ever witnessed, I can't explain it well. I always thought it was something grand and the world would stop spinning for a moment, but it just happened. For me at least, for my ex-wife it was a hard and long ordeal, she lost a lot of blood and had a blood filled lump on her private parts that needed surgery and she needed to lay down and rest for a couple of months after the birth. We still lived with her parents but we did all we could to make the room cozy for the 3 of us while looking for a flat of our own (we had been looking since we knew she was pregnant). Life was exhausting but man, it was GOOD. I had a (pretending to be) loving wife, a small package of wonder and I felt like I belonged, I had purpose and drive. My wife on the other hand had the baby blues, major. She didn't want treatment for it, despite everyone and even doctors advocating for it. She had problem breast feeding our little girl and stopped trying after 2 weeks. I fed her, I bathed her, I changed her diapers, I played and cuddled with her, I soothed her at night, went to the doctor with her, took her out for walks every day and I had no problem doing that. While my ex-wife recovered I noticed that she didn't really want to participate in that all that much, just the occasional cuddling and holding of our daughter and then either me or her parents were handling the day to day business. In the following 1 1/2 years this would continue being the daily routine. I got a somewhat stable and good job that payed really well considering I had almost 0 experience and no training. Finally, when our daughter was around 18 months (2016) old, we found a flat, although it was outside of town, 35 min by car (Neither of us have a drivers license or a car). The first problem with that was that she loved the city we lived in and had many friends there, she didn't wanna leave it, but did anyway because she wanted to leave her parents. The second problem was that she didn't tell me that until way later when it was already too late. And the third problem was that she was pregnant again. This time it was a boy. That pregnancy was a whole different story from the last. I had to quit my job to help her all day. She was degrading, she was mean, she was provocative, she hit me and kicked me, she was pushing me away and when I did get away she reeled me back in...I had the feeling she was trying to get me to lash out at her and hit her. The most I had done at that time was screaming and ignoring her when he had a fight. I told myself that no pregnancy was like the other, that she was under immense stress and that hormones are doing crazy stuff, that she isn't at fault for this and that once our son was born she would slowly get better. Despite all of this, a month before our son was born, we had a particularly nasty fall out. She was being as hurtful as possible and I snapped. I screamed at the top of my lungs that I can't take this anymore, can't do everything for her, our daughter and go to work while still getting all this shit thrown at me all the time, that I wasn't a lowly piece of shit she could treat like this. She had a look of hate and disgust on her face and I slapped her. I immediately regretted it, it put me out of my rage like a fucking drop without a parachute. She left the room and we didn't talk for a day. After that we just pretended that nothing happened. Honestly I don't remember much from the time afterwards up until the birth of our son I just know I didn't enjoy one second of it and I contemplated suicide alot since then (tried it 2 more times), right up until last year. After our son was finally born it got a bit better, though not good anymore and I was also still stuck in that same headspace. We had grown a bit apart I think. Unlike with our daughter though, she actually took care of our son, so much so that I didn't have to do anything with or for him, she was with him all day, everyday. And breastfeeding him actually worked really well, that made her very happy. That lasted until he was 6 month old. She began to do less and less with him and I overtook the parts she didn't do, thinking "maybe we can share this" until she was only breastfeeding and did nothing else. When our son was 15 months old (summer of 2017) she left for a concert in our hometown, attending it with 2 friends of her and she stayed the night there. When she came back she anounced that she didn't love me anymore and had fallen in love with someone she met at the afterparty at her friends house. So she immeditaley broke up with me, didn't take care of the children or the flat in ANY capacity and texted the whole day with him. I was, again, struck by fucking lightning and didn't know what to do or to think. I continued daily routine with my kids like nothing happened and after one week she went to his place. Supposedly only for the weekend. She was gone for 2 months without contacting me or asking about the kids, leaving me behind with no money for the first of those 2 months (we used her bank account bc I was stupid). After 2 months she called and texted me frantically, I was reluctant to answer, but I did. She explained to me that she was pregnant with this guys child and she was afraid of him because he hit her in the stomach and he was taking so much drugs (she knew he was taking drugs from the beginning). And here comes one of the worst of my decisions: I let her back in. The way she acted and spoke let me to believe she regretted what she's done and that she would still love me (stupid, stupid me). We came closer again and I supported her in this 3rd pregnancy aswell. Now this is where it get's real funny: She actually still had contact to the guy and (as I found out a while later) was still in "love" with him. She even admitted one time that she'd like to have us both at the same time. The fucked up thing is that I was so desperate I considered it a bit. I wanted a healthy family, I wanted peace, I wanted love. That being said, she only texted with him while she was pregnant, but that was going to drastically change after that kids birth. Out of all 3, this birth was the easiest for her, she recovered in a few days and began seeing the father of that kid again. Leaving me with all 3 of the little kids alone here, one of which was not mine and was just born. After the second time she left for almost 24 hours to go party and go fuck the guy after telling me that "we can try to be a family again" I snapped again. This time I didn't hit her, I just yelled and screamed my soul away while she hit me and threw books at me. This time the cops showed up. Our flat didn't look clean or healthy or orderly in the slightest due to me being alone and overburdened by 3 small children and my emotional state (I began cutting again aswell in that time period). So child protective services were called, which was the best thing that could happen for me and my children. We had a person that came everyday for the first couple of month to order our things, finances, help us get the space clean and nice again. My wife was having none of that, she would've loved to throw her out but that would've meant that our children would've been taken custody of by cps. She didn't help with the tasks we got from cps, she didn't watch the kids while I did those tasks, she either smoked cigarettes all day in our bedroom or was away. When she wasn't away we would get in fights more than ever with her even saying mean stuff to our kids, hitting me while our kids were there and one time hitting me repeatedly while I was holding our daughter. I don't know why I was ever so stupid and just let that happen. This routine, with cps continued until the child she had with the other guy was 6 months old. Again, worst time of my life, I still have visible scars from that and that was in 2018. The day came when my ex-wife was especially pissed at cps and didn't comply with a major thing they had for HER and then took her child away (the children she had with me stayed with me) and my ex-wife left for good and my life started to improve a little. I wish I could say that was it, but because we still both have custody and she decided in the beginning of 2021 that she DID want to have something to do with her children I have to deal with her to this day. In the years between her moving out for good and today I struggled with my depression, social anxiety, being a single father wanting my kids to have an outward (and good) life and wanting to shut myself in, with loneliness, suicidal thoughts, having only one friend, with gaming addiciton, having just enough money to get by, my eating discorder and with gaining alot of weight. I can't break out of my shell, I don't have the disciplin or the motivation to lose weight again. I don't have energy to work because my depression and my kids take all of it (I gladly give it to them). There has not been a single birthday were I could gift my kids something fancy, I can't do things with them other parents do, but I try. I just don't feel it is enough. I don't want to exist like this, never changing, just going through the motions, always feeling like I'm a failure, not good enough, not deserving of love. I thought about my kids not having a mother (they struggle with it at school sometimes) but I just can't see myself in any sort of relationship anymore, even if I'd have a weight and no depression and I don't want to either. Everytime I try to make friends I get the feeling of the other person being a nuisance and I stop talking to them. When I join a guild in an mmorpg I quit the game the next day. When I try to do something to improve my life in any capacity my brain slaps me into complacency. Sorry, I started rambling. I will stop writing for now. If you have read all of this: Thank you so much, it means alot to me. Feel free to ask any question, I know I propably left out alot and some part may be too incoherent or unclear.

No painless way out, just stuck here. (24 M)

Making this post to vent but it all started with a work related injury that’s left my arm in a sling for almost two months. I report the injury to my job (Amazon’s) safety team and I was left feeling completely hopeless as they downplayed and gaslit my injury by asking a ton of bad faith gotcha questions. I had to setup a leave and I’ve been broke without any money sitting at home feeling like it’s my fault for getting injured. At home there’s absolutely no support from family. They thought that I made the injury up because I didn’t want to continue working when I’ve been setting up all my appointments and have urgent care discharge papers to prove it. I’m at a point where I’ve never been so desperate for help finically but I’m just met with “get a job.” What person is going to hire someone in a sling with one fully functional arm? I just feel so hopeless and lonely. The online spaces that I exhibit, one in particular I love contributing to by making memes or posting clips I feel I’ve completely lost favor with. I’ve been taking walks outside so that I’m not clinically online all the time. Nothing feels fun anymore, I just feel immensely worthless or a burden to everyone around me. I don’t feel wanted anywhere and it feels like I’m just wishing the day comes sooner where I can’t be talked out of a permanent decision. I have a therapist that I talk to and take anti depressants but when nothing goes your way and everyone makes you feel like their lives would be better off without you, you start to believe it.

I used to be such a good person and now I feel like I am not so much.

I used to be happy to help people, I was considerate, giving, empathetic and caring. I was all these things in my early 20’s. But after years of having the best intentions and getting taken advantage of and had my kindness mistaken for weakness, soooo many times. Like dont get me wrong, I have not lost faith in humanity. But I feel like all of those bad experiences have forced me to tune my social awareness and level of “healthy paranoia” to where it has made me less than, and I feel it. I dont see Simple guestures of kindness as simple anymore. And any large gesture of kindness is out of reach due to self preservation. It makes me feel like part of a whole. Halved almost.

I don't want any of this

There is a part of me that wishes I could go back and undo the last year, try again and make different choices. My husband was the best person I'd ever met until we left our bubble and came home from the other side of the country. He is still extremely kind and always willing to help out anyone who needs it. He's also angry, he gets frustrated easily when people aren't automatically on the same page as him. He doesn't speak in specifics and I struggle without them. He has no drive to maintain a clean space and always leaves shit laying in piles around the house. He has some parenting opinions that I cannot even begin to fathom, yet judges me harshly for the ones I make. Now I'm sitting here in my living room, alone except for the dog I got to try and help me control my depression, anxiety, and OCD. She's a good help, a good distraction. But sometimes things are still just too much. He is off doing training, which he could come home from, choosing to stay at the facility every night. He is making plans and going out with friends he just made and not making any with me. I haven't seen him much in the last month and have asked for time together, but I guess he's going to the lake on his only day off with his new bestie instead. I'm 26 weeks pregnant, this is both of our 3rd child, or number 5 total. I don't want him. I feel like the worst person for admitting it but I just feel nothing but stress and frustration thinking about this thing inside me. I've never been one of those women who feels that connection with the new life almost as soon as they know it's there. I had a hard time bonding with my son for months due to PPD. My daughter was easier but still felt very little until she arrived. I'm hoping those feelings will come when I finally see his face. But right now I just want my body back. I want this thing to stop moving around so much and leave me alone. I want to stop eating, or go get really drunk, and hope it dies in the process. I feel disgusting admitting that. I love my children, but this thing inside me doesn't feel magical, it feels gross. I want to divorce my husband, leave this child on his doorstep and never look back. I'm so depressed and I can't find any joy in anything anymore. I don't even feel inspired to go to work and I absolutely love my job, it's my dream. I'm lost, I have nobody here in this state

I just killed a cat

I (18f) was driving to work when a cat ran onto the road. Its very rural here and I didnt see it coming from behind the hedges. I breaked and swearved and then felt him hit my car. I couldnt see him lying on the road. Then I stoppen and walked onto the farm here, finding an elderly woman who I found out was the owner. She told me his name and stories about him and then while searching together, I found him lying dead in the grass. Blood coming out of his mouth and his eyes looked so glazy. The owner started crying, picked him up and carried him to her house. She told me she isnt mad but I feel so sorry. For her and for the baby. I cant believe I just killed a cat a that's its dead. I called in to work and my parents and they are going to pick me up. I dont know how I can look at my cats and not start crying immediately. I dont know if I can drive again. Im so sorry. Oh god.

Psychologist Stanley Milgram found that 80% of the population do not have the psychological or Moral recourses to defy an authorities order no matter how illegitimate the order is

Therefor, only 20% of the population have the critical thinking capacity. This explains quite a lot, especially on the internet.

first date with a girl tomorrow

I (23f) haven’t been fully single since I was 17. I was in a 5 year relationship (23m) then just got out of a quick fling with another guy. I’ve always been open about being into girls and it’s my first date with a girl tomorrow so I’m just looking for any advice because i don’t actually have any experience with women. I downloaded tinder out of boredom and had it set to men and women obviously but didn’t expect to actually enjoy talking to someone. when i had it first year of college during a break with my ex i never actually responded to anyone lol we just seem to vibe but idk if there’s like unwritten rules of same sex dates. like who pays? can i hold the door for her ? like ahhhhhhh!!! seems too good to be true

I am a fragile girl that easily shatters

TW: assault and self harm I am a fourth year graduate student. I was sexually assaulted my first year. That, in combination with new state, new school, new advisors.. oh and COVID. I was not well which resulted in 2 years of psych wards, residential, and IOP. Throughout the first year after my first hospitalization, my primary advisor (I have 3) was very supportive and made accommodations for me to attend IOP and a couple other hospitalizations. During that time, I relapsed in my self harm behaviors. I cut my wrist to my upper arm. I cut deep enough to leave visible and noticeable scars. On Monday morning, I wore a sleeveless shirt to the barn because it was hot. I was with one of my advisors putting ear tags in our research animals. We got on the topic of ear piercings as he was comparing their tagging to an ear piercing. He has made his position known that he does not think piercings are acceptable or professional (tattoos are right up there- I have many of both). It is not the first time he has made this known to us (the group of students in their labs). We have all experienced his comments about our nose piercing or visible tattoos. After I thought that part of the conversation was done, he looked me dead in the eye and said “I won’t ever get the self mutilation thing..”. I immediately felt pangs of embarrassment and shame. I brushed it off but the more I think about it.. the more shame I feel. For the first time in a year, I have intentional active thoughts about unaliving myself. I have had daily anxiety attacks and even a mild panic attack today where I cried for 2.5 hours by myself in the lab. Am I really so fragile such that one comment can bring to the brink? I guess so..

Accused and humiliated

I have spent more than 900$ in Sephora . Today around 2pm-3:30pm, I went to look around for some skincare, and a sephora employee wearing a veil and glasses (i think her name was Fatima) was stocking some products. I was literally next to her, and I had a product in my hand that i put back shortly after on the shelf. Keep in mind i was quite literally next to her. Another employee with weird hair comes and hands me a basket, in which i put a product that i was gonna buy inside. A few minutes later, as i was looking at other products, the employee with the veil comes to me and accuses me of theft in front of the whole store. And her reasoning was that she ''didn't see me put it back''. I told her to check the cameras, or count the stock of the product as proof that I didn't take anything. Just because you didn't see me put it back does not mean that i stole it. She still insisted that i was stealing with no proof whatsoever. Dogs get better She kept insisting that i stole and brought the guard and everything in the middle of the store with everybody looking around. Keep in mind that all this was happening because she did not see me put it back, which is quite odd because i was standing right next to her when i put it back. There was also no proof that i took it bc her incompetent self didn't check the cameras or bother counting the stock to make sure none was missing. I was being accused in front of the whole store. Normally employees with common sense only accuse someone of theft in front of the whole store when there is proof. Also, i told her that i did put it back and that she should leave me alone and go check cameras,etc and she kept insisting that i stole it and wasn't even sure. she just wanted the credit. I was humiliated, and done wrong. I was racially profiled and the whole store was listening. I won't be spending money at sephora anymore. I would have 100% sued if they went as far as to check my pockets. Luckily, the guard, and the manager had braincells, and confirmed that there was no theft This was wrong on so many levels and a violation of my rights Also disturbing how she wanted me to go to the back so bad so i can get “checked” Just wanted to get this off my chest

I hate myself

I hate myself ever since I’ve been pregnant my partner said something along the lines of your making it hard to love you and gets angry with everything I do and I don’t mean just a huff but he gets really angry calling me names but when i do it back it warrants other things he does. i hate myself.

I also ruined my proposal and I hate myself for it

After reading the post about the girl who ruined her proposal, I finally found a place to come clean about how bad I feel about ruining my own. My fiancé and I at that point had been together for 2 1/2 years, we are both fairly young and in college. I knew we would get married eventually because we had lots of conversations about marriage and children. I didn’t expect a proposal until we both graduated college. In March of this year, we went on a vacation during our spring break. We go on little trips often because we love to travel and make new memories. He picked a place that he’d been before with his family and it was to tour our favorite football teams stadium (i was in love with the idea!!) We booked a hotel and planned out our days while we were down there (going to the zoo, etc) and then Monday came when we went to tour (they only allowed tours M-F). I was so excited and wore my blue jeans and football team shirt. We went on the tour and it was so interesting and fun!! However, it was noon and we were outside (in the south) and I was so sweaty and hungry. After the tour he wanted to walk over to a monument that was a good TWENTY minute walk, I was not interested. We had been there before just a few months previously (we went to two games this past season). He INSISTED and was completely not like him. I didn’t push him further but I literally pouted the entire walk over. He didn’t speak to me (he told me later he was nervous) and I didn’t speak either, I had no idea he was proposing. I was just so irritable from the heat and hunger and I was so mean for no reason. Once we walked over, he got down on one knee and had a photographer waiting for us. I immediately apologized for my behavior and felt so guilty. To this day I feel so awful. I was so mean. He accepted my apology and we are currently wedding planning. I just can’t believe I ruined a moment I had always dreamt about.

“I’m doing great” but I want to die.

Iv’e been suicidal since I was 15. I’m 26 now and after getting off of heroin, xanax, alcohol, nitrous oxide, cocaine, wax and basically anything I could get my hands on for about 4 years. I just started a massage school since dropping out of college 5 years ago. I’m halfway done with the 550 hour accelerated program that is 8:30-1 with a 30 min break and then 1:30-6. I’m happy when I’m there being able to help someone relax and not feel pain, gotten all A’s on my test after not doing school work for a while (had probably a 1.5 gpa in college and didn’t trust my brain to be smart enough). My family is proud and supportive but through all of this and everything I’ve been through I still want to die. I have kept my foot from closing the door on the possibility of suicide basically ever since the thoughts started and I don’t know how to get rid of it. I’ve seen about a dozen different therapists/psychiatrists. I’m on about 10 different medications form major depressive disorder, severe social and general anxiety and chronic pain. I got diagnosed with M.S. and and Elher’s Danlos syndrome within the past year and feel like I’ve done too much damage to my brain and body. My brain cannot communicate with my muscles properly so my nerves fire all over my body depending on what clothes I wear. That’s just one of my symptoms that doctors don’t believe. I have a lot of tattoos and they think I’m just trying to get pills but I just want someone willing to help with all of my physical ailments. Doctors just give me pills and send me on my way with no plan to get off of them. I know I’ll never be “normal” but nobody understands how much mental and physical energy it takes just for me to exist. I can’t sleep, eat or even urinate comfortably but nobody takes me seriously bc I’m 26 and “am perfectly healthy”. I can’t even afford my medications/insurance in the U.S so I’m probably going to have to move countries bc I’m so fucked up. Just needed vent thank you for reading.

Someone I loved died because I didn't speak up and the guilt is eating me alive

TW: Death. Throwaway for obvious reasons. I have not been able to get over this immense feeling of guilt that had I spoken up, she may be alive today. The guilt is eating me alive to the point where I can't work, I can't cook, I can't do anything that requires any thought, I can't be there for my husband when he needs me most, and I'm an anxious, distraught wreck. My husband and I were both extremely close to his grandmother. She was the loveliest woman with such a big heart who treated me no different than her own grandchildren and welcomed me to the family with open arms. Some background: She was in her mid-80s and very frail, with a 10-year history of cardiovascular disease and high blood pressure, and was known for not taking her pills when she should, but cognitively she was all there. She was in a lot of pain due to a history of stroke, cancer, and musculoskeletal issues, and confided in me that she needed a drink in her at all times to cope with it (I'm not sure why she didn't just take painkillers but it wasn't my place to ask). She was known to be bright, talented, lively and adventurous, with tons of hobbies and passions, but over the last 5 years she no longer had the energy to do them and took to reading and occasionally watching TV. She was unable to walk upstairs, slept for most of the day, and talked about death and dying with increasing frequency. We had to cut our very last visit short because she was having severe GI issues and needed to take a nap (as she always did in the early afternoon). These issues persisted for about 24 hours, keeping her up at night, which many family members reassured me was very normal for her as she always had a sensitive stomach. Yet my gut was telling me there was more going on in this case. I have some medical training, and my job is very tangentially related to medicine, but am not a registered medical doctor, nurse, or EMT. Due to my training, my mind tends to default to the worst case scenario, which never ends up being true, and people have gotten very upset at me for making a big deal about what always ultimately ends up being nothing. But this time, it was nagging me. When I heard about the nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, my first instinct was that she was having a heart attack, but I didn't recall if or where I'd learned that, so I googled "heart attack symptoms" and "heart attack symptoms in women" but did not find vomiting or diarrhea. so I kept my mouth shut to avoid freaking people out because 1) I'm not a licensed medical professional; 2) there are some family members who were around who are very high strung and would probably fly off the handle, especially given my reputation for false alarms; 3) I didn't want to freak people out about what was probably nothing, especially since I was told she was already feeling a lot better and eating normally the morning before she died; 4) She was very old, frail, and vehemently DNR (she told a lot of people she didn't want to die in a hospital), so I didn't think there was much they could do in any case given her state even if the worst was true, and then she'd just die in a hospital (which she absolutely didn't want) - more likely than not without her family there and 5) I gaslit myself into thinking I haven't got a clue, that I was just being crazy, and do not have the authority to speak up on the matter. So I bit my tongue, kept quiet, and prayed for her. Less than 2 hours later, she took a nap at her usual time and never woke up. Family found her when coming to check on her and called 911, but she was dead on arrival. They are taking great comfort that she died peacefully in her sleep, in her own home, under her favorite blanket, with her family close by, and not in a hospital or nursing home which she stubbornly resisted for years and definitely would have hated. Yet when I heard the news, I burst into tears and exclaimed "I feel so guilty!!" after which my mother-in-law yelled "don't make this about you!!!" and lost it (a perfectly reasonable grief reaction IMO, especially given that she didn't know the context to me saying that). I feel so guilty for making that call to stay quiet, I think back and wonder if there might have been something they could have done. My husband lost his beloved grandmother and I lost a close friend, and we're both heartbroken, yet all I can do is beat myself up incessantly for what feels to me like having killed her myself. I can't help but wonder if, I had said something, she would still be here today and perhaps for a few more years. I vacillate between feeling comfort that she is no longer suffering tremendously as she had been, to feeling intense guilt and regret for not speaking up - the worst that could happen would be that she'd die in a hospital, or they'd get mad at me for ever entertaining such a ludicrous thought, but at least I'd have done my due diligence. I feel like I cannot tell anyone because they'd hate me forever. I wasn't able to properly grieve as a result and have been an anxious wreck. My husband needs me to be his rock, yet here I am beating myself up nonstop in my head and unable to "hold the fort" like he needs me to do. Edit to add: The coroner's examination determined that she indeed died of a heart attack.

I hate the guy my friend is 'talking' to.

I [15F] hate the guy [16M] that one of my best friends [16F] is 'talking' to. The girl in question is probably my closest friend. She's seen me through the worst times in the last few years, including how absolutely miserable this boy made me. The boy in question is a charming individual who did things such as; • Calling me pretty/ saying I look great in lessons I had with him to the point where it was both extremely detrimental to my confidence as quite a few people laughed when he said it each time, and I'm well aware he didn't mean it as you'll see by the rest of the list. And I'm already an insecure and anxious person so it made both worse. • Touching my hair several times, he even pulled it. What are we, 7? This made even his friend go 'Uhh, maybe not.' • Sneezing on my hair and not apologising, just smirking at me. • Making fun of the amount of times I blinked, which was stupid. • Called me a 4/10 to my face. There's more but I don't want to get into it. I'm an introverted person naturally so didn't confront him at all which I regret. Anyway, over the last few months he eased off. Mostly. He has never behaved like this towards my friend at all. She has been here either witnessing most of this behaviour or hearing about it directly after. I became aware that he 'liked' her a couple of months ago, and thought I didn't care. But honestly, I'm not happy about it at all. I told her that if she also 'liked' him, I wouldn't mind if they went out or anything. I care about her and want to see her happy so I would never want to discourage that. But now? My other friend just told me that at a party I wasn't able to go to, they kissed and plan to go on a date. I've heard nothing but radio silence about this from original friend. I feel upset that she hasn't told me more than anything, but that might be fair after writing all this and seeing how much I genuinely resent him. I don't really know what to do if they start dating. I still get bad anxiety being around him sometimes. TLDR: My friend could be dating a guy I really don't like, and I don't know how this will impact our friendship. I'm also upset she hasn't told me anything.

I'm really scared about sex

Ok, let me explain this. I (19M) never really had any problem with sex itself, I had some sexual experiences before with a friend (19M bcuz I'm bisexual). At some point of my life I started taking antidepressants, anxiety meds and other stuff because I was going through a really though depression, by the time I started taking the drugs I started having problems to having sex, I had erectile dysfunction but my friend understood that, we talked about it and there was no other problem. Then some other things happened, I had a girlfriend while I was on medication so we couldn't do it, then a family member died, my gf left, and I went straight down on depression again Now I'm fully recovered from depression, I'm no longer taking pills and I'm talking to other girl. By the end of my psychiatric and psychological treatment doctors told me I should try have sex again, maybe I was "fixed". As I said I'm talking to other girl by now, we are good friends since many years and we have plenty of confidence to eachother, so we agreed hanging out to try. But she keep saying things like "I want having sex so bad" and stuff, and I'm really, really scared about failing again, I didn't told her about my little "problem " What should I do? I'm really scared, nervous and stuff My English it's not really good, but I tried, if you want other explanations or something I can do my best

I hate that I feel bad for my abusive/mentally ill mom!!

My mom is a bipolar alcoholic who has put me and my dad through hell for over a decade. She never notices what's wrong with her and has severe paranoia. Her childhood is awful too but she put me and my dad through so much bullshit like physical abuse & emotional abuse, so now my childhood is awful. My parents divorced last year but me and my mom continue to have shouting fights until I moved into my dad's a few months ago since I'm 18 now. I always tried to keep myself from telling her I hate her, but 2 yrs ago I started telling her I hate her. and I feel so bad because she's so lonely now and she thinks I hate her for no reason because she does not see herself. I blocked her contact today because called me 16 times today to start shit with me and did the same thing to my dad. But she truly believes she loves me and that nothing is wrong with her. It's so much more than that but I don't know I just feel so bad. I'm only happy she has my dog right now so she's less lonely.. Should I unblock her and keep trying to fix things?

My boyfriend cried when I was talking about the (many) times I was SAd... Then I am fucking crying now

Trigger warning: SA So. Today is our 6th month together and at some point I started talking about a specific guy who'd h4r4ss me on a regular basis. I didn't notice it was SA till last year, when I cut completely contact with him. I am not going into details tho, but the whole situation happened between 2017-2022 (ages 15-20). As we were celebrating our 6th month, I didn't want to bring this up (I did want to talk about it with my boyfriend, just not today) but the opportunity came so we had a conversation about it. At some point, I said I didn't want to detail what he did to me and my boyfriend said it was okay, but asked if it was something serious. I said: "it depends on what you consider serious"... Some time after I said I didn't wanna really talk about that, but I explained that it involved forced kisses, non-consent touches in private parts, him coming to my room and he asking me many times if I'd have sex with him. Well, my boyfriend kept listening closely as I'd say how I managed to push this guy away... Till I heared him, with a teary voice: "I am sorry, can you please make this story short?", which I replied: "well, I am stopping right now". "No, I want you to talk. But it's making me feel bad. I cannot imagine how someone can do that. I don't know how you managed to deal with it for so long". Notice I wasn't crying nor teary or whatever: I was normally talking. I said he could cry anyway. He did. He hugged me and start crying so bad. My boyfriend is a sensitive one, so it's not uncommon for me to see him crying... But that situation was different. He was *sobbing*. Kept hugging me and crying and crying and crying. I said that everything was alright, I was fine, everything stopped and I was now fine and things weren't worse. He was saying things like: "I am so sorry it happened to you, you were a kid and a victim, I am so so sorry... Now you're safe with me, I'll protect you". I continued to assure him everything was fine and I was okay. Yet, he could cry how much he wanted to, but I was stronger and safer to deal with that. Man, I held back my tears in my best girlboss way. But, dude, look. I am now at my place, listening to music and fucking crying. I am crying so much alone. I just can't. I've been har4ssed and assault3d so many times in my life, I've grew up terrified of men and it took me so long to trust in a guy (and now I am dating him, lol). And this man comes here and says he'll protect me. He cried. He fucking cried. I cannot deal with that, I am fucking crying too... How can I receive all of this love? How can I deal with that?

I might just be paranoid, but I feel like all my coworkers hate me.

I really don't know how can I get deep into this, but it's just small things I've noticed. I wonder if it's just me as I've always felt like an outsider in every single social group I've ever "been a part of", which I thought I had grown to not care about. I really want to believe it's just me reading too much into the situation. But I don't know it kinda stresses me out bc I don't wanna stay in a hostile environment, but right now I can't afford to look for another job. I really try to avoid unnecessary trouble abd confrontation, specially since everyone else seems to get along. I know as well not every single person I know is going to like me but idk anymore, I don'twant to have my work affected by this.

I messed up in life

I (29) really screwed this year. I was originally planning to back to school for a master of public policy in August last year. At the last minute I decided not to because I like the entry level office job I found to help pay for school that summer. I decided I'd just save some money and reapply net year, which I did. However, I forgot to accept my offer of admission before the due date and now I'm stuck at my current job which pays $40k/year which isn't that much (I still live at my mother's house) and I'm just not happy with where I'm at in life. Long term I think I'd like to try working in a different field but I'm stuck here and every time I think about going back to school I never go through with it. I'm not really happy with my life and I deeply regret not accepting that offer. I feel adrift in life. I don't even want to stay in my part of the country but I can't seem to get hired elsewhere. I'm just really frustrated.

I don't like my mom

For context I'm 21(m). In college and currently staying with my dad for the summer to spend some time with him. I am the youngest out of the three, least wanted out of the three as well. I say that due to the lack of affection from my mother and the lack of time spent with dad. Sister stayed with my dad while he worked out of state, while my mom had my brother and I. Sister was put in boarding school when she came back because mom and her didn't get along well. My dislike of my mother started in intermediate school when my mom chased me around the house with a knife then told me to lie to CPS when they were eventually called on my mom to say everything was alright. After that I would spend most of my middle school at home grounded, usually 3 months at a time sometimes continuously. This also happened in elementary school. If I were to estimate the amount of time I was grounded as a kid, it'd probably be 5 years of staying in my room so it led to a lot of thoughts going around my mind, tried killing myself 4-5 times. this is when im 12-15. Near the end of middle school, my mom was just upset one day and I talked to her to say what's wrong, she asked if she should leave my dad. Little did I know she had a fully thought out plan to screw over my dad. Of course being just a adolescent with various amount of emotional baggage already, I said sure if you feel better about it or something along the lines. I think at the time, I said this to gain approval from my mom or thinking my mom would leave and my Dad would get us. I was so wrong. At the end of my sophomore year of highschool, parents got divorced. Mom took all my dads money practically, he's still in debt to the IRS due to retirement plan penalties or something like that. about 50k in debt. Foolishly my brain thought I would be treated better as as just living with my mom. it just accentuated my moms love for my brother and for herself. When it came to getting a car, knowing my mom had the money, she told me to ask my dad, knowing he doesn't have any. Apparently her divorce money wasn't for us but for herself. This has led me to distrust women nowadays although I know there are girls that aren't like that, on top of being more introverted due to the nature of my childhood. What my mom did to my dad disgusted me. My dad sponsored her brothers to come to the United States, when it came to the divorce my mom shuffled all the money from the joint accounts and certain investment accounts to her brother and her accounts in her own name. literally leaving my dad with nothing. I thought this would be peaceful divorce, if I had only known. She shuffled around 800k, got half of the house money when they sold it, then had my dad pay her for child support for 300k. Out of everyone in the family, she's doing the best. A million and more in various banks. goes on vacations every year. She has a new boyfriend now, He's nice but I think he's too nice for her. He's kind of staying because of me to be fair since he's never had a son. I have no car due to some poor mistakes of peer pressure. My brother stopped talking to her. My sister is struggling but that's kind her own fault since she has no job. This is my rant. Thank you. ​

My parents forget my birthday and I feel worthless

All I wanted was 3 hours of their time to do brunch and cupcakes and even reminding them the day before didn’t matter. Yet they can keep track of all their community group stuff 2 weeks in advance

I’m scared of the dark.

I’m terrified of the dark. I’ve had stuff happen in the dark and it has led to a fear of it, especially when I’m alone. I have a very vivid imagination as well and my mind spirals when it’s pitch black. Worse, I start to disassociate when it’s so dark I can’t see anything at all. I’m about to live alone and I already know I will have to have many lights on every night. I feel pathetic, but I’m so scared. Deciding to live alone was a mistake, I should never have done this.

I don’t know what I’d do without my wife and son.

I (25m) already thought little man was cute. He’s 5 and getting to the age where he’s asking a lot of questions. He stutters a lot which makes him soo much more adorable. He does very well in school and is the smartest in his class and all the teachers love him. I was reading him a story for bedtime and he stopped me and starting asking about my job, and do I eat well there, and asked “if I be a good boy, can i come with you to work? His eyes are my weakness🥹I laughed and told him when if he does well in school, I’ll bring him and just finished the story and he slept. While closing the door I started crying lol I don’t know why. Whenever things are rough for me, whatever it is or how hard I might be struggling, I always remember my son and my day always get better and I get through it with a smile on my face. Children are so innocent and impressionable so they really do follow you around and always want to play, that’s all they want. Still kills me everyday having to go work and leave him right before he goes school. Being a dad is a really important job but I give the biggest round of applause to my wife. The woman who cooks everyday and looks after him 24/7, she’s the real hero here. I always tell her to go out and have fun with her friends but she just loves hanging out with me and our son. Having date night has strengthened our relationship a lot cause she’s a mom and always deserves to have a little fun.

I just got scammed 300$

In short story, I got scammed. I am an artist who is doing commissions for the first time and I had sent the “customer” 300$ through paypal as a “family member/friend” because I fell for her trap and I cannot get it refunded because it wasn’t a “business transaction” and this is stressful because I had been trying to save up for college this fall semester and now I don’t know what to do because I can’t get more hours at my job because we r very slow and don’t need more ppl working. How did this happen? I told my brother if my customer happened to loose her 300$ in the process , I would had still given her 300$ (even though I am under a bad circumstance right now), but knowing that she had scammed me…. It made me sad and angry. I gave her the 300$ because I received an email “from paypal” saying that I needed 300$ to make my account into a business account. My “customer” offered that she can send me 300. I refused because I don’t feel comfortable. She told me to not worry and that she trust me. I received another email saying that i got a pending 300$ . I have to first give the buyer’s money back by using my personal money so that the 300 would be sent to my paypal account. I quickly sent her 300$ back , but she told me to send it as “family”. She never told me that she had received her 300$. Then she told me “brb I have family emergencies, ill be back”. I waited, I was worried that her 300$ hadn’t return, so I try to email the gmail that was sent to me “Fake paypal” and explained the whole situation. The lady came back and asked if I had received an email about receiving 400$ more. I told her, yes I had received an email. It said that an extra 400$ had been deducted by your account because my Paypal account hasn't been updated! I was freaking out because I thought that this lady is loosing her money! I was so worried for her and told her that I don't have that much money to refund you because paypal hadn't given me my money yet! She told me again that I dont need to worry. She said she can send the 400$ to my account and I can refund it to her. I told her at the moment I can't because once again, I hadn't received my money from paypal yet (The 300$ she sent me and the 15$) . I went on paypal chat and asked them for someone who I can talk to about the whole situation and they told me that most likely someone is taking advantage of me. I felt relieved that this person hadn't lost 700 because of me, but I felt so devastated that I had lost my 300$. I told my mom that someone wanted to buy my art!!! And I will earn 15$ from it! She was so happy for me but now I feel like if I told her what had just happened to me, I will disappoint her. I wish I can get my 300$ back. I worked hard on it. My part time doesn't pay us a lot and recently my hours had been cut off because we r slow in business. No work, no money. I have to pay for so many things too. I feel like having a mental breakdown. I really fucked up.

My girlfriend has male friends and I can’t help but be jealous.

I don’t really need any solutions to this; just somewhere to put it since I tried sharing with her. She has a few really close male friends that she says are ‘like brothers’, with one of them being her best friend. She has also acknowledged that all these men have at one point had a crush on her, but she has turned them down and it’s been a while since they’ve tried any passes at her. Still, none of them care to be friends with me, her boyfriend of several years, and despite my best efforts to engage with them, it’s always met with a brick wall or just being ignored. I’m not wanting them to be my best friends or anything; but some sign of goodwill would be nice. Instead they’re ambiguous guys she sometimes gets calls from to catch up with and talks about how much she misses them. When I share with her how it makes me feel I’m told I don’t understand because I don’t have any close girl friends besides the SO’s of my own friends and family. It just feels weird to me and I don’t know how to explain it to her, and I don’t know how to resolve it in me. I don’t know, I’m just uncomfortable.

Don’t listen to me why should i listen to you

Trigger warning: SA and rape TLDR: church leader accuse me of breaking rules and expect me to listen to him after he wouldn’t listen to me after I told him I was SA For this story to make sense I have to take you back to October last year. Months leading up to October my ex broke up with me. I tried to be friends with him but was having panic attacks every time I went to church (the main place I saw him and we would hang out after church) and was angry so much for a short period of time. I didn’t know what was causing my panic attacks at all at the time. In September I decided that it might be best if I left that church for a few months then come back. I told two people in the church that I was leaving and just disappeared. One of the people is important because he is a main character in this story coming up. The person in question is a missionary and in my church if you’re a missionary you can’t date. He been on his mission since august last year. Just some info on him. So I go to my church leader because I was leaving and I just needed to talk to him. In that meeting it came out my ex SA me. I ended up crying and in a ball flashing back to the day my ex SA me. My church leader didn’t do anything about it what so ever. He just went okay. I felt like he wasn’t listening to me when I was saying my ex SA me! I was screaming and it was nothing. I felt like he swept it under the rug to say the least. So I left. Still doing a struggle as time goes on because its hard to handle knowing the fact when you were sad one day and the person you trust try to take advantage of you. Then turn around someone you’re supposed to think will help you does nothing what so ever. Fast forward a little bit I finally get some help and start going to therapy. Where I realize I was SA through out my whole relationship with my ex. Also realize my ex during the short time of us trying to be friends realize he was threaten to rape me multiple times. I told my therapist about this and he said something to the fact about meeting with your church leader again about it. So I did. Once again I felt invalid and nothing was going to be done because “my records weren’t in his church”. I was pissed and had a bad panic attack to the point I couldn’t drive home and I called one of my besties to come get me. When my bestie got there she just hugged me while I cried for a long time. We finally leave and Sunday comes around and I go to church and have a panic attack again. Panic attacks became a norm for me. My bestie and the missionary knows about the panic attacks and they know what my ex did to me on some degree. They don’t know about the threats. The only reason they found out is because I had a bad panic attack some where between the church leader meetings. I don’t like my friends to worry but I had to open up to them. While all the panic attacks where going on and me trying to sit through one church meeting with out getting up and trying to calm down. Me and the missionary was becoming close friends. We always talked after church meetings and if we hang out with a group of people we always figure out to have our little own conversations and no one would pay attention to us. It gotten to the point the missionary was thinking when will I have my moment with OP? I wasn’t thinking that because I’m a social person and want to talk to literally everyone in the room. (I know this because he has told me multiple times.) So from January to basically now me and the missionary has became close friends and came close to breaking some rules. I always tell him hey we can’t be doing this. He would be okay that’s fine. I should add our friendship started before he got on his mission but has grown more and more while he on his mission. We only talked in church and we alway talked when there was other people around us so people saw how me and the missionary was. We became close friends and only talked on Sunday. Now we at the real reason for the post and sorry the back story was long. Last Sunday I went to church had a meeting with the same church leader because my records were back and he wanted to talk to me. I was going what does he want to talk to me about leading up to Sunday. I even talked to my therapist about the meeting and how I was concern. The meeting started out with the church leader asking how I was doing because he knows it’s been tough for me to go to church. Then this man had the nerve to bring up my relationship with the missionary. The church leader went we have noticed that you grown close with the missionary and wondering are you breaking any rules. When I tell you fire went into me fire went into me. The church leader didn’t tell me what I was accused of. He just was like yeah you need to watch your self. I was like “hold on don’t chastise me. I know the rules. I was 18 once I had the missionary crushes back then.” I don’t remember what he said after that. I just know he said he hasn’t talked to the missionary yet and still didn’t tell me what I was accused of. I finally took my chance to voice my opinion. If I don’t like you I won’t say it to your face. I went to his face “I don’t like you” and go on about how I felt invalid about how he treated me months prior. The church leader had the damn nerve to take credit for me leaving when I decided to leave my self. Adding to not my finest hour I yelled out “BULL SHIT” because it was BS. Take credit for my doing. Nah. I also don’t say bull shit. I go BS or bull. Next thing I know I’m storming out of the office we were in and storming into Sunday school. I threw my bag down beside my bestie and five seconds later I ran out of the church with out my bag and seeing red. My bestie came after me to see what happen. I just went off even more. Not directed towards her but I just couldn’t take it no more. What I don’t get and still don’t get is they seen my relationship with the missionary grow from July 2022 to October 2022 then from January 2023 to July 2023 and they just are now saying something. And they didn’t go to the missionary at all. It wasn’t my finest hour but one I’m hella proud of. I stood up to someone who hurt me but I’m so mad at the fact it happen. Also how the church leader expect me to listen to him and be okay with what he had to say when he wouldn’t listen to me during a tough conversation about what happen to me during my relationship with my abuser.

I hate my dog now.

I met my dog about 1 years and 6 months ago. I met her through a friend that I had at the time and I fell in love with her. My friend used to let me get her for months at a time and I just loved having her around. She was so well mannered and she listened so well. I was just filled with joy to have her around. However, my friends gave her to me to keep. I was happy to have her as mine. Now, she is living with me full time, I gave her so much freedom because I saw how little freedom she had with her first owner because she worked so much. I let her off leash all of the time to roam and use the bathroom, but when I call her to come back she just stares at me and don’t come. When her first owner had her full time and I used to babysit she would come immediately when called. I let her get on my bed anytime she wants and with her first owner she was only allowed on the bed when she was called. I take her everywhere with me and give her any food that I am eating. Things that i found cute. I now hate. The way she stares at me for food pisses me off so much when I used to adore it. Her barking at sounds she hears I didn’t mind it because she doesn’t bark unless she hears noise. Now I hate whenever she barks and I yell at her whenever she does things like when I’m walking across the room and she doesn’t move with I need to walk. First I didn’t mind now it pisses me off. They way she charges at any dog is annoying. When she is trying to sniff the grass I don’t let her. I let her pee and if she takes too long to poop I just take her inside and says I don’t give a sh** if she holds her poop in for days. She should have used the bathroom when she had a chance instead of wasting my time. Now I put her on a leash and doesn’t give her any freedom. It is annoying to see how a dog that was so well mannered became like this. I really think I gave her too much freedom and now she is wild. I really hate her now. I hate looking at her.

I'm losing my partner and I don't know if they see it

I, 17M, feel like I'm losing my partner, 17NB, to their ex, 17M. It's been a slow process, but I can feel it happening. They and their ex never really had a good relationship, it was mutually unhealthy. When they broke up, they continued talking for the most part, but recently they've been talking a lot more. I've been with my partner for over a year, but I'm seeing the signs. They haven't been talking to me as much, but at least once a day I'm hearing about their ex. As mentioned, the relationship between the two of them wasn't good from both ends. However as they remained friends, their ex continued to be a bit of an ass. There were a couple of times I was asked to yell at him for his actions, however I always had my partner greenlight what I was going to say before I said it. Not once did I say a thing without it being viewed and okayed by my partner. But recently, it was revealed their ex is apparently scared of me. And I've noticed, our conversations aren't what they used to be. They center almost entirely around my partner, with mentions of their ex. I'm hardly the focus anymore. Really I'm only talked to when I'm needed or when I don't let a conversation just die out. When I get home from work, my partner usually has left me a text message asking me to call them so they can wake up, presumably so we can talk. But more often it seems they're just saying they're going back to bed, leaving me alone for the night, though I sometimes see them online on Discord and I can't help but wonder if they're talking to their ex. I miss feeling like this was a mutually happy, loving relationship. I'm starting to feel burnt out. I'm not sure if I'm just being paranoid, if this is my past trauma and BPD getting the better of me, if I'm hyperfocusing on the negatives, or if I'm genuinely losing them. But they've shown no sign of noticing such a change, as much as I love them I know they can be a bit stupid at times and this could all be a misunderstanding. Even if it is, even if I know it's my BPD, I can't help but want to shut down and leave before things get worse. I can't bring myself to, I can't bring myself to talk to them about it because I'm afraid they'll thing I hate them. I don't mind advice, I just needed to get this out before I explode. I try so hard to ignore my bad thoughts but I can't help it now, I want to prevent hurt but I can't tell if this is a real threat or not. I hate it, I think I hate myself, I just want to bury my thoughts and feelings until I'm no longer being stupid

People in my life keep implying I may be autistic

I can't give my whole life story, but lately, my wife and family have implied they think I may be autistic. My grandma flat out admitted she told my mom to get me tested and my mom said no that she didn't want me to be in special classes because it made her look bad as a parent. I think I may be, but it's so odd that 3 different family members have hinted at it (or in my grandma's case flat-out said it) recently in the last 2 months, since my youngest diagnosis. My 4yo was just diagnosed with autism. He's nonverbal, mostly. He's started talking more which is huge for him cause I didn't even know if there was a voice in there. I see it in his mannerisms and the way he does things. He got accepted into the local school district's preschool program for special needs children and it's so wonderful! When I told my parents, they made it sound like he got it from me, as the doctor did say it is genetic. I was never diagnosed as a child and quite frankly I struggled so much that it would make sense. The way I am. I obsess over certain things. My mannerisms. The way I think. The way I do things. They're all consistent with being autistic. When the doctor was telling me about my son and things to look for. I just knew he was different from my first child who definitely does not have Autism. I remember telling my wife years ago, "He's autistic. I don't know how to explain it, but I just know". He is, and he's my little buddy. He's literally a 4yo me. But like I said, when I talked to the doctor about him, the things the doctor was talking about I thought back to how I was as a child and how I am now. And it just makes sense. I guess what I am getting at here, is I'm just so frustrated with the thought that I may actually be autistic because I struggled so much as a child and never got any of the opportunities my youngest is getting to set him up for success.

I hate my best friends boyfriend

I (17f) and my best friend, who I’ll call Jenny, (16f) have been best friends for nearly 5 years. 2 years ago I was forced to move across the country with my family. We were both heartbroken about me being forced to move away but nonetheless we stayed best friends. To surprise Jenny I came back to my hometown for the summer. Jenny is in a fairly new relationship with who we’ll call Pissyboy (16m) because fuck him. We’ve gone on a few trips so far and none of them ended well. He’s pleasant and funny to be around for the first 15 minutes until he finds a reason to be annoyed. At first I was like ‘ok. I get it I can be a bit much.’ But trip after trip (most of which he didn’t have to come on) he starts pouting because I was being too loud, too quiet, too gory, too vanilla, etc. two days ago Jenny and I arranged a trip that he wouldn’t come on because Pissboy and I were both getting annoyed with each other at this point. 20 minutes into our plans pissboy calls Jenny saying that he’s coming with us. I didn’t complain even though I wanted to. 2 hours into the trip he’s vaping in the seat in front of me letting it waft into my face while he asked Jenny when the soonest he can take me home would be. I’ve tried being pleasant. I’ve been nothing but pleasant. I’ve dealt with his tantrums because he makes Jenny happy. He forces himself on a trip with us, complains when we through with the plans we made and then broods hard enough that I’m not allowed to speak because ‘he’s tired and has a headache’ which we all know was a fucking excuse. Worst part is he doesn’t like me. He forces himself on a trip knowing I was going to be there and fucking ruins it.

It's my fault

I was in the perfect relationship. I had a girlfriend who would've given me all the love I could've of ever wanted. She would've done anything for me and I for her. I should've given her all the she ever wanted but i fucked it all up. I had started talking to an old friend and I kept putting it off telling my girlfriend that I was talking to this old friend and it was worst thing possible. It wasn't my intention to do that I had just wanted another person to talk to but I had ended up talking to her in times when weren't exactly in line with each other... Even in time when we were mad at each other. Eventually she saw the messages and had said I had started an emotional affair. That wasn't my goal in the first place and no matter what I had tried to say she had an answer to each one. It was my fault that the future we could've had was broken in just a couple weeks and it's my fault it was all my fault. I loved her and I would've done anything for her. She gave me another chance and every day I said I love you I did what she wanted and cut people off and only talked to a select few and had sent her everything I saw that reminded me of her. Everything came to a head 2 days ago when I started asking questions and she was honest with each one. She gave me a huge reality check and she was right. I'm a manipulator and a piece of shit and need help. She knows my mental health isn't healthy and she helped me through each thing that I had gone through and me with her. I loved her and I lost her and it's my fault I lost her. As of right now she's not messaging me and I don't think she ever will. I doubt she'd ever give me another chance. If she ever does find this in anyway I love you so much and I'm sorry for everything I did during our relationship. You're right, I need help and I will get it I will change but not for you but for the benefit of whoever it is that get the unfortunate opportunity to be with me. No one should ever have to go through what she went through and I apologize for every thing I ever did and I will love you for the rest of my life I wish I could tell you this in person but there is no possibility that could ever happen. I'm so sorry my love.

I’m jealous of my ex-friends

So I had this friend group Iused to talk to, I mainly hung out with them because I didn’t really have a relationship with anyone else. However I could tell that I was out of place, they knew each other longer then they knew me. I’m such an idiot honestly I had a crush on one of the girls (fake name Sarah) in the group and I confessed. I don’t know if she accepted never got a straight answer however after a few days she sent me a long text basically ending stuff. I got upset and starting getting desperate so I went with another girl (Brianna) however I never really liked her the same way as Sarah, I just wanted someone who would care for me. Things didn’t work out obviously and I separated myself from the group. I haven’t talked to them in a few months and wanted to be done with the school year so I haven’t contacted them since then. Forward to now I still follow some of their account mainly Sarah’s. I sometimes see their post just lively the most recent one where they’re all together at a party and I felt sad. I know I made my choice but inside I was hurt, a little bit angry and just jealous because I don’t have good relationships like that cause I’m just not like that, I don’t know what’s wrong with me and question constantly about myself and what I did wrong and just have self-iptty. I really wanna become friends again but I’m just scared they won’t take me back I’ve had trust issue s because of past relationships which doesn’t help at all.

I believe my grandpa is verbally abusing me & I am not sure what to do anymore. 85 M 28 F

We were visiting my grandparents recently, and my dad said something hurtful to me, and I cried out of frustration. My grandpa came up to me and said “You’re a grown girl, and you need to shut up and stop crying when something Doesn’t go your way.” This is just one of the *many* times my grandpa has said something like this to me in the last five years. My parents just say he’s “old” and “not going to change. I finally stood up to my grandpa and said “It’s none of his damn business” what I’m doing. I feel like I’m being verbally abused. TL;DR my grandpa is verbally abusing me

My (22F) friend (23F) isn’t going to my cancer free party to go visit a guy she just met instead

Hi Reddit. I (22f) just recently finished chemotherapy for Hodgkin’s lymphoma. It took 6 months and was a very hard time for me. My friend (23f) has been there for me throughout. Her dad also passed away about 8 months ago and I’ve been there for her a lot through that. We have been great friends for years prior. I finished chemo about a month ago and decided to through a party at an airbnb with some of my close friends and family, including 23f. A few weeks after planning the party 23f took her board exam for nursing (NCLEX) and didn’t pass. She let me know right after and told me she didn’t think she could go to my chemo party in order to really focus on studying the next month. I was sad but just told her it’s okay. And figured she might end up choosing to still come. Then, 23f went to a wedding upstate that she was a bridesmaid in. She was up there for four days and hit it off with one of her friend’s brothers. She gets really serious with people really quickly (somewhat due to religion and wanting to date for marriage). So their relationship got kinda serious pretty quick and he offered to fly her out to where he lives. So she went and will be missing my party while she’s there. She told me she forgot and didn’t remember my party until after he booked the flight. I feel really sad that she chose that instead. And that her opinion changed about studying so quickly when is was for a guy. She’s also very religious and is staying with him alone for the whole time. I personally don’t think that’s wrong at all but I know that she will deeply regret it if they end up having sex. And will likely regret going completely. Which just makes me a little more sad that she didn’t chose to celebrate with me. She called me to apologize and I replied really kindly and understood. But I just feel sad and a little angry.

My "girlfriend" can't leave her abusive boyfriend and I don't know what to do.

For context: I have know this woman we'll call Lauren, for 4 months now. Lauren has been in a relationship for a year and a half and hasn't been happy, since her boyfriend is, well, let's just say, a work of art. He is verbally and physically abusive to her every day. Lauren bought a house, where she lives with her boyfriend, and is paying the mortgage on top of every other expense, that one typically needs. Her boyfriend doesn't help much with any payments and actually has used her credit and has lowered her credit, which he owes $1,200. She isn't financially stable enough to support them two and is only getting by, by making personal sacrifices. Lauren is a sweet and beautiful girl. When I met her, it was online. I knew about this relationship but didn't know all of these details. Only what she would let me know. She actually wouldn't give her personal information out to anyone online and made up a name that we thought was her real name. We spent more time online together but it was never anything more than platonic and I didn't mind that. However after about 3 months, she got drunk and was talking to me in a different way. More flirtatious and I didn't know how to react to it. Shortly before this night, I had started developing feelings for her but didn't let it ruin our friendship. I enjoyed talking to her, she was always a good time and that kind of uplifting spirit I never knew I liked so much. On this night that she was drunk she started getting emotional and told me about her situation with her boyfriend and how she couldn't take it anymore. She said every time, her and I would talk, he would be right behind her, kind of watching over her, for whatever reason. She also admitting to want to see me and talk to me in a way that would be slightly more than platonic. Since she was drunk, I tried to just be there for her and listen to her. Of course, the conceited part of me wanted to believe she liked me as well, however, I didn't want to be wrong and make things weird the next time we talked and she was sober, but I tell her I liked her too. After that night, things went back to normal, but with each day that went by, we got closer and closer. Eventually, it had gotten to the point that we now talk every single day. Her and her boyfriend share a phone and don't really have social media. She does have a computer and a couple weeks ago, logged into her old Instagram, she used a couple years ago, to message with me, so that her boyfriend doesn't find out. In normal circumstances, I would feel wrong but he really is a terrible person. We have talked about being together and talk like we are, but the problem is, she can't leave. I told her, if we got together officially, I would help her pay her bills and get her back on her feet but he can't be in the picture if I'm going to be there. A side note that is important: I'm in the military and stationed overseas. I have a little less than two years before I get out. So, I can't be there for her, physically, and I can't throw him out my self. We agreed that, it was a commitment, that we have to see this long term if she leaves him, due to her financial situation. But isn't that what we get in relationships for? Of course, we agreed. This is the reason I wanted to help her pay for some things. The goal is to move in to her house when I get out and pay it off, from there we decide if we want to move or stay. Now, the reason she can't leave. Her boyfriend always wants to argue with her, but when they argue, he gets physical. He is also delusional, she has told him, multiple times, "we're done! Get your things and leave." His response? Well, besides getting physical, he brushes it off as if she was joking. I told her to call the cops and have him get taken out of there but she's worried because he boasts about, his ex called the cops and he knocked her out. Honestly, as hard as it is for her, it's hard for me too. It's hard to hear these things and see her face with marks from him and I can't do anything about it. I worry for her. She's trying to get him out of the house and has even called his mother, in hopes to come get him out of there but his mother doesn't care at all. This situation is a little strange, I know but I'm posting this, in hopes, maybe someone has gone through something similar and has advice, or if anyone has advice at all. The both of us are really happy together and it's the happiest she has been in a long time. I've never posted to reddit before and am really bad at telling stories and explaining stuff. If I notice, I missed anything I'll be sure to edit but there's so much, that I may have missed some things, while writing this. Any advice to help us?

My (F23) bf (M34) didn’t tell me he had a child and I can’t get over it years later

I (F 23) met my bf (M 34) when I was 20. We dated and got to know each other for about 8 months. He was a shy dude but I never got the creeps from him or anything as I am shy as well and can enjoy dates even when there is an awkward silence at times. I like to think my intuition is on point with those kind of things. I was telling my best friend about him and she made a joke about our age gap and said something along the lines of “make sure he doesn’t have a wife or a family somewhere”. I told him about my friends joke for a laugh on our next date and he began to freeze up a bit and act strange. Once I picked up on his body language I immediately knew. He said he needed to tell me something when we got to our destination. I said no and immediately started begging him to tell me and get it over with. He looked at me once we parked and tells me “I have a daughter. She’s 15. I was young when I had her, I was young and dumb and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” He told me he doesn’t speak to her mother besides it having to do with his daughter and that she lives in another state with her mother who is married with other children and he promised nothing else was going on. I can confirm that as I’ve been with him for about three years now. We had plans to go out for drinks that night and after he told me I asked him to take me home. I had been seeing him for 8 months now and was really into him. We had already been on overnight trips together and all that. During COVID lockdowns when we would text daily before meeting, I did ask if he had or wanted any kids and he told me no and that he would one day. I ignored his apology texts then eventually decided to be “okay” with it and still continue dating because I really liked him. We’ve been together three years officially and I still find myself choking up, feeling my heart sink and getting anxiety when I think about the fact that he has a teenage daughter somewhere. The next year he had his daughter over for about a week and didn’t tell me. We don’t live together but he didn’t tell me she was over and the fact that he didn’t tell me threw me off and brought back all the emotions from the first time. He told me he didn’t tell me she was visiting bc when he told me he had a daughter the first time, I told him I never wanted to hear about her. (I know I shouldn’t have said this but I felt hurt and confused and just wanted to block out as much as I can to be happy with him) The NEXT NEXT YEAR (2022) I called him after work to see if I was still going over for the weekend and he began talking weird and saying he was busy, I thought it was weird because we have the same plans every weekend. I kept bugging him over text then he told me he had his daughter and once again it felt like the very beginning. I start to get manic and break down and say mean things to him, I go out and party with my friends and keep myself distracted bc if I stay home I feel physically sick. Idk if I sound delusional but he is a great guy. Communication however is off with him and when we have fights or problems he will ghost me or wait for it to blow over on its own and I end up bottling things in and I feel it’s creating some sort of resentment. I see the dating world today with people my age and it looks a mess and I don’t know if I should listen to my body when I still feel so choked up about him having a kid or if I should seek therapy and try to make it work with him because I do love him but the way this situation was presented to me and carried out throughout the years has genuinely drove me insane. He only sees his daughter about once a year and I still find myself on a random day thinking about the situation and having an anxiety attack and feel myself hating him. I calm down, then I love him again. I’m not looking for anyone to validate me and I’m open to any opinion just please be respectful. Thank you. I guess I’m asking if I’m being crazy by constantly getting triggered and upset at the thought of what happened? I’m asking if I’m being unreasonable and if I should seek help to deal with this situation better since I do love him and want to be with him.

I have started to notice that my ex?bf has been showing some disturbing behavior

There is more but I don't think I can write more than this. He told his parents we were broken up but told me "I think we are together", when I asked him about our relationship. I think that he is trying to keep a good image of him all the time in front of his parents. He has repeatedly driven me out of myself by telling me I did not care for him, accusing me of random stuff and going on long rants about he should never talk with me again. He told me it was wrong to talk with his colleagues after I saw them accidentally. He accused me of planning it out. I asked for a call to discuss whether or not he might have disclosed some sort of information about me. He got angry over the idea that I was accusing him of leaking information about me. He told me if I did not explain my behavior (of asking him) immediately he would breakup with me on the spot. He knows I find this to be extremely distressing. He wrote me an email saying that he sees some change in me and that he will try to find some suggestions about counseling. But there is no mention of his responsibility and it is written as if I am requesting counseling for self-issues. It looks like he is unloading himself of any responsibility. He never said he was sorry for the screaming and the hurting he caused lately. He did not say anything. Last time we talked, he tried to tell me that some reason was why he did not want to come to my graduation. I did not want him to come and now he tried to spin it as if I wanted him to come, but I never did, and he insisted and I felt like I had to allow him. He keeps saying that I am abusive and narcissistic. I explained to him that I would leave then because I cannot understand why would anyone want to be with a narcissistic. But he still wants to be with me because, according to him, I am the best person he knows, but there is just this problem. He says that I rejected his attempts at making me feel welcome in the family because for Christmas, I had unexpected stuff to take care of and I could not visit his family. He insisted on not leaving me alone, even I told him to go see his family, he stayed with me for Christmas, and then accused me of trying to separate him from his family. I just want to write that I really loved him. I really did. It hurts me a lot to see that he does not really love me.

I think I have a crush on a guy who’s 3 years older than me and idk why

Ok he’s not the type of guy I usually fall for, he doesn’t play bass like most guys I liked, but he’s in fact a drummer. He’s not super scrawny like the others, but he’s a got a bear vibe about him. He’s not my age like the others, he’s much older. I don’t want to like him but he’s sweet and kind of reminds me of a celebrity I have a huge crush on. I’m a minor, so this is impossible. Please help…

i saw a photo of my incarcerated mom and it broke me

22f haven’t seen my mom in 2 years as she left the house. her and my dad fell into meth and crime and it literally destroyed their lives. i was very very close with my parents before this and even during my dads beginning with meth i was still close with my mom bc he kicked me, her, one of my siblings, and our dog out so we lived in a hotel together for a while. i was in college and i ended up finding a place, they got to move back home soon after. i haven’t seen her at all since she left. i was actually home visiting from college the night she left. i was about to fall asleep in the living room and i see her walking up and down the stairs with a bunch of random shit . i asked her what she’s doing and she said she had to leave (i didn’t know she started using at this point). literally issue after issue crime after crime haven’t seen her at all tho. no photos no nothing. we would talk on the phone sometimes when she was staying in a shelter somewhere. i invited her to my grad and she never showed. sister invited her to her grad and no response. turns out she’s been in jail (again). sibling came across something and sent it to me. it was her most recent mugshot. i have never seen her like that. she’s so swollen. her neck is so swollen it looks so painful. her face looks so worn out. she’s almost unrecognizable. she used to be a makeup artists and do her hair and nails all the time and was a very pretty lady and i can’t believe my eyes i literally cannot stop thinking about it and i can’t believe that all this has happened my dads ending up in prison soon and i feel dumb for feeling this way because i’m the eldest out of my siblings and i feel like a little kid right now and i don’t know how they are actually coping. we talk about things here and there but they don’t know what i really feel just like i don’t know what they really feel and i feel so sad for them. i feel so sad for my grandparents. i feel so sad for my parents. i miss my mom and dad.

Solo Artist

Being a only child with drug user parents and being divorced twice by 30, has given me the confidence to walk in a faith as adult that's benefited my peace of mind and raised my levels of fitness. Invested my covid stimulus into a home gym and now I can cope with my military ptsd at any time, which has helped reduce my crisis hotline calls.

I just found out that my ex-best friend has a daughter and is married now; and I feel very heart broken, but is that even a valid feeling?

I just found out that my ex-best friend has a daughter and is married now; and I feel very heart broken, but is that even a valid feeling? For some back story this best friend of mine let’s call him Sam was my best friend from ages 13-17, this part of my life was very hard but thankfully I had him. My mother walked out of my life when I was 13, I went homeless and lost everything I’d ever had (toys, special blankets, etc.) but thankfully through this all I had Sam. He was my rock that everyone swore was my secret boyfriend because of how close we were we’d always be on the phone and gained such a large amount of trust for each other. He knows all my secrets, and made jokes I could still laugh at when I think back. When I was 17 though things changed; he got his first official girlfriend, I was so excited for him as I had a boyfriend as well. Things took a weird turn when they decided to get engaged after a couple months of being together and he blocked me, shortly later he unblocked me and explained that everything was okay now and his girlfriend was just jealous. I forgave him and told him that shit happens and it’s ok, but again he blocked me this time though he never unblocked me. I reached out randomly to make sure he was okay but never a response, even just a couple months ago I reached out over text and told him “hey I know it’s been a while but I love you man and hope you’re okay” I got a response of “who is this” and I deleted the messages because I wished that maybe he got a new number. Tonight as I open Facebook I saw him for the first time in almost two years, him and his girlfriend are now married with a daughter that’s almost one. I don’t know how to feel, I’m hurt because of many reasons but mainly because these are events we always talked about, we even once spoke about baby names and always said we’d be great aunts/uncles. I feel like I have no place to feel these emotions because it’s been so long but I still feel broken, hurt, and lost. I still call him my best friend because I thought he would come around even after 2 years but this makes me feel like that part of my past is closed completely. I always thought about him when I had big life changed like moving out for university, moving in with my boyfriend, choosing a great career, and when things would change with family; I feel like he forgot about me so easily, and it hurts.

Do not go to Calgary stampede.

Just don't go.

One of the saddest things I have heard

In the middle of a divorce, and my 8 year old son is asking me questions while we are going for a last walk around the pond that is near our house that we will soon be getting rid of, the house I moved out of. He was raised a bit more on the religious side even though I am an agnostic - his mom is religious. We used to have this pet bunny, Bandit, who passed years ago when he was 4. He's still coming to terms with understanding our break up, and he asks me... "is Bandit in the sky? Is she waiting for us in the sky?" Chokes me up even writing it. We talk for a bit and I just tell him I don't know but maybe it's possible. And he says "well it's okay if we don't spend a lot of time together now, because one day we'll spend time together in the sky" Maybe saddest thing I've ever heard

I(17f) hate being a girl

I hate having periods and having to feel pain. What good even is that? I hate having a uterus our bodies were made to have children doesn’t matter if we want them or not. It bothers me that men are much stronger. I’ve been told a woman has a lot of fighting experience and martial arts training and still lost to guy who doesn’t do much. Basically I’m being I’ll be weak no matter what I do (I know I’m being pretty dramatic rn). One of the worst feelings is feeling powerless. I can’t stand the feeling of being inferior but that’s just how I’ve always been in other aspects. I can’t find any biological advantages to this at all. When people do mention the benefits it’s simply things that are based on a person’s skill and mind alone.(If I could hit the human evolution I’d do it) Someone said instead of focusing on the negative I should focus on more positives. I tried to that but that didn’t help at all only made me feel worse. They keep mentioning things like giving birth, clothes variety, and having boobs over and over. Tell that to someone who actually cares about those things. I was hoping to find something but none of those things made me happy. Just to clarify I am not trans I am just frustrated with myself. I feel pathetic for letting this bother me so much. Edit: Now that I let that out I feel calmer, huh

I walked off as my mom was speaking (TW!/Body comments and ed's)

I really don't know what to do, I'm really just stuck. I 17F live with my mom 47F and my dad 48M, I was standing in the kitchen after I had one of my mom's famous cereal squares. I was unconsciously looking on top of the fridge (it happens when my blood sugar drops), I was pulled out of my trance (I zone out very often) by the sound of my mom's voice saying "Scoping out to see what's on the fridge, huh?". I was confused and said I was just zoned out, "that's what binge eaters say". At that point I was furious, for months all she's talked about is how she's "fat" or saying "I need to lose said blank pounds". I've ignored it until today because she went too far, she starts talking about how she's "overweight" even though she's 135lb. I yell at her saying that she talks like she's had a binge eating disorder, yet she's never had one. She's speechless at that point and I walk away, she shouts for me to come back but I ignore it. After that I was on the verge of tears, but even with my door closed I can hear her talking about obesity (it would only make sense that she was talking about her past self). I was crying after I heard her talking about that because she labeled me as obese. All she talks about is dieting and losing weight. I don't know what to do, she expects me to forget what she says when I wake up tomorrow. I'm dreading seeing her face in the morning. If anybody has advice, please give it.

Struggling to Cope with Social Anxiety + Inferiority Complex + Burnout

I, 18M, just got back from orientation at a fairly well known school. Long story short, we had a lot of weird icebreaker activities and at the end had a dance party till 10. Everyone was bonding so fast with each other but I was sitting in the corner like a freaking loser filled with envy for their joy. This isn't the first time this happened and happens pretty much any time I go to a "fun" social gathering. I keep wondering wtf is wrong with me. Why do the others seem like creatures entirely different from me? Why can't I freaking talk to people and actually establish relationships with others and share in their joy? Am I not human like them? Am I just a piece of subhuman garbage who's company is utterly worthless? After experiencing such bouts of self loathing, I throw myself into my work to forget this pain. I grind programming and other work to prove to myself that I don't need people. But as a result, I feel myself gradually losing my passion for my work, like programming, which i absolutely enjoyed before. What should I do to stop this miserable cycle? All input is welcome and frankly even writing this out makes me feel a little bit better.

i’ve been feeling very insecure abt my relationships

i (23f) am starting to feel really insecure about my relationships and i think i put people on a pedestal and i need to accept that those people won’t see me as a close friend. my bf (25m) is friends with a group of people who i admire because of their line of work and they are very interesting and eccentric people. one of them my bf looks up to the most and he would go out of his way to make sure she is well etc. this friend has said before that she does not consider a member of the groups’ partner as a close friend anymore and just sees them as a friend’s partner. it does make me wonder if she sees me in that light despite me hanging out with them a lot and the other members of the group are really friendly with me. i guess i look up to her as well as a peer and it would be nice to get some recognition for me as a person and for my work. not saying that she isn’t friendly, but i can see that when i try to console her or try to make a conversation she’s not really interested. though, i do understand that friend group dynamic is very close due to an event i was not a part of. it sometimes feels like my bf of 1+ years is more comfortable with dealing with other people’s issues in terms of comforting them compared to helping me with mine. though he did mention to me that in the beginning of the relationship he does have commitment issues and it did get better later when he started to put more commitment into me and we have healthy conversations about our feelings. this feeling of insecurity has come up once before this post about a few months ago. i technically know what to do in this situation i just wanted to get this r slash offmychest.

My crush found out I like her and she turned me down but that’s okay

I (16M) have had a massive crush on one of my classmates (16F) since we were in 7th grade. Last year we were in the same geometry class and I mustered up the courage to ask if she wanted to do our homework together for the class and she said yes. Math is by far my worst subject so she ended up tutoring me after school and I helped her with chemistry homework in return. We became good friends during this time and we started to hang out after school and every time we did I was the happiest person on Earth. I am in student leadership and she signed up to join the class last year. My commission is the athletic department and since there was an opening she was put in the same commission as me (she does cheerleading and I play baseball) so we have been spending most of the summer so far working on a summer project a teacher gave us for the class. I would just stare at her beautiful black eyes and hair and her dimples every time she smiled and my feelings only increased whenever I saw her. I would get lost whenever she spoke in her soft-spoken manner and she always smells like lavender. I have thought about telling her how I feel but it’s obvious she just sees me as a friend so I have been keeping my mouth shut. Yesterday she came over to my house to continue working on the project but she was oddly quiet. She usually talks nonstop but she was only talking when I asked her something. I asked if she was okay and she said she had a lot on her mind at the moment. I told her she could tell me anything and she took a deep breath and said she overheard one of my friends talking about how obvious it is that I have a crush on her. The person she was talking about was one of my good friends who is also in leadership and she heard him talking about us in the hallway today when she went to pick up the things we have to add to our project. We were silent for a minute and I confirmed that I do have feelings for her. I told her how much I enjoy being around her, how much I enjoy listening to her talk, and how beautiful she was. She is someone I feel comfortable being around and there is no one else I want to have in my life. She was quiet for a second and thanked me for the kind words. She said I am very important to her and I make her feel safe which is not something she says about a lot of people. She thinks the world of me but unfortunately, she does not see me that way and apologized for turning me down. I was sad but we both agreed to remain friends and gave each other a hug. We got back to working on the project and there was some awkwardness in the air for a while but it started to go away before she left. We talked for about 30 minutes before she left and she said she does not have feelings for anyone at the moment and is not looking for a relationship. We are going to a baseball game with a couple of friends on Friday so I loaned her a jersey to wear and she was excited to wear it. We gave each other another hug and she left. I am sad she does not feel the same but I am glad she was upfront about it instead of leading me on. I would rather know where I stand with her than be stuck in limbo. What I am NOT going to do is chase after her. I have done that before with a girl and I cringe whenever I reflect on that time. Also, I AM GOING TO GIVE MY FRIEND THE PEOPLE’S ELBOW!!! WHAT IS HE DOING DISCUSSING WHO I HAVE A CRUSH ON WITH OTHER PEOPLE????? WHY WOULD HE DO THIS???? I MIGHT LOCK HIM IN THE SHARPSHOOTER AFTERWARDS!!!!!!

In a nutshell

What I hate about my situation the most is everyone thinks I’m the happiest person or I have it all figured out. What they don’t know is I’m so restless, conflicted, and barely holding onto the roof over my head. I went home, and I cried almost every day since pandemic. I suppressed so much feelings of my past and present including: - Being a product of war and relocating a few times at an early age. - Not having a chance to grow up with my parents and constantly adapting to every adult in my life. I didnt see my dad for 25 years and my mom for 10 years - Being raised by seven different family members before I turned 18 and being told by everyone of them to get out of their house at some point. First time I was 5 and it was a cold winter night in Feb and I was in pj’s. My sister thinks I don’t remember the night we were kicked out. And the same person did it again to me at 15. - The physical abuse including shoes, wires hangers belts, 2 x 4, and anything I was laying around. I have scars on my body and burns but I play them off as childhood injuries self-inflicted - Being sexually, abused by my uncle and his friend at an early age. My uncle always touched me out in the open but so playful. - Being gay in a conservative family - Attempting to throw myself off a 25 floor building at the age of 11 because I didn’t want to be alone in my empty apartment - Attempting to runaway from home but never having the courage - Having nothing in my account except this months bill minus car insurance and not having any savings. Currently liquidating my items to save myself from the worst, consolidated “my” debts. Being the soul provider in a relationship while I was mentally abused for 4 years then taking 40k and gambling it. I have creditors calling me everyday and today alone was 14 calls. - Being left alone in an empty apartment for a year and a half with no cable or phone and having a meal dropped off to me by my uncles wife or their kids next door. - Hiding my mental health issues I suffered since the age of 3 including PTSD, anxiety, depression, eating disorder and I worry I may be bipolar or have spilt personalities. My brain has compartmentalized so much trauma, secrets and pain. I know I’m not right. I don’t feel right. I can’t also remember parts of my childhood. I have become a prisoner of my own mind and I don’t know how to ask for help. For me help has always come with unnecessary feedback, no love or support and conditions. I have people telling me that they raised as a child like I was supposed to raise myself at 3 or 8 or 14. Even at this point in my life, I feel like I should pay them back raising me. So help is not available from what I call family. What I recognize from early age was I was standing in the way of everybody’s family plans. Who would raise a kid that it not theirs and feel obligated due to circumstances. They all had me sleeping on the couch and up when everyone got up, zero privacy between the age of 9-11 & 13-14. I was the unnecessary baggage in everyone’s lives and it reflects how I feel about myself today. I feel like they stripped me of my confidence, my dignity and my self-esteem. I just want to love them the way I’m supposed to but instead of feeling conflicted all the time. I remember asking for help once 13 years ago when I first moved out on my own and not a single support from anybody. I slept in an empty one bedroom apartment for 14 mo months with nothing but my clothes as my makeshift bed. I watched my mom and my siblings fund raise for each other and I was a nuisance when I asked for help in university. They bought my brother a car, paid his whole wedding, gave him a down payment on a house and he’s a happy family man. I felt like my whole life I was an afterthought and that’s how I feel about myself now. Then they asked me questions like, when are you gonna get married? Should we find you find someone? I tried my best to limit contact, but I still try to answer every once in a while. I try to be respectful, not knowing what respect from my family feels like. Now I’m watching the same people who took away my childhood raise their kids with the best. I have attended all of my cousins, nieces and nephews graduations and nobody’s ever attended mine. I’m so close to their kids and love them so much, but I really struggle maintain a relationship with them. Strangest thing, I get the love I always wanted from their kids. But that love is it enough for me and the older I get the more I worry I won’t find it with my siblings and parents. Because I hide my sexuality, I just feel stuck, unable to move forward and can’t repair my past. If anyone asks me about my childhood, I rave about it, and only speaks so highly of my family. I painted this picture that I had this great life growing up so people don’t see the weakness in me. I’m a broken record who repeats the same stories and everyone just believes it. Yet everyone sees me smiling and laughing but they don’t know how many times I have to repeat in my head look happy. Everyone makes me their dumping ground from relationship issues, work and personal problems. After they’re done telling me their life, I’m so drained, and I don’t even know where to start with mine. So everyone also knows me as a private person. I can barely sleep and can’t even think about food. I find myself moving between moments, so unaware of my reality or how I got there. I switch between the happy person and the person writing this post when I face the world. I’m so exhausted and just want to be happy. Not act happy but truly be.

I am sick of being tail gated and I road raged back. I regret it.

So I’m in Colorado and I’m guessing like the rest of the country, drivers are pretty much awful. It is like Covid put us on a different time line where’s everyone is in a hurry 100% of the time. I was going 45 in a 35. I couldn’t get over because I had to exit at a round about and this Jeep was tailing me the entire way. He was feet away from me for two or so blocks. At the roundabout, another car was coming around the roundabout. I am always cautious because there is an exit that they could have taken which would mean if they happen to continue turning, I would T bone them, so I slowed down to a stop to make sure they weren’t going to exit. I’m looking up to make sure I’m not going to get rear ended and make sure I don’t hit the other car in the roundabout and the tailgater is a foot from my car. So I lurched forward and threw on my brakes. He proceeded to have to throw his on and was maybe an inch or so from hitting me. I screamed this primal scream of rage and flipped him off. I’ve never felt like that in my life. I 100% snapped. And of course he proceeded to follow me. I pulled over to let him just go, already realizing my mistake and of course he stops next to me and lays into me, making personal attacks. Then he zoomed off through the neighborhood at high speeds. I tried to explain to him my logic but he wasn’t hearing it. I was pretty shook by it. I shouldn’t have instigated him but I’m just so over it. Luckily nothing bad happened but it was so dumb of me to even entertain it. I’ve got so much going on with work and family, this just boiled over. Ugh.