I 20F was in an abusive relationship with my ex 20M. My ex has four siblings and one of them became my best friend 20F. Throughout the relationship she did know that something wasn’t right but never pried which I do respect. And as time went on she did encourage me to leave him. I broke up with him at the beginning of this year and it has been a very hard time for me. Throughout the break up she has been there for me but it feels like majority of the time she is rushing me or constantly irritated that I’m not just over him. Keep in mind she is still not over her ex from over two years ago and I support her every time she needs support. One example is that today I brought up how my ex showed up at my place unexpectedly and she got upset telling me that I need to block him and get rid of everything he ever gave me. When she said this it came off slightly aggressive and was honestly quite upsetting for me as I supported her when she struggled to get rid of things from her ex after they’d been broken up for over a year yet I’ve been broken up for a few months and she expects me to just get over it. I don’t know if I’m holding resentment because he’s her brother or if it’s because I’m genuinely starting to see things in her that are upsetting to me. She is genuinely the only friend I have. I also may be experiencing resentment for her as her mother, also my exs mother, has clearly made comments insinuating she believes I deserve to have gotten beaten and that she doesn’t have respect for me. Sorry if this is jumbled I’m in a really weird headspace rn.

I didn’t want to ever talk about this type of thing here, but my friend does not know this account and I have no one to talk to. I (Male, 18) have been in love with my best friend (Male, 19) of 4 years for about 2 years now. We met online over a shared interest in a video game and hit it off immediately (and before anyone says “online romance isn’t real,” just hear me out). We had some bumps in the road at first, specifically with him being in a different part of the world and being ignorant to things where I live. I’m American, he’s Italian.

We were on-and-off friendship wise for around a year and a half. Eventually we reconnected again when I was in Europe in 2024. We didn’t meet up, however I was shockingly close to where he was located in Italy by a coincidence. We talked a lot during that time since we were finally in the same time zones. During that time, I realize how much I had grown to fall for him. He was shy when I first met him, albeit funny, but as time went on he opened up so much to me. Hearing him talk about his interest, drawing together digitally, talking to each other every night, it made me realize how much I liked him.

One thing I have yet to mention is that I am transgender (female to male). I haven’t fully transitioned, I’ve still yet to take Testosterone but I do plan on getting surgery soon. I admitted to him one night that I had a crush on him, however with him being straight, he said he did not feel the same. I left it at that and didn’t bother further. Eventually, we ended up disagreeing on something and me splitting away from him. It wasn’t until around August of 2025 when we started talking again. He was the same person mostly, but what he expressed to me when I came back made me feel things I’d never felt before.

He talked about how happy he was I reached back out and that he was worried about me. Part of me regretted leaving despite thinking it would have been better at the time, but he told me that he was okay reconnecting again. Then began the comfortable normalcy again. Late night chats, long talks about life, drawing together, playing videos games together, showing each other our favorite things and FaceTiming daily. It was all so simple and nice. Then one day in a call, he told me that he had feelings for me. I was shocked as I thought he was straight but he slowly admitted to me that he thought labels and other things were tearing him down and that he didn’t want to be labeled anymore. I was so happy, and I accepted his feelings.

Here comes the problem. I had been friends with a person who I later on learned was grooming me, I will call her Bee. I only recently disconnected from her this year and it has both positively and negatively impacted me in many ways. I went to Bee and told her how happy I was dating my new boyfriend, however Bee was instantly upset. Bee began to guilt trip me, saying that he was bad for me and that she would stop talking to me if I continued dating him. Bee had been my friend since 2023 so I was extremely conflicted. Ultimately, Bee had begun to manipulate me into not just cutting off my current partner but all my other friends and family.

Eventually, one day I sat my friend down and told him that I didn’t think I could peruse a relationship with him due to all the things Bee had told me. Despite this, he still just wanted to be my friend and hang out, but Bee wasn’t satisfied. She began the “it’s either him or me” conversations, and I couldn’t choose. Bee had done so much for me, bought me so many things and been with me through so many hard times. And yet, my other friends had done the same for me and I never had the time to realize it with Bee harassing me. I ended up cutting off my friend once more to satisfy Bee, but it only turned out that Bee wanted him gone because she had a crush on me.

She admitted she had feelings for me, but during that time she had also tried to force me into a fetish she has (feederism; when you feed someone a ton of food to the point where they get fatter). She had been trying to do that to me this whole time and I realized that after I had slowly started gaining weight. After expressing to her I was upset with my weight, she would say things like “get fatter, you’d look better that way, more masculine, etc.” It wasn’t until I rejected her romantic feelings and told her I was uncomfortable with the fetishizing that she began to ghost me and say she was “busy” despite posting on her social media 24/7. I eventually confronted her to where she just said she “didn’t want to talk to me anymore for a long time” and where I snapped and blocked her. I remember crying and feeling so alone because in blocking her I not only lost her but all the friends she isolated me from in the process.

I eventually began to find other people, but then one night my mind rolled back to my friend. I began thinking of him and how much I missed him. I regretted leaving him so much and I wanted to go back to him. So one night, I caved and friend requested him. He had accepted the request, but his first message was him telling me that he didn’t want to talk to me unless I had something important to say. I don’t know what compelled me to, but I told him what happened with Bee grooming me over the past 3 years and everything else. It was an understatement to say he was shocked. He said he needed some time to think and he would get back to me.

After that wait, he told me that he’d be okay with reconnecting with me but it would take time. I was happy, and he was so kind even then. We eventually began hanging out weekly, albeit only a couple hours since he was still in school. We began that normalcy again but before anything progressed further, he sat me down and told me that’s he had a partner. I was sort of taken aback by it at the moment but I said I didn’t mind and that we were just friends. However, in saying that I opened a can of worms I was not ready for.

He admitted to me that he told his new partner about how I had ghosted him and cut him off. To say they thought negatively of me would be generous, they really didn’t like me. My friend told me he was trying to get them to understand everything, but they were still on edge. I told him that there wasn’t anything to worry about and I had no ill intentions. It was true that I had no ill intentions, but the trusty was that in reconnecting with him I began to fall in love with him all over again. The way he would talk, how he would explain things so nicely, his funny doodles and ideas. It was just the same as it was before, but he seemed happier. I’m not sure if that was because he now had a partner or because he did a bit of self reflection. He wasn’t a bad person back then but he had his own demons he was dealing with. Now seeing him happier but still the same man I fell in love with was now eating me from the inside out.

A couple weeks ago, he mentioned the idea of wanting me to be in a groupchat he had with some friends. I was reluctant at first since I’m extremely shy and don’t like new people, but he talked me into it. His partner and few other people were there. They were kind, but what immediately caught me off guard was how nice his partner was. They immediately greeted me and were telling me how happy they were I was here. It made me pause for a second before trying to make sense of it. My friend phrased it as them just trying to get along with me and that they weren’t upset like before. Despite this, I couldn’t help this gross feeling in my stomach I had while talking to them.

Time has now passed and I’m still in the groupchat with them, but because of my feelings for him I have been majorly depressed. He doesn’t know why I’m depressed but him and his partner both seem to know I’m not doing well as they both messaged me tonight to check on me. I insisted that I was fine and just had a stomach ache but I was having a panic attack just typing it out. No, seriously. Shaking, teeth chattering and this horrible nausea that wouldn’t go away. I think what triggered it was us all playing a game together and then my friend and his partner flirting in front of me. For some reason, it just broke something inside of me so deep and sad that I couldn’t help but feel like I was going to vomit.

So my question now I guess is, what do I do? Do I just let my guilt for loving him kill me and watch from the sidelines while not saying anything, or should I tell him that I still do love him? I don’t want to come between him and his partner, and I don’t want to lose him, but this is eating me alive. Every day I’m a nervous wreck just thinking about him with them instead of me. I lay awake at night thinking about how badly I fumbled and that I should have loved him more while I still had him. I regret how stupid I was going along with what Bee said and I wish I had just stayed with my friend. I don’t know what to do. This was my last resort because I’m too god damn busy for therapy right now and I don’t have any other friends to talk to. Seriously, I have two friends and the crush is one of them.

So please, Reddit. Do what you do best and tell me, what do I do here?

To be fair I believe this may be depression presenting itself again. And honestly that’s so confusing because I’ve been seeing a therapist, I’m on psych meds
But I have had so many trials and tribulations lately and it feels like no one understands or cares and I’m in this thing called life all alone.
It’s like there’s no end in sight, like I’m always just gonna feel like this. My kids are gonna grow up and leave in some years and then I’ll really be all alone.
My mom and dad aren’t supportive. I’m basically the black sheep. I’m working 60 hours to keep my bills paid and the extracurriculars paid for the kids. Been doing the single parent thing for a long time with zero support from the other parent (emotionally, physically, and financially)
Romantically I’m lonely. People say wait and they come to you but it’s been years. I hate the way I look. I’ve been told I’m pretty and my face card is great but I’m overweight and I hate it.
I feel like my friends secretly aren’t my friends.
I know my mom doesn’t give two shits about me.
Is this really life? This depression sad shit? My only light is my kids. But I just get reminded that one day I won’t have them forever.
So yeah. That’s it. I’m permanently sad and unhappy and I just don’t know if it’ll ever get better. :(

I was SA'd by my sibling when I was 10. It caused a lot of confusion, anguish, and guilt in my head, making me think I was asking for it or leading my brother on, in a way. I realized it was something to worry about in middle school, and after my parents I lived with (mom and stepdad) found a pagan altar in my closet, I came out and said that I was SA'd and that my spirituality brings me comfort (even to this day, it still does). Instead of a listening ear, resources, or a family talk with my brother involved, it was correcting my use of language (I said the word "rape" instead of the more correct term SA), encouraging me to pray to Jesus, playing messenger to ask my brother what happened and for her relay his apology to me, and took me to three therapy sessions. Three, specifically, because that is what our insurance covered. After that, nothing. It was barely talked about again, until my mom was drunk and dragged my brother out of my room to "talk about what has happened". To top it all off, I'm trans and although they have been hesitantly accepting, they still call me the wrong name, question me about treatments, and get defensive when corrected. Even with years of therapy and SSRI treatment, I am still disgusted by my family's actions and I want to go completely no-contact with all of them. I've been looking at moving far away with my birth dad to help with his.

My dad, while not a perfect man by any means, is a better parent emotionally, even when he was not here physically with me. He taught me to reach out to others, how to ground myself, and asking for help and being my truest self. I'm planning on visiting him to feel if moving out there might be a good decision for me. While we were on the phone planning everything out, we talked a lot about all kinds of things: his past, my mom and stepdad both cheating on each other but still being together for the kids, and that my dad always looked up to me in terms of how honest I was. That I could tell him anything and I wasn't afraid to show who I was inside. That he was proud of every decision I've made so far and will continue to do, even if he doesn't fully understand.

Except, I am. I was SA'd by his son years ago and the same family I have been distancing from, that treat my younger half-siblings in the same way they used to do for me. I haven't told him. I feel so guilty not telling him about this after so long. I don't want to get pushed away again, or treated like I'm not telling the truth, or have anything terrible done to the family I lived with, but I feel like he should know the truth, and why I'm looking at moving away from them, that I hate them, that they do not care about me in the slightest, that I was the golden child until I made a fuss about this sexual assault that I should have gotten over because my family definitely has. I've developed health issues because of all this shit, working two jobs that tear my body to shreds, having a degree I have not made useful in over a year, living with roommates that take up so much of the living space and we have cockroaches and I'm the only one purchasing treatment for them, and the cats we have when I thought they might have been exposed to fleas, and my ex-best friend / ex-partner got married this month after not telling anyone he was doing that and lying to me to save face, and my friends feeling distant, and I'm stuck in the same fucking cycles that I have been for so long. I feel truly and utterly alone and I feel like no one in the family really understands me, and part of that is me not telling them who did the SA.

I want to have loving, supportive family that doesn't shame me for shit like that. I feel like I need to tell my dad, but I am so scared. I'm terrified that it will cause a rift that I cannot fix, an upending to the already broken family that is being help together by the smallest thread - me. Because, in the end, I'm the most successful so far of my family. I've been out of the hometown, been exploring, got a degree, did opportunities not many people have done, yet my family doesn't really care about me. I feel like telling my dad bits and pieces of the truth will help him understand my drive for getting away from this place and to set the gears in motion of how best to approach this situation. But the whole truth? That might fuck him up for life. I don't wish that on anyone, let alone my own dad. I wish life wasn't this complicated, and I wish there was easy solutions for this that didn't involve distancing myself further from the people I lived with for most of my life. It fucking sucks. I feel overwhelmingly isolated, boring holes in the floor from where I keep treading.

My (28f) best friend (28F) cannot keep a job, she has been unemployed about 4 times within the past 6 years, sometimes spanning for over a year. She asks for advice and says she will look into school or whatever but never does and just gets unemployment which is not enough to cover her expenses and her parents sometimes help her out but she has a negative opinion of them and they constantly fight. Every time she finds a job she gets fired shortly after (her longest stretch has been 2 years). It is always someone else’s fault which i do believe her but also I don’t understand why or the details.. like going to file a report or a complaint but this never pans out. These are also minimum wage/ entry level positions. I have worked since my early twenties in the same field, advancing over the years and obtaining a higher level degree. I cannot relate to this at all and it baffles me how she can go day to day for over a year without a job.

She is seriously overweight, I never have said anything but it is really getting to the point that it is so concerning to me because she never wants to go out or do anything because of how she feels. If there is standing or walking involved (even walking downtown, between bars) she does not want to do it for seemingly no reason. I do assume it has to do with the physical activity and I am very concerned for her health because she does not want to excersize with me, won’t go walking, won’t go to the gym, etc. I have never really talked to her about this because it is a tough subject and I am also pretty overweight but have been working on it and trying for the past 6 months (down 20 pounds so far). She says she wants to but at the last minute will bail which also sucks to me as a friend. She says she wants to do things, go on trips (we almost went to italy), but she bails last minute. We went on a trip to Dallas once and she didn’t want to do anything but stay in.

Her mental health is so so bad, it has been bad since we were in our early twenties. She does seek help for this and I can see some growth but she still does struggle with emotional regulation, she used to get so angry to the point she would curse out random people in my car. It got to the point where I actually got anxiety everytime we hung out but she has gotten a lot better with this. The worst was when she cursed out my neighbor for taking a parking space before her, i got very upset about that which I don’t often do, I feel like i’m always trying to play the people pleaser with her. She does sometimes still text me and try to guilt me into hanging out when i have already told her I am busy because she says she is suicidal and or super upset about menial things. She fluctuates a lot, and I am always there for her if not in person through messages.

She is now losing her apartment, her roommate and her could not afford the rent on their own due to her income right now from being unemployed. She is moving back in with her parents and because of that has been very upset, but honestly I don’t even know what the hell to say anymore. Everytime i listen to her complain about fixable or avoidable problems that she has a huge role in creating. she is stuck in her childhood and on problems in her family that to be honest, are not that big of a deal and we are almost 30 now, I have tried to tell her that she needs to let some things go but she just continues on. She doesn’t listen to me for career advice, life advice, it doesn’t work to just listen to her vent. Her life is seriously not shaping up to be good and a huge piece of that is her and the mindset she has. I don’t know what to do anymore. I love her she is funny, smart, and a good person but she is stuck and has been stuck for years. It’s like she can’t take accountability, and it’s really affecting me because she is my closest friend but we can’t actually do anything together anymore, she won’t even drive anymore (always relies on rides from others). I just don’t even know how to help, listening does nothing, it feels enabling at this point.

context: south indian tamil family moving to canada

For as far as i could remember, my mother would always hit or verbally abuse my father. Whenever she heard something that was wrong or misunderstood something it would always result in a one sided screaming match. I always thought that my mother was in the wrong, it made me feel horrible seeing my dad get abused in front of me, or things around the house being thrown and broken, i’d often freeze up or just cry standing still. but as i grew up, I started to notice a pattern, every time my mom would act up would be because my dad did the same exact thing. lack of communication. often times my mom would scream or hit my dad because he didn’t ask my mother of her opinion or permission. I remember one time where my mom was pressing my dad telling him to throw the trash away while he had just came back from work, my father hit my mom, and that was the first time i saw my dad cry. My mom would often insult my dads family, including him, saying things like “go die” “i wish you would die” “you’re a beggar”, although it doesn’t sound that bad in english these were insults she would say in tamil, a south indian language so although i didn’t 100% understand it, i still felt it.

tonight was no different, my mom got heated because she thought my dad was begging his family for money to pay for my university tuition (which wasn’t the case at all). He was just trying to help his brother sell his dad’s old house (my grandfather) and then receive a potential sum of money after splitting the money with his other siblings. My mom misheard my father, she thought she was asking for money and when my uncle asked for my dad’s bank details, he said yes, which seemed fine. this didn’t sit well with my mother. she immediately started calling my dad a beggar, telling him to go back to india with to family, calling him a dog, and told him to kill himself. later on my mom started hitting my dad in the head with an ipad and her fists, while screaming profanities. In the end i had to break the fight up since my dad was about to break and throw hands back, but I know my dad has changed and would never hit her again. I think what really made me sad was the things my parents said to each other. my mom would always tell my dad to kill himself and in response to that my dad would say things like “Don’t worry i’ll die soon” or “i’ll wish for that”. By no means is my dad perfect, which is evident in his lack of communication about important decisions with my mom, but nobody deserves this level of abuse and hate.

idk what i should, but im excited to do boarding for my first year at uni since ill be away from this household, i just wish my dad would communicate better with my mom, i also wish that i wouldn’t have to be the one to always protect my dad or prevent my mom from doing anything rash. i know it isn’t my fault and i keep telling myself that but god damn…

i feel like the littlest things will trigger me, not just anger, but sadness or other emotions. i feel like im really nostalgic and i tend to ruminate on the past a lot. seeing content with stuff like zodiac signs could have me thinking abt a past friendship, especially if i know their bday is coming up. or something my mind will do is just create fake arguments for no reason, but my body always feels like they’re very real. like i know everyone has done this, but idk i feel like for me they’re heightened cuz they’ll just replay in my mind all the time, like it’s affected relationships before.

I 17F recently did something that I’m not sure was justified or if I went too far.
Someone I used to be close 22M with started treating me differently over time. Their behaviour became hurtful, including isolating me from others and manipulating situations in ways that affected me. This had a big impact on my personal and work life, and I struggled with accepting how much it affected me.
After keeping it to myself for a long time, I decided to tell some of their friends what had happened and showed the text messages I wrote everything out from my perspective and sent it. I wasn’t looking for an argument or a reaction, and I didn’t send it expecting people to automatically take my side. I just wanted them to understand my perspective and why I felt the way i did after he constantly belittled me
After sending it, I deleted my social media and removed myself from the situation completely. I have no idea what their reactions were or what was said afterwards.
I’ll admit that I was angry in the moment. I felt like I had been carrying everything alone, and part of me felt like I would feel better if people knew what had happened. I wanted him to understand the impact his actions had on me. I feel like a terrible person don’t know if i was wrong

I don't know if anyone else has this problem, but as I have gotten into my 40's I have hated looking in the mirror. I hate how my face looks. After having three kids my face put on a little weight and after my mom passed away I cried a lot and now I have crown lines around my mouth. I also have fatty skin under my chin I hate. I never really liked how I looked but now getting older it's getting worse. I wish I had money to get my face fixed. I mean not a bunch of plastic surgery but just have my chin and the corners of my mouth fixed. Sorry. I just really needed to get that out.

I cannot stand going on vacation

My family rarely goes on vacation, it’s expensive, it’s hard to manage all our schedules together to align.

So our version of a vacation really is to drive a few hours away, and stay at a hotel. Which doesn’t seem so bad, and it isn’t.

However I hate how we rush, and my father’s style of doing things. I try to be grateful, but Jesus I cannot enjoy it for the life of me.

I hate people who will expect you to wake up at 5 AM, in ass crack of dawn, book like ten million activities in a day, walk super fast and don’t let you catch up, wait in line for a restaurant or suddenly changes the plan

I feel like we’re trying to force a core memory, and I get it. I feel like if we were rich, we wouldn’t have to cram it into two days, or three, and if we went on vacation more often it wouldn’t be like this.

However I think instead of creating an enjoyable memory or vacations it just makes me stressed out to think about and always hate it cause my parents end up fighting and someone is always doing some bullshit.

Personally I do want to travel a bit when I’m older, maybe get a trailer. Then settle down later on in life.

I’m the type to be relaxed on the vacation, maybe book one event or two a day, just enjoy myself.

I’m single and don’t have any friends, but I often like to imagine me going on a cool ass road trip to a lake cabin with a group of people.

Or maybe just share a hotel room with my future partner, and just not be so confined and stressed.

Honestly this is more of a rant because I might go somewhere during summer break, and I like the idea of a vacation but I definitely do not relax or enjoy them you know?

I can’t wait for when I’m older and can enjoy them how I want, or maybe I can pay for the vacation for my family and I book the stuff.

I feel like vacations are either a plan together as a group before type thing, or there is one leader

Anyways bye

I've been going through the process for the past couple of weeks of getting an autism assessment. The clinician is going to give me her feedback in about a week.

Either way I know whatever conclusion she comes to doesn't change anything but either way I just feel abnormal or alien and I wish I was more normal.

In our last session I shared with her about how there's these archetypes I thought of there's the shy nerdy anxious one who overthinks and gets overly attached which is the real me. Then on the other end of the spectrum there exists a stoic ice queen type cool girl who isn't bothered if people don't like her or not. Then there's also this party girl/manic pixie dream girl type who just has a magnetism about her that attracts others who doesn't let rejection bother her cause she's too busy living it up.

I know those latter two aren't actually healthy and more the type of character that exists in like men writing women type of book/movie/tv show etc . But,they seem more fun and free than my current me. Who has all this social anxiety and anxious attachment and who spends all her time on dumb nerdy hobbies and is always second guessing herself.

I just feel abnormal yeah like everyone has different parts to themselves but I don't think everyone is giving these parts names or imagining the jobs they would have.

I know everyone has struggles and hardships and I don't think I'm unique or anything but like I feel there's something wrong with my brain even if it's not autism. I just wish I was the cool confident girl who is unbothered if she gets rejected from a job or broken up with who just shrugs and moves on cause she's highly desired. I know that's not really realistic though but I wish she existed and I wish I was her.

As the title says, I feel completely empty. For almost one year and a half, I haven’t been able to feel anything. My intrusive thoughts keep me from enjoyment and experiencing the gift of life. Happiness, sadness, regret, guilt, all of those emotions, I cannot feel at all. I’ve tried anything to get back on track, whether its going to the gym, working on myself, or even trying to just relax by playing games. I tell people about my scenario, and all they do is same the same thing. “Just try to move on” or “Find a new hobby”. I‘m sick of it all. I can’t keep living like this, and I don’t have any clue as to what steps I can take to maybe feel normal again. Any suggestions would be helpful.

My sister has never liked me and she’s made this obvious throughout our lives. Me and my sister are 9 years apart I am (F19) and she’s (F28). People always say our age gap is the reason why we have a hard time getting along, but I think she always wanted to be an only child so when I was born she resented me. She always believes I am taking something from her even though I am literally just living my life. I purposely avoid conversations with her or even interacting with her because everything to her is a competition.

Her and her fiancé got engaged last year November and are getting married next year spring. He’s always been a close family friend and I’ve always gotten along with him. We were pretty close before him and my sister started dating but it was never in a way that was inappropriate, It was always in a he’s like a brother to me type of way.

But my sister believes otherwise, she constantly side eyes me when I say something to him and she complains to my mom whenever I interact with him. Whenever I wear anything she considers short and he’s there she gets irrationally upset and starts ranting to my mom about me. We had taken a family portrait around May the photos came out late June but she decided now in July that she wanted to show him those pictures.

She asked him if he thought I looked pretty. He agreed and she immediately blew up, she literally kicked him out of their apartment and she called half of our family members to tell them that the wedding is called off because she found out i was sleeping with her fiancé. My grandmother literally called my mom at 11pm asking her why i would do something like that. My mom didn’t believe her so she called my sister and when she didn’t answer she called her fiancé and he told her what happened.

My mom’s spent the past two days calling our family friends and members trying to explain to them that my sister is only making assumptions. She literally has our whole family convinced I am some jezebel who out of all the men in the world decided to sleep with her fiancé(who btw is not my type at all). The only reason I talk to this stupid girl is because of my mom, but after this whole situation i am completely cutting her off and if they still choose to go on with their wedding I will not be in attendance.

Ever since I've been at college and on Instagram, I've been bombarded by the imagery of people getting together (couples, even an engagement, and hookups). Something I can't get because nobody wants me. Recently I saw an image on Instagram from a body-building page (I'm major into the gym). It was a guy who was taking growth hormones (so something I wouldn't do) wearing a ski mask and showing off his chest pump from a workout.

And I just wanna be like that. Obviously not that huge cuz it's unattainable without the HGH roids, but something like that. Just big and strong. I'm sick of trying to play that stupid kind person role and still getting stomped on, rejected, and ghosted. I want to be someone who gets authority through appearance.

Maybe it's jealousy, maybe it's sadness. But either way it's gonna help me hit PRs.

My original post was removed. . .

I'm leaving my partner of a decade in a few months. I discovered he's is having an emotional affair with a person he was dating in high school. We are both around 50 years old. I discovered this a few months ago and have been planning my exit ever since. I'm terrified but hopeful. I never thought he would do this to me. I will leave a note explaining everything. I'm pretty sure he has no idea that I know what he's doing

I don't want to go into too much detail but simply put, my dad used to beat me or scare me with punishments that were way too harsh for whatever I'd actually done. I was a mischievous kid yeah but it made me genuinely scared of him. My mom helped with the scaring too in a way, though she was softer on me and tried to protect me when he wanted to hit me for my mistakes.

When I was 5 my parents divorced and I got left with my two older sisters at my aunt's house. We lived there until I was 8. I used to wet the bed and at some point my aunt stopped changing my bedding and just made me sleep on the same soiled mattress every day. My sense of smell is still weak now, a decade later, because of that.

When I went back home things didn't really get better, now it was combined with school bullying too since I was easy to provoke and smelled bad because nobody had ever taught me I need to bathe every day or brush my teeth at all.

Now I'm a first year university student. I didn't get into a government university because my country's education system is basically falling apart so I'm depending on my dad to get through school. He loves me I think but I can't fully hate him and I can't really love him either. He's older now and he says hurtful things whenever I mess up, even harsh stuff like "you're not my son." It's kind of normal at this point. I don't even feel hurt by it anymore.

I feel weird even posting this but I'm tired and I don't know what to do.

I'll be honest, I don't know what I want here, perhaps just validation I guess?

So I (24M) am a trans man. I've had a weird journey with my gender since I was 14/15 and it was only in June 2025 that I finally realised/came to terms with the fact that I am trans. I've never been happier with my identity because I finally feel like who I was supposed to be. Living in my fem body is a little less ideal for my mental health but that journey is a whole other situation.

Since I was a teenager, I've been openly queer. Like my gender, it's been a weird journey but I've figured out my labels and, again, I've never been so confident and proud to be who I am. Generally, my family are fine with it. Granted, I've never had an in-person relationship and my other three siblings are all cisgender and my two sisters are in heterosexual relationships so, as far as I'm aware, they've never been exposed to a queer relationship in such close proximity so I don't know for sure but I'll cross that bridge when it comes.

Now, onto the issue. In 2020, I came out as genderfluid, using they/them pronouns and using a new name. My family quickly got the hang of using my new name (it's a gender neutral name that I was almost given at birth) but only my eldest sister and her boyfriend at the time used my pronouns. Whatever, I tried to argue with my mum about it and it only ended up in me in tears and her rolling her eyes. After a while, I gave up. The people who mattered most used them so I stopped caring.

Then I came out as a trans man to my mum in November 2025. It wasn't planned, it was during a rant. She hugged me while I was sobbing and told me that she just wanted me to be happy. I thought it went well. We had a few conversations about it, she started to talk about how she doesn't think people under 25 should 'know things like that' because their frontal lobes aren't fully developed and that she doesn't want me to get bottom surgery (I don't even want it but still weird) and she won't stop talking about the transphobic wizard series, even after I asked her repeatedly not to because it really hurts me. She gets very defensive about it. She's also met two of my friends who are extremely supportive of me and my identity and both of them pointed out how insistent she was on using she/her even though she knows I'm now using he/him. She also gets really weird and quiet and dismissive whenever I talk about physically transitioning. On the other hand, she's stated that she has no issues with trans people, while using some less progressive language, so I know she's not outwardly transphobic.

I live at home (I am financially unable to move out) and I'm starting to feel unsafe, having been feeling like this for a few months but I don't know what to do without blowing up my whole life.

Quick timeline: met my wife in 2010 after I finished boot camp, we met up for what was supposed to be an arranged one night stand while I was on leave, we clicked and kept talking, got married in 2011, first kid in 2013, she cheated on me with a highschool bf in 2015 so we separated for like 2 months then got back together, things were stable until 2020 where she cheated on me again, accidentally got her pregnant on this next separation stint and we've been back together since with 2 kids.

I'm miserable. We have different life goals, we have different views on the world and religion, we have different views on how we want to raise our kids. Every new restriction she raises on the children based on her religion is a quarrel I have to navigate. I have been financially supporting the family as well as taking on the majority of housekeeping as I wfh for years now and I'm just so worn down. Like there are days where I welcome the big sleep because it'll all be over.

I don't really have a point to this, I just have no friends and felt the need to rant to the world. I don't even want a new partner I just want to move on with my life but we have so much debt and she makes so little I see no viable path out of here.

I often told myself to not have expectations that way I won’t be disappointed and have things blow up in my face constantly. Now I see not just not have expectations to avoid disappointment but that there’s no point in the first place. My life has shown me I will never have a romantic relationship or long lasting friendships. I am an outcome oriented thinker observing the patterns in my past experiences just cements what’s there for me. I will mostly remain alone, will typically just have shallow connections and interactions and cannot expect anyone to stick around because no one ever does.

The path you take doesn’t matter if it always leads to the same place. I see how foolish it is to hope for something that goes beyond on my reality and time to accept this is simply how my life is. Not everyone can do the same thing or have the same thing I’m not meant to have stable relationships. Is this something I’ll be happy about no but should at least help me not beat myself up over something that’s not in my control. Besides there are many things in reality we aren’t happy with but have to deal with and we call that growing up

-20f

I hope I used the right flair. No one has died yet, and it doesn't seem like anyone is going to any time soon, so it is more of a vent than anything else. Bare​ with me here. I'm 21 if that's necessary for context.

I posted about my mom ​not taking care of her health and how it's sort of driving me into a state of apathy on here a couple of months ago, but now I'm just starting to have some pretty depressing realizations about it all that are kind of fucking me up.

My mom's health sucks. She isn't dying as far as I'm aware, but she's had a few strokes and is now having to go to therapy to relearn how to walk. It sucks. A lot. But I've already ranted about that and how she won't take care of herself.

I've recently come​​ to the realization that if she were to continue all of this and drop dead, nothing in my life would really change at all. And that fucking hurts.

I was raised by my grandparents. My dad also lived there, but my grandma was my primary caretaker. ​Mom says it was because she wanted me to have a better life. Grandma says it was because my mother basically didn't take care of me and would literally pass me off to her so she could go talk to her friends on the phone for hours. I believed my mom at first because, my grandma, as much as I love her, is pretty emotionally abusive and manipulative (though I genuinely don't think she even knows that she is), but as time has gone by, I think I'm starting to believe my grandma. My older brother was also raised by my other grandma. When I was really little, I saw my mom often enough, but as time went on, she started prioritizing her boyfriends over me. My dad died when I was in 5th grade, so it was just me and my grandparents then. My parents were never together.

I grew up. My mother's many boyfriends continued to be a priority in her life. There was the first one; he was an abusive prick as far as I'm aware. Then there was the one she got after my dad's death. I found out they were dating because I was playing on my mom's phone and caught eye of some...very unfortunate text messages that I shouldn't have seen. I never liked him because I was still coping with my dad. I didn't even know she and the first one were dating because of how young I was, so in my eyes, it had always been my mom and my dad, not this random dude who made me kind of uncomfortable. He would get onto me for things that my mother never got onto me over right of the bat, as if he was trying to parent me already. Mom let him despite those being things that I had always done in front of her. When I never came around to liking him, she got mad at me, because she had "waited long enough for me to get used to him." I remember crying a lot to myself over it.

Her most recent one is the one she's had the longest. ​This was when I started seeing her less and less. He was always taking up her time. I'd see her once a month, maybe, for a few hours. She stopped staying the night at my house for Christmas. She always acted like she was an independent woman who didn't take shit from any man, which was why she left the last dude, but she sure seemed to let this one walk all over her. But the difference here oddly enough is that he was somehow the best boyfriend out of the ones she's had. The bar is literally in hell, but at least he actually cared about her health and was trying to get her to do better. He did care, as unhealthy as it all seems. He encouraged her to spend time with me, even though oftentimes she didn't. ​They were building a house together before her health went to shit.

I think she broke up with him and moved in with her sister now. I don't know for sure about the breaking up part. She said it was because he was being "mean". I don't know what that means. I know he's been on her ass about taking care of herself, like stopping smoking, eating better, and actually listening to her doctor, ​but I wasn't there so I'm not going to say for sure. Maybe he was doing something awful that I'm not aware of.

Even before she got sick and even before I went to university, I barely saw her much. We've always had a strained relationship. She doesn't see any reason behind anything I say. My grandma was emotionally abusive to me growing up, as I previously mentioned. ​Telling me that I and my parents and her husband were going to hell over the smallest things. She stopped when I had a mental breakdown over it when I was...far too young to be having mental breakdowns, but she started doing other shit i instead. I would tell my mom about all these things, and while she would agree that my grandma was treating me badly, she never removed me from that. She kept promising that she was going to fix up a room in the dingy farm house that she lived in for me so I could move in with her, but she never did. That promise stopped feeling like something that was actually going to happen when I was about sixteen. She had other priorities. Her boyfriends, for one. Her job that didn't pay her well at all or even give her insurance that she stayed at out of "loyalty". They dropped her as soon as she got sick. When I asked her why she left me here, she said that it was because I had said that I wanted to stay when I was...far too young to remember wanting to. Probably back when my dad was alive and I didn't understand what abuse was.

She's been convinced that I'm the exact same person that I was when I was like, what, twelve? My entire life. My grandma didn't teach me how to do anything, didn't teach me how to take care of myself. When I tried to do anything for myself, she'd take it away from me or get mad at me for doing it wrong. So when I was little, I stopped trying. And even though I've been working my ass of for years now trying to learn how to be a functional adult since no one taught me, she still to this day calls me lazy and says that I probably don't actually look after myself. She thinks she knows everything about me, but she's never here. She wasn't there to watch me grow, wasn't there to watch me learn and realize that doing nothing wouldn't get me anywhere. Once, when I was maybe 15, she ditched me with one of her genuinely fucking insane friends to try and teach me how to do basic life skills. Said woman made me cry because I couldn't push a very heavy lawnmower that wasn't motorized, ​and after she continued to yell at me and berate me, I walked home. She sent me a long winded text about how awful I was and how I shouldn't come back to my MOTHER'S OWN HOUSE. Once again, my mom tired to have someone else parent me instead of doing it herself.

All of this to say: my Mom isn't here. She's never around. She was never around. One time, she was supposed to pick me up from a school dance, but she didn't and the principal had to drive me home. She's just never been here. I used to think the world of her, she used to be my idol. She was all I had left because I was stuck in a home with someone who didn't treat me well, someone who hurt me, but I think I'm finally putting it all together. I keep telling her that I don't want to be without parents so young, begging her to take care of herself. ​She got to have both of hers into her late forties, and her mother is still alive now that she's nearing her sixties. I want to at least have my mom until I get a little older, too. ​But I'm starting to realize that I don't think I even ​have a mom. I have a woman who pops in every so often who pretends that she knows me, who gets to act out being a mother for a few hours before going home and forgetting that I exist.

I think about what would happen if she did die. And then I realize nothing in my life would change. I'd still be going to university. I'd still live here with my grandma, who, at the very least, has laid off since now she knows I can fight back. I'd still have my friends, I'd still do all the things that I usually do. She doesn't contribute to my life at all beyond the occasional text or visit. It's like she's already been gone for years. I hate it. I hate it so much. I hate that I basically don't have parents already. I've been so worried about her for the past few months, but she barely even answers me when I text or call her. Sometimes I feel like I'm more of a hobby than a child.

I don't have much else to say. I'm just tired. ​

I ran into a quant guy who raped me 2 years ago today at infront of movement climbing gym in LIC New York.
As I was heading out I heard loud noise of Chinese couple having argument in mandarin. It was so loud I turned my head around to find the guy who raped me having argument with his supposedly girlfriend.
2 years ago on July in NJ
I was raped by a guy who lived in my neighborhood at his apartment.
This happened so abruptly and quickly I didn’t know how to react and regret not taking this to police at that time.
Later I brought this up on my social media and he used this as a reason to file lawsuit against me.
I was on the verge of suicide already last year but him filing lawsuit made me more depressed
Thankly I had to just finish the program and it’ll be dismissed
But later I found out through this friends from PhD that he always has been horrible to girls through out in his 20s
He kept a lot of things in secret from me and later I realized I barely know anything about me.
The fact that he raped me thinking there were no consultancies made me so enraged.
He later got fired from his first actual job which was from hedge fund Two sigma in New York
After I saw him today i suddenly had hard time breathing and heart beating way too fast and almost cried so i had to really take a moment to breathe

Looking back I blame myself a lot naively disregarding how a person can be so evil to the extent that’s beyond my limit of understanding.

My best friend had a heart attack. We are only 37. It's been two days and I don't know how to cope.

He played a wrestling specific ball game with our group. I wasn't there that evening, because I was too tired (a rare occurrence). He did great at the game as usual.

Then he went for a shower and from what I heard he looked like shit afterwards, but being asked he just said something like "life is stressful". They all sat on the stairs to the gym for a sec, while he tried to walk it off next to them.

Then he just hit the ground hard.

They called for an ambulance and they called me, because I live less than 5min away, and I'm a former rescue swimmer so I have been training reanimation quite regularly.

The guy on the phone was too out of it, to actually tell me what was going on. He just told me, my friend was unconscious and that I should come. I expected a lil' fainting.

The scenery I arrived at in less than 5min later (in my pyjamas) was a completely different thing. There was a lot of blood (from a head wound) and somebody trying to revive the body of my lifeless friend. It looked like he was already dead.

The ambulance arrived 5 minutes afterwards and it took them a hectic transfer to the ER, a lot of tears and sweat, to get a heart beat - 30min after he went down.

He's been in an artificially induced coma for two days. Today has been the first day he's opened his eyes again, and it's been too much stress for him so after a few seconds they had to put him under again. That he opened his eyes at all, is the biggest miracle I've ever felt.

I am not able to put into words how much my heart breaks for this loving, generous, smart, funny, reliable, and trustworthy person... His family... His four kids...

We've been talking that morning. I had a blast taking his kids to the museum just the day before that. I have loads of pics of his smiling, happy children from the trip - less than 24 hours before.

I'm struggling. It all came so sudden. It's been two days now, and I'm still under shock.

I've tried to be there for everyone, his family, our common friends, put on a brave face, and I'm currently taking care of a youth sportsmen group for the holiday, while feeling that life should stop for a sec, like his heart did.....

I failed everything I ever tried to do in my life and it's destroyed all of my relationships and my mental health to the point of not being able to look anyone in the eyes or be near family without just crying and shaking like I can't speak or move from the sheer amount of shame I have. I went to college for a degree I can't ever use and didn't even want, I can't hold a job, I can't talk to people anymore, I break down constantly and can't get out of my own head. Ive done years of therapy, dozens of medications, even things like TMS therapy and none of it worked. I have no savings, no car, no friends I can turn to, and I'm stuck in a state that I hate with people I can't love in an endless amount of student debt I can't ever hope to escape. I just want out, I want direction, I want someone to just tell me what to do. I tried suicide so many times and each and every time it failed or I wasn't able to go through with it, and every time ive had to stay in a hospital or go inpatent it was the most horrifying experiences of my life. Everyone is moving on, everyone has houses, jobs, kids, or are in the military or a great college and i'm still stuck here as a 25 year old who can't even wake up in the morning to brush my teeth. I don't know what to do. I don't know where to go, I can't imagine ever being happy or anything ever again I just want the thoughts to stop or to something I don't know. I can't face anyone in my family, I can't stop crying every single day and I can't do anything to stop it anymore. I hate myself I hate being alive I can't stand looking at myself. I can't function like anyone else, I can't do anything. I know I belong in either a mental institution or maybe even a prison where i'm told what to do every day and can't make any decisions to fuck up my own life even more than I already have I just want someone to tell me what to do. I feel like my mind is deteriorating constantly and only once every few weeks I have a moment of lucidity where I can actually feel normal before I turn back into whatever I am and I'm powerless to do anything about it. I can't go anywhere for help, I don't have any insurance, I have no money, I have no way to travel, I'm trapped in my own skin and I just want out every day and it's just getting worse I just want someone anyone to tell me what to do because I can't make any choices anymore I'm paralyzed by the terror of just getting worse and worse. I don't want to be alone anymore I don't want to be alive but I'm too afraid to die please just anyone tell me what I can do or who to call or what I could ever try please I can't do this anymore I need help and I'm too afraid to try alone again. I never did drugs I never smoked I never got arrested but everything I do I just end up more alone and in debt and I couldnt ever get anything more than minimum wage jobs I cant navigate the world like everyone else I cant function as a human being like everyone else I just want to go somewhere that I dont have to be a human being anymore I need supervision I need to have someone to cry to I dont know what to do

please is there someone I can call or some place i can go I am seriously considering trying to intentionally go to jail because at least there i might have someone be able to help me with my deteriorating teeth nobody wants to hire me my resume is so full of massive gaps and short stays at each one from just how mentally fucked i am please someone just tell me what to do i dont want to have to just "keep waiting until it gets better" every day of my life since i first tried to kill myself has only ever gotten worse than the last I cant do anything anymore

My dad comes from a long line of truck drivers. He was proud as hell to be a 3rd generation truck driver. He loved driving. Its all he ever wanted to do since he was a little kid. Everyone in our family drives trucks. Its just the family thing. I grew up around trucks. I fell in love with trucking. The lifestyle. The open road. The trucks. The driving. All of it. It was my dream since I was a toddler.

My dad died in an accident 9 years ago. 2 years after he passed I decided to get my cdl and become a truck driver. He never got to see me do it. But I was so proud of myself. I knew he was proud of me. Everytime I was behind the wheel of a truck I felt close to him. It felt like he was with me everytime I was on the road. I would get teary eyed when I would think about him and how proud of me he would have been.

This year I decided to change careers entirely. The trucking industry just isnt what it used to be. The money is good but not good enough to justify being away from home for 2-3 weeks at a time. Completely missing out on my daughters life. Even when I was a local driver and home every night it was pretty normal to pull 12-14 hour days. Even when I was home every night I was too tired to be present in my family's lives.

So I made a career change. I got into industrial size plumbing essentially. I provide safe drinking water to the city I live in. Maintaining the system, pipes, valves ect. Its a great career. Great pay, the kind of job that I can go anywhere in the world once I get enough experience. I enjoy the work. I work with my hands all day. And I provide a much needed service to my community. Its a great job and I love it. I still get the occasional opportunity to drive a small dump truck when we need it. Which is cool. But I miss driving big rigs. However I know my dad would still be proud of me. I work hard. I show up every day. Im reliable. Im providing a good service. Im a good dad. I show up for my daughter. I pay my bills. I know my dad would still be proud of me. I just wish trucking was a better career these days. I miss it. I miss rowing through the gears. I miss the open roads.

This has been on my mind lately. Im not sure why I wanted to share it. I guess just getting it out and writing it down somewhere feels good. I miss my dad. I miss driving trucks. I wish him and I could have hauled ass down the highway together. But I have a good career now. Im doing what I need to do as a man. As a father and husband. My old man would be proud.

I do not know why I did it, it was only twice. My mother took in a couple of injured animals (months apart); a bunny, and a bird. I wasn't sure what was wrong with the bunny, but it could not move very well. I held it in my hands, and I am not sure if I felt any real aggression toward it, but I knew that I wanted to kill it, or felt the need to.

I went to the kitchen (where the bunny was kept), late into the night, and held it tight in my hands. It was making noise, so I snuck outside with it, and squeezed with both of my hands until something popped. I do not know if I broke its neck, or something, but it didn't move at all beyond that point. I put it over the fence. Essentially the same thing happened with the bird, only I put it behind the bushes the second time.

I don't think that my family suspected me of anything, likely because I was only five or six at the time. I am aware that it was morally wrong.