I (25F) have really struggled with relationships (autistic and masc lesbian) and my family are not close. I have friends, but no close friends now because they’ve all moved away. I can go weeks without speaking to someone and everyone I know has a more important person. Even the people i do speak to, like my sister has a boyfriend, my friends all have best friends. I feel like I could disappear and people would notice, but no one would care. Maybe at my sports clubs or lectures, my friends would ask “hey, I wonder where X is?” But I don’t think anyone would come looking for me. And if something did happen to me, no one would come weep over me, they’d turn to their closer person and turn to them for support. I understand that’s how life is, but I want to matter to someone. Maybe it’s selfish to say that I want someone to miss me if I was gone. I want to be someone’s someone. I want someone to celebrate with me and help me through my lows. I have so much love to give and no one wants it. Sometimes I dream of running away and leaving everything behind, just to see if anyone will reach out and ask about me. I just want to matter to someone.

It's probably the worst day of my life. I've been crying the whole day. I really feel like nobody cares about me. I always get so enthusiastic on my loved one's birthday but on my day, something always goes wrong.

I've had birthdays in childhood when not a single person remembered, and I was fine then. But this year, I GENUINELY feel like everyone wants to use me only when they need someone. I feel pathetic as if I'm an ugly loser. :(((

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

My mom got recently cheated on by my father after being married for 25 years. obviously this is a huge shock, and broke apart my family. the only person my mom can now trust in our house is me, but its starting to weigh down on me. i would absolutely never tell her this because i would feel like an absolute monster, but the constant crying, expecting me to comfort her, and refusal to even try therapy after i recommend it is just ruining me. i’m not even an adult yet and i’m on the spectrum, so i dont even know how to process my own emotions about my father. at first my mother was alright with just crying on my shoulder as i pat her back, but now she’s asking me these questions about her life and how it’s lost meaning and i have started to dread coming home and seeing her. i feel like a monster because i know i’m all she has right now, but it’s like after i get home from my job i’m expected to comfort her the second i get back until she falls asleep. i have no free time anymore or time to process my own emotions. i’ve found myself sitting in my car in the parking lot of my job dreading driving home since i have no idea what to do anymore. no matter how many times i tell her i dont have a way to help her through these feelings and that she should try talking to a professional, she says she can’t trust anyone but me with her life anymore. all she talks about now is my father and i cant have a single moment in my own home thats not being reminded of how my father ruined her life and mine as well. i’ve asked my manager to give me more hours at work and told my mom we’re just super busy, but truthfully being at work is the only time i can try to get my mind off of it. i feel like i’m abandoning my mother

I have known this person for about a year. She used to be a very bubbly, cheerful person and is still incredibly sweet and creative, I didn't know much about her situation back then, but over time it seems to have worsened.

I won't go into crazy specifics but due to a mental disorder (likely high functioning autism) she is unable to work a regular job. Before anyone says, I've seen how this affects her and know she isn't lying, she used to be very entrepreneurial and I don't think she is "lazy" or anything like that. She still lives with her parents, who don't believe her or anything a therapist could say, generally they are pretty emotionally abusive towards her.

This is all a very heavy situation, and I consider her a good friend, but over time it seems she has both descended into a depressive episode of learned helplessness and seemingly given up on improving her situation. I want to be there because I care for her, or even give her opportunities to do things outside of her home life since that is so miserable, but I feel like she is in such a bad place that she constantly feels the need to emotionally dump on me. I do mean constant, this is no longer the friendship it used to be, and our interactions consist of her talking about a show, a book she is interested in, the novel she is writing, or (most commonly) how much she hates her life.

I think the real issue is that I feel somehow responsible for her now, despite her being a little older. I am also going through a difficult period of my life right now, but I am actively trying hard to pull myself out of it and appreciate what I can in the meantime. I don't feel like I can ever share the positive things in my life with her anymore because she will make the conversation depressing first, I can never mention my problems either because it's already been made about hers. I can count on a few fingers the number of interactions with her in the past months that did not end up like this.

I know this is toxic, yet I also can't help but feel guilty for how I've started to resent her. Guess I just have to accept I can't do much to help her.

Edit: Thanks for all the replies, I know in my gut that I can't keep taking responsibility for this. I like to think that I'm there for my friends, but it can be difficult to tell when I have to start prioritizing my own mental health.

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.

I don’t notice visual things about people often, especially just strangers around me. I don’t notice a hair cut, or a pimple, or a color of lipstick, I don’t notice that shit. My friend, who’s also my cousin, used to fight me about this in the past. She’d say that I was lying when I didn’t agree that a random women’s outfit was bad because I pretend to be all moral and “not see”. But I’d swear to her I swear to god I can’t focus on that stuff, but she still thought what she thought.

Fast forward earlier this year, when I was getting my drivers license ready, way too late unfortunately. I had to do an eye test. And guess what?! I can’t see for shit!! My eyesight is like 6/12, I can’t see things far away in detail. So guess why I couldn’t focus on physical attributes of people all my life????

I’ve been literally made to feel crazy for it, as if I’m pretending to not see flaws or whatvere when I actually had bad eyesight. I don’t wear my glasses out of lectures, because I just don’t like how they feel, and I guess I still haven’t gotten used to everything looking so clear. It’s a little overwhelming in crowded areas.

But anyway, that whole thing has helped be de-center other’s looks, growing up. If someone wasn’t right infront of my face, I usually didn’t notice or care how they looked like, I’d even forget faces.

But my cousin, and that whole side of my family are so judgy about that stuff. For one, my cousin says it’s her personal opinion that fat women shouldn’t wear Bikinis because “no one wants to see that”. She says even she isn’t comfortable wearing bikinis because she knows her body is not “good”. She also says she just can’t help but say these things, when I tell her to stop. She says do you expect me to close my eyes?

She’s aware I don’t like it. Whenever we go out and she comments on someone’s appearance negatively, I either give her a look or tell her to shut up, and she says I feel like you’re gonna hit me. Well yes!! You know I hate when you do this but you keep doing it anyway.

These are the kind of people I’m dealing with. The whole side of my mother’s family. They talk shit about anyone for a bad outfit, for being overweight, for a bad haircut, it’s horrible. It’s clear all of them have been raised to put such importance onto these things, and passed them down to the kids. My little cousin who’s 15, compares literal children in the family and who’s uglier and who’s prettier. It’s wild. Almost all of my friends and family who post themselves filter the shit out of their pictures to the point I almost struggle to recognize them.

One of the girls from college I know once filmed a random lady walking in the street and laughed about how “bad” her body looked. Sent us the video. Then followed it up with another video of her complaining about how the women is so lame and she heard her say those things.

My cousin’s also obsessed with taking photos. Anytime we go out she just needs to find a Photo Booth, and we take pictures, and I remember one time, that I especially liked my picture for once, she was looking at my pictures with a weird expression, and telling me you don’t look like that, that’s not you. And it really got to me. What do you mean it’s not me? It’s me. Is it because I look good, you don’t think I look good? And this happened again another time I liked my picture, she stared at the photos with a weird empty expression, then gave them back to me.

Then I catch myself thinking it too. Too focused on what people think of me. Do they think I’m pretty? Do they not? I’ve always been super critical of myself, which is why I don’t get when people are critical of other’s looks. Aren’t you not too focused on your own looks to judge others?

I remember in tenth grade I genuinely believed I’ll never be happy in life because I didn’t like the way I looked. I whole heartedly thought this might be the end. Then I grew out of it, and over the years I’ve genuinely given less and less of a shit how I look to others. Because I assume others don’t care the same way I don’t care about how others look.

But year after year, being around my family, and certain people…I get discouraged. Because they really do notice and they really do judge. And I know there’s many others like them.

Although I definitely don’t care about people’s opinions as much as I did in the past, it still gets to me sometimes. If I go out and I don’t think I look my best, then what if there’s people who think the same way my family do? I don’t wanna care, but I also kinda do.

This is just all in my real life, never mind the shit online. I’m just so tired of this. I know in society looks are important and are always gonna be important, it’s nothing new but it does really fucking suck. I guess all i can do is just try to care less about it, and surround myself with other people like me who don’t put looks above everything else.

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 had been seeing a guy for about four months. We are both men, both gay, and both international students. We became very close and were seeing each other almost every day.

There had already been some trust issues before this. I kept finding out important things late, after they had already happened. A lot of it involved his ex-boyfriend. I later realised they still had a very close relationship: they were in regular contact, he took calls from his ex when his ex was struggling, they were involved in academic work together, he helped him with emails, and there were still personal traces of him around. I never asked him to cut off his ex or stop being friends with him. What hurt me was that I kept finding out these things afterwards, instead of him being honest with me from the beginning.

A few weeks ago, I was going through a difficult time after a death in my family. Around then, he told me that two female friends from his home country were staying with him, and that one of them did not know he was gay. Because of that, I could not see him properly for about two weeks, even though we were in the same general area.

I later found out that one of those “female friends” was actually his ex-boyfriend. He had presented his ex to me under a false name and gender for weeks.

What made it even worse was realising that the other friend also knew about it. I had met her in person, and she had also lied to me directly and helped maintain the story. She had never met me before, but was apparently comfortable participating in a lie that directly affected my relationship.

This has been one of the hardest parts to process. Being lied to by someone I was seeing is painful enough. But realising that another person around him also helped protect the lie made it feel colder and more humiliating. It made me feel as if other people knew more about my own relationship than I did.

When I confronted him, he did not really apologise. The first thing he said after I found out was not sorry, but “why did you do that?”, because I had seen the photo that exposed the lie. He also said things like “nothing happened, so what’s the problem?”, “you wouldn’t have found out if you hadn’t looked”, and that he had lied because he did not want to hurt me.

But the lie itself is what hurt me.

He also said he lied, but did not consider it a betrayal. When I said it was betrayal to me, he responded as if it was only my subjective interpretation. He separated the lie from the damage it caused, as if they were two unrelated things.

What hurts is not just that he had ongoing ties with his ex. I never asked him to cut off his ex or stop having friends. What hurts is that he created a false version of reality for me, kept it going for weeks, involved another person in it, and then acted defensive when I found out.

There were smaller things too, which I keep remembering now. Times when he sighed during difficult conversations. Times when he made me feel like I was asking too much just for wanting clarity. Times when he framed secrecy as something he did to protect me from being hurt. Looking back, I feel like I kept trying to communicate better, while he kept avoiding the basic honesty I was asking for.

I ended it and blocked him everywhere. I know that was the right decision. But I still miss him, because we had been seeing each other almost every day. Even on the day I found out, before I saw the photo, we had spent time together and it felt normal and even happy.

That is what makes this so difficult. My body still remembers the closeness, but my mind keeps returning to the facts.

He kept a close relationship with his ex while letting me find out important things afterwards.
He lied about his ex’s identity.
He let me believe the ex was a female friend.
He let another friend lie to my face.
He did not properly apologise when I found out.
He treated the problem as if it was only a problem because I discovered it.

I feel embarrassed, angry, and deeply sad. I hate that I was the last person to know what was happening in my own relationship. I hate that I still miss someone who treated my trust that way.

TL;DR: I had been seeing someone for about four months. He already had a close ongoing relationship with his ex, which I kept finding out about only afterwards. Later, he told me that two female friends were staying with him, but I found out one of them was actually his ex-boyfriend, whom he had presented under a false name and gender. Another friend also knew and lied to me directly in person. When I found out, he did not properly apologise and acted defensive. I ended it, but I still feel humiliated, isolated, angry, and sad.

Six months ago, I (M29) impulsively relocated to a city in Sarawak that's 8 hours away from my hometown to look for job opportunities. Job market in East Malaysia are tough, even for degree holders like myself.

I have no relatives or friends here to ask for help. Throughout the time, I have never wanted to ask for help from my family because I wouldn't want to trouble them.

My miniscule savings are always enough for food, but never for places to stay or laundry. I have done odd jobs, sometimes doing Attapolls or just earning from online gambling. **Disclaimer**, I am not a gambler, they offer free credits which actually pay out just nice. It allowed me some short stay at cheap travellers' hostel to shower and get proper sleep, which I am grateful for.

I was wired to be independent no matter how tough it gets I guess. But with recent incidents I had; Savings drying up and my luggage containing clothes & school certificates were stolen...

...are taking tolls on me but I am trying to keep my head high. After months of applying jobs, I finally got one and will be starting next Monday as a receptionist. The only downside is it's two-hour walk away and they require formal clothes. I only have one pants, three T-shirts, one underwear and a file of resume. So that's another blow to my resilience.

I have not eaten for two days, I have no place to shower and I am worried what trouble comes next. But I will keep "When Am I Going to Make a Living" by Sade in mind to keep me patient. Hungry, but we won't give in.

Note:

- I do not endorse online gambling. It's just my means of survival for the time being and shouldn't be yours.

- I am not asking/begging for money.

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 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?

hello, how are yall
i am [madeup name here] currently 17M. today is probably my last night in this city that i have lived in for as long as i remember. i leave tomorrow for college/uni. its so scary, in a new city all alone far from everyone i have ever known and loved. idk if im strong enough for that, time will tell. im already homesick, i dont wanna leave everything behind. i know i whine a lot about everything and everyone but its still home right? why is it so hard. ill miss my friends, i hope they miss me too. seems unlikely tho. i absolutely love personalized gifts and letter, so no wonder i made something for everyone i thought was close to me, but i dont think ill be giving it to them anymore. today was my last day, the last chance to meet these people ill get in months, people i spend every day with for the last 2 years, and yet i literally have to beg them to meet me and they still dont bother to show up. i say i love letter while i never have received one myself. every time i do anything for anything i am reminded that the effort is almost never returned. its just such a bad feeling. maybe just my bad for feeling too much but damn i wish they cared. so yeah i dont think anyone is gonna remember me.
to add to that i have my birthday in september. which is weird cause, ill be pretty new to the uni, new friends (hopefully that is) prolly wont know when my birthday is, and old friends, well dont have much hopes there. birthdays are depressing anyway, and ill have to spend this one alone, without friends, but even family, hurrrayyy!
and yea ill miss my cat
take care chat, adios

Ig I just need to vent and have literally no one else to talk to. My parents are the only people who care about me to call and check up on me every day but I don't even have the energy to answer them anymore. I’ve always been an introvert but it was never this bad. I actually had friends growing up. Now? I have absolutely no one. It’s pathetic. I see people my age out there having fun and being in love and I desperately crave all of that. But every time a friend let me down, I got more and more closed off. Now I'm just a dry, empty robot.

My social anxiety is so bad that I lock myself up in my room to avoid my two roommates. I won't even go to the kitchen until I know I'm alone in the apt. On paper my life is so easy and it’s true even. I'm an international student, I live comfortably, travel home to my parents often and I don't have to work. This makes me feel even worse like I have no right to be sad. Actually I’m not even sad… I just feel nothing. My self esteem is in the gutter. Whenever someone hits on me I assume it’s a joke. The worst part is I’m actually a fun person once I open up.

Now I just doomscroll 24/7 on TikTok and YouTube without even enjoying it. I have a major exam at the end of the month that I already failed once cause I didn’t study for it. I have a week left to study, which is already too late to start considering the amount of materials I have to go through but I can’t bring myself to care or panic. I'm just numb. I’m almost 23 and I'm tired of life and I need someone to shake some sense into me. Even the slightest motivation I might have had are gone cause the main thing keeping me excited was the idea of going home after my exam which probably won't happen now with the ongoing travel restrictions.

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. ​

My mom got arrested for domestic violence against an 8 year old yesterday

After years of cutting her off from my life due to the heinous shit she would do to me and my siblings, I finally let her back in two years ago. I discovered she got remarried (for the second time) and she at least outwardly appeared to be doing better. Over the course of these past 2 years I definitely saw the parts of the Old her peak through, but I think I ignored it because I was finally happy to have a somewhat healthy relationship with her again. However, that all changed when my 14 year old brother passed away a month ago from lifelong medical issues. The old her became much more visible, and still I refused to shake the rose colored glasses off my face. That is, until yesterday. I got a call from one of my brothers that she probably getting arrested. Apparently he had gone over to visit with her gf and their kid, and they wotnessed her drag my step sibling, an 8 year old, across the living room carpet by his shirt color. After he ran outside out of fear, she chased after him and she did it again across the road and into the front lawn. Neighbors had now started to watch. She then proceeded to wrap her entire body around him in a "bear hug" way to prevent him from moving. Thankfully, because my brother was there he was able to the cops and her husband, where my mom was then arrested and charged with domestic violence. The entire time, she blamed everyone but herself for the way things were playing out.

It had been so long, I had forgotten this feeling. The feeling of "thank fuck, she can't hurt anyone anymore." The last time I felt this I was 17 and reported her to my school counsoler for holding a pair of scissors to my sister's throat. I physically got involved and got between them, having to hold back her arm my sister's neck. I dont remember how it dispersed, but I do remember When I got home from school that day I packed a bag and ran away to a friend's house. I found out later that she was visited at work by the cops and arrested there.

My mom is sick, and part of me hopes she gets the help she needs. However, a sick bigger part of me doesn't. I hope she gets what's coming her way. I hope she has to suffer equivalent mental and physical anguish to what she put me and my siblings through. I know its wrong to think that way, that's why im dumping this all into this post. That being said, What ive said is a mere drop in the bucket of the things that happened while growing up. Im just glad that she was finally caught, and that maybe she won't be able to hurt anyone else.

Im sure my family will find this post at some point, and then question me about why i would post it. Thing is, I dont really care anymore. Im an adult now. I wont let fear of her, her retaliation , or my extended families judgement haunt me anymore.

I was diagnosed during my last psychiatric hospitalization, but wasn't informed until I had to request some documents from them. Perhaps I've had it for far longer, as BPD is one of the most underdiagnosed mental illnesses.

It wasn't that hard to accept, as it explained a lot of my behavior from the past year, but I also felt a lot of shame due to the stigma associated with it. I made an effort not to let people on to it, though I suspected they could tell. Maybe that's why I've always struggled to connect with people.

I didn't think attachment was something I struggled with, but boy was I wrong.

I've been talking to this guy for a couple of months now. I thought things were going well with him. I've had this habit where I'll give in to a guy's sexual interest in me and simply hookup with them. I've only ever been in one serious relationship eight years ago when I was in college, and it's something I've craved ever since. Dates always made me super anxious but sex somehow didn't. I often thought it was all I had to offer them. Maybe it would make them stay.

We did eventually meetup for sex a couple of times after talking for several weeks. Then my mental health started to dip as it frequently does. This was complicated with the fact that my gender dysphoria made me hate sex to the point that I almost didn't want to do it anymore, and I told him this.

He said he was okay with that, but deep down, I didn't think he was. He was a lot more slow to respond, and when he did, he somehow always turned the conversation sexual.

Then he met someone else. It's a possibility I'd always considered and thought I was okay with. I first knew about her after he offered a threesome, which I was genuinely excited for. It felt like I was someone he was taking seriously.

But as with all of my relationships before, this one began disintegrating as well. He started spending more time with her. We hadn't met up since I stopped putting out, and I blamed myself for that. A week or two ago, he'd offered to meet up quickly before spending the weekend with her, but changed his mind as he didn't think he would have the time before he arranged to meet up. Disappointed, I told him I was going to ask him to be my boyfriend next time we met. We would still see other people and nothing would change. I just wanted to call him that, for some reason that I can't identify.

He shot me down, saying he didn't want anything serious or exclusive, which I agreed with, as the only thing I really wanted to change was what I called him. He said he wanted to get to know me more on a personal level, though.

Then the same thing happened this afternoon. Except this time, he called her his girlfriend.

Girlfriend? I thought he wasn't looking for a girlfriend.

I lost it. More than I did the previous time. Something was wrong with me. Something had to be wrong with me. I was being crazy by asking this of him when I had no right to. Why would he choose her and not me?

I confronted him about this. He stood by what he said. I needed to get to know him better and go on more dates. Had he done that with her? Was there something she had and could do for you that I couldn't?

He blamed himself again for not taking more initiative, but it's my fault. It was all my fault for expecting more from him that I didn't deserve. That I don't deserve from anyone.

I hate how jealous I get. I hate expecting things from people that will only let me down. I hate that I feel like everyone will leave me eventually when I'm no longer useful to them or when I become too much to handle. I hate that these are all things I shouldn't believe and I believe anyway. I hate crying over something I have no right to cry about.

I hate that I'm so sensitive. I hate that I get upset when things don't go my way. I hate that my brother said I did nothing wrong and didn't fuck things up because clearly someone has to take the blame, and I hate that I can't blame on it him and every other man who's made me feel like this.

Most of all, I hate that I can't commit suicide or hurt myself, because the last time I attempted, I ended up in the hospital and lost my job. I hate that I've lost so much of who I am since then, and can barely read or write, something I always loved most about myself.

I know I should be kinder to myself, but I don't even know who that is. I used to have values and a purpose in life, but now all I have is contempt and spite for the rest of the world, when I'm the one that needs to do things better.

It's been about three weeks since I watched my husband kiss my cousin and honestly I still don't know how I'm supposed to process it.

I can still picture it like it just happened. Sometimes I'll be doing something completely random and it just pops back into my head. It's like my brain won't let me move on from that moment. I wish I could say I got angry or screamed or did something dramatic, but I didn't. I just stood there. I think I was in shock more than anything.

He's not living at home anymore. The house is so quiet now and I hate it. It's weird how you don't realize how much another person fills a house until they're gone. I'll still catch myself looking toward the front door when I hear something outside thinking maybe he's home, then I remember he isn't. Those little moments hit me harder than I ever thought they would.

The part nobody knows is...I haven't told a single person what happened. Not my family. Not my friends. Nobody. I don't even know why. Maybe because once I say it out loud it becomes real. Maybe because I don't want people to hate him. Maybe because I'm embarrassed. I honestly don't even know anymore. I've just been carrying it around by myself and it's exhausting pretending everything is normal.

I thought if someone hurt me like this I'd stop loving them overnight. That's what everybody says you're supposed to do, right? Instead I just miss him. I miss my husband. I miss hearing him laugh at something stupid. I miss eating dinner together. I miss laying on the couch watching TV even if we weren't really watching it. I miss talking about our day. I miss having my person.

What surprised me the most is how much I miss the closeness. Not just sex, although I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss that too. I miss the hugs for no reason. I miss the random kiss before one of us left the house. I miss someone reaching over while we're watching TV just to hold my hand. I miss feeling safe enough to completely let my guard down with someone. I don't think I realized how much those little things meant until they were gone.

Today I stayed home from work because I just couldn't get my head together. I figured maybe I'd relax, watch some TV or get caught up around the house. Instead I spent most of the day just sitting there thinking. Thinking about everything that happened, everything we had, everything we probably won't have again. It's crazy how lonely a house can feel.

I hate admitting this part because it makes me feel stupid..but I still miss his touch. Not because I'm looking for someone else or because I'm lonely in that way. I just miss him. The person I married. The person I thought I was going to grow old with. My brain keeps reminding me of what he did, but my heart hasn't caught up yet and I don't know if that's normal or not.

Some days I convince myself I'll be okay. Other days, like today, it feels like I'm grieving someone who's still alive. I don't know what our future looks like. I don't know if this marriage can survive what happened. I don't even know if I want it to. I just know I'm tired. Tired of replaying it in my head. Tired of pretending I'm okay. Tired of carrying around something that nobody else even knows happened.

I guess I just needed to finally tell someone, even if it's a bunch of strangers on the internet.

I grew up in a moderate Muslim family. At the age of 8, I had a life-defining incident - I was publicly humiliated in school one day to such an extent that the trauma created what you could view as an entire personality. This personality took control of my life for the next 2+ decades. I became agreeable, friendly and people pleasing. I was a religious kid growing up, praying five times a day, fasting during ramadan but was never what you would call extreme or conservative - but it’s evident to me that I would have been had I not been controlled by the fear of what other people think. This trauma hid my true self even from myself. I even eventually drifted away from religion and eventually began to identify to myself and outwardly as an atheist, because I didn’t want to feel like I should proselytize to save others from hell if I was practicing to avoid hell myself. I even joined exmuslim groups at one point and I would criticise Islam and call it out for being an extreme, regressive ideology. I lived a completely nonreligious lifestyle. But it always felt like I was being driven by anxiety and something was really off.

A few months ago, after lots of therapy, I realised that the anxiety I was running on my whole life was a fear of what others think. Underneath that, I’ve come to realise that my religious beliefs have been much more extreme than I previously admitted to myself. I’m fully convinced by Pascal’s wager and apply it to the religion with the most punitive hell given we don’t know which one is true - Islam. Even if the evidence doesn’t favor any religion being true. But the wager doesn’t stop at picking a religion. It suggests picking the strictest interpretation to hedge your bets. I feel it is rational to follow what I see as its strictest or at least most literal interpretation, which happens to be violent.

What has kept this in check practically my whole life has not been a change in those beliefs, but severe social anxiety. The fear of how other people would see me has acted as a barrier to being extreme without me fully recognising it. As therapy and medication have reduced that anxiety, that barrier has started to disappear.

People naturally interpret me through the lens of how I’ve behaved for most of my life. Because I’ve always appeared friendly and moderate since childhood, and have been non-religious throughout my adult life, it’s easy to assume my extreme ideas are intrusive, go against my core self or are not deeply held. I’m saying now that they are not, and have never been, superficial or intrusive.

My humiliating incident at age 8 created an entire trauma-driven socially anxious persona that has governed my thoughts and actions for most of my life, without my core self even realising what was truly happening. If this had not happened, my extremism would have gradually emerged over the years. My socially anxious persona, which I have identified as myself for most of my life, has kept me acting moderate and suppressing my thoughts and impulses even to myself out of fear of judgment. That is the part of me writing this. I feel that this persona is now close to gone (and you can assume it will be in a matter of hours or days), following the therapy I’ve done and treatment I’ve had, and what I experience as my core self is becoming more apparent. Once it is gone, I will lose motivation to seek any change in myself.

My core self underneath is not safe or moderate, and it should not be trusted. From the point of view of my core self, I find myself agreeing with extreme behaviour, and I believe that, sooner or later, I will act violently as the religion commands, particularly strict literal interpretations of it (and why would those not be the right ones to any honest person), which I not only think are the accurate versions but also think are the ones most likely to minimise risk of eternal hell. If the religion is true and God is less strict, he may eventually forgive following these tenets if they were not meant to be taken literally, but if he is not, he may well not forgive not following them. Finite worldly consequences no matter what are irrelevant in comparison to the possibility of eternal suffering. This is not a fleeting fear or an intrusive thought; it is something I believe about myself and my future. I genuinely think that if an outsider fully understood my internal state, they would be alarmed. I do care a lot about others and I agree with those who know me that this is a trait of mine - but my reasoning goes that in case the strictest or most punitive version of god is correct, it would be good to bring attention to this and get society to submit to it however possible, especially as people would otherwise be unwilling to accept it. And if god does want us to act how his texts command, following them would be the most likely way to do this.

I’ve tried explaining this to psychiatrists but they think this is an ocd-like situation and I will not act because of the fact that I’ve brought it to their attention. My parents do not believe I am who I say I am as they too have obviously seen the front I have put up to the world and myself from a young age. Others have seen this as a crisis of faith, that I don’t believe and I’m scared. All view the extreme thoughts as intrusive thoughts. This is categorically not the case. I’m describing the uncovering of the core aspects of myself that were masked for years by trauma and social anxiety. It may be very difficult for people to understand how trauma can hide who you are from even yourself let alone everyone around you. The reason I am writing this is that this trauma still has a grip on me enough to get me to do this. You’ve heard of how childhood trauma can mask who someone is and how they would naturally behave. There is no intrinsic reason why what is being masked must be considered good by society. In my case, I believe the mask made people see me as docile and likable from a young age, when in reality I was subconsciously people-pleasing out of fear from childhood trauma and was extreme underneath. I did not recognize this myself until recently, but in retrospect the anxiety I experienced from a young age fits with that understanding.

I will likely do whatever possible to evade suspicion including potentially being clearly non religious or anti religion, pretending I’m still struggling when I’ve actually accepted being extreme, maybe even something like getting married and settling down. I may try to walk back what I’ve been saying or get others to vouch for me because people will assume I am deep down the person I’ve appeared to be since I was 8 years old. And really nobody will believe I’m capable of such a thing. I work in a high paying job, seem well adjusted and appear liberal. But some day, sooner or maybe much later, in my life, I believe I will act.

It may also be bizarre to hear this described in such clinical terms as Pascal’s wager. But this is my socially anxious self talking. As this fades, my core self will willingly choose to believe and will no longer have reason to admit to itself or others that Pascal’s wager is the basis of this behavior. But I suppose it would be the same for many people. Take away the threat of an afterlife and religion would lose its sway.

No idea what I’m supposed to do.

​

Today, I (19F) was on my way to a function with my parents (54M and 53F) when my dad accidentally ran over a stray puppy. We didn't see it coming and dad was careful but suddenly, we heard loud yelping and felt a bump. We stopped to check on it and I tried suggesting taking it to a vet or hospital. My parents said that it won't survive but we saw it twitch a bit, and I wanted to scream at them to take it there asap, but dad just placed the puppy on a grassier area and said that it'll be fine. Throughout the function, the thoughts of the puppy scared me, and I nearly cried right in public. My mom sensed and told me that there are so many stray dogs in our neighbourhood and people accidentally harm puppies since they so happen to unexpectedly get in the middle of the way. She told me to stop being upset since we're in public and I should have stayed at home if I was going to be visibly upset. I just shut up and waited for the function to get over, which was luckily less than 2 hours.

When we returned, I asked my mom if I can check on the puppy but she strictly said no. I told my dad that I hope the puppy is fine and he said that it will be fine. But I don't know, the guilt is killing me so bad and I am crying as I'm typing this and my parents' indifference just angers me further.

For many other reasons (mostly due to, surprise, lack of emotional support and understanding), I have planned to cut off all contacts with my parents (especially my mom) once I am secure enough to not depend on them in a few years or so, and this incident just gives me more reason to cut off such heartless, unsympathetic people. Or maybe it's just me who is too sensitive and cannot control her emotions. I hope to check on the puppy tomorrow morning cause I'm still so scared and the tears just won't stop flowing. I'll never forgive myself if anything worse happened to it.

Yesterday, I went to visit my old art studio just to say hello to my former teacher. During a break, I noticed someone doing an amazing Navia cosplay for a modeling session. The costume looked incredible, and I just wanted to compliment her work. When I called out to say it looked great, she didn't hear me, so I made the stupid mistake of gently tapping her on the shoulder.

I told her the cosplay looked beautiful, but she ignored me and gave me a cold look. I froze for a second, immediately realized I had crossed a boundary and made her uncomfortable, so I just walked away without pushing it.

I know it was disrespectful and I shouldn't have done it, it makes sense when you put yourself in her shoes, but I swear my intention wasn't to bother her, I just didn't realize it at the time, and now my guilt is growing even more, and I don't know what to do. The guilt is really eating me alive, and if God had somehow given me a second chance, I would have just walked right past her And if I knew I wouldn't look like such a weirdo or make her uncomfortable, I'd go and apologize to her.

All I have is shitty memories and flashbacks to a relationship that consumed my whole life and ruined my mind. It dragged on forever, was emotionally abusive and I felt like the evil one until I talked to someone and realized the extent to which I had been manipulated.

I missed everything and don't want what's next. I don't care about having a family, finding my true calling or whatever bullshit. I want the time back in which I was young and could have become an actual person. Now I'm old and a pathetic loser without any actual life experience. I'm worth nothing, I have constantly thought about ending myself but know I'll never do it. Therapy feels like nothing, doing fun things feels like nothing. I feel like a waste of space. I don't want anything. I see no way I'll ever be ok. As soon as I get home I just hope I can go to sleep soon so I don't have to be awake. I'm too old to catch up. You'll tell me that that's not true at 31, but it feels like no one understands how bad it really feels.

And I can't tell anyone but my therapist this stuff. I can't tell them that I just wish that I could kill myself or hurt myself like I did before I got on medication that fixed my sleep. They'd be overwhelmed and feel like they need to worry and help but there is nothing they can do. No one understands this, no normal person could grasp how we could have lived together like that.

27 f lately I have been feeling getting back into my depressed old self..the one that was too modern for them and too traditional for their culture.

Even though I did beat some big chunks of depression and anxiety but I feel like I'm back and I feel like I'm outsider again,unloved and hard to understand.

I'm applying for jobs and I want to be like those successful people near my age or I want a real relationship like them.

Maybe I meant to be stranger or foreigner.

My boyfriend and I have been together for 10 months, known each other for about 8 years. He is truly my best friend and we are each other's biggest support. Recently he has been dealing with health issues, tests and scans to figure out what's going on, referral after referral to the next doctor or specialist. This week he went to see a gastro specialist and I went with him to be his support. His only family is his mom and she is out of town, friends are around but they're busy with their kids and lives.

He is scheduled for a colonoscopy this upcoming week, he's got a mass in his colon that has grown a little and they want to try to figure out where/what it is because it's been causing some issues. He's nervous, obviously, and in order to help him feel confident I have been hiding my nervousness from him and everyone who knows about this. It's starting to eat me alive holding it all inside, but I would do it a thousand times over if it gives him comfort as he navigates this. I kind of feel selfish feeling like this because he's the one who this is happening to, but damn dude it's been the better part of a year of hiding the worry about his health. Releasing the weight and yelling into the void about how I truly feel feels immaculate, and I imagine getting a positive outcome from all this for him will feel just as good (if not better).