It’s always been bad, but it’s to the point that I do not feel safe going outside without a fully charged body camera because people like to make underhanded comments towards black women or try to act as if we are contagious.

No advice because I have a healthy sense of self esteem and I know people who have been upset I take care of myself. People think the bullying of black women is going to make us shrink

Okay this might not be the right place to ask, but I am desperate 🥲😭 I’m 19 years old and I’m dealing with addiction to synthetic weed and alcohol. I’ve been looking for a substance abuse rehab in my state (Georgia) but it has been tough and I’ve been hearing mixed opinions about all of these places and I’ve had a couple bad experiences at a couple places as well. I’ve had to deal with some micoagressive staff or just places where I really didn’t feel like I belonged or fit in. I’m wondering if anyone on here has any experience dealing with substance abuse and how they treated it? Did you go to rehab as well? If so what one?🥲 I’m open to places in or near Georgia or also anywhere in the USA at this point 🥲 I just want to be in a space where I am actually cared for and treated well 🙏😭

Context. So she was dancing and then said “ I wanna see ur best dance move. “ I was like “ok haha” then she said “dance monkey dance. “ and the whole vibe changed from there. I paused. And she said it’s a meme. But I never heard a meme say that. And also you should have common sense to not say that to a black person. Then she said “does it make it better that I have all white friends?” She’s Asian and was lying bc her bff works there too and she’s not white.

I hate this bc we work so close together. It’s a tiny room. I love my job. Me and her were cool and now she made it awkward. Idc if she didn’t mean it that way. She lacks common sense. I’m so fucking sick of racism already. I don’t give anyone sympathy.

I really wish I wasn’t born in this stupid ass world with the dumb ass people.

F21 I feel like I’m bound to be alone for the rest of my life. I have zero friends and never had a boyfriend in my life. I’m undesirable. I’m the basic black girl. If I could rate myself, I would give myself a 3 or 4 to make it worse, I don’t want to befriend or date non-Black people at all, and it makes it harder because I’m an outcast in the black community too. I’m seen as uninteresting and people barely approach me. I just got over my latest crush because he said he talks to multiple girls at the same time. I had one friend but we barely talked and when I try to talk to her it went nowhere

I’m so I started thinking about this when I found out my hairstylist just got married to her high school sweetheart after nine years of being with each other. I’m so jealous of her, but I also had hope for me because she looks like me, but it’s too late for me because I’m out of high school and while I was in high school I had zero friends and no one I could talk to and I still dont so me thinking about my hairdresser. It makes me even more sad.

I don’t wanna be miserable and lonely for the rest of my life. I’m going to try and see if I can find some groups for black outcasts/ outsiders in my city. I probably won’t find any but hopefully I do. It’s really hurting me that whenever something happens in my life when it’s either happy or I need to vent I have no one to turn to besides ChatGPT. I just hope this changes soon and hopefully people will become interested in me and I find my soulmate. I don’t really wanna be the single rich Auntie right now I wanna feel wanted and desired.

TW: suicidal, self harm, abuse??

new here, i love this subreddit already tho hehe (\^o\^)

im a girl, recently turned 18.....ive had a very hard life especially when it comes to men, abuse, grooming, etc. im also very depressed. well i posted something quite similar to this in the depression subreddit, but was given nothing but creepy old men in my dms saying they could change me blah blah, it was so bad that i deleted my long running account, which i kinda regret but oh well. (if this isnt allowed tho plz delete it 😭)

anyway, im very depressed and have really bad suicidalthoughts and self harm , ive been this way for several years so its all i know. lately tho ive been feeling more and more hate towards others, especially towards men. but women too, and i feel so bad for it...well, i domt think i hate women, im just so overly envious of girls my age and older who get to be happy in life, especially my old middle school friends. we were so tight and now im the only one they dont talk to anymore. i know it has plenty to do with the fact that i moved before high school started, but still....its been a running thing since i can remember. i never had lasting girl friends in elementary, middle, not even high school, and i dont know whats wrong with me. i always disliked boys so i never went out of my way to be friends with them (i was kinda seeking their attention tho in elementary school, i think cuz the grooming cuz i still always felt so gross afterwards) but im also socially awkward and neurodivergent, ive never ever fit in. lately tho things have been worse....last year i had a horrible situationship with a guy a bit older than me, and he was so bad.....he was manipulative and fed off my depression and insecurities to regularly tear into me and guilt me into staying, eventually i cut him off....hes actually been trying to contact me every few months, not with threats but just annoying bs like "oh idk what i did wrong blah blah" like brother u one told me to kms 😭😭😭😭😭😭 (i guess i should also mention hes chinese, so theres nothing i can really do abt his former threats as im in the us) so after that i swore off dating, but felt so lonely....i always feel so lonely, but one day i met a woman, also chinese. thing is shes 35 DONT FLAME ME!!!!!!! i was very guarded but opened up andwas like wow shes so amazing and beautiful and ......we started dating....i go both ways, but this was my first time actually being with a girl. it was amazing, but i couldnt help the feeling that something felt so off, and eventually i broke up with her out of fear. i wanted everything to end there but she kept reaching out, and i felt so bad cuz i never thought i could have someone understand me like her. so we became friends again, but that quickly turned into ambiguity...mainly from her end, im too chicken to flirt so easily and im shy, she would always call me pet names and stuff, talk abt me moving in with her in china, that i wouldnt work and could just live off her. i didnt wanna do that, i want to work as well but i accepted the fantasy, cuz the thought of finally being taken care of for a bit after having to fend for myself all these years, was nice. recently tho, it all changed, i knew it would happen but i didnt expect to be so soon. only a couple days prior to this event, she was still calling me pet names, wrote a letter abt how much she liked me and wanted to be with me in the near future, and that in 3 years or sooner, our apprehension wouldnt matter and we would just be together anyway. then suddenly she announced a new girlfriend to me. i didnt know how to feel really. wow? that quick? after all u said? is what i wanted to say but i judy congratulated her instead. after all i did tell her that i didnt know when i would get better in my health, and that i didnt want her to wait for me even tho our feelings were so strong, and that if she got with another woman id be happy. so i was happy. but then ofc a whole 180. she barely talked to me and when she did it was abt her gf and how much she loved her. posts all about her girlfriend.....and how much she loved her. and this was all within like a day of them dating, and she told me they had only met a week ago. same thing with us, we had known each other barely a weel before we started dating. i was like ok cool. but then i suddenly realized that the word "love" hurt me so much. she never told me she loved me at all. ik it shouldnt matter so much to me, but it did. eventually i had to do something very hard and cut all contact with her completely, this time for good. no hard feelings or mean thoughts, just that it wasnt a thing anymore and id wish her happiness. now i just feel horrible. i feel so stupid. i feel used again. she was so kind but dropped me so suddenly? i know its my fault, im an immature brat accross the sea, but as black my heart feels, my heart beats with so much love and i wanted to be loved so badly. it just cements it inmy mind that im unloveable, ill never be loved in the way i crave. all my friends are online, accross the sea. i love them but i know to them im just an online friend and nothing more. im so alone in my real life. i feel so sad and alone. and now when i see men or women, i feel hatred. mostly toward myself. but ofc when i see couples i get really really pissed. its not fair. how come other ppl can find someone to love them, when ive been wanted to be loved for 18 years and i just keep getting groomed or used, or kept in the dark and then thrown away?????? or maybe im really crazy and imaginingthe pain for no reason.....wow word yap so sorry, if this isnt allowed, again, plz delete!!!!!!!!! if anyone read this far thank u for doing so (ノ_･､) i just hate being so alone, but now im so scarred by everything that im just so distant and dont even want to speak to ppl or make new friends again

Hi all,

Do you ever feel like you lose your personal style when you're going through a rough patch?

I've had a few traumatic experiences in the past three years and I couldn't stand being away from family. So when I moved in with them I had to keep most of my clothes packed away cos the house is overcrowded. And since then I've just been mostly wearing really boring clothes mostly for work.

Today I went through my old clothes and thought damn, I actually had a very colourful taste! Even my underwear and socks were colourful AF!

I saw some brands that I haven't even thought about in years. I just feel like I lost a sense of my identity even though I understand it seems kinda trivial

I sometimes feel like people don’t know the real me. I’m 20 so growing up as a sensitive young man. I feel like I have to perform for others. I wanted to ask if anyone has ever felt the same? And what happened when you finally stepped into yourself and stopped performing?

I'm too sad to type everything

Im just sad of being lonely

I keep trying to make friends and it doesn't work. And when it does work its people I meet online. And when it's people online I don't have anyone to really hang out with. And when I do have people to talk to..the worst thing is remembering all the people that have shit on me, left me, rejected me outright, bullied me, and it just compounds and makes it hard for me to even want friends in the first place. I'm so tired. At least once a day I feel like deleting, I'm so fucking sick of feeling like this. Cant afford fucking medication and therapy because not having a steady job for the last 4 months has put me in debt.

At this point just build facilities for us to delete. Nobody gaf anyway.

I’m reaching out to black psychologists for therapy and I am getting no responses. What’s going on? Ive left voicemails and sent emails to many providers but only the white ones are responding. WTF.

My experiences with white therapists makes weary of trying one again, but the black ones are MIA.

I’ve sent emails and called a few different people and I’m feeling like Im blacklisted or something.

This was not as easy as it sounds, mainly due to the mental exertion I had to place towards this. For a long time, I could not get myself to do anything art-related, despite it being my "hobby" and wanting to do it. Because of this, I see myself just getting started on this as an achievement in its own right. I don't want to move too fast with the progress though; 45 minutes later after starting and working on it on my computer, and my head already hurts. I still have to learn and see lessons and experiences for myself as I journey to a better state of mind.

While many believe that time should be taken off of social media (and they're not wrong), I don't see the social media aspect as what I'm celebrating on, but the fact that I'm doing what I see as a little graphic design. Considering that this is the main job position that I want to start off on in my career, it's nice to know that I'm making strides to put my mind onto a familiar, yet unfamiliar experience. In fact, just expressing my victory over merely starting my banner art has proven to be something I'm still not used to yet, because my head is still tingly and trying to push away from all the new experience, when it can't!

Sorry if some of the things I've said sound like they're on repeat; I'm just glad that I was able to get through what I view as a small, but difficult and important step! I hope, and contnue to hope, that I can continue with this growth of mine, no matter how slow it has to take!

You don't have to be happy right now, if you don't feel the desire to. Embrace your emotions. Become one with your emotions. Come to terms with your emotions. It is a process that will take as long as it has to. Some days may feel like forever, being so slow that it hurts to do nothing at all, but be alone with your thoughts, without anyone to talk to, or anywhen. And some days, events can feel as if their not happening fast enough; expecting yourself to heal so quickly on the mental plane, yet remain stuck and encased in a flurry of emotions and headaches front and back.

All the colors of the rainbow present themselves here, in you. And feeling as if you're not in the mood, is perfectly okay. If you ever feel like searching for a way out, searching for advice, is more stressful than what lets it on, just walk away from it all, go drink a cup, glass, or bottle of water, and just let your thoughts and surroundings just be. Times may present themselves under difficulty, while others grasps the urge to continue forth on an activity that's looked forward to. Whatever the case is, the most important thing is to pace yourself, at the speed comfortable to you. Don't beat yourself up when you take a step back. Just hold in your heart what you're drawing yourself towards, and you will be okay.

You, will be okay.

For context, this is a post I made in a different Reddit last year. I'm reposting it here because voting time brings up feelings like this, feelings that I can't help but have every now and then even after a year. I'm also hoping that maybe it'll inspire others in this Reddit who know this feeling too... maybe remind them that they're not alone in this experience

"So here's the deal:

I'm 24, black, and fresh out of college (mind you, I went to an HBCU), and I feel like I know very little regarding my own history, past and current. It always feels like history of all sorts is happening as we speak, and I keep on missing it because I am so bad at keeping up on current and past events and am always behind. The area I live in now is predominantly white, and it seems like even the white people I work with are more black-cultured than I am! ... I want to learn though, and I try my best to, but the idea of there being so much to catch up on and it makes me feel like I may never catch up or know as much as I am supposed to is very overwhelming to me, which discourages me. It didn't help that back in college, my "friends" would condescend to me every chance they would get and make me feel bad, stupid, small, and inferior to them whenever I told them I wasn't knowledgeable on a given topic, whether it was a celebrity, event, or some media. I only told them because I wanted to know, myself. Half of those "friends " would take turns condescending me, and the rest would sit there and say nothing in my defense. None of them would ever take the time to either educate me or point me in the right direction to educate myself, only for them to gaslight me when they could clearly see they made me feel bad, upset, hurt, and not wanting to speak anymore. I'm just tired of people making me feel stupid and bad for what I don't know; feel like I always have to explain myself; and feel like in those moments, it's always me against them, a 1-v-many. Needless to say, I finally cut those people out of my life last year. I am posting this online hoping there is someone out there who reads this and understands how I feel, and maybe has some advice on how I can catch up on history and events on my own time and at my own pace, now that I no longer have those people in my life to hurt me anymore."

Hey yall

Neurospicy here. People in romantic relationships/actively dating... how are you managing? Sometimes, I feel like my "stuff" gets in the way and can/will ruin relationships. I sometimes don't want to be with anyone because I am afraid of how my ADHD shows up. I also do miss being open romantically. I don't know what to do.

So last week I attended an intake appointment for an outpatient behavioral health clinic. I have a therapy appointment later this month as well as a physical early next month and a psychiatric evaluation near Thanksgiving. I'm also on a wait-list for social services to help me get out of homelessness.

You know what? Today something stupid happened and I'm just over it. I'm at the library right now and out of nowhere something loud starts playing. Not ear shreddingly loud, but you know, it's a library and anything louder than conversational chatter is too loud. Someone's video from a computer starts playing and it goes on for a literal 2 minutes. Don't know what happened or why it happened but it just stressed me out for no reason. Mind started racing, heart starting beating, I had to put my head down for a few minutes because why the hell is this going off in the library???

After I calmed down I realized something: literally everything stresses me out. Literally everything. Loud noises. Police. My homelessness. Everything is stressful and I'm just over it. I'm tired of living like this. I don't think I can wait a month and a half to get medication for my mental illnesses. I don't think I can do it anymore. At this point I'm just waiting to get a heart attack or have the cold from the winter be bad enough to make me freeze. I feel like there is genuinely no hope.

Does anyone have tips on how to fully embrace your appearance? My ocd with my face has become so bad it’s all I think about, day in and out, on top of remembering how people have treated me because of my black features. I look masculine and in my environment it’s all everyone seems to point out about me. I’m trying to get over it, I can’t afford therapy or surgeries right now but I feel like if I don’t get a hold of it it’ll get in the way of my life. If anyone has similar experiences or advice I would love to receive it, it would help so much. Thank you.

i run an archival consulting business and have primarily worked with a family of wealthy palm colored clients. they are elite artsy white ppl, and allegedly “progressive”.

to start, the client’s wife once offered me minstrel nutcracker statues (who whoopi goldberg gifted to her LMAO) because she ‘felt bad’ they were in her attic and i literally almost fainted from how violently uncomfortable i was. she genuinely thought she was hooking it up because they were ‘valuable’. it was my only contract and source of income at the time, and because it’s my first venture into independent contracting i didn’t feel like i had the leverage to cuss her out i also realized i never resolved my “grew up in suburbia” instinctual fawn response, i just simply stopped fucking with palm color people entirely for the better part of 10 years until a career shift brought me back here (the trenches). among other micro (honestly macro?) aggressions: wife “jokingly” addressed me as “bitch” when i mentioned i will be in graduate school after the project ends, asked me to help her husband figure out netflix?????, mentioned one of the characters of this play as “big blck soprano contrasted with a little blue eyed whte girl” (scary!!!).

anyways, recently in trying to pitch the collection to a big museum i made a couple historical mistakes in describing the director’s work. i apologized immediately and agreed to let them peer review communications to the institutions they want to host the collection. i felt okay doing this because its sensitive work and like to ensure clients have agency in the process, but of course they took it as a green light to be undermining and weird.

they suddenly now have been rewriting all my emails, down to the tone, wording, and salutation. which is crazy to me because i am literally a more competent writer than all of them. they went from working collaboratively to what i feel like is intern treatment within the drop of a hat and it’s so crazy to me! i let it go cause there is no kind of boundary assertion you can do here that doesn’t trigger and threaten them and the project is meant to wrap up soon.

anyways. my issue is i do care deeply about my work, and find it difficult to divorce my sense of competence and self worth from the approval of clientele, even when rationally i know they are literally PROGRAMMED ancestrally to be passive aggressively r*cist and irritating.

i don’t really have a request from anybody but i just wanted to share with other people who experience this kind of psychological warfare at work. i need to feel not crazy lmaoo!! im keeping quiet cause the contract is up soon, but its stressing me out!!

I'm not ashamed of being a black woman or anything, but I feel like I don't truly understand what it means to be black. Like I understand racism and oppression, but I feel like I don't have much in common with neurotypical black women. I don't really care about fashion or makeup and my special interests include video games, anime, dnd, cartoons and animation, "nerdy stuff" like that. I also have trouble picking up on social cues and sarcasm, so i can't tell if someone is flirting with me and I also don’t really understand African American Vernacular English (AAVE). Recently I've been thinking that if I have kids one day, will I be able to teach them what it means to be black? Does any other black autistic women feel this way or am i just being silly?

I have a family who stresses me out . My siblings or the spouses are always yelling at my nieces and nephews and it reminds me of my mom yelling at me when she was alive .

Every time we have family gatherings I get stressed out because people are always yelling at me or someone else. When I see happy family gatherings and people have a good time I get stressed out and depressed and grieving for the family I never had .

Every job I had people complain about what I'm doing I thought I was doing a good job . I do my job and I show up on time everything is clean . Either bosses , coworkers and job coaches complain about how I do my job . I have to have a job coach to get a job or I won't have a job the job coach I had in the past bullied me and stressed me out . Even with my family I clean the house up people grip and complain and said I haven't done a good job .

I just want to pack my things and leave my family and quit my job because nobody likes me people always complain about what I'm doing and what I am not doing. Sometimes I want to work alone and live alone . I am tired of people complaining all because I have a disability. I believe I have autism and I am very shy and I have social anxiety.

I keep having these stressful thoughts that pisses me off and makes me angry 😡 and I be in a rage. I can't get rid of these bad thoughts of people bothering me and lecture me . And I see a therapist she's no help and I haven't talked to her in a while. I just want peace and have fun and I don't want no drama.

I hate everything about myself. I hate being around people. I hate white people. I hate pocs. I hate coons. I hate working. I hate living in this society. I hate racism. I hate being belittled. I hate being feeling awkward. I’m serious… they’re nothing I like. I really wanna leave this hellscape. I really wish I was never born. I’m so sick of this shit. What’s the point? I can’t do anything because I have family. And it would shake the ground if I did it. I’m stuck living until it comes naturally. I hate this. I hate how miserable I am. I wish I wasn’t like this. I really do. But it’s so many things that I hate that’ll never go away. I’m hurting.

Hi, I’m JD and I’m from Manchester in the UK🇬🇧 .

Alongside my co-host Jahmal, we run a podcast called "You Good Bro?" Podcast About life, mental health, and wellbeing, where we discuss the inner critic.

We talk about that small voice inside your mind telling you you're not good enough. We share our thoughts on the inner critic, where it might come from, when it can actually help, and when it just holds you back from moving forward.

Please check it out if it sounds of interest.

For those in here who are STEM majors and want to go into veterinary medicine and for those who are practicing vets, how do/did you manage your mental health and being in college? Especially if you have no friends or family to talk to. (Did any of you enter the field later in life?)

Context: Im a senior at a university I transferred to last year, after being in community college for a bit. Less than 1% of the undergrad population is black, there are three black undergrads in my department and 6 black grad students. The area my school is in is more of a retirement town, for rich old white people, than a college town. The town being so small means there are so little opportunities to shadow vets/ try to find work to get my hours in for vet school applications. I don’t have a car and my schedule doesn’t allow enough gaps in time for me to take the bus (2hr ride) to the next town over. Becoming a veterinarian is the only aspiration I have and it’s beginning to feel more and more unobtainable. I was diagnosed with depression and suicidal ideation with intent. Each year I feel like i’m closer and closer to making another attempt. I think moving out of this town would definitely make me feel better but I don’t know if I can stand this for two more quarters.

(hope this makes sense, lowkey writing this after crying on and off for 4 hours lol)

I graduated in Summer 2024 with a bachelor's degree in political science. I started in computer science but after learning about the history of anti-Black discrimination in technology and AI I wanted to do something a bit different. I realized I like technology policy & machine ethics much more. It's an interesting niche field in combining DEI, politics, data governance, research, and policy development and as this field grows and becomes more necessary to regulate AI usage and analyze societal consequences. I have planned for a master's/PhD and even a law degree as I like school and research but my ideal school rejected me.

I did some projects & conferences on critical AI-ML analysis & human-tech interactions (two conference presentations but couldn't present one of them due to my state suppressing my university's education spending) and held multiple student leadership positions that dealt with policy, both writing and advocating for, and networking with the student body and student organizations. Even worked directly with my faculty's senate, helping lead data assessments on student engagement that directly benefitted resources and frameworks for professors. As a result of my work my resume is 2 pages long (with an extra page for professional references if an application requires it). I know it's unorthodox, but as a result of my undergraduate work I feel like it's not too big of a deal.

Nothing. I've been working some small jobs that have nothing to do with my career so I don't go homeless. I know the job market is a mess, but I really feel like I messed up. Tried applying for some internships but many are for current students. Right now I'm spending time on re-learning programming to demonstrate technical skills but I don't know if that's enough.

Wondering if anyone else feels the same. I can send my resume if that's okay.