I love my mother, but often, when I was growing up, I would be incredibly frustrated by the fact that she didn't seem to understand anything. We would watch films together and she couldn't tell me what the film was about after. She didn't know. She never understood metaphor and she never grasped basic financial understanding or learned how to drive.

My father married my mother when she was eighteen and he was 29. I always questioned the power dynamics at play because of their age difference, and as I grew older I began to question my mother's behaviours as well.

Yesterday, while talking to my grandmother I found out that my mother was diagnosed with an intellectual disability when she was fourteen years old. My grandmother assumed that my father had told me. He never did.

My mother has never seemed to have any trouble completing domestic tasks. She has always been a stay-at-home mother and me and my older sister were always well taken care of as children.

In other ways, I feel as though I was neglected. I could never really ask my mother to comfort me, because if I told her that I was upset, she would just burst into tears on the ground. Even though my mother and I have always spent lots of time with each other, and it would seem as though we are very 'close', I feel a weird sense of disconnect from her.

When I was young, I found my mother really fun, and so did a lot of other kids as her interests have always been quite 'childlike'. She always got just as excited as me and my sister to play at the playground, or dress up as princesses.

As I got older, I became interested in things that my mother couldn't understand at all. She would get upset when I would want to read books instead of playing games with her. She struggled immensely watching me and my sister get older, because I think that to her, it seemed like we were leaving her behind.

I hate to admit it, but I became embarrassed of her. I never wanted my friends to come over to my house because I was ashamed of my mother's interests, and the fact that her lack of social understanding made her treat everyone as though they were great friends with her.

Sometimes, when I was being a typical angsty teenager, I would really lash out at her verbally, and she had no way of coping, so she would just start kicking and screaming on the floor. I wish that I'd known at the time that she genuinely didn't understand half of what I would be going on about, it would have saved a lot of tears I think, on my end and hers.

I also don't know how to feel towards my father. Honestly, he sounds quite predatory to me, going after a woman significantly younger and intellectually disabled. She's essentially forced into a role of submission towards him.

Hi. A few weeks ago my coworker in his early 20s committed suicide after work on a Thursday. We all work M-F as it is a daycare, and he had been there for over a year. My coworker: Phil (fake name) was a float around the school and I am a teacher in a classroom. I saw him often and knew him somewhat well; he was extremely kind, helpful, and genuine. Phil was always in a hoodie or long sleeves even in the summertime. Although that changed leading up to his death. He wore his work shirt with nothing underneath exposing extensive self harm scars in different stages of healing. I felt sick seeing it and I wanted to say something so badly especially knowing that I have also struggled with self harm. I didn't know how or what to day and I didn't want to embarrass him. I regret that every day. I think about him a lot. Although we weren't close, I feel I should've at least tried to be there for him. We all saw the scars and my bosses knew he needed mental health days and time-off. My boss dismissed his death completely and only cared how we reacted for the parents. She came around and told us during the work day, bluntly that he had jumped off a bridge the night before and was dead. I couldn't believe the coldness, I ended up leaving my job because I couldn't stand to work for such a cold/unfeeling system.

I 37/F live in a very small town, population 1,200, and got out of a serious relationship back in July. I have several close female friends, but I prefer spending my time with my two guy friends. We’ll call them Eric and James. They were best friends before I met them about two years ago. I just loooove being around them. I think they are both super attractive and I have so much fun when the three of us are together.

I spend more time with Eric because we are neighbors, we hang out just about every day at some capacity. James travels for work so he pops in/out. Last night the three of us went to the hot springs, and this morning Eric and I went for a mountain bike ride/coffee. It honestly feels like I’m already dating Eric, but we’ve never done anything intimate. The three of us are talking about going to Thailand together in the spring, obviously looove this idea, dream scenario. They joked saying “what do you think everyone will think about you traveling with your two boyfriends?”. I also make jokes about dating them.

However, I know nothing will ever happen between any of us. Eric is happy being single, plus he already has most the benefits of having a girlfriend because we do everything together. And James is also taking a break from dating because he still has feelings for his ex. It still feels good to dream about it though. I love them both and feel the most happy when we are all together.

I recently traveled with my family to Switzerland as its our dream destination in Europe which we’ve never been to before. I live in SEA but have East Asian roots, so do my parents and twin brother and younger sister I’m traveling with. We’re having a great time and really enjoying the Alps and the views/sights as when we travel its usually limited to just Asia. So, its a pretty nice change as its our first time outside the continent.

We stayed at Switzerland for around 2 weeks and went to Zurich, Lucerne, then Zermatt. Originally, I had no worries about facing any discrimination there as we asked relatives who traveled there and they said it was a wonderful experience and the people there were really nice.

We traveled to Lucerne and decided to go to a shopping outlet for things to buy, we split off with my brother and dad going to other shops while I went with my mother and sister. They entered a Louis Vuitton store as my mother was trying to look for a bag she really wanted. I just lounged while they were trying to look for it. After five minutes I noticed they were still lost so I asked them what was wrong and they said that they couldn’t find someone to help them.

It was busy in the store so I assumed they just didnt have any available staff for now. Time passed by and other customers who came in later than we did were being attended to while my mother and sister were helpless. I decided to walk up to one of the staff and ask if they could help find what my mom was looking for, i could tell they weren’t taking it seriously and said that they’d find someone soon. They didn’t. 30 minutes pass and still no help! I get angry and complain about their poor customer service. Instead of helping us, the manager is called and says that they will not help me or my mom and sister and even threatened to call security if we continued to make a ruckus. I didn’t I was just calling them out on their behavior.

I complain more with the manager and ask blatantly why they refuse to help us and he kept saying that he wouldn’t help people like ‘us’. I had just about enough of it and I left with my sister and mom. My sister was a little shaken because the manager had actually directed us out himself and very rudely at that. When we told my brother and dad what happened they were astonished that this happened.

So it kind of ruined our trip but other than that we enjoyed. What really surprised me was that the other customers in that store or really anyone else, never spoke up about anything.

Ten years ago, I used to take random writing jobs online. I would write ads, descriptions, articles, basically whatever assignment was given to me. It was extra money and I liked writing, so I didn't think too much about it.

Then one day, the person I worked for asked me to write short bios for some people on a website and sent me the link. I opened it and immediately closed it because the page was full of pictures of naked women. I honestly thought I clicked something wrong or got one of those stupid porn pop-ups, so I clicked the link again.

Still the same website, same naked women.

Then I looked properly and realized, oh. These women were escorts. And my assignment was to write their bios.

I remember being so uncomfortable because how am I supposed to write a biography about somebody I don't even know? Am I supposed to look at her picture and invent that she is sweet, adventurous, naughty, loves this and that, whatever will make men interested in her?

Basically, I would be creating a personality for a woman I had never met just to make her more appealing to customers.

At that time, my reason for refusing was mostly about the women. I am a woman too, and something about helping sell another woman felt so wrong to me. I didn't know their circumstances or even who they really were. That was actually part of the problem. These were real women with real personalities and real lives somewhere, and I was being asked to make up a more marketable version of them based on some naked pictures.

So I refused the assignment and stopped taking work from that person not long after.

Sometimes I think about it now and I am so fucking glad I didn't do it. Realistically, it probably would not have stopped with one website. Maybe another escort site would come next, then adult advertisements, porn titles and descriptions. Maybe eventually I would be writing "step sis snu snu step bro" descriptions for SEO. What a career path. 😭

But there is another reason why I am glad now, and this one I only understood 10 years later.

When I was younger, I had a stereotype of the men on the other side of websites like that. I imagined rich and powerful men. Businessmen, politicians, nepobabies, some married executive secretly paying for women because he could afford it. He had the money and he was choosing, so in my mind, he was the one with power.

I never really imagined some lonely salaryman sitting alone in his apartment after work.

I never imagined somebody touch-starved, socially awkward, traumatized or just terribly lonely. Someone who wanted intimacy but, for whatever reason, found it difficult to have it the conventional way. It never occurred to me that somebody could be the paying customer and still have vulnerabilities that a business could take advantage of.

I understand it now. Not because i studied Freudian books all of a sudden, but because I loved a man like that like a brother. And somehow, even a friendship that had nothing to do with money or sex got caught up in the same mess.

Look, I know adults can make their own choices. Not every guy paying for this stuff is a helpless victim, and the women doing it aren't automatically predators either. People make their decisions. But even when choices are made freely, building a whole billion-dollar business out of preying on someone’s vulnerabilities, chronic isolation, and desperation just feels... wrong. That’s the part that gets me. The whole machinery running in the background is just straight-up predatory.

Who gathered the women? Who brought the customers there? Who figured out what pictures make people click, what words make somebody more appealing, and most importantly, what psychological loops keep a lonely person coming back and bleeding cash?

Somebody actually sat down and engineered a way to weaponize basic human vulnerability for profit. A woman can be reduced into a body, a photograph, a fake personality, and a price. A man can be reduced into his loneliness, his desires, his credit card and how much more money can be extracted from him.

Sometimes maybe the man really is the rich asshole I imagined when I was young. But what if he's just some lonely guy who goes to work, goes home, eats dinner alone, and wants somebody to make him feel wanted for a while?

As disgusting or transactional as it can look from the outside, underneath it all, it’s often just a lonely person craving human connection, and this is the only way they know how to get it. I never really understood this before, but some people never learned how to form healthy relationships, and for them, transactional intimacy might feel like the only safe option left.

I didn't understand any of this when I refused that assignment. I just looked at those women and thought: no, I don't want to be a cog in this machinery.

And it wasn't until ten years later that I truly understood what that machinery does to the people trapped inside it.

And I think that's another terrible part of it. After a while, somebody might start believing that affection always comes with a price. So when someone genuinely cares about them without asking for anything in return, they don't know what to do with it. They question it, doubt it, and maybe even try to turn it into something transactional because that's what they're used to. To me, it almost sounds like self-sabotage. Even when nobody is asking them for money anymore, they might still struggle to believe that somebody could care about them simply because they do.

I couldn't save my friend. My friendship cannot outlove the loneliness he is feeling.

But at least I didn't become part of the apparatus that I believe made his loneliness worse. Maybe somebody else wrote that assignment that i refused. And ten years later, I am still so fucking glad that somebody was not me.

We shared a lot of secrets that night. He told me he lost his virginity to aunt, waking up to her jacking him off, then giving him head and finally having sex. She was in her 30's at the time. I instantly comfoterted him telling him that was awful and not his fault. I was surprised that he didn't seem to think it was a big deal. I had also found out earlier that he had a sexual relationship with his cousin as a teen. Later, he showed me messages where she would ask him to come comfort and cuddle her in between "clients" at a hotel room. She is a prostitute according to my ex. I have no problem with that profession I'm merely stating the fact. There were pictures that she sent him of her in lingerie asking if they were a good valentines outfit for her clients as well.

He admitted their sexual history showed me everything and vowed to never have contact with her without me present. All the sudden she was not at any family functions and when I asked why to his mother, I was told he requested she not be around anymore because he wanted to respect our relationship so that's the only reason I felt ok to keep going. I told everyone I never asked that of him or the family because in my mind I liked her. She is smart, funny and can hold an intelligent conversation. She is not the one who owed me a damn thing, he did. So I saw that as him respecting our commitment to each other.

Fast forward to now, we aren't together anymore. It didn't work out. He became "suicidal" in his words and needed to stay with his mother at 45 years old. He kept telling me he wants to get married, he loves me more than anything, he wants to move with me after I sell my home, will not take his belongings from my house or separate in anyway with accounts or possessions. None of that happened.

He will not explain to me why he doesn't want to fulfill his promises to this day yet continue to text randomly and call me in the middle of the night.

I'm so over men lying about their intentions. And looking at his sexual history makes me gag every time I think about it now. I cannot believe I accepted his excuses because there are none. He now has accounts under his middle names with this same cousin he has been sleeping with making a comment "I'm with you" , just disgusting. I just wanted to know what the fuck i did to make this man who pursued me hard for over a year to just give up without excuses. At the same time, I think about what he told me and think it's for the best because my god. He has fucked up sexual boundaries and who knows what would've happened in the future. Not to mention he put his hands on me, even choked me so hard he broke the tendon on my right side of my throat so much so I couldn't swallow for almost two weeks.

I know i deserve better. Just needed to get this out. Somewhere. Tell me I'm not crazy. If I am. Tell me that too please.

Before I (accidentally) got pregnant, I had reached the best fitness of my life and felt wonderful. I changed careers, we were finally getting where we wanted to be, and then our surprise baby came along.

My mom used to tell me to have more kids because I was such a good mom and I would reply: "I can be a good mom to 2, I can't do it for more though." And that was the most truthful thing I ever said. Because I've never felt like a good mom since.

It's been 3 years of misery. She was a horribly difficult baby, and for years cried nonstop (we went to the pediatrician, to therapists, to several specialists looking for answers). It devastated our home life, hurt our relationships with our older children, my body has never recovered, our marriage is struggling, I literally don't feel human any more...

She's 3.5 now and becoming easier to handle. We have joyful moments. But so many things are still hard or impossible (going on a cruise? Literally impossible unless we upgrade to a massive family suite or convince grandparents to go with us). Our older two are best friends and run off to play, but they never want the youngest around, so she's always begging for my attention when I could be doing something else.

I love her, but I so deeply and painfully regret having a third, it breaks me. I hate that I feel this way. I want to be a better mom. I love her as an individual, but I can't help feeling like having a third has broken us and our family.

It feels like men have a genuine hatred for me. That I’m seen as some kind of freak show because I’m not large-chested like other women. Even my partner prefers curvier women and says the only reason he likes my small chest is because no other men will ever look at me. My own mother told me that the only men who will ever date me will be predators who are attracted to me because I’m ‘childlike.’ I don’t dress in a childish way, I don’t act childishly. It’s just because I have a smaller chest. And all I ever see online about this is people saying that if you find smaller-chested women attractive, you must be attracted to little kids. Meanwhile these same people will look at images of ‘developed’ young teenage girls and say that somehow the size of their bust implies consent. Our whole consent culture just relies on whether or not guys think your breast size is acceptable. So beyond the fact that I’m looked at like a freak, people also think that anyone who would ever want me for my body is also a disgusting creep who should be in prison.

I know my problems aren’t huge and that I should be grateful for no back pain and all, but it feels like a huge part of being a woman is denied to me. The idea of ever being seen as attractive or even as an adult is completely disgusting to other people. I’ve never had male attention aside from my partner, who reached out to me because I was incredibly isolated, even in real life boys used to avoid talking to or doing projects with me in college. They acted as if I weren’t there, while they’d talk happily to girls with larger or even medium chests, even in a friendly way. I don’t expect attention or anything, but it seems to be a fundamental thing for all ‘normal’ women to experience. I’m an outsider. It’s also harder for me to make friendships because while other women are out being asked for nudes or dating a large pool of guys, even dressing up and being able to be seen as attractive, I’m sort of just here in my own corner, unable to relate. I feel like an alien.

I’ve considered surgery, but even if it was affordable to me, I would most likely be outcast and mocked if anyone ever found out about it. I just feel like I’m seen as a child, even now that I’m an adult. I don’t want to be popular or loved by all, just seen as normal

This is just a vent/rant, I just needed it out. Sorry for any typos, I'm a bit shaky and just wrote this in a stream of thought. Idk if I want advice, not much I can do until I move out and it's not an option rn. I just... want someone to listen to me that won't tell me it'll get better as he matures and grows up. He's 23, it's a bit late for that. Anyway, rant:

I'm incredibly mad at my parents, I want to lash out and hurt them like they're hurting me but i just can't. every time i want to say something, tell them the harsh truths and just lay everything out i cant, because i already have before, and it has done nothing.

My "brother" (from now on G, because i gag every time I have to call him "brother") is psicologically and emotionally abusive. He's a master manipulator and gaslighter with a narcicistic screak a km wide and a victim complex that my mother eats up. That's her baby boy, her prince, even when he does the same to her that he does to me. I've been trying to get him out of my life since I was 15 years old, or at least limit how much I had to have him in my life as much as I could at that time.

Last year I said enough, and went no contact. It was the best year I've had since I was 13. My anxiety practically dissipated, I lost weight, I rediscovered my passion for writing and painting. But during the summer, on a vacation to see my grandparents, he spent the entire week psychologically torturing me, and as always my mother didn't see a thing. The last straw: he started verbally assaulting me in front of her, and she did nothing. NOTHING. Just told me to answer him, he was speaking to me, even after I reminded her she agreed to deal with him, to finally start protecting me from him. Her husband had to intervene, and only then he left me alone, because G doesn't have the balls to actually confront anyone. But the harm was done: he now has confirmation that he can do anything to me, and she won't do shit.

I crashed out at her later, had a panic attack in front of her and everything, and she agreed that I'd never have to see him again. Promised me that she saw now (after her husband took my side, that this was not okay, that her precious angel abused me in front of her and she just let it happen).It didn't last a fucking month. And in comes dad, who so far has done pretty well protecting me (especially because G doesn't have the balls to pull his shit in front of him and knows my father will protect me, unlike my mother).

But because he's never actually seen G at his worst, he thinks I'm exaggerating, and my mother obviously downplays the abuse both she and I suffer. So he thinks the situation is salvageable, no matter how many times I tell him that I just want G out of my life. So now I'm forced to interact with G whenever he desires it, and I just have to take it. Rules were established, rules he broke not even a week into the agreement.

I've spent today trapped inside my room, leaving only for the bathroom. My mother left me alone with him (something she, again, promised she'd never do after he tried to force his way into my room last time she abandoned me with him) with zero warning, literally told me she was going to leave as she was grabbing the keys, and I wasn't able to stop panicking and shaking until I wedged my desk against my door, braced on my bed, so there would be no way of getting inside. I haven't eaten in two days, I can't sleep, I can't breathe. I keep having to take deep breaths over the tightness of my chest, because I feel like I'm drowning. I haven't slept well in almost a week, already stressed about having to cohabit with him again. My stomach is cramping from lack of food, but I just can't get anything down. Everything hurts from being tense all the time, I'm overstimulated and overwhelmed from the constant hyper-vigilance.

I just want this to stop. I want to feel safe in my own home. I want my parents to respect my decisions, limits and boundaries, to stop putting my mental health on the line because they don't want to deal with the monster they created. I just want them to protect me.

My girlfriend works with this guy. Every time they pass each other they smile amd say hello, but i notice he never talks to anyone else, from what i can tell. She told me he's into salsa. Then she said he came up to her car the other day and they were talking about music and dancing not dancing together, but i guess their hobbies. And now she's out thrift shopping for cowboy boots during her weekly thrift store runs, because he asked her to pick up a pair and he'll pay her back.

I asked her why she's picking up shoes for some other man and she didn't really have an answer, other then " well im always out thrifti g, and he wanted cowboy boots." just don't like it. I've caught her chatting up some guy and then hiding the messages from me before so my trust is already shot, and this feels like it's building toward something. Am I being a dickhead for thinking this is borderline not cool, or am I just paranoid?

I experienced a lot of trauma during the birth of my son. Honestly, it was after the birth. I went in to be induced. It was a little slow, then picked up the next night. I pushed for 20 min and he came out. Only had a first degree tear going up, which is not fun for my urethra but not the worst it could have been. I also had a couple stitches going down. I cuddled him as my husband watched and our family came to support. 

Well, that night it all started. At around 9-10 I continue gushing out blood every few seconds. I was bleeding way too much for pads. They massaged my uterus and clots upon clots just kept coming out. I became extremely lightheaded, couldn’t move even my hands, and could barely keep my eyes open, even while lying down. They had to force me to pee with a catheter. Because of the stitches, it hurt so bad. I screamed begging them to stop, which they obviously could not. At the time, I thought it was the worst pain on earth. After, they gave me a shot in the thigh and told me I could sleep.

The next morning, they got me up to the bathroom to pee. There a baseball sized clot came out. I also kept gushing blood in bed, still too much for a pad. That’s when the nurses called my obgyn to come in. My doctor said she was just going to look around in there and would give me medication to make me not feel it. 

This is where it really began. So, she gave me the medication, which made me so loopy. I was laughing and giggling up until the examine. She reached, full hand, into my vagina and up into my uterus to try and find more clots. I have never felt pain like that in my life. I screamed and screamed and begged them for a break, but they said they couldn’t stop. I closed my legs and wouldn’t let them open, as I sobbed. My husband couldn’t stand next to me. I just saw him crying on the other side of the room. At that point, my doctor saw that she couldn’t do it that way, since the clots were way too high up and I couldn’t handle it. She decided to send me to OR.

I was so loopy from the pain medication that I didn’t understand what was going on. They had my husband sign the consent form, and I was rushed downstairs without my glasses and without an explanation other than they need to get the clots or I’ll bleed out. I was already hemorrhaging badly. 

I watched and could see nothing but blobs as they carted me through halls and down elevators, since I have -5.00 prescription on my glasses. I then reached this curtained off area where a woman and the anesthesiologist team was. I was sobbing and hyperventilating. I just wanted my husband and baby. I just looked up at these blobs of people as they explained to me that I had some risks because I had eaten just before. I couldn’t even see their faces as they used the word asphyxiation, which to my loopy mind meant I was going to die while under. I started hyperventilating more and just freaking out. I said I didn’t want to do this and that I just want to wake back up. I begged them to promise I would wake back up and no one did. One of the doctors told me he was just going to slip some meds in on the “down low” to “ease my anxiety.” They worked, except for the fact that it just made me settle with the fact I was about to die. 

They wheeled me to the OR room, where they put a mask on my face. The last thing I remember is telling the world that I loved my husband and baby boy and the promise I would wait for them where ever I was going. 

Then I woke up in some room. I was out of my mind under anesthesia. I don’t remember much other than telling all the nurses how handsome my husband was. I was wheeled upstairs to my room, where my mom, sister, mother in law, and my husband were waiting. I don’t remember this part, but my husband said I was just so happy and giddy. He said he cried when I said “I thought I was going to die, but here I am!” 

I know there is worse birth trauma out there, but I just haven’t been able to sleep without thinking I won’t be waking up. Every time I look at my husband and son I think of my promise as I was fading out. I thought I was being put to death, without an explanation. I understand how loopy I was. My birth team did what they had to do to save my life. They explained everything afterwards. But it is so hard to forget the moment. 

The title is very weird, i can explain as much as i can without giving too much away but incredibly long story short, my son is 6. Me and his mom (my ex of 5 years) are civil when needed but i truly do not like or want to be around this individual longer than I have to and I know she feels the same way about me. Our personal feelings about each other aside, we do manage to coparent in a stable manner when it does pertain to our son (i’ll explain this in a bit).

Another long story short, me and her haven’t been together in years, however she recently gave birth and informed me about the birth happening. It’s not mine, i truly think I met the dad randomly when I was picking my son up from her place a few months ago. However, that’s not my issue.

My issue is, she randomly called me a few hours ago (it’s been about 2 days since the birth of the baby) and asked me to pick up our son for his basketball game in the morning. I agreed and after agreeing on the time and location to meet, she then switched the topic and stated that due to her situation, she gave the baby up for adoption and that our son has been already spreading that he has a sibling at school and the school reached out to her. I actually didn’t know the gender of the baby until my son casually mentioned it to me 2 weeks ago (we have 50/50 split custody; 2 weeks with me, 2 weeks with his mom).

Essentially, my question is: How do I navigate this conversation with my son? He’s 6 and he honestly seemed excited about having a sibling from all the small things he has stated around me. However, according to my girlfriend, she’s stated that he’s said things that he’s aware of like “adoption” and “adoptive brother”. I actually forgot that this moment happened since it happened a few months ago but based on that, part of me feels like he already knows about it.

Also, my second question is: Am I wrong in feeling like this is something I shouldn’t have to explain to him? I’m very transparent with my son and I’ll explain anything he asks about in ways that a 6 year old can understand, but I feel like this is just wrong in the sense that, from the brief moments that my son has mentioned it, he’s excited about having a sibling. I know I don’t have the best relationship with his mom but this wasn’t something I had any part in but I understand where his mom is coming from. I really want to stress that I’m not mad at my son’s mother, i’m just mad at the situation. I feel like this is a topic that’s too heavy to try and explain to my son but at the same time, I also can’t let him go around with the idea of having a sibling then explaining to him why his sibling isn’t around.

I do apologize if this is all over the place, but I’m trying to just get advice on the situation and know how to properly navigate this one.

My girlfriend and I have been together for a bit. Recently we went and saw rings(a few times). I wanted to be sure what she was into. Today, I did it. I didn’t propose. But, I put the final deposit down on a ring. I’m. Fucking. PSYCHED. I’m making a dope ring holder to use when I do it out of some exotic wood. Not one of those cube shaped boxes. It’ll be the size of a phone so she can’t tell when it’s in my pocket. and a pop up storybook type deal when I open it. i can’t wait until it’s done casting bc I can’t keep a secret from her. At all. I’ll be strong though. I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with her. She’s snoring next to me right now whole her cat is also KOed between us. I’ll be sure to take pictures with the ring and her before I propose(without her knowing) to show her after. I needed to get this out bc I’d tell her otherwise. SHITS GETTING REAL!

Hey everyone, I'm reaching out here because the isolation is hitting me really hard lately. I'm a 24-year-old guy living in Mumbai, and I feel completely invisible in this massive city. I've dealt with loss most of my life.

My father passed away when I was 4, and my mother passed away when I was 21, right when I needed her most. Losing her broke me. Now, I am entirely on my own.

While guys my age have family safety nets or a home to go back to, I just return to an empty room. To make things harde I'm stuck in a low-paying job finance job. Mumbai is brutal when you're struggling financially. The daily grind and the stress of making ends meet leaves me completely drained, so I don't have the energy or funds to go out and socialize. What hurts the most is having absolutely no one. I really miss just sharing random stuff about myself with someone, or having a person to share my happiness with when something good happens. Instead, it's just a constant loop of a stressful job, coming home to total silence, and worrying about the future.

How do you cope with absolute loneliness when you're starting from sub-zero? If anyone has gone through something similar, I'd really appreciate hearing how you keep going because i am tired and i feel like i should just

It's my birthday today. Turned fourteen just fourteen minutes ago, I feel nothing. It's just another 24 hours. Idk man. I'm no longer 13. gosh idk what im supposed to feel. nobody wished. It kinda sucks.

Have you ever met anyone like this?

Sorry, this is a long one, but I have to tell you about this guy I work with.

A coworker of mine is 26 years old and lost the majority of his family in a car accident when he was 22. He came from a family of eight: his parents and five siblings. Now, it’s just him and his little sister. But here’s the crazy part… this dude gets to the office at 5:00 a.m. and doesn’t leave until around 4:30 p.m. almost every single day, and he’s constantly putting everyone else before himself.

Every Monday morning, he makes breakfast for the entire office, even though he absolutely doesn’t have to. I’m talking 40 breakfast burritos, homemade bread, pancakes, eggs, bacon, you name it. He’s been doing this for a long time, just because he wants to.
And the more I learn about him, the crazier it gets. He’s incredibly frugal when it comes to himself. Shops at thrift stores, meal preps 90 meals at a time and stores them in his chest freezer, barely spends money on himself, and doesn’t even eat out. Meanwhile, the dude is a CPA making around $150K a year plus a bonus….

But when it comes to his little sister, he gives her the world. He says he has three kids, sort of: his little sister, her best friend, and her best friend’s boyfriend. He says those three mean the world to him, and he just wants them to have the best childhood possible. He literally has debit cards connected to his bank account for each of them and reloads them every week with something like $300–$500 each. On top of that, he makes weekly envelopes for his sister and her best friend, then every other week makes another one for his sister’s best friend and her boyfriend so they can have date nights together. And all he ever asks for in return is pictures of the memories they make.

I asked him what he actually puts in these envelopes, and it’s honestly insane. Every single one is some kind of adventure: shopping trips, spa days, amusement parks, dinners, or just random experiences he wants them to enjoy. One envelope might have a $150 dinner gift card, Dave & Buster’s cards, and shopping money. Other times, he’ll literally give them $1,000 to go shopping for the day. 😭

He’s sent them to Coachella with everything paid for, arranged trips to New York, and done all kinds of other things for them. And somehow, he still lives like he’s making minimum wage when it comes to himself. I swear, the more I learn about this guy, the harder it is to wrap my head around how someone can live like that. He works crazy hours, hardly does anything for himself, and seems perfectly content keeping his own life simple while spending his money making sure these three kids have experiences and memories they’ll never forget.

But one thing is obvious: he loves those three kids more than anything in this world, and he’s determined to make sure they know they’ll always have someone in their corner.

I’ve honestly just never met anyone like him. And deep down, I have a feeling he’s still grieving everything he lost. Maybe putting so much love into those three kids is his way of making sure they never have to feel alone the way he did. I don’t know, but there’s something about him that really gets to me. He’s been through more than most people his age could imagine, yet he still spends so much of his time, energy, and money making other people happy.

I was put on 3 mg on aripiprazole (Abilify) a little over 2 weeks ago for depression. It was working fine, then they decided to put me on 6 mg a week ago which caused horrible side effects. I couldn't stay still without feeling like I was going crazy, I would have panic attacks, stuff like that. a couple days ago they lowered my dose and gave me xanax for my panic attacks but I'm scared. I see my doctor again in 2 weeks and idk if I can tolerate this for 2 more weeks. I feel absolutely awful. But on the bright side, my depression is nearly gone. But on the less bright side, this feels worse than depression. I just need to tolerate the next 2 weeks because I feel like I'm going crazy. idek why I'm writing this here I just am going insane I swear.

I just went to see her in the hospital for the first time. We were together in the morning, singing songs. She drove me to a coffee shop, she went to a gym. We had a plan to eat lunch together back home.

I got home from the coffee shop, she wasn't coming. As usual, I had the "somethings wrong" thought, but dismissed it, cuz i have these every time And they are never true. After 2 Hours my dad came to say she was driven to a Hospital after people found her very weird acting and confused at the gym.

She probably had a stroke or something. She forgets everything said in the last 10 seconds And Always asks: where am i? how did i get here? we Always told her and she always asked again. And she is so scared And stressed because she know something Is Wrong but She Always forgets. She was crying. And i am too Now.. I love her very much And i know she is going through hell

I am scared she will stay there, im scared her brain Will be Forever damaged. FUCK everything was normal in the morning.

Hopefully I can’t vent a bit, but I’ve been encountering such mean, bitter and harsh people across all subs I frequent! Wether it’s local, niche, generic, etc. I’ll make a post so benign and simple or even comment something that’s quite literally the antithesis of being dissident, and someone will make a snide remark…or say something that implies I interpreted something differently… or play devils advocate or what not. It’s actually super exhausting to be the only anomaly or person down voted to hell for absolutely no reason…

Im not sure if the site has had a shift in user base to people who aren’t as happy or more divisive, but its so wack. I’ve been using the platform for almost a decade and I don’t recall reddiotrs being so pedantic, rude or dense, at least at such a high frequency. Genuinely it’s exhausting that I can’t even have a chill space on the internet because someone will comment something weird or rude. The increase in group think is a bit more pervasive in anonymous communities and platforms which makes it even more sad. I’ve even witnessed this happen to other random comments and redditors and I just feel so bad, because genuinely it’ll be the most benign thing, like “Hey OP, thanks for your post but this bit of information you included isn’t super accurate so here’s a link to something accurate” and they’ll be downvoted to hell just for spreading the proper info…Or the female subreddits I’m in will have a post about a girl going through a tough breakup and there will be mean comments like “get the fuck over it, you’re a grown woman”… like wow harsh!!

Anyway, rant over. But jeez it’s been getting under my skin lately. I can usually stomach it, but I wonder if anyone else has experienced this.

This is a real "my lobster too buttery" issue, but I'm genuinely going insane over the combination of how attractive my wife is postpartum and how little she wants to be touched. Like, she is absolutely glowing, her breasts are very full, baby weight evaporated... but she is completely touched-out by our baby and toddler. Her sense of smell is still extremely heightened (it's a pregnancy thing) and everything smells bad to her except our baby.

I completely understand that this will pass. I know I'm being whiny. It just sucks that we haven't had a single sexual interaction in over a year, and even getting a hug or kiss feels like something I have to beg for, which is gross, so I don't.

Not the kind of thing that I would ever want to complain about to someone in my life, because it's lame and pathetic, but going from a very active and healthy sex life to absolutely zero contact (while still living with and sleeping next to someone who is basically the Goddess of Sex Appeal) really, really sucks.

Hello, I (36f) am leaving my husband (37m) after 21 years together.

First of all I don't know that I'm looking for advice, I didn't know why I'm posting this at all. The idea is a little absurd.

I meet my husband when I was 15, we've been through an insane amount of things together. When we were kids we bonded and stick together because neither of us had parents that were worth a damn.

As we've gotten older we've had our ups and downs, and we now have 3 kids together and have been married for 10+ years. We own a home together... We've built a life.

When we had our first child (now 18) he stopped using so I stayed with him. I understood everyone deals with trauma differently, so when we were teens we smoked weed together. But he has started taking pills..I didn't. We agreed early on that or parents were addicts and we went going there. I didn't, he did. But I figured. When we had our first he got clean went to college and we did our best to raise our child. He did fantastically staying clean with the help of subs.

Fast-forward 6 yrs. We had our second child and immediately he started drinking. I had a problem with this because again, I don't want our kids growing up like we did. So much happened over the yrs I could write a book. He refused to stop drinking and started making excuses for himself. Child 2 is now 12 and he still drinks every day. I'm ok with socially drinking or maybe even on weekends, but he's such a dick when he drinks. But he started doing drugs again and he got really fucking weird. Like what the fuck! I don't even smoke! I don't use drugs, I don't drink. I married my fucking family that I worked so hard to get away from.

I don't have familial support so I did my best to try to save to get me and my kids the fuck out of there, he was still going to work every day, but he just got weirder and weirder. I told him he had to stop out I was leaving, he said he needed time. I told him no I'm out. Unfortunately I didn't have enough money saved to leave at that time.. Then...

I found out I was 4 miss pregnant with baby 3. I worked my ass off through my pregnancy to get out. Then when i had my baby, he told me he was done.. no more he swore and to this day he hasn't touched it again, that was 2 yrs ago. However he told me the day after baby 3 was born that he had to quit his job because the stress was causing him to use. His job was a very well paying job.

I agreed though, it's not worth it if he's that miserable. He swore we'd make it work and he had better offers waiting. So now my problem is that he's still drinking, still on the subs. Stopped doing the other stuff.. But he apparently is schizophrenic.

I thought because I've stuck by him through everything else that I could through this to, but it's a whole different beast. And because his brain is telling him that what he is experiencing is real.. he doesn't think he needs help. He won't do anything to help himself. I do understand that he needs my support.

On one hand he spoils me and gives me whatever I want and need. He tells me how beautiful I am but I'm the same breath will tell me I need to lose some weight though.. Any way.

I'm done.. I want a simple life.. I just want to go to work.. and come home to my babies at the end of my day. I don't want him to touch me. I don't want to hear his excuses. I don't want to wake up to my door being barricaded. I don't want to hear him talk to himself. I feel terrible about it, but I'm going to get my own place and I'm going to be a single mom with a simple life with nothing and no one in it but my children and clients.

I want the simplest most boring life ever💜

Thanks for reading

Forgot that I left my new script (stimulants) in his car because I didn't need it right away. I forget to take them a lot so I always have a surplus. I knew as soon as I realized that I'd left them that there would be some missing because around a year ago I caught him skimming from my script.

I found out initially because I had just enough a couple months which made no sense because I had missed doses and then he was stupid and took from my brand new script.

I called him out and he admitted it after a bunch of back and forth and then I realized he stole my old pain meds from a survey I'd had too. I had like 12 left of the script and they were just GONE.

He asked me to hold onto his script at one point so he couldn't abuse it and then when I was gone he rifled through my dresser to find them.

I'm just frustrated and I don't trust him. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. We've been together for 4 years and lived together for a year and a half. Some of my reason for not leaving is sunk cost fallacy and some is literally not being able to afford to leave.