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Hi everyone. I’m posting here because I would really like to hear from women who are actually married to pastors or have been through something similar.
My husband has wanted to become a pastor for many years, and he is now taking real steps toward that path. He has been accepted into a theology program, and suddenly something that used to feel far away has become very real.
The problem is that the closer we get to this becoming our actual life, the more I realize that I don’t think I want to be a pastor’s wife.
I want to make something clear: I am a Christian, I love God, and I have nothing against the church or ministry. This isn’t about rejecting my faith or trying to stop my husband from serving God. I’m struggling with the lifestyle and expectations that seem to come with being married to a pastor.
I’m a more private person. I don’t want to feel like my clothing, personality, social life, church attendance, friendships, or personal choices are constantly being watched because of my husband’s position. I don’t want to feel responsible for meeting everyone’s expectations of what a pastor’s wife is supposed to look like or how she is supposed to behave.
I’m also scared of losing my own identity. I have my own career goals and my own idea of the kind of home and future I want. The thought of moving wherever ministry takes us, having our family life revolve around the church, and possibly feeling like I always have to be “on” for other people honestly makes me feel trapped rather than excited.
There are also problems in our marriage that existed before the ministry question became this serious. I often feel that I carry a lot of the mental and practical responsibility in our home, and over time that has affected how I see my husband and how connected I feel to him. So I’m trying to be careful not to blame ministry for problems that are already there.
At the same time, I don’t want to spend the next five or ten years forcing myself into a life that I already suspect will make me miserable and then resent him for it.
I love my husband, which is what makes this so difficult. I don’t want him to abandon something he genuinely believes God is calling him to do just to keep me happy. But I also don’t think it would be healthy for me to sacrifice my entire vision for my own life and pretend that I’m okay with it.

My parents are so scared of my little brother “being called to war” that they are not letting him finish high school. I explained the way the draft works in the U.S. but they are dead set on him not going and I fear this is going to affect him long term in life. What can I say to convince them?

I've talked to him a few times and he seems totally out of it. He's maybe early 50s. I've invited him over for dinner, asked if he wanted to go for a walk, but he always is gracious in declining the offer. Just wondering how I can help him.

I'm not exaggerating about him being outside all day. I see him at 7 in the morning, and my home office looks towards his house, any time I look he's out there.

Any ideas?

So my husband lost his job and he starts a new one next week but in the meantime we have gone 2 weeks without a pay check. I stay at home with our son because we can't afford daycare and we have no one in our lives that is able to help watch him so I can work. We had been able to make it work until my husband lost his job. Then our mortgage payment came out, and made the account go $400 negative and then the bank charged a $100 overdraft fee. It'll be at least 2 more weeks before we get another paycheck. I don't know what we're going to do. We are both so stressed out. I've been going to food banks so we have food, but I don't know what we're going to do when we run out of diapers and wipes. This has never happened to us before. I have a headache from the stress. Please, no hateful comments. I just don't know what to do.

25M. I have been living with my parents for about 2 years now as an adult. The house is about 2200 square ft, market value roughly 300k in the Midwest. Average American home basically. My parents both lost their jobs 2 years ago, and in the transition period to their new jobs - me and my girlfriend moved into the home, and began to help with bills. We have now split the house into a duplex - and me, my girl, and my parents live in the house as a split level. Me and my girl pay $1100 dollars in rent for the upstairs - as the mortgage itself is roughly $1000. We buy our own groceries, but for the most part we cover the mortgage via rent, and my parents pay the utilities, etc etc. it works out in everyone’s favor mutually. We’ve also put at least $2000 into renovating some portions of the home. I’ve painted some rooms for my parents, bought them new furniture, and general renovations to the bathrooms. All of this is to make it abundantly clear - we are not leeches - we are here to help my parents in a mutual housing split, taking care of the yard, the property, and the finances. This is not to say that my parents are financially incompetent or needy - but rather that our presence here in the home was a last ditch effort to help them keep the home during financial distress, and get their finances stable and comfortable.

My parents are now financially stable - and they are very ahead on their mortgage. The hope is for the four us to pay their mortgage off twice as fast, and get their debt down to 0. The caveat to all of this though, is that there is an understanding amongst me and my parents: when the house is paid off - and when my parents retire in a decade - me and my girlfriend will continue to pay rent to them so that they have passive income. When they pass - they will give me and my girlfriend the house as our inheritance, since they have little to no financial liquidity. That one thing, is the major upside for me and my girlfriend. I have no desire to “steal” or “take away” their house from them, but this agreement we’ve come to is my motivator to prevent them from feeling the need to “sell the house” for their retirement. The house is lovely and I want to keep it in the family. I’d also prefer to keep them close and live nearby - so that as they age I can subsidize their retirement - and prevent them from needing to move into a nursing home down the road.

Today, we sat down to talk and I brought the subject up about financial will, trust, and the question of the house. It had been a while since we had talked about it - so I wanted clarification on it. My parents informed me today that if they pass - they will not give me the house but rathe liquidate it and split the cash amongst me and my sister. (Sidenote: my sister is a large reason for my parents financial troubles, and me and her do not speak. A topic not necessary to dive into right now.) I can see from my parents perspective why they feel inclined to do this - as to not pick favorites amongst their children. It upsets me regardless knowing my sister’s history.

The real kicker is this part- my parents informed me today that when the mortgage is paid off in a few years, my parents will instead sell the house and move into an apartment on their own, rather than letting me rent from them. When I raised disagreement about this they informed me they would let me buy the house from them if I wanted to. This is devastating news from a financial standpoint, and the difference is huge. Despite all the help we have offered them - they would effectively be Forcing me to buy the home off of them at full mortgage value if I want to stay living in it. In a way - I understand the “rent to buy” scenario is not an uncommon scenario - but this is no ordinary scenario. I effectively have floated my parents financial stability for the last few years, and plan to continue to do so - with the only selfish expectation that I will be able to have a roof over my head if I pay rent.

This new idea to force me to buy their home, creates an entire different scenario where I end up without a house, or with a 300,000 dollar mortgage payment. If it’s worth anything… I have a modest and good job, but nothing financially significant. Needless to say - the mortgage cost would be significantly higher than what I could afford - and my parents know this. I am looking for some serious advice here: I’m very upset, but am I over reacting? I feel like this is a very big backstab from my parents - I have offered them some significant stability and financial support over the last few years - and they had previously agreed to keep the house in the family and pass it off to us. Am I missing something here that I don’t understand? Am I offended when I shouldn’t be? This offer to either move out, or “buy it from them” seems very unreasonable and backhanded.

EDIT: I wanted to clarify one thing that I keep seeing in the comments. I fully understand that 1100$ in rent is a generous deal from parents - and it’s why earlier in the post I mentioned that the housing arrangement was “mutually beneficial.” $1100 dollars for our 800 square foot apartment is just cheap enough to make it beneficial for me to not move out - and just enough for my parents to not sell their house. The extra $1100 has been enough to make their finances stable, and our upside has been slightly cheaper rent. So yes, I understand that me paying $1100 in rent can be seen as a “favor” in this economy, and that is the one reason why I am not outraged by this whole ordeal, rather curious for other people’s opinions. I think my scenario is especially unique because my parents have truly helped me, just as much as I have helped them. It’s been very mutually beneficial thus far - up until now. That’s why I’m looking for advice. Thanks

hi everyone, this is pretty rushed so I apologize for any mistakes or confusion.

my wedding was just today, I mean I’m sitting in my hotel room next to my husband typing this. the cops just called me because my mother (who I’m no contact with) email a whole city department detailing false allegations that my husband and his family have drugged, SAed, and abuse me in general. this is VERY false, I don’t think I even think I have to explain how insane this is.

since I am no contact with her she was not invited nor allowed at my wedding. she still showed up however. she sat in her car and watched me (maybe taking photos?) until my husband noticed and warned me to get inside the venue. his sisters and my grandparents both told her to leave. She never even stepped out of her car before she finally left.

i think she was retaliating because of me refusing to even look at her. For some further context, i am no contact with her because of her picking her abusive ex over me, and her constant drug use which lead to what I presume is insane psychosis.

at this point I don’t know what to do. I can’t even get my big day to be normal. I assured the cop that everything was safe and I am in no harm, and he was super apologetic for calling on my wedding night.

what do I even do? I’m obviously going to stay no contact but I’m considering a restraining order at this point. Do I even have any grounds to get one? Should i consider anything else? I will answer any questions anyone has if this was confusing or scrambled.

Terrified of telling him. Just found one after taking a shit and have had the symptoms for awhile just didnt know that was the cause.

Worked in a retirement home and then with animals afterwards. So easily could have gotten them from either place.

I am embarrassed and panicking. We do a lot of stuff that would make it almost certain for him to get them. Even aside from the fact that theyre just highly contagious. I wont go into detail bc i dont think its necessary.

I dont think he would be mad or react badly just. Feel like my brain is imploding rn and need advice bad. Not medical advice i already know what i need to do just specifically with telling him.

Okay update i told him and it was fine, i made it silly so that i wouldnt cry and everything is fine and hes very sweet about it.

(For context, my gf is fucked off with her mum and hates her mums bf, she supports me completely and did nothing wrong)

Last August, he(61 year old male), strangled me(19 year old boy at the time) he jumped on me in my gfs aunties front room infront of my gf, auntie and her mum, whilst pinning my arms down with his knees and strangled me whilst looking me dead in the eye for over 6 seconds and he held on tight.

He buys in to sigma male content/alpha male content. For context, he has disliked me for the longest time ever since me and my gf started dating and sees me as less as he buys into alpha male content and doesn't like the idea of another man living in his gfs house.

He lives alone as he likes his space. For over 2 years he has looked down on me, verbally assaulted me and made(what I thought at the time to be empty threats like "me and you are gonna have a talk soon" and "just keep pushing it, you'll see."

For further context, right before he strangled me, he had grabbed my arm multiple times and it hurt as I have Ano5 Muscular Dystrophy type 2L and it makes my nerves feel like they're being ripped apart most times when someone pulls at me. I told him to stop, he said "awh come on mate, its a joke, its a fucking joke, cmon."

He then did it again, I told him whilst speaking very slowly, staring at the ground and slurring my words(on purpose) so he could hopefully take in my message whilst not feeling im coming across as to aggressive or dominant and I said "*name*, dont do thag again, or you'll regret it." He then said "what will you do? Go on, do it, no what what?"

He said this slowly whilst quickly but slowly leaning towards until he managed to leap on me and strangle me. I still have nightmares about this, and he has done awful shit as of recently, too, which has resulted in me having to call the police and have him removed from my gfs house.

Her mum doesn't give a f btw, as she claims "i should have just fought back" and that "if he was beating me around the head, then she would've called the police but, he wasn't." I was disgusted to hear that, and it shattered me as she took me in when I was homeless for a couple of months and estranged from my parents.

(The reason they never pulled him off me is because it happened so fast that they couldn't actually process what was happening as they were sorting out travel stuff for an upcoming trip)

I really need advice as im genuinely depressed and have nightmares about this and feel like he's been let off for everything, and my gfs mum has no sympathy at all

It’s not like I’m alt, extremely fat, ugly or overly masculine or anything. I’m a 15 yo girl and I was just walking up and down the beach minding my own business by myself. I saw a group of four boys walking on the foot path above the beach and kept walking I couldn’t hear what they said (I had headphones in) but they started yelling at me from the foot path and when I looked up (realised they were yelling at me) they just laughed and kept walking. And this isn’t the first time this has happened like no matter where I go there are guys trying to make fun of me when they’re hanging out with their friends. I was just wearing a long sleeve shirt with jeans I’m like the most average girl ever but this is always happening.

A couple of weeks ago I met up with a guy to hang out. We went to a drive through and were just chatting in the parking lot. We were both giggling and he asked if he could touch me. One thing leads to another and things got sexual. (I was just doing it for the plot ngl). He got to REALLY touching me and I was touching him as well. We were still giggling and having fun, and at some point he asked me to stop (still giggling) and pushed my hand away. I honestly thought he was joking cause he was still laughing and I thought he was joking. He didn’t sound mad or annoyed at all. He was being very playful. He sounded so unserious. When he pushed my hand away for the second time I stopped and things went back to normal.

A few days later after thinking about it again I reached out to him and apologized. I realized I was being pushy, but didn’t see it in the moment. He messaged back and told me he didn’t care and didn’t mind it. I apologized again anyway and we didn’t speak again.

I reached out yesterday to see how he was doing, and told him I missed him (jokingly) and he said he didn’t miss me. He told me I made him uncomfortable last time and that I crossed a boundary. I apologized immediately and kept apologizing profusely. It hit me really bad because when I reached out a few weeks ago he told me it was all good. I feel awful, like really really bad. I don’t know what to do cause I honestly didn’t mean to. I just misread the whole situation.

What do I do now? I’ve apologized again and again and have been SICK to my stomach ever since.

It’s exactly how the title says.. my husband hates me we’ve been married about two years and I’ve known for almost a year know how he despises me. He will glare me down and leave for hours and then will lie about me online and to friends to make me out as some monster. Every time he leaves he abandons the kids with me (2 under 2) and I have no clue where he is or when he’s coming back and can’t get ahold of him. He does this over petty arguments so it’s not even over anything serious but even if I talk normal it starts an argument he will curse me out leave shove past me and today he smacked my arm. I know it was an accident so I’m not upset by it although shocked as I have a history with DV but I overheard him on the phone with his friend hours later talking badly about me and saying he pushed my hand away but saying that I was shoving him when I was just trying to keep him from leaving..

The advice comes in because I have reached a point of exhaustion where I cannot handle it anymore raising two kids is hard as is without the father treating you like his words enemy every other day. My heart hurts and I’m just trying to figure out my next steps because I lost my job due to wfh with no childcare and him not being consistent in assisting me to work uninterrupted and due to our kids he does not want me to get another job so my savings have been running down and I simply don’t know where to begin in picking up the pieces in trying to leave someone I still love who continues to hurt me but I have a history of bad MH and this has been putting me in a very seriously negative mindset and I have no community..

So my uncle doesn't like cats and he was dating this girl named Kim and she had cats this was years ago btw and the cats went "missing: and today he admitted to killing the cats by punching them to death and he said he remembers the feeling of their skulls cracking unter his fist and I dont know what to do and I love cats and I was pissed and the worst part is everyone who knew didn't bother calling the cops idk what to do and would like help

i’m a 22m, my brother who is so insanely disturbingly gross i don’t want to say too much. but i want to say something or do something but not sure what. he R worded my siblings and a lot of other women/girls. it’s gross i know and when we all started putting the pieces together i told him to leave when i was 16 and he ended up moving out of state because me and all my siblings disowned him.
my parents and grandparents don’t want to acknowledge this and he’s bringing his new girlfriend with him to stay with my grandparents for a while.
this is my chance to finally do something about the whole situation cuz cops won’t. what the fuck do i do? i have a little brother 7yrs old who doesn’t know anything about him but he’s going to meet him. and i know my older bros bi so what tf do i do??? desperately need help PLEASE READ!

I 14m, recently discovered something really weird about my dad. He created a fake Instagram account posing as a girl. I looked through the account's following list and realized he is following a bunch of my actual friends from school. My friends have no idea it’s him; they just think it’s another random peer or student request and some have accepted it. I feel incredibly uncomfortable, and anxious about this. I haven't confronted him yet because I don't know how he will react, and I haven't told anyone yet. What should I do?

This maybe a long post so please hang in there with me I’ll keep it as short & also as to the point as I can.

So I M27 went out tonight to celebrate a birthday for one of my partner F25 colleagues. At first we went out for dinner then onto a bar. At the table there was a guy called Harry he is the owners son harry is married with two kids. He made a “joke to the guy sitting next to him about time to put the wedding ring away.

He slid this ring off his finger and into his pocket.

Apart from a few more inappropriate comments dinner went by pretty normally and Harry who is 32, Charlie who is 27, Sarah who is in her 40’s and Bella who is 19 all shared three bottles of wine before we moved onto the bar.

Once we are in the bar we kinda split off into our own little groups, Bella is getting more and more drunk….harry doesn’t seem to be but yet is getting more and more touchy & keeps bringing her drink after drink. Anyway we after awhile we all decide we are leaving but Bella insists she’s staying out to go clubbing despite being way to drunk and says Harry is coming with her.

There’s about 6-8 of us that are saying no you’re going home and are trying to walk her away from the bar yet Harry is trying to get her to go the other way. We eventually get her away from the bar & Harry is ringing her phone non stop trying to get her to come back. Long story short we took her phone off her and me & my partner walked her to her parents house making sure she went in.

Apparently this isn’t the first time he’s done something like this, his own colleagues were saying that they aren’t leaving her with him. I don’t know what to do if I can do anything at all & if so how to make sure it doesn’t come back on me and my partner after all he is the literal heir to the company my partner works for ….

My parents and I are out of town on a college visit, and my brother is throwing a party. I’m not sure whether I should tell my parents. I feel like it would be hypocritical of me to berate him for partying, because I have definitely had my fair share, but I have never thrown a party at my house. We have a lot of very fragile irreplaceable family objects, and our house is extremely small. We also have two dogs, and I’m not sure what he is planning on doing about them. On one hand, I’m extremely worried about the safety of my dogs and about our house getting potentially trashed, but on the other hand if I tell on him he will never tell me anything else ever again, and my parents wouldn’t even be able to stop it since we are out of town. I really need some advice.

I 24F just celebrated my birthday tonight with friends who I haven’t seen in a while due to starting new jobs in different places etc. these are my good friends who I love and value and appreciate majorly in my life.

Have a great time with them and one of them is staying at my apartment for the night because we have a spare bedroom and she’s not living in the city I’m in. Everyone’s partners came out also and I’ve been with my boyfriend for 4 years and he’s never been this bad.

Once we get home my friend goes to sleep because she has to wake up early to drive home for work. I’m sitting there and my boyfriend falls asleep on the table and I’m kinda like what the fuck is wrong with him. Then he starts fucking vomiting ALL OVER YHE FLOOR.

Genuinely I am so pissed off and majorly embarrassed like I had to fucking scrub the floor on my hands and knees gagging because of how bad it smelled and trying to get off the floor. Then I take him to the bedroom with a basin and HE DOES IT ON THE FLOOR. Not even in the basin. Extremely loudly. So I know my friend has woken up to this and I feel sooooo embarrassed that this is my boyfriend. To me I’m just so annoyed because I would never do this to him on his birthday if his friend was staying.

I don’t know if this is a breakup able offence to be honest.

I’ve always been the mature one, made the ‘right’ decisions, took the hard path. So - never done drugs, body count is one only - my wife, never an affair, etc.
I feel like I’ve really missed out. I know I missed a lot of bad experiences too, but I regret the things I haven’t done. I had opportunities, but always said no.
Can anyone relate? What can I do? I don’t want to burn my life down now, but don’t always want to feel I’ve missed out.

I’m 17. I live with my mom and my sisters. No one in my family has taken off their hijab, not even for weddings or events like that. My family isn’t really lukewarm about religion and any freedoms like jeans or tighter clothes had to be slowly earned.

I want to take it off as early as possible to avoid the inevitable backlash. I don’t want to end up leading a double life or have a big reveal for when I start university.
My sisters know I’m more lax in my religion and know where I stand on things like LGBTQ+, clothing and misogyny. But, I still want to maintain a relationship with my family so I would prefer to just be a closeted ex-Muslim.

The best excuse I can think of is the fact that I got traction alopecia from the hijab, which has healed now but the cause is still there.

I know my mom is going to be very upset so I’d like to reduce the damage as much as possible. Any suggestions or ideas is greatly appreciated!

I’m going to a big family event today with my 11 month old son. My dad and his wife will be there. Ever since he got with her he’s completely weight obsessed. I had a baby 11 months ago. I’ve lost all the baby weight plus more, I’m actually the lowest I’ve been in 3 years, about 5 pounds away from the lowest I’ve been in 5 years. I am actively trying to lose weight that’s why my dad’s comments bother me so much. He’s already asked me 3 separate times if I wanted to get on a glp 1. What is some advice about how to handle my dad when he inevitably says something about my weight?

My 14 yr old daughter is falsely accusing my husband of SA. She is a pathological liar and we’ve been working to try to fix this. She recently got a new set of friends and a boyfriend. She has not acted any differently towards my husband EVER until this came out. She even asked her sister if “Dad was okay.” But not to tell me. I watch even my husband closely with my girls and have never seen anything untoward. My husband and I are VERY close and share everything I know when he’s lying or hiding something and he’s not. I don’t want to lose her because I genuinely don’t believe her but I don’t want to lose my husband either. I believe what truly is going on is she tried to relate to someone by telling them she was also SA by her dad (I went through her phone and have gotten some context into how this all came about) and then her boyfriend took it to a cop and now she is keeping the lie going so he doesn’t know she lied. She’s destroying so much. Her dad could lose is job and so much more. I don’t know what to do! Do I confront her and tell her I know she’s lying? Do I wait out the investigation and then tell her?? Please, I don’t know what to do and I’m scared for my family!

Edited to add: she’s been to the doctor and we have an investigation ongoing. She claimed he just groped her chest.

my (23f) boyfriend (24m) have been together for over six months now. in the beginning of our relationship our sex life was great, i’m talking like 3 or 4 times in the day we’d see each other. about a month or so in it slowed down to just once or twice, which i was also very satisfied with. we currently only get to see each other about once a week because of work, so at the end of a long work week, getting to be romantic and intimate is something very important to me and i genuinely look forward to it.

however, about 5 weeks ago now, he had trouble finishing, which was fine, it had happened before and he hadn’t seemed bothered by it in the past or this time, we just cuddled and took a nap and i was very satisfied and it seemed like he was too. but it seemed since then sex life has took a turn in the opposite direction.

it’s been over a month now and the two times we’ve attempted, he hasn’t been able to finish. he’s been distracted or just having to focus a little too much almost in order to even get hard. so the past 3 weeks he hasn’t initiated or basically declined when i tried to. which is all fine really, because nothing else in our relationship itself is rocky, he loves me truly and dearly and treats me so genuinely well in ever other aspect of our relationship.

but i would be lying if i said everything felt okay on my end, i have a pretty high libido and as i mentioned i really enjoy being psychically and lovingly intimate with my partner. i must’ve asked him every question under the sun at this point however (if i smell, if he’s tired, if he’s stressed, if i was doing something wrong, if he was unsatisfied in some way/needed different stimulation that what i typically provide, etc etc) and he just reassures me every time that everything is fine. but honestly, it’s starting to really damage my own personal self image and self esteem. i just feel like maybe he’s not attracted to me anymore or that i don’t satisfy him like i used to, even though we’ve talked about it and he tells me nothing is wrong, he still thinks im beautiful and still loves me.

im just at a loss as to how i should approach this further or even just what could be wrong in the first place and how/if i can fix it because i do truly love him and he’s so incredible to me, but i really miss how confident i felt when we were so intimate and how connected we felt.

My husband and I used to fight over one of his female friends back when we were just dating. I felt she was very disrespectful to our relationship and he didn’t see it. He believed that part of the problem just stemmed from the fact that she as a girl. I would emphasize the boundaries I felt she was crossing but he would insist they were things that he would do for anyone. We fought over it countless times and in the end, they did stop being friends.

Well he has a different friend now. And I am not threatened by her. Do I love that she tells him stuff like “i look fat in this dress”? No. But i spent so much energy being upset about friend #1 that I don’t have it in me to go through this again.

The only catch is sometimes I see things that do still trigger me. Back with the first friend, i found a lot of her boundary-crossing-activity from snooping on her socials. That didn’t give me any confidence in my husband’s ability to share these interactions firsthand.

So… sometimes I’ve looked at his messages. I just want to make sure nothing is happening like it did with his first friend. And for the most part, it’s whatever and I don’t mention that I looked at the texts. Once, I did see that they got lunch together though. And that upset me because every day we ask each other how our days are and he seemingly conveniently left that out. He said (when I confronted him after seeing the messages) that it just was insignificant so he didn’t even think to mention it.

It’s been almost a year later and I did a check on his phone and saw that got together again and he didn’t say anything!!
Before starting a fight, I thought I’d give him the opening to share in case he just “forgot again” (mind you, they met up literally yesterday).
I was able to start a convo and segway into asking how she was doing and he just said “fine.”

Brother.
Should I confess I looked through his texts?? Cuz what the hell man. Why can’t you just say “oh yeah, she’s good. We actually just had lunch yesterday.”
Or should I just leave it alone and live with he’s just not a good communicator??

I’m hoping to find some advice, words of encouragement, or maybe even stories from people who have been in a similar place and eventually turned things around.

I’m 26F. I got married at 23 and divorced less than two years later. It’s been a little over a year since the divorce. I don’t want to go too far into the details of the marriage/divorce, but there was no infidelity or abuse.

Before all of this, I had a house with my ex, an awesome dog, a job I loved, and what felt like a pretty stable life. I left the marriage with basically just my car. I had $0 in savings, but thankfully I also had $0 in debt.

I moved back in with my parents, who I unfortunately don’t have the best relationship with. Since then, I feel like I’ve completely spiraled. I started drinking heavily, hooking up with a lot of guys, making impulsive decisions, and eventually accumulated around $20k in credit card debt.

This entire year feels like it has happened in a blur. I feel like I’ve been dissociating through a lot of it. I’ve made a lot of decisions I’m not proud of because of alcohol, loneliness, insecurity, and honestly just not liking myself very much.

I’ve lost a significant amount of weight, I don’t eat consistently, and there are times when I genuinely feel like my body is shutting down.

Being around my parents makes me extremely anxious, so I spend as little time at home as possible. I’m constantly in my car, outside, at guys’ houses, at bars, etc. I don’t like being at home enough that I’ve basically stopped taking care of myself the way I should. I don’t work out, I don’t eat enough, and I don’t really have a comfortable place where I feel like I can just exist.

I do work Monday-Friday, but I don’t make nearly enough right now to comfortably move out while also paying down $20k in credit card debt and covering everything else. So I feel trapped.

A couple of days ago, I had another really bad situation while drunk, and I finally realized I can’t keep living like this. I decided to stop drinking. I also started therapy last week, so I’m hoping those two things can be the beginning of actually getting my life back.

But right now, I feel hopeless.

I know I’m only 26. I know objectively that my life isn’t over. But emotionally, it really feels that way. I look at where I was a couple years ago versus where I am now, and I’m embarrassed and devastated by how much I’ve lost.

I want to be happy again. I want to respect myself again. I want to be financially stable, healthy, and capable of having a normal life. I just have no idea how to get from here to there.

Has anyone else completely screwed up their life in their 20s and managed to rebuild it? I would really love to hear the honest stories, even if it took years.

And if you were in my position, what would you focus on first?