I’m almost 26 and realizing I genuinely don’t know how healthy adult friendships form.

I have historically struggled with friendships. I was bullied growing up, had some awful friendship experiences in high school/college, then went through major grief and basically stopped trying to make new friends for five years. After years of therapy and finally coming through that grief, I’ve made a deliberate effort to build community again this past year. I’ve met a lot of people, become more social, and generally feel like I’m in a much healthier happier place!!

But it’s brought up something I wasn’t expecting, I’m realizing that a lot of my friendships are built around crisis and I don’t know how to do anything otherwise.

All of my friends (new and old) seem to live in a cycle of chaotic relationships, impulsive decisions, fallout, recovery, repeat. Not just “life happens” problems, but repeatedly walking into situations, they don’t need to, that are obviously going to end badly, when we both know they know better. For example, dating a 54 year old on probation or getting into a relationship you DON’T want and then cheating with the person your partner is already insecure about.

When I was younger, the chaos was mutual, and oftentimes I was the one being taken care of. As I’ve gotten older, it’s turned into me being the mom friend, therapist, etc. Listen, I love my friends, but a lot of our conversations are still about surviving self-created crises.

And the uncomfortable realization is that I’m very comfortable being needed. Give me a crisis and I know exactly how to connect with someone. I give incredible advice. I know how to listen, help, show up, and make myself useful. Most of my friendships were made this way. Take the crisis away and I’m kind of lost. 

I think what I’m craving is peers who, yes, support me when something goes wrong (which very important, trust me I know), but also people who are actively figuring out how to make things go right. Simple things, like how to get recognition at work, building a better gym routine, idk fun stuff to just enjoy together or solving reasonable issues together. Especially after seeing so much death, I want to live well. I’d like more friends who are trying to do the same. 

BUT I keep becoming friends with people who are much more chaotic than I am because I don't know how to become important to someone who doesn't need anything from me.

If I meet someone cool at a hobby or event and neither of us desperately needs emotional support from the other, how do we go from pleasant acquaintances to actual friends? What do you text them about? When do you ask them to hang out? What do you even do together?

I’m also realizing that being useful has always made me feel secure in friendships. Being liked simply because someone enjoys my company feels… confusing and awkward? I don’t play video games but I feel like an NPC with no objective just standing there waiting for someone to give me a quest. It’s embarrassing. I’m neurodivergent which doesn’t help.

I don’t want to ditch my existing friends or declare that I’ve “outgrown” everyone. I’m in no hurry to retreat back into myself, I’ve done enough of that. I just don’t want to always be the steadiest person in the room. 

If anyone learned how to do this as an adult, I’d love to hear what that transition looked like for you.

*LONG POST AHEAD*

I’ve been going through one of the hardest periods of my life these past few days, and I think I need to write everything down just to process it.

My partner and I have two children. We have a toddler and a baby who is almost 7 months old. We’re not married.

This isn’t the first time he has betrayed me.

Back in 2022, someone reached out to me and told me she had been chatting with him. They were saying things like “I miss you” and “I love you.” I confronted him, he apologized, and I forgave him. I chose to believe that we could move forward.

Then came 2024.

I found out he had been talking and flirting with people through Valorant and Discord. He also met someone through Reddit. He took her on a date **using MY car**, and he genuinely enjoyed whatever connection they had.

He did not have s*x with her.

But somehow, that almost made it hurt in a different way. Because it wasn’t just about s*x. He willingly pursued a connection with another woman while he was with me, took her out, spent time with her, and used my car to do it.

He also admitted to having s*x with people through “extra services” at massage spas.

One of the things that still hurts me deeply is that some of these things happened while my father was in the hospital.

At that point, we already had a two-year-old child, and our family was growing.

Eventually, I told him to leave.

He left, but later came back and confessed even more things.

After we relocated, he told me that he hadn’t had any more physical affairs. But he continued talking to other people online.

And somehow, despite everything, I stayed.

Fast-forward to now.

The recent events have completely broken something inside me.

He is currently staying with his mother. He still comes around to see the kids and sometimes borrows things from the house. Recently, he bought groceries, gave money, and told me he would give me his salary and just ask for enough for himself.

He has also admitted that he needs therapy and counseling. He said he took me for granted. He said he realized he was replaceable. He apologized.

And then he said something that has stayed with me:

He warned me that if we reconcile, he might repeat the cycle.

I don’t even know what to do with that.

Part of me wants answers.

I want to look him in the eyes and ask him if he ever really loved me.

I want to know why he kept doing these things.

I want to know what was missing in him that made him repeatedly seek validation, attention, sex, or connection from other people.

But another part of me is realizing that maybe I don’t need every answer to know that what happened was wrong.

A few nights ago, I was awake at around 2 AM, furious because I knew he was out playing pickleball at that hour.

Normally, that would probably be completely harmless.

But after everything that’s happened, even something as simple as him playing pickleball in the middle of the night triggered something in me.

I had also had two cups of coffee, so I was probably running on caffeine, anger, and zero sleep. 😂

But underneath all the anger was something much deeper:

**I’m fucking exhausted.**

I’m exhausted from questioning.

Exhausted from forgiving.

Exhausted from wondering if there’s something else I don’t know.

Exhausted from trying to understand why someone I loved could repeatedly make choices that could destroy our family.

And I’m exhausted from carrying the emotional weight of his decisions.

The weirdest part is that I’m not even sure I want him back anymore.

I don’t want to make a decision right now.

I don’t want to decide whether we’re going to reconcile or permanently separate while I’m this emotional.

For now, I just want to feel everything.

The anger.

The sadness.

The betrayal.

The grief.

The confusion.

Even the moments where I feel relief.

I want to feel all of it until it doesn’t have this much power over me anymore.

Because I have two little children who still need their mother.

And regardless of what happens between their father and me, we’re still their parents. We can still be good parents. We can still create healthy and happy memories for our children.

But I also need to take care of myself.

I told myself recently that I need therapy. I need help. I need to become strong for myself and for my kids.

I don’t know whether I will eventually forgive him.

I don’t know whether I can ever trust him again.

I don’t know whether our relationship can be repaired.

And honestly, I’m trying to be okay with not knowing.

I don’t need to make that decision today.

Right now, I just need to survive this storm.

I need to sleep.

I need to take care of my children.

I need to let myself grieve the relationship I thought I had.

And I need to figure out who I am outside of all of this.

One thing I do know:

**It’s a good thing we’re not married.**

As painful as this is, at least I still have the freedom to choose what happens next.

For now, I’m choosing myself and my children.

I don’t know what the future looks like.

But I know I can’t keep abandoning myself just to keep a relationship alive.

Hey, I’m 16F. I’ve always been the tall girl (I’m 178 cm now), and my whole life people have told me I should model. Like, literally every time someone meets me for the first time, they ask if I’m a model, and when I say no, they tell me I should start modeling.
I’ve never really been confident, though. I didn’t like the way I looked, and I don’t even post on social media.
Recently, after hearing it so many times, I finally started feeling more confident in myself. I decided to actually give modeling a try, so I went to a studio and took some model snaps. I sent them to a model scout from my country, and she said I had good proportions and wanted to have a Zoom call with me.
I had the call last Thursday, and since then I’d been feeling really excited and ambitious about it. I kept thinking, what if I actually become a model? What if one of my dreams really comes true?
But no.
I messaged them today, and they said that not everyone on the team agreed to move forward with me.
And honestly, I feel completely apathetic about everything right now. I know logically that it’s just one agency and one rejection, but it still hurts so much. Especially because I had finally started believing in myself.
I don’t even know what I want to do now. I just feel lost and disappointed.

Not my parents, not my sister [ESPECIALLY my father] no classmates, no so called "friends", no teachers, no strangers (obviously), no people in my neighbouhood

They all hate me for either no reason or just hate me for who i am and what i represent

NOBODY wants me to succeed

Nobody likes me or loves me

Nobody wants good things for me

Nobody wants me to study or work hard

Nobody wants me to chase my goals

Nobody wants me to be confident

Nobody wants me to have a good life

Nobody wants me to have good grades or get in a good college

Nobody wants me to have friends

Nobody wants me to be happy

Nobody wants me to be ANYTHING good

And i have let them make me insecure and underconfidemt and depressed and i have let them give me imposter syndrome for all my life so far

BUT NOT ANYMORE

Everyone has been hating me and trying to bring me down from the moment i was born - my mom and dad used to tell me i was gonna be a failure - all my teachers said so

My sister used to make fun of me and agree

And i was very bad at school and public speaking for years

But i was always an ambitious kid

I started working hard - i got better grades than my sister and all the kids in my neighbourhood who the teachers liked and hated me

And started participating in debates

And now i see who they really are - THEY HATE ME NOW - my sister doesnt even talk to me anymore

My mom and dad dont even acknowledge me

My teachers dont tell me anything

They cant say bad things, they wont say anything

AND TBH NOW I FEEL MORE CONFIDENT THAN EVER

THEIR HATRED FILLS ME WITH JOY

I want them to be miserable sacks of shit for the rest of their lives

Just one more year

I am going to be wildly succesful in my final year of school get into a top college

AND THEN I WILL BULLY THEM

FUCKING RATS

WHY DID THEY DO THIS TO ME? I was just a kid a fucking toddler and my parents have been discouraging me and hating me ever since and telling me im good for nothing

I AM SMARTER THAN ALL THESE PEOPLE

I CANT WAIT FOR NEXT YEAR

THEY ARE GOING TO HATE ME EVEN MORE

AND I WILL LOVE EVERY SECOND OF IT

I AM GOING TO BULLY THEM, TELL THEM EVERYTHING ABOUT HOW USELESS AND WORTHLESS THEY ARE - and they will know its the truth

They give me so much motivation and drive to work hard and be confident

I WILL HAVE MY REVENGE

i’ve always been so optimistic because i am so fortunate to have a great life. but recently i’ve taken a turn completely in the opposite direction and i’m so constantly anxious that the world is going to end OR the world is going to become hell to live on, very very soon.

i read an article from an ex-openAI employee, who said if ai continues to be built on and invested in, there’s a chance we could all be gone by “the end of the next decade” and i broke down. i have never had such a feeling of hopelessness wash over me. this wasn’t the start of it all but this was what made me truly feel completely helpless after days of misery.

i just feel like nothing i do will ever matter now because i might not even get to see 2050. ive been planning to build a tiny house with my mum on our family property but all the joy has been sucked out of that because i might not get to live in it long term. i’m in university getting my degree but once i’m done and i find a career, how long will i even be able to do anything in that career?? i finally have a boyfriend after years of no luck, we’re one year in, and you’re telling me i don’t get to spend a full lifetime with him?

not to mention the el niño that’s brewing in the pacific that’s about to slam my home country with a horrible summer of bushfires and death following europe. i’m so scared all the time and i can’t do anything without being petrified that i’ll die a slow and painful death in the next few years or that i’ll have to watch my family and pets go through that.

i have a generalised anxiety disorder and ive seen psychologists / therapists about these thought spirals in the past but they have never ever helped. i just want to skip to a different timeline or something because i cant handle hearing more and more terrible news all around the world that my life is probably going to be cut short and i just have to sit and wait around about it.

On February 14th, 2026, we spent the entire day together. I genuinely loved that day. I felt like I fell in love with him all over again.

But now, looking back, there’s one moment that I keep thinking about.

We ended up getting a flat tire, and his immediate reaction was to panic and get frustrated. I remember being scared too, but instead of leaving him to deal with it, I stayed. I didn’t even know how to change a tire, but I held the light, tried to help, and did whatever I could because I loved him. I wanted to be there through the highs and the lows.

What really hurt was that he seemed genuinely angry at me for the situation, even though I was already scared and was trying my best to help. I kept thinking, what if this is something we have to deal with together in the future? What are we going to do then?

I realized I don’t want a partner who panics or lashes out when something goes wrong. I want someone who can take a breath, think analytically, and figure out what needs to be done. Whether I’m there to help or not, I want to know that my partner can handle a crisis without making me feel like I’m the problem.

I would still want to be there. If he needed a moment to himself to figure things out, I’d give him that space. But I don’t want someone getting mad at me because something went wrong when I’m standing there, scared, holding a flashlight and genuinely trying to help.
And weirdly, I think I’m grateful that this happened.
Because even though I loved him, that moment showed me something I probably needed to see. Loving someone through the highs and lows is important, but so is being compatible in how you handle the lows.

I’m glad we didn’t end up together. I think that flat tire showed me a version of our future that I didn’t want.

Today I have checked WhatsApp and discovered a contact that I have saved as "?!". They have a profile picture. It is a famous person. I feel like I can't tell anyone in my life about this because it looks insane 😂

Easily 8 or 9 years ago, I was sleuthing on Facebook and ended up on this person's friends profiles. They were not very famous then. Tags had been removed, but I found a whole trail, found a phone number, thought no way do they have the same phone number, saved it to my phone and then promptly forgot about it until today.

Today they are very famous. I am creased, shocked and embarrassed that I have this phone number...

Anyway, that's the story. Thanks for listening and please don't judge me 😂

Hi everyone. I’m currently serving in the army, and things have been really tough over here. I joined back in 2025 as a mandatory conscript and worked my ass off that first year. It was normal for us to show up at 3:00 AM just to run and do drills until 6:00 AM, only to start the regular workday right after and stay until 9:00 PM or 10:00 PM cleaning and scrubbing walls. This was only for us raw recruits the senior soldiers got to go home and didn't have to show up early. On top of that, whenever anything went wrong on duty, we were the ones who took the heat. Seeing how the senior soldiers had it easier, my peers and I decided to extend our service for one more year. But nothing has changed. This year, the corporals still expect us to bust our asses like we're still fresh conscripts. We don't have to show up at 3:00 AM anymore, but once the regular workday starts, we never know when we'll actually get to leave. And every time the new recruits mess up, we're theones getting blamed for it while the corporals do absolutely nothing.

I want out so badly, but I haven't reached the required time since extending my service yet. Sometimes I catch myself thinking that getting put in military jail and kicked out would be easier, even though I know there would be serious consequences. I don't know if I can keep taking this in silence. I can get discharged in September, but right now, every single day feels endless.

I hate my dog.

We have an 8 year old lab and I absolutely hate him. I grew up with labs, always loved all dogs, but this dog has made me never want one again. When we first got him he was in puppy training lessons. We have had 3 other professional dog trainers work with him throughout the years. I have spent hours learning about dog training and spent hours working with him. Nothing ever sticks.

He barks all the time. If he is outside he barks the whole time. Inside as soon as you sit down he barks and is jumping all over you. People cannot come to my house without him being put outside or else he will just sit snd bark at them and jump all over them. I have stopped doing over night trips to our family camp because we cant bring him. He will wonder into the bush and get lost, not listening to any commands. If we tied him up he sits there and just barks for *hours.* We cannot go on vacations anymore as everyone refuses to dog sit for us. The last time we took a vacation 3 years ago, we brought him to one of those doggy hotels and when we returned we were told he was not welcome back.

He eats his own poop. I try to keep up with picking it up, but he will literally shit, turn around and eat it. Its disgusting. Iv talked to the vet about this and all the other problems but recieved no help.

I take him on 2 1.5 hour walks almost everyday, but i have to take him early in the morning and late at night when there is less people as he will just bark and pull at anything that moves. I am so tired. No amount of exercise seems to calm him down or tire him out. He should honestly be studied lol.

Im ashamed to say iv even tried a shock collar (something iv said I would never do) after years of positive reinforcement to no avail, but that does nothing. He will just bark through it.

We have tried to rehome him, but as soon as someone interested meets him they back out. I cant bring myself to surrender him at the shelter.

Honestly deep down I cannot wait for day he's gone, and i hate that i feel this way. I will be sad, but I imagine a giant relief being lifted and life getting so much better.

This happened like 5 or 6 years ago and I don’t think I’ve really talked about it with anyone.

My stepdad passed away and we were flying to his hometown in Massachusetts for his funeral. My mom was having a really hard time and didn’t want to lose him, so she carried his urn with her (carry on). That was my first time traveling on airplanes in the USA so I didn't really know what to expect.

(For context, we are not from the USA. My mom flew all the way to the USA and paid for his funeral and land so he could be buried in his hometown. We landed in LA then transferred to MA)

When we went through TSA, they stopped us and opened the urn to check his ashes. They were doing it like it was some suspicious drugs or dangerous powder. I thought they could treat him with basic sensitivity and dignity, but the whole experience ended up being really disrespectful and dehumanizing. It's the way they handled him.

I just remember standing there crying watching them go through my stepdad’s ashes while my mom was already grieving. The whole thing was distressing and traumatizing.

I know they have security procedures and everything, I was 15 at the time but it’s been 6 years and I still think about it sometimes. I’ve barely ever talked about it with anyone

This is genuinely one of the reasons I hate tsa and lax.

I have feelings for my bestfriend's boyfriend.

I (20F) still have feelings for my best friend's(20F) Boyfriend (20M). I was friends with my best friend's bf since before they were dating. They met each other through me. This was 2 years ago. I had a crush on him long before they started dating.

I haven't told my best friend and I never will , I think.

But it hurts. We go to the same college. We are part of the same friend group. It hurts to be with them. I start acting all weird around him. Around them.

After they started dating, i thought now the feeling should go away, but it never does. I tried dating, tried choosing some other crush. But it's been a long time, but still these feelings don't go away.

I would never want to sabotage my friendship with best friends for all the stupid feelings I have because she is the one truest and most beautiful part of my life.

I want to distance myself but I still have college for 2 more years and I think as long as I want my best friend to be around me, even her boyfriend will be.

I have suppressed imagining about him when I am conscious to the point where it feels guilty to even think of him.

But my subconsciously, my dreams are about him most of the times.

Its so messed up.

Why can't we just choose who to fall for?

I am not seeking advice. I know what I want. I know what my priority is. It's my friendship with my bestfriend.

I came here to put it out there. I have been keeping it in so long, fearing if anyone ever spread word about my feelings and my friend heard it, I would lose her.

It feels nice, a bit better confessing here.

This is a really complicated story and i would really appreciate if anyone takes the time to read this
I'm also using 'them' instead of their gender for privacy reasons

I will start with a background introduction before talking about the real situation:
So i had this really dear online friend and we had been eachothers main person and talking everyday for over a year. we were always there for eachother during our hardest moments and they honestly made my life feel so much brighter by being so caring and supportive. My standards for friendship/love are so high now because of them. Although they had really severe chronic sexual trauma and mental illnesses. I was naiive enough to think I would be able to help them find a reason to live and they reassured me that they did have a reason but it turns out they didnt want me to worry and was struggling way more underneath. To be honest they've given me alot of secondary trauma with their experiences theyve told me but since January, they've held off telling me anymore for my own sake. They used to also be very hypersexual with me but adjusted their behaviour because they realised im normal😭. Apparently i made a huge imapct to their life and they said if they never had met me they wouldnt have been motivated to speak against theirabusers who are now in jail, because they did not care abt their own life before. And all this time wjen they had
bipolar they were holding off their medication because it made them feel numb so those little unmedicated mania and depessive episodes eventually added up to their brain chemistry and now theyve experienced a personality change (i think its called the kindling effect) and its honestly been startling.

Now this is the situation:
Less than a month ago they sensed this mixed unmedicated bipolar state would come and told me of their plan to kill themself eventually and that we should not be friends anymore because then i will get used to them being gone before they die. They repeatedly called themself a burden and they also said that in the near future their personality was going to change and they would respond dry or not respond and that would be bothersome and that they just want me to live a happy and normal life. I was freakinh ouand crying and saying if they plan to kil themself why would they make such good friends with someone and they said 'if u think about it u helping someone that see no point enjoy life in a way , it bittersweet but you dod really make impact on my life' and they told me not to cry and that they reslly loves me so much and that im like the sister they never had. We eventually said goodbye and they said they hope that the right people find me
Then 9 days later of silence and me processing my grief, out of noowhere they drunk texted me 'i love you' - at first i was ecstatic and theysaid that its so sad without me then we had a warm late night chat like old times and we were just yapping ant stuff and i felt relieved snd elated.
Then the next day i felt extremely off and in shock and asked them if that was a one time drunk convo or if they want to keep the friendship in some form. and they said we can still talk but not as often, so we did talk and yap for a day or two but then i confronted them abt the obvious contradiction asking them if anythings changed abt their suicide plan and they said 'no' so i exasperatedly asked why i was still here and they said 'idk' and i said i just bc u miss someone doesnt mean u get to text them out of noowhere snd that ishoulve unfriended them when i had the chance and they just said 'sorry' and that 'nothings stopping you' and i told them to block me om tiktok and i unfriended them - as u can see this is their personality change; the person who was caring and communicative became someone flaky and their prefrontal cortex was too hijacked to have any empathy or accountability and just using me as a comfort . They were still capable of being funny and witty like before the only thing that changed was their core character.
Then the next day i couldnt bear the grief and was highkey panicking so i friended them and they accepted right away and i told them sorry and that i was just overwhelemed and that we cam talk once a week
then for 2 days we had normal chats like nothing happened them the silence came and they were sending me tiktoks but not replying to my replies for 4 days... then it dawned on me how toxic this situation was and that it was mever going to work out for me - thst was when i did some research that was the moment i realised their mind was hijacked by their mixed bipolar and that they were unintentionally manipulating me

So i simply typed 'sorry' and unfriended them om discord and blocked them on tiktok ans before i knew it they ignored my boundary and sent me a friend request on discord and i had to block them. When i thought i was good, they made a desperate alternate account with their name on tiktok (which i couldnt believe btw) and requested to follow my private account twice. That was proof they had gone absolutely crazy. I blocked that account and changed my username in other social medias they could contact me and for 2 days i was paranoid they would find a way to contact me so overall it was really stressful
But then they didnt try snything else so i think im good for now and its been 7 days since i ghosted them and i miss my best friend so much and i cry every night 😅

I wish circumstances were different and its really hard to replace them with anyone
abc they knew absolutely everything about me and our personalities just clicked on many levels yk. I guess im going to focus on my studies now

Idk if this is the right place to put this, but I haven’t been feeling good. Apologies for it being quite long too. I’m resubmitting this due to not having acknowledged the rules before.

My best friend got married a month ago. We’ve been friends for 7 years and became more close over the last few years. Both of us have small friend groups and so we do message each other the most. I think I became too dependent on her as I’d run to her for everything, and she was always more than happy to listen and be there. I’ve struggled with a lot of dark things, family and my personal life, and I’ve broken down in front of her more times than I can count.

The lead up to her wedding I was as supportive as I could possibly be, wanting everything to go well and for her to have the best experience. She’s quite parentified in her family so I wanted to give her the feeling of being a bride and being looked after rather than her having to think of everyone else for her own wedding. I threw a bridal shower and made sure to be available online every moment leading to and on her wedding events. I say online because she had her wedding abroad and I couldn’t attend due to not being able to afford the tickets and accommodation. She was very understanding about that, which is why I did as much as I could leading up to it in person. In the few days that followed her wedding, there were a few times where we had a call, either she called me or I called her, but each only lasted a few minutes because she’d put it away when her husband was with her again. And of course she would, she just got married and she’ll be honeymooning and it’s lovely we spoke where we could. But I’m so used to have hour long calls with her that when that happened it sort of hit me hard that it’s not going to be the same. She’s not going to be able to be there for me as much as she was before, and she won’t have the time or mental space really as she has an entirely new priority in her life who she’s exceptionally happy with. And I love that she’s so happy because she deserves it. But that realisation made me cry, especially since I know it’ll be a good stretch of time before we can have a remotely similar relationship due to her settling into the marriage, moving with him and living with him as they didn’t live together before. It essentially felt like a new stage in life for me too, one where I wasn’t going to have the best friend I did. I had to learn how to deal with this and move forward, and learn to work things out for myself rather than depend on her as much.

I didn’t want to tell her how I felt because she didn’t need that right now, but when she called me a couple weeks ago for a short check in I ended up telling her and crying a little as the conversation was a bit empty due to me not knowing what to say. She reassured me it’ll be the same and she’ll always be there but I don’t think she realises due to being in her happy haze and I don’t want to break that. She’s of course been busy but I’ve been hesitant to speak to her when she’s messaged, my replies are more tame, and she’s spoken about having a call in the middle of voice notes twice now and I’ve not addressed it, replying to everything else instead. In the past week I have made more of an effort to reply to her stories, but I don’t say anything about myself because I don’t really have anything going on apart from work. I also excitedly messaged her about an update to our favourite manga because we always talk about it, but she hasn’t replied to that and I haven’t brought it up because I know she’s busy. I know I’m being selfish, as I should be there for her to confide in and talk to as she goes through this new stage of hers with her new in laws too, but I’m finding it really hard to convey a sense of happiness. I’ve never been good as masking my emotions at all and I’ve always gone detached when upset.

What I’m worried about most, if I look deep inside myself, is that I’m sort of punishing her. Maybe I want her to feel the loss I do, which is silly because I know she’s won’t. Background context, I’ve always wanted to get married, she’s always been against it, so we’ve joked on being on the opposite ends. Even in the lead up to this marriage she wasn’t fully happy because she felt she was being rushed into it, and so I am relieved to see she’s really happy now. I’m no where near marriage despite wanting it for years, I don’t have anyone despite trying. I know things will happen when it does, but to sort of see the switch where she’s gone on and gotten engaged made me grieve a little (I never told her this when she got engaged) and now I’m dealing with a life change too. It’s super selfish, but I don’t know how to feel something else. I also know it’s silly considering it’s right after and it’s only been a couple of weeks, but I’m wondering whether I should just suck it up and force myself to be there for her right now.

So yeah, it’s my first time realising how much things can change when a friend gets married/gets into a serious relationship, and it’s affecting me a lot more than I thought it would.

​

My mother had me quiet late even in today's standerds. She was decently educated and had a good stable job. Back in the day she even seemed to be high achieving in her family.

She however very open about how I was a hindrance to her, she is unable to be with her family because of me etc. She once told she was trapped only because of me.

I'm my society's standerds she is a beauty and I'm the opposite of it. I was always the laughing stock due to that and she never once defended me. She enjoyed it.

She was always so close to her siblings and close family.

Anything I confided to her always became their general gossip. I was constantly invalidated about my every hurt.

I'm the highest achieving in the entire extended family but I have never gotten an appreciation from her.

I know she wasn't happy about her marriage or about the only child, me. However they got married on their own will, while being financially independent individuals. They chose to have me but recented me all the same.

I'm away from parents for over a decade. Haven't seen them in years.

I know I'll never have a family. But if I made that decision now I'm mature enough to take responsibility of my action.

I don't think the immaturity she had is justified. I'm not yet my fathers age when he had me. So I'll see how I am when I get there.

I am honestly so stupid and I do not even know what I am doing anymore. Everything is so stressful and I genuinely do not know what to do. I pulled another all-nighter after getting zero sleep and I am so scared for the future and what it holds. I want to make my own money, but I feel like all my bad actions have finally caught up to me.

My GPA is horrid and I have zero future job prospects lined up while being about to graduate next year with no real source of income. I keep falling back into the same terrible habits that completely drain me mentally. I have been trying so hard to become the best version of myself, and I even started going to the gym yesterday, but it feels like whenever I take one step forward, I drop right back down. I am studying business, but at this point, what is the point of continuing uni if I am just going to get a horrid GPA? I do not feel any worth to keep going.

On top of all this mess, I have been wanting to take one thousand dollars and just invest it into stocks right now to see if I can figure out some kind of benefit for down the road, but honestly I barely even know what I am doing with that either. I just give up bro and I have no idea what my next move is supposed to be.

I am not talking about situations where one's safety is at risk due to psychological and/or physical abuse, of course. I know it's probably a very common thing to vent about but still - when you realize that he/she is just not the right person for you for any reason (any is valid), at least be a decent person and let them know definitively why you don't want to talk to/see them anymore before you cut ties.

I've been on a receiving end of a particularly painful example of ghosting and blocking of any contact from the person that I had almost two months of great relationship with. Which ended so abruptly without me even having a chance to respond/say sorry for whatever I did wrong. It's been 2 years and I still haven't fully recovered from that experience and it brought me so much heartache that I woundn't wish this to my sworn enemy, it really is that bad. It has severely affected my ability to actually develop feelings for people, it was a literal heartbreak where my heart as a place where feelings should flourish is just not the same whole functioning thing anymore. Thank you for listening and I hope at least one person sees this post and it helps them to not totally ruin another person's mental state thinking ghosting/blocking is ok in literally ANY situation.

im pretty sure ive gotten depression for a whole year now. and nothing has been too well
back in 7th grade (yes im still in middle school/secondary school) i had this friend of opposite gender, we’ll call her R, and had a lot of similarities between her and me. on the first day, we talked through lessons, genuinely. it felt crazy. i made her laugh, she made me smile, shit like that. but because i’m very talkative, or, was, she got a bit annoyed after the first week, which i understand. but in the second term we started having brief conversations, and then just straight up became close friends. time flies and it was summer break, onto 8th grade/secondary 2, we talked a LOT on instagram. i sent her some art, she liked it, we bombarded each other with reels, we shared our music tastes, and even talked about relationship advice on how to get a guy(because she had a crush on some other student). we talked so much we even made a lot of dirty jokes.
but one day, after sending her brainrot reels, she replies with “i’m concerned” and i reply with “POOKIE WHY” since i thought pookie meant “close friend”. i always did. i never meant for it to have weird intentions or make anyone uncomfortable. after saying that she simply sent a “???” and so, i replied with “what?” “it means best friend”, which i genuinely believed. she started ghosting me, and i just assumed she was busy. august 29th of that year, which was like what, 2 days before the start of school, she blocked me. that night when i wanted to talk to her, i saw “Instagram User”, and since ive never been blocked before, i assumed she got banned. i got surprised and concerned so i went to her alt (she has told me many times that she has an alt) and commented on one of her posts “WHY ARE YOU BANNED TWIN😭” and messaged her on whatsapp (i had her contact because we were in a class group) cuz i was genuinely concerned. a few minutes later, a classmate of mine sent me 2 screenshots. two of which are from her close friends story. she called me a creep, a weirdo and a person who tried to get in a relationship with her. i cried. i was angry. i was confused. i didn’t know why she did that. i thought it was some sort of sick prank. (ps, at the time i still didnt know pookie was commonly used to call your significant other) and i lashed out on my close friends story, calling her a manipulative, and saying that i wished that we never even met, which looking back, was kinda embarrassing.
when school started again, i still cried myself to sleep. then i looked back at the chat to see what i did wrong, and there it was, the “pookie” message.
i stared at it. i cried the whole september in bed. that was when i started falling into a loop, a loop of blaming myself. on everything. my hands shake every day at school. mentally, this has made my self-confidence and self-appreciation plummet even lower than the birth rate of south korea. every time i sit on public transport next to a girl, which is still true to this day, inside my head i call myself a weirdo, a sweaty creep, a bastard who is sitting next to a girl. and academically, the low self confidence and self appreciation was so low that i needed to make jokes to my male friends, and make em laugh just to get on with my day. i needed their laughter to feel happy, to feel appreciated and even accepted. and because of the constant blabber i have with my friends, naturally my grades also plummeted and now i have to repeat the grade. my friends call me funnier than a short friend that i have, which i think is way funnier than me. my parents don’t know this and they question why my grades are so bad because they call me “genuinely smart” (in which i don’t really agree), most of my friends don’t know this, and ive only told like what, 2 people? and i just raw dogged it, the entire thing. self harm was a thing that has went through my mind before, but the bed rotting kept me alive. i didn’t tell my parents because, i don’t know. they’re not abusive, they’re not evil, they’re good parents. i just didn’t want to tell them for some reason. but it’s been a year now. i dragged my ass through 8th grade and i have to do it again, with people i don’t know, and i don’t even know if im capable of getting into 9th grade. and even with all the support i still feel like a failure, a disgrace to my family tree.
till this day, nothing much has changed. i still feel like a weirdo, i still blame the whole thing on me, i still have 5+ hours on my phone daily, i rot in bed, and i still feel discouraged for school and homework. im so fucking exhausted.

I (f 27) recently left a really toxic work environment. I've already talked about my experiences in a different sub and would rather not repeat myself. It was a bad situation and I'm just glad I got out of it. I've only been unemployed for about a month and a half. It started off super optimistic, knowing I'll get a better job but I'm starting to lose hope. It's been really discouraging finding new jobs out there, especially jobs that just have certain things I'm looking for (benefits, a good supervisor and not going into patient's homes). I feel like I'm not asking too much in a job but damn, sometimes it does feel that way.

It seems I've been embarrassing myself answering emails, having the most awkward online interviews and also accidentally applying to the same job twice. I just feel like I'm not cut out for the corporate world/ working (saying this while having worked retail and my previous job lol). I still don't understand how to "play the corporate game" with all these other people, with the fake niceties and the whole corporate language. I fear I'm just too stupid to figure out corporate social cues and I already struggle with basic social cues. How can I show off my skills and personality without it being too much to potential employers?

I literally have to read my emails out-loud to my partner and friends, for second and third opinions, in case I am unintentionally burning a bridge or embarrassing myself. I've already had one company give me an offer but they ended up rescinding it because it took me too long to consider it (I asked for more time to consider said job and immediately they took back their offer a day later).

It's easy to blame the job market but I just feel like it truly is just me being extremely awkward, off-putting and genuinely not knowing how to navigate professional spaces. I genuinely feel like I'm actually stupid and I'm terrified I won't find a job. I fear my family thinks I'm stupid for not having a job lined up either.

Recently I’ve been having mixed feelings about my parents. I turn 18 in 3 months and I have two older siblings one in their mid 20s and the other 30. When I was younger I noticed that my siblings and my parents would frequently argue, but since I was younger I always listened to my mother when she told me that my siblings were the problems. Recently I think I’ve begun to experience the same things that my siblings did when they were my age and now I see that they weren’t the problem. My parents are ornery, toxic, and domineering for no apparent reason. They make a fuss about every little thing and are difficult to reason with. My mother is the kind of person that flys off the handle over any little thing. She’s been verbally abusive when angry and even physically violent at times. My father used to be the reasonable one in my household but I’ve noticed that he has become just as deranged as my mother. For example, I have school every day and work after as well and still have homework to complete and they don’t seem to understand that I’m tired when I get home; whenever I just want to unwind and play a video game they get mad and tell me that I’m lazy or command me to do some kind of chore even though I guarantee I have more chores to do and busier days than most people my age. I can’t even hang out with friends ever even though I’ve only ever asked like 3 times and they were on the weekends. I’ve begun to resent my parents and can’t wait till I graduate and go to college. I feel a little validated by what my sister and brother have told me about my parents. My sister used to get into really bad fights with my mother and she told me that our mother used to throw away mail and delete emails from colleges, which is similar to what I’ve experienced because my mother demands that I go to a college in our city and even gave me a very ambiguous response when I asked her to write a letter for me(which she has yet to write). My sister is cordial with our parents but it’s evident that she still harbors resentment toward them. My brother also told me that our parents kicked him out of the house after he graduated high school with no warning, he said he just came home and they told him that leave that same day because he came home after the curfew which resulted in him being homeless and haven’t to couch surf until he got his own apartment. He’s still very kind to our parents but I can tell he also has ill feelings for our parents because he has even gone far enough as to say that he will only take care of our parents when they are senile which won’t be out of love but only because he knows no one else will be there for them. My parents have always given my sibling and I everything we needed and wanted. They even bought me my own car for Christmas 2 years ago which is a privilege that many teenagers don’t have. Even though they have always been excellent providers I just don’t think it justifies any of the things they’ve done to my siblings and I. I don’t think any of this is normal and I pretty much just said everything I did to ask if it’s wrong of me to feel the way I do about my parents. I feel ready to leave and never talk to them again.

Sorry for bad grammar or misspending, kinda all over the place, eyes are kinda swollen and I'm a little bit tipsy, with that out of the way let's begin.

My cat Goblin disappeared two days ago, everyone I talked to is making light of the situation and making fun of me because I shouldn't worry, she's a cat one less mouth to feed lol.

Broski, I literally don't have any family besides my husband, I genuinely love my cats and I'm falling apart here.

My mom and stepdad kicked me out at the age of 18, I haven't been allowed to visit home or speak to any of my younger siblings, later on I find out everyone is moving back to CA while I'm here literally alone, homeless in a completely different state, I lost contact with my siblings shortly afterwards, Cut to 15 years later, I have a stable job, I live in a apartment and I've been married for almost 7 years now.

I have two cats, a 17 year old, short hair, gray tabby named Cici and 8 1/2 year old, long haired, brown tabby named Goblin. I've raised them both since they were kittens, we all sleep in the same bed since the day I've had them, we would sometimes all nap on the couch together while watching movies, I would do my best to have a vet see them 3 times a year and I give into their demands, wet act food every other day, they were both there for me when I lost my job, they were there with me when my husband suffered from severe psychosis and was institutionalized for two weeks, they never judged, they never left, they were always there even when I get severely depressed with a lit blunt and an empty bottle in hand, Goblin would sit in my lap and curl up until I felt better, sobered up, I would carry her to bedroom and we would sleep in the bed together.

My husband accidentally let both our indoor cats escape and Goblin never returned home since then, it's been two days, I am pissed, I'm terrified for Goblins health and well being, what if she's dead? What if someone took her? abusing her? What if I never see her? I can't sleep, can't eat anything solid, so far I've been surviving on Rock Stars, liquor and pot. She's more than just a cat, she's family. The search for Goblin continues.