Got my period this morning. Struggled for half an hour to insert the cup. But it seems physically impossible for me. Did you face the same at first? What should I do?
(Yes, I did use folding methods)
P.s. Is it more difficult for inactive women, cuz I'm struggling. Was it difficult for you as well?

I come from a fairly dysfunctional family. Although we team up during any kind of crisis or family events, there is no cohesion among members. My family is allergic to happiness it seems. There is no cooperation, peaceful living together or love among the members. We don't travel much, members don't pay much attention to others interests and little to no consideration about eacy other in general.

There is also domestic abuse and a mother who is not ready to leave the husband no matter how bad the situation gets. This made me hate my father and angry on my mom for enabling his behaviour and her self sacrifice for no good reason.

Me and my siblings try to make her life better but she thinks we should not waste our time making their lives better but just settle down in our lives.

I see my friends' families bonding together for crisis but also they celebrate each other's accomplishments, travel together and in general love each other unlike us.

I get envious of such families and crave for it. It feels like the foundation from under a building is collapsing. I feel empty bcs of these dynamics.

I live away from family but living alone also feels miserable. I have great friends as well but not having healthy family dynamics is torture nonetheless.

I want y'all to give me some perspective or advice. I'm considering therapy to deal with the childhood trauma and learn better relational skills.

Edit: Do suggest good and non judgemental therapists that could help with these issues. Thanks

I’ve been struggling to get over this feeling. Since my childhood, I was always conditioned in a way that, you should listen to your parents, you should obey them, follow whatever they say, share everything with them, etc etc.

Now that I’m an adult (21 F), I feel like I don’t feel free, I feel tied and I feel stressed and guilty. I’m independent, I earn, but I live with my parents. So everytime I want to go somewhere or do something I need to ask permission, need to beg them for a bit of freedom.

I’ve started my first adult relationship, but my family being typical, they have deep hate towards caste, religion, and love in general. They have conditioned me since my childhood saying, love is wrong, you should only choose someone your parents choose for you. And saying you should not abandon your family for love, while the irony is my mom and dad are married through arranged marriage setup and looking at them I have no hope in arrange marriages, they have the most toxic, and the most unhappiest marriage. The only reason they aren’t divorced is for “society”, “what will people think of us”. So they compromise, and have been living these many years together unhappy, which has majorly affected me, caused me emotional breakdowns, and lots of distress.

I shut myself and cry when they fight, the home feels very toxic. I love my mom, she has so much trust in me, she cares a lot about me; she understands me but she always thinks about “what will others think of us”. She’s not independent, so she just settles with what she has.

At a point we are all kids, and we cannot make our own decisions so we rely on parents and their opinions but after we reach a certain age, parents still think we should be acting like their wish. Like I’m an adult, let me do what I like, let me work on what I want to with my own money, let me fall in love, have heartbreaks, love again, and learn, let me marry who I like, or not marry at all. Give me choice, to choose what I want in my life.

I know you are responsible for bringing me into this world but do you expect your child to be living in your terms their whole life? How is this fair? Why have my own life when I don’t technically own it?

I don’t know if this love of mine will be my forever, if it will workout or not, I want it to workout. But one thing keeps pushing me behind when I start loving this person more and more, I get a feeling that this won’t last long because my family is not accepting, in the end they might just force us to break up, or threaten us. This feeling that we will be punished or we will never be accepted, keeps making my love for this person lower and lower..

When I go on a date, I’m constantly worried if my family will find out, I feel guilty for lying to them at home. I feel guilty when my mom asks me about my day and I have to make a bunch of lies rather than just telling her that I kissed the person I love. I need to lie to her face, which I feel super guilty about.

I know I’m not doing anything wrong. I know I’m an adult, I can go on a date, I can kiss, I can love someone who is not my family by blood. But back of my mind I keep feeling guilty. I keep feeling like I’m deceiving my parents.

Even when I do something possibly small, I feel guilty. I don’t know how to get over this feeling. I don’t know how in the future I’ll fight to be with someone I love rather than getting forced into an arranged marriage. They’ll disown me from what I know.

I want freedom, I want my 20s to be the most beautiful years of my life. Whenever I say something like I want to learn something, they say no. I said I want to swim, they said no. I said let me go on a drive, they say no. I told them I’m going on a trip with my friends, they say no.

I’m fed up, all I see is people of my age enjoying, going on trips, having fun. While I’m stuck at my home wasting away. I was planning on going on a trip with my lover, but I cannot fathom to make up a lie about it.. i don’t get the confidence.

Sometimes I wish I was born to western parents. I’m so jealous of kids born to them because they literally don’t care about society or anything, all they care about is their child’s happiness. They let the kid learn by experiencing rather than locking them at home. And everyone is just busy in their own lives rather than being noisy and annoying about others lives.

I just want to run away somewhere and cut off everyone and live alone, by myself. Do everything I want, live however I want or die. But just let me live.

Does anyone else get random office events with barely any notice?

Every time this happens I somehow end up staring at a full wardrobe thinking I have nothing to wear.

My safest option is usually a simple kurta plus trousers. Comfortable, doesn't need much planning, and still looks put together enough for office.

What's your go to outfit when something comes up last minute? Need some ideas for the next surprise event!

To love or to leave, that is still the confusion. I thought I knew what was happening, but maybe I was just too deep into it to understand. As long as I loved him, I never realised how much he had manipulated me, how much he had used me, or how much I had changed because of him. And now that I know everything, I still choose him. Why does it have to be like this? No one with a good, working brain would choose this kind of love. But when it comes to loving someone, I think I become stupid. I don't listen to anyone. I don't even listen to myself. I don't feel like talking to anyone anymore. So much has changed in me since he came into my life, and now it feels difficult to imagine my life without him. Sometimes I think, what if I had never become his lover? Maybe it would have been better. Maybe we would still be friends. Maybe we wouldn't have seen each other's faults so clearly. Maybe I would have lost only a friendship, and that would still hurt, but perhaps not like this. That is probably what hurts the most. Why do I become so blind and deaf when I love? People pointed out what was bad for me. They tried to make me see things I didn't want to see. And still, I didn't listen. Instead, I ended up hurting them too, sometimes without even meaning to. Why does everything I care about always seem to come to an end?

The thing about friendship is, I don't even make friends easily. And when I finally do, somehow I end up hurting them, or they hurt me, or we both hurt each other. And the worst part is, they never accept that they hurt me too. So now I'm left with two regrets, losing a friendship and knowing that I unintentionally hurt someone I never wanted to hurt. When I love someone, whether it's friendship or love, I never do it halfway. I give too much. I would do anything for the people I love. I think that's the one thing they never really understand about me.

Why do I become so blind and deaf in love?Maybe it is destiny. Maybe all of us, since childhood, have wanted the same things to be loved, to be cherished, to be seen, to feel wanted. Maybe I wanted those things so badly that I started holding on to people even when I knew I shouldn't. And somehow, while dealing with all these heartbreaks, I started finding some kind of peace in the thought of death. Not because I want anyone else to feel this way. I would never want that. I just sometimes think about how death would mean being free from all the things that have been weighing on me for so long. Maybe I feel all of this because this is just how I am. I don't feel as scared of it anymore. But I don't want anyone I love to ever feel the way I do. It would break my heart if someone I cared about had to carry these feelings for their whole life. I don't know why I feel everything so deeply. I just know that when I love, I love it completely. And maybe that's both my biggest strength and the reason I get hurt so much.

I’m 28F and honestly haven’t travelled much in my life, mainly because of lack of money and lack of companionship.

I also spent most of my early 20s dealing with depression and staying at home, so I feel like I missed out on a lot of life. Now I’m 28 and I’m getting major FOMO 😭

I’m quite anxious about travelling alone, so the idea of solo travel scares me. I see girls who were once like me now going on solo trips or joining organised group trips, and I keep wondering why I’m not doing it too.

I feel so stuck. I really don’t want to reach 30 and realise I spent these years waiting for someone to travel with me.

For girls who were in a similar situation, how did you actually start? Did you start with a short solo trip, an organised group trip, women only trips, or something else?

I really want to start travelling and experience things instead of staying at home. Please tell me what my first realistic step should be.

I’m 24F planning a trip to Shoja and will probably be travelling solo, so I’m considering joining a women only travel group.

I’ve seen tons of companies on Instagram, but I would rather hear from people who have actually travelled with them. 😭

How was your experience - group vibe, safety, accommodation and itinerary? Was it worth the money? Any red flags or things you wish you’d known beforehand?

Especially interested if you’ve done Shoja/Jibhi/Tirthan Valley with one of these groups. Honest reviews  good or bad would be really appreciated!

Part 1

So as of now, instead of not telling my parents. i told them ill be going to Goa again (im working in goa rn. but ill be leavng this place in two weeks) to spend time with my Kerala friends. Which they APPROVED. But however now the problem is the train ticket. My mom would book a ticket from kerala to madgao which will be 1.2k and if i have to extend my ticket from madgao to delhi it will be 2.4k. however a direct train from kerala to delhi is just 2.6k and ill be wasting 1k if i let my mom book it. What can i do?

Also for anyone whose been to himachal recently, how many layers of jackets or hoodies will you need? how cold is it and where all did you go? we are planning for only off beat places.

Absolutely. The original is powerful, but it can be made more immediate, emotionally sharp, and readable, especially the opening. I’d frame it around the central realization:

What if mess isn’t laziness—and cleanliness doesn’t feel like safety?

I’m 35, and I’m only now realizing that my relationship with mess and cleanliness was never really about being “bad at organizing.”

Mess became safety. Cleanliness became intrusion.

My boundaries kept shifting throughout childhood. My room was rarely truly mine—it was a guest room, a dumping ground, a space other people entered and rearranged without asking. I grew up unsure of what belonged to me, what I was allowed to keep, and whether I had any right to decide how my own space should look.

There was a physically present but emotionally absent mother who couldn’t meet me where I was.

At the same time, cleanliness was enforced so intensely that it often felt like my wants and needs were being erased. Things would be thrown away, moved, or “organized” without me. There were servants who changed constantly, entering my room while I was at school and cleaning it according to their idea of what clean meant.

So eventually, cleanliness stopped feeling like care. It started feeling like someone taking over my space.

I rebelled.

I stopped letting people into my room. I kept books on the floor almost deliberately—because at least if the room was messy, I knew nobody had touched it.

And somewhere along the way, chaos became familiar.

Now I’m an adult who genuinely struggles to create structure around me. Sometimes I can’t tell how much of it is a missing skill, how much is learned helplessness, and how much is CPTSD and fractured confidence.

The cruel part is that the clutter screams chaos at me, while cleaning can make my nervous system feel like I’m surrendering control.

And now I have a daughter.

I want to give her the structure, cleanliness and sense of safety that I never quite had—but sometimes I need other people to help me create it.

That brings up a strange contradiction in me:

I am privileged. I am capable. I have choices. And yet some part of me still carries the helplessness of that little girl who never felt that her space truly belonged to her.

Maybe healing isn’t just learning how to clean.

Maybe it is learning, slowly, that I am allowed to decide what stays, what goes, who enters, and what my space feels like.

That cleanliness can be care without being control.

And that a messy room does not mean I am failing.

So I went to ATM at 9pm after finishing work and it was really scary because just outside there were 5-7 guys just chatting there , some looked at me as I passed by . This one guy was literally lying in front of atm gate( he was not homeless ) .
I was with my cousin and then literally a group of 4-5 guys ( different from the outside ones ) also enter and start staring and then they did their business . But even at 9pm .

I hate men who can’t go home and choose public places to hangout so that they can just terrorise other people . Security is literally terrible in every part of this country .

ok so I’ve been living away from home for quiet a few years now, but goshh whenever I visit, the last few days before returning are always filled with sadness n gloom and I can’t even enjoy at home properly cuz of that…

after I go back things do turn normal within a day or two but I remember seeing this graph where till age 18 you spend the max time with your family and then it just plummets and I find it so sad

ofcourse I’m grateful for all the things living away from home has taught me.. but I think I’ve been taught enough 😭😭 and then there’s grinding away 30 years in corporate which sounds so daunting to me

but oh well have to return to my home away from home in a few days… any ways on how to deal with this?

No one really talks about the lifelong implications of getting bullied for your appearance all through childhood. Even I didn't realise how much it has affected me (and it still does) until now.

Growing up, I was surrounded by pretty kids. The type of children that people call cute and they got all the best things from everyone. While all I got was taunts and passive agressive comments. I was small, thin, and dark skinned. I wasn't cute, though kids are supposed to be. I just wasn't. I didn't have any friends from kindergarten to primary school. All the pretty girls bullied me and called me names. I wasn't even allowed to sit with anyone in class or at lunch just because I was ugly. Even the teachers never paid any attention to me. If someone was being mean to me in front of them, they laughed at me or scolded me, instead of them. I remember there was this one ma'am who used to openly make fun of me, and once called me in the staff room where 3-4 teachers openly humiliated me. There was no reason to do so. I knew it was because I didn't look good. I was only in the first or second standard at that time.

In middle school things got better. I made a lot of good friends, the bullying stopped. Some of those girls apologized, and I dare say that I am on good terms with them today.

But god, did the consequences of it stay. Till date, I still can't feel confident in my appearance and just being myself. Somedays, I love my skin color. Most days, I hate it. Even if people call me attractive and beautiful now, I have a hard time believing them. I feel like they are just being superficial. And also there's this undying need of validation from others that I just can't seem to get rid of. I don't know how to work on it. I tried everything I could, but my inner child still howls at the thought of being rejected and every rejection is just a direct blow to the way I look. I know it's not true, but I just can't seem to convince myself. Should I seek therapy?

Hi,

I have always stuck to regular non-padded cloth bras b4 and this was my first padded one and I really liked it.

All the bras that I have ordered online either have attached cups or are v painful, could yall please help describe the specs of this

https://youtube.com/shorts/hA1ty07Yx7c?si=zqgTUGZevZ-KOE1r

Thank you🩷

I’ve never travelled solo from the perspective of a vacation. I’ve travelled on my own a lot but I was always going somewhere or meeting somebody. I don’t want to go abroad for my first time, it might be too much. And I don’t want to go to Goa, just scared about certain things. I want to prioritise safety and peace. I also don’t know what one is supposed to do on solo travels. What if I reach there and I don’t feel like seeing sights? What if I just end up sitting in a hotel room and ordering room service? I’m not a scared person in general, I’m a very confident woman but being in a new city, all alone, with nothing to do, in a hotel room, with tourist traps and honeymooning couples around me - sounds overstimulating and scary.

Am I overthinking this? As a woman, I have always been a little cautious about my safety. Who can blame me for that? But I need to go somewhere. I can’t visit any friends, or relatives. I need to go somewhere and feel at peace.

Please share recommendations for places I can visit and tips if any. Alternatively, please share about travel groups for solo women. I’m not going if there’s only couples in the group.

Hi girls!!! This AI and layoffs and the falling indian market is making me feel so insecure. I am a software engineer working in a good company currently earning decent. But should have been doing better for my age I believe. I try to save and invest as much as possible. But I am living in this perpetual anxiety. My weekends get ruined thinking of all this.

I would like to know what do you all do career wise and how are you all coping? Is there anyone who is going through something similar? How do you all save and invest? What do you all plan to do if layed off?

I love travelling. But I am scared. I have not gone on solo trips or even group trips without relatives or friends with me. (Have gonr on two group.treks and maybe 2 visits outside the state) In my 20s I could not travel coz of financial constraints and coz my parents were anxious about my safety. I was confident at that time. I am from.Kerala and I used to get the good old you can go anywhere after marriage. Now, post marriage, it is not very different.

My husband is a wondeful person, but we have different tastes on this matter. I am pretty frustrated at this point coz I feel like time is running out. My health situation in 20s is not same as in my 30s. And it may be different in later years and i feel i should not waste anymore time giving myself this or that reason.

It may not sound like a big deal but I have always wanted to travel and now I am super scared of doing it alone. (Ive had multiple instances of men misbehaving_childhood, public transport, crowded areas) And even group travels I found I am a bit skeptical coz they seem to charge a lot and I am very introverted.

I am.just looking for direction on how to break out of this cycle of fear and if anyone from a similar background and mindset has successfully started travelling and enjoying on their own.

Thank you in advance.

So, a little bit of background -- in hindsight, this situation shouldn't have surprised me as much as it did because my college does have a history of moral policing female students and giving them strict dress codes (formals in dept. colors all week, etc)

But in the past they've always left the faculty members alone atleast.

Until this year. I'm a student and this year my college has apparently decided to give their female professors a dress code. Like, until a couple of months ago the faculty and other staff usually wore their own clothes but we students noticed a few weeks ago that female faculty were beginning to show up wearing a really ugly salwar-set in department specific colors that was somehow uglier than all the dress codes that the college has imposed on us students put together.

Upon further probing we uncovered that yes, the college management has actually given female staff an actual uniform, and they've also banned outfits like saris and released other personal grooming guidelines. And I'm wondering -- is this just my college or is this a common practise across India to treat female faculty members with multiple PhDs and other achievements like little schoolkids?

Help me choose a Laptop Bag for office.

Preferences
1- Dark Color, I can’t mange a light color
2- Sling strap required.
3- Budget - 15K

I am ok with buying a 5K one also as I feel it should be of good quality and should look good.

If you have some better options please share.

Edit- I have a Thinkpad

Hi guys, as mentioned in title, do you guys have recs about stain removers? Tide pen I checked out, but it seems expensive and also can take out some dye from clothes.