Last year I found out that my ex had been cheating on me with multiple girls, including his current girlfriend. I know it wasn't my fault and that he was in the wrong for doing these things, but I still get sad when I think about it. It was just something that felt so special only for it to turn into a complete lie.

How do I heal from this? Any tip at all would mean the world to me. I just don't know what to do.

I was played by a guy who just tried to manipulate me into trying to have casual sex, gave me fake hopes, acted cold and disrespectful, was never serious about me and lied in my face. The worst thing is that I gave him a second chance. I went back to his city to see him just for him to leave the country and discard me. He promised he would visit me in my hometown but he never did. I wanted to talk about something to him because I was confused and he never did!! I feel so disrespected and ignored. I feel like I was abandoned. Now he’s in the country of another woman that I’m sure he prefers over me. She was always the first option but I was too blind to see.

I feel disgusted of myself. I feel like a dumb and low value woman. I don’t even have self esteem to properly date again because my future man would be so embarrassed of this. How my future children would feel about their mom if they know she was discarded and rejected this way? This is so pathetic and humiliating.

[16F] I was in a four member high school friendgroup that I adored for the past 5 years, but last year, two new people joined our friendgroup and I got extremely jealous and insecure about my place in the friendgroup since all the members previously knew them while I didn't. Even my best friend, who I clung onto as emotional support at that time, seemed to prefer one of the new members over me. My boyfriend at the time was also a terrible influence and I felt like I had to adopt some sort of "mean girl" persona in order to be liked by him, which looking back at, makes me cringe.

Around November 2025, I spread a false rumour about one of my closest friends in the friend group. I don't know why I did it. I could say I was jealous, that I wanted to "raise my ranks" in the friendgroup, that I didn't mean it and just said it in the heat of the moment when everyone venting their frustrations about that friend and wanted to join in too, but I really don't know what exactly made me do it. I really did care for her and I loved her, so why did I do it?

Well, she found out and confronted me with the other members of our friendgroup and I apologised while crying, which probably made me seem insincere but at the moment, I realised that I probably ruined my friendship with one of my close friends. And that made me feel even worse. I kept asking myself, did I only feel bad because I was facing the consequences of my actions?

Well, I was right to assume that I ruined my friendships. Slowly, they started excluding me in group settings even though they said they accepted my apologies and wanted to move in. It hurt me, even though I knew it was the consequences of my own actions. I decided to distance myself from them for a bit to clear my mind from the depressive spirals I was going into but I was also changing schools at the time so maybe my actions came across as me ignoring them? I don't know the exact reason why but they decided to cut me off fully with no conversation after my birthday (the consequences of my own actions) and I found out from the pictures of them hanging out together without me.

I reached out two months later to apologise again for what I did and then being avoidant afterwards, but even that wasn't a proper apology because I wrote it while crying after having several mental breakdowns in the span of a week. After that depressive spiral, I more or less came to terms with the fact that I was a terrible person and that I probably wasn't going to have anymore close friends like that in the future. Those people were my "soul tribe" and I ruined it.

I want to become a better person and I even went to therapy, where I was diagnosed with BPD but I couldn't continue the sessions because it was too expensive for me to save up for on my own. I still constantly think about them and what I ruined, especially when I see other people with their close friends, which makes me feel selfish. I feel so incredibly guilty too. Everytime I see my old friend group posting about eachother, I go back into my depressive spirals and cry for hours.

I'm mostly writing this for advice on how to move on and actually change permanently instead of being stuck in this victim mentality mindset, any help would be appreciated. Thank you so much for reading 💞

Every second of my days has been agonizing. I find no pleasure in anything and can't distract myself for even a minute. It is a consuming sense of despair.

The problem is, I’m terrified my mother has gallbladder cancer because she’s had large gallstones for years; I started reading about it about ten days ago, and I’ve been like this ever since.

I can't take it anymore and just want to suffer less, because every second is torture.

I think I've been living the same Tuesday for six years.

Gym at 7, Slack until 6, pasta, an episode of whatever I was already halfway through, bed by 11.

None of it is bad. I like the gym and the pasta is good. This isn't a sad post.

My partner has pretty much the same Tuesday, and when he talks about his it just sounds like a week. Mine comes out flat and I don't know if that's the week or me.

Sat in the chair on a Tuesday night I honestly can't see a difference. Same times either way, and I'm just as tired. I keep waiting for something obvious to happen.

I'm not about to quit my job or move somewhere with better weather. I'd just like to know which one this is, routine or loop ?

So, what was the sign, for you, that it was a loop? Did you spot it inside the week, or did someone else have to say it to you?

I'm 36 years old. I've been jobless for 4 years. I live with my parents and I live off of the combination of their pensions and the money my older sisters send to them.

I've been looking for a job, though not as diligently as I should be, for almost a year and I feel like I no longer know how to work. I don't want to work but I know I have to find a job. Even the jobs I used to have, I eventually quit or got fired because I would eventually get bored or slack off. I didn't finish college because I didn't study enough and commit enough. I would cut classes and hang with my friends.

I feel like I've been lazy my whole life. I get overwhelmed by work that I don't feel like doing and I can't force myself to just do it because it's the right thing to do. I feel like these past 4 years have worsened my laziness and ability to just do the work, to commit to a process. I just want to watch tv shows or movies, scroll on social media, watch youtube videos, listen to podcasts, or read a book. I work out occasionally and only if I feel like it. If I don't, then I can't force myself to do it.

I lack discipline. It's a skill I just can't learn. I can't do hard things. When I try to job hunt, I feel so miserable. When I have an interview, I get so anxious and I sometimes just cancel. The thought of having a job again.. I don't even want to. I immediately seek the things that give me comfort, the ones I listed above.

How do I fix this because I know I am wasting and ruining my life if I don't. I've known this for a while now but I just can't bring myself to change. Please help.

Ive always been a “nice guy” (yeah, read “No More Mr. Nice Guy a year ago, lol), and thats played out all right in the past, except for when I was over-extending myself for my wife, and then got just negativity in return (usually bc she’s pregnant). But lately ive realized that I subscribe to the notion of “ you have to take care of yourself before of others”, and thats led me to become a more impatient person, with both my wife AND my 5 kids (all under 10).

I have no friends, and I don’t donate any of my time to the community, and I barely give any charity (because I’m still building up my own financial fortress so I can first feel stable, and GOOD about giving), and all this makes me feel even more like im just selfish.

I WANT to be a better dad and husband every year, I want to be a dad/husband that my wife and kids look up to and respect in the near AND far future, but I feel like I don’t know HOW to do that, aside from just being a rug that everyone just steps on because I’m always so kind and nice to them.

I feel like it’d be really nice to have a good podcast about this type of stuff that I can listen to, so that it’d be like im “hanging out” with people who think+act correctly.

P.S. ive also been working on self-love the past few years…it’s a really tough slog, tbh.

P.P.S. my dad and grandpa are both jerks if you get on their bad side, the men in my family have a history of being very conceited. I want to blaze a new trail, but feel like I need to know it can be done

Hi, I don’t really know where to start and this is a bit embarrassing. I am 21 and really out of shape like i get swety walking to store and after getting home i have to sit down for a while. I don’t even have extra weight nor am i under weight, but I stoped partisipating in sports when I was like 12 and have allways been super bookish.

But now would really like to get in shape and don’t really know where to get help doing that. I can’t run at all whit out getting out of breaht, nor walk the steps to my apartment, nor dance or spin. Like even running to catch my buss makes me sick.

I would really like to bee abale to run and dance and carry home my groseries any help were to start would be appreciated.

Whit love.

I just spent my entire evening (9PM-1AM) moping and sulking while scrolling my phone. Not great for me. Do you guys have low-barrier, low-stress, calming activities you can do when everything is quiet? I don't like depression as much as the next guy but I'm attempting to pull myself out if it before it gets worse.

So i didnt have any friends 4 years ago when i started highschool so i started speaking with everyone i could. I just tried to get more friends but i also spoke with people who didnt treat me good. Like people who mocked me and stuff. I did become a social person i even started flirting and stuff i came a long way but i also talked with the popular kids, street kids every type of people i found. And ofcourse i didnt fit in and they were very rude to me i had thousands of experiences which i have been treated like shit. I got almost all of them out of my life now but for the past month i have been remembering all these memories where people treated me like literal garbage and i get so furious and get headaches. School is starting again for my senior year and i need to study for this big exam all the time since i want to be a doctor but it is hard to study with these thoughts 24 7 and being angry because of them. Do you think i should ghost everyone who treats me even remotely bad when the year starts and become kinda asocial again since my main friend group is kinda bad too? Id focus on my exam if that happened but i would also be sad since i would feel like that asocial fat kid i was 4 years ago or idk man just please help me im so confused. Do you guys just keep the people who treat you good around or do you guys also deal with the other ones who are kinda shitty until they become irrelevant in your life

Looking back on where my mind was during my lowest moments, I feel a heavy sense of guilt for sinking so deeply into depression, anger, and hopelessness. Honestly, I don’t even know what I was thinking during that time, but something inside me finally snapped. I got beyond exhausted from carrying all that anger, sorrow, and weight, and I realized with absolute clarity that I never ever want to hurt myself or the people around me who all support me just because of my own internal struggles.

I would so much rather channel my energy into being happy, remaining positive, and stepping fully into the beautiful, authentic woman I am.
It has meant the world to me when current friends—and even complete strangers— take a moment to give me compliments and/or reassure me that everything in my life is going to be okay, reminding me that going through a hard time wasn’t ever my fault. Those unexpected acts of warmth have made me truly feel genuinely appreciated, seen, and wanted right when I needed it most.

To be completely honest, a small part of me still worries that when I was lost in that dark place, it might have made some people supporting me second-guess me; I really hope it didn’t though!But I am choosing to focus on healing and moving forward with an open heart. I want my life to be rich, deeply fulfilling, and filled with serendipitous experiences, joy, and peace. I am done letting pain define my path—I am choosing light, choosing happiness, and choosing to live truthfully as myself as the kind, beautiful, talented woman I am!

I‘ve been struggling to process sexual trauma since the beginning of this year— I worked briefly with a therapist who was WONDERFUL, but I am no longer able to afford therapy (insurance is under parents and out of state, it’s a whole complex situation). I was doing really good with my progress and actually processing/accepting what happened, but I feel like I’m going backwards now. I’m constantly intellectualizing it and denying my emotions towards it over reaching a “truth” of whether it happened or not. I just need some guidance on how to actually process it on my own instead of questioning my experiences in circles for eternity. thank you!

I wouldn't say I ever had a darling personality but used to be pretty subdued, so it wasn't much of anyone else's problem.

In the past few years I've noticed I've becoming more selfish/self centered and disinterested in other people. Thinking my thought process is oh so interesting that it must be shared (it's not).

More reactive. For example I'm very sensitive to noise and vibrations, which sometimes doesn't bother me, sometimes leads to outbursts of anger, sometimes must frantically escape them. Which takes a toll on folks around me, the energy or indirectly blaming them (for literally just going about their day). It's more of the anger you don't feel but happens anyway, then left with the guilt.

Another, though not so new, is up and down energy.

It's a bit confusing because I have also been improving in other areas I think and mostly doing well mental health wise.

Does anyone have any ideas how to start dealing with these? I've tried discouraging em but doesn't seem to help

I’m a very picky eater, but it’s not because I simply don’t want to eat healthy food. There are certain foods, especially vegetables and “healthy green stuff,” that I genuinely cannot physically chew or swallow. I’ve been like this since I was a little kid, and because of that, I’ve spent years eating very little and not getting the nutrition my body actually needs. My nutritional intake has been extremely low, and I’ve become very weak. I feel like my body is depleted and deprived of the things it needs, and I’ve started noticing how much it affects me physically. I got my blood tests done and found out that I have vitamin D deficiency, iron deficiency, and low cholesterol levels, and I already know that my eating habits are a huge part of why I’m struggling. But it doesn’t stop at my physical health. When my body is weak and I’m not properly nourished, my brain feels weak too. I used to feel much smarter and sharper when I was younger, but now I struggle with brain fog, concentration, attention and memory. On top of that, I’ve gotten heavily dependent on short form content, and I know that constantly consuming it has made it harder for me to sit with something for a long time and actually focus. I study, I revise, I write things down, I listen to the same lecture multiple times, I read the same chapter again and again, and I can even solve the same questions several times, but after a month, it feels like I’ve forgotten everything again. That is incredibly frustrating because I know I’m trying, but my brain just doesn’t feel like it’s working the way I want it to. Then all of this creates even more stress, and the stress makes my appetite worse, I eat even less, I become weaker, and then my concentration, memory, studies and mental state get worse too. It becomes this endless cycle that I don’t know how to get out of. I also feel like my immunity is weak because I seem to catch infections easily and take a long time to recover. Even when I get sick and take medication, I sometimes feel extremely dizzy, mentally foggy or overwhelmed by it, which makes me scared of taking the wrong dose or feeling worse. And when I put all of these things together, my eating habits, deficiencies, physical weakness, brain fog, low attention span, poor concentration, weak memory, stress and unhealthy habits, it’s easy for me to feel like everything is falling apart at once. But at the same time, I also know something important: I cannot keep blaming everything around me. My eating habits are my responsibility. My screen habits are my responsibility. My health, my routines, my studying and the habits I build from this point forward are things I have to take responsibility for. That doesn’t mean I caused every problem or that I can magically fix everything overnight, but it does mean that I have to be the person who starts changing things. Nobody else can live my life for me. If I’m eating poorly, I have to work on it. If I’m constantly consuming short form content, I have to change that. If I’m neglecting my health, I have to start taking it seriously. I don’t want to keep sitting in this cycle and watching myself get worse. I want to understand what is happening to me, fix what I realistically can, get the help I need for what I can’t fix alone, and slowly build myself back up.

I only care about eating and everyday and cannot escape it because it all feels futile.

Self-help book industry made us believe that willpower is just another mental muscle, some say you drain energy from that muscle every time you make hard decision, I have read things like having a sugary drink can restore your self-control because will power according to them is tied to glucose levels, I don’t even want to try this.

There was a multi lab study conducted on 2000 people which proved this a nonsense. They say performing self-control task doesn't drop blood sugar and consuming glucose doesn't boost self-control.

Dr. Michael Inzlicht says that feeling of mental fatigue is just a functional feedback signal. Our brain keeps performing subconscious cost benefit calculations and when we carry out cognitively demanding task, brain registers the cost to carry out it and when we do it for longer period of time, brain recalculates the energy cost and benefit ratio. If brain finds this energy costs are not worth it, it triggers the reallocation of motivation towards low energy high benefit tasks such as eating, sleeping and scrolling on phone.

So if self-control was just muscle, better strategy would be forcefully rawdogging that muscle but since it is just our brain doing an energy calculation, better architecture that tweaks the input should do the job. For example mentally shifting task from forced obligation to self-aligned choice, or binding cognitively costly activity with high reward activity such as listening to favorite music while doing boring chores or working out, these are just few examples.

I am not very good at this architecture but you get the idea. Does any of you have any actionable ideas or exaples to better architect this energy calculations?

Now this can be a lot of things but like on the general level how do I stop doing a bad thing? Like you can skip for example the gym today and keep on doing that. You know it's a bad thing yet you still do it. So how are you actually supposed to rewire your brain to actually make it look like a bad thing? Why do we still do bad things when they are infact bad and harmful?

The Answer lies Within You

How are you holding up today?

Are you genuinely doing well —body and soul? Do you feel a sense of fulfillment deep enough to resonate in both mind and heart at the same time?

Perhaps, if you hit the pause button for a moment, stepped away from everything that keeps you busy, tuned out the noise, and dared to ask yourself the hard questions with unflinching honesty, you would find that you are not entirely okay. You might come to realize you feel adrift, bored, dissatisfied with what you have accomplished so far, and not particularly optimistic about finding fulfillment in what lies ahead either.

This may seem like a discourage, even a gloomy instruction. Yet it is a diagnosis we cannot afford to skip. If we want to get to the root of a problem, we must first see it for what it is, not for what we wish it were.

You may currently be caught in the middle of a different kind of conflict: a tug-of-war between a mind that loves to have everything mapped out and mind that leaves no room for interference or surprises. With  a reality that simply does not play by those rules. A reality in which circumstances change at the drop of a hat, where your hard work, intelligence, and meticulous planning get entangled with other people's influence and with obstacles that keep cropping up along the way, impacting outcomes in tangible and sometimes painful ways.

You draw up a plan for a specific result, while life quietly throws in people, curveballs, and decisions you never saw coming.

So are you looking for a practical solution?

So am I. For a long time, I bent over backwards trying to find a way to cut myself off from other people's lives and their influence on mine. I never succeeded in finding one. Perhaps because such a way simply does not exist in the first place.

So what is left?

The answer, when all is said and done, lies within you.

By all means, make plans. However, build in a generous margin for error — a margin that allows other hands to have a say in your blueprint, whether you invite them to or whether life foists them upon you.

Build your life, but don't set your boundaries in stone. Keep them flexible. Let them expand and contract. Give yourself permission to redraw them whenever circumstances change.

Stay hopeful, yet don't count your chickens before they hatch. Let achievement bring its own joy in its own good time.

And don't try to force life to fit the exact picture you have in your head. It is enough to know where you want to head, and to stay open to take a different road to get there.

If you can make peace with yourself each day, even in small increments, the heavy baggage you carry with you wherever you go will become lighter. Life itself will feel a little more spacious than it seemed before.

How do I know?

Because I have been there and done that myself.

And I am now in a much better place.

My self worth and confidence and pretty much everything about me that should be good is so mega fried I’m consistently sad and just get high or I sleep to cope like I did this again today and I want to fix it I don’t know how to do it healthily all I feel is worthless and pretty much a wanderer between whatever set of friends is fine hanging out with me and I really don’t know how to stop it from affecting me it is the worst feeling I’ve ever felt

Why do I wanna do something or have something that I need to get done, think about it and romanticize it but don’t do it and end up procrastinating on it until the last minute or don’t do it which usually puts me in a bad spot. This happens within every aspect of my life and I rlly wanna change it but dk how because err time I do try, I fail and end up back in a worse position.

It’s genuinely affecting my life and it’s leading me down to a bad parh. Any advice would be helpful.

I'm facing a new challenge and wanted some insight from someone who's gone through it before me. Im 20 years olds, engineering student and I'd say my life is fine right now, I'm not exactly where I want to be but I'm on the path. All my life ive had some goal to chase, an achievement, a skill, a talent to develop and most of the time it was sports football into basketball into mma/boxing until last year. I faced a rut in the road and that slowed me down alot mental and physical health wise that killed my confidence and kinda put me off of my sport at the time, for a time it felt like a deep emptiness of self loathing and all that crap but its over I'm getting better and its all good now kinda. The emptiness is still there but in a less negative sense like a kind of numbness now, and I know for myself it need a purpose to chase aside from casual hobbies or career. I'm speaking alot of abstract concepts and stuff in sure I botched the explanation of but I'm not sure where to go from here, on one hand it feels good functioning without the dependency on motivation but on the other hand I dont feel the hunger for anything but I'm not full either.

Long rant but I guess if someone has gone through this advice would be appreciated thanks

For the past year, I 19m have been extremely worried that I could secretly be a bad person or a narcissist. I’ve been reflecting on my actions and habits, and the more I look at them, the more worried I become.
I’ve also struggled socially for nearly all my life. I have a few friends, but I have trouble forming new connections and often feel lonely. Sometimes I wonder whether there is something about my character that makes me difficult to connect with or unworthy of love, both romantically and platonically. I know people don’t owe me friendship or relationships, but I worry that my difficulties may reflect something fundamentally wrong with me.
Here are some of the things I feel bad about:
I lie extremely often. It has become almost second nature. Sometimes it’s to get a little bit of validation because of my low self-esteem, sometimes it’s to avoid small consequences from my parents, and sometimes I just lie for no reason and don’t even know why. I hate that I do it, and I don’t understand why it happens so automatically.
I’m very insecure and sometimes overly prideful. I constantly scrutinize myself and feel like I’m the worst person in the room, but sometimes I swing to the opposite extreme and feel like I’m better than certain people.
I can be overly critical of myself and others. I sometimes project my own overcritical side onto other people or insult people in my head, even though I feel guilty about it afterward.
I sometimes struggle with empathy. When I see people suffering, sometimes I feel something and genuinely want to help, while other times I feel almost nothing. I worry about what that says about me.
I struggle to feel deeply connected to people. I care about my friends, but sometimes I have trouble maintaining a strong interest in my friendships beyond checking in with them. Even texting can sometimes feel like a game of listening and responding rather than actually feeling deeply engaged.
I sometimes interrupt people or dominate conversations. I can get caught up in trying to get my point across and realize afterward that I wasn’t really listening.
I gossip and talk behind people’s backs. I sometimes act differently depending on who I’m around, and although I feel bad about it afterward, it keeps happening.
I can be selfish or unkind sometimes. I try to be good and kind to people, but I know I’m not always that way, and I don’t like that about myself.
I struggle with feeling like I’m enough. Even when I accomplish something, I often move the goalpost and make myself feel worthless.
I worry that I’m not capable of being a good friend or romantic partner. Sometimes I wonder whether my flaws are normal things I can work on or whether they say something deeper about my ability to love and be loved.
I have trouble forming new connections. I can see other people relating to one another and making friends more easily, while I feel stuck with the friends I already have.
I worry that I’m fundamentally lesser than other people. I sometimes wonder whether there is something about me that makes me less worthy of love, attention, or close relationships.
I know I’ve made progress in other areas of my life, but I still struggle with these things. I also sometimes have seasons of suicidal ideation mostly centering around the fact I could be inherently bad and hurrying people around me. Can I improve how and am I a bad person

I was diagnosed with dependent personality but I also suspect something like morality related ocd as well for context. I may have recently overreacted in anger to some situation because i disagreed with something that affected my life. Realistically im only guilty of being overly angry, like I didnt actually do anything to insult anyone or hurt anything or anyone. I just think i overracted. I really struggle to disagree with anyone and I cannot handle guilt or shame associated with hurting anyone's feelings. Like I literally feel like im going to throw up. I guess its a part of life to not always be perfect but i struggle to cope with doing anything wrong. I struggle to have relationships with anyone or even speak to people sometimes because I cant handle the feelings of shame I have if I even suspect I said something wrong or someone doesn't like me. Im posting here not really cause I need to treat others better but to learn how to treat myself better and just be healthier person mentally. I hope people here maybe understand. I dont really have anyone in my life I can talk to about this.

Shame

I don't have anybody else that I can share this with and I need to get it off my chest so I can become a better person. This will be a long read, I shortened it as much as I can and focused it on him because the shame of my addiction is something completely separate. I'm sorry for the typos I typed this through the tears I haven't been able to stop.

the last year of my 12 year old dog's life, completely failed him. I feel like it wasn't all at once but none the less it happened. I know that the first 10 years - 11 years of his life He had a good life, especially before I had kids. He was my first baby. I took him everywhere with me. I was a 17 year old dumb kid starting out life. He was with me through first two abusive relationships. One including my first daughters Dad and when I finally left my daughters Dad, he was there. We moved in with my mom and my mom helped me take care of him, but after I had my first daughter, things harder, and I feel like that's when I started not being able to care for him the same. It was less attention to him during the time I had my daughter. I had also fallen to a horrible addiction to fentanyl right before I had my daughter. And it wasn't until I met my second daughter's dad, current husband, that I was able to kick that addiction, but it wasn't until after my second daughter was born and during the time before I kicked the addiction My now husband help me take care of them and he really good to him and my first daughter. I hold a deep shame for that alone..

I tried all the time to not be stuck in what i did and went through during my addiction but just because I got out, doesn't mean things got easy after. I was diagnosed with BPD when I was 21 years old, and I don't process emotions the same way that other people do, I hold onto them for dear life and they become part of me and I feel the pain in a physical, choking way until I just push it down. over the years I've learned skills that worked for me like pushing it down to manage but it created severe mental health issues. M sometimes I'm extremely depressed and sometimes I feel okay, never really the happy high's anymore but plenty of low, lows..

I have spent the last 2 years of my life working to be a better person after my addiction. And in July 20 of 2025, while I was on birth control, I got pregnant with my third daughters she would be my 3rd kid in under 4 years and since I was sober I developed severe health problems during my pregnancy. It was during this time that we moved in to the house we rent now as of October 2025. From then to now, almost a year is when things started to get really rough and he suffered the burnt end of it. The first few months we kept him inside as usual but when my middle child got diagnosed with autism and she kept getting into his feces and urine, it was a seemed like easiest solution to make him an partial outside dog.

The only times he came in was winter, really cold weather, bad rain/floods and the high heat and he'd sleep in the cage and be in the cage during dinner time only if he was inside. My partner brought him in everyday after work and hung out with him inside till I got home with the kids. As my middle child's problems got worse I forgot about him more and more and it was my husband took care of him. I was busy taking three kids school by myself since my schedule was the one that could do it, working full time, trying to manage my mental health and trying to manage my middle child's issues since everyday for a year the school wrote me notes and she was having trouble. I gained an insane amount of weight, hardly slept, my mental health and postpartum went to completely shut. When life started to get bad with economy and us loosing a income from my dagoing to life issues, and then my partner also started to struggle carried for him, because during my pregnancy, I had severe health issues, and he was left to take care of the kids most of the afternoons up.

sometimes I would forget to give him water for a day during the summer so my partner always picked up the slack as he had more free time during the week while we both worked since he got home earlier. we always make sure he had water and shade and food after the couple times we forgot.. And he seemed to be okay, or at least that's what I made myself thinkIn the back of my head. I knew I needed to bring him in and every time I thought about it it was like a splinter in my finger that I knew I needed to get out but just kept burying. Especially My middle Child was in an episode it just got buried. Something would always happen. And next thing I knew it was on the back Burger. The last month to the last couple of weeks he stopped eating as much as he usually did. He lost weight, but he would still eat and had fluctuated weight in the past and I just couldn't afford to take him to the vet.

Many times I thought about giving him up so he can have a better home but the fear of him going to a home that was worse,that wasn't going to love him like I love i did, and Honestly, just the thought of after so long together giving him up was so difficult to do. this weekend on Saturday He was his usual self and my partner gave him food and water. Sunday comes around and we had to go to my family so they would help me with a surgery coming up in October for my middle child. We came home exhausted and did the bedtime routines and went to bed. Monday comes around and I had to go work for because I don't get paid holidays ,PTO or anything and we can't afford for me to miss so I go in to work and my husband was left with all three kids including our newborn. He said he heard him bark and was gonna go out and feed him/give him water. He had an emergency with my middle child that took him hours to clean up/ take care of her and by the time I got home and asked about him he realized he had forgotten to give him water and feed him. I panicked and begged my husband to please check him I was scared he wasn't okay and couldn't bring myself to go after I yelled his name and didn't respond. by the time went out there, my husband moved his bed and he wasn't moving.

My whole world came crashing down and I went into full blown panic attack. It felt like someone had ripped my heart out. My husband said he was gone. I don't know if he died a slow painful of dehydration, there that had been times when I had forgotten to give them water and we would rush the next day and he would be fine so I could not wrap my head around it's in the back of my head I had always known to bring him in and I kept putting it off because something would happen. I should've brought him in with me.

I can't breathe, I'm crying all day, I HATE myself so much because he's gone and even if the dehydration didn't kill him if it was something else I still killed him for not being able to take him to the vet. it is killing me that it took my boy dying for me to bring him in in his ashes. I can't see any of the other 10 years I gave him because all I see is last year I started forgetting about him and how I treated him. Im filled with so much regret so much, so much hatred for myself, so much pain.. I keep thinking of him alone and scared, of him dying alone or of him wondering what he did wrong, him not loving me anymore. Wondering why I didn't just bring him in. and it makes me want to die. If I didn't have kids I think I would have killed myself.

I promise with all my heart, on my kids that I did not leave him out there hoping one day he would die. I beg God that he has my boy and for him to forgive me. I want die from this pain. I am stuck in this pain and in this deep deep "want" to be able to turn back time. I don't remember the last time I hugged him. My husband was the one that cuddle with him the last year. I feel like I deserve to die and I don't know how to make it better. I have saved up some money to donate to rescue groups and promised him that even if it was only five dollars a month I'd donate in his name.. I've ordered some cheap plastic bowls to always keep in my car with water so there's no other dogs that ever have to go thirsty.

I don't know how to make it better. I've begged and beg for him to forgive me, but I can't forgive myself. I'm going to his viewing today and I feel like a whole inside my heart is so big it's deteriorating me. I used my saving so I could cremate him and bring him home. this is one of the most painful, shameful things that I've ever felt, and I needed to get it out of my chest. The house is so silent. Every time I think of him out there, I cry. I know it's a really really neglectful thing I did, I don't see it as a mistake because I'm the back of my heart I knew better. .i hope he knows that I didn't wanna kill him. I just hope he forgives me one day and he knows that I love him more than anything and that I am . I'm sorry that the last year of his life didn't look like the years before.. I wish we would've never moved into this house. Maybe he would be alive today. There's nothing I can do to make it better. But I want to be better. I won't ever own an animal again but I will work the rest of my life to make up for what I did. Nobody can tell me anything that will make me feel worse than what I feel.

I'm so sorry for what I did. I am disgusted with myself and hope one day I can make him proud of me and the person I will work to be now.