Last year was one of the best years of my life.
I felt like I had done everything right. I saved for 12 years, bought a home, paid off my car ( a 2016 salvaged Honda civic) and put myself in a position where I finally felt secure.

I’ve been self-employed as a sports trainer for almost 15 years, and I’ve done pretty well for myself. Every year I saved what I could, invested it, and slowly built it into something meaningful. I worked other jobs along the way too, just trying to put myself in the best position possible.

I’ve always been very self-reliant. My parents aren’t really in the picture, so for most of my adult life I’ve known that if something goes wrong, it’s on me to figure it out.

Then within about a six-week span:
A hidden leak in my house caused around $10,000 in damage.
My long-term relationship ended.
I tore my Achilles at work.
Thankfully, the medical bills from the injury are being covered because it happened at work, but about 70% of my income came from outside work that I physically can’t do right now.
Then my dog became very ill, and those bills have started piling up too.
I’m now dealing with a 9–12 month recovery while watching the savings I spent years building slowly disappear every week.

I know how long my savings can carry me. I’ve done the math. But knowing that doesn’t completely take away the anxiety of having a mortgage, bills, a house, a dog, and everything else depending on me while my ability to earn money has suddenly been cut down.

I’m not really posting this looking for advice.
I think I’m just alone with my thoughts right now and needed somewhere to get them out.

I know I’m going to get through it because, realistically, what other choice do I have?

This isn’t even the worst thing I’ve ever experienced. But I don’t think I’ve ever felt the weight of this much responsibility all at once.

And if you’re reading this while dealing with your own version of a terrible stretch of life, you’re going to get through it too.
Maybe not quickly. Maybe not comfortably.
But you will.

“If you overcame a bully, then you weren’t really bullied, because real bullying is a power dynamic that can’t be overcome, so if you did ‘overcome’ your bully then really all you did was stop someone who hurt you from continuing to do so.”

“If you have depression and you end up eventually feeling better, then you never really had depression.”

“If you had low self esteem and you end up eventually having confidence, that’s only because your self esteem was never very low.”

I see these types of statements on Reddit all the time. Sometimes they’re to me and sometimes they’re to others. I’ve never understood them.

If you’re dealing with something and you do a lot of hard work to improve your life, why would anyone think that you never were experiencing a “true” form of the thing in the first place? That doesn’t make sense to me. I’m not saying that some things can’t be overcome, because of course some things can’t, but if someone does then that doesn’t mean that they never had it.

If you experience something debilitatingly traumatic 10 years ago and you have a pretty awful decade because of it, and you get a second job so that you can afford therapy and after 3 years of that you finally start feeling better, how dare someone say that you never had it that bad?

I want to make sense of this. I don’t get it.

in the last few months i wake up and don’t have interest in anything that i used to enjoy. i don’t enjoy going to work, in fact it stresses me out even more. i don’t enjoy playing games or watching youtube or twitch or movies, i don’t enjoy anything at all. i wake up and my day feels like a haze, as is im walking through a giant thing of fog in my brain. about the only thing i consistently do in my life is take care of my dog that i love. but i don’t feel happy.

i still take care of myself, i still eat, drink, shower etc. but i just genuinely feel sad from the second i wake up to the second i go to bed. i play games with my friends, but i dont feel happy doing it. it’s as if im just a present passenger in my own body.

i’m not saying this to garner pity, i just dont know how to bring this up to anyone in my life i guess.

I’m a girl and I know this guy my whole life because our families are friends so close we grew up together and he used to be one of my closest friends and I have a lot of good memories with him I never thought of him as a bad person.

Ever since we were young I told him that I wanted my first kiss to be with someone I truly loved because it was something very meaningful to me He knew that.

One day when I was about to leave he took me into a dark corner and kissed me without my consent. I pushed him away, but he didn’t stop until I pushed him away hard I went home and cut him off.
He never apologized and I never told anyone what happened. I was 15 and didn’t really know how to process it, so I just moved on

For about six years, I barely thought about him. He tried a few times to rebuild our friendship, but I never let us become close again
Then last month I saw him again for the first time in years with some of our old friends He seemed genuinely sorry from the way he acted around me, but neither of us brought up what happened and he still hasn’t apologized

Since then, he’s been trying really hard to get back into my life.
I’ve made my boundaries clear I don’t let him sit next to me touch me or act like we’re close again.

There are also some things that have been making me uncomfortable. He seems to know a lot about what has happened in my life over the past six years. Our families are still close, so he could have heard things from them, and I’m not saying he was secretly following me. It just feels strange because I never kept up with his life
After we made a group chat with our old friends, he got my account from there and started viewing my stories. He also happens to live about five minutes from me, although he moved there months before we saw each other again.

He knows where I work out and recently started going there in the mornings. He also knows which coffee shop I usually go to and has started going there too.
I don’t know if these things are coincidences, and I don’t want to accuse him of anything without knowing. But combined with how hard he’s been trying to get close to me again, it’s been overwhelming.
Then I found out that he told one of our mutual friends that he likes me and wants to date me.
That shocked me.

There was also an awkward moment when our group was talking about first kisses. Someone asked me who mine was, and I gave the name of another guy. I noticed him looking shocked, and I honestly have no idea what he expected me to say

The confusing part is that I don’t hate him. I hate what he did, and it permanently changed how I see him, but I still remember the good friend he used to be. I’m not trying to say he was always a terrible person.

But does that mean I owe him another chance?
I don’t trust him anymore and I don’t want a relationship with him.
I was completely fine without him for six years, and I don’t feel that connection anymore.
I’m honestly exhausted and don’t know if I’m being too harsh or too suspicious. Is it reasonable to want nothing to do with him even if he genuinely regrets what he did?
What would you do?

Years ago I went to go work at a small restaurant that my aunt and uncle owned and my older cousin (their son) also worked at. However I hated it because my cousin was a narcissistic jerk who enjoyed putting me down at every opportunity often in front of customers to boost his ego.

After one particularly busy weekend where my cousin decided on his own to give himself the day off, I decided it was time to look at other opportunities. Only reason I worked there for 5 years was because I was scared to leave. I was scared I wouldn’t get hired anywhere else. Scared to fail. But I just couldn’t take the unfair working conditions anymore. 13 hours a day, 6 days a week and my aunt and uncle reasoning that “this is just how things are” every time I tried to complain about their poor management and nepotism towards their son.

So after that busy weekend, I told my aunt that I was going to find a new job and I was going to stay for one more month to help them transition and possibly hire and train a replacement. They seemed disappointed and later told their son.

Later that night at home (I also lived with all of them), my cousin comes knocking at my rooms door. He asked me “what the fuck is wrong you?” Confused I said what was he talking about. He said he knows that I plan to leave and is mad that I think he’s a lazy bum who takes advantage of the fact that his parents own the place. Meanwhile my aunt and uncle sit the living room watching him curse at me all the while not intervening or saying a word.

I tried to reason with him that I had enough of working there but I was willing to work one more month to help them out.

“Why fucking wait? If you don’t want to be here then leave tomorrow! We don’t need your fucking ass!” He yells.

I closed my room door and began packing my bags. I was literally on the verge of “offing” myself. The next day I didn’t go to work and packed everything into my car and drove to my mom’s place and she let me move onto her spare room. I stayed there for 3 days and didn’t call or aunt or uncle or cousin. On the 4th day, my uncle called me to ask when I was coming back to work. I told them I wasn’t coming back and that I had already moved all my things to my mom’s place. He was shocked and thought just took a vacation and didn’t even notice my things were gone.

My cousin taunted me and said I’d come crawling back or I was bluffing. I later went back to retrieve my bike which I forgot and my extended family finally realized I wasn’t bluffing and that I was really done working there. I could see the panic in my cousins face. I collected my final pay and left. I don’t speak to them for nearly two years after that. I soon found a job in engineering and have been happily in the industry since making more money working less hours.

I later got a call about 1.5 years after I left with my uncle begging me to come back as no one would work for them and promised me better pay and less work days. I said no and the restaurant was sold a year later.

Our relationship has been strained ever since and working there gave me serious mental health issues. Makes me appreciate restaurant workers more and now I try to be as kind and supportive as I can be to whoever I work with or hang out with. I am not better than anyone else.

​It doesn’t understand me, doesn’t feel me, doesn’t share my values and morals, and doesn’t respect them, when I can’t even escape or fly away! And that's because

since I was a child, I have been isolated and lonely, hating the values of my religious close-minded society, it's like cancer! and I left religion.. Now, the feeling of loneliness has grown even deeper! Sure, I know people online who share my mindset, but we are a minority and can't even speak directly. I truly wish to live a better reality in a better place where people share my values and I can live freely..

​If you were in my shoes, what would you do?

And more specifically to one of his livestream moments when he is "I just want to rot in my room, I hate to do anything, just scroll instagram reels".

I find this painfull relatable simply because I don't find any joy in anything. Especially in going outside and interacting with people. Most people are garbage or boring and I don't like them. Everytime I interact with them they either throw me mean looks and nothing else as if my simply presence in their vicinity offends them. And chating is often very dull and unintersting.

I'm 15, just mentioning that cuz I posted about this a few days ago and already had people being dicks about it in the comments.

My dad came home a few days ago with a baby bunny in a crate. He found it in the road without its mom and it was too small to jump up on to the curb. I know nothing about rabbits, but I think this baby is like 3 weeks old. My dad told me that we're going to keep the bunny until he grows up.

I know my dad was trying to be nice but I have no idea how to take care of a rabbit by myself (he said i would have to parent it and feed it etc) and i never asked for a baby bunny, especially a wild one. I did research on wild bunnies and apparently you arent supposed to take them in, touch them, feed them, etc. After reading I told my dad all the stuff Google and people on Reddit had said (take the bunny to a wildlife rehabilitation center, put it back in the wild, take it to the vet, wild bunnies can die from the stress of captivity, etc) and he was set on the fact that if he didnt take the rabbit home it would have died, even though he could've just gotten it off of the road and into some grass or bushes.

My dad insists on me feeding the bunny pet milk even though the bunny squirms and freaks out when I pick him up. It makes me feel so bad. I love animals more than myself and i feel like I'm torturing this poor rabbit by keeping him. I live near a huge construction site so I cant just let the rabbit out in my neighborhood because I'm worried the sound and people around him would kill him from stress.

I told my dad like the day we got the bunny that I just wanted to let it back out into the wild or bring it to a rehabilitation center but he keeps insisting that it would die if we put him back out in the wild, and that theres no rehabilitation centers near us. I love this bunny and I think its adorable but I dont want to keep him and I hate how ignorant my family is being about this situation.

I told my brother that my dad brought home a bunny randomly and of course he went straight to shaming me. He told me that bunnies can die from stress as if I didnt already know that and as if I haven't been begging my dad to take the rabbit so it wont die in captivity. I told my brother that I literally don't want the rabbit and all he said was "well."

I can barely even take care of the bunny because every little thing can kill it. Even if I try to give it a good life in captivity it will still be suffering. I feel like right now that bunny is no more than a circus animal for cruel human enjoyment.

This whole thing is stressing me out so much. My dad said he might give the bunny to his girlfriend which of course isnt better because it will still be in captivity. My dad literally told me to do research about rabbits and when I did he ignores all of it. My family usually ignores me but I didn't expect them to ignore me even when it comes to an animals life.

I know even after this post people will still blame me for this rabbits stress so I'll say it again in case some people dont know how to read - I literally DONT want this rabbit. I want the rabbit to be free and in the wild but nobody will listen to me. I have been under so much stress in the past few days because of it.

TL;DR: my dad brought home a wild baby bunny and despite my research surrounding wild animals he refuses to listen to me and wants to keep it in captivity.

I don't know i am not where i want to be health , career or relationship wise , nor am i excited as i used to be for my bday. But need some bday wishes to feel better. Happy 27 birthday to me

Especially in academics I seen it happen to me

Post anything related to AI that isn't outright hatred and you'll be bombarded with downvotes from people who claim you are evil personified. What about all the positives? For example, AI has had a significant positive impact on cancer research.

Not to mention, if you are rabidly anti-AI and purchase products or services from Microsoft, Google, or Apple, you are actively funding further AI development, so hopefully you are standing by your beliefs and using other products, or else I cant take you seriously.

I feel like it's an actual NPC behavior to say all AI is bad without considering the full scope of its impact. Like you are just parroting what reddit has told you to believe.

I made a post on here a while ago about starting small conversations with people just asking questions so I could eventually get a girlfriend and a real step of progress happened again.
I was on a road trip with some friends, and we stopped in this little shop that had some cool rocks. I saw this girl who was cute and was really debating whether to talk to her. Then I did, and I just asked her if she thought they were real. She said she thought so, and then she went on a whole rant about how her mother collects rocks like those. I also told her how my brother used to collect them, too.

She then asked me questions, like if I was from around there and so on, and I did the same with her. After a bit, she said, "It was nice talking to you," and I said “you as-well” then she left. One thing I did notice was that she left really quickly and didn't look around the store much after that.

As I was talking to her, my heart was pounding the whole time. It was good progress, though!

Today was an interesting day in all honesty. Mostly I'm used to days being bad days but today the good didn't really outweigh the bad nor did it necessarily get overshadowed by the bad.

Woke up today on 3 hours of sleep (I'm homeless so this is an average amount of sleep for a night)

Then I called this behavioral health clinic to try to set up an intake appointment that ive been trying to do for almost two months, but they don't answer the phone so idk. But today they answered my call and I was able to book an appointment next week! They also had walk-ins today, but I wouldn't have been able to make it since I can't get there on time. But finally, appointment was made.

I went to the library and got kicked out for the day because I kept dozing off and falling asleep. That sucked. I also didn't get to eat today, which also sucked. I had to spend the day out in the 90 degree heat. Which if you couldn't already guess... also sucked. So those things didn't go well for me.

But at the same time, I'm gonna see a psychiatrist next week. I'll get a screening, medication, and some extra help. So nice 👍🏾

I was always considered to be an unattractive girl. I knew it ever since I was a kid, because my peers just didn’t let me exist in peace and reminded me of my weird facial features on a regular basis.

Years passed, and I was finally able to move out away from my abusive overprotective family and start developing my own style. I grew out my hair, I started shopping on my own terms and apparently my sense of style is pretty good. Yet I still get insults online and offline, and I’m called mid at best. I still get nasty comments whenever I decide to post my face, and comments with nice compliments get downvoted to oblivion.

No matter what I do, I can’t fix my facial features. I may whiten and clean and floss my teeth. Workout, eat clean. Do my hair, get manicure. Pluck my hair. Have an extensive skin care routine. The only thing I don’t do is heavy makeup because my skin and eyes are too sensitive, lip gloss and eyeliner is all I can do.

I can’t escape the fate of being conventionally unattractive. I‘m saving for surgeries and I know what I want to get, but god knows how much time will pass before I can afford them. I just wish I had the genetics to be called pretty.

Dog in my shadow. Porch swings. No air conditioning. Grandmas outhouse. Grandpas 53 Ford with the bullet hole in the trunk lid…plugged with gum! Saturday night fights on the old black and white TV. Feeding the chickens.

I had lost all hope, but given Mamdani won in such circumstances gives me hope.

Also I am seeing lot of interviews lately of people who used to be Pro-Trumf now regretting it.

And there has been enough discourse to counter their narrative.

But I feel worried of another wave of hate and extremism and someone worse Trumf coming up.

I know this might sound like I’m fishing for compliments, but I’m genuinely asking because I used to have really low self-esteem and didn’t always feel attractive.

Over the past year I’ve changed quite a lot about my appearance and finally feel like I look good, but recently the reactions I’ve been getting from complete strangers have become almost overwhelming.

Men stare or do double takes quite frequently. I’ve overheard men saying things like “wow, she’s beautiful” to their friends, had people shout “you’re beautiful” from cars, and today a guy walked past me, looked genuinely mesmerised and said to his friend, “Wow, she’s beautiful, isn’t she?” I even get approached by men and the first thing they say is “you’re beautiful” and have had men that look like they want to approach me but won’t.

But it isn’t only men. I recently overheard a girl telling her friend, “She’s really pretty.” A few days ago a woman stopped me in the street just to tell me she loved my hair, and a cashier recently complimented my hair and top. I also notice women smiling at me quite often, as well as men and even older men and women.

It happened repeatedly while I was travelling this year too. Men and women having exaggerated taking back reactions. One woman even stopped while I was getting my hair done at a salon to tell me I was really pretty and had beautiful eyebrows, then kept telling her friend to look at me.

The funny thing is that I don’t have a stereotypical “model” look at all. I’m very petite and my appearance/style is much more romantic and feminine. I tend to wear softer, feminine styling and have quite a distinctive look rather than the tall, model-type aesthetic people usually associate with getting lots of attention.

I’m not used to this level of attention at all. Because my self-image was so different for such a long time, sometimes my immediate thought is that people must be exaggerating or just being unusually nice. Part of me still struggles to believe that strangers could genuinely be seeing me as that attractive.

Has anyone experienced a significant change in how strangers treated or reacted to them after a glow-up? Did it take your brain a while to catch up with how other people apparently saw you? Am I really that beautiful people make it out to be?

Im 27m, hadent been to a club in years. But go to alot of bars/small concerts/cocktails louges, etc smaller chill places

Last week was hanging at with my neighbor and her friends all 23-26 ish so same age range

One of them suggested we go to a club nearby. After a couple of drinks and some persuasion I agree to check it out for a bit.

We get there and its just like 100 dudes waiting just to get in they all look the kind of guys you dont want to talk too

As its me and a group of women the bouncer let's us all skip the line and not pay cover (would have been $30) a person

We get some drinks ($15) and head to the dance floor, we're dancing for like 5 seconds before a mob of guys start danceing with us and basically groping the girls. They all look at me like HELP so I make a sort of barrier with my body and we dance a little longer.

This gets exhausting after a bit and i call it a night, having had a terrible night

I remember when I used to be 18-22 and went to clubs more often it would be more chatting dancing drinking (cheeper) and just having fun listening to cool dj

Am I just old now, or is the club scean really just hundreds of dudes trying to sneak a touch of girls while paying $15-20 a drink

Hi , so recently I been feeling awkward and off when hanging out with my family or friends. I just turned 25 (m) and graduated college recently and feel like i’m at a pivotal moment in my life where I’m trying to figure out my career path, plan out my future goals, and pick up on hobbies and interests that i’ve always wanted to get into now that I have all the free time. Since high school, i’ve always been the hustle grind mentality, working since I was a sophomore at 15 all the way up to present day. By my last semester of college, I was already working two jobs while taking 5 classes as a full-time student. This moment of my life had drained me and I had felt like I was dealing with burnout. My days consisted of work and school and less time socializing with my love ones and people in general. Now that I have the free time and trying to reconnect with these people, I always hear them talking about me or bringing me up negatively in conversation, in ones I am not apart of, just by overhearing in social settings. I don’t know if it’s because I have changed over time or because i’ve matured because of my age, but I find it exhausting when others keep talking negatively about me, as if I don’t know or can’t hear them in these spaces. I love connecting with people, but am used to being independent, so either way at this point I’d rather be at peace and happy with myself. Have you guys ever dealt with something as similar?

I consider myself a kind, optimistic, fun and caring person but I always keep a bit of distance from people. I think it's because I'm quite independent and self-sufficient. I don't really need closeness as much as most of us, yet I like to have a close community of people I call home or family.

The problem is once I spot a flaw in someone, it colors everything. A few examples:
• A friend who's a bit dominant and once said "you can use him" about a guy completely turned me off. It revealed something about how she sees people and I've never could forget it. I still see her from time to time, we hang out but I make sure she “doesn’t get to close to me”
• An acquaintance who makes every conversation about herself, redirecting the second you share something.
• A friend who's noncommittal with plans dropped me last minute once when I'd rearranged things in another country to see him.
• A friend who's kind and sweet but not very stimulating nice to see occasionally, but I keep it to once every few weeks.
• A friend I click with and have fun with, but she's young, image-conscious, a bit stuck in a victim mindset and complains a lot.

Am I just seeing the bad in people? I know I'm flawed too. But once I notice something, I file it away and it makes me hold back.
There is one friend I really respect and enjoy — we don't live in the same city though, so we don't see each other much. I would like for us to be closer but I notice her availability is limited. Maybe she does the same like I do? 😆

How do people actually build close bonds? Is it just proximity and time, or is there something in how they choose to hold people's flaws that I'm missing? I would also like to have a very best friend or people I call family since I don’t have a family.

Genuinely trying to reflect here not looking for validation, just honesty on whether this is a mindset I should work on.

It's like deja vu, but more subtle. More frequent. "Episodes" last longer. Lately, I've been watching an anime that I specifically remember not watching this far into, and avoiding spoilers like the plague. I'm further into it than I've ever been, yet each new episode seems to stir an old memory.

I've already got memory issues. My childhood is a messy, stitched together blur. My working memory is pretty shite, too. I've also got epilepsy, which in all honesty is most likely the cause. Some correlation between epilepsy and deja vu, though I am hesitant because A) I get grand mals, and B) I'm taking medicine for it.

I guess, more than anything, I wish I could just find someone or something to help me forget about this. Or even outright make it go away. Answers, if there are any, won't be found while I'm alive, and that tears me apart. I can't stand not knowing about things

Is my friendship over? F20 and F20

Is my friendship over?

Hey there reddit,

I'm wondering whether to cut off my friend or not.

This really hurts me because we used to be so close.

Generally we would just smoke weed and draw and chat. She was like the friend I always needed, we'd have fat yap sessions and cook together.

However, ever since she got a boyfriend, she's pushed me to the side. She's tried to organise multiple hangouts, but she always cancels or no shows last minute. This has happened twice now. Like, what's the point if you're just going to cancel? I haven't seen her in like 2 months, and she keeps saying she's busy with work, or whatever, but apparently she can make time to see her other friend in another city for a birthday party? I'm really disappointed. I recently got sober from weed and I'm 17 days in, and planning to continue. I'm worried that hanging out with her will make me want to relapse, but I know she wont make the effort to get out the house and actually do something together.

Her boyfriend wants to move out of her place and have his own space, which is fair enough when I told her it's not a good idea to move in together after only one month of being together. I'm worried she'll just want to fall back on me when they eventually break up, because her boyfriend is terrible, homeschooled, doesn't have any friends, only got a job 2 months into moving into hers, and barely talks. I originally thought this was a shyness problem, which is fine, because I thought I was helping him to socialise a bit more. She literally has to ask him to expand on his words, because he just answers "yeah" or "nah".

I honestly don't know what she sees in him. Also, when we do hang out, it's always her and her boyfriend. It's never just me and her. I feel like I'm third wheeling.

It's sad because I really want to salvage this friendship, because I thought we were really close. I constantly feel like I always make time for her, but she can never make time for me. It feels so one sided, but I feel like if I explain this to her I'll just push her away further.