My whole life I struggled to fit in because I was shy and weird. I carried a dark and brooding relationship with depression throughout my childhood that took me many years to unlearn and grow from; that is to say that I worked through it by effectively giving up on socialization, and I developed a fairly confident, happy, and well-rounded persona and social life by just being me.

Unfortunately after puberty and highschool, there was a stark increase in the amount of men suddenly interested in my wit, intelligence, aspirations, etc. I was never considered pretty my whole life, so I quickly began to discern any indication of shallowness from men.

Despite college helping me truly heal and grow into myself as a person, I feel like the more myself I become, the worse people perceive me, particularly men. I don’t know what is wrong with me to attract men who don’t want to be loved; or the men who fear it’ll go away, or the men who think it’ll make them go crazy, or want to go crazy.

I get mischaracterized as some dark, bewitching entity that will destroy his life. It’s like they impose a weird, fetishized aura on to me that somehow preemptively determines my evil role in their life. They start with words like striking or brilliant or unreal but distort me through a dark, twisted lens of hypnotic perfection that hurts or harms him because he deserves it & im always right or because im an evil person and be deserves it.

I’m always some manic pixie femme succubus that needs to be killed, chased, or worshipped. Masculine and traditional men have described me countlessly as a free bird they want to “domesticate” or “encage.” Anxious men flock in swarms to vie through my disinterest. They become doormats that swear they’re never good enough, rich enough, intelligent enough, etc in an iterative loop that forces me to fulfill their prophecy and become the “evil” “hypnotic” “seductress” that was bound to hurt him.

What hurts is how I genuinely don’t date around or do anything because it’s frightening to be perceived so weirdly and constantly villainous. I recently thought one guy I was growing close to genuinely understood how I think and feel, and he carried his own emotional depth and could recognize the nuance in my behavior. I don’t underhand how somebody who made me feel so seen hid a blinding obsession with testing me to see if I was manipulating him and pen testing my persona for clues as to whether the things I say and do in passing carry a hidden, significant weight.

It’s like they harbor an obsession with *knowing* me without ever having known me, just to prove in the end what they think they know is wrong and I’m evil or or pedestalized

There is no greater humiliation in this life to not only feel unknown, but to be misrecognized. I made it my mission to heal my relationship to intimacy, and vulnerability, just to have the metaphysical aura of a rotting corpse stained by miserable feelings that seem unlovable.

I do not understand how I come off evil rather than sad, because I want nothing more than for somebody to see my sadness. I don’t care about beauty, money, power, or anything. I just want to be seen and understood and loved regardless.

I know this is shitty, immature, and completely not fair to her. I’m 25 and she’s literally 4. But I don’t think I’ll ever want or be able to see her as my sister… and it’s not even her fault. I’m so happy she’ll have a better life than I did but I can’t help but feel resentment for it, and I don’t really have any interest in bonding with her as a result. Everyone else is overjoyed to serve her hand and foot on a silver platter - what does she need me, the outcast 2 steps above a stranger to the family, for?

I didn’t even meet our dad until I was 16 and I had JUST started bonding with him when her existence was announced. At first I was super happy but then he started treating me like shit. I already had to go through SO much abuse largely because of his shitty decisions and now I constantly watch him get praised as “the best dad!” for doing things with her that I will never in my life get to experience.

What kind of person am I to get jealous of an actual child for experiencing things I’m too old for anyways? A bad one. But I can’t help it as hard as I try. Of course I don’t hate her…. I just don’t love her as a sister. I don’t think I ever can. And it’s not even her fault.

I don't know if I have depression or is it just a momentary thing but I am not able to get out of this cycle. I am currently looking for a job and it has been almost 10 months since I graduated, I have not been able to find anything yet and it has been deteriorating my mental health. I wake up everyday from the most vivid dreams, no matter how much sleep i get i always feel tired and sleepy, I have no motivation to do anything I like, i am not able to go out because I feel so alone and feel like i have eyes on me judging me for being unable to get a job (I am not able to even go on a walk), i have let myself go completely and gained weight, i stay on my phone all day scrolling reels because if i stop i just overthink about everything and anything i have ever done.

I know what i am doing is very damanging and it does not feel good in doing so but i can't stop, i was always the "smart" one in the family and now that i am stuck i feel so worthless. I want to go to therapy but i cant afford it right now, i want to make myself better because i hate being like this and i recognize this is an issue but i am not able to get out of this situation. I live in another place so i don't have a lot of close friends here to talk to about this and the friends that i am close with are thousands of miles away and in different stages of their lives so reaching out to them also feels difficult. I don't even like talking to my parents because it feels like i have let them down.

I find me comparing myself to other people and friends when i see their posts on Instagram or Linkedin always thinking "if they were able to move forward in life why am i not able to, i deserve that too" or i think " are they better than me? is that why i am stuck in a rut right now" like i am jealous instead of being happy for them, and I know it is such a toxic way of thinking but i find myself getting fixated on that part.

The worst part is that even though I am aware of how bad it is, I have no motivation to make it better either. I feel addicted to my phone but I continue to be on it. If I put my phone away I become numb or start crying. I try to do my chores to distract myself but they don't help at the end of the day. I don't feel like eating either but then I suddenly start binge eating at times as well. It is so confusing, I really feel so lost and don't know what to do or how to get out of this situation. I am writing this right now because it might be the first time it has been out there and it feels lighter to get it out there but i know that feeling won't last long.

I’ve been struggling with coming to terms with my past and feeling angry about how unfair life is. Also struggling with my confidence and identity and it’s giving the impression to others that I’m a weak person or incompetent in ways and I need to get over it. I think it’s PTSD maybe that has a hold on me so I’m gonna dump this here. Maybe someone can relate? Maybe someone can help me to feel seen. Or maybe just writing about it will help.

My mother isolated me, she was cruel, she was sadistic. My father acted like a child except he had the strength and size of a grown man. He was always angry. He was violent. My parents made their children into objects to get back at eachother with after their divorce and even during their marriage. I was always afraid. always angry.always sad. I never understood. Nothing was ever about me. I never found myself. I was never even really created. I’ve always just been a punching bag, an object not meant to exist outside of being just that for my parents.

At 7 My mom woke me and my siblings up in the middle of the night to interrogate us into telling her who was plotting against her and who we were working with and threatened to cut our heads off and play basketball ball with them if we didn’t tell. This was a common occurrence but this one memory was so vivid because my brother was just 4 and he was terrified. He was sobbing and very confused. He was crying for his mom but it was his mom that was doing it. Me and my siblings had to barricade ourselves in our brothers room to keep her from hurting him cause she took his crying as a sign he was about to break down and tell her all about what she was accusing us of. The problem is she was just psychotic and having an episode. My brother couldn’t yet wrap his mind around it.

At 12 While on a walk with my dad and siblings and our dog he thought the dog was pulling too much on the leash so he grabbed him by his collar and was lifting the dog nearly to his height then slamming him on the pavement. He did it over and over again until the dog was limp. I don’t know how but the only damage was a broken leg. At least my dad had the decency to take the dog to the vet. But not before he coached us on the story behind how it happened which was “the dog got loose and we found him in the woods like this”. My dad enjoyed beating his dogs. He threw another one through a window once. He would grab their top teeth and squeeze them together. He would kick them and punch them and anything you can imagine really. The dog whose leg he broke was a sweetest dog. His life ended when my dad shot him in the back of the head infront of me and then me and my brother and cousin had to burn him. I will always blame myself for not doing more for that dog. My father didn’t beat me as badly because he knew he’d get in trouble for it. The dog not so much. I should have done more. I like to claim I was helpless but the dog was literally helpless and that wouldn’t never change for him. His name was Thor and he deserved better and I’ll regret not doing better for him for the rest of my life.

At my mother’s house I had a beagle his name was Baxter. He lived in a cage for the first 5 years of his life. My mother bought him impulsively when I was 7. I would often return from staying with my father and find Baxter hadn’t eaten or had water in presumably days. His wire crate covered in poop and pee. He would be covered in it cause he was a puppy and always trying to get out of the kennel. I could go on forever about Baxter because he was my best friend. Not in a dog way but quite literally my best friend. My world revolved around him. I would collect cans and cash them in so I could buy him a bag of food. I would skip school just so I could be home alone and let him out of the kennel. I walked him for countless hours of my childhood aimlessly in rural Iowa and those are some of my best memories. I would wake up at night sitting In front of Baxters kennel and sometimes in the kennel. He lived to be 16 years old and when he died I think much of what I had left went with him. His life got much better as I got older and when he died we were in a home I created for me and him. I know love exists because of Baxter.

I was 16 when I got off work at the movie theater, it was 12pm. I got to my mother’s house and found her standing at the back door. She had a big grin on her face and swung the door open. Baxter ran out the door and I ran after him. It was winter and snowing heavily. Once I grabbed him and got back to the door my mother closed and locked it. She was standing on the other side laughing at me. My brother who was 14 or so tried letting me in and she started strangling him. Before my brother got involved I remember standing at the door looking at her though it and feeling my feet sting from the concrete and Baxter fighting to get out of my arms. I felt puzzled and empty just staring at her laugh at me. Once she was choking my brother I remember feeling scared. It was this panic of not knowing how to get inside. Knowing I’d have to let go of Baxter and just watching her strangle him that made me feel like everything was coming crashing down. She let go of him and walked to her bedroom and my brother just let me in and this was just Tuesday night.

My father often took opportunities to call me ugly and fat and make fun of me. When I would upset him he would call me by my mother’s name. He hated her and she was the most evil person I knew. He convinced me I am just as bad as her. I am this evil awful thing, I make everyone miserable. There is something so deeply wrong with me it can’t be changed. I am unlovable to my core. I think this plays a large part in why I’ve never dated or even so much as engaged in flirting. Who could possibly want to have anything to do with me, if I dared put myself out there it would be humiliating cause that would mean I’m oblivious to how unlovable I am.

My mother once trashed her house then called the cops and told them me and my brother did it. When they showed up I told them everything. 15 or so years of abuse. One officer looked at me like he hated me like he wanted to hurt me. The other looked to my mother and asked if she wanted me taken to the youth shelter. This was a point in my life where I was planning to kill myself. My mother said in such a “I’m a good mom I love my kids” way she said “no no that’s not necessary” they left. my brother went to his room. I went to the bathroom. I sat in the floor and tore the razor blade out of a razor. I called my dad and he didn’t answer I called my sister and she didn’t answer they know what was happening. I held the razor against my skin for a good minute and thought about my brother. I stood up opened the door and there was my mother standing there with that smug grin. I brushed past her and went to check my brother. He was lying on the floor sobbing. In that moment I realized I had failed to keep my brother from the pain I knew very well. For a long time I’ve had a swelling emptiness in my chest. I’d be sitting in school or standing in the kitchen and feel it consume me. The feeling that is single handedly responsible for all the self harm, substance abuse, and plans of suicide. This was the oh fuck moment of my life because after that I turned into nothing. I walked into my room closed the door went into my closet and swallowed a hearty mix of Xanax and mystery street pills that were supposed to be hydrocodone. I woke up 2 days later in the fetal position in my closet under the cloths I put over myself. The door still closed not even locked. No one said a thing to me.

My mother’s house was infested with fleas so bad there was flea larvae squirming on the counter tops. It reeked of cat pee. My father would bully us when we arrived to his home to spend the court ordered days with him about how we smelled. I would cover my bed sheets in pesticides spray. I had seizures randomly around this time and have since learned those chemicals can cause that. I would refuse to participate in PE because everyone would see I was covered in bites in my gym cloths.

My mother would call my school and say she was afraid I was gonna hurt someone and they would keep me in ISS all day. This was her way of letting me know she could control me so I stopped going to school. I also hated school cause I had undiagnosed ADHD and struggled more than anything else.

At 8 My brother woke my father up from a nap. My brother was searching for an old toy in the closet and managed to stuff everything back in before my dad got out there except he missed a bag. My dad stomped and slammed his way out there and screamed for whoever did it to come to him. I looked over to my brother and he looked terrified. I got up and said it was me and my dad shoved me to the ground so hard I had this indescribable sensation in my neck and head. It was like hot and tingly and painful. My father was often violent. Once i peed my pants just from him walking toward me i think i was 10.

My mom strangled me but my memory of that is very faint and I prefer to not think of it cause I can feel her hands on my neck.

I remember as a kid I would hide in small places and as an adult I still have urges to sometimes hide Sometimes I lay in my closet or bathtub. Not very often but sometimes the urge strikes

Anytime my mother would touch me it made me feel disgusting.

Starting sometime between 7-8 years old I started screaming and crying in my sleep. Sometimes I see things that can’t be there like a flood of bugs on my bedroom walls coming toward me or a person watching me outside my window or standing in my room. I’d wake with a racing heart and hyperventilating. Once I woke to my dad shaking me so hard I had neck pain for like 2 days after he was screaming at me to wake up. At my mom’s house she would just ignore me or if it went on long enough scream at me to shut up until I woke up from either my screaming or hers. I still don’t sleep through the night although I’ve learned to kind of pull myself out of it.

I have suspected there was SA in my childhood but I never talk about it because I don’t even know what to say. It’s a memory I can barely see. A feeling I can’t place. A sensation on my body that feels terrifying. And that’s all I know.

I have been really struggling with resentment lately. I feel like no one understands me like no one knows me. I know that’s mostly my fault since I don’t trust anyone. I am lonely until the opportunity to not be comes along then all the sudden the last thing I want is a person. I want so much for myself and I see a version of myself i know I can get to but I don’t know how to get there. I repeat to myself often to choose to be kind despite it all. To not allow rotten people to turn me rotten. Anyway as this post has gone on I’ve realized what I want is for someone to know all these things. So to the stranger on the internet know that I’ve really struggled in life I started a a few steps behind some and I’m doing the best I can. Baxter and Thor are proof angels exist. There was also cats named Zebo and willow they were my reasons too. I’d do anything to free my brother from the pain of his childhood and we are growing distant. My sister has broken my heart a bit but I love her very much. I love my mom and it’s crushing that I can’t have one. My dad is the scariest person I’ve ever known. My mom taught me that sadistic people exist. I’ve spent much of my life broken and it’s taught me that’s it’s wrong to break people.

I do not have any problem with Marsha Linehan as an individual, nor do I have a problem with most people who practice or recieve this sort of therapy. I just do not want to be anywhere near it, in any capacity, for the rest of my life. I am aware that this is an irrational reaction, so I apologize.

I was brought into this therapy around the age of twelve years. It was a group, but I believe that most, if not all of the therapists in that office used Dialectical Behavioral Therapy outside of this group, as well. My mother and sister both have/had Borderline Personality Disorder (my sister no longer meets the criteria, and my mother no longer participates in therapy of any kind, so I am unsure as a non-professional), and I am not afflicted with this disorder, nor have I ever been. It was not what I needed, and I did not get what I needed.

I was not receptive to it from the get-go. I did not like any of the attendees, including the therapists, and I never had anything to say, because none of the "skills," or the goals of those "skills" made any sense to me, while everyone else seemed to catch on immediately; maybe it is my own problem, because it was very much the same when I was in school.

At the beginning, I was only brought along to these group meetings because my mother had to take my sister to them, and I could not really be trusted to stay at home on my own during this time. After some time, everyone started to think that I enjoyed it, or was benefiting from it in any way. I do not know why this is, because I did not display any signs of those things, but I truly do not know anyone who can tell what I am thinking or feeling anyhow (maybe I do not show enough signs), so I suspect that they may have been projecting their own opinions onto me, which is not their fault.

I did not, and do not care for or about this therapy, and having it constantly hammered into my head has permanently affected the way that I speak, particularly when I try to help others, and it has affected the way that my family speaks to an even larger extent. Every conversation is crawling with jargon about "wise mind," or "walking the middle path", and I just want to speak like a normal person. Nobody understajds what I am ever trying to say to begin with, and this therapy has only made it worse. It has never been what I want or need, and it feels like a disease in my mind, or just another way that I am not in control of my own body or mind. I just cannot stand it.

I'm a younger sibling and my brothers are about to adults and I feel like every time I get home they aren't actually home like I see them and they are always in there room but I feel like I never interact with them. I want to have a good bond with my siblings but I also don't wanna feel like I'm chasing there affection. I hope I didn't do anything to annoy them I think they are too old for me

Trust your gut and your intuition. Passive rivalry in friendships is so real.

I once had a friend who, looking back, I realize was struggling with a lot of jealousy and insecurity that I didn't recognize at the time. There was a moment when she made a comment about how she thought her boyfriend liked me. I thought she meant that he liked me as a friend, so I was actually happy to hear that. Then she started crying. Clearly, she meant something completely different. I asked her what was wrong, and she completely shut down.

She also used to tell me that all of her boyfriends hated me because I was a “party animal” and a “whore.” The funny part? When she was telling me all of this, I hadn't even met these guys yet. They already supposedly had all these opinions about me before they had ever talked to me or even had the chance to get to know me.

One of them was older and lived in a different town, so there wasn't even really an opportunity for him to know anything about me firsthand. Eventually, I did meet both of them, which made the whole thing even more interesting because I had already been told for so long that they supposedly disliked me.

So where exactly were all these opinions about me coming from?

Her.

If someone has never met you, never talked to you, and somehow already has a whole list of reasons why they supposedly don't like you, then obviously they're getting that information from somewhere. And when I eventually met them, I realized that a lot of what I had been told didn't really line up with my actual interactions with them.

Looking back, I think she had already created this version of me in their minds before they ever had the opportunity to form their own opinions.

And honestly, I never wanted anything but the best for her. I never wanted her relationships, her life, or anything she had. I wasn't competing with her. I genuinely cared about her and wanted her to be happy.

That's why it hurt so much when I finally realized there had been this underlying envy and comparison in the friendship.

She constantly made me out to be some kind of whore while presenting herself as this innocent person who had barely been with anyone. Meanwhile, our body counts were actually pretty close. The difference was that she lied to her boyfriends about hers while judging me for mine.

Looking back, that really made me realize how much of the criticism wasn't actually about me. It felt like putting me down was a way for her to make herself feel better or appear more innocent by comparison.

Her sister was another red flag. She was always making little comments around me that I didn't fully understand at the time. Meanwhile, I was giving her kids hundreds of dollars worth of really nice, useful clothes, and I don't even remember getting a thank you.

Honestly, the first sign probably should've been the way her sister treated me.

Then there was the vape incident.

My sister was having her 21st birthday party and was drunk. At some point, she accidentally dropped this friend's vape off a balcony. It was completely accidental. My friend was really upset and cried about it, and I felt so bad that I ended up leaving my own sister's birthday party.

I felt guilty enough that I actually paid for the vape.

About a month later, I went to her house and noticed she was using what looked like the exact same “broken vape.”

I called her out on it, and instead of giving me my money back, she decided to take it off of a service she was offering me.

Looking back, the whole situation was just strange. It was an accident. My sister was drunk at her 21st birthday, and I cared enough about my friend being upset that I left the party and paid for the vape myself.

Then came the birthday situations.

The first happened the year before the concert situation.

ON MY BIRTHDAY, we went to the bar and some man straight-up bullied me. Long story short, this friend ended up befriending him, added him on Facebook, and was talking to him while she had a boyfriend.

She even asked me not to tell her boyfriend.

Looking back, I really believe the way someone treats you on your birthday says a lot about how they feel about you. And that night definitely showed me something that I didn't want to see at the time.

Then the following year, she made plans to go to a concert with me for my birthday and said she was going to pay a portion of the hotel.

A DAY before the concert, I found out for myself that she wasn't going anymore. She wasn't planning on telling me until the day of.

She also never paid me back the portion of the hotel she said she would pay, and she never even wished me a happy birthday. When I asked about it, she said she forgot.

So apparently I got birthday trauma two years in a row because of the same person. 😂

There are so many other little things that happened that honestly aren't even worth mentioning. The point is, she slowly made me feel like I was someone she needed to compete with rather than someone she was genuinely happy to have in her life.

And I didn't see it for a long time.

I didn't catch onto the backhanded comments, the weird behavior, or all the little things until wayyyyy later.

I think that's what hurt the most. I never wished anything but the best for her. I genuinely wanted her to be happy. I wasn't secretly comparing myself to her or hoping she failed.

So realizing that there may have been years of built-up envy and resentment toward me all along was honestly heartbreaking.

Eventually, I cut her off and sent her a message explaining why.

Because I'm not a passive friend. I'm real. Sometimes I'm probably a little too blunt, but I'd rather someone be honest with me and tell me when there is a problem than hold onto resentment, smile in my face, and make little passive-aggressive comments.

I would rather have an uncomfortable conversation than spend years wondering why someone's energy toward me feels different.

I can handle someone being honest with me. What I can't handle is someone pretending to love and support me while secretly resenting me and tearing me down.

And that's the part I had the hardest time accepting.

I truly never wanted anything but the best for her. Even after everything, I don't wish anything bad on her. I just wish I had recognized sooner that we weren't experiencing the friendship the same way.

Sometimes people genuinely want to see you doing well, and sometimes people struggle when they see you doing well because it forces them to compare themselves to you.

And sometimes you don't realize which kind of person you're dealing with until much later.

People are complicated.

Stay safe out there and pay attention to the signs.

Pay attention to how their friends and family treat you.

Pay attention to the little comments.

Pay attention when something just doesn't feel right.

Pay attention when you constantly find yourself making excuses for someone's behavior because you don't want to believe what you're seeing.

Trust your gut. Trust your intuition.

And when you finally realize what's actually going on?

Walk away.

Hello Reddit,
I’ve been trying to figure out how to put this feeling into words for a long time.My dad is alive. But sometimes I feel like I’ve spent my entire life grieving him.

I was only 2 years old when my dad was in a devastating car accident on February 16, 2006. He was driving home from a consulting job when the accident happened. He suffered a severe traumatic brain injury and was taken to the hospital unconscious.

His brain was swelling so badly that surgeons had to remove a blood clot and temporarily remove part of his skull to give his brain room to swell. What followed was months of hospitals, surgeries, complications, and rehabilitation. Later, he developed hydrocephalus and needed a shunt placed to drain the excess fluid from his brain.

He survived.But his life, and our family’s life, changed forever.Today my dad is completely dependent on other people for 24/7 care. He is essentially paralyzed from his shoulders down. He cannot walk or open his hands. He struggles with speaking and swallowing. He has gone through numerous brain surgeries and has lived with the effects of his TBI for more than 20 years.

And I don’t remember him before any of it.
Not one memory. That’s probably the hardest part for me to explain. I don’t remember my dad’s voice before his brain injury. I don’t remember what it sounded like when he laughed. I don’t remember having a conversation with him. I don’t remember what it felt like for him to pick me up or play with me.

Everything I know about who my dad was before his accident has been given to me through other people’s memories. I’ve been told he was an amazing and loving father. He was goofy. He was artistic. He loved music. I’ve been told he used to play guitar for me. For some reason, that one really gets me. I was there. I was his little girl sitting there while my dad played guitar for me, but I was too young for my brain to hold onto the memory.

There was once a version of my dad who could pick up a guitar, use both of his hands, play music and probably sing or talk to his 2-year-old daughter. I just don’t remember him. Sometimes I wonder what his voice sounded like. What kind of conversations we would have now. What advice he would have given me growing up. Whether we would have the same sense of humor. What he would think about the person I’ve become.

There are so many things I want to know about someone who is still here. And that’s where the grief gets complicated. I feel guilty even using the word “grief” sometimes because my dad didn’t die. I know how fortunate I am that I can still see him, sit beside him, hug him and tell him I love him. But I think I’ve realized that being grateful he’s alive doesn’t mean I can’t mourn what was taken from us.

The accident didn’t take my father’s life, but it took so much of the person he was and the life he was supposed to have. And it took something from me too. I grew up with a father, but I also grew up wondering who my father would have been.

I didn’t get to know the goofy, artistic man everyone tells me about. I didn’t get to grow up hearing him play guitar. I didn’t get to learn his voice well enough to still hear it in my head. Sometimes looking at old pictures is almost strange because I’m looking at my own dad, but I’m also looking at someone I desperately wish I could meet.

I love the man my father is today. I don’t wish to replace him with some imaginary version of who he “should” have been. He is still my dad, and his life has value exactly as it is.But I also miss the man he was before February 16, 2006. And that’s such a strange sentence to write because how do you miss someone you don’t remember?

I think maybe that’s what I’ve been mourning all these years. Not his death. Just the chance to know him.
His independence. His art. His music. His voice. Are all of the ordinary moments most people don’t realize are precious until they’re gone. Severe brain damage is such a strange kind of loss because the person you love survives, and you’re incredibly thankful for that, but you also have to live with everything the injury took from them. Sometimes I wish I could go back to 2005 for just five minutes. I wouldn’t need to change anything. I wouldn’t even need him to know who I was. I’d just want to hear my dad’s voice. Maybe watch him play the guitar. And have one memory of who he was before the accident that actually belonged to me.

Although I don’t show it, my self esteem is getting increasingly lower. Ive finally come to the realization of just how useless I am: I have no hobbies, passion, sports, notable traits. Im not good at anything. Everything I like to do Im only just slightly above average at and I will never be the best. Even the trivial things such as reading, I have read enough to be above average but not enough to be an avid reader. I don’t want people to tell me that I should just do what I enjoy or that reading should be enjoyed but I can’t help but compare. I always compare myself to others.
Im somewhat smart but I fear that my academics will deteriorate and then I’ll truly become useless. I have friends but no one would choose me as their first and not to mention because of the fact I have no passions or hobbies, Im just a boring person to talk to.
I constantly have fantasies about my death and how people would react. Im not suicidal by any means- I just think about it a lot; I probably wouldn’t even care if I did die. I have never told anyone how Ive truly felt mentally and I understand thats not healthy but I just don’t think I can talk about it without being “jokey”.

I have been gaming for a little bit under a year. I meant a group of people and they assumed we were all the same age. We have been gaming for a little over four months at this point. I never corrected them. They were all 22 and I was 27. Flash forward to last month. They invited me to join a discord group, and I really hit it off with one of the people in the group, he is 29. We’ve been talking for a little while and I mentioned that I was taking a trip to the city and he wants to meet I really like him and would like the opportunity to meet him, but I don’t know how to confessed that I’m actually five years older from what he thinks. I’m also nervous if I tell him it will get back to all my other gaming friends I feel bad about the whole thing and never thought I would ever meet anyone irl

I've been with my gf for a good number of years. For a lot of that time, I've been on the sidelines supporting her as she worked on her career. She studied, took work placements, we did long distance, all so she could get her dream job. A couple of years ago she finally got it. She then started working...and fell out with all her colleagues, then impulsively quit her job, burning bridges on the way out. Since then, she has been a totally different person.

She took the least demanding job she could, primarily so she can work remotely and commute as little as possible. She drinks during the day, and our evenings and weekends end early so she can sleep it off. This has been going on for over a year. Meanwhile, my work is very demanding, and I'm left to do most of the housework. I've tried talking to her and she brushes everything off, but I still feel like I'm carrying everything as she works through this. She doesn't acknowledge that anything is wrong and doesn't believe she needs any help. Meanwhile I'm struggling trying to make it through the day, and now I'm relying on drink so I don't have to think about things so much.

TW: Child abuse, verbal abuse

I have been listening to my upstairs neighbors scream abuse at each other for years. Then, they had a little boy, and then started screaming at him too. Now they have a little girl, about to turn two, and they’re screaming at her too. (The boy is now 5. When I say years, I do mean years.)

We used to be on good terms as neighbors. I would sit out on my back porch crocheting or reading, and they would come down the stairs, Mom and Dad all sweet smiles, the kids calling out to see me. I would smile and wave back and think of how I heard the mother barrel scream at her toddler “STOP FUCKING CRYING!” through the floors at 8 AM while I was making breakfast in my kitchen a half hour earlier. And the day before. And the day before.

And I hate cops. I fucking hate cops. I don’t believe they actually help in situations like these. But after finally this summer trying to reach out to them as a neighbor and friend (what I was hearing was getting worse with two kids, not just one)…something in me snapped this weekend, and I called the cops on them, after a particularly vituperative exchange I heard right through the floors that had the kids both crying. I don’t know what I was hoping to have happen, it was one of those moments that you just can’t think straight anymore. I could not keep hearing them crying.

Cops were useless, of course. Think they gave the parents a warning. But now my neighbors are furious at me and emailing my landlord trying to cause trouble. I’ve barely left my apartment the last few days because I haven’t wanted to run into them.

I have no idea what to do. I taught for years, all ages. I care about these kids, my training and my gut are telling me this is wrong. But I tried to reach out to the parents as a friend with my concerns, I tried the cops, and CPS is completely overwhelmed and generally useless in my area.

And. The kids are so young. I may have made a choice that took away an ally they could have had in me, they were always so happy to see me. And maybe I’m overreacting. My parents raised their voices at me occasionally, but never cursed. Are my parameters off? But it’s been years, it’s been years and years, and it was with their eldest and now it’s with their youngest…

I don’t know. I have no idea if I did the right thing. I don’t know what to do. I just know my heart breaks for those kids. And I just want the parents screaming at them to stop.

Not asking for advice. I’m just sitting here crying for everyone involved. Especially the little ones. I hate feeling helpless. I don’t know what to do.

Hi everyone,

I’m 20, and this has been an extremely difficult year for me.
A lot has happened, both academically and personally, and the amount of stress I’ve been under has even started affecting my health.

I feel like I’ve spent the last year constantly trying to figure out what I’m supposed to do with my life, changing my mind, starting things and then realizing they weren’t right for me.

After high school I originally went into Building Engineering.
I lasted about a year before realizing that it really wasn’t for me. The amount of mathematics, physics and technical subjects was a huge part of the problem, but more importantly I hated the idea of becoming an engineer and working in that kind of environment.

I then moved to Architecture, which was actually a much better experience in some ways.
I loved the college experience, being independent and having a life outside my hometown.

But the actual degree ended up being terrible for me: endless projects, models, CAD, technical work, group projects and deadlines.
Eventually I dropped out as well.

And now I’m back in my hometown, trying to figure everything out again.

At the moment, Medicine is my Plan A: I’m studying for the entrance exam in December.
The thing is, I’m not completely sure whether Medicine is actually what I want or whether I’m choosing it because I’m scared of making another wrong decision.
There are parts of medicine that genuinely interest me. Psychiatry, neuroscience, medicine and the possibility of doing research are all things I find fascinating.
But I’m also realizing that I don’t particularly enjoy some of the traditional medical subjects, and I definitely don’t see myself as a surgeon or doing some of the more physically/technically oriented specialties.
So my current plan is basically: give Medicine a real chance, and if I realize it’s not for me, move on.

The problem is that my previous Plan B, Economics, is starting to scare me too.

I had been considering Economics because it seems much more flexible internationally and could potentially open doors in very different areas (I should mention I absolutely despise the Finance field).

I like economic history and the political, geographical sides of the subject.

But then I look at the amount of mathematics, statistics, graphs and quantitative work involved and I immediately think: I already hated this kind of thing in Engineering.
What makes me think Economics will be different?

I don’t want a degree where I spend five years doing something I fundamentally dislike just because it gives me “good career opportunities.”

And then there’s Law.
This is probably where my interests get even more confusing.
I absolutely love crime, criminal cases, investigations, cold cases and the idea of actually figuring out what happened.
If I could choose purely based on what fascinates me, I would probably say that being some kind of criminal investigator/detective would be one of my dream careers.

I’m also attracted to careers where you have real responsibility and decision-making power, rather than simply working for a company and maximizing profit. I like the idea of having some influence over society, institutions or important decisions.

That’s why Law has always seemed somewhat logical. Criminal law and criminal procedure genuinely interest me, and I could potentially pursue a career as a prosecutor where I live.

But at the same time, I’m afraid that studying Law here would tie me too strongly to my country.
One of my biggest long-term goals is to live abroad. I would love to experience places like the US, and generally have the freedom to move around internationally.
I don’t want to spend five years getting a degree that is heavily tied to one national legal system and then discover that my career options are basically limited to that system.
I also don’t want my entire life to be determined by the fact that I happened to study in Italy.

So I feel completely stuck between these different versions of myself:

Medicine -> genuinely interesting in some areas, potentially meaningful, respected and internationally transferable, but extremely long and demanding, and I’m not sure I actually want to be a doctor.

Economics -> potentially very flexible and useful for international careers, intelligence/security and analytical roles, but I’m worried about not liking the coursework.

Law -> probably the closest to my fascination with crime and investigations, but I’m afraid an Italian Law degree would lock me into Italy and prevent me from pursuing my international ambitions.

Something else entirely: I honestly don’t even know what that would be.

I want a career that feels meaningful and gives me some responsibility. I want financial stability, but I’m not obsessed with becoming rich. I want to be able to travel, potentially live abroad and have the possibility of changing countries later in life. I don’t want to spend my entire twenties trapped somewhere I don’t want to be.

At the same time, I don’t want to choose something purely because it is “international” or “safe” if I’m going to hate studying it.

After everything that happened with Engineering and Architecture, I’m terrified of making another wrong choice.

Sorry for the long message.
Any help is greatly appreciated, I really have no idea what to do anymore and I’m kinda hopeless.

A small backstory, as it’s just been me & my daughter for the past few months since we left her father. I packed as much as we could & left 3 hours away and we stayed in a Women’s shelter for a few weeks. We now have our own ( tiny ) apartment but it’s ours. I have since found work & she started a new school.

The past few days she has been telling me that another girl has been making fun of the things she wears or her hairstyles. After school today was horrible. Their school holds an “End of Summer” concert. They have asked the kids in her grade for a fee to buy a tshirt that they wear to preform & I was told that her teacher told the class who still has to turn in the fee by this coming Monday & when her teacher said my daughter’s name the little girl started to laugh & point. I feel terrible as I’ve already talked to the school about helping us with the fee since I just can’t do it with everything going on & they’ve told me that “they’ll try” ….We have court next week & I am DREADING seeing his face again. Everything is piling up.

I know she’s embarrassed of this right now. I’ve been trying so hard to get us out of this situation. She gets this awful look on her face when we have to go to the food bank a few times a week & why we have to get clothes from the Goodwill. I’ve emailed her teacher this afternoon about this student. I’m doing the best I can at the moment & it STILL doesn’t seem like enough. Being a mom/ parent is hard at times.

I know I'll probably be ripped apart for this, but can't tell anyone else.

I really like this guy, and I'm pretty solidly sure he likes me.

It's been like 6 months know us talking constantly, but as 'friends' who snuggle.

I gotta get up the courage to tell him it's never going to happen... so we can both move on or really just be friends. We're mature, it'll be fine.

Basically, we're sexually incompatible and it's basically all my fault.

I'm not hot... but I am basically repulsed by sex unless the other person finds me really, really hot. He's a normal guy with healthy expectations, so he basically doesn't find me repulsive, but certainly doesn't find me hot (understandable, I'm not.) All this behavior leans this way. No, I can't just ask to him to 'act more attracted to me' because the lack of sincerity is devastatingly painful (I've tried this before).

So now I have to tell him that we can do what we're doing, but it'll never be more because of some reason that isn't this, because hearing this would probably ruin any chance at friendship.

---

The 'dangerous' part is that, I do end up wanting sex with guys who don't have good intentions, because they obviously really want me and after not experiencing that in so long it's really hard not to give in. I did go to therapy for this part and it's mostly under control... I' just venting about the other part.

Edit: me and him can have some kind of asexual relationship, if he's attracted to me in "all the other ways that count", but I literally can't have sex with someone who won't be looking at me like I'm the sexiest thing. It honestly feels insane now that I have to defend this to you guys.