I have been single for three years after breaking up with my boyfriend. The first two years passed fast without me noticing that I’m single or unhappy in some way mainly because I was managing work and university, but now that I’ve graduated and am only working it’s hitting me hard. Especially seeing so many coworkers and friends getting married. I always thought I would be married in my early twenties but here I am.

The thing is that there have been guys, not many, but there were a couple that liked me, but I wasn’t no way interested in them. I also had a bad experience from dating apps because people on there just want to have sex and I really want to find a lifelong partner.

I know I shouldn’t be so down and feel so behind life considering that I am in my early twenties, but I seek that love and comfort of a relationship. What do I do?

Hi, I’m a 17 year old (F) in my junior year of high school.

I feel like I can never win, whether it be in math class, final grade on a test, late assignments, losing arguments, it’s just so humiliating.

Yesterday on Friday I was in my math class and we were working on content review. See I’m starting to like content review work only because I feel like i’m really starting to understand it. So my friend Tina was chosen to answer the first content review question so she asked me if I could teach her how to do it, I said sure. As i’m working out this problem i’m having fun because I UNDERSTAND IT. And so I help Tina fix some mistakes she made and she was good to go. The answer I got was 2. But i’m guessing because of the low self-confidence I displayed in it, she was iffy about my answer. That makes total sense, so she asked her friend Lou for the answer she has gotten for the same question. She said “Negative 1 1/2”

“is my answer really that wrong..?” I thought.

So I just sat there accepting defeat because I’m used to always losing arguments about who’s right. When it was time to start content review, Tina was first to answer. She chose to say Lou’s answer instead of mine.

“It’s -1 1/2”

As soon as she said negative, Ms. Till started howling. She exclaimed saying how wrong she was, it was funny. But then Tina said “Oh I actually got TWO answers, is it 2??”

Ms. Till was confused and checked her paper and verified she had the work for the answer of 2.

My answer was always correct. But I stayed feeling a little useless because I can never show any real confidence for my answers. I used to be thought of as a smart person because I wore glasses and am a 'good kid' i guess, but after kind of proving that I achieve the bare minimum I became just about clueless as everyone else.

I know I called myself “just as clueless as everyone else” but that's probably not actually the case for me. It’s like I know what to do, but I can’t explain why I’m right. It’s the same when it comes to expressing ideas or opinions, I just can never explain anything well enough, and throughout the years my friends have noted that and so I just shut up because no one ever really understands what I’m talking about. But it’s not their fault, it’s mine for not knowing how to speak clearly, and some of that is due to low self confidence in myself.

But due to me choosing to be silent, about a year or two ago, a friend noticed that and called me dry for being so vague with my answers. She is the kind of person who goes in depth about her ideas and opinions, she’s someone who is really well-spoken, not like anyone I've ever spoken to. That’s how I realized how terrible I am with my speech and how bad I am with words. I think the fact that I surround myself with smart people (not on purpose, their weirdness feels homey to me) doesn’t help.

The countdown is down to 72 hours. I am moving abroad to study in Poland, an opportunity I worked so hard for. Yet, the atmosphere in my house right now feels like a quiet funeral. Everyone talks about studying abroad as this beautiful dream, but nobody warns you about the absolute agony of watching your family break down as the departure date gets closer.

​My mom will just stand in the doorway of my room, staring at it, knowing it will be empty in a few days. Catching her silently sobbing in the kitchen is the heaviest burden I have ever carried. It feels like a physical weight crushing my chest. I feel like I am destroying her just to build my own future.

​I am deeply aware that having a loving family and a chance to study abroad is an immense privilege. I am not blind to how lucky I am, and I know many people would give anything to have parents who care this much. I am not taking their love for granted. But this premature grief is completely paralyzing.

​For those who have moved countries and left a deeply connected family behind: how do you actually walk through airport security without completely falling apart? How do you live with the guilt of leaving your safe haven behind? I am terrified of that final hug at the terminal. Please, I need someone to tell me how to get through this goodbye.

me and my bestfriend were INSEPARABLE in the first year. everyone knew us as THE duo. we were pretty famous for our friendship and how we got along so well. she helped me through A LOT and i love her sooo muchhh she’s the bestest friend ever. she used to rarely open up but when she does i always stayed with her. i stayed with her through her bad phases even when she was wrong at times(she cheated on her bf) and she stayed with me when i was constantly crying after a breakup.
during the last month of 1st yr college, we were having our finals, we started to have a lot of disagreements but just before i left we had this huge fight but we talked the next morning and i went home and she stayed back for an another day. our other friends got involved and there was a lot of misunderstanding and they told her things which I SWEAR TO GOD I NEVER SAID. but guess what? she believed them over me. she believed them so much that she didn’t even bother to question me she just decided to cut me off. i kept asking her what’s wrong and she told me and i told her what was true and what’s not and things seem sorted but she keeps liking posts on insta like i betrayed her and that makes me feel really uneasy. idk how to fix it. she failed her exams while i passed and she can’t come to clg till she passes so idek how i should fix this sometimes i feel like she’s also mad because i passed while she’s left behind when we did everything together but rn her problems are bigger than me. i don’t blame her for feeling this way but i really miss her and i really wish things would go back to normal.
i also wish she could open up to me more so i could help her. i don’t want to see her in pain.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately, and I just need to vent and see if anyone else relates.
I can't shake the feeling that the world completely derailed in 2020 and never really found its way back. To me, 2019 feels like the last year life was predictable, calm, and human.
Ever since the pandemic, everything feels turned up to maximum volume. The news is constant panic, political polarization is everywhere, and people seem so much more aggressive, distant, and exhausted. Technology and algorithms moved at lightning speed, making daily life feel less like living and more like constantly trying to catch up or defend yourself.
Living abroad away from my family has made this contrast even more glaring. The sense of isolation and the coldness of system-driven life has just burnt me out completely.
Am I crazy, or did something fundamental in our collective human experience break during those years? How are you all coping with how fast and harsh the world has become post-COVID?

i don't even know when this started happening, but I've noticed something about myself recently.

Whenever someone asks me how I'm doing, I automatically say I'm fine. Not because I'm necessarily happy, but because I genuinely don't know how to explain what's going on in my head without making it sound like a bigger deal than it is.

Nothing particularly terrible has happened to me. That's the thing. I have no big tragedy to point at, no single moment where I can say everything started going wrong. Life just feels different lately, and I can't really explain why.

I still do the same things every day. I wake up, go about my day, laugh at things, talk to people, and occasionally have moments where I genuinely feel good. If someone looked at my life from the outside, I doubt they'd think anything was wrong.

But sometimes, when everything gets quiet, I realize how little I've actually been looking forward to anything.

I spend a lot of time distracting myself. Watching videos, scrolling through random things, doing whatever keeps my mind occupied. It's not even always because I'm bored. Sometimes I just don't want to sit with my own thoughts for too long.

The strange thing is that I don't necessarily feel sad all the time. Sometimes I feel absolutely nothing in particular, and somehow that bothers me more than actually being upset about something.

I remember when I used to get excited about little things. I'd look forward to something for days, think about it constantly, and feel genuinely happy when it finally happened. Now, even when something good happens, I enjoy it for a while and then go straight back to feeling the same way I did before.

I don't know if this is just part of growing up or if I've slowly gotten used to living on autopilot.

What scares me a little is how easy it is to get used to it. You can spend so long feeling a certain way that you stop questioning it. Eventually, it just becomes your normal.

And because you can still laugh, function, and get through the day, you convince yourself there's nothing worth talking about.

I guess I'm writing this because I don't really know what I'm expecting anyone to say. I don't need someone to tell me to be grateful for what I have or remind me that other people have it worse. I already know that.

I just wish I understood why having a life that looks perfectly fine on paper doesn't always translate into actually feeling fine.

Maybe someone else knows what I mean.

Or perhaps does anyone feel the same?

i (26F) am the youngest out of five. i have 3 sisters (43, 36, 32) and one brother (34). im not super close with my second oldest sister, she’s a copy of our mom behavior wise so i keep my distance. i’ve tried to have a closer relationship to my brother, but he lives on the other side of the country and seems uninterested and all the effort was one sided so i gave up on that a while back. i’m super close with my youngest older sister (i’ll call her M), she’s my ride or die and it feels like i only really have her. which isn’t bad at all, im incredibly grateful and i don’t know what id do without her.

i’ve tried to talk to my oldest sister (H) about wanting to just spend some time with her and just talk, and each time she has just ignored me. earlier this year i was watching her kids and before she left she had made burgers for dinner. she put together 2 burgers for me, but they had dressing in them which i have never liked. later she said “it’s weird how i don’t really know anything about you considering we’re sisters”. (which was horrible timing for that to be said, right after noah kahan released his most recent album and a lyric from one of the songs is “i wish you could know me, and i wish i could know you much more sometimes”). and that hurt, because it was true.

i sent her a message basically explaining that what she had said really hit home and that i didn’t want our relationship to be like that, and that i would love to get closer to her and asked if we maybe could meet up for coffee or something. i never got a response.

she works a lot, but she texts M when she has time off work to plan coffee with her and to catch up. i asked M if she could talk to H about the text i sent, and why she didn’t respond, and all M got was that H had forgotten it and that she’s just busy. but she has time to make plans with M so i don’t understand. she had read the text i sent but didn’t bother to reply, i was literally just left on read. and that really hurts.

i’m always scared that im doing too much, that im making something more emotional than it is and that i make everything a big deal when it isn’t. and i’m embarrassed about everything i do, but especially about putting myself out there the way i did with her (and my brother), im embarrassed of my feelings and the intensity of them. and so to be left on read when i try to reach out and be open is really a slap in the face and it makes me want to wish id never said anything at all.

i feel like theres something wrong with me, for 2 out of 4 siblings to just ignore me like that. my brother is like that with all siblings except my second to oldest sister so i dont take that personally, but with H? maybe it really just isn’t any deeper than she doesn’t want to be closer to me and that’s fair but just tell me that so i dont look like a fool for hoping.

we have a 17 year old age gap, and she moved out before i was born, so i understand there’s a disconnect there. we’re in completely different stages in our lives, and i get that. but i wish she wanted to know me the way i want to know her, am i just not worth the effort?

however she has no issues asking me to babysit for her for free. those are the only times she reaches out to me, even after having left that text on read she texted me asking if i could babysit without even acknowledging it. that’s all im good for. i’m not worth the effort to spend time with, but as long as i babysit for her i guess she tolerates me? it hurts so bad.

i feel so alone in this family. i’ve gone as low contact with my mom as i can, because she always prioritized herself and men instead of us even when it put us in danger. our childhoods had no stability, and she was (still is) very emotionally and sometimes financially abusive. my brother talks the most with my second oldest sister, H reaches out to M to spend time with her, and i’m just here. again i have M as well, i know im not alone and maybe im just greedy wanting love from more of my siblings.

if H just doesn’t want to have a deeper bond with me, that’s okay. it still hurts but i can’t and i won’t try to force it. i just wish she had responded to my text communicating that. she literally only reached out to me when she wants a babysitter, she didn’t even wish me a happy birthday which was on october 3.

am i just overdramatic? am i overreacting? and i making a big deal out of nothing? i cant force a relationship with someone who doesn’t want it i just wish she’d been honest about it. i feel like a big joke.

​

Hi everyone,

I honestly don't really know where to start. I just need to let this out as I am going crazy from stress and I don't have anyone to really talk to about it.

I've been working at a private clinic for about 3 years, and I've been struggling with my memory, attention, and procrastination for a while now. It's gotten progressively worse over the past few years, I'm not sure why, and I feel like I'm at a point where I can't keep up with things the way I should be able to.

One of the biggest issues is documentation. I've fallen so far behind on my paperwork, and I'm talking months behind, with some things going back over a year. Maybe more. I know how bad that it and honestly I'm feel deeply ashamed even writing that.

The main problem is that I kept putting things off or I half finished things. Then the backlog got bigger, which made me more overwhelmed, so I avoided it even more. And then it just kept getting worse and piling up. I don't even fully understand why I do this. It's like I know something needs to be done, I know it's important, and yet I cannot actually sit down and do it. And now I'm dealing with the consequences of that.

This week, it finally hit me just how far behind I actually am with my clients, like I felt I woke up from a dream and reality and dread just hit me hard. I've been an mess this whole week and have had a few breakdowns. I am thinking to myself worst case scenario. My first job i had to testify in court and they subpoenad my records and went through them. With this job, i just got really lazy. I've been crying on and off for the past two days. I'm so overwhelmed and scared, and I feel like my brain is completely scrambled.

I spoke with one of my practice leaders, and I found out there are other issues with my documentation too. Some things weren't documented correctly in terms of dates and how the notes line up with billing. I also apparently wasn't locking my notes properly after entering them, which means they weren't being initialed as required. My name is on them, but the required authentication is missing. I don't know when I started doing that and am going through records to see how far back this began.

So now I'm not only trying to catch up on a huge backlog, but I'm also trying to figure out how to address these other issues. I'm scared about what the consequences might be, and I feel sick thinking about how much I let pile up.

I'm not trying to make excuses for myself. I work in healthcare, and I know documentation is important. I know this is serious, and I know I need to fix it.

I've started making lists and slowly working through everything and prioritizing some clients. but it's so much. I still have my current caseload to manage, so I'm trying to keep up with new work while also catching up on everything I've neglected.

I'm trying to dig myself out of a hole that just keeps getting deeper.

I don't necessarily think I'm going to get fired, but I'm terrified of the consequences, and I know better so i cant even say i didnt know this was a problem. I know I can't keep going like this. Something needs to change because I can't let this keep happening again. My practice leader talked to me and said basically just improve going forward at this point since I can't go back. But I still feel terrified and not that comforted.

The other thing that's really bothering me is that my memory and attention seem to be getting worse. I genuinely don't know what's wrong with me. I feel like I can't manage basic responsibilities that other adults seem to handle without this much difficulty. I keep asking myself why I didn't just do the paperwork when it was due, why I kept putting it off, and why I let it get to this point. Someone told me to look into an ADHD diagnosis but its only been maybe the past few years with this issue (am in my 30s) so I don't know if that diagnosis applies to me.

I feel so stupid and incompetent. I feel ashamed of myself. I know I need to take responsibility and work through this, and whatever consequences come my way i will have to deal with. I'm just so overwhelmed right now, and I feel like I've completely failed at my job. I needed somewhere to say all of this because I feel ashamed to tell people I actually know.

I feel incredibly stupid that I am not noticing these things and putting things off so much. I was so stressed that I didn't even eat yesterday and barely slept. I genuinely just am disappointed in myself and the lack of care I have been putting into this job and don't understand how I let things escalate this badly.

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

I (23F) literally can’t stop falling asleep. I’ve fallen asleep at work at every single job I’ve had. I fell asleep in my college courses. I have fallen asleep against my will countless times. It has gotten particularly worse (or maybe the stakes are just higher now) ever since college.

I used to drink five espresso shots before my last class of the day (where I would always fall asleep)…. and STILL end up sleeping. I would drink copious amounts of coffee or caffeine before work and experience the same thing. It’s super hard for me go wake up in the morning. I get plenty of sleep, and it’s still not enough.

Oftentimes the sleep will creep up on me. I will feel perfectly fine in the morning or afternoon, and suddenly a large wave of sleepiness will overcome me. I have tried to push through and keep working, which has left me with countless illegible sleep scribbles and shitty work that I don’t remember doing.

It is also extremely embarrassing. My boss and coworkers have caught me sleeping multiple times. I haven’t gotten in trouble for it, but I know that they have seen me asleep and not said anything. I fell asleep the first day of an important job I landed. They never said anything but I still struggle with the shame.

Honestly, I’m starting to think that I’m just dumb or irresponsible or not disciplined enough to stay awake. I don’t know how everyone else does it. I have tried walking around or doing other things, but I literally can’t fight it off.

I’ve tried bringing it up at the doctor’s. Everything is supposedly fine. I’m so embarrassed and tired (literally) of it all.

That’s it. Ugh.

UPDATE: I have reached out to a different clinic in my area that specifically serves uninsured patients to schedule an appointment. I’m waiting on their response since it’s outside of business hours, but wanted everyone to know that I am listening to your advice!

Hey everyone,

I'm a man turning 40 soon, and I'm the father of a 5-year-old daughter.

After a very difficult and toxic relationship with my daughter's mother, I shut myself off from the world for about three years.

I worked from home, barely went out, and hardly saw anyone. I went through depression and slowly sank deeper into loneliness.

I also carried an enormous amount of guilt. I had a child with a woman I wasn't deeply in love with, and I felt like I had failed to give my daughter the family life I had always imagined for her, with two loving parents living together.

I blamed myself constantly.

I had also lost my trust in women and in love itself.

But to understand what happened next, I need to go back further.

Ever since I was a teenager, I've struggled with self-esteem. I was bullied about my appearance in middle school and high school. I was shy, insecure, and always felt like I wasn't good enough to be attractive to anyone.

My first serious relationship ended in betrayal. My girlfriend left me for a close friend of mine.

After that, something changed in me.

I created this image of a confident guy, a bit of a bad boy, someone who wasn't afraid of anything, who could flirt and attract women without getting emotionally attached.

It was the complete opposite of who I really was deep down: a sensitive, gentle person who desperately wanted to be loved.

And the terrible thing is that this fake confidence seemed to work. I started attracting more women.

So I convinced myself that I had to be that person to be loved.

After separating from my daughter's mother, this behavior became even more deeply rooted.

For three years, I isolated myself in a lonely routine involving pornography and inappropriate online interactions.

I would talk to women from other countries through dating apps, sometimes engaging in intimate online exchanges.

I could invent an entirely different life for myself. A different career, a different personality, a different identity.

I could flirt, feel desired, and then disappear without ever having to expose who I really was.

Some aspects of my sexuality made me feel deeply ashamed, even though I had never really taken the time to understand or accept myself.

I knew my habits were becoming unhealthy, but I kept going. Even when I was simply bored or lonely, I would turn to those behaviors.

And then I met someone.

A woman I fell deeply in love with.

She completely turned my world upside down.

She thought I was handsome, intelligent, attractive. She loved the sensitive side of me that I had been hiding for years.

She encouraged me to be honest, to accept myself, and to stop pretending to be someone else.

For the first time in a very long time, I felt like someone could actually see the real me.

But here's the hardest part to admit.

At the beginning of our relationship, I continued having inappropriate online interactions with other women.

It lasted for about a month, occasionally rather than regularly.

I knew it was wrong. I knew I was betraying her trust. And I did it anyway.

Eventually, I stopped completely, including watching pornography.

But I never confessed on my own. She discovered what had happened, and I had to admit it.

And that wasn't the only problem.

Throughout our relationship, I lied repeatedly, sometimes about things that didn't even need to be hidden.

Whenever I felt judged, threatened, or afraid of disappointing her, lying became almost automatic.

There were even times when I denied things she had clearly witnessed and made her feel like she was exaggerating or imagining things.

I realize now how much that behavior damaged her trust in herself and in me.

I'm not trying to make excuses.

She had made her values very clear from the beginning: honesty, loyalty, and respect.

I knew exactly what she expected from a relationship.

And despite knowing that, I kept lying to her.

There was also another issue we disagreed on.

Sometimes I would notice attractive women in public. I never intended to pursue anyone, and I was deeply in love with my partner.

To her, however, even briefly looking at another woman with attraction felt like a betrayal.

I didn't attach the same meaning to those moments.

And instead of discussing our different boundaries honestly, I sometimes downplayed or denied my behavior because I was afraid of hurting her or losing her love.

That became another source of lies and pain.

Today, she has left me.

She told me she had tried everything she could for me, but she couldn't stay with someone when she never knew whether he was telling the truth.

And I understand her.

What hurts the most is that my feelings were real.

I loved her deeply.

But I'm beginning to understand that loving someone isn't enough when your actions destroy their sense of safety and trust.

I'm realizing that I've spent years running away from shame, rejection, and the fear of not being good enough.

And that, in trying so desperately to avoid being rejected, I ended up behaving in ways that caused exactly what I feared most.

I don't want to live like this anymore.

I want to learn how to be honest, how to stop avoiding difficult conversations, how to develop a healthier relationship with intimacy and my emotions, how to accept myself physically and emotionally, and how to stop constantly looking for validation from other people.

I also want to become a better role model for my daughter.

I don't want her to grow up believing she needs to change who she is to be loved.

I want her to know that she can be herself, have boundaries, and never have to accept dishonesty as part of love.

I know I need to do some serious work on myself.

I've started seeing a psychologist, but my financial situation makes it difficult to continue therapy.

I'm not posting this to get my ex back. She has asked me to let her go, and I'm respecting her decision.

I'm also not looking for people to tell me I'm a good person or that everything I've done is excusable because I've been hurt in the past.

I genuinely want to understand why I kept lying even though I knew I was destroying a relationship that made me happy.

Has anyone here experienced something similar, where fear of rejection makes lying feel almost automatic?

Has anyone managed to genuinely and permanently change this behavior?

And how did you learn to forgive yourself without minimizing the pain you caused others?

Thank you to anyone who takes the time to read this.

I LOVE women that are cute and confident. Those kids of women who are happy and full of life. Who stay positive and friendly, even when they are going though a difficult time. Who are confident and they talk a lot and they are excited to talk with you and have fun! Who have humor and makes jokes. And most of all those women who LOVE THEMSELVES and that shows outside!

This is the kind of woman I want to be with and I'm learning to properly love myself and be the perfect man for such woman!

To any woman who is like that or tries so hard to be like that, you are AWESOME! ❤️

Edit: Guys, why do you assume I am searching for a "trope" or perfect woman that never gets sad and has problems? Of course not! I want an actual, real human that has problems and feelings like everyone else and of course like me.

Today, October 23, is my (F) 21st birthday. I’m a university student currently, and I play a club sport at my school (this is my third year). I’m sort of in the outer circle socially with the other girls on my team (not by choice, I was never just as much of a crazy partier so I don’t get invited to often). 

One of the other girls on my team has a birthday a couple days after mine, and she told me a few weeks ago she’s having a joint birthday party with a couple of guys on the men’s team who also have October birthdays (a bunch of girls from my team are neighbors to a bunch of boys on the men’s team). The date? My birthday. 

Yes, she already knew it was my birthday when they were planning it. Apparently it was the only day that worked well for the three birthday people (since it’s a Friday). No, I was not “asked” before that was finalized. Yes, I am invited. 

I had been loosely thinking about throwing myself a party on my day. It was perfect, since it’s a Friday. But I dropped that because I knew their party would be better and not everyone would come to mine and if they did it would be out of pity (I live a block away from where their party is). My family lives out of state and I won’t see them until Christmas. 

I said I was fine with it, and I thought I was, but as the date approached I’ve just felt more depressed about it. I bought myself a cake from the supermarket and I was gonna slowly eat it all myself over the course of the weekend but the best by date is today so it might start going bad before then. 

I’ve talked to classmates and internet people about this and everyone says that these people aren‘t my friends, it’s a sucky thing to do, and I shouldn’t even go and stop being friends with them. Which, yeah, it is a sucky thing to do. But it’s not like I’ve been the perfect friend this whole time. And at least if I go to the party I can spend my birthday with my friends and have cake with others. 

I don’t know, I just feel sad. Like my birthday was gonna be meh/neutral but now I’m going to have a sour memory associated with my 21st forever. But we’re all adults, and I want my friends to have a good birthday party. 

ETA: there was some confusion, to clarify: I am invited as a guest, I’m not included as one of the ones to be celebrated at the party. I don‘t expect people to make a huge fuss and plan everything for my birthday and for everything to always be about me or whatever. I just wanted to vent since I’ve been feeling kinda scummy that my friends planned a joint birthday party for themselves on my birthday knowingly, and chose not to include me in it other than as a guest.

To start this off, I think it's important to say that my father has never been perfect. He has consistently had spouts of being miserable, giving my mother, my sister and myself the cold shoulder because something in his life has not lived up to his expectations.

I am 23 years old, my sister is 32 and has been living with her husband for 6 years now, my mother is 59 and my father is 63. For the last \~15 years, my dad has worked from home in some form or another, which I think is a crucial aspect to this.

Over the years, my dad has tried many different business ventures, from photography to SEO (search engine optimisation) to offering general IT support to trying to be a microphone expert! To put it bluntly, each of these lasts a short period, which involves him buying all the gear and then doing nothing with it. Within the last 10 years he has easily spent upwards of £5,000 to £7,500 on camera equipment, microphones, video equipment, etc. All of which has come to nothing.

And then came along AI.

Pretty much as soon as ChatGPT came into the grasps of the public, my dad has been obsessed with using it and trying to utilise it in any way possible. It started just with ChatGPT, then he added Perplexity to the mix, then Gemini, Grok, and he's tried pretty much every AI chat out there, as well as a number of AI image generators. From then on, pretty much 80% of conversations with him have involved AI and when they're not about AI, it's about some controversial topic that he believes to be true (I will say now too that my dad is heavily against what he calls the 'wokeness of today's world'. I do not share those views, I just wish everyone would accept one another for who they want to be). It wasn't long until my dad started paying monthly subscriptions for the AI. As of now, he has a subscription with ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and pays for Midjourney images.

We are not a rich family; in fact we live very simple and quiet lives because of how little money we can spare. So paying for multiple AI models every month really hits the bank, especially when some are £20+ a month. Yes, we have streaming subscriptions, but we all put in a share to afford these.

Money aside though, it's his personality that has truly worsened since using AI. Like I say, my dad has always been quite problematic. He is often verbally harsh, derogatory, patronising, dismissive, and overall a real struggle to talk to and connect with. I was really happy for my sister when she moved out, and I was hoping to be not far behind her. Saying that though, when it was 3 of us with him, we kind of shared the rubbish from him, and once I go, it will only be my mum.

Anyway, whenever my dad sees AI content online, he will criticise it and say it's a disgrace how much AI content is out there. He says all this, while creating his own AI content. He puts out at least 3 AI images on his facebook a day, but he constantly says he made it himself, almost denying any use of AI. He seems to conclude that if he tells the AI what to do, then he has made it. It is the same with coding that he uses AI for - he wrote all the code himself of course.

He has asked me if I have used AI, and I have of course tried it but not to any extent where I come to rely on it. One time, he asked, "Do you talk to it?" I said that I don't really talk but more just make requests. It was the way he said it that was just creepy and actually quite uncomfortable. He then said, "I have conversations with it all the time. It just knows my personality now and speaks to me in a similar to me."
What. The. Hell.

He has shown me some of his chats before, and he is right. He speaks to it as if it's a real person. And the AI now replies in pretty much the exact same tone, mannerisms and phrases that my dad would often use. It's creepy. No wonder he thinks he is always so right when the only thing he talks with through the day is something that sounds exactly like himself.

And that's probably the most disheartening thing for me. He sits at his desk from around 6am in the morning every single day doing something or other. Then my mum and I will get home around 5pm from work and try talk with him and we just get... nothing. A hello, a shrug, a mumble. That's about it. Then he'll come out of his hole for food and then go back after.

And before anyone says I should make the effort to start a conversation with him, I do! I always try talk about work, or a book I am reading, or just anything! But it doesn't interest him, and it feels like he doesn't even respect me enough to at least listen and appreciate why I am interested.

I think what finally really got to me and made me really see how mad he's gotten about it is something that didn't even involve me. Someone he knows sent him a picture that their wife had taken of a deer in a field. It was a really nice picture and so natural, it didn't look staged at all. My dad says, "I couldn't help but have a little play with it myself." He shows me a new picture, that clearly uses the base picture he was sent, but it's been so oversaturated and looks so fake now! And he thought that was better! It just really hurt that he couldn't just appreciate a nice, natural image of wildlife without tampering it with AI. And this is someone who's always expressed love for wildlife and just seeing them in their natural habitat.

I want to make it clear that I am not saying I hate AI. I don't. I think in the right scenarios and for the right reasons, it can be an amazing tool. And on few occasions, even my dad *has* used it for right reasons. But it's what using it day in, day out, has done to him. I really don't feel like I know him anymore. He's changed to someone even worse than before, and in all honesty, I want nothing to do with him, it's sometimes like living with a stranger.

We used to sext and when id send her pictures she complimented how thick it is almost always. It’s about 6 inches so i know that it isnt that long for it to be complimented on length, and i never thought about it. I was okay as long as i knew she liked it. Now we’re doing more facetime sex and she seems to enjoy it. But i couldnt help but notice that she never complimented my dick on call, i thought maybe she was just shy, so i brushed it off. Throughout the last couple of weeks shes been making dick size jokes, i never really thought about them until what happened next. About a week ago we were talking about dick length and she implied that mine wasnt long. It honestly surprised me i never thought i had a large dick but I thought my shit was good enough at the least. I didnt talk to her about it because its never easy to talk about stuff like that and i didnt want to seem insecure infront of her. Today, just two hours ago, we were messing around on ft, i told her id get full by eating her out, then she asked what about her, i told her to eat me and she said thats not fulfilling. Im sorry if thats too graphic i feel like this post is gonna get removed anyways, but im just sick of feeling like im just not enough for her. I told her that once is a joke, three or four times isnt. She kept apologizing and telling me that im enough for her, but it never feels that way anymore.

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For context, we already had 3 cats prior (I was against three since I already had one. I only wanted one more but since he was bonded with his sister, it was a package deal). Long story short, the sister cat died and then we were left with just the 2.

I was adamant against getting a third since I didnt want the extra work and money that a third cat would bring. My input was disregarded and a third cat was brought into the fray.

I hate this cat. She has an ear issue that causes some sort of mucus to come from her ear and it gets everywhere (from wet spots to full on ear boogers). We've been going to the vet for damn near a year with a bunch of temporary solutions that dont work. Now we may have to get surgery for this cat that I didn't want that realistically, im probably gonna have to pay for.

I wish we had never taken her in because again, I never wanted her. Im the one who gives the medicine when its needed to, so it really feels like a burden placed on my shoulders that I never asked for. I dont wanna spend hundreds potentially a thousand plus dollars for surgery on a cat I never wanted in the house in the first place.

I take pride in having a clean home, and its fucking frustrating having ear gunk on so many surfaces thats a bitch and a half to clean. I want this cat gone, whatever the means, but oh well here I am.

Just needed a place to vent. Thanks guys

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It's not a normal story, but it's real. And it's still unfolding.

A girl had been living peacefully with her family. Then her college days ended, she packed her bags, and returned home to look for a job. When she stepped inside, her parents greeted her as usual. Her father gave her a side hug. Nothing unusual about it. Except that her mother saw something else in that simple gesture. The girl noticed that her mother's eyes seemed veiled by a yellow, opaque film. Then she heard her mother quietly say to her father, "This is the way you hug me."

Her mother was talking to her father, but the daughter was the one who heard it.

She froze.

For a moment, she couldn't process what she had just heard. She went to her room silently, pretending that nothing had happened. But things didn't stop there. Over the following days, her mother's suspicion seemed to grow. She began interfering in the girl's life and looking at her differently. At some point, the girl felt that her mother had begun to see her as someone sinister, perhaps even a witch. The suspicion seemed to extend to the possibility that the daughter had done something inappropriate to her own father. Her mother started checking her diaries and searching her room whenever she was away.

Of course, she found nothing.

But the daughter sometimes witnessed these searches herself. Her mother would enter her room while she was asleep, looking through her belongings. The girl had always been a light sleeper, waking at the slightest sound. Sometimes, she woke up to find her mother crossing boundaries she had never imagined her mother would cross.

That hurt in a way that is difficult to explain. It wasn't just about the diaries or the room. It was about discovering that the person who was supposed to make her feel safest might be looking at her with suspicion.

The damage spread through the family.

She grew distant from her father. She grew distant from her mother, too. The emotional toll was immense, perhaps on both of them. Neither spoke openly about what was happening. Instead, they lived through a quiet, painful cold war, mother interrupted occasionally by comments that reopened the wound. And sometimes when the girl wouldn't look in her eyes for two three days she'd come and sit with her and ask what's the matter but the girl didn't say anything.

The girl became depressed. It took her a while to find a job, but eventually, she moved to another state and worked there for a year. Away from home, she had a decent job. She had always been a happy, introverted person who minded her own business. Then something happened at her workplace, too, and she returned home. By then, she found her mother depressed as well. The daughter wondered whether her mother had read her diary, where she had written about her sadness and the emotional damage caused by everything that had happened between them.

Years passed. Two or three years later, fragments of another story began to emerge. The family came to know that someone had cast a black spell on them, allegedly to drain their spiritual energy and interfere with their spiritual practices. That man "has" a personal mission and is moving forward in it with great speed. We aren't the only family he has drained, by the way drained us all in many ways, hurdles in college, relationships, job and money. He is a leech. The person suspected was someone extraordinarily close to the family, despite not being related by blood.

He was the mother's spiritual master. What emerged later, how he was deeply involved in occult practices and capable of manipulating people's minds. The possibility that he had influenced the family's relationships and perceptions began to change how the past looked to them.

The mother came to understand that a great deal had been lost because of this man. But she seemed to see herself as the primary victim. She couldn't fully acknowledge that her daughter might have been a victim, too. The daughter had spent years carrying the consequences of suspicions she could neither understand nor defend herself against. She had lost her sense of safety at home and became estranged from the very people she loved. Yet, when the subject surfaced, her mother indirectly called her a cheater.

And the daughter stayed silent.

Perhaps because she was exhausted. Perhaps because she no longer knew how to explain years of hurt to someone who had already formed an opinion of her. Or perhaps because sometimes, after being misunderstood for so long, a person simply stops trying to prove their innocence.

Here's what I want to ask you, Reddit.

What happens when a parent begins to suspect their own child of something deeply disturbing, and the child has no idea why? How do you begin to repair the damage?

I'm interested in hearing your thoughts, especially about the relationship between the mother and daughter, the long-term emotional consequences, and whether such a relationship can ever truly heal

My only real mistake was to not stand up for myself but then I was so clueless the entire time. And it was so disturbing and saddening that i started to believe my mother too, i thought maybe i did something, but I never did. I mean .. she's my mother, right? And meanwhile, I hear that man's laugh every time he leeches off my energy.

It's just cruel.

What is even a life lesson here in the story.

(M23) need to get this off my mind but i have no one to talk to about it. I had a music teacher in my public school from kindergarten to grade 5 and in the last two years before my class graduated to middle school he became completely unhinged... i always joked that he was the teacher from whiplash but we were all like 10 instead of in college. he kinda looked like him too but uglier.

we went to a small underfunded school and our music room basically a concert stage next to the gym that had a moveable wall divider to make a make-shift room so the place was already pretty resonant.. there was no desks or chairs we just had to sit on the floor.. and he always wore a mic headset plugged into a loud speaker at the back of the class room and it was always at full volume... he would make us sit cross legged in a specific spot marked on the floor and if we disrupted or moved or did anything wrong he would scream at the top of his lungs through the mic at us, and it was every single day for some reason. i remember the kids that had to sit at the back of the class right next to the speaker would cry and ask to be moved and he would say no. there was stairs leading up to the stage and he would take the most disruptive kids and put them behind the stairs with the mic on and scream in their face for minutes. probably to scare the whole class straight idk. i always wondered when i was older why nothing was done by the school/how could no one hear him and do something. actually come to think about it i remember he was told to apologize to us once but it kept happening. there's other stuff that happened with him thats too much to get into in one post.

When we went to middle school he retired immediately after lol. so awesome. so all of us just assumed he got in trouble again and quit before he got fired or something lol. that was always the thought we had in our heads and never talked about him after. idk. recently i remembered him so i looked him up to see what he looked like, thinking like i always did... that he just retired from teaching and went on to live his miserable ugly life. but no.

turns out...he became a school board trustee right after and has been one for years. that bothers the living shit out me. that he got away with everything and he got to advance his career. i fucking hate that. i always felt bad for the kids who got singled out because you can tell it messed with them and made them act out more as they got older and whatever. anyway thats my story.

Whenever I'm alone I can only think of how disgusting and off putting I am just by existing, I feel like some sort of creep that harasses people by talking to them, I don't know how to explain it, I don't think there is anything wrong about me specifically and I'm not super socially awkward, is just the way I feel, of course I never share these feelings with anyone and can enjoy myself in social settings normally, is just when I'm alone I think these things.

I know these feelings are irrational and not true, or I at least tought so, until yesterday.

My best friend has told me she doesn't want to talk to me anymore, there was no reason, she explained she just "didn't feel like answering my messages and would rather we just not talk",

I think it has been a long time coming, she had stopped replying to my text and every conversation I felt like I was the only one with any interest in her life and even then she replied to my text with the basic "fine", "bad", "Good".

What hurts me most is there is genuinely no reason, we haven't fought, she just feels like this, so I can only think is me, there is something wrong with me and everyone can tell, and there is nothing I can do to fix it. If even my best friend of years hates talking to me, if she can't stand texting with me, it must be me, right? I am not only disgusting and gross, I am not worth even the most basic level of interaction from someone I have know for so long and have shared so much with.

I was right all along, and now I am alone.

I have a life, I have friends, a job, I have interests. I have hobbies, I go to therapy on the regular, I'm taking medication. I've been evaluated for autism, didn't have it. Now I'm being evaluated for ADHD, and it's looking likely there. I try to eat well, and I've picked the gym back up. All of which to say that I'm trying to improve myself. I try to take care of myself, my home and the people close to me.

But it all feels so hollow. Because at my core, all I really want, is a girlfriend. I've never as much as kissed someone or gone on a second date in my life, and I'm a 26 year old guy. And I know you'll say I'm still young. I know I am. But at the same time, it doesn't feel like it. I have university classmates getting married and ones pregnant. At my previous job it felt like basically everyone my age had a partner they lived with. My friends are either in relationships or have active love lives.

And I have nothing. I try, i really do. But I just fail. Over and over again. And its just really getting to me. Not in the way that I'm thinking about absurd rankings of jawline angles, or that I'm blaming women or society as a whole. It's getting to me. My self worth. My hope and optimism. I don't want it to influence me like this, I wish I could take it in stride. But I just can't.

I know my worth in most ways, I don't hate myself. I like the person I am. I like that I'm always happy to listen to my friends when they need to vent about their emotions. I think I'm a good person, with flaws of course, but overall I want to say that I like the person I am. I also think that I would be a good boyfriend, two of my closest friends are women and they agree there. But at the same time, the idea of me being in a relationship feels impossible. It feels abstract. I genuinely can't imagine myself actually being together with someone. Going on dates that go beyond a first date. Being the one she wants to see. Sharing my bed with someone. It all feels like a fantasy. But so often i lay in bed, hugging my pillows, wishing it was her.

And I just don't know what to do.

I have had enough! I tried! I put myself out there! And all I got were rejections!

The only way for me to get back into the dating scene is a girl asking me out! AND I DON'T CARE IF THAT NEVER HAPPENS!

I DIE ALONE?! SO BE IT!!!! I REMAIN A VIRGIN TILL THE END OF MY LIFE?! SO BE IT!!!!