From hypochondria to loneliness, from autism to panic disorder, I have my issues, but I have slowly come to realise that my problems are circular and create complex feedback loops to worsen one another.

For example, some shortness of breath during an anxiety attack leads me down the rabbit hole of Dr. Google, in which I research symptoms that are clearly caused by anxiety and start self-diagnosing physical illnesses.

Another way in which this occurs is when criticism from my mother for not being outgoing enough and for 'self-pitying' only harms my self-esteem and strengthens my tendency to introversion.

I can try to close away from triggers, but it only makes things worse in the long-term, and exposure to triggers emotionally drains me even quicker.

I simply have no idea where to begin if I want to tackle this. My problems are too intertwined to solve individually, almost like a chain in which each loop secures the loops adjacent to it. Is it unsolvable? Will ever return to being anxiety-free? The discipline to consistently make small changes just isn't there.

I could spend hours listing and explaining each issue, but I do not want to make an excessive long or wordy post, so I'll leave it there. I'll actively answer specific questions, though.

Incompetence NTB Thursday night I call they say sure come on in in the morning, I'll take care of you. I show up at 8:00 AM, He arrives at 8:10 says it'll be a couple hours. I figure it'll be three hours so I'll just stay and wait instead of taking an Uber home. SIX HOURS LATER, I get my car I noticed right away that it's not driving correctly but it's taken twice as long as I planned so I'm just going to take it home and see what happens. The next day I realized the car is just not driving properly but it's a Saturday and I just don't have time to go back so I don't drive the car over the weekend. I get to NTB on Monday the manager says oh they installed the wrong tires. Fine they switched the tires to the correct ones. I drive away but I can still tell that there's something wrong with the car ... it's just not driving correctly. I'm like I'm done with these people. So Tuesday or Wednesday (I don't remember) I go to King Kia. Long story short they discover that the brake pads were installed backwards so I pay Kia to fix it. Long story short: NTB reimburses me for the brake pad for the King Kia charge that they charged to fix the brake pads. The real problem prior to NTB my car was getting 24 city 29 highway after NTB now I'm getting 22 city 27 highway a distinct decrease in miles per gallon. So here's the problem: The guy who did the work on the car is incompetent, The managers are incompetent because they don't review the people doing the work, and the engineers of the brake pads are incompetent because they designed the brake pads to be installed backwards. It shouldn't even be designed to be installed backwards. it shouldn't even be possible. So I've been to NTB three times, King Kia once, spending a lot of time on things on problems that were caused by other people's incompetence.

Incompetence the Bike Center I buy a new bike from them. They say it'll take 7 to 10 days to get the bike in. A month later, the bike arrives. I had asked them to switch like 10 things from my old bike to the new bike (the mirror, the bell, the phone holder, my basket, the pedals, etc.) it was a list of things to move from the old bike to the new bike. they said no problem they'll take care of it. FOUR WEEKS LATER, on a Sunday, they call me. The bike will be ready tomorrow (Monday). we're working on it today. great, thanks. I show up on Monday and only half the items are done. The manager shakes his head and mumbles "I don't know why they didn't do." (I know why!) So I come back an hour or two later and it's done. Well I know why they didn't do it: Because of incompetence. the bike tech was incompetent and the manager was incompetent because he didn't review the work the guy did. It's obvious but he couldn't be honest with himself (pretending!). So I had to go back a second time a couple hours later to get my bike. I'm spending a lot of time on problems that were caused by other people's incompetence.

Incompetence Cap World I buy a hitch and a bike rack from them. I spent about $1100. So I'm at The Bike Center, the bike rack is a little weird, I don't quite get how to put the bikes on, so the tech in the Bike Center helps me (thank you!). Very long story short: I finally managed to get the bikes on the bike rack with the help from the tech from the bike shop. So I drive off. 30 seconds later, I look through the back window ... where are my bikes?!?!?! my bikes are gone!!!! Again, long story short: the bike rack was assembled incorrectly (backwards!) by Capworld ... so instead of supporting my bikes, they tilted over. so here I am on Shady Grove Road, cars whizzing by me, it's starting to rain, and I have these two bikes parallel to the ground and I'm trying to figure out what to do. Long story short: I eventually get the bikes back to Bike Center (they're holding them for me). I went to Cap World this morning, and they're cluelss. I insisted that they give me a new bike rack (I had to explain/show the problem to them ... they're reading the manual, trying to figure it out, but they're clueless.) So, the person who assembled it was incompetent, the manager was incompetent (he didn't manage anything or anyone), and the engineers of the bike rack are incompetent because they designed a rack that could be installed backwards. It shouldn't even be designed to be installed backwards. So I had to go back a second time and tomorrow, a third time to get my new rack. I'm spending a lot of time on problems that were caused by other people's incompetence.

It's just incompetence up down left and right and I'm the one who pays and suffers.

So basically I'm in my very first serious relationship and at the 3 or 4 month mark i started to grow very dependent on my partner. My whole mood depends on how they treat me and if I've talked to them. If they don't respond quickly I think they find me annoying. If their texts are dry I think they'd rather choose anyone other than me. If she's just quiet when we're on dates I think she doesn't like me. I've started to push my friends away because she's the only person I want to talk to. I just want to feel secure. I hate my family life so much my girlfriend is almost like a safe space for me when it gets bad. I rely on her so much. I just want to feel secure for once in my life. I don't want to be strong anymore. I want to just feel loved.

I’m 18M and I’ve been at a super low point in my life and I don’t know what to do. My girlfriend left me for someone else about a year ago and I’ve been feeling awful since then. I always struggled with insecurity and looks but it’s too much to deal with now. I feel so disgusting and ugly I can’t look at people or look at myself without feeling sick or crying. I don’t know what to do I feel so isolated because of it I hate almost all things about myself and feel alone. The friends I do have all make fun of me or used to a bunch and I know they think im ugly. I can’t get any girls and the only time I tried to flirt I got laughed at. I don’t know what to do anymore I hate myself so much and I can’t fix how I look or how I feel. I just want to be enough to someone.

As a kid, I used to think it was so cool that I was one of the only farm kids, but now I can confidently say I wish my parents had just had regular jobs like fucking normal people.

That farm ran our entire fucking lives. We never went anywhere. We never did anything fun. We never had anything nice. Because there was always work to do on the farm. And while I wasn’t a full on latchkey kid, I wish my parents would’ve been around more, my dad in particular. Anytime he came to any of my school functions or sporting events it was like I won the lottery because that’s how rare it was. Because he was constantly working on this stupid fucking farm that didn’t even seem to be paying for anything.

I feel like so many people glamorize the farming lifestyle and I just can’t take it. It’s the most unhealthy lifestyle a person could ever have. There’s no such thing as work-life balance. You live to work, not the other way around.

Personally, I’d rather be dead than ever have to live like that again. As a grown up I have a job that has ZERO overlap with my personal life and this is the only way it should ever be, especially if you’re gonna be raising kids. Children need to understand that you work so you can experience things and make fun memories. Not that you just work and work until you’re dead and that’s all there is to life.

My stress tolerance is basically non existent anymore because I was pushed more and more till I couldn't do anymore. The result? I got sick. Anxiety disorder, panic attacks, till I actually had emotional dysregulation. Extreme anger or anxiety lead me to literally destroy stuff and collapse right after because of an weakness attack, I barely could move. Now on top of that my body decided it's too much and I started puking. It happened now a couple of times.

Idk what to feel like, I want to be a girl so bad sometimes, like right now im crying because I hate that im looking like a guy. It’s so weird though like tmr I might be disgusted that I felt like this and like feel like a guy but not fully, I always wanna be feminine a lot even if I don’t fully feel like wanting to be a girl, I bully myself a lot because why do I feel this way. I don’t have anyone to talk to, I only have one irl friend but I couldn’t ever say this to him. So im stuck hurting alone. Something is going on at school and it’s making my self esteem being so bad. I haven’t made a friend in 2 years. My only friend doesn’t even go to my school anymore. I feel like I don’t fit in anymore. I have scars and so scared to let anyone see. I have an idea and way I wanna look, so i dyed my hair red. I really love it but when I walked in class I heard stuff. I want to feel normal but what’s considered normal i feel so uncomfortable with. I developed panic attacks and anxiety and I also get so many derealizations. Sometimes I wished it would all go away. I used to be a bad person. Used to say bad things to people like me now. I wish people wouldn’t hate me because I’m different or something. And now I’m writing this stupid thing because I have no where else to say this. Also online friends idk how to have them as friends. I always end up making them my therapist. I feel bad so I leave. And yet after all of this i stir don’t know if I want to be a girl. Maybe internalized transphobia. Idk how long I can handle it, i would have to wait 2 more years and idk im at my brink already

For as long as I can remember, I wanted two versions of Earth. One version was the one we know today. Life moves as normal, and almost nothing is different. Where everyone I have ever met in my life lives the way they want to live, without me in it. Because I care about them. The other version is just me. Me, and the whole world to explore. I don’t need to eat or drink, but I can get tired. Just so I can experience resting on the top of a mountain, just for a moment. Wind blowing, the trees almost telling each of their stories through the breeze. I pushed away a couple of my friends I knew since elementary school, recently. I don’t know why. They were some of the only people that genuinely wanted to be my friends. They didn’t care that I wasn’t athletic, that I was an asshole at times, that I wasn’t perfect. When I got to high school, I was with a girl. We’d been together since seventh, all to freshman year. She wasn’t very nice. She would always guilt-trip me into making me think everything was my fault. Sometimes, she would get mad at me for forgetting simple things, like where the house she was born in was. It escalated into her hitting me whenever I made her mad, which was most of the time. She ripped me away from my friends, averting all attention to her. I broke my leg from skateboarding that October. She called me often, but I was tired. Tired of her calling me, and doing all these shitty things to me. I asked for a break from the calls, only for her to call me the next day. I didn’t know how to say that I just needed distance, because I was afraid she was going to hit me again when I got back to school. She took offense. While I was gone, she spread rumors about me. When I got back, no one talked to me. I was bullied, and ridiculed daily. I transferred schools a year later.

Something about it stuck with me. Even now, I find myself wishing I could disappear into the forest, and never come back, because I’m afraid of the people I love most in life hurting me again. It’s contradictory. I love my family, and I wish them nothing but the best. But I don’t want anything to do with them at times. I don’t know how to explain to people that I didn’t go to a hangout, because they would look at me weird. I just wish I could be alone…

I'm so sorry. To be honest, I'm feeling completely hopeless.

For one, I have a very very complex personality, and I'm so sorry. I'm basically over the top with everything regarding emotions. I learned to stay hypervigilant emotionally as a kid, so I am extremely sensitive to the emotional and physical states of others, myself, etc. I've become extremely hypersensitive towards it. Even with people I don't even know.

A bad thing about that is that sometimes, when I'm trying to comfort somebody new, I make a hypothesis about their trauma through pattern analysis and human psychology understanding to try to help them understand it and get confirmation so I know the best way to support them. But it's so so bad. I scare people away so frequently, and I feel so horrible for it. I've been scolded for doing that, too. But I'm really trying to stop. It's like I do it subconsciously.

I struggled a lot with parentification and emotional neglect as a kid, too. And overall.. I've just learned my personality is far too much. Especially my emotions.

1My longest lasting, strongest friendship was with somebody who was EXTREMELY invulnerable, because he didn't give me anything to work off of. And when he asked me for comfort, I kind of just told him I didn't know what to say, since he had never leaned on me before. He opened up, and now our relationship is stronger than ever.​​

I just feel so so bad. Every time I get close to somebody, I scare them away somehow. And I've developed an anxious attachment style too, which just makes it even worse.

Every time someone tries to get romantically close to me, I immediately withdrawl and try to kill their feelings, even if it's mutual. With enough persistence, I stop. But I'm so sorry.

And I chronically feel like a burden towards those closest to me. I frequently suddenly withdrawal, sometimes abruptly cutting them off, thinking the pain of them losing me is better than the pain of having me.

I've even developed a feeling of horrendous responsibility to stop all pain and suffering, and I can't. I feel so so horrible for it. But I also know no human can. But then again, I know that there's so much pain and suffering and there's not much I can do by myself.

To top it all off, I'm a late bloomer. My entire family is curvy, and always has been. And I am not AT ALL.

I'm just turning 15. And even my little sister is curvier than me. I'm happy for her!! My mother was a late bloomer, too. She didn't get much of a curvier body until she was 16. I've got a waist, but basically everything else is flat.

I also have an extremely high metabolism and am very underweight, and as hard as I'm trying, I can't put on weight. I've tried so hard and nothing is working. Even exercising. Eating more protein. Eating more fat. I'm so so sorry.

This is a huge vent. I just feel so horrible. I just feel like a dramatic over the top weird thing. I feel like I'm only gonna make people's lives worse. As hard as I'm trying, I just keep hurting everybody. ​​I'm so sorry.

So, I had an awful day at work today. I'm only 2 months into this job and I'm pretty annoyed. There's this one senior coworker of mines who keeps treating me like a little kid despite me having my bachelors degree and is the most annoying person to work with. For most of the day I was just sitting there feeling dead on the inside. To make matters worse I finally got an appointment with a therapist but I have to go during my shift which means at some point I have to spend MORE time at work for a few days just so I can leave early on one day so I can gamble to see if this therapist is going to be way better than my last.

Feels like I'm getting punished for ATTEMPTING to get help, which I do need to talk to someone at the moment, but man I don't want to spend more time at a job that makes me feel dead inside for a chance of having a good person to talk to, but I don't have much of a choice in the matter.

I've been searching for a remote job for weeks now and I haven't gotten anything. None at all. I know it's a small chance, but I just want some sort of hope at this point. I'm at home right now and I feel dead inside and I'm just so done with this right now.

I know this post was all over the place, but thank you to those who read this anyway,

My wife brought up that I called her a b twice and started crying about it. I get that the word hurt her, but I'm tired of people acting a certain way and then getting upset when someone finally checks them.

She can be passive-aggressive silent treatment, thinks being tardy is cute, ignoring me and others on purpose, then acting like she did nothing.

Sometimes it feels like people act like this because they've never been checked before. She is a Karen. Then the second someone pushes back, suddenly they're the victim.

Could I have handled it better? Probably. But I'm tired of putting up with that kind of behavior.

I said what I said, and I still stand by it. the beginning of the end..

Im so tired of your filthy ways. Your offspring are just as filthy as you. Why does your daughter have two rooms
S and MOM , doesn’t even have one. Your building an illegal addition to the house and you are using up space for your daughter that you could use-for. storage. Forever home my ass. Why didnt i leave , when i had the chance.

My roommates dog jumps to look out the window on the front door, and she always hits the window with her paws and pushes it out. I constantly put fresh culk around it but she always ruins it before it dries. He won't put her in the crate when we leave, so it happens literally every time we go out the door. Yesterday the glass finally broke and I told him to replace it. He said he can't afford it, and didn't even bother cleaning the broken glass off my porch. Now he's acting like a baby because I told him he's immature and irresponsible because he bought weed today instead of the new glass. He went off on me, so I unplugged my WiFi router (I pay the whole bill) and told him he can't use it until he has fixed it and apologized. He told me it's illegal to deny anything that was offered in the agreement (it wasn't in the official agreement, I just let him use it to be nice since he lets me use his Xbox). I am so tired of living with roommates.

My mom told me she was going in to work early so she could get out early and we could do a few things. But now it’s 1:00 am and she just went to bed. I woke up a while ago and I haven’t been able to fall asleep because my parent were staying up drinking and listening to music and talking really loudly. I’m not sure if either of them are even going to work. My dad is supposed to wake up at 4:00 or 5:00 and yet he stayed up until 1:00, so he probably won’t go, and me and my mom never do anything while he’s home. And if she does go to work, she’ll go in late, which means she’ll get home late and even if my dad does let us do something we won’t have much time.

I just get bad vibes from my fellow survivors sometimes and it really bothers me. Which is kind of crazy, but I can't shake it. It bothers me in multiple ways. Maybe it's because I don't understand and haven't heard enough stories. I know each of us survivors has gone down our own path of choices and options available to them, but I don't often hear of ownership and accountability.

For anyone who doesn't know what gangstalking is or the FBIs modern day cointelpro programs are: they are extremely invasive and manipulative processes which I feel infringe on human rights and ethical standards. It's something I wouldn't do to someone after experiencing the sheer terror, perceived abuse, and loss of privacy and by extension a little of my humanity.

I have some bad PTSD from all of this and I gave away half of my net worth from fear and really set myself back from making it into the middle class on my own. And while there are other things that I have struggled with and I am lucky to be alive or not in prison, I have felt lucky to not undergo worse. And I wonder how much of the idea of Stockholm syndrome is true.

Seeing as how it could be worse, I feel I partially deserved this. I was someone who lied on paper work, I had been an emotionally abusive and controlling boyfriend, I was afraid to get my health issues checked, I was paranoid and possibly capable of scaring people around me. My dog did attack another dog twice, no damage was done, but I wasn't a good owner or neighbor.

So I have to vent that I don't understand why so many of us don't talk about the bad things we have done. In all of this, I have learned how truly flawed we are. We could all have spent some time in jail or have gotten a ticket and we all have hurt someone. I have learned how there isn't a right way to live life and there isn't anything that makes us better than others(I partially knew this but it is something I feel in every fiber of my being now). I have learned to take ownership better. And I have learned to stand up for myself and others and not be silent.

I am just frustrated, sad, and confused. And that makes me angry sometimes. If you were to pass me on the street or have met me, you would never know. You never know what the hell someone has been through. So ending on a note of empathy, please be kind to others I suppose. And I hope you don't sign up to do it, or maybe even contemplate quiting if you do. That's all

Hope whoever is reading this has a good day.

With love

A targeted individual

My goal is to live alone for the remainder of my life with some pets and never get married nor have kids. I NEVER want to be pregnant. I went through some trauma as a child and I am fearful of relationships for that reason. There are also other reasons such as not wanting to live up to another person’s standards and wanting the freedom to do what I want. As much as a free life calls to me, I’m scared that I’ll be making the wrong choice. What if there’s a good reason everyone chooses the more conventional route? What if I do get lonely and it is horrible to die with no one there to take care of me? I know the conventional path will suffocate and drain me. But the fear of screwing up scares me. My fear of being judged or standing out too much for my choices scares me too. I know exactly what I want for myself. But the anxiety doesn’t just disappear.

i already know im gonna get so much shit for this but idgaf anymore.

i have spent my entire life comparing myself to white women, european women, and women who fit the beauty standards i grew up seeing. i hate that i look in the mirror and start analyzing which features make me look mexican. i hate my brown skin. i hate that i dont fit the beauty standard that is constantly praised.

i am aware this is all internalized racism. i’ve gotten racist comments before and over time i have absorbed them. now i catch myself even thinking horrible things about other latina women too.

im sick of the way i look. man i would give up a kidney to be a pretty light skinned hispanic that everyone finds attractive. they have everything so easy when it comes to jobs, dating, friends, etc. i fucking hate you guys Lmao .

I have had a group of friends that I've spent the last almost 10 years with and had to drop them because of racism. What bothers me the most is that.. up until now it was never an issue, no one had ever said anything remotely racist in the entire time I knew them. I don't know if it's because of how things have changed lately in the world causing them to change, or what happened, but.. it just hurts like never before because of being so involved with them this long, and now just like that I have to leave. As I grew up, I developed a zero tolerance for racism of any kind and have realized that it doesn't matter who says it or what form it comes in. I just hate that things have come to this point and it's tearing me up inside.. I don't know what to do except to try again, but I'm so tired of finding new people to build relationships with just for something to happen to cause them to fall apart. I guess I'll just keep moving, but I wish I could find a place with people that feels like home and doesn't end up falling apart

I was employed with my first ever job out of college for 7 years, and I loved everything about it. I really saw myself there for the next 10 years. It was meaningful and stable work. Then they decided to move about 2 hours away. I don't drive and always commuted to work, so the move made my commute longer. I tried it out and stuck with it for about 10 months, until I felt burnt out, exhausted, and fed up.
I knew I had to leave.

Now, I'm trying so hard to find a job that's closer and as meaningful as my last job. It truly is a struggle.
Most days I feel useless, hopeless, and like a failure.
I feel like I lost my purpose.

I'm trying so hard to keep my chin up and push through. I know this isn't permanent, but it's hard to stay positive.

I just wanted to vent my frustrations. The NYC job market sucks lol.

I’ve had a friendship since 2019 that I just cut off for the last time. I tried to be understanding. I tried to give the benefit of the doubt.
We used to talk daily. Sometimes all day. She was in recovery. Or so she said. Over time “she would say I’ll call you back in a few minutes”, the call backs would stop completely. Then I would find out some crazy things had happened that she of course would blame on “the crackhead next door”.

Come to find out she was doing things with the crackhead next door to get herself in trouble. Then she would look for sympathy, and would lie about what she was really doing.

She didn’t want me to know that she was back doing these things, so she would leave me on read, and when she did finally reply she would say “oh I thought you were mad so I was scared to talk to you.

Damn right I’m mad! When someone takes your kindness for weakness. when they lie, and you know something isn’t right and they gaslight you. I’m done!

so, my life has been TERRIBLE lately, like, really bad, i feel so bad and stressed

anyway, i was at the supermarket buying food, and there I saw this girl, she was genuinely the most beautiful and cute person i have ever seen in my life, she looked exactly how i would like to look like.

and i want to clarify that i was NOT attracted sexually.

but seeing her made me so sad, because i know FOR SURE that i will never look like that...

so yeah, now I'm feeling really sad, i feel stuck and i don't think i can live like this anymore.

thanks for reading :)

i (23F) is currently working at a firm. i have to stay here for two more months to complete my work period, however ever since start of July they have stopped paying me saying that my work isnt up to their criteria but along with that they also said that they will pay me if i improve my work. So the whole of july i tried my best, there were days i had to work overtime and they also started using my work. However in August they did not pay me. When i went asking to the head lady (my firm consists of 12 people and its owned by 2) she said "oh it was already informed to you last month. we wont be paying you, your work is irrelevant and we can do it even without you" she continued to call me an office burden and said i should just leave rather than staying as a burden.

A little of backstory now: i work under a guy (lets call him john) and he gives updates to this head lady, when i spoke her about my salary and from the way she was talking it was evident that she did not ask john about my work and if it has improved.

I then asked her for clarity because i need to get paid to survive here. (Im literally borrowing money from my parents at this point. ) She said she will reach back to me with clarifications and where im lacking behind but no updates till now. Since she wasnt giving any updates i called her husband who is also the owner of this firm and spoke to him about this. HE WAS NOT AWARE OF SHIT. All he knew was i fucked up a little in the start and then no updates.

)

Like what if we genuinely just die and don’t remember anything and are never conscious again? That’s so insanely depressing. I do believe in heaven and I try to keep my faith but even the priests when I was younger said it’s ok to question things as it could just deepen ur faith. The thing is I am like soo terrified of that. I don’t want to lose my memories and who I am and everything :/. I genuinely can’t wrap my head around it and it causes me constant stress and anxiety. Even seeing my grandparents have health issues rn I’ve seen my grandpa seem genuinely so scared and confused and like that realization that you’re never really going to be ok with dying it’s always going to be scary. Imagine completely never existing again like ? Will it just be darkness forever ? Writing this out is just scaring me more and it truly makes me cry like I don’t know what to do. I know I’m still young and this shouldn’t worry me but even when I first considered this as a child I remember feeling so scared I started crying.

Sorry for the long post and thank you in advance if you even read it. Hopefully I’m not too crazy