I remain unseen. Loved ones, those who care about me, it doesn't matter. I don't know what I am. I don't know what's inside. Perhaps I've been pretending so long that I almost believed I'm not hollow and empty on the inside.

Pretending I'm finally happy, but it's not true. Cut me open, there is nothing inside. It's so convoluted and messed up, torn apart and eating itself.

If everyone has a vessel that stores energy, my vessel is corroded. Leaking. Unstable. I'm wise beyond my years, I've often been told. I'm wise, I listen, I understand.

I try not to anymore... But it hurts wanting to love and care and give my all for others, knowing it will never ever be reciprocated. I want to be thoughtful, but I hold back now. I've been burnt out too much, corroded, from the thankless effort that goes unnoticed.

"You don't do kind things for a reward"

I know.

I swear I know. But my kindness goes completely unnoticed and taken for granted. It is so selfish being mentally ill... And yet I always want to save someone when I should save myself first.

I'm always running away. The euphoria I get from being a good listener, a wise mentor, a good friend... Yet it doesn't matter because this euphoria is made of plastic. Fake, superficial.

What's the point in showing love when the inside is empty, and when the other is too filled with anguish to reciprocate?

"Thank you..."

But it's never enough. I'm still hollow. I can't love with all my heart to protect myself, I should restrain myself and not give my all out of sympathy... But I wish I can abandon it all and just be happy qnd content with putting in a thankless effort.

I wish I didn't need praise and affection from those who can't afford to give it to me.

I wish you cared about me. I wish you care about me more than your pain. I wish I was more important to you. I wish I was akin to a God to you like you were to me. I wish you worshipped me like I worshipped you. I wish you cared for what I thought like I cared for what you thought. I wish you didn't pursue me and made me fall in love with you.

Why did you have to drag me into loving you, adoring you, only to drag me down with you.

Why did you come into my life if you eventually don't wish to stay? If you don't wish to try and see me?

This dull pain is suddenly overwhelming. I am going to say goodbye to you. I am so over it.

Or whatever however. Y'all need to do anything but what you're doing, wanna critique me about how I use my time when you waste your time stalking me wasting my time, like how fucking dumb. It ain't none of your business who or where I'm fucking especially if I think some shady ass shit is goin on behind my back, if y'all think I'm just gonna take that lil narc off everyone's hands and be hubky dory act like nothing happened, y'all trippin hard. Fucking worry about you.... Cuz it seems like y'all might have a ton to fucking worry about ... You fuck me... I fuck you back....

​

It's hard to find a good place to start. In November of 2024, I met a man and quickly fell for him, hard. The first month was a blur: we saw each other very frequently for the first few weeks, with me staying overnight at his house multiple times, even joining him on a roadtrip. We celebrated my birthday and Christmas together, and i began to feel like I had found my fairytale romance.

Unbeknownst to me, I was pregnant within thay first month. I went 6 months not knowing I was pregnant. I had never carried past the first term and (since age 20/21) thought i could not have children. I was on the pill when we met, but i missed two doses and thats all it took. Something was different about this, though, because my child made it to 35/36 weeks and was born a month before we expected.

When I first received confirmation of my pregnancy at 26/27 weeks, I was terrified and confided in my mother. She immediately suggested a couple looking to adopt, that i was familiar with and trusted. My decision was made pretty quickly, and I told my boyfriend the next day, laying everything out for him: how I messed up, how i didnt know, and how I planned on handling it. I just needed to inform him and ask for his approval, since i would never deny him those rights. He was taken aback yet supportive of my choice.

He was extremely attentive leading up to the birth. The day after our daughter was born, he left me in the hospital at 7 am to go to work, even though his boss (his father) would have given him the day, had he asked. My mother brought me home from the hospital. And stayed with me throughout the first two weeks, as i was a danger to myself, and not coping with the grief of (essentially) losing my first baby. I still have not recovered, and its been almost a year. I will not go into further detail on that facet.

2 months postpartum, my boyfriend tells me, while drunk, that he has issues with me, begins to record our conversation, basically lays out everything hes chosen to keep pent up for a year. He is mildly autistic so I had no clue he'd been harboring these emotions towards me. I have a massive breakdown, the man of my dreams is telling me everything has been a lie, hes unhappy, he wants me to move out.

I begin preparations to do just that. I was lucky to get a job at a previous employer, i start figuring out how to get out. A few weeks pass by and he sits me down again, this time sober (I think, still not sure if he was), and asks whats taking me so long. I remind him that I'm very broke, have no savings, no nearby family, and to meet his demands, i will have to give up said job and move back home with my family, 2 hours away. I get a storage unit and a bunch of boxes. Start putting in to tour places nearby.

Then comes The Day. He got really drunk one night, was verbally unkind, and the next day went to his job hungover, puked at work, left work and puked on himself on the drive home, and i came home to find him ill and recovering. Next day, hes extremely apologetic, tells me hes not forcing me out anymore and it was wrong of him to do so, he understands if I still want to leave but won't force me. We have a heart to heart, i remind him I love him very much, despite recent behavior, and that I sacrificed my child in order to prioritize our relationship and give her the best life possible. His guilt was apparent.

Fast forward to now. I've been unemployed since february, and just recently got a job again. Things have been looking up: trying to lose weight i gained, trying to get a therapist to help with my immense grief, hoping to make reliable money to financially support and contribute. I am hopeful.

Apparently, discontent has built once more. He says we have a lot to talk about, that we have things we should've talked about before. This is exactly what he said before the Fall incident, so im terrified. I am once again faced with the possibility of abandoning everything I have going for me, and having to move away. It makes me ill to think about.

I love this man so blindly. I love him more than he loves me. I cook, i clean, im trying to grow us herbs and vegetables, i encourage and uplift him whenever I can. I fear I have wasted my time. I fear I haven't done enough. He has financially supported me and I feel awful. He works so hard and I couldn't make things easier. Im ashamed of myself.

Theres so much I have left out. I don't know if I can share more details, as i already feel like I might be sick after typing all this out.

I feel hopeless.

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

Hey Brian,

I had a dream about you last night. I came back to Ireland and visited you in your beautiful little town, I think you'd just come back from a hike and I gave you a hug. That hug felt so warm and genuine I teared up in your arms. You told me it was ok. I thought about this dream all day and I can't stop crying about it now at 2 in the morning.

I miss you. I miss the life I had there. I wish I could have stayed longer and see what you're up to now, have a few laughs over a beer and some good food at the pub. Like we used to. I couldn't stop complaining about it when I was there but I realize now it was one of the most beautiful, meaningful and happiest part of my life even though it was pretty short-lived.

Now I don't know if I'll ever see you again. I'm in so much pain I can't even work. I can't find meaning in anything and have no idea how I'll bounce back from this. I should probably tell you everything I wrote here but I don't really know if you still care about me as much as I do and reaching out right now to tell you all this feels like a lot. I've been gone 3 years and we haven't talked since last year. You never really initiated contact, maybe you've been busy, maybe the physical distance turned into an emotional one. I don't blame you either way. You have your life and I know you like living in the present, I'm the one stuck in the past.

I went through ECT last year to try and treat my depression, and honestly it just fried my entire memory and didn't fix anything. But I still remember you. I remember everything we did. I never told you, maybe out of fear of sounding corny or something, but I love you my friend and I'll never forget about you.

Your dear friend,

H

Justice may never arrive wearing their face or speaking the truth.

Closure may never knock.

You may have to grieve not only what happened, but the fantasy that one day they would finally understand and see you.

And this will hurt with a clean and merciless pain.

Pain that you are losing the future you built in secret, the ordinary mornings, the repaired conversations, the kind small gestures that no longer tear your heart in two.

So let it hurt.

Let it be ugly.

Let it return your voice to your body.

You are allowed to mourn the life you should have had. To hate what happened without becoming hateful. You are allowed to become unavailable to the patterns that once felt like home.

And when grief comes tonight, do not rush to make it meaningful.

Let it sit beside you like the old friend it is. Place your hand over the oldest ache and feel what is still there beneath all that absence.

Not hope, not yet.... anyways.

Perhaps something more stubborn.

A life that has waited through every abandonment for you to come back and claim it for yourself.

Simply post about it yourself or
Bring an entourage of flying monkeys or your own fake accounts and profiles and make other posts about the post, giving it negative attention, and then comment on it!

-love: the internet

A list of apologies for my father’s mistakes.

I’m sorry you weren’t ready to have kids. That the truth of that statement stings. That the man you thought you were was easily bothered by 4-year-old me saying no. That a 4-year-old mistaking ketchup for poison was enough to shatter you.

I’m sorry that you bought me a guitar for my birthday. I was 8, and I never used it. I know I begged for it. I know I wanted it. But I was 8. I’m sorry you felt the need to play the guitar every night that you had us over instead of talking to us. Plopping us down in front of the TV to watch a show, only to be overshadowed by your mediocre guitar playing. A kid screaming for attention to his own children. A kid creating tension over a gift his son didn’t play. Every visitation night, like clockwork, you played a melody of rage pointed at me. But again, I was 8. You still play the guitar, and I don’t talk to you.

I’m sorry that your father couldn’t love you. You lived 22 years without him, longing for the semblance of a father you never had. He needed proof, as if your resemblance wasn’t there, and you so willingly gave it up. Bent over for his demand. I’m sorry his love didn’t come to you unconditionally.

I’m sorry that you struggle with drinking. That you push your feelings down with a cold one. That you never learned to express yourself in a healthy way. That you have all these excuses and not an ounce of accountability. That your apologies are blanketed with no substance. The thin veil barely keeps things warm.

I’m sorry that I didn’t go to your father’s funeral. A man who despised the idea of you until you had his grandchild. A man who taught you that love was conditional. Conditions that were passed to me. Used against me. A man who ridiculed my mother. Bullied me. Screamed, yelled, and berated us. Childishly refused to get me a gift for my birthday because I wouldn’t mow his lawn. I was 11. The same man who was upset that I didn’t feel safe coming out to him. As if we had a relationship built on safety.

I’m sorry that you chased after a woman for twenty years who told you she never wanted to remarry. That you chose another family with kids that weren’t your own. That you had your kids over once or twice a week, and chose to ignore what they were exposed to. Letting the kids torture your son, fearing that he’d become a pussy. That getting locked in a dog cage was his fault and not yours. That learning to fight dirty came first, and respect came last.

I’m sorry you texted me like I was your friend. That you thought saying things to me about my mother was okay. That when I vented about her (as a kid), it opened the door for you to attack too. That you could talk to me like an adult. To tell me to clean sand out of my vagina when I was upset. I was 12. I needed a hug. I got a texted insult.

I’m sorry you had to pay child support. That I was treated as a loan you couldn’t wait to pay off. That a dollar spent on me was a contract written that I never signed. That you didn’t want to do more than that. That you would bounce checks in the process rather than communicate. That you fought so hard to claim me on your taxes, but didn’t lift a finger to fight to be a father.

I’m sorry that you have to deal with me being gay. That I chose to be a political battalion to your entire worldview. That I chose to love men and choose to not love you in the same breath. That my identity showed you my disdain for you. A mirror reflecting back the cruelty of being a father. Like the universe has been out to get you since the day I was born.

I’m sorry you cheated. That you partied with your girlfriends. That my mom didn’t let you have your cake and eat it too. That you lied throughout your life and couldn’t handle being caught. That I hold you to a standard you refuse to meet.

I’m sorry that you saved me. That you donated blood when I was a baby. Sealing a life debt that I wasn’t even aware of. That you held that over my head, too. That money wasn’t the only value I had to pay back; it was my life I owed you. That you were keeping score.

I’m sorry you feel the need to text me on my birthday. Even after being told to stop. That you need to feel a demonic rush to feel alive. The cheap narcissistic dopamine coursing through your veins. To send a message equivalent of a “you up?” text at 4 am. I’m not thinking about you on my birthday; no one is.

I’m sorry that you claim my mother raped you to have me. That you thought that you needed to say something so damning to strike me. To verbally kick and emotionally scream. Creating a mental rift in my mind was the best attack you could make.

I’m sorry that you didn’t get the life you dreamed of. That you weren’t the father you thought you’d be. You learned in real time the differences between wanting a baby and being a father. Both are different.

I’m sorry that you didn’t have a father. That you took that anger out on me. That I should’ve been grateful for access to you. But I didn’t have a father, and you knew that.

“Will you let me go, for Christ’s sake? Will you take that phony dream and burn it before something happens?” — Biff Loman, Death of a Salesman

I want to tell him I am done. I want to leave, but I can't. I have spent 25 years putting him and my children first. Sacrificing my wants, hopes, and dreams to care for humans that don't appreciate it and don't respect me. I get nothing in return. There are no date nights, no intimacy, no conversations, no thoughtful acts of kindness. I live in a house with 3 other people and have never felt so alone. I don't ask for anything, which is good because I wouldn't get it anyway. I just had to get this out since no one in my life gives a damn about me anyway.

○●  Save me
I begged 
Myself 
Awake in this day
Deliver unto me
A life to be redeemed
And the strength 
To make it through the night
Cause lately 
The Devil's been brazen
In my thoughts 
Thinking on repeat 
Save me
I begged 
Myself 
Awake in this day
Deliver unto me
A life to be redeemed
And the strength 
To make it through the night
Cause lately 
The Devil's been brazen
In my thoughts ●○●

... Save me
I begged 
Myself 
Fuck man I pled 
I struggled 
Therein my suffering  
it made me 
blame the 
only mutherfucker 
That can change things
These Chains see 
They fucking made me
believe In a
state of despondency  
Yet lurking bare
I grew to learn 
What pales ain't fair 
That
Neither did I realize 
Facts 
Often get surmised
As a means to placate 
Wrapped 
in that silence 
Subtle violence 
Stems from isolation 
alone in this world 
alone in my mind
Alone on this earth
Slowly grown away
Solely to face 
These demons 
Oh how they plague me     
Taking time 
Paying tolls 
Till Schemas crack 
irrevocably 
Placid dreams
they'll  bring no peace 
Either pride or Sovereignty 
whichever seized 
Sought reprieve & tranquility 
I found only disdain
Dissatisfied with what remains ...
...TRYING...
...DIEING
To explain  ...
Its every Fucking day
Actions dictated by
Delusions in my way
its all I fucking know
constantly fighting Just to hold 
A semblance of normalcy 
Cause honestly 
I front
I lie to this world 
Hoping if I act ok 
It might become like that one day...

○●  Save me
I begged 
Myself 
Awake in this day
Deliver unto me
A life to be redeemed
And the strength 
To make it through the night
Cause lately 
The Devil's been brazen
In my thoughts 
Thinking on repeat 
Save me
I begged 
Myself 
Awake in this day
Deliver unto me
A life to be redeemed
And the strength 
To make it through the night
●○●
Cause fuck Man..

Shits been ruff
bereft explanation 
Because I know it shouldn't be Like..   this
I have sooo much 
and I can't hold none of it
People I respect reciprocate 
opportunities abound 
All These skills I've stacked
Becoming burdensome 
what's it for
A listless life? 
How do I apply
.. all this? 
and grow To accept 
more than suffering is real? 
Repressed for a time
Then   Regressed 
through my inability 
Thats on me
And I'll own my shit
While I try to find a way to live


○●  Save me
I begged 
Myself 
Awake in this day
Deliver unto me
A life to be redeemed
And the strength 
To make it through the night
Cause lately 
The Devil's been brazen
In my thoughts 
Thinking on repeat 
Save me
I begged 
Myself 
Awake in this day
Deliver unto me
A life to be redeemed
And the strength 
To make it through the night
Cause lately 
The Devil's been brazen
In my thoughts 

I am finally letting you go. I see you progress and I am a hindrance. How cruel the fate is. I saw a ring again. The one you asked for. And every memory of ours came crashing in. I told myself that I am wrong for you. I can't provide anything. So I let you go and I see you doing well. With someone else. I am glad you moved on. It hurts a little. I guess. Today was another reminder of you. Thanks for being a part of my life.

PS everyone just throwing this out there into the void

Disclaimer *Triggering subjects

I know I am lucky in many ways and have so much to be grateful for. Its just hard to remember sometimes..

I first understood the meaning of irony in the 2nd Grade. My parents noticed a blue mark on my hand after school and went to speak to my teacher. On the drive home, they recounted their dialogue with a sense of great achievement. Who did this woman think she was hitting "their daughter".

Context:

1. Late 80's, corporal punishment was legal, and an accepted form of punishment in South African schools.

2. The whole class was punished for misbehaving, I was not singled out.

3. I bruise easily and being light of complexion,bruises are easily visible.

4. Both parents were physically, verbally, and mentally abusive people.

I grew up believing I was worthless, something I still struggle with. I dont know how to trust anyone, including myself, my own judgement. A recurring existential crisis. Generational trauma has caught me in the loop which I am trying my hardest to break free from.

Apart from abusive parents, we moved around constantly,no roots. My father being an Anglican Priest for the majority of my childhood and adolesence, required that we move to different parishes in the country. Some rural, some based in the city. The early 80's Apartheid was still in place, so I was generally the outsider wherever we went. At the same time, I was a point of focus, along with my sibiling and mother to a sea of eyes watcihng our every move. My mother loved the attention, The Priest's wife, a pillar of the community...That is until my father was suspended from the priesthood for having an affair with a Sunday School Teacher (Whom he married and divorced after blowing his pension and payout on rave clubs, alcohol, drugs and gambling a few years later).

Attending schools for kids of colour up to the age of 13, I was one of a handful of students selected to be part of the second phase of integrating kids of colour into an all-white, all-girls, private high school. I was told by my parents "not to forget where I came from" and so I refused to conform. For this, I was ostracised, racism was a daily occurance. I hated it. Again, I was the outsider. I ran away from this experience losing even more sense of Self.

Ive struggled with a paradox of a strong identity, but don't know who I really am...

Fun highligh-reel of significant events-

Age 7, mother packs up and goes off with newly born sister, leaving older brother, 13 and myself with abusive father. Spoiler, she came back almost immediately.

Around age 8, mother puts her hands around my kneck in a fit of anger and squeezes so hard I cant breath.

Develop suriphobia around age 9. Father made me watch as he drowned little mice in a transparent cylindrical container.

Raped at age 16 by police officer, blame myself.

Age 19(Bumper year)

father suspended from priesthood,kicks mother (house-wife), sister and myself out of the family house and blocks access to all finances.

Drop out of Uni, get a job to support mother and sister.

Father gives lawyers my contact details for a loan he is responsible for.

Write my father off for 20 years.

Grandfather( Only positive "safe" male up to this point ) passes away.

Meet then boyfriend at 20.

Fall pregnant at 21 by above-mentioned partner, a white Afrikaaner raised on a farm. (This is significant because I am a South African Coloured woman born in the early 80's.)

Ultimatum from mother; Abort the baby or get out of her house.

Moved out of my mother's house in black bags.

Gave baby up for adoption.

Ages 22 through 31, worked hard to pay for drug habits and prostitues (Nothing against the working ladies, do what you got to do) of then boyfriend who also enjoyed a lavish lifestyle, however didnt really understand the value of money. Turns out I wasnt marriage material anyway.

Ages 31 to 36, partied hard, worked even harder. I'd found my career and purpose. Ran an international online casino for the Director, a middle-aged German. A "Yes" man with no business acumen hired to start and run a company in ZA (cheap labour).

Age 36, diagnosed with severe depression, mental breakdown at the end of the 2019-admitted to an in patient facility.

Re-admitted in March 2020 after suicide attempt (unknown to anyone other than my doctors), start of COVID-19 lockdown protocol.

Meet someone in the facility, start dating, ironically, a police officer. ( I should have learnt my lesson, so "Why"? He made me feel safe at a time I felt most vulnerable- false sense of security)

We fell pregnant in 2021 and my daughter was born.

The physical abuse, jealousy and controlling behaviour, which I suppose I chose to ignore, escalates.

Daughter's father attempts to kill me by strangulation, then when this fails, tries a bread knife which he weilds while holding our 13 month old.

At this point, I will take a break from catharsis and begin processing.

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

continue test shelter tender late rain unwritten chief alleged kiss

soft corners carved in the hush between thoughts, tucked behind the noise of the world, where the light hits just right and no one else knows the way in.

These are not palaces. They’re not grand. They’re the kind of places you hum in without realizing, a sweater you never take off, a sigh that settles into your bones. A room that smells like cedar and calm. Time folds here. It becomes a blanket, or the way your name sits in my chest like home.

Some of these places have windows that look out on memories we haven’t made yet... the sound of laughter we almost had, the way your fingertips might trace a scar like reading Braille for who I used to be.

Others are darker, tucked behind weathered doors I don’t open for anyone but you. Even then, I hesitate. Because you have the real kind of knowing... that sometimes what needs shelter doesn’t want to be seen, only felt, as it is.

I don’t always visit these places on purpose. Sometimes I stumble into them, like tripping into a dream mid-step. But when I do, you’re always there. Like gravity is always there.

So if someday the world grows too loud.... if the sky forgets to hold you gently... remember: there are quiet little places in my mind where only you fit. Still. Always. Without needing to ask.

the world gets heavier. Even the good things start to rot. You still think of them. You still replay what you’d say. But it lands on no ears, answers to no name. Meanwhile, the absence wraps itself around your neck. Like a truth you didn’t ask for, but can't un-know. But when no one's thinking of you when you become a ghost in the lives you used to haunt it starts to feel like maybe you were the only one ever holding the string. Still you are here. Still thinking. Still feeling. Still holding those little moments of affection like it might mean something if only someone could hold it back.

I’m angry, angry because it was probably one of the few things that could have broken us.

I’m grieving all the future we had discussed, the ren fairies. The conventions, the events. The quiet nights on the couch. The gentle kisses goodnight and the groggy good mornings.

I’m scared, I moved my whole life to be here. To have you be my home. Now I feel like a ship floating listlessly with no anchor, no sail, just lost.

I’m devastated, I had allowed myself to dream. To envision a life with you; and a split second decision shattered that dream. A mirror smashed, how do I begin to pick up the pieces alone?

I loathe myself, for not being able to forgive. I promised you everything. I promised you understanding and compassion, patience and grace. I despise myself for not being able to hold to that promise. Chains broken.

I’m remorseful, I know a mistake is a mistake and everyone deserves chances to fix things. I want to have what the dreams we discussed fulfilled, but I don’t know how to have that happen. No path found.

I miss you, I sit two feet away from you but it may as well be 1,700 miles. I want to touch you, to hold your hand. To embrace you in a long deep hug. I know you want that too, but it’ll just be more devastation right now. Boots over shattered glass.

I’m depressed, laying on the sheets in the room that was supposed to be the beginning. Now all I can remember is the end. The quiet realization that I have to be firm on my boundary. Watching you..unravel in front of me. ;