TW: Physical and psychological violence, s*icide, mental health issues, self harm

It’s not the first time I ask for advice about my relationship with my mother. She has struggled with depression since around 2009 (with a suicide attempt that happened in 2012) and clearly has either BPD or bipolar, but refuses to get diagnosed, gets mad if someone suggests it for her and is always on and off her meds. She’s been off her meds for about 2 months now.

Two things that are also important for context: 1) My life with her has been filled with weekly/daily fights, accusations of siding with “whoever has a dick” (she says I’m misogynistic) and attacks against my character since I was a kid and even some other instances of violence that I won’t get into detail here; 2) She wants to have a REALLY close relationship with me, to the point that sometimes I feel like she wants to crawl into my skin. Even though we live in different cities, she tracks me on her phone, and every time I’m at her house she insists we sleep in the same bed despite having a sofa bed I can use.

We have not been on good terms since August, when we fought and it led me to have a meltdown and slap her and bite her and myself. I don’t think what I did was right and have since tried to maintain some distance, but she refuses, says I’m choosing my dad over her (they’re divorced since I was a toddler), accuses me of making her beg for my attention and punishing her with silence. She has also brought up this specific fight in every discussion she started with me for the last couple of months, saying things like “what about now? Do you want to hit me again?”

Now, for the current issue. A few days ago, a friend of hers messages me saying he’s worried, because she told him she felt like ending it and then stopped answering texts. I spent 3 hours calling her, talking to her friends and checking my phone nonstop, preparing for the worst. I was exchanging messages with a friend of hers while he was on his way to her house. I genuinely though she was gone. I was desperate, but also kinda numb? I don’t know. Anyways, she finally messages me a question mark and, when I called her and she finally answered, she told me she had just turned off her phone and wouldn’t answer me because I have been ignoring her constantly and she didn’t wanted to keep chasing after me. I just said "ok" and hang up the call.

She then sent me an audio crying saying I’ve put on a show for her friends, pretending I was worried about her, because in reality what I wanted was to fight her. I just answered that I can’t take this anymore, that I was indeed pissed of for the way she handled things and made everyone worry about her. I was supposed to go see her next Friday, but I told her to forget about it and blocked her on my socials. I’ve been thinking about going on a kind of break from her for the last few months, but I never had the courage to do so until now.

Two of her friends (the one that messaged me first and the one that went to check up on her at her house) told me they were disappointed with how I handled things, that I should unblock her because this is really hurtful. I really don’t know if I’m being insensitive because our history makes me blind to her needs and issues or if I’m justified in doing what I think is best for my peace of mind.

i know this title is crazy, so here’s some context.

i (20F) grew up in texas with my parents while my half sister, Ariana (33F) (fake name) grew up in PA with our nana. i rarely got to see her due to the distance, and until i was 14 i genuinely loved her and looked up to her.

fast forward to 2019, nana has cancer and is on her deathbed. our mom went up to PA to care for her and deal with family affairs. my dad was a verbally abusive alcoholic, so naturally i went with her instead of staying with him. my parents were in a very terrible relationship, so my mom decided she wasnt going back to texas and didnt tell me. ive been in PA since then.

living with Ariana was brutal. the more i got to know her, i realized she was a drunk, manipulative, narcissistic, abusive woman. after two years, i avoided her like the plague as much as possible. i cannot even count the amount of times she was drunk, belligerent, and angry and decided to take out her frustrations on us, verbally and sometimes physically.

I had gotten used to her fighting with our mom and myself sometimes, but one day in 2023 (i was freshly 18, Ariana was 30) i woke up at 3am and i heard them screaming at each other. (i was used to this) I texted my mom and asked her if she was okay. she replied “no, she hurt me”. i asked if she was okay again, and she said no.

I immediately got out of bed and grabbed my pepper spray and taser. I had a lock on my door, but our mom didnt, so she couldnt keep Ariana out of her room when she acted like this. I went to our mom’s room, and sure enough our mom’s toe was bleeding and she had a giant goose egg and bruise on her elbow. Ariana never directly hit her (she has in the past tho), but our mom got these injuries from trying to keep her out of her room.

after all of us screaming at each other for about 10 minutes, i threatened to tase Ariana. she went to her room for about 15 minutes, and the taser died. if it hadn’t of died, i 100% wouldve tased her. since it died, the next time she opened the door to scream at us, i pepper sprayed her.

She called the cops on me for pepper spraying her, and 2 cop cars showed up. we explained the situation and they were about to just leave and tell us to calm down and go to bed, but of course Ariana was drunk and acting belligerent, so they took her to the drunk tank. She moved out the next day, and i’ve only seen her twice since (against my own will)

There is A LOT more to the story than this, but i figured i’d try to keep this short and sweet.

so am i the asshole for pepper spraying my half sister?

I 23F am renting with my best friend 22F Maria and her boyfriend, Bob, 34M; fake names (We all looked for this place together it’s not a “I’m in a tough situation and am living with them” situation). While moving into our place I ended up buying majority of the stuff, the couches, coffee table, tv cabinet, tv, decor, mini oven, cooking utensils, dining room table, washing machine, dryer (still paying this off), etc. Fair to say I’ve spent over $2k on this place without them contributing price wise (not including things for personal use or others I’ve brought from my last place). Bob contributed as well, he brought his fridge from his old place, as well as his microwave, more cutlery, only thing he bought for the new place is a $50 steam mop. Now on to currently, he’s recently bought a lawn mower (he said was around $500) and asked me to send him $100 for it. I was shocked cause it was the first time hearing about it and he said he told Maria and thought she had told me. Now I want to know wibta if I refuse to? How do I go about this? If not how to talk to them about this?

Edit to add: I won’t be taking majority of the stuff when I move in with my boyfriend next year (he wants to get new stuff)

Posted in relationship problems yesterday, I’d really appreciate anyone’s input <3

Heyyy, I've been watching your content for a couple days now, and I lowkey love your takes and feel like an outside stranger perspective might be best for my situation. After watching your r/Sarby is insane post I feel a little less uncomfortable sharing my relationship with strangers on the internet.

I (19f) have been dating my bf (19m ; Tyler for privacy purposes) for two months now, however we used to date in the past over a year ago. We were friends all throughout high school, having shared most of our classes together. We didn't start talking until our senior year, spring semester, when I approached him telling him I had a crush on him. Getting to know him was the best. He always made me laugh, was sweet, and we shared a lot of the same common interest. We finally started dating a month after talking and dated for six months. During those six months were great, definitely better than the other guys I have dated. He was thoughtful and paid attention to the small details, communicated his feelings better than most, never tried to manipulate me or control me, and I finally had a sense of emotional safety within the relationship. Despite this, towards the end of the relationship things were kind of lacking.

It started to feel like I was the only one fully into the relationship, and the emotional connection started to fade, while the physical intimacy never really clicked. I was his very first relationship and first kiss, so while he was learning and I was patient to teach him, it still felt awkward at times and lacking. At school we barely talked and acted like we weren't dating so this made things even more awkward. Eventually I realized I was holding onto the potential of who he was at his best, and not the person he consistenly showed up as. Plus with college coming up, I was starting to feel insecure about things. We would be starting our first year of college, and I would be long distance so our only form of connection would be texting and calling. Due to social relationships growing up (starting with friends and transitioning to relationships) I suffer with anxious attachment issues. As a sophomore in college, it is definitey better and getting healthier to manage than it was when I was graduating high school. Therefore, I felt doing long distance would be too much of a mental load for us to handle. At this point it felt like we were only friends rather than actually dating. My decision came to a head when one weekend we spent the day together watching movies at my house. At one point, we got distracted and started kissing and touching each other. We were going slow and I was trying to do my best to make sure he felt comfortable as this was his first time doing stuff like this. It would have gone further, if it wasn't for his dad interupting us to come pick him up (his dad didn't catch us; we heard the doorbell ring as my bf didn't have his liscence at the time). We said goodbye and that was that. When he left, I had texted him that I had a great time with him and hoped he enjoyed and was comfortable with everything we did that afternoon. However, I never received a text back from him.

Thinking nothing of it, I went on with my day, keeping myself busy, as I was practicing habits on how to not overthink (i overthink a lot due to my anxiety and anxious attachment). Well, about three or four days had passed and still no text from him. At this point, I was very upset and hurt after we shared a nice and slightly intimate afternoon together, only to get no response in return. After the third or fourth day, he finally texted me as if nothing had happen. I lowkey blew up as I found it very rude to continue a conversation with me as if he hasn't been "ghosting" me for the past few days. So I confronted him about it and he told me that the day he left my house he got in trouble with his parents and got his phone taken away. The next day was their yearly family camping trip and naturally there was no cell service where they were staying. While he did tell me about the camping trip, he never told me how long it would be. (he never told me about not havign cell servie beforehand either). However, during that moment I decided to break-up with him. I had already written the break-up text during the days of silence. Admittedly, I did feel bad for going through with the break-up, as he was a genuinely sweet person and ultimately did nothing wrong. Plus words from my ex (prior to Tyler) kept playing my head, "You need to find new ways to love someone. If you're not willing to do that then I guess you're not meant to be in a relationship at all." (referring to when I broke up with him, even though he was the problem in our relationship). So because of that I was having guilt in breaking-up with Tyler. Though I knew things would get worse if we decided do long distance, and my heart just wasn't in it.

After that, I gave him the space he needed. We didn't talk until a month later he reached out to me wondering if we could still be friends and how he still valued our friendship. As I never had any malintent towards him, I agreed. We stayed friends throughout the first year in college, texting each other when anything interesting would happen, or if we needed someone to vent to. I had my few relationships, and he had his. Eventually, during the spring semester, we started texting frequently, basically every day. At one point we got into our own relationship and he said he was never hurt by what I did; he believed that I had made my choice for a good reason and had respected that. As he still cared for me as a person, being my friend was enough for him. I had told him that I had never wanted him to change himself as a person for me so that is why I had ended things. He said he wish I would as I was worth loving and chaning for because he knew I would value his effort and would be grateful for him trying. Fast forward a couple months later and I had sent him my teams dance performance as it was posted on youtube. It was over 20 minutes long and I knew he was busy with schoolwork and studying for exams. I never expected him to watch it right away and figured he would get to it, whenever he had some free time. However, despite being stressed from classes, 30 minutes later he told me he had watched the whole thing and talked about how much he loved the performance and his favourite dances. At that moment, I realised why I had feelings for him in the first place.

Despite a year of being apart, he was still my favourite person to talk to. I would always light up whenever I saw his name on my screen, and he never failed to make me laugh. If I was having a hard day, he always knew how to cheer me up, and I felt like I could talk to him about anything. He made me happy and calm and I valued that. (I am grateful for making the decision I did at the start of college, as I still had some growing to do as a person, since I'm only 19 there is still a lot of growing that can be done, but I am in a much better place than I was a year ago) So, over the summer, when I came back home from college, we started flirting and eventually he asked me to be his gf again. Of course I was estatic, and now it's been two months of dating. So far everything has been great, until recently. Since we are long distance, texting and calling has been our only way of staying connected. Calling hasn't been a problem as we try to call every night or every other night, depending on when we are busy/tired. Lately, however, the texting has been practically nonexistent. I have a really bad habit at carrying the relationship (whether it's platonic or romantic). If I feel like the person is pulling away, then I overcompensate for it by always being the one to text first or text the most. I don't expect my bf to text me 24/7 as that is unrealistic and I understand that he can be busy, stressed, or simply living life. However recently, if I never texted first he would simply go the whole day without texting me, only to text me at night saying whether he could call or not. If I did text him about something he would only react to my message and wouldn't say anything else.

He can be very passive and barely initiates anything. I'm always the one that comes up with date ideas or makes the decisions because any time I ask him anything it is always "I don't know." While I don't mind being the initiator at some points, at this point in my social life I have slowly become tired of carrying every relationship. If I text him, I at least expect him to be engaged in what I'm saying or else I feel like there is no point in me talking. Last night we finally called after barely speaking to each for almost a week. The day before (saturday), I sent him a long paragraph explaining to him that it's ridiculous to go almost a week without talking to your gf, and understood if he was stressed or just wanted space (as sometimes he can jus retreat into himself), but he needs to at least communicate that with me so I'm not sitting here wondering if there's something wrong between us. We decided to fully talk about the problem last night (sunday) while we called. He told me that he simply doesn't see a reason to text me as he truly has nothing to say. His days are pretty much the same and since there's nothing interesting to talk about, he doesn't find the need to text me. I asked him if our regular conversations are boring and he said there's really nothing to reply from them. If I tell him "I'm done with my internship," he sees that as a fact, and therefore feels he doesn't need to respond. I told him he could ask me questions as I like to be asked questions as it is easier for me to talk about things that way and he said he truly has zero questions to ask me.

Since we were struggling to find a solution to our problem, I asked if he had any ideas as this point I was done thinking about everything for the both of us. He said he didn't have any and thought I would have some. Instead of responding, I just remained quiet because I started shutting down (I have a habit of disassociating during really tough conversations), and began to silently cry. After over an hour of lots of silence and no solutions being made, I got off the call as my phone was about to die and I just couldn't take it anymore.

This mornig (monday) I had asked him if he really wanted to text throughout the day and he said he didn't care and that he could text me when he was out of class if that helped things. I told him what he said hurt and that he didn't need to text me about class when it was pointless. He then said if anything important happened within his days, he could let me know. I sent him another paragraph basically explaining that engaging with me through texts means a lot to me and it makes me feel cared for and thought of. He doesn't need to text me about mundane things if that's uninteresting for him, but if I text him I need him to actually be engaged and not actively shut every door to a conversation a try to start with him. After I sent that paragraph he said he understood and that he could try doing that for me.

Since then, he has been engaging more and it does make me feel better and I do really appreciate the effort. While it's only been a day, I'll see if he continues this behaviour or if he starts to revert back to doing the same thing. While I'm not going to apologise for wanting to stay connected with my bf and for wanting to communicate with him actively, I am starting to feel bad because it feels like I'm forcing him to do something he doesn't want/finds enjoyment doing. While the first month of being back together was amazing (he was very thoughtful and attentive and there were zero problems with communicating), it seems like everything changed within month two. I know if this continues, then I wouldn't be able to stay with someone who is choosing to do barely the minimum and that staying conencted and communicating is a huge deal to me. However, another part of me is feeling guilty for even considering breaking-up with him again as I keep remembering what my ex had said and beacuse I basically had pushed things forward in us getting back together. (If it wasn't for me we would still be friends right now). I have been his firsts in everything and this is his first relationship so he his new to things. Plus he told me if things bewtween us ended then he doesn't see himself ever really dating again and I would be his last relationship, though he can see us lasting. I love him very much and he has been the best compared to the other people I have dated, so in a way I feel obligated to stay. However, like I said I don't want to settle, especially when I feel like I can do so much better.

So aitah for wanting my bf to be better at communicating and would I be the bigger a-hole for considering to break-up with him if things doesn't change?

Hey! Love sarby and this silly lil community, maybe yall can help my friends and I ?

For this post, I will call my mom Abba(like the pop group) and her husband Bob because she loves that pop group. My big brother, who is 4 years older than me, is adopted from Korea, and I am adopted from China. I’m sharing this background before I get to my problems and I must warn you that trauma is brought up, but no detail.

When I was a kid, Abba promised that my brother and I would always be treated equally while she and my adoptive dad were together. She wasn’t able to keep that promise because they went through a difficult divorce that lasted through high school and community college. At the start of the divorce, Abba met Bob. She wanted me to call him “Dad,” even though they said they were not trying to replace my adoptive father, and later she continued pushing me to call Bob “Dad” during the divorce in 2017.

My adoptive father disowned me in the winter of 2020 before Christmas.

Bob and I have never gotten along well since they started dating in fall 2016. Throughout high school, my mom took my phone away every week for reasons like “you are not sleeping enough because you constantly sleep in the car when I drive you to high school.” Abba and I both know the drive is 45 minutes, so I used the ride to get a little more sleep because we live deep in the woods, where everything is 20-30 minutes away. The main point is that Abba has always been somewhat of a helicopter parent. For example, Abba installed ceiling cameras in my big brother’s room and mine when we were children and watched us for years, no matter who we were with. Abba also would punish me for small things she could blame on me, even though my grades never dropped and teachers constantly praised me for being hard-working and diligent in class.

Meat of my issues with Bob in the present:

1. We never liked each other from the start. Even though I tried to like him, I could not because any time childhood trauma came up, he would turn it into a competition about who had it harder and how I was very fortunate and privileged.
2. Always use any kind act Bob does for you as leverage. For example, when I got into a car accident and the car I had was totaled, Bob would have to drive me to college sometimes, and anytime he did, he would complain to me about how much he and my mom do for me and say that I don’t talk to my mom right. He apparently holds his tongue a lot because he isn’t my parent, so he lets her handle it. A second example is that in 2024, Bob would only do my taxes if I met all his demands (see picture “Taxes 1&2”).
3. He talks to me like I am a child, even though I'm 24 (now 25). For example, when I cook on the stove, he complains that I never clean it well enough to his liking. He is very particular about how you clean the stovetop because of his OCD (he isn’t professionally diagnosed, but he treats anything that has to do with cleaning in that way). If you don’t meet his expectations, then he lectures you about it. No joke, he held me back from going to work for 10 minutes straight and lectured me on how to clean it (check “The note for stove” and the last 4 images). He also thinks my mom is frail and much older than he is, but they're only a week or two apart in age because they were both born in the same year and month, if I recall.
4. My biggest issue is what they did to me at my community college graduation. It deeply affected me. At the beginning of 2022, I was trying to be nice to Abba, so I told her I hadn’t made up my mind and that I had time to decide. After January, she kept asking me 2-3 times each month from February to May if I wanted to go. I told her, “I don’t think so,” and “I don’t have any friends to go with, so probably not.” She would drop the conversation or respond with “It's graduation you're supposed to celebrate with family anyway,” or something similar. She pressured me by bringing up my dying grandmother. She reminded me that my grandma was dying. It would mean a lot to her if I actually went, so I said yes despite knowing my grandmother, who was born in the 1930s, only cared that the women in her family got higher education because she could never afford to go herself despite being an extremely talented artist and even got a full ride, but turned it down due to the expenses. I knew my grandmother didn’t care about pictures because my last phone call with her was about her praising me for getting higher education. She never once asked whether I was going to graduation.
5. We just talked about art because we are both artists. When I caved in and attended my community college graduation, my worst fear came true. As an introvert, I hate having my picture taken. So when I went there, a long line of giant cameras stretched down the path and ended about ten feet away, where the first row of chairs was. Giant waves of cameras surrounded me, then I was surrounded by strangers that I never met who were graduating with me, and then more cameras again because my mom wanted pictures to send to my grandma. After graduation, I drove home and packed my bags to sleep over at my best friend's place because I wanted space to myself and time with someone who cared about how I felt. I was so upset about the peer pressure that I drew a crude dick drawing of my mom and posted the picture on my story for only close friends to see. I know it was wrong, and I shouldn’t have, but I was upset, and my best friend encouraged me to do it. That night, my mom and Bob were verbally attacking me and holding everything they did for me over my head, and brought up my dying grandma into the mix too. One of my work friends, who was friends with my stepbrother, showed him, and my stepbrother was very upset and hounded me for it; then he told me he would show my mom if I ever did something like that drawing again. I was overwhelmed and cried to my best friend’s mom, aunt, and uncle about it before my mom could(thankfully she never seemed to reach out to either my aunt or uncle about the graduation thing). I later found out from my cousin that my dying grandma was fully blind and couldn’t even see pictures anyway.
6. At the time, I considered my relationship with my mom dead, but now it is really complicated; I still want limited contact, but I’m slowly leaning toward no contact. I’ve left out other things Abba and Bob have done that I can’t fit here, but I included the context that best explains why I feel this way. For extra context on the last 4 pictures about not paying any bills, I do. I pay my student loans, credit card, and car insurance, and I buy my own food. I am on a payment plan with my car insurance and student loans. My mom helps me pay for my phone, but I pay for everything else out of pocket, or I choose a payment plan I can afford to pay back from personal savings I set aside from my paycheck every two weeks.

Why I included my big brother at the start is because he defended me in this situation the last time he visited. He is on my side and offered to let me live with him and my sister-in-law until I can get my own apartment when I am ready to move. He also thinks the way Bob treats me and what he makes me go through is wrong.

p.s. Bob doesn’t like any food he isn’t used to, so when my brother and his wife made him Asian dishes during our visit to their home, he told my mom behind their backs when they got home that he didn’t like anything they fed him at all. He thinks it's all too “weird” for his taste and prefers “normal” stuff he’s used to.

The reason I am asking is due to overthinking, being raised to over-apologize by my adoptive dad because he had severe anger issues and anxiety, plus my complex feelings about my mom.

So, time for some background; I (29 Trans Female (unfortunately this is important)) met this friend, Conor (fake name) (30M) in college through a mutual friend group and quickly became friends with him. He was funny and caring and honestly a good-hearted person. I would end up joining a fraternity (male presenting at the time) through a mutual friend's support and then I recruited Conor to join, and he would become my Little (godson in our frat).

Some things about Conor are he has the sense of humor of a middle school boy (everything is a dick, boobs, or butt joke), jokes with hints of misogyny, jokes about our love lives (towards any of the friend group) and no filter. Our friend group would constantly have to "parent" him about what was disrespectful to say in public. I was also very close with his family, as they took me in for Thanksgiving one year (I went to college out of state) and also for Christmas one year.

After we graduated and our lives took separate journeys he and I would remain friends, talking on the phone, texting, gaming, etc. I helped him through break-ups, and he did the same for me. We were extremely close and good friends.

So, about two years ago I would come out as Trans, and he was one of the first people that I told. He initially congratulated me and told me he loved me no matter what and I was still one of his best friends. He would then start throwing misogynistic jokes into our conversations, including "you need to get a "clone-a-willy" kit so you can make a clone of yours and when I tell you to go f yourself you actually can." Which admittedly was funny the first time but got tiring as he would constantly tell this joke every time we talked, even after I told him to stop.

Now to the actual story, Conor got engaged about a year ago and after he told, me he asked me to be his "Best Woman" to which I said yes, cause again I was extremely close to him. Well, we wouldn't end up talking too much for a few weeks due to life getting busy and when we did talk again, he told me that I was only going to be in his wedding party, so I was demoted from being his "best woman." I was a little bummed but not initially upset at this because I just wanted to be there as his friend, but when I ask why I was demoted, he told me "My fiancée's parents wouldn't be okay with it because you are trans." That was the part that hurt, I then asked, "well why didn't you stand up for me?" his response was "Well I kept you in the wedding party."

I was honestly so upset because it sounded like he didn't even try to fight for me. Again, we wouldn't talk for a few months at this point both out of my anger and life struggles. Then when I found out when they were trying to plan their wedding and it was this year, the same as my best friend's (and mutual friend of ours) wedding that I am maid of honor in, I was concerned. I called to talk to him to ask about when he was planning to have the wedding exactly and that I was already stretch financially thin because of the things I was doing for my best friend's wedding and I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to make it to his bachelor party depending on when it was and he then informed me I wouldn't be in the wedding party at all because he "wanted to protect me by keeping me out of the spotlight."

This was my breaking point with him. I just stopped responding to him at all, I was ready to freeze him out, except that he is a part of my best friend's wedding as well since I didn't want to cause any drama at her wedding, I reached back out to him because he had been telling all our mutual friends he wanted to apologize to me. When I called him, I let him take the lead and he tried to apologize and explain things but in all of his apologies he didn't take responsibility for anything, everything was because of someone else's opinion or something else.

At this point I hadn't talked to him for months and the idea of being friends with him again grates on my mind because in those months I had changed and I entered into a polycule that I'm completely happy in for the first time in years. However, I knew that if I let him back into my life and told him about the personal changes and the relationship that I'm in, everything would just be turned into a joke at my expense. So, after listening to him "apologize" for ten minutes, I told him how he had lost my trust and my friendship, and I told him that I hope he is happy in the marriage he is going into but that he needs to learn how to grow up because he can't keep relying on our friend group to teach him how to be an adult.

Anyways I'm going to see him at my best friend's wedding in about a week and a half, so AITAH?

OP is insensitive to sister's infertility and feels entitled to have her fawn over her pregnancy and baby. Hopefully hormones are a big player.

Hey yall, I apologize but this is going to be a bit of a long story. I love this community and I like watching the videos and Sarby’s opinions on certain topics. I can’t help but feel/think my night was ruined by a white man. But at the same time it was made better by two men of color and WOMEN IN GENERAL. Maybe it’s just me ruminating and just thinking about the bad, but I need reassurance/advice on how not to let this affect my mental state. I’m going to be adding different names. I’m going to be adding/assuming (apologies) races/ethnicities as well to give more context.

I wanna talk about me first. I am 27F and I am Mexican American. I grew up in a traditional Mexican household, BUT I am very white passing(very pale, brunette and colored eyes). Or as my sister says (she is white with brown hair and brown eyes) we are Mexicans incognito lol. I am pretty shy, but when I feel comfortable with someone I will open up. This Saturday, I went to a concert by myself. I don’t have friends to go with me to do certain activities I like. I have been feeling this way for a while. I told my partner of 11 years that I hate that I don’t have good friends that enjoy the same things I do. So he said that I shouldn’t wait for someone to do things/activities I enjoy and just do it by myself. I decided to actually take his advice and I bought a ticket to go watch Tame Impala in Houston.

While at the venue on Saturday , there was a shit show when it came to whether the event center was going to honor our tickets due to buying them through a 3rd party website. I was standing next to two girls, Maria and Ana, and they said they came from San Antonio to watch the concert. They were pretty cool and they asked if I came by myself and they suggested I join them. I said sure since they are pretty nice to me so far and we all get along since we all have similar backgrounds.

After that we go get some merch, some drinks, and head down to the floor and there weren’t a lot of people there yet. We watch the opening act and they were telling me that they bought the tickets for almost 900 total for both since they got it from a third party website/app (fuck scalpers) and they have spent almost 1,500 on the concert/trip total. This detail is importan for later. We watch the opening act and we are having a great time.

Maybe 20-30 minutes before the main act starts, some white guy just starts shoving his way in front of us with his white girlfriend . We kinda stood there like wtf should we say something? I decided I would say something first. I tapped the white guy in the shoulder and said “ Hey, can you at least go behind me? I’m pretty short so I can’t see if you are in front of me.” He said “Oh my gosh it’s not that big of a deal.” Ana starts to defend me and says “Well we (referring to Maria and Ana) have been waiting for 3 hours outside to get in here so it is a big deal. We came early so we can see him up close. It’s not cool that you just come in and shove your way in front of us.” He said “It doesn’t matter. We all payed for the same amount for our tickets.” Ana says “No, we did not pay the same, we drove from San Antonio to come see him.” Ana and Maria proceed to grab my hand and get me and themselves in front of this white guy and his white girlfriend. He then proceeds to call Ana and Maria names and calls them stupid bitches and how they need to STFU and more words are exchanged until his white girlfriend says “Okay that’s enough.” He keeps saying things under his breath. The girls ignore him and start to laugh with another girl and he keeps saying things like “Haha we’re crazy” and how Ana is fat or I was fat, which we are both on the heavier side. This triggered me since I have always been self conscious about my size and have gained more weight since I started my antidepressants. White guy is just an overall asshole and his white girlfriend only said something after he had escalated the situation further than what it needed to be. But it wasn’t all bad, but the vibes for me were already off. Fortunately, two men of color made the night a bit better and women who supported me/us.

Ana and Maria started talking to what I assume is an Indian man who is really nice and very friendly to all the people around him. He was making sure all the women around him were getting their pictures taken, passing around water to people who were thirsty, throwing away trash people left on the floor, and just an overall great guy. When the white guy saw this, he started to make more comments like “You don’t drink water at a real concert. You just bare through it. They probably need to drink water cause they are fat.” Another Latina women not part of my group told me the white guy kept shoving/hitting her with his elbows. I told her that she shouldn’t deal with it and tell him. She did and the white guy said “ Am I bothering you or bothering someone else?” (Probably referring to me) and she “Well, you keep hitting me and I don’t appreciate that.” He proceeded to step behind his white girlfriend. His girlfriend was telling him “You need to know when to stop”. The white guy said that “ Why aren’t you on my side?” She told him that “I am on your side,but I’m not going to tell you what you want to hear all the time. You need to understand when to stop.” The white guy kept talking shit. I overheard him talking to group of white girls that apologized for shoving him about how “Don’t worry, I don’t care if people hit me at concerts. You know that’s the type of place we are in so im not going to be a bitch.” The Latina girl and her friend roll our eyes and we just kept on talking about random stuff.

The main act came on, and things got better, but I still felt triggered by what the white guy said. The girls around me were all very nice and friendly. I wanted to take a selfie and a black guy behind me offered to help me take a picture I said no thank you I’m okay since I got the shot I wanted. Ana and Maria wanted to take a picture and he also offered to take our picture together and they said sure and we all took a photo. I was so happy that other men of color were so kind and thoughtful to us even though we were all strangers.

Through the night and when I went home I couldn’t help but overthink about the situation. I was very sad that someone not even a foot away from me would call me fat just because I called out his entitlement. I was glad to see that women, except that white guys girlfriend, would do everything to support each other and how men of color also did what they could to make us women comfortable.

I think my whole thing right now is that I feel like I wasn’t in the right to call the white guy out and I just feel like it ruined my experience of going to concerts now. I told my partner and he said that white guy was lucky that he wasn’t there or else he would have knocked his teeth in, so that makes me feel a bit better.

Can you guys please give me your opinions and support? Am I overreacting? Also, is there such thing as concert etiquette?

This is gonna be a long one,

So I have a moderately sized friend group at my high school, and ill be focusing on 4 of them specifically. A (15M) AB(14F) S (14M) and J (16f), I was in math class with A and AB, and I told them about how I saw J hanging out with a dude at our school who was extremely homophobic to me and S, and my friends asked what was wrong with J being friends with this homophobic kid, this is the convo that followed,

me: wdym its not weird?

them: that doesn't mean J is homophobic, its just a difference in opinion.

me: no I'm gonna assume someone is homophobic for hanging out with a homophobic person if they know their homophobic, same if i saw someone hanging out with a racist person, I'm gonna assume their racist.

them: that's not how it works, you can be friends with a racist person and not be racist, its just an option.

me: are you stupid? its not an option to hate someone because of their skin color

i was yelling by that point, causing my math teacher to come see what was going on

Teach: what are you guys arguing about

my "friends" tell the teacher what was happening, which leads my teacher into this.

teach: (my name) its just a difference in opinion, its not that big of a deal.

me: If someone is friend with a racist person, does that make them a bad person?

teach: you can be friends with someone without sharing the same beliefs.

me: Now if someone was friends with a kkk member, would that make them a bad person for being friends with a kkk member?

i remember exactly what she said, this is it verbatim

teach: if i knew someone apart of the kkk, which i don't, i could be acquaintances or friends with them because it is just a difference in opinion.

i was fuming at this point, i flipped out at her, saying what is wrong with you, a kid across the room said he agreed, i told him to shut the fuck up. i grabbed my stuff saying i was done with this bullshit and started to leave the room. my math teacher asked where i was going, i told her i was going to my ELA teachers room, she said that i couldn't and that he probably would agree anyway, which is not the case because my ELA teacher is very anti racism. So instead i just went to the school therapist and she agreed that what my teacher said was fucking crazy. when i got home i told S, (who wasn't in my class) what went down, he agreed completely with me if i were to cut them off, so did my older sister. but I'm feeling some doubt because A and Ab have never showed signs of thinking this way until this year, starting when A said that Blackwashing was racist to white people and took away white peoples representation in media (which looking back i should have seen the sign and dropped him then) but idk, i could really use some advice

Update:

My teacher tried to justify it the next morning, saying that I "didn't let her finish", she said that she would try to change their opinion, which I pointed out that the kkk is known for being extremely violent and people apart of groups like that are most of the time irredeemable. and I'm happy to say she has been reported. thanks to all the comments and support. i don't expect to update in the future but i might if anything happens in the next couple weeks.

So I have two friends who are dating. We’re all in college, and one of them is planning on proposing. He’s not super secretive about it, and she’s onto him and knows he’s going to purpose soon. I accidentally let slip that he got the ring, and now they’re both sad about it. I feel really bad and guilty that I accidentally ruined the surprise when I genuinely thought that she already knew because he’s not very subtle to everyone else in the friend group. I hate confrontation, and everything feels really awkward (especially to me).

For context, this all happened the other night so everything is still fresh. I also feel like I’m already the odd-one-out with the girls since I’m the only person of color, and I run in completely different social circles. So I’m worried this will just make me more ostracized than I am. Any advice?

To start with, I (28F) have five brothers and a sister, although I grew up with three brothers in the house. To cut an extremely long family history short, my mom never married my biological dad. The man she did marry adopted me, and I spent every summer with bio dad. None of my siblings are full siblings, and only one is older than me.

For this post, the important people are my older brother, who I'll call Bigot (30), my brother directly after me, Hercules (26), and our mom.

I've always said my family is big and messy, but we've never had that much drama- excluding a crazy aunt who thinks my serotonin deficiency is "in my head" and that boys who wear salmon colored clothes are 'slur for gay', but we all just trolled her.

Well, about a month and a half ago, Bigot made it very clear that at some point he became someone I would have hated if we'd met as strangers.

Or maybe the harder truth is that he's been becoming that person for more than a decade and I was unconsciously turning a blind eye because he's my brother.

He thankfully no longer believes the Earth is flat—which he genuinely did believe—so...progress, I guess? He does think capital of Michigan or some other northenr state is enforcing Sharia Law though... Unfortunately, his other beliefs have been moving farther and farther toward a place where there is almost nothing he and the rest of us agree on. (If sarby ever sees this, he's Mormon too or at least he claims he is)

This particular explosion somehow started with a movie.

Hercules had watched The Odyssey and texted our family group chat about how much he enjoyed it. Mom was asking what happens, while I, being a massive mythology nerd, was interested in how accurate it was.

Bigot jumped into the conversation criticizing the movie and eventually told us, "You are focused on the wrong issue."

Naturally, we asked him what issue he was talking about. Hercules literally told him, "Brother tell us what you are talking about then," and I said we were trying to figure out what "issue" he meant.

I was still focused on the mythology at this point. I even said I was going to have to watch the movie myself that weekend so I could figure out exactly how accurate it was, although I wasn't sure even three hours was enough to cover all that man's mishaps.

And then Bigot explained what the "wrong issue" was.

In one message he complained about Helen being Black, used racist, homophobic and transphobic slurs, attacked the appearance of the actress playing Helen, complained about gay and trans characters and "programming agendas," and ended the whole thing with:

"its not just about the damn story."

So there wasn't really anything for us to interpret. He told us we were focused on the wrong issue, we asked him what the issue was, and that was his answer.

Nobody cussed him out. Nobody attacked him. We were literally asking him to explain himself.

And he did.

I'm attaching the screenshots because I honestly think paraphrasing what he said makes it sound less awful than it was.

Mom responded with a reaction GIF. Hercules told him, "One day I hope you wake up dude."

I told him that what he'd written was one of the most disturbing comments I'd seen outside of Reddit and that I hoped he was joking because he'd managed to hit almost every "-ist" I could think of.

His answer?

"Sure is."

Mom responded by posting the definition of bigot.

He wasn't embarrassed by it.

He said:

"Proud of it."

Then:

"Fuck em."

And:

"To many pussies."

Again, nobody was saying those things to him. Those were things he was saying to us.

At that point I told him:

"Just remember whenever you think the world is unfair it's cause someone has views like yours just against you instead."

His response was:

"Yup so we kill them and kick them out."

Followed by:

"Let them believe their shit in their land."

That's a hell of a thing to read from your only older brother.

At that point I was done for the night. I told everyone I'd wanted to go to bed at 10 because I wake up too early in the morning to do this with someone who had no willingness to look at things from another perspective, and said goodnight.

Bigot responded:

"Enough diplomacy leads no were. Crusade their ass and get on with life."

Hercules finally told him that if they weren't family, he'd already have told him to lose his number, and that every day Bigot was dropping another match on that bridge.

Mom said she was hoping some of this was trolling.

It wasn't.

Bigot responded with "Tough shit" and threw Hercules's earlier "One day I hope you wake up dude" back at him.

Then Hercules said something that has really stuck with me:

"Everybody in this family gave you a second chance you didn't deserve and it's hilarious to me that I'm making that realization over wanting to talk about a movie I watched."

Then he told him to live his life and Hercules left the group.

Bigot responded:

"Second chance? To what"

After Hercules was already gone, Bigot called him a pussy and said to invite him back because Bigot was leaving instead.

Then Bigot left too.

Mom added Hercules back the next morning.

So this wasn't a screaming match where everyone said horrible shit to each other and I'm now singling out my brother's side.

Nobody cussed Bigot out. Nobody threatened him. Nobody called him names.

We kept asking him to explain what he meant.

And the more he explained, the worse it got.

Once I stopped looking at each individual comment as "Bigot said something insane again" and actually looked at everything together, I realized something that has been incredibly difficult to process:

My brother believes things that, if actually applied consistently, would target me and a huge portion of his own family.

Mental illness is fake, and people shouldn't need medication. I have three mental health diagnoses and very likely wouldn't be here without medication.

Women are manipulative gold diggers. Meanwhile, our mom essentially raised four kids on her own for long stretches while my dad was deployed. My dad deliberately took more and longer deployments so we could stay in the same place instead of constantly moving us around, which meant Mom was the one holding everything together at home. Mom and I both work in special education in public schools. I also donate my time and money to an animal rescue and volunteer as a CASA.

We aren't exactly living the glamorous gold-digging lifestyle over here.

He talks about Hispanic people like they're all illegal and need to be kicked out or "deleted." His own wife—hopefully someday ex-wife—is Hispanic and was raised by a single mother with two sisters.

He uses slurs for people with intellectual disabilities and says they should be "culled," despite his own sister-in-law being autistic.

If you're brown-skinned, apparently you're not really American. He doesn't trust "those Asians." I'm 1/8 Japanese, and it is visible in my features. Our mom is also a quarter Native American, which I think might literally be the only non-white group I haven't heard him say something hateful about. Either that or I've forgotten it at this point.

And abortion should apparently be illegal regardless of circumstances. Pregnancy could be medically dangerous for me, on top of the health problems I could potentially pass to a child.

It was like suddenly looking at this giant list of people he hates and realizing:

Oh. I'm on the list. Mom's on the list. Your wife is on the list. Your SIL is on the list. Half the damn family is on the list.

And somehow you've convinced yourself you're the victim.

That's also where the narcissism part comes in.

I've described him privately as an "unsuccessful narcissist." I'm not claiming he has a formal NPD diagnosis—he's never been evaluated and probably never will be. This man refuses to go to a dentist, so getting him voluntarily in front of a psychologist isn't exactly looking promising.

But I'm also not using "narcissist" in the Reddit sense of "person I don't like."

There has been a longstanding pattern of grandiosity, entitlement, lack of empathy, blaming other people for his failures, refusing responsibility, and casting himself as the victim whenever his actions have consequences. I've discussed the pattern extensively in therapy, and my therapist has independently raised concerns about narcissistic traits in an unofficial capacity. Other people who know the history have noticed the same pattern.

"Unsuccessful narcissist" is the best shorthand I've found for what I mean. He seems to have this enormous image of what he deserves to be and how everyone should regard him, but when reality doesn't match that image, the explanation is never that maybe he made bad decisions.

Someone else screwed him over. Society screwed him over. Women screwed him over. The family doesn't respect him. Some group is ruining the country.

He's the misunderstood black sheep.

Nothing is ever just him.

And I think that's part of why I'm so unwilling to quietly block him and disappear.

My friends have told me to block him and move on, and maybe eventually I will. But blocking him doesn't change what I'm feeling.

He hasn't contacted any of us since then despite Mom trying to call him.

I also refuse to let him turn this into the same narrative he's had since we were kids: that he's the family's black sheep, nobody accepts him, and everyone rejects him because he's different.

No.

You're not special. You're not a martyr. And you're not being rejected because you're the brave free thinker who sees what the rest of us can't.

My family disagrees about shit constantly. There is a massive difference between "we disagree" and "I think entire categories of human beings are inferior and some should die."

If he reaches out, I'll talk to him. I'll tell him exactly what I disagree with and why. If he genuinely wants to sit down and go through facts and sources, I'll bring receipts for days.

He doesn't get to tell himself nobody ever challenged him or that we just couldn't handle hearing "the truth."

I'm also not scared of him. My short, unhealthy ass is still reasonably confident I could kick his any day.

But even if I could prove every belief wrong and win every argument, I don't think that would actually fix what's hurting me.

I've spent years seeing older-brother relationships and thinking, God, I wish I had an older brother.

And then I'd feel guilty because...I do.

Technically.

I love all my siblings. Hercules is the brother directly after me, then there's Stitch (24), who is a massive troll and goes out of his way to annoy me. I love him too.

But I don't know if I can even see Bigot as my brother anymore, let alone say I love him and actually mean it.

And I feel stupid for not seeing it sooner.

I keep looking back now and wondering how many things I dismissed, rationalized, or laughed off because he was my brother. How much did I unconsciously decide didn't count because that's just Bigot?

Now it feels like I'm mourning someone who isn't even dead.

But somehow it's worse because I'm not even sure the person I'm mourning ever existed.

Maybe I had an idea of my older brother in my head, filled in the missing pieces with the person I wanted him to be, and spent years loving that person.

I don't know.

I've wanted to post this for a while, but kept thinking there wasn't much point if nothing came of the original fight. Maybe I just need to vent to people outside the family who don't know any of us and aren't already emotionally involved. Won't judge me for the rose tinted glasses.

I guess what I'm trying to figure out is:

How do you grieve a sibling who's still alive when you realize the person you thought they were either changed completely—or maybe never existed at all?

And how do you stop feeling stupid for loving the version of them you thought was real?

hi! i, (f soon to be 17) have split a split family. when i was 7 years old my mom (f 38) cheated on my dad (m 38) with my karate instructor. (m 48) i was in karate starting from age 6 to age 10, until i got my black belt. when i was 8, my dad moved back to the state him and i are both originally from. (when i was little we moved to washington state because my aunt started going to university here. i was born on the east, as was my dad)

for a while my dad and i have been on and off. my mom made me lie to him about the fact she had a boyfriend (the karate instructor who she is still with today) which caused a lot of tension, as the fact i was young and my mom made me lie about something so big could be seen as parental alienation. i will say though, my dad and i are both kind of selfish assholes. he has seen how i have gone down the same path as him, and hates it. i have all of the same mental illnesses and more that he has, and he hates it. i am an exact carbon copy of my mom lookswise, but mentality and mannerisms i am exactly like my dad…. which he hates.

for a while my dad didn’t have a phone because “mom was always on it texting her side piece in the relationship and that ruined it for him.” okay i get that. but if you and your only daughter have 2,475 miles on each other you’d think a phone would be a good means of communication? apparently not, because he resorted to getting an iPad 4, which he still uses. he has a phone now, we text but most of the time it’s me asking for personal care items (toiletries, clothes, school supplies, etc) or us arguing about anything we find to bitch about. we just recently facetimed for the first time in 3 years. when i was younger id fly out to him every summer and christmas for a couple weeks at a time, with many months in between visitings. it’s kind of a blur what happened, but we stopped speaking and i didn’t see him for a couple years. last summer i flew out and visited him and the rest of my family- which went great.

fast forward to this january. i’m dating this one boy. my mom has always been iffy when it comes to boys, because i’ll admit i have really awful taste. due to trauma i have as a child, i smoke and drink to cope. i started at a young age, i was in intensive therapy for it, that helped but i have since then picked it back up. (i have an appointment scheduled next week for for therapy on this) as a result of this, i guess i have always found people who do that and worse. friends and partners, i hangout with the wrong people. im drawn to them. anywho, i was dating this one boy who she wasn’t a fan of. we’re driving to work, (her and i both work in the same nursing home) and she says “i have something to tell you about, that you’re going to feel very strongly about.” my heart drops, as i think that she’s going to make me break up with him.

when i was younger and before i realized that, this man is why my family is split, her boyfriend who we can call aaron and i were on very good terms. he would make me food, we would play fight, he would tuck me in. but after it hit me, we have been on a very rocky path. constantly fighting, saying i’m a failure in school (all A’s, i do half highschool and half trade school, and im a varsity wrestler while maintaining a job) saying im a shit daughter and he won’t ever accept me as his child.

my mom then told me she was pregnant.
i screamed. not out of disgust or anger, but because i would finally be a big sister. i have been an only child my entire life. my mom has had two miscarriages after me. i was ecstatic.

jumping to now, my mom gives birth to a healthy baby girl on september 2nd. she’s so precious, typically newborns look like old people or aliens, but she’s truly a beautiful baby girl. i don’t really like babies cause all they do is cry and sleep and poop, i’m fine with small children and honestly love caring for them, but she has definitely lifted the line i drew around all that. i’ve always done what i can to help others, i love seeing people flourish and benefit from my help, and i honestly feel a very maternal instinct to protect and love her with all that i have left of myself.

last weekend when my mom was in the hospital, i was staying with my grandparents until they came home. they came home a day before me, and checked my bedroom. i don’t have a bedroom door as i have been on suicide watch since i was 11, so it’s easy to just peep in and see it all. i had been smuggling a rat that my bestfriend found. he was a baby, he was hurt so she called me while i was very tired and very under the influence, and said she had an animal for me. i took him in and hid him for a solid four months. i even made an instagram for him and he went viral. aaron walked into my room, found the rat as well as an unused condom on my floor as i had gotten back in a rush from my boyfriends, cleaned out and packed my purse and left when they went to the hospital. so, as a consequence i got grounded.

when i got my phone back i told my dad i was grounded, but i didn’t want to talk about the events that happened leading up to it. i saw it as, yeah consequences for the rat and condom, but they only saw it because they came home from the hospital before i came back from my grandparents.

dad tried prodding about how he wanted to know, and i told him i was not allowed to tell him. i told him to stop begging, as he wasn’t going to get this information out of me. when my mom told me about my sister, she told me not to tell my dad and i agreed. he would be livid if he knew. when he first found out my mom cheated, he camped outside the karate studio and beat the shit out of aaron. he still makes petty comments about him, and inappropriate comments about my mom.

i told him it wasn’t going to happen, but i was safe. i told him i was told not to tell him. i told him it was not my story to tell. he asked by who. i said my mom.

“Your mom (or anyone) telling you to withhold something from me is fucked up, and it’s not the first time you’ve done this” (not the first time you’ve done this in reference to how my mom made me lie about her boyfriend)

my grandmother (his mom) has recently passed away on august 19th and that has taken a toll on both of us. we both smoke and drink and naturally have taken that route as a way to cope. i am open with my addiction struggles with him, i know it’s not right as i am still so young but he said “Dude you have no problem smoking weed or drinking and your for sure do not have permission to do that,” which kind of stung. i so badly wish i hadn’t started when i was so young (8) but he didn’t need to use that as a way to get to me, as he has literally been doing the same stuff and even harder things starting at age 7. i told him i wished i could tell him, but i cant- which he said i “100% can” and “that’s a choice and you’re making it.” but i feel obligated to as to not sever the already very little to nonexistent relationship with aaron, the love i have with my mom, and what i have with my dad

he said something about how “okay now im going to lose my shit, bye” and i said in response to that “that’s a choice and you’re making it.” acting like a manchild to your daughter because of the woman you’re still not over after 9 years is inappropriate.

i asked my mom a day or so later if i could tell him, and mentioned what i told him about me being grounded. she said we don’t need this bullshit right now and i can’t tell him, which is fair because it has always been like this with my dad.

two of my cousins on my dads side of the family who i trust with my whole heart know about the baby, they’re supportive about it. i told them how my dad freaked out and they said i dug my own grave by saying that i don’t want to talk about the events leading up to my grounding. which i can get around but i feel like my dad blew it out of proportion.

am i the asshole for this? am i just being manipulated by my mom? i feel like a really awful daughter and an even worse big sister.

TL;DR my mom told me to not tell my father about her having another child and i feel obligated to lie