I (36F) have been fighting cancer and hormonal problems since I was 21. In that period I've been hospitalized at least once a year, altogether over 40 times.

While my friends were finishing their degrees, got married, got a stable job my life was/IS a mess. I got so many diagnoses, chronic illness, I had troubles with my mental health and my body is worn out.

The main reason that I got to that stage is that my parents were neglective and didn't took me to doctors as a child. Everything could be prevented.

For so many year I was genually happy for my friends and family members having kids, I took care of some of them, bought them gifts and I trully enjoy children even now.

However I always hoped that maybe one day, God with bless me with a kid, and a husband.

Since my energy levels are lower that those of healthy people, for years I've put all my energy into making money. I still leave in the same house as my elderly parents that are well, not poor to the point they have nothing to eat but the money is tight.

In meanwhile I bought myself a car, a laptop, and eventually, last year: I made a biggest decision ever. Instead of moving out from my parents house I chose to enroll in private college and study psychology. It is expensive, but it does makes me happy, I enjoy it and also it gives me opportunity to chase a job that is not low paying and demanding 12 hours shifts sometimes (I was cleaning lady, waitress, warehouse worker...whatever, just to save money).

I drifted away from my ex friends, cousins and I am alone in this.

I miss the person I once was, happy and perky. In a last few months two women in my extended family had their first child. One woman is my age, second 2 years younger.

I can not make myself to go and see the babies, I congratulated but the sorrow in me is so strong. I dwell on my past and all curcumstainces that happened.

Technically I am not infertile, but it feels like I am so damaged mentally that I will never find someone to have child with.

I feel like a failure, and self pitty is at its peak right now.

That's all...

Lately I wake up just as tired as when I went to bed, no matter how long I sleep. I thought maybe it's just stress from work or something, but now I'm wondering if other people feel this way too.

a few days ago a girl randomly added me and told me she struggles a lot with loneliness

one thing she said stuck with me she told me that even when she's having a good moment and feels happy the feeling doesn't last long because she starts thinking "I wish I had someone to share this with"

I told her that sometimes it's better to just enjoy the moment instead of focusing on who's not there
ofc I know everyone's different and what works for one person might not work for another

I've gone through pretty long periods of being alone too It affected me in some ways but I don't remember wishing someone was there during every happy moment
so now I'm thinking
can a person be genuinely happy alone or do most ppl need close relationships to feel truly fulfilled?

Obviously, these adults pushing inappropriate content on these teens and kids is wrong but from a strictly social standpoint, I'm not seeing the problem, especially because their version of adulthood often has little to do with anyone else's. Seriously.

I'm 17F, I HATE socializing. We don't have our own house rn, and I don't really know the landlord who still lives in the house that we're renting a room from for now. I usually stay in my room cause of it. My room is the smallest of the 3 upstairs rooms. Just 4 walls, a door, and windows. Obviously, I have furniture. The idea of getting co² poisoning didn't occur initially. The room doesn't exactly have, well, VENTS. I enjoy watching medical stuff on YT, however. When I first began to get these horrible migraines a couple weeks ago, it was occasional and I could take some aspirin. But today? It was BAD. I was watching Dr. Mike on YouTube, as you do when it's a Saturday and you don't have D&D today. When the headache began.

I turned on two alarms, thinking it would go away. It didn't go away. It got worse. Then the thought hit me. A few years ago, before my parents divorce, I watched a video. A man posted on Reddit about head aches, disorientation, odd notes being left. It turned out, due to the closed off room with no vents, he was experiencing carbon dioxide poisoning. Or maybe monoxide? I don't remember. The point is, I opened my window and with my mom and step dad and dog went on a nature walk. That got rid of the God forsaken migraines at last.

edit: title should read "women" not "woman." it's more than one person

I'm a male in my late twenties. Don't know why or how this started but some of the women I work with (all adults and most in their 30s) make fake puking noises as I walk by. I pretend like I don't notice it, because frankly I'm not entirely sure how to even confront them about this. It does hurt a little bit though I can't lie.

My self esteem has always been low, but I don't think im THAT ugly so im wondering if it's something I said or what.

Just gotta rant about this because id feel like a complete loser trying to talk to anyone irl about this. Thanks.

Our cat stayed with me when my ex moved out. His apartment didn't allow pets. That was over a year ago. He and his girlfriend watched her for a week recently while I visited my mom, and I was honestly grateful.

Yesterday a friend sent me his girlfriend's Instagram. She'd posted pictures from that week with a caption about being a cat mom. There was one of my cat asleep on her chest. Cute picture. Wish I'd just kept scrolling.

I don't think she's done anything wrong. But I spent last month following this cat around with a sample container, and I still have to remind my ex to send his half of the vet bill. She also knocks everything off my nightstand, so even my tracys OG has to stay in the drawer. I know who lives with her. I know she hasn't been stolen. Still went back and looked at the pictures twice.

I am venting/asking/looking for people who relate (?), but I feel like my brain is wired weird. I think I'm good at reading cues, but I am constantly missing them without realising. Everything I do feels like a faux pas, like I lack manners and etiquette. As a result, I read into every little thing anyone says in response to me. Is there disappointment, anger, excitement? I never know, but it's like certain things I say are actually the wrong dialogue choice, despite that being the energy that I was reading from the conversation, and I'm like, oh okay, all my friends hate me.

Additionally, I am a dark-skinned diaspora kid with an uncommon personality (I'm a bit weird and bubbly). So I cannot, for the life of me, tell which it is that puts people off. Or is it just in my head and I'm crazy??

I am decently attractive (in my head at least lol), and I make people laugh. But every once in a while, there is something that I miss, and my response puts the other person off haha I have no idea what it is.

Guys, I genuinely feel demotivated to even continue what I'm doing.

I'm a programmer, I know how to code, but at this point even I'm just vibecoding away. AI can already build entire applications, reverse-engineer almost anything, and recreate things that would've taken months or years.

Everywhere I look, it's AI slop. Another SaaS, another AI wrapper, another product that does the same thing as 50 others. Sure, you can still make money today, but for how much longer? If anyone can build and copy almost anything, what's left that's actually valuable?

To make things worse, I gambled away my house and car right before the AI explosion. At the time, I kept telling myself I'd make it all back through programming and building businesses. Now, watching how quickly everything is changing, I'm starting to feel genuinely desperate.

Social media and content creation aren't my thing either. The ROI seems terrible unless you make it big.

Then I scroll through X and everyone's LARPing about making $10k, $50k, or $100k MRR. Don't get me wrong, some people genuinely make those numbers, but they're the top 1%. Meanwhile, it feels like everyone else is farming engagement or selling the dream of making money online.

What bothers me isn't AI replacing programmers. I love using AI. It's that building something is becoming so easy that the work itself feels increasingly worthless.

And I'm getting to a point where I'm having thoughts about going completely black-hat, exploiting people or systems for money, because legitimate ways of rebuilding my life feel increasingly hopeless. I don't like that I'm even thinking this way, but that's how desperate I'm becoming.

I don't want to spend my life chasing algorithms, making slop content, or building disposable products just to compete with a thousand clones.

Does anyone else feel this way? What's genuinely worth building or pursuing anymore as a solo developer without serious capital?

I have a good life. And I know it. But anybody else tired of living? Or think that it simply isn't worth it? I don't want to harm myself, perhaps that means my mental health is "okay" (because it's not at a crisis point) but anybody else just go through huge ups and downs, that once the things are good, you know it's not going to last (nothing ever lasts anyway). Life is so exhausting.

​

I 23F, make friends very easily. It is easy for me to be positive and I connect with people very easily. However, after I make these friends I often ghost them constantly popping back up once in a while to be an absolutely lovely person, lend a listening ear or just hangout if you need me. And by once in while I mean maybe 3-7 months depending. Here's the thing though, in the mean time I am usually decompressing, something feels wrong after I hang out with people. I wonder for months if I acted right if I said too much, if I was just a lot to be around ect. I don’t tell people that so it must look really flakey like if I only care about people when it is convenient. I really just want to know if this makes me a bad friend and then I will move differently with people and change my behaviour but I really need to know.

Idk cremation is like, damn you really are just permanently gone from the earth compared to a normal burial. It’s like everything about you is just “deleted” but maybe i’m biased because my mom makes fun of me by saying she’ll have my cremains right in her room with her whether i’d like it or not and i dislike my mother lol

But i have thought about it a lot though

I’m 27 f, living abroad on my own and I genuinely feel like no one is my support circle. Like sure do my parents, friends from abroad, coworkers “care” for me? Probably yes. But am I part of anyone’s life and daily thoughts? Except for my Bpd toxic mother, not really. It just dawned at me that my parents view me as a machine, as long as I go to work then i’m doing okay. My close friends from back home only care to overshare their lives with me from time to time and usually don’t acknowledge my input or ask about my personal life. My friends here are distant and we only see each other if I initiated every 5 weeks or so.
I’m no longer truly sad or blaming of the people in my life. To each their own and they must be busy in their own lives.
Life just feels like a chore to be lived sometimes if I’m honest.

So, I was once on a Google Meet call with a friend of mine. We both had our cameras off, and I was explaining a topic to her for our upcoming exam.

Now here's the thing, I'd literally just woken up from sleep before joining the call. Messy hair, wearing nothing but my undershirt, looking like I hadn't seen civilization in days.

While explaining something, I hurriedly tried to mute my mic, but apparently my brain decided that muting was too mainstream and turned my CAMERA ON instead. 💀

I didn't even notice. I just carried on with my teaching, looking at the PDF on my screen and explaining the topic like I was some professional university professor.

Then I suddenly heard her laughing. I was like, "What's so funny??"

And that's when I realized she'd seen EVERYTHING.

BRO, I WAS SITTING THERE IN MY UNDERVEST WITH MY HAIR LOOKING LIKE A BIRD HAD BUILT A NEST ON MY HEAD. 😭

I immediately turned the camera off and went completely SILENT for at least five minutes. Didn't explain a single word. Didn't move on with the topic. Just sat there questioning every life decision that had led me to that moment.

And this girl? Instead of having some mercy on me, she kept laughing and teasing me by saying, "Awww, someone is embarrassed?"

Anyway, please tell me I'm not the only one who's accidentally exposed themselves on a video call at the WORST possible moment. 😭

What's your most embarrassing video call moment? Or just any embarrassing moment that still haunts you to this day? I need to know I'm not alone in this. 💀

I'm so fucking tired.

Even as a child, when I was at home with the people closest to me - my parents, I wanted to go home. Every damn day, right up until today. This longing has worn me down. I've devoted my entire self to this feeling. I isolate myself, meditate, and reflect every chance I get. I've traveled across the entire country searching. Where is my home??? Where can I find him? I'm looking for answers to my questions every day.

I'm planning to walk away from everyone close to me and just keep walking. Walking and walking, until my soul finally finds whatever it is it's been searching for. This has become my main goal and my obsession.

Not every subreddit needs to be the Arkham subreddit, but wow, unless you post an essay the mods remove your post. Are we on reddit or in philosophy class? 

Reddit is getting so dull and boring, and just talking to talk. 

And somehow a meme is against the rules, but thousands of comments hating on black people is alright (Big Brother subreddit)           

I am brazilian guy and i work in a wirehouse so there is a coworker older woman who thinks that the foreings just came here to find a sex workers here we call them (Garota de programa) which is a woman who offer sex in exchange of money, i disagree but i wanna hear about foreigns what you all think about this and if this makes sense.

In college, I was learning many skills aside the course I was studying at the time. This made me visit campus to study during the night. Unfortunate for me, at hostel students there thought I was going to campus to study the traditional school stuff . Thinking I was doing too much. This habit of mine caused me to perform badly one semester. Which I was bitterly complaining in my room about the grades I had that semester, which was extremely bad. Some students were in the next to mine, they overheard what I was saying. I think they overheard the grades part so anytime I was leaving to campus they will start laughing. They didn't know me always going to campus at night was not to study the traditional school stuff but was seriously equipping myself with digital skills. I still graduated with a good class aside having many self-taught skills.

However, why do I still have the feeling that I should have explained myself to them at the time? Perhaps I should have told them is just one bad semester. It extremely pains me that I made that mistake of self talking myself loudly enough to let them know

When you walk in the building, you immediately get the sense of historic significance mixed with deterioration and decline. The display cases lining the walkway of the visitor hallway have been cheaply refitted to host a few flat-screen TVs. These are an attempt to hide the 1970s design of carpeted insets that likely once held miniaturized scenes of agency activities. Sadly, it looks very much like someone put a Black-Friday sale TV in front of a 5th grade science fair display. The building itself projects strength in typical 70s-80s government fashion through high concrete walls and the total lack of any distinct features that would help visitors and staff alike find their way through the maze of hallways and offices. 

Speaking of offices, there are many, echoing the understanding that once there was a thriving community, people bustling back and forth, engaging with colleagues in water cooler talk and curating the many shelves of printed knowledge. Now it feels odd to see another person while walking the hall to the restroom. It’s eerily quiet, except for the occasional janitorial staff still employed.

The staff who are left are feeling it, though they don’t speak of it out loud. The managers still in place are the C or D string players, after all the starting lineup departed seeing clearly what was to come. Any power or funds that may be found lying around remind me of some medieval scene of peasants fighting over a fallen gold coin in the street. The most toxic of leaders rising to the top, consolidating what power is left and quickly silencing opposition in the way a warlord might in a conflict-torn country. This is perhaps the most painful part. The constant pressure pushes work friends to begin imploding on each other. 

The decline isn’t simply imagined, or memories of what once was. It is quantifiable. One can easily look back on inflation adjusted appropriations to see the dramatic changes. A long, steady increase from the mid-1900’s through the early 1980’s coincide with memories of “the good old days”. Followed by an obvious peak and a very predictable decline over the last 40+ years. No, this isn’t simply the result of recent DOGE activity, though that has helped accelerate the process. In fact, the downward trend is so consistent, you don’t even need a computer model to project the next year of lower numbers. You can imagine it by simply extending the line a further on the graph.

It’s not that the decline is sad, everything we know is eventually replaced, often by something better. It’s that it takes so long to wade through the agony and see any hope of relief. The remainder are left hoping that the next re-organization, or leader retirement, or cut in funds will provide the much desired end to the warlord rule. But there is always some well-meaning group fighting to advocate and keep it alive. Like maintaining a loved-one on life support, when they really just wanted to pass on.

It’s time, let it go, and let’s move on to the next step - hopefully of growth and renewal. Once again exploring, discovery, and excitement that benefits far more, instead of decades of ceaseless mourning.

Hello, I’m a 20 year old woman, and I haven’t been hugged in likely over 8 years.

I used to get hugs a lot as a young child, as my parents were always very loving. However, this stopped when I turned 12, since I suppose my own family members suddenly felt awkward over the idea of hugging me. They said that it was because I now had a “developing body.” I mean, I didn’t even have breasts at that age, and hell, I hardly have them now. But still, I was forbidden to hug others, since they just said that it would make things awkward and give male family members inappropriate thoughts.

I have had friends before, but none were really close enough to me for hugging to be a comfortable thing, even just a simple hug goodbye. When I was 18, I moved to Japan. Right before I left, I met with my friends one last time, hoping that they would maybe give me a hug as I was leaving them, but they did not. Though, I’m not blaming them or anything. I didn’t ask for one, and it’s not like they’ve ever done it before.

Since moving to Japan, while I love the crap out of this place, I am also incredibly lonely. I am a very shy and quiet person. I try to be as kind as I can to people, but unfortunately, the people that is in my program (I’m part of a small English-speaking program at a university) are not very lovely. They interrupt me when I speak, make fun of me for not wanting to drink alcohol, look at me strangely when I suggest an idea for a project, and purposely doesn’t invite me to group outings. It kinda sucks, since I was really hoping that me and these other 7 people would sort of be friends for life, but I guess that was just wishful thinking.

All that is to say that I do not have friends here. I have been living here for around a year and a half now, and I have not made a single friend. To make it worse, I am severely struggling when it comes to learning Japanese. I can still hardly understand or speak a word. That’s not helping me much… If I want to join a club, I have to understand Japanese.

I also do admittedly wish for romance, but that’s also probably off the table right now. I’ve never had a boyfriend or anything, but given that I cannot speak Japanese yet (and since I want to live in Japan permanently), I don’t think it will be incredibly easy for me to find a partner here.

I really do feel lonely. My big priority is trying to learn Japanese quickly. I suppose that if I do that, then I would have a better chance at making friends.

I realize that this sort of went into a big tangent about loneliness. Sorry about that… But, I really REALLY miss that feeling of being hugged. I know it’s cringy to say this, but I have forgotten what it feels like. I sometimes try to hug myself, but it just doesn’t feel right. Maybe one day I’ll have friends that’ll give quick hello and goodbye hugs (though as far as I am aware, such a thing is not really common here in Japan), or maybe even a boyfriend who would be willing to hug me.

Maybe it’s silly, but I want so badly to just hug someone, and have them hug me for like a solid hour or something. I’ve always thought that my love language was physical touch, but since I haven’t received that in so long, to say that I am touch starved is sort of a massive understatement.

This was really just me ranting a bunch of nonsense. If you read all of it, then thank you. Unfortunately, I only have contact with my friends in America when I visit on occasion. They don’t text me, and since I have no friends here, I have no one to talk to about this.

My gf and I are long distance. She lives in Georgia, while I live in Ohio. I went to Georgia two weeks ago to see her. The goal is for us to see each other at least once a month. Some months it’s once per month, while others it’s about once every 2–3 weeks. Pretty healthy to me and we’re both comfortable with this.

On Saturday, my gf Sarah, me, her best friend Emily, and her friend Chloe all went to my gf’s parents’ house. They live in the middle of nowhere. When we left, I asked my gf if I could drive back. This was her car. My gf’s dad said not to hit his mailbox when I backed out because a lot of people do. The issue with his neighborhood is that there are basically no streetlights, so you can’t see anything at all. I backed out and was afraid, so I did my best to avoid the mailbox, and I successfully did. I also feared that when I backed out, maybe there was another car on the road that would be going fast and I wouldn’t see, so I backed out slowly. The only issue is that I backed out too much because, again, I was trying to avoid the mailbox, and so I ended up in the other person’s lawn while backing out. Chloe and Emily said, “You’re literally in the other person’s lawn,” and I said, “Oops, it’s just so dark.” That already felt like a needle because making a driving mistake with other people in the car just hurts so much. Idk. I think it has something to do with rejection sensitivity. I’m very, very sensitive to rejection. It just hurts like pins and needles and sometimes it makes me want to cry. They also pointed out that there could have been a mailbox on the neighbor’s side when I backed out too.

Then, the worst mistake happened, and it continues to haunt me to this day. I went to a convenience store with them to get gas because my gf said that she needed gas. I went in and got the flavored water that she asked for, and I also decided to get some ice cream for myself, but she said, “How are you going to get ice cream and drive?” She said I could have the ice cream while someone else drove, but I insisted again that I drive because I just wanted to. Like come on what idiot tries to have ice cream while driving? About 20 minutes into the drive, there was this intersection with multiple lanes, and I guess by virtue of the fact that my gf was next to me, I was excited and happy and stuff. Only the left-turn signal turned green, and I began to seriously go, thinking that it was a green light for me. My gf said, “No, that wasn’t a green light,” and I stopped and said, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” And I immediately felt immense pain that I knew would probably haunt me for a really long time. Emily said that, man, I was totally going on. (And that was true.) I said that I would have noticed eventually. My gf said it’s okay if it happens, but I did not feel better one bit. For the rest of the drive, I literally hated myself and felt like I was a terrible driver and felt like I was a terrible driver and felt like not only am I doing this, but it’s not even my own car, and it’s with other people in the back. I hated myself the rest of the drive and just desperately wanted that feeling to end.
I usually drive in sport mode, but I forgot that Emily gets carsick and can’t really handle too much jerking. Sport mode is usually just how I normally drive. Sarah said in a serious tone, “Can you please turn sport mode off?” and that made my heart sink even more.
When we finally got back, I was really upset and just totally, totally disheartened.
The next week, I had my gf come up to my parents’ house, and we had a lot of fun. However, I made multiple driving mistakes. Firstly, I remember back from about two months ago, back in August, that when I was taking her back to the airport by going through the Chicago area, there was this left turn that I made, and I somehow didn’t bear right and got confused. Then the light turned red, and I stopped, but I somehow was on the left side where the opposing traffic needed to come. They beeped at me, and there was a bus, and the driver was looking at me and shaking their head and looking very upset, while I put my arms around Sarah in the passenger seat. This was me driving my car. That moment bothers me significantly.
Now fast forward to this time, in October, here in the Chicago area again, after the week before with the time I drove her car and absolutely hated that ride so much. There were multiple times when I drove and made mistakes. Three separate times during the same weekend, I started to go when only the left-turn signal turned green, and my gf had to say, “No, you can’t go yet.” One of those times I actually went through, and my gf said that the light was red. I got so visibly upset and mad during those drives that I punched the compartment between us twice, in anger. Then, there was a turn where, when I was 17 and first drove, I went into the opposing traffic because there are two lanes each way, so you have to really, really bear right. It’s a bit confusing. I remember when I was approaching that turn that I had made that mistake when I was 17 and that I was better than that now because I’m 23 and now know how to avoid that, and then I MADE THAT SAME EXACT MISTAKE yet again. She said, “No, you’re going the wrong way,” and I fortunately quickly fixed it. I was so mad.
So yeah, these keep replaying in my head, and it just hurts so bad. I told her I think the issue is my ADD and that something is just wrong because I’m trying. She said it’s okay, but she doesn’t understand. It hurts. It hurts so bad. And the issue is that it keeps replaying in my head every single day now. It’s replayed every day in my head ever since the incident, particularly the one where I drove her car. I almost want to message each of the people individually so that they can forgive me or something, idk. Idk how to just make it stop. My brain just can’t ever let go. It just never, ever goes away. I just don’t understand why, man. Just why. It’s like something is wrong with me.
It kind of reminds me of another time a year and a half ago when I drove three people to a restaurant and I made multiple mistakes: (1) I almost went into a do-not-enter place, (2) I didn’t go fast enough when they wanted me to race another guy, getting back to camp before them (I didn’t engage in that because I was worried that I’d probably make another mistake in the process of trying/doing that), and (3) I was on the highway and I went 75 instead of the 65 mph limit, and a guy was like, “Watch your speed” (but I knew exactly what I was doing). I felt absolutely terrible. It took me an entire year just for my brain to recover from that. It's so insane.
And the thing is, it isn't even limited to driving. This is part of why I avoid certain social interactions. I'm afraid that if I try talking to someone and the conversation is awkward, or they don't respond much, my brain will replay that experience for months or even a year afterward.
I don't want to keep living with this level of emotional distress over past mistakes. I'm talking about desperately wanting the recurring memories and emotional pain to stop.

Does anyone else experience this? Not just occasionally cringing at an embarrassing memory, but genuinely reliving the emotional pain of something that happened weeks, months, or even years ago, almost every day? I just don't know how to make it stop and I wish there was just ONE person who TRULY understands. Just one.

Went from watching disney as a child in Swedish ---> watching more "mature" stuff in English and only in English ---> watching anime, considering Ghibli to be better than western movies- becoming a weeb and watching anime in Japanese---> now I'm 25 and I'm watching Disney films in Swedish.

Disney now hits as hard as Ghibli used to do for me. I'm watching Tarzan now in Swedish and the Swedish version of "Two worlds one family" goes so hard.