I'm 20 years old and I am so tired of being angry

My parents divorced when I was younger because my father was unfaithful. He cheated. moved on, married and started another family and has a kid. Sometimes I wonder how the fuck someone gets to destroy their family and then just start over like nothing happened. I don't know if he gives a fuck about me, he barely calls me and I know the only reason he does is because my grandfather pressures him to.

I have a younger brother with special needs and while I love him it's difficult growing up with him, I had to take on pressures at a young age that I wasn't prepared for because my dad was too much of a fucking coward to take care of his boy. It's not even just about me, my brother is nonverbal he doesn't understand what happened, just one random day his father just disappeared and that breaks my heart.

It has been the worst for my mother who had to look over 2 kids all by herself and she had taken that anger out at me threatening to kick me out over shit that just didn't matter.

I don't just hate what my father did, I hate who I have become. I am so insecure, so bitter, so resentful I crave attention and validation and I hate admitting that. I hate how easily I get hurt.

Im not gonna blame my dad for every shitty thing that i've ever done I made my own mistakes, i've hurt people I've acted in ways that make me ashamed and I have to take responsibility for that.

But I wonder who I could have been if my life had been different. Maybe I would be calmer, kinder, at peace. It feels like I've lost who I was supposed to become even if that person doens't really exist.

I don't want any revenge, i dont want to spend my whole lfie blaming other people, I just want to wake up one day and have some peace.

I’m a late bloomer and struggled socially as a kid. At 30 years old, I made it a point to make sure I formed more meaningful platonic relationships, as my life was revolving around romantic relationships. After my last relationship recently ended, I wanted to step outside my comfort zone and push myself to get out there to make friends after realizing my support system is basically non existent and all I had was my romantic partner. It has been a nightmare.

I’m not socially anxious, I just can be shy like I imagine most people are. As a man though, it has been utterly exhausting going to meet new people and meeting the following types of people:

1. Other men who just want to have a dick measuring contest about how manly they are. Not interested in spending an entire evening hearing about how many women you ‘pull’, or how many hours you work to be on that ‘grind’.

2. Women who think I’m trying to hit on them. I’m not going up to strangers in random places, I’m going to specific ‘meet ups’ labeled for making friends. I almost feel like I need to say ‘hi, I’m Rickayy_OG, I’m not trying to hit on you just trying to make friends’. I’m not blaming women at all, since there are a lot of predatory men out there, but it sucks to navigate nonetheless.

3. Socially awkward people who you have to interview to get basic info from them. I get they are at places to meet people too and have good intentions, but it sucks to basically be in an interview with someone because they can’t have a basic back and forth conversation.

I want to make friends so I don’t spend all my time alone. We live in such an anti social world filled with rage baiters, attention seekers, and fakers who don’t actually want to form meaningful relationships. Shit; even on Reddit forums it feels like it’s just rampant with AI profiles collecting info from people for their bots.

I’m obviously going to keep putting myself out there to find my people, but it’s exhausting sometimes! I don’t want to be best friends with my coworkers, I don’t want to keep going to meet ups that just feel like a bunch of anxious people in a room trying to make it work. I just want to make some friends to drink beers with, go on hikes and just talk.

Oh well, onwards and upwards I suppose!

So, here goes. I looked for communities where I could tell this story after watching a few insomniac videos exploring Reddit. There were all kinds of weird stories, each stranger than the last, and it's been a few months now since the ending of my story came to me. Well, the ending, or rather the strange place I've found myself in today. It's somewhere between a glitch and the paranormal, but these communities have so many restrictions that I was afraid my story wouldn't fit.

I've told my mother, but never my sisters. I've told my therapist, who knows quite a bit about my history with this dream. But taking a step back and telling the story like this, anonymously, in the middle of the internet, might help me give it a place outside myself, offer you something to read during a sleepless night, and find other words for it. It's a personal story, and I want to take the time to tell it in my own words.

For both your sake and mine: this isn't a request for advice, support or a response. It's just... my strange little story, coming straight from my chest.

**Dad (2010)**

My father died when I was still fourteen. I have conscious memories of him: tender, firm, the kind of man who wanted the best for me and my two sisters, and funny, too. I've missed my dad every day for sixteen years, but he must be so proud to see all of us today, my mother and my sisters included.

My father died in hospital following both a road accident and the surgery he underwent afterwards. When I was little, I didn't understand everything properly. I filled in the gaps later, when I was old enough to look at things more clearly, but my mother was always there to explain things to us properly, without prudishness and without being overprotective.

He was driving home at night. The road and the weather were normal. It was night, and it was raining lightly, but there was nothing particularly dangerous about the conditions. He was driving straight along the road when he reached an intersection. Another car failed to stop at the intersection, drove straight into him, hit his car and apparently sped away without the driver even trying to help him. A literal hit-and-run.

My father was badly hurt. Other drivers who came along shortly afterwards found him, stopped, called the fire brigade and the police, and he was taken to hospital. My father had to undergo a transplant, and it was probably the transplant that went wrong: rejection, an infection, and, despite attempts at treatment that his body couldn't withstand, a rapid deterioration. My mother was there for him. We visited him less often than she did. I don't know everything they might have said to each other, but I often imagine their final moments together.

I was lucky enough to say goodbye to him shortly beforehand, while he was still conscious, still making me laugh, just as I wanted to remember him. That's what I think of when I think of him, and it makes me happy, rather than remembering him as a vegetable under morphine, waiting to die. He was forty-eight, and he left us like someone wise, still young, curious about death, without fighting it. The last image I have of him, closing the bedroom door behind me while he smiled at me tenderly, is the one that feels most like him.

The driver was identified. There was an investigation, prosecution and trial. Here, too, my mother kept us informed, but only as much as she felt necessary. My older sister accompanied her all the time. I was only able to attend towards the end, and my younger sister never went at all. I saw a few faces: members of the defendant's family, her daughter, a child who must have been around my age. But my memories of those people soon became blurred, and I never really held on to them.

The defendant received a heavy sentence for the hit-and-run and the aggravating circumstances of driving under the influence. Oh, I'm French, and I'm doing some translation work as I write this, but I imagine the law can't be all that different in these circumstances. I'd only attended the conclusion of the proceedings, and I remember that at fifteen, I wasn't thinking about the compensation we would receive or the punishment the guilty person would face. I felt neither vengeful nor resentful. I preferred to understand how someone could end up doing something like that, and I also felt sorry for her daughter, who was going to lose a dad, too.

**Night Drive (2010–2026)**

As a teenager, I had this dream a lot. I've been having it regularly, about once a month, ever since the first time. It has never left me. And ever since, I've felt very uncomfortable being a passenger in a car. Getting my driving licence was the first thing I did as soon as I turned sixteen, and I'm still always looking for opportunities to drive. Even when it's not my car. Seriously, my friends know me well, and they're brave to put up with me. As a passenger, I'm very uncomfortable. I need to sit in the back, or even lie down if I'm alone: anywhere but the front passenger seat, the *death seat*, rather than the driver's seat, which is where I sit in the dream.

It's night-time, and I'm in the front passenger seat. It's not raining, but there are lights like the ones in a tunnel. It could be any night, but I have the impression it's autumn or winter, because in some versions of the dream I stick my head out of the window and the air is very cold. I'm just a normal passenger. There's nothing anxiety-inducing about the situation. I don't know where we're going, but I'm not being kidnapped or anything. Someone is driving at night, we enter a mountain tunnel, and that's it. This part of the dream is peaceful. The scenery changes from one occurrence to the next. It's very contemplative: I look ahead or watch the landscape through the window, that's all.

Sometimes I mumble to myself or hum a tune, but after a while, I always end up turning towards the driver. His profile is dark, always blurry. I get his attention by speaking to him. He turns towards me, looks at me or says something, and I wake up with a horrible start, like I'm coming out of a nightmare. You'd have to hear me waking up when I have this dream. My partners have been lucky so far. Anyway, I have a chance to see his face, and the dream collapses.

But here's the thing: I do see him. I know I see his face, and that the dream ends at that moment. I'm even aware of it from one dream to the next, aware that I saw his face the last time. While I'm dreaming, I remember. But when I wake up, it's impossible to picture him, describe him or bring to mind the face I know I've just seen. I see him in the dream, and he disappears along with it.

Apart from a few variations, this dream has never really changed. The scenery, the music on the radio, what I tell him: those things vary, but the structure is terribly consistent. A textbook case. On a long, straight stretch of road like the one where my father died, the driver looks at me, and his face fades away.

**Juliette (2026)**

At the beginning of this year, my mother insisted on talking to me about something important. She'd been rather discreet about it for several weeks, wondering whether she should bring it up. She's a very gentle, wise and level-headed person who takes the time to think things through. She's also learned to take on more than her fair share of other people's burdens, so we have to find her some flaws, too.

Shortly after New Year's, she received a call from a young woman who told her she was twenty-eight, barely my age. She sounded moved, shy and nervous, but was trying to keep herself composed. She'd done a lot of work digging through records and finding a way to contact my family. In France, there's an emerging process called restorative justice, which is still somewhat marginal. There was a very beautiful film about it. She'd gone through the process with the help of a lawyer, and she'd taken the first step.

Her name was Juliette. Her parents were separated, and she visited her mother in the countryside from time to time. Her father had died at the beginning of the previous autumn. He'd been released from prison. He'd been scraping by, living in fairly miserable conditions. He'd seen his daughter again, without daring to ask too much of her, a little broken, a little sad. She, for her part, felt as though she'd abandoned everyone. She worked in Paris, far away from the South-West of France where we'd both spent our childhoods.

And when he died in the little place where he'd managed to get by, apparently living like a drunk, she felt as though she'd ruined too many people's lives for someone her age. I don't live in Paris, but I go there sometimes, for work too, and I take the opportunity to do a little sightseeing. Still, I couldn't live there all the time. I need nature too much, and I need to run.

Juliette wanted to talk to people she imagined might be close to her, people who had been through something similar. She didn't want to apologise on her father's behalf or speak words that weren't hers to say. She wanted to understand her father, and it took me fifteen years to realise that I, too, wanted to understand everyone. Just that, without hatred or violence.

My mother didn't really dare to talk to her much. She didn't know what to say. She understood that Juliette was looking for something, but she wasn't the person who could give it to her. Intuitively, she suggested that Juliette talk to me instead. Maybe because I was closer to her age, or because she'd sensed something in us that felt alike. I thought about it a lot after my mother told me. I kept that phone number for a long time. I'm the kind of person who runs a lot, who runs away. I don't even know whether I've left that behind me.

Then, sometime in the spring, I received a message from Juliette's number. I'd never dared to take the initiative myself, but I replied positively. We called each other a few times and agreed to meet when we both had some free time in Paris. I took a weekend after finishing a work meetup on Friday. She welcomed me into a lovely apartment, very cosy, lo-fi, good vibes. We got along without awkwardness, without any coldness between us. She could even become a good friend, and that's almost what she's gradually becoming.

Of course, we talked in depth, and we made a lot of progress together. About her father, about mine. We put the guilt to rest. It had nothing to do with that. It was in the past for both of us, and we realised that neither of us had to carry the guilt for what had happened to the other person's family.

Juliette gets emotional when she talks about her father. I took a little tour through her memories. She told me about his life and showed me her old records from before the accident and the trial. It was a family that had been close-knit, torn apart by this tragedy, and then...

On her computer, as we travelled through her story, there was a photograph of her and her father. A very beautiful photograph, in black and white, in front of a fountain. He was holding her in his arms, looking straight at the camera, sincerely, while she was pressed against him, almost hidden from view. He was a round, friendly-looking man, with a kind, open face, very little hair and a very short haircut, with an empathetic gaze.

I'd seen him in other group photographs. Perhaps I'd vaguely associated him with the man I remembered from the trial, but nothing had really struck me. But when I saw him looking at me in that photograph, I had no doubt.

It was him. He was the driver in my dream. He came back to me instantly. It had been him for fifteen years, from the very beginning. Looking at that photograph, I froze. I didn't tell Juliette. She sensed that something important was happening to me, but we're not close friends yet, and I haven't told her about this. Maybe I shouldn't. I'm not sure I even want to. We still talk, and we tell each other what we need to share. We even went to the cinema together to see the film about restorative justice.

But here we are, approaching the end of the year, and since the spring, I've had a face to put to the man my unconscious mind had placed behind the wheel of a car for fifteen years, only to erase him from my conscious memory. I've had the dream again, as usual, at the same pace. It hasn't fundamentally changed: it stops at the same moment, he turns towards me, and I see him. Now, when I wake up, I retain the image. That's all. Waking up still catches me by surprise, but perhaps I'm a little less terrified, a little less haunted by the nightmare. I don't know how it will evolve, or whether it even needs to.

I know he has a name, a face, a family life, and a life that was dark and sad for half of its duration, as well as a daughter he would have been happy to watch grow up. My father and hers were two men who hadn't asked for any of this, two men life cut down like nothing. I don't blame either of them. I blame death, which strikes at random, and that's more than enough. There are plenty of other things in this world we have to fight.

I know that her father, just like mine, must be happy to see us, and all of this comforts me a lot when I don't feel like sleeping and getting into the car at night.

Kisses, Reddit.

Take care of yourself.

🫶

Last week, while driving home at about 9:45pm at night. I crashed into two deer when they jumped infront of me. I did see them along side a farm fence, but I didn't expect them to jump right in front of me like they did, and I had no time to break before we collided. I blame myself. (One of them toke longer than the other to get up. I was willing to stay with the other incase she needed to be put down.)

(Airbags didn't deploy and I wasn't hurt. The front was crushed in, absorbing all the impact. We were able to slowly drive my car back to my fiance's house which was only a few minutes away. I was very lucky all things considered.)

The car was deemed a total lost since it was worth about $5,000. (Honda Fit 2009) My mom had it first when I was an early teen, then I got it when I was 20. I'm 28 now.

She wasn't upset with me, just encouraging to get a new car.

I was absolutely devistated, I lost something so precious to me, and I'm grieving like it's an actual living being.

Ultimately, the car ajd insurance was under her name, so she made the practical choice.

We got the license plate that was rusted on yesterday. I needed to nap nearly the rest of the day. My coworkers were going off about that situation, and mentioned how insurance doesn't tend to fix things like this. (I'm paraphrasing here.)

My mom said we're expecting the $5,000, and I just feel numb, now even a little angry. I got snippy with her, saying "I hope it's worth it." I back petaled by saying I was just being crotchity. Then I said that "I would've been happy to pay that $5,000, but that's not how the cookie crumbled."

Of course I feel bad for talking to my mom this way. I love her, she's just trying to help and push me forward. At the same time, I'm a little angry, and I'm sure I'm in the wrong for it.

I'm looking at new cars. I'm approaching it from a purely logical standpoint by combing through reviews, if someone on reddit had something negative to say about a model I'm looking at besides it's "boring" I'm done considering that model.

These cars are just machines to me. I'm not excited about getting a new one. I'm just looking forward to the day I don't have to shop anymore I don't know when I'll stop crying, but it's not now.

I'm living my life differently for now on, more carefully and calculated.

Anyone reading this who drives with deer on the road. BE CAREFUL! EXPECT THE WORST! IT ONLY TAKES ONE MOMENT!

Hi everyone! English isn’t my first language, so please excuse any mistakes.

I’ve been going back and forth about this for a while, and I think I need an outside perspective from people who aren’t personally involved.

I’m a university student studying to become an English teacher. For the second year in a row, I’ve been involved in a student mentoring program that helps first-year students adjust to university life. Mentors support their groups, answer questions, help with university-related issues, and organize activities. There is also a leadership team that coordinates the mentors and the program itself.

This year, I was assigned a group of international students. I was really excited about it because I felt my English skills could be useful, and I saw it as a chance to gain experience communicating with people from different backgrounds.

I grew very attached to my group. They were probably the best group I’ve had so far, and I genuinely enjoyed being their mentor. I was happy to help them, get to know them, and be someone they could turn to. I had looked forward to this year, and I cared a lot about doing a good job.

My university has an inclusive environment, which is personally meaningful to me because I have a disability myself. I appreciate being part of a community where students with different circumstances and needs can study together. I want to make it clear that my story isn’t an argument against inclusion. It concerns an experience I had with one individual.

Some time ago, a student at my university sexually harassed me. From what I had seen and heard, there had also been instances of him making unwanted verbal advances toward other women. I later became aware of another similar incident involving a younger student. I don’t want to share identifying details or speak on behalf of anyone else, so I’ll leave it there.

During the incident involving me, I managed to stop the situation by shouting at him and making it clear that his behaviour was unacceptable. He didn’t get the chance to go any further, but I was still frightened by what happened.

I struggled emotionally afterward. I was already dealing with personal difficulties, and this experience left me feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. Things I had previously enjoyed became much harder to manage, including my responsibilities in the mentoring program.

Before this happened, I had been happy in my role. I loved working with my group and wanted to continue supporting them. Afterward, though, I began to feel that I couldn’t be the same mentor I had been before. I was struggling to keep up with everything, and I felt that my students deserved someone who could give them the time and attention they needed.

Eventually, I told the program’s leadership that I wanted to leave. I explained what had happened and how much I was struggling. I had thought about this decision carefully, but I felt that my concerns weren’t being fully heard.

I was told that what happened was bad, but that nothing had actually happened to me because the situation hadn’t gone any further. I was also asked whether I was sure I wanted to leave my students.

The leadership suggested that I take a two-week break and reconsider afterward. I tried to explain that I didn’t feel a short break would resolve what I was going through, and that I had already spent a long time thinking about leaving.

There was also a conversation about my portfolio and the recommendation letter I hoped to receive from the program. I was reminded that I needed a recommendation letter, and the way this was brought up made me feel that leaving at that point might affect my chances of receiving one. I can’t know for certain what the intention was, but I felt additional pressure to stay when I was already struggling to make a difficult decision.

I kept trying to explain myself, but I eventually realised that I needed to make the decision I felt was right for me. At our final meeting, I also spoke to my students about what was happening, because I didn’t want to leave without acknowledging the situation.

The program found someone to replace me relatively quickly, so my group wasn’t left without a mentor. The new person said they would do their best to support the students and help them adjust. I still worry about the transition, particularly because my English skills were one of the reasons I had been excited to work with international students. I hope the group will be okay, but I sometimes wonder whether they will miss out on something because I’m no longer there.

And this is where my guilt comes in.

I keep thinking about how much I cared about those students. I wonder whether I should have stayed a little longer, pushed through my difficulties, or tried the two-week break before making a final decision. I feel bad knowing that my departure created extra work for other people, even though a replacement was found.

At the same time, I’ve noticed that the longer I’ve been away from the program, the better I’ve started to feel. I have more room to focus on my studies, writing, and personal life without constantly worrying about messages and deadlines. I’m beginning to understand how exhausted I had become.

I wish things had turned out differently. I wish I could have continued being the mentor I wanted to be, and I still care about my students. But I also know that I was struggling and needed to give myself time to recover.

I’m posting this because I’ve been feeling quite alone with these thoughts. I’m not looking for pity or for people to automatically take my side. I’d genuinely appreciate hearing from anyone who has been in a similar situation or can offer an outside perspective.

How do you deal with the guilt of leaving a responsibility you genuinely cared about when your own circumstances make it difficult to continue? Have you ever had to step away from something meaningful even though other people were counting on you?

Thank you for reading

So, obviously, I (25M) can't blame middle child syndrome for the way my life is. I acknowledge that I'm inherently in control for how likable and approachable I am as a person in every aspect of my life.

That being said, ever since I was a kid I pretty much had to learn to fend for myself and not rely on anyone. I'm the first kid born in the states in my family. I have three brothers, two being older with a 15 year age gap and one younger brother with a 4 year age gap. The two older brothers used to treat me differently because of how different life was here compared to where they were raised, and my younger brother got more attention growing up from my parents. Especially when they got more well-adjusted to living in the states. However, as we got older there was a lot less resentment and neglect in the family and we hold pretty solid relationships now.

Despite all of that, I've come to realize after some self-care recently (will get into that later), that middle child syndrome is practically in every part of my life and how I was as a kid never really left. In a lot of friend groups I'm in I am usually the floater friend and also the "middle child". I am sometimes too young to engage in conversations held by older friends in their early 30s, but too old to understand a lot of stuff mentioned by friends who are still in college. This, of course, is a me problem as I wish I understood a lot of these things, but because of this people in these friend groups could hang out one-on-one with each other while I am usually only involved in group hangouts.

In high school I didn't have many friends either. I was awkward, but put in more effort to make friends despite all of that. However, the people I was friends with were very much more social than I ever was and I learned when I caught up with some of them recently that they definitely didn't study all that much in high school as I used to think. Due to their connections, they were able to get cheat sheets for tests, copy essays in classes I was also in. This was all while I was sometimes struggling to get a B in some difficult AP courses. While I don't condone cheating, I was going through a depressive period in high school due to the difficulty of some of the stuff I was doing, especially by myself.

Now, for the reason I'm making this post, I am currently a photographer by trade (mostly wedding/events) and *was* part of a community that involved a lot of subject related photography. I'm not here to bash said community as it's responsible for a lot of highs in my life. I met my first and current partner of two years through this community, and the times I was socially thriving were pretty great for me as someone who never really had such sociability in other times of my life. When I joined this community I found it very easy to make friends, and people were propping me up all the way through and felt like I was improving in a craft I was very passionate in. However, nowadays it's been difficult to maintain friendships as people moved onto different photographers and other reasons (especially with the stigma male photographers get from recently conflicts). I've been changing my style to become more creative and less traditional and turns out people aren't the biggest fan of that. I eventually left because I didn't get much support for my vision and getting paid to do something I wasn't having fun with despite the "fun" part being the reason I partook in this community was affecting my mental health. Not to mention the stuff I heard from friends about me behind my back.

I left two months ago today and things have been better for me mentally, even though no one really reached out after. However, a friend of mine who has always been something of a social butterfly in the community took up photography about a year ago and I can admittedly say they're "better" than me now despite me having years of experience on them. I gave them a lens, helped them buy a camera, gave them tips starting out and I want the best for them, even now. The reason I say this is because through social media they get a lot more support than I ever did, they get to shoot with people I used to be close to and likewise because of their social nature they're able to connect with other photographers I wish I could connect with and learn from. I'm evidently insecure and jealous about this, and made me realize that "fending for myself" and being independent actually isn't all that fun.

I'm now realizing how lonely I actually am, and how stifled I feel by not being a better person people can be friends with and help out. This "middle child syndrome" that started when I was a mere child never really left me, it just took up different forms and I never really got past it. Am I really a bad person? Am I just in the wrong crowd? I don't know. I'm constantly told by my partner and my family that I'm a great person and wish they knew how I actually was, but I'm always in doubt about that.

Ever since I was little I had a strong sense of wrong or right and when people would do bad, it would genuinely hurt me and I could not understand how someone can do something like that.

I thought (hoped) I would grew out of it, because let's be honest, all of us had to deal with someone unpleasant at some point... whether at work, school, family circle etc.

However, i did not grew out of it, if anything, I feel like it got worse and it makes me sad and angry and just plain confused.

Long story short, my husband (that is practically an angel on earth) started working at one dojo a year or so ago and everything was perfect until he entered a conflict with one mom (who also works for the boss of the club) because of wrong things she was doing (behind his back) that were directly affecting his work. Mind you we had great relationship with her until this point.

When something is not correct, we say it and try to fix it but it became very clear very fast that this woman will step over corpses and cares only and exclusively about her own ass.

This woman, with her fake sweetness, somehow managed to become a director in this club (she is very good friend with boss's wife) and has been since mining my husband at every step. She has been interfering in his trainings, in his relationship with the kids, deciding where he can or can not god, sending constant stress messages when there is no problem and I am just done.

He loves those kids, and those kids love him and if he were to leave, EVERYONE would follow because he is not just a good coach, he is a kind person that kids attach to quickly due to his transparency and shyness that I guess feels cute to them (since he is an extremely shy grown man)...

Except.. They have nowhere to follow because we are not in a position to open his own dojo. I started some funds for it and I am working hard to get him there but we are just not there YET.

I hate watching him having to deal with that knowing how good he is, and what I want to tell him is just to quit and we'll eat bread and salt if needed, but he deserves so much more than that.

He is the greatest person I know. He wants to open his dojo and allow kids to belong somewhere. He wants to tell them to dream big and that it can happen. He wants to pay for their competitions and preparations and all of it because he was an athlete whose dreams were crush because he didn't have someone who would go an extra mile for him.

And now he wants to go extra mile for all of them.

We also volunteer in children's hope where we give free classes and its a blessing... If we had income outside of this I would tell him to quit yesterday and just volunteer because its so fulfilling...

I guess I am just wondering why do we have to encounter this people on our path and what is the best way to deal with it...

I am at the age where I just want peace and an opportunity to help someone else get the best they can be and my husband wants the same and its so heartbreaking having to tolerate evil and bad people just to put food on the table.

Does this ever stop?

Thought this day couldn’t get any worse, but it did.

I ( 25F) accidentally smashed my finger last week and ended up with both paronychia and a subungual hematoma. It hurt like hell for four days, got infected, and my doctor told me to rest. Yet I kept working part-time because, well, I work in customer support.

I oversee three projects and trained new hires for two weeks. While I was away, emails piled up because the only new hire on a part-time project was handling at least 25 calls in four hours. The clients assumed they were lazy, but the workload simply left no time for emails. The reports clearly showed that.

Management decided to bring in someone else without even asking the new hire what was happening. They also emailed me during my absence requesting a report through the work account I can’t access because I’m not part of management.  

When I returned, I was called incompetent and accused of lacking initiative and effort for not reacting to an email I couldn’t even access while I was away. Then, in a group chat with all the higher-ups and hires from all three projects, I was told to go back to school and learn how to lead a project properly.

And just when I thought the day couldn’t get any worse, another employee asked if I was single. When I said yes, they told me that, considering how I look, there was no way I could be in a relationship.

Hate my life.

My boyfriend ate the last slice of pizza last night. It shouldn't be a big deal, but it is to me.

I've been trying to lose weight, and my boyfriend makes it so hard in a few ways. He brings me home fast food all the time, even after I asked him not to because I want to lose weight. When we order food, he often asks if I really want what I just ordered, if I want to get a bigger size, am I sure I don't want more food, etc. I let him know that when I order food, I order what I want, and that his questioning my order every time puts pressure on me to order differently or order more when I don't want that.

To save money/ eat better, I cook a lot. In fact, I do 100% of the cooking and 90% of the cleaning. I make him lunches for work too, to save money (he will just buy whatever fast food if I don't pack him lunch, costing us money). I know our budget well enough that I know I can't eat out every day. In fact, I rarely treat myself to fast food. 

So now we get to the pizza. 

He bought a whole pizza for his coworkers this weekend. Okay, we can't afford it and I've been out of vitamins for a month, but fine. He got a second pizza just for us. He asked what kind I wanted. I said cheese. He asked if I wanted pepperoni or combo instead. I told him that I will eat whatever makes him happy if he doesn't want cheese. He got the cheese.

He brought it home and I ate two slices (I was starving and too tired to cook that day). I was so so grateful for the pizza. 

The next morning, there are only two slices left (of 16 total on a costco pizza) I eat one, and think about the other. I was craving cheese pizza for weeks now, and I wanted to actually enjoy more of the pizza he got. He already ate most of it. I resist, and cook myself healthier stuff, saving that last cheese slice for my breakfast today. 

Last night, I made my boyfriend 4 burritos and 5 taquitos covered in cheese and enchilada sauce. He then ate doritos. Then, at 3am, I look over, and he woke up and is eating the last slice of cheese pizza. And all I could think about is how I resisted eating more than I needed before, but how my fear came true. He bought a pizza for us but ate most of it himself. 

He eats so much that I found myself running out of my home cooked healthy meals in one night when normally that meal would last me 4 days or more. What really sucks is that if I don't eat fast enough, he eats most of what I worked hard to prepare. It pushes me to eat more in the rightful fear that my delicious healthy feast would be gone if I don't. I also get that fear with the rare occasions I get to eat out.

I have been resisting that fearful eating more and I've been losing weight for a year now. But damn, I cried when he ate that last slice of cheese pizza.

I’m a recent graduate in the final rounds of a good traineeship where personal development and self-reflection are a big part of the program. The interview was with an HR person and a current trainee. They said at the start that it was a safe space to be open.

They kept asking “why” and asked me to go “a layer deeper.” I said I make careful choices because I want to do things well. When they asked where that comes from, and whether my family puts pressure on me, because I mentioned them as they are important to me. I got emotional and cried. I shared personal and emotional things about my background that I haven’t even told my friends.

After that I was a bit thrown off for the rest of the interview. They still told me about the next steps, and said I could reach out if I had other offers.

Now I feel embarrassed and exposed, and I’m not sure I can face them again. Is this as bad as it feels? Does it hurt a candidate’s chances in a program like this?

I am writing this here instead of confronting who this is actually about because I am getting my period soon and I don't know if the intense resentment I feel will last or if it is even accurate.

Fuck you.

We were in a committed relationship for years. They weren't the best, they weren't the worst. We just couldn't be the person the other needed. It was sad, devastating even but as is life. You roll with the punches. We still had a lease together so we decided to live together despite no longer being together.
As soon as he felt comfortable, he was outside doing god knows what in these streets. He said he didn't like the club scene while we were together. That's exactly where he was after we were no longer together. Going out for drinks with coworkers, making out with randos in bars and restaurants. Slept with others. He didn't rack up bodies (to my knowledge) but was out enough.

I wasn't. I was at home drowning my sorrows but that's the typical story right? The girl cries her eyes out for weeks and mourns the relationship while he fills his time with distractions until they don't fill the void anymore.

After our breakup, if felt so wrong to move on. How could I go out and share an intimate moment with another if we are still coming home together? How could I ever look at the man I had wanted to marry after being with someone else? This is how I felt. He didn't feel this way at the time. And if he did, it didn't hurt him enough to change what he was doing. I told him I didn't want to move on (not the best thing to say, I will admit) and that I will not be dating or going out. Our relationship was a bit messy and maybe toxic while together. Broken up we were incredibly messy and toxic to each other. I eventually told him if he fucked someone else, I was done with the relationship (more mentally) and would be moving on. Well, as you read above, he did that.

I went on 1 date. 1 date.

He demanded I tell him who I went on a date with. I refused. He put his fucking hands on me. He grabbed me and pushed me around. He choked me. He broke a door. He left bruises on my arms, chest and neck. The bruises stayed on my fucking body for 3 weeks. I had to look at myself in the mirror everyday. For weeks. And see what he did to me.

He was incredibly remorseful. He hated himself. He couldn't stand to see the bruises or the broken door. It's like a switch flicked in his head. He began to work on himself. He's trying to be less egotistical. He got a therapist. Stopped drinking. Doesn't vape anymore. Looking for a psychiatrist. Filling his days with the gym, meal prepping and friends. He's trying to be a better person.

I am so incredibly happy to see this. Ecstatic. Over the moon. This is the man I was with and who I wanted to marry. God, I am so happy to see him grow into a person I know he can be proud of.

But the cost of him getting here was me. ME. My sanity.

I lived with bruises for 3 weeks. I had to hide them with makeup and long sleeves. The nightmares. The daydreams filled with the horrors. I had to live in the house with the holes in doors while he got to leave and move into his own place. I had to be reminded every single day what he did to me. I can't watch or listen to any true crime without getting scared, nauseous or getting memories. Not even silly little tiktoks about the subjects. I can't talk about this event without crying and hyperventilating. I get incredibly scared around angry men. I hate myself for freezing and not fighting back when he left me those bruises. I feel weak. I can't talk about this to my friends because I don't want the questions the "did you call the cops?", "did you take any pictures?", "are you okay omgggg???", "do you want me to hurt him?".

I can't. I can barely deal with my own emotions about this; I can't deal with anyone else's. I told my therapist. That's about it.

I'm not going to do this because I still have some respect for him (look plz don't judge me okay- tough situation)

But fuck I want everyone to know what you did to me. I want every single one of your friends to know why we aren't trying to fix things. I want every girl you ever date to know what you are capable of. You are not what you did, you just did the bad thing. But you still did it. TO ME. I want everyone to know why you are so nice now. Why you are so patient. Why you go out of your way to do nice things for people. I want everyone to understand you are changing because you showed yourself and me how truly ugly of a thing you could do. I want people to see that pictures of the faded bruises I eventually took. Took me a couple weeks to even get the courage to do that.

I wanted the man you are becoming. I wanted him. I wanted to be loved by the best version of you. The kind, patient, loving, respectful and understanding version of you. I wanted the you who didn't automatically put himself first. I wanted you to hold me and caress me like I was made of fine china, trusting that you would never hurt or drop me.

I am jealous and selfish. I know I said wanted up there but fuck, I want. I want this version of you for me. I want to say that is my man who I am so proud to be next to. I didn't need anymore trauma. I want my pain and suffering to have been for a fucking reason.

I am glad you're getting better. But the cost of admission was me. So here I am, just working through substance abuse. Trying to focus on me and what I need to do to be a better version of myself. There's just so much in my head.

I don't know how I feel about anything.

I don't want to get in the way of your healing so you never ever ever fucking do this to someone else ever again. That's why I am writing this here.

I invited a guy I liked to a group hangout I was organizing. He couldn't make the original date, so he suggested a different day and I rescheduled the whole thing for him. A day before , he kept sending me photos, work updates, and even called me during lunch. We ended up talking for 40 minutes about our new jobs and catching up, laughing and teasing since we hadn't spoken much in months.

I showed up to the hangout feeling excited. Instead, he ignored me the entire time and spent the whole event chatting with another mutual friend in a language I couldn't understand. I was hurt and checked out that I just minded my own business, answered him politely when he tried to talk to me at the end, and left.

When I got home, I broke down crying. He called me the same night. He apologized for ignoring, claimed he was only talking to that girl because she was going through a breakup with his best friend, and said he didn't want to lose me. He made me believe it was all a big misunderstanding and that he genuinely felt bad. We ended up talking for five hours.

My hopes went right back up. We stayed in close touch for another month until I finally asked him where we stood.

That's when he hit me with a long list of reasons why he wouldn't date me. And then came the worst part, he casually admitted that he had deliberately ignored me at that hangout to show me how things would be between us. When I asked why he had called to apologize that night if it was intentional, he claimed it was just "as a friend" because he felt guilty.

He claimed he wasn't trying to lead me on, but he completely played with my head. I hate him for doing that to me. And honestly, I hate myself for letting him, and for still being stuck on him even after seeing how toxic he is.

No ages or genders, I wanna keep this fairly anonymous. If anyone who knows me DOES find this somehow I'm pretty sure they'll put it together from the details I've given but damn I gotta talk to someone.

Pretty much what the title says lol. For the past 5 ish years I've been head over heels for my best friend. When I realised I had fallen for them I decided to bottle it up to keep our friendship together. I told myself I was mistaken, that this couldn't be love, because I was too young to know. But as time went on the feelings only got stronger and now they're the most important person in my life. When I wake up I check messages, when I watch a series I message them. We call frequently and I'm honestly so happy.

They know this by now, after I confessed all this one time when we actually got to meet up. I don't think they feel quite the same as I do, this overwhelming intensity, but they've said things that meant a lot to me. So it's a strong relationship, long distance, and it's lasted over the years.

Now the complications. We're both the same assigned sex, and the world is the world. While I've lived a very fortunate life in regards to my identity, even I have to go back in the closet sometimes. And that's not even starting on what they've experienced. I would never ask for any more than what we have. Being part of a secret situationship was never how I expected my life going and I can't lie, sometimes it's hard. I can't tell my own family about where things are at, I'm evasive regarding relationships in a way I never was before. I know I've got the easy end of things, but sometimes knowing I'll never have a normal relationship makes me want to just sob.

I mean it is always possible someday I'll move on. The thing is, right now, I don't want to. I want whatever I can have with this person. It's the best part of my day, the best thing in my life. I'm fully prepared to take on the pain I know is waiting from keeping all this secret for so long. I went over all this in my head when I was figuring things out. I knew we could never be together. And that was something I had to be okay with.

We talk constantly, and things are beautiful right now. I'm so happy most of the time. Sure, sometimes I get a bit down but something I've learnt is that love isn't easy. You gotta work sometimes.

So yeah, sorry for how vague this is. I just need to express it somehow, that I'm still, all these years in, in love with the same person I know I can't be with. That I am figuring life out. That sometimes the love being there is enough and you can figure something out for one another.

And I'm happy.

So I had a very good friend who is overall a nice person, but she has some issues.

First of all , she has mental health issues , so I try to not say anything to her that could get to her and I try to be nice to her all the time.

But she has some problems.

For example , she would do things wrong , but if someone calls her out on that , then she would think that the other person is wrong and then she would just bitch about those people. Most of the time , even though I know that she is in the wrong , I would still support her , because I just don't want her mental health to be get worse by calling her out.

She and I have quite different political views , so sometimes I would just put forward my political views because I can't stand hers and a few times we have gone on different tangents , but then I have always stopped the conversation saying there's no point fighting , because we just have different views.

But lately she always thinks that she is right, and sometimes she's just completely wrong. And recently, she started shouting on me for something that was her fault. Saying how she is always righg and it felt like she has just lost it. I did not really fight with her because I'm not a person who will shout at people but then she never said sorry on how she argued with me like a 5-year-old child not getting enough sugar. I feel like it's all my fault because I should have called her out when she was doing all the wrong things with other people, but I didn't thinking "oh, she has mental health issues. Let it be" but I wish I had a had called her out, at least I would have felt better about my own self now.

Idk, it's just that woman are more mature then guys at my school.. Like if a dude thinks I'm ugly then okay, but if a girl thinks I'm ugly I'd be so heart broken cause then I prolly am ugly af 💔💔💔 and what girls think is just way more important to me. I'm not lesbian tho, but still jrjejeleokelenmekejejdjend is this weird? Or do all girls think the same jkekendjdjdjeorldoidjdbdmdmnd like if a guy compliments me, then that's sweet and he'd make me happy, but if a girl compliments me then it genuinely makes me wanna scream out of joy ndmdlowhanmkdhsneiwnekekdkdjdjjdjdj this is stupid 😂😂😂 Oki I needed that of my chest ensjskme ty for reading this

Asian man here and I am rapidly losing hope to the point that I’m currently on a break from dating but wanna get back out there. I’ve been trying to date on and off for years and never found anyone. Meanwhile my friends who are white instantly found gfs whenever they’ve tried. They even gaslight me and claim it has nothing to do with race when I’ve run into girls on the apps with prompts that either imply they are only seeking white men or outright say it. I’ve only got dates off the apps and even then I barely get dates and many ghost after the first date. I also have irl hobbies where I’ve made lots of friends but no luck dating since women there are older or already have bfs.

I have a decent network of friends; I'm not completely alone by any means. But in the grander scheme of things, the majority of my friendships only exist within the grander context of a friend group per say. So it's all good and seems fine when meet up in person every month or so.

The part that sucks is the period of time in between the months that we all hang out, where apart from when we plan the next get together, it's just... complete radio silence pretty much. No texts, no calls, nothing. Almost as if my friendship with others only exists within the context of the group. And I know despite this we're still friends, but during the long periods of silence I can't help but wonder if I'm actually anywhere as near as close to these people as I thought we were.

And in scenarios like these where I really wish people would talk to me or stay in contact, I would always be told "you just have to reach out. You be the person to send a text or call first". But I just don't understand why it always has to be me. If I always have to reach out first or else I won't get a response, does anyone really care? What happens once I stop reaching out first and I get the silent treatment again? It's hard for me to be the one to take initiative to reach out when I've hardly been given the same treatment or reciprocation back in my direction. I don't want to solely be in one sided friendships.

Me and my boyfriend split over a year ago now. A year and 2 months. Something like that. We had been together for about 3 years. Our relationship wasn't perfect, but there was so much love in it. We went through a period of long distance, and we finally ended up together in the same city after so many different struggles. We split because I wasn't able to give him the love he was asking for. I pushed him away because I thought he was going to see me for who I was and leave me. And that thought terrified me so much that I would choose to spend time with "friends" (they weren't even my friends and I don't even talk to those people anymore) over him. I would rather smoke weed til I was numb. I would rather play hours and hours of video games rather than spend time with him. I avoided conflict and deflected blame because if I had confronted those issues, I'd have to self-reflect and let him into my thought process. I told so many lies because I thought I could hide the disgusting parts of myself from him. I bottled up the things I was unhappy with and projected them onto him. And I let those emotions fester and turn into resentment. Near the end of our relationship I was a completely different person than when we had first met, and I had changed for the worse.

For the past year I had been doing so much self reflection, going to therapy, seeing my actual friends, changing careers, taking care of my mental health, developing new habits. I had pretty much rebuilt myself from the ground up. And I got to a point where I could see all the mistakes I had made in the relationship. I had so much clarity about my short-comings, and I felt like I was in a much better place then when he had left me. Not only that but I finally saw how terribly I had treated him near the end of the relationship. I had so many regrets and so much shame about how I treated him, and who I had become. And I wanted to apologize for the countless mistakes I had made, and I wanted him to see how much I had changed for the better because of him.
So I reached out and tried to start a conversation.

I had reached out a couple times over the past year, small things like wishing him a happy birthday, or just trying trying to see how he had been. I know it's a stupid thing to do. But I could see how much he had been hurting, and I was still hurting myself. We were so in love during the peaks of our relationship, so I had held out hope that he had still felt the same way. But he had never responded to any of that. That was probably the biggest sign that I needed to stop and just let him go, but I stupidly held onto hope that we could come back as new people and rekindle the relationship. I held onto that stupid belief for over a year, even though he had literally never responded.

This most recent time though, he had finally said something back. He let me know that he was doing well, and that he had found a new boyfriend and moved to a new, nearby city. Instead of being happy for him, I was hit with an intense wave of regret. It felt like I was going through the breakup all over again. Except this time, I knew exactly what I had done wrong, so it somehow stung even harder than the actual breakup.

Somehow someway my brain believed that I could STILL BE TOGETHER WITH HIM???????? So I sent a message confessing that I still loved him. I tried to explain how much I had grown, and how much I missed him in my life. How I could see all the pain I caused, how I mistook his love for granted and how I wanted to put the work in and show him that my understanding of what love was had matured. I wanted to show him that he was right, that I was running away from something real because I was terrified and unhappy with the world around me.
And it went exactly as you expected. He pretty much told me to leave him alone and to just be happy for him and his new life. And as devastating as this was/is, I thought it'd be enough for me to finally let go. But it's not.

I still wake up thinking of him everyday. I still go to sleep thinking of him. He still dominates my mind through out the day and I'm just so exhausted. And on top of that, I feel so jealous of his new man, and I feel so angry that he got to run away from the city and make new memories and forget me while I'm still stuck in the city, in the same room where we fell in love. I still want to know everything about him, I still want to show up for him now that I know how. I want to comfort him when he's struggling, and I want that same comfort from him now that I can accept it. I want to make him happy, I want to hold him, smell him, be near him, share everything with him. I just want him. And I feel so stupid for still feeling like this.

I'm not really asking for advice here, I've heard everything under the sun from my therapist. From my friends. From myself. I just wish my heart and nervous system would just hurry up and get the fucking memo that it's over. But it won't and I'm stuck reliving a heart break from over a year ago. So I just need to vent it all out here in the hopes that something will finally click in my demented mind.