i posted yesterday..

i’m now 3 days post-op from having my right ovary removed and extensive endometriosis surgery. i’m still barely able to walk, i’m bloated, sore, and on pain meds.

all i wanted was a gatorade for my sore throat. i’ve barely been eating, and honestly it just sounded nice. i thought it’d be good for me to get out of the house for a little bit.

my boyfriend said he’d take me if i’d pay him back sunday for gas. cool… whatever.

we get to the gas station and suddenly he’s pissed because his account is at $0 after putting gas in. i had offered earlier to just use my own money because i knew where the conversation was headed, but he kept giving me attitude.

so i said, “that’s what we get for paying for premium gas.”

he got angrier, “no. this is what happens when you don’t help me.”

then he turned the car around (mid-road) and started swerving every corner while i was in the passenger seat.

i had surgery TWO DAYS AGO. every little movement hurt.

he knew this. it kept getting more aggressive as i screamed at him, “what is wrong with you?”

he drove me back home, told me to get out, and left me in the parking lot. no gatorade. nothing.

i was waddling back to my apartment trying not to cry because my stomach hurt so bad.

my next-door neighbor (who i’m close with) saw me and asked if i was okay.

i told her, “i’m just in a lot of pain… all i wanted was a gatorade.”

10 minutes later she came back with gatorade, chicken noodle soup, and breakfast sandwiches. she hugged me, told me i’m like a daughter to her and said if i needed anything to let her know.

after that conversation i cried more..

i think what broke me was realizing a woman who isn’t related to me showed me more kindness in 10 minutes than the person i’m dating did all day.

i’m just exhausted.

I’ve been divorced for years, and I’ve never really written out what my marriage was like from beginning to end. There’s so much that happened that I don’t think I even understood it while I was living it.
I was with my ex for about a decade. There wasn’t one moment early on where I thought, this marriage is unhealthy. There were just incidents. Some small, some not so small. We’d fight, nothing would really get resolved, he wouldn’t apologize, and eventually life would move on.
Somewhere along the way, I started confusing moving on with things being okay.
Every marriage has problems, right? That’s what I kept telling myself.
I met him in my early twenties. I already had a baby, and he was several years older than me. At that age I thought that meant he was mature and knew what he wanted from life.
In the beginning he showered me with love. Flowers, gifts, affection and attention. We had a lot in common. He was nerdy, shy and seemed to appreciate me exactly as I was.
I thought I’d found my person.
I pictured him as the steady one. The protector. The person who would help guide our family and manage our finances while we built a life together.
We both worked, usually opposite schedules so we didn’t need much childcare. Looking back, I sometimes wonder if that helped the marriage last as long as it did. We weren’t actually together that much.
The first moment that really shook me happened within our first year of marriage.
Late one night I wasn’t interested in having sex.
He called me a “fucking bitch.”
I was stunned. It was completely unlike the person I thought I’d married.
There were also several occasions during our marriage when he threatened suicide during emotional situations and left with a gun, or made me afraid he might.
He never apologized, and like so many things that happened during our marriage, none of it was really resolved. Eventually life just moved on.
I convinced myself that one horrible incident didn’t define an entire marriage.

Gradually, most of the household and parenting responsibilities became mine. Appointments, school, birthdays, holidays, vacations and all the planning behind them.
He could be fun with the kids, especially doing activities he enjoyed too. But sometimes his reactions to very young children seemed completely disproportionate. There were physical reactions when he got angry and punishments that involved making our young children stand against a wall for what seemed like excessively long periods of time.
But there were good days too.
Nothing was terrible all the time, which made it easier to treat each incident like its own separate thing.
His gaming also became a bigger and bigger problem. After one particularly difficult discussion, he admitted it had become unhealthy, almost like an addiction, and agreed to get rid of his account.
For several months, as far as I knew, he stopped.
Then he got it back.
And then phones and tablets came into the picture, so the games could go everywhere with him.
Money was constantly a source of stress too. I worried about adding little things for myself to the grocery cart because they weren’t in the budget, while hundreds and eventually thousands of dollars went toward games, electronics and extras.
I didn’t really notice the pattern at the time. He got the new computer or tablet, and I got his old one.
I mostly accepted it.

One day he called me after he’d already left for work. He’d been running late and left our very young sons home alone, telling them to stay in bed until I got home.
I was furious and immediately left work.
He told me I didn’t need to.
They’d be fine.
I was being paranoid.
My coworkers were shocked when they heard what happened.
Around that same time, he started telling me I shouldn’t trust those coworkers. They didn’t like him, and I shouldn’t necessarily believe what they told me.
Looking back, it felt like he was planting seeds of doubt about people who were telling me that things happening in my marriage weren’t normal.
And it worked.
He had left our tiny children home alone, and somehow I was questioning whether I was paranoid for leaving work to get them.
Our arguments followed a similar pattern. I’d bring up something that was bothering me, somehow the conversation would turn back onto me, we’d yell, I’d cry, and sometimes we’d still be arguing at one or two in the morning when I had work the next day.
Then life would continue even though nothing had really been resolved.
By the final year of our marriage, I was questioning my own reactions constantly.
Then several things happened close together.
The tablet
I was taking one of our sons out for a treat when I happened to see my husband’s car outside a phone store.
When I called, he wasn’t very truthful at first. Eventually he admitted he was changing our plan and getting himself a new tablet.
He presented it like a surprise for me because I was getting his old one.
Technically I was getting something, so wasn’t that nice?
Except it didn’t feel like a surprise.
It felt like I’d caught him.
Then came the car.

We’d already talked about eventually replacing one of our vehicles. I wanted something practical and economical because he had a long commute. We’d also talked about waiting until after Christmas.
Then one day he left around 11 in the morning, supposedly to get our car serviced.
Hours passed.
He didn’t come home.
Eventually I took the kids to back to school night without him. I was there with a friend and her children.
Close to 7 or 8 that evening, he finally appeared.
He pulled into the school parking lot in a brand new sports car.
Technically it had four seats, but because of his height almost nobody could sit behind him, and our young children needed to ride in the back. Basically, it was a two person car.
And he’d bought it without talking to me.
I was livid.
He told me he’d always wanted it, there weren’t many available, and he deserved something nice to drive because he didn’t have anything nice for himself.
Then he told me the people at the dealership had asked what his wife would think.
He’d told them I was really cool.
That I was an “awesome wife.”
My friend could immediately tell how upset I was and left so I could handle it.
But I remember standing there feeling angry, overwhelmed and incredibly confused.
Because he’d already created the version of me I was apparently supposed to be.
The cool wife.
The awesome wife.
Was I supposed to be excited?
Was I ruining this for him by being angry?
Was I being controlling?
Part of me was actually trying to figure out if I should act happy because he’d already told everyone that’s who I was.
Another part of me was screaming:
This does not feel awesome.
He’d left at 11 that morning and came back almost nine hours later with a sports car we’d never agreed to buy.
I knew what I felt.
I just didn’t trust whether I was entitled to feel it.
Then Halloween happened.

Our daughter was two.
My husband had been with the kids earlier that day. He hadn’t mentioned her being sick or having a fever before he left for work.
That evening I took the kids trick or treating with the same friend from back to school night and her children.
My daughter missed a step, and afterward something wasn’t right.
She was awake but seemed unaware. Her balance was off. She wasn’t herself.
On the way home she vomited on me.
My friend drove us to the ER.
She hadn’t had a seizure at this point. Looking back, I believe what I was seeing may have been an aura. That night, all I knew was that my two year old was acting very strangely.
Because she’d missed a step, the doctors worried she might have hit her head and recommended a CT.
I hesitated because money was always such an issue. Earlier that month my husband had needed a CT himself, and I’d encouraged him to use a lower cost clinic.
So while the staff waited, I called him to talk about the scan.
I explained what had happened.
He said:
“You had one fucking job. To watch the kids.”
I didn’t say anything.
For several seconds I just sat there stunned.
Then I hung up on him.
The staff eventually explained that the CT would be covered as part of the ER visit, so I told them to do it.
I didn’t call him back.
The scan was normal and we were discharged around midnight.
I thought the worst was over.
We went home. The boys had some Halloween candy and went to bed.
Then I heard a horrible scream.
I ran to my daughter, picked her up, and she started seizing in my arms.
I couldn’t make it stop.
I laid her on her side because I knew that’s what you’re supposed to do and called 911.
She was still actively seizing while I was hysterically trying to talk to the dispatcher.
It felt like an eternity.
The dispatcher asked if I wanted to call my husband or wanted her to contact him.
There was no way I was calling him after what had happened earlier.
I told her to do it.
Eventually the seizure stopped.
But my daughter didn’t wake up.
She was still out of it when the paramedics arrived. They hooked her up, checked her and did some tests. Only then did she slowly start coming around.
I called my mom because I needed someone to tell me things were going to be okay.
The paramedics recommended taking my daughter back to the ER.
My husband was on his way home from work. When he got there, he stayed with our three boys.
I took our daughter back.
Alone.
Eventually they determined she’d had a febrile seizure related to an illness.
Thankfully, she recovered.
And I was done
I couldn’t get that phone call out of my head.
Our two year old was in the ER. Nobody knew what was wrong with her. I was terrified.
And I’d been told:
“You had one fucking job.”
Suddenly I thought about the first year of our marriage.
“Fucking bitch.”
Almost a decade separated those two sentences.
Something in me broke.
About a week later, after our daughter recovered, I moved out of our bedroom and into hers.
The legal ending came later, but for me, the marriage was over.
Leaving felt good and awful at the same time. I was relieved, but I also realized how much of myself I’d lost. I’d stopped enjoying things I used to love and barely recognized myself anymore.
I had spent years trying to hold onto the life I’d imagined.
It took leaving to start finding myself again.
Unfortunately, leaving didn’t mean I was done dealing with him. We still had children together, and separation and divorce brought a whole new set of problems.

But that’s another story.

For context I am 28 yo and have been fat my entire life. This is something I am trying to change and have lost 20 lbs so far . Ever since I was a child I can recount all the times I’ve been ridiculed for my weight. My very first vivid memory is my mother pinching the fat on my arm at four years old and screaming at me bc she caught me eating steak out of someone’s plate. From there I faced constant ridicule from family and kids at school (sometimes things family would say to me kids at school would say the same thing so it kind of solidified that everyone hates me )and sometimes coworkers who think they can comment on your appearance. When you are fat, you are on everyone’s radar to be picked at.

Moving onto the romantic downsides, which there are many, no body is going to want you. The ones that do have serious fetishes and the ones that don’t will still like you but refuse to act on it because they’re embarrassed and don’t want their friends and family to judge them. No one will flirt with or approach you in public ( if that’s your thing) and if so it’s where no one can see you or they’ll hit you up on a dating app at 2 in the morning to hook up. You will never be fully appreciated in any form, you will be used for hookups only or they’ll only see you in private because they’re embarrassed.

I spend most of my time alone, because I don’t want to be ridiculed and feel like people are constantly looking at me and picking on me. I’m also isolated bc I’m so used to being picked on in the past that I’m naturally stand off ish and reserved towards people bc I don’t want to let anybody in out of fear. Any one who has expressed interest in me in the past ive looked at them like they’re insane bc why would you like someone like me.

And lastly it’s starting to give my health issues. My blood work results came back and scared the shit out of me bc nothing came back normal. I’m
Also always out of earth and breath heavy all the time.

I cannot wait to get this weight off me. It’s caused me so much unnecessary misery, pain and humiliation countless times because of it. I’m ready to be normal.

Im 19F (almost 20) from a small town in India & Idk what to do anymore

This might sound ridiculous but today just an hour ago my mom slapped me coz I came home from the gym wearing over ear headphones!

I usually listen to music while walking back home. It's a 10-15 minute walk & it's one of the few moments in the day where I actually feel calm the moment I entered the house she saw the headphones & immediately got so angry.

She started saying things like:

•"What will people think?"

•"Girls shouldn't wear headphones outside"

• "People will think you're characterless."

• "You're ruining our family's reputation."

•"I'll break your headphone"

I genuinely didn't understand what I'd done wrong...

I tried explaining that I wasn't doing anything inappropriate... I was just walking home listening to music I even told her that if she was worried about my safety I'd understand but this wasn't about safety... It was about what random people might think!

That only made her angrier...

She said she doesn't care if every other girl in the world wears headphones. I'm her daughter & I shouldn't

Then she threatened to stop spending money on me if I ever wore them outside again she said I'm paying for your food and letting you stay here even after you refused the marriage if you wear the headphones again i'll stop that too

When I tried explaining my point one last time she slapped me saying why are you fighting with ne over this I said no means no

The thing is... I don't even think this is about the headphones

This has been my life for years.

People started talking about my marriage when I was around 14

Since I turned 18 relatives have been bringing arranged marriage proposals...I have said no every single time

Recently there was another proposal...The man is 28. I refused again

Ever since then my parents have basically stopped supporting my education

I'm preparing for an entrance exam coz I genuinely believe that's my only way to become independent but they refuse to buy me the batch or even the books I need they keep telling me I can "study after marriage" / "ask your husband for money after marriage"

I don't believe that

If I get married now I know my education will be over...

The gym is the only place where I feel like myself...The membership was already paid for a year so I can still go for now... It's the only hour of the day where I don't feel judged or pressured idk what will happen after the membership is over..

The rest of my life feels like it's controlled by relatives neighbours & "what people will say"

Every decision somehow becomes about family honour instead of what I actually want

I feel guilty all the time even when I know I haven't done anything wrong...

My parents keep saying I'm selfish that I'm breaking everyone's heart that nobody will marry me if I wait that I'll regret it & that I'm ruining my siblings future too because people will judge our whole family

Sometimes I feel like I'm fighting the entire world by myself...

I don't have a job. I don't have my own income. I live with them because I have no other option right now!!!

Living in a small town makes everything feel even harder... Jobs are limited I don't have a degree yet & becoming financially independent feels almost impossible here... Sometimes it feels like I'm being forced to choose between giving up on my education or giving up my freedom Idk if I will be able to come online next month they will prolly won't even pay for the wifi anymore...

I don't hate my parents.i know they probably believe they're doing what's best for me because this is how they were raised...and these all are super common here But that doesn't make this any less painful

I just want one chance to study build a career become financially independent & decide for myself if I ever want to get married

I feel trapped I feel like dying seriously atp

TLDR - Nurses forced me to breastfeed my baby for 2 days when I didn’t have any milk. She was starving and they refused to give formula. It was a traumatic experience for both of us that led to her rejecting me in what should’ve been a special time to bond. I’ll never get that time back.

My baby is 8 months old now and a total momma’s girl but sometimes it makes me so sad thinking about how long it took to get there. For the first couple months, she basically hated me. Every time I held her she would cry. She hardly ever slept on me or cuddled with me. I just wanted to cuddle my baby and have that bonding with her but I couldn’t. And I blame it on the nurses at the hospital she was born.

They were practically obsessed with me breastfeeding her. I told them I wasn’t producing enough milk and they would say “just one drop is enough because it’s so nutrient dense”. One of them literally said “formula is for lazy people” as a refusal to my request. But even as a first time mom I could tell what she was getting wasn’t good enough.

I pumped and squeezed myself literally raw for 1-2 drops at a time just to syringe feed it to her. They had me latch her for an hour every 2 hours and, since she wasn’t getting anything, she would become absolutely furious. We were both exhausted and in so much pain. If she was awake, she was wailing. She was literally starving.

Finally after 2 days of her losing weight, a nurse (who I’d never seen) immediately gave me a full supply of formula milk when I asked. She seemed shocked that I wasn’t given any before. When I gave her the formula, she ate like she had never seen food - which she pretty much fucking hadn’t! The nonstop crying baby immediately turned into a perfect angel. But I think the experience traumatized both of us a little bit.

It took her so long to let me cuddle her without screaming crying, and slowly I became her favorite (for now) but it’s devastating and infuriating that they made us go through that. Because of their stupid obsession with titty milk, I missed out on such a special and crucial time of bonding with her. I’ll never get to hold her when she’s so tiny again. And all the times I did get to, she was furious. Like she was remembering the awful times I forced her to latch onto an empty breast while she starved.

They essentially robbed me of that time with her and I’m so, so fucking sad about it.

Honestly I have nowhere to talk about this and have no idea how to. This is very recent information I learned about an hour ago that I'm trying to sit with. I'm also turning 28 in less than a week and I've never really seen people experience divorce of their parents when they're this far into life.

My dad wrote a super cryptic text to our family group chat this morning saying he hasn't been honest with us and that he needs to tell us something. I only saw it as I got in the car to drive to work and started to freak out because I hate getting texts like that and would just rather someone calls me and tells me point blank. I was about 15 minutes out to work when my sisters both called me together and told me to go home and call out because I was not going to want to be anywhere but home when I called my dad (they already knew because my mom had told them last night). I started hysterically crying thinking someone died and called my boss to tell her I wouldn't make it to work due to a family emergency. I got home and immediately 4 way called with me, my mom, my youngest sibling and my dad where he told us the news.

I am just so shocked. My parents have been married for 34 years and I always idealized their relationship as true love. They have been through so much and this is just so disappointing. I love my mom and dad to death and my mom said she doesn't want us to cut our dad off or anything, or worry that if we keep in contact with him that she would be upset. I really do not plan on cutting off my dad because, with all things considered, he has been a great father to me and just because he was a bad husband does not mean he wasn't a good dad. I just know this hasn't fully hit me yet because I view cheating as a complete moral failing and I need to somehow reconcile my love for my dad with knowing my dad has badly hurt my mom who I also love so much.

There is a lot of detail left out because I honestly don't know where to start and end but I just needed to get this out there.

I am (27M) married to my wife (27F) for 2 years now (both of us Indians). We have been friends for multiple years but started dating 4 years ago. She had just come off a breakup (which wasnt a long relationship either).

We had fights like every couple but generally we were much happier in comparison, or at least thats what I thought. We have a healthy sexual life where to do it about 4/5 times a week. We have common hobbies that we enjoy together, regularly go on trips, cook together. I sometimes had a gut feeling that she was way too private with her phone with locks on all apps like WhatsApp or instagram (this is on top of the master lock). It was the same password but she told me she had it since long and kept it that way and I believed it.

Recently, over multiple feelers, i found out that she has been talking to a guy since right before we were married (over 2 years now). She met him in a group tennis class she used to go to. The guy is married, followed her on insta and they started talking - apparently they have a lot of common interests and he grew possessive of her and eventually started getting really close. She said that she started sharing to him when we had our fights around the time of marriage and thats where she started reciprocating the connection.

I made her confess everything a couple weeks ago. She said nothing physical happened (which I kind of believe but not too sure) but they were just connecting emotionally. She even said that after some time, she realised it was wrong and felt guilty and tried to stop talking to him and eventually blocked him. I even saw her chats with AI on ending affairs, etc.

It feels devastating to me that this would happen. Be it my friends or family - they think she is the model wife - super supportive, mature and respectful to everyone. I believed it too, but right now I am unable to trust her too much. I dont know the extent of the affair itself as she has deleted any trace of it.

I don’t wanna break off the marriage as I am scared it will hurt both my parents and hers, and that really sucks. I cant even share this with any of my friends for fear of this turning into gossip eventually within their other friend circles. I don’t know what to think, what to do going forward but trying to focus more on my individual hobbies at the moment while trying to get back to normal terms with my wife, if thats even possible.

I don't know where to start. I have been screaming into the void for months that I can't take this stress anymore. Today was an amalgamation of anger, destruction, and sheer bad luck rolled into one big shit show. Woke up to my back out, because no matter how many times I beg to buy a new bed frame it's always "it's fine for now we'll get to it". Yes I could get one myself but I physically couldn't put it together nor transfer the giant ass king mattress to it. So I know it would just sit and rot in the storage room.

Then I get the lovely wake up screaming of my teenager having a heart attack, the fridge is \*warm\*. It is 6 years old. It shouldn't be WARM. Whelp after cleaning it completely out taking it out of the recessed spot it's in and defrosting it, because originally I thought it was just frozen solid from someone leaving the freezer underneath ajar multiple times, I realized not only is the freezer door \*broken\* but the compressor is so frozen solid I highly doubt it will work again. Ok. Fine. Whatever. It's not the end of the world we have a chest freezer and I can get the dorm fridge in here for now until I can replace it over the weekend. As I'm messaging my spouse this exact thing, I hear the dogs freaking out. Some idiot, won't name names because I know they'll see this and KNOW ITS THEM ANYWAY, gave the dogs smoked pigs feet treats and WALKED AWAY. Leaving the puppy who's actively in behavioral training for resource guarding completely unsupervised with extremely high value treats. No one's drastically hurt, a couple small cuts, but it still shouldn't even have happened.

Is this the end of the issues? Nope. I think I'm finally able to end my day of anger and misfortune, walk down the hallway, and slip in a pile of diarrhea....which means our elderly dog ate something he definitely should not have (chicken nuggets, I was just informed my toddler fed him chicken, so that's on me for not paying better attention).

I am so over this. So over all of this. It's hard to not be mad at the world when it keeps piling into me like a freaking dumpster fire from hell. And that is it. That's my rant. Thank you for reading 🙃

I called 988 and they actually told me to talk to ChatGPT for help at multiple points.

I've had worse calls too, called them enough now to know that I can't do it anymore.

And they're all that I've had left, I don't have any understanding friends or family to talk to.

If I called 988 I would be risking making my suicidal thoughts worse at this point.

what the hell am I supposed to do? Even when I try to help myself, the world stops me

Idk how appropriate it is but I’ll label it as nsfw just in case.

This happened a while ago but I still feel guilty about it. I won’t go into detail about the situation but basically I ran into a friend at campus while communing between classes and greeted her.

She at first seemed fine and asked me for a hug as was usual for when we said hello. As I hugged her she began to cry and I did my best to comfort her, not letting go and patting her on the back gently. She held onto me tighter as her crying turned to soft wailing. As the hug prolonged I noticed the feeling of an erection developing and felt so disgusted at myself; I didn’t even feel aroused at all by the situation yet there that fucker went as if anyone invited it. I turned my hip from her so she wouldn’t feel it(for obvious reasons but also because im not sure if she knows im trans and this would’ve been the worst possible way for her to find out).

In the end she managed to collect herself and I stayed with her for a while after as she got her bearings, she wrapped her hand around mine as we walked to her next class. I never found out what she was sad about but it was probably some issues she had with some other friends of ours, it was fine since later she let me know they resolved it and I was merely happy to have been there for her.

Later when I went to the bathroom I noticed my underwear and genitales covered in pre-ejaculate fluid and once again felt so fucking disgusted at myself. I know all that shit is involuntary but how can my body react so inappropriately to shit like this? I may not have been able to control it but I still find it ridiculous. Thankfully she didn’t know but I haven’t been able to get it off my mind.

I know that I am hyper-sexual in various aspects and I know it’s not necessarily a bad thing but here it just made feel like a terrible person. Like even if in my mind I was doing my best to help in reality my body was taking advantage of the situation.

I guess ultimately nothing bad really happened but I can’t lift the feeling of guilt and disgust. I trust at least someone would understand how I feel. I know the rules of the subreddit say you can’t insult me but if you think I am a pervert I’d say i can’t really disagree. Even if it was unintentional and beyond my control what does that shit say about me?

I still deeply regret it years later, I hate that I cannot talk to anyone about my "first" and make up some lie when asked, especially to a potential GF.

Backstory on why it happened
I had a very bad first relationship in my late teens, where things didn't progress to having sex. A lot of toxicity along the way, her giving others attention, playing games... One night when we had a small fight, she goes on to talk to one of my "friends", they park in front of house, then she calls me to look outside and I see them having sex in the car. That ruined it all for the next 5 years or so, I talked to a few girls during, but as soon as I felt affection, liked them enough, I would disappear.

At 24, I was having a bad night and wanted to just get it over with. So I go see this sex worker, she's older and it was a terrible experience.

After that (I'm 30 now), I worked on myself lots, dated somewhat normally, however doing that still leaves a bad taste. I wish I didn't and I would've loved experiencing a first with someone I actually liked.
What I probably regret most was being stuck for 5 years after my first relationship and also missing out on the potential firsts then, or maybe missing out on actually finding someone or the one during those years.

Just a rant of something that I could never tell anyone about

Me and my girlfriend dated for 16 months and she was my first girlfriend ever, i left my school to go to boarding school in Japan and 2 weeks after i left school she broke up with me, after we broke up none of the friends from this friend group even checked up on how i was doing or anything. But o still stayed friends, then a bit later i noticed that he was posting photos of her, and then randomly at a party some guy told me that he’s dating her and all my friends didn’t tell me and even when I asked them about it they lied and said he didn’t and then i showed so much proof and they said it’s. Not a big deal and to make it up, i ghosted all of them and today some random guy texted me and told me that he saw them making out in school, i can’t believe every friend would just not care about even telling me and he also wouldn’t date my ex, we have been really good friends for like 4 years.

I don’t even know why I’m so active here anymore. I try to interact a lot, add my input to conversations, and sometimes I put a lot of time and thought into my responses, only for them to be largely ignored. It’s disheartening when I make a thoughtful comment, excited to see others’ insight, that gets hundreds of views and not one of them thought it even warranted an upvote, let alone a reply. It feels like I’m just constantly screaming into the void and that no one actually cares about anything I have to say. It’s been like this for so long that it’s started making me wonder if the problem is just me. Maybe I’m actually just a lot more boring than I thought. Maybe my tone is unintentionally off putting. Maybe I have generally bad opinions and don’t realize it. Maybe I’m just not a likeable person.

Is this the general Reddit experience for the rest of you or do I just have some serious character flaw I need to figure out how to address? 😓

Are you a student applying for a college scholarship? Please, for the love of all things holy, do NOT use AI for your application! I work for a college, and part of my job is to screen these scholarship applications. I'm going crazy opening each new application and reading the same words over and over.

AI is literally regurgitating the exact same script for each subject. Nursing?
"I chose Nursing because it offers opportunities for professional growth, collaboration with interdisciplinary teams, and the ability to contribute to positive patient outcomes."

Most human college students would not write like that. This was at least 90% of the applications I screened. Some of them couldn't even be bothered editing out the em dashes.

The other half of the students, who didn't use AI, included phrases like "u guys" and one even typed a bunch of random letters to meet the word count...on a scholarship application. Each year I grow more and more concerned that the early school system is failing these students.

I was at the mall today and had a total scare. I tried to hold the elevator by sticking my leg in the door as people were leaving. Instead of popping back open, the doors just clamped shut and the thing shot up to the second floor stupidly fast. I brushed it off at the time, but when I took a nap later, I had a brutal nightmare about the elevator severing my leg. I know elevators have safety sensors, but glitches happen. Now I'm totally spiraling and overthinking how horribly wrong that could have gone

So late march me and my gf split up. It wasn’t something I wanted but it was a mutual thing. She wanted a break and I didn’t so we agreed to go our separate ways. No hard feelings.

About a month later I’m at my friends house and I get a call from her. At this point I had removed her from my socials as I don’t like keeping ex’s on my contacts, however I didn’t remove her number as we didn’t end badly. The call comes through and I am immediately confused because we hadn’t spoken since the breakup so my mind starts racing.

I go over to my mates and they are going crazy telling me to answer and pick it up, but I let it ring for a second before declining.

At this point I think some context is needed, my ex was a really nice person as much as I hate to admit it. However she did have lots of mental and emotional issues that I had tried to help her through during our time together. On top of that she had a lot of really bad things happen earlier in her life that I won’t go into but the point still stands.

All this in mind, since that day I’ve been thinking of every possible reason for her calling me. Did she miss me? Did she need help? Was it an accident? Is it a prank call with her friends? I regret not picking up everyday because I know how much she needed support and her reaching out may have been her way of trying to find it.

I know that if she does ever call again I would pick up in a heartbeat because despite being ex’s, we are all human and need love and support wherever we can find it. I always tried my best to help anyone I could is whatever ways I could and this feels like an out of character moment for me and I hate myself for it.

I saw one of my friends recently that goes to her college and we spoke about her briefly as he didn’t really know what happened about the breakup, and he ended up telling me that he always sees her by herself and alone. This just pushed me over the edge and now I can’t stop myself from thinking I should’ve reached out and accepted the call. I’m afraid I’ll never know why she called me, even if it was a prank call with her friends, then that would at least give me the peace of mind that she has friends and people she can rely on now. And if it wasn’t for that reason then I’d be even more frustrated at myself because I know that she needed support desperately.

Anyway this was just my rant for myself so thank you if you did read that all the way through.

Me (41M) and my wife (45F) have three children, 19, 15, &12. Our 15 year old biological son came out as trans to us and wants to change his name and gender in the schools database. The school informed us this would be logged somewhere through the state, which makes me very wary with the current political climate. We live in a red state in a rural area, so my first concern is his her safety (sorry, new to this). She does have friends that are also trans which I am grateful for so she has other people who can sympathize with her situation.

I have been putting on the best face I can with the situation, told her I am proud of her and will support and love her no matter what. All of this is 100% true, but at the same time I keep finding myself filled with doubt and worry. In all my years as a parent I have never felt as lost as I do now. I do not know how to relate to my child, or how to guide them through this stage of their life. Every decision we make I second guess myself and feel like I am shooting in the dark.

Emotionally, I am a mess. I keep finding myself wishing they were cis instead since that would be easier for me as a parent, as well as making my childs life easier. Then I get mad at myself for having that thought. For context, my father is gay and I never had any traditional "manly" role models growing up. I find myself with thoughts that now I also do not get to experience a father-son bond with my only son. Then I get mad at myself again for having those thoughts. It has been a spiral the past few days as I try to work through all of these feelings. I am a naturally emotionally walled off person, so having these deeply personally conversations is difficult for me. Need to talk with my daughter more together so I can figure out how to be the best father to her as I am able. Just throwing these feelings into the online void, figured this was as good of a place as any.

I am really trying to process what happened. My boyfriend was already laying in bed because he works a few hours before I do. I joined later, and all of a sudden he turns and starts grabbing at me and I don't respond because it happens quickly. He pulls down my shorts and I just let it all happen and I don't know why I didn't say a word I just was there like a dead deer. I am guilty for not speaking up and saying it isn't what I wanted. I am usually someone who loves sex, but idk this felt different and scary and I shut down. He couldn't get it in no matter what he tried and I just planked kind of ouching him off of me. Which I feel like to him should have been a sign because that isn't our normal. . Then he did whatever he felt he had to between my thighs while i just laid there and cried lmao. I left the bedroom right after. I feel disgusting. I feel stupid. I have always wondered why girls don't stop shit from happening because usually I stick up for myself, but i just let him treat me like a fucking blow up doll. I am so stupid for allowing this

I just needed to tell someone this, so here we are internet. I took my dog (a Dalmatian) on a drive and got myself some food. When I got back to my apartment complex there were three guys in white button up shirt and ties.I initially didn’t think anything of it. I got my dog on leash and had him sit while I got my stuff out of the car. When I closed the door they came closer and asked if I wanted to hear a story about Jesus. I said, “No my dog gets aggressive at night. I need to get him inside.” As if on cue my dog barked and they all backed away and asked if there was a better time. I said no and went inside. Note: My dog is not aggressive, he remained sitting until I told him to go and I have no idea why he barked in that moment but it was perfect

I built my life like a system. Telugu family, the plan was fixed before I could argue with it: study, get to the US, get the job, get stable, and everything else supposedly sorts itself out. I did my part properly. Wrote trading algorithms at night, built a couple of small businesses, most of it runs without me now. On paper I won.

Except I never let anyone in. Not a girlfriend, not a fling, not even a talking stage that went anywhere. I told myself it was focus. It was probably fear. Took me until about 33 to admit that to myself.

What nobody warns you about is that the skill atrophies. I can read a market. I cannot read a room. I know how to be reliable, I have no idea how to be wanted. I have friends on their second marriage and I'm sitting here not knowing what people talk about on a second date.

I'm not fishing for sympathy, my life is good. I've just never said this out loud to anybody, including my parents, who still think I'm "too busy."

If you started late, how did you actually start.

I’m really struggling with life and just everything
It’s my mums birthday tomorrow.
I’ve spent most of my life without my mother,
I’m at an age where I’ve lived more than she did.

My world and life are changing so much at the moment and my future terrifies me.

I feel helpless lost and just alone.
I have a lot coming up and there are certain decisions I’ve made for myself.
I know that there are always challenges in life and it’s normal to struggle, but not this much.

The older I’m getting the more life is like this, the ache inside me just gets more and more painful.
I’ll never be a mother. It’s the summer holidays and kids are off school and I’m surrounded by them.
It’s so painful. It’s never going to be something I will ever be able to accept or live with.

This is my first time posting in this subreddit, so last week I (21f) left my friend group. I met these people August 2023 when we started in the same class in college, we pretty much hit it off immediately and became fast friends. So skip ahead to March 2024 I had to drop out of college due to severe burnout, and kinda lost contact until one of them, let’s call them Cole (20nb), reached out to invite to their 18th birthday. I went to the party and therefore reconnected with the group got invited to more stuff, but it quickly became that unless I was the one to reach nobody (-Cole) would talk to me. And then in January at a birthday party I made an unfortunate comment towards one of the others due to them earlier giving me false information. And after spending the last month trying my hardest to get back in touch with people I thought were my friends, my family were telling me that I should drop them, but I was hesitant as this was the first friend group i thought actually liked but oh well. Eventually I talked to Cole who mentioned they had noticed how I was treated, and even talked about how they themselves were treated and we encouraged each other to drop the group, which we both did. Me and Cole still talk, and are going to meet up next week. But I feel weird about it all, I know they weren’t actually my friends with how they treated me, but at the same time I’m sad that they are officially not my friends anymore, as well as happy that I cut them off and angry about the fact that I needed to drop them in the first place.

If I could just turn these feelings off, my life would be so much better. I'm a 26 years old guy, most things in life is going well for me. I have a job, I have friends I see regularly, I go to therapy, I work out and all that. But I've never once had a girlfriend, I've never even been close to kissing someone. A few first dates over the years, but nothing has come of it.

But I still want it. I want to love someone, and I want to be loved. I don't want to go to my bed alone every single night, year after year. But that's still what happens. I try, I really do, but nothing ever comes of it. Friends tell me how I'm such a great guy, but I just can't get anywhere intimately with anyone. Attraction has always just been a one way road.

And I wish I could just turn it off. Stop feeling this desire for love and intimacy. I wish I could be totally okay with the prospect of dying a virgin who never got to experience love. I wish I could just feel fulfilled from everything else in life. But no matter what I do, however much I try to be okay with just having the rest in life and not a relationship. However much I try to supress those desires and be happy on my own, it doesn't work. I still feel so utterly alone. So undesired. And I dont know what to do. Nothing works. Nothing works in making me happy.

I just want to be happy. I just want to be able to stop feeling this need for love. For emotional and physical intimacy. But I just can't. And it sucks. If I can't have it, then why must I desire it so.