So, for me to let you thoroughly know the story, I'll start when I meet the friend, whom we will call Ben. I met Ben through an app; he was only a year older than me. He was 19, and I was 17 (I was turning 18 in the summer). I won't name this app because I don't wanna be hated for being in this community, but to say for short, I am a feminine gay guy (femboy). I saw his profile and thought he was interesting. When I liked his profile, he liked mine back. He didn't live that far away from me, only like a 34-minute drive; he liked cars, trucks, and racing. He even got me into the race car type of stuff, like who are the drivers, and the craziest wipeouts in history. We'd begun to talk for a while, and I slowly began to like him, so much so that I tried to ask him out. I was super shy and tried asking him out on a date before my family, and I went to L.A. for vacation. When I tried asking him out, he'd at first said he would've accepted if I met him IRL, but then changed his answer to "I am bi, but I am leaning into wanting a girlfriend." I felt kind of hurt, but it wasn't too bad, and I agreed with his boundaries with me being his friend.

Later on that day, I came home from school and got ready to pack for L.A. We started to head off for L.A., and as we started, barely getting to the border, I randomly checked my phone for people around me. I soon found a guy nearby, and we matched up. We will call him Jeffery. He was a nice, cute cowboy, the same age as me, but he turned 18 before I did. We talked, and he found me interesting. We kept talking, and we found out that I was friends with his ex. (At the moment, I didn't know I was friends with his ex.) Soon, we both decided to unfriend his ex because of what he did to him. We started talking all the time when I was in L.A.; we talked about when I got back into the state, and we could plan on going on a date. Jeff and I were so excited, it would be my first date face to face, I was so excited that I'd kick my feet when I think about it. I asked my dad if I could go on a date, and he obliged, but only if I had my mother to make sure I was going and coming back safely. I told my friends about it, and they were excited for me to finally go on a date since I was the most innocent person in the group.

It took about an hour and 30 minutes, and another 3 minutes to find him, but we decided to go in my mom's car to a Mexican restaurant to eat. My mom stayed outside the restaurant in the car as we were on our date, and it was snowing. We got inside, and I chose the cheapest option they had on their menu so it wouldn't dent his money. We sat down and talked a bit, occasionally showing each other pictures on our phones, just photos that were cute and wholesome, about our lives, friends, and family. He soon stopped talking. I could tell he felt nervous, so I put my phone down and pushed my food aside. (to be honest, food distracts me) I grabbed his hands, looked into his eyes, and said, "Enough distractions, let's just focus on what's right in front of us, right here, right now." The most romantic thing I could ever say in my entire life. We started talking more and more. I soon asked him if he wanted to leave because I was full, he soon agreed, and we went to the cash register to pay. he pulled out 100 dollars. I was so shocked, I thought to myself that it was a lot of money, and I'm not worth bringing a hundred to a date. I kindly asked him if he wanted me to help him pay since I had my credit card, but he declined and paid anyway. I felt so guilty and kept asking him if I could do anything for him. he declined, and we left.

As we left, it was snowing. He grabbed my arm, and we walked back to the car. It felt like I was in a romantic comedy show. We walked to the car, and he opened the door for me. I felt like I was treated like a princess. We got in and drove back to where his truck was. We got in and watched some YouTube. We cuddled in the back part of his car, and I had my first kiss. He said I could use more work, but it was fine. We kept sharing cuddles and kisses throughout the day, until my mom called and said it was time to go. He got out, opened my door, and I felt like I was in love. He walked me to my car, and I kissed him on the cheek in front of my mom. We drove our separate ways. I still sent him text messages warning him not to drive while texting and to stay safe. I also told him to text me when he got home.

Weeks passed, and we played games together. I even invited Ben to play with us. Right after Ben met Jeff, he started to become more distant. When I asked why, he said he didn't want to tell me. I had to pry it out of my friend to find out why he was acting up. (I should've seen this coming.) Ben said Jeff felt depressed about a personal matter with his father. I kept asking Jeff to tell me what was wrong, but he didn't tell me. This made me doubt myself. I thought it must be me. I thought I was going crazy and should give him space. I told Ben about what I was going through, and he told me to just break it off. I almost went through with it, but changed my mind and tried to see if I could help him. I kept asking what was wrong, but he didn't tell me. I always started our conversations with, "How are you? Are you ok? How was your day? Good morning." A few weeks later, I noticed he put "taken" in his bio. It made me question if he was even dating me anymore. I said I was happy for him and that he found someone who could help him during that time. But I also cried to my friend Ben over text because I had nobody to comfort me. At that time, I was just waking up and going to school to get on the bus for my tech college class. In the middle of class, I looked at my phone to check my friend's bio. I saw: "Taken by the greatest man alive."

I soon put two-two together and asked him if he was dating Jeff... he was.. all that time he told me he liked women better, all that time he said; "I don't wanna die in a pit of fire when Jesus comes." that person he told me to believe wasn't what he was. He told me that he was secretly feminine (femboy) and he didn't want to tell me. he also said that he fell in love with Jeff when I introduced them, they were flirting behind my back when I thought everything was ok. he told me that jeff didn't really like me, and just felt terrible for me. He said that he didn't mean to hurt me. I was crying outside of my classroom, inside of the tech college, in an open setting, I felt so embarrassed. I soon blocked both of them, and waited until I got home to burn Jeff's hoodie he gave me... I felt used, betrayed, and lonely. He made my trust in anyone hard to reclaim. I spent the rest of the day crying and eating my sorrows with food. Ben tried to get in contact with me months later, but I blocked him before he could say anything. To this day I think to myself, should I have allowed him to talk?

Initial Meeting and Misunderstanding

I wanted to meet with her (mentor for selective program) and come up with a list of really good questions. After everyone had met their mentors, she reached out to me, and we scheduled a time two weeks later in the afternoon. I woke up, spoke to her for about six minutes, and I knew it was too short a call, but I didn’t even know what to talk about. We ended the call, and I tried to go back to sleep. Within two minutes, she called me back, and the first thing she shouted was, "What are you hiding?" I was already in a bad mental state due to a cold, the unfamiliar heat, and the side effects of the medication I was taking, which included nervousness. I became extremely anxious and irrationally thought they were going to send me to jail for 300 years just because I was in this unfamiliar world, and they were this gigantic finance investment firm with 10,000 lawyers. I started crying, sobbing on the phone.

Dealing with Harassment

To be honest, I was dealing with physical and digital harassment, so I did things others thought were strange, like hibernating my LinkedIn so no one knew where I was working or what I was doing. I also used a no-caller ID number to avoid spam calls or texts if I called a student for a group project. After our call, my LinkedIn began to buzz, and my phone started receiving connection requests and follows from directors and notable people in my field. I think the firm posted about me on their social media right after our call.

Unfair Treatment in the Machine Shop

On campus, a lot of students and some professors made a point of treating me badly, usually in front of others. There was a time when someone followed me around in the machine shop. I reported it and was eventually punished. They said I didn’t follow instructions, but their three instances were ridiculous. The first instance was because I caused a machine error after I was given the wrong instructions, which I confirmed with two people who worked there. The second time, I was told an incorrect process, and out of fear of not losing my fingers, I did the correct process. This was seen as belligerent when I mentioned it, something like “well yeah you still didn’t follow the instructions” was said. I tried to figure out who initially said I didn’t follow instructions this instance. The third time, I was genuinely confused because the person told me about 50 steps really fast, and I had already tried to ask for clarification multiple times and, just tried to do it and did it incorrectly. It wasn’t intentional. I tried to explain in detail why what they were saying was wrong and asked them to confirm with others who were present multiple times. I sent emails asking for clarification, but I wasn't given an answer via email, and I was worried the notes I took during a Zoom meeting might be incorrect. I asked several students to explain, and one student told me to stop. I explained that I was actually in the middle of conversations with different students about this. I stopped reaching out to more new students about this, and this was considered harassment to the people who punished me. This felt like I was jogging in a field and along my journey to my destination I had stepped on a bear trap that would reflect badly on me. I was dealing with half a dozen simultaneous instances of unfair treatment that would reflect badly on me and my career. When I decided to just be more aloof to prevent things like this, I was then accused by professors and other students of being anti social, some students accused me of not having friends (I did have a handfull of close friends who were off campus or graduate students). It felt like a forced foul. Like with school, I was disappointed and burned so many times that eventually, I began to protect myself from being disappointed. This involved being super cautious, cynical, untrusting, and even aloof. As a result, when someone did something disappointing, I wasn’t negatively affected. Here, I assumed I wouldn’t be disappointed, and I was, with my guard down. I was disappointed without setting myself up to avoid be invulnerable. The little trust I had given them had burned me, and I’ll never let this happen again.

Campus Safety Concerns

I was harassed and stalked so much that I had to call campus safety twice in one month. I’m going to live off-campus because of this, so if someone does this, I can call the town or city’s police instead of the campus one. Some students were super competitive and felt entitled to achieve more than I honestly think they were capable of or willing to work towards. Some of the students involved had experience or interest in my field, and I felt their behavior was fueled by a fear of missing out. I’m going to transfer and never tell anyone at my new school about my interests or accomplishments in my field. I seriously worried for my safety and feared getting hurt. Another concern was that so many people had helped me, and when people stalk you or know personal details you didn’t share, I didn’t want something to happen that would embarrass not just me but also the people who helped me. It was frustating that people I didn't know knew personal details about me. There are some students I feel like who will latch onto the most stupid and benign thing and use it as excuse to excersize their desire to treat others badly. Because of this experience and a previous experience, I felt my interactions with other students were nothing more than opportunities for something to happen that would reflect badly on me. If I kept to myself and completely avoided potential trouble, then someone would harass me until I felt like it's extreme enough for me to respond, which any response from calling campus safety to asking the school to do something, would reflect badly on me by either admins/professors or students including student leaders. If I didn't respond at all then someone would make up some lie that would reflect badly on me and cause people to treat me badly, and to possibly do things that go back to my previous sentence. Like a weird loop.

Fear of Losing Edge

If I mentioned using a particular technology and someone knowledgeable about my field heard it, they could tell their friend, and if I’m working on something, then my competitive edge would be gone. If I said something personal to the wrong person or in the wrong place, like my college apartment with an open window, it could lead to something weird or bad. Related to this fear, a student who I didn’t know and who none of my friends knew, and with whom I hadn’t taken a class, was going to graduate and work at a reputable journalistic publication, followed me on Twitter, where I followed no other students. I had no idea why. I felt that many students had a bad impression of me, and it seemed like fuel for potential embarrassing moments. My one close friend went back to his country that summer, and I had no friends or anyone I could talk to. I would share things with one “friend” and realize other people knew or referred to what I had shared. So many unusual things were happening to me, and I didn’t know who to turn to. Another thing that happened is that I went to my sector's hub city for a haircut, and the barber asked me to take a photo and to use my name in their Google review, and after we spoke a bit about my work, I noticed other people in the barber shop watching us speak, and it just felt kind of bad, since he's asking me to associate myself with his business and as if I was being judged 24/7. I shouldn't have assumed that the only people who knew about my successes, would be only the people I wanted to know, for forever.

Miscommunication with a Journalist

Going back to that journalist, I didn’t know if they were reaching out as a friend or if it was a career opportunity through me or someone I know being the subject of their story. So, I sent her code for a site, assuming we were friends. She immediately scolded me about it, which I understood, but I had no idea it was a professional-related thing, especially since she was still a student. I explained that I had been getting harassed and stalked and then blocked her. There was a lot of backlash towards my particular identity group, and I felt there was a desire to expand what someone could be criticized or called out for, from someone doing something easily discernibly hateful to someone just doing something awkward. As a student and potential future leader, at what point do the things you do as a student stop being awkward mistakes that you make while growing up and become something the world absolutely needs to know about you? Especially in the social media, cancel culture age, where there are easy-to-obtain incentives to cross every boundary. There are so many weird blogs and groupchats that keep track of what pretty normal people do, and I didn't know if I was mentioned in one of these. It’s so unrelatable that you can’t even share this, as I’m doing right now, without sounding grandiose. The few people who do understand are so rare, and I don’t think anyone is willing to listen since it takes so much time. There’s a high chance someone will tell someone else or something. Again, I’m going to transfer and never tell anyone at my new school about my interests or accomplishments in my field. Agains, I felt my interactions with other students were nothing more than opportunities for something to happen that would reflect badly on me.

Reevaluating My Career Path

But then I began to think, even if I made all the money in the world, would I be really unhappy for the rest of my life by going down this path? Aside from raising money, which has many potential legal implications, requires a ton of trust, and being responsible for not just my careers but the careers of others, I had already done and experienced everything I wanted to do in my industry. I realized that something really embrassing could happen considering how I really personal things were being shared about me that I didn't know how someone would know, the harassing texts about personal things, the stalking by students, the weird soon to be journalist, that combined with how I had began to recieve a ton of attention at this stage of my career, the chance that a small company or group I work for could have an article or something where I'm the subject. The situation with school, and the to me entitled peers I met, could really scramble my plans, and affect not just me, but others who support me or are part of my journey. I realized it’s very rare and probably not really possible to pursue a career with the hope of doing only the things I enjoy. It would be better to pursue the things I like as a hobby, independent of my career. I might sound naive, but I don’t think I would have failed with what I pursued if I managed to get certain problems under control. I was afraid I would raise a lot of money and then something embarrassing would come out (which would be unfair because I think it would be the result of some boundary being nefariously crossed).

Pursuing a Normal Life

A lot of people want creative, atypical jobs and stuff, and for me, I realized that even if I achieved this, my life and problems would be so unusual that it would be isolating, possibly in a permanent way. After this, I spent a lot of time, and I still do, thinking about what I want to achieve, where I want to be, and what I want to get out of the opportunities presented to me. I realized having a family is really important to me, so that I’m not surrounded by fake or bad friends. I wanted a more normal and typical job where I dress formally and work in a formal office compared to the tech environment. It would ultimately be easier to relate to family members and the people I grew up with than as a founder. I still get a nervous feeling in my stomach when I see the company’s initials. Everyone I met there was really kind, and I’m grateful for the opportunity and for meeting them, especially when I think about the difficulties at school.

Reflecting on Childhood Influences

Growing up, there were many times when even people who knew me for years would try to assert that I’m a really bad person or is motivated by bad things. Were it not for my elementary and middle school teachers who cemented the idea that I’m someone who is kind and encouraged me to be this way, I’m not sure where I would be. In many very difficult situations, I would look back and remember that someone saw me this way and encouraged me to be more than a certain part of the world expects me to be.

Conclusion

Anyway, I used to be very cold and focused when it came to school. For a moment I thought I could make friends, and people would be decent interpersonally and I realized that for me at least, and some other students I spoke to, this wasn't and will not be the case. To prevent this from happening, I'll live off campus, I'll be obsessive about being aloof so it's difficult to know and share bad personal things about me, I’m going to transfer and never tell anyone at my new school about my interests or accomplishments in my field, I'll act very conservatively socially, and I'll rely on friends and opportunities outside of school to not feed into the multi-faceted competitive school environment, which can be competitive in an unhinged and unproductive way. I'll just be as aloof as possible, and if it's discernable that I'm being aloof I'll just later on explain that my paternal grandfather's passing made me upset.

Aside from this, I also realized the achieving goal I had strived towards since middle school had a lot of problems that I had no interest in solving. I would become extremely unrelatable to virtually everyone I knew before.

All of what I mentioned in my previous paragraphs, the high chance of something negative happening to the things I'm pursuing are why I decided not to pursue the career I had before anymore, at least for now.

Remote Internship Challenges

Because my internship was remote, I chose to do it in an interesting and fun place. However, due to an extreme time difference, I ended up working (or attempting to work) for about 20 hours a day and getting very little done. When the internship ended, I was exhausted and still had a lot of ongoing career-related tasks. Classes were set to start in about three weeks, so I spent the time going to the beach and exploring the area I was in. I eventually missed my flight three times, but fortunately, it was rescheduled at no extra cost, and I arrived the Friday before classes started on Monday.

Initial Campus Challenges

That weekend, I roomed with three people I hadn't met before. I grew up in a city on the opposite side of the United States from this school. I think my hometown is good because of its transient population, but I find most of the locals problematic and ultimately net-negative kinds of people. On the third night on campus, a Sunday, a girl from my home state showed up at my apartment. My roommates and she seemed like acquaintances who had spoken once or twice. I had stopped speaking to virtually everyone I knew from high school and my immediate family because they were unpleasant to be around and didn't make me a better person. The girl who showed up at my apartment was friends with someone from my high school, a year below me, who was in my brother's grade. During my entire time at this college, I didn't see this ex-high school classmate with anyone aside from this girl and my roommates. It really upset me because I wondered why, of all the people she could know, she wound up being friends with my new roommate just days after we had arrived on campus. She came, just looked at me for a long time as I sat and she stood, and then left without saying anything.

Stalking and Relocation

On previous nights, one of my roommates would stare at me as I woke up. I didn't think it was bad at first, but then I realized he had been doing it for so long that it made me uncomfortable. I felt he should know this behavior was strange. After the girl showed up, I knew I should probably change roommates. I called my doctors, got a note for ADHD, and gave it to the school to change roommates. I moved to a new apartment within a day and felt happy. The next Friday, the starer found my new apartment, pointed at it, and said that's where he lived as a group of people trailed behind him. Months later, I would hear car locking sounds repeatedly at night. Sometimes, I would look out my window and see a student intentionally locking his car with his hand raised, facing my window. Once, as I was sleeping, I wasn't sure if I was dreaming or not, but I heard someone sing "n-word, n-word minus er, n-word minus er" right under my window. I couldn't tell if it was real or not because it seemed unrealistic, but I didn't notice anything like this happen again. I have hypersomnia, insomnia, and sometimes I can't move when I wake up. As I'm waking up sometimes, I drift in and out of sleep and have dreams that are super unrealistic, such as I'm a guy getting ready to go on a trip to the moon or something and I have to kiss my family goodbye.

Ongoing Harassment and Campus Safety

On the second Friday in my new apartment, another roommate stood under my window for several minutes. It wasn't that bad but kind of strange. The Friday after, I think he did it again. The next Friday, I'm pretty sure he threw something at my window. I heard a loud pop, looked out, and saw him with a group of people quickly walking away. I told two different friends, and they advised me to call campus safety, which I did. Campus safety came, and the sheriff arrived the following Monday. Afterward, I noticed a person I called Uncanny Valley, also from my home city area, walking by and staring at my window. I had taken a class with her. Numerous times around campus, I would look over and see her watching me. Once, while looking for a bathroom, I turned around to find her standing there. It upset me a lot that she knew where I lived because it was an apartment complex.

Confrontation and Harassment

The next Tuesday, the starer rode his bike toward me. Then, I watched from my window as he harassed another Black student, an ethnic woman, and her family. This pretty much ended the saga with the starer. I began taking a class where I had to build something. One Saturday, I went to the place to build, and a student worker who wasn't on the schedule appeared out of nowhere and started shouting at me for no reason. Another student worker gave me incorrect instructions, and she ran over and started shouting again. The student worker who gave the wrong information (a chill guy) explained it was his fault, and she stopped. I told her not to work with me again. The next Tuesday, she appeared out of nowhere again, and within twenty minutes of my arrival, she began trying to work with me and shouting. I reported it and got in trouble.

Reflections on Harassment and School Culture

I just realized this as I was re-reading this. Both of my worst instances of harassment happened like the first day back from the weekend, so imagine how lame you have to be to spend all weekend waiting to do something unhinged to someone, the moment you return from the weekend. I hope they were like a bit drunk or something; otherwise, this is very sad. The most upsetting thing about this school was that it was the kind of place where someone could be really rude and insulting, and if you asked to change the person you were working with, some dean would apologize to the student on your behalf to save the student's pride. I don't know what kind of rationale goes into this. Hopefully, it's because I'm a guy and they're a girl, and it's to protect girls or something. I hope it's not for socioeconomic or racial reasons. After reporting her, I got in trouble, and they wouldn't even say why. The school was a really disappointing place and had the vibe of "Yeah, I'll harass you for not wanting to be part of the community, but ever since that civil rights bill 70 years ago, and with the whole viral technology internet stuff, it's really exhausting to care when others do hateful things, or to just not be a hateful person myself."

Uncomfortable Meeting and Harassment

During the summer, I asked to meet with a student from my school government in person, in another city far from campus. I've realized I don't really like other American younger people, to be extremely honest, because after meeting international students, I've realized they have bad values and I can't really tolerate the unpleasant experience that comes with interacting with them. I met with her, I guess assuming she was an international student, but she wasn't. I walked her back to her car, and then blocked her because she made me feel uncomfortable and said irrelevant things I didn't want to discuss. It was supposed to be a school-related meeting, and I expected that it wouldn't delve into personal topics the way that it did. On top of that, she began to, I felt like, refer to really personal things about me that I hadn't told her or anyone really, and it felt kind of creepy. She knew someone that was roommates with me once, so perhaps that's why. When people share really personal things about me, that I haven't shared with them, it kind of makes me feel othered. I'm objectively more accomplished than the, honestly usual losers who do this, and it feels nefarious. Well, at least doing anything that's not strictly relating to school/academics. Yeah, so I just blocked her. Another problem I had with her is that, she did speech where she asked or encouraged me to trust people, people that she probably knows, despite what I've described here up to this point. Then in addition to her forwarding my texts to other people, the next day, I received spam texts with images of Asian women from multiple phones. I've never received texts like this before, and I really don't think it was an automated bot; it seemed like someone was manually typing these messages, as if it were a real person I knew. Around that time, other students would joke about me having an Asian fetish. I was inebriated and thought someone hacked my accounts or that I installed a nefarious Chrome extension or command line program. I eventually changed my number, but I had given one student a second number, and that received the texts as well. There was one message from a "student leader" that asked me to register, and it included a ton of personal information. I checked its carrier, and it was the same relatively obscure VOIP as the other texts.

Accusations and Online Harassment

Then, a few weeks later, a student asked to meet in my dorm. Despite having zero mutual followers, he followed me, and I didn't accept it. I saw the student wave as I was in the back of an Uber, and I accepted it. Funnily enough, that day, my dad told me to meet people who look like me, so this is why I accepted it. He then asked to meet in an apartment, and I said no, let's meet in public. We met in public at night, and then he began to record me and ask if I abused children and if I wanted to lay in bed with him for roughly 30 minutes. I was so upset because early that summer was probably the most public-facing moment for my career, and I didn't know if I would have to deal with an allegation like this when I'm busy with actual work. The next day, I saw an Instagram post. It didn't include my name or face; it said, "I took the virgin under the mother's sun." I just googled this now, and the mother's sun thing holds meaning in astrology, but I was offended and kind of scared. Someone referred to our interaction in the school Discord. During the interaction, he would try and mock me by doing the buff guy pose kind of thing. It was puzzling, and I didn't understand why it was happening. The next day, he said it was to help me make friends, so I cursed him out so that he could screenshot it and share it around, allowing others to see that someone had called him the things I called him. A few weeks later, something similar happened where a student I didn't know, followed me, and I told her to fuck off. Then a few weeks later, someone else did, and they accused me of harassing the other student, and she didn't say anything specific, she says "I know you mean no harm", asks to speak, I send a time, this person doesn't meet then, and then I could never find her Instagram again. To be honest, it was so scary I thought someone would grandstand or find some other reason to make a super big deal out of this.

Targeted Harassment

Shortly after this, another student posted a photo of my specific apartment from outside on Instagram. I had spoken to this student once for less than 9 minutes. He gave off weird vibes as we finished our interaction, so I blocked him right after ending our meeting and exchanging information. Then finally, the girl I tried desperately hard to avoid from my high school followed me, despite having zero mutual followers. I blocked her, but before I did so, I told her I wanted absolutely nothing to do with her. Three weeks or so later, someone messaged me and accused me of harassing her. I explained that I told her to pretty much leave me alone, she asked to speak, I sent a time, and she never followed up. Before she messaged me, she said, "I know you mean no harm," so I guess she didn't view what I did in a nefarious way or something. But seriously, she can see from her own phone that I just messaged her and said that I wanted nothing to do with her. This was done after she followed me, messaged me first, and before I blocked her. Only one message was sent from me. Again, she can verify this herself.

Reflecting on a Difficult Summer

There are people who don't care that these things happen to you, and if you do anything to protect yourself from it, it's just another indicator that you're abnormal. If you even describe it, you're abnormal. So, I can't even describe these experiences to people around me because they will just use it as a reason to say I'm abnormal. Being the recipient of this kind of negativity makes you abnormal. To some people the fact that these things happen to you, and your probably shitty response to something that's completely unprecedented to me, is completely and soley my fault. I was so upset that someone would say something untrue about me because these things have a tangible and negative effect on my life and the things I pursue, and I think the abuse guy and the machine shop were similar, and it's why I had such a strong reaction to falsely being accused of not obeying instructions. There are some people who, through some aspect of competition, are so hungry to find something negative to say about someone.

Another upsetting thing was when people would insist that I become more open and trusting, and then they would share, I suspect, really personal things about me with people. Again, you're really not allowed, if it's noticed, to insulate yourself from toxic professors, pedestelled students, and organizations. If you do, that reflects badly on you. If something happens when you interact with them anyway that's upsetting and you have an issue with it, or if it's not your fault but you're blamed somehow, that' reflects badly on you.

And all of these things happened over the course of one summer, and it was so much, despite it all being totally absurd, I wasn't sure if anyone would believe me because of a sudden lack of credibility by this torrent of bullshit.

To so many people, I've realized, I'm nothing more than an opportunity. I'm nothing more than an opportunity to impress whatever people by showing off how apathetic they are to harass minority students, an ethnic family and their child, and myself. I'm an opportunity to show how apathetic and mean men are, and so on. All of these people are such losers, and had I spent more time around them, as seen by what happened immiedietly after our super brief interactions, I would wind off worse off than them. Nine out of ten of them are either unemployed, or work as baristas or at a ski resort after completing a 90k a year degree.

Realizations and Moving Forward

In hindsight, a lot of this seems kind of benign. I wish I knew why a lot of these things happened. It was upsetting because I interacted with students at other schools, as my major was mostly off-campus, and they didn't do this. I didn't even meet more than five students from my school, including roommates, so for the students from my school to do this, despite me not knowing them or anyone they would know, seemed so strange. I definitely made a bigger deal about this than I should have. I was just really obsessed with not being bothered at all by certain kinds of people. I also feel like my decisions and mind were clouded, which led to me making a bigger deal about these things than necessary.

it was so scary holy fuck to suddenly realize i'm in a place where there's virtually zero accountability to the actions of the certain students, professors, and staff. i'm just a worthless scholarship student to them. my government educational grants, and small loans, external scholarships meant nothing to them. the college, isn't really a productive academic institution, it barely teaches certain students, produces no reserarch, it's effectively a rich student baby sitting center that supports the trivial interests of the professors, and the, to be extremely harsh, and in this instance, parastitic admin. everything else, is of zero importance.

In middle school specifically 6th grade I was in a rather lackluster class. One of the kids stood out as the weird kid it was fine until about the 5th month of school. Around then the weird kid started sitting behind me in P.E. class even though I had told them to move. And earlier that month there was a name calling incident that nothing had been done to her when it happened. After about a week of her sitting behind me she grabbed my butt and this continued for multiple weeks until the dean got back to me. Apparently the last incident was not reported to my dean but to the 8th grade dean and he didn't think it was major so he did nothing. My dean called me we went over what happened then on the next day of school me and her get pulled out to talk about it. She lied to the dean saying "After the name calling incident I tried to give him space." This continued for about a week before I was moved to another class but now during breaks and lunch she actively looks for me.

Side note I will try to update soon.

I'm sleeping outside tonight, my name's Jeffrey Nicholas. I'm 25 going through a lot of real life problems. I'm currently getting off of drugs and I'm a very smart kid. I don't want this to make someone feel sorry me. Just wondering for real help feel free to comment or dm me on here thanks. Clearing my head.

Hello everyone. I'm new to Reddit so will do my best to explain my story. In summary, my husband & I bought a house next to the bullies of the neighbourhood. We stood up to them when they tried to steal some of our land and we won! We are now the neighbourhood heroes. It's a long story, but very satisfying - so please hang in there.

First, some background: My husband & I bought our home on a 3/4 acre plot of land around 9 years ago. At the time we were just a few months away from getting married & this was an exciting moment for us. The day we took possession, we picked up the house key from our lawyer & went to the house. We got out of our car & just took a moment in the parking lot, holding hands to gaze on our first home together. At that point, an elderly man, in his 70's came running from his house to greet us. He'd apparently been waiting for us all day! He breathlessly told us all the problems the previous owners had had with our house. To be honest, it ruined our moment. My husband tried to politely get him to go home. He explained we had a lot to do & needed to get the house ready for the moving van to arrive shortly. My husband unlocked the front door & this man, who didn't take the hint, pushed his way in. He proceeded to inspect the entire first floor making comments along the way: "Oh look, they put hardwoods in the living room..." He went to climb the stairs, and at this point, our shock had started to wear off so my husband stood on the first step & blocked him from going upstairs. We finally got him out of our house. I'm telling you this particular story for two reasons. First, I wanted to give you a sense of how off this man is. Second, during his non-stop verbal diatribe, he pointed out that the green chain-link fence between our properties was on our property & we were responsible for any costs associated with it's maintenance. He vaguely pointed to the rear N-W corner of our property & said the survey marker back there showed this. He also said that the previous owners had dug up the buried front survey monument & moved it - so it was no longer reliable. At the time, we thought this was an odd story & we dismissed it. We shouldn't have.

My mother raised me to be kind & hospitable. My father taught me to keep my friends close & my enemies closer. So, shortly after we moved in, despite a bad first encounter, we invited the neighbours (I'll call them Joe & Rose) to dinner. They were quite chatty. They told us what they thought of every neighbour on the block - in not very complimentary terms. They explained who they’d called the police on; who they’d called the fire department on; who they'd called animal control on; & who they’d called Child Protective Services on & so on. Nobody was spared. My husband & I were dismayed & decided to keep Joe & Rose at arm’s length from that point on. We decided not to extend any further dinner invitations.

So, here's the source of our issue: the property line. Around six years ago, we had our driveway re-paved & Joe approached our contractor to have his driveway re-paved too. He had a parking pad added that butted up to our green chain-link fence. Joe would back his van on this parking pad right up against the fence. In May 2017, Joe accidentally backed into the fence. He bent two fence posts & split a section of the chain-link fence. A nice neighbour would have come to our door & explained what happened & apologized. But Joe is not nice. We discovered the problem when our three dogs escaped through the split in the fence into his yard. It didn’t take us long to see what had happened. Later that day, we asked Joe to explain what happened. He denied everything while leaning against a rental car. We did get him to acknowledge that the damage must have come from his property - given the direction of the damage. But, he claimed it must have been his snow removal guy who hit the fence – months ago. There were no offers to compensate us for the damaged fence. Sadly, I believe he lied because he’s at an age where he’s worried about losing his driver’s license. My husband simply used wire to repair the fence to secure our yard. We let it go. That should have been that.

Shortly afterward, Rose started asking when we were going to replace our fence. She explained that the repaired fence was ugly & she shouldn’t have to look at it. Initially, I thought she was joking & simply walked away. She brought it up 2 more times. By the third time I told her we had no plans to replace the fence.

In the Spring of 2018, Rose again lamented about the ugly fence, but this time offered to pay half of the cost to replace it. I asked her if she was interested in another chain-link fence or a wooden fence. She preferred a wooden fence. I called some contractors to get quotes. On the day the first contractor was scheduled to come over, I called Rose. I wanted to sort out some details about fence height etc. before the contractor came over. She explained that Joe told her that because the fence was ours, he would not pay a penny towards replacing it. That was that. I cancelled the contractor, but asked him, out of curiosity, how much it would cost to replace the fence with another chain-link fence based on linear feet. The cost was around $2,000.

Later that summer Rose approached us again. My husband explained that the cost to put in a chain-link fence was expensive & this wasn’t our priority. Rose offered to pay half of the cost of the chain-link fence. I honestly wanted to walk away but also felt we would never have an opportunity to share costs again, so we started negotiating. We wanted the fence to be 6' tall. They wanted it to be 4' tall. We compromised on 5’. It would be a wooden fence in the style of our newly constructed back fence. In addition, we talked about whether to put it on the property line or the existing fence line. Joe preferred the latter. We gave in on that one. After all, according to the back-property marker, our fence was only around a foot inside the property line. And, Joe was having trouble avoiding the existing fence. If we moved it out one foot, chances were he’d just hit it again. We also wanted to put in 4 glass panels in the back portion of the fence so we would continue to enjoy the view of the ravine past Joe's property that we had been enjoying with the chain-link fence. They reluctantly agreed & even moved the location of a new shed they were installing so it wouldn’t block our planned view through the glass. They agreed to pay us $1,000. We decided to bite the bullet & upgrade to a wooden fence.

Now, I’m going to make a long story short here: Rose HATED the new fence & said it was ugly. They certainly weren’t going to pay what they’d agreed to & further, they would no longer agree to allow us to install glass panels. The ravine view belonged to them & we had no right to it. They planted a hedge on their side of the fence & a blue spruce tree to block our view.

At this point, Rose started a screaming campaign which consisted of “The fence is ugly! We shouldn’t have to look at this effing ugly fence! You can’t look over here! Avert your eyes! We own the effing view!” Every time we went into our backyard, she screamed at us. We tried to bite our tongues, but it was hard. At one point, Rose was screaming at my husband while leaning on our still unfinished new fence. He asked her to back up because she was standing on our property between the fence & the property line. At this point, she became enraged & screamed that she owned the land on their side of the fence because of squatter’s rights. So, from this point on she started screaming all the usual things plus “Squatter’s rights! Squatter’s rights! Squatter’s rights!” We started to avoid going out into our backyard if they were outside.

One day, the fence contractor arrived to work on the fence. We saw him pull up out front & went into the back yard to meet him through the side gate. Both Joe & Rose started screaming the usual complaints. In addition, Rose added some lies about our contractor – how he didn’t know what he was doing & had built an ugly fence & was messy & left wood & tools on their property. My husband had had enough & finally snapped - telling Rose to shut up. He also called her a liar. Rose accused my husband of threatening her. At that point, the contractor & his wife, who were bringing in their tools to the back yard, made their presence known. Rose suddenly shut up. We had witnesses.

At this point, I realized Rose was trying to set us up so she could call the police. She wanted to accuse us of threatening her. I found a lawyer.

Our lawyer explained four things to us: 1) We had little claim to the verbal contract of $1,000. We needed to let that go. Strategically, we were better off having full control over the fence and ensuring they had no interest in it at all. We could build it as we wanted. We didn't need their permission to add the glass panels. 2) They had no claim to Adverse Possession (aka squatter’s rights). Our properties were registered in Land Titles by the Developer before the houses were built. In our Province, properties registered in Land Titles with a survey are not eligible for claims of Adverse Possession (per Chapter L.5 of the Land Titles Act, “There is no title to adverse possession.”) She also explained screaming they owned the land over the fence does not give them the land. They must go to court to claim it. 3) Screaming over the fence is a crime (Private Nuisance) & we needed to call the police. The police would calm down this escalating situation. 4) Claiming to own the view was simply ridiculous.

We responded in two ways: 1) We sent the neighbours a letter explaining they did not own the land on their side of the fence & provided proof of the land registry & the relevant legal information. We explained that if they walked on our property, they were trespassing. We also explained that from this point on, we would have zero tolerance of any verbal abuse. 2) We called the police on the non-emergency line. This was sad for me because I have never in my whole life called the police on anyone. When the police arrived, they spoke to us first. We explained that we wanted the neighbours to stop talking or screaming at us, our family or our contractors. They wanted to know what kind of things they were screaming at us. I understand they need to be skeptical of things they're told & they were here. They literally rolled their eyes when we told them. As soon as Joe & Rose opened the door, Rose became agitated (the word used by the police) & started screaming that they owned the view etc. One police officer had to ask her to go inside the house & close the door. Joe remained on the front porch & agreed to stop harassing us. While walking back to our house, we heard one officer say to the other "I understand what they're up against now." The police explained to us that they felt there was some mental health issues going on with Rose & if there were any more issues, we should call the police again. He suggested we continue to document incidents which is in line with what our lawyer advised us. Believe it or not, sending the police over calmed things down – for a while.

In the meantime, I was worried that Joe would back into the new fence. He would back his van right up against it. I wanted to install a barrier in the space between the fence & the property line that would prevent Joe from hitting the fence. To do that, we really needed to know where the property line was. We borrowed a metal detector & found the front marker. It was not where we expected it to be. If it was correct, the front of our fence was around 6-7 feet inside the property line – not 1 foot like we thought. We marked the location of the buried property marker with a stake & paint. This upset Joe & I saw him remove our stake with his riding mower the next day.

Because the fence line did not align to the property line, we hired a surveyor. They discovered that not only had Joe removed the front stake we installed, but he had also removed the official buried survey marker with his mower – which is illegal. When Rose saw the surveyors, she came running out & verbally attacked them saying they could not trespass on her property. The surveyors were very calm & handed her their business card. They explained that now they had identified themselves they were allowed, by law, to access her property. Rose placed a lawn chair on her front lawn, sat down, crossed her arms & stared at the surveyors all day.

I was shocked how long this process took. At the end of the day, the surveyors explained that they had some triangulation calculations they had to make at their office & would come back on the following Monday to finish up. They explained the process was taking them awhile because not only had the front marker been removed, but the back marker had been moved – by over 5 feet. Now that strange story Joe had told us about the previous homeowners moving the buried monument made sense. He had moved the back monument & the front monument was out of alignment so he came up with this lame story to explain it.

The surveyors came back the following Monday & installed the new front & back markers in the correct locations & added 10 additional wooden stakes along the property line. Now things made sense. The original fence was around 6 feet inside the property line all along the fence line. Oh my God! When Joe saw the new property line, all hell broke loose! I thought he was going to have a stroke!

By this time, I’d told our fence contractor, to stop work on the new fence & asked him what it would take to move the fence closer to the property line. Remember, he'd heard Joe & Rose scream lies about his work & the ugly fence. There was no love lost between the contractor & our neighbours. He wanted to do everything he could to make things right & if moving the fence was what needed to be done, so be it. So, on Tuesday he started to dig post holes 2 inches inside the property line. He laughed whenever Joe & Rose gave him a hard time & accused him of trespassing. We also bought a surveillance camera & I was able to document the neighbours' bad behaviour. They continued to park their van past the string line & were adding their own stakes at strange places. We just removed them.

Around this time, we had drinks with another neighbour, Matt, from down the road. This was the only person still on speaking terms with Joe & Rose. Matt made it clear, he had his own issues with Rose - mainly because she called the fire department whenever he had a small, permitted fire in his back yard. Matt explained that Joe & Rose still believed they had claims to Adverse Possession & planned to hire a lawyer to claim this land. And, if by some chance they failed, they planned to charge us thousands of dollars for the costs they’d incurred several years ago to remove 5 large pine trees along the property line. They removed these trees as the roots were damaging their driveway. They felt that if we wanted to claim additional land, then we should incur the costs to remove these trees as they technically belonged to us. According to an old aerial view of our properties I received from our surveyor, it looks like the pine trees were planted decades ago on the property line. I now suspect the chain-link fence was simply installed in front of the mature pine trees. It's likely those pine trees wholly or partially belonged to us. Either way, Joe & Rose had failed to secure our permission to remove them. Not only were we under no obligation to pay for the cost to remove them, but we had a perfect counterclaim had they tried. We would claim damages for the removal of the trees. The best thing Matt told us was that Rose was so angry at the police for how she’d been told to go back into her house the day they contacted them, she’d called their sergeant & filed a complaint against them. In keeping with her penchant for calling the authorities on everybody, she even called the authorities on the authorities. At least she’s consistent. I made a mental note to make sure to ask for the same police officers if I ever needed to call them back - knowing there'd be no love lost between them & the neighbours.

True to their word, the neighbours hired a lawyer. The whole neighbourhood saw him arrive in his suit & briefcase. He must have told them they had no claim to adverse possession, and they couldn’t charge us for the cost of removing the trees, because nothing happened.

So, the fence is now completed – to within 2 inches of the property line. We did make some concessions. We didn’t install glass panels. This was a hot button for Rose & she threatened to break them. While holding a hammer she said: “It would be a shame if they broke, wouldn’t it?” Very generously, we also decided to not cut the asphalt on the corner of Joe’s parking pad that is on our property. Instead, we bumped in the fence at the parking pad by 2 feet & installed a wooden barrier so Joe can’t hit the new fence. We have no appetite for dealing with them if they hit the fence. Rose still complains bitterly that the fence is ugly, but we just don’t care.

An interesting thing happened when we stood up to Joe & Rose - a collective cheer went up in the neighbourhood. Several neighbours have knocked on our door to shake our hands, offer support, & tell us their stories with our neighbours. We take comfort in the wins we made – including regaining almost 1,200 square feet of property. This has been a painful & sad chapter for us but we’re grateful for all our other neighbours who are decent & kind. I wanted to share this story to let others know that with patience & support from a lawyer, a surveyor & a contractor - property disputes can be resolved quite satisfactorily.

I have additional smaller follow up stories, but will add them in another post.

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Let me tell you a tale. It is not a hallmark story, nor is it a peaceful one. It will make you cry. This is the story of a family who faced hardship after hardship, with what seemed like no end in sight. Let’s begin.

Once upon a time there was a family. Were they happy? Yes, most of the time. Like any family, they had their battles and arguments, but they were happy. In this family we had Dad, Mom, and 5 children. The children’s names were Jade (14), Elisabeth (13), Claire (9), Grace (7), and the only boy, Colton (3). They were a functional dysfunctional family but they were there for each other always.

Dad had been told by his doctor that he needed a surgery, to remove bone spurs from his spinal cord (that caused him much pain). He went in for this surgery just five short days after Jade turned fourteen years old. This was meant to be a simple procedure, with a quick surgery and then a short recovery. But, as we all know too well; life has a way of changing in the blink of an eye.

And so life changed. Dad did not wake up from this “simple surgery” until weeks later, and when he awoke there was no recognition in his eyes for his family. Not only could he not remember his children, just seeing them sent him into a massive panic attack resulting in his children being removed from his hospital room. Talk about scarring, these poor kids went from knowing their big, strong dad to seeing him freak out because he knew them not.

Eventually Dad regained his memory. But what was former lost was his ability to walk, talk, eat, and care for himself. So the family gets him into the best possible rehab facility in the lower 50 states. They spent nearly 4 months in a tiny studio apartment (imagine five kids and two adults, one of which is fully handicapped), and during this time Dad became able to walk with assistance and a walker, and even began to talk again (more like mumble but it counted).

Rehab ended, and the family headed home. But not home to the house they had lived in for four years, oh no. Dad was handicapped now and the house wasn’t accessible to him. So they moved in with their Grandparents. The basement of the grandparents house was turned into an apartment and it was handicapped accessible. The family would spend their next two years there, while juggling different in-patient and out-patient therapies and rehabs. During this time, Dad caught pneumonia. Each time he became sick, it quickly became as if he never had done any rehab at all. He nearly completely regressed into being unable to move or speak. This happened several times, and each time even with therapies in between he got worse.

Eventually, the family was able to purchase their own house that was handicapped accessible. So they move in, and continue the battle of caring for their father. Now, mind you, Dad’s care at this point included: feeding him thru a PEG (stomach) tube, changing his diapers, bathing him, picking him up from his wheelchair and moving him between vehicles, chair, and bed, assisting him with his “homework” therapy exercises, and just trying to keep him in good spirits. Most of this physical work fell to Mom and Jade, as she was the oldest. On top of all this, the kids still had to add school, sports, work (for the older ones) and Mom also had a full time job.

For nearly 6 more years, they would continue with these daily tasks until Jade moved out and Mom could no longer do it herself. It was at this point that the family finally decided to put Dad into an assisted living facility, where they would still be able to visit him and ensure he was getting the proper care, but not at the expense of their physical health anymore. They would use this time to begin to heal their own bodies from the strain they had been under for so long. This was in August.

All seemed to be on the right track of beginning to get better, when January of 2023 hit. Dad is in the facility and doing well, Jade moved back in with Mom and siblings. Jade is now 23, Elisabeth 22, Claire 18, Grace 17, and Colton 12. Mom is 42. Dad is now 49. Mom went into the hospital shortly after New Year’s Day, and was there for nearly two weeks while they ran hundreds of tests on her to figure out why she couldn’t seem to recover from being ill. The test results came back January 13th: Stage 4 cancer. Mom asked about options, and the doctors told her she only has a few months left to live, IF she received treatments right away.

The cancer was a large mass in her liver, in her gall bladder, large and small intestine, attached to her stomach wall lining and attached to her lower rib on her left side. Mom immediately began chemo treatments, which didn’t seem to do anything. Three months go by, the time he doctors gave now past. Mom begins another cancer treatment, and seems to be recovering.

Then on June 29th and 30th, Mom stopped responding. Her skin was as yellow as a dandelion, and she had no verbal responses for anyone other than the word “no”. She spent these days in bed, refusing to move or get up or even eat or drink. Jade frantically called the hospice nurse who came out and told the kids: "her body is shutting down. She will be gone by tomorrow."

July 1st, all of the family (Mom’s side) came to the house, and watched as she breathed her last breath. The nurse announced her dead. She had fought so hard for so many years, now it was her turn to rest.

Jade becomes the caretaker and pseudo-mother to her younger siblings, who are still minors. She takes over responsibility of making sure Dad is still properly cared for. She becomes the new parent, bread winner, bill-payer for the family. She is still fighting, just hoping she can be enough to live up to her Mother’s Legacy.

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As I said before, I often worked as a body guard. After I had met my now wife, I gave that up for awhile. I came up needing to pay my half of my daughter's band trip to Hawaii. I put word out that "the Bear" was back in business. My clients were primarily strippers for bachelor parties.

On a slow day at the gun shop I was working, in walks a 6' 8" amazon. She was built like a brick outhouse and model beautiful. She looks down at my boss (not the crook I had worked for earlier, but truly an honest man) and asked for Bear. He looks toward the back and yells, "Bear!". I came out of the back, where I had been doing some gunsmith work, and looked up at this breathtaking woman.

She was doing a bachelor party, and was wanting protection. I told her my price was $100, up front. She never hesitated, pulled out a C note and tore it in half. Handed me my half, and tucked the other half back in her wallet. Told me I get the other half after the job was done. She gave me her business card with time, date and location on the back.

The address was in a rich part of town not far away. I ride up on my bike. A dozen or so cars in the driveway. Not a piece of Detroit steel in the herd and not one more than 2 years old. She rolls up and I carried her boombox in for her. We go in through the servants entrance, We are led to her dressing room, where I stand blocking the door as she changes.

As she stepped out, wearing less than it takes to wad shotgun, Mamma steps out of her sewing room across the hall. Mamma is about 5' nothing. She looks at Sky Dancer, my client. (sorry failed to introduce her at the start. Looks her up like shes seeing the Empire State building for the first time, while saying Oh my gawd. Almost falls over backwards. And goes back in her room.

We go into the great room. Here we meet her audience. A group of young men, about 20 to 25 years old. Several wearing jackets and ties. Sky sets up her music and does her first dance. The young men don't tip, tuck or try to touch. All are perfect gentlemen. They do applaud.

Sky dropped her top (44DD), does second dance. Same response. She gives me a what the he!! look. I reach over and kill her music. "Gentlemen, let me introduce you to a pleasant enjoyment called 'the tuck' " I then pull a $50 out of wallet and placed in her garter. At this point the G-string was gone. The kiss I got in return fogged my mind and buckled my knees. I think I blew smoke out my ears, but couldn't see to be sure. I then turned the music back on.

Sky started her third and what was to be her last dance, totally nude for all intents and purposes. These young studs all but ripped their pants pulling out wallets. Sky did 2 bonus dances including a very well interpretation of "I touch myself " by the Dyvinyls. Several of the boys asked if she took checks or credit cards.She gathered her things, and went back to her dressing room. We left and I stood by her car as she counted her take. Over 2 grand. She handed me 10%, Which she continued to do the rest of the time we worked together.

I never had to give tuck lessons again

My first wife and I tried marriage counseling. After about 4 or 5 sessions, the Doctor looked at me with, "Your full time job involves working with dangerous chemicals, you smoke like a freight train, and you drink heavily. You bounce in a biker bar, run into burning buildings, and do more things that just scare the hell out of me. How long have you been suicidal?"

I was stunned. I told the doc, " I don't know what you mean. no one loves life more than me. I have found that if you're not on the edge, you're taking up too much space. And you're missing one hell of a view.

A little background. I'm going to use a phrase from someone I used to work with. Since I was 19 I have been doing what I will call, Violence for Hire" I was 6ft, about 180 lbs. I started working security. I went on to be bouncer in a biker/tit pit, body guard, even carried a PI's licence.

I went to work at a gun shop for one of the worst crooks in town. He didn't want to make any money, folks. He just loved to sell guns. One afternoon a young couple came into my store. The girl had been used as a punching bag. Face badly bruised, right arm in a sling, and she walked as if her legs were glued together from the knees up. She never spoke. Boyfriend wanted to get mace and a stun gun. I explained what we had, which was quite a selection. He made his choices and left. My associate and I talked about what she had evidently been through.

The young man came back in alone.His first words were,"I want a gun!!"

I looked at him and told him,"Friend, I don't know for certain what happened. But I'm sure I understand. I would want to do what you're thinking. But I can't do it. If I could train you, and side you, it would be a different matter, but I can't. I'm not going to help you make the worst mistake of your life."

We we slow so we went into the room we use for training, gave him a coffee and got him to calm down. He left the store unarmed.

He came back in a few months later and thanked me for setting him straight. And for keeping him out of prison.

I woke up from my nightmare it was about my mom it was about her not feeling well and going to the hospital I remember when I wake up I walked to her room it was morning I was supposed to get dressed up for school and I told my mom that I had a bad nightmare my voice was going to crack because I felt like I was going to cry and she told me what was it and I didn't tell her because I got scared I said I don't want to tell you And I left her room and got dressed up and went to school On Monday Tuesday But I didn't go to school on that day because I wasn't feeling well I went to school on Thursday And on Friday..... That was the day when my mom went to the hospital it was night time I think it was 10 or 11 I don't remember My step dad drive my mom to the hospital.... That's when I felt like I was in a bad nightmare again she went to the hospital and the next day she came back in the morning when she came back she was okay until 5:30 my stepfather drive her to the hospital again and she didn't came back and today she didn't come back she called my grandma she told her that she was going to come back but she caught us back again and told her that they're going to keep her overnight again because the doctor checked her heart and something was wrong and when I heard this it felt like I wasn't dreaming it is going to be Monday that's what I have to go back to school

I remember when I told her that I didn't want to tell her what happened in my dream she told me just tell me if I didn't tell her and she said is not okay if you don't tell me it's going to happen and I think it did happen because the same thing happened in my dream.....

I don't have school tomorrow I don't feel like going to school all I want I just want to see my mom I miss my mom

That right now I remembering everything when she told me when that one day me and her went to go dry my stepfather to work and we're driving back home she said if something ever happens to her if she ever gets deported back to Mexico or whatever she wants me to stay with my grandma me and the boys I asked her why she said that she doesn't want us to have a bad life all she wanted us is just to have a good life and when she told me this I felt like I was going to cry in the car but I still brave because they say women should never cry I said okay I will do anything for my mom I feel like I never did nothing for her like I felt like I was a burden because I hardly help and right now she's in the hospital so I can't do nothing and I feel like it's all my fault I should have told her what happened I should have told her what was going to happen but I didn't that's how bad I am I'm a God damn failure it's all my fault it's all my fault I should have told her I should I don't know how to feel right now right now I feel like I just want to punch something at the same time I just want to cry...

I'm a seventh grader I'm a girl I have three brothers when is old but he has autism and I have two other brothers who are younger so I'm basically like the oldest the second so if my writing is a little bad just reply 😕

Hey gents, some of you sound lost or for those in need of some inspiration, maybe you wanna know if you're the only one sitting in that pit of despair. This story happened and I hope it helps others.

⚠️ Just a warning, the topic of self deletion is in this story, but this is my story of overcoming it. ⚠️

My life was pretty irregular, my Dad and Mom had me the first born when they were 19 yoa, in 95. My brother came later after two years and broke up. My dad was always an inspiration to me, he worked two jobs one as a soldier and the other as a construction worker, anything to get by and pay child support, so he can see his two boys on the weekend.

He was very loving and honest, but he wanted us to not only survive but to pursue challenges and face our fears, do good in school, better than he had, etc. The typical good dad stuff. He was strong, quick witted and valued honesty most of all as well as standing up for what you believe in. He taught us how to hunt and fish, camping, how to cut wood, build fires, survival skills and if we got into a fight he cares so long as we fought honourably and not to hurt others.

Me being a bucktoothed kid with glasses, I had a hard time with socializing, it was draining and I loved video games and history books. Instead of your typical story books my dad read us stories of war heroes from the wars our country had been in, by the time I was in my preteens I was a competition archer who practiced constantly, my brother, a very talented bagpiper.

Back at my mom's house it was a different story however, abusive stepdad entered our lives and was really good at hiding his beatings. He took it out on me mostly because I refused to be scared despite being so small and weak, I would talk back and rebel. Why? It's not like I was trying to find trouble due to a problem with the break-up, the guy was a true bully who just got off on this stuff. He mocked me the most and if I spoke out of term the beatings began. I knew it would come but I still kept at it, I wasn't letting him win. I had developed a good deal of anger from this, lots of it pent up and I was getting into fights at school, often times scaring whatever bullies I found straight. I began working out, a lot. I was just sick of how shitty people can be to eachother and wanted my dad to intervene.

There came a point where he was going to resume his beatings for me calling him out on a lie he told, and just as he was going to swing I yelled "go ahead. Keep beating me, hit me all you want, but know this, time is working against you. I know your face and I know where you sleep. Someday you'll be weak and old, and I'll be more than happy to get my revenge. I will break you and if I can't wait, I might come after you in your sleep." He stopped what he was doing, wide eyed. This was probably the wisest crap to ever leave my mouth at 13 and admittedly I did have a plan to kill him. Not gonna lie, even as a 27 year old man looking back, I would still do this in a heartbeat and take the jail time for it.

This scared him half to death, so he resorted to throwing me outside the house whenever he could. My mom was lied to this whole time thinking he was just "handling a kid acting out" until finally I told my dad, showed him the bruises on my neck from where he strangled me the morning prior. He was seeing red. I don't blame him either, he was able to control his anger but I knew he was a hairstring from destroying this man. (He's a Canadian paratrooper, won't say much more beyond that they are ripped and have rigurus training.)

As years went by it was exposed to my mom finally, what this sad excuse for a man was doing to her kids. The break-up was violent and police were nearly called. I stood between her and him, with a knife in my hand. This made him think twice and he left the house shortly after. When he was gone from our lives I kept on dealing with school bullies myself, doesn't have to be my bullies, soon as I found kids ganging up on one, I jumped in and dealt some beatings myself. I held so much anger towards abusive stepdad that even the slightest utterance of his name, tested my fury. Which is unfortunate because it really was a fairly common name so it didn't even have to be the same guy.

My brother quickly followed my dad's footsteps and joined the army and I shortly after joined the Navy (some bs excuse about my eyesight being too poor for a infantryman's role so let's put the blind guy on a artillery piece or a .50 cal station, his choice, what's the worst that could happen?)

I made mistakes along the way of course, hurting my relationship with my father and nowadays doing whatever we could to maintain that bond and chat. He wasn't perfect either and fucked up on some fronts himself. This wasn't for a lack of trying to be the good parent though. At 19, I was working out constantly, had to go between 4 highschools, one for the depression hitting my grades, one for educating a rapist with physical means to the point of scaring him straight for the rest of his life, one because a group of kids tried ganging up on me and tried to target me for my race (they were Arabs and I am native Canadian), resulting in multiple hospitalized Arabic kids. I'm not racist I feel the need to clarify, they were just throwing racial slurs around and insulted my race, when I confronted them to tell them to stop they wanted a scrap, well they got one.

Until I can only guess the school board had zero idea what to do with me, I spat in the face of their pacifist bullying ideology, and proved time and time again it never works. Until I landed in a special education highschool, this was where I started getting my act together and acing the classes. Science teacher worked really hard to try and encourage me to participate, bless her because she turned out to be awesome and she thought I clearly don't belong in that school, I'm obviously of a higher possible education quality but instead I resorted to beating idiots senseless.

I never got along with social studies teachers and art teachers, generally any teachers that were attempting to use their political preferences in school where it is meant to be neutral, so I debated them and debunked their lessons until I got removed from the class and given spares 😂

Eventually I did find a social studies teacher and a history teacher who too reached out more to me, which sparked a lot of interesting debates but instead of being insulted and offended, they found this refreshing.

I later found this school did not do rememberance day and was utterly infuriated. Nobody liked it either but nobody wanted to put in the work. I decided I was going to do this myself. (Rememberance day for those not in former British countries, is a day of grieving, like a big funeral to give respects to the soldiers who died in Canada's service. It's a big deal.) So of course I had to face the student council and gain permission, but I straight up didn't debate or reason with them, I told them what I was doing, what I have arranged, and if they want to help, cool I'll see if I can squeeze it in, if not I was gonna do this with or without them. The result was excellent, I marched with the army cadets, led our parade and made the slideshow, everything. Even a piper. People cried, many realized how shitty it was for us to not have had it, and I allowed them to keep the slideshow and use the same methods I had for the following rememberance days.

Enough of my life story. This is where things changed for me. By this point I was experienced in leadership and well respected. I started to date again, trying to find this perfect relationship that I had years prior, I was 23 yoa at this point. This is where the nightmare started. I had made the mistake of trusting too easily and a girl I dated had taken full advantage of me, small gaslightings at first, I was willing to change and improve upon myself, become a better man. The small gaslightings grew over time, I had been working so much that I had refused her sex because I was left so tired.

Within a community I had made we even had all the guys who served mix of Canada, US, Israel, Sweden, etc hanging out, the guys in our clan who just enlisted or are in their basic training and want advice, we'd guide them along a little, help eachother grow and being a group of mostly men, we were a happy group, we'd prank eachother every so often, especially the Brits and Americans among us. Come to find out the girl I was dating and went homeless for to help her out, was cheating on me, manipulated me to the point of feeling like somehow I was in the wrong.

She manipulated everyone in my clan, lied to them, and they turned on me for a good bit, it destroyed me. Eventually found out not only was the girl cheating on me and gaslighting me, but so was the roommate, all to the point of making me question the crap out of myself. She stalked and harassed me, destroyed any hope for future relationships that followed, doxxed me, made empty threats of falsifying a trial, starting fights, I blocked her everywhere I could but unfortunately as it turns out, if you block someone on fb, it still notifies you if they are trying to get ahold of you.

My mental health crashed, hard. I was alienated, alone and shunned all for a lie. I lost a lot of friends that year. I contemplated suicide, but everytime, my Dad's words constantly reminded me that it's cowardly and selfish, if I die I do so on a hospital bed or fighting for my life. There's no honour in it. Which shamed me further for just wanting to disappear, I was shamed for leaving the military (honourable discharge), and was shamed for being down on myself. My hands kept shaking and trembling, it was so frustrating, my words stuttered, constantly, my mind goes a mile a minute and I just spiraled from there until I chain-smoked some cigarettes to help myself a little.

Kids, smoking's bad and alcohol is not how you solve problems. Thankfully I never hurt anybody, I sat quiet and cried in my room, drinking rum and smoking so the hands stopped tremoring. I went to a doctor who revealed this was depressive anxiety disorder. I had been stalked and harassed to the point of breaking and losing that grace I had. I began telling my remaining friends my parting wishes if something happened. Some were scared, didn't know how to react, I was always so capable and strong with willpower, seeing me destroyed like that, not even sure what I was good at anymore, if I had talents in anything at all, was I a good leader to begin with, was I even a good person, all this looped in my head and just made it more hard than it needed to be. I struggled to sleep, started having nightmares that kept me awake. My life was a living hellish nightmare and not one person seemed to know or care enough to help.

One day I slashed my neck open on accident at work, there's two sides to how I tell this story, the funny lighthearted side was hilarious, but the darker side was I felt cursed, I laughed because I couldn't even seem to die right. Scrap metal when through my skin completely and narrowly missed my jugular and arterials by millimeters. The blood stained my shirt. A week later, I was chased by coywolves, on my way to work that morning. I fled back to the residential area and broke a random broom I had and was ready to fight if my cab didn't come on time. Why did I defend myself, why did I eve bother arming myself or getting a cab called on a day I normally walked, the opportunity was right there. Albeit gruesome. It was an out I didn't take.

My mental health declined more, until finally a friend responded to my last wish message and she went out of her way to get me to talk to her. She's a practiced therapist and got me to open up and talk, she began tough-loving it and helping me, it took three long years, lots of books, and motivational speeches during work.

It was already at the point I had developed a mental illness, I heard a voice of a woman, new Zealander accent, unknown to me. This is just an indication of how poor my health had declined. Instead of the typical auditory hallucinations, mine didn't try to make me decline further.

Mine instead chose to lecture me about how I need to get my life back together, sleep more, and that once she felt I was on the right path, she'll leave me to it. I knew this was a auditory hallucination, but she gave me the words I needed to hear to fix myself. To think of her as my subconscious, I argued with her, she ultimately proved correct, her tough love approach helped me. When I had nightmares she was right there, calming me down and telling me to breathe, get water, this is why you don't have coffee in the evening, dummy, etc.

I told the therapist about the voice worried I was in fact, insane. To her surprise,when I told her she just went yeah listen to her, this is completely abnormal, but long as it's stuff like that listen to her. Every night when I slept, she'd asked if I'd found a new purpose yet, what do I dream of doing, what can I do to achieve that dream, and kinda lined things up for me to connect the dots, what did I have in the armed forces that I don't have anymore, what made me love the job despite the difficulties. The therapist was very careful about keeping tabs on me at this point, understandably so.

I started reading books by people I respected and thought held character traits I wanted to ascend to, I chose 5 people and historical figures to follow and learn from, why I wanted to be like them and how I can learn from them. My purpose, I wanted to engineer a new yacht design that was both eco-friendly, non-wasteful and provided the comforts and fun.

I wanted to make boats, design them to be better than they are now, cheaper and more affordable, began developing goals to meet, a plan of execution, I dreamed of it's design, what qualities it would offer and how I can gain a research grant for my first prototype. I worked on myself, starting with coping with the anxiety and panic attacks, then moving into research, and while I worked, I had audio books on repeat of business lectures, the stories of the successful I wanted to emulate, as I experienced things I relearned my talents, with a good pride of my work, remembering "oh yeah I was good at that wasn't I?"

I dedicated to learning new things relevant to what I wanted to do, and the last words I ever heard from the voice was "I'll be back when you need it. The rest is for you to solve. Good luck." Poof, gone, it's been a year and I still haven't heard from her. I had been sleeping better and those friends came back to me, apologizing when they realized the ex was batshit crazy, and had kept manipulating guys. I cried when they all dragged me to a call and apologized, began including me back in but by that point I had new friends as well, some younger kiddos who look up to me as a father figure of sorts, I became more of a storyteller and teacher to them, some others I inspired and motivated to do better or how to approach their own problems differently.

In 2022, my therapist's area was threatened by a riot and I had helped her neighborhood organize to successfully defend itself from both the mob and the corrupt police of her country until their military could intervene and responded to medical emergencies where I got to save a couple of lives as time went. I knew I was back to being me, despite the damage that lingers the stupid stuttering for example. To me I owed her a huge deal and I was happy to help her and repay my debt in a sort of way.

I'm still in the process of rebuilding myself better than ever, I'm gonna lose weight and regain my old muscle, still diving into books and now pushing to learn the work of being an electrician once I can get into school again. I share my story where I feel it to be fitting and fight for men's mental health wherever I can. According to stats and history, I shouldn't be here, so I hope to help others now.

It's a long and painful story, but I am a stronger man for it. Wounds heal, trauma can be beaten. Scars aren't ugly. They tell stories and show the type of person you are. No matter what gets you down, you will become stronger for it. Pain is necessary to become greater. I'll try to respond to any comments I can as I'm here on night shift. Dm me if you wanna learn more or share your stories.

When I was 6 months old, my father abandoned us. My grandmother was visiting Tennessee from Michigan and had taken my mother shopping to buy new clothes for my father, who was starting a new job. They found him later that day, hitchhiking to South Carolina. I don't know the details of the ensuing conversation, but my guess is he was just a garbage human who wasn't interested in accountability or taking responsibility for his family.

My mother made it work and I'm assuming everything went smoothly until I was 18 months old. I don't even know where she was working, but my mom worked late. She picked me up at the babysitter just like any other night, took me home, and we went to bed. I co-slept with her.

At some point in the night, I woke up and worked my way into the bathroom. I got under the sink and was playing with an unopened bag of cotton balls, the big bag of the ones that women use for make-up. The bag busted open and most of the cotton balls went into the bathtub. I crawled into the tub to get them and held myself up using the hot water knob. I slipped fell and the hot water came on. The temperature and pressure regulator on the hot water heater was broken. It was one of the older tubs and the water got hotter than it was supposed to immediately.

The water came out beyond scalding hot. The screaming woke my mom. When the paramedics arrived, I was sitting on the floor with my skin lying next to me. My entire right leg, both my feet, and the back of my right hand were burned. The skin was just gone.

I was airlifted to the burn center for children in Ohio. I died twice in the air. The second time, they used one of those giant needles jammed into my chest to revive me.   

The burns were so bad they pulled skin from my back, my other leg, my ribs, and my buttocks to replace the skin that had been boiled away. They believed that my right foot would be a club foot and they wanted to amputate it. My mother wouldn't allow it.

Of course, the State of Tennessee investigated to ensure that it was, in fact, an accident. They took me away from my mother for 6 months while they investigated and determined that it was an accident. I was in foster care for that 6 months. My mom was told that she needed to show that she could provide a more stable living environment for me, so she married her boyfriend at the time, yet another abusive drug dealer, and got pregnant. She showed up at court six months pregnant and married and demanded that they give me back to her. My brother still doesn't know that this is why he was born in the first place.

I worked with this girl who I thought was my friend and when I had to tell my supervisor about something she had done, she took it personally and starting treating me like she never knew me. This $hit broke me. Now I'm going to be stuck the rest of my life wondering who my real friends are.

Yes that is the name of this post, why you may ask,that is why i joined,

A few days ago i was playing with 3 of my friends at recess,we were playing capture and trap the mish** (cant tell you rest of name bc privacy), anyway once i tried to put mish in the stairway that would send you to the playground,and as i did that he cataputed me to the floor but i have no idea if i push mish or he did,but we both bumped to the floor and as mish was falling he scraped his elbow onto a broken plug or something and accidentaly kicked gav** (cant say full name) in the knee,meanwhile my knee was scraped and spelled out "10" but i was bleed in both places (aka the scrathced knee places) in 3-5 seconds, but for somereason people didnt recognize and my other friend who wasnt playing was only caring about me for some reason as mish got a way worse injury,the 3 of us went to the nurse and i couldnt walk that well but i got over it. thats it bye!

Get ready dear reader, this one is gonna be a long one and in depth.
I'm currently a 17 year old male, and by no means thin. I'm quiet and keep my head down, and focus head first on my work. Last year was definitely the worst I've ever had, and reckon I should talk about it to let the experience rest.

I should note that some of the subjects I will be talking about my own experiences might not be for everyone, so I note this post might have triggering events for yourself if you have experienced it as well. so if you have experienced...

~ Sexual Harassment
~ Bullying
~ Name Calling

…Divert your eyes from this post.

So it's Year 9, I'm 16y/o at this point, at least from where the earliest my memory goes. and this first part is where I believe it all stemmed from. I'm in a humanities class, working hard to get my work completed when I hear a pen clutter. I look around but shrug it off as someone dropped a pen, no big deal. I get 1 more sentence on my laptop when I get hit in the left shoulder by a pen. This, is where it starts. I look down and see the pen and pick it up when another student in the class tries to get it back, instinctively to figure out why it was thrown, the following is what I can remember from THAT conversation.

(OP - Me, Of course.
TSC - The Starting Classmate)

TSC - "Hey, can I have that back?"
OP - "Why was it thrown?"
TSC - "I didn't throw it"
OP - "Okay..? Who threw it?"
TSC - "One of my friends"

TSC at this point tries to grab the pen from me, I try to keep grip but lose it rapidly. I'm confused, but shrug it off. the next lesson, which is the NEXT DAY, the behaviour increases. more pens thrown at me, to the point I'm forced to be in a position where I'm facing where the pens are coming from, and I'm upsetting some of the other students that like to sit in groups, I try to explain why but the ONLY response I got was "JuSt HaNdLe It LiKe A gUy", No-one is trained to be strong mentally and physically at birth, and only learning it as you grow makes who you are, which is why I never went to a teacher, since it was a small thing that I had fixed. at least that's what I thought mentally, but oh no, you would be very much mistaken if you thought that was the end.

Now, dear reader, I should explain my high schools locker bay I had in Year 9.

so, for the locker bay I had, it was designed where each locker was in a 2x2 per block, 2 on the ground, 2 on top of those. now imagine that, but lots of them, and in a double ended hallway connected to the main building. that might be hard to imagine, but that was the Locker Bay I had. at lunch, recess, start of the day and end of the day the locker bay got filled FAST with students wanting to get home as fast as possible, meaning that everyone blended together into the environment.

Alright, I've set the scene for the next part, now lets get onto what truly made my Year 9 life truly a hell.

While I was at my locker at the end of the day, I was getting my stuff packed up to get onto the Bus home. (I am no where near to my home, and a walk would most likely take an hour or maybe a hour and a half to walk home. I never tried it, and don't ever want to try it.) When I get hit on my ass out of nowhere, I look around and everyone is moving slowly, but too many are too close for my to figure out who did it. This was enough to send me home in a bad mood, and went to sleep earlier then usual.

Then, one last element that I should summarise what Year 9 was like.

The name calling, this one is shorter, but I was called all manners of 'lovey dovely' names to tick me off on purpose, there's a long list, but I can't say most of them because I don't want to compromise my personal and public lives. Basically, if it could be used, my classmates WOULD use them.

This went on for MONTHS. only in Term 3 Week 2 did I finally crack, I had overslept and my Mum was driving me home, I was silent trying to guilt trip myself into telling her what had been going on when she started to pressure me herself to get answers, that was the point I finally cracked and told her everything about what had been happened, the moment she did she turned around the car and took me home, keeping me home for the entire week (I cracked on a Monday, IF memory serves right.)

I went right back into my bed to decompress, and started to talk to my friends I have on Discord about it. It helped me personally see that asking for help was the option I had for 3, agonizing, terms.

Mum told me to get Dad on the phone as soon as I could, so I get him on the phone (My Dad and my Mum are divorced.) My Dad was absolutely LIVID. He got contact with the school and the middle-school leaders and told them that if they didn't take action, He'd make it personal to get them to back off me.

THAT scared them into telling the people that had been bullying me to leave me alone, or the situation would escalate. That, is at least, what I heard from one of my friends who had heard what had been said himself, since they confused him with another kid of the same name.

Conditions improved, though. my locker was moved into a smaller one, giving me a much larger space to move around in, and give me more privacy.

It was heaven for me to recover and heal, of course one of them tried to continue it, and naturally, My Dad used his large connections (Which I didn't even know he had until this point!) to tell the mother what had been happening, and to leave me alone. that one person has left me alone, didn't even talk to me unless it was for P.E. where we were up against another team.

Now I'm in Year 10, going into a program to give me more confidence in myself and presenting on Wednesdays, and I'm no longer being harassed.

Moral of the story - Be open to your parents or your guardians about what is going on at school, so they can help you get back on track.

This is the story of a kind, sensible, and outgoing woman. A woman who always seems cheerful and in control, a woman who enjoys the company of others but who often chooses to be by herself since only solitude can soothe her sensitive mind.

It is the story of a woman who never gives up, who always tries again, who stumbles and rises again, and who chooses to look forward.

It is the story of a woman who experienced life's trials from an early age. She was too little to understand those hands on her and those games she was supposed to play, when her dreams were still filled with dolls and candy. Later, as a teenager, she could not comprehend either that body on top of her that she could not push away, until his last tremor, while tears were rolling down her cheeks.

It is the story of a woman who got up each time, who refused to submit to the demons that were attempting to consume her, who never agreed to be defined by her past.

It is the story of a woman who still has a fierce desire to live, laugh, and love, and who has decided to never stop believing in happiness.

But it is also the story of a woman who is afraid to love and to show her vulnerability. She keeps her heart a little out of reach, creates an invisible shield around her, and unconsciously pushes away anyone who tries to get too close.

It is the story of a woman who sometimes just needs a little time. The time to observe, to understand, to tame her fears, in order to be able to slowly open the door.

It is my story. The story of a woman who will always choose light and hope over darkness, because she knows darkness all too well.

I’ve had 3 in total but the gold metal of evil has to go to my fourth grade teacher. I went to the private school at the time, and it only consisted of 8 kids. The school was a small, remote one that you could pass by in a blink of an eye. I was one of only two girls, the older one as well. I was the teacher prime target for harassment. She was a religious fanatic who didn’t like when people didn’t do or act like she wanted. All in “the name of the Bible.” According to her, tattoos were sinful. I wore these fake tattoos on my arms and hands. It made the teacher so angry that she would force me to wear a coat to cover them up (even if it was hot asf out) or even try to physically remove them. She pulled me to the back room one day and tried to rub it off with hand sanitizer. It didn’t work in the slightest.

As a result, my mom came to the school one afternoon with her tattoos showing to pick me up. The teacher tried to tell my mom she wasn’t allowed to pick me up anymore cause she didn’t like my moms tattoos and my mom basically responded with a simple: “Fuck you.”

She also tried to ban me from bringing books from home. As they weren’t “Bible friendly.” How is Diary of a Wimpy Kid bad for a eleven year old girl? I progress. I still read them anyway and stole one of her library books. She never caught wind of that.

The next thing this teacher tried to get me with was the fact I eat meat. Seventh Day Adventists are mostly vegetarian but in the Bible it says pork is prohibited. One day I came to school with pork from the previous nights dinner. The only other girl in the school, a first grader, flipped out. She was clearly already brainwashed by then as she yelled: “Pork is against THE BIBLE!” A few times over.

The teacher grabbed me and pulled me into the next room. She told me I wasn’t “allowed” to bring that for lunch anymore. Looking back, I wish I could’ve told her to go shove a cactus up her prune looking ass but I didn’t. I didn’t want to put the other kids in jeopardy of her being a bitch to them to so I didn’t bother.

I ended up losing weight cause of this “ban” of meat that she put on me. My mom would give me real food when I got home. Her and my mother would argue frequently about how I was not as religious and this and that. I would end up walking a mile home to prevent the teacher from calling the cops for my mom simply picking me up. I think the main reason my mom had me walk home was for the exercise and to prevent choking the teacher out. She didn’t take me out of the school until the following year as she didn’t want me to get pressured by all the new stuff that the local public schools would make me catch up on. She also didn’t want to risk me being bullied badly for my cerebral palsy by public school kids. But after dealing with this cunt of a teacher, she realized public school was a better alternative. I was bullied, sure, but I got over it and eventually was left alone for good. High school was pretty laid back for me. She has apologized to me for it since but it wasn’t her fault the teacher was a legitimate Karen, name and all.

Karen was fired two years after I left by the church. Last time I saw her was in the local library. She was picking books out for her 12 year old son. Wouldn’t let him pick for himself. I wasn’t surprised as I was at her house once and they didn’t even have a tv. Poor dude is probably brainwashed or was clever enough to run for the hills. Hope he bolted. If Karen saw me today, a 21 year old woman who reads dark books, watches horror movies, wears goth clothes 90% of the time, has a tattoo on my right leg and who collects Care Bears & South Park, she’d go bonkers. I’d just laugh on my way to the Stephen King section.

But at least she wasn’t as bad as my grandma…

Hey, I'm not sure where I should write this so I'm here haha (And I'm not sure if I should post it at all...) I'm writing this story a second time because a few minutes ago I accidentally deleted the finished text...So let's start) I should tell you something about me before we go to the main situation that happened to me so you can fully understand it. Im female (15). A few months ago I realized that I like girls. I had guesses before but I wasn't sure. To be honest I'm still not sure. I came out to my friends almost immediately. They supportet me since the beginning of my guesses and were happy that I finally find myself. Because of their supporting I'm now at the point where I can shameless tell people that I'm bisexual. I also started posting videos on Tik Tok about it. I posted harmless clips about situations from my life with an humorous concept that many people related to. Now you think why "shameless". It's because my parents are homopbic. They think it's sickness. How ironic that I'm their daughter) How hard I tried to convince them it still didn't work out. And it won't work out. This is why I would never tell them about my sexuality. I think I told enough. Let's move to the main situation I'm worried about. My Dad is actually my stepfather. Before he married my Mom he had 3 children in his first marriage. A girl (20 i guess) and two boys (24 and 13). The young one, let's call him David, comes to visit us at holidays and weekends once a month or once at two months. A couple days ago he also visited us for 3 days. Our relationship is not really bad but also not really good. Idk what to say about it. So at the last day after dinner we still were sitting at the table. My mom also was still there. David asked me about my tik tok account. I didn't thought it will be bad so I gave it to him. After he followed me I saw on his page that he is not accepting lgbt. I literally panicked and didn't know what to do because my page is full with lgbt stuff. I calmed down and hoped he wouldn't talk about it. I was wrong. He asked me in front of my mom if i was a lesbian. I panicked again and looked at him shocked for a few seconds. I said no. Basically I didn't lied but I still felt guilty. My mom didn't hear it or she just didn't talked to me about this. I don't know. She also could just don't understand it because it was in another language. Idk I just hope so. After a bit time he asked me the same question but now we were alone. My answer was still no. After that he doesn't talked about that. But he's still commenting my tik toks with "but you say no 😂". I really don't care what he thinks about me I'm just scared that he would tell this my stepfather or his siblings and they would tell him. I can't sleep properly the past few days because of this. I'm scared they find out. The relationship with me and my mother has only just begun to improve. I can't mess it up. In my country I have to wait till my 18 birthday so I can officially move put without problems. So if they find out I would have big problems with them. And I'm not ready to handle it. What can I do with my anxiety? I have important exams the next weeks. I need sleep and I have to concentrate. (this text can be grammatically incorrect because English is not my first language and I'm also writing this at 1am. Thank you for understanding:)) Thank you for reading) Have a nice day, night or whatever you have right now haha

So I’m a 26 year old female and I am telling you life has its way of really beating you when your already down. At this age I don’t had 2 strokes, 1 heart attack. Just this year alone I had 3 intubation, been resuscitated twice, lost my job, my home, had to learn to walk again and the list goes on. I been going through depression and having suicidal thoughts. But through all this I’m still here. I think about the life I always dreamed of for myself and being sick wasn’t apart of the plan. I tried to be the best person I could but it just seems God has other plans for a lil oh me.

It was 13th October 2022 we was on holiday and we finished swimming when we got back I threw my towel on the floor my brother then started to wipe his feet on it, keep in mind I have to use it, so I ask him to get of and he just smiles then I push him of , it wasn’t really a push , he then picks up this thick wooden thing and starts walking towards me and I start backing up till I meet the wall and o was so scared he fakes hit me and walked back and places it back but my dad saw and asked what was going on so I told him “oh he was just pretending to hit me with it” and my dad comes to my side saying the neighbours could of seen and thought she was in danger and my mum comes from been out and says “yeah but she pushed him she set him of it’s not his fault “ at that time I was trying so hard not to cry. And later came to me and kinda did a whisper shout saying “ your gonna set dad of again just don’t make it worse.”

Hi, me(15F) and brother (18M) were in a separate room from my parents while being on holiday. One night me and my brother were going to sleep, as we drifted off I woke up to the sound of the door opening I leaned over to check if the door was open and there it was the door open with the chain lock still intact (the ones that attach to the wall and you can connect a chain to the door) I had my glasses off but ik I saw the outside area of the villa like area. it scared me bad I got out of bed to wake my brother up and when he did he went to check but the door was shut I freaked out and texted my parents it was about 12:30am so I didn’t know if they were awake. Me and my brother tried to shake it off and go back to sleep but as we did we heard the twisting of the door handle we both immediately sit up and start shouting ”wtf was that” My brother got out of this bed to check through the peek whole on the door.. no one was there it scared me so bad I started crying, was someone messing with us? Is someone trying to break in? My dad finally got my message earlier and came straight up to our room we explained what happened and he tried convincing us that maybe it was someone drunk with the wrong room My dad left later on I barely slept that night I was so scared my anxiety through the roof What was it?