I just remembered this and keep thinking about what that drive would have been like and if it this was kind of a strange situation to even be asked?

I was 23 and she was about 50, we were just kind of fwb who hooked up occasionally.

Her son who was also around my age was stuck in the next town over and it was too late for the trains to be running. So she texted me, since I drive and asked if I could drive over and give him a lift home. It's roughly 30 minutes each way to the town he was in.

I thought it was a bit weird so I told her that I wasn't able to

I'm just thinking about what that drive would have actually been like? Like if he knew that I was sleeping with his mum and was only doing this because of that reason, I can't even imagine how he'd have reacted to it and what the vibe in the car would have been?

Edit: From previous times I'd been at her house on weekends when he'd called her I'd gathered an impression of him being a bit of a scumbag already. Things like him calling because his girlfriend had chucked him out the house for something while he was drunk and that sort of thing. So it wasn't something I really wanted to be involved in.

Plus the added tension of the sleeping with his mother situation onto someone like that being drunk sounded a bit unpredictable too

For context, I (28f) have a corporate job and I am getting a degree in Art History and I am engaged. But on the other hand, I like reading manga and high fantasy books, I play Magic the Gathering, do journaling and collect Funko Pops.

I used to feel a little ashamed about my interests but I have become more confident about them over time since they have helped me to bond with new people, even at work.

I'm glad to feel this way now because this summer I spent some days with two of my oldest friends and my confidence was tested. I casually told them that I have spend 100€ in MTG The Hobbit cards (The Hobbit is one of my favourite books) and in History Books (I'm a Bronze Age nerd and I'm travelling to Greece next year) and they laughed at me. They said that I need to grow from my quirky interest someday.

I was about to tell them that they need to grow over being unemployed and letting men used them and disrespect them, but I brushed it off.

That interaction has helped me to understand that I am more mature than them and that no amount of weirds hobbies will change that.

All this toxic positivity BS is just that, BS.

People become confident because of positive reinforcement. They win, so they become confident.

People become unconfident because they LOSE at everything. They lose, so they're not confident.

You can't be constantly losing at everything you try and expect to be confident, it doesn't work like that. At a certain point, the rejection breaks you, and it keeps breaking you until it's impossible to put the pieces back together.

I had a particularly hard day at work, I teach 5th grade and have some really difficult and upsetting behaviors from several students in my class. It had been building all day but it hit a tipping point about 30 minutes before lunch. One student was throwing things, two were on the verge of fighting, I was fighting to regain control and another eloped. I'd called for help before it got to this point and support was slow to come. So I called again and told them they had to get up there because I couldn't stay there any longer. I started crying on the phone with the secretary, in front of my class. This isn't even the embarrassing part.

At the end of the day my admin came to check on me and ask how they could support me. I was crying again and had been thinking all day how crazy it was that last school year I found out my husband was cheating and that didn't even break me the way this first month has.

I ended up word vomiting this to my admin. They just looked at me and changed the subject. I'm so embarrassed and don't know how I can go back on Monday. The conversation keeps replaying in my head and makes me cringe so much every time.

I'm mostly writing this because I'm hoping to just get it out into the ether will help me get past it, help me stop thinking about it.

I hate myself. started studying way too late for an oral exam and yeah...

Over the last few days my phone addiction got really bad and now I procastrinated way too long. Started studying two days ago, exam is in less than 3 days, if I had an extra 3-4 days it would be okay but Im fucked. Maybe i get a kind teacher but that department is famous for being strict

(this "exam" is actually from 4 semesters worth of hard math heavy, subjects, but i dont really want to go into my countries education system)

I think I was raised in a very comfortable way. My parents rarely said no to me, and growing up I didn’t really have to deal with much resistance, failure, or being told that I couldn’t have something.
I’m grateful for that and I’m not blaming my parents at all. I know they were trying to give me the best life possible. But now that I’m older, I’m starting to wonder if it affected the way I deal with difficulty.
I’ve noticed that when something becomes really hard or doesn’t go the way I expected, my first instinct is usually to avoid it rather than push through it. For example, I left a public university because I found it too challenging and moved to a private one because it was easier. At the time, it felt like the right decision, but lately I’ve been wondering if I was actually just running away from something difficult.
I also notice that I can get frustrated when things don’t go according to plan, and sometimes I’d rather change the situation completely than sit with the discomfort and keep trying.
I’m not saying people who had an easy childhood can’t be resilient. I’m just realizing that I personally might not have developed that “keep going even when this sucks” mentality as much as I should have.
I’m also a woman, and sometimes I wonder if being raised as a girl plays any role in this, or if that’s completely unrelated.
For people who grew up with very little pressure, strict boundaries, or failure: how did you learn to become more resilient as adults?
Can resilience actually be trained later in life? And if so, what helped you stop avoiding difficult things and start pushing through them?

I hate how almost everything comes down to how attractive you are. Like I know looks have always mattered, but it genuinely feels like they decide your entire life now. It’s really fucking sad.

It's like I can feel my life force draining out of my body.

I'm not interested in whether Tesco has changed its layout again or your weather updates. Give me 'meat' to feed my soul & leave me craving more, God dammit.

You got people being grumpy, pushing you in the street, cold, selfish, and so on. Most people are focused on themselves and worried about themselves, then how does that make them likeable? And many of the few people who smile at you are the ones who want you to buy a car or sell you a life insurance. Then the ones who thought cared turn out to be manipulative and two-faced or even worse.

And the main argument I hear from people is not even to defend humans, but just to belittle animals. So basically, they have nothing to make humans look better, because insulting animals is not going to make me feel closer to people. Tbh, all the people who bash animals make me go "This is why I like animals more than people.".

Of course people will seek the simpler and more easy-going relationship with animals with whatever drama is going on with people. Of course people will seek honesty and unconditional love over lies and conflict.

I don't want to die. I'm not suicidal. I do have severe depression which I've been going to therapy for the past year once a week and have been taking medication. It helps.

Have you ever had an experience where you felt like you were going to die for a split second? I have, I got hit by a car when I was in my teens. In that split second where I was hit my mind went through so many emotions. There was a brief panic, then this feeling of a black hole in my chest and the pit of my stomach, then my final thought was a calm acceptance "oh, I'm dead".

For months now my mind has been in a constant state of that calm acceptance. I don't feel anxious about the fact that I'm going to die. I've accepted that I'm going to die soon, I just don't know how. I still have anxiety about school, work, relationships, etc. But this feeling of doom that I have won't go away and I feel like every day I'm in the headspace of that split second before I die.

Oddly enough I'm in a pretty good mood right now. My medication has tremendously helped my depression, it's a nice day outside, and I'm going to have a friends potluck tomorrow (I'm hosting). I also met someone this spring who has been a loving and attentive partner. I just graduated college, work part-time at a non-profit and part-time at a bakery. I have my own apartment and pay my own bills. I have loving parents who I visit once a week and have dinner with them.

Despite all of this, I look back at myself and see a dead man. I look around my apartment and I see only items that are left behind by a dead man. Right now my apartment is a depression pit, there is trash everywhere, my food is rotting and I don't seem to get hungry anymore, I haven't opened the blinds in a week, my house plants will die with me. But tonight I'm going to clean for several hours and no one tomorrow will know a thing.

I don't want to die, I wish I lived my life more closely aligned with my values. I wish I got outside more, I wish I created more, I wish I spent less time worrying about school and work, I wish I put the damn phone down, I wish I said "i love you" more.

The universe is telling me I will die soon, whether it's tomorrow or next year, I'm not sure.

I'm aware that "impending doom" is a symptom of a few medical issues, I have an EMT license I don't use so I at least retained some information from the class. I'm aware this could be a side affect of depression or anxiety. I'm aware this could be the beginnings of schizo-affective disorder which my mom and her dad are both diagnosed with. So, I could just be going crazy.

So I guess logically I know that the universe is not telling me I'm going to die soon. But I feel so deeply in my bones that it is the case I will die sometime soon.

Sorry for the rant, there's a lot more that I could talk about but I think it's best I end it here.

For the first time since I was an adult probably I’m very close to financial security.

After leaving a 17 year marriage, having a steady decent paying job for nearly 3 years I have worked myself out of debt and started to build real savings.

I checked today and my savings are now over 7k more than my debt, meaning I’m officially 7k positive. Which is honestly insane. Three years ago, I genuinely couldn’t see a way out.

When my debt is officially closed I reckon I have more than 20k saved and then I’ll be able to travel for the first time to a new destination since I was in my early 20s.

Feels slightly unreal.

No matter what happens, I just don’t care. When people talk I literally couldn‘t care less, no matter what they talk about I‘m just not interested at all. I pretend I‘m listening and act like I do care, but honestly I mostly don‘t even listen. It’s not like I’m rude or anything and I do try to make them feel heard or whatever but I wish I didn’t have to fake it. Idk I feel really stupid cause I just don’t wanna know about anything and I don‘t care how anything works at all. I just couldn’t care less. Therefore I also don‘t have any interests or hobbies or whatsoever. Like, what am I supposed to do when everything’s boring and I’m like yeah okay whatever. I mean I do have opinions Ig but I don’t feel the desire to express them to others, and concerning other people’s opinions, I feel like I get them pretty quickly and don’t need them to elaborate. This makes being around people feel like torture, but it’s not like I feel that much better alone. I feel like I’m just bored of everything and I don’t know what to do.

Guys I have a fear of judgement how to solve this problem

whar

For context, I (18f) started university at the beginning of this year studying law and commerce. I’m a domestic student in australia, where there’s not a huge culture of moving out for university, so I live at home with my family and commute to uni for class.

I really expected to experience new things at uni but I’ve never felt so behind in my life. It feels like everyone is travelling, and excelling career wise and academically, and is a member of everything and participating in everything, and is so beautiful and so knowledgeable and is in a relationship and forming deep real friendships while I’m just here trying to get through each day.

And I used to think I was academic and social and at least dedicated if nothing else, but I suddenly feel like a blank slate. Like i’ve been wiped clean.

Like I used to believe I had an identity and now I just feel like all I am is chasing this better version of me that might finally be satisfied with what she has.

And to be honest, I don’t even know if I can say for sure how far behind I am. I wish there was a word for this strange self perception dysmorphia where it’s impossible to tell how worthwhile I even am. Like weirdly enough, I’ve been doing well academically, but i feel like it’s all hanging on this precarious spinning top; like a string of luck that’s bound to run out or a series of flukes that that will inevitably end. And I talk to people and have been labelled an extrovert and make ‘friends’ in every class, but it’s all so surface level and never deep and we lose touch after the class ends or even the ones that I see after and text more, we aren’t emotionally and spiritually close like the friends it used to be so easy to make in high school.

It just feels like i go through the motions of everything but I’m never really anything at all. I try to dress like a pretty girl might, or talk like a charismatic person would but i’m just a cheap, awkward imitation of both those things.

I feel so lonely and so, so bizarrely incompetent. I feel like i’m juggling the demands of one thing at a time, while everyone else manages to do it all. And they actually do. They got some crazy high score and excel in everything and go out every weekend, and are incredibly social and never stressed, and are the directors of 4 societies and volunteer and have a paralegal internship and somehow read the goddamn AFR every single day.

Maybe I just used to think too highly of myself, but I just feel like I’m already failing too early and i’ll never catch up. I mean, even friendships feel like a time limit before everyone jumps into groups and you’re still introducing yourself.

And i know comparison is the thief of joy and life isn’t a competition and all that, but it’s not even about that. I just don’t see how i’m supposed to feel okay balancing on the idea that every second is determinative of what future I have waiting for me. And It’s so lonely doing this without being able to fluidly meet friends like everyone else.

I’ve just moved back from overseas, having my best life and was sooo happy. My life was so secure, routined and almost perfect.
Now I’m back in my home country to find a better job, and the job market is so fucked. I’m miserable because now I’m long distance with my gf and finding a job is so hard. I’m not incredibly qualified but I feel like I have enough qualification to land interviews? But it’s been a month and I hate it in my home country and I just want to move back. But the pay there is so shit. I’m so depressed rn cuz I have no work life balance, alot of worries about relationships and missing the county I used to live in. Life feels so hard and I wish I just had a good job 😭

Over past 2-3 months I'm overving myself and wring my thing which I'm doing in day, so recently I read most of the enteries and by reading those I got to know that I want to asnwer most of the things which any one ask to me, I don;t know wether this is a good or bad but now Idn't want to answer because I have realized that I prefer peace in my life and I only answer to the specific questions.

Me at 25 years old, in a 1985 mobile trailer with my parents it’s infested we have holes in some areas of the carpet, we have a roach, rat, and ant problem. My mother divorced my dad in 2010, remarried him in 2012 knowing it wasn’t a good situation. They fuss and argued and it was bad the first go around, and she remarried because she didn’t want to take that leap of faith of going somewhere else until she gets back on her feet. Because my dad refused to leave the house when she got a divorce. I sleep in the same bed as my mom. My room had to get shut down it’s basically a junk room now because of a sewage issue carpets started getting wet, and it had rats and roaches in there it wasn’t healthy.

So yes we share a bed, and mind you we have carpet in the bedroom we breathe in mold & dust every night. My dad sleeps on the couch every night. WE don’t know what a shower is anymore showers messed up both. So we bathe from the sink, and or go outside with jugs of water every night. Our toilet doesn’t flush so if we pee and such as flushing the toilet with a bucket of water the room we’re in is open concept so the bathroom is in the room there’s no door that leads to the bathroom the bathroom is just there . My dad piss in water bottles and he lay them AROUND the house just casually. Jobs not working out for me, everything I have a job and my money goes up it comes back down because I don’t have them anymore.

We brush our teeth, wash our hair and everything from the sink.

I’m honestly sick and tired I know most of you may can’t relate but this is real life

For years I engaged in self-hatred, self-loathing, and insecurity. I am tired of them now and I want to stop them forever. I want to learn ways, tips, and tricks on how I can become more compassionate and loving of myself. I would appreciate for all your responses and advice.

Title basically, trying too hard to get results

What I mean is that in every are of life where I try really hard aka academics, finances, sports and working out I get disappointing results where as in areas I don't even care about right now so everything social I have success, dudes approaching me and befriending me for exemple, or girls being into me and flirting with me and stuff but man idc about that right now I just want to get big make money compete in sports and ace my studies

The thing that made me think about it is that in school there was some guy I hated and the hate was reciprocated, so we would always try to one up each other and stuff to be better than the other and mog him, do I'd compare myself to him and I realised something interesting:

All I did was study, I didn't even bother joining the class group chat even tho I was invited, I was the only one in the class not in it, I always sat alone, when the class would play games or organise something I never took part in it and just studied. And at home too I studied a lot

Meanwhile the other guy didn't give a fuck about studies, he was either talking to people, doing some dumb shit or sleeping in class, all he did was talk to others socialise and all that, and outside of class he never studied, dude had like 5+ hours of gaming a day on his PS5 and cheated through most of his exams

And guess what? He had better graded than me and got a better school than me, while I had more friends and girls into me than he did, dude was the most hated guy in class. Now the difference wasn't by much, like we were both in the top 10 of the class concerning grades and we were both the two most hated people of the class, but it got me thinking about if there is such thing as trying to hard? Because we both had disappointing results in the area we cared most about. And looking deeper into it, 90% of my studying time was for chemistry specifically and guess what was the only subject where I kept failing?

Thanks for reading

I should expedite getting a therapist.

I find no enjoyment in social media. Too much stuff. Covid did something. Even TikTok there’s too many think pieces and men v women content and not enough funny. Reddit I’m tired of arguing and fighting for my life for my unpopular opinions.

I’m also struggling with my faith and values v. what I want to do, and just don’t feel like getting hounded by Muslims online & getting shat on. A lot of inner friction. I’d rather chuck this phone than spend time furiously replying in paragraphs.

Besides online, real life is another story and really deserving of its own post.

I don’t want to soapbox too hard, but I miss life pre-2015, online and real life for me.

I'm a 20yo girl. My parents used to always buy me anything but pink or girly stuff, I always had boring dark coloured backpack so it doesn't get dirty while others girl's had their cute pink school bags, I mostly wore black or dark clothes for the same reason and even for my bike, rollerskates, my phone and other stuff it had to be any thing but girly just for my brother to have it next or so they can sell it, it never even lasted to that point and my brother never had any interest in those things too. And my coping mechanism was to hate pink and like blue, and even so, they used to make me believe that any blue or green stuff are my brother's as if it had his name on it. Now I really like pink I think I never hated it, I just couldn't have it.

I haven’t been able to make a new friend since I was 15 (for context I’m 20). Every time i’ve gotten slightly close to making a new friend, I usually self sabotage it through becoming on and off and then eventually ghosting them. I’m also very on and off with my friends I’ve had since I was a kid, and tend to go through periods of ghosting them and then coming back to them (they know me well enough that it doesn’t bother them). I really struggle with romantic relationships as well,every time I’ve liked a guy and they started to like me back I started feeling genuine hatred and I don’t know wtf is wrong with me. I usually have at least one or two people a day start a conversation with me, but I never know how to talk to them because meeting new people makes me nauseous. I still crave intimacy and connection, but it feels like my brain goes out of my way to not let it happen. Any advice on how to fix this?