He pursued me. I acquiesced, because in all honesty I was lonely and struggling to make meaningful connections in a new city. I was in a pretty bad place mentally, but it felt good to receive attention. We also met at a film screening, so there was some common ground and a shared appreciation for film and media.
Months in, I find out...
He has a keen, particular interest in Asian film and media - particularly East Asia - Japanese, Korean, and Chinese films.
He follows Asian cooking channels (by white expats / travelers only) and tries to connect with me through his "knowledge" of Asian food and primarily only cooks Asian food. He'd also try to "bait" me by asking me to come over and that he has prepared familiar, cultural dishes that I grew up on. I thought this was innocent at first, until he would control and lecture me on how to properly prepare the food when we'd try to cook together.
He asked me to shave so I look more "smooth" and to fit his pornified, aesthetic preference. I was uncomfortable at first and bewildered by this request so early on, but I did it anyway because of shit boundaries.
He tries so hard to connect with me to "my culture" through superficial things like media and food, but when I engage with him in deeper sociopolitical issues concerning our community, seeking a more emotional response, he falls silent, weak, and invalidates my experiences as "doom scrolling." This is the most aggravating crux of some White men who have this "Asian preference" - it's the consumption of my body and culture, but ignorance of my humanity.
He is not the most politically informed, well-read, yet holds highly opinionated beliefs of certain Asian countries from what has been espoused by Eurocentric media.
He has an obsession over a new ultra-girly K-Pop band that consists mostly of underage girls - musical choice that is not deemed socially appropriate for his age. I completely got the ick.
He has an East Asian calligraphy tattoo on his ankle that he supposedly regrets and wants removed, but I saw him shamelessly wearing ankle socks and cargo shorts in the summer and he has had this tattoo for almost two decades now. Absolute ick.
He jokingly (but no really) called me, "arm candy" and was pretty fixated on my looks.
He likely has a history of dating and pursuing Asian women and/or non-white women in general.
After all this coming into realization, I just felt too uncomfortable and dissonant to conitnue. I'll never know the 100% truth, but I eventually listened to my intuition. My shame and regret comes from staying for too long and not listening to my own values, boundaries, and feelings. I'm sure there were elements of genuine like and attraction toward me, but I can't help but feel I was pursued because of my "Asianness" and projected a lot of his interests, obsessions toward me as his young, "arm candy" Asian girlfriend. Dating is hard and what this experience taught me is to cultivate self-love, higher standards of dating, more initial vetting and questioning, and listening to my damn intuition.

Hello everyone,
A while back, my wife and I relocated to a new city and settled into an apartment in British Columbia. The landlord informed us about a pre-existing issue with cockroaches in the building, but assured us that our unit and section were free from them. However, we were informed of mandatory monthly pest inspections, necessitating a high level of cleanliness in our living space. The regulations include no cardboard allowed, no open food on kitchen counters (not even fruit or bread unless completely sealed), and thorough inspections that involve going through our belongings, including drawers and rubbermaid containers. Occasionally, items like the fridge and stove are moved, which once resulted in a broken plate.
Following each inspection, we receive a detailed letter listing areas that need improvement. Initially, there were numerous infractions mentioned, but we've managed to reduce them to just a few. We've had to invest roughly $100 in rubbermaid containers to eliminate cardboard boxes, store perishables in the fridge on inspection days, and even place cast iron inside the oven.
The inspections continue to trigger significant mental distress for my wife due to the invasive nature of the inspections.
She's urging me to consider lodging a complaint with the appropriate authorities, such as the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB). However, I'm unsure if there's a valid case for such action. While we were forewarned about the inspections, the severity was significantly downplayed, and we wouldn't have chosen this apartment had we known the extent of the intrusion. It's worth noting that the landlord does adhere to the legally required notice period before each inspection.
Any insights or advice on this matter would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance for your input.

Me and my fiance have lived at this residence for 9 months our lease is up in September and the landlord is a private landlord who lives in the home he's 20y/o and he told us on Saturday night he is calling his realtor tomorrow (sunday) and the house will be posted august 1st so it would be best if we can all be out by July so he could undergo fixing up the house to sell we pay 1200 a month for a room and attached bathroom. He said he's done with the drama because he recently moved in a child sex offender who hasn't been paying his rent and has been taking/using all of our food, laundry detergent, qtips? (And leaving the dirty qtips on the counter in the shared bathroom) Basically anything he can get his hands on. We live right down the street from an elementary school so legally he can't even live here. All the roommates hate him he is a mooch already owes me $200 for the groceries I bought and the piercings he guilted me into paying for with the promise to pay me back. He surprisingly does have a gf but she lives in another state and he legit cheated on her a week before she flew across the country to see him and she also was the one who payed a month of his rent btw she still doesn't know he fucked someone else btw. BUT ANYWAYS he (landlord) said he doesn't like how we all are hating on each other and blaming each other for things (the new roommate also has a tendency to leave crusty dishes in the sink and lock the one lock no one has a key to) and when we all point out none of these things were happening before this guy moved in he jumps to defend this guy. I have no clue why but at this point we are just looking for different housing there was an apartment perfectly in our budget that I wanted to tour tomorrow and I requested a specific unit literally earlier today my email got ignored and now it's taken off the website so I'm anxious to be able to afford other complexes we don't have a huge savings because we were planning on being here for a while longer and all of our money has gone into the wedding as of late so I dunno what's some good tips when it comes to apartments and no I'm not seeing landlord for breaking lease because at this point I would rather disconnect from this place entirely.
Edit: I also have bought all trash bags laundry detergent cleaning supplies and groceries in this house that all roommates use daily even ziplock bags (also they all game on console and guess who bought the AA batteries 🫣) so help me make a list of things that I could take to inconvenience them because I want to forget them but they shouldn't forget the person who's been a literal piggy bank and supply hauler for them

Working on the high level of a dnd campaign. The players will be settlers traveling in a group of 300 across 5 ships to a newly discovered continent. There are no intelligent native species, but the local flora and fauna are freaky. Apes with 3 eyes and teeth with sharp points, poisonous colorful fruit and flowers, bears with 6 legs instead of 4, peach sized bees with deadly (think 4d6 poison damage or half on failed con save) stings. Everything is a twisted version of familiar species.
While the place looks like paradise at first sight, it is actually very deadly. The first explorers to discover the island left 30 of their crew on the island because it seemed safe at first. They have since vanished. A freshwater river causes the first settlers to try it to vomit blood and die. Most food sources are also poisonous. For the first few days, they can subsist on the rations brought on the ships supplemented by create water and goodberry casted by the few clerics and rangers among the settlers. The expedition leader will send capable parties out to discern and secure sources of food and drink.
Following the river to its source, the characters will find a mysterious metal pipe pumping out green waste into the river. By taking water upstream of the pipe or plugging up the pipe, the characters can successfully secure a source of freshwater! Throughout this quest, the characters will be assaulted by the strange wildlife.
There will be similar quests for building shelters, gaining access to food, and more interestingly: the crown sent death row prisoners along the expedition, telling the expedition leaders that the prisoners were under a geas to be harmless. This is not true; which the players will discover as they try to learn the identity of a serial killer.
Eventually, the players will also find ruins of an ancient civilisation, crumbling castles, destitute villages, etc. I will drop signs that they are being watched as well, and that some other race lives here. The players will inevitably meet a member of this race: a human, but mutated: a snout like nose, short, stunted stature, fish fins, and a patch of lizard like scales on one of its arms, for example. The creature's intellect is severely stunted, allowing for not much more than basic survival instinct and the ability to cooperate with its kin, other than the fact that it speaks common- but only one word, which it repeats expressionlessly incessantly: "help". If the expedition leader finds the village of the creature's kin, he will hurl when he realizes that some of these creature's share physical traits as some of the 30 crew members he left here on the first expedition.
There is a lich that has been doing experiments with mutating life forms via magic in subterranean facilities below the island. He is trying to transmute souls into existence. He once kept a "farm" of humans, but they died via mass suicide. To sustain himself, the lich has been casting sending and dream repeatedly on a king he has been scrying on, pretending to be a divine messenger telling the king to send these expeditions out. The lich fed on some of the 30 crew mates and did more experiments on the rest, and has been eagerly awaiting the new shipment of sacrifices. He was once a court mage of a kingdom that spanned a wide swath of the continent (hence why you see the ruined castles) but sought immortality by deceiving the king into preparing a lichdom ritual that consumed the souls of the populace to ascend.

This is a relatively new issue for me; A number of factors (two new cats who are not on schedule + days getting longer + me getting lax/feeling bad and feeding cats off schedule), has lead to cats not sticking to dinner time, which means their food is out longer.
Pests have started showing up, and I'm not sure what to do. I already had to throw out some wet food because a roach got in it, and tonight had to dump two bowls of kibble because multiple slugs got in them. I swear, I had seen like 3 slugs in my life before this week, and there were 5 on my porch just tonight!!
I am trying to get the cats back on schedule to reduce the amount of time the food is out, but I'm afraid it's gonna take a while, and I'd like to avoid dumping food as much as possible.
So, does anyone know of any methods for keeping bugs/pests out of food that won't harm the ferals? I'm afraid to use bug spray or call an exterminator because obviously poison isn't safe for cats, and I can't guarantee they wouldn't get into it.

So I checked u/hmmsucks tier list on reddit and was shocked to see the new meta. The last time I played actively was when faramis was meta after his revamp. Afterwards i sometimes logged in to check the new heroes and play a few games but that's it. But when I checked the tierlist I was like:
Luo yi meta???? I have never seen her at the top. Like when she was kinda mediocre her range is pretty mid and and her cc is strong sometimes but it is hard to trigger simply bcs you have to jump through a few hoops for her passive which is satisfying when it works but not very consistent simply bcs her skills are all projectiles and she is assassin food.
Day 1 Carmilla was broken. Then they nerfed her crimson flower skill by removing her speed boost. That and the fact that bloodbath had such a long cooldown, and that her ult requires good coordination is why her solo queue playrate is low. But now she tier 3 in both roam and jungle.
Phoveus was a counterpick hero for dash meta but he has become pretty good still.
Cecilion fell for. Grace and is now Eudora tier. wanwan and kagura too though kagura's decline was caused by her revamp, they nerfed her damage soo much.
Finally Valentina is no longer tier 1 but she is now tier 2 in mid lane. Still good but what made her worse now? Also vexana is this high!?!? Newly revamped vexana was pretty bad.

Friend and his long-term partner have been living in Chicago for 2 years and leave to go back home to Mexico on Friday (in 4 days). I honestly just don’t know what to get him.
He’s younger (28) and likes to travel, has a Shnauzer, likes to try different foods, plays piano, has a few tattoos. Wife teaches piano lessons. They have house plants in the apartment as well. They don’t have a lot of money. I want to get them both a gift, but his is more important. Also, his plan is to keep singing Opera, of course, but hasn’t found another Opera house to perform at yet so his future is “up in the air”, if that‘s relevant. But he has a beautiful voice so I have no doubt he will find a new place. He is a Soprano as well.
Would like the gift to be something material he can bring with him (not a meal, tickets to a show/museum etc…) and it would be nice if it were something musical themed/artistic, but doesn’t necessarily have to be.
Ideas I’ve thought of so far: an Italian theater mask, a hand-crafted wooden pen with musical theme (piano, guitar etc), Ugg gloves or nice scarf (in case he ends up somewhere cold in the future), a nice cologne (just don’t know which one). For her, I‘ll get something simple. Matching gifts could be nice too. Price range is up to $300 for him and up to $100 for her.
Any help would be greatly appreciated, of course.

This is a very long one. Trigger warning ⚠️
I (19f) have been in and out of long term/short term facilities since I was 12 years old. I’ve had suicide attempts and have been diagnosed with major depressive disorder. This is definitely not my first experience with a therapist. Over the years I’ve had over 6+. Not because they haven’t worked for me all the time, but because they either move onto another facility or I move onto another phase in life.
Last year I adopted a new therapist “Mere” thanks to my older sister “North”. My current Therapist “Tina” who I’ve been working with for the past 3 and a half years, switched to a facility where my insurance only covers 30 min sessions. North didn’t think that was enough for me at the time since I wasn’t doing so well mentally. The therapist she recommended worked closely with her own and offered 1hr long sessions, so I agreed wanting to try something new since my old therapist seemed to not specialize in trauma and ptsd. Kerr was highly recommended for those topics.
We started our sessions not soon after my sister offered. The first couple months were hard. Our personalities seemed to clash. Not because mine was bad, but because I was deeply depressed. I was not a joy to be around and everyone seemed annoyed with my constant melancholy. Even my therapists seemed sick of me.
Over time I learned to adapt my personality to be more palatable. My therapists loved it now that I was interacting with them and making jokes. I treated them more like friends now instead of therapists and they seemed to appreciate that. I found it funny because a lot of my issues I explained to them was faking my personality to fit into the crowd and adapt. Due to me being f a people pleaser. They didn’t see anything wrong with the change since I seemed to be getting better mentally.
I was better. I wouldn’t attribute much of my success to my therapists tho. It was nice to have someone to talk to since at the time I had no friends, but they didn’t seem to know how to handle my constant depression so I started to hide it from them. Even from myself. Over time I was able to function a lot better. I switched my sessions to only once every two weeks and I was planning on ending them all together since I was doing so well on my own and haven’t need much help in a while.
It seems that I ah e bad luck. Right when I was at my peak recovery and condition, I was raped on the first day of the new year. I spiraled back into my deep deep deep depression worse than any other relapse I had before. I survived on Benadryl and ice cream for weeks. I took the pills so I didn’t have to be awake to long. I ate only food that I liked the most (mainly unhealthily) my health declined.
My mental health was the worst of it tho. The day after the rape occurred I had a session with my newer therapist. I start telling her the details of my assault. The shock was still fresh in my brain and my memories were scrambled. I greatly blamed myself. I thought I was the weirdo.
Mere only confirmed my sentiments. Before I could fully list out the details of the night it happened she immediately started to spew accusations of my intentions that night. Saying phrases like “Well when someone is pleasuring you it’s hard to say no and there’s nothing wrong with that”
I shut up then and just agreed with her but something still didn’t sit right with me. I went on Reddit and there was mixed opinions about it. A lot of ppl validated my feelings and others thought It was my fault. After fully processing this event and fully remembering it in its entirety I can say confidently that what happened to me was rape.
The next session we had I was able to tell the full story. Mede had just said “Oh. Well you didn’t mention all this before. That’s definitely not ok”. The thing is tho, she was the one to cut me off and make assumptions instead of trying to pull out the full story. She knew I had extreme ptsd and I probably wouldn’t be able to give an in-depth detailed explanation of what happened. She still insulted me anyway and brushed me off.
I thought this to be weird but I brushed it off. When you think k you’re in the presence of a professional you don’t often question things especially if you aren’t in the mental space to do so. So ignored her.
There have been times where she’s been short with me. One time she had asked to switch a 12pm session to 5pm. When I refused she said she’d have to charge me a cancellation fee. It seemed that she just wanted to get paid for that session still and wanted to guilt me into paying. I refused and explained that she was the one who cancelled on me and she immediately backed down realizing I wouldn’t be easily pushed around. I didn’t think much of it then.
Another time. I had gone to this tattoo parlor to get my belly button pierced. I took videos and pictures of the process. She requested in our session that week to see the pictures. I agreed to send and emailed them to her in two emails. In one there was all the pictures of the parlor, the. The other had the videos of the full process. Accidentally I had added one singular picture of me. I was at school and I took a picture in the schools bathroom. There was nothing indecent about it I just accidentally pressed on that picture as I was sending the others. IT happened a lot when using your iPhone to email and I didn’t really notice.
She brought it up the next session and started to berate me for sending that singular pic out of all the obvious other intended pictures. She said it’s inappropriate to send her pictures of myself. I explained to her the accident and she seemed shocked. All she said was “oh well ok”. I don’t know why she got so triggered I’ve always kept good boundaries with her. I can’t believe she immediately started accusing me for one picture of me posing in the mirror while having a turtle neck in a jacket and everything.
Those are just a few of the shady things she’s done. Now back to current time. After I was raped. I still continued sessions with her and tried to get back on track. She wasn’t really helping. I would have extreme panic attacks on therapy video calls with her and she seemed at loss of what to do. I distanced myself from her and I started to get a little better, but then I started to have issues with some of my friends. That added onto my load of issues and started to push me to the edge.
I called my therapist the night of my attempt. I try not to call her after hours but I was in genuine crisis. I had spent the whole day being practically verbally abused by one of my friends. I was cracking slowly it surely and I reached out for help.
Otp I expressed to her how I felt betrayed by everyone around me. I asked her why everyone felt it was ok to treat me wrong whenever. Why wasn’t I able to find peace? Why I couldn’t find ppl who cared? My parents are emotionally abusive as well. That all stems into my ppl pleasing habits. I’ve let a lot of ppl take advantage of my nature because I’ve been conditioned to since birth. She knows my history and why I am the way I am. Instead of consoling me she yelled at me. “Well you knew they were bad ppl!” “If you knew they were bad ppl why are you blaming them you just need to stop hanging around bad ppl”. She then told me she had to go and hung up. She did ask me if I was safe but of course I lied. She knows I always try to see the best in ppl. I don’t see the bad till it’s too late most times. Her words stung like acid. I had been prescribed some sedatives to calm me during panic attacks. I had taken two but they weren’t helping. After that call I took the whole bottle. I didn’t want to die alone so I called my mother to stay in my room with me. Then I drifted into a deep sleep for hours into the next day’s afternoon. I had fallen asleep around 10 pm. I woke up the next day around 3pm still kicking but disordered.
I spent two weeks in a mental hospital. During that time I do t have access to my phone. I had my sister contact everyone that needed to be. Even Mere. She knew I was in there. I didn’t call her while I was there bc I was still upset at her after everything.
I was discharged but I didn’t set up a session for weeks. She emailed and called me once but I didn’t respond till I was fully settled back into my routine and okay enough to talk to her. I emailed her this
“Hallo, Sorry. I didn’t mean to ghost you. I just needed some time to get myself together. I called you just now. You are probably busy. I hope everything is doing well on your end. Sorry again. Sent from my iPhone”
I had planned to set up an appointment in the future to talk to her about everything but by the time I checked my patient portal a week or so later I had been discharged with no warning. No calm text or email.
I set up a meeting with her over the phone for 45 mins. When she first came onto the call the first thing she said was “I saw that you put our appointment for 45 mins. I changed it to 30 bc you know I did discharge you”. I thought it was pretty rude so instead of explaining everything I told her about how I didn’t have my phone in the hospital and the hospital themselves didn’t notify her because they were disorganized and were extremely unprofessional. It’s not like she wasn’t updated by my sisters anyway. When I got my phone after I got home I saw texts from her asking if I was still having a session with her. Knowing that I was in the hospital. It seemed she either didn’t care or didn’t believe I was in the hospital. In fact when she had spoken over the phone with one of my sisters she had lied to them about that night. She had told her “After I got otp with her I immediately started praying for her because I m ew something was deeply wrong” how delusional of her to say after she yelled at me and hung up.
Anyway after I explained my reasoning for going MIA she started to realize how fucked up she was and asked me how I was doing. I didn’t say much because I was done with her and she obviously didn’t intend of hearing the full story since she shortened our session. She started asking me why I didn’t want to continue therapy and seemed confused why I didn’t seem to beg her to re admit me. I told her I was done with therapy. She seemed concerned and said that she discharged me because she thought it’d be better for me to find an in person therapist. I knew it was a shitty excuse. I quickly hang up on her and don’t address anything.
I’m only processing this now because I’ve had much bigger things going on. I’m only now realizing how fucked up her behavior was. If I hadn’t spoken to her the night of my attempt I probably wouldn’t have tried to kill myself. I feel cheated out of help. I don’t feel angry at her I have to reserve that for someone more worthy of my rage. I only wished she didn’t use the fact that I would never call her out on her behavior usually. She knew my temperament and took advantage of that. I don’t think I’ll ever trust a therapist again. She victim blamed me, mocked me, berated me in my time of need, and then abandoned me on baseless assumptions that could’ve been easily cleared up if she actually listened to what my sisters and I were saying. She didn’t even say sorry when we were talking. Or express any remorse besides embarrassment for jumping to conclusions. SMH.
TLDR: My therapist berated me for trusting ppl in my life the night of my suicide attempt. Then Discharged me from her care without consulting me first. Blamed me for all her mistakes and jumped to conclusions randomly then never apologized for the baseless accusations. I am at a loss for words and at a loss for trust in therapy again.

As the title says, but I will go into more depth about how bad the situation is.
For starters, I (F20) and my boyfriend (M21) both work for the same small business. I’ve been there since June 2023, he’s been there since August 2023. Originally the business was located in my hometown, so I moved back down with my BF and we got an appt here in town in Aug ‘23. We didn’t live far originally, but still. Our lease was up at our old place and so we got a new one.
Fast forward to beginning of this year. I’m talking first few days of January, she hits us up and tells us we’re moving the company about 45 minutes away to SATX (added location for state specific laws if there are any). She was going to pay me an extra $6/hr and my bf and extra $7/hr to follow her. We agreed.
Few more months go by and April 4th rolls around. Our payday. I get paid on time no prob. My bfs pay is late, but my boss finally sends it April 9th. Sucks, illegal, but overall wasn’t too bad. Around this time we plan a trip to the beach with my Bf’s sister May 6-9. We just needed to pay her for our cost of splitting the house we were going to stay at. No problem I told her, we will have two paychecks between now and then to pay you with. I even cleared the dates with my boss immediately.
Few days after, my boss asks us if we’d like to work from home. Same pay, same job duties, just don’t have to commute to work anymore. Hindsight, this was the beginning of the end, but hindsight is a bitch and doesn’t matter. Anyways, we agree again.
The weekend of April 19th-21st we were invited to go out of town to visit our friends and celebrate one of their birthdays. Originally, we weren’t going to be able to make it because we worked Fridays and Saturdays; but since we now worked from home we made the trip out there. It’s about 2 hours from home for us. Well i had enough gas in my car to get us up there, and we were supposed to be paid April 19th, no biggie. Except very big biggie because she didn’t pay us then. Or the next day. Or the next. So essentially we were stranded. Luckily our friend lent us gas money to get home. This is the start of our problem.
Over the next week it’s a constant back and forth of her saying she’s going to pay us, and then not paying us. I told her multiple times that we needed to be paid our next paycheck on time because it was going to be used for rent, and to pay for the trip we were taking in a couple weeks. May 2nd rolls around, our next payday, and nothing. She proceeds to ghost us for the weekend.
Luckily, my boyfriend’s sister was extremely understanding and is letting us pay her back whenever we eventually get paid, so we were still able to go to the beach. We were able to borrow some money from our roommate to be able to do some stuff while we were down there. The money lasted us one day. While i was still extremely grateful to be able to go on a vacation, I had plans. I had things i wanted to do, places i wanted to eat, etc. And i was not able to do a good majority because we didn’t have the money we were supposed to.
Which brings us to today May 14th. Utilities were due yesterday. We have not been paid still.
In total, out of about the $3000 she owes us, we have only been paid $850. $850 fucking dollars since APRIL 19th. I’m at my wits end. We’ve filed a wage claim with the Texas Workforce Commission, I was able to get a new job waiting tables but I don’t even start until next Tuesday. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. We don’t have the money to sue her because she hasn’t paid us. We are hungry because we can’t buy groceries. Our main source of food has been eating with my mom, and even then, we have to save the food we get to be able to make more than 1 meal come from it. We have flies in our bathroom attracted to my cats litter box because we have no litter to change it. Please, anything helps.
TLDR; my boss has only paid us $850 out of about $3k since April 19th.

I am STILL NOT the Original Poster. That is u/ta-bff-234324. He posted in AITAH and amiwrong but posted the same text in both subreddits. I chose to use the ones from AITAH
Thanks again to u/Literally_Taken for the rec and to Choice Evidence and u/chickenoodledeprived for letting me know about the update!
Previous BORU here. New update marked with ****\*
Trigger Warning: racism
Mood Spoiler: tentatively happy ending
Original Post: April 1, 2024
My (29M) best friend Jess (29F) keeps on mentioning my ex (29F) in front of my fiancee, and I am thinking of cutting her off. I want to know if I am overreacting, or if Jess is in the wrong.
For context, Jess and I went to the same high school and the same college. We were friends in high school. However, since we both went to the same out-of-state college, we became best friends since then. We have always been there for each other during the best and worst times. However, things have always been platonic, and she is more like a big sister to me, who made sure I stay on the right track.
I have only been in two long-term relationships so far. One was with my ex Lisa for 7 years. We met in college and dated all through our college years. Lisa and Jess also became good friends, too. After college, Lisa and I just grew apart and had different goals in life. I became "boring" after college as I was working on my PhD while doing a full time job. Lisa broke up with me as she wanted to party on weekends, while I was home studying. I was heartbroken, but I don't think I ever blamed her or had resentment towards her, as I understood my decisions were selfish and should not hold her back from having the best life.
Jess always stood by me and comforted me during that time. Jess and Lisa were good friends and Jess always kept on telling me that Lisa loves me and will be back one day when I am ready. I foolishly held on to that hope and stayed friends with Lisa. That was until I met my fiancee Yang. After I finished my PhD, I got a nice job in a big tech company. Yang joined our team a year after me. We started going out for drinks, and dinner and we started dating seriously pretty soon. We are happy together, and financially in a great place. Needless to say, I stopped talking to Lisa after I started dating Yang.
I proposed to Yang a year after we started dating and got engaged last year. Jess has been acting weirdly since we got engaged. One of the first things she said to Yang after we got engaged was how I had planned the same thing for Lisa (proposing on a local hiking trail). It was a bit off-putting that she was bringing up Lisa whom I broke up with almost 5 years ago on such a happy occasion. However, Yang asked me to not spoil my mood, as she felt Jess was just commenting on how I had that plan in mind for years. Since then, every time we meet, Jess without fail brings up Lisa and how the things I am doing are all the things I had planned with Lisa. This happened when we bought a house, planned for vacations, etc. Jess always starts with some nostalgic story and then brings up how Lisa and I were so happy together. She is still good friends with Lisa and keeps giving me updates about Lisa and how great Lisa is doing at work when no one is asking for it. It felt like she was painting a rosy picture of Lisa to Yang and telling Yang that she would always be second to Lisa.
Yang told me Jess's comments bothered her, and I also felt the same. I have brought this up with Jess many times and asked her not to do it. However, she says she will try but since I dated Lisa for 7 years, she would be part of many stories from the past. Also, she asked me why talking about Lisa bothers me and if I still have feelings for her. I have reduced hanging out with Jess. However, she is close with my mom and is always invited to all our family parties and holidays.
I talked to my mom and sister about this and they feel I am overreacting. They feel Jess is just telling stories and since the stories are mostly from college days and later, Lisa will be a character in the story. They also feel I should not be bothered by Jess mentioning Lisa since we broke up a long time ago. I feel that it's disrespectful to Yang as she doesn't need to hear about all the fun Lisa and I had when we were together and how we were planning to get married. Do you think I am the asshole to stop here or Jess is truly acting out of line?
Relevant Comments:
Commenter: Probably need to separate your time with your fiancé away from your friend. ... On a side note, your friend comes across poorly on one other aspect. When you were too busy to date so you could study. She is encouraging you to stay available while your ex goes about dating around? Think she ever encouraged your ex to not? Or do you think she was telling your ex she could have all the fun she wanted cause you'd still be around? Food for thought.

OOP: She thought we were 24 when we broke up and she always justified that Lisa was young and it's natural to date around before you settle down. She also encouraged me to do the same. However, after my breakup, I decided that I would not be in a relationship (based on what happened to the previous one) and never dated anyone until after I graduated.

Commenter: Not wrong, in fact it's thoughtful of your finace's feelings. " Jess always kept on telling me that Lisa loves me and will be back one day when I am ready." - yikes.
An easy: "Jess, you keep bringing up my ex, and keep making comments which are dismissive of my relationship with Yang. I am telling you point blank that this is harming our friendship and it saddens me that you dismiss my feelings as being unimportant on this topic. If you can't respect me, and my relationship with Yang, please understand why it will likely end our friendship."

OOP: We have had this exact conversation. Jess then proceeded to ask Yang is she offended by her telling stories about me. Yang was polite and said she is ok. Then she told me I am being too sensitive.

Commenter: Op do you know if Lisa is married? Maybe Jess is trying to sabotage your engagement so you can be with Lisa.

OOP: I know Lisa is single. She has not been in any serious long term relationship after me. Infant, Jess always makes it a point to bring that up regularly and update me, even after I tell her I have no interest. My mom loves gossip and they also discuss a out Lisa regularly.

Jess is just being a mean girl/have you talked to Lisa at all?
At this point, I suspect Jess is just being mean to Yang. I would have cut her off long ago if she was not so close to me or my family for so many years.
Lisa is out of the picture, to be honest. I have completely gone no contact with her for the last 2 years.
Jess has feelings for you:
That's not true. I did not write it since I thought it was irrelevant, but Jess is happily married and has a 3 year old kid.
There is no consensus bot on AITAH, but top comments were NTA
Update Post: April 23, 2024 (22 days later)
I wrote a post a month ago regarding my friend Jess mentioning my ex constantly in front of my fiancée. Thanks to everyone who commented, and how inappropriate it was. However, the last month has been nothing but crazy and I still trying to make sense of what happened so far.
After my post, I decided to talk to Jess and gave her an ultimatum not to speak about my ex Lisa again. I know Jess and Lisa are still friends, but I was uncomfortable of her comparing my fiancée Yang with Lisa all the time. I broke up with Lisa 5 years ago, and she is nothing but a faint memory in my past. Jess kept on defending herself and telling me that I was with Lisa for most of my adult life and it's hard to tell any stories from the past without including her. She also blamed me for being emotionally childish and just forgetting about Lisa when she was with me for 7 years. Finally, Jess agreed that she will not bring up Lisa in front of Yang, and I should also not treat Lisa as she does not exist since she is still Jess's friend. I informed Yang about our conversation. Although she was appreciative about it, she said I did not need to do it and she knows how much I love her and every time Jess brings up my Lisa, she feels sorry for Lisa that she let a guy like me go.
Yang went to visit China two weeks ago for a month as we plan to get married in her hometown. She is taking care of her shopping as well as preparations for the wedding. Jess invited me to her house that Friday for dinner as I was home alone. I am also good friends with her husband, and we were all just chatting and drinking in the living room. Around 7.30pm, the doorbell rang, and Jess excitedly went to open the door. To my surprise, it was fucking Lisa at the door. She was all dressed up as if she were ready for a date and came in. I had not seen her in person for almost 3 years and I was shocked to see her. She sat down and started making small talk with me. I was extremely uncomfortable and went into the kitchen to talk to Jess. I was angry at her and asked her what was going on. She kept on telling me that it's been 5 years since the breakup and to get over it and be nice to Lisa. She said Lisa was excited to meet me and she thought we were all adults and could have one fun evening together. We had a fight and I told her that she should not have invited Lisa after our conversation the other day and I do not want to be friends with her anymore. I went into the living room and politely excused myself and told everyone that I had a work emergency and had to leave early. Lisa looked sad, but I genuinely felt uncomfortable to be made to hang out with my ex without my consent.
I came home and called Yang. I have never seen her more furious, and she told me she is not comfortable with Jess anymore as she has some agenda that we do not know about. It's different to talk about Lisa, but to invite her without consulting is not ok. I also felt the same and I called Jess the next day and told her that she crossed a line, and I was terribly upset with her. I stopped taking her calls and ghosted her. I also told my mom and sister about the whole incident.
Last Sunday, my mom called me for lunch. When I got there, I saw Jess was already there. I told my mom that I do not want to talk to Jess and can't stay. However, she asked me to sit as they all wanted to talk to me. I have a glutton for punishment and decided to hear them out. My mom started with how Jess has been there for me all these years and only has my best interest at heart. She kept on telling me that they are the three people (mom, sister, and Jess) that love me the most. Jess started saying how she felt that I was making a big mistake in not having to hear what Lisa had to say. She told me that Lisa was my first love and Lisa is now ready to settle down and we can pick where we left off. She reminded me how broken I was when Lisa left me and how life is giving me a second chance. My sister also chimed in and said how they all liked Lisa more than Yang and how we both looked so great together. Finally, my mom started saying how our culture was so different than Yang and it is hard for them to relate to her. I asked them in what way, and my mom said that they did not understand what Yang says sometimes and have nothing in common with her. Then my mom asked me to think about how Lisa and I would have such wonderful looking kids, while if I marry Yang, our kids will look so different. I started getting their drift and I probed more. My mom told me how our kids would look Asian with "small eyes" and not like any others in the family.
I asked my mom if she cared about my kids looks more and not about how smart they will be since Yang has a PhD. She blew it off, and I realized she just did not want me to marry Yang because she was Chinese and not white. My mom told me to forgive Jess and my mom asked Jess to talk to Lisa on my behalf and asked her if she would be interested in getting back together with me. My mom was adamant that since I loved Lisa so much, I should be happy and pick up things where we left off as that is the best for everyone. I have never been so angry and may have said a lot of unkind things to all of them before I left
I am so depressed right now. I not only lost my best friend, but also am not sure how I can move on from what my mom said. My mom and sister raised me and that is the reason where I am today. However, I cannot get over how racist they are being and how they were just pretending to like Yang all these years while actively working on breaking us up. I have been so shocked that I have not told any of this to Yang so far. I might wait for her to come back next week and talk to her in person.
Again, thanks everyone for all your messages on the last post as they helped me a lot to think through the situation. My life is more fucked up than I could imagine, and I cannot imagine how dejected Yang will feel after hearing all this.
*****New Update Post: May 7, 2024 (5 weeks after OG post)****\*
I wrote a post two months ago regarding my best friend Jess constantly bringing up my ex when talking to my fiancée Yang. I wrote an update two weeks ago about my mom, sister and Jess scheming about trying to get me back with my ex Lisa because they were uncomfortable with Yang being Chinese. They tried to do it when my fiancée was visiting her parents and I felt so betrayed by their actions.
As I said in the previous post, I blew up on my mom and sister about what they said and immediately left. I did not take calls from them or answer texts for the next several days. Their messages initially were anger towards me on why I left before they could finish what they wanted to say. However, I think they realized on day 3 that they might have crossed the line this time and became extremely apologetic. I finally messaged them to leave me alone and not to contact Yang or I until we contact them. Jess did not message me the whole time.
I did not tell Yang about the situation until she came back home 9 days ago. I initially did not know how to bring up the subject, but she sensed something was wrong and asked me about it. I was so worried about hurting her, but I told her about what happened. I was upfront about the stunt Jess pulled and she was angry at Jess. I also told her about my visit to my mother's place, but she did not react with any anger. She just asked me if I was ok.
The next few days were confusing where I was more upset than Yang. She was just excited showing me all pictures and telling me stories. Finally, on last Thursday evening, she opened up and asked me if I was ok about my mom's behavior and what I plan to do. I told her my thoughts and how I cannot forgive them for what they said about her being Asian and them wanting me to marry a Lisa because she was white. I asked her why she was not more upset as it was bothering me.
She told me that when she told her parents about me, they had the exact same reaction for her dating someone who was not Chinese. Her family is very traditional, and her parents were very upset about her decision. It took them a few months to warm up to me and accept me. She never told me about this because she wanted me to have good relationship with her parents. She told me that now they are the most excited doing arrangements for our wedding.
She told me that she has always felt something was off when she talked to my mom, my sister or Jess and they did not like her. My mom and sister would be very friendly with her in front of me, but never invited her for anything when I am not around. She suspected that it may be due to fact that she is not white and does not understand the American traditions. She said she is not upset with them and now that this is in the open, she should talk to them and assure them that she would be as good of a wife as Lisa or any other girl. She said that she does not want to break a family in order to start a new one.
Despite my protests, Yang invited my mom and sister for lunch on Sunday. She said that it would be good for us to talk about everything and hear why they are concerned about her marrying me. I was really not happy with this, but Yang spent most of Sunday morning cooking for them.
When my mom and sister arrived, there were a lot of waterworks and apologies. My mom apologized to Yang and me for her behavior and told us that she would never bring it up again. My sister also was quiet and had tears in her eyes. There were a lot of blame games. My mom and my sister were blaming Jess for constantly telling them how Yang might not be great for me and how she won't fit into our family. My mom and sister fought with Jess after I left and Jess blamed Lisa. Based on Jess's story, Lisa has been depressed for the last few years and when I suddenly got engaged to Yang, it became worse. Jess thought I was also depressed after Lisa left me, because I did not date anyone for 3 years. In reality, I just wanted to focus on my work and studies and never had time. So, Lisa convinced Jess that she has to get back together with me as that is what I wanted too. Jess said how sorry she felt for Lisa as she was her longtime friend and listened to her plan as she thought it was good for everyone.
My mom and sister told us that I should stay away from Jess because she orchestrated the whole situation. They kept on hugging Yang and apologizing to her. Yang in turn also started crying and telling them that she will do better to fit in with them. It was all a big mess. I am still skeptical of my mom's change in heart, but I also want to see Yang happy. However, I think it will take a lot of time and healing before I could truly trust my mom and sister.
Currently, my mom invited us to lunch at her place next week and told me that Jess will not be there. Jess has still not message me or Yang. I really don't know what I can do in this situation. I am still upset and furious at my mom, but I also want to respect Yang's effort to keep the family together. Thanks to everyone for all the messages and supportive comments. It really helped reading them when I was feeling very sad.

I (f 22) met (m 25) last year. From the start I made it very clear that I was not interested in an exclusive serious relationship. I was just starting my final year of university and knew I was going to be working abroad for at least four months. I didn’t want to be in a committed relationship so I could truly focus on graduating and deciding my next goal/ move without having someone else rely on me. I knew quite quickly that he was falling for me faster than I was for him. While he has remained very understanding, I've noticed some developing habits that I find confusing (at least for me). It started minor, like always ordering the same things I do (food, drinks), copying the way I talk (I understand the more time you spend with others, the more likely you are to pick up your vocabulary), and trying to dress more in my style ( very different from his original ). These things don't bother me as I understand he wants to show an interest in what I enjoy. However, I'm worried he is not respecting my desire to remain independent based on my current situation. He makes plans for us without asking me (the whole weekend and a few days a week), constantly wants to drop things off to give me, refuses to eat shellfish (I'm allergic but can still be around it) despite him loving it, and repeatedly tickles me despite me telling him I don't like to be touched in that way (I'm just not a touchy person in that sense ). While these things are lovely, I'm starting to feel slightly overwhelmed, and while I hate saying this word, I'm feeling somewhat love-bombed. He is not my boyfriend, and this seems like too much. The job I have is for a little less than half a year, but it could lead to more. When I told him this, he said I was " worth the wait" and was beginning to talk more about the future together. I'm starting to feel more pressured despite me telling him I was trying to focus on myself and my overall future. I don't know if I'm being overdramatic due to stress and anxiety or if I have the right to feel this way. Now I’m four months into my abroad job and he is coming to visit. I’m both excited and nervous about it. I’m due to move back home soon. I feel like I’ve changed, matured, and grown. I’m moving back home, and I gotta get a new job. I’m extremely stress and suffocated I don’t know what to do. Overall, he is a sweet guy, but I'm starting to feel slightly suffocated. I'd appreciate some advice. I feel heartless and confused.

For context: I was born into a failing family. My dad is a rageful alcoholic with food addiction and hoarding issues. He could be cold and cruel. My mom fluctuated and is inconsistently reliable. At her best, she is warm, nurturing and funny. But she can be vulnerable, manipulative and controlling or distant and in-her-own-little-world at times as well. My elder sibling was resentful of any attention I received and bullied me regularly. When we were very young, my elder sibling violated my physical boundaries intimately in a way I believe left me with long-term fallout that my parents failed to notice due to their self-absorption.
In early childhood I was "painfully shy," even going so far as to hide under furniture when family or friends would visit. I failed my preschool screening not because I could not answer the questions correctly, but because I refused to speak to the person administering it.
We had a turbulent childhood--a messy divorce between our parents, during which we were more pawns than kids, and so much moving around I lose track of how many times I was "new kid." When I started getting bullied for seeming gay (I wasn't out yet, even to myself) in high school my parents didn't notice, even though I went from A student to failing list one semester.
In those preteen years, I started seeing a ton of doctors for what my mom believed was physical distress but what I clearly felt was mental. I went on and off of tons of anxiety meds and antidepressants, but eventually tapered off when I went to college.
Though I flourished as much as was possible for me in college, I was still basically living a half-life. An obsessive amount of worrying went into all the possible ways of humiliating myself. I had very pathological plans to make it to "safe" bathrooms. I went through a huge amount of panic when the university suggested that they might require me to live on campus and share a room (I got out of it). I could not take the kinds of jobs my friends were working in retail and restaurants, only a campus job with very few hours and very little pay because it allowed me to dip out before the panic set in and reasonable access to a bathroom.
When I went to grad school, things got even worse. Insomnia set in. The only night I was guaranteed a full sleep was Friday because I had no obligations on Saturday. I wandered through life as a zombie, clumsy, foggy and with extremely heightened fight-or-flight due to the sleep deprivation. Sometimes I would call in sick because I could not operate my vehicle. In classes where all graded assignments were written, I got straight As. My only Bs came from classes with midterm and endterm final exams, because I was in such a panic being wedged in between two people in silence for three hours that I would not be able to devote my full attention to the exam.
I collapsed and had to return home, where I languished for a year or so. I returned to academia, where I clung on by the skin of my teeth for several years but it was the same exact story: caught between a deep loneliness and desire for belonging and a deeper fear of rejection and utter discomfort in social settings. The insomnia returned and I burned out.
I have been in therapy three times. Once for several months between stints in academia. Once during a grad program to help cope. And most recently for two years during my second languishing period.
I am horrified by how long I've struggled with "launching." I've been seeking help for this life-ruining social anxiety problem since I was a preteen. People have known I have had a deep fear of others since I was a child. It has been so terribly lonely and there have been low moments I've felt so hopeless about ever being to sustain a life in the ways that matter that I have called hotlines. This has probably been fewer than five, but it's been happening since I was eighteen or nineteen.
I feel like every resource I visit underestimates how pervasive this is in my life. If I am correct, the pervasiveness and enduring nature of something like this is precisely what makes it a personality disorder. This has been permanent for me, and even the most recent two years of therapy have not budged me much. Yet no authority has ever made an official diagnosis, not even for anxiety and depression.
It stresses me out, because I can see the severe consequences of this and I worry at times they're endangeirng my very life, but all authorities seem to be somewhat dismissive or act like what I'm going through is typical and something everyone deals with. I'm not insured, so if an emergency happens I'm probably broke for life. I was considering my situation today. I'm wearing glasses with one leg broken off because I can't afford to replace them. I haven't had my hair cut since Christmas because I live in a small town and don't want to answer personal questions from the barber. I have about one pair of jeans and a hoodie that fit. The last time I went to the dentist they said I had bone loss because I wasn't visiting enough. When I get sick I try to wait things out because I'm both terrified of being in public, answering employment questions to the receptionists and also because I can't afford it.
At what point does it stop being "shyness" or even social anxiety? When can we admit that this is something worth naming?
I came across this subreddit via the comments section of a post linking to an article about AvPD. The article discussed the disorder and how it was understudied. It profiled some people who'd been diagnosed with it, and I have never related to anything so much in my life, especially the paradox of wanting to belong but sabotaging all attempts to try. I cried when I read it and came here immediately.
Anyway, I'm sorry for the novel. If you've made it this far, thank you so much for letting me vent. I suspect many people on this sub might be people like myself who simply haven't had doctors, therapists or psychiatrists who recognize how extensive this pattern goes. I hope you all are able to find full care that treats all the many manifestations of this terrible thing we're struggling with.

***correction: Giving ME mushrooms
So it all started when I (36f) asked Alexa to play indie music and voila! Alexa played, “Trip to Paris” by Lana del Rey. It was a particular nice evening. My children were coloring, the wind was caressing the garden that we could see through the window. The house smelled of homemade food on the stove top. It had been a particularly beautiful day overall. So when the song started playing I was immediately transported into a whimsical moment filled with fairies, green luscious trees and as you guessed it, mushrooms. I felt like my house was suddenly the scene of a fairytale and the only thing missing was pixie dust.
That’s is when this insane idea came over me. I suddenly thought that my kitchen needed a theme! Yes, a theme. I already have tons of plants, monsteras are taking over my dining room. Why not collect cute little mushroom figurines here and there to brighten up the entire house. We’re talking about mushroom decor, just so we’re clear.
Well; low and behold! Once I announced my kitchen’s theme inspired by Lana del Rey. The mushrooms started pouring in. It started with relatives bringing cute little mushrooms when they’d come visit. Then my daughter started clay modeling mushrooms and how can I say no to her loving art.
Then mother’s day came along and I got mushroom keychains, mushroom shirts, mushroom decor, mushroom wallet, mushroom stickers. I have so many mushrooms I might be tripping.
Anyway, I love all the mushrooms and it’s really fun but we’re only 2 months in to my mushroom theme… and now there’s a 1 foot sized mushroom made out of cedar sitting by the chimney. What will happen to my house a year from now!? My house will be filled with so many mushroom things.
So do I say something or do I embrace this new mushroom era?
I didn’t know how enthusiastic my family would be to fulfill my new collection.

TL;DR A coworker is obsessed with my dog, am I being a jerk?
Okay, it sounds hilarious even typing the above, but I really need some perspective on if I am being too sensitive.
It all started lovely - I got a new job that is dog friendly. I have a lab retriver cross, she is my best friend. She loves people and I am so lucky to be able to bring her to the office with me.
All of my coworkers love her. I had to leave town for a few weeks last summer and asked if anyone could watch her. One coworker, we'll call him Brian, agreed. Previously I had caught Brian letting my dog and another lick peanut butter off his arm. I thought it was strange but clearly he's a guy who loves feeding dogs. My dog absolutely adores him. At first it was really cute but it got uncomfortable for me after he dog-sat as he suddenly was blatantly giving her treats and stuff right in front of me. I was pregnant at the time and he was teaching to jump up for food which is such a nasty habit that I had to retrain her not to do (she is 5, we were past that years ago). Someone told me he was secretly giving her treats at his desk. She became so much of a mooch plus the vet said she needed to lose weight that I had to tell the entire workplace not to feed her anything (no one else was, just Brian but I didnt want to make him feel bad).
Fast forward - I've had my baby. He's 3 months now. Brian and a couple other coworkers came to visit. I knew my dog was going to be ecstatic so I let her meet them in the yard to get the zoomies out outside. Baby was on the floor on the playmat when Brian came in and he started playing with Daisy right beside the baby. I picked bebe up because obviously my dog is havung a blast and is clueless to where her limbs are... and I guess Brian is too. For the next 1.5 hours he was playing tug of war with her with one kf the baby toys (which his buddy pointed out while I was talking to someone else and I heard him say all toys are Daisy toys). At one point somehow Daisy was on the baby playmat playing tug of war. She's also shedding right now becausenits spring and I warned them in advance because clothes get covered in fur. He scruffed up hair and got it all over the house. During the visit he said things like "no time is enough time with Daisy" and "Daisy deserves all the attention".
I've gotten a weird feeling forever about Brian's obsession with my dog, but I always told myelf that Daisy loves it so just let it be. But when he rough-housed with her right next to an infant really bothered me. I single-parent for 3 weeks while ny partner is away at work so I was glad to have visitors but I had to clean the house and playmat after they left. I didnt tell him to stop at any point because part of me thinks that I am the problem. Am I being insane here?!?

We've been dating for a little over a year and a half, and despite a lot of the things he does that really get on my nerves, I still love him more than anything and I want to get married to him someday. Please take everything I'm about to say with a grain of salt and don't come at my throat, there's just a lot of things that unnecessarily piss me off and my boyfriend does a lot of them.
We're both on the autism spectrum, but on vastly different sides of it. I'm more quiet and reclusive and I tend to keep my interests to myself unless someone else likes it mutually. I'll only really ramble about something if someone's curious and wants me to talk about it, but otherwise I understand that most people don't want to just be bombarded with information. My boyfriend, on the other hand, will literally spam my DMs at times with tangents about the Fortnite lore or some technological stuff that I don't understand. I'm fine with him rambling about his interests, but it's really overwhelming when it's just a massive wall of text and I'm not involved with the conversation whatsoever, just trying to awkwardly take in this information. He'll also do this thing where he'll poke me multiple times and ask if I've read through it. He'll do the same thing with songs, where he'll send me the link to a song, and then ask me if I've listened to it a few minutes later. It feels really demanding of my attention, especially if he sees that I'm currently doing something; like playing a game or drawing.
Recently, we've both been watching through MLP:FiM because he's never gotten into it while it was really popular back in the 2010s. He'll just repeat "I love [insert character]" several times even though I'm already well aware that it's his favorite character. I don't know why, but hearing someone repeating the same thing over and over again really, really irritates me. I know it's probably just an instance where he gets really attached and doesn't know what else to say, but he says it for a lot of things. Also, sometimes he says something like "wow, this episode is really great" and if I don't say something in the next few seconds, he'll follow it up with "isn't it?" and force me to respond even if I'm just trying to watch and focus on the show or I'm nonverbal. I don't understand why he wants me to acknowledge him stating that what we're currently watching is great if we're clearly both interested it, and demands my constant attention. It's like this for everything we're watching together, and I just wish he'd be quiet and watch the damn video a lot of the time instead of just saying baseless shit that's obvious.
I visited him during Christmas of 2023 and he got this Breaking Bad lego set from his dad. We wanted to build it together, but I ended up building nearly the entire thing, because he'd get frustrated so easily and give up after a few minutes. He just slept for an entire evening while I worked on it, and he kept falling asleep every time I woke him up and asked him if he could help me with it because I just wanted to do something fun with him. That was literally our entire vacation, just sitting around and doing nothing. He doesn't have a car, nor a license, and his mom was working most of the time. She drove us around to some places, like a dispensary and took us out to dinner, but I didn't want her to feel like I was taking advantage of her and asking her to take us places, and buying an uber is expensive, so we were just stuck holed up at his house. He slept for most of the day on new year's eve and I at least wanted to sit outside with him and watch some fireworks, watch the ball drop, anything. I had to wake him up 10 minutes before midnight and he literally just didn't care at all. He fell back asleep after midnight and I just felt so empty and unfulfilled after that. He doesn't like going out into public, and he hardly ever has before in his whole life, so he just sits around doing nothing all day and never wants to go out and do anything fun. Ever. Not even a walk or anything.
He has a couple of food allergies, peanuts being the most major one. I understand that a lot of food products can potentially be contaminated due to them being processed in plants that handle nuts, but he uses that as the worst possible crutch. Don't get me wrong, I want him to be safe just as much as he does, but it's getting to the point where I feel like I'm dating a toddler. He gets ultra paranoid that literally everything is contaminated with peanuts. I don't have any food allergies so I know I'll never understand how that is for him or the fear he has, but it really feels like he's using that as an excuse most of the time. He literally just eats the same 5 things. Pizza, grilled cheese, fries, dry cereal, chicken nuggets. He doesn't even bother trying new things, even if I think he'll like them, and we've quadruple checked to see if it's safe for him to eat. Now, I understand a lot of people on the autism spectrum have same/safe foods, as do I, but I got so tired of eating pizza for 3 days in a row after seeing him. If I wanted something else, I had to get it door dashed and spend extra money that I really didn't want to be spending. I really don't want to be forced to accommodate to eating those same 5 things, or to spend extra money on groceries getting stuff only he likes. I told him that I'm going to get him to try new things once we start living together, and he said that's understandable, but I already know it's going to be a fucking hassle.
A lot of his friends are assholes, especially one of his best friends who I absolutely despise. He's incredibly active in the Fortnite community and is friends with someone on twitter that has a huge following due to the fact that he posts a lot of information regarding the game and it's events. I've tried being cordial with this friend of his several times, reaching out and trying to say hi to him, just to be met with silence. He openly called me weird to my boyfriend due to the fact that I'm interested in horror related things, and he just nonchalantly told me that as if it wouldn't seriously hurt my feelings. Eventually I just gave up even trying to befriend him and told my boyfriend that I don't like him, but he'll continue to bring him up to me and it really gets on my nerves when he does, because who likes hearing about someone they don't like due to the fact that you were treated unfairly by them? He's also had multiple falling outs with this friend, where he's said and done a lot of hurtful shit, but my boyfriend keeps crawling back to him instead of just finding a better person to call his best friend.
Before any of you ask, yes, I have talked to him about all of these things. We have a very healthy relationship and rely on communication, so our relationship isn't strained or anything. He'll just say he'll "try to be more aware" and will continue to do it the next day, so a lot of these habits are hardwired in his brain. I'm probably just going to have to continue reminding him about these things, because I feel bad about a lot of this stuff irritating me. He's really sweet and the best partner I've ever had, but god he really acts like a needy puppy at times. I'm sure there's things I do that he doesn't like either, a lot of relationships are like that. I'll either learn to live with these habits, despite my discretion, or he'll learn to break them. Either way, I just needed to get all of that off my chest.

My sister (31) and I (29) treated our mom (64) to a weekend-long Mother’s Day celebration, including the beach, her favorite show, and ending with a seafood dinner.
My mom is a loving, boisterous, and compassionate person, but she also has a history with abuse that, when she’s triggered emotionally, can come out in ugly ways. She has a habit of taking mistakes as personal attacks, and instead of forgiving or even just being frustrated and calling it a day, she will take her anger out on people who don’t deserve it.
Unfortunately, this happens with wait staff when they mess up an order or behave in a way that she considers subpar. In fact, a few years ago, we went to a separate seafood restaurant, and she rudely accused our waiter of mistreating her when her crab legs came out cold. A huge fight ensued between us afterward.
Fast forward to this past Mother’s Day, and again, my mom mentions her crab is cold. The waitress offers to take the dish and replace it with a warmer dish. But unfortunately they come back to tell us they’ve run out of crab, which only frustrates my mom further.
I can tell she’s growing more upset, so we (my sister and I) insist she orders another dish since the restaurant was willing to comp it for her, and she can at least enjoy a meal. She agrees, and at first it seems like things will be okay. But later, when our waitress gives my sister her drink and walks away from the table, my mom calls after her with a glare. She tells the waitress she wanted another martini as if the waitress was supposed to read her mind and know. When the waitress comes back with the martini and picks up the empty glass, my mom snatches the empty glass from her and pours a small dribble of the old drink into the new.
Seeing the early signs of how things went down in previous years, I told my mom that she’s being rude, and I’m discomforted by her behavior. She goes into defense mode and demands to know what she did that was so wrong. She kept saying she has a right to send food back, and I said that wasn’t the issue, it was her treatment of the waitress, and now, also, the way she was speaking to me that made me uncomfortable.
We’ve made so much progress as a family, and I didn’t want to end the night with a massive argument, so instead of further engaging, I told her one last time that it wasn’t about sending the food back, it was about her bullying behavior. If she wasn’t going to de-escalate, I would leave. She didn’t, and so I did.
I feel like the AH because she said I ruined her Mother’s Day and that we “set her up” just to crush her joy. That wasn’t at all my goal. We did so much to make her weekend special. While I’m saddened, I’m glad I left instead of arguing like it seems she wanted. Still, I feel guilty. I love my mom. I didn’t want things to end like this. AITA? Is there any advice from people who have parents like this?

This is a very long one.
I (19f) have been in and out of long term/short term facilities since I was 12 years old. I’ve had suicide attempts and have been diagnosed with major depressive disorder. This is definitely not my first experience with a therapist. Over the years I’ve had over 6+. Not because they haven’t worked for me all the time, but because they either move onto another facility or I move onto another phase in life.
Last year I adopted a new therapist “Mere” thanks to my older sister “North”. My current Therapist “Tina” who I’ve been working with for the past 3 and a half years, switched to a facility where my insurance only covers 30 min sessions. North didn’t think that was enough for me at the time since I wasn’t doing so well mentally. The therapist she recommended worked closely with her own and offered 1hr long sessions, so I agreed wanting to try something new since my old therapist seemed to not specialize in trauma and ptsd. Kerr was highly recommended for those topics.
We started our sessions not soon after my sister offered. The first couple months were hard. Our personalities seemed to clash. Not because mine was bad, but because I was deeply depressed. I was not a joy to be around and everyone seemed annoyed with my constant melancholy. Even my therapists seemed sick of me.
Over time I learned to adapt my personality to be more palatable. My therapists loved it now that I was interacting with them and making jokes. I treated them more like friends now instead of therapists and they seemed to appreciate that. I found it funny because a lot of my issues I explained to them was faking my personality to fit into the crowd and adapt. Due to me being f a people pleaser. They didn’t see anything wrong with the change since I seemed to be getting better mentally.
I was better. I wouldn’t attribute much of my success to my therapists tho. It was nice to have someone to talk to since at the time I had no friends, but they didn’t seem to know how to handle my constant depression so I started to hide it from them. Even from myself. Over time I was able to function a lot better. I switched my sessions to only once every two weeks and I was planning on ending them all together since I was doing so well on my own and haven’t need much help in a while.
It seems that I ah e bad luck. Right when I was at my peak recovery and condition, I was raped on the first day of the new year. I spiraled back into my deep deep deep depression worse than any other relapse I had before. I survived on Benadryl and ice cream for weeks. I took the pills so I didn’t have to be awake to long. I ate only food that I liked the most (mainly unhealthily) my health declined.
My mental health was the worst of it tho. The day after the rape occurred I had a session with my newer therapist. I start telling her the details of my assault. The shock was still fresh in my brain and my memories were scrambled. I greatly blamed myself. I thought I was the weirdo.
Mere only confirmed my sentiments. Before I could fully list out the details of the night it happened she immediately started to spew accusations of my intentions that night. Saying phrases like “Well when someone is pleasuring you it’s hard to say no and there’s nothing wrong with that”
I shut up then and just agreed with her but something still didn’t sit right with me. I went on Reddit and there was mixed opinions about it. A lot of ppl validated my feelings and others thought It was my fault. After fully processing this event and fully remembering it in its entirety I can say confidently that what happened to me was rape.
The next session we had I was able to tell the full story. Mede had just said “Oh. Well you didn’t mention all this before. That’s definitely not ok”. The thing is tho, she was the one to cut me off and make assumptions instead of trying to pull out the full story. She knew I had extreme ptsd and I probably wouldn’t be able to give an in-depth detailed explanation of what happened. She still insulted me anyway and brushed me off.
I thought this to be weird but I brushed it off. When you think k you’re in the presence of a professional you don’t often question things especially if you aren’t in the mental space to do so. So ignored her.
There have been times where she’s been short with me. One time she had asked to switch a 12pm session to 5pm. When I refused she said she’d have to charge me a cancellation fee. It seemed that she just wanted to get paid for that session still and wanted to guilt me into paying. I refused and explained that she was the one who cancelled on me and she immediately backed down realizing I wouldn’t be easily pushed around. I didn’t think much of it then.
Another time. I had gone to this tattoo parlor to get my belly button pierced. I took videos and pictures of the process. She requested in our session that week to see the pictures. I agreed to send and emailed them to her in two emails. In one there was all the pictures of the parlor, the. The other had the videos of the full process. Accidentally I had added one singular picture of me. I was at school and I took a picture in the schools bathroom. There was nothing indecent about it I just accidentally pressed on that picture as I was sending the others. IT happened a lot when using your iPhone to email and I didn’t really notice.
She brought it up the next session and started to berate me for sending that singular pic out of all the obvious other intended pictures. She said it’s inappropriate to send her pictures of myself. I explained to her the accident and she seemed shocked. All she said was “oh well ok”. I don’t know why she got so triggered I’ve always kept good boundaries with her. I can’t believe she immediately started accusing me for one picture of me posing in the mirror while having a turtle neck in a jacket and everything.
Those are just a few of the shady things she’s done. Now back to current time. After I was raped. I still continued sessions with her and tried to get back on track. She wasn’t really helping. I would have extreme panic attacks on therapy video calls with her and she seemed at loss of what to do. I distanced myself from her and I started to get a little better, but then I started to have issues with some of my friends. That added onto my load of issues and started to push me to the edge.
I called my therapist the night of my attempt. I try not to call her after hours but I was in genuine crisis. I had spent the whole day being practically verbally abused by one of my friends. I was cracking slowly it surely and I reached out for help.
Otp I expressed to her how I felt betrayed by everyone around me. I asked her why everyone felt it was ok to treat me wrong whenever. Why wasn’t I able to find peace? Why I couldn’t find ppl who cared? My parents are emotionally abusive as well. That all stems into my ppl pleasing habits. I’ve let a lot of ppl take advantage of my nature because I’ve been conditioned to since birth. She knows my history and why I am the way I am. Instead of consoling me she yelled at me. “Well you knew they were bad ppl!” “If you knew they were bad ppl why are you blaming them you just need to stop hanging around bad ppl”. She then told me she had to go and hung up. She did ask me if I was safe but of course I lied. She knows I always try to see the best in ppl. I don’t see the bad till it’s too late most times. Her words stung like acid. I had been prescribed some sedatives to calm me during panic attacks. I had taken two but they weren’t helping. After that call I took the whole bottle. I didn’t want to die alone so I called my mother to stay in my room with me. Then I drifted into a deep sleep for hours into the next day’s afternoon. I had fallen asleep around 10 pm. I woke up the next day around 3pm still kicking but disordered.
I spent two weeks in a mental hospital. During that time I do t have access to my phone. I had my sister contact everyone that needed to be. Even Mere. She knew I was in there. I didn’t call her while I was there bc I was still upset at her after everything.
I was discharged but I didn’t set up a session for weeks. She emailed and called me once but I didn’t respond till I was fully settled back into my routine and okay enough to talk to her. I emailed her this
“Hallo, Sorry. I didn’t mean to ghost you. I just needed some time to get myself together. I called you just now. You are probably busy. I hope everything is doing well on your end. Sorry again. Sent from my iPhone”
I had planned to set up an appointment in the future to talk to her about everything but by the time I checked my patient portal a week or so later I had been discharged with no warning. No calm text or email.
I set up a meeting with her over the phone for 45 mins. When she first came onto the call the first thing she said was “I saw that you put our appointment for 45 mins. I changed it to 30 bc you know I did discharge you”. I thought it was pretty rude so instead of explaining everything I told her about how I didn’t have my phone in the hospital and the hospital themselves didn’t notify her because they were disorganized and were extremely unprofessional. It’s not like she wasn’t updated by my sisters anyway. When I got my phone after I got home I saw texts from her asking if I was still having a session with her. Knowing that I was in the hospital. It seemed she either didn’t care or didn’t believe I was in the hospital. In fact when she had spoken over the phone with one of my sisters she had lied to them about that night. She had told her “After I got otp with her I immediately started praying for her because I m ew something was deeply wrong” how delusional of her to say after she yelled at me and hung up.
Anyway after I explained my reasoning for going MIA she started to realize how fucked up she was and asked me how I was doing. I didn’t say much because I was done with her and she obviously didn’t intend of hearing the full story since she shortened our session. She started asking me why I didn’t want to continue therapy and seemed confused why I didn’t seem to beg her to re admit me. I told her I was done with therapy. She seemed concerned and said that she discharged me because she thought it’d be better for me to find an in person therapist. I knew it was a shitty excuse. I quickly hang up on her and don’t address anything.
I’m only processing this now because I’ve had much bigger things going on. I’m only now realizing how fucked up her behavior was. If I hadn’t spoken to her the night of my attempt I probably wouldn’t have tried to kill myself. I feel cheated out of help. I don’t feel angry at her I have to reserve that for someone more worthy of my rage. I only wished she didn’t use the fact that I would never call her out on her behavior usually. She knew my temperament and took advantage of that. I don’t think I’ll ever trust a therapist again. She victim blamed me, mocked me, berated me in my time of need, and then abandoned me on baseless assumptions that could’ve been easily cleared up if she actually listened to what my sisters and I were saying. She didn’t even say sorry when we were talking. Or express any remorse besides embarrassment for jumping to conclusions. SMH.
TLDR: My therapist berated me for trusting ppl in my life the night of my suicide attempt. Then Discharged me from her care without consulting me first. Blamed me for all her mistakes and jumped to conclusions randomly then never apologized for the baseless accusations. I am at a loss for words and at a loss for trust in therapy again.

Hi everyone, I’m new to cycle syncing. I see this page isn’t very active but I’m hoping to get a list of foods to eat during each phase of the cycle? Just a general list of foods, I don’t need meal ideas. Just want to be able to make a grocery list. Thank you