AITA I 24f was in a relationship with my 23m ex for 7 1/2 months. I spent months, pushing him to better himself and to change things, but he refused. We’ve been having issues about his addiction and his behavior around my family. After 7 1/2 months months, I had enough and I met with him near the beach to break it off. For context I had brain surgery when I was 18. I have a 12 inch scar in the back of my head where a large piece of my skull is missing in place of that piece. I have a duraplasty. This means if I get hit in the back of my head, it will kill me. For some reason during the process of our break up while we were having a conversation in my car, he thought that it was acceptable to put his hand behind my head while arguing and yelling at me and blaming me for the relationship issues and the break up. I was paralyzed with fear. I didn’t know what else to say other than “yes” “you’re right” “OK”. For context throughout our relationship there have been many instances where he is very rough with me and that he’s hurt me accidentally and it’s almost if he doesn’t know his own strength. He has been well aware of the fact that I had brain surgery where the Duraplasty He has been well aware of the fact that I had brain surgery where the duraplasty is and if I get hit, I will die. Understandably so after this conversation and after him throwing my disability placard at me I left I went home. I told my family. I told my leaders at church and thankfully, we have officers that work at our church who recommended that I go get a police report and a restraining order. I got the police report. I tried to get the restraining order the court refused. I should also mention he is an employee of the city we live in. Asking if I’m an asshole is because he texted me recently claiming that he was sorry and he didn’t mean to hurt me in anyway and that he’s sorry the relationship ended this way and that I was right. Well, I sent him to hell I sent him a long text telling him how I don’t believe him that I want him to stay away from me that he terrified me and caused flashbacks. He’s trying to become a cop in the fall. And I feel like an ahole for getting a police report and trying to get a restraining order against him because it might have a hindrance on his career. And I understand why everyone around me tells me not to feel bad because someone like that shouldn’t be on the street. I feel somewhat responsible if his career is tarnished or terminated because of this behavior. I don’t really know how to feel. The only thing I hope for is that if he God forbid were to get into another relationship, he would not to treat another woman like this. In this instance, I think my only saving grace was that he knows that I carry pew pews because he was seething with anger at the fact that I want to break up with him but he didn’t go any further than attempting to intimidate me into staying with him.

I don't remember much from ages 6-13 which is pretty unusual. My parents are very emotionally manipulative and controlling and isolating. They don't go out so in turn I don't go out. They don't like my friends so they make me cut contact with them. And they get mad when I try to set any sort of boundaries. And they make me feel like a bad person for not wanting all of the pressure of NHS and watching my sister's 3 kids every weekend and searching for a job and just never really having a break.
I got a lot of corporal punishment as a child, and when I was younger (I think around 8?) My dad would drink. I remember one time I had done something when we were at a family party, and he took me into a back room and whipped me. My mom had to step in and stop him because he didn't stop. This happened on several occasions.
I was always told I didn't have a body until I turned 18, and that I was meant to be seen not heard, and that I belonged to my parents.
There was also a lot of fear from religious figures, scared I would never be enough, God doesn't love me, if God loved me why would I hurt so much, praying to God to kill me, etc. I also know my Mimi took me to church a lot and I don't remember any of the visits. But recently a different alter came out of Dormancy, a little 5 yo girl and blurry memories of a man and a cross in a room alone with him and then a pain in our privates. I don't want to assume or jump to conclusions but it's scary to think about.
And recently, my parents just took away my therapy because she wanted to send me to residency to get me away from them. Now I have no support.
Was that emotional "abuse" and "trauma" enough to split my mind? Help, please.

I have been through so much and I am exhausted.
Since November of last year, I have been dealing with a conflict with my in-laws:

• A group picture of my parents, my fiancé’s parents, my fiancé, and I was posted by my MIL on a Facebook story post. Let’s call my fiancé, Jerry (fake name). There was a caption on the photo and the caption only covered my face and my parents. When pointed out, Jerry blamed it on her tech incompetence.
  
• Following this incident above, an argument ensues between me and Jerry (I talked about my feelings regarding his family, how I was treated, etc.) to the point that he started a group chat on Facebook messenger the next day out of anger. He threw me, his sister, and his mom into the group to "sort this out" and threw me under the bus. I quickly left the group.
  
• I went to my parent’s house to clear my head for a few days and told Jerry that I need to rethink this relationship. He had an emotional breakdown because of this.
  
• This incident snowballed with questions from his family as they were “blindsided”. I mentioned all the things said and done by his mom over the past 5 years (when I first met his mother, she said that our relationship would not work out due to cultural differences and few other offensive comments in the years ahead)
  
• I was met with "I am sorry if I offended you". His mother sent another attempt at an apology that was a potential apology. However, I could not respond as I was blocked. Then a letter was sent to me from her that was a rug sweep "I am sorry that this has all happened. Can't we move past this".
  
• In December of last year, I informed Jerry that I needed to heal from everything and for that, I do not wish to go with him on Christmas. Every year, his family meet on Christmas. I asked him if he would like to spend it with me. If not, that is totally okay. I also said that he should go because I knew I would be blamed for it. Well, I was blamed for it. I was called manipulative and on a power trip.
  
• His family further tells questioned him for spending Christmas with me because according to them, I don’t celebrate Christmas. He’s white and I am not. I stated to him that his family does not go to Church nor are they practicing Christians. I celebrate Christmas (gift exchanges and dinners) the same way as they do. They did not apologize for their comment.
  
• From December to March, my fiancé has had numerous conversations with his father and mother to resolve the conflict which now involved the entire family. During this span of time and in their absence, I started to heal and focused on my relationship with my fiancé.
  
• Then come March; his father was still stuck in his anger. Did not reflect for the last three months and informed my fiancé that they are not coming to our wedding. I admit that I was so angry that I threatened to divorce him should they not come to our wedding and that he continues a relationship with them. I apologized for what I said afterwards.
  
• We were about to meet up in person to resolve this however, his father decided to send a group text in advance of our meet up and informed us that he is not interested in extending an olive branch. He was bullying us into submission (please see my past posts), blamed me for how I handled things and boldly stated that if I wasn’t his son’s fiancé, he would have nothing to do with me. When called out for his rude texts, his father stated that he needed to get it off his chest to heal.
  
• For days after the texts, Jerry stood up for me and fought with his dad. Eventually, his dad agreed to come to town to “talk”. I was so incredibly hurt from his dad’s actions and I bluntly stated to Jerry that if he continues to berate me in person when we meet up, I will get up and leave the conversation. Jerry immediately got upset, raised his voice at me and left the apartment. I had no idea that he got up to go kill himself, I thought he just left to cool off like he usually does. I later learned that he felt unsupported by me.
  
• Couple days later; Jerry had another meltdown. His parents and all his friends drove down to meet with him to provide support. Before they reached, I got to his place early and his friend was there. Jerry had too much to drink and was at his lowest point. I tried to calm him down, but he was angry to the point that I left the apartment in tears. He humiliated me when he yelled at me in front of his friend. Then at the end of the night, I brought up the issues with his parents to try to resolve. I was later told that I made it about me when I confronted his parents.
  
• Weeks later; his parents met up with Jerry and my parents for their wedding clothing shopping. I decided not to show up.
  
• Jerry and I moved into our new place, with furniture shipped in and it needed to be put together. His dad offered to drive down to help Jerry put the furniture together. I appreciated the fact that the furniture was put together. Jerry was practically upset that I am not recognizing his dad’s efforts when I said it does not erase everything he has done. His father did not even apologize to me once and I should be okay because of the furniture? An argument ensues and it escalated to a point where I could not take it anymore and I went to take my life. Even at my lowest point, Jerry still got mad at me.
  
• And now he is profusely apologizing for betraying me and hurting me. I feel that I don’t even know who he is anymore.
  

This probably isn't the 'right' way to do this, but it works, it's easy, and it took me a long time to figure out. Additional advice very welcome, especially for S+ on Professional.
General advice for noob speed runs:

• Run when you can, a lot of areas can be skipped by just running past everyone.
• If you're in a knife fight, and you suck like me, you can just tap L1 then R2 quickly , and consistently block and stab surprisingly efficiently, even against Krauser.
• I prefer to switch the option for 'dodge' button from circle to R3, so my finger is always on the dodge button for twitch response time.
• I also prefer to have the option on to use R2 to block like L1 does, because L1 is awkward. I think this is default.
• Use a rocket launcher on the final boss, very timesaving. There is a briefcase trinket for making rocket launchers cheaper, use this, especially when buying the 2 million peseta infinite launcher.
• Use a golden egg against Ramon if you don't have the rocket launcher, don't sell it to the Merchant, because one golden egg does 70% damage to Ramon for some reason. There is always at least one golden egg on the tiny chicken dock by the lake.
• At the end of each level, the timer stops, but you can use typewriter and mix herbs and ammo, move things to and from inventory, rearrange, assign quick buttons to weapons, etc.
• Going to the PAUSE MENU stops the timer. Going to the inventory menu, the map, dying and continuing, dying and reloading do not stop the timer. I repeat, if you play and die, that time counts against the timer, even if you load a quicksave from before that death.
• S+ ranks can only be achieved with NG+ runs, so you lose all of your upgrades and purchases and increased health bar.
• NG+ allows you to keep the guns you unlocked, most importantly the Chicago Sweeper which can be upgraded to have infinite ammo, so on a NG+ run, save pesetas to upgrade the Sweeper and 30 spinels to buy one upgrade ticket.
• NG+ runs keep your costumes, so be sure to put them on in the main menu before starting or you'll have to drop out of the game to do it. Ashley's body armor is very important. Once unlocked, she is basically a non-issue, and you can just ignore her, because she basically can't die or get taken anymore. Shaded glasses protect from flash grenade blinding. Helmets add some head protection. Gas Mask allows aim assist in all difficulty modes, deer antlers make knifes stronger, chicken head makes damage hurt less, cat ears make everything infinite ammo, etc.
• NG+ keeps your briefcases and maybe two trinkets idk. But at the beginning of a NG+ make sure to choose your briefcase and add the trinkets, they help a lot.
• Choose a gun of each type to focus on upgrading, upgrading is very expensive. Once you unlock the Chicago Sweeper, only dpend money and spinels on it at first. 30 spinels and a ton of pesetas to upgrade to unlimited ammo, making even S+ runs manageable for noobs.
• There's a room where an enemy pulls a switch right after you walk in that drops your walkway and forces you to fight your way through to the switch. A grenade or rocket launcher at the switch at the right moment lets you skip this trap.
• I think you can still snipe the church bell from the village at the introduction with the chainsaw guy to skip that entire long fight scene. Otherwise, this scene is based on killing a certain number of enemies to advance, so focus on killing as many weak enemies as possible to finish the scene. Avoiding the chainsaw man is the fastest way, imo.

SPECIFIC RUN ORDER:
EASY MODE: Beat the game two or three times, upgrade your favorite guns and earn enough to buy the infinite rocket launcher after at least one full playthrough. Use a guide to find the Castellan on each level to unlock the Primal knife. Upgrade this knife's special upgrade and it will never need repairing. You'll unlock the wolf tail, which inceases knife damage. You only need one fast run, so take some time to learn the map and complete some of the harder and more time consuming challenges. Use the spinels to buy the odd briefases. Visit the shooting range, and spend the tokens on trinkets that attach to the briefcase.
HARDCORE MODE: Skip Standard Mode, and use the infinite rockets and knife to play through on hardcore mode. You can still run past enemies in most situations, so don't spend time killing everything. Don't waste time opening crates or completing quests so you can get an A rank and unlock the suit of armor for Ashley, put it on her, and ignore her from now on.
PROFESSIONAL MODE. With the large health bar, indestructible knife, unlimited rocket launcher and indestructible Ashley, get an A rank in Pro mode to unlock the Chicago Sweeper submachine gun. Imo it is the only submachine gun that actually is useful, and its special bonus is UNLIMITED AMMO. Beating this difficulty unlocks the GAS MASK, which enables Aim Assist in all modes, so start wearing that now, making accurate quick shots possible. If you notice, sometimes it's better to release the aim and start aiming again, to instantly target an enemy.
STANDARD MODE: You still need to beat the game in standard mode, and you need to use the Chicago Sweeper for a run to earn the money to unlock all of its bonuses... its unique upgrade is infinite ammo! Even better than the rocket launcher, you won't hurt yourself as often blasting enemies at close range.
THE HARD PART... S+ RANK.
To get S+, you have to play on NG+. This means you can't use your unlimited weapons anymore. You'll have to start taking yellow herbs to increase your bar every playthrough again. BUT... you do still have the Chicago Sweeper in your inventory, and you can earn enough coin to make it unlimited ammo within the first 5 levels or so, making the last 2/3rds of the game incredibly easy.
ANY MODE: At the main menu, make sure you have Ashley's suit of armor on, and I recommend the Gas Mask for precision aiming, protection from flash grenades and some head protection. At the first typewriter, quickly assign your briefcase trinkets and pick the 'peseta increasing' briefcase to make money. For the first four levels, gather supplies and pesetas on each level quickly. Complete all of the merchant quests, they can all be done quickly once you've memorized where the blue coins are etc. If you can't do it quickly or miss one, just skip it, it's fine. But the big dog one is 8 spinels, so while time consuming it's worth it. Once you have 30 spinels, you should be able to make the Sweeper infinite ammo. At that point, you can begin to really run, no longer worried about missions or ammo.
And that's everything I've learned on my trek to try to 100% this game. I have done almost everything, except S+ on professional mode, but at least now I have the best gear I can have and my best shot at accomplishing this. Wish me luck.

The internet is a strange place, inadvertently designed to bring out the best and worst in people. People can be whoever or whatever they want to be. For predators and malignant narcissists and who live in their own delusions to begin with, it's like a hunting ground. They can create whatever persona they wish, fill their victims' heads with lies and half-truths that paint them out to be someone they are not, and by the time their victim actually meets them, it's too late - they've already created an image in their mind of this perfect person the narcissist has convinced them they are, and it usually takes time before the curtain comes down, the lies fall apart, and the mask breaks away.
I'm no saint, and I've learned my own tough lessons from the internet. I grew up under not-so-great circumstances, only getting 5 years of education before I turned 18 and was largely raised by a computer screen. Along the way, I catfished a woman in her mid-20's when I was 14-16 years old. It wasn't intentional at first, I told everyone that I was in my mid-20's and I worked as a bouncer at a bar in NYC. I never meant any harm, I was just raised by a computer and spent all my time alone playing MMOs and learned quickly that if I told people how old I was, they'd stop playing with me. So a bouncer seemed like a job I could bullshit about easily enough, and I was a big dude at 6'1 260lbs so I figured I could maybe pass it off as legit if it ever got hectic.
I started playing with this woman in her 20's and her husband frequently. We became friends fast, and soon we were virtually inseparable on the game. Her marriage ended up not working out, and after they separated she told me she had feelings for me. I should've admitted I wasn't who I said I was then, but I was young and dumb and she was the only real friend I had, so I kept up the ruse. Eventually I did come clean, and she broke it off with me not long after. We stayed friends, albeit with my heart hurting pretty bad, for a few months afterwards - until she met Jack.
When she first told me about Jack, he sounded like a great catch. He had his own IT business in Canada, was a couple years older but not by much, and she was infatuated with him. Obviously I was crushed and didn't handle it well, being a practically feral teenager at the time, so not long after they started getting serious she ghosted me altogether. I was around 17 at the time, and shit started going off the rails for me. After I got out of juvie, I started drinking heavily on a near-daily basis and selling and doing drugs. This led to a lot of pathetic, inebriated, desperate attempts to contact her and apologize for how I acted.
After months of being ignored, eventually grief and regret turned to anger, and finally acceptance. When the pain passed and I came to my senses a bit, I had an epiphany and realized that if I loved her as much as I thought I did, the best thing for both of us would be to let her go. I was a high school dropout with no job, selling drugs to get by. She had 2 kids, and what kind of life could I provide for them? She made the right choice, my age and the fact I made a grown woman fall in love with a teenager not withstanding, and as bad as it hurt I realized it was selfish of me not to accept the way things were and leave her alone, so I did.
10 years or so later, I had gotten my shit together. Worked my way up from cleaning dead shit out of swimming pools, to an entry level position at an environmental consulting firm, to a Project Manager at one of the largest firms in the field in the DC area. I'd met someone, got her pregnant, and for some reason I felt a pull to contact her again. Not to rekindle an old flame, but because she had been a tremendously positive influence on my life in a time where I had few. She was the first good thing I had in my life at a time when I was sleeping on old blankets on a hard floor in an abusive home, and what I'd held onto from our time together wasn't our romantic relationship, it was the best friend I'd ever had. And something made me want to tell her that all that work she put into getting my head right wasn't in vain, and I'd finally made it out of the gutter.
So I messaged her on Facebook, and to my surprise she actually responded. We started talking again, and soon it was back to every day. When my baby mama got back on drugs and turned abusive and was putting my daughter's life in jeopardy on a near-daily basis, she was the one who convinced me I could fight for custody - that I had to fight for custody. So I did, and I won, and I've had full custody of of my daughter since she was 6 months old and for the 10 years since.
But eventually we parted ways again. I'd started seeing someone, and part of me knew I couldn't commit to another woman while I was still carrying on with her. Our relationship had started turning romantic again, and she had dropped some hints about old Jack that would come to the forefront later, but she wasn't ready to leave him and I didn't want to be that guy, so I sent her a message explaining why we had to stop talking, apologized, and ghosted her.
7 more years went by after that night. The relationship I abandoned her for soured quickly when I found out that chick was a carbon copy of my baby mama, and I quit dating to focus on my career and raising my daughter. But on the long, 2+ hour commutes each way from work, I often found myself stuck pondering the "what ifs". What if I hadn't ghosted her? What if our age gap wasn't there, and we'd never had to split up to begin with? I knew in my soul I was never going to find someone like her again, but I made peace with it. I imagined her happy life, her kids with Jack, and convinced myself I made the right choice.
Then COVID hit, and near the start of it, I stumbled on a post on reddit about this dude who sent his high school sweetheart a message many years later apologizing for how he treated her and telling her how her presence impacted him, and I thought to myself, "Hey, I did that!". So I started writing a reply, and for the first time told the story of this girl and I. I'd never told a soul about what happened with us, not even my family or closest friends. Maybe it was the stigma of having an online relationship back in those days that carried over, or maybe it was just too personal to share with my friends or family. It got long, so eventually I just decided to start a new thread. When I was done, it was so long I figured no one would ever read it, but I hit submit anyway and put my phone down and got back to work.
Well, I was wrong. People did read it - a lot of people. Soon my phone started blowing up. Thousands of comments, hundreds of DMs, people offering me book deals and asking if they could have the rights for a screenplay or have me on their podcasts. It was fucking surreal, and being generally a private person who tries to fly under the rader, it got overwhelming fast. Eventually I reached out to her again on Facebook, warned her about what happened, and apologized for putting her business out there.
She didn't respond for a couple weeks, and when she did we started talking again almost immediately. And then in mid-April 2020, she told me that she needed to talk to me. She spilled everything, and told me exactly who Jack was. How he would hack into her devices to spy on her, threaten to kill her and her partner if she ever left him, say vile things to her and her daughters, calling the young girls cunts and bitches. How he alienated all her friends and family, and kept them all isolated in the house her parents bought them that he would rarely leave.
And I felt deceived too. All those years I'd convinced myself that she was happy, that she got together with Jack and was living the life she deserved. In reality, Jack intentionally got her pregnant not long after he flew out to her state the first time. He quickly moved into her house, and refused to work or provide not only for her kids or their kids, but for the other 3 children he abandoned in Australia and Canada who he had no relationship with, with 3 different women he victimized in the same manner. When she was 8 months pregnant with their first kid, she was working nights doing hospice care while he sat on his ass playing videogames all night and talking to his ex. In 17 years, this fucking loser with 7 kids by 4 women worked a grand total of 5 weeks, quit his job, claimed he got PTSD from the experience, and somehow manipulated his way into getting SSDI for it. They survived off SSDI and her parents' charity for years.
But Jack was reading all of this, because like I mentioned earlier, he was hacking her devices and watching us talk remotely. Jack knew the jig was up, and slowly started to unravel. She told him she wanted a divorce, and that she was not going to sever her friendship with me again. And he pretended to take that well, going as far as to try to befriend and manipulate me. He tried every trick to keep her he'd done for years - telling her he was going to get help and would change first, then when that failed he made suicide threats and somehow got his therapist to call her and tell her as long as she didn't leave him he wouldn't kill himself, and then he tried to intimidate her. Eventually he went off the rails completely and sexually assaulted her when he thought she was sleeping.
She called me from her parents' house crying the night it happened, and I convinced her to file a police report. She did, and a couple weeks later Jack got removed from the home, served with a protective order, and charged for sexual abuse. This of course did nothing to stop Jack - he broke into their house a couple days later when she and the kids were out to upload a folder of revenge porn to his Google Drive under the guise of wanting to drop off a cake for her birthday.
Then the stalking started. Jack would relentlessly message her all day and night on Facebook, switching between rage, trying to garner sympathy, convince her he would change, and threatening self-harm. We later found out via a cyber forensics report that he was hacking into the laptop she had taken with her while she hid at her parents' and had been so bold as to steal her Victim Impact Statement and send it to all his World of Warcraft buddies as a joke.
And he didn't just stalk her, he came for me too. Constant unauthorized attempts to access my accounts for everything from Windows to my bank, spam calls and emails - shit, the wormy little fuck even got his friends to stalk my social media and pretend to be strangers to gaslight me. I ignored all of it, and he got desperate enough to send me a lovely message attempting to extort and blackmail she and I, claiming he had "all my posts" but wouldn't do anything with them if I called him. The tipping point for me is when he subscribed to my small YouTube channel - which had nothing on it but 3 videos of my daughter. That veiled threat wasn't lost on me.
But Jack fucked up. I don't know if he thought his insane nonsense would scare me off, or if in his delusions he really thought he was the bad mother fucker he convinced himself he was, but Jack didn't know jack about me. I'm a crazy fuck too, and while he was sitting on his fat ass playing World of Warcraft all day every day for the past couple decades, I was selling drugs and hanging with some of the grimiest mother fuckers Baltimore had to offer. I've seen and experienced a lot of real violence outside a computer monitor, and the prospect of a violent resolution to this saga didn't phase me a whole lot. I'd spent years trying to be a better person and avoid conflict, but I sure as shit wasn't afraid of it either. Leading up to this point, I was already trying to calm myself down and talk myself off the ledge and not pack my guns and drive out there to keep watch until the police did their thing and put him away, which took a lot longer than it should have - this fucking guy violated his protective order 80 times in just a couple weeks.
So I called him, and he spent the next 26 minutes crying over the phone like a drunk little bitch, while I tried my best to be kind and to talk him off the ledge. And yes, I did record it, and yes it is hysterical listening to it now in hindsight, and yes I still have the recording. Anyway, I told him he was scaring the shit out of her and the kids, and he promised to leave us alone and I told him if he could chill the fuck out I would try to talk her into giving him more access to the kids. The next day, she got an email from her first ex-husband - Jack had reached out to him with a link to my reddit post trying to get help from him to come after me, which he promptly shut down and sent to her.
The next few weeks were terrifying as Jack descended further into madness and became more scared and desperate. He knew she was gone and not coming back, and he was facing real charges and real jail time, and while Jack is a fucking moron in a lot of ways, I'm sure he knew a fat, greasy computer nerd with a sex offense conviction wasn't going to have a good time in County. Jack was a murder-suicide waiting to happen, the police were doing nothing to stop his stalking, and I felt powerless to help her. Eventually after he sent her $50 over PayPal at 4:00am with what appeared to be a suicide note, I had enough. I called the DA's office, asked them why the fuck this was being allowed to happen, and promised them I'd been taking meticulous notes and if anything happened to her I would be taking it straight to the media. The DA told me if I was going to make threats the conversation was over, but sure enough he was finally arrested not long after.
Ironically we had remained platonic friends through most of this, but the shared experience of dealing with this psycho brought us closer together and things quickly changed. We knew he wasn't going to stop when he got out of jail, I felt responsible for her safety after my stupid reddit post started this chain of events that led to Jack's unraveling, and with the world seemingly coming apart during COVID, decided if we were ever going to meet it felt like it was now or never. So I booked a plane ticket across the country, spent a week with her and her family, and a few days after I came home she flew out to visit me and meet my family.
We went into it with no expectations. I fully accepted we might not click and our relationship would go back to being platonic. For my part, I just wanted the closure of finally meeting this person who had such a profound impact on my life before COVID mutated or something and killed us all.
But we did click, and the next two weeks were life-changing. I met and cooked for her entire extended family the day after I arrived, and it went well. While I was there I got her mom's email address, and after I went home I had an idea. I knew her parents had met in DC, so I emailed her mom and asked her for a list of places that were special to her, and she told me about the church her parents had met in. I asked her to keep our conversation secret so it would be a surprise, and she did.
So when she comes out to the east coast, I take her on a tour through DC and park the car a few blocks down the street from the church. As we're walking by, she notices the church and comments on how beautiful it is.
I keep it cool and respond, "Yeah, that's a pretty important place.".
She looks at me and says, "Oh? Why's that?".
"That's where your parents met.".
She audibly gasps, giddily bounces a bit, starts to cry, and we pulled down our masks (fuckin covid) and kiss. Her reaction is easily one of the greatest memories in my life. What I didn't know at the time, was that her parents had told her about that church since she and her siblings were kids. When the church changed denominations, the church took the angel statue off the top and brought it back to her home state, and her parents had taken them to see it a few times throughout her childhood.
Anyway, getting sidetracked here, the sappy love story stuff is a different story altogether.
A month after we met for the first time, I had quit my job, sold everything I couldn't fit in my sedan, and she flew back out and drove across the country with my daughter and I.
Sounds crazy as hell, and it was, but it worked out better than it should have. I got a good job making more than I did back home right away, her kids loved me, and my daughter loved her and adjusted to her new home fast. And by the time Jack got out of jail for felony cyberstalking, sexual abuse, and Intimidation of a Witness in a Domestic Violence case, we had cameras all over the house, and I had taught my fiancee how to shoot - which she quickly became better than me at.
But Jack's time in jail didn't slow him down, and the 2-10 year suspended sentence didn't deter him at all. As a matter of fact, on his first day out one of the first things he did was start trying to hack her accounts again. He managed to con an elderly couple he knew threw World of Warcraft from a different state into letting him live with them, and from there he spent a lot of time and energy stalking us and hacking our devices to the best of his ability. He also convinced these poor, very stupid elderly people from his videogame to bankroll a lengthy, expensive divorce. Somehow a man who hadn't worked in almost 20 years managed to run us into over $50,000 in legal fees in two years. How a marriage with zero assets turned into a two year battle when both parties were officially in poverty before the divorce, or how the family courts never saw through the bullshit is beyond me.
To Jack's credit, he did a pretty good job remaining a thorn in our side. Largely due to the complete and utter ineptitude and indifference of the police and District Attorney who could and should have put a stop to his bullshit at any point in that time. Old Jack got hit with a permanent criminal stalking injunction and a 10-year protective order along with his probation, and no amount of effort on our part would get the police, DA, or probation to put a stop to it, despite mountains of evidence.
He successfully managed to draw the divorce out right up to the wedding we planned a year and a half prior, with his attorney putting in motion after motion to delay the process. With all our family and friends coming from all over the country and as far away as Japan, we accepted our wedding would just be a celebration and not an official wedding. Until the night before the wedding, she got a call from her attorney - he had made a call to the clerk's office at the court and got her to move the paperwork to finalize the divorce to the top of the pile, and she was officially divorced. Our wedding would be a real wedding after all, and despite Jack's best efforts, he lost again. We had the wedding on a remote ranch that we rented for a week, and foolishly decided to cater and decorate ourselves, which would have been a colossal undertaking without the extra 4 hours to drive into town and get our marriage certificate at the courthouse. But we pulled it off and it was everything we could have hoped for and then some, and we were officially married.
Jack of course didn't stop after the divorce was finalized. The list of shit he tried to do to us before and after that is too long to spell out in an already too long post, but here are some choice bits:
He wrote a demented letter to the oldest of his kids with her who severed her relationship with him, calling my wife and her mother "vipers and cowards" and promising we would "answer for what we've done sooner or later".
He continuously hacked our computers, miscellaneous accounts tied to our emails, and any other devices he could get into - dropping in remotely via Amazon Alexa, phones, etc.
He set up bots to send us thousands of spam emails, sign us up for dozens of international newsletters all at once, and requests for consultations for things like solar panel installations.
He told the kids vile lies about my wife and I, although the most egregious was when he used a court-ordered therapy appointment with his second oldest daughter to accuse me of distributing child porn, told the therapist I am an "evil man", and told him I wasn't safe to be around his daughters. This led to her being forensically interviewed by the police, where she spelled out what happened, but of course they did nothing.
He gave the two youngest children cell phones to sneak into our house, with Google accounts activated and location tracking turned on.
He sent packages to our house 5 times in the space of a few months, one of which was addressed to himself and contained nothing but a bag of Stevia and a pack of gum. These packages generally came to our door the day before his scheduled visitation with the kids.
During this time my bank account was hacked four times in the span of just a few months with nearly identical fraudulent charges. In each of these instances, I had completely changed my bank account information.
He filed false reports with CPS twice, alleging we were beating the children, locking them in the closet, and not feeding or bathing them. This led to a CPS agent coming to our house to investigate.
We brought all this to the police over and over as it happened, and they did nothing. The DA running the case wasted 5 months subpoenaing a fake email address that we told them when we reported it was fake and spoofed. After finding out about that, we went to the DA's office to find out what the fuck was going on. A Victim's Advocate met with us, and was horrified about how the case was handled, looked up the prosecutor assigned to the case, rolled her eyes and said "Oh...it's Stephanie", confirming what we already knew - this prosecutor was completely incompetent, an elect3d politician moonlighting as a prosecutor. She called us the next day to tell us the actual DA called a meeting and a warrant was put out for Jack's arrest. For some inexplicable reason, they pulled the warrant back, and the advocate told us it was because the DA was pursuing more serious charges.
Then, they stonewalled us. The Victim's Advocate we had met with that actually tried to help us was moved off our case, and the new one assigned refused to talk to us or return our calls. The few exchanges we had with her, she made it abundantly clear she had the DA Office's interests in mind and not ours. We decided to just stay quiet and let the process play out and hope for the best, up until we received an email on Friday night before Election Day from the Detective telling us Stephanie had closed the case. I assume she didn't want her incompetence coming to light, and didn't want to shut the case down before Election Day knowing we would be on the warpath.
Eventually, Jack caught wind that he was officially under criminal investigation, but clearly had no idea they were never going to press charges. He got quiet for a bit, until he was ultimately let off probation early. We still get the occasional reminder he's out there watching, but his fear of going back to jail and the belief it might happen cowed him a bit. So instead he harasses us through the family courts, filing constant bullshit motions with no evidence to support them, and for some reason the courts let it continue. Somehow a man who makes ~$800 from SSDI and is only paying $30 a month total to support his 3 kids with my wife is able to fund tens of thousands of dollars worth of legal proceedings every year, and no one in the family courts has ever stopped to ask how he is paying for it or why all this money isn't being spent on supporting these children.
But despite Jack's best efforts, his bullshit hasn't worked. My wife and I have been together for four years soon, and married for two. His kids call me dad and hate his guts, only seeing him because the courts force them to. I continue to advance in my career, landing two major promotions in the past 2 years and now running a division in one of the largest companies in my field in this part of the country. I just enrolled in college to go back to school and get a degree in family law with a focus on domestic violence. The most frustrating part of the whole experience with ol' Jack was having no one to turn to when all the institutions who were supposed to keep this from happening ignored us, and even though I'll be well into my mid 40's before I accomplish my new goals, I plan to advocate for domestic violence victims and do everything I can to lobby for change to these laws to keep as many people as I can from going through what my wife and I did. I learned that the only way to beat these people at their game is to play on the same field right along with them, and that's what I intend to do.
My wife went back to work too once she healed from some of the trauma, making $30 an hour as a personal assistant for a fella who's had two movies made about his life. Our kids struggled a bit with school and dealing with all their biological parents' issues, but they quickly turned it around and have been excelling. We're all happy, healthy, and doing better now than ever.
As for Jack? Well, he's pushing 50 and still spending his days alone, playing World of Warcraft and jerking off in this old couple's basement. Nothing has changed there, and now he's too fat, old, and visibly an enormous fucking loser to victimize women in the same way he did in his youth. I have no doubts he'll find another victim eventually, probably when these old weirdos bankrolling his life now finally wise up, but one thing Jack forgets is that karma is a mother fucker, and I have a giant database of evidence that I can and will send out to whoever I please to help pull that mask down and keep him from doing this to someone else. Nothing is more appealing to a potential love interest than hearing their man cry like a drunk bitch for 26 minutes to the man he claims stole his wife, while simultaneously admitting to sexually assaulting said wife.
As wonderful as it would have been for Jack to go to prison where he can't hurt anyone again, there is some catharsis knowing Jack will forever be in a prison of his own making. His children want nothing to do with him, and he'll never see them graduate or walk them down the aisle. Jack will die miserable and alone, and in his narcissistic delusion will still be blaming everyone else for the colossal failure of his life, while continuing to fail to grasp the one thread that ties all his misery together - himself.
And since he somehow manages to find and stalk most of my social media, I'd wager Jack will end up reading this too. I hope he does in all honesty. And Jack, if you are reading this, I want you to know that you can kick, flail, manipulate and lie, cry and complain until you're red in the face. None of it matters. You don't matter. You'll leave this world alone, as sad and bitter as you are now, and the world will be a better place for it.

I've been trying to deconstruct my faith for the last year and a half. However, I haven't accomplished much. I've bought four books people have recommended on this sub, but I haven't had the time to read them. I've tried to read the Bible more critically, but I get bored after a chapter or two. I do enjoy watching YouTube videos from Genetically Modified Skeptic, MindShift, Belief It or Not, Prophet of Zod, etc. Those have given me food for thought.
I get so overwhelmed thinking I have to know all this history, science, and philosophy that I feel incapable of doing this. People told me I was a smart kid growing up, but the life couple of years have beaten me down to the point that I worry I don't have the time, patience, or critical thinking skills to do this. Also, I still have this paranoia about being misled, that either side (Christians vs. ex-Christians) is twisting things to back up their narrative. It's like I have an angel and a devil on my shoulders, but they switch roles depending on how I'm feeling. Sometimes, I think I should give up deconstructing and keep going to church because that's all I've known. At the same time, I don't want to do that. I want to think for myself, not mindlessly accept whatever the guy from the pulpit is saying.
I've reflected on why I decided to deconstruct. Questioning my sexual orientation was a huge reason (I'll expand on that in a different post at a later time), but the other big reason is I was feeling increasingly disconnected from my faith. In college, I was often sad because I thought God loved my friends more than me. I felt like they were doing everything right and he was blessing them. However, even though I was trying my best, I often felt like it wasn't good enough for God. Was I not trusting him enough? Was I not praying or reading the Bible enough? Was he disappointed I wasn't telling everyone about Jesus? I was also burnt out from doing church stuff all the time. Almost every day since my freshman year, I was at church, at a Bible study, serving the community with my ministry, etc. By the start of 2020, I was so exhausted I thought about not going to church anymore, or at least less often.
What really cut me like a knife was when a close friend ghosted me. They're beliefs became more extreme, so they decided to leave and tell me and all our mutuals that we're going to Hell if we don't get on the same path as them. I know they're an extreme person, and our relationship had been very rocky, but it still hurt that they essentially said we can't be friends because I'm not the right kind of Christian. Then, I started working with this Catholic guy at my first full-time job. I think he said only Catholics go to Heaven (please correct me if that's wrong, ex-Catholics). At that point, I want to throw my hands up and say, "Fuck this!" If we Christians couldn't agree on what this book says or what God wants, why the fuck should I let this dictate how I live my life? That was a major sign that I need to reevaluate what I believe. I don't want to live my life paranoid I'm going to burn in Hell if I don't live a particular way.
I know deconstruction takes time; it could take years. I'm just having a hard time being patient with myself and making time to do the work. I work evenings, so I'm drained when I get home at night. When I'm off work, I want to make time for my hobbies or just relaxing. I'm hoping to go back to school in the near future. I don't know how to fit deconstruction into my life. I also don't know how to navigate my relationships with people at church when I have this rift in my faith, and I'm hesitant to share what's going on.
Anyway, thanks for listening to my ramble. I've been needing to get this off my chest.

To preface, I was raised in a somewhat Christian household, but I left after being hurt by all the churches I attended.
As a child, I wanted to believe in God. I really did. I went to Sunday school, looked forward to socializing in small groups, and was excited to finally join the youth group. I tried to be a good Christian, read the bible, and prayed whenever I felt lost and all alone. But then, as time passed, I decided that Christianity just wasn't for me. And, if there was a God, he would never want anything to do with me.
I have nothing against religion itself. I genuinely thing a lot of good has come from religion, as it gives people faith and hope in the darkest of times. However, what turned me off was the people I met at my old churches.
Though, to be fair, at the time I attended church, I myself was in my darkest hour and lashed out, cursed, and pushed away people left and right. I just did not want to be noticed, I did not want to be treated kindly, and if I was, it felt like everyone as just tolerating me. Everyday, I felt like I deserved to be hated and beaten down, both as punishment and because I felt like I just got in everyone's way. Why? Because there was so much turmoil in my family -- A father who claimed to be Christian yet had no qualms verbally abusing his wife in front of his children, an aunt who claimed to be Christian, yet bullied my mother, an uncle who claimed to be Christian, yet constantly made condescending remarks to me, another uncle who claimed to be Christian, yet kept trying to kiss me when we were alone. Basically, everyone in my family who claimed to be Christian kept doing things that were the opposite of what I thought Christians were supposed to do. Then, there were the people at my old church. Because of everything above, my depression and suicidal ideology was at its peak, and I did and said things to try and get people's attention. To signal to someone that I needed help, help that I was too afraid to ask for outright.
At some point, I brought up the fact that I'd been diagnosed with clinical depression, and what I did not feel comfortable being touched/hugged. I made comments about how I wanted to die, how I had depression, and how I thought people were their real selves when they were angry/full of hatred. Because in my family, the truth only ever came out when people were shouting at each other. That's why I believed that people were only their true selves when they were angry. But I never had the chance to explain that part, because one by one, people at the church began to ostracize me. To their credit, they did try to welcome me, but it felt like they were doing it out of obligation. We were just so different, I saw no reason why they would want anything to do with me. Call it a contradiction. I tried to seek help, yet I kept pushing people away. That's my own fault. But I thought God was supposed to love everyone, so I held out hope that I could keep my mouth shut, and that maybe then my youth group would accept me. But then, I kept saying and doing things without thinking. I didn't mean to do them, but the damage was already done.
Then, once it was clear that everyone in the youth ministry wanted to distance themselves from me, I decided to just leave. I knew that I'd never be accepted by the church. However, because my father was a member of the adult congregation, he forced me to attend church. He even threatened to take away my devices if I didn't obey. That confused me even more. If Christianity is about faith, then why force it? I don't know anyone who would believe in God if someone was threatening them to go to church. So, once it reached that point, I just gave up.
A handful of people from the youth group told me that depression isn't real and that it's just a ploy for attention. They said I was annoying, that I was a loser, and most of all, that no one liked me. Nor would they ever. And I believed them. Because no one wants anything to do with the depressed.
Once they told me that no one liked me, all my faith in Christianity withered away. Because if they were what it means to be Christian, then would there ever be a place for me? What does it even mean to be Christian? Does someone with depression like me even deserve to be loved? Even after I left the church, I still wonder if God is real, and if he is, would he ever love a loser like me? Will I ever have a place in Christianity? Or will no one ever like me as my youth group said. I just don't know what to believe anymore.
To avoid getting mixed up in religion, I just tell people I'm atheist, but the truth is that I just don't know what to believe. My entire childhood, I was raised in a church where I kept seeing so many two-faced people, who acted as if it's okay to abuse others because God will cleanse all their sins, but I'm not sure if Jesus died on the cross just for that.
I wanted to believe in God because I thought Christianity would help me get back on my feet. . .But each church I attended shattered my hope left and right. Maybe it's all just in my head and maybe it is my fault. Maybe it's not and they weren't actual children of God. I don't know. I don't know what to believe. And quite frankly, I never understood what it means to be Christian.
If you read my story until the end, please tell me what it means to be Christian. Because I want to believe, but at the same time, I don't want to attend a church and get hurt all over again. I'm just scared that if I try to join Christianity, then I might get ostracized all over again after losing control over my depression.
If you think I'm annoying, I think so as well. I've always thought I was annoying and that people just tolerated me, so I just keep to myself now. In fact, it's been years since I last hung out with anyone aside from my family. My dad was killed in a car crash several years back, and I cut contact with his side of the family (aunt and uncles were from his side) and just focus on doing all the household chores, frequent cooking, and work. I try not to cause any trouble and just do what needs to be done around the house and so forth. I'm doing online college on a scholarship/fafsa, so I don't need to worry about getting a job until later. In fact, getting a job and having an income will ruin my chances of getting Pell grants, so I was actually advised to wait until I get my bachelor's. Then, I'll have some credentials to land a decent job. I'm also thinking of searching for a church to join, but I'm still haunted by what happened in the past.
I guess I'm just venting at this point.
I don't know.
What even is Christianity supposed to be like? Please, tell me.

During a student’s academic journey, unplanned events may happen that require them to miss class. People with kids need to know how to ask for school leave, whether for an emergency, a family emergency, or a planned vacation. You can request to miss school in writing by filling out an application for leave in school. People typically apply to leave school for various reasons, such as to go on a long trip, get medical care, or go to an event. Remember that applications for school leave need to be made politely and professionally. The application for leave in school should be brief and indicate the cause for the absence, how long it will last, and when the student will return. The application for leave will be talked about briefly in this article.

Reason for Leave application

For private reasons

A student may need to take time off if they have to deal with a family problem or another personal matter. For medical reasons if a child is sick or hurt and needs to be cared for or rest, they may have to miss school. Parents have to provide an application for leave in school for fever.

Because of religion

A student might miss class to attend a church event or celebrate a holiday. Because they need to learn, students may miss class to finish an internship, go on a study abroad course, or go to a conference.

Outside of school

Students may miss a few school days because of an event or action outside of school.They should provide an application for leave in school for going out of station.

Types of Leave

Medical, personal, emergency, and holiday leave are the most common types of leave that schools give. Knowing the differences between the types is essential because each may have different needs and ways of applying them.

How Applications Are Made?

Applications for leave in school are made through routes set up by schools. As part of it, you might have to use a website, fill out a form, or write an official letter. Parents and children should learn about the school’s recommended application process to ensure they follow it.

Very Important Papers

Application for leave in school may mean that schools must ask for supporting documents. Medical leave sometimes needs a note or proof from a doctor. You may need the same kind of proof of trip plans for vacation time. Gather the necessary paperwork and send it in with the leave request.

Time of absence

Most of the time, schools ask parents to let them know before they take their child out of the building. Then, the school management can do the right thing and ensure the child’s education is interrupted less often. Parents should request time off from school as soon as possible, in line with the school’s stance on advance notice. Parents should provide an application for leave in school for 1 day in advance.

Amount of time away

When it comes to schools, there may be rules about how much time you can miss for different reasons. There may be limits on vacation time, but people who are sick may be able to take medical leave for as long as they need it. Parents and children should know these time limits so they don’t get mixed up. The school management takes requests for time off when they are sent in. Anyone on the staff, like the director, school counsellor, or someone else, can review this. Parents and kids should be patient and wait for proof of clearance before moving forward.

Communication Tools

Schools usually set up specific ways for parents to talk to their administrators about requests for time off. One way to do this is to go online, email a pre-addressed address, or call the school office. When parents and kids use the official ways to get in touch, they can ensure their needs are heard and met. Parents and kids who want to take time off should check in with the school to ensure they got the application for leave in school and see what’s going on. They should quickly provide additional paperwork or details to speed up the process. The open conversation keeps approvals from being late.

Other Places of Education

To make sure that a student’s education continues while they are abroad, schools could offer other ways to learn. This could mean making study guides, giving homework, or teaching online. Asking about these plans might help lessen the adverse effects of leave on a child’s schoolwork. It must be turned in before the leave of absence starts and is usually sent to the school’s department head or director.

Go back to School Rules and How to Do Things

Schools could have set up specific rules to help kids return to the classroom after taking a break. This could include going to teacher meetings, making up missed work, or finishing tests. Parents who want to ensure their child returns to the regular schedule should call the school. For legal and administrative reasons, schools keep much information on students present and absent. To avoid problems, parents and children must carefully record requests for time off and keep an eye on their child’s attendance.

Review and Thoughts

Parents and kids can stay current on any changes or improvements by reviewing the school’s leave policies and procedures. Giving the school administration comments on their experiences with asking for time off can also help ensure that things keep improving.

Conclusion

Parents and kids need to know the school’s rules about requesting time off to talk about their needs and ensure the kids have a smooth educational experience. Parents and kids can handle the process confidently and keep their child’s schooling as regular as possible if they know the types of leaves, the necessary paperwork, and the permission processes. Parents and schools must work together, plan, and talk to each other so that application for leave in school requests are adequately treated and students can keep up with their work.

FAQs

How do I request school leave?
To request school leave, write to your principal or other school administration.
How early should I request leave?
Leave should be requested as early as possible to allow the school to make arrangements. The timeline depends on school policy and the cause of the leave. In a medical emergency, you may need to apply for leave sooner.
What is the use of leave applications in school?
A leave application is a written request to take time off school, college, or employment for a certain period.

I was hurt by a Baptist Church that I was raised by and I recently got back into my faith and trying build my relationship with God again and Bible Project has really helped me specifically in the way they teach about the Bible and I was wondering what this is called and if anyone else teaches like these guys or if it’s just them. Any suggestions would help( podcasts, books, churches, YouTube channels, etc.)

I was never really that close with god throughout my life, and I definitely regret that. I always thanked him for everything and I still felt his love even though I didn’t show him much in return. god still showed up for me when times were tough, and heard my prayers even though I took advantage of his grace. I felt his love before I ever picked up a Bible a day in my life, and that means everything to me. I just feel like every since I started to take my faith more seriously and genuinely pursue a relationship with him, I just feel nothing but shame and anxiety. I never genuinely felt the fear of hell up until I started reading the Bible and talking to god more, and the worst part of all of this is that my mind is literally trying to convince me that the shame I feel about being bisexual, is coming from god and it’s him condemning me so I can turn away from my sin. Mainly bc I’ve seen so many videos and posts about how when you get closer to god you still to feel convicted bc you become hyper aware of your sins, that you used to never think about. It makes sense and it scares me that it makes sense, bc I feel like.. what reason do I have to believe that god is okay with me being bisexual, if I genuinely feel such a deep, gut wrenching shame all of the time, and that shame was never there before I came to Christ? It’s like I can’t get out of that mindset and I want to “deconstruct” if you will, but I don’t know how to.
My family isn’t homophobic at all, and most of them are catholic, all of us are believers though. My grandpa (who recently passed away) grew up in a very religious community, and he was entirely supportive, so it’s not like this came from the people around me. I didn’t even grow up in church or anything like that, all of these “inherited” beliefs have come from my own unfortunate encounters with the Internet… and the problem is, I wasn’t aware that the content I was reading/watching was even affecting me until it already caused a lot of damage. Now, i feel stuck bc there is no way I can erase all of that information out of my head, all of the videos I’ve seen of well educated theologists, priests, and even just regular Christian’s who don’t even act extreme, saying that homosexuality is a sin and there is no way around it, it breaks my heart and it’s very difficult to not allow it to affect how I view god.
There is a fine line though, I think there are people in the middle who admit they don’t know if it’s a sin or not but that the Bible does say it is, those people are respectful and I do feel like their approach is far less problematic, but then you got these other people, so straight up say homosexual desires comes from the devil, and that supporting the lgbtq is satanic, that is such a harmful narrative I don’t even have the words for how disgusting it is.
Anyway, does anyone have any advice for deconstructing? How can I develop a genuine relationship with god without feeling like I’m living a lie or “painting him in my own image to feel better about my sins” (as a lot of evangelicals say) I really can’t keep going down this path, it’s hurting my faith and I just wish I could go back and tell myself not to engage with that kind of content at all, then maybe this dang OCD wouldn’t have gotten out of control.

My name is Minister Dino Puglia and I became an Ordained Openly Gay minister in.2017 through Universal Life Church Ministries also took a course in bible theology and in my past back in 1986-1993 I worked as a live events and television ring announcer and lived my dream in the WWF now WWE pro wrestling and when my career ended in that industry I went into and battled severe depression ,isolation because wrestling was the only thing that made me alive and happy also I struggled with my sexuality for over 30 years so a friend of mine told me who got sick and tired of seeing me in pain and misery suggested I should start a ministry in 2017 to help other LGBTQ people who were struggling and today I don't struggle with mental illness and I finally except my sexuality as a gift from God and I am a blessing and yes God healed me and he can heal you also The Lord has blessed me and healed me with a Face Book ministry with over 800 people and also a new life with a wonderful career something I thought would never happen again also the ability to date and perhaps find a true loving soulmate of the same sex The Lord really healed me as my past was controlled by depression and sexual lust also being around drug addicts and witchcraft If you're looking for a loving church home then you will find it with us so click this link to be in the family with over 857 loving members https://www.facebook.com/share/h49BU2gk18XMvSVU/?mibextid=A7sQZp It is not a sin to be Gay or to be in a loving healthy relationship where the sin comes into play is a reckless life style of sexual perversion ,prostitution , pornography and other horrible sins as a matter of fact te passages of the bible that folks use to condemn us are all about those sexual sins ,gang rapes ,murder and idolatry and when you join my ministry you can view my video sermons on how the bible is gay friendly and loving also you will learn that in the bible there were love stories and 2 where with Johnathon and David as warriors and lovers and Ruth with Naomi ! You will make new positive loving LGBTQ friends in our ministry and learn about the love of Jesus and the free gift of eternal life and a personal loving relationship with Jesus ! I see so much hurt and pain in this group on reddit and I am here to be a friend and help people experience joy in life and not sadness or gloom .

My fiancée grew up in a conservative Baptist Church. The congregation is very close witch is great until some one hurts you. Basically if you are loyal to the church all is good but if you question the church in any way they make it unpleasant (all with a smile still on their face of course). She has some hard feelings about the place but on special events like mothers day last weekend we will go so we can be with her parents. The sermon was nothing but a rant about young people and after the service as we talked to people my fiancée got bombarded with accusations. No one came straight out and said anything but they hinted plenty. It's like they believed that since she had decided to leave the church the for sure she is a sinner. It was even insinuated that we were living together which considering we actually live 2½ hours apart and have managed too save ourselves for marriage so far is quite the insult. I have never had a problem with my future in-laws and want to be able to go to church with them on occasion but I'm lost as to how to handle the situation and protect my future wife from the church. Anyone have experience they can share?

I have two reddit accounts, so if these stories are familiar, that's why. Someone commented that one of these sounds like abuse from my Christian parent to me. So I've compiled all most of them here. (Most of them are to do with Christianity, the hypocrisy of Christianity, or the consequences of my choice to leave it.) Please be honest but also recognize that this isn't all the times sometimes these are amazing people and I love these people but for my sake I need to know if it's really that bad.
"I'm rather young. My mom (42F) and my dad (41M) both grew up in the church. My grandfather is the pastor of his own church and my mother was raised by her grandmother who played piano in the church. Growing up I'd say I was the perfect little Christian girl. I liked praying and went to church, I wanted to help the world, and I wanted to be baptized before I even started kindergarten. I remember that vividly. I was sitting in the kitchen in one of our folding chairs because we couldn't afford real ones and I was begging my mom to let me get baptized.
My family and I are African American. The church I went to when I was little was a black church. My mother was the praise dance choreographer so of course I did praise dancing. I'd go to Sunday school, I wore the big puffy dresses, and I knew all the songs. Of course I had the common experience of being assaulted in a sexual manor by someone I went to church with. But we were both the same age and I just knew I was uncomfortable and she just knew that's how people bigger than us touched each other. All that came of me telling my mom and me not having to go to her house anymore. I was always told that I was intelligent and I believed everything I was told without question. Then my sister was born and we moved. At first everything stayed the same. We ended up having to switch churches as the previous one was an hour away from our new home. We found a new church. A church were you can wear your hoodie and jeans like it's a Tuesday. I made friends and played sports and nothing really changed until I was eight. When I was eight there was a girl on my softball team I'll call E. E is Jewish and at the time I thought everyone was Christian. As in Christianity was the default and only option. But my friend E's church wasn't called a church but a synagogue, and she couldn't eat specific foods together. E also talked about BaBat Mitzvah's. When I brought that up to my mom she said my friend was Jewish and that being Jewish is like being Christian but they read from the old testament exclusively but they don't believe in Jesus.
Which a while later caused me to spend all night crying because I put the two and two together of: Believing in resurrection Sunday and that Jesus was gods son is what got us into heaven and I cried worrying one of my closest, sweetest friend and her nice family would go to hell. Then school, which had always been easy, became hard. Which made me feel dumb. Especially since my self worth was put into how smart I was and I wouldn't dare get below an A or high B because I was scared I'd get punished. Like the time I slammed my fingers a metal door on accident and spent the next fifteen minutes in tears and my mom told me if I kept crying she'd take me to the hospital to have them cut off my fingers. Because of moments like that disappointing my parent or having to big of an emotional reaction was not okay and it made me scared and uncomfortable. They knew I was struggling, they were the ones who stayed up till four something in the morning with me trying to explain the concept. But with every minor and major struggle I felt like my worth was slipping away. But the better I did in school the more my outstanding grades became the expectation which resulted in acknowledgement for my academic achievements disappearing. I felt like I was falling apart so I'd spend hours pray and begging god for help. To take the feeling of being worthless away. I developed an eating disorder sometime before ten. Specifically binge eating. My parents would find the trash, not understand that it was more than just "the sin of gluttony" and yell which made me feel threatened and eat more food.
And then I'd pray on my knees on the hard wood outside my room door with nails and splinters in it and hurt myself because not only was I a dumb glutton but I also apparently wasn't good enough for god to save or help. It made me think if he wants a relationship with me so bad why does he ignore me? I'd hold a knife to my wrist when I'd wash dishes to see if I felt him then. I questions if I'd even go to heaven. For all my problems the answer was to pray but the problem was I'm doing that but my prayers aren't being answered. I was having thought of death no twelve year old should have. On my birthday I was like a puppet simply going through the motions. Then I started questioning my sexuality. Not to mention, I'm now cut off from the world because this is all during covid, on the bright side they gave me my door back. Now I'm older and I have questions like. How was Adam able to name all the animals and understand god not wanting him to eat from the tree and their need to stay in the garden, but not comprehend his nakedness? How was Eve able to be tempted and not understand her nakedness? Why did they and apparently god think being naked was wrong? How are we not all messed up from tons of inbreeding and how do animals still exist after the inbreeding the would've occurred after Noah's ark if he only saved one male and female of each species? Why did god want to flood the Earth and purge it of it's evil humans if he was the one who decided free will would be a good idea? Since he is perfect and all knowing their shouldn't have been a moment of let me make something I'll destroy, wait nvm. My parents have changed a lot since I was little and have let me go to therapy. Of course I have a Christian therapist. Which I wouldn't mind if it wasn't for the fact that every time I bring up trauma that's linked to religion or need advice in terms of how to change a bad behavior or over come anxiety the advice is to pray. And at times I feel like I'm in a moment of doubt she feel she should try and pull me back in. But they also said I have to volunteer in the childern ministry at church.
I used to work with children ages three to five. Now I'm in one to three. And it feels like I'm spreading propaganda. They tell me what to say and what the goal is for the kids to believe by the end of the month. After I can't help but feel dirty. I'm at the point in my journey were I don't believe. But I have to keep working in the childern ministry, I have to go to church every Sunday, my parents are both devotional authors with published books. I'm the only one in my family who doesn't believe both extended and intermediate. I just wanna know I'm not crazy. I feel like I'm being brainwashed or something. Like drink the blood and eat the body of Jesus!? It's all too much. And now that my parents know they're trying to make me go back to believing. And I listen to them talk and it's like I can't have a conversations with you. You put your faith above all else. You believe whole heartedly, my point of view is automatically wrong to you because faith trumps logic so why would I share it with you? But at the same time it's majority of the music they play, it's all their advice, I go every Sunday, my classmates and friends are majority Christian and yet I even though I see the flaws and hypocrisy, I still can't help but wonder, am I the crazy one?"
"My grandma would grab me and call me "big booty Judy." And my butt was grabbed, spanked, and frequently talked about. Sometimes she'd just sit there tapping it while she talked. It started when I was around three or four and just continued. Though now I'm in my teens and rarely see her. But my breast were also a topic for a while. Comments like "where'd you get those from?", "she's bigger than you.", and "her sisters the tall one but she's the curvy one." They felt icky but I didn't dwell on them. But she's also an alcoholic along with many other things. She dated my mom's friends when she was in college, gets shit faced in at events like birthdays and funerals. Shakes her ass on family members and frequently offered us alcohol. But I always took pride in being her favorite grandchild. Which she constantly reminded me I was. She also has a serious spending problem. But the funny thing is. She goes to a church church. She's in the choir and used frequently as a look example. She hosts church events and potlucks. She even remarried in the church. Never mind the things I just said that'd be considered sins. She's the perfect Christian woman."
"How do you cope with the level of disrespect? I'm not eighteen yet, but I'm still able to be disrespected. My main problem is the disrespect from my parents. My parents who wish to be respected in their beliefs and don't want their minds to change. But at the same time, my dad has sent my scriptures and stuff for the past couple of months since it came out. I don't believe in God or Jesus. They force me to serve and volunteer at church and attend every Sunday. They paired me with a not so ethical Christian therapist. Then both gang up on me about it and take my silence as defeat when I'm just respecting their beliefs. I'm literally the only non Christian in my family. I also have mental problems from staying with them and just in general, but they won't test me because I don't behave in such a stereotypical manner. I want to say they love me, but does someone who blatantly disrespects you love you? I'm having a hard time with seeing if I should do something as drastic as no contact after I reach a certain age.
But at the same time their those awful parents who don't just blatantly suck but also have messed me up quite a bit, resulting in me not feeling like I have a right to be upset. I've told them about how Christianity mixed with their parenting drove me to suicidal thoughts, almost going through with it, and an eating disorder I'm still battling. I also can't just leave and close the door behind me. I'm the oldest, and their are two more kids just like me, and if I turned my back on them, I'd never forgive myself. They're my siblings, but they're also what stopped me from going through with the bad thoughts I was having. They need someone who will be honest, say the weird things, and answer the ignored questions. So, how can I deal with the blatant disrespect so that I'm around for them? What skill for stress management can I use? How do I block out the constant religious gaslighting that happens in church? Because I have over two more years of this."
"My dad said if people don't wanna have a baby, they shouldn't have sex even if they're married. But sir, you had three babies while financially unstable because you couldn't keep your damn hands off my mom. You were planning me, but your job fell through, and when my mom went to get back on birth control, it was too late, so I'll give you a pass with me. But my siblings were both surprises. So, quit judging and practice what you preach. But that's not what pissed me off the most. He said women will put all their time into work and not their husbands, and that's why some men cheat, but the way he said it, it was like he was justifying it. But my dad, he'd go to hooters alone, and when I needed tights, he got them from a woman their and it made me think what if. And I know it's stupid, but that what if. It is so loud.
And it's not even the first time he's said something along the lines of justifying it and almost blaming the woman who gets cheated on. But then he likes to be all up in arms about how his friend married a woman who cheated on him multiple times. My dad's like, I wanna pour into my kids but then makes no effort, and when we spent time with him, we had to initiate it. He doesn't do the hey you wanna . . . stuff. But he has his own company, and they can't get any work right now, so he spends most of his time at home. And then says I'm just to tired to spend time with ya'll.
My mom was sick to the point of being half passed out in a drive-thru after taking my brother to karate and having to pick up dinner. I would've offered to drive him if I could. I'm still leaning, and I'm bad at staying in one lane. But my dad was really busy on his PS5 with his made-up football team. So busy he couldn't take my brother to karate nor could he pause his game to get dinner. I'm kinda starting to hate him. He's also done a couple of other things, but that's what recently has made me mad. But I don't feel like I have a right to be mad because he's here and a lot of my friends dad aren't, and he's not physically abusive like my best friends dad is. I just don't know how I should feel. Is everyone's dad like this?
Edit: It's mothers day and he couldn't be bothered to get the food, pick up the groceries, nothing. #1Dad guys."
​
So is it truly a horrible go no contact at eighteen situation, a be watchful situation, or is it fine? I know some of this stuff is a lot but some of it was also in a moment of extreme emotion. Remember like I said in the beginning they're not always like this.

Last year I couldn't celebrate due to my family worrying about people hurting me. Since people are just dumb. And can't seem to mind their own business.
I felt bad for target they got hate for having kids clothing.
Thing is nobody has issues with forcing your kids to go to church. And I am a Christian saying that.
I just hope there isn't as much anger this year.
Nobody forces you to join in. But let people and business partake if they want.
I understand it's not everybody's cup of tea. But it doesn't mean that you can get violent at people.

Good evening. So Jesus claimed to be the only way to the Father. The Church does claim that those who are invincibly ignorant of the Church may however achieve salvation. I totally understand this view. If someone is born into a Muslim country for example, that person will be told Islam is right and thus it will be much more unlikely that that person would convert to Christ. I don't think God would send to hell someone who tried to act righteously, while being sure that their belief system was true, because so was that person told. However, wouldn't that make it all pointless as well? For example, if a righteous Muslim like the one I described above converts to Christianity, wouldn't it all be the same as if he hadn't converted? And wouldn't that imply that it would be better for those people to remain ignorant of the Gospel? As I write this last sentence, it truly hurts because I can't believe that the truth would better not be known, but I struggle to find a better explanation. I also consider the fact that it may not be up for me to know about this, however I'm a person who thinks far too much, so when an idea enters my mind I can't let it go. I appreciate your time

So I'll try to keep this in chronological order. My birth mother was POS to the point where the judge gave my dad full custody and the option for child support (if he didn't take it, she wouldn't have rights to see me bc she wasn't supporting me) which he did indeed opt out of. (Prior to the judges decision this woman had taken baby me in the middle of the night from Anchorage AK to Savannah GA. When my dad and my uncle kidnapped me back {you know to the state I belonged in bc that's where the divorce was happening and I was an infant} he said I screamed for the first 2 hours on the road {they told my incubator's sister, so I guess my aunt, that they were just taking me to the park for a visit, and she handed me over} and when they finally stopped {bc trying to put some distance down between them than the crazy bitch that birthed me} dad said I had a diaper rash that was so bad I was bleeding in the entire diaper area. (Anyone who has kids knows it probably took much more neglect than a 2 hour car ride to get that bad.) So dad got undisputed custody of me when the judge made a decision with break neck speeds due to her actions. During her turn to try to speak for why she should have time with me, my then2 week old baby brother (we are like a year apart) began crying unconsolably out in the lobby, a different aunt poked her head in and told the incubator she need to feed the baby. (seems she was once set on breastfeeding) This bitch turned around and said that he could wait bc rn she was fighting for her daughter! The judge put the court in recess so she could feed him. He came back and had his decision made.
There was about a year more of dad and I living in AK (his family once lived out there, after my grandfather moved back to AR Dad went to work the pipeline {I was born in 87}) till the cost of childcare and the time need to take care of me and house hold chores and keep a full time job just got to be too much. At that point we moved down south in with my grandparents.
My dad's family is mostly men, I have one aunt and the rest of my grandparents children where male. So when my aunt had my cousin who was a male he was only doted on til I was born 4 yrs later. First female grandchild and boy did they make sure I knew it. Yeah I was a bit spoiled, but I was also kind and mostly respectful. My grandmother did most of my childcare and I remember in the evenings dad made sure she never had to wash the dishes, ever.
I feel icky typing this bit as I personally have a problem with age gaps, my dad and step mom are 10yrs apart. If they had met after she was 20 or so I would have no issues... But they met when she was like 16-17 and got married a month and 2 days after her 18 th birthday. I remember them discussing how they were gonna tell her father that they were already married!!
Which brings me to her family... You see her dad was abusive af, like picked her up by the ankles and shook the shit outta her bc she wanted the white shoes for school not the cheaper navy blue ones... This man thought that if one of his 14 kids pissed him off, it was totally acceptable to chuck things at them to include 15lb claw hammers. My step mom was his favorite child and she was the only one who took care of him in his later years, and yes the ankle shaking is the worst he ever go with her, but her siblings where not nearly as lucky.
She can't see that she holds a LOT of his negative qualities. When she was mad at my brothers and I as kids she would ball up her fist and hit us in the chest. There was once a time when she was so angry at me that she spanked me while in the corner... While the physical shit wasn't all that bad the psychological shit she did to me I am still working thru. Looking back now I was so far into what turns out to be a bipolar depression that I was beginning to question if I was developing a second personality. The self talks went like this " stop being so stupid, you know you can't kill yourself and you know you aren't wanted like her precious boys, but that doesn't matter. You know this is probably just how life is supposed to be, always feeling like shit and just putting on a happy face" Oh and precious boys indeed. My 3 younger brothers (that's she birthed) were allowed to have sleep overs and go out with friends. Hell they could even walk out to the car from the grocery store without an escort by the time they were 9... Meanwhile one of them was with me if ever I needed to go out. Until the day I left for the Army it was like this. (6, 10, & 19 yrs younger than me, not that I'm super fucked up about the little one, I was already grown when he came along) I on the other hand could only have friends over on Sunday, between church services, so long as the ppl coming over also attended our church. Outside of that I never left the house as teen other than school, which there was never skipping any school for me, the step mom is a school teacher. So "if I have to go to school, you have to go to school" At one point the grounding was so heavy that I was to be her "shadow" every where she went outside of school I had to be by her side. That meant I had to wait for her to use the restroom at church so I could too. She often told me that I was "too young" to even know what depression was. She is also sexist, taking out the trash is a mans job and she isn't going to do it. But she was totally fine with me doing it. She gave me my first bloody nose by backhanding me before school one morning. One of her darling boys was made to take the trash out the night before, all he did was set it on the back porch. Well they live out in the country so what are leash laws .. that's right all that trash is on the back porch by morning. I am sent to clean it up... I have already taken my morning shower and got dressed for the day.. meanwhile the brother who's fault it is doesn't have to clean it bc he's not dressed yet🙄 when I try to reason with her she backhanded me and told me to never back talk her again. (Even tho by this point my two younger brothers both openly tell her no and don't do the chores)
Flash forward some years and my son and I are on hard times so we move back in (23is at this point) she decided that even if she wasn't paying my phone bill I was not allowed to use it after 9pm, she undermined every single thing I said as a parent (at this point baby brother is an issue but more for my kid who's only 9mons younger than him) She forced me to go back to her damn church, and got in a fist fight (literally) with me when I told her I didn't believe the BS they tried to stuff in my head as a kid (still fukin hate organized religion.) The bitch caught me at a disadvantage and used my ankle length dress to shove me down. She has been my only mother figure, and she has been hell on the psyche. As for my incubator, well she is a compulsive liar and thinks she is a master manipulator. She only has a 9th grade education and uses big word out of context to make herself feel smarter. I did get back in contact with her as an adult... Worst decade of my life. And everything got soooo much better when I went NC with her. I have laid eyes on the incubator 5 whole times... She lies to my other siblings (bc ofc she went on to have more kids too) that she has met all of my 4 children. The truth is when she was telling my siblings she was with me, she was actually like 6 states away. She left my step dad high and dry, cleared the bank account (some of which was being saved to get baby sister graduation stuff and a prom dress, they live below the poverty line, so it was a very big deal) took the only working vehicle and ran off to be with an ex from before she met my dad. She had dropped baby sister off at school that day and even told her what all errands they were gonna run when incubator picked her back up, yeah she never came and my step dad works nights... My sister had to find her own way home after waiting so long pretty much everyone was gone from campus. So you can kinda see while I don't want to associate with her. My step mom thinks because she is a special ed teacher, bc she goes to church, and that it is difficult for her to lie she is better than my incubator. Truth be told, I have come to realize that yeah, step mom was a better mother, she never told any of her own kids they should have been aborted like the incubator did to baby sister, but that doesn't mean step mom was an amazing mother to me. I do not want to associate with her anymore but I know my dad isn't going to leave her (she makes his plate for him for crying out loud, who would wanna disrupt that after the age of 60) I want to expose my step mother to her whole community that she thinks she is a pillar of. I want this woman to be as distraught as the incubator was /is when/ bc I finally told her off. I strive to be a better mother to my kids. I don't want bad examples available to them if I can help it. The baby brother is 17 now and has dropped out of school and has moved out early. She acts like she doesn't know why... But it's bc step mom never stopped coddling my middle brother who is 26 and lives with my folks in a3 bedroom with his wife and kid. No plans to move out, my sil is a total cunt to baby brother and he has been a total dick to her right back... Stepmom did nothing to mitigate the situation. Ofc he moved out. All the boys have been cuddled, but the middle one the most so. I am also sure that going NC would cut me off from my nephew... (Not that he is being raised to respect anything or anybody) Should I just do it and deal with the fall out, or should I at least tell my dad all the torment she put me thru before I do it. (It will be a public shaming on her favorite media platform, fb, and then cutting off all contact forever.) TL;DR My birth mother is awful, my step mom was only slightly better which she thinks deserves an award, but in reality my childhood was a living hell. I wanna NC but I don't wanna hurt my dad.

Okay so I have the WORST luck finding good doctors in my area. My first doctor when I moved here had me tested for tuberculosis. This was for a daycare job I was trying to get. AND I LITERALLY TESTED POSITIVE. Instead of..idk, calling someone and getting imaging, she literally PRAYED for me in the room and sent me on my way. (She was since fired from the clinic-not for the TB issue but because she brought her religion into her practices). So I went to a different doctor in the same clinic. He tested me, I tested positive, and he just asked “what symptoms do you have?” And I said “I dont know I cough a lot but I have asthma”. So he said he would send a referral to a local hospital for imaging. He said to go there right after the appointment and just say I need imaging for TB and hand them a piece of paper. So my happy ahh drives all the way to this hospital, I hand them the paper, and the receptionist says there is no referral for me and the paper he handed me was literally just an Appointment Summary. I call the office, the nurse says that he will send it now, and nope. Never sent it. So I go about my life, not knowing what to do about this because no one ever explained it to me and I didnt bother doing resesrch to know how bad it actually is. Finally find a new doctor who actually takes it seriously. She actually sends a referral and I don’t have active tuberculosis!!! Yay I wont die or kill anyone else in the process!!! But then SHE fcks up! She refers me to a psychiatrist in the clinic because I needed a proper ADHD diagnosis. (News Flash: he was not a psychiatrist and he was just an RN. No, not a specialist RN who is educated in psychology and licensed. No, just an RN). He decides to diagnose me with bipolar disorder instead of ADHD, all within a 30 minute appointment. Prescribes me Latuda (WHICH IS AN ANTIPSYCHOTIC) and sends me on my way. Heres the kicker, I start taking Latuda and WOW. SHOCKER. I start having manic episodes!!! Something I hadn’t had before! So I go back to him and tell him this, and say “I think I just need ADHD treatment and to be providing coping mechanisms for my ADHD”. He says (in essence) “Well that sucks, keep taking Latuda to see if it works eventually.” I listened to him and kept taking it until I got pregnant. But this SAME doctor before I got pregnant tried to take out a benign tumor on my rib cage IN OFFICE. She literally tried to put the numbing sht in the area of my ribs, which btw hurts like a mofo. I literally almost punched the nurse, so they both decide to HOLD. ME. DOWN. IN. THE. CHAIR. I started sobbing and having a panic because-surprise again! I HAVE PTSD. She ends uo trying to rip this cyst or whatever out but cant, and at this point I am screaming and crying in pain. So she says “Yeah I guess I cant take it out. You might need to be put under for this. I will send a referral.” (She did not).
Anyway so last Wednesday I go to a whole new doctors office. Its small. I needed lab work done before my doctor saw me, so the only nurse in this clinic grabs me and he is sweating like a sinner in church and looks on the verge of tears. This man goes into a room with me and starts ranting about his job, his boss, how he wants to quit, etc. He is SHAKING because he is so angry. So I try to talk him down. I am usually really good at this. But while he is prepping my arm to poke me, he takes off one of his gloves AND STARTS POKING THE AREA WITH HIS BARE HANDS AFTER HE SANITIZED IT. He doesn’t sanitize it again. He also never washed his hands when he entered the room or put hand sanitizer on. HE THEN STARTS TOUCHING ALL OVER THE NEEDLE WITH HSI BARE HANDS. I am literally too anxious to say anything that might send him over the edge. Is this my fault? Fkcing absolutely. I should have said something. He pokes me, he misses my vein. He moves to my other arm AND DOES THE SAME SHT. So then moves to my hand, and this time finally hits a good vein. BUT THEN IS SWEATING ALL OVER THE NEEDLE AND THE HOLE IN MY SKIN. AND THEN GETS MAD AT ME WHEN I PANIC AND MOVE MY HAND. He NEVER sanitized after he touched me with his bare hand. Never cleaned it after he sweat all over my hand. And at this point I finally tell him to stop and that I need to go home.
I am now waiting for lab work to come back after that to see if I somehow got anything (as recommended by my insurance nurse line when I reported the incident).
How do I even go about finding a good doctors office? What do I look for when I search for one??

TW: SA
For some context, I 22 (F) have a sister 21 (F). Ever since we were 15 and 16, she has had these crippling migraines. She has been to over 18 different specialist all around the country trying to figure out what is wrong with her, and they have found absolutely nothing wrong with her. Over the years she uses her migraines as an excuse to get out of anything she doesn't want to do, for example church, school, family events. But her migraines miraculously disappear as soon as something she does want to do comes up. Personally, I suffer with migraines as well our difference is mine was diagnosed from the TMJ that I now have from dislocating my jaw when I was 12. She loves to use her migraines as a way to either get out of something she doesn't want to do or uses it to garner sympathy from friends' family and strangers.
In 2019 she used her migraines as an excuse to not go to school at all and used them to get a doctor's note stating that even though she cannot attend school she should still graduate. 2020 rolls around and we can no longer go to school because of Covid and miraculously she has no migraines and goes out day and night to hang out with friends. Then when she goes off to college all of a sudden, these migraines come back coupled with severe dehydration to the point where she has to be hospitalized on multiple occasions, except these migraines only occur Friday Saturday and Sunday mornings after her sorority throws a party.
Summer of 2021, she gets the opportunity to participate in a college work program in Florida for the whole 3 months of summer. She goes and after only 3 weeks of being there her migraines get so bad that she has to come home. It is important to note that she comes home the day before Father's Day. Father's Day comes and we all go to church and out to lunch and have a great time. That night however my parents come to my room to ask me if I have spoken with my sister this evening and I tell them no. They proceed to tell me that my sister has runaway to Virginia (we live in Oklahoma) to live with her Boyfriend 26 (M) and that she has sent them a video to explain why.
This video states that she is leaving and never coming back because she has been assaulted on multiple occasions by multiple men in her life and that it is too traumatic to even be in the state so Shes leaving. She then follows with telling my parents that they are horrible people who have never loved or cared about her and that they are the reason this is all happening. She also sent similar videos to her friends as well. This video absolutely crushed my parents, it was the first time I ever saw my dad cry.
We grew up in a strange family, my parents couldn't have children of their own so they adopted us. But our biological families are all still very much in our lives. Our parents are the most amazing and caring people in the world and would give life and limb to anyone in need. So, to hear her saying these things about my parents not only hurt them but it also hurt me to see her putting them through all that.
She was only gone for a month because eventually my father flew out to her to get her and bring her home. Now I am someone who has to know everything, I cant leave a topic untouched, I always have to investigate and get every side of the story. But in that month, I ended up uncovering a few things about the stories she told in those videos she sent to my parents and her friends. In that time, I uncovered that the stories of abuse that she was speaking about were of previous boyfriends that she had had. Every single boyfriend had a story of abuse, and these stories had credible witnesses attached to each and every story. While combing through all of this information I come to the educated conclusion that they are false and told only in a specific way to frame her as the victim using a way that no one would dare call her a liar because who would blame the victim?
When she came back it was really hard on everyone because we had all been heavily affected by this experience that she has put us all through, but she just acted like it never happened and continued to act like she deserved everything. But anytime anyone would mention anything about what happened she would absolutely freak out scream and curse and throw a massive tantrum and storm off and slam her door. In this time, I have personally decided that I will just act like she doesn't exist, I won't speak to her or acknowledge her.
Fast forward to now January 2024, she has convinced my parents that the best thing for her is moving to Florida to go to school because in her words "it is the one place I don't get migraines". I pointed out to my parents that the last time she lived in Florida she only lasted 3 weeks before claiming migraine. Apparently, she only lasted a month at the school before dropping all of her classes and just living it up in her apartment that my parents pay for. And she only informed my parents over spring break that she dropped out because her migraines were too bad. She is now home and living with my parents again and continues to spread her stories of assault and abuse as well as her stories of migraines to literally anyone that will listen.
I'd like to add that throughout all of these years she never fails to make sure I am the one that somehow suffers through it all. Throughout her Migraines I was the one that had to take care of her, I was the one that got in trouble when she screwed up, I was the one that had to pay for all of her mistakes. After years and years of watching her lies not only hurt me and my family but also slowly chip away at what used to be a happy and close nit family I don't think I can live with it any longer. My mother continues to stand by her side and call me a liar anytime I call my sister out on her lies, and my relationship with my mom has suffered for it. My father knows my sister is lying but fears speaking up because it might anger my mom. This whole experience has divided our family.
Another thing of note is that I value honesty over everything else, I will call anyone and everyone out on their bull. This last weekend we were at a graduation party and sitting there and listening to her speak and talking about all of this to literal strangers and because we were in public I had to physically literally bite my tongue to keep myself from speaking which resulted in me actually biting off a piece of my tongue. I honestly have come to the end of my rope of patience and I don't want her in my life anymore. So am I the asshole?

When I was about eight years old my mom handmade us matching dresses that were allegedly for Easter. One for her and one for me. The only other sister born at the time was my toddler sister who for some reason my mom didn’t bother to make a matching dress.
My mom finished making the dresses at least a week before Easter and she wanted me to wear mine to church a week early. I started to protest because your new Easter dress is supposed to be this nice new thing you wear for the first time ON Easter. She twisted my intentions into an accusation that I didn’t like the dress in general, instead of the OBVIOUS point that it would mess up the surprise of wearing it for the first time on Easter along with everyone else who would show up in their new dresses on Easter. She was brushing my hair getting me ready for church and she snatched my hair harshly and hissed through gritted teeth, “I ought to make you wear rags! I ought to make you wear RAGS!!!!” And she kept yanking my hair hurting me on purpose. I remember my dad shouting some verbal abuse as well.
Finally sometime later I had the chance to explain the situation and my dad said in this drippy self-righteous tone, “Oh, we just thought you didn’t like the dress!” As if he had been innocent and made an innocent mistake.

There’s no easy way to put this, and because I was raised in an environment of brutal honesty instead of watered down truth, this will be very difficult or uncomfortable to read so fair warning for the content below.
I only remember the first few years of my childhood barely, but the years following after the age of 5 were not pretty. I was quite an introverted kid mainly due to stupid kid stuff at the time, I remember elementary school where the big talk was about modern musical artists at that time and Wii was a huge thing, I was more interested in ocean life and life outside, and more interested in bands like ACDC, twisted sister, Motörhead, and Black Sabbath. I was picked on constantly, I never really dressed in basketball shorts and jerseys, I always stuck to what I grew up around Bikes, Bands, and my dear old mom and dad. My uncles was a chopper builder and felt like a big bro more than an uncle, my aunt the same.
Of course because I was raised in a Roman Catholic family, I got sent to religious instructions, it wasn’t bad yet, but I met my first ever like real friend a kid named Devin, he was a year older but we grew up together and made each other laugh, we did everything together to make each other laugh like we had nothing better to do, he was the ultimate brother from another mother. Because of these classes every now and then the local priest would show up and observe, there was guy who followed him around, I think he was like a priest in training or something like that. This sounds like a set up to a dark South Park joke, but it’s the real thing. Devin was my only friend, but he went to a different school, everyone else at my school picked on me or spread rumors to have people avoid me.
Every Wednesday I went to religious instructions, and this priest kept calling me out of class to go to his office, now I had learning disabilities and couldn’t sit still, so I ended drawing on my paperwork a lot and I would get called in for it, but instead of being mad at me for defacing Bible passages, he instead took an interest in my artwork, and it made me feel proud and I felt less introverted. These office visits became frequent and the priest kept encouraging me to keep drawing which I thought was great, it made me feel important.
That was like alcohol to an addict, it felt good to be noticed and it felt good to feel like you’re important until he started touching me. I know this sounds like a stereotypical dark joke, but most dark humor wouldn’t exist if there wasn’t some real life occurrence. It started slow, a hand on the lap, a hand in the shoulder, a hand moving up my thigh, a hand moving up my thigh and around my butt, before it became a sexual assault. Picture the worst thing happening to you, that can be categorized as a sexual assault or rape, and that’s what I was going through. I felt guilty, I felt ashamed, at the same time I felt addicted because I was getting special treatment in these religious classes, I felt good sometimes but at the same time I had a know in my stomach, I felt fucking pain all the time. I lost feelings for pain and instead it became a crutch, watching a 7 year old start scraping his arms with the blades of scissors in 2nd grade art class is not an image you want to see.
My parents became aware of my strange behavior and believe me when I say it took a lot to tell my parents what was going on every Wednesday.
They were livid, they responded like any parent who found out their kid was being raped by someone they trusted. I don’t need to get into the details of police officers asking me to go into detail about what happened to me. As for what happened to the priest, suprisingly the church defended him, and I was seen as a little liar, he never got to see life behind bars, because cancer took his life away 6 months after all of this came out. Though in my mind now I’d like to think he committed suicide because he was a coward and didn’t want to face consequences.
If not the act of being raped as a child is disgustingly awful, it’s the years following that are more painful, but somehow even at the worse times of it, I’m still here! I smoked, I drank, all at ages you wouldn’t even fathom, Devin was still around, and he was the only friend I confided in with this event in my life and he took it to his grave, he passed away in 2020, age 20. Years following after the priests death and the therapy I went through I felt like I wanted to die, I had to die, I hurt myself, sometimes I hurt others, I wanted that time back but now 17 years later I know I’ll never get it back.
Some kids found out around that time and thought it was the greatest joke, I must’ve heard the word faggot and queer a thousand times. But even more surprising is that the same kids that said that, ended up realizing just how bad it was, and gave me some of the most heartwarming yearbook signings when I graduated high school in 2018.
How the fuck I’m still here? I’ll never really know, the times where I was blindly self harming and feeling a shit load of pain, i really felt like dying but now it’s something I want to pretend never happened, but I accept it and like most things in life, I have to move on. It’s not easy, it never is but somehow I just do. I focus on what I have ahead of me more so than ever, and I found that graphic Designer is the perfect position for me to be in, I never stopped drawing or designing things to my liking, I also recently got engaged to someone who genuinely cares and loves me. I’m living life like I got another millennium ahead.