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TL:DR Im having trust issues and paranoia and anxiety with my partner and wonder what my next steps should be.
Before I get into this I want to acknowledge the comments that I will most likely get. "You're just a young punk" or "you have a long life to live" Yada Yada. Although I don't mean to be rude I'm very well aware of such things. Now I 17M and my partner 19F (she just turned 19 a month ago and I'm about to turn 18 in 2 months for anyone worried about legality) have been together for 5 months. Now there are many many issues with this story but hopefully reddit can help me with this entire process. I met her through Instagram on December 4th, 2023. For some background before her I was in two previous very unhealthy relationships. The first when I was 15 in which I was with officially for about a month until we broke up. After that occurred 6 months of what was me getting led on, which I openly admit was my own fault for being in as I should of just moved on but instead I stayed trying to mend things between us which was unsuccessful as for half the time she was high on drugs and without getting into detail led to me being treated pretty badly. I say this to say that I ended up developing deep trust issues and self-esteem and confidence issues. Now this is where things get tricky, for about 3 months I spent "bettering myself" (I had spent previous time this time I'm mentioning is just without the first girl). I put quotes because in reality I really made myself unhealthy. Due to the previous relationship and other contributing factors I decided to include myself in the trend of trying to have multiple girls. Within a couple of months of getting out of the first stint, I ended up getting in another stint with a childhood friend with who and I had communication off and on, the root of it was that I truly cared about her and had feelings for her that waned throughout the years, plus with us confiding in eo about personal issues and building a bond we ended getting together which admittedly was a horrible decision as I and her were not in great spots. As mentioned before I shamefully used this relationship as a way to test the aforementioned trend of cheating essentially or having a "roster". I met this other girl who was a very good girl with a good head on her shoulders and just an overall good person, for a month I would go between the two keeping the second girl as nothing but cordial discussions but did plan a meet up just to hang out and enjoy eo company and the first being the one I put my time and energy into. If I could explain the experience it was almost as if I was on autopilot almost like I was asleep. It wasn't until something snapped me back to reality that I felt what would end up being the consequences of my actions and felt genuinely hurt that I was doing this. Even if it was just emotional cheating it felt disgusting and I ended up letting the two know what I was doing and as expected I got not so nice things said to me by the second girl. However I asked my then gf to please leave me as I had hurt her and didn't want to continue to have her anywhere near me so I couldn't hurt her in any other way. The call basically ended up with me in tears and her in disappointment (I'm ready for all the woah is me comments lol). The reason I felt the way I did has a little to do with guilt but moreso disappointment in myself. One my ex had previously been cheated on by multiple partners so me doing it to her even on just an emotional level made me disappointed in myself as well as the fact that I had done this to the girl I really cared about, two my mother herself was cheated on by my father and since I was young I promised I would be better than him and treat any future women better than he did my mom and try to make her proud, three a huge reason I did what I did was because I was still hurt from my first ship and for whatever reason I wanted to make other girls hurt which was very unlike me as I hated to see others in pain. Overall it was obvious I wasn't in a good mind space and I fully acknowledge what I did was wrong and even though I've shored most of it, there is still a level of guilt that presides in me. However her and I ended up getting back together after some time apart, she wasn't in a very good place (she was a drug user as well) and she saw me as someone who took care of her and I saw her as someone I needed to take care of so we stayed together and I promised her a cleanslate of being the best I could be. This lasted shortly as you can tell it was never the same, plus you could say karma came for me as she ended leaving for another guy which I had suspected a little after our reconciliation which triggered my trust issues and paranoia. Without getting into what happened which deserves a post on its own, we broke up. After that I took a long look at myself and made the decision that I needed to focus on truly bettering myself, healing, being a better person getting back to my morals and finding out my future. The other decision I made was to stay away from any type of relationships with girls for a long while at least until I was stable. The goal was to get in the gym, get closer to God as my household was heavy on religion and I always believed in God but never put effort into it and overall becoming a healthy person. Admittedly I lagged on this and resorted to being a fanatic of the NFL (I'm a Chargers fan) and used that as well as YouTube as a mental crutch. Tbh I never got in the gym and my grades suffered and found myself in a depressed state trying multiple times to get myself out of it but to no avail. Now fast forward to December 2nd, 2023. I was in Saturday school making up attendance issues that had come with the aforementioned behavior, I posted a story of a Batman painting on one of the classroom walls on IG and found a account I hadn't seen before had liked my story. I didn't pay any attention to it as I had figured it was a bot or just a random until I decided what the he'll I checked it out and followed it. A day later it accepted my request. I found out it was this red head girl (more auburn than red red) she was really pretty but I stayed true to what I had promised before that being not making contact with any girls. On Dec 4th she reached out to me saying that she couldn't follow me due to a account issue but would as soon as she could. It was from here that our conversation continued. She bombshelled me that she lived in Morocco and I was unserious about the interaction due to obvious reasons. Fast forward to me typing this and it was the most unexpected interaction I have ever had. Now I can predict that comments that will come with this next part. I fell in love with this woman and I mean woman. I don't wanna sound weird or whatever but I truly feel as if she was sent to me by God almost as an angel to give me redemption. To give detail, I've become a way better person while being with her. I got closer to God as she herself is very religious, I got back in the gym (although I still have been inconsistent on that), I found my future in career, I found myself essentially, I found a purpose. To be clear being as young as I am, my dream is to have a family, not to be rich or to be well known, but to build a family and give them the world, and this woman I found was the one I wanted to do all of this for. Now obviously the issue arises, she lives in Morocco, I in the US. We've only been together for 5 months, and I'm barely about to graduate high school thinking of marriage. Let's pause all of this here, yes I want to marry her and I want to have my family with her but I also am logical enough to know that one, I need to get my foundation started, two I have a lot of growing and healing to do, 3 I actually have to meet her and her family. One of the biggest reasons why I love her is the purity of it. Admittedly lust has been something I've always had an issue with, however with her it's almost nonexistent, I don't see her through a lustful lense but more purely. The other is the relationship between her and my mom. My mother is the most important person in my life (slowly shifting lol) so obviously having a good relationship with her for my wife is important to me. She's the only of the three girls that have shown care for my mother and even recently mentioned that she loved my mother and respects her deeply and cares for her. My mother has also shown her opinion on her saying that she really likes (let's call her Espi). This is huge as my mother is very hard to please when it comes to girl as obviously she's protective of me and wants to make sure that the girl is right for me and so this exchange made my heart melt and made me extremely happy, a happiness I hadn't felt in awhile tbh. However there is a reason for this reddit. One my unhealed self has made it a bit rocky for this relationship despite my love for her and just how much of an angel she is to me (or so I believe). My trust issues have been off the chain and my paranoia has as well. She knows well that I've dealt with anxiety and bad overthinking throughout my life as well as my mood swings and depression and she makes it known to me that I have to talk to her about what I'm feeling or thinking to be straight with her so that way she knows how to help me, that communication is important especially being long distance. I've communicated almost all of my worries except for one. One issue I have is she follows a lot of guys, she's also made it known in the past that many many many guys have made moves for her and that there are. This is something that worries me especially with our communication patterns. One thing she had made known is that she's very much a worker she has two jobs plus in college to become a nurse this is a huge reason why I want to exhaust myself to be able to retire her so she can rest and not have all that stress, but I also want to be able to support her dreams should she desire to go through with them. Now I mention this cuz there are some days where she won't talk to me at all sometimes going up to 4 days not talking, and my worry is those guys she follows plus the ones she has said have come to her. I've asked her loosely in the past and she hasn't been in a relationship but rather a situationship with a guy for 3 years, she's never hooked up and she always "denys" the guys that come up to her. She also made it known that she doesn't believe in male friends as it just ends up into relationships. This all has caused my trust issues and anxiety and paranoia to rise again especially after finding out that she has a male friend. I ended up laying out all my cards on the table about 4 hours ago explaining to her after high school I wanted to dedicate myself to being a husband to her and taking care of her and her family and making a family with her but I wanted to essentially make sure that we were "locked in". I was left on seen. Now I'm looking to reddit to see what I should do. And yes I'm up for all comments ready to call everything in the book so long as I get constructive criticism that will actually help me. I'm also willing to fill any gaps and holes to help the process out. I'm truly lost and wondering what should I do and what should my next steps be?

Im playing with the DLCs for the first time & I just killed some Enclave dudes and since I wanted their power armor style well I grabbed it and gave it to Danse (he was my companion at the time and kinda forgot to get it back from him). And now I want him back into his BoS T60 power armor but if I try and give him the one I have it says he can’t carry anymore.
Will he go back to normal on his own? Don’t want him with just the skeleton of the power armor T-T

Hello! I am a Cis male who is looking into getting electrolysis, specifically for my eyebrows. They’re pretty big ungroomed and I’ve been reading about a lot of the experiences with electrolysis amongst the trans community.
I am primarily removing excess hair growth above my eyebrows (say if my eyebrows was the height of a pinky nail and i normally thread two rows of hair that are pretty much excess growth)+ unibrow and now want to permanently remove those hairs.
I actually had my first session today and although it was painful, I would say it was tolerable but I went in under the impression that if i were to do 30 minute sessions (which would be enough time to do my full eyebrows and possibly cheeks) about every 3 weeks, I could expect to be done in about 1-1.5 years. I am curious if this is a valid assumption as my electrologist wouldn’t give me an estimate (she kinda threw out 3 years which would be too much for me). I am hesitant to do laser on that area just because it is my eyebrows and it’s not as accurate, but if it’s something that a few laser sessions would make this one year more reasonable, I would consider it.
Also I’d really appreciate any tips and experiences or recommendations! thank youu <3

I almost always have the hardest time figuring out the functions in the middle. For an observer, it's the decider functions; for a decider, it's the observer functions. The latter being even more difficult than the former. When I try to find information on how to more effectively identify functions it's only ever if it's that person's first or last function, never help identifying them if they're in the middle.
Let's say I've narrowed down this person as a decider with De lead, and I'm almost completely clueless as to which observers this person has, what would I need to look for? Same for the inverse scenario too.

I currently work as a Senior Data Scientist in a R&D team. My coworkers are amazing, and my workload is decently relaxed. It is important to know that I have 2 under 2, so enjoying my time at work and being able to take it easy are quite valuable.
Through my network, an opportunity came by with what would be a natural next step in my career. It is a position with the responsibilities of a Lead Data Scientist, although they internally call it Senior. I would be leading a team of about 7 people and deciding the direction of the department. I got a job offer, that isn't really in line with the responsibilities, but they are very eager for me to join so I am certain I can negotiate up to where I feel the compensation would be fair. I will turn down the offer if they don't match a compensation that fits the responsibilities.
Assuming the negotiations go well: the issue I am having is whether going to my next career step is worth it right now.
The change in salary would be around 400 euros before taxes. However, at this new place I would be able to work 4 hours more (4 days of 9 hours, instead of 4 days of 8 hours), meaning I would actually go up a total of about 800 euros before taxes. This does mean I would be working more.
This is a lot of money, especially with all the expenses we have with our kids. However, we currently get by fine, so it is not a necessity.
To sum up my thoughts:
Objectively, I should negotiate a better salary and a title increase. This way it would be better for my resume and open up the next step in my career (Principal Data Scientist) sooner. Making steps in salary now will also have an impact on the rest of my career. My current job has a glass ceiling due to a very senior-heavy staff. There is no way to make the step to Lead Data Scientist. My current job has been dangling a promotion in salary (not title) in front of me for a while now. This is somewhat frustrating, and if I choose to stay is something I would need to address with my manager. I really enjoy working with my colleagues. It has been years since I felt at home in a workplace as much as here. If it were not for this opportunity to come by, I would not have been looking to make this step right now, and would probably have looked into making this step in a year or 2, when the kids are a bit older and working more takes less of a toll on me. To summarise my options:
I take the new job, work 4 more hours per week, have more responsibilities, be busier when I'm at work, and increase my salary by 800 euros before tax. I stick with my current job without a salary increase, but enjoy the laid-back work life I have now.

Hi everyone, first time buyer here. Would really appreciate second opinion on the images.
The situation is: recently viewed a flat that I really like and might put an offer in. But on second viewing I discovered what might be signs of raising damp. It is a garden flat, recently renovated (approx 4y ago) and apart from this wall in main bedroom(it is an external wall) there are no other obvious issues.
What do you think, were those cracks and peeling of the wall likely caused by damp? If anyone has an experience with rising damp, how costly it is to repair it?
Thank you!

Hello beautiful people, i will be visiting Malaysia with my husband for the first time next week. We will land in Kuala Lumpur then fly the following day to Sandakan.
Can anyone advise on what is the process for domestic flights? What time before the flight we need to be at the airport? Are we allowed to have a checked in bag? We will be travelling with backpacks and 1 small luggage. So far the flights we founf online have only 7Kg carry on allowance.
Any other travel advice is highly appreciated 😊

As the title says, I'm trying to figure out what subject area(s) I'm interested in because I have a lot of broad interests but don't know where they fit in in terms of subject area. I am a first year undergrad currently studying biology and philosophy, and I know I have a lot of time to explore but have been feeling stuck for a while. I haven't found a field which really clicks with my interests, which is because I tend to like very interdisciplinary fields which at least in undergrad there's not much overlap between subject areas.
I wanted to know if anyone had any tips on how to start exploring more and hopefully clarify what my academic interests are. I'm trying to synthesize several of my interests to see if there's one 'aha!' field or subject area that captures some of the fundamental questions I'm interested in - I'm very interested in the emergence of selfhood and capturing that through various fields (developmental/systems biology, complexity, philosophy, literature, anthropology). I know that's way too many things to pursue so as I continue to explore I will narrow down my interests, but in general I really enjoy learning about things from both STEM and humanities angles. I wanted to ask if there's a subject area which really integrates STEM/humanities or do they still remain mostly separate - is there some sort of interdisciplinary field out there which captures both at the same time? Because my interests are way more about breadth than they are depth right now since I'm still in the process of exploring, I can't tell if this is the type of thing to be a hobby/personal interest where I just find the topics exciting, or if it's something I actually want to or even can pursue as a career. Would love to hear if anyone knows more about these fields or can just tell me what I'm interested in LMAO because I'm kind of lost right now. Thanks so much :)

Wanted to crosspost this from the Monsterverse sub, but it wasn't working

• A lot of character scenes were cut or shortened, comes up a lot during the commentary
• Apparently they couldn't destroy the Colosseum, so the part that Godzilla hits is fake
• There's a surprising amount of practical effects and set work, a lot of stuff I thought originally was cgi/greenscreened in
• The scene where Godzilla absorbs the nuclear plant was a lot shorter originally. The drone fight and the pulse were added late
• The HEAV is actually a 10 ton practical element that's disassembled and reassembled for every shot it's in
• Kong using Suko to hit the other apes wasn't originally in the script
• Wingard was fully aware of all the leaks going around
• One of the scene where the humans get off the HEAV was handpicked because of a massive tree, which ended up getting struck by lightning and breaking in half a couple days before the shot
• The irrigation system that Jia activates is practical, and apparently fully functional
• The glowing blue liquid in the cave is glowstick fluid
• 'Boots' gets his name because he gets kicked in the face
• They knew that the scene of the ape yelling in Kongs face was going to be well liked. Was in the first draft as well
• Scar King kicking the ape into lava wasn't there initially, and added to make you dislike him earlier
• Red paint is the apes rank, especially on their face
• Shimo is supposed to be an 'equal' to Godzilla
• Kongs frostbite arm looked a lot grosser at one point
• Godzilla's new color is pink because it's Wingard's favorite color
• Pink color isn't necessarily permanent
• Beast Glove is built from parts of a MULE ship (or that was the plan at some point)
• Kong beating up Godzilla was originally longer
• The punches are Kong's revenge for GvK
• Wingard thinks Kong tends to lose the first fight because he's learning, and the second time he adapts
• Godzilla's stomps are what 'killed' Kong in GvK
• Wingard said the sand saves Kong, otherwise he would have been crushed to death
• Anti gravity scene is 'Showa era's
• Evolved Godzilla is effectively immune to Shimo's frost breath, he can superheat his skin to break out of the ice. Something Godzilla evolved on purpose to fight Shimo
• The only reason Kong didn't use electricity powers against Godzilla was because that wasn't actually a power the Beast Glove had when they created that scene
• Scar King getting grazed by Godzillas beam was done very purposefully, Wingard basically implies that the beam would have "totally killed" Scar King, so the shot had to make it look survivable
• "Shimo could be Kong's horse" lmao

Hi, I’m not sure how exactly to go about this but. I made some very fucked up choices to someone I loved deeply. I cheated on my ex from time to time in our relationship and questioned why but kept going about it. Caused our breakup with her finding out. I don’t have an answer besides stupidity because I very much wanted to spend my life with her. After the break up I wanted to better myself for us, for her. To be the man she deserves. A couple of things have gone on during our “maybe we can work things out” process but ultimately she moved on which I found out recently and started dating one of my friends. It’s been a lot for me to go through on losing her, especially more so after tonight we said our final goodbyes and had our final conversation. I won’t ever find someone who loved me the way she did nor that I will ever connect to in that way. It’s my fuck ups that causes it and I know that. Some people would probably say it’s a good thing I do and I kind of agree.
I also took on a new job and that’s also been messing me up pretty good. My ex was my motivation for getting into it and my why for going in everyday. When we first broke up I had a failed attempt and it scared me about going back to it. This time though. Knowing there really is no second chance on getting back. With the stress of my job. Being isolated from friends and family since I’ve moved halfway across the country. I’m finally coming to terms and finding peace in going ahead and moving on from this life. I’m gonna stay up for a bit to just. Do what I need to do to prep and make sure family has access to all my stuff.
All I can say is. Please cherish those people you love and who love you and really do good by them. Don’t be an idiot like me and take shit for granted. Much love to everyone who’s dealing with tough times. I might not have been able to fight past it but maybe you can. At least you have to try.

First of all ... THIS GAME IS AMAZING, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!
I've been on a Master of Orion binge the last month. A ton of MoO4, a ton of MoO2, a few days of MoO1 ... then a few days of RotP. (A few hours per day, I do have a job and a life, lol.)
RotP bugs/issues:

• Colonies page: "Notes" get misaligned left or right and sometimes get truncated or overwritten when switching between Ecology/Industry/Military Views. Clicking around can "fix" this minor display error, but killing the bug(s) would be better.

RotP vs MoO1 differences:

• MoO1: building factories on a planet at less than max pop will say "MAX" when the maximum number of useful factories for current population is reached (at a smaller number than the max factories for the fully-populated planet)
• RotP: you can keep building factories until the planet capacity is reached even though some portion of these factories will remain unused (wasted resources) until the planet's pop increases. (Suggest displaying "Max" before "Reserve"/"Tech" is reached)
• MoO1: when you send transports from a colony, you can immediately (same turn) allocate ECO to start building replacement pops
• RotP: you have to wait a turn to replace imminent-transport pops, this sometimes slows things down and it can be inconvenient when you "can't find" the planet again on a large crowded map

RotP suggestions:

• Provide a way to delete specific save games (play RotP many times and the Save Directory gets cluttered up with old saves, temp junk saves, typos, etc which cannot be removed unless you exit to the operating system file manager)
• Put the "Most Recent Autosave" in the Backup Directory instead of in the Save Directory
• Provide an in-game button/page/whatever to display all the settings used when the game was created (this is just for reference, for those of us who sometimes play different games on different settings)
• Fleets page: display the number of ships directly on each design image MoO1 style (for easier at-a-glance reference than the small "Total in fleet:" text currently being displayed)
• Tech page, move "Ground Combat:" summary to the right so that all three "Ground Combat:" bonuses are vertically aligned (for at-a-glance summing, for visual consistency)
• Provide options to increase/decrease font size because the UI is a constant size but the monitors it's being displayed on are not (the text all looks fine on my 28" desktop monitors but some of it is puny and hard to read on my 15" laptop screen, plus this is always a good feature for other ports and for user-accessibility purposes)
• "Default Maximum Missile Bases for New Colonies" is a fine thing - I liked this feature - but it's unintuitively buried in a tab in the Races page. Perhaps it should be moved or duplicated to somewhere visible in the Colonies page (which is where I kept going back to look for it).

If you could’ve seen my mom in July, you honestly would’ve thought that we were going to lose her. She was diagnosed with stage four metastatic breast cancer that had spread to her skin bones and lungs. Now if you see my mom you wouldn’t even know she has cancer and she isn’t doing chemo right now. Just hormone blockers.
You want to build your immune system up. I had her taking, zinc, quercetin, vitamin D, to keep her immune system up. And we bought an ozone generator on Amazon for $50 and make ozone water. Ozone is an activated more concentrated oxygen and when you’re sick your body sometimes lacks oxygen, making it harder for your organs to function. So drinking the ozone infused water helps your body function. My mom said the first thing she noticed when she started drinking the ozone water was that she had more energy, she was using the bathroom more often, which I think mean her organs were functioning better and she was sleeping better. If you’ve heard of hyperbolic chambers that’s ozone. Oxygen therapy.
Another thing she started to do was drink organic soursop tea leaves. Supposedly the soursop fights cancer cells and she was drinking it daily. Along with taking apricot kernels every once in a while supposedly the cyanide in the apricots does something to the cancer. When my mom started doing this stuff she gradually continued to get better. it was around the time when she stopped chemo too after the first round because her lungs were filling up with liquid. So she has only been on hormone blockers and this regiment and we saw a huge improvement. But what the big game changer was when we learned that cancer is extremely acidic and we had to make sure my mom practiced an alkaline diet but we started to implement a baking soda and water with lemon and drinking it.
Sounds crazy right? Well here’s the science. Cancer is acidic at pH 5.5. This treatment is Alkaline pH8.5..to neutralize!
1/2 a squeezed lemon, in a cup…add 2/3 tsp of alkaline: baking soda not arm and hammer that contains aluminum buy bobs red mills baking soda.
It will fizz, quickly add water and drink!
This is alkaline pH8.5 when consumed.
Do 2x day, 3 if your strong! Drink at least 30 minutes before or after meals, to not clash with digestive acids. Do for 2 weeks, then stop for 5 days. For body to adjust. Then. Repeat process!
Buy PH test strips and you test yourself in the morning and in the evening, once your PH levels get to 7.4 alkaline stop the drink until your PH levels drop again.
This has definitely worked as my mom’s thriving and people don’t even think she’s sick now when they see her. It is possible! You have to heal your body. Another good thing is to take one teaspoon of magnesium hydroxide powder add to seltzer water, shake it and place in fridge for 30 mins after 30 mins shake it again, keep in fridge for 8 hours, then you can consume. Don’t shake anymore and avoid white setiement at the bottom.
They say that when you’re deficient in magnesium the cancer progresses quickly. And magnesium strengthened the T cells against cancer cells it helps fight off the cancer!!
she has been taking digestive enzymes. Digestive enzymes is what helps break down your food and we believe that it helps break down the cancers as well. Once she is feeling crappy we make sure she does a coffee enema cleanse to get the toxins out her body. Look into Nicholas Gonzalez studies on digestive enzymes.
Another thing she does she had in the beginning a golf ball sized tumor on her chest and it has noticeably shrunk more than half.. it’s nearly flat.
My mom is thriving while we still have a long way to go but I am telling you the things we are doing are working! And cancer treatments is a billion dollar business so they don’t really help people!! Just cutting out the cancer and not changing anything about the way you’re living you have high risks of dealing with it over and over again! Our bodies are meant to heal ourselves if you just give it the right tools to do it. Look into Barbara oneil she talks a lot about these types of methods. IT WORKS! There’s hope! Don’t give up!
You’re seeing this message for a reason, please spread this info far and wide because big pharma and the government want to poison us and keep us sick! I’m not saying be anti all cancer treatments but HEAL YOUR BODY and find what works!
Good luck, Godspeed.

I listened to it yesterday for the first time and it's constantly in my mind.

I grew up in a small rural ski town where I was one of the poorest kids in my elementary school. My mom had just moved my brother and me away from my dad and we were struggling, we lived in motels for a bit and crashed at some of her friends' houses before moving into a cheap basement suit with two bedrooms, my brother got his own while I shared a room with my mom. There was only one twin-sized bed so she would usually sleep on our armchair in the living room so I could have the bed. She worked two jobs at a grocery and convenience store while putting herself through night school in the town over. We didn't have much money for food so my school lunches were always one item, usually some form of squash or a Ziploc of lentils. Being in a mountain town in Canada you can imagine how cold it was in the winter; we didn't have a car so my brother and I had to walk to school in freezing temperatures, by the time we got there I was in tears with a red nose and my hair frozen solid. It took a while for things to get better but they did when my mom got her nursing license and picked up a stable job, eventually, we moved up to middle class and the moment I was old enough to work I wouldn't stop. I saved almost everything I made from the age of thirteen. My brother joined the military and I focused on school and sports so I could get into college which I'm glad to say I successfully did. I moved to the city for school and everything was so different, all of the friends I made came from ridiculously rich families and went out almost every night since they had the money to spend on drinks and clubs. I'm in engineering while the majority of my friends are in some form of the arts, we got along because I'm a bookworm. I was speaking with one of them who I'll call Shannon, she's in screenwriting and cinematography in the hopes of becoming a director. She mentioned to me that she wants to make her student film centred around poverty and the working class to shine a light on it. During this discussion, The Florida Project (a great movie) was brought up, I told her that I related heavily to that movie and she kind of huffed a laugh and then said "What? Did you live in a motel or something?" To which I answered "Yes," With a straight face. I could tell that Shannon felt bad since she clearly didn't know how I was brought up since it isn't something I tend to slip into casual conversation. Shannon asked more questions about my childhood and what it was like to live in poverty, we left the topic alone after that day but two weeks later she came to me with her screenplay and asked me to read it. I was appalled to say the very least. She had taken my very personal stories and turned them into an extra shitty episode of Euphoria. Everything I had told her had been put into her script but not as I told them, the main character went through these things and was unphased by everything that happened, disappointed in her mother for not doing enough and fighting with her evil drug addict brother. I wanted to cry, specifically at the depiction she had turned my family into, my hard-working and loving mother was written off to just be a slacker when in reality she was doing absolutely everything she could to give both me and my brother a good life and then my straight edge military brother was turned into the scum of the earth. The depiction of my poverty she wrote had me sick to my stomach, the main character was a sex addict, the mother was an alcoholic, and the brother had a drug addiction as well as abused the main character. I told her that not every person living in poverty was poor because of an addiction or crutch and sometimes it was just an unfortunate circumstance, in our case, it was fleeing from my abusive dad and trying to get on our feet. It also irked me how she had written it to be completely tragic and sad but I was a child for most of it and didn't realize how bad it was; when the power would go out it would be a fun game of lights out for me and my brother, we didn't understand why my mom was so stressed out when we had to stay in hotels, all we knew was that we got to share a bunk bed and go swimming in the indoor pool. I wanted her to understand that we were still regular people when we were impoverished, we were just that, regular people who didn't have much. Shannon seemed embarrassed that I was so upset about what she wrote, it took me fifteen minutes to read the entire thing and we sat in complete silence as I did so, when I reached the last page I was crying. At first, she thought I was crying because I was so moved by her glamourization of addiction and poverty before I told her that I hated it. That was when Shannon began to cry. I had shut down her screenplay as soon as I finished it and I asked why she was crying. She moved on to say "It's loosely based on what you told me, it isn't meant to be you and your family." I wanted to laugh when she said this, even the name of the main character rhymed with mine, she kept the tragic events and cut out the good memories as well as the good nature of my mom and brother, I was livid. I want to tell you about one scene that made me want to strangle her: The family's power went out on the main character's birthday so they lit tea candles to see in the dark, the mother lit a cigarette with one of the candles before calling her daughter a slut and putting it out in her birthday cake- what happened in real life was the power had gone out on my birthday, my mom worked all day and came home with a discounted pride cake since my birthday is in June. My brother and I had lit the tea candles long before my mom came home, she smeared the 'Happy Pride!' text on the cake replaced 'pride' with 'birthday' using Nesquik then used the tea candles to light the candles for my cake. This was the first time I had ever gotten a birthday cake, I was eleven and it's one of my happiest memories to date. I'm realizing this is too long so I'll finish it off, she's proceeding with the student film despite me asking her not to and offering different plots to follow instead. Shannon had blocked my number and I haven't heard from her in a week aside from awkwardly seeing her around campus to which she looks the other direction and ignores me.

previous post
arg, it's been a tough day. cw: transphobia, anxiety
she's gone through two weeks of hell since we kissed, midterms, two 20 hour roadtrips back home, super intense, haven't seen each other much.
today was her last midterm, and we went to dinner together to celebrate. it's this cute kinda fancy vegan mexican place in downtown, we've gone to it once before. but i was feeling really off today, and i didn't know why. it was kinda awkward, and i eventually said sorry i was being so quiet, and of course she was so kind about it. a bit later she brought up how my dad had called me yesterday. it was a really bad phone call, my first time talking to him one on one in over a year. last time he said he thought trans people were delusional....
but she brought it up so gently, and i that made me realize that was why my day had been so hard, and i had been guilting myself for not being in a good mood (hmmm where did i learn that from...?) even though she literally has always been so supportive when i'm in a dark mood. but something about her being so tuned into my emotions broke something in me.
then when she was paying for the bill, (normally one of us pays and takes a picture of the receipt so we can split it), i tried to take a picture but she flipped it and said she was paying. i just looked at her and so many emotions came up and i had no idea why, i couldn't even say anything, i just kept looking at her. so many emotions flashed across her face, but i couldn't say anything. eventually she broke the silence and said "oh just cause i like ate most of the food," even though we split everything.
on the drive home i cried, but hid it. when we got home i broke down crying on the couch. i didn't know why, which always frustrates me (hmmm where did i learn that from...?). but we decided to watch a movie and she made me tea and we ate churros she had ordered at the restaurant 🥺.
after the movie, all of the emotions started coming back up again, and i went upstairs to go to bed. and then i just started sobbing like i haven't cried that hard in so long, and i had an anxiety attack, and the words in my head were just repeating "nobody has loved you since you were a young child, they loved a fake version of you that you created for their version of love."
and i realized, this whole time i've been falling for her, every time she makes any display of affection, i always break down. it's a cycle. the tension builds, she breaks the tension, and then i spiral and pull away. and now i know why. my true self is still so deeply buried, but she see's me and treats me so well, and it scares me. i feel like i don't deserve it.
now my words are haunting me. when i told her she made me cry after she flirted with me, how i wrote a letter about how much it hurts to be her roommate after she got me a rose, how whenever she inched closer on the couch i would be distant and sad the next day.
now she just probably heard me crying after she paid for my dinner for the first time.
what do i do?
she doesn't want a relationship, and i didn't think i did either, but now i'm questioning. did i give up on myself from the start?