How to work out how long u been together

TRIGGER WARNING: MENTION OF ABUSE, CHILD S*XUAL ABUSE, S*ICIDE
tl;dr: I'm trying to figure out if my husband could be a narcissist, or emotionally immature, or some mashup of both. Could someone explain this to me like I'm five?
(If this isn’t the right group, please point me in the right direction)
I tried my best to condense, but it’s a really long one. I’m sorry.
A breakdown of the pertinent info:

Me: F, mid-fifties, just returned to PT work outside of home Husband: M, mid-fifties, always worked a regular job, main wage earner Married: 30+ years w/adult kids (no longer at home)

For a while, I've thought my husband has definitely shown signs of narcissistic behavior. I won't list everything, but a few things are that he is definitely argumentative (over seemingly insignificant issues), jealous, needy for my attention and flies off the handle if he feels ignored, his only "love language" seems to be sex (and any lack of it means I don't love him), he loves the silent treatment which is always followed by a huge blowup and then love-bombing, he always one-ups me (he works harder, he feels worse, he is more tired, etc). There's more, but I'm trying to keep this short. I will say that he has never physically hurt me, but he has spent a lot of energy being emotionally abusive.
I would say that is his main thing; constantly saying how much I don't love him and how much I don't care about him if he feels the least little bit ignored or has to spend any time alone. My going back to work at a PT job has just turned that fire into an inferno because I've gone from a SAHM/SAHW to working PT, and sometimes just by necessity he is by himself (I want to say that, in the thirty years he has worked his job, I have been by myself more times than I can count because he has worked scheduled/unscheduled/spur-of-the-moment overtime, and I just rolled with it because, really, what other choice was there? Unemployment for the main breadwinner?). He absolutely cannot handle being alone, while I find being alone refreshing and rejuvenating. In fact, I'm the opposite; I'm like, "Do you love me? Then go away and leave me alone for a while!"
But here's where I have been doing some thinking. I know that many of you are going to say that there is no way, but I do believe he loves me. I've seen the man behind all that. And I do love him, despite all of the problems and issues, and I believe as much as he understands it, he loves me too. I am determined to work on this marriage. It occurred to me the other day, when he was mad and throwing a fit about something; I thought; "He's acting like a toddler who needs a snack and a nap." And so my mind started wandering along those lines for a bit.
You see, my husband has had a hard life. Both of us grew up in dysfunctional families with abusive parents. His father was definitely a narcissist, and physically abusive to his wife and at least to my husband (the GC sibling seems to have escaped most of it) and I've heard was sexually abusive to family members as well. He put his wife in the hospital more than once because of severe beatings. He threatened to drive off a bridge with the whole family in the car. He threatened all of them with a gun and a family friend had to come over and save them. He regularly beat my husband for the crime of not eating his vegetables at dinner. When my husband was 22, and I was pregnant, his father tried to hit him over the head with a huge wrench. (My husband is a strong man; that was a dumb idea.) There’s apparently a lot more my husband won’t talk about and/or doesn't remember.
But his mother wasn't an angel, either (let's be clear, SHE DID NOT DESERVE SPOUSAL ABUSE OF ANY KIND. NO PERSON DESERVES ABUSE. However, you can not deserve abuse and, at the same time, not be a nice person). She believed the world revolved around her, she was never wrong and the smartest person in the room, and my husband was expected to be at her beck and call whenever she wanted him for whatever reason. She abused him in her own way. Hurting people hurt people. When I came along, he was nineteen, and I treated him like an adult; that went over like a lead balloon because she treated him like a child.
Shortly after we got married and had our first child, she purposefully ceased to live, which threw my husband into a deep, deep depression for a few years. It was rough. I tried to get him to go to therapy, but he flat refused. We worked through it and eventually had another child, and he can finally talk about it now, thirty-some years later. But he rarely visits her grave, and I’ve never forced him to go if he doesn’t want to.
At very significant points in his emotional development, my husband had some major life crises happen:

He had to retake first grade because his mother was put in the hospital by his father's abuse; he shut down to the point he wouldn't do his homework and had to be held back (which is hard enough); he would have been around 7 years old He spent his childhood dealing with an abusive father and wondering if he was going to literally not be alive His parents finally divorced when he was around 14 years old After that, he and his mother and sibling were constantly financially insecure His mother purposefully ceased to live when he was twenty-three, after we had just had our first child He has told me that he doesn’t remember large chunks of his childhood (which I understand is a trauma response)

As he was being 'constructed', there was built a severely flawed frame structure around these emotionally damaged areas; the ability in his ‘frame’ to withstand a structural state of stress is severely defective. He never really learned how to regulate his emotions, how to work through them or deal with them in a healthy way. His mother never got him therapy for the abuse he had endured since birth; if anything, she compounded it (that’s a whole post in itself because, wait for it, she was a counselor). The only relationship he had modeled on a consistent basis was a dysfunctional, abusive, unhealthy one. (He did have maternal grandparents who were loving and kind, but they couldn't be there 24/7.) His aunts and uncles were all also in dysfunctional marriages/divorces, so no help or escape there. As a result, he has nothing to draw from when he feels stress, irritation, anger, sadness, irritation, loneliness; he struggles to even identify the differences between all of those emotions. He is extremely simplistic in his thought processes when it comes to emotions: He feels good/bad, energetic/tired, loved/unloved, happy/sad, full/starving; sometimes he’s capable of mildly annoyed if he's in a really good mood, but mostly his emotions are one extreme or the other (they do not change wildly; he picks one and usually sticks with it for a while).
If he feels stressed in one area of his life, then EVERY area of his life, in his mind, sucks. Very black/white. No grey at all. I’m not sure he knows grey exists. He thinks life should ALWAYS be a happy feeling, and if there is any bad/sad/stress/negative emotion, then that ruins it all and he can only concentrate on that, like a pebble in his shoe.
It’s like if someone gave each of us an oatmeal raisin cookie (mine has my allergens/intolerances removed):
Neither of us are big fans of raisins, but we both like oatmeal cookies. I will just eat around the raisins, or I will pick them out. If that is impossible, I’ll just eat the raisins, even though they aren’t my favorites, because I like oatmeal cookies and I try to look at the positive. “A minute ago I didn’t have a cookie, but now I do have a cookie, even though it has raisins that I don’t like, so life is pretty okay at this moment.” (I try to find something positive, even if it’s just a little thing, and focus on that.)
He will spend his time bitching that his cookie has raisins. He doesn’t like raisins. Don’t they know he doesn’t like raisins? How is he supposed to eat this cookie with raisins? And if I point out that he can make the best of it and just try to pick out the raisins, then he gets all upset. “But I should have got a cookie with no raisins. I shouldn’t have to pick out the raisins. Even if I pick them out, I can still taste them. Life sucks all the time.” (He finds something negative in everything, even if it’s a little thing, and builds it up to overshadow all the good things.)
So, I’m thinking that he has probably inherited some narcissistic tendencies from his father (and some not-so-pleasant stuff from his mother as well), and then he’s added emotional trauma to this, which makes me think emotional immaturity has been stirred into this particular pie (or cookie, if you will). Could this be so?
Here’s a very recent case in point. He works nights. I mostly work days, but my job is such that I sometimes need to be ‘on-call’, and so occasionally I need to go in at weird hours/times. It’s a great job and I love it, and it’s a perfect fit for me and my skill-set, but he’s having a hard time adjusting to me not always being around like I have been for most of our marriage. (Remember, to him not being around=not loving him.) He feels like he’s not the center of attention any more, even though I’ve tried to make up for it.
Due to circumstances beyond our control, we are temporarily sharing a car. We're making the best of it, but it’s a hassle and we are both tired of it (using public transportation is not an option in our rural area and neither of us have coworkers who live close to us). His shifts can be 8-12 hours, depending. Well, on certain days of the month, he works mandatory 12-hour shifts. They are always on specific days. I made work plans based on that schedule, which never changes. But yep, you guessed it…this past Saturday, it changed. He told me that I didn’t need to take him to work that night since he was only working 8 hours, and I was all, “What? No, I really need the car because I already told my boss I would work tonight because I know you always work 12 hours on this day.”
Just how I was supposed to know the schedule changed, I’m not sure, but he completely lost the plot. He started yelling at me while we were still home and it didn’t stop until I dropped him off at work an hour later. I just shut down. He covered every subject; I didn’t love him, I didn’t care about his feelings, nobody EVER cares about his feelings, I always leave him alone, I never have sex with him so that PROVES I don’t love him (I have sat him down and told him, repeatedly, about some physical issues I am having at the moment that really don’t make sex much fun for me which I am under a doctor’s care for, and I have reassured him that I love him very much and I want to have sex with him but I need to get these physical things under control; to his credit, he has never forced me to have sex), I work too much, I shouldn’t have taken the stupid job anyway (he is the one who told me I should probably get a PT job), I don’t get paid enough (I make the going rate for what I do), I don’t clean the house enough, the dishes need washed, I don’t feed him properly, I’ll probably spend all day Sunday running errands for my mother (who is eighty, a manipulative narcissist herself, has health issues, I’m an only child, I have had to step up and help her) and not be home with him, and why am I so upset, what am I starting to cry about now???
Then Sunday, Mother’s Day, he must have felt guilty because he helped me carry in groceries and was nice to me all day. Not in a love-bombing way, not over-the-top or weird, just nice. He’s been nice to me today as well. He did mention in passing that on these scheduled 12-hour shifts that the crew on the other shift always leaves extra work for him to do, and then denies it, and he knows he’s going in to a mess and a ton of extra work (he has a hard, physically demanding job), so that puts him in a bad mood. I don’t know if that was his round-about way of apologizing or what. Yes, he probably was stressed out about going in to a mess at work, and my taking the car didn’t help, and he didn’t handle the stress/anger in a healthy way (to put it mildly). We both could have communicated better about work schedules, but I was just basing my decision to work on his never-changing schedule. It was frustrating, but it wasn’t the end of the world, and it all worked out. His reaction was totally out of proportion to the event.
So is that narcissistic behavior or immature behavior? It’s like he gets mad, he blows up, he comes to himself, he apologizes/acts sorry, loves on me, treats me good, sloooowly builds up anger again, gets silent silenter silentest…blows up again and the whole thing starts over. Why is this still happening? Shouldn’t we be past this by now? It’s hard to explain, and I know some of you won’t understand (and nor should you, based on what you have been through, which is truly horrific, and I am so sorry), but it’s like he comes to himself and realizes how he is acting, but later the hurt and anger take over again. And the cyclic pattern in his life continues.
Anyway, I have been thinking a lot about whether he might be more emotionally immature than narcissistic, or more narcissistic than emotionally immature, or some combo of both, and what I could do to help him and strategies to deal with it myself. NGL, it is really taking a toll on me emotionally. I feel like I have been run through the wringer every day. Some days I cry and cry (when I’m alone, never when he is here, he gets mad when I cry because he can’t handle negative emotions and he would never acknowledge he caused the negative emotion), some days I just shut down and sleep for 12 hours. I have a couple of mental health apps on my phone that I use.
We are at a time in our marriage when I feel like we should be enjoying ourselves (our adult children have moved out and we are a little more financially stable than we were the last time we had no kids at home), but it feels like everything is just falling apart. I feel like we shouldn’t be arguing about this same stuff after thirty-plus years, but here we are, still arguing about whether I love him or not.
Thank you for reading my long and boring post. Just typing it all out helped.

Like the title says, I often feel compelled to optimize therapy. Ex.: come to session with a specific topic, ideally one that is very profound and heavily affects my life. I have this weird fantasy of jumping right into the darkest and most twisted aspects of my past in some attempt to resolve them as efficiently as possible. I am a perfectionist, and this behavior is probably a manifestation of that. I'm infatuated with trying to be the best at therapy, make my therapist's job as straightforward as possible, speedrun healing if you will.
It doesn't work. I know it doesn't. When it comes down to it I don't actually want to deal with the conversation that comes with a specific, trauma-related topic. I'd rather joke about it or talk about it at a distance. During session I will gravitate toward, lighter, short-term concerns, or I'll ask my therapist to choose from the long backlog of things we haven't revisited yet. The issue is that forcing myself to talk about the darker topics will often lead me to become irritable or shut down, and it's usually then that my therapist offers to redirect the conversation. Even so, I'll end up feeling shame, like I've embarrassed myself or "failed" in some way.
My therapist has said on multiple occasions that all things we talk about are valuable to him, and that we can take our time because he's getting the insurance money regardless. I find that I hear this but I don't actually listen. It's like I'm logically present but emotionally absent, which is counterintuitive, but it's also a trauma response.
Unsurprisingly, I spend most of my personal time trying to optimize my life, and I keep repeating the process in therapy. I know the feelings of disappointment, urgency, and shame would disappear if I allowed myself to take each day as it comes, but I cannot shake the nagging feeling that I'm somehow not doing therapy, or life for that matter, the "right" way.
How does one allow themselves to mess up in therapy? How do you release the desire to be perfect at something so innately unique, difficult, and subjective?
I figured I'd put this out there to see if anybody else has this same issue, and how it's been going for people thus far.

Based on your experiences and wisdom internet strangers, how should I approach this because I have feelings for her? Should I tell her, or back off?
TL;DR is that I think I might be getting hints and clues that this girl I know may have feelings for me, but graduation is in a few weeks, and the parting of ways is inevitable.
There is this girl who I have recently, in the past year and a half or so, gotten to know well. I live in a town across the valley from hers, and we are both 18, being seniors in separate high schools. We have been texting each other for what almost felt like daily or multiple times a week well since the beginning of the summer before our senior year, and have not lost any momentum. I don’t always initiate conversation, as she likes to spark conversations through texting, whether it’s the most recent adventure, anecdote, or cake she baked, I’m not talking to a wall. We also talk in person whenever we can. When we see each other at weekly church meetings, she always tries to sit next to me, or does so when she can, and since I tried out track this year, each meet our schools are both at, we both without asking each other, watch each others events and cheer each other on, and we talk just about anything and everything. I think her parents and family like me pretty well, and I have a good relationship with them, and my family adores her. The problem is where I think I stand with her.
That problem is exemplified by the fact that our graduations our quickly creeping up on us, and we’re going to be parting ways as I’m moving to a bordering state in the middle of the summer, and not too long after will be serving a 2 year mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints all the way down in Mexico in late August. However, I’d be surprised to be “Dear John’d” as she is also going to serve a mission for our church before going to university, and is waiting to have her finished papers submitted. The timing would be perfect, as by the time she gets done with her mission, I’d be back home from mine oddly enough. We are also thinking about different universities which we both got accepted to, for me, USU and BYU Provo, for her BYU-I. The nice thing about the mission is that it’s like a 2 year gap-year, so if anything were to happen and be set into motion, we could try to go to the same school after. But I’m wondering if the fact that we are thinking about different schools and that I’m moving will make her fret if she does feel anything for me.
Some final preface is that we’ve been to homecoming together our junior year and that’s when our relationship kind of started. I also asked her to my senior prom in a fun, personal way for her, and she wasn’t weird about it, and was genuinely excited for it, saying yes, and that she was suspecting that I would ask her. We had a great time together and with the group we were with. When we took pictures with everyone, the photographer who was a mom asked our group to walk towards her for some cool shots, and for the couples to hold hands while doing so. Me being unsure and shy, didn’t grab her hand, but she sure grabbed mine and totally locked fingers with me (Mormon first base lol). At the dance, we slow danced to every song we could, when she wanted to, and I tried my best to match her energy the whole time (as a person who can’t dance, and is kind of introverted in stark comparison to her extroverted extreme nature). I later learned from my mom from her mom that she noticed and made mention of that, how I matched her energy intentionally. Afterwards, when it was time to go home and drop her off, I walked her to the door and she gave me what I can only describe in my mind as an intimate hug, which has happened between us before as well.
I’m leaning on the edge of her liking me back (rare glass half full view for me personally) because of a bunch of specific instances that blur the line of friendship between us, making it feel like we are more than just friends, and I’ll share a few key ones: (Sorry for making it look like a police report, that’s just the way my mind operates)
Exhibit A: On prom, I told her about the fact that I was moving in the middle of the summer because I needed to tell her in person, and it needed to come from me (weird time to tell someone that), but if I didn’t, she would’ve found out otherwise through town and church gossip. I was met with an immediate sad response, but that was quickly washed away and we had fun at the dance. What’s interesting is what she texted me after the fact: “What if we never see each other again…Sorry this is just crazy I'm going crazy I hate change and not sleeping so guna go to bed before this becomes a what if I die moments.”
Exhibit B: There are instances where I think she is trying to flirt with me, one of them being a response to me saying that I’m going to be somewhere where she thinks she’s going. The response in question was “I’m going now for sure [winky emoji, laughing emoji]”
Exhibit C: I have received 3 hugs from her that have stuck with me, and we’re all pretty intimate. Once after I gave her a meaningful gift after one of her favorite livestock she was taking care of died, which was pure luck and chance as I got a hat for her with a gag signature from my uncle called “the pig whisperer” which I was planning to give to her not as a cheering up gift, because I didn’t know her animal died. And once after I got my mission call, and once after dropping her off back at her house after Prom as mentioned before.
I don’t want to ruin our relationship because I value her a lot as a friend, but I think I’m seeing something more, and I don’t want to regret not doing anything.
Sorry for the long story, just looking for experienced insights. I don’t want to be “…falling in love as she’s walking away,” haha. Thank you for reading through my plight, and for those of you who respond.

Many people are calling for Ned's head lately.
I don't think he's been perfect. He has a positive reputation around the league at least as a person and businessperson. That doesn't mean he's a good scout.
I think it's important to separate hirings into categories one would attribute to the owner, the coach, or the general manager, even though it is reportedly a collaborative process and Paulson has to sign off on everything. It is also essential to note that different coaches have different systems, styles, strategies, and tactics. Players identified as having the skills, disposition, mentality, etc. for particular purposes under a particular coach may not work as well in different circumstances. For example, I'll suggest that having a slow right centerback isn't as much of a problem with a right fullback who can track back, central midfielders who can help cover, and an offense that defends higher, doesn't turn the ball over so often, and is effective in attack. Also, given the relatively sudden and unexpected departures of Porter and Wilkinson, and the transition periods between coaches and scouting/technical staff, it's important to note that there were times when there weren't people in particular roles and the styles, tactics, strategies, philosophies, etc. weren't clear or changed.
While I have no proof and Ned has expressed his enthusiasm for and confidence in Neville, I very much feel like Phil is Paulson's guy. It was said that he had a rapport with Paulson. I don't expect Ned to say anything publicly that isn't supportive. Maybe he actually believed Neville was the best candidate and maybe he still believes he's a good coach.
Using Wikipedia, I documented which players signed with the club or had their contracts extended while Ned was in different roles.
When he was promoted to Technical Director, he was specifically credited with scouting specific players. He's also credited with finalizing the deal with Evander in late 2022, after GW was fired but before he was officially GM. The rumor is that the deal was going to fall apart before Ned took over negotiations. I've italicized those players that Ned might have been involved in scouting, recruiting, signing, or extending who are still on the team. I've also indicated when I think it's pretty clear when a player was brought in by a coach because of some past association. I may be wrong about some and may have missed some. I know there is incomplete information but I only tried so hard. There are also situations where the player was technically signed to an extension in one year but it was effectively for the next season. The distinction between preseason and summer transfer window signings isn't always obvious. Also, many of these players were scouted for some time before a decision was made to sign them and an opportunity presented itself. For example, Wilkinson talked about wanting Lucas Melano for some time. I think Porter was big on him too. We had our eyes on Yimmi Chara for a long time too. Considering that, I'm not inclined to credit Ned with 2017 signings at all, and don't think he had much to do with the renewal or financial decisions until 2023.
Director of Scouting and Recruitment - November 2016
2017 Season
Signings

• Andres Flores - Gio
• Modou Jadama

Extensions/Renewals

• Jeff Attinella
• Kendall McIntosh
• Zark Valentin - Porter
• Dairon Asprilla
• Jack Barmby
• Bill Tuiloma

2018 Season
Signings

• Julio Cascante
• Foster Langsdorf
• Eryk Williamson
• Jorge Villafaña - Returned. Originally signed as a Porter player.
• Steve Clark
• Andy Polo - Ned is credited with scouting him. GW took credit for his extension.
• Cristhian Paredes - Ned is credited with scouting him.
• Samuel Armenteros
• Tomás Conechny

Extensions/Renewals

• Zerek Valentin
• Jeremy Ebobisse
• Modou Jadama
• Bill Tuiloma
• Foster Langsdorf
• Kendall McIntosh

Technical Director - December 2018
2019 Season
Signings

• Marvin Loría - Ned is credited with scouting him.
• Renzo Zambrano - Ned is credited with scouting him.
• Claude Dielna - Ned is credited with scouting him.
• Aljaz Ivavic
• Brian Fernandez
• Jorge Moreira

Extensions/Renewals

• Sebastian Blanco
• Diego Valeri
• Bill Tuiloma
• Steve Clark
• Jeremy Ebobisse

2020 Season
Signings

• Yimmi Chara
• Blake Bodily
• Jaroslaw Niezgoda
• Chris Duvall
• Pablo Bonilla
• Zac McGraw
• Felipe Mora
• Dario Zuparic

Extensions/Renewals

• Dairon Asprilla

2021 Season
Signings

• Larrys Mabiala
• Santiago Moreno

2022 Season
Signings

• Justin Vom Steeg
• David Ayala
• Justin Rasmussen
• Diego Gutierrez
• Cristhian Paredes
• Claudio Bravo
• Juan David Mosquera

Extensions/Renewals

• Felipe Mora
• Zac McGraw
• Diego Chara

General Manager - December 2023
October 2022 - GW Fired
2023 Season
Signings

• Evander - Neville said that he had wanted Evander at Miami.
• Miguel Araujo
• Antony
• Eric Miller
• Frank Boli

Extensions/Renewals

• Nathan Fogaça

2024 Season
Signings

• Kamal Miller - Neville guy
• James Pantemis - Neville guy
• Trey Muse - Neville guy?
• Maxime Crepeau - Neville guy
• Jonathan Rodriguez

Extensions/Renewals

• Juan David Mosquera
• Santiago Moreno
• Eric Miller

Do we blame these guys going forward?
Jack Dodd - Technical Director - April 2023

• Former Director of Scouting for Toronto and a scout for Liverpool and Crystal Palace

Nacho Leblic - Director of Scouting - February 2024
With all of this info, I think we can blame Ned in whole or in part for the following current players being signed and / or having their contracts renewed:

1. Rodriguez
2. Evander
3. Loría
4. Williamson
5. Moreno
6. Mosquera
7. McGraw
8. Eric Miller
9. Fogaça
10. Antony
11. Mora
12. Diego Chara
13. Araujo
14. Paredes
15. Ayala
16. Mabiala
17. Asprilla
18. Kamal Miller
19. Muse
20. Crepeau
21. Pantemis
22. Sulte
23. Zuparic
24. Ikoba
25. Bravo

Gee, that's the entire roster. Realistically though, I'm only crediting him for 2023 and maybe Rodriguez. He wasn't really GM until Evander at the end of 2022. GW, Paulson, Porter, Gio, and Neville all have had input and in many cases more authority in decision-making up to that point.
Which players came and went under Ned's watch should we not have signed or not let go?
And which players who are still on the roster just objectively suck and aren't MLS-level players? As starters or depth? Who doesn't even have any potential? Who has aged out? Who is good but doesn't fit the system? Who doesn't fit Neville's system but fit Gio's? Note: this is all in MLS-level terms.

1. Rodriguez was great but is now just good and arguably doesn't fit the system. He's a second striker but we only play with one forward. I don't think the 4-4-2 we tried against Seattle was a good idea. Obviously, it didn't work. Maybe a diamond of Evander, Chara, Ayala, and Paredes. We'd need more defense to cover for Mosquera getting forward and Moreno tucking in. But I digress...
2. Evander is good but poorly utilized and inconsistent. He plays to the level of his teammates. He's not a leader. Could he be great? Probably not as a 10. He's got flashes though, so I hope I'm wrong.
3. Loría in my eyes isn't MLS level and hit his ceiling. I'll accept arguments that he's a good sub for the money.
4. Williamson is good but oft-injured, and inconsistently plays to the level of his teammates.
5. Moreno is inconsistent, sometimes played out of position, doesn't fit the system, but has potential. He takes chances, which I respect, but maybe doesn't have the best judgement. Maybe he can learn. I hope so. He tries. He's good. He could be great. He probably shouldn't be the starter all the time.
6. Mosquera is a good winger but terrible fullback. Or maybe he's a good wingback but terrible fullback, depending on how you define the roles. Maybe he has potential. I increasingly doubt it. He doesn't seem to have the mentality for it. He's Alvas Powell 2.0. I'd love to be wrong. He tried last match. If he becomes a good fullback he'll be great overall.
7. McGraw is good but terrible in the system, especially when Mosquera doesn't track back. He's just too slow and sometimes has poor judgement.
8. Eric Miller is good as a sub right fullback and decent as a sub left fullback.
9. Fogaça isn't good and has no potential. I'd love to be wrong. I like his workrate but he's not MLS quality and never will be.
10. Antony is good, not great, and maybe has potential. His first touch is garbage, he's one-footed, and he doesn't make smart runs. He fast though. I don't think he can succeed on a shitty team like ours because he won't see the ball enough. Ideally, he'd understudy to a great winger and learn from them.
11. Mora is surprisingly good. He's opportunistic. He's a leader. He's committed. He puts in effort. I still don't think he's a DP and I'd kind of prefer he was a subto an even better forward but it's hard to argue with success.
12. Diego Chara. He's still very good. People who say he's lost a step are confusing his inability to cover everybody else's mistakes, and his own occasional lapses, with having lost it. He's barely lost anything. He'd look better on a team that wasn't absolute ass. It's sad for him.
13. Araujo. I think he's good but just too slow for this system. His passing is good and he's good with the ball at his feet. His positioning and judgement seem fine, generally. I'd bet he'd look better on a better team too. I could say the same for some former centerbacks as well.
14. Paredes. He's good. He's developed and grown on me. He's pretty consistent and generally puts in effort. He rarely pisses me off. I'd hoped he'd develop into a 6 but that's apparently not to be. I think he's hit his ceiling. He's a great rotator or sub. Not a star.
15. Ayala. He's good. Could become great if he can stay healthy and get more development. I'm worried about his injury history. He's a bit small and can get pushed around a bit.
16. Mabiala. He's just too old and slow now. Good dude. Maybe his last extension was too long. I think the tactics are especially bad for him but he wasn't good enough last season either. Father Time just caught up faster than we expected.
17. Asprilla. Is he good? I don't think he really is. But his moments of sheer genius, his workrate, and his heart make him great. As a sub. Flare counts for a lot. I love it when Asprilla dazzles.
18. Kamal Miller. He's good but too slow for the system.
19. Muse. No idea man.
20. Crepeau. He's great but we sure haven't given him a chance to be great for us yet.
21. Pantemis. He's good and could be great.
22. Sulte. I've only ever seen him be awful. I wish him the best but have no reason for optimism, especially since Muse came on.
23. Zuparic. He's the best player in the league, obviously. He's good. Maybe he was great once. He's not good enough for the system at least. If Neville ever substantively changes tactics I think he could be solid for us again. Seems like his attitude may be a problem though. Who knows what to believe?
24. Ikoba. Absolute mystery to me. I assume the worst from context clues. Wish him the best. I think he, Sulte, and all who came before underscore how wretched our academy system is. Who do we blame for that? Does it matter? I think it does. I'd love to develop cheap players we could sell to reinvest in the club.
25. Bravo. He's great. He could be brilliant. He makes the occasional mistake but that's the price of greatness. He takes risks. He's a fighter too. Love this dude but he still gets underrated and shit on. We're so much better with him on the team. How often do we have good fullbacks, especially a left back. Him, Moreira, and Villafaña are kind of it, right? Farfan showed promise but bringing Jorge back stunted his prospects with us?

I think we are less than the sum of our parts. I don't think too many of our players are scrubs. We have too much invested in central midfield, centerback, and keeper. Central midfield was complicated by injuries and Chara's insane longevity. Our poor DP signings hurt our ability to move on from them in terms of timing and money. Ivacic was still on the books well into the last transfer window. Mabiala is taking up roster and cap space. Zuparic is questionable. McGraw and Araujo just don't seem to be good fits for the system that Neville is trying to implement. Kamal Miller isn't either but Neville doesn't realize that. I'll suggest that Mosquera not defending hurt the CBs last season too, along with the missing attacking DPs.
I don't know what we can realistically do about our problems near-term. I don't think Nevilleball works even with a right fullback who can defend and faster centerbacks. That would help. But the lack of off-the-ball movement, lack of ball progression through midfield, lack of creative runs, poor passing, low pressure, shitty zonal marking on set piece defending, not closing passing lanes, not stepping to the ball; not making incisive, line-splitting passes; not communicating, poor rotations, not making the final pass or taking shots in the box, passing back all the time, slow build-up, not covering the far post, injuries... It's a lot. Some of these problems predate Neville, so he ought to have accounted for them and adjusted accordingly. The FO has denied lack of talent is a problem. That leaves coaching and attitude or mentality. Attitude and mentality often come back to coaching IMHO.

TLDR- jealous of my boyfriend’s ex, they dated for about 6 years, she dumped him. I compare myself to her everyday and stalk her accounts everyday. Bfs mum comments on exes posts all the time. How do I stomp this insane jealousy out for good.
My boyfriend (22 M) and I (22 F) have been together for almost 2 years now, I love him very much and I believe he loves me very much also. When we first started dating he had only split with his ex (23 F) about 3 months prior and she was still technically living with him (had her own room and was still on the lease). I was also somewhat fresh out of a relationship where I was cheated on and emotionally abused on the regular. As our relationship progressed over the next few months I never saw his ex at his place, her stuff was there but she had moved back into her parents, eventually she moved all of her stuff out with the help from her new boyfriend.
Now, my boyfriend and his ex were high school sweethearts, they dated for about 6 or 7 years on and off at times. When she broke up with him for the final time, they had been living together for a couple of months. About a month after they split she entered into a new relationship with someone else.
Im not sure why I feel so jealous, I think partly because they were together for so long from such a young age. His ex is seriously stunning and quite talented creatively. Lately my jealousy has gotten worse, I stalk her social media every day, constantly comparing myself to her and worrying my boyfriend misses her and still loves her. His mum also has her added on social media still and comments nice things on her posts and vice versa. His ex still has some photos of them together on her social media with loving comments from my boyfriend, things that he doesn’t comment on my photos, in fact he doesn’t have any photos of me on his socials.
I’ve had boyfriends before and I was never really jealous of their exes, not like this at least. Is there a way I can curb this jealousy forever, I am worried I will jeopardize my relationship.

When: Sunday 5-12-2024
Where: O’Hare International Airport, American Airlines
Items Lost and/or stolen:
1. Remarkable 2, The paper Tablet
2. Marker Plus w/ Tablet
3. Remarkable 2 folio case
On 5-11-2024, I flew American Airline from North Carolina to Chicago Ohara International airport. The plane sat right off the runway for about an hour, the plane had no gate to park. Most of the passengers missed their connecting flight. I missed my connection to Portland OR by minutes. I was rebooked for a flight for the next day to Portland via Dallas Tx On Sunday 5-12-2024 at 2:40pm. When boarding the plane, we had to check in our carry-on bag because it was full (I had my work laptop and new Remarkable 2 tablet in my carry-on). We started to taxi out to the runway, then stopped. After about 40 minutes, the pilot came on the speaker and said there would be a delay of about ½ hour to an hour. He then came on to the speaker and said that they were now saying it would be 1-3 hours and he had decided to deplane. The flight was then cancelled. I could not get my carry-on, because it would be going to Dallas and then Portland once a flight went out. I was able to book another flight to Portland 6 hours later. When I landed, I was able to get my check in bag, it had arrived the day before, but the carry-on that I did not want to check in was not there. It would be there in about an hour. So, I waited. By this time, I had spent about 2days or about 30 hours in the airports (they did give me a $12.00 food voucher- you cannot even get a sandwich for that price). I was so exhausted I grabbed my baggage when it got there, and we drove another hour to Salem. By this time, I had been travelling and in airports since Saturday morning at 9:00am and it was now after Midnight Sunday night /Monday morning. I was able to get home about 2:30am.
I slept for a couple of hours and when I opened my carry-on the laptop was in there, but the tablet was gone. I had just bought it just over a month ago and all together had spent $444.99.
I have tried filing a claim, you cannot do that w/o filing a missing baggage report. My bag is not missing. My tablet is. You cannot file a claim w/o original receipt within 24 hours. There is no one to whom you can talk. No one to help you. The one gal I managed to get ahold of was customer service but not for complaints or baggage problems. Her comment to me was “there are over 44 million customers a day with problems, you think we want talk to all of them”. That is what American Airlines thinks of their customers.
I knew my tablet was in the bag when they made me check my bag. They should be held liable. For as long as they held onto the luggage, anyone could have opened it up and took it. I am hoping I am wrong, and it is in the airport somewhere. Chicago, Portland, or Dallas. I feel like I will never see it again.
I know this, I will never fly AA again. They have terrible service, there planes are not in very good shape, just an all-around bad experience. I heard a lot of passengers complain about the airline. No one had anything good to say about them.
How many people has this happened to? Can they just get away with stealing and ripping people off? Making people’s lives miserable by having one of the most unorganized people and baggage and fight handling systems in the world.
Is there a chance a class action lawsuit could be filed? I am sorry I cannot just let them take $500 from me; I work too hard for my money. I feel like they have robbed me.

I (W21) and my boyfriend (M22) have been dating for 3 years now, and everything has been fine until now. We have known each other since high school, and we were friends for 3 years before dating each other. Not that long ago, I was asking my boyfriend about his previous relationships, I was curious because he is my first boyfriend, but he had been in multiple relationships before dating me. When we first became friends, he quickly developed feelings for me, but I rejected him because I knew that nothing would have worked out back then, so he ended up dating different people while we were friends. I was there for most of his relationships as a friend (I haven't developed any feelings, and everything between us was platonic). Every once in a while, he would confess his feelings to me, and I would turn him down. I have seen what he was like during every breakup. After a year or two of us just being friends (he would still confess to me that he liked me), he started dating this girl. When he first started dating her (and when we first started dating), he would compare things about us, such as our hobbies, characteristics, personalities, work ethic, the sport that we played, and many other things like that. He would tell me how much she and I had in common, but at that time, I didn't think much about anything, solely because it wasn't any of my business. When they broke up, I had never seen him so heartbroken. One of the biggest reasons I thought maybe I should give him a chance was because of how long he has liked me. So recently, I brought her up because I was curious to see what type of relationship they had, and I slowly started to understand that I was being lied to. I started to realize that I was her replacement. I confronted him about the situation. I asked him who he liked first, her or me. In my mind, I always thought that he had always liked me first. The answer he gave me was her. So I asked him when he started liking me. He told me that it was a couple of months before we started dating. So that means that for three years, him telling me that he liked me was a lie. He told me that he didn't like me the times he told me he did, he claimed that he had a "thing" for me the whole time when we were friends but didn't truly develop feelings until we actually started dating, he has told me multiple times that I'm not her replacement, but the whole timeline and information just doesn't seem right. So now I just feel like his ex's rebound. What do I do? Do you guys believe him? Am I a replacement???

The title is kind of confusing so I will try to explain it to the best of my abilities without giving away too much information.
To start out I am not in a union and the state I live in is considered an "at will" state.
A few months ago the company that I work for published the wage scales to be more open and transparent with what people can expect when they move up in the company. The wage scale is based off of steps in your training and each time you train for a new position you get a raise until you have maxed out on training. No one is required to complete all the training and they make it your choice if you want to or not. All you have to do is say you want to train up and they will let you. Since you don't have to do all of the training, within each step of the training they have the yearly raises built in the wage scale to show what you will be making after 1 year, 2 years and so on in each position if you were to stop at any given spot in the training.
Recently I completed all of the training and there are no more positions that I can train for, so now I am just going to get yearly raises from here on out. When I completed my training I was expecting to make what the wage scale posted on the company website showed that I should be making, however, when they updated my position on our company pay stub and position tracking website they put the position on there correctly but the pay said I was getting paid about $1 an hour less than the posted wage scale. It may not seem like much, but I after 40 hours/ week for a whole year that makes a significant difference. Not to mention I work a lot of overtime so that's $1.50 an hour less for my OT.
I talked with my supervisors (who have no say in how much I make since it is based off of a scale) and they all agreed that I should be making more. So I emailed HR and Payroll for the company to try to get it fixed. They replied that my pay rate was correct and that the wage scales that were posted have since been changed but they did not update them on the company website. I asked all of my co-workers (who have all cleared all training long ago) and they were getting paid based off of the original scale posted so I sent another email explaining that and within 24 hours the wage scales were removed completely off of the website. Luckily I took screenshots with dates and times as well as the date the wages were posted because they were on page "last edited (insert date)". Another 48 hours after they removed the original wage scales they posted the new ones. The new scale shows that with the position that I am in, my pay is correct (meaning the $1 an hour less amount).
I am wondering if it is even worth fighting for the extra $1 an hour. I am newer to the company and don't want to be let go for putting up a fight, but I also don't want to be known for not fighting for myself in these types of situations and let people think they can walk all over me. I am a pretty agreeable person and normally just go with the flow unless something directly effects me. I stay out of drama and help my direct co-workers out as much as possible, when they ask me to do something I will do it as long as it is work related because I want my company to succeed. I am finally feeling comfortable around my coworkers and I love what I do so I don't want to ruin that.
TIA for all the advice!

We have 50/50 week on week off. Our son is 13.
I took a pretty long (2.5 week) vacation without my son in April, I asked my ex if he would be willing to watch him during my parenting time for a trip like that 6 months in advance. I asked him three months in advance if the specific dates I had would work. At that point I asked for the time off and finalized my plans. It was during this time that I decided to get our son a passport since I was getting mine anyway that he mentioned to me that he would like to go to -international country- to visit his wife’s family and take our son. That was about 8 months ago. I have asked him monthly if he has any plans or updates about that trip as an international trip for a teen is a big deal. Never any solid plans or details of any kind.
Finally at an event last weekend (I have already returned from my trip) I asked, again, if he had any updates on this plan, what are your summer plans with our son etc. It was kind of understood that I would be flexible about this trip for him since he was cool about my trip. His response was “I’m shooting for sometime in August”. No idea for how long or what dates. I told him less than 48 hours later that I have been planning a trip for my son (disneyland) that we already had one week (my parenting time) already planned. In August.
He freaked out and told me that it was right in the middle of the month and it was a good thing he asked three months in advance and now he’s planning a trip without our son, implying that it is my Fault.
Any thoughts on how I should proceed? I would love to be able to accommodate both trips and work together. But without knowing literally any info and being met with that kind of unnecessary response was a bit triggering for me and it makes me nervous to say anything else that could be thrown in my face.

What happened when I came out to my ex
So we were introduce by a Kendra Lee Taylor (filler generic name) (her at the time best friend), and she was Jessica Lilly Wilson (another filler generic name) . And this is what happened
Sooo. For one, I'm transgender. (Mtf), and I was with my abusive ex (cis woman), since literally high-school. We were together for a long time, I told her I would ".Wear women's clothes, and fantasize about being a woman. And for some reason dressing as one in private helped me cope sometimes." I also had expressed that sometimes it would cause me to get turned on (what the trans community later described as 'euphoria erections'). She didn't mind, atleast she said she didn't, she said she thought it was sexy, she liked a 'guy in touch with his feminine side' ,and she was bisexual anyways. I had coped with my gender issues (which i didn't fully realize were gender issues due to upbringing) , by just having these private escapes, often with her as an audience. She turned it more and more sexual though. Often whenever I was just relaxing in fem clothes she ALWAYS progressed it to sex. Now I had a bit of a 'being dominated' fetish I'm not gonna lie. But often she wanted me to do things I thought were really.gross. like making me sit in our sex juices, or sit with my own ejaculate on myself. She had a weird and honestly sick fetish for stuff like that. Specific to males in panties. And I kinda just coped with life with the mentality of " well I get to have the family the 'good Christian kid' and his high-school sweetheart. And my mother will one day look at grand babies and love the hell out of em, and that'll make all this worth it. Also I want to clarify, Post transition (so as a woman) I would be a lesbian. I've never been attracted to men. Another reason why my gender issues confused me so much. I also ALWAYS was just as honest with my partner (my abuser), as I was with myself at any given time in regards to this issue. So its not like I was a total closet case to my at the time gf. Sadly my mother got really sick. And no. She didn't make it. She went rather fast. It was devastating, tbh we had a more matriarchal system in our household, despite our father being a religious zealot. She ran the home, and he normally caved to what she wanted. I became so deeply depressed I was going to genuinely kill myself. Eventually one day I just told my partner, " I need to explore my fem side and figure out what this gender issue is, and I need to fully explore it, to see if my feminine side is just latent desires I couldn't act on when younger or if I was actually trans. " she VERY reluctantly , and angrily one day took me to get some clothes of my own. A padded bra, multiple women's underwear, and some thigh highs, and agreed to let me continue to borrow some of her stuff, until I got more items. We began exploring. Well I did, she kept trying to fetishize it, and when I told her no, or when I stayed dressed even after sex. She would get beyond huffy with me. She started getting more and more mean to me as I continued to explore in a non sexualized way. I eventually one night extremely scared and sobbing, told her I was trans and there was nothing anyone could do to fix it. So I braced for impact, expecting her to break up with me. I was astounded she said " There is nothing wrong with you, its the 2020s, and people are becoming more accepting now." I was terrified, knowing my dad was never gonna accept it, and my brothers were a coin toss, though I knew my.younger one most likely wouldn't care. And I didn't think my older one really would either but still. Hiwever as I continued in my path to coming out as a transwoman. She got more and more verbally and maliciously abusive, she sabotaged things I was beginning to try, she berated me constantly and even tried to delay my coming out. I eventually started dressing as a woman full time, except at work. And around my bio family. I started hrt in private, except my partner and her parents knew. (She was my abuser not my partner). She turned from a sweet borderline feminist, and fairly sensible liberal gal, to an irl reddit cringelord for lack of a better term. She started taking these really jacked up takes, that she never espoused before, and calling me names like " gender retard". I kept pleading with her to stop, that if she wanted to break up we just could, I'd need some time to find a place, but everything could be amicable (btw I was clear that this option always was on the table), and It was ok if she didn't wanna stay alot of couples split after a transition and that doesn't make you a bigot. But if you want to keep trying, please stop mistreating me. Several of my friends had wanted me to dump her for how she was acting. But I foolishly believed she loved me and was just having a hard time. But eventually she dumped me and at the worst time, I had lost a job , got a new job, and had to leave it for safety reasons and was basically financially dependent on her, despite wanting to leave but needing an exit strategy. She turned our new apartment (after we fled her parents house) into a horror house. I still to this day have nightmares of waking up on the couch with her about to walk through the door. The abuse was horrible. At one point comongntoca head with her brutally beating me black and blue. I didnt fight back. Within a few weeks I was on sidewalks. We had a savings account that I had helped build for over SEVEN years. And it was in her name. And she kept all of it. I was homeless and still technically am. But am housed. I don't know how to have peace. I see her when I close my eyes. I hear her insults in my head. And I'm STILL recovering from her financial abuse. What do I do? Please...

(Warning, it’s not short)
So boom, I’m the new guy at work, as of rn, I’ve been there for under under 2 months. I came in w intentions of keeping to myself, because I am experienced w the toxicity of warehouse work culture. So there’s a guy at work, he’s tall and cute, turns out he thought I was cute too.
After weeks of us walking past each other, his uncle forced us to stop being cowardly and we exchanged numbers. So I think where I messed up at is not setting boundaries w him, initially. We just met and from the jump, honestly, he’s been a bit too touchy and affectionate, which I get because he said it’s his love language(it’s mine as well), but we known each other for all but 3 weeks. I finally set boundaries w him recently, and told him we have to take it(and I told him explicitly that this is a friendship) a bit slower. No more of the arm holding, thigh groping, trying to kiss me etc. because people at work talk, and I don’t need others in our business. Not because of our sexuality, but because I have messy co workers, and it would be extra frustrating if we didn’t fall through and had to walk past each other, and gossiping goes around. Also, I’m still getting used to him, yet he over sexualizes me and the conversation, sometimes…
So one of his “work family” said she doesn’t approve. Now before I continue, I wanna say his work family is a big group, like damn. She said we were cute, but she didn’t like “this”, pointing at us. Except tho there’s no “this”, we just are friends, vibing together. Idk if they felt I took him away from them or what. Mind you this happened the second wk of us being friends(around the start of the 2nd shift I ever spent w him). And the rest of that shift, we kept getting(mainly me), negative energy/staring & his work family ppl coming up to us. One of the fam was slyly asking him why is he he not where he usually works. And when I asked him about the unexplained tension, I was befuddled by his response.. He said they got the vibe that I’m ghetto, messy, super feminine, and the stuck, conceited up kind of gay. Sometimes ppl always have this annoying perception of me I stg. Mind you they don’t know me irl, and just @ the start of may, I was cordial and friendly when they spoke to me. I thought they were chill, and glad he had accepting middle aged people at work, that support him as a young gay man. Mind you, they all actually wanted us to speak, so the switch up is insane.
Today one of them came up and asked me why I don’t visit them when “my lil friend” don’t work those days. The one next to her was giving me a cold stare ( she usually does this), and then says “she’s mother”, referring to the one who questioned me…so now it’s giving this is some serious clique-y family” energy that I just walked into. My issue is I keep forgetting how fake and messy warehouse co workers are, and why my past history shows it’s best not to mix/mingle, just wrk and go home. Now I will say, he already told me he doesn’t care what they think, and he’s told them he’s gonna do what he wants to do, and I believe that. But I don’t have the time for work drama because of side comments and stares from those work family ppl TWICE me and his age(I’m 22, he just turned 23). No younger than 35 for sure on their end.
Should I put distance between me and him? Should I address their weird behavior? I’m leaning towards a friend zone, but not sure yet.
EDIT: not all of his work family is bad, a few are friendly to me, open minded, and give me a genuine vibe. Like the uncle and this other pretty lady w arm tats. But the other 70% are weird vibes, and I don’t like them, and keep my distance as a result. I can’t fake with people I don’t like, it’s a disservice to them. My spirit wouldn’t let me.

It's kind of complicated bc it's more than the title, honestly. I'm in a server where we do apocalypse rps, and such, and I've been rping in it for almost two years. Everytime I roleplay though I tend to get forgotten about, a lot. Like I could be roleplaying right there and they forget, or I ask a question so I could know and they ignore the question completely.
Then there's only two females in there, me and my other friend we'll call flower. They really like roleplaying with flower but tends to ignore me, and it hurts bc it feels like I'm excluded a lot of the time. I have my assumptions too though, I think the reason they enjoy roleplaying with flower is because she can do erp. I don't do erp because my bf sees it as cheating and I timeskip to respect my bfs wishes. In the vent channel flower will vent about anything, any small things like stubbing her toe and so many people will come to ask her if she's okie etc. then she complains about no one being there for her, even though I try and text her to let her know I'm there. Then she ignores me completely! Which honestly hurts a lot because I want to be there for her.
In a way though me getting hurt isn't as much as a concern as other people. I blacked out and face planted the wall, and told them I would be slow bc I blacked out and face planted. All I got was a skull emoji, and ignored as they continued to rp without me. Which also hurts a lot.
It also kind of upsets me because flower was complaining to me and her bf in VC that this one guy is obsessed ( well call him cheese) with her and she doesn't understand why he keeps acting like her bf when they aren't dating. Which is weird because she erps with cheese A LOT, and he's single and she's pretty. Honestly I'm more than positive that her bf has no idea that she is erping and such. part of it is because of their insecurities of their relationship, as well as she accused my friend of cheating on her husband because my friend was talking to my other dude friend.
In the server I'm more than positive that most of the people are straight up against me. Like I said that a plague hasnt past through the main group of the server yet. It would be interesting to see them try and overcome a plague all together in a way and build closer relationships. Cheese immediately replied with "no, not happening, I don't want to deal with this. It always feels like you're trying to start something."
Cheese also tends to godmod and metagame a lot and I call it out which I think it why I think he doesn't want to rp with me or ignores me. Same with another. It's also frustrating because my rolls are neglected a lot. A guy I rped with earlier (water), rolled a 17 on intimidation. I rolled a 23 with a nat 20. And he immediately said "she gets a little scared", even though I rolled over??
This sounds a bit far fetched, but I genuinely think that I'm also just a boring roleplayer. I try my hardest to make my roleplays interesting, I put so much detail in as much as I can, I try to read everything even sometimes over if I can't understand, I ask questions when I don't understand, I do my best to put in character development. And I'm still not good enough.
It hurts more because when me and flower are in VC, she's allowed to rant about everyone in the server as much as she wants, and the one time I said "I can't believe what cheese did" she got so incredibly annoyed and deafened to not listen to me rant about him. I thought I was being dramatic but my other two friends agreed that they had noticed it too and thought it was unfair to me how she treats me a lot of the time.
It hurts as well because I'm pretty sure she'll only RP with me if I roleplay a guy. Won't engage with most of my female OCS at all, or when we do she responds little to none but continues with other people. The one time I played a guy, she was SO engaged in our roleplay, to thebpoint almost everytime we were in vc she would constantly ask for me to reply to that roleplay, none stop. To the point I became uncomfortable because I was roleplay ing a guy, and she only wanted to roleplsy with me just because I was a guy in the RP. I finally told her I was didn't want to continue the rp with me as the guy and she ignored me completely and wouldn't respond to me for a long time. And now it's back to not roleplayin with me in general. It confuses me though, why am I much more interesting to roleplay as a guy, than my female OCS? I did little test and roleplayed the guy as if he wasone of my female OCS, so the personality and roleplay aspect didn't change. Just my OCS gender.
I've left this server before because of how much my chest hurts from being neglected and ignored. Cheese begged me to come back. Came back. Build more friendships. Was neglected again. Left. Asked for another chance. Came back. Stressed because the neglect ramped up a lot and caused me to have multiple breakdowns. Then I became afraid of staying gone because I've grown really attached to my OCS that have stories going on inside the server as well as water asked me to come back. Came back, and now I'm terrified of leaving again because I don't want all that work to go to waste, but at the same time I'm soooo tired of being ignored and neglected. I dont know what to do. I'm just so tired of being hurt, but at the same time I'm so addicted and attached.
There's much more but this post is already so long and I've been wanting to get this out so badly but have no one to listen to me. And in a way I feel. Dramatic? Annoying? Boring? And it's put me into such an existential crisis. I want to do other rps, but it's so hard to find a good server that is alive, or flexible, or will respond to rp pings this also flexible on dark story lines. And I kind of found it in this one, but the only thing that sucks is how much worst it makes my loneliness. And it hurts so much. Please be honest, if you guys think I'm being dramatic, please tell me. I just feel so alone, and I'm so tired of it. If you guysbhave any writing tips that make me more interesting in RP, so I don't have to go to erp to be interesting. I could really use it. Thank you for reading this if you did.

Please if u have nothing helpful to say just keep scrolling, me and this girl met around 2 weeks ago and it has been amazing, the amount of things we share in common and how we almost think alike in a lot of things, we even have similar hobbies, lately ive been losing my spark for her because of her current behaviour, we have been in like 5-6 dates, we had sex once, and almost everytime we hang out we kiss and treat each other like we are dating, i did the logical thing and asked her what we were and her response was, "is too soon, i dont wanna rush anything", i was fine with that at first, and i also dont wanna rush or force her on making a desicion, time keeps going and i dont feel any change, i know its only been 2 weeks but still, i met her mom her sisters, she met my parents, ive slept over at her house, she slept over at mine, but any time i try to make it official she gives me the same answer, is too soon, and that she isnt ready to give me anymore, and i know some of you are instantly say, well she is not ready, she doesnt text me, she doesnt call me, unless i start it, i have to come up with dates or ideas to hang out, and twice already she canceled on me cuz her friend wanted to hang out with her, i also know her friends and i get along with them so i trust her completly, they are gay, and a few girls, my problem is that i simply dont understand whats happening, anytime i hang out with her i get put into a timer, i get the "well we've hung out for a while now" means its time for me to leave or stop talking to her, ive done everything i can to make her feel comfortable around me, ive taken her to dates and walks and places without asking for anything in return, me and her both play video games, i could be on the menu and she would get on and instantly join someone else to play and doesnt even text me or asks me to play, anytime i facetime her, if she gets any calls she immediatly says im getting a call ill call you later, and i wouldnt hear from her for hours, but when i call her and she is a call, she just doesnt pick up or texts me until she is done, and doesnt even call me, she just texts me, i was in a call, sometimes she doesnt even text me, she doesnt open my texts within 30 mins ever, always 1-4 hours later, i have no idea what she is doing, and i know she doesnt owe me anything, but if she is taking her time to see if im worthy then at least i should also know whats going on, im not just gonna sit here and wait for someone until they decide sorry ur not it, my feelings also matter to me and i also dont wanna get hurt, i made clear to her what my intentions are, i told her i wanted something serious and i was looking to hopefully settle down in the future with my next partner and she told me, that was exactly what she needed, and she introduced me to her son, and that went super well, he is a super dope kid, 6yo, he even told her that he liked me and i was his new friend, that made me really happy and i bought him a fortnite gift card, he was super excited about it and she was happy that unlike her ex i actually cared about him. Lately, i figured maybe she just needs space, i havent really texted her or called her in the past 2 days and just like i thought it would happen, she hasnt bothered to text me or call me at all, i even showed up to her place last night and wished her happy mothers day, got her flowers, candle and some bath salt she been wanting, but i noticed that she was wearing a dress which means she had gone out with her friend and i didnt even know, this is where im at rn, before going to bed i texted her 2 hours ago, "hey wyd" which is how she texts me when she does, and i got left on delivered, but not too long ago i was playing with one of her friends and he read outloud a text from her asking him if he wanted to play, and that made me feel extremaly anxious, not jealous, i felt abandoned, alone, dissapointed and worthless. I feel this void in my chest and i cant get it to go away, the void is so big that my brain wont even stop thinking about it, i cant function, i cant have fun i cant do anything else without feeling it, i dont know what to do. Am i really overthinking? i did brought this up to her and her response was the same, "im healing from my last relationship, this is everything i can give for now", and when we started talking i asked her are you ready to start dating? are u moved on from your ex? and she said yes, so now does she keep saying she needs time to heal?, i thought maybe she lost interest but the other day i was so depleted that i almost walked away and i turned around because her face just turned upside down and she started crying and accepting it, and that broke my heart, i told her i didnt wanna walk away i wanted to figure everything out, she said "its not your fault im just broken, i dont have any emotions left to give, i dont wanna hurt you" but then she started hugging me and didnt let go...

TL;DR WHY IS SHE SO CONFUSING, if you read it all, i know i couldve prob made it easier to read, but i really needed to get it out of my chest, thank you, i just need an outside pov without all the emotions im feeling clouding my judgment, i really dont know what to do, i feel stuck in limbo 

Content warning: sexual assault, child rape, grooming.
I;23F, have had a very difficult upbringing. I was sexually abused by my father(70M currently) and my mother (62F) did absolutely nothing about the abuse. When I was taken into foster care, she was on my father’s side, saying I was making allegations against them and lying about them. My father went to prison in 2014, my mother realized that the relationship she was in with my father was very harmful and that she was also abused too. We have a lot better of a relationship now; but it still isn’t quite the typical mother-daughter relationship. I wouldn’t ever let her be around her grandchildren unsupervised because of that. If I ever have any.
But here is the thing. I was taken into foster care at 13 years old due to the neglect and sexual abuse in my parents care. Enter my sister, Lynnie(53F) Lynnie and her ex husband; Derek(51M) took me in at 17 years old when my foster mom kicked me out by saying I would seduce men(I was 15, a virgin up until the rape occurred with Derek.) and saying I would ruin their marriage. That was in October of 2017. Several months later, in February of 2018, three days after I got with my ex partner, was the first time that Derek cornered me and raped me. Gave me oral sex against my will, and did… I’ll let you finish the rest. This would go on multiple times a week for almost a year and a half until I was finally so suicidal enough I couldn’t take it anymore and I told Lynnie. And I told Lynnie when she asked why I didn’t tell her sooner was because she didn’t believe me when my foster mom was abusing me physically. I was being starved and physically abused.
Lynnie has never once picked her own children, or any children in her care; over any man. When Derek got on to me and my niece(Bailey; 21F) she would be on his side. When he hated the fact I was bisexual and that Bailey was too, she hated it too. She still hates it to this day. Bailey told her that Derek made a pass at her at 14. But it took me being raped at 17 for her to finally realize it was all true.
She talked to my niece when they first separated. And my niece told me tonight that Lynnie blamed me for the rape when it first happened. Just like she did for the abuse my foster mom did to me. Just like the abuse our dad did to me. She blamed a 17 year old girl for “seducing” a grown man. A GROWN FUCKING MAN.
I have been ready to cut contact with her for a long time because of her letting our sister, Cyndi, age 50(passed this year due to stroke) keep all of her boyfriends who would grope me in the house and wouldn’t care that I was the only one paying rent. As if it wasn’t me who was working my ass off and then on top of it, blaming me when I took a day off of work because I thought my rapist was following me to my work. I WAS FUCKING SCARED. I was fucking 18 years old and scared I was gonna get cornered in my own work.
And now my niece telling me that when she first got into contact with her; she told her that it was my fault I “seduced” him. And that I “seduced” every man due to the sexual abuse I went through from our father. I was a little girl. I was not a woman. I never seduced a man. That should never be in a persons vocabulary, a minor “seducing” a grown man!?
It’s the grown man’s fault. You don’t ever go after a minor, let alone also one who has been sexually abused and one you can take advantage of. You should never go for a minor. At all. Ever.
Minors don’t seduce people. People who are grown seduce people.
And I can’t think that my own sister would think that about me. At 17 that I seduced her ex husband into molesting me.
I didn’t seduce your ex husband. I was a minor. He raped and groomed me and you want to be upset that I want my name changed because when you look me up online it links me to him!?
Please. Please give me some encouragement I’m doing the right thing. Because I’ve been staying up at night and tossing and turning thinking about how sick she has absolutely made me.

Tldr at the bottom.
Before I start for context, I want to say this girl and i had mutual crushes on each other in middle school and high school.
So here's the deal, I recently ( a few weeks ago) sent this girl from high school a message trying to reach out.
I figured she'd never respond but did so anyways, hoping she might one day.
She wound up seeing my message and got back to me.
We've been talking for about a week now, and she's asked me all sorts of personal questions.
I mentioned to her that I was just going to leave a love letter in her inbox and never expected her to respond to me or read the note at all.
She asked me what it would have said, and I went into detail about how I've felt for her and why I disappeared from school.
I told her all about how I turned my life around and gave her all these personal details about life during and after school and what state im living in, I got my own apartment and a good job and everything.
I start asking her about personal info, but she gets weird about it and gives kinda secretive/avoident/cryptic answers.
I've given her a photo of me (a few days ago), I've left her voice messages, short videos of me talking to her and everything, but she never wants to go beyond texting.
She says she's gone through all these difficult life events since high school, which was sent to me in a somewhat long, very personal text, but quickly wound up deleting it.
She opens up a bit here and there, but she also takes hours to respond between messages.
She says she's busy doing her own thing, which I won't say what it is, but it could possibly eat up a lot of her time.
She's very nice and likes to be proper and is very supportive and encouraging in her texts.
I've tried to ask her if she'd be willing to send me a picture or a voice clip or a video, but she always chooses text.
I'm not being weird. I'm just light flirting at first and then just actual conversation asking things to get to know her because I am genuinely interested in getting to know her.
She says basically, "That's too personal right now," and will still respond but avoid questions like the plague sometimes.
Again, she will revisit old questions, but it feels like I'm picking teeth to her a regular, normal length conversation with her.
It's a little painful tbh, I wonder if she's mad at me, if she has a boyfriend or husband, if she's on the street, if she is genuinely busy, if she's ok...
I've asked her before a couple of times why she takes so long to reply, and she says cause she's busy.
Can someone really be this busy all the time every day?
She tells me she tries to be free on the weekends but does work on "projects"
She told me that she's "not promised to anyone," nor has she been "blessed with kids"
I live a good life and tried to impress her with the things I have and my lifestyle (in a nondouchey way), I tried opening myself up to her expressing genuine feelings of joy, love, interest but she just keeps distance.
I asked a mutual friend what he remembers of her from high school, and I guess she's always been like this.
She had a wall between herself and everyone else.
It's just so confusing. Why is she being nice to me?
Why is she responding to me when she could just ghost me?
Why does she talk to me and want to be supportive and tell me things like "I'm rooting for you in life" and "I know you can get where you're going if you keep on the same path" but at the same time, not want to make a call or send a video or a private photo so I can see her?
I asked for her photo in her messenger, and she updated her profile picture, which she hasn't done since high school in about 10 years!
She asks me why I sent and deleted messages and asks me what I sent her, but she doesn't have the time to message me to see them.
Is she manipulating me/stringing me along/keeping me on ice?
What's the endgame?
Where will this lead?
What's going on?
I feel like she's either not being direct, not respecting me, or there's something going on that's preventing her from being transparent with me like I've been with her.
What's the best thing for me to do in order to turn this uncomfortable situation into a more favorable one?
At least in terms of having an honest and open conversation with an old crush that I genuinely want to know more about?
One friend says patience is key with this girl.
Will she end up ghosting me or stop responding one day?
Is this normal?
Do I have a chance, and I'm screwing things up?
Is this salvageable, or is she just being a friend? (Big gulp)
Im trying to keep things light and casual because we both live in different states now but it kinda sucks how she's acting like she's being supportive but at the same time, she isn't being upfront with me.
Can anyone give some insight or maybe share a similar situation and tell me how it went or what was going on when you finally met the person?
Should I just take a chill pill and let things happen naturally?
Tldr: I recently got into contact with an old middle/highschool crush. Things are taking their course but she's secretive while I'm transparent. She dissapears for hours and comes back claiming to be busy. I'm not sure why she's making time for me but also acting sort of distant. Thoughts please.

My ex gf (32F) and I (35M) broke up after 9 years. Have I made a giant mistake as result of my circumstances?
We were together 6 years. First year or two was all gravy. Then we started having fights and it got so bad at year 6 we split up. A year later we started hanging out lightly again and fell back in love. She moved back in. Things went well again for a while. 6 months ago or so things started to get bad again. We agreed to pursue couples counseling. This wasn’t very effective unfortunately, which has added to the hurt if that makes sense.
When we fight (or fought), and I’m sort of ashamed to admit this, it bleeds into other areas of my life. Jobs were impacted. I felt like I didn’t have the energy to give due to the stress from constant arguing and intense arguing. My family relationships were sort of impacted because of the stress and constantly trying to seek out advice. Same with some friendships. I’ve had certain friends and folks that have wanted us to see it end for years. “But hey what do they know? We know the situation best.”
The truth is this person IS one of the few people on this planet that I feel genuinely cared about me aside from family, and the ONLY girl I’ve ever met who showed the kind of care and interest in me as she did. But we always seemed to be struggling to meet each other’s needs. For years there was a theme of her feeling unappreciated and unloved. For me, we didn’t go out and enjoy life enough. We rarely or very infrequently interacted with each other’s families. This frustrated me moreso vs her. Lots of my family is very local to me.
Look, I am not perfect and I am far from it. I’ve been unemployed for a year. But I did use my CC and my retirement funds to pay my way. I never borrowed money and she was very supportive and “cool” with my not working while I contemplated the next career step. I had a bad ending with my last company where I had lost both my grandfathers very close to each other, one of them to a self inflicted gunshot wound. It def effected me.
Anyways, two months ago I started putting two honest feet forward. I started applying to jobs. I’ve been exercising and have lost 10lbs in the last month alone, and down from 253 to 235 this year. I took on individual therapy a month ago even though I cannot afford it. Mostly to help get past prior work frustrations.
And then one day two weeks ago shit hit the fan with our relationship. Her feeling unappreciated and unloved for years and years culminated. She said she was done with couples counseling and I needed to fully focus on individual. This upset me. Things escalated, and we broke up.
I feel quit on. And betrayed. But I also feel past mistakes with work etc snowballed and she grew tired of insecurities I was expressing and complaining about regarding comparing to my working successful peers. In her words, she no longer knew how to offer support and felt unappreciated and unloved.
One thing that bugged me is we agreed to pursue individual therapy together at the recommendation of our couples counselor. She never got around to it. She blamed “delays in the Kaiser network.”
I feel I have pushed away and cut out someone special in my life. I am sad/numb. I fear this is just culmination of my mistakes and she grew tired of a “loser.”
What happened? Did I simply mess up?
TLDR: 9 year relationship ended. We tried counseling. We both felt our needs werent met constantly to where counseling wasnt effective. She has a good heart. Feel like she genuinely cared about me but it seemed hard so often to go out casually or spend time with each other’s families. She felt unappreciated and unloved, I felt betrayed when after acknowledging I needed to move forward in my life with career and fixing our relationship and putting two honest feet forward for the last 2 months and she quit when things escalated one day and we both felt wronged. Hard letting go. Feeling like I screwed up and this is all my fault and I just kind of suck at life?

Family background: Me(25)F, little sister Janet(16), dad(49), and mom (48). My whole family lives together and I pay rent and buy groceries for the house every month. Let me start this by saying I love my mom, but honestly that’s what makes everything so difficult. It’d be easier to ignore her if I didn’t. Ever since I was young my mom’s had issues with depression and anxiety. Ever since I was little every time she was going through something she’d just call me in and hug me. She said it felt like her heart was filling up. Which honestly made me feel good that I could help her. It was scary seeing her like that when I was such a little girl. But as time progressed it slowly changed from hugs to her talking to me about her issues or complaints about other people. At some point she began to complain to me about my dad. Being a 12 year old girl who was close to her dad, I didn’t feel comfortable with her telling me this stuff. I tried to defend my dad and she would just complain even more. At one point I told my dad about it and asked if they were OK. My dad just told me that they were fine and I shouldn’t worry about what my mom says he would tell me she was just venting. After that any time my mom tried to complain to me about my dad or the pta or work stuff I just kinda tuned it out, because she’d get upset if I’d talk about it or try and defend anyone she was against. But recently she said something that I was just not ok with. I was driving her up to my sister’s school for an event and while driving up there she just said that both my sister and I are f*cking disappointments. I wanted to stop the car and look at her but we were on the highway. I was about to freak out on her but then she continued talking about how recently she’s become more proud of me because I got an interview at a place that’ll help me advance and get more stability. But apparently my Janet is still a disappointment and a little sh!t. Now I won’t lie my little sister could be a sh!t sometimes but she was a good sh!t. And what bothered me the most about this wasn’t her calling us disappointments, it was the fact that she said it right to my face as if she was talking to someone else. She expected me to sit there and not be upset like I usually do when she talks to me like that. I just couldn’t deal with it so I dropped her off and went to work at the grocery store. While I was at work I kept thinking about whether I should tell my dad or not. But then I thought back to my sister. My sister is a full mommy’s baby while I’ve always been a daddy’s girl. I realized that if she found out about this it would really hurt her so unsure of what to do I called my dad and told him what happened. He listened all the way through about how I told him I was done being my mom’s therapist. He told me it was okay and that he would handle it when he got home from work and then he made sure to tell me before he hung up that I’ve never been a disappointment. It felt really good to hear that and I began to cry a bit after that happened but I got back to work and as I began to work I realized I had my interview for my job in a few days and I didn’t need all this chaos right before it. I got home before my dad and when I got home my mom was just sitting down reading her book as if nothing had happened. That’s because to her nothing happened, what happened in the car was just her ‘venting’. A word she’s used in the past when I brought up my discomfort about her let’s just call them sessions at this point. She went to bed before my dad got home and when he did I told him that I wanted to go through with my interview first before I deal with mom. But I’m worried that if I wait it might just be left on the back burner and eventually be swept under the rug. That’s normally how problems get dealt with here. So I’m just not sure what to do. What do y’all think?

I (35M - UK) married my wife (24F - Thai) about a year ago. When we met she was moderately underweight, and it was having some health implications - low energy, trouble with prolonged activity, visible bone structure, irregular period, etc. She used to work 6 day a week as waitress for $10 a day (+tips) - so I shrugged it off as money\poverty problem.
Since coming to the UK, I’ve encouraged her to eat a normal amount of food, she doesn’t work and as a result she has put on lil’ bit of weight on - reaching a healthy weight and size. Being that healthy weight does mean her face is little rounder and no longer a completely flat belly. Honestly the is the best she is ever looked, with a more curvy femine figure and most importantly none of the health issues I described above.
This has destroyed her self esteem. Every photo has to be heavily edited (she likes to make social media content) and she hates looking at herself in the mirror. The final straw was yesterday she posted a video and at least two of “friends” called her fat. Then on her way to school, an older Chinese woman she has English class with asked if she was pregnant.
She revealed she is unhappy and that her body is always on her mind - something she fixates on for hours each day. She kept showing me photos of when she was a teenager that she wants to return to. Crying her eyes out over clothes that don’t fit and constantly poking and prodding her body. She came out with some scary comments about wanting to self harm because she is not skinny anymore.
She now wants to declare a war on food, returning to the 1k-1.5k calorie intake and intense exercise regime until all fat is gone from her body. Coupled with a nose job and face restructuring when next in Thailand. This is very clearly body dysmorphia.
As a compromise, I offered to help by doing more exercise together and eat healthier - but that I disagreed with the dieting and that exercise should not be done with the sole intention of becoming skinny.
I feel conflicted, as her husband I want to be happy AND healthy. These two ideals are now at odds with each other. She is upset I’m not supporting her to become anorexic again.
Everything is made much harder as she still in the process of learning English. We can have conversations but it’s really hard to communicate complex issues.
Is there any way out of this? How can I support her build self esteem without her becoming unhealthy?
Poking around online - there does seem to be cultural difference with Asian’s being particularly obsessed with skinniness. Do any expats have similar experiences? - What helped?
Is there any good influencers or role models I can recommend?
In particular not the obese body positive influencers but just normal sized, healthy body fat and beautiful (ideally Asian\thai) that I could recommend. I think decoupling skinny = beauty would long way. I’m conscious social media seems to have this obsession with gym is answer to all that may just take things to a different dark place.
Is there an easy way to debunk the less calories is healthier and that smaller you are, the healthier you are. Females in particular are supposed to have some body fat.
I feel like there is me, the voice of reason on one side, then the full weight of social media and toxic friends on the other dragging her into a hole.
Finally, how best to tell her friends back the f*** off.

My sister was diagnosed with bipolar 4 years ago. She has had two manic episodes and is now currently in her third. It’s been a rough 4 years . If she is not in a manic episode she is in an extreme depression. She was given medication but after she is released she stops taking it and turns to cannabis. She has a lot of angry and resentment towards me because she doesn’t believe she is unwell and thinks I caused her life to unravel. She has become very hostile to me and began sending me mean messages and threatening me. I blocked her on all accounts as it was becoming too much. She began talking about suing the hospital and everyone involved in her hospitalization. She even came to my work and spoke to security and made a lie that I attacked her and beat her up even though I haven’t see her in months. I was forced to tell my bosses and HR about the situation. I believe it was an attempt to get me fired or reprimanded at work. She has lashed out on my brother and mother as well and has willfully become homeless. She even called the cops on my brother and made up a lie that he was beating her up. The police and dispatcher knew she was lying. She vows to ruin our lives as she blames us for her being committed.
After her 1st manic episode, we became roommates and I supported her for two years financially and essentially became her caregiver. She did not work and did very little around the house. At the time, I didn’t push too hard since she was grieving from a major loss and the new diagnosis. She was going through and incredibly hard time. After 2 years though, it had a huge toll on me and I had to move on my own because she was refusing to see doctors, appointments, take medication and I realized I was enabling her. It was also extremely stressful trying to hold everything together so she moved back to my mother’s. This is where she had her 2nd manic episode.
During her 2nd manic episode, she physically hurt me. It wasn’t severe but I was pushed against the wall and slapped a few times and she refuses to believe she did that. She also destroyed my things and broke my bike. Although, I know she is sick I would be lying if I said I am not hurt and angry for the ways she’s hurt me during her episodes. In her current episode, she is not living at my mothers or with me and is essentially living on the streets. She has gotten in physical altercations with these new “friends” she is hanging out with and I’m terrified for her. I’m also terrified that if she finds me or sees me she will attack me because she believes I’ve taken her stuff and owe her money. I don’t.
I’m worried about her safety but I don’t know how to support her without putting myself in harms way.
I’ve lost one sister to mental illness and I’m terrified of losing another one. I love her so much and I don’t know how I can help her but keep myself safe and not to be hurt or taken advantage of again.

hi, female 19 years old. i have a bf hes 21 years old. we both live in sd california. weve been together for nearly 2 years and i love him so so much he is my bestfriend and my world, he feels the same way about me. ik this is the bare minimum but we arent toxic at all we are very healthy and rarely fight. the only problem we have is money. unfortunatly i lost my job 2 months in of us dating and i have not found a job since. i havent seen a paycheck in 2 years im so depressed; ive applied to 240 and have had like 32 intevriews no luck at all. i currently live w my very physically and verbally abusive parents last year i left my parents house to live w my bf bc of the abusive but i STILL couldnt get hired anywhere and my bfs family really needed help w rent so i had to move out. now im giving up on the job process in cali and moving to louisana to live w my bio dad and find a job out there. i know life will be better for me out there mentally and financially but im DREADING breaking up with my amazing bf who im so in love with. weve talked about having kids and starting a life together when his lease on his apartment is up, i cant bare to let all of our memories dreams go down the drain after all we been through together. i dont want to start over with anyone else. have u ever had to break up with your partner because u had to move far away? how are u coping now?

It is our great pleasure to announce that u/Gammagandalf91 is our Photographer of the Week. This accolade has been awarded based upon the number of votes during week 17, with this post having received the most when searching by top submission: https://www.reddit.com/analog/comments/1cdk7y3/last_snow_of_the_year_fuji_gw_690_fuji_velvia_100/

• How long have you been taking photographs?

Since 3 or 4 years. Started with digital but switched to analog within half a year and never looked back.

• Why do you take photographs? What are you looking to get out of it?

taking memories, gifting them to friends, acting out my artsy side :D

• What inspired you to take this photo?

I was on a solo trip to a local mountain top to do some medium format star trails. I was completely allone and there was this gorgeous sunset. I had to take a picture.

• Do you self develop or get a lab to process your film?

i was on a solo trip to a local mountain top to do some medium format star trails. I was completely allone and there was this gorgeous sunset. I had to take a picture.

• What first interested you in analog photography?

the physical and chemical nature of Film and the slower process. No stupid menus, etc.

• What is your favourite piece of equipment (camera, film, or other) and why?

definitely my fuji GW 690. just an awesome camera and super portable for medium Format.

• Do you have a tip or technique that other film photographers should try?

try medium Format slide Film, its super worth it. you will get hooked.

• Do you have a link to more of your work or an online portfolio you would like to share?

only my instagram. https://www.instagram.com/malte_krum

• Do you have a favourite analog photographer or analog photography web site you would like to recommend?

i really like the astro photography on Film from this guy: https://www.instagram.com/jase.film

• Is there anything else you would like to add about yourself or your photography?

i also really enjoy solargraphy, you can see some on my insta. Also a fascinating process which everyone can easily try.

She’s refusing her sleep aids and wanders around the house until wee hours. She’s more irritable than normal which is considerable because of her ODD and mood swings. She eats junk food compulsively if unsupervised, harasses the cats, watches things she knows she shouldn’t that trigger her.( I’ve disconnected the tv. )I’m not able to sleep at night again just like before her hospitalization because I have no way of knowing if this will lead to her going for walks at night like it did before, or hurting the animals or her brother or something worse.
She physically and violently terrified her brothers cat on purpose two weekends ago because it tried to go into her closet by slamming the closet door while he was halfway inside. He was unharmed physically(thankfully his reflexes are much faster than hers and he skedaddled) but extremely upset and avoided her for awhile. We immediately had an equally extreme conversation about how unacceptable that was and for now she seems to be curbing the physical aggression with the animals even though she won’t actually let them be if she’s not told directly to.
She harasses her brother and acts like she’s in charge and berates him until he retaliates if I’m in my bedroom while they’re awake. She tries repeatedly to bully me if I wear makeup, do my hair or dress in a way that isn’t tomboyish or frumpy. She tries to control any purchase I make. Most moves I make in fact, become about her. I can’t discipline without a blow up. I can’t parent my other child without her trying to insert herself and make that also about her. I can’t buy myself a pair of $12 dollar earrings for Mother’s Day without her being nasty to me about it. She lies to me, her teachers and who knows who else to minimize consequences at the expense of anyone, so long as it’s not her. I’m losing my objectivity, my patience and any willingness to communicate with my child when I would’ve cut contact entirely with any other person for acting like this if she weren’t my child and 16.
But it’s the sleep that bugs me the most. I can’t sleep at night because of her and I can’t sleep during the day because the maintenance crew has been working around my building with loud equipment from 7am to noon since I moved in last may.
I’m coming to the realization I can’t parent this teen if she won’t let me and the people who think they can, have already admitted after two weekends last summer that they were wrong. That leaves the father who she accused of rape(who may or may not have done so but has admitted to hitting her across the face and saying abusive things)who will try to regain custody of her if I don’t keep trudging through this until I snap. I’ve talked to multiple help lines about options. I’m doing everything there is to be done already, watching as the same patterns start all over again. The kicker is, because she’s attending group and taking all her other meds I’m told she’s doing well.
This isn’t well. This is hell. But good luck trying to prove it, because she’s apparently got them all believing she’s fine and it’s me, her teacher, her brother, all the other kids in her group, and her father who are the ones with the issues. I am at a loss. I cannot parent this way. I am literally being prevented from doing so with things as they are now. I finally told her tonight that either she starts acting right, listening without intent to argue, takes her sleep aids or this will not be a permanent housing situation. I hate saying it. I never wanted to. But I can’t work or provide or parent my other child if I don’t sleep. Anyone else I could call the cops for a disturbance. I really do feel like this kid thinks she’s got me figured out and pushed into a corner. It’s time for a wake up call about a mother’s boundaries in whatever way she can understand it.