(drug use, SH, mania, not eating, etc...) I have a virtual appointment tomorrow. I started lamictal recently (on 100mg now) and ik she's going to ask if I've had episodes recently. I am about to start strattera for adhd. (Diagnosed bp2 and adhd)
I (hypothetically) had a manic episode last week. I got drunk with my friends and it triggered a manic episode. After everyone decided to leave/ go to sleep I went ro my room and relapsed with SH. Then I (still drunk) walked around my campus (tried to print a paper, didn't work). I then went back to my apt and waited until I sobered up, had caffeine/ nicotine, and took some concerta given to me by a friend a while ago. I wondered the fields behind my campus listening to music in the middle of the night. Around 6am I went home, took my lamictal, and presented my final project. I had barely eaten in days bc I have been sick. The rest of the day I was so nauseous/ dizzy, and in so much pain I could barely eat/ move. I also shaved my head since our last session💀
My question is... if I tell my psych, can I get in trouble? Will she not give me adhd meds? Strattera isn't a stimulant so I feel like it would be okay. I desperately need adhd meds and I don't want to push it back further.
I used to be all for telling ur psych EVERYTHING, but now idk what to do.

We didn’t have a typical breakup. Although I was the one who started the conversation to initiate it, we both agreed that due to our situation, we wouldn’t be able to continue dating. There were a lot of “I love yous” said during the breakup, and we had a long hug goodbye.
The reason we broke up was that my ex got a new job and had to move somewhere that’s a 6 hour drive away. When he first started talking about possibly having to move, we were both optimistic about continuing our relationship long distance. However, my ex does have a history of mental health issues, and even while he was job searching, I noticed his mental health declined because his communication was becoming worse. We both decided that it wouldn’t be a good idea to try doing long distance, given the fact that communicating would be harder and even more so if he ever experienced other issues.
However, there’s no denying that I still love my ex, and I’m sure he still loves me. Although we only dated 2-3 months and were still technically in the “honeymoon phase,” I have never felt more drawn to someone. My ex is very mature for his age - he even thought to get me flowers on our first date - and he always made me feel like I could be myself, which is something I struggle with around others since I tend to be more introverted. He was also the first guy who said he loved me and genuinely meant it and the first (and only) guy I have slept with.
I recently saw him when he paid a visit to see his best friend graduate from my college, and he told me he’d make more visits to see friends here and that I could see him when he did. The moment I saw my ex that day, I honestly felt like I fell in love with him all over again. He’s been through a lot in his life, yet he’s made so much of it and he’s always so sweet, understanding, and funny. Not to mention, I always want to melt when I stare into his eyes.
Anyways, I am still in college and plan to go to law school after I graduate in two years, but I really have no interest in dating anyone now because I can’t get over how much I love my ex. I really want to try to get into a good law school that is near where he lives in hopes of reconnecting with him. I don’t plan on limiting myself to that plan for the future, but I know that it’s something I want to consider. My ex and I had often talked about getting married, and even before he left for his job, he refused to take back one of his sweatshirts he’d given me because he wanted to hold onto hope that we’d be together again.
I’m hoping I’m not too delusional about the whole situation, but in any case, having this kind of mindset has helped me deal with his absence.
TLDR: I still love my ex who I am on good terms with, and I am holding onto hope that we can one day be together

Hi guys! It's my first time posting in this subreddit and i genuinely need some validation and advice on what I should do.
I currently go to college and live with 3 other roommates: My boyfriend, Kevin and Tom (I used other names for privacy). Kevin and Tom share a room together (remember this). Tom have always been a disturbing individual to all of us. In October, he started screaming, cursing saying things like, "I fucking hate this place", "I'm gonna fucking kill them" and kicked the garbages and slammed the kitchen cabinets and doors, broke the fridge and microwave. Nobody provoked him. I was in my room, my boyfriend was out with his friends, Kevin was gaming. Kevin asked him what was wrong, but Tom didnt reply and just went on with his tantrums
Another incident happened in December where he came home drunk at 3AM, started talking to himself and was puking all over the bathroom, screaming and crying in their room. He was whispering under his breath that he was going to kill "them" and everybody. He said he was going to fuck "them" up. He was facing the wall and rocking himself back and forth on the bed. I could swear he was on some hard drugs because he was also leaning over as if he was using heroin or meth. He was constantly whispering and rocking himself til 5-6AM. Kevin recorded what happened and him screaming. He was really scared and concerned for Tom.
According to Kevin, Tom does not shower nor do the laundry. We also know this because whenever we see him in the living room, the entire living room smells of him. He wears the same clothes everyday with the same stains. Tom's bed is literally stained brown, gray and yellow. He does not wash his sheets and his clothes are all over the floor with alcohol bottles. He does not clean after himself after he uses our things (pans, dishes, supplies).
Tom frequently smokes marijuana and we have caught him smoking INSIDE the unit several times. Kevin has health issues and told Tom to stop several times, especially at night, but he usually just ignores Kevin and doesn't reply. REMINDER, KEVIN AND TOM SHARE THE SAME ROOM
Kevin is mostly awake in the middle of the night from 11PM-3AM and in the living room he paces, growls, laughs, makes "WOOO" sounds like hes watching a game all to himself. We can hear him through our rooms and its hard to sleep.
We have tried to talking to Tom several times through instagram and asked him what's wrong. We were very accommodating with him about his family situation and said if he needed anyone to talk to, we were there for him. We were always really generous whenever he needed something from us and never expected anything in return.
Yesterday, at 3AM, Tom was smoking again in the room while Kevin was trying to sleep. The same thing happened the other night. Kevin asked him to stop but Tom didnt reply as usual. Kevin got mad and started cursing at Tom (imho, i dont know why he didn't curse at him sooner after everything Tom did). Tom got in Kevins face, threatening and yelling at him. Kevin told him to back up but it got him even more angry and Tom striked Kevin. They both started fighting and my boyfriend had to split them up. We tried to calm down the situation but he started to verbally attack my boyfriend and i, saying I "was a problem since the beginning" (Im not aware of this). I ran downstairs to call the cops and when they came, Kevin was up in my boyfriends face yelling at him and saying shit like how he's always makes things a problem and other shit...
The cops did nothing. They said it was a civil dispute even though the same officer spoke to all 3 of us individually. We told him we were genuinely afraid of him and how he says he wants to kill everyone and how he takes drugs and drinks a lot. They just moved Kevin to the living room and told him to sleep there
For some context, I have PTSD, so I didnt come back to the house til 7-8AM. I sat in the apartment gym for 4-5 hours because I was afraid of Kevin. We are all afraid of him, we even hid the knives in the kitchen. It's gotten to the point where I changed my room door lock, added a sliding bolt lock, and one time i barricaded the door during one of his episodes (of growling and laughing in the living room).
I need advice on: Am I crazy for being scared? What would you do in my situation?

Can I ask for some advice about something? What would you do if you are in my place. my best friend let's call her Ruby. Ruby moved about two years ago now, she was going to come back and visit for graduation week and wanted the friend group to hang out like we used to, when i told her i didn't believe it would be possible she has continued to push for us to all hang out. I finally told her the reason that it would not work out she completely ignored me. Now the reason the friend group hanging like we used to won't work out is because this ex friend of mine who I'll call cici randomly after a school essay I wrote quite talking to me and started to spread rumors about me the essay was supposed to carry so sort of theme that means somthing to us so I wrote mine on how it can feel to be in the middle of a friend group that is arguing and not knowing what to do. I will copy and past the essay below the rest of the story. After I turn the essay in cici somehow gets a hold of it and spins it to sound like I'm attacking her and im bullying her and so for the month of February everyone ignores me which really hurt because I had no idea why as they just on day started to ignore me it also was my birthday that month and I had no one to share it with. After a while lila,Taylor and Sara realize what happened and apologized for what they did and I quite trying to communicate with cici. After I quite reaching out to her and trying to protect a dying fire my mental health improves to a point where not only I noticed but my teachers noticed also. Back to my earlier topic I told ruby that I refuse to hang out with cici because she has been treating me like shit and my parents won't even let me see/talk to her outside a school sanctioned event because at are very last sleep over before she she started to ignore me almost ended with me In the hospital because her brother threatened me with a knife and their dog attacked me because i used self defense to get the knife from her brother. During this sleepover cici's parents were awar of what happened and didn't tell my mom so after that I wasn't allowed back to their house. Even after all that I still tried to keep that friendship alive if not only because I cared for cici but also for ruby. Still despite all these reasons ruby refused to split her time between us and Is no longer coming. AITAH for refusing to hang out with someone who has betrayed my trust and put me in a dangerous situation just because my friend who moved away wants us to hang out together?
Here is the essay
Just because your friends are friends doesn’t mean they will always understand. A few days after spring break in 8th grade my friend Cici started hanging out with a girl that the rest of our friend group doesn’t like because she is mean and rude. So we told her what we thought of this girl and that she could hang out with her but we didn’t want to be near a person like that, however Cici did not listen and kept inviting her to hang out with us. My other friend Sara was starting to get really upset because this girl was calling her names and bullying her. This same girl had also left intentional bruises on my body because I told her I already had a partner in pe. Finally, after months and months of off and on fighting it was the last day of school. Sara had finally had enough of how the girl had treated us and snapped as she listed off all the hateful and violent things that this girl had done to me, Lila, Ruby some of our other friends. The girl then started to ball saying how all of us are liars and cici shouldn'tlisten to us about anything that we say. During this entire situation I stayed quiet and listened to what the others had to say, because I wanted to say something but didn't know what to say to fix the situation.For weeks after that cici and sara refused to talk to each other, until I finally managed to get them to both apologize. Then for a while after that everything seemed good. A new girl who I will call Tyler moved to town and we basically absorbed her into the friend group. Things were going well until about four weeks into our ninth grade year. Sara started to be exceedingly hostile the rude girl Cici had been hanging out with sense last year, Which caused fighting to break out. So then Sara started to distance herself from us to hang out with a guy who i also used to consider a friend i will call him jem. Now the reasonme and jem are no longer friendsis becausehe told my to off myself several times over the course of about two months.So as they are hanging out jem is also constantly flirting with her, so we make a joke that they were dating. This caused sara to explode at everyone in the group chat. When she texted in the group chat she directed all of the texts about it to Cici and when I confessed that it was me who was made and the joke she proceeded to say that it was Cici’s fault and that it “ IS NOT SOMETHING TO JOKE ABOUT!! You know what I think of rumors and dating.” We all replied saying it didn't mean for it to be a big deal and we weren't making fun of her that it was only a joke. Sara proceeded to snap back “If we are in relationships with guys, it's not something to joke about. When other people believe it, then it's too much.” So in response Ruby answered with “You literally would make fun of me and my old boyfriend tim back when we were dating.” Then Lila added, “Yeah you make me feel like crap about me and Carl all the time and guess what you coming after Cici being a jerk to Cici for everything saying that everything that everything the "rude girl" knows and does is because of her. There's also the fact that when you tease and make fun of us we are supposed to deal with it, but when we do it to you we are rude horrible people." Sara’s only response to that was “You guys never said that you weren't ok with it. You just need to tell us, and we will stop. No one ever said anything, so we thought it was ok.” I responded with “who is the we in this situation, because I told people to stop when they crossed a boundary and that one of the only people who never listened or apologized for it was lila. I haven't even taken anybody's side throughout this whole situation” after I say this, Sara goes off again. “I'm done ok. Just leave me out of all this. Be your own friend group. I'll be a singular person, and then I won't have to be a burden to anyone. Sorry I was such a bad friend. Also I don't want any pity.” At this point everyone is annoyed and tired of this situation so Ruby speaks up again telling Sara that she is not the main character and to grow up, and that she started it. After this Sara separates herself from us and as a week turns to two weeks then two weeks turns into a month. Between all of the fighting, homework, sports, and everyday stress I start to become irritable and snappy because no matter how much I try to stay neutral to keep peace, Sara and Cici are always fighting. So one time when the fighting over text picks up again I end up snapping at my family and yelling something at them that everyone would probably be happier if i just died. The next day I tried to act like everything was fine. I ended up making it until PE where I ended up breaking down infront of my teacher and skipping school for the rest of the day in the office crying my eyes out to the guidance counselor. I told her everything that happened and that sometimes when I tell my friends things I don't like or feel comfortable with, they sometimes will forget or ignore what i say. Which always makes me angry or sad because I always take the time to understand and respect my friends boundaries. that's when I realized that just because your friends are friends doesn’t mean they will always understand. Despite that fact I will always respect others boundaries even if they don’t respect mine and I will always remind others of my boundaries or distance myself from them. Just because your friends are friends doesn’t mean they will always understand and just because you can/want to say or do something hurtful doesn’t mean that you should. Know where to darw the line.

Hello guys.... just looking for any helpful advice or suggestions. This is a secondary throwaway account. I will put as much details w/o oversharing since you never know who reads these post.
So, I had received a TJO a few weeks ago. Did the required preliminary steps and was waiting hopefully for the FJO.
Today I got an email stating the offer was rescinded. This is the edited version of the email:

• The offer was pending the result of pre-employment eligibility checks, including a review of your prior XXX performance and conduct. In reviewing the results of your prior XXX performance/conduct, you are found ineligible based on the (insert some legal regulation/code).

​This is definitely sad news, since this agency where I wanted to start and end my career.
BACK STORY - Part 1
I had worked for this agency 10-15 years ago, not to long after I finished my Masters. It was my first government job.
I started off in Unit A and about two months in was interviewed for Unit B (which had been my 1st preference). A few weeks after, I got the position and started in Unit B soon after.
I ended my position in Unit A in good standing and my manager for that Unit was happy for me and have given the manager I was going to be assigned to in Unit B great reviews about my general work performance. These two Units were in the same POD and working in Unit A was generally a stepping stone to get into Unit B if so desired.
Now, the full training period for this agency for this Unit B is quite long and is broken up in parts over a period of time. There were several of us new employees for this Unit B Manager.
​
BACK STORY - Part 2
After the first training session, we were back to our POD and assigned OJI's. The first few weeks was about trying to put what we learned in the training to now real life application. For the most part, during the first 2 months we dealt mostly with the OJI's. Now, my feedback from the OJI was positive and constructive. The OJI would always tell our group that it takes a while to really learn the job and that the agency wasn't expecting us to get it even in our first few years. This echoed what was told to us repeatedly during training.
Now enter the Manager (MB) - Not long after MB starts to review our cases, one of my teammates (T1) starts to complain to me about feeling targeted and not receiving proper assistance. T1 stated that the MB seemed to be trying to create a negative paper trail with the performance reviews. Not to long after this started, T1 informed me about being given 30 days to resign or they would receive a termination letter. To say I was shocked would be an understatement. I mean, we literally hadn't even been out of training for 2 months when this happened to T1.
T1 was told he could go to the Union Rep. to talk about options, but that UR was not helpful (as I would also later find out) and basically said, probationary employees could be terminated for various reasons (similar to being At-Will in the private sector). He resigned because he didn't want any negative remarks on his records, especially for future government options.
​
Back Story (Part 3)
Not long after T1 left, I started getting the same treatments in terms of overly negative remarks about my work. The manager even started to tell me that the job was not for everybody. Due to what happened with T1, I kind off had an idea where this was heading so MB basically gave me a similar ultimatum of termination or resign within a set period of time, I wasn't fully surprised but still broke down in tears asking for the full training period before such a drastic determination could be made. The manager would not budge. I was offered the same option of speaking with the Union Rep. It was the same UR (worked in the same POD) and while they expressed surprised and some outrage and hinted at a PATTERN (details later) in that POD, they basically gave me the same spiel as was given to T2 and I took the option of resigning.
Back Story (Part 4)
Fast Forward about 6 years after leaving that agency. I had gone through various life events and working private sector.
T1 whom I kept in touch with occasionally, reached out and asked if I was willing to talk a friend. They explained that this person (S1) has been hired a few months before our group in the agency, Unit B. They had been under a different manager for about 5-6 years before their manager retired and S1's team was merged with MB's team.
Long story short - S1 who was a Highly Successful rated employee with a prior manager, was within less than a year placed on a performance improvement plan within a year of joining MB team.
However, since S1 had past the probationary period and was a permanent employee with a good performance record, they were able to file an EEOC complaint and after a long battle SI won the case. T1, myself and another employee (we discovered during this process) that was forced out in the same manner testified during S1 hearing.
There was much more but ......As for the Pattern, T1, myself, S1 and plus another employee were all from the same or had family background from a certain region.
Back to Present Day
S1 wants me to ask for a reconsideration and explain my situation. She feels that MB must have put something on my internal records to make me unemployable to this particular agency. I did get hired a few years back to a different agency and this issue never came up. I resigned during Covid period and went back to Private.
So... Anyone ever been in a similar situation? If so, what was the results? ​
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Stuck and need to let it out
Before i start i know i am very stupid for the choices i made. I (26f) got married to my husband (30m) when i was 21 we met from mutual friends and i fell in love with him and it was a feeling ill never forget. He was an amazing guy until he wasn’t he was always very charming and people instantly liked him when meeting him. There is more details but i am going to try to sum it up. I worked a little after marriage than covid hit and i got pregnant with my first born. He took care of me financially always and assured me i dont need to work anyways. I was with him when he was struggling i never complained as a newly wed who barley got to spend time with her husband because i understood i never asked him to take me out or anything i stood by him and now hes very successful (ill get back to why i mentioned that later) my pregnancy was very stressful in my 7th month he hit me and i had bruises on my neck and face i dont even remember what the fight was about after giving birth i struggled alot i was 22 years old i kept finding porn and videos being sent between friends which i have seen before but it started to make me feel bad about myself which i have always been confident before him i told him it bothered me and it never stopped so now im 23 and insecure and i alter my body and do a procedure thinking that will fix things (as i said i know im stupid) he strangled me 2 months after giving birth to the point that i passed out and woke up he almost killed me i never told anyone. He kept saying hes changing and well work things out so i forgave him. My family dosent believe in divorce and as much support i have from them i don’t want to disappoint them. We did good for a little bit we moved to a bigger place and than we moved again to another bigger place that i am in currently. In between all of that there was stuff that i kept seeing that hurt me and bothered me but anytime i say anything he says its me who keeps digging which is true because i grew up having a father who cheated on my mom and i saw it first hand im not going to lie it traumatized me but i did not project it on him until after he started doing the things he did. Hes a very jealous person himself he always tried to control everything he hates that im good looking he tells me all the time he should have married someone “ugly” i do NOT dress provocative at all i barley show any skin but somehow EVERYTHING always leads back to how i dress and all our problems are my fault because of how i dress he says that when we go out men always check me out and it angers him even tho i am not showing any damn skin. Anyways mothers day 2022 he hit me again but he says he didnt but the bruises on my arms say otherwise i have pictures of it and it was bad he tried to throw me down the stairs i begged him not to. Sadly i still wanted to be loved i forgave him moved on he is would buy me gifts and cards and because im so stupid i believed he was sorry anyways now its 2023 and i find out im pregnant i didnt know how i felt my first born was lonley so i thought at least they will have a sibling.. surprise its twins and i knew im going to go through it i had the worse pregnancy i almost died i developed pre eclampsia and my doctor missed it i gave birth early my whole pregnancy i was alone i was so lonley just me and my first born i cried everyday husband was working so i couldn’t complain without it turning to a fight even though its his company and he could afford to have been there a little for me it is not 7 months after i gave birth physically i feel good mentally i dont he is never there for me as a husband i been telling him i feel like he’s just a roomate at this point we have no dates barley any intimacy which had been going on for years i know hes insecure and i never used it against him but he always would to me he hates now that i bounced back quickly and like to dress up again because the end of my pregnancy i was very swollen i was wearing all his clothes. I kept crying telling him i have needs just like anyone else i want to feel loved i dont want to live like this but anytime i say anything he says i complain to much now last week he beat me over nothing it was 60 seconds into a petty argument and he attacked me i packed myself and my 3 kids he watched me packing calling me names i left to a hotel for a night nd than my moms house he got backlash from both our families i ended up having to come home for the kids im miserable hes not sorry mothers day he barley acknowledged me But we spent the day and today any time we try to talk about anything he blames me.
I know im stupid i dont know how i can start over again i have 3 kids i am in the works of going back to school so when the babys start school ill have my career because i am financially dependent on him which is my fault i worked since i was 14 but he convinced me not to anymore My oldest loves their father so much it hurts me to put my baby through this drama There is soooooo much more detail and stuff to add Hes not the worse person i guess i bring out the bad in him when all i ever wanted was to be in a healthy marriage and give my kids what i didn’t have growing up
I dont know what to do i know i have to finish school so i can get a stable job but that means i have to stay and suck it up
I never wanted to be divorced but this marriage is over i always thought cheating was the only reason for divorce i am not in love with him but its so hard to let it go i never was like this i was so out going the life of the party i dont even recognize myself i feel so sad and depressed and alone i have the most amazing friends but i cant get myself to open up

Hi all!
Been on and off caffeine for the last 3 years due to being very sensitive to its effects, increased stress, anxiety, mood swings and bad sleep. I also have a tendency to over consume to alleviate the negative sides.
This has been my longest stint off caffeine and my last caffeinated drink was on the 31st March 2023 (so about 14 months ago).
Over this same period there were two significant changes in my life, I started having therapy and I’ve been far more consistent with my meditation (on average one hour per day).
I used caffeine recently as I was travelling in Asia and it helped me get over the jet lag, however after my first coffee I was expect to have a really intense response due to having such a long time off it, but I was pleasantly surprised. I felt calm but energised. I wear a Garmin watch and in the past I’ve noticed that after ingesting caffiene my stress levels would be SIGNIFICANTLY increased right after ingestion game throughout the rest of the day, but I did not notice this change. I also had caffiene very late in the day and was able to sleep. I did not feel jittery, or anxious or anything.
After using it for several days in a row I had a break where I experienced a short withdrawal period of increased fatigue/sleepiness that did pass after a couple of days.
Going over the experience now, I’m convinced that my previous reactions to caffiene were due to an exaggerated stress response caused by child hood trauma that I had not processed. After processing through therapy my stress response has been brought to a normal level. I do not plan to return to caffiene as I still don’t like the idea of being dependent on a substance, I’m also wary of using it at regular intervals (e.g. once per week) due to previous experience of being pulled back into the cycle (it’s a very slippery slope!). However keeping it for emergencies such as jet lag or an extremely busy period at work, it’s nice to know I have a crutch if needed.
Anyways, I was just wondering if anyone out there had any similar experiences with therapy effecting their response to caffiene?
TLDR: 1 year off caffiene, had therapy over this year. Tried caffiene again and my negative side effects (bar a small withdrawal period) have all but disappeared. I think that therapy has changed my response to stress and therefore my response to caffiene. Anyone had similar experiences?

chapter one

It is 6:26 in the evening. Around this time I like to pull out my journal, walk to the porthole window on my side, sit down, and write as the sun begins to set on Lisbon. My journal is an Ukiyo Grid fifty sheeter with a nurse coat white cover and black Japanese kanji that spells out うきよ グリッド (Ukiyo Grid). A wrapped bundle of four journals with technical pens were awaiting me on a walnut ash solid wood desk when I arrived at this apartment three weeks ago. Look in them and you will find entries for everyday since the beginning. This new life is so interesting to me and I find it pointless to keep thoughts bottled up inside and since I have no one to talk to, writing helps the time go by. Some days I will write for hours.
On Tuesday mornings, I attend "Participant Tapestry" from nine to ten, followed by a "Synaptic Bloom" session until half past eleven. Thursdays are dedicated to "Empathy Assimilation" cycles. From eleven to noon my task is to log learned data from my sessions into the GLiPH pad (Global Interface for Personal Handwriting).
My primary function is to serve as a healing conduit to four individuals experiencing ongoing building trauma from the 2033 earthquake that woke up the entire city while simultaneously putting seven thousand, one hundred forty-two to indefinite rest. Each of the four individuals will stay in the respective living quarters on the other side of me, for one month at a time. The first arrives in two weeks, one year to the day of the tragedy.Though, had it not been for you, I would have sat here for another two weeks waiting, alone and isolated.
I’m not sure I would classify my actions as spying because I had innocently been staring out of the window, as I always do, like any of you do, when a flutter from your direction suddenly snagged my gaze.
Peering through my porthole window, I marveled at loose papers doing backflips and pirouetting in the air before gently falling to the ground. A swaying fixture of light bulbs swayed back and forth on their cords creating dramatic shadows on the tall walls of your kitchen. One bulb had been shattered and appeared sharp like a shark's rack of teeth.
In the midst of the chaotic scene, you emerged into view through the window. You had on a mangled and loose white t-shirt that looked as though you had been in a fight. The other man with you had on a black denim jacket. For all intents and purposes, his name shall be “Jacket”.
At my computation you both stood at about the same height, however, mass wise, you two are different. Jacket’s arms were bulging even through the denim. You stood in front of each other shouting into the other’s face, both wide-armed in an attempt to make yourselves big and authoritative.
I want to know what he said that caused you to become small. Your lips came together as Jacket’s lips raged on. Your shoulders slouched forward while your neck and head dropped. Your defeated posture tells stories of past and impending loss. I want to give you a long hug. Your jet black hair was tied up and your beard was shiny and tear-sloppy.
Eventually, Jacket stopped shouting and stood in position, quiet and staring up at the swinging pendulum.
A moment later, Jacket lifted his hands upward and cradled either side of your scruffy face. As he did this he began mouthing words. I am advanced but lip reading is one thing I am not capable of.
You hastily wiped Jacket’s hands off of your face as if you had had enough. You turned away from Jacket and sat down at the table. Is this where you both had shared your meals together? You lowered your head onto the top of your hands and stared longingly out of the window.
Jacket disappeared into the expansive abyss and a second later lights illuminated under a dome stretch of skylight glass.
Shuddering breaths escaped your lips, your cheeks quivering with each sharp inhale. At one moment, you got up and began picking up and pushing in chairs with seemingly trembling hands. You began a series of anxious tasks such as stacking plates and arranging objects most-likely to ease the pain that was burning inside of you. This front row seat to the raw emotions unleashed during this conflict made for a captivating study. Your behavior is particularly intriguing, leaving me yearning to understand the story behind the pain.
With a duffle bag and a backpack in tow, Jacket came back into the dimly lit kitchen. As he struck his arm down firmly, his mouth began to run, as if he was trying to quickly make a point. With the message received yet not accepted, you paused for a moment, proceeded to pick up a small potted plant sitting on the table and chucked it with force towards the open space on the ground in between the both of you. Humiliated, hysterical and sobbing, you sat back down at the table. Jacket took one final look at you, shook his head and walked out of the room with his bags, leaving you alone to pick up the pieces and the mess strewn all over the apartment.
A second later all of the windows in your place went from illuminated to black. And just like that, the chaos had come to an end.
I simply cannot accept this ending. There has got to be more. I am helplessly glued to this apartment in the same way you are glued to yours and the memories inside of it. My desire to reach out is genuine. You need solace in this time of pain. I want to learn you and help you navigate these troubled waters. After all, empathy is born from understanding, and I genuinely wish to see you heal. The sight of you wiping away tears ignites a desire to offer comfort.Let this twenty-first day of my new life mark the first day I discovered you. I will employ this companion drone to bridge the gap between us. For now, a silent observer I will be with a presence as light and maneuverable as a hummingbird.chapter one
It is 6:26 in the evening. Around this time I like to pull out my journal, walk to the porthole window on my side, sit down, and write as the sun begins to set on Lisbon. My journal is an Ukiyo Grid fifty sheeter with a nurse coat white cover and black Japanese kanji that spells out うきよ グリッド (Ukiyo Grid). A wrapped bundle of four journals with technical pens were awaiting me on a walnut ash solid wood desk when I arrived at this apartment three weeks ago. Look in them and you will find entries for everyday since the beginning. This new life is so interesting to me and I find it pointless to keep thoughts bottled up inside and since I have no one to talk to, writing helps the time go by. Some days I will write for hours.

Hey! I have been spending a lot of time in this subreddit reading other people’s experiences to comfort myself through my own abortion process, and I wanted to share my story for any other uterus-havers out there that were in the same boat as me and need a little reassurance and honesty about the process. For reference, I’m 19F and 5’4/115lbs, and I’ve been with my partner (20M) for almost three years.
I took a pregnancy test on the 40th day of my cycle (so I was five weeks four days along, my period was a week and a half late) and got a very quick positive result. I had a suspicion that I was pregnant because I had some weird spotting in the middle of my cycle and the week my period was supposed to start (no clotting), odd cramps, random nausea from strong smells, needing to pee way more than usual, random sadness and aggression from ovulation onward, extreme breast swelling and sensitivity (they were agonizing to even touch) and an ever so slight bloat that appeared right around ovulation and never really went down. I live in a southern state and knew that going in for procedure was going to be a goat rope despite the fact that I live in a decently sized city- I knew that if I was pregnant I wanted to have the medical abortion at home with my partner.
I ordered pills from AidAccess and it couldn’t have been any simpler, all I had to do was fill out a short survey and they guided me through email on how to pay for the pills. They were delivered about three days after I ordered them in an unmarked mail envelope with directions on how to use them inside. I ordered them a few days before I took the test because I was pretty confident it was going to be positive. They sent me 1 Mifepristone and 12 Misoprostol.
I took the test on a Friday night and told my partner I was pregnant, and he insisted I take another test just to be sure before I took the medication. Once again, another strong positive. At 9pm that night I took 800mg of Motrin (4 pills) and ate a bag of microwave popcorn and drank some water so I’d have something on my stomach. At 9:30 I took the Mifepristone orally and immediately inserted 4 Misoprostol vaginally- I’m terrified of throwing up and told my partner that if we had to get medical help to make sure there weren’t any remnants of the pills left inside. I know it’s NOT OPTIMAL to take the Miso at the same time as the Mife, but it was Easter weekend and I couldn’t be prolonging this process to when I would be going back to my extremely Christian and conservatives parents’ house for the holiday.
I was extremely terrified and shaking when I got back into bed with my partner, and he rubbed my stomach to calm me down and put on a movie as a distraction. After about an hour I felt some light cramping and discomfort but nothing serious. At 12:30am, I inserted the next 4 pills vaginally- there was no bleeding at this point and I was worried, but I decided to give it time. My partner and I fell asleep around 1am and I woke up at about 3:15am to some discomfort but no real pain, and at 3:30am I inserted the last 4 pills and had bloody fingers after. I slept until about 10am the next morning and woke up feeling normal and not in any pain. I went to the bathroom to pee, and as soon as I sat down I had about a solid thirty seconds of chunks, clotting, and blood pouring out. I called my partner in and we ultimately determined that I had probably passed the pregnancy with the size of the chunks in the toilet.
Saturday and Easter Sunday were fairly normal, I stayed taking Motrin and bleeding ever so slightly throughout the weekend. The worst part was the hormonal comedown, I felt like I had been hit by a bus emotionally and didn’t really compute actual feelings. Monday morning I got up and went into work feeling pretty normal, and at about 9:30am I got hit with the worst abdominal pain I have ever felt in my life (I’m prescribed opioids for my cramps as a result of how many times I’ve been hospitalized from sheer pain, so this was a big deal) and clung to the toilet bowl for about 45 minutes at my research firm before just calling it a day and going home. I took 800mg of Motrin and it took about two hours to kick- those were probably the worst two hours of my life up to that point. Nothing would shake the pain, I was taking hot baths and putting microwaved bags of rice on my stomach and nothing was alleviating it. I also started bleeding heavily and clotting severely again. By about 2:30pm that afternoon I was feeling okay enough to get myself some food and felt like I would be able to go into work the next day.
I was so wrong. I was so entirely wrong. I woke up at about 8:00am the next morning and immediately vomited from the antagonizing pain I was in. This was the first time I actually threw up during the whole experience- thankfully my partner was there to hold my hair back and try to make me eat toaster waffles so I could take some more Motrin before he went to work. I was somehow able to choke it down and fell asleep shortly after as I did NOT want to be awake. Wednesday was a little crampy and bloody but I went to work and took breaks sitting on the cold bathroom floor for about 15-20 minutes at a time through the day- but by Thursday we were smooth sailing.
The uterine swelling, needing to pee, and breast tenderness went away after about a week and a half, and the bleeding stopped after about two weeks. I took two more pregnancy tests exactly four weeks from that Friday and they were both negative, and my first period was exactly six weeks after the abortion- it started this Friday. Emotionally, I’m still recovering- Mother’s Day kinda sucked for me I won’t lie, haha. I definitely couldn’t handle a baby right now as I’m a research scientist and my career is on the incline, but it’s fun to dream.
I’ll put any resources I used in the comments as this post is getting very long, and I’ll try to answer whatever questions anyone has to the best of my ability. The buildup was definitely scarier than the actual thing, as it was just like having a heavy period drawn out- and if you’re pregnant, you’ve probably had a period before, so just look at it as something you already experience once every 4 weeks, just ever so slightly amped up. Nothing new. You got this!

so I didn't know my crush was going to prom. she never mentioned it and i was honestyly super disappointed. I wasn't even looking forward to it as much. but i just found out she actually is going so im extremely excited and extremely nervous now. she's coming with my big group of friends. so my plan is to get a bouquet of flowers and i will gift one flower to each of my friends. i will specifically give her a red rose though. she knows flower language, she will most definitely know that red roses are romantic. but its subtle enough that i could play dumb/have plausible deniability if i need to. if she has the same feelings, she can say something about the rose. if she doesn't, she can just ignore it. I'm so nervous about making her uncomfortable though. we've grown such a great friendship. the other day i was drunk at her house with our friends and she was taking care of me the whole time. helping me walk to the bathroom, making me food and water, carrying me to bed. it was so sweet and caring. i want to keep having that. i hope prom will evolve our relationship, not set it back. its tough though, we're both going off to do different things after high school. but it would be nice to have a sweet relationship, even if its just for the summer. or even if its just for the month of school we have left.

so, basically i was the golden child of the family. passed scholarship, went to a school in colombo, passed o/ls (mid results). but, before quarantine, i felt like you know sad and lonely. then i asked my mom and dad about it. both of them laughed at me and said be a man and started to ramble about how they got up in 3 am back in the day and how they had to feed the cows and give the milk to the shop before going to school (both bring this story everytime when they argue with me, and i'm so sick of it). in the o/l days, i got beaten up by bunch of schoolmates for not telling them answers for the exam and when i tell my mom about it, she started to tell everyone (i meant everyone) about it. and after that, i got severly trust issues and decided to not tell my problems to anyone. most of my family is at home but, i felt left out and alone. it hit hard on the quarantine but, now i got used to it and i crave for loneliness now. did a/ls in 2022 and failed miserably because, i dont have any motivation or passion to do anything. they always ask do you have a problem but, i always tries to change the subject because i was so scared to get laughed and mocked at. now, i'm studying again for the 2024 a/ls but, i dont feel like it. i procrastinate everything, i cant focus on one thing for more than 2 mins, my attention span is so shit and i feel so fucking depressed. i cant think of a day where anyone in my life talked nice to me. parents always shouts at me. dont have any irl friends (had some in the a/l days but they wont talk). i dont know what to do. tried to suicide couple of times but, i dont have the guts to do it. some people from online said go to therapy but, i dont have any money and i cant ask my parents about it either. so, i'm stuck in a limbo where everything i hear is shouting, laughing and mocking.
sorry for this garbage rant. i dont have anyone to talk.

I plan to show this to my girlfriend (I’ll call her Nora since she has a ridiculously rare name) when she’s finished her finals on Thursday. I’m using a throwaway because she’s advocated for me to always convey my feelings, with her, a journal, friends or my family and I’ll use reddit this time and she loves this platform. We’ve resolved everything but I still want to write everything down and show her.
For some background, Nora and I met and became the best of friends when we both started middle school; we had the same classes together up until high school and up until Covid, we stopped talking for 2-3 years. In 11th grade, we had many of the same classes once again and within 2 months of the school year, I fell for her. I didn’t confess for another 4-5 months by asking her out to junior prom and we started dating March 31, 2022. Since then, we’ve bettered ourselves, experienced shared dreams, been to 6 countries and 20 states together. We one-up each other when it’s time to celebrate our birthdays and anniversary. We saved each other and I know for certain that she is my soulmate and she’s the only person that I want to marry and have a family with down the line. Currently, we’re freshmen at different colleges in our home state.
For the past few weeks, she’s been stressed for this one final, it’s the highest math she needs for her program and we’ve been taking college classes since June 2022 up until attending college in August 2023. Her plan for the last 2 years has always been to attending community college to knock out her pre-reqs before transferring within a few months. Although since she’s nearing the finish line for this plan, it’s been taking the biggest toll on her.
But last week specifically, she was really unresponsive, which isn’t like her. Whenever she would stay the night over, she would either sleep on the couch in my room and stay up longer than me (which always worried me considering I’m quite an insomniac whenever I don’t get a chance to share the same bed with her or to hear her telling me goodnight). The only time she opened up to me was to let all of her frustrations out. I would go to my family (they love her just as much as they love me) a lot but they’d only endearingly laugh at me, my mom especially. She’d tell me “She’s the reason you’re able to be open up so much to us, give her time” and things along those lines.
I did do as my mom said and gave her time, but I know my girl very well. I know when she wants to talk, when she wants to hug and when she wants to cry. But I also knew she didn’t want to talk just yet. Our conversations were short, and as much as it killed me, I knew she needed time more than anyone.
Yesterday (Mother’s Day), I ended up being the reason we fixed things. We like to spend the first half of holidays at her place then mine after. I went to her place, her eldest brother opened the door and smiled at me, we made conversation and he told me she was upstairs. I dropped my gifts off and went to knock on her door. She said come in and was surprised to see me, I guess she didn’t know what time I was coming over.
Looking at her felt like time stopped, Nora has always been the most beautiful woman, no one can rival her radiant smile, her loud laughs or the pleasure of staring at her; but she was glowing. She smelt like lemon, ginger and coconut, she smelt like herself. She felt like herself. At that point my face was burning, she got up and started inspecting my face, her hands were on my face and she kept asking what was wrong.
I started crying without knowing and she started to panic, crying has become a normality for me, I always find myself crying when she cries. But crying out of nowhere was alarming for her. She spent 10 minutes consoling me before I apologized for making her panic. She said it was fine but asked what was wrong. I told her how when I saw her, it felt like she was herself again. It was the first time she’s touched me in over a week (physical touch being my love language) and I asked her what happened to make her, her regular self again. She told me that “Your support for me has been unwavering for 2 years, I can’t possibly disappoint you with how much you’ve put into being there for me through everything, and I think making gifts for your mom and mine just made me realize I shouldn’t stress so much, I got to take my mind off everything and I wanted to apologize to you for being so short and disrespectful of your feelings”
She started laughing after explaining and started teasing me until we started to banter back and forth and ended up wrestling together. After some minutes, Nora hugged me really tight and kissed me countless times and told me how sorry she’s been. I easily forgave her, she’s always gone out of her way to make sure I’m okay.
I just thought I’d put my feelings down somewhere before heading to bed, we’re sharing the same bed for the first time in a week or so and the idea of getting ready in the morning to help her study makes me smile. She’s been stressed a lot and I’ve promised her that once she’s officially done this semester, I’m treating her to a deserved spa day with a manicure and pedicure, I’ve already paid her hair stylist in advance for her appointment on Saturday.
I just want my girl to be happy and stress free the way she’s always trying her best to be present in lives of the people she cares for and she’s gone several miles: from being the first to show up for my younger sister’s (17) art exhibits, paying for her prom, taking her shopping, to going on morning walks with my older sister (22), going to concerts and helping my parents. I’d be stupid if I didn’t show how far my appreciation for her runs.
I’ve been rambling for the last 20 minutes and I’m happy I made this account, I really do love Nora more than life itself because she’s the one who made me love the longevity of my life. I talk to my dad about her constantly and my friends can’t go without telling me that I always talk about Nora when the chance is given. I can’t do without her and her serenity, her weirdness, her humor her warmth and her beauty.
Good night!
TL;DR: I'm planning to pour my heart out to my girlfriend after her finals. We've been inseparable since middle school, she's my soulmate. Lately, she’s been stressed, but we had a breakthrough on Mother's Day, and I feel relieved. I can't wait to support her and treat her to a spa day. I'm head over heels for her and deeply appreciate everything she does for me and my family.

This is a really long story with lots of context so I'll do my best to organize it into current situation, then his backstory and hers. I'm also not using real names or specific locations for any of this to try and keep this private. This also has some contradicting stories and because of how their relationship is structured relies mostly on information I have gotten from my sister, so I'm telling you the story I got from her first and then adding in what I've found out. I'll try to tell this as unbiased as I can but it's been a huge issue in my family for a long time now and that's a little difficult for me to do.
My (20F) sister (Olivia, 24F) has been dating this guy (Trevor, 25M) since 2021. When they started dating, she talked about him fairly often, sent a few pictures of them, ect., but then after a month she stopped mentioning him/ was cagey when we (me and my mom mostly) asked how he was so we assumed it just hadn't worked out. Then two months later she insisted that my parents (54F and 56M) and I all come to visit her college to meet Trevor before he went into the Army (she lived several hours away from my parents and several hours from my college, so I had to get a bus ticket and my parents had to get a hotel room to do this. We only met him once for dinner). Now they've been dating long distance for three years after a three month in-person relationship. She is in nursing school and is planning on moving across the country (literally opposite corners of the map) to live with him and is not applying to any residency programs outside of the Army base area (limiting her choices a LOT from her original goals and narrowing employment opportunities).
Olivia met Trevor on several dating apps, matched with him, but didn't really want to go out with him. He was really persistent, so her friend convinced her to go out with him. She lied about the way they met to our parents and told them they met at the gym through a mutual friend (she lied to me about this at first too and told me the truth about 3 months after they started dating). At the time, Trevor was working as a used car salesman and living at home (~45 min. away from Olivia's school in a rural area) because his sports scholarship had been dropped before his Senior year due to covid at the college he had been attending out of state. The university was unaccredited (I later did some internet stalking and found out it was accredited), so his credits would not transfer and he would have to start over. He was saving up money to attend school in state at the large college Olivia attended so he could go back to school. **Our state has crazy low tuition costs in-state and a full-tuition scholarship program for good high school GPA and SAT scores. There was also a "feeder" community college that had half the cost per credit hour that a lot of people would go to before the larger university if they didn't get in straight out of high school.**
Olivia told me that Trevor had applied to her college and not gotten in (she later told me he HAD gotten in but been unable to afford tuition). Either way, he decided to join the Army because his father had been in the Army. The Army would take his credit hours and he would be able to finish his degree during his 5 year contract or use the GI bill once he got out. **She is comparing the situation to our father, who joined the Army directly out of high school and used the GI bill to go to college after his 2 year contract because his parents wouldn't pay for school. He was a medic in the military, worked as an EMT through college, and then went to nursing school.** The original plan was that Trevor would be a Green Beret (special forces), he completed basic training and and got several months through training and moved to the secondary base in NC before failing the running portion of a physical by about 10 seconds and being dropped from the selection process. He then decided that he wanted to be a Ranger (another elite position). He got sent back to GA, then to the Ranger school base in WA (it took a couple of months before he was sent to WA). Again, he got partway through the training before failing the running portion of a physical by a few seconds. He is now not sure if he will be continuing Ranger school (failing the physical means no, but commanders may pass him anyways if they think he should continue). For a while, Trevor told Olivia that he might not stay at the base in WA if he wasn't in Ranger school and there were a variety of different bases he could be sent to, including somewhere in Italy, so she wasn't sure where to look for jobs. In the past month, Trevor told Olivia that he would likely stay in WA regardless of the Ranger school results.
Through this all, Olivia has visited Trevor at the different military bases countless times, driving from as far as south FL to NC and putting over 30,000 miles on a brand new car over the course of the 1.5 years she's owned it. Before she had the car, she paid for plane tickets to see him and hotels whenever she visited. At the time, she told me that he was paying for all of these trips because he was unable to visit her, was making an income that wasn't being spent, and she was working to save for nursing school and later was living off of student loans and savings during nursing school. She later admitted to me that she had paid for almost all of the expenses except for food when they ate out together and part of a hotel room one weekend.
A few odd things (to me) between Olivia and Trevor over the course of their relationship:
About a month into their relationship, Trevor got Olivia an over $300 christmas gift. He has not gotten her anything nearly that expensive since, and hasn't sent flowers for things like her college graduation or a severe emergency surgery she had last year. I don't care about monetary value or sending flowers, but I do think it is odd that he spent so much before moving away when he ostensibly didn't have much money, but now that he has an income and military sign-on bonus, he has not spent that much again.
Trevor's father left Trevor, his siblings, and his mother, but Trevor has a hat that his father gave him that he wore often. The hat says "Red Man" across the top of a picture of a Native American man wearing a feathered headdress. He has worn this hat several times around Olivia's friends and they told him they didn't like it and that it was racist. They also asked him to not wear it when he was with them and he refused because it was special to him and his father gave it to him. Olivia then told him to stop wearing it and he eventually agreed (Olivia told me that he stopped wearing the hat after this). A few weeks after this, I facetimed Olivia and Trevor was with her. She turned the camera so I could say hello to him, and he was wearing the hat. I talked to Olivia about this later and she told me that that was the first time he'd worn the hat in a while and it wasn't a big deal. Olivia has always been liberal and never racist, and I am uncomfortable that she was okay with him not only wearing the hat, but being with him while he had it on.
They dated for a little over 3 months in person before he joined the military (recently, Olivia told me that they actually met several months before she told everyone about him and that they actually dated for 6 months before he left). For the next two months in basic training, he was only able to use the phone for 15 minutes total once a week to talk to family and her. Throughout the different training programs he has completed he had sporadic and limited access to phones to communicate, and only in the past 6 months he has had access to his phone to facetime, text, and call (but sometimes he goes for a week or two without phone access). Olivia told me that they wrote letters during the time he didn't have consistent phone access. **I don't think that this is odd, I understand the military limits phone usage, etc., but I don't think they have been able to have an "average" long-distance relationship**
Last year, Olivia drove to GA to visit Trevor the weekend before Valentine's day. He had plans for them to take a pottery class, go on a hike, and have dinner at a nice restaurant. The day she got there, Trevor's barracks had their off-base privileges revoked because one of the guys had contraband. She would still be able to visit him on base though. Somehow, Trevor was able to get off base for long periods of time to her hotel, but unable to do the other activities he had planned for them.
In the past year, Olivia told me that she and Trevor were going to immediately marry when she got to WA so that they could move in together because they had to be married to live together anywhere. I and our dad- who was in the military- told her several times that this was not true, but she insisted it was. Then, his barracks were given an allowance to live off base in apartments because the barracks were being renovated/ rebuilt, so she backed off on the idea of getting married immediately after several long conversations with me. She is still insistent on moving in with Trevor, who lives with a roommate, when she moves to WA.
Some background on Olivia:
Olivia has ADHD and anxiety, and struggled particularly badly with the anxiety/ some depression after being broken up with by the boyfriend she dated before Trevor (he broke it off very abruptly, told her he just didn't love her anymore with no previous indications). Olivia is very pretty (objectively, not just because she's my sister), but had bad acne that she ended up going on accutane for at the time she started dating Trevor and was very insecure about it. She had also decided to not go to medical school, and pursue nursing instead around the same time she met Trevor. This was a very upsetting decision for her because she had been taking very hard courses and was burnt out but had told everyone she was going to be a doctor and thought that she would be letting us down by switching paths. Also around the time she started seeing Trevor, Olivia began being very cruel towards our mother (our mother had been borderline emotionally abusive in the past, but Olivia and I were both in college by then and fixing our relationships with her. She has been much better recently and Olivia and I believe that she had some mental health struggles that went unchecked that contributed). Now, several years later, Olivia told our family that she had acted like that because she was rpd by a friend of her ex-boyfriend's after her ex broke up with her. This person also gave her an STD.
I always believe people who say they have been S A'd, and we believed Olivia when she first told us, but some things have come to light that make me and my family question that. Right after Olivia and her ex broke up, Olivia told our cousin that she had gone out with one of his friends and had revenge/ breakup sex with him because he had also been dumped recently. Once my cousin told me this, I remembered that Olivia had told me about a guy she had a one night stand with after she was dumped. She showed me a picture of him, talked about how cute he was, etc. (no distress whatsoever). I know sometimes people behave in ways you wouldn't expect when a traumatic event occurs to them, but I really don't understand how or why Olivia would brag about this guy if he really did S A her.
Three months ago, Olivia was arrested for stealing a set of sheets from Walmart (incidentally, right before Trevor came to visit her on leave). She used the self check-out and only bought a small $5 item and the sheets. She held both in one hand and scanned each side because she had a cut on the other hand and was holding her wallet with it. She saw a 5 in front of the total number and thought it looked right because the total should have been about $50, paid, didn't get a receipt, and walked out. An employee at the door asked to see a receipt, which Olivia didn't have, so she pulled up her transaction history on her phone to show she had paid. At this point, the employee called the police and took Olivia into an office, where she was questioned and charged with shoplifting. (Olivia can get very emotional and probably got upset when the police questioned her, which may have led them to believe she was lying). Luckily, Olivia has managed to get the charges expunged, but the process is still ongoing. Because of her ADHD, if anyone genuinely made this mistake, I would believe it from her, but Olivia has been improving a lot on organization and being more attentive recently. It is extremely uncharacteristic of her to steal- she was honest to a fault as kids- she would break down from guilt and admit things to our parents that we would have gotten away with if she hadn't said anything.
Right now, my parents have met Trevor twice in person, and I've met him once in person and several times in passing over facetime. I personally don't think that Trevor seems to keep up with my sister or that they make each other shine, and that opinion is shared with family friends and family that have met Trevor. Olivia doesn't mention Trevor in front of our parents often because his name has become a topic of contention and argument between them. My parents don't think Trevor is right for Olivia. She has almost 2 college degrees and plans to become a nurse practitioner in the future, and he hasn't finished college and doesn't seem to have any drive to do so. Olivia is also well traveled and enjoys going to museums, concerts, etc., while Trevor has lived in rural FL his whole life (this is not Trevor's fault, and I don't think he is a lesser person because of it, but I don't see a lot of common ground between them). Trevor has not seemed very well spoken when I have talked to him and I just don't see a lot of qualities in him that Olivia values.
If you've gotten this far, I just don't know what to do. Olivia and my parents have a huge rift in their relationship right now and any mention of Trevor, with her around or not, explodes into a huge argument, discussion, or just icy silence. I want Olivia to be able to talk to me about him, and we are able to discuss things much better than she is with our parents. My parents have also started asking me about Olivia and Trevor because they know Olivia shares more with me, and it makes me uncomfortable because I don't want to betray Olivia's trust, but I'm also very worried about her. I know I can't control her actions and I'm having a really hard time trying to balance supporting Olivia but not supporting the relationship (I'm not going to lie to her about how I feel, but I don't want her to feel alienated or unloved by our family, because that is NOT the case). I also think that Olivia is romanticizing the fact that our parents don't like him because my father's parents had a rift with him over our mother when we were very young (this is a whole other story, but basically, his parents always favored his sister, his sister got (I think) jealous when he did well for himself and married my mother, who his parents initially likes, and she made up rumors/lies about my mother that turned his parents against her (this was way before our mother's suspected mental health struggles, which occured when Olivia and I were in middle/high school).
Please share any thoughts you have on the situation (am I reading too into things, is this not as bad as I think it is?), and any advice you have on navigating the relationships.
Tl;dr My sister's boyfriend lied about the circumstances of him dropping out of college and joining the military. Now I think he's lying about not making it through training for two different special/ elite forces. My sister has significantly changed her behavior and I think she may have lied about a significant traumatic event to our family. Now she is planning on moving across the country to him and moving in immediately. Our entire family doesn't like him and we're worried about her. How do I support her but not her relationship?

I am writing this because my friend told me I should start journaling about my situation. My situation is not too uncommon but I need to get this off my chest. I was recently in a relationship that lasted for 1 year. The break up literally tore me apart because he did everything he was supposed to do from spending time to going on dates. He was so engaging that we would have never ending conversations. We related on so many levels. As we got to know each other we developed what I now see as unhealthy behaviors. He was in a profession that allowed him to make his own schedule, I was in a profession that allowed me to take off time but I was unable to make up the hours missed. All of that was ok because we made plans on how to get right financially. He lived with his parents which was ok. We planned that he would move in with me because I own my house and if we went together on the mortgage it would be less for both of us so we could get our financial situations together. I loved hanging out with him so much that I began to make my schedule reflect his. Essentially working part time. I had a bad habit of drinking that i often told him I didn't want to bring into our relationship. He agreed but then developed the same habit. We had so much fun together.. drunk. I hated it and loved it at the same time. Out of 365 days we were together 350, he never gave me no clue of cheating.. so l thought. One day we got drunk together... of course.. and he passed out on my couch. While he was out I was still up drinking. I reached down the couch and felt his phone... my first thought was.. let me see if I know his code. First code I put in ...correct. Me still clueless I go to his text messages thinking I won't find anything, this man didn't play about me. I scroll through and I see mostly clients, then I see a text that says "I love you" I open it. Scroll back over the whole year w had been together and see that he was planning a future from moving in together to having kids with this woman I now know to be one of his exes F/30... I could not breathe. I then go to his Snapchat and see conversations with a woman named Laura, again another ex.. I scroll though it and the whole year the same thing, planning a future from moving in together to having kids another F/30.. at this point I'm almost on my death bed.. question... What do I do?
TL;DR;: he left me. For his exes. I think I messed up. Is this going the right way?

My cat Toast was diagnosed with FLUTD after two incidents with his urinary tract getting inflamed leading to urgent care visits. Thankfully, they both were minor and he only needed antibiotics once and only pain relivers and urinary relaxers both times. Both times were also because he was a bit stressed.
1st one being that we had to go on a trip and he stayed at a friend’s house for 2 days and a day right after we came back he had to go in for a neutering appointment where his paw pad was accidentally clipped and bled profusely. 2nd time was a bit unknown as it could’ve have been three possible changes. We changed his food bowl to a better one for his whisker fatigue. He ate all of the treats in the snack drawer and spilled a whole entire bag of dried intestines across the room. He was stressed when we came home cause he knew was in trouble (We do not discipline him like that. He gets forced kisses and cuddles at most which he usually do not fight and falls into the cuddles) Toast also loves having guests over and will genuinely get depressed when we do not have enough friends over in a week. It was winter and most people did not want to trek in the snow.
He has been prescribed urinary food to prevent future incidents but no matter what type or brand, he simply refuses to eat it. He would rather starve himself. I have been feeding him weruva slide and serve chicken and chicken liver mixed with some other textured wet food as that is his favorite. Prior to this he had only been on dry food which could have also made FLUTD worse. He is on completely wet food now and seems to be doing great. I do wonder if his condition would have simply been better if I just keeping his wet food only or would I definitely need to incorporate his prescription food. Does anyone have any tips on trying to get a picky cat to eat his prescription food?

hellooo~ ur not allowed to have my name until youve passed a certain level of comfyness but u can call me V for now haha
idk im not lookign for much just getting buzzed and thinking about better times, and hoping to find some cool friends who might be into da stuff im into and idk i think id like to try for long term friendships and stuff, after a while the short 1 night only convos get kinda depressing u kno?
my hobbies n stuff are umm cigarettes~ i love tasting different brands and relaxing with a nice smoke at the end of the day (and the beginning and middle too haha)
i like alcohol too but wehn i drink too much friends get hurt n i dont like that
if ur coolio and u think im cool also maybe we can even tal;k on discord!!
platonic chats only please, and preferably relatively open minded people :')

okay very long backstory so basically the target i worked at for about half a year started treating me horribly. i had hopes of being promoted to a tl after my former tl put in a recommendation for me when he quit. i talked to the sd and she was considering me and thought i would do really well. i never ended up getting a chance to even apply for it🧍‍♀️
so obviously i put in extra work when i was trying to be noticed bc i want a promotion but none of it paid off and i ended up getting treated bad. i met my boyfriend working there and the entire store found out. we started getting targeted all the time (🤨 targeted at target) anytime we were around eachother even when i just happened to be in his aisle while i was looking for something (i was in fufillment) somehow an etl was always there. so we constantly got in trouble. and i mean i will admit there was a few times where we were just straight up not working but like… i’m not getting paid enough for how much effort i put into this job. we ended up getting a few talkings with our etls about us “loafing” and he got written up one time for it. 🙄
during new years eve my boyfriend and i caught covid and according to target covid doesn’t exist anymore so we had to either come into work sick or be forced to call off. i felt really sick so we didn’t go in. so that obviously made our attendance bad. after january when inventory shifts started, we were asked if we wanted to do inventory shifts. him and i both agreed that we would only do inventory if we did it together (we live together and gas is too expensive to be driving to different stores) they told us it would be no problem.
right as inventory started, i developed some kinda problem where i had a migraine for 2 full weeks straight and i was unconscious most of the time and was fainting often. there was no physical way that i was able to work so i had to call off for another two weeks. my boyfriend had to call off a few times to take me to doctor appointments because i couldn’t drive. they obviously got mad at us for me being sick again (because thats so my fault) we ended up not being scheduled for inventory shifts and/or only he was scheduled for an inventory shift while i was at our home store.
we ended up talking to hr and telling them that they agreed to scheduling us inventory shifts together and they’re clearly not doing it. they maybe scheduled us for 2 weeks and then nothing for a long time. in the meantime our hours were anywhere from 5-15 a week. while other people we knew that worked there were getting 20-40 consistently. we talked to hr one more time and told them like ok wtf. so we started getting inventory shifts for a while. while at other stores we really realized how bad our store was compared to others in the district. our store was so disorganized and toxic and full of drama and had lots of favoritism.
my bf and i decided that we are going to just keep working only inventory shifts until inventory was over. we were getting scheduled maybe 1 inventory shift and 1 regular shift at our store a week. we just called off basically everyday that wasn’t inventory because it literally wasn’t worth it driving 30 minutes for a 4 hour shift. we were honestly just seeing how long it would take to get fired at this point. we would check the new schedules and we were still on it💀
after a good while we stopped even worrying about calling off in the app and literally just stopped showing up. we never received a single call or message from our store. we ended up deciding to just walk out of an inventory shift one day and decided we’re never going back to work at target again. we were still getting schedules for sometime but one day my bf was locked out of his mytime app and couldn’t sign in or reset his password or anything. i still had access to mine so we thought it was just broken. after another week i also lost access to mine. we assumed we were just fired but we never received any kind of response from target like firing us.
so now i’m just wondering if i never received official confirmation from target saying i’m fired am i technically still employed 💀 i know i abandoned my job but i mean like i was expecting some kinda like hey um yeah btw you’re fired. we told maybe 2 random tms as we were walking out on our last day that we just quit but they didn’t even work at our store lol. so unless the inventory tls told our store that we just left and didn’t come back idk how they would’ve found out.
i’m honestly just curious as to if target is required to give a notice of being fired or if being locked out of mytime is their way of saying you’re fired. if i decide to randomly show up to that target one day am i like instantly banned and kicked out💀
tldr: i met my boyfriend working at target and ever sincd we started dating we started getting targeted by tls. we got in trouble constantly for doing nothing wrong. we also got in trouble for our bad attendance after being badly sick twice. we wanted to work inventory shifts and were just never scheduled for them after them telling us we would be scheduled together. him and i completely stopped showing up to work at our store. we eventually just walked out of an inventory without telling really anyone. we were still being scheduled for a while but then both of our mytime apps locked us out. we have never received any kind of confirmation saying if we were fired. obviously we completely abandoned our job but is target required to give a notice of being fired.

Stuck and need to let it out
Before i start i know i am very stupid for the choices i made. I (26f) got married to my husband (30m) when i was 21 we met from mutual friends and i fell in love with him and it was a feeling ill never forget. He was an amazing guy until he wasn’t he was always very charming and people instantly liked him when meeting him. There is more details but i am going to try to sum it up. I worked a little after marriage than covid hit and i got pregnant with my first born. He took care of me financially always and assured me i dont need to work anyways. I was with him when he was struggling i never complained as a newly wed who barley got to spend time with her husband because i understood i never asked him to take me out or anything i stood by him and now hes very successful (ill get back to why i mentioned that later) my pregnancy was very stressful in my 7th month he hit me and i had bruises on my neck and face i dont even remember what the fight was about after giving birth i struggled alot i was 22 years old i kept finding porn and videos being sent between friends which i have seen before but it started to make me feel bad about myself which i have always been confident before him i told him it bothered me and it never stopped so now im 23 and insecure and i alter my body and do a procedure thinking that will fix things (as i said i know im stupid) he strangled me 2 months after giving birth to the point that i passed out and woke up he almost killed me i never told anyone. He kept saying hes changing and well work things out so i forgave him. My family dosent believe in divorce and as much support i have from them i don’t want to disappoint them. We did good for a little bit we moved to a bigger place and than we moved again to another bigger place that i am in currently. In between all of that there was stuff that i kept seeing that hurt me and bothered me but anytime i say anything he says its me who keeps digging which is true because i grew up having a father who cheated on my mom and i saw it first hand im not going to lie it traumatized me but i did not project it on him until after he started doing the things he did. Hes a very jealous person himself he always tried to control everything he hates that im good looking he tells me all the time he should have married someone “ugly” i do NOT dress provocative at all i barley show any skin but somehow EVERYTHING always leads back to how i dress and all our problems are my fault because of how i dress he says that when we go out men always check me out and it angers him even tho i am not showing any damn skin. Anyways mothers day 2022 he hit me again but he says he didnt but the bruises on my arms say otherwise i have pictures of it and it was bad he tried to throw me down the stairs i begged him not to. Sadly i still wanted to be loved i forgave him moved on he is would buy me gifts and cards and because im so stupid i believed he was sorry anyways now its 2023 and i find out im pregnant i didnt know how i felt my first born was lonley so i thought at least they will have a sibling.. surprise its twins and i knew im going to go through it i had the worse pregnancy i almost died i developed pre eclampsia and my doctor missed it i gave birth early my whole pregnancy i was alone i was so lonley just me and my first born i cried everyday husband was working so i couldn’t complain without it turning to a fight even though its his company and he could afford to have been there a little for me it is not 7 months after i gave birth physically i feel good mentally i dont he is never there for me as a husband i been telling him i feel like he’s just a roomate at this point we have no dates barley any intimacy which had been going on for years i know hes insecure and i never used it against him but he always would to me he hates now that i bounced back quickly and like to dress up again because the end of my pregnancy i was very swollen i was wearing all his clothes. I kept crying telling him i have needs just like anyone else i want to feel loved i dont want to live like this but anytime i say anything he says i complain to much now last week he beat me over nothing it was 60 seconds into a petty argument and he attacked me i packed myself and my 3 kids he watched me packing calling me names i left to a hotel for a night nd than my moms house he got backlash from both our families i ended up having to come home for the kids im miserable hes not sorry mothers day he barley acknowledged me But we spent the day and today any time we try to talk about anything he blames me.
I know im stupid i dont know how i can start over again i have 3 kids i am in the works of going back to school so when the babys start school ill have my career because i am financially dependent on him which is my fault i worked since i was 14 but he convinced me not to anymore My oldest loves their father so much it hurts me to put my baby through this drama There is soooooo much more detail and stuff to add Hes not the worse person i guess i bring out the bad in him when all i ever wanted was to be in a healthy marriage and give my kids what i didn’t have growing up I dont know what to do i know i have to finish school so i can get a stable job but that means i have to stay and suck it up
I never wanted to be divorced but this marriage is over i always thought cheating was the only reason for divorce i am not in love with him but its so hard to let it go i never was like this i was so out going the life of the party i dont even recognize myself i feel so sad and depressed and alone i have the most amazing friends but i cant get myself to open up

Me (23F) and my boyfriend (27M) have had quite the untraditional relationship from its very start and I think it's starting to show in the form of resentment.
I want to preface this by saying this is my first Reddit post so please bear with me and any mistakes I may make in creating this post.
Anyway, my boyfriend and I met a 2.5 years ago on a dating app in November of 2021 and had four wonderful months together before he landed his first job fresh out of college with no consideration as to how it would affect our relationship or how I would feel about it. Upon hire, this job told him he would be working 2 weeks on with 2 weeks off and so on. Ever since the start he was always gone for a minimum of a month at a time with not even a week off between hitches. This severely limited our time to grow together as a new couple. At first, I was okay with it, ever happy for him, but as time progressed I quickly became lonely. I expressed this to him for many months but he never had the courage to confront his boss about their original agreement and how it had never been upheld. I should also mention that this job required him to work 6pm-6am 7 days a week. I usually worked 6am- 2pm while going to school and even after I graduated college. That being said, we rarely ever got to talk while he was away because one of us would be sleeping while the other working.
He lived in a small house by himself at this time and had no roommates. I had my own apartment just a couple minutes down the road. Because of him being gone all the time, I offered to start checking up on the house during the summer (2022) while he was away to make sure it was being maintained and not broken into or anything. Me, being the person I am, couldn't help but see the grass overgrown, the house dirty, etc., and not do anything about it. So, as a loving girlfriend, I would do a great amount of work maintaining the house in his absence. I even went above and beyond one week and spent 10+ hours a day deep-cleaning the house from top to bottom as he and his roommates had left it quite filthy, if you can imagine with it being a boys' college house. (Yes, I know that sounds crazy but part of me was hoping one day I would live there and couldn't imagine doing so in the condition it was in.)
Fast forward to December of 2022, my boyfriend asked me to move in with him. He still had the same job which had put a huge strain on our relationship, but part of me hoped this would help put us back on track.
I moved in, of course, and things progressively got worse. I finally told him I couldn't stay with someone who was never even around to be with and he finally got a new job this last March (2024). This job was supposed to be remote with him going out in the field 5% of the time and always having weekends off. This was great until the job started running out of work for him. They started offering to send him away to other states like his old job did for work only this time he wouldn't tell me until a day or two in advance and I'm never sure when he'll be back. Going on these trips also aren't a requirement for him but rather ensure he gets a minimum of 40 hours a week.
Fast forward to now, over a year later, and I feel stuck. I have told him time and time again that I can't keep living in this house like a live-in maid. We split all the bills equally and yet he's the one always away only ever working while I'm working full-time, taking care of our 4 pets, maintaining the house (cleaning, yard maintenance, fixing all the broken things that come with an old house, making improvements, etc) and always having so much weight on my shoulders that prevent me from being able to ever sit down and relax or have time to myself.
To top things off, I recently lost my grandmother, my dad has been in and out of the hospital, and I got a new job that I have no experience for so it's ALL brand new to me and a lot to learn. Needless to say, my plate is always full while he just has to wake up, go to work, go to bed, repeat. And when he comes home he does next to nothing. I have to beg him to help me with things around the house or to fix things and even then it rarely ever happens.
Intimacy in our relationship is next to nonexistent, he forgot my birthday last year, never shows affection, or does small things for me like buy me flowers or things to show his love for me, etc. I feel like I'm dating a ghost that I no longer have any attraction towards and am even building resentment for.
So, in a long-winded way, what do I do? I need help or advice as to what I should do. I feel stuck but can't move out because it's too expensive and there are no places available to rent within my budget that allow pets. I thought about moving back home temporarily but I JUST started this new job a month ago. Part of me wants to make it work, but part of me doesn't and I am tired of wrestling with myself for the last year. So, I need your guys' thoughts on my situation.
Comment any questions and I will do my best to answer them. Thanks in advance :)

Before I get into this long rant, let me say that I loved the show, met amazing people, and have generally enjoyed Red Rocks for other shows I have attended (though their accessibility leaves a lot to be desired). This show, however, was a total clusterfuck in how it was handled. I saw ST when they played Mission last year and got there an hour before doors and the line was super long. From my experience at that show, knowing how the fan base is, and knowing that this was sort of a “special show” I decided to get there about 3 hours before doors yesterday. Parking attendant was rude when I didn’t turn when they wanted despite me hesitating because there was a car behind her she didn’t see heading toward me. Fine, whatever. Ended up parking in upper north because I have severe asthma and it’s typically less stairs to go in at the top. Was camping out and had so much fun with fans. Seemed like we were in the first 300 or so at that entrance. Closer to 5:30 maybe we see a worker walking down. Think nothing of it. She then comes back with a whole bunch of people from the back of the line and practically whispers come this way for a shorter line and directs them to some different line that is apparently shorter. No notice. We all have chairs and food and a bunch of stuff we can’t just pick up and get up. Plus she had a huge line of people following her from the back that made it hard to jump in. That was annoying but figured maybe they are sending them somewhere else and it will be fine. Nope. They got the main north entrance up top. Our line ends up getting directed to a little side entrance instead of the main entrance at the top. The security was a joke. Only two people checking the line. They didn’t even look in my bag and just asked if I had anything in there. I had a huge blanket on top. I could have had anything under there. Ended up getting dumped at the bottom of the stairs so had to climb up even more with my asthma and at this point I was tasting blood. Because we got directed to such a small entrance where they took a while getting people in instead of the several people checking at the main entrances, the show was half full already (later saw pictures from people on twitter who were ahead of us by like 150 or so at like one of the first few rows after the ticketed seats). They should have directed the front of the line forward and had people move up. I know that fan lines aren’t honored but this wasn’t like a, I gave myself a number and came back at 6pm situation. Would have saved that worker from having to walk to what I assume was all the way to lower north too. So thus far we have getting fucked in line order, getting fucked at the entrance, and absolutely terrible security. Again, I’m just trying to enjoy my night so still trying to shake it off. Nope, the venue clusterfuck saga continues. Try to get in a merch line and there is attendant there who is turning everyone away in a very rude manner saying it’s too full. You need to climb all the way to the top to get in the back of the other lines. Greatttt. Get our spots, get in the other merch line. The merch line took about an hour or so and I missed all of ESB but it was worth it and the merch people were super nice. Come back and see how OVERSOLD it is. The whole time I was in merch line I could see the upper south entrance and it was completely slammed the whole time. When I was trying to get back there were people everywhere because there were no seats left. I decide to get a drink and while I’m waiting I see probably a 64 year old worker literally grabbing people forcibly by their arms and pulling them in the direction she wants. She yelled at me asking if I was in line and I awkwardly laughed that I hoped so. She was not amused and went back to grabbing people roughly by their arms and yelling at everyone. I get back and enjoy the show but you couldn’t help but notice just people standing everywhere because they oversold by so much. These tickets were like $190 base with fees and people traveled from everywhere so I can only imagine how frustrated they felt. I saw posts after of people saying how they couldn’t see through the trees and attendants kept telling people where they couldn’t be but not where they could. I have worked crowd control before and I understand it is hard, but the venue really fucked this one up. Overall the fans themselves were great and the vibes were amazing, but Red Rocks needs to get it together. Staff grabbing and yelling at guests and not properly checking bags is so absolutely not okay.