Always bloated and tired

Help! Throwaway account because i don't want to be recognized😅
I 35F am in love with my bff 47M....
Not just in love. Really in love.
We had a friendship that goes more than 20 years back. We had a connection back then but i never did anything with those feelings because i was under aged and never even would have considered he would feel something for me. I always thought he saw me as his younger siste niece kind of girl. I looked up to him and even thought that my feelings were because of my puberty and him just beeing awesome in my eyes.
We lost contact for almost 10 years because our shared contact went in to another fase of his life and social media and contact wasnt the same as now. Somebody wasnt easy to find once lost.
But 5,5 years ago i went to a party and... there he was! We were over the moon seeing eachother again! He proudly presented me to his wife, we had a blast that evening and promised we would now keep in touch.
I was single at that time and on that same evening I hooked up with a very cute guy for a one night stand ( first time in my life after a 14 year relationship). That didn’t turn out to be a one night stand... we had a relationship for 4 years.
Only a month in, it turns out he is really good friends with my friend who i lost contact with.
Well... that went really well! We spend a lot of time with the four of us. Went to parties, had nice evenings at home, stayed over at their place or ours, and sometimes it was just us 2 reconnecting and going away together. Sometimes just the 2 males away together, all combo's were possible.
The relationship between me and my male bff grew. We were really grateful for the second chance of spending time together. But... i did already caught myself thinking.... why didn’t i run in to him earlier? Why did we never find eachother? I hope i find a man like him. But i would never!!! Hook up with a married man or even suggest or let him notice! And time went on. Everything was nice.
Then he drops a bomb. His wife cheated. Big time. With a shitshow coming with that you can't even imagine. He told us everything. We were in shock! After about a month of frustration, thinking, seeking help... they decide they want to save their marriage. I supported that choice. I could get that you don't want to throw away if you stil think you can save it. My boyfriend did not. He couldnt forgive her.
Later on my bff warned me..... because he saw that my relationship with my boyfriend was not ok due to his anger management problems and addictions. Combine that with my childhood trauma where i was neglected and hit and scolded way too many times... i let this guy treat me like shit again. I also did things wrong within the relationship but was always honest about working on myself. It finally exploded with him beeing violent.
A lot of people around us were incredibly angry with him. I was shattered in pieces. I was thankful for the support. Also from this couple. Because i trusted them. After a few months of grief i was starting to get back on my feet. Finally.
And then... he calls and tells me they gave up on their marriage. He was gonna call it quits. Totally tired of trying to feel it again. Devistated it didnt work. Thinking he would grow old with her. And my heart broke too! I wanted it to work. For him.
And that's the moment i realised again. For him. For him. I don't care for her if he doesnt.
We spend so much time together. We had evenings full of sorrow and drinks and movies to get over the pain, helped him in his new house, so many nice laughs, parties and joy and my feelings expand and expand. Finally i blurred out that i always thought of him of a really perfect guy but that i would have never acted on it while he was married. He was in shock. He did notice the behaviour of the last period but it was there all the time? He honestly said to me... i need time. I need to heal from this. I don't want anything to happen between us and i may become a mistake. And i totally agreed. I'll wait.
It's one year since the divorce.. We had so many amazing times together. Totally comfortabel and beeing just us. And yes, some moments you can feel it in the air.
I can't wait anymore. I need to do something. Kiss him. Tell him again. Something. Or not? I'm so afraid of losing this one of a kind friendship. But i also don't want to miss out any longer on what could be our happy ever after?
I wanna give him the world. I would never betray him like that. I would give everything for a life together.

When I was growing up, I would routinely stay with my grandparents during the day while my parents worked. My grandfather, who worked a grueling 6pm-6am shift, would come home tired but always asked me the same question: "What do you want to learn today?" Without fail, my answer was always the same—I wanted to take apart something. It could be the vacuum cleaner, the lawn mower, the remote control to the TV, anything. Despite his exhaustion, he always indulged me, knowing I wouldn't let him sleep until we had taken apart and reassembled the appliance. He also knew he couldn’t slip one by me and do a half-hearted job because I would know.
This routine of curiosity and learning led to my introduction to investing. After we had reassembled the appliance, he would sit me on his lap and we would read a book and watch the ticker tape on CNBC. He made me memorize stock symbols, their prices, the values, and understand why they were the way they were, including earnings calls and market movements. This was my normal until I went to school and realized my friends were amazed when I told them what my days consisted of.
As I grew older, the knowledge, direction, and discipline he instilled in me never left. That was over 30 years ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday. If I could impart one piece of advice to you as you start your financial journey, or if you are returning to it, it would be this: Start early, stay the course, and good things will happen. You never know what a child or adult can handle until you push them to become more.
To this day, my grandfather remains the greatest role model I could ever ask for, and the debt I owe him is insurmountable. I love you, Pop, always and forever!

Round 1, Pick 21 - Chop Robinson, DE, Penn State:
NFL: I see Miami using Robinson as a rotational player early on. An A+ athlete, Robinson is a developmental prospect with first-step quickness and explosiveness but needs more consistency.
CBS Sports: A. I love this pick for Miami. He has the best first step in this draft. With a little coaching, he will become a dominant pass rusher. They can also move him around as a joker on their front. Love it.
ESPN: At some point, the Dolphins may have a lot of money tied up in their outside linebackers room. But until then, this could end up being one of the better pass-rush rotations in the NFL. Robinson recorded fewer than 12 sacks in three collegiate seasons, but his physical traits jump off the tape. He has a powerful first step and will ideally fill the rotational role left by Andrew Van Ginkel's departure. Coach Mike McDaniel loves his pass-rushers and he gets an exciting one in Robinson.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: Wants his face mask to be one solid piece like Master Shredder.
Round 2, Pick 55 - Patrick Paul, OT, Houston:
NFL: With the offensive tackle ranks significantly thinned, the Dolphins jumped in on Paul after going defense in Round 1. He wasn't my favorite OT prospect this year, with Paul giving me some Josh Jones vibes. His mass and reach are impressive, and he has 44 college starts at left tackle. But if Paul is Terron Armstead's eventual replacement, getting a year to develop his craft, this pick might work out.
CBS Sports: C-. Strange fit because this is one of the least mobile blockers in the class. Mike McDaniel typically prioritizes athleticism along his offensive line. Absolutely enormous with supreme length. Hand placement is very inconsistent. Gets outside the shoulder pads. Very experienced. Hits on a need.
ESPN: Offensive tackle is not an immediate need with Terron Armstead and Austin Jackson set to reprise their roles at left and right tackle, respectively. But Armstead is expected to retire after this season, and Miami had no immediate successor on its roster -- until Friday night. Paul has enviable size for the position at 6-foot-7, 330 pounds and made 44 starts for Houston at left tackle. He also registered the longest arm length of any tackle at the combine -- a trait which the Dolphins' staff loves. He's not a finished product but the opportunity to develop behind Armstead for at least a year should prove invaluable for a player the Dolphins couldn't hide their excitement about when speaking to the media after the pick.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: Did not manage to escape being drafted by the Browns. Oof.
Round 4, Pick 120 - Jaylen Wright, RB, Tennessee:
NFL: The Dolphins love speed, and Wright has plenty of it. He might be able to develop into Raheem Mostert's eventual replacement and a good complement to De'Von Achane. Wright has a lot of tread left on his tires but must prove he can exercise better ball security to earn that role.
CBS Sports: B-. More speed to Miami’s offense. Weight ran through some gaping holes at Tennessee but has high-end acceleration once he’s in the open field. Elusiveness is good, not amazing. Slashing style as opposed to jump-cut back. Would’ve liked to see another position addressed here, but Mike McDaniel will be happy.
ESPN: The Dolphins love speed, and Wright ran the 40-yard dash in 4.38 seconds. He also averaged 7.4 yards per carry last season for the Volunteers. He is yet another home-run hitter on an offense that already features De’Von Achane, Tyreek Hill, Jaylen Waddle and Raheem Mostert. Wright also caught 22 passes for 141 yards last season, teasing potential as a pass-catcher at the next level.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: Is excited for the re-release of the 1999 classic, THE MUMMY.
Round 5, Pick 158 - Mohamed Kamara, DE, Colorado State:
NFL: The final player in my last top 100 list, Kamara will have to make it in spite of his poor length, but his hell-on-wheels style and ball-hunting ability make him a fun guy to root for. Watch the Colorado game for a sneak peek of how disruptive he can be.
CBS Sports: B. Smaller EDGE who converts speed to power consistently because of low center of gravity. Burst is there as is his dip/bend around the corner. Nice collection of pass-rush moves. Gets overwhelmed a lot because of his lack of size and length. Turns 25 in his rookie season.
ESPN: Kamara was highly productive in college with 29.5 career sacks, including 13 in his final season at Colorado State. He also recorded 45.5 tackles for a loss, proving he can be a disruptive presence in the front seven. The Dolphins needed to rebuild their depth at pass rusher and may have found a steal with Kamara in the fifth round.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: Has a large collection of mini farm animals made of cheese in his dorm.
Round 6, Pick 184 - Malik Washington, WR, Virginia:
NFL: He wasn't going to be for every team because of his smaller frame, but in my opinion, Washington should have been drafted prior to this. His speed makes him a perfect fit in Miami, as Washington could be an ideal fourth or fifth receiver and return threat.
CBS Sports: A+. Electric, short not small wideout who was the heartbeat of the Virginia offense after transferring from Northwestern. Wins underneath with explosion and powerful lower half gives him high-end contact balance. Won’t be huge separator on full route tree. Leaper who can find it in the air. Good, not great speed. Niche type but a lot of fun.
ESPN: Washington led the nation in catches last season with 110, turning them into 1,426 yards and nine touchdowns as the focal point of Virginia's offense. He won't quite play the same role in Miami, but he's a dynamic receiver who could earn reps with a strong summer. The Dolphins' third receiver job is up for the taking.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: He’s convinced he could play in the league today with a leather helmet.
Round 6, Pick 198 - Patrick McMorris, S, California:
NFL: McMorris opened eyes a few years ago with a four-INT season at San Diego State and finished with a solid final year at Cal, but his average traits could always hold him back from starting duty.
CBS Sports: C. Checks size and physicality boxes but doesn’t met normal athleticism or tackling-reliability requirements. Multi-positional usage in college will help him learn the playbook in the NFL. Surprising selection.
ESPN: The Dolphins signed Jordan Poyer this offseason after losing Brandon Jones to free agency, but McMorris adds depth to the position and a potential running mate for Jevon Holland in the future. McMorris recorded 90 tackles in two separate seasons at San Diego and Cal, and is a versatile defensive back who can play multiple positions.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: Shocked at how much it costs to rent a jet ski nowadays.
Round 7, Pick 241 - Tahj Washington, WR, USC:
NFL: Washington's small frame likely took him off some boards, especially after he ran in the 4.5 range in the 40. But his big-play production on offense and special teams value cannot be overlooked. Washington might be the type who finds a way to hang around in the league.
CBS Sports: B+. Another springy slot option for Tua Tagovailoa. Nifty after the catch and plays with fun lateral bounce although he doesn’t appear to be top-level athlete. Can uncover underneath and has solid hands. Tiny frame and little catch radius.
ESPN: The Dolphins doubled up on wide receivers and took Washington, who recorded at least 600 receiving yards in four straight seasons. He has a similar physical build as Dolphins wide receiver Jaylen Waddle at 5-foot-10, 175 pounds, and is a solid route runner. His best bet to make the team is likely by establishing himself of special teams.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: Thinks sneaker heads are crazy when you can get shoes at Target for like $15.

This person is sweet to me. He’d always be excited each time he has the chance to meet me. He opens doors for me. He always prioritise me and what I want, where I want to go, what I want to do, what I want to eat. He discuss future plans with me. He doesn’t go AWOL when we have problems, even though I’m the type who gets tired of talking about the problem. He holds me close wherever we go, whenever, in front of his friends, in front of his family. He shows me off. He doesn’t care what his friends think of me when I puke because I was drunk. He hugs me close when we sleep together. He always wants to be close. He wants to do things together with me, even when he has to go out of his way. I love him. He knows I do, and I like to believe I take care of him the way he takes care of me. He’s in my head every minute of the day. And I express my love for him verbally and physically. I truly love him and I thought we’d take our relationship all the way.
But he did a mistake when he was drunk. A big one at that. He claims his judgement was clouded and he was being selfish and he’s extremely sorry. But I feel extremely betrayed. We’ve been together for close to a year and with each loving day we went through he had the nerve to make that mistake.
I wish he had the conscience to never do this mistake in the first place. How could he not have it? After everything we went through how could he not have it?
The issue is he betrayed me once before. When he wasn’t drunk. He didn’t have the conscience to stop, until I called him out and he cried. Also saying something is wrong with him. I gave him another chance that time, and he’s never done it again. But then again I took away his chance to ever have to do it again. I don’t know if I could give another one. I don’t know how someone who can love me like this can also do this.

i, 20f have been friends with this girl 20f for about 1.5 years and we work together. she made a new friend, a male(kind of irrelevant) within the past year and she's gotten immensely close with him since. that's not the problem.
the problem is that she always brings him up and she is constantly texting him while we are hanging out. i already talked to her in the past about her texting all the time while we are hanging out and she said she'd "try not to" but it's been months since then and nothing really has changed, if anything she's become even more attached to the guy.
now to give a little more backstory to their relationship, they are not dating, he literally told her that he will never love her romantically and apparently she's okay with that even after coming to me saying "will anyone ever love me" blah blah blah after he told her that. she says they're "companions". i have noticed things that don't seem healthy in their interesting relationship and i don't say much about it anymore since she spites everyone who talks bad about him.
back to present day, i ended up texting her about how frustrated i am when hanging out with her because i feel like i'm struggling to keep her attention and it doesn't really feel like we're hanging out. my frustration was focused on her behaviors, and i said that, but for some reason she took it as a personal attack to her friend and said that i need to stop correlating our issues to him even though i literally said that i could care less if it was him or anyone else, i just don't want to be a third wheel when he's not even there.
well, the conversation ended with her blocking me, my girlfriend, and another one of our coworkers (whom i get along with) on all social media and our numbers. the conversation didn't even "end" she just left me on read after my response to her accusing me of talking bad about him and her saying she's tired of being the one to invite me out(in which i do not invite her myself because i have not enjoyed her company). but yes she is the one who asks me to hang out every time btw. she left me on read and blocked everything.
this left me confused and angry because i honestly don't know what i did wrong, i just wanted to hang out with her and enjoy our time together, but she thinks i'm bashing her boyfriend/companion/30yroldman. i get angry thinking about it and the fact that i keep thinking about it makes me even more mad.
tldr; my (ex-)friend wouldn't stop talking about and texting her friend while we're hanging out and i got blocked because i brought it up

This list is not made to be a "Best games" or something like that, it is my opinion about how much I enjoyed each game.
Also, the way I play the games to make the list is: I play it once without searching for anything in the internet to feel it as a genuine first experience, then I play it again with a guide to do everything the game offers, normally the review is based on the first playthrough since it is my own impression of the game, but sometimes the second one becomes relevant, for good or bad reasons.
These are all the games that I have access to, my computer can't run 14 and 15, I had some problems running 13-2 and 13-3 so I didn't play 'em, and I don't have enough time to play 11 yet.
Anyway, here's my list:
14- Final Fantasy 13 (Steam)
This game has beautiful graphics... And that's the only good thing I have to say about it. It's just a bunch of hallways the whole time, the part that it should open up is 20+ hours already in game and it is just one big area with 5 or 6 hallways. The battle system is boring and the AI is just dumb, the characters are not interesting and the game fails to tell you it's story and almost forces you to read Data Logs to be able to understand it.
13- Final Fantasy 10-2 (Steam)
I think this game just relies too much on being the successor of FFX, the story is way too simple, the final boss didn't make me fear it like Sin did, it was said that he could destroy the whole world, but nothing is shown, he's just sleeping through most of the game, and when he wakes up, YRP destroy him without any difficulty.
My second playthrough to 100% was pretty boring, the amount of little things you have to do in a specific order because if you don't do one little thing in chapter 1, you have to restart it, because you're not getting 100%, the game is not that bad, but i haven't enjoyed it that much.
12- Final Fantasy 1 (PSP)
Of course the first game is really important for the franchise and for the whole gaming industry, and it's so old that it is indeed too simple. I'm not saying it is a bad game, but of all the ones I've played, it is one of the games that gave me the less fun of all.
11- Final Fantasy 3 (DS)
This game looks like a better version of FF1, I mean, it's pretty much the same, the party is together and bam, they are destined to save the world, the story is not that great, Xande wasn't as menacing as he should, I think that if he appeared more during the game, I could have respected him more than just seeing him once and proceed to beat the s* out of him. Cloud of Darkness was there just to be the final challenge as "the greatest menace the world has ever seen"
10- Final Fantasy 2 (PSP)
This game is actually pretty good, some reviews I saw before playing it said that the leveling system was bad and the story wasn't good, but I liked it, it made sense that if a character fights using a sword it will get better with it as the time goes on, of course this means that by the end of the game I couldn't change the "jobs" of my characters, but I didn't see this as a problem at all. Also, I like this game's story, it's not as epic as the next games (of course, it is pretty old) but I like the way they made the villain be someone I should fear, someone that is really evil and made me want to stop him.
9- Final Fantasy 8 (Steam)
Old Review: The story is good. That's it. The draw system made me stop playing this game 3x when I was younger, and almost made me do it again this time, I know it is supposed to be challenging to get all the magic so you can assemble them to your stats, but at some times I was so tired of having to battle the same enemies for long periods of time just to get 100 of their magics that I had to use the save editor to get 100 of the ones I already had. It's not a bad game, really, I was immersed in the story as it kept getting bigger and bigger, but this little detail made me enjoy the game way less than I think i should.
New review: So, after some discussion in the other posts, I gave FF8 another chance, and the game is good, really, this time I've used Triple Triad as I should, making the magic gathering waaay easier, and then I proceeded to enjoy the game more than the last time.
With this being said, FF8 is a good game and i had some fun playing it, but i will not change its position on my ranking, since all the ones above him were more appealing to me in their own ways.
9- Final Fantasy 16 (PS5)
The story is pretty good and I like the characters, I'm not the greatest fan of action RPGs, but the Variety of builds I could make with different Eikons got me. There's not much I can say about this one, the game is nowhere as linear as FF13, but it also ain't open as FF15. There are some beautiful fights, but I didn't feel any challenge during my gameplay, not even in Final Fantasy Mode. Also, there is a point near the end of the game that they just throw a lot of sidequests in your face, but overall is a good game.
8- Final Fantasy 4 (PSP)
This is the first Final Fantasy game that I played in my life, and it is really good, the story is nice, the characters are cool and having that much charisma on my party after playing FF3 made me enjoy this SO much that I can play it many more times and still enjoy just like the first time. Of course it have its problems, some characters get really weak if compared to others and the difficulty is pretty low, but overall, a really cool game.
7- Final Fantasy 12 (Steam)
This is the second Final Fantasy game I played and the first I beat when i was younger, it has its problems (like every other) but the characters have charisma (Not you, Vaan, shut up), the story is ok and the Gambit System made my eyes shine when I saw it for the first time. The hunts where so challenging for me back in that day that i remember myself just breaking my head doing good Gambits to each member of my party (of course when I played it again it wasn't that hard but ok), this is the game that made me love this series and JRPGs, and it's pretty sad for me to leave it this down on the list, but I have to be honest when I say that the next ones made me enjoy more the journey and are simply better games.
6- Final Fantasy 5 (Steam)
This one is the perfection of what Square began on FF1 and then evolved at FF3, the job system is really good, the variety of parties you can make is awesome and the story made me want to chase Exdeath so bad that I was almost entering the PC to beat him with my own hands. The characters are charismatic and Gilgamesh made me laugh every time he appeared. The game is not the most complex one, but it is really good.
5- Final Fantasy Tactics (Mobile)
The only one I played that is not from the main franchise, but the story is so good, the characters seem so alive, Ramza and Delita really make you feel what they are feeling, the jobs system is pretty certainly the best I've seen until now and the gameplay got me since the very first battle. If you've never played FFTactics, do it right now, it is one of the best games I've ever played and certainly deserves this position on my opinion, maybe even higher when I play it again on the future.
4- Final Fantasy 7 (PS1)
I think I don't have to say very much about this one, it was for a very long time my favorite game, the story is so good, the characters are perfect, Sephiroth made me fear him every time he was on the screen, just as he made Cloud sweat by hearing his name, the parties you can make are so diverse, you can play it with many different comps and you will still enjoy it and not be stuck anywhere because they're all acceptable, I'm not gonna make an analysis of every aspect of the game, but this one is REALLY worth playing, even if you're not much of a FF fan.
3- Final Fantasy 9 (Steam)
This game is so good I have difficulty finding words to describe it, Zidane is a great main character (He is a classic hero, of course, but his plot made me enjoy his character a lot more than I already did), Garnet had so much drama around her, Vivi is so precious, wish I could protect him from everything forever. The story is really good, the way it scales 'til the end made me not want to stop playing it, Kuja is a wonderful villain, he was not only the big bad that should be defeated because he wants to destroy the world, he was a villain, a really good villain that I wanted to defeat, I wanted to stop him as much as the characters, FF9 is amazing.
2- Final Fantasy 6 (GBA)
FF6 is a wonderful game in every aspect, its story got me so much feelings, Kefka is my favourite villain from the franchise, Terra, Locke, Celes, Edgar, all of the characters made me care about them, made me want to see how they would react to everything that was happening through the whole time, the side stories after they get separated almost made me cry, Celes is a wonderful character in every aspect, this game was my favourite until I played the Top 1, but it still is one of the games I've enjoyed the most in my entire life.
1- Final Fantasy 10 (Steam)
This is a game that my brother always told me to play, and when I did, I understood why he was telling me to do so. The battle system is great, being able to switch your characters in the middle of the battle is awesome, the sphere grid, when I first saw, i thought it would be overly complicated, but it isn't, the trials to get Aeons are pretty good, not that hard but I understand why, all the characters are so charismatic, I love all of them. And the story... Final Fantasy 10 made tears fill my eyes while I was playing it, Tidus' plot is beautiful, Yuna as well, every character had their own little arc and I enjoyed all of them, this game is the one that surpassed FF6 for me, and I was thinking that it wasn't possible since I love FF6 so much, but FF10 is wonderful in every aspect and is the game that I enjoyed the most.

Sorry, just here to vent, I feel like I’m failing at everything. I have a 20 month old, who has recently been struggling to fall asleep. I’m at my wits end, every night its 1.5 hours at least to get her down, then in 30 mins she is awake again. We’ve recently stopped breastfeeding completely (1month ago) and she got a floorbead instead of a cot, maybe these changes are throwing her off? Otherwise we have stuck to the same routine its always been, dinner, bath, PJ, couple books and then sleep. Sometime I lose my cool with her when she refuses to fall asleep and then I feel bad for commanding her to sleep finally. Also, I have been back at work for 5 months now, and its kicking my ass. I managed to land back at a position, which is very demanding and challenging, another daily struggle if you will. I’m just so so tired by the end of the day with full time work, long commute to daycare and childcare, I can’t seem to find the energy to keep up with household chores, let alone have sex with my husband. He is great btw, takes part in everyhing, I feel very lucky to have found him. Oh, and have I mentioned we’re also renovating a house? Because, yep, we’ve got that also going for us. We’re sinking every penny we make into that house and it takes forever to complete. I feel like there is constantly something that falls to the floor because I can’t do it all. I always imagined having two babies, and I do want a second one, just not everthing that comes with it. Maybe I’ll do one and done. If you’ve read so far, thank you - I just needed to get this out.

Dear M,
Unlike J, I was not only interested in sex. Honestly that was probably last in my mind, ok maybe not LAST but certainly not first.
I know compliments make you uncomfortable and I’m just going to apologize in advance for that. I’m not “love bombing” you either.
I have already talked about your kindness. I don’t think I need to talk more about that.
You’re just all around really interesting. I like hearing about how you interpret your job and your role there. I admire how seriously you take it all and how methodical you are. I like that you are so self confident and self assured, and comfortable with yourself. You have interesting hobbies and accomplishments. I like that you text so formally and in complete sentences. I probably drive you nuts because I don’t. I love that service and giving back means something important to you and that you take it so seriously. I love that you are so reliable. I love that you love your sister. And your cats. And your dad even if he makes you nuts. I spend a lot of time wondering how your mind works and what it’s like in there. I can guarantee you there are not many people who could convince me to work on a 1000 piece puzzle in silence for as long as we did. And I enjoyed every second. I also love that you will talk tone with me as long as I want and even ask me about pump and rpm. I love brainstorming with you and picking out tracks and reviewing new releases together. You always always inspire me to work harder. It can be my coaching, my form, or pushing myself to do something I might be worried or scared about doing (looking at you surfer squats).
Yes, I find you attractive. Your smile can wind me in a way no cardio peak can (hahahaha sorry I couldn’t resist). I get a little distracted if you make eye contact when we’re talking because your eyes are so blue and so sincere. When you pick on me during tone my heart skips a beat and I usually completely forget what we’re doing. I think it’s adorable when you come in on Sunday morning and your voice is so deep because you’re still half asleep. I worry about you when you look tired and seem off. I don’t think you need someone to take care of you. But as someone who loves to take care of people I wish you wanted me to. And you smell better than anyone has a right to smell. Even sweaty. It’s not fair. I know you’re self conscious about how much you sweat but it’s not that much and you never smell bad.
But all of that? I noticed AFTER I got to know you, the tiny part of the real you I have seen. I never looked at you and first saw someone I wanted to sleep with. I saw someone who I thought of as a friend. The attraction came after. So that’s why I am working so very hard to let go of this. I did hear what you told me the other night. You don’t see the point in dating. You’re not interested in kids or marriage and maybe not even sex or a companionship. I could sit here all day and try to change your mind. I don’t want any more kids and my kids don’t need another parent. I never want to get married or maybe even live with someone again. Friendship is always going to trump sex for me. But that would be incredibly disrespectful to you and honestly very hurtful to me. I can’t change your mind. So I have to try to let this go.
Love, A

Burner account. I'm 37M married to 35F. Our marriage, overall, is great. We have one child (preschooler) and she is a fantastic mother. We have a lot of overlapping interests, and legitimately frequently talk for hours and hours.
Which brings me to the hang up: sex. It's always been a difficult area of our marriage (11 years). We have mismatched libidos, with me being the higher drive partner. We actually went through a period that I would call long term sexlessness - maybe about 5-6 times total, over the course of a couple of years (during pregnancy and after the birth of our child). Eventually I brought up my concerns and I was heard, but we've fallen into a pattern: we don't have sex for a while, I bring it up, we have a fight, but then resolve the fight and things get better for a few weeks, followed by another lull. Wash, rinse, repeat.
My wife claims that this is also an area that she wants to improve on, but it just seems like there are an endless stream of reasons why it can't happen. Work stress, child raising stress, slept poorly and as a result are too tired, having a high anxiety day, etc. And let me just say: in a vacuum each and every one of these excuses are valid, and I truly want to be understanding. I've tried to do my part to remove as many obstacles as possible - even childcare duties, solo taking our child to as many out of the house activities as possible on the weekend to give her space, aiming for an even division of household chores, taking on a greater share of the cooking, handling a majority of the outside yardwork, etc.
In our discussions around the topic about a year ago, we mutually set a target goal of once per week. Which, in my mind, doesn't seem crazy or unrealistic. To my wife's credit, things have gotten *better* and if I had to put a rough estimate, I would say we have averaged once per every 3 weeks in the past year. But then the issue of perspective comes up - in her mind it's an improvement and she gets upset if I bring up feeling unsatisfied, and in my mind we're falling way short of the goal we both mutually set and her satisfaction with where we are at makes me feel like she could take or leave the whole thing.
The topic makes me miserable. I've reached a point where I truly don't believe things will ever improve. I hate being the only one who ever brings up the topic, and that anytime I do we go through the "fight/reconcile/improve for a short time/lull" cycle.
I know the answer from a lot of folks is going to be "go to couples therapy." And I don't disagree. I feel myself going slowly insane (and feeling bad for feeling that way) just literally have no one IRL I can express this to.

I've posted this last year and some things happened which made me quite proud and I'd like to share how things went. So recap and then update:
So... When I was little, I lived with my mom and stepdad, things were great and we were very happy. Then my mom passed when I was 7y, so I moved with my father and stepmom, things were complicated. Currently, I have no contact with him (he's not a good man nor a good dad), and I live with my aunt (since 2018) and her husband (he came along in 2019).
Me and my aunt had an amazing relationship, she was my favourite aunt and all that. However, things started to go wrong when I started living with her, I made the mistake of answering that yes, I wanted to be treated like her daughter along with her 2 sons (one my age and the other 3 years younger). I had a desperate "need" for a mothefather. She became a kind of "maunt" (mother+aunt), and her husband a "stepdad"... Oh how do I regret this
Well, she has a favourite son, the oldest. He's lazy, arrogant, disrespectful, a typical golden boy who got spoiled his whole life and now he doesn't give a damn about anything other than himself.
For being the other woman in the house, she constantly pushes house chores to me, instead of the boys (subconsciously, i believe), pretty much only asks me about things, where her sons are, if the dogs were fed, if the boys cleaned well whatever room they were supposed to, stuff like that, and she's also constantly very, very rude to me (at the point of her husband arguing with her about it). And I got this whole syndrome of everything being my responsibility and anxiety when it comes to her, which became extremely exhausting over the years.
I came out to her about my bissexuality about 4 years ago, i thought she would take it well. She didn't. She masks her disapproval, but she clearly doesn't like it. I was really let down, I genuinely thought she would be supportive and everything we expect, but she first got confused, then annoyed and has said some very hurtful thing over the years. Currently I have a gf (she's 22 years old), we've been dating for over a year. They don't like each other very much, my gf doesn't like her because of all the things she does to me. And my aunt doesn't care about my gf at all because... well, she a girl.
Ok, that's the context. Now here's what happened.
My aunt send some kind of agressive messages over something silly, and that caused my anxiety on fire for the gazillionth time, only that time I had enough. I called my other aunt (by consideration, she's married to my grandad) and asked for help (she knows everything that goes on), if i could move in with them, she said yes. I then replied my aunt with a text saying i had enough and would move in with my grandad. She got upset and said (among other things) that "i had her blessing to leave, even though i didn't ask for it". She called my grandma (we are very close), and my grandma sent me some awful audios of how disappointed she was, how I made my aunt sad, of what would people think, that i used to be such a sweet girl and now this, of how loving is a choice and i chose not to love my aunt, stuff like that. Aunt and her husband went to dinner with my grandad that night without my presence, and told them we had an amazing relationship, that she didn't knew what happened, that my problem was I couldn't take a "no" for an answer, etc.
Two days later, we sat down to talk, she told me to start, I said all I wanted. She then started saying how that kind of thing should not have been adressed through text (which I agree, but I had to text or I'd freak out), that she was harder on me than the boys because (in another words) the world was rough and she loved me the most.
And then her husband also spoke about how he understands both sides and blablabla, and said that i could go to my grandad, but that they felt like i should understand that i would only go because THEY allowed, if they didn't wanted, i would not go, no matter what my grandparents or aunt (grandad's wife) said. He basically wanted to state their power position.
(Since my mother's death, my whole family on her side feel responsible for me, so i see all of them in the same way. None of them are my mom and dad, they are in the same "level" to me and have the same "right"... Him saying that made me burn inside, like they're entitled to me, I don't belong to them or anyone. They're my aunt and "uncle", that's about it, they think they have something on me that they... Don't)
And then my aunt said that I could go, as long as I told my grandad about my sexuality and girlfriend. Now... He's kind of old fashioned and i'm scared he'll reject me... We have an amazing relationship, I have lunch with them every wednesday, and I'm the closest grandkid he has (the others aren't so invested). So I don't know if I tell him the truth and manage to leave (depending on his reaction) or if I don't risk it and stay in the toxic enviroment i'm in.
UPDATE - 14/05/2024
Hello! So, things got much worse before they got better. Let's give them names so the story telling will be easier, let's call my girlfriend Bea, my aunt Leah, her husband James and my "aunt" (my grandad's wife) Rachel.
I basically swallowed my anger because I couldn't bring mysef to speak to my grandad about my sexuality, my grandparents are the most important people in my life as they've always been there for me and I was terrified to be disliked by him. That was until december.
Early december I was leaving for work and before I left, I tried to "notify" my aunt that Bea would be spending Christmas and New Years with me and my siblings (note: my siblings had been looking forward to her being there, specially my brother and my SIL (Luke and Lyla), they made it a question that she'd go. I have 3 paternal siblings, so there's NO relation between them and my aunt Leah. We'd be staying in a city 3 hours away from mine at my brother and SIL's house, every year we do this). She immediately said "you know I don't like this", I said "yes", she then said "good morning" and I left for college.
The next morning, I was eating before going to work and Leah started talking about it and we started a conversation that developed into a fight. She said things like how dare I "notify" her, how that's not how things work and that it would not happen because THEY (she and James) don't feel confortable with this, how THEY think Luke wouldn't like this because "no one likes to have people over for a week" (he and Lyla were super pumped for Bea to go), how THEY don't know my girlfriend enough (come on, we had been dating for over a year already), how THEY wouldn't like me going with her to a stranger's house (in complete disregard to my point of view, it's my freaking brother, whom they met a couple times btw, not a stranger. But to them, the only meaninful point of view was theirs). She had even called my brother to basically "check my story", like?? She also said that we we're only teenagers (seriously, 22 and 20) , and I said "no, she isn't and neither am I!", she said she didn't say Bea was, I then said "and neither am I", she said I was, because I didn't act like and adult, then I got mad and talked about how I do literally everything around the house, always walk the dogs even when I get home tired at 10PM, even though they got there at 7PM, I help with groceries purchase, pay the water bill, clean the house, do the chores her boys lack to do, and when I'm not home, I'm either at work or college, but when she disagrees about something, she just puts me back in the "teenager box". And in the end, she said that my raising was not like this, this made me laugh in anger inside, she's been with me for 5 years, I'm 20 lol.
So that was it, I left for work and got a text from her, apologizing for being rough, saying that she loved me and wanted it to work, that they wanted to talk to me when I got home. I replied saying the same.
Later that day when we were all home, we gathered in the living room, I was literally against the wall and it intimidated me deeply. James started saying how much they loved me and wanted to see me happy, as they want that for all their children (aunt Leah has 2 boys, my cousins, and James has 3 girls). I then talked and expressed how I was feeling, then Leah started talking and basically said in a nicer tone the same things she said earlier, plus how they want me to be happy and want things to work for me, but they think it's too soon, they believe it's not the right time, they they, and therefore, despite being against what they want, I could take Bea, but only in ONE of the two holidays, which I could choose. I was in a bit of a shock (you see, me and Bea had bought the bus tickets a while earlier), had no support, against the wall, I was feeling purely defeated and tired, I only said "Christmas then...", she then said we would sleep in separate rooms and would not go on the 22th after work because "she had already allowed an extra night by allowing her to stay there until the 25th". I stayed in silence, they asked if there was anything I'd like to add, I said no. It wasn't a conversation, in no moment did they actually listened and considered me, they had their minds set way before we sat to talk. I went to my room and rolled all night in pure anxiety. This was thursday
Friday I was a wreck and went to Bea's house to check on her (she was sick that week) and to talk to her about what happened. She noticed something was off, I told her, she got mad and sad, we cried, etc. I went home feeling awful, my anxiety had been 100% all day long and I was in a really bad place and feeling deeply frustrated.
Saturday I woke up worse and decided that I had enough and was not having that anymore. I went outside and called grandad, talked about how I wasn't feeling well and asked what did he think about me leaving home, he said that their doors were always open and that I could just tell my aunt that "I was going to live with my grandad and that was it". I reframed the question asking what he though about me leaving to live alone, he then got worried and said that he didn't think that was necessary, that I had them and didn't need to do that. He then asked me to come over and talk to him and aunt Rachel. I accepted and told aunt Leah I'd sleep at grandad's.
I got there and ate a bit because I didn't want them extra worried, although I felt like throwing up at every bite. Everyone went to sleep and so did I. I woke up a bit later feeling worst, that's when I started to throw up, there was barely anything in my stomach and all I could do was throw up.
The next morning I was better and had already told aunt Rachel about what had happened, she found it absurd how things went (she had met Bea a while back and they clicked very well) and was upset about the things aunt Leah said. I decided to talk to grandad, I couldn't disappear with the subject again, specially now that he was worried sick about me.
So... I sat on the couch and told him what was happening, explained everything, told him that I'm like his stepson's MIL (she's married to a woman. It was the easiest way I found to introduce the topic), told him everything. He asked what I wanted him to do about it, I said that I just wanted him to still love me the same and remain normal with me, that I am still the same person and have always been this way, he just didn't knew about it, but that it changes nothing about me. Aunt Rachel then joined us and asked what he was thinking about it (she knows everything and is amazing to me), he said he wasn't pleased, but that it was my life and he had no say in it and that I should do what's right for me, said that if I wasn't gonna change, then neither would he. But basically, he got much more worried about my mental health than my sexuality, he said that the doors were still open and always would be for me, that he thought I needed a home and thinks they can offer me that. Aunt Rachel said that they wouldn't be obsessive after me, demanding to know every step I take and bossing everything like Leah did, that I have my graduation, I work, make my own money, am responsible, have my own life and am not a child, I'm a 20 year old adult and they would treat me as such.
So that was it. I went back "home" muchhh more confident and waited until nightfall because everyone was having a good time and I didn't want to spoil that. I realized aunt Leah and James were awake and went to talk to them, and that, my friends, is when hell went loose.
I started by saying I talked to my grandad about Bea and my sexuality, Leah asked how it went and I said it was great. Then I said they could talk to him (since they wanted to "decide" with him about my going), she said ok and asked when I wanted to go, I said that it could be in the same week since I was on vacation from college, she frowned, stood firmly and said "you know this won't change our decision about the holidays, right?" then it went boom, I said I didn't agree with them and that it wasn't right for them to dictate about such things. Told them their values and beliefs don't have to be mine, Leah asked "WHY NOT?", then I replied "because I have my own!".
Told them they were controlling and that made their kids lie to them, that since they liked to compare raisings (they criticized Bea's mom's raising because she gives her kids freedom to live their lives and fully trusts), then fine, I went on to say how Bea and her mom have an amazing relationship, full of love and trust, how Bea turned up great, works hard, just made it to psicology at university, helps immensely at home, and so has her sister. As for theirs? They raised their kids poorly, they are overbearing and that makes their kids not trusting them and lying a lot because of this necessity of them to control everything. I stated that the raising they gave their children was not my own, that I had multiple raisings and that no, they didn't "raise" me, I'm 20 and they've been with me for 5 years. Said that was clear, just look at the difference between me and her boys (I won't delve into this bit because it's not relevant, but the difference is nitid).
They said I couldn't take a no for an answer and that was my dad's fault, I said they didn't know what they were talking about, I know how it actually went whilst they made a story in their heads and believe it's the truth, since I knew how my dad used to tell my family one thing and do another.
They (again) said they wouldn't treat me like an adult because I did nothing to behave like one, I said that they didn't treat me as I deserved and they would always put me in the "teenager box" whenever I acted differently to what they thought was right (but I was adult enough to lend James almost 1k without Leah's knoledge lol).
She obviously tried to blame Bea, saying she was putting things in my head and that the last conversation was fine and now I was throwing a fit, I said that I said nothing else then because I felt cornered and realized it wasn't a conversation, it was them simulating one only to tell me what they were going to all along.
I told them they didn't know Bea because they didn't want to and I wasn't confortable bringing her as it was an enviroment unwelcoming to her, she then asked if i would go another year like this until I "felt confortable", I said yes, if that's what it took, that I didn't really need to introduce anyone if I didn't felt comfortable to it.
She once demanded to go meet Bea, after throwing a fit at my BIRTHDAY because Bea planned a day for me and my MIL wanted to make me lunch and they weren't invited, it was super uncomfortable. My aunt described this day as uncomfortable, in this argument I said "and about that day you guys met Bea and her mom? It was uncomfortable? OF COURSE it was, I TOLD you it would be! I told you that was barging in and no one wanted it!". Which Leah said that no, that wasn't the uncomfortable part, the uncomfortable was how Bea was "daring her, being all over me and kissing me in front of her, that she had to be respected!".... Lol, the being "all over me" was me shaking from the anxiety and Bea holding me to keep me in my feet, the "kissing" was ONE greeting kiss. And Bea did nothing "daring" towards Leah, believe me, if she had, aunt Leah would definitely know lol.
At the end, they asked if I was taking Bea, I said, yes, Leah said no, since she called my brother and told him how "things would go down" (amazes me everytime I remember this, she wanted to dictate how the holidays would go IN SOMEONE ELSE'S HOUSE). Lol, my brother was just texting me saying how Bea could go spend the whole holiday and we'd just say she left after Christmas. So it wasn't a very good argument on Leah's end. I said it was my business and I was sorry, but it was MY brother, MY family, MY relationship, MY life, and it wasn't up for them to dictate on it, they shouldn't feel comfortable or uncomfortable since it had NOTHING to do with them, and that my family who mattered in this were not only comfortable but very excited for Bea's presence.
I told them I knew I wasn't wrong since grandad and aunt Rachel agreed with me, so they could go ahead and talk to them if they wanted to. They ended up showing me their tumb and I left for my room.
Aunt Leah left to grandad's house in like, 5 minutes, cried to him and all. She got back, went in my room and in an ironic tone, said "sorry, I know I'm not your mother, stay with your raisings, I'm just glad and relieved my father wasn't as ok as you thought (her saying this seriously hurt me), he accepted for reasons ans beliefs he has, so go ahead and pack your bags this week, you're free to go. Sorry for the flaws, I was trying to get it right, be careful when you take that sticker off, don't ruin the painting." aaand she left.
The next day, grandad came and we took 90% of my stuff and I started officially living with him and aunt Rachel. Christmas was a bit awkward (my maternal family does this early Christmas so everyone's free on the 24th), but I was glooming feeling like the weight of the world had left my shoulders.
So... I went with Bea to spend the holidays with my family, my siblings, my SIL's parents and even my 1 year old nephew absolutely adored Bea, they now ask about her even before asking about me lol. My paternal grandmother loved her and was amazing, told my aunt (her daughter) that Bea was adorable and loving. It was amazing and I cannot imagine 2023 Christmas and New Year without Bea with us, she added sooo much.
Recently we've been to Luke's and Lyla's at Easter and made Easter eggs together, watched movies, went out, went to a family gathering where Bea, my uncles, cousins and grandmother (who was really happy to see her since Bea couldn't go to her birthday because she had to work) all got along really well.
We see each other frequently, living with grandad and aunt Rachel has been amazing, I'm finally gaining weight! MANY people have noticed it and it quite frankly scared me a bit, I had no idea it was so evident. But yeah, I'm doing great!
Grandad isn't ready to deal with this, so we don't talk about it. He doesn't like it and doesn't really understands, but he's doesn't meddle. Grandma (maternal) texted these days wanting to meet Bea (finally!), since she found out through aunt Rachel that me and Bea are still together and going strong for 1 year and a half already. I think she took it seriously now.
Anyway, it was hell, lol. But things turned out alright! Thank you for the people who commented in my first post, it was nice reading the comments and taking the options into consideration!

I just have to get this out and see if anyone has experienced this or has any insight. I am having a hard time finding anything about this online, maybe bc I’m part of a small enough population that it isn’t studied or talked about much ?
I don’t have Hashimotos, I actually have Graves. I was given radioactive iodine 22 years ago, and have been on synthetic thyroid hormones since. I have a hard time being able to tell in which ways my situation is similar to (or not similar to) those whose hypothyroidism is from Hashimotos (or any other cause besides Graves and post RAI). I’ve gotten mixed opinions about that from different doctors. Maybe there are still a lot of unknowns.
Big one: TSH. My TSH has been extremely suppressed for over a decade. It’s almost always flagged as too low, often undetectable. My FT3 and FT4 are always well within range, not even near the top of the range. I have had drs tell me I’m over medicated based on TSH (nevermind not having hyper symptoms, which I know from experience as hey, I started out hyperthyroid). I have had other drs tell me that for post RAI hypo patients, suppressed TSH is fine (or even optimal). I’m on the lowest dose that I can function on (ie still very tired but at least I have regular bowel movements, that’s where I must draw a line). I have had to just manage by finding drs who aren’t bothered by low TSH in my case.
There have been a few times my TSH suddenly jumped up into the normal range, but still quite low (just making it into the bottom of the range). I noticed that a couple of those times were when I was supplementing heavily with iron, trying to correct my chronically low ferritin. I’ve mentioned that to a few doctors, none had anything to say about it.
I recently got my first iron infusion, after seeing a hematologist for the ferritin issue. I have not yet had ferritin re-tested (that’s coming soon), but what do you know, my TSH has now come back at a level over 1 (it was 1.14) for the first time in my memory (I was a teenager when this all began, so I only recall the last 12-15 years of labs). My thyroid medication and dose are the same. My T3 and T4 are lingering in the low mid range, as usual.
This is very noteworthy, but I feel crazy because I cannot find anything to suggest why suddenly having iron in my system would cause increased TSH.
I can’t just rant and rave about this to friends or family, they don’t really know what I’m talking about, and if I try to explain it I think they get bored. So I’m here, hoping maybe at the very least, someone here also thinks this is interesting lol

I remember being 12 and looking up unclaimed bodies around my area because I called my dad for 2 years straight and he never picked up.
My mother used to tell me that I’m worthless anytime I did something that she didn’t agree with. It could be over the stupidest things too. She was always deliberately cruel.
Like when my job promoted me to another store, and I was bragging to her about my accomplishments, she said “they’re just doing that to get rid of you. Nobody likes you”.
I’m turning 24 soon and it just sort of hit me that I could never be like either of them. It’s hard to be a good parent, but it’s not that hard to just be an ok one.
I want to reconnect with them so bad, because what am I doing that’s so bad that I don’t deserve parents?? I never argued with them as a kid/teenager. I never drank/smoke/ snuck out or talked back to them. I got excellent grades in school. But it’s like I got dealt a shitty hand.
I got a job at 16 and i was apparently deemed good enough to parent myself. My mom stopped grocery shopping so I had to spend my paycheck to buy groceries/food and then when I got home she would yell at me for hours because I didn’t “get the right food” and I must hate her because I didn’t buy the organic stuff she wanted. But I was only working part-time at a restaurant for $9 an hour and couldn’t afford it. She also gave me $600 a month bill that was also my responsibility with the rest of my paycheck.
Or when I graduated high school and needed to go college, she wouldn’t fill my Fafsa out (she did the same thing to my brother and he had to drop out and go to community college) and kept pushing it back. I had to get a 2nd job to pay my tuition, so I was going to school full-time, and then had a full-time and part-time job.
She figured out the days I got paid, and would drive me to a check cashing place and take most of my money. I couldn’t keep that life up of working 12+ hour days every day and flunked out of my college. I reenrolled in my local community college, but I was just so lost that I ended up quitting.
She brought a new house when I was in college that had a run-down in law suite. She told me if I fixed it I could live in there and pay rent and have some more privacy. I worked extra hours and got a 3rd job, found a plumber and electrician, and would spend hours every week to fix the place, and wouldn’t you know it as soon as I was done she sold the property and took all the profit. She did the same thing to a broken down car that she had, I paid $4k to take it to a mechanic and when we got it back, she “never said that” and still drives that car to this day.
When we were moving (again) i decided to just get an apartment with my boyfriend because I was getting sick and tired of being used. She found out and hid the leasing information that I got from a complex, and guilt tripped me by saying she wouldn’t be able to afford things on just her paycheck and would starve. So I quit looking, just for her to scream at me a week later that I was a useless burden and that I was the one financially abusing her.
So I packed my bags, slept on the dirty floor of my boyfriend’s parents trailer for 2 weeks, got a round of the stimulus checks, and moved out to our own apartment. When I went back to her place to pack the last of my stuff she was snatching things out of my hand, threw my boyfriend’s laptop and tried to choke him/throw him out.I pushed her away from him and she told the family that we both were hitting her, so they don’t talk to me anymore. She was also insulting him for his family bring poor, and making fun of his dead grandmother.
And as I’m getting older and my prefrontal cortex is developing I just don’t understand them. I can understand hurtful things being said in the moment, but to continually be like that means you are making a conscious effort to be a terrible person.
But I miss them so much. I want a mom to talk to about my day and complain about my co-workers with. I want to watch movies at her place again and eat junk food. But she doesn’t deserve it, and I feel like I do. I don’t know what to do. There’s plenty of more terrible and down right weird things that she does. Like she used to beat me and my brothers with electric wires as a kid. Or recently, she was renting out one of our old homes and my partner and I moved in and we were paying MORE THAN market rent. And she forced us to move out after only 6 weeks because I said no to helping her on a side project because I was busy. But I “owed her” because she could’ve “charged me more”.
Which I should’ve known it would end this way honestly.
My parents are divorced and my father lives in a different city. He only calls me when he needs something and honestly I have stopped answering.
I’m not sure what to do. Advice?
TL;DR: my parent’s are terrible, I still want a relationship with them.

I(f,24) have been having not much emotional capacity lately, and it seems very much evident to my partner(m,23). He is a very encouraging and supportive, and has my back wayyyy back to when before we even dated. One thing that is a continuing mini segment we have is that we would have night talks before we sleep.
I noticed that I seem to be a little more on the quiet side lately. I still do try to respond and am interested in what he has to say but sometimes I feel physically too tired (especially lately) and he gives up the mini pre-sleep side quest to tuck me in for the night.
He does know I get quiet if I'm too tired and I know he doesn't mind it, but lately he's always giving me head pats mid-speech and just tells me to rest and I just don't want to seem like I'm uninterested. He would reschedule the talk another day but I would feel bad as our schedules rarely allow us to have such nights together as much. (He works 24-hour shifts while I work office hours unless I have to work OT.)
Other than that, I know his job is physically more taxing than mine so, I feel guilt whenever it seems that I'm generally more tired than him. We did talk about it before and he mentioned that he would rather have me have a good night's sleep, cause' we have "our whole life to gossip"(in his words)and that it's okay, but even if he is, I am not okay with it. I feel anxious cause' what if he waited all week to tell me that one story just for me to look like a corpse.
I don't know what to make do of these complicated feelings.

i dont want to make it sound like im romaticizing anything or im that im trying to accurately describe symtoms as what they should be called, i probably am gonna be innacurate in my describing but its the only ways i know how, to me its hard to see symtoms, to me its just my experience, this is me trying me best to just describe what it *looks* like based off knowing the descriptions of the symtoms i have and have been diagnosed to have and stuff and the only terms i know.
for me im like always manic it feels and ive noticed when im manic, every month or so give or take, it feels like i get depressed but also while manic? except not? and definitely some psychotic symtoms.
with my pychosis or whatever. what my experience with reality is vs what the experience is *supposed* to be and what ive been taught, i can tell when i feel myself going back and forth or having more true to "the" reality experiences vs true to *my* reality experiences, just when im more in a reality that is not supposed to be its harder to agree that its not supposed to be being its my own reality, its true to me, when im not experiencing "false" reality so much its way easier to agree with whats being said, but i still have never felt 100% in or agree with the reality im supposed to, ever.
it feels like when im manic, my reality almost starts becoming this manic reality, it reminds me of when i do mushrooms almost. its like "magic wonderland" along with everyones keeping a giant secret from me and wants to hurt me, and theres like this spacey excited feeling over top everything like my mind is so loudly empty, like im looking at everything and its blurry but so clear underneath at the same time, which can get scary *or* fun. but every month or so give or take it feels like my whole body and anything having to do with my ego just gives up and gets so tired and unmotivated but im still in this reality where anything is possible and i have a body that can do anything and i start forgetting my body feels like it wants to fall into bed forever and enever get back up and is empty, i force through and get back to making me do everything but its not "me" like the ego this exists in me, its just like the thoughts i have and my feelings are whats doing it all and honestly i dont mind at all but it feels like my body minds a lot? idk, why my body keep trying to get tired i been getting a good few hours of sleep every day normally this is enough and now i need to take a nap too everyday.
but i can also *not* push through, i can let my body rest how it wants to for some reason, i can let myself feel the emptiness and drain and isolate a little and reality starts becoming "normalized" (based off whats supposed to be) and i feel less in lala land but then it goes too far (very quickly) and reality becomes scary and the hunters try to get me and the man creature tries to get me and im all alone and the world is just so shadowy and dark and exactly the opposite experience its like everything is clear on top of this blurry world. opposed to when im more manic. nothing is spacey anymore, everything feels almost too real plus a lot that shouldnt be real. and then im like in a full on depressive episode, just sometimes its easier to fight than other times, like if i had a break up or something big i likely wouldnt be able to fight it, it would basically imediatly trigger a distint episode, but if its just life then its easier to avoid the episode that woulda been.
its like the ego in me and my body, get manic and depressed, and then im just here in my reality like a floating little spirit watching them make my reality and world change everytime or at least if i give into them and what they want? (as much as i have control over)
and there are times where i do feel just pretty freakin normal and like reality is pretty freakin close to what its "supposed" to be. its not always so black and white, theres a LOT of grey.
like i said idk exactly all the words and stuff this is just my best attempt at describing my experience in a way that can be comprehended into something relatable is my hope, using the only terms i know.

Since we all know that in jannat we'll always be happy life will be ideally what we imagine it to be and there will be no negative emotions. They how can we be considered as humans in jannat if we are not getting bored or tired or even jealous of people in higher ranks. And no I'm not questioning the fact that we're gonna live till infinity I'm all gud with that it's just that I wanna know how our psychology will work in Jannah. Pls answer me with regarding Qur'an and hadees also drop your opinion of what u think?

I’m tired. I’m lagging so hard while other games such as COD and others have the best gameplay.
Seeing other people, mid at the game winning so smoothly cause my players take 3 seconds to register the command makes me so angry.
Had to gift all my champs matches while I’m always 14/16 Wins.
F u. Disgrace of a company.

I’m tired. I’m lagging so hard while other games such as COD and others have the best gameplay.
Seeing other people, mid at the game winning so smoothly cause my players take 3 seconds to register the command makes me so angry.
Had to gift all my champs matches while I’m always 14/16 Wins.
F u. Disgrace of a company.

Just ranting needed to get this off my chest life’s just been eating me up recently
My stomach and intestines will not shut up and any slight movement they bubble and gurgle and whine it’s been so long dealing with this 2 months of hell I finally had bms daily for 7 days and now this is my second day without one I’m tired of taking miralax I wish my doctor would give me a diagnosis for fucks sake I still don’t know what’s wrong with me and it’s a constant issue I don’t have a life anymore I’m pissed I reckon whatever it is it’s probably gonna get worse and kill me im assuming it’s colon cancer that’s spread to the intestines I chew tobacco and use to swallow the spit when I was in tech school cause they didn’t allow it on campus I’m not getting any better if anything slowly worse each day idk what to do my doctors worthless he’s done one ct scan and just says it’s constipation I’ve taken miralax every single day for 2 months ate entirely clean and all the bullshit they tell you nothings even got the slightest bit better life sucks I’ve lost everything I wish I could drink or smoke away the pain but in fact it makes it worse I’m lost man I’ve been Christian for 2 years as well and even that feels pointless I’m just dead inside the only joy I have left in life is tobacco how sad is that the only time I feel somewhat happy or normal is when I put a dip in and I was even planning to throw that out before all this but now what’s the point my health’s fucked apparently wether I get mouth cancer or not he’ll I wouldn’t even be typing this if I had someone to talk to but i don’t I’ve got one freind left and he’s busy bros got his own life and I’m hella proud of him for it I was on track to do the same finally bought a vehicle got the job I trained for now I lay in bed listening to my loud ass gut and minimize symptoms I really miss life I’m thinking about just going back to work and saying fuck it just let it get worse maybe then my doc will actually take me seriously probably not but yeah my life sucks I feel like god genuinely hates me I take a step forward and he smacks me 7 steps back with a right hook I’m tired of pretending to be happy for people around me I’m tired of pretending that my cursed and all this is a blessing and I just haven’t found the lesson yet I’m starting to doubt everything and I’m going crazy sitting in my room all day I’m sure no one’s gonna read this or care even if they do I just need this shit off my chest everyone around me acts like I’m fine cause I’ve always been the type of person to laugh shit off and try to just man up my way through every problem but I can’t do that anymore there’s no more jokes and I’m half the man I was I use to have goals that were possible and I was reaching them I was doing good but here I am worse than I started but fuck it as is life I guess some people got it worse than me and I’m truly sorry that they have to go through any of it but life’s a bitch and this is a cruel ass world it really makes me struggle with my faith if gods all loving why would we be down here suffering even if we followed all the rules and did our best just doesn’t seem right but it’s whatever I guess

Hello docs! It appears my poor lifestyle choices have caught up with me...I'd like some input on what conditions to look for and general lifestyle advice.
Stats: 43 year-old female; 5'6 tall and weigh 243 llbs (high bmi)
Symptoms:
-bilateral edema focused in calves, started two months ago but calves have been hurting for longer; edema helped but not resolved by a newly prescribed water pill
-high blood pressure for past two years (didn’t know this until a recent dr. appt.)
-A1C 5.9% (pre-diabetic)
-No abnormal results (other than high A1C) from:
BNP B Type Natriuretic Polypeptide CBC CMP Comprehensive Metabolic Panel Hemoglobin A1C (w/ Est Avg Glucose) T4 Free TSH Thyroid Stimulating Hormone Adult and Pediatric
-Urinalysis also returned normal (I’m well-hydrated)
-muscle weakness
-reddish/blueish skin with quite visible blue veins
-pain in calves while walking
-random bruising
-infrequent but painful headaches focused on left side
-I’ve been tired for, like, 8 years; always thought it was depression
-crave shitty carbs constantly
-easily out of breath
Current meds: Vyvanse, Ritalin, Strattera (ADHD - yes, all of them at once, the Ritalin is a 10 mg booster); Zoloft, wellbutrin, Doxepin, water pill (depression/anxiety)
Lifestyle stuff:
-Carb-filled diet, binge eater (I’ve changed my diet to whole foods only since developing edema)
-full-time desk job
-I walk for exercise, but not enough
-Last year, I abused cocaine for around 8 months (quit in Dec.)
-Drank liquor frequently until the edema started
That’s all I can think of. My questions are: what should I focus on to best help myself regain some health? Is there anything besides high blood pressure that my doctor should be looking for? … And, am I, like, about to die of a blood clot to the lungs anytime soon?
Pretty please be kind. I know I have some serious work to do.
TIA!!

Why don't all character do a version of Nanami's overtime to buff themselves for the fight? Well you have to understand the metaphors the power system represents. I'm not saying power scaling is pointless but most abilities are related to the character's personalities in some way.
Nanami + Overtime + 7:3 technique:
Nanamis entire theme as a character is about his past working a corporate job and how he got tired of it. His 7-3 technique can be read as a metaphor for the 9-5 and the ratio part of the technique represents a "work life balance" so when he perfectly fits the ratio of both work and life it buffs his attacks. His overtime binding vow just makes logical sense in relation to his theme because overtime is a part of working a job. If all characters could make an overtime binding vow it wouldn't make sense for their characters because overtime is a metaphor for Nanamis personality.
Gojo + limitless:
Gojo as a character is lonely so him creating a barrier between him and the outside world as part of limitless fits his character.
Geto + cursed spirit manipulation:
Geto as a person was heavily traumatized but instead of trying to overcome his depression and trauma he lets resentment build up (kind of like how cursed spirits are formed), leading him to going insane and genocidal. Instead of releasing negative emotions, he suppresses them and this is exactly what cursed spirit manipulation does. It stores cursed spirits which are made out of negative emotions.
Sukuna and the fire arrow binding vow:
Sukuna's theme is that he's both an entity that is worshipped and a chef at the same time. Meaning when Sukuna did the fire arrow vow it perfectly fits into his theme. Sukuna always uses food metaphors. For example, he calls Gojo a fish that he's going to cut up. The narrator literally says "Sukuna cuts up the ingredients with cleave/dismantle then unleashes the furnace/divine flames to cook them". It's all meant to be a metaphorical representation of who Sukuna is as a person.
​
This isn't even reading comprehension curse it's media literacy curse. You can perfectly understand what is happening in a story and still misunderstand what it's trying to say from an emotional lens and not purely logical.
So when the question becomes "why didn't character x do x binding vow to become strong"? You're telling on yourself because you are admitting that it's stupid for that to happen because narratively it doesn't make sense for that character. If these binding vows actually happened you would probably complain and say the story has become binding vow spamming.
Secondly, what binding vows can the main cast even do at this point? They don't have a special one hit kill attack that they can instantly use without hand signs. I can't think of a binding vow that would make sense.
In conclusion stop taking the powerscaling so literally and try to understand what the story is trying to say.

In a lot of sci-fi, people often dismiss surface defenses, or make them overpowered or ridiculous. Orbital bombardment's effectiveness is quite overstated when we look at the history of warfare. In particular wet navies at sea get overlooked. Certain writers will fight tooth and nail to keep infantry, tanks, planes, and artillery in a story, then laugh at the idea of a space marine ever setting foot in water. But why? Submarines are naturally stealthy, and theoretically can avoid getting shot from orbit by diving. Yet they'll be dismissed or ignored. A surface vessel has 71% of the globe to maneuver in, it can carry a large reactor and plenty of weapons of any kind. Yet it is generally taken for granted that all surface vessels would be sunk immediately in any conflict, and are worthless. Other criticisms abound, yet the most common threads are presumption or omission. There is an undercurrent that consistently believes the ability to destroy a planet will make all enemies submit, when that hasn't stopped us since Trinity. I submit that naval vessels are underutilized, and could be more useful than expected, as a mobile source of energy and firepower that's bigger than anything ever put on land, and through their maneuverability have an advantage no stationary installation can match in terms of survivability and strategic deployment.
The arguments generally made against naval vessels are that a wet navy ship can't hide. You can't throw a tarp over it like you can infantry, tanks, or planes. Critics will insist that a seagoing vessel will be instantly lit up, it will be a target that will immediately be destroyed. If a submarine pops up to fire, they'll get nuclear depth charge'd or shot with a laser. Here's a few questions; what's the difference between that and infantry? Why have ground forces at all? Some critics will ask that exact question. In some circles it's presumed that space warfare makes all other kinds of conflict obsolete, or that significant firepower does the same thing. The ability to destroy a planet has done nothing to dissuade us from having conventional war. But that's what we've always said with any new weapon. The Templin Institute video on planetary invasion had a great description of this.
https://youtu.be/XgN5yq362_s
Before WWII, strategic bombing was seen as a game ender. It's effects on breaking the enemy's will to fight is dubious at best. Strategic bombing and nuclear weapons did nothing to end war, or force the enemy to surrender. Even with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that was a country at its breaking point after fifteen years of near-constant conflict, and five years of a global war. And still, some holdouts tried to stage a coup to prevent the emperor from surrendering.
After WWII, there were those who believed the nuclear age put an end to conventional war. The air force insisted the Navy and Marines were obsolete. This was part of a conflict that would be known as the Revolt of the Admirals. Air Force General Frank A Armstrong was quoted in Nathan Miller's "The US Navy: A History":
"You gentlemen had better understand that the Army Air Force is tired of being a subordinate outfit. It was a predominant force during the war, and it is going to be a predominant force during the peace, and you might as well make up your minds whether you like it or not, and we do not care whether you like it or not. The Army Air Force is going to run the show. You, the Navy, are not going to have anything but a couple of carriers that are ineffective anyway, and they will probably be sunk in the first battle. Now as for the Marines, you know what the Marines are, a small bitched-up army talking Navy lingo. We are going to put those Marines in the Regular Army and make efficient soldiers out of them."
This was accompanied by:
"In the age of atomic warfare, the fast carrier task force was regarded as an anachronism, and such a massive concentration of ships was seen as being more vulnerable to the bomb than any other weapon system...some strategists doubted that the navy would have an important part to play in the future...Admiral Nimitz, then chief of naval operations, pointed out the same thing had been said about the navy when the submarine, the torpedo, and the airplane were introduced. 'While the prophets of naval doom are shouting themselves hoarse, the Navy will be at work to make the changes needed to accommodate American sea power to the new weapons,' he declared..."
They can't think of a war without nuclear weapons. Then the very first war we came across after WWII, Korea, they could not use nuclear weapons at all. Political, economic, or military reasons could all make orbital bombardment less than desirable in certain situations. The situation might prevent it politically. There's limited wars, there's rules of engagement, there's resources you need, there's stuff you want. On the other side of the equation the weapons might not show the results you expect. They might not be accurate, they might be affected by some new flaw, they're just not what you hoped. Or the enemy is more capable than you expect.
Heinlein said in Starship Troopers that "War is not violence and killing, pure and simple; war is controlled violence, for a purpose." Clausewitz once said that "War is a mere continuation of policy by other means". And I say that the ability to destroy a planet is insignificant compared to the power of "why on earth would you do that". If your goal is to conquer a planet, simply glassing it won't get you anything. If you wish to conquer and seize land, you need to send troops. You need someone to hold it and die for it.
So why in the world must this apply to everything but the wet navy? You will see people with big garrisons, you'll see Bolo cybertanks with megaton-per-second firepower, you'll see infantry doing guerilla warfare, you'll even see aircraft. Why is the wet navy seen as so obsolete in sci-fi circles? The largest vehicle ever built in the real world is the ship Seawise Giant, nearly twice the size of the Hindenburg, the largest flying machine ever built, and longer than the largest aircraft carriers ever. This means that a future battleship, carrier, or other vessel could be just as big and carry enormous weapons. Yet still folks insist that because surface ships can't throw a tarp over themselves, that they'll be sitting ducks.
Submarines I've noticed in some circles are a solution. They are small, sneaky, and can use lasers as much as missiles. Others say that they're vulnerable when launching, hence the laser idea. One cool idea I've seen is a boat that extends out big laser arrays on the surface connected by a tether to the sub hiding deep underwater, so that if the laser is shot the submarine is safe beneath the waves. Yet just as often when this idea is proposed, it is claimed that if a submarine pops up, they'll be bombed, insisting that satellites have advanced too far. I don't know enough to speak to that, but there's a lot of ocean. What do you gain by wasting ammo dropping rocks on 71% of the planet just to be sure they don't have a submarine hiding? Wouldn't that be an excellent reason to have submarines, just so the enemy has to waste ships patrolling and not hitting the land targets?
The arguments eventually circle around to "we can nuke it". First of all, the ocean is big and it is deep. You'd trash the environment, including things you might want to conquer, if you vaporized thousands of square kilometers of sea water to kill a single hundred-meter sub. As I must repeat, the ability to destroy a planet is insignificant compared to the power of "why on earth would you do that?" During the Cold War, despite having the ability to glass the planet, we still built tanks, ships, and artillery, because there are certain kinds of war, certain modes of operation, certain things that don't involve total annihilation, because so often that's not what war is about. If you want to conquer a planet, you have to take it. The Soviets being able to annihilate Washington didn't magically alter the fact that they didn't have the ships to move any troops to hold it.
A submarine is one thing. If that can survive, why not a surface ship? Again, that tarp thing would be the answer. "They're sitting ducks!" One must ask why? During the Cold War, carriers were vulnerable, sure, but we still built them, and they can carry nukes too. And they can do a lot more things than a battleship can, from disaster relief to moving the crew's cars. A surface ship can be stealthy, just not as much as a sub. They can carry larger weapons than a sub, with more power to put through them.
While it's said a surface ship can't hide, neither can a starship, it's sitting up there shedding heat like mad. A surface ship has the whole planet to play with.
http://www.rocketpunk-manifesto.com/2009/06/space-warfare-i-gravity-well.html
One scenario pitched to me recently is a bunch of corvettes and frigates loaded down with missiles and lasers that shoot their wad in the opening salvos like a lot of Cold War plans. But does it have to be that small?
Let me be clear. Current generations of naval vessels likely wouldn't stand a chance. But they create an interesting precedent, because there exist multiple anti-satellite(ASAT) weapon projects that we could extrapolate for use on a surface vessel. We have a ton of projects, from the MIRACL directed-energy weapon, to the ASM-135 air-launched missile, the YAL-1 Airborne Laser(ABL), to the RIM-161 Standard Missile 3(not technically anti-satellite, it's an anti-ballistic missile that has been used in ASAT roles). These are ground-based, air-launched, and sea-based. We also can think about space guns, i.e. weapons used to launch projectiles into space. Project HARP in the 1960s used modified 16-inch naval guns to launch projectiles high into space. They succeeded, and a mass driverailgun would likely be able to get the same performance out of a smaller package. Keep in mind, these weapons don't need to achieve orbit, they just need to hit something in orbit, so they can be much smaller. They were flawed, and less than accurate, but they do exist. So this means that we can speculate on the future of these weapons if they were more mature. And all of these could be mounted on relatively conventional platforms. Size isn't everything, yet a war machine's power isn't in just its armor, but in its ability to deliver offensive power as much as defensive power.
The MIRACL was ground-based, and not mobile; they tried to use it to shoot at a satellite. It didn't work well, they ended up using a smaller less powerful weapon for the job. The YAL-1 ABL was a 747 modified with a weapon of the same output as the MIRACL, only airborne. The ASM-135 was attached to a squadron of unmodified F-15s that would go into supersonic zoom climbs to launch the missiles. The RIM-161 is an anti-ballistic missile mounted on standard AEGIS VLS cells that has successfully intercepted satellites. 16-inch guns have been used on battleships for years. And with newer technologies, you don't need anything that dramatic, or that big. In the 1970s, the US experimented with an eight-inch gun mounted on a destroyer. That project didn't go very far, but it did function, and it means big guns can be mounted on small ships.
So, let me lay it out. F-15s(which people have considered using for aircraft carriers), conventional VLS cells, and cannons have precedent for being able to intercept spacecraft. Modern stealth systems do exist even for surface vessels, they can't hide as well, but they can carry a larger variety of weapons, and more powerful reactors than a sub. This creates precedent that modern destroyers, or something similar, and aircraft carriers, could serve a role in space warfare. As for surviving orbital bombardment? Super-cavitation is a process for reducing drag on a ship or a weapon's hull as it travels through the water. We also have hydrojets, hydrofoils, and other technologies that are deployed or in the works. Increasing the speed of a surface ship could be the difference between life and death for it.
A futuristic carrier group might consist of a carrier, smaller than ours perhaps, equipped with futuristic air-breathing aircraft, protected by destroyers and submarines. These destroyers are armed with energy weapons, missiles, and cannons capable of firing at targets in orbit. The submarines can do the same thing. The carrier can provide air support to land-based units and fire at the enemy in space without having to worry about needing specialized runways or that they might get hit in a first strike. The escorts can shoot at the enemy, provide gunfire support when needed, and light out at a hundred knots to escape the blast of an orbital bomb.
Now, there are certainly challenges. What warrants posting a large force like this on a planet that might not have any fighting? I'm not sure that is easy to answer, though one thought is to ask what's the point of the Kansas National Guard? They're not likely to see any combat anytime soon. On the other hand, navies in our world exist to fight potential threats. Depending on a setting, your colony world might only have one faction there. Having a trained naval force might be very useful for disaster relief and keeping the peace.
There's also reason for water-based Marines, with amphibious assault ships and all the bells and whistles therein; big transports, air cushion landing craft, helicopters, etc. What if the enemy lands across the continent? Or across an ocean? Might you need sea transportation? Imagine if you didn't have surface defenses. You have militia to play guerilla, and orbital defenses, and your colony only settled on one of two continents on the planet. The enemy blows up your orbital defenses, then steals some mining equipment and sets up a whole operation on the other side, eating up your planet's resources, sending them off to the war effort, while you're completely helpless because the biggest boat you have is a yacht. You can't fight back without being bombed, but you can't even fight back without that because you don't have any missiles, lasers, or any other weapons capable of hitting their ships, and more than that, you can't even get your four thousand militia over there to destroy the mine. A futuristic carrier group would make all the difference here, with access to amphibious assault equipment and other gear that can move in one go what could take months by helicopter.
One thing that keeps coming back in this debate is "but they could get bombed, why bother investing in them?" In the Cold War, trillions were invested in technologies they knew would get annihilated in any conflict. That a first strike could wipe out all our bombers and missiles in one stroke. And that is what second strike capability is about, the ability to hit back even if they hit you first. No matter how much you destroyed, no matter how many ships you sank, missiles you found, or bombers you shot, you could never ever be sure the enemy couldn't drop a hundred more nukes on you hidden somewhere. If even a single plane, a single fighter jet, with a single pilot, got through, millions would die. So much of modern warfare is based on the idea that this advanced weapon could easily be wiped out in a master stroke.
I submit that wet naval vessels are underutilized in sci-fi circles, and could be more useful than expected, as a mobile source of energy and firepower that's bigger than anything ever put on land, and demonstrate strategic mobility and survivability their maneuverability have an advantage no stationary installation can match. They can respond to threats all over a planet, and engage with the enemy in space. Like how nuclear weapons didn't end the age of the carrier, I doubt orbital bombardment would put an end to the sea.
Let me know your thoughts, or suggestions you have for using sea vessels in the context of space warfare!