Happy birthday wav

I've struggled with severe depression and ADHD my whole life. My family was abusive and I was constantly bullied in school. At age 7 I started hurting myself by scratching, biting, banging my head against the wall and cutting my wrists.
I've went to many therapists over the years, but none of them could really help me. I remember one of them telling me that I was a "hopeless case". I don't know why, but that really hurt me.
3 days before my 14th birthday, I finally decided to run away. After a while I got picked up by CPS and they sent me to a psych ward for two months. When I was there, I somehow managed to make a suicide pact with my roommate, and the evening before we planned to do it, I was curled up in the corner of the room, literally squealing with joy, because I thought I'd finally die.
That's when I realized I could never be fixed. I was just a child, and already so far gone.
Anyways, the staff quickly found out and put us both into different rooms for multiple weeks. I can't express how bad I felt that night.
Right after my release, I moved into a group home where I still live today. I made a lot of friends really quickly. They got me into smoking and drinking which I was thankful for back then, since it really helped me cope at the time.
But a couple months ago, things just changed. Everything got so much worse. Nothing made me happy anymore. I had absolutely zero motivation and energy to do anything. All I could think about was dying.
Pretty soon after this phase started (About 8 months ago) one of my friends got his hands on some weed and offered me a hit from his joint. I thought nothing of it since I was and still am ready to do any and all drugs I come across.
I fell in love with the stuff after the first couple hits. I have no words for the sheer happiness I felt in that moment.
There is nothing that could explain it, but when I'm high, I forget everything. The pain, anger and confusion, my worries and problems, everything is just washed away.
It really fucked me up. Now I'm completely stoned 24/7, and there's absolutely nothing else in my life that still matters to me. When I'm high I enjoy my time, and whenever I'm sober I go out on the streets to panhandle so I can get high again.
Fuck man, I don't even know why I'm writing this shit anymore. I'm just so tired of everything.

I'm 19 years old and a woman. I'm having autism, which makes a lot of stuff very hard for me, like understanding other people's emotions, reading faces, knowing when I should talk or not... also a big problem is, that I'm very direct and I often tell my opinion, which I try not to do it as often anymore but it's very hard.
So my boyfriend and me are in a relationship since two years. He and I have a very romantic and a emotional relationship, or at least I think... he doesn't really talk to me about his feelings, emotions or his opinions. At the beginning of our relationship, I've asked him out and if he wants to be my boyfriend. He said yes, after I kissed him. In the next day I went to his apartment because he still lives with his parents and his little brother. At first it was everything alright, but I think his family and he took a lot of me. I was taking antidepressants at this time and I couldn't feel anger or any emotion at all.
They wanted me to clean up every weekend the whole house, doing the kitchen, cooking, walking the dog, making tea, etc. but I didn't say anything at first. I thought that was a normal thing to do because I didn't have a boyfriend before and I could reduce stress for all of them. I wanted to take care of them because I thought that's a normal thing to do.
After a few months, they went on holiday over my 18th birthday. When they came back, I wanted to visit my boyfriend. I came over and he hugged me, kissed me but his mother forced to unpack all the bags, to iron all of the clothes, etc.
My boyfriend didn't speak up for me and when I told him, he didn't realised what I said. I stopped going over there. I got really depressed about that because at the same time I'm going to a really hard school which makes me even more stressed.
Half a year later I went to the clinic to deal with my burnout. I was there for about three months. My boyfriend hat at the time when I was done his final exams. While being in the clinic, he had three weeks spring break. He didn't come and visit me once, without me crying about it. He wouldn't come by his own choice and I asked him, if he wants to meet somewhere else or at the weekend or if I should be with him. But he never said what he want. I mean it was perperation and I understand that he had to take time but three months?
After I got out of there I thought about breaking up because he wasn't there for me when it was hard but I was always there for him, asking him at least how he was. He didn't even knew for what I was there...
So yeah over summer holidays he went again on holidays without texting me. I felt so alone. And then came my birthday in autumn. He kept telling me, how amazing my birthday is gonna be.
I have a little problem on celebrating my birthday. It's during autumn break and no one really comes to my birthday so I have to do it alone every year. So he kept telling me how it will be the best birthday ever but he showed up late to my house and we did nothing the whole day.
I took time to prepare several looks for my day, laid all over my bed. I was so happy because there is finally someone being there for me and celebrating my birthday. But we did nothing. In the evening I decided to go out of my apartement and to get my new glasses, which I've ordered a few days ago. He asked me why I was going out, without telling. How this is not for his plan. I told him, he had the whole day to plan something. I didn't even wanted to look at him because he wouldn't even cuddle me the whole day. He was sitting far away from me and didn't even cared. I asked him many times if we're going to do something. He just said wait for it.
When I asked him what he wanted to do, he said that it was my fault for going to get glasses for my birthday in the evening. He said he couldn't go after his plan because he wanted to go with me to the amusement park. But it was closed???? So I cried so much, I told him how this hurt me, but I don't know if I'm overreacting because he keeps telling me and I am!!!
The next day he did the whole plan, that I told him to do: instead of being lazy and to be far away from me, take the time and celebrate my birthday. But a day after I wasn't even in the mood anymore to celebrate it.
I had a self planned party on the weekend in the same week. Next to me is a bar, I wanted that he is maybe down in the bar so my friends could smoke or drink something. It was btw my first party ever I've organised. At my home they could chill and play with cats. I told my bf to be first at the bar and I could be upstairs and then change the position, because I also wanted to drink and smoke and dance etc.
His mother called me, asking where he was. I said he was with me. I told my bf to call her back but she didn't. She called me 200 times that evening. I stayed upstairs, my bf didn't even hesitate to come up to me to change positions. I was alone almost the whole evening because I had to stay upstairs with my few other guest, which didn't talk to me. Also my Mother is very sick and I always have to be aware that if something happens, I can take care of it.
So yeah, I kind of stopped finding him attractive after that. He promises me so much stuff and then doesn't even care about it. I told his mother to Stop calling me because her son is 20 and she should call him. But she didn't. I don't know what I'm doing wrong.
She didn't want to talk to me again and hated me. My bf didn't speak up for me, I understand that it's hard but when I tell him that, all im doing is overreacting.
Since then, so many more situations happened which hurt me even more. I didn't know what was wrong with me. I started arguing with him, why it hurt me, I asked him a dozen of times why because I couldn't get over it for the next month. He said half a year later that he was also feeling depressed but I don't know why he didn't tell me sooner. For me it was just an excuse but I didn't know it back then, he could've told me and I wouldn't be so hurt about his behaviour.
So I figured out, that he might help us out, when I start saying things more often. But this also didn't work.
A few days ago, we went to an all you can eat restaurant with his whole family, because I went to the little brothers musical. I just didn't want to talk with the adults because they all hate me. His brother is severely Overweight and is about to get diabetes soon. His family wanted to surprise me with the all you can eat restaurant, which im very happy for. But I said that it's not good when they take the little brother with.
My bf said what's wrong about that, I told him that it's not good for his brother and that I think it's dumb to take him there.
He said again I'm overreacting and I don't appreciate the gift. But: he and his whole family are also overweight and I just feel bad for them because I want them to be healthy but they don't realise that they're sick. I don't want to bodyshame someone I'm sorry.
I also wanted to make him a birthday party. He's having birthday soon, but his parents want to spend the day with him. I organised almost everything with his friends together and waited for an anwser from his parents but they ignored me for two weeks and someone else took my location. So I don't know what to do either and I told him that, that I think it's disprespectful behaviour from his Parents towards his friends and me. So he said again, I'm overreacting and I'm mentally destroying him but I don't know what I'm doing. He doesn't really tell me what's wrong, I ask him what I can do, what I can change but he doesn't want to tell me.
So I'm asking AITA for wanting to take a break? I'm so scared, that I'm Hurting him mentally even more.

When we were kids, my best friend and I were wells of creativity. We didn’t even get it, we weren’t trying to be artists or “content creators” back then, we were just having fun.
Andy kept making up stories, I’d illustrate the characters and make comics out of some of them. Actually, I drew and painted a lot all my life, easily and without much thought. That was when it worked the best. It would always become harder when some expectation was put upon me, like “draw something for your aunt’s birthday.” Too deliberate. Thinking always blocked me.
The same went for Andy, his stories were the best when done spontaneously.
Back when we didn’t think about how we needed to be creative or productive, or that anything we did had any value or that we had a talent or needed to achieve anything with it. We just did it, and people around us would respond.
Then came university, then work, Andy got a wife and a kid. Slowly, and without any drama, we drifted apart.
I didn’t draw in a long time. It’s hard when you work 5 days a week, you’re tired in the evening and recovering during the weekend. Suddenly the idea of myself as an artist started to matter more and more, and with it it became less and less obtainable. It started to matter because I needed something to hold on to that would represent a side of me outside of this absurd routine I was now stuck in. And I didn’t have my own family, I was free after work, not that I managed to do much with it aside from finishing a lot of shows, games, movies and books and drinking a bit too much.
By then, it’s been years since I saw Andy, but at one point we ran into each other, promised we’d grab a beer, surprisingly lived up to the promise, and realized that, despite all this time, we were still friends.
We started hanging out more often, we didn’t even live that far. His wife just had their second kid, and the whole thing seemed overwhelming to me, but it seemed he was managing just fine. One time I asked him if he was still writing anything. In retrospect, I could recognize that he had a serious gift, endless ideas, unique style, even as a kid. Hell, he even studied literature, although he was in finance now. “Sometimes,” he said. “I don’t have that much time, and I often start on some stories only to realize they’re dumb and give up.”
He told me his dream is still to write a book, but finding the motivation to write is difficult as is, and finding the right moment and atmosphere even more so. But 10 years ago, he wrote a short story/novel, still in the draft stage. I managed to convince him to let me read it, and I was amazed. The story was short, but it was so good and imaginative. The ending felt a bit rushed, and some plot elements could be fine-tuned, but the writing itself was genius. I could feel the characters, the atmosphere around them, the original ideas and believable dialogues…I told him honestly, with a not-insignificant effort to repress my jealousy, that he needed to keep on writing.
He laughed and asked me what about my drawing. I showed him a few things I made throughout the years, and he appeared genuinely impressed. Except there was so little to show. He asked me about one of the more recent drawings, which turned out pretty cool. I told him I actually made it in about half an hour, in a pissed-off mood after losing my job. Most of it was like that. The flash of inspiration is something I can’t summon or plan. “I envy the people who can get anywhere through pure discipline,” I said. “For me, it’s all completely outside of my control.”
This resonated with Andy. “When I wrote my story, at the moment the most complete work in my life, my mother died. That was the worst year of my life. I didn’t care about anything, the only thing I could do was write.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “It seems to me that the best works I’ve made came from the moments where I had the least desire to live”
“I’ve been thinking about this for a long time,” he confessed.
“I’ve been trying so hard to get that drive back. I tried to write drunk, I tried to write sober, I tried to write when I’m on leave, I tried to write after my leave, I tried to write after work, I tried to write weekends, I tried to write during work because it’s more peaceful than at home…during big live events, or tried to wait for things to get more peaceful, break the routine, write desperately, write calmly, force it, not force it….in the end, nothing works. Except maybe a tragedy.” he laughed.
“Eh, at least you have an excuse. You have a wife, two kids, a demanding job… I’m just lazy.” I tried to cheer him up. I didn’t envy his lifestyle. But it was a good life, the life he wanted.
“I know this sounds awful, but to have children, a family, that’s nice and I love them but I can’t say it’s that fulfilling. Or that it’s the meaning of life for me. Ultimately, they’re here to have their own lives and I’m still me, and I wonder what I really accomplished - creating someone else to take a shot at making something interesting? No, kids aren’t what I want to leave as my mark on this world. And now I feel that this is it, there’s no more that infinitely long future filled with possibilities in front of us.”
We were both in some kind of depression, an identity crisis. In my 20s I was so lost and wanted some stability, and now I was choked by the regularness of life. Maybe it was the awareness that things could continue like this - every day the same, and then you die - that seemed terrifying at times. Especially at night, with the next day gaping in front of me like a black hole, waiting for me to fall in.
Some people have a strong feeling of purpose from which nothing can pull them away. I have some talent, but I find it so monumentally hard to give it any dedication.
After that day, this became our regular topic we always seemed to come back to. Is it better to try to force yourself to do something, or wait for the inspiration to hit you, but what when it’s simply not happening? We’d occasionally read some self-help advice, although we were always a bad audience for this kind of thing, constantly trying to identify what it was that was blocking us. We’d share our observations. Andy would come up with some cool ideas for stories, but it wouldn’t go anywhere. I’d try to sketch or do something “crazy” and it would just come off as forced and fake.
Slowly, Andy started working on a theory that, with time, became more and more concrete and ritualistic. He started from that simple, and not too original observation that he can only create when going through a loss. “The suffering artist” or something. He started to believe that there is some balance in life, that he was trying to maintain too many things, and that some kind of “hole” was needed that could be filled with creation.
We’d had some beers when he was going on about it again. “See, I always avoided big responsibilities, serious relationships, a family… I was always stingy about my time and how much I could give to others. And yet I have the same problem.”
He waved me off, drunker than I was. “We all have different capacities. Although I have more obligations, you are equally balanced by yours, as small as you think they seem in comparison. And even that's the wrong way of looking at it. I’m not talking about free time or energy, because I realized that’s not the issue, just an excuse. I’m talking on a much more… metasiphyc level.”
Metasiphyc. I remember that. I found it hilarious at the time.
But he kept on with his idea of equilibrium, balancing the things you want in life, with an increasingly elaborate approach to the topic. From a general idea that comes down to that all aspects of your life can’t be at their highest at the same time, to the idea that everyone has an average and when you want to rise above it in any way, you need to sacrifice something else.
“Well of course, everyone says you need to sacrifice to achieve greatness. Sacrifice means hard work, dedicating your time to it, shit like that. Except that this approach doesn’t really lead to success for either of us.” I challenged the theory.
He wasn’t discouraged. “No, because that’s not a sacrifice for you. In theory, you’re fine with spending 5 hours sitting down and working on something, you just don’t know what it is.” “No, sacrifice is… a sacrifice. It has to be something you care about. I’ve been studying the topic,” he’d start lecturing. “Humanity always had sacrificial rituals, and they make perfect sense.”
I’d usually laugh it off at this stage, but I think that, even then. I started to notice it was all becoming way too concrete and obsessive. We had more of those conversations, but the more of a thing it became for him, the less committal I was about agreeing with his philosophy. At one point I started seriously suspecting that he was losing it and becoming a fanatic.
One night he called me crying and telling me he took it too far, killed his cat so that he could write, and that he was a total idiot who deserved to die. I could tell he was drunk as fuck. After that incident, he suddenly stopped and calmed down. He was no longer talking about his book, sacrifices, equilibrums and metaphysics. Just normal shit, politics, exercise routine, work issues, family and all. Mostly about trying to drink less and work on his marriage. It seems he re-embraced normal life, avoided the topic of what happened that night, or turned it into a deeper discussion about alcoholism and getting his shit together. I didn’t push, maybe I was relieved if a bit bored by this change.
Then his youngest son died. Accidental suffocation with the blanket. Apparently it happens more often than you’d think.
Look, I’m not a writer, you can see where this is going. But as clear as it may seem here, put together in a linear recount of events, it certainly didn’t cross my mind that Andy had anything to do with it. It’s easy to look back now and connect all the elements, but to accept the possibility is much more bizarre. I just felt bad for him and had no idea what to say.
I was a weak friend at the time. I thought he needed some space and time with his family, and I needed a reason not to awkwardly interact with someone going through things I can’t possibly understand, so after a cliche message expressing my condolences, which took me a day and the help of ChatGPT to draft (I think the result was the eloquent “ Andy, I’m so sorry for your loss, no idea what to say. Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”) I kind of stepped back.
A few months have passed. I’m not proud of it, but I rarely actively miss people. Then, he reached out to me and asked me to get together for some beers.
I started with another unconvincing expression of condolences, but luckily he accepted it without any protest and lucidly started talking about how he was doing, the terrible state his wife was in and how confused and lost his little girl was. He said his home was a terribly depressing place, and that writing was now his only escape.
It wasn’t exactly a cheerful declaration, but a few weeks after he sent me a book draft. It was excellent. I loved it. I instantly felt a pang of jealousy. A short while later he managed to publish it.
The book kept getting some traction, slowly but surely, and soon enough I was truly jealous and I started to avoid him again. He didn't share my problem anymore. He created something, it was good, and people started to recognize it. Even if it never gets huge, it will always remain as something he can feel proud of. That was better than anything I was doing. Then again, being jealous of the man who lost his child was brutal, but I was and I didn’t feel like seeing him.
One day he invited me for some drinks while his wife and daughter were away to see her parents. He insisted I come.
This time, he was beaming. It seemed that he was waiting for me to say something until he couldn’t wait anymore. “Can you see that it’s working now? “ he asked.
I gave a confused look.
“The sacrifice”
He told me, to my great discomfort, that he went for all or nothing. That the cat worked just enough to confirm his suspicions, but he knew he needed something big. He had to do something drastic or forever resign to mediocrity. And how his son’s death instantly removed that barrier inside of him and gave him focus. “Of course, it hurt” he toned it down. “Without the pain, the sacrifice wouldn’t be worth anything”
“But your son, was that not an accident?” Happy accident, I thought.”Or?”
“Or” he replied flatly.
He continued. “Look, I don’t care, I know you won't say anything to anyone, at least not seriously. And if you did, who’d believe you, you can’t prove anything and you’re way too lazy to get into any drama and risk looking stupid.”
He was right.
“And maybe you also know there’s truth in it. Maybe you get it. The reason why I am telling you all this is because you’re my friend, maybe the only true friend I have, and because I want to help you. But your problem is that you avoid having anything to lose. That’s why you’re in your equilibrium where you can’t create.”
“What, I should find a girl and make a kid so I had something to sacrifice for my artistic masterpiece?” I asked him in some combination of shock and numbness of disbelief.
He shrugged. “This method is more concrete than you think, and it works. My problem is that I need to keep at it, the success made me happy and again, I’m balanced. In fact, as much as it hurts to lose my son, and as disgusting as this is to say, I can live without him. It was much more painful to watch my wife and daughter despair, that was truly… painful, and horrible. The guilt made me create. And now, I’m finally leaving my mark on this world and my marriage is falling apart,” he took a big sip.
“You sacrificed,” I said.
As time passed, my friend got a divorce, lost his beloved sister and her family in a tragic gas leak accident, wrote another book and became semi-famous in an increasingly broader circle. I didn’t read the book.
We don’t see each other often. I judge him, but I feel like a hypocrite. The truth is, I am consumed with envy, while the advice he gave me is stuck in my head. Meanwhile, time keeps on passing and I still achieved nothing.
“You need to open up a hole in your equilibrium and then fill it in with what you want. It’s a swap. Humanity always understood the concept. A deal with the devil, a sacrifice, same principle.”
Maybe I should stop him before anyone else is sacrificed. I know how much he loves his daughter, I think about it sometimes. But it all sounds too insane. Like some dumb fiction. Besides, he was right, wasn’t he? His way worked and I’m jealous because I have nothing to sacrifice.
It would be better to work on my own life rather than try to ruin his. He’s right, I never built anything so I’d have nothing to lose. We all have our reasons and fears. Maybe I should face mine. Finally, allow myself some closeness, stop pushing aside every girl I start to like. Meet someone, invest in the relationship, put my time and effort towards building something.
And then, perhaps, I’ll be able to find my creative drive.

When we were kids, my best friend and I were wells of creativity. We didn’t even get it, we weren’t trying to be artists or “content creators” back then, we were just having fun.
Andy kept making up stories, I’d illustrate the characters and make comics out of some of them. Actually, I drew and painted a lot all my life, easily and without much thought. That was when it worked the best. It would always become harder when some expectation was put upon me, like “draw something for your aunt’s birthday.” Too deliberate. Thinking always blocked me.
The same went for Andy, his stories were the best when done spontaneously.
Back when we didn’t think about how we needed to be creative or productive, or that anything we did had any value or that we had a talent or needed to achieve anything with it. We just did it, and people around us would respond.
Then came university, then work, Andy got a wife and a kid. Slowly, and without any drama, we drifted apart.
I didn’t draw in a long time. It’s hard when you work 5 days a week, you’re tired in the evening and recovering during the weekend. Suddenly the idea of myself as an artist started to matter more and more, and with it it became less and less obtainable. It started to matter because I needed something to hold on to that would represent a side of me outside of this absurd routine I was now stuck in. And I didn’t have my own family, I was free after work, not that I managed to do much with it aside from finishing a lot of shows, games, movies and books and drinking a bit too much.
By then, it’s been years since I saw Andy, but at one point we ran into each other, promised we’d grab a beer, surprisingly lived up to the promise, and realized that, despite all this time, we were still friends.
We started hanging out more often, we didn’t even live that far. His wife just had their second kid, and the whole thing seemed overwhelming to me, but it seemed he was managing just fine. One time I asked him if he was still writing anything. In retrospect, I could recognize that he had a serious gift, endless ideas, unique style, even as a kid. Hell, he even studied literature, although he was in finance now. “Sometimes,” he said. “I don’t have that much time, and I often start on some stories only to realize they’re dumb and give up.”
He told me his dream is still to write a book, but finding the motivation to write is difficult as is, and finding the right moment and atmosphere even more so. But 10 years ago, he wrote a short story/novel, still in the draft stage. I managed to convince him to let me read it, and I was amazed. The story was short, but it was so good and imaginative. The ending felt a bit rushed, and some plot elements could be fine-tuned, but the writing itself was genius. I could feel the characters, the atmosphere around them, the original ideas and believable dialogues…I told him honestly, with a not-insignificant effort to repress my jealousy, that he needed to keep on writing.
He laughed and asked me what about my drawing. I showed him a few things I made throughout the years, and he appeared genuinely impressed. Except there was so little to show. He asked me about one of the more recent drawings, which turned out pretty cool. I told him I actually made it in about half an hour, in a pissed-off mood after losing my job. Most of it was like that. The flash of inspiration is something I can’t summon or plan. “I envy the people who can get anywhere through pure discipline,” I said. “For me, it’s all completely outside of my control.”
This resonated with Andy. “When I wrote my story, at the moment the most complete work in my life, my mother died. That was the worst year of my life. I didn’t care about anything, the only thing I could do was write.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “It seems to me that the best works I’ve made came from the moments where I had the least desire to live”
“I’ve been thinking about this for a long time,” he confessed.
“I’ve been trying so hard to get that drive back. I tried to write drunk, I tried to write sober, I tried to write when I’m on leave, I tried to write after my leave, I tried to write after work, I tried to write weekends, I tried to write during work because it’s more peaceful than at home…during big live events, or tried to wait for things to get more peaceful, break the routine, write desperately, write calmly, force it, not force it….in the end, nothing works. Except maybe a tragedy.” he laughed.
“Eh, at least you have an excuse. You have a wife, two kids, a demanding job… I’m just lazy.” I tried to cheer him up. I didn’t envy his lifestyle. But it was a good life, the life he wanted.
“I know this sounds awful, but to have children, a family, that’s nice and I love them but I can’t say it’s that fulfilling. Or that it’s the meaning of life for me. Ultimately, they’re here to have their own lives and I’m still me, and I wonder what I really accomplished - creating someone else to take a shot at making something interesting? No, kids aren’t what I want to leave as my mark on this world. And now I feel that this is it, there’s no more that infinitely long future filled with possibilities in front of us.”
We were both in some kind of depression, an identity crisis. In my 20s I was so lost and wanted some stability, and now I was choked by the regularness of life. Maybe it was the awareness that things could continue like this - every day the same, and then you die - that seemed terrifying at times. Especially at night, with the next day gaping in front of me like a black hole, waiting for me to fall in.
Some people have a strong feeling of purpose from which nothing can pull them away. I have some talent, but I find it so monumentally hard to give it any dedication.
After that day, this became our regular topic we always seemed to come back to. Is it better to try to force yourself to do something, or wait for the inspiration to hit you, but what when it’s simply not happening? We’d occasionally read some self-help advice, although we were always a bad audience for this kind of thing, constantly trying to identify what it was that was blocking us. We’d share our observations. Andy would come up with some cool ideas for stories, but it wouldn’t go anywhere. I’d try to sketch or do something “crazy” and it would just come off as forced and fake.
Slowly, Andy started working on a theory that, with time, became more and more concrete and ritualistic. He started from that simple, and not too original observation that he can only create when going through a loss. “The suffering artist” or something. He started to believe that there is some balance in life, that he was trying to maintain too many things, and that some kind of “hole” was needed that could be filled with creation.
We’d had some beers when he was going on about it again. “See, I always avoided big responsibilities, serious relationships, a family… I was always stingy about my time and how much I could give to others. And yet I have the same problem.”
He waved me off, drunker than I was. “We all have different capacities. Although I have more obligations, you are equally balanced by yours, as small as you think they seem in comparison. And even that's the wrong way of looking at it. I’m not talking about free time or energy, because I realized that’s not the issue, just an excuse. I’m talking on a much more… metasiphyc level.”
Metasiphyc. I remember that. I found it hilarious at the time.
But he kept on with his idea of equilibrium, balancing the things you want in life, with an increasingly elaborate approach to the topic. From a general idea that comes down to that all aspects of your life can’t be at their highest at the same time, to the idea that everyone has an average and when you want to rise above it in any way, you need to sacrifice something else.
“Well of course, everyone says you need to sacrifice to achieve greatness. Sacrifice means hard work, dedicating your time to it, shit like that. Except that this approach doesn’t really lead to success for either of us.” I challenged the theory.
He wasn’t discouraged. “No, because that’s not a sacrifice for you. In theory, you’re fine with spending 5 hours sitting down and working on something, you just don’t know what it is.” “No, sacrifice is… a sacrifice. It has to be something you care about. I’ve been studying the topic,” he’d start lecturing. “Humanity always had sacrificial rituals, and they make perfect sense.”
I’d usually laugh it off at this stage, but I think that, even then. I started to notice it was all becoming way too concrete and obsessive. We had more of those conversations, but the more of a thing it became for him, the less committal I was about agreeing with his philosophy. At one point I started seriously suspecting that he was losing it and becoming a fanatic.
One night he called me crying and telling me he took it too far, killed his cat so that he could write, and that he was a total idiot who deserved to die. I could tell he was drunk as fuck. After that incident, he suddenly stopped and calmed down. He was no longer talking about his book, sacrifices, equilibrums and metaphysics. Just normal shit, politics, exercise routine, work issues, family and all. Mostly about trying to drink less and work on his marriage. It seems he re-embraced normal life, avoided the topic of what happened that night, or turned it into a deeper discussion about alcoholism and getting his shit together. I didn’t push, maybe I was relieved if a bit bored by this change.
Then his youngest son died. Accidental suffocation with the blanket. Apparently it happens more often than you’d think.
Look, I’m not a writer, you can see where this is going. But as clear as it may seem here, put together in a linear recount of events, it certainly didn’t cross my mind that Andy had anything to do with it. It’s easy to look back now and connect all the elements, but to accept the possibility is much more bizarre. I just felt bad for him and had no idea what to say.
I was a weak friend at the time. I thought he needed some space and time with his family, and I needed a reason not to awkwardly interact with someone going through things I can’t possibly understand, so after a cliche message expressing my condolences, which took me a day and the help of ChatGPT to draft (I think the result was the eloquent “ Andy, I’m so sorry for your loss, no idea what to say. Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”) I kind of stepped back.
A few months have passed. I’m not proud of it, but I rarely actively miss people. Then, he reached out to me and asked me to get together for some beers.
I started with another unconvincing expression of condolences, but luckily he accepted it without any protest and lucidly started talking about how he was doing, the terrible state his wife was in and how confused and lost his little girl was. He said his home was a terribly depressing place, and that writing was now his only escape.
It wasn’t exactly a cheerful declaration, but a few weeks after he sent me a book draft. It was excellent. I loved it. I instantly felt a pang of jealousy. A short while later he managed to publish it.
The book kept getting some traction, slowly but surely, and soon enough I was truly jealous and I started to avoid him again. He didn't share my problem anymore. He created something, it was good, and people started to recognize it. Even if it never gets huge, it will always remain as something he can feel proud of. That was better than anything I was doing. Then again, being jealous of the man who lost his child was brutal, but I was and I didn’t feel like seeing him.
One day he invited me for some drinks while his wife and daughter were away to see her parents. He insisted I come.
This time, he was beaming. It seemed that he was waiting for me to say something until he couldn’t wait anymore. “Can you see that it’s working now? “ he asked.
I gave a confused look.
“The sacrifice”
He told me, to my great discomfort, that he went for all or nothing. That the cat worked just enough to confirm his suspicions, but he knew he needed something big. He had to do something drastic or forever resign to mediocrity. And how his son’s death instantly removed that barrier inside of him and gave him focus. “Of course, it hurt” he toned it down. “Without the pain, the sacrifice wouldn’t be worth anything”
“But your son, was that not an accident?” Happy accident, I thought.”Or?”
“Or” he replied flatly.
He continued. “Look, I don’t care, I know you won't say anything to anyone, at least not seriously. And if you did, who’d believe you, you can’t prove anything and you’re way too lazy to get into any drama and risk looking stupid.”
He was right.
“And maybe you also know there’s truth in it. Maybe you get it. The reason why I am telling you all this is because you’re my friend, maybe the only true friend I have, and because I want to help you. But your problem is that you avoid having anything to lose. That’s why you’re in your equilibrium where you can’t create.”
“What, I should find a girl and make a kid so I had something to sacrifice for my artistic masterpiece?” I asked him in some combination of shock and numbness of disbelief.
He shrugged. “This method is more concrete than you think, and it works. My problem is that I need to keep at it, the success made me happy and again, I’m balanced. In fact, as much as it hurts to lose my son, and as disgusting as this is to say, I can live without him. It was much more painful to watch my wife and daughter despair, that was truly… painful, and horrible. The guilt made me create. And now, I’m finally leaving my mark on this world and my marriage is falling apart,” he took a big sip.
“You sacrificed," I said.
As time passed, my friend got a divorce, lost his beloved sister and her family in a tragic gas leak accident, wrote another book and became semi-famous in an increasingly broader circle. I didn’t read the book.
We don’t see each other often. I judge him, but I feel like a hypocrite. The truth is, I am consumed with envy, while the advice he gave me is stuck in my head. Meanwhile, time keeps on passing and I still achieved nothing.
“You need to open up a hole in your equilibrium and then fill it in with what you want. It’s a swap. Humanity always understood the concept. A deal with the devil, a sacrifice, same principle.”
Maybe I should stop him before anyone else is sacrificed. I know how much he loves his daughter, I think about it sometimes. But it all sounds too insane. Like some dumb fiction. Besides, he was right, wasn’t he? His way worked and I’m jealous because I have nothing to sacrifice.
It would be better to work on my own life rather than try to ruin his. He’s right, I never built anything so I’d have nothing to lose. We all have our reasons and fears. Maybe I should face mine. Finally, allow myself some closeness, stop pushing aside every girl I start to like. Meet someone, invest in the relationship, put my time and effort towards building something.
And then, perhaps, I’ll be able to find my creative drive.

Being 18 is going to kill me inside.
Yesterday I turned 18 years old while still on my period. The pain was gone but I lied about it in the hopes that nobody would talk about how I didn't have any friends visiting me for my birthday. They still did and nobody wanted to give me a ride to get pads.
My online friends don't remember my birthday and although the date is distressing for me it'd help me feel like I mattered if they'd at least told me happy birthday. None of them did.
They tore me down with their hurtful words. I got a cake against my wishes and ice cream. I don't like frosting, the thing was caked in frosting. I tried to say no and walk away but my aunt roped in one of the workers to spell my name. Obviously they can't because I was born with a ridiculously stupidly complicated name so they were stuck just standing there waiting for my aunt to do it. I felt bad, that's the only reason I wrote my name down. I let her know how I felt and she didn't care.
This morning I felt so overwhelmed by grief, grieving my awful parents, my friends, my childhood, that I dumped the rest of the cake on the floor and smeared it with my foot. I don't want to be an adult, I don't want to be treated this way, I want to be listened to, and I want to be loved.

Well i will put some context into it. It's been half a year since the last time we had contact, but yesterday she broke it and wished me happy birthday. It was only a "Happy Birthday" message, nothing else, but only that little message made me get an incredible anxious feeling and i got reminded of the insane fears deep inside of me that she caused. I got really surprised just a mere message like that could make me feel this bad but i guess it's expected after how much hurt and suffering she caused me in the past.
Her excuse of texting me was just because "she promised me back then that she would congratulate me for my bday" and also that "she doesn't envy anyone and doesn't have a reason to care about things from the past"
How can she be so fucking dismissive and have such an uncaring approach after the IMMENSE abuse and hurt she made me go through? Literally texting me as if she never did anything wrong? I don't know what her intentions were, i just simply don't understand it, but i suppose nothing good.
I'm mostly a calm person and i never really call people out for their bullshit, but this time my heart just wanted to answer her to express my hatred and frustration somehow. Maybe i shouldn't have reacted like this, maybe i overreacted? I don't know, but what i do know is that i never told her anything to call out her shit behaviour and this was the first time.
This is how our conversation ended, her acting as if she never did anything wrong, her behaviour makes me doubt myself and i wonder if maybe i overreacted. Is it normal for this people to be this dismissive and uncaring about the hurt they provoke?? I don't understand why she would text me after all this time
https://preview.redd.it/20ew892qqk5d1.png?width=567&format=png&auto=webp&s=ea3276375661dae734d8e631bc77f0f0695d04da
https://preview.redd.it/fqvxjhiqqk5d1.png?width=559&format=png&auto=webp&s=156d0e4314c4e4ce1e537148ed2d2d3c15c275e1

My wife accidently became good friends with my ex, Jessica, and I am not sure how I should feel about it. I am uncomfortable with this situation and wanted to ask here if I am wrong to expect my wife to stay away from my ex. For context, we are all in our late 20s.
My wife and I have been married for 1 years and together for 3 years. I dated Jessica for three years during college. Jessica and I had the same major in college. I broke up with her because she was too insecure with me interacting with anyone and I felt like I spent most of my college life walking on eggshells. The breakup was hard on her and we decided to stay friends. Jessica wanted us to get back together, but I had already moved on in my head. Jessica also tried to pressure my parents and sister (who all loved her) to talk to me so that we can get back together. Eventually, I went no-contact with her and blocked her everywhere. I also told my parents and sister to never mention her to me.
Few years later, I met my wife and we clicked instantly. My wife is very easy going and never doubts me. It's really refreshing to be in a relationship where my partner knows how much I love her and never do anything inappropriate. We are very happy together. When I met my wife, we were co-workers, but I switched my job one year into our relationship. So, I know most of the coworkers my wife is friends with. Three months ago, my wife got a new coworker friend named Jessica. It's a common name, and I never connected the dots. My wife told me Jessica had the funniest dating stories and she became part of her inner circle at work. It's mostly 5 girls in their late 20s.
Last weekend, my wife went out for a girl's night with her co-worker friends as it was someone's birthday. When she came home, she showed me some of the photos on her phone and I was shocked to see Jessica there. I informed my wife that I dated Jessica in college for three years, and she is the same Jessica who stalked me after the breakup. My wife had never seen her as she was blocked on all my social media account, and I had deleted all her photos.
Maybe I overreacted, but I told my wife that I was not comfortable with her being friends with Jessica. It is just weird to have my wife be friends with an ex I have a long history with. My wife says it's been 8 years since our breakup and life moves on. My wife told me that if I want, she will make sure she does not invite Jessica to our house and give me a heads up when she will be attending dinners when I am invited. I am not sure what I should do here, as if I am not comfortable with my wife to hanging out with her. I don't want to tell my wife to stop being friends with her coworker because I dated her in the past as that is not fair to her too. Any suggestions on what I should do, and if anyone has experience with dealing with their Ex, years after their breakup?

So yeah as the title already says i really need advice on my relationship. Me and my bf have been together for over 2 years now and we had our ups and downs. We broke up once after he ignored me for a few weeks but then got back together after a month or so. But atm I am not sure if this realtionship is still worth my time.
The way he has been trreating me makes me kinda unhappy. He never gives me compliments or any cute gifts or if I text him "I love you" he doesnt respond. I alredy talked to him about that issue but he brushed me off by saying that he wasn't the type for such things. This really annoys me but I tried to look over it. A lot of the time he doesn't acknowledge my emotions and feelings. He also gets annoyed if I try to take a picture with him.
If I'm over at his house don't ever really spent time together. He rather sits on his pc all day to play video games. Sometimes I bring my PC over to his house but then we also dont really play together. Generally he doesnt really want to play games with me bc I tend to rage over a lot of things. He also doesn't want to do a lot of activties when I suggest to do something such as having a picknick or else bc it's "not his vibe"
Another thing that bothers me is his hygene. He barely brushed his teeth and showers like once or twice a week but the teeth brushing thing bothers me a lot more (obviously)
Also he didn't wish me a happy birthday two years in a row bc he doesn't like it if others do it for him, so he doesn't do it for others. But to be fair he got me really cool gifts for my birthday
There are also good aspects about our relationship like that he makes me laugh or pays for my food if we order takeout and IF we spend time together it is a lot of fun.
But yeah I really don't know what to do

Wishing everyone a happy pride month 💜 just posting these for those that are starting their transition a little “later” in life. I started T about 3 months before my 34th birthday!
1st photo: nearly 3 years on T (May 2024) 2nd photo: 2 years on T (August 2023) 3rd photo: almost 1 year on T (July 2022) 4th photo: 2 weeks on T (August 2021)

My partner (23M) and I (21F) recently broke up after 3 years together about a week after his birthday. Unfortunately, his gift didn't arrive in time for his birthday so I got him a "place-holder" gift of his favorite snacks and a new blanket so that I didn't just have nothing to give him on his day. About a week later, his gift arrived, and he broke up with me the same day. We were somewhat long-distance (I go to college an hour away from where he lives and works), so I couldn't just take it to him right away, and he called me later that night to break up. I knew he wasn't happy with the "place-holder" gift and I felt really bad for not having his real gift on time, but I didn't think I'd be in a situation where I still have this thing I bought specifically for him and we aren't together. It's a sweatshirt with our favorite characters from our favorite show to watch together, and I'd made him a card that said something along the lines of "You're the character a to my character b" because it was cheesy and I thought he'd find it cute. Obviously I threw this card away, but I'm still stuck on the gift itself. Do I mail it to him? Do I text him to ask if he wants it? Would I be a jerk to just give it to my little sister who also loves the show? I don't want to get back together, and I don't want to make him feel like I'm a clingy ex, I just don't know what to do with this gift...honestly I just don't want it in my possession anymore...

okay so i’ll start with what i (25f) did wrong - i went through his (26m) phone. i know i shouldn’t have. here’s my “excuse” (i still know it’s wrong):
we’ve been arguing over the past few days over little things. normal relationship tiffs. he says or does something and i get my feelings hurt because im sensitive. we make up. we move on. i just want to be with him. we have the same goals and a lot of the same niche interests and most of the time he’s considerate and empathetic. so i forgive him and i think he means it, even if i don’t feel completely okay after. and it’s hard for me to try and make conversation after or be normal, and i just want him to comfort me and try to make sure things are okay or try and make things right again. but recently he hasn’t been. we just sit in silence while he scrolls on his phone, kind of hiding it when i walk by or sit next to him or will hurry and switch apps. sketchy stuff, i’m suspicious of what he’s doing but i try not to read into it and then finally i have to break the silence and try to get things back to happy.
on top of these little tiffs, recently he’s stopped taking off the top half off my clothes during sex. and objectively i have a good healthy body. i lift weights everyday. im literally on a cut right now, so i mean im looking good for me. im actively taking care of myself. i finally said something the day before last bc it was just fishy. he was apologetic again and said he wasn’t thinking about it. i believe him and blame my insecure subconscious. move on.
now to add to that…last night i get on top to have sex, he gets soft. i get my feelings hurt he gets embarrassed. i forgive him bc it has happened in the past, but now with all of these things together i just feel like something is up. being sketch on his phone, not taking my clothes off for sex, and now he’s going soft - is he even attracted to me anymore? this thought won’t leave me alone.
now this morning: (the situation)
he gets up to shower for work. he thinks im sleeping. his phone is on the table charging. i couldn’t resist. his ex called him in the middle of the night three times in a row on wednesday night. her friend is texting him from a number he didn’t save and has her notifications silenced. the only reason i knew it was his ex who called was because the friend had said “hey [redacted] called you the other night did you get it?” BECAUSE HE HAD HER SAVED UNDER A FAKE NAME. while i will give him that there was no outright flirting or cheating in the messages with these girls, the topics were:
friend - religious views, places to check out in the cities they each live in, what they’ve been up to now (no mention of him being in a relationship), how the ex gf (her friend) is going through a tough time bc she’s experiencing a miscarriage (which he asked if the guy was still around - to which she responded no), him asking if he should facetime his ex back or text
ex - how is she doing, what they’ve been up to, how he’s always there to talk if she needs it
so i confront him about it in the shower. he claimed the notifications were silenced bc they’ve been like that since he broke up with his ex, and that she was under a different name bc it was a joke they had back in the day (they’ve been broken up since 2019) and he never changed it. he intended on telling me but we’ve been fighting and there hasn’t been a good time.
i just told him to get his stuff and leave (we don’t live together) and i took my dog on a walk and didn’t come back until i knew he had to be at work. he called and was begging to talk to me in person and kept trying to explain everything and how he was just trying to be nice or whatever. i just told him i don’t trust him now and there’s nothing left to say. his birthday is next week too so i feel like shit dumping him right before. I don’t know what to do. he left some of his stuff so i have to bring it over and i know he’s going to try to talk to me. would you trust him or try to mend things? i don’t know what to do.
edit after enlightenment: TL; DR
went through bf phone after acting sketch, and saw he was messaging an ex and her friend (message details sectioned off above). it’s like he wasn’t “cheating” per say but why are you hiding it? so that fact alone makes it hard to want to move forward with him but it’s also like yeah we have been fighting and obviously him texting was going to make things worse but why respond even? or if you felt you really needed to, why not tell me first? i’m so conflicted.

I've put this off for a week cuz the pose looked weird, but today was the appropriate time to finish this, so I had to. Happy birthday bro!