I have my daughter until July 3rd for summer and my ex gets her every other weekend until then. We had this text exchange
Ex-I should be off about 5 and then i will be there to get (daughters name)! Also we will be going to the beach the 19th- the 25th
Me- Are you asking if you can take her to the beach June 19-25?
Ex- Not really we are going and i will make up the 5 days later
This is just the most recent. We have text exchange similar to this all the time.
I'm really flexible and always willing to make things work but here's the thing, I don't trust her to make up those days. She has done it before. Like if my daughter has the Friday or Monday off of school on my weekend I'm supposed to get her that Thursday or keep her through Monday but getting her to make my daughter available on those days is like pulling teeth. If she asks for something on one of my weekends or days she doesn't make it up.
Do I just tell her no when she shows up and call the police to show them the custody agreement? How can I get her to respect the fact that she isn't welcome to do whatever she likes when I'm supposed to have my daughter? It's the most stressful thing. I pay my child support, I pick up and drop my daughter off. My daughter and i have a great relationship and i feel like i bend over backwards to have a good relationship with her mother but she doesn't appreciate any of that.
I'm not exaggerating here. If my ex calls and needs something, I always answer the phone. I'm just.. there. I really need her to stop helping herself to our time together. Thank you for any replies

I want to know if I’m justified in being upset or if I am truly being a jerk. I, 33F, have been married to my wife, 33F, for 11 years. I love my wife; I do, but I am so upset and feel like I’m underappreciated. This needs background. I'm sorry for the technical details, but it’s how my brain processes and I believe it is necessary.
I want to preface this by saying that I am nowhere near perfect and have my issues and trauma that I know can make me a little difficult to deal with. I have a lot to work on myself, and I try my best to see my faults and mitigate them before they burden her and others.
Okay, details:
I have a labor-intensive job. I am in middle management now, so I work on the computer a lot, but I also go on the floor to keep my skills sharp and keep in touch with my crew. Computer work is mentally draining as opposed to physically draining, but I also get physically drained. I work 40+ hours a week. My job pays all the bills, living expenses, savings, 401K/retirement and health insurance.
My wife works from home. She has her own business that she loves. She sets her hours, can wake up when she wants, works when she feels like it, and is only bound by the constraints of her own time. (I admit, I’m jealous). Her take-home varies. On a good month, 1/3 of my income. She used to have a “regular” job, but it gave her so much anxiety she was miserable, and we were fine to support ourselves, so she quit and went into her business. I have zero issues when it comes to money. Relationships are partnerships, and I long agreed that I was fine doing the bulk of the money-making labor. I have more of a constitution for these things. I would rather have her be happy than have some extra cash.
We have 3 dogs and no children. Our house is small and doesn’t require much daily up-keep. We have a backyard that the dogs run around in all day; no need to do extra walks unless you want to (really, the backyard is huge). I cook dinner 2-3 times per week. I do the dishes and clean up 2-3 times a week. I do the laundry every other week (it only needs to be done once a week). We do takeaway 1-2 times a week and have at least 1 “do whatever” dinner per week. Obviously, this varies. I don’t mind this. I am an adult; I should do all these things to care for myself and my house. This is called being an adult. I grew up in a house where both parents had 2 jobs; I’ve been cooking and cleaning with my siblings since I can remember.
My Mon-Fri schedule:
4am -Wake up with the dogs
5am – work out (I have to work out for my job, IYKYK), feed the dogs
6am – go to work (work starts at 7am) after letting the dogs back in the bedroom, or they’ll bark all morning and wake up my wife
4pm - off work
430- 5pm – Home
5-530pm – Tues & Thur walk the dogs, M-W-F projects or relax
6pm – Free time (630pm – cook on my days)
7pm – eat dinnerelax
745 pm – prep for my morning (set up coffee, pack lunch, etc.)
8pm – bedtime
Additionally, I am in my Master’s program. During the fall and spring, I do homework or study. This summer, I am studying to take tests to advance my career and working on writing projects in hopes of one day being an author.
Saturday and Sunday are my off days. I wake up on Saturday when the dogs wake up naturally, get them out of the room, outside, fed, and relax on the couch. They are good dogs, mostly chill. I drink coffee and do my writing projects or study for school if needed. Sat, I usually get things done around the house: home improvement, my personal projects, mowing the lawn, cleaning, and fixing anything that needs fixing. There is usually about 5-6 hrs of labor on Saturdays. Sundays, I try my best just to chill.
My wife already has her degree, so she doesn’t go to school and doesn’t know what she wants to do in life, so she doesn’t go after a higher degree even though it would be extremely low cost due to my job offsetting tuition for her (and school is almost free for me). She has hobbies that she loves and creates things for herself, her family and me, which I appreciate. She enjoys baking, which I benefit from. But mainly, and this makes me sound like an ass, she just kind of bee-bops around, hanging out. Her anxiety keeps her from having a job outside the house, keeps her from attacking her business full steam, and keeps her from figuring out what she wants to do for school or life in general. She has mental health care, and she is better than she used to be. I am so proud of her progress. But even the projects she creates for herself, like gardening, she doesn’t attack with gusto. She doesn’t have to garden; she chooses to, and yet the plants are going to shit because she doesn’t go out to weed the garden and prep for planting season. I don't care, I do, but I don't because none of it is necessary. She has the ability to do literally whatever she wants.
Anyway, here’s my current issue:
The dogs sleep in the room, next to my wife’s side of the bed. They sleep all night and hardly ever wake up; they are good dogs. But they do get up around 5-6am on Saturdays, because their natural routine is to wake up with me at 4am M-F. To wake us up, they scratch on the gate that separates their area from the bed and prevents them from jumping on the bed. I’m a light sleeper; they can’t sleep on the bed, or I’ll wake up. On the weekends, I hear them scratching, and I wake up, and my wife stays asleep. I am vigilant about waking up because I don’t want them to suffer needing to go pee, or accidentally pee, or if they are sick and need to puke. I love my dogs; I do my best to care for them. My wife loves them equally, but I don’t think she shares in their morning care equally. Once I’m awake, I’m awake; there’s no going back to sleep for me. I wake up 6 days a week, and she wakes up maybe 1 because even on Sundays, I usually wake up from them scratching, even though she’s right next to them. If I hear them, I’m up. I can’t just wake her up and say, “Hey, the dogs,” because now I’m awake.
If she wakes up early, she’s miserable. She complains for the 30 minutes it takes to get them fed and settled, then she goes right back to sleep on the couch. On the occasion I don’t wake up on a Sunday, I’ll come out of the room around 8-9am, and she’ll be asleep, having been asleep since she took care of the dogs. Then, she’ll take a nap in the middle of the day. (I rarely nap, my issues, not hers.)
Last night, one of our dogs got hot and wanted out of the room; I woke up at 1am and opened the door. We’ve been concerned about the girl dog, so I checked she was okay and laid back down. My wife woke to ensure everything was fine but instantly went back to sleep. I know this because it famously takes me an hour to get back to sleep if I wake up crazy early. Then the dog we worried about cried out loudly (she must have turned wrong in her bed and hit something), so I sprang up to ensure she was okay. This was probably 3am. My wife (who didn’t hear it, only heard me say my dog's name) woke up, checked she was fine, then immediately went back to sleep. Then, of course, 515am rolls around, and the dogs are scratching to get out; they are fully awake. Who has to get up? Me.
I just want one freaking morning to sleep consistently. I want Sunday to rest in my bed and not have to wake up. That’s it! I want to sleep. I understand that my schedule is my schedule; I choose what I do, but I do it to better my life and hers. I work hard all day. I work hard to ensure a good future and keep earning good money. I pursue my passions on the side. I take care of the house, and I fix everything because she “doesn’t know how to do that stuff.” I do all the outside chores; I set up everything for summer, then again for winter, then again for summer, over and over, every year, year after year after year. I go to work day after day after day. I come home, and I do as much as I can. I just want to sleep on Sundays. I've expressed this before, and it'll get better for a month, then return to the same thing.
Set an alarm! Do something! She knows I hate it! She should think that I deserve sleep and actively do something to make sure I get it. It's one day! I keep the dogs quiet M-F in the morning. I actively make sure they don’t disturb her, and I made sure that when they go back in the room at 6am that it doesn’t bother her. She doesn't get out of bed Mon-Fri until 8 or 9am. I know because I see the notification for the backdoor being opened while I'm at work. She doesn't have to get up on Saturdays until 9 or 10am and gets to wake up naturally. Just SET AN ALARM ON SUNDAY. Why would you not think, damn, my wife works her ass off and falls asleep on the couch early most days cause she's so tired? How about I set an alarm on Sunday for 5am so she can get some sleep since she has to go to work Monday! Just something! Please!

Currently, in my early 30s, juggling roles as a wife and mother while living on our own with my small family, I've encountered a reality shift in my perspective. It's as if I can now see my past and the people in my life without being triggered intensely, and I’m gradually figuring out why I ended up the way I am today.
Our marriage isn’t the typical ideal, dream wedding scenario that a mature, stable woman might envision. Instead, it evolved from a period of post-college socializing, working and partying, then fast fwd to the intimacy of a private wedding after becoming pregnant.
Reflecting on my teenage years, I recall the emotional support I lacked, particularly from my adoptive mother. Discovering her infidelity during my high school years made maintaining silence in our home (during crucial developmental stages) even more challenging.
I found myself becoming a people pleaser, seeking validation and acceptance from a certain group of friends at the expense of my own identity. Despite coming from a modest background with a hardworking father, I became increasingly reliant on social media validation, leading to a sense of delusion about my life.
I can’t help but reminisce about my inner child – before the cheating and abuse. I was always considered one of the top students, consistently maintaining good grades. Though good grades don’t necessarily equate to good mental health, I must admit those were the last core memories where I felt truly happy with myself and was honest with both myself and my family.
Back then, family reunions were genuine—not perfect, but happy. My cousins were my first circle of best friends, and relationships weren’t toxic or confusing. In short, there was strong family support.
It seems that life indeed involves trade-offs. Exchanging your true self and values for superficial and shallow things ultimately comes at a high cost. Genuine connections are lost and replaced with what your current life values attract. It’s like betraying yourself = self-sabotage.
However, as reality hit hard, I realized that true fulfillment cannot be found in superficial validation. Going through late realizations and tough lessons, I've come to understand that healing invisible wounds and finding purpose and maturity are the true anchors in life, even as friendships come and go (especially when it’s not true and genuine).
Contrary to popular belief, your 20s aren’t the only defining decade of your life. Many people find that life truly begins at 30, and it’s never too late to start over.
Turning 30 often brings a sense of clarity and purpose that might have been missing in your 20s. This decade is an opportunity to realign your life with what truly matters to you, using the lessons and experiences of your past as a foundation for a more fulfilling future. ✨

Hi FIRE community,
I'm seeking some advice and insights on our current situation as we try to navigate our financial independence journey with a focus on work-life balance and spending more time with our kids. We’re also interested in recommendations for next steps. Here's our background:

• We're both ~40 years old.
• Two kids getting to school age.
• Net Worth: $2.6M (inflated due to real estate).
• Real Estate Cash Flow: $5,850/month.
• Other Income:
  • Retired Military Pension: $4,100/month (me).
  • Disability Compensation: $4,000/month (wife, bad outcome from a surgery, would much rather have the function over financial benefit).
  • Real Estate Professional Status: Wife has this from managing properties which has helped soften our tax burden for W2.
  • W2 Income: $675,000/year (me in healthcare @ 3 days/week).
  • Healthcare: We have TRICARE health insurance until Medicare kicks in.

Real Estate Journey:
Our real estate investments happened somewhat accidentally:

• Bought homes during military moves and never sold them. Purchased some trying to help out family members that were in bad situations.
• In total seven properties with some being paid off and some not.
• We used leverage to purchase homes and so we've kept our emergency fund a bit fatter to mitigate risks (HVAC system dying, new roof, etc).

Current Financial Snapshot:

• Cash Flow: ~$13,850/month from various sources excluding W2 income.
• Fixed Expenses: $4,700/month. We don't carry any debt beyond mortgages.
• Emergency Fund: $40,000 in a HYSA, $150,000 in laddered CDs.
• Retirement Accounts: $350,000 in ERISA accounts.
• College Savings: $100,000 in 529s for kiddos.
• No taxable brokerage account.

The Dilemma:
We live below our means, with discretionary spending mainly on travel. We like the "stealth wealth" mindset which is easier to do in our low cost of living area. Given our high income and current net worth, we are at a crossroads:

1. Continue the High-Income Path: I enjoy my job in healthcare but it is demanding when I am on (12-14 hour days), leaving me exhausted 1-2 days after 3 days on. Should we continue on this path, maximizing income and further securing our financial future?
2. Take a Sabbatical: With school-age rapidly approaching, we’re considering taking a one year sabbatical and traveling. It’s hard to lose a year of high income after training for so long and making substantially less while in military. We value time with our kids and want to be there for them, especially during these formative years.
3. Take a Big Swing: We've considered starting a side business developing a product that falls into line with my profession but we're worried it'll take away from valuable time with children. It would be a product folks could order online. It would likely take $100k to develop and market the product.

Seeking Advice:

• Would you recommend continuing to work at the current pace, maximizing our earnings and investments?
• Would taking a sabbatical to focus on family time be a financially sound decision given our current situation?
• Are there other investment or financial strategies we should consider to optimize our path to financial independence and work-life balance?
• Any big swings we should consider taking?
• What recommendations do you have for diversifying our investments beyond real estate to ensure a more balanced portfolio? I know I am very conservative from growing up without and I'm drawn to tangible investments and struggle when Net Worth goes "down" due to market fluctuations.

We appreciate any insights or experiences you can share. Thank you!

I'm 51 and have rarely had in-person friendship interactions. My Mom is partially to blame because she said "Wait to be invited" but I was never cool enough or interesting enough in High School or Grade School to have people calling me to see how I'm doing or invite me to go places. College wasn't as bad but I still never got invited. I was bullied more in 7th grade in a small school, so most people wouldn't know about it transitioning to a larger High School, so I feel my lack of trust in some people plays a big factor.
I had one friend since 20 but he's been flakey, takes too long to get ready for an event like a car show that there's never been enough time to browse and I would feel rushed. There's more drama with him that's irrelevant to my situation but I've stopped replying to him. He never made an effort to drive 30 minutes or so to see me when I was married. And when in relationships and was married my partner didn't typically have a girl's night out, as it was usually us with or without her friends.
I learned young that being funny and making people laughed really helps, but I have yet to see true results. My Dad told me to treat others as I would myself, and to put others ahead of myself to go around in life, but all that's done as hold me back as I have yet to see lasting results. I read an article on Lifehacker a decade ago about how to make friends in your 30's and one of the suggestions was Meetup.com, which did help as I made acquaintances and did meet others at events, but I understand people change.
My gf of 10 years knows my struggles, so she encouraged me to get out when I have a chance at meeting new people. We don't always have the same interests either so I appreciate her willingness to adjust. Going against my Mom's advice I would tell people where I would be going and ask if they'd be interested days in advance, but nobody seems to have the time, or they have so many friends (proving it can be done) that nobody considers me a priority. They enjoy my caring and giving nature, my ability to help with computer stuff, but I picked up that they only seem to reach out to me for that, and I feel I'm not good enough for anything else.
I befriended an older woman months ago at work who keeps pushing me to do stand-up, as I'm always making her laugh, and have been there to listen as her brother is in the hospital. I offered to hang out but she feels uncomfortable and doesn't want to look suspicious as she knows I have a girlfriend. I was upset about it but then she wishes she would have changed her mind when I spoke to her the next Monday.
This past week there was a street fair in a big town as my gf was there doing tarot readings, and that the street fair has eclectic items and draws a huge crowds with food vendors and entertainment. I mentioned this event to said coworker, a friend from Grade School I just reconnected with, my female friend from Meetup (no reply, and she lives with her bf closer to the event) and my ex wife who I get along with. The ex wife wasn't sure as she always was in bed by 9 (an issue in our marriage). After I told the coworker Friday about the event, she said on the day of the event that she made plans elsewhere. The friend from grade school seems to be going through issues and doesn't seem reliable, like everyone else.
I'm not a beealcohol drinker, was picked last or near last at gym so I'm not into sports, and I dont have the typical guy mentality; so it's easier to do me to be friends with women. One of my other female friends says "Life gets in the way" but if that were true why do a lot of FB posts show them with friends and best friends? That envy and comparison was why I only go on FB to buy and sell stuff. Do those friends and best friends not have lives, and is that why they're able to do things?
So at this point in life is it better to accept my fate and move on? Was I simply taught wrong when I should have learned morals off the street? Is everyone just not reliable enough? I keep telling myself that if you're not already in someone's inner circle that there's no chance of getting in now, and I'm starting to think that's true. I've tried being the catalyst with no results. Even this morning I read a story on here of a Mom who got RSVP's for her 5-year olds b-day party but got cancellations days leading to the event, so i know im not alone. Maybe this is best posted over at /MaleMentalHealth but wanted other's inputs here. If being funny, caring, and considerate isn't enough or more than enough, what am I lacking?

I feel like when people ask “how hard is medical school” on this sub, people give a variety of answers.
Sometimes it’s “not so bad, just study consistently”, or “it’s so awful, I want to kill myself”. The truth is, depending on what specialty you choose, medical school is honestly a) slightly harder than undergrad or b) the hardest thing you’ll ever do.
Let me give you an example - On one hand, you have a student interested in family medicine. He just needs to pass his classes, he does some research in the summers, he doesn’t need to do an obnoxious amount of extracurriculars or ace his rotations. He just needs to do the bare minimum and a little bit more, and he graduates as a successful doctor.
Compare to the plastics gunner. He has to get high honors in every class, do research DURING the school year, go to conferences and do extracurriculars, and ACE step 2.
The student in family medicine may be spending 7 hours a day studying 5 times a week. The student in plastic surgery may be studying/working 11 hours a day 7 times a week.
I’m not trying to say one is better or worse. But if you are a new student looking to understand what the experience is really like, I truly believe the most important factor is the medical specialty, and the requirements associated with it.

When I (35f) was 14, my mom had my little sister. I was an accident, the child that “ruined” my mother’s life (aka ruining her chances at marrying rich and living her best life… her words paraphrased), but my sister was planned. My mom’s entire pregnancy was a nightmare. She was always abusive, but somehow being pregnant made her even worse.
The day they both came home from the hospital, it became my job to take care of my sister. As you can imagine, that went over super well with a teenage girl, but I did it.
Every day I’d come home from school to find my little sister still in her crib. Sometimes crying and needing a diaper change, while my mother laid in bed watching General Hospital and screaming at me to take care of my sister. Any time I pushed back, my mother would punish me. She refused to take care of my sister because my stepdad was the one who wanted a kid. He could take care of her once he got home, which wouldn’t be for hours. So I’d take care of my sister, cook dinner, and do the list of chores my mother demanded.
My first homecoming game? My parents showed up, my mom dumped my sister on me, so I (at 15) had to walk around carrying my infant sister while my mom got drunk and had the time of her life.
We’d go out to dinner, and I’d be on “baby duty”. So the servers would think she was my kid, and talk to me like I’m the mom. I’d angrily clarify that I’m 15 and this was my little sister, and my mom would laugh like it was hilarious.
The day I turned 16, my mom literally had me going out applying for jobs because I was old enough now. She wasn’t going to pay for me anymore. I had to take care of myself… which was hilarious since my dad was paying her child support. While we had been dirt poor when I was a kid, my stepdad makes a ridiculous amount of money. We were no longer living paycheck to paycheck, and living in a million dollar home.
At 16, I was taking multiple AP and honors courses, in the presidency of five different clubs, was a senior editor of the newspaper with several columns assigned to me, a member of the varsity debate team (also was a mentor to the novice team members, working 30+ hours a week, paying all my bills (car insurance, gas, clothes, food), and raising my little sister. All that time, my mother’s abuse got worse. Her drinking had steadily increased, and she became more violent.
A few days before my 18th birthday, I finally snapped. I left home. When I tried to go home a few days later to get my stuff, my mom attacked me and my friend who’d come with me. My friend and I both ended up escaping and running… technically I had to do a barrel roll as the garage door opened to escape… which shouldn’t be funny but I’m laughing right now thinking about how ridiculous it must have looked to anyone on the outside who had no idea what was happening.
Anyway, I ended up moving across the country to live with my dad, for my own safety and mental/physical health. I wanted to go no contact with my mom forever, but I couldn’t leave my little sister alone with her. I went back eventually for my sister, but things were the same with my mom. I left again for my own sanity and physical well being.
When my sister hit high school, my mom refused to get her a phone, so I put my sister on my plan. Made sure Uber was set up for her so that I’d pay if she needed a safe ride to get out of a bad situation. I took her school clothes shopping. Bought her exactly what she asked for every Christmas (something my mother purposefully refuses to do).
I’m the one who taught her how to be safe at parties, how to protect herself, and to look out for other girls. I had safe sex talks with her. Encouraged her to do well in school so that she could escape our mother too.
What killed me was getting the calls from her that mom was off the rails again. The police did nothing to protect me back when I was 17, almost 18. When CPS was called on my mom for my sister, several times, they did nothing also. Having a lot of money and being able to look like a stepford wife at the drop of a hat worked in my mom’s favor I guess. I personally believe she’s a narcissist, but I’ll probably never know for sure cause she’ll never get diagnosed.
When my sister turned 18 and graduated high school, she moved in with me and my fiancé that summer. She took a gap year, and we took care of her. Having escaped our mother myself, I knew she needed that space to heal. My fiancé and I joked to ourselves that we became parents to a grown teenager.
I drove her to college last summer, she just finished her first year. My little sis has been accepted and is transferring to her dream school this fall. I’m so proud of her.
To be honest, I’ve busted my ass since I turned 18, because I knew the day would come where my sister would turn 18, and she’d need a safe place to fall. I wanted to be in a good enough place to be able to provide that for her… and I did it. I got her out, and she’s thriving.
We’ve been planning a trip to go see our grandmothers this summer. My fiancé isn’t able to join us for the trip, since it’s going to be an extended visit and we can’t leave our cats alone/have his parents look out for them for that long.
One of my grandmothers called to tell me that my little sister was disappointed that he wasn’t going to be there, and that he feels more like a dad to her than her own father…. And honestly that broke my heart.
She’s joked with me before that I’m more like her mom than our actual mother. Honestly, it’s true. I feel like her mom, more than I feel like her sister. Sometimes I wish she was my kid. That we were her parents, because she’d have probably been better off. I told my fiancé about what my sister said and we both got emotional about it… and then pissed at my stepdad for being so god damn apathetic and my mom for being an abusive alcoholic narcissist… that woman wonders why I never call.
I’m looking forward to seeing my sister soon and giving her a big hug. Fiancé did joke that little sis is being dramatic because she’s still flying back to our house to stay with us for a week. Her Christmas/Birthday present for 2023+2024 were VIP/barricade concert tickets to see her favorite K-pop group. I saved up forever for them. It was just supposed to be for her and her friend as her Christmas/birthday present for 2023, but she insisted on it being for 2023 and 2024. I just like seeing her happy.

MAIORES. IV, CAL. IUNI. FORTUNA PRIMIGENIA.

This subject follows along from the general conclusion of infantilism, i.e. if we agree that infantilism exists in a culture that therefore all aspects of (such a culture) must be examined as to how they are impacted ‘by’ that infantilism, as: infantilism constitutes an undeveloped form of a thing; here (without covering absolutely every single aspect of it, as this could be a book in and of itself) we explore ‘sexual immaturity’ and its promulgation and consequences (of which we could easily make the case of the consequences as to be the cause of ‘all social ill’).
In an anthropological view; as if like we are looking at a chimpanzee colony, both procreation and familial-tribal child-raising takes place in our contemporary Western societies in a very clumsy sort of way; with the latter (i.e. the actual raising of children) not occurring at all, with the consequence of ‘arrested development’ – usually we would recognize and name it as that, if we ever thought very deeply about it:
However, the notion that all of this could be reduced to and fathomed as ‘sexual immaturity’ is an interesting (and unexplored) avenue to approach these matters from; certainly the act of actual procreation is deliberately accidental (I mean here in the contemporary West) in that a Woman does “not seek a mate” and then become pregnant, i.e. she does not even consider the sexual act to be procreative, rather: she accidentally becomes pregnant (“it was a miracle”), having beforehand and all throughout the duration and beyond it a culture which is far detached from the physical reality of things and thus a new human is created with no forethought for its care or provision and no security net in place to provide for it and ensure its prosperity and intelligent up-bringing, and increasingly there are fewer and fewer intelligent older persons around who are capable of providing the education and care for that child as would naturally exist in the large familial-tribal unit of an extended family where, historically, we all came from and of which is still the norm across much of the world (i.e. village elders who would otherwise raise the children up to be intelligent even if the Mother herself is too young to be a real parent - if we imagine as the species norm would be that most Women historically had their first child at around the age of fourteen or fifteen). Without, then, that familial-tribal unit to instruct and care for the child’s intellectual development and without either land to make a living from to provide for it's economic development then we find a cursed life, that is: a life far more difficult than it otherwise ought be had it been born in a more wisely chosen environment.
My point here is that ‘procreation’ is considered almost never at all by our society as being the most basic step in the creation and promulgation ‘of’ a tribal unit; with procreation itself being left down to blind chance and more often either legitimately accidentally or feigned accidently so as to attempt to cement a relationship (see: divorce and break-up rates in the West), either way this is the material circumstance into which children are born.
To say, then, that not grasping this reality ‘is’ itself a product of sexual immaturity; i.e. a Woman who does not understand what a new human is, seems to me to be far more of an accurate view of the thing than to declare it as ‘sexual immorality’ as it is usually insisted by the Abramic types, as: rather obviously it is ‘Sexual Immaturity’ rather than ‘Sexual Immorality’ that is the really cause of (the above scenario), that is: it is not Men and Women knowing too much about sex but of Men and Women knowing virtually nothing at all and therefore absent of a practice and familiarity necessary for Sexual Maturity, with Sexual Maturity itself being the very thing declared to be Immorality - an irreconcilable paradox.
It seems to me, then, that the habits we observe of ‘accidental pregnancy’ are the natural occurrence in such an unnatural society; that is: a consequence of misplaced moralism over the vital mechanical sexual functions of the human body (a thing which may well dominate and drive our unconsciousness entirely) have been rendered so alien to our expression and consideration but of which are so incessant and irrepressible; that sexual release is habitually denied, I mean here societally (i.e. “it is not polite”), and only finds ‘permission’ to appear in extreme drunkenness in fits of frenzy, and so on, so that when procreation actually occurs it is sporadic and neither at that moment nor before it was the adult rational mind involved – again, this is plainly a consequence of ‘sexual immaturity’ ‘before’ it could ever be said to be a consequence of ‘sexual immorality’.
It’s worth considering, of our own society in contemporary times, how far removed we are from most of the world which practices arrange marriages in one form or another (i.e. whether we are speaking of large tribal units or smaller family units) and what the consequence of this is on our own communities being absent of that; that is: the most fertile years of our lives are not spent having gotten procreation out of the way by having five or six children by the age of twenty or nineteen (so that when the child is fifteen you might be thirty, which seems to be the age where the sexual drive begins to dissipate or has anyway lost its novelty), and instead (i.e. without of being match-made far earlier in life) procreation instead occurs – if it does at all – accidentally and well-past the most fertile and healthy years, with such children being often quite sickly and the strain on the body being significantly more risky to the Mother (haphazardly enabled only then by massive external resources which would not have been required at all beforehand). I do not mean to seem as if I am advocating “having five or six children by the age of twenty or nineteen” only that in our natural environment this has always been the way of the thing due to natural sexual exploration when we are at that age.
At the same time, at the beginning and at the end of this “waste of time” (as I would say) of those most fertile years in which our sexuality is forbidden to us; that culture which we examine here as being simply Sexual Immaturity, it has been the case that that “Immaturity” persists well into later life by those afflicted adults who were forbidden to practise their natural sexuality when they were at the age where they wanted to, that is that the culture and mentality of such persons subjected to such restrictions quite demonstrably can be shown to have regressed them to the point that, as then as adults, they dress as children, speak and think as children, shun adult responsibility and seem altogether to have matured intellectually no further than the age of twelve or thirteen years, despite physiologically and neurologically having surpassed far beyond that early almost larval-like stage of our development where the body and mind are both only partially formed.
Instead it has been the “dragging-out” of that childlike insensibility, again: to no useful outcome, which has by that point in time essentially mitigated most of their procreative potentiality in that 1) physically having children is then far more difficult for them, and 2) they are now twenty-five years behind where their familial-tribal unit might otherwise have been, i.e. they do not have five or six twenty year old children bringing in incomes to the Household (to purchase a Household in the first place if they did not possess one before) or working the land (or likewise to purchase land) so that their prosperity will not have developed beyond mere subsistence off of the external labour market so as to escape the poverty and dependency traps inherent in the cities – which nominally constitutes their entire existence ‘to’ escape such miseries. All in all it is a lot of hard work by that point and I could not help but notice, of my own generation and those slightly older, how this outcome would have been entirely altered and set on a more prosperous trajectory if, say, at the age of sixteen a couple had been put together and had a few children, as: by the age of twenty the best seeds would have been sewn and they would not have to even think about “having children” ever again which is itself a thing, I observe anyway, that is so daunting and bothersome later in life that it really is something better gotten out of the way as early as possible in the manner that we would have done quite naturally otherwise.
If the idea here is to build up that familial-tribal unit then this methodology serves the purpose in the most optimal manner; the adults are freed up and enjoy their liberties, the younger adults (i.e. the teenagers) are preoccupied quite happily fulfilling their single greatest biological urges to have sex as much as they like, and the population figures begin to climb up at a rate of replacement which is far superior, e.g. a thirty year old parent of a fifteen year old only has five years before that fifteen year becomes a physically matured adult ready to contribute to the unit, whereas by contrast a thirty year old parent of a five year old has a great longer time to wait for physical maturity so that the distance between the two age groups becomes fragile and thin the further it is stretched with a concurrent loss of replacement manpower by a space of ten additional years.
There is something to be said for the older more experienced Father, of course, I remember quite well that the children I grew up with whose Fathers were in their forties and fifties and whose Mothers were in their twenties or very early thirties were quite better-off in their disposition and intelligence (whilst those with older Mothers tended to be sickly in one way or another); simply put though I think it is more to do with the experience of age as the influencing factor than anything else and a functional familial-tribal unit would have this influence in far greater capacity.
If we add to this factor the notion of polygamy (something shunned as ‘pagan’ by the Abramic religions yet advocated for in their own holy books, indeed: it was the universal norm) then we find the whole circle being completed in that young teenagers do as they please with each other, becoming familiar with relationship and their sexuality, and then when they reach a more mature age they might marry each other or other people properly so as to begin families of their own; but that by that age they may well have produced several children already via multiple partners so that the actual ‘legitimate children’ (in the sense of inheriting land and titles) of a more formal marriage is superfluous to population replacement insofar as the tribe is concerned, as: they have already increased the headcount quite massively by comparison. It is worth mentioning here the legal problems of land inheritance and the seeming inability for people to ever work this all out amongst themselves as being one of the most desirable points of the introduction of some of the Abramic religions, when they first appeared, as rules were laid out of who could inherit (some rules more effective than others, some quite ruinous in fact) which provided a framework in perpetuity (but on the other hand, with all children being considered legitimate in some instances, i.e. the children of concubines, this produced the problem of “all children” being in competition for the single title or, in turn, a vast spread of land, i.e. a Kingdom, being broken apart “to make it all fair”: this did not differ in form from, say, Imperial China to the late Ottoman court whilst the European Monarchies to their credit, somewhat, temporarily solved the matter by the allocation of specific titles to be given to the first born, second born, third born, etc., and then bouncing back to the Monarch upon the death of that Duke to be allocated again – although some would say this is a feeble manner by which to govern large polities it differs not very much from the essential ‘oversight’ duties over local governments as practiced in the Roman Principate rather than direct-governorship over those provinces themselves).
The tribal influence in real terms upon children cannot be understated in its superior effects upon the character and long-term capacity of the children themselves (when compared to others); I have some experience in my own up-bringing with this and really the outcome (again: compared to the infantilism, i.e. arrested development, you will almost always find in the nuclear family type, which we might easily compare to factory farmed within four walls and a hen-pecking parental authority vs. free range) is a quite more matured and capable disposition (call it “street smarts” if you like; they follow what actually works rather than what is ‘pretended to them’ to work, which is typically nothing more than the parents own whimsical desires of the moment) amongst all the children when they are simply freed up from the poor influence of an unfit parent even without the good influence of a more fit parent of which, then, the fit parent itself could be determined to be largely superfluous, as: of their own accord they learn amongst themselves and become naturally fortified against being instructed into error by a witless or ill-inclined adult, whereas a child stuck under the thumb of a witless ‘parent’ has no means to disobey that witless parent without facing severe punishments and so there the child is sculpted into a helpless fool, later embittered in life and at the tender mercy of their peers, as: even as they might innately know-better (than to do the foolish thing their parent demands they do) they are forced nevertheless, either physically punished or emotionally coerced, into adopting the ‘silly walk’ and ‘dress’ of the witless parent, which is to say: they are forced into conforming toward the cultural idealism determined by the parent with no thought whatsoever for the practicalities of life, e.g. the matter of “how will my child earn a living” is addressed neither by parenting nor by schools thus begrudgingly selling themselves auction block of the labour market turns out to be the only method, whether they were deluded into thinking that their aspirations to be a professional athlete or an astronaut were entertained and encouraged for them at the expense of informing them about any other means of paying the rent or not.
I should say here that when I say “familial-tribal unit” I am broadly referring to any number of groupings, in whatsoever local forms they may take shape, but that the decisive factor, most chiefly, will be a large extended family network of which, if it ever needed to pool its resource together, would constitute a decent size force in land, resource production and manpower – but chiefly it is the possession of land which enables everything else:
More ideally, to my mind, it would resemble (or be very close in composition to) that Roman ‘Familia’ (the origin of the word ‘Family’ in our English) where a fairly large blood family of at least five generations inhabited in and around the same House or group of Houses (see: Palace, Villa and Manor Economy), with servants and adoptees and associates (business partners) likewise being considered as extended kin; altogether forming, as it were, a little nationality. In the sense of ‘Nationality’ it is, it ought be said, more a return to how we actually were prior to the ‘naming conventions’ of the 1700’s or so where the stupid surnames made up on the spot of many Europeans were forced into Law over what would have originally been clan and tribal identities and from which there came that fake sense of disparate ‘Nationality’ (i.e. cut off from tribe and forced into atomization; identity through a very small family unit alone) from which the misnomer of ‘Race’ would be made-up to lend credibility to. In many ways a great deal of the urbane ‘neurosis’, let’s call it, stems really from this absence of ‘true tribe’ with it having been eradicated either by the fecklessness of urban societies; societies of strangers and thieves, and also more directly via those religions which pretend to fill the void of ‘true tribe’ with their witless rituals and effete pretences – things which are a wet-blanket over true fellowship wrought in such a manner as comes in all reality perfectly naturally the moment the screws holding foolishness in place are undone and cast away – and really here, when we stack these observations together one upon the other, we are really speaking of a sound and strong society certainly immune to the shallow perversity created by denialism toward the basic mechanics of the human body – in addition to any other considerations which follow from that.

THE OVERALL INFLUENCE (OR LACK THEREOF) OF A TRIBAL-FAMILIAL UNIT

It must be considered quite seriously by the reader as to the overall influence, or lack thereof, of a tribal-familial unit as to what fills its place in the education of people otherwise and, as I began this text by considering for myself, how much of the ‘dysfunctionality’ can be attributed to the “lack thereof”.
Along with the cultural instance on sexual immaturity as to produce the consequence of delaying and drawing out for decades a fetish of normal sexuality which ought naturally be done with by a person after reaching the age, say, of maybe seventeen, there is the greater point which I am trying to relay here in this text of how many other aspects of ‘bad culture’ are singularly anchored to and thusly totally dependent upon that sexual immaturity – that is: we would be hard-pressed to imagine how really many of the pernicious scenarios in our contemporary society would even arise if that foundation stone of ‘sexual immaturity’ were removed from the equation:
For instance, how much of a ‘relationship’ is spent and sculpted (either by the Man or the Woman or both) on jealously and worry of the other ending the relationship for having found another person or another means to fulfil their sexual gratification? If a ‘relationship’ is based upon, let’s call this, “mutual masturbation” then at the heart of that is sexual immaturity of the mental age of maybe fourteen years whereupon a person has been sort of coaxed into dependency for orgasm on a third party; they are fraught and fearful that this should be taken away from them – it being so vital as like a mechanical necessity for either sex – that the entire content of their ‘relationship’ revolves around it; seeking it, coaxing it, demanding it, guarding it from be lost, and so on, of which I think it is not exaggeration to say that such concerns constitute 100% of the verbal interaction in such a ‘couple’; either outright or in the back of the mind so as to reinterpret all scenarios and verbal expressions as being related to that end-goal of maintaining the “mutual masturbation”.
Simply put this ‘relationship’, then, revolves around twenty minutes of sexual activity in a day – if that much (or even if every day), yet dominates the entirety of the mind; that is: the entirety of the ‘relationship’, when this action itself is something that a servant or a slave or a prostitute would be used for in many societies, with the ‘content’ of the marriage, say, being concerned more with running the business of a Household or concerned with procreation to produce legitimate children to inherit the business, the title, the land, whatever. My point here is that neither Man nor Woman are elevated or their dignity improved, somehow, by this absence of sexual maturity but rather that both are reduced; i.e. greatly lowered, to the cognitive and social standing of the “servant, slave, prostitute,” in that as far as they think of and conceptualize themselves as part of a Household at all it is singularly the concern with simple sexual acts which dominate their interpersonal interactions and their ideas about their own self; it is their ‘social currency’.
If this seems alien – I mean my observation on this – consider how much neurosis goes on in the daily grooming rituals of Women or those sad excuses for Men who “lift weights but cannot fight” (not to mention the ease at which a thin muscular physique bleeds out at the slightest of puncture wounds, see: Roman Gladiator training), i.e. whose only concern is that of admiring their own bodies in a mirror, this being intellectually identical to young Women. Is this not the mentally of a slave? If so, even if we shy away from saying it plainly, then we must ask “what forms the mentality of a slave (i.e. where does it come from)” – in the above equation a slave in a Household is more like an object fulfilling a function than He or She is a person with any autonomy (well, obviously there is no autonomy for a slave) so it is almost to be expected that in such an environment that the intellectual trajectory of an object-person goes away from externalities and becomes entirely absorbed with self-presentation and equates their social status from that, and if groups of such persons will set this to be the common culture; deriving status in that manner among themselves – although still these are slaves possessing no ‘status’ to speak of, as being object-people. This is evidenced also in victims of sexual abuse or those, in general, suffering at the hands of third parties whose autonomy is in some way or another restricted; that their singular focus becomes that of sexuality as like depression is “rage turned inward”, thus too it seems for sexual infantilism.
I cannot pass up this subject without mentioning a series of interviews describing, a thing quite novel to me, the notion of American Christian ‘Purity Culture’ from the point of view of those heavily indoctrinated into that; instilled with Catholic levels of guilt over the normal function of the body, who have then left their small churches or megachurches, or whatever, and spoken plainly about the mentality of those inside of it as relating to sexuality. It is a thing I think long suspected but seldom expressed that, as it was described, the mentality of such persons is that they are “horny all the time” due to the relentless guilt inculcated into them; that due to denialism of sexuality their ordinary sexual impulses are magnified to an incredible degree and that, consequentially, their entire being is animated by repressed sexuality so that their thoughts are ‘impure’ all the time whilst verbally they express strong denialism and shame over the thing. I think this is no real difference to any such religious malinstruction; be it Muslim, Jewish or Christian, in that the perpetual infantilism of their surrounding society stems first of all from their own bedrock religious culture (i.e. whatever religion which is at odds with the human body, etc.) were due to such ‘culture’ they never really get over, say, an early adolescent view of sexuality where they are driven entirely by it and never learn to overcome it, no pun intended, but utterly unrealized – which would take them leaving their religion – is that this process demonstrably brings out the absolute worst in their character and disposition with the process itself being the promulgation ‘of’ those very “Viceful thoughts ” that they claim to be “at War with in the world”, in other words: it is just they themselves who, for example, look at a young teenage girl (or god help us, a small boy) and thinks all manner of sexual rapacity – and that this animates them politically to campaign for restrictive legislation to be put into Law to police “all society” as if “all society” existed at their low level is an incredible thing to consider. But I do not think their broader societies are any exception to this, rather point here is that their broader societies are comprised of persons exactly like them; that the Christian or the Jew driven by a lifetimes shaming over their normal sexuality adopt, in turn, the most depraved expressions ‘of’ sexuality as a self-affirmation; that is: the extreme self-identification with a simple sexual action, for example, came to literally define a persons personality in such places to the point that (Americans anyway) seriously put out the notion during the late 1990’s and 2000’s that a fleeting sexual act 1) defines a persons entire character, and 2) it is also inborn, e.g. as like to say that whether you prefer this or that on the menu at a restaurant is something determined genetically; this is utterly stupid and utterly, in my opinion, a consequence of society which has not wanted to evolve beyond the ‘sexual immaturity’ of which physiologically seems to occupy a very small window of the middle to late teens and of which repression during those ages quite demonstrably creates madness and retardation – I mean that if their culture did not peripherally do this to them then the manner by which swathes of their cultural-historical institutions do this to them ‘outright’ by inculcation into this process in particular certainly does it to them, and merely it is the unwillingness to fully condemn these Religions and relegate these influences to the dustbin which keeps the entire thing ticking along with “just enough” of the population bent out of shape by it to present those same persons, seemingly confused as to where they came from, lumbering through the broader society and serving as examples of lunacy and degeneracy.
In short - and I may as well add this here also, the aim to abstain for a while from sexuality was a custom introduced by the Ancient Romans and was designed to heighten sexual pleasure; in effect, then, foreign barbarians coming to this culture much later on with nobody to really explain it to them ended up unwittingly engaging in what they would probably have recognized as ‘sex magic’ whereupon the denial of their own mechanical sexual function was ‘abstained’ by them; i.e. they saw the value in holding off on doing drugs or having sex for a while, – but they did not understand what the effect or the outcome of that was ‘intended’ to be in that one would abstain specifically ‘to’ heighten the senses toward that pleasure; and this is evidenced chiefly in the Lunar Orgies and the Fast/s of Ceres. Interestingly, Jesus himself in (i think the Gospel of Thomas?) mentions to his followers that “they will hate him for what he says now,” and that he says that “fasting brings out all the worst in them” – in other words, engaging in periodic abstinence will turn them all horny. Knowing this from a relatively early age it was no surprise to me at all why celibate priests ended up diddling children or member of their own congregation or why the most outwardly pious zealots proved to be the most morally weak people to be found as even with the most ‘clean’ example, let’s say, of a person who has never drank wine, for example, they have not ‘overcome’ that thing but have rather avoided ever experiencing that thing so that it will always be a novel temptation to them of which they will have no understanding of and which they can be leveraged by in various ways primarily due to their ignorance of which ‘experience itself’ would otherwise render them far more fortified against:
A good example here is the ‘pot scare’ of the early 1930’s in America when it was seriously believed by a wholly ignorant chunk of the urbane voting public that smoking cannabis (and drinking alcohol, for that matter) would turn a person into a serial killer, this is totally bizarre to us now, but notice that this was the same society whose moral standard was that “a table leg” should not be uncovered because it reminded them of a Womans bare leg – although here we might better understand why they were so preoccupied by thoughts like that (I think very seriously in their heightened state of perpetual arousal any little thing would send them to buggery of a farmyard creature)! Hilarious. But – notice also that this was the same society which was engaging in some of the most casually egregious inhumane criminality that history had ever seen, as if they ‘were’ high on narcotics and their rational senses dulled; I do not mean here to bring American notions of ‘Race’ into this as to be seen to ‘condemn Black Slavery’ in the fashion of my own day (although we mentioned family-tribe as a better form of so-called nationality earlier) but the ghastly images of actual Country Fairs where smiling families with children by their knees would pose for crude photographs with the charcoaled or bloated rotting carcass of a burned or lynched Man is beyond my ability to play-down or normalize. I mean here to say, that: far from the pretense of ‘clean mindedness’ of such persons about themselves that we find these same persons are the filthiest and most depraved characters around, being those few persons who walk amongst us who are actually capable of doing those inhumane things (again, see: Banality of Evil) as would be unthinkable to a person of normal rational healthy conscience. We might connect this, also, to the historical BDSM extravaganzas which took place in the Christian monasteries and public squares for many centuries where young Women were sexually tortured by celibate clergymen as to recognize how deep and quick a plunge it is from a person or their culture going from the denial of normal healthy sexuality into the kettled and sadistic gore fetish of outright murder.
It is always worth reminding the reader who wishes to minimize these more egregious aspects of the subject (as rape is still rampant among the clergy); which are consequential of sexual immaturity, that it was not ‘reason and rationality’ per se that stamped this out from European society but soldiers kicking in the doors of such Churches, Town Halls and Houses with muskets, rifles, long knives and grape-shot and physically eradicating the perpetrators and their willing congregations from America and France for the practice itself of sexually torturing a Woman and then burning the evidence on the fake pretexts of obviously made-up accusations of “she turned me into a frog” to actually be ended. That is to say that the ‘mentality’ and ‘culture’ which provided the framework for such inhumane activities was never formally realized or educated-out of a people, so to find it lingers along into contemporary times; animating the otherwise dormant farmyard animal-like character of such persons “like powers of evil”, is not surprising to me in the least. What was more surprising to me is that as so much of these religions are so obviously outright ‘evil’ that more persons do not speak of the intricacies of the things in such necessary detail these more ‘egregious’ cases would qualify, and then to spool back to discover the cause of every evil action in the mentality of every perpetrator – generally speaking, for instance, it will be a character with a disposition of infantilism and perhaps this is more easy to understand without needing to connect it to sexual immaturity though, to my mind, these are not distinct enough to warrant any separation; as: infantilism is always going to be immaturity and immaturity is always going to run concurrent with a lack of adult intellectual development where a mature and experienced view of a thing, sexuality in this case, has likely been within the powers of a person to have gleaned naturally through experiences – in which case there would be no argument with anything I say here, or of which such experiences have been prevented by external powers from being gleaned by the person in question; in which case they remain ‘as if’ they were fourteen years old with the allure of mysterious unknown sex acts utterly dominating their consciousness at all times and yet physically being thirty, forty, fifty years old – well past the age (certainly physiologically) where they should have gotten it all out of their system but of which they have not, chiefly because their experiences have been rather dull and monotone and so much social currency has been valued by it ‘being’ dull and monotone, e.g. monogamy, legal repercussions binding two people in place, the atomized kettling nature of the disconnected nuclear family unit, living amongst strangers in large cities where it not so simple as just going topless to change the local culture, control through the selective denial of the sex act itself (as William Reich and Esther Vilar both write on), the sexualisation of young people by adults, the accidental ‘perversity’ (in the real meaning of the word) of unfulfilled (or poorly fulfilled, or repressed altogether) sexuality and its effects on the brain and society, and so on and so on.
I am always inclined to think when considering this subject, and I may as well end this text in conclusion with this recurrent thought of mine, that ‘sexual perversion’ really begins in the mind of ourselves as young teenagers when the normal human body is leeringly presented to us as being something ‘illicit’, e.g. the breasts of Women are concealed in our society and so due to ‘hiding them away’ they become objects of mystery and fetish which they otherwise are not. I do not think this is deliberate reverse psychology (as god help us few enough people even understand the concept to understand what they do inadvertently) but it produces the same consequence of reverse psychology, whereupon quite arbitrarily a certain piece of the body, say, an ankle, is all of a sudden declared by a mad Adult to be “evil, sinful, lustful, of the devil,” when no such notion existed in the minds of people otherwise, as then: their natural curiosity is piqued by this imposition and so they develop a perversion dervied in chief part – as a sense of lewd pleasure – from bucking the arbitrary nonsensical imposition forced upon them by that dictate of which such a scenario never would have had cause to occur if not for that imposition having created it. I feel that this ‘perversion’ (again, in the real meaning of that word) stands in the way of a fully realized and fully pursued sense of actual sexuality and, from it, of a more resonant concordance between Men and Women whose interactions are otherwise thrown off balance by such impositions as they are dragged back down to sexual immaturity all the time; or into fear and jealously etc., as like a dozen avenues are presented in any conversation and virtually of them are strewn with piss, vomit and polyfoam which had no reason to be put there in the first place, or more accurately: it was put there through the carelessness of an atomized and witless peoples who knew no better than to do this to themselves but of which a familial-tribal unit would have drummed out of them quick sharp if for the actuality of nothing else than “we are all in this together” being something that is tangibly true and not merely shallow political rhetoric when it is said of a tribe vs. when it is said of a state polity comprised of countless strangers.

MAIORES. IV, CAL. IUNI. FORTUNA PRIMIGENIA.

TRIGGER WARNING- SA, etc.
It's a very very long story and there's more that I could go on about but- My parents had me young, mom (19), bio dad (21). They separated when I was around 3 or 4 y/o and that's when my dad (19) (that later adopted me) came into my life. When he went to adopt me at about 7 y/o, before sibling 1 was born, they needed bio dad to release his rights; he agreed on one condition from my mom, 'Don't talk to my family anymore, I will handle it'. So he signed, with the additional agreement that he would not have to pay child support, dad adopted me. I ended up with 1 little sibling and I wanted nothing to do with bio dad at this point, he was already out of my life since the adoption. At around 12 years old, my parents started their divorce, moms second divorce. This divorce was completely different. At first, I hated my (adopted) dad but then again, he used to work 3 jobs to support us, only had 1 day off and used it as a "cleaning day" (which I later appreciated as an adult because I had SEVERE allergies, but in the moment I was just like wtf man fr?) From 13 y/o to about 15 y/o my moms at the time bf was sexually abusing me, forcing me to "cuddle" on the couch, he would pretend to fall asleep (in 5 seconds) and touch my non existent boobs and coochie while grinding his boner against my butt until he had enough. I would lay there silently crying until he actually fell asleep, slowly crawl away, and be up the whole rest of the school night, in shock, crying, cutting myself, and writing very depressing poems. He would break open the bathroom door while I was bathing and would try to peep at me in the tub. I'd cover myself under the bubble bath for HOURS until I had no bubbles and the water was cold. I then tried hurting myself even worse but sibling walked in on me. I broke down and thought if I do this, this dude is going to go for my sibling so I'll just take whatever it is to protect them. So I did. I dealt with all the things plus him walking in on me SERVERAL times in my bedroom each time after I'd have a bath/shower (no lock on the door). This guy also apparently would hit, strangle, and rape my mom. I came to find out that he had a record too, he and his brother abducted a 17 y/o or 18 y/o girl, took her to a trap house, raped her in a bathroom with a pole-blood in the tub, sink, toilet, floor, etc. He also was busted because he put a garbage bag over another man's head and lit it on fire-because the man was black. (Dude ended up being dishonorably discharged later on btw) Eventually, she got rid of him, dated a bit, and settled with a new bf, my now step dad of over 10 years. At this point, I was 16 y/o, had a GREAT relationship with (adopted) dad (not so much my mom), and became curious about my bio dad-where I came from, family customs/traditions, similarities/differences, interests, the other half of who I am. I found him on social media, reached out but didn't get a response for 2-3 weeks. Shortly after us chatting, I went to see him (adopted dad and sibling 1 came with). I had 2 more siblings from bio dad, they were a decade or so younger than me, and sibling 3 didn't resemble me much but did with sibling 2 BUT sibling 2 looked so much like me at that age, weird. A short time later, there was a family event by bio dad, I was invited but had no way to get there (about a 6 hour drive from where I was at the time) so his sistemy aunt said she'd take me. She picked me up and I was to spend the night at her house (with my 2 cousins) then we would travel in the morning. I was so excited because I vaguely remember cousin 1 from childhood, apparently we were super close growing up together, I was eager to reconnect and bond with my cousins. When spending the night, cousin 2 went to sleep early (a bit younger than cousin 1 and I), so cousin 1 and I were talking for hours, it was great being able to reconnect/re-establish our relationship...until he kissed me, threw himself on me, tried getting me to touch him as he started to touch me. I said stop wtf what are you doing we are FIRST cousins!! He chuckled and said "We are but we're not" ... "wtf are you talking about?" ... "I'm not supposed to say but your dad had a DNA test done during tour parents divorce and told all of us your mom cheated on him, you're not ACTUALLY his acoording to the test" ... so at this point, I'm disgusted, have so many questions, confused, am in a house of 'family' that I don't know/don't believe that I am family-I went to sleep. Next day we traveled to see bio dad and after the event I asked him and step mom about it and also mentioned that because of this cousin 1 tried "xyz". Bio dad's response to the DNA-"Your mother had the DNA test done and it said I was not your bio father, she probably lied/gave me a fake test so I would stay out of your life." I went to my mom and questioned her, she said "Absolutely not, you know your (adopted) father and I don't talk so you can even ask him to verify that I'm not lying. I have no idea about anything that has to do with a DNA test, we never had one as he (bio das) was my first and we got married then I was prengant with you about 3-4 months after getting married." I asked (adopted) dad and his story lined up perfectly with my mom's. So bio dad lied to me and his entire side of the family to save face. He lied to all of them because his agreement of giving up his rights to me and not having to pay child support would not have been supported by his side of the family so he told them I wasn't his and supposedly provided a (fake) test so they'd get off his back about it. My grandfather from him said he saw the test-but there was no test! Beyond fucked up man...but whatever. I still wanted a connection. I wanted to leave the bullshit in the past and move forward right? So, fast forward a bit, I was in a 3 year (3 out of 3.5 year) relationship with a TRUE P.O.S. bf that was physically, mentally, emotionally, and verbally abusive. We lived together for 3 years out of our 3.5 year relationship. He was addicted to porn, would call me a bitch every single day amoung other things, ended up raping me and thought it was funny, would hit, kick, choke me (not in the good way), and push me off the bed but then say "You think I want to be like this?! You think I want to do this to you?! Hurt you?! You're making me do it, it's your fault because you have issues." I wasn't "allowed" to talk to my guy friends because they're guys (and I didn't have many girl friends at all), especially my best guy friend that I grew up with and had known since 3 y/o. Bf would isolate me from my families even. At work, I only would talk to my guy friends/male co-workers if bf wasn't there otherwise he would ignore me the whole shift and be brutal when we got home (yeah, we also worked together for a bit over 3 years). I then found out that bf went on the dark web and watched a man kidnap someone, rape her, murder her, and proceed to rape her corpse...my bf was getting off on it! He even said he went back on the next night to do it again but site was blocked. FUCKING PSYCHOTIC. I could go on and on about his craziness. I was his 3rd virgin btw and at work we had a "work daughter" (was so close to that girl, she was 3 years younger than me, 5 years younger than bf and I used to go to her (when bf didnt have same shift as me) crying and telling her everything that would happen with him, so she knew all the shit he did). I was scared he was going to kill me one day, I was scared to stay, scared to leave, all the stupid things and all I wanted was consistent love. We did end up breaking up a few months after I turned 21, he ended up dating our work daughter and took her virginity too! He also did all the shit to her as he did to me! I felt bad for her at first but then thought no you dumb fuck, you knew EVERYTHING you were getting into smh. Anyway, I went to a family event for bio dad, bf was working, they wanted to meet him; we set up lunch for the following day. Bio dad said he was going to give bf the "talk" yk...with the shot gun type of talk. I said I don't feel comfortable with that because firstly, it's not his place, I have my dad (adopted), secondly, bio dad even agreed that we more so have a friend relationship at this point, and third, I've already been with bf for 3 years so it's not appropriate. He got REALLY salty the morning of the meet. We were coordinating plans and everything when he said along the lines, "We haven't seen you in person for almost 2 years now yet you always have time to go out...etc.etc." I responded, "The two times that you have seen me post that I was out, I was across the street from work. I went there for about 2 hours both times with bf and co-workers. I cannot drive 6-8 hours to you and 6-8 hours back in the same day. I work two full time jobs and am going to college online full-time. I'm sorry that I'm making you feel this way or that I've been distant but I try talking and seeing you all (on Skype and such) as much as I can. I don't know what else you want me to do or say at this point. That's why I'm excited for this meet up today. You also could have put in the effort to come out this way these last two years to visit me as well, but again, I'm sorry. I hope you all aren't mad at me, I'm really trying here." He then tells me "I'm going to have to cancel lunch today. I don't think meeting today is a good idea. Now I'm going to have to tell your (LITTLE) siblings that you don't want to see them today since you never have time for us and have basically disappeared from our lives these last 2 years." Aaaaand that's when I ✨️lost✨️ my shit and popped off 🙃 "ME?! I'm the one that disappeared?!?! How fucking dare you say that. How fucking dare you try to do that to them and me. YOU disappeared from MY life at 4 years old, LIED to the entire family (they still questioned if I'm "there's" or not, even had received the comment "Even though you're not ours, your ours because we've known you since a baby" and only 1 of bio dad's parents is still somewhat in touch with me to this day btw) I didn't see YOU for 12 YEARS of my life! I reached out to YOU, I have been the only one making an effort to keep the line of communication open and going and even after all of that plus my explaining that I work TWO full-time jobs plus full-time school, you still have the nerve and audacity to make me the bad guy and say I'm the one not trying here?! YOU are going to continue to LIE and tell MY siblings that I don't want to see them when that couldn't be further from the truth?! I'm going to tell you this ONCE, YOU blew your first chance of staying in my life when I was a child, now you're blowing it a SECOND time with me as an adult; there WILL NOT be a third time. I WILL NOT subject myself to this nor do I need your added stress. I WILL NOT allow you to do this to me EVER again. If my siblings or even step mom (or that side of the family) want to be in contact with me-I will gladly accept that but YOU are DEAD to me. Don't talk to me, don't contact me, I want NOTHING to do with YOU anymore, sperm donor." ... no response ...every couple of years after that I got a "happy birthday" or "merry christmas" here and there but I never responded. It's been a few years with no interaction from him. I just miss my siblings. I got so attached to them and I miss them, I tried staying in contact through video chats but they were still fairly young at that point so it was difficult plus having him or step mom in the background sometimes was awkward. They're now getting a bit older, sibling 2 is turning 18, sibling 3 will be 16. We have each other on social media but don't talk and very very VERY rarely interact with likes on posts. I'm afraid to make the first move, I don't want to push anything, I don't know what bio dad has been feeding into their brains about me, etc. My relationship with them will NEVER be as close as with my almost 21 y/o sibling 1 from (adopted) dad, which I can accept, I absolutely love my sibling 1 that I grew up with like nothing and no one else; I practically raised him tbh. But I do think about the other 2 siblings, I miss them, I just don't know if I should respect unspoken boundaries or make the first move? What do you think? And lmk if you want more of these batshit crazy stories that I've went through (tbh I'm probably going to post another seeking advice on another subject). ✌🏻

Hello everyone I wanted to share with you all something things that happened to me the last 8 months
So the story starts On late December of last year one week before New year
As I was walking home from the store I head a small cry from the bushes up ahead as I got closer to it they kept getting louder and louder my curio got the best of me so I went to see what was going on and I see a small puppy 2-3 weeks old lying on it stomach,So I took it out of the bushes and sat on the bench and put the puppy on my lap,I Was seeing if it had any injuries but it seemed fine I satyed with it there until I went to sleep on my lap a good 10 minutes go by and my mom calls me"Where are you its been 15 minutes since you left did you get what I asked you to" I said I'm sorry mom I'm coming gome right away. And there I was sitting there thinking what should I do about the small defenceless little dog in my lap.I should put it back in there right maybe it's mother will be coming back to take her baby so I wait a little longer and nothing happened at that moment the puppy wakes up and start crying again maybe it was hungry or something I didn't know so there I was contemplating what should I do but was I look down to see the puppy I see her starting directly at me with those little eyes of hers and I thought to my slef am I really going to let her alone again in this cold weather and she might die of starvation so I gathered my bags and took the puppy home with me Least to say my parents weren't really happy with me saying stuff like "why did you bring a stray dog home what if the dog has am infection ect" but I really didn't care about all that they were saying I was determined to keep her from going out side again so I gathered every ounce of courage I had and started arguing with saying that I'm gonna keep this puppy if it mean ime get kicked out the house (Brave word for a teenager with nowhere to go right 😄) But at that moment I really didn't care about that I would cared about the little dog in my arms shivering from the cold After a while me and my parent made deal I could keep the dog for now seeing as you care so much about it but we really don't have space in our small house for it to grow comfortably so my dad said that he would find a home for him by contacting his friend so for the time being you can keep it I was ecstatic I could keep my smile from showing tho I was a little sad because this would mean that I would have to say goodbye to the dog in the near future but as long as she was safe my feelings really didn't matter So afer new year the dog seemed to have settle down on our little home My hole family felled in live with the little dog we named her Sasha it seemed like it would suit her the best and the really like we I called her by her name dhe used to go under my bed whenever she wanted to go to sleep or when we played together So come June 1 this year my dad told me that he found a friend of his thay was looking for a dog and it was now time to let go I was heartbroken when I heard this I mean I thought he forgot all about that but it seemed he didn't like the mess that the dog made around the hose and said tomorrow we I will send her to her new house That night I was crying in my bed knowing that shasha would leave tomorrow but I calmed my self say that this would be better for the her so I went to sleep Morning comes and my Heart I beating really fast I had sweet in my palms and was really close to crying but I held on Here comes dad with his friend let's call h Ben in Ben's car In this moment i can feel tears forming in my eyes My dad said it's time to say goodbye to sasha I sit down in one knee and hugged her tightly saying goodbye to her I'm gonna miss you And there they went leaving off in the distance but I said to my slef maybe I'll go and visit her the following Sunday so I calmed my slef when went inside Litt did I know that that would be the last time I say shasha
So it's the following day and i realised to mistake that i made and told my dad to go and get sasha because I really missed her I mean the house looked so empty without her man and I really wanted my dog It felt like I had abandoned my child
So I tell him let's bring her back So he goes to his house to get sasha but,,,, she want there she was gone,,, she had managed to escaped from Ben's house she was no longer there
I was so mad and sad at the same time that I didn't even go to school that day and began searching for her but I had no luck and whent home crying on the way there
When Night come and dad comes home and I tell him how did she escaped he told me that he left her in the house but she managed to escape from the house and started following the car
In that moment I exploud with and and yell at him why didn't you stop and put her back in did you think that she would just fo back inside she doesn't even know the neighbourhood there man
My dad told me to calm down its just a dog we can get a nother one if you want At that moment I lost all the respect that I had for that man and stormed of the house and went looking for sasha I mean she should be around the neighbourhood somewhere right?
After 3 days of searching for her I found her.....I found her but she,, she wasn't alive she had been hit by a car and had been thrown beside some Trash cans ......she was no longer in this old it seemed it happened the day she was abandoned because flies and maggots were present eating away her flesh
I was heartbroken seeing the dog that I cared about so much lifeless on the ground 💔
I when home and started yelling at my dad I mean how can he do this to me how can he do this to sasha he told me that he was gonna take her to a better home not the Fucking highway He started crying saying he was sorry he was drunk and he wasn't thinks straight that day
I really don't know what to do How can I look my father in the eyes after he did this to me his only son
I just hope that when I die I hope I get to see my dog again and say to her I'm sorry sasha I'm sorry I couldn't protect you I'm sorry I let them take you I'm sorry I wasn't there when you needed me the most
But I know that no matter how sorry I feel she isn't coming back Now every time I enter my home I expect to hear her barks welcoming me home Fly high sasha I will be there with you sooner that you expect bby just you wait🌹

My first and defining relationship was with an older woman when I was 21. She was 37. I was attracted to her boldness and it was exciting to be around her at first. She was a heroin addict, and one day she was in the bed nodding off and I said I have to go and I left. I had sort of decided to break it off with her . Then a note came in my mail box...a letter which said in ransom note cut out newspaper lettering...I will take you from rags right through to stitches. I got scared and wondered who it was.i called her up and asked her. She didn't confirm or deny and seemed amused. She then offered to share some heroin with me if I ever wanted some. Even though I was freaked out something drew me back and I called her. We shared the heroin. Over the next few weeks she displayed odd behaviours like kicking me in public, verbal put downs and flirting in front of me with other men. I was too inexperienced to walk away.i got sucked into it and the sex and intimacy made me fall in love. She became pregnant three months later. Because my father had killed himself when I was eight, I decided I needed to be a good father to my child so I embraced the idea. I was a talented songwriter and musician and as the relationship started so did my career in the town. During her pregnancy she had moments of violence, such as threatening me with a baseball bat,hitting me over the head with a phone and literally clinging onto me as I tried to leave and held on until I fell over exhausted. Despite these outbursts we also had moments of bliss preparing the house for the child. She had the child, a son and I embraced fatherhood. She was highly strung and jealous of my female friends, and by this point I had become addicted to painkillers after the heroin ran out. She could be calm and loving one moment and suddenly snap and become frightening and intimidating the next. Certain events like Christmas or Easter she would invariably snap and make a scene and I would cop the physical or verbal abuse. It was a strange time where we were raising a child and there were moments of bliss but also terror and confusion. Things went on like this for years until I finally had to get away. During this time she made it difficult to see my son. We got back together on and off but it would end when she would snap and I felt threatened. I made a final break after a bleeding stomach ulcer from my addiction to painkillers during which she kicked me while I lay on the floor for her to call and ambulance. I nearly died and was so scared I left town. During this time she made threats to harm our son and I was so worried. I didn't want to abandon my son but I had to be away from her. Eventually I went to rehab in another city and sorted out my issues properly. During this time she became a meth user and became neglectful and abusive to our son and psychotic and violent to her brother and others. My son came to visit me shortly after I completed the year long stint in rehab and my friends convinced me to keep him with me, despite me feeling powerless to do so. It was a hard few years but my son and I lived together and I was sober and healthy and while it wasn't perfect I'm proud I was able to give my son some refuge from her abuse and a good sober father figure in his early teen years. I went to court and obtained a parenting order.i took out DVO's against her to protect me and our son. He attended a wedding where she was there and despite me doing everything to ensure his protection and safety ( it was his half sisters wedding, my ex's daughter - he really wanted to go) she tried to grab him and ended up choking him with his tie and caused a huge scene at the wedding.i felt so guilty when I found out because I had let him down again. Unfortunately the parenting order stated he still see his mum, and she convinced him to stay with her one visit and there was nothing I could do. He was 16 by this point. I was devastated.But one year later he called me crying saying she had threatened him again. I decided to move back to hometown so he could live with me and finish school. It was a difficult time and I met a co worker who we became romantically involved, but she had alcohol issues and drank herself to death within two years of us falling in love. Meanwhile my son finished school and I see my ex now on the street and feel no more fear. This is enormous because for twenty years I was petrified of her. My son is now 21 and is in strife now ...he went to a party and hooked up with a girl , he thought it was consensual and it didn't go beyond kissing and light groping. The next day her friend convinced her it was sexual assault and the cops were called. My son is facing serious charges. This has been so devastating and stressful.he is handling it well enough but I'm concerned about the stress the prolonged trial will have on him. I am now 44 and feel like I've been robbed of the last twenty years, my prime years, by a woman who terrorized me and seriously abused our son. It still angers and enrages me , disappoints me, saddens me, I feel so guilty for what my poor son has been through. She is now an alcoholic and her health is severely affected. I no longer feel she is going to kill me one day which is what I thought for twenty years. She has mellowed in her age. But there is always that 'what if' in the back of my mind. I also feel robbed of a chance at my true calling which is music.i still achieved things but my time and energy was spent dancing around my son's mother's abusive behaviours. And living in response to them. I don't feel like I've ever been in control of my life. I realise now I can finally be free. I still worry about my son but I can't rescue him now he is an adult. This feels strange. It has been my main purpose for so long. And now I am just in disbelief at all the events of my life. And wondering where to go next , what to do. I'm absolutely terrified of women now. I'm so tuned in to noticing any red flags and any sign of even slight manipulation or potential for abusiveness sends me into panic mode. I hope to have a normal life someday, a normal relationship, and some happiness. I still find it so hard to forgive his mother for what she did to our son. And I feel so much guilt for letting him down. Does anyone have any advice on processing all of these feelings and moving on from this sort of thing? Any resources or wisdom. Thanks for reading.

Recently I have fallen into taking my GMC-600 to museums of various types. I tend to find more unique items at museums than in antique shops, and it always sparks up an interesting conversation with whatever worker is there that day, as they are usually just as passionate about the history of a piece as me, if not more so.
I went to a museum that housed some mid 20th century electronic equipment, and asked the volunteer if it was okay if I scanned around a bit. I always tend to ask to make sure they're comfortable with it. Most people don't understand how common radioactivity is, and the last thing I want is to make someone uncomfortable by probing around their building without permission.
To my surprise they already had a list of several radioactive items in their collection, mostly small radium dials. Most people I talk to are only aware of the existence of radium, and many museums are not aware that they actually have these things in their collection until I let them know.
I asked if I could take a look around the museum, and then come back to see if the list of items found with my meter matched up with their list, sort of as a scavenger hunt. Looking around I found several interesting dials that I had heard of, but had never seen in person.
However, eventually I got to an electronic panel, and was confused at why my meter was hitting off at several thousand CPM. This panel was made in the 1940s, but was nothing but knobs and metal indented labels explaining what each of the knobs did. Not a dial in sight. I actually scanned back and forth to make sure that none of the pieces next to it were hot, but it appeared that only the one of the bunch was the one in question.
I brought out my UV flashlight to see if there was anything that could light up, only to have half the panel turn up bright green when lit up. No glass dials covering it, no plexiglass display, completely exposed and easily reachable by a child if they decided to start playing around with the displays.
A significant portion of the paint appeared to have been scratched and/or flaked off, but thankfully I saw no obvious dust on the floor of the display. Somewhere that dust is still around, probably on the floor of a storage warehouse somewhere.
I went over to the front desk and asked them if they were aware of the panel. They said no, they were only aware of the dials in a separate display. I brought them over to the panel and their eyes went wide when the meter started clicking off like mad.
"Let me grab the curator."
The curator came out and as I explained what I had found and showed them the glowing paint and ticking GM counter. Their demeanor switched to that of an archaeologist who just found an unknowable evil in a tomb in a B movie: Both extremely interested and fascinated but also mildly horrified that something had been right under their nose for this long.
I already knew that this museum was well funded and as a result probably had a safety specialist to deal with any issues that may come about. They said that they periodically checked the radium dials, and were also aware of lead paint on a few pieces, and had someone come out to check the integrity of both to make sure that it wouldn't cause any problems. They ensured me that they would have their specialist out as soon as possible to discuss what would be next for the display, most likely a piece of temporary glass immediately while they figure out something long term. Cue thirty minutes of discussing the other pieces in the museum once the matter was discussed. I gave them a few NRC and EPA links for more information on radium dials and left. I'll be headed back to the museum soon to see what they put up for safety.
I make this post for a few reasons.
1: Museums are an underrated means of looking for hot items. Antique shops may offer a greater quantity to search among, but in my experience museums have had more rare items, and the payoff of finding something unique is ten times better than any more common item in an antique shop, such as fiestaware.
2: Supporting your local museum. Chances are you have something fascinating right near you without knowing it. Whether its a one room display at the local government office, or the entire Smithsonian, you probably have a really interesting museum near you. Do a quick google search and find out what's up.
3: The value of heading out with a survey meter for fun. Most often, it's a unique means of interacting with history. Occasionally, it may help improve the safety of others. Whether it was tomorrow or thirty years from now, some kid on a school field trip may have gotten rowdy and decided to start playing with knobs and buttons, possibly inadvertantly getting some radium dust on their hands. Who knows how long it might have been before the piece's status as radioactive was found had someone with a survey meter not shown up?
I encourage all of you to head out to your local museum with your meters. Not only are you supporting an important local institution, but you may find something important, who knows?
And before anyone asks, no, I will not say where the museum is, what it's called, or even what kind of electronic panel the piece was. Giving away pretty much any of that information would allow for the museum to be found. The last thing they need is some local finding this, sending it to the city news station and having a headline come out that says "Hundreds exposed to previously unknown radioactive material for years at local museum". Most people don't understand the basics of radiation safety, much less radium paint, and the last thing I want is some horrible publicity coming out for a museum who genuinely had no idea what they had.

TRIGGER WARNING- SA, etc.
It's a very very long story and there's more that I could go on about but- My parents had me young, mom (19), bio dad (21). They separated when I was around 3 or 4 y/o and that's when my dad (19) (that later adopted me) came into my life. When he went to adopt me at about 7 y/o, before sibling 1 was born, they needed bio dad to release his rights; he agreed on one condition from my mom, 'Don't talk to my family anymore, I will handle it'. So he signed, with the additional agreement that he would not have to pay child support, dad adopted me. I ended up with 1 little sibling and I wanted nothing to do with bio dad at this point, he was already out of my life since the adoption. At around 12 years old, my parents started their divorce, moms second divorce. This divorce was completely different. At first, I hated my (adopted) dad but then again, he used to work 3 jobs to support us, only had 1 day off and used it as a "cleaning day" (which I later appreciated as an adult because I had SEVERE allergies, but in the moment I was just like wtf man fr?) From 13 y/o to about 15 y/o my moms at the time bf was sexually abusing me, forcing me to "cuddle" on the couch, he would pretend to fall asleep (in 5 seconds) and touch my non existent boobs and coochie while grinding his boner against my butt until he had enough. I would lay there silently crying until he actually fell asleep, slowly crawl away, and be up the whole rest of the school night, in shock, crying, cutting myself, and writing very depressing poems. He would break open the bathroom door while I was bathing and would try to peep at me in the tub. I'd cover myself under the bubble bath for HOURS until I had no bubbles and the water was cold. I then tried hurting myself even worse but sibling walked in on me. I broke down and thought if I do this, this dude is going to go for my sibling so I'll just take whatever it is to protect them. So I did. I dealt with all the things plus him walking in on me SERVERAL times in my bedroom each time after I'd have a bath/shower (no lock on the door). This guy also apparently would hit, strangle, and rape my mom. I came to find out that he had a record too, he and his brother abducted a 17 y/o or 18 y/o girl, took her to a trap house, raped her in a bathroom with a pole-blood in the tub, sink, toilet, floor, etc. He also was busted because he put a garbage bag over another man's head and lit it on fire-because the man was black. (Dude ended up being dishonorably discharged later on btw) Eventually, she got rid of him, dated a bit, and settled with a new bf, my now step dad of over 10 years. At this point, I was 16 y/o, had a GREAT relationship with (adopted) dad (not so much my mom), and became curious about my bio dad-where I came from, family customs/traditions, similarities/differences, interests, the other half of who I am. I found him on social media, reached out but didn't get a response for 2-3 weeks. Shortly after us chatting, I went to see him (adopted dad and sibling 1 came with). I had 2 more siblings from bio dad, they were a decade or so younger than me, and sibling 3 didn't resemble me much but did with sibling 2 BUT sibling 2 looked so much like me at that age, weird. A short time later, there was a family event by bio dad, I was invited but had no way to get there (about a 6 hour drive from where I was at the time) so his sistemy aunt said she'd take me. She picked me up and I was to spend the night at her house (with my 2 cousins) then we would travel in the morning. I was so excited because I vaguely remember cousin 1 from childhood, apparently we were super close growing up together, I was eager to reconnect and bond with my cousins. When spending the night, cousin 2 went to sleep early (a bit younger than cousin 1 and I), so cousin 1 and I were talking for hours, it was great being able to reconnect/re-establish our relationship...until he kissed me, threw himself on me, tried getting me to touch him as he started to touch me. I said stop wtf what are you doing we are FIRST cousins!! He chuckled and said "We are but we're not" ... "wtf are you talking about?" ... "I'm not supposed to say but your dad had a DNA test done during tour parents divorce and told all of us your mom cheated on him, you're not ACTUALLY his acoording to the test" ... so at this point, I'm disgusted, have so many questions, confused, am in a house of 'family' that I don't know/don't believe that I am family-I went to sleep. Next day we traveled to see bio dad and after the event I asked him and step mom about it and also mentioned that because of this cousin 1 tried "xyz". Bio dad's response to the DNA-"Your mother had the DNA test done and it said I was not your bio father, she probably lied/gave me a fake test so I would stay out of your life." I went to my mom and questioned her, she said "Absolutely not, you know your (adopted) father and I don't talk so you can even ask him to verify that I'm not lying. I have no idea about anything that has to do with a DNA test, we never had one as he (bio das) was my first and we got married then I was prengant with you about 3-4 months after getting married." I asked (adopted) dad and his story lined up perfectly with my mom's. So bio dad lied to me and his entire side of the family to save face. He lied to all of them because his agreement of giving up his rights to me and not having to pay child support would not have been supported by his side of the family so he told them I wasn't his and supposedly provided a (fake) test so they'd get off his back about it. My grandfather from him said he saw the test-but there was no test! Beyond fucked up man...but whatever. I still wanted a connection. I wanted to leave the bullshit in the past and move forward right? So, fast forward a bit, I was in a 3 year (3 out of 3.5 year) relationship with a TRUE P.O.S. bf that was physically, mentally, emotionally, and verbally abusive. We lived together for 3 years out of our 3.5 year relationship. He was addicted to porn, would call me a bitch every single day amoung other things, ended up raping me and thought it was funny, would hit, kick, choke me (not in the good way), and push me off the bed but then say "You think I want to be like this?! You think I want to do this to you?! Hurt you?! You're making me do it, it's your fault because you have issues." I wasn't "allowed" to talk to my guy friends because they're guys (and I didn't have many girl friends at all), especially my best guy friend that I grew up with and had known since 3 y/o. Bf would isolate me from my families even. At work, I only would talk to my guy friends/male co-workers if bf wasn't there otherwise he would ignore me the whole shift and be brutal when we got home (yeah, we also worked together for a bit over 3 years). I then found out that bf went on the dark web and watched a man kidnap someone, rape her, murder her, and proceed to rape her corpse...my bf was getting off on it! He even said he went back on the next night to do it again but site was blocked. FUCKING PSYCHOTIC. I could go on and on about his craziness. I was his 3rd virgin btw and at work we had a "work daughter" (was so close to that girl, she was 3 years younger than me, 5 years younger than bf and I used to go to her (when bf didnt have same shift as me) crying and telling her everything that would happen with him, so she knew all the shit he did). I was scared he was going to kill me one day, I was scared to stay, scared to leave, all the stupid things and all I wanted was consistent love. We did end up breaking up a few months after I turned 21, he ended up dating our work daughter and took her virginity too! He also did all the shit to her as he did to me! I felt bad for her at first but then thought no you dumb fuck, you knew EVERYTHING you were getting into smh. Anyway, I went to a family event for bio dad, bf was working, they wanted to meet him; we set up lunch for the following day. Bio dad said he was going to give bf the "talk" yk...with the shot gun type of talk. I said I don't feel comfortable with that because firstly, it's not his place, I have my dad (adopted), secondly, bio dad even agreed that we more so have a friend relationship at this point, and third, I've already been with bf for 3 years so it's not appropriate. He got REALLY salty the morning of the meet. We were coordinating plans and everything when he said along the lines, "We haven't seen you in person for almost 2 years now yet you always have time to go out...etc.etc." I responded, "The two times that you have seen me post that I was out, I was across the street from work. I went there for about 2 hours both times with bf and co-workers. I cannot drive 6-8 hours to you and 6-8 hours back in the same day. I work two full time jobs and am going to college online full-time. I'm sorry that I'm making you feel this way or that I've been distant but I try talking and seeing you all (on Skype and such) as much as I can. I don't know what else you want me to do or say at this point. That's why I'm excited for this meet up today. You also could have put in the effort to come out this way these last two years to visit me as well, but again, I'm sorry. I hope you all aren't mad at me, I'm really trying here." He then tells me "I'm going to have to cancel lunch today. I don't think meeting today is a good idea. Now I'm going to have to tell your (LITTLE) siblings that you don't want to see them today since you never have time for us and have basically disappeared from our lives these last 2 years." Aaaaand that's when I ✨️lost✨️ my shit and popped off 🙃 "ME?! I'm the one that disappeared?!?! How fucking dare you say that. How fucking dare you try to do that to them and me. YOU disappeared from MY life at 4 years old, LIED to the entire family (they still questioned if I'm "there's" or not, even had received the comment "Even though you're not ours, your ours because we've known you since a baby" and only 1 of bio dad's parents is still somewhat in touch with me to this day btw) I didn't see YOU for 12 YEARS of my life! I reached out to YOU, I have been the only one making an effort to keep the line of communication open and going and even after all of that plus my explaining that I work TWO full-time jobs plus full-time school, you still have the nerve and audacity to make me the bad guy and say I'm the one not trying here?! YOU are going to continue to LIE and tell MY siblings that I don't want to see them when that couldn't be further from the truth?! I'm going to tell you this ONCE, YOU blew your first chance of staying in my life when I was a child, now you're blowing it a SECOND time with me as an adult; there WILL NOT be a third time. I WILL NOT subject myself to this nor do I need your added stress. I WILL NOT allow you to do this to me EVER again. If my siblings or even step mom (or that side of the family) want to be in contact with me-I will gladly accept that but YOU are DEAD to me. Don't talk to me, don't contact me, I want NOTHING to do with YOU anymore, sperm donor." ... no response ...every couple of years after that I got a "happy birthday" or "merry christmas" here and there but I never responded. It's been a few years with no interaction from him. I just miss my siblings. I got so attached to them and I miss them, I tried staying in contact through video chats but they were still fairly young at that point so it was difficult plus having him or step mom in the background sometimes was awkward. They're now getting a bit older, sibling 2 is turning 18, sibling 3 will be 16. We have each other on social media but don't talk and very very VERY rarely interact with likes on posts. I'm afraid to make the first move, I don't want to push anything, I don't know what bio dad has been feeding into their brains about me, etc. My relationship with them will NEVER be as close as with my almost 21 y/o sibling 1 from (adopted) dad, which I can accept, I absolutely love my sibling 1 that I grew up with like nothing and no one else; I practically raised him tbh. But I do think about the other 2 siblings, I miss them, I just don't know if I should respect unspoken boundaries or make the first move? What do you think? And lmk if you want more of these batshit crazy stories that I've went through (tbh I'm probably going to post another seeking advice on another subject). ✌🏻

Hi.
This is very random but i needed to get this off my chest.
Acads- Arts background, female, ST category 6/7/6 -CAT'23 50%ile
I got calls from Amritsar, Visakhapatnam, and all CAP calls.
With preparation of 2 months from july-august then stopped preparing as i lost someone in my family. and as my younger brother went into depression because of bullying at school , i still appeared for the exam which my parents insisted.
I obviously did not expected to get any calls with this much score, and when i randomly open mails one day there was it. I got excited at first but then it sank in. Yes i was happy that i got calls even after scoring so low where people who scored 99 did not get calls even from caps or baby iims.
The only problem i have is and want to know the answer to why did i get calls with such low scores and bad acads?
I did not appeared for the interviews because i was ashamed first of all, i did not deserved to sit in the college with such low scores whereas lots of people have settled for less because they could'nt get into BLACKI or their dream colleges.

Dr. Badr al-Otaibi حفظه الله once wrote:
[من أحصيهم بالسرد الذهني لطلاب العلم، وأهل الصلاح والفضل ممن أعرفهم خاصة قرابة الـ(500) فكيف بمن تعرفهم أنت .. وهو .. وهم؟ لو كلّ واحدٍ منهم في كل يوم: أنزل مقطعاً في (تويتر) أو (الواتس) أو (السناب) فيه: آية تُتلى وحديثٌ يُشرح وفضيلةٌ تُنشر ونصيحةٌ تُنتقى لعم الخير وانتشر.]
❝Off the top of my head, I can think of about 500 people that I personally know who I would consider to be students of knowledge and people of uprightness and virtue.
Then add to that those who you know, and who the next person knows, and who those people know.
If every day every one of them posted something to Twitter or WhatsApp or Snapchat with:
-an ayah being recited, -or a hadith being explained, -or a virtue that is spread, -or some advice that is selected,
then goodness would become prevalent and spread.❞
[As posted on Twitter on February 27, 2020]
Benefitted from Tulayhah Blog

Dr. Badr al-Otaibi حفظه الله once wrote:
[من أحصيهم بالسرد الذهني لطلاب العلم، وأهل الصلاح والفضل ممن أعرفهم خاصة قرابة الـ(500) فكيف بمن تعرفهم أنت .. وهو .. وهم؟ لو كلّ واحدٍ منهم في كل يوم: أنزل مقطعاً في (تويتر) أو (الواتس) أو (السناب) فيه: آية تُتلى وحديثٌ يُشرح وفضيلةٌ تُنشر ونصيحةٌ تُنتقى لعم الخير وانتشر.]
❝Off the top of my head, I can think of about 500 people that I personally know who I would consider to be students of knowledge and people of uprightness and virtue.
Then add to that those who you know, and who the next person knows, and who those people know.
If every day every one of them posted something to Twitter or WhatsApp or Snapchat with:
-an ayah being recited, -or a hadith being explained, -or a virtue that is spread, -or some advice that is selected,
then goodness would become prevalent and spread.❞
[As posted on Twitter on February 27, 2020]
Benefitted from Tulayhah Blog

Dr. Badr al-Otaibi حفظه الله once wrote:
[من أحصيهم بالسرد الذهني لطلاب العلم، وأهل الصلاح والفضل ممن أعرفهم خاصة قرابة الـ(500) فكيف بمن تعرفهم أنت .. وهو .. وهم؟ لو كلّ واحدٍ منهم في كل يوم: أنزل مقطعاً في (تويتر) أو (الواتس) أو (السناب) فيه: آية تُتلى وحديثٌ يُشرح وفضيلةٌ تُنشر ونصيحةٌ تُنتقى لعم الخير وانتشر.]
❝Off the top of my head, I can think of about 500 people that I personally know who I would consider to be students of knowledge and people of uprightness and virtue.
Then add to that those who you know, and who the next person knows, and who those people know.
If every day every one of them posted something to Twitter or WhatsApp or Snapchat with:
-an ayah being recited, -or a hadith being explained, -or a virtue that is spread, -or some advice that is selected,
then goodness would become prevalent and spread.❞
[As posted on Twitter on February 27, 2020]
Benefitted from Tulayhah Blog

Dr. Badr al-Otaibi حفظه الله once wrote:
[من أحصيهم بالسرد الذهني لطلاب العلم، وأهل الصلاح والفضل ممن أعرفهم خاصة قرابة الـ(500) فكيف بمن تعرفهم أنت .. وهو .. وهم؟ لو كلّ واحدٍ منهم في كل يوم: أنزل مقطعاً في (تويتر) أو (الواتس) أو (السناب) فيه: آية تُتلى وحديثٌ يُشرح وفضيلةٌ تُنشر ونصيحةٌ تُنتقى لعم الخير وانتشر.]
❝Off the top of my head, I can think of about 500 people that I personally know who I would consider to be students of knowledge and people of uprightness and virtue.
Then add to that those who you know, and who the next person knows, and who those people know.
If every day every one of them posted something to Twitter or WhatsApp or Snapchat with:
-an ayah being recited, -or a hadith being explained, -or a virtue that is spread, -or some advice that is selected,
then goodness would become prevalent and spread.❞
[As posted on Twitter on February 27, 2020]
Benefitted from Tulayhah Blog