Happy birthday text message art

(Might be the wrong tag, not sure what I need) I feel like I've lost my purpose, I know for certain I've lost drive. This year has been hell in the short 5 months. Like the 1st days of January I woke up feeling heavy and depressed and the next day my USMC recruiter called me saying I've been DQ'd by BU-MED and I'll have to do more physical therapy, so I did that and in the end it was of no use, got full denial in March so my childhood dream of being a Marine was crushed. I got DQ'd for joint stiffness in my ankles, there was no issues with them other than the movement of bringing my toes towards my shin (easy way to describe the movement). Now to backtrack to Valentine's Day. Already didn't like the holiday for whatever reason. But later that night after a kickboxing class, I go to my room to eat and get on a phone call with my (at the time) boyfriend and then I hear my grandma come into the house crying so I go check on her and she told me that my mom died, just died. She's been fighting cancer since the pandemic, last time I saw was before things got bad and she looked terrible, and I think the most heartbreaking thing was that her hair was just barely there, my biggest memory of my mom was her hair, in my family we all have this thick beautiful hair. And I haven't seen her since then. So I've been dealing with her losing her and the fact my stepfather (hate him and his family) won't give my mom a burial or even a memorial. Nothing, he gave her nothing. When he'd start fights and shit with her that would stop me from going to visit her, and I barely got to visit her while I could. But anyway, last thing, my boyfriend broke up with me last month in April, like completely out of nowhere, we were having no problems, no fights, the previous days we were talking about me coming over to his (like we did ever weekend) and fooling around. But the previous day I was having a breakdown, I don't know what triggered it but at some point during work I just snapped, started feeling crying and running out. And then he texted me at some point the next saying "we need to talk" and I started having a panic while I'm just waiting for him to pick me so we could go to his house, he was my safe space, the only place I could feel vulnerable. He said that he wanted to grow as a person, it didn't sound like that, like there was another reason. And then at some point he said he didn't want to be out of my life and wanted to continue being friends, and I just said "no". The reason I said "no" is because I knew I couldn't love him as a friend. When I meet him in German class at the beginning of this school year, something inside said "he's the one" and I feel head over heels, and I'm from the southern Oklahoma, my last guess is that I would ever fall for a man, but I did. And I loved no matter his imperfections. And the few things we didn't agree on my love still never faltered. And I used to have this dream since I was like 13 or 14 and it was always the same, 2 kids running around, dog with them, golden sunset, sitting on a porch talking with somebody I obviously loved, every crush, and the one girlfriend I had before my ex I never heard their voice for saw their face the person's face and voice was like blurry, if that makes sense. But after I got with my ex and had the dream, I saw his face and heard his voice, and after that I was deadset on marrying him, I didn't tell him about that dream after it happened because that morning I was getting bitched at by my grandparents about something (by the way, they weren't happy about my gay relationship, their old southern Christians). I told him about that dream after we broke up, I sent him a Google doc because he flaked on us meeting up and talking and just told him a lot. And I used to have this thing with that could help like see tomorrow, sense it, whatever, it doesn't make sense but now it's gone. He was the first good thing to happen to me in a while, and he was the last thing I had. The only thing I "have" is an army contract for the infantry and I never wanted to join the Army. And I promised myself a long time ago that I'd never live for myself, only for somebody else. But now, I'm just this mess that's struggling with no purpose, no drive, nothing, I have no friends, no good family, no lover. I have nothing. My only hope is that I can talk to him and maybe get back together. But I doubt that'll happen, he just ignores me now.

I (22F) was seeing someone (21F) casually for 3-4 months. He was the one to say it was casual and told our mutual friends it was casual. I kept myself very distant to protect myself because I was often hurt from casual situations. He was very affectionate with me and often was the one who initiated coming over. He would also be very quick to help with things like helping me move furniture and other errands. We often went home together from clubbing and he would take off my shoes, feed me, and get me water. My friend called him down bad but still ensured me that it was just fun for him. So I interpreted it as him just being nice because of our mutuals. We never communicated about our feelings or what we were. I was in denial of how deep my feelings were on top of the fact that we are both graduating soon and that he said he wanted casual. People are always saying if a guy says he wants casual then it’s just casual. We saw each other multiple times a week and usually slept over.
Eventually, he became distant and he graduated but still comes back waiting for commencement. We both went to the same festival and we were in the same group because of mutuals. He acted like he didn’t know me but when i ended up having to stay at his airbnb he held my hand 2 hrs before we left the place.
after the event, i told my friend and she told me that he told her that he was moving on but didn’t want to be straight up with me. we don’t speak for 3 weeks until he texts me a week after my birthday to say happy belated. my friend said he asked if he should apologize and she says yes but he never ends up apologizing and we stop speaking again.
I have been reflecting a lot about what happened between us. I realized that on valentine’s day he had asked what would have happened if he had shown up with flowers and I said why would you. He said just for fun. He also said so we are going to pretend to not know each other tomorrow right? In reference to that we were clubbing for mutual's bday. We hooked up a couple more times that week and then it was silence for 2 weeks. I initiated and he came over for what would be the last time we had sex.
I realized now that maybe he was trying to initiate a conversation with the flowers and was trying to fish for a sign. Originally, I had gotten upset because it felt like he was rubbing our noncommital status in my face. Also, that he was upset that he thought I didn't want to be seen with him. It has been 3 weeks since bday text and another 3 weeks since we last saw each other. over the last 6 weeks, I was angry and sad he didn't end things with me properly. Eventually, I accepted my feelings were deeper than I wanted to admit. I do realize we should have just communicated with each other and I regret that I didn't. I want to talk to him but I am not sure if it's worth it anymore. He might have fully moved on or deny that he ever had feelings (or he just never did). He's also hooked up with someone else and we will be leaving our college town in a month.
tdlr: I realized I might have been the more avoidant one (i think he is avoidant too) and that I pushed him away. He gave up because he didn't think I wanted more.

Hi! I apologize in advance for the long post. Trigger warnings for mentions of suicide, abuse, and eating disorders (the latter will be very mild).
I (19NB) have been with my girlfriend (20F) for about two and a half years; the relationship started out really well, both of us have prior trauma and struggle with mental health but we were kind of building off of each other for a long time. I went into it very emotionally constipated and as a horrific people pleaser; she went into it very insecure and super scared of me cheating. For the first year to year and a half it was a lot of lifting each other up, she'd reassure me that she'd listen to anything I needed and I reassured her that she would never have to worry about me cheating. There was more to it as well; at least on my side, I had a really bad eating disorder and she was the driving force for me to recover (she always reassured me that she liked my body, preferred for me to be healthy and that it didn't affect her perception of me, etc), was generally really sweet to me in the day-to-day, and was honestly everything I was looking for in a partner up until that point- I'm not someone that is attracted to people based on looks at all (either asexual spectrum or due to sexual trauma when I was a child- I'm also pretty sure I'm neurodivergent but never had the ability to get diagnosed; this will be important later) but she has been the one person I can really say I find attractive. I can think people look "cool" or "interesting" but she's genuinely so beautiful to me in a way that I've never felt for anyone else before. Personality-wise as well, she seemed perfect from the get-go- we always clicked in interactions, she'd reassure me without me asking for it and was interested in everything I had to say, etc. One big thing for me in the beginning was kind of silly but I feel like it's important for me to say; she plays games a lot, and every time we'd call each other and she'd get mad at whatever she was playing she would specifically lower her voice to talk to me. She could be halfway through yelling "what the fuck" at her computer but as soon as I said something to her she'd make herself sound as comforting as possible. This was a really big thing for me; my upbringing was very rough and both of my parents are prone to fits of anger (to the point of it getting physical very often) so I get very uncomfortable when people are visibly angry towards me. This is a big reason why I struggled with people-pleasing; as soon as someone gets upset with me I feel genuine terror, so I would try to avoid it as much as possible. I brought it up once and she said she didn't even realize she did it; the fact that she knew that about me and subconsciously made sure to try not to scare me was such a huge thing I loved about her. I was very used to people taking advantage of the fact that I was bad with boundaries, etc so having her act so comforting towards me with seemingly no ill intentions made me fall really deeply for her.
All of this changed last year- mostly in the summer but it kind of all started with her sleeping through our Valentines Day date. I couldn't even name everything she did but the main theme is that she let her insecurities get ahold of her. She would get upset with me over my clothing choices (stuff like shorts and a t-shirt in summer; it felt really reminiscent to victim blaming, like I must want sex if I wear shorts), literally just having friends, she'd snap at me all the time when she was slightly frustrated over her games (remember what I said earlier), literally anything became a reason for her to get horrifically angry at me. It was around this time that I decided to look into her prior dating history more and I learned pretty quickly that she used to be a serial cheater in different relationships (although her partners were really badly abusive and they cheated first, so I didn't think of it as a dealbreaker). She stopped reassuring me or speaking to me nicely, and also had a really big issue of doing things "back" (if I did anything that made her insecure, she'd do it 10x worse instead of talking to me about it). I mentioned having a side Reddit account once (this one) and she made a private Twitter and added all of her friends onto it except for me, and didn't tell me about it, just posted screenshots of it until I put 2 and 2 together. She also got upset after finding out that the person that groomed me is a trans girl (she's a trans girl too) and would ask me questions about whether I liked her (MY GROOMER!!!!!!!!) better. She'd do this stuff and then, when questioned about it, start agreeing with me and calling herself "undateable", etc, so I'd reassure her that she wasn't and ask her to "carry" the relationship for a bit since I thought she understood my side; by this I just meant being extra nice to me for a week or so (like when dudes get in a fight with their girlfriend and buy them flowers and talk to them more sweetly for awhile, not anything crazy), but I never really got that from her. Everything came to a head when she texted me saying she "couldn't do this anymore" and sent me a bunch of screenshots of her friendgroup telling her I was "just like her exes", "a master manipulator" etc. Their main reasons for the accusations were that I was "too secretive" (which I really don't think is true; I tend to want some baseline privacy in a relationship but she didn't even allow me that much- she'd join any public Discord servers I mentioned being in and told her I'd rather she didn't join on alts, etc, and even told me the stuff she'd find me saying wasn't bad and she was happy about it) and "accuse her of cheating too much", which.. Really. My side was honestly mostly just asking for reassurance since she completely stopped giving me it, her side was literally driving me to cut off all of my friends other than four people because I was scared she'd get upset with me again and also led to feel intense guilt for talking to. This whole thing also happened within a month of both my most recent suicide attempt (I had been going through a lot) and my parents wanting to kick me out (my mom is very mentally unwell and convinced herself that I had been prostituting myself- definitely not true to any degree. It got to the point where I had someone I decided to stay with and all my bags were packed). We didn't end up breaking up at this point.
So, fast forward to this year. She stopped doing a lot of the worse behaviors directly but we've still been fighting. My dad had been getting sicker and sicker- he already was pretty bad but he refused to see a doctor because my mom convinced him doctors are evil, the government made COVID in a lab!!!!, etc. It got to the point where he was slurring all his words, hallucinating, and unable to stand, and my mom called my out-of-state uncle who called an ambulance. I was, obviously, on my uncle's side, my mom was hysterical saying that the hospital is going to kill him and I'm with them, but my dad was stable at least. It turned out he had multiple small strokes. They did bloodwork and he's HIV+. They ended up diagnosing him with AIDs and dementia.
My relationship with my dad is very, very, very complicated. He was always the "better" parent but a horrible parent on his own. He'd agree with me in private but defend my mom whenever she was in the room, and as her mental health got worse he believed everything she told him. He used to tell me he'd leave her and take me with him, that he knew she was horrible and he never wanted her to do what she did to me, etc, but he still supported her. When things got bad between us he was a perpetrator as well. More recently he stopped trying to appeal to me at all and just entirely took her side on everything. I couldn't deal with any of it- I didn't have a room for a long, long time (I think until I was 15 or 16?) but as soon as I got one I just started locking myself in all day. I love my dad, but all he ever did was disappoint me. I couldn't bear to see him let himself get destroyed by my mom, and I just kind of decided not to- so this situation has been fucking me UP. He's currently fully conscious, my uncle flew over for a bit and had to fly back since he has kids but my dad fully took my mom's side, is refusing medications, etc. My mom and my uncle have been fighting over me constantly. I don't really want to do any of this shit but I have to, because as much as my dad let me down I don't want him to die. I was in the hospital all day and night for the first few days, I had to sleep on the benches in the emergency room waiting room since my dad was in a male room and they wouldn't allow me to stay past visiting hours. I was constantly pulling aside doctors and nurses and telling them to listen to me because my mom was trying to convince them he was just in there because he was "exhausted" or "wouldn't eat enough" and constantly lying about his condition. My uncle has good intentions but he's kind of heavy handed with certain stuff; he wants me to move in with him (I want to as well but you can imagine it's a tricky situation) and he always asks me to choose a side when they fight. My mom has been trying to convince me he's a rapist- I usually try to believe victims, but she also tried to tell me that I'm a prostitute, and she's definitely not a reliable person to listen to. I'm kind of just at an in-between where I don't believe her but I can't feel fully comfortable around him either since I have some bad past experiences surrounding that kind of thing.
About four days after my dad got hospitalized (?) and about a week and a half before my 19th birthday, my girlfriend texts me to tell me she's too exhausted to be with me anymore. The main reason was that I was constantly upset between the way the relationship was going and my dad being in the hospital. We worked something out but it's just been downhill since then, I can't be upset around her over anything without her turning it into a fight (literally while I am in the middle of crying, about how I get upset too much). As for the more recent weeks, she has completely stopped giving me ANYTHING- forget reassurance, she barely says I love you anymore, responds to long text messages with one sentence, etc. Her justification for this is that she feels unsafe with me. Her reasoning for this is:

1. I have had a habit of liking posts that made her insecure. This is where the lack of looks-based attraction comes in. I tend to like posts without really thinking about it too much, and sometimes I like thirst traps without realizing, since I'm not someone that thirsts after people like that. If I see someone in a cool outfit dancing it's going to be hard for me to say "this is a thirst trap" because I'm not thinking about it like that, I'm just going to see it and think "wow, cool outfit" and like the post. Then she'll see it and get upset with me. This is something I've been working on and cut down to a large degree, but certain stuff gets past me (photoshoots with a set concept, etc). She has tried to tell me that I DO actually experience looks-based attraction, which is kind of crazy because I know what I experience so she can't convince me otherwise ??? I don't know. I've also told her to send me any post that I liked that makes her insecure so I can learn what I have to look out for better, but she doesn't really do that, and I can't really know what'll make her upset unless she tells me. This is also an issue that SHE HAS AS WELL
   
2. She looked through one of my friend's followings and found a bunch of model's accounts, and says it's disrespectful that I "hang out with porn addicts". She plays Osu and is active in the community. Also has an issue with another one of my friends that I met on a Roblox bar game (she has worded it like I was literally giving out my contact at a real life bar, which I would understand being uncomfortable with, but dude it's literally Roblox). Also considers it a huge breach of trust that I mentioned getting gender envy from a Twitter mutual (I know how chronically online all of this sounds and I'm sorry). She'll ask me "isn't that a trans girl", "are they assigned male at birth" about my friends which is kind of just crazy? I don't know. I don't have a history of serially dating trans women or anything like that other than the groomer (which I don't think should count??????????) and I used to identify as lesbian for years- most of my exes are FTM and transitioned after dating me, which also shouldn't really matter??? I just think her fixation on me cheating on her with someone that's AMAB is kind of weird and unprompted
   

So I'm at a point where any time I ask her for ANYTHING it's just met with the response of her not being comfortable with me anymore. I can't hang out with any of my friends without her looking through their whole history and finding something about them that makes me "basically a cheater" for befriending them. I had to distance myself from a very close friend because of her once because he said "it's like we're one and the same" to me, and that if we went to a shitty hangout spot he'd still enjoy it "because it's me". She tells me to this day that remembering this stuff makes her physically sick but it truly was just innocent friendly conversation- we're both South Asian, like a lot of the same games, and have issues with abusive parents so we got along really well, and that was also why he said the thing about us being similar. I've been asking her over and over what I can do to make her feel better but she won't give me an answer.
She also told me today that I was bringing up her sexual trauma and that she's currently repulsed by the idea of sex altogether- I asked her why and she said it was because of the reasons I gave above. I'm at a loss. I'm clearly very fed up with this whole thing but I still am attached to her and love her a lot, and I definitely don't think I can go through a breakup right now with everything else going on in my life, even though you could argue it's like we already broke up. I really just don't know. It's been horrible watching her go from the perfect partner to this huge ball of insecurity and I don't know how to fix it nor how to let go. I don't have a lot of options, either- I've been almost completely socially isolated since I was a middle schooler, my parents pulled me out of public school and had me doing dual enrollment community college/homeschool. I don't have a strong support system at all, I can't get a therapist, I'm not allowed to get a job, the list just goes on and on and everything kind of just points to me being fucked

My ex (21F) and I (23M) were really toxic. She has really bad avoidant issues and says she loves to be by herself.
She comes from a poor family and she would tell me how she wants to take money from people to be able to move out and live on her own. She would mention getting sugar daddies and things like that to make money. I would get upset at these things she would say and tell her obviously no. This became a pattern.
She cheated on me with her coworker after months of trying to convince me that we should be polyamorous after 4 years of being monogamous. The night I caught her was because I checked her text messages on a whim, she tried to console me by saying she only was using him for his money since apparently he paid for her gas and food.
She threatened to harm herself the night I found out so I dissasociated from the cheating and put it in the back of my mind because I still cared about her so much, and we spent the whole rest night hanging out and I was so scared to lose her.
Months go by and our relationship was full of distrust now. I wanted to make it work but she would not give her all, and on top of that I was the most insecure I have ever been in my life. She was the issue but she was also helping the loneliness.
She started going out to Indie band shows late at night, hanging out with a lot of new people that shes been meeting since we broke up. Getting invited to parties by random people when she goes out. She says she wants us to still be friends, and she has no feelings for me anymore. Its like a light switch flipped in her. She makes it seem like her life is so much better without me in it. This is the same person that for 4 years I treated her and took care of her better than her parents ever did, and she even admitted it.
I dont understand how it can be so unfair like this. I do understand that my undying love for her might have pushed her away, but its so cruel that ive loved so hard and it was just taken for granted. I dont even miss her anymore, I am just writing this to make sense of everything. 3 weeks post break up and I want to just stop thinking about her, like I wish I never met her type of thing.

Well, I didn’t think things would come this far or have to be like this. I want to start off by saying that I am not perfect, I do make plenty of mistakes and i will continue to make mistakes. I’m writing this because a coworker of mine decided to make a post about me and completely lied.
I work for Jo-Ann fabrics and I love it, I love the atmosphere and I love the people- the customers and coworkers. Well, except one. For privacy I will call her Regina because she acts like work is the mean girls movie. I started working for this company October of 2023, I was hired in as the full time key holder. I do have a four year old that goes to school and due to kids having germs my daughter was sick a lot so I did have to call in, I don’t have much help babysitter wise so I HAD to stay home to take care of her. I didn’t call in every other day it was like twice every so often. Regina didn’t like that and resented me for choosing to take care of my daughter rather than work, so she told our boss that she should have the position because she doesn’t have a kid and would be available more. Our boss talked to me so I sacrificed the position so she could have it, now I’m not mad, upset or jealous that I don’t have the full time position it’s just hard to make a living working part time hours only making 10.55 an hour. If I knew what was to come I would have NEVER sacrificed the full time position. I do have a steady babysitter now so I’m working as much as I can so I can provide for my daughters need, kids are expensive and my daughters birthday is coming up so I asked for extra hours.
Days after Regina and I switched positions she started to act like she was made out of gold, like a golden child would. She would ALWAYS rub it in my face that she now was the full time key holder and always bragged how much more an hour she makes. She would ask all of our coworkers what their pay was and then would tell them how much she makes. I don’t care how much she makes, though higher pay would make my living situation easier. I grew up poor so I already adapted to a life of poverty and I’m honestly okay with it, sometimes it’s harder than other times but I make it work with what I have. Money to me is just paper, I can’t take it to the grave with me. Regina stoped me in the back room and said “I hope your not mad” I asked “why would I be mad” Regina replied with “because I make way more money than you” I smiled “well, I honestly don’t care. I couldn’t care less about money” Regina’s face got sour and cold because she knew she wasn’t getting under my skin. She replied with “oh, I thought you were”. I chuckled and said “no” and continued what I was doing.
Some time goes where nothing was happening but I could feel that something was brewing. It was the calm before the storm is what I’d call it. Now around this time I was going through a break up and was not feeling the best in my own skin and Regina knew this and used it as her ammunition. She started to call me her fat friend and then gave me hugs, I felt awkward because I do not like to be touched due to some very tramatic events . I’m bigger, I’m not skinny but I’m also not severely obese. Regina started to poke me and grab my fat and jiggle it. The first time she did, it was in front of two other female coworkers. They weren’t nice either, I’ll call them Gretchen and Karen, they were all in on this. When Regina grabbed my fat and giggled it Gretchen and Karen watched and laughed. I asked Regina “what are you doing” she responded with “I just wanted to feel how squishy it is”. Me being a non confrontational person I say “oh, don’t do that” still being nice and smiling, though I felt what was left of my self esteem completely shatter. I brushed it off and walked up to where all three of the mean girls were to ask a question about work since I was the only one doing something. Before I could even ask the question Gretchen goes behind me, makes a fist and lightly punched my back fat making it jiggle. All the girls laugh, I could feel my face getting hot and tears forming in my eyes as my heart sank to my stomach. I went to the bathroom for a moment to gather myself. This would go one for weeks, and every time it happened I would ask her to stop or to leave me be, each time she disregarded what I asked. During this time she would tell every coworker that I was a bad worker, I didn’t do what I was supposed to and if I did I would do a horrible job. There are so many other things she has said to others one that hurt the most was her saying it was annoying that I talk about my daughter so much. Now this whole time I thought we were friends, I’m a very forgiving person and I’m super nice even to people who don’t deserve it so when I heard about everything she was saying I was hurt I was so confused because she even asked to be my daughters god mother though she was never in my daughters life. I know friends don’t treat friends like that but I was just happy I could call someone a friend after years of having no one due to becoming a mom and losing myself in motherhood. I call my kindness and willingness to forgive a blessing and a curse because it truly is.
After finding out about everything she was saying, the drama and the physical touching which is actually bulling and harassment I finally went to my boss. It took me almost two months to tell her what was going on and how I felt. I hated every second explaining the torment to her, my boss is a lovey person and is super sweet. I couldn’t imagine how she felt hearing all of this, I truly felt like I was going to puke. I was so uncomfortable I couldn’t bear to work any longer without the help of my boss. My boss did talk to Regina and she said that she seems like she will be better and will stop the nonsense. A day after she was talked to Regina poked my back fat and laughed, she was shocked at how I responded. This time I wasn’t nice I turned to her and pretty much yelled “don’t touch me” she immediately apologized. I was surprised with how I responded as well, I actually stood up for myself and it felt nice. I did tell my boss she touched me again so Regina was talked to again and was extremely pissed. She started acting really passive aggressive, avoiding me and slamming things and being rude to everyone even customers. Me, being the nice person I am I decided that I would forgive her. Dumb of me, I know. I wrote her a four or five page letter explaining how everything made me feel , how bad of a friend she was and that I would teach her how to be a good friend. I even bought her a candle and some other stuff along with the letter I went as far as going over to her house to help her clean. She cried a lot when she read the letter and cried to me saying how bad of a friend she was, I hugged her back and said that it was okay and I forgive her. After that is was okay for a while until I witnessed her take drinks without paying for them and told my boss. After this, it was like a war.
I have never gotten in trouble with anyone, anywhere with anything, I guess I’m a goodie-two-shoes. Though I do have anger problems I have found ways to cope and deal with my anger, I’ve been working really hard to not get angry at Regina even though she deserves to hear what the mama bear side of me wants to say. I want to be gentle, I want to be nice and forgiving, I don’t want to be angry. But I knew I had to set some sturdy boundaries in order to keep my sanity. These past few weeks have been hell, in summary I caught her talking bad about me to my boss, she was lying about me, blaming me and others for things we didn’t do. With one situation in particular she turned the tables , when hearing this my adrenaline started to course through my veins, I stared to shake so bad. I went up to her and told her that was not how the story went. She got so scared seeing me so mad and shaking. She apologized to our boss for lying but not to me, my other coworker helped me calm down and thank god she did because I was going to quit right there and then. To summarize other things she has done I will just list them -tried to frame another coworker for theft to the point the coworker cried to our boss -tried to take credit for the work I did -talks bad about other managers and workers in other stores -gave out the phone numbers and emails of our hr and of our boss’s boss -made me work off the clock to train new people because she didn’t want to train them -purposely trained me wrong and is hesitant with teaching me new things to the point my boss has to and when I learn she gets mad and jealous because she’s threatened by my work ethic -yelled at me in front of a customer to the point the customer came back to complain about Regina to our boss and another coworker
And so many more but, the most recent is her blaming me for not locking the doors at close when it was her that didn’t do it correctly, the alarm company called my boss at night and the cops came to our Joanns and everything. I have several eye witnesses watch her do it. I told my boss to watch the cameras because I have nothing to lie about and Regina still is trying to blame me. This is where I draw the line, I will not forgive her so easily this time. Forgiveness without changed behavior is just manipulation. I am not the only one who has complained about her, many of our coworker have switched their availability to when I work or when my boss works because they don’t want to deal with Regina. Tension is very high and I’m afraid of what is to come.

I’m 17F my mom is on meth I think it’s her goal to make sure that I know she don’t love me as much as my other 2 sisters she’s mean to me, I try to talk to her and she’ll completely ignore me , my older sister is 29 she stays in our seller bc she don’t have a house she’s also on meth and don’t pay rent or anything since I was little mom has always mad it obvious that my older sister is her favorite, I pay water bill and give my mom money bc if I don’t she’ll be all mad my older sister don’t pay anything and got her kids takin from her and don’t want them back yet my mom praises her , and my mom is mean to me or does stuff like I’ll say I’m going to take a shower and she will sit on the restroom for hours with music blaring till I have to go to bed so I have to go to work dirty the next morning, I’m tired for my 17th birthday my mom got me clothes from good will and dad got me a beer I cried more that day than I did in my whole life, I got paid 2 days later so I bought myself a cake and candle and ate it in my closet, my mom always made my sisters birthdays so fun I always try to make my mom happy for her birthday day I bought her 100$ shoes a cake and cards and shirts no one called her to tell her happy birthday I came home with all this stuff and she said thank you and gave the cake to my 29 yr old sister bc she didn’t want it , idk why I disappoint her so much but it hurts she used to not always be this way

Hello, beta-readers of Reddit! I'm a novice writer who has recently picked up the pen again. I'm looking to improve upon my writing; but I feel as though I've hit a block reading and rereading and editing myself. I'm hoping a fresh pair of eyes and a new perspective might help!
I'm happy to swap stories- I'm open to reading almost any genre- with the caveat that is is paired in some way with fantasy- though I have been known to get sucked into a good sci-fi! I'm not particularly fond of gritty realism or nonfiction, and I'll struggle to get through anything historical or even set in the modern day without a touch of whimsy. I love progression fantasy, and adore a good irreverent protagonist. If you've got an expansive and interesting worldbuilding project you are working on, I'd love to hear all about it and swap ideas! Let me get lost in the universes you've created! Speculative biology is also somewhat of a passion of mine that I've been delving back into as of late, so I'm also happy to help workshop creature designs and descriptions!
I'm seeking critiques on pacing, characterization, dialogue, and I'd love questions about the world/worldbuilding- the story I'm seeking a beta for here is one of three currently set in the same overarching world- though in different time periods/locations. I'm constructing my own magic-system for this world, with the soul and its connection to the mind and body being the core building blocks of this system! I very much enjoy progression fantasy.. but I also dislike hard and fast rules and numbers that quantify the unquantifiable. IF you're into that sort of thing, I have maps, charts, and docs with worldbuilding I'm happy to share- but none of it is necessary to beta this story if that doesn't interest you! I DO have 2 other stories in progress set in the same world, as well- all are currently about the same length.
This will be an adult fantasy romance. The current setting has some semi-modern technological advancements replicated utilizing magic. There ARE some smut scenes I have written- but I can remove them and hold those separately if it isn't something you are comfortable reading!
Small part of the story outline/summary I've written is included below.
Wynne is an acolyte and healer in The Order of The Dragon Prime, a secret cult worshiping the Devoured God, Sunnaerus. Her particular branch of The Order is dedicated to researching souls to better understand their composition and power. Having discovered some texts dating back to The Age of Strife hundreds of years prior detailing the creation of certain types of monsters via a process known as ‘soul fusion’, Wynne's branch of The Order is dedicated to studying of the souls of these creatures’ descendants to discover the true power of the soul. They are currently researching a species known as 'Oni' by the locals. Wynne is a low-level member who joined the cult to escape her father, and further her research on healing and souls. She is responsible for the intake, processing, and preparing the creatures for study, harvest and experimentation, as well as healing them after more rigorous procedures and harvests of materials. Despite finding their treatment of monsters barbaric, Wynne is unable to leave without risking her own life and the Oni's, and attempts to keep them as comfortable as possible, often going against or twisting orders to try and better provide for them. Due to her usefulness as a healer, and her good relationship with several of the Elders, she is given some liberties around the facility.

*The story begins as Wynne prepares for the intake procedure of a newly-captured Oni- Subject 4.* 

If any of what you've read here sounds interesting, don't hesitate to DM me! Thanks so much for taking the time to read this post. Hope you have a lovely evening!

Let me preface this with I really do love my nanny family, they have helped me so much and I’ve been with them for three years. But, these kinds of things make nannying hard.
The parents have a pretty “typical” gender roles in their family. Mom organizes most things and kids schedules, and Dad works more so I never really communicate with him for scheduling but also have a good relationship with him in person. She was actually on top of stuff for the month of May and let me know in April (im totally OK for her to just let me know kind of when she needs, as it works for me) when she needed me for May. It turned out to be a lot of dates and because I have 2 jobs - one with a company, those dates are set aside and I have to get my shift covered if I can’t/don’t want to work.
She asked me to do a bunch of dates in May, which I was looking forward to doing because it pays more than my company job and I was pretty confident that I could get most of my shifts covered because a lot of folks are available now because there are university for summer break. I told her I’d let her know and see if I can get them covered, which I did for almost all my shifts. She was happy about that and so was I because it meant I could get paid more and do a job that I actually love it bit more, and I was excited to spend more time with my nanny kids.
Fast forward two weeks and I text their dad to make sure I’m picking up in a few days because I knew she was out of town (thank god I did) and he was like no sorry don’t need you, MB name didn’t tell me you were picking up so I am all good. Okay, I am a bit annoyed because I got that shift time covered but hey I’m burnt out I could use an afternoon. I send a follow up text to her to PLEASE confirm all dates w DB so that I don’t have times I’ve scheduled but I’m not actually working. Fast forward to this week and she calls and says, oh we are actually also good for coverage for another shift as well, DB will pick up. So now I’m annoyed. I am going to send a text and say I need to know my hours for sure and also ask for another day to make up those hours. I’ve lost hours at both jobs because of it. Anyways, vent over.

So this is probably going to be long but i’m going to try and give as much info as possible because im at a loss and need advice. my fiancé (28M) and i (25F) have been together going on 7 years. we have had a rocky couple of years together due to substance abuse issues on his end. i spent about 2 years of our relationship fighting with him and pleading with him to get help and to please be better. i spent countless nights crying myself to sleep, driving around trying to find him, fighting with him till all hours of the night,verbal and mental abuse, fighting with other people to protect him, etc. it got to the point where i was not taking care of my health (T1D) and i was losing a lot of weight (20 ish pounds maybe more) and i was not doing well at work, i hadn’t seen my family or friends, i was dying. i made excuses for him because he had lost his dad recently and i knew he was hurting. i made excuses bc i had lost a previous long term boyfriend before him to an OD, i felt like i couldn’t give up on him. fast forward he got better. he got sobered up and now doesn’t hardly drink besides socially or on occasion. he has been apologetic about the way he was before and he has treated me better. he takes care of me and helps me in ways no one else ever has. since things were going so well and i finally felt like our lives were back to where they should be we decided to start planning our wedding. our wedding is in 5 months and i’m panicking and debating on calling it off. we’ve spent well over 15k on this wedding though and it is my dream to spend my life with him but i don’t know if it’s truly the right thing to do. my heart says he’s the one and i love him but my brain is telling me to run. as fast as i fucking can. we’ve gotten into a few tiffs but nothing really as bad as this recently. monday night i came home and he was shit faced. i had an awful day at work and was exhusted and realized that since he had been home from work for 4 hours before me he didn’t do a single thing, not any dishes, put away laundry, make the bed, nothing at all. i don’t expect him to do these things all the time but i do expect a helping hand during the week since i work 2 jobs to support us and he just recently went back to work after losing several jobs due to his attendance. i have spent since last september being the bread winner while he jumped from job to job. anyway, when i got home i snapped at him and asked what on earth has he been doing for hours that he couldn’t just help me out a little bit with things in the house? i know i shouldn’t have snapped but i didn’t yell or swear i was just clearly angry and had a negstive angry tone. but he just looked at me and said “after everything i fucking do for you you want to act like this? fuck u” and slammed the door and left. i could then hear him on the phone with his friend talking badly about me. he went to our basement and played video games and continued to drink. me being the moron i am went down there to see what he was doing and we just ended up going back and forth because the second i opened my mouth to ask him why he was drinking and what is going on he started SCREAMING at me to get the fuck away from him annd then asking his friend if he could hear how fucking crazy i was. i eventually left. he stayed up too late and was clearly hung over so he couldn’t work his full shift, mind you this is his 3rd day at his new job. he claims it’s bc he rolled his ankle at work… he was walking fine and i didn’t see a single bruise or swelling on his ankle but ok. so the next day i texted him while he was home and i was at work basically saying i cannot do this shit again and i will not stay with him if i have to come home to him drunk again like i did for so long and i lost myself doing so. he pretty much just focused on the fact that it was my fault it escalated bc i came home and was being mean. i just feel like he could have just apologized for not helping out and just comforted me so i could calm down and maybe we could have put the laundry away together? he didn’t have to scream at me and say hurtful things right? idk. so i get home from work that day and he pretty much didn’t want to talk bc he was tired so he went to sleep and i cried myself to sleep lol. he did tell me i was immature for acting like this and im an adult and i need to get it together. so today is now wednesday. i text him while he is at work and so am i, expressing how i feel and that im really hurt. i also told him what my expectations are and if he can’t meet them then we need to call off the wedding. he responded with one word answers and then told me that our relationship is not to be talked about over text so he wasn’t going to read it and i should know that he hates reading long messages. in the past i’ve tried to call him about stuff to talk and work out and he screams so loud i either have to hang up or he just hangs up on me. so i came home today and tried to talk to him in person about all this. i wanted him to know that bc of my mental health issues (BPD, PTSD, and OCD) that i know im difficult sometimes but i am very sensitive so i really need him to try harder to not do and say the things he knows trigger me. 5 minutes into the convo he tried to turn the tv on while i was talking and told me he didn’t want to talk and he was done and i need to let it go. i was talking calmly and nice the entire time. i just wanted to feel heard. he started to scream at this point and cry like actually cry and jumped up and started to walk away and i just lost it and told him i wanted to break up. i said a lot of mean things to him that’s crossed a lot of lines and i shouldn’t have said but he just kept calling me crazy and dismissing me and it made me feel so small my reaction is to be as mean as i can to him so he hurts the way i am hurting . of course now i am the bad guy. the conversation got no where and i wasn’t able to even get to what the main topic was, before he started freaking out. Also he was screaming the entire time. which is one of my triggers due to childhood abuse. i feel so unloved right now and i don’t see a way out. i feel hopeless. should i have not brought it up and just stopped talking when he asked? please be kind i really need help and im embarrassed and ashamed of the situation.

Well, I didn’t think things would come this far or have to be like this. I want to start off by saying that I am not perfect, I do make plenty of mistakes and i will continue to make mistakes. I’m writing this because a coworker of mine decided to make a post about me and completely lied.
I work for Jo-Ann fabrics and I love it, I love the atmosphere and I love the people- the customers and coworkers. Well, except one. For privacy I will call her Regina because she acts like work is the mean girls movie. I started working for this company October of 2023, I was hired in as the full time key holder. I do have a four year old that goes to school and due to kids having germs my daughter was sick a lot so I did have to call in, I don’t have much help babysitter wise so I HAD to stay home to take care of her. I didn’t call in every other day it was like twice every so often. Regina didn’t like that and resented me for choosing to take care of my daughter rather than work, so she told our boss that she should have the position because she doesn’t have a kid and would be available more. Our boss talked to me so I sacrificed the position so she could have it, now I’m not mad, upset or jealous that I don’t have the full time position it’s just hard to make a living working part time hours only making 10.55 an hour. If I knew what was to come I would have NEVER sacrificed the full time position. I do have a steady babysitter now so I’m working as much as I can so I can provide for my daughters need, kids are expensive and my daughters birthday is coming up so I asked for extra hours.
Days after Regina and I switched positions she started to act like she was made out of gold, like a golden child would. She would ALWAYS rub it in my face that she now was the full time key holder and always bragged how much more an hour she makes. She would ask all of our coworkers what their pay was and then would tell them how much she makes. I don’t care how much she makes, though higher pay would make my living situation easier. I grew up poor so I already adapted to a life of poverty and I’m honestly okay with it, sometimes it’s harder than other times but I make it work with what I have. Money to me is just paper, I can’t take it to the grave with me. Regina stoped me in the back room and said “I hope your not mad” I asked “why would I be mad” Regina replied with “because I make way more money than you” I smiled “well, I honestly don’t care. I couldn’t care less about money” Regina’s face got sour and cold because she knew she wasn’t getting under my skin. She replied with “oh, I thought you were”. I chuckled and said “no” and continued what I was doing.
Some time goes where nothing was happening but I could feel that something was brewing. It was the calm before the storm is what I’d call it. Now around this time I was going through a break up and was not feeling the best in my own skin and Regina knew this and used it as her ammunition. She started to call me her fat friend and then gave me hugs, I felt awkward because I do not like to be touched due to some very tramatic events . I’m bigger, I’m not skinny but I’m also not severely obese. Regina started to poke me and grab my fat and jiggle it. The first time she did, it was in front of two other female coworkers. They weren’t nice either, I’ll call them Gretchen and Karen, they were all in on this. When Regina grabbed my fat and giggled it Gretchen and Karen watched and laughed. I asked Regina “what are you doing” she responded with “I just wanted to feel how squishy it is”. Me being a non confrontational person I say “oh, don’t do that” still being nice and smiling, though I felt what was left of my self esteem completely shatter. I brushed it off and walked up to where all three of the mean girls were to ask a question about work since I was the only one doing something. Before I could even ask the question Gretchen goes behind me, makes a fist and lightly punched my back fat making it jiggle. All the girls laugh, I could feel my face getting hot and tears forming in my eyes as my heart sank to my stomach. I went to the bathroom for a moment to gather myself. This would go one for weeks, and every time it happened I would ask her to stop or to leave me be, each time she disregarded what I asked. During this time she would tell every coworker that I was a bad worker, I didn’t do what I was supposed to and if I did I would do a horrible job. There are so many other things she has said to others one that hurt the most was her saying it was annoying that I talk about my daughter so much. Now this whole time I thought we were friends, I’m a very forgiving person and I’m super nice even to people who don’t deserve it so when I heard about everything she was saying I was hurt I was so confused because she even asked to be my daughters god mother though she was never in my daughters life. I know friends don’t treat friends like that but I was just happy I could call someone a friend after years of having no one due to becoming a mom and losing myself in motherhood. I call my kindness and willingness to forgive a blessing and a curse because it truly is.
After finding out about everything she was saying, the drama and the physical touching which is actually bulling and harassment I finally went to my boss. It took me almost two months to tell her what was going on and how I felt. I hated every second explaining the torment to her, my boss is a lovey person and is super sweet. I couldn’t imagine how she felt hearing all of this, I truly felt like I was going to puke. I was so uncomfortable I couldn’t bear to work any longer without the help of my boss. My boss did talk to Regina and she said that she seems like she will be better and will stop the nonsense. A day after she was talked to Regina poked my back fat and laughed, she was shocked at how I responded. This time I wasn’t nice I turned to her and pretty much yelled “don’t touch me” she immediately apologized. I was surprised with how I responded as well, I actually stood up for myself and it felt nice. I did tell my boss she touched me again so Regina was talked to again and was extremely pissed. She started acting really passive aggressive, avoiding me and slamming things and being rude to everyone even customers. Me, being the nice person I am I decided that I would forgive her. Dumb of me, I know. I wrote her a four or five page letter explaining how everything made me feel , how bad of a friend she was and that I would teach her how to be a good friend. I even bought her a candle and some other stuff along with the letter I went as far as going over to her house to help her clean. She cried a lot when she read the letter and cried to me saying how bad of a friend she was, I hugged her back and said that it was okay and I forgive her. After that is was okay for a while until I witnessed her take drinks without paying for them and told my boss. After this, it was like a war.
I have never gotten in trouble with anyone, anywhere with anything, I guess I’m a goodie-two-shoes. Though I do have anger problems I have found ways to cope and deal with my anger, I’ve been working really hard to not get angry at Regina even though she deserves to hear what the mama bear side of me wants to say. I want to be gentle, I want to be nice and forgiving, I don’t want to be angry. But I knew I had to set some sturdy boundaries in order to keep my sanity. These past few weeks have been hell, in summary I caught her talking bad about me to my boss, she was lying about me, blaming me and others for things we didn’t do. With one situation in particular she turned the tables , when hearing this my adrenaline started to course through my veins, I stared to shake so bad. I went up to her and told her that was not how the story went. She got so scared seeing me so mad and shaking. She apologized to our boss for lying but not to me, my other coworker helped me calm down and thank god she did because I was going to quit right there and then. To summarize other things she has done I will just list them -tried to frame another coworker for theft to the point the coworker cried to our boss -tried to take credit for the work I did -talks bad about other managers and workers in other stores -gave out the phone numbers and emails of our hr and of our boss’s boss -made me work off the clock to train new people because she didn’t want to train them -purposely trained me wrong and is hesitant with teaching me new things to the point my boss has to and when I learn she gets mad and jealous because she’s threatened by my work ethic -yelled at me in front of a customer to the point the customer came back to complain about Regina to our boss and another coworker
And so many more but, the most recent is her blaming me for not locking the doors at close when it was her that didn’t do it correctly, the alarm company called my boss at night and the cops came to our Joanns and everything. I have several eye witnesses watch her do it. I told my boss to watch the cameras because I have nothing to lie about and Regina still is trying to blame me. This is where I draw the line, I will not forgive her so easily this time. Forgiveness without changed behavior is just manipulation. I am not the only one who has complained about her, many of our coworker have switched their availability to when I work or when my boss works because they don’t want to deal with Regina. Tension is very high and I’m afraid of what is to come.

Today is my birthday (60 f) I have never asked for or expected a big production for my birthday. Just a little acknowledgement.
For my friends, i always do something. Cards, calls, gifts, invite for a meal or cocktails or a text at the very least. I put their birthdays on my calendar so I don't forget. It's not hard.
There are people with whom I thought I was close, yet there has been no acknowledgement of my birthday. It stings more than a little.
My family took me out for a lovely dinner. I had a bit of trouble working up the enthusiasm to go out to dinner because I was sad about those who forgot my birthday. How hard is it to send a text?
Am I being too sensitive? Am I expecting too much? Am I wrong for thinking my friends could at least send a little text?

Cigarettes and rebellion have always gone hand-in-hand, and in an age of cigarette packet-sized health warnings, now more than ever, smoking a fag says: 'I do not give a fuck.' But if Brandon Flowers is hoping to strike a seditious pose by sparking up at the start of the interview, it's not going according to plan. The Killers' frontman is on all fours rooting through the junk that carpets the anteroom at the band's rehearsal space. "Has anyone seen my lighter?" he asks, rocking back on his heels. The question hangs in the air while Brandon cocks his head, waiting for an answer like a meerkat listening for a predator. Twenty-five years old and with a delicate bone structure, there's something almost dainty about him. Receiving no response, he returns to his search. "Oh, Jeez," he sighs. "I had it just a minute ago."
It's a scene that emphatically does not suggest a rebel without a cause. The mess isn't helping. The Killers' HQ - an industrial unit sandwiched between a construction supplier and the offices of a housing development just off Dean Martin Drive in West Las Vegas - is ankle-deep in designer clothing. A Dior Homme suit lies crumpled by the door; there's a pile of shoes topped like a sundae by a pair of Marc Jacobs trainers; and anyone wishing to enter the shoebox room the band use as an office must negotiate a mountain of discarded jeans. Many items are identifiable as coming from the wardrobe of Hot Fuss, The Killers' hugely successful 2004 debut album - triple platinum in the UK with two weeks at Number One and five million sold worldwide. Look! There are the shirts, ties and suit jackets they wore when they thrilled Glastonbury 2005 with indie rock anthems Mr Brightside and Somebody Told Me. That was the crowning moment of a two-and-a-half year tour that finally concluded in October of last year. It seems that after playing that final date in Miami, they returned to Vegas and shrugged off their image onto the floor of this bland white box.
Now a fine layer of dust covers the dead clothes. The Killers have no further use for white tuxedos on their second album, Sam's Town. Today, Brandon wears a black polo shirt, black pin-stripe waistcoat, black jeans and black boots. Where there used to be a layer of foundation, there is now a beard - an untrimmed beard at that. Dave Keuning (30, guitar), Mark Stoermer (29, bass) and Ronnie Vannucci (29, drums) all echo Brandon's black ensemble. Ronnie has added Aviator shades and a handlebar moustache for a dash of motorcycle cop, Dave's frizzy bubble of hair gives him a Marc Bolan-ish air, and there's something very teenage about Mark's scuffed Vans.
Short of walking around wearing sandwich boards saying, "Our new record is a bit heavier than the last one," The Killers couldn't hope to communicate that message more effectively. And they have gained some musical girth on Sam's Town. The pop hooks that made Hot Fuss so irresistible survive intact - see the ringing guitar riffs on first single When You Were Young - but there's a newfound punchiness, coupled with an epic sweep. The minor-to-major uplifts on Bones are fabulously dramatic, the coda to Why Do I Keep Counting? thrillingly intense. Comparisons to Bruce Springsteen have been made. If they overstate the case a little, they are at leaset qualitatively accurate. The Killers are back and this time it's serious - they've got the bootlace ties to prove it.
"Hey, it says here that Springsteen's headlining Glastonbury next year," shouts Ronnie, who's flicking through the NME. He nods sagely at the page without looking up.
"Really?" asks Dave, nicknamed Crazy Dave on account of his alledgedly volatile nature.
"The Boss is headlining one night, we're playing second on the bill the next night and Kylie's headlining the Sunday," says Brandon, charging like a bull through Michael Eavis' as-yet-unannounced line-up with what subsequently proves to be a characteristic gaucheness.
But that lighter is proving elusive. This being America, none of the people hurrying to-and-fro prepping the world for the release of Sam's Town smokes. Manager Robert Reynolds - Bobby Rey to the band - barks into his mobile, booking his band onto eye-wateringly demanding tours. "We're going to make a lot of money," he cackles to himself before switching calls to make a series of stern pronouncements on legal matters. Dave, Mark and Ronnie disappear for a jam session. Artwork is approved, B-sides are decided on and schedules are hammered out.
"I can't find it," Brandon says, finally. But he's not going to be denied the opportunity to underline The Killers reinvention with a puff of smoke. "Let's go to the gas station. I'll have to buy one. It's too busy to talk here anyway."
+
Brandon's black (of course) Volkswagen Touraeg four-wheel drive is barrelling down West Flamingo Road into town. "I was a bell boy there," he says, pointing out of the driver's window at the stucco facade of the Gold Coast casino. "I was working there when we were signed."
Coming from Las Vegas, it is perhaps inevitable that casinos play a big part in The Killers' story; not only is Sam's Town named after one, it was recorded in one, too.
The band began writing songs while on the road with Hot Fuss, turning up early for soundchecks to run through new ideas. On a trip home to Vegas, George Maloof, a hotelier known for cultivating famous friends, invited them to record the album in the new studio he'd built at The Palms, his flagship hotel-cum-gambling den. When the tour finished in October 2005, they returned to Vegas and spent five month finessing the songs they'd sketched out on the road. Then, in February, they decampled to the third floor studio at The Palms and recorded Sam's Town over 11 weeks.
Producer Flood (U2, Depeche Mode) encouraged them to experiment. They overdubbed, fiddled with synthesizers and played with new equipment. It took them five weeks to get the backing vocals right. The band sang the harmonies, then double-tracked them four times. The end result recalls Queen wondering, "Is this is the real life? Is this just fantasy?" When Ronnie, a trained classical percussionist, brought some kettledrums down, eyebrows were raised; but the fabulously bombastic coda on Why Do I Keep Counting? vindicates his indulgence.
"That's kind of the Ben Hur of the album," he says. He's not wrong. Sam's Town is a record on an epic scale. "Yeah, it has drama," he continues. "But, at the same time, I think it's a little more exposed than Hot Fuss. It's a little more naked. Last time it was about a lot of fictional things." By "fictional", Ronnie means that Hot Fuss wore its predominantly British influences for all to see. Brandon's taste in music is rabidly Anglophile - he constantly references The Smiths, The Cure and Joy Division - and it showed. By contrast, Sam's Town is an unequivocally American record. The lyrical imagery is pure American dream - cars, girls, wide-open spaces and escaping to a better life. "We're burning down the highway skyline/On the back of a hurricane that started turning/When you were young," sings Brandon on When You Were Young. That's the basis of the Springsteen comparisons then, though the lack of pathos more closely recalls another blue-collar rocker from New Jersey - Jon Bon Jovi.
The phrase "this town" recurs throughout the album, and it's always receding into the distance as The Killers escape to a new life. "This town was made for passing through/I never did get along with everybody else," sings Brandon on This River Is Wild. On Read My Mind he "never really gave up on breaking out of this two-star town", while on the title track he offers something of an explanation: "Nobody ever had a dream round here."
"With the first record, there was this feeling that there was this world out there that we didn't know," says Mark later in the day. Before The Killers, he studied philosophy: now he's their quiet one. "We wanted to get out and away from this and be somewhere else. We hadn't had a lot of experience - hadn't travelled much - then we were gone for three years. We didn't sit down and say that we wanted to make a record about how we're glad to be home, but that's what happened naturally."
It's not an angsty record. The Killers have already escaped with Hot Fuss, and, having done so, they view the experience fondly now they're back. There's a mistiness to Brandon's eyes as he explains how the album got it's name.
"Sam's Town is a casino on the edge of Vegas," he says. "I grew up in Henderson, which is out on the way to the Hoover Dam. My mom and dad lived in a trailer park, and my dad used to hitchhike up and down Boulder Highway, which is the only way you could get to Vegas. Sam's Town was the first thing you saw on your way in to town. So, when you're driving down Boulder Highway from Henderson, I always thought you finally knew you were getting somewhere when you saw Sam's Town. It was kind of like a beacon."
"It's not a completely American album," contines Brandon. "We still have our English influence, but we're also from the Wild West. Somehow we've managed to unify all that on this album. it's just such a perfect resemblence of what we are."
At the petrol station, Brandon rummages through the glove box looking for change to buy a lighter. "This is a great album," he says, pointing at Highway Companion, the latest from iconic American rocker Tom Petty. "I've always been a big fan of his. He's such a great American artist."
Yes, Brandon: we get the point.
+
When Brandon finally lights his cigarette, he smokes it awkwardly, like a child mimicking something he's seen the grown-ups doing. However, when he cheerfully admits that, "I feel the same mentally as I did when I was 12," it's not a knowing nod to the fact that he sometimes behaves like a loveably precocious child, but a reference to an unusually comprehensive grounding in pop music at an early age.
When Brandon sings about "this town", he doesn't mean Las Vegas. He means Nephi, Utah or Henderson, Nevada, where he spent his childhood. His parents are Mormon and he is the youngest of six children. "I was a surprise," he says. "I've got a 42-year-old sister." If he was issues about his "surprise" status, he chooses to gloss over them. "It turned out perfect because my brother was a teenager when I was a kid," he says. "He would bring home things like Rattle And Hum by U2 and I would watch it. I remember he bought Live In Dallas by Morrissey. It was always him watching these things, or his door was shut and you'd hear The Head On The Door by The Cure blasting through the house and rattling the walls."
The Killers were formed when Brandon answered an advert Dave had placed in a local paper in late 2002. Dave cited Oasis as a big influence; Brandon had seen them play recently and responded; and, as Dave has said in previous interviews: "He was the only person to reply to my ad who wasn't a complete freak." However, the band was born in Brandon's brothers bedroom.
"His room was like a shrine," enthuses Brandon. "It was a holy place. I wish I could show you a picture of it. It was covered in posters. There'd be a big picture of Elvis wearing a bow tie that just said 'The Smiths' [the artwork for The Smiths 1987 single Shoplifters Of The World Unite]. You had The Cure wearing face paint [the artwork to The Cure's 1985 single In Between Days] - all that kind of stuff. I remember Morrissey being on the cover of the NME, with the halo [from 1985] - stuff like that. You just wanted to know about these people 'cause they were so cool. My brother seemed like such a cool person. But he was a teenager, so he wasn't going to be that nice to me, a kid."
Brandon was fascinated by his brother's collection of music, magazines and posters, but he was denied access to them - officially, at least. "I would sneak in," he says. "I knew he'd be angry if he found out, but I would go in as soon as he left the house." For a long time Brandon was too scared to actually play anything. "That didn't come 'til later. I just used to go in there because I liked it. Then I got to the point where I'd actually take a tape out and put it in. It took more guts to do that."
It was a life-changing moment. "I was ten and the first song I played was Sing Your Life by Morrissey. I remember dancing about to it."
The lyrics to Sing Your Life include the lines, "Sing your life/Just walk right up to the microphone/And name all the things that you love/All the things that you loathe." It's intriguing to wonder what Morrissey makes of the neophyte he inspired with these lines.
Eventually, Brandon inherited his brother's tape collection. "It was around the same time CDs started coming out in a big way. He started buying CDs and gave me his tapes. And that was it: it took off from there. I got a hundred of the best albums - all the New Order, all the Morrissey, all The Smiths, The Beatles. I started buying posters. I went to see The Cure in concert. It was just kind of a continuation of my brother. And it was nice because, though my parents were strict, they were already used to it from him. There was no, 'My dad doesn't understand me,' or any of that kind of stuff. My mum likes The Smiths."
Brandon was 13 and his favourite band was late-'70s/early-'80s American new wavers The Cars, and particularly their jaw-droppingly catchy 1979 single Just What I Needed.
"I wouldn't exist without that song," he says. "That was the one. I remember driving around with my mum when I was 13, and we're living in Nephi - a really small town - and I felt so cool when I put that song on. Like: 'I have something that none of these kids I'm going to middle school with tomorrow have.' That excitement is what music's about, isn't it? That's why I understand the mentality of people that don't like us because we've sold so many records. I used to like it when no one else knew about a band. So I get that - I do."
+
Brandon's first band was called Blush Response. It was never going to work out. Not because he refused to move to Los Angeles with them, but because he is utterly - comically - shameless. He's given to making outrageously boastful statements like: "It's not like the '60s, '70s and '80s now. There are only a few bands around that are really good, that just do it. I mean, there's what, five or six of us?"
For the record, in Brandon's estimation, those bands are Franz Ferdinand, Razorlight, The Strokes, The White Stripes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and, of course, The Killers.
"I don't want people to think I'm lumping myself with other people just to make us sound cool," he says. Really? It sort of sounds like you are. But he just steamrolls through it. "Yeah, but you know what I mean," he says, grinning at his own cheekiness. He's so disgracefully forward you can't help but laugh along with him - Oh you are awful, Brandon! But joking aside, The Killers are the most commercially successful of all the bands he mentions.
Later, back at the rehearsal space, the band run through Sam's Town at deafening volume in preparation for the forthcoming tour - first the US, then the world. The infectious, almost contagious, chorus of When You Were Young sounds fabulous, as do the U2-like guitars and Twin Peaks synths of Read My Mind. Meanwhile, Smile Like You Mean It and Somebody Told Me benefit from the newfound harder edge.
They somewhat heavy-handedly underline the new direction by playing Paranoid by Black Sabbath and Get It On by T Rex. That's the thing: The Killers are not a subtle band. Their songs are like a wet kiss from a girl who's a bit too drunk. They are big and brash, and not everyone loves them for it. Mr Brightside and Somebody Told Me might go down as well at hip nightclubs as they do on the festival circuit, but the DJs play them with the same guilty look they wear when playing a pop record.
"I hate that," says Brandon. "Like writing a song you can hum somehow cheapens it? It makes me think of this quote by Morrissey. Everybody knows how he read Oscar Wilde, Keats and Yates when he was growing up and that he wanted to be a writer. He was talking to this journalist who asked why he hadn't become a writer, and Morrissey said: 'What I do is more powerful than what you do because I can write down these words and you get it to a melody. How can you beat that?' I'm of the same opinion. I don't understand why a good melody that's memorable is a bad thing."
Being dismissed as pop particular aggrieves Ronnie. "When we first came out we got compared to Duran Duran all the time. Jesus Christ! We got a keyboard player now all of a sudden he's Nick Rhodes! Come on!"
"The people who criticise us for being too poppy don't get it," agrees Mark. "I think that's the problem with a lot of rock music. People are afraid to write a song any more. Either that or they can't. And that attitude hurts music in general. The best bands ever have all written great songs. You can still do it and do it intelligently and it can be original. This isn't a studio creation with a producer writing these songs for us. We're not Avril Lavigne, or something like that. We're a real band writing real songs, just like a punk band would do, except that we write pop songs."
You get the impression that The Killers knack for showboating pop hooks that border on vulgar is inextricably tied up with the brazen side of Brandon's personality. But while his ebullient charisma, not to mention the songs themselves, mitigates his outrageousness, there is a less attractive side to his ego. He has a combative streak. He can't resist taking pot shots at emo bands, notably Fall Out Boy, whith whom The Killers share an A&R man.
Has he heard how many emo kids it takes to change a light bulb? "No." None. They just sit in the dark and cry. It's a full 30 seconds before he stops laughing. When he does he admits: "Yeah, we've had problems with other bands. You know, when you walk in the room it's like..." He whistles the theme to The Good, The Bad And The Ugly. "We're like gangs."
And while the other members of the band are diplomatic on the subject of Brandon, you don't have to read too deeply between the lines to conclude that there have been internal issues, too.
"Some people will think Brandon's the big genius," says Dave, visibly bridling. "There are songs, such as Why Do I Keep Counting?, where he's written every note. But there are others, like When You Were Young, that were more of a collaboration - like Mr Brightside, where I had some of the music and Brandon came up with the lyrics. We always have arguments about who wrote what. The truth is that we all help in that process."
When asked how success affected them, Ronnie says: "There were certain things that needed adjusting. When you're on tour for two years, people can get a little needy. It doesn't help that you're surrounded by yes men and everybody's working for you. At times we've had to say, 'Who do you think you are?' to people. No one wears the trousers, but some people would like to. I think if it wasn't for the people in the band kicking each other in the ass... Let's just say there was some ass-kickin'."
It doesn't take a genius to work out whose ass needed kicking most often.
+
It's the following day and The Killers are back at their rehearsal space. The topic of discussion is what to wear in the video for Bones, the second single. It's a big deal: the director is Tim Burton. "I feel like Frank Sinatra when I sing it," announces Brandon. "With maybe a little bit of Morrissey and a little bit of Elvis, too."
Of course he does. But if securing the services of Tim Burton tells you one thing, it's that The Killers are about to get even bigger, perhaps even make the leap to the same level as Coldplay et al. Already stars, they are about to become superstars. Brandon can hardly wait.
"Do you know that Rolling Stone didn't want to put us on the cover last time," he says indignantly. "They didn't think we were stars. We sold five million albums! What more do they want from a band?"
Whatever was required, Brandon would be happy to do most things. "I'll do stuff that some people don't want to do, 'cause I want people to hear the music," he says. However, even he has limits. "The Rolling Stone thing made the record label think: 'What can we do to make them stars?' If I go on vacation with my wife, do they have to send somebody to be there to take pictures of me? Is that how you become a star? I don't want that. I walked down the red carpet one time and I realised I don't like it. But you don't have to walk down the red carpet for people to hear your music. We do still have some of that indie blood running through our veins."
He heads off at a tangent: "When you walk around Liverpool, you think of The Beatles, or you go to Manchester and you think of The Smiths or Oasis. I want you to come to Las Vegas and think of Sam's Town. And I think we've started to capture that, which is a truer version of The Killers, 'cause that's where we're from."
He pauses.
"I used to live across the street from Sam's Town. Maybe it'll be like our Abbey Road where people go to take pictures."
Is that what he'd like?
"I wouldn't mind it," he says, desperately hoping it will come true.
He puts a cigarette between his lips, looks down at his trouser pockets and pats them in search of the lighter he bought yesterday.
"Hey, I don't suppose you've got one?"

Almost done with the my working day, I’m looking to find a friend or two! Currently caring for 3 kids, the parenting life is fun but tiring! I’m outdoorsy and sporty whilst also being very unfit haha. Don’t mind a bit of gaming, reading and true crime. Happy to chat about pretty much anything. I do prefer 25+ and don’t usually respond to ‘hey’ introductions. Send me a chat (not a message)!

When I was around 13 years old, I was a young stupid teenager, and hanging out with my friends, and we were all saying inflammatory things, and I said, "Yeah, if I turn 30, and I haven't accomplished anything, I'll probably just kill myself." It was an awful thing to say, and I can't believe I said it.
Well, I turned 29. I had probably close to 50 jobs, and had a complete discontentment with my life and civilization, and was contemplating suicide, and then I had a full-blown spiritual awakening, saw a vision of Jesus, God and Satan, and went through an immense dark night of the soul and personal transformation of the heart.
I just have this verse on my heart right now thinking about it, "Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits, [Psalm 18:21]" and it just reminds me of what I said when I was a teenager.
I know God heard that and knew that he wasn't going to let me die of suicide. He was watching me the whole time, and he cared about me, and he didn't want to lose me.
Three years ago, I was a 29-year-old man whose life had become defined by isolation. Once curious and engaged with the world in my youth, I had slowly withdrawn into myself from depression, retreating into the comfort of my room in my mother's house. My agnostic atheism left me without a guiding light, and the mundane realities of life, from my dozens of failed jobs to my ongoing struggles with addiction, weighed heavily on my spirit. I found solace instead in the company of strategy games and suffered deeply in the rabbit hole of conspiracies on the internet.
My addictions had become an ever-tightening grip on my life. I found myself reaching for cannabis, alcohol, video games, fast food, and pornography to fill the void that had grown in my heart over the years. My life had become a series of hollow habits, each one leaving me feeling emptier than before. I could no longer deny that something was deeply wrong.
One day, while browsing online, I stumbled upon a post that claimed Thoth, the ancient Egyptian deity of knowledge and wisdom, could help those who asked for his assistance. Intrigued, I wondered if reaching out to Thoth could provide me with the help I needed.
Weeks passed since reading the post, and as I stood in my shower, my thoughts drifted to the crossroads my life seemed to have come to. I asked myself why I was stuck in a cycle of self-destructive behaviors and why I felt such a profound sense of emptiness. The steam from the shower enveloped me as I said aloud, "Thoth, if you are real, I really need your help right now. I don't want to live like this anymore; I don't want to die yet." As I spoke the words, my hand moved from the side of my body, and then to my forehead and heart, while making a hand-sign and I felt at peace.
I was stunned, realizing the hand-sign I had made was eerily similar to ones I had seen in paintings of Jesus. I was stunned but felt an unusual calmness wash over me. As I dried off and dressed, I pondered what had just happened. I went to the full-body mirror in my room, looking at myself. I saw someone I no longer recognized, someone I no longer wanted to be.
Once more, I said, "Thoth, if you are real, will you help me? This isn't who I want to be anymore." I stared at myself in the mirror, and slowly a vision began to form in my eyes. It wasn’t Thoth I saw, but Jesus.
Jesus appeared with long brown hair, a brown beard, brown eyes, and light brown skin. Half of his face was illuminated by light, while the other half was cast in shadow. The vision of Jesus was so vivid that it left me both in awe and at peace. As the vision of him faded, I remember reaching out to him because I didn't want him to go, I could tell he was here to help.
As night fell, I lay in my bed, lost in deep contemplation. I revisited the events of the day, focusing on the vision of Jesus. The clarity of the vision was imprinted on my mind, and I couldn't shake the feeling that it held a deeper meaning. I pondered the nature of good and evil, and how they were intertwined in a complex dance of duality. I found myself questioning whether the traditional view of evil as something to be hated and shunned was truly the right approach. Instead, I began to entertain the idea that perhaps evil people and perhaps even evil itself, could be understood with compassion and empathy, instead of hatred and disgust.
As I continued to ponder, I experienced a peculiar sensation in my head. It was as though something shifted in the center of my brain, around the area of my third eye or pineal gland. There was a slight pop like a tearing or crunching sound, it was not painful, but surprising nonetheless. I then felt a fluid movement from the left hemisphere of my brain to the right hemisphere, using the third eye as a bridge or something. This shift brought me a sense of balance and calmness I had not felt before. I realized I had been living predominantly in the logical part of my brain, instead of emotional side.
As I embraced this newfound state of relaxation, I began to see another vision in my mind. This time, it was God who appeared. God had long white hair, a white beard, and wore white robes and sandals. Then God began dancing, moving with joy and lightheartedness.
Before I could fully process what I was seeing, another figure appeared alongside God. It was Satan, with red skin and horns. Satan seemed curious and playful, attempting to imitate God's dance moves with enthusiasm. The sight of these two seemingly opposing forces dancing together struck me as surreal.
As I watched them dance, I found myself smiling, and really enjoying the moment. Then, my mind wandered to the Russian squat dance, a thought that seemed to come out of nowhere. To my amazement, God began performing the Russian squat dance, his movements precise and fluid. I couldn't help but laugh. It was awesome and hilarious.
Slowly, they both faded away, leaving me in a state of awe and wonder. I realized that my third eye had opened, granting me access to a deeper level of perception and understanding.
I lay in my bed for a few moments, attempting to grasp the profound implications of the vision I had just experienced. The reality of the spiritual world was undeniable now. God, Jesus, Satan, and other spiritual beings were real, their presence deeply embedded within my new understanding. This stark realization overwhelmed me, and I felt an immense fear wash over me, it was like the Eye of Sauron was upon me, or the eye of Satan.
I began pacing frantically around my room, gasping for air as I tried to process the magnitude of my new awareness. My mind felt as if it were on the brink of shattering; I couldn't comprehend what was happening. The very foundation of my reality had shifted, leaving me teetering on the edge of my sanity.
Despite my racing thoughts and heart, I managed to steady myself using deep breathing techniques I had learned in the past from Wim Hof. My frantic pace gradually slowed, and I returned to my bed, trying to make sense of everything.
I deduced that the condition commonly known as schizophrenia might not be what people thought it was. Instead, it could be an individual's heightened sensitivity to the spirit world, a world most people never perceived.
As I lay in bed, still reeling from my panic, I suddenly saw a vision of Satan. He had red skin and horns, and spoke directly to me, expressing admiration for my deduction. Satan confirmed that what I thought was true: many people were speaking to demons, believing themselves to be schizophrenic. This deceptive world was, indeed, a harsh reality.
I tried to take in Satan's words, but a sensation of something being pulled out of me struck me. It felt as though my very soul was being drained from my body. My energy depleted rapidly, and I was overcome by a sense of impending doom. I lost control of my bodily functions, believing that I was moments away from death.
At the moment when I thought I was succumbing to death, I caught sight of an Easter lily I had bought earlier that day, sitting on my desk. The sight of the beautiful lily sparked a powerful desire to live within me. Fueled by a newfound will to survive coursing through me, I leaped out of my bed, and began pacing back and forth in my room once more, gasping for air.
As I walked, I experienced a series of visions featuring characters I admired and found inspiration from—Master Yoda from Star Wars, Aang from Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Neo from The Matrix. I realized that God had shown me these characters because they were a source of moral guidance and strength in my life.
My thoughts then turned to the physical pain I was experiencing. My awareness of the spirit world had heightened significantly, causing my brain to start heating up, and I felt a piercing pain and ballooning sensation near my right temple, which deeply concerned me.
Every time I had a thought, I could feel my brain stem wiggle and I would feel pain in my right temple, so I had to learn to still or quiet my mind. Recognizing that I needed to take action to cool my head and relieve the pain, with a sort of just knowing of what I had to do, I resolved to get a large bowl of ice water and head to the basement.
I quietly left my room so as not to wake my mother, who was sleeping in her room nearby, and ventured downstairs to the basement
At this point you could say I was "possessed" by spirits, Thoth, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. I was able to rest my consciousness in my third eye, and the Holy Spirit, Thoth, or Jesus could help me and take move my body to keep me alive. There was no way for me to survive without help.
The holy spirit showed me a specific breathing technique to diffuse the energy in my brain by inhaling through my mouth deeply, and then exhaling through my nose in the water. The vibration of exhaling through my nose into the water would cause my brain to feel soothed for a little while, likely stimulating my vagus nerve too, and I believe it was doing something with the fluid in my brain. When I was able to not be at the water, I had to keep pressure on the center of my forehead to rest in my third eye so they could help me.
I remember pacing between the two sections of my basement, and Thoth was helping me breathe just to stay conscious. One half of the basement was bright with light with concrete floors, which is where the bowl of water was, the washer and drier, a sink, and four litter boxes. On the other side of the basement was dark with a carpeted floor and a wood fireplace. The basement's light was painted in the duality of light and dark.
I remained in the basement until the sun rose, soaking my head in icewater, and pacing back and forth between the dark and light rooms because i would become overly sensitive to one particular room, and I was just trying to breathe to stay conscious. I was battling the spirit of fear the entire night. The fear from my initial awakening and the fear of death over and over again, hundreds if not thousands of times.
I soaked my head in the ice water all night, getting momentary breaks from the water, and certain I was going to die hundreds of times from a brain hemorrhage, I stood on the hard pavement for hours, I remember Jesus was my legs at one point, I could feel him focusing through me to keep me standing. I continuously soaked my head in the ice water to combat the piercing pain and ballooning sensation in my right temple. Throughout the night, I heard voices speaking to me—some belonging to what I would call demons and others to angels.
The demons tried to instill fear in me, convincing me I was going to die. While the angels offered comfort and reassurance, telling me I would be okay. Despite the torment I endured, I found profound inner strength and refused to give up. I remember squeezing my Celtic cross necklace so hard during this time.
The sun rose on the second day, I had been awake all night, I was beyond exhausted. I don't remember all of the specifics of this time, my awakening was very traumatic, but several hours passed and I remember being told that I needed to grab a book and go outside down the street and sit by a tree. I refused, and Satan said, "Do you want to die?" I said "No," and grabbed a book and went outside and walked down the street to a tree and sat with my back leaned against it.
I read my book for about 10 minutes when two women carrying their babies in slings approached me, and asked me what I was reading. I told them the name of the book, Inner Engineering by Sadghuru, and they said that they were doing a prayer walk, and wanted to share the gospel message with me. I knew this was a divine appointment. This was meant to happen.
They shared the gospel message with me, and then offered to let me join their community of house churches, and gave me the number of one of their husbands so I could call and get connected with them.
I spent the rest of the day relaxing, but was unable to sleep and barely ate anything, and once the night fell, I was in the basement again, soaking my head in ice water. I would often get relief during the days when the sun was out, and then at night, it was a brutal spiritual battle all night in the basement where I was fighting for my life.
On the second day, I was in the kitchen, and I had the right side of my head in the ice water, and was moving my head up to breathe in through my mouth, and then I would tilt my head back down and exhale my entire breath out through my nose. I didn't know what I was doing, I was just listening to guidance from what I believe was the holy spirit.
After around 15-20 minutes of intense exhaling through my nose, a ton of white viscous liquid started coming out of my nose, and filling the bowl, it wasn't painful at all, it was a massive relief, and the excess fluid in my head was somehow being drained out. When the process was done, I remember I felt amazing, incredible actually, like my head was clear of all confusion, and I was so very much alive and conscious.
I went outside and was swinging a stick like a sword and having fun, and I think I got a little overzealous and jumped the fence behind my house, and started going on an adventure. After around 3-5 minutes though, the fluid started building back up, and I had to soak my head in a puddle to keep my brain cool. When I returned home, I went back to the water to soak my head. I still hadn't slept.
That night was brutal, and I was suffering badly, and I remember I was sitting on the dark side of the basement, but I had turned on the lamp. I was sitting on pillows, and I had just been soaking my head in the water. Satan then told me that in order to save the world, I would have to die by popping my third eye. I don't know why I believed him, I didn't have discernment at the time, and I was just following whatever guidance was coming my way, but I know that I had to do that to find my true strength.
I sat for a moment and contemplated. I grabbed a wooden walking stick that was nearby, and I moved it to my forehead, and pushed it into the center of my head as hard as I could until my arms literally gave out. I thought of my mom and sister, and I wanted the world to be free from suffering, but I wasn't meant to die that day. I cried very hard, and I learned that the human skull is very strong. I got up and went back to the ice water, and my forehead was numb.
Eventually, after three days and nights of this suffering, following the path God laid out before me, I reached my complete breaking point. I declared to the spirits that I had had enough. I was done soaking my head in ice water and I slowly and bravely removed my head from the bowl of water.
I was shivering so badly. These weren't just cold shivers, these were spiritual shivers, they shake you to your very core. I felt awful. Those who have been delivered will know what I am speaking about when I saw spiritual shivers. I spread out pillows on the floor, and lay down to rest. As I settled in, I pulled the blanket over me, and I remember I felt the comforting presence of Jesus, he was tucking me in.
I slept for just a few hours and awoke up early on Saturday morning. I remember my head hurt and it felt like the left side of my head was full of fluid. I grabbed the bowl of ice water, and this time, however, I decided to sit outside. The pain in my head was still excruciating, and I thought I might die.
My mother saw me outside, and concerned about my well-being, approached me to check if I was okay. I told her to call the ambulance because I needed help, and she quickly complied. When the paramedics arrived, they took me to the hospital, where I hoped I would receive the medical care I desperately needed, but that wasn't what was in store for me.
I got to the hospital, and the medical establishment, unfortunately, has no empathy or concern for people's mental sufferings. I asked them for water to drink because I was so dehydrated, and they wouldn't give me water.
Then, I got admitted to the hospital, and they finally gave me some juice and a snack, and I was starting to relax, but then a voice came into my head, it was Satan, and he made me think I needed to soak my head in the icewater again and expel the white viscous fluid again, so I started panicking a bit and had them bring me a bowl of ice water, and I began soaking my head.
They had probably never seen anything like what I was doing, and thought I was just crazy, because they basically came after me and tied me to the bed, and forcefully injected me with something to make me calm down or sleep, and then they didn't talk to me at all anymore throughout the night.
I am claustrophobic, so being tied down was absolute torture for me. They left me in the dark hospital room suffering all night, tied to the bed, thinking I was going to die the entire night, and then finally the sun rose on the horizon, and when the nurse came in to draw my blood in the morning, I asked them to request security to release me from the restraints. They have no empathy for people. Something is deeply wrong with the medical system.
Anyways, they finally sent me to an in-patient mental health clinic which is honestly just a warehouse for people to take meds, sleep, and eat, away from society. It was honestly a welcome respite, but there's no therapy available at these places. Which means no real internal healing is taking place for people suffering.
Once I got to the in-patient mental health clinic, I spent the first day mostly just relaxing, but there was a man there that was definitely possessed by a demon. He would be shouting a bunch of biblical verses about the kingdom of God, and a lot more, and then he would be on the floor the next, flailing around, being tortured by a demon. One of the other patients there told me he is being tortured by something, and I see what she means now.
I spent the rest of my time there recovering the best I could, and just taking the meds to calm down, and try to get some sleep, and spent time listening to people's stories. One of the girls there told me that the wound on my forehead from when I pushed the wooden staff into my forehead, looked like a cross, and she was right.
When I got out of the in-patient mental health clinic, I called the number that I had received during my three days and nights dark night of the soul.
I joined their community of house churches, and was studying the Bible with them for several months and meeting with them frequently, and I thought I had found my forever friends. We would go on prayer walks, and I was eventually baptized at a lake, and thought that I had a new life of faith waiting for me with new friends.
They were concerned about my well-being and cared about me, but a small part of me felt like I was being controlled by them too, like they wanted me to conform to all of their beliefs and everything in the Bible as fact, and the word of God, and I have always been very sensitive to manipulation since I was a child, and I could tell they were manipulating me. They never left room for me to be myself, and share my beliefs without condemnation, which is a major red flag.
Recognizing this, I distanced myself from them, and went on my own spiritual journey where I spent months conversing with the spirit world in my backyard. walking in circles. I spoke to God and Satan/Lucifer and was trying to come to understanding why Satan would reject God's will.
After some time, I realized I was just being tortured, and I needed help. I was suffering from a lot, and I needed deliverance. Satan had taken up a seat in my mind because I let him, and I had demons hurting me. I reached out to the Christian group again after several months of being distant from them, and they said there was an opportunity to move in with some Christian brothers and live with them, so I jumped on the opportunity. I was so excited. I was on fire for God.
I got to the house, and moved my stuff in, and then the night fell on the first night, and the enemy was not having it. The demons and Satan were not having it. They did NOT want me living with my brothers in Christ because they knew I was detached from all the boxes of thought control, and I was living in the spirit, wasn't a slave of mind or spirit. They wanted to destroy our relationship, between us, the brothers of Christ, and they did.
I don't remember the exact sequence of events, but I was entirely in the spirit at the time, I was detached from my body in a way, and just following the path laid out before me. I could feel that I needed to go outside and walk the neighborhood as a part of my spiritual path, so I left the house, and walked barefoot throughout the neighborhood.
While walking the neighborhood, I was in full spirit mode, I was communicating with God and Jesus, and they were guiding me on my path. I saw visions of them sitting beside a tree and trimming off rotten fruit, which I think was symbolic of them removing rotten fruit from my mind. I also saw them sweeping out a room and cleaning it, as if symbolic of my mind, and them cleaning my mind and purifying it. I also remember seeing a symbolic vision of myself holding up a golden gemstone encrusted goblet to God.
During that night, I declared war on the principalities of darkness. Against the forces of darkness. I saw skulls in the clouds, and could tell they were communicating with me as they are spirits of the air.
My feet were bloodied from walking around the neighborhood barefoot, I was completely lost all night, I was new to the neighborhood too, and had no idea where I was, so I wandered for hours throughout the night, so hungry, tired, and thirsty, and just physically and mentally exhausted, but I endured. That night made me realize how strong I really am when I let go of everything and trust in God. When I completely become the spirit instead of the body. The human body is incredible and capable of withstanding far more than we know.
Finally, I found my way to the house, and my footsteps were spilling blood on the front porch. The door was locked, and I knocked, and one of the brothers let me in, and I went to my bedroom. I couldn't sleep at all, my mind was very active, it was very similar to when I had my spiritual awakening, I was just unable to sleep because of how active my mind was. I spent the whole night awake.
The next day, I was suffering horrible spiritual attack, my head was in pain and I was holding my head just to feel comfortable, and one of the brothers called a friend of theirs to come and do a deliverance. I remember them being very bold, but gentle... firm, but kind to me, as they expelled some of the demons through prayer. It wasn't a painful deliverance or too exhausting, it was gentle by comparison. I felt much better after the deliverance, hungry and thirsty again, and wanted to nourish my body. I spent the rest of the day relaxing a bit, and listening to the other believers talk about the Bible, and their beliefs.
That night, I was delivered again, and it was awful. My brothers in Christ shouldn't have done the deliverance, but I don't know if I even would have made the rest of the night it if they didn't. I think the holy spirit guided them to do the deliverance, but it went out of control.
I was in my room, suffering deeply, holding my head, and all three brothers who lived there came up to my room to check on me, and pray for me. Their prayers turned into a full blown deliverance, and demons were screaming out of me for around half an hour straight. They were casting them out in the name of Jesus, but it was awful, it's one of my most traumatic memories. I was suffering so badly, and honestly I could tell the demons were suffering so badly, and my brothers in Christ had zero empathy for me.
After speaking with demons, the brothers wanted to speak with me again, so I came to, I asked them for water, and they denied me, and they just continued the deliverance without giving me a break. I had been suffering for around 45 minutes straight, with demons screaming out of me, and I was beyond exhausted, I was so dehydrated, and I just needed to stop. They didn't care, they kept going.
They kept shouting at these demons in the name of Jesus to leave, and eventually after another ten minutes, I realized, nothing was happening, we weren't getting anywhere, the demons weren't coming out, and they asked to speak with me again, and I came to the forefront and regained control, and tried talking to them, but they were gone. The demons had got into them somehow, and they were filled with hatred and revulsion for me. They all had the same facial expression of hatred and revulsion for me.
I went around the room and pleaded with them that it was me, but they didn't believe me, they were gone, checked out, I tried bringing up memories of what had happened between us that were specific to each person to bring them to understanding that it was me, and in fact not a demon speaking, but they thought I was a demon speaking.
They all grabbed ahold of me, and pinned me down on the bed, but I knew where this was going, the demons in them were going to flood me with fear and fill me with demons again, and I wasn't going to have that, I wasn't going to let them win.
I flailed out of their grasp, told them to get off me, and ran down the stairs and out of the house. I remember as I was running out, Satan told me, "You are the most free person on the planet."
I ran outside, and even the weight of my clothes felt like too much, I was panicking from the trauma of the deliverance and the attack from my brothers, and I stripped off all my clothes and ran down the alley way in the middle of the night and got away from the house.
There were no light, and no one around, and no one followed me, so I just ran down the alley way, and found an abandoned car to sit on for a few minutes until I got a message from God that it was time to go grab my clothes and put my clothes on.
I put my clothes back on, and started walking away from the house because I needed to get some air. That is when one of the other brother's in Christ, the one that I had called initially to join their community of house churches, was there. I think he was guided by the holy spirit to show up there that night.
Anyways, we walked back to the house, and when we got there, there was a cop car and an ambulance there. I guess the brothers had called for a wellness check on me. They wanted to bring me to the hospital to have me evaluated. I protested, but just wanted them to leave me alone, I went with them, and went to the hospital.
Much to no one's surprise, they did nothing for me at the hospital. They just put me in a room where I waited around for 6-8 hours, until I was finally released. I didn't go back to the brother's house though. When they offered me an uber, I went back to my mom's house. I wasn't going to live with them anymore after what they did to me...
A couple weeks passed and two of the brothers who did the deliverance called me, and wanted to schedule a time to meet up so they could minister to me. They came over to my house, and basically told me that I was still demon possessed, and made me feel like there was something wrong with me, and then when I confronted them and asked them if they had a problem with me, they lied to my face, and said that they didn't have a problem with me.
About a month passed and the last brother that was a part of deliverance contacted me and invited me to go to church with him. I told him how that experience made me feel, how I was claustrophobic from childhood trauma and that being pinned down by everyone was horribly traumatic, and he said, "Do you feel better now?" in a sarcastic tone. He completely dismissed how I felt, that hurt me badly.
I went to church with him once, but never went with him again, I also never reconnected with any of the other brothers, and then my life started to become very spiritual. God had a path of understanding laid out before me that most people will not tread.
I began to try to become friends with demons and minister to them and try to turn them to Christ. I had a lot of visions during this time, and I cried a lot. I would walk around my neighborhood and see visions of demons sitting on top of the apartment buildings.
When I would go home, I would have visions of demons in my basement, and would have to drive them out in the name of Jesus. I would speak to them too, and wait and listen for them to telepathically communicate with me.
I remember I was suffering badly though, and I needed to go to in-patient mental health again for help. I needed the meds and a place where I could rest and relax.
During my time there, I was communicating with a spirit named Jezebel, and during that time I was suffering very badly. I won't get into all of the details, but I was becoming friends with her, and we shared a deep laugh about something that I cannot remember anymore, but I remember the laugh. It felt so good to laugh after suffering so badly.
During my time while I was there I was seeing visions of my own death. I was seeing people suffering from demonic attack and spirits of confusion. They couldn't remember who they were, or who other people were.
I prayed for a woman to be delivered that night in her sleep, and the next day she was bright and fresh and happy, and doing so much better. God performed a miracle on her, and saved her. She was a normal person again after entering the hospital in a complete state of confusion. It was miraculous. I was honestly jealous, because I was suffering so badly, and she was delivered overnight in her sleep in a relaxed way, while my time had been so intense.
While I was there though, I was under heavy attack, but I pulled through, God pulled me through too, but when I got home, the journey wasn't over though. I was in a spiritual state for a while, and was seeing visions. I could rest in my third eye, and see the spirit world. It was exhausting, I saw a lot of demons, and had to drive them out in the name of Jesus.
Then one night, I was downstairs, and I was with Satan, Lilith, and a spirit calling itself Baal. I remember Baal was sitting in the middle in front of the fireplace, and Satan was to my left, and Lilith was to my right.
I don't remember what we spoke about, I just spent time with them, and I drank a beer with them, the air was heavy with demonic energy, and then I remember Lilith went over to Satan and kneeled before him, and grabbed him by the hand tenderly and asked him to turn away from his evil ways.
Satan neither accepted nor refused, and then I remember maybe 5 minutes passed and I was doing a full-blown deliverance on Lilith. I was praying for her, and I could see visions of her on the ground flailing around, it was awful, and I hope she is okay.
I don't know how long after that passed, but I was delivered many times during this phase. I was around demons a lot and they would get into me, and I would have to expel them out through vomiting, and it was excruciating.
Several months passed after that where I was okay, I spent months just relaxing and recovering, playing video games, smoking weed, and just relaxing. It was nice, but it wasn't the end of my journey.
My next journey was against Thoth. While he was a great help at the beginning of my spiritual awakening, he is not a perfect being like God, and he tried to overtake me. It's really hard to explain what he did, but he was viciously attacking me spiritually, and I sought help to go to the in-patient mental health clinic again. That was where I went when things got too spiritually charged. I had Medicaid, so I was able to go as needed.
They didn't send me to in-patient this time though, they sent me to a crisis pivot center, which is basically a residential house that is being used to treat people suffering from mental illness, where you can receive meds and sleep in a sort of half-way house between in-patient mental health and being back in the world at home.
Anyways, I was suffering grotesquely from Thoth, he is a VERY powerful entity, perhaps one of the strongest I have faced, and has been more cruel to me than even Satan, and I remember having a conversation with one of the people working there about how I had asked a false God at the beginning of my spiritual awakening for help to fix my life, and how that had caused a bunch of problems.
Eventually, I realized I was not receiving the care that I needed while at the crisis center, so I had them transfer me to hospital. All I wanted to do was sleep. I had been awake for days, and I just wanted sleep, so I was looking for Ambien when I went to the hospital, and that's what I got.
I remember they had admitted me to the emergency, but it was so full that every room was full, so they had me in the hallway, and I was just exhausted, and in a very tired state, but my third eye was opened, and I could sense spirits around me, and Satan, Lilith, and Jezebel were there for me that night.
They were hovering over my bed, and speaking to me telepathically, and asking me if I was okay, they were genuinely concerned for me, and wanted to know if I was okay. It was kind of shocking to be honest. These entities are not known for being nice in any way, but they were there for me that night, and God let them be there for me that night, instead of Jesus or someone else, which i find interesting.
This moment and seeing Lilith kneel before Satan made me realize that entities that we think are pure evil, are more dynamic than just evil. They may have evil in them, or have the ability to evil actions, but they can also be good and support others, like they did with me when I was in such an exhausted and vulnerable state after being delivered from Thoth.
I made it back home, and some time passed and I was in a very spiritual moment. My third eye was very awakened. It seems to happen in cycles. That night was a blizzard, and the air was heavy with demonic energy. This time it was the demiurge.
I remember I had dozens if not hundreds of demons in my room, and they were swirling above my bed, and I kept trying to lay down because I was so exhausted, and I kept being told to not lay down because I would squish a spirit, so I chose to not lay down.
I was whistling the avatar theme for the spirits to uplift them and make them feel better, and during this time I was being possessed by spirits. The room was heavy with spiritual energy.
So much happened that I don't want to get into, but it all lead to me being outside in the blizzard, in the snow storm, naked, and laying down in the snow. I had to be very cold for some reason while interacting with these demons, to keep them from overtaking me, and I remember I had to leave my house behind entirely.
My mom came outside before I left the house and I could feel demonic energy, evil spirits, all around her. There was a presence of wrath around her, and she was angry with me, because I had flooded the bathroom of the house while trying to get cold in the shower.
I left the house, there was a foot of snow on the ground, and I was naked and wandering down the street. I would check in with what I thought was God every once in a while to figure out what was happening with the demons in my bedroom.
For some reason when I would have a thought it would affect them in my room. That's really complicated to get into, and I don't understand it, but regardless, I wandered down the street and around the corner, and that is when the police got me.
They handcuffed me, and put me in the back of the police cruiser, and I remember telling God that the Matrix has me. The police called an ambulance, and they came to get me, I remember they transferred me to the ambulance, and they covered me with blankets, but I didn't want to be warm, I didn't have any control over this situation.
My body started to shut down, and I was struggling to even breathe, and that's when the demiurge appeared. They started speaking to me, and controlling my body to keep me breathing, and that's when I submitted to them, thinking that I was on my own, and God had abandoned me. I told them to fill me with demons, and that I would become a demon lord.
As I would breathe, I could feel demons entering me, spirits. When I got to the hospital, I was possessed by a lot of spirits, and my body was in agony. It's very hard to explain what it feels like, but just imagine discordant energy in your body that makes you feel awful, and physically hurts.
I struggled the entire night, and was in absolute agony. After 6-8 hours I was recovered and feeling better, they had admitted me to the hospital at this time, so I was able to rest in a room and eat plenty of food and recover.
My experience with the demiurge was really traumatic though, but that wasn't the end of my experiences with him.
... to be continued...

I 22F have been living with my parents up to recently. For some background, I lived with them because I have disorders and a disability so they wanted me closer. Anyway, I started dating a guy from another state. I moved there and ended up wanting to come home, so in the end he moved in with me. My parents were fine with him it seemed, as time passed they started not to like him. He got kicked out, there were arguments and I broke up with him due to the drama. We ended up getting back together secretly because my parents would freak out, they found out and went off on me. I got kicked out into the cabin on the property. I explained that I knew they would be mad because they don’t like him and it was a whole thing. My boyfriend and I were called names, lots of rude things were said to me. Fast forward to now, I told my mom I’m going for a week to hangout with my friend, I’ve been friends with for 11-12 years. I really was gonna be with my boyfriend for that week, my friend was picking me up. Now I know it was wrong, but she freaks out when she knows I’m with him. She almost instantly texts me and starts to blow up my phone. For the duration of the stay so far she’s blown up my phone, kicked me out, told me I’m a disappointment, said terrible things to me, told me she’s rehoming my dog, and blocked me on messages/facebook. When she was going off on me she told several people what’s happening or more like her side only like usual. Those people started texting and blowing up my phone. I didn’t feel like that happening more so I unfriended a lot of people and blocked one that was blowing up my phone. I know I shouldn’t have lied but I think she went too far. Now I’m moving back in with my boyfriend. I have a time to get my stuff before they get rid of it, which I’m going to do. I see I was wrong, I just don’t think I was wrong to where that’s a valid thing to do. Everyone I told is shocked, I mean I get it too. I would never do that to anyone especially if I had kids.

I'm (18m) in a relationship with (18y) a beautiful girl since 5 months First of all let me clear everything 1. Before relationship she told me to tell my mom that we're coming into relationship so that in future there shouldn't be any problem, so I talked to my mom, first she disagreed but we came into relationship and after few time my mom talked to my gf and at that time my gf literally cried continuously bcs she was so happy after talking to my mom (now my whole family knows about her but no one from her family cuz currently she can't talk about it in her family)

1. She's a college crush of many boys so as a boyfriend I'm insecured, it's not like I don't trust her but she's in a different batch than mine and she have totally different group where there are boys and few girls, few of those boys likes her too (she knows that, but she's very friendly with them and it's okay I think) but she promised me if they'll propose her then she'll break friendship with that guy.

(She told me that she never had a relationship or dated someone except me)

1. She seriously told me not to talk about our relationship with anyone but I was literally so dumb that I revealed it to my few trustworthy friends, but main thing is that I never talked about this with any of her group friends clearly that I'm in relationship with her but someone told her that I revealed her (tbh I revealed it to my friends not her but once a mistake always a mistake I admit it), since then it's been almost 3 months we're not talking like how we used to be..

She used to call me everyday, asks for my time, gets upset if I reply lately (those were cute moments), now even if I say so she doesn't call me, we talk on call rarely, as our relationship is secret we can't meet in college even as just frnds too (otherwise everyone will doubt on us), i apologised her many times
From starting she told me she doesn't trust anyone but still she came into relationship with me and promised me to marry once we get older at the right time
Even after that revealing mistake I asked her if she still feels the same and wants to spend rest of the time with me and she agreed it ❤️
But she don't talk like how it used to be, the replies are dry, sometimes leaves my sent rom reels on seen, and for few days she behaves a bit good
It's like rollercoaster now, I told her that her this behaviour hurts me but she honestly said it's not me who's hurting you....it's yourself (yupp she's right as it was my mistake and I expect from her even after these things)
One thing is for sure SHE'S NEVER GONNA BREAKUP CUZ EVEN AFTER THIS SHE DIDN'T EVEN UTTER A WORD ABOUT BREAKUP it's just that I was blocked for 3 weeks on WhatsApp (and snapchat too) currently only blocked on snapchat (it doesn't matter much) so I talk on WhatsApp
I shared my family problems with her and she showed some care for me at that day but from next day it wasn't like that good part, it's like sometimes she replies nicely sometimes don't
I asked for a chance and said things like trust is build after giving time to each other is you won't give me time then how would you be able to trust me?
She lives to the next city (~23kms but I can visit her by my bike of she agrees) (but whenever I ask her to go out she says she don't want to, I tried to convince her but doesn't works....
I apologised and told her that I realised my mistake etc etc... she's still very upset in me (again she still wants to marry me and be with me despite the situations it's just that she doesn't talk like how we were used to )
I stopped texting her for few days and she got upset again (she was ignoring me that's why I stopped texting) she said that you promised to text me everyday still you didn't (it's like even if she don't wanna chat, she wants me to text her daily)
Question:- how can I gain ger trust? We can't spend quality time together it's hard for her to go out with me (she don't want to...), then does only chats help? What should I keep in my mind while texting her? Is there anyway to gain it on text ? How can I convince her to go out ? How much more time it'll take? Should I apologise her again and tell her to trust me again n again ?
I'm genuinely asking for the natural advice cuz I'm having hard time (ik it's age of living life and career but now I don't want step back neither she wants to step back it's that it's not how it was used to be and it's not as it was)

I am frustrated, hurt and struggling and I just want some quality advice to come out of this post.
My guy friend has pushed me away twice, due to trust issues and not wanting a relationship after we had a thing for a few weeks. The part that has me feeling hurt is this: I never pushed him. I never double texted, I never asked him on a date, I never flirted with him after he said he wanted to stay friends. I sent him two messages in three months after he pushed me away.
I don’t understand why I got pushed away. I really don’t. I’m worried it may have been one of those “vibes” a person gives off situation, but I keep going back over it-and I didn’t.
How can I move on? I cared about him so much and it hurts so bad
TL;DR guy friend pushed me away for a stupid reason

So my mum treats me like crap, never celebrates my life, not interested in being positive towards me etc yet for my milestone bday she claims to want to spoil me.
She’s trying to force a birthday dinner and gives me the option of a few dates that suit my brother (the golden child) to have a family dinner. She acts like a total different person around them and at this point I’m really not interested in playing happy families as my mum can’t even treat me decent alone in her presence so I tell her I’m not interested in the fuss.
She didn’t let it go so I gave her and dad the option to come see me on my actual birthday for morning tea/dinner and they say they aren’t doing that even though they have no plans but I can drive that same distance to my brothers where we can all meet. The whole point was I wanted to know she genuinely wanted to celebrate me on that day and it’s not for show. The fact she’s unwilling to make the effort feels like it proves my point.
Now she’s trying to turn it on me saying I’m being difficult and excluding and anti -family
I feel like I should stand my ground on this but I’m looking for other opinions. My dad is controlled and he’s not willing to fight her so I don’t expect that.

My ex and I have been broken up for a month and a half now. I can say I’m wildly better. It made me realize how much I was putting aside and giving up of myself for them.
The one thing that gets me though, is that we both have cats that were SO intertwined. I’ve been living at my new place for almost three weeks and I see my cat staring at the door. It feels like she’s just waiting for her best friend to be reunited with her.
At times I just want to message my ex asking how their cat is doing. If he’s happy, if he stares at the door like my cat does. I love that cat so much and it just breaks my heart that my cat just got her best friend almost torn away from her and she’s bored in this new place all alone.

I, an early Gen Z (I'm 27) have a question about where mental health lands for you guys these days.
I do martial arts and recently, a newer teenager (16) has joined the adult class. I decided to work with this person during their first class because they seemed very shy. I have a very bright, cheery, and welcoming personality, and a lot of people often find it easy to talk to me. During the class, I helped them and we made small talk- we hit it off and got along really well. However, during small talk, they mentioned that they had recently come back from being out of school for several months due to bullying and other mental health issues. While I've never experienced anything that badly, I'm no stranger to struggling with mental health.
I am happy that I have a good rapport with this person right off the bat and I want them to know that they are welcome and have space within our martial arts community, and that I am a soft place to land. I'm happy to share my story with anyone who wants to know, but I'm also wary of disclosing details to minors. I have worked in and around schools, summer camps, etc. a lot and the mindset of "disclose nothing, protect yourself" is engrained in me. But at the same time, I'm not in charge, I have no authority over this person other than my age and life experience. And what's more, there's so much talk about breaking the stigma around mental health, and I imagine you all see it all over social media. So it's not like the mental health struggle is a secret like it once was.
When I was coming up through school, mental health was becoming increasingly more and more discussed, but I found it really took off after I graduated. So I know how to talk about it within my circles of adult friends, but it's rare that I'm friendly with someone so much younger than me.
I'm coming at this with the purest of intentions. I would never EVER take advantage of someone's mental state having gone through it myself. But I also do forget what it's like to be a teenager a little bit now, so I'm looking forward to getting your perspectives. I'm certainly not going out of my way for these conversations, but I want to be prepared if they come up again.

TLDR: I feel like I’m being treated cruelly by my boyfriends parents but he dismisses it as them just looking out for him. Looking for advice on how to broach the subject with him
My boyfriend (23M) still lives with his parents (40s-50s?) for context, I (24F) live in his city for university away from my family.
When I got into a relationship with my boyfriend in October I was introduced to his parents by the end of the month. We used to spend at least every other day there and I felt close to his parents. When my mum had cancer his family supported me, one of the last times I saw his mum she was talking about getting him a more comfortable mattress so that I could sleep over.
My boyfriend has been mentally ill since before I started dating him. I encouraged him to speak to his parents about it so that he would have a bigger support network and my impression of his parents made me think this would be a big help in his recovery. However, because he made them aware of his mental health issues when he was going out with me, and the easiest issues for him to talk about were insecurities about me (that were irrational, things like me not loving him when I am extremely physically and verbally affectionate), they immediately started blaming me for the decline in his mental health and I was iced out pretty quickly and am no longer welcome in their house. This was a really stark difference from our previous closeness, I had been present at all family nights, invited for dinner, invited for birthdays, etc. so at first I chalked it up to being an easy scapegoat and that this would pass as they came to terms with their sons mental health issues. I believed that part of this would be denial as a huge part of his mental health problems that existed long before me is his lack of fulfilment about where he is in life (regrets about career, education, lack of independence, feeling lost) which they contributed to.
Now it has been months, they are vocal and controlling about wanting him to break up with me, his mum makes a fuss when he comes to mine, etc. I feel like they have villanised me to the point they no longer see me as a human being with feelings. My boyfriend tells me that they don’t hold any hatred towards me, only that they see me as “damaging”.
My boyfriend has done his fair share of damaging things to me and my mum still treats him with compassion and empathy. He tore his tendon punching a hole in my shower and my mum had him over at ours the next night, as I had went home that day after immediately forgiving him and going to the hospital with him. He spoke to his ex for a week in secret, which he knew was a boundary for me as I had previously asked him to block her multiple times, confiding in her about me, and I only found out because he came to me for sympathy about the possibility that she may have cheated on him, I saw holes in his story and he didn’t realise iMessages could be recovered. He is still welcome in my home and our relationship is supported by my mum. This is because we see him for who he is, not his mental health issues that are making him act up.
However, I have never even received so much as a “hi” from them when he visits me. I have never been treated with such little compassion by people I thought I was close to. Despite how long me and my boyfriend have been together, I am really serious about him and see him as long-term. I am ready to be with the man I am going to marry and would not waste my time on someone who I thought wasn’t him, I see these people as my future in-laws which makes this hurt even more. They have never given any thought as to how I might have felt watching my partners mental health plummet, when my shared rental shower was destroyed, when I had to postpone my exams following the mental breakdown that ensued when I found out about the week long secret conversation with his ex that reeked of cheating 2 days before my first, when I was isolated by the people I thought were my family away from home. I feel demonised and dehumanised.
To blame me for all of this has been awful, for both me and my boyfriend. The cognitive dissonance it has caused has affected both of our mental health problems greatly, and the “volatility” his mother accuses me of sounds like a much bigger trait in her than in myself from what my boyfriend has told me. Her treatment of him growing up is what has caused him to be such an awful communicator. Their home environment is highly unhealthy, it is a high emotional effective environment, characterised by hostility, critical comments, and emotional over-involvement which predicts depressive episodes and relapse.
We have discussed moving out together as we agree that the push and pull is going to destroy our relationship, which they are highly against and are actively trying to talk him out of it. He would be moving 5 minutes away and this would have no financial implications on me if we were to break up and is for a year maximum so it seems very low risk. It will also tell us whether I can move with him to university next year so will determine the next 4 years of our lives. He was very excited about this at first, but when he spoke to them, he changed his mind and couldn’t give me a straight answer until he got them on side. He is now saying that he will do it regardless but I am apprehensive now as I cannot see a future with someone whose family views and treats me like this, and with him allowing it. They have offered alternatives such as him moving to the city he will go to university in early, but have never mentioned anything resembling making amends with me.
My boyfriend dismisses all of this as “they are just worried for my (his) mental health”, but I am deeply hurt by this treatment. I don’t even know if I’m in the right for feeling like this so I have absolutely no idea how to broach this topic with him. I am looking for advice in doing so. How do I talk to him about this?