Hello everyone, so this is my first post here or anywhere regarding Witch subjects... I tried to not make this a book but please understand this has been building so if you find the time to help me i would greatly appreciate your time and insight/expertise in to this matter.. that being said... I do not know what I am or if I would "belong" within this community... but I know that I have to be something considering certain things I have and or have experienced... "coincidences" can only happen for so long. also please understand i am NOT intending on upsetting or trying to offend anyone here so please treat me as someone who has not only not much idea of what he is talking about in most of this stuff but also im not sure aside from obvious larger topics im not sure how not to offend anyone so please bear this in mind... so lets give you the run down
a little bit of context... my dad also informed me that he could do the same with weather as below when he was young before his "pineal gland calcified" but his level of control was "tomorrow it is going to rain (or snow) so bad that we cant go to school tomorrow" or we cant go to work what have you and literally the next day it was so bad the next day school or work in the military whatever was cancelled sometimes until the weekend...he also had/has some other small abilities but the way he described it to me when i told him about the dream below is i guess his mom was "full blood" but suppressed it all her life then when she got with my grandpa dad would have been considered "half blood" and for me all things considered he said i would be a "quarter blood" which in this space would help me understand why i can do similar things but i have better talents in dreams and less strength in weather and so on...and on my moms side they are more spirit sensitive so i cant really communicate generally but i get strong feelings of energy around me at times or in a home you know and also in dreams which im definitely stronger with i have 100% had some... "nightmares" but as you will read below dreams are important to me because generally when i pray or ask for a sign or what have you i trust a dream the most because thats what i feel aside from a lucid dream that i cant control so getting an answer or sign from a dream is a bit more compelling than the "i have just enough money for this its meant to be" or that random act of someone or something in waking life...
I am in my early 20's and so far in life I exhibit the following:
Mild control over the weather with a simple statement, (since around maybe my teens or a little younger I could simply say " its going to rain later" or tomorrow or what have you or i would say "i hope it rains later" or tomorrow and i have gotten microbursts and sometimes even really bad storms there have even been times i got a little bit of rain and said "come on thats not all you got show me more show me lightning and thunder and more rain" and within half an hour or less sometimes a few seconds it would all pick back up again much stronger) (even my wife would get upset and say "make it stop!" because i proved this ability to her much like my dad did his buddies so she would tell me to stop the rain and all that xD)
Since i was very young almost as long as i can remember i have premonition dreams at random and this had led me to at MANY points in my life of say Deja Vu they have been accurate down to the minute detail ( i couldnt remember the dream before it happened only as that moment in the dream started or up to 1-3 minutes before that part of the dream started in real life... also when i have a "deja vu" moment as that happens the dream is recalled from memory and with almost perfect accuracy when the dream is finally recalled i can almost pinpoint exactly when i had the dream weather i dreamed it 5 months ago or 8 years ago)
i seem to be able to as i get close to someone read their mind (its not perfect and its not guaranteed... but for example when me and my wife slept in the same bed we got to the point where she knew that i finished alot of her sentences and not just in the cute way i mean before or as she thought them without speaking, when she would say something in her mind but not out loud and so on so she would play a game with me it was called "what color am i thinking of" so i thought about it and i would get an image in my mind that was filled in with a color and i would answer and i was right... after about 2-5 minutes of being right and answering very quickly she is competitive so she made it harder and said "what color and shape am i thinking of" i would tell her and continued on with as i gave the answer i would give the next and the next without her having to ask for them it evolved into me telling her what color and shape and why she was thinking about it or even when she tried to cheat and randomly thought of say a purple elephant or a pink dragon i got the shape and color and answered correctly what creature and color she was thinking of and she seemed to get creeped out but this happened most of the time at night as everything was quiet and we were laying in bed talking and hanging out before sleep with all the lights off) (she isnt very spiritual very much a grounded in reality yes believes in god but gods got bigger fish to fry then helping me mindset but this is also why it really creeped her out at times considering my accuracy and speed of my "guessing" and was always right)
i think that i very recently... and for the first time in my life... accidentally dreamwalked... long story short im not with my wife at the moment alot of bad stuff and bad timing stuff happened in my life and we werent great financially so we lost the house and are living separately with our parents and all of sudden after getting married recently she 180'd me and now wants divorce... so im going through that and we are going through no-contact at the moment i dont really message her but if she messages me then i wait awhile and reply... but... its been a few months since this started and all the tarot i see on tiktok say the same things and right now if tarot is generally trusted... it seems she is now at the point of recognizing what she did and i should be expecting contact soon for reconciliation... (i just wanted to put this here because i didnt want everyone only saying oh you dreamt of her because you miss her) but anyways... for a month or 2 i successfully pushed her energy away and was actually doing alot better.. yeah i miss her but im my own person and i have learned alot through this... but recently... as i started to stop believing in tarot because she wasnt reaching out or doing anything... i all of a sudden had a dream i dont remember what happened and in the dream it was super blurry but it was very emotional... and as i had that when i woke up all of a sudden she was the only thing on my mind all the work i did getting over things was gone... and i still cant get her off my mind a week ish later... and then after that dream i started having more dreams of her being with her and remembering older dreams i forgot about in these few months before this most recent dream with all the emotion... and the only way i can interpret this is she is letting the walls down... and subconsciously re-opened her mind to me.. and now im feeling the emotions at times of her.... for example the other day i was at work at my new job perfectly calm no stress actually having a good day but OUT OF NOWHERE i got this MASSIVE amount of panic shooting through my body so bad that i really wanted to vomit.... and thats not my response to panic and i had no reason to panic... again i think im reacting to her emotions or her containers in her mind of emotions...
but here is the thing for dream walking... and this will probably be the last thing for now... this is what i wrote in my notes app (names redacted and edited for here) after i woke up...
I’m in a mall a very large mall… and I just purchased a dog from one of the stores a larger dog I can’t tell if it was a type of rottie? (my wifes old family dog that meant alot to both of them) But she was super sweet and well trained super responsive she could follow me with a snap like my dog (each time the dog veered away i snapped my fingers and she came right back walking at my side) and as she is following me I did notice there were multiple dogs in this mall type place with other people…(this was weird and the mall i felt like i recognized it but the layout didnt seem like any mall i had been too and i knew it was a huge mall) the dream fast forwarded and now im in a back mall sort of cylinder block stairwell with my new dog and a dog came up to me and I was thinking “oh hey look a dog I can pet” but when I went to pet him I saw on his vest “oh for PETES sake” I asked him if Pete was his name and before he could react I realized there was no person with him and that this was a service dog looking for someone to help his owner I then asked “does your person need help? Let’s go buddy” and he took off checking multiple times if I was following he then led me to the bathrooms area where 2 other people where shouting into a hole in the ground presumably trying to help this dog and the person was on the other side of where this vent attached too I looked around and noticed there was a stair case down to the men and women’s restrooms but the hole itself that the 2 other people were at was a type of floor vent to the maintenance room in between the restrooms so I went to the men’s restroom and asked the cleaning guys if it was possible anyone collapsed in the maintenance room they kind of laughed and ignored me and I didn’t know what to do since there were multiple people in the men’s restroom and no one was calling for help I left the bathroom thinking I couldn’t go into the women’s room because im a guy and the dream then fast forwarded to me being in the women’s room and seeing multiple people but no one needing help I left and the dream fast forwarded again and i guess i really had to pee in real life so I was searching in the dream for the bathroom and I saw myself go into the men’s room but it turned out to be the women’s room again… still multiple women in the restroom paying me no mind some looked at me and focused on me but didnt say or do anything just continued walking and talking to other women but I had to leave to go find the men’s room and as I did I kept getting lost in the vastness of this women’s restroom and couldn’t find the door (keep in mind at this point in the dream it was like the 3rd time i was in here and found the doorway out each and every time pretty easily except this last time) when I finally found the door I opened it and multiple women were coming in and leaving at the same time and I said out loud “ why does the women’s room have to be such a fucking maze” and as I said that the women in front of me had finished leaving but I was now stuck in place (like i wasnt allowed to leave the bathroom) the sight before me was kind of off or...blurry? ( it was like a 2 step up to all the sinks and mirrors like a little stage thing with a door leading outside to the right of the sinks and the door back to the mall just to my immediate right) and it was still the bathroom but as it came into focus a previous memory of (my wife) was to the left a memory where she is bent down hands on knees (yes fully clothed) (in previous dreams it has felt like whenever her body is in that position whichever way she is facing it’s like an arrow) and it was facing right so I started to look right and I saw (my wife)… the real (wife)… to the right of her was a door seemingly to the outside I didn’t look out of it much but I think I saw the silhouette of her mom maybe kind of holding the door open to the outside of the mall and the parking lot near by but the light outside was brighter than usual really green grass blue partly cloudy sky nice trees i think in the backround and some cars parked near the door... as soon as I saw (wife) she was beautiful the world around me slowed those walking in and out or around the bathroom slowed down to a stop in place as did time itself… she was in darker blue jeans like my dark blue Levi’s I don’t remember her shoes maybe adidas? White and black ones? She was wearing a very nice… very nice on her grey sweater long sleeve her hair was (same color as now and style) as i saw her i just couldnt stop looking as she was so pretty and to see her again seemingly in person i was happy... as time stood still around me she saw me too and those eyes looked into my soul (as usual…the slow and stop of time didnt effect her or me) a look came over her face at first i felt fear because I’m in the women’s room and maybe she thinking’s I followed her whatever (same deal as "oh no im graduating today and i forgot all my clothes!") but the feeling I got from her face was almost like… her face as content/happy and the feeling felt like “I miss you“ maybe? "I love you I’m happy you are here” and it felt like surprise almost as if she was surprised to see me maybe in her dream? in my body in the dream i felt MASSIVE panic and fear which started as she looked at me and as she looked at me her face kinda said like "WTH?!" maybe? I don’t know for sure but when i tried to read the air... the overall dead space thats where i felt the calm and the possible i miss you energy and want to work on things but it could be my own hope im not sure... but it seemed mutual...but I know that as I saw her I got to see what I felt every time she looked at me lovingly in real life... maybe i felt both of our emotions as we each looked at each other but each time it was like time stood still… the day was brighter… if there is one thing for sure the way she looked at me in the dream didnt seem like hatred or divorce it honestly seemed like confusion or "HOW ARE YOU HERE..."but i dont think we weren’t talking about divorce anymore and we’re rekindling or reconciling or we already had done all of that because in the dream I just felt love even on the other side of the room I felt her embrace and her love… I dreamt of her twice in a 1 and a 1/2 hour nap and to me this was a really long dream that was already shared with another i didnt remember in a single hour and a half this is a kind of dream i would have in like a 4-8 hour sleep minimum not an hour to an hour and a half...
and i dont like naps i never take them but as i have grown and learned it seems like every time i take a nap because im almost forced too something big spiritually happens to me like this... in the dream it just seemed like... the panic to me read as like... lets say you have a fear of mannequins but you go into a clothing store and you LEGIT see one move and you point and say "...thats...NOT a mannequin" you know that sort of fear of realization? when we saw each other in the dream it felt VERY mutual that we saw each other and just KNEW "...thats NOT... a dream character..." almost like a "how the HELL are you here!?" i dont know if i dream walked into a dream because she turned out to be dreaming at the same time in a nap (5/12/2024 when this happened) maybe thats when her mind opened more to me because i dreamwalked into her subconscious as she was awake? i dont know i really need help with this....and when i explained it to my dad... he thinks... weather it was a dream or her subconscious or maybe both he thinks that the mall represents her mind her... mind palace... and the mall is big and vast but with her poor....experiences in life childhood and all that he thinks the stores in the mall represent "containers" for chunks of her life or bad memories and or good ones... and that as i was in the cinderblock staircase that was me kind of being led by my spirit guide further in to "the maze" closer to "the center" to (wife) and the service dog named pete was HER spirit guide leading me to her quicker... and each time the dream started to take over for me i was guided by the "fast forwards" like "no dont go you still have to see this dont miss this" which is why i couldnt leave the bathroom until i woke up after seeing her sometime later... and my dad also thinks the people i saw in the mall with other dogs and in the bathrooms and all that werent just dream character but passing thoughts in her conscious or unconscious mind as i was observing if im dreaming that would make the most sense to me... and the fact that some of them looked at me and observed me but werent mean or horrible or whatever to me means that she is talking about me but maybe not as badly as i may think... because hopefully the reconciliation coming up soon... i dont know... and one of the reasons i dont think this was a basic dream.... is because when she saw me or when others saw me it wasnt a normal dream giving me what i would expect...i expected hatred or hurt from her i expected screaming and anger from the women seeing a man in their restroom and all that stuff but all in all it was like i was muted and blended in to everyone except... (wife)... the owner of the dream or mind or sub-conscious i was in...
again i know this is long but if anyone could help me understand what i am if anything and maybe if anyone could help me gain more control on this possible dreamwalking ability i may have just manifested naturally because i have no idea what im doing i was raised in a very openminded christian household and i dont even know how to google any of this without finding fan wikis for witch tv shows... i want to learn and strengthen this skill because... if im being honest... maybe if i could understand more about what the true cause of her hurt is (everything she is doing to me now falls in to her patterns of attachment including the hiding away and acting like its not her attachment that is making her decisions for her even though she has agreed in the past that everything she is doing now is part of her attachment issues) if i could understand the root cause in her mind and she wont listen to outside people or me in waking life maybe i could from a distance do this again and help her heal... and if i can help her heal inception style it will make it easier for her to heal in waking life and come to me with the honesty it seems and feels like she wants to give but doesnt know how...im not in to changing her or rooting around her mind un-invited... i just want to try to help her and help us continue to have a happy life together... so if anyone could help me understand what all this is...and how to improve... i would be very grateful for your insight/expertise... thankyou everyone so much for your time and for reading my experiences.

So I graduated in 2023 from a majority white area in upper-middle-class suburbia GA. Everyone around here acts super high class and is tight strung and rich and stuck up. I’m mixed and adopted so I know that I’m spoiled and that I have way more than I deserve. I graduated with honors from high school and began attending a little women’s college on a half academic, half athletic scholarship. I studied nursing and psychology (a double major)
First semester starts and I’m doing great. Around midterms is when everything went downhill. Because it was the beginning of basketball season, I was struggling to juggle both school and grades, and I was out partying a lot more than I should’ve been (though granted, i’m in COLLEGE, but i was kinda sheltered at home and took advantage of the freedom). I ended up tanking most of my midterms and not being able to play basketball for the rest of the semester. I failed 2 classes and was put on ‘academic probation’ by the school. It doesn’t go on your record or anything, it’s just so the school can kick you out before you mess up their stats. Second semester goes by in a flash and I’m doing decently, but I end up having to drop a class and take another online. My grandpa died unexpectedly right before midterms and I tanked my only 2. I go into a depression deeper than I have in a minute and fail both my classes.
The school year ended and now i’m home, and the other day I got an email explaining my probationary period has ended and because I failed to keep my GPA above a 3.0 I’ve lost my scholarship and have been put on academic suspension. I appealed to it by sending an email and explaining my situation and failure to pass my classes, but i won’t get an answer back til the end of the month.
I hated that school anyways and want to go to a technical school to be an EMT, but i did enjoy my time there and will miss my friends.
my family can pay for me to go to a technical or community college so i can get my prerequisite classes done, but my sister is graduating in may and is attending my college in the fall. my mom thinks we’ll be going there together.
i don’t know how to tell them how ive failed. i wish i could go back and tell myself, “hey. just get up for class. this ONE TIME.” or forced myself to study harder. i know i did the best i could at the time, but it still is a horrible feeling to see myself turn into this after i’ve done better in the past.
TL;DR : i failed majority of my classes and lost a ton of scholarship money by getting suspended for bad grades.
my mom thinks i’m going back next semester with my sister and i haven’t told her yet that i’ve disappointed her.

After much consideration, and planning, I am going to return to video production. When I began making videos on a weekly or monthly basis, I had plenty of free time due to the big coof. This was me learning things like scheduling, editing, how to make the microphone work, and I learned plenty through trial and error. There is a dramatic difference between my first videos and my recent ones because of this learning experience. But as I learned about how to make videos, I learned that I was wasting my time with them.
A LOT of time.
Whatever you’re thinking is a time waste for a video is not really it, unless you’ve been there and done that. During that time, I ruined my sleep schedule and would even pass up on small money opportunities, all because I thought my Youtube videos would send me into stardom. Plant a seed, watch it grow, that sort of thing. But, looking at my numbers, it was the exact opposite. Each video coming out, utilizing the keywords and subject matter as a reason to click, was essentially a false sense of activity.
Working on other people’s channels created even more false cases of activity, which created a false sense of justifying why I’m putting labor into something.
Like most artists, I was gaslighting myself into thinking that the time spent into a project was going to translate into a future income from something else. We always see these videos where it seems zero effort was put into it and it goes viral, not realizing that years of failing and group efforts were required to reach those results. And even then, a youtube video existing doesn’t cause a person to instantly gain money from that existence. I have a friend who made a viral video and he didn’t get anything from millions of views, because there was nothing to monetize. I have another friend who made a viral video, trying to recreate the magic, and nothing came of it after a year or two of trying.
Not only is it hard to receive results, but the amount of time it takes to attempt is ridiculous. I didn’t time myself, but if I knew how many hours were sunk into each video, I would probably pull out my balls in anger. The process of each video was a mess of:

1. Writing down a script (takes more than an hour to write an hour of script)
2. Recording the audio (takes more than an hour to record an hour)
3. Editing the audio (takes about double the time of whatever its recorded)
4. Making the thumbnail
5. Making the avatar
6. Collecting images
7. Collecting video clips
8. Making images and clips
9. Editing through clips that are too long
10. Adding sound effects
11. Finding and adding music
12. Waiting for it to render (usually this is where I go to do other things)
13. Rendering it AGAIN through handbrake so it’s a smaller file (quicker than waiting for uploading a multi GB file)
14. Uploading it across youtube, bitchute, and rumble

I don’t want to make this sound like I’m complaining, but this is the bare minimum effort that goes into a youtube video, not mentioning the details of how things are edited or the issues with troubleshooting. A lot of what ate up my time was realizing when things aren’t working way too late, such as how GIFs don’t register well and they slow down a larger project. Or better yet, how a large project slows down to a crawl and you have to render multiple segments separately in order to keep things running smoothly. My files, as organized as I tried to keep them, were unorganized as hell because I would set them up during production instead of before production. Then by the end of it, there would be something wrong that I would have to edit, remove, I forgot something, something vanished between saves, or even corrupted files because I moved something and didn’t realize it was part of something else.
Video editing is utter hell in the beginning, but it gets better after you look after your process and actually organize everything well.
I spent a night the other week changing up all of my files. I put them on my desktop, where I can easily access them, and away from my downloads. This is important because your downloads can be bogged down with anything you download, and eventually it becomes a massive mess of pictures, videos, game patches, or whatever else you’re downloading; all getting in the way of your actual project. You want your files to be files within files, and each file is marked clearly for its purpose and its direction. I had a million songs splayed out in different areas and couldn’t remember where they were, of course when I wanted them, all because they would get trapped in piles of other things I downloaded for later.
My file finding time is now only limited by the slowness of my computer acquiring it.
Audio began as a mess of me going through each line to make sure there was no extra noise, and having to fix anything that was too quiet or not full enough. Turns out I was making my audio way too maximized and wasting a lot of time on stuff that people wouldn’t even recognize as an issue. Now my audio mixing is done through OBS, already set up as a particular compression and volume that will stay in the acceptable range, with noise removal already set up.
My audio recording/editing time is closer to how long it takes to speak.
Developing each chapter card, clipping them together, having to find the font, typing everything out. These, along with getting sound effects working, took up too much time. What I did is make a plan to prepare all of these first, before anything else is added to the video, so that I know how many chapters there are. They don’t take that long to render, because of how short they are, and it takes way less time to do that than to shift gears at the end of the production day. Shifting gears every couple of minutes, that was wasting too much time, which is now changed to doing one specific task each session.
My “switching” time is removed, thus saving time.
Music was added in the beginning, as one of the first things. This was wrong to do, because of how many times I would want a clip where the music continues through it, only to realize that this continuation forced me to keep a massive background of editing history, which slows everything down through production. Adding music as the last bit, and after rendering, will save me minutes for every time I boot up the video editor, which saves hours over time when I’m going to have to go back and forth on video editing. My lifestyle only gives me an hour or two at a time to sit in front of the computer, and so editing will require less wait time for the process to warm up.
My rendering time will increase(as I go to do other things), but my waiting time will decrease.
Through my new process, I am also considering a different view of each video type. Recently, I saw a video about how kindle books are categorized between low, mid, and high content; related to how much effort it takes to make each one. My previous attempts were to, essentially, make high effort content as consistently as possible, which was going to be draining when these were events that came and went. Current news like Lindsay Ellis being stupid or DSP looking like a fool on Sidescrollers are incredibly time sensitive, which is why so many people stream these “news reports” instead of making high effort videos about them. And even if it was a long term type of video, we have to question if it REQUIRES that much effort to begin with.
My plans for the future are to measure how long I take with each session, what I get done, track down percentages, and measure what the longest steps are. Figuring out what’s causing a hold-up is the best way to prevent hold-ups, in the same way city builders (should) keep track of what’s causing traffic jams. Too many traffic jams? Get rid of cars or open more lanes. Keeping track of things is going to take minutes to save hours, which is something I should have practiced more on doing through my practicing year.
Videos are done with marketing in mind, because I don’t plan to make money from them. My “branding” is storytelling, art, art-related lolcows, and I guess that pesky culture war. People begged me to go fully political, but I think political is a step below philosophical, which is where I would rather go. I would rather explain the psychology and aesthetics of media, instead of repeating myself as to how offensive or woke something is. Yes, I make fun of Lindsay for being woke, but I explain why she is and where it comes from, which is something more important than some kind of drama farming that grifters do.
I would rather be a source of information than a pointless attack dog for someone above me, which is why I try to separate myself from the people who do such nonsense. I’m not with these movements, I don’t care to promote people I don’t care about, I’m not going to go easy on people just because “we’re on the same side”. Everyone gets made fun of or nobody gets made fun of, and I’m year of monkey, bitch. This monkey wants bananas and youtube is not going to supply any. But it supplies plenty of vines to swing around from, as I Donkey Kong my way from topic to topic.
Like anything else in life, videos need to be worth my time, meaning their expense needs to be dropped dramatically. Hour long, multi-hour long, these were excruciatingly hard to do. The next goal is to make sure everything is kept around 30min long, unless it’s going to be a bi-yearly 1 hour long video that will be the highlight of the year, which is where full book analysis videos come into play. The scripts for everything else will be written down as articles, with the better of the articles being made into low content videos.
Podcast style will be for low effort, being made weekly.
A new style will be for mid effort, which is where 30min of history or explanation is presented with video clips, being made monthly. Video game clips will be placed around here as well, unless they can be made bi-weekly.
And the classic, me in my room with my ASS computer, will be for the high content, for subjects that take far too long to make on a monthly basis.
This planning is still in the works, it’s an effort to create a strategy and a schedule for everything. The goal would be to place an hour a day per video, creating steps for each video, and using each other as progress reports for the bigger ones. It will be like placing smaller squares into bigger squares until the biggest square is complete, allowing me to visually determine my progress across such a subject. This is also a way for me to appear more productive, because content will be constantly coming out on a clear schedule. Only bad side about it is that this means 3 hours of my day are used for videos, and this won’t be possible for every day until content creation is my main job.
Before I can have this be a thing, it will be a slow, preemptive creation process, with smaller projects being made as my “short stories”, to then determine if I’m ready for a bigger “novel” of a project. And that’s how I have to approach video editing: the same way I would with storytelling. No more determining that length means better, or more time means more results. Now I’m going to obey the market, go for what’s expected of me, and react to feedback. If something doesn’t work, or doesn’t make a dent, I try something else.
I think that’s why people get mad at me, when they see that I am trying something else all the time. This is normal, but I’m told that I’m “an interloper” or “will never win” because I willingly give up on things that don’t work. Sorry, losers, but being unorganized and wasting my life is not worth it. I like money, and I like vaginas. If I wanted to be poor and wasting my life, I would have kept slamming my head against a wall and failing like most of what indie does.
And yes, the OPC reviews will be translated into videos, as well as my own short stories. I began as a crackpasta narrator, after all. I was thinking of putting a lot of radio drama production into my narrations, but I would want to keep them low effort until they start attracting all of the attention from their titles. A lot of people try to narrate their stories and they don’t make a spark anywhere with them. But as time goes on, and I get more videos under my belt, I could easily narrate for others, create a network, and get things going. It’s not that hard to get things working once you know what you’re doing.
The main time waste that we all fall for is chaotic activity and the lack of planning.

So I (32F) and my brother (45 M) had a tiff the other day. Some background to explain:
About a year ago, my husband and I got evicted from our home. We were paying rent like we were meant to, but the landlord got angry at us when I called her out on making us overpay for utilities (we were paying her's as well as ours, and when I found out, I was livid.) Shortly after, we were all made to leave the home as I had no solid proof to back us up. I had 3 kids + 1 stepchild at the time. The step child lived with her mom, so no change for her, but we were struggling to find a new place to rent. We are in fact still struggling, and all we've been able to afford in that time is a one bedroom apartment. My oldest two children are teenagers, and I had had a baby with my husband just a few months prior to the eviction notice.
Now, because of the limited space, and laws in my state, my eldest two children were required to stay elsewhere. Namely, with my brother. He offered, and I thanked him profusely for his generosity and have done everything I can to continue making my appreciation known. I am working and so is my husband. But even with both of us working, we are still having a hard time finding something bigger that is sustainable. I have seen how this sudden separation has affected my elder children, and I don't want to ever put them through this again. So I have been looking with the intention that it has to be in our budget long term, and affordable even if one of us lost their jobs. I refuse to put my kids through this hell again.
One of the places I have been consistently bugging about an available rental has finally gotten back to me with a big enough place, and below what our "safety" budget is. I am only waiting on them to finish their inspection/refurbish of the place, and then we can move in. We have put back tax money to make sure this move is doable as soon as they are done.
I am again pregnant (not on purpose, I was supposed to have had my tubes tied but I guess it didn't take properly according to my obgyn.) I was more than a little upset to find out, but I am not someone who would abort a child just because they weren't on purpose. My husband and I have decided to make this work as best we can, and we will still be moving to the same place as soon as we can, with minor adjustments to include the new little one. I was also briefly unemployed (a grand total of 2 weeks) and have just started a new job in the last few days which I think will be better for us in the long run anyway.
All this to say, my brother texted me about my son a few days ago. I have been picking him up from school and taking him to my brother's house afterwards every day. This is because my brother lives outside of the school district for my son's high school, and while my brothers children can take him, they often have after school things and my son wants to go "home" and do his homework straight after. Not a big deal. Sometimes my son calls me and tells me that he is getting a ride home with a friend, or his gf, and that's fine too. He's about to be a senior, so I don't mind the commute simply because he shouldn't be made to switch schools just because we failed to provide properly. Our car (we currently only have 1, and are looking to trade it for a van because we're going to need one), broke down randomly. It's 20ish years old, so this isn't entirely unexpected, just super inconvenient while we wait for the parts to come in to fix it. I told my son that if he needed me to come get him, that was fine, but that while we waited for the parts to come in, if he had someone else who could take him to my brother's house for the time being, that would be helpful for now.
At no point did I say I wouldn't come get him, or that he had to ask for a ride daily, or anything of the sort. I made sure he was aware I was still willing to come get him whenever, but that it would help keep the car from breaking down faster if he had a different way ( which he usually does anyway.)
This apparently trigger big brother. And he sent me a couple of messages asking why I was making my child "beg for a ride home" when I could have just let him know if our car was messed up so he could make other arrangements for my son to get there. I explained as succinctly as I could what I had told my son, and that he usually has a ride home that isn't me anyway, so I didn't think it would be a big issue. Nor did I tell him he absolutely had to go with someone else, but that if he had a different way that it would be helpful for the time being. My brother told me I should have discussed it with him instead, and not with my son. He said I was making him feel unloved and excluded, especially considering my pregnancy and the fact that I had another smaller child who I was "replacing" my elder two children with. (that's not a thing, and I have spoken to both of my children several times, and keep them in the loop on all the things happening while we wait for the house.)
There have been several instances where my brother and I have butted heads as far as the kids go, because he tells them to ask me if they can do x, y, or z, and when I answer as I normally would as their mom, and it doesn't align with that he thinks is correct, he then sends me passive aggressive messages and says that I need to consult him first. At first I thought this was a communication break-down between myself and kids, and they were leaving part of it out (the part where bro wanted me to consult him specifically,) but after checking their messages, that's not it at all. He literally tells them to ask me, and when I don't reply as he thinks I should, I get the messages that I mentioned before.
Now on the call he made, he went on for about 30 minutes, screaming at me and telling me I wasn't a good mother, and that I hadn't done anything for my children since they went to stay with him. I told him if he wanted money, I would send money, but that I wasn't trying to exclude my kids from anything, and I was still trying to find a place that was sustainable, and where I was waiting on the house. He knew these things already. He said he didn't want my money, just for me to make more of an effort to spend time with my kids. My eldest daughter also usually rides home with me from a different school. I have offered multiple times for both kids to come over to the apartment, or to come on day trips with us to places. They keep saying they have plans. Even when I specifically ask them to not make plans so I can see them, it ends up happening anyway. I don't dispute this because I don't feel I'm currently in a position to do so, and because teenagers are well.. teenagers. They have their own lives to lead in some respects and hanging out with mom isn't cool anymore, even when I miss them like mad.
I tried explaining all this to my brother but he was having none of it. I ended up parked under an overpass, crying my eyes out, to the point my husband was telling me to hang up because of the amount of stress it was causing me.
to be clear, I know I am failing as a mother right now, but there's nothing anyone else can say that I haven't said to myself, and have probably said even worse.
After a few more minutes of the non-stop berating I was getting, I yelled that as soon as I got my kids home we were completely done and he wouldn't have to worry about seeing the other kids ever again.
I feel i may have overreacted, though my husband says I didn't react enough. I don't know. I think hormones got the best of me, along with the stress of everything. Now my brother is back to being silent (which isn't new) and I feel even worse than when he was yelling at me.
​
AITHA? Did I overstep and overreact considering the fact that he's doing me such a huge favor by keeping my kids safe while I try to stand on my feet again?
​

Admitting we have a problem is the first step in solving it! Author is a Eugenean talking about her experience with rising crime in the city, never saw this story but hey, still relevant today. Found this little gem by random chance. Title is a hopefully relatable quote from the article. You can agree or disagree with the author, but it's actually pretty well written with sources included. (just including the whole article, for people who don't want to click links!)

I Caught Two Men Stealing From My Home. The Aftermath Was Absurd—and All Too Typical.

This experience crystallized Oregon’s deeper problems.

BY REBECCA SCHUMANJUNE 21, 20225:40 AM
Typically, guys wearing power-company vests don’t leave the houses they’re working on laden down with backpacks—let alone power tools, a scooter, and a Nintendo Switch. But that was the scene I happened upon at 6:30 p.m. on a Tuesday in mid-April when I puttered into my driveway in Eugene, Oregon, my 7-year-old ensconced in the back seat.
For a second, my brain tried to normalize the incident: This is just my daughter’s dad stopping by—except there are two of him, and they’re dressed as electricians for some reason? Then, a second later, everything whooshed into place: Oh, wait, I’m being robbed. Or, rather, I was being burgled. I would get reminded of this distinction later, when I made the dubious choice to join the chorus of aggrieved buttinskies on Nextdoor, where my well-meaning post to warn the neighborhood would turn me into an accidental vigilante hero for a day.
Unfortunately, it’s true: My reaction to this burgle was the lived-out fantasy of many who have been on the business end of a property crime. As the two goons took off on foot down my street, I went into fight-or-flight mode—and I chose fight.
“Well,” I said to my confused child, “let’s go see if we can get our stuff back.”
I peeled my 2005 Subaru back onto the street and easily overtook my two targets, who then hurtled themselves into an alley, whereupon I cornered one by the driver’s side window as the other made haste across the adjacent parking lot.
“Just give it back, bro!” I yelled out my window. “Just give it back! I’m a single mom! Just give it back.”
I repeated this until either I reminded him too much of his meanest teacher or he realized he’d been caught in broad daylight. “Fine,” he said. “Just fucking take it.”
He shoved a backpack through my driver’s side window. Inside it was both my laptops and my daughter’s iPad from school. Back at home, I would discover these guys had used channel lock pliers to force open the back door, but that the general chaos of my home had prevented them from locating my passport, jewelry, or sole item of irreplaceable value: the Montblanc fountain pen that my father, who died in a bicycle accident two years ago, had gotten for his law school graduation. My cat was unfazed.
I can honestly tell you that this little caper of mine was thrilling and deeply satisfying. It was also the exact wrong thing to do. Even this fanatical open-carry gun website implores: “Don’t chase criminals.” What if these two dipsticks had been armed? As unlikely as that was—property crime in my town is often driven by addiction, and weapons are worth money, which can buy drugs—I put myself and my child in potential danger. And for what? Three grand worth of electronics. As any reputable expert will tell you, you’re never to give chase to a thief, because human life is not worth possessions. As much as I admit to enjoying being called a “badass” by everyone I told this story, plus the listeners of KLCC Oregon, I should not have done this.
I did call the police, on the nonemergency line, because the dudes were long gone and nobody was hurt. I declined the dispatcher’s offer to send two officers to fingerprint a bunch of stuff I’d already touched. At best, that would have just added two more sets of prints to my town’s burgeoning roster of perennially at-large property criminals.
There are larger issues here, issues much more important than my would-be cool story. First, it’s an example of how in Eugene, small-scale property crime is now de facto legal. It is largely nonviolent, so it’s rarely seen as worth police resources to track down the goods. At the same time, it is so prevalent that any time one vest-wearing bozo gets nabbed, three more spring up in his place. This was my house’s second break-in in six months, and my fourth property crime total in the three years I’ve lived here as an adult. Eugene is my hometown, so I can also add the four times my childhood house, where my mother still lives, has been burgled since the early 2000s. When I was little, we left our front door unlocked so regularly that I wasn’t aware front doors had locks on them until I was much older. By the time I turned 30, however, every door in my parents’ house had been pried open at least once. (“Time to finally get that alarm system!” said my dad for three straight decades.)
Still, it’s a mistake to treat this trend solely as a vexing crime problem. Eugene’s descent into its property crime epidemic has been concurrent, unsurprisingly, with two addiction epidemics: First, the methamphetamine nightmare of the 1990s—when pseudoephedrine pills were still unregulated—hit Oregon and other Western states particularly hard. That wave segued all too naturally into the opioid and fentanyl crisis of the present. Meanwhile, not only did meth never really leave, but its use in Oregon also surged with the pandemic, with three Oregonians per day currently dying a drug-related death.
Since our conversation was necessarily brief, I don’t know the housing or drug situation of the guys who broke into my place. But local statistics point to them as two more casualties of these plagues. (Granted, those statistics are from nearby Portland, and they are police-sourced, so take them how you wish.)
For all the ambivalent empathy that the opioid epidemic has engendered, the local property crime scourge has set off a fierce public backlash. My incident brought out an unsurprising chorus of bloodlust on Nextdoor and elsewhere, when I shared it because I wanted to give my immediate neighbors a heads-up: “You should have kicked their asses,” they wrote. “We need to rise up and defend our property.”
This town’s petty crime is often attributed, at least in the national conservative press, to our West Coast government’s decision to temporarily allow urban camping during the pandemic. (That policy has now officially ended, for what it’s worth.) Towns like mine have often been characterized in the popular imagination as unlivable crime-addled hellholes. I will be the first to admit that our tent cities are sometimes blatant open-air drug markets, but this is the case even as our property values inflate to absurd proportions—and our crime is actually on the decline. Still, Oregonians like me currently have about a 2.7 percent chance of being burgled, which, at almost 30 percent higher than the national average, is very high. I learned very efficiently how anecdotes like mine get around (I can’t help it if I’m a dynamic storyteller!) and attract the righteous indignation of other former victims, so many often feel, incorrectly, like we few honest vanguards are awash in a sea of riffraff.
This atmosphere, in turn, inspires my locality’s equally unreasonable political extremists to put forth and exacerbate their own untenable solutions. Even in a hyperpolarized American environment, Oregon is more polarized than most. For decades, our liberal enclaves have made Portlandia look understated, while our conservative areas make Texas’ look progressive.
For example, during the heyday of Eugene’s recently dismantled and infamous Washington Jefferson Park tent city, a larger break-in at a bicycle store was traced at least partially back to the encampment. The police swept the tents and made a flurry of arrests. Some of the bikes were found. This resulted in part in outrage over using resources to hassle the city’s most impoverished residents: “A stolen bike, yes, that sucks,” an advocate for the unhoused told a local news outlet. “But what are your priorities? And I’m sorry, but a stolen bike isn’t the priority.”
Well, trust me, in this town, it definitely isn’t. Recovering those bikes was an anomaly; in Eugene, most of these burglaries go unsolved. In fact, 87 percent of burglaries in the whole country do, too. The get-tough-on-property-crime proponents assert that statistically, this sends a message that stealing is fair game, and sure, that is a message I do not condone. But I also agree with a somewhat less rabid version of the opposing view: Property is replaceable, these crimes are nonviolent, and everyone currently rifling through houses and dealing drugs out of tents in my town is human. They deserve a chance to get their lives on track.
So, what should be the town’s priority? Fixing the addiction epidemics is a perilously long way away from happening, for reasons that are as polarizing as addiction’s consequences. In the sobering and excellent Dopesick, author Beth Macy goes into painfully exacting detail about opioids’ near-inescapable hold on the human brain. Macy argues that the true way out of this epidemic is “low-barrier treatment,” which includes supportive housing and medical interventions such as safe injection supplies, fentanyl testing strips, buprenorphine access, and supervised consumption sites. All of these options, however, are a tough sell even in a “progressive” town like Eugene, where supervised consumption sites are what NIMBY nightmares are made of, and low-barrier treatment can run up against deeply held moral stigma: Gas is $5 a gallon, and my taxes are going to some junkie?
In the meantime, while some admirably advocate and vote and wait for those breakthroughs, what should we do about the burglaries themselves? Should we pursue more law enforcement, or more compassion toward the burglars? More arrests that allegedly might deter this, or policies that might alleviate income inequality? Does—as approximately 83 percent of the suggestions from my Nextdoor thread contended—every house in town need a tripwire that handcuffs trespassers on sight? Or should all businesses be taxed at 500 percent, and the proceeds used to furnish every fentanyl dealer in town with a nice apartment and mad cash? The debate has degenerated such that these are the sorts of cartoonish positions each side believes they’re fighting—and, in fact, are the only available choices. Just check out Eugene’s Reddit section any day, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.
The actual blight on small American towns like mine isn’t property crime. It’s that any tenable solution to it has been swallowed up into a churning abyss of extremism and perceived counterextremism. No one seems to have a convincing answer to the most basic question: So what should we do? What should I do?
Burglaries don’t have to be largely unsolvable, and more property criminals could be apprehended. But while I don’t want those dudes or any of their buddies to come back to my house, I also don’t want them in an American prison, where their “rehabilitation” will consist largely of learning better ways to commit even bigger crimes when they get out, and their options for alternative forms of acquiring money will be even more limited than they are now. Lacking any meaningful restorative justice program for petty thieves in my town (which would, in turn, necessitate locating and apprehending them), I decided my own problems could be solved, for now, with a padlock on my back gate.
And then, not long after the break-in, a Nintendo Switch appeared on my town’s Craigslist. Its included components and color combination were identical to the set stolen from my house. I debated, briefly, bringing my vigilante justice alter ego Super Annoying out of retirement, answering the ad and showing up to shrill my wrongdoers into returning what was mine. But this time, I thought better of it. My life is not worth much, but it’s probably worth more than Mario Kart. I can only hope the console’s new owners enjoy it as much as my daughter did—at least until someone steals it again.

This will be my first time ever openly sharing about my addiction; from the root cause to the effects and struggles that having a porn addiction has impacted my life to this day
So I just recently turned 21 and I'm beginning to look around and realize that for as long as I've acknowledged that I have a problem and need to quit, I keep feeding the addiction KNOWING that it's ruining my life. I'm going to split this post into 3 sections explaining the following stages: The root causes/early development, Progression of my addiction to current day, and Main struggles from my PA and how I go about everyday life to heal. Not exactly sure why I'm posting this but I just feel like it's something I need to let out. Hope someone can relate or give me their take on it.
The root causes/early development: So I believe that my PA manifested due to a few different reasons: Playing "doctor" with my sister as a child, early age porn exposure, and then using porn as a coping mechanism to deal with any negative emotions. So starting w/ "playing doctor", it first happened at a very young age, somewhere between elementary school to 6th grade. I think most people know what that is but to keep it short basically my sister who is a year older than me introduced my to basically role playing as doctor and patient. I wasn't sure if SHE even knew it was wrong but the point is, it happened. I genuinely don't think she was doing in an abusive way but I'll never know. I don't remember the small details of exactly how it happened but what leads me to think this was a factor that contributed to my porn addiction is that I know now as an adult that it's wrong, however as we "played doctor" I only grew to enjoy it and occasionally we took things outside of "playing doctor" - which is why I don't know what to make of it... Long story short it went from "doctor" to us making up our own games like "spy" where we pretended to fight each other as spy's, getting "knocked out" unconscious while she'd touch... and I specifically remember wanting to play these games in hopes that it led to that. But even outside of playing games I grew to wanting to touch her and act on perverted thoughts as a child that were NOT normal for my age or in general. And sometimes I would sneakily act on them - which as I'm reflecting on right now makes me think that me KNOWINGLY trying to be sneaky and act on perverted thoughts at that young of an age had to have carried on with me as I got older (contributing to my porn addiction).. And then the last thing that I vividly remember was when I was probably 10-12 years old is when again we were actually kind of aggressively play fighting, somehow ended up with each other's hands DOWN THERE mutually and we kept going on with each other until she made me.... yeah. And that was the last memory I had of what started out as us "playing doctor". Fast forward to current date since that last memory and we've never spoken about those experiences (more on that later). Going onto the actual exposure of pornography and WATCHING porn, I was exposed to it somewhere in between the same timeframe as when I'd play doctor and the last memory of us playing (somewhere between the ages of 8-12). I can vividly remember the scene that played late at night on the tv that my parents had left on (I shared a room with them). And then moving forward from there, somewhere in between I would find videos on YouTube of this "prank" channel where he'd go up to paid actors, bet that if he beat them in rock paper scissors that they'd have to make out with him. And as a young kid at the time seeing a girl in a bikini making out with a guy as he grabbed on her ass just made me horny and I learned to masturbate from there. And I cant think of a stronger dopamine hit for a 8-12 year old little me at the time than seeing those videos and pleasuring myself. After this, I'd hit middle school where I was bullied a lot, all while lacking social skills necessary to make any genuine friends or deal with the emotional turmoil of being bullied. Fast forward a few months and I think I just progressively began to normalize using porn as a coping mechanism - All the way from whenever I just got mad while dying repetitively on the videogame, to avoiding the fact that I hated my life everyday that I went to school. I'd use porn to receive that "good feeling" whenever I could. And I think my sexual addiction got worse when I began touching myself in the shower almost everyday in middle school to the imagination of the pretty girls that were at my school, even though I had neverarely talked to some of them. It was just a thing for me where every night I took a shower, I closed my eyes and fantasized about doing stuff with them. And then the cycles of me normalizing these things continued and eventually I found out about REAL porn sites.
Progression of my addiction to current day: So shortly after finding the real porn sites I entirely opted to use those as much as possible as the cycle continued. So by my freshman year of high school I was already using porn sites regularly. I remember during summer and winter breaks, sometimes I'd sleep at my grandmas and stay up all night switching from ejaculating to porn, to watching my favorite youtuber and streamers, to going back to jerking off. It was a multiple times a day/night occurrence OFTEN. Sometimes even during the middle of the day I'd pretend to use the bathroom but really I had a porn video pulled up and I watched until I was done. And as time progressed one video didn't exactly cut it for me. I don't think its that I couldn't get off to the first video, but more so that I just had the urge to see more and didn't want to nut yet. I didn't even know if I was purposely edging or not. I did not even understand that edging was a concept yet. Its just something that occurred naturally for me. And during all of this, I am still somewhere in the age range of 13-15. Consistently ejaculating to pornography, further exploring the more basic categories of porn like anal and lesbian. I think a notable memory was one of the first times I watched porn in the middle of work during summer break (extended family owns a construction company so I worked over breaks). It's crazy because in construction all we have are porta-potties that are always hot and nasty and the urge just came over me one day to pretend like I was using the bathroom and get one off before I went back... I don't think I even realized at the time that I had an addiction because this was still early high school. It was just something I looked at as a good feeling and whenever the urges came to me I took any chance I got to fulfill them. Even if I was sharing a room with a family member, I'd be as slow and quit as I could, touch myself under the covers, finish in my underwear and then showechange the next morning like it was normal. Moving forward, this type of behavior continues all the way throughout high school and the feeling of ejaculating just is not as intense as it use to be, so I look up ways to spice it up and I tried shit all the way from sitting on my own hand til it goes sort or numb so it "feels like someone else is touching you", to doing it in more risky places like my backyard outside when I was home alone and had my pants pulled down all the way, to whatever else I could try. Reflecting back, I just look at all these actions as the progressions of a sexual/porn addiction that is still developing. And this is how I rationalize the way I developed a porn addiction. Now it wasn't AWFUL in high school but it was getting bad. I realized that I had actually had a bad addiction that needed to be addressed a few months after graduating high school. From that point forward It was something that I had acknowledged was an issue but nonetheless, continued to do out of habit and as a continued coping mechanism. Whether it was from the lack of relationships, to my current life situation/direction I was headed in, or just any negative emotion - I used porn to release. Sometimes I'd even just do it out of boredom, not even because I had a dying urge to get one off. And then after that point of realization, I sat in "depression" for a few months still going about my everyday life until one day my dad mentioned that I should try therapy. He knew nothing about the addiction but I did let him know I feel depressed and the many struggles that I faced - which I believe is due to my porn addiction. So long story short, I go to therapy for about 3 sessions and end up dropping it because it just wasn't something I felt was helping or enjoyed (more on that later). From there to current day, I've gone at MOST one week periods attempting to quit porn and every time I relapse. From the age of 1 to-current day 21 years old, the progression of the categories of porn that I watch has grown and a few different fetishes like face sitting, femdom, and role play has increased. I don't NEED to watch these specific categories to get off, however these are ones I've found myself most recently watching and edging to, sometimes for 1-3 hours at a time, usually at night on weekends or before I fall asleep. And to take it a step further, I had started pouring money into camgirl sites, phone sex sites, only fans, etc.. I live with my parents still so it's not to the point that I'm broke and have no money, but still what the fuck am I doing putting my hard earned money into a porn addiction... (I'm a functioning adult on a pathway to financial freedom, more on this later).
Main struggles from my PA and how I go about everyday life to heal: So I believe that the main struggles with my porn addiction consist of: the inability/struggle to create and maintain healthy relationships, low self esteem, poor social skills, lack of motivation, and the cognitive dissonance of continuing my addiction to porn even though morally I believe it is wrong to lust over. I believe all of these struggles that come with porn are connected to each other - minus the cognitive dissonance. But everything else kind of stacks on top of each other. So my thought process is that I already dealt w/ low self esteem and confidence from a very young age, and porn just completely enhanced those problems and made it even harder to fix/work on. If you're anything like me and have watched videos on the sciences of porn on your brain, and possible struggles that we deal with, I'm assuming you know how it goes for the most part. I'd say I show symptoms of all effects of being a porn addict, however I've learned to "act normal" to an extent. Like YES I struggle to make friends and hold conversations with people in general but I can make it happen. Sure it'll be a little awkward depending on who I'm speaking to, but I feel like I act normal enough to not be a total outcast and all out weirdo around people. But I just feel like every relationship I have with anyone is extremely surface level or unfulfilling. I feel like as a person I lack so much substance and personality due to the fact that I never really put myself out there and learned social skills when I was coming up. My mindset was molded into something like "keep your head down and stay out the way" in order to avoid conflict. So I never really put myself out there to develop any type of super crazy/interesting personality. I work, play videogames, go to the gym, watch anime. I feel like there's not much else - which might also be a side affect of my porn addiction. Lack of emotion. And I refuse to call it depression. Kind of got red pilled by Andrew Tate Philosophy and it entirely HAS helped me. Maybe it's real, maybe it's not - because when I was fresh out of high school and hyper focused on the bad parts of my life, I felt depressed as shit. Legit like I couldn't do anything to fix it. And the more I identified as "depressed" the more I allowed myself to look for things in my life to confirm that belief. So eventually I went on a self improvement journey and just stopped allowing "depression" to hold power over me. Now I don't believe in it so it's not something that can hold me down in that crippling way. HOWEVER, I DO believe in just being in a shitty situation - which is what I feel like having a porn addiction along with it's effects and symptoms is. It's a shitty situation and I can either allow it to keep ruining my life OR I can get up everyday and attempt to fix it. And I refuse to play the victim card. Sure, I may have been exposed to some fucked up shit at a young age and used porn as a coping mechanism. There is no denying that it happened and that it may have been unfair and out of my control. YES, that's my problem. I may be a victim of pornography but I do not have to ALLOW it to continue to ruin my life. Easier said than done but it's definitely possible and I will not blame my lack of discipline or call it "depression" because I'm unable to quit. The way I see it is, there is a lot of shit that happened to me in the past that I have to come to terms with, and then I must come up with a plan to improve and learn how to be better. For example, struggling to hold eye contact with people, hold basic conversation with people (specifically women), find confidence within myself, become more social, etc... These are all skills that we can practice and learn. Simply by going outside and putting ourselves in uncomfortable situations that allow us to put the reps in. I believe that if I quit porn and start walking up to 10 strangers a day and try having simple conversations with them, in time I can only get better at being social and connecting with people. It's gonna suck and feel like shit at first, but I truly believe that it's a way to improve and get better. As I stand in my current situation I would say I have a lot of work to do but I'm still a functioning addict. I have friendships and relationships with family but they are very lack luster and I long for something deeper and more intimate. I know I'm not ugly and have the ability to pull a good looking girl, shit I've turned down this really pretty girl who always asks to hangout simply due to the fact that I feel like I'm gonna fuck it up and have bad social skills. And its getting to a point where friends and family are wondering why I haven't had a girlfriend in years. Overall its a lack of self esteem, which hinders me from being able to confidently put myself out there as a person who's deserving of love/companionship, which then makes me sort of self isolate and stray away from any type of connection or opportunity to be vulnerable. Which just leads me to feeling like a loser or someone that is undeserving of love because I'm just in a shitty situation. And yeah. Its kind of a self sabotaging cycle because I feel like I understand what's going on but I don't have the discipline and don't put the work in to get better. But that's just my two cents. This post was extremely long and I probably rifted off topic a few times and had my thoughts all over the place, and I still have a lot more I could give input about but this is the jist of everything
If anyone has a support group or needs someone to talk to, 1. I'd like to join the group, or 2. Feel free to message me for any support or conversation.

This is just a mass of word vomit about war games mode tread lightly! :D

TLDR: I adore this game mode. I’m gonna be honest I bought Homeworld 3 based on this game mode alone. I actually own the remastered collection but didn’t enjoy it due to the clunky controls but I have watched all the campaigns due to TheXPGamers. The game definitely needs some TLC but I’m content with my money spent. Now on to the war games vomit. As it stands I find the most success with either the Reconnaissance Fleet or the Incarnate Fleet. 

Recon allows me to specializes into recon fighters and assault frigates which allows for fast response and turtling
Incarnate I just set dominance fighters on sphere formation with attack corvettes and just utilize attack frigates as tanks this allows for a slow but super tanky and decently deadly fleet.

I have played some with the other fleets except experimental (so close lvl19) but haven’t gotten the hang of them yet. I’m so unbelievably ready for new fleets already and I really want to try out the pirate faction so hopefully they’re first up in July. I’m hoping they get the lag issues sorted out for the few maps that have them and the general pathing issues I seem to have with the ice maps. 

I have seen some complaints regarding artifact inflation to which I believe have some merit. I find it pretty difficult at level 19 to get a build together especially when they take one artifact pick from you on higher difficulties.
I would recommend in the near future of implementing a “deck builder of sorts” which would allow for some control over the artifacts we see. Allowing us to put together a selection of artifacts that might fit each fleet best. Luckily atm it’s seems it doesn’t pick artifacts you don’t have the ability access.
My other big recommendation would have to be our fleets remembering their stances and formations from previous missions. It’s quite the chore setting them up every time. I’d also like to be able to set the default stances for carrier produced ships. The incarnate’s default aggressive mode has definitely cost me ships that didn’t need to die.

Three Missions can honestly feel too short sometimes. Especially when I have a good build together so maybe we could get a five mission mode in the future! Or even just an infinite mode! Well definitely need more maps and missions for that not to get too stale too quick. 

That’s it for now! I’ll probably do another one of these after some changes and updates!

I'm still going through my divorce. It's been ongoing for 8 months. 17 year marriage. She said it was because she thought I would always leave, so she pushed me away. I am her fourth husband, but all of the others were short in comparison to our 17 years.
Problems arose about ten years ago and I fought hard to fix things. I feel like I read every how to fix and rekindling article and book available. Flowers, random gifts, new cars, shopping sprees, home renovations, vacations, took over all the household chores, and the list goes on. I tried until I had a sort of depressive episode that hit me very hard. It lasted about a month and it was kind of a wake up call where I had to admit that I just couldn't handle the rejection anymore. At that point I felt like I had no other option than to give her an ultimatum. I told her that if she "pushed me away" again, then it was over.
Mind you, that the type of intimacy I was looking for was a hug. I couldn't give her a kiss on the cheek when I got home from work without getting looked at like I had two heads. I tried giving her space, making sure she wasn't in a state where she was overwhelmed, clearly stating my intentions ("Hey, can I give you a kiss?"). I was definitely pushed away and I think there might have been someone on the side at one point. That was my guess, until a neighbor finally told me that he had seen her with someone acting a little too cozy on a walk.
Well, I drew the line in the sand and about 6 months later, she crossed it. I asked her if she wanted a divorce and she just smirked at me, and said "Fine, this feels like a huge load off."
I was pretty devastated. Went through a case of "heartbreak syndrome" and actually had a trip to the hospital over it. It was bad. Now I'm numb. I work twelve to fourteen hours a day out of choice. I lost about 40 pounds. I force myself to eat and only sleep about 4 or 5 hours a night. I don't even get hungry anymore and don't have the willpower to just shut my eyes and sleep.
What bugs me the most is that I was an awesome gift giver. I would pick a special gift for my wife and kids every gift giving holiday. I had this drive to find the perfect gift, it was my mission. I would investigate and listen to everyone just to figure out what material thing they were missing in their lives and I would fight tooth and nail to get it. Hard to find, international, having to drive two hours to get some hot item. It didn't matter, I was on it.
Since the divorce, it's gone. Now whenever a birthday comes up I feel annoyed by the thought of it. I just throw money now. I can't even be bothered to get a card. I just hit the ATM and toss cash. I can't say me doing it was never appreciated. I would get hugs and sincere thank you's from my kids, even tears some times, but never from the wife. She would just open them, look inside and make some generic, "Oh thanks" remark.
I raised the bar every year for her to the point I was spending thousands. No change, same response. I once drove a three hour round trip to pick up sandwiches from a restaurant where we got engaged (it was a chain restaurant and our restaurant closed so I drove to the nearest one), and got a "Where did you find that? I wouldn't have driven that far."
Our last Christmas together pre divorce, I got nothing. I really don't want anything and I feel like I'm whining, but nothing. I would at least get socks and underwear every year, but nothing. All I can think, is how adamant we were about getting stuff for everyone and how I couldn't imagine completely forgetting someone. It felt pretty intentional.
Regardless of any underlying reasons though, what I thought was a personal super power is just gone. I would always have some great idea for each person, now just nothing. I tried forcing myself to do it and I just can't. I can roam stores and scour the internet and nothing jumps out at me. Now it's just a fistful of cash. Unpersonal, easiest, least effort gift I can manage.
I want to care that much again, but it's just not there anymore. My lack of drive is hitting other areas of my life, but not caring is now adding a nasty ping of guilt every time I toss cash at my kids. I feel ruined and am genuinely mad that part of me is gone.

You guys remember those IG lives scar did recently where he played a bunch of songs?? And they were all pretty much done?? And he claimed to have 70+ tracks in the vault or something??? Of course you probably remember that because you’re in this sub. Anyways the point I’m getting at is he’s been starving us of new material. I think we can all agree that it was very enjoyable to have 2 tapes per year for a time. I get that he wants to give us the best of the best or whatever but this is ridiculous. It would be great if he released one 20 song tape and a well put together experimental album per year. Sadly that doesn’t seem to be the world we live in. Perhaps he’s just been touring around too much to flesh out a project. Maybe it’s because Gina’s OF is doing really good and scar likes pleasing her more than us now idfk lol. We know it isn’t because he fell off his grind but shiiii Gina might be grinding on him too much for him to grind on what’s important which is us.. For music releases of course!! (okay that’s the last one I swear.) Either way he should really release something soon. I swear on the Gucci gang if it’s another 10 or less track album pack it just won’t do the trick just because of how long it’s been. Especially since it was a 30min 9 pack we got after a 9 month wait and now it’s nearing a year. Ehh I got bright eyes to keep me musically satisfied right now anyways. Nothing like Conor’s unmatched poetry to keep me questioning what made him so sad. Just like how I question how scar is always so genuinely pissed. I’m fine with wondering why he’s that way even though he has a Pstar cock, a very attractive GF, big house, lots of fans, fame, money, 10/10 genetics, super ripped/muscular, cars, his own clothing brand, unlimited gin, ect. I just don’t want to be questioning when the next drop is for this long. Anyways what do you guys think about scar cheating on us with some other thing?? Is he still invited to our birthday parties? Are our moms just going to be hitting on him the whole time? Or he is going to be acting all dark and mysterious in the corner? Or is it not even worth inviting him because he’s just going to make the same excuse as always which is “nah guys sorry I can’t hangout. My mom’s eating dinner tonight.”Should we still even allow him to play air soft with us in the woods? He always starts covering himself in blood and starts running around while not calling hits. What about our bowling get togethers? He’s always acting like he’s rolling someone’s severed head down the lane… hmm I can’t stay mad at him because all those things are what makes him our buddy, yippee! 🥳

So basically I am homeless sleeping on the streets I really need money I have a job interview tomorrow I'm told that pay is 15 an hour 38 hours a week so 570 disability pension is like 404 a week for me already. So it's not a major increase in income but it's something. Also apparently 3 hours out of that is paid study time. I do not at all see myself being able to handle this job for long term and I honestly have no clue how long I can manage this job as I've only done part time work before but I will try and see I suppose. Anyway
According to the calculator without it knowning how many hours I am doing it says I can still get like 333 a fortnite of DSP.
Is there any special rules around being a trainee on DSP where I would be able to keep my payment? The only other payment is youth allowance job seeker but it says I could only get 62 a fortnite from that.
I don't want to be greedy but I am unsure how on 570 before super and tax I am meant to be able to afford rent or anything. I am just trying to get work to get off the streets it's been too long
Thanks

Successor : u/Intel81994
Hi,
I first found this subreddit and Neville's works in 2018 so I thought I'd share my success/experiences.
I've never posted here, only lurked... daily. I often see people post tiny wins in here like manifesting a test result or a few hundred dollars. I don't see many huge wins except occasionally, or multi-year life changing creations.
Well, I'm not where I want to be bc my goals have gotten a lot bigger, but I've come a long way and finding this work in 2018 changed my life so I want to share with you how.
Not to discourage, but small wins are nothing compared to the deep life changes and incredible abundance you can create in knowing who you really are - just think - there are people out there, several, who own $10M+ houses, multi-millionaires, many came from nothing.
I'm not saying that's the only thing worth striving for or even the source of joy, of course. But my point is anything you want, someone else out there has done it, they are just humans like myself and you.
So here's how my life turned around since 2018 and what I created. The HOW I did so is no different than what you already read on this sub every day.
Neville has been my favorite teacher and this is the MAIN sub I have read over the last few years. I own all of his books and have read them several times.
I regard his methods as most influential for me. This may come off as some motivational story but truth is I use Neville's methods daily and always try to understand and control my beliefs to grow.
Here is how my life changed completely after DOING the work:

• MONEY/TRAVEL : I went from -50k in debt running my own online fitness coaching business at my lowest point not knowing how I would pay rent (long story but I was young and not skilled enough in business at this time to really build a team and 7 figure business like I wanted),

to acquiring amazing skills being an intrapreneur working in a small startup online with a terrific mentor (I manifested this exact position with SATS), traveled the world a crazy amount in the exact places I had wanted to and met a ton of cool people (SATS), over 27 countries now, and grew my net worth to over 250k from 2018-2021.
To my current goals, this is really nothing now and I now surround myself with people doing a ton more than me. So I'm not preaching here, it's just levels to the game right.
I now work professionally in the crypto industry, but also have skills and knowledge to a few types of online businesses in the consulting & marketing space, as well as make money from markets/trading, which is a great vehicle because there are effectively no limits.
I can live anywhere I want, have plenty of cushion and money to live mostly how I want (have larger goals now), have time freedom as well, and most of all, love growth and feel great striving for more. I did SATS to get my current gig.
I've also been trading the last 2 years and no it's not easy, in fact you're competing against algorithms and the best minds in the world so the learning curve is quite steep.
Trading is not easy money, but the potential is there. Besides, trading is just one vehicle, it's not value-additive to the market like businesses are, so I believe it's best used in conjunction with a business/job, and investing longer term is better.
Anyway I turned <40k into ~350K in crypto, and a separate stock portfolio last year.
And yes a lot of that crypto growth was market timing and luck with everything going on, monetary policy and all, and I know people who turned less into several million and also plenty who got liquidated and lost millions. I still spent a lot of time and skill to create that, point is I created all of it in various forms.

• FITNESS/HEALTH: I achieved a more fit and better body than 98% of men have. This was a result of hard work plus these methods and was in 2018 when I decided to undergo a bodybuilding prep for a photoshoot. Great size, leanness, abs, I had been lifting for years but never gotten this in shape.

It was not easy, but I looked incredible, and the exact city/water background scene I had visualized for the photos happened. You can scroll to my IG posts from early 2018 for pics proof.
My health is impeccable and I've for sure made other physical changes, and I think I somehow changed my gf's looks to become better over time too. She was always quite cute though. I'm still very much in shape but now do yoga daily for last few years, as well as lifting.

• LOCATION/LIVING: I manifested the EXACT view I used to visualize in the center of my major city, with a gorgeous view of the ocean and city both, for a great price and have lived here for last 3 years now. In a luxury high rise. I can see ships and yachts right outside my balcony every day. It's literally grander than I even knew to imagine just 5 years ago.
  
• MORE FINANCE: Over the last 2 years my investments and more were doing so well sometimes - not always - that I often was able to have some months making 20-40k, point is I was not worried about work.
  

I also believe parallel realities are real and I used to visualize Bitcoin going to 50k back in 2019 when it had stayed below <10k for 2 years. This was not all due to bitcoin, but rather all sorts of investments, but yes crypto as well.
Some was luck, some was skill and work. All was my creation. I also got quite decent at trading and managing a portfolio that I not only managed to publicly call the exact day of the market TOP in november 2021 but also sniped the bottom in July. Intuition plus knowledge.
So I kept this money, it is not bleeding out in my portfolio with the market. I've devoted a LOT into mastering this craft but again, self concept and Neville helped.
I got hacked for 60k-70k a few months back and chose to give it new meaning and manifested a career change to crypto industry, landing a position making over 10k per month (I'm not happy with this at my current standards of income, but I'm grateful), that I am growing to 20k per month of active income now with other streams.
What's interesting in my recent career manifestation is I decided I want a position that basically pays me to do what I already do (I was independently researching and managing a multi-6 figure crypto portfolio... over a quarter million dollars combined money that I was managing. )
I now get paid a full time 6 fig salary to do nothing extra from what I was already doing and barely work on the actual job with plenty of time for other stuff.
I just decided it was done and that's it. Also of course it's remote... knowing what I know, I will only consider remote jobs (never worked in a physical office and I've actually never had a w2 job before this, always doing sales and stuff or my own thing).
I have been working on increasing my standard to 25k per month minimum of active income generation. Had a lot of ideas come through. I’m just not the type to have a job I think but I have to figure out what I can build again.
Compared to who I want to be at a later date that’s also nothing much. Again, levels to the game.
Now also working on growing a business in this space. This hack event was pretty traumatic but I now see how I 100% manifested it. And I can choose to also create something far greater out of the event now.
With every job I've ever had, I've never worked in an office. I've only ever been remote or online because this is the only thing I was willing to accept. Being a digital nomad has been my norm since I graduated college.
Be specific in what you want and do not settle.
I went to a top 5 US public university and even manifested myself to lead a large pre-med club on campus (I was a pre med student) before I knew Neville. I'm now very glad I chose to go my own route instead of medicine for several reasons beyond scope of this post but anyway.

• SP: Manifested my SP (gf) back in 2018 and we have a great relationship going on 6 years now (together since 2016). I focus more on self love and feeling I AM God rather than seeking it externally. My consciousness and inner connection is my source of sustenance.
  
• Honestly there are so many other crazy little things I can't possibly keep track. Every day I have synchronicities like crazy still. I don't give them much meaning but just take it to mean that I am aligned.
  

My best mental model/tips

• Delude yourself into knowing that imagination is MORE real than the 3d. The 3d is 'old news.' Meaning it's a shadow world. The real creation is happening in your imagination, and there is a time lag in this physical world.

Live in your imagination and tune out anything that does not serve keeping you in an optimal state where you feel in control. The more you focus on things that are meant to distract you or displease you, which state do you create from?

• I do SATS during the day, works fine for me, I don't think it matters much if day/night, but you need to do it. Follow a guided hypnosis session to get deeper into trance first if it helps.
  
• Act and trust deeply that life is leading you to what you want, and the meaning you give to events is literally what molds your future. Choose empowering meanings. Stop being a victim.
  

Make a resolve to never think of yourself as a victim of forces out there, the economy, evil people, whatever it is. You want to control your reality then act like it internally.

• Make a daily routine checklist and stick to it so you internally feel in control of your reality. Mine is: SATS or revision, meditate or breathwork, EFT or writing, cold shower, no phone in the morning, wake at 6am, and of course I exercise daily in some form. I use a spreadsheet to make sure I hit my routines for the day so I don't be a victim but rather stay in control. This is critical for me.
  
• As long as you occupy the realms of consciousness that you want, the result WILL come via downloads and hunches and thoughts, and insane physical things will happen that will 'seem like it would have happened anyway' so don't worry about the how.
  

Random Musings
The thing with manifesting is we sometimes take a passive route and wait for things to happen to us (and sure this is fine and still works), but think- if you don't grow your mental, emotional, skills container to deal with large amounts of money, or a team, or skills to sell and market and manage money... if you suddenly get 500K or 1M, how are you going to hold on to it?
If you lack personal power and execution skills, say you suddenly win 5M from the lottery, do you have the skills to keep it and make decisions at a level that can fluctuate several millions? It's stressful and requires thinking completely differently.
You have to 'stress test' your consciousness and expand your container.
I know that because I got hacked (stolen) ~70k it means nothing because the version of me who makes multi-7 figures a year deals with fluctuations of multi-6 figures in his portfolio all the time, it's part of the game. and I HAVE dealt with 6 figure fluctuations in my portfolio before this hack so it wasn't super new in that sense.
You know time is not real, it's all happening now, Creation is already finished, so you should also know that the way to 'hack' time is making decisions from a place of the future version of yourself you already are.
Make a commitment to stop playing small and settling for crumbs. Why would you get hung up on the one limited way your ego thinks that abundance has to manifest in your life, or love, instead of just feeling the emotions themselves, knowing it's done, and letting your life color it in in grander ways than you could have imagined.
Funny little manifestations and things happen literally every day that I just take it as reflections of me being in my creative power.
Something crazy/funny that happened was on our last trip, I told my girlfriend 'hey, how funny and weird would it be to see a parrot meowing?' - then next day we sit at a cafe and there is a parrot in a cage outside, meowing loudly. The most bizarre manifestation, I didn't even intend for it, just asked hey would it not be funny. Things like this happen so often, I can't keep track.
There is nothing new to learn. Just do the techniques and do self care rituals and get lost in your work. Feel the feeling of utter abundance and freedom now and it will happen.
We live in an advanced economy with the internet, it has never been easier to start or fund a business compared to even 50 years ago (see interest rates), distribution has never been easier, so if you know these tools, why would you not create the biggest dream you can imagine? Why settle for a free $200?
I realize there are levels people go through however so I don't mean to belittle, but now that I have been through so much and grown, I know there is nothing separating myself from multi millions and VC's and creators of large companies except belief, work, and time in this reality.
I have the knowledge, belief, and skills to not need a job if I don't want one. I can instead offer something to the market and be independent.
I'm telling you this stuff works and is sustainable. You can be as specific as you want and get whatever you want, and trust that with the turns life takes you through, it is a BRIDGE meant to turn you into the person to get and sustain what you say you want. Decide it and it is so.
I am someone who is a first generation American immigrant, my parents moved to the US from India when I was 5 and we had very little here. I grew up 'lower' middle class, and didn't have the best money programming from parents, but I always did well in school.
I KNOW I am going to be the first multi millionaire in my family. It's all in how you think about yourself/self concept and the work you do from that mindset. Do actions and shift your environment in accordance with who you want to be.
I always splurge on self care now and do things like fly business class or pay more for a better room because that's who I internally am. Just find a way to produce more and let it flow instead of shrinking yourself to be someone you’re not in your 4D
I don't try to scrimp and penny pinch, I let money flow. Even though getting stolen 70k was traumatic, oh well, I chose to give it a better, empowering meaning and my reality shifted.
That's all I have to say. Do the work. Stop procrastinating with learning. All the teachers, scripture, it's all the same Truth at the core. Learning is fine because you learn different mental models at different points of your life but you need to do the work.
I've been fortunate to not only have explored TONS of teachers and books in this realm, you name it I've probably read it or have a copy, I've also HAD mentors and WORKED directly under multi millionaires older and more experienced than me who know this work very well and knew Neville specifically, and it's the real deal. I did sales for someone in the online coaching space was was very well off and had decades of success and spoke of Neville very often, it was really cool.
Proof of the Law
I don't know what more proof you need that the Law is real. All religions throughout eternity have known this, Neville just distilled the same Truth through his own methods that work really well in my opinion and I personally love his interpretation of scripture.
The most successful people in the world are usually consciously (and some unconsciously) doing these same actions. Just do the work and focus on it coming from a good place of knowing that it's done. You don't need to know HOW but you just need to know the plane is going to somehow land one day.
I just come back to Neville every time, because his methods are simple and philosophies work well for how I think. I've done tons of psychedelic mushrooms over the years which luckily made me very open to this sort of thinking, before that I was very rigid and too '3d scientific' minded in my thinking. Keep in mind there is actually nothing 'unscientific' about the Law... modern science has its own limitations in that we cannot measure many things.
What used to be called magic in years past is now under the realm of science right? I'm not saying I don't value logic and science... I have a science degree from a top 5 university.
I'm just saying your ego mind which wants to keep you stuck and surviving uses the excuse of logic and science when that's actually not the full scope of how reality works, we are incredibly limited in our conscious understanding of reality.... we don't even know what we're doing here on a floating rock in infinite space and we can hardly see much of the light spectrum as it is.
So remember that when your ego tries to believe in your limitations and the 3d reality only. You being here is magic that even the most advanced science does not know the answer to. Do scientists know fundamentally why there is something at all instead of nothing?
Anyway, one more thing is I've never been shy of making relatively bold and fast decisions, investing in a mentor (for business) and just generally betting on myself.
Because getting around people who think bigger than you and don't settle is a hack and it's worth every penny. There is a reason millionaires hang with other millionaires.
I'm not saying to cut people out of your life (unless toxic) but rather to seek proximity and get around winners or pay to join some mastermind in business or whatever you need to do to network in your realm.
Just last week I invested 7.5k for get into a network of high performing young male entrepreneurs just because I want a better network in real life and work on business tactics and execution. When I was 23 I invested 25k that I did not have at the time (I made it happen and earned it back) to get a business mentor. So I use all of this in combo with Neville's methods primarily. I really like revision method as well.
The act of DECISION literally creates a parallel reality and becomes the new bridge to your manifestation.

This will be my first time ever openly sharing about my addiction; from the root cause to the effects and struggles that having a porn addiction has impacted my life to this day -
So I just recently turned 21 and I'm beginning to look around and realize that for as long as I've acknowledged that I have a problem and need to quit, I keep feeding the addiction KNOWING that it's ruining my life. Im going to split this post into 3 sections explaining the following stages: The root causes/early development, Progression of my addiction to current day, Main struggles from my PA and how I go about everyday life to heal, and And I think that there are so many aspects of dealing w/ a PA that just makes me feel like, not hopeless but if I had to put the feeling into words its basically like waking up everyday feeling ashamed what I'm doing to myself but not even allowing myself to feel bad for myself because although I didn't understand during the development of my PA, I continue to let it ruin my life day after day.
The root causes/early development: So I believe that my PA manifested due to a few different reasons: Playing "doctor" with my sister as a child, early age porn exposure, and then using porn as a coping mechanism to deal with any negative emotions. So starting w/ "playing doctor", it first happened at a very young age, somewhere between elementary school to 6th grade. I think most people know what that is but to keep it short basically my sister who is a year older than me introduced my to basically role playing as doctor and patient. I wasn't sure if SHE even knew it was wrong but the point is, it happened. I don't remember the small details of exactly how it happened but what leads me to think this was a factor that contributed to my porn addiction is that I know now as an adult that it's wrong, however as we "played doctor" I only grew to enjoy it and occasionally we took things outside of "playing doctor" - which is why I don't know what to make of it... Long story short it went from "doctor" to us making up our own games like "spy" where we pretended to fight each other as spy's, getting "knocked out" unconscious while she'd touch... and I specifically remember wanting to play these games in hopes that it led to that. But even outside of playing games... I grew to wanting to touch her and act on perverted thoughts as a child that were NOT normal for my age at the time. And sometimes I would sneakily act on them - which as I'm reflecting on makes me think that me KNOWINGLY trying to be sneaky and act on perverted thoughts at that young of an age had to have carried on with me as I got older.. And then the last thing that I vividly remember was when I was probably 10-12 years old is when again we were actually kind of aggressively play fighting, somehow ended up with each other's hands DOWN THERE and we kept going on each other until she made me.... yeah. And that was the last memory I had of what started out as us "playing doctor". Fast forward to current date since that last memory and we've never spoken about those experiences (more on that later). Going onto the actual exposure of pornography and WATCHING porn, I was exposed to it somewhere in between the same timeframe as when I'd play doctor and the last memory of us playing (somewhere between the ages of 8-12). I can vividly remember the scene that played late at night on the tv that my parents had left on (I shared a room with them). And then moving forward from there, somewhere in between I would find videos on YouTube of this "prank" channel where he'd go up to paid actors, bet that if he beat them in rock paper scissors with them that they'd have to make out with them. And as a young kid at the time seeing a girl in a bikini making out with a guy as he grabbed on her ass just made me horny and I learned to masturbate from there. And I cant think of a stronger dopamine hit for a 8-12 year old little me at the time than seeing those videos and pleasuring myself. After this, I'd hit middle school where I was bullied a lot, all while lacking social skills necessary to make any genuine friends or deal with the emotional turmoil of being bullied. Fast forward a few months and I think I just progressively began to normalize using porn as a coping mechanism - All the way from whenever I just got mad while dying repetitively on the videogame, to avoiding the fact that I hated my life everyday that I went to school. I'd use porn to receive that "good feeling" whenever I could. And I think my sexual addiction got worse when I began touching myself in the shower almost everyday in middle school to the imagination of the pretty girls that were at my school, even though I had neverarely talked to some of them. It was just a thing for me where every night I took a shower, I closed my eyes and fantasized about doing stuff with them. And then the cycles of me normalizing these things continued and eventually I found out about REAL porn sites.
Progression of my addiction to current day: So shortly after finding the real porn sites I entirely opted to use those as much as possible as the cycle continued. So by my freshman year of high school I was already using porn sites regularly. I remember during summer and winter breaks, sometimes I'd sleep at my grandmas and stay up all night switching from porn completion, to watching my favorite youtuber and streamers, to going back to jerking off. It was a multiple times a day/night occurrence OFTEN. Sometimes even during the middle of the day I'd pretend to use the bathroom but really I had a porn video pulled up and I watched until I was done. And as time progressed one video didn't exactly cut it for me. I don't think its that I couldn't get off to the first video, but more so that I just had the urge to see more and didn't want to nut yet. I didn't even know if I was purposely edging or not. I did not even understand that edging was a concept yet. Its just something that occurred naturally for me. And during all of this, I am still somewhere in the age range of 13-15. Consistently ejaculating to pornography, further exploring the more basic categories of porn like anal and lesbian. I think a notable memory was one of the first times I watched porn in the middle of work during summer break (extended family owns a construction company so I worked over breaks). It's crazy because in construction all we have are porta-potties that are always hot and nasty and the urge just came over me one day to pretend like I was using the bathroom and get one off before I went back... I don't think I even realized at the time that I had an addiction because this was still early high school. It was just something I looked at as a good feeling and whenever the urges came to me I took any chance I got to fulfill them. Even if I was sharing a room with a family member, I'd be as slow and quit as I could, touch myself under the covers, finish in my underwear and then showechange the next morning like it was normal. Moving forward, this type of behavior continues all the way throughout high school and the feeling of ejaculating just is not as intense as it use to be, so I look up ways to spice it up and I tried shit all the way from sitting on my own hand til it goes sort or numb so it "feels like someone else is touching you", to doing it in more risky places like my backyard outside when I was home alone and had my pants pulled down all the way, to whatever else I could try. Reflecting back, I just look at all these actions as the progressions of a sexual/porn addiction that is still developing. And this is how I rationalize the way I developed a porn addiction. Now it wasn't AWFUL in high school but it was getting bad. I realized that I had actually had a bad addiction that needed to be addressed a few months after graduating high school. From that point forward It was something that I had acknowledged was an issue but nonetheless, continued to do out of habit and as a continued coping mechanism. Whether it was from the lack of relationships, to my current life situation/direction I was headed in, or just any negative emotion - I used porn to release. Sometimes I'd even just do it out of boredom, not even because I had a dying urge to get one off. And then after that point of realization, I sat in "depression" for a few months still going about my everyday life until one day my dad mentioned that I should try therapy. He knew nothing about the addiction but I did let him know I feel depressed and the many struggles that I faced - which I believe is due to my porn addiction. So long story short, I go to therapy for about 3 sessions and end up dropping it because it just wasn't something I felt was helping or enjoyed (more on that later). From there to current day, I've gone at MOST one week periods attempting to quit porn and every time I relapse. From the age of 18-curerent day 21 years old, the progression of the categories of porn that I watch has grown and a few different fetishes like face sitting, femdom, and role play has increased. I don't NEED to watch these specific categories to get off, however these are ones I've found myself most recently watching and edging to, sometimes for 1-3 hours at a time, usually at night on weekends or before I fall asleep. And to take it a step further, I had started putting money into camgirl sites, phone sex sites, only fans, etc.. I live with my parents still so it's not to the point that I'm broke and have no money, but still what the fuck am I doing putting my hard earned money into a porn addiction... (I'm a functioning adult on a pathway to financial freedom, more on this later).
Everyday life and dealing with my addiction: So I believe that the main struggles with my porn addiction consist of: the inability/struggle to create and maintain healthy relationships, low self esteem, poor social skills, lack of motivation, and the cognitive dissonance of continuing my addiction to porn even though morally I believe it is wrong to lust over. I believe all of these struggles that come with porn are connected to each other - minus the cognitive dissonance. But everything else kind of stacks on top of each other. So my thought process is that I already dealt w/ low self esteem and confidence from a very young age, and porn just completely enhanced those problems and made it even harder to fix/work on. If you're anything like me and have watched videos on the sciences of porn on your brain, and possible struggles that we deal with, I'm assuming you know how it goes for the most part. I'd say I show symptoms of all effects of being a porn addict, however I've learned to "act normal" to an extent. Like YES I struggle to make friends and hold conversations with people in general but I can make it happen. Sure it'll be a little awkward depending on who I'm speaking to, but I feel like I act normal enough to not be a total outcast and all out weirdo around people. But I just feel like every relationship I have with anyone is extremely surface level or unfulfilling. I feel like as a person I lack so much substance and personality due to the fact that I never really put myself out there and learned social skills when I was coming up. My mindset was molded into something like "keep your head down and stay out the way" in order to avoid conflict. So I never really put myself out there to develop any type of super crazy/interesting personality. I work, play videogames, go to the gym, watch anime. I feel like there's not much else - which might also be a side affect of my porn addiction.

UPDATE: Put the hose on the edge of their property telling them to fuck off or theyre gonna fuck around and find out.
I’ll admit it, my title is very click bait-ish. TLTR at bottom.
So my boyfriend (33m) and myself (33f) have lived in our home since January 2022. It’s nothing extravagant. But it’s enough for us. The rent is very low, the landlord actually landlords and it may not be the safest neighborhood but there are way worse areas in my town. We’ve adjusted well and made sure to have protection around the home. The safety isn’t the issue here though. It’s not why you’re reading this so let’s get into it. I’m also very new to posting so please be gentle.
A couple of months after moving in we saw our neighbor Danielle (35f) having a really hard time working on her vehicle in her yard. Our homes are pretty close and I could tell she was very frustrated and just looked confused (I would as well). I let my bleeding heart take over and went to introduce myself. She explained her frustrations with her vehicle and the story behind it and she really didn’t know how to move forward. I told her to wait up and I’d get my boyfriend to come check and we spent the afternoon doing what we could for her and honestly it was great. We even met her mom that lives nearby also as the mom wa watching Danielle’s children while she was outside. We learned she also had a boyfriend (who smokes a lot of weed, no hate just relevant) who was at work but didn’t know anything about vehicles.
My boyfriend and I occasionally had drinks with her sometimes but her boyfriend never joined because when he’s home he’d rather smoke and play video games. Someone needs to be in the home with the kids so it wasn’t like an insult or anything. Just to show we don’t have much interaction with him.
It then turned into her asking us for stuff ALL THE TIME. She needed a few bucks here and there for smokes or drinks. If we’d have it we’d help her with a back and grab her a cheap six pack. When you’re broke but have food and bills paid it’s stressful and I don’t think anyone should be shamed for wanting to chill a bit. I did what I’d want someone to do for me. Unfortunately, it kinda got out of hand when her mom came banging on our door asking for cash (at this time we had one vehicle and my boyfriend was at work with it since I work from home). When I informed her i don’t typically keep cash she huffed and said she’d take me to an ATM and acted as if I inconvenienced HER. It left a bad taste in my mouth so I lied and said my boyfriend had my cards as well. She was super pissed, said “thanks I guess. Now I don’t know what to do.” Like it was my fault and my problem? I awkwardly said by and shut the door. I brought this up to Danielle to which she responded her mom had some sort of brain injury and to ignore her.
Later her mom tried to seduce my boyfriend while he was helping Danielle with something while her boyfriend was still inside and getting high playing video games. That pissed me for multiple reasons. The mom was there so she could have watched her own grandchildren while the boyfriend fixed whatever(her brain injury apparently only caused her to be rude or overly sexual but she can drive, live by herself and watch her grandkids). Danielle did tell the mom to stop as soon as the words came out. So I do credit her with that and I feel bad she had to deal with that. But even if the boyfriend didn’t know how to fix what mine was helping with I felt like he should have come out and at least try to learn. Still, nothing too bad happened and we just decided to distance ourselves from hanging out but still helped Danielle here and there.
During that summer Danielle purchase one of those little swimming pools and a trampoline for her children. She asked if it was okay if the trampoline crossed onto our yard a bit and if she could use our backyard water spigot for her hose as her was located in her front yard. We all run off a well so it doesn’t cost us anything to allow this. So we told her of course she could and hoped the kids had a fun summer. Her oldest even thanked us and it was so sweet.
A couple of weeks in we didn’t have water. Went outside and saw the main valve have been turned off. No biggie. Easy mistake. Then it happened against couple of months later. It still wasn’t a huge deal. I messaged her and was being funny about it to show there is no bad blood. She said her boyfriend was high and did it and she’s correcting him so it doesn’t happen again. It just continued but still a month or so apart but when we saw her we mentioned it but a bit more seriously this time. She was super apologetic and really pissed off at her boyfriend. It stopped for a good bit. Just randomly here or there months apart and you could tell it was a mistake. Probably a child distracting them and nothing to make a fuss over.
This year it has increased every month. To where it now happened 3 times in the last 2 weeks and it’s only Wednesday night.
My boyfriend hydroplaned in our convertible yesterday. He is lucky to be alive. He was sent into a tree which a branch came through the windshield Final Destination style and had it not been angled he would be dead. All kinds of bark and shit went into his eyes as well so he’s blind in one eye (hopefully only temporary) and the other eye that didn’t get it as badly is still very blurry unless he clear all the gunk out and focuses super hard.
Despite his injuries, he was attempting to remove the bad tail light on our truck so we’d have a vehicle until we get the insurance payout. He saw and heard a plethora of people at the neighbors house partying and went over to ask if he could pay someone to him. Turns out they were partying with high schoolers and I will say they offered to take direction because they saw how badly he is banged up and didn’t want money, but admitted they didn’t want to mess anything up. He said it was okay and thanked them for their kindness. As he was leaving he remembered the water thing and kindly asked them to please pay attention to not tie the water off to our house and that is been happening a lot. Danielle is super apologetic and as he’s heading back to our yard he hears her GOING IN on the boyfriend.
A little before 10pm he spills something on our couch obviously because he can barely see. So I’m cleaning it and using water. But then literally 1 min later his face wound starts bleeding and he goes to wet a cloth an no water. I know it all the emotions and the adrenaline from the day before, but I was seeing red. I bolt out the door like a mad woman. My boyfriend knew it wasn’t good and tried to follow me but had a hard time because it’s night, his eyes are injured and now he can’t even clean the blood easily so it’s going in the “good” eye.
So I stop and turn around to take him back inside and he says “no let’s take care of this”. As he’s turning the spigot on that leads water to our home I’m undoing their hose. I start throwing it into their yard when he says “ Nope. It’s hooked to our property. We’re gonna show them what it feels like to be inconvenienced. If they apologize they can have it back”.
So we now have their water hose in our garden tub ironically. I have a feeling Danielle’s boyfriend got pissed she went in on him for being a selfish idiot and he did it to get back at us. My boyfriend and I smoked a ton of weed in the past but it never made us vindictive. I know Danielle will come over to ask if we know what happened to it. And we’re going to give it back to her as long as she is kind like she always is. We will allow her to use our spigot again, but she is the only person allowed to come into our yard for that moving forward.
Am I just an emotional asshole?
TLTR: Neighbor uses our spigot for hose but keeps turning the water to our home off.

I (21F) decided to drop out of university a couple of months ago after my third attempt at a degree. Bluntly, I just don’t think the way it works is for me. I’m ADHD/ASD Level 1 and, partially as a result of that, I’m an extremely literal person and I learn through examples of a concept or way of thinking in practice. I had to spend hours and hours of my time a week seeking out examples of every single topic I learnt in a class (say, I was in a class about political theory when I was trying out political science and they mentioned historical relativism, I then had to spend hours searching for examples of historical relativism to understand it). I also struggle a lot with hyper focus and there’d be days where I’d just read without food or even more than one or two bathroom breaks from 8am in the morning to 8pm at night. As you can imagine, I got super burnt out and I’d crash and burn and end up majorly depressed within a year, but then a few months later I’d convince myself that it was just because I didn’t like the material and try again. Thankfully, I finally picked up on the cycle and I walked away for good. Maybe I’ll try again in my mid or late 20s, but, right now, I’m done.
I still live with my parents and, when I told them I dropped out of uni full-stop, they just said: “It’s absolutely fine that you’re not in uni for now, but you need to get a full-time job ASAP if you want to continue living here” and I jumped right on it. My dad works in hospital administration and his manager told him to tell me to send my resume to HR there and they’ll maybe hook me up with something. Within a week, I got an interview with one department that I thought went solidly despite my utter lack of experience in hospitals or even in administration (my only work experience before has been nannying and working in OSHC/tutoring centres casually). The department head called me about a week later saying I wasn’t successful for that particular position but they really liked “my personality” and all my references were great and they were passing my resume onto other department heads.
A couple of weeks later, I got a call from an administration manager that oversaw the hospital’s Brain Injury Rehabilitation Unit and she wanted me to come in and “meet everyone”. I thought this just was code for another interview so I got super prepped and came in ready to be grilled. As it turns out, the manager just met me in the building that all the heads and managers work out of it and took me to the unit. I met the head nurse and her and the manager just sat me down and told me all about the unit, warned me about some of the challenges (ward accepts children and seeing brain-damaged children come who have to stay there on their own for an extended period doing rehab with little understanding of what’s going on is, of course, distressing + majority of patients in the ward are young men who sometimes get argumentative and aggressive), assured me that I’d do several weeks worth of training so that I’d feel adequately prepared, allowed me to ask questions and gave me a tour of the entire unit afterwards. In the end, the head nurse said: “Looking forward to seeing on the 27th!” as she said goodbye. I was totally flabbergasted because it wasn’t even an interview - just a good, informative chat.
The admin manager told me as she was seeing me off that I didn’t have to accept the position if I didn’t want it, but I “have the job” and to please let her know within a couple of days what I decided. I have my reservations about how I’ll handle it (I’ve worked with disabled children in tutoring/OSHC but this is a lot different) but I really want to give it a try + I kind of need a job so I called her the next day saying I’d love to take up the position. I’m still kind of in shock. As I said in the title, I basically got offered this job on a silver platter and I’m in absolute disbelief about how this has all happened and how I just suddenly got a job on a random Tuesday. Like wtf?
I got sent some paperwork yesterday about the job and the minimum pay is $2820 a fortnight which is utterly INSANE. No, I’m not going to be rich, but, as someone who’s always worked casually around school and never earned over $700 a fortnight, I still can’t fathom that amount of money. Even after I take out tax, mandatory HECS (student loan system in Australia) repayments and the amount of rent my parents are charging, I’m still pocketing $1800 a fortnight. I can’t even believe it. I didn’t think it was possible for 21-year-olds without a degree to earn that much. I don’t even want to tell anyone around me because I’m afraid it’s some mistake.
I won’t lie. There are some cons. The job is from 7:30 to 3:30 M-F and, because of how far I live from the hospital and the fact that I can’t drive for medical reasons, I’ll have to get up before 5:30 in the morning. The admin manager also mentioned to me that the unit doesn’t really ‘do’ overtime and if I clock out after my scheduled finish time, a record of that time is kept and I can eventually apply for an extra leave day with it. Furthermore, as I mentioned above, there’s elements of the job I have mixed feelings about. I have a lot of trouble comforting people, so if a distressed patient or family member approaches me (which, in a brain injury unit, is probably going to be common), I’m not really sure what else to say other than: “Oh… Oh.. I’m sorry… That really sucks… Oh… Oh…” Nevertheless, both of those pitfalls still don’t seem to justify the 72k a year to me… It’s not like I’m literally taking care of these patients, I’m just talking to people coming in and answering emails and phones.
I’m super scared that there’s something that’s being hidden from me and that’s why they were so eager to get me, an inexperienced 21 year old, into the position. I tried to ask my mum the other day: “What if they’re just saying that the patients are ‘argumentative’, but in reality they throw chairs and spit at the admin or you’ll have to pull 11 hour shifts on the regular with no proper overtime or they’ll just leave me in charge of an entire ward and that’s why they’re so desperate to find someone?” My mum told me that I was being ridiculous and I’m “underselling myself” and she’s sure it will be fine… but I’m not 100% certain. I’m sure there has to be at least some level of transparency and professionalism because it’s a public hospital and it’s fully accountable to the government (the Australian health system is reassuring sometimes!), but there’s nothing strictly stopping them from straight up lying about what I’m in for when I start this job.
I really want an objective perspective on this because everyone I’ve personally tried talking about this to has brushed me off and said they’re sure I’ll be great… But I don’t ask if they think I’ll be great, I’m asking if they think this job is straight up too good to be true and they’re just dancing around the question. Randoms, what do you think?

Hey everyone, so I'm currently pregnant with my second and my fiancés first. I had a super small shower (four people total) with my first and didn't think I would do one this time around but my fiance wanted one so this is more of a shower to celebrate the first grandbaby on his side and celebrate him becoming a dad. Recently he switched jobs to something lower paying (went from 20/hr to 17/hr plus 25% commission) due to being laid off, so we've been working on adjusting to the change. When it came to planning the baby shower I've been pretty much on my own for it since he's been hands off with the planning.
This evening I sat down to double check the budget for the month to see how much we could spend on food for the shower (we bought the decorations and invites last month) and I noticed that after the upcoming bills we'll have around $88 total even if his check is as large as I'm estimating it. This is before even calculating gas and groceries to last till the next check.
I realized after looking at this, that it wouldn't make sense to continue with the baby shower since we'd have decorations but that's about it. I spoke with my fiance about this and he volunteered his parents to buy the cake and food for the baby shower but I don't think that's possible since they are hosting his brothers graduation the day before the shower and already spent money on food for that party (we planned the shower close to the graduation due to family from far away only being able to come up then and only planned after getting permission from his brother since this is his graduation)
To my brain the only logical solution was to cancel the shower (if we postponed most of the guests wouldn't be able to make it) , and when I brought it up to him he said that his parents could just cover the food and not to worry. I don't think that's fair to throw this on his parents with less than a week till the shower, and during his brothers graduation. Am I wrong?
Should we actually cancel the shower? It just doesn't seem smart to throw people under the bus as well as not smart to spend our last pennies till the 2nd on food for the shower ignoring our own needs (gas and groceries)
This is rambling but I'm just upset and don't know what to do in this situation. I've tried to make so many things perfect for my fiance this pregnancy especially since we're stopping after this one but it seems like everything is against us.

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.

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 considering buying a relatively high ticket item (an ebike) and the seller I'm looking to buy from is offering to drop their price a little bit since it was initially a little out of my price range and I would also be their first customer.
They actually initially hooked me in with a similar item that was significantly lower price. I told him I was all set to order it but he warned me that despite it saying they had it in stock at their US Warehouse it would actually be shipping from China and if I needed it sooner I shouldn't order it.
We talked for over an hour and he's been super helpful, cordial, and provided tons of helpful information. Since the bike I was initially looking at was going to take 50 days to arrive from China he said he'd knocked a couple hundred off an even better one that they do have available in their US warehouse which has similar specs so as to make it more affordable for me.
I would love to order it, but as I'm not super familiar with AliExpress I have some trepidation as it's a lot of money. On the other hand, if this seller wanted my money above all else why would they have warned me that what I was considering ordering was going to take a lot longer? I would think they would have just pressured me to order it anyway.
They even went so far as to remove the erroneous listing that claimed the bike I was first looking at was available in their US Warehouse so others wouldn't be confused.
Still, if I'm just being played, how much will I have to fight to get mr money back if I'm disputing a seller with no ratings at all?

I just got back from my first semester of college and my life came crashing down. My brother outed me as trans to my incredibly unsupportive parents. I won’t hear my chosen name until I’m back on campus, and even then only a few people will know it. I get misgendered every day. I have DDs that a binder can’t hide and no money for hormones or surgery, and I don’t pass at all between my high voice and my body, no matter how masculine I dress. I can’t stop eating. I had a very early miscarriage last winter — right after I lost my virginity to a complete stranger — and nobody knows. The due date would have been my best friend’s birthday in the fall, and I know I’ll have to fake a smile for him. He’s also in love with another one of my friends who doesn’t like him back and he won’t talk about anything else. He doesn’t give two shits about me — he just wants me to set him up with my other friend and if I can’t do that, I’m good for nothing. He also used to be my drinking buddy until I quit a month ago and now he thinks I’m worthless because I’m apparently only fun when I’m drunk and helpless. I was groped right in front of him at a party and he did nothing because he was crossfaded and just laughed it off and offered me a shot, then grabbed my arm and dragged me off to the next party. I just wanted him to let me breathe. He won’t acknowledge that what he did was wrong and when I mention it, he claims that it was probably an accident. I know my body, and I know that the grab was far too intentional and far too drawn out to be an accident. My family has cut me off from friends back home and I live too far from the school friends who aren’t pieces of shit to run off with any of them without weeks of planning and the risk that they can track me through my phone or the other tracking devices they’ve had installed. I spent most of this year in this codependent friendship with a senior, and now that she’s graduated, I feel so alone. This is going to sound super cliche because it’s a freshman-senior friendship and I promise that this has nothing to do with anything they said or did, but no one’s ever gotten me as much as they have. Even if I made it to next year, it’s not like I’ll see her. My school is ultra-conservative and understandably, they’re running for the hills, and I don’t ever want to stop them from doing that. I feel like if I tell someone what’s going on, I’ll either drag them down or they’ll just ridicule me, and even if I do, not much is going to change. I don’t have access to the money I’ve earned over the years, and starting from what little I have saved up isn’t feasible. I wouldn’t be able to buy my way out, and I don’t have people who would be willing and able to help me get on my feet. Even if I do, it’s only a matter of time before I’m back where I started, and every time I’m back here, it gets harder to adjust. I lose my temper way too easily, and being without my friends gets isolating even after a few days. I only got home four days ago and I already feel hopeless about the long wait until summer’s over. I see every stretch I’m back on campus as a countdown now; in the fall, everything was so new and exciting that I could forget that I ever had to leave, but after a major fallout over winter break, I just couldn’t feel like I was really back. My grades tanked, so now I don’t think I can catch up and finish strong. I would be a cordless graduate without much to show for it except a fucked-up liver and a couple of embarrassing stories I don’t even remember. That’s how people would remember me. At my funeral, they’ll talk about how I was down for anything, how I slept with a stranger during finals week, how I drank 9 shots in 15 minutes and didn’t throw up. I won’t care. I’ll be dead. I’m not leaving behind much of a legacy, but I don’t see much of a future if I’ll never be financially independent. I can never transition, never feel like a real man, never stop dissociating. I can’t hold a friendship, so what makes me think I’ll be able to hold a romantic relationship? I’m probably going to kill myself at 30, so what’s the fuss about doing it at 19? Same shit, different day.

I would like to start off by saying yes, I am aware I am an idiot a lot of the time, but this has to be one of the stupidest things I've done. Recently, Childish Gambino released his new album, and with it, he released his upcoming world tour. Me (17M) and my (17F) girlfriend love Childish Gambino, so we were both super excited about this upcoming news. However, reality set in that we both don't really have the money for it, so we were a bit disappointed, or at least I pretended to be. Little did she know I have a secret money stash, specifically made for moments like these when one of my favorite artists may make a surprise visit to my city. So I signed up for the presale and listened to his music to improve my chances, and the night before the presale went live, I was able to get the link. This was great. I had roughly 300 dollars that I could use to get both of us some seats. The problem was that the presale went live during one of my classes. My school is pretty strict when it comes to phone use, so I was risking getting into some big shit at the school if I got caught, especially because I am very active in the school and am well known by staff on a first name basis.
To get around getting in trouble in school, I told my mom that it was saved on her computer with the link and password to the website so she would be able to get in and buy them for me in case I couldn't during class. GREAT, all set and done, ready to rock and roll. BTW, Childish Gambino I love you, but respectfully, WHY MAKE PRESALE ON A RANDOM WENSDAY AT 12 PM? Anyways, I got to school and did my normal school day stuff. When 11:55 rolled around, I went to the website on my computer and logged in. In the moment, I realized I could email my mom instead of texting her. So I used that to ask if she also got in and give me a heads-up about how much the tickets were. She was slow at responding, which is understandable given the circumstances. She let me know she was able to grab two tickets for $295, and she was about to pay but I told her I just got in, so I'd do it.
I got in and realized I had a timer on my screen. They were hurrying me to make a selection. I clicked and clicked and sanged the tickets for 99 bucks each, not bad. It was after I paid that my girl friend asked me what was wrong, as she saw the sheer look of horror on my face.
She looked at my screen, which I had kind of hidden from her, but she was able to take a peek while I was in this dark space. I had bought tickets to OAKLAHOMA.
My dear redditors, just to let you know, I DO NOT LIVE ANYWHERE NEAR FUCKING OAKLAHOMA.
So my girlfriend sees this, and she's stunned because she realized this was supposed to be her present because the concert is like 2 days later, but she also sees I bought the wrong tickets, so she isn't mad at me, but she's sad because: 1. I bought the wrong tickets, wasting money; 2. she messed up her birthday gift; 3. she saw I was sad and empathized with me. I definitely thought I should have just let my mom buy the tickets instead of wanting to pick them out and get them myself. So yeah, I just wasted 255 bucks. I'm trying to resell them and only lose 75, but still.
TL;DR: I wanted presale tickets for childish gambino of my girlfriend's birthday, and I bought tickets for the wrong music venue running her birthday present and me for the whole 255 bucks.

(Maybe tw food habits a little
Diagnosed with adhd not autism but definitely curious ab possibly having autism lol)—
As a a college student who has to work while in school and live on a strict grocery budget, allotting room in that budget for safe foods is SO ANNOYING. My safe foods are genuinely down to the brand specific and are the only thing I will eat like 5/7 days a week. They are also super random. My roommates think my diet is insane lol I don’t blame them!
Ni gotta start buying generic brand to save money and I know I should branch out but safe foods a lot of the time are the only way I get nutrients. One of the reasons I want to get assessed for autism is because i meet so much criteria for ARFID and I need to get that situation under control.
Just a vent I guess. I forget how hard it is being neurodivergent and also not rich af and able to nott work while in school

For context, I started a an advanced program in 10th grade after spending myentire school like not really studying or working all that hard at school and passing by with decent marks. Not that I cared about marks at all up until then. Then 10th comes and suddenly I'm in an environment full of 'overachievers' and whatnot, getting slammed with horrible marks because of my horrible habits, which really had an effect on my mental health because by the second semester I knew I could do better but old habits die hard.
The first month of that summer I was just really depressed and felt like a failure, I'd lost a lot of my friends who didn't go into the advanced program and I couldn't go out and socialize all that much with people. On top of that I hated the feeling of being wasted potential so much, so by the end of July when I went on vacation somewhere I decided to study some topics in advance and work out here and there. Road trips to lots of different places really helped my mental health and made me happier, and the studying (while beneficiary) was mainly to build good habits and restore some of that lost confidence in myself, to make myself see that I'm more than just wasted potential.
September comes and school starts and I'm alone again (I live mainly by myself with money for groceries arriving every week, and no I'm not some rich brat I live in a relatively bad area and I had to budget by spending ~$25 every week. Better than a lot of people but certainly not upper-class). I do great at school; I'm at the top or at least in the top ranks in almost every subject, and while I'm not as active as I could be I give myself a pass since I'm living by myself after all.
Then it all goes downhill. There's a few factors; first is me being in a school play and having to spend long ours after school, while also somehow finding time for 3 tests (chemistry, math, and physics), and it all just made me burned out by the end. The cherry on top was me getting (for me) horrible marks on my math test and almost failing the physics one (arguably the hardest unit as well). I mostly spent time studying for the chemistry test and while I did get 100% there, it just didn't help the feeling of burnout and being upset. From here on out everything is completely my fault, I could've 100% made better decisions but I simply didn't.
First of all a 2 week winter break is approaching for which I'll have to go to another country, and my parents wanted me to go there early. In retrospect, it would've been so much better if I just didn't go and spent my time at school, I probably would've returned to my senses at some point instead of distracting myself.
I started missing class. Pure and simple, just skipping. I also started to just put off from doing assignments, not that there was a lot at this point but still. Most of my teachers also wanted to speak to me before I left to have some sort of plan as to what to do before I leave. Those conversations never happened because, of course, I skipped school. During the trip itself? Didn't do anything that was assigned to me online, didn't study any of the units the class was doing, didn't do a single fucking thing. I'd say I also got lazier during this period which made it infinitely harder to lock in and ger back into the flow of school again.
So, what did I do when I went back to school? More classes skipped, horrible sleep scheduling, almost all my grades went down a considerable amount, exams were done extremely poorly, and that's the end of the first semester. Oh, and multiple assignments were overdue. The start of the second semester was much the same, with my dumbass accumulating work and doing disastrously on tests. It took a while, particularly a 'pep talk' from a philosophy teacher that really touched me, but I managed to get it all under control and finish a lot of my work: late, but at least it's not a 0.
As I'm getting back into the flow of how I was during the start of this school year, I can't help but feel all the time I wasted, all the potential I had, I might be doing better than some of my peers but I failed myself. That entire summer I spent trying to create good habits and regain my confidence, it feels like it was all for nothing. Like everything I promised myself I'd do has gone down the gutter. Even though I'm trying my best now, some classes I've done permanently bad in and there's no fixing that. Even when I have small victories there's an overbearing sense of failure.
***okay sorry that was way longer than I initially intended it to be. In any case, thanks for reading!