Girlfriend cheer up poem

So, growing up I was the oldest child and had a brother who was 4 years younger than me. I grew up in a strict Catholic household, but my parents grew a bit more open minded once I was in high school and college. My mother specifically is pretty open minded about most things these days, but my Dad still lives a bit in the dark ages.
When I was in middle school, I started to notice that I would occasionally go to look for something in my closet and couldn't find it. I would mention it to my Mom, who did my laundry, and most often she would say she didn't have it. Almost always, the piece of clothing would mysteriously appear in either the laundry or my closet days later. My parents told me I just owned too many clothes and my closets/drawers were simply too full, and that's why I lost these items.
In high school, this continued with more frequency, and I started to notice that it was always very particular items of clothing- plaid mini skirts, knee high socks, heeled boots, and sometimes, even underwear. I have several vivid memories of going to pull underwear out of my dresser and seeing that it had obvious stains or spots on them- that they were not clean and had definitely been used, but not by me. I also noticed that sometimes the items would be put in the closet in the wrong spots (I had everything organized a particular way) or they were hung up on hangers oddly. I started to think my brother was the one stealing my clothes, because it couldn't be anyone else in the house. I figured he was doing it just to mess with me, so I started confronting him about it- always in front of my parents and most often at dinner. Immediately my brother would yell and say there's no way he would do that, and my Dad would jump right to his aide and defend my brother. How dare I accuse him? It's not his fault that I'm messy/own too many clothes to keep track of. In private, my Mom would say that she couldn't think of another explanation, but that she didn't believe my brother was doing it and I shouldn't bring it up at family dinners anymore. I was getting increasingly frustrated as this was going on for YEARS. Eventually, I started doing my own laundry, and locking my bedroom door when I wasn't home. Even then, the same thing would happen occasionally. I knew in my heart it was my brother but it didn't matter, because any time I brought it up I was the one blamed for causing a fight. I even confronted my brother privately a few times, but he never admitted to anything.
Well, one day when I was in my Senior or Grad year of college- I was probably around 22 at the time- I wanted some alone time while the house was empty and I go to get my vibrator out of the bottom drawer of my nightstand, except... it wasn't there. I looked everywhere, even dumping out the drawer completely just to make sure it wasn't. My mom knew I had one, so the first thing I did was call her and ask if she knew what had happened to it. She didn't. So, I went into my brother's room and started searching. There, shoved into the corner of his closet under a bunch of random stuff, was a stash- complete with multiple of my items of clothing, shoes, handfuls of underwear, and my vibrator. To say I was pissed was an understatement. I was seeing red. My mom and brother were on the way home, so I took pictures, put everything back, and waited.
When they got home, I called them upstairs into his bedroom. I, calmly and even-toned, said to my brother that I wanted to know, once and for all, whether or not he'd been the one messing with my clothes for years, and that I wouldn't be mad, but I wanted him to admit to it if it was him. Immediately, he starts screaming for me to get out of his room, how dare I accuse him, etc. At this point, my Mom was pretty convinced herself as over the years there was never another explanation, so she tried to come to my aid and explain that it's nothing to be embarrassed of and he could talk to her about anything. She even asked me to go out of the room so they could talk privately. I eavesdropped from outside, and heard him say that it's not his fault I'm crazy and a bitch, etc. He continued to deny it. I had reached my tipping point. I burst into the room, threw open the closet door and grabbed the vibrator. I whipped around with it in my outstretched arm, looked him dead in the eyes and screamed "EXPLAIN THIS!" A look of absolute horror reached his face. He didn't say anything. So, I threw the vibrator at him, and then starting taking each other item out of the closet and throwing it into a pile in the middle of the room. Only after that was done did he finally crack. He started to sob. I told my Mom that I would be back, that she needed to talk to him, and I left the house.
A few hours later, I returned and my Mom basically told me that he admitted to stealing the clothes for YEARS. He wouldn't tell her what he was doing with them- she thought he was maybe putting them on pillows and pretending they were girls (he'd never had a girlfriend or anything) but I always thought- and still do- that he'd been wearing the clothes in his room. She discussed with him that she would be willing to purchase women's clothes for him so that he wouldn't need to steal mine, and that she would do it in private so my Dad wouldn't know. She also told me that he was incredibly ashamed and she was nervous he'd hurt himself or attempt to end himself because of my confrontation (never in his life had he ever showed signs of this). I told her to relay the message to him that all I wanted was an apology.
A few hours later, he came to me, totally unable to look me in the face, but he apologized for the years of stealing- and sometimes ruining- my clothes. He apologized for denying it every time he was confronted and even offered to replace every single item of clothing/underwear if I wanted (It would have been a couple hundred dollars). I thanked him for apologizing, told him that I would be more than willing to purchase him things myself, that I did not want him to replace anything (because no one wants their brother to buy them a sex toy) and that if he ever wanted to talk about things I was there. It was that day that I told him I was bisexual, had had a girlfriend in secret in high school, and if he was questioning anything I would be an open ear. Even then, our relationship was strained for a long time.
It's been like 6 years now. I moved out as soon as I could, and always said to my Mom that I moved out more to get away from my brother than my parents. My brother has been more open with me in the past few years about his identify and sexuality (I believe him to be demisexual) and the fact that he does, in fact, purchase and wear women's clothing on occasion in the privacy of his own room. He once asked me if it would be okay for him to wear lingerie- type items when he visits/sleeps over my apartment. I respectfully declined, stating that I still harbored negative feelings towards that whole situation and quite frankly, didn't want to see my brother in his underwear, and he accepted that.
Still, to this day, I harbor resentment towards my parents that they never took my side until there was hard, undeniable truth in front of them. I actually don't know if my Mom ever told my Dad- he could be totally unaware of this whole situation. I've always thought they treated my brother differently. I had to be the responsible one. I had to be the one that held it all together. I had to be the one to do things for everyone else, even at my own expense. I've never really truly forgiven them for not believing me.
Anyway, that's what I's unpacking in therapy this week. I hope the visual of me flinging a vibrator across a room made you smile if nothing else! Cheers everyone.

Ciao Gang

It’s been a few weeks – IM Texas is done and dusted. As one would expect, I’m fully recovered. Not quite, but ouais yeah here goes my race recap
Swim – 1:22:05
T1 – 00:08:29
Bike – 6:51:34
T2 – 00:08:29 (exact same lol)
Run – 6:22:40
~Background Info~
Very sporty and athletic 26 year old who weighs give or take 185 lbs on any given day. Have run two 70.3’s with generally good and comfortable results. Have ran like a dozen marathons and all-around active person. Fitness is “in” right now so I keep busy ya hear
Socially… I stopped drinking two months before the race (varied 5-30 drinks a week before though…). Never changed my diet at all leading up to the race
~Prep~
This area can get a little complicated – I was scheduled to run IM Texas in 2023, but my so called best friend decided to snap my leg (compound fracture of my tibia and fibula) (very wicked) in half while playing soccer 3 months before race day. So after surgery, one month without standing really, one month using crutches, one month using a cane, endless $$$ spent at physical therapy medical bills etc. I find myself in July of 2023 more or less ready to start training again for IM 2024. I sign up (this time with early benefits so I don’t lose all my money again if I have to cancel, thanks Ironman).

I bought a training plan from MyProCoach. 24 Week Intermediate plan to be exact. Between that plan, help from reddit, Instagram influencers, and my self-proclaimed expert father – I morphed a plan that more or less would hopefully (ambitious I know) get me across the finish line in one piece.
~Training~
My new concoction of a training plan generally consisted of two swims a week (Monday and Thursday), one track workout (usually Tuesdays), one hard bike effort on the trainer (usually Wednesday), fun day Friday (no workout unless I was making up for one I missed), long bike ride (Saturdays), and one long run (Sundays) a week. I would generally build up for three weeks then take a “rest” week with 3 to 4 light workouts just to stay loose-ish. I’d up the tempos, intervals, effort, distances etc. every time I got to a new 3 week build phase.
This is more or less what I stuck to for 6 months. I coach high school lacrosse and still play a decent amount of soccer so there was some tweaking here and there to still accompany those. But this was the plan and I can safely say that I did ~80%~ of my planned workouts. The other 20% fell to the wayside as I was still trying to be a socially active fun 26 yr old guy who likes to drink with his friends (loves to drink with his friends)

~Week of the race~
I live in Houston, TX where the race is (really it’s in the woodlands but who cares), so there was no extensive travel for me or anything like that.

I got in some small runs, light bike rides, and swam twice the week of the race. Logistically, I think IM Texas is setup very well. I knew the course very well as a lifelong Houstonian so there was no prep necessary for that. Check-in was easy. Transitions are a bit different at IM Texas than my other tri’s, so that was a small learning curve. But again, nothing to be intimidated by or worry about.

~Race Day~
Managed to go to sleep by 10 pm the night before, so waking up at 4:30am wasn’t the worst thing I’d ever done. Woke up, ate a breakfast sandwich, slammed some coffee, and began hydrating. Got transition about 5:30ish, had my dad and a friend drop me off so didn’t have to walk at all. Got in there, setup bike computer, bottles, etc. I managed to get a BM (dump) out here, which was huge. Things were looking up. Grabbed my wetsuit and then got dropped off at swim start, again no walking which was awesome.
Got to swim start and started getting pretty nervous (all the leg injury shit and 18 months of training were all for this). Water temperature was 75.5 degrees, so wetsuit legal. Luckily had my family and a friend to keep my calm and get my wetsuit on. The gun goes for the pros so I hop in the queue with the other swimmers seeded around the 1:20 to 1:30 mark.

~Swim~
I hop in the water and immediately start worrying that it’s going to get toasty in this wetsuit. In this swim, the buoys are on your left side. I immediately pop out to the right some to get out of all the rough water and kicking feet. There is a park adjacent to the swim start for about 300 meters and I actually see my family walking along the edge of the water as I get out into the lake (mentally huge for me to see them and take my mind off of things while I get in the groove of it all). For about 20 minutes everything is fine, I’m feeling okay, wasn’t overheating in the wetsuit, didn’t let my heart rate get too high (it has in all my other tri swims), and I was sighting well without having to pick my head up too much. At this point the lifeguards/kayak/paddleboard people were pinching us a little too hard. I get they are there for safety and to keep people on course, but I felt like they were funneling us into a tight swim pack for no reason. I totally understand that the swim is dangerous and people can die if help doesn’t get there quick enough, but I felt it was putting a little too much stress on the swimmers. I like to swim away from the pack so maybe this was just me. At the halfway point of the swim, you get funneled through this floating arch (I think it’s for timing purposes?). Whatever the reason for it, it bottlenecked all of us. We were swimming probably 10 people wide through a 7-yard-wide arch. Had to protect your head on that for sure to keep from getting kicked. While I thought it was stupid, it did have a great little benefit. The way we were funneled through created a nice little current and I ended up riding that wave for maybe 75 meters or so. Stupid feature but nice little boost. At this point I’m feeling great. I haven’t been kicked yet, the lungs feel good, I’m not overheating and I have the space to swim in. IM Texas is unique because at 80% of the way through the swim, you start swimming through a canal that people can actually cheer for you and walk with you as you go. I had told my family I’d be on the left side of the canal and as soon as I get into it I pop my head out and see my family, friends, and smoking hot girlfriend cheering me on (again this was mentally huge). I start rocking through the canal which is maybe 25 yards wide and felt like I had a current helping me the whole way through. As I’m swimming, mu friends/family are walking right there with me. It’s such a unique way for people to cheer you on that I got out of the water in a great mood with a smile on my face. I seeded myself perfectly as I got out at 1:22:05.
~Bike~
Going into the bike, IM Texas is known for having absolutely brutal headwinds heading south towards downtown Houston. And with close to 90 miles of the course being on a closed toll road. There is nothing to protect you from a wicked 45 miles of Texas headwind.
But before you get to the toll road, there is a little bit of a “circuit” you go through. So, I hop on the bike and get going. Immediately the course feels a little congested so I try to stay off the bars and ride defensively. Sure enough 8 miles in, big crash ahead as a volunteer golf cart cut off a rider and he crashed hard (thoughts and prayers with the rider). And that right there was the story of the day. HUGE crashes and HEAVY headwinds. I witnessed 6 crashes throughout the ride. Between riders coming through the water stations too fast, cones blowing out on the course, pelotons forming to avoid the wind, inattentive riding (we’re all tired I can understand this), it was a hard day on the course. Thoughts and prayers specifically for the one crash I saw where the organizers made us dismount and walk past. Not sure the context of the crash, but the rider was in a really bad situation. I think I averaged 8 mph heading south into the wind and 28 mph with the tailwind. Haven’t checked my bike data as I still have a bit of PTSD. Between the chaos of everything (I heard rumors a tesla was in self-drive mode on the course and caused a crash…?), I managed to make it to the end about 20 minutes over my 6:30:00 goal. I got off the bike to a boisterous cheer from a phenomenal group of friends and family and walked into transition.
~Run~
Going into the run I wanted to be around 5:30:00. I knew this might be ambitious for me because I didn’t really have that many brick sessions in my training plan. But, I’ve run a few marathons straight off the couch in my day. So, if anything, I know how to suffer through a long slow marathon. Honestly, I don’t have much to say about the first ten miles. My legs felt fine coming off the bike, I was comfortable at a 11:00 min/mile pace , felt good hydrating and getting some food down. Right after mile 10, started feeling some small knots in my stomach. Mile by mile, those knots started to get worse and worse. Every time I got to an aid station, I was able to delay the inevitable by getting down a banana, then potato chips at the next one, then it was chicken broth. By the time my family and friends saw me at the end of the second lap, I was in a bad spot. Was walking three minutes and running one (something like that). The stomach eventually morphed into full body discomfort. The HR kept getting sky high after minimal effort. I knew I was in for a tough last 8 miles. That last 8 miles took maybe 3 hours? I’m not sure, it’s all a blur. The pain finally culminated at mile 25.5, where the wrath of god came down on me and I vomited for 10 maybe 15 minutes, who knows. But at this point I knew I could literally crawl to the finish. I picked my head up and saw my buddy’s girlfriend walking toward me, I figured they had sent her to come find me as the gap between my last time split was getting astronomical. I picked my ass up off the ground and full body cramp runned to the finish line. Will never forget the feeling of having so many friends and family cheering me on to help me get over that line. The only bummer at the finish is I paid all that money for someone to tell me an Ironman on a microphone and I didn’t even hear it. Anyways – life goal accomplished. I’ll see ya at the next one.
P.S. I'm an open book, shoot me any questions you have on my training, advice, hate, love, whatever you want to say

This is not an anti women post. Just wondering if any other guy feels the same way. I just feel that women dont have much to offer me...and since im not great looking I think they feel that I owe it to them to have a great job and good insurance for them. I am not working..and just received a decent inheritance. Also women only seem to notice me when I put a lot of effort into my appearance(clothes and hair and shoes). But I dont want company if these girls are only intrigued by superficiality. I havent left the house in a few days. I think Im going to look for some meaning in the Lord. I think having a gf is not all its cracked up to be(ive had 3 in my lifetime). Cheers to all those suffering from loneliness. I just felt the need tk post this because so many guys express their desire to have a girlfriend and maybe they should look inside themselves and embark on a personal journey of growth instead.

This is the most plausible answer. I think this is exactly how he did it using facts from sermons, emails, texts, news, interviews, maps, and extensive experience with parasitic Narcissistic sitic abuse. If there is anything that I am incorrect on please let me know and I will recalculate. After typing this up two days ago, I stumbled upon Mica’s father‘s interview, and it completely solidified it to the point where I started violently shaking. I think this is what happened.
I was told Winslow‘s property backs up against that state forest. 200 acres. Right down the road. Now remember. Somebody on his staff was told to go and trim back the overgrowth on that specific property shortly before all of this happened,
I think Mica at some point had conversation with Winslow and agreed to come and talk to him at his property, a “safe place JP wouldn’t know.”, thinking she could trust him. I think mica went to winslows and JP was waiting there for unknowingly.
I think Winslow has JP‘s phone and I think JP has Winslow‘s phone so they’re not gonna ping the towers. All they saw was the license plate they never verified He was actually there.
I think JP and Winslow met at a undisclosed location and swapped vehicles. JP went up to Winslow’s NC property with Winslow‘s vehicle and cell phone, and Winslow went down south with JP cell phone and truck. I can’t quite place the girlfriend, but she is an alibi therefore she is aware that something has happened or is going on. I cannot figure out whether or not Winslow was with JP and she took the vehicle down south either or we need to find out the location of where the girlfriend was and where Winslow was. That could all be found by bank financial records of the days in question. Nobody uses cash in 2024 for an entire getaway.
Didn’t they say he got a new truck? There was something new about the truck? Did he get a new one so it wouldn’t have any of Winslow’s DNA inside of it? If Winslow drove it, his DNA/finger prints on the steering wheel would easily be on the steering wheel. Why else would he need to drive Winslow‘s vehicle if there were indications, he was driving the vehicle. Now remember one of them is a lawyer he knows what they look for. JP‘s and Winslow‘s vehicles both need to be tested for gunpowder residue.
Mica shows up to Winslow’s property, JP is there with Winslow’s vehicle, ambushes her OR Winslow is there too and the girlfriend took her phone and truck south. He already has a plan of where he’s going to take her to unalive her before she arrives. JP drives Mica’s car with Mica in it to the final location parking lot, walks her into the woods kills her, puts her stuff down and walks back to Winslow property through the woods. Girlfriend says she was with him, I think she stayed at the property or she drove a vehicle to come get him after he was done if she was there. either way Winslow or girlfriend somebody picked him up or was waiting or he went back to the property and gotten Winslow‘s vehicle and left. Remember it’s not that far away..
Now, after reviewing the 911 recording again, I do not think it is AI. The biggest reason why I know it wasn’t AI is because if you listen to the fast response when asked for the phone number, there wasn’t enough time to record that and send it at the same time. So she replied too fast. Now, when have you ever heard a 911 operator asking somebody for their phone number? That never would have been written. You still have the type stuff in the AI creators. Also, she delayed pause between every number, how would she have replied in half the time it would have taken to type all of that out. Think about it, he would have had to type a number hit space type a number hit space over and over. In a rush I know I mess up you don’t think he would have messed up? He never would have been able to get that recorded smoothly quickly in the time it took for her to respond. Again, when have you ever heard of 911 asking for your phone number?. I believe he is in the car with her after they just left Winslows property. I believe he’s sitting right next to her in the car and allows her to make the call thinking it’s going to cover up everything and benefit him. She was sending out the whistle to her family and She’s trying to buy time for them to locate her. He knew to turn off the location because she mentioned She turned it on notice how it ended at that?. My point with this is at the end.
Logically speaking if she was purposely driving to that park, she would have known the name to GPS it. She would’ve known the name of the park to give the operator. That’s why she was pausing, probably looking to him to see where they’re at. That’s why she says “yes that’s it” cause he nodded. he had enough time to process what the operator was saying before Mica was able to answer that’s why she was able to reply quickly because the operator was speaking slowly. He heard the first word and nodded. She didn’t know, but now suddenly she knew? If she was going to purposely take her own life, and she really wanted her body found, why wouldn’t she have found the name of the park before she called to give them proper location?
She would have seen oh look it’s a park and read the sign and pulled into it. She didn’t know the sign because she was terrified because he was with her. She just knows she’s in a park.
I would possibly look to see if there was any dirt roads that led to where her vehicle is at back to Winslow’s property. That might be why she didn’t see a sign. I haven’t looked too much into that part but it’s a suggestion if anybody wants to do any homework.
SO That’s why the phone was put on airplane mode so cops wouldn’t track them into the woods at the site of the incident and he would be able to get away in time into the woods without being seen.
Also airplane mode was turned on while in the car, at the end of the 911 call, I think he took the phone put the airplane mode on which is why the airplane mode was put on because she mentioned it out loud specifically, he knew the cops were coming time to MOVE, can’t follow us to the woods though. THATS why there’s no bird sounds, they did it in the car after they got to the parking lot. I think subconsciously she thought knew this was going to happen. Kinda like I told my family this was going to happen, and then it clicked what she needed to do. He brought the phone with them to paint the picture. Why would she turn off her location herself if she wanted to be found? She was already going to enter her life right? She was obviously not going to wait a long time right? Listen to her voice when it got emotional when she said she was going to kill herself. If she was unsure, why did she skip up in the exact moment? She was almost free, she had fought so hard. When you’re almost free, what would make you think she would want to stop now? Listen to me clearly, he was in the car. She needed to send out a dog whistle to the people she had told she she told him she would admit to the suicide if she could have her body found. She knew she was going to die and she knew she needed to make sure her family could piece this together. Therefore the only plausible answer is he was in the car with her. She was emotionless probably because the gun was already on her, the phone was removed from her because she mentioned the airplane mode specifically he thought they can’t trace us out to the woods, airplane mode goes on. He walked out to the woods. He needed Time to get away and couldn’t have them knowing exactly where he was to go to first so he could escape right after.
Now he goes into the woods by possibly dragging her which is why she has a bruised wrist. That might be why she started crying. She might have tried to get away when she knew what was going to happen or that it was happening hence why there’s multiple rounds. This led to possible yanking, and then the gunshot, which is why the fisherman heard the crying. Then it was over. Put her in the water he placed her belongings and Then he walked back towards Winslow‘s property. I want to know if there’s a phone call between mica and Winslow, was this drive scheduled day of or days prior and gave enough time for it to be planned. I believe at that time he got back into Winslow’s vehicle met somewhere with Windlow switched vehicles again. JP going to his home and Winslow going back to his home. The funeral and everything was already preplanned and scheduled due to the fact they already knew what was going to happen and already had it pre-planned and needed to make sure it was swift and left no room for delay. Her family, knowing they would want to see her, he manipulated them into signing the cremation holding her body over their heads. Taunting them via text message blaming them to create the narrative. Otherwise, what would be the big deal of allowing them to see the body without needing something in exchange? He knew they would have questions afterwards. At that time all they had was the 911 call and a body, sometimes you need time to process. You know when something happens and then later on you’re like wait what? He wanted to make sure that body had no stop on the cremation process to get rid of all evidence before thosequestions inevitably came. He got ahead of it so there was no hiccup in delays because he knew he had to allow them to see the body to the public that would be the moral right thing to do. Not allowing them to see the body would be suspicious. He figured out how to make it work for both. He talks about laying with her body four times and trying to raise her from the dead, was this guilt or was it like when somebody puts a deer head on the wall?
Now remember, she has already been predisposed to trust Winslow. He mentions Winslow in an email to her previously, obviously showing that he & his wife were a trusted friend of hers as well. It’s 100% a possibility that Winslow told her to come up and talk where she was protected and JP wouldn’t find them, and Winslow left with the truck and met with JP and they switched. Winslow south, JP north. Winslow had asked his staff to clean up that overgrowth on the property. It being a wooded area, was this done so that the roadway was assessable for the plan? she probably drove down some type of dirt road, and he ambushed her in some manner. North Carolina Woods are dense, therefore easily to hide when she pulls over.
Now, how do I think that JP convinced Winslow to help, I believe JP convinced Winslow , Mica was going to tell on all of them and ruin their lives. This could have been backed up by the fact that all the documentation that she had previously collected had gone missing, and was brought to Winslow to paint Mica as an enemy so this was enough for him to convince Winslow that their future and freedom was inJeopardy. When JP was actually afraid she was going to tell on his abuse and life and ruin him. So they killed her to protect their life.
They said something yesterday about breaking news how they found that the notary was forged? Thats enough for me to draw speculation because it was done by Winslow that he is now in on the dirty dealings. He is a part of the actual dirty dealings against mica He knows something is being done wrong and he is condoning it.
That notary that was done on the power of attorney from mica was falsely notarized. Mica was not present for the notary. There was an article on earlier I was looking at but I was in information overload. I just know It was not legally notarized. This shows that Winslow does not have integrity. How far is he willing to go to protect JP and all of their secrets?
I think she told JP she just wanted her body to be found for her family and she would go without a fight. I believe that it was a dog whistle to her family. The clue they would need to know this wasn’t suicide. She told them and now she needed them to remember. She knew she was going to die and everybody needed to know about the gunshot specifically that she warned everyone about days prior. He didn’t know she told people close to her that that. That’s why her voice broke up when she said she was going to unalive herself. She did not want to die. She just wanted people to be able to solve the crime. She manipulated him into thinking he was going to get away with this because she is admitting to it being a suicide. Not knowing She had whistled what was going to happen, she needed people to listen. She offered up no extra information during the 911 call which then delayed the process hoping they would find her location. She told her dad days prior she’s getting a gun for protection. I think she got it before she drove up there just incase and the bruises on her hand may be him wrestling it from her. Maybe at arrival.
A search and rescue dog can smell from weeks to months after somebody has left the area, and if anybody can get something of his and be able to place him there in the woods, you have convincing beyond a reasonable doubt.
After writing this up yesterday when I was complete, I got super sick to my stomach. I was shaking. I could see it completely out in my head where all the facts completely aligned. I believe tthis is the only plausible theory there is.
What people need to realize at the end of the day the good attention and bad attention is still attention to a narcissist. He is enjoying the intention is getting from this primarily from getting away with it. That’s why I believe he visited her body four times after she was deceased. Because he already had a girlfriend, he already talked about going and getting a hot wife and then after she dies, he does an interview about how she’s the most incredible wife and supportive. He made the obituary about how awesome he thought she was to still collect her validation and the validation he got from being her husband because she was good. She was light and he was jealous of that. He wanted that that’s why he had that position. She loved him so much he claimed and how she was so wonderful he claimed yet she didn’t want him when she had a no contact order and wanted a divorce obviously, he wasn’t that. and if you guys don’t think he groomed her go to the memorial of life sermon and listen to the poem again. Now switch the words, “school” and “church.” And follow the story line.
He killed Mica Miller.

This is the most plausible answer. I think this is exactly how he did it using facts from sermons, emails, texts, news, interviews, maps, and extensive experience with parasitic Narcissistic sitic abuse. If there is anything that I am incorrect on please let me know and I will recalculate. After typing this up two days ago, I stumbled upon Mica’s father‘s interview, and it completely solidified it to the point where I started violently shaking. I think this is what happened.
I was told Winslow‘s property backs up against that state forest. 200 acres. Right down the road. Now remember. Somebody on his staff was told to go and trim back the overgrowth on that specific property shortly before all of this happened,
I think Mica at some point had conversation with Winslow and agreed to come and talk to him at his property, a “safe place JP wouldn’t know.”, thinking she could trust him. I think mica went to winslows and JP was waiting there for unknowingly.
I think Winslow has JP‘s phone and I think JP has Winslow‘s phone so they’re not gonna ping the towers. All they saw was the license plate they never verified He was actually there.
I think JP and Winslow met at a undisclosed location and swapped vehicles. JP went up to Winslow’s NC property with Winslow‘s vehicle and cell phone, and Winslow went down south with JP cell phone and truck. I can’t quite place the girlfriend, but she is an alibi therefore she is aware that something has happened or is going on. I cannot figure out whether or not Winslow was with JP and she took the vehicle down south either or we need to find out the location of where the girlfriend was and where Winslow was. That could all be found by bank financial records of the days in question. Nobody uses cash in 2024 for an entire getaway.
Didn’t they say he got a new truck? There was something new about the truck? Did he get a new one so it wouldn’t have any of Winslow’s DNA inside of it? If Winslow drove it, his DNA/finger prints on the steering wheel would easily be on the steering wheel. Why else would he need to drive Winslow‘s vehicle if there were indications, he was driving the vehicle. Now remember one of them is a lawyer he knows what they look for. JP‘s and Winslow‘s vehicles both need to be tested for gunpowder residue.
Mica shows up to Winslow’s property, JP is there with Winslow’s vehicle, ambushes her OR Winslow is there too and the girlfriend took her phone and truck south. He already has a plan of where he’s going to take her to unalive her before she arrives. JP drives Mica’s car with Mica in it to the final location parking lot, walks her into the woods kills her, puts her stuff down and walks back to Winslow property through the woods. Girlfriend says she was with him, I think she stayed at the property or she drove a vehicle to come get him after he was done if she was there. either way Winslow or girlfriend somebody picked him up or was waiting or he went back to the property and gotten Winslow‘s vehicle and left. Remember it’s not that far away..
Now, after reviewing the 911 recording again, I do not think it is AI. The biggest reason why I know it wasn’t AI is because if you listen to the fast response when asked for the phone number, there wasn’t enough time to record that and send it at the same time. So she replied too fast. Now, when have you ever heard a 911 operator asking somebody for their phone number? That never would have been written. You still have the type stuff in the AI creators. Also, she delayed pause between every number, how would she have replied in half the time it would have taken to type all of that out. Think about it, he would have had to type a number hit space type a number hit space over and over. In a rush I know I mess up you don’t think he would have messed up? He never would have been able to get that recorded smoothly quickly in the time it took for her to respond. Again, when have you ever heard of 911 asking for your phone number?. I believe he is in the car with her after they just left Winslows property. I believe he’s sitting right next to her in the car and allows her to make the call thinking it’s going to cover up everything and benefit him. She was sending out the whistle to her family and She’s trying to buy time for them to locate her. He knew to turn off the location because she mentioned She turned it on notice how it ended at that?. My point with this is at the end.
Logically speaking if she was purposely driving to that park, she would have known the name to GPS it. She would’ve known the name of the park to give the operator. That’s why she was pausing, probably looking to him to see where they’re at. That’s why she says “yes that’s it” cause he nodded. he had enough time to process what the operator was saying before Mica was able to answer that’s why she was able to reply quickly because the operator was speaking slowly. He heard the first word and nodded. She didn’t know, but now suddenly she knew? If she was going to purposely take her own life, and she really wanted her body found, why wouldn’t she have found the name of the park before she called to give them proper location?
She would have seen oh look it’s a park and read the sign and pulled into it. She didn’t know the sign because she was terrified because he was with her. She just knows she’s in a park.
I would possibly look to see if there was any dirt roads that led to where her vehicle is at back to Winslow’s property. That might be why she didn’t see a sign. I haven’t looked too much into that part but it’s a suggestion if anybody wants to do any homework.
SO That’s why the phone was put on airplane mode so cops wouldn’t track them into the woods at the site of the incident and he would be able to get away in time into the woods without being seen.
Also airplane mode was turned on while in the car, at the end of the 911 call, I think he took the phone put the airplane mode on which is why the airplane mode was put on because she mentioned it out loud specifically, he knew the cops were coming time to MOVE, can’t follow us to the woods though. THATS why there’s no bird sounds, they did it in the car after they got to the parking lot. I think subconsciously she thought knew this was going to happen. Kinda like I told my family this was going to happen, and then it clicked what she needed to do. He brought the phone with them to paint the picture. Why would she turn off her location herself if she wanted to be found? She was already going to enter her life right? She was obviously not going to wait a long time right? Listen to her voice when it got emotional when she said she was going to kill herself. If she was unsure, why did she skip up in the exact moment? She was almost free, she had fought so hard. When you’re almost free, what would make you think she would want to stop now? Listen to me clearly, he was in the car. She needed to send out a dog whistle to the people she had told she she told him she would admit to the suicide if she could have her body found. She knew she was going to die and she knew she needed to make sure her family could piece this together. Therefore the only plausible answer is he was in the car with her. She was emotionless probably because the gun was already on her, the phone was removed from her because she mentioned the airplane mode specifically he thought they can’t trace us out to the woods, airplane mode goes on. He walked out to the woods. He needed Time to get away and couldn’t have them knowing exactly where he was to go to first so he could escape right after.
Now he goes into the woods by possibly dragging her which is why she has a bruised wrist. That might be why she started crying. She might have tried to get away when she knew what was going to happen or that it was happening hence why there’s multiple rounds. This led to possible yanking, and then the gunshot, which is why the fisherman heard the crying. Then it was over. Put her in the water he placed her belongings and Then he walked back towards Winslow‘s property. I want to know if there’s a phone call between mica and Winslow, was this drive scheduled day of or days prior and gave enough time for it to be planned. I believe at that time he got back into Winslow’s vehicle met somewhere with Windlow switched vehicles again. JP going to his home and Winslow going back to his home. The funeral and everything was already preplanned and scheduled due to the fact they already knew what was going to happen and already had it pre-planned and needed to make sure it was swift and left no room for delay. Her family, knowing they would want to see her, he manipulated them into signing the cremation holding her body over their heads. Taunting them via text message blaming them to create the narrative. Otherwise, what would be the big deal of allowing them to see the body without needing something in exchange? He knew they would have questions afterwards. At that time all they had was the 911 call and a body, sometimes you need time to process. You know when something happens and then later on you’re like wait what? He wanted to make sure that body had no stop on the cremation process to get rid of all evidence before thosequestions inevitably came. He got ahead of it so there was no hiccup in delays because he knew he had to allow them to see the body to the public that would be the moral right thing to do. Not allowing them to see the body would be suspicious. He figured out how to make it work for both. He talks about laying with her body four times and trying to raise her from the dead, was this guilt or was it like when somebody puts a deer head on the wall?
Now remember, she has already been predisposed to trust Winslow. He mentions Winslow in an email to her previously, obviously showing that he & his wife were a trusted friend of hers as well. It’s 100% a possibility that Winslow told her to come up and talk where she was protected and JP wouldn’t find them, and Winslow left with the truck and met with JP and they switched. Winslow south, JP north. Winslow had asked his staff to clean up that overgrowth on the property. It being a wooded area, was this done so that the roadway was assessable for the plan? she probably drove down some type of dirt road, and he ambushed her in some manner. North Carolina Woods are dense, therefore easily to hide when she pulls over.
Now, how do I think that JP convinced Winslow to help, I believe JP convinced Winslow , Mica was going to tell on all of them and ruin their lives. This could have been backed up by the fact that all the documentation that she had previously collected had gone missing, and was brought to Winslow to paint Mica as an enemy so this was enough for him to convince Winslow that their future and freedom was inJeopardy. When JP was actually afraid she was going to tell on his abuse and life and ruin him. So they killed her to protect their life.
They said something yesterday about breaking news how they found that the notary was forged? Thats enough for me to draw speculation because it was done by Winslow that he is now in on the dirty dealings. He is a part of the actual dirty dealings against mica He knows something is being done wrong and he is condoning it.
That notary that was done on the power of attorney from mica was falsely notarized. Mica was not present for the notary. There was an article on earlier I was looking at but I was in information overload. I just know It was not legally notarized. This shows that Winslow does not have integrity. How far is he willing to go to protect JP and all of their secrets?
I think she told JP she just wanted her body to be found for her family and she would go without a fight. I believe that it was a dog whistle to her family. The clue they would need to know this wasn’t suicide. She told them and now she needed them to remember. She knew she was going to die and everybody needed to know about the gunshot specifically that she warned everyone about days prior. He didn’t know she told people close to her that that. That’s why her voice broke up when she said she was going to unalive herself. She did not want to die. She just wanted people to be able to solve the crime. She manipulated him into thinking he was going to get away with this because she is admitting to it being a suicide. Not knowing She had whistled what was going to happen, she needed people to listen. She offered up no extra information during the 911 call which then delayed the process hoping they would find her location. She told her dad days prior she’s getting a gun for protection. I think she got it before she drove up there just incase and the bruises on her hand may be him wrestling it from her. Maybe at arrival.
A search and rescue dog can smell from weeks to months after somebody has left the area, and if anybody can get something of his and be able to place him there in the woods, you have convincing beyond a reasonable doubt.
After writing this up yesterday when I was complete, I got super sick to my stomach. I was shaking. I could see it completely out in my head where all the facts completely aligned. I believe tthis is the only plausible theory there is.
What people need to realize at the end of the day the good attention and bad attention is still attention to a narcissist. He is enjoying the intention is getting from this primarily from getting away with it. That’s why I believe he visited her body four times after she was deceased. Because he already had a girlfriend, he already talked about going and getting a hot wife and then after she dies, he does an interview about how she’s the most incredible wife and supportive. He made the obituary about how awesome she thought HE was to still collect her validation and the validation he got from being her husband because she was good. She was light and he was jealous of that. He wanted that that’s why he had that position. She loved him so much he claimed and how she was so wonderful he claimed yet she didn’t want him when she had a no contact order and wanted a divorce obviously, he wasn’t that. and if you guys don’t think he groomed her go to the memorial of life sermon and listen to the poem again. Now switch the words, “school” and “church.” And follow the story line.
He killed Mica Miller.

I want to preface that this is a serious question, we aren't perverts and are open to advice and opinions on this subject. We have no nefarious intent and just want insight.
Me and my girlfriend plan to open a physical local business selling Japanese collectables in the semi-near future, primarily anime figures and merchandise imported from Japan but with a wide variety beyond that. While I figure out all the logistics and investment required to begin such a journey though, there are some questions I've been unable to get any direct answers for online, one of which may come off as a bit suspect:
Am I allowed to sell adult merchandise? And even if I am allowed to, is it a poor business decision?
And by that, I don't just mean lewd or questionably designed figures. While we don't directly seek it out, due to the nature of Japan and how we wholesale source a massive variety of series and subjects, we end up with adult items on occasion. This can range from nude cards, figures, tapestries, posters, manga, etc. to as direct as Japanese adult videos and video games (both animated and live action). At the moment whenever we've ended up with such goods, it's just gone into a box of "unsellables" which grows ever more suspicious as the months go by. We're online sellers on eBay and Mercari at the moment, both of which have clear restrictions on such items.
I personally have no issue selling such items when there is clearly a demand for them, and both me and my girlfriend actually find the adult stuff to be rather funny and/or interesting (depending on the specific item, being Japan some of it goes way too far). But my question is can I sell it, and if yes, should I? Is there a required license for such things? Do Japanese adult items have different restrictions than domestic adult items?
If we do end up deciding to carry and sell such items when we have a personal store, it would be in a separated "adult only" area behind a curtain. We know of a locally owned 2nd hand shop that does this. It wouldn't be something like Spencers where there's just a mighty wall of sex toys starting down at you when all you wanted was to buy a funny mug or something. And to be clear, it would make a very small fraction of our merchandise.
Two worries I had with selling such item are: Will it hurt our stores reputation on a notable scale? And: Will it attract undesirable types of customers?
And just to note for anyone worried, we would NOT sell Japanese merchandise featuring obviously underaged characters. If we were to end up with such things by happenstance, it would go straight to the shredder. Our moral bar may be set low here but there are some things still far under it.
Any answers and advice is greatly appreciated. Cheers.

My(M26) girlfriend (F27) appears to be acting different when we’re around my best friend (M29). To give some back story all three of us work together. My GF and I have only been together for 3 months. Now I’d like to note that my GF has never given me a reason to not trust her. This is merely based on body language that I’ve observed when we’re all together.
Tonight, we had a company bowling event. I can’t shake the feeling that at every point tonight my gf was making it a point to want to get the attention of my best friend and hardly make it a point to interact with me. As I type this I feel like my points may be childish but I can’t shake off how I’m feeling in my gut.
It’s like every time he opens his mouth what he says is golden and she makes it a point to laugh at every joke he makes. Every time he stepped up to bowl she made sure to cheer him on and give him props/words of encouragement even if he wasn’t doing that great. Me on the other hand, every time I’d walk back she either was not bothering to look at my go (again every time my best friend went she made it a point to speculate and cheer him on) or just did not give me any props at all. Except the ONE time I made a strike. In my mind I was thinking “okay is this what it’s going to take for her to cheer me on? She can root for my best friend but I have to roll a perfect strike for her to even acknowledge me?”
I just thought it was weird. Like, why is my GF cheering on this other guy and not paying any mind when it’s my turn.
I also want to point out that when I walked back to my seat she was offering to buy him a beer and him being my best friend told her “no but you can buy (my name) a beer.” I bring this up because I am the provider in the relationship. I basically pay for everything. It’s rare that she offers anything and it just made me upset that I know she wasn’t going to even offer to buy me anything and I knew that she was more than happy offering to buy my best friend a drink. It just so happened that I walked by when she was offering it to him so I basically made her get me a drink because she only asked me after the fact that my best friend noticed I had just walked up.
We were finally leaving the bowling alley and we’re hanging out by our cars afterwards. It was me, my Gf, my best friend and two other friends. She just kept laughing at everything he said! Even if it was not funny at all! So intrigued with everything that came out of his mouth. Don’t get me wrong, my best friend is a FUNNY guy. But I even read the body language of my two other friends and I feel like to the three of us it was obvious she was over doing it . I mean at one point I know I was making some funny jokes and had my two other friends busting up and get this, she was was not paying attention at all and was just more intrigued on how hard my best friend was laughing at my jokes! I just feel like okay, at that point I just feel like you’ll laugh and cherish anything this guys does so there’s got to be some level of attraction.
I know these are super small details and most of you will think I’m overreacting but when I think about mine and my gf’s night as a whole I just think about how she was more focused on engaging with my best friend and joking with him/ the cheering him on and nothing for me / offering to buy him a drink which she will rarely do that for me (only bought me one because he recommended it).
Btw, I also can’t shake the feeling that my best friend is also feeding off of this. He’s great at reading body language as well and I know he tries to be funnier around her. He has a GF and is expecting his first child so I know he would never do anything and neither would my gf (I hope) . But how do I deal with this? When I feel like there is chemistry between them unraveling right in front of me? This is my first serious relationship and i think I’m the jealous type if I’m being completely honest. But I think I’m also very realistic and aware when something is going on right in front of me. Should I bring up this concern I have to my Gf?

Hi, I am not sure how to properly post stuff here. So please feel free to tell me to make adjustments. Reposting it since previous post told me to add something at the later part of the post.
I'll cut it short.
Mali ba na masaktan ako at magselos ako sa isang artista?
My girlfriend and I went to a local event in my GF's hometown. The town Mayor paid celebrities to come into town and do some performances, that type of stuff.
One of the male celebrities, for his performance, asked girls to be on stage and perform with him. He saw my girlfriend and he grabbed her to come with him to stage.
Instinctively, I tried to stop it, but seeing my girlfriend very eager and happy to join, I decided to let it be and she went up on the stage with the guy celeb.
At the start, they were just asking simple questions to lighten up the mood etc. But things started to get uncomfortable for me yung sa dance part na. It was sexual, or at least it looked liked and felt like that to me.
They were intimately looking at each other, the guy was hugging her from the back, with his face on her neck while they were dancing, and then the guy made her turn around and carried her (like dawn zulueta type of thing), while touching her legs, and to top it all off, after the dance was over, the guy gestured to take off his jacket and belt to indicate na he was horny "in a fun and laughable way". Overall, I was very uncomfortable, parang natulala nalang ako at nanginig sa galit, and the cheers from the audience made me dizzy. They were having fun, they were all entertained, kinilig silang lahat. Except for me, I was there, on the point of breaking down. And the worst part of it all? All those intimate and sexual stuff they did, my girlfriend looked very happy and comfortable doing it.
So she went back to our seat, and then her and her girl friends were shrieking na para bang kinikilig silang lahat. She was very happy and proud of what she did. She tried to talk to me and my friends teased us na "lagot ka pag-uwi", I just smiled and went to my phone, preventing tears from dropping.
Fast forward, the event ended and we got home. I confronted her about it, we had an argument and I told her about how disrespected and uncomfortable I felt. She got mad and told me na all of it was just for fun, for entertainment purposes lang daw. Sabi pa niya "ano gusto mo gawin ko? bumababa sa stage at maging KJ?" She told me na I was being OA kasi nga bakit ko daw pagseselosan ang artista na "hindi naman kami magkakatuluyan nun". I was mad, but I was not vocal enough about it kase I was so drained. Ang sakit lang, kasi she was very proud of what she did, she posted it on her facebook semi bragging about it, and the way she responded to the comments and replies felt like it was one of her greatest achievements in life.
Nakikitulog kami sa parents niya that time, but I decided to leave her that night, I just waited for her to fall asleep and I got out of bed and drove 4 hours back into my hometown. I left a message for her and decided to block her right after.
I felt so lost, and what's worse is that, all of her friends, in which na kasama namin sa event messaged me days after that I am being silly and being unreasonable, and even her family is justifying her actions saying na it's not a valid reason for a break-up.
Side note, I am paying for all their bills sa family nila, (internet, water, house, groceries and even medication maintenance) , siguro that's part of the reason why they are telling me to stick with her through the end and pagusapan muna ang lahat, it may seem unrelated to the topic on hand pero di lang kasi mawala sa isip ko na out of all the things I am doing for them, I don't event get a single ounce of respect.
Sorry guys, ako ba talaga ang mali?
Ako ba yung gago for ending things with her right away? Unreasonable ba talaga na nagselos ako sa artista?

Hey Reddit, this is a burner account because I just wanted to steer clear of people I know finding this.
I am a young adult who was in a long term relationship for 4 years since I was 16. That relationship ended about a year ago. She was horrible to me at the end (cheating and what not) but the first couple years were a blast. After getting out of that relationship I kinda hopped right into another one. She’s 2 years older and I met her at some random party at university, let’s call her Molly. She’s gorgeous, the exact girl that I would be into on paper. I was instantly attracted to her and we had an amazing night together which ended in a hookup. In the morning, I asked for her snap and she happily grabbed my phone and added herself. About a week later we went on a date. BEST DATE EVER! We could not stop talking and the sparks were flying. I could tell we both felt it because we were both smiling, laughing and poking fun at each other the whole time. Afterwards we had an amazing night together at her place. About a month went on with this kinda routine and it was thrilling. We were both all over each other going on fun dates and getting to know one another. Until she became really distant. At first I shrugged it off but then I started to get worried. She consistently apologized and it seemed genuine every time but I knew something else was up. It was around Christmas time at this point and I went back home to see my family. After the holidays I landed back in my university town and saw a text from Molly. She said she was sick, and that she had been falling behind in school and could hardly get out of bed. She had been going to the hospital consistently and had not been able to find time to see me, let alone explain her situation. I felt so bad for her. I made sure to tell her that I was there for her but she insisted that she couldn’t be able to hold up a relationship while trying to recover. She said “It’s what’s best for you, I can’t be there for you like I want to. Like I should”. I took it with chest and wished her the best, and said “if anything ever changes, I’d love to give us another shot”. At this point I knew I wanted to be in a relationship, I knew I was at the point in my life where I want to share it with someone. Although I wasn’t over Molly I went out dating again. About a month later I met the sweetest girl ever, Let’s call her Eva. She wasn’t someone I’d usually be attracted to but her personality was so kind and infatuating. We moved fast together. Going out for Valentine’s Day, surprising each other with gifts and writing notes. It was so wholesome and genuine. We actually made it official and she was my girlfriend, something I only wish I did with Molly. After two months of being together I decided I’d go home for the summer to be with my family (we were dealing with the loss of a loved one and I thought I’d be there for my siblings). The idea of being back home for 4 months got me thinking. I knew I didn’t want to do long distance with Eva but I did really love her, just not enough. I hadn’t been single since I was 16 and I knew I needed some time to understand myself. So, I decided I’d break up with her. Literally just as I came to that conclusion, Molly texted me. She said that she was out of ICU and things were looking up for her, she was also heading home (a different city then me) for the summer and wanted to catchup before I left. I was shocked by this text and dropped my phone and it cracked. I had no idea what to do. All the amazing memories with Molly came flooding back. I had already decided that I would break up with Eva, so is it really that bad if I say yes? I felt awful. I told Molly that I’d need a minute to think about that but I appreciated her reaching out. I then took a week to make sure I wanted to break things off with Eva and, a week later, I did it. She was heartbroken. I felt awful. She was amazing to me and I kinda blindsided her. But I knew it was the right thing for me. That night I got plastered with a bunch of buddies and went out to a club. I then texted Molly back and said something stupid like “God I missed you, we should go on a date”. She for some reason said yes. I woke up hungover out of my mind the next morning but happy as ever. We went out on that date a week later, which was 2 days before she’d head home for the summer. It was once again, BEST DATE EVER! We picked off right where we left off and the sparks flew so far we almost burnt the restaurant down. We went back to her place and, once again, had a great night. She said something during that date that haunts me. It was “I wish I never pushed you away, I’ve missed you”. Anyway, it’s a month into summer and Molly and I have been texting every day. It’s non-stop conversations and flirting. We’re texting as if we’re together. I’ve fallen in love with her again and I’m so far away from her. I don’t know what to do. I want to actually start a relationship with her but not over messages. I want to see her, I want to be with her again. I’m in love and I don’t know what to do next. Should I text her how I feel? Or wait 3 more months till I’m back in town and she is too then give it a shot? I’m lost and confused and madly in love. I can’t stop thinking about her. I know she cares about me and possibly is in love with me too but I’m definitely more head over heels.
TLDR: I got back with who’s girl I was kinda “with” and now we’re texting every day and I’m head over heels for her. We’re not dating or anything. Idk if I should tell her or what, I’m going crazy about it.
Thanks for reading, I’d love any advice. Cheers

Just to preface this, we're long distance and started dating almost 8 months ago. We've had several visits and we've been together in person for around a total of 2 months so far, with 4 more months of visits planned this year.
Recently I read through some of our older messages, I guess because I was missing her. And it started to dawn on me just how much it feels like things have changed. For the first bit of our relationship, she'd write me poems, send me letters, tell me how in love with me she is. I'd wake up to paragraphs of messages, with her telling me how much she missed me while I was asleep, telling me how much she loves me and how she needs me, how she can't bear to be away from me. Her replies would be so quick, and she'd seem so eager to talk to me. I'd send her selfies and she'd get so excited, complimenting me and saying she loves me. We'd video call all the time, watch shows together, play video games together. When I left after our first ever visit together, she was sobbing and we couldn't let each other go, and she sent me tons of messages saying how much she loves me, asking when I think we can live together, how upset she was and how much she misses me.
But a couple months ago, I started to feel like things were seeming less enthusiastic on her end. I brought it up to her and she got very upset, and she told me how terrible she felt about it, saying she'd be better for me (I felt really bad about this because I didn't want to upset her at all, I just wanted to let her know because I didn't want to worry her). And that was that.
But more recently things feel like they've gotten even worse. Her replies will be incredibly slow sometimes (relative to how they used to be), sometimes taking up to an hour to reply to me because she gets distracted with TikTok or games, which makes me feel like she'd rather be doing that than talk to me. The late night messages when I'm asleep, the letters and the poems stopped months ago. I've done similar things since the start of the relationship, and still continue to do so. I don't feel like this is just a love language or the way she communicates love thing, because she's always been incredibly full of love, it just feels like her heart isn't really in it anymore. We haven't video called in a long time, and any time I've suggested it her camera just ends up facing the ceiling. Playing games together is a thing of the past too.
The last two visits we had, she didn't shed a single tear or even seem all that sad when I/she left. I cried several times leading up to me leaving every time, and was extremely upset. I mentioned this kind of, saying something about how she handled it so much better than I did, and her reasoning was she was trying to be strong and be there for me.
I feel like I'm partly to blame for this, as I get very anxious sometimes and get upset by things that are kinda stupid. I've never taken it out on her or gotten mad or yelled or anything, and we've always talked about it, and she's always said that its okay and she understands that I get anxious. But my theory is that she's just starting to get tired of me. I guess maybe I'm not the person she fell in love with? I don't know.
I'm just scared. I love this girl with everything I have. I see my entire life, my entire future with her. And she says she feels the same, but I'm starting to worry that its no longer the case. I don't know what to do. I know I should bring it up, but I don't know how and I don't want to upset or worry her. What can I do to deal with this?
TLDR: Worried that my long distance girlfriend isn't in love with me anymore. She doesn't seem as invested or enthusiastic about us anymore, and I'm scared and don't know what to do about it.

poetry is a hobby of mine, i’m looking to do writing at university. Anyways this poem i wrote is about the train station me and my girlfriend used to meet at. And i wanted to share.
even the marble you walked on:
i never thought i’d find myself missing a grimy scratched up marble floor, however i do. in fact, i envy the floor. it was the last thing to hold you. the same floor we first met on, the chilling marble we laughed on and finally, the floor i unknowingly said my last goodbye to you on. I still pass this floor every so often, i see all the masses of people, marching around. But only i would be treading lightly. wouldn’t i? my eyes always dart to the same grimy corner. the one you once held me in. then they dart right back to the floor, that same marble floor. i’m not sure why i always expect to look down, and see your feet facing mine? hundreds of feet march in spirals around me, yet not a single pair know i am stood, desperately trying to tread where you last trod with me.

The scene faded back in to a shot of the team and host in the prison courtyard, the two groups of teens each standing by a dirty laundry cart. "Elimination challenge!" Chris exclaimed happily. "Here we go! No 'Get Out of Jail Free' cards here, people! This, is 'Escape from Total Drama Pen.'!" The camera quick-panned away from Chris' close-up to one of the carts.
"Each team must hop in their laundry carts, while one member pushes through the obstacle course to freedom!" As he spoke, the scene flashed to a shot of wooden dummies dressed like prison guards with automatic swinging arms, and then again to a pair of narrow platforms over a water pool with large sandbags swinging back and forth between them, and once more to the prisoner dummies with various sharp objects attached to their hands.
"When you reach the wall," Chris continued as the camera moved back to the group shot, "get diggin'! First team to reach the boxcar to freedom wins immunity!" The shot quick-panned over to a pair of boxcars sitting on a small section of rail tracks. "Convicts, select a pusher!"
"I'll do it!" Chase and Sky volunteered simultaneously, and the two quickly turned their heads to each other.
"I'll be the one to push for us!" Jasmine declared to the Grips. "Does anybody have a problem with that?" she asked her team, who were already starting to climb into the cart.
"I don't," Millie said as she got on.
"You are our best option," Anne Maria added as she hopped onto the cart.
Jasmine smiled. "Excellent!"
Confessional: Jasmine
“When you have long legs, speed can come off as an attribute,” Jasmine confessed.
Confessional Ends
"Not to be a jerk or anything," Chase said as the focus moved back to the Gaffers, "but I want to be the one who pushes, not you."
"Only one of us can do it, and it should be me," Sky offered.
"I know we won the shovel, but the Grips have Jasmine pushing for them," Chase argued, “and if we want to beat them, we'll need a lot of speed coming from me.”
"You're not the only one who's been on a track team," Sky protested. “I practice track at my school in order to prep myself for the Olympics.”
"I have longer legs than you," Chase pointed out, "and that'll at least make us on par with the other team."
“This bickering is not helping us,” Sky groaned and turned to her team. "So team, who do you want to drive the cart? Me or Chase?"
"I say Chase," Ripper said first. “Sky's not Sonic fast.”
"Well I think Sky should push us," Scott declared. “Chase being on the track team is more of a hobby to him.”
"To break the tie, I'll go with Sky," MK said. "She is the team's leader."
Chase sighed. "Alright!" He walked towards the cart. "But if we don't win, it's not coming back to me."
Confessional: Sky
“Me and MK don't know each other well, and she is generally not cordial, but I do have to thank her for having my back in the situation,” Sky explained.
Confessional: MK
“The way I see it, if Sky loses the cart challenge for us, me and Scott can use that as a reason to pick her off,” MK told the audience. “With her and Trent's love plot coming to a halt, there's no need to keep her in the game any longer.”
Confessionals End
"This is it, teams," Chris announced as the two groups were shown in their starting positions – most of the teams in their carts, with Jasmine and Sky ready to push. "On your marks...," the host said as a few deep notes began the fast-paced music that would play during the challenge, "get set...escape!"
The two started pushing immediately, and Jasmine managed to get an early lead for the Grips. However, Sky was gaining momentum, and the two kicked up a cloud of dust behind them as they entered the first obstacle – the sharp-handed prisoner dummies. The camera watched from above as they weaved around and through the field in different directions, and at one point it looked like their paths were going to intersect. The two girls briefly locked eyes and steeled themselves as their carts bounced off each other, rattling their teammates inside.
The viewpoint shifted to show the start of the next obstacle – the narrow platforms over water, with large bags already swinging back and forth threateningly. Sky pushed her team up onto the platform, and the focus moved ahead to Jasmine doing the same as well. The people in the carts ducked down to get away from the swinging bags. However, Anne Maria's big hair stuck up enough for one of the bags to brush past it, which slowed it down enough that Jasmine ran face-first into it while she had been distracted looking back at the other team. It knocked her down and caused her to let go of the cart, which managed to keep rolling along without her.
"We can use this to our advantage!" Ripper barked. "Keep it steady and we can catch up!"
"I got it!" Sky picked up her pace. She managed to get them past Jasmine and another two bags and they caught up to the Grips' cart, which had stopped at the end of the second obstacle. The viewpoint shifted to show them watching in shock as the Gaffers approached unsteadily, with Jasmine running just inches behind them.
Just as Sky was getting the groove of pushing the cart, a bag hit her in the head, which caused her to lose her balance and the front left wheel of the Gaffers' cart to leave the platform as it rapidly approached the end of the second obstacle, and the camera zoomed in as it dipped down and hit the corner where the narrow platform ended, causing the cart to spill forward.
"Hurry up!" Anne Maria commanded as Jasmine retook control over the Grips’ cart and sped forward, past the pile of Gaffers and into the final obstacle.
The camera followed them as they weaved through the guard-dummies, becoming more and more excited as they neared the wall. "Alright," Jasmine said. "We're getting closer to victory!"
A second passed in silence as they kept going at the same speed. "Uhh, Jasmine?" Justin said nervously as he eyed the approaching wall.
"We can stop now!" Millie notified.
Their words caused her to skid to a stop just in front of the wall. "Thanks for the warning," Jasmine said as her teammates breathed a sigh of relief.
"We may not have a shovel," Brick told his team with a spoon in hand, "but we must make do with what we have."
“Go go!" Jasmine eagerly ordered everyone out the cart. “Hop to it like kangaroos!” They all ran over to the large 'X' and started digging.
"Well this is just great!" Ripper complained as he, MK, Chase, and Scott picked themselves up off the ground, and Sky turned their cart back upright. "We're behind the Grips!"
“This is why I should've been the driver,” Chase spoke out. “I would have been able to avoid those bags.”
"None of this is our fault," Sky said. "We can still catch up to the Grips if we don't start arguing with each other."
The footage flashed ahead, showing the Gaffers sitting in the laundry cart with Sky pushing them through the final obstacle. Moments later they arrived at the wall, a hole and sizable dirt pile already by their opponent's cart. The four Gaffers hopped out, and Sky took the shovel out of her pocket.
"Jump right to it, team," Sky ordered. "We have a lot to dig!"
The camera flashed to Chris and Chef at the finish line, Chris sitting on the entrance of a boxcar while Chef leaned against it. "So..." Chris asked. "You ever seen that prison flick? The one with the guy in it? You know? The guy with that face?" Chef rolled his eyes and shook his head.
"So are you doing anything after work?" the host asked awkwardly. "We could always rent a-" He noticed the look on the cook's face and amended, "or not. I was... busy... anyway. Very busy. I'm just… throwing it out there."
The scene changed to a side view of the Grips in their tunnel, Jasmine hastily digging in front with her spoon.
"We're making good progress so far," Jasmine said. "Even if we're stuck with spoons."
"I can hear them ahead of us now," Millie said. "Wouldn't it be faster if we helped dig too?"
"Ten hands are better than two," Jasmine agreed.
Confessional: Jasmine
“After losing two challenges in a row, the Grips really need to bounce back this time,” Jasmine stated. “I've watched enough prison movie like “Holes” and “The Shawshank Redemption” to understand which spots are easier to dig out first.”
Confessional Ends
Another flash took the scene back to the Gaffers, Ripper being the one using the shovel to dig in the front.
"I'm not lying when I say that we're going to win," Ripper said as he kept digging.
"The Grips may have gotten here before us, but they have spoons and we have a shovel," Chase added.
“And it's all thanks to me!” MK cheered before catching sight of Scott's glare. “And Scott as well.”
Confessional: MK
“Right. Forgot the basic concept of teamwork,” MK sheepishly confessed. “Usually I always fly solo in everything I do, except group projects, and most of the time, I have to do everything because my supposed group members are uncooperative.”
Confessional Ends
The Gaffers heard a sudden rumble, causing them to stop in their tracks. A hand burst out of the dirt, creating a hole that increases thanks to a familiar head sticking their head out.
“Izzy?!” the team cries out at the sight of her. The psycho hose beast had fake buck teeth in her mouth and a camo hat with sticks sticking out on top, and she chittered in response.
“Yep. That's her,” Chase confirmed.
“Yeah, I've been living underground amongst the prairie dogs,” Izzy explained as one of the prairie dogs popped up and angrily chittered at the team.
“Aw, Butchie, it's okay,” Izzy assured the creature. “These are my friends.”
“Are you here to help us or…” Scott started to ask.
“Of course! Follow me, I know a shortcut to the finish line!” Izzy said.
“A shortcut?” Sky felt uneasy.
“Of course,” Ripper scoffed. “Why spend hours digging when you can finish faster?”
Confessional: Sky
"I'm not the type to cheat whenever I'm in a competition, and taking shortcuts is the easy way out," Sky explained in the confessional trailer, "but I don't really have a choice here."
Confessional Ends
“And of course, I became the second in command prairie dog,” Izzy told her team a story as they moved through the shortcut, “which meant I shared all the prairie dog council meetings and oh, oh! Here we are!”
“Finally! I need to get out of this hole!” Chase said and crawled faster.
The viewpoint moved to the surface as rock got pushed out of the way and Chase emerged from beneath. "You've got to be kidding," he muttered in annoyance.
The camera moved again, showing that the Grips’ tunnel had come up in front of the boxcars. All members of the Killer Grips were celebrating in front, while Chris and Chef watched.
"We lost?" Izzy said as she emerged from her hole.
"Yes, we did," Chase told her as he and the other Gaffers got out of the hole. "And aren't you out of the game? We did vote you off."
“Uh-uh. You voted off Kaleidoscope,” Izzy rebutted.
A flash took the scene back to the third episode's elimination with Izzy, Ripper, and Chase in the bottom three. “Izzy! Time to go!” Chris announced.
“I'm not going anywhere,” Izzy objected. “That's not my name.”
“Can I get a pen over here?” Chris raised his hand in annoyance. A pen was given to him, and he started to write on the paper. “It says "E-Scope" now, okay?!”
Izzy stubbornly stayed in her seat, and Chris looked over to his side. “Yo guys. Want to make sure we keep this ballot in the files as an official record of Kaleidoscope's departure?” he asked as he continued to scribble. “I'll notarize it. Foresight. That's why they pay me the big bucks.”
The flashback ended and the focus returned to the Gaffers. “So technically, Izzy's still in the game!” Sky realized.
Confessional: MK
“I didn't expect this to happen, but I'll allow it if it means I get an extra vote for tonight's elimination ceremony,” MK said.
Confessional Ends
A flash took the scene to the craft services tent, the camera lingering on an outside shot before cutting to Chef at the counter while the Grips ate at their table in the foreground.
“It's such a relief to have finally won a challenge after losing the past two ones,” Brick started to say.
“Well, this is an effect of Trent not being around to lose for us,” Justin said. “We made the right decision voting him off last time.”
“Even with the other team getting Izzy back, they're still going to lose a member,” Anne Maria remarked. “It's sorta a win-win for us.”
The footage skipped ahead, showing Ripper and Scott sitting around in their trailer before MK joined them.
"Okay, look," MK said as she addressed the two boys, "we have to vote Sky off tonight. She's helpful, sure, but she'd be hard to beat if the teams merge."
"I second that," Scott nodded. "She also slowed us down in the cart portion of the challenge."
"I told you guys that Chase should've pushed for us, but you didn't listen," Ripper huffed.
“I convinced Izzy to help us with the vote, and Chase won't be necessary since he and Sky have some sort of friendship with each other,” MK said.
"As long as we have the majority, we're all set to go," Scott said with a wink.
The theme of the Gilded Chris ceremony began to play, accompanied by the standard introduction sequence. It faded into a long-distance shot of the award stage, the camera zooming in as the theme came to an end. The six Gaffers cast their votes, the camera panning down from Chase and MK in the top row, to Izzy and Scott in the middle, and Ripper and Sky at the bottom.
"Time's up!" Chris announced excitedly. "I'll tally the votes!" He held up a device similar to the voting pads, and began to read off names. "Chase, Scott, Izzy, and MK." Each name was accompanied by the sound of an award getting thrown and caught and the four were shown holding their latest prizes. "Another award, and another day to compete."
The host held up the final award. "Tonight's final Gilded Chris and another chance at the million goes to…" he said as Ripper and Sky were shown watching nervously, "...Ripper!"
The aforementioned contestant caught his prize as Sky felt disappointed with the results.
Confessional: Sky
“I didn't want to vote for Chase and Izzy and MK and Scott helped out with the challenge, even if they're unsportsmanlike,” Sky explained. “I talked to Chase and Izzy about voting for Ripper since he didn't do much today, but I guess Izzy chose to vote off someone else.”
Confessional: Ripper
“Voting for Sky didn't hurt one bit,” Ripper confessed. “Like MK said, she's really athletic and could easily win the season if we chose to eliminate somebody else tonight.”
Confessional: Izzy
“Even though I was told to vote off specific people, I decided to go with voting MK,” Izzy admitted. “I still remember how she acted during last season's dodgeball challenge.”
Confessionals End
The footage flashed forward, showing Sky on the red carpet getting handcuffed by Chef.
"Dead girl walking!" Chef called out before escorting the eliminated contestant.
"Hold on!" the voice of MK cried out as she ran up to the two. “Leave her and take me!”
“Sure. Whatever,” Chef took the handcuffs off Sky and offered them to MK.
“I was kidding!” MK pushed the cuffs away from her. “Like I'd willingly quit the game. I'm just here to see the loser off.” She looked at the slightly taller girl teasingly. “I'm sure you'll be happily reunited with Trent the Challenge Thrower.”
"As long as I'm not on a team with someone as underhanded as you," Sky retorted as she grabbed the handcuffs and walked past the now miffed girl, "I'll be happy anywhere."
The Gilded Chris theme began to play as Chris turned to the camera. "Folks are getting feisty!" he said. "The Gaffers just lost their best player and team leader this early in the game, and with her out of the way, how low will this team sink just to win? Tune in next week to find out on Total! Drama! Action!"
(Roll the Credits)
(Bonus Clip)
Sky was sitting in the back of the Lame-o-sine as she looked at the window. "You know what’s ironic?" she started. "Trent outlasted me last season by one episode, and now the same thing occurred, only with the roles reversed." She turned her head to look at the camera. "I wish I could've stayed on the show longer and prove that I'm more than Trent's athletic girlfriend, but I'm pretty sure the fans know that I have a distinct personality."
"If there's one thing I can say about my performance, it's that I didn't do anything questionable or controversial that could be used against me in the future or vilify me." She paused for a moment and blinked. "What do you mean Aftermath?"
Eva - 14th
Geoff - 14th
Izzy - RETURNED
Trent - 12th
Sky - 11th
Killer Grips: Anne Maria, Brick, Jasmine, Justin, Millie
Screaming Gaffers: Chase, Izzy, MK, Ripper, Scott

I finally finished Secrets of Grindea on the hardest difficulty, getting the true ending and 100% completion ingame, took me about 30 hours which I think is very reasonable, doesn't overstay its welcome. Here's a short review in case anyone is thinking of getting it, no spoilers of course.
Story:
As the game tries to emulate SNES JRPGs, the story consists of you collecting various macguffins to achieve your goal that becomes clear as you progress through the game. That's all I can say without spoilers.
Music:
It's very good, one of the game's strongest parts. You got cheerful songs that make you forget about your worries, you got spooky songs, you got desert theme, you got sick orchestral songs. It's overall very good, one issue is that most of the songs are roughly a 1 minute loop so you will get tired of them eventually.
Controls:
They are not the tightest, I often found myself shielding in the wrong direction because the shield came out slightly too late or using a skill in the wrong direction, it just doesn't feel tight enough especially for the later bosses. The hitboxes in the game are also very bad.
Gameplay:
As the name implies, there is grinding. As I said at the start it took me about 30 hours grinding included, multiple retries at bosses to learn them so it's on the lighter side of JRPG grinds. The gameplay has a lot of variety with 2 melee skill trees, 4 magic skill trees and 9 utility skills that are neither and 3 separate passive skill trees so there is a decent amount of variety and player expression. I tried out a bunch of the skills and they all mostly felt good, I played a melee tanky 2 hander.
The main thing you will be grinding for is cards which give you small stat boosts that add up, for 100% you will also be grinding for enemy specific drops which are usually 1% or less droprate or materials to craft every item for completion. Cards start at a very low droprate depending on the enemy, some enemies start at 1% but most start below 0.5%, however there is a pity system that slowly increases your chance and I don't think I needed more than 400 kills of any enemy to get their cards.
Balance:
The balance is very questionable. In my experience 2H was significantly worse than 1H but I'm stubborn so I refused to switch, I never used basic attacks on 2H because they are very slow and their damage does not make up for it, I bonked everything to death with the slam attack. Armor is kind of useless unless you specifically stack it. Hybrid builds are not very good because you will just not deal enough damage, you can also only max out 2 spells completely by level 40 which is the soft level cap. Skills past a level need Gold Skill Points which you don't get a lot of.
Utility skills are amazing so they will be taking up majority of your hotkey slots, they also only cost 3 points to max out so their value is massive.
I think balance needs some work but it's not gamebreaking.
Puzzles:
I'm not a puzzle guy but the puzzles were pretty fun. You got usual sokoban, you got bouncy mirror puzzles, you got math puzzles, you have treasure maps with images and poems. They are mostly easy and don't take a lot of time to do with the exception of a few optional puzzles.
Enemies:
You got basic things like slimes, rabbits, boars, but there is also sand golem, ghosts, yetis, stone statues, teleports behind you man. The overall enemy design and roster is very varied and they are all unique but there is one problem. During grinding, the longer you stay in a room the more enemies will spawn and this gets really bad after halfway into the game because there is a lot of enemies that got massive attacks or shoot projectiles nonstop so the entire screen will be covered in projectiles and you cannot see. Enemies can also interrupt your spellcasting if you get hit, there is a passive that gives you a chance not to get interrupted the more armor you have but if you are a spellcaster, you don't have enough armor to use that effectively, even my melee bonker with 150 defense often got interrupted which is very annoying.
Bosses:
The part I'm the most mixed about. There is a lot of gimmicky bosses, some normal bosses that are just dodge checks and some bosses that will make you want to turn the game off. There is a lot of bosses that take from the enemies in filling the screen with projectiles nonstop but the lack of tightness in the controls makes dodging them very annoying. There are bosses that are multiple bosses so you have to pay attention to 4 different things and try to block all of them at once which you can't so you will get hit unfairly because you can't look at everything at once. Of course every boss can be beaten with a little trying or grinding but majority of them wasn't very fun, the rest of the game is but the bosses feel like they were made for a different game.
The game also has an issue with insane difficulty spikes out of nowhere.
True Final Boss:
This needs its own section.
It took me about 3 hours to beat him and he was incredibly hard but for the wrong reasons. Its attacks are randomized and they can overlap in various ways, some way harder to dodge than others so it becomes a really RNG heavy fight when the fight is supposed to be pure skill with no cheese strats. On the highest difficulty, the fight takes away your health potion and your magic bubble so you cannot use them, it's meant as a fight to show your mastery of the game. It requires really split second parries and turns and really tight dodging but as mentioned above, the controls aren't the greatest so you will get hit when you thought you blocked the attack combined with dodgy hitboxes.
It's a very cinematic fight though and I am 100% happy that I spent the effort into getting the fight and actually learning it despite all of its issues.
Overall:
I think the game is a very solid 7/10, it has its issues but it's still a great game even if it pissed me off in a couple of places and I would definitely recommend. I haven't even touched the arcade mode yet which has its own story and own gameplay, I'll do that later.

I, (18F) moved in with my boyfriend (19M) a couple of months after I turned 18, and my parents were furious and hurt. There’s a lot to unpack with this one, so bear with me.
My parents (40F and 42M) are very religious and were somewhat strict while I was growing up. I have two younger brothers, one 17 and one 8 (this will be important later). For context, my father is a pastor at a local church and my parent’s religious beliefs are the reasoning behind most if not all of their actions. Growing up, I was never a stereotypical girl. I didn’t have many female friends and was usually not accepted in groups with guys as I was a girl and we were kids. I was extroverted as a child but due to being repeatedly rejected by kids my age, I became more introverted. I was a major nerd who loved superheroes and I wanted to play sports. Again, for context, the town I grew up in was very conservative and my parents are very conservative themselves. Girls liked girl things- even if they claimed that’s not how they felt, it’s how they acted. However, as a kid, I did not realize this. I played soccer and basketball growing up, regardless of how “weird” it made me because I didn’t think there was anything wrong with it. I was probably around 9 or 10 at this point. It was around this time my parents started having issues with my hobbies. I remember my parents trying to convince me to be a cheerleader because I would “like it more,” but I insisted on playing basketball. (This basketball/cheer program was through our church by the way). Because I was still young, they let it slide, but to this day I remember them being annoyed with it. This is also around the time dieting was introduced to me as well as calorie counting. I have always struggled with my weight and so has my mother, so they were very adamant on making sure I was being “healthy.” I didn’t understand it, but as a child, the only thing I was worried about was making my parents happy. A lot of discipline I received revolved around emotion. What I was doing was right or wrong and if I did something wrong, I felt terrible and awful and would often come crying to my parents about the mistakes I made, fearful of their disappointment and anger if they found things out themselves. They also made everything a moral dilemma- everything was about God and religion and as a kid, it really messed with my head. I would blame myself for everything that went wrong, seeing it as God’s punishment for my behavior. When I was 9, I went so far as to blame my grandmother’s death on myself because I was hanging out with boys instead of girls. This made me to be more of an introvert and my now anxiety disorder is much much worse.
About a year later, my parents sat down with me and my brother and told us they wanted to adopt. At first, I was very excited. I loved the idea of having another brother or sister. And I wouldn’t trade my 8 year old brother (let’s call him Scott) for anything, but adopting kids is part of what triggered a huge change in my parent’s behavior. Also- I had started getting older. I loved playing video games, watching cartoons and writing. However, these weren’t the things they wanted me to like I guess, because I started to feel their judgment become more clear and apparent as I got older. Now, I assume this is because as a kid, I just did what I was told, or my oddities were assumed to fade over time, but that is not the case anymore. Anyways, entering middle school, our family fostered a little girl, let’s call her Ally. A young woman in our church had told us that Ally’s family was out of the picture, and as her aunt, she couldn’t take her in as she was already a single mom and planned on adopting her brother, but couldn’t handle all three alone. So my family stepped in- however, we had come to find that her father was still in the picture and was actively fighting for custody. And Ally was a bit of a handful. My parents have admitted that they expected to swoop in, save a child from a hard life and be the heroes, and when things were harder than that they were very upset. Ally was about three- she remembered her mom (who was in jail i believe), her sisters, her grandma and grandpa, as well as her dad. She didn’t want our family, she wanted hers. She didn’t listen to my parents and rejected their parenting. This is what started to make my parents snap. I understand it was hard for them, but now that I’m older, I get it. She was a little girl who wanted her family. But they took her rejection very seriously and were constantly unhappy with her and made sure she knew it. Children not listening immediately was newer to them as my brother and I both did pretty much whatever they asked, and they did not take well to being told “no” by a child. 8 months after living with Ally, she was taken in by her grandparents to live with them and her sisters. The next day, my parents took my brother and I on a small trip. I’m not sure if it was to cheer us up or to celebrate. I was quite sad though- I had started to really care about Ally and had convinced myself that “God would take care of things” and I would have a sister. But I was angry- God took someone away from me and I was doing everything right. Why was he punishing me? Nothing made sense. Yet, only a year later, my parents were considering taking in another child. I wanted nothing to do with it- God had already taken one sibling away from me. I couldn’t do it again. In the end, I agreed and soon became attached to this little boy, who was two when we met him. This was Scott. I immediately became attached- and I love this kid more than I can describe- he’s my little brother and I would do anything for him.
This is where things start to go further downhill. Scott has a lot of trauma and mental issues, one of those issues being oppositional defiant disorder. That basically means that listening to any form of authority is near impossible for him, and causes him to lash out and act younger than he is. This is probably due to a number of reasons, as he was severely neglected and abused as an infant and his birth mother was on several different substances while pregnant with him, to the point where he was born high on several illegal drugs. He was left in a car seat for most of his infant life, so the back of his head is slightly flattened due to this. My parents are very obedient/disciplined-based parents, so his behavior rocked their world. In my opinion, the way they handled things with Scott was borderline abusive. There were several occasions where he would say he hated them (as young children do when they're mad) and they would flip. Telling him that if he didn’t want them that was fine. They didn’t need him. He could run back to his other parents, but his mom was in jail and his dad didn’t want him, so good luck with that. If we were in the car when this happened, they would threaten to leave him on the side of the road and good luck finding his way home. Once my mother literally pulled to the side of the road, placed him outside the car and started driving so he would “think they would leave him if his actions didn’t change,” but she turned around to get him. Because they would “never actually abandon or hurt him,” their actions were justified and perfectly fine. They would tell him he was acting like a baby when he started to cry and scream. “Little baby Scott, do you need a diaper?” Is how they would tease him when he became older, which just made his tantrums worse. They would tell him how disappointed they were with him and that he should be ashamed of himself and the way he acted because they gave him everything. They would call him, to his face, “an ungrateful manipulative piece of shit.” Because according to my parents, he could control his actions 100% and was choosing to act out to make their lives difficult. While I understand that this was hard for them, in my opinion, this in no way excuses their behavior. One time, Scott was crying and was upset (who knows why, but the kid had a lot of trauma and mental issues so it didn’t bother me too much), and my mother picked him up and put him in his room. She told him that every time he tried to leave his room, she would take away one of his stuffed animals. (He had several that he loved very much). Because this sounded so terrible to him, he ran after her trying to say it wasn’t fair. So she went into his room and took a stuffed animal. This cycle continued while he cried and begged for her to stop, because he just didn’t get it that she was going to keep doing this over and over and his trying to convince her was making it worse. Eventually, there were none left, and she told him if he didn’t stop crying she was going to throw them all away. I don’t remember what happened after that, but I do know that several of them were thrown away, if not at that time than others. There are many other instances of things like this and worse occurring, but we’d be here for a while if I tried to recount them all. Moving forwards to closer when I was moving out-
Now, several years later, when I turned sixteen, I had come to terms with the fact that I was bisexual. This went against everything my family was for, and I knew exactly how they viewed queer people. So, I started learning about different branches of Christianity and felt like I knew a God who loved me as I was and was happy in my decision to switch denominations. (My parents were baptists, and I wanted to be non-denominational). A few months after this, I decided to tell my parents the truth. I had done my best to give them hints, but I wanted to be honest with them because I trusted that they would love me and be there for me no matter what. When I told them I wanted to talk to them about something, they pushed and pressed and I had been trying to wait to talk to them until the next day. I had been seeing my high school counselor, and she suggested giving them a heads-up before springing that conversation up on them. However, after telling them to wait, they went through my phone and saw that I had researched different denominations and read different sermons on queer-accepting faith. They were livid. To be clear- I had a friend over while this was happening. We were watching a movie and joking about how I lost my phone and couldn’t show them this picture I wanted to. Then, I was called upstairs. I had apparently betrayed my parents and, “how could I do this to them, when I had someone over?” My father demanded I send my friend home, but my mother convinced him for one more hour. I was told not to tell my friend anything they had said and to act like things were fine, but I couldn’t. I went back downstairs where we were hanging out and started sobbing. I felt like my whole world was falling apart. Everything was over- and the people I thought would love me no matter what made me so afraid and sad, I was completely broken. My friend did their best to comfort me and even felt weary to leave me alone with my family but I told them I’d be okay, and asked that they update our friends about the situation. That night was hellish. So many conversations, them trying to understand what I felt, but not taking me particularly seriously either. That night turned into weeks of books, slideshows, conversations, and prayers. It felt like at-home conversion therapy. Eventually, I was given a choice “put my convictional flag in the ground or loose their trust.” As the petrified 16 year old, I chose to lie. I put my “flag” in the ground and did my best to, “earn back their trust” and repair their reputation that I had tarnished. The next couple months were a blur. I felt so terrible about myself. I didn’t know what I thought or believed and I became extremely hyper anxious and depressed. I had lost all sense of privacy and I did trust my parents further than I could toss them. My 17 year old brother (he was 14 at the time, let’s call him James) was 100% on board with my parents. My life felt like a living nightmare. My parents had it so that all my texts sent or received from my phone would go directly to theirs, so I couldn’t even confide in my friends without getting into trouble (which had happened and was how I found out that they did that because I deleted the texts immediately after sending/receiving things).. Everything felt like it was about me and how I needed to earn back their trust and how I was a terrible betrayer who they were not proud of in the slightest. I had gone to get a pixie cut (with their approval) and after they told me I was disgusting and repulsive and would never find a man to love me. I was heartbroken and felt so alone and unloved in my house, while I had to watch my younger brother be treated the way he was by my parents.
Luckily, I had a lot of friends and our school counselor who had been there for me through everything. They showered me with support and love and made sure I had a safe space to exist and truthfully I think they’re the only reason I didn’t do anything drastic and am still here today. It was hard though because James went to the same school as me and would tell my parents if I was with anyone he knew was queer or queer accepting. This caused me to be very very paranoid about who I was with, when, where, etc. Constantly covering my tracks, having an excuse set up and ready to bolt if I saw anyone I knew. What made things equally hard is that the church my father works at is quite big in our area. So if someone from our church or someone who knew my family saw me with anyone they labeled as “queer” or “gay,” they would tell my family as well. For the most part, I didn’t feel safe anywhere. I was constantly alert and on guard, even when I was asleep as my parents had woken me up before to confront me about someone I was friends with at school.
Fortunately for me, despite everything being such a mess, I am quite academically smart. I got a job the second I turned sixteen as I had heard the horror stories of queer kids being kicked out and wanted to be prepared. I had been saving money, taking college classes (we have a state program that pays for the classes while you’re in high school), and putting on a show for my family for quite some time. After saving some money, I paid my parents for an older car that they had paid off ten or so years ago. After my brother turned 16, he claimed it was too hard to share a car with me, so while I was away visiting a friend they bought him a car and told us that they expected each of us to pay them one thousand dollars before we graduated high school and that when we did so, they would sign over our respective cars to us. To be clear, I contributed to insurance and paid for my own gas, as well as contributing to my phone bill and money for food. Meanwhile, my brother had no job, and was constantly asking my parents for money to go out with friends. He had also taken up golfing, which as most people know is extremely expensive, and my parents funded everything. James had actually admitted to asking for more money than he needed and save the leftovers for whatever he wanted. I was also expected to chauffeur him to golf events and to get togethers with his friends, and my parents would in return give me some gas money. Another thing to note is that the only reason I was contributing to our phone bill is because James wanted unlimited data and my father said it was unreasonable unless we both contributed financially. I refused as I was trying to save money (as I would have with the car situation), however things per normal went James’s way. However, because he did not have a job, he was not expected to pay anything and would not be charged for the months and years that he did not contribute to. I did my best not to let these things get to me and to keep a level head. I paid my parents for the car because I already had over two thousand dollars saved as a seventeen year old high school student due to my hard work.
I focused on my classes and joined theater to help fill the hours in between school and work. I was much more active my sophomore year but when James also decided to join theater I retreated a bit as my once safe space to freely exist was no longer safe. I joined the stage crew but honestly that was also very enjoyable and lethargic for me and I enjoyed it a lot. Anyways, I was mostly a straight A student besides the stray Bs and one or two Cs (psychology and AP government screwed me over) and was working 15 or so hours a week. This is on top of my commitments to the church which were most of my Sundays and my Wednesday evenings. The funny thing is though- James missed more church than I ever did yet because my absence was because of work and not golf, I was the one consistently reprimanded for my lack of attendance and socialization whilst I was there. Yet because James could never do anything wrong and was a very extroverted person his lack of attendance wasn’t as serious as my own. I had one close friend through our church, let’s call her Grace (now 18F) and she actually knew about everything and was very supportive of me. I also had some other friends who really only showed up to church so I didn’t have to go through the torture alone which I don’t know if I could ever repay them for. Besides the people I was comfortable with though, I was pretty much a loner there and this heavily displeased my parents as it made them look bad and messed with their reputation. I never realized how much appearances meant to them until all of the shit that happened took place. As I mentioned before, our church is very conservative and traditional, and many sermons and lessons revolved around gender roles and the sinfulness of the world in terms fo the LGBTQ community. I consistently felt targeted because of my looks and my personality and stopped feeling comfortable there a very long time ago.
Now that more context is in place, fast forward to the end of my junior year. I had at this point finished all my high school requirements for graduation and was given an incredible opportunity to go to our local college full time for my senior year. I was very excited and happy because not only did it give me more freedom but it also meant I would get more than a year of my college education paid for by the state.
It was also around this time when I met my now boyfriend, let’s call him Dean. We were coworkers and had begun to get to know each other. We had a lot in common and while were different people personality wise, we enjoyed each other’s company quite a bit. By some miracle, I convinced my parents to allow me to hang out with him outside of work by claiming he was just a friend and saying that he was a Christian (which is by no means true). They were extremely skeptical but allowed us to hang out. We had an incredible time- and by the end of our first date he asked me to be his girlfriend which I happily accepted. I was so happy, but when I got home, things spiraled out of control. I told my parents about our time, and they were extremely unhappy as they felt fooled (which they were to be fair) and told me I was not allowed to see him ever again. I was devastated and they said a lot of very uncalled for things and but I understand why they were angry. To be clear, they knew I had a romantic interest in Dean and that this hangout was to see if we would be compatible partners and get to know each other better. They did not call it a date though because they weren’t comfortable with it, even if it was a date and they kinda knew it. So while they were on some level “fooled,” I feel that their anger and harshness wasn’t called for as they knew the intentions of our hanging out. The next morning my father demanded to see my phone. This is when I started to panic. You see, they had stop tracking my texts and I had openly flirted with Dean over text. Nothing that explicit and no photos of any kind. But the flirting would be enough for them to tear my world apart and I knew it. They had gone through my personal conversations before and made me feel terrible because of it and I refused to let them do it again. So I deleted everything. The entire conversation chain, I removed it from my phone 100%. My parents absolutely lost their shit. They had been manipulating and gaslighting me for years, doing anything and everything to keep their control and with my actions I showed them they couldn’t control me forever and things went very downhill. I lost all my privacy and was once again told how I had betrayed them and I was terrible and couldn’t be trusted. Again- I partially understand their anger here because I had directly disobeyed a command. But at the same time, I feel as a young woman I should be allowed some sense of privacy and the ability to talk to people without being constantly monitored. I don’t feel like I did anything wrong and would happily do it again in a heartbeat if it meant I’d be where I am today. Regardless of this, my life became a living hell once again, and my parents compared this to when I came out, “which was maybe the worst night of their lives.” They stripped me of all my privileges even if I didn’t have many to begin with. They made me feel absolutely miserable and awful about myself and I was monitored like never before. I would be working and receive texts upon texts of how I was so terrible and how could I do this to them because they had done everything for me and I’m a terrible daughter who should be ashamed of myself for the deceit and malicious nature of my actions. Again- this was because they could not read the messages between me and my now boyfriend. I understand them being mad but they took it to a completely inappropriate level. I shared everything happening with my friends and counselor and they supported me and assured me I did nothing wrong and they would be there for me which helped but as my home was now a living hellscape it was hard to hear it. I found a way to tell Dean about things and at first he felt guilty but I assured him that their actions were not his fault but theirs. He then asked me if I wanted to pause our relationship but I told him honestly that they had taken so many things I cared about over the years and I refused to let them take this. I did tell him however I understood if he didn’t want to put up with all the complicatedness of my family but he told me he cared for me and would be there so long as I was okay with it. He also told me if things ever got really bad at home, regardless of the fact we had just started dating, he had spoken to his family and they offered me a place to stay if I needed/wanted it. This really touched me, but I reassured him that it was not his job to offer that, but I appreciated the offer.
This begins our relationship and we were very happy. We had found a way to communicate over email, and we were able to hide our relationship with my family. Luckily for me, over the years I had made a habit of hanging out at the park by myself so it was not strange for me to head to the park for a couple of hours. There, I would leave my car and phone (my phone had a tracker on it) and Dean and I would hangout multiple times a week and it was heaven. At this point, we’ve only been dating for a year but I can admit without any doubt that I am in love with this man and he is in love with me. During the school year, it became easier for us to hang out in between classes as we both went to the same college (I am older for my year in school and he is younger, so he was a sophomore in college while I was a senior in high school. However, we are barely a year apart in age for anyone who is concerned). However, in order for us to communicate and hang out, I had to be extremely diligent and was consistently covering my tracks while “once again, earning my parents trust and repairing our relationship.” Because of course their actions were completely justified and I was the one in the wrong, per normal. Anyways, every day, I was editing search histories, erasing messages, and looking over my shoulder. Our church had a program on campus where Dean and I went to school, so being together in public was risky as my father’s friends and coworkers were always on campus and I knew I would be screwed if we were caught together. We had a couple of close calls over the months but it was all worth it because I hadn’t been that happy in years.
Now, to the day I left and why. You see, my parents' behavior towards Scott was becoming more aggressive and worse over time. They also had, in my opinion, a drinking problem. Considering they didn’t deny it when I called them out, they may agree. They would behave more hostile after several drinks and it was happening so consistently I was constantly walking on eggshells. Between the way they treated Scott, the way they treated me and the constant stress I was under trying to balance my life in fear of the repercussions, things became too much. When things weren’t going to shit, I was consistently expected to either babysit my brother and do chores while being a full time college student and working a part time job WHILE attending church multiple times a week and keeping up with my responsibilities as a senior. This is on top of the stress my parents' behavior caused, meanwhile James was expected to do almost nothing in comparison. Don’t get me wrong- he didn’t do anything, but he had almost no responsibilities outside of school and his extracurriculars which were exclusively funded by my parents. Yes he helped with dishes during the week and would keep his space tidy. But as my schedule became much more flexible due to my school schedule, my expectations around the house became much higher than his. Even though I paid 200 a month on gas, 50 a month for insurance and 50 a month for the phone bill, and he paid nothing for his car, insurance, phone, gas, nothing. So you would think he would be expected to help in the house more but no. Also, James’s behavior towards Scott mimicked my parents and so all babysitting responsibilities fell on me as they couldn’t be trusted alone together. I was rarely if ever paid for my cleaning or babysitting services as it was my responsibility as their eldest child. They would also consistently judge me for my weight, cloths, hair, hobbies, etc. Why did I think it was a good idea to get fast food? I clearly didn’t need it. They would “outfit check me” to make sure the outfits I wore were feminine enough because the way I look effected their reputation and I couldn’t be trusted. I was not allowed to cut my hair after their tantrum over it. As for my hobbies, I stopped playing sports in middle school as I am very short (currently 5 foot even) and was unable to keep up with my peers. However my interest in video games and cartoons wasn’t feminine enough and they proceeded to compare me to my best friend Grace because she was skinnier and liked more feminine things than I did which hurt a lot. Another thing for context, I have PCOS. It’s an endocrine disorder that heavily effects your metabolism and hormones, which in turn severely effected my weight, however my parents never acknowledged it and again made everything my fault. So from what I wore, what I ate, who I hung out with and what I enjoyed doing was constantly criticized, scrutinized and eventually controlled by my family for years. On top of everything else, I was done. I was 18, I had resaved the thousand I paid my family and knew I was at a place where I didn’t need them and was tired of being treated like shit. So I left.
The night I moved out was a total shit show. I had rallied Dean and my other friend, let’s call them Rita (18NB), and they helped me form a plan. When I returned home, Dean and Rita would be on their way. I would pack everything that belonged to me or I felt they would let me take, and prep the bags outside. After Rita arrived I went to try and explain to my parents that I would be leaving and explain calmly why. In a perfect world, we would have had a long deep talk, and things would have ended alright. That is far, far from what happened. They immediately starting screaming, and took my phone and car keys as both belonged to them, which I calmly handed over. Rita was there for emotional support, and put themselves between me and my parents as they got more angry and seemed to be turning aggressive. After that, my father called the police and claimed that there was an intruder in their home trying to take their child. Yeah. Complete bullshit- which to this day I’m surprised they were never charged with falsifying a 911 call. They screamed at Rita to get out of their home and was screaming that I was throwing away everything and I needed to reconsider. I ignored them and attempted to calmly walk out, and my parents attempted to barricade the doors while harassing Rita to leave. Because Rita is incredible and one of my closest friends now, they refused to leave without me which was very calming. While my parents were distracted yelling at them, I slipped out through the garage. My mother saw this and then grabbed me, attempting to drag me inside by my arm. Rita saw this and assisted me in getting her off me, and after doing so we continued to walk towards Dean’s car where he was waiting for us. He figured it would be best if my family didn’t see him for the time being as they would definitely lose their minds at seeing his face. My parents continued screaming and then the cops arrived. They were quite confused at first because they had been sent to deal with a potential kidnapping, only to see two grown adults throwing a tantrum because their adult child didn’t want to live with them anymore. That night was honestly so insane I could write three more pages about everything they said and did. The most notable events were first when my mother tried to explain to the police that because I was her child, she was allowed to put her hands on me, which they humorously informed her was not the case. The next was when James came home from theater rehearsal, to which my parents told them that I was abandoning our family. He was an emotional wreck through all of it, and to this day has told me that until I “fix” things with our parents he is not okay with having any form of relationship with me. Throughout all of this Scott was in his room, and I was allowed to give him one last hug before leaving. The final and most notable thing, was as the cops allowed my boyfriend, Rita and I to leave, my father threatened violence towards my boyfriend and accused him of "taking advantage of his underage daughter," which is just ridiculous as we are practically the same age, and anything we had done together was consensual and reserved for after I turned 18. Another thing my parents did was go through each bag I had packed and took everything they felt belonged to them, including the laptop provided to me by my high school, which they hilariously were made to give back to me several days later as it was not theirs and they had no right to take it. They tried claiming they were giving it to me out of the kindness of their hearts, but that bullshit meant nothing as after I informed the school of their behavior, the school assured me they would be made to give it back. Another thing they threatened to do as I left was pull me out of high school, which I was assured by the police they were not capable of doing as I was 18. The police were for the most part annoyed with my parents, tired of their bs and told me I seemed to be a capable young woman and wished me the best of luck. My parents had tried to ask the police to say I was mentally unstable for the time being so I wouldn’t be allowed to leave, as their “she’s still in high school” excuse didn’t do anything. You see, as my father is an influential church figure and had friends in the police force, he thought they would be on his side but was sorely mistaken as the chief told him they wouldn’t be doing him any favors. And with that, I was free.
My boyfriend's family has been nothing but unconditionally kind and supportive and have accepted me as part of their family which has been a huge blessing in all of this. I am in contact with my father’s sister and his father, my aunt and grandpa, and as I have expressed my unhappiness at home, they are supportive of me as well. However, as my aunt lives further away and my grandpa is not in the best place to have me live with him, I have been with my boyfriend's family since I left home in October. I have a lot more I could say but I already feel like there are way too many parts here and so for now I’ll leave it at this. So yeah, AITA for moving out after I was treated like shit for years while witnessing the mistreatment of my sibling?

I, (18F) moved in with my boyfriend (19M) a couple of months after I turned 18, and my parents were furious and hurt. There’s a lot to unpack with this one, so bear with me.
My parents (40F and 42M) are very religious and were somewhat strict while I was growing up. I have two younger brothers, one 17 and one 8 (this will be important later). For context, my father is a pastor at a local church and my parent’s religious beliefs are the reasoning behind most if not all of their actions. Growing up, I was never a stereotypical girl. I didn’t have many female friends and was usually not accepted in groups with guys as I was a girl and we were kids. I was extroverted as a child but due to being repeatedly rejected by kids my age, I became more introverted. I was a major nerd who loved superheroes and I wanted to play sports. Again, for context, the town I grew up in was very conservative and my parents are very conservative themselves. Girls liked girl things- even if they claimed that’s not how they felt, it’s how they acted. However, as a kid, I did not realize this. I played soccer and basketball growing up, regardless of how “weird” it made me because I didn’t think there was anything wrong with it. I was probably around 9 or 10 at this point. It was around this time my parents started having issues with my hobbies. I remember my parents trying to convince me to be a cheerleader because I would “like it more,” but I insisted on playing basketball. (This basketball/cheer program was through our church by the way). Because I was still young, they let it slide, but to this day I remember them being annoyed with it. This is also around the time dieting was introduced to me as well as calorie counting. I have always struggled with my weight and so has my mother, so they were very adamant on making sure I was being “healthy.” I didn’t understand it, but as a child, the only thing I was worried about was making my parents happy. A lot of discipline I received revolved around emotion. What I was doing was right or wrong and if I did something wrong, I felt terrible and awful and would often come crying to my parents about the mistakes I made, fearful of their disappointment and anger if they found things out themselves. They also made everything a moral dilemma- everything was about God and religion and as a kid, it really messed with my head. I would blame myself for everything that went wrong, seeing it as God’s punishment for my behavior. When I was 9, I went so far as to blame my grandmother’s death on myself because I was hanging out with boys instead of girls. This made me to be more of an introvert and my now anxiety disorder is much much worse.
About a year later, my parents sat down with me and my brother and told us they wanted to adopt. At first, I was very excited. I loved the idea of having another brother or sister. And I wouldn’t trade my 8 year old brother (let’s call him Scott) for anything, but adopting kids is part of what triggered a huge change in my parent’s behavior. Also- I had started getting older. I loved playing video games, watching cartoons and writing. However, these weren’t the things they wanted me to like I guess, because I started to feel their judgment become more clear and apparent as I got older. Now, I assume this is because as a kid, I just did what I was told, or my oddities were assumed to fade over time, but that is not the case anymore. Anyways, entering middle school, our family fostered a little girl, let’s call her Ally. A young woman in our church had told us that Ally’s family was out of the picture, and as her aunt, she couldn’t take her in as she was already a single mom and planned on adopting her brother, but couldn’t handle all three alone. So my family stepped in- however, we had come to find that her father was still in the picture and was actively fighting for custody. And Ally was a bit of a handful. My parents have admitted that they expected to swoop in, save a child from a hard life and be the heroes, and when things were harder than that they were very upset. Ally was about three- she remembered her mom (who was in jail i believe), her sisters, her grandma and grandpa, as well as her dad. She didn’t want our family, she wanted hers. She didn’t listen to my parents and rejected their parenting. This is what started to make my parents snap. I understand it was hard for them, but now that I’m older, I get it. She was a little girl who wanted her family. But they took her rejection very seriously and were constantly unhappy with her and made sure she knew it. Children not listening immediately was newer to them as my brother and I both did pretty much whatever they asked, and they did not take well to being told “no” by a child. 8 months after living with Ally, she was taken in by her grandparents to live with them and her sisters. The next day, my parents took my brother and I on a small trip. I’m not sure if it was to cheer us up or to celebrate. I was quite sad though- I had started to really care about Ally and had convinced myself that “God would take care of things” and I would have a sister. But I was angry- God took someone away from me and I was doing everything right. Why was he punishing me? Nothing made sense. Yet, only a year later, my parents were considering taking in another child. I wanted nothing to do with it- God had already taken one sibling away from me. I couldn’t do it again. In the end, I agreed and soon became attached to this little boy, who was two when we met him. This was Scott. I immediately became attached- and I love this kid more than I can describe- he’s my little brother and I would do anything for him.
This is where things start to go further downhill. Scott has a lot of trauma and mental issues, one of those issues being oppositional defiant disorder. That basically means that listening to any form of authority is near impossible for him, and causes him to lash out and act younger than he is. This is probably due to a number of reasons, as he was severely neglected and abused as an infant and his birth mother was on several different substances while pregnant with him, to the point where he was born high on several illegal drugs. He was left in a car seat for most of his infant life, so the back of his head is slightly flattened due to this. My parents are very obedient/disciplined-based parents, so his behavior rocked their world. In my opinion, the way they handled things with Scott was borderline abusive. There were several occasions where he would say he hated them (as young children do when they're mad) and they would flip. Telling him that if he didn’t want them that was fine. They didn’t need him. He could run back to his other parents, but his mom was in jail and his dad didn’t want him, so good luck with that. If we were in the car when this happened, they would threaten to leave him on the side of the road and good luck finding his way home. Once my mother literally pulled to the side of the road, placed him outside the car and started driving so he would “think they would leave him if his actions didn’t change,” but she turned around to get him. Because they would “never actually abandon or hurt him,” their actions were justified and perfectly fine. They would tell him he was acting like a baby when he started to cry and scream. “Little baby Scott, do you need a diaper?” Is how they would tease him when he became older, which just made his tantrums worse. They would tell him how disappointed they were with him and that he should be ashamed of himself and the way he acted because they gave him everything. They would call him, to his face, “an ungrateful manipulative piece of shit.” Because according to my parents, he could control his actions 100% and was choosing to act out to make their lives difficult. While I understand that this was hard for them, in my opinion, this in no way excuses their behavior. One time, Scott was crying and was upset (who knows why, but the kid had a lot of trauma and mental issues so it didn’t bother me too much), and my mother picked him up and put him in his room. She told him that every time he tried to leave his room, she would take away one of his stuffed animals. (He had several that he loved very much). Because this sounded so terrible to him, he ran after her trying to say it wasn’t fair. So she went into his room and took a stuffed animal. This cycle continued while he cried and begged for her to stop, because he just didn’t get it that she was going to keep doing this over and over and his trying to convince her was making it worse. Eventually, there were none left, and she told him if he didn’t stop crying she was going to throw them all away. I don’t remember what happened after that, but I do know that several of them were thrown away, if not at that time than others. There are many other instances of things like this and worse occurring, but we’d be here for a while if I tried to recount them all. Moving forwards to closer when I was moving out-
Now, several years later, when I turned sixteen, I had come to terms with the fact that I was bisexual. This went against everything my family was for, and I knew exactly how they viewed queer people. So, I started learning about different branches of Christianity and felt like I knew a God who loved me as I was and was happy in my decision to switch denominations. (My parents were baptists, and I wanted to be non-denominational). A few months after this, I decided to tell my parents the truth. I had done my best to give them hints, but I wanted to be honest with them because I trusted that they would love me and be there for me no matter what. When I told them I wanted to talk to them about something, they pushed and pressed and I had been trying to wait to talk to them until the next day. I had been seeing my high school counselor, and she suggested giving them a heads-up before springing that conversation up on them. However, after telling them to wait, they went through my phone and saw that I had researched different denominations and read different sermons on queer-accepting faith. They were livid. To be clear- I had a friend over while this was happening. We were watching a movie and joking about how I lost my phone and couldn’t show them this picture I wanted to. Then, I was called upstairs. I had apparently betrayed my parents and, “how could I do this to them, when I had someone over?” My father demanded I send my friend home, but my mother convinced him for one more hour. I was told not to tell my friend anything they had said and to act like things were fine, but I couldn’t. I went back downstairs where we were hanging out and started sobbing. I felt like my whole world was falling apart. Everything was over- and the people I thought would love me no matter what made me so afraid and sad, I was completely broken. My friend did their best to comfort me and even felt weary to leave me alone with my family but I told them I’d be okay, and asked that they update our friends about the situation. That night was hellish. So many conversations, them trying to understand what I felt, but not taking me particularly seriously either. That night turned into weeks of books, slideshows, conversations, and prayers. It felt like at-home conversion therapy. Eventually, I was given a choice “put my convictional flag in the ground or loose their trust.” As the petrified 16 year old, I chose to lie. I put my “flag” in the ground and did my best to, “earn back their trust” and repair their reputation that I had tarnished. The next couple months were a blur. I felt so terrible about myself. I didn’t know what I thought or believed and I became extremely hyper anxious and depressed. I had lost all sense of privacy and I did trust my parents further than I could toss them. My 17 year old brother (he was 14 at the time, let’s call him James) was 100% on board with my parents. My life felt like a living nightmare. My parents had it so that all my texts sent or received from my phone would go directly to theirs, so I couldn’t even confide in my friends without getting into trouble (which had happened and was how I found out that they did that because I deleted the texts immediately after sending/receiving things).. Everything felt like it was about me and how I needed to earn back their trust and how I was a terrible betrayer who they were not proud of in the slightest. I had gone to get a pixie cut (with their approval) and after they told me I was disgusting and repulsive and would never find a man to love me. I was heartbroken and felt so alone and unloved in my house, while I had to watch my younger brother be treated the way he was by my parents.
Luckily, I had a lot of friends and our school counselor who had been there for me through everything. They showered me with support and love and made sure I had a safe space to exist and truthfully I think they’re the only reason I didn’t do anything drastic and am still here today. It was hard though because James went to the same school as me and would tell my parents if I was with anyone he knew was queer or queer accepting. This caused me to be very very paranoid about who I was with, when, where, etc. Constantly covering my tracks, having an excuse set up and ready to bolt if I saw anyone I knew. What made things equally hard is that the church my father works at is quite big in our area. So if someone from our church or someone who knew my family saw me with anyone they labeled as “queer” or “gay,” they would tell my family as well. For the most part, I didn’t feel safe anywhere. I was constantly alert and on guard, even when I was asleep as my parents had woken me up before to confront me about someone I was friends with at school.
Fortunately for me, despite everything being such a mess, I am quite academically smart. I got a job the second I turned sixteen as I had heard the horror stories of queer kids being kicked out and wanted to be prepared. I had been saving money, taking college classes (we have a state program that pays for the classes while you’re in high school), and putting on a show for my family for quite some time. After saving some money, I paid my parents for an older car that they had paid off ten or so years ago. After my brother turned 16, he claimed it was too hard to share a car with me, so while I was away visiting a friend they bought him a car and told us that they expected each of us to pay them one thousand dollars before we graduated high school and that when we did so, they would sign over our respective cars to us. To be clear, I contributed to insurance and paid for my own gas, as well as contributing to my phone bill and money for food. Meanwhile, my brother had no job, and was constantly asking my parents for money to go out with friends. He had also taken up golfing, which as most people know is extremely expensive, and my parents funded everything. James had actually admitted to asking for more money than he needed and save the leftovers for whatever he wanted. I was also expected to chauffeur him to golf events and to get togethers with his friends, and my parents would in return give me some gas money. Another thing to note is that the only reason I was contributing to our phone bill is because James wanted unlimited data and my father said it was unreasonable unless we both contributed financially. I refused as I was trying to save money (as I would have with the car situation), however things per normal went James’s way. However, because he did not have a job, he was not expected to pay anything and would not be charged for the months and years that he did not contribute to. I did my best not to let these things get to me and to keep a level head. I paid my parents for the car because I already had over two thousand dollars saved as a seventeen year old high school student due to my hard work.
I focused on my classes and joined theater to help fill the hours in between school and work. I was much more active my sophomore year but when James also decided to join theater I retreated a bit as my once safe space to freely exist was no longer safe. I joined the stage crew but honestly that was also very enjoyable and lethargic for me and I enjoyed it a lot. Anyways, I was mostly a straight A student besides the stray Bs and one or two Cs (psychology and AP government screwed me over) and was working 15 or so hours a week. This is on top of my commitments to the church which were most of my Sundays and my Wednesday evenings. The funny thing is though- James missed more church than I ever did yet because my absence was because of work and not golf, I was the one consistently reprimanded for my lack of attendance and socialization whilst I was there. Yet because James could never do anything wrong and was a very extroverted person his lack of attendance wasn’t as serious as my own. I had one close friend through our church, let’s call her Grace (now 18F) and she actually knew about everything and was very supportive of me. I also had some other friends who really only showed up to church so I didn’t have to go through the torture alone which I don’t know if I could ever repay them for. Besides the people I was comfortable with though, I was pretty much a loner there and this heavily displeased my parents as it made them look bad and messed with their reputation. I never realized how much appearances meant to them until all of the shit that happened took place. As I mentioned before, our church is very conservative and traditional, and many sermons and lessons revolved around gender roles and the sinfulness of the world in terms fo the LGBTQ community. I consistently felt targeted because of my looks and my personality and stopped feeling comfortable there a very long time ago.
Now that more context is in place, fast forward to the end of my junior year. I had at this point finished all my high school requirements for graduation and was given an incredible opportunity to go to our local college full time for my senior year. I was very excited and happy because not only did it give me more freedom but it also meant I would get more than a year of my college education paid for by the state.
It was also around this time when I met my now boyfriend, let’s call him Dean. We were coworkers and had begun to get to know each other. We had a lot in common and while were different people personality wise, we enjoyed each other’s company quite a bit. By some miracle, I convinced my parents to allow me to hang out with him outside of work by claiming he was just a friend and saying that he was a Christian (which is by no means true). They were extremely skeptical but allowed us to hang out. We had an incredible time- and by the end of our first date he asked me to be his girlfriend which I happily accepted. I was so happy, but when I got home, things spiraled out of control. I told my parents about our time, and they were extremely unhappy as they felt fooled (which they were to be fair) and told me I was not allowed to see him ever again. I was devastated and they said a lot of very uncalled for things and but I understand why they were angry. To be clear, they knew I had a romantic interest in Dean and that this hangout was to see if we would be compatible partners and get to know each other better. They did not call it a date though because they weren’t comfortable with it, even if it was a date and they kinda knew it. So while they were on some level “fooled,” I feel that their anger and harshness wasn’t called for as they knew the intentions of our hanging out. The next morning my father demanded to see my phone. This is when I started to panic. You see, they had stop tracking my texts and I had openly flirted with Dean over text. Nothing that explicit and no photos of any kind. But the flirting would be enough for them to tear my world apart and I knew it. They had gone through my personal conversations before and made me feel terrible because of it and I refused to let them do it again. So I deleted everything. The entire conversation chain, I removed it from my phone 100%. My parents absolutely lost their shit. They had been manipulating and gaslighting me for years, doing anything and everything to keep their control and with my actions I showed them they couldn’t control me forever and things went very downhill. I lost all my privacy and was once again told how I had betrayed them and I was terrible and couldn’t be trusted. Again- I partially understand their anger here because I had directly disobeyed a command. But at the same time, I feel as a young woman I should be allowed some sense of privacy and the ability to talk to people without being constantly monitored. I don’t feel like I did anything wrong and would happily do it again in a heartbeat if it meant I’d be where I am today. Regardless of this, my life became a living hell once again, and my parents compared this to when I came out, “which was maybe the worst night of their lives.” They stripped me of all my privileges even if I didn’t have many to begin with. They made me feel absolutely miserable and awful about myself and I was monitored like never before. I would be working and receive texts upon texts of how I was so terrible and how could I do this to them because they had done everything for me and I’m a terrible daughter who should be ashamed of myself for the deceit and malicious nature of my actions. Again- this was because they could not read the messages between me and my now boyfriend. I understand them being mad but they took it to a completely inappropriate level. I shared everything happening with my friends and counselor and they supported me and assured me I did nothing wrong and they would be there for me which helped but as my home was now a living hellscape it was hard to hear it. I found a way to tell Dean about things and at first he felt guilty but I assured him that their actions were not his fault but theirs. He then asked me if I wanted to pause our relationship but I told him honestly that they had taken so many things I cared about over the years and I refused to let them take this. I did tell him however I understood if he didn’t want to put up with all the complicatedness of my family but he told me he cared for me and would be there so long as I was okay with it. He also told me if things ever got really bad at home, regardless of the fact we had just started dating, he had spoken to his family and they offered me a place to stay if I needed/wanted it. This really touched me, but I reassured him that it was not his job to offer that, but I appreciated the offer.
This begins our relationship and we were very happy. We had found a way to communicate over email, and we were able to hide our relationship with my family. Luckily for me, over the years I had made a habit of hanging out at the park by myself so it was not strange for me to head to the park for a couple of hours. There, I would leave my car and phone (my phone had a tracker on it) and Dean and I would hangout multiple times a week and it was heaven. At this point, we’ve only been dating for a year but I can admit without any doubt that I am in love with this man and he is in love with me. During the school year, it became easier for us to hang out in between classes as we both went to the same college (I am older for my year in school and he is younger, so he was a sophomore in college while I was a senior in high school. However, we are barely a year apart in age for anyone who is concerned). However, in order for us to communicate and hang out, I had to be extremely diligent and was consistently covering my tracks while “once again, earning my parents trust and repairing our relationship.” Because of course their actions were completely justified and I was the one in the wrong, per normal. Anyways, every day, I was editing search histories, erasing messages, and looking over my shoulder. Our church had a program on campus where Dean and I went to school, so being together in public was risky as my father’s friends and coworkers were always on campus and I knew I would be screwed if we were caught together. We had a couple of close calls over the months but it was all worth it because I hadn’t been that happy in years.
Now, to the day I left and why. You see, my parents' behavior towards Scott was becoming more aggressive and worse over time. They also had, in my opinion, a drinking problem. Considering they didn’t deny it when I called them out, they may agree. They would behave more hostile after several drinks and it was happening so consistently I was constantly walking on eggshells. Between the way they treated Scott, the way they treated me and the constant stress I was under trying to balance my life in fear of the repercussions, things became too much. When things weren’t going to shit, I was consistently expected to either babysit my brother and do chores while being a full time college student and working a part time job WHILE attending church multiple times a week and keeping up with my responsibilities as a senior. This is on top of the stress my parents' behavior caused, meanwhile James was expected to do almost nothing in comparison. Don’t get me wrong- he didn’t do anything, but he had almost no responsibilities outside of school and his extracurriculars which were exclusively funded by my parents. Yes he helped with dishes during the week and would keep his space tidy. But as my schedule became much more flexible due to my school schedule, my expectations around the house became much higher than his. Even though I paid 200 a month on gas, 50 a month for insurance and 50 a month for the phone bill, and he paid nothing for his car, insurance, phone, gas, nothing. So you would think he would be expected to help in the house more but no. Also, James’s behavior towards Scott mimicked my parents and so all babysitting responsibilities fell on me as they couldn’t be trusted alone together. I was rarely if ever paid for my cleaning or babysitting services as it was my responsibility as their eldest child. They would also consistently judge me for my weight, cloths, hair, hobbies, etc. Why did I think it was a good idea to get fast food? I clearly didn’t need it. They would “outfit check me” to make sure the outfits I wore were feminine enough because the way I look effected their reputation and I couldn’t be trusted. I was not allowed to cut my hair after their tantrum over it. As for my hobbies, I stopped playing sports in middle school as I am very short (currently 5 foot even) and was unable to keep up with my peers. However my interest in video games and cartoons wasn’t feminine enough and they proceeded to compare me to my best friend Grace because she was skinnier and liked more feminine things than I did which hurt a lot. Another thing for context, I have PCOS. It’s an endocrine disorder that heavily effects your metabolism and hormones, which in turn severely effected my weight, however my parents never acknowledged it and again made everything my fault. So from what I wore, what I ate, who I hung out with and what I enjoyed doing was constantly criticized, scrutinized and eventually controlled by my family for years. On top of everything else, I was done. I was 18, I had resaved the thousand I paid my family and knew I was at a place where I didn’t need them and was tired of being treated like shit. So I left.
The night I moved out was a total shit show. I had rallied Dean and my other friend, let’s call them Rita (18NB), and they helped me form a plan. When I returned home, Dean and Rita would be on their way. I would pack everything that belonged to me or I felt they would let me take, and prep the bags outside. After Rita arrived I went to try and explain to my parents that I would be leaving and explain calmly why. In a perfect world, we would have had a long deep talk, and things would have ended alright. That is far, far from what happened. They immediately starting screaming, and took my phone and car keys as both belonged to them, which I calmly handed over. Rita was there for emotional support, and put themselves between me and my parents as they got more angry and seemed to be turning aggressive. After that, my father called the police and claimed that there was an intruder in their home trying to take their child. Yeah. Complete bullshit- which to this day I’m surprised they were never charged with falsifying a 911 call. They screamed at Rita to get out of their home and was screaming that I was throwing away everything and I needed to reconsider. I ignored them and attempted to calmly walk out, and my parents attempted to barricade the doors while harassing Rita to leave. Because Rita is incredible and one of my closest friends now, they refused to leave without me which was very calming. While my parents were distracted yelling at them, I slipped out through the garage. My mother saw this and then grabbed me, attempting to drag me inside by my arm. Rita saw this and assisted me in getting her off me, and after doing so we continued to walk towards Dean’s car where he was waiting for us. He figured it would be best if my family didn’t see him for the time being as they would definitely lose their minds at seeing his face. My parents continued screaming and then the cops arrived. They were quite confused at first because they had been sent to deal with a potential kidnapping, only to see two grown adults throwing a tantrum because their adult child didn’t want to live with them anymore. That night was honestly so insane I could write three more pages about everything they said and did. The most notable events were first when my mother tried to explain to the police that because I was her child, she was allowed to put her hands on me, which they humorously informed her was not the case. The next was when James came home from theater rehearsal, to which my parents told them that I was abandoning our family. He was an emotional wreck through all of it, and to this day has told me that until I “fix” things with our parents he is not okay with having any form of relationship with me. Throughout all of this Scott was in his room, and I was allowed to give him one last hug before leaving. The final and most notable thing, was as the cops allowed my boyfriend, Rita and I to leave, my father threatened violence towards my boyfriend and accused him of "taking advantage of his underage daughter," which is just ridiculous as we are practically the same age, and anything we had done together was consensual and reserved for after I turned 18. Another thing my parents did was go through each bag I had packed and took everything they felt belonged to them, including the laptop provided to me by my high school, which they hilariously were made to give back to me several days later as it was not theirs and they had no right to take it. They tried claiming they were giving it to me out of the kindness of their hearts, but that bullshit meant nothing as after I informed the school of their behavior, the school assured me they would be made to give it back. Another thing they threatened to do as I left was pull me out of high school, which I was assured by the police they were not capable of doing as I was 18. The police were for the most part annoyed with my parents, tired of their bs and told me I seemed to be a capable young woman and wished me the best of luck. My parents had tried to ask the police to say I was mentally unstable for the time being so I wouldn’t be allowed to leave, as their “she’s still in high school” excuse didn’t do anything. You see, as my father is an influential church figure and had friends in the police force, he thought they would be on his side but was sorely mistaken as the chief told him they wouldn’t be doing him any favors. And with that, I was free.
My boyfriend's family has been nothing but unconditionally kind and supportive and have accepted me as part of their family which has been a huge blessing in all of this. I am in contact with my father’s sister and his father, my aunt and grandpa, and as I have expressed my unhappiness at home, they are supportive of me as well. However, as my aunt lives further away and my grandpa is not in the best place to have me live with him, I have been with my boyfriend's family since I left home in October. I have a lot more I could say but I already feel like there are way too many parts here and so for now I’ll leave it at this. So yeah, AITA for moving out after I was treated like shit for years while witnessing the mistreatment of my sibling?

Part 1
Chicago, 2016. Flinn Gerald is doing his best to make it in the city. Born in Selma, Alabama, he has spent his entire life trying to escape the ever tightening grasp of his small town. But alas, he made it out and is adapting to life in the big city. With a big fancy corporate job, an endless supply of friends, an apartment with a stunning view of the lake, and great distance from his family, what more could he need? Well, there is a lot more (or less) that he needs, but of course that is a story for later.
On a typical Tuesday night at a bar, the regulars crowd in. Flinn is late, as usual, as he stayed late at work (again), but on his arrival, the cheers and hugs from all the friends make everyone forget of the regular inconvenience. Conversation ensued, starting with all the boring finance jargon, but as the drinks flowed, so did the conversation, moving away from work and more into life. This is what everyone preferred.
“Another round, anyone?” asked Raheem, enthusiastically. After a murmur of concurrence, he stood up to make his way up to the bar. “Flinn, care to lend a hand?”
Raheem Bartlett was Flinn’s college roommate and the first person he met outside of his hometown. The pair hit it off instantly despite having wildly different backgrounds. Even in their freshman year, the engineer and the finance major would get into all sorts of trouble together, but eventually they leveled out. Six years later, they still have each other’s backs just like day one.
The pair made their way up to the bar and waited to get the bartender's attention. “What's up with you, bro?” asked Raheem. “You’ve been seeming a bit off.”
“Oh, ya know. Work, life, everything kinda happens so fast. Work has been busy as of late, and the hours long.”
Seeming displeased by this answer, Raheem stared back in concern.
“Really, I’m fine… just long hours.”
“Back in school you’d pull back to back all-nighters and then still make it to a morning class. I find it hard to believe that the mighty Flinn would be so setback by ‘long hours’.”
Flinn took a moment to ponder, staring down at the bar covered in various stamps and postcards beneath the epoxy surface. “I guess, ya know, it's not all it was cracked up to be. I guess I had expected more.” Flinn had mostly dropped his accent, but occasionally it would still slip out.
Despite coming from a long line of mill workers (mostly paper) and farm hands who never ventured further than the Dallas county line, Flinn yearned to leave his small town and conquer the world from a young age. Coming from the poorest county in Alabama, his family always squashed his dreams, labeling them as impossible. But Flinn knew better. Or, at least he knew he could do better. Graduating top of his class a year early and winning a full-ride scholarship to Northwestern University, he had proved everyone wrong and set his own path. The path he was told was impossible became his reality.
“More what?”
“Nothing, really. I mean, what more is there? This is what I always wanted, right? The stable job in the city, never having to worry about money. It’s great, and I couldn’t be more grateful, but… something is missing. Doing the same thing day after day staring at a screen, moving clients money around. I… just hoped it would be more fulfilling, especially after all it took to get here.”
Before he could finish his thought, the bartender came up to take their order: another round for the table, plus a round of shots, plus two more shots.
“What am I saying, really?” added Flinn. “I shouldn’t be complaining. Look at where I am now compared to six years ago. So much has changed. My home, friends, even my diet. I just feel a bit off. Like I need something more to do..
“I get it, bro. Adjusting to your new life can be rough. Enjoy it for a minute or two.” Raheem slides a shot in front of Flinn. “Here, take this.”
Tuesday had become fairly consistent to this point for this group of misfits: Raheem and his girlfriend Amy; Jack; Jasper, from Flinn’s firm, and his wife Max; and of course, Flinn. For nearly two years, these six have been meeting at O’Malley’s every Tuesday night for drinks and trivia. Some nights are more wild than others, but Tuesday has become the staple of the week among them.
Drinks flowed pretty regularly and heavy over the next few hours as the clock approached the end of day. Still going round for round on alternating tabs, the useless debates began to heat up.
“You can’t seriously think Wicker Park is the best neighborhood outside the Loop. Y’all need to get out more,” said Flinn.
“Bro it’s obviously Wicker Park,” argued Raheem.” Right on the blue line, getting to O’Hare is insanely easy, plus you can’t find better music in the city. Besides, Wicker Park has Davenport’s.”
“No one ever says Wicker Park,” adds Jack. “Have you ever heard someone say Wicker Park before?”
“Dude, but you can obviously get to O’Hare from anywhere in the city,” said Flinn
“Sure, but beats walking through that dumb Block 37 Center transfer like you and your red line. No transfer is the way to go, plus the blue line gets you right to the center of the loop.”
“So does every other L line as long as ya don’t mind walking a few blocks!”
“You’re both wrong,” adds Max. “Neither matters because Midway is better anyways.”
“Woah!” the whole table murmurs, sharing shocked looks as if she just confessed to a crime. Flinn rolled his eyes at this notion.
“Who flies out of Midway?” asks Raheem.
“What? Less people, cheaper flights, and more space. Why wouldn’t I fly out of Midway?” said Max.
“Wait, wait, that aside,” interrupts Raheem, “can we go back to the fact that Jasper thinks Sheffield is the best neighborhood? I feel like we moved past that too quickly.”
The debate rages on for many more minutes, until Flinn, seemingly out of nowhere, had enough.
“Can y’all just shut the fuck up! Why does it even matter?” Everyone’s glance quickly shot over to Flinn as a deafening silence overtook the table. Everyone pondered how to respond, and couldn’t seem to find an answer. This behavior from Flinn was unexpected, nay, unheard of. Flinn was the most level headed amongst them by far. Not even Raheem, his best friend of six years, had ever seen him get angry, let alone over an inconsequential friendly argument. “I…” Not even Flinn knew what to say next. “I’m going to go home. Long day tomorrow.” Already on his feet, he quickly walked away from the table and out the door.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The walk home was fairly brisk, but Flinn had grown fond of the cold. He tucked his hands into his coat pocket and hunched his shoulders forward, only looking down at the pavement ignoring the mostly asleep but still wide awake city surrounding him. His thoughts ran wild and near out of control. Of course, his intoxication did not help with clarity, but the inner dialogue was deafening. Not even he knew what was bothering him, but he was obviously bothered, deeply. He made a fool of himself in a way he never had before, and right now he felt he did not recognize himself. Surely some sleep will help, right?
He slowly made his way down the steps to the platform, carefully watching each step as to not fall, to wait for his train. He posted up against a pillar and stared off onto the dark, empty tracks. What has gotten into me? He did his best to calm his racing, wasted mind searching for some legibility amongst his thoughts.
Once he finally got home, he slumped down on the couch and scarfed down some week-old sushi he found in the fridge. He turned on some old documentary and was asleep before he knew it.
Suddenly, he was woken up by his phone ringing. It usually does not ring this time of night and was less than thrilled to be woken, so he let it keep ringing. It stopped after a couple of seconds, and he glanced down at the screen:
Mama
(2) missed calls
Dad
(1) missed call
Now concerned, he calls his mom back in a hurry. “Hello?”
“Flinn? Your grandfather, he’s dead.”
Part 2
The wet air engulfed Flinn’s face as he stepped out the airport doors into a warm February day. Six years had passed since he smelled the Alabama air. Even after all this time, it still smells just as he had remembered as if not even a day had passed. The drive to Selma was another ninety minutes, and despite having five days to mentally prepare himself for his arrival, it was not nearly enough time. He had not seen or spoken to anyone from his town, not even family, since he left early that August morning all those years ago. He left everything behind to start his new life. The life so many told him to not start, that he needed to stay. He left anyway and never looked back.
That was, until now. He had little choice in this regard. He knew he would have to make his return someday, but he knew not when nor for what. But today was that day. Flinn and his grandfather (Pops) had always been close. If anyone had been supportive of him, it’d have been Pops, but he was a man of little words. Even when he could talk, he hardly chose to. He was a great listener, and not just because he could not speak. He showed he was engaged and listening no matter what Flinn had to say. At times, he felt Pops was the only one who understood him as if he had been just like him before, but no one would ever talk about his past. All Flinn knew is Pops lost his tongue after a failed lynching.
The familiarity of the scenery zipping past was bittersweet. He had not realized how much he missed the rolling hills and thick forests beneath the unforgiving southern sky. He kept his head pressed against the cool glass of the car window even through the constant bumps in the road. He couldn’t look away. So many memories happened here, and the closer he got, the more plentiful the memories became, and the more potent they were, and the more painful they’d become.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As the dust settled behind him, he stood on the driveway staring at his childhood home still unsure how to process his emotions. It was all so overwhelming. He was thinking everything at once. He took a deep breath, rolled back his shoulders, and swallowed. He reached for the door handle, hesitating slightly, and took a step in. One foot, and then the next.
“Martin!” Flinn smiled as his old friend and childhood dog rushed towards him without hesitation. He knelt down and embraced him as Martin excitedly rustled through his arms seemingly showing more energy than he had in years.
He walked down the hall and around the corner into the living room. There, both drawn to the large television like moths to a flame, he saw his parents sitting beside one another on the couch watching some daytime program with their backs to him. They seemed to pay no notice to the commotion at the front door nor the loud creaking footsteps he took along the old wooden floors. They knew he was there; they just chose to ignore him. He walked into view to greet them. "Mama, dad." His father smiled slightly but caught himself and refrained.
Mama kept a straight face, but seemed to be fighting tears."Howard, help Flinn with his bags, dear."
“No, it's alright, I know where to take them,” said Flinn. “How are y’all?”
“Service is tomorrow at eleven down at the ole First Baptist Church. Make sure to wear something nice.”
“Alright, mama. I’ll... I’ll see you at dinner.”
“Whole family is coming tonight. Dinner is served at...”
“At seven, I got it, just as always.”
“It’s good to see you, kid.” said his dad. “Let me know if you need anything”
He did not expect things to go like that, not that he knew what to expect. He had hoped time would have been more forgiving. Perhaps leaving unannounced in the middle of the night was not the best plan, but at the time he felt as if he had no other choice. Everyone knew he was leaving. That was no secret and had not been for years before any plan had actually been set into motion. No one knew the date or time, except for Pops, of course, but he’d never tell. Of course he wanted everyone to know. He wanted everyone to be proud of him, but it was too big of a risk and commendations were too much to expect. Besides, Mama always had her schemes, and had she known, she would have found a way to stop him.
Not much had changed since he’d been here last. The old wood paneling still lined nearly all the walls, crack in some spots, replaced in others, but all coated by decades of cigarette soot. On the walls were a combination of family portraits from over the years and cheap artwork found at the flea market. Old green furniture, too many house plants to count, and a tacky themed kitchen, it was all still the same.
His childhood bedroom, however, was much different. Hardly even recognizable, what was once his bedroom was now a storage room filled with endless shelves and boxes. He set his things on the lonely cot in the corner, sat down, and took it all in.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Not realizing he had drifted off, Flinn awoke and looked at the clock. 6:55. Convenient. He sat up and brushed his hair down with his hand as he suspected it was sticking up in the usual way. He rubbed his eyes and made his way to the dining room. The whole family was there, probably about twenty people or so, all scattered about throughout the kitchen, dining room, and living room engaged in various conversations. His nana, aunt, and Mama were cooking away putting the final touches on the large meal.
“Well if it isn’t this fucker…” said a familiar voice to his left, laughing. Flinn looked over to see his cousin who’s just a year younger than him.
“DeAndre, how are you?”
“Never thought I’d see you again, even since you left. Thought maybe you ‘ood be dead.”
“Nah,” Flinn laughed. “Still very much alive.”
“I can see dat. Wearin’ your fancy suit and all.”
“Yeah I’ve been doing pretty well. Work has been… good. I have a great job at a finance firm in Chicago. Everything has been… Good. Yeah, good. How about you?”
“Now you ain’t goin’ city on us, are you?”
Flinn laughed. “I think I might already be.”
Just as dinner was finishing up, a line started to form and people found a seat wherever they could, be it at the table, on the couch, near the counter, or outside.
“Flinn!” his dad called out. “I saved ya a seat here at the table, kid.”
Flinn took his seat right next to his dad which positioned him right across from Mama. The table could sit eight, and the seats filled in pretty quickly so he was lucky to get one. Besides his sister, all of the oldest family members took the other four chairs.
The dinner itself was mostly uneventful, except for the food of course which was extraordinary. Flinn had not eaten Mama’s cooking, or anything like it in six years. The southern food in Chicago was alright, but nothing like what you can get down here, and no restaurant is going to have the same quality and taste as a home-cooked meal. By God, he had not realized how much he needed this. It was almost healing, like a part of his soul had been lost and he found it once again. The last week had been incredibly overwhelming, and last Saturday he never foresaw being here now, but he was glad he was, regardless of the looming tension. All the stress from work and life back home in Chicago was now all gone. All he had to worry about was… oh yeah, the family drama. The dreaded interactions, what he had suppressed for so long, that had kept him up at night for years. All those long nights doing homework or anything else beside sleeping. They had not been by choice but rather necessity. He would have slept more if he could, and some of those nights he really needed to, but instead was kept motivated by the pain. The pain of knowing no matter what he did, no matter how successful in life he became, he would never be good enough for his family, good enough for Mama, because he left them.
If there ever was a time to clear his conscience and get everything out of the way, it would be today, or at least over the next couple of days. When else would he have the chance? Not that any of this had been planned, and his therapist would probably advise against it. She did not even know he was here. What would she have to say? Avoiding conflict has always been his choice. He has always been quiet, never been at the center of drama, but some things need to be said. Just, maybe not by him. If he waited long enough, perhaps they would come up on their own. So he decided to wait, but he knew time was limited and he could not wait forever.
“Mama, could you pass the butter?”
Mama just stared back at him. “Get ya own damn buttah, since ya can do everything else on ya own.”
Flinn stands up and reaches for the butter. “I can do everything myself, and I have. I hope you’re proud, Mama.”
“Proud? What do I have to be proud of?”
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe my job, my degree, everything I have been able to do to build a good life for myself.”
“I don hear anything worthy of praise.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Mama.”
“Oh, so now you’re sorry? You could’ve fooled me. Is that how you felt when you left? Unbelievable.”
“I left because I had no other choice.”
“Oh don go lyin’ to me now. You did have a choice. You had a choice and you chose to leave us. You didn’t say goodbye, and you were just gone in the mornin’.”
“If I had not just left, you would’ve stopped me.”
“Cause you ain’t got no reason to go nowhere.”
“I had plenty of reasons to want to leave, and not because of you. I’ve always had dreams, Mama, ya know that. I’ve always been bigger than just this town.”
“Oh, so now you’re too good for us, city boy? Huh? I don wanna hear no more of it.”
“It wasn’t about that, Mama. Look at all I’ve been able to do.”
“I ain’t see nothin’. You never call and you never visit. How am I supposed to know what you been doin’?”
“I thought you didn’t want me coming around any more?”
“Well, you’ve got that right. Glad to see you still have some brains left.”
“Well excuse me. Maybe it's best if I leave again. Sorry I ain’t make you proud, Mama.” Flinn got up and left the table.
Part 3
Just as the early light began to peak through the blinds, Flinn was woken up by a firm knock at his door. “Flinn, may I come in? It's Uncle Terrence.”
Flinn sat up and rubbed his eyes. “Yep, come in.”
“How are you this morning, kid? Ya know, she’ll never admit it, but ya Mama missed ya.”
“I find it hard to believe.” Deep down Flinn knew it was true, but she was hard as a rock, and arrogant. She would always find a way to be right, even when she knew she was wrong, and she would never let you know she knew she was wrong.
“Well, we’re all proud of you, kid.” Flinn hated when Terrence and everyone called him kid. “Just wish yoo’d come around and see us every once in a while. I know ya busy with all the big city stuff and all.”
“I thought no one wanted anything to do with me any more?”
“At first, maybe, but I miss ya, kid. Ya know who missed ya most of all?”
“Pops?”
“Yes, of course. He always wanted to know about ya, every time I’d come round. He couldn’t call, but always wanted me to.”
“I should have called.”
“I think everyone wanted to call, but as time went on, it became harder and harder to push that button. It was already so hard at first, and only got harder.”
“I thought about everyone a lot, especially at first. Leaving was really hard, and I almost didn’t, but I always wanted more. I didn’t want to spend my whole life in this town, and if I had not left when I did I probably never would have. But it was still hard. I wanted to go home so many times, but I convinced myself no one wanted me here no more or that y’all would’ve said ‘I told ya so’ or sum bullshit. No one wanted me around any more and I had left, so I was stuck on the path I chose. And I’m happy, and I’ve done so much, but it’s never been easy.”
“Pops was a lot like you when he was your age. Set on leaving as quickly as he could. Things were different back then, not that they are any better now, but Hank... my brother… Pops, was just like you.”
“What changed?”
“Well, he never did. Just no one talks about it anymore. After what happened on that day, they blamed his behavior. Said he should’ve played it safe and he’d still have his tongue.”
“No one has ever told me the story.”
“And they won’t. It changed the whole family.”
“But you’ll tell me?”
“Only if you promise not to tell. I don need an earful from ya Mama.”
“I promise.”
“Hank couldn’t be confined to Selma, just like you. He joined the army right out of high school, and after he was done in Lebanon, he didn’t go straight home.”
“Where did he go?”
“Everywhere but here. He used the small amount of money he got from the army and went anywhere that would let him in. Across Europe, parts of Asia, Northern Africa, even parts of South America. Of course, a young black man traveling by himself at the time was challenging, but Hank could hold his own pretty well. He still ran into all sorts of trouble. He spent more nights in jail than he would have liked, but he would have done it all again if he could.”
“What happened when he got back?”
“He was much different, but for the better. He couldn’t wait to get back out there again. He had confidence like I had never seen before. That’s what got him in trouble not too long after.”
“How’d he lose his tongue? I’m guessing that is what changed everything.”
“When he got back, he got involved with a girl, I think her name was Susan. She was the mayor’s daughter. They snuck around for a while. Their relationship was not acceptable, especially to her father. If he found out, Hank would be in a lot of trouble, and of course eventually he did find out. He spent about a month in jail in just awful conditions even for the time. They didn’t have anything to hold him on so eventually they had to let him go. About a week after he got out, he was walking downtown and some guys grabbed him. He took him out to a field and tried to lynch him. Luckily, they failed and he survived, but they took his tongue as a warning. He was never the same after that. All of his confidence was gone, and of course he couldn’t speak no more.”
Flinn did not know how to respond. It all made sense now: why the family so desperately wanted him to stay, why they were so hurt by him leaving, and why they’d feared who he was becoming. They were all traumatized and wanted to protect him. They did not want him to suffer the same fate as Pops.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The funeral itself was fairly uneventful and went nearly as perfectly as expected. The church filled in with hardly any empty seats, tears were shed, and speeches were given. Pops touched the lives of almost everyone he met, and they came to show it. After the service was the reception, and yet again, the food was spectacular. Everyone got along just fine today and there was no more residual drama, at least for now. Today was Pops’ day.
After the reception, the family gathered back at Mama’s house for the reading of the will. Pops did not have many possessions, at least not of monetary value, but what he did have was meaningful in other ways. He was very clear on who he wanted to give off, and handpicked what would be most substantial to each person.
Everyone gathered around much as they did at dinner, and the lawyer began his reading:
I, Hank Gerald, a resident in the City of Selma, County of Dallas, State of Alabama, being of sound mind, not acting under duress or undue influence, and fully understanding the nature and extent of all my property and of this disposition thereof, hereby make, publish, and declare this document to be my Last Will and Testament, and hereby absolutely revoke any and all other wills and amendments previously made by me.
The reading went on for some time as there were many beneficiaries. Flinn began to daydream about what could be left for him. Flinn was not a very sentimental person, so trinkets and heirlooms paid him little interest. Perhaps his car, or maybe money. Something that will be useful to him.
To my dear brother, Terrence, I leave my 1964 Pontiac GTO and all tools and parts associated and necessary with/for the running and upkeep of the vehicle.
The further down the list he went, less was given, but this is to be expected. As the end of the list neared, Flinn began to wonder what would be left for him if anything at all. The will had been in order of age, to this point, so he should be up soon.
To my Granddaughter, Nia,...
Nia? She's younger than me… Flinn thought.
I leave her my grandmother’s locket containing a picture of my Grandfather before he left for the Great War. She looked at it everyday to keep the memory of him alive until he eventually returned to her alive.
How could he skip me? Perhaps I should have called, or never left. Flinn got lost in his own thoughts and barely paid attention to the rest of the will. He and Pops were so close, and he never imagined he would be taken out of the will. But that is my own fault, afterall. I left, and I never even care to call. He died, and I never even said goodbye.
Just as Flinn began to accept the consequences of his actions, they got to the last beneficiary listed in the will:
Finally, to my oldest Grandson, Flinn, who is more and more like me than I ever could have wished to have been, I leave my journal. I hope whenever you need the motivation, you read it to find the meaning you are looking for in life.
Part 4
Flinn sat at his desk unable to focus. It was fairly slow for a Friday, but he still had work to do. After a chaotic weekend back home in Alabama, he was ready to settle back into his monotonous routine. The experience had been healing in some regards, but still left a lot unanswered. What did he mean by finding the meaning in life? Flinn wondered as he flipped through the endless pages of Pops’ journal, all filled with endless recounts, drawings, symbols, and pictures from his travels, just as he had since Monday. The journal consumed his whole attention, and nothing else seemed important enough to focus on. He had even ditched his friends all week which he never does.
He is supposed to meet Raheem for drinks tonight, but now he is wondering if he even wants to go. There is just too much in his head right now. He just wants to be alone. 12:37. The clock is moving too slowly. Flinn clears his calendar for the rest of the day and decides to go home.
At home, he still finds himself flipping through the pages of the journal, not even reading them but just looking at them. Again and again, he flips through until he has enough. He drops the journal on his lap and stares off into the distance at the gorgeous view of Lake Michigan. The endless city and skyline take up most of the horizon until it just stops, cut off by the endless ocean-like lake. He stares at it for quite a while until something catches his eye. He has seen this before. Well, of course he has. He lives here and this is his view everyday. But he knows he has seen it somewhere else.
He picks the journal back up and flips through in a hurry. There it is. He holds the journal up to the window to show a matching two-page drawing of this exact view. Well, not exact. It is a slightly different angle, but it was close enough. Pops was here. He would have loved visiting. I should have invited him. This made Flinn sad, and he threw the journal down on the table in frustration.
Just then, that is when he noticed it. There was a page sticking out from the journal, but it was not like the rest. The page was white and pristine, aside from a few wrinkles, as if it was new, whereas the rest of the journal showed its age. He rushed over to grab it. He opened it to find a letter, addressed to him:
Grandson, When you left, I knew that you would accomplish everything you set out to do. I also knew, however, you would find yourself lost someday, returning home for answers. I was hoping I’d be able to give you those answers myself, but as time goes on that seems less likely. I too found myself lost, and I knew not why. I had gone and seen the world, and it changed me, but I was still not fulfilled. I came home still looking for the answers, and it took a while, but eventually I did find them.
Through this journal, I hope to share my findings so that you too, when you are lost, find the answers you seek. Whenever you are ready, follow my journey and the clues I have left for you. Go out and see the world, just as I did. You will find that what you want from life is less than what you expect.
I hope the experiences you have are less harsh than my own, but still be careful. The world has changed a lot, but still not enough. But don’t skip ahead for the meaning may be lost. Take only one step at a time, and when it comes time to take the next step, it will reveal itself.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Seven o’clock rolls around and Flinn walks into the bar to meet Raheem. He hasn’t seen Raheem, or anyone else from the group, since last Tuesday when he had his outburst. He begins by telling the story of the events of this last weekend, but leaves out the parts about Pops’ past.
"Pops left me a hidden letter.”
“What do you mean?” asked Raheem.
“Like in his journal, I found a hidden letter. It was addressed to me.”
“What did it say, bro?”
“He says he was a lot like me when he was my age. He wants me to go where he went and learn what he did.”
“In Alabama?”
“No, everywhere but there. He wants me to start in Western Europe and follow his clues around the world.”
“He traveled?”
“A lot, apparently. I never knew. He was in the army, and after he got out, he traveled… everywhere, basically.”
“Why did no one tell you?”
“They wanted to keep me safe, I guess.
"They wanted to keep the whole family safe after what happened to him.”
“What do you mean, bro. What happened?”
“I can’t talk about it, but it doesn’t matter now anyways. I’m living a different life now.” Flinn never shared much about his past or his family with anyone, not even Raheem. It has always been a mystery. This was the most he had ever shared with him.
“Well, are you going to go?”
“No, I can’t. I have work. It took too much to get here. I can’t just give it away.”
“It’ll still be here when you get back, bro.”
“If only it was that simple.”
“It can be. You have money saved up. Chicago isn’t going anywhere. We’re not going anywhere. Plus, you’ve always talked about traveling more. Why don’t you take some time to do it.”
“I suppose, but I like my life here.”
“If you don’t do it now, when will you? You’ve taken a leap before, why not take another one. You’re smart, you’ll land on your feet, bro. Besides, your grandfather thought it was important enough to not only give you his journal, but hide you a letter for you to find when you needed it most. Maybe now is when you needed it most. You’re way too stressed at work anyways, and I can tell you’ve been off for a while now. Perhaps some change could give you what you need.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On Monday morning, when Flinn gets to work, he walked straight to his boss's office. He turned in his letter of resignation.
Two weeks later, he took the red line to the blue line to O’Hare. Journal in hand, he boarded a flight to Dublin.

I (15m), have a girlfriend (16f) who used to my best friend since 2020. We started dating when I realised I loved her romantically seven months ago. I was obsessed with her, as I hadn't felt romantic connection to anyone before. Everyitme I wasn't talking to her I was very sad and she just made my life complete. We had been fine for around 5 months and our love was felt from both parts. The thing is that about 2 months ago I had a really bad panic attack and talked to her via text about it as she is the one who helps me calm down. I wrote down "I wish I could say that I hate you but I know that's not true". She felt that deep down and got angry at me. Now, I don't hate her, I really really love her and I didn't mean to say that. I was just very stressed and I thought she would understand it but no. She just got really mad at me and I kept apologising for over an hour. The next day I felt devastated. I couldn't stop crying and my heart beat at 120 so I just couldn't relax. I felt so had for what I did and I missed her very much. We hadn't really fighted until that moment and I didn't know how to deal with it. We talked with each other the next day and she forgave me. I thought that things were going to be okay at that momento but they were not. Since them she started to not talk with me and I felt very sad. We had always been texting each other 24/7.Everytime I asked her she just answered "I'm just studying a lot right now" but I know that is not true. We haven't hanged out since. I have asked her to hangout for over 4 times now but Everyitme the hour to meet up comes she just comes up with a last minute excuse and is unable to hang out. I know these are excuses because we were eager to see each other before. Two days ago was our first long conversation after such a long time. I thought everything was fine and was very happy all had ended. I said to her that my parents had just recently got me a private math teacher because I'm very bad at maths and I didn't want to have extra classes because I really hate them. She sided up with my parents and told me that I should be grateful they care for my grades and my future and not complain. I was shocked. I just wanted her to cheer me up as she always did and I exploded. I had always stranded by her side and supported her even when she told me the stupidest things such as her wanting to pursue a career in volleyball even if she has played for only a year and a half. She has gone back to ignoring my texts and honestly I think I'm done with it. The only thing she has done is hurt me and I'm sick of it all. I still love her so I don't know if breaking up is the best option however I doubt she feels the same. I just want to go back in time when we lived each other dearly. Moreover she has a panic of diseases due to the covid pandemic and always wears a mask. She told me that she would take it off mid may and guess what, it is now mid may! Why is this important? Because she told me that once she takes off her mask she would be able to kiss me and I've been waiting for that moment eagerly. I haven't kissed anyone before and kissing my favourite person in the world would make the moment perfect. I don't know if there is a way to save our relationship or if I should just leave her or wait until she leaves me. So am I the asshole?

I 18m am best friends with 19f. We met 2 ish years ago at the movie theater and have been friend since. And by friends I mean she invades my home at every opportunity. She is a very touchy Feely person and loves to hug or give gifts OR SLEEP IN MY FUCKIN BED. She also likes to cuddle while we scroll instagram n stuff.
She is also Hella gay. But she also has terrible taste. You know the phrase "I can fix him" she's that but lesbian. In 2024 alone she has had 3 different girlfriends who have all broken her heart, and the last one cheated which destroyed her. She's been hanging out at my house. I don't mind as I've never had many friends so when the few I do have want to hang out, I jump at it. She's been really depressed tho so I wanted to keep her company.
We were laying together and she was scrolling and unfortunately made her way to the happy couples side of instagram. Which made her mood worse. When I told her that those posts would make her more miserable she told me I didn't get if because "you've never had a girlfriend" I dropped the topic cuz she's moody, but then she just starts staring at me and it's creepy as hell and then this convo happened
Me: I'm sorry, just trying to help
Her: it's OK, I have a question tho
Me: shoot
Her: would you date a girl like me?
Now here is my tifu moment. I was trying to cheer her up with a joke so I said
"Well your lesbian so probably not"
She immediately started crying and I realized I fucked up and I started apologizing but she just turned away. I went downstairs and brought up a muffin for her, she ate it and then said she had to go, I said I was sorry again but she ignored me. She then left and we haven't spoken since last night
I feel really bad
Tldr: My heartbroken friend asked me if I would date her qnd I joked trying to make her laugh and said I wouldn't because she's gay.

Never had a dream like this before. A friend that I know in real life gets into a relationship with a girl he met online. Everything is going well, I’m happy for him, cheering him on, then all of a sudden the setting changes and we are in a highschool; the indoor pool area of a highschool. There seems to be a party in there but the pool is empty? Nobody seems to care but it’s concerning. This highschool seemed to be abandoned. After the party is over everyone leaves besides my friend and his girlfriend, next day he is dead. She killed him, filled the empty pool with dirt or soil and buried him alive. That was my first dream, I woke up and went back to sleep to have another very similar dream, but this time I was the one being buried alive. It was different than what I expected. In the soil there were sharp blade like things cutting me body as I slowly fall to the bottom. It was a different girl this time , she was in there with me and could hear her talking as my chest is being crushed and heart beat slows down. I couldn’t talk but she sounded fine. I wasn’t panicking, in fact I was pretty calm? I heard water like someone was pouring water on top of the soil that I was beneath. I got more sad as I felt myself being suffocated, but knowing there’s nothing I can do about it. Very scary dreams they were more terrifying then how I can make it sound on here, I guess they were more like nightmares.

I'm not sure why I'm writing to you here.
Am I hoping you'll read it or maybe I just wanted to let it all out so I can heal? Either way I'll let my heart write it all out.
When I entered into a relationship with you, I honestly told God, "Ohh no, I think I found him. The guy who'll teach me a lesson and break my heart." Lol 😂
You're my first love, my first boyfriend, my first boy bestfriend.
I envisioned so many firsts with you. I understood that in relationships, hurts and disappointments are inevitable so I was ready for it. I wanted to know what kind of a girlfriend I was going to be. How much can I love a person? How much can I love you? That was the goal. To love you with all my heart. And in order to test my limits, I knew I had to give it my all. For how would you know your limits, if you wouldn't push and give your best? And lo and behold! When you truly love someone, it knows no limits! LOL
I don't easily give my energy and attention to men. My boundaries towards my interaction with men are pretty clear. But since you were my boyfriend, I didn't hold back. I made sure you get the best girlfriend in the world. Lol I made you feel loved. I made sure you were heard. I made sure you are understood. I made sure you were respected. I made sure you are important. I can't say that I put you in a pedestal. I just thought true love requires vulnerability. It knows no ego.For how can you love, when ego is on the way?
But here comes the Ohs! 🥹
Oh! He wasn't that interested in me. You weren't that affectionate towards me though it seems like you were with your past exes. I wasn't into material stuff, but wouldn't it be nice to have a boyfriend who makes real effort to make you feel special?
Oh! He prioritizes his friends over me. I would always find myself getting whatever's left from you and getting countdowns on how many more minutes I have left to spend with you before you do something else. You only message me when you're about to fall asleep. Sometimes I don't hear from you at all.
Oh! He doesn't make me feel included. It's like I was not part of his world at all. He talks and sees me only when he feels like it. I'm always the last one to know about his whereabouts. I didn't feel I mattered in his life, to the point I questioned, "Am I in a relationship or single?" Because I've never felt so single in my life than when I was with you. Lol
Oh! There's just many more sketchy things I'd rather not mention here.
Despite everything, I chose to look back with grace, because I truly love you. I had to break my heart to understand what true love should feel and look like. I got to know myself better in loving you. What I really want in a partner. How to love a partner. It's not like I cracked the code in having a healthy and lasting relationship. But loving you, made me happy. Happy because I saw how capable I am to love someone. And it's the most beautiful thing I've ever done in my life. Despite the hurt, I have no regrets. I learned something valuable I can carry with me till my last breath. Thank you for letting me love you. Now, I know how to love the next man, who'll love me with all his heart, better. Thank you to my Ex and Oh! Sorry for the hurt brought of me breaking up with you. You've kind of deserve it. Lol There's no way I can unlove you, but I've already made peace that our love story has already ended. I wish us both healing and true love. Bye and I'll see you when I see you!
To everyone reading this, I hope the heartbreaks wouldn't stop you from loving someone fully again. Try to fully heal first, love and respect yourselves. It may take awhile to find your person. But what's important is that you can say, I have loved truly, so I have lived. ❤️
Cheers to our Exes and Ohs! 😉

There's this guy, my brother, actually he's my maternal uncle's son. Mama is abroad, and at home, there's Maiju's shop. There are two brothers and one sister. So, what happened is, as far as I remember, when I was 11, two years before, he might have been in the 8th grade. He was fine, normal, cheerful. He used to have conversations with us, Dai, k xah? kaso xah? Guff thokdai aauthyo.. Chill thyo manxey. but when he reached the 9th grade, he took a complete 360-degree turn.
He started smoking, rebelling at home, घरमा मैजु र दिदीले थापायेर, स्कूल नै बदल्नु भयो From the government school, to Boarding schools. In that school, he used to be on hostel, 10th grade, Hostel, Yk, he got even more out of control. Every day, we used to jump off the hostel gate at night , Kaha janthyo kasailai tha xaina. The principal used to scold him severely, but it didn't seem to make a difference, and he didn't improve.
Ani, One day, he was caught with marijuana by the principal. The school couldn't tolerate such behavior and expelled him. Fortunately, towards the end of the 9th grade, another school agreed to admit him.
Over counselling gariyo teslai, ramro xaina, eta uta, sapp thokk, Ani tespaxi he was good for 3/4 months ani feri tyo vai ko arko kanda ayo..
10th ma huda.. Usko girlfriend lai kasailey kei vanera jiskaidexa, Sekey xah hamro vai ley arko keta lai maaajley, Taukai futeko thyo rey, X-ray garnu parney halat banaideko rey, Police case huna lageko thyo, dhanna school ley kura milayexah ani bachoo...
Tespaxi hamro vai lai ni 20 25 jana ako thiye kutna ko lagii tah, tara teti khera bachoo, kei na kei garera
Arko chotii ni xah, Aunty ko tira gayeko raixah, Khai kun chai ley Ayera ''Vai '' thegaideka usalai, K vako ho, Aunty lai aunty tapai uta jadai garnu vandai kutana tamseyko rey..
USKO PERSPECTIVE: Usko aile duinya nai alag xah, paila hasney khley manxey, ailee rude silent vako xah, nature nai feryeko ho ki Showoff gareko ho tesley.. Ani sathy heru lagii gyann dinu rey, mariinai dinu rey kya, Matlab uskao sathy lai kasailey k garyo vaney, teslai mardinxah rey, ani gahr ma usko didi ley uslai kei vanda feri, ''neu khojeko, aile eauta phone garey vaney yo purai chowk varidinxu'' vanxah rey, Facebook profile heryo vaney pani, Vibes nai araki hunxah, Slipkhot, It's me XXX, sidhaii XXXX bata... malai chai yesto lagxah ki, He's just not himself, aba galat track ma auna lai, badhyata ley yestoo vayo ni kasai vanuu, Eautai family eautai ho maya ni eautai ho, Dai tah testo vako xaina tah. GANGSTER huna khojney.. K garera thek hunxah holaa.. Uskoo aesthetics nai arkai xah, KUTOS PITOS tara yo ganja rah sathy sangi ko ma chai nagalos vanxuu mah, Aile he is 16 kei case ma gayoo vaney pani 18 samma tah kei nai hudaina hola, yeii attitude rahirahyoo vaney 18 paxi pani, IG he'll end up in jail.. Over worried xu mah chai,
KASAIKO YESTI EXPRINCE XAH VANEY SUNAU🙂 KASARI THEK PARNU VANEY SALLHA VANEY NI SUNAU💀 baki bata testai hoo

Got a buddy who I’ve been close to since I was 17. We’re in our mid 40s now.
I’m getting married in 2 weeks. We’re going less formally than some weddings. A dinner for family and then a separate dinner for about 25 friends.
I’ve had a lot of difficulty with some of my guy friends over the years as I have different ideas than some of them about respect etc.
Some of these difficulties have had to be resolved in stupid macho ways. But they are mostly resolved now.
But I got that one friend…who just keeps being dumb. Says dumb stuff. Looks to provoke in dumb ways. Let’s call him D for obvious reasons.
Nearly all my other guy friends are married and have kids. D is not. D always fancied himself as the stud of the group. This is not the case. He would say dumb stuff when we were younger like “I’m gonna sleep with all your future wives” etc
He’s a good looking guy and can be very charming and has had a few girlfriends. But he’s been single and circling dating app hell while living with his ex girlfriend (J) for years now.
He dumped J for some arm candy years back who then dropped him after a couple of weeks. He went crawling back to J but she was having none of it. They’re still good friends. He still wants back in - wishes he was married to J and they had a family. But it’s never gonna happen.
I’ve noticed, what I think is him getting ever more bitter of his friend’s happiness in recent times.
He was a disgrace at the last of our friend’s wedding. Generally boorish and disrespectful. And he’s often said nasty things about some of our friend’s wives behind their backs.
Last year when I told him I was buying the family home from my Dad (home ownership being something he craves but will probably never achieve) - his response was “Why? For somewhere to die in?”.
I’m often dumbfounded by people’s callousness or their inability to be happy for others so I was left speechless and didn’t rebuke him. I’ve had this kind of experience with him many times.
But I often think of D as my closest friend. He’s helped me out in the past when no one else would and I’ve always felt like I owe him.
So anyway - couple of days ago while chatting to him on messages about plans for the wedding he sent me a comedy sketch clip of a wedding couple receiving their wedding blessing from their priest.
The priest says something like -
“I now pronounce you man and wife. To be the last people each of you ever sleep with. To have children that will disappoint you and will hate you. (To the bride) To be left alone when he dies before you and to have no man want you then because you’re past it”.
My exact response was - You should keep your sad childish thoughts to yourself.
So he blew up on me - calling me humourless and mean spirited etc. And he keeps doubling down on this attitude and going through all the jerk off gears - projection, gaslighting, victim blaming and so on.
I’m on the verge of telling him to steer clear of our happy occasion. As I don’t want his bad faith, snide crap spoiling it.
He will take this very badly as he has an eggshell ego. And I doubt we will ever be the same again.
It may also be a very divisive thing among our friends. He’s very popular amongst the group and everyone gets on with him. He doesn’t show this side of himself to others as much as I’ve seen it.
It will be a noticeable exclusion and it will be commented on by everyone at the dinner.
The gossip it generates and the doubts over who is in the right (as I have no intention of spending my day recounting this sorry tale) could spoil the day as well.
But I believe I’ve reached my breaking point with him. And I think if he tries his crap when I’m in full on good faith & good cheer mode then I’ll likely lash out at him.
Am I being overly sensitive? Is this just the way dumb guys are? Should I grin & bear it or give my buddy the chop?