Adderall come down

So my friend on PlayStation got into Sea of Thieves and as such the rest of my friends have gotten back into it over on Xbox. I'll start by saying that I didn't get very far in terms of progression back when I played a couple years ago.
My friends and I have always felt completely out classed in all forms of combat with other players. When it comes to naval combat (not including them boarding us like they're Sam Fisher) we can't seem to damage them enough to sink them. Our performance when it comes to hitting with cannons is varied but generally ok I would say. We can hold out fine with repairs and all that, but the fight just doesn't seem to get anywhere.
I'm aware of the basic strategy and have watched numerous videos as well as asked other players (when they weren't actively trying to kill me) what I should do to better my skills in combat. The general consensus is don't be an idiot and keep your cannons on them whilst keeping their cannons off of you where possible. Aim for the mast with chainshot and drop their anchor if you manage to board them, at which point you can circle around them and blast them from all sides. If their mast is down then try to keep them from getting it back up via cannons or even blunderbombs. All that is just common sense more or less, but we can't seem to get to that stage because we keep getting boarded and obliterated instantaneously via blunderbuss.
When it comes to boarding I don't understand how it feels this unfair. I'm well aware of the "controller only" option and I always opt for that because I know I wouldn't stand a snowball's chance otherwise. Obviously boarding via ladder means you're gonna get blasted immediately, but when I get launched into their ship via cannons I feel like I wouldn't be getting disintegrated by a blunderbuss within the first second of landing. I've been told numerous times, and have experienced more than enough times, that the blunderbuss is the best weapon to have. I know it's possible to get a one shot kill if you can blast them from point blank range and as such, I always keep the blunderbuss equipped.
This is where I'm gonna sound like a kid in a Call of Duty lobby. Whenever I blast people from unfathomably close range with the blunderbuss, I rarely get the one shot kill. What's even more baffling to me is that even after getting a close range hit, the proceed to take three or more shots from about three or four feet away and then I'm getting killed from two to three shots on average.
Two points that need to be brought up are helping and accuracy. I know you can heal, but the problem is that in these instances, that are the source of my frustration, they never put their weapon away and I see them reloading before firing again and they rinse and repeat. When I do see them heal then obviously I can understand why their tanking as many shots as they are, especially if it's a pineapple that they scarf down. As far as accuracy there's obviously a lot of variation because the blunderbuss fires pellets in a spread. Understandably not all of the pellets are going to connect (unless the barrel is down their throat) but a good portion of pellets hitting would lead me to believe that they've received a fair bit of damage. The fights that are the most infuriating is when we're both hopping around like rabbits and firing the blunderbuss whenever we see fit like it's a no-scope battle from mw2 (the good one from 2009), contrary to a no-scope battle, there's no luck involved which makes me feel like I'm playing with a handicap. I'm pretty good at hopping around and hitting shots, but am I just not hitting enough with enough pellets and their just hitting me with a couple more? It feels really bad when I've spent all this time sailing around looting or whatever and when a fight comes around I just can't win.
Given the variation in schedules, if I'm playing with somebody it's almost always on a sloop, but sometimes we have enough people online for a brig. When it comes to fighting on the Brigantine I feel less confident because there's a lot more to cover and the slower speed definitely throws a wrench in the usual way we maneuver during combat (which is obviously a skill issue). When it comes to Sloop vs Sloop combat, I feel fine and can maneuver the ship comfortably and efficiently. But when we get in a fight we can NEVER sink them. I believe I've sank an enemy sloop three times throughout my entire career. We can blast them to hell with cannons and knock down their mast, but then we get boarded and get blasted while they repair their ship and keep the pressure on us. Given that you can only have two people on a sloop, they must be on Adderall to be performing all those tasks that quickly whilst their crewmate assaults us onboard our ship. The best we can manage is killing them when they board while we still get hit from their cannons. We can hold out for a long time and keep some pressure on them with our cannons, but between them boarding and needing to repair, we wind up losing any kind of momentum we had in the fight. We're good enough at the naval combat, but can't get ahead in the fight when it comes to the player combat.
I'm honestly not sure what hope there is for me because I feel like I'm doing everything I can, but I'm just not good enough to compete with other players. I know there's the safer seas option, but that takes the fun out of it for me. I want to have conflict and I want there to be danger, but I just wind up losing every fight I get into. I'm not expecting to win every fight, I'm just wanting to not lose every fight.

I feel guilty.. I suggested she (dx) talk to a doctor about some of her issues which I attributed to adhd. The doctor prescribed her and our marriage of 15 years is going down the drain. I am not perfect and I do not pretend to be but we are to the point she has told me she isn't sure if she wants to divorce or not. She was never like this before Adderall but now I am to the point I do 10 things right and mess up on 1 and I am back down to -20. I am a chronic pain sufferer with 25% of my back fused with spinal cord damage thrown in and everyday is pain. I do what I can and before it was good enough but now its not.
She had workaholic tendencies before and now its kicked it into full gear. She is working 12+ hour days at home and then crashing. There is rarely us time. I recently lost my job due to hospital stays that was (wrongly) denied FMLA and now that I am at home all the time she excepts me to do everything around the house. That is fine but at the same time she wants me to spend 10+ hours a day applying for jobs. As well as taking care of our kid. I just cant keep up.
She was unable to take any criticism before and now its completely out the window. So asking about lower dose or changing meds is out the window. I am coming to terms with our relationship is may be over even though I am fighting like hell for it but I cant get past the idea of not being near my kid all day everyday. We have had somewhat heated discussions and I felt like at points she was saying stuff just to try to egg on a reaction. I am not a yeller and never have been but it seems like she is trying so she can say I am the bad guy.
Example: She talked about heading to visit her mother with our kid for a small vacation and i broke down balling. Her reaction... "Ohh that hurt"
I don't know what I can do. We share the same doctor I don't even know if I can a consolation she would listen to me about my wife or the extra stress. Any ideas?

I'm 25m. I take Adderall daily. I smoke cannabis.
Within the past few months, only noticed last week, my hair started growing back in where it had previously receeded. My beard is also coming in significantly thicker and faster. I've been monitoring it to see if it's actually just receeding in a way that makes it look like fresh hair, but no, it's definitely new hair in bare places. There's also a bunch of new hair growing along with my already grown hair.
I tried to google this, but some things are difficult to word for the algorithm. It only brings results about receeding hair, not hair that had receeded but regrew.
I only have one theory. I had my wisdom teeth out last November. I had been having problems with them since I was 19. Consistent infections, sometimes making my whole face swollen. I have this theory because last week I was feeling the last remaining bald patch in my beard, along my jaw line, and it was very tender. I pushed down a little harder and there was a pop under my hand and my sinuses filled up. Didn't get a full blown noes bleed, but my snot was a little bloody for the rest of that day. The very next day there were hairs growing on the bald spot. It's not entirely gone yet, but with how fast everything is growing now, I give it to the end of next week.
Should I be concerned about this new growth in my hair? What could cause it (or cause the loss)

Trigger Warning : suicide. Backstory to give context; 34f, I was recently diagnosed. I started seeking out therapy 3 years ago, I've displayed all the adhd symptoms, but I guess because of my age/gender adhd hasnt occurred to anyone (including me). I've gotten the usual general anxiety, depression, and CPTSD. I've been through antidepressants and xanax, it just makes me feel nothing and sleepy all the time. It's hardER to function like that.
I got breast cancer, I got the full monte treatment with some heavy chemo, and I'm in remission (with no tatas lol). This stripped me of ALL my masking abilities and I was almost non functional (you know what i mean). My oncologist connected me with the psychiatrist in their network. After some time with him he suggested I may have adhd and wanted to evaluate me. I was stunned by the 50 page paper "quiz". It asked me questions that hit me at my core. I'm prescribed adderall xr and it has changed my life for the better in every way.
My mother has quite a few diagnosis under her belt, and I'm sure they've missed something. She has attempted suicide 3 times. I lived with my father beginning at age 8. At 63, she's still competent and holds down a full time job. In my adult life, we've become very close. I used to call her almost everyday (we live in different states).
She simply does not believe I have Adhd. She laughed when I first told her and stopped when she saw I was upset. She has continued to deny that I have it and I find myself reasoning with her and explaining myself!! She counters with the fact I was in gifted classes and was "a good kid". No, I didn't jump on coffee tables screaming and bite teachers, but I didn't talk to anyone at home! My mother was absent and my father and stepmother were too involved with each other to even notice my brother or myself. I masked hard and didn't realize it, my father wasn't really nice (he is now that he's old). It's so frustrating that she is willing to accept literally any other diagnosis but ADHD. It really feels dehumanizing talking to her about it. I don't want to call her like I used to. When I talk to her we avoid the subject, but it's heavy on me that she thinks of me that way.
So I'm thinking of cutting her off for a while. I can't stand the tension. I've sent her things to read for education and her response is to kind of laugh and say "yeah maybe later ha". I can't change or mind or convince her. I don't even think I want to at this point. I'm not going to ghost her, but I think I'm going to tell her just like I'm telling you guys. I'm going to say "getting the correct diagnosis has improved my life and I'm sorry you feel like you do. I have sent you education material and I'm sorry, but until you can accept this and be respectful.. I need to cut off contact for my well being." I'll figure out how to tell her she's welcome to come back when she can be more respectful.
I could cut her off at the knees, I could ask her how would she know because she wasn't there... but I don't want an argument.
Thanks for reading, i needed to get that off my chest. Hope you guys have a wonderful day.

Basically that. There's so much that's wrong in my life. There's so much wrong with me and my brain. There's so much *wrong* that feels impossible to cope with, and no matter how hard I try or how much work I put in, nothing changes.
I don't recognize myself. I started treatment for my ADHD with Adderall 2 years ago, and it made things worse. I can't function with it or without it anymore. Without it, I'm pretty smart and funny but an emotional wreck with a hair-trigger temper and zero mental clarity. I spend my time daydreaming and getting sidetracked, perpetually overthinking, exhausted, overwhelmed by the simplest things, losing my temper, can barely hold a job for 6 months or make it through college. With it, I'm functional but an impatient, rude, unfeeling robot and don't care about anything or anyone that doesn't involve improvement/productivity. I can control my emotional reactions so not overwhelmed or losing it out of nowhere but I'm way too serious and insanely irritated just being around other people if they aren't focused on being productive. My life gets healthier on the surface but feels empty underneath. Until it wears off, and then I realize how alone I really am and feel morbidly depressed for a while then mentally numb. It's probably nothing to do with the adderall, really, just that it makes my situation painfully clear to me but I can't go off of it without my life falling apart and ruining my chance of getting out of this mess. Maybe going to talk to my doctor about something else but she's probably sick of me failing with every med and I am too. At this point no doctor seems sure of anything with me. Before I ever took adderall my temper was not this bad. I don't know if it's a psychological thing, like now that I know I'm not this incompetent failure I've been made to feel like my whole life, I am much more deeply angry about the state of it, or if it's the drug itself but I think I wish I'd never started it.
Either way, my social life is gone, what feels like permanently. It was never good, but now I'm either too anxious or depressed & convinced I'll ruin a social interaction before it even starts, so I subconsciously ruin it by being rude or distant or don't ever try... or I just don't want to/don't remember how to emotionally connect to people. I feel too miserable right now to have any kind of relation unless it's with a therapist. I deal with dissociation no matter what but I think my emotional memories have been damaged bc I can look at someone I do actually love and feel like I'm looking at a stranger. Memories of my son as a baby are all fragmented and emotionally detached. I look at my mom and have to remind myself that she's my mom sometimes. I think it's been obvious to my friends that I'm not really there and am just going through the motions so basically all my friendships have gotten weird or toxic and fallen off. Maybe I've never even had a real close friendship in the first place. I'm starting to wonder if I've ever actually been close with or trusted anyone. I feel like I "lost it" before I ever got a chance to "have it". Not even going into the isolated violent wreck of my childhood or battles with depression starting in elementary school but I don't think I ever had a chance. And now I have a small person relying on me to do better. And I am but I'm also not. I used to be a better parent but had an episode of manic psychosis or a mental breakdown or something that ruined my brain.
I used to know how to at least pretend to be myself when things got bad and suffer through work or hanging out with people. I could put on a happy show, be empathetic and motivated and engaged. Now I don't even know how to... exist around others. I don't remember how to fake it and I'm too miserable to try except for around my son. I've had two episodes of psychosis in the past decade. Both changed me for the worse. It took years to recover last time, and I'm not sure I ever fully recovered. Then, another one earlier this year. And now I have a whole life that I can't put aside to focus on recovering. I have a child who's being affected by my situation and mental health. I have a living situation that we need me to work to get out of, so I can't ask my family for help. I have to keep pushing through college to get a better job.
My family... basically we had to move into my grandma's house after I left my son's dad. I knew it would probably still be toxic, I left at 16 for a reason, but planned to keep my head down and work my way up and all that. I guess I forgot how bad it was. I'm 27 now. Without extremely strong boundaries, they will walk over me & take from me, so I have nothing left for myself. I tried to communicate my feelings for a long time and learned the hard way they don't respect me enough to take the conversation seriously or respect my boundaries, so I have to keep them in mind 24/7 and be ready to enforce them, All the time at home. That's hard when your mental health is crap. But if I don't it'll just end up in another cycle of overwhelm/resentment/confrontation/shame and blame/defeat which I've been going through for 2 years. If I ask for help they will but they'll hold the help against me and expect me to just be refreshed and motivated to do stuff for them if they help me. They don't want us to separate from them and move out or get my health/life together. They don't understand so I can't afford to be gentle with myself. And it makes me deeply furious and resentful. But I rely on them for housing(do pay rent and our own food/bills). I live in their house. See them every day. They don't ask how things are, if I need anything, how school is going, no normal family stuff.. Part of it is just how they are they aren't generally kind or caring people. That's whatever. The other part is just ostracizing me because I don't entertain their toxic bullying/gossiping/whining crap and won't play that game. They watch me like a hawk, and instead of being genuinely concerned when I'm struggling, they stare me down and avoid engaging with me unless it's to criticize. They make me feel like a caged animal. Any amount of concern on their part is purely selfish.
The part that gets to me and makes me feel hopeless is how they use it against me and make sure I can't win. They won't accept interactions from me or my son that have boundaries. Because I stopped putting my and my child's life aside to take care of them. I stopped accepting my role as the scapegoat/incompetent overemotional f*** up who couldn't do anything right but still cared about them no matter how badly they treated me after I realized they don't want anything to improve they just want to be taken care of/in control. I'm not strong enough to engage with them all day and keep my boundaries strong. So I mind my business and ignore their attempts to get under my skin, all of a sudden I'm being disrespectful and selfish, or they're "concerned" about my son and mental health... except they aren't really and I learned the hard way not to fall for it. If I make an effort to get along, or accept help, even a little bit, they drag me back in by asking about my life or my son, making me feel comfortable, and then projecting their absurd opinions/criticism, making me doubt myself while also expecting my days to revolve around them. "They" is mostly my grandma btw, but she's backed up by everyone else, and my aunt is worse in other ways. She talks about me behind my back to other family members, denies it, tries to get closer to my son when I'm upset with her, is really manipulative and toxic in general. I can't stomach it any more. I can't live like this. I'm sick of seeing their faces and feeling that horrible judgmental, toxic energy and desperately just wanting to be anywhere, anyone else. I'm sick of them acting concerned when I take my son out for the day, most of the weekend, because they know I mostly just don't want either of us around them but refuse to just let it be, let alone even consider asking themselves why that is. And I'm sick of the fact that it's NORMAL. It's NORMAL for people to take their children to the playground for the day or go run errands with them. I'm doing NORMAL things and trying to be a responsible healthy adult and they act like I'm being insane and childish. It's pure enmeshment. Every bit of independence is me being selfish. And it's worse because it's not just my grandma... her and my aunt and my mom and mom's boyfriend and my little sister are all attached to this dynamic of never going anywhere, doing anything, relying entirely on each other, just being toxic, letting themselves and their lives rot, everything is always the same and everyone has to play their part. I'm alone.
I need help badly. I know my family isn't 100% the problem but I have been trying so hard and keep falling down harder. I wasn't always hostile and hard to get along with. I take my meds and talk to my doctors. I'm open to and actively work on self-improvement and going back to therapy. I try to change my mindset. But I keep getting dragged back down. They aren't just, not encouraging, they resent and sabotage me when I try to improve. It's impossible to get better in this dynamic. I'm not mentally strong. I've spent 20 years letting them make me doubt myself and I'm disgusted by it. I'm furious. The years I'm spending now trying to work on my mental health and life skills and getting a degree/good job I also have to spend navigating this hell. I never had a chance to be happy. Or make it out of here for real. I can't let my son get dragged into this the thought is the only thing that keeps me going. but I don't think I'm strong enough to make it alone. Or healthy enough not to be alone. I'm so tired. My son, the only joy in my life and what I have to live for, is having behavioral issues, too, because my family treats me so that he doesn't think of me as an authority and runs to them when I enforce a rule or put my foot down... he's starting to refuse to cooperate with me on anything and it's transferring into school too. They encourage it and tell me I'm being too hard on him. But he needs rules and boundaries, he needs his mom. It's better for me to keep trying and learning than him run to them for comfort over not getting what he wants over and over again. But every single time I have to be the asshole who drags him back into a conversation or time-out while both he and they look at me like I'm a monster. Remind them to stop letting him do that. Try not to scream in my grandmother's face that she needs to get over the fact that I'm his mother and she's only encouraging this because she can't stand to see me succeed at anything. Let alone help me succeed. I try so hard for him, but all this has turned me into a version of myself I don't recognize and deeply hate. I can barely force myself to care anymore unless I'm angry. I love him so much. But I just go through the motions.
His dad is an irresponsible narcissist who tells him that he doesn't have to listen to anyone or do anything he doesn't want to do and then acts surprised about his behavioral issues. Gaslights me. He turns our son against me, tells him that mommy is sick and that's why she isn't happy. He's obsessed with making himself look like the "good parent" while putting all the responsibility on me for actually doing the research and parenting him and coming up with insights and ideas. Manipulating everyone around us to seem like we're working together meanwhile I had to BEG him to take something seriously for once and stop making every conversation about our son about his "love" for me/guilt tripping me for not wanting to get back together or give in to his manipulation... begging him to put our son first and just be an adult behind the scenes. I don't talk to him anymore unless it's about our son and even then I'm extremely short and refuse to engage in his fantasies. He regularly accuses me of sleeping around, not caring about our son, and other insane stories to fill in the blanks just because I won't open up due to him taking advantage of any amount of personable conversation. Everything with him is a complete and utter fantasy. Even talking about our son's behavior at school or how to work together on potty training he tries to drag me into a conversation about his feelings for me and how worried he is about me. I left him two years ago because he was emotionally abusive, controlling, and wouldn't help me with our son unless I was breaking down. Not remotely interested in rekindling that relationship or having a conversation about it. He knows if he tries the conversation stops there, yet tries every time, and then will eventually blow up and send me novel after novel detailing how much of a piece of crap he thinks I am. Then he'll apologize (finally, after years of it spiraling from there, he knows I log those conversations in case I need to for court) and act like it never happened until the hoovering starts again.
And it sucks that my mental health IS bad and I DO need help but I can't trust anyone around me to not take advantage of that.
I cannot trust anyone. Not a single person in my life. Healthier family members avoid me because I'm so miserable that it's toxic on its own. I don't want to talk to anyone about anything. I don't feel like I'm alive or have an ounce of sanity left. I'm not even a person anymore. None of this is fixable. I don't just feel like an empty shell of a person, I am an empty shell of a person. I'm hopelessness and rage and loneliness pretending to be a person. I used to be a person. I hate every single person that I know. I hate that I hate them. I hate that I pushed away the good people in my life because I am trapped in these toxic and draining but necessary relationships. I hate myself for dragging my son into this mess. I hate that my best option is to completely fake being okay with this groundhog day from hell until I get my own place to fall apart and heal. And right now I hate how impossible that feels. I don't want to live like this.
Anyway. I'm keeping on. Just... venting. After being silent and in my head for a while. Take it with a grain of salt. Thanks, if anyone read this far.

I (27F) have an older brother, 33M. We didn't get along very much as kids due to the age gap, not for my lack of trying. I never really understood why my brother didn't really like spending time with me, because he was one of my favorite people in the world, despite all his bullying.
For context, I'll give some examples of what my brother has done to me over the years with some vague age ranges of when they occurred.
When I was about 3, my brother convinced me that red was orange and orange was red because I was learning my colors in preschool. He also used to steal food like tater tots off my little high chair tray and would pretend he didn't do anything when my mom checked on why I was crying (I was NOT a fussy baby/toddler, so it set off alarm bells when I did.)
I think when I was 4 or 5, my brother came into my room after I had already been put to bed, and he woke me up. Thing is, he was hovering over me with a scary mask on, only the hallway light, and a butterknife. Not sure I really have to explain why that was traumatic. I'm still afraid of masks to this day.
When I was around 10-12, my brother kept drinking all the milk or kool aid that I would make and never replenish/remake it. I told him to stop, he wouldn't, of course. My mom was fostering other children and didn't have time for squabbles like this. So I very visibly spit on top of the kool aid pitcher and left the lid off so it was seen. What does my (reminder, 17-19) brother do? He wrenches the bowl of cereal I'm currently eating out of my hands, spits in it, and shoves it back at me hard enough that it spilled all over me. Now, I'm not an angry person. I'm not a violent person. But I was still a child and fed up with being bullied by someone who was/almost an adult. I never tried getting physical before because I was so much smaller, but I hit puberty kind of early. So I splashed the bowl back at him to see how he liked it. He threw me to the ground and hit me. My mom had to break us up and told us we were both to blame, so he didn't even get punished.
Several times, he would turn the lights off on me when I was on the other side of the room in the basement away from the switch, because I was afraid of the dark for a very long time.
We had Sonic Adventure 2 we shared. If we ever fought about something, or I reminded him it was my turn, he threatened to say goodbye forever to my chao. I am extremely soft hearted so that accomplished what he wanted.
Sometimes I would notice my things go missing. I had assumed maybe my mom put them away somewhere and forgot, but I'm pretty sure I know what happened to them. Especially gamecube games-- Those discs were tiny! He was pawning them for drug and booze money. One time he was drunk and admitted he had been selling his adderall for other drugs. That came to a head one terrible Christmas Eve. Brother was home for the holiday and I'm not very clear on what events led up to it, but my parents caught my brother in the bathroom with a baggie of various drugs that he was already doing. He insisted it was just weed, but my parents didn't believe that. I wouldn't know, I only briefly saw the bag, but it was full of both a large green ball of like leaves and lots of white powder. It was a vicious screaming match for a few hours. I hid out in my room on a different floor and played a video game as loud as I could so I didn't have to hear my family. The screams died down after a while, and I cautiously went out of my room. My brother had left the house for a while. I had a few holiday assignments and decided to just crank them out while my family cooled off, and I did it at the dining room table because that's where our Christmas tree was too and I desperately needed that good cheer magic. I was quietly writing, not saying anything, not making much noise, when my brother came back in the house. He stopped off at the kitchen for something and muttered something rude and belittling to me. At this point I'm a preeten-early teen and he had already ruined the day that had always been magical to me before, as my grandma used to stay over with us on Christmas Eve. She had died rather recently at the time. And I can't tell you exactly what I said. I think I've blocked out as much as I can. I made some snide remark, something like 'at least I don't do drugs' and in the next second I was yanked out of my chair. My brother picked me up by the neck and slammed me against the wall. I know I clawed and kicked against the wall as hard as I could. I blacked out, and I woke up on the floor with my parents absolutely screaming at him that he could have killed me. As a side note to the whole ordeal, he never apologized, and it's made my adult life a lot harder as weed becomes more and more commonplace. Just the thought of it used to send me in a panic attack, I could feel the hands choking me again. I've gotten better about dealing with it, but I still refuse to have it in any part of my life whatsoever. It's cost me a few relationships.
When I was in college, my brother had moved back in with me and my parents because his girlfriend dumped him for being a piece of shit that worked at walmart and did nothing but drink all day despite having a state paid scholarship, that he wasted, because he couldn't keep his GPA above 2.8. He was a music major. The classes he took were things like 'History of Jimi Hendrix' and 'The Beatles'. He just partied too much to even attend class. He took the dog they got with him, not at all prepared for her. The dog is a high energy breed that is difficult to train, and we had two small 5-10 pound dogs at home. At 1 year old, bro's dog was about 30 pounds. He often left for several hours during summers/breaks when I was home, without telling anyone, knowing that I would either hear the dog cry if he crated them and feel bad and let them out or that I wouldn't banish them to a crate if they were already in a room with me. The dog bullied our other dogs and bit at everyone. Dog was incredibly overly protective of my brother-- Trait of the breed. I was back at college for a few months and had spent a good month mourning the loss of a 5 year relationship. I never really heard anything from him. Then out of the blue, my brother asks me if I can let him and dog stay for the night (we live 2 hours from the college) because my mom had kicked him out. The dog had bit her and she snapped at my brother to control his f'ing dog and he responded by calling her, the woman who birthed him, payed for his other college costs, paid back loans he promised to pay to other family members, never charged him rent, and he called her a f'ing female dog. She snapped. While I agree that my mom was completely in the right to do that, I have too soft of a heart to just leave him with nowhere to go. He promised it was just a night so he could get in touch with some friends closer to home and figure shit out. I let him come to me.
I really regret that decision.
At the time I had a new roommate (she was very nice though, I liked her) and a sort of FWB who doted on me for a little while. I texted FWB and asked if he could bring some alcohol by-- I was still 19 at the time, underage to buy it, but FWB was old enough and agreed the man could probably do with a drink. We stayed out on our little porch area to make sure that we wouldn't be disturbing my roomie in any way while we socialized. My brother got really wasted. He told me terrible things about our deceased grandmother (who he knew I had really loved growing up, and had no idea about who she really was because she had always loved me). And he laughed. He laughed when he saw the discomfort on my face. My FWB was feeling pretty bad for me and suggested we go to bed because it was also like 3 in the morning and both of us had class in the morning, so we go inside. The apartment has a shared common room/living room, little kitchen area, and laundry closet. My bedroom is on one side and roomie's was on the other-- Both bathrooms are also ensuite to the bedroom. So I went in and changed out of my clothes into something comfier to sleep in and crawled into my bed, letting my brother do his own thing in the bathroom. I'm just trying to rest and suddenly my brother is pulling me out of my bed and dragging me out of my own room. He's yelling that he's taking my bed, did I really expect him to take the couch? And I'm not very confrontational. I'm flustered, tired, and honestly a little afraid after the neck choke incident. FWB steps in like a hero and tries to calmly explain that its my bed, and I will sleep in it, I have been kind enough to let him stay and he should not be so ungrateful. Brother fucking loses his mind. Starts screaming his head off about how selfish I am and how reliant I am on our parents and won't be able to do anything on my own as an adult (I was financially dependent on my parents at 19 while in college, shocker). He starts drunkenly trying to pick up his dog's toys and searching for his keys, and both FWB and I step in and tell him he can't go driving like this, after like half a bottle of fireball. He at least needs to sober up before he can drive. I stand in front of the front door, as my brother is still searching for his keys, and there is no way I'm letting him out of here right now. Brother has found his keys, and starts pulling at me and hurting me. Lucky for me, FWB had been a pretty good wrestler in highschool. He got my brother pinned down and I snatched the keys, hiding over by the sink in case I had to throw them in there. He's screaming his head off and my poor roommate comes out and asks what the hell is going on because she knows I'm very quiet and tend to keep visitors in my room. I'm like half sobbing trying to explain and the FWB, still pinning my brother, tells her that we're trying to keep him from drunk driving. My roommate does not play around with that. She was in nursing school, and had recently lost a friend to a drunk driver. I don't know how it worked, but she put on her stern nurse tone and told my brother that he was free to leave when he sobered up, or she herself would be calling the cops on him, and both me and FWB could press additional charges for assault. He reluctantly agreed to this condition and FWB let him off the floor, but sat in front of the front door just in case. When he was sobered up, he left, saying 'I hope you like mom and dad, because I'm not your family anymore'.
And that was devastating. I couldn't stop crying. My FWB went back to bed with me and laid me down in bed and let me cry until I passed out. He skipped his class that day to be there for me. I know I don't paint a good picture of my brother, but I did/do love him. I thought now that we were older that he'd mellowed out and we could be good friends like I always wanted. I mean, I made like 300 fake facebook accounts back in the day to vote for his band to be a headliner at a large concert. Just a few years prior when he was home on a break he introduced me to a TV show we binged and he let my lay on his shoulder. (I was/am very touch starved but paralyzed by fear that I'm annoying the other person, and all my friends were made later in life and are states away). When Pokemon Go came out we would take late night drives around quiet places of town while hunting pokemon together. We traded off the controller on online battlefield games and compared scores and the most ridiculous deaths. I really thought that he loved me too, finally, after years of resentment.
He didn't speak to me for 2 years. I didn't find out until later, but my parents lied for him on my behalf that he still loved me and was just annoyed, and gave me birthday/christmas presents that they told me had been from him, just that he was working. I really treasured those objects when I didn't know the truth about them. I got a really stupid mug with the first letter of my name on it in pink and zebra print (two things I don't really enjoy) but I used that thing every single day.
So, these are glimpses into my previous relationship with my brother. I don't really remember when he started speaking to me again, but I sure know he never apologized. He had finally hit rock bottom and asked my father to put in a good word for him at (insert facility with decent pay and good benefits but hard work), which he had previously rejected by telling my parents that it was a shit job. My brother's name got put closer to the top of the resumes. He got in. It wasn't easy work, or comfy sometimes, but it paid well enough to endure that, I guess. My brother used to be rather athletic.
Between the cut off point and then, my brother had worked at a (also generic job) a town or two over and hated the commute. He also happened to find a girlfriend with an apartment sort of close by. She didn't like having him over because of his dog, and almost never let him do any overnight. But now that my brother had a better paying job, she was willing to move in with him, of course. My brother bought a house in our home town and she came with it. She pays a ridiculously low amount of rent to my brother.
If she was home and brother wasn't, the dog stayed crated up because she didn't want to deal with it. Both of them worked, but her job isn't at all difficult. And yet somehow, sometimes pulling doubles, my brother ended up doing most of everything. My brother, who didn't learn to do his laundry until his 20s, ate pizza every single day, and had left used condoms on the floor of his bedroom in our parents house when he left. He did most of the cooking because she says she's bad at it. But will make pies for her mom. When the holidays came around, instead of discussing or rotating, they will always go to her family first. If my brother can come to ours at all. He often misses entire occassions (we don't go out big, but like, cmon. Hand your dad the gift card on his birthday at least, not 2 weeks later).
I also used to get to hangout or see my brother sometimes. Maybe once every few weeks, and it was fun! It was the friendship I had always dreamt of. Now I can't even get him to do anything online with me from the comfort of his own home. I don't have a single text from him this year past 1/27.
At first, we all understood. She was quirky. I was quirky. We share several similar traits and interests. I used to like that and be excited to have a family member like me, but now I dread the day she becomes family.
Let's start with the smoking car. Me and my parents were driving near his street so we could cut through to the highway, and out of nowhere, black smoke starts coming from the hood. My father tells me and my mom to get out and he'll get it to my brother's and out of the road to look at it and see what was going on. This was like.... early August. It was very hot outside. Since I've 'been in the house before' and 'know what it's like' I am 'allowed' to come into my brother's house to cool off. But GF refuses letting in either of them, referring to the messy state of the house. Which, okay, fair-- But its HER messes. My brother cleans up after her. I learned later that GF snapped at him about his family always coming over unannounced and how she has to hurry to put on a bra and everything is messy and we can't just drop in its rude! She says, as her mother and brother do the exact same thing, in a house she doesn't own. But my family let it be water under the bridge for now. My brother called me a f'in a'hole for telling my mom about the conversation. Because my mom was livid.
The next thing is my father. My dad's family has a pretty big history of strokes and heart attacks, and he's had one heart attack. My dad had been in pain all day and he finally gave up at about 3AM and woke my mom up to drive him to the hospital. I don't have a license at this point, so there's little that I can do. My mom says the surgery he probably needs isn't even done here and they're transferring him, my mom asked me to keep my brother in the loop. So I told him about this and about the time they would reach the hospital, because my mom dad gran and I share locations. I asked if he would take me up, I had a bag full of things that might make him more comfortable or less stressed. The hospital they're taking our dad to is a little over an hour away. Everyone is more or less frantic. My brother is talking to work for him, I'm making sure that for however many hours that our pets will be okay and talking to my mom's work. We drive there and nothing major happens, but it was so... Uncomfortable? Tense. The thing that's hurting my dad is a blocked or enlarged blood vessel that cuts off oxygen to the tissue around it, which, cells die, and you really need your colon, the area my dad has an issue with. The thing is, until they can do the surgery, it was like he was a ticking time bomb. My brother takes me home when visitor hours are over and I hold my dogs tight. The next day is filled with lots of pricks pokes and prods at my dad so we don't go that day. We do go the day after, Friday. My brother's GF is in the truck with him. I'm not really paying attention to much of anything because for all we know my dad could die before we got there. Brothers' GF goes to get some snacks from the long drive and the fact that she's not exactly family yet. My brother, mom and I rotate who is away in the cafe and eating with GF. I see GF and my brother whispering angrily at each other. She's tugging at his arm. I manage to pick up 'We're going to miss my mom's dinner!" And I am just stunned. Her mother has a small family dinner every single friday and makes meatloaf. His GF wanted us to head back from our critical father, because she didn't want to miss a weekly event. And I really have to hand it to my brother for not snapping right then and there. He waited until we were in his truck and out of the hospital parking lot and says "How in the f'ck do you say something to me like that? Like, for real, wtf!" GF starts crying and says its a family tradition and her mom is all she has left-- False. She has her mom, sister, and brother, at least. Her father died in a car incident that hospitalized her as a kid. So my brother snaps again like 'are you seriously telling me you value a f'ing loaf of meat over a life? we have no idea what will happen, my dad could die within the hour and i'm not there, he could die tomorrow, how long d-" And GF cuts him off wailing that her dad is dead. Which, yes, is a horrifyingly traumatic experience. But she does not get to play the 'my dad is dead' card ten years after the fact, to justify leaving our possibly dying father before visiting hours ended. She tried to emotionally blackmail my brother by apologizing to me through tears that this must be so hard for me but honestly I was doing my best to block it out, staring at pictures of dogs in hammocks. I shared my brother's sentiment.
But wait, there's more! Remember that car accident GF had years ago? You would think that, if nothing else, she would be empathetic for someone/their family in a car crash? You'd be wrong! I was rear ended at 60 mph right in front of my house after coming home from work (the ambulance took me straight back to work lmao). The physical damage to me was pretty minimal, bruises and a sprained ankle because my foot was pressed on the brake, waiting for an opportunity to cross into the driveway. This was late October 2020. Covid regulations were pretty strict. So I was alone in a room for a while and in pain. My parents had followed the ambulance. My dad had actually heard the crash and went 'huh she usually comes home now' and runs over after seeing the wreckage. My parents had the crash footage, grainy, but there thanks to the cameras set up outside our house. I hadn't realized it by that point but I had a pretty good concussion, and I was hurt, and scared. I was texting my mom constantly but my dad had left his phone at home in the rush to get my mom and she hadn't charged her phone, they'd been in the parking lot for like an hour and a half already. They promised me they'd be back soon, they'll just pop in and let my brother know since he lives nearby. My parents didn't even ask to like, stay and sit with them instead of a cold car. My mom asked to pee and to borrow a charging cable (they had one, GF has the same model phone) given the, you know, situation. My brother barely cracked the door to speak with them. He said no, because GF was uncomfortable, because they were waiting for their second negative test to come in. Read that again. They had tested negative. It's not like my mom would go near anyone to the bathroom either-- The back door that's used more often is literally inches away from the bathroom door. My brother didn't even try to argue with his GF about his own home and some empathy for someone else dealing with a car crash. It absolutely disgusted my parents. And later on brother told me he got another earful about our parents just dropping in without notice and its like? Excuse me? Its his house!
Unfortunately, a tire popped on my parents' car when we were nearby. It was like, 3 years since the first issue with the car. I went inside and asked my brother to let my mom in because its raining. GF did not like that, and didn't realize I could overhear her down the hall, arguing with my brother and his family again. I went over the next day to my brother and he was actively cleaning up GF's mess so it wouldn't be as 'embarassing' for her. I sat him down and talked to him as realistically as I could. I have depression, anxiety, emotional abuse trauma, agorophobia, and very few friends. But I'm okay. He started very quietly expressing his frustration towards GF. She doesn't do much around the house or contribute financially, lets her family over but not his, him doing most of the cooking despite regularly pulling 12s. I sat there calmly, because of course I knew this. This is what makes the situation somewhat even more sticky. I asked my brother, "Do you actually love someone like that? Or are you afraid to be alone?" He's been in one relationship or another for most of my life. Lately he had been confiding in me about how bad his mental health was falling and I was like 'that's not a slump, that's. that's depression.' So when I asked my brother the question, he hesitated. That spoke loudly enough in my opinion. But then I also saw my brother's face crumpling as he admitted he just didn't want to be alone. GF wants babies but my brother knows with her medical history and condition on top of being so lazy and bluntly told me she would not be a good mother and hopes to God that day doesn't come. He is so unhappy being with her. We both heard the rustling of a comforter and my brother lowered his panicky voice and asked me to leave so she doesn't see me here. That is incredibly messed up, especially since its his name on the house. I haven't seen my brother at his house since then, and that was over 2 years ago.
During COVID, GF started working from home, and it stayed that way. My brother still takes care of most things.
In the mean time, he's proposed to her. Yeah. I managed to save things when all our faces dropped at the Christmas dinner he announced their engagement at. My brother calls her by a nickname that was also the name of a beloved family dog that had passed away only one month ago. My dad and my reactions at that time were genuine confusion and sadness about him bringing up our passed pet. Everything was pretty quiet after that. When we got home, I texted my brother and told him that hearing our dog's name in conversation after losing her so recently shattered us, be we were, in fact, happy for his engagement.
I lied.
None of us want him to marry her. I dread the day that I get a wedding invitation or GF shows up pregnant. She would be a terrible mother. My brother is aware of the fact that my parents think she's a rude, inconsiderate brat that only thinks of herself, from that earlier conversation that I talked to my parents about. My mom snapped that they don't have to like her, all they were required to do was be civil, and we are, so shut up.
At larger family functions GF tends to gravitate around me. Like I said, we have similar interests and personalities. And I have never told her to get lost or had it in me to upfront tell her we don't like her. I am absolutely horrible at confrontation, but my patience is wearing thin.
Last year my parents set up brunch for Mother's Day. We were at the table when my brother called and said they were going to urgent care because GF had another one of her migraines that make her vomit. Which, she takes medicine and has injectable solutions. Some situation always comes up with her right before my brother would come to us.
My parents tried again with the Mother's Day brunch last week. On the day of, he said that he was too tired to come, can we try next week? Please insert the eyeroll of the century.
Because of our clear dislike, my brother doesn't often bring his GF around anymore on the offchance she lets him. It occurred to me that my parents planned the same brunch as last year, and I was dreading my question. "Is GF coming with us for brunch?" They don't know. All my brother did was confirm the time and place. The thought of having to deal with her in the morning and pretend that I don't see her for what she is, is already exhausting me. I can barely get my brother to even play online with me. I feel like this has been festering long enough that at some point, its all going to overflow at once. But I am absolutely disgusted by how she takes advantage of my brother's fear of being alone and how the world revolves around her.
I had a dream the other day, actually, it was a good dream. I was at their wedding, and the priest guy said the standard 'speak now or hold your peace' and I stood up and loudly shouted OBJECTION! Every single person in the room turned to look at me, one because I don't raise my voice like that, two my patience is vast, and three, to upset me to this level of shouldering my anxiety by making a spectacle of myself. I then explained every detail, especially how much she was charged for rent, that my brother admitted he wasn't happy, and I wanted better for him than to just be an ATM maid.
If I bring this up to my brother again, I may lose him forever. But if I don't, he may be miserable together. And on the third side-- Do I actually really want my brothers' friendship at this point? Like, I'm definitely fed up dealing with his GF like she is. Plus, I pointed out and reiterated to him before that he admitted he wasn't happy.
I am very, very quiet by default. Never got into much trouble. I was and still am a gentle soul at my core being. If things get to a point where I cross lines of polite manners and call someone out on their bs, people around know that someone did something almost unforgivable. I'm wondering if my brother would know that.
TLDR; Brother's fiancee is disliked for good reason. My brother has isolated. I miss him, but also never want to see him again. I want to remind him that this marriage isn't a good idea, but I don't want to antagonize him.

I don’t know if this is just something i’ve felt with but a little back story I 19 male was diagnosed with Inattentive ADHD about a month ago and i’ve blown through about 4 different meds and i can’t stick to one. I tried guanfacine which gave me chest pain (maybe anxiety related), Ritalin (gave me palps and SUPER anxious), qelbree (stupidly tired no matter what), and most recently Adderall. I found relief with the Adderall but found that the come downs were super extreme for me, once it wore off I would be super depressed and hopeless. Now it’s day 3 of no adderall after 6 days of use and my mood is horrible and I still feel hopeless. My provider wants to try vyvanse because she says it’s smoother and lasts longer. Any tips?

I have some really bad anxiety (As I'm sure lots of people here have), and part of that is being afraid of new medication, a lot of it comes from going online to Reddit or forums and doom scrolling about anecdotal stories of people having terrible side effects despite knowing logically it's a minority when many of the meds prescribed to me work great for millions or at worse just don't do much at all.
I'm currently taking 20mg of Adderall XR daily with 10mg IR as needed and my psych gave me a prescription for propranolol to combat anxiety after I turned down Lexapro.
Anyone else had any success with this?

There will definitely be a lot more posts of mine here, simply because I just finished the show today and have SO much on my mind.
I was actually in first grade when the show aired (oh WOW I'm old), watched it for the very first time in 5th grade. I watched the show throughout my teenage years, finished it once. I decided to rewatch it at 19 due to a mix of nostalgia and, my main focus, to rewatch the show in the perspective of a (more or less) adult with the experience of watching the show as a 12/14/17 year old. Adding to that: I'm not from the US & watched the show with the German Dub. There might be translation errors or cultural differences which could lead to a few misunderstandings/ me just not knowing about American culture lol.
I have done multiple interesting.. enhancements, you could say - including Speed. Rewatching the show made me SOO mad when it comes to that aspect.
Let's get my personal elephant out of the room - wtf was going on with Maya's storyline? From all I have seen Mayas parents are supposed to be these "chill, laid back, not married when getting kids, tattood" California typa parents, yet as soon as a whiff of a joint crosses their nose, they send her to some CAMP? Like, out of ALL reactions you could have head - chill parents or not - why on earth would you send your daughter SO far away?
Now, let's go to the general elephant in the room - Spencers pill popping
I do understand the motivation and reasoning behind Spencer's usage of the drug - ESPECIALLYYY coming from a household with such immense pressure. Out of the perspective from someone who's taken it before, her taking it in order to keep up with studying/ hunting A is actually the "lesser evil" or "less bad" option out of ALL out there.
What bugged me especially was everyone's reaction after finding out that Spencer was abusing speed.
Just as a reminder: You should NEVER approach a person who's drug abusing (and perhaps on drugs while they talk lmao) in a group of four, hassle around with the "evidence" (iirc they had a bottle of pills which they threw on the ground?), scream at the addict about what bad of a human being they are BECAUSE of their abuse etc.
The way the girls just did a 3v1 against Spencer is just.. disgusting.
Now let me get one thing straight: you CAN get away from drugs. You can get away from the people around you which influence you to take them. You can throw everything related to it away & act like it never happen. You can get into rehab, you can seek therapy and help from your loved ones.
That is however.. easier said than done. You can make the jump over to rehabilitation, but you need to make the jump first. That's usually the hardest step - to realize you have a problem.
During the ENTIRE plotline of Spencer being addicted, there is no one who really wanted to sit down with her and see.. her "side" of the perspective.
They could've written it so far better, implement actual aspects of being addicted. The liArs sitting down with her, hugging her and telling her that everything will be alright. Her parents thinking that they might have pressured her a little bit too much or Melissa realizing that her little sister is an addict. Toby trying to save the love of his life during hardship.
Spencer experiencing the symptoms of withdrawal, fighting against the addiction & slowly gaining more and more control of her addiction. Perhaps her doing a lot of shady stuff for drugs.
Don't get me wrong, there are scenes and important moments of Spencer doing exactly these things, like her digging through arias trash in order to find the pills.
They threw away SOO much potential. If they had taken the aspect of her addiction / Drugs in general more serious, more sympathy/empathy could've been around when it comes to drugs or addiction. It's just so.. weird and toxic the way they approached her on the drugs. Instead of giving her support, a shoulder to cry on or just.. any kind of help they just.. attack her.
Now to top ALLLL of that - the Actress of Paige, Lindsay Shaw, was on cocaine the entire time of her shooting. Later she switched to Adderall because it was easiemore accessible, Emily / Shay Mitchell tried to help her too. Apparently the producers knew about it but never talked about it.
I'm sorry, this is such a long rant but honestly... this has made me so mad lol

I know I know this isn't an airport I don't have to announce my departure but wow man. It is so shitty to find this game and decide to give it a good try despite all the memes and shit and just have such a terrible time playing it. Really love it and maybe I'll just strictly play arcade but since I'm venting it sucks man. I think it all honestly comes down to the matchmaking. I tried watched videos and practicing my combos in the arena, went back to more videos, took even more time to practice over and over but there's just no point honestly.
There's nothing for me to learn or improve on when the matchmaking puts me with people that can consistently light parry, know all my combos, switch ups, timings, maximize every punish, and spam combos that I can't block or even know how to break out of. Every 1 of 20 games I finally get with people my level and it's a blast, we miss guardbreaks due to distance, we fuck up the punish and only hit with 1 light, we hit the walls every other hit and roll around to run away. But every 19 out of 20 games it's a warden that shoulder bash chains me (he magically knows when to switch the timing so my dodge doesn't work) into a corner and light spams me to death, a peacekeeper that feints every other attack and my new player reflexes can't keep up to save my life, a warmonger that stands infront of me and instantly parries every single light or heavy I throw (guardbreaks didn't work either she auto countered those too), a highlander that snuck up and kicked me into a corner and then proceeded to chain kick and heavy me then emote, a shinobi and orochi that after seeing me suck in a few battles worked together to spam kick me into a corner and keep me there for 2 minutes until they finally killed me.
Idk man, I really wanted to learn this game and have fun and I'm no stranger to struggling. I've beaten several dark souls games all the way to new game +9 and I've always been a fan of playing on the absolute highest difficulties possible but I'm at a loss on this game. It's hard to make sense of either it's got 4k+ players daily according to the statistics so unless you're telling me 98% of the player base is greater than rep 70 and all experts so it's impossible to get a lobby consistently with new players in it. If I was hitting and winning fights I could handle it, even just one so often but I've had multiple games back to back where I get 0 kills. Even in ganks the enemy players just shrug me off like I'm not even there, which sucks cause that's the only time I've been able to fight higher levels and hit them, even then as soon as they pop revenge they go 100% on me to get me out of the way and obliterate me.
Great game, but I think the matchmaking is taking a baseball bat to its fucking knees and crippling it. Then again maybe this is just one of those areas like R6 siege ranked where you only play if you want to sweat bullets and snort Adderall. Either way, it was fun for a week but I guess that's it for me folks. GL and hf on all your games for me.

Dutch Test
Female 27 aprox 125lbs 5'2, Medications: 15mg adderall, conditions: Ehlers-Danlos hypermobility type, PCOS, POTs, and Craniocervical Instability
I have been struggling with my PCOS for the past 3 years. My PCOS symptoms include polycystic ovaries, hair loss, Acne (face and body), weight gain, a little more than normal body hair, rapid body hair growth, brain fog, fatigue, and severe depression. Might be worth it to mention that I had none of these symptoms, apart from depression, before 3 years ago, I never even got a single zit before the age of 21. I had a progesterone IUD from 20-25 if that helps. I have been treated with Spironolactone in the past. It was honestly life changing. My depression vanished, I lost 30lbs in 2 months, and all of my symptoms either went away or got significantly better. Only down side was that I was constantly bleeding on Spironolactone, nothing too major but I need a panty liner everyday.
After 3 months on 100mg of Spironolactone, I noticed my fatigue started coming back and my mood started getting a little worse. My dose was increased to 200mg and immediately felt better.
Another 3 months and the same thing started. They tested my free testosterone and it had literally doubled while taking it.
Cut to January of this year, my doctor wants to discontinue the Spironolactone because of the chronic bleeding. She wants to use this opportunity to get a clearer picture of my hormones and their metabolites. So I wait an excruciating 4 months and take the Dutch hormone test. I am a little confused by my results.
My 5a-Reductase Activity is pretty low, but all research I've looked into shows that it is usually high in PCOS patients. My DHEA-S is actually on the low end and my testosterone is high. I'm having trouble interpreting these results. I'm wondering if this is an expected result for someone with PCOS and hyperandrogenism. Should I be asking my doctors to look into anything else? Does anything here explain why my Spironolactone would stop working/not lower my testosterone? Dutch Test

I want to share a story of my life since I don't know how prevalent this is, who else has gone through similar things and whether i'm in a similar boat to anyone else.
Ever since I was young, as early as 5 or 6, i've always been using a computer. Back then I used to bide my time on flash games and watching pirated movies. My parents were not cautious with me on the internet, possibly due to that time being before we knew of any of the consequences of "iPad children" or even just the dark side of the internet being a rather niche thing to know about for the average person at the time.
At the time of this PC usage I also had every sony console and used to spend most of my day before and after school in front of a screen, playing san andreas, watching tv shows, cartoon network, nickolodean, there is very little of my childhood that wasn't spent in front of a screen of some kind.
Years pass and I am now 8 years old, I encounter sexual imagery and feel a curiosity towards it. Over time I constantly look to these images and videos, not pleasuring myself but simply watching out of curiosity. There does come a day sometime during this period where I gradually increase the intensity of what i'm watching, I'm not even joking here when I say watching cartoon p\*rn and playing cartoon p\*rn games was something I did regularly, eventually curiosity grew to lust, I had soon realised that I could pleasure myself during those viewings of content.
During all of this I had homework to do, eventually there would be exams to study for, things I had to do for my life which I would unsurprisingly neglect to do. I would neglect all my homework for games or anime or just TV. I wouldn't study due to my constant internal desire to look at a screen, it was like a heroin addiction towards a screen.
My parents would often tell me to study and do whatever homework I had, I would do my homework sometimes and other times completely neglect it, when you're in elementary/primary school it doesn't seem to matter too much as long as you did enough work in school.
Things get worse as I enter secondary school (Ages 11 to 16), in the beginning I would do my homework more often than not, and I paid attention in class, not being too distruptive or talking to others around me. But as time passed i became more neglectful of homework and extracurricular things, wanting to spend my time gaming with my friends online on my PC instead.
I regularly got detentions due to my laziness in doing my homework and I procrastinated everything to do with school. I woke up, went to school, maybe occasionally did stuff with friends then went home to game till midnight or later, repeating this cycle for 5 years of my life. Somehow I paid attention enough in class and got lucky enough to pass the big final exams at the end of secondary school.
The next stage of education, in college (UK Ages 16-18) were particularly bad, these are probably the worst years of my life so far. I had moved away from where I grew up, went to a different school in a new environment with new people, still addicted to my PC and I hated school. The subjects got harder to a point where you can no longer just pay attention to pass, I hated studying and spent all my time outside school on a PC, watching anime, gaming, sexual content etc.
I felt like a real degenerate, drifting through life without a purpose, borderline suicidal, I was failing my classes and had a horrible teacher that would often mortify me in front of the whole class due to my lack of ability. But then all of a sudden a blessing in the form of pestilence hit the world and I had a reason to not go to school anymore, COVID-19. COVID caused schools to shut down and the UK to go into lockdown where I could now freely spend all my time gaming, wasting time and just being lazy in general.
Months pass and life is uneventful, I make a decision to myself to resit a year hoping to change and work harder, to study harder, to move forward in life. But real life isn't a movie, the redemption arc of the real world is in most cases a tragedy, as is the case with me where my short-lived aspirations were quickly shot down by the fact that changing is not such an easy thing to achieve.
I struggled to even get started on studying, the virtual world had a grasp on me that I couldn't shake off, when I all of a sudden thought I wanted to study or do something productive, my body forced me back to wasting time like a curse. I thought I might ADHD and started doing some research into things like adderall and ritalin.
I aimed to obtain those things through the dark web, but I had no money as a broke student living in my parent's house. I instead looked to things like nootropics such as aniracetam, turmeric, piracetam, real questionable things. Regardless, during this time period it escalated to a point where I started doing drugs, I took edibles, I bought LSD thinking it might give me the life altering perspective or epiphany to change my life completely.
I almost died doing some shady xanax i bought and was sent to the hospital, worrying my whole family which made me feel a horrific shame internally, it really made me want to either commit suicide or change my life, and the easier one was more tempting.
After this I went through a whole year of trying various drugs, not studying, fucking around and whatnot, It would take me a whole year to decide enough is enough and quit all drugs.
I will skip a lot here but time passes, I get through school, There's exams which I don't study for because I can't, my body forces me away from it. Even though I decided to resit that year, I still fuck up the year because I can't study. My predicted grades were high however, which allowed me to enter a university on an unconditional offer, I got in without much effort studying something which I could give less of a shit about, that being Law.
My life is a mess, I need an overhaul while i'm still young, before I grow old unable to have even achieved anything. To this day, I still can't do any form of work without something compelling me towards a time waster.
I would like advice from anyone, I left a lot out of this story due to the length so if you have any questions let me know.
Thank you for reading all that I have written.

Dutch Test
Female 27 aprox 125lbs 5'2, Medications: 15mg adderall, 1.5mg naltrexone (for pain), conditions: Ehlers-Danlos hypermobility type, PCOS, POTs, and Craniocervical Instability
I have been struggling with my PCOS for the past 3 years. My PCOS symptoms include polycystic ovaries, hair loss, Acne (face and body), weight gain, a little more than normal body hair, rapid body hair growth, brain fog, fatigue, and severe depression. Might be worth it to mention that I had none of these symptoms, apart from depression, before 3 years ago, I never even got a single zit before the age of 21. I had a progesterone IUD from 20-25 if that helps. I have been treated with Spironolactone in the past. It was honestly life changing. My depression vanished, I lost 30lbs in 2 months, and all of my symptoms either went away or got significantly better. Only down side was that I was constantly bleeding on Spironolactone, nothing too major but I need a panty liner everyday.
After 3 months on 100mg of Spironolactone, I noticed my fatigue started coming back and my mood started getting a little worse. My dose was increased to 200mg and immediately felt better.
Another 3 months and the same thing started. They tested my free testosterone and it had literally doubled while taking it.
Cut to January of this year, my doctor wants to discontinue the Spironolactone because of the chronic bleeding. She wants to use this opportunity to get a clearer picture of my hormones and their metabolites. So I wait an excruciating 4 months and take the Dutch hormone test. I am a little confused by my results.
My 5a-Reductase Activity is pretty low, but all research I've looked into shows that it is usually high in PCOS patients. My DHEA-S is actually on the low end and my testosterone is high. I'm having trouble interpreting these results. I'm wondering if this is an expected result for someone with PCOS and hyperandrogenism. Should I be asking my doctors to look into anything else? Does anything here explain why my Spironolactone would stop working/not lower my testosterone? Dutch Test

Hello all. I (24 F) have never posted on Reddit before but reading these posts is comforting so I figured writing one might help me too. It might even help someone else. To understand this story I have to go back 6 years ago. I was medically discharged from college after attempting to take my own life. It’s not something I talk about very much but I did do several years of therapy. Without getting too in-depth, I had a traumatic childhood and the stress of being at college was too much for me. I gained a significant amount of weight at the end of high school and even more weight my freshman year of college. I had been put on every anti-depressant there was, but never found one that worked for me. My binge-eating was completely out of control, and my low self esteem from the weight gain only fueled my depression. My psychiatrist suggested I start taking adderall. He called it a “radical form of an antidepressant”, as well as a method to control my binge-eating. I was skeptical but willing to try anything. I had lived in a dark hole in my mind for many years now and would try anything to get out. I was started on 30 mg once a day of instant release adderall. It was a god send. I felt in control for the first time in my life. And I was in love with the feeling. I went from laying in my bed all day everyday to hiking for miles and miles. I started going to the gym and it became my sanctuary. And on top of it all, that voice in my head telling me to keep eating was permanently turned off. For 6 months, I was unbelievably happy. I lost 30 pounds. And I felt beautiful for the first time in my life. Everyone was telling me how good I looked and my confidence skyrocketed. I never wanted to lose that feeling. I started noticing that the duration of my adderall “high” was getting shorter and shorter. I began to only take it before I went to the gym, which helped me work out for 3 hours and not feel tired. When I’d get home I’d force myself not to eat even though I was hungry. I was starting to get a tolerance. The euphoric feeling I got when I took my daily dose slowly started to fade away completely. I began taking two 30 mg pills every day; one in the morning to work out and one in the late afternoon to control my hunger. It worked for a while, but man that tolerance catches up quick. Before I knew it was taking three, four pills each day. 120 mg of adderall, and still barely feeling it. Chasing that amazing high I felt years prior. It had taken me a long time to get to this point, but it was taking a toll on me. I started bingeing again despite the medication. And the come down of the adderall was starting to scare me. I would start the day miserable, take a bunch of pills, feeling slightly better for a few hours, and end the day wanting to unalive myself. My breaking point came one day when I felt particularly horrible, spiraling inside my own head down a dark tunnel I could not see out of. I came clean to my boyfriend who I live with that I was misusing my medication and it was going to kill me. I dumped out all of my meds down the toilet and quit cold turkey. I am 13 days clean. Every Reddit post says it takes time to go back to feeling normal, but I was never normal. And my bingeing is more out of control than it ever was. I just binged today again and it feels like I’ll never get over it. The worst part is that I’ve gained all the weight back and I feel disgusting. It’s just not fair. I just want to be normal and not need some pill to not binge. I felt beautiful for the first time in my life. I was healthy. It’s not like I even had abs or became underweight. I looked and felt great. I was eating like a normal person. But I can’t continue living like that and I can’t continue living like this either. I don’t know what to do.

How do I fix this?? I’m currently 26 and 93 lbs at 5’3. This is not normal for me at all!! For the past few years my weight hovered around 103-108 and my heaviest and healthiest looking I’ve been (imo) was at 113 when I was 21, but that may have been the result of binge drinking. I’ve always been thin and my weight tends to fluctuate, but not like this. And I’m super unhappy about it.
I never intended to lose the weight it just kind of happened. I moved to a new city, got a new job, and cut off my toxic relationships. Then in the last year I’ve had dental problems and it made it harder to eat. I was also depressed and lonely because I had no friends. Now that’s fixed, I was already underweight at around 100 until recently my dr put me on adderall to treat my adhd which she claimed was “severe” lol. So I’m an adderall and Wellbutrin girly now and I’m much happier in general and better at managing myself and my life but I’ve always sucked at feeding myself and adderall hasn’t made it any better. Additionally, somewhere between the ages of 24 and 25 my hips got bigger so my pants size went up& I didn’t realize I had lost so much until I was recently weighed at the doctor’s (I don’t own a scale because I see no reason to) plus now with the additional weight loss I’m constantly hitting my hips with my elbows or my hips catch on door knobs and table edges and I bruise!! It’s not cute!! At all!!
(this part may be kinda problematic I’m sorry) When I was younger I would look at pictures of Ariana Grande and see her ribs through her upper chest and feel like “I may be thin but I’d never let myself get THAT thin”… and now years later I am that thin. Guess I got my karma! I feel gross when I get undressed and see my ribs showing through my chest in the mirror. I’m also afraid to lose or ruin my tits, which I love. Seriously. The thought of losing them makes me want to break down and cry! I’m sure that’s the look for some people but I don’t like it on me. I’m trying to embrace my new look but it just looks unhealthy. Now I’m seeing videos by YouTubers pointing out celebrities and influencers with unhealthy bodies, and they look just like mine and I think ughhjjhj… that’s probably how they feel when they look at me. I don’t want people to be concerned.
Summer is coming and it’s the first I’ve ever been scared to wear a bikini. I keep looking into weight gain focused content and it’s all about counting calories and these influencers are spending hundreds of dollars on organic groceries and protein powders and green juice, I just look at all the food they eat in a day and I think that’s far too much money. I’m kinda broke… I buy my groceries at dollar tree lmao.
Additionally, the thought of counting calories stresses me tf out. Just the thought of struggling to fit 2000 or whatever calories into my day is extremely overwhelming. When I get stressed I don’t eat, it’s a vicious cycle. At this point I don’t eat until mid afternoon because I just have so much going on with my day and I’m so busy and stressed until I get things done that eating is too much for me.
Wtf do I do??!! Summer is in a month, I wanna sip martinis and look hot in a bikini!! I’d ideally like to get back to my healthy weight of around 115 but I will literally just accept not having to see my ribs through my chest anymore. I want to look like Sabrina Carpenter, not Ariana Grande. I’m really sorry if that’s problematic to say. I just think Sabrina looks so lovely no matter what she wears and I really wish I had her legs. My skinny legs are a huge insecurity for me, she’s around my height and imo hers are perfect. Right now it’s giving yes, and and I want to be giving that me espresso. That’s my ideal goal. I might even buy myself some capezio tights.
I know I joke tbh this is just how I cope this is actually very serious to me and is making be feel very depressed and insecure. 🙃🙃This has really been an urgent issue for me. I’m pissed at my body for doing this to me. I thought I was supposed to get thicker and more ‘womanly’ after 25, wtf is this. I want a refund. I truly thought it would be easier to gain weight but that’s proving to be a problem so far. I’m deeply self conscious right now. Please be kind.

Throwaway account.
I’m in a relationship that I don’t know if I can save, or if I’m even capable of saving. My (M,30) partner (F,40) and I met 3 or 4 years ago working at the same location, and began dating 2 years ago. We clicked immediately. We’ve had many ups and downs, but some really high highs, and really low lows. I love this woman so so much, and she’s very smart, caring and compassionate. She’s been a wonderful partner to me and has supported me. We’ve had our consistent struggles along the way pertaining to communication, in which I know I’m not very good at. We’ve known that there is an age gap between us, and that shouldn’t technically matter, but people do grow and learn and change and evolve, and that life experience really makes a difference in understanding the world. We are currently at a crossroads. The relationship is on the verge of ending. There is lots of arguing, lots of crying and lots of therapy. The biggest killers for us have been pertaining to communication on my end, which I am severely struggling to understand. My partner has told me time and time again that I am passive aggressive, and won’t think much before I speak. She says I don’t know how to be supportive and I take things incredibly literally. I don’t take initiative and I’m a passive and timid person. It’s hard for me to understand when someone is needing something unless they tell me point blank to my face. I’ve missed countless cues and opportunities to be supportive and step in because I thought that if she needed something, she would just straight up tell me. I feel like I’m crossing boundaries if someone tells me something and expects something else. She’s even explained to me in a general sense how to “be there” but with each situation being so different, I can’t just apply that information in the same way every time in my head so I freeze up and try to just work in the moment. I also forget lots of small details and will forget lots of things in schedules and around the house that lead to frustrations. I’ll cut her off without realizing it and I’ll say things that can be taken as passive without realizing I’m doing it and it’s pushed her to a breaking point. And when things get so heatedI have tried working on it, journaling, therapy, being present, active listening techniques, everything I can think of. It didn’t work. Things never changed even though I was putting in effort. She feels defeated and I feel useless. As this has grown over the years, I discussed these things with my therapist and tried to understand why I could be coming across that way, because In my head my intentions are always good but I know that actions speak louder than words. We’ve gone through speech and childhood upbringing to see if there are any underlying reasons or causes. Then something hit me, and I’m ashamed and embarrassed that I didn’t consider it before. I’ve had Tourette’s Syndrome (diagnosed at 5) and have always had a nagging thought in the back of my head that I was on the autism spectrum, but it never REALLY crossed my mind until recently when I started reading about how people with ADHD or autism struggle in long-term relationships, and the specific dynamics that come with them. “if your partner has ADD, you may feel ignored and lonely. Your partner can focus on things that interest them, but not on you. They never seem to follow through on what they agree to do. They may seem to act like a child instead of an adult. You nag them, and you’ve started to dislike the person you’ve become. The two of you either fight or clam up. Worst of all, you are stressed about being saddled with the household responsibilities while your partner gets to have all the fun. If you have ADHD, you may feel your partner has become a nagging monster. The person you loved has become a control freak, trying to manage the details of your life. No matter how hard you try, you can’t meet your partner’s expectations. The easiest way to deal with them is to leave them alone.” - ADDitude Mag
This whole time I had been trying to adjust things about my communication and thinking when in reality, I’m coming to find out that I’m not sure that it’s possible for me without help. And I feel so stupid. Went and got tested with my therapist (a 22 year practicing APRN) and sure enough, “Yeah it’s pretty clear you have ADHD”. I also, YOU GUESSED IT, might be on the spectrum, she says. Doing further testing currently. This is a jarring and honestly, a kind of traumatizing realization for me to have at 30. So I was prescribed low doses of Adderall to combat the forgetfulness and communication and it seems to be working. I feel focused, my emotions are regulated, I take more initiative, the loudness in my brain is quiet now, but I’m 24 hours into the new medication and things are so bad in the relationship that my partner has lost all trust in my ability to change and my ability to take initiative, take action and lead with my words without being passive aggressive or direct. It’s at the spot where she’s so angry about it all that It feels like even if I make a lot of progress, any slip-up I make leads to an argument and a blow-up. She voiced anger that I didn’t look into ADHD sooner. I agree. I truly feel like a fuck-up. I feel like I’ve hurt her for 2 years straight and didn’t even fully understand how I was doing it. But at the same time, I also feel like she doesn’t and can’t understand that my brain has a lot of trouble grasping these concepts, and it’s not just a yes/no switch for me to do. I sincerely struggle with comprehension in intimate settings and I want to be better at it so bad. I’m not choosing to be passive aggressive or not supportive or not take action, I just truly don’t understand how to do that. I looked back at my past relationships and saw similarities at why they ended. I’m ashamed. -I’m ashamed for going this long without knowing about my condition. I’m almost 30. -I feel guilty for letting my relationship get bad even though I thought I was trying my hardest to be better. -I’m embarrassed to be in a spot where I also now have to deal with the emotions that come with knowing my brain works differently than other people’s. I feel like an idiot overall now and my view of myself has changed. -I feel regret for my past relationships and how heartbreak could’ve been averted if I had just looked into this sooner. At the end of the day, I feel like I’ve been trying so hard to be a good person and partner and take criticism with stride and work hard on bettering myself, but I’ve ended up in a spot where past relationships & current ones likely hate me because of my inability to understand communication on an intimate level.
​
I want to preface that I don’t mean to sound selfish talking about myself like this. I know that it may even come across pity-party ish, because I know that my partner is the one hurting the most, but I don’t know what else to do and I’m struggling so bad and need some direction. I’m putting this here because I feel like I have no one to talk to about the situation from an outside perspective and I’m feeling physically sick to my stomach every day because of everything and I feel like I’m going to break down. I love this person so much and don’t want things to end, but I’m worried it’s too far gone to save, and pushing onward is just going to hurt us both deeper and deeper with every passing day. I’ve set up couple’s counseling and I’m truly hoping she gives me some time to adjust to medication to see if things make a shift for the better, but things are looking bleak.
We are pursuing couple's counseling and individual counseling.
I am pursuing active treatment and study into my condition.
Is there anything else I can be doing? TL;DR : Partner and I have struggled bad with communication for 2 years. She’s been justifiably angry that I’m not trying to learn or take action and fix the issues, and that things never change. Turns out I’ve had ADHD and possible autism the whole time and just legitimately don’t know how to understand cues and communication on an intimate level. On Adderall, things seem to be improving. Relationship may be fucked because of how long it look me to understand. I don't know what to do.

In January of 2023 my wife, I’ll call her S, left me. A bit of backstory because this is mostly my fault. Me and her moved from Florida to Washington 6 years ago for me to find better work. Her dad, brother and I were all best friends for a while and her dad was my boss that’s how I met her. We started dating in 2016 when I lived in Jacksonville and was attending welding school. When I moved back to my hometown I couldn’t find work and eventually went back to work with the company her dad worked at, I ran my own shop. I hated it I was so depressed I wanted to weld but she didn’t want me to because she’d be alone while I was on the road so I stayed. Her mom is a meth addict and is very violent and her dad is laid back as it gets but an alcoholic non the less. I was living with my parents at the time and one day her mom freaked out and tried to hit her, I stood up and defended her and her mom kicked her out of there house. Me and her lived with my parents ever since. Now that she lived at my parents house I had to basically force her to get a job because all she did was play sims and complain. Especially about me watching game of thrones because of the nudity. when I got home and I thought she needed some purpose. I only bring these thing up to put into perspective the things that I had to forgive and give up to be with her. One day my mom asks us if we’d like to move to Washington in hopes of a better life and she could attend college here. I was thrilled at the idea and she was at that moment too. As the date grew closer and I had already put my two weeks notice in she started getting cold feet. I explained to her that I was miserable at my job and had already given up welding and I was not passing up another opportunity whether she came or not. That ended in a fight but she said she wanted to come in the end. My mom emptied her retirement so we could rent a truck, drive up and have an apartment when we got there (my mom was already here) When got here we both immediately got jobs as a construction labor, making quite good money and her at a drugstore. This is where the problems really began. She started to become very withdrawn. She was not interested in anything sexual, and it began to wear on my confidence. I eventually got a job as an electrician making less money as an apprentice, but more overall when I turned out. Then Covid hit. I got fat and depressed, I got a lot from unemployment. So naturally, I began to drink more. Then I started dabbling in cocaine. Over time this became a problem, I began hiding it doing it on the weekends being out all night sometimes for multiple days. She caught me and I lied. My mental health was deteriorating quickly. I had already suffered with depression before, but this was something different. Her dad got diagnosed with stage bone cancer during this too. It was a rough time for both of us. At one point she told me she didn’t know if she wanted to get a divorce because she wanted to go back home to be with her dad if he died. Even though I understood this crushed me even more. During 2022 I was still somehow I was still somehow still managing to keep it together even with my addiction. She started attending college and work and college at the same time with stressing her out to the point where she was crying so I told her to quit her job and do college full-time. I paid for all of it. Financial burdens began to increase. My mental health dropped even lower. I became increasingly suicidal I thought about death every day. I talked about it every day. She would tell me she’s not a psychiatrist or therapist and that she couldn’t help me. She started hanging out with one of her friends from work and they started hanging out a lot towards the end of 2022. This part is extremely important. I started noticing things on her phone that pointed to her being interested in women like things in her algorithm for TikTok and YouTube. Stuff to do with being lesbian and coming out or bi. I asked her one day if that was something that was going on with her if she was interested in women. She told me no. A month later, she came to me and told me that she thought about it and it was something that she had been thinking about. I told her that it was OK and that it was something that I was willing to let her explore as long as we communicated. Then out of the blue one day again she tells me she didn’t mind if I slept with other women. Looking back this was a red flag at the time. I thought it was OK with it for being with someone else. It turns out I was not. Being a cocaine addict and an alcoholic pretty much plus the thought of her being with someone else started to grind my self-conscious. I became increasingly paranoid that she would leave me. One night fueled on cocaine. I got on her laptop and looked through all of her history all of it back years. And I saw she had to stop obsessing over a guy. Is it OK to have a crush on a guy at the gym while married. I confronted her with this information. And it turned into a huge she said I invaded her privacy which I did and still feel terrible for. And she said it was only a crush and nothing else. Our sex life had all the ground, and I was so hurt that she was attracted to someone else and couldn’t even begin to be attracted to me. One night at the beginning of January, maybe the first week or two I was trying to quit drinking and doing cocaine. I had maybe been a week in. It was the weekend and I didn’t want to be alone. I begged her to stay with me, but she went out with her friend. In retaliation, I suppose I went out with someone a friend of mine and got fucked up. We ended up going back to his place with some girls. There was no sex just making out and such. I don’t remember exactly what happened, but I freaked out and got taken home in a cop car. She was at her friends at this point I decided to commit suicide. I overdosed on muscle relaxers with my uncle to tell him bye. My uncle got it out of him that I had overdosed. He called my wife and her and the woman that she was hanging out with came to my house and I was taken to the hospital. I spent a whole week in the hospital. The whole time I was there she just seemed annoyed. She wanted to go back to her friends house and do homework for school. I got out and went back to work. I had to make up some school and the day I was there. I talked to another woman about how I could win her back because she said that she didn’t know if she wanted to be with me anymore. The girls suggested I take her out on a date and tell her how I was feeling and I did. That night while we were eating dinner, she told me that she had been sleeping with that girl the night I tried to commit suicide and other nights. She didn’t tell me she was afraid I would divorce. At first, I remain calm. But as the past, I started to become angry. at home I told her I was leaving to go stay at a friends house because we need to take a break. I started drinking heavily and told her to get the fuck out of my house and I hated her a bunch of other I started drinking heavily and told her to get the fuck out of my house and I hated her a bunch of other terrible things. I went completely off the rails she left with that girl to stay at her house. I bought a bunch of cocaine Adderall and alcohol and was determined to just do drugs until I died. I started self harming. I tried to commit suicide through carbon monoxide, overdose, and hanging. I ruined the house. I broke so many things kicked down doors shattered pictures. You should’ve seen it. It was disgusting. She came by to check on me because she was worried. I was going to kill myself. I can’t remember everything that I said to her, but I know I freaked out. I started throwing things and just being an absolute ass. it culminated her calling my parents. She told him everything. I should also note that during this time I was confused as well with everything going on in my head and thought maybe I would be by and gave a guy a blow job he also gave me one as well. It didn’t last long I wasn’t into it, but I told her the very next day. Had about three months before all this happened. She left again and my mom flew back from Florida. As I sobered up, I began to realize how I had acted. I went to work and immediately told my foreman that I needed to go to rehab. I went to rehab and started to feel better about two months after she had told me and I went to rehab and started to feel better. About two months since the split, we met up at a Starbucks to talk about us. She said that she didn’t think she could be with me anymore. After the way I had acted and all the lying with my addiction. I wanted her back so badly. I told her I’m sorry I was never worth it in a bunch of other stuff that was childish. She said I had acted like her mom and that she couldn’t deal with it. I totally did the yelling throwing things saying horrible things to her to put her down. Anyway, I went no contact with her the whole time she was still living with that girl. I relapsed after about four months. I got laid off from my job. In a few Coke, fueled rages on separate occasions, I would call her and beg her back and then yell at her when she didn’t want to. I called her with cancer and told him that she had cheated on me with a girl. They are very conservative and that was a horrible thing for me to do. So now the end of the tale. I’ve been in and out of sobriety now for this year and a half more in sobriety than out. I’m sober now I’m in AA and NA and feeling much better. Her dad died of cancer. She never told me I heard through a friend of a friend which really hurt me because me and him used to be best friends. Although I understand why she would not reach out to me. Neither me or her have filed the paperwork for the divorce. We just never talk. She has me blocked on Facebook and I don’t know her phone number and honestly right now. I don’t even know if I want to go through with the divorce or just keep working on healing. I’m so confused because I still love her but also I don’t want to be with her but I do. I think about her all the time. I don’t want to break no contact with her. We haven’t spoken in over nine months. I don’t want to open up the wounds for her. If anyone has read this far thank you. I’m typing on my phone so if everything seems rushed and a little sporadic, sorry. I would just like some advice on how maybe I could move forward stay sober and heal from all of this.

“the initial grip of fear, that turns into the unexpected earning for your capture.”
the poetry in here is about survival and surrender. it delves into the complexities of a karmic love. being trapped in a situation, while still being aware of its toxicity. my poems are meant to convey the tumultuous journey of being in love with a narcissist. (your “capture”) the lessons you learn, as painful as they can be, invite you to take a step into the shadow side of love. if you feel at home here, I’m truly sorry. there is a way out. I hope you break free. -with so much love, gillian.
and when you retreat,
i’ll wear this shirt for days.
intoxicating & sweet,
with your cologne interlaced.
breathing in your deceit,
it kind of feels like mace.
denial mixed with defeat.

• i’ve always had bad taste.

i knew you weren’t game.
still i chose to play.
it isn't fair to blame.
believe me, i carry my own shame.
poured myself into your glass,
played the waiting game.
leaking through your cracks,
our imperfections the same.
-i recognize a glass half full, even when it’s shattered.
every summer, we reheat.
you left your roots behind
seasons change, but cycles repeat.
if you see the same tree in the forest twice,
it’s time to face defeat.
must come to terms,
the truth can be bleak.
-you’re lost.
got a god complex,
but you’re not religious.
searching for who’s next.
never fearing Jesus.
sit back & count your checks.
blame your mistakes on demons.
make your excuses.
you’ve got your reasons.
-false prophecy
you remind me of an onion.
make me cry as I peel away at you,
in search for your seed.
but you’re just a facade of skins.
layers of deception,
concealing the truth.
disappointing.
you have no core,
only hollow creed.
-my mother’s disdain for onions.
there’s always been a haze between us.
murky, convoluted, undefined.
more than friends, less than lovers.
simultaneously strangers.
but in this ambiguity, I find solace.
-for grey is my favorite color.
i’ll play bartender,
make you something nice.
your heart in my hand,
gripping your ice.
drain me dry,
leave me hollow & still.
next week you’ll return,
thirsty for your refill.
-whiskey sour
bittersweet.
should have read the label.
“poison”
sitting so pretty on my table.
calling like an offering,
tempting & fatal.
it won’t go down smooth,
leave me unstable.
i tried to resist, i was unable.
now i see that love exists,
but only in fables.
-why do mistakes taste so good?
your lips left a bruise.
just here to distract.
but i admit i’m confused
when you kiss me like that.
aware i’m being used.
still comfortable where i’m at.
position i choose
complacent doormat.
-welcome home
you prefer car rides.
a space to talk, yet evade my gaze.
unable to sit still, restless in your ways.
never one to settle, always seeking the next best fling.
oh, how I long for the days when adderall made you sing.
-my fuel light is on
I broke my own heart,
more times than a few.
i may have lied,
but never to you.
if i faced the truth,
then what’s left to do?
i’m comfortable here,
wasting my youth.
i hate to admit it,
but i know it’s true.
i’m scared of change,
you run from it too.
i won’t forgive myself,
for always forgiving you.
-can you be home sick from people too?
You’re dead to me.
-Necrophiliac.
come on.
i forgave you,
without an apology.
convinced myself it was closure.
started our anthology.
this will never be over.
it’s in our biology.
let’s have a do over.
can you just come fuck me?
-delusional. & i can’t rhyme either.
i’ll read between your lines,
decipher each clue.
search for the signs,
follow your cue.
you’ve spun me around,
think i’ve lost a few screws.
still i rise, dust off the bruise.
maybe i’m drawn to a challenge,
perhaps it’s not you.
denial is my shield.
my safe space, my refuge.
the truth will not prevail
defeat? i refuse.
my final boss,
I aim to subdue.
-sore loser.
my mom said i felt cold.
I always tell the truth.
the words escaped my mouth.
“i get it from you.”
funny, she hugs me now.
never in my youth.
conceal carry my trauma.
play it cool, keep it smooth.
use my words as a weapon.
daddy taught me how to shoot.
-target practice
it’s lonely as a ghost,
been trapped here for years.
lingering around,
mopping up your tears.
do you sense my presence?
can you feel me near?
if I dare make a sound,
will you even hear?
or am I just a whisper?
it’s never been quite clear.
promised to stay beside you,
my love was sincere.
-invisible
afraid to release
what's just a mist.
I must learn to respect
your lack of interest.
hard pill to swallow,
if i could just take the hint.
i hate letting go
of what doesn't exist.
-maybe i’m the problem
chasing you down as you flee,
why look back, just to see?
i’m gaining distance, is this what you need?
only now I realize, I'm your source of glow.
i feed your flame, you need me to grow.
without my warmth, will your embers persist?
or will they die out, because I was your wick?
I can go the distance, even do it quick.
didn’t think I could pass you but, tag, you're it.
so when your lost in the dark,
just look for my light.
for my flames eternal.
vivacious and bright.
-Ruled by the Sun.
you love her like a one-way mirror.
boosting your ego, making thoughts clearer.
she stands before you, but can you even see her?
soon her time will come, to be valued, to be known.
to be more than a reflection, to be art on her own.
-shattered
i feel as though i’m trapped
in a museum.
exhibits of my past.
meticulously preserved & on display.
forced to observe and to my dismay..
no exits.
-i don’t like it here
i am an esteemed professor.
teaching you how to love.
i am a well-traveled guide.
leading you to your full potential.
i am a warrior.
going to battle for your reputation.
i am an artist.
molding you into your greatest self.
i am a generous humanitarian.
donating my most precious piece to another women.
she sees no flaws.
enamored by your beauty.
a saw the hardened marble slab
i chiseled away for years.
only to reveal the beauty underneath for someone else to cherish.
-wasted potential
when we were pretending to be strangers, I loved you from afar.
when we were playing house,
I welcomed you with all my heart.
you left me here, with nothing but a scar.
sad and empty.
headed to a bar.
light up a cigarette.
fill me with tar.
I hope you think of me when you see a shooting star.
-maybe you loved me in a past life
only one day will i realize
the last thing i should feel is surprise
my personality has been downsized
because i chose to compromise
with a man wearing a disguise
your plan was always devised
but I’ll meet you at our spot
-king sized
you can fill your bed with anyone.
but who can fill your void?
you’ll never solve the puzzle
-sincerely, the missing piece.
ravenous for praise.
the apex predator.
you feed on the weak.
but never leave satisfied.
your greedy but insatiable.
devoured your feast
how can you be famished?
-taste me and see me why you’ve been starving
there’s things i wanna say to you.
but i’ll just let you be.
you have a way of always avoiding
-accountability
you’ve got walls up
but i know where the windows are
-can i come in?
maybe you do
love me
but only in the dark
when no one’s watching
-conditional.
i wish i was tired of you.
forgiveness, i can’t escape.
they say patience is a virtue,
but it’s a habit i can’t break.
-if i had a dollar for all the times i should have blocked you
the spot i had for you was soft.
made for you, a perfect fit.
delusion is wearing off.
disgust is starting to hit.
gave it all to you, at any cost.
-should have known it wasn’t permanent.
and just like that,
2 steps forward. 10 steps back.
why do i feel comfortable in this trap?
-i hope you run away and never come back
I don't wish you well, that would be too easy.
I wish you self-reflection.
-internal accountability.
i am the girl that learned
to do everything by myself.
to not depend on others to save me.
to fill up my time, or entertain me.
he said to go where i am appreciated, so i went to therapy.
-i’ll send you in the invoice.
in order to heal a wound,
you have to stop touching it.
-i have dermatillomania
thank you for reading! far from perfect but i took up writing as a way to express myself and it really helped me heal and process my emotions <3 thanks guys

I have been struggling with emotional recognition a lot lately, which I know is common for autistic individuals. I am confused though when it comes to anxiety. I have a bunch of things in life that "stress me out" like work assignments and laundry and feeling overwhelmed. But beyond just generally dreading having to actually do those things, I don't think I am actively worrying about them in my head. I also don't enjoy talking with people I'm not very close with so I get physical anxiety symptoms when talking to people (even my therapist) despite mentally not feeling anxious.
For example, my heart rate is around 110-120 when talking on the phone or when I'm at therapy or the doctors office. It's my "normal" when interacting with anyone. But my normal heart rate at home on the couch is like 75. Is this just social anxiety or is it just an issue with my nervous system not regulating well?
Is there a difference between what people refer to as anxiety (like for GAD or social anxiety) and just nervous system overstimulation? I'm just confused in general about what anxiety really is beyond the physical symptoms.
One reason I'm trying to figure this out is that I just started a stimulant for ADHD (Adderall) and it made my heart rate increase to an uncomfortable level. I can't figure out if it's causing increased anxiety or if it's just causing a physical side effect. I feel like I am not enjoying the stimulant either way, and feel like I would do better on something that helps my sympathetic nervous system relax more than something that activates it even more than it already is by default. But I am having the hardest time pinning down what the issue is. It has me questioning if I even have ADHD or if it's just my nervous system being shot from autistic burnout. Or do I actually have GAD? Ugh.

The rift between them has caused a lot of tension in my family and now my mom wants to be in the life of her newborn grandson but refuses to address or try to mend things with my wife.
Little history: I probably introduced them too quickly. My grandmother was in town in south Florida about to move here from Illinois for a retirement community. My wife, girlfriend at the time, came with cookies or some form of baked goods like she usually does when visiting someone as a sign of affection and respect. Where it went wrong from here I have no idea. I suppose the initial crack was when wife scheduled a skitrip for her and I to have as a 1 year of dating anniversary present. We are not rich, this is a huge gift that made sense to her since I refused to let her pay rent. Our combines salaries are barely over 120k. So wife calls mom 6 months in advance because she is a planner for the sole purpose of asking my mom to watch one of our four dogs. Wife has already paid in full for the trip. Yet Mom decides it is a great idea to instead use the opportunity to hop on and take a family trip because it is the last time the family will have for a family vacation - I am the oldest of two boys and two stepsisters, my mom married the guy she left my father for who has twin girls of his own that were in the womb during the infidelity. Anyway mom completely takes over and decides to make our one year gift a family vacation, so she books tickets for a hotel nearby. Wife is bold but at the time not bold enough to stop my mom in her tracks for overstepping a boundary. At this time she still respected my mother and kind of let herself get steamrolled.
Probably skippable Family history: Now I have always had issues with my mother, resentment for leaving my father for my stepdad behind my own fathers back and constantly trying to keep brother and I from seeing “Disneyland dad who doesn’t do any of the work but gets all the fun.” my mother was very strict growing up, always bringing us to church and making my father feel guilty for not bringing brother and I on his weekend. So mom marries stepdad age 11, divorces him around 13 after asking me advice for her relationship and i encourage her to move out. Then remarries him and moves us back into his house age 15. Here I begin rebellion and normal teeenager stuff but stepdad won’t butt in because he isn’t my “biological father” so would have my mom intervene brother and i from behind the scenes. For example, I am young and messing around on the piano because music is important and I never had any formal training and mom comes in to tell me stepdad “wants to know when the concert is going to end because it is a little annoying.” Anyway, they have me prescribed adderall at 16 and in the parking lot holding my first prescription I am told that they would like me to move out and in with my father, who had chased us every time mom and stepdad moved several miles away (5 moves from age 5-15 all in one county). Anyway, brother and I are recovering alcoholics with (my) slipups triggered from interactions or visiting my mom, which mom claims is genetics from my father alone and has nothing to do with her. Maternal grandfather, mother, and I have some nasty temper problems which certainly are exacerbated by drinking (at least mine and moms).
Skitrip revelations: Wife and I are on the way to brothers graduation in Chicago, and wife has yet to reveal to me that my mother has taken over her massive investment of a couples ski vacation and it will now be a family vacation for mom, stepdad, brother, two stepsisters who are all getting out of gradschool. On the way to the airport I am told the news by future wife of my one year surprise. So I get upset and call my mom to call it off. She obliges my request and now holds resentment against me and now wife for “ruining her last family vacation.” Fine, whatever. Mother never says a word about it for months until we are out for a distant family members birthday dinner and at a table of about 8-10 people that are having a group conversation and gets real close to my wife’s ear and tells her privately along the lines of “you deprived our family of our last family vacation.” During this time my wife is frantically tapping my leg under the table because my mom can get a little aggressive. My mom saw this and later (privately to me) mocked her for doing it to my leg under the table.
Christmas blessings: Closer to Christmas maybe 2/3 weeks later we went to go see my mom and my mom had a couple drinks in her (not an alcoholic like brother and I just very sensitive to a couple glasses of wine and occasionally some hidden sips of wine or something) and invites my wife to Christmas church and out to dinner after because the family needs photos for a Christmas card and future wife “will be the photographer for it.” Now this can easily be a nothing comment but given the way my mom had been making future wife feel, it was taken as an insult. So wife declined church and showed up to family dinner just in time for photography session to be over.
The distance: Then mom moves to a fancy house up the coast and invites us up to visit. At first it is ok to bring the 4 dogs then the day before she says they will not have dogs at the house and we can easily find a sitter. 2 Dogs don’t get along, they need to be separated always as there has been two attacks on one from the other, so we can’t trust someone to come to the house and keep them separate and we won’t board 4 dogs it’s too expensive for us. Anyway we go back and forth being invited with the dogs then they retract the offer and say pick one dog to bring and leave the others and it’s just annoying, so we say forget it and don’t go. But my brother becomes engaged and decides to throw his engagement party at my mom’s new place near the beach. Great. First all the dogs are welcome, then day before they say it is too chaotic and she will pay for a small hotel room for one night for future wife and her dogs and my one (the attack dog) can stay in a crate at the house with me but I may not leave the dog to stay with her. And no reasonable cheap hotel in the area is going to accommodate 4 dogs. Anyway wife is stressed but feels obligated to come because I am the best man and I stay at the house while she checks her dogs into the hotel. Wife had made a cheesecake and brought it up in a separate car from me, 4 hour drive by the way, and night of.. my mom says no desserts for engagement party dinner, the dessert is themed or some crazy stuff. Wife shows up to dinner a little later and very flustered because of the situation plus I had relapsed on a bottle of whiskey a couple days prior to seeing my mom. Related, I don’t know. Anyway. Mom has had a couple drinks and future wife and I are talking about having children and religion comes up. Mom asks what we were thinking of doing about baptism or not and I jokingly said (guiltily to get on my moms nerves a bit) that he would have a bris and would love it if she would come to the bar mitzvah. now my wife’s mom was forced to convert from Catholicism to Judaism for her own mother in laws acceptance for a failed marriage so wife is not religious, but it hurt my wife and reasonably so when my mom replied “oh, son, I raised you better than that.” Still no acknowlegement of fault from that comment and mom thinks wife is “overly sensitive, dramatic, and childish” for wanting an apology for it.
Weddings: Future wife becomes current wife. We had gotten engaged on our next anniversary trip she planned for us. I proposed on our bike and barge through tulip season in holland with our feet in the water of the North Sea after a picnic in the dunes. her family business manufactures photo albums for professional photographers, so aside from our families all being divorced, estranged, difficult, and us trying to save money, we did not have a wedding, we just did the paperwork within a month of the proposal. I had already decided to have a baby with her before the trip so we were trying. 2 weeks before brothers wedding in Tennessee we become pregnant, so we break news immediately as to not steal limelight from brothers expensive wedding. Mom says she will cover cost of rental car so we can save money. Ok great. She books the tiny car and we pack it and head up the Smokey mountains to the cabins we are staying at. Two cabins for grooms family, one for his mother and one for his father, ten paces from each other: they havnt spoken but twice im since divorce in 1995 but through lawyers. Grandmother, mother, stepdad, 2 stepsisters and one boyfriend stayed in mom’s side. Wife and I stay at father’s side cabin with just his wife. His Wife’s 3 daughters and family’s stayed a town away down the mountain among extended family. Anyway, beautiful wedding takes place. My wife is sent into town to collect flowers and run errands for my mom which she happily obliged to since she is a solitary person and did not want wedding day drama. Day after, we are loading our rental sedan with our bags. Mom and grandma need a ride to the airport and our flight is before theirs so they will drop off the car for us 4 hours or so after we go to the airport 5 hours from current time. We’re loading the car. Stepcousin passed out in mother’s cabin night before and needed a ride. Disorganized brunch for 20 people is trying to be made. Father’s wife’s daughter books a reservation for 10 people which include her family, her sisters, me, my wife, dad, and their mom. My stepdad had left for home at this point as he had taken his own suv instead of flying with my mom and 90 year old grandma. So mom is trying to pack grandma in the car with bags and my wife and stepcousin. At this point mother asks stepmother if she and grandma are on reservation for the brunch. Stepmom says no they are not, she wasn’t sure of their plans. Mom says under her breath “fucking assholes, so typical,” and she goes into a bit of a rage to which my stepmom says here “it’s ok I will call and add you two it’s no big deal.” So we continue packing the car and realize we won’t all fit. So my wife tells my stepcousin to go ride with my father to the restaurant 10 minutes away we will meet you there. Mom says to wife, “no you go with the father.” Wife says “no I am going to ride with my husband” mom gets close to her face with her finger and says “this is my car, you can fucking Uber!” Wife is 6 weeks pregnant at this point and it all escalated from here. wife and mother start yelling at each other swearing at each other and we get into the car, mom behind wife who was in shotgun. 2 occasions on the trip I had to stop the car because mom had taken off her seatbelt to stand over the seat and scream in my wife’s face with so much vigor that spit came on to her face multiple times. I’m trying to tell them both to behave and mom sit down shut the f up. Mom is telling wife to get the f out of the car and find a ride, she has no right to speak because she’s “new here” (dating and living together for 3 years at this point). The following brunch she apologized in a crowd with a hushed voice at a table of 20 people trying to have a group conversation again privately to my wife “I’m sorry you get so upset” and my wife told her “that is not an apology.” The following several hours in the car with grandma and stepcousin and wife were some of the most uncomfortable moments of my life. At a gas station I pulled my mom aside and said I need ther to give a huge apology, that it was so nasty and inappropriate, my brother and I are used to abusive language and aggressive behavior but to my pregnant wife and any other human being it is disgusting and unacceptable. Sitting in the car was quiet for many hours until we got to the airport. No speaking about what happened just mom happy go lucky about Tennessee and Dollywood and wife and I in shock, cousin still half in the bag from a fun wedding, grandma 90 years old probably confused about what happened.
The family groupchat: Im waiting on an apology from my mother to my wife who is extremely hurt and expressed to my mom loads of time she needs to reach out and apologize. We’re not talking until she will do so. It is bugging me and keeping me up at night. My appendix flares up and I am admitted to the hospital with emergency appendectomy. Still pregnant Wife suggests I reach out to mom to let her know what’s going on. So I text mom I’m at the hospital and will have surgery. I send a pic or something that on my end says hasn’t gone through. Mom group texts our family group with stepdad, his daughters, brother and his wife, and grandma that I am in the hospital and attaches the pic I sent of me in there. Then she continues to rave about the success of her startup company and how they got FDA approved clinical trials finally completed or some pivotal moment that made the text about her. Wife and I are in a hospital so the picture comes up on moms end as unable to have been sent. Mom assumes that my wife has blocked her phone, so mom removes my wife from the chat. Wife is rushing home to take care of the dogs at this point and is not alerted on her phone, but on everyone else’s phone it clearly reads “(mom) has removed (wife) from the chat.” Immediately I text my mom and basically say how dare you do that to her she is the one who insisted I let you know out of respect and mom responds with blah blah she did this she did that I will not have it. So I go back to the family chat and remove mother. At this point I let everyone in the chat know what my mother has done and how she refuses to take responsibility for how she made my wife feel, address her feelings, apologize or do anything at all to reach out about the wedding incident or even inquire about the wellbeing of the pregnancy for her first grandchild. Stepdad finally steps in and tells me “enough.” Grandma says “shame on you.” I am dumbfounded. This is a hush hush family that hates to have anything out in the open and likes to maintain a picture perfect image. For examples; 1) I and wife were on the family Christmas card of a photo taken at the wedding that the whole world received except for wife and I. 2)brothers alcoholism was to remain hidden from the family as was his rehab treatment and how it affected his career. Now understand that they like to keep things quiet but that is not how I want to handle my problems, these things trigger alcohol use and violent outbursts on my part that I no longer wish to live through. Now appendectomy’s are pretty simple so I recovered quickly (it don’t rupture we just took it out). But during the time I was scheduled to be under anesthesia, stepdad reaches out to wife to have a chat and clear the air. Wife waits until I come to so i can be there and I hear the conversation. He claims to be here as a middleman like a business meeting to fix things once and for all. Wife and I are like wow great. He then proceeds to double down on my moms behalf that they will not be apologizing or meet any of her demands as she had already apologized as confirmed by 90yo grandma who was in the car and my mother herself. The term he used was stalemate to describe the situation. Wife and I are shocked but she has me keep quiet to show me what he will say. He proceeds to yell at her and they were screaming at each other, again steamrolling the conversation assuring us that he was down the middle yet maintains that mom has made a sufficient apology that needs to be accepted and wife needs to grow up and move on, then wishing her luck with the baby and a nice life. Next day I call stepdad to see how it went. He reassures me that he has done all he can and everything is back to normal. At this point I call him out and tell him I was conscious and explain to him what an apology is. But there is no dialogue with this guy like there is no dialogue with my mother. He proceeds to talk loudly over me like she does and basically call me a piece of shit for the amount he and mother have done for me. I speak to him first time like I never have before by calling him a hands off father and a pussy of a man who finally reaches out while he thinks I am under anesthesia to yell at my wife then pretend it’s cool, and I basically tell him he has never done a single thing for me to try and develop me into a man or nurture me as a child into an adult, but he thinks taking me on fishing trips and ski vacations are equivalent to love and nurturing growth and development just like my mom does. I reassure him that he has no right to talk about family being that he ruined his own as well as mine and couldn’t even tell my dad to his face that it was him who was sleeping with my mom behind his back when my dad came to him very upset as a friend when he got an anonymous phone tip at work one day. Then him and my mom laughed about it in court when my dad brought it up during the divorce. We ended with swearing and I felt very happy for finally giving my true feelings to him.
The birth: Months go by and nobody has said a thing. I can’t sleep at night seeing how much love I am getting from my father and his side for the baby, and my wife’s family, then thinking about how my own mother hasn’t reached out a single time. I’m dreaming about beating up my stepdad and it’s driving me mad. So weeks before the due date I reach out to my mom begging her to clear things up and apologize to my wife. Nothing. A week later i tell her how disappointed and abandoned I feel and want her in the family. Nothing. Baby comes a couple days early. Everyone is excited. Mom texts me begging for photos and to let everyone know. I tell her my brother and two stepsisters have received photos. I ask her to please reach out to wife she still needs to make amends for what’s happened between them and all she needs to do is reach out. Mom’s responses have been defensive, derisive, projecting, playing victim and referring to herself as a kicked puppy. Telling me my wife needs to apologize to her and making the conversation about mother son instead. She is beating around the bush. And she is sending me photos of my own baby that I did not send her. Her friends are congratulating me that I did not tell. Again she is pretending that everything is ok and it is not. She asked me to apologize to her husband for what I said on the phone that day. I said ok, watch this. So I sent the guy a message that was very apologetic and not passive aggressive or backhanded comments in any way. Still my mom won’t say anything.
Now: Baby is 6 days old. He is the best thing in my life and I wish my family were involved but it seems like I am living in a fantasy world where everyone can be happy together. I can be a jerk and have a terrible relationship with my mom, but I want more than anything to just feel loved enough where she can swallow her pride and make amends with my wife. Thats it. And she asked the other day to put a family group chat so everyone can be involved… for real? I know she is stressed with a high pressure job, but it seems heartless to me. She asks what big items she can get for the baby. Mom, baby is here we have everything for a couple months already. I said the biggest thing you can do is reach out and have a heart to heart with my wife so this rift can end and we can at least be cordial if you two can’t get along. I don’t think it will happen.
Update: I think I only get one update and I’m not very good with this stuff but I need mediators. Received text from mom to wife and I that is a random article about the name of our son and how she thinks it is a good name.
Wife: MIL your behavior is beyond pathetic. Here you have a son who is begging you my entire pregnancy to have a relationship with us. You can’t seem to be bothered to even give me a half assed text of “I’m sorry for what happened in TN”. Now you send pictures that aren’t even sent to you to begin with and this article? You have a grandson and you couldn’t even bother to reach out for the past what? 9 months? And now you’re sending us random articles? Why on earth would you think this is acceptable? It’s upsetting that you can’t seem to get your fucking shit together You literally have a son begging you to reach out. Now that we have a son I think of if my ego would ever get in the way of having a relationship with him and his partner. And I just think it’s so god damn pathetic that you couldn’t give two shits about him or anyone else like your own grandson. Stop sending us pictures that are not meant for you. Stop sending us articles. You want a relationship with SON? You want a relationship with me? With your grandson? You want to meet him one day? Then give the half assed text message and get over yourself. You were nasty in TN and you cannot seem to grasp that this is what is needed to move forward.
mom: I thought the article was nice. Sorry DIL, I was in Phoenix after 12 hour days it was a whirlwind and saw this article upon return and thought it sweet. Also… Sorry I sent a picture SON didn’t share that I thought was adorable. What in the heck is the matter with doing that? Serious? I promise it will never happen again. I am sorry for the horrible altercation in Tennessee. I hate that it has caused so much horrible lack of a relationship. I am staying away because you and he constantly make ME the villain. You both had your own HUGE part yelling! I didn’t even start it! It is not fun or fair and neither have accepted any accountability for yelling or screaming at me at all. I did however.it just wasnt good enough. It’s not my responsibility for the continued anger you both hold because you wouldnt accept my apology. No one acknowledged their own bad , unacceptable behavior. I meant it -to help make amends- esp the :2nd time since you turned abruptly away from me the first apology and I told you “ I meant it” at the airport (the third.). There were such horrible made up and unwarranted allegations made up against me that any sane person’s jaw would just drop . It makes me scared to see what will be thought up the next time the ire and victimhood sets in over there. I’m exhausted either way with it all. It’s time to move on and forgive. I know you probably don’t really care and could never allow yourself to see it this way , but I feel I was yelled at just as hard and just as loud and also first!!! This “abuse” went two ways …but I was made the horrible one. I’m the only one that even tried to make up. No one else bears any accountability and needs to. I am tired of being lam blasted. For example….A simple article and I get yelled at again. Terrible… I should not have sent this and SON has said the most horrible things about me…. You blocked me as a contact remember? So why would I call? To get more abuse!? More fabrications? More demands. I don’t accept all the allegations…. I am sorry…. It’s your prerogative to think how you’d like however. I could say crazy shit like that , but I do not and never will. I can move beyond this but it is crazy to keep demanding I apologize more to your liking when no one has ever apologized to me for yelling and acting just as angry. It’s not my fault my attempt of apologizing was not accepted. I will not be manipulated. If you want to blame me ( a pattern) i can’t take it anymore. It is exhausting. That is not even an attempt at two way communication and problem solving . Just dictating. I’m to old for all this craziness and blaming all the time. SON.. if you want to ride this train and hate me… shame on you. Your behavior likewise is pathetic either way the horrible things you said YOU need accountability also. I am really sorry I bugged you with that article. I will never do anything right it seems.
:::AT THIS POINT I ATTACH THIS POST TO TEXT CHAIN::: I don’t think she read it but responses are as follows
Wife: Playing the victim is not going to get you anywhere. You are not a victim and what you are experiencing is not abuse. It’s people standing up to you for once and you don’t like it. In TN you demanded I get into SONS fathers car and when I refused you said to me “I paid for that car, you can fucking Uber”. MIL you started this whole thing. You’ve been a rude person for a long time now. People who commented on that post are pretty spot on…and why is it that I hear you still bring up Jackson Hole? You understand you tried to steamroll your way? I paid what like $7k for that trip and all of the sudden you wanted to make it a family trip??? Wtf was that? Stop bringing up this stupidity it’s absurd you’d even want to come on our 1 year anniversary trip. “Oh you ruined our last family vacation” IT WAS AN ANNIVERSARY GIFT. Shame on SON? No MIL shame on you for thinking all of this was ok and then proceed to act like you are a victim experiencing any sort of abuse. Shame on you for going 9 months without any sort of contact to SON or me. Shame on you for acting like this person who doesn’t give a shit. What you did irrevocably affected our relationship that I reached out to you and you didn’t give a shit. That SON reached out to you and you didn’t give a shit. That finally GRANDSON is born and all of the sudden you give a shit? Sure MIL keep playing the victim. I appreciate the apology. It’s a bit late. We will need to have boundaries in place because you hurt our family enough.
Mom: I’ve read 2 books and did counseling on this manipulative , unempathetic, victimhood behavior and was advised to keep my distance or just don’t talk when in company. I will always be berated. I will always be a villain. I will always be told later I did something wrong. Notice how over time my aggregrmces have escalated? I am scared what’s next, honestly. You don’t want the articles I have. I have tried. Please stop insulting my intelligence. Accept the apology, you both also yelled loudly!!!! look at yourself in the mirror also if that’s possible. and let’s be adults or just keep me out of your life like you wish. I would love more than anything to see all of you. I will not beg when I am really not wanted. I also refuse to subject myself to this constant berating everytime time we talk. This is exactly why I have not reached out. Try some softness and forgiveness for a change. Who wants to be around people who hate so much? Things in life shouldn’t be this hard. This is not my choice . It is yours by this behavior. I want love …. I have had enough being blamed . I’m done with it. You win DIL. You play victim not me! lol serious? I will not do this anymore tonight. I will not finish the paragraph. Always too mean and upsetting. Goodnight. What? lol. I did not demand you get in SONS FATHERS car. Are you crazy? With your grossly heightened sensitivity I would NEVER even think of saying that. I kindly asked if “maybe you two could split up” You get so pussed you find shit to come up with. Good night.
Wife: Keep telling yourself that MIL. You are a bully and I will not tolerate anyone bullying my family. Wow. I can’t believe you are so insane and your reality is so skewed. You said this multiple times to me. In front of SON. You literally cannot lie your way out of this.
Mom: You are full of crap. Good night DIL

20 F, on many medications: Escitalopram, Adderall, Norethindrone, Omeprazole, Cetirizine, a ferric multivitamin, and viatmin D2
I've been having a symptom recently that I can only describe as reminiscent of having a catheter in. It's rather constant, I can't quite tell if it's always there and I've learned to ignore it sometimes or if it comes and goes. It's specific to the urethra as far as I can tell, no weird feelings elsewhere, just exactly like the "pressure" and slight sharpness of a catheter. I don't feel like I have a full bladder, I don't have any cramping, urine is typical and urinating is done without effort.
It's uncomfortable, obviously. Upsetting bc I have issues with the idea of accidents, even though it doesn't actually feel like a full bladder or anything it's close enough to trigger that. Also non-transitioned FTM so anything that reminds me of what's going on down there is no fun.
Things like fatigue and malaise aren't good markers for me, as they're a constant in my life.
Obvious concern would be UTI, but I'm stumped on the lack of symptoms. Nothing "actually" lines up with any descriptions of UTI symptoms I know of, but could that be just bc people don't have other words for this sensation? Are there other things I should be considering with this symptom in mind?

I (29F NT) am extremely neurotypical and emotionally/mentally/financially stable. I’ve been struggling with my fiancé (31M dx rx) for a long time, and could really use some tailored words of wisdom. Lurking this subreddit/community has been so incredibly validating and helpful as I navigate this overwhelming journey… 2 years into our relationship and I feel like I’m at my breaking point. I doubt whether he’s capable of changing fast enough, I’m not sure I want this for my life anymore. Things will only get harder as we age and kids are thrown in the mix…
The past year has been soul-crushing, I’m a shell of the person I used to be. I’ve self-isolated from friends, had depressive episodes (never had that before), gained an excessive amount of weight, am frequently paranoid and anxious (never had anxiety before). I just never have long-lasting peace, it has destroyed my mental health. Before all this, I was eager to get engaged/married while he was nervous and wanted to take it slow. Now things have flip-flopped: he proposed far earlier than I thought he would, and I’m hitting the breaks uncertain of our future when I’m supposed to be planning a wedding (I refuse to until I see long-term/consistent improvement from him).
I can say that thankfully, my fiancé is not on the extreme end of ADHD. He doesn’t struggle holding a job, he isn’t a slob, he doesn’t shut down sexually, etc. He was diagnosed with ADD (so inattentive ADHD) when he was 18, and has been taking Adderall since. He does not take as much as he is prescribed, which I’ve questioned and he brushed off. We have gotten into heated, and ridiculous, arguments since early-on in our relationship.
Fall last year I unintentionally stumbled upon the emotional dysregulation aspect of ADHD. I was watching reels on Facebook, and in one a woman started by saying “If your partner has ADHD, watch this.” I continued watching, and 5-10 seconds later she mentioned in passing how they have problems with emotional regulation. I was immediately floored and replayed the video to make sure I heard it correctly. I Googled it and, low and behold: there was article after article about this. I read bullet point after bullet point of the manifestations of ADHD, and I couldn’t believe how it described exactly what I had been dealing with for nearly a year and a half.
My entire life I thought ADHD just meant someone had more difficulty focusing or they were hyperactive. This is what most of [uninformed] society thinks, and also what my fiancé himself thought. Over a 12+ year period since being diagnosed, not a single doctor or psychiatrist ever once mentioned the emotional dysregulation aspect of ADHD to my fiancé. He had no idea! Previously, I had chalked up our problems to political differences and that for his entire 20s he was always around (and dated) people very different from me. So I thought he just had trouble adjusting away from judgmental worldviews he had adopted while being surrounded by like-minded people for so long.
The discovery of emotional dysregulation and RSD was ground-breaking for us. He had been starting to think I was the problem since he “didn’t have these problems in my previous relationships.” Well that’s because he always dated less-mentally-stable people (his most recent girlfriend was diagnosed bipolar), so by comparison he was always the more stable one in the relationship and the magnifying glass was pointed away from him. Making the link between our problems and his ADHD made it tangible in a way that he could understand, which provided a foundation for his growth and improvements to begin (alongside therapy). But it’s very difficult for a 30+ year old man with a brain disorder to unlearn bad habits he was fully unaware of & learn how to retrain his brain to process information in a healthy way…
My fiancé has externalized RSD - he becomes highly reactive and verbally aggressive. He is hypersensitive, his brain distorts reality and interprets innocuous questions/statements like “did you put water in the soap dispenser” or “that’s a lot of cereal” as personal attacks. He also has a very big problem not respecting certain differences in opinion we have, or not respecting my choice to not eat/do certain things - he will push and push and push and push, will not stop pushing even after I calmly & nicely asked him to stop dozens of times after dozens of arguments, will not stop even after I’m sobbing begging him to please stop with tears streaming down my face. What are these explosive arguments about? The most mundane, inconsequential things. I wish this was made-up: HOV lanes, me not wanting to eat salad, me not wanting to eat warm guac, me not wanting to eat mustard, me not wanting to try Adderall or coke, me having a different view/opinion on how we should heat up a frozen pizza, me not wanting to eat mushrooms because they make me sick, etc etc.
Every single time we have an explosive argument, he pushes and pushes and pushes. When I reiterate, for the 100th time, that I have autonomy over my own body and don’t need to do anything I don’t want to do, he tries to manipulate me by flipping the script and parroting words/phrases I’ve used in previous discussions (like saying I’m being “disrespectful” and “dismissive” of his feelings/opinions because I won’t do what he wants me to do). Only once he calms down does he realize how badly he effed-up, profusely apologizes, and promises to never do it again and that he’s capable of being better… But then he just does it again and again and again and again and again and AGAIN.
He tries to play the victim and come off as reasonable by saying that he’s just “trying to understand” me by asking questions. I told him that is a cop-out because after I’ve explained how I feel, he ignores it since it doesn’t make sense to him & doesn’t line up with what he thinks/believes, and instead he continues pushing/pressuring me.
More recently he also claims that he isn’t trying to pressure me to do anything TO MYSELF, he’s just sharing his own experiences and thoughts with me so I can understand him better. When you repetitively “share your experiences/thoughts” on XYZ after I made it clear dozens of times that I don’t want to do XYZ and to please stop pressuring me to, even if you don’t explicitly state “You should try XYZ,” you are still INDIRECTLY pushing/pressuring me.
I. am. SO TIRED. Resentment has been growing, I’m paranoid and anxious, I don’t trust him (because he has repeatedly lied to me), his substance use (alcohol and weed) has become less and less attractive. He claimed a long time ago that I’m obsessed with being right, but he’s just projecting - he’s the one obsessed with “being right.” While he loves how I do all the paperwork-related “adult” part of life, he gets really annoyed that I’m almost always ‘right’ about things while he is not - so he takes it out on me.
Things have gotten to the point of reactive abuse, which I warned him about a few months into our relationship (at the time I didn’t know the term, just the concept). I’m having such a hard time making my mind up on where to go from here. When things are good, they are so good. He is a genuine person and a good man, we have SO much love for each other. We share many laughs and have built a life together. But… his brain is plagued with a disorder (that he was not fully informed on & did not begin attempting to manage until 6 months ago) that breaks me down.
While he has improved since the ADHD link was discovered and he started therapy, he continues slipping up and defaulting back to his regular BS. I don’t think I can take it anymore. I don’t want to waste more years of my life, or end up trapped in a marriage because of kids… I’m afraid that’s what it will come to, and I’ll be forever mad at myself for sticking around despite the red flags and what I knew about his condition.
BUT… What if it’s possible for him to improve and stop hurting me? Maybe he needs different medication? Maybe there are other communication approaches we can try? Maybe there’s a better kind of ADHD-specific therapy out there (I don’t think his/our current therapist is helping much)?
I know that he has a long way to go, and that I need to focus on healing. What are methods that have worked for you? Is there a better way I can go about looking for a therapist that specializes in adult ADHD & who truly understands it and can help? My fiancé acknowledges and understands that he has a problem, I can see that he is genuinely trying to improve - he wants to be a better person for himself and also be the partner I deserve. He is struggling to make it happen, he wants it SO badly - he doesn’t want to lose me or the life we have together. I just don’t know how much more of this I can take… Please, any advice & support would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much for taking the time to read.