How much do parents save if there are school uniforms | | Mommit - Come for the support, stay for the details.

I'm just asking out of curiosity, and I'm positive I'm probably exaggerating and it's nothing out of the ordinary or medically significant, but, I was just watching a video and came a cross the subject of prosopometamorphosia, or "demon face syndrome", which sparked my interest immediately because of how bizarre that sounded and looked about it online and ended up reading some wikipedia articles whose subjects were other hallucinatory disorders, and kind of felt some similarities regarding several episodes in my life.
Night frights: This is not important now, but I just thought to share this episode in case someone sees a correlation to the following accounts. I remember when I was a child I would hallucinate stalking eyes in the wall bordering the window of my bedroom in the middle of the night, I don't remember whether I would find the experience terror inducing, but it must have been at least distressful as they wouldn't let me sleep, but that just happened sporadically, and stopped occurring growing up. I don't recall ever telling my parents, and on later analysis I just thought about it as just a case of an active imagination, being that I was a child and all.
Flashes of light: This started in my teens, and it still endures to this day, althought I never felt it called for alert, also it doesn't seem to have a uniform context in which it appears, as it happened in different situations. The first and most significant was during an afternoon when I was alone in my house, -now, it's important to mention I've dealt with chronic tooth aches during my whole life-, I wasn't having such pains at the time, but I suddenly felt tired which was weird as I had been sleeping regularly, but felt like taking a nap. During the middle of this nap, I woke up, and saw what appeared to be a very strong flash of light (like that of a flashlight) coming through the courtains; it was so strong it kind of hurt my eyes, and I shoved my face in the pillow. I looked again and the light wasn't there anymore but I was still upset about it, but tired at the same time, so I kept sleeping, and woke the next day with a terrible toothache, and I felt my vision kind of blurry, and to this day, my vision is not perfect (never checked with an ophtalmologist though, but I know I probably need glasses), but I'm not sure whether that day was the starting point of that, I just noticed it after that episode. Never had any other such weird episodes but whenever I go to sleep there's a chance I will see these strong lights through my eyelids, and sometimes they manifest in my imagination (while in bed with my eyelids closed), and in the latter case, I can make the manifestation last longer if I concentrate hard enough. Imagination or not, they hurt my eyes and makes it hard for me to fall asleep.
Face distortion: This may be the least important of these issues, but it's the most stressful for me, personally. I don't have hallucinations regarding people's faces, and I don't have trouble recognizing them or anything like that, but whenever I take a selfie I perceive the right side of my face to look completely asymmetric in relation to the left one. Now, I know faces are naturally asymmetric, but I feel in my case it is enough to be notorious and make me feel insecure about my aspect. I feel tempted to show a picture but I'd rather not doxx me or have people see my face as I mentioned it is a source of insecurity to me, but I've asked friends and they say they don't notice what I mention, but they're friends after all, so they may aswell be lying in order to not make me feel bad. This does not happen when I look at myself in the mirror.
What do you think? Sorry if there's something hard to understand, English is not my first language.

I frequently get 2 environments to tier 3 solo, and tier 3 rewards solo - ProjP is my fave event so I have a good idea how to run it. If you have more to add please do so. This is what works for me. I'm typically a high-AP, low tank build so YMMV, and if you have PA/Tank tips, they could be different - feel free to add them. Please give context.

The robots are your friends, in the sense that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". They will fight the animals. If you're running about collecting resources, you can dodge attacks and allow the animals and robots to fight. You'll save a massive amount of time. IE - don't kill the robots.
The turrets are your friends, repair them and keep them repaired. Not only are they free DPS, they will distract animals from chasing you.
There is an assaultron that will spawn from the offices overlooking the environments if you need a bit of backup at any stage - bait it into the main area and it'll go rip on the animals (and you - you still may need to dodge it).
Drop a couple of items in the receptor quickly so others can tell which environment you're running.
Don't hoard resources. I just watched one environment end up at 59 items because two people were collecting and neither apparently knew how much they had. Time was wasted that could have been spent in another environment.
Rad kelp doesn't fight back - C is the easiest to run. A is easy, as stags are plentiful, as long as you can avoid being kicked in the head. B is a PITA as not all rats drop toxins and they are just annoying as always.
Grafton monster is easy for anyone to kill, it's not very tanky so you won't need much help with that.
Fog crawler is easy to kill from the walkway where the turret is, as it has no ranged attack, and will keep coming over to attack the turret if you repair it - so you can sit up there with impunity and bait it over easily.
Same approach works with the sheepsquatch though it's tankier, has two ranged attacks, and is the toughest enemy.

You often get several miscellaneous legendaries, so don't forget to clean up afterwards, and you'll be eating well for a long time. Cook (for XP) and sell (for the caps) the meat you don't want.
Did I miss anything?

I want to keep this short and sweet, with as many facts as possible since I tend to ramble, and give unnecessary details for the sake of transparency. If there are any questions I will of course answer them, or give clarification where needed.
Here’s what’s relevant:

I worked at Ulta from August 2022 - April 2024
I started as a PBA while I went through Cos school and transitioned into the Salon on my 1 year Ultaversary
Never had I ever met our LP team, let alone director. Nor had I ever gotten a write up, a suspension, etc. (I did have a verbal coaching for attendance)

-My salon training consisted of 4 hours of watching videos that explained the stylist leveling system, how commission worked, how Ulta Academy worked, and how red lines/dots worked in the salon in terms of monthly take overs.
-My Salon Manager (EM I think the title is) worked the complete opposite of my schedule, so everything I needed came down to texting her, often outside of my working hours (as per her response time).

I was not aware that you couldn’t give discounts to people you weren’t directly married to, the domestic partner of, or the parent of (I’m engaged, not married and I wasn’t corrected on this until mid-January 2024 where I promptly addressed some concerns with management and made changes)
I always made sure that a manager checked out a ticket for anyone I was close personal friends or family with to avoid this exact incident happening.
I only used the 10% off discount (I’m not arguing that this is theft of services, or that I did it). This discount appears 6 times all under my fiance’s name. 3/6 were first time visits. His mom and his sister booked under his name initially because they don’t have loyalty accounts and they thought using their names in the salon was signing up for one. I made management aware of this, and they said it should be fine. The other 3 discounts were “illegal” for lack of a better term.

On April 1st I was terminated, 2 hours into a 5 hour shift. I was allowed to finish two makeup clients (I was the only established Mua at the time). I even stopped to speak with managers about green dots when I clocked in, and then went on my way uninterrupted.
I guess I’m frustrated because all of this came to light after an internal investigation was started for theft of product off the floor discovered by another associate, and made its way into the salon. Since then I have gotten a hold of HR once due to never receiving my exit interview, and I have been contacted by a former coworker who has been told I’m blaming her for my being fired.
What should I do from here? Does any of this sound shady, or am I naively grasping at straws? (I guess this isn’t so short, but I tried to keep emotion out of it)

Hi, I’m a rising sophomore (just finished freshman year) majoring in CS and mathematics. I’m rethinking majoring in CS because I can’t see myself building projects and such during my free time. I like leetcoding, but I can’t seem to get started on a project to save my life.
I’m doing extremely well in my courses right now, and I’m pretty much finished with all of my general education courses and all required maths for CS, so I have the opportunity to switch majors and still graduate on time (maybe early, still). All I have left for my CS degree are the CS courses past DSA and for my math degree, all I need left are six courses.
If I can’t get myself to program in my free time, is it probably the best idea to switch majors? I’ve always wanted to go into the medical field, but CS has always seemed like the best option because of the high salary ceiling and the minimal years of schooling, but with how the economy looks right now, things are looking bleak.

Obviously, MAJOR spoilers ahead.
Hi all! My group just finished playing through Spelljammer Academy and then straight into Light of Xaryxis, and while it was a great experience overall and my players had a lot of fun, I have some bones to pick with LoX specifically. Disclaimers: I'm not a super experienced DM (I've run a couple one shots and Tomb of Annihilation before this) and I tend to kind of fly by the seat of my pants and lean heavily on the Rule of Cool. Also, I know I'm not the first one to complain about LoX or rewrite portions of it, this is just what worked for me, maybe it will help someone else. Feel free to ask any questions.
So, my group and I decided on a spelljammer campaign- the vibes sounded cool and it was a big tone shift from the campaign we had just finished so I was excited to have some lighthearted fun in space. Fast forward to us getting a third of the way through Light of Xaryxis and me realizing that this adventure makes no fucking sense.
My issues with the story as written and how I fixed them:

Too many NPCs. My players couldn't keep them all straight and honestly a lot of them are not necessary to the plot. If they weren't necessary for the story, I just omitted them completely. It's easy enough to just use a couple main NPCs for most roles.
Most of the chapters end in cliffhangers, which sounds fun in theory, but in practice is just annoying, especially when it turns out to be a fake-out. I let go of the idea of these cliffhangers early on and just let the sessions end whenever felt natural.
I think this adventure leans a bit too heavily on whatever the writers think will be fun to put the players through, while not considering what players are most likely to actually do. One example of this is in Chapter 3, when players arrive at Aruun. The adventure wants your players to land on the planet and pick up Blastimoff, who is being chased by Artuuks a la Jack Sparrow and the cannibals. However, considering Aruun is a dangerous jungle planet home to rampaging Tarrasques, my players understandably refused to land there. Also, wtf was Blastimoff doing on this moon? "Peaceful entreaty" to the Artuuks? He's been attempting to form a coalition for how long and only just now got around to trying to talk to them?
The whole second half of the adventure doesn't make any sense. The Xedalli vs Xeleth plot is boring. Why does it matter who gets the crown if the player's world is going to die either way? Why are the only outcomes of this adventure "save your planet and genocide an entire civilization" or "let the Xaryxians live and genocide your own planet"? Like, that sucks. And what the HELL is up with that Zodar battle? I got so annoyed, I just rewrote the entire plot to be as follows:

the Xaryxians plant astral seeds on Toril to harvest the planet’s energy in order to feed their own dying star. Up until now, they have only harvested uninhabited planets, but because Xeleth and Xedalli want more power for themselves, they have decided to target a living world.
The prince and princess want more than just a thriving star for their people, they want power for themselves. They create two starlight rings that divert a portion of the harvested energy into themselves, effectively making themselves immortal.
The twins were meant to rule together and share the power, but Xeleth betrays Xedalli. He frames her for treason and she is banished from xaryxispace, so that he may be crowned instead. Xeleth believes that he destroyed Xedalli’s ring, but it was only a clever copy. Xedalli still has her own starlight ring, which Xeleth will eventually realize.
When the characters find Xedalli aboard the Last Breath, she will play the victim and will use the party to get back to Xaryxis and hopefully kill her brother. She claims:

The Xaryxian empire drew on their own star to supplement their magic, and it eventually started to dim. They harvest other planet’s energy to keep Xaryxis alive. (true)
Her evil brother Xeleth orchestrated the attack on Toril even though the elves usually harvest uninhabited planets (true, kind of- they were in on it together)
Xeleth commanded her to be dropped on Toril so that she would be destroyed by the astral blight but the ship was boarded by vampirates and she was captured (true)
She wants vengeance (true) and will do her best to save toril if the characters help her become empress (false)
the only way to stop the energy harvest is by destroying the energy harvesting device at the top of the temple of light on the Citadel, which orbits Xaryxis (false- the device is just a decoy at this point, the set of rings belonging to the twins are the real harvesting devices)

This sets up Xedalli as a wolf-in-sheep's-clothing ally to the party, and they agreed to help her, believing that she could set the Xaryxian Empire back on a peaceful path and save their planet. I also think there's nothing more fun than a good final act NPC betrayal, and this worked out pretty well.
This is how it ended up playing out:
characters arrive in doomspace to search for the coalition.
They find Warwyck Blastimoff, who has not been able to form a coalition. the factions in doomspace don’t see the empire as a threat.
Characters seek out Vocath to convince the factions to join together. He wants them to fight in an arena in exchange for an audience with all the factions.
At the end of the fight, three Xaryxian star moths attack and try to kidnap Xedalli. The factions must all fight together to survive and win the battle. Xedalli is not captured. With that, the factions can be convinced that the empire is a threat. Whatever factions can be convinced, will join the coalition and lend their ships to the fleet. Note- I did not have prince Xeleth present for this fight, only a representative of the Empire.
The players plan an attack on the Citadel. NPCs from earlier in the adventure travel out to join the fight if informed. The fleet takes on Xaryxis’ forces while PC’s ship infiltrates their defences using Gargenhale's invisibility spell and reaches the Temple of Light.
Xedalli and PCs battle Xeleth at the Temple of Light and attempt to destroy the harvesting device (which, unbeknownst to anyone, is pretty much inert and breaking it does nothing), while the coalition fleet battles the Xaryxian forces outside. In the temple, a projection of Toril shows the planet dying in real time, crystal vines choking the surface and motes of energy concentrating in a beam toward Xaryxis. The climactic moment: Xeleth lays dying, a final blow is dealt to the device, and… nothing happens. The vines still grow and energy motes still gather. PCs turn to see Xedalli taking the twin Ring of Shooting Stars from Xeleth’s finger, and she performs a fusion spell that turns two rings into one, concentrating the diverted energy into herself, healing herself to full, surrounding herself with motes of Toril’s energy. And then I wrote a whole evil monologue revealing that this was her plan all along.
Phase 2 boss fight with powered-up Xedalli! My players have a crazy ability to blow through 'deadly' combat encounters with ease, so I gave Xedalli some extra powers, including hp replenishing at the start of every turn from her ring. The party can only kill her and save their planet by destroying her fused ring. Once they do, the crystal vines on Toril wither and die.
This leaves the Xaryxian Empire intact but without leadership, and players can convince the priests or whoever else has some authority to go back to their more peaceful methods and never again try to harvest a living planet.
And that's the adventure! I won't pretend that this rewrite is perfect, I'm sure there are plenty of plot holes, but it was still a lot of fun for me and my players.
A note on the segue from Spelljammer Academy to Light of Xaryxis: as written, the adventures don't connect well. What I did was change the villain of Spelljammer Academy to be Hastain the reigar. While hiding behind his noble title on the Rock of Braal, Hastain had been working with the Xaryxian Empire to sabotage the Academy in preparation of the Empire's attack on Toril. I planted clues that led to Hastain being behind it all, and that way my party had someone to focus on chasing down in the first half of LoX. Of course, this did mean that we veered majorly off course and spent more than a couple sessions on Braal, as my party wanted to not only break into his house, but discredit him, embarrass him, and eventually kill him. It was worth it though, it was very funny and gave them a good way to uncover the Xaryxian Empire's plot.

[NSFW for TW: Suicide]
Mom is a narcissist. Overly critical, conveniently forgetful of her faults, you know. Never physically abusive, but would yell at us in front of guests, then tell us she's not yelling. My brother has been NC with my mom for close to a decade, and I've had periods of NC/VLC when she's been insulting during difficult events I've gone through. Dad didn't realize the extent of how she treated us when we were kids, he started realizing it over the last few years, and had worked really hard to maintain some sort of relationship with us (now adult) kids... and then he killed himself this past January. It's been a shit time.
Since the funeral, both my brother and I have been to their house to help her sort through things a few times, and my brother was warming back up to her. Then he went over there by himself one night to help with some tech stuff, and she ended up trying to physically bar him from the home, and hit and BIT him. So that ended any attempt at reconciliation. Neither of us siblings have spoken to her since.
I am close with my brother, and have tried to be as supportive as possible with him being NC. I grey rock the crap out of Mom, and haven't given her updates on my brother. I even saved his name differently in my phone, as did my dad. Grandma was the weak link there though, and the first time my mom used his number was to inform him of Dad's death.
Mom thinks she is empathetic, but has a history of saying wildly incorrect things during periods of grief. Even the day my dad died, when I was at her house and everything had calmed down a bit, she insulted my choice of clothing. You know, the clothes I threw on to go support my mom at the house where my dad just killed himself.
Idk. I only have one parent left, she's dealing with stuff with the estate and everything, and historically as the eldest child I've been the one to help with that kind of thing. But she BIT my BROTHER. She kinda sucks on a lot of levels. I don't know what to do about any of this.
To further complicate things, my dad's relatives don't talk to her either (yes, there's a theme lol), and my living relatives that I do know are on my mom's side. I don't want to lose that connection, especially to my elderly grandma. She also has one of her very close friends no longer speaking to her for a few years, I'm not sure what happened there.
Ok, typing it out, I guess my mom sucks. But she's still my mom. For a while I was willing to put up with her because at some point the estate will need to be passed on to us kids, but wow she sucks and I'm not sure that's worth putting up with even for million dollar properties.
Grandma keeps calling and seeing if she can convince me to talk to my mom, because they both know I don't wanna disappoint my grandma. I have set every boundary I can, but of course I let Grandma cross them because she's old and I love her, and she's never going to think her daughter is a bad mom.
So what do I do?

Hey everybody, wanted to share our details, help hold us accountable as well as provide info to anyone interested.
Mrs and I both have FT jobs, our primary interest right now is in financial independence. We live in a LCOL area and both WFH at different companies (I'm in tech, she does govt/tech work). 2 kids (high school and middle school). It's a full house, lots of pets etc.
Combined Assets:

House (450k value estimate, probably more as its had a number of upgrades, paid in full)
600k in various age 59 retirement accounts (401k, IRA, etc)
400k in brokerages
230k in vested company equity (RSUs)
20k in HYSA accounts
2 commodity cars, paid for and both good working condition
30k in 529's for the kids but not really counting that either. Will probably double that this year.

Liabilities, none. No house debt, no car debt, no student loans, no CC debt. Ok, that's not entirely true. There is 8k on a store card to pay for a kitchen upgrade, but this 8k is just sitting there at 0% for 24 months. I could pay it on Monday but there's been no rush. I've committed to paying it off at some point this year to keep the missus happy.
Net income is too high for our expenses and living area. Combined we're about 850k/year. Basically, salary plus company RSUs, so that is not all straight salary. It has had some variability to it.
Expenses are about 5k a month. If you do the math, assume about half of our income is going to taxes and 401k/IRAs (which are maxed out), we live on 60k/year and have roughly 350k/year left over. That 350k goes to more investments, savings, 529's or the occasional extra thing like a vacation or some fun money. In the past that money has gone to those things plus paying off the mortgage, house upgrades and the like. But its been like that, we're actually fairly frugal so well over 90% of that goes to more saving. It's not torture, we enjoy it.
In past years we did make less, so this is a bit of a record acceleration year for income. It has not always been like this.
My projections for the next 3 years are fairly linear and are bound to be wrong, because our progression has not been linear so far:

2m in assets by the end of 2024
2.5m in assets by the end of 2025
3.1m in assets by the end of 2026

Past that I couldn't predict. We passed the 1m mark about a year ago so I could be way off with how things could accelerate now. I think you can see that we are big on saving and investing, at this point we really enjoy the progress and talking to each other about it, and trying to do better at it. As I said our goal right now is complete financial independence, I'm not sure what we'll do with that but we don't like to be beholden to anybody or anything.
Long term we'd like to figure out how to get a 2nd home in a different area. We intend to always keep this house, keep it in the family and get a 2nd home somewhere for us. But the timeframe for that is probably 8+ years out so we don't have that figured out yet. We wouldn't be doing it before both kids are grown and out of high school. We also intend to be travelling more often at that point, so we'll have more things to spend our money on.

I have been covering a parental leave at a private school where I am the youngest teacher by far in the department (and one of the youngest teachers overall). My boss seemed hesitant to hire me because of my relative inexperience but my teaching demo went very well and so I'm here.
In general, this department seems to mostly hire older, experienced teachers, which I totally understand, but a week ago, I told my boss that I have an interview at Solomon Schechter in the area (since my current position is temporary), and in response to this my boss basically verbally offered me a job after telling me she had spoken with the admin and they all said I seemed to be doing a good job and they wanted me around. It was going to be for a temporary year-long position next year, but then she even said, "In December, we'd look at renewal but there's always a place for talented people." She also told me she'd come in for an observation on Monday and write up a contract by Monday afternoon. I like my current school (well, liked) and was honestly excited for this.
Fast forward to Monday. I was tempted to let go of my interview at the other school on Monday morning, but chose not to because I needed a formal contract. Interview went very well. Monday afternoon I had to teach at my current school and had that observation. This of course happened to be the day my otherwise lovely students decided not to cooperate with me because they didn't know they were starting a new topic, despite the fact that I had emailed them so the week before. I fully expected my boss to be observing me, but I did not expect the admin to be there too. And they were watching as the students sat there gaslighting me and I was holding firm and saying, nope, today isn't a work block.
Now, I think everyone who's taught for any amount of time knows that students try to gaslight their teachers all the time, but after the class, during my debrief with my boss, she basically blamed me for the students not knowing they were starting a new topic. She also blamed me for students seeming disengaged, which -- of course they were! They were mad at me for not giving them a work block. But she told me they were disengaged because I had spent too much time on historical background; for context, the other (more experienced) teacher teaching this class told me that she had spent half that class period on historical background that she felt was excessive. Because that class was an introduction to a new topic, I thought a dry introduction was fine, and while, admittedly, I could have been more prepared on the historical background itself, the class wasn't awful -- in the second half, once they got into the topic, they were very engaged, as even my boss acknowledged (but she said I needed to cut to the chase faster).
She didn't mention anything about the job, which I found suspicious, because she told me she'd get back to me by Monday afternoon. By Tuesday afternoon, the other school offered me a job, and then I emailed my boss, telling her they'd officially offered me a job but that I would prefer to stay at Gann. She congratulated me and then told me that actually they were not looking to hire me for the position they had listed, which was going to become two separate positions, one for the fall and one for the spring. She told me they wanted someone with more specific experience for the fall (totally understandable) but that I could apply to the spring position -- which is the same job I am currently in -- if I want, but that they're not "ready" to hire me right now for it.
Everything about this was so completely anger inducing. TBH it's a bullet dodged -- I don't care to work for a boss who expects perfection of this sort and blames student disengagement (for half of one class period) on me rather than on the students. I guess she sees me as a liability for some reason (probably age, if I had to guess), or maybe admin decided they hated my observation too.
I think this lack of professionalism flourishes in schools because everyone knows you can't leave the same way you can in corporate. I have less than a month of my contract left; had this been corporate, I would have been out the door already, but because I care about my students, I can't exactly do that.
Anyway, I'm done. I've taught Title I, I've taught private, and it looks like severe management problems are everywhere. Corporate may suck, but, fortunately, I still have one foot in that door and I am going to channel my energy toward it for the time being.

This is long to read if your on mobile (I am) any advice helps, thanks.
I, (17f) am about to be a senior in high school and I’ve kind of realized how behind I feel in life.
For background I have very strict parents, and one of them is emotionally absent (I think she’s a narcissist but we will never know) and I don’t think she likes me very much. That’s besides the point however, but she’s kind of hands off in my life not in the “I don’t care what you do” way, but in the “I don’t want you to do anything but school and home” way but she won’t help me do anything else.
My dad however he’s involved more with me and I really appreciate him, but he’s still strict in the sense that if I go somewhere he has to be the one to take me and bring me back, and I have to let him know weeks in advance. This makes it really inconvenient for me socially because we live in the middle of nowhere. Or not nowhere, but an EXTREMELY car dependent area. Like a shopping center a 10 minute drive away, but a 3 hour walk along a narrow empty road kind of nowhere. Meaning no public transport, and without him I’m physically stuck at home. (Ubers not allowed). My parents also don’t really do family bonding stuff to get new experiences. Every somewhat interesting experience I’ve had in my life thus far has come from my oldest brother and his fiance who I also consider my sister who are both twice my age. Meaning I can’t really relate to them on a personal level, but since my brother knows how my parents are he really makes and effort to be there and help me in basically everything. Like if I didn’t have him, I’d never know what an amusement park like six flags is like, I would never have been to Panera bread, I’d never see a movie, id be typing this on a leapfrog, and I’d literally never do anything. at all. That’s how mundane my parents lives are and since they’re older(60s), and come from a really rough life (they migrated here) they’re kind of content with work, home, eat, sleep, repeat. Maybe once in a blue moon go out to eat, or shop at a department store for furniture or something. My mom in particular has also kind of given up being a parent because of me and my siblings age gap, it’s like I’m a ghost to her. I do a lot of stuff myself not by choice. Like If I was told to pack only my things and go, I’d literally pack my entire room. Everything in it except for the mattress and major furniture was purchased by me, or my brother and sister (his fiance). All my shoes, 80% of my clothes, and all else have been bought by me/siblings since I was 15 i think?
I’ve never had a family trip/vacation even to like somewhere local/close. Everywhere we go has to have some sort of legitimate purpose, and when I bring this up to my parents they bring up those types of trips. “Remember when we went to Florida!” But we stayed for literally a day and a half soley for the purpose of attending my brother’s graduation when I was like 8. “Remember when we went to Canada” again for a day and a half just for some church program thing (super Christian). Again when I was like 12. I’m too young to do anything for fun in their eyes or take public transport, but I’m allowed to have my job. Even then I can’t work more than once a week because they’ll complain about having to take me and pick me up as I’m reliant on them for transportation. I’ve been pushing them to get my lisence, but they keep stalling for god knows why. And to knock this out, no they are not financially struggling. On top of that I have no family aside from them/my siblings in the US, so I literally have nobody. My brother, I love him and his help but I feel like I’m holding him back from truly being able to let them go and be free of constant contact with them for other reasons, because he still wants to be in my life and help me.
Earlier I said one of my parents is emotionally absent, it’s no secret but it’s my mom, pretty sure she hates me and I don’t know why, but I’m over it. Suddenly after I turned 11 she just has this constant need to argue with me, put me down, or literally do anything just to assume the worst of me or not be happy for me. The issue with that is, she also doesn’t DO anything. My dad does literally EVERYTHING. He cooks, he takes me to school, he picks me up, he takes me to the doctor, he goes to any ceremonies, everything. It’s so bad that some of my friends deliberately avoided bringing up mothers because they thought my dad was a single dad (my mom is hands off my life so I never bring her up and she’s never in a position to meet them). So I feel 10x guilty anytime I want to even go to the grocery store because I know it’s going to fall on my dad alone and I don’t want to make it harder for him when he does a lot already. I can’t go out with any friends, but when I want to do something alone I can’t do it because it’s suspicious that I want to do it alone. Relationships have always been out of the question, the romance isn’t worth the shit show aftermath at home. And as I get older when I see people my age driving, going out, getting piercings, dye jobs, tattoos, doing weekday shifts, relationships, it kind of hits me that I’m literally so behind and have accomplished nothing outside of academics. It’s led to “what’s the point” thoughts which I have to work through alone because just my luck in the eyes of my parents depression and sewerslidal thoughts are diseases. It’s so bad that when my mom (shocker) asked me if I was depressed a few days ago I instantly said no because I knew it was not genuine. It was 100% bait that would’ve turned into a long lecture as to why I’m wrong even though I hate to self diagnose but I honestly think I have been for a while. The constant isolation (not by choice) has gotten terrible to the point where I’m starting to hear shit and see shit when I’m alone and it’s kind of freaking me out. My one and only vice is impulsive spending online because I literally have nothing to look forward to having money for.
My brothers done so much for me. He bought me my first phone, everything. I keep telling myself to just wait until I’m 18 to live life, but I then think I’d still have missed a decent or somewhat normal high school experience. All that alone time gives me the opportunity to learn a lot of random stuff, and I always end up viewed as the “mature” or “smart-experienced-therapist-like” figure (key word figure because I’m NONE of that) in my friendships and it sucks because due to past experiences of opening up to my mom, I have trouble expressing how I feel to others. No im not mature and handling my own, I just have no idea how to talk about my issues/feelings to others in person. Like no I’m not some know it all fortune teller. Sometimes I literally just want to have someone to feel stupid with you know? Like I want to be able to leave my brain at home with someone and not feel like I’m breaking character or something. I hate being told I carry myself maturely, or I’m an old soul or down to earth by people older than me etc. I don’t want to be. I hate being looked at weird or with wide eyes when I laugh, smile, or joke because for some reason people think it’s not “like me”. I don’t even know what to do, or where to start. Everyone thinks I just have shit sorted and just make moves in silence or something when I’m literally in crisis. I feel weird to even cry, ME a 17 year old girl feels like it’s a crime to cry infront of anyone. None of my friends have ever seen me cry. And I almost did once infront of two of them because of a really bad moment of clarity that my life sucks. They just stared at me like I was some specimen because they didn’t know I was capable of crying I guess? If anyone even reads this I don’t even know what to do. I don’t even know if I make any sense. And I read this over and edited it in less detail because I think my feelings are corny and it sounds stupid and ik that’s my problem even on Reddit UGH.
And disclaimer, no I am not a danger to myself or anyone else, I’m not itching to kick the bucket it’s just a big “ugh” moment.

I’m applying for section leader this year and I just filled out the google form for it. Before I submit it I want to get some opinions on my responses. I have some though competition so if y’all have any suggestions (especially if you’re a director) then please let me know what revisions I should make. (This will be my 4th year and I will be a sophomore in the fall. I play alto sax.) The form goes as follows
(Question) If you have had leadership experience outside of the Marching Band, please briefly describe your past leadership experience here. If you have no prior leadership experience, please type "NA."
(Response) I am in the honors college program so I have done plenty of volunteering that requires leadership and initiation.
(Question) Who do you think has been a good leader in the marching band? What made them a good leader?
(Response) Josh Iadeluca. Even before he was a drum major he always helped me and made me feel welcomed when I first joined. Without him there I would have struggled a lot.
(Question) Why do you want to be a section leader in the Marching Band?
(Response) I have to because for the honors college program to stay in it for your junior and senior year you must have a school related leadership position and there isn’t anything else I can do for it. Aside from that, I also want to become section leader because it is a very good thing to put on resumes and as someone who is looking to go to a highly rated college I am constantly trying to do things that improve my reliability.
(Question) How will you help the band as a section leader?
(Response) As a section leader I plan to do everything that Josh did for me. I know that recently a lot of our rookies and even some veterans are younger and less mature than members from previous years. I hope to help them feel appreciated, and mature into people that are even more fit to be section leader than me. In the meantime before then I want to make our practices more productive while still being enjoyable. While I already do try to do this already it is very hard to get people to listen to you when you don’t technically have any authority over them.
(Question) What is your favorite marching band memory so far?
(Response) Throughout marching band I’ve had so many experiences that pinpointing one is really difficult as multiple memories are special to me in different ways. The one memory that I love that helped me as a person was during the championships for my first year (Rise Up), the moment at the end of My Shot when I was holding my hand up high and pointing at the sky I realized how much I loved performing and it made me determined to do better during the next year. I even felt a little regret for not putting more effort into it that year.
Thank you for reading this far and I mean, you spent all that time reading it so you might as well comment too

I've been mulling over for some days now revisiting conversations nd stuff I realise that so much has changed yet at the same time it feels like I haven't changed much.
I went from my 16yr old who decided to forever keep this secret and be 'straight' to so much comfortable w my sexuality now, tho a long way to go still.
I met some really great people especially online most of whom who are not in my life anymore, Ive never felt more loved and cherished and so ever comfortable than I did w em I don't think I'll ever be able to move on from how they made me feel, they made me feel special and that I really had something unique for them to choose me and us to have so many great memories like I can't believe I was able to meet such great and unique people and have some of the happiest moments w em.
Recently I've realised I might be demiromantic/sexual too, it's just a term that puts into words how I really feel about my crushes and why I rarely have any.
I'm still afraid to come out to some friends irl who I know will be supportive of me it's like a mental block w a bit of internalised shame ig, this is something that has been my lil thing in my head forever and if I tell someone now it'll be out there and I'll never be able to put it back into the box and I won't be able to take it back, things will change forever
Next thing, I'm Really scared life is not going how I planned it to most days I feel really alone and I'm scared that it's not gonna be a very happy ending ~ It's like I'm on a rope jumping between choosing the bad things more over the good things that will be beneficial for me. Idk how to just be okay and not be on the crisp of falling into a pool of sadness every now and then. Idk how people do it really just be okay, I'm jealous of mentally sane people, jealous of people who have healthy relationships with their parents, siblings it's like why can't I have that.
Well this took a dark turn, I just needed to put my thoughts out there notes app wasn't doing much for me. thanks if u read till here <3

We celebrated our first year together. I spent 32 days in the Philippines. I absolutely love the Philippines, and I love him so much. I knew what we have is special, but I had no idea how special it would be once we met. If words could describe the happiness I feel. I am back home now, and this is even harder, but we are now working to find a way for me to go there, or for him to come here somehow. Doesn't matter where we are, but we will be together no matter what. The Philippines is filled with so many kind people. The food was so delicious. The scenery wow. I am so grateful for the gift I've been given. Never in my life have I experienced being with such a sweet, kind hearted, loving man. We are both vocalists, and we met on tiktok singing on live stream with other people, and it has been a whirlwind since the day we met. He has 2 kids who are almost grown, and I have two also who are grown as of last year. I am divorced, and he is in the last stages of his anullment after being separated for over 3 years. He worked for years abroad in the middle east saving money to get the anullment, and provide for his children. He just returned and took a final exit in December since he finally reached his goal. To be free from the mental abuse he suffered. I really pray that the divorce law passes in Phillipines for the sake of all the people who are stuck in abusive, or horrible situations with no way out due to old beliefs, and the Roman catholic church ways. So if you feel like giving up on your LDR don't do it. It could be life changing. He is the best decision I have ever made, and I truly believe God put us together that day. We needed each other, and have grown so much, and found peace in the love we share. Keep fighting for happiness no matter how hard. Love is worth it. ❤️ Good luck out there & stay strong. 💪🏻 0 Regrets. We are now 1 year, and 1 month. Forever in the making. Although our situation has been hard, I saw him and I knew. Both our hands were shaking, but happiness overflowed from us both. We cried when we first saw each other, we hugged, we kissed. He bought us rings while I was there and proposed. He is my everything, and I have no doubt I am also his. Pure love, and absolute certainty we were meant to be.

Hi all, both of us are looking for a month-to-month (at least with some flexibility with leasing options) living situation near either of the UCSF campuses. I'll (22M) be moving into the city the first week of July (originally a San Diego resident) and the other (22F) will be finishing her other lease the same time (we're looking to move within the first week of July). I will be attending a trade school and doing part-time work while the other works all day on campus. We're clean, tidy, communicative, respectful, and always make our end of all payments. Preferably having furnished rooms, access to laundry, a kitchen, and a budget <$1,300 per person maximum. Access to a backyard, good lighting, and having awesome roommates to hang out with are absolute pluses.
Seeing how difficult of a request this is, if you can only take one person at a time (especially with the qualities mentioned above), let me know and one of us can move in. Personally, I am open to options in the Sunset District/Outer Sunset and Chinatown areas. I at least need a place to stay until March but I'll have the opportunity to stay much longer, and the other roommate will need at least a year there.
We mainly want to explore the area and outdoors, meet people, and experience the thrill of the city. A place where we can eat, exist, and sleep safely are our ultimate basic needs. PM me and I can share more information as needed (even for sharing advice too)!

This is going to be a bit of a long post so please bear with me.
I started crashing on intense games like D2, the finals, overwatch, ARK, etc a few months ago
I didn't care much because I don't game heavily as often as I did in the past
Eventually I got annoyed and started trying to figure out a way to stop it
Most of the crashes had to do with some sort of memory issue it seemed, i dont have any error codes I can share unfortunately
Considering this, I ran mdsched to evaluate the RAM and when I did this my Windows Boot Manager would tell me that windows failed to start and would say that I was missing a memtest.efi file(presumably what the mdsched runs)
A few days ago I finally stuck my windows usb into my PC and tried to repair this issue, but it said that it was unable to repair it
At this point I think that I need to just do a fresh reinstall of windows 10 but haven't done this and am somewhat wary
This is because of 1 main reason, when I got a NVMe drive and added it do my build, I had a HDD that had my OS on it. Since I wanted faster boot times, I swapped it to my new SSD. However, I don't remember how I did it and all I know now is that I have files on my HDD that I am unable to delete that are comprised of Windows, Users, Program Files, and Program Files(x86) folders. This itself might be the reason that I have been having the problems in the first place, but when I added my NVMe drive it didnt seem to be a problem at first.
Anyways, my plan that I guess I want you all to pick apart is, buy a 2TB external HD. Then create two folders on it, one for my C drive(SSD) and one for my F drive(HDD). And drag and drop any important files that I want to be saved. Then just perform a total system wipe and reinstall windows. Then just drag and drop files back in bulk. This is the brute force method of doing it, and I am positive there are more elegant ways of doing it so if anyone has another idea or sees an issue with mine PLEASE let me know.
Anyways, thanks for reading this and I hope it was fairly coherent.

So I (16M) have a friend (16M) who i’ve been friends with since seventh grade for reference we’re both about to be juniors in highschool. He’s had a girlfriend (16F) whos honestly such a sweet person and a good human he’s been dating since around December I think. Now this friend dosent exactly have much integrity and isn’t very down to earth but he’s still a good buddy of mine I just don’t let him influence me. Now even though he’s been dating this girl he still watches pXrn asks for girls snaps and flirts with other girls. Now i’ve known this since we hang out a lot usually with a few other buddy’s of mine and i’ve seen his behavior. one time in particular we were at the mall talking to this group of girls and he made a dig at me in front of them so I said “while this kid can’t talk he has a girlfriend” and he got really pissed at me and afterwards told me not to say that. I was honestly appalled and shocked he would say that (for reference this was only a few months after they had started dating so around February) now a few other things similar to this happened but I knew it wasn’t my place to tell his girlfriend and I figured he’d eventually stop but he didn’t. Now over the past few months me and his girlfriend have hung out in larger groups and have talked a bit and become pretty close friends but trust me when I say we’re strictly platonic I have another girl i’m talking to right now and am not Mr Steal Your Girl my parents raised me better than that. But last week I found out my friends been talking to a girl he met while camping once and I saw some of there saved in chats on snap and was really disappointed in him. I finally had enough of seeing him treat his girlfriend like this and talked to her last night about some of it. I’m not a total ass so I left out some things like how he still watches porn but told her some of the key events. Now too my surprise she already knew about some things but was really upset about others. She sent him a text last night asking if he ever got other girls snaps or flirted with other girls and we left it at that. This morning I woke up to a text from him asking if I was gonna be in school today because he needed to talk to me. I said probably not because i’ve been pretty sick the last few days so I said just tell me now and he was pissed. He was asking why the fXck would I tell his girlfriend about these things and honestly it was 6 in the morning I had just woken up and was pretty nervous since this dude is one of my best friends so I played dumb, I told him I didn’t really know what he was talking about and he seemed to sort of let it go but I can tell he’s still pissed in general. His girlfriend told me he denied everything but she knew he was lying and that I did the right thing by telling her and she’s pretty upset right now but i’m not even sure if I did the right thing and I really don’t wanna see me and my friend’s friendship end over this.
TLDR; I told my friends girlfriend he flirts/ talks with other girls and he is pissed at me

TL;DR at the bottom.
So, for those of whom don’t remember, there was a time where RT Sponsor dues were just $10 every six months. And when you’re thirteen years old, without a source of income aside from the very rare allowance your mom gives you, $10 is a lot of money. I was neck deep in my love of RT content, but I was dying to take it to the next level with Sponsor exclusive content. So, I bartered with my mom to cover the payments in exchange for chores. Hindsight, she probably got the better end of the deal, but I was over the moon. I got that star next to my name, and that was all that mattered.
Cut to a few years later, they’ve upped the cost from $10 every six months to $19.99 every six months. But, people like me who signed up prior to the price change were grandfathered in and were still paying the old price. However, Chelsea did state that if there was a lapse in payment, you’d lose your grandfather status. Easy enough, right?
If only it could’ve lasted forever. But my mom’s debit card expired, and as you could imagine, this lead to a lapse in payment. Obviously, I was distraught. I was a broke college student, my daily lunch was a bag of microwave popcorn and a can of Arizona Iced Tea. I emailed support and begged them for help, but they told me there was nothing they could do. I told my mom what had happened, and how sad I was, but she insisted I should call and ask to be transferred to whomever was in change. That there had to be someone who could change the price back. I called, got to the supervisor, and they told me the same thing: they couldn’t do anything to help me, and that they were sorry for my predicament. I blamed myself, and wallowed in my self-loathing for a few days.
Imagine my surprise when I’m having dinner with my parents, and I’m telling my dad this whole story, when my mom tells me she’s going to straighten it out. The exchange goes like this:
Mom: It’ll be okay, honey. I’m going to fix this. Me: Wait, what does that mean? Mom: Don’t worry about it. I’m taking care of it. Me: I’m very worried now. What are you talking about? What did you do? Mom: I just emailed support, told them I was your mother, and I wasn’t going to let them treat you like this. You’ve been a loyal customer and fan for too long, you deserve better treatment. Me: … Please tell me you’re joking. Mom: I just told them the truth. You’re a good kid. And you shouldn’t be punished for something that was an accident. Me: I’m not being punished, it’s just their policy. Punishment would be banning me from the site because my mother is harassing their support staff via email. Mom: Oh it’s not harassment. I was very polite, but I made it clear that I wasn’t going to let you go down without a fight. Me: Without a fight?! Mom! What did you say?
Here’s something you need to know about my mom: she’s never one to take something lying down. Especially when it comes to her kids. The admin in our schools knew her by name, and knew she wasn’t one to be trifled with. She was like an urban legend. Whenever she felt we weren’t being treated fairly or got in trouble for something that wasn’t our fault, it would only take one phone call before the school was apologizing to her for their “mistake” and hope she would forgive them. I’m pretty sure she was on some sort of call list that immediately routed her to the head of school. Crazy parents wish they could reach my mother’s level. She’s capable of destroying people like a hurricane destroys a city.
So, I knew what it meant when my mom said she was “taking care of it”. It meant she was going to put the fear of god into them. And if they wouldn’t relent, I think she would have got on the first plane to Austin and “taken care of it” in person, which is the nuclear option. Your only choice at that point would be to move out of her way or get rolled over. It’s a terrifying sight.
She showed me the email, and it was everything I feared. It mentioned like ten times that she was my mom, how sad I was, how I cried, how wrong they were, how she wasn’t going to let this happen, they were going to fix this, and how this wasn’t how you treated a child (I WAS IN COLLEGE). Needless to say, I was horribly embarrassed. I needed to leave the country, assume a new identity, get plastic surgery to change my face, then make a new account on the site. The best I could hope for was that her email would go into a junk folder for crazy moms and they would never read it.
I was not so lucky.
A few days later, my mom shows me how she got a response from someone who was at the top of the food chain.
God strike me down, for it was the people’s Queen herself.
Barbara Dunkleman.
Her response to my mother’s unhinged email was nothing short of polite. She apologized for what happened, explained that her team, while growing in size, was still quite small. So they weren’t able to give my case the care it deserved. But reiterated what we heard from four different people at customer service: there was nothing that could be done.
But, Barbara graciously offered a year of free membership to compensate for my “distress”.
I was mortified.
Twelve years I was the girl with the terrifying mom in school, now her terror has spread amongst the RoosterTeeth staff.
If I knew this was how it would end up, I would’ve suffered through the loss of my grandfathered Sponsorship in silence instead of sharing my feelings with my mom.
To be perfectly honest, I actually avoided meeting Barbara at RTX because I was afraid she would remember my name. Realistically, she probably wouldn’t have. She meets so many fans and dealt with so many users on a daily basis, I was probably just a distant memory to her. But I wasn’t willing to take that chance. Go to a signing, introduce myself, then Barbara starts slowly backing away in case my mom is in the area.
And I thought I would take this story to my grave. But with everything that’s happened, and everyone sharing their stories, I thought what the heck.
Barbara, if you’re reading this, please know that I am sorry for my mother. Wish I met you irl at RTX when I had the chance.
TL;DR: Lost my grandfathered sponsor rates due to an expired debit card. My mom decided to intervene when I gave up hope, and sent a SCATHING email to RT support. Barbara herself responded and was very nice and helpful. I’m still embarrassed about this.

Well first of all, I know that I could be a lot worse off and I truly feel for everyone on this sub, some stories are truly heartbreaking. But I don’t feel myself anymore and I feel myself going a lot worse, so I think it would really help to address the problem to prevent it from getting worse.
Firstly my (17F) parents are pretty good parents and all, but I just feel like something is lacking. I’m not being an ungrateful daughter that can just point out faults but something is just… off. I’m quite convinced that my dad has anger management issues, since he’s usually fine. But sometimes something that he would react normally to he EXPLODES. He can also get vicious with me now and again, I’ll say around once a month. In general he’s pretty chilled, but when he’s angry it gets bad.
Next, there’s my mom, who I’m quite sure might have narcissistic personality disorder, explaining it will need a whole other story, but she and my dad just don’t seem to care about my feelings as much as, let’s say, my friends parents. At school I was being borderline bullied, I kept it secret for almost a year and I remember the dread of going in, and when I was there I felt pure fear when I would be in the same class or close proximity to any of the bullies. I could even feel my legs shaking. I would skip PE so I didn’t feel a fool in front of them. And I skipped school quite a few times without my parents knowing. When I finally built up the courage to tell my mom, she didn’t do much at all. She refused to let me move school or be homeschooled, and when I’d come home upset she’d be annoyed at me for being ‘weak’, she also said she was GLAD I was being picked on since it helps ‘build character’. She also refused to do anything since school was nearly over, and she said that I need to focus on my final exams. I honestly think I would have done way better on those exams without having those bullies on my mind for the last couple years. Now I’m looking for a job, which I still don’t have since it’s very hard to find one and a lot won’t take me on coz I’m under 18. My grandma suggested I go with my mom about once a month to her self employed business, so I at least feel a purpose. When I brought this up to my mom she flat out REFUSED and said she ‘has a reputation she needs to keep’. I have begged to go on a training course like a couple of my friends have, but again my parents have said no and that everyone else is doing nails like my friends. I told them that at least I’d be doing something and they can’t complain about that anymore, and that it’s MY life so they can’t dictate what career path I go down.
Another problem in my life right now is church and my grandma. I loved going to church and I love the idea of it, but in my church, the audience can contribute when asked questions in a certain part of the service, which I have basically done all my life. People LOVE it when I comment and they always give me praise, but it has made me popular. So much that if I miss church once, there will be worried people asking my family where I am and my phone will be flooded with text messages. I hate to sound narcissistic but this doesn’t happen to any of the other kids, and I’m normally left thinking ‘why is it always me?’ Whenever any one of my family members is talking to someone from church, my name always gets a mention without fail, they always praise me and even though they’re being kind I’m getting fed up of hearing about myself all the time. Another reason why Im not so sure about being popular is because there’s a big gossip culture in my church and if you step out of line ONCE, everyone’s talking about you. It’s honestly like paparazzi. While some lesser known members of my church can easily slip away and do things unnoticed, I can’t take that risk. I feel like I always need to be perfect and it’s putting so much pressure on me. I have also had to go up on the platform many times, and as much as I don’t like saying it, performing from a young age has contributed to me craving attention. I have a love hate relationship with me being popular since I like to feel wanted but I don’t want to be a puppet. Another problem is that I don’t want to go to church tomorrow and my grandma is FORCING me to. She says she’ll drag me there and make me go. She has 3 grandkids but it’s always me getting pressurised. One of the other 2 wanted to leave the church altogether, but he was just sweet talked into coming back. When I took one day off my grandma threatened having those with authority have a serious word with me. One of my friends has also recently got baptised, I’m so happy for her but my grandma was complaining that I’m not making any progress and that all of my friends will be baptised and that I will have no status to my name still. She was also saying what a great job an 8 year old was doing at church and knew all of the bible scriptures. She told me that I probably couldn’t do that when, first of all, it’s not a competition and second, I actually stood up to a teacher in school about my faith. But this is really depressing me with all this pressure on me there’s literally 3 grandkids and it’s always me getting in trouble for not being good enough, not commenting enough, not performing enough.
Sorry that I ranted, there’s just so much I need to get off my chest. I literally wake up some days with no purpose or hope. I tell my parents about how I feel at church and all I get is the shrug of their shoulders. I’m just curious if it’s valid for all of this to be affecting my mental health and if my parents or church is taking a bigger toll on it. Any advice is always appreciated :)

Hi I’m a 29 year old female. When I was 13, I fell pregnant. This wasn’t a consensual relationship, I was a virgin who didn’t really even know how babies were made, i still played with barbies, I was raped by my friends 23 year old brother during a sleepover.
I didn’t tell anybody. I didn’t know I was pregnant, Id only started my periods a few months prior so there absence didn’t concern me and like I said, I didn’t really know how babies were made beyond the basics. I found out I was pregnant at 29 weeks when I went to ER with my parents for stomach pain.
My parents were very angry at me despite the circumstances. He was convicted and imprisoned. They tried to find a doctor who’d give me an abortion but none would due to gestation. They said I had to give the baby up and I went along with it, I had no support from them and I grew up having a very cold relationship with them. When my daughter was born I was inconsolable and didn’t want to give her up. I refused to and my daughter was forcefully taken from me at the hospital. After which I was hysterical and had to be sedated. I made attempts on my life in the months after that. I was then put in to boarding school, where I stayed until I was 18.
It wasn’t an open adoption, I was allowed to leave a letter with her and I also left her my necklace which was my prized possession at the time. The adoptive mother stated she wanted no contact which I was devastated about but the social worker told me I could have contact when she turned 18. After I turned 18 and left boarding school, I moved in with my Nan whilst attending university. My Nan gave me so much love and care and was very disappointed in my parents (my Nan had no knowledge of me even being pregnant)
When I was 21 I graduated and I also got pregnant, that relationship didn’t work out but I’ve since married and had 3 more children. But I’ve never stopped thinking about my first born. I gave birth to her on my 14th birthday so we share a birthday and every birthday I feel like I’m grieving. I go through periods of just crying and staying in bed feeling guilty at what I’d done. I still feel so guilty and I can’t cope with guilt.
Anyway, my daughter who is now 15 found me on Facebook 2 weeks ago (I have a distinct name and I still use my maiden name on there) she messaged me an angry message and then blocked me so I couldn’t even respond.
She messaged me saying that she hates me and I’m dead to her, she told me how much she loves her adoptive mother and as far as she’s concerned I don’t exist. She says I’ve turned her in to a “messed up person” She told me how she thought I was a disgusting person for giving her up for adoption because I wanted to “enjoy life without the burden of a child” her words. She called me a slut (among other words) and questioned why I was having sex at 13. She said that she hoped my other children die and called them racist terms (they are mixed) because she is angry that I kept them and not her and that she felt that meant I wasn’t good enough. She then went on to say her adoptive mother told her that
1: My parents (her bio grandparents) wanted her but I refused to look after her and wanted her to be adopted.
2: I wanted an abortion and told adoptive mother that I wished I could have had an abortion
3: That adoptive mother had reached out to me when I was 21 and pregnant with her first sibling to ask if I wanted contact, and I (according to her birth mum) said I didn’t care about her and wanted to forget the whole thing and asked her not to contact me again.
4: That I was sleeping around with a lot of men my age and didn’t know her bio dad as I’d been with so many male school friends which is why I got sent to boarding school because I was “out of control”
All the above are just outright lies. I am glad she doesn’t know the circumstances of her conception, I’d be happy if bio mum had told her for example that her father was a childhood boyfriend of mine because the truth is something she shouldn’t know until she’s older, but to suggest I was sleeping around with multiple men at the age of 13 and didn’t know who he was is disgusting when it’s not true.
Im not able to contact her back because she’s blocked me. I’ve looked at her profile from my husbands account, I’ve seen her bio mums Facebook profile but I don’t intend to contact either of them as much as I want to because I guess I will just tell her everything when she’s 18 if she wants to hear it because perhaps now is not the appropriate age.
Her mums Facebook shows that she is her only child, that she’s now divorced (her and her husband adopted my daughter so she’s since divorced him) they seem very close and have lots of pictures together.
Her Facebook is concerning and it’s public so I could see everything. She posts quotes about depression and anxiety, has scars on her wrists which I fear may be SH scars) writes status’ such as “no body cares about me I may as well just die” constantly posts pictures laying in a hospital bed.
I have since informed social services about what I’ve seen on Facebook and they’ve just told me that they can not discuss this with me due to confidentiality as she’s legally not my child but have said they can assure me that they are doing everything necessary to ensure she is ok.
I don’t really know what to do. She has a false impression of me told by her adoptive mother. None of which is true, she was so wanted and I’ve never got over it. I now fear that her thinking I rejected her and didn’t want her and she wasn’t good enough has led to some serious mental health issues and potentially these will only get worse or she could harm herself very badly based on lots of lies.
I want her to know I love her, I want her to know I wanted her but I was forced to give her up, I want her to know that I still love her and always will and that I’d do anything for her. I want to tell her I was never contacted by adoptive mother and had I have been I would have jumped at the opportunity to even just talk to my daughter. I want to tell her that I do know her bio father and I wasn’t sleeping with multiple men (although the truth regarding the rape shouldn’t be disclosed right now) I just want her to know all of this, but I’m powerless until she is 18. I have been told if I message her from a different account since I’m blocked I could face legal charges.
I am so scared of her hurting herself based on lies. Her adoptive mum whilst I believe does love her, has poisoned my daughter against me in an attempt to get my daughter to hate me because she doesn’t want daughter potentially coming back to me or forming a relationship with me and her getting pushed out, so she’s said all of this to make that impossible so she will be her only mother.
But that’s to the detriment of my daughter, my daughter clearly has mental health issues and whilst they could be from other things I know that feeling unloved, unwanted and having being told this information that is outright lies must be weighing heavily on her and making her feel inadequate. I can’t imagine if I was adopted and I heard things like that about my bio mum, it would devastate me and I would hate myself.
I don’t know what I’m hoping to gain from this post just looking for advice. I can contact her in 3 years. But I’m scared in those 3 years something bad could happen with the way her mental health is, and that something bad may happen without her knowing the truth about how much I love her.
I’ve been off sick from work since, I have been an emotional wreck. I just hope she’s okay even if she does hate me. Of course I’d love to tell her the truth but more than anything I want her to know the truth for the sake of her own mental well-being even if that means she still doesn’t want to speak to me. Social services just keep telling me that they can’t discuss anything with her about me beyond the basics of the fact that she’s adopted. The rest is down to adoptive mother to disclose if she wishes. When she is 18 she will get access to her file and know the true circumstances but until then, everything she knows is based on lies.

Well, hello.
^{I just want to write some stuff because I have no one to tell and make myself a bit calm. I know that sounds a bit selfish, so I'm really sorry for that. Delete my post, please, if it's in the wrong forum.}
As you can already know from the title, I'm a twenty-year-old guy who's just a bit confused.
My parents have been married for over 25 years and have been together for over 30 years. They started their lives again from nothing because they gave all their stuff to their exes and kids and then earned enough money through hard work to be able to spend the rest of their lives without working, just doing their hobbies. They were happily living in their own house together that they wanted and had dreams and plans for the next decades to happily live together here.
However, they almost broke up once when I was a kid, but their friends helped them renew their relationship. I still remember that day and hoped that would never happen again, but here it is.
And, it happened again yesterday. It began from a small thing that shouldn't have been a trigger. I initially thought it was a joke because I thought that couldn't happen due to such a small thing like choosing where to buy something.
I tried to talk with both of them in hopes of helping them restore their relationship because I also saw that my mom really wanted to restore it, and somehow I understood what was going on. I understood it as their inability to objectively talk about their relationship and problems that happened over the last years led to this. They just don't want to seriously apologize to each other due to their pride.
At first, I laughed a bit and felt positive, thinking this situation could be easily solved, but today I understand that it is almost impossible to save their relationship. They don't really want to hear me right now, especially my dad, and there are, sadly, no more friends nearby who could try to help them like before. I'm actually in a panic right now, but I don't want to show it, hoping that this situation can still be solved. Most of their close friends once said that they are the ones who will never break up due to the things that they went through.
Dad tried to calm me down somehow by saying that I have an apartment and some money in a bank assigned to me, so I'll be completely fine and will have a roof over my head and will be able to finish college, but for me, it's not about money. It's about their relationship, and I worry about them.
I know that if they actually break up, they will no longer live together and there is a low chance that they will be able to find someone else they love due to their age and personality. They still suit each other so well but just don't want to talk normally about that pity problem due to their characters.
I'm still really depressed due to the war that is going on in my country and now also have this. Unfortunately, I don't really have friends because all who I know are not really close to me. I really like my parents and was always talking with them a lot. Right now, I'm a college student who is really confused. I just feel that too much shit has dropped on me in the last two years. I just started to feel somewhat good a few months ago when I finally understood what I'm actually interested in (yeah, I understood that by already being a college student) and now have this too...
^{Thank you, Reddit, for giving me a chance to write this whiny post. I know that it will likely get zero attention, but the main point for me was to express my feelings somewhere, knowing that it will be more or less anonymous.}

Well first of all, I know that I could be a lot worse off and I truly feel for everyone on this sub, some stories are truly heartbreaking. But I don’t feel myself anymore and I feel myself going a lot worse, so I think it would really help to address the problem to prevent it from getting worse.
Firstly my (17F) parents are pretty good parents and all, but I just feel like something is lacking. I’m not being an ungrateful daughter that can just point out faults but something is just… off. I’m quite convinced that my dad has anger management issues, since he’s usually fine. But sometimes something that he would react normally to he EXPLODES. He can also get vicious with me now and again, I’ll say around once a month. In general he’s pretty chilled, but when he’s angry it gets bad.
Next, there’s my mom, who I’m quite sure might have narcissistic personality disorder, explaining it will need a whole other story, but she and my dad just don’t seem to care about my feelings as much as, let’s say, my friends parents. At school I was being borderline bullied, I kept it secret for almost a year and I remember the dread of going in, and when I was there I felt pure fear when I would be in the same class or close proximity to any of the bullies. I could even feel my legs shaking. I would skip PE so I didn’t feel a fool in front of them. And I skipped school quite a few times without my parents knowing. When I finally built up the courage to tell my mom, she didn’t do much at all. She refused to let me move school or be homeschooled, and when I’d come home upset she’d be annoyed at me for being ‘weak’, she also said she was GLAD I was being picked on since it helps ‘build character’. She also refused to do anything since school was nearly over, and she said that I need to focus on my final exams. I honestly think I would have done way better on those exams without having those bullies on my mind for the last couple years. Now I’m looking for a job, which I still don’t have since it’s very hard to find one and a lot won’t take me on coz I’m under 18. My grandma suggested I go with my mom about once a month to her self employed business, so I at least feel a purpose. When I brought this up to my mom she flat out REFUSED and said she ‘has a reputation she needs to keep’. I have begged to go on a training course like a couple of my friends have, but again my parents have said no and that everyone else is doing nails like my friends. I told them that at least I’d be doing something and they can’t complain about that anymore, and that it’s MY life so they can’t dictate what career path I go down.
Another problem in my life right now is church and my grandma. I loved going to church and I love the idea of it, but in my church, the audience can contribute when asked questions in a certain part of the service, which I have basically done all my life. People LOVE it when I comment and they always give me praise, but it has made me popular. So much that if I miss church once, there will be worried people asking my family where I am and my phone will be flooded with text messages. I hate to sound narcissistic but this doesn’t happen to any of the other kids, and I’m normally left thinking ‘why is it always me?’ Whenever any one of my family members is talking to someone from church, my name always gets a mention without fail, they always praise me and even though they’re being kind I’m getting fed up of hearing about myself all the time. Another reason why Im not so sure about being popular is because there’s a big gossip culture in my church and if you step out of line ONCE, everyone’s talking about you. It’s honestly like paparazzi. While some lesser known members of my church can easily slip away and do things unnoticed, I can’t take that risk. I feel like I always need to be perfect and it’s putting so much pressure on me. I have also had to go up on the platform many times, and as much as I don’t like saying it, performing from a young age has contributed to me craving attention. I have a love hate relationship with me being popular since I like to feel wanted but I don’t want to be a puppet. Another problem is that I don’t want to go to church tomorrow and my grandma is FORCING me to. She says she’ll drag me there and make me go. She has 3 grandkids but it’s always me getting pressurised. One of the other 2 wanted to leave the church altogether, but he was just sweet talked into coming back. When I took one day off my grandma threatened having those with authority have a serious word with me. One of my friends has also recently got baptised, I’m so happy for her but my grandma was complaining that I’m not making any progress and that all of my friends will be baptised and that I will have no status to my name still. She was also saying what a great job an 8 year old was doing at church and knew all of the bible scriptures. She told me that I probably couldn’t do that when, first of all, it’s not a competition and second, I actually stood up to a teacher in school about my faith. But this is really depressing me with all this pressure on me there’s literally 3 grandkids and it’s always me getting in trouble for not being good enough, not commenting enough, not performing enough.
Sorry that I ranted, there’s just so much I need to get off my chest. I literally wake up some days with no purpose or hope. I tell my parents about how I feel at church and all I get is the shrug of their shoulders. I’m just curious if it’s valid for all of this to be affecting my mental health and if my parents or church is taking a bigger toll on it. Any advice is always appreciated :)