FYI, this is a story COLLECTION. Lots of standalones technically. So, you can basically start to read at any chapter, no pre-read of the other chapters needed technically (other than maybe getting better descriptions of characters than: Adam Vir=human, Krill=antlike alien, Sunny=tall alien, Conn=telepathic alien). The numbers are (mostly) only for organization of posts and continuity.
OC Written by Charlie Stastarrfallknightrise,
Typed up and then posted here by me.
Proofreading and language check for some chapters by u/Finbar9800 u/BakeGullible9975 u/Didnotseemecomein and u/medium_jock
Future Lore and fact check done by me.
Caution swearing!
Also, god I love you Conn… please never change!
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"Both of you get your suits back on."
"What the hell is going on!?”
Richards demanded, Adam took a deep breath,
"Captain Richards that was not an opening for a discussion, that was an order. Now put the damn suit on, or I swear I will knock you out and do it myself!”
The three of them were floating in the module staring at each other, hands resting against what must have been no more than a few millimeters of aluminum.
He stared at them, and they stared back.
Adam did not break eye contact with the two, willing them to do as they were told. Chavez was the first to move, hurrying over to her space suit and struggling to pull it on in a near panic as bright lights flashed from outside. Inside his heart was pounding but he tried to remain calm for the two standing before him.
He hurried over to help Chavez pull on her gear, finally sealing the helmet in place as Richards finally moved to do the same.
Adam helped pull the hard torso over the man's head and link it to the waist before helping him pull on his gloves and, eventually the helmet. Before he let go, he kept hold of Richards by either side of the helmet staring at him through the glass,
"I promise, if you listen to me, I will keep you safe."
He kept eye contact with the other man until Richards finally nodded, and Adam let him go to float over and put on his own suit. His hands were steady, for now, but he knew as soon as the crisis was over he'd be shaking like a leaf.
If he survived…
He gritted his teeth, cursing himself for thinking like that.
He was Admiral Vir for crying out loud. He had survived far too much to go and die now.
He returned to the helm of the command module as he looked out the thick window at the lights flashing on either side of them. Despite the war that was raging around them, everything seemed so strangely quiet. There was no sound no rumbling, not even a vibration as one of the jets flew past. Despite being at the controls of the vehicle, there was nothing he could do. They only had a certain amount of fuel to get them to the lunar surface, and if he wasted any of it at all, they would be either caught in orbit, or miss the moon entirely.
He had to keep his cool.
Another bright burst of light lit the window to his right. This one was closer this time.
His heart leaped up into his throat.
Richards and Chaves joined him buckling into their seats.
"What is going on?”
Richards demanded again, his mike distant and tinny with the sound of very old technology.
"I believe Anti-Alliance forces are attempting to assassinate me. They have been trying for months now, and I think they are being encouraged by very powerful members of the government."
They watched as another set of ships zoomed past.
He saw a flash of a silhouette, just enough to know that one of them was a Thunderhawk and the other was a silver Rundi drone.
It confirmed his worst fears. The Chairwoman had been behind this the whole time!
[…]
Red nearly collided with the rocket. The Thunderhawk had pulled up the last minute, but he had almost been too late. He jerked the stick to the side, throwing up his wing just in time to avoid hitting the rocket as it made its slow way through space. He dove down on the other side forced to break off pursuit and cut in front of another Thunderhawk coming in from above. He made to look like he was going to ram them, playing a dangerous game of chicken, which he won at the last second as the other pilot panicked and cut to the left.
There were too many of them. Only five out of the original twenty had been destroyed, and he and the rest of their pilots were busy just keeping the thunder hawks away from the rocket, much less to have any time of firing at them. He had sent one of his people down to earth and one of them off towards the moon for backup. The moon was still hours away yet, so the hope that some help would be sent from them was unlikely, and even the woman he had sent down to earth's surface was cutting it close.
He didn't have much hopes that they would be able to hold out that long.
Inside the cockpit his warning lights began to blink and blair as one of the other jets got a lock on him. He rolled right to avoid them and dove down, cutting off the lock but still being pursued by those behind him. Up ahead he saw one of the silver balls erupt into flames as it was targeted by an expert hit from one of the Thunderhawk pilots.
He rolled right.
Someone else rolled left. He cut up just in time to avoid being hit and raced forward to cut off another Thunderbird that was heading directly towards the rocket.
[…]
Eris hurried down the hallway, her knees screaming as she did her very best to sprint, but despite her human anatomy, she was a little too much like a starborn.
With a cry of frustration she reached up and tore off her hoodie, throwing it to the ground and engaging her anti-gravity belt. The ribbons on her back billowed out behind her.
Light spilled in from the windows on either side of the catwalk she was now on, filling her with a buzzing energy that she could feel radiating through the ribbons like electricity. She knew from her study of starborn that they could travel at thousands of miles an hour in the vacuum of space, especially when under the power of a star. She didn't think she needed to go THAT fast, but anything would be better than what she was doing now.
As if in response to her will, she suddenly began to glide forward, picking up speed as she swooped towards the end of the hall, wind catching her in the face and roaring along her cheeks. With her starborn skin, she barely felt a thing as she raced around the corner and out of the waiting door. Two men dressed in military ACUs dived to the side as she blew past them crying out in alarm and confusion as the "Alien" floated by.
Somewhere distantly, she could sense Conn racing in the opposite direction towards the base.
Sunny and Admiral Kelly had Admiral Massie in their custody and were dragging him out into the hallway.
She blew across the open ground her ribbons snapping and billowing behind her as she did. She didn't even have time to imagine what she looked like as she roared over the open field and towards the waiting news vans which were just beginning to pack up their things. They were close to leaving, but she set out a sharp hard telepathic pulse ordering them to stop.
Compelling them to stop.
They froze in their tracks and looked up to see her coming.
Someone scrambled to turn on their camera, not sure what was going on but sure it had to be something good.
She tried not to think about what they would see as the camera flared to life following her approach.
"Make us live."
She ordered,
The news people glanced between each other in confusion,
"But no… we aren’t-"
"What are-"
She came to a sudden jolting stop before them, her billowing black hair fanning out behind her like a curling halo.
"I said, put us on air."
This time the telepathic pulse was too strong to resist. Mostly that, paired with the fact that none of them were sure they really wanted to resist. She was way too interesting to pass up.
They hurried to do what they were doing, and Eris was given just enough time to feel nervous before the camera was turned to her.
They were live.
She read it in the minds of those behind camera who she cut off as she began to speak,
"Citizens of Earth, there has been a horrible conspiracy against you. The UN president has ordered the assassination of Admiral Adam Vir and has continually attempted to sabotage the mission. Just now General Massie was taken into custody after ordering the deployment of twenty Thunderhawk’s to harass the rocket and make its destruction look like some sort of collision with space debris."
The group gawked at her as she raised her hand with the small silver device and began playing the recording.
She knew something like this would never be admissible in court. She was pretty sure it would be considered entrapment of some kind, which is why it must be heard now, before everyone, so that the actions of the president could be judged by a jury of the world where it could not be hidden by political machinations.
"Communications have been lost with Apollo 11. And it is... Well... It is likely that he is already dead..."
Her voice broke,
"No matter what happens, I need you, and this nation to understand what is happening before it gets swept under the rug. I saw it with my own eyes, heard it with my own ears and experienced their meeting in the thoughts of a man who is both xenophobic and hateful to his own humankind."
She kept talking trying to give them all the information she could, spilling thoughts she had heard in the head of the UN president and General Massie alike. Every meeting, every liaison, every name until her voice was beginning to crack.
[…]
The UN president was just standing to enter her vehicle when a slow muttering began in the crowd behind her. She turned as the ground before her went silent.
She watched as a wave ran through the people. A wave of nudging and whispering and showing off news feeds they had pulled up on their wrist implants. It wasn't long before the entire crowd was either staring down at their arms or clustered around someone else for viewing.
"What is going on?”
She wondered, turning to one of her men who was staring down at her own wrist.
"Madame president?"
He said with a look of confusion.
She could hear it now.
"Her and General Massie have ordered members of the UNSC to adjust funds in order to hide the twenty Thunderhawk’s they were squirting away for just such an event."
She hurried forward, grabbing the secret serviceman by the arm, staring at it as she watched the streaming newsfeed and the freaky white alien with the large dark eyes and flowing black hair.
"She is afraid of aliens, she wishes to isolate and eventually use humanity's superior forces to overtake trade in the galaxy, forceful if need be."
The muttering behind her had turned into an angry grumbling, and she turned to see the eyes of hundreds that turned towards her.
"Get me out of here."
She hissed. the Secret Serviceman took a step back with a look of confusion and indecision on his face.
"It's your job."
She snarled, but he just stared at her.
She hurriedly ran over to her car as the crowd began to filter in around them pressing close. A few of the secret service men pulled guns, but a large majority of them were frozen with indecision and were taken over by the crowd. She scrambled into the back seat of her vehicle and slammed the door shut screaming at the driver to get moving.
The crowd was surrounding them now, pounding at the glass.
She could hear their angry voices raised for her to be heard behind bullet proof glass.
Outside, she watched a lone figure step onto the platform where the lectern was and stare at her with its beady black eyes. The Chairwoman of the GA stood over the crowd like it's filthy alien lord.
And even though Rundi could not smile, she could swear it was smiling.
[…]
Baby K hit a rough patch of turbulence coming down from the atmosphere. She struggled with the controls as she was thrown left and right inside the cockpit of her rickety shuttle.
Donovan Red had ordered her down here to grab the UNSC, but she was so scared and full of adrenaline that she had dropped it at too steep an angle. The ride was much bumpier than it was supposed to be, and her teeth were rattling inside her head.
Just then two Jets suddenly cut in behind her out of nowhere, and she heard her console beep and warn her about a lock on, making it clear that she was just one click of a trigger away from imminent doom.
"This is Eagle Dispatch One, unidentified vessel, you have crossed into restricted UNSC airspace, identify yourself or be destroyed! You have ten seconds to comply, over."
She scrambled for her communications, but her fingers felt as stiff as wood as she scrambled for the button.
"I repeat, this is Eagle Dispatch One, unidentified vessel, you have entered restricted UNSC airspace, you are ordered to identify yourself or be destroyed. Five seconds remaining. Over."
She slammed her first into the comms button nearly panicking,
"UNSC!"
Her voice was rattling,
"This is B-baby K, and I... The Apollo 11 is under attack!"
She was breathless as she forced the words out.
There was silence over the coms,
"Say again? Uhm I mean please repeat over.”
"Apollo 11 is under attack!"
”…”
”…”
More silence,
”Roger that. Please stand by. Over."
The lock lifted and the two jets pulled up to the side of her, staying close now.
She recognized those jets as two F-90 Darkfires.
They stayed by her side for a moment, and as close as they were she could see one of the pilots fidgeting with the coms, talking and wildly gesticulating, while his copilot was beginning to wildly flip switches.
Meanwhile, a second voice came in over the coms.
"On your left! Eagle Dispatch Two here, unidentified vessel, please land on UNSC base airstrip one. Just contact the control tower once you get close for guidance and instruction."
Baby K looked over into the other jet, just to see the pilot adjusting his helmet and clicking an oxygen tube to the front of his helmet. His co-pilot had already put the additional oxygen mask on and was also flipping switches.
”Uhm aren’t you going to escort me?”
Baby K managed to blurt out in confusion,
”Godspeed Baby K, Eagle Dispatch Two over and out.”
Both men in the jet to her left had apparently finished their preparations and gave her a quick salute.
Then suddenly, both jets adjusted their angle and cut engines, before switching to their big fusion engines, rocketing them up and out of sight within seconds.
[…]
So far it had been a relatively quiet day at the Ellington Field Joint Reserve Base. Most of the air traffic had been canceled due to the launch of the Apollo mission, so there was not much to do, leaving much of the Airport less staffed than normal.
In the Air Traffic Control tower of the base, only two men were working. Though “working” was stretching it, considering Senior Controller M. Fredrick was currently in the middle of his book (though he was at least in front of his station) and his comrade Senior ATC Instructor A. Millard was currently sitting in a corner, watching a movie on his implant.
”So what are you watching? One of those old Star Wars movies?”
”You bet! Those are the best! By the way any info on that “lost civilian” who got into our airspace?”
”No not yet, though I sent Eagle Dispatch and told them to be extra unfriendly, that will scare these civilians off for sure!”
”Pffft, why couldn’t they watch the start like any other person? There is always some dumb rich kid doing dumb stuff with daddies private shuttle… I don’t understand why we always let them off with a warning…”
The console started beeping,
”Oh look that’s them now!”
”Put ‘em on speakers!”
”Will do!”
…
”ATC this is Eagle, come the FUCK in!”
Fredrick rolled his eyes,
”Ahem… This is Elling Field ATC, calling Eagle Dispatch One. We hear you, over.”
”ATC what the FUCK took you so long!?”
”Ellington Field ATC, to Eagle Dispatch one, firstly: language, secondly: please follow standard radio rules, over.”
”THE APOLLO IS UNDER ATACK BY HOSTILE ELEMENTS!”
”Ellingt-WHAAAAT!? Repeat please! Over!”
”THE APOLLO IS BEEING ATACKED BY HOSTILE ELEMENTS! REQUETING IMMEDIATE ASSIST!”
Fredrick just stared at Millard dumbfounded. As the senior officer Millard was quick to collect himself and jumped up and towards his console.
”What are you waiting for Fredrick! Are we blind!? DEPLOY THE GARRISON!”
Fredrick ignored all protocol and just flipped the switch to connect his comms to every recipient available.
”ATC to all personnel and everyone who can hear me, the Apollo is under attack, I repeat, the apollo is under attack. I want all available planes that can reach the outer atmosphere ready ASAP! Get the darkfires on the runway I want them in the air yesterday!”
[…]
Conn raced towards the airstrip, feeling the wind in the ribbons at his back. He couldn't go nearly as fast as he wanted to with air resistance.
Why the hell did Adam always have to get into so much trouble, why did he always have to be the center of attention!?
Everyone either hated him or loved him, but the problem was people who hated him also wanted to kill him.
Why did he have to be so controversial!?
Why did he have to be hated for something that was such a big deal. Why couldn't he be hated for having controversial political opinions. Conn paused…
On second thought, controversial political opinions were kind of what had gotten them here in the first place, so he guessed that was kind of a useless comparison. How about being the kind of guy who liked to talk too much about fishing. That was a great way to make people hate you for being boring, but it didn't usually mean that people wanted to kill you.
Maybe they could get the man a hobby doing something that wasn't so controversial…
Like…
Kicking small Animals or…
Cannibalism.
He came roaring to the stop at the edge of the airfield just in time to watch an entire platoon of pilots racing towards jets. He could hear their minds and looked up to see a rather dinky shuttle descending from the sky. He floated forward towards one of the jets as two pilots leaped inside.
He was going to need a ride.
The pilots turned to look at him, but Conn just shook his head.
The pilots decided to ignore him in the confusion and Conn grabbed on tight.
Starborn, he had come to learn, were a very interesting species in comparison to others. Vertically, as in from the top down he was very fragile and likely to break his neck or collapse his spine if there was any kind of pressure, but with horizontal forces, he was practically indestructible. Below him the ship roared to life and soon they were gathering speed along the runway.
His grip was tight, and he used the extra energy from his ribbons to speed himself up along with the jet to reduce the pull on his arms.
His grip wasn't that strong.
They went vertical almost immediately, and he made sure to orient his body in the correct direction as they went hurtling into the sky.
[…]
Red's right wing had been hit. If there had been atmosphere around him he would have been a goner, but there was no air resistance here, so once he regained control of his roll, he pulled back into position and fired one last shot as the opportunity arose. The sixth Thunderhawk was destroyed in an eruption of debris, which he dodged only with difficulty, limping without the aid of the maneuvering jet on the end of his one wing. Things were only speeding up now, the Rundi were almost gone and the pressure was being laid thick on his people. They were hard to hit but the pursuit made it almost impossible for them to do any real maneuvering of their own. He was almost hit again as another Thunderhawk sped underneath him. They rolled this way and that rocking from one side to the other. Flying through debris and over strips of silver metal.
Below them the earth hung as a glowing orb.
Red cut in a wide circle coming in with the sun at his back, using it to blind one of the enemy Thunderhawk’s as he came in. He watched the group of them form up suddenly as a ring around the slow moving rocket, intending quite certainly to rush it all at once. He screamed into the comm trying to order his men around, but it was going to be too late, he could already see it coming.
The jets rushed forward, and he did too, screaming inside his helmet as they went to broadside Apollo 11.
And then with all the silence of space, sixteen F-90 Dark Fires came spitting overhead all at once, raining down a line of ordinance that cut through the group of unsuspecting Thunderhawk’s.
Space around them was filled with a myriad of silent explosions as each and every one of them was ripped to shreds.
All except one…
He saw it at the last moment.
It had been hit in the tail and had gone wildly off course.
It turned sideways, but had just enough force... For its wing to tear straight through the aluminum siding of the rocket.
FUCK!
[…]
Chavez and Richards had been ordered to strap into their seats.
Adam had taken it upon himself to lock down the rest of the main cabin. Outside the flashing lights were like a fireworks display without sound. He grabbed onto one of the rails, forcing equipment back into place, so that if anything happened it wouldn't fly out.
His legs were kicked up behind him as he floated forward reaching for some of the controls as a sudden bright wash of light filtered in through the windows. He heard a scream over his com, and then the air around him was rent with a horrific tearing noise, which suddenly went silent. There was a rush, and he jerked forward as he was sucked back... And out of the ship entirely.
His hands and legs kicked and flailed as he tried to right himself, hearing his own breathing as the only sound as he watched the rocket begin to spin, debris erupting around him as air, and whatever wasn't strapped down was sucked through the small opening.
The rocket was spinning wildly but still on course, while he was spinning wildly in a silent abyss.
Grunting against the force of his spin, he reached down for the controls to the CO2 canister built into the pack of his spacesuit.
He groaned, not sure which way was up or down or back. He tried to right himself against the spin by firing in the opposite direction to slow his spin.
He could see the rocket now spinning in the opposite direction with the sudden loss of oxygen. He hoped the other astronauts were ok. He saw the silhouette of a jet fly past in the distance making its way towards the spinning rocket.
At least there was someone here to help.
Maybe the others would survive-
And then he just… stopped, coming to a confusing halt in the middle of space.
That shouldn't have been right!
He should have kept going forever!
He tried turning his head, but he felt like the pillsbury doughboy in this two thousand year old suit.
What was happening?
"Did you miss me Baby?”
Well shit, now he sort of wished he could keep spinning.
There was a tugging on the outside of his suit, and Conn floated into view in front of his helmet.
"Hey sweetheart."
"You are probably the last person I wanted to see."
He said, though he didn't entirely mean it, and unfortunately Conn knew that too, the mindreading asshole that he was.
”I could hardly let the father of my child go spinning off into space without taking accountability for his family. After al child support is paying way more than widows pension."
"Shove it up your ass Conn."
"No really, not even the vacuum of space is going to save you from your responsibilities. Now, about custody, I was thinking you could have every other weekend and a couple of major holidays…”
He gave a rueful sort of smile as Conn grabbed him by the life support pack and started floating them towards the rocket.
The F-90s had somehow managed to slow the spin of the rocket, and pull it back on course with grappling magnets.
All around them space was filled with debris. No more working Thunderhawk’s were present and those that were were quickly being grappled. One sleek racing jet slowly cruised past them. One of its wings was damaged, but whoever was inside waved with one hand as he rolled past.
Adam lifted a hand as Conn brought him the last few hundred feet to the torn opening in the side of the ship, allowing him to step through.
Conn patted him on the side of the helmet,
"Make sure to be home by dinnertime sweetie."
Before blowing him a kiss and vanishing back out the hole.
Adam floated there, a bit nonplussed for a moment before turning back to the front of the ship where Chaves and Richards were still strapped into their seats staring at him and after Conn. He floated over to strap himself in.
"Admiral! You're ok!”
"Yes, it seems that I am, thanks to a... Friend of mine."
Just then Conn appeared again just before their right side window, and like the classy gentlemen that he was began rubbing his butt up against the glass.
He sighed,
"Friend is kind of stretching it."
"Apollo 11 this is Houston, do you copy!"
The man on the other end of the line sounded close to tears, and Adam hurried to respond,
"Houston this is Apollo 11."
On the other side he thought he heard the sound of voices cheering in relief.
"What is your status, over?”
"We are a bit beat up Houston, we have a tear in our hull, but our suits are ok, and we have help."
"Prepare to abort mission."
Adam frowned,
"Now wait a second there Houston! I didn't get sucked out the side of my own rocket to just quit now. Tell the boys to come up here and patch us up and we can finish the mission. All systems are still functioning, and we are back on course."
He glanced over at the others,
”That is, if the crew wants to continue."
There was a pause and then Chavez timidly piped in,
"I'd be ok with that."
Richards sighed,
"Roger Houston, patch us up."
Granted it may have been cheating. Apollo 11 hadn't had support with special tools that could just patch up a spaceship within ten minutes, but then again the original Apollo 11 hadn't been in the middle of a firefight while on their journey to the moon.
So it was with some trepidation that Houston allowed it, and before long they had air back inside the cabin back up to pressure, but they also had a sixteen-man rotating escort for the rest of the way.
The group of them were even shocked to see Rundi drones join the formation, only to learn that it had been the UN president who had allegedly called the hit on him. It was hard to believe, but they were only getting snippets here and then from over radio and from Conn, who floated around occasionally to rub another part of his anatomy against the window and give them teasing updates.
The moon was growing slowly in their vision.
"Hehe, I can see my house from here."
Adam remarked as they prepared to detach the lunar module from the rest of the ship.
They landed without incident, observed by mobile camera crews and news reporters as he made his own footprint on the never changing dust of the moon's surface. He gave them a thumbs up to let them know he was fine and hesitated only once before setting up the UN flag in the dirt. He refused to let his enthusiasm be dampened by the day's events and hopped around dancing and leaping for joy as another one of his childhood dreams was fulfilled.
…
That was before he plowed face first into the moon's surface and required help from Richards to stand back up again.
They left soon after taking another three days of escort back to earth before strapping themselves in for final entry.
Conn left them just as they were entering orbit with a very big and very drawn out middle finger for all three of them.
"Your friend is super delightful isn't he?”
"You don’t know the half of it, try having a child with him."
Adam muttered, refusing to elaborate even as they stared at him in confusion.
They fell from the sky and landed somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, picked up by the waiting navy vessel who was within nine miles of their landing site. They were fished from the water and returned safe and sound to the ship to cheers and cameras. Adam's legs felt a little like jelly after days of not using them, and he was finally able to relax lying on the deck of the ship under the sun as people ran around them on either side.
His hands shook slowly building up after the stress of the last week. He took long deep breaths and closed his eyes.
The next few days were going to be a real shit show.
And somehow it wasn’t because he was now known as the man who faceplanted not one, but TWO interstellar bodies…
The media was way to busy with the other story, a massive net of deceit and corruption that would now be uncovered.
Previous First [Next](link)
Want to find a specific one, see the whole list or check fanart?
Here is the link to the master-post.
Intro post by me
OC-whole collection
Patreon of the author
Thanks for reading! As you saw in the title, this is a cross posted story written by starrfallknightrise and I'll just upload some of it here for you guys, if you are interested and want to read ahead, the original story-collection can be found on tumblr or wattpad to read for free. (link above this text under "OC:..." ) It is the Empyrean Iris story collection by starfallknightrise. Also, if you want to know more about the story collection i made an intro post about it, so feel free to check that out to see what other great characters to look forward to! (Link also above this text). I have no affiliations to the author; just thought I’d share some of the great stories you might enjoy a lot!
Obviously, I have Charlie’s permission to post this and for the people already knowing the stories, or starting to read them: If you follow the link and check out the story you will see some differences. I made some small (non-artistic) changes, mainly correcting writing mistakes, pronoun correction and some small additional info here and there of things which were not thought of/forgotten or even were added/changed in later stories (like the “USS->UNSC” prefix of Stabby, Chalar=/->Sunny etc). As well as some "biggemajor" changes in descriptions and info’s for the same stringency/continuity reason. That can be explained by the story collection being, well a story collection at the start with many standalone-stories just starring the same people, but later on it gets more to a stringent storyline with backstories and throwbacks. (For example Adam Vir has some HEAVY scars over his body, following his bones, which were not really talked about up till half the collection, where it says it covers his whole body and you find out via backflash that he had them the whole time and how he got them, they just weren't mentioned before. However, I would think a doctor would at least see these scars before that, especially since he gets analyzed, treated and goes shirtless/in T-shirts in some stories). So TLDR: Writing and some descriptions are slightly changed, with full OK from the author, since he himself did not bother to correct these things before.

Hi all - strap in lol..
I (23M) had been seeing a girl (22F) for around 9 months and we became official just touching 7 months ago..
At the beginning, everything was pretty good and I was happy. Around March this year, her effort dramatcially decreased. There were a few red flags that I admittedly ignored such as a promiscuous past ( not necassarily a red flag in itself but she was pretty vocal about it which I'll get to ), me being her first boyfriend and from what I could gather, the first guy to treat her well.
For the duration of the 9 months, she didn't plan one single date, she did not get me anything for Valentines day or our 6 month anniversary, when I asked her to join me and my family for dinner for an important milestone in my life ( 1 year sober ) she did not make the effort to be there as she was " too tired " . I got her a nice photo of the two of us framed for our 6 months which she hadn't even bothered to unwrap up to the last time I saw her which was less than a week ago..
I planned every date, paid for 98% percent of them, planned and paid for two holidays which I wouldn't mind doing had she shown effort in other ways.. Like at the beginning, she would make the effort to call me every night which was more than enough for me to know she cared. I'm not a needy bloke, I didn't need gifts and to be wined and dined but something so simple as the phone calls was good for me, but that faded around February..
Things really started to look bleek around the time of our second Holiday which was the beginning of last month. She had been out drinking the night before and told me the next day she had a guy from her class pour liquour into her mouth which personally for me, was a boundary crossed that I foolishly ignored. Then, one of the nights on holiday, while drunk, she decided to show me a list she had kept in her notes app of all her past sexual partners and even went as far to tell me how big one of the guys dicks was (upon reflection I should've left her there and then).
Now, don't get me wrong, she was not a demon. She had many moments of showing affection and care, she bought me some nice clothes for Christmas and my birthday aswell as other small but thoughtful gifts and often used to keep my favorite drinks in the fridge for when I came over. But for the mostpart, the effort was just not there and would frequently go hours without snapping me back, and often times wouldn't start an actual verbal conversation ever and there wouldn't be one if I didn't start one..
I brought up the lack of effort to her 3 or 4 times and and told her, if she just wasn't into me it was fine and we could call it quits, but we needed to communicate. Each time she would cry, maintain that she loved me, she wanted me in her life and wanted to be with me. She is super focused on her studies and I told her I totally get it and that I don't expect to come first, and don't want much, but something so simple as the nightly phone call was enough for me to know she cared. Each time she told me she would try and do better but nothing ever changed.
So, this Sunday gone, I couldn't do it anymore and initiated a break up. Once she saw I was serious she kind of scrambled to make it mutual, but I inititated it and I don't think she had intented to finish with me any time soon. I told her nothing has changed and I don't see it changing, she told me she doesn't feel she can give me what I need (which is not very much) or deserve. She said she loves me still and probably always will. The last thing I said to her was, I will miss you, I am thankful for the times we shared, wished her the best of luck with her studies and the rest of her time in my country ( she's not from here) and goodbye. I have since entered a period of no contact with her.
I also don't believe there was another guy on the scene, she was never secretive with her phone and always left her location on, which I never checked as I found that to be unhealthy, but her wilingness to leave it on was fairly reassuring in that regard.
The reason I am conflicted is because, I don't believe she saw it ending and I do believe she had genuine feelings for me, but I couldn't allow myself be disrespected and taken for granted any longer for my own sanitys sake.
What I'm asking is, given it ended amicably, is it hopeless to think that she will realise what she lost and come back and make an effort, or is it dead in the water.. Afterall, even though I ended it, I am in love with her and am finding the no contact incredibly difficult although have no intention of breaking it.
I find it hard to believe she is able to let someone who did and cared so much for her go that easily, but am also aware life is cruel and unforgiving..
I'd really like some non biased opinions on this.. Thanks!
Edit: she has not yet taken down the photos of us together on Instagram if that counts for anything...

Hi all - strap in lol..
I (23M) had been seeing a girl (22F) for around 9 months and we became official just touching 7 months ago..
At the beginning, everything was pretty good and I was happy. Around March this year, her effort dramatcially decreased. There were a few red flags that I admittedly ignored such as a promiscuous past ( not necassarily a red flag in itself but she was pretty vocal about it which I'll get to ), me being her first boyfriend and from what I could gather, the first guy to treat her well.
For the duration of the 9 months, she didn't plan one single date, she did not get me anything for Valentines day or our 6 month anniversary, when I asked her to join me and my family for dinner for an important milestone in my life ( 1 year sober ) she did not make the effort to be there as she was " too tired " . I got her a nice photo of the two of us framed for our 6 months which she hadn't even bothered to unwrap up to the last time I saw her which was less than a week ago..
I planned every date, paid for 98% percent of them, planned and paid for two holidays which I wouldn't mind doing had she shown effort in other ways.. Like at the beginning, she would make the effort to call me every night which was more than enough for me to know she cared. I'm not a needy bloke, I didn't need gifts and to be wined and dined but something so simple as the phone calls was good for me, but that faded around February..
Things really started to look bleek around the time of our second Holiday which was the beginning of last month. She had been out drinking the night before and told me the next day she had a guy from her class pour liquour into her mouth which personally for me, was a boundary crossed that I foolishly ignored. Then, one of the nights on holiday, while drunk, she decided to show me a list she had kept in her notes app of all her past sexual partners and even went as far to tell me how big one of the guys dicks was (upon reflection I should've left her there and then).
Now, don't get me wrong, she was not a demon. She had many moments of showing affection and care, she bought me some nice clothes for Christmas and my birthday aswell as other small but thoughtful gifts and often used to keep my favorite drinks in the fridge for when I came over. But for the mostpart, the effort was just not there and would frequently go hours without snapping me back, and often times wouldn't start an actual verbal conversation ever and there wouldn't be one if I didn't start one..
I brought up the lack of effort to her 3 or 4 times and and told her, if she just wasn't into me it was fine and we could call it quits, but we needed to communicate. Each time she would cry, maintain that she loved me, she wanted me in her life and wanted to be with me. She is super focused on her studies and I told her I totally get it and that I don't expect to come first, and don't want much, but something so simple as the nightly phone call was enough for me to know she cared. Each time she told me she would try and do better but nothing ever changed.
So, this Sunday gone, I couldn't do it anymore and initiated a break up. Once she saw I was serious she kind of scrambled to make it mutual, but I inititated it and I don't think she had intented to finish with me any time soon. I told her nothing has changed and I don't see it changing, she told me she doesn't feel she can give me what I need (which is not very much) or deserve. She said she loves me still and probably always will. The last thing I said to her was, I will miss you, I am thankful for the times we shared, wished her the best of luck with her studies and the rest of her time in my country ( she's not from here) and goodbye. I have since entered a period of no contact with her.
I also don't believe there was another guy on the scene, she was never secretive with her phone and always left her location on, which I never checked as I found that to be unhealthy, but her wilingness to leave it on was fairly reassuring in that regard.
The reason I am conflicted is because, I don't believe she saw it ending and I do believe she had genuine feelings for me, but I couldn't allow myself be disrespected and taken for granted any longer for my own sanitys sake.
What I'm asking is, given it ended amicably, is it hopeless to think that she will realise what she lost and come back and make an effort, or is it dead in the water.. Afterall, even though I ended it, I am in love with her and am finding the no contact incredibly difficult although have no intention of breaking it.
I find it hard to believe she is able to let someone who did and cared so much for her go that easily, but am also aware life is cruel and unforgiving..
I'd really like some non biased opinions on this.. Thanks!
Edit: she has not yet taken down the photos of us together on Instagram if that counts for anything...

I (24f) work for a small, publishing company, only seven of us in the office, two from home and then two more abroad. I have worked here for nearly two years, 40 hours a week + one hour unpaid for lunch each day and commute by bus to work. Our contracted work hours are 8:30-5:30 but our boss is lenient with start and finish times as long as we work our hours. This was allowed because my bus schedule would have me arrive at work anywhere between 7:50 - 8:00am. If I got the later bus I would be arriving either just on time or 10 minutes late and would have to stay later to make up that time which I don't want to do.
All of my coworkers live within a walking distance to the office but I live almost 1.5 hours away, 2 hours depending on the traffic when coming home. My normal daily schedule is:
Wake up: 5-5:30 (depending on if I need to shower or not)
Leave the house: 6:20
Arrive to work: 7:50-8:00
Leave work: 4:50-5:00
Arrive home: 6:45-7:30 (Afternoon buses for some reason like to sporadically cancel some days so it's a game of chance when I get home
Go to bed: 10:00
By the end of my work day I'm absolutely exhausted as my manager loves to micromanage and complaining does nothing as she's married to the boss so I have no energy to do meaningful tasks other than cook dinner and clean my room (I live with my parents still because the economy is trash) and socialising with my parents, our dog, and my partner online as we're long distance. I'm incredibly tired of having to do this daily routine 5 days a week for almost two years now. I want to get into my passion of writing stories and become an author of fictional novels and write children's books. I want to go from full time to part time so I still have a source of income but can dedicate some time to learning children's literature and publishing.
My problem is how to request this change to my employers. How would I phrase it? What sort of process would I be in for? How do I request to go from full time to part time?
I do love my job but I'm also beginning to hate it and stay productive because the days are too much for me now with a micromanaging boss. I know there are people with harder schedules, more work hours, more responsibilities, and that I'm young, but I don't want to live my life like this forever. Just one day off a week would help me so much with progressing my learning on children's lit, being able to make appointments that can only be done on weekdays without having to take holiday and just spend more time enjoying life.
Any advice is appreciated.

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trick, trip, troop, trouble, truck, true, truly, trust, truth, try, tube, tunnel, turn, TV, twelve, twenty, twice, twin, two, type, typical, typically, ugly, ultimate, ultimately, unable, uncle, undergo, understand, understanding, unfortunately, uniform, union, unique, unit, United, universal, universe, university, unknown, unless, unlike, until, unusual, up, upon, upper, urban, urge, us, use, used, useful, user, usual, usually, utility, utilize, vacation, valley, valuable, value, variable, variation, variety, various, vary, vast, vegetable, vehicle, venture, version, versus, very, vessel, veteran, via, victim, victory, video, view, viewer, village, violate, violation, violence, violent, virtually, virtue, virus, visibility, visible, vision, visit, visitor, visual, vital, voice, volume, voluntary, volunteer, vote, voter, voting, wage, wait, wake, walk, wall, wander, want, war, warm, warn, warning, wash, waste, watch, water, wave, way, we, weak, weakness, wealth, wealthy, weapon, wear, weather, web, website, wedding, week, weekend, weekly, weigh, weight, welcome, welfare, well, west, western, wet, what, whatever, wheel, when, whenever, where, whereas, whether, which, while, whisper, white, who, whole, whom, whose, why, wide, widely, widespread, wife, wild, wildlife, will, willing, win, wind, window, wine, wing, winner, winter, wipe, wire, wisdom, wise, wish, with, withdraw, within, without, witness, woman, wonder, wonderful, wood, wooden, word, work, worker, working, workout, workplace, works, workshop, world, worried, worry, worth, would, wound, wrap, write, writer, writing, wrong, yard, yeah, year, yell, yellow, yes, yesterday, yet, yield, you, young, your, yours, yourself, youth, zone.

This is a very long one.
I (19f) have been in and out of long term/short term facilities since I was 12 years old. I’ve had suicide attempts and have been diagnosed with major depressive disorder. This is definitely not my first experience with a therapist. Over the years I’ve had over 6+. Not because they haven’t worked for me all the time, but because they either move onto another facility or I move onto another phase in life.
Last year I adopted a new therapist “Mere” thanks to my older sister “North”. My current Therapist “Tina” who I’ve been working with for the past 3 and a half years, switched to a facility where my insurance only covers 30 min sessions. North didn’t think that was enough for me at the time since I wasn’t doing so well mentally. The therapist she recommended worked closely with her own and offered 1hr long sessions, so I agreed wanting to try something new since my old therapist seemed to not specialize in trauma and ptsd. Kerr was highly recommended for those topics.
We started our sessions not soon after my sister offered. The first couple months were hard. Our personalities seemed to clash. Not because mine was bad, but because I was deeply depressed. I was not a joy to be around and everyone seemed annoyed with my constant melancholy. Even my therapists seemed sick of me.
Over time I learned to adapt my personality to be more palatable. My therapists loved it now that I was interacting with them and making jokes. I treated them more like friends now instead of therapists and they seemed to appreciate that. I found it funny because a lot of my issues I explained to them was faking my personality to fit into the crowd and adapt. Due to me being f a people pleaser. They didn’t see anything wrong with the change since I seemed to be getting better mentally.
I was better. I wouldn’t attribute much of my success to my therapists tho. It was nice to have someone to talk to since at the time I had no friends, but they didn’t seem to know how to handle my constant depression so I started to hide it from them. Even from myself. Over time I was able to function a lot better. I switched my sessions to only once every two weeks and I was planning on ending them all together since I was doing so well on my own and haven’t need much help in a while.
It seems that I ah e bad luck. Right when I was at my peak recovery and condition, I was raped on the first day of the new year. I spiraled back into my deep deep deep depression worse than any other relapse I had before. I survived on Benadryl and ice cream for weeks. I took the pills so I didn’t have to be awake to long. I ate only food that I liked the most (mainly unhealthily) my health declined.
My mental health was the worst of it tho. The day after the rape occurred I had a session with my newer therapist. I start telling her the details of my assault. The shock was still fresh in my brain and my memories were scrambled. I greatly blamed myself. I thought I was the weirdo.
Mere only confirmed my sentiments. Before I could fully list out the details of the night it happened she immediately started to spew accusations of my intentions that night. Saying phrases like “Well when someone is pleasuring you it’s hard to say no and there’s nothing wrong with that”
I shut up then and just agreed with her but something still didn’t sit right with me. I went on Reddit and there was mixed opinions about it. A lot of ppl validated my feelings and others thought It was my fault. After fully processing this event and fully remembering it in its entirety I can say confidently that what happened to me was rape.
The next session we had I was able to tell the full story. Mede had just said “Oh. Well you didn’t mention all this before. That’s definitely not ok”. The thing is tho, she was the one to cut me off and make assumptions instead of trying to pull out the full story. She knew I had extreme ptsd and I probably wouldn’t be able to give an in-depth detailed explanation of what happened. She still insulted me anyway and brushed me off.
I thought this to be weird but I brushed it off. When you think k you’re in the presence of a professional you don’t often question things especially if you aren’t in the mental space to do so. So ignored her.
There have been times where she’s been short with me. One time she had asked to switch a 12pm session to 5pm. When I refused she said she’d have to charge me a cancellation fee. It seemed that she just wanted to get paid for that session still and wanted to guilt me into paying. I refused and explained that she was the one who cancelled on me and she immediately backed down realizing I wouldn’t be easily pushed around. I didn’t think much of it then.
Another time. I had gone to this tattoo parlor to get my belly button pierced. I took videos and pictures of the process. She requested in our session that week to see the pictures. I agreed to send and emailed them to her in two emails. In one there was all the pictures of the parlor, the. The other had the videos of the full process. Accidentally I had added one singular picture of me. I was at school and I took a picture in the schools bathroom. There was nothing indecent about it I just accidentally pressed on that picture as I was sending the others. IT happened a lot when using your iPhone to email and I didn’t really notice.
She brought it up the next session and started to berate me for sending that singular pic out of all the obvious other intended pictures. She said it’s inappropriate to send her pictures of myself. I explained to her the accident and she seemed shocked. All she said was “oh well ok”. I don’t know why she got so triggered I’ve always kept good boundaries with her. I can’t believe she immediately started accusing me for one picture of me posing in the mirror while having a turtle neck in a jacket and everything.
Those are just a few of the shady things she’s done. Now back to current time. After I was raped. I still continued sessions with her and tried to get back on track. She wasn’t really helping. I would have extreme panic attacks on therapy video calls with her and she seemed at loss of what to do. I distanced myself from her and I started to get a little better, but then I started to have issues with some of my friends. That added onto my load of issues and started to push me to the edge.
I called my therapist the night of my attempt. I try not to call her after hours but I was in genuine crisis. I had spent the whole day being practically verbally abused by one of my friends. I was cracking slowly it surely and I reached out for help.
Otp I expressed to her how I felt betrayed by everyone around me. I asked her why everyone felt it was ok to treat me wrong whenever. Why wasn’t I able to find peace? Why I couldn’t find ppl who cared? My parents are emotionally abusive as well. That all stems into my ppl pleasing habits. I’ve let a lot of ppl take advantage of my nature because I’ve been conditioned to since birth. She knows my history and why I am the way I am. Instead of consoling me she yelled at me. “Well you knew they were bad ppl!” “If you knew they were bad ppl why are you blaming them you just need to stop hanging around bad ppl”. She then told me she had to go and hung up. She did ask me if I was safe but of course I lied. She knows I always try to see the best in ppl. I don’t see the bad till it’s too late most times. Her words stung like acid. I had been prescribed some sedatives to calm me during panic attacks. I had taken two but they weren’t helping. After that call I took the whole bottle. I didn’t want to die alone so I called my mother to stay in my room with me. Then I drifted into a deep sleep for hours into the next day’s afternoon. I had fallen asleep around 10 pm. I woke up the next day around 3pm still kicking but disordered.
I spent two weeks in a mental hospital. During that time I do t have access to my phone. I had my sister contact everyone that needed to be. Even Mere. She knew I was in there. I didn’t call her while I was there bc I was still upset at her after everything.
I was discharged but I didn’t set up a session for weeks. She emailed and called me once but I didn’t respond till I was fully settled back into my routine and okay enough to talk to her. I emailed her this
“Hallo, Sorry. I didn’t mean to ghost you. I just needed some time to get myself together. I called you just now. You are probably busy. I hope everything is doing well on your end. Sorry again. Sent from my iPhone”
I had planned to set up an appointment in the future to talk to her about everything but by the time I checked my patient portal a week or so later I had been discharged with no warning. No calm text or email.
I set up a meeting with her over the phone for 45 mins. When she first came onto the call the first thing she said was “I saw that you put our appointment for 45 mins. I changed it to 30 bc you know I did discharge you”. I thought it was pretty rude so instead of explaining everything I told her about how I didn’t have my phone in the hospital and the hospital themselves didn’t notify her because they were disorganized and were extremely unprofessional. It’s not like she wasn’t updated by my sisters anyway. When I got my phone after I got home I saw texts from her asking if I was still having a session with her. Knowing that I was in the hospital. It seemed she either didn’t care or didn’t believe I was in the hospital. In fact when she had spoken over the phone with one of my sisters she had lied to them about that night. She had told her “After I got otp with her I immediately started praying for her because I m ew something was deeply wrong” how delusional of her to say after she yelled at me and hung up.
Anyway after I explained my reasoning for going MIA she started to realize how fucked up she was and asked me how I was doing. I didn’t say much because I was done with her and she obviously didn’t intend of hearing the full story since she shortened our session. She started asking me why I didn’t want to continue therapy and seemed confused why I didn’t seem to beg her to re admit me. I told her I was done with therapy. She seemed concerned and said that she discharged me because she thought it’d be better for me to find an in person therapist. I knew it was a shitty excuse. I quickly hang up on her and don’t address anything.
I’m only processing this now because I’ve had much bigger things going on. I’m only now realizing how fucked up her behavior was. If I hadn’t spoken to her the night of my attempt I probably wouldn’t have tried to kill myself. I feel cheated out of help. I don’t feel angry at her I have to reserve that for someone more worthy of my rage. I only wished she didn’t use the fact that I would never call her out on her behavior usually. She knew my temperament and took advantage of that. I don’t think I’ll ever trust a therapist again. She victim blamed me, mocked me, berated me in my time of need, and then abandoned me on baseless assumptions that could’ve been easily cleared up if she actually listened to what my sisters and I were saying. She didn’t even say sorry when we were talking. Or express any remorse besides embarrassment for jumping to conclusions. SMH.
TLDR: My therapist berated me for trusting ppl in my life the night of my suicide attempt. Then Discharged me from her care without consulting me first. Blamed me for all her mistakes and jumped to conclusions randomly then never apologized for the baseless accusations. I am at a loss for words and at a loss for trust in therapy again.

This is a very long one. Trigger warning ⚠️
I (19f) have been in and out of long term/short term facilities since I was 12 years old. I’ve had suicide attempts and have been diagnosed with major depressive disorder. This is definitely not my first experience with a therapist. Over the years I’ve had over 6+. Not because they haven’t worked for me all the time, but because they either move onto another facility or I move onto another phase in life.
Last year I adopted a new therapist “Mere” thanks to my older sister “North”. My current Therapist “Tina” who I’ve been working with for the past 3 and a half years, switched to a facility where my insurance only covers 30 min sessions. North didn’t think that was enough for me at the time since I wasn’t doing so well mentally. The therapist she recommended worked closely with her own and offered 1hr long sessions, so I agreed wanting to try something new since my old therapist seemed to not specialize in trauma and ptsd. Kerr was highly recommended for those topics.
We started our sessions not soon after my sister offered. The first couple months were hard. Our personalities seemed to clash. Not because mine was bad, but because I was deeply depressed. I was not a joy to be around and everyone seemed annoyed with my constant melancholy. Even my therapists seemed sick of me.
Over time I learned to adapt my personality to be more palatable. My therapists loved it now that I was interacting with them and making jokes. I treated them more like friends now instead of therapists and they seemed to appreciate that. I found it funny because a lot of my issues I explained to them was faking my personality to fit into the crowd and adapt. Due to me being f a people pleaser. They didn’t see anything wrong with the change since I seemed to be getting better mentally.
I was better. I wouldn’t attribute much of my success to my therapists tho. It was nice to have someone to talk to since at the time I had no friends, but they didn’t seem to know how to handle my constant depression so I started to hide it from them. Even from myself. Over time I was able to function a lot better. I switched my sessions to only once every two weeks and I was planning on ending them all together since I was doing so well on my own and haven’t need much help in a while.
It seems that I ah e bad luck. Right when I was at my peak recovery and condition, I was raped on the first day of the new year. I spiraled back into my deep deep deep depression worse than any other relapse I had before. I survived on Benadryl and ice cream for weeks. I took the pills so I didn’t have to be awake to long. I ate only food that I liked the most (mainly unhealthily) my health declined.
My mental health was the worst of it tho. The day after the rape occurred I had a session with my newer therapist. I start telling her the details of my assault. The shock was still fresh in my brain and my memories were scrambled. I greatly blamed myself. I thought I was the weirdo.
Mere only confirmed my sentiments. Before I could fully list out the details of the night it happened she immediately started to spew accusations of my intentions that night. Saying phrases like “Well when someone is pleasuring you it’s hard to say no and there’s nothing wrong with that”
I shut up then and just agreed with her but something still didn’t sit right with me. I went on Reddit and there was mixed opinions about it. A lot of ppl validated my feelings and others thought It was my fault. After fully processing this event and fully remembering it in its entirety I can say confidently that what happened to me was rape.
The next session we had I was able to tell the full story. Mede had just said “Oh. Well you didn’t mention all this before. That’s definitely not ok”. The thing is tho, she was the one to cut me off and make assumptions instead of trying to pull out the full story. She knew I had extreme ptsd and I probably wouldn’t be able to give an in-depth detailed explanation of what happened. She still insulted me anyway and brushed me off.
I thought this to be weird but I brushed it off. When you think k you’re in the presence of a professional you don’t often question things especially if you aren’t in the mental space to do so. So ignored her.
There have been times where she’s been short with me. One time she had asked to switch a 12pm session to 5pm. When I refused she said she’d have to charge me a cancellation fee. It seemed that she just wanted to get paid for that session still and wanted to guilt me into paying. I refused and explained that she was the one who cancelled on me and she immediately backed down realizing I wouldn’t be easily pushed around. I didn’t think much of it then.
Another time. I had gone to this tattoo parlor to get my belly button pierced. I took videos and pictures of the process. She requested in our session that week to see the pictures. I agreed to send and emailed them to her in two emails. In one there was all the pictures of the parlor, the. The other had the videos of the full process. Accidentally I had added one singular picture of me. I was at school and I took a picture in the schools bathroom. There was nothing indecent about it I just accidentally pressed on that picture as I was sending the others. IT happened a lot when using your iPhone to email and I didn’t really notice.
She brought it up the next session and started to berate me for sending that singular pic out of all the obvious other intended pictures. She said it’s inappropriate to send her pictures of myself. I explained to her the accident and she seemed shocked. All she said was “oh well ok”. I don’t know why she got so triggered I’ve always kept good boundaries with her. I can’t believe she immediately started accusing me for one picture of me posing in the mirror while having a turtle neck in a jacket and everything.
Those are just a few of the shady things she’s done. Now back to current time. After I was raped. I still continued sessions with her and tried to get back on track. She wasn’t really helping. I would have extreme panic attacks on therapy video calls with her and she seemed at loss of what to do. I distanced myself from her and I started to get a little better, but then I started to have issues with some of my friends. That added onto my load of issues and started to push me to the edge.
I called my therapist the night of my attempt. I try not to call her after hours but I was in genuine crisis. I had spent the whole day being practically verbally abused by one of my friends. I was cracking slowly it surely and I reached out for help.
Otp I expressed to her how I felt betrayed by everyone around me. I asked her why everyone felt it was ok to treat me wrong whenever. Why wasn’t I able to find peace? Why I couldn’t find ppl who cared? My parents are emotionally abusive as well. That all stems into my ppl pleasing habits. I’ve let a lot of ppl take advantage of my nature because I’ve been conditioned to since birth. She knows my history and why I am the way I am. Instead of consoling me she yelled at me. “Well you knew they were bad ppl!” “If you knew they were bad ppl why are you blaming them you just need to stop hanging around bad ppl”. She then told me she had to go and hung up. She did ask me if I was safe but of course I lied. She knows I always try to see the best in ppl. I don’t see the bad till it’s too late most times. Her words stung like acid. I had been prescribed some sedatives to calm me during panic attacks. I had taken two but they weren’t helping. After that call I took the whole bottle. I didn’t want to die alone so I called my mother to stay in my room with me. Then I drifted into a deep sleep for hours into the next day’s afternoon. I had fallen asleep around 10 pm. I woke up the next day around 3pm still kicking but disordered.
I spent two weeks in a mental hospital. During that time I do t have access to my phone. I had my sister contact everyone that needed to be. Even Mere. She knew I was in there. I didn’t call her while I was there bc I was still upset at her after everything.
I was discharged but I didn’t set up a session for weeks. She emailed and called me once but I didn’t respond till I was fully settled back into my routine and okay enough to talk to her. I emailed her this
“Hallo, Sorry. I didn’t mean to ghost you. I just needed some time to get myself together. I called you just now. You are probably busy. I hope everything is doing well on your end. Sorry again. Sent from my iPhone”
I had planned to set up an appointment in the future to talk to her about everything but by the time I checked my patient portal a week or so later I had been discharged with no warning. No calm text or email.
I set up a meeting with her over the phone for 45 mins. When she first came onto the call the first thing she said was “I saw that you put our appointment for 45 mins. I changed it to 30 bc you know I did discharge you”. I thought it was pretty rude so instead of explaining everything I told her about how I didn’t have my phone in the hospital and the hospital themselves didn’t notify her because they were disorganized and were extremely unprofessional. It’s not like she wasn’t updated by my sisters anyway. When I got my phone after I got home I saw texts from her asking if I was still having a session with her. Knowing that I was in the hospital. It seemed she either didn’t care or didn’t believe I was in the hospital. In fact when she had spoken over the phone with one of my sisters she had lied to them about that night. She had told her “After I got otp with her I immediately started praying for her because I m ew something was deeply wrong” how delusional of her to say after she yelled at me and hung up.
Anyway after I explained my reasoning for going MIA she started to realize how fucked up she was and asked me how I was doing. I didn’t say much because I was done with her and she obviously didn’t intend of hearing the full story since she shortened our session. She started asking me why I didn’t want to continue therapy and seemed confused why I didn’t seem to beg her to re admit me. I told her I was done with therapy. She seemed concerned and said that she discharged me because she thought it’d be better for me to find an in person therapist. I knew it was a shitty excuse. I quickly hang up on her and don’t address anything.
I’m only processing this now because I’ve had much bigger things going on. I’m only now realizing how fucked up her behavior was. If I hadn’t spoken to her the night of my attempt I probably wouldn’t have tried to kill myself. I feel cheated out of help. I don’t feel angry at her I have to reserve that for someone more worthy of my rage. I only wished she didn’t use the fact that I would never call her out on her behavior usually. She knew my temperament and took advantage of that. I don’t think I’ll ever trust a therapist again. She victim blamed me, mocked me, berated me in my time of need, and then abandoned me on baseless assumptions that could’ve been easily cleared up if she actually listened to what my sisters and I were saying. She didn’t even say sorry when we were talking. Or express any remorse besides embarrassment for jumping to conclusions. SMH.
TLDR: My therapist berated me for trusting ppl in my life the night of my suicide attempt. Then Discharged me from her care without consulting me first. Blamed me for all her mistakes and jumped to conclusions randomly then never apologized for the baseless accusations. I am at a loss for words and at a loss for trust in therapy again.

This is a very long one.
I (19f) have been in and out of long term/short term facilities since I was 12 years old. I’ve had suicide attempts and have been diagnosed with major depressive disorder. This is definitely not my first experience with a therapist. Over the years I’ve had over 6+. Not because they haven’t worked for me all the time, but because they either move onto another facility or I move onto another phase in life.
Last year I adopted a new therapist “Mere” thanks to my older sister “North”. My current Therapist “Tina” who I’ve been working with for the past 3 and a half years, switched to a facility where my insurance only covers 30 min sessions. North didn’t think that was enough for me at the time since I wasn’t doing so well mentally. The therapist she recommended worked closely with her own and offered 1hr long sessions, so I agreed wanting to try something new since my old therapist seemed to not specialize in trauma and ptsd. Kerr was highly recommended for those topics.
We started our sessions not soon after my sister offered. The first couple months were hard. Our personalities seemed to clash. Not because mine was bad, but because I was deeply depressed. I was not a joy to be around and everyone seemed annoyed with my constant melancholy. Even my therapists seemed sick of me.
Over time I learned to adapt my personality to be more palatable. My therapists loved it now that I was interacting with them and making jokes. I treated them more like friends now instead of therapists and they seemed to appreciate that. I found it funny because a lot of my issues I explained to them was faking my personality to fit into the crowd and adapt. Due to me being f a people pleaser. They didn’t see anything wrong with the change since I seemed to be getting better mentally.
I was better. I wouldn’t attribute much of my success to my therapists tho. It was nice to have someone to talk to since at the time I had no friends, but they didn’t seem to know how to handle my constant depression so I started to hide it from them. Even from myself. Over time I was able to function a lot better. I switched my sessions to only once every two weeks and I was planning on ending them all together since I was doing so well on my own and haven’t need much help in a while.
It seems that I ah e bad luck. Right when I was at my peak recovery and condition, I was raped on the first day of the new year. I spiraled back into my deep deep deep depression worse than any other relapse I had before. I survived on Benadryl and ice cream for weeks. I took the pills so I didn’t have to be awake to long. I ate only food that I liked the most (mainly unhealthily) my health declined.
My mental health was the worst of it tho. The day after the rape occurred I had a session with my newer therapist. I start telling her the details of my assault. The shock was still fresh in my brain and my memories were scrambled. I greatly blamed myself. I thought I was the weirdo.
Mere only confirmed my sentiments. Before I could fully list out the details of the night it happened she immediately started to spew accusations of my intentions that night. Saying phrases like “Well when someone is pleasuring you it’s hard to say no and there’s nothing wrong with that”
I shut up then and just agreed with her but something still didn’t sit right with me. I went on Reddit and there was mixed opinions about it. A lot of ppl validated my feelings and others thought It was my fault. After fully processing this event and fully remembering it in its entirety I can say confidently that what happened to me was rape.
The next session we had I was able to tell the full story. Mede had just said “Oh. Well you didn’t mention all this before. That’s definitely not ok”. The thing is tho, she was the one to cut me off and make assumptions instead of trying to pull out the full story. She knew I had extreme ptsd and I probably wouldn’t be able to give an in-depth detailed explanation of what happened. She still insulted me anyway and brushed me off.
I thought this to be weird but I brushed it off. When you think k you’re in the presence of a professional you don’t often question things especially if you aren’t in the mental space to do so. So ignored her.
There have been times where she’s been short with me. One time she had asked to switch a 12pm session to 5pm. When I refused she said she’d have to charge me a cancellation fee. It seemed that she just wanted to get paid for that session still and wanted to guilt me into paying. I refused and explained that she was the one who cancelled on me and she immediately backed down realizing I wouldn’t be easily pushed around. I didn’t think much of it then.
Another time. I had gone to this tattoo parlor to get my belly button pierced. I took videos and pictures of the process. She requested in our session that week to see the pictures. I agreed to send and emailed them to her in two emails. In one there was all the pictures of the parlor, the. The other had the videos of the full process. Accidentally I had added one singular picture of me. I was at school and I took a picture in the schools bathroom. There was nothing indecent about it I just accidentally pressed on that picture as I was sending the others. IT happened a lot when using your iPhone to email and I didn’t really notice.
She brought it up the next session and started to berate me for sending that singular pic out of all the obvious other intended pictures. She said it’s inappropriate to send her pictures of myself. I explained to her the accident and she seemed shocked. All she said was “oh well ok”. I don’t know why she got so triggered I’ve always kept good boundaries with her. I can’t believe she immediately started accusing me for one picture of me posing in the mirror while having a turtle neck in a jacket and everything.
Those are just a few of the shady things she’s done. Now back to current time. After I was raped. I still continued sessions with her and tried to get back on track. She wasn’t really helping. I would have extreme panic attacks on therapy video calls with her and she seemed at loss of what to do. I distanced myself from her and I started to get a little better, but then I started to have issues with some of my friends. That added onto my load of issues and started to push me to the edge.
I called my therapist the night of my attempt. I try not to call her after hours but I was in genuine crisis. I had spent the whole day being practically verbally abused by one of my friends. I was cracking slowly it surely and I reached out for help.
Otp I expressed to her how I felt betrayed by everyone around me. I asked her why everyone felt it was ok to treat me wrong whenever. Why wasn’t I able to find peace? Why I couldn’t find ppl who cared? My parents are emotionally abusive as well. That all stems into my ppl pleasing habits. I’ve let a lot of ppl take advantage of my nature because I’ve been conditioned to since birth. She knows my history and why I am the way I am. Instead of consoling me she yelled at me. “Well you knew they were bad ppl!” “If you knew they were bad ppl why are you blaming them you just need to stop hanging around bad ppl”. She then told me she had to go and hung up. She did ask me if I was safe but of course I lied. She knows I always try to see the best in ppl. I don’t see the bad till it’s too late most times. Her words stung like acid. I had been prescribed some sedatives to calm me during panic attacks. I had taken two but they weren’t helping. After that call I took the whole bottle. I didn’t want to die alone so I called my mother to stay in my room with me. Then I drifted into a deep sleep for hours into the next day’s afternoon. I had fallen asleep around 10 pm. I woke up the next day around 3pm still kicking but disordered.
I spent two weeks in a mental hospital. During that time I do t have access to my phone. I had my sister contact everyone that needed to be. Even Mere. She knew I was in there. I didn’t call her while I was there bc I was still upset at her after everything.
I was discharged but I didn’t set up a session for weeks. She emailed and called me once but I didn’t respond till I was fully settled back into my routine and okay enough to talk to her. I emailed her this
“Hallo, Sorry. I didn’t mean to ghost you. I just needed some time to get myself together. I called you just now. You are probably busy. I hope everything is doing well on your end. Sorry again. Sent from my iPhone”
I had planned to set up an appointment in the future to talk to her about everything but by the time I checked my patient portal a week or so later I had been discharged with no warning. No calm text or email.
I set up a meeting with her over the phone for 45 mins. When she first came onto the call the first thing she said was “I saw that you put our appointment for 45 mins. I changed it to 30 bc you know I did discharge you”. I thought it was pretty rude so instead of explaining everything I told her about how I didn’t have my phone in the hospital and the hospital themselves didn’t notify her because they were disorganized and were extremely unprofessional. It’s not like she wasn’t updated by my sisters anyway. When I got my phone after I got home I saw texts from her asking if I was still having a session with her. Knowing that I was in the hospital. It seemed she either didn’t care or didn’t believe I was in the hospital. In fact when she had spoken over the phone with one of my sisters she had lied to them about that night. She had told her “After I got otp with her I immediately started praying for her because I m ew something was deeply wrong” how delusional of her to say after she yelled at me and hung up.
Anyway after I explained my reasoning for going MIA she started to realize how fucked up she was and asked me how I was doing. I didn’t say much because I was done with her and she obviously didn’t intend of hearing the full story since she shortened our session. She started asking me why I didn’t want to continue therapy and seemed confused why I didn’t seem to beg her to re admit me. I told her I was done with therapy. She seemed concerned and said that she discharged me because she thought it’d be better for me to find an in person therapist. I knew it was a shitty excuse. I quickly hang up on her and don’t address anything.
I’m only processing this now because I’ve had much bigger things going on. I’m only now realizing how fucked up her behavior was. If I hadn’t spoken to her the night of my attempt I probably wouldn’t have tried to kill myself. I feel cheated out of help. I don’t feel angry at her I have to reserve that for someone more worthy of my rage. I only wished she didn’t use the fact that I would never call her out on her behavior usually. She knew my temperament and took advantage of that. I don’t think I’ll ever trust a therapist again. She victim blamed me, mocked me, berated me in my time of need, and then abandoned me on baseless assumptions that could’ve been easily cleared up if she actually listened to what my sisters and I were saying. She didn’t even say sorry when we were talking. Or express any remorse besides embarrassment for jumping to conclusions. SMH.
TLDR: My therapist berated me for trusting ppl in my life the night of my suicide attempt. Then Discharged me from her care without consulting me first. Blamed me for all her mistakes and jumped to conclusions randomly then never apologized for the baseless accusations. I am at a loss for words and at a loss for trust in therapy again.

For starters, it’s a minimum wage food service job and I only make $14.25 /hr. It’s not like it’s incredibly intense or anything but I just absolutely hate this job.
My schedule is completely unpredictable, as I’m opening at 5am some days, closing at 10pm other days.
And I feel like I’m being dramatic when I say this, but often I feel we are very understaffed, and I’m stuck doing the work of what should be multiple people. I’m a cashier but I’m expected to also make drinks, clean the dining room, prep food, etc etc. And some days we have more than enough people working. But it’s the weekends that are always lacking people, which inevitably becomes our busiest days.
And the one thing that has honestly annoyed me the most is that they hired me under the pretense that Sunday would be the ONLY DAY I am completely unavailable. My availability has changed since then but I have stated several times that Sunday is the one day i do not work. And yet, I find myself constantly getting put on the schedule for Sunday. I ultimately cracked and told them if they were desperate for someone or needed a cover that they could call me or schedule me, but even then, only evenings. They ended up scheduling me for 6am on Easter Sunday, and I think that’s when I realized that they really could not give two shits about my schedule. I have worked holidays before, thanksgiving and Christmas Eve, but this was so ridiculous to me. I told them I wouldn’t be working on Easter and they had to scramble to find a cover. Verbatim, I texted that manager “I won’t be able to work this Easter, and I’d like to change my availability to not available on any Sunday” The scheduleing manager told me “you know you will HAVE to work some Sundays” and I’m so non confrontational I just agreed, but this has been an issue since I started. (Almost a year ago)
My coworkers and managers are really good, and I even told my manager that I had no plans of leaving when getting some info for my resume, but I’m so jaded with this job that I know I am not enjoyable to be around when Im there.
I know I’m replaceable and they probably won’t miss me in the long run, and I know I can get paid more working elsewhere, but idk I feel guilty for leaving after I said I wouldn’t. And I’m nervous about getting a good reference if I put in my two weeks out of the blue.
My ask for advice would really just be this:
1) is it unprofessional to leave after telling the manager I had no plans of leaving?
2) should I give my manager a heads up that I’m searching for a new job elsewhere? (I’d think not but idk)
3) am I asking too much to be taken off the schedule for Sunday when I work every other day of the week?

15 COMMON ENGLISH IDIOMS AND PHRASES WITH THEIR MEANING
Part 2: **

1. ‘To cost an arm and a leg’** – something is very expensive.

“Fuel these days costs and arm and a leg.”**

1. ‘A piece of cake’–** something is very easy.

“The English test was a piece of cake.”**

1. ‘Let the cat out of the bag’** – to accidentally reveal a secret.

“I let the cat out of the bag about their wedding plans.”**

1. ‘To feel under the weather’ ** – to not feel well.

“I’m really feeling under the weather today; I have a terrible cold.”**

1. ‘To kill two birds with one stone’ ** – to solve two problems at once.

“By taking my dad on holiday, I killed two birds with one stone. I got to go away but also spend time with him.”

PART 1

“Don’t touch!” Abe commanded, slapping Max’s hand away. They were both bent over at the waist, admiring.
“Sorry, it’s just… so… what is it?”
“I call it the Alchemic Thaumaturgator.”
“Of course you do. Is that because you couldn’t think of anything simpler, or you just liked the way it rolls off the tongue?” Max smirked.
“Mmm, it’s a work in progress.” He flung a sideways glare at him.
“Sure. So what is one of these?”
“It’s complicated and delicate and to be honest it’s a bit of a mystery, even to me.”
“Right.” There was a moment of silence as they continued scrutinising.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” Abe murmured, almost to himself.
“I mean, yeah, of course….”
“Don’t look at me like that, I can’t tell you what I don’t know!” Abe stood up and let out a disgruntled huff.
“Hmm. Well, it’s confusing enough to give you nausea just looking at it so I’m sure they’d love it as an offering for the Nobel Prize, especially with a name like ‘Alcomic Thordy-whatsit.’”
“Well, maybe, if it gets that far. I nearly broke it last week, which is why I’m telling you,” Abe stood up straighter, one hand on his hip and the other pointed firmly at Max, “to strictly to keep your curious hands to yourself, ok? I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t necessary.”
“Ok ok, I won’t touch it. But really, it looks like it should be in a museum somewhere. Or a Cabinet of Curiosities...”
“Little good would it do in either of those places.” Abe turned to Max and clasped both his hands in his own. “Listen, you are my closest friend and this thing is very important to me. I wouldn’t leave it with you if I didn’t think you were perfectly capable of safeguarding it, so please don’t worry, I know it’s in good hands.”
“If you really think I’m up to it?”
“I do.”
“Well, I’ll take that as a compliment!” Max threw his arms in the air in a sarcastic show of tah-dah! “Go forth, oh Knight of Overly-Complex Science, go do what you have to do and I’ll keep an eye on this beast for you. Shove it on the table and I’ll look after it and Will Not Touch It.”
Abe looked put out, but comically so. “Is that really what you think I sound like?” He laughed. “I’ll put it over here, then. Get in touch if you need me, any time. You have my contacts?”
“I do…” Max fumbled around his pockets. “They’re… here. Got them right here.”
“Good. In which case I’ll leave you to your own devices. See you soon, and thank you.”
“See you soon.”
“Take care. Oh, one more thing. If you talk to it, it talks back.” Abe shut the door behind himself.

***

“So, you’re an Alchronic Thormome… grater? Doesn’t sound right… So tell me, what is one of them?” Max stared at the thing, perplexed.
It reminded him of what the love-child would be between a glass roller coaster and a steampunk jellyfish, though it bore absolutely no resemblance at all to a jellyfish, and fascinated him far more than that nature documentary he had been watching last week ever could. Jellyfish bobbing around and being brainless and boring, and when they weren’t they were stinging people to death and getting eaten by turtles. Even the name is boring. Jelly. Fish. Like those squidgy, dry-goo kids toys that you’re supposed to throw at the window but gets hair stuck to it when it falls on the carpet. Yuck.
Which was weird, considering this monstrosity he had been tasked with looking after was definitely the most interesting and intricate and pretty thing he had probably ever clapped eyes on. It had a heaviness to it, a purpose. And it felt like it was watching him.
Better steer clear for a while. It looks weird, he had been told things that absolutely made it sound weird and to be honest, it frightened him a little.
He wasn’t usually one to be afraid. Hell, he’d always been the brawn of his sturdy group of friends, right since he was a kid. He had worked his way up the proverbial ladder and had been widely recognised as the guy you don’t screw with at his school, though he wasn’t particularly proud of how he got there, (there had been a lot of fights behind the bike sheds and nicked sandwiches under the threat of blackmail at lunch). But he had forgotten all that and settled himself into being the relatively good-looking, popular, flirtatious guy who did a moderately average job in the eyes of his colleagues and had a moderate measure of success with the ladies.
Made no sense then that this contraption he had been lumbered with for a stint had shaken him by its sheer solidness on his front room table. It seemed to be unmovable in its presence, though it was light as a feather when it had been brought in and that fact in itself threw him because how can something that looked so substantial weigh that little? His bloody breakfast weighed more!
“What the hell are you?” Max wondered out loud.
He sat and stared at the thing for the longest time, watching to see if it would move. Only the sparkly inner swirled. Nothing more. It gave him the feeling of lying on the bottom of the ocean, staring at the sun beams though the surface until it started to fade. His eyes stared to fade. His mind went blank. He was being sucked down a long, dark tunnel of still water by his chest, he was sinking and swimming and becoming the empty space around him, it seemed he could feel the particles in the air as they vibrated and resounded in his ears, felt himself being blinded…
Max blinked and snapped back into the room, found himself standing in front of the machine. The studded brass bands holding the tubes together rotated slowly, silently.
Yeah, there’s something not right about that thing. Something unnatural.
Slowly backing out of the room and trying very hard not to show the Alcolic Thormatador… Thermanter… the thing that it was making him uncomfortable, he sidled through the doorway and into the hall. Yeah, that thing is just plain wrong.
In the corridor he paused, tried to laugh at himself.
This thing is just metal and glass and sparkly water, he thought. It doesn’t have the brainpower to understand that I feel some kind of way about it and even if it did, what is it going to do? It’s an invention, a machine and nothing more and machines are made by people, made by my friend, so what the hell is there to be afraid of?
He reached the kitchen, surprised at his own existential awareness that seemed to come quite fluidly, which was most unlike him. Maybe he was getting soft in the head. He heard that happened at a certain time of life but that phenomenon would be a bit premature. He wasn’t much past his third decade, thank you very much!
Max filled a mug from the water boiler and threw in a teabag and a few sugars. He squeezed the bag against the side of the mug until the dregs started dropping, plapped it in the sink and poured in milk. He stirred his tea well, just as always, but now the clinking of the mug took on an added layer of comfort when he knew what was in the front room. He wasn’t in a dark tunnel where he couldn’t do anything but watch, he was in his own kitchen that he had had rebuilt last year. He picked out the worktops and cupboards, he chose the shiny silver appliances, he bought the gourmet herbs and put them on the window sill, slightly over-watered and flooding their drip trays until they almost overflowed. He was in his own kitchen, familiar down to the millimetre, and solid. Nothing could touch him here.
No, he thought, it’s just an invention. A thing.
He put the spoon down with certainty on the worktop and squared his shoulders: he marched down the hall towards the front room with his tea in his left hand and the right balled up into a fist. He paused for a second outside the door. No sound.
This is my house, I won’t be intimidated in my own damned house.
He rounded the corner, planted his feet wide and glared hard at the thing.
“Look, I don’t know what you are,” he said to the machine, “but you don’t look dangerous. And seeing as we’re going to be spending some time together, I’m just going to ignore you and you can ignore me, ok? No making me feel like I’m being watched, no making me feel like I’m swimming around somewhere in space, no more weird stuff and I won’t put you in the loft. We’ll coexist in blissful harmony, like water and jellyfish.”
The Alchemic Thaumaturgator just sat there, glistening.
“Ok. Good. Fine.”
He grabbed the fern and the shamefully stunted lucky bamboo (that damned plant his cat was always rubbing his face on) that were perched next to the door and shoved them onto the table in front of the machine, mostly obscuring it from view. Better.
Max backed up and sat on the couch under the window, across the room from the table and that freakish unicorn turd of a contraption. He wrenched his eyes away for just long enough to put on the television and throw one final look over at the thing on his table, searching for it amongst the foliage. It hadn’t moved. It just sat there. He gestured at it rudely with a slightly shaking hand.
The soothing sound of the narrator drew him back into his TV and another nature documentary, this time about the great apes of the rainforests of Western Africa. This was much more interesting. He swivelled sideways in his chair to face the screen directly, sipping away at his tea.
“See,” he said towards the table, “this is exactly what…”
He glanced back and promptly fell out of his chair. His tea went flying as his mug thudded to the floor in an all too under-dramatic fashion compared to what his adrenaline was doing.
The thing was lighting up! It was glowing! Only a little bit but it was actually putting out light!
“Jeez!” Max shouted at it from the floor. “What is that? How is that happening? What is it doing? Stop it! Stop it!”
He scrambled around, on his hands and knees and still on the floor, trying to shut off the sounds of viciously shaken branches and primates howling at each other. The screen mercifully emitted a heavy click and fell into blackness as the remote fell to the floor. In the resounding silence of the room it was just Max, his adrenaline-fuelled breathing and the glass machine.
He stared at it. It absolutely was staring at him, even from between the leaves, there was no doubt, the liquid in the middle was pooling and somehow gathering at the front of the tubes facing the room. The glowing light had already started to fade and the liquid lost concentration and dispersed again, slowly swirling around in all its glittery glory, just as it had before.
Max was still splayed out on the floor, his breathing struggling to return to normal. He stood up and flattened himself shakily against the wall.
“What just happened?” he muttered under his breath. “What the hell was that…”
The thing looked at him, ‘nothing to see here,’ it said, feigning innocence.
“Whatever you are, just stay the hell away from me!” Max shouted at the machine as skirted around the walls until he got to the doorway. The door was ajar but, because his eyes were fixed in horror at the fragments of the machine that were exposed from within the plants, he bumped backwards into the door, nudging it closed and clicking it shut. Fumbling for the handle he tried to wrench it open, only to find the handle in his hand, horrifyingly detached.
He was stuck in there with it.
Panic flooded his body. A sharp twist in his gut and sweat poured from every millimetre of his skin and a faint whine emitted from his mouth.
Deep breaths, he told himself. Deep breaths, you can figure this out. It can’t hurt you, so just sit down and figure it out.
He sat himself back on the sofa, pushing it further back and rucking up the rug into waves in front of him with his feet. Never had he been so afraid of an inanimate object before. Spiders, yes. The open ocean, yes. Heights, yes. But this?
He sat staring at it, filtering his brain through his usual coping processes. He couldn’t beat it, like he had done in school. He couldn’t charm it, like he had done at the office…
“It’s an elaborate Newton’s Cradle, for Christ’s sake! A fancy-man’s Rubik’s cube!” he told himself. “Some science experiment that a five year old could have done. Yeah, I bet he just put some glow stick stuff in the water and mixed it up and told me it’s real to scare me. It doesn’t even look that bad.” He stood up and took a hesitant half step towards it on quavering knees and reluctant feet, fighting the ‘flight’. “See? Can’t hurt me.”
Max blinked. The thing hadn’t even moved. What was so scary about it anyway? The glowing? It was probably the reflection off the TV. He moved the plants from in front of it with outstretched arms and stepped back as far as he could go.
“I’m going to call you Ruth,” he said, getting bold and pointing at it, “because Alcoholic Thermo… whatever is just ridiculous. Ok? And Ruth was my grandma’s name, and I liked her, she was safe as houses.” Sure, his grandma had died of an embolism nearly ten years ago, but he wasn’t going to admit that to this thing that he didn’t even know what an embolism was. Ruth was a safe name and the familiarity was comforting.
He felt the liquid moving towards the front of the glass again, shimmering and pulling him in. He felt his fear spike, then dissolve. It couldn’t hurt him. He was safe. He was in control.
“I think it was mean of him to call you something so ridiculous. But I suppose if he’s going to go for the Nobel Prize they like that kind of thing, don’t they?” He half laughed, took another step towards it. “Those competitions are always stupid though, nobody ever comes up with anything really new, it’s not like they’ve invented hovercraft cars or machines that can take you on holidays to the afterlife, is it?” He had nearly reached the table now. The tubes were glowing a little still and he could see something moving in there. His curiosity peaked over the top of his fear and had a good look at the prospect of getting closer. Curiosity decided to get closer.
Max leaned down, hands on knees, and stared into the ever-moving swirls that flowed through the glass tubing. Arms extended to their full defensive stance, he gently nudged the plants out of the way and took a good look at Ruth. He remembered his friend saying something about studs and elements.
“Hey, there they are! I didn’t see these before! So those… those are elements? Are they elements?” He asked the glass, dumbfoundedly pointing at the stuff he had assumed was glitter but now wasn’t half as sure. He had never seen elements before…
Ripples glowed in the liquid: it had heard him. They moved closer and were warming now, somehow.
“No way!” Max exclaimed, his mouth hanging open. So this is what Abe had meant! “It’s not possible! It’s not real! Is it real? Are you real?” He asked. “Of course you’re real, you’re sitting on my table! Ha! What a stupid question Max. So, if I ask you a question, are you gonna answer me, huh?”
The glass glittered at him, but nothing else.
“Ok, are you alive?”
Nothing.
“Hmph. Maybe it was a trick of the light.”
No answer.
Max flopped into the sofa, his brows furrowed at Ruth.
He found himself talking to himself, trying to dispel the weird energy that his friend’s invention had brought with it.
“This thing is strange. He said if I talk to it then it responds, but I asked it a question and it doesn’t do anything, but when I was watching that monkey progr…”
He stopped short.
“Yeah! Let’s shove that chimp documentary back on, shall we?”
Click, the screen shot into life of every colour of the rainforest, the howls echoing around the room. But Max didn’t watch the TV, he had his eyes firmly fixed on Ruth, remote still in hand in front of her, waiting expectantly.
Nothing. Dammit. Just the glittery same as glittery before.
Max tried not to let the tidal wave of disappointment wash him away. Maybe it wasn’t the show. Maybe it was a prank, a trick of the light after all.
Max bent to put the remote on the arm of the sofa. The light from the TV shone onto the table and Ruth crescendoed into life and started throwing out beams of light that looked like the solar flares he had seen on that awful show about space and rocks and stuff he wasn’t in the least bit interested in but had watched anyway.
But he had figured out the key: he was standing in between Ruth and the screen and his shadow had been overcasting the table! Ruth needed a full view to do… that thing… whatever it was that she was doing with the light.
Ping, pong, ping, pong, his eyes went between Ruth and the monkeys sailing through the trees by their ridiculously long arms, right up until the credits started rolling and she faded to a faint glow again. She still glittered but it wasn’t the same. She definitely needed encouragement. Inspiration, if you will.
Max flicked across through each channel, watching Ruth closely for any changes (of which there were none,) tock, tock, tock went the remote until he found a different channel, one that was obviously designed for people with limited imagination, because wow, even he can outpace the monotonous nasal narrator and he didn’t consider himself a particularly clever man! He wasn’t stupid either, but on the last one when they started to explain what a bacteria is he had lost his rag and shouted at the screen a bit.
“Everyone knows what a bloody bacteria is!” he had yelled. “Tell me something I don’t know, yeesh! Whoever said these documentaries were supposed to be informative obviously hadn’t got two brain cells to run together.” But the cinematography was nice. Lots of nature-looking things to watch, the natural world an’ all.
This time it was about walruses. All flopping around on the sea shore, getting sunburned and jabbing at each other with their overgrown chompers. He had seen this one before, it wasn’t as patronising as the others. Predictably narrated, yes, but not patronising.
He turned up the volume and spun round to look at Ruth.
She was throwing out flares again, hundreds of short wisps!
And just to test the theory, he tocked across onto the menu screen and selected a random game show that he had never heard of. True to form, Ruth dimmed back to her uninspired state of simple glitteritude.
“AHA! I knew it! You’re a sucker for the nature channel too! Aha! Ahahaha!”
Max threw up his arms in celebration, the remote going flying, cheering into the emptiness of the room. Empty, except for him and this thing which apparently had a liking for chimps and sunburnt sea mammals.
Damn, this thing is incredible, he thought. Why the hell, how the hell does it…?
He sat, flabbergasted, mouth agape.
Suddenly he jumped up, scrabbling around behind the sofa trying to find the remote again, where is it where is it where is it…
He flicked the volume up and down and Ruth still put out light. She shone and shone, the beauty!
He started singing to her, “shine on, you crazy diamond!”
She seemed to like that, too.

Decades long escalation of MIL’s comments - first seemingly ignorant/insensitive comments, over time turned up a notch to micro aggressive comments, culminating in U.S. southern genteel phrased (thus built-in plausible deniability) bigotry and ultimately an outright insult directed at my upbringing and parents led to my going LC.
(Context: my family of mostly atheists with humanist and social justice values, and containing multiracial and LGBTQ+ members is just about the exact opposite of her family and values.)
DH (and I) initially had the ‘she didn’t mean it that way’ or ‘just the way she is’ attitude but as these comments continued, escalated, and typically only when she and I were alone, I began to get a clue. But as MIL almost always made sure never to say these things in DH presence he really had no idea how bad it actually was. 2020 via Zoom contact with MIL, DH and myself showed MIL at her worst, and DH finally witnessed some more of these and he thus supported my LC but still maintains she ‘doesn’t REALLY mean it that way’ but he is sad, stressed and under pressure from MIL about the rift.
And I certainly never expected him to go LC, I support and encourage him in their relationship. MIL did a good job with raising him, and that was especially hard after his father passed away while he was young. I have a lot of respect for her and her relationship with her children and don’t want to interfere with that. Therefore for the past four years I spend holidays with my family members, and he spends most of the holidays with his family. Families live distant from the other so DH and I no longer spend most holidays together. Yes, this sucks for us.
I am open to us trying to set clear communication and discussion topic boundaries to try to ease the situation. So input on these proposed boundaries to set expectations would be welcome.

1. I will not interact one-on-one with her. (E.g. take her to a dr. appointment, chat on the phone, or have lunch with her).
2. There is a MIL family rule ‘we do not discuss anything polarizing or divisive’ but that rule is only invoked by MIL - and then only after she had made a religious or political statement or argument that one of her children or grandchildren objects to. Once one of them responds she shuts it down with that rule. She will also shut down one of her children or grandchildren if they bring up something she disagrees with (usually political). It is never invoked on her. I want to make it clear I WILL be invoking it at all times to any MIL’s problematic comments with a clear ‘that is not a topic I will discuss with you’ statement. (In the past, I generally walked away or if we were one on one I would change the topic randomly when she did this - thus I think this change needs to be brought up explicitly to properly set expectations.)
3. Any and all discussion of my family is out of bounds. That includes the ‘simple polite inquiries’ about how my family is doing (as any answer is not simple and likely would include polarizing or divisive topics and I simply refuse to disrespect my family by lying or downplaying their reality) as well as MY discussing or bringing up anything about my family (even innocent childhood memories etc.) Kind of a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ situation. No exceptions, hard and firm boundary with no end date. I want a clearly understood boundary of: talk about my family and I will leave.

So am I missing anything obvious? Am I foolish to even try? My anxiety level and mental health has been so much better since we have been LC but my DH has certainly paid a price and certainly we both miss being able to celebrate holidays together.
Really, this would mean when I’d go to MIL family holiday gatherings I would politely smile and not talk much - keeping a distant but polite presence-if MIL keeps her polite socially acceptable face on. (I’d put the odds at 50/50). BUT If MIL pokes the bear or tries emotional manipulation (her strong suit) I’m probably going to blow, and it won’t be pretty, and everyone will lose.

I’m a 29F and I have been broken up with my ex for about a year and a half now, for context we were together for nearly 4 years. he was my first boyfriend (so my first everything). We always had bumps in the road along the relationship that usually came down to us wanting different things out of life (he said he needed to have kids, at the time I said I didn’t see that as something I wanted, etc). he was also very close to his family, especially his mom and would regularly choose them over me. I get it, I am close with my mom as well being an only child to a single mother, but as adults I felt we as partners should be each others’ #1. I also told him pretty much day 1 that I wanted to live in LA (not permanently but just for a bit since I’ve only ever lived in the midwest). 3 years in, he hesitantly agreed to try it for a year (we had many conversations about this, some with our couples therapist as a mediator, and I always said I didn’t want him to come if it felt forced but that I’d appreciate it if he could try).
So fast forward to October 2022, he tells me he can’t stay in LA for another year and needs to move back home. I’m disappointed but I get it, I’m even ok with moving back at some point but I proposed me staying in LA for another year (since it was such a big move and I didn’t get to experience everything I wanted out of LA yet) and us trying long distance while taking turns visiting each other -he had zero interest in that plan. I offered me maybe even moving back home too if that would keep us together but he didn’t seem intrigued by that either.
Eventually we both came home for the holidays in December and my mom tells me that HIS mom shared with her, that my boyfriend had told his mom he was planning to move back in with his parents so he can save up to buy a house. HE NEVER TOLD ME THIS. so I mustered through the holidays to just get by, while he still hasn’t said shit about this plan of his. eventually in January after a lot of built up tension I tell him we need to talk about what we’re doing. He still is very avoidant about bringing up these super important details that affect our LIVING SITUATION AND RELATIONSHIP.
After a lot of emotional conversation, he finally admitted it and claimed “he wasn’t trying to keep it from me” (???) We ended it that night, but I was the only one who had the guts to say we were broken up. I hated it. it did not feel good to end it that way. it felt like he had just been waiting for me to do it so he didn’t have to look like the bad guy. Oh and don’t let me forget to mention-even though he hated living in LA (or any major city for that matter), he had invited his friends who are brother and sister to come visit us in February 2023 (plans were made pre-breakup). Post-breakup I asked him if he could ask them to cancel, of course this made me feel like an asshole to cancel their trip. He halfway asked them if they would cancel, but they said they still really wanted to come but would just get a hotel. I knew how expensive that would be to book a month out.
So, people-pleasing-no-backbone-me said “fine they can still come and stay at our place”. They came, it was a bit awkward considering we were broken up for a month at that point and still living together until our lease ended in April (why he didn’t wanna move out ASAP you tell me🥲). But anyways we got through it and eventually he moved out. Taking our cat too (he legally adopted her but I cared for her and loved her for 2 years). tbh the cat being taken out of my life upset me more than the relationship ending, but I digress.
So he’s back home, I scrambled to find a 1BR for myself in LA, and we decided to go no contact but still followed each other on social media (I muted him on most). Then in June I find out from a mutual friend’s post (group photo at a wedding) that he’s dating the fucking chick who JUST visited us in FEBRUARY. I let this girl borrow my clothes for god’s sake. I felt sick. I called him to confirm it and his immediate response was “I didn’t plan this, there was no overlap, I had been mentally checked out of the relationship for a while” I wanted to die. I had always felt like I loved him more than he loved me, but just chocked that up to him not being emotionally mature/not knowing how to show it. I completely blew up on him and it was the most heartbroken I had ever felt. I told him I never wanted anything to do with him ever again (among other things and expletives).
Anyway all that to say, I blocked him, his family, most of his friend group (both of whom I developed meaningful relationships with over the past 4 years), to avoid being triggered by seeing his new life without me. The only friend I kept was someone who I met before I started dating my ex (bc we worked together) (oh and fun fact my ex and I both worked at the same company for as long as we knew each other up until this January when I got laid off and he didn’t 🙃) Back to my original question-do you ever feel physically sick/nauseous when you’re reminded of your ex? I’ve tried to remind myself of the many reasons it’s good we’re no longer together, yet still when anyone gives me unwarranted updates about him, or I occasionally see him in that one friend’s posts, I feel ill. then I start replaying that day when I found out that he moved on with the mutual friend (who btw had also dated another guy in my ex’s friend group). I can’t seem to just accept that despite all the pain he’s caused me, he still gets to be happy. I just don’t know what to do to avoid this extremely unsettling feeling. obviously I’m trying to avoid paying attention to him and any updates regarding him as much as I can, and I’m in therapy but even these super occasional reminders have such a strong effect on me. How do you get over this trigger of feeling sickened by something as minor as a photo or someone briefly mentioning him? I just want to stop being so deeply affected emotionally bc of him.

My husband is not good at gifts or remembering holidays, etc. Most times if I don’t plan something for myself/us for birthdays, anniversaries, Mother’s Day, etc., I will be left disappointed. For two birthdays in a row I have planned my own celebrations (one was a two night hotel stay and another was a spa day/dinner) and he will join me and I guess he thinks that that’s enough? Because he didn’t get me a gift. My last birthday I decided not to fight about it because I just wanted to enjoy my day but it still really hurt me. The following week I got a necklace, which was nice, but it’s never the same after I have to say something, make him feel bad, and make myself feel bad. Days before a holiday when I expect something I will make a comment like “gee, I sure hope I get something for x-day…” and I can immediately see him scramble and usually what I will get is a card, flowers, chocolate combo. This isn’t anything I particularly enjoy but I gladly accept any gift that’s on time. And let me be clear: I do not want a bunch of “stuff.” All I want is him to show he thought about me.
A couple disclaimers: my husband is a really awesome person which is why I have been able to continue to overlook this. He’s a very equal partner in the home and with our child which is why when I get upset about this fault of his, I feel like a total brat. Especially reading what some women deal with on this app. Another thing: when I get upset with him about this, he doesn’t try to deny it or get mad at me. He’s usually really solemn and apologetic. But it still keeps happening!
So today is Mother’s Day. We have a toddler and I’m currently pregnant. Two weeks ago I scheduled myself a massage for Friday (only time I could get and I paid for it myself) and then I made reservations at a nice restaurant for brunch on Sunday. I discussed all of this with my husband. He had suggested the restaurant and I called and made sure they were doing brunch and made the reservation. I wondered if I should make my normal comment leading up to Mother’s Day to nudge him about a card or something, but decided not to. Big mistake! But earlier this week he was asking me about which bouquet to order his mother so I figured it was on his mind already.
So this morning I’m getting ready for brunch and mention that the massage and brunch were both my ideas/plans and I wonder if that was going to be the extent of my Mother’s Day. Passive aggressive perhaps… He immediately was deer in the headlights and telling our son “uh oh, daddy’s in trouble today.” So I knew he had no plans or gifts. He said “I’m the one who suggested x-restaurant!” And I was like, “ok, so that’s your gift? Suggesting a restaurant?” So we get to the restaurant and the menu is all dinner-type dishes. Pasta, steak, etc. At this point I’m trying not to lose it. Remember, I’m pregnant and emotions are high. All I wanted was some French toast or something. I go to the bathroom and have a little cry. We make the best of the brunch but it’s overall pretty awkward and disappointing. After brunch I suggest going to the mall because my son likes it and I thought maybe he could make it up to me there. I also ask if afterwards we can stop at my favorite bakery to get me a couple treats.
At the mall he’s mostly taking our son around to the games and rides so I walk around alone. I really have nothing to shop for. Here’s where I may be more of a brat. I’m sure if I asked for something he would have bought it but I am just so sick of having to spoil myself basically. I mention bath and body works has a big sale… no bites there. I kept dropping hints to no avail. Idk it was a stupid passive aggressive dance on my part. Eventually my feet hurt and I want to go home. When we get in the car he immediately pulls up directions to home and I say, hey weren’t we going someplace else? He didn’t even remember the freaking bakery! Like damn even something I explicitly asked for only an hour before is completely forgotten. Now I’m crying again. We go to the bakery and then home. When my son falls asleep I kind of go off a bit at how he could have at least tried to make it up to me but he didn’t. He says “well I was going to give you the afternoon off.” Which is nice but it’s not anything special. Since I’m pregnant and tired I almost always take afternoon naps. Plus I got up early with our son and let him sleep in so me getting a nap later is par for the course.
I go up to rest and I text him and say I do not want to make dinner tonight. He offered to go buy some frozen pizzas and I said ok. I wake up a little later and they’re still gone. They ended up being gone for over three hours. Turns out he went to buy me a plushie, flowers, a candle, a box of chocolates, and a gift set from bath and body works. Now here’s where I am most probably a brat. Like I said, I really don’t want a whole bunch of stuff. It was like he went way overboard trying to make it up to me but it all felt hollow. I really don’t know how to express how awful it made me feel and even worse because I know I should be grateful for the effort. But it just felt like a waste of money. Those gift sets cost double what the actual product costs a la carte just because they mark it up for lazy men. The flowers were potted and already half dead after sitting in the car for hours. The plushie was a rainbow unicorn, pretty much opposite of my whole vibe. I could go on but now I know I’m really sounding like a brat. I sobbed because I felt even worse that I couldn’t just be happy he finally tried. The funny thing is, if I all I got was just one of those gifts in the morning, before this whole situation arose, I would have been happy. I curse this holiday because if it was a normal Sunday I would have had a decent day. Instead I’ve been crying on and off since brunch. I think it’s time I give up on these expectations if I want to be happy. Compared to all the good things he does this all feels very silly. Can anyone relate?

I'm a Brit and i'll be road tripping in America next month, visiting all the major tourist attractions like Hollywood, universal studios, Niagara falls etc etc
Now are there any cultural differences I should be aware of when talking with Yanks in general?
Any words, dialogues, phrases etc that are frowned upon in America?
I know that politics in general is a touchy topic in America, but how about other things?
Is swearing in public acceptable in America? (being from the UK everyone seems to swear in public, even when kids are around, which admittedly isn't best practise)
I just don't want to come across as an "annoying brit" whilst i'm on holiday in America, as there would obviously be things that are perfectly normal and acceptable in the UK that wouldn't be tolerated in America
Thanks Yanks!

Another awful mothers day spent praying at the altar of my very undeserving MIL. Hope this brings a smile to anyone else having a bad day.

1. Have a favorite child. Let everyone know it.
   
2. Pit your children against one another. If they hate each other, they’re each more likely to want to spend time with you and only you.
   
3. If you’re on the phone with someone who isn’t bending to your will, hang up on them.
   
4. As soon as you hear other people’s good news, call your children and fill them in on who is getting married, got a promotion, had a baby, etc.; under the soothing guise of inane gossip, you’re really motivating them to DO BETTER.
   
5. Leave all family heirlooms to your daughter. What do your sons need with any of that jewelry?
   
6. Everyone else gets to retire, so you are forever finished with grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning or making any vacation, holiday or special plans for the family. You’re retired too.
   
7. It’s ok to belittle your grandchildren if they don’t effusively suck up to you.
   
8. Use the phrase ‘it’s a wash’ to describe any situation in which you don’t want to pay for another of your children to do something you totally paid for your favorite child to do.
   
9. If at first you don’t succeed, lie, lie again.
   
10. Mother’s Day is YOUR day. Because you are the biggest mother of them all.
    

There are several dramatic stories surrounding my wedding, but this one for sure takes the cake. I’m happily married for 7 years now, but every now and again I still get caught up in the mystery of WTF happened. Maybe ya’ll can give me some insight or perspective. This is going to be a long one, so buckle up)
So let me set the scene.
I had a childhood best friend, we’ll call her Lina, with whom we met when we were around 11 years old. We became friends at school and our families became friends as well, like we’d all go on trips, holidays and vacations and that sort of things. Unfortunately due to our parent's jobs we had to travel quite a bit, so after 3 years our families moved our separate ways, but we kept in contact. We wrote real paper letters to each other. And when internet became a thing we kept in touch on a regular basis. Later in life we found ourselves living in the same city so we reconnected. We’re both kind of introverted, but we met to hang out, and regularly talked online. I considered her my best friend, so when I got engaged I asked her to be my maid of honor.
Now, I’m not from US, in my part of the world it’s a really casual thing, basically she just had to accompany me on the wedding day, helping out during the photoshoot and carrying a bride’s SOS kit and that’s pretty much it. I didn’t require help with any planning or stuff like that, never meant for her to run any errands. I had a light steampunk theme to my wedding so she had to dress up and maybe buy her own dress or accessories to fit the theme, but they weren’t like a strict required list. The wedding was small - the reception was just 25 people on a boat restaurant. She agreed and seemed genuinely happy for me, she was there throughout my budding relationship and romance with my now husband and knew how important this whole thing was to me, especially when I have quite a rocky relationship with my side of the family, but that’s a whole other wedding drama.)
So I started planning. She wasn’t mostly involved although I bounced some ideas, shared photos of the prep. I think I asked her to help once, I had a big fight with my parents and needed someone to help me pick up my dress from the shop after alterations, she agreed but then something fell though and I had to do it myself, but that was a small hiccup I paid no mind. As the wedding day grew closer, she sent me pictures of different looks she picked out for the wedding, she was definitely getting ready to attend.
By our wedding schedule, the night before, she and I were supposed to move into my wedding hotel of choice (a historical castle venue), I didn’t have a bachelorette party so I thought we’d have like a slumber party with my friend, then on the day of my fiancee will arrive with the best man for a getting ready shoot and the wedding shoot, then we’d all go to the ceremony and finally to reception.
Then it gets weird. 2 days before the wedding, she texts me asking if my stylist would have time to do her hair. I checked with her and said yes, of course, I gave her my stylist’s contacts so they could sort the specifics out. 1 day before the wedding my stylist texts me that Lina hasn’t contacted her at all and she needed to know the specifics and stuff. I was fairly busy and I gave Lina’s contact to the stylist. After a while she lets me know that no one answers. I start to get worried as we’re supposed to check into the hotel this evening. I start calling and messaging Lina - she doesn’t answer. I start to panic. Eventually, literally hours before I have to leave for the hotel, my mother contacts Lina’s mother and finds out that she’s down with like a stomach flu or something (mind you, there is still literally no word from Lina at this point). After a while, I get a short text from her that she can’t make it. As if the wedding wasn’t stressful enough, I make last minute adjustments to our schedule and instead of a slumber party with my friend we just checked in with my fiancee the evening before and his best man arrived the next day to help us out through the day (seriously, gals, if you don’t have a gay best man in your party - get one!). I texted Lina in hopes that maybe she’d at least be able to make it for the official part, because I really wanted my best friend to be there on my special day, but she went radiosilent. On the wedding day she sent me a text with her best regards, didn’t call the day after or anything, just went radio silent.
The wedding was a blast, we had a lot of fun, and a lot of great photos, themed weddings in my country are not a widespread thing, we were on a lot of vendors’ portfolios for months, and our relatives still remember this day very fondly. I was caught up in all of it, not really having the time to process what happened with Lina, at that time I genuinely thought she was sick and felt bad for her missing out on everything. Almost immediately after the wedding, we went on our honeymoon to Italy, I didn’t get any word from her and started to think something was up, but still thought this was an unfortunate accident, I even bought her souvenirs…
When I returned from my honeymoon, she’s still radiosilent, this was already three weeks after the wedding. At this point I felt resentful, because the whole thing felt off. I called her, she didn’t pick up. I texted her asking if she was going to hide forever or what. She texted me something in the lines of - I’m busy now, I’ll contact you when I can, sure let’s meet.
Well, it’s been 7 years since then. She never called or texted back. The only message I ever got from her after that was a text on Forgiveness Sunday somewhere along the lines “Forgive me if I ever wronged you”. That was when I snapped and unfriended her on all my social media and blocked her everywhere. I didn’t block her number though in hopes that maybe one day she’d call and tell me what the hell happened. Looking back at this whole thing I really doubt she got sick, she just randomly decided she won’t show up the day before the wedding for whatever reason and then ghosted me. No explanation, no apology, no nothing. I don’t get it. We never had a fight, we were always on good terms. Thinking back, if the things were the other way around and for instance, I got sick the day before my friend’s wedding, I wouldn’t miss it for the world, I’d chug all the medicine out there and at least scramble myself to the ceremony.
Ok, even if you got sick so bad you couldn’t attend (and that happens, I get it) don’t you want to call your friend after, or find out how it went? Ask how the honeymoon went and stuff? Some people told me, like maybe she did’t want to be the maid of honor and couldn’t tell me, because she didn’t want to hurt my feelings, yeah, but like, disappearing on my wedding day wouldn’t? Weddings are not for everyone, that’s for sure, but why wait til literally the last minute to say you’re out? If she didn’t want to attend, why was she dress shopping and asking for my stylist to do her hair and then disappearing? This all puzzles me.
Since I unfollowed her, I don’t know much what’s going on in her life now. Her mom casually texts with my mom which sometimes also gets weird. Like recently she casually dropped something about Lina’s husband and my mom said something like, ‘Oh, I didn’t know Lina got married, you never told us, congrats!’ and Lina’s mom snapped and texted stuff like “Oh, and why should I’ve told you? You sound like you’re resentful, get a life”. I saw those texts and it’s bizarre. This kind of reaction makes the whole story even more sus. Eventually, I think, that maybe Lina was jealous that I was the first to get married or something, and at the same time I don’t think this was some kind of elaborate plot. People theorized over the years various things from “she wasn’t really your friend” to “what if she had a crush on you and didn’t want to watch you get married”. Honestly, I have no idea what to think. And I’m sad our relationship ended that way.

Heya everyone, I basically just want to outline my situation and circumstances and see what everyone's opinions are on how valid it is for me to apply/actually live in Japan on the working holiday visa. I've been doing a lot of research lately, but I am unsure as to how reasonable it is to think that someone of my skillset (or lack thereof), would be able to make a successful year of living in Japan.
So like most people, I've had a love for Japanese media and culture for many years now. I also have a deep interest in Japanese history. I did my undergraduate degree in History, but in my final year I was able to specialise in post-war Japanese history and eventually completed my dissertation with a study of Sino-Japanese relations. It was a very well recieved piece of work and I graduated with a 1st class BA in History in 2021. I also have very good A Level and GCSE results, although none of them relate to Japan specifically.
In February 2023, I was fortunate enough to stay in Japan for 2 weeks. I absolutely fell in love with the country at that point. I am at some what of a crossroads in my life as I am only doing casual work at the moment, and when I heard of the Japanese working holiday visa I thought it would be an opporunity to return to the country I love so much, but for a longer period of time this time around.
As I say, I don't have any Japanese ability aside from the random words and phrases I've picked up from anime and games over the years. I am certainly willing to learn, but I am well aware that Japanese isn't a language you can pick-up and just learn in an instant.
Basically, I want to know how valid it would be for someone like me to pursue the working holiday visa. My biggest worry is actually finding employment. I feel as though I have little chance to be able to support myself and find a job as I have no Japanese ability currently.
I'm also somewhat skeptical of finding employment as an English teacher as I previously trained and worked as a teacher in the UK, but I found I did not enjoy the workplace or the lifestyle of being a teacher. I'm unsure if teaching in Japan differs much from the UK, but I did not enjoy it when I did it full-time here.
I would really appreciate other people's advice and perspective on this. I want to make an informed decision on whether or not I should pursue this. I don't want to delude myself into thinking I can do it and then arrive in Japan to find that I cant find a job.
Thank you everyone.

If you are hoping to reach out the Chinese consumers, this may be an important date.
Promotion starts throughout China.
In China, ""520"" is a term that's used as a shorthand way to express ""I love you"" in Mandarin Chinese.
The association of ""520"" with love comes from the phonetic similarity, as the numbers ""5-2-0"" sound similar to the phrase ""我爱你.""
Therefore, on May 20th (5/20), which is often written as ""520"" in China, people often take the opportunity to express their love to their romantic partners or crushes. It has become somewhat of a romantic holiday, similar to Valentine's Day in Western countries.
China Valentine's Day