AITAH for feeling hatred towards my mother who seems to want me to be her caregiver, and not saying yes to help her with her laundry tonight?
I am 31F and my mom is 61F.
My parents had my sister on accident, got married and divorced after a very toxic and abusive relationship, then had me on accident when my sister was ten.
My mom grew up in extreme poverty, abuse, and neglect, and barely knew how to read when she met my dad, only had a fifth grade education. My dad was a carpenter.
I ended up growing up with my dad since he got custody and my mom went in and out of the mental hospital. She lived with her mom and was an off and on janitor and then went on disability for mental illness (schizoaffective).
Throughout growing up I would visit her on weekends and she would get plastered drunk many times, screaming and yelling at me, I would hide and call dad or sister for a ride home. They would pick me up hyperventilating but acted like everything was fine and dad would drop me off there again. She would also promise to do things and then just lay in bed depressed. My dad and stepmom were also abusive. I would tell my mom things and she would talk really bad about my dad and stepmom and sister (who won’t talk to our mom), to the point where my stepmom and sister claim I’m brainwashed to not like them. I think they’re all abusive but idk. I’m gaslit extremely.
Anyways, on and off I have blocked my mom and stopped talking to her. She can provide me comfort and someone to talk to since I’m not close with family, but sometimes is mean and abusive and extremely suffocating I feel?
She is a chain smoker and now has clogged arteries. I don’t like smoke at all and she would shame me for being uncomfortable around her smoking. She also caretakers her disabled brother and they live together in a very run down place with their disability checks.
She had to get a stent put in last week. I took off work to take her home from the hospital and be there a while. I felt like anything I do is never enough, she asked last minute if I could take off the day of her surgery (I took the day after her surgery off) to be with her during the surgery (her sister planned to), then complained that I didn’t spend the night at the hospital with her, kept telling other patients god bless them, burst into tears to the nurse saying she was thankful to the doctor, then kept acting like I was bored and not happy to be at the hospital and hurrying the nurses saying “my daughter wants to go home”, and kept insisting she pay for my parking in front of others like I didn’t want to pay, etc. She was also saying that “you know other people have people who love them and they even have their families spend the night.”
I was with her 7 hours that day and as soon as I got home she said she would have liked me to stay longer and have taken the day off her surgery off and stayed the night with her in the hospital and asked why didn’t I take her on a drive with me afterward, that I took spontaneously to destress.
Today she called on my lunch break and asked if I could come over and do her laundry in the basement. She is still healing from surgery. I am working today. She offered to buy me dinner but I’m on a diet and don’t want Chinese food. Her social worker was coming and offered to do her laundry but she didn’t want her to se her underwear. My uncle is being watched for a couple weeks while my mom heals.
I just hate picking up my mom’s calls and feel awful about it. I didn’t really want to help her with her laundry and had plans to go to the gym after work. I feel burdened with my mom sometimes. My sister won’t associate with her.
A couple of years ago my mom stopped taking her meds for mental health and ended up calling an ambulance on herself and went to the mental hospital. She had me on all her emergency contacts. Hospital called me to pick up my uncle so I took him and had to watch him and find care for him for a week. My sister was advocating her our uncle to be taken away from our mom and I kind of agreed but my moms side of the family freaked out and so did my mom, because without his income she could not pay rent and could likely become homeless. My mom asked to live with me and I said no and she said she couldn’t believe I would let her become homeless. Now she still cares for my uncle but her health is declining a lot and I don’t see it possible for much longer. She gets caregivers to help but then gets in a fight with them (like everyone) and fires them over and over.
I have an opportunity to move 3 hours away to live with my boyfriend and I kind of want to take it. I just feel a hatred towards my mom sometimes. She didn’t raise me and barely provided care, abused me, and now expects me to care for her.
She calls me every single day sometimes 6-7 times a day and her calls absolutely infuriate me and I don’t know why. This would also happen when I was a kid, she would call when I was at my dads and someone would yell at me to drop everything and come to the phone because my mom called and I didn’t always want to talk to her. She spends most of her time it seems calling people on the phone, she doesn’t have hobbies or do too much else, she just smokes and calls people.
I feel guilty for not wanting to help my mom and being kinder. My boyfriend visits his grandma and family every Friday and they have dinner. His aunt takes his grandma to all her appointments and cares for her. But my mom has been acting like she is an old lady for like 20 years like she can’t do things on her own.
She also does help me sometimes, she will insist and almost demand I take money from her, I usually refuse for a couple weeks and sometimes have given in. She insists her neighbor fix my car. I need to find a better paying job and get away from these people.
TLDR: I feel guilty for not caring for my mom more. What do I do? Why am I so heartless?

When I was three years old I was in a really bad car accident. I didn't know it at the time, but that singular event would come to define everything about my life moving forward. What I remember about the accident is mostly a collage of backdated comments I was able to reel out of my father in the following years. He was driving me and my mom in his old '91 Chevy Tahoe through the twisting backroads of Southern Illinois, weaving his way through the gnarled branches of oak trees which interlocked into a braided ceiling overhead. A fog had rolled in, giving the impression that we were driving through a cloudy tube. Everything was simultaneously bright and opaque. I didn't mind though, as I was in the back seat working on a coloring book. My mom was in the front, talking with my dad or turning around to entertain my completed pictures.
Although I was of the age where my memory was just beginning to mature, I still recall two things very clearly from the accident. First was the sensation of breaking. I remember feeling the way a plate must feel to be dropped: weightless at first, then suddenly meeting a much larger, more solid object—the air popped like a firecracker, and the entirety of my body shattered into hundreds of fractals. And then I remember a hand. It was my dad's hand pulling me from the wreck.
I ended up hospitalized for weeks after the crash. My mom was less lucky. The impact had killed her instantly.
As I've alluded to, I was young, and at the time I didn't fully understand the implications of what had happened. I knew something was missing, but it was like a word on the tip of my tongue, or the forgotten vanilla in a cherished cake recipe—coloring my experience, but not the whole of it. Not like my dad. For him, it was the whole fucking cake. He had somehow made it out with only a few scratches. I'm sure he had a really bad case of survivor's guilt, and frankly, looking back, I wouldn't have blamed him if he slumped into despair and spent his days drinking away his sorrow. But he wasn't that type of man. He got help. It took him years before he was able to recall anything that happened that morning, and most of it is still repressed, but he shared with me what he could. Or at least that's what I had thought.
My dad was a Middle School teacher since before I was born, and he kept his job until very recently. As a result, we didn't have much by way of resources. I grew up on Disney Channel and TV dinners for the most part, but I didn't mind. When I became of school age, his job actually made caring for me pretty convenient. Since our Elementary and Middle schools were connected, he was able to drive me there and back each day.
It was around third or fourth grade that I realized I was different. I didn't understand the other children or even the adults most of the time. They would say things then immediately change their mind, or they would talk about something and in the next breath forget its existence entirely. I remember one day at lunch, I had just gotten my tray of hot food and sat down with some friends. One of the kids, Alex, was talking about a stuffed bird he had won for getting first place in Mr. Curtis's pop-up math competition. We were all admiring its blue wings and white belly and sharp black beak and beady eyes. I left mid-conversation to get a chocolate milk. When I came back, I asked to see the bird again, and Alex said "what bird?" I was perplexed. "The bird—the bluejay you were just showing us." I remember all of the other kids looking at me like I was crazy. I figured they were all playing a trick on me, so I got up and went over to Alex's seat and crouched down, looking under the table, then I sprung up and tried to open his lunchbox. "What are you doing!?" he yelled. I felt so confused and embarrassed that I ran to the bathroom to cry.
And then there was another time a group of kids were laughing about a joke one of the girls, Taylor, had made about our homeroom teacher's face looking like a seal. I knew it was mean, but at the time I just wanted to fit in so I played along, but when I made a comment about her resemblance to the semi-aquatic animal, they all looked at me confused. "What are you talking about? We never said that…"
These misattributions kept happening, and it led to me being ostracized from most of the little childish cliques that popped up. I developed a quasi-standoffish temperament which I used as a shield against a chaotic world that I didn't understand. My dad eventually had me tested for ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder), but I passed the test. He asked if I wanted to move to a different town with different schoolmates, thinking that perhaps I was getting bullied, but I told him it was fine. Somewhere deep down I felt like no matter where I went, this problem would follow me.
You may think that I was simply coping with the absence of my mom, and while I'm sure that her absence has left certain holes in my life, kindly, no, that wasn't what was happening. You see, at first I didn't notice the instances of what I'll call "blinking". I simply thought that I was misremembering things: objects, words, events. They were all little things anyway. A bird, a joke, my pencil box. It wasn't until sixth grade that I realized the magnitude of the phenomenon.
I was in my dad's 6th grade Social Studies class and we had just been assigned our "Ancient Civilizations" project which involved creating a diorama of our chosen civilization and presenting its features to the class. My friend at the time, Claire, had taken my first choice of Ancient Rome (which we had a heated argument about at lunch), so I was left with Ancient Egypt. At the time, all I pictured for Egypt was a plate of sand. However, my dad and I went through some illustrated history books and pictures on the internet and he really built up the project for me.
Over the course of a couple months, he helped me shape three pyramids out of small wooden planks and a bunch of tan clay. We placed them in the center of a giant square shoebox lid which served as the container for the diorama. Then he bought some small wooden mannequin puppets and we dressed them up in cloth clothes (mostly kilts and tunics) and colored their eyes, mouths, and hair. We added a few obelisks and some small box-huts which were collected into a little village around the Nile. Finally, we added a light glaze of glue where we felt would be necessary and then covered the whole project with golden glitter.
As we worked on each part of the diorama, my dad helped me understand what we were adding and why it was important to Ancient Egypt. I loved the way he talked about history. He spun everything into a miraculous story. To this day, I don't think I've ever had a teacher who came close to his level of charisma and creativity. As a result, I became really proud of my diorama. I memorized all the little details and rehearsed my speech in front of the mirror for hours leading up to the last couple weeks of class. And then, two days before I was supposed to give my presentation, everything fell apart.
First, I need to apologize for deceiving you about an aspect of my story. I thought it might help you to understand what I was going through at the time. What I'm about to tell you is going to sound insane. I get that. But please hear me out. The truth is that I was never assigned to present on Ancient Egypt; everything else about Clair taking my first pick and dad helping me with the whole project and my excitement leading up to the presentation was all true, but it wasn't a project on Ancient Egypt, it was a project on Ancient Sidovan, which was a civilization located on the eighth continent called "Catalan" (the same name as the spoken language, but unrelated) which was due West of Australia in the Indian Ocean.
I know this sounds incredible, and if you want to believe it's all in my head, I get that, but I remember clearly all sorts of facts about it: the Malagasy, the same people who populated Madagascar, were the first peoples to discover Catalan and settle it. However, about five hundred years later, Indian ships would arrive and create the civilization known as Sidovan. A pidgin language formed between the indigenous population and new arriving Indians called "Hiesa" (pronounced: Hai-E-suh or Hai-ʔ-suh). Catalan had a warm climate with plenty of natural resources, but Sidovan had a dense enough population to require agricultural production. They grew rice, grain, sugarcane, vegetables, and even tobacco.
I remembered all of these facts and more. My diorama reflected the main features of the Sidovan civilization. And then two days before my presentation, I woke up and my diorama was entirely different. The hilly grasslands were traded out for sandy dunes. The Hindu statues and stone palaces became clay pyramids and large spear-like pillars. And everything was covered with the ickiest yellow glitter I had ever seen. Tears stung my eyes as I trampled over to my dad's room and banged on his door. "Dad! What did you do!?" I yelled.
"Honey?" He responded, rushing over to the base of the stairs. "What's wrong?"
"The diorama. It's ruined!"
"It's what?" he asked and ran up the stairs, leading me to my room. He looked over it for a few seconds, checking to see if everything was intact, then said, "I don't see it, honey. Where is it ruined?"
I was completely dumb-struck. What did he mean he didn't see it? "All of it!" I shouted. "The whole thing is wrong. Where's the grass and the stone buildings and the lady with the four arms and the elephants? Where is my project!?"
My dad looked at me in silence. "Lauren, baby, what civilization do you think you were working on?"
"Ancient Sidovan, of course! We've been working on this for months now! Dad, please tell me you remember."
He knelt down and put his hands on my shoulders. "Honey, your project was on Ancient Egypt. There is no Ancient Sidovan."
"Y-you're lying." I protested. "Books, you have books. On your bookshelf."
He took me into his study and showed me all of his books. None of them were on Ancient Sidovan. He even turned on his computer and typed in the name of the civilization, but all that came up was a near match "Sidon". I remember feeling the sudden urge to puke. My entire body felt like it was pumping battery acid instead of blood. "I—I don't," I started but suddenly my head felt very light, and I fainted.
When I woke up, I was in the hospital. I had lost consciousness for over half an hour, enough time for my dad to call 9-1-1 and have the ambulance transport me to the nearest ER. They ran all sorts of tests on me, but they all came back fine. After a couple hours of IV fluids and monitoring, they released me with my dad.
I ended up skipping the rest of school that week. My dad didn't make me present my diorama. In fact, he never brought the subject up again. Part of me was glad. I just wanted to forget the whole thing ever happened. But another part of me couldn't move past what was clearly the most absurd thing to ever happen to me. About a week after the incident, I tried to broach the subject, but when I asked my dad about it, he didn't seem to remember our conversation at all. He said I had fallen ill and that's why I needed to go to the ER and miss class. I felt like I was going crazy. If I was older, I probably would have voluntarily checked myself into a psychiatric ward. But I was young and helpless and alone, and I decided that if I just ignored the changes well enough, I could still get along. This proved difficult though, as the blinking would only exacerbate in the coming months.
Up until the time of the project, I hadn't been able to directly observe the phenomenon. It was always in retrospect that things disappeared. It was during the summer after sixth grade that this changed. I still remember the first time it happened. I had just gotten out of the shower and was drying my hair in front of the mirror. After it was dried, I threw on my clothes then went to tie my hair up in a ponytail, but as I went to set the elastic tie, I felt its weight dissipate in my hand. I gasped and held my hand out. The circular black band was gone.
Fast forward to seventh grade and the blinking had spiraled out of control. Reflecting back on it, most people would probably have assumed I was drinking psilocybin-infused water, as the delusions were somewhat consistent with psychedelic phenomena: except these distortions were real (at least they felt that way to me).
I'd wake up and grab the box of Special K but end up eating Cheerios. The McDonalds logo would look yellow and red one day, but purple and black the next. I'd be watching a show, and then a different show, and then a different one. It was as if the entire universe was a Christmas tree with millions of lights, and the lights kept shifting hues randomly, faster and faster, and I was the only one who could see their changing colors. I remember one night my dad made spaghetti for dinner and we went out onto the porch to eat it. While we were sitting, I saw our neighbor's house, a two story townhome, blink and become a single story bungalow. I gasped, and my dad asked what was wrong, but when I tried to explain he just gave me a strange look. For him, no matter what changed, the world was "always that way". While for me, it didn't have "a way".
The situation peaked when Clair, that friend I mentioned before, disappeared. I texted her (my dad had bought me a BlackBerry at the beginning of summer break) but didn't get a response. When I asked her other friends if they knew where she was, I got the usual "what are you talking about?" look. I knew right away what had happened, even though I didn't want to believe it. I went to the teacher and asked if there was a Clair in our class. She said "no". I broke down in front of everyone. I couldn't take it anymore. I ran out of school. The lady at the front desk tried to stop me, but I just barrelled past her. I kept running until I got to a big park across the street and bawled my eyes out until the police arrived and escorted me home. When they tried asking me what was wrong, I didn't say anything. There was literally nothing I could say that they would understand.
That night I prayed to God for the first time. My dad wasn't a religious man. He went to Catholic church with my mom when she was alive, but after she died he never went back. Still, I knew how to pray, even if I never did it. I copied some of the people I saw praying in movies and interlocked my fingers and knelt down on my bed, stuffing my head into a pillow. "Dear God," I said, "Please, please, please help me." I told Him about my struggles and asked Him to make them stop. I spent an hour saying the same things over and over again. And when I was finished, my little body was so tired, I fell right to sleep.
I knew something was different the second I opened my eyelids. I didn't only feel relieved, but I felt… embraced. I felt like someone was watching over me. I felt like I wasn't alone. I moved through my day with cautious apprehension. I didn't want to get my hopes up only to be let down. But to my surprise, the blinking had stopped. At least I couldn't remember any of the inconsistencies, and to me, that was a win. I began to pray regularly, and the more I did, the more I could feel the sense that someone was looking out for me. It was like I was getting a big hug from some cosmic force that loved me and wanted me to be happy.
I made it a habit to pray regularly. I asked my dad if he could take me to a church, and he agreed to take me to St. Mark's, the same church that he and my mom used to attend. Over time, I realized that the actual church services weren't as important to me as the praying. For whatever reason, there was something about praying that was like a glue for my brain, holding the entire universe together. As I got older, I considered that maybe it wasn't that the changes were no longer happening, but that I simply didn't see them anymore. In other words, maybe I was just becoming like everyone else. Either way, I didn't mind.
In my teenage years, I got into mindfulness meditation. I thought that I'd want to go into religious studies and become a theologian, so I started to learn about Eastern traditions in addition to Christianity. I joined a bunch of different school clubs to meet kids of different faiths: Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam. I tried to find a common thread which linked them all and would explain what happened to me as a child. The metaphors of Heaven and Hell, Good and Evil, the Taoist Yin and Yang—duality. Every religion seemed to speak about a way of being that would lead to a better place. In some cases that better place was a physical future existence, and in others it was merely being in contact with the perfection of nature or the present. Metaphorically, the teachings could explain what I had gone through in a kind of loose way, but there were no explicit statements about my condition.
***
I want to fast forward to why I've decided to write about this now. To give you an idea of where I'm at, I'm now 25 and working on finishing my MA in Computational Linguistics. I know that's a bit of a switch from what I was thinking when I was a teenager, but I really only interested in religion because of the value praying afforded me as a child. I didn't actually have much interest in the subject, itself. After my first year of college, I changed to an English major, which ultimately led to me taking a linguistics class and enjoying it so much that I switched tracks in my Junior year. Considering the state of the world, I thought minoring in Computer Science might help me financially in the future, so I ended up charting a path which I figured might lead to something like developing translation software.
Anyway, everything was going fine until a few weeks ago. I was out at an all-night diner with a few of my friends from the program. There was Jeremy, Martin, Bella, Jordan, and Macy. We had been working on a group project together involving modeling construction grammars by generating primitive 3D structures using C# and running the code through a game engine (it's a bit weird, but essentially we were trying to create a multidimensional model for language using a similar but more advanced concept than other LLMs), and just had a breakthrough. It was 2AM though and not a brain cell existed between the six of us, so instead we focused on a different problem: Macy's ongoing breakup with her semi-long distance trucker boyfriend. We tried to explain why Mike wasn't going to work out as we ordered a round of milkshakes and waited for the lone overnight kitchen worker to scoop out three balls of ice cream from the Deans carton for each of us, blend it, then have the server deliver the vintage diner glasses on a plastic tray.
I dug into my thick strawberry shake with a spoon. It was delicious. I kept eating but focused back on the conversation. I remember feeling something odd about one of the scoops, but I was so entrenched in Macy's story that I didn't notice the metal shard in my ice cream until I felt it against my lip. "P-tuh" I spat out the shard and ice cream all in one motion, then covered my mouth which I was sure was bleeding. The silver blade was probably as large as my thumb, and it had two jagged edges, as if it was fastened for the purpose of causing damage. "What the fuck!" I yelled.
Everyone at the table turned to see what was the matter. "Hey, Lauren, you okay?"
I spoke through a covered mouth, using my free hand to point at the table. "That was in my—"
But it was gone.
"In your… shake? Was something in your shake?" asked Jeremy.
I froze. In that moment, the stories of my childhood that I had only remembered as faint nightmares came back in a wave of crushing terror. How could I have been so stupid to think they would simply vanish forever? No, this isn't the same thing, I thought. But deep down, I knew it was. I drew my hand away from my lips and saw that it was dry—no blood. When I looked back up, all of the blood in my veins went cold. My friends were… smiling at me. Their lips were elastic like taffy, stretching to reveal their teeth. I could feel them radiating malevolence, as if the only thing holding them back from picking up their utensils and stabbing me to death was some thinly veiled force field. The moment lasted for what felt like half a minute, then Jordan said two words which made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
"Found you"
The words ricocheted in my now adrenaline powered skull. But just as he spoke them, the world blinked and my friends were back. Bella reached out and grabbed my hand. I pulled away, but when I saw her concerned expression, I relented.
"Sorry, guys, I think I'm going to have to call it." I said.
"You sure, L?" asked Jordan. "You look like you just saw a ghost."
"Yeah, thanks, but I just…" I stumbled for a lie, but when one wouldn't come, Martin stood up and said he'd walk me out to my car.
"Thanks," I said as I got into my little 2015 Jetta. "It's just been a long day."
"No problem, Lauren. You know, if there's ever anything—"
"I know," I said but didn't mean. Some things just couldn't be shared.
I drove for about five minutes before stopping at a gas station. I pulled in and parked near the back. Then I interlocked my fingers and prayed for half an hour. I apologized for not taking my praying seriously and asked to once again be granted peace. Unlike my younger years, I also drifted into other avenues of thought. I imagined my mom. I pictured the whole arc of my life, all of the little decisions that led me to where I was. I cried for a long time. I felt like that little girl again reaching out for help. I still felt so lost, so out of control; there were so many things missing, and I was so confused.
I decided then to take a trip back home and visit my dad who was now working as a private tutor. He made enough prepping affluent students for the ACT and SAT that he could spend his free time pursuing his real passions: reading and writing. When I arrived at his doorstep that weekend, he greeted me with open arms. "How are you, kiddo? It's been, what? A year or so?"
It was actually more like two years, but I didn't tell him. I just smiled and nodded.
"Well, come in."
The house was almost exactly how I remembered it. Linoleum floors, beige walls, a few scattered pictures, the scent of camomile. Everything minimalist. There was a quaintness, a prettiness to the way everything seemed to be well kept and in a perfect place. From the cherry wood chairs we'd sit in to eat, to the cream-colored loveseat. I felt at home.
I spent the drive thinking of what I would talk to my dad about, but ultimately I wasn't sure what I'd say. I loved my dad, but I think growing up it was easy to see him as naive. After all, arguably the most important episodes of my childhood were completely unknown to him. In that way, I kind of loved him from a distance. Maybe losing my mom also played into that. Maybe I just had trust issues. And after what happened at the diner… Luckily there hadn't been any blinks since.
I stayed for a couple days and he showed me around some of the different coffee shops where he'd tutor kids or write some of his stories. I met some of his friends, mostly other retired or part-time teachers who were in a similar place in life. I was happy for him. Then, on Sunday, he made me my favorite meal growing up: homemade carbonara pasta with chicken and broccoli. The sauce had a few different cheeses, butter, olive oil, and a raw egg yolk. It was the perfect blend of creamy, savory, and sweet. After we ate, he cracked open a scrapbook of some old photos and other clippings he had put together.
We reminisced about the past and laughed whenever I'd cover up one of my awkward pictures. He brought up some stories from school that I had forgotten, naming some teachers that I hadn't thought about in years. Apparently I had started at the end, because as I moved to the other end of the book, I kept getting younger and younger. I flipped to the last pages and noticed a couple pictures of my mom that made my heart sink.
"She was beautiful, wasn't she?" said my dad.
"Mmm," I agreed.
I flipped to the last page and saw a collage of newspaper clippings. One of them was related to the accident. It was headlined: "Two Survive Head-On Collision". After a cursory glance at the text, I noticed something odd. It said, "Both the husband and child, a three year old girl, sustained life-threatening wounds. The husband was found unconscious on the scene. The girl was found twenty meters away from the vehicle, crying." I swallowed, trying to remember back to what happened that day. The feeling of crashing, of the world slowing down, then breaking, returned. And then there was a hand. My dad's hand. Or was it? If he was unconscious, who pulled me out of that wreck?
I looked up at my dad. He was smiling.
I shot up and started backing up slowly toward the door. "No, not you, too. What is this? What's happening? Who are you?"
My dad, or whatever was controlling him, laughed."Oh, Lauren, Lauren, Lauren. You know who we are." he purred as he stood up. He lifted his hands and the lights began to flicker then bend in a way which shouldn't have been possible. Dark figures began to propagate from the shadows along the walls. The pictures nailed there began to blink out of existence. I turned to run toward the door but the handle was gone. Glass shards materialized all around me and swarmed like locusts. Certain I was going to die, I dropped down on my knees and once again turned to prayer, this time asking God to directly intervene and save me.
Everything went quiet.
"Honey? Are you okay?"
I didn't trust his voice. I knew if I opened my eyes, I'd see that awful smile. He was just toying with me. "It's not you," I said in between muttered prayers. "I know it's not you."
"Honey," my dad said, closer. I felt his arms wrap around me. This was it, I was going to be suffocated. I waited for the inevitable crushing weight of my chest collapsing. I waited to break all over again.
"I would never hurt you, Lauren. I love you more than anything in the whole world."
I burst out in tears. "No, it's not you, I know it's not you. You don't exist!"
My dad's weight dissipated. I opened my eyes and saw that he was no longer there. "Dad?" I called aloud. "Dad? Where did you go?"
I checked all over the house, but there was no trace of him. There were still pictures of him all over the house, so I knew he hadn't blinked out of existence like everything else, but somehow he was missing.
***
I left the house and got a room at a hotel, where I am now. I'm sure at this point that whatever is happening to me is no longer random. Something out there is actively trying to hunt me. Maybe it has been my whole life, but only now it can see me—however weird that sounds. If that's right, then God has been on my side trying to protect me from this demon or monster or devil or whatever it is. Regardless, the methods I was using when I was younger are not going to cut it anymore. I already posted my story in several other small circles and have gotten one reply. A man who goes by the name "Trent" (apparently it's an alias). He said that he has some insight into my "condition" and can offer help if I want it. I'm planning on meeting with him tomorrow. I'm not sure if it's a good idea, but at this point I need answers. I can keep you updated with my progress if that interests you, and to anyone who knows anything about what's happening to me, please… I could really use your help.
***
I was just about to post this when Trent sent another message. This is what it says:
Trent: We can do the \*** at **** O'clock. Also, if what you're telling me is true, your mother may still be alive.*

When I was three years old I was in a really bad car accident. I didn't know it at the time, but that singular event would come to define everything about my life moving forward. What I remember about the accident is mostly a collage of backdated comments I was able to reel out of my father in the following years. He was driving me and my mom in his old '91 Chevy Tahoe through the twisting backroads of Southern Illinois, weaving his way through the gnarled branches of oak trees which interlocked into a braided ceiling overhead. A fog had rolled in, giving the impression that we were driving through a cloudy tube. Everything was simultaneously bright and opaque. I didn't mind though, as I was in the back seat working on a coloring book. My mom was in the front, talking with my dad or turning around to entertain my completed pictures.
Although I was of the age where my memory was just beginning to mature, I still recall two things very clearly from the accident. First was the sensation of breaking. I remember feeling the way a plate must feel to be dropped: weightless at first, then suddenly meeting a much larger, more solid object—the air popped like a firecracker, and the entirety of my body shattered into hundreds of fractals. And then I remember a hand. It was my dad's hand pulling me from the wreck.
I ended up hospitalized for weeks after the crash. My mom was less lucky. The impact had killed her instantly.
As I've alluded to, I was young, and at the time I didn't fully understand the implications of what had happened. I knew something was missing, but it was like a word on the tip of my tongue, or the forgotten vanilla in a cherished cake recipe—coloring my experience, but not the whole of it. Not like my dad. For him, it was the whole fucking cake. He had somehow made it out with only a few scratches. I'm sure he had a really bad case of survivor's guilt, and frankly, looking back, I wouldn't have blamed him if he slumped into despair and spent his days drinking away his sorrow. But he wasn't that type of man. He got help. It took him years before he was able to recall anything that happened that morning, and most of it is still repressed, but he shared with me what he could. Or at least that's what I had thought.
My dad was a Middle School teacher since before I was born, and he kept his job until very recently. As a result, we didn't have much by way of resources. I grew up on Disney Channel and TV dinners for the most part, but I didn't mind. When I became of school age, his job actually made caring for me pretty convenient. Since our Elementary and Middle schools were connected, he was able to drive me there and back each day.
It was around third or fourth grade that I realized I was different. I didn't understand the other children or even the adults most of the time. They would say things then immediately change their mind, or they would talk about something and in the next breath forget its existence entirely. I remember one day at lunch, I had just gotten my tray of hot food and sat down with some friends. One of the kids, Alex, was talking about a stuffed bird he had won for getting first place in Mr. Curtis's pop-up math competition. We were all admiring its blue wings and white belly and sharp black beak and beady eyes. I left mid-conversation to get a chocolate milk. When I came back, I asked to see the bird again, and Alex said "what bird?" I was perplexed. "The bird—the bluejay you were just showing us." I remember all of the other kids looking at me like I was crazy. I figured they were all playing a trick on me, so I got up and went over to Alex's seat and crouched down, looking under the table, then I sprung up and tried to open his lunchbox. "What are you doing!?" he yelled. I felt so confused and embarrassed that I ran to the bathroom to cry.
And then there was another time a group of kids were laughing about a joke one of the girls, Taylor, had made about our homeroom teacher's face looking like a seal. I knew it was mean, but at the time I just wanted to fit in so I played along, but when I made a comment about her resemblance to the semi-aquatic animal, they all looked at me confused. "What are you talking about? We never said that…"
These misattributions kept happening, and it led to me being ostracized from most of the little childish cliques that popped up. I developed a quasi-standoffish temperament which I used as a shield against a chaotic world that I didn't understand. My dad eventually had me tested for ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder), but I passed the test. He asked if I wanted to move to a different town with different schoolmates, thinking that perhaps I was getting bullied, but I told him it was fine. Somewhere deep down I felt like no matter where I went, this problem would follow me.
You may think that I was simply coping with the absence of my mom, and while I'm sure that her absence has left certain holes in my life, kindly, no, that wasn't what was happening. You see, at first I didn't notice the instances of what I'll call "blinking". I simply thought that I was misremembering things: objects, words, events. They were all little things anyway. A bird, a joke, my pencil box. It wasn't until sixth grade that I realized the magnitude of the phenomenon.
I was in my dad's 6th grade Social Studies class and we had just been assigned our "Ancient Civilizations" project which involved creating a diorama of our chosen civilization and presenting its features to the class. My friend at the time, Claire, had taken my first choice of Ancient Rome (which we had a heated argument about at lunch), so I was left with Ancient Egypt. At the time, all I pictured for Egypt was a plate of sand. However, my dad and I went through some illustrated history books and pictures on the internet and he really built up the project for me.
Over the course of a couple months, he helped me shape three pyramids out of small wooden planks and a bunch of tan clay. We placed them in the center of a giant square shoebox lid which served as the container for the diorama. Then he bought some small wooden mannequin puppets and we dressed them up in cloth clothes (mostly kilts and tunics) and colored their eyes, mouths, and hair. We added a few obelisks and some small box-huts which were collected into a little village around the Nile. Finally, we added a light glaze of glue where we felt would be necessary and then covered the whole project with golden glitter.
As we worked on each part of the diorama, my dad helped me understand what we were adding and why it was important to Ancient Egypt. I loved the way he talked about history. He spun everything into a miraculous story. To this day, I don't think I've ever had a teacher who came close to his level of charisma and creativity. As a result, I became really proud of my diorama. I memorized all the little details and rehearsed my speech in front of the mirror for hours leading up to the last couple weeks of class. And then, two days before I was supposed to give my presentation, everything fell apart.
First, I need to apologize for deceiving you about an aspect of my story. I thought it might help you to understand what I was going through at the time. What I'm about to tell you is going to sound insane. I get that. But please hear me out. The truth is that I was never assigned to present on Ancient Egypt; everything else about Clair taking my first pick and dad helping me with the whole project and my excitement leading up to the presentation was all true, but it wasn't a project on Ancient Egypt, it was a project on Ancient Sidovan, which was a civilization located on the eighth continent called "Catalan" (the same name as the spoken language, but unrelated) which was due West of Australia in the Indian Ocean.
I know this sounds incredible, and if you want to believe it's all in my head, I get that, but I remember clearly all sorts of facts about it: the Malagasy, the same people who populated Madagascar, were the first peoples to discover Catalan and settle it. However, about five hundred years later, Indian ships would arrive and create the civilization known as Sidovan. A pidgin language formed between the indigenous population and new arriving Indians called "Hiesa" (pronounced: Hai-E-suh or Hai-ʔ-suh). Catalan had a warm climate with plenty of natural resources, but Sidovan had a dense enough population to require agricultural production. They grew rice, grain, sugarcane, vegetables, and even tobacco.
I remembered all of these facts and more. My diorama reflected the main features of the Sidovan civilization. And then two days before my presentation, I woke up and my diorama was entirely different. The hilly grasslands were traded out for sandy dunes. The Hindu statues and stone palaces became clay pyramids and large spear-like pillars. And everything was covered with the ickiest yellow glitter I had ever seen. Tears stung my eyes as I trampled over to my dad's room and banged on his door. "Dad! What did you do!?" I yelled.
"Honey?" He responded, rushing over to the base of the stairs. "What's wrong?"
"The diorama. It's ruined!"
"It's what?" he asked and ran up the stairs, leading me to my room. He looked over it for a few seconds, checking to see if everything was intact, then said, "I don't see it, honey. Where is it ruined?"
I was completely dumb-struck. What did he mean he didn't see it? "All of it!" I shouted. "The whole thing is wrong. Where's the grass and the stone buildings and the lady with the four arms and the elephants? Where is my project!?"
My dad looked at me in silence. "Lauren, baby, what civilization do you think you were working on?"
"Ancient Sidovan, of course! We've been working on this for months now! Dad, please tell me you remember."
He knelt down and put his hands on my shoulders. "Honey, your project was on Ancient Egypt. There is no Ancient Sidovan."
"Y-you're lying." I protested. "Books, you have books. On your bookshelf."
He took me into his study and showed me all of his books. None of them were on Ancient Sidovan. He even turned on his computer and typed in the name of the civilization, but all that came up was a near match "Sidon". I remember feeling the sudden urge to puke. My entire body felt like it was pumping battery acid instead of blood. "I—I don't," I started but suddenly my head felt very light, and I fainted.
When I woke up, I was in the hospital. I had lost consciousness for over half an hour, enough time for my dad to call 9-1-1 and have the ambulance transport me to the nearest ER. They ran all sorts of tests on me, but they all came back fine. After a couple hours of IV fluids and monitoring, they released me with my dad.
I ended up skipping the rest of school that week. My dad didn't make me present my diorama. In fact, he never brought the subject up again. Part of me was glad. I just wanted to forget the whole thing ever happened. But another part of me couldn't move past what was clearly the most absurd thing to ever happen to me. About a week after the incident, I tried to broach the subject, but when I asked my dad about it, he didn't seem to remember our conversation at all. He said I had fallen ill and that's why I needed to go to the ER and miss class. I felt like I was going crazy. If I was older, I probably would have voluntarily checked myself into a psychiatric ward. But I was young and helpless and alone, and I decided that if I just ignored the changes well enough, I could still get along. This proved difficult though, as the blinking would only exacerbate in the coming months.
Up until the time of the project, I hadn't been able to directly observe the phenomenon. It was always in retrospect that things disappeared. It was during the summer after sixth grade that this changed. I still remember the first time it happened. I had just gotten out of the shower and was drying my hair in front of the mirror. After it was dried, I threw on my clothes then went to tie my hair up in a ponytail, but as I went to set the elastic tie, I felt its weight dissipate in my hand. I gasped and held my hand out. The circular black band was gone.
Fast forward to seventh grade and the blinking had spiraled out of control. Reflecting back on it, most people would probably have assumed I was drinking psilocybin-infused water, as the delusions were somewhat consistent with psychedelic phenomena: except these distortions were real (at least they felt that way to me).
I'd wake up and grab the box of Special K but end up eating Cheerios. The McDonalds logo would look yellow and red one day, but purple and black the next. I'd be watching a show, and then a different show, and then a different one. It was as if the entire universe was a Christmas tree with millions of lights, and the lights kept shifting hues randomly, faster and faster, and I was the only one who could see their changing colors. I remember one night my dad made spaghetti for dinner and we went out onto the porch to eat it. While we were sitting, I saw our neighbor's house, a two story townhome, blink and become a single story bungalow. I gasped, and my dad asked what was wrong, but when I tried to explain he just gave me a strange look. For him, no matter what changed, the world was "always that way". While for me, it didn't have "a way".
The situation peaked when Clair, that friend I mentioned before, disappeared. I texted her (my dad had bought me a BlackBerry at the beginning of summer break) but didn't get a response. When I asked her other friends if they knew where she was, I got the usual "what are you talking about?" look. I knew right away what had happened, even though I didn't want to believe it. I went to the teacher and asked if there was a Clair in our class. She said "no". I broke down in front of everyone. I couldn't take it anymore. I ran out of school. The lady at the front desk tried to stop me, but I just barrelled past her. I kept running until I got to a big park across the street and bawled my eyes out until the police arrived and escorted me home. When they tried asking me what was wrong, I didn't say anything. There was literally nothing I could say that they would understand.
That night I prayed to God for the first time. My dad wasn't a religious man. He went to Catholic church with my mom when she was alive, but after she died he never went back. Still, I knew how to pray, even if I never did it. I copied some of the people I saw praying in movies and interlocked my fingers and knelt down on my bed, stuffing my head into a pillow. "Dear God," I said, "Please, please, please help me." I told Him about my struggles and asked Him to make them stop. I spent an hour saying the same things over and over again. And when I was finished, my little body was so tired, I fell right to sleep.
I knew something was different the second I opened my eyelids. I didn't only feel relieved, but I felt… embraced. I felt like someone was watching over me. I felt like I wasn't alone. I moved through my day with cautious apprehension. I didn't want to get my hopes up only to be let down. But to my surprise, the blinking had stopped. At least I couldn't remember any of the inconsistencies, and to me, that was a win. I began to pray regularly, and the more I did, the more I could feel the sense that someone was looking out for me. It was like I was getting a big hug from some cosmic force that loved me and wanted me to be happy.
I made it a habit to pray regularly. I asked my dad if he could take me to a church, and he agreed to take me to St. Mark's, the same church that he and my mom used to attend. Over time, I realized that the actual church services weren't as important to me as the praying. For whatever reason, there was something about praying that was like a glue for my brain, holding the entire universe together. As I got older, I considered that maybe it wasn't that the changes were no longer happening, but that I simply didn't see them anymore. In other words, maybe I was just becoming like everyone else. Either way, I didn't mind.
In my teenage years, I got into mindfulness meditation. I thought that I'd want to go into religious studies and become a theologian, so I started to learn about Eastern traditions in addition to Christianity. I joined a bunch of different school clubs to meet kids of different faiths: Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam. I tried to find a common thread which linked them all and would explain what happened to me as a child. The metaphors of Heaven and Hell, Good and Evil, the Taoist Yin and Yang—duality. Every religion seemed to speak about a way of being that would lead to a better place. In some cases that better place was a physical future existence, and in others it was merely being in contact with the perfection of nature or the present. Metaphorically, the teachings could explain what I had gone through in a kind of loose way, but there were no explicit statements about my condition.
***
I want to fast forward to why I've decided to write about this now. To give you an idea of where I'm at, I'm now 25 and working on finishing my MA in Computational Linguistics. I know that's a bit of a switch from what I was thinking when I was a teenager, but I really only interested in religion because of the value praying afforded me as a child. I didn't actually have much interest in the subject, itself. After my first year of college, I changed to an English major, which ultimately led to me taking a linguistics class and enjoying it so much that I switched tracks in my Junior year. Considering the state of the world, I thought minoring in Computer Science might help me financially in the future, so I ended up charting a path which I figured might lead to something like developing translation software.
Anyway, everything was going fine until a few weeks ago. I was out at an all-night diner with a few of my friends from the program. There was Jeremy, Martin, Bella, Jordan, and Macy. We had been working on a group project together involving modeling construction grammars by generating primitive 3D structures using C# and running the code through a game engine (it's a bit weird, but essentially we were trying to create a multidimensional model for language using a similar but more advanced concept than other LLMs), and just had a breakthrough. It was 2AM though and not a brain cell existed between the six of us, so instead we focused on a different problem: Macy's ongoing breakup with her semi-long distance trucker boyfriend. We tried to explain why Mike wasn't going to work out as we ordered a round of milkshakes and waited for the lone overnight kitchen worker to scoop out three balls of ice cream from the Deans carton for each of us, blend it, then have the server deliver the vintage diner glasses on a plastic tray.
I dug into my thick strawberry shake with a spoon. It was delicious. I kept eating but focused back on the conversation. I remember feeling something odd about one of the scoops, but I was so entrenched in Macy's story that I didn't notice the metal shard in my ice cream until I felt it against my lip. "P-tuh" I spat out the shard and ice cream all in one motion, then covered my mouth which I was sure was bleeding. The silver blade was probably as large as my thumb, and it had two jagged edges, as if it was fastened for the purpose of causing damage. "What the fuck!" I yelled.
Everyone at the table turned to see what was the matter. "Hey, Lauren, you okay?"
I spoke through a covered mouth, using my free hand to point at the table. "That was in my—"
But it was gone.
"In your… shake? Was something in your shake?" asked Jeremy.
I froze. In that moment, the stories of my childhood that I had only remembered as faint nightmares came back in a wave of crushing terror. How could I have been so stupid to think they would simply vanish forever? No, this isn't the same thing, I thought. But deep down, I knew it was. I drew my hand away from my lips and saw that it was dry—no blood. When I looked back up, all of the blood in my veins went cold. My friends were… smiling at me. Their lips were elastic like taffy, stretching to reveal their teeth. I could feel them radiating malevolence, as if the only thing holding them back from picking up their utensils and stabbing me to death was some thinly veiled force field. The moment lasted for what felt like half a minute, then Jordan said two words which made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
"Found you"
The words ricocheted in my now adrenaline powered skull. But just as he spoke them, the world blinked and my friends were back. Bella reached out and grabbed my hand. I pulled away, but when I saw her concerned expression, I relented.
"Sorry, guys, I think I'm going to have to call it." I said.
"You sure, L?" asked Jordan. "You look like you just saw a ghost."
"Yeah, thanks, but I just…" I stumbled for a lie, but when one wouldn't come, Martin stood up and said he'd walk me out to my car.
"Thanks," I said as I got into my little 2015 Jetta. "It's just been a long day."
"No problem, Lauren. You know, if there's ever anything—"
"I know," I said but didn't mean. Some things just couldn't be shared.
I drove for about five minutes before stopping at a gas station. I pulled in and parked near the back. Then I interlocked my fingers and prayed for half an hour. I apologized for not taking my praying seriously and asked to once again be granted peace. Unlike my younger years, I also drifted into other avenues of thought. I imagined my mom. I pictured the whole arc of my life, all of the little decisions that led me to where I was. I cried for a long time. I felt like that little girl again reaching out for help. I still felt so lost, so out of control; there were so many things missing, and I was so confused.
I decided then to take a trip back home and visit my dad who was now working as a private tutor. He made enough prepping affluent students for the ACT and SAT that he could spend his free time pursuing his real passions: reading and writing. When I arrived at his doorstep that weekend, he greeted me with open arms. "How are you, kiddo? It's been, what? A year or so?"
It was actually more like two years, but I didn't tell him. I just smiled and nodded.
"Well, come in."
The house was almost exactly how I remembered it. Linoleum floors, beige walls, a few scattered pictures, the scent of camomile. Everything minimalist. There was a quaintness, a prettiness to the way everything seemed to be well kept and in a perfect place. From the cherry wood chairs we'd sit in to eat, to the cream-colored loveseat. I felt at home.
I spent the drive thinking of what I would talk to my dad about, but ultimately I wasn't sure what I'd say. I loved my dad, but I think growing up it was easy to see him as naive. After all, arguably the most important episodes of my childhood were completely unknown to him. In that way, I kind of loved him from a distance. Maybe losing my mom also played into that. Maybe I just had trust issues. And after what happened at the diner… Luckily there hadn't been any blinks since.
I stayed for a couple days and he showed me around some of the different coffee shops where he'd tutor kids or write some of his stories. I met some of his friends, mostly other retired or part-time teachers who were in a similar place in life. I was happy for him. Then, on Sunday, he made me my favorite meal growing up: homemade carbonara pasta with chicken and broccoli. The sauce had a few different cheeses, butter, olive oil, and a raw egg yolk. It was the perfect blend of creamy, savory, and sweet. After we ate, he cracked open a scrapbook of some old photos and other clippings he had put together.
We reminisced about the past and laughed whenever I'd cover up one of my awkward pictures. He brought up some stories from school that I had forgotten, naming some teachers that I hadn't thought about in years. Apparently I had started at the end, because as I moved to the other end of the book, I kept getting younger and younger. I flipped to the last pages and noticed a couple pictures of my mom that made my heart sink.
"She was beautiful, wasn't she?" said my dad.
"Mmm," I agreed.
I flipped to the last page and saw a collage of newspaper clippings. One of them was related to the accident. It was headlined: "Two Survive Head-On Collision". After a cursory glance at the text, I noticed something odd. It said, "Both the husband and child, a three year old girl, sustained life-threatening wounds. The husband was found unconscious on the scene. The girl was found twenty meters away from the vehicle, crying." I swallowed, trying to remember back to what happened that day. The feeling of crashing, of the world slowing down, then breaking, returned. And then there was a hand. My dad's hand. Or was it? If he was unconscious, who pulled me out of that wreck?
I looked up at my dad. He was smiling.
I shot up and started backing up slowly toward the door. "No, not you, too. What is this? What's happening? Who are you?"
My dad, or whatever was controlling him, laughed."Oh, Lauren, Lauren, Lauren. You know who we are." he purred as he stood up. He lifted his hands and the lights began to flicker then bend in a way which shouldn't have been possible. Dark figures began to propagate from the shadows along the walls. The pictures nailed there began to blink out of existence. I turned to run toward the door but the handle was gone. Glass shards materialized all around me and swarmed like locusts. Certain I was going to die, I dropped down on my knees and once again turned to prayer, this time asking God to directly intervene and save me.
Everything went quiet.
"Honey? Are you okay?"
I didn't trust his voice. I knew if I opened my eyes, I'd see that awful smile. He was just toying with me. "It's not you," I said in between muttered prayers. "I know it's not you."
"Honey," my dad said, closer. I felt his arms wrap around me. This was it, I was going to be suffocated. I waited for the inevitable crushing weight of my chest collapsing. I waited to break all over again.
"I would never hurt you, Lauren. I love you more than anything in the whole world."
I burst out in tears. "No, it's not you, I know it's not you. You don't exist!"
My dad's weight dissipated. I opened my eyes and saw that he was no longer there. "Dad?" I called aloud. "Dad? Where did you go?"
I checked all over the house, but there was no trace of him. There were still pictures of him all over the house, so I knew he hadn't blinked out of existence like everything else, but somehow he was missing.
***
I left the house and got a room at a hotel, where I am now. I'm sure at this point that whatever is happening to me is no longer random. Something out there is actively trying to hunt me. Maybe it has been my whole life, but only now it can see me—however weird that sounds. If that's right, then God has been on my side trying to protect me from this demon or monster or devil or whatever it is. Regardless, the methods I was using when I was younger are not going to cut it anymore. I already posted my story in several other small circles and have gotten one reply. A man who goes by the name "Trent" (apparently it's an alias). He said that he has some insight into my "condition" and can offer help if I want it. I'm planning on meeting with him tomorrow. I'm not sure if it's a good idea, but at this point I need answers. I can keep you updated with my progress if that interests you, and to anyone who knows anything about what's happening to me, please… I could really use your help.
***
I was just about to post this when Trent sent another message. This is what it says:
Trent: We can do the \*** at **** O'clock. Also, if what you're telling me is true, your mother may still be alive.*

I am 31F and my mom is 61F.
My parents had my sister on accident, got married and divorced after a very toxic and abusive relationship, then had me on accident when my sister was ten.
My mom grew up in extreme poverty, abuse, and neglect, and barely knew how to read when she met my dad, only had a fifth grade education. My dad was a carpenter.
I ended up growing up with my dad since he got custody and my mom went in and out of the mental hospital. She lived with her mom and was an off and on janitor and then went on disability for mental illness (schizoaffective).
Throughout growing up I would visit her on weekends and she would get plastered drunk many times, screaming and yelling at me, I would hide and call dad or sister for a ride home. They would pick me up hyperventilating but acted like everything was fine and dad would drop me off there again. She would also promise to do things and then just lay in bed depressed. My dad and stepmom were also abusive. I would tell my mom things and she would talk really bad about my dad and stepmom and sister (who won’t talk to our mom), to the point where my stepmom and sister claim I’m brainwashed to not like them. I think they’re all abusive but idk. I’m gaslit extremely.
Anyways, on and off I have blocked my mom and stopped talking to her. She can provide me comfort and someone to talk to since I’m not close with family, but sometimes is mean and abusive and extremely suffocating I feel?
She is a chain smoker and now has clogged arteries. I don’t like smoke at all and she would shame me for being uncomfortable around her smoking. She also caretakers her disabled brother and they live together in a very run down place with their disability checks.
She had to get a stent put in last week. I took off work to take her home from the hospital and be there a while. I felt like anything I do is never enough, she asked last minute if I could take off the day of to be with her during the surgery (her sister planned to), then complained that I didn’t spend the night at the hospital with her, kept telling other patients god bless them, burst into tears to the nurse saying she was thankful to the doctor, then kept acting like I was bored and not happy to be at the hospital, and kept insisting she pay for my parking in front of others like I didn’t want to pay, etc. I was with her 7 hours that day and as soon as I got home she said she would have liked me to stay longer and asked why didn’t I take her on a drive with me afterward, that I took spontaneously to destress.
Today she called on my lunch break and asked if I could come over and do her laundry in the basement. She is still healing from surgery. I am working today. She offered to buy me dinner but I’m on a diet and don’t want Chinese food. Her social worker was coming and offered to do her laundry but she didn’t want her to se her underwear. My uncle is being watched for a couple weeks while my mom heals.
I just hate picking up my mom’s calls and feel awful about it. I didn’t really want to help her with her laundry and had plans to go to the gym after work. I feel burdened with my mom sometimes. My sister won’t associate with her.
A couple of years ago my mom stopped taking her meds for mental health and ended up calling an ambulance on herself and went to the mental hospital. She had me on all her emergency contacts. Hospital called me to pick up my uncle so I took him and had to watch him and find care for him for a week. My sister was advocating her our uncle to be taken away from our mom and I kind of agreed but my moms side of the family freaked out and so did my mom, because without his income she could not pay rent and could likely become homeless. My mom asked to live with me and I said no and she said she couldn’t believe I would let her become homeless. Now she still cares for my uncle but her health is declining a lot and I don’t see it possible for much longer. She gets caregivers to help but then gets in a fight with them (like everyone) and fires them over and over.
I have an opportunity to move 3 hours away to live with my boyfriend and I kind of want to take it. I just feel a hatred towards my mom sometimes. She didn’t raise me and barely provided care, abused me, and now expects me to care for her.
She calls me every single day sometimes 6-7 times a day and her calls absolutely infuriate me and I don’t know why. This would also happen when I was a kid, she would call when I was at my dads and someone would yell at me to drop everything and come to the phone because my mom called and I didn’t always want to talk to her. She spends most of her time it seems calling people on the phone, she doesn’t have hobbies or do too much else, she just smokes and calls people.
I feel guilty for not wanting to help my mom and being kinder. My boyfriend visits his grandma and family every Friday and they have dinner. His aunt takes his grandma to all her appointments and cares for her. But my mom has been acting like she is an old lady for like 20 years like she can’t do things on her own.
She also does help me sometimes, she will insist and almost demand I take money from her, I usually refuse for a couple weeks and sometimes have given in. She insists her neighbor fix my car. I need to find a better paying job and get away from these people.
TLDR: I feel guilty for not caring for my mom more. What do I do? Why am I so heartless?

I have a feeling this is going to be a massively downvoted post that has a lot of comments reacting with what I will politely call pure vitriol.
But yeah. Kind of... Nothing more to say. The question says it all. I am an old lady who likes anime that tend to revolve themselves around one character. Even if there's a colorful cast of characters around them, I like having one character that I can point as being "the guy" and calling the anime "their story", with every narrative thread or every other character's development somehow being meant to be tied back into a main character. Whether it's a neutral development protagonist who acts purely as a foil to other characters, like Son Goku from Dragon Ball, or Naruto Uzumaki Talk no Jutsu-ing his enemies because they mirror aspects of himself and talking through to them helps him mature.
Then after years of Ash and Pikachu being the consistent constants of the anime alongside Team Rocket, Goh comes along and the anime pushes the idea that "No no no. Ash isn't your only guy anymore. This guy has his own story that is almost completely disconnected from Ash. Here. Have some episodes with him where Ash doesn't feature at all to prove it". I'm not going to debate whether it was good or bad writing-wise, but if I'm coming to the anime specifically to watch Ash's story, and then there are episodes where he simply does not appear... You see how there's a conflict of interest, right?
Now, Horizons is doing it again. I want to see it as the story of Liko, first and only. While I have a lot, and I mean, a LOT, of pet peeves I could get into, I can't help but feel like in episodes where Roy or Dot or even Friede get the spotlight while Liko's role is minimal, Liko is getting... Upstaged? Like, it's cool that these other characters are getting development, but shouldn't their development be the result of Liko's actions or say something about Liko's personal growth? She's the one I'm coming to see. Not these overbilled extras.
But while I have a funny feeling I'm alone on this, what do you guys think? Should Pokémon go back to a formula where you can point to one character and call them "the guy" and call the anime "their story"? Or do you guys actually like that Pokémon has been trying to take an ensemble approach where there's no singular star?

Hi, I’m a first time Reddit user but I’m an avid watcher of the Charlotte Dobre channel. I wanted to write this out, potentially Risking people involved seeing it. It was a lot at first now it’s very comical.
It begins when my boyfriend (m22) and I (f22) found out we were pregnant and we were looking for a place to live. His mom found us a place with her aunt, so his great aunt. It was to help us save money in order to find a decent place for ourselves. My boyfriend was really busy with work and she was getting frustrated that he wasn’t responding to her in time so I took it upon myself to introduce myself and see if her and I could talk about details considering he was super busy. She was rude to begin with, but she’s an older lady. I brush it off and just stayed as respectful as I could. I was telling her what a great opportunity and that I appreciate her helping us out and I will get my boyfriend to try and reach out because she was adamant that she did not want to communicate with me about the process. Fast forward us moving in she gets out a lined piece of paper and writes out the most vague landlord-tenant contract. There were no specific rules or items that would protect us in this instant I’m about to talk about. It rubbed me the wrong way. My boyfriend signed it with out questions. Another red flag was she didn’t want me to sign it because she didn’t want to acknowledge that I was gonna live there too. First month goes by and we are $100 short on rent which she excuses after an apology however, she makes my boyfriend write a letter talking about how he’s going to do better to never be late on rent again as if he’s a high school child. I thought it was a bit extreme considering we’re adults, she’s not his mother and we paid her for the remainder of the rent we missed. But I let it go because we really needed this place. a month later, she gets mad at me for not having found a job yet even though we just moved a month ago and I’m pregnant and it’s hard to find jobs when you are visibly pregnant. I understand that they can’t deny you if you’re pregnant but that doesn’t mean they cant find a different excuse to not hire you. She is yelling at me and I decide I’ve had enough because of her being disrespectful and coming at me after not taking time to get to know me and throwing out a bunch of insults that don’t make sense. So I close my bedroom door to get away from her and she walks in opening the door and I told her that she had no right to do that. She said it was her place and I said I pay rent and I’ve lived here long enough that if I called the cops she would get in trouble so she apologized in a very Karen way then she goes off on how I was in foster care as a child and she knows “my people” have behavioral problems. A few months after that, I stopped talking to her, but she decides to tell us that our shower is leaking in to her garage which we are not allowed to be in. She starts hounding us about how could we not know that our shower is leaking. again we’re not allowed in the garage. We never saw leak. How do we know our showers leaking if the leak is underneath our shower and we’re not allowed in the garage. Also she wouldn’t give us a 24 hour notice before just walking into our apartment unannounced. She walked in on me in my underwear multiple times. She didn’t announce herself and just walked in. And because the shower was leaking she decided to take our shower head which is incredibly illegal and I tried telling my boyfriend that, but he was trying to keep the peace. I was livid because in the state that I live in, If you were going to request a tenant does not use their own shower. You have to provide a shower for them to use it while it’s getting fixed. Another time she barged in to yell at us for leaving LINT DUST on the dryer. And another instance where she turned the water off without telling us in advance. I told my boyfriend to talk to her and she said she yelled up the stairs that it would be shut off even tho I was awake and never heard her do that. She told my boyfriend that she wanted to have a talk with me about how disrespectful I am, apparently she heard me talking to my mom about how rude she is and thought that I wasn’t allowed to do that. Even though I hadn’t said anything to her since our last argument after she talked about me being in foster care, which come to find out my boyfriend’s mom told her I was in foster care because she didn’t think it was a big deal but clearly Karen used it to her advantage. She was yelling at me talking about how disrespectful I am even though I had been quiet then when she asked me a question and I answered it, she flipped out saying I thought you were going to be quiet and I told her that I wasn’t gonna let her talk to me that way because I’m not her child and I’m an adult and she has no right to talk to me like that , she got angry that I wasn’t letting her talk to me like that so while I was seated in my chair seven months pregnant, she stood up and got in my face like she was about to strike me. My boyfriend stood between us and told her to sit down and I told her that we’re done with the conversation. she said that she wanted me off her property right now and she was going to call the police. I told her to go ahead that I had mail sent here and that I paid rent and she can’t kick me out without a 30 day notice. so she calls my boyfriends mom and says that she needs to come take me off of her property right now. I told her she can call whoever she wants, but nobody can forcibly take me off the property because I live there as a tenant and I had my rights regardless if my name was on the contract or not. finally my boyfriend to calm her down, agreed that we would leave in two weeks which enraged me because legally she needed to give us a 30 day notice. after the two weeks she willingly let me and my boyfriend live in our car while I was eight months pregnant. we moved out the day of my baby shower and his mother who has a spare bedroom didn’t even offer to take us. We lived in our car for two weeks before my sister gave up her seven year-old daughters bedroom just so that I could have my baby in a safe environment. My boyfriend and I argued about the way he took their sides and how it made me feel. Eventually we came to an understanding and we’re doing a lot better now. I’m cordial with his mother even though I still don’t agree with what happened considering she, on the day of the baby shower, decided to go to the beach with the woman that kicked her son and her daughter-in-law and future grandchild out instead of going to the baby shower. I do not talk to the aunt. She is an awful person. I do not wish ill on her but I would laugh if something bad happened. Call me morbid.

Old ladies are cool, alright? My last character I played in D&D was an old lady. I wanted to move her over to BG but the maturity slider adds, like, two wrinkles. I am bothered by this. Is there a mod or something that lets you make characters who look older than like 40?

-168 cm tall -Dad bod[but working on it] -Attentive -Caring -Kind -Loving -Sensitive -Can be funny at times -Puts in effort -Communicates -Will send you pics- food, memes, YouTube videos I find interesting. -Will give attention -Will reciprocate your love and help you be better. Not a life coach. Just a loving guy -Student of medicine previously. Still figuring out on what to do. Will help you if you are a med student too. -Spiritual. -Patient. -Not that good looking maybe a 5 -Brown with black hair. -Has driven a tank once hahaha. I know. it's amazing. -Loves all animals except spiders. -Virgo -Talkative - I game too. Mainly apex. -I watch movies. My favorite movies would be the A team. Most impactful movie would be Schindlers list. Best war movie would be saving private Ryan. All quite on western front. Best series I watched would be breaking bad. Best anime I've watched is death note and steins gate. -Loved artists are Edward hopper. Caravaggio. Vincent van Gough. Rembrandt. I forget a female artist but I loved her too. -loves to listen to music.
I am loyal, let's just say I don't talk to anyone if I talk to you. Old values. Family oriented. Living with mom whom I take care of too. I wanna empower my lady. Discuss with her daily things about life. Establish a deep deep bond with her. Not borne out of loneliness or need to settle down cause everyone else is. I don't work like that. That's shallow to me. However, it proves love is free.
I am respectful. You say no. I'll go away. I have boundaries too. I reciprocate whatever you give. I make extra effort to show you that I care and want the best for you. I give 100% attention and when I don't I communicate and speak about why and what's bothering me. You'll never be in the dark about me. I listen to you as well. Your input is very valuable for me. Especially when I know you love me.
I have traumas and pains. Single parent. Been through abuse. Both with family and outside. So can be a complicated person at times but I have noticed that assurance and validation helps me alot. Especially when you mean it. Someone I met here told me they'd be my baby and love me. But they left. The others left too. She said I could talk to her and she left anyway. Cause Maybe she didn't like how I looked. (Which is subject to change)
I love cuddles and hugs and being all romantic and soft. The world outside us harsh at least here I want to be soft and baby you and speak to softly and be genuine, to you. Making you happy makes me very happy. I apologize too I don't have a ego as most would. If it's my fault I wanna fix it. I am mature like that.
Money's not everything. I'd appreciate if you shared the same ideal. We are looking for love not buying it. It's about building and growing not applying for a job.
Looking for -undertanding -caring -kind -appreciative -emotionally intelligent -aware -will love -open to dating a foreigner -will put effort genuinely -easy to please(like to make jokes with) -will give attention, time and communicate -can commit, albeit slowly -maybe working - age 25 to 30 onwards. Woman.
Thanks for the read. Please msg me on Instagram- freshbreadb. Or telegram- Ashs1290

So this whole thing might sound silly but hear me out please.
Im a 5’9” tall girl and have faced the usual tall-person problems throughout life. I know its not tall per se by international standards but seeing girls my height or above is like spotting a rare animal in the wild. The usual comments from aunties, while growing up, was “kitni lambi horahi hai, shaadi nahi hogi tumhari aise”
“Tumhare paer kitne bade hai, ladko jaise”
The boys I had a crush on were uncomfortable being with me because they were insecure of being the same height. All this may have contributed in my fear of not being “feminine enough”.
Just for context- Im usually considered attractive by people around me and Im married to a wonderful guy (who is the same height), who thinks I look great too. Technically I should be happy with all this. But maybe the years of teasing gets to me.I have a tough personality so it may seem to others that I dont need much caring. Also my parents were very against me marrying a guy of my height “because I looked bigger and more mature than the guy”.
I look at my husband sometimes and wonder “would he have looked better with a small petite girl?” “Do I look weird sitting on his lap and not fitting in it snugly?”
If you are a guy whos with a girl of the same height, I’d love to know what you think of the girl not being the archetypal “short and cute” that men feel protective towards.
A funny incident- I was once stuck in a bad local train rush during the rains. It was getting impossible to get down at the station and the ladies were pushing and fighting. When my short friend who was getting suffocated, started crying, the ladies felt bad and let her get down at her station. When mine came and I asked, they continued to elbow my ribs and said “you are tall, you’ll manage”. It was partially true lol but I was also in pain and scared (I was 16 then).
Whenever I see posts of men being angry that girls want only tall guys, I wonder if they realize their own prejudices/preferences too. I’ve accepted that tall men prefer short girls in general. Might be an evolutionary thing. I focused my attention towards the men who find my height attractive. But I wish I can get rid of this insecure voice that makes me question if my husband will ever want to “protect me”. I may look Amazonian but I am just a lil girl when I’m around him who wants to be cared for.🥹

This story was written and emailed to me by an anonymous source. And it’s one of the craziest most bizarre stories I’ve ever read. Ever! 😆 Enjoy the read. It’s long and ridiculously wild. ☘️ Also, in advance, no one can use this story. These stories are written and emailed to me for me to turn into a Video Narrative for my YouTube & TikTok channels. But I would like to share their tales as reading material as well. Thank you for understanding.
I hope you enjoy. 🫶
Story by - “Alex” & “Shane”
Okay so…
I went on vacation to Ireland with my brother last year. And had the most wildest experience of my life there.
Or should I say, we both had the most…wildest experience.
But More so me. And to Tell you the truth, I don’t think I’ll ever go back again after what happened.
As a matter of fact, no, I won’t go back.
So, it’s a Sunday night and it was pretty much our last day of vacationing.
My older brother Shane, wanted to go out… And I’m quoting him - “let’s get fuckin wasted tonight!”
So… We’re on vacation right? Why not? We had rented an Airbnb for the week, we had a rental car - we had a great week so far and we were having…
A proper vacation.
He was already dressed up and ready to go. I wanted to take a quick shower and shave so I told him to head out and I’d call him when I was ready for him to pick me up.
He says cool. He leaves, and I jump in the shower. He’s the one that knows the hot spots in Ireland better than I do. I mean, this was my first time ever coming here. So…
I take a shower, shave, and I get dressed. As I’m about to call my brother, the front door to our Airbnb opens up.
And Its my brother with two bad ass Irish women! They both jump on the couch and they’re laughing their asses off and my brother is just standing there looking at me with a sly grin on his face.
He looks over at the ladies and says - “Give me a minute please” walks over to me, puts his arm over my shoulder and walks me to the bathroom. He then whips out a bag of mushrooms and smiles. Ya know… The psychedelic kind.
I look down at the bag and I shake my head.
He says to me - “come on bro. We got two hotties out there who are trippin and they want to party. Don’t be a flake. This is our last night. Let’s make it special.”
I don’t like disappointing my brother but I was kind of hesitant.
I opened the bathroom door and take a look at these gorgeous women who were both sitting upright now and both looking at me as I opened the door. Both smiling. I smiled back. Closed the door… I looked at my brother and said - “Alright dood fuck it! Let’s do it!”
He gives me a huge hug, kisses me on the forehead, pours me a handful of shrooms and does the same for himself.
We both looked at each other to see who would go first. He counted to three and down the hatch they went. But they were the most unpleasant tasting mushrooms I’ve ever eaten in my life. They were disgusting.
I ran to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of juice because I was having a hard time chewing these nasty things.
But my brother Shane? No, he’s a pro. You give that guy a barrel of hay and he’ll eat it faster than a horse. The guy can eat anything.
40 minutes go by and I’m still straight as a pin. However, my brother on the other hand? He’s already trippin.
I think he had already taken some beforehand.
But in the next 10 minutes… These shrooms hit me like a ton of bricks! It was like this intense wave of cool and hot went completely through my body.
And I’ve taken mushrooms quite a few times but have never felt anything like this before. It was so sudden!
And I feel fantastic!
The next hour went by so fast because we were having so much fun! And these Irish girls? Man… I had the sexiest one! A beautiful Redhead by the name of Katrina.
She was kind of short though. About 5’1” maybe? But good things come in small packages, right? Well, not really. And you’ll know why soon enough.
I don’t recall anything else that happened for the rest of the night after my brother left with the other girl. And before I continue with the rest of the story. My brother’s name is really not Shane. And the redhead girl I was with is not named Katrina.
You see I had to make up these names to protect me and my brother. Because what happened during the rest of the night? I don’t remember. But also, I’ll never forget either.
Okay so, let's get back to the story…
I do remember my brother leaving with… Let's just call her Gloria, Katrina’s friend? And me and Katrina, the redhead, stood behind. I do remember us making out in the bathroom together, but…Everything else after that? There’s nothing there. Nothing. I don’t recall anything from that point forward no matter how badly I try to remember.
This is what my brother told me he witnessed as he arrived back at the Airbnb five hours later with Gloria.
And until this day, I still don’t want to believe this happened. But according to my brother…
It truly did happen.
My brother is going to write this part of the story because he’s the one that has this locked in his memory for life. And for the sake of the story, my name will be Alex.
Here is my brother Shane’s point of view - his perspective on what he witnessed that crazy night. Wow man… This is so fucking nuts. So buckle up and be prepared. I understand you don’t know who I am, but I swear, I’m not a bad person. Okay.

• “Shane’s” story on what he witnessed.

Yeah so, I guess I’m Shane now. Unreal…
Okay. Here we go. Meat and potatoes.
We arrive back at the Airbnb and I see Alex outside in the front of the house wearing only socks and he’s running around on top of the grass like an animal yanking out handfuls of grass from underneath him.
I look at Gloria and we’re both baffled at what we just saw.
First thing I said was - “Oh yeah! This dood is off his rocker right about now - as I parked the car.
We both hop out of the car and walk up to the front door. I slide the key into the door, it unlocks, but there’s a chair behind the door and it’s tipped over blocking the entry way and only leaving enough space for a crack. We both awkwardly look at one another and as I’m about to call out for my brother, I hear someone sprinting towards the door and bang!
The fuckin idiot shuts the door on us.
I then knock on the door softly because It’s almost 1 in the morning as I don’t want to make too much noise. God only knows what this kid has been doing since me and Gloria left.
After I knock on the door a few times, I hear the chair getting pushed to the side and my brother slightly opens the door. I take a peek inside, and his nose is broken, lips are bubbled up and his left eye is completely shut, black and blue and swollen.
He then drops to his knees, and begins crying but no sound is coming out of him! You know… Like when you get smacked by your parents when you’re a kid and it shocks the soul of you? Yeah, that kind of cry.
I don’t react to what he’s doing to not scare the shit out of Gloria, because she’s right beside me. So I push the door open and tell Gloria to hang on a second and shut the door and lock it.
I pick his busted ass up and sit him on the couch. I look around the house and it’s in complete shambles. Our clothes are everywhere, there’s food all over the fuckin walls. It was chaotic. And my brother is now sitting up breathing frantically.
I ask him - “what in the fuck happened?”
He looks at me. Face looking like he got into a boxing match with Rocky Marciano and whispers to me.
“Dood… There’s a leprechaun in the bathroom.”
“A fuckin what now?” - I said with the most bewildered look on my face. I mean I must have… I wish I would have taken a picture of my face at that very moment. I should have taken pictures of everything so this idiot could see the havoc he wreaked on that night.
My imbecile brother continues - “I’m telling you. There’s a fuckin leprechaun in the fuckin bathroom and this little lucky charms motherfucker won’t tell me where he hid the gold!”
“A leprechaun in the bathroom. What the fuck happened to you?” I said as I felt my blood beginning to boil.
The Imbecile then says - “Don’t worry. Don’t worry! I hogtied that little bitch and stuffed my underwear in its mouth. It’s in the bathtub. But don’t go in there. Don’t go in there. This thing fucked me up!”
And now I can hear someone fumbling in the bathroom moaning very softly. I looked at my brother and said - “What in the fuck did you do Alex?”
He replies - “I’m telling you. It’s a fucking leprechaun.”
“Okay. Okay.” - I said. “Stay right here and just, don’t move. Don’t do anything. Just keep still.
His eyes were so huge and dilated. He was so fuckin high. He had heartbeat pulses pumping from the top of his head.
I rushed back over to the front door and told Gloria that my brother got into a fight with a couple of guys at a pub while me and her were out and that her friend Katrina left because she got scared. She told me that was the first time she met that girl tonight so she really didn’t care and shrugged it off. Which was a huge relief to me. I told her thank you for a wonderful night. She understood. W said our goodbyes. I shut the door. And now… What the fuck is in the bathroom? Or better yet, who, is in the bathroom? Because let’s face it. This motherfucker did not find and fight with a leprechaun tonight. No way. There’s just no fuckin way.
I rush over to the bathroom and my brother leaps at my legs, and he’s holding onto me for dear life, begging me!
He says - “Please don’t untie it! It’s got magical powers! PLEASE!!!
Now, at this very moment? I am sort of hesitant about opening the bathroom door. But I snap out of it and open it. What the fuck. A leprechaun? No, I don’t think so.
I open the door…
“Holy shit.” - I said while covering my hands with my mouth. The floor was smeared in blood as if someone was dragged, leading to the huge cast iron tub. Smeared bloody handprints were all over the tub. And now I hear the faint moan coming from the tub. My legs are shaking and feel like they’re ready to give out on me. I was scared shitless.
“What did my brother do? Who is in that bathtub? I pray to God Katrina isn’t in there right now.” - I said to myself completely freaked out.
I slowly walk up to the bathtub…
And sure enough, there is a hogtied person lying in it with my brother's underwear stuffed in their mouth with a ripped t-shirt tied around their head and mouth, but… It’s not Katrina.
It’s a little person. You know, a dwarf? And… He’s literally dressed up in a leprechaun costume…
And how, on God's green earth did he end up here?
He has no idea I’m standing above him. I reach down to begin untying him but he begins squirming and screaming. I told him to relax and that I was here to help him.
And then My imbecile brother Alex, rushes into the bathroom and tackles me down. Stands up and begins shouting at this poor bastard hogtied in the tub - “Tell me where it is you greedy little fuck! Tell me!!!
I jumped to my feet and slapped my brother back to his childhood. Grabbed him by the throat, tripped him and threw him to the ground and said - “are you fuckin crazy? Do you want to go to prison for kidnapping? What in the fuck is the matter with you? You dumb fuck!!”
He then looks up at me with this pessimistic look on his face and says - “It’s a fucking leprechaun dood. A leprechaun.”
I was absolutely dumbfounded and furious at this point. I have this stranger in my Airbnb rental, hogtied and gagged and squirming and screaming and my brother thinks that he’s a leprechaun…
I can’t make this shit up.
He was so fucking high on those mushrooms. He was absolutely convinced that this man was a leprechaun. So… I had to play the game.
It was the only way to help this poor son of a bitch that my brother had kidnapped and hogtied in our Airbnb rental.
I calmly whispered and told him to please leave the bathroom so I could interrogate the leprechaun and find out where he was hiding the pot of gold.
My brother slowly stood up to his feet, face busted up, his cock and balls all shriveled and tight, looked at the man dressed up as a leprechaun, smiled at him with an evil grin and just, walked away…
And as he walked away, I told him to go and please put some clothes on, lay down in bed, and that I would handle the leprechaun. That I, would find out where the gold was hidden…
And that’s all I’m saying. I’m giving the computer back to my dumbass of a brother to finish off whatever else he wants to write.

• Back to “Alex”

Pretty outlandish right? I know. I know. You must think that I’m bat shit crazy huh? Okay so, to make the rest of this long story short, my brother Shane never told me what he did with the poor guy I hogtied and, well… i don’t remember how this guy came to be in my possession. I really don’t.
The only thing my brother Shane told me was that he ungagged him, untied him, and that he was extremely pissed off. And that he had compensated him for his troubles.
Man, I felt so horrible. I felt so horrible…
What I do remember though is waking up that following afternoon with my face all fucked up. Dehydrated with a tremendous splitting headache. I had no clue as to why I looked and felt the way I did. It was terrifying.
All of our luggage was packed and my brother was just sitting there, legs crossed and his arms folded.
Hey man… Take it from me. Don’t do fuckin drugs.
Regards, “Alex” & “Shane”
Disclaimer- This story may not be used for anything other than reading, sharing your thoughts and enjoying it. It is now protected by the United States Library of Congress/Copyright Office. Thank you. ☘️

The context is that my partner is a really sweet, amazing, kind, generous, caring person. They are every kind thing you could say about somebody. They are incredibly book smart and have multiple degrees and are going for their law degree on top of all the degrees and certificates they already have. It’s exceptional. The problem is, and I am trying to say this in the nicest way possible. My partner is seriously bad with social skills and comes off as ‘dumb’, ‘cringeworthy’, ‘childish’ and oblivious at times. They will seriously just blurt out anything that comes to their mind and do anything in public. No matter how embarrassing it is. A small example of this is that one time we walked into a bar and my partner got super excited about the cool decor. There was chains hanging from the ceiling and and coffin shaped tv screen installed in the wall with some cool graphic in it. Upon seeing this as we walked in they got so excited they threw their arms into the air and yelled “AHHHHHHH!” And ran over to the chains and started swinging around on them, knocking into a nearby table that a couple was sitting at. After this, they threw their hands up in the air again and yelled “YIPPIEEEEE” as they ran over to the coffin and banged on it with their fist so hard that it actually flashed black and for a second I thought they had broken it. EVERYONE in the bar was looked at me crazy and the security guard had to pick up the mess with table and the drinks my partner just made. It was like a bad ass toddler has just gone loose in the bar and I imagine people just assumed they were way drunk but they were 100% sober. When they returned to me the first words out of my mouth “sit your ass down what the fuck is your problem?” And they immediately bursted out in tears. Because another problem they have is that they are INCREDIBLY sensitive to criticism. They cannot handle one ounce of even constructive criticism, even if it’s said in the most way gentle possible way they will start to cry.
Honestly, I’m not use to dating people my age. I moved out my house and have been on my own living as an adult since I was 16. Typically you will see me with someone ranging from 24-27. My partner is the first person my age I have been with. But, I understand that becoming a lawful adult at 16 is not a universal experience so that’s why they are a bit immature but they are a good person with a good heart which is not easy to come across nowadays so I am willing to wait and be patient with then until they mature a bit more.
My biggest problem with them though is talking to strangers. My mom taught me at a young age about stranger danger and have admittedly had a pretty traumatic life so I am very cautious about who I trust. It is as if my partner is a toddler who has never once been told not to speak to a stranger. They will tell ANYBODY ANYTHING. No shame or reservations or even the idea that the person might be uncomfortable. They will tell the waiter about the wild sex we just had in DETAIL. They will trap the cashier into a 30 minute conversation when the line is piling up and the poor cashier doesn’t want to know every single detail about whatever. And, it’s not even typically a conversation because it’s just my girlfriend yapping without giving the other person time to say anything. They will treat someone they just met less than 5 minutes like someone they’ve known for years and get into people’s personal space. An example of this would be that one time they stopped a girl in the street to compliment them but then it turned into the usual 30 minute yap sesh. My partner got very excited about whatever they were yapping about and for some reason they decided to suddenly press their forehead to this strangers forehead to express their point. I could see the poor girl get visibly frightened so I yanked my partner back out of instinct to protect not only the girl but my partner to whatever reaction the girl might have. Being completely oblivious to the fact that my partner might’ve just got their shit rocked for triggering this stranger they spun around and said something like “OMG BABE you are SO JEALOUS AND CONTROLLING HAHA SHE IS NOT GOING TO STEAL ME” I wanted to shout “dude, nobody WANTS TO STEAL you. You are EMBARRASSING.” But I didn’t want to embarrass my partner so I threw my hands up and walked away silently.
I’ve tried to talk to them about this. I told them a story my mother use to tell me about a very friendly pretty baby that would wave at everyone until she waved at the wrong stranger and got kidnapped. I explained to them that you can’t just assume everyone has good intentions and you definitely can’t predict what will upset someone so it’s best to keep out of strangers personal space and to never share unnecessary information. They see this as if I am trying to steal their ‘light’ or that I am jealous.
This behavior has not only put us in danger in the past but it is now affecting our living situation. Because the one year mark we decided we wanted to move in together. We found the most gorgeous beautiful lake house that was actually an airbnb but the lady liked us so much she was willing to let us stay long and remove the place from airbnb. It was a godsend. The problem is that on the same land there is 4 other properties just a few feet away from us that the landlord rents as airbnbs so we see all kinds of shady or weird people everyday.
I guess, one day when I wasn’t around my gf told a guest about our living arrangement in detail and the guest tried to ask the landlord for the same thing and when the landlord denied it the guest became aggressive and started bringing my gf’s name the details that they were told into the conversation. The landlord reached out to us and showed us the conversation and the guest was threatening us and her with violence. She asked that we keep the fact that we even live on the property to ourselves. It was a very scary situation and I really thought that my partner learned their lesson about strangers.
But, they didn’t. I’m traveling out of town for work and I guess there was a break in on one of the of the properties. The landlord was reviewing the security cameras when they caught my partner telling another guest about the details of our lease again. They wanted to call my partner and speak to them on the phone to express how serious it is that they do not share details about our lease but I guess when confronted about it, my partner lied and said they didn’t say anything. I guess partner didn’t realize they had been caught in 4K.
The landlord was really upset not only that partner lied but went against her wishes of keeping the agreement to themselves once I calmed the landlord down I phoned my partner but by the time I got ok the phone with my partner I was honestly incredibly irritated. I didn’t raise my voice but I was firm and harsh and told them that the oversharing behavior and it has got to stop. I said “really, how hard is it just to keep your mouth shut when our safety is at risk?” I told them they need to look at going to therapy for this behavior.
They became so agitated they started screaming and crying at me “I AM NOT ENOUGH FOR YOU!!” (What? No one even said that!) & “I DONT EVEN CARE ABOUT THIS STUPID HOUSE ILL JUST LEAVE!” (Ez for you to say you haven’t subleased your apartment and moved all your belongings into here yet)
I let them know that we both should take a breather from the convo and now I’m sitting here with my head in my hands, wondering what to do. I know that this is a long read and many people might not make it this far, but if you’ve made it this far, I could really use some advice. I don’t want to talk to my friends and family, because I don’t want them to form a bad opinion about my partner. I feel like I’m dating a child and then I have to correct them like a parent but I don’t want to break up because they are just so good to me outside of this. Please anyone help.

The context is that my partner is a really sweet, amazing, kind, generous, caring person. They are every kind thing you could say about somebody. They are incredibly book smart and have multiple degrees and are going for their law degree on top of all the degrees and certificates they already have. It’s exceptional. The problem is, and I am trying to say this in the nicest way possible. My partner is seriously bad with social skills and comes off as ‘dumb’, ‘cringeworthy’, ‘childish’ and oblivious at times. They will seriously just blurt out anything that comes to their mind and do anything in public. No matter how embarrassing it is. A small example of this is that one time we walked into a bar and my partner got super excited about the cool decor. There was chains hanging from the ceiling and and coffin shaped tv screen installed in the wall with some cool graphic in it. Upon seeing this as we walked in they got so excited they threw their arms into the air and yelled “AHHHHHHH!” And ran over to the chains and started swinging around on them, knocking into a nearby table that a couple was sitting at. After this, they threw their hands up in the air again and yelled “YIPPIEEEEE” as they ran over to the coffin and banged on it with their fist so hard that it actually flashed black and for a second I thought they had broken it. EVERYONE in the bar was looked at me crazy and the security guard had to pick up the mess with table and the drinks my partner just made. It was like a bad ass toddler has just gone loose in the bar and I imagine people just assumed they were way drunk but they were 100% sober. When they returned to me the first words out of my mouth “sit your ass down what the fuck is your problem?” And they immediately bursted out in tears. Because another problem they have is that they are INCREDIBLY sensitive to criticism. They cannot handle one ounce of even constructive criticism, even if it’s said in the most way gentle possible way they will start to cry.
Honestly, I’m not use to dating people my age. I moved out my house and have been on my own living as an adult since I was 16. Typically you will see me with someone ranging from 24-27. My partner is the first person my age I have been with. But, I understand that becoming a lawful adult at 16 is not a universal experience so that’s why they are a bit immature but they are a good person with a good heart which is not easy to come across nowadays so I am willing to wait and be patient with then until they mature a bit more.
My biggest problem with them though is talking to strangers. My mom taught me at a young age about stranger danger and have admittedly had a pretty traumatic life so I am very cautious about who I trust. It is as if my partner is a toddler who has never once been told not to speak to a stranger. They will tell ANYBODY ANYTHING. No shame or reservations or even the idea that the person might be uncomfortable. They will tell the waiter about the wild sex we just had in DETAIL. They will trap the cashier into a 30 minute conversation when the line is piling up and the poor cashier doesn’t want to know every single detail about whatever. And, it’s not even typically a conversation because it’s just my girlfriend yapping without giving the other person time to say anything. They will treat someone they just met less than 5 minutes like someone they’ve known for years and get into people’s personal space. An example of this would be that one time they stopped a girl in the street to compliment them but then it turned into the usual 30 minute yap sesh. My partner got very excited about whatever they were yapping about and for some reason they decided to suddenly press their forehead to this strangers forehead to express their point. I could see the poor girl get visibly frightened so I yanked my partner back out of instinct to protect not only the girl but my partner to whatever reaction the girl might have. Being completely oblivious to the fact that my partner might’ve just got their shit rocked for triggering this stranger they spun around and said something like “OMG BABE you are SO JEALOUS AND CONTROLLING HAHA SHE IS NOT GOING TO STEAL ME” I wanted to shout “dude, nobody WANTS TO STEAL you. You are EMBARRASSING.” But I didn’t want to embarrass my partner so I threw my hands up and walked away silently.
I’ve tried to talk to them about this. I told them a story my mother use to tell me about a very friendly pretty baby that would wave at everyone until she waved at the wrong stranger and got kidnapped. I explained to them that you can’t just assume everyone has good intentions and you definitely can’t predict what will upset someone so it’s best to keep out of strangers personal space and to never share unnecessary information. They see this as if I am trying to steal their ‘light’ or that I am jealous.
This behavior has not only put us in danger in the past but it is now affecting our living situation. Because the one year mark we decided we wanted to move in together. We found the most gorgeous beautiful lake house that was actually an airbnb but the lady liked us so much she was willing to let us stay long and remove the place from airbnb. It was a godsend. The problem is that on the same land there is 4 other properties just a few feet away from us that the landlord rents as airbnbs so we see all kinds of shady or weird people everyday.
I guess, one day when I wasn’t around my gf told a guest about our living arrangement in detail and the guest tried to ask the landlord for the same thing and when the landlord denied it the guest became aggressive and started bringing my gf’s name the details that they were told into the conversation. The landlord reached out to us and showed us the conversation and the guest was threatening us and her with violence. She asked that we keep the fact that we even live on the property to ourselves. It was a very scary situation and I really thought that my partner learned their lesson about strangers.
But, they didn’t. I’m traveling out of town for work and I guess there was a break in on one of the of the properties. The landlord was reviewing the security cameras when they caught my partner telling another guest about the details of our lease again. They wanted to call my partner and speak to them on the phone to express how serious it is that they do not share details about our lease but I guess when confronted about it, my partner lied and said they didn’t say anything. I guess partner didn’t realize they had been caught in 4K.
The landlord was really upset not only that partner lied but went against her wishes of keeping the agreement to themselves once I calmed the landlord down I phoned my partner but by the time I got ok the phone with my partner I was honestly incredibly irritated. I didn’t raise my voice but I was firm and harsh and told them that the oversharing behavior and it has got to stop. I said “really, how hard is it just to keep your mouth shut when our safety is at risk?” I told them they need to look at going to therapy for this behavior.
They became so agitated they started screaming and crying at me “I AM NOT ENOUGH FOR YOU!!” (What? No one even said that!) & “I DONT EVEN CARE ABOUT THIS STUPID HOUSE ILL JUST LEAVE!” (Ez for you to say you haven’t subleased your apartment and moved all your belongings into here yet)
I let them know that we both should take a breather from the convo and now I’m sitting here with my head in my hands, wondering what to do. I know that this is a long read and many people might not make it this far, but if you’ve made it this far, I could really use some advice. I don’t want to talk to my friends and family, because I don’t want them to form a bad opinion about my partner. I feel like I’m dating a child and then I have to correct them like a parent but I don’t want to break up because they are just so good to me outside of this. Please anyone help.

Why did the farmer visit the pharmacy? To speak with the farm-assist.
Hi and welcome to my post! Wanted to start off with a funny to me dad joke.
Nice to meet you, I'm Dylan! To put it simple, I am a single 22 year old man who has been pretty lonely in life and lacking in female connection and interaction. And part of what comes with that is the desire to be intimate with a person. I am very mature for my age and will always be respectful of your boundaries and feelings, especially with anything sexual. Lately all I have is myself when it comes to sexual desires, so I would like to have someone to keep company with in that regard too.
I'm just relaxing at work since there's nothing really going on and thinking about going home tonight and burning a woodwick candle. Perfect for when there's a storm outside. I love candles! 🕯️ Sometimes a campfire outside on a fall night or a crackling WoodWick candle is a relaxing constant among our busy and hectic world. It's nice to just disconnect, feel grounded and happy in your own little cozy space. Feeling calm and collected and at peace. Something that fewer people take the time to do these days.
I am seeking a woman around my age or older to build a close connection with that could possibly lead to a relationship and something intimate which includes the possibility of teasing/sharing pics etc. but only when we were comfortable. Figured I would be open in my Intentions as that's the best way to be.
You:
Kind, respectful, and easy going.
Comfortable with the idea of eventually sharing intimate things together.
Willing to eventually move off of Reddit.
Want something genuine and fun!
Are honest in your intentions and a good person to be around!
That's about it, we will get along great I know it.
I've been feeling a little bummed out lately. I always try and stay happy and see the best in things. But.. I've just been so alone. Most of my whole childhood and adult years have been spent feeling lonely. I grew up surrounded by cornfields which was peaceful but also has a lonely aspect to it. My family never really were close and never did anything as a family really. And part of it too is the fact that I never had any neighbors my age to interact with. But aside from that, my adult life has been very lonely. I'm just always by myself. I barely have any meaningful adult relationships or experiences, or even any friends.
I work a 3-11 job in building maintenance at my company world headquarters building which I love, but again it's very lonely. I work the off shift so the building is always empty. I don't get normal social interaction with people my age or a chance to build relationships. I only have 3 older men as co-workers and we are mostly in the basement away from any people on the floors from knowing our existence. I always walk the floors and see office people laughing and chatting with their coworkers and I just don't have that kind of experience. And just.. no one knows I exist really. Everyone probably assumes I have a lot of friends, but I'm struggling inside with being so alone and trying to meet people and get past the "hi how are you?" "I'm good thanks" stage. Most people don't seem to want to talk beyond that. And most women are already in relationships and thus it would seem weird to approach them in an office setting trying to get to know them deeper. But man those "hi how are yous" are the only real interactions I get during my day.. so thus I decided to come here lol. Rant over, sorry! I promise I'm not a downer. 😅
Now for some things about me!
As you can tell, I am very mature for my age and am polite and have good grammar which unfortunately not everyone my age does anymore lol. I am not active at all on social media/internet culture really and don't know much about all the slang the younger people these days use. I feel like I'm 50. 🤣
I am left handed which is pretty cool. I'm not much of a party person or a drinker, I much prefer a quiet night at home and maybe a beer or two on a weekend but that's about it. I am simple and stay out of drama and trouble and don't get much into politics or other things that cause drama with people. I much prefer a relaxing campfire and a night at home and to just let the world keep on turning haha. I consider myself pretty intelligent and mature, especially for my age which is why I'm open to older ladies.
Physically I'm 180 pounds, have brown hair, green eyes, and a typical build. There's a few pictures on my profile.
Some of my hobbies are:
• Photography
I have a Nikon D200 and D5500 that I love to shoot with. I love nature scenes, abstract, black and white/goth kinda photography, sunsets, etc. it's so fun to just let your mind explore. It's not about what camera you have, but those who are behind the camera! I'm gonna try and photograph the northern lights tonight!
• Cooking and baking
I loveeee to cook and bake! I enjoy making various meals but also love to just have a frozen pizza once in awhile or something like that. I recently made homemade chili which turned out great. I love to bake, especially in the fall! I love pies, cakes, pastries, cookies, etc. I restored a vintage KitchenAid mixer that needed tbe gearbox rebuilt. Eventually I would love to practice home canning my own food.
• Music
Oh my gosh, I like so much!! Alternative rock, punk, post punk, electronic, synth pop, psychedelic rock, hard rock, etc. I am very non judgemental and open when it comes to music. My three current favorite bands are Type O Negative, Joy Division, and the Cure.
• Nature walks and camping
I really enjoy camping, making fires, and relaxing by a campfire. I love to take walks outside and just enjoy the beauty and simplicity of nature. It's wonderful, especially in a world so focused on everything digital.
• Repairing things
I'm a maintenance guy and one of my hobbies is electronics repair so I am good with my hands and just all around good at troubleshooting and fixing all sorts of things around the house. Last week I helped my elderly neighbor get his tractor started, it needed a new component in the starting circuit. So I'm pretty handy which... Comes in handy! 😂
• Autumn 🍁
This isn't a hobby per say, but man do I love the fall!!! It's my absolute favorite time of the year. Oh my gosh. The beautiful colors, crisp cool air, misty and foggy days, rain, lack of bugs, being cuddled up with a candle or by the fire drinking a tea, etc. I love it! There's only two seasons for me. Fall, and waiting for fall! Haha.
• Scented Candles and incense
Going along with my love for fall, I absolutely love candles! I have like 30 something lol. 😂 Currently my favorite are WoodWick, which are owned by Yankee candle. They have such a soothing crackle and the scents are great! I also love to burn incense from time to time as well. I have cottagecore hippie vibes.
• Old houses and architecture
I love old houses! Especially 1900s and Victorian era homes. Old homes have so much character to them and are just so beautiful from a time when people took pride in their craft. I strongly dislike the modern cookie cutter cheap construction of homes today. I would love to live in an old home one day. I also love their architecture and uniqueness, as well as architecture of old cathedrals and other buildings.
• Relaxing
Basic I know, but sometimes on the weekend I just love to get cozy in bed and relax and put on a YouTube video or an album! 😊
That's about it for me, I'm a pretty laid back and simple person. My ideal person is someone who is respectful and honest! I am very straightforward and open minded and would hope that you are as well.
If I seem interesting to you at all I would love to hear from you!
Thank you so much for reading.

So my first massage ever was at a local Asian owned place. I want to preface by saying I don’t think this was “one of those places”. The lady asked me if I had any injuries and any places that I wanted more attention on. I explained my lower back and shoulder injury and she said she’d keep that in mind and for me to let her know if it was too painful in those areas. It was absolutely an amazing massage (at least as my first). The issue was when she started rubbing my upper thighs and glutes. She asked if I was shy. I asked her what did she mean. She said that I’m still wearing my underwear (boxer briefs) and that’s ok but not the normal. I pulled them up tight against the insides of my hip/ thighs and didn’t think anything about it. Later I was recommending this place to a friend who also was sore in his back and mentioned the underwear part. He said she probably meant that she would have better access to massage the muscles without getting tangled in the boxer briefs.
Didn’t think much of it after that until I scheduled my second ever appointment. This was at a different place. It was a Caucasian American lady that works alone. She showed me to the room and left for me to undress. This time I took everything off and covered up with the provided sheet before she came back in. She didn’t mention anything about me being completely nude and it was an ever better massage than my first. I guess my question is “is that ok?” She seemed like she went lower around my hips, lower back, and glutes than the first time which felt amazing. I’m planning on making another appointment with her but don’t wanna be inappropriate by getting completely naked if that’s not the norm.
Sorry if this has been asked before.

I'm from a very complicated family, everyone contributes to this weirdest family relationships.
Long story short, parents been separated for 15-20yrs, Mother is 'NPD' controlling freak who hates me and wishes me dead, but slightly changed how she treats since I've been working. My elder brother is not close to me at all, thanks to Mother's manipulation that turned him against me. Father, oh, Father is just... I don't know how to talk about him, I'll try to not put too much emotional stuff in this.
Father worked really hard to raise us two kids. I used to be so sad just watching him going through daily hard labor work, day after day. As you can imagine, he does not make much.
My brother has caused lots of trouble, starting with before I even got to school, families would constantly tell him, his life was degraded because of my birth, which is probably true. Mother would say, look how much your brother sacrificed for me and whatever I ate, my brother spared for me, etc. ever since I was a baby.
While we were still in school, my brother tried to rob some taxi driver and got into lots of trouble. I watched Father’s hair turn grey overnight. Then he got a girl pregnant, and her parents threatened to sue him ‘raping the girl’. Father’s hair went almost completely grey that year.
Father looked so much older during those few years. I feel so terrible cause I was not helping much.
Parents fought every year, especially around festivals. I hate festivals and family reunions as bad as you can imagine.
Even years later now, it sets me in this dramatically desperately sad mode even just talking with them. At least a whole week would be super messed up and then slowly adjusting myself back to be a normal person.
See I really appreciate how Father has done for us and he even got me through college. I witnessed all the pain and hard work he put done for this.
I was close to him but in a weird way, I often hate him too, trying to keep my distance. I didn’t understand why.
Until the 3^rd year in college, one of my friends was really depressed for a while, one day she was talking about some really difficult stuff she was going through with her dad, I was trying to listen and help her through that period.
And suddenly it hit me so hard, shit, think my dad did the same thing to me as well.
That day opened up a gap in that forced to be closed slowly healed rough ugly scar from family traumas, all those left behind memories flooded back to me. Ever since then, I have been in an even worse condition. All the sadness, oh boy, even today, I’m in tears just typing these words.
My uncle is a rapist. Before he was sent to jail, he pulled my pants as well, he didn’t do anything further besides watching, at least that one time that know of, nothing else happened. I was about maybe 5yrs old, I didn’t know what it meant. The year he was arrested, I was already in elementary school and starting to know that was, maybe, not right. When I told my parents about it, and they said, well just shut up about it and don’t mention it to anyone else, you should be ashamed.
When I was about 10yrs old, I started to be sent to semi foster type of families, mainly neighbors, because parents had to work somewhere else, and brother started boarding school. My foster family are generally nice to me, treated me well, fed me 3 meals a day. Food makes people happy.
I was also happy because Father wasn’t around.
The first time I sensed danger I was about 9yrs old.
Again, Mother had never ever told me anything about what is like being a girl, how to deal with period, breast may start to have some changes, wear underwear, wash and clean lady parts, etc. nothing.
I didn’t exist in that house unless she needed someone to vent. As you can see, I was smart, I made myself invisible as much as I could.
Around 4^th grade I had to do some performance for children’s day, our headmaster accidentally realized I was not wearing any undergarments, so she kindly gave me some of her granddaughter’s. After that performance, I started to wear those every day. They look more like little cami top shirts.
One day I woke up, I was already late for school. I got so scared, and I started crying. Father was often more patient with me. He was comforting me and told me to get off bed and get ready for school. I was crying and I wasn’t paying much attention to what he said. And suddenly I realized he stopped talking. I looked up and watched him staring at me, he looked so strange and oddly scary at that moment, not like he was beat me or anything, like a … predator. I tried to figure out what caught his attention and then I realized, half of my breast was showing because the undergarments were too big for me, and I moved when sitting up in bed.
I immediately stopped crying and pulled it up. But I would never forget his eyes, the way he stared at my breasts. It often makes me sick whenever thinking about it even today. I was confused and a bit scared, and I guess ever since then it sort of startled me, the love for my father. But again, I was too young to understand what happened and I did not have anyone around me to tell me girls’ changes around certain age.
Father soon left for a few years, and I was really relived. I don’t know how to describe this feeling and I could only understand myself better till years later.
After Father left, I started going around semi foster families, including my grandparents’ place. Around summertime, I realized the bathroom lock broke, so I just blocked it from inside with chairs every time taking a shower. Still one day, my grandfather forced in and claimed he needed something from the inside. I stood there naked for a second, then rushed to get my clothing and rushed out of the bathroom.
Ever since then, I tried everything to lock that door even more solidly and it worked. The problem is, even today, living thousands of miles away from where I grew up with, I am still extremely insecure with door locks, I buy all sorts of locks to double lock every door, using door stoppers as well.
Then one day, Father just showed up in my school again. He was back. I was happy but deep down something also quietly but terribly disturbed my peace.
One afternoon, while taking a shower, I suddenly felt weird. I started looking around and didn’t find anything odd. But that feeling keeps coming back. So, I looked around again; this time, I saw Father’s face and his eyes were by the window and staring at me, he was so concentrated and didn’t even realize I already saw him. I had to ask him what he was doing there, and he told me he was checking if I finished taking a shower. He looked panicked just like years ago when I busted him staring at my breasts when I was still in 4^th grade.
There were so many little things that happened when I was a kid, but I did not have the knowledge to distinguish what that meant.
I remember starting from one day, my grandmother started to guard me right outside the bathroom every time I took a shower. I didn’t know what that was for, she never mentioned anything, also because she was never that close to me, and I was the least favorite kid.
It’s like a puzzle. So many things started to connect, so many memories I buried deep down started to come back to me. I was so depressed for the first few years after I realized what happened to me when I was a kid. My friend’s memory somewhat triggered my memory valve as well.
About the time I started looking for internships, I was really busy, and it was stressful. One early morning, on the way to work I picked up a call from Father. He told me he was going to commit suicide but didn’t do it because of me.
Mother is really toxic which was not news to me, and they had separated for so many years and I really pity him. I had lots of terrible memories regarding Mother, I thought about suicide so many times every day for many many years ever since I learned the word ‘death’. I just never thought Father was gonna say it out first. It really shocked me, and I was really terrified. But again, death was never an extreme word for me, it was like a relief from my parents. See confused and scared, never knew what’s really going in my mind. I had so much to deal with and I felt I was going to explode but I didn’t have time for that, I was graduating college that year.
But since that, my previous thoughts about confronting Father about his perverting behaviors when I was kid, it just could not be done.
Now for years, I was torn again and again with thoughts about confronting him also worrying it might humiliate him and caused his suicidal thoughts again. I couldn’t tell if he was just trying to manipulate me or was really desperate.
Father worked hard raising my brother and me, and I got into college.
I have been depressed for years, struggling all the time, cutting myself at times when super extremely desperate and couldn’t do anything about it. I would buy tickets traveling all over the world and put parents’ names in my travel insurance, hoping that would pay them back if anything happened.
When I was about 30yrs old, finally one day I confronted him, twice, in person and on the phone, and he denied of course.
Again, I didn’t want to say anything and get him killed, so I stayed quiet for quite a few years again.
But in recent years, I couldn’t help it. I started screaming at him in my dreams and it kept me awake for days after such dreams.
A few days ago, I texted him about it and wanted an apology. I need closure. I desperately need it. I wasn’t planning to go any further than that and I was ready to let it go if he just admits it and just apologize.
After all, for many people, it might not even be considered as such an evil thing to do, right? I don’t know, I am super exhausted and confused.
He soon replied, of course he denied again and saying I was humiliating him, and he said if I still do not believe him, I should consider him dead. Also, he said, you two are my kids, what is there that I have never seen on you two anyways?
I cried for the whole night.
It is so disgusting that he really tried to manipulate me to accept what he said with suicidal/ death threatening, also how he tried to justify his behaviors.
I wished him well and promised to send money when I can, but also told him I won’t be talking to him anymore.
This is as much as I could have done for that little kid when I look back, that little me. It was not as expected but I have to let it go now.
I so wish someone could tell me how someone can be a father also a monster. I don’t know if I am being dramatic about these ‘little things’. I am so worried about he might kill himself because I wouldn’t know how to cure myself with that strike.
But I am in so much pain inside and as always I want to save myself. Every time talking to him is like sharpening this knife to cut open this giant ugly roughly almost healed scar. It’s so ugly and painful.

Real story and question, but fake names and date for privacy:
My girlfriend (26f) and I (27m) have been dating for about six months now. She has been my first real girlfriend ever and things were going great until something happened this past weekend that made me feel like crap.
For context I had asked all my other friends how long before they introduced their girlfriends to their family. They all said within a couple of weeks or a couple months. I date with intention, so to me if I’m introducing her to the family then it’s a serious relationship.
Anyways, she had previously met my mom and dad but long-story short, after 6 months I invited her to a family BBQ. (Keeping in mind I met her family and friends too previously).
Everyone loved her and things were great! It felt amazing to finally be able to bring a beautiful girl I cared about to the family. At some point during the BBQ, a family photographer wanted to take pictures of everyone, and of course she asks us to step out into the front yard where it’s more sunny and less shady. Literally no one else was in the front yard except us three. We began taking a couple pictures and then the lady taking the pictures asks us to do a kissing one. Of course my dumbass turns to my Gf and puckers up…she immediately turns away and mumbles uh uh no.
She actually refused to kiss me for a picture and wouldn’t say why. I played it cool and said nothing of it or asked why, but I could visibly tell it made her uncomfortable for some reason so I just moved on. Internally I felt embarrassed, disappointed and a little frustrated at her. This wasn’t like her at all. She was normally very mature, communicative and sexual. We would always kiss and have an active sex life.
I legit could not believe my GF of 6 months just refused to kiss me for a simple picture. Meanwhile I see my friends wives/GFs kiss them all time on Instagram and Facebook etc.
Am I overreacting or how would you all react to this situation?

Real story and question, but fake names and date for privacy:
My girlfriend (26f) and I (27m) have been dating for about six months now. She has been my first real girlfriend ever and things were going great until something happened this past weekend that made me feel like crap.
For context I had asked all my other friends how long before they introduced their girlfriends to their family. They all said within a couple of weeks or a couple months. I date with intention, so to me if I’m introducing her to the family then it’s a serious relationship.
Anyways, she had previously met my mom and dad but long-story short, after 6 months I invited her to a family BBQ. (Keeping in mind I met her family and friends too previously).
Everyone loved her and things were great! It felt amazing to finally be able to bring a beautiful girl I cared about to the family. At some point during the BBQ, a family photographer wanted to take pictures of everyone, and of course she asks us to step out into the front yard where it’s more sunny and less shady. Literally no one else was in the front yard except us three. We began taking a couple pictures and then the lady taking the pictures asks us to do a kissing one. Of course my dumbass turns to my Gf and puckers up…she immediately turns away and mumbles uh uh no.
She actually refused to kiss me for a picture and wouldn’t say why. I played it cool and said nothing of it or asked why, but I could visibly tell it made her uncomfortable for some reason so I just moved on. Internally I felt embarrassed, disappointed and a little frustrated at her. This wasn’t like her at all. She was normally very mature, communicative and sexual. We would always kiss and have an active sex life.
I legit could not believe my GF of 6 months just refused to kiss me for a simple picture. Meanwhile I see my friends wives/GFs kiss them all time on Instagram and Facebook etc.
Am I overreacting or how would you all react to this situation?

So it’s getting to be the LA we know and love. I guess this is a question more for the fellas, but I suppose the ladies got some tips too. I converted to all under armor undies a while back. Got a pair of ex officio imma try- but what is the unanimous uncontested best option for underwear to combat the swamp a-$,$ the hot humid weather the south will undoubtedly unleash upon our sad sorry souls…

I need to get this "off my chest". Obligatory "I can't include literally everything that builds up the situation or otherwise we'd end up with a War and Peace thick post.
Me, 35M; Wife: 35F; Sperm Donor 75 M; Mom 72; Aunt 72F; Aunt 2 70s F,
I used to think my childhood and home life was idyllic and great, but as I've aged I've realised how very, very effed up it actually was. It wasn't so much that it was idyllic, it was that I'm AUDHD and was perfectly content to be alone and do my own thing. Some of these realisations have coloured how I view my parents and family and I have stopped thinking of the man who's DNA I share as "dad" and more "Sperm donor" or "his name".
I fully admit that I have a lot of "daddy issues". All I've really ever wanted was a dad to do dad things with; learning how to do things like fix cars, going fishing, learning to drive, etc. Typical sappy 'Merican "Andy Griffith Show" type crap. I know that's not reality for most people, but it's kind of a sore point for me. Because of this, I've kind of spend most of my youth chasing after older males in my life like a lost puppy hoping someone will pick me out of the box left on the side of the road. I'm lucky to have found at least one person in my life who fulfills that role for me. He's only a few years older chronologically but decades older in experience and maturity.
I've learned a lot over the last few years about how things actually were as opposed to how I saw them. Examples being:
1) My sperm donor is a "what's mine is mine and what's your's in mine too"
2) My sperm donor inflated what he actually did as a "provider" and the reality was quite different. The home we lived in was paid for out of my mother's pocket, my immediate needs (clothes, medication, snacks, activities, school needs) were paid for out of my mother's pocket, and money that had been gifted from family for me to go into a college fund "disappeared" right around the time my dad decided to buy a vintage British racing car.
3) My sperm donor has his side of the family convinced he's father and husband of the year.
4) My sperm donor is stubborn. Not in a cute way, but in a way that's resulted in thousands of dollars of home damage, refusal to repair things for decades because he refuses to call in a professional, and literally refusing to allow his spouse to undergo medical treatment for two years past when it was deemed medically necessary.
The first 10 years of my life were ok, but in my early teens my mom got "sick". To lend some context, her mother also "got sick" when she was in her mid forties. There was never a diagnosis and an autopsy of mother's mother showed only a minor stomach ulcer. Both sets of grandparents are long since dead, any family on her side is gone, and I have no one who was around during that time to give me any input or tell me what was going on at that time other than my parents who have opposing views. Mom says her mother was just a very sickly lady but would also tell me stories about how Grandma would do things like steal motorcycles, get into fights, and do all these crazy things as a younger person. SD's version of events is that Grandma always "got sick" whenever someone in their family or friend circle had an event that might not make Grandma the centre of attention. My understanding is that my mom was expected to act as a live in nurse up until she met and married SD. At which point Grandma and Grandpa dropped dead in quick succession. I am also told that Grandpa took and controlled all my mother's wages from her career up until she met my SD.
Mom "got sick" in my early teens and it was on me to be the one to look after her. I was the one who had to help her when she threw up. I was the one to have to remind her to shower, change her clothes, get her meds refilled, etc. I'd go to doctor's appts with her and try to help explain what was happening and what symptoms she was having because unfortunately, a lot of the doctors were male and dismissed her out of hand. She did end up with a fibromyalgia diagnosis, a condition I also share and understand. The majority of her symptoms are stomach issues; ie nausea, vomiting, not wanting to eat etc. When I say she's had the entire gamut of gut health testing done, I mean it's all been done. At least three times. At one point the Gastro she saw told her that he'd exhausted everything and that there is no physical reason for her symptoms and that if she did not at least try to eat, he'd send her for psychiatric evaluation and have her fitted with a feeding tube.
I need to clarify that I too have always had gastrointestinal issues and not too long ago discovered I have coeliac disease. Adhering to that diet has eliminated the majority of my issues. Despite the fact they eliminated this disease as a potential cause in my mom, I suggested trying this and an elimination diet to see if it helped, but she refused. Her diet for years has consisted of white bread and jam, grits, coca cola, and tea exclusively. Occasionally she would get sushi. This is not an exaggeration. That's all she has eaten for years.
Throughout all of this, my SD rolled his eyes and sat on his ass continuing to eat dinner or watch tv while she'd go running to the kitchen to vomit, me chasing after her to try and help. (Mom would at least appear to get faint during these vomiting instances) so I would be there to make sure she didn't pass out as she vomited in the sink, then clean out the sink after her, then help her back to the couch and bring her something to drink.
It's been 20 years of this now. My wife and I have been living in our own home for about 4 years and I am no longer there to be the one to try and clean up the messes and fill in the cracks, as it were. My family has visited us three times, even though we live maybe 45 minutes away. I have returned to my parents house probably about 15-20 times to do repairs to the home. Right now, all "repairs" have stalled out because apparently having things like a functional and safe bathroom aren't nearly as important to SD as buying military collectibles, guns, and gourmet cheeses.
This January Mom landed herself in the hospital with a bloodclot due to falling and hitting her head. My SD didn't take her to the hospital until a full week after she'd fallen and no one called me for a full 24 hours after she'd been admitted. She went back and forth amongst the ER, rehab, and hospital for about two months and the result of all that was that they discovered she has throat dysphagia but no other underlying disorders. She's now home with a G-tube, oxygen, bedside commode, and an in home nurse that visit occasionally.
Right now, what's weighing on me most strongly is that my parents now have my SD's sister living with them and she is constantly singing his praises and talking about what a wonderful and attentive husband he is. I'm honestly enraged about it, especially now that more of the extended family, who frankly couldn't be arsed to return phone calls, emails, or snail mail over the last 30 years, suddenly have opinions and are lauding him for how great he's been.
I feel like I have this Monty Python 10 tonne weight over my head, because I know that when my parents shuffle off this mortal coil there is going to be a veritable dungheap left for me to deal with in their decrepit home. I'm mad and sad and tired and I honestly just don't want to deal with it anymore. I can't stop feeling irritated that my mom has basically just given up on trying to do.... anything. And had done way before there was an "excuse". Holidays are a nightmare for me because there's nothing this woman wants or like or gets excited about. She doesn't have hobbies anymore, doesn't like doing anything, isn't interested in collecting things, doing crafts, etc, even talking. The times I've been around her for any length of time and attempted to talk to her, she just looks at me with this kind of watery eyed and vaguely befuddled expression or answers with one or two syllables. She is NOT suffering any dementia or similar issues and has been tested for such. It's like she just... doesn't care.
I've spent so long trying to make her comfortable, happy, etc. Tried to get her things she liked or get her into things that would make her happy. My wife's mother is only a few years younger and is active in her community, teaches classes, does art, goes on trip with my FIL, and visits and talks to people regularly. As do most of my peers' parents. This is really hard and I feel very sad and lonely about it. My poor wife has heard it all over and over again and I hate bothering my already stressed close friends with my rants....

Hello 👋
So, I (22M) as of late I’ve started up my on and off relationship with dating apps again and I can’t help but feel it’s all in vain.
I will match with some attractive lady, enjoy the banter and conversation to only eventually get ghosted or turned down. I understand this is a numbers game and all I can do is take another step by improving my conversational skills but I can’t help but asking to what end? I look around and all I see are failed relationships that last a few years before an inevitable break.
People don’t seem to work together to build and instead turn back to the infinite pool of potential better options.
This accessibility to infinite options seems to have made relationships more fragile. Why work to repair things when you can find a new one that will treat you well now.
I also don’t think it can easily be written off as “you’re young” because we haven’t seen what a generation that’s been raised on the internet is like when they mature.
It’s not that I don’t think people want long term relationships it’s that I don’t think people (on average) are willing to work and continue working for them. Or maybe they are willing to work less.
Sure there are exceptions to every rule but even so if the average “relationship values” have shifted enough it makes it just that much more likely that you’ll find someone but learn years down the line they can’t run the marathon. After all nobody enters a relationship believing it’s gonna end.
To me this all seems like I must accept the fact that relationships are temporary. But how can I willingly put my whole self into something that will break.
Truthfully I’ve only been in one longish term relationship and it didn’t go well. All I want is to find someone that will be there.
So people of Reddit please tell me why I’m wrong and that selection bias/overthinking has fucked my brain.

I’ve been feeling this way basically all season, (and don’t get me wrong, I know the fellas have had their fair share of selfish moments) but it seems like the main ladies of the show almost never get held accountable for any of their faults. Now I could be falling victim to recency bias, but it seems that the girls get to do whatever they want without any repercussions with how they handle their relationships:
Ex 1: Olivia emotionally cheats on Spencer the whole year or more that they’re apart, leading Ashley on the entire time. Then when she’s had her fun and is ready to come home to her relationship, Spencer just lets it slide (even though she told him to his face that she feels more herself away from him and with another dude, AND that she wants to go back). Then Ashley is just kicked to the curb and demonized as some weirdo that can’t respect boundaries.
Ex: 2 Layla blatantly disregards her extremely supportive boyfriend during the biggest year of his life (professionally), even missing his first playoff game to “handle” a situation the police were already handling. Not to mention lying about taking her medicine even though she more than happy to discuss it with her work buddy. Even after all this Jordan still ends up being the one to apologize to Layla, despite his only wrongdoing being not trusting her fully despite her providing him no reason to do so.
Ex 3: This one isn’t even about brunt held accountable, it’s more like a wtf moment with Jamie and Asher. Why is she blowing up at a Asher for taking a slight risk to his health to follow his football dreams, to the point where he had to give them up for her?? She literally took a risk herself just last season having that baby with no medicine and he supported her the whole time? Especially since half the reason she was mas is bc Asher made a decision without consulting her, despite Layla doing the same thing to Jordan with no consequences.
I get the show is now centered around the “coming of age” for all of the main cast (even though it should be about Spencer’s journey to the NFL), but it seems like the girls never have to learn from their mistakes and instead get bailed out by the male characters’ unconditional forgiveness. Even patience this episode gets bailed out of a completely irrational and horrible decision she made to confront Miko at her house with a firearm!! The only people displaying any type of maturity or character development are the guys!?? (except Coop) Which sucks since this , presumably is the final season.