Addiction triggers worksheet

Yes this is a FH problem and MIL problem. FH and I are in couples therapy and we talked about this last night and plan to continue our conversation tonight. The leaving me in tears part is coming up.
Trigger warning: addiction/SUD
So originally we had 2 elderly people on our guest list who, according to JNMIL, "probably won't come" because they're old, they'd have to fly a few hours, and they're not great at getting around. She said the invitation was more of a gesture. We said ok. We sent out our invitations last week but MIL said to hold off on sending the invite to these seniors because we "might" have to invite their daughter as their caretaker. We said ok. Then she calls FH and says "You have to invite their daughter. And if you're inviting their daughter you have to invite their son. And he's married so you have to invite his wife too." Our budget is tight. We don't have room for these additional 3 people but MIL said she'd pay for them. Which is fine, but I was really hoping I could get a No RSVP and give it as a plus one to my flower girl (24F) because she started dating a guy recently and they're serious. But they weren't dating at the time of putting together the guest list and planning the budget. Plus my cousin just proposed to his girlfriend so now she will have to be invited. We're not over budget but we're certainly pushing it with these 3 new guests.
Then there's also this woman who is the girlfriend of my fiance's uncle. The entire family (including MIL) feels uncomfortable around her because she very clearly struggles with alcoholism and abuses some sort of pills. She stumbles and slurs her words and lies about her job every time we see her. Even this uncle's adult children feel uncomfortable and they've voiced that concern but his uncle has still snuck around with this woman while telling his kids that he's done with her. Addiction runs strong in my family. I have several sober loved ones and a few who are actively trying to get sober and very much struggling but have told me they want to come to the wedding anyway (there will be an open bar but they've assured me they're bringing their sponsor and/or have an exit strategy if it gets to be too much for them)
So, FH has told MIL that we will not invite this woman because she would be very triggering for my family. He's told her this several times. Yesterday he told me that she asked again, for a third time "like 6 weeks ago" but he never told me. She said "[FH], how would you feel if OP's cousin got married and didn't invite you? Wouldn't you be upset? It's important to include partners and make them feel welcome." I asked him if he mentioned my family's struggles again and he said yes. And I said "does it not concern you that she clearly bulldozes over this deep traumatic struggle in my family just because she wants her brother to have a plus one?" and all he could say was "I can't control that she keeps asking. I tell her no every time. I shut it down." and correct me if I'm wrong, but he should be definitively telling her "Do not ask again. The answer is no." and he hasn't. "Shutting it down" would mean never hearing it again.
Last night he accused me of not liking MIL and after years of assuring him I'm "just uncomfortable with her behavior, not her as a person" I finally said "Yes. You're right. I do not like your mother. I sit here in tears all the time because of her. Does it really sound that far fetched to you that I wouldn't like this person?"
He left the room and just said we'd continue the conversation tomorrow evening (tonight) after work, after we've both cooled down.
I'm seeing my wedding dress on Friday and invited MIL to come see it because she won't shut up about wanting to see it and I just want to get it out of the way. I'm bringing along my sister and my cousin who are both fully prepared to intervene if she starts acting up. We have a safe word and I've briefed them on all her shit. They're both very strong confident people who don't take any shit. A gift I wish I had.
I told FH that if she brings anything up about this uncle's girlfriend that I'm going to have an unpleasant conversation with her and he will be responsible for dealing with any aftermath between us and I fully expect him to take my side. He agreed that he would.
I was in tears with FH because this woman has, over and over again, proved to disrespect my family and ignore my boundaries. FH has told her multiple times that conversations surrounding addiction and domestic violence are triggering for me, yet she continues to bring it up all the time (her neighbors fight a lot and she makes so many inappropriate speculations. I grew up in a violent household and it's painful for me to hear someone judging a dysfunctional/violent family because I still have love for mine regardless and I'm very protective of them. They've all come a long way in therapy.)
Crying at my desk now. I hate this woman.

Over 90 Day Progress
Assalamu Alaikum Warahmatullah Wabarakaatuh,
Brothers and sisters, I pray you are all well. In every community, there are individuals whom most people seem to have given up on. These are the ones who face constant failure and bring shame upon themselves and their surroundings. I was one such person, lost in the depths of PMO addiction.
As far as PMO was concerned, I was the scumbag, the loser, the wasteman, the joker, the shame of the nation.
Today, Alhamdulillah, I have reached 93 days of No PMO. My life before this was consumed by an endless search for new content. Hours upon hours were wasted on forums and P sites, looking for something that could stimulate me. I had become so desensitized that nothing seemed to work, no matter how long I searched.
I was so far gone that I had been exposed several times and almost caught in the act, losing the respect of those around me. I was completely fixated on PMO, oblivious to my surroundings.
If I can achieve 93 days, and insha’Allah continue this for the rest of my life, then no one has an excuse. This addiction is an infestation of the mind, and the allure of P stars and models is nothing more than cockroaches inhabiting filthy places.
The possibilities that open up once you stop feeding these cockroaches are limitless. This infestation clouds our minds, enslaving us.
I made a simple yet profound decision: "I don’t want to be a pervert anymore." "I want to be a true Muslim."
I prayed to Allah, pouring out my heart in the middle of the night.
Since then, I haven’t looked at women with lust. I have succeeded in avoiding triggers like social media, YouTube, and Netflix. To break free from this filthy habit, I had to eliminate anything that exposed me to glamorized images of females.
I got up, went to the masjid, and prayed with my fellow Muslims. I opened the Quran and reflected on Allah's words. I confronted the harsh reality of my situation, realizing that years of PMO had led me astray.
The time for change is NOW!
My decision was made. 'This moment, this day, this fast, this night, this Ramadan!'
Become a true Muslim, seeking Allah’s pleasure.
Reject Shaytaan's deceitful promises and refuse to worship your desires. Oh, brothers and sisters, the sweetness of Emaan and Allah’s pleasure await us.
May Allah grant us all success and the strength to overcome this debilitating habit once and for all.

I had been in a 4 year relationship with my Q until I discovered he had been lying about Kratom and marajuna addiction. He then had a short and violent relationship with alcohol and got into a life threatening car accident and is now in recovery.
We are not married and I am so confused as to what to do. We had a really beautiful connection and I now find that I’m always low energy around him and not myself anymore even though he is giving me grace and patience.
There’s a part of me that wants to see if we can make this work, but I’m always so judgmental and cannot accept where he is in life. I feel frustrated that he isn’t further along and just end up triggering him and then he eventually closes off and triggers me.
I’m afraid that if I stay with him that I’m actually gonna be the cause of his relapse as I’m not able to hold the loving presence that he needs.
Is this normal to be so judgmental of your partner? I’ve not been to an official meeting yet but is it normal that pressure from the sober spouse can actually cause a relapse?

I am angry, and I need guidance on how to best 'hide' my anger and support my 30-something sister. For context, my sister is an alcoholic but had been sober for ~2 years. She entered a shitty relationship (with a guy who would often slut shame her, call her an idiot, and refused to sleep at her home because he said it was dirty since other men had slept there before). From the beginning, I felt he was emotionally abusive. Well, he was an alcoholic too -- and he relapsed.
Then she relapsed.
Then he relapsed again. And she relapsed again.
During one of her recent relapses, she went to the hospital. I told him NOT to go to the hospital, because she cited him as the reason for her relapse. I told him if he went to the hospital to see her, she would wrongly focus on their relationship and NOT on her recovery. He agreed and said he wouldn't go. He asked me when I'd be at the hospital to see her. I gave him some bogus time, and when I showed up at the hospital, he had arrived shortly after. He showed up at a time he thought I would not be there. And then he refused to leave, and he yelled at me to stop "controlling" her. (Later, I found out he was drunk at the hospital).
This cycle ended when she went to rehab a week later. He didn't go to rehab, and hasnt gone to AA, because he thinks AA and therapy is for 'crazies'.
My family and I found out that he had also been physically abusive with my sister. He choked her, hit her, all the things. While she was in rehab, she said they were over; she sees now that he's a narcissist, that he's abusive, and she cannot believe she had gotten so brainwashed. She said she wont answer the door if he came. It was like she had an epiphany, and we were all so relieved. She was so committed to focusing on her recovery, getting her own apartment, and moving on from this man (and healing from their relationship). I offered to stay with her. To have her stay with me. To find her a new apartment. As a family we even offered to help her buy her own house. We were trying to be supportive of her plans for her future, where she can be safe and focused on her sobriety.
Somehow, within 6 days of returning from rehab, she told us she was moving in with him. We were all taken aback, confused, hurt, and feeling...helpless. What happened?
I can't understate my anger and concern. I am the youngest sister, and have given up YEARS being there for my sister in her addiction. I cant tell you how many sleepless nights I've had over her addiction. I feel like I have put my life on hold because of her addiction. I even moved 1000 miles to be closer to her, just in case she needed me. I'm married, and have the most patient and understanding husband to be willing to uproot our lives just so I could be closer to my family. I am usually very close with my sister. Her addiction has traumatized me and my family in many ways, but her sobriety for 2 years gave us some much needed relief and healing. She is genuinely my best friend, and I have wanted nothing but the best for her. But now -- there's this. We hate this man. He hates me too. He has actively tried to drive a wedge between my sister and I. And this weekend my sister told me (when I was expressing concern for her) that I was "controlling" and "suffocating" her. So I've been keeping my distance, because I dont know what to do -- and I dont want to give him any ammunition to use against me. And I am sure he is telling her these things about me and trying to convince her to withhold information from me. And I dont want her to feel controlled anymore; I want her to feel FREE. That is the entire point.
But I feel betrayed by my sister. Like she has chosen her abuser over her family. My parents are distraught. We are all insanely concerned for her wellbeing and her recovery. She is moving into a home where WE are not even welcomed.
She is sober (for now); one of our concerns is that they will fight inevitably, and she will relapse. And of course, we are concerned he will continue to beat her down and harm her self-esteem (whatever is left of it).
It affects us in many obvious ways, but also: when she relapses, it's ME who shows up (and my parents). We drop everything and GO. We go and help. We take her to rehab. We sleep at her apartment. We do what we can to make sure she stays ALIVE. If we weren't here, she'd have died long ago. This I know. And I dont want guidance around boundaries, because there is no way I am going to let my sister drink herself to death. I will always be there for my sister when she needs me. I've just been fortunate that she's been sober a couple years. I should note: I genuinely believe my sister wants to be sober. She wouldn’t have gone to rehab if she didn’t. She wants to live a healthy and fulfilling life, but she has somehow convinced herself (or he has convinced her) that she needs him in order to do so. I don’t think she is seeing the reality that he is a trigger for her, that their toxic relationship causes her emotional distress, and that her sobriety is at risk as long as she stays in an abusive situation.
It feels like we have welcomed chaos back into our lives.
How do I talk to my sister? It's the saddest thing. I dont know how to speak with her anymore, what to even talk about, and how to express concern without her feeling 'suffocated' or 'controlled'. But I also feel like I can't pretend to like or welcome this guy. For OUR own safety, he is not welcome in my house. Or my parents house. But now I'm wondering maybe we need to rethink this approach. I'm open to all suggestions. I just want to keep her safe and let her know she can confide in me. But I also am grappling with my own sense of betrayal about the situation, and it is hard. Right now, I don't want to talk to her. I'm so angry. I feel jerked around. I feel like she's traumatizing our family, and has traumatized us for years, and she continues to make these decisions that put us all at risk. But I also know addiction is a disease, that she's a little lost, and she needs support now more than ever.
I'm sad. Distraught. We all deserve better -- her first and foremost, but me too. It feels like it is only a matter of time until things escalate again, and I'm bracing myself, and I hate all of this.

I (37f) and my Partner (39m) have been together 12yrs. We have a child together and have a very good/happy relationship. It’s not been without a lot of hard work though.
When I met my OH he was a completely different person to what he is now. He was an alcoholic, he is a diagnosed Narcissist which all stems from Childhood trauma.
Without going into too much detail, his Dad and his brother both took their own lives when he was 8 and he received next to no help for his grief and confusion from his Mother, she just has no maternal instincts at all. She’s not loving or nurturing and this triggered him to spiral down a path of being a very naughty child. Which his mother, instead of helping him with because he was acting out at the loss of his family, she put him on care to I quote her here “to be someone else’s problem!”. He spent the years from 8 to 16 being in and out of the care system, when he wasn’t in care his mum would leave him at home alone with nothing but cigarettes and alcohol to keep him entertained, the first time being when he was 10. She would never let him forget how much she didn’t like him.
Every story he’s told me of her, from the moment I met her I instantly hated her, and she is exactly EVERYTHING that he described. Cold, bitter, hateful, blames him for his past, blames him for his behaviour, tells him she doesn’t like him, berates him, puts him down, you name it, she’s awful. Her partner is a morbidly obese, alcoholic gambling addict that he’s knows as Stap dad for 25yrs, he’s had no positive impact on his life either, just everything about his childhood and life has been beyond tragic.
For years he was the exact product of that life. He had a drink problem, he was hot headed, uncaring, unpredictable, he craved attention and affection, we’ve had to get him a lot of help, we’ve had to guide him down the right paths and slowly get him to where he is today. He’s sober, he’s a marathon runner, a hard worker, a great father and partner, he’s an incredible example of what you can achieve if you put in the work to change your life, I couldn’t be more proud of him.
The one thing that we can’t seem to get him to do though is step away from the people who blighted his entire childhood so much. They haven’t changed. They’re both huge alcoholics that don’t do anything at all with their lives besides drink and speak badly about everyone and everything. They blame everyone else for the way their life is and they especially blame me for removing myself, our child and him from their lives.
Our daughter is 8 and for a while we did try and make an effort with them because we thought being grandparents might change them, I lost my dad 6yrs ago so I wanted my child to have as much family as possible but learnt very quickly that she doesn’t need people like them in her life. They drink around her, smoke around her, swear, talk negatively, they don’t deserve her in their lives, so I stopped her going, I stopped all contact, they have seen her once maybe twice in 18 months, but they complain to him that it’s us, we’re the ones hurting her and stopping them, what did they ever do wrong to warrant such cruel behaviour, I can’t stand it. They both play this woe is me card and post all over socials about their wonderful granddaughter, when they’ve never made any attempts to be in her life or be a good influence in any way. The woman has 3 children, one took his own life, one moved to another country to be away from her and one was diagnosed with childhood trauma and childhood abandonment issues because of her. She/they are not having any time with my child to do the same to her, they were given a chance to change, make the effort, they didn’t, so that’s that. Thing is, my partner can’t seem to step away himself. He still goes to their house, he still messages them, he bought her Mother’s Day gifts and just got him a Father’s Day gift, after everything they did to him. He still has some resemblance of a relationship with them and I can’t work out why. He agrees with me that we don’t allow them access to our child, but he won’t stop seeing them himself even though every time he does, they complain, act the victim and blame him for how everything is now. He gets mad at me because I’m trying to make him see that he needs to cut contact, but he doesn’t get why. He thinks I’m trying to control him, one of the parts of his narcissism is he can’t think logically, he tries to say that going there makes him feel good because of how far he’s come and they’re both just pathetic, but all it’s doing is making them worse and causing them to attack us both verbally more. He tells me just to drop it because they’re his problem not mine and I shouldn’t be forcing him to cut contact. When all I want is for his to see that he’s come so far and by keeping them there he’s not allowing himself to heal fully. But I may be wrong. Am I letting my hatred of them cloud my judgment and should I just let him have this strained and fractured relationship with his parents?

Really long post
Trigger warning- I go into some details about her final moments, not sure if it needs a warning but just in case
I'm 23 and I've recently been struggling. For context my mom was always my closest person (and im the middle child of her kids). She's was diagnosed in August of 2022 with lung cancer but at that point it had already spread to her brain, bones, blood and some of her organs it was stage 4. (They had only found out that it was there when she went him for a next scan because of a metal implant she had from an accident in the early 2000s) the found a giant tumor and many small ones she quickly went in for surgery for the big one to be taken out. After that I became her full time carer that became my life. I took over the responsibilities of taking care of my younger sibling and my nieces she had custody off. (She felt that i was able to handle it and i would be able to handle her eishes and i agreed because my oldest sisters a nightmare and i couldnt trust her with my moms medicine, and my 2nd oldest sister had 3 kids and was living in her own place and my 3rd oldest sister had just found out she was pregnant and starting her own family. then there was me who had taken time to figure out college and still lived with her i was applying when she was diagnosed)I was in charge of her medications and her food and I stopped leaving the house unless it was for her appointments or treatments. She was stubborn and determined to try to stay with us for as long as she could atleast to see her youngest graduate. She lasted 9 months. She couldn't stand up she couldn't do anything on her own. She was the strongest women I knew but I had to do everything for her and I didn't regret it. But I'm struggling because she was my mom and I would be up with her at all hours of the night and day and sometimes I would snap at her over something silly like asking me 10 times in a row when dinner would be done because she would forget she asked me, and even though I always apologized I shouldn't have been snappy at someone who now became dependent on me for her needs even thought months before she could do anything and everything. She had a chemotherapy she was on for every 3 weeks and she had done 2 separate rounds of radiations for her brain tumors. She never rang the bell even after she completed it because she felt stupid because she knew she was dying either way. We monitored her results every test she took she wanted to learn more to know what was happening to her. She was doing good then the first fall came in early January 2023 we thought she just slipped on something on the floor thankfully we were all in the living room with her. But at her next check up we told her dr. About it and they said that it was common as she already needed some help walking sometimes, but she had scans schedule for the following Monday. that weekend as I was getting her out the shower her knees went weak she had never struggled that hard before even after her brain surgery she was pretty sturdy. She had new growths and that's when her 2nd round of radiation began and they shrunk but didn't go away and she was getting weaker. They later found brain bleeds a bunch of small ones all over. She was grtting tired, she had a hard time remembering now. She was still grtting chemo but we had missed an appointment she didn't want to go so it had been 6 weeks since a treatment. She started complaing about an awful stomache ache about a week before her next treatment, i had thought it was because of the awful constipation she'd get from the treatment, but i was going to mention it to her dr at the next appointment.Our house has those gross yellow bulbs and it didn't help that the walls were stained yellow from years of her smoking. So the day of her appointment my sister and I had taken her outside to gether to the car the stomache achewas bad that day. She was yellow how did I not notice she was yellow before this. We get to her appointment and her dr tells her to go to the emergency room 3 floors below. She was hungry, her stomache ache subsided and her favorite was chinese food. So she wanted food before the hospital trip because she didn't want hospital food. It was the best chinese food we had had. But when we got to the er her stomache return 10 fold. She had to wait for a room to open up for a couple hours and then she had scans done and an ultra sound.they waited till we were in a room and her dr came in and told us that the cancer had been pushing on her liver and that's why she was jaundice and at the same time the cancer had eaten a hole though her stomach. I had brushed off her stomach ache the entire time as something less than what it was. She cried but her first thoughts were to get into a surgery but she didn't understand that they couldn't patch her stomach because her stomache was riddled with cancer and her body couldn't handle it.they put in a drain called a pig tail trail to the stomach to release the fluid and food if she were to eat. Food was her comfort. She cried because she thought she wouldn't be able to enjoy good anymore and she didn't understand that even if she wasn't getting enough to eat that she wouldn't be starved. They kept telling her she wouldn't starve to death but we didn't realize thats those harsh words ment the cancer would kill her way before.Her oncologist came by the that night to talk to her and she asked about her next treatment date. He said there wasn't one and that he would still check on her while she was hospitalized but that she was going into hospice. She cried harder. This was march 27th of 2023 when she was discharged into hospice. I know hospice is supposed to be good for her and her family alike but it wasn't. Getting her meds was hard because they only wanted it to be shipped from them and delivers would end up delayed, and because of were we lived the nursed were spread thin and we would be lucky to see one once a week even though the dressing on her drain was supposed to have someone out everyday. I had to learn as it was leaking heavy and it needed done 2 times a day it was infected and her skin was Raw and peeling. She didn't want to go to a facility or die in a hospital so she was home. I would change her bandage and it hurt her so much that she wouldn't stop screaming,(i would do it in the morning after the kids went to school and the same time everynight and the would go outside until it was done) sometimes she wouldnt know what was going on and only yell about how much I hate her To hurt her this much or that I must hate her. I would stay calm and by the time I was done the pain medicine would kick in and I would get her settled and then go throw up. It went on like that everyday. 2 weeks after her discharge she started a new medicine and her head was clear and she seemed better. I though that's all she needed maybe and we'd have her for a good couple more weeks atleast until my little sisters junior prom. Wed watch movies in the living her in her hospital bed and me on the matress on the floor and she made a joke about this being her last burst of energy, I laughed and told her she wasn't that lucky to leave us yet because she was always running late to things my whole life there's no way she would go so soon. I was in denial a week later on April 19th she was super sleepy and I could only get her up for her medicine I thought since she had lots of company recently she was just resting. My one of my sisters watched her and I went grocery shopping when we got back she was still sleeping. Weird but it was fine I thought. That night she didn't wake up to watch movies with me and I couldnt get her to wake up and take her medince and normally the pain would be awfully even 30mins off schedule but it had been a couple hours off so I called the number they gave me and the nurse said it sounded like she was dying and that to comfort her I could crush yo her medicine and put it in her mouth. I think he told me that more for me than her. I was still in denial and I was exhausted I didn't belive it at all she wasn't dying she was just tired. But I called my 3rd oldest sister and talked with her she said just keep an eye out and to just watch her. I got the kids on the bus that morning and told them to keep there phones on as I had a bad feeling and made them give her extra long hugs and kisses. With in an hour she started to rattle I knew it was coming now I tried to reposition her and as I lifted her up she said I can't breathe help, her body went limp but she was still breathing I called everyone and got the kids from school she was gone by 8:15am. It took hospice until 2:30pm to have a nurse come out to pronoun her dead. Since then I have gaurdianship of my little sister 17. My oldest sisters kids defaulted back to her after my mom passed before we could get the proper paperwork in for them. And she left the house we had lived an had taken them on halloween after her boyfriend beat her and I kicked him out. Cps failed the girls after she tried to take me off of all paperwork at the school knowing the situation the school had called to report and they did nothing even though she's in active addiction(shes doing a thing to help her get off drugs but they give her a medicine for withdrawls i think but she shes been in it for years and is still taking other substances) they want her to have an opportunity to raise her children. I have recently made a big change and moved 3 weeks ago with my little sister to our own apartment. I had a job about 3 weeks after my mom passed and have been working non stop. I thought this change would help me not living with her ghost and all but I realized I haven't dealt with Any of it at all I'm exhausted but so numb and always on the move because it's just me now, my chest feels heavy and my brain feels like the way old school static tv sound. I just haven't had the time to deal with it and I'm the only source of income and I'm afraid if i try now it would be to much, especially since I'm helping my sister sign up for college and get her ready for it. I'm not really sure if anyone has read this far but idk what I'm doing with this post maybe advice or validation or similar experiences but I just needed to put it out there and get it off my chest and maybe it won't feel so heavy anymore❤️ thank you to anyone to read this long post lol

Hey, I don't use reddit a lot and I'm typing on my phone in my notes app so sorry if the formatting is off.
I, 14F, have never really gotten along with my brother 14M, who I'll call Jared. He isn't my brother by blood, he's actually my cousin and my Mom just has custody of him. He moved in with us around February of 2021 and I'd say he's one of the main reasons I moved in with my Dad.
For some background, Jared and his younger brother, now 7M, weren't in a very good living situation, Jared's father had died, his stepfather was abusive, and his mother had gotten hooked on drugs by the stepfather. A couple months after Thanksgiving both Jared and his little brother came to our house and my mother got temporary custody of them after the stepfather was caught beating Jared's little brother, who I'll call Sam, in the front yard and the police were called, that was until Jared's mother died, she had gotten a surgery of some kind and wasn't allowed pain meds due to her past addiction and tried to get some off the street and unfortunately had gotten some laced meds and died while trying to get clean and get the boys back. Which was how my mother ended up with permanent custody of them.
I had been raised as an only child, I have an older sister but she's in her mid 20's with four kids and moved out the house pretty early, so we're still close but I never had really any sibling experiences with her. So I wasn't too happy when Jared and Sam moved in with us but I didn't say anything since I don't like drama and conflict.
I'm not sure if it was either me wanting to be the only kid in the house or if the change in enviorment had messed with Jared's mental health even more, but we didn't really get along the first few months, and Sam didn't help either since he was behind on his milestones and in the nicest way possible, a bit of a brat. I can't remember any of me and Jared's "fights", but I just know we weren't really friendly besides the occasionally chat in the kitchen
It began to get worse around July of 2022 when we moved houses, he began to get physical, we'd get in a small argument over something stupid and he would begin to hit my bicep or back, sometimes leaving bruises. And I will admit I'd get upset sometimes and push him back, but nothing to leave a mark. My Mom is a waitress and usually would be a work when this would happen. And my Aunt is a whole other story, but for now I'll just say she's an entitled ass and doesn't care about anything that doesn't directly benefit her.
It kept getting worse and he began to have outbursts. In winter of the same year, I made and snowball the size of a quarter and a little snowman and put it in the freezer, later on in the day, I took the snowball out the freezer and threw it at his leg from only like a foot away while he was making something at the stove, and it was more of a toss than anything. He then took my snowman out the freezer, slammed it on the floor so it broke in pieces and told me to clean it up. I didn't say anything since I thought I might've accidentally triggered his trauma or something and cleaned it up while he glared at me the whole time.
I dealt with stuff like this for a while on my own since I thought he was probably just in a fragile state of mind, but it became to much at my neices birthday party last month. And I had already moved in with my Dad at this point
The birthday party was at a trampoline park and the theme was Hello Kitty, so I wore a pink shirt and some light pink pants. Jared had been acting pretty chill until we got to the party room, I was sat next to my Mom on a bench while drinking some orange soda, Jared sat down next to me and after a few minutes said that it's "be funny if I spilled that drink on my pants" and pushed my hand towards myself, my pants were basically an off-white pink and he's lucky I didn't spill the drink. I quietly told him to fuck off and downed the rest of the drink so I wouldn't make a scene.
Later on when we were leaving, Sam was taking off the grippy socks they make you wear and wanted to keep them, both me and him didn't have any pockets so I told him to ask Jared to hold them for him because I was pretty sure he had pockets, while I got everyones stuff together, Jared apparently wasn't happy that I did that and rubbed Sam's sweaty and dirty socks all over my face and mouth, I spat out my spit to get whatever germs out of my mouth and accidentally spat on Jared. He got angry and hit me in the arm and said he was going to get me back for that and tried to stay right behind me when we were walking back to my Mom's car, I managed to stay away from him until I got in the car. I was in the passenger seat while Jared and Sam were in the back and Jared hit my arm again while it was rested on the glovebox, and he hit it pretty hard and left a bruise. I didn't say anything and tried not to cry since I was very overwhelmed from the evening and stayed quiet while my mom drove me home.
Once my Dad got home, I told him what Jared had done and told him the stuff he'd done before aswell, which I had only really mention in little detail before. My Dad just said he probably sees me as a sister and is just joking around and that boys are different from girls. My Mom on the other hand was very angry at first when I told her but ended up saying basically the same thing at the end. I just feel like I'm over exaggerating maybe and this is just normal but I'm not sure. AITA?
Extra note, I wanted to add this but didn't know where to, when Jared first came to live with us, he had court mandated online therapy, but he never joined any of the zoom meetings and the therapist cancelled all his appointments. So he's been offered help before.

Honestly, I'm extremely frustrated lately.
For starters, I'm not bad looking, I'm ripped, I consider myself to be fashionable(I have gotten and still do, get compliments on my looks and fashion quite a bit. Though it's mostly by older women, older men and homeless drug addicts), I'm also athletic and extremely intelligent - my IQ is far above average.
That being said, for whatever reason I get absolutely no human interaction. Neither online or offline and I am unable to make any friends - male or female.
I am also unable to attract or even be friends with any of the girls that I have things in common with(ex. fashion, kinks, body type, looks, hobbies) and are my type. Not even for short term things like hook ups or friends with benefits.
What is even more annoying is the double standards people seem to specifically have for me. For example: A girl I like won't want to hook up, be friends with benefits, date or even just be friends and text or hang out but, she will immediately be friendly, get casual or romantic with - say "yes" to literally everyone else. Even the fat, ugly, old, low IQ broke guys. I have been in these situations many times
This has happened with three girls over the years I really liked and had things in common with, for some reason they would treat me like I was beneath them while they would date or sleep around with practically any guy that gave them a compliment again, regardless of the guys looks, age, height. weight, financial status, style, etc. and yet somehow I'm not good enough to interact with?
It's extremely frustrating that I will go outside or be at work and see all these people with friendships and charming, good looking romantic partners, even guys who are fat, ugly, old, stupid, boring and broke have girls that are skinny or athletic, charming, positive, energetic, stylish, etc. while no one wants anything to do with me.
I get treated like I'm some ugly, fat, hairy, old, creepy guy by practically everyone and it makes no sense because I have seen and met some actual fat, ugly, hairy, old, creepy men who get treated well and are adored by young, fun, funny and attractive girls while I get ignored by literally everyone(online and offline) or I flat out hated or viewed with contempt and disdain.
It's also certainly not my personality because I've seen both shitty and overly nice people with lots of people they hangout with, date, flirt with or sleep with.
At most, I've only been able to get into a few relationships with girls who are fat/cubby, lazy, have no style, have no hobbies, have no manners, are whiny, easily triggered by everything, have bad hygiene, etc. perhaps "trailer trash" is a good description and it's such a blow my self esteem and almost insanity inducing because I will feel low because somehow that's all I can get meanwhile literally everyone can do better than me? Even nerdy guys who are hairy, fat, scially awkward, porn watching, video game addicted get better looking girls than me and not only are these girls good looking but they are also super creative, fun, etc
It's also just in general a drag because I will want to do things like dress up, go out, exercise, make art, meet people, etc. but they will never want to and complain or suck the energy and moral so then I get stressed and exhausted.
Sex and nudes with such girls just felt like a chore, made me feel like a loser and was just boring and always left me annoyed and extremely pissed off
I've tried the whole, stay single, don't be desperate and wait for your ideal person or people but all that has gotten me was total isolation and nit lsiong my virginity till like 19 to a girl who was fat and just a shitty person overall - basically trailer trash
Hell, I've even tried online sex workers and in person prostitutes and they would just take my money then never hangout, actually show up or do anything together while giving service to literally everyone else. So somehow, not even my money is good enough to get me some human interaction
Needless to say, I'm frustrated, at a loss, don't know how to feel about anything and I cannot seem to make sense out of anything.
My mental health is in decline as well because I spend hours a day in total isolation for years and my brains reward system is also fucked up because over the years my experiences have proven that no matter how smart, good looking, stylish, creative, nice, intelligent or how much money I have it will never pay off and I will never be liked - even though by observations and experiences have also taught me that looks, age, money, race, height, weight, personality, style, etc. doesn't matter so logically, there is no reason why I never have anyone
My existence and traits I possess have no point or reason because I have absolutely no life
TL;DR Basically I'm frustrated seeing all these people, regardless of their looks, intelligence, personality, age and financial status, trading nudes, hooking up, having orgies, threesomes, friends, relationships, friends with benefits, etc. while literally no one wants anything to do with me

The way out of PTSD is straight towards the pain.
They will tell you 400 different things that are supposed to treat your PTSD, and they are mostly shallow remedies that only temporarily numb the pain.
Your perspective on pain needs to shift, you walk towards it with confidence and grit. You walk towards it and you breathe and you see what comes out on the other side. And you can’t do that while meditating alone, you need to be taking action and moving a lot, literally and metaphorically. You need to be taking chances and staying true and you get to see what comes out of it.
They will start by advising you to take SSRIs or depression meds. Take those if you need to and see if they work for you. I personally never tried them and never cared to. I asked the psychiatrist if taking the meds will solve my problem and he was quite honest he said they will give you a break from the symptoms so you can do the work to solve the problem. I told him I am going to do the work to solve the problem, I will deal with the discomfort. Growing up I watched a couple of friends lose their essence to depression meds. My friend Omar was a bright light in the world, until he started taking them to become a dull shadow of how great he was before taking them. I knew that the fire that is causing me pain is also the fire that defines my essence, I held on to the fire instead of suppressing it. I admit, I offended and hurt a lot of people in the process. And I maybe burnt some bridges and those will never get repaired. But that is the only way for a PTSD survivor to learn, by making terrible mistakes, by trying, we ought to try, that pain we feel, that stress disorder is basically our nervous system feeling disoriented in the world and wanting to find balance again. Suppress the fire and you may live in oblivion forever.
The nervous system is the sixth sense. If the sixth sense is for some reason, always triggering red, then the sixth sense needs to be tuned not shut down. Only zombies live without their sixth sense. I tried to make life work with my mind, it is exhausting and painful, once you get the senses activated and attuned, everything just falls in place.
They will try to sell you on therapy, as in talk therapy. Spending 60 minutes a week telling someone else about how awful you feel in your skin. This has its benefits, specially if you don’t really know what you are dealing with and you have had a couple exes tell you something is off with you and a couple of friends tell you what is wrong with you. People mean that in a good way they are just mean about it. We tend to get offended by it and get defensive and deny that shit happened and claim they must be the awful one. And what a guilt trap it must be for anyone to suddenly find themselves realizing they have done something awful and they have to own it. Our society doesn’t work this way. Our society encourages gossip and self-righteousness. Our society classifies humans into good and bad. Good humans don’t make mistakes. And I call that bullshit. Everyone makes mistakes and the good ones are wearing masks. If you keep getting negative feedback about your personality, see a psychiatrist and get a diagnosis and see if therapy is for you. The best thing you will gain from therapy is self-compassion. But be careful with that one because it massages you for weird forms of narcissists.
If you spend too much time in therapy you are almost guaranteed to fall into attaching to your wound a little too much. Your wound becomes your center focus and your relationship to your therapist encourages that. Your psyche doesn’t understand things like professional relationships and whatever. Your psyche watches you getting the attention of another human for hours talking about how much everything hurts. And your therapist nods and every time they nod, your psyche believes it further, we must have the biggest wound there is. Also it tracks then that talking about your wound is enough to get other people’s attention. It is not.
Art is the way to get other people’s attention. Art is the way to put yourself out there and give others an opportunity to fully receive and understand you.
But you stay attached to your identity and there is no salvation. You stay centered around the pain you have accumulated and there is no way out.
There is a crazy idea in the new-age spiritual communities that one is supposed to protect his energy. This is a dangerous form of narcissism disguised as wisdom. Protecting energy assumes that energy can be maintained and stored or achieved. Energy is movement. The best way to get more energy is by moving towards the other. And some would want that only if the other is feeling good. And in fact, the best way to get a ton of energy is by moving towards the pain of others, it takes skill, it takes talent, it takes care, it takes resilience but feeling others misery is the path of liberation I cannot emphasize it enough. And feeling their pain should not be done with the purpose of healing them, that is the healer trap. You think you have a healing touch and you go looking for wounds with the promise of healing them. There is no healing from pain, there is only alchemy. Alchemy takes the pain in and spits out presence and steady breathing. You appreciate the pain for what it is or else it will get above your threshold and you will start turning away from it again.
Ok lots of praise to the pain, but how do you get there if you start with some chronic pain or just feelings of discomfort in life and in social interactions like anxiety and depression? Where do you start?
Pain is where the psyche meets physical reality. Everything in the psyche is imagination meaning it doesn’t come with a physical manifestation. Pain, unlike everything you imagine in your head has a physical manifestation and that is what makes it the most fascinating. (Anxiety is stomach pain.)
So to be able to move towards the pain psychologically, you can start by moving towards it physically. This is why weightlifting is incredible in treating depression and anxiety. You first learn how to tolerate higher levels of pain and that gets you to become a little bit more adaptive in your relationship towards pain, instead of seeing it as something rigid you start opening up to feeling it and you start seeing the gains that come from experiencing it. I know there is a limit on that, but most pains lead to gains, either in muscle size or in character development. This is by the way also is why Yoga is so effective in treating depression. Again, a combination of pain tolerance through stretching with presence and steady breathing. Which by the way is something you need to watch for so carefully if you get into weightlifting. You need to learn how to breathe properly or you could damage your whole body under heavy weights.
Now as you build your strength (notice how strength is the pain tolerance of your body / psychological strength and resilience are the same thing, but of your psyche) you also need to clean up the mess. Almost indefinitely any PTSD patient has some ineffective coping mechanisms. The coping mechanisms need to go out. Your food need to be healthy, healthy doesn’t mean starve yourself or eat vegan, healthy means large amounts of protein, greens and fruit and moderate amounts of fat and carbs. Junk foods and restaurants are killing you. Cut out the junk. But take your time with the process. A lot of trial and error here goes a long way. You need your gut health to be top notch. Serotonin gets manufactured in the stomach. Unhealthy stomach cannot process the chemicals necessary for your mental health. While my general advice is walk towards the pain, there is also something to be said about eliminating the kinds of pain that are unproductive or degenerative.
Speaking of elimination, sex, porn, masturbation, but more generally pleasure. Let’s start with un-generative forms of pleasure: porn: cut it out. You don’t need it and it doesn’t serve you. It is a coping mechanism. You are basically dialing up the pleasure until the pain resides. I wish there was a way around it, but you are better off facing the pain, you are better off going deep into your panic attack than to numb it with watching porn and jerking off. And it is such an awful advice because we all want to look at boobs. And you will hear some people tell you oh you should cut porn so you save that pleasure for experiencing it with a partner in real life. And that’s not a bad idea. But here is the challenge: there are sex addicts, and sex addicts make the same mistake that porn addicts make: They leverage pleasure to avoid pain. You fall for that trap once and you will keep falling back into it. You just need to get very honest with yourself, you are not trying to avoid porn because it is bad to watch porn, you are actually avoiding porn because it is good to watch porn. Weird plot twist, but you actually want to jump deep into the bad stuff, the emotions that make you uncomfortable the agonizing loss in your life and the humiliating rejections you are dealing with on daily basis. This is how you get out, but devouring the pain and indulging in it. Don’t be afraid, be brave and jump head first into it.
Goes without saying, social media is in the same category with porn. The worst type of social media is not the ignorant funny videos, it is the political news. These are stories manufactured to deplete your attention to sell ads. Spend your time wisely. Next on the list is self-improvement advice on social media AKA influencer profiles. Only reason to follow influencer lifestyle advice is if you are on your way to become an influencer yourself. Watch people that do the shit that you want to do to learn from their success. Also successful people rarely teach formulas for success. Most influencers fail at adding value in a real way to society so they become influencers and I know social media pays them a lot of money and they seem happy in the videos. That’s exactly why you should cut them out. Influencer content is self-improvement porn. You are better off focusing on yourself and the people directly in your life than chasing online idols astray.
Next is masturbation without porn. And that one is pure pleasure and needs to be eliminated. You will get some scientists screaming but masturbation is great for you. And I have to remind you, it is not about whether something is good or bad, it is about eliminating sources of pleasure, the immediate kind of pleasure in your life so you can start processing the pain and the emotions behind it. Pleasure is the biggest distraction from the real work you need to be doing as a trauma survivor.
Ok now sex. This is a tricky one. Falling in love is a very special experience and will snatch you out of depression. Sex deepens love. Even though sex is pleasure, love will balance it out with the pain. But you see you are now only having sex when falling in love. Meaning you are literally sandwiching the pleasure of sex with the pain of falling in love and being vulnerable and feeling into another human’s psyche. I guess it is obvious sex without connection needs to go on the elimination list.
What a boring life I am inviting you to live. And in fact this is exactly the point. What do all PTSD patients have in common? They are shellshocked. Shock and excitement have a lot in common. And if you were to recover from shock, you need to reduce factors of shock (excitement) in your daily life and get bored. And your company during your boredom is art. Use the boredom to make art, because art is an expression of your emotion it is a fantastic vehicle for processing and moving forward. And sometimes it wont be so much that you are moving forward, sometimes your job would be to move inward into the pain so you can release and move forward. And the best way to gain momentum in moving forward is connecting with others. And I have to finish with this one more time: Move towards others specially when it feels painful, move towards the discomfort and learn about their pain if they would allow you. Stop listening to respond and actually feel into the other person’s agony. This will free you from your weight. This will let your chest expand.
Fuck modern psychology

The way out of PTSD is straight towards the pain.
They will tell you 400 different things that are supposed to treat your PTSD, and they are mostly shallow remedies that only temporarily numb the pain.
Your perspective on pain needs to shift, you walk towards it with confidence and grit. You walk towards it and you breathe and you see what comes out on the other side. And you can’t do that while meditating alone, you need to be taking action and moving a lot, literally and metaphorically. You need to be taking chances and staying true and you get to see what comes out of it.
They will start by advising you to take SSRIs or depression meds. Take those if you need to and see if they work for you. I personally never tried them and never cared to. I asked the psychiatrist if taking the meds will solve my problem and he was quite honest he said they will give you a break from the symptoms so you can do the work to solve the problem. I told him I am going to do the work to solve the problem, I will deal with the discomfort. Growing up I watched a couple of friends lose their essence to depression meds. My friend Omar was a bright light in the world, until he started taking them to become a dull shadow of how great he was before taking them. I knew that the fire that is causing me pain is also the fire that defines my essence, I held on to the fire instead of suppressing it. I admit, I offended and hurt a lot of people in the process. And I maybe burnt some bridges and those will never get repaired. But that is the only way for a PTSD survivor to learn, by making terrible mistakes, by trying, we ought to try, that pain we feel, that stress disorder is basically our nervous system feeling disoriented in the world and wanting to find balance again. Suppress the fire and you may live in oblivion forever.
The nervous system is the sixth sense. If the sixth sense is for some reason, always triggering red, then the sixth sense needs to be tuned not shut down. Only zombies live without their sixth sense. I tried to make life work with my mind, it is exhausting and painful, once you get the senses activated and attuned, everything just falls in place.
They will try to sell you on therapy, as in talk therapy. Spending 60 minutes a week telling someone else about how awful you feel in your skin. This has its benefits, specially if you don’t really know what you are dealing with and you have had a couple exes tell you something is off with you and a couple of friends tell you what is wrong with you. People mean that in a good way they are just mean about it. We tend to get offended by it and get defensive and deny that shit happened and claim they must be the awful one. And what a guilt trap it must be for anyone to suddenly find themselves realizing they have done something awful and they have to own it. Our society doesn’t work this way. Our society encourages gossip and self-righteousness. Our society classifies humans into good and bad. Good humans don’t make mistakes. And I call that bullshit. Everyone makes mistakes and the good ones are wearing masks. If you keep getting negative feedback about your personality, see a psychiatrist and get a diagnosis and see if therapy is for you. The best thing you will gain from therapy is self-compassion. But be careful with that one because it massages you for weird forms of narcissists.
If you spend too much time in therapy you are almost guaranteed to fall into attaching to your wound a little too much. Your wound becomes your center focus and your relationship to your therapist encourages that. Your psyche doesn’t understand things like professional relationships and whatever. Your psyche watches you getting the attention of another human for hours talking about how much everything hurts. And your therapist nods and every time they nod, your psyche believes it further, we must have the biggest wound there is. Also it tracks then that talking about your wound is enough to get other people’s attention. It is not.
Art is the way to get other people’s attention. Art is the way to put yourself out there and give others an opportunity to fully receive and understand you.
But you stay attached to your identity and there is no salvation. You stay centered around the pain you have accumulated and there is no way out.
There is a crazy idea in the new-age spiritual communities that one is supposed to protect his energy. This is a dangerous form of narcissism disguised as wisdom. Protecting energy assumes that energy can be maintained and stored or achieved. Energy is movement. The best way to get more energy is by moving towards the other. And some would want that only if the other is feeling good. And in fact, the best way to get a ton of energy is by moving towards the pain of others, it takes skill, it takes talent, it takes care, it takes resilience but feeling others misery is the path of liberation I cannot emphasize it enough. And feeling their pain should not be done with the purpose of healing them, that is the healer trap. You think you have a healing touch and you go looking for wounds with the promise of healing them. There is no healing from pain, there is only alchemy. Alchemy takes the pain in and spits out presence and steady breathing. You appreciate the pain for what it is or else it will get above your threshold and you will start turning away from it again.
Ok lots of praise to the pain, but how do you get there if you start with some chronic pain or just feelings of discomfort in life and in social interactions like anxiety and depression? Where do you start?
Pain is where the psyche meets physical reality. Everything in the psyche is imagination meaning it doesn’t come with a physical manifestation. Pain, unlike everything you imagine in your head has a physical manifestation and that is what makes it the most fascinating. (Anxiety is stomach pain.)
So to be able to move towards the pain psychologically, you can start by moving towards it physically. This is why weightlifting is incredible in treating depression and anxiety. You first learn how to tolerate higher levels of pain and that gets you to become a little bit more adaptive in your relationship towards pain, instead of seeing it as something rigid you start opening up to feeling it and you start seeing the gains that come from experiencing it. I know there is a limit on that, but most pains lead to gains, either in muscle size or in character development. This is by the way also is why Yoga is so effective in treating depression. Again, a combination of pain tolerance through stretching with presence and steady breathing. Which by the way is something you need to watch for so carefully if you get into weightlifting. You need to learn how to breathe properly or you could damage your whole body under heavy weights.
Now as you build your strength (notice how strength is the pain tolerance of your body / psychological strength and resilience are the same thing, but of your psyche) you also need to clean up the mess. Almost indefinitely any PTSD patient has some ineffective coping mechanisms. The coping mechanisms need to go out. Your food need to be healthy, healthy doesn’t mean starve yourself or eat vegan, healthy means large amounts of protein, greens and fruit and moderate amounts of fat and carbs. Junk foods and restaurants are killing you. Cut out the junk. But take your time with the process. A lot of trial and error here goes a long way. You need your gut health to be top notch. Serotonin gets manufactured in the stomach. Unhealthy stomach cannot process the chemicals necessary for your mental health. While my general advice is walk towards the pain, there is also something to be said about eliminating the kinds of pain that are unproductive or degenerative.
Speaking of elimination, sex, porn, masturbation, but more generally pleasure. Let’s start with un-generative forms of pleasure: porn: cut it out. You don’t need it and it doesn’t serve you. It is a coping mechanism. You are basically dialing up the pleasure until the pain resides. I wish there was a way around it, but you are better off facing the pain, you are better off going deep into your panic attack than to numb it with watching porn and jerking off. And it is such an awful advice because we all want to look at boobs. And you will hear some people tell you oh you should cut porn so you save that pleasure for experiencing it with a partner in real life. And that’s not a bad idea. But here is the challenge: there are sex addicts, and sex addicts make the same mistake that porn addicts make: They leverage pleasure to avoid pain. You fall for that trap once and you will keep falling back into it. You just need to get very honest with yourself, you are not trying to avoid porn because it is bad to watch porn, you are actually avoiding porn because it is good to watch porn. Weird plot twist, but you actually want to jump deep into the bad stuff, the emotions that make you uncomfortable the agonizing loss in your life and the humiliating rejections you are dealing with on daily basis. This is how you get out, but devouring the pain and indulging in it. Don’t be afraid, be brave and jump head first into it.
Goes without saying, social media is in the same category with porn. The worst type of social media is not the ignorant funny videos, it is the political news. These are stories manufactured to deplete your attention to sell ads. Spend your time wisely. Next on the list is self-improvement advice on social media AKA influencer profiles. Only reason to follow influencer lifestyle advice is if you are on your way to become an influencer yourself. Watch people that do the shit that you want to do to learn from their success. Also successful people rarely teach formulas for success. Most influencers fail at adding value in a real way to society so they become influencers and I know social media pays them a lot of money and they seem happy in the videos. That’s exactly why you should cut them out. Influencer content is self-improvement porn. You are better off focusing on yourself and the people directly in your life than chasing online idols astray.
Next is masturbation without porn. And that one is pure pleasure and needs to be eliminated. You will get some scientists screaming but masturbation is great for you. And I have to remind you, it is not about whether something is good or bad, it is about eliminating sources of pleasure, the immediate kind of pleasure in your life so you can start processing the pain and the emotions behind it. Pleasure is the biggest distraction from the real work you need to be doing as a trauma survivor.
Ok now sex. This is a tricky one. Falling in love is a very special experience and will snatch you out of depression. Sex deepens love. Even though sex is pleasure, love will balance it out with the pain. But you see you are now only having sex when falling in love. Meaning you are literally sandwiching the pleasure of sex with the pain of falling in love and being vulnerable and feeling into another human’s psyche. I guess it is obvious sex without connection needs to go on the elimination list.
What a boring life I am inviting you to live. And in fact this is exactly the point. What do all PTSD patients have in common? They are shellshocked. Shock and excitement have a lot in common. And if you were to recover from shock, you need to reduce factors of shock (excitement) in your daily life and get bored. And your company during your boredom is art. Use the boredom to make art, because art is an expression of your emotion it is a fantastic vehicle for processing and moving forward. And sometimes it wont be so much that you are moving forward, sometimes your job would be to move inward into the pain so you can release and move forward. And the best way to gain momentum in moving forward is connecting with others. And I have to finish with this one more time: Move towards others specially when it feels painful, move towards the discomfort and learn about their pain if they would allow you. Stop listening to respond and actually feel into the other person’s agony. This will free you from your weight. This will let your chest expand.
Fuck modern psychology

Hi team! I need some advice. My PA's therapist has given him some resources on urge surfing, breathing techniques and mindfulness to use when he has those urges. I've always known about his thing for feet (I do not have a thing for feet) but after we sat down and talked about the practicality of avoiding triggers vs riding out urges he confessed that it is pretty much all feet, all the time. Even the concept of feet, any high heels, sandals, flip flops, any time, anywhere. He works with the public and they're everywhere. Are we looking at an uphill battle where he really does just have to do and master all the coping techniques and not give in to urges? Like, is the actual meat of recovery the only way for him to stop wanting to kiss other women's feet? Or is there any other way anyone's found to avoid the triggers? We are considering him switching jobs to one where there isn't quite so much access to the public anyway, and definitely not one where his shift finishes so late at night that he's propositioned by sex workers. Because he simply cannot say no as long as he has cash in his possession and I can stop him taking cash from home, or taking cash out (he no longer has bank cards, he uses apple pay) but I can't stop him from finding cash at work or borrowing cash at work. We got money for our baby shower to buy baby stuff and he immediately put some in his pocket to go solicit. That was before this last d day. I personally find it super easy every day to not solicit sex workers. But I have to remind myself it's an addiction, it's a sickness, I wanted honesty, ect ect
But to be honest, the more understanding I am and the more we work together to figure out how to solve the issues he's having, the more I just feel tired and defeated. I'm fighting an addiction that isn't even mine. I know the general advice is to let him work on his recovery himself and I do intend to. But these early days I think we both need to immediate reassurance of me working with him. Plus he has no internet access so how is he gonna find mindfulness scrips? I start therapy myself this week. Can I go door to door in my town and formally request that everyone chooses to not wear sandals this summer just so my PA doesn't cheat on me? He is working on things and he's told me everything I ask. I obviously worry if there's more but he's told me some of the most embarrassing and disgusting things I could ever imagine, stuff you couldn't waterboard out of most people. I at least think he's trying and that's enough for me to keep going I think. I am 38 weeks pregnant tomorrow and the only way I've been able to move forward is considering what is best for my son. What is best for my son is that he has two healthy parents, whether they are together or not. It's an addiction, it's a sickness, and if I leave, he's not going to magically be better. I'd rather stick around, give him this last chance to start recovery for real, so that even if we do break up in a few months, weeks, whatever, I'm not sending my son to his father wondering whether he's gonna have accidental access to porn, or that he's not gonna be thinking about sex workers the whole time. Or that he's going to have done something really stupid and got stabbed, or arrested, or AIDS. Twice he admitted to soliciting sex workers, getting what he wanted and then running off without paying them. With the wrong ladies, he could have gotten suuuuper hurt. The best thing for my son is an alive father, at least. That is something he has admitted too, along with feeling upset that he ever hurt me, caused me pain, ect. I don't care about that at the moment. My love has wained and the only way I think it's going to come back is if I see him get better not for me, or our relationship or anything selfish like that - but for my son. Who honestly I've done so much for at this point he better be the most adorable little boy. Doing all of this without drinking or smoking is ROUGH. If he turns out to be one of those hooligan little nightmares in 10 years, I'm gonna lose my mind

okay so this might be long because i want to provide as much detail as possible so you can get the full picture. i (23NB) have lived in this NYC apartment for 4 years, and lived with one of my roommates (24F) (will be referred to as “A”) for the entirety of the time i’ve been in the city, which is 6 years. we were assigned roommates in college and just kept living together because at the time we were good friends and it worked! we had rotating 3rd roommates throughout the years and dealt with a lot of crazy shit together, including a violent roommate, but that’s a story for a different day. so this roommate and i had been having some issues for the past couple of years because she got addicted to ketamine. i felt responsible for her because it started out as us using recreationally together but she spiraled out of control with it and honestly the entire situation was just a lot on me. throughout her addiction she was doing, at one point, 16 grams in 3 days, so i was really worried that she would die, not to mention she doesn’t really test her drugs and was getting it from a neighborhood that’s notorious for fentanyl. it honestly became my full time job to take care of her, but at the end of the day I was just trying to be a good friend. after some therapy/self work, i now realize how enabling the role I was playing actually was, but it was just the position that I was put in and I had also never dealt with something like this before. I feel like for further context, i should add that A’s parents pay her rent and for a lot of things for her. she had a part time job at the time and was also in school but left due to her addiction. the situation that i am in is very different, my family does not support me financially and i pay for everything for myself and have made my way pretty much on my own. i’m pretty established in my neighborhood because I am a tattoo artist at a local shop and also have worked for 3 other businesses within the same few blocks. i also consistently have multiple jobs at once, now i have 3, and for a long time I was working 6 days a week. not really relevant to the situation but needless to say, i already have a LOT on my plate. anyways, so yeah. for about almost 2 years, i was dealing with my roommates addiction. i watched her overdose and throw up on herself 5-7 times, she projectile vomited all over the house, i have dragged her out of a pool of her own vomit, she would consistently lie to me about whether she was high or had bought ketamine, and our other friends and i would go through her room to make sure she wasn’t hiding it countless times, (to no avail obviously, she would always lie and say she didn’t have any more when she did, hidden in hard to find places.) it affected everyone in our friend group and in her life. but especially me because i was really the only person who was physically present for it all. i tried talking to her about it at first, and was very understanding and patient with her and genuinely was doing my best to help because she was my friend, we were really close, and I didn’t want to see her die or ruin her life. she also expected me to say something to her and would tell me that i should say something if i thought she was high. she would say this when she was sober and it started off an an “accountability partner” thing, but eventually became very codependent and unhealthy. even when i would ask her, she would lie. i made it very clear from the beginning that all of this was damaging our relationship, but i was still doing my best to be her friend and be there for her. at one point, i even took the drugs out of her room and hid them in mine to take to another friends house the next day to dispose of them, and she went into my room and found them. it reached a point where I made her call her parents and tell them what had been going on. calling her parents had honestly been in discussion for a while, and the sober version of her agreed that it needed to happen. she got a slap on the wrist and sent to the mental hospital for a few days, she even convinced them to let her out early! her parents also weren’t really involved in her care at all after because she has never been disciplined in her life, her parents think she can do no wrong. she relapsed soon after she got out and at this point, I started taking a lot more space for myself because I was mentally and emotionally drained and it was clear that all my efforts were in vain. this was after dealing with it for about a year. honestly, i should have definitely started planning on moving out around this point. the reasons I didn’t were the fact that i still considered A to be one of my best friends despite what we had gone through, all of my jobs are like a 5-10 minute walk away, and I also loved my room. i put a lot of time and effort into decorating it and I had also lived there for a long time and for a really great price, $850 for a huge room with a dishwasher, laundry in building, AND a rooftop i can smoke on outside my window with a view of a GREEN backyard with PLANTS. not some concrete bs. that’s UNHEARD OF in nyc. im also not really great with change, even if it’s for the best, and to be honest i was also naive and thought things would eventually go back to normal. this was a person that i previously trusted a lot, i didn’t think she would normally do these things to me. anyways, eventually she got sober and then my, at the time, best friend of 7 years from home, a state across the country, moved in. (22 F, let’s call her “B”) we met in high school and I was in the class above her. we only went to school together for a year before I graduated and moved to NYC, so for the past few years, our friendship had been over facetime/seeing eachother occasionally when I would come visit. B’s background is similar to mine, the state we’re from is very impoverished and we both left the religion we were raised as. another huge reason she moved here was so that she could start medically transitioning and get on estrogen. i was really excited for her and also wanted to support her in her transition, im also non binary and we come from a really transphobic state, so growing up queer in the south was like a huge part of our friendship, and when she moved in, she didn’t have a lot of gender affirming clothes, and i had a ton of clothes, so i gave her a bunch of mine, i sent her resources, lent her books/zines, point is i really was trying to support her, and before she moved in and even throughout us living together we would talk for hours about this stuff. also, normally, i would not feel the need to even mention the fact that someone is trans, but all of this is relevant to the story. i will also add that I know now to never live with friends! at the time, i thought it would be okay because I trusted her and we seemed to have good communication on roommate matters and i think we both had good intentions going into it. we would say things like “i don’t plan on moving out on bad terms” “we can communicate and respect eachothers boundaries!” etc. i also knew that she really wanted to move here because she had talked about it for years and she came and visited before she moved in. so yeah, things were great at first, but not for long. so I am someone who, like I said, am at work most of the time and when i come home from work I just want to relax and smoke weed and chill and if you know me in real life, you know that i’m not a very beefy person and it takes a lot to really make me upset, i’m generally chill about most things, honestly to my detriment. so the first signs of things starting to go south were when B started to say that I was ignoring her. this was confusing to me, as we hung out most days after I got off work, and she even had a job herself at the time, (she’s been fired twice in the past year and was unemployed on and off) so she wasn’t like completely trapped in the house all the time. I would try to inquire further and understand why she thought I was ignoring her, and reassure her that I’m listening. she started telling me that she needs a lot of reassurance, and i told her that I am happy to reassure her whenever needed! we talked it through and i genuinely started to put in a lot of effort into making sure i was being fully present during our time together and also making sure I was hanging out with her enough. this quickly evolved into us having very extensive conversations for hours where she would bring up the fact that she still felt like i was ignoring her, and i would reassure that I was not purposefully ignoring her, im listening and really trying. and almost daily she would bring up a problem that she had with something that I said or did. she even at one point started tweeting about me, saying things like “do u even consider others?”. she also asked me to be on constant emotional monitoring for her, which i told her that i will not do that. i don’t really pick up on subtle social cues or “shade” and also it’s not my job to do that. if something upsets you, you can communicate with me about it instead of being passive aggressive or expecting me to be able to read your mind. plus, real friends don’t have to be responsible for every single emotion! at one point, she told me that she was mad at me because living together wasn’t living up the the idealized version of what she thought it would be. she would also guilt trip me like a LOT. she would be like “as a friend, you should be doing ____ for me” and her requests got more and more ridiculous as time went on, one of them being to basically force myself to start listening to a genre of music that i simply just don’t like or want to listen to during my own time, insinuating that i would be a bad friend if i didn’t like the same music as her. and to that, i tried to explain to her that we don’t have to like the same music in order to be friends and that i don’t care if she listens to music that i don’t particularly listen to on my own, although i am happy to listen to her recommendations, i am picky about the music I listen to. basically i felt like she was trying to find any stupid reason to say i was a bad friend. it started to really annoy me, because i already had a lot on my plate, and honestly i just didn’t have the bandwidth to be fully present all the time, especially after dealing with my other roommates addiction for so long. i needed space and time for myself really badly, and I felt like I was trying really hard to please her to no avail. all of this was incredibly exhausting to deal with. i tried to communicate this to B, but it never got through. during these very tedious conversations, B would say things that were extremely concerning, such as “You need to stop triggering me!!!” to which i responded, “okay let’s make a deal, i will be more mindful of your triggers if you work on managing them.” she would also constantly make accusations at me. for example, she accused me of laughing AT HER when i was not, and I was laughing at something completely unrelated. there were many other times that she accused me of doing and saying things that I never said or did. she would twist my words a lot, things i told her in confidence, and use them against me, adding an entire new meaning to what i was saying. and if i disagreed with her or got even a little defensive she would be like “You just pissed me off!!!!” i honestly felt like she was just picking on me and criticizing me at a lot of points, because I could literally breathe wrong and it would be an issue. i now realize that she actually just needs to create drama, but i didnt want to admit that at the time. again, during this time I was trying to be very calm during our conversations when trying to reassure her and explain myself, but internally I was very stressed out by all of this. at some point during all this, A relapsed. this was a disaster, B knew about the relapse and was lying to me about it. i was especially upset because the way A relapsed was she asked me to unlock the parental password on her phone so she could “update apps”, but instead she downloaded the app she uses to text her plug, so essentially she tricked me into enabling her relapse and took advantage of my trust. i messaged her parents immediately and told them. at this point, i felt like it was expected of me to do that. of course, they basically did nothing for a while, it got really bad. A was basically not functioning at all. she would tell me that she didn’t care how she made me feel. our other friend came over and went through her room and babysat her to make sure she wouldn’t do ketamine but she pretended to go to sleep while he was literally crying next to her and she got up and did it right after he left. a lot of horrible things were said, i would express the fact that i hate that i can’t trust her, and she would scream back “i don’t want you to trust me!”, amongst many other awful things. we would hear loud snorting like every few minutes every single day, which was extremely stressful. she broke the stove because she was high, it was affecting the way she looked and her physical health, and at this point it was a safety concern for her and for B and I, because we did not want to be responsible if something happened to her and this was affecting us tremendously. eventually, B and I called her parents and told them a lot of details and begged them to send her to rehab, I had to send them a long text message being like super blunt about the fact that she needs to get professional help or she will die, and they were basically saying that ultimately it’s up to her, which was bullshit in my opinion, but she did end up going. during the time A was in rehab, things with B got progressively worse. a lot of weird and horrible things started happening, she berated me for like over an hour about one of my closest friendships, that she met once and got “bad vibes from”, i told her that I didn’t want to be put in a position where i have to defend my other friendships to her, especially ones that have nothing to do with her, and that this person is an extremely good friend to me, and that she didn’t have to be around her if she didn’t want to. i was asking her to stop but she wouldn’t! she was pulling bullshit reasons why i shouldn’t hang out with this person anymore out of her ass. for context, B drinks a lot, and she drank the night we all hung out while my other friend and i didn’t really drink. she was like “i actually HAD to drink that night because your friend was making me so uncomfortable!” which, that night was extremely normal and chill, nothing bad happened at all, also don’t blame me or anyone else for your own habits! she would pick fights almost daily. on halloween, we got drunk together with one of the people she was seeing at the time, and she ended up berating me in front of this person for ignoring her, not respecting her, etc and the person had to step in and tell her that she’s making pointed comments at me and not hearing me out, and that she was being horrible to me. (this is not the only time someone hung out with us together and then told her that she was being an asshole to me.) that night, she said a lot of hurtful things, such as “at least i don’t have a bunch of fake friendships!” (as if my friendship with her was the only “real friendship” i could have) and “you don’t have the lesbian experience you claim to have!!!!” (what does that even mean??? i’ve been lesbian since before we met lol) and she also falsely accused me of saying that being a lesbian is worse than being a trans woman, which i never said! i have never even thought that and that is not how i feel at all! at first i tried to explain everything using logic, but eventually i basically told her to stop projecting her insecurities onto me and to stop dragging me into her shit. she slammed the door in my face when we got home. we didn’t talk for like a month. during this month, i really needed some outside support, so i reached out to some trusted people to tell them what was going on and get some advice on what i should do/ how to handle the situation, and to get an outside perspective. honestly, that night was the straw that broke the camels back and sent me into a full mental breakdown from the stress of everything that had been going on in the house. i was like scream crying every single day for the entire month, unable to function at work, not thinking clearly at all. everyone in my life was telling me i should just move out asap. i think i was just extremely upset because I then realized that my relationships with both of them were not healthy, but i really cared about these people. i was extremely disappointed in how things were going, and i was also extremely worried about both of their wellbeings, i didn’t want anything to happen to them or to not have them in my life. and i was also upset that they had been being absolutely horrible to me and i was honestly just sick of being treated like shit by my roommates at this point. honestly i was an asshole when i would talk about it sometimes, but how was i supposed to be kind when everyone was being so cruel to me for no reason? i was honestly really mad, especially because B knew the stress of taking care of A, like why are you adding to the intense stress i already had just experienced?? during this time, i realized that all of this was happening because of B’s untreated BPD. to clarify, i do not care about people having bpd or other mental health disorders as long as you are not hurting other people, which, B was hurting me a lot and honestly our relationship was pretty destructive to my mental health. i also realized that these friendships were wildly codependent and unhealthy, and I needed to set boundaries. i can only take so much abuse!!! and i felt like a scapegoat for both of them and a crutch in the situation. although i still cared for these people, i knew that this was not sustainable long term. i could not handle the weight of A’s life on my back or the way I was being treated by either of them, or the fact that my home was not actually safe. at first, i was going to move out and take a break from the friendships, with the intention of hopefully rekindling when we were all in healthier places, but also the need to move out felt super urgent. the stress from this entire situation had leaked into every area of my life. i was doing poorly at work, every person in my life was telling me how i needed to get out asap because this shit was bad for my health and they had watched my mental health deteriorate because of it but i really didn’t want to move, i had lived there and known these people for so long. after chatting with other people who have bpd who are in therapy and live an emotionally healthy life, they told me that what really helps people with bpd is if you are honest with them and encourage them to seek treatment, as well as setting clear boundaries around their behavior. i was the closest person to her at the time, so i wanted to be honest with her and try to help, i wrote both of my roommates long text messages explaining how i felt and what my boundaries were moving forward. they did not take this well! they started justifying their behavior to eachother, and made me out to be the villain in the story. A told B that i told other people she had bpd, which i did do! but i did that because i needed support and advice, and I also couldn’t handle the horrible treatment i was receiving, the weight of all of this was extremely heavy. not because i was trying to “turn people against her”, as they were trying to make it seem like. this is a real life adult issue, not some petty sides picking bullshit, and i genuinely needed support because everything that was happening was making me feel insane and extremely stressed out. I even previously asked A not to say anything to B to make the situation worse and that at this point I just wanted to have conversations surrounding solution, but i think A was being strategic in telling B things that she knew would make her upset. B was upset that I told people what was going on and accused me of being manipulative. i honestly understand why she would be upset about that, it’s a very stigmatized disorder and it wasn’t really my place to share that information. but i also told these people those things in confidence, i didn’t expect them to tell her i said anything to try to make the situation worse. and i also only told people that i trusted and honestly i just wanted help and support and an outside perspective and to express my feelings. after i sent the long text messages to my roommates, (i let B read hers in person so we could have open dialogue and A hers while she was in rehab so she could talk about it in therapy) (also i know that long text messages are not the best way to communicate and work through issues, im going to avoid doing that in the future) B’s response was basically something like, yeah i have bpd and yes I was projecting my shit onto you and lashing out at you, but I used to do way worse things to people. but thank you for typing this out and i’m gonna start going to therapy and working on it. she also said something like “well. friendships are through the good, the bad, and the ugly. sorry that you saw my ugly side!” like. okay. a real apology would be nice lol. in the days after this, i ended up having a huge mental crisis from all of the overwhelming stress and could not function properly, i had to go to the hospital. once i got back from the hospital, all I wanted to do was work on myself. i started creating distance from them and going back to therapy and al anon, and really started trying to pull my own shit together. i apologized for telling other people and said that I wouldn’t tell anyone again, and i didn’t. A’s sibling and i suggested that we go to family therapy so that we could have healthier relationships, A’s parents even offered to pay for it, but it never actually happened. things were kind of okay for the next few months. i wasn’t as close to either of them, but i was okay with that because I needed space and to be able to focus on myself. i talked about it a lot with a therapist, and i was essentially trying to maintain the friendships in a non codependent way. i honestly just kept to myself for a while and started taking a lot more alone time. forgot to mention, another reason they were mad at me was because I was going to move out on short notice (before i went to the hospital), but I also was going to find someone to fill the room to make the process less stressful for them, and i was vetting people to make sure they would be a good fit, and i wanted A and B to meet and approve of the person. i needed to get out of there as fast as possible, but i wanted to put effort into finding someone compatible with them. i already had a place to go lined up, but it fell through before we found anyone else (the stress of trying to move also contributed to me going to the hospital and the situation i was going to go into seemed great at first but turned out to be a complete mess), and i also felt really guilty and horrible, so i ended up staying and trying to repair and maintain the relationships while also taking adequate alone time and upholding my boundaries. anyways, a few months pass, all i have been doing at this point is working on myself and going to work and coming home and chilling, there hasn’t really been much conflict besides the normal A being a passive aggressive asshole (which she always has been. looking back, i don’t even know how i was friends with someone like this) and B would still say disturbing things every once in a while, such as comparing me to past friendships that didn’t work out, and at one point she even flipped the narrative subtly to make it seem like i “had an outburst for no reason”. (when she is actually the person who had the outbursts towards me), and generally just blame shifting a lot in subtle ways, saying I was the one who “changed the dynamics of the house”, even though all I did was set boundaries and take time for myself, plus, the previous dynamic obviously was not working. but honestly i was just kind of ignoring it. at this point the dynamic has been A and B spending most of their time together, (they also have a codependent friendship) and me mostly keeping to myself, but hanging out occasionally and being cordial in the apartment. I was okay with that because I really just wanted alone time anyways, and I made it clear to them that I need time to work on myself, which i was doing a lot of, and B started therapy so I thought we were all just kind of working on ourselves at this point and trying to move forward. so one day, A and B go back to A’s home state together for a week, i was honestly a bit upset by this because we originally planned to all go together, we have all always gone together in the past, and honestly i thought things were chill now that everyone was in therapy, plus we had hung out on purpose occasionally. nope! once they got back, they told me I had to move out! i was extremely upset by this. honestly i was at my wits end with their bullshit, especially since A had continued to be an asshole to me even when i was still being kind and normal to her. honestly i am glad I had to move out, my life is going to get a lot better now that I don’t have them in it, but I was still just like. pissed because honestly my only objective this entire time has been to exist in my house and also I just felt like it was unfair especially considering the fact that they were the ones who were causing the issues, although I do recognize my part in them. i was codependent AF and trying to fix my friends, enabling horrible things to happen in my life to the point of going actually insane, i had extremely poor boundaries in the name of trying to be a good friend, and i should have left a long long time ago. but anyways, when they told me I had to move out, i basically said that I agreed and that I didn’t want to live with them anymore, i slammed my door and blocked them both on instagram, i also removed all of my personal belongings from the common areas. thankfully, my real friends were all there for me during this time and letting me crash on their couches. i didn’t really want to be in the apartment. within the next few days, i started getting harassed over text by their friends and unfollowed by people who were associated with them. they started going on a smear campaign against me! their friends started harassing me over text, saying “you need the mental hospital. stop pissing in glasses and stop speaking on trans people. seek the maximum amount of help possible” so basically, at this point, they’re basically telling people things that are blatantly untrue. i have never pissed in a glass before, in fact, i know B has pissed in cups in her room for her whole life (probably where she got the idea from) besides, pissing in cups isn’t a crime! also, at this point, i thought we had already talked out and worked through the me telling people about B’s BPD. so i messaged them and I was like. “can you guys please stop slandering me. this has been a traumatizing situation for all of us. honestly i would prefer for this to be as smooth as possible. i have not pissed in a glass and i have no idea what i even said about trans people that was offensive or hurtful” and they responded by saying “we have proof you were misgendering me and the shit we found out was before A’s relapse and before we had a fight”. so basically, while they were on vacation, they went LOOKING for things to use against me. A’s relapse was 8 months ago at this point, why are you digging stuff up from back then to use against me now?? i also have no idea when i misgendered her, and it was obviously a complete accident. i went through every message i sent in the past year that had anything to do with her and couldn’t find any misgendering. at this point, i did not inquire further because I was sick of having to defend myself to someone who is committed to misunderstanding me and also manipulating the situation to make me seem like a bad person. honestly, i don’t care much about the smear campaign, because most of those people i didn’t really like anyway, and the ones i did who believed them, i know now that they’re not my real friends. (even though it’s the same people saying that the way I was treated by A through her addiction was incredibly unfair to me, and asking why she is doing this to me, but how dare I be actually affected?!) although the saying i’m transphobic thing is really frustrating, especially considering the fact that i literally invited you to come here SO THAT YOU COULD TRANSITION and the fact that I am also non binary. but also, how are you going to come into my home after I invited you to move in with me out of the kindness of my heart, start yelling at me and attacking me constantly and disrespecting my boundaries, kick me out of MY OWN HOUSE, and then smear my name, saying things that are blatantly untrue, to people i knew for years BEFORE YOU MOVED IN, who I INTRODUCED YOU TO ???? anyways, B went into my room while i was at work and took all of her artwork off my walls, which i don’t care about the artwork, but her going into my room made me really uncomfortable, so I installed a lock on my door until I could move out. B also ripped my mentor at the tattoo shop’s artwork off of the walls, stole it, and when i demanded it be returned it was returned to me vandalized. (she knows that my mentor wants the best for me and supports me in many areas of my life). so at this point, i’m being harassed and my items are being stolen. i had to get out of there asap, at this point it was a safety concern, it has honestly been a safety concern this entire time. so I ended up finding a place that’s the same amazing price and great quality in the area that’s still close to my jobs with people who are actually healthy and normal!!! and i moved out a month before I was supposed to because my mom and the rest of my support system agreed that it was not safe for me to stay another month, i didn’t tell them that I was moving early because I knew they would damage my things. It took me 2 days to move, and the night in between me moving, they stole my bike and put it out on the street. and A admitted that she did it out of spite because I moved early. so I stole some things back to get even and I also did not repaint or repair the room like I was supposed to, (i was going to originally before my bike was stolen) but I left her my deposit to cover the repainting etc. i also unfortunately dumped old protein shake on the floor out of pettiness and hatefulness. i am not normally like that but I was FUMING. that was definitely that angriest i have ever been in my life. i ended up paying the rent for the month I wasn’t there. But A still decided to message me on facebook, where I forgot to block her and send me an invoice with a bunch of “damages” to the apartment, demanding that I send her $1700 to get the entire floor replaced, new doors, etc. her numbers were ridiculous, it was a bunch of bullshit and I told her that i wasn’t paying it, to never contact me again, and blocked her. her parents pay her rent, it’s not about the money for her it’s about being a vindictive and entitled bully. plus, i really don’t owe her shit at this point. anyways, i have learned a lot of lessons from all this and am working on acknowledging my part in all of these issues and am going to start going to codependents anonymous to start rebuilding my life. obviously i have a lot to learn and work on within myself, and i was not perfect throughout this, even though my only intentions were to be there for my friends and exist in my own house. honestly i never want to see either of these people again! i hate them both so deeply for making my safe space unsafe, and for everything else they’ve done to me, including making my PTSD incredibly worse. and from now on I am going to leave friendships WHEN ITS TIME instead of dragging it out, and hopefully now I can choose better friends and have stronger boundaries, and in the future when tough situations arise i will be more equipped to respond in better ways. hopefully i never have to go through anything like this again!!

I can't find if Ugritone, ToonTrack, etc drum kit packs allow you to access the WAVs or if the sounds only work in their dedicated VST. Having a hard time finding acoustic multisample WAV packs for doom/stonesludge drum kits (including cymbals), just want something huge.
I'm using an iPad w/Digistix 2 + a pad controller to try and play realistic-sounding drums. I do not want to use my PC and EZ/Superior Drummer, Addictive Drums, etc isn't available for iPad. Digistix 2 offers up to 5 samples per pad and velocity/round-robin/random triggering so looking for multisamples. I've found a few that offer kick/snare/tom but I'd like a whole kit pack with cymbals, ideally something affordable, don't care if I have to process it a bit as I'm using Loopy Pro w/plug-ins.
So far I've found the ToonTrack/Ugritone packs but can't tell if I can access the WAV files, Jens Bogren drums (WAV packs don't include cymbals), and DrumWerks Bay Area Drums packs but they don't sound as big as the other ones but would be affordable for a bunch of samples I just can't find any reviews.
Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

Hello everyone I hope youre all having a great day. I would like to recommend this book "The Freedom Model for Addictions" as it has helped me a lot in getting rid of my addictions and being free.
I once felt hopeless and had no idea how to stop my addiction because I believed that it controlled me and that I couldn't stop even If I wanted to.
I was told I must stop or else it would destroy my life and also was told at the same time that it would be the only thing that could bring me pleasure or entertainment nothing else could. I tried avoiding all triggers like stress and other triggers this was hard as stress and these other triggers were everywhere in life and is a normal part of life so I couldn't completely avoid it.
I nearly lost hope in everything until I read the book I recommended, the book taught me that I had control and that I wasn't hopeless and that I could stop my addiction. As I read it I felt better and better I had more control over my life and no longer felt trapped.
After a while of studying the book, I managed to stop all my addictions and moderate other compulsive behaviors depending on what they were I felt free no cravings, and no need to avoid triggers anymore even when I saw what was once triggers I didn't feel controlled by it.
That's why id love to recommend this book to anyone who wants to give it a try I wish everyone the best and have a great day.

Hello everyone I hope youre all having a great day. I would like to recommend this book "The Freedom Model for Addictions" as it has helped me a lot in getting rid of my addictions and being free.
I once felt hopeless and had no idea how to stop my addiction because I believed that it controlled me and that I couldn't stop even If I wanted to.
I was told I must stop or else it would destroy my life and also was told at the same time that it would be the only thing that could bring me pleasure or entertainment nothing else could. I tried avoiding all triggers like stress and other triggers this was hard as stress and these other triggers were everywhere in life and is a normal part of life so I couldn't completely avoid it.
I nearly lost hope in everything until I read the book I recommended, the book taught me that I had control and that I wasn't hopeless and that I could stop my addiction. As I read it I felt better and better I had more control over my life and no longer felt trapped.
After a while of studying the book, I managed to stop all my addictions and moderate other compulsive behaviors depending on what they were I felt free no cravings, and no need to avoid triggers anymore even when I saw what was once triggers I didn't feel controlled by it.
That's why id love to recommend this book to anyone who wants to give it a try I wish everyone the best and have a great day.

I have a social media addiction. I took a break for a while but got back on it and remembered why i took that break
The shitty part about taking a break is you forget that so many people use it to message. So i need it every now and then so i try to limit it to my PC instead of my phone
BUT the thumb i wanted to vent about was the increase in racism and these life standards on Instagram. I used to think it didn't affect or bother me until i stepped back and realized oh fuck I'm actually depressed by this. And it's disgusting that Instagram actually encourages this kind of behavior for engagement
I saw a video of a black kid breaking a long jump record in his high school and the comment section was full of people making jokes calling him the n word this, or him being job less or monkey gifs. Like this is a highschooler.... Doing well in something he worked here for and just because he's black the comment section was ruthless
And it's not like that for any race and gotten noticably worse over time
Social media developers need to be accountable for the addictive algorithm they've developed (it's designed to trigger small dopamine releases in your brain) And for designing their platform to increase rage in their users ( it's been proven that rage is great for engagement)

I’m not really even sure where to begin with this post. I’m a 37/F who grew up in a pretty dysfunctional household. Dad was a physically abusive narcissist with addiction issues who walked out of my life when I was 8 (blessing in disguise). I was raised by my Mom who came from a journey of abuse between her parents as well as enduring the same with my dad of 18 years. I actually spent my entire childhood on great terms with her. We struggled financially and she never surrounded herself with the right men but she always did her best (or so I thought) and because of that we had a great relationship until I turned 19 when her last long term relationship of 12 years finally ended. It seemed at this point she decided to take life’s frustrations out on me and I could do no right. One of the first signs of my Mom being a narcissist that I’ll never forget I was never allowed to do chores but was always a tidy and clean kid. My Mom one day had just finished doing the dishes and I had just finished eating a meal where I placed my dish in the sink. This seemingly enraged her verbally attacking me for not doing dishes but then proclaiming I’m not allowed to do them. Talk about confusing.
I was going to school full time, working part time (20+ hours a week) and barely affording anything for myself and she started taking things away from me little by little when she would find out I’d even be making remotely a little more than I had been. While I look back and am thankful she did these things because it gave me the perseverance I needed to be a financially responsible adult, what was shocking in this demand by her was how she paid for every man who was ever in her life who outright abused and used her. Yet heres her only child trying to do the right thing by going to university while working and barely keeping my head above water. She knew I couldn’t work more because I was already going to school full time but would find ways to try to control me from being able to get ahead. Long story short I put up with that for 1 year before dropping out of school, getting a full time job and moving out so I could regain control of my life. Outside of ending up in a not great relationship during this time, it was the best thing I ever did and thankfully persevered by getting my degree online while working, putting a roof over my head and not going into debt.
I was fully independent by 20. My Mom and my relationship continued to ride a wave of volatility from that point forward. She also started becoming more and more unhinged with everyone in her life cutting out people left and right and always with no real rhyme or reason. I mean… I guess there would be valid reasons of upset on her part but zero ability for her to communicate them or take any accountability on how she aided in them. When she was done with someone she would make them out to be the worst villain in the world nearly overnight, attack them via text and then that was that. God forbid I even thought about remaining close with anyone who did her “wrong”. That would then be held over my head for years and now I’m being attacked without any warning how I take everyone else’s side but hers or that I’m just like them followed by every other kind of beratement you can think of.
It’s now 17 years later. I’ve gone through a lot of therapy since my early 20s. It never occurred to me until a few years ago my mom is a narcissist because I grew up with an image of her being used by everyone and not the other way around. My outlook of narcissists was always them being obvious takers. Every motive is always with an obvious selfish intent. However I’ve realized just how wide of a spectrum being a narcissist really is and how some people can hide these traits quite well.
I’m not going to lie, when my Mom had these tantrums and episodes throughout the years they would trigger the hell out of me to a point where I would take the bait, lash out and then be absolutely disappointed with my reaction and behaviors. Yes she was mentally and emotionally abusing me in those moments but that’s no excuse either. I should have known better and not given her any satisfaction of the fight she so clearly would want to have only for the next day she would act like nothing happened until 2 weeks ago…
2 weeks ago she came out of left field with the accusations and attacking of my character again. Bringing up people who are still in my life that she cut out of hers (the same story I’ve heard 100x). Making herself a victim that I don’t do anything for her but do for everyone else and that I just use her (which could not be further from the truth). Except this time I didn’t react (at least not how I have in the past when she has these episodes). This time I let her have her feelings. I told her I’m not even arguing anymore. If she really feels that way about me she’s entitled to it. Well that really set her off. She then started playing games of “remove me from your phone plan” or “remove me from your Spotify and tv streaming service accounts”. My response was honoring her wishes. Then she sent me a massive box of things she had for me. My response was sending her money to cover the postage so she couldn’t hold it over my head. Now she wants a coffee pot she left at my house because she can’t find another one and I can just leave it outside and she will pick it up.
Tonight I decided to tell her how I can’t believe it has come to this and that I hope she’s truly happy in her choices of removing me from her life like she has everyone else that I was disturbed and confused by the past 2 weeks chain of events. Of course I knew it wouldn’t register. I sent what I said for my own peace of mind knowing full well she wouldn’t actually “hear” any of it. She responded exactly as I knew she would projecting her own actions on me with no ability to explain herself. That I’m the one who did this etc. and that I should know better by now that when she’s done with people she’s done and only because she’s taken years of abuse from them.
And while I know through all my therapy how it is she who is the unhealthy one I’m still left in this weird state of feeling shocked, hurt and yet relieved. I also feel very bad for my Mom because I know the life she’s had was horrible in her growing years which was no fault of her own. Or that she has MS which is no fault of her own. And that she has pretty much no one in her life (the one thing that is a fault of her own). And that’s why I let her continue to pull these stunts for as long as I have because I understand why she is the way that she is, even though it doesn’t make it right that she never dealt with her unhealed trauma or looked to find ways to healthily navigate negative feelings or conversations.
If you’re still here, thank you for reading. I guess I’m on here typing this out (which is truly just scratching the damn surface on all that’s transpired) wondering who here has been through this with a parent that didn’t seem to have narcissistic qualities growing up, then as an adult you were the prime target of them. I’m just so confused and while I know this is good for me why do I feel guilty? There’s also a part of me that’s feeling some grief in this.

If you do not have time to read this, or would like a video explanation for this article that will help you understand this better, here is the link (the video also includes images and illustrations on this topic):
https://youtu.be/j22858Uq0Lw
Today we are discussing the event of a RELAPSE. WHY does it happen, WHAT to do when it happens, and HOW to transform a relapse into even more motivation and drive to BREAK the addiction of pornography once and for all.
Foreword.
Before we dive in, I want to PERSONALY thank EACH and EVERY single one of you Warriors who is part of the Ultimate Man Community and are taking ACTION in order to see RESULTS in your own life (You know who you are.) Thank you.
The concepts and strategies discussed in this article are made for individuals who already are familiar in regards to what is happening to an individual’s BRAIN and the what process an individual goes through when battling the addiction to pornography. If you are NOT aware of how these concepts work and are not familiar with what is happening to YOU in regards to porn addiction. Please, review the following material BEFORE you read this. You can find a link to that material here:
https://www.reddit.com/UltimateMan/comments/1d8bd4o/understanding_your_brain_and_the_primal_drive_of/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
You have RELAPSED.
It seemed as if everything was going fine, you were abstaining from sexually explicit material, made yourself a promise that you will be STRONG and get through this. Yet, now you are here, sitting alone, hating yourself for what happened. Well, what happened?
By now you are aware (you have clicked and gone through ALL the other material before reading this, right?) that over time of excessive stimulation, your brain has become accustomed to the process of receiving HUGE amounts of dopamine, and has fallen into the habit of CONTINOUS “injection” of this huge amount of dopamine in order to DRIVE motive and behavior of the individual.
You are also aware (by now) that over time of this repetitive behavior your brain has started building up defenses in order to PROTECT itself from irreparable damage by releasing enzymes that BLOCK the receptors that RELEASE and ABSORB the rewarding “feel good” chemicals that drives and motivates an individual to self-improve and increase the status/value in society which eventually leads to SURVIVAL and REPRODUCTION (Again, if none of this is making sense to you, it is STRONGLY encouraged to first EDUCATE yourself on these concepts before moving forward in order to get the MOST out of this material.)
It is CRUCIAL to understand this in order to understand the process the individual goes through RIGHT before they relapse.
What happened?
When you brain cannot ASBORB the “feel good” chemicals that drive self-improvement and pleasure in life, the individual starts getting the feelings of depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, etc. This places the individual in the FIGHT/FLIGHT response that is instilled in humans by NATURE throughout millions of years of running away from danger or tackling challenges head on in order to increase chances of SURVIVAL and REPRODUCTION.
In this case, the SHORTEST path to feeling “alive” again is to what? Open up your private page, close the door, look back to make sure no one is looking and to TRICK your brain into thinking that you are doing what you need to do in order to SURVIVE and REPRODUCE (Notice I said TRICKING, because that is EXACTLY what you are doing in the moment. None of the shit that you are doing is actually REAL or is benefiting you in any shape or form.)
Yet, when you decide to abstain from this trickery, your brain now perceives you to now lower your “value”, lower your social class, lower your standards, since now you don’t have access to the “hot, prime, healthy” women that your brain was TRICKED into believing you had access to and “attracting” this whole time. Does that mean that everything is automatically reversed and now your brain knows EXACTLY what happened? No.
Since your brain has been trained all these years to produce an overstimulated response (HUGE amounts of dopamine) in order to reproduce. It now has the same response to ANY sexual stimulation or “trigger” events that give it an IDEA that it is about to reproduce. Hence, the URGE to GET the huge amounts of dopamine become very evident and the individual goes through a psychotic event in order to give the brain what it “wants.”
Notice I placed the “wants” word in quotes. Your brain does not know ANY other way to receive this reward chemical other than THIS stimulation, since it has been TRAINED over MANY years to only get this “feel good” chemical through artificial “trickery” and not ACTUAL activities that promote healthy drive of an individual to self-improve and actually RAISE their value in order to ATTRACT higher quality individuals in order to TRULY reproduce higher quality genes and therefore increase chances of SURVIVAL. (Makes sense? Following me so far?)
THIS, is what your OWN brain does in order to get you to start thinking “Hmm, maybe this ONE time.”, “One time wouldn’t hurt, right?”, “Okay, after this I will NEVER go back.” (Can you relate?) Your OWN brain starts LYING to you in order to get what it “thinks” it “wants.” Hence, at first you start trying to convince yourself to WHY it is OKAY to go BACK to what got you HERE in the first place. Welcome to the direct definition of the word “Addicted” – Being physically and ~MENTALLY~ dependent on a particular substance, and UNABLE to stop taking it without ~incurring~ adverse effects.
Do you now understand what is happening and how this adult media industry is MASS producing a whole GENERATION of literal ADDICTS?
What do I do now?
Understand that it happened, you cannot change the past, you can only move forward. An incredible skill set that you have without even realizing is the skill of learning from your own mistakes. You understand that you can no longer control your past yet you can control EVERY aspect of your future.
Realize that, and USE it. Start thinking of what SPECIFIC steps got you to relapse in the first place. For example:
1.) “I started thinking of looking at Instagram pages of celebrities or porn stars”, “I started looking at TikTok short videos of girls/boys/individuals, that got me to start building up sexual tension”, “I was looking at a Snapchat that was sent to me” etc. Where did it begin?
2.) “I found myself now opening up more tabs, locking the door, closing the window blinds to feel more isolated and alone. “
3.) “Next thing I know, I have tissues in my hand and lotion all over the place thinking “What, happened?”
Go through EVERY SINGLE STEP that got you to where you are right now, think about what state of MIND you were in BEFORE this happened, and the state of mind AFTER it happened. Keep notes, mental observations, whatever will help you REMEMBER this.
To those who are familiar with my story (If you are NOT familiar with it, here is a link: https://www.reddit.com/UltimateMan/comments/1da0f2g/my_nofap_journey_in_graphic_detail/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) know that I have relapse TWICE in my NoFap journey and can tell you that this is what I did in order to continue fighting through.
On my FIRST relapse, I was LYING to myself trying to just “edge” it out, “train” myself to “last” longer, ANYTHING that my Brain was trying to convince MYSELF that a relapse would be “beneficial” (notice how the brain will try to LIE to its OWN self to get what it wants)
Yet, notice what I did afterwards (direct quote from the “My NoFap Journey. (In GRAPHIC detail) article linked above”:
“What is interesting is after the first relapse, I noticed that I started getting less attention from individuals around me, my energy has dropped, and it was more difficult for me to work out.”
I started OBSERVING, how I was BEFORE, and how I was AFTER the relapse. Do the same, see the clear difference. We will discuss why that is CRUCIAL as we move forward.
Moving on, live life with those steps in mind and CHECK yourself before they happen. What will that lead to?
This will lead to you taking a LONGER amount of time before your next relapse event OR even get you to never relapse again.
Now, what if some time has passed, you were being “strong” and catching yourself in events that lead you to relapse, yet somehow you STILL relapsed. What should you do? (I am glad you asked.)
How to transform a relapse into more MOTIVATION and DRIVE.
What do most “Manosphere”, and “NoFap” communities instill in others? “Touch your cock reset the clock”, “Do not relapse or else you will undo ALL the progress of NoFap”, “Relapse, start from 0”.
Well, let me tell you something, that is all a fucking LIE. Hence why I am starting to question all of the IDIOTS in these communities. Now, let me clarify. Does it make it easier for most individuals to get it through their fucking skull to NOT jack themselves off into oblivion? Yes. Does it help instill fear into those individuals to NEVER touch their dick again, yes it does help. Yet, is it TRUE? NO, ITS NOT. Here is why. (Get ready.)
As time goes on from an individual abstaining from ANY sexually explicit material, your brain starts to SLOWLY chisel away at the defense enzymes that it has built up over YEARS of the same behavior, more of the receptors starts absorbing more and more dopamine/serotonin as the individual IMPROVES.
Remember there are BILLIONS upon BILLIONS of these receptors. If the individual OVER TIME of abstaining DOES relapse? Does that now mean that ALL of these RECEPTORS are now once again “fortified”? NO, NO IT DOES NOT.
Yes, there are a couple “million” of them that DO get fortified since the brain does respond to the event of overstimulation yet there are still MORE of the receptors that are starting to absorb dopamine (watch the video mentioned in the beginning of this article to help illustrate this.)
What does this mean? It means that if you abstain from overstimulation for a month, and then relapse, it does NOT mean that you are automatically BACK on day 1. This means that yes, you will get your brain to go back to its previous state TEMPORARILY yet it does NOT mean that you are starting all the way at day 1 when you first decided to “never” again watch porn and masturbate. Does this make sense?
How do we use this to our advantage?
Now you know that if over time you DO relapse, it is NOT the end of the world, and it does NOT mean you are starting from “Day 1”
Yet, in no way shape or form should you use theses statements to give you a reason to overstimulate yourself. Let me repeat that again: Do NOT use this as an “excuse” to continuously “relapse” and get your brain to where it was beforehand.
On the other hand, understand that if you DO relapse, you are NOT starting from Day 1 again.
Alright, moving on. From your FIRST relapse, notice the difference in the life before, and life after and take NOTES in regards to your journey. (Or post your observations in the Ultimate Man community found here: https://www.reddit.com/UltimateMan/) either way works. Move FORWARD as it never happened and continue to ABSTAIN from ANY sexually explicit material as you did before.
Over time you will start noticing how your life is improving and driving you to continuously improve which eventually will lead you to see “the light at the end of the tunnel” yet if you are like me and months later spontaneously relapse AGAIN. Here is what you will notice:
1.) You will CLEARLY see how your own BRAIN has deceived you once again (Taking the steps mentioned earlier to what LED you to this relapse in the first place.)
2.) You will CLEARLY see how your life was right before the relapse and how DRAMATICALLY it changes in a negative direction after the event of a relapse. (If you read the “My NoFap Journey (In GRAPHIC detail)” article, I refer to this as “Before looking at life from the lens of an addict into the life of an individual who has a healthy desexualized brain, and now looking into the life of an individual who has a “healthier” desexualized brain into a life of an addict.”)
This will be a CLEAR line between who you were and who you are becoming, which WILL give you and even BIGGER reason to NEVER go back again. Just like it did for me.
Conclusion
Now that you are more familiar with the process of a relapse is it now clear to WHY it happens? WHAT to do when you DO relapse? and HOW to turn a relapse into even MORE motivation and drive to get through the NoFap process?
Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to answer your questions in the best possible way I can. Please let me know if there are still some areas that perhaps I did not cover and I will sure to do my best to cover them in the next article/video.

hey i’ve been sober a good little amount of time, coming up on 9 months. i’m genuinely and generally extremely happy in sobriety and in life. i’m still very young and it feels as if i’ve been able to press the “play” button on my life and i’m finally able to be who i want to be.
i have never experienced cravings, at least not since i got out of the initial withdrawal stage of treatment. i’ve had a couple unfortunate instances of accidental alcohol consumption (be VERY careful ordering drinks overseas, and ALWAYS have someone else taste it for you first!!! -_-) but even that didn’t trigger any cravings. they just made me feel gross.
anyways, recently, probably in the past month or so, i’ve had around one or two intense, vivid dreams per week in which i drink wine or take shots of vodka, exactly how i did in active addiction. i usually can’t taste whatever i consume in dreams, but in these dreams, i could taste the alcohol…feel the burn…and feel the effects of it. i even dreamt i blacked out. i’m not sure how the hell it happened, but it did.
i’m concerned because i’m a bit superstitious about dreams in general, and i’m absolutely terrified of relapse. i’ve had a bunch of dreams come true in my life. i know for a fact that if i began drinking again, and i went back to the amount that i was drinking, i’d die or put myself in a coma. every time that i’ve woken up from these dreams, i’ve checked around me to make sure i didn’t accidentally sleep drink or anything. i’m just not sure why my brain is torturing me like this. i don’t miss alcohol at all, but it sure is pleasant in my dreams. i don’t know why it has to be so damn vivid. does anyone else deal with this? i feel insane!

I just want to preface this by saying I'm sorry if this isn't the subreddit for this, I don't use reddit that often and I don't know where else to put this. Also trigger warning for topics like self harm, sexual assault, and grooming.
I'm a minor (16 FtM) and my mom is trying to put me in therapy for a variety of reasons. This came about because we agreed a year ago that if she allowed me to get testosterone then I would have to see a therapist, but since this was something I wasn't super keen on, she hasn't made me go. That's changed recently because I've been struggling more with depression and I've recently opened up to her about past self harm since its getting warmer and I've wanted to wear shorts and swim trunks and I didn't want her to freak out at the sudden reveal. I think that might have been the final kicker because she's agreed to let me see a therapist friend of hers once a month. This could take a while to go into effect because she's a very busy person and while I do have a step-father, he doesn’t help out with that kind of thing.
Anyway, I've agreed to go, but if I'm going to go I don't want to keep secrets about my past trauma from my therapist. I want to heal and get better but I'm worried about getting CPS involved because I was groomed and sexually assaulted by my father from the ages of around 6 to 11. I don't live with him anymore and haven't lived with him for three or four years now, but he still has legal claim over me. I also don't have proof of him treating me inappropriately besides my own word, so a lawsuit or investigation would be pointless. I've also struggled with alcohol addiction from around 14 to 15 because of this trauma, and that's something I feel like I also need to unpack in therapy. But that's something that happened with my mom and step-father and I don't want them to get any heat for child neglect.
I don't think removing me from my parent's care would benifit me in anyway, especially since I'm transgender and live in the Midwest, so foster care can be especially threatening for someone like me. I'm also worried about potentially going to a mental hospital if I'm honest about my self harming tendencies or thoughts of suicide. I'm not a danger to myself, it's just something I'm really anxious about. So, is there anyway I can talk about this to my therapist without anything going wrong? How can I work through this stuff without getting CPS involved?
TL;DR, I was groomed and sexually assaulted by my father (who I don't live with) and I want to bring it up in therapy without getting CPS involved.