Went to Panda Express today and the lady working there goes, “I've seen you two days this week, wow!”

MA'AM???? 😭😭

I didn't realize we were keeping attendance. And now, my fat ass has become such a regular that the employees are starting to notice patterns in my behavior.

Anyways, I'll see her tomorrow

Visited my mom at her care home, she has dementia but until recently she'd still recognize me after a few minutes. Today she asked why her daughter never comes to see her :( I've visited 3 times this week alone..

I told her that her daughter loves her very much and she just said I hope so :( it broke my heart.

I brought her some mandarins because she used to peel them for me after school when I was little. She didn't want any :(

I couldn't stomach a proper meal tonight knowing that she might spend the rest of her life thinking I abandoned her.

So this is dinner, a mandarin on a paper towel.

Dinner is baked lemon pepper cod, sauteed spinach, and some truly bangin' redskin mashed potatoes

Last night, after my husband was asleep, I was lying in bed reading. Not unusual, he always falls asleep before me.

All of a sudden, his phone starts buzzing with notifications. And it is blowing up. It got to the point where it was buzzing every couple of minutes for over an hour.

He didn't wake up from it, of course. That man could sleep through a damn tornado. But it was starting to irritate me, and I started to wonder if something was wrong. I mean, why else would he be getting so many notifications all of a sudden, late at night?

So I got up and checked his phone...

Not sure if y'all know this, but there was apparently a big sportsball game last night. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Evidently, the Brewers made it to the World Series, and my husband's very Midwestern uncle was group texting the entire family a play-by-play of the game. At 11:00 at night.

Thanks for the late-night anxiety, Uncle Jeff. 🤣

Avocado toast with bacon and scrambled eggs on homemade bread cuz sometimes ya gotta be bougie

Anyways. I had a baby 3.5 months ago and it’s has been the biggest delight but lawd have mercy my MIL is a nut.

For the last ten months she’s has been harping on wanting to have the baby a set day every week. Well now she’s decided that she did not sign up to be inconvenienced by having to pick bubs up every now and again.

Yes my darling, you read that right. This lady wants to have a set day of the week that my husband and I have to drive across town to drop the baby off and again to pick him up so she can play grandma without any inconvenience.

Now feels like a good time to mention I’m a therapist and take great delight in educating family on the reality of setting boundaries and the natural consequences that come with them. I’ll also note that we don’t need childcare either. This arrangement is entirely at her (annoyingly incessant) request.

So bestie if you’re still reading this let it be a reminder that you don’t have to turn yourself into a pretzel for people. Sometimes you just gotta smile and maliciously comply with the boundary they set.

As always, it’s a beautiful day to do hard things. You got this.

last night's dinner of papa john's jack-o-latern pizza, which I will be having for lunch today too. I know I could have saved the $12 and used it towards bills, but my daughter asked for pizza and I didn't have the energy to cook. Seeing her light up at a fun gimmicky pizza was awesome because I already tell her "no" to so many things.

I'm just so tired. I am at the point where I think about shoplifting more often than not to be able to provide basic necessities for my daughter, or giving up custody to the state because life is not getting any easier. Obviously not going to, because my child's biological father is already in prison and the last thing I need is a criminal record. I don't receive any type of child support, I make "too much" for SNAP, TANF, low-income housing according to social services. I make $21 an hour but it's part-time and capped at 29 hours a week for a job that "doesn't have the budget to make me full-time". My hours are getting cut because I can't work more than a certain amount in a calendar year and I'm close to hitting that limit. Plasma donation was going well at least making sure I could cover all of my bills, but then I lost weight and at 102 pounds, they will not let you donate plasma for safety reasons, gotta be at least 110 pounds to donate safely.

I just went through a 4 round/1 writing assignment interview schedule for a 4 year university and got rejected because they "went with another candidate" lmao. It felt like a kick to the gut. I'm still putting it applications any and everywhere I can. But I either get no calls back for interviews or just outright rejections by their AIs that review resumes. I've paid out of pocket for resume reviews. I have a bachelor's degree. I'd cry to make 40-45k a year at a full-time job and have PTO and not be at the whims of my supervisor and their moods. No one is hiring. I'd even go work retail or fast food if it meant a full-time job with benefits

I budget down to the penny, I shop at aldi and lidl. I use my local buy nothing group. I go to TWO different food banks every month, but they keep giving out less and less. Most days, I'm surviving on peanut butter sandwiches and canned vegetables. Not because that's what I want to eat but that's because that is what the food banks are giving out. I haven't bought ground beef in months, chicken and turkey are rare treats each week. And now our rent is going up. Again. It's getting to the point where one entire paycheck won't even cover the roof over our heads. An entire paycheck, gone, and I'll still owe more before I can even begin thinking about electricity, groceries, gas, or anything else we need to get through the month. I don't know how I'm supposed to keep making the numbers work when they simply don't add up anymore. I can't budget my way out of not having enough money to begin with. How can I take care of my daughter when shit just isn't adding up? I can't not buy groceries, I can't NOT pay my electric bill or put gas in my car. Some days I just want to say fuck it and rage quit and blow up my life and some days the thought of it never getting better makes me want to unalive myself. Having to tell my kid no over and over that we can't do fun things like go to the movies, or trampoline park or having to decline her classmates birthday parties because I can't afford a gift for them or even the gas to drive her there and pick her back up

I want to be able to fill up my gas tank without it overdrafting my account. I want to be able to pay my rent in one go and my electric bill at the same time and not constantly pay late fees on top of the bills themselves. I want to be able to doordash lunch at least once a week like I see my supervisor doing 3-4x a week instead of just not eating lunch at my desk and drinking the free coffee we have and ignoring my stomach hurting. Holy shit I want to be able to take my kid on an actual vacation. I want to be able to buy my kid the Christmas gifts she wants without having to go through toys for tots or other charities. Things are not getting better, and I am so tired of struggling. Had I known 9 years later I would be in this bad of a place and struggling THIS much I would have given her up for adoption. Its not fair to her to live in poverty and have a mom barely making it. I know I'm not the only one struggling but I just feel beat down and tired. I'm only 27 and really thought life would be different for me, for us. I'm just waiting for the day my daughter tells me she hates me because I just fucking suck at taking care of her. I know logically she isn't better off without me, I don't even want to be rich. I just want to make a stable income and be able to afford the basic necessities and maybe some fun stuff on the weekends or over her summer break. Or to be able to cover emergency expenses. Life is just way harder than it needs to be

My children's dad is the type of person who has very little tolerance for other people's carelessness.

Over the years, this has caused some friction between him and our kids, particularly our eldest who is sometimes quite chaotic.

He'll wake up late, or forget to pack his lunch, or forget to clean his boots, or his room, things like that.

His dad will rant and rage, he'll raise his voice, he'll criticise him, but ultimately, he steps in and fixes the problem.

I don't get angry. I don't raise my voice. I talk to him and we match expectations, and then I let him live with the consequences of his own inactions.

Woke up late? Better go fast on that bike of yours.

Didn't pack your lunch? Going to be rough, being hungry at the end of the day.

Didn't clean your boots? Enjoy dirty boots.

Didn't clean your room? Being embarrassed by your friends seeing your collection of dirty socks and underwear sure must suck.

I'm calm, and collected, but I say no, and honestly, he's growing like that. He's gotten so much better over the past year alone.

But because I'm always so calm and never raise my voice, he was under the impression that I was a super laid-back parent.

It wasn't until this morning when he asked if I could pack his lunch and I said no that the thought struck him, and he was shaken to his core.

"OH MY GOD!! You're the strict parent!!"

Dinner is slow-cooked beef stew with veg from my own garden.

Edit to add:

Jesus Fucking Christ.

My kid eats breakfast at 8, has snacks in his backpack, cup noodles if he's desperate, and then he comes home at 2 to a full meal like the one in the picture.

He might feel peckish at midday, but he'll live. If that 2 hours of mild tummy rumbling that happens maybe once every 2 weeks or once a month makes me a child abuser, then so be it.

My kid is 16. Not 6 years old. He is old enough to get more independent, and he wants to get more independent. He knows himself well enough to know that as long as I give him an easy way out, he will take it. He doesn't want to be enabled, even if he sometimes whines about the consequences of that for 30 seconds.

He himself thinks it's fair, and is more than happy. We have talked about this extensively, and do so continuously, because his growth and happiness are important to me. If either he or myself didn't think he could handle it, we would find another solution.

My son is happy, he's thriving academically, socially, and emotionally. He's a bit distracted because he's a teenager, and he has a outrageous anounts of hormones flooding his brain.

Again; he's 16. He's old enough to have an opinion about his own mental health, and he's old enough to have bodily autonomy.

For the ones who are very outraged that I haven't had him diagnosed with ADHD; I can't actually force him to get diagnosed. I also don't have access to his medical records because he's old enough to decide for himself in the eyes of the country we live in

TW for brief descriptions of DV, child abuse, suicide and death.

Tl;dr My mother spent my childhood suing the people responsible for leaving my sister severely disabled and maimed, often leaving me and my two older brothers alone with our abusive father while she was at the hospital getting things documented with my sister. My sister was awarded $8–15 million, but she’s now on hospice. My eldest brother died by suicide because of the trauma we endured, and my surviving brother turned to drugs. My mother just told me about the lawsuit and the money, which my brothers knew nothing about. Because of my family’s circumstances, I’ll inherit it all when my sister dies. My mother made that choice. My surviving brother has no idea.

I grew up extremely poor. My family lived below the poverty line. Two older brothers, an older sister and me. My sister was maimed and left severely disabled after an incident, by the fault of people charged with protecting her. I won’t go into detail about it, as it’s extremely identifiable and I don’t need anybody recognising me. But it decreased her life expectancy to just years, a decade or two at most, and her quality of life is abysmal.

I always wondered why my mother never sued. I used to ask her and get some vague answers about how it only would’ve made our lives harder, and they were just trying to pick up the pieces and carry on. But it made me resentful, admittedly.

My sister was always the favourite, all the extra attention went into her, my mother would disappear with her for months at a time taking her to specialised programs and treatments at world class hospitals across our country or even in other countries—leaving the other three of us with our severely abusive father and no money left for a second or third meal of the day.

My sister was spared the abuse by virtue of how disabled and sick she was. One of my brothers learned early on how to shut up and keep his head down. But my other brother and I… we got it really bad. One particularly bad concussion left my brother with cluster headaches at 13.

That same year, after 10 horrific years spent with him, my mother uprooted all us kids and we moved across the country in the middle of the night to a small town where he’s unable to find us. But the damage was already done.

My brother developed addictions to try and manage the pain from his cluster headaches, and deal with the trauma he lived with from the abuse we suffered. He confided in me at one point that he’d been offered a place in a trial that had promising results for cluster headache sufferers, and he wanted to take it. Then he found out it wasn’t covered by healthcare yet. With how sick and disabled our sister is, and how she’s always been the favourite, the focus, he did what we had been trained to—he… left the trial. Because he didn’t want to ask our mother for any money that we had been taught should go to my sister instead.

If we were expected to give up meals so she could be part in random trials around the world, then how could he ever justify taking part in a trial himself when my mother could use that money for something for my sister instead? We were so well trained by that point. My sister was so clearly the favourite. Her birthday was the passcode to everything, including the credit card PIN numbers. Every holiday was one she had chosen. And yes, weirdly enough, we managed to afford several holidays after we left my father and cut off our one income—in hindsight, this is one of the things that should’ve tipped me off. My mother didn’t work, but she said she had saved a lot from when she did, and we were living off the interest supposedly. That’s the story we got. My sister would get double the presents, she got to pick any pet we got, etc. So it went without saying that we grew up to believe everything in our lives needed to be directed around her, and therefore—no cluster headache trial.

He took his own life a few months later.

I grew up knowing my mother was getting older and increasingly unwell, and that I would eventually be expected to care for my sister. My other brother escaped into drugs and alcohol, too, so it fell to me.
I geared my life around it. I resented my sister for being the favourite, and sometimes thought horribly that if she’d died, my mother might have left our father sooner and spared us all that abuse.

But I love my sister. None of this is her fault. She doesn’t even know about any of it, and she loves us so, so much. So I dedicated my life to becoming the best possible caregiver for her.

I did healthcare courses, then went to uni for journalism and law. I’ve always wanted to be a journalist, but I know I’d make a good lawyer, and I need to earn enough to support the carousel of carers and medical professionals my sister requires.

I’ve always wanted to be an author, though. To actually use my voice for me for once. My life has always been dedicated to advocating for others. I was born with that job, but books and writing were my escape.

Alas, my sister comes first. So I went into law and journalism. Filled out the paperwork to apply for scholarships, because we’re still so poor. But the scholarships are assets and income tested, so I needed proof from my mother that we have no income except her piddly savings, which she told me were $40k at around that time—far below the half a million dollar threshold.

My mother put it off for weeks. Then my sister got extremely sick. Her heart is failing, and it’s filling her lungs with fluid. She stops breathing sometimes, and an alarm she’s hooked up to will go off, screaming through the house. And so my mother told me she had something to tell me.

They did sue. And when I was 10, they were awarded money. In exchange, the matter would be settled out of court, but no “settlement” would be exchanged—no admission of wrongdoing. An award of money. A donation. How philanthropic of the people who maimed my sister and will be her killers.

I won’t say the amount, but it’s between 8-15 million dollars awarded to my sister directly. The largest sum of money that had ever been awarded to any singular benefactor in the place we lived at that point in time. This money doesn’t include the individual awards given to my mother and father. Between half a million and a million each. My father put his in gold, apparently. My mother owns three plots of land—and our home. I knew about none of it. My cousins, my aunts, my uncles, family fucking friends knew. But not my brothers or I.

And because my sister is dying, that trust will dissolve soon. Apparently, the way it’s intended to work is that when the recipient dies, the trust dissolves and splits between the remaining immediate family members—my brothers, my parents and I. Except, my mother is still legally married to my POS father, and my brother is deep into drugs and gang activities. So my mother has spent the last several years going to court over and over, and consulting with an array of attorneys, to ensure that when my sister passes, the money only moves onto me.

I’ll inherit it all. I didn’t even fucking know about it a few months ago. My mother is confused that I’m so fucking gutted, and I can’t talk to any of my friends because how am I supposed to explain that becoming a millionaire is the worst thing to ever happen to me? I lost my childhood for this money. The lawyers told my mother that their best chance at winning if it went to court was if we met a standard of a picture-perfect family who were otherwise perfect, until the Incident. So my mother stayed with my father. The defence delayed everything constantly by pushing for more and more tests, insisting that evidence could be found to prove my sister wasn’t as bad off as my mother made her out to be.

So my mother had to keep taking her to all these different doctors around the country and around the world to have elaborate tests and treatments done, just to prove that nothing ever improved. Every holiday, every pet being picked by my sister is because everything was paid for by her. Her blood money. Every password, every PIN number being her birthday? Apparently it’s a reminder to my mother every time she buys something—this is paid for out of your daughter’s blood money, so do you really need it? They get a quarterly payment out of the trust, and my mother has to prove to the company where every dollar is spent. Which is why basic necessities were struggling to be covered for my siblings, but my sister was getting dozens of presents every Christmas. Every SINGLE thing in my life ties back to this stupid fucking money, and it’s the worst thing that could have happened to me.

Without it, I’d still have my brother. Without it, I’d have my sister. I’d have my other brother, not lost to drugs. We wouldn’t have been stuck with an abusive POS for a father. We would’ve been able to grow up with our mother. I could’ve followed my dreams. I could’ve gotten a scholarship I earned, and deserved, rather than a lame one simply because I don’t qualify for the others.

All of my drama-loving, leech cousins buddying up to me in recent years was because my aunt had shared with them about the money. My other aunt constantly trying to hold cherished childhood photos of my brothers hostage to force me into getting coffee with her or something when she couldn’t have cared less about my brother when he was alive, desperately trying to reach out to the little family we had left, isn’t because she had some wakeup call after his death—it’s because she knows about the money and who it’s going to go to. Fucking everybody knew, but my brothers and I, who aside from my sister, gave up the absolute most for this piece of shit blood money. It makes me sick. I hate all of them. I hate the money. I hate that my mother thought it was good compensation for the childhood we had. I hate that I wasted so, so many years resenting and hating my sister for being the favourite, the “spared”, the protected, all because I didn’t know what was actually going on, and now she’s dying and I’ll never get those years back with her. I hate that instead of my brother and sister, that’s all I’ll have. I hate that I’m in my second year of uni and nobody will understand why I’m crying over inheriting millions. I hate that it could’ve saved my brother. I hate that I’ve worked so hard all my life, suffered so much, graduated several years early and it’s all been for fucking money that I was lied to about. I can’t even earn my own goddamn scholarship that I fought for years for. I worked so hard for it just to be unable to apply because of this money that I didn’t earn at all.

Everyone chose to sacrifice us, making the executive decision for us that the money we would inherit would be decent enough compensation one day. I hate that I grew up poor while my sister grew up rich, and I hate that I understand my mother’s reasonings for most things, because the impact of them was so horrible at the time. The favouritism in hindsight… of course my sister should’ve been the one to choose everything. It’s her money. But nobody told us anything. In fact, they explicitly lied about it. My mother said she wanted us to live our own lives and create our own paths without the knowledge that we’d inherit millions one day—she didn’t want us depending on that. I hate that, seeing how my brother is now, I understand why she made that choice.

Because my brother, the one person who understands, who loves everything with me, the only one who could possibly conceptualise what a monumental betrayal and heartbreak this is… he’s not inheriting any of it. He gets nothing for his troubles, except a whole lot of trauma. And with the person he’s become, it is justified. He would just depend on the money, and see it as the world finally giving him what he deserves for his pain, then he’d use a good chunk on the first wild night and OD, with his luck. Or get stabbed again, and not wake up this time. So I’ve become all the people I’m scorning. I’m hiding it from him. The money he would be just as entitled to, I am taking all of.

I had a horrible childhood, and yet somehow, I was never jaded from it. Now I’m just so jaded, so betrayed. I’m so, so angry and resentful, and I have no idea where to go in life from here. It’s completely shattered the foundation everything I know has been built on. Every choice I made in life, based on a lie.

I apologise for the supremely long tangent. And I want to really thank anyone who stuck around this far down. I hope you jumped around or skim read, because I think the only thing worse than living all this would have to be reading it. As stated, I’m unable to talk about this with anyone in my personal life, so I really just needed some girlfriends to vent with, maybe even get some advice if anyone could possibly advice any part of this niche, nuanced disaster.

Even the counsellors at my uni kind of mocked me about this until I broke down in class one day, and my journalism tutor (thank god for her) pressed me hard about what’s wrong (I’m an excellent student so my performance dropping is really unusual for me) and then met with one of the counsellors herself to talk to them about me and got
me an appointment. I just… can’t fathom what my life has become. If this had been a soap opera, I’d have turned it off by now for how much it’s reaching.

Dinner is the all-day big breakfast (salad, bacon, hashbrown, scrambled eggs on sourdough toast, avocado and mushrooms) offered at the cafe down my street and a rose latte.
.

yummy pancakes :3

mama i was 12. mama i wanted your love. mama i didn’t have a concept of that word.

she was referring to how I told her I was okay and didn’t need help. when I actually wasn’t doing okay. mama you weren’t safe to tell anything too. mama i was managing your emotions for you, how was i supposed to trust you to help with mine. mama the school would tell you, parents would tell you, I WOULD TELL you, but she felt as though I was okay!

but sure. 12 year old me gaslit you. what an evil kid.

birria taco with a cheese shell that tastes better than it looks i swear

i’m pakistani and i’m very obviously south asian. where i am the lgbt community is litro all white. there’s a couple of queer poc groups but theyre basically non existent. i’ve been to the gay bars but i tend to be the only woc there and nobody ever rly speaks to me. when i speak to people there they say hi then ignore me

it’s so so mf isolating. i get the double sock to the face bc im both a lezzie in a muslim house and a poc in a white city. im so so sad. i’m 22 now and it doesn’t get less lonely

i had a ww i hooked up with ask if its normal for my vag to be so dark because she’d only been w other ww. i don’t think she meant it in a bad way bc she apologised once i explained why it was so fucked up to ask but it hurt so bad. another time i was asked if i was kinky just because i ‘look exotic’. like hello i am not a fetish ?? i think it’s worse bc i have pink hair and piercings which always has people thinking i’m a freak in the sheets. i am but you can’t assume that based off my appearance … fuck me it’s so gross

i feel like my body is ugly and undesirable to ww because i’m brown. poc lesbians are non existent where i am so it’s deal w that typa shit or be lonely af

thing is i actually don’t mind dating a ww, i think they’re STUNNING. but the above experience has scared me off. it makes me so upset. i literally just want someone to luv me. am i rly that ugly and undesirable lol

I don’t have a therapist and just need to vent - I was seeing a new guy for about two months now and I thought we really liked each other, but in this two month span I noticed how dating isn’t that much of a priority for him and my needs don’t align with what he can give right now - that’s fine, I stopped investing so much energy into the situation, but I still really liked him and spending time together. We met naturally, a friend set us up.

He was swamped yesterday working and I happened to be in his town to see my friends, and stopped over his house after to say hi, and he was having a really bad day, but I listened to him and then we went for a little ride down to the creek, we’ve done that a lot. So while we are talking, the topic of us comes up mutually and I just tell him, I really like us but I don’t think we will work out because his priorities are different than mine whatever whatever - ultimately he ended up lashing out at me horribly, called me a “rotten bitch” and I got out of the little golf cart and started having a panic attack, like he was just ranting at me and it was horrible. I feel absolutely horrible and like actually sick - this man has told me he loved me (which I told him it’s too much too soon in the past) so even though I know those words don’t hold a ton of weight at this point, I truly don’t understand how someone can say they love you and then call you a rotten bitch like it just makes my head spin. I was starting to open up to him and this is the first person I saw as a potential partner after a very bad relationship that ended over a year ago, bad in the sense that the relationship was “good” but I was being cheated on.

I go to my car and just straight up start having a panic attack, he comes out and tells me “to get the F off his property” and I’m like gasping and telling him ok just in a minute because I need to calm down. Then he switches and tries to be nice and asks me to come inside and I tell him no, I’m just like full blown panicking and shit. So then he switches back to being pretty mean and telling me to F off and stuff so I collect myself the best I can and leave.

I just never had this type of experience and I DID really like him but these true colors matter and I figured I need to type it out to try and get over this. I should have just gone home after comforting him and not gone on a cruise with him because some how we just start arguing and him not meeting my needs and then I get bent out of shape and I still feel bad bc he was having a bad day. But like, he has more bad days than good ones.

Maybe I am a rotten bitch and just don’t know it.

Dinner from a a few days ago, Asian dimsum snacks alone.

**RE-UPLOAD**

Dinner: Diet Mountain Dew (CVS was out of the Baja Blast flavor sadly) and a beautiful mountain of Goldfish I'm about to devour in bed.

So I'm schizophrenic. I'm 20, but I got diagnosed almost exactly a year ago at 19, and started showing symptoms at 18. It's a very disabling experience, but luckily the people in my support system are very supportive of my needs, and I'm trying really hard to give myself a life worth living. I'm very proud of myself because I've been able to hold some really challenging jobs in the last few years, and I'm currently making my way through school to get my degree in social work. I've worked in behavioral health, I have lived experience as someone with a serious mental illness, and I'm a certified peer specialist - all this is to say, I'm very very passionate about psychiatric reform and education, and I am very opinionated when it comes to this sort of stuff lol.

This semester, I'm in a gen ed requirement course where most people are freshman of varying different majors (ie. people who don't know a lot about psychology). The class basically consists of reading a bunch of different texts and then talking through them in large group discussions with Socratic questioning methods. Sounds fine on it's face. However, at the beginning, I was reviewing the syllabus and saw that we were going to be reading and discussing a collection of essays about schizophrenia by an author with lived experience. I had read the book beforehand when I first got diagnosed and I found it to be a very good piece of literature, but naturally I was really apprehensive to hear that I'd be forced into a classroom full of people saying potentially disparaging and insensitive things about my condition. There's so so so much stigma when it comes to psychosis, and over the years I've had to hear some pretty awful stuff. People often hold assumptions that schizophrenics can't do 'normal' things - "there's no possible way that a schizophrenic could be in this classroom with me, and therefor I can say whatever I want about them because it's not like their sane enough to be here to speak for themselves". So I was really anxious.

I'm a very shy person. I don't like to speak in class period. I'm also, despite being incredibly opiniated about psychiatry, very hesitate to open up to the people close to me about my struggles, let alone complete strangers. For a while, I was really torn between disclosing my diagnosis to my class so I could accurately and freely talk about what being schizophrenic is really like and break the stereotypes, versus staying quiet and protecting my reputation. The first part of the discussion rolled around yesterday, and it went exactly as I expected. A lot of the phrase 'those people' being thrown around and a lot of well meaning but misinformed pity. Some people said some really offensive things, but I tried not to take it personally and remember that it wasn't coming from a place of malice, but rather misinformation. This isn't the fault of the individual, but the fault of societal stigma.

However, at some point I just said fuck it. I was tired of people acting like schizophrenics are some rare colony of mystic lepers. A few minutes earlier someone had said something about representation and first hand accounts of mental illness being the first step to societal acceptance, so I decided to just go for it. I really didn't have much to loose. Someone asked a question about involuntary commitment and when it should be used, and I raised my hand and basically said "hey, yeah, I'm actually schizophrenic and I think that involuntary commitment is sometimes necessary to ensure safety and eventual quality of life, but I don't think we should be running around committing all schizophrenics, because, contrary to popular belief, we're not actually dangerous". To me, this is kind of a nothing-burger of a statement. Like yeah, obviously.

Everyone looked at me like I was the most martyred martyr to ever martyr. Like 'awww... look at the clinically insane girl being so brave and attending college, wow... I guess crazy people are actually people too!!!"

And then everyone clapped. I'm not kidding. For like two minutes straight. What.

Honestly, this is sort of worse than what I was preparing for. I was expecting to be looked at like I was dangerous, but instead I feel like I was treated like inspiration porn, which is honestly more uncomfortable for me. Everyone is looking at me like I'm subhuman, but instead it's coming from a place of such cloying faux sympathy, when I know these guys would be so quick to look down on someone on the street for needing professional help. I'm not really sure how to feel. The second part of the discussion is tomorrow, and I'm not sure if I want to go or not. On the one hand, I just know someone's gonna say something stupid again and everyone will look at me to regal them with some magical tale of victory from the clutches of Evil Insanity through the power of friendship. But on the other, I know I'll be more anxious if I don't know what they're saying about people like me, and if I'm not there to defend a community that no one will dare to speak up for.

Sigh. At least I have my goldfish.

My beloved cat Milo died earlier this year of a very quick moving cancer, he was only 10 which sounds kind of old for a cat but felt like absolutely no time at all.

He was the sweetest boy, very well tempered and well behaved. He loved cuddles (as long as they were on his terms) and was just in general very sweet and loving. I miss him so much sometimes that it physically hurts my chest.

I miss having a cat around as a little companion though and I sometimes wonder if I should get another, but every time I think of the idea it feels wrong. I just feel like I’d compare the new cat to Milo and be upset when he or she is nothing like their older brother - and that’s not fair on any cat. I just want Milo, and I hate that I can’t have him back.

I’m just feeling sad and frustrated, I miss my boy. I’m having to make do with loving all the roaming cats in my neighbourhood, but it’s just not the same.

Feeling sad is all.

Food is potato hash with salad onions and siracha ketchup.

Repost cause it got taken down! It’s crazy to even type out that title because it’s so absurd. My ex boyfriend and the father of my child started steadily falling deeper into red pill/black pill manosphere culture maybe a year into our relationship. By the time I got pregnant, he was constantly accusing me of cheating and demanding a paternity test for his unborn child despite me literally being a virgin until him.

I thought gaming was just a hobby and that he got hurt in the past or maybe cheated on. Turns out he had only been in one relationship prior to me, for less than a year, and it was a mutual breakup with no cheating involved.

He didn’t like me hanging out with other guys at all and preferred I “report” to him any conversation I may have had with another male.
I’ve always been super friendly with friends and roommates and their boyfriends but I would never have cheated on him, let alone with my own friends boyfriends???

It was humiliating to have to quietly ask about paternity test options while pregnant and alone at my obgyn appointment.

It was humiliating to watch my other friends get married and not be able to explain to people that my boyfriend didn’t want to marry me until he could get a paternity test for his own child.

He would say “ it’s not that I don’t trust you, it’s just that I am hoping for the best, preparing for the worst.”

He would regularly read me or tell me about Reddit posts where the woman had a great life and chose to cheat with a physical trainer or the husband‘s best friend, etc.
and talk about how he could never understand how women could do this, and if that were ever the case for him he would “kick her to the street”.
He would talk about it with such violent contempt that it actually scared me and I asked him a few times if he was threatening or trying to warn me, but he would deny it every time.

After the baby, when he got his confirmation it was his own child, it got worse instead of better.
He got six months of paid paternity leave and spent all day and all night gaming and watching streamers, and listening to podcasters like Andrew Tate and Asmongold.
He would come to bed at 5am sometimes, and sleep throughout the day, and for some reason I would make him a meal and bring it to him at his computer with a newborn in my other arm.

I think I was just so desperate for the love and commitment he kept holding just out of reach, but the goal post kept moving.
When we were dating, he used to say it would get better when he could fully trust me, and then when he could get the paternity test, and then when we could move into a house, and then when he could be making more money and feel more financially stable.

Then he would marry me. Then he could start trusting me fully. Then he would be able to relax and love me more because he would be protected from me financially screwing him over.

The first year of my baby’s life was probably one of the loneliest things I’ve ever experienced. I was completely isolated and the one person I wanted to go to couldn’t even be bothered to look away from a computer screen to tell me good night.
Almost every night I would fall asleep to blue light coming from the other room, rapid clicking, a monotone streamer voice, and random yelling like “cover me!” “Go left.” “Nooo” “HAHA GET WRECKED” “fall back fall back”
Mind you I know nothing about games and have never played anything besides Mario cart as a child at a cousins house.

We did end up buying a house, but my name wasn’t on it. Despite me not working, because of our mutual decision for me to stay home with our daughter to avoid daycare for her first year of life, he would not let me have access to the account and he would make me ask him for his credit card to go shopping or order things.

I started struggling with burnout, and what I didn’t know at the time was bipolar depression, and he got *mean*. The resentment was practically palpable.
And I think that was the last straw for me, because I can handle someone who’s distant or cold sometimes, but I can’t handle being the burden.

I could’ve proved him right about women being “malicious gold diggers who just baby trap men for their money and leave so they can take half the house and money”. (even though it would be very fair for me to demand assets be split).
Instead, I cleaned the house, made him dinner and left it in the fridge, and then packed a few things and left.

I had no money, no job, no place, and I let him fuck me over with custody and child support because I couldn’t afford a lawyer.

Now he lives by himself in his home that he owns, with an even larger pc set up, and sees his daughter a couple times a week or when he feels like it, while I struggle to make rent and keep my daughter out of daycare 24/7 amidst mental health struggles.

But at least he’s financially stable and protected from a gold digger.

Thanks for reading. Dinner was a piece of avocado toast with expired chicken strips from the freezer😂

Dinner is Ritz crackers because I'm not hungry

My siblings and I grew up in foster care starting at 8 after my mom left, my dad completely neglected us, and his new girlfriend (mother to all but myself and my older sister) was abusive and intellectually disabled. I aged out of my abusive foster home at 18, somehow scraped my way through college on my own, and became a nurse. I’m 27 now and I’d like to think I've built a good life for myself despite everything I've gone through.

When I was 22 my bio aunt talked me into reconnecting with my dad. Turns out he was still with that same girlfriend and they’d had three more kids together, all with various developmental delays. He learned nothing from his mistakes and continued to make bad choices.

He’s spent his whole life ignoring his health and his kids' health. A year ago, doctors found a mass on his lung. He ignored it. Naturally, it progressed, and now the cancer has spread to his bones, pelvis, and kidney. He told the doctors he wants everything done, save him at all costs. But I’m a nurse. I see what full code looks like on someone this sick, and I know his prognosis is basically zero. He's in horrific pain and the only thing that would touch it would be comfort measures. The care team brought up hospice, but he refused.

Today he was rushed back to the hospital unable to breathe and ended up in the ICU. The doctor called me with the updated metastases and asked me to come in tomorrow to "make some decisions." He suggested I look into "calling out of work for a few days" as well.

I know exactly what that means.

My aunt is too sick and elderly to handle this, his girlfriend is currently MIA with the minor kids, and his other children are either adopted or completely no-contact. So by default, it all falls on me. The younger kids are going to end up in foster care too and I'll have to be the one to tell them that our dad is dying.

Tomorrow I’m going in to tell the ICU team to shift him to full comfort care and focus solely on pain management, even if it shortens his remaining time. He spent my entire life making terrible decisions for himself and the people around him. Tomorrow is the last decision I’ll ever have to make involving him, and I'll make sure it's the right one.

Dinner is shaken beef and garlic noodles but I obviously subsitooted(lol) it for chicken

I have to get this off my chest. There’s so many damn pregnancy symptoms that no one talks about. Of course we hear about the nausea, fatigue, hormone shifts etc BUT DEAR GOD. I have been blowing up my damn bathroom and I almost feel bad for my husband( not really cause he got me pregnant so it’s his fault) it’s worse because our bathroom is connected to our room and the smell leaks out. It’s so bad if I go to the bathroom and have to come back for something I have to hold my breath. I’m not saying I used to be huffing my farts but I deadass cannot stay in the room after. I have to get up and move. I almost gassed myself out of my car this morning. I seriously had to open the window and put my face partially out. I feel like one giant fart/ stink cloud. It’s like something crawled up there and died. Sorry if this is gross and sorry if you’re eating. I just needed to share this PSA

Hi everyone,

I am a military spouse. I have been one for 3 years so far. My husband has passed all his previous PRTs so I’m not sure how he failed this one. For some context, I’m obese and not fit at all. A bit of a couch potato unless you count chasing after my toddler as exercise. I work a desk job with minimal physical activity besides walking between buildings. Mind you, I just had a baby this year!

My husband says it is my fault for him failing the PRT even though I’ve done my best to help him get back into shape. We cut out sweet treats, been cooking at home more and rarely eating out like no more than once a week and it’s always healthy like viet food. We do portion control and use a food scale to weigh our meals. We switched from regular soda to diet or zero sugar.

Still, my husband is angry at me and told me I’m resistant to change (???). I think he just projecting because he has no one to be angry with except himself. He passed the weight portion of the PRT, but failed the exercise portion.

For lunch, I had Vietnamese vermicelli with grilled pork, beef, chicken, shrimp and egg rolls (bún đặc biệt).

Charcuterie board and wine from my fave spot (taken a few weeks ago)

Separation and divorce are such a weird thing to go through... And I NEVER in a million years though I was gonna go through, let alone realize I was being abused, but alas, here we are.

We've been separated for over a couple months and he recently came by and picked some of his stuff up. The second he walks through the door is all me, me, me, I, I, I... All about how HE is hurting, how he can't sleep, has nightmares, wakes up calling for me, you name it.

This whole thing has been so fucking exhausting and it's just the beginning. I had had enough after he got fired from his 6th job... Work had always been a problem for him, always someone that didn't like him, didn't talk to him the right way, didn't look at him the right way, screaming matches with his coworkers, meanwhile I'm over here footing the bill for every single thing.

The day I told him I was done, he got SO drunk and spent 6 fucking hours... 6, digging into me. Called me a lesbian, told me he was pretty sure I hated men because of my childhood trauma and some more trauma I accumulated like pokemons throughout my adult life.

Anyways... He came by recently and asked me that if I was fucking anyone that HE deserved to know 🙄 with the excuse that he needed to move on, that he couldn't sleep with people because he was still attached to me and he felt like I was throwing him away.

Ended up asking me why i didn't fight for US the night I broke it off... If I'm calling it off why would i go back and beg him to be better? The audacity. I fought for us our entire marriage, moved TWICE just for him to feel better, I poured so much into his cup that while his was overflowing, mine was left with droplets only.

Towards the end, when I started getting pissed... His victim and martyr mask completely fell off and was replaced by him being all angry, red faced, clenched fists wanting to punch something and being all aggressive.

The amount of times he accused me of cheating on him? I need to borrow fingers. He made me pull my pants down one time just to prove to him that I hadn't slept with anyone. The yelling, the constant gaslighting, the emotional, mental and financial abuse. Every time we had an argument and he got mad because I was telling the truth I would get yelled at, cussed at, told to "fuck off" or "go fuck myself". His excuse for being angry at everyone at work and in his life? I wasn't fucking him enough, that his love language and physical needs weren't being met.

Needless to say, I will be moving out of state come next spring. Staying where I live now is so heartbreaking for me, and driving around and seeing places where we used to have a good time and made nice memories just fills me with melancholy and a deep deep sadness and anger.

I wish 1000x he would have just put his hands on me instead of mentally fucking me so hard I question who I am, I don't recognize the woman looking back at me in the mirror, I even got on antidepressants because I thought that I was the problem.

To everyone out there: NEVER ignore the red flags, their mask WILL fall and it's like flipping a switch, like watching Gollum slowly take over Smeagol. It's heartbreaking, mind-fucking.

NEVER give a man your all, he will take it and leave you with nothing, and by the time you want to leave, you will feel so broken you will start wondering if you are truly as shitty as he says you have been.

I am sticking to my guns, waiting out the separation period that my state mandated before filing. I will be moving and starting over even if I have to eat fucking ramen cups because my credit is fucked and it needs to be up before I even look for a new place.

And lastly - A man that is loyal does not equal him being a good man. If you ever hear a man tell you "I am a good fucking guy" RUN for the hills, because no good man has to remind you that he actually is.

Toasted Asiago bagel with homemade shrimp and crab dip.

In May I developed severe preeclampsia and had to have my son delivered via emergency c section at 33 weeks along. He somehow came out crying, never coded, needed breathing assistance, and was described as the most boring baby in the NICU (in a loving way). This came after an absolute horrible pregnancy, I was twenty pounds lighter post pregnancy from barely being able to eat. But he was perfect, just tiny. He was 3lbs 7oz and just had to get growing and learn to eat.
25 days in the NICU. I felt like I wasn’t even his mother. I wasn’t the first person to give him a bath, a bottle, I didn’t even get to pick out his first outfit.

A month after he finally came home, my dog went into sudden heart failure. She was actually my grandparents dog. I found her in a truck stop parking lot ten years ago and had given her to my grandma. That dog ended up being the best thing I could have ever given them. She turned into their little sweetheart who was endlessly spoiled and loved. She kept my grandpa company after grandma passed. When we lost grandpa to she came to live with me.

Two weeks after losing my dog, we lost my step father very suddenly. Had also just started a new job. Thank god for a boss who gave me all the accommodations I needed. I feel selfish for feeling like I haven’t been able to grieve him properly. My moms been leaning very hard on me, I can’t break down in front of her right now. She needs a rock and I’m trying my absolute hardest to get her through this. Trying to help navigate the estate lawyers, realtors and moving process, there’s just always something. I never had to worry about my mom because I knew he would take care of her. Now hes gone and I miss him.

My baby’s five months old as of yesterday. Today while at work my mom sent me a video of his first laugh. Ending up having to step outside to compose myself with how upset I was getting. All I could think was another first I missed. He’s such a good happy baby, being his mother is making myself so so happy as well. That little baby feels like my whole world, I’m still constantly in awe of his existence. I guess i pictured everything to “movie like”. Perfectly easy pregnancy, no hard ships, just endless amounts of time devoted to being the best mommy possible.

Life has been hitting so hard. We’re so tired, waiting patiently for the new sense of normal to set in. Really hoping it comes in time for the holidays.

I’ve been living at home and working the past few years trying to get into veterinary school (if you don’t know it’s insanely competitive). I just got my first acceptance- the school is out of country so it would be super expensive, but is still a huge moment to get into any school at all. My dad is on a hunting trip and I called him because I was so excited- he started by asking if I got into the objectively “better” schools. When I told him it was the school I interviewed for already he became super mad at me and, even when I asked if he could just be excited for me, instead was harping on how i didn’t tell him I interviewed for this school and apparently only told my mom. The convo ended after him saying “okay well you’re acting….. goodbye”. This comes after months of him not paying attention to anything I’ve told him with school, constantly insisting things that he thinks are best and getting upset when I say that’s not actually true, etc. It just turned a super exciting moment for me into a really upsetting one.

Lasagne that was yummy asf

I was walking around town and I genuinely had so many yucky old men check me out. I’ve had a ‘glow up’ recently so I’ve only just started getting ‘postive’ male attention, but it’s so insane to me how comfortable they are with being weird?
For example: I had a few that opened up doors for me, but they all had this gross smirk on their face and were like slowly looking me up and down 😬🤢 I said “BRO” to one of them that full on stopped in the doorway and just stared at my body - he then sped walked away 💀Another one like cut in front of me to a door, but then he glanced at me and stopped, slowly looked at me head to toe, while saying “you can go 😏” brother EUGHH!!

I also had some old women be weird? Some seemed nice enough like just observing or complimenting, but others were full giving me dirty looks. When I would make a face back, they would act like they weren’t looking and walk off?! I notice that with old women a lot recently, they’ll be bitchy to me and then surprised when I be catty back? Like only one of us are acting our age, and it’s not you mate.

Anyways rant over, I just don’t know why old people think it’s okay to be weird towards me because I’m a conventionally attractive teenage girl :/ and it pmo. When I look ‘ugly’ they will also be super rude to me just in different ways 🙄 My outfit was only a little inappropriate? I’m pretty flat anyways, but I only had my thighs out. So it’s not even like I was being ‘super provocative’ or something?

EDIT: guys I know the difference between just observing what I look like or something. I also have a rbf. These people will make their weird thoughts KNOWN with their body language/words. I’m not stupid please 💀 I don’t go around thinking everyone and their nan wants me, Jesus Christ.

Desert for dinner. Vanilla ice cream with chopped up Cadbury Crunchie, Flake and Snickers. I am not even trying tonight, I am over men and dating.

My 7 year old was born with bilateral clubfoot, we had her annual orthopaedic appointment in september and her surgeon said she will need to be operated on again as her feet have relapsed. He also noticed some other abnormalities and sent a referral to neuro. Today my poor baby had to be sedated for a 2 hour long MRI. We were at the hospital from 7am and discharged just before 4pm. It breaks my heart she is having to go through all these medical procedures and the worry about what they may find.

I am dating a guy, we have gone on a couple of dates and I liked him. I messaged him once we were home to wish him a happy birthday and also to let him know I was exhausted and needed to tap out for the rest of the evening as I am drained. To which he replies, "if you want to give me a birthday present you can send me a spicy picture 😈😉."

Ah yes, because that's exactly what is on my mind while being emotionally drained, taking nudes. Zero f*cks given to me saying I am exhausted.

Safe to say, I will not be seeing him again.

I’ve been living at home and working the past few years trying to get into veterinary school (if you don’t know it’s insanely competitive). I just got my first acceptance- the school is out of country so it would be super expensive, but is still a huge moment to get into any school at all. My dad is on a hunting trip and I called him because I was so excited- he started by asking if I got into the objectively “better” schools. When I told him it was the school I interviewed for already he became super mad at me and, even when I asked if he could just be excited for me, instead was harping on how i didn’t tell him I interviewed for this school and apparently only told my mom. The convo ended after him saying “okay well you’re acting….. goodbye”. This comes after months of him not paying attention to anything I’ve told him with school, constantly insisting things that he thinks are best and getting upset when I say that’s not actually true, etc. It just turned a super exciting moment for me into a really upsetting one.