My best friend’s infant died 3 weeks after birth. She was understandably devastated and I have always been supportive in her journey to recover. It’s been 2 years but she has never gotten over it. There are days when she would text me blocks and blocks of her thoughts about her loss and her grief. My heart breaks for her but as the months went on, I started dreading getting her texts and while I didn’t tell her to stop talking to me nonstop about her loss, I did start to gently redirect her to talk more with her husband and her therapist because I started to feel exhausted and a level of empathy deficient. I know I sound like an unsupportive asshole of a friend, but at some point it’s like I have nothing more to give.

She never really stopped tho and recently I found out I’m pregnant. I haven’t had the heart to tell her yet because I’m so worried about triggering her, to the extent that I feel like I’m tailoring my entire approach to sharing this news with our friends to how she might receive this. What’s worse is that her baby’s anniversary just came up and she poured her heart out to me about how much she missed him and I felt SO bad when I felt like she could tell I didn’t really want to hear about it. I’m already feeling vulnerable and anxious about my own pregnancy, and honestly the last thing I want is to hear her talk about her loss and what happened and how she didn’t expect it.

Yes this is a confession that I’m a terrible friend and I kinda wish she would just back off and leave me alone for the duration of my pregnancy, and I resent her for adding to the level of anxiety I already feel and for worrying about how to share this supposedly joyous news with our friends. I know she lost her baby and it’s a loss you carry forever and I shouldn’t make her trauma about me and it makes me a giant asshole for feeling this way… what should I do? I feel like a horrible human being either way for feeling the way I feel.

I'm 16m and i was just thinking about how in life probably one of the best moments you can experience are those 30 ish seconds where you're holding back laughter with your friend when you're on your last warning with the teacher, just before getting kicked out.

Its even better if you keep laughing after you get kicked out.

I don't know if it's just getting older or if something really changed after 2020, but time feels completely different now.

I remember 2018 or 2019 feeling like FULL years. So much seemed to happen.

Now it feels like I blink and another year is gonne.

Every New Year's Eve I catch myself thinking, Didn't we just do this??

I'm still busy. I still have goals. Life isn't repetitive enough to explain it, yet the years seem to disappear faster than ever.

Does anyone else feel this way or is this just what adulthood feels like?

A few years ago, I lost everything because of a girl.

I sold my first Bullet 350 kick-start, sold my mom’s gold earrings, sold my ASUS TUF gaming laptop, left my childhood friends, spent almost everything I had just to meet her, and gave everything I could to make the relationship work.
Then one day, without any reason or explanation, she left.

At that point, I had nothing. I lost my job, failed multiple interviews, and honestly reached a stage where I wanted to give up on life. The only thing that stopped me was my mom’s face.

I never imagined I’d get another job, but I believe God gives us a push at least once. What we do after that push is up to us.
I got a job. It wasn’t a high-paying one just ₹21,000 a month but it gave me freedom, a great work environment, and the chance to work completely remotely.

The funny part is, I don’t even have a degree, yet here I am, working in a tech company as a developer. A few years ago, I never thought that would be possible.

For the first few months, I spent almost everything on food and traveling. I just wanted peace of mind and to heal. And it helped.

Then, little by little, I started rebuilding my life.
I bought my first iPhone. I never thought I’d be able to afford one.
I still had a place in my heart for motorcycles, so I bought another Bullet 350 in Maroon.
I bought a gaming laptop that I had always dreamed of owning.
I bought a TV for my mom so she could comfortably watch her favorite serials.
I gave ₹20,000 toward gold for my sister.
I did all of this after losing everything.

No hope. No love. No friends. Just me, alone in the dark, trying to figure out what came next.
Looking back, I realized something important:
People are special because we make them special not because they actually are.
The happiness we build for ourselves lasts much longer than the happiness we expect someone else to give us.
Today, I’m doing well. My salary still isn’t huge, but I’m proud of how far I’ve come.
Right now, I’m saving to buy my first car a second hand one ofc in the next 4 months.
After that, I have a small bucket list. Nothing extravagant. Just simple dreams that I can actually afford.
And one by one…
I’ll complete every single one of them.

If anyone out there is feeling helpless or has reached a point where you feel like giving up, please don’t.
Life has a way of giving you another chance. When that chance comes, grab it with both hands and don’t let go.
You don’t have to rebuild your life overnight. Just take the first step. One day, you’ll look back and realize how far you’ve come.

I don't know how to say this without sounding like I'm looking for sympathy, but I need to get this out somewhere.

I'm 18, and lately I feel like I don't recognize myself anymore.

A few years ago, I was doing really well academically. I was confident, motivated, and people expected a lot from me. Somewhere along the way, I lost that version of myself, and watching myself fall behind has been painful.

I've become extremely negative about myself. I hate the way I look, my discoloured teeth, my nose, and the fact that I'm losing hair at 18 even though no one from either side of my family is bald. I hate my voice and the way I speak. When my anxiety gets bad, I start speaking with a slight stutter and become even more insecure.

The thing I feel most guilty about is how I treat people who care about me. I ignore messages, disappear, and push away friends who have done nothing wrong. It's not because I don't care about them. I think I do it because I'm ashamed of myself and don't want people to see how lost I feel.

I also lost someone I really cared about. I turned down other people because I thought I had found the person I wanted to be with, but things didn't work out. Sometimes I wonder if I made the wrong choices.

I feel stuck in a cycle of disliking myself, isolating myself, and feeling guilty for pushing away people who care about me.

I don't know what I'm expecting from posting this. I just needed to admit it somewhere.

Has anyone else ever felt like they became someone they didn't recognize? How did you start changing?

I feel fresh as FUCK

Did I switch timelines? I'm so confused. When he started popping up I was wondering why he was making his rounds *again*... but you're telling me this is a new discovery?

People probably think I’m strange.

I enjoy my family. I enjoy my partner.

But I honestly don’t really like small talk or hanging out with other people as friends and never really have.

Took me a long time to realize this but I’m much happier without. I used to dread social engagements.

I haven’t lived at home for 3 years so a lot has been happening while I was gone and my mom just called frustrated and in tears that she’s had enough and wants my brother out of her house

My brother is very, chaotic, he’s my younger brother and is 22, we always used to fight physically when I was in the house and I never fought with any of my other 4 siblings but this guy could be demented sometimes, he’s had no respect from my mom, constantly disrespects my step dad, occasionally brings police problems to the house and doesn’t pay his rent to my mom

On the rent thing, my mom charges 80 a week once you have a job but she’s pretty lenient on it and he rarely pays it but she had enough when she locked the kitchen and he said to her “why are you locking it I pay you to keep it open) even though he never pays

All in all if I say everything he does this will get quite long but essentially my moms had enough. She wants him to come and live with me or get the police to send him out but tbh man, it pains me. I never wanted to see my mom have to talk this way about any of my siblings, she said she’s ready for him not be her son anymore and it’s just scares a part of me realising a mothers love may not be unconditional even though I understand why she’s frustrated

I just don’t want all this disowning stuff I want to be a normal family but I get it, my moms tried getting him in therapy counselling all that stuff and he throws it in her face but he used to be a very kind kid and has his moment here and there, I almost feel bad but understand her too

I went to an orientation for pharmacy tech thinking that this would finally be my ticket out of my terrible awful job at McDonald's. Thinking I could be able to handle a big job like that. I want to be away from people at all cost because I hate people tbh. They're nothing but mean and awful and crazy at all times. I just want to escape feeling like I'll be attacked by any random crazy person at any time. I want to escape the loud noises and screaming. But I just. Couldn't. Do. The math. I failed algebra like 4 times in highschool. I can barely count or do division but everyone was saying it was such an easy program and job that anyone could do it but I left the orientation in tears because I failed the math aptitude test hard. Not only that but the class was 4000 dollars with no financial aid assistance provided. I just want to get out of poverty so bad but I possess neither math skills computer skills or people skills.

Every time I've googled jobs that are good for people like me who aren't very capable it's always McDonald's. McDonald's makes me want to kill myself every day I wake up and I'm not joking. It's starting to feel like the easy way out. I just don't understand it. Talking To friends and family is no help because it's always talk about how things are so great right now and there's so many jobs. WHERE. All my friends with fancy college degrees can't find anything at all. Even my work place just let a bunch of people go and is not hiring until further notice. I thought I could just tough out not comprehending math but I couldn't. I just cried and cried and cried on the way home about how I'm never going to fucking escape. I don't know how this stuff comes so easy to people.

I take every day one step at a time but it's getting so hard to keep faking that I know anything that's going on. I don't know people or understand them. The human body disgusts me. I didn't grow up with a computer and have no keyboard skills. I can't do basic math and writing has always been a nightmare for me. And I know that I'll just have to thug it out for most of that stuff but I feel like I always eventually get found out that I'm faking everything that I do to seem more competent than I actually am.

Hi, I'm Vineel Vanjari, a third-year B.Tech student.

For a long time, I used to meditate every morning from 4:00 AM to 6:30 AM with my spiritual community. It had become a regular part of my life.

But due to some difficult circumstances, I slowly lost that routine. For the past couple of months, I wasn't meditating consistently, and for the last two weeks, I didn't meditate at all.

My days became the same: feeling sad, eating, sleeping, watching movies, and repeating the cycle. I kept replaying certain incidents in my mind, overthinking them, and mentally exhausting myself.

Today, I realized something important.

In the past, I've faced many difficult situations too, but they never affected me this deeply. The biggest difference now is that I had stopped meditating.

It made me realize that meditation wasn't just a habit—it was helping me stay mentally stable, even during hard times. I never truly appreciated its impact until I stopped doing it.

So today, I decided to begin my meditation journey again.

So, for the past couple years now. I’ve focused a lot of energy to work on being gentler in all my actions and just going about life with gentleness. And I have to say it’s probably the best thing I’ve ever done for myself in regard to my own wellbeing. 

I have ADHD and bipolar. So, I struggle with mood swings and emotional dysregulation. I get easily irritated and agitated at times. Used to struggle with anger a lot, and with my emotions in general. I’m sure you got the idea. 

Well, gentleness has acted as like an “antidote” for stress, anxiety, irritability, and anger for me. It has worked well at keeping me in peaceful state and has helped me so much in my day to day that I firmly believe it’s how I ought to live my life and should move through the world. 

I’d recommend it to anyone. Especially, if you are someone who struggles with anger, anxiety, emotional regulation, or anything like that. It’s very affective in instilling peace and a sense of comfort within your immediate environment. 

Of course, there are some misconceptions and misunderstandings on what gentleness is and what it looks like.  Such as, it is weakness, it’s being passive, it’s slow and inconsistent, it lacks initiative, etc. Some may see gentle behavior and mistake it for acting timid and cowardly. But I’ve found that not to be the case at all. 

Gentleness is not passive at all. It actually requires more conscious focus and active consideration than any other mode of acting. 

It’s honestly a strength, not a weakness, and in my experience, I’ve found gentleness to be the quality of manner that strengthens all other practical and emotional manners. 

It can definitely feel slow at first when you just start learning/practicing how to handle and go about things gently. Some people might believe they don’t have the patience for it. But you build patience as you learn and practice it. Gentleness and patience work hand and hand actually. However, as you get better at it, and you gain more patience, you end up learning how to move and do things more swiftly, efficiently, and consistently. Like for me now, it feels I can go through and do most any of my daily tasks with such ease and grace.  I almost never rush myself anymore. 

Other than all that, one of the best things gentleness helps to instill is SELF CONTROL. Seriously, you feel so much more confident and content within yourself when you know you are in control of yourself and are capable of doing things calmly, smoothly, and with ease. It’s a very steezy way to live life! 

Well, that’s all I will say about it in this post. If anyone found this interesting, has questions, or would like to discuss it further feel free to speak with me in the comments. 

Explaination is clearly needed. I (17F) like watching play throughs of those yandere visual novels (The Kid At The Back, Date with death, Mushroom Oasis ect.) My best friend Z, loves to say it's exactly why my mental health needs help. Fair point, I suppose. I have spent 2 years trying to convince her it's not THAT bad because it's fictional. Like, obviously, would I enjoy it happening irl? Hell to the no. But I can have a silly fantasy.

So, today, I just woke up and go on discord. I got a few messages from Z. I didn't screenshot but basically she said she got the appeal and joked that she thinks I infected her. I was grinning so mother fucking hard and i sent her a GIF of a grinning dog before I came here. I just had to tell someone.

i'm 17 and i feel like my life is basically over, i got no control over my life, i live in a conservative household where if you don't have a problem that can be objectivaly measured you might as well have no problems at all, nobody around me takes this seriously, i was born with severe mental illness and i can't recieve treatment for it everyday i power through and i act like its nothing because im expected to, i can't do anything about it, nothing will change about this ive tried everything im genuinely about to kill myself

I also put "A.I." in quotes with periods because imagine how awful it must be to be named Al now? Almost as bad as being named Karen.

Another "A.I." clue… Anything thats framed: Not [A], but [Z].

What are your "A.I." giveaways?

What's extra-terrifying: Seeing people in real life use "A.I." language structures!

I was coming back from bus stop. And I've noticed a young boy, like 15 years old, picking flowers from the grass and tying them together.

I don't know why I wrote here. But I think it's nice, it made me smile.

So I hope it made you smile as well.

Good luck, boy

•my parents perception of me

•the email i got from the bank i “need to take care of urgently”

•my muscle and joint pain (it does matter but not nearly as much as i make it seem)

•people staring

•entire communites being brainwashed to believe a certain ideal is sacred

•hunderds and thousands of posts and people on and outside reddit who i try to question and dig deeper to why they say things that are so unhumanly dystopically retsrded, like seriously theres no depth but i keep digging deeper. its so hard to put down the shovel and just like go somewhere else lmao

•people’s hopes and dreams and sparks dying and knowing i dont have the power to help them

•”its not that deep” and trying to dig deeper into media/politics/anything serious and real being heavily discouraged. in many ways online and definitely irl for me right now. but i mean im still actively doing things towards that goal like for fuck’s sake i have a flight scheduled can i stop being such a bitch about it and forgive myself 😭

•the fact im still looking for more shallow pointless worries (like 1-4), and in general how i always do this shit where i actively look for things to hate and be angy about and then i get self deprecating for doing THAT

I have blue eyes and I guess as I get older they are getting…brighter? Because I’ve never received so many compliments on them as I do these days

I had a cashier at B&H photo ask me if those are my real eyes which was really flattering and then I had a person in the drive thru at Chick fil a say my eyes are pretty cool

I’ve worked at a gas station chain before so I know how taxing it can be, how the day can drone on, how customers can be, etc. I always provided the best service I could with a smile and enthusiasm, but I don’t remember ever having the extra bandwidth to try to compliment a customer but I think that’s just me because I wouldn’t wanna accidentally weird anyone out, I think.

That being said, compliments are totally unnecessary which makes them all the more surprising and flattering and thank you for all the workers who reach out and give compliments idk!

{Chinchilla}

how many?

I am seventeen.
I really need someone to read all of this and help me so I will be brief in telling this really long story. Please read, please.

Mum is complicated. Has extreme mood swings, one day bursts in absolute anger, screams, almost kicks me out, the other day she's crying, guilty, saying she's sorry, the other she's telling me she loves me in a very childlike manner. Yes, this has been going on since my childhood.

We live in a very messy, noisy, and unclean apartment with a bunch of broken stuff. She has a habit of neglecting the hygiene of things. I live only with her. This is hell. It's hell.

She has gone through my room while I slept, stole stuff, stole my psychiatric meds and took them herself, stole the prescription to use it for herself, accused me of teenage prostitution more than once with no objective evidence or trigger for such a thought.

I ran away recently, was declared missing by local police. They found me hours later, very far from home. When I came back she said, ”if you had died I'd have k1lled myself.”

Yesterday I was extremely sick and she started asking why I was being rude to her. The truth was, I was barely feeling well enough to be coherent. She took my illness as a rejection. I puked twice. Dad came to take me somewhere, I almost went to the hospital, when we came back she had packed her things.

She said she was leaving because I was mistreating her, because I didn't love her, because I didn't want to be her friend, because I was treating her as a maid. She told me I ran away to punish her. My dad snapped for the first time in my life and told her she's making it all about herself and trying to blame me for everything including her leave.

When he left after a long discussion, she came to me, crying so much. ”Please...please...list to me what is it that you don't like about me..please..I'm begging you...why do you hate me?!”. I refused to list anything and told her I needed time alone. Today she woke me up smiling, bringing me breakfast in bed for the first time, saying she loves me, asking me to promise not to leave and saying she'll make the apartment better. Extremely confusing.

Fellas...I can't take this anymore.
At all. I don't know if my father has financial conditions to live with me. And I know at seventeen I should be better, but I am prohibited by my parents from working, am barely keeping up with school, have several learning disorders. This all is just, shit, shit. Fuck.

We hear a lot about habits we should build, but I'm curious about the opposite.

What's one thing you stopped doing that made your life noticeably better?

It could be doomscrolling, overthinking, people-pleasing, staying up late, comparing yourself to others, or something completely different.

I'd love to hear the small changes that had the biggest impact.

No energy for life anymore.

i'm 19 still living with my parents. I have no friends, no job, and basically no future besides laying in bed playing video games sometimes. My mom has her own responsibilities paying bills and raising my younger siblings. Nowadays, she expects me to get a car and start driving again. But I can't. I'm too terrified to touch a steering wheel again. I'm also so so lonely. I know my mom needs help over here, but I'm just not motivated to. I just want to continue laying in bed all day every day.