My house worksheet

okay so i just started working as a bt. my client is 11 and struggles with communication. i can not find any preferred items to get him off the ipad, and the parents really aren’t a help. they supply me with playdoh, shaving cream, and worksheets. he really does not care for it. he is very obsessed with the ipad. every time i come in the home he is already on it and it takes a long time to get him off. it’s not used as a communication tool, he is on youtube shorts just scrolling. last session it took me 30 mins to to get him off the ipad. he pulls on my hands and arms or use his legs to push me away, or just run away. i asked the parents if we can incorporate something to do outside, and they agreed and told me he doesn’t go outside much. he takes the ipad absolutely everywhere. i understand it is his comfort item, but i have a really hard time getting through even a 2 hour session. my bcba is really not a help, i ask if there’s anything more i can do and she just says “yeah it’s been a struggle, but he knows to get off” this is only my second week. and i’ve also never had someone train with me, my bcba was on facetime the first day i started and i’ve been alone every since. i also don’t know if this is normal but the parents and the company do not supply me with anything. nothing to help get through the sessions besides the things i mentioned. i really do not think it’s fair that i should come out of pocket for a job i just started….i already went out my way and bought a couple things but they’ve already been destroyed by the outburst of not getting the ipad. i have to drive like 30-35 mins just to get to the house and i only work 2 hours everyday. the parents have already canceled. and are constantly changing the hours of when they want service. i make 24 an hour. i just don’t know if it’s worth it really, but i try not being someone who gives up easily
any advice…

This is really hard to write.
Over the last year, I've done zero cleaning outside of removing trash and there stuff EVERYWHERR and the place is filthy. The only vermin issue is clothing moths (RIP hand knit sweaters). The apartment is an efficiency student apartment with only a few small built in kitchen cabinets for storage. I have, on top of that two small single freestanding closets, an Ikea Enhet, and a small dresser. No, there isn't even built in bathroom storage. I have a tiny rack from ikea for cleaning supplies/shower supplies.
Over and over again I read the advice that "everything needs to go back in it's home" but NOTHING has a home. I have no idea how to make things a home when I have so little storage (I need to buy more when the apartment is clean - please don't say I have enough, and need to work with what I have, I couldn't buy any more when I moved in because of poverty). I can't visualize anything. I have no idea how to start. I have no idea what I actually need to keep. The only thing more anxiety inducing than looking at the clutter is trying to think my way through the clutter.
Are there any guides for this? Worksheets? I need something more concrete than Dana White. A lot of systems assume you have a house or at least another room where you can move stuff. I have neither of those things. I need to organize/declutter THEN clean (If you've seen Midwest Magic's ADHD cleaning video, I have the rage issue when my things are moved and I can't find them)
I have no executive function left and no one I trust to help with the organizing part. Even writing this is making my heart beat out of my chest. I just need help on how to THINK or pre-made worksheets where I can fill in the blanks for myself. Or something else.

This is really hard to write. So apologies if this doesn't make sense.
Over the last year, I've done zero cleaning outside of removing trash and there stuff EVERYWHERR and the place is filthy. The only vermin issue is clothing moths (RIP hand knit sweaters). The apartment is an efficiency student apartment with only a few small built in kitchen cabinets for storage. I have, on top of that two small single freestanding closets, an Ikea Enhet, and a small dresser. No, there isn't even built in bathroom storage. I have a tiny rack from ikea for cleaning supplies/shower supplies.
Over and over again I read the advice that "everything needs to go back in it's home" but NOTHING has a home. I have no idea how to make things a home when I have so little storage (I need to buy more when the apartment is clean - please don't say I have enough, and need to work with what I have, I couldn't buy any more when I moved in because of poverty). I can't visualize anything. I have no idea how to start. I have no idea what I actually need to keep. The only thing more anxiety inducing than looking at the clutter is trying to think my way through the clutter.
Are there any guides for this? Worksheets? I need something more concrete than Dana White. A lot of systems assume you have a house or at least another room where you can move stuff. I have neither of those things. I need to organize/declutter THEN clean (If you've seen Midwest Magic's ADHD cleaning video, I have the rage issue when my things are moved and I can't find them)
I have no executive function left and no one I trust to help with the organizing part. Even writing this is making my heart beat out of my chest. I just need help on how to THINK or pre-made worksheets where I can fill in the blanks for myself. Or something else.

Manifesting involves transforming your dreams, goals, and aspirations into reality by believing in your ability to achieve them. By shifting your mindset from doubt to determination, you can focus your thoughts and energy towards making your dreams come true. For instance, instead of thinking, “
This is my dream house, but I’ll never be able to afford it,” try thinking, “This is my dream house, and I will work hard to make it mine someday.”
This positive belief can help direct your actions and energy toward achieving your goals.
How Does Manifestation Work?
Manifestation is grounded in the power of positive thinking and the law of attraction.
Power of Positive Thinking
Our thoughts are incredibly powerful and can significantly influence the course of our lives. A positive attitude can help you overcome worries and fears, enabling you to strive for what you want. Strong belief in your goals helps focus your energy and actions towards them, allowing you to work through fears and self-doubt. While success is not guaranteed, believing in your ability to achieve something greatly increases your chances.
Law of Attraction
The law of attraction suggests that what you focus on is what you will attract into your life. If you are genuinely interested in something, you are likely to learn more about it, join related groups, and build connections. This enthusiasm can attract opportunities, positioning you to take advantage of them.
Your focus and interest in a particular area can help you develop expertise and build networks, thus attracting opportunities that align with your goals.
How to Manifest What You Want in Life
Here are six manifestation techniques to help you achieve your dreams:

1. Practice Visualization Research shows that visualizing your goals helps in achieving them. Spend a little time each day picturing your goals and how you will achieve them. You can do this in the morning to motivate yourself for the day or at night to reflect on your progress.
2. Create a Vision Board A vision board is a physical or digital space where you pin images and notes about your goal. For example, if you’re aiming for your dream home, pin ideas for the location, rooms, decor, and landscaping. This visual reminder can make your goal feel more tangible and motivate you.
3. Maintain a Future Box Also known as a vision box or wish box, a future box is a place where you store materials related to your goal. For instance, if you’re saving for a dream holiday, store items you’ll take on the trip in the box. This tangible collection can keep your goal in focus.
4. Try the 3-6-9 Method Repeat or write down your goals three times in the morning, six times in the afternoon, and nine times in the evening. This repetition helps keep your goals at the forefront of your mind.
5. Practice the 777 Method Write down what you want to manifest seven times in the morning and seven times at night for seven days. This method is useful for short-term goals, such as completing a work assignment or a household project.
6. Make a 10-10-10 Worksheet List 10 things you desire, 10 things you’re grateful for, and 10 things you enjoy doing. This exercise improves self-awareness, helps you understand how different aspects of your life interact, and promotes positive thinking.

How to Manifest Correctly
To manifest your goals effectively, consider these strategies:

1. Be Clear About What You Want Clearly articulating your goals helps to crystallize them. Specificity provides a clear target to focus on.
2. Make Positive Statements Use positive affirmations to reinforce your goals. Examples include:
   
   • "I am capable and deserving of this promotion."
   • "I trust that the universe is bringing a worthy partner into my life."
   • "I am grateful for my success and excited for future achievements."
3. Work Toward Your Goal Alongside visualization, take concrete steps towards your goal. For example, if you want a new job, aim to apply for at least one job every week.
   
4. Get Out of Your Comfort Zone Achieving dreams often requires stepping out of your comfort zone. Start with small steps, such as performing for family if you aim to be a singer, then gradually take on larger challenges.
   
5. Build Your Confidence Maintain your confidence with daily affirmations like, "You are strong and capable, you can do this!"
   
6. Practice Gratitude While planning for your future, be thankful for what you have. An attitude of gratitude fosters a positive mindset.
   

By incorporating these techniques and maintaining a positive mindset, you can enhance your ability to manifest your dreams and achieve your goals.
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And hey, if you want to learn more about manifestation check out these YouTube videos given below
👉 https://youtu.be/4LNPnS8EyWc
👉 https://youtu.be/aK8WDJuwPmc
👉 https://youtu.be/K-32rc-_1Xw
👉 https://youtu.be/QKUyrlvSuTA
👉 https://youtu.be/gdaSPXK55DM
👉 https://youtu.be/otibxm6GWic
👉 https://youtu.be/2S4PmDyDq7c
👉 https://youtu.be/Jf8oLTs68D0
👉 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSvDL7CqNCc&t=1154s
👉 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o6vqjlqSnk&t=116s
👉 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdP5klyBvRY&t=334s
👉 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze67_IXtozQ&t=2s

Does anyone have a special excel spreadsheet they use when doing bids that they could share. Or a spreadsheet that inputs info from previous jobs and lets you know how many big the house was, type of repaint, number of gallons of paint, cost of expenses, man hours worked, how many days to completion, and profit margin. And then you just keep inputting that info from every job to help you come up with the correct bid prices?
What kind of things do you keep track of? I have all of my bid proposals over the years stored in manilla folders along with receipts from the job. Only thing I didn't keep track of was how many hours I worked on the job per day, since I'm a one man crew I got lazy about it, but now I would like to go back through all my files and input the info into a spreadsheet of some sort that will give me a better idea of how I am bidding.
Also, moving forward, when going on future bids I want to be organized there too. I want to have a worksheet that I can fill out, that lists like Size, substrate, windows, doors, and then next to it I would write in those details, that way when I get home I can use that worksheet and compare it against my previous jobs and eventually have a formula or system for getting accurate bids.
Right now when I go on bids I kind of scribble down some notes in my notebook, but mostly just go off of memory and then come up with a price by estimating how long I think it would take to finish and how much paint I would need. It's pretty sloppy and I want to change. So I would like to hear from some of you guys and what you use when you go on bids, do you have a worksheet? What type of things do you keep track of?
Also do you input your past jobs and their details into a spreadsheet to use to compare to your bid and how close or far off you were? Are there any tools you can recommend?

2023, September - Missouri. We had a really rough and huge hailstorm in my town, cars roofs all that wrecked even Home windows.
My house got hit really hard screens, torn windows, detached from the frame, garage door bent and damaged.
Every single house on our street (not exaggerating over 145 home in my subdivision(133 got roof redone) has had to get their roof redone, I made a claim that week after having two roofers, walk my roof and tell me almost the exact same thing, that my roof needs to be completely removed and redone.
I get assigned to someone in Florida (why Florida when the house is in Missouri??) as my claims adjuster.
She called a week later, sked for photos and documents/estimates so we submitted over 60 photos, 30 videos and they stated that wasn’t enough. The roofers were baffled and re-chalked up everything on the roof and allstate adjuster (and her supervisor whom said ripped shingles was part of the building process) said “that doesn’t show damage” and I said “you are wrong, look again” and I asked her “Fly up from Florida, why don’t you come out and walk with them?”
She said no, she was qualified to do it there.
They denied the claims and worksheets from 2 roofers and said the photos “showed no damage to the roof” even though there’s shingles actually ripped and broken) and said they will have to send out their team so they hired and sent out their own inspector, their own inspector stated to me off the record that that roof needs to be replaced, but will submit the report to the adjuster.
Months and weeks later after I reached out over 30 times, called corporate, called my local agent, she finally got back to me (it’s now February 2024 at this time) my Allstate adjuster received the new report (who only communicated with me only 2 times before), stated the inspector only saw damage to the gutters and vents and the roof was fine. I said absolutely not and I scheduled to have another roofer company come out to do an examination of my roof.
She said, since I don’t agree with that, they will send out another inspector to come and look at the roof and they sent the same guy with the same business.
Miraculously this time, the inspector saw no damage to anything, there was no damage at all to my house - it healed??
This is when I was fed up, so I reached out to local state property adjuster in the city inspector and had them walk my roof and immediately not even two minutes on my roof. They get down from my roof and they said you need to get a copy of those reports, because this is conspiracy with malice to commit fraud.
Immediately reach back out and they called me back quick and I said I just had to officials inspector and an adjuster with the city walk my roof and they requested me to get these copies of documents a copy of the same paperwork she sent me the first report about it being damaged to the gutters, my adjuster gets kind of shaky and her voice and says she’ll have to contact her boss to see if she can provide the newest copy of the report. She provided the first report to me. Don’t know why it would be an issue to provide me the second report as I’m watching my phone waiting for her to call back in 30 minutes within 9 min I get a ding on my Allstate app on my phone stating that my claim is closed and right after that ding, they call me back and said “they cannot provide me that paperwork because my claim was closed” and I pushed back and said you didn’t have a problem, providing me a copy of the report of the first inspection and now my house has no damage at all.
I said something is fishy and I’m gonna need a copy of that report, and you need to preserve all the evidence of this claim and our communications” that enraged her to state “she was not going to approve my roof ever and to stop calling her about my roof your claim is closed and that’s it, have a great day and thanks for calling Allstate”so I raised hell, my agent reached out to corporate and catastrophic claims and the manager of my claims adjuster and they all called me back and stated that they are really sorry about how she acted and that they were going to try to reopen my claim, unprofessional representative of Allstate.
I will deal with that later I told them, and was glad that my claim was open and I even went with a company that even Allstate recommended to come and check out my roof.
I had another company come out and write a report that was almost identical to the first. They were completely disgusted with the behavior of insurance company. All my roofers were, my actual insurance agent was as well, this company sent over almost an exact copy of the report and added little details and took even more pictures so now they’ve got over 300 pictures.
Now it’s March 2024 (7 months from my claim date): that same claim agent/adjuster in Florida calls me and states they got the report and reviewed it even though it was reviewed and audited each time, and they approved and agreed the whole roof needs to be replaced the garage doors need to be replaced the window screens need to be replaced the fence in the backyard has to be replaced, $34,000 worth of work was approved.
This not has only costed me time. It has costed me emotionally. It has this not has only costed me time. It has costed me emotionally, I put a lot of strain on our marriage because I was trying to make sure I was here for everything so I missed out on family events, I barely got any sleep, and the only thing that kept me from being a pushover on this was the fact that I’m in Disabled Veteran and I’m stuck at home all day, put strain on my marriage. It put strain on me physically I wasn’t eating or sleeping much because I was so stressed, and it heavily affected my PTSD in my ability to regulate my anger, which I have been working on for years. And the sad part about it is even getting the house and everything approved physically and emotionally. It made me take 10 steps back on my recovery.
Now given all this time and all the snowstorms and torrential rain, we’ve been getting for weeks before they got their heads out of their asses and finally agreed the damage was there, that roof had spots where it leaked, it leaked into a bifold storage container that contained hard photos of me and my marines, some of which did not make it back from Iraq that I will never be able to get those photos back. A lot of my military documents were in those binders in that storage tote, but luckily I had made copies of those, and my wife’s collection of Ty beanie babies (over 300), some that were worth 15k to 20,000.00 are worth nothing now because it molded, and decayed the tags and some of the babies themselves, and I’m currently trying to figure out which beanie babies are what and create those as claims and send it to Allstate because they want to see each one and try to replace them and I’m sorry but one beanie baby itself is $30,000 worth at the moment.
I reached back out to Allstate to let them know that their delay and their negligence to do the right thing and to actually put in the work and see the damage not try to downplay it has now cost me photos of marines I served with that no longer are with us and my wife’s childhood collection of beanie babies.
The response I got from that adjuster again was “ I’m sorry, but those will not and are not going to be covered.”
I reached out to my agent and he told him wtf was going on now and he stated those should be covered and he was going to immediately call above that whole department.
So I waited for a call back again.
It took them two weeks to call me back and this time it was a gentleman, he introduced himself as my new claims adjuster, and that my previous claims adjuster and her supervisor are no longer working for Allstate,
I won’t ever get back the photos of the men, that I’ll never see again in my life, my wife’s childhood collection of beanie babies, family memories I missed at home or on the phone arguing with Allstate, and possibly all progress I’ve made emotionally and mentally went backwards and now I have to start back up working on my mental state again.
I don’t know what type of an attorney I need. I don’t know what I need to do, but Allstate knowingly and blatantly tried to commit fraud, they tried to find ways to hide everything when they got caught. They tried even harder by closing my case, but they didn’t expect me to fight back so I wonder how many people this lady has denied and those people lost the strength to keep fighting.
Allstate were negligent at the services that we pay for, as resulted in severe emotional distress marital distress family distress and frankly, my emotional and mental health has been compromised because of this.
Sorry this was a long post.

I'll start off by saying I don't want to sit here and write a post of another failed set of parents, but, alas, I have nobody else I can speak to about this that would really understand. I've found therapists do be rather unhelpful and I truly have trust issues with people. I've kept a lot of this inside for my life and at this point I think I just need to somehow let it out instead of punching holes in walls or screaming in anger randomly. Maybe writing it here would help me sleep a full night or be a little happier in life?
Either way, I would genuinely appreciate hearing your take on this for those who have experienced a similar past. I'm not looking for sympathy, but a possible path that I can take in getting rid of this hate I have inside of me for good.
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By the age of 13 I had already been living with different friends for months and months with no idea where or what my mother was doing. I went to school but only when I wanted to, otherwise I would wander around and skateboard on the streets until it was time to go 'home'. She would randomly show up in her beat up 80s Honda accord with everything she owned in the backseat to see me once in a BLUE moon. Never once did she speak with my friends parents or caretakers about me, just assumed I would worm my way into another family and their life and become another mouth to feed with no explanation. As a kid you don't really see it from an adults perspective, but as an adult you know there's a failed adult behind this child in your home.
I knew the situation wasn't ideal, but I was living with my best friend at the time for a while as a kid. Every night was video games with your best bud, how bad can life be?
My mother was 17 when she had me, and 16 when she had my brother both with the same guy. I never knew my brother, he was given away because either she was too young or she didn't want him. I spoke with him a few times on social media, but nothing more. I don't use any social media so any contact I did have is gone. He didn't know I existed until I had reached out and has never spoken with our blood parents.
Super mommy did it all. Drank whatever and whenever she could, frequently used drugs (even sold them to my friends who were in middle school for a couple of bucks), fist fought anyone that upset her (including men and myself at a certain age) and was always the victim in these scenarios. She hadn't been this way for as long as I knew her, but majority of the time it was. She had a temper like no other and felt like it was "her" superpower. When it reality it's just a weakness that everyone gets to experience firsthand, either verbally or physically depending on the day. "You can fuck with mean, but you can't fuck with crazy!" she'd say, moments before road raging with a stranger at midnight in the middle of nowhere.
When my 'step' father (the man who raised me most of my life and I love with everything I have) had heard of my situation living abroad, he didn't hesitate to pick me up and take me to a better place in an entirely different part of the country. He and my mother didn't see eye to eye on much after I was about 4 years old, but he always stuck around in the same town we lived in to be around me. Eventually he went back to his hometown when she severed communication between he and I. Only through the grapevine did he hear about me and what I was doing. A few days later he had driven across the US day and night to pick me up, give that family money, thanked them and took me away.
The last time I spoke with my mother was when she took me out for some new shoes for my 14th birthday making promises left and right, while again sitting in her car with everything she had in the backseat. It was just another day with this human who couldn't help but do drugs and lie to me. I already knew I wouldn't be here in a few days and when she came back to see me, I was gone.
I lived in this new home and it actually felt like one with my Dad (step dad but he was my DAD). A few years of having a HOME was surreal and I think I took it for granted, because that too came to an end. I was just starting college and that's when parent #2 came into my life.
Meet Bio-dad! He was once only a few blurry pictures from many years past and tales from my shaman mother. Naturally I was always curious about him, and one day we were in contact with one another. Somehow he managed to find me, even though he had been paying child support for most of my life. He flew out to meet me, and a few months later I somehow decided moving across the country to live with him was a swell idea.
I thought this might have been it, finally, the blood I thought I always wanted in my life. But just a few months in I realized he was no better than her. He was successful and worked hard, but that doesn't mean he's a good person let alone a father. I never called him Dad or Father purely because I was a young adult now and didn't need another figure like that in my life, let alone from someone I barely knew. He was on marriage 2 or 3 with step kids and I just felt like I was 13 years old again in another strange house. I was told he spent a long time trying to find me when he was paying child support but was never able to. I believed him at first, and sometime later many divorced fathers told me that probably isn't be true.
It felt like he was constantly angry or upset at something. His wife, the kids, the dogs, the pool, whatever he was annoyed with everyone else was obligated to agree or veer away. He often found ways to make himself out to be the hardest worker and nothing matters but how many hours you clock in your worksheet. He "wished he could work 40 hours a week". After a few months of everyone arguing, yelling and finger pointing over little nothings each day, I decided I didn't need this kind of stress in my life and left to live in my small truck for a few weeks until I found a room to rent on my own and start my adult life.
Over the years he's tried to stay in contact with me but I never really gave much back to him if at all. I have no interest in knowing him, but his insistent attempts to contact me with 'family is important' yada yada makes my blood boil. I have no blood family as far as I care to know. I'm on the latter half of this life and I simply don't see the point in trying to establish these relationships because we have the same grandparents or blood. Why would I EVER try to put myself into that situation again? For family? Something I really don't value or care about?
The last couple of years I went from never thinking about these humans to frequently finding myself shaking from anger and distracted in life from what I want to actually do and accomplish. I feel like I'm stuck on this chapter and I really, really need to move on from it. I thought just ignoring it would work, but alas as time goes on I get random phone calls and texts from people I used to know trying to get in contact with me. I know who they are, and I know who they're speaking for, but I don't ever give them the satisfaction of even responding.
So here I am, wondering what I should do. Do I call both of them (keep in mind I don't think they've spoken since the early 90s) and let each person individually know that I'd rather watch them suffer in life than to spend time with them? I don't even want them to know where I am, what I'm doing or what I sound like. Do I write them an email, pray they know what that even is and hope they understand I don't care for them?
I considered getting hypnotized so I can fully forget them. As ridiculous as that sounds I often wonder if I could completely remove them from my memory, would I be a better person? Would I finally feel this tension in my chest leave? Would I stop screaming internally when I'm alone out of anger towards them?
At this point in my life I just want to be happy with what I have and leave them in an old time capsule never to be opened again. As I get older the more I understand that childhood tremendously dictates who we are, and I'm learning that I don't really like who I am in some aspects, and I blame them for that. Whatever good and success I have in life is because of my 'step' Dad and how he raised me the best he could.
I don't know that I could be calm or mature enough to clearly state how I feel without emotions coming into the mix. Every time I imagine talking to them it quickly turns into a rage that takes a while to let go of.
If you read my rant, thank you. If you didn't, I don't blame you one bit.
tl;dr I need to completely remove my parents from my life so I can move on, and I'm not sure how to go about it.
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I finally did it. I announced that I want a divorce. My last straw, the event that solidified that I need to do this, he got verbally aggressive, threw and broke stuff in our home, forced the room door open with a butter knife when I was trying to get away from him and called the cops on me trying to get me arrested in front of my child. We’re in NC which means you cannot file for a divorce until you’ve been separated for a year. You’re not legally considered separated unless you reside in different homes. The thing is I have a child (not his but he’s raised her since she was a baby) who is established in the area and in her school. I told my STBX that I think that we should get to remain in the home since my daughter is still in school AND all of the family pets (2 dogs and 1 cat) are all the sudden mine (he threatened to take them to the pound if I leave and informed me he hates them all). He’s flat out refusing to leave. He makes more than me and because he keeps his finances 100% separate (has since he ran off with the entire savings account in 2021 when I first tried to leave) and has made me pay for his taxes (and more than my fair share of the bills) since he somehow doesn’t get enough taken out. For reference I am the one who has an additional $410 in taxes taken out biweekly since I did the worksheet based on dual income. He refused to do it because he wants to keep as much of his check as possible (I on once caught him claiming 7 dependents) which caused us to owe almost $7k one year which he also won’t pay for. Threatened to quit his job so he wouldn’t have to pay taxes... he has way more in savings than me. I’ve done the math and I can afford the home. I can even afford another home but would need to get my name off the current loan. I worry if I leave before I get my name off that he’ll maliciously tank my credit by refusing to make the payment. I suggested if he was refusing to leave, he could buy me out (we have a considerable amount of equity). He tells me that his lawyer told him that’s not a thing... Mine said otherwise. If he buys me out I can actually afford a decent house vs one that needs a lot of work. He’s refusing to do anything around the house and everything now falls to me (including picking up after him). He stays holed up in our room while I have had to move to the guest room which is downstairs and away from my daughter’s room. I’ve tried to remain amicable so that my daughter has some sense of normalcy but he’s making it so hard!! Last night he didn’t come home until 1:45am reeking of cigarettes (daughter and I both have asthma) and stumbling up the stairs. He woke the dogs up which subsequently woke me up so I got no sleep. He is making me so uncomfortable. I don’t know when he’s coming or going. He’s refusing to talk about anything and just seems to want to try to punish me and make life hell. I just want away from him… he’s being so childish and unreasonable. I can’t afford a lawyer and paying for everything else. I don’t know what to do… I feel stuck all over again.

Throw away because reasons.
I quit my prior teaching job near end of November and its a story that has tainted my life.
I was at my last school for 3 years. Beginning of a new year had started and the admin really wanted to enforce a dress code and pushed it on us hard. Obviously cause they were told to. So I played along and dress coded even though i mostly don't care about dress codes. Had one student one day who had a bra cup showing. Which was 100% a dress code violation. When the student came back to me, she was still wearing her shirt in the same manner. I gave her my patented thousand yard stare and she immediately told admin said it was okay. So i called up tweedle dee and asked him and sure enough she went to him and he said it was okay. I told him the student is coming back and she is not welcome in my room till the issue is addressed. I told the student you aren't the problem I'm not mad at you, we have good rapport and she went back to the office and i didn't see her till lunch.
Lunch time she and some others come into my room to get help with some math work. She is still wearing the same shirt and her bra cup is still visable. I was fuming. So i emailed admin and said if we were serious about dress code or not. Stated that the student has been sent up twice and this issue hasn't bee resolved. I said "I feel like I'm fighting the crusades for an atheist"... which wasnt wise but i was mad.
So its a friday i hear nothing back from admin. Till I'm going to leave at the end of the school day and Tweedle Dumb stops to talk me about the dress code situation. I'm like sure fine this will be fun.
He said some wish washy stuff about sometimes someone sees something and its dress code sometimes someone see it and its not. Then bro pulls out his phone and says i tool a picture of the girl to show you how its not dress code and he just shows me a picture that is basically just the students cleavage. Which is disgusting and awful on many levels, he made up something about her agreeing to it and it was friday at the end of a long work day. I was tired i didn't think about how awful this was in the moment. So he shows it to me and we have a manray and Patrick ass conversation over the image.
Me: The students bra cup is visible in the picture.
Admin: Yep.
Me: School dress code states that undergarments cant be visable..
Admin: Yep
Me: and the bra cup is part of a bra which is undergarment?
Admin: Yep
Me: So its a dress code violation.
Admin: Nope!
To which i put my hands in the air said okay cool awesome great whatever have a good weekend and i walked off.
Monday at Lunch. The student comes to me and talks about her encounter with tweedle dumb. She told me he ask to take the photo she said no. Then he coerced her into agreeing. Never mind the fact that a minor cant give concent. That was when it went from being ew gross to holy shit he might just be a child predator. I didn't fullly grasp how bad this was on Friday but better late than never.
So i had the student fill out an "anonymous tip form" that is suppose to go to the D.O. and i know the student got pulled out of classes to write about what happened. In my mind it would be taken care of from there and i mostly forgot about it and moved on.
The rest of the year I was harassed by admin. Constant "random" walk throughs. Was frequently being singled out and if ever tried to say anything back they would call me into a meeting where i would bring my union rep and i would just sit and try to work things out with them. After the second one i recognized they weren't listening to me. So i shut down and just started saying okay like a broken record. Which they thought was disrespectful and said told me i wasn't listening to them and i said well neither are you.
This put a lot of stress on my work day, compounded by the fact that i had 14 out of 120 students passing with a D or higher. While being as accommodating as possible. Led to me having a mental break down in class. I slammed my arm into a wall said something to effect of "nothing i do fucking matters, anyone could do my job" i then sat down at my desk and just started bawling. I was put on admin leave for 2 days. Had an hr meeting and went back into work.
When i got back i apologized to my class and spent the day explaining to the rest what happened and just talking with the students. I told them how i have no job fulliment how i find it painful to teach math to students who don't care about themselves as much as i can about them. I told then how i hate living so far away from friends and family. I hate the 40 minute drive in addition to that and cant live near the school cause I don't like the area. I couldn't tell them about the admin part because he was in the room the entire day.
Next day at lunch union rep and prinicpal walk in at lunch time while i am helping students and tell the students to clear out cause we are going to have a meeting. I tell the students not to leave its my lunch time and i aint having no meeting turning lunch. The union rep says tells me the meeting needs to happen so i tell the kids to leave and that I'll see them later or whatever. So the meeting is basically I'm going on indefinite admin leave while the district investigates. Note that its been 4 days since i slammed a wall and all that. I've already spoke to hr and just owned what happened what changed? Well i wouldn't know till like 9 months later.
I tried to find a new school all summer but apparently other districts can know you are on admin leave? So basically i was on everyone's dont hire list for all summer. So the new school year is starting and I'm still on admin leave. However the D.O. decides its time. To bring me back in and they give me a list of 14 things that i did wrong. #1 was that i was a math teacher which made me laugh. They spent 9 months putting this documentation together and all of this resulted in 14 bullet points which i get a week to respond to. I while reading about this with HR i noticed that one email was left out. The email about the dress code incident how weird. So much to the Union Presidents dismay. I tell HR there actually should be a 15th thing. I would like it ammended to your list. And i bring up the email. Apparently neither of these two knew about the dress code situation. What had me fuming while i was on admin leave was that i did basically nothing (not saying what i did was good or that i should do it) and i disappeared for 9 months and admin who sexually harassed? Assualted? A student didn't even leave for a day. So i explained everything that happened to them. I was allowed back on campus but was given the shortest of leashes you could imagine i was handed a list of like 20 things that i couldn't do and if i did any of them within the next half of the school year i could be fired.
So i figured i needed to detatch myself from caring about my students do not get upset. So i did the bare minimum. I became worksheet man. Then i had students saying i didn't care about them anymore that iwas a good teacher and now I'm not. Admin was stopping by all the time i was getting written up for being seconds late to contract time (everyone showed up late), I started showing up early and logging everyone elses arrival times in case i needed them for court. Which then made some teachers curse me out. They said i was going to ruin everything for everyone and that i should suck it up and take it like a man. Worth noting our contract start time was 6:50 and everyone basically lived 40 minutes away.
So this ate at me so bad I'd wake up get out of bed get on the floor and sob and call in sick. I physically couldn't will myself to work most days. Then when i got on campus I'd be in near tears and would struggle through the day. Now i couldn't quit because they would go after my credential so i was trapped. I felt caged in and stuck. Somewhere around 2 months in the admin creep got removed from campus for "personal reasons" they moved him to an elementary school. I was hoping that would help my mental state but it didnt.
The new interem principal who is my hero in this story had a talk with me at one point. I don't remember what happened but i was called into another meeting for something i did or said. The interm principal asked how she could help me feel better. I explained that i felt trapped and i was under so much scrutiny that it felt like i was playing an impossible game. I'm being set up to fail. She reached out to the D.O. and probably pulled some strings but the D.O. gave me a limited time offer to resign and walk away. So i took it, got in writing that they wouldn't come after my credential or interfere with my future job searches.
I moved back in with my parents and was able to get a temp gig from march till the end of the year. Which is where i am now. I fell in love with the school, the students, the staff and wanted to stay here. However this district is releasing of their temps i found out about 3 weeks ago. They won't be keeping a single one.
So now i feel lost. I came in and did an amazing job with these students. I blew everyones expectations out of the water. I wanted to show that i wanted to be here and how good I am. All of that just for nothing.
Now I'm like giga depressed because i have to return to job hunting. I was fed these lies that math teachers are in high demand, that new teachers are quitting, there is a teacher shortage and oh no we have emergency credential people.
I hate interviewing and i must be bad at it cause i dont get jobs from it when I do. I never get feedback on job interviews either so how am i suppose to correct whatever I'm doing wrong? My mom says its always about who shows up. Well who the fuck is rolling up to math teaching jobs with more than 5 years experience? Where is the job they left behind then? I'm now sitting in a different classroom feeling like i did before. I feel hopeless like nothing i do matters.
I want to progress my life, i want to find the school, in a city i want to settle down in, i want to be out of my parents house again. If this summer comes and goes and I don't have a job i don't know what I'm going to do with myself. Someone suggested I substitute which made me mad. Like i didn't work this hard to be as good as i am at what i do to substitute. I don't want to walk into a classroom and be thinking to myself this should be mine.
I'm just exhausted. I'm tired of jumping through hoops like a damn dolphin. While other people get to do it like a show dog and get better if not similar results. I'm tired of living.

This is probably a longer story than it really is, but I am just trying to give as much context as I can.
In grade 11, me (F16-17) and my ex-friend (F16-17) were best friends. For some context, we both became friends fairly early in high school. In my country high school is from grade 8-grade 12. I joined the high school in grade 8 from out of city, the high school is just closer to me than the one in my city, so I was a new kid. I made some friends in grade 8 as a new kid but those friendships did end in grade 9. Grade 9 is when my best friend, we'll call her Emily, transferred to the school. And we formed a friendship. Through grade 9 we had formed our own little friend group with 2 other girls, we'll name them Clara and Sabrina. It was the 4 of us through majority of high school. We would always text each other, always hang out after school, spend any break we had at school together and had as much fun as any girls in high school could have (minus the partying because my school is not a partying school).
Emily and I were the closet in the friend group, afterall we were pretty similar and come from similar backgrounds (We're both a type of asian). We both would be described as the smart kids. We both would end up getting high grades in all of our classes. In grade 9, when we met, she told the friend group her dream was to become a doctor like her parents were, so she studied extra hard in high school to keep her grades high. I, on the other hand, did not really have any specific dreams. I wanted to become a writer or even a lawyer (but was worried because I'm not the best speaker). Due to that, I never tried that hard at school. Like i care about grades, my parents cared a lot about me getting high grades, but I wasn't studying for anything. And with that I never really studied either, I would do my homework and pay attention in class and take pretty notes but I was not spending any real time after class to do work Which is something that Emily would do. She would spend hours and hours a day just studying. If she wasn't studying she would be doing some volunterring or some club stuff.
Fast forward to grade 11. Right from the beginning of the year something just felt odd about our relationship. She seemed distant. Which I chalked up to it being we were now considered seniors at our high school so she was starting to stress about universities already, but it was still whatever. My school worked in semesters, so for half of the year we would have 4 specific classes which would then switch to different classes in second semester. During first semester I didn't have any classes with any of my friends. I was just chilling in all of my classess and getting adopted into different group friends in those classes. I was always well-liked in high school, I was not a popular kid. But compared to all the smart kids in the school, I was deemed the nicest so because of that everyone would be nice to me and friendly (even though I know for some of them it was so they could get hw answers out of me, but they were still very nice to me).
During this time, my friends and I would make up plans to hang out. We always made it a point to hang out at least once a week outside of school. It was always after school, we would usually study, walk around or go to the mall. In our gc on insta we would always double check with one another on which days to do it. Clara, Sabrina and I would always talk in the gc and were always the ones initiating the plans. Emily was also in the gc but would rarely reply to anything. Any times we would make plans to hang out, Emily would either not reply (which would then lead us to asking her during lunch the next day if she was free, where she would barely talk) or she would just say no to all plans. The few times she would say yes, she would always cancel the day of. Which would be annoying, and Clara, Sabrina and I would talk amongst ourselves that we found it odd she would always cancel and never want to hang out outside of school, but we were like it's not that big of a deal. She could just be busy.
We then just ahead to my birthday. Now i have an early birthday and it falls around the time that we come back to school after the winter break. Now during the winter break, Clara, Sabrina and I formed a seperate gc as it would just be the three of us talking and making plans. We also always took so many pictures and felt bad about sending it into the gc with the four of us in it as we didnt want Emily to feel bad about not coming. So we figured it was better if we kept it seperate. But in the main gc, I just ask when is everyone free to do something small. I'm not really a birthday person. Since high school, all my birthdays include going to some cozy restauraunt with my 4 closest friends and just having a casual dinner. So I ask and everyone leaves their responses, including Emily. We decide on a day, it would be after school just a day or two after my actual birthday and we would be going to a restuarunt and an arcade nearby (I have strict parents so I really wasn't allowed to go out late or really go out anywhere far). The plan is made and everything is set. When the day comes for the dinnearcade, we all meet up by our lockers to go take the bus together.
The 3 of us are there waiting for Emily to come and she does just a few minutes late. That is when she tells us she can't come because she has a club meeting today, and she told us it was mandatory for us to attend. Now of course my friends and I tried to convince her to blow it off just this one time, but she was adamant about going. So, whatever. We say bye to her and start walking to the bus. While walking there we bump into a mutual friend, also waiting for the bus. She is also in the same club, so we confused why she was here. We do ask her, saying "hey isn't there something happening with the club today?" That is when she tells us there was just this small meeting recapping what had happened in last weeks meeting for the people who missed it. Meaning the meeting was not madatory at all, especially when Emily had cancelled our plans last week to go to this said meeting. Meaning she did sort of lie to get out of going to my birthday party. I of course was hurt by this. When she told us she had to go to the meeting, I didn't think much of it as I knew how much school mattered to her and how much doing this club stuff mattered. But she had the choice to come, and she decided to just blow me off. We went out and had fun and didn't bring the matter up with her. We figured it was just her caring a bit too much about school.
Anyways this whole cancelling plans last minute, ghosting the main gc thing happened more and more. It also got to the point where if I wanted to talk to her, whether that was through text or in real life I would always have to approach her first. As this carried on for a while, i of course was getting a bit annoyed about where this friendship was going.
We now get to Emily's birthday a month later. Now Emily decided to plan her birthday, very last minute. I am just pointing this out as i am not a person who can do spontaneous plans, one because i have this need to plan properly and two because I do have strict parents. So i can't just spring a plan on them the day of and expect to go. Which is something Emily knows. Anyways she makes the plan and i tell my mom about it to ask if i can go and she says yes. The day before, Emily then decides to change the plan entirely. We were going to go into downtown city (for context, it's roughly 2 hours transit from our neighborhood). I obviously had to ask permission as she wanted to stay out late which is not something my parents would like, so when Emily told us at lunch the change in plans, Clara, Sabrina I told her we had to double check if we can still go as we all have strict parents, but our extended friend group were all down to go.
After school, the four of us head into the bathroom, which is a toally normal thing for high school girls to do before we headed out. While there Emily then decides to start a fight with me about not going to her birthday, which hasn't happened yet. She starts yelling at me about how Im mad that she didn't go to my birthday and am not going to hers as revenge (I'll be honest, I kinda forgot she didn't go). And starts yelling at me about how I'm being a bad friend and frankly a b*tch. And when I say she is screaming at me, I mean there is the largest echo circling our bathroom as she yells at me. Now I'm just standing there, trying to reason with her. I'm just trying to explain to her that i didn't say i wasn't coming, i just needed to get permission to go, which is something that Clara and Sarbina said as well but Emily wasn't saying anything about them. She proceeded to just yell at me for a solid 5 minutes. Another girl did walk into the bathroom, saw Emily yelling and just left, which I feel bad about. I do not do well with someone yelling at me, so I just tell her that I'm leaving now and we can talk later. I practically run out of the bathroom and out of school. Clara runs up to me and says i can't go home feeling like this. I felt horrible, i felt like throwing up. So Clara makes it her job to cheer me up as Sabrina is trying to calm Emily down. Clara takes me to Mcdonalds, where we split a meal as that became a tradition of ours and she bought me ice-cream to make me feel better. We end up spending roughly and hour and half there before starting to walk back to our houses. I did feel a lot better and I was smiling. Clara didn't really say much about what happened as she knew it would upset me. She just said that Emily was being mean and left it at that. At some point during our walk, Emily calls Clara and starts screaming at Clara over the phone about choosing "my side". I only know it was Emily because I can hear her screaming through the phone and Clara is trying to be nice to her and say she was comforting her friend like a good one would do. Emily continues screaming and Clara just hangs up on her.
We don't talk about it. Now the next day, at school, is Emily's birthday. I feel so awkward. Because i'm still upset about what happened. When I see her, I'm not sure if I should wish her a happy birthday. I feel like I am owed an apology first. so i don't really say anything to her. and we don't really talk. Now we are in the same Chemistry honours class together and are lab partners. So we have to talk. I ask her, if we're going to talk about what happened. And she just says, no, it's my birthday. I just say really but she doesn't say anything after. So Im just like, fine, whatever. We spend the entire class in awkward silence, and I do not see her again the entire day. Even at lunch because she has a club meeting or something. Clara, Sabrina and I all agree that we don't want to talk about it. Clara got an apology text last night but she was still mad about being yelled at over the phone. Sabrina asked us if we wanted to know what her and Emily talked about yesterday but i said no. I was frankly too mad and knew if anything was said, I would be upset. Emily did not end up having a birthday party. and there is now an awkward silence between the 4 of us. it's like a horror movie, where the music is playing and you just know something bad is coming and you have to wait for it.
A few days later, I know i have to say something. I can feel that our friendship is hanging by a thread and I want my best friend back. So at lunch, while we're all sitting by our lockers I bring up the topic. I do not remember the conversation that took place. All I know was that Emily was practically screaming in my face, in front of all our friends (Clara, Sabrina and 5 of our other friends). Everyone is trying to get her to stop, but she keeps yelling at me. At some point I just start crying. Now this is the first time, that someone outside of my family, has ever made me cry. Its the first time I have ever cried at school too. The tears are flowing down my face as I just say "i'm sorry i cant do this" to the rest of our friends as i had off to the bathroom to calm down. Clara and one of our other friends rush off with me to try to calm me down and stop the tears. But they keep coming. I can't stop them and am now in the bathroom splashing my face with water and doing my best to wipe them all away. Clara, this other friend and i all have the same class next. So they have to literally drag me to class as I'm sort of paralyzed about whats happening. When we get to the classroom, everyone there, which was half of the class is looking at me and seeing my red, teared-up face. Our seats are at the very back corner of the classroom, on the very opposite side from the door. So i have to walk past the entire face as they all stare at me and wonder whats happening. the entire time im not really paying any attention. during little work periods in the class, my fellow classmates would walk up to me and ask if im okay. which i would say yes, i was even though i wasnt because what else could i say. I ended up powering through the rest of the day before going home and wonderign what to do.
In the secret gc, I text with Clara and Sabrina about what my next steps should be. They suggest we have an actual therapy session as a friend group to discuss if we even want to be friends at this point. I agree to this. I even start writing up my own speech I am going to tell Emily when i see her.
So I'm just going to jump ahead to whenever this happens. It's during lunch, outside on the grass field. I am calm, I know what to say and everything. I'm sitting there with Clara and Sabrina has to literally drag Emily out of school to come and talk. I kid you not. We have like an hour for lunch. It takes 20 minutes for Emily to finally show up. And she shows up like, "ugh what are we even doing here? im kinda busy" and just acts like there is nothing at all wrong. I start to calmly explain to her how ive been feeling the entire year. I do not remmeber the conversation. But what I remember talking about is how i feel like she's distant, she's always cancelling plans, im always the one texting her first, about how she gets mad at me for small little things, how she yells at me, etc. My whole speech was about how "i don't want to feel like sh*t for trying to continue this friendship". Because even after the first time she yelled at me, I just wanted an apology and we could move on and that didn't happen. And now Im just like I don't want to cry again and don't want my tears to come from someone who's supposed to be my best friend. She does argue her case in this. Her whole thing is how "i'm being clingy and annoying and controlling".
Now for her arguement, I think it should be known more about my persoanlity type. I am not the best people person. I have social anxiety and how that manifests in me is that i can't really talk to people that well. I don't know how to converse and get incredibly nervous to talk to anyone new. So when I do become friends with someone, I do latch on to them. I talk to them all the time, when i can, and they become my person. I think that is where the clingy party comes from. For the controlling/annoying thing, I can only chalk it up to me always texting her. Like i said, i would always have to be the one initating our conversations and plans. So our chats always look like 5 bubbles of text from me (because i am the person that types in multiple bubbles rather than one large text bubble) and her short responses. When it comes to plans, as I said i do not do spontaenous plans. I need to have them properly organized for both my parents sakes and my sake. I'm not someone who plans everything out minute by minute, I just need to know times and places. And if you are actually free.
Thankfully this time, Emily isn't yelling at me however she is talkimg a bit loudly. Now at this point we have spent 25ish minutes talking about this when she suddently gets up and says "i have to go otherwise i'll be late for my class and get in trouble". Which there is still 15 minutes before lunch ends. And her classroom is across the hallway from my next class with Clara. The walk from the grass field was literally 2 minutes. Our coversation wasn;t done. There was no convlusion and no real understanding on either part. So all of us get up as Emily starts speed walking and we all chase her. We're all telling her there is still so much time left, but she doesn't listen and still carries on. So then I say, "i don't want to be friends anymore if this is what it's going to be like". and she says "fine." and walks away. and that was the end of our friendship.
It was almost spring break and our friends were doing their best to navigate the situation. I think they believed we both needed time to cool down and we can all be friends again. However that didn;t happen. Emily and i agreed to be civil as we still had the same friend group but she never really hung out with us in the next couple days, or talked during lunch and that was it.
The two of us did not talk at all. The only times we did was in our Chemistry class, where she did the most un-civil thing ever. As I said we were lab partners. Anytime we had any lab, involing the microscope, I would always be the person doing the microscope work as Emily writes down the results of what I found. I would then get the numbers or obersations from her and add them to my worksheet as our teacher wanted us to work in partners but submit our own work. This one lab went off for too long and the bell rung. So as we are packing up quickly, I ask Emily for the numbers she wrote down. She said she's late for something and will send me the numbers later today. And I'm like fine. She never did. It was also a Friday so we went into the weekend and she never sent me anything. I did text her once on Saturday and another time on Sunday if she could send it. but she never replied and i just asked another classmate if they could send me their answers. If our teacher asked why did we as partners have different answers, I was going to tell him Emily wouldn't give them to me. He never did ask and that was the last time we really talked.
We then headed into spring break which ended up turning into the pandemic lockdown. Now I feel so bad when saying this, as i know this was a difficult time for so many people. But me as a 17-year-old high school studnet, loved the first few weeks of lockdown. I saw it as a mental health break as all the stuff that went down with Emily did in fact put me into a depression phase (I actually do have depression and i do end up in mini-phases where its really bad). The lockdown gave me time to breathe as it felt like i was holding my breath for so long and i could relax. Now in the fall, our school did a hybrid for our last year. Which was fine, it was weird but managable. Emily did not talk to me, Clara or Sabrina at all during our seniour year. We graduated and my friends and I had the best time we could under pandemic restrictions.
Current day, I (21) am now in university. Clara and Sabrina and I are as close as ever and have managed to keep our friendship alive and strong even 3-4 years outside of high school and while all attending different universities. We still hang out regularly (once every week or so) and text all the time. And would you believe it, Emily goes to my university. Remember, how I said she wanted to become a doctor. Yeah so her plan was to go to university in Toronto for some medicine thing. I don't really know. She didn't do that. Instead she stayed in our city and decided to do business instead. What am I doing, you ask? Also business. Now I know I can't claim a school, or a major or anything like that. But i can't lie, im a little annoyed that she decided to swtich her career path to the same as mine. Thankfully Ive only had one class with her and it was one of those big lecture halls so i didn't have to talk with her. Just seeing her tho reminds me of high school and i can feel my blood pressure rising and me sweating as all the nerves and stress come back.
Anyways Clara and Sabrina's birthdays are coming up. Their birthdays are within the same week so since high school, they've always just done one big combined party. The two of them are both really chill people, they are friends with everyone and anyone. So as their coming up with their birthday plans, they are thinking of their guest list and Emily is on it. Now, Clara and Sabrina did ask me beforehand if they could invite her. They do want to make sure I am comfortable. They both tell me that they don't really talk to her anymore, maybe once every 3 months or something. They also haven't hung out since high school. But for their 21st birthday they are thinking of inviting everyone from our high school friend group to have sort of a mini-reuinion. I am down for it, I do think i have moved on, in the sense that I know I do not want Emily in my life. I do tell them I will probably feel awkwad but I can manage for one night for their birthday.
As I'm telling my sister (F16) about Clara and Sabrina's party and who's coming, she asks me about Emily. She basically says if Clara and Sabrina are fine with inviting her, that means they have forgiven her for high school stuff, so am I not being a bit mean for holding on to my feelings? I am a person who believes there is no expirational date on any pain caused by a person. I should not have to "forgive and forget" a person, who has not asked for it and who caused me so much pain just because that is how the world has worked. But it go me thinking, am i being a bit rude?
So, two questions: AITA for what happened in high-school? (am i in the wrong for the friendship breakup) and AITA for not wanting to forgive her?
A FEW NOTES: (i'll add more when i think of it)
I have not spoken to Emily since grade 12. Not in person, not through people, not through text. We have had no contact with one another and i am fine with that. I do not want any relationship with her.
Clara and Sabrina are two of the sweetest people in my life. It does not hurt me at all they have the odd interaction with Emily at all. Afterall they do say its very minimal contact and the few times they have made plans with Emily included, they let me know well in advance, ask if its okay to invite her and all that. Each time I say its fine because I know Im in a good place to not feel bad.
I have never yelled at Emily. Nor have I ever spoken badly about her. With our mutual friends I might complain about the situation, but I never say anything bad about her. I should also say, Emily i don't think was well-liked. As I said the two of are good students, the smart kids, whatever else you want to say. However Emily is what would be described as a "teacher's pet" and does give off an arrogant vibe at times towards others. Some of my other friends/classmates would sometimes make comments about this to me, but i would always sort of downplay it. Like, oh that's not how she really is, she just cares a lot about school. A few times I would say the comments are harsh to some of the classmates. Her, on the other hand, has called me a controlling b*tch to several people. who have all told me about it. She did bad-mouth to quite a few people.
At some point in grade 11 (not really relevant to the main story, but might be part of the reason Emily's always made at me), but I was blamed for a rumour going around that Emily had a crush on this guy in our grade. Emily and I had to go to this one teacher's class for some notes or something. And in the class was this girl who I didn;t really like. So before we walk in I whisper to her, no one can hear, that "hey there's that girl i don't like". Emily then makes it so obvious that she is looking at this girl. And next to her is one of the popular boys in our class. Emily makes it so obvious that shes looking in his direction and does it a few times, that the rumour she likes this guy becomes a huge joke in our grade. She does not like this guy, never has liked this guy, but it is a joke that him and his friends carry on. This continues for the entire year, and Emily in our therapy session does mention this fact. She says its my fault that this joke has gone around. I don't see how.

I got pregnant with a FWB. We used birth control and he chose to opt out of wearing a condom. He knew my stance of not getting an abortion if anything happened and I knew he didn’t want a baby. We were dumb with our decision making & of course I ended up pregnant. After I got pregnant, we stayed in touch a bit and still went on a trip we had previously scheduled before I got pregnant. (He easily could have canceled, as the reservations were in his name + he told me I didn’t need to contribute to the cost)
About halfway into the pregnancy I offered him to sign his rights away. He didn’t want to commit to that. We started working on creating an agreement but it would always end in fighting (him saying he didn’t want this).
He did not come to the birth + adamant about being off of the birth certificate. After the baby was born he visited twice (he lives in another state) + voluntarily started sending $500/m (I never asked but was appreciative). I was adamant about getting this in writing so there is accountability. He was always “busy” or would start a fight so that way we ended the conversation (telling me this is my decision to have the baby and he didn’t want it). I offered we could meet with an attorney and split legal fees. Again he would procrastinate. Eventually, I was fed up and gave him a deadline before I would take Matters to my own hands. When I got an attorney, that burned the bridge with him. he no longer checked on our baby And became hostile. so we really haven’t talked in over four months and he hasn’t seen the baby in over six months
I just received the proposed agreement that was made by my attorney. I know he’s going to be livid when he sees the child support worksheet recommended $1300/m. I know he didn’t want the baby, but he also made the decision to be involved in the beginning. Now that I went to the attorney he no longer wants to be involved.
Am I the asshole for holding him accountable since ultimately he decided to be involved and keep the recommended amount or should I advocate to stick to what we have been doing, $500/m. My friends all think I’m dumb for even thinking about lowering his amount but it would be nice to have some unbiased opinions before moving forward. Maybe I am dumb. You can tell me that my feelings won’t get hurt lol.
Edit to add more details:
I went through an attorney which means we had to do a paternity test and he had to fill out a discovery questionnaire. This was filed through the courts. He got an attorney after he was served a paternity test order. This is my attorney’s attempt at an out of course settlement. I am not familiar with the legal terminology.
Also, I don’t “need” the money. I have a college education, a good paying job, and stable life. This isn’t a debate whether or not I should have given the baby up for adoption or had premarital sex.
2nd edit: thank you for the suggestions and input (both positive & negative). I will reply back to my lawyer to move forward with the proposed amount. The extra that I don’t currently need will be put towards a 529 plan and another high interest savings account that I can use for the child in the future. (Private school tuition, First Car, down payment for her first house, etc.)

was diagnosed this time last year after voluntarily entering inpatient. Everything since then has been so frustrating but also intensely hard. But this definitely has been the worst time of my life and I feel like you guys will at the very least understand cause I read the stuff you send here a lot even though I rarely post.
Got what I thought was my dream job. I do outdoor jobs which house me since it's the only way I can go out into nature most of the time on account of I can't drive. And pretty much immediately when I get here the housing is absolutely horrible, unmaintained and especially in my case horribly nerve wracking being in a room with 7 older men as a young trans woman.
Im sure a lot of you aren't surprised that people could spot my inability to hide my emotions. While I am pretty good at performing well at work regardless of emotions because working helps regulate me, my facial expressions and gestures are like night and day when it comes to how I portray emotions.
My manager called me into the office because she could tell I was distressed about something. She kindly said she is always there to talk and so in a very vulnerable state, i very very stupidly decide to confide my mental condition and current housing frustrations to my manager. My hope was to be moved to the alternative housing that the company has available for the same job which is meant for couples since they were unwilling to accommodate me in the female dorms. She takes it to the general manager and the next day GM comes to me with HR and they're giving me a mandatory flier for the company's 'reasonable accomodations' for bipolar. Guess what their generous therapy option is?
So I get told that in order to have a future with the company I am being required to accept the accommodation of therapy and specifically it MUST be through betterhelp, and it must be tied to the company. Betterhelp being the ubereats of therapy in an industry of course so regulated that all any therapist can do is reassuringly offer me worksheets for an hour straight every week. Mind you Betterhelp has also been implicated in selling off patient data (in a way which is legal certainly only for the fact that it hasn't been regulated... Anyway I say "no thanks" to that since, I do take medication and I have my own actually qualified psychiatrist. But they insist. They show me in the employee handbook where it is indeed stated that not accepting the company's "reasonable accomodations" is grounds for immediate termination.
So I say well okay let's reconsider this. But now suddenly since I hesitated they decide that I am being deceptive and now already made up their mind to terminate me. They gave me 24 hours to vacate.. on a Friday.. in a place with zero public transportation.. thanks for telling me you never ever gave a fuck.
Anyway now I'm literally LITERALLY homeless after only two weeks of work. Payday isnt til next Friday so I'm broke. and trapped on this shitty island until tomorrow. But it's whatever. I am just gonna go backpacking this summer instead. That's what I came here for so, fuck it right? Not gonna let this screw up my life more. But I just, really needed to get it off my chest. Thanks.

We’re currently separated not yet divorced so there’s been no division of assets.
We separated about a year ago. Our relationship and marriage just continue to go downhill for years. We were sleeping in separate rooms for the last three years of our marriage. Intimacy was almost nonexistent. We were more roommates than anything else. Overtime, her controlling behavior became too much to handle. I tried to make it work recommended couples counseling, but she never took it seriously. She would blow up inconveniences like washing the clothes or being a few minutes late to a birthday party accuse me of doing these on purpose get a reaction from her, and constantly screaming at me for the kids passive aggressively’s texting me that she wants to separation or divorce. I have no reason to leave that there was anything like infidelity, and I don’t believe there. It it came to a point where I finally just accepted her request, and we separated.
What I thought was temporary seems to turn permanent. Initially, I moved in with my mom while things cool down she began restricting my time with the kids and eventually change the locks.
Here’s where we are today:
She gets to stay in the 3300 square-foot house with a $1000 mortgage payment. Well, I rent a three bedroom townhouse for $2400 a month. She keeps the minivan that I bought a couple years ago brand new for cash. Without her even asking, I sent $2000 a month to help with the kids, we have 50-50 custody.
But it wasn’t enough so I was serve papers today for child support.
What is wrong with these women? The whole system is set up against men.
Thanks for coming to my TEDTalk
————
Update:
We haven’t filed yet but will be in the coming weeks.
The state mediator worksheet on child support said my obligation is $3042 a month, I was just hoping for a reasonable compromise.
I have an attorney and we will be working through the assets at the divorce settlement.
I am in NC and the law states we have to be physically separated for a year before filling for divorce. It’s a pain in the ass.
I have kept every record of all the shit she’s pulled. The judge at the temporary custody hearing called her out on limiting access. I’m trying to play it cool now but she about to get a reckoning. It’s just frustrating.

This story was originally written July 2023.
You might have heard of me. I was a social media influencer for two years.
I know kids have “influencer” as one of their top professions these days, but for me it was all an accident, really. I uploaded a few YouTube videos back in 2019, in the summer I finished school. All I did was rant about movies. I had a few notes, not a full script, and just spouted off to my laptop camera about inaccurate science, bad casting choices, real nitpicky stuff. In about six months I’d got 200 subscribers.
I was at university then, and I mentioned my videos to some of my uni friends. They subbed and told their friends, and I got up to 1,000 sub by January 2020. My videos were only about ten minutes long, and I had nowhere near the views to monetise. I was making one a week, but not on any sort of schedule. It was just something I did when I was bored.
Then the pandemic hit. A lot of students here in England basically got locked into their halls of residence (that’s dorms for any Americans reading), but I was lucky enough to get back to my parents’ before then. So I was doing what my uni laughably called “remote learning”, which basically meant a couple of video lectures a week, some worksheets, and lots and lots of my own research. I won’t bore you with the topic of my course; it’s not relevant.
I’m not exactly stereotypically pretty. I’ve come to accept that. My hair is stringy, my nose is too big, my face is profoundly asymmetrical, my complexion is strange and acned, my teeth are crooked … You get the idea. You can only do so much with makeup and hair that covers your face. I probably have fewer friends than I would if I looked like other people, and it actually took a lot of courage to make that first video - and even more courage to upload it.
I can only assume that’s the reason I went viral. It certainly wasn’t the high production values, or the tightly-written scripts, or the quality of my research. On the 9th of April I had 1,322 subscribers. On the 10th it was over 8,000. By the end of April it was up to 300,000, and I had actually monetised my channel.
The comments were … well, they were varied. Lots of hate because of my looks, but lots of love from people who just appreciated what I put out there, calling out others for their negative comments. I know many social media stars struggle with unkind comments, but I’d got used to it. Let’s be honest, they weren’t nice, but neither were they untrue. And comments under your video are easier to ignore than comments in the street. I was making decent money after all. If you were one of those commenters, you know which side you were on, and I love you either way. Thanks for the engagement - it’s not easy to gain financially from your unusual appearance!
The trouble with going viral is that it doesn’t last. Competing in the fast-paced world of internet stardom takes a lot of effort. I started experimenting with other things - YouTube shorts, TikTok, Instagram, pretty much anything going. The format that turned out to work best was actually TikTok. I’d bought some skimpy outfits and did ridiculous little dances. I quickly reached over a thousand views per video, and while I wasn’t up to their creator tier, it still worked. A well-known cosmetics company asked to sponsor my videos.
Cosmetics! Me! I guess they were going for woke points or something. I didn’t care, they offered me more money than I knew what to do with, as long as my views stayed high. So I started making 2-minute videos. A dance without make-up, then I applied the make-up - being sure to show the brand name clear and up-close - and then the same dance with make-up. If this is ringing any bells with you, then yes - that was me. And no, stupid - that’s not my real name.
I’d got used to undesired attention of course. Along with the unpleasant comments, I got my fair share of unwelcome male approaches. For a few hours after any upload, about half of my DMs were from men, and some women (or men with female account names), asking to see more of me. I wasn’t a camgirl, though I suppose I wasn’t a million miles away from one; but I could have been. I did seriously consider it a few times, but never actually followed through.
And half of the rest of my DMs, and a good portion of the public comments, were from angry women. What made me think I had the right to show off like that? How could I bring their favourite cosmetics brand into disrepute? But I’ve got pretty thick skin (hey, I can make that joke, you can’t), and mostly laughed the comments off and ignored them.
That was, in hindsight, a mistake.
By September my uni was reopening for in-person teaching. I was working six or seven hours a day just to keep up with everything, and had a couple more brands sponsoring me. Being an influencer isn’t just about filming for ten minutes a day and watching the money come in!
So I was going to tutorials an hour a day, watching video lectures at 2x speed, and ignoring my assignments in favour of making videos and replying to messages. It’s not like my pointless degree was helping with my real job.
Okay fine. It was geology. Rocks and stuff. You happy now? I bet you can’t tell the difference between sylvite and carnallite just by licking it, can you?
Anyway, the point is I came close to being chucked out. Actually I had to repeat the second year. At least I could afford it.
So anyway, I somehow got through to the end of my second year, the end of my second year again, and part way through my third year. I was passing my exams - just - and through several reinventions I had managed to maintain my social influencer role. Last Autumn I was getting some good views, and cash, back on YouTube. I was getting pretty good at make-up (I had an exclusive deal with one company on TikTok, and another deal with a different cosmetics company on YouTube). The videos that did well then were me with experimental hairstyles and not much in the way of clothes, putting on makeup for a few minutes, then reading out-of-copyright fiction in my patented “YouTube voice”. If you can imagine a cross between Shania Twain and Marge Simpson then… well, then you’re weird, but you’ve pretty much got it.
Then, last December, a week or so before the Christmas holidays, I went out with my friends. I had made a decent number, both girls and guys, by then. I could never quite tell whether it was my personality (which I assure you is fantastic), my influencer status, or the cash I was liberal with (it always seemed to be my round, and I didn’t mind). There were even a couple of boys who were keen on me, though I hadn’t done anything about it yet. Eight of us went out together to celebrate a birthday. It wasn’t actually anybody’s birthday that day, but Shireen had a Christmas Day birthday, and she wanted a proper party.
Now I look quite different in real life than I do online. I think the technical term is “frumpy” - jeans, trainers, fluffy jumper and a hat, or maybe a hoodie. The birthday girl had somehow convinced me to put a bit more effort in, and had helped me pick out some heels and a knee-length silver dress. Make-up was easy for me of course, and so I got dressed up and off we went to the Black Swan.
The Black Swan has several great qualities about it. One: it’s cheap. Two: it does good food. Three: it’s a couple of hundred metres from The Bar. We had a decent meal, a few drinks, and around 9 we walked to The Bar.
To be more precise, they walked. I wobbled. If you’ve watched my videos you might have seen me in heels, but did you ever see me walk in them? Didn’t think so.
The Bar is open til 3 in the morning. It looks respectable enough from the outside, especially in the afternoon; but after about 11, when most pubs close, it fills up with students drinking expensive-looking drinks. And almost every night, somebody jumps up onto a table, and then everybody’s up there dancing. In The Bar, either you hold your drink tightly, or you lose it.
I’d done this before, and I can handle my alcohol. I’ve stayed at The Bar till chuckout more than a few times, and I’ve been wobbly on the way home, but I’ve never thrown up or passed out. And so I was surprised when I woke up. The last thing I remembered was Stu saying he was tired, and Shireen replying that it wasn’t even midnight yet. Now I was lying on the hard wooden floor of my living room.
My head pounded. Daylight streamed through the window, and I blinked a few times and rubbed my eyes. My hands were wet and sticky.
I looked at them. They were covered in blood.
I looked down. My heels were across the room, but I was still wearing my dress. It, also, was covered in blood, a huge stain across the chest.
Panic set in. What happened to me last night? I checked myself out and could find no injuries. Where did the blood come from?
Standing up, I realised it was worse than that. Red pools stained the wooden floor. I don’t know much medicine, but if somebody had lost this much blood, I couldn’t see how they could have survived.
I stood up, unsure whether my shaking was from the shock or the alcohol. This was when I saw a shirt on the floor behind me. White, with a subtle pattern. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that it wasn’t my shirt. I lived alone, and rarely invited people back to my flat. I looked around some more. A pair of men’s black leather shoes by the door. And then I saw it.
I suppose, rather, I should say him. He was naked except for a pair of dark blue jeans, slumped in the open doorway to the kitchen, covered in blood, and very, very, dead.
I panicked then. I’m calmer now, so let’s take a moment to describe my conclusions that morning. I had got very drunk. I had met a guy. We’d come back to my flat. We’d been getting naked (the shoes and shirt weren’t bloodied). Then, for some reason, we’d had an argument or a fight. The body had stab wounds in the chest, and a pool of blood had congealed onto the wooden floor of the living room and the linoleum of the kitchen where the man collapsed. How did those stab wounds get there? I didn’t know for sure, but a quick glance at my kitchen counter showed that my sharp carving knife was missing. It was all coming together. I didn’t know if he had picked up the knife, or if I had; I didn’t know why either of us would do that. I didn’t even know his name, and later when I checked his pockets, I couldn’t find any ID.
There was a lot I didn’t know. But I’m smart. So once I was done crying on the floor (I think it was about two hours), I came up with a plan. This man was dead, and I couldn’t do anything about that. But what would the consequences be? There’s no need for my life to be ruined as well. I decided not to call the police. People go missing mysteriously all the time, he can just be another statistic and I’ll get on with my life.
The blood on Dave was mostly dry by now. (Sure, I didn’t know his name, but every bloke’s called Dave, right?) So I put a badly-fitting vest on him to soak up the remaining blood, and his shirt over the top, along with his shoes. His jeans were bloody, but they were dark, so hopefully it wouldn’t show up in low light. I couldn’t find his coat, which was odd given how cold it was, but this would have to do. I put my dress and heels in a plastic bag, and grabbed a spade that I never used. Had I missed anything?
The knife. The fucking knife. I searched all over for it, but by the time it got dark I still hadn’t found it. I knew I couldn’t delay for long, so I figured it was best to deal with Dave now, and find the knife later.
Eight o’clock in the evening came. I’m lucky I have parking right outside my house, no street cameras, and a ground-floor flat. I put the bag in the boot of my car and came back for the body.
Have you ever tried to move a dead person? It’s not easy, and I’m not exactly strong. I put my arm around his waist and eventually managed to heave him almost upright. “Come on Dave, that’s it. We’re gonna get you home. Maybe calm down on the tequila next time right? Try to keep it in, and don’t you dare vomit in my car, you sexy bastard.”
Oh come on, what do you want from me? I’m an influencer, not a stand-up comedian. And anyway, I don’t think anybody saw me during the several minutes it took to drag Dave to the passenger seat. I really wish I’d got round to buying a bigger car than the Fiat Punto I’d had since I was 18, but it was too late for that now.
There’s a place about an hour’s drive from me called Epping Forest. The Heritage Trust reckon it’s most famous for its huge tracts of unspoiled wildlife, thousands of trees, and Iron Age settlements. But around here it’s best known as the place where murderers and gang members bury bodies. So off I trundled in my 1.2 litre pensioner-mobile. I arrived around 9:30, checked Google Maps, and drove offroad into the woods.
Do you know how long it takes to dig a grave? The answer is: a long time! By dawn I’d only managed a hole about two feet. Oh, and it was my third try, because the first two times I found too much rock. Well, it would have to do. In went Dave, and I shovelled the ground back over him. I thought I could put my clothes in with him, but it was a shallow grave, and when the inevitable dog-walker finds it I didn’t want them linked back to me. I mean, there’s my DNA in there for sure, but let’s not make it too easy for them, right? So I chucked the spade in a river, and the clothes went back home with me, including the vest I’d lent him.
Now in England we have a thing called ANPR everywhere. The police can just type in a car registration and see exactly where it’s been from traffic cameras. I needed an alibi. Why had I gone to Epping Forest? For a hike of course! So I walked around for a few hours, got breakfast at a pub, and told the staff about all the wacky adventures I’d had that night. And while I was there, for the first time in a good long time, I checked my phone.
Hundreds of messages, of course. But only one sent a shiver down my spine.
Jolly_Gal_56234
I KNOW WHAT YOU DID
My heart thumped. My ears started ringing. I felt dizzy, nearly passed out. How could anybody know?
Of course nobody knew. I actually got messages like this fairly often. Just some idiot trying to wind people up. They’d probably sent a dozen messages just like it, to random people, and I just blocked her. Still it rattled me. I finished my breakfast, paid up, walked back to my car, and drove home.
My flat was just as I left it. Dave was gone, but his blood was still there. I scrubbed the floor for hours, and it helped a bit, but you could still see the stains. Exhausted, I showered and went to bed.
The next morning I woke up. I hadn’t posted anything for a day and a half, so I needed to do something about that. Scrolling through my messages, one stood out like a police light.
Jolly_Gal_28473
YOU’VE BEEN A BAD GIRL 🔪
Shit. SHIT! What the fuck is going on? I stared at my phone, paralysed with indecision. When I finally snapped out of it I made sure the door was locked, and tried to come up with a plan.
I had no idea who was sending these. Maybe they didn’t really know anything. You send stupid messages like that to hundreds of people, you’re gonna come across one who’s actually done something bad, right? I poured myself a big glass of gin, decided that nobody could know anything, and made a video.
Remember that one where I didn’t speak at all, just danced for three minutes dressed like 90s Britney to 70s disco music, titled “HANGOVER DANCE”? Yeah, that’s the one. I didn’t trust myself to speak without breaking, but I could dance about as well as I ever could.
The rest of the day I answered messages, emailed my sponsors, and considered getting an agent. It’s still just me doing everything, and that Sunday afternoon, I really didn’t want to. I also spent a few hours scrubbing the wooden floor with baking soda and vinegar, and looking for the knife.
I kept getting messages from Jolly_Gal. It didn’t matter how much I blocked her, she just popped up again the next day with different numbers at the end of her username. Always all-caps, just a single sentence.
YOU DON’T DESERVE IT
YOU’LL GET WHAT’S COMING TO YOU
OWN UP
DELETE YOUR ACCOUNT
Exactly one message a day, but always at different times. I decided it was a bot, and it was just coincidence that it started when it did. Until Christmas Day.
I’d been back at my parents’ for a few days, and endured the usual conversations about what I was going to do for a “proper job” after uni. They’re great, and really supportive. They’ve just never understood what an “influencer” really is, and that “playing on my phone” for six hours a day counts as work. My brother Rich gets it, but the rest of my family is honestly baffled.
Anyway, Christmas morning comes. All four of us were in the house together (my brother’s 17 so he still lives there), and we gathered together in the living room opening presents. It was a couple of weeks since the incident, and I still had nightmares every night, and those sudden panic attacks - you know, when you’re sure you’re going to be found out - but I was getting used to it. It had happened, I couldn’t change it, and I’d have to keep it secret for the rest of my life; but it was becoming a sort of background hum. I don’t know if that’s too quick, but I suppose I’ve learned to handle difficulty in my life.
Until we finished opening presents and I checked my phone.
Jolly_Gal_814385
HAPPY CHRISTMAS
And underneath, a photo of my kitchen knife, stained with blood.
I ran out of the house in tears.
Rich found me, sitting on the wooden bridge down the road from the house, my legs dangling over the river. I came here a lot when I was a teenager, so it was the first place he looked. I’d left my phone on the living room floor, and the three of them had seen the message, so he knew what triggered me. He just didn’t know the full story.
Well, I told him. I mean, not everything, obviously. But I told him how this person had been harassing me for weeks. He listened sympathetically, like he’s always done, and asked if there was anything he could do to help. I didn’t say anything; I just turned around, hugged him, and cried into his Christmas sweater.
After about half an hour we went back to the house. Rich explained things to my parents, thank goodness. I don’t think I could have handled it.
The rest of the holiday was … okay, I guess. More messages from Jolly_Gal, but only text. I made videos most days, and met all two of my old schoolfriends for drinks, movies and shopping. They’re big fans of my channels. I even took Rich out for drinks one evening, though it took us four pubs to find somewhere that wouldn’t ID him. He’s a bit of a babyface.
I did all I could not to think about Dave. I put him to the back of my mind, letting him live in the shed at the bottom of the garden of my psyche where he couldn’t disturb me. I guess that’s why it came as a shock to me, when I packed my stuff into the boot of my car to head back to uni.
There was one suitcase I’d packed but hadn’t got round to taking into the house. And peeking around the edge was that plastic bag. I’d forgotten to get rid of it!
Dad was helping me load the car, so I couldn’t do anything about it. I tucked it out of sight, finished loading up, said goodbye, and drove back to uni. It was dark when I got back, so I unpacked everything else, triple-bagged my bloody clothes, left my phone at home (no tracking me!), and walked two miles to drop them into somebody else’s wheelie bin.
The next morning I checked my messages.
Jolly_Gal_12592
WELCOME HOME
And a photo of me dumping the bag the night before.
You know what? This didn’t bother me. I mean, it did bother me, but not as much as I guess Jolly_Gal hoped. I’ve been bullied and harassed most of my life, and I’ve got pretty good at ignoring it. Sure, it was an escalation - she was actually following me - but it was just one of almost thirty messages. Jolly_Gal was hoping to destroy me. Instead, she hardened my resolve.
Clearly she had enough evidence to go to the police, but she hadn’t. And obviously she lived nearby. Now I’m no hacker, but you don’t do a job like mine without learning your way around technology. So I started sleuthing. I hadn’t bothered blocking her after the third or fourth message, so I made a list of all the messages, including timecodes. I’ve got a geology degree (almost), and we have techniques to analyse rock strata. Finally I had a genuine use for all that studying I sort of did!
Jolly_Gal was not as clever as she thought. She’d got sloppy. About half of her messages were sent at strange hours, on the hour. These were presumably posted by her bot. But the other messages were all sent between 7 and 8 am, or between 6 and 10 pm. So I guessed that she has a normal 9-5 day job, or maybe she’s a student.
Next I searched all the social media sites I could think of for Jolly_Gal or JollyGal usernames. There are a few, so please don’t go harassing people with that username! I don’t want innocent people to get hurt. After a few hours I had profiles of all Jolly_Gals. Pictures, locations, partial travel history, even birthdays for some of them. I discounted those who clearly weren’t in England, but I still had too many to narrow it down. The photos had no EXIF data so I couldn’t tell the type of phone or camera they used.
So my days became something like this: Five hours doing uni stuff, five hours working on my socials, and an hour or two learning digital sleuthing. I still went out with my friends sometimes, but made sure not to drink too much. I know how to have a good time without being drunk!
The breakthrough came by total chance. I rarely read the local papers, and just got lucky one afternoon in March. I was waiting for a friend in the pub after lectures, and there was a copy of the Post somebody had left on a table. So I flicked through it. The local council was rubbish at doing traffic. Some group of OAPS was organising a May Day celebration. And a woman had been convicted of body-snatching.
I recognised her! There was a photo of a woman in her early twenties. She’d been arrested when a corpse went missing back in December, and they’d seen her take it on the morgue’s CCTV. She’d been released on bail. “Prevention of the lawful and decent burial of a dead body” is a rare crime these days, so she hadn’t been sentenced yet; instead she was released until her sentencing, expected to be in August. Her name was Jenny Smith, which is so common as to be almost useless - that is, if you don’t have a profile of her on your laptop at home!
The report also gave her address. So I started hatching a plan. I texted my friend that I wouldn’t make it, and went home.
Jolly_Gal, or rather, Jenny, lived near me, and actually went to the same university. She had accounts on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, and a few others. Of course you can’t get Jolly_Gal by itself these days, but my profile gave all her precise usernames. I spent my evening watching her videos and reading her tweets. And then I found the smoking gun.
Jenny had posted a video on TikTok last June bitching about me. She’s way prettier than me, and yet I’d got all the subs and follows. She deserved all those sponsorship deals. It wasn’t fair that I had hundreds of thousands of subs and she only had a few thousand. She even said I was ugly and deserved to die.
Well, she got one out of two right, I guess. You can decide which one.
It all started to slot into place. Jenny was absurdly jealous of me, so she’d hatched a plan to destroy me. She must have roofied me in The Bar, got me and Dave back to my place, stabbed him, poured blood everywhere, and taken the knife home. I mean, I don’t know anything about forensic science, and I was drugged and panicked when I woke up that morning. I’d have no way of knowing that Dave had died days before he ended up in my flat!
I’d never managed to get all the blood out of the wooden flooring, and ended up putting a really misplaced rug over it. I chiselled off a sample and gave it to one of my friends who was doing a PhD in biology. It took a bit of persuading, but he ran an analysis on it.
It was pig’s blood.
Fuck Jenny. She’s not Jenny, or Jolly_Gal, she’s fucking Carrie!
She planned to destroy me. She ruined my mental health, she framed me for murder. All because I was more popular on TikTok than she was. Well, two can play at that game. I didn’t deserve what Jenny did to me. She did.
I thought about this all night, coming up with plan after plan, weighing them in my head. I wanted two things: to destroy Jenny, and to feel good about it for myself. Finally I had a course of action I’m actually rather proud of.
I decided to start slow. I did something anybody could have done - I mocked up a poster. At the top was “Jenny Smith - body snatcher!”. Underneath were two pictures, her Insta profile pic and the courthouse photo from the paper, and between them: “From This … To This!” And all her various social media handles to top it off. I printed hundreds of these, and pinned them all around the university and her street.
I’ve never thought of myself as an unkind person - God knows I’ve suffered enough myself to be sympathetic to others. But I’m willing to admit I felt a lot of satisfaction seeing her comments fill up with accusations and links to the online article. Jenny carried on making videos, but I could tell she was suffering. Good!
That was stage one. I had to up the ante for stage two. Jenny had covered me and my flat with pig’s blood, so I think we all know what’s coming next.
I pondered for a long time whether I should do it in the day or the night. But you know what they say - go big or go home. I scoped out her house for a while, and found out that she leaves her kitchen window, at the back of the house, open. Now I’m not the most athletic girl in the world, but I can be pretty determined when I want to be. So one night around 2 am I walked to her house - it’s only about half a mile - and climbed through the window.
I almost gave myself a heart attack when I knocked a glass over on the kitchen sink! Luckily it didn’t smash. I hid in a corner and waited for a full half hour before I decided Jenny hadn’t heard me. Then I snuck upstairs, slow as anything, and crept into her room.
Actually, the first room wasn’t hers. She shared with a couple of other students. Thank fuck I checked first! The second room was the right one. She was asleep, alone, in a double bed. I was so quiet that the only thing I could hear was my heart pounding in my chest as I opened my canvas bag, gently deposited its contents onto the pillow next to her, and took a photo. It didn’t come out that well - I couldn’t use the flash - but hey, I have a souvenir!
I really wish I’d seen her face when she woke up the next morning, staring at a pig’s head. She didn’t post on her socials for a week after that, and for two days she even forgot to send me a threatening message.
I’m sorry? You think I’m done? Oh, my sweet summer child. I’ve barely begun.
Jenny had a boyfriend, Abdul. I made sure he wasn’t around when I broke in, but stage three involved him in a big way.
Abdul was also at our university, a year younger than me, a year older than Jenny. He wasn’t very active on social media, but he did tend to broadcast his activity on Twitter. And what do you know? He’s also a fan of The Bar. So I spent the next month planning my move. I bought a new clubbing dress and heels - hey, I kinda missed that outfit! - and asked around for the other thing I needed. Some things you can’t just buy in Next, or a local butcher’s, but eventually I managed it.
I got my chance one Friday in May. Abdul had loudly announced on Twitter that he was excited for his boys’ night out in The Bar, and Jenny had been gushing about a girls’ night on the whole other side of town. Perfect. I spent hours on my makeup, and got to The Bar around ten. Abdul and his mates were having a drinking contest, and leching up at the girls dancing on the tables.
I figured I had a good long while before he would be ready, so I had a couple of drinks - not too much, but like I said I can handle myself, and I knew Jenny wasn’t around - and got up on the tables myself for a bit. Then about midnight Abdul’s friend got another round in, while Abdul was in the loo. This was my chance. I walked up to their table - which had no dancing feet on it, but a heck of a lot of spilled beer - and started talking to them, saying I thought their friend was hot.
“Uh, what the fuck?” “Not a chance in hell.” “Get lost, freak!”
Lovely chaps. But they were too far gone to notice me dropping something into Abdul’s double-whiskey-and-coke. For all I know, it’s the exact same thing Jenny used on me all those months ago.
Abdul came back and downed his whiskey in one gulp. I was worried he was going to vomit it up, but he held it in and blamed his difficulty on the coke fizz. Yeah mate, sure, sure.
Not too long after, he started to fade. His friends were really taking the piss out of him for being such a lightweight. Well, when I came over, the pisstaking just got worse. I introduced myself (with a fake name, duh) and told him he was hot. Believe it or not, it was only about twenty seconds before he put his tongue down my throat. Wow, I’m not sure I even needed to bother with the roofie!
His friends, who had been so intent on being mean to me, now turned their attention to him. I suggested we ditch them and go back to his place (I’d checked, it was only five minutes’ walk sober) - and off we went.
That was the first time I had sex. I’m sure I don’t need to go into details, but we did a lot of stuff, and I enjoyed it. I’m not sure if that’s because it was good, or because he was good, or because I knew what it was all for. I was impressed that he managed to keep going as long as he did in his state, but I do feel a bit sorry for him; from his Twitter he seems like a decent guy.
When he finally fell asleep I left. I’d got what I came for - pictures. And the next day I made a new account and sent a DM to Jenny.
At first I blurred my face, or chose shots that didn’t include it. A bit of editing and I could have been anybody. I watched their messy breakup on Twitter, Jenny hurling accusations, Abdul protesting his innocence. I know this is the age of social media, but I never understood why people play these things out in public.
And then, after posting a picture a day for a few weeks (I’d taken a lot of pictures), I sent one that showed my face clearly.
Jenny had managed to restrain herself from replying before, but now she knew who I was. She was furious! The very idea that her boyfriend had cheated on her with ME, of all people, was unbelievable. And this was exactly the outcome I’d been going for.
Jolly_Gal was broken. She’d ruined her reputation. She’d lost her boyfriend. She had nightmares about pigs (okay, so I don’t know that for certain, but in my imagination she woke up screaming every night). She was possibly going to prison. And now she knew that not only was I more successful than her as an influencer, but I was the one to steal her lover. She still sent messages, at first angry, but they soon degenerated into pleading. “Please stop.” “I’m sorry.” “We can work this out.” Jolly_Gal without CAPS LOCK, it was glorious to see.
In fact it was almost perfect. Three stages of my plan were complete, and only one remained. Jenny’s sentencing was in three weeks, so I had to move quickly.
She had two flatmates, so I needed to work around them. They weren’t particularly active on Twitter, but Jenny was. I knew from her tweets that while her flatmates had gone home, she was staying on a couple of weeks after the end of term. She didn’t say why publicly, but it was for her trial. No flatmates, no boyfriend. Now was the time.
And that brings us up to date. I’ve typed this up over the last few days, and saved as a draft. The final chapter, hopefully, comes tonight.
*******
I’m at Jenny’s house, and I’ve just called the police.
I turned up at Jenny’s door just after seven. Luck was with me - she’d tweeted that she was expecting a Deliveroo takeout. And I got there first.
The idiot actually kept the knife. I’d seen it when I was in her room. When she answered the doorbell, expecting food, and saw me - ah, the look on her face was priceless.
“I’m so sorry! Please, let’s just talk. I didn’t mean it to get this -”
I stalked towards her, anger in my face. Jenny fled upstairs. Perfect! She went into her room and shut the door, but I was like the furies of Greek legend. I smashed the door in, and looked on as Jenny cowered on her bed.
In full daylight, I saw the knife took pride of place in what looked like a shrine. She had photos of me printed out, and she’d written on them “BITCH”, “WHORE”, “FREAK” and all sorts of other hateful words.
Jenny had tried to make me into a murderer, so I gave her what she wanted. I grabbed the knife and stood over her. The coward shrank into the bed, begging for forgiveness, pleading for her life. Unfortunately for her I was not inclined to oblige. I plunged the knife into her chest, just as she had done to Dave all those many months ago. Jenny whimpered like a whipped dog, and after the ninth stab (yes, I counted), she stopped.
The police are on their way. I’m definitely going to jail after this. But Jenny got what was coming to her. We could both have lived happily, but Jenny chose otherwise.
And me? I passed my degree. I have friends. And jail or not, I have a life.
Burn in hell, Jolly_Gal.

I'm 14 and supposed to be in 8th grade. I think my parents lost custody of me to DCF a few weeks ago at this point? I'm currently living with my grandma, but for the first two weeks of not living with my parents I lived with my grandpa. My parents lost custody of me for obvious reasons. They failed to update my homeschool progress (because they hardly homeschooled me in the first place), they have been VERY non compliant and combative with authorities, and there have been obvious signs of domestic violence and animal neglect going on in their house due to multiple police calls reguarding loud yelling, and escaped farm animals sometimes even directly from one of my siblings. In my current situation, I'll be returning to public school for the remainder of the school year starting tomorrow, but the thing is I haven't actually been to school since second grade. My parents pulled me out at that time because I started complaining about school being too hard and I knew my mom was teacher.
I had significant trouble focusing on anything and had an attention span of literally five seconds before getting lost in my own thoughts. I would miss out on entire classes because of this too, even though it was such an early grade. The past few years I realized this was the cause of me not wanting to go to school, and tried my absolute best to pay attention to everything people were telling me and I tried my best to be more responsible to appease my parents and have a healthier life. It worked, I have few issues paying attention anymore, but everything else was just too hard... After I was pulled from school my parents never got to work on educating me or my brother (My younger brother is in a similar situation, except the difference is he's never recieved any formal education at all. At all.), and I don't even know why they didn't. My life until now largely consisted of me being left alone to the internet and playing video games, but as I've gotten older I've tried everything I can to at least learn some forms of general knowledge on the internet because it was really all I knew to do. My parents were stressed and overworked as I grew up, and our house was in a terrible condition. They would constantly yell at me to stop using screens and help them but I just couldn't. A bit unrelated but if you're wondering, yes me and my brother almost never left the house at all. As I've been growing up my mom has been repeatedly abused by her partner, which has probably caused a handful of traumatic experiences to me and my siblings and effected our mental health(in case your wondering, I have 3 siblings, one of which no longer lives with us and two of which have already finished school.).
Earlier today I went inside of a public school for the first time in years, albeit anxious. Me and my younger brother were given a tour of the building and introduced to some of our teachers and thats all that happened. We expected a test that would determine our grade level or something or if we could go to school there but nope. BUT. My main worry is that I'm 100% not smart enough and I'll have to hand in loads of empty papers which will be embaressing. The only skill I'm confident in is social studies which I practiced extensively on a website called IXL.com. (I should have just practiced math :( I should have just practiced math.) I only know some math like what letters mean what most symbols mean (except parenthesis ironic LOL) but that doesn't mean I'm any good at it. I won't be able to follow any instructions on worksheets because I won't know what the instructions mean. I was a little less stressed about it at my grandpa's because my grandpa has a son 1 year younger than me who didn't do too well at school, and he needed my help for his science homework and I basically did most of it for him and corrected almost every question he got wrong.
My younger brother has to do the same with very little schoolwork done in his life to go off of. DCF believes that my younger brother has mental illnesses/disabilities that were not being met by my parents(Gee, I wonder why I had so much trouble in school and my parents didn't even try to find out why I was struggling). So my brother has it 100x worse than me but I'm too stressed to pay attention to him too much (sorry...).
I know someone will ask why my worksheets are empty and I won't know what to say which will suck... Ive left a lot of things out as well because I'm mostly going off of what I'm feeling right now and this isn't easy... ill answer any questions, though.
Edit because this is important: I'm also trying to act as if I want to go back to my parents' house to the people investigating my case, and my parents are working hard to try to get me back. I do want to go home. Although I think my parents are not entirely innocent because no one that acts the way they do (neglecting our mental health, being non compliant with the law) are innocent. I'm NOT saying its their fault. They're likely struggling as well. I want to go home because I feel like they're the only chance I have at catching up in schooling, and I miss some of my hobbies that my grandparents won't help me to continue doing, and I love my family.

This is inspired by some comments I frequently see popping up on here and exredpill. Usually it is in response to an OP or commenter talking about how they believe they are ugly, unattractive, and so on.
I'm not a therapist or medical professional. I am passing along some information I've learned from my own work in therapy and in undoing my own harmful beliefs in the past.
Let's get some definitions out of the way:

Gaslighting is a colloquialism, loosely defined as manipulating someone into questioning their own perception of reality.
Merriam-Webster defines it as "psychological manipulation" to make someone question their "perception of reality" leading to "dependence on the perpetrator".
Over time, the listening partner may exhibit symptoms often associated with anxiety disorders, depression, or low self-esteem. Gaslighting is distinct from genuine relationship conflict in that one party manipulates the perceptions of the other.
Cognitive Distortion is an exaggerated or irrational thought pattern involved in the onset or perpetuation of psychopathological states, such as depression and anxiety.
Specifically, negative thinking patterns reinforce negative emotions and thoughts. During difficult circumstances, these distorted thoughts can contribute to an overall negative outlook on the world and a depressive or anxious mental state. According to hopelessness theory and Beck's theory, the meaning or interpretation that people give to their experience importantly influences whether they will become depressed and whether they will experience severe, repeated, or long-duration episodes of depression.

Examples of cognitive distortion and a worksheet I got from my own therapist.
Let's apply this to when some folks come here to this subreddit and describe their distress over their appearance and self image.
Are we addressing a cognitive distortion? Or are we gaslighting them when we say we don't agree with their image of themselves?
I'm not an expert. These are just some things that need to be pointed out.

1. Some folks are in such distress that it's difficult to separate their feelings, outlook on life, and self image from the experiences that helped contribute to their distress.

We can agree and validate that their experiences have been damaging. For example, if someone has been bullied for their appearances. That was not a good experience and it hurt. That feeling and experience is valid.
That doesn't mean they are unattractive or ugly. I can agree you were mistreated and that you feel awful about yourself. That doesn't mean I think the awful stuff about yourself is true.
If an experience was so incredibly hurtful and damaging, let's not trust that it was honest or saying anything about reality.

1. Appearances, beauty, and looks are subjective. Full stop. Just the fact that not everyone agrees on beauty or ugly proves it. I'm not getting much further into this.
   
2. What exactly is gaslighting and the purpose of it? It is generally done over a period of time, with the intention to manipulate someone and make them feel like they are crazy. It's usually done as an effort to control someone, sabotage them, or abuse them. This usually leaves someone feeling much worse about themselves.
   

The term gaslighting comes from a 1944 film *Gaslight" where a husband uses manipulation to isolate his wife and steal from her fortune.

1. What is the difference between gaslighting and addressing someone's cognitive distortions?

Working on cognitive distortions is best done in therapy with a trained therapist. Reddit is not a substitute for this. Although in this subreddit, we do still try to challenge the unhealthy thought patterns and behaviors that some people talk about.
If someone posts in this subreddit and is expressing distress over their appearance and self-image, this is usually a sign of something unhealthy going on. When someone is fixated on it, if they seem worried or paranoid that others think of them as "repulsive" (a common word used in this case), if they are afraid to socialize or leave the house, if they spend an excessive amount of time in distress over their appearance and it interferes with their life, this is not healthy. This is worth challenging this thought pattern. This is worth seeking professional help for.
Those who challenge these unhealthy thoughts/behaviors are not gaslighting. It is not abuse to wish someone felt better about themselves and to want them to function in life better. There is nothing for the well-wishers to gain from this. The person in distress has everything to gain from feeling less shitty about themselves.
That is the main difference here between gaslighting and addressing cognitive distortions. The former is intended to cause distress in someone who starts off with a relatively better mindset. The latter is difficult (because changing your mind can be difficult and uncomfortable), but the long-term goal is to have someone ease their mind about their negative thoughts about themselves.

1. If you're here to ask, "But what if I really am ugly?" Please re-read #2. The fact is, most people are not that ugly, so statistically, it is unlikely. Most people who post on reddit about how ugly they believe they are, they are not that ugly. It happens so often that it's not unreasonable for us to doubt what someone's actual appearance looks like. There's also the fact that body dysmorphia is becoming more well known of an issue and is becoming more recognized that men can suffer from it too.

And even if someone was truly hideous, they do not deserve to feel like shit about themselves. Life is too short to be miserable.

1. I am writing this as someone who overcame their own massive self hatred and self doubt. I know it is possible to do so. It took a lot of time and work but it is worth it. Being able to function better as a human being made it worth it. How did I do it? Therapy, learning self-esteem, working through trauma, and learning that the horrible things I was taught about myself was a complete lie.

I just wanted to write this out to address some of the common comments that pop up in this subreddit. I'm not an expert. This is open to discussion. I left some links up above just to provide more information. I'm happy to dig around and find more information or studies if anyone wants.
Edit 2: I fixed some oops formatting and added a few words for clarification.

I work in healthcare, at bedside, and I strongly dislike where I work because of the workload. We are understaffed more often than not and management is a bit of a mess.
I applied for a job at a different hospital just to see what's out there. The area is beautiful, there's multiple avenues of advancement, the workload is the 'norm' for my profession, they offer 80% tuition reimbursement and are partnered with a school I would like to complete a 2nd master's program with. My only hesitation is that the pay is $4 less. I currently make 43.50 w/diffs and was offered 39.50 w/diffs. The hospital is about the same distance from my house (1hr commute) as my current hospital. They also offer a 10k sign on bonus with a 1yr commitment paid out in 30 days, lump sum. The recruiter did say they do raises if I start before August (think it's 1%) and cost of living analysis increases. They also give a base pay bump and reimbursement for additional certifications.
Edit: I currently have a master's degree in my profession, but they don't have a metric system to account for that yet and are basing the offer off years of experience (1yr for me). My current job pays me based on my master's degree with no experience at the time I started.
I threw the numbers into my budget worksheet and it's looking like a $400 decrease/month in my disposable income.
Thinking of my career only, this is a great place to advance in the long-term. But idk how to feel about taking a gamble on pay increases to get me closer to my current salary. The recruiter said she may be able to squeeze an extra $1 or $2/hr, and that would make me more comfortable, but no guarantees.
I don't have a lot of bills where a $7500 salary decrease would hurt me too much, but I am scared given the economy. But I'm also scared of staying at a place that I hate for the sake of money.
Advice? I have until Monday (next week) to decide.
Current Hospital: 43.5/hr, heavy workloads, messy management, friends
Perspective Hospital: 39.5/hr, 10k sign on bonus for 1yr, advancement opportunities, normal workloads

Hey guys can you give me suggestion whether to go there or try next year. Or can i appeal my financial aid package now ? Thanks

I want to start by saying I do believe in the importance of mental health. I do believe there are times when people's mental health reaches a level of instability where even the most caring and compassionate of friends will struggle to support them. While it would be ideal for community and friendships to do some of the heavy lifting when it comes to supporting someone through a rough time, I recognize there are limits. When someone is chronically suicidal, flooded by memories that need a more complex intervention than just, "Find a safe person to talk to about them," tormented by terrible hallucinations, etc., it can easily go beyond what even the most compassionate loved ones can support on their own.
Having studied this material at the master's level, I do recognize the differences between being a caring friend who listens and being a competent clinician who can do more than "just listen and offer advice." On the flip side, having been abused and let down by 14+ therapists, I also recognize the canyon of difference between the ideal image of therapy as a clinical intervention that eases the burden/feapain/stress on both the client and the support system, and the reality many people experience.
The unique burden of having a mental health background and a history of trauma from therapy abuse is (1) having a pretty strong sense of what people I care about might need while (2) having zero confidence they'll actually get that if I suggest they seek therapy.
The best therapists have significant training beyond what they learned in school. Unless their employer paid for those trainings, they likely paid out of pocket for those trainings and spent hours (if not days) away from their jobs (and sometimes their families, in the case of lengthy conferences) to learn more skills. To balance out that cost, they tend to charge higher rates. If they don't charge higher rates themselves, their agency does. Meanwhile, the people most in need of the highly competent, knowledgeable, skilled professionals tend to be limited to Medicaid providers (who often do not even get paid enough to afford the extra trainings).
I'll see someone in my life struggling and think, "Okay. This person likely needs serious nervous system regulation. A sensory diet developed with an occupational therapist who works with adults (truly a unicorn if you can find one) would be a good first step. This could be built into a stabilization phase, where they receive support with budgeting, financial planning, identifying wants versus needs (and prioritizing needs on Maslow's hierarchy), support with applying for SSI/SSDI/jobs (depending on where they're at in terms of ability to work), support with finding stable housing, etc. They then need psychoeducation and support to recognize the toxicity of their current familial/romantic/workplace relationships as well as stronger coping skills to navigate those relationships + strategies to leave if the situation is too abusive/toxic for coping skills. From there, they'll need a specific intervention targeting any self-harm or suicidal ideation. They'll need a trauma-informed safety plan from a therapist who doesn't immediately call the cops at the first sign of trouble."
That's already a lot.
"THEN, after all THAT, they'll likely need some very gradual somatic exercises to bring them from point A (of a hyperreactive nervous system or the opposite under responsive feels-nothing state) to point B (a healthy, fluid transition between emotional states + the ability to ground and self-regulate back to baseline). This could accompany some biofeedback/EMDsomatic therapy, but the provider would need to be trauma-informed enough to recognize why people with severe C-PTSD often do not do well with breathing exercises and mindfulness. The person may be easily frustrated and down on themselves for how difficult all this can be, so perhaps throw in some VERY skillfully applied DBT training (which ideally should come from a therapist who recognizes how CBT and DBT can be construed as gaslighting when someone's external threat level is high enough that it's not "all in their head"). They also need an EXCELLENT doctor who is trauma-informed and recognizes that scary medical stuff can put a severely traumatized person in a childlike state of terror that is embarrassing and stressful to navigate."
I can see so many things that would help most people I talk to, but then...they go to whatever therapist Medicaid (or their less-than-ideal insurance policy) will cover and get a worksheet where they're told to circle the face that represents the emotion they're feeling. This takes the entire session, and they can't afford to come more than once a week. They see another therapist who is able to validate some aspects of their trauma but is at a total loss about others. They see another therapist who is cocky and condescending. They see another therapist who seems promising but stops taking their insurance. These examples are from a blend of countless people I've seen go through this process.
The end result is that all the "fighting stigma" and "encouraging (read: pushing) help-seeking" in the world does not actually create a system where there's real help for the people who need it the most.
It's so frustrating because I GET why people are sometimes so quick to say, "Go to therapy!" We want to believe that when our loved ones need more than just "someone compassionate who will listen," there are professionals who went to school to do more than "just listen." Yet so often, people who go to therapy don't even get the basic bare minimum "someone who listens" effect.
The end result is that I feel sad and tired watching the same people struggle year after year, but when I ask anyone, "What can I do to better support this person?" I hear, "Ya know, you should really tell that person to get therapy." I feel sad and tired hitting the same brick walls in my own DIY treatment and hearing, "Ya know, there's therapy for that!" It's not as simple as "go to therapy," but it's also not as simple as "if only we had better communities and friendships, no one would need therapy."
It's awful.

I meet with the lawyer on Tuesday.
I'm not behind on anything but this has been snowballing since my divorce and needing sudden day care. 5 years later I just can't do it anymore.
I want to keep my house and my car but file on all my unsecured debt of about 81k. Based on the worksheet I did last night, I technically have no disposable income based on exemptions in my state.
How do we determine how much of my unsecured debt will be paid back?
Do I have to include my house or car? Also, this is a VA loan for my home.
Thanks!

Hey guys I've posted in this sub a few times before but took a really long break because I was struggling a lot with circumstances and mental health and was just really overwhelmed with all the content on here.
I figured I was doing OK just knowing about the law and trying to stay positive about things but in the past few months the 3D really started spiraling badly, I lost all of my friends, I was extremely depressed, and my relationship with my family was only getting worse. I started having panic attacks every day and i was so lost.
Worst of all the relationship between me and my SP had deteriorated into something really gross and upsetting. He started treating me really poorly, lying, avoiding me and even pushed me to the floor once.
But as you can see from the flair this is a success story! About 1 month ago I realized how bad my mental has gotten and decided it was time to fix things. And after avoiding the law for over a year it was suddenly so easy and clear!!
I started with a self care day, but not in the like shower and nails and facial way, I gave myself one day where I did a bunch of dbt worksheets, crying, listening to sad music, and just letting everything out. I comforted myself and validated my feelings without blaming myself or reinforcing any negative thoughts.
After that I went to bed and let myself wake up knowing it was a new day and my thoughts almost immediately started to conform. I genuinely just started living my life like everything was perfect, I felt a little delusional at first but I didn't feel anxious or like it was impossible. And obviously the 3D still existed and I still had problems and bad and scary and triggering moments, and I didn't ignore them or anything, I let myself get sad or disappointed and then told myself it would all work out. I just stopped letting myself accept my bad circumstances and beliefs so easily. I took every upsetting moment as just a sad moment to feel bad that didn't need to mean that the future was going to be this too. Within days I was seeing movement!
Within 2 or 3 days a house plant that I cared a lot about that was dying started to come back to life without me doing anything different.
within a week my skin completely cleared up from my depression acne. My mom and I stopped arguing so much. My grades were improving. My job started scheduling me more. People that I haven't heard from in years reached out to me out of nowhere.
and then there's the MAJOR plot line of the month
There was a music festival I wanted to go to but tickets were getting way too expensive and getting more expensive everyday but I just started living my life like I already had tickets, I was planning my outfits and my ride and just not worrying about how the tickets would get to me. Within a few days of starting to think like that I got 2 tickets for about half price. After this I started to follow some of the artists that were gonna be playing the festival just to stay updated on everything.
Around that same time my SP was starting to become the most stressful thing in my life. I was getting absurdly stressed about him all the time and crying every time I saw him. At one point I got on my knees and begged him not to leave me.
It really hit a breaking point when he told me he didn't want to see me or spend time with me at the festival. After that I realized this was the area where my self concept had barely improved at all so I started working on it, I just kept believing that we were gonna be ok and stopped letting him walk all over me just to save our relationship. I stopped begging so desperately for him to put in effort and stop avoiding and lying and being mean to me. I stopped letting him be the only important person in my life. And this was where it started to get really crazy, within the same day, one of the artists who's playing this major festival messages me tells me he recognizes me from somewhere (we've absolutely never met)and we strike up a conversation.
Over the last month or so we've been talking regularly and started flirting. it's been straight out of fan-fiction, he's an incredible artist who I have been casually listening to for over a year and I love his music and he's so nice.
After like 3 weeks of talking he tells me he's gonna upgrade my two regular tickets to vip and now I have a kinda famous music artist flirting with me, two vip tickets that I paid 1/5thprice for and an invite to meet some of the bands side stage with him.
I still love my SP and want our relationship to get better but for now I'm about to be dating a rockstar. So I don't really mind not going to the festival with him. And more importantly I'm not worried about it.
There's still a lot of stuff I'm going through and I'm still stressed and not happy all the time but only a month ago I was depressed lonely, anxious, and pathetically begging for someone's care.
You can start moving in the other direction overnight you guys. It's just a matter of being in the moment.