College chick drunk

I just finished sophomore year and will be going into Junior year. Like many applying this upcoming cycle, I feel as if I’m not doing enough and that my record is shit. This last semester was my roughest due to a lot of issues in my life, I ended up withdrawing from 3 classes in 1 semester, which I know does not look great, but I also understand I get a section to explain this in the application. Here are my stats so far:
GPA: 3.5 (taking the classes I withdrew from this summer so hopefully will raise it).
Was on the dean’s list 2x and have gotten semester honors 3x
Vet hours: ~100 small animal (currently working in a vet clinic and get about 10 hours a week)
Large animal experience: ~800 hours (specifically working at a dairy)
Other animal experience: have raised a variety of animals my whole life ranging from exotics to dogs and cats
Club involvement: 2 clubs: Collegiate 4-H (secretary x2), member of walking shelter dogs club
Volunteer hours: 30 hours as a zoo volunteer
Other involvements: going on a trip to Peru this summer where I will be working in a vet clinic there for 2 weeks, study abroad to Ireland where I worked with landscape architects to help design a horse sanctuary within the ruins of an old garden, college orientation leader for freshman, 3x undergrad TA for various animal sciences courses, and other things I’m probably forgetting because I don’t have my resume in front of me
I also have 3 years of customer service experience working at Chick-fil-A. As someone who pays for their own college, I return to this job every summer and every break because they pay me so good.
Downsides of my transcript:
The 3 W’s One C One D+ (retaking this course, it was orgo chm I) 3 Bs. Will have 2 repeats, but the first repeated class I took I got an A the second time.
LORs: I will have 3-4 LORs going for me, and I have great relationships with all the people: 2 are professors I TA’d for (one said he is going to root for me so hard and has won several research awards in his time as a prof and has academic distinction; very well known prof), the DVM I work for, and an employer.
Is it even worth me applying this upcoming cycle, or should I wait till my senior year? I was originally planning on just applying to my in state, the island schools, and grade replacement schools this first cycle. Any advice would be great. You will not hurt my feelings if you think I need to wait an additional year, please just say that so I know not to waste my money on app fees! :)
Edit: grammapunctuation

So this past weekend I celebrated my birthday (34f) and my (34f) best friend (of over 20 years) came to visit for the weekend. A little background on her, she's a loud Italian women, good heart but a little self centered. She's the type to over talk and interrupt you many times while you're sharing a story to share a story of her own that can relate to the topic. Usually I don't mind people doing this but she's past being relatable now, she will flat out interrupt and tell her own story and I can't finish mine so I'll give up and she won't ask me to continue or even realize she interrupted me. She did this most of the weekend and she did it a lot to my boyfriend (28M). This is one of his pet peeves, so basically whenever he spoke to me about something she would interrupt us and start talking about herself. This got a bit frustrating because it seems to be getting worse as we get older. But I kept just ignoring it trying to have a good weekend. So Saturday night we have a party with my friends at home and everything went well and had a great time and after my bf, BFF, and two of my friends who are married to each other came out to a bar with us and we drank a bit and had fun. We all weren't incredibly drunk but we weren't sober either. Well as the night went on my boyfriend and the husband were chatting while my BFF, me and this wife were all hanging out playing darts and the husband was venting to my bf about his marriage and how they were planning on getting divorced and the wife was telling us ladies the same thing. It was a bit heavy on both sides and my bf took the husband's vent to heart. My boyfriends parents got divorced when he was in college but his mom was pretty awful to his father and it got complicated. My boyfriend was affected by it greatly and lost a bit of respect for his mom because of this. Well our friends divorce is mimicking this and he felt a lot of emotion from it. When we got home he got a bit loud about defending the husband and was just all around emotional. Not crying but just really upset and worried for the husband. I of course was on his side and trying to calm him down enough to talk about it since it triggered something. My BFF in the mean time wad making these off handed comments in the background and kept interrupting him to put her 2 cents in and he kept asking her to stop and shut up basically. After he asked her again she shot back "are you threatening me?" Which he obviously wasn't but he yelled back "oh I'm threatening!" But making no threat, he was just angry that she wouldn't stop interrupting us talking. She was about to call 911 for whatever reason, and I told her not to, he was just upset about the friends situation and his own parents divorce. She kept trying to convince me he was going to get violent (which never in our relationship has he been violent and she knows this) I kept telling her it was never going to happen. So after all this he left to cool off for a minute and she immediately said she was triggered by her own abuse from her father when she was a kid and said she couldn't stay at my house anymore. She grabbed her things and sat in her car. She was going to drive home (3 hr drive) in the middle of the night so I convinced her to stay but she would only if she could be in a hotel. I was in the middle of the two people I love and I didn't know what to do. She convinced me in my drunken state to go with her (I also felt horrible guilt at the time that she felt this way and didn't want her to drive around finding a hotel in a town she's unfamiliar with) so I go with her and she refused some of the hotels I mentioned that were in town and she said she saw a hilton which is expensive as I was paying. We found a hotel for $130 and I paid because I felt bad. I stayed with her and I was up all night silently crying because I left my bf and I knew he was upset and wanting to talk, he felt guilty and wanted to apologize but I wasn't there. She on the other hand slept peacefully and I had to hear her snoring all night, I literally did not sleep I was riddled with anxiety and worry. 7am rolls around and she wakes up and I ask her when we can go back home, she said she needs another hour of sleep because she's tired and goes back to sleep. I go outside to call my dad and bf to talk and my bf is understandably upset I was gone. I couldn't explain until I came home but I go into the hotel room to wake her up and take me home right that minute and she's annoyed. She made a couple comments about my bf to me and I ignored them. She said "he's going to blame you for what happened, that's ridiculous ". I didn't even ask her opinion, she just gave it to me. I ignored it and she drove me home, she didn't say a single word to me. Didn't ask me how I was (the night before I cried to her about how sorry I was for everything that happened between me her and my bf as I felt bad) or if I was feeling better. She didn't once ask if I slept at all or if I was okay. She didn't care in that moment because I woke her up and she didn't get another sleep. After she dropped me off she went home and I didn't hear from her again besides telling me she made it home. I pushed a few days later and she's mad at me for my bf not apologizing to her. I can see how we're all.not blameless in this situation but she doesn't understand that she anatagnized him and refuses to see her faults. She's done things like that to me before and was clearly in the wrong but never apologized to me because. She's even accused me of flirting with her bf one time because a girl she just met told her I was flirting with him when I'd never do that to her ever. She knew this but didn't care. I'll never forget how she treated me that day but never apologized. She just doesn't care and I can see that in this situation, she just cares about getting an apology from my bf but she won't see her ways and apologize.I feel bad for not choosing my bf in that moment because I thought she was horribly triggered and I felt bad then too but my bf and I spoke about it and he understood why. AITH in this situation? Or do we all suck?
Sorry if this is a jumbled mess. This is typed out on my phone.

I just finished sophomore year and will be going into Junior year. Like many applying this upcoming cycle, I feel as if I’m not doing enough and that my record is shit. This last semester was my roughest due to a lot of issues in my life, I ended up withdrawing from 3 classes in 1 semester, which I know does not look great, but I also understand I get a section to explain this in the application. Here are my stats so far:
GPA: 3.5 (taking the classes I withdrew from this summer so hopefully will raise it).
Vet hours: ~100 small animal (currently working in a vet clinic and get about 10 hours a week)
Large animal experience: ~800 hours (specifically working at a dairy)
Other animal experience: have raised a variety of animals my whole life ranging from exotics to dogs and cats
Club involvement: 2 clubs: Collegiate 4-H (secretary x2), member of walking shelter dogs club
Volunteer hours: 30 hours as a zoo volunteer
Other involvements: going on a trip to Peru this summer where I will be working in a vet clinic there for 2 weeks, study abroad to Ireland where I worked with landscape architects to help design a horse sanctuary within the ruins of an old garden, college orientation leader for freshman, 3x undergrad TA for various animal sciences courses, and other things I’m probably forgetting because I don’t have my resume in front of me
I also have 3 years of customer service experience working at Chick-fil-A. As someone who pays for their own college, I return to this job every summer and every break because they pay me so good.
Downsides of my transcript:
The 3 W’s One C One D+ (retaking this course, it was orgo chm I) Will have 2 repeats, but the first repeated class I took I got an A the second time.
LORs: I will have 3-4 LORs going for me, and I have great relationships with all the people: 2 are professors I TA’d for (one said he is going to root for me so hard and has won several research awards in his time as a prof and has academic distinction; very well known prof), the DVM I work for, and an employer.
Is it even worth me applying this upcoming cycle, or should I wait till my senior year? I was originally planning on just applying to my in state, the island schools, and grade replacement schools this first cycle. Any advice would be great, please be straightforward! :)

I love my dad, but sometimes he makes it hard to. he has done some things to me throughout my late teens that has made this really hard for me to try to try and uphold this love for him. We have a lot in common and we talk about a lot together when I come home. I am a 19-year-old female and I’m home for the summer after my first year of college. Starting about junior year I became very burnt out with school and had frequent spells of exhaustion, emotionally and physically. I was involved in clubs, SAT tutoring every week, switched my electives for science classes, tons of advanced classes, online classes, you name it. I went to a pretty competitive high school so I just thought that this was normal. I also wanted to be a surgeon at the time, and was kind of obsessed with this idea. it was my first real experience to anything emotionally harmful to me. I was anxious and depressed, and I didn’t really know it. I tried to keep it in because it was hard for me to admit that school was becoming a problem for me. sometime later and I decide to tell my dad how burnt out I have become. he’s sitting next to me and once I am finished talking, he tries to relate it to his own personal experience, telling me I need to be more of a positive person and work hard. I didn’t really know what kind of advice I was expecting from him so I just nodded an agreement. Not too sure how to feel about his response, my sister later told me that while him, my mom, and her were in the car he decided to say, completely unprovoked, “She has become burnt out with school and now she’s scared of it or something. I told her not to take on too much.” as I sat listening to her, I started to feel tears come down my face. And that moment I felt so betrayed by what he just decided to tell my mom and my sister, and I felt that he completely undermine the situation. It felt that I adjust been stabbed in the back. He never warned me not to take on too much, if anything, encouraged my work ethic and my ideas of becoming a surgeon. I didn’t know how to trust him with my emotions anymore, and I started to feel like I was going crazy and like my feelings weren’t valid anymore. when senior year rolls around I start to become burnt out again and from personal reasons I also start becoming depressed and anxious again. One day my mom gets home from work and asked me to do the dishes so I start doing them and I will admit, I did slam a cabinet or two. She angrily asked me what’s wrong. I understand she didn’t know I was emotionally unstable, but once I started breaking into tears, she still kept her angry tone. Again, she asked me what’s wrong and I said it was nothing. She said, “Well, your dad is going to want to hear this when he gets back, “ still angry. I start to freak out and I lock myself the bathroom and I’m sobbing and shaking with anxiety. When he comes home, I am in my room trying to do my homework and he asked me what happened. I say it’s nothing. He then starts getting upset and raising his voice as to how I don’t want to talk to him about anything emotionally with him anymore. I begin to have a panic attack for the first time ever, and he stands there looking confused in the doorway and repeatedly starts telling me to stop whatever I am doing. Once my panic attack finally stops and I calm down, he sits down next to me and tells me how I need to stop being so emotional and need to start regulating my emotions more. I start to zone out. He also tells my sister later on, how I “think i have anxiety.” These events were super traumatic for me and since then for the past few years, I have definitely done my best to process them. However, there have been other minor moments like this:
We were at a cookout at the neighbors house and he asked me to go next-door and grab some barbecue sauce. He describes the bottle to me and I go next-door to look for it when I come back empty-handed, he asked me to go over and look again, and I tell him, “I can’t find it, since you know what it looks like do you mind grabbing it?” Hes not cooking, he is just eating, and I don’t say it in a rude way at all. He then gets upset and says, in front of everyone, “You know, you are so ungrateful for anything that I do for you.” me, upset, tells him that he knows this isn’t true and I storm off next-door and go to my room and start crying. He comes in a few minutes later and tells me that he’s sorry. This is a common theme for him to only say that he’s sorry after I am crying or sobbing.
One night, my mom got too drunk and she ended up outside after getting upset about some thing so minor. We sit at the end of the driveway as I try to comfort her and we start talking and somehow end up having a bit of a heart-to-heart. I tell her that sometimes I feel like her and dad aren’t there for me emotionally. She responds with that is just life and that it does not get better and that I will not be happy. It only gets harder. Yes, she said that. I am crying and visibly upset and I get up and tell her that no mother should say that to her daughter and go inside into my room. My dad comes in and asked me what happened after he put her to bed. I tell him that she doesn’t love me. He says that’s not true instead of trying to comfort me, urges me to go into my mother’s room and give her a hug and tell her that I love her. I tell him I don’t wanna do that, but he continues to push me and tell me to do so until eventually, I give in. This was also another traumatic moment for me. I’ve never had an emotional relationship with my mother.
My dad also used to come into my room and bash my mom and tell me about their “drama “. This would always be after they had a big fight that he would come and tell me as a child, and confide in me.
my dad also has a “humor“ where he will make fun of my mom endlessly. This sometimes happens to the point where I start to feel bad for her. When they also get into arguments, he will also use the point on how she has no idea what it’s like to provide for the family, how lucky she is, how he taught her everything she knows. (they got married when they were young and had my sister and I young, and they don’t have a very visibly loving relationship.)
I was always a good kid. Good grades, no drinking, smoking, sneaking out. I crochet for fun, clean the house, had a job, a literal dream child. I just don’t understand why they couldn’t give me that one thing, some sort of emotional support. Again, I have done my best to process, but I am home for the summer and there are things I would like to tell them that anyone would want to tell their parents. I can never talk about my future career goals or interests. He always pressures me into doing something different for my future career and has shut down everything that I have told him about what I want for the future. I also have had a girlfriend for a few months that I felt that I cannot tell him about, not that he would really react bad, but just be disappointed. Is my dad a narcissist? Or Is he just emotionally immature? how do I start to become more confident with who I am around them and how I feel and what I want? it’s not that I’m an insecure person at all actually, I love who i am very much. It’s just always just around them. I am a deeply emotional person and self-aware, and they are not at all. It is just hard for me to understand how to go about this, because they are still my parents. I would appreciate the feedback, thank you!

I love my dad, but sometimes he makes it hard to. he has done some things to me throughout my late teens that has made this really hard for me to try to try and uphold this love for him. We have a lot in common and we talk about a lot together when I come home. I am a 19-year-old female and I’m home for the summer after my first year of college. Starting about junior year I became very burnt out with school and had frequent spells of exhaustion, emotionally and physically. I was involved in clubs, SAT tutoring every week, switched my electives for science classes, tons of advanced classes, online classes, you name it. I went to a pretty competitive high school so I just thought that this was normal. I also wanted to be a surgeon at the time, and was kind of obsessed with this idea. it was my first real experience to anything emotionally harmful to me. I was anxious and depressed, and I didn’t really know it. I tried to keep it in because it was hard for me to admit that school was becoming a problem for me. sometime later and I decide to tell my dad how burnt out I have become. he’s sitting next to me and once I am finished talking, he tries to relate it to his own personal experience, telling me I need to be more of a positive person and work hard. I didn’t really know what kind of advice I was expecting from him so I just nodded an agreement. Not too sure how to feel about his response, my sister later told me that while him, my mom, and her were in the car he decided to say, completely unprovoked, “She has become burnt out with school and now she’s scared of it or something. I told her not to take on too much.” as I sat listening to her, I started to feel tears come down my face. And that moment I felt so betrayed by what he just decided to tell my mom and my sister, and I felt that he completely undermine the situation. It felt that I adjust been stabbed in the back. He never warned me not to take on too much, if anything, encouraged my work ethic and my ideas of becoming a surgeon. I didn’t know how to trust him with my emotions anymore, and I started to feel like I was going crazy and like my feelings weren’t valid anymore. when senior year rolls around I start to become burnt out again and from personal reasons I also start becoming depressed and anxious again. One day my mom gets home from work and asked me to do the dishes so I start doing them and I will admit, I did slam a cabinet or two. She angrily asked me what’s wrong. I understand she didn’t know I was emotionally unstable, but once I started breaking into tears, she still kept her angry tone. Again, she asked me what’s wrong and I said it was nothing. She said, “Well, your dad is going to want to hear this when he gets back, “ still angry. I start to freak out and I lock myself the bathroom and I’m sobbing and shaking with anxiety. When he comes home, I am in my room trying to do my homework and he asked me what happened. I say it’s nothing. He then starts getting upset and raising his voice as to how I don’t want to talk to him about anything emotionally with him anymore. I begin to have a panic attack for the first time ever, and he stands there looking confused in the doorway and repeatedly starts telling me to stop whatever I am doing. Once my panic attack finally stops and I calm down, he sits down next to me and tells me how I need to stop being so emotional and need to start regulating my emotions more. I start to zone out. He also tells my sister later on, how I “think i have anxiety.” These events were super traumatic for me and since then for the past few years, I have definitely done my best to process them. However, there have been other minor moments like this:
We were at a cookout at the neighbors house and he asked me to go next-door and grab some barbecue sauce. He describes the bottle to me and I go next-door to look for it when I come back empty-handed, he asked me to go over and look again, and I tell him, “I can’t find it, since you know what it looks like do you mind grabbing it?” Hes not cooking, he is just eating, and I don’t say it in a rude way at all. He then gets upset and says, in front of everyone, “You know, you are so ungrateful for anything that I do for you.” me, upset, tells him that he knows this isn’t true and I storm off next-door and go to my room and start crying. He comes in a few minutes later and tells me that he’s sorry. This is a common theme for him to only say that he’s sorry after I am crying or sobbing.
One night, my mom got too drunk and she ended up outside after getting upset about some thing so minor. We sit at the end of the driveway as I try to comfort her and we start talking and somehow end up having a bit of a heart-to-heart. I tell her that sometimes I feel like her and dad aren’t there for me emotionally. She responds with that is just life and that it does not get better and that I will not be happy. It only gets harder. Yes, she said that. I am crying and visibly upset and I get up and tell her that no mother should say that to her daughter and go inside into my room. My dad comes in and asked me what happened after he put her to bed. I tell him that she doesn’t love me. He says that’s not true instead of trying to comfort me, urges me to go into my mother’s room and give her a hug and tell her that I love her. I tell him I don’t wanna do that, but he continues to push me and tell me to do so until eventually, I give in. This was also another traumatic moment for me. I’ve never had an emotional relationship with my mother.
My dad also used to come into my room and bash my mom and tell me about their “drama “. This would always be after they had a big fight that he would come and tell me as a child, and confide in me.
my dad also has a “humor“ where he will make fun of my mom endlessly. This sometimes happens to the point where I start to feel bad for her. When they also get into arguments, he will also use the point on how she has no idea what it’s like to provide for the family, how lucky she is, how he taught her everything she knows. (they got married when they were young and had my sister and I young, and they don’t have a very visibly loving relationship.)
again, I have done my best to process, but I am home for the summer and there are things I would like to tell them that anyone would want to tell their parents. I can never talk about my future career goals or interests. He always pressures me into doing something different for my future career and has shut down everything that I have told him about what I want for the future. I also have had a girlfriend for a few months that I felt that I cannot tell him about, not that he would really react bad, but just be disappointed. Is my dad a narcissist? Or Is he just emotionally immature? how do I start to become more confident with who I am around them and how I feel and what I want? it’s not that I’m an insecure person at all actually, I love who i am very much. It’s just always just around them. I am a deeply emotional person and self-aware, and they are not at all. It is just hard for me to understand how to go about this, because they are still my parents. I would appreciate the feedback, thank you!

I have been with my partner for 6 years now and absolutely adore him. We started dating when we were in college and he has always been a heavy drinker since I’ve known him. In college, he would binge drink from Thursday to Sunday every week but at the time it seemed lighthearted and fun especially because he is an outgoing person. I used to drink and go out with him but I rarely drink now.
We are a few years into our careers and I’ve started to think that his drinking is unhealthy. He continues to binge drink at least 3 times a week to the point of coming home at 4 am on weeknights, losing personal belongings, slurring, and blacking out. He is normally calm when he is sober but when he is drunk, he’s the life of the party and pendulums between being overly affectionate or antagonistic (eg wanting to debate, expressing controversial opinions that he would not normally have). If he has one drink, the night turns into a 4 am bender despite his best attempts to stick to just one. He is further enabled by his work as he works in finance and has a steady stream of clients wanting to take him out to dinners and unlimited drinks. He agrees that his drinking is unhealthy and will stop for one week and then continue the same pattern
I am not asking for a diagnosis as I know it is more complicated than that, but I just wanted someone to validate if this is a red flag? Will this be a bigger problem in the future? We have started to ring shop but the drinking is such an issue for me. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life waiting for him to come home drunk and I don’t want my future children to go through that as well. Is this a difference in lifestyle preferences or a more serious problem?

I started 150 mg in I want to say February. A week after I started doxycycline, got drunk, me and my ex got in a fight at a party, got home and had a huge episode, was hitting myself, called 911, etc etc.. I did not take it for a little while as I was on spring break (mind you, I was drinking every single day on break in Florida and never had ANY issues.) I started taking it again and I feel like it’s ruining my social life. I already had a short temper, but now I’m just so irritable. I currently have a broken hand because I punched a wall from anger. I was moved up to 300 mg about 2 weeks ago as my depression was not getting any better (also bumped to 50 mg lamictal from 25). The weekend after starting it I had 2 absolute fits of rage, worried my friends, one was at a party. So embarrassing and has filled me with shame and caused strain on my friendships, which caused me to self harm for the first time in months. I am aware all of these episodes happened while drinking, but I didn’t used to be like that! I honestly don’t want to quit drinking as I’m in college and enjoy going out on the weekends with friends, but I just don’t know what to do. I’ve also noticed pretty extreme irritability when sober too, and can sometimes feel the anger boiling in me. Will this end eventually or am I going to have to switch?

For the first time in my JNMIL journey I feel like I’m in the way of a perfect little family. I’m 30, husbands 35 and we have 2 kids under 3. June 2023 my MIL & FIL went in on me. They were drunk, big Fox News fans, when I said I don’t love the holiday of thanksgiving for what it represents they lost it. Told me I was “ruining the two beautiful babies” sleeping upstairs with those ideals. That I’m uneducated. “that degree from (big state school) really got you thinking girl” and things to that nature. Said that with people like me in the world “our grandchildren will be saluting the Chinese flag”
I’ve endured years of foolishness. I told my MIL that my best friend from middle school/high school died in a car accident on Christmas when we were in college. She said “well my best friend died of cancer at 60, you’ll make new friends”. I’m sorry. What the fuck?!?! WHO SAYS THAT
When it was brought up we are only having 2 kids and husband is getting the snip snip his mom got all quiet and said we were being selfish. That IF I DIED HOW WOULD MY HUSBAND HAVE MORE CHILDREN.
This stuff is so hurtful. So fucking painful. I cut them off after this incident in June 2023. Saw them at a funeral this month and that’s it. My husband won’t see the bad in them. So much so that he often deflects their words or says “that’s just how they are”
We went to couples therapy. I quit going because dumb in law stuff kept getting in the way and I felt like it wasn’t working.
I feel horrible to say it but at this point if they just disappeared from my life forever, I would have an amazing relationship.
My husband wants to go to their house a bunch this summer. They live on a lake. I’m not going back to their house again.
I set a boundary before I married my husband. Reiterated multiple times before I brought kids into the world. 1. No sleepovers for kids. Not unless I’m in the room with them. 2. No daycare. I’m responsible for my child’s safety and I’m putting that care in my hands.
With my husband going to their lake house this summer he pushed my boundary saying he wanted to take my 3yr old son knowing this is my hard and fast rule of no sleepovers without me. Huge blow up ensues.
Am I the problem? I go out of my way to remind my husband to FaceTime his parents so they see the kids. When MIL & FILare in town I make my husband put something on the calendar with them so I can leave the house.
I feel trapped. like this fight over in laws is never going to end. I guess what I’m asking is am I just supposed to cave and allow abusive people in my life for the sake of my husband. Or do I keep putting my foot down forever on my in-laws and implode the relationship I have with my husband.
Sorry for such long post, I’m exhausted and rambling, my eyes are completely swollen from crying all night long

I looked at my ex girlfriend’s TikTok today to find her and her new guy have 6 months together. I’m 20 and in college and when I saw this I freaked out. 6 months of my life since we split is gone. I don’t remember any of it going by really. Day in day out shit. I joined a frat and she thought I was screwing sororities chicks. It wasn’t true but I’ve kissed another girl before drunk when we were together so she is the smart one for leaving a year after that happened. We always had a great time together tho and I miss her dearly. I have no friends in the frat, no girls like me, my grades suck, I started lifting but I keep getting a cold every few days. I just got off school and I got bad grades. Everyday is a nothing. I have a shit diet and im losing my hair too. I keep trying to pull it together. I can’t seem to crawl out. This summer I’m gonna spend mostly alone. Call me a piece of shit for kissing another girl but we all do shitty things and you’ll never understand the regret that I feel. I’d just like some advice cause I feel trapped and like I’m stuck trying to breathe. Oh I also started doing drugs in the frat. Some hard ones but I’m doing better right now. I live with my grandparents also and they are loud daily and constantly scream. Having a hard time sleeping sometimes so I drive around at night for like a hour and sit in parking lots too. It’s a great moment of peace in my day. I don’t want sympathy or whatever just someone to give me some ideas or something who have been here.
I also spend atleast 4 hours a day scrolling on tiktok

A bit of background. Met my ex, moved me and my son to another country to marry him, had a few good years. From the marriage on, he stopped doing anything unless I practically forced him, for example he was an avid runner while dating, stopped completely as soon as I moved in. I am a very social person that likes to be busy with friends and activities. I was lonely and depressed by year 4. I started to build my life and found things to do, friends, and he was very comfortable with me doing everything by myself. Started going to therapy. He became more and more disrespectful, verbally abusive, there was coercion and one instance of marital rape. On my 40th birthday I planned a trip, he didn’t want to go with me because “he hated” the city, so I went by myself. Came back 10 days later very sad to see him (no birthday present, nothing special), all we ever did together was go to breweries and be out for drinks. A month after my birthday I got a letter that said the house was going to be foreclosed because he hadn’t paid the mortgage in a year. Later I got a letter from the IRS stating we owed over 50,000 dls. in unpaid taxes. He took care of finances from the beginning, I trusted him and I worked and made about a third of what he made. The year he didn’t pay I was paying for a programming boot camp and my trip. I had consulted him and planned every step with him and he never told me about the debt. I got into fix it mode and saved the house, he became more abusive, and pressured me to fix everything (I discovered more debt and lies). Two months of that and I asked for a divorce, he wouldn’t contact a tax accountant, make a payment plan or anything, he wanted me to fix it and accused me of “never being a partner”. His eldest son lived with us, I spent every Christmas at his Ex wife’s house, I worked and paid for my stuff and my son’s. Im not the tidiest person but I made sure the house was furnished and livable and clean. First I got laid off so we couldn’t separate, then I got a job and he got laid off. When he finally got a job he was drunk most days by noon, got a girlfriend, still paid no debts. All I asked him was to pay the IRS debt (which was his entirely as a 1099 employee, I had W2’s for a few months of work), the agreement was that he would pay his debts, we would pay 50% each of the mortgage, he would leave when the debt was manageable and we would sell the house in 4 years (when my son finished high school, he always claimed him as his and said he would support him). Instead he sold the house behind my back for 1/3 less than its worth and with a month of closing time. I hired a lawyer, stop the sale and he left. He already had an apartment rented. He left me in debt, the house in debt, a mess of things (didn’t even empty his closet). He has not cooperated at all in the divorce and it has dragged for months (costing me a lot of money I cant afford). He stopped responding to texts a week ago, I had asked him for his W2 so I could file my taxes and he stopped responding and started picking up his mail (never changed mailing address) at dawn so I won’t see it. Today I got a letter from insurance saying he got terminated and I could do the COBRA option. I asked him what the deal was (according to litigation he still needs to be paying mortgage, insurance, debts, etc) and he told me he was going in disability because he is going blind and I’m on my own. He has bad mouthed me to everyone we know and he took the dog. He had mentioned something about the retina some time ago, but he never wanted to go to doctors because he didn’t want to be told to stop drinking. I should have seen the signs of alcoholism. One time I would not touch him he did something to himself and left the house covered in blood. To this day I don’t know what he did but basically he told me he wanted me to feel bad about it and he did it with both teenagers in the house. Now I don’t even feel bad about the blindness, I don’t fully believe him, and I feel frustrated because I don’t think the court will make a blind guy in disability pay for lawyers fees, pay the IRS and alimony. I was looking forward to that so I could have a breather and afford life without getting a second job. It seems so unfair, its a horrible thing for him too but he had years of diabetes untreated and he wouldn’t stop drinking. And now I not only lost everyone I called family for 8 years (his family) due to his lies, but I am also losing my house and any idea of saving money for my son’s college or any other project. He’s not dead so I can’t make any decision about my life without his signatures, and he gets to be the victim and I will be the evil bitch that sued him during him going blind. I am so tired! Thank you for reading, I just needed to vent.

TLDR: Two guys hurt me, both times they said they liked me and I assumed they liked me to the point of becoming each other's romantic partner. In reality, they don't.
I was an introverted person till my 12th standard. During college, I started making friends, going out, and having a group of people around me without feeling like my energy was getting drained. I never went out on dates/had relationships with guys till I was 23 years old.
I moved to a new city and started going out and meeting people and I met a good person. At least he seemed good but he forced himself on me and hence I got into my cocoon again.
I met another guy, he took the time to get to know me. He was patient with me and my sudden mood changes. I started liking him and it was reciprocated. One thing led to another and we got intimate. Things were going well for some time, in one conversation I called him my boyfriend and he corrected me we were not together. When he said he liked me he was just saying that and whatever happened between us was just physical for him and nothing emotional. I got sad and angry, confronted him and cried a lot. His sole reaction was even if he liked me he didn't want to be my boyfriend or partner as he would marry the girl his family would select from him. That hurt me a lot and again followed me going into a cocoon.
I worked on myself. I centred myself and thought about what qualities I wanted and what I was capable of giving/ being. I again met a guy, we matched intellectually and became good friends. We both belong to the same subject so our discussions were diverse and fruitful. One fine day he says that He has started liking me. I told him I was not sure about my feelings I thought this was more along the lines of we both were lonely and got our hearts broken by different people so it was just an attraction. We decided to take a break from each other and then catch up after a few months if our feelings remain the same we will see our compatibility. He didn't pick up my call when we were going to meet again, I accepted the situation and moved on. He calls me almost a month or two later and says he wants to catch up. Things were still the same and we both sort of accepted each other in our lives. Then suddenly he started asking me what I would do when/before getting married. what are the questions I will ask etc. I was a bit shocked and pressed him. He changed the subject. Last week when we were hanging out he says his family found a girl for him and He wants to see if it works out. I accept that I made the mistake of assuming that he still had interest in me. I was a wishful thinker and I thought he asked me out means he still had feelings for me.
When we used to get drunk, he always used to say I deserve something more and I used to reply then be that more. This whole thing came as a surprise.
I just feel too hopeless now, I don't feel like I will ever find anyone.

I found my love at first sight 2 years ago I met a girl at a house party, I saw these gorgeous stranger coming to the party. Like super duper gorgeous kind of, my heart melted right away. I really wanted to strike a conversation with her. I awkwardly sat behind her. And like a true introvert that I’m I started playing game on my phone. They started passing joint, these girl passed to me as i was closest in the proximity. I just took it and said nothing. She looked at me and said what are you playing? Man from there we started talking like crazy. Then we all started drinking and stuff. We were in so tune with each other that all people were teasing us as couples. The funny thing was that eventually we got so drunk and high. That we were struggling to communicate and understand each other. She hardly speaks any Hindi just know the basics. All we were doing was staring and laughing at each other for no reason. Just looking at her face was making me smile and laugh. By seeing me laughing she starts laughing to and vice versa. While leaving she said to me that why we didn’t meet sooner and her college is ending in 2 months and she is leaving India.
So yeah I got her Instagram but after seeing her insta I gave up because like she was extremely extrovert, partying all the time, doing all kinds of shenanigans. Whereas I was just some barely dark average insecure introverted guy. But yeah we stayed good friends until she was in India. Used to drop at our house to chill.

I am a 20 year old college student, and about 3 months ago, my ex girlfriend (19F) broke up with me. We had been together for 3 years, and while everything was amazing during high school, things slowly went downhill once we left for college. We were 5 hours away for the first semester, and then I transferred to be closer to home for the second semester and we were 1.5 hours away. After making the move, my ex slowly started becoming very abusive. She would break up with me whenever I brought up any concerns about our relationship, blaming everything on me and degrading me as a person. When she had me mentally beaten down, I would beg for her to take me back and she always would - the break ups never lasted for more than a day or two.
Last summer, I was convinced that she was cheating on me. She lived in between my job and my house, and one day on my way home I saw her in the pulling in to the driveway with a guy in her car. I brought this up to her and she accused me of stalking her (even though I literally passed her house every day since it was the fastest route to and from work). A week later, I left for an archeology trip out west for two weeks, and she broke up with me again over the phone. I didn't have time to talk with her about it and had to hang up, and she then called me the next morning asking to get back together again. I assumed that she had again cheated on me, since this breakup lasted a single night. After returning home from the trip, she stopped initiating sex.
After going back to college, she mentioned that she wanted to take a break for a few months, and I told her that I would rather break up entirely if that was the case, and she agreed and we broke up. About a day or two later, she began texting me every night and calling me to tell me that she still loved me even if we were not together. I told her I needed space and that hearing her say things like that was not helping my mental/emotional wellbeing, and that we should go no-contact. She then began showing up in my apartment building, on my campus, or in the parking garage where I keep my car - cornering me and continuing to go on about how she still loved me and wanted to spend time with me even if we weren't together. Since I was afraid, I would give in and spend time with her.
In the early winter around Thanksgiving, she invited me to go to a date party with her that she was hosting with her roommates at her house. She told me that if I went with her we could get back together. Assuming that getting back together with her would stop her from showing up at my place unannounced, I agreed. At the party, she refused to introduce me as her boyfriend, and spent most of her time with her roommates while I tried to make conversation with the other guys there. One of the guys asked me if her and I were together and I said yes, and he laughed and said that was "good info" and that he'll starting backing off now. The adrenaline started pumping and I confronted him, but my ex stepped in and took me to the couch. I sat down and she came in with a drink for me, and since I was already pretty heated, I downed it. I have no idea what was in that drink - it was the only one I had that night, it didn't taste especially alcoholic, and I have a pretty decent tolerance - but it really fucked me up almost immediately. I was drifting in and out of consciousness for the rest of the night, making routine trips to the bathroom to violently throw up. Eventually, my ex grabbed my hand and took me upstairs to her bedroom and started drunkenly coming onto me. Since it had been months since she had done anything remotely sexual, this felt very off. I came to my senses once she started taking my belt off, and I told her we should go back down to the party, and started making my way for the door. She followed and the night ended shortly after. To this day, I have no idea what was in that drink. My theory is that she may have tried to drug me with something, since once drink should not have made me that drunk or that sick. After this party, we technically got back together, but it was very distant and odd. She stopped showing up at my place, and once we were home for the winter she practically ignored me and we hardly saw each other at all.
Once the next semester started in January, things went rapidly downhill. She would disappear for days - entirely ghosting me and then returning with some elaborate story of where she was or what had happened (almost always alcohol/drug related chaos). In February, she had disappeared again for almost 4 days (her longest one yet) and called me the day before Valentine's Day explaining that she was over a friend's place without a phone charger. She then asked if we could go on a date for Valentine's Day the next day, and I agreed. I drove to her place and took her out to eat, and I asked about her whereabouts the few days prior. She reiterated that she was at someone else's place - but accidentally slipped up and said the name of the guy I confronted at the party months prior. She then backtracked, acting as if she said the wrong name, and claimed that she was at this guy's girlfriend's place, which is why she accidentally said his name. I called her out on her bullshit, told her that she lied and cheated on me, and left. The next day, she called me and officially broke up with me.
For the next week or so, she proceeded to text me hundred of messages, call me over 600 times, and stalk me just like before. She kept claiming that she wanted to talk and needed me and still loved me and always would. I ignored her and blocked her, and she moved on to Instagram, then Snapchat, then TikTok... she went on to spam my DMs on every social media platform I have. She would show up in the parking garage or in the lobby of my apartment building. I was able to avoid her, and she never noticed me in person. I eventually left my apartment and moved in with a friend for my own wellbeing. Throughout it all, I never responded to her.
This brings me to tonight. I had met my ex's father a handful of times and he took a very strong liking to me. I unfollowed him on Instagram after the breakup - I felt like it was customary to do so. But tonight he messaged me - asking me how I was, and hoping my semester went well. He then messaged me again and said that he noticed I unfollowed him, and that I didn't have to respond if I didn't want to but that he wanted to remind me that this was his account (I'm guessing he thought I unfollowed him because I didn't know it was his account?). I am entirely unsure of how to proceed here...
Should I just thank him for checking in and wish him well, or tell him that his daughter broke up with me and I unfollowed him out of custom? Or should I just ignore him? I am entirely unsure of the context here - I don't know if he is legitimately being kind/friendly, or if my ex put him up to this after I blocked her on everything and moved. Honestly, since he always spoke very highly of me, I think there's a chance he is actually in the dark regarding the breakup and my ex never told him. Thank y'all for the help, it is much appreciated as always.
TL;DR - abusive ex girlfriend stalks me for weeks, months later her father (who took a liking to me) messages me in a friendly way - making me think he either does not know about the breakup, or was put up to this by my ex... do I respond?

There’s a number of posts thanking RT but I feel I should say my thanks as well.
The short and sweet version of this post: Thank you RT for the 19 years of enjoyment that I’ve followed the company. Y’all got me to laugh in a dark time nearly 19 years ago when Hurricanes Katrina and Rita were a one two punch that set my state back decades. I wish you all the best of luck on your future endeavors.
The long version: My experience finding Rooster Teeth was probably just about the same as many others. By finding it when they have their first real experience of unrestricted and unmonitored internet access. But, mine differs in the situation that brought that about for most people. I’m going to tell that story below.
“Wake up! Pack what you want to keep for the rest of your life. We need to leave.”
Those were the words my mother spoke to me in the early morning hours of Sunday August 28th 2005 as she woke my identical twin brother and I. She then shoved a few bags in our arms and left us to pack as she went to wake up our younger brother. It was somewhere around 4:00 AM. Hurricane Katrina had jumped from a category 3 hurricane up to a category 5 hurricane over night.
Looking back now, it’s one hell of a way to wake up a grade schooler.
We had originally planned to stay as it wasn’t 100% determined where Katrina would land until August 27th. We knew we were relatively safe from a category 3. So we had chosen to stay. But all bets were off once that storm further intensified.
We spent the next couple of hours packing and, if I remember right, we were on the road by 8 or 9 AM. We took two vehicles. My dad’s jet black 2003 Ford sport track, where he was alone with bags, photos, etc, and my mom’s tan 1998 Ford Explorer that contained her, my two brothers, 3 dogs, and myself. Charlie, an aging golden red retriever my dad had taken in when he was in college, Loki, a mixed lab/golden retriever mutt that was my twin brother’s dog, and my dog Boudreaux, another mixed lab/golden retriever mutt from the same litteshelter. We unfortunately could not find our adopted out door tortoiseshell cat Pearl before we had to leave. She was named after the nearest major body of water, the Pearl River and had adopted us in 2000. We left thinking we might never see her again.
Contra flow is something that was only enacted in the most dire of circumstances and I don’t think it has been used since 2008 when Gustav came to town. The state of Louisiana enacted Contra flow the afternoon of the day prior, Saturday August 27th 2005, and concluded it on the afternoon of Sunday August 28th 2005.
Unfortunately, it was going to be slow going on the interstate. So my parents chose to take an alternate route taking Highway 90 east out of Louisiana and into Mississippi. We followed it as far as we could until the interstate became a viable rout again. Unfortunately, not long after we crossed over the Highway 90 Pearl River bridges into Mississippi, the state came along and shut down that evacuation rout by raising the bridges and sticking them in place. That effectively trapped some of my neighbors who then weathered the storm at home.
Sadly today that evacuation rout isn’t a viable option anymore as the state of Louisiana has neglected those bridges ever since. They’re barely safe to walk on as they stand now.
We eventually arrived at a relative’s house in the Florida pan handle. There we watched the news as hurricane Katrina made landfall on Monday August 29th 2005. We watched live as the the levees failed and the water came flooding in. We watched as the North Shore of lake Pontchartrain took a beating. We watched as Houma was ravaged. We watched as south east Louisiana, southern Mississippi, and southern Alabama were rolled over like dying drunk that owed the wrong people money.
“I used to say come hell or high water. But I think I’ll take hell over high water at this point.” - Family friend that wasn’t able to get out of New Orleans
A few days later, we went from my aunt and uncle’s house to my grand parents house up in the Atlanta Georgia area. There we continued to watch the news and see the damage reports. For those of us who remember watching the news then, to say the situation was dire would be an understatement.
A few days after getting to Atlanta, my father took Charlie and went home to check on the house and follow through with startup procedures for getting one of the Folgers coffee factories in the area operational again. Getting back into some sort of routine is a critical way of returning to some sense of normalcy after a natural disaster. Unfortunately, It took several days for us to hear back from him because he wasn’t able to get calls through. He somehow managed to get his cellphone plan changed to allow for texting and he was able to text on his old Nokia. So we heard back from him in the latter half of the second week of September. Thankfully, our house had minimal damage. We got incredibly lucky. Unfortunately, Pearl was nowhere to be found. My dad even crawled under the house to look for her. We didn’t know when my brothers and I would be coming home yet.
Thankfully he had made those changes to his cellphone plan as Hurricane Rita had made land fall on September 24th. So he was able to quickly notify us that he was ok. Katrina and Rita were a one two punch that set Louisiana back decades.
Within that first week of September, my brother’s and I were enrolled in a school my mom had taught in before we moved down to Louisiana on labor day weekend at the ass end of 1999. We attended school there for around a month before we returned home as well. The whole time we were in Atlanta, if I wasn’t at school, my routine had become watch the news, read books, climb a large tree outside, play video games, and using my grandparents computer to browse the internet.
It was probably around half way through September when I found YouTube and, due to my favorite video game series being halo, I found Red Vs Blue. My introduction to RVB was with episodes wildly out of order painting a completely different picture than the actual story. I showed it to my twin brother and we were hooked. RVB got a laugh out of us during a very dark time in our lives. A laugh that was very much needed as we were in the midst of processing what had happened and what was still happening back home.
Funny enough, it’s Tucker’s first set of lines in episode 1 that got my twin and I grounded for watching something on the internet for the first time. So all I could do was watch the news, read a book, or get a little bit of blaine damblage when falling out of the large tree in front of my grandparents house. So, in a way, that post credit scene hits a little harder for me.
In mid to late October my mother, brothers, dogs, and I all returned home. The devastation we saw driving back in is something that is hard to describe. What was lush and green on our way out had all been killed off by the storm and was barren and dead on our return. The song “wake me up when September ends” by Green Day was on the radio constantly and I will forever associate it with returning home after the storm.
We didn’t have internet at the house again until sometime in early November and the power wasn’t entirely stable until sometime in late November. We were back in school in Louisiana and a number of my classmates were missing. Most eventually returned as well. But some never did. Their families had decided to put down roots where they were and never returned.
Due to the power outages I had MREs for the first time. My favorites were chilly Mac (dating myself as a millennial with that one) and the Frankfurters (also called the 4 fingers of death). I think my parents still have some Katrina MREs tucked away in a closet somewhere even though we’ve moved a few times after the storm.
Being able to sit down and watch RVB in order and being able to introduce friends to it really helped me return to some sense of normalcy. Thanks to Halo and RVB I met some of my closest friends. Things were slowly returning to normal.
In late December my family was having a bonfire in the backyard when from the other side of the fence and across a deep drainage ditch, we heard a cat meow. Just one quick meow. My dad, who normally doesn’t swear, said “no fucking way” as he ran to get a flashlight. When he returned with a flashlight, we pointed it across the ditch in the direction of the noise. There was Pearl sitting on top of a log. She was perfectly fine and healthy. The only issue we had was that she was wearing a collar.
As for a sense of fully returning to normalcy. It wasn’t until the half time show when New Orleans Saints played the Atlanta Falcons for their season opening game in the repaired New Orleans Super dome in 2006. The bands playing were Green Day and U2. The song “The Saints are coming” is specifically what fully returned that sense of normalcy.
As for the following years, sadly as the dogs and cat aged they all passed away over the course of time, I had become a fan of Rooster Teeth and would introduce friends to their content from time to time, and I continued to go through my academic career making friends along the way thanks to the RT community.
When I was in college I had begun to feel like I wasn’t part of Rooster Teeth’s target audience. But I had bigger concerns like thermodynamics and budgeting to think about.
Now that the company is being shut down and I’ve watched the last of Red Vs Blue, all I can say is thank you for the 19 years of laughter and enjoyment. You all are awesome and I wish nothing but the best for y’all and the best of luck in your future endeavors. My only regrets are not finding y’all sooner and never being able to make it to RTX.
Also, on a lighter note, a tortoise shell cat has recently taken up residence across the street from my parent’s house underneath the concrete slab of a house that was never completed after Katrina. My mom has started feeding it and named it Pontchartrain.

My (36 M) husband and I (36 F) had a bad argument one night fueled by alcohol. I don’t usually drink unless it’s for a holiday or special occasion/family get together or a rare date night out. My husband averages anywhere between 2-4 drinks almost every night and has admitted in the past that it is his coping mechanism to stress. We have two young children and that’s why I pretty much have stopped drinking because it’s just easier not to and I don’t like that it interrupts my sleep. After a family get-together at our home, and after everyone went home, I realized I was really inebriated. I suspect my husband was a little intoxicated also. My husband and I got into an argument over mundane relationship things (not spending enough time together bc of his gaming, lack of partnership, lack of effort etc.) which, we shouldn’t have gotten into any type of discussion after drinks but I am so embarrassed and ashamed for getting this drunk. My only defense is, I did not make the drinks and did not know how much alcohol was in them; and I always stick with a two drink limit but since I did not know how much alcohol was in these two drinks (they were all liquor and not mixed with anything, which I did not know) I felt/feel awful and really so stupid for not paying more attention. I have been struggling with vertigo and generally losing my balance for about a year now. After our argument and on my way back to our bedroom to go to bed, I bumped into my husband on accident in our narrow hallway. The alcohol definitely didn’t help, but I simply lost my balance as I do a couple times a day. A few minutes later, my husband storms into our bedroom, getting in my face to the point I am having to take multiple steps back bc he is puffing his chest and has clenched fists- I guess trying to intimidate me? I am now scared and panic and I ask “what are you doing? What are you doing?!” Bc I have no idea why/what he is doing (though he did get in my face like this once before last summer when I was 7 months pregnant bc he didn’t like something I said) and he says through gritted teeth “you are really pushing me.” He is livid. And storms out. I then follow bc I am confused and ask him what’s wrong and he accuses me of shoulder checking him. I am shocked and said no no I stumbled and I apologized profusely because I definitely didn’t do that on purpose nor would I ever! He did not believe me and called me a liar (I have never done anything like this nor have I ever been belligerently drunk with him. I have only been this drunk 1-2 times in my college years). I went to bed in our bedroom, he slept on the couch. The next morning, after I feed the baby, I see him in the hallway as I am heading back to the bedroom. He storms down the hallway and I can see he is still pissed. I back into our bedroom and I’m looking at him and I am nervous bc of the night prior and he says nothing but still looks mad. He looks right at me, yanks my pants and underwear down, spins me around and then shoves me on the bed face down and proceeds to have intercourse with me. I was absolutely shocked and I just froze. He has never done anything like this. I didn’t say no or stop and I kept quiet bc I didn’t want to wake the baby or our toddler in the next room (definitely didn’t want our toddler walking in). I just froze. I waited for it to be over bc the night before was scary when he got in my face and I just didn’t know what to do. The only thing he said during it was “is this what you want??” through gritted teeth and he still sounded mad. I didn’t say anything. After he finished, he immediately went to the bathroom, washed up and then flung himself on the bed, laid down still acting angry. I don’t understand what happened. We don’t “make up” like this after arguments. Nothing about it was tender or wanting to reconnect, and there was absolutely no communication prior or during other than what he said. Was this sexual assault or abuse? Or rape? I am so confused and anxiety ridden over the whole ordeal and still feel so ashamed/disgusted/embarassed with myself for getting so toasted that night prior.

I really need someone to just vent this out to and maybe get advice on what I could do because right no I feel so trapped and it feels like theres only one way out. I cant afford a therapist even tho I really wish I could see one.
When I was younger around 8ish my parents split and my dads job had him moving all over the US from New York, to Arkansas, to Texas, to South Carolina, etc. Because of all the moving I rarely got to be put into public school, and was forced into homeschooling for most of my prior years. Instead of actually properly engaging with me tho, I just got handed a text book and had to solve it myself while my father worked or played his MMO Warcraft. I got my first laptop at around the age of 8-10 maybe and because I had nothing else to do I guess I just started getting really big into gaming and being online.
Then when I was about 15 we settled down in a ghost town in Texas. Some stupid college town with literally nothing to do. We have 1 street with fast food chains, an empty abandoned mall, and 1 or 2 bars, 1 of which recently shut down. I had a kind of hard time fitting in at school since it was my first time in an actual public school and it was my Freshman year in college. My father forced me and my brother to play football and while I was athletic, I couldnt catch for shit but my father was so proud anytime I was on the field so I just stopped fighting it and forced myself to get through it. Im about 5'6-5'7 range of height and that made it much harder as well.
Anyway, about in my sophomore year or so, maybe a bit earlier I started getting in trouble. Like a lot of trouble, running away, fights, tresppassing, breaking into cars and stealing, destruction of property. Thinking back on it, a lot of it was just me acting out for attention because it seemed like the only time my father or really anyone would pay attention was when I forced them to. My father was on his 5th new girlfriend who I hated and I had 2 awful step siblings that got the golden treatment while me and my 2 younger brothers were treated much worse. Around this time I also sort of came to terms with the my mother not caring about us. She would visit every summer or so or we'd go down once a year to visit thanksgiving with her side of the family and for the most part that was always fun.
But my mom was a major hippie. Like a real junkie. Every year or 2 it was a new abusive horrible boyfriend that would treat me and my brothers like shit and my mom and him were always shifting between being super lovey and cute with eachother when they were drunk or high out of their minds, to the inveitable fighting and yelling at eachother about how he treats her and us kids, or how she is always yelling at him over little things whenever their high or buzz eventually wore off. I could never really understand it. Why she couldnt come see us more often as she only lived a little over an hour and a half away. She would use the excuse that she didnt have that kind of money to take us down and feed us and what not or had no one to watch us. But I saw and I knew how much she spent on weed and alcohol and it must have been at least 250 a month bare minimum. It always felt like she didnt *want* to see us.
And my father, Ive already eluded to how he was very dismissive of me and my brothers but he also had anger issues. He wasnt necessarily abusive but he would yell and he would scream about how fucking stupid I was for doing x and x or how I need to treat his girlfriends better. And Id yell back. His mother, my grandma has extremely bad mental health disorder (I dont know what specifically) but it causes her to go manic when shes off her medication and seeing as my grandpa didnt believe in that (the 1900s am I right) and seeing as they were both extreme christians she often would not take them and this caused her to lash out and abuse my father by both yelling and screaming but also by beating him with a belt or a pan or her hands.
I think this is why my father is the way he is, why hes so emotionally stunted and closed off.
When I was 17 my life was actually at its peak, I was finally starting to do better in school, I had a solid group of friends with and just a lot of really healthy relationships. But then I met this girl, and she sort of clung to me, presumably because she had a crush on me (duh). And would pester me all the time. This really got to me because for the first time in my life there was someone prying for MY attention instead of the other way around. She was extremely forward, texting me all the time, holding onto my arm while we walked down the halls, waiting for me at lunch, after school, after class, etc. I was starting to fall for her hard.
At this time I actually had a best friend who I really liked because despite all my flaws she seemed to genuinely care about me. I liked her at the time but I wasnt sure if she liked me back and I was too scared to ask. And so, when I met this new girl who seemed to be very clearly into me I folded and sooner than later we were officially dating. This is where everything went down hill. My friends stopped hanging out with me as much because they thought she was "very sexual" for a lack of better wrods or whatever and didnt approve, and Id push them away when I argued that she wasnt and that she was misunderstood and abused.
This relationship would end up being extremely toxic. She made me block friends, If my friend was a woman, I had to cut ties with them. (which was a lot of my friends that I had left). And then things started getting really bad. She was very obsessive and abusive, if I looked at a girl the wrong way, if I was too nice to a waiter, or she thought they were too nice to me, it was somehow my fault and she'd start acting distant. Replying with small answers, leaving me on open, until eventually I apologized and then BOOM she was all over me again. And this continued anytime I did something she didnt like she'd withhold any affection, refused to talk it out, would scream and throw things, lock herself in rooms, threaten to hurt herself. She also pulled me into smoking weed which became a constant thing for us.
Around this time I should also mention, my father had disenrolled me from school early into my Junior year due to skipping classes and fighting, and also my girlfriend had gotten in a huge fight with her parents and she got kicked out and came to live with us.
She was VERY intimate, and would often hurt me at my most vulnerable. When I would break down about things in my past or because of a really shitty day she would waste no time using that in later conversations. And during sex she would often scratch or bite or keep going even when I told her to stop because it hurt or I was uncomfortable or not in the mood and when I finally would get physical and push her off she would just throw something at me or hit me and say something like "Fucking Vagina ( She obv used the P-word instead), Youre such a loser" and then would spend the next few hours acting like Im the bad guy saying things like "You think Im ugly" "You dont wanna fuck me anymore" etc etc. And she was pretty much with me 24/7 as she lived with me at this point, eveyr morning, every night.
Things continued like this for about a year and right when I was gonna break up with her, and I think she could tell because I was starting to be more standoffish, I had finally reconnected with some friends. She got pregnant. I was too fucking naive and horny I guess and so extremely dumb hat I just believed her when she told me she was on birth control. I mean we'd had sex many many times before hand without a condom and there was never any issue.
Anyway, this was the real downfall. I couldnt make her get an abortion, and I didnt wanna be forced to pay 40% child support for the rest of my young life. So I stuck with her, and I got a job working about 50hrs a week at a chicken factory. I made pretty good money but I came home miserable. On the bright side I finally kicked my weed addiction for both my sake but more importantly my sons. I wasnt gonna be the same as my mother or father. But once our attentions wernt on eachother anymore, it became all about the kid.
We had an agreement, that since Im on my feet and using my back and hands all day Id usually come home with very swollen hands and feet and I just wanted 30m to an hour to myself to just relax and calm down after work but this only lasted for maybe a month or 2 before she started pawning our son off on me the moment I was home. I came home to dishes all over the room, clothes sitting in the bin for weeks without being washed, overflowing trash. It was horrible.
Things pressed on like that while the relationship just deteriorated further and further and before I knew it, 3 years had passed. Now Im 21, and we basically dont talk to eachother at this point and just share a space and a kid together. But one day I wake up and my ex is gone, and so is my son. She had left in the middle of the night and all I had was a text from one of her friends saying she breaks up with me and shes leaving with my son. I try to contact her but Im blocked on literally everything with no way of knowing where they went. I didnt care that she was gone, but not knowing where my son was killed me. I spent 3 long months hiring a lawyer and tracking her down and eventually found her staying in a womens shelter claiming I was abusive.
Eventually our day in court came even tho I paid 9k for a lawyer with a really high success rate, and I had an actual home, and a good system of connections for the kids, and a family that Im actually in contact with, and a job and a car. I had photos, videos of her breakdowns, screenshots of her message threatening myself and herself. I had witnesses, and even court documents about her being sent to a mental hospital for her issues and her parents both having gone to jail for possession of drugs and YET even despite all of this, she was able to walk in with no legal support, coming from a shelter with no home and no body to reach out to and yet somehow she still fucking won custody of our son. I promise you Im not being biased in this explination, she somehow won and I blame it on the fact that we lived in good ol sexist Texas where the mother always get the kid no matter what and because they wanted me to pay child support. I cant explain it in any way that makes sense.
Anyway, I wallowed in defeat drunk for about 3 months after that until I got a message from my ex saying that she's being evicted from the shelter and she has nowhere left to go but her uncles house. Thing is, our court doc had a special restriction to being within 30m of eachother, and though she absolutely could have found a way around it I was somehow able to convince her to sign custody over to me since she has no other options as she was gonna be kicked from the shelter and would be breaking the border restriction if she left. And it actually worked and for the first time in months I had my kid back.
Now flashforward a year and a half, Im 22 now and turning 23 in a about 6 months. But my life feels so empty. I live with my parents because I cant afford childcare, and also work and pay off a home and a car at the same time. I have no friends and no girlfriend and its so fucking lonely. And anytime I try to talk to people I just fuck it all up because I dont use social media, Im not familiar with the current trends, I dont have time to hang out or go drinking or smoking, or just go on trips because I have to stay home and watch my son. I have a group of friends Ive known for about 4 years online and some of us from the group finally met up in Chicago for a 4 day weekend trip Fri-Mon last weekend and while I felt a little akward because it was my first time out in years where I could actually enjoy myself and it was my first time really in a big city.
I really did have the best time of my life in years and I really really enjoyed it for the most part, it was my first taste of real freedom and fun in as long as I can remember. But then when we got home and we called the next day and shared stories and photos, it was all just talking about how akward I was or how it felt like I hated the trip and that Id just wander off or just seemed anti-social. These wernt just jokes either, they were actively being outwardly mean for what seemed like no reason. Saying they were happy the trip was over and saying they could never go on a trip with us again. All very mean spirited jokes and jabs, and then came the videos and photos where they took of me just kinda sitting akwardly or when I was drunk. And it would just go back to them making a "Yikes" face.
A little bit of context- so there are 5 of us in the GC that have known eachother and called almost every other day for about 4 years. 3 out of 5 of us went on the trip, It was a girl and her boyfriend and then there was another man that we had added to the GC maybe a few months prior. The entire trip, it seemed like the 2 in a couple were sort of othering us, they were doing there thing and we were along for the ride. They would take photos of themselves only, they would whisper and just talk to eachother mostly the entire time, and anytime we would say something it was usually just 1 note response before they would go back to talking to eachother. All of this combined with me just gawking at the fact that I was ACTUALLY there and I would just kinda of zone out sometimes and admire the city and foot traffic and just appreciate the fact I was there. (These were the moments they would capture on camera and say that I was being awkward or anti-social) but they didnt capture all the moments we were actively talking and walking or any of the other good moments like back in the hotel room when we were all just chilling and laughing it up.
When I got home and they just broke out all the insults and were being super mean out of nowhere for literally no reason it just got to me. I wanna be mad at them but Im not Im just super depressed. It was such a fun trip and they basically just ruined it saying the entire time they felt weirded out or they felt like I was sad or unhappy the entire trip. To be fair, Im really stoic, in the sense that I dont show a lot of emotion, seemingly getting that from my father, and I do have a resting frown. So when theyre sitting there talking about the latest Kendrick Lamar vs Drake drama or some tiktok trend or something I didnt understand I would just be kinda left sitting there without knowing what was going on.
The other guy we added to the GC, he was actually really cool to be around, he could hold a convo, and we talked a lot about morals, and shows, and politics, and video games, and things I could relate to and when I asked him about the Drama or Tiktok trend he would actually go out of his way to fill me in and explain it and answer my questions where as the other 2 would just kinda respond with a simple answer and act annoyed when I was like "Ah that makes sense" or "Oh ok I get it". I deleted snapchat awhile back because my son kept posting photos on my story. But when I redownloaded it yesterday I was able to watch all the snaps from the moment our planes landed and we met, to the moment we said goodbye at the airport and all my feelings were validated. The entire time they were sneaking bad photos and recordings of me, and captioning it with things about how they think Im upset or that Im being awkward and sending it to the snap GC.
And my whole world kinda crumbled as I just went through 30 minutes of photos and videos of all of them just talking about me that way behind my back the entire time and seeing how they really felt. During the trip I kept apologizing and telling them Im not upset and that its all just very new to me and I dont get out often and I already felt terrible because my feet were extremely blistered and bruised from all the walking and I felt like I was ruining their fun on the trip and they just kept saying "No its fine!" "Dw about it" "No seriously we're ok, just tried".
Anyway in our call I kind of called them out saying I dont get why theyre acting this way even tho on the trip we seemed to be having a good time and they just got mad at me like "oh my god relax, its not that big of a deal" and yea.
It feels like Im trapped in this cycle where my depression and isolation causes me to act awkward or have a hard time conversing and connecting to people and that makes it hard to make friends or find a girlfriend, but also the loneliness and isolation is whats causing my depression and Ive tried looking up all the advice on how to be more confident or talk to people or whatever but I just cant do it. When Im talkative I come off as "too much" or annoying and yappy but when I dont try as hard Im too quiet. I cant get out of this hole that I spent my entire life digging and now it feels like I might never get out.
I wanna go to college, I want the life that I see everyone my age living, active on social media, travelling, participating in trends, going out to clubs and just enjoying their 20-30s. The worst part is, is that even tho I love my son with every ounce of my being, Im often negligent towards him. He brings toys to me and asks me to play with him and I just tell him not right now while I watch my latest yt video or show, or play games with friends online, and I just feel myself becoming my father and repeating his mistakes. I dont make sure my sons is well clothed and showered, I wear the same clothes multiple days in a row sometimes, and I can already see my son lashing out for attention the same way I did in my teens. Hes 4, some attitude is to be expected, but I know this an attention thing because he acts so good with my aunt or my step mother.
I feel horrible because I wanna do better, I wanna be better but idk how. Ive been considering that it may be in my sons best interest if I give him back to my ex. She has a good life right now with a good car, job, and home and shes finally been clean for awhile. Both of her parents are dead and she has no connection to immediate family but when she sees him she treats him so well and hes always begging to see her again. She genuinely shows him the kind of love and attention he needs. But a part of my feels like if I give him up, Im just like my mother. Abandoning my kid for my own selfish reasons. I could move to the big city with my saved up cash or even camp out of my car as Ive always dreamed of that kind of life. Maybe stay in a dorm or get a roomate while I study in college with a part time job. So Im not left behind in the world
Ive tried justifying it by saying that its better for both of us, and that at this rate Ill be a nobody and he'll grow up just as fucked up as I am. But maybe if I can get out and change the course of my life, I could actually be successful and pay for his college when hes ready, and take him on trips around the world and buy him things. And he'd have a loving mother, and I could still come visit more often than my mother did. Im just so scared. I dont wanna be my father but I dont wanna be my mother either and I cant imagine coming to terms that maybe she wasnt horrible after all. And then I get worried about the logistic, what could go wrong if I give him up. What if my ex decides randomly that she wants child support even tho we agreed no child support was needed. And then my life is fucked all over again but I also lose my son.
I tried researching and In Texas, the judge can decide its "not in the childs best interest" for me not to pay child support or for me to terminate my parental rights even if BOTH me and my ex agree to the terms. So I could be forced into having my life ruined even if we both agree that I dont need to.
I feel alone, and isolated and I have no one to talk to about this and I have no help. No matter how I look at it, my life feels like its over before it even got started and all I can think about is ending it all because it feels like whats the point. Please help me know what to do

I really need someone to just vent this out to and maybe get advice on what I could do because right no I feel so trapped and it feels like theres only one way out. I cant afford a therapist even tho I really wish I could see one.
When I was younger around 8ish my parents split and my dads job had him moving all over the US from New York, to Arkansas, to Texas, to South Carolina, etc. Because of all the moving I rarely got to be put into public school, and was forced into homeschooling for most of my prior years. Instead of actually properly engaging with me tho, I just got handed a text book and had to solve it myself while my father worked or played his MMO Warcraft. I got my first laptop at around the age of 8-10 maybe and because I had nothing else to do I guess I just started getting really big into gaming and being online.
Then when I was about 15 we settled down in a ghost town in Texas. Some stupid college town with literally nothing to do. We have 1 street with fast food chains, an empty abandoned mall, and 1 or 2 bars, 1 of which recently shut down. I had a kind of hard time fitting in at school since it was my first time in an actual public school and it was my Freshman year in college. My father forced me and my brother to play football and while I was athletic, I couldnt catch for shit but my father was so proud anytime I was on the field so I just stopped fighting it and forced myself to get through it. Im about 5'6-5'7 range of height and that made it much harder as well.
Anyway, about in my sophomore year or so, maybe a bit earlier I started getting in trouble. Like a lot of trouble, running away, fights, tresppassing, breaking into cars and stealing, destruction of property. Thinking back on it, a lot of it was just me acting out for attention because it seemed like the only time my father or really anyone would pay attention was when I forced them to. My father was on his 5th new girlfriend who I hated and I had 2 awful step siblings that got the golden treatment while me and my 2 younger brothers were treated much worse. Around this time I also sort of came to terms with the my mother not caring about us. She would visit every summer or so or we'd go down once a year to visit thanksgiving with her side of the family and for the most part that was always fun.
But my mom was a major hippie. Like a real junkie. Every year or 2 it was a new abusive horrible boyfriend that would treat me and my brothers like shit and my mom and him were always shifting between being super lovey and cute with eachother when they were drunk or high out of their minds, to the inveitable fighting and yelling at eachother about how he treats her and us kids, or how she is always yelling at him over little things whenever their high or buzz eventually wore off. I could never really understand it. Why she couldnt come see us more often as she only lived a little over an hour and a half away. She would use the excuse that she didnt have that kind of money to take us down and feed us and what not or had no one to watch us. But I saw and I knew how much she spent on weed and alcohol and it must have been at least 250 a month bare minimum. It always felt like she didnt *want* to see us.
And my father, Ive already eluded to how he was very dismissive of me and my brothers but he also had anger issues. He wasnt necessarily abusive but he would yell and he would scream about how fucking stupid I was for doing x and x or how I need to treat his girlfriends better. And Id yell back. His mother, my grandma has extremely bad mental health disorder (I dont know what specifically) but it causes her to go manic when shes off her medication and seeing as my grandpa didnt believe in that (the 1900s am I right) and seeing as they were both extreme christians she often would not take them and this caused her to lash out and abuse my father by both yelling and screaming but also by beating him with a belt or a pan or her hands.
I think this is why my father is the way he is, why hes so emotionally stunted and closed off.
When I was 17 my life was actually at its peak, I was finally starting to do better in school, I had a solid group of friends with and just a lot of really healthy relationships. But then I met this girl, and she sort of clung to me, presumably because she had a crush on me (duh). And would pester me all the time. This really got to me because for the first time in my life there was someone prying for MY attention instead of the other way around. She was extremely forward, texting me all the time, holding onto my arm while we walked down the halls, waiting for me at lunch, after school, after class, etc. I was starting to fall for her hard.
At this time I actually had a best friend who I really liked because despite all my flaws she seemed to genuinely care about me. I liked her at the time but I wasnt sure if she liked me back and I was too scared to ask. And so, when I met this new girl who seemed to be very clearly into me I folded and sooner than later we were officially dating. This is where everything went down hill. My friends stopped hanging out with me as much because they thought she was a slut or whore or whatever and didnt approve, and Id push them away when I argued that she wasnt and that she was misunderstood and abused.
This relationship would end up being extremely toxic. She made me block friends, If my friend was a woman, I had to cut ties with them. (which was a lot of my friends that I had left). And then things started getting really bad. She was very obsessive and abusive, if I looked at a girl the wrong way, if I was too nice to a waiter, or she thought they were too nice to me, it was somehow my fault and she'd start acting distant. Replying with small answers, leaving me on open, until eventually I apologized and then BOOM she was all over me again. And this continued anytime I did something she didnt like she'd withhold any affection, refused to talk it out, would scream and throw things, lock herself in rooms, threaten to hurt herself. She also pulled me into smoking weed which became a constant thing for us.
Around this time I should also mention, my father had disenrolled me from school early into my Junior year due to skipping classes and fighting, and also my girlfriend had gotten in a huge fight with her parents and she got kicked out and came to live with us.
She was VERY intimate, and would often hurt me at my most vulnerable. When I would break down about things in my past or because of a really shitty day she would waste no time using that in later conversations. And during sex she would often scratch or bite or keep going even when I told her to stop because it hurt or I was uncomfortable or not in the mood and when I finally would get physical and push her off she would just throw something at me or hit me and say something like "Fucking pussy, Youre such a loser" and then would spend the next few hours acting like Im the bad guy saying things like "You think Im ugly" "You dont wanna fuck me anymore" etc etc. And she was pretty much with me 24/7 as she lived with me at this point, eveyr morning, every night.
Things continued like this for about a year and right when I was gonna break up with her, and I think she could tell because I was starting to be more standoffish, I had finally reconnected with some friends. She got pregnant. I was too fucking naive and horny I guess and so extremely dumb hat I just believed her when she told me she was on birth control. I mean we'd had sex many many times before hand without a condom and there was never any issue.
Anyway, this was the real downfall. I couldnt make her get an abortion, and I didnt wanna be forced to pay 40% child support for the rest of my young life. So I stuck with her, and I got a job working about 50hrs a week at a chicken factory. I made pretty good money but I came home miserable. On the bright side I finally kicked my weed addiction for both my sake but more importantly my sons. I wasnt gonna be the same as my mother or father. But once our attentions wernt on eachother anymore, it became all about the kid.
We had an agreement, that since Im on my feet and using my back and hands all day Id usually come home with very swollen hands and feet and I just wanted 30m to an hour to myself to just relax and calm down after work but this only lasted for maybe a month or 2 before she started pawning our son off on me the moment I was home. I came home to dishes all over the room, clothes sitting in the bin for weeks without being washed, overflowing trash. It was horrible.
Things pressed on like that while the relationship just deteriorated further and further and before I knew it, 3 years had passed. Now Im 21, and we basically dont talk to eachother at this point and just share a space and a kid together. But one day I wake up and my ex is gone, and so is my son. She had left in the middle of the night and all I had was a text from one of her friends saying she breaks up with me and shes leaving with my son. I try to contact her but Im blocked on literally everything with no way of knowing where they went. I didnt care that she was gone, but not knowing where my son was killed me. I spent 3 long months hiring a lawyer and tracking her down and eventually found her staying in a womens shelter claiming I was abusive.
Eventually our day in court came even tho I paid 9k for a lawyer with a really high success rate, and I had an actual home, and a good system of connections for the kids, and a family that Im actually in contact with, and a job and a car. I had photos, videos of her breakdowns, screenshots of her message threatening myself and herself. I had witnesses, and even court documents about her being sent to a mental hospital for her issues and her parents both having gone to jail for possession of drugs and YET even despite all of this, she was able to walk in with no legal support, coming from a shelter with no home and no body to reach out to and yet somehow she still fucking won custody of our son. I promise you Im not being biased in this explination, she somehow won and I blame it on the fact that we lived in good ol sexist Texas where the mother always get the kid no matter what and because they wanted me to pay child support. I cant explain it in any way that makes sense.
Anyway, I wallowed in defeat drunk for about 3 months after that until I got a message from my ex saying that she's being evicted from the shelter and she has nowhere left to go but her uncles house. Thing is, our court doc had a special restriction to being within 30m of eachother, and though she absolutely could have found a way around it I was somehow able to convince her to sign custody over to me since she has no other options as she was gonna be kicked from the shelter and would be breaking the border restriction if she left. And it actually worked and for the first time in months I had my kid back.
Now flashforward a year and a half, Im 22 now and turning 23 in a about 6 months. But my life feels so empty. I live with my parents because I cant afford childcare, and also work and pay off a home and a car at the same time. I have no friends and no girlfriend and its so fucking lonely. And anytime I try to talk to people I just fuck it all up because I dont use social media, Im not familiar with the current trends, I dont have time to hang out or go drinking or smoking, or just go on trips because I have to stay home and watch my son. I have a group of friends Ive known for about 4 years online and some of us from the group finally met up in Chicago for a 4 day weekend trip Fri-Mon last weekend and while I felt a little akward because it was my first time out in years where I could actually enjoy myself and it was my first time really in a big city.
I really did have the best time of my life in years and I really really enjoyed it for the most part, it was my first taste of real freedom and fun in as long as I can remember. But then when we got home and we called the next day and shared stories and photos, it was all just talking about how akward I was or how it felt like I hated the trip and that Id just wander off or just seemed anti-social. These wernt just jokes either, they were actively being outwardly mean for what seemed like no reason. Saying they were happy the trip was over and saying they could never go on a trip with us again. All very mean spirited jokes and jabs, and then came the videos and photos where they took of me just kinda sitting akwardly or when I was drunk. And it would just go back to them making a "Yikes" face.
A little bit of context- so there are 5 of us in the GC that have known eachother and called almost every other day for about 4 years. 3 out of 5 of us went on the trip, It was a girl and her boyfriend and then there was another man that we had added to the GC maybe a few months prior. The entire trip, it seemed like the 2 in a couple were sort of othering us, they were doing there thing and we were along for the ride. They would take photos of themselves only, they would whisper and just talk to eachother mostly the entire time, and anytime we would say something it was usually just 1 note response before they would go back to talking to eachother. All of this combined with me just gawking at the fact that I was ACTUALLY there and I would just kinda of zone out sometimes and admire the city and foot traffic and just appreciate the fact I was there. (These were the moments they would capture on camera and say that I was being awkward or anti-social) but they didnt capture all the moments we were actively talking and walking or any of the other good moments like back in the hotel room when we were all just chilling and laughing it up.
When I got home and they just broke out all the insults and were being super mean out of nowhere for literally no reason it just got to me. I wanna be mad at them but Im not Im just super depressed. It was such a fun trip and they basically just ruined it saying the entire time they felt weirded out or they felt like I was sad or unhappy the entire trip. To be fair, Im really stoic, in the sense that I dont show a lot of emotion, seemingly getting that from my father, and I do have a resting frown. So when theyre sitting there talking about the latest Kendrick Lamar vs Drake drama or some tiktok trend or something I didnt understand I would just be kinda left sitting there without knowing what was going on.
The other guy we added to the GC, he was actually really cool to be around, he could hold a convo, and we talked a lot about morals, and shows, and politics, and video games, and things I could relate to and when I asked him about the Drama or Tiktok trend he would actually go out of his way to fill me in and explain it and answer my questions where as the other 2 would just kinda respond with a simple answer and act annoyed when I was like "Ah that makes sense" or "Oh ok I get it". I deleted snapchat awhile back because my son kept posting photos on my story. But when I redownloaded it yesterday I was able to watch all the snaps from the moment our planes landed and we met, to the moment we said goodbye at the airport and all my feelings were validated. The entire time they were sneaking bad photos and recordings of me, and captioning it with things about how they think Im upset or that Im being awkward and sending it to the snap GC.
And my whole world kinda crumbled as I just went through 30 minutes of photos and videos of all of them just talking about me that way behind my back the entire time and seeing how they really felt. During the trip I kept apologzing and telling them Im not upset and that its all just very new to me and I dont get out often and I already felt terrible because my feet were extremely blistered and bruised from all the walking and I felt like I was ruining their fun on the trip and they just kept saying "No its fine!" "Dw about it" "No seriously we're ok, just tried".
Anyway in our call I kind of called them out saying I dont get why theyre acting this way even tho on the trip we seemed to be having a good time and they just got mad at me like "oh my god relax, its not that big of a deal" and yea.
It feels like Im trapped in this cycle where my depression and isolation causes me to act awkward or have a hard time conversing and connecting to people and that makes it hard to make friends or find a girlfriend, but also the loneliness and isolation is whats causing my depression and Ive tried looking up all the advice on how to be more confident or talk to people or whatever but I just cant do it. When Im talkative I come off as "too much" or annoying and yappy but when I dont try as hard Im too quiet. I cant get out of this hole that I spent my entire life digging and now it feels like I might never get out.
I wanna go to college, I want the life that I see everyone my age living, active on social media, travelling, participating in trends, going out to clubs and just enjoying their 20-30s. The worst part is, is that even tho I love my son with every ounce of my being, Im often negligent towards him. He brings toys to me and asks me to play with him and I just tell him not right now while I watch my latest yt video or show, or play games with friends online, and I just feel myself becoming my father and repeating his mistakes. I dont make sure my sons is well clothed and showered, I wear the same clothes multiple days in a row sometimes, and I can already see my son lashing out for attention the same way I did in my teens. Hes 4, some attitude is to be expected, but I know this an attention thing because he acts so good with my aunt or my step mother.
I feel horrible because I wanna do better, I wanna be better but idk how. Ive been considering that it may be in my sons best interest if I give him back to my ex. She has a good life right now with a good car, job, and home and shes finally been clean for awhile. Both of her parents are dead and she has no connection to immediate family but when she sees him she treats him so well and hes always begging to see her again. She genuinely shows him the kind of love and attention he needs. But a part of my feels like if I give him up, Im just like my mother. Abandoning my kid for my own selfish reasons. I could move to the big city with my saved up cash or even camp out of my car as Ive always dreamed of that kind of life. Maybe stay in a dorm or get a roomate while I study in college with a part time job. So Im not left behind in the world
Ive tried justifying it by saying that its better for both of us, and that at this rate Ill be a nobody and he'll grow up just as fucked up as I am. But maybe if I can get out and change the course of my life, I could actually be successful and pay for his college when hes ready, and take him on trips around the world and buy him things. And he'd have a loving mother, and I could still come visit more often than my mother did. Im just so scared. I dont wanna be my father but I dont wanna be my mother either and I cant imagine coming to terms that maybe she wasnt horrible after all. And then I get worried about the logistic, what could go wrong if I give him up. What if my ex decides randomly that she wants child support even tho we agreed no child support was needed. And then my life is fucked all over again but I also lose my son.
I tried researching and In Texas, the judge can decide its "not in the childs best inrest" for me not to pay child support or for me to terminate my parental rights even if BOTH me and my ex agree to the terms. So I could be forced into having my life ruined even if we both agree that I dont need to.
I feel alone, and isolated and I have no one to talk to about this and I have no help. No matter how I look at it, my life feels like its over before it even got started and all I can think about is ending it all because it feels like whats the point. Please help me know what to do

I'm done with all the exams finally !!! A lot of the posts on this subreddit helped me towards achieving this goal. So I'm adding mine in case it helps someone in the future.
My Background
I took and passed my FE Exam in my final semester of college last year. I started my master's in January 2024, right after I graduated in December 2023. My graduate school research is in Thermal Hydraulics and I liked those classes most so I registered for the now-decoupled PE Mechanical: Thermal and Fluid Systems on April 23rd, 2024. That semester I enrolled in graduate-level Heat Transfer and Fluid Mechanics, thinking it would help with studying (it helped very little to none).
Study Material - I only used PPI's Self-Study Bundle
I bought PPI's Self Study Bundle (3 Months Access: Jan 20th - April 20th, 2023) which cost $665.88
The Bundle included:

• Mechanical Engineering Reference Manual (Physical Book)
• Official NCEES Practice PE Exam (Physical Book)
• Learning Hub Access for 3 Months
  • 2 Additional Practice Exams
  • Quiz bank (with about 800 questions)
  • Auto-generated study schedule (which can be customized)

I followed the schedule generated for me on the learning up. I had customized the schedule to have weekends off. The schedule provided much-needed STRUCTURE, which was a really big selling point for me on PPI. It organized scheduling for taking diagnostic tests, reading chapters, practicing problems from the chapter, and taking full-length practice exams. After I completed my schedule I spent the remaining before my exam (about 1 week) time taking 10-15 questions practice exams.
My Study Progress
To be honest, I did not realize how little of actual engineering my undergraduate degree prepared me for. I knew I was lacking knowledge but I did not realize it was that much. Reading through the Mechanical Engineering Reference Manual helped to make up for my lack of knowledge. It probably even made me a better engineer. Below I tracked all the major testing milestones of my study timeline and share some thoughts on each stage.
Study Start: January 23rd, 2024
Opening Diagnostic Test - 70% (January 24th, 2024)
This was the first agenda on the schedule and it deceived me into thinking I was more ready than I actually was for the exam. Turned out that the first diagnostic test only covered basic fluid Mechanics, Heat Transfer, and mass balance principles mainly things learned during undergraduate studies. (In other words the easiest problems on PE exam).
Second Diagnostic Test - 40%: (February 26th, 2024)
After reading all the fluid Mechanics, heat Transfer, and mass balance principles sections, the schedule calls for a second diagnostic test. This was focused on everything else in the exam. I had to guess a lot of problems as I did not know how to solve them. This was hard and showed me just how much I did not know.
First full 8hr Practice Exam (Non-NCEES) - 55%: (March 20th, 2024)
At this point, I had read about half of the book and my generated schedule had called for the exam to be taken at this point. It was a full-length test with the designated 50-minute break. I treated it as such It was very hard, I guessed a huge chunk of problems: some from running out of time but most from just not knowing how to solve the problem. I struggled more second section (breadth section) compared to the principles section. Also, I did not realize just how exhausting an 8-hour exam was. I remember cycling between giving up and having little confidence throughout the exam. Because of my frustrations of not knowing things on the exam, I did not follow my test-taking strategy as well as I would have liked. I would spend way too long trying to figure out a problem simply because I had not been able to solve the last 5. In the end, I reviewed what I missed and learned from the overall test-taking experience. Much work was still needed.
Second full 8hr Practice Exam (Non-NCEES): 65%: (April 8th, 2024)
At this point, I had read about 85% of the book's content and my generated schedule had called for the second exam to be taken at this point. I felt I knew more than the first time. Plus I followed my strategy a lot better as I didn't panic and tried to maintain confidence. But there were still gaps. I did not finish and had to guess a few questions. I guessed way less than I did in the first exam. However, once I finished the exam I knew more work was required. Nonetheless, I was happy with my progress.
Official NCEES Practice Exam (NCEES): 73.75% (April 15th, 2024)
This was the last item on my generated schedule. At this point, I had read the textbook and completed and reviewed both prior practice exams. Like the first 2, I treated it like an actual exam: 8hr and a 50-minute break between. The exam felt relatively good as I took it. Most questions were straightforward others were tough but I was able to finish with time to spare. I also guess very minimally so I was pleased. The practice exam felt way easier than the PPI practice exam questions. The problems took less time to solve, generally had fewer steps, and had more qualitative questions. I had kind of expected this as several Reddit posts had said the PPI exams are harder than actual problems. While reviewing I learned that some exam questions are written with very long descriptions and tons of extra information but are actually very easy to solve. It seems the long description and extra information were a way to throw you off as you think there is "no way this long question is solved with such few steps". This highlighted to me the importance of reading the question and not just the numbers or diagram. If the diagram is super complicated, chances are the problem is short. Overall, I felt ready to take the exam but I was too close to barely passing (70-75%) to be super confident. So I knew I still needed to practice more.
Quiz Bank - 10-16 question quizzes: 83% avg score for last 7 quizzes (April 16th - April 20th)
For the remaining time, I kept practicing problems to ensure I stayed current on different areas of the exam. At this point I had gotten pretty used to the PPI style of questions so I was doing a lot better. I ended up using 152/796 questions from the quiz bank and had an average time of 5 minutes and 20 seconds per problem. I did this until my subscription expired on April 20th, 2023. It was tiring to just solve problems but I just kept pushing through as several Reddit posts had said you can never study too much. I wanted to go into the exam thinking I gave it all I got.
Official NCEES Practice Exam Redo (NCEES): 94% (April 21st - 22nd)
Since I had lost access to the Quiz bank, I decided to redo the practice exam but not in a testing environment but in 10-15 question short blocks. This was very useful as a week had gone by and I had forgotten the correct answers so it was a way to ensure I learned from my mistakes. I learned from most mistakes but made a couple of blunders and had forgotten some things. I felt ready and prepared myself for my big day tomorrow. (April 23rd, 2024 - Test Day).
Test Day - April 23rd, 2024
I woke up that morning from a good night's rest and prayed with my family. I had waffles and eggs for breakfast. I didn't do anything out of the ordinary and tried to remain confident. Luckily for me, my testing center was only 10 minutes away from where I stayed. I got there 30 minutes before my test time - 8:00 AM. However, due to a long line of people checking in for their exams, I didn't begin my exam until like 8:07 AM. My strategy was to use 3:45 minutes (stop countdown timer at 4:15) for the first half and 4:15 minutes for the second half. My question strategy was I would first solve very easy problems on the first run, flag problems I was sure I could solve but were long, and leave everything else unflagged and unanswered. On the second run, I would solve flagged problems and on the third run, I would solve everything else.
First half - I did the first run and solved about 10-15 problems. I ended up with like 10 unflagged and unanswered questions I was not fully sure I could solve. And started on the second run and was struggling to answer. I think I went on a run of 3 consecutive questions that I thought were solvable but I couldn't get an answer. These questions felt a lot more similar to PPI questions than the NCEES practice exam which made me panic. I was banking on the questions being easier than the PPI not the same. I was struggling through the flagged questions but I tried my best not to panic by simply smiling through it. So I just ditched the whole strategy and decided to just move to the next unanswered problem irrespective of whether I had flagged it or not. This was an incredible idea. Turns out a lot of the questions I had left for my third run (unflagged and unanswered) were a lot easier than I thought. This gave me the confidence to go back and tackle some of the flagged questions I had left. However, I had used up way too much time and ended up having to guess 7-9 problems to meet my designated first half-stop time.
Break - I drove to Chick-fil-A for the break and tried to not think too much about the exam. I knew the next section was very important because of my shortcomings in the first. The only problem was in all of the 3 practice tests I took I always did much better in the first section compared to the second. I decided to change my strategy for the second and third runs. For the second run, I planned to flag long questions I could solve and also questions I had a general idea about the topic and could maybe solve. The goal would be to have fewer than 5 questions in the third run and these would only be problems I had no clue.
Second Half - The strategy worked better and I had significantly less 3rd run questions. The second half felt a lot better than the first one. I was consistently getting answers in the choices and the questions felt more similar to the NCEES practice exam. I finished this section with 30 minutes to spare which sucked because I couldn't go back to the first section. I used up all the time to just review and ensure I maximized my score in this section. I had to make a few corrections. I still had to guess about 3 questions but these guesses were a lot more educated than the first section. I was done and exhausted.
I felt meh...it could go either way (pass or fail) but I felt a little more confident towards a pass since a passing score is typically around 70%. My main real confidence booster was I felt the same way after my FE Exam.
The Wait
The one thing that sucks about taking it while still in school is that school just resumes. I had heat transfer and fluid mechanics homework and finals that week and the following week. So I guess they helped get my mind off it.
Result Day and Advice
I got the famous email saying the results were out, logged in was filled with joy to see the green passed. I felt relieved and happy to be done. Here is some key advice I have for you: some from friends, some from online, and some from my experience-

1. Study, study, study! Do as many practice problems as you can before taking the NCEES official practice exam.
   1. By practicing a lot you will realize you will naturally commit to memory certain conversions and formulas. These were some for me:
      • Gallons x 0.134 = ft^3 (used a lot in the exam)
      • Bernoulli equation (useful for pipe flows, pumps, head loss questions, and more)
      • Pump power (there are so many pump power problems)
      • Reynolds's Number
      • First Law Thermodynamics and conservation of mass
      • Pv=RT
      • Thermal resistance - conduction through plane wall & convection and heat exchanger rate of heat transfer.
      • Dealing with British units, primarily using the gravitational constant (32.2)
   2. Also, practice for qualitative questions. This requires knowing some theory so find ways to practice those. I just did all of the available qualitative questions PPI had (about 50).
   3. Be thorough - take studying and reviewing problems seriously. Don't think you got it after reviewing it. Ensure you got it. This may entail solving it again which gets tiring but that repetition will ensure it sticks. You should learn something new every time you review a problem you got wrong or guessed right.
2. Have some sort of schedule and stick to it. I struggle with schedule so I used PPIs but you absolutely need one.
3. Have an exam strategy, and never spend too much time on one problem.
4. Take things on Reddit even my experience with a grain of salt. I got caught up in too many Reddit forums and believed that PPI questions were harder than the actual exam which made me relaxed when I saw a question that was super long or hard while preparing using PPI. This hurt in the first half as a lot of the questions were pretty similar and I guess the brain muscle memory from solving problems saved me.
5. Know you can retake it if you have to. Don't stress out if you leave feeling not super confident. You can always take it next year.
6. Follow all the advice in the below link. His story is a great read for folks who may have been out of school for a while unlike myself. I used his advice and experience a lot. Probably the Reddit post I referred back to the most.

PASSED PE Machine Design & Materials - First attempt : PE_Exam (reddit.com)
Congrats you made it this far! Thank you for reading, I hope this helps. I hope everyone passes. The joy of being done is absolutely worth it so stay dedicated and good luck. Also sorry for any grammatical errors, I only proofread once.

Just a week ago, may rumor sa family na my tito’s long-term girlfriend died. I told them na they shouldn’t spread it carelessly kasi mahuhurt ang tito ko if ever marinig niya. Also, I turned them down lahat saying na hindi yun totoo kasi nakikita ko naman si Tito doing just fine — hindi naman umiiyak, he’s just living like dati.
I’m a college student kasi so like I’m not always in the same house with him. The same family member na nagsabi about the said rumor, told me na my Tito arrived sa bahay very drunk when I wasn’t in the house. That I didn’t believe also kasi noong nakadating ako sa house the next day, everything seemed fine. Cinonfront ko pa nga yung family member kasi it’s a bad joke, I said.
— a week passed —
Last night, pag-uwi ko, my Tito was there doing his normal routine (magsaing ng rice for me and the dogs). Nothing special, just a normal day again. While doing my stuffs like bathing, cooking, etc… I noticed signs of pagdadabog. The doorknob is broken, the light switch sank, and sorts of sirang bagay sa house.
I feel so sorry for him. It must’ve been so hard for him to be vulnerable with his family. His dad died kasi noong bata siya kaya he had to grow up “strong”.
How can he be vulnerable if the only person he’s open to is no longer alive? I don’t wanna bring it up sakanya so I’m just trying my best to get his hopes up.
Men and their bottled up emotions and rages. This is very common and alarming. Who knows, right? S may be around the corner lang.

My girlfriend (22), her sister (23), her sister's boyfriend (20), and I (23) are all roommates with a friend from high school who is 19. Altogether, there are five people living in the house. We're all in college and work full-time mostly. We are responsible, financially literate, and generally have no issues among my girlfriend and me, her sister and her boyfriend. We are all extremely clean and hang out every day."
When we rented this house, our friend from high school was graduating and just about to start college in the area. The four of us had known him for years; he was a great kid who attended church, had a wonderful home life (his mom was like a second mom to us), and was extremely hardworking. We had been hanging out with him for years. About a year and a half ago, when my girlfriend and I had our own apartment, we went on a three-week trip to Europe. Since our apartment was very close to his work and school, we trusted him a lot and, under his mom's supervision, we paid him to house-sit for us and take care of our dog.
Since he was starting college around the same time we moved into this house, we invited him to be our roommate because I knew he would always pay bills on time, etc. So, he moved in during late summer last year, signed the lease, etc. However, there were immediately some red flags. It seemed like he had a helicopter mom and had never experienced freedom before. During the final stretch of the college year, there was a night when he brought over a large group of freshman college students around 12-1 in the morning. He brought over like 10-12 random teens who were already extremely drunk from wherever they had been before. Unknowingly, he shared the alcohol my girlfriend and I had to impress them. I was pretty upset about the situation because he never informed us. My thought at the time was that they all seemed irresponsible, and at the very least, if they were all drunk at my house, I could make sure they couldn't drink and drive. So, I let all his friends crash on my living room floor, and they went home the next morning. We informed him that we would like some notice in the future.
Well, strike #1 happened a few weeks after that small incident. All of us roommates went on a family cruise around early fall, leaving him in charge of the house for a week. We felt a bit guilty because we were away on his birthday, but we planned to make it up to him. He mentioned wanting to have some people over from school for a birthday party, and we clearly stated to him that we preferred no party while we were gone. We told him he would need to find somewhere else to have it, and he agreed.
Well, we didn't have cell service for a week since we were out at sea. We got back a week later, and I had a ton of texts and missed calls. He had thrown a similar, but larger party. There were two noise complaints filed, and a complaint to our neighborhood's HOA. Somehow, our landlord found out before I did and texted me a very long paragraph scolding us for a party of which I had zero knowledge
was already extremely angry and planned to deal with it when we got home that same night. Upon returning home, he was at work. We noticed immediately that something was wrong... A ton of our electronics were missing. He informed me that before the party, he was proactive and hid our electronics (Steam Deck, PS5, Meta VR, etc.) in his bedroom. But... the morning after the party, while he was cleaning up, he asked his 'buddy' to help him put all the electronics back out. He then left to go to the grocery store for cleaning supplies, leaving a random guy in our house alone. To make a long story short, the guy stole $2000 worth of electronics, and we've never recovered them."
On top of it, his buddies drank through $150 worth of my liquor in the kitchen, and people had thrown up on our two white rugs. I was demanding that he call and file a police report, but then his mom called me crying, asking me not to since they were underage drinking. So, I ended up not calling the police. Looking back, I regret it.
I was furious and had a huge argument, demanding that he pay us back every cent of damages, and he would have to get our rugs professionally cleaned. Sure enough, he paid me the $2K out of his checking account that same day and was extremely sorry for what happened, taking full responsibility. I thought maybe it would be a good life lesson for him that would wake him up. We demanded that he get the rugs cleaned professionally. He was working and going to school full-time, so I waited a bit. Days turned into weeks, and I kept reminding him constantly. After about five weeks of them sitting in our garage, I finally put my foot down and demanded they need to be cleaned that same morning. You know what he did? Instead of going to get a machine to clean them, he called his mom, who lives an hour away, and she was on her hands and knees cleaning throw-up out of our rugs. After this entire scenario, we told him he had a strike and was never allowed to bring a friend into our house again, including a girlfriend, etc. (which he hasn't)
We went a few months without incident, until one day around November when our female roommate came home early to grab something. Upon entering the house, she found our roommate coming down the hallway that only led to her bedroom, and he seemed frantic. She noticed her drawers and bedside table had been gone through. Instantly labeling him as creepy, she confronted him. He claimed he was looking for toilet paper (as they kept it in their room since he wouldn't buy any). We gave him a second strike and had an entire sit-down conversation about how his behavior was 100% unacceptable and that he had broken her trust.
Strike #3: We were already extremely wary of him, to the point where I invested in a Ring camera for our bedroom. I had it up for a few months, using it while we were gone, but never caught anything on it. We were leaving for a weekend, and I decided one last time to plug it in to see if we could capture anything. We went out of town, and around 1 AM, I got a Ring alert of him going into our master bedroom, into our bathroom very quickly, and then coming out to walk back out the door. However, he stopped and turned around, beginning to go through both my girlfriend's and my bedside tables, digging through them. I was almost certain he was looking for sexual items or something, because he didn't take any of the cash in the drawers. Upon returning home, all four of us were on the couch waiting for him to come home from work, and we made him sit down. I gave him the chance to come clean, asking every possible way, 'Did you go into our drawers?' He swore on the Bible he didn't. Then, upon pulling out the Ring footage, he turned as white as a ghost. We had a two-hour intervention talking about it. His excuse was that he was 'ADHD, which causes extreme curiosity,' and he couldn't explain why he was going through our drawers in our bedroom. This happened about five months ago. It was extremely awkward for a few months, but now we're all friendly again.
Anyways, our lease renewal conversations have begun, and obviously, the two female roommates want him gone and think he's a sexual creep. We have 60 days left on our lease and would need to tell him about us not renewing the lease with him. It's difficult because, besides the chore issues, he's been trying to be a better roommate and doing better since the final strike. Anyways, what would everyone's opinion and final suggestions be? I think I already know the answer; I just need someone to tell me I am in the right and not the asshole in this situation.

To preface, I’ve always been a party person since freshman year of high school and could always handle my alcohol no problem. Up until this year which is sophomore year at college, I’ve completely lost control of my limits and ended up blacking many if not every time I drank. I would wake up from the night before with so much shame and embarrassment from the night before having no idea what I did or said. College culture kind of normalizes blacking out so honestly I thought it was not a big deal.
I never really expressed this issue to my family. I told them on some occasions I blacked out but they just thought I was being a normal college aged student and told me to not drink as much. Fast forward to last weekend, we had a big family event where everyone was drinking. I was drinking all day and didn’t keep count or think about when to stop because everyone was pretty tipsy/drunk so I was like okay yea let me catch up and have fun. As the night progressed I got way and way more drunk, like insanely drunk. Blacked out the worst I have ever in my life and created so much chaos at this family event. I don’t remember so much of the night and when I woke up what I did felt like a nightmare. Everyone was so disappointed in me and I’ve been struggling so bad because of how selfish and embarrassing I was being and I feel like everyone looks at me differently.
Everyone said they forgive me and have moved on but I keep getting upset about it and it’s so hard not to beat myself up over it. I was acting so recklessly and I feel so so bad but I had absolute no control over my mind or body and that’s what scared me. I’ve made a vow to stop drinking for a long long time because it’s not worth ruining my relationships anymore. I can’t stop crying randomly when I think about it because I get so ashamed and I don’t even want to face some of my family members out of embarrassment and guilt. Is there any tips on how to accept your very mad drunken mistakes/and or forget about it?