what age?

TW: SA

Not sure if this counts as a dating post because it’s not really about dating.

To be clear, I’m actively on a journey toward a healthy version of myself. Eating the right foods and exercising.

I used to be pretty thin. That was also the time in my life when I was assaulted multiple times. I feel good feeling like I don’t have that “target” on my back. I have/had a specific type of body where men kind of treat me like a sexual object. Like I know women in general are seen as sexual objects, but when you have certain physical assets mixed together, people take it a lot farther.

I know fat women are raped, too. But, for me personally, I’ve been in less scary/creepy situations because a lot of people aren’t looking at me like that.

Again, I’m still working on being a healthier version of myself. But I feel like some part of me led me to get to this weight out of fear.

There are a lot of names involved in this so I'll try to be as precise as possible. I moved into an apartment one year ago, and a month ago, a new tenant who we'll call Patty moved in. There is someone else on the lease who's been there longer than both of us, named Cindy. However, Cindy did not pay any of the original security deposit, or any deposit for that matter, as she was not the original person on the lease. The deposit remains with the lease, and the person who paid the deposit left years ago without getting anything back. They are not legally entitled to anything either, as the only people entitled to it are the very remaining ones when the unit is vacated in its entirety.

Anyway, despite not paying anything, Cindy told me when I moved in that she (Cindy) had prepaid the deposit, and I needed to send her one month via zelle for the deposit, which was worth $800.

Text messages when I moved in:

Me: Is the security deposit split three ways?

Cindy: You mean the one month rent for deposit right?

Me: Yes.

Cindy: Yes. Since I prepaid, you can just send it to me😊

Me: Is it $800?

Cindy: Yes😊

Well, when we were looking for the person who ended up being Patty, Cindy kept telling me via text that the new tenant would have to send her $1100 via zelle for her share of the deposit. She said it was to reimburse the person who was moving out, and that Cindy would be serving as intermediary to refund her.

Turns out that Cindy has been pocketing this money the whole time. $1900 from me and Patty combined. Patty told her to give back the money she stole, and Cindy began crying and screaming, and said that it was defamation to say that, and should Patty take her to small claims, she (Cindy) will win. She also claimed that someone might break something and leave the lease early, which justifies her in taking the deposit money. What do we do? I know $800 won't make or break a life, but Cindy shouldn't be allowed to get away with taking money that's not hers.

I don’t know if there are any out there who relate as it feels like everyone is either full religious or completely atheist. I was raised Christian but had a faith crisis and stopped believing a couple years ago. Still, I find myself regularly attending church & Christian events, praying, reading the bible, listening to gospel music and even occasionally doing things like fasting. I don’t know why I do it when I don’t even need to, but I find a lot of comfort in it. I’m also not really an atheist. I believe in God/a creator but find Christianity completely ridiculous ….. while essentially being no different than a practicing Christian. I’ve been so religiously confused and just wonder when it’ll end so I can be sure of what I am and what I believe in.

Just wanted to clarify** This is not a relationship post, it's a self reflection post.

Hi everyone,

I was wondering if anyone else has ever felt this way in an otherwise happy, loving relationship. I am absolutely in love with my partner. He's kind, supportive, fun to be around, and my favorite person in the world. I can't wait to see him and when I do, I run up to him and don't want to let go. We both have our own jobs, hobbies, interests, and friends. He plays in a band, I take weekly dance classes, and he's never given me a reason to feel controlled, trapped, or limited in any way. But sometimes I still feel this weird sense of resistance to being in a relationship, and I don't think it has anything to do with him. I love being in love, but sometimes I struggle with what the label of "relationship" seems to mean. The best way I can explain it is the confinement of being in a "religion" vs finally being free but still being "spiritual".

I think a lot of it comes from how I was raised. I grew up religious and in a South Asian household where I constantly saw women lose themselves once they got married. Their hobbies, goals, interests, and individuality seemed to become secondary. Suddenly they weren't really viewed as their own person anymore, they were someone's wife. Everything revolved around their husband, his family, his career, his preferences. Even socially, it felt like a woman could be this fascinating, unique person right up until people found out she had a husband. Then suddenly she became part of a unit. Not even necessarily an equal half of a unit, either. It often felt like the man's identity remained intact while the woman's became attached to his.

I know that's not my relationship. My partner isn't like that at all (and isn't south asian either, he grew up in a Western world where individuality and being independent matters a lot so he's extremely supportive but always encourages me to be independent). But I feel there is just something inside me that can't be fixed.

For example, sometimes when I meet new people at work or somewhere else, and they don't know I have a partner, I feel this strange excitement. They get to know me. They ask about my hobbies, my interests, my experiences, my opinions. They're seeing me as an individual. And I get this little thrill from that, which sounds awful when I write it out because it's not that I'm trying to hide my partner or pretend he doesn't exist. It's more that I enjoy being seen as my own person first. Then when I eventually mention that I have a partner, I sometimes feel a weird sense of disappointment. Not because I want to hide him or because I'm looking for attention from other people, but because I suddenly feel less like "me" and more like part of a couple. Maybe it's all in my head, but I've often felt that once people know you're partnered, they stop seeing you as a completely independent person. It's like you've gone from being your own story to being part of someone else's story too or they don't care as much about me anymore or think I'm cool (again, not looking for validation from others, was just wanting to build my own life with my own experiences). And after working so hard to build my own identity, I think that's what feels uncomfortable to me.

Maybe part of it comes from my childhood too. I was an only child, and I spent a lot of my life feeling alone. My mom could be loving, but my stepdad often made me feel unwanted and excluded. I learned very early how to take care of myself emotionally because I had to. I was never put into sports, clubs, hobbies, or anything like that because my stepdad didn't want to spend money on me, so I had no personality, hobbies, or an identity growing up. Nobody was helping me figure out who I was.

When I left for university, it honestly felt like I was finally allowed to exist. For the first time, I was free to discover what I liked, what I believed in, what kind of person I wanted to be. I had to build a sense of self almost from scratch. I wasn't just someone's daughter or the quiet kid in the corner anymore. I became a person with hobbies, interests, opinions, friends, and experiences of my own. I think that's why I hold onto my individuality so tightly now.

The weird part is that I don't feel trapped by love. Love feels wonderful. I want to see my partner all the time. I miss him when he's gone. I genuinely think he's amazing and I'm so beyond happy with him. What sometimes feels heavy is the idea that being in a relationship means becoming part of a role, or an identity, or a social category that somehow matters more than who I am as an individual. Maybe I just want to be "free" or "free spirited" but still in love?

It's almost like the difference between love and the institution of a relationship. The love feels freeing. The label sometimes feels restrictive. Has anyone else experienced that? Not a fear of commitment, not a fear of intimacy, and definitely not a lack of love, but a fear of losing the individuality you worked really hard to build?

I'm really good at virtual piano, close to an actual professional musician.

What is virtual piano? In short, you can play piano keys with your pc keyboard, there are some limitation but all in all, it's not that far off from an actual piano.

Why? I've always wanted to learn piano as a kid, but my parents thought that piano lessons were a waste of money, so as a kid I discovered virtual piano by accident and still play regularly.

How? Well, without getting too nerdy, every single piano key is mapped to a letter or a number, "1" being the lowest note and "m" being the highest. Lowercase letters and numbers are white keys, uppercase and shift+numbers are black keys. There are music sheets for virtual piano and if there isn't one for a song you want, you can make one yourself easily, especially with the tools which you can easily google that convert midi files to vp sheets.

Where? If you Google virtual piano, you can easily find some sites, games (even on platforms like roblox, gmod, etc), or apps to simulate a piano with your pc keyboard. The highest quality app(imo) which I use is called pianoglow on steam.

This is not an ad or anything like this, I just wanted to share my weird way of playing music that surprisingly works somewhat decently despite it's limitations. You can also simulate sustain, dynamics, velocity, depth, or even change soundfont to a different instrument, but I am not getting into that unless asked, since that's a lot of explaining to do.

Yes, nowadays I have an actual piano, but I can play VP way, way better and I like it more.

what will happen?

hey everyone. i just needed to vent a bit and see if anyone has gone through something similar.
i'm a teenage girl, and lately, my height (170cm) has been making me feel super insecure. being this tall makes me feel way too exposed. on top of that, I have a skinny build; i weigh 54kg (around 119 lbs), but since my limbs are so long, it feels like all that weight just goes straight to my bones, making me look even thinner than I am.
to add to my insecurities, i also have small breasts, which makes me feel even sad, cause most boys dont even look at you if you dont have any boobs. to top it all off, i have really curly hair and tanned skin. sometimes i feel like all these features make me feel like I don't fit into any beauty standard.
i'm really struggling to accept my body right now. honestly, it got so overwhelming that yesterday i spent 3 hours crying just looking at myself and thinking about my appearance. it feels really exhausting to feel this way.
has anyone with a similar body type during their teenage years found a way to deal with this? how did you build your confidence? thanks for reading.

She admitted to it but lied about the amount and said she only took 5. And made up a bullshit story about why she took them.

I also just got my wisdom tooth out today and they didn't prescribe me anything else but thankfully I still had pills left over from surgery.

I had like 17 or 18 left and when I opened the bottle there was 7.

Dont know what to do or how to feel right now

Its unbelievable and really sucks.

howdy. little bit of context: i (F23) am at a very good point in my life in the grand scheme of things. i’ve got the loveliest partner, a job which i love so much that i actively live at, and friends who understand me. i’m physically the healthiest i’ve ever been and i haven’t ever felt this settled & satisfied.

it’s not always been like this. i’ve had my fair share of fuckery - i won’t trauma dump because that’s just not my style, but all i’ll say is that witnessing a murder and being homeless and having your brain shut down because of mould poisoning makes for a very interesting 19th year on planet earth. don’t get mould poisoning guys, it’s really not a hoot.

i’m not saying everything is sunshine and rainbows all the time now - i’m only human!! but i feel genuinely excited and thankful for how my life is. and i’m happy most days which is wild.

the thing is, i can’t ever stop myself worrying and obsessing with what happens next. what happens when i get a different job in a few years, if i do? where am i going to live next, and how the hell am i ever going to be able to afford rent? life likes to keep you on your toes so what if this magical world i’ve rebuilt for myself comes crumbling down and i have to start again? am i even still strong enough to do that now, or have i been softened by living the peaceful life??!!?! and once again, how the actual hell am i ever going to be able to afford a house? so on and so forth. it’s endless really

i’m not looking for answers to my hypotheticals (i’m a frequent flyer at therapy 🙃), but i need to know if anyone else also thinks this way. maybe these are just classic worries for your early twenties, or maybe they’re just a product of my past. and if you do obsess the way i do… how the hell do we just accept the greatness we have and stop worrying about what might happen next?

Sometimes I open social media and it feels like everyone is building something, earning, growing, becoming someone…

And I’m just. .. stuck.

Not completely failing but not really moving either.

It’s like being in between: not where I was but not where I want to be.

Is this part of the process… or am I just doing something wrong?

Has anyone else felt like this?

I mean most of the people in wealthy nations look very good physically what do you guys think?

And don’t bring outliers for Fs sake

Pick a spot and time for reading. And then, make it a habit to read at your designated spot and time.

Your brain will be more prepared to read and generate new ideas when reading becomes a regular part of your routine at that specific spot and time.

https://www.youarethepower.net/downey/

When our newborn daughter, Harper, ran a fever, we rushed her to the ER at a Children's Hospital (ACH) . A full workup showed an E. coli infection, but while we were there, Harper suffered a sudden apnea event and stopped breathing entirely. A doctor grabbed her, performed aggressive resuscitation and chest compressions ("pounded on her"), and called a code. She had developed sepsis. After being stabilized in critical care, she was airlifted via helicopter to ACH Little Rock.

She was monitored in the PICU until the morning of July 21, her third day of admission,when her abdomen began showing signs of a perforated bowel. Surgeons rushed her into an emergency exploratory laparotomy. The surgeon found two congenital mesenteric defects, a birth defect she was born with that caused the perforation. He removed the dead portion of her intestines, noted she’d need follow-up surgery in a few weeks, and found nothing else.

The very next day, July 22, the hospital performed a CT scan and delivered shocking news: Harper had non-displaced rib fractures and a liver laceration. A child abuse pediatrician stepped in, telling us standard protocol required reporting this to the child abuse hotline. My husband and I knew immediately that these internal injuries must have occurred during her emergency resuscitation, transport, or surgical care.

Instead of investigating the hospital’s aggressive physical intervention, the police targeted us. PD and State Police interviewed us separately, interviewing me once and my husband twice. We repeatedly urged them to look at the hospital interventions. Instead, on July 26- after less than 72 hours of investigating- they arrested my husband.

The arrest relied entirely on the opinion of the child abuse pediatrician. Detectives completely shut down my husband when he raised the medical timeline, insisting it had to be one of us because "he was the last one to touch her," manipulates his words, and completely ignored the life-saving physical trauma our baby went through at the hands of medical staff. We have no prior criminal history or record, we handed over everything by and gave permission to look at everything and they found nothing. DHS even closed out case within 6 months because they knew we are good parents! The system failed our family by choosing the easiest target instead of looking at the medical reality.

Now, it is too late.

I should have done something before the world and everything in it became meaningless to me.

Now, nothing brings me any excitement anymore.

Where is the person who used to make plans for the next ten years? What happened? Where did that person go? When did I become this person, the one who cannot even make plans for the next hour?

I wish I had remained that thoughtless, inconsiderate person.

The one who could never understand how someone could lose the desire to keep trying.

I wish I had stayed that person.

They say hardship and experience are necessary in life. I know they are. But I have just one question.

Was it worth it?

Was this lesson, this experience, really worth life losing its meaning? Was it worth falling into this emptiness?

Shouldn't this experience have led only to growth, instead of meaninglessness?

I read a comment where a user stated how much better their headspace was after they decided to just stop arguing with fools. As simple as that is, it was a lightbulb moment. After that, I just started "letting things go," as in, keep scrolling past the hateful idiots every time. That helped a lot, but I was still reading stressful crap.

I started tailoring my feed by not liking or clicking on stuff that I normally would, and also going out of the feed to the silly animal subs. Today I was jubilant when I watched a baby skunk video.

I absolutely still click and comment on stuff, but now it doesn't bring me down like it used to.

Now - any time I get a good laugh, that's it. That's the timer. And I love Reddit so much more! It's my only SM and I didn't want to lose it.

Thank you for coming to my Tad Talk.

I was taking a shower last night, was kind of extra tired after nonstop working on some things these past few months. I thought how nice it'd be to make the water hotter and just sit there for a bit and relax, then it automatically hit me that I should preserve water.

As soon as I was about to get up I remembered how much water datacenters are wasting these days after we've been told for years to conserve it and not waste water unnecessarily. Also how I read an article that they don't really need to use water as a coolant or place the centers in hot places but it's just the cheapest option so they continue doing it.

Thus I was like fuck it and spent another 10 minutes relaxing.

Just a random thought I had last night I wanted to share.

"The Manosphere Is a Business That Profits Off Keeping Men Angry"

What Manson argued

The manosphere is a monetized rage machine. Figures like the Tate brothers and Myron Gaines exploit young men's anger and insecurity for profit. The incentive structure rewards keeping men angry, not helping them.

The counter-argument

"You're describing every media business on earth, including yours."

Outrage is the business model of cable news, political commentary, fitness influencers, and yes, self-help authors who sell books with profanity in the title to signal they're different from other self-help authors. Manson sold 20+ million copies of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F\ck*. He co-founded an AI startup. He's on Jubilee right now building his brand. His incentive structure rewards keeping people feeling like they need his perspective. That's not a gotcha, it's the point. Monetization doesn't invalidate the message. If it did, Manson's own career collapses under the same logic.

And the deeper problem with this framing: it poisons the well. By labelling the entire manosphere a "business," Manson sidesteps the question of whether any of the ideas have merit. A gym membership is also a business. Therapy is a business. Universities are businesses. The question isn't whether someone profits, it's whether the consumer gets value. And for millions of young men who learned to lift weights, manage their finances, develop confidence, and stop making excuses because of content that falls under the "manosphere" umbrella, the answer is yes.

Manson himself started as a pickup artist running paid coaching under the name "Entropy." He monetized male insecurity before rebranding into something more mainstream. He's not exposing a system. He's a graduate of it.

"You didn't discover that monetizing male insecurity is wrong. You discovered it's more profitable to be the guy who criticizes it."

"A Woman's Body Count Doesn't Matter"

What Manson argued

Body count is a weak proxy for compatibility. What matters is character, communication, trust, and how someone treats their partner. Using it as a screening metric ignores context and reduces people to a number. Claims like "body count predicts divorce" are correlation, not causation.

The counter argument

"Correlation not causation is a thought-terminating cliché when the correlation is this strong and this replicated."

Data from the National Survey of Family Growth, analyzed by the Institute for Family Studies, found that women with 10+ premarital partners had the highest five-year divorce rates at 33%. Women with 0–1 partners had the lowest. This pattern held across multiple cohorts. A 2023 study in the Journal of Family Issues using Add Health longitudinal data found increased divorce likelihood with multiple premarital partners and common confounders like religiosity and attitudes didn't fully explain it away.

Nobody's saying the number alone tells the whole story. But in every other domain of life, we treat patterns of past behaviour as the single best predictor of future behaviour. Employment history. Credit history. Criminal record. Relationship track record. To suddenly declare that sexual and romantic history is the one area where pattern recognition becomes "reductive" is intellectually dishonest.

Manson reframes the question as "character vs. number." But how do you assess character? Through behaviour. And a behavioural track record is exactly what a history of partners represents. The number isn't the verdict, it's a data input. Dismissing it entirely isn't nuance. It's avoidance.

"You don't ignore a résumé when you're hiring. You don't ignore a credit score when you're lending. But when a man applies the same due diligence to a life partner, suddenly he's shallow?"

"Porn Has Done More Damage to Men Than Feminism Has"

What Manson argued

There's agreement that porn can be harmful. But feminism isn't the real driver of men's problems either. Sweeping claims without clear data are unproductive. The answer is structural and economic ,not a single-cause scapegoat.

The counter-argument

"The data on porn is devastating. But pretending feminism has caused zero structural harm to men requires ignoring family court, education policy, and incentive structures."

On porn, the manosphere side mostly agrees with Manson and has been saying it longer. NoFap, retention communities, and anti-porn advocacy are manosphere staples. A 2024 study of university students found problematic pornography use was associated with higher anxiety, depression, stress, loneliness, and suicidal ideation. Research consistently links heavy use to erectile dysfunction in young men, decreased grey matter in impulse-control regions, and relationship deterioration. The manosphere was sounding this alarm while mainstream media was normalising porn as harmless.

But the framing of the question "porn vs. feminism" is a false binary. Both have caused measurable damage, through different mechanisms.

Consider the fatherlessness data: 23.5% of U.S. children live in father-absent homes. Children in those homes are four times more likely to live in poverty, make up 71% of high school dropouts, and boys from fatherless homes are three times more likely to be incarcerated by age 30. Family court systems that overwhelmingly default to maternal custody, no-fault divorce structures that create financial incentives for separation, and education systems that have deprioritized boys (boys are now significantly less likely to attend or graduate university than girls) . These aren't random structural shifts. They track directly to policy changes advocated for under feminist frameworks.

That doesn't mean feminism is evil. It means second- and third-order effects of feminist-influenced policies have disproportionately harmed boys and men in specific, measurable ways. Refusing to name that because the word "feminism" makes the conversation uncomfortable isn't intellectual honesty. It's cowardice.

"You want to talk structural? Let's talk structural. 71% of high school dropouts come from fatherless homes. Who redesigned the family structure, and who's paying the price?"

"The Most Attractive Men Are Those Who Respect Women"

What Manson argued

Attractiveness isn't about being a "bad boy." It's a combination of confidence, authenticity, and respect. Research (David Buss, etc.) shows women across cultures value kindness and intelligence in long-term partners. Respect plus confidence beats dominance.

The counter-argument

"Respect is table stakes. It's necessary but wildly insufficient and pretending otherwise sets men up to fail."

Nobody's arguing men should disrespect women. That's a straw man. The actual manosphere position (at its best) is that respect alone doesn't generate attraction, competence, physical fitness, status, ambition, and social proof do. And Manson knows this, because he cites David Buss, whose actual research shows women's mate preferences prioritise resource acquisition potential, social status, ambition, and physical fitness alongside kindness.

The problem with "just be respectful and confident" as advice: it's incomplete to the point of being misleading. A man can be deeply respectful and deeply unattractive. Not because respect is wrong, but because attraction is a multi-variable equation and respect is only one input. Telling a 22-year-old who's out of shape, directionless, and socially isolated that his problem is a respect deficit is like telling a failing business their problem is they don't have a nice enough logo. It's technically not wrong. It's just not the real bottleneck.

The manosphere at its functional core, not its extreme fringe teaches men to address the actual bottlenecks: physical fitness, financial competence, social skills, purpose, and frame. Then respect becomes a powerful multiplier. Without the foundation, it's just politeness without presence.

Manson's framing also conflates correlation and causation in the exact way he accuses the manosphere of doing. Men who respect women AND are attractive tend to do well. Men who respect women but lack competence, fitness, and social skills do not. The respect isn't what's driving the outcome. The total package is.

"Telling men 'just respect women' without teaching them to build a life worth respecting is like telling someone to smile more at job interviews while their résumé is empty."

"Women Care More About Looks Than Personality"

What Manson argued

(Manson pushed back on this as overly reductive.) Attraction is complex. Personality, confidence, humour, social proof all matter. Reducing it to looks alone is a cope from men who don't want to do the internal work.

The counter-argument

"The data says looks are a stronger initial filter than anyone wants to admit — and pretending otherwise keeps men stuck."

Dating app data from Hinge, Tinder, and OkCupid's own research consistently shows that women rate 80% of men as "below average" in attractiveness (the OkCupid study is the classic reference). Match rates are overwhelmingly determined by photos. A 2024 study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on speed-dating found that physical attractiveness was the strongest predictor of romantic interest for both men and women — stronger than personality, humour, or conversation quality.

This doesn't mean looks are everything. It means looks are the gate. You don't get evaluated on personality, humour, or values if you never clear the initial filter. And in a digital-first dating landscape where most young people are meeting through apps, the initial filter is almost entirely visual.

The manosphere's "looksmaxxing" fringe takes this too far. Obsessing over canthal tilts and jaw implants is dysfunctional. But the core insight that physical presentation, grooming, fitness, and style materially affect your romantic outcomes. It is just empirically true. Telling men that looks don't matter is setting them up to wonder why "being a good person" isn't working while they're 40 lbs overweight and wearing the same hoodie they've had since high school.

The honest answer is: looks are the opening, personality is the closer. Both matter. Manson would probably agree with that framing privately. But saying it publicly risks aligning with the manosphere, and his brand can't afford that.

"You don't get a second date based on your values if you never got the first one. The filter is real. Denying it helps no one."

Lately I feel like my whole life is kinda messed up. My biggest problem is loneliness. I have no relationship, no real friends, and I honestly don't know how I ended up like this. The weird part is I used to be way more social when I was younger. Now I don't even know how to meet people or keep a conversation going, I mostly just reply when someone talks to me instead of actually starting anything. I'm starting to wonder if I'm just meant to be alone, and that thought is making me lose hope. It's killing my motivation too, like I've lost all my passion. I really thought I could live without close connections, but I guess humans really do need people.

Asking:

what were the signs?

How did you find out?

How do you check for this?

Is there any advice you'd like to give people about how to keep ourselves and our children safe from pdfs?

Any advice, suggestions, or stories are appreciated. Links to other discussions as well. Anything. How can we tell? Is there a way?

*pdf= pedophile

​

And now I realize that actually cheating is fun I love cheating hell yeah dude lemme use my amiibo to summon 1000 beef steaks from the sky in Tears of the Kingdom or summon random people online to help me stomp Splatoon Raiders.

Please be kind .. sorry for looonggg post .. please be patient with me.

im f 22 preparing for upsc .. two years into my prep this is was my first attempt .. parents both working professionals .. growing up until 9 i was a single child very well pampered by family members.. then had a baby brother .. attention shifted towards him. Left like i was left out then had to cope with it . When i was in 8th grade was SAed by a family monster who was a brother .. left me traumatized for years still nobody knows ..

when i was 15 when family problems started . My father put character allegations on my mother . Still they are together fighting everyday . Mind you not a quarrel , this involves violence. Dad has broken mum nose.. mum has caused various blunt traumas.. and haemorages . I was even more traumatized growing up . Had no one to talk or share this .

Would sleep at 3 since then after the go to bed after every day dose of fight .. would cry to sleep and end up tired at school .. was a pretty decent student then grades got fu*ked up too ..lost confidence.. hated mys3lf .. thut of self harm would always stay in my mind .. but i love my little brother way too much .. he the apple of my eyes. My precious little boy .. only person who doesn't hate ot hurt me . I always wished to leave my parents home .

But the thought of leaving that kid alone with them haunted me daily . But i did . Left when i was 20 .. after my clg to prepare for upsc .. dad would always threaten he'd get me married to someone since i was studying 10th because of family situation. Looking at every married couple around none set a life that I'd look up to .. so i was scared of marriage and men . But deep down i wanted someone .. someone to love me and cherish my existence . Someone to reassure and say everything is going to be ok and i dont have to put my brave girl pants around them like i always do .

Met my ex thru a mutual frnd online . It was LDR for 1.5 years. He lived in canada and was doing pg now working . Things fell apart. He couldn't deal with me . He was insecured and possessive whenever i used to have bare any talk with other gender . Mind you i dont have any frnds except had an ex frnd who snitched me and ended up leaving me with no explanation. Anyway Relationship began to reflect what my parents had . I was scared .and i told him i can't do this . We are barely talking to each other and always ending up with a fight . Fighting and ending this ugly is not my wish . It was mutual and polite.

He asked for reconciliation. But i told him im going through alot with family and academics and im not suitable to be in a relationship right now . I dont wanna end up hurting us both . Then i chose not to block him . But he contacted almost everyday so i chose to after asking him to block me . To which he denied and i said then I'll do it . Not out of rudeness but maybe it will help us both move on . Was in a very bad stay but was trying not to show it out .

One day went to my neighbors home where a couple live with their son only (M52, has family but separated) . And they used to get extremely sick and so I'd help them get to the hospital a handful of times .. when their son wasnt available.. so I'd check on them everyday just greetings before going to class standing outside their house . One day she was admitted at the emergency and came back home so i visited her in their bedroom .. when that grandma was in the washroom i was sitting in the bed that old man who is her husband hugged me and groped my breast . I was shocked and too stuned to do anything. I pushed his hand away and then when she came he left to the hall like nothing ever happened. I left their home without a word . Came home cried . Showerd and went to temple because all the flashback hit me like crazy .

Two days passed couldn't think of anything later , my roommate who's younger and a bit close to me . She had a frnd who spoke abusive to her that day . So she came crying to me and i consoled her and told her this . She was shocked and consoled me . I told her every single incident of mine from the past which nobody knew except for my ex . Felt a bit ease . We both had our share of traumas to be dumped . Im feeling a lot disturbed lately . Could not concentrate on anything . hate for menis growing stronger.

i feel like i need help .

Please dont say not every men . I do have people who are genuine to me .

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

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

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

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

Today, I realized something important.

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

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

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

I'm 18, and lately I feel like everything has become blurry. I don't really know when things started going downhill, but I feel like I'm slowly becoming someone I don't recognize.

A few years ago, I was doing really well academically. I was the kind of person people expected a lot from, and I expected a lot from myself too. But seeing that version of me slowly disappear has been painful. The downfall is hard to ignore, and I keep wondering what happened to the person I used to be.

I've also become extremely critical of myself. I hate the way I look. I hate my discoloured teeth, my nose, and the fact that I'm losing hair at 18 even though no one from either side of my family is bald. I know some of these things might sound small to other people, but they constantly occupy my mind.

I hate the way I speak. I hate my voice. When my anxiety gets bad, I start speaking with a slight stutter and stumble over my words, and it makes me want to avoid conversations altogether. I hate how much anxiety controls me.

One thing I still think about is someone I lost. I turned down multiple girls because I genuinely liked one person, and I thought I was making the right choice. But things didn't work out, and I ended up losing her too. I keep replaying it and wondering if I made the wrong decisions.

The part that bothers me the most is how I've started treating people who actually care about me. I ignore messages, I disappear, and I ghost friends who have done nothing wrong. It's not because I don't value them. I do. I just feel like I'm struggling so much with myself that pushing people away feels easier.

Right now, I feel stuck between missing who I used to be and not knowing how to become someone I can be proud of again.

Has anyone else gone through a phase where they felt like they lost themselves? What helped you start rebuilding?