I(21M) grew up as the “weird kid” or “socially awkward kid.” Most of my childhood despite the harsh and rather toxic household I grew up in. I still tried to make friends and just be normal. In America, we have something called IEDs (Individuals with Educational Disabilities) I don’t know if it’s similar for other parts of the world but I just know in my situation I had one from Pre-K to high school graduation. It gave me things like extra time on tests and smaller classes, etc.

No one ever bothered to explain why I exactly had it or for what reason. I was getting tired of the extra stuff and just wanted to be a normal student like the others but it never really clicked. That was until after graduation and into college I slowly noticed that I had something clearly different about me. My family is religious and Anti-vaxxers (besides my dad who helped me get the COVID shot so I could enter college in-person, graduated HS at 17.) My mother claims only her herbalife products and God are keeping her alive while my older half-brother outright dislikes vaccines and a side story, he was fuming and defensive when my dad and I got the COVID vaccine during the time it wasn’t FDA approved yet. But, it was the best sleep I got in a long time after getting both shots.

Anyways, I start to notice that I showed symptoms of ADHD. I refused to believe it but the more I dug into it the more it matched within inattentive ADHD. So, I sent a post on instagram to see if anyone else may have something that I have. What I did not expect was for instagram to post it on Facebook. I don’t know when they decided to link both facebook and instagram accounts together but, they did without me realizing it. I only know they did because my mom sent the post, translate it into Spanish and sent it to my dad to read and he told me. (Parents by this time are separated, I lived with my dad.) Being the holy man he was he said that I’m not sick and God doesn’t make mistakes before dropping this on me.

“...Los doctores dijeron que tienes una forma de autismo desde que naciste…”

(...The doctors did say you have a form of autism when you were born...)

What I felt in that moment cannot be describe in words. It was a mix of pure shock, speechlessness and betrayal with a tad of denial. Because if it was true, then I’ve been suppressing it for the past 21 years. I asked why? Why tell me this now when you could have told me at any time?! His answer was that they didn’t want to treat me as an autistic child and have it “manifest” for the remainder of my life. They wanted me to have a life of normalcy.

I snapped at my dad and mom trying to make them understand that you can’t just keep this hidden from me for so long. You both knew and kept it a secret?! While you see me struggling and trying to figure out if I’m just gaslighting myself or have I gone mad.

But, I also see why they did it. Protecting their son from future bullying and discrimination for being Autistic. So, am I overreacting for them keeping this from me for 21 years?

I'll keep it short. I(M21) and my older brother(M30) have never got along well. Mostly he has hurt me and fails to see what he has done and dismisses it, he has apologized but never truly saw what he did using a mix of religion and imperfections against me. I recently started to create a boundary which was a first for me. I never really made a boundary before and it felt intense in the moment but liberating later.

It was a small and was supposed to be subtle move. Blocking him from Twitter, restricting and unfollowing from Instagram. I felt like I got some control back from him, he still has my phone number but, I'm okay with that. However this past Saturday he found out by Instagram suggestions during a family dinner at a Cheesecake Factory. He asked in a smile that didn't reach his eyes and a clam but subtle use of authority in his tone why I had done those things.

I felt small regardless if I was taller then him. I felt caged again. I by default said "I don't know" and he responded with a soft chuckle. "You do know, Not telling me is a problem." I said "Not now" and that got him to back off but, did ruin my appetite for most of that day. I've been overthinking this since then.

Am I the Asshole, reddit?

So, I'm a Male(21) and my brother is a Male(30). We both grew up under toxic household. Mother workaholic, father alcoholic with an aunt and cousins who did whatever. It is to note that my brother is technically my Half-brother since he was born under a different father but same mother. My brother's real father is in jail as far as I know.

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We'll call my brother "Jay" (fake name for obvious reasons). Jay was the oldest, went out for parties, smoked weed when it was illegal, hooked up with too many girls and wanted to build muscles. Then there was me, the youngest of the family. What I was told that I was born because Jay wanted a young brother.

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But, in the timeframe of when I was born from pre-k to elementary. I have no memory of the "good times" my family insists I had with them. I do only remember the bad times. Physical, emotional and psychological abuse that my mother and Jay did to me.

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Since Jay was the oldest and he wanted to be a bodybuilder at the time he was really buff and regularly scared me badly with his buff body and loud tone. I'll skip most of the graphic details since Idk if this subreddit allows me or not. But just know that he and my mother were most harm to me. My father was too busy drinking to care.

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They changed over time, switched religions, calmed down, matured and understood. The abuse vanished but the change was sudden. I grew used to the abuse so this sudden change of a safer space made me think it was a trap of sorts. I grew without the space to heal. By middle school, a guidance counselor explained what I went through was abuse. I told her my intention to and trying not to get banned here leave this earth permanently.

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Ended in disaster with my mother arriving and telling both principal and guidance counselor that she'll take me to the hospital later after confessing that I was planning to end myself before guilt tripping me with all the sacrifices she made for me.

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Cut to today, Jay got married, moved out to a house because "God told him to" leaving the apartment I live in with my father under his name since my father has no Tax ID and I'm a college student in Computer major while stuck in the job hunting. Ever since Jay left, I felt better, like I had the opportunity to heal after so many years of sudden changes.

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It wasn't perfect, Jay would at random drop in to collect the mail because he could bother changing the address to his new place. Which I noticed how I jumped or jolted into fight or flight mode for brief moments. During this time, they both apologized to me for the harm they did and I accepted it.

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However, when I told Jay that he scares me. That I have PTSD of him during how he treated me. He said quote "You're still holding onto the past, you carry that fear because you want to. Give it to God. Pray. You still in that victim mentality."

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That broke something in me. I was silent but when he left. I cried. They have forgiven me but didn't take it seriously. My mother still calls depression and attempts as "devil possession" to other people while Jay dismisses it as if it never mattered or never happened.

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So, reddit. Am I overreacting to what Jay said to me after telling him I have PTSD because of what he did to me?

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TLDR: *Toxic household, Jay (Fake name) terrorized me as a joke during my youth. They matured, healed and grew spiritually too quickly for me to process. Told Jay current time that I have PTSD from him and he claims to "*Give to God and pray it away. Stop being a victim."

I'm a 21M and my older brother is 31M.

For some backstory: he used to be the intimidator of the household. He was obsessed with the gym, went to parties, and dreamed of becoming a bodybuilder. But when he wasn't doing that, he'd rough-house me, yell at me, and blame me for things I didn't do, sometimes just because he thought it was funny. On top of that, our home was already chaotic: my mother was a workaholic and abusive, my father was an alcoholic and absent, and we shared a two-bedroom apartment with my aunt and cousins. I thought this was all normal until a school counselor in middle school told me it wasn't. It was abuse. For the first time I felt seen, and it completely shattered my understanding of what was and wasn't safe.

To gloss over a lot: my mother, father, and brother eventually changed, they became less abusive. The problem? It happened too fast. Because I had grown so accustomed to the abuse, I was always waiting for the peace to collapse back into the toxic environment I'd grown up in. I was stuck in survival mode. I was used to conditional love, yelling, and being woken up in the middle of the night, not sudden unconditional love and safety. They all healed through religion, but I still carried my scars and barely had time to process mine.

This led to suicide attempts on my part. After everything I'd been through, I was exhausted and couldn't see a future for myself. My family — especially my brother — didn't see it that way. They accused me of "purposely carrying the past" and wallowing in self-pity instead of moving on. My brother once shouted at me in his gym that my attempts were selfish and "not of God."

Fast forward to today: I got my own phone number, off his plan. He wasn't fully angry about it, more of a silent annoyance. The apartment we live in is under his name because the job market is rough (I'm an unemployed college student) and my father has no Tax ID. But ever since my brother moved out, I've been able to slowly heal. I realized I don't want to text him, and I definitely don't want to go to his house.

He still has the keys and shows up unannounced, which makes me flinch every time. I've recognized I have PTSD tied to him. My heart races the moment I sense his presence. I haven't reached out in three months.

This morning he showed up unannounced with his wife to check mail (he never bothered to update his mailing address). As I was heading to class, I heard him say from behind me, "Maybe text me every once in a while, yeah?" I white-lied back with "I'll try," but my heart dropped. I know his pattern, he'll pull my mother into it, and they'll sit me down for a "talk" that's really just judgment dressed up in religious justification.

So, Reddit — AITAH for not reaching out to my brother or trying to rebuild our relationship when I personally am not ready to?

I am writing this as a paying customer. When I signed up for this service, I paid for the product they initially showed me, which had functional, diverse chat styles and consistent quality. I did not sign up for the completely different, broken service they have suddenly forced upon us.

Here is exactly why the recent changes are a disaster for both old subscribers and new users.

The broken default tier and malicious YAP compliance

They removed all the viable chat styles and left us with only two. One is CAI-only, and the other is completely broken to the core, giving replies that completely lack dialogue most of the time. This is what they are offering to new viewers who are testing the platform.

When the community rightfully backlashed, their response felt like pure spite. They introduced the new YAP style as a literal dig at user complaints. It is like management said, "Oh, you want characters to talk more? Fine, have this." Now, that style just rambles endlessly with zero coherence. They are intentionally breaking the balance so inner thoughts, scene information, and dialogue do not naturally flow. They are intentionally making it bad.

A failed business strategy that takes users for granted

They are clearly doing this to lower operating costs. While we understand compute costs money, making the service terrible for beginners is a massive blunder.

They think breaking the free experience will magically turn free users into paying ones. It will not work. Free users will just leave. They might see a tiny, temporary spike in premium sign-ups from desperate power users, but it will not last. If the initial experience is garbage, no one is going to open their wallet. You cannot grow a customer base by making your product worse and taking existing users for granted. That is how you lose people.

Stop trying to turn the app into TikTok

No one asked for frivolous, gimmicky features like creating videos. Literally no one is doing that. We are here for text-based AI character interactions. Stop trying to turn this app into TikTok. You are not that, and your user base does not want you to be that.

Users want consistency, not a completely reinvented, broken app every single month. People are keeping their distance because CAI has proven they cannot be trusted to maintain a stable, reliable service.

I am reposting it here in the chance that the mods of r/Character.AI subreddit take it down.

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So, by the looks of it from an outsider perspective looking inward. The company no longer cares about you nor your opinion.

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I believe that around the lawsuits of families that had their children die from using the app is where things started to downhill. Which if I'm going to be honest, both are at fault. The parents who regardless of them being busy or occupied with work and other life events should regulate their children better rather then expect companies bottle-neck their progress for your child's needs.

I understand their is a lot going on in the world. I understand you may be so busy that you end up tunnel focused on your life that you end up neglecting the life of your child. But, having children is a conscious choice that you are ready take up the task of raising life of your own blood. >!(Unless those of people who been forced to have children or weren't mentally rational to have children, for those cases I wish the child a better future from the ones they are at now). !<

As for, Character.AI. You had all this support and I can only say for what I had saw, the community would have backed you if you didn't fold from the lawsuits. You have to decide which audience of the demographic this app is meant for.

You cannot fold and basically say "Oh we're sorry, we'll do better" before bottle-necking everything while still claiming "We are for the adults." You can't serve two masters.

You have to pick one general demographic and stay with that general demographic. Either this app is for users 18+ or 17 and under.

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Money, I think that Character.AI or at least the original teams are no longer in control of the app. I know that Google did a non-exclusive license to use their technology at the time but, they switched from improving their AI to using whatever LLM is available in the market. To add-on, I personally and This is my own opinion.

I think whoever is running the current development team doesn't really care for the long terms effects of Character.AI but want to burn quick money. Why else they would push so heavily on Character.AI plus or put so many ads and restrictions on free users that they have no choice but fold and buy plus to get that good experience and all the features. Keep in mind, Character.AI is not a public company, to my knowledge it is still a private company which means there are no shareholders or investors that could be altering the company's performance and objective.

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Once again, THIS IS MY OPINION THUS, MY TAKE ON THE CURRENT STATE OF CHARACTER.AI DO NOT TAKE THIS AS AN ATTACK OR AN OFFENSE AND I ACKNOWLEDGE THAT I MAY BE WRONG BUT, THAT IS THE POINT OF DISCUSSIONS.