u/AquaDime

• I know that it's ethical, mostly recommended and keeps them/safe as well as local wildlife.
• I know I live in a busy city, in an upper level apartment, and at this point they do not understand cars or hazards.
• I know that they were tiny rescue kittens from the train tracks who likely would have died
• I know that I kept 3 of them so they could have company while I'm at work.
• I know I constantly talk to them, pet them, think about them. Bring them toys.
• I know I built them a catio on my balcony so they can go outside.
• I know that they seem to really love me.

BUT

I just feel like if I was doing right by them as living beings I would be giving them a fuller life.

This is probably a values thing.

And maybe I'm projecting.

I long to see them run around outside climbing trees and exploring. It is very much in their nature and I feel like I'm a prison guard keeping them from a full life. I hate seeing them laying around bored and listless much of the time. I value freedom and exploration. I feel like I'm just condemning them to have their world revolve only around me, and food, and 3 rooms.

I've taken them out a couple times on leash and they hate it. They just want to roam freely and explore. When they were about 2 I lived rurally for a year. I knew I would come back to the city so I didn't let them be fully outdoor because the change would be too dramatic coming back. But we went outside together a lot. They absolutely loved it. Made friends with a group of cats. Climbed trees. Ran around the yard and always came back. Came to the beach with me.

But working a city 9-5 and then trying to get angsty cats to jump into your backpack so you can (somehow walk multiple of them??) on a leash they hate around a park feels unmanageable, especially managing exhaustion and depression dips.

DO YOU EXPERIENCE THIS?
HOW DO YOU GET OVER IT?

DID YOU FIND A WAY TO BRING MORE ADVENTURE INTO THEIR LIVES THAT IS COMPATIBLE WITH YOUR LIFESTYLE?

Yes she fucked my ex.

But honestly that I could forgive.

It's fucking my ex after I was her EMOTIONAL CONTAINER through her bad breakup for a year to the point where she made it a life or death situation. Which she put on my shoulders. Oh, and then showed herself to be an entitled gaslighter.

This might be long. Fuck it I need to get it off my chest...

Examples of shit I did for this girl after a breakup:

• Took MANY 2am calls when she was fucked up crying and took time to console her.
• Left my home at night to come sleep over at her place a few times even when I had to work at 7am the next day because she felt she couldn't be alone. I was worried she would hurt herself.
• One of these occasions even brought my ex who I was with at the time, with me. They're friends so it felt fine. We spooned her in her bed. I'm an idiot.
• Made her a photo album of all the people who loved her to try and help her through it, and gorgeous pics of her.
• Excused it when she would treat me like shit because she was so sad.
• Was the only one willing to have a difficult talk/intervention about booze/valium and try to find her outside help, encourage counselling etc.
• The night after my ex and I broke up (he didn't see a future for us and I put myself on the line, it was hurtful and humiliating) she went to a party and played "leap frog" with him when I stayed home alone. I looked past it because they're friends and she was still so sad about ex and 'needed fun'. She hardly gave a fuck about me being hurt.
• One night, I was on vacation and she gave me one of her I mixed valium and booze distress calls. I would typically give hours of my time being an emotional container/therapist friend. Instead, I helped and then that night I tried to cut it off at 30min with an EXTREMELY gentle boundary. I was at a cabin. She didn't appreciate that. She started saying goodbye to me and insinuated suicide. I had to call 911 for a wellness check. And then I waited hours to find out if they found her okay, which was horrifying. So I spent the rest of my vacation calling wellness checks, hospital and then having to discuss with her extremely distraught family overseas and keep them informed. I came to learn later that this was basically a manipulation tactic because she couldn't handle me not being completely available to her.
• Afterwards, she refused a mental health stay at the clinic. I was completely terrified that she would do this again and put her wellbeing on my ability to have no boundaries, and always say the absolute right thing that felt 'good enough' when she needed an emotional presence. Often she would freak out at me if I didn't use words that would accurately capture her pain. Example: "I know how hard this year has been for you". *death glare* "Hard? HARD?? You mean my life has been utterly destroyed" or "Awe girl can I get you something, want me to make you a tea?" *death glare, shouting* "I don't want a FUCKING TEA" (this after I arranged for myself and 2 other adult women to sleepover at her place to keep her company after the breakup)

Needless to say, I realized we were in a toxic codependent situation and tried to heal. I learned to set better boundaries with people even when I care. It's really fucking traumatic having someone you care about and give a lot for override even a gentle boundary and put their life on you being a doormat for them to vent on. Especially when they're not treating you well.

The past couple years we've been trying to overcome that dynamic and repair. She's apologized for that time and I saw it as the actions of a distraught, and sad person. She's stabilized afterwards. I've come to see my own accountability in co-dependency and learn to be healthier in relationships as well. I'm also someone who lives with fairly consistent depression, so these kinds of dynamics truly take their toll, which she also knows.

BUT ABOUT A YEAR AGO

At a wedding I woke up in a shared cabin to her and my ex (who is her friend) in bed together.

I thought they might be hooking up, and I wanted to clear the air with her so I brought it up and asked her, privately, literally in most non-confrontational, understanding way I could. She was HIGHLY OFFENDED and angry. Also expressed with a disgusted look that I could even suggest it as "I am not even attracted to him" (like being attracted to him was beneath her). Asked me if I was upset that they were just cuddling and I admitted that while I understood their friendship, her doing that while I was there did feel fairly inconsiderate towards me, even if there wasn't sex. Especially considering she and I had been close and therefore knew vulnerabilities on my end about how things had ended between he and I. Oh, perhaps I should also mention that the night before my friend and I had ended the night emotionally consoling her about a situation for an hour before bed. Right before she slipped into his sleeping bag.

How did she respond?

Instead of just a "woops, sorry about that, wasn't even thinking about that". Days of arguing, making me explain "my thinking", telling me I'm irrational and need to think through things. Basically demanded an apology from me because "how dare I speak to her sexuality" (she had asked me how I could possibly think they would hook up and all I said was I understood how drunken hookups can happen between people who enjoy sex). All of this complete bullshit before she could wrap her head around it being reasonably uncomfortable for me to wake up to them in bed together. She came around, and eventually apologized and we reconciled. But not after putting me through it. It was humiliating. I wish I had never brought it up, on my end it was a completely vulnerable thing to admit and it made me second guess myself completely. I'm not a controlling person or someone who feels they own people. But I just figured as friends it was worth addressing and being honest about so we could clear the air.

THIS WEEK:

We went out for lunch.
I've had a rough year, put on about 20lbs and I'm clearly not in a great place right now. I admitted this. Then she decided to tell me she'd had sex with my ex this summer.

She apologized.
I remained calm about it. Told her I appreciated her telling me and the apology. I honestly didn't really know what to think yet. I don't feel as if I own him and the idea of controlling people over these sorts of things feels really icky. But I also had to compute a feeling of betrayal. I just spoke calmly and couldn't really find my words.

To which she said, "But I mean it was a shitty thing to do..."
To which I said, conversationally, "Yah I mean it was. It's hurtful when you do things like that"

(meaning be inconsiderate of friend's feelings)

Then, literally moments after she told me she fucked my ex she spiralled into anger at my "accusation" that she's ever done anything like this before. She demanded I be more precise with my words, considering as she'd never 'slept with an ex of mine before'. She puffed out her chest, eyes with contempt and told me,

"You're being completely inaccurate"

LESSON:

WHEN PEOPLE SHOW YOU WHO THEY ARE BELIEVE THEM. I made constant excuses for her because she could be fun, lovely, and appear loving and wounded. And because we had so much history. PLEASE LISTEN TO YOUR GUT when people pull toxic shit in uneven dynamics, appear manipulative, don't show up for you, steamroll your boundaries or consistently argue against your reality. Even now, I know that ending this friendship is going to be positioned as a dramatic situation where I somehow cant get over this guy, feel entitled to him, cut off a friendship for him. This is what he will likely come to think or anyone in our friend group she speaks to about it. That is not the case. And I feel quite humiliated being put in this position.

It's about her. Her character. Which I should have grown a fucking spine and understood years ago.

Now I just need a way to back away without it becoming dramatic, or grounds for her to put me through some kind of trial.

Out of curiosity decided to watch all the Joe/Madison footage from the season.

This idea that he was never attracted to her, or wasn't genuinely trying to make it work doesn't land for me.

I would fault him for being awkward/anxious, spacey and occasionally bad with words in intimate/pressure situations. Maybe a little bit of a boozer or stoner or ADHD or something.

Maybe a bit avoidant, but I also saw genuine effort.

I think people looked past his awkwardness because he's classically cute. Buddy's library was basically just a stack of self-help books. But aside from his fucked up drunken nap (seemed like a combination of heatstroke and alcohol) he seemed genuinely attracted to her, even if she wasn't his typical type, and made a number of attempts to communicate real (and normal?) concerns with her to work through.

Her reactions would have put me off too. And I'm a woman. He was trying to have a human convo about why this whole set up was emotionally hard and she blew up at him.

I think he ended it in a mature way. He was honest. He sat down and had a real, challenging conversation in a respectful way and didn't sugar coat it. Didn't embarrass her during a wedding.

I think he felt genuine things for her. She just wasn't his person in the end.

We can't always control that.

Mild Experiencer here.

Summary (if interested): By that I mean witnessed an orb in 2015 and had a strange encounter during meditation that left me with big questions. Series of big syncs. All that stuff. But not daily encounters or wild intuitions etc., like many here.

DISCLOSURE DAY:

Something about the sound shifted during the scenes with Margaret's house. Did anyone else pick up on this? I noticed this during the movie and it wasn't until afterwards that I read about people sort of 'cracking' during these scenes, crying and so forth, feeling a sense of shared nostalgia. Fun thought (with no basis) maybe there is something subliminal happening here, cracking open sensitive people?

Frustration: the media reveal & immediate global acceptance. I'm sorry... the film entirely underestimates the public psyche & skepticism in acts of disclosure OR changes to established reality. Media rooms just automatically agreeing to air all this footage being played by some random Kansas channel, not automatically dismiss it as BS, and even the masses being touched by it emotionally was just SO OFF BASE about society's mindset.

We've literally had global news agencies like the BBC make mass announcements about legit government UAP footage in 2020, UAP hearings, legitimate officers come forward. They typically remain a side-line, or it's later ridiculed. Few people outside of already existing UFO communities cared at all. Friends laugh it off and call it a government distraction attempt (and now in some cases it likely is). Life goes on. In my experience, as I'm sure MANY EXPERIENCERS: people reject, dismiss, laugh at the taboo before accepting any sort of ontological shock. It literally would not happen like this. The 'big media reveal' felt almost a bit offensive to the experiencer experience of chronic disbelief and belittlement. Most people require direct experience, or footage being verified by multiple levels of 'established authority' to shift.

All it would take is a couple officials, or a notable scientist being like "yeah, all that footage is fake". Case closed. The anchor automatically crying and changing her mind 'about everything' was a fail in my books. It would have been more interesting to have her doubtful, skeptical but entertaining the idea, trying to verify sources, sit with it intellectually first. Or have her crying in shock and someone across from her playing that role.