u/Brilliant_Shower_241

WARNING! this is going to be a long one.

I (34F) need some perspective from people who understand high-conflict family dynamics and guilt. I’m really struggling to trust my own judgment right now.

A heavily summarised background: I live and work in the UK, while my family lives in Italy. I have a long, difficult history with my father, who has always been mentally abusive and physically up until I was 16. In the past, whenever I’ve tried to set boundaries or go low-contact, his family viciously attacked me for being "cold" and "ungrateful."

Now: my father was recently admitted to the hospital with a severe neuroinvasive viral illness on top of a chronic condition. He is in the acute phase, and the doctors say he will be hospitalized for weeks, followed by 12+ months of long-term rehabilitation. He is extremely fatigued and can only manage short answers and quiet rest.

My New Job & Work Reality:

To make matters more intense, I have literally just started a brand-new job here in the UK. I am in the critical initial phase of learning my role, establishing myself, and working through settling in. This job is my financial independence, my daily structure, and my safe space. And it's what I've always wanted to do after going back to uni as a mature student. Abandoning it during my first few weeks to fly abroad is a massive professional risk, as this is NOT an employed role and it's project-based, with strict deadlines (of which the first one is on the 26th of October).

The hospital medical team explicitly told me that calling or visiting every day isn't necessary right now. However, his family and ex partner (after my mother and with whom he had a child at 60) is doing what they always do: crowding his bed, expecting him to chat, and demanding that I drop my life in the UK and fly to Italy immediately.

When I cited the doctors' advice and explained that I am still working and waiting on project commitments at my new job, the group chat went passive-aggressive. They are attacking my absence and argue that my non-presence at his bedside is proof that I'm a "bad daughter."

I know this is going to sound ridiculous, but I am now terrified of going there. I know that if I step off the plane, they will gang up on me. My body is in complete burnout: I've had persistent headaches, neck and ear pain, and nausea for 5 days, I am not sleeping even with medications. I am completely exhausted trying to manage a new job on top of this terror.

I know rationally that my physical presence won't change his medical outcome, that his brain needs quiet, and that ruining my new job would be reckless. But the guilt of "not being there" and the fear of how I'm being talked about behind my back or even portrayed to him, the fear of him possibly attacking me when/if he gets better is making me freeze. All I would want is for all of them to disappear.

Has anyone else dealt with family using a medical emergency to break your boundaries while you're trying to build your career? How do you cope with the overwhelming guilt?

Any help is appreciated.

Anyone coming to St Pancras Old Church for the piano live tomorrow?

If you have Kobo Plus and/or use bookbub, would you recommend either of them, and which one? I usually borrow books from Overdrive but most of the ones I want to read have been unavailable. So I'm looking for the most affordable way to get books. I usually read an average of 2 books per month.

Right, this is going to be a bit of a waffle but it's been bothering me for a month now, and I can't stop thinking about it. It might be completely incoherent, so buckle up!

I used to talk to this guy who is a massive Swifty, he's very close to 40 and went to the Eras tour. I always tried not to judge him, but I did find it really odd that a man pushing 40 would wear a TS jumper and call her a great songwriter. We got closer and started seeing each other, he turned out to be an awful narcissistic prick. Through the very little time we spent together he told me I should watch the Eras tour documentary, especially if I'm not a fan, as that will show me how good she is.

To that I responded: maybe I'll give it a watch. I didn't add anything else.

He then started to blabber about how good she is as the documentary showed how long it takes to put the stage together and dismantle it, and it is the biggest tour in history. He then said that she's the best songwriter of a generation and that her arrangements are so good his composer friend stopped in his tracks while his wife was watching the documentary to say how great the music was. I just checked out after that, but I remember him talking for a little longer.

Note that none of the conversation was prompted. I didn't push back, or ask him anything, or give any opinion. As frankly I'd known very little if anything about her up until then.

Shortly after that I stopped seeing him, as he turned out to be the most sly person I've met. Completely unrelated to TS. Right after that TS started to be in my face constantly, because of this stupid wedding and my TV front page kept suggesting all her documentaries. Then I started getting a lot of posts on YouTube shorts. I went down a rabbit hole of trying to figure out what the appeal was and I just can't seem to justify it.

I've been watching bits of the documentary and I don't see any evidence of her songwriting abilities or even composition. All I can hear is narcissistic self-importance, and the way she describes her writing process makes absolutely no sense, particularly for someone who's written in different capacities her whole life.

I guess the question is; is there any evidence of her songwriting abilities, interesting music composition, or spectacular show, that I'm just missing/not understanding?

Look for a book club

Hello everyone. Could anyone recommend a good book club to join in and around Worthing? Thanks

Hello everyone. Could anyone recommend a good book club to join in and around Worthing? Thanks

So this "friend" who is on my degree which we just finished has been with me since the first year and I have helped her with most of her uni work, emotional rant support and everything in between. Recently she's been really shitty, and always on edge and shouting. At the end of year celebrations she came in upset because I was having another friend overnight as she was drinking. And she started being shitty at me, on edge and when I asked to send pictures she had on of the night she refused as she didn't look good enough according to her. But I was in the pictures too and I wanted them as keepsake and promised not to post. She kept denying it and by that point she still hadn't sent pictures from a previous event either. So I insisted and she kept saying no, at which point I said next time I'll take them with my phone. She got upset and started shouting "let me take them with your phone". I went in a corner and cried. She came back and she said, it's not the pictures is it? Tell me what it is. And kept shouting in my face. I said "well you've been shit to me all night". She tried to patch things. But my other "friend" said I need to toughen up and not cry every time someone shouts at me. Which is not the case. Anyway, AITAH for asking for pictures and crying when shouted at?