u/FabulousMechanic303

My dad died driving his motorcycle and crashing in 2020.

My husband has been telling me he wants to buy a motorcycle for years and I’ve always said he’s an adult and can make whatever decision he wants, and I can decide that is a hard boundary of mine and choose not to stay married.

I cannot say the words “yes honey get a motorcycle you have my blessing” when my dad broke his neck and died driving one.

Motorcycles are incredibly dangerous. My husband and I are actively trying to conceive and I told him I will not stay married to him/have kids with him if he gets a motorcycle. I can’t be a nervous wreck every time he gets on his bike. I can’t live with myself if I told him go ahead and then he dies a horrible death and leaves me a widow and a single mother.

He keeps telling me he feels depressed because he wants one. I told him I don’t want him to feel depressed but I’d rather him feel sad and be alive than I say go for it and he dies or becomes paralyzed. GTFOH!

I got a dream offer I didn’t seek out and it came out of nowhere. Offer letter signed, background check cleared, start date confirmed.

I scheduled the meeting and my boss immediately messaged me asking if it’s about anything pressing. I kept the event title vague on purpose. She probably knows it’s coming.

I have my resignation email drafted and I know what im going to say to keep it classy. I’m giving 2 1/2 weeks notice.

I emailed myself my performance review and any positive feedback I’ve received. I also emailed myself one training document I created and a project status update document that keeps track of everything I accomplished during my time there. I realized after I did it that it probably is considered intellectual property so I deleted it from my email. Now I’m paranoid I’m going to get sued.

I sent it from my personal email to my personal email so it’s not in my outlook sent emails.

It’s a smaller company, less than 1000 employees and they are cheap so I doubt they’ll come after me or even really care. If IT checks logs and asks I’ll just say “I currently do not have any confidential files outside of my work computer”. That’s the truth at least.

Am I being paranoid about it? I’m paranoid they’ll sue me or contact my new employer.

I also have a pit in my stomach because I dread the conversation. I also don’t know if I should tell them where im going because I am leaving the industry and I don’t want them to wonder where Im going, think I’m going to a competitor, and audit my laptop because of that.

How do I calm my nerves, what do I say, and what do I do????

I’m writing this because I’m finally letting myself be angry.

Not “healing and peaceful” angry. Not “everything happens for a reason” angry.

I mean angry angry.

I grew up in a house where nobody protected me.

My dad was an alcoholic, abusive, cruel, and unpredictable. He called me worthless. Not once. Not in some random bad moment. He made me feel like I was a burden, a problem, a disappointment, and something to be ashamed of.

He would drink and drive with me in the car and throw beer bottles out the window like it was normal.

One time he hit me so hard in the face that my stud earring ripped out of my ear and I had to get my earlobe stitched back together. Another time, I had a fat lip and wasn’t allowed to go to school until the swelling went down.

He would kick me and my mom out of the house over and over again when I was a child. I lived in chaos. I lived around screaming, fear, threats, and walking on eggshells.

And my mom didn’t protect me either.

She made me her therapist when I was a little girl. At 7 years old, I knew about her adult problems. I knew about money problems. I knew about relationship problems. I knew things no child should have had to carry.

When I was 13, she told me my dad had an affair. Like I was supposed to know what to do with that information. Like I wasn’t still a kid.

When I was 6, she would tell me all about why she blamed my aunt and grandma for us not having money because they put my dad in jail and then he couldn’t get a job with a record. But he went to jail because he threatened them and violated a restraining order when i was 4.

So instead of protecting me from the truth, she twisted it and handed it to me like it was my job to understand the family trauma.

I was a child.

I should have been protected from adult problems. I should have been comforted. I should have had someone looking out for me.

Instead, I was expected to absorb everything.

When I got divorced at 23, my dad told me I was so fat I needed bariatric surgery because no man would want me.

Imagine being that low, that broken, that lost, and your own father uses it as another chance to humiliate you.

I moved out at 17 years old because of their abuse. Then at 18 I got diagnosed with bipolar disorder that I inherited from my father. In a mixed episode at 25 years old, I became homeless. He wouldn’t let me live at home. Not because he was protecting his peace. Not because he had healthy boundaries. He was afraid I would call the cops on him for abusing my mom.

That is the part that makes me sick.

He knew what he was doing was wrong. He knew I saw it. He knew I might finally be old enough to tell the truth.

So he left me homeless instead.

My own father let me have nowhere to go because protecting himself mattered more than protecting his daughter.

And my mom still didn’t protect me.

My dad eventually died drunk driving a motorcycle. When I picked up his belongings from the funeral home, he had an empty bottle of Fireball whiskey and a breathalyzer in his pocket.

The cherry on top was that he cancelled his life insurance less than three months before he died because he had an argument with my mom and did it out of spite.

He left my mom with nothing. Now I’m 31 and she’s 68 and I am responsible for her because she is disabled. Thanks dad.

That feels like the whole story in one image. The alcohol. The denial. The danger. The destruction. The proof that he never chose to change.

And now I’m sitting here as an adult realizing how badly I was failed.

I wasn’t just “raised in a hard home.”

I was abused.

I was emotionally neglected.

I was parentified.

I was shamed.

I was blamed.

I was left to survive things no kid should have had to survive.

And the worst part is, I became successful anyway.

Seven years ago, I was homeless. Now I just signed an offer for a six-figure job at a Fortune 500 company.

And honestly?

Fuck you, Dad.

Fuck you for calling me worthless.

Fuck you for making me feel unlovable.

Fuck you for humiliating me when I needed support.

Fuck you for choosing alcohol, control, and abuse over your own daughter.

I am successful in spite of you.

I am kind in spite of you.

I am driven in spite of you.

I built a life from the wreckage you helped create.

But I am also so hurt.

Because I should not have had to turn pain into ambition just to prove I deserved to exist. I should not have had to become strong because the people who were supposed to protect me were the ones hurting me.

I’m proud of myself, but I’m also grieving the little girl who had no one.

She deserved a safe home.

She deserved parents who cared more about her than their own chaos.

She deserved protection.

She deserved love without cruelty attached to it.

And she was never worthless.

…I’m starting my new fancy corporate job in the tobacco industry soon, signed the offer. I feel excited that a huge company would want to hire me and pay me so much… but they’ve killed millions of people over decades…

they’re focusing on smoke free nicotine products now, but it’s like they first got people addicted to cigarettes and now they’re selling the solution…. Idk. That helps me sleep at night a bit so I can rationalize why it’s okay to work for them since they are looking to phase out cigarettes but still…

My coworkers in cannabis are going to be side eyeing me when they find out I’m going to big tobacco. But I have bills to pay and a future to build. I live in a very high cost of living state and my husband and I are DINK but can only afford a one bedroom apartment. With this new job, I’d be getting a 32% raise and insane benefits. We could actually afford to have a kid. Still can’t buy a house, but maybe one day.

Damn this world is bleak.

We have another cat and want to introduce them strategically so we have the new kitty set up in the bathroom since we got her yesterday. She is so scared she just sits on the vanity and growls at us. We are checking on her and bringing her food without making eye contact or trying to get her to come to us. She is very spicy and tries to attack if we get too close.

I want her to know she is safe. Any advice on making her feel safe and loved and how to do this the right way?

Unfortunately she is sitting on the bathroom vanity right next to the toilet and has been there since last night and hasn’t moved. This is the only toilet in the apartment. We don’t have a spare bedroom either so I can’t put her in any other rooms. I literally peed in the shower to avoid scaring her but eventually we will have to use the toilet. What should we do??? 😂

I got a new job offer and I’m waiting for the background check to clear before I give notice, just to be safe.

This means I should be able to give notice by May 12th. However, I’m on already approved PTO the whole week of 5/11, and in our handbook it says they don’t have to pay PTO during a notice period but as long as I work the rest of my scheduled shifts in my notice period, they will pay me any remaining PTO I have left.

I really want to tell them I am giving notice, last day being June 5th, while I’m on PTO because the following week they want me to run this big event for a whole week and I really don’t want to do it. I’m hoping that by giving notice they tell me today is my last day but they’ll pay me through my notice period.

What’s the smartest thing to do? I don’t want to wait until the first day of the event, Monday may 18th, to give notice because they’re going to be pissed because it gave them zero time to come up with alternative plans if they don’t want me to handle the event.

Here’s the timeline:

May 11th- start PTO
May 12- projected date background check clears by
May 17th- last day of PTO and travel day to event
May 18th- event I am running
May 22nd- last day of event
June 5th- my last working day I am giving them notice until

I would just quit but then they don’t have to pay me PTO I have left over after next week off. I have another 40 hours PTO.

Would it be a dick move to give notice at 5pm on May 15th, the last day my PTO hours for my current planned vacation is used? Then they have the weekend to figure out if they still want me to do the event, and I’m not at risk for not getting paid for week of 5/11 PTO.

What would you do?

6 years ago I was homeless and on temporary disability for mental illness. Today I got a mid 6 figure job offer from a Fortune 500 company and I’m looking for advice?

I (31F) live with bipolar disorder type 1. In 2019, I was a manager of a salon and had a mental breakdown because I didn’t have access to medication.

I moved back to my home state, went to the psych ward, got in an intensive outpatient program and finally got my medication right for the first time. I was diagnosed with bipolar when I was 19, and at 25 was when I finally became stable.

I couldn’t move home with my parents because my father was also bipolar plus an alcoholic and was abusive financially, physically, and mentally to my mom. He didn’t let me to live at home because he thought I’d call the cops on him.

So I moved in with my aunt. We got into a disagreement about politics (she’s maga, I am the opposite) and she hit me in the face twice and kicked me out about three weeks into me living with her.

I had to go to social services because I was homeless. They placed me in a terrible, dirty, roach ridden motel near the Jersey shore where I was surrounded by drug addicts and sex offenders.

I eventually got stabilized on meds and went back to work. Since 2020 I also found a new boyfriend and we got married in 2023. I also built an amazing career in learning and development in the cannabis industry despite not having a bachelors degree.

I went from assistant manager of a dispensary to learning and development manager and then senior manager to HR Director.

Today I got a job offer from a Fortune 500 company that invited me to interview on LinkedIn even though I wasn’t looking!

I just got a $40,000 total comp pay raise. I’m in shock and so proud of myself that I cried today.

Between going through an abusive childhood, having to provide for myself since I was 17 years old and not living with my parents, to getting married and divorced by 25, to being homeless….

… and now I have a new husband I love dearly, a cat who is my child, and my dream job making great money. My husband and I are trying for a baby.

I never gave up even when I lived in the motel. I knew if I focused on my mental stability, everything else would get better.

If you struggle with mental illness there is hope for you- focus on getting meds right and getting the right therapy. It worked wonders for me. I suffered for 6 years after diagnosis before getting stable and then my life got better!

I still struggle with thoughts that I’m not good enough or I don’t deserve this. How do I get over it?

I (31F) live with bipolar disorder type 1. In 2019, I was a manager of a salon and had a mental breakdown because I didn’t have access to medication.

I moved back to my home state, went to the psych ward, got in an intensive outpatient program and finally got my medication right for the first time. I was diagnosed with bipolar when I was 19, and at 25 was when I finally became stable.

I couldn’t move home with my parents because my father was also bipolar plus an alcoholic and was abusive financially, physically, and mentally to my mom. He didn’t let me to live at home because he thought I’d call the cops on him.

So I moved in with my aunt. We got into a disagreement about politics (she’s maga, I am the opposite) and she hit me in the face twice and kicked me out about three weeks into me living with her.

I had to go to social services because I was homeless. They placed me in a terrible, dirty, roach ridden motel near the Jersey shore where I was surrounded by drug addicts and sex offenders.

I eventually got stabilized on meds and went back to work. Since 2020 I also found a new boyfriend and we got married in 2023. I also built an amazing career in learning and development in the cannabis industry despite not having a bachelors degree.

I went from assistant manager of a dispensary to learning and development manager and then senior manager to HR Director.

Today I got a job offer from a Fortune 500 company that invited me to interview on LinkedIn even though I wasn’t looking!

I just got a $40,000 total comp pay raise. I’m in shock and so proud of myself that I cried today.

Between going through an abusive childhood, having to provide for myself since I was 17 years old and not living with my parents, to getting married and divorced by 25, to being homeless….

… and now I have a new husband I love dearly, a cat who is my child, and my dream job making great money. My husband and I are trying for a baby.

I never gave up even when I lived in the motel. I knew if I focused on my mental stability, everything else would get better.

If you struggle with mental illness there is hope for you- focus on getting meds right and getting the right therapy. It worked wonders for me. I suffered for 6 years after diagnosis before getting stable and then my life got better!

I still struggle with thoughts that I’m not good enough or I don’t deserve this. How do I get over it?