u/Responsible_Fee_8387

so my dog didnt really walk outside all that much because he would bark at absolutely everything and everyone. Safe to say he wasn’t trained. I’ve made it my mission to train him and so far he’s doing great! He’s learning how to bark less at distractions and has even learned how to sit. Granted he’s not a pro yet, but I consider them wins in my book.

today I thought it was a perfect time to take him out on a walk in our neighborhood and see how his training paid off. it was a massive improvement as he now stops at barking at cars. He‘ll get a bit distracted by his surroundings but I was still training him in our walk so he can learn to stick near me. In the middle of our training (we were walking slow) my neighbor opened her door to let her dog out. Her dog saw my dog and immediately charged after him. I freak out and shielded my dog as best as possible from him and we ran. I heard my neighbor yell at her dog and her dog backed off. Still, I was very shaken up and I could tell my dog was too. i just decided for us to go back home.

my dog is ok, no scratches or bites, but this situation still could have ended horribly if her dog didn’t listen to her.

I still want to take him out on walks but now I’m scared to. should I wait until he’s fully trained or should I walk him at a park? what can I do to prevent this from happening again?

hi! I want to write a letter to my mother to see if I can try to go to therapy. I have asked her before but I was put down or brushed off so I’m a bit nervous and hesitant. I don’t know how to bring it up or what to write so Id appreciate any advice or points so it doesnt end up as a waste of paper :)

(this is extra and not at all irrelevant but I do want to ask her if I can get tested for adhd in the same letter since it’s a bit relevant to my reasonings for wanting to go but I dont know how to bring that up either. if theres any advice for this too, I’d greatly appreciate it :)

(also sorry if I’m using the wrong tag, there was no advice needed and the support tag was the closest one 😭)

bit of context: my parents are separated and do not live together. My sister is 11 years old and even though I love her, she is most definitely immature (shes still growing as a person).

Over the past few months I began to realize how little I actually see my parents, especially now since I work. (I live with my mother) during the day, my mom goes to work while I either stay home taking care of my 11 year old sister and working on my “art job“ or Im at work. When she comes home, she either goes to her room and stays there the entire time or she’ll go out somewhere. if Im working a night shift (which are more common for me) I dont see her at all. When I do see her, she’s either on her phone, on a call, and/or organizing some part of the house (she had a major cleaning obsession). As for my dad, he comes to visit irregularly throughout the week. He usually visits in the afternoon though so I don’t see him much either. When I am with him however, he either sleeps or is on his phone the entire time. After a couple hours, he leaves and doesn’t come back until 2-4 days later. to be honest, I already gave up on him since we rarely ever have an actual conversation and i believe he only visits because he feels guilty for leaving.

now for my problem: Im with my sister all day and we generally have a good relationship. because neither of my parents are home most of the day, we clean the house together, i drop her off to her friends houses, i drag her to stores whenever im out (cause she’s not allowed to be home alone) I cook for her, etc, everything i used to do with my parents. We’re together for so long she sometimes calls me mom and then immediately takes it back lol. but because we are siblings, of course have arguments. we don’t involve our parents in the silly ones but when one of us messes up badly we go to them. both my parents have (in my opinion) really bad ways of handling them. My dad will take whoever is complain-in’s side even though it’s clear he’s not listening. my mom, on the other hand, will not get involved and tells us to figure it out because she’s busy taking care of herself. (im mostly going to be talking about my mother since I live with her). i understand that parenting is hard and I understand that she needs time for herself (who doesn’t) but because she NEVER gets involved, it feels to me like she’s trying to get out of parenting in general. my sister is a handful so of course I understand why she doesn’t want to get involved but at the same time, she is her daughter and it is a parents job to teach them what is right and wrong (thats what I’ve been taught as a kid anyway). I try to teach her what is acceptable and what is not as well, but because i am not on the same level (or influence or power) as my mother, she doesn’t listen to me, which ends in more arguments. I try to behave like the adult that I am, but it’s difficult to be calm when an 11 year old child is throwing tantrums over the lunch I made that she doesn’t like or getting into my personal belongings (some examples). not only that, but she makes disgusting comments about me and others that are ultimately the main cause of our fights.

We were having dinner and we were making small talk when my sister starts going on about peoples butts. i tell her to knock it off because that is disgusting but that led her to talk about my butt. she starts making seriously uncomfortable jokes about its shape and its movement and I tell her that is not only disrespectful and creepy but it makes me feel incredibly uncomfortable. I turn to my mom and point out the things shes been saying about me and she just shrugs and says, “im not getting involved”. we‘ve had this situation happen plenty of times before with the same response but this time I just snapped. I said “forget you then if you’re never going to teach her“ and went straight to my room. she later comes in and tells me I have been disrespectful towards her and that shes not going to get involved in ANY of our fights because shes too busy taking care of herself. i responded by saying that if she REALLY wanted to take care of herself, she never should have had kids. she responded back by saying she that it’s not her job to make us happy, only to keep us alive.

That was the day I lost complete trust in her.

Whenever we get into fights now, I don’t bother telling either of my parents because I know they won’t do anything about it. I usually give up and let my sister have her way while i lock myself in my room and work on my art. quite frankly it’s easier that way. I do feel guilty though because that is extremely unhealthy. shes going to start thinking that she is always going to be right and that she will win any argument she has over me so she won’t bother listening to me when I try to explain to her what she did was wrong/ unacceptable.

personally, im not affected by my parents uninvolvement since im already used to it, but my sister is still young and im planning on leaving soon so I can’t be there to teach her or help her in the future, which is why im worried.

do you guys have any advice? I don’t know if I want to bring my feelings up to my parents but I don’t want to live this way forever.

(also idk if im just being dramatic so if it sounds like im in the wrong, please tell me so I can correct my behavior)

So for context, we have been friends since the beginning of this year and things were going so great in the beginning, considering I had a crush on him. We would talk and joke around everyday, he’d walk me to class, he’d make me or bring me gifts, he’d help me with any problems I had, etc. I felt that he was genuinely one of my closets friends. Over time, however, I noticed that our conversations would be centered around him. Not only that, but he would always talk about things that genuinely seemed unbelievable for me considering what kind of person he is around people( example. being in a gang, being a player, getting into fights etc). I always got the feeling that he was lying to me just to show off, not just to me, but also for others around him. an example was Prom night when he told me and my friend about his fighting days and he actually tried to make me fight him to “prove it”. That made me lose feelings instantly and it just kept getting worse when i started suspecting that he actually liked me (note: he NEVER SAID or TOLD me that he liked me, I just started assuming based on his actions. If he did confess to me, I would have rejected him immediately). That’s when he started making me uncomfortable.

1. We we’re hanging out in my house and i was on a stepstool, trying to grab something from a high shelf. While in the middle of doing that, he grabbed my hip and squeezed it. I was hella uncomfortable but i just brushed it off cause I don’t want to cause a scene over something small, especially in my house. He joked and said that’s how he tickles people and told me to squeeze his waist. I did not want to and I tried to swerve the topic to something else but he would not drop it. I ended up giving in so he would stop pestering me. I have never felt so uncomfortable and that situation was my first time thinking was wrong.
2. He was talking about how he can do push ups and how he wanted a challenge (mind you we were in class). He asked me to sit on top of him to ”prove“ that he can push up easily. I said no thanks maybe later but he kept pushing. at some point he got up and tried to pick me up from my chair to make me sit on him. You best believe I held on to my chair as tight as I could. he did stop and he apologized later, but that situation left such a bad taste in my mouth.
3. We were in class and he claimed his hands were cold and he grabbed him to “warm it up”. I was extremely uncomfortable and I tried to pry my hands off and I even offered to give him my hand warmers just so he could let go but he said “nah I like these better”. I tried to pulling my hands off and kept insisting on the hand warmers, but I gave up and let him hold them because again, I did not want to make a scene, especially in public.
4. This is the one that make me question what this situation is. Before we became extremely good friends, I told him that I am not a big fan of touch and that I only hug people or touch people that I feel comfortable with. He told me in the beginning he respected that. Over time however, he would ignore that and would poke me or would try to hug me. I have told him multiple times how I felt about the touching and everytime he said he respected that. One day, i gave my favorite teacher (I see her as my non related aunt) a hug because she made me something special as a gift. A few minutes later, he started fake punching me and poking me and I told him to stop. That made my friend really upset and asked me why I let my teacher give me a hug but not let him touch me. I explained to him that I gave her a hug because I trust her and that she makes me feel safe. he said that he only touches me because it makes him feel safe. Thats when I knew that whatever I said was gonna get ignored so I just stopped arguing and let him continue poking me.

I have been ghosting him for weeks now and I feel extremely guilty about it but I just don’t know if I even want to continue our friendship if he’s going to continue crossing my boundaries. The thing that is making me pause is that he is really nice to me and tries to help me whenever he can. I don’t know what to do.

TLDR: I need advice on how to process what im feeling about our friendship and if I should still keep my friendship with him.

so for a bit of context, my mom and i (f18) have had a rough relationship due to past trauma that I have experienced. As a young tween i started distancing myself from her and hiding secrets and information which ended up being found by her eventually. that lead to me having severe trust issues that I still haven't gone over. Safe to say, our relationship has gotten just slightly better due to me growing older and slightly opening up more. However, this week alone might have reversed all of it. extra extra context: ive been going through a lot the past few weeks and every so often id burst into tears which lead into uncomfortable situations such as this one.

this summer i have grown extremely busy with 2 jobs in order for me to save up for college so safe to say, i have a very limited free time. because Im planning on heading to college soon, Ive been wanting to spend time with my sister since she's also going to be busy with her middle school preparations. we made plans to go watch the finale of her favorite show in theaters (since we're both fans) a months in advance. we were both very excited that we had a sleepover (havent done that in six years). we chatted all night about our lives, watched a movie and made matching bracelets. Day of the movie and we were getting ready when my sister asked our mom if she could pay for tickets. my mom said yes and she ended up paying for them at 6. I was gonna pay for tickets at the door but I appreciated her paying for it. After she payed for it, she told us that she is going to ride with us because she doesn't trust my driving (context: we were driving to the nearby city which was 45 mins away cause our theater sucks). We both didn't like the sound of that but I didn't wanna say no since she paid for tickets so we just sucked it up. she ends up leaving to god knows where and doesn't show up till 5:30. my sister was really upset about it and she made it very clear how she felt when our mom came back since it was clear we weren't going to make it to the movie on time. i was also upset about the time since she had done this before. they get into a fight as im driving and my mom told her she wasn't going to see the movie with me. during that whole situation, she also got into a fight with me because i was freaking out about where my exit was (i wasn't using a gps) and got really angry at both of us and told us that we were ungrateful and that we should go fuck ourselves. Long story short, my mom paid for tickets for 7 instead and she bargained with my sister in order for her to watch the movie. we watched the movie, had fun and chatted afterwards. on the way home i wanted to play a soundtrack we both liked and chat about the movie but unfortunely that didn't plan out. we headed straight towards the car and learned that my mom was on a call. every time i tried to raise the volume for my sister to hear she'd turn it straight down. I admit i was being selfish but i was desperate to spend quality time with my sister. I waited for her to finish her call but after 30 minutes i realized she was not going to finish so i gave up and played the radio instead. I started crying because I was overwhelmed of the situation and didn't stop till we got home. she ended up confronting me about it and it ended up me being truthful about how she made me cry. she said she was sorry i felt that way but it wasn't her fault since i never expressed any wanting for quality time with my sister to her. that got me really upset in the heat of the moment and we got into a fight. it ended up with her calling me a bitch and ungrateful and how she doesn't understand why I hate her so much and what she did to deserve it. she said the only thing i did for her was bottling my emotions during her birthday (i was suffering badly on her birthday but i didn't want to ruin her day so i kept my tears silent and to myself). she said something that sparked into thinking about toxicity. she said "i want to hurt you the way you hurt me but for some reason, i can't". I know its supposed to show how she cares about me too much to hurt me, but at the same time i felt hurt due the thought of my own mother WANTING to hurt me. she ranted for a few minutes and then she left. she ignored both of us for the rest of the night.

the next day i was gone the entire day spending time with someone and to be honest, i was mentally drained. i still went and i sort of felt a bit better afterwards. the minute i get home, i was ready to sit down and relax (we went hiking) but plans changed when got put straight to work. i catched up on all my chores including extra mowing (thanks to the help of my sister) but we didn't finish until 11. my sister and i were exhausted but we both didn't wanna hit the sack yet. we decided to watch a movie while finishing our chores. we got to chatting about life and enjoying the movie when our mom came over (extremely pissed), turned off the movie, took all of our devices (including my alarm rip) and yelled at us for being disobedient and disrespectful. then she turned straight to me and yelled at me for being a lazy adult and terrible influence on my sister for acting this way. she didn't take my laptop away thankfully (using this rn lol) so i was on insta reels until i saw a video about a kid and his parents watching a movie together and sharing ice cream in the middle of the night. i went to the comments and everyone was being supportive and saying stuff like "your kid is never dropping you off at the retirement home". it sounds silly but it got me thinking.

this is a just a recent example of what my life is like but im curious. is my mom a toxic parent or am i being sensitive?