u/SignificanceDeep11

I met my online friend in person yesterday, after 15 years of writing to each other. I was 14 and he was 16. He taught me basically everything I know about music, and he was genuinely such a positive, radiant person. And not in a sarcastic way at all, just genuinely healthy and kind-hearted.
I met him yesterday with his girlfriend. He initially wanted the two of us to meet on our own, so we did. We talked for about 45 minutes, and then he wanted me to meet his girlfriend and spend the rest of the afternoon with both of them.

And the first thing his girlfriend told me was that she was naturally a jealous person and that she was insecure because she'd experienced a betrayal in the past. And that was literally the very first thing she said to me when I sat with her while he was away at the bar, so the very first time I met her, right from the start.
I immediately reassured her and told her that it was completely understandable. But I found it a little strange, because from my perspective there was absolutely no ambiguity. So it felt a little bit like a warning to me. He had also told me about it before we met her, presumably to prepare tthe ground, but I thought it was more of a casual, no-big-deal kind of thing.
And after that, my dynamic with him changed, because I no longer felt comfortable being myself around him for the rest of those four hours, and things felt a little more awkward. I became much more conscious of my actions and what I was saying. I didn't even feel comfortable looking him in the eyes the way I had before, even though, technically, there was absolutely nothing going on.
But I had actually forgotten - and he reminded me - that he had confessed to having feelings for me at one point. That was nine years ago. And he told me that, in fact, the fact that I had rejected him was what helped him move on and eventually get a girlfriend (before his current one).
He told me he didn't really know what to expect from this meeting, but now I think he may have been expecting to dismantle some of the idealization he had built up around me, so that he could move forward with the next steps in his relationship, especially since he talked a lot about getting married and having children.
And then they were very affectionate and kind of wrapped up in each other ; kissing, having his hand on her thigh, etc. It was honestly pretty uncomfortable for me, because I felt like the third wheel. I played it cool tho.
And I didn't really feel like I had much space to actually talk about myself. I ended up mostly listening, and sometimes I even felt like I was their therapist.

I was feeling pretty down the whole evening and this Sunday I was not feeling to great as well. Kind of depressed actually and I do not even know why. I probably wished I had a great love relationship as well.

29F thinking of applying to WHV and scared.

I am a contract agent working for the european parliament, which is a very competitive place to work at, and have started working there in 2024. While I was very enthusiastic at the beginning, I lost the sparkle since I changed teams. I have a masters degree in law (graduated 2024), never actually liked pursuing law but I mentally needed to have this grounding and enjoyed the thinking behind it. I know that if I were to die tomorrow, I would look at the sky and bitterly think that I did not manage to do what I wanted to experience and live my life on my own terms.

7 years ago, I have lived and worked in Canada as part of something similar to a WHV but for French speaking people, and it really transformed my life. Coming back to France, I was very depressed with my environment here. I will skip details but also something bad happened to me. Only with studying and getting a job in an okay environment where I felt like I belong (the European Parliament) helped me, and also my boyfriend whom I met 4 years ago and who is much more free spirited (yoga teacher).

I am nearing 30, and never thought that decade would scare me - it feels difficult to know what I truly want. I want children, I want to travel, and I want to continue being with my boyfriend, I also want to keep studying, somehow get married, change career path multiple times.

I know I want to go abroad and I know I will face criticism, and even probably rejection from my parents, who are more traditional and controlling, due to my age.

I am lost and I have had an emotional break-down this whole week because of that.

I definitely know what I would advise others to do in my situation, but somehow it is hard to take the leap.

So, I am 29. I am a contract agent working for the european parliament, which is a very competitive place to work at, and have started in 2024. I have a masters degree in law (graduated 2024), never actually liked pursuing law, and I miss being around free spirited people. I know that if I was dying tomorrow I would not be satisfied with my life.

7 years ago, I have lived and worked in Canada as part of something similar to a WHV but for French speaking people, and it really transformed my life. Coming back to France, I was very depressed with my environment here. I will skip details but also something bad happened to me. Only with studying and getting a job in an okay environment where I felt like I belong (the European Parliament) helped me, and also my boyfriend whom I met 4 years ago and who is much more free spirited (yoga teacher).

I am nearing 30, and never thought that decade would scare me - it feels difficult to know what I truly want. I want children, I want to travel, and I want to continue being with my boyfriend, I also want to keep studying, somehow get married, move to japan, give lessons in peru, change career path.

Doing all of this is impossible, but I know I want to go abroad and I know I will face criticism, and even probably rejection from my parents, who are more traditional and controlling, due to my age.

I am lost and I have had an emotional break-down this whole week because of that.

What would you do ?

It’s just some white text on a blue ribbon
Blurred, undefined
Like this picture of my idealistic youth
Less than 3 years it took her to see
Shades of blue and dead stars
People walk with gravity
Speak with urgency
Stare with courtoisie
Drinking loads of coffees
In the parliament of hypocrisy
Working for Mister nobody
Giving it all to the next young trainee
Hoping to get a contract after his SRDP
Thinking his CAST is the ultimate victory
Drinking loads of coffees
Never criticize Mister money
Or you might become a difficult employee
See your office moved to the depository
In the temple of hypocrisy
Bank to its employees

My best friend I made abroad, Alexis, with whom I had a special connexion, advised me to play this game 7 years ago. We were soulmates in a friendly way, although I often had the feeling he was projecting his own previous bestfriends personnalitys onto mine.

Anyways - I am at the very beginning. So far this game reminds me so much of myself, when I was younger. It feels very good and nostalgic, and for some reason I cried a bit walking through the uni corridors. I am now 29 and it feels like I have been navigating life the way I could. Every step of my life stemmed from a reaction regarding what I was going through. Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans. This hits harder because I did not want it to be that way. Makes you realize that us humans just cope the way we can. That is probably the reason why we never feel like we grew up past 15, or 20. Psychologically we did but something got stuck there.

I am a 29 year old woman, and I will be traveling solo for the last 10 days of October.

I am looking to go somewhere where I can feel safe alone, without stress or harassement.

My budget is roughly 1500€ max, less would be good. I would like to leave Europe.

Lately, I was thinking of New York, but I am thinking of saving this trip for a one time big travel to the US (I want to do a road trip in the West from north to south). - also it would be a bit over budget, but I could be fine with it if you believe it is worth it. Already found flights and with the Hostel it would amount to 1300€ roughly for 10 days in New York.

I thought about Jordania ? Or should I go back to Japan ? I want to go to Egypt really bad but traveling alone is a big issue for me there.

I also want to go to French Polynesia, Hawai, and see so many things, Peru is a bucket list since forever but I prefer to have 3 weeks off for that.

If it can help, countries I have already been to, many of them multiple times :

Europe

- France, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Spain (only Majorque), Italy, Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, UK, Czech Republic

Asia

- Turkiye, Maldives, Japan, South Korea (only Seoul).

Americas

- Canada (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, PEI, Ottawa, Toronto, Montréal, QC)

Please help me find magic again.

This is the story of a therapist who suggested going for a drink with me during a session, and then told me that he was in love with me, only to later say that he only wanted a sexual relationship once I dug a little deeper and found out that he had a partner.

He was 42 and I was 23. He used to say that 23 was his favorite number. After we had sex for the first time, he said, “So this is what it’s like to sleep with a Chinese woman.”

I had originally started seeing him as a therapist because I was frequently crying without really understanding why. This was my first time ever going to therapy. Looking back, it seems that I had been depressed for a long time, and moving to Canada and then coming back to France without knowing what to do with my life seems to have made the problem worse.

Two sessions before the last one, I told him that I had been experiencing transference and that I had decided to talk about it. He didn't help me with it (only suggested me to read a book from Irvin Yalom and watch the series « En thérapie » which is also originally an israeli TV series) and I eventually decided to help myself because I felt dependent on the therapy : during the last session, I told him that I was stopping therapy. When the last minute came he still took his notebook out and asked « maybe we can have a drink? », to which I immediately answered « but we don’t live in the same city it would make it difficult » and I do not know how/why but still ended scheduling an appointment as an automatic mechanism when he took his notebook out and also because he did not really help close the discussion at all (he basically did not say anything else). A few days later I cancel the appointment by text and accept his proposal for a drink to « de-idealize » him and the profession, for which I had very high esteem.

During that first meetup I was completely deluded (thought he was 29 years old LOL), he was completely in to give me butterflies (telling me he used to drink from my glasses from where I put my mouth, that he trying looking me up on social media but could not find me), he was just lovebombing. I am a shy woman, not at all flirty (never had a proper date, too clumsy, authentic), I was just there to « make Friends ». But when I opened his fridge and turned around, he was standing there looking at me with bright eyes and we hugged. When I was sitting on the couch, he came sitting next to me and I put my head on his laps. Everything felt out of this world. It felt like a dream. As it I was 15 again.

I refused to continue seeing him once I knew he has a partner, but eventually I gave in because I was not feeling great and was still under his « power »?. At the time, he was the only person I saw outside my home (Covid, etc.). We would always only meet in his office (his therapy room). Usually in the evenings, and sometimes I would sleep there with him and we would spend the next day like two lost souls.

I had decided to see another therapist (woman) which I have only seen for 4-5 times. I was very sensitive and seeing a little girl walking on the streets with her dad would make me cry. As if I had a deep desperation and exhaustion with the world.
Every time I came out of those sessions, I felt a little more like I was back in the real world. Out of his influence. She told me what I was living with him was not normal at all. Told me to pursue my masters degree and file a complaint for him.

The situation had reached such a level of control that I had decided to enroll in a psychology degree at the university in Nice, where he had studied (he told me to enroll, that he knew his professors very well, etc). Until the very last minute, I didn't feel right about it and I couldn't understand why I had bought that bus ticket. In the end, it was my father who got up while I was standing in the doorway of our house at 5 a.m. He sat down on the steps and told me not to leave, and I listened to him feeling like an empty shadow.

I realized that he had multiple women he was sleeping with at the same time. I also found out that he was sleeping frequently in his office. I realized that he was a liar and manipulative. He called himself the « devil ». When I was in therapy he advised me to join the Franc maconnery where I could explore intellectual subjects.

As I was his « confident », I also found out a lot of other things: he used to take ecstasy before his sessions because it helped him get into a better flow and have a better connection with his patients. He was convinced that his female patients were crazy about him, and that I desperately wanted him to love me. (Fun fact: no, I didn't. I was just lost, and he took advantage of that.). He also confided that he used to masturbate thinking of me when I was his patient.

One day, he was angry, looking out of his window, and shouted that he could have drugged me and raped me, but that he hadn't.
That immediately reminded me of something that had happened a few weeks earlier after I came home from his office. I had drunk three glasses of rosé and was laying down in my bed, with an overwhelming urge to vomit, but nothing would come up, and I was having trouble breathing. It was very strange. I had never told anyone about it, but I had a strong intuition that I had been drugged because it never happened to me before.

He would confuse me with other patients, and eventually he started treating me like a doormat, but I never said anything or stood up for myself.

I am now 29 and this experience has kind of killed my naïve self although I try to keep her alive as much as I can.

Much later, after all of this had happened, I walked past his office one evening and saw him naked through the window. I also heard the voice of a young woman who sounded as though she was, like me, completely under his control and afraid of him.

I’m writing this because I’m still trying to understand what happened to me. I reported him to the police in January 2022, but it’s now 2026 and I’m still trying to make sense of the whole situation.

For a long time, I wondered whether I had simply been in love with him, whether I had wanted this, or whether I was somehow responsible for what happened. But looking back, I don't think that explains what happened at all.

My lawyer is very supportive - she was the one to recognize what happened was abuse (she was the first to use the word rape). The main investigator I detailed my story to was the best woman and very professionnal. But this is not the case of the judicial system which in general considers this as a personal story, and the psychologists I have seen have been quite lost and clueless about it.

I’d really like to hear from people who have experienced something similar, especially former patients who had a therapist cross boundaries with them. I’m trying to understand what this dynamic actually was and how other people made sense of it afterwards.

This is the story of a therapist who suggested going for a drink with me during a session, and then told me that he was in love with me, only to later say that he only wanted a sexual relationship once I dug a little deeper and found out that he had a partner.

He was 42 and I was 23. He used to say that 23 was his favorite number. After we had sex for the first time, he said, “So this is what it’s like to sleep with a Chinese woman.”

I had originally started seeing him as a therapist because I was frequently crying without really understanding why. This was my first time ever going to therapy. Looking back, it seems that I had been depressed for a long time, and moving to Canada and then coming back to France without knowing what to do with my life seems to have made the problem worse.

Two sessions before the last one, I told him that I had been experiencing transference and that I had decided to talk about it. He didn't help me with it (only suggested me to read a book from Irvin Yalom and watch the series « En thérapie » which is also originally an israeli séries) and I eventually decided to help myself because I felt dependent on the therapy.

During the last session, I told him that I was stopping therapy.

I refused to continue seeing him once I knew he has a partner, but eventually I gave in because I was not feeling great and was still under his « power »?. At the time, he was the only person I saw outside my home (Covid, etc.). We would always only meet in his office (his therapy room). Usually in the evenings, and sometimes I would sleep there with him and we would spend the next day like two lost souls.

While I was seeing him outside of therapy, I had decided to see another therapist (woman). I was crying every time. Seeing a little girl walking on the streets with her dad made me cry. As if I had a deep desperation and exhaustion with the world.

Every time I came out of those sessions, I felt a little more like I was back in the real world.

The situation had reached such a level of control that I had decided to enroll in a psychology degree at the university in Nice, where he had studied. Until the very last minute, I didn't feel right about it and I couldn't understand why I had bought that FlixBus ticket. In the end, it was my father who got up while I was standing in the doorway of our house at 5 a.m. He sat down on the steps and told me not to leave, and I listened to him.

Afterwards, I realized that he had multiple women he was sleeping with at the same time. I also found out that he was sleeping frequently in his office. I realized that he was a liar and manipulative. He himself called him the « devil ». When I was in therapy he advised me to join the Franc maconnery where I could explore intellectual subjects.

One day, he was angry, looking out of his window, and shouted that he could have drugged me and raped me, but that he hadn't.

That immediately reminded me of something that had happened a few weeks earlier, when we were seeing each other outside of therapy. I had drunk three glasses of rosé and was at home afterwards, with an overwhelming urge to vomit, but nothing would come up, and I was having trouble breathing. It was very strange. I had never told anyone about it, but I had a strong intuition that I had been drugged.

Much later, after all of this had happened, I walked past his office one evening and saw him naked through the window. I also heard the voice of a young woman who sounded as though she was, like me, completely under his control and afraid of him.

I also found out a lot of other things: he used to take ecstasy before his sessions because it helped him get into a better flow and have a better connection with his patients. He was convinced that his female patients were crazy about him, and that I desperately wanted him to love me. (Fun fact: no, I didn't. I was just lost, and he took advantage of that.)

He would confuse me with other patients, and eventually he started treating me like a doormat, but I never said anything or stood up for myself.

I am now 29 and this experience has kind of killed my naïve self although I try to keep her alive as much as I can.

I’m writing this because I’m still trying to understand what happened to me. I reported him to the police in January 2022, but it’s now 2026 and I’m still trying to make sense of the whole situation.

For a long time, I wondered whether I had simply been in love with him, whether I had wanted this, or whether I was somehow responsible for what happened. But looking back, I don't think that explains what happened at all.

My lawyer is very supportive and the main investigator I detailed my story to was the best woman and very professionnal. But this is not the case of the judicial system which in general considers this as a personal story, and the psychologists I have seen have been quite lost and clueless about it.

I’d really like to hear from people who have experienced something similar, especially former patients who had a therapist cross boundaries with them. I’m trying to understand what this dynamic actually was and how other people made sense of it afterwards.

I am trying to avoid the hairdresser, I used to go once every year but now that I want very long hair (my hair is curly and I want to have long hair when they get all grey/white as I do not intend to get them dyed) I prefer to avoid it. However when I do not wash them my hair gets very ugly and it looks like some parts are not really growing?

I read here that if the ends were damaged it could prevent the hair from actually looking longer as the ends would just keep on breaking.

But when I wash them they look quite Ok and healthy.

I have an appointment tomorrow… Should I ask for a cut/trim or a care treatment ?