u/Vanilla-Coconut333

I just got off my shift and everything hit me all at once so excuse me if my post is ranty, I don’t feel the best right now.

I am a uni student studying my dream career and working a part time restaurant job for money. It sounds good from the outside but I’m panicking because nothing is as it seemed when I had to make big life choices at 16-18.

When I was 18, I actually wanted to do an apprenticeship. My parents strongly opposed it because they saw university as the “better” and more respectable route, so I ended up going to uni. And in their words “apprenticeships are for people too dumb for uni, so as long as your under my roof that will not happen”.

I study digital marketing and advertising and I’m heading to third year. At first and second year (first semester) I was just writing essays on general business (human resources, management, entrepreneurship) and I was so so lost because this isn’t helpful to my degree. Finally second year second semester I’m doing marketing and it’s just 6000 word essays, make a claim and find studies to back it.

I thought I’d be making campaigns, mock advertisements, working on briefs, getting feedback, learning how agencies actually work, building things I could be proud of and eventually putting them in a portfolio. Instead, I feel like I’ve mostly learned how to write academically. That’s fine, I can do that. But also it’s just dropped on me “btw if you haven’t already done a portfolio and sent many applications for a placement what are you doing?? It’s too late you should’ve started months ago” And nobody discussed this before not even in passing, nobody in my course is planning to do a placement year for this reason we all feel underprepared (and kinda dumb).

The reason why my hopes are up for uni was because I remember asking on an open day for my course (different uni same course) what would it look like if I chose this course? And they told me how they have all these equipment and I’ll be taught these skills and I’ll be doing practical work relevant to my career choice, looking back that was all I wanted but reality couldn’t be more opposing. I’m scared that after uni, I’ll just have my degree and some debt and it wouldn’t mean much at all, just a silly pastime. That’s all that uni has been for me, learning how to write academically and I feel like once I graduate I’m gonna feel pure dread.

Ig the stress of work is also getting to me since I’m thinking about this after a late shift but this isn’t what I imagined for myself at all. I try to build a portfolio from home but idk I’m just overwhelmed with regret. I don’t know whether my from home experience even means much to employers without actual employment rather then freelance work. Should I do an apprenticeship still after uni, did I waste 3 years.

I’m sorry the post is so ranty, my head is all over the place.

Hi, I struggled with mental health issues since I was a teen and am trying to get back on my feet in my 20’s the problem is that that means that I don’t really have much of an employment history. I recently finally got a job offer. I’d love if someone would be able to give a reference since references are conditional to the offer. It’s for a restaurant in the UK West Midlands area. I’ll give you a rundown on myself and the kind of role once someone is willing to be my reference, all I need is a number and email. Thank you.

I feel so alone in dealing with sabotage from my parents and I didn’t even realize it was a thing until I had to make important life decisions.

So when I was young my parents never taught me basic life skills, hygiene, women’s health, how to do certain things, they taught me nothing, not even how to look after myself when I’m sick, I wasn’t given medicine they would just wait for it to pass. I specifically remember being young aged like 6 and having eczema and my mom would act so humiliated and punish me over my eczema flair ups that would get triggered by stress fyi. But never bothered treating it, she would have genuine disgust looking at my skin (the eczema was not bad at all) and made me feel personally responsible for it.

Growing up whenever I had exams all of a sudden I need to run a million errands and clean the house from top to bottom, parenting would also get harsher and when I stayed up late to revise for my exams because they had me doing stupid bs all day, it was terrible of me to stay up and i couldn’t rest the next day.

In general, if I was to have nothing going on for me, I should be shamed, compared and punished but if I try to aim for something good they would do anything in their power to make sure I fail, I couldn’t notice this until I got older and had to make important life decisions.

What triggered this post is that when I was 17 in sixth form applying to universities or alternatives I debriefed my parents on me wanting to do a degree apprenticeship, they said there is no way I could do that under their roof because that’s what failures do, i should go to university. I let them know the entry requirements are quite high so it doesn’t seem like something failures do and anyway, experience matters in this job market. They just said nope. So I went to uni. Today I had my dad discussing about how he wanted my younger brother (18, only boy ofc) to do a degree apprenticeship when he thought I was sleeping, he listed all of the benefits of a degree apprenticeship and how are his workplace? There are some young people that were doing a degree apprenticeships that are in a good position because of it.

I wanted to go to a uni in the city by me, again they got into my head along with my older sister (just 3 years older then me) saying I can’t make the commute everyday because I’ll be late and if I was to get an accommodation there I’m too weak willed to put up with living there??

Context to understand, my siblings are totally in on this especially my older sister since she had a degree of influence over me from a young age. She was saying how I wouldn’t be able to deal with people making noise in the acoms and just tried to make the experience seem traumatic but also putting me down in the process saying I can’t handle it and would fall under the stress of it (not making payments, not missing out on life skills she’s talking about the possibility of neighbors being loud at night?) it was so dumb looking back especially because she at the time went to a uni for from home and lived in an acom. She would later shame me for not leaving home because “it was the best decision ever” but before she finished uni she was making the oddest arguments to keep me at home.

Also same as when I was young whenever I have assignments, they would sabotage me in any way possible until at some point I failed an assignment. I resat it without telling them and I passed with flying colours because it wasn’t a difficult assignment. It was an intentionally difficult environment. And when I didn’t tell them they didn’t have a chance to make sure it was super hard for me.

Also, whenever I had an interview or a first day a new working place, they would blow up on me over trivial matters and help me do gruelling tasks the day before and on the day of make sure her always check in to see what I’m wearing and judge me in my face over it, what I’m doing and have commentary over every small thing and also stress me about time when it’s nowhere near time.

There are some more examples like one time I had an opportunity to go to a nice black tie event where I could connect w people career wise and my friend offered to get me a ride back and there was no way I was allowed to go because my cousin got caught w “sugar” at a traffic stop (that cousin just is involved w road and gang stuff since forever) and what if the person picking me up has it on them and I get done up for it? Mind u the person giving me a ride back was someone’s mom. And their apparent final reason is that they don’t trust Jamaicans. And for whatever silly reason my sister fully backed this??

I could go on but we would be here forever. Kinda shocked that they would try to outright sabotage me but the only thing I’ve learned to do is to make sure to never be honest with them, and not involve them with anything once I’m financially secure (I’m financially independent now but I do need to save and get a car). But other then that I don’t know how else to go about things to prevent their attempts to make me stay down and in their control.

Please hear me out when I say this, I’m not defending them but I always see Muslims online, particularly Muslim women talk on Dawah bros as if the Islamic reminders they give are wrong. But whenever I see people spreading hate on them they have a problem with the message these Dawah bros spread but whenever I hear them, speak of backbiting, modesty, hellfire, punishment of the grave, the blunt and threatening nature of those discussions sounds just like the quran..? But instead of acknowledging that what these people are saying are verbatim what hadith and Quran says, I notice the hate directed at Dawah bros usually is misdirected frustration with the Quran or Hadith verse cited.

People extend their dislike to certain Sheikhs such as Sheikh al assim. And it couldn’t be clearer that the real problem is with Islam bcs what do you mean your upset at someone who has formal Islamic training from Umm al-Qura University in Makkah and decades of experience teaching and explaining Islam based on the Qur’an and authentic hadith. But Muslims don’t rate him cause his views are regressive? But his views are whatever Quran and Hadith says.

I think for a vast majority of Muslims especially those living in the west struggle with these kinds of preachers just because they forced them to confront the fact that they do not agree with Quran or Hadith. But deconstructing is really hard especially when it’s from a culture and religion in your bone into so it’s nicer to hear sugarcoated versions of Islam from mufti Menk and Omar Suleiman who dances around the question “why would the prophet marry a child” rather than being upfront like Sheikh al assim who says “why not? If you had the chance”. Or when FGM is so happy of the topic amongst preachers that people are convinced it’s cultural when Sheikh al assim confirms its Sunnah.

I feel like if modern Muslims were to listen to prophet Muhammad today, they would really despise him. And their reaction to Dawah bros really displays it. Because looking back preachers like Omar Suleiman and Mufti Menk a lot of that preaching just seems like good vibes and repeated washed and repeated verses that sound positive, but Dawah bros and blunt Sheikhs just cite scripture clearly and get hate because they stand by it shamelessly (which is obviously wrong) but their crime is not being blissfully ignorant when it comes to Islam and agreeing with it.

Personally, I appreciated how blunt they are because they helped me realize how harmful and ridiculous Islam really is.

So I recently got hired at a restaurant after doing a short interview and a surprise hour long trial shift. I finished the paperwork and training about 3 weeks ago and was waiting for an email from the app where I can access my shifts.

A week goes by since training and I heard nothing, so I email the manager and I get a response to just download the app (without getting the email from the app) and he provided me the company code. And said I should be starting that week. I try the code and it works, I enter my phone number and it says it isn’t registered. I make him aware of it as soon as I ran into the issue and I get no response for 4 days.

So I email again and he tells me that he will email me if any shifts are available this week. It’s reaching the end of this week now and radio silence. He sent that on Monday, it’s now Friday evening and I highly doubt he will reply letting me know that there is an available shift.

I’ve never experienced something like this so I have no clue what it means. I still have no access to the app where I can access shifts after 2 weeks of hoping one day I’ll be added. So it’s been three almost four weeks since being hired and I haven’t worked.

I feel a little bit crazy because I’m the only one in my family that acknowledges it as a negative thing despite having an older sister around my age.

When I was a kid, especially living in England I thought when adulthood came it meant I could be who I want and be free. But adulthood came and close/extended family try to install random conservative ass beliefs like covering up more, moving like a housemaid because I was unfortunately born a woman.

It’s so crazy because to my parents my grades don’t even matter anymore, just am I a bragging right to her friends which includes just acting like a village girl despite being born in Britain. I believe this is because her friends said that she raises her kids like a white woman and for whatever reason it stuck with her. She even cried once while telling me she doesn’t want her kids to act like white

Additionally I feel like my parents are banking on my naivety to make me who they want, but I’m 20 now, at some point of course i was naive and I’m still young but they sent me to school, I’m almost finished my degree and the shit they suggest is normal and I should do requires an in below room temp.

So my parents got less strict, not in an “I finally understand you” way. But in a “y’all have disappointed me so much I can’t be arsed”. They are still super harsh and cold but just openly don’t care about me or my siblings anymore. I overheard them talking amongst eachother, my dad was talking to my mom saying unwarranted that we love confrontation so the best thing is to just ignore us. There is like no effort to understand us at all, not even have a conversation, it’s not exactly silent treatment but it’s selective?

My older sister noted they had such high expectations for us, like expecting us to have the most exceptional reputation and have our money up at 18 so that they can have bragging rights. They want us to be the most outstanding or we are a burden. Although I like the freedom, I’m wondering if this is the odd calm before the storm. Has anyone else experienced this? Like we are seen as so much of a disappointment that your parents gave up? Now it’s just “do what you want idc”

Like they still speak what they expect from us but have no hope in actually installing that into us. So they stop caring about us, as long as chores are done or you actually have something to offer.

So my (20F) sister (23F) and my mom are very male centered and I’m very concerned.

To start with, it’s apparent that my dad and my brother who was the only boy is more important than her two other children because we had them misfortune of being born female. So what that means is that anything my father or brother does will be justified everything will be handed to them on the silver platter. They could be completely selfish and immoral and it doesn’t matter. All because they are men. I already know that she’s going to be the mother-in-law that terrorises her daughter-in-law.

My mum told me a story about how one of my favourite aunties came to her and told her that her husband was being abusive and she really wanted to leave. My mum told her that she’ll be shown from the community and they don’t do divorce around here (England mind you, that aunt has her rights lol). She said that her husband does the same exact thing, it’s normal and she should just focus on reconciling with her husband. Somehow she thought that I would agree or learn from that behaviour which is just.. wow.

Additionally she wants me to play into these silly gender roles but she knows that her behaviour makes me more and more of a feminist so she’s given up.

Moving onto my sister, she also has this weird obsession with my brother. Watching this interaction though is worse than looking at the relationship between a boymom and her son. Because the way she would act towards him is like teenagers flirting and it’s so embarrassing. He has learned from being the favourite from two of the women and our family that he can do whatever he likes so he literally trods all over her and she sees no problem. He demands stuff, steals stuff and she will keep on buying him things. I think that this behaviour from both her and my mum gives him a superiority complex that I shut down so fast.

If my brother does not come home on time from collage, my sister will assume that he’s with a girl and blow up his phone

The situation that actually triggered this post happened yesterday. So my sister was telling my brother to follow her on Instagram and he was saying no, and then she promised to buy him something worth £50 and then he agreed. So then she looked through his following and was reading the girls that he was following and telling him why do you follow so many girls? I’m putting girl after a girl down. I feel like Freud observing this family sometimes.

She also likes to compete with me in these silly ways. The earliest I can remember was when we were both children her 11 and me 8, where she accidentally shaved her eyebrows and looked horrible so now she must shave mine (thankfully I dipped). But there was always little things like this going on or not being transparent with me about how I look and if let’s say I’ve sat on something and you can see it, my leave out is obvious or I ask her if she could check if it’s clear that I’m on my period, she’ll act like everything is okay when it’s not. She liked to compare our body weights and hates the idea of complimenting my achievements. Any certificates I have, my prom, any time where I look achieved or just pretty. But I’m not necessarily looking for anything from her. I just observe to see how she feels.

Every time I wanna change of wardrobe or my make-up routine and I show her my mood board or ideas she’ll tell me I’ve copied her and then tell me that I wanna be her so bad, then try to fit into that aesthetic fast or act like it looks horrible, and then copy it. But this is not that irritating because it won’t really change my decision.

But the male centred behaviour is the only rift in my family that exist, there is misogyny speaking from everyone in that household but it comes out in the most disgusting ways in other women. And I feel like there will be literally no problems in the household if that did not exist.

I feel like once you accept they aren’t gonna change and just play their game. You’ll almost live a normal life.

I’m 20 and want full autonomy. My parents and siblings (M18 & F24) have the same mindset. Despite my siblings being second gen Brits it’s as if they learnt nothing at school. They are fully enmeshed with my parents. So at some point I got so tired of wasting my breath on closed minded people that think a woman’s place is in the kitchen, (quick tw) FGM and child marriage past 14 is fine. That I started playing their game.

So first of all, I weaponise incompetence. I obviously get in trouble for this and my parents get impatient but they have a very low threshold of being bothered because they have high blood pressure. So to them, I can’t cook, I can’t deep clean, I can’t hoover, I can’t take out the bin. I can do all of those things, I just don’t want to be doing ridiculous chores when I have stuff to do and places to be.

Second, I argue like my mother. I don’t really argue in general with them because I think I can’t change them but when something is really unfair to me I highkey spike their blood pressure until they know to not try it again. I don’t insult anyone, shout or throw a tantrum. I just annoy them for 2 days minimum with my very valid point.

Because from all of this it makes me scapegoat proof. However it also makes me look argumentative and useless. So I lovebomb them with affection and gifts and i am very emotionally present. I also deal with everything tech related and have good grades. So, they don’t complain, because they find me more useful then just househelp.

Also, my parents know I’m clumsy, so every time I see an abhorrent amount of dishes in the sink, I cover my finger with tissue, act like I cut myself again while doing something and ask where the plasters are. My parents say sorry about ur finger, and my useless brother that thinks he’s too good for dishes has to do them.

I also convinced my dad to take a night shift (pay is better). So I can be out late (my mom takes one already) and be back before 7am. I bring a change of clothes when I leave and never hang out in my own city (to avoid CCTV acting aunties).

So my parents want me and my sister (20F and
24F) to be rich busy entrepreneurs (whilst being househelp 24/7). This is because we are born in England and didn't struggle as much as they did so I guess they're thinking what's stopping you?
Now because of this we get compared to other people alwayssss.

So yesterday two of the girls she compares us to came over. We all talked for a bit and at some point we were talking about careers and ambitions and the girls go on about how when they started working on their businesses, achievements and career, and guess what, they are fully supported and funded by their parents. Their parents paid for their courses so they can pursue what they like, and their businesses as late teens till now (both at 22). Mine would never do such a thing lollll. But it really makes me think what the point of the comparison is if they’re not willing to invest in their kids💀.

My older sister was upset after the conversation because she said as the oldest she felt like she had to just figure everything out with no help from our parents or an older figure but so much pressure from them. You might think it can’t be that bad but my mom genuinely refuses to teach me basic stuff and tells me to go on YouTube, I was never taught about periods, girl stuff, work stuff anything you just need guidance on while young. She just used to emphasise I’m not ready for this world without knowing she can literally help as a mother + she was a stay at home mom so she literally has all day to tell me.

The cherry on top is that my parents are ride or die for my younger brother (18M) the only male child. Paying for his driving lessons, throwing money at him, he has no academic or career pressure, NO CHORES, no comparisons and they are willing to support his anything. I guess it’s all for the privilege of being born a man whilst my parents refused to pay for my lunch at 14 so I was doing paper rounds at ridiculous hours n falling for scam job listings trying to pay for food unless they gave me £1 on a lucky ass day. But when he was 14 he was getting £5 a day no complaints😭, not much but much better.

I don’t even like thinking about how unfair this is because they’ve affected our life trajectory whilst trying to cause guilt n shame about it.

So I’ve recently got my license, I’m gonna graduate next year, I really like the job I have now. And I’m just kinda looking back on things and I’m genuinely confused as to why I was raised in a strict manner. My parents were always strict as a kid compared to my white peers always told me “how will you survive the real world if you can’t even handle home” and saying they were preparing me for it. Whole time the “real world” is a piece of cake and felt more homely then home and my parents were actually obstacles to everything good in life. I wanted to do a placement but during the end of my second semester when I should be applying my dad was bothering me with duties “because I’m a woman” dishes, surface level cleaning is fine but he was making me do ridiculous stuff in exams season + placement time. It got to the point that I was telling my dad I don’t have time to do whatever ur asking of me I have an assignment due tomorrow and he said “I’m tired of hearing I have an assignment you always have an assignment” (it’s that season) and told me I must do it “or else” (i didn’t do it bcs wth and I dare him). Over the last summer I wanted to build experience but I had to do some silly task (on top of my normal chores) whenever they saw me at home and I’d say i wanna build my portfolio and they’d tell me, i have night to do it (can a girl not rest?). Anyways I gave up on placement bcs they were ruining it but now I wonder what they even do for my own good except give me anxiety. And it’s worse for my siblings that have fully given up on education, but I’m only where I am because I’m very rebellious tbh and my parents don’t believe in kicking me out ig bcs I am the retirement plan. Anyway, I have big dreams and I am a try hard, idk whether it’s a me problem but my parents now say “don’t force luck” “take a break from that” “just pray, no need to over prepare” and they even stopped celebrating my wins as soon as I turned 18, hello? I got so shamed if I didn’t get a good grade now I need to stop. I refuse to believe they just like moving like dictators because it’s a screaming match and they are voluntarily stressing themselves out when they have high blood pressure😭. What is this behaviour actually, how do I get them to just stop bcs I’m stubborn, i rebel in their face, im unapologetic but it doesn’t move them and it’s ruining my chances, im saving to move out without permission but im waiting till my uni is finished bcs it’s in my home city. Anyway, sorry for the long rant lol.

Forgive me if I’m not following Reddit etiquette right now and also for being dumb :.). So I’m a student and Im looking to earn a lot of money to move out of a toxic home. I started a business that is going perfectly and I’m working. I just want a second job. So I had an interview scheduled 2 days ago for today, it was in a small town next to my city and I thought, I’d be able to make it there. I checked on Google maps and it was not showing a route for me to take via public transport, I get frustrated with Google maps easily as it sometimes (often) is wrong or not updated. So I go to Apple Maps and I’m supposed to take a train, and 2 buses then walk 41 minutes. So I just thought, I’ll uber the 41 minutes it’ll be super cheap. It was super cheap, cheaper then a bus ticket but now it shows no Ubers available, so I decided to walk, and the pathway stopped, Apple Maps decided I should walk on the highway :,), lesson learned ig😭 I’m going home. I have a second interview scheduled for a more desirable role on Monday anyway. I’m just so embarrassed.

So as I grew older I began to hear more abed more about the way I should be. I’m 20F and have always been quiet, reasonable and respectful I have always been this way. My siblings had their rebellious phases where they were genuinely bullies but as they are getting older, they think to be a good person is to be conservative. So because of the way they acted when they were younger, they have an extremely shallow view of morality (which even they fail at), which they reckon is to be traditional, religious and to be socially conservative. My mum loves the idea of this because she’s African, obviously. But everyone in my household has been echoing this kind of way of life to me, I should submit to a man, I should submit to Yahweh, Allah (when I privately deconstructed a long time ago), I should act more like a woman and play my role as a woman, I should stop listening to the music I like I should stop dressing the way I like (it’s normal just a bit boyish). If this was just my parents doing this I could just ignore it, but it’s my siblings and it’s like a fuel for my mother also.

What really pissed me off is that my sister decided to talk to me and tell me randomly out of the blue she wishes that I could marry another African man so that in the future he would intimidate and humble me into submission and I would act like a proper wife, no lead up to that shitty statement fyi. She will also tell me she knows me and she knows that I always change my mind so in the future I will marry an African man and I would change the way act and be a better woman. Mind you, they were not raised around this extreme kind of thought we are Brit’s born in Britain I don’t know why they got this ideology from. It’s like an obsession with gender roles it’s very odd. But the rhetoric I’ve been hearing from my mom and my sister I think has been a fuel to my misogynistic brother also who makes odd sexual “jokes”. I’m generally very uneasy around him and prefer not to be around him. He is also violent and likes making threats especially after he started going to the gym and getting taller than my dad. My mother and sister would pander to him and any time I wouldn’t, they would call me aggressive. My sister would also act very pick me towards him for, lack of a better term, even though he is five years younger than her (she is 23 he is 18) and seeks his approval. This means that when I think that he is being misogynistic and I don’t pull up with his behaviour my sister positions me as aggressive, not it’s 2v1, and if my mum wants to get involved, she would believe those two over me without even wanting to know the situation. In those situations where I am not putting up with my brother’s behaviour after any kind of situation but my sister and my mum would echo “if he wanted to he could beat you, he is bigger than you so you better stay quiet.”. I’m just tired asf and want to stop hearing the normalisation of just straight misogyny. It happened so suddenly, it was nothing like this when I was a kid.

(Don’t grill me pls) So I’m a first time user and I watched a tutorial on how to assemble it and guy in the tutorial stated he switched the voltage to 115 because he learned the hard way he had to do that so I switched it to 115 but I learned the hard way that apparently bcs I’m from the uk it should actually stay on 230v. So I turned it on and it started smoking up like crazy, there was a minor leakage but I turned it off immediately. I’m so upset bcs this was my first time assembling and using a printer and I think I screwed everything up w 1 mistake. Anyways I would really appreciate it if someone was to let me know what to do from here. Thank youu. It’s an Ender 3 v3