u/afraid28

Did anybody else's mom do this? My mom has this very specific look and silence of disapproval when something is horrifically bad in her opinion. Kind of like when Miranda in The devil wears Prada purses her lips - disaster.

I once cut my hair rather short because I was struggling with chronic illness, hair falling out and being dry and shapeless. I was afraid because I loved my long hair, but I went for it. It turned out super cute !! So much healthier and prettier. I finally felt somewhat okay in my own body again.

I showed her and asked what did she think. Silence. I was the one pumping it up, twirling around, showing her how it flows, smiling from ear to ear. Desperately filling up the silence with my own praise for it because the silence was so deafening and awkward. She just kept staring at me with the stare that I've seen so many times, not saying anything, looking me up and down, judging me. I knew she thought it looked horrible. I'm also overweight so I know that she thought it emphasized that (she is a chronic fatshamer, always has been, just like the rest of my family).

She couldn't just be happy that I was happy. She couldn't appreciate that for once I felt okay about myself after going through really bad changes during that time when I first got sick (I still am). She would do the same thing about clothes, my makeup, the way I looked in certain outfits. Other people would genuinely praise me and make me feel good about myself, she wouldn't. Sometimes they don't even need words to hurt us.

The other day I saw a poll on Reddit where the question was about your relationship with your parents. The options were something like a) my parents are amazing and raised me with love, b) we had our ups and downs but we are okay, c) mostly bad with some positive memories and d) terrible with terrible upbringing.

I voted c) and then got kind of stumped when I saw the results. I don't know why, but I assumed most people would say the same. The reality was that well over 70% of people chose options a) and b), and options c) and d) were in the vast minority. It's moments like this that it hits me - oh, most people just... have normal parents I guess?

I think I'm so caught up in my own trauma that I just assume most people had the same life, too. Honestly it made me feel even more depressed and lonely about it all.

I'm overweight and would like to lose the extra weight to get rid of my insulin resistance and just feel better again. But everywhere I look, people in calorie deficit or just eating "healthy" eat literally everything I can't have.

I can't eat eggs because they make me bloated and exhausted. Raw tomatoes make it red and itchy around my mouth. Raw onions upset my stomach, and I only tolerate cooked onions and garlic in tiny amounts. Cucumber gives me heartburn. I avoid nightshades such as bell peppers and eggplants because they also cause uncomfortable symptoms for me. I can't just sit down and eat a salad because it irritates my stomach, causing immense pain - I need "padding", such as rice or bread or pasta to soak up anything that might bother me. I hate beans and they also make me feel gassy and weak. On top of everything, I have a bad gallbladder full of polyps and don't respond to fat in food very well.

I used to be able to eat bananas until they suddenly started making the inside of my mouth burn a few years ago and now I can't have them anymore. Can't have kiwi for the same reason. I used to be able to eat tomatoes but then had to stop even though they used to be my favorite. It's like I keep developing new food sensitivities all the time.

Other than literally just starving, I can't figure out a way to lose weight via diet. My allowed food list is slim (unlike me) and it gets boring fast, and it's also traumatic to constantly have negative experiences with food so it's easy to just go down the comfort food route. I'm also hungry often. I'm just venting because I'm exhausted from all these years of losing more and more foods by the year, but continuously gaining weight.

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I'm already scared of going outside and being perceived because I might embarrass myself. But people constantly recording and taking pictures everywhere is just the cherry on top of this anxiety riddled cake.

I also hate how people defend posting pictures and videos of strangers online, stating that it's legal to record in public places. Just because it's legal doesn't make it okay, imo. I don't want people taking pictures of me.

I just saw an "artsy" picture of a girl and a guy sitting on the floor in a secluded area in the city, and she was drinking water. The photographer titled it "Refreshment". Maybe the girl was feeling faint from the heat and was trying to recuperate. The guy was sitting very close to her and seemed worried. I have chronic conditions and I would be very upset if that was me in the picture, plastered all over social media.

I hate this incessant human need to take pictures of everyone, everywhere, and posting it online for likes from strangers. It's not even like they're professional photographers making money from it (even that is morally corrupt to me). This just makes me never want to go outside again, at least not where there's people. It doesn't feel safe.

I used to think I'd always love them even though they weren't good parents to me. But honestly? As the years went on, I literally felt myself slowly shifting away from love completely. What I feel now for them is mostly just a mixture of anger and fear. Afraid they're going to find me, they're going to find new ways to make my life miserable or drag me back down with them. Angry that they did all of this to me and that I didn't get the loving, supportive parents that I think everyone is entitled to when they're born.

I honestly feel guilty and ashamed to even feel this way.

I'm 30 and I don't have a single gray hair yet. Lord knows how that's possible with the amount of stress I've had, but I'm so grateful I made it this far with my hair the same as before, and I don't have to dye it yet. My hair means a lot to me.

What is something you can think of that makes you feel grateful to have in your life, and that they didn't destroy? It can be anything at all!

Hi, 30F not diagnosed but highly suspecting.

I spent my entire life unable to fight for myself in situations that mattered because I wouldn't understand the situation I was in. I oftentimes don't even get it that I'm being mistreated in some way until I'm completely out of the situation and think about it thoroughly later and/or talk to someone else about it for some input. Also, many times I misconstrue things that cause me to get into trouble, which adds another layer of fear.

For example, as a teenager I was at the doctor's office with my parents and the doctor handed me his referral and opinion that he typed out on paper. I noticed several typing mistakes and I thought that this makes an official medical file not valid anymore. So I pointed it out to him, thinking he would go "oh, thank you" and write a new, correct one. He shook his head and waved his hand at me and said "oh come on..." and was visibly annoyed, thinking I was being difficult for no reason. Both of my parents started scolding me as if I just called him a bad word. I was just worried about the validity of an important medical document and thought I was helping.

Many situations like that happened to me so I learned to just keep quiet to spare myself of the embarrassment. But now I have no clue when I'm actually supposed to say something, and when I'm just misunderstanding things. I don't want to piss off medical personnel if they're not done working with me, I don't want to upset people if I'm just being too sensitive, but I also don't want to let myself down or make people think that they can just walk all over me. It's really frustrating :(

I am a 30F, and I'm chronically ill and disabled. I wish dysautonomia was my only problem. I honestly barely survived to this age and I never worked a day in my life as college finished whatever was left of me off completely. I struggle every day with basic tasks.

I live in a tiny European country, I'm not on disability and even if I was, it doesn't help much. Where I come from, people rely on help from family in these types of situations. My family was abusive, they never took my illness seriously, they call me lazy, say that I'm faking etc. There is a long history of abuse and I have trauma from it. I don't speak to any of them anymore. I don't really have friends. I'm agoraphobic so quite isolated from the world.

I am financially dependent on my partner. And that is something I have no issue with as he takes better care of me than he does himself. I fully trust him.

But even if I didn't - all I ever see advised for women is to never be financially dependent on a man. Excuse me but, what the fuck are people like me supposed to do then? The most I could ever get in my country for disability (and that's only reserved for literally bed bound people with carers) is like 400 euros, which doesn't even cover half of the rent. My health has never been worse and is only on a downward spiral. Things are about to stay the same or get much worse, I just need to find out how much worse.

I am sick and tired of being made to feel like I'm doing something wrong or being stupid for depending on someone else, especially a man. He's my family and he is literally keeping me alive. I'm grateful for that and I don't have a problem with that. I just wish people realized that disabled and chronically ill people DO exist, and stop making us feel like we are making stupid choices in life when it's literally between life and death.

... I don't know how anyone can do this on a regular basis !!! I had to basically stumble around the house like a drunk person after I was done with one area, finding my way to the couch, and lay down under the AC from under which I do not intend to move anytime soon. Not to mention I had so many plans for cleaning because I was hit with a random cleaning spur, and I only did maybe 30% of what I had originally planned. Great 😐 now stuck on the couch.

P.s. I don't live in filth, my boyfriend does the vacuuming and mopping, but I wasn't satisfied with his job this time around and wanted perfection lol. Yeah I think I'll just get a robot vacuum whenever we can afford to 😅

I ran into a random video of this woman saying that her daughter is estranged from her and she has no idea why. In another video, she's crying about how her daughter called her from jail and she offered her to stay with her for a few days after getting out of jail. Then her daughter said she has decided to go to rehab. The mom says she apologized to her daughter for "everything" and for "how she made her feel". Then she said she let God take over from here as it was clear to her that she can't do anything else anymore.

So essentially her mom left her in her moment of need where she desperately needed help as she hit rock bottom and decided to go to rehab. That's all I hear from that. But this woman posting herself crying online garners sympathy from people and now there's a bunch of people hating on her daughter in the comments without ever even having heard her side.

I never seek out this type of content but it always somehow finds me on social media. Parents claiming that "they" (whoever that is) are teaching us medical lingo so we can tear families apart, parents quoting the Bible and talking about how God needs to save us. Completely oblivious to any and all responsibility. This is so triggering.

Does anybody else have a family full of secrets from each other?

In my family, there are things that are okay to tell mom, but not dad. She will actually tell you not to say anything to him and protect the secret, but then sometimes she immediately tells him stuff. She herself had a cancer scare once and threatened me not to tell dad at all that she's getting tests done. She literally kept that from her own husband.

There are also things I told my brother in confidence, but he immediately ratted out to mom. And then some things she kept to herself but some she immediately blabbed to dad. It's like there is a filter and she decides what is to be shared and what is for her ears only. She completely understands he's not safe to tell everything to, yet she still works with him behind my back. Brothers act like flying monkeys.

I grew so sick and tired of not knowing who knows what or why they do or don't know something. Tired of the "rules", that dad can't know something. Sick of telling my brother something private and then finding out years later he immediately told mom and they kept it a secret. Etc.

I really don't understand how anyone can like summer. Every single year I get so sick during it because of the AC, fan and constant temperature changes. Everyone always talks about the flu season during winter, but I haven't had the flu in so many years. I don't get sick at all during the cold months.

One year I had bronchitis for 3 weeks in the summer because I can't sleep any other way but with a fan directly pointed at me. I also can't sleep for very long either because sooner or later the heat wakes me up, and I often wake up feeling literally drunk, all dazed and confused from dehydration.

I'm currently fighting a mild sinus infection, it's nothing bad but it's extremely annoying because I keep having a bad smell like chlorine inside my nose, It's so congested and my voice gets all raspy. My immune system is basically shot to hell. Not to mention I can barely cook anything and have to blast the AC in order to get it done. Then I forget about the AC and sit down in front of it until I turn into an iceberg because my body is so numb to everything at this point and doesn't even realize I'm freezing because inside I'm so hot. I HATE SUMMER

I'm sorry if this isn't allowed as it might be rather depressing.

Yesterday, I was reminiscing about my past, although I'm only 30 (but I feel about 80). I remember a time when I had just turned 18. I felt like I had an entire world full of possibilities ahead of me, and I was SO excited to jump in. I thought that so much was still waiting for me and couldn't wait to get started.

Since then, my life has literally just been on a continuous downward spiral. Family abuse, falling chronically ill, getting worse, then becoming disabled, then damn near having a complete mental breakdown, crippling loneliness, being broke, more family abuse, becoming housebound, having to flee from my home because the situation in the family just kept getting worse. And now I don't speak to family at all or my best friend of 12 years because it took me 12 years to realize he was a raging narcissist who was just using me.

Yesterday, I was venting about all of this to my boyfriend and I asked him: when did you lose your spark? At what age did it happen for you? And he sort of just thought for a second and then said: it's still going for me, I still feel that way - like there's so many opportunities still waiting for me. I'm ngl, it stung. I literally can't even imagine that feeling anymore. It's long gone.

After I met my boyfriend and he told me about his family (and I saw how he interacted with them), I noticed that they were staying in touch but nobody was pestering him all the time. Like, they ask him how he is doing and showing general care as family should, but no one is ever forcing him to call them, or message them more frequently, or meet up with them, etc. He kind of just ... Does his own thing without their interference? The first time I took notice of that, my instinct said: wow his family doesn't care about him. But then I realized that it was actually what my family was doing that was wrong, not the other way around.

One time, my dad asked me where my brother was, out of the blue. My brother, who was in his late 30s by then, married, had a child and was long moved out. I said: I don't know, how am I supposed to know where he is? And my dad immediately scolded me: how can you not know where your own brother is? And acted like I was the crazy one. He keeps tabs on where everyone is at all times, and it was always expected of us to share our whereabouts at all times. My other brother moved across the planet for 5 years - they called him every single morning when it was evening for him. They knew every single thing he was doing and stayed in the loop. They still kept tabs on him from across the WORLD.

Did you ever have situations like that where you realized something they did just wasn't normal at all but you never knew that before?

I've been listening to a podcast that got me reading about plants and it seems like they are even more complex creatures than I initially thought.

https://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/surprising-plant-senses?\_\_cf\_chl\_f\_tk=5q6l7wgkT31xeDCbpj8WFZUIVrnrGSlikUAAN32m7oQ-1782758019-1.0.1.1-QVHNAVIM5OctBDEDwt5.kNV3.tw.Oh24i\_Z0WkpY0co

^Here's an interesting article that explains some very complicated processes that plants are capable of, such as communicating, remembering, learning, problem solving, heck, they can even be classically conditioned (like Pavlov's dog).

https://www.webitenola.com/journal/10-surprising-ways-plants-interact-with-humans

^This article explains how plants communicate with humans, they can even differentiate their caretaker from a stranger and respond to gentle touch.

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/sunday/plant-intelligence-light-eaters-1.7196448

^This article talks about how they can interpret sounds and recognize their own kin.

Knowing all of this, how intelligent in their own way they are, and the fact that it is still speculated whether or not they are actually conscious since they don't have a brain like animals do, I wonder what vegans think about this? What would they say to explain this all away? That just because a plant doesn't have a brain and can't scream it means it isn't somehow still sentient? What's their proof?

Does anyone else have equal if not worse problems with their narcissistic siblings?

My oldest brother is much older than me (12 year difference) and growing up he took care of me and I truly adored him, to a point where I often called him dad by mistake. He has always made sure I don't go without because growing up we were very poor.

But something changed after I grew up. Absolutely everything I do now, annoys him. When I still used to live with our parents, he would come by and complain about everything I did. If I turned the electric kettle on, I had to turn it off the second it boiled, otherwise he yelled at me in front of everyone across the room that the kettle is boiling, am I blind, am I stupid etc. He yelled at me if I made his coffee "wrong" by using water that was "too hot" and he even poured it out without a word in front of me once, or if I put the fire on the stove on high (he would literally come over and give me an entire lecture about fire), he was basically just monitoring me in the kitchen with everything I did and complained.

At the dinner table, he would ask me why I am laughing when everybody else would be laughing, too. He would criticize me and literally wouldn't shut up complaining about me while I was just trying to eat, and if I said absolutely anything to defend myself, my parents would immediately start yelling at me to respect my older brother and that I was being rude and to be quiet.

One year at Christmas I took pictures of him, his wife and his then 2 month old child, in all the pictures his hand is waving at me and his face is angry because he was yelling at me. Then he complained that the pictures were ugly and that I don't know how to even take a picture.

Eventually I stopped coming downstairs when the family got together. I left the house over a year ago. My brother has since told me that I have "isolated" myself from the family for years now anyway but that I should come back home for mom's sake (I am 30 btw). When I faced him with everything he did to me, he left me on read and hasn't spoken to me since.

And it's only just begun!!! 😭😭😭

I am agoraphobic also and I literally don't leave my apartment. I am laying under the AC in my underwear in the middle of the night and I am still feeling like someone shot me with a tranquilizer gun. I am drinking so much cold water, staying fed as best as I can and about to have a lukewarm shower to cool myself off. But omg 😭😭😭

I hate feeling like I'm literally slowly dying every single summer !!! I wanna move to the north of Norway or something and just live like a bear outside and roll around in the snow. The cold does not bother me at all.

Send help 😭😭😭 or better yet, send me off to the Arctic to live as a happy make believe polar bear