u/dontsitdowngirl

I’ve been in 2 long term relationships with guys that turned out to be deeply in the closet. I fear I must be giving off some kind of energy that is a magnet for guys who are trying to convince themselves and everyone else they are straight. I’m very much a straight woman but maybe I don’t dress super feminine (should I change that??). I need to know what I’m doing wrong before I waste my 20s with guys who aren’t attracted to me at all and just having sex with me as a way to convince themselves. I’m approaching my late 20s now and don’t want to waste any more time.

I want tips on how to attract definitely straight guys or tips on how to deter closeted gay guys.

HELP lol

i’m moving house this week and it looks like a tornado in here. i truly don’t know where to begin with packing

i also am starting at a new job next week, and have a mountain of preparation to do. this would normally take up all my time and energy

not actually sure how im going to do this. super worried about letting things fall through the cracks. i’ve been trying to start for several days. i’ll do like 1 or 2 small things and then feel WAY too accomplished and decide to stop for the day and feel so tired

drowning here 😭

any tips for those weeks that just feel like an insane level of stress? i categorically cannot cancel or postpone anything it HAS to happen this week

I don’t want to push him to discuss it because I think it makes him a little depressed. He got a transplant from a living donor in their 60s when he was a teenager and is now over a decade post transplant. He said he has been feeling worse the past year and I have noticed a change in the way he smells. He is obviously being regularly monitored by his renal team.

He has said that if he goes back on dialysis that he should still be relatively self sufficient and that he wouldn’t ask me to be a full time carer and would just be less able to cook and clean around the house for a while.

We don’t have any family to lean on (neither of us do in this country at least) and we don’t have high paying jobs.

I guess to me it sounds like a pretty extreme condition and I’m wondering what to expect. It’s not that I don’t trust him, I just know that he avoids talking about it. We have been together for 3 years and live together.

Feel free to remove this post if it’s not allowed

anyone here have tips (mental or otherwise) on how to gamify:

• saving money (i am so so bad at that)
• exercising regularly
• getting work done quicker
• cooking and eating healthy
• abstaining from vices (binge eating or drinking)

i’ve tried those habit apps like habitica but there were too many moving parts and it felt too complicated.

My relationship has been going downhill for a while and we haven’t been intimate in over a year except for a couple times where we tried and it was so bad we stopped like 5 mins in.

We have definitely become codependent. I rely on him to cook a lot and he is emotionally illiterate basically and i do all the emotional labour.

He has bipolar, PTSD, and a terminal illness (and i suspect he is very autistic). I am terrified to break up with him because all I can picture is him having a medical crisis and me not being there to help him. i can’t stop crying whenever i think about it. we broke up for a short time 2 years ago and got back together within a day because i couldn’t stop picturing him dying.

We have been living together for 2 years in the same bedroom but in a larger house with other people. Now we are looking for a flat just the two of us and I am getting really anxious about it.

I don’t know why he never brings up relationship issues it’s always me that brings it up. He usually gets defensive or starts excessively blaming himself and I end up comforting him.

We have both agreed not to think long term anymore. He doesn’t want to think long term because his illness is progressing and he gets depressed thinking about the future. But his drs have said if he takes care of himself he could live til he’s middle aged which is still really upsetting to me as someone who cares about him but we’re in our 20s now so a while away.

I don’t see myself marrying him or having kids with him. 3 years with him has passed so quickly. We’re best friends and get along really well. He’s helped me and supported me through finding out my ADHD diagnosis.

I’m worried that people will think i used him to get more stable and then left him when i became stable. I worry that people will judge me for leaving him alone while his health is declining.

I’ve just quit drinking because while i was with him i started binge drinking every day because i became stressed about certain things.

We haven’t introduced each other to each others friends and it’s been 3 years. But we’ve both met each others family.

My parents have told me they don’t like him.

He also has a past history of violence but that was when he was a teenager and had a psychotic breakdown. I’ve never seen that side of him and he’s generally sweet to me

I just feel like i can’t make a bloody decision in my life and i’m going crazy because i don’t know whether to sign the new rental contract with him

my ex was emotionally controlling and possessive but this guy has been so much nicer to me and sweet and kind in comparison. but i think I get a 3 year itch and it’s happening now.

my mother was a SEVERE helicopter parent who never taught me how to do anything and never let me do any chores. she said it was my job to study and be academically successful. she also never fed me enough and i looked emaciated until my early 20s.

i suspect she has ADHD as well but doesn’t have enough self awareness or humility to admit that she’s not perfect.

it’s no wonder i’m so dysfunctional today. i can barely cook, clean, and bathe and im 25. all i can focus on is my career because i have to prioritise money.

• i was called “lazy,” “selfish,” a “bitch,” and even “evil” constantly

• i was locked in my room for entire days with nothing to do but cry and rip my hair out

• i was isolated from my friends as punishment for forgetting things and because i wasn’t “organised enough” to have friends

• my favourite belongings were constantly thrown in the trash. she would buy me a nice thing and then throw it away 2 days later and i would never see it again. i never learned how to take care of things

• she used to brush my hair like she wanted to rip it out and i have wavy/curly hair

• when i started getting bullied by a teacher and developed facial and vocal tics both of my parents screamed at me at the top of their lungs until they were blue in the face and hoarse whenever i twitched my mouth or couldn’t stop repeating a word

• my mother would leave me on the side of the road in an unknown neighbourhood in the middle of the night as punishment for saying something that didn’t follow her perfect daughter script

• i would constantly have to compliment my mother’s parenting skills and say she was better than the “asian tiger mums” (she was racist) at my school

• i always had to smile around her and it had to look genuine or she would freak out and scream and cry

• when my younger brother started displaying autistic traits she said he was a sociopath and evil and simultaneously spoiled him rotten. to this day he is violent and punched me in the face on vacation (he is 21). after he attacked me i went to my mum and begged her to take him to therapy and then she burst into tears and went and hugged and consoled HIM and just rewarded the behaviour. i slept in the bathroom with the door locked. i don’t speak to him anymore

• when my kindergarten teacher told her i was getting distracted in class, she moved me to another school after forcing me to do an IQ test and said that teacher was not doing her job and i was “too smart” and just getting bored

• anytime i was bullied at school and experiencing RSD she would be like “what did you do to upset them?” and make sure that she sided with the bullies and told me to go and suck up to them and fawn

• she left her pedo father alone with me a lot and he would walk in on me showering sometimes. he didn’t do anything else thankfully but he was always “massaging” us kids

• my friends had to secretly bring me cooked meals in high school because i was passing out on the floor from iron deficiency and she would still only pack me a tiny bag of carrots and a mandarin for lunch - and i wasn’t allowed to pack my own lunch

• to this day she says i was an awful, angry, bitch as a child and teenager and that she’s glad i finally became her friend. little does she know im grey rocking hard core and only able to be so chill because i live in another country now.

• oh and my dad? he has never stood up to her or defended me once!! i used to think he was my good parent, but he just watched it all happened and occasionally joined in on the abuse.

i will never forgive her for the way she treated me, for the lack of support despite MULTIPLE teachers saying i was neurodivergent.

her mistrust of people outside the family unit, intense paranoia, anti vaxer anti medicine mentality, and fear of “labels” has fucked me up so badly.

she is the reason i will never want kids and she is the reason i believe so strongly in ADHD treatment and support. unfortunately, due to living in the UK i still have no access to any help for an undefined period of time due to an ever lengthening waiting list (ive been on it for 2 years).

im so tired

For all the times when I’m happy that I’m making this decision, there are also times where I feel bad for parents who made the decision to have kids and it turned out to be a burden or not what they expected.

I have never felt less like gloating. I feel sad for people who will have to be lifelong caretakers because their child was born unable to function normally.

I also feel sad for the women around the world who don’t have the choice to not have kids.

But I still also feel sad for myself, because it feels like all my friends and people I have dated in the past are going down this path, and so many doors closed for me. My childhood crush told me recently that he can’t wait to be a dad, and it made me sad because it made me realise we were never compatible.

Idk, I’m feeling mopey.

EDIT: because I just realised it’s unclear - the children had Down’s syndrome not the mother

I can’t quite believe the amount of fair skinned people (and just people in general) I’m seeing out without hats or UV protection on while the UV is 8+ during this heatwave. How are they not extremely uncomfortable?

It’s making me feel self conscious for wearing my huge wide brimmed hat and white UV jacket.

Also, i feel like people are looking at me like I’m paranoid but I’m probably having more fun than them lol I’m probably a few degrees cooler

EDIT: since this post is getting some attention i thought i would add on to look up Jessica Zbinden-Webster and her petition to ‘Axe the SPF Tax!’ Did you know that sunscreen is taxed as a luxury cosmetic item in the UK? The government needs to catch up to the climate!

EDIT 2: i feel bad for the medical system that has to deal with all of you creating problems for yourselves

EDIT 3: the amount of people trying to shame me for caring about public safety is actually hilarious! you people are miserable