u/lilsoftwareguy

My best friend of 4 years and I had our first real argument over text after she recently moved to Korea.

A couple years ago, we both went through a painful friend group situation where we were excluded. I brought it up recently because feelings were coming back up, and we usually can beat a dead horse together. Instead, she told me I needed to stop dwelling and that bringing it up wasn’t serving me.

I told her it was fine if she didn’t want to talk about it, but not to invalidate me. She got defensive and said I was projecting and making her feel guilty for trying to be a good friend.

I tried to deescalate, told her that I just loved her and missed her and didn't want to fight, and she eventually admitted she was being defensive and wasn’t fully over the situation either. I thought we ended okay, though I was still hurt.

A few hours later, she said she was still upset and needed space. I said that seemed for the best. Then she blocked me on all platforms.

It’s been four days since being blocked and I’m really, really hurt. It feels punitive, especially because I wasn’t harassing her or refusing to give space. I know she’ll probably come back once she’s regulated, but now I feel vulnerable, like she can cut communication and then walk back in whenever she wants. She usually only does this to romantic partners.

I’m considering blocking her via text only so I’m not surprised/dysregulated by a message, while leaving another way open if she really wants to reach me. Should I? I'm also struggling to understand if I even want a friendship with someone that would block their BEST friend over one argument. Any advice is appreciated.

My best friend of four years who has BPD left the US to go back to Korea since her student visa ended. She's back living with family who historically has picked on her and treated her poorly as the youngest.

We both went through a harrowing friendship experience where we were excluded and ghosted by a group of girls unfairly two years ago. I recently have been feeling a way about that situation and tried to confide in her about it but she dismissed my feelings and told me that the things I was doing to cope were ridiculous and unhelpful and that I shouldn't be stewing about things that happened in the past.

When I tried to gently say that I'm allowed to still be processing the situation and if it was something she didn't want to talk about she didn't have to, she completely blew up at me and sent me paragraph after paragraph, saying that I was unfairly trying to make her out to be dismissive (never said that, though I did feel dismissed) when she was just trying to help. After I just said I loved her and just missed her and didn't want to fight she apologized and admitted she was defensive and trying to push what she thought I needed vs. what I was communicating. She also admitted she wasn't more over it than I was, she just didn't feel the need to be "digging around somewhere" she didn't need to.

I woke up to a text this morning saying "Hey queen Im still upset about how everything went down with this last conversation and im going to be transparent and let you know im taking some space so I can process everything so I won’t be reaching out while i do that." I said that was for the best and then she blocked me on everything.

I initially went to therapy because I thought I had BPD. After years of work my therapist said I don't qualify for the diagnosis anymore but this situation is really triggering me. My best friend and I have never argued so this is very painful that I tried to express how I felt just to be lashed out at. She usually only blocks her romantic partners when there conflict so this feels uniquely out of character and hurtful. It makes me want to block her back so than when she inevitably circles back around she can't reach me. I know that's not right or helpful. Any advice is appreciated, please be gentle.

My partner, who is a lesbian (they/them), and I, who am bisexual were chatting about a weird encounter I had a few years ago. One of the men I hung out with before we got together (but did not hook up with, didn't look like his photos) was apparently cheating on someone because she tried to come to my apartment and confront me but the front desk wouldn't let her up to my apartment.

This somehow turned into talking about my previous hook ups. They asked me if I had hooked up with multiple men before we became official and I said yes. They were shocked. They knew I had hooked up with plenty of men before them but they were shocked that it was more than one guy the summer before they decided they were ready for a relationship before we became official. I never hid this information from them, I just know they feel insecure about not being a man/have weird issues with masculinity and I didn't feel it was necessary to tell them about every hook up unless they explicitly wanted to know.

They then asked me if I changed the sheets before they had come over after I hooked up with the men... the thing was they weren't even on the continent when I hooked up with these guys. It was also FOUR YEARS AGO, before we were official. And of course I changed the sheets. But I immediately became upset and said that question felt inappropriate. I couldn't articulate well why I hated it, just that I felt slut shamed and like I was dirty or gross for having sex with men or something. They couldn't understand why I was upset and the convo escalated until I told them I'm not talking to them anymore and to leave me alone.

Am I overreacting for being offended by that question?

Edit: THEY apologized. Just because you don't agree with my partner's gender identity doesn't give you permission to misgender them. They admitted it was a dumb question and we got to the bottom of it. Thank you to everyone being respectful in the comments. 💛

My partner and I have been dating for almost 4 years. In the last two years, we've basically become a completely new couple from where we started. Little to no arguments, good communication, ability to work out our differences quickly. It's been amazing. Because of this, I've had a lot more bandwidth to just be a better partner and more attuned to both of our needs.

I've noticed that one thing they can't seem to do is be proud of themselves and celebrate themselves. They have a religious past where everything they've ever accomplished was only because of God and they themselves were never praised for their wit, effort, or talents. This has caused them to feel severe impostor syndrome whenever they achieve something.

They recently got a job doing web design after over a year of freelancing after being laid off. They are making six figures which they never have before. They're excited, but broke down and said that they feel incapable of internalizing their achievements. They are grateful I am proud of them, but they are sad because they were so stressed and anxious and doubtful throughout the interview process and they didn't need to be, especially bc the outcome was positive.

How can I support them in this? They are in individual therapy (or will be again soon, once insurance kicks in) and we also have couples' therapy as a space for us too. If you're someone that has struggled with self worthy, self esteem, and feeling worthy of nice things, what helped in that process? I told them we don't have to just do one celebration, we can celebrate multiple times too. I just would love advice on how I can support them in this process, they are unsure what will help. Thank you!

TL;DR: Partner can't feel proud of themselves for getting a great new job. How can I support them?

I got fired recently, then got hired a month later for a completely different role that I've always wanted to try. My partner was laid off over a year ago and has been struggling freelancing, but after deciding to change courses got a job offer for their current work but for an established company. We both negotiated our salaries up and my partner is now making six figures for the first time ever, after never making more than $60k a year, even less the 6 years they were in nonprofit.

I'm happy for myself, but I'm even happier for them. Their past manifests as not being able to be proud of themselves or attribute their accomplishments to themselves. This shift for both of us (I'm also making a bit more!) means that we can finally relax and have more meaningful self care and not stress about money and they can finally have bandwidth to pursue their hobbies because the anxiety of not thriving freelancing won't be as debilitating.

This means so much for us because we are both queer POC and I'm so excited for this next, comfortable chapter. 🥹

I just started a new job as an entry-level consultant. I have 3-5 years more work experience than the rest of my cohort, some of which are new grads. The first three weeks so far has been "self-directed" training modules.

It's a handmade course with videos for their archaic, proprietary data software. There are frequent times when the instructions are wrong, confusing, misleading, not relevant to the current version of the program we're using, and there's little documentation of how the damn thing works.

Because of this, and my software engineering mindset, I just bang my head against a wall trying to solve my own problems and I'm so far behind the others. You don't ask for help as soon as you get stuck, you try everything and THEN ask for help. In this situation, that was wrong.

I got feedback from the VP that I needed to 1. sit in the conference room with the rest of the cohort (I'd been sitting by myself because I couldn't tolerate all the random chatting) and 2. ask more questions. I fully agree with 2 but 1 is frustrating me a lot. I sat with everyone after being forced to and found myself just zoning out and unable to focus on the task at hand - I didn't even have questions, I was just moving ultra slow and even with noise cancelling headphones I couldn't seem to block them out. When I did get stuck the trainers couldn't even help me and after 2 hours I figured it out myself with AI.

I know what I need to do. The VP said only be stuck for a few minutes, not more like I was doing. They don't want me to try to figure it out, just ask to gain the tribal knowledge, which I will do. But every few hours I have to go and cry in the bathroom because of how painful it is to be forced to sit and work in an environment that isn't suited to my learning style. I know sitting by myself created its own problems (not being able to easily ask for help) but I feel like I'm in a lose-lose situation and fighting my own brain. Hating my ADHD brain more than ever even though I know it has so many advantages too.

I'm open to advice and would appreciate some encouragement. I miss working at the FAANG company I did my SWE apprenticeship at. There were so many places to escape to, mix up your environment, and everyone was really chill about what you needed to do for your own benefit. After training I will have that flexibility at this company luckily but I'm just having trouble getting through it. They are very nice about the feedback and want to support me, I can tell, I just have to figure this out.

TW: suicidal ideation

I have a friend, “Phyllis,” who I’ve known since 8th grade - over 15 years. We were best friends in high school, lost touch in college, reconnected after, and even lived in the same building for two years.

She’s struggled with mental health and low self-worth for a long time, especially around relationships. She tends to chase men who treat her badly, and recently her boyfriend of one year broke up with her in a really painful way after drunkenly crashing out at her cousin’s wedding and leaving the trip early.

After that, she was extremely anxious and heartbroken. He told her they could “revisit” things in two weeks after she begged for another chance, so for those two weeks I got a constant stream of “I miss him” texts and every sad thought she had. It felt like I had become her journal/crisis container.

When they finally talked again, she poured her heart out and he said he still wasn’t changing his mind. She spiraled and said she didn’t want to live anymore, though she said she had no plan. She’s said passive things like that before, but this time it scared me badly. Her mental state had already been weighing on me for weeks/months, and I ended up having my own breakdown on my second day at a new job (after work that is).

I eventually told her I couldn’t be her crisis container anymore and that she needed to consider more professional support beyond therapy. She apologized and respected it. We texted here and there after, but once the dust settled I realized I was angry, so I asked for a week of space. She apologized again and told me to take the time I needed.

Now the week has passed and I’m still mad.

I know it’s not her fault that she’s struggling. I know I overextended myself and got too involved. But I’m angry that I had a breakdown during my first week at a new job, then immediately got sick and have been sick for two weeks, probably because of all the stress. In my mind I’m blaming her for work not going well, even though I know that’s not fair.

The bigger issue is that our friendship hasn’t felt the same for a long time. Maybe years. We don’t really have fun anymore. It feels like I’m mostly counseling her, worrying about her, or helping her clean her very dirty apartment so she can get better. She’s not in a place to pour into me, and I’m realizing I’m not in a place to keep supporting her like this.

But ending or even seriously distancing myself from a 15+ year friendship feels extreme. I don’t know if things can get better, or what I’m supposed to do with all this anger and sadness. Any advice is appreciated.

Hey friends! I'm currently on a journey to reduce my weed usage and maybe be completely sober from all drugs, including alcohol, later in life.

I wanted to share my experience with harm reduction as it relates to weed. We often hear about that phrase in the context of hard/dangerous street drugs but it's also useful for thinking about weed usage too.

What is harm reduction exactly? Harm reduction is the process of making drug use safer, less frequent, and less impulsive without necessarily quitting cold turkey. My therapist recommended it to me the last time I quit cold turkey and was having a lot of anguish about not being able to smoke and fighting so many cravings.

Harm reduction looks different for everyone and is dependent on your lifestyle. For me, it looks like creating flexible, soft rules for myself around my usage. I posted my rules in a comment earlier but I'll reiterate them here:

- No smoking before workdays (allowed days: Friday/Saturday)
- No smoking by myself, especially out of boredom; replace with learning a TikTok dance, video games, or learning a new subject, all things I enjoy
- If someone offers me some when I'm out I can say yes even if not on allowed days
- I can smoke socially whenever
- No more than 2-3 hits of a cart per session due to tendency to abuse; after my current cart is done, switch to flower/edibles only
- Do not buy more than $100 worth of weed at a time

These rules are what work for me but it could be anything that helps you decrease usage and reduce cravings. The result since I've implemented these rules is that I've smoked only 7 days in the past 24 days, which has been enough for me to see a dramatic difference in myself. Because harm reduction does still involves using the drug of choice, it will take longer to recover from withdrawal symptoms and to see benefits but that tradeoff to me is worth it. For me I've noticed:

- I've had no "cravings" for weed when I'm alone; I've genuinely followed that rule and all the times I've smoked I've been out and about and hanging with people and it's been an addition to the experience rather than the whole experience
- Less guilt about smoking because I've been following my rules
- I cry and experience emotional highs so much more... I've cried 6 times in the past 24 days which is a LOT for me 😅 but I've felt much better expressing myself than having all emotions dimmed
- I'm more irritable but bounce back from negative emotions much more quickly
- My appetite is more normal and I can eat breakfast again, which sets me up to have a better day than not eating anything until lunch time (and even then before I would sometimes forget lunch too or only be able to eat after smoking)
- My focus and attention are much better (especially given having ADHD) and I'm "quicker"/wittier
- I remember and am able to do more positive things like drink water, proper hygiene, extra self-care, chores, on a more consistent basis, which just feeds back into positive mental and physical health
- My ADHD/other meds appear to be working better due to less weed and more water

Please keep in mind I'm not saying this will work for everyone - some people need a strict "no smoking" streak to feel like they're making progress and that's so valid and allowed and if it works for you, encouraged. Just letting people know to give this a try if they're having trouble going down from daily usage. Even decreasing usage a LITTLE has massive effects and I'm proof of that. Good luck! If anyone has any thoughts/comments/experiences please share to help others!

I "soft quit" weed about a couple weeks ago after being a daily smoker/user for 5+ years at this point. I tried to quit cold turkey a couple of times but would always return to it after being tempted once and starting again.

This time, I'm not so strict. If someone offers me some, I'll allow myself to have some. If it's Friday/Saturday I can smoke by myself if I want to (though I have yet to do so). If I do smoke, it doesn't break my "streak." I use a habit tracker app to track how many days I haven't smoked, but it's a forgiving app that counts reps instead of a streak.

Since quitting, I feel smarter, sharper, focused, and present. Only downside (?) is that I'm crying all the time. I've been very emotional - friend stressed me out, I sobbed. Started a new job and had one moment I didn't like my first day, I cried. Had an awkward moment (said "nice to meet you" to someone I'd already met and KNEW I'd already met, was just tired) last week and cried. I am feeling all of the things and didn't realize how much weed was dulling my spectrum of emotions.

Even though I'm crying a lot, it feels good to get it out and the highs are much happier. And I'm happy that even though I've smoked a few times since soft quitting I still am reaping the benefits of decreasing my usage overall. I also don't crave it anymore, so far. I do get tempted if someone else has some for some reason, but I haven't smoked by myself since committing, even though I still have plenty on me. Before, I'd have to smoke it all, then quit.

Just letting y'all know it does get better, and harm reduction does work to still improve your circumstances.

Remembering a moment when I was 4 in preschool. I already knew how to read and write. The teacher was playing a game where she would hold different objects in her hand, put her hand behind her back, show it to us again and ask us which item(s) were missing. I found the game really fun and I was answering faster than everyone else. She eventually snapped at me and told me to go away and that I was ruining it for everyone else. Nothing wrong with wanting other children to get a chance, but that turned out to be very damaging and it's sad that's one of my most formative memories.

Have you all been shamed for being smarter or more quick witted than others? If as adults, how did you handle it?

I recently got hired for an [Data] Associate Consultant role along with 4 other Associates. Not joking, all of them are new grads but me. 😅 Once I found that out I'm like surprised they hired me... I have 5-6 years on all of them. I have to learn the company's proprietary data migration tool and these kids are FLYING through the modules and my ADHD and old (joking) ass is taking a lot longer. I'm still on target to complete them on time this week so I'm not too concerned about that.

I guess I'm wondering if there's any specific way I should approach engaging them or anything I should keep in mind? They're not thattt far away from me but their age definitely shows in terms of naïveté. I don't want to come across as an old fart but I am obviously more professionally experienced but we'll all be working on the same stuff so I don't want to other myself or them. Advice appreciated, thanks!

Job offer at 75k for a role where they're hiring multiple people. Politely asked if they could offer 82k, shit myself after sending the email and regretted it immediately, and they still ended up giving me 80k after reiterating they think I'd be a great member of the team. So many mixed messages about negotiating in this job market but I feel like a decent employer won't pull your offer if you ask for more, within reason.

I don't even know if I can recommend negotiating rn but what I'll say is evaluate the employer at all phases - how they treat you as a candidate, how they engage with you, how they treat your effort and time. I only had to do 3 interviews before they made a final decision (have done up to 6-7 before), they were prompt and got back to me when they said they would, the whole process took less than 3 weeks, and there were green flags all around. Wouldn't have done it at all if there were significant yellow or red flags.

Started my new job yesterday after being fired (specifically not laid off) from my last one - family member passed and performance went down for a few weeks and rather than working with me they let me go. Wishing everyone still looking luck in finding a great opportunity, and if you are working, don't take it for granted.

I started a new job today and had a moment that really stopped me in my tracks, and at first, hurt me.

Our cohort is 5 people, and we were going around sharing our backgrounds. A senior consultant, who is white, was asking everyone thoughtful follow-up questions after they introduced themselves. He asked the people before me questions, got to me, said nothing besides basically nodding, and then just moved on, afterwards immediately becoming engaged again with the person after me.

I'm the only Black consultant in a predominantly white company.

At first, I was trying to convince myself maybe he just couldn’t think of anything to ask? But tbh that just doesn't sit right with me as true. He was coming up with questions for everyone else, even when it seemed like he was pulling the randomest/most tangential questions out of his ass. There were a million easy professional questions he could have asked me: what brought me here, what I’m excited to learn, how my background connects to consulting, etc.

I wouldn't necessarily go as far as to say this was racism, nor do I think he was even actively thinking "lemme exclude the only Black person here." But it was just so subtle and my body knew it immediately. He didn't extend social care and curiosity to me the way he did to the others in the cohort and it was felt by me, and he likely didn't feel like he had to examine himself or that it was a big deal.

Of course, I'm not going to treat him any differently or show up as less than my spunky self. I did write down what happened with the date though (which helped me feel better for some reason), and I will be watching for any patterns. He’ll be involved in our training for the next few weeks, so it's possible he'll redeem himself - who knows!

Have any of you dealt with something like this at work, where it's like "small" enough that other people might dismiss it, but inside your gut is telling you it wasn't nothing? How do you balance trusting yourself while not potentially blowing a moment out of proportion?

DM me!