u/square_daikon

This might be a shot in the dark here but I'm taking some friends on a hike and I'm trying to find places that won't be too crowded but will still be impressive. Looking for something short, around 3-4 miles, and it will have to be a weekend hike. Highly prefer Angeles National Forest since I'm in LA and they're closer to Baldy, but open to suggestions...

Some I have already considered are Brown Mtn Dam, Switzer, JPL, etc but I'm worried there will be way too many people. Does anyone know a sweet spot?

I want to see em at Snapdragon in San Diego bad and am willing to drop 5-600 but it's steep as hell. Think I can pull waiting until April?

I have a coworker who was out on leave. During that time, I got promoted and took over all of her work. She came back to a role she has to share with me, and I get the sense she is now worried about her job security. She has been very impatient and critical since then, in a way she hadn't been before her leave. Since she is my senior, I am a bit worried that her word matters a lot more than mine when it comes to who should be getting credit for the work that's being done, or whether something could have been executed better. We also work in a very nuanced space, so our manager doesn't usually understand the specifics of what is going on, only the results.

My coworker has mentioned to my face that she will be giving me lots of negative feedback for things that I feel are overly embellished and not warranted, but I am not sure what she is telling my manager. I am trying to figure out if I need to be raising this explicitly to management or if this is something that managers keep an eye out for/can pick up on. I'm just afraid that this is going to devolve into a whole lot of "he said, she said," especially because much of the stuff we do is so technical that it would be hard for me to show cold proof to my manager that I did what I said I've done. Do you guys normally catch on when there's this kind of dynamic on your team, or do you generally only know what we tell you?

(I'm 21.) Some of the biggest complaints I hear about young people these days is that we are too online, too asocial/socially awkward, and are completely illiterate. What I find funny about this is that the old people I meet are exactly the same. What, exactly, compels old folks to criticize us so harshly when their peers are doing the SAME things? I'm not saying that, oh, old folks have other flaws, I'm saying they have the EXACT same ones.

Recently I was using the bathroom when an older woman (looked about 40) knocked on the door. She knocked multiple times despite my having called out that I was inside. I quickly texted my friend to ask if there was a line since my stomach was really hurting but I needed ten minutes. My friend assured me that the only one waiting was the lady, who'd at that point been at the table in front of us for about an hour and could have literally at any point gotten up before I did. I decided to use up the rest of my 10 minutes when I heard the woman loudly complaining to the staff that there was something wrong with me and I was inside probably filming TikToks of myself. Mind you, I have not had TikTok since the year it came out. Furthermore, we could see her at the table the whole time watching YouTube videos on her phone, out loud, no headphones. This is only one instance of me seeing an older person out and about with their nose buried in their cell phone, and yet they turn around the instant they see a teenager and complain about how we dont know how to function without technology. Right......... Because old people aren't chronically posting on Facebook or Instagram or otherwise.

Now brings me to social awkwardness and illiteracy. As someone who loves to read, it's fascinating how many older people think it's socially appropriate to come up to me and tell me how impressed they are that I read when "kids these days" don't do any of that. My favorite response is to ask them whether they read, because usually none of these old people do. The older generations are just as illiterate as the younger generations. Surprise, surprise, many people don't read IN GENERAL. And if you were to find people who read, itll be in a damn library, not out in the streets. I also find it ridiculously socially unaware to be saying such rude things to people. Why would you tell me that? If I had a nickel for every time...I'd have a dollar!

Also, yes, sometimes I'm asocial with older folks. I'd be the first to admit that. But it's on purpose. For starters, I've made small talk with colleagues before, but by God, I don't want to hear for the fiftieth time that your baby burped, or said their first word, or crawled, or whatever. If anything, shouldn't one's ability to socialize be predicated upon a knowledge of what is appropriate to talk about? Not just spewing out whatever the hell you want. What is someone fresh out of college to say when you bring up your child for the fiftieth time? I'm running out of responses besides "Wow, cool!" or "Man, is your kid still 3 years old? Sheesh, another year until age 4? Wow!" Moreover, old folks very rarely have things to even talk about. I once asked a colleague what her hobbies are (in my industry most people are much older than me). She said she mostly takes care of her kids now, but when she was my age, it was trying out new restaurants and talking to friends.... And people say that Gen Z has no hobbies. I also don't think older people are more up to date or knowledgeable on current events, geopolitics, or finance. I work in the finance industry and my 40 year old coworker asked the other day who Jerome Powell was. The other twenty somethings and I just looked at each other.

I wouldn't be so damn defensive about this generation if it weren't for the fact that older folks think it appropriate to make a big fuss about younger people's issues to our faces. It's not even an online thing. I'm always being told in person that young people don't read, or young people blah blah. Hell, that bathroom incident was a couple days ago.... Blew my mind. If I did have a TikTok, why the hell would I make TikToks on the toilet?! Unbelievable behavior.

I live in an apartment. The first time I came home to a gas smell about 4 months ago, I called apt maintenance and opened all the windows. Maintenance did some looking around and said there was no issue and left. The next day, I came home to the smell again, so I shut off the gas line, called maintenance, they said nothing was wrong. So I called the fire dept, they said they couldn't detect anything, and finally I called the gas company, and the guy who came said we had a leak in the gas line and the regulator in our utilities closet wasn't up to date or working properly. The apt staff came and fixed both and the gas co verified it was fine.

A week later, the smell came back. This time the gas co said it was the stove regulator and that it was leaking and we would need to replace our stove. We did and the smell went away.

A month later, smell comes back. Gas co says the new stove is not working. We found out the apt had given us an old stove and so this time they were forced to get a brand new one. Everything was fine.

Fast forward to now. Two months and the smell is back. Gas co said regulator isnt working again. Apt came and fixed it. I was out on vacation when all this was happening so my roommate took care of it, but today my closet stinks strongly of gas (it had a couple days ago, then the smell went away, but now it's strong...I had the door closed so I'm trying to air out). But what the hell is happening here? Can our stove have really been leaking gas 3 times in a row??? Along with all these other problems? We aren't doing anything crazy with the stove. I have never had this issue before. We just cook on it. And I would have thought it was maybe the smell of an animal in the wall or something, but the gas co verified all these times that the readout was picking up gas...

One way return trip in coach to LA in 2 days. Read that I should try to get on the right side of the train if I want good views. What else should I be prepared for?

I just spent 2 weeks hiking thru Washington so I don't think I have any space in my carry on luggage or backpack for the nice-to-haves, like a cooler for food or anything -- but I can manage some space for instant ramens, etc. I read that the cafe car should have food, but how much food? I eat a lot so afraid of being hungry. Also read that the coach seats recline quite a bit and I'm 23 so i'm ok with being slightly uncomfortable.

And if i'm going up to the observation car, do most people leave their stuff at the seat? Have you found that it is generally safe/OK to leave stuff while checking out the other cars? I'll have my valuables on me at all times but not sure how often people are moving around, etc

I am an East Asian woman. The only man I have ever dated was Mexican (not the white passing kind). Of my East Asian friends, they are all dating East Asian, Indian, or Hispanic. We are from California, so we are exposed to every single race.

I'm saying all this to make my opinions seem more "valid." That being said, it would make my opinions no less valid had I dated a white man instead.

It baffles me whenever I hear an East Asian man complaining about Asian women's dating preferences, genuinely. Many of the East Asian men I have grown up with either constantly accuse me of wanting to date white, although I have never been involved with a white man, or they accuse me of hating Asian men simply because I dated Mexican and have historically been attracted to darker features. When I meet Asian women who are dating white men, it's generally because they are in communities full of white men.... Do people expect Asian women to just not be attracted to who they grew up with or something? How can you complain about seeing Asian women with white men when you live in Tennessee, or relationships where the couple clearly loves each other and the man treats her well? Also like...do you actually know "a ton" of Asian women/white men couples or do you just feel like you do? I actually rarely see Asian women with white men here in Los Angeles, it's usually Asian and Asian. I asked an Asian guy this recently because he was complaining about this exact issue and said all his female Asian friends were not dating Asian. I was like, literally what female Asian friends? You don't have any, and that actually explains a lot!

Both in my relationship and outside of it, I have heard unprompted judgments IN REAL LIFE from Asian men about my sexual and romantic preferences. I have also received these unprompted judgments when walking around with my white friend who is gay. In school, the two demographics who bullied me the most in school FOR MY RACE were East Asian men and white men.

I get that some Asian women really do just like white men because they are "white worshipers," but at least for Asian Americans these are few and far between. The sentiment against Asian women is far worse, not to mention that for some reason a non-Asian now cannot be attracted to Asian women without it being judged as a "fetish." Have people considered that attractive women are just attractive and attractive men, also just attractive? I feel people need to go outside and actually look at the couples hanging out in the mall or walking down the street instead of allowing the Internet to influence their incel mentality.

I know this question has gotten posted before, but hoping some new clubs or groups have popped up since then??? I am in my early twenties and would love to find people to do consistent hikes with. I'm not a crazy 20 miler but a nice 5 mile hike on the weekends would be awesome, or hikes that are done outside 9-5 hours.

I'll probably get the usual "what's wrong with older people" question and so I'll address it here. I simply have nothing in common with people in their late thirties or forties. I wouldn't mind so much hiking with older women, but I have found that when I'm hiking in groups that skew older, only the older men are interested in making extensive conversation...and it's always very clear that they are testing the waters for a romantic or sexual relationship.

Not really looking for groups like 5 am crew, which is super cool and popular but still majority older folks

TL;DR feel like I'm not getting any direction but I'm not sure if this is normal. Am I overreacting due to lack of workplace experience?

I've been at my company for a little under 2 years. This is my first FT job out of college. I've always considered myself to be pretty self-directed and I don't have a problem just doing whatever I think is right without consulting other people. I also don't have a problem consulting others. I work in finance, so it's a balance between close collaboration and independent work.

I'm really struggling to figure out if my dynamic with my new mgr is normal, however. Hes technically my second mgr, not part of my core team, and we're working together on expanding/globalizing a new team and also on some other related projects that are very top-down (i.e., in a meeting it might be a director, a sr mgr, him, and then me), so it's not necessarily something where I can see how he works with other associates.

I have really loved the leadership experience I'm getting, but I have a sinking feeling that he's not letting me take the reins because he trusts me or is willing to be my advocate... I kind of have this feeling he doesn't care. The thing is, I can't PROVE it. But I just feel it. I'm not sure if it's an adjustment period because he's supposed to be taking over all the responsibilities of the previous mgr, but we've been working together on this other long term project and I just genuinely don't even know what he's doing there or why he's involved. I get that as an associate I'm supposed to be doing the grunt work (I.e., reaching out to folks, documenting, etc) while management focuses on company vision, so maybe I'm overreacting, but I also feel like I'm not getting any direction from him at all on how to execute on our vision. He'll set up meetings with a ton of people to intro and I'll be proactive because I dont want to be in a meeting where we kind of just introduce ourselves instead of doing anything productive. So I'll ask him if I can set up agenda slides and presentations and talk about X, Y, and Z and whether he wants to cover anything. He always says "that's fine." After meetings I feel like I should schedule follow-ups with individuals and also give visibility to leadership, so I do all that and write out my emails, documents, presentations, etc. The whole time, he's not involved at all. I give him visibility to what Im doing but I just feel like he has no insights to offer???

He does have a fancy presentation on what he wants our efforts to accomplish, so I'm not sure if that's what a manager is supposed to do -- take care of the broad goal -- and I as the associate am just supposed to figure out how to run things in order to fulfill that goal. I have tried setting up 1:1s with him, pinging him for specifics, etc, but he's either just fine with everything I do or he gives a really vague but long response. I'm actually posting on Reddit because I'm 99.9999% sure that the answer he pinged me today was AI. I was asking him (more formally than this) what his goal was for setting up a bunch of meetings since it seems like they're redundant. I asked if there was an agenda or if we would have time to cover the things I thought were important to cover, such as figuring out what specifically we want those people to do and to explain to them what we've already been doing, since we shouldn't be bringing folks into the fold so early if theyre not going to be doing any work? I kind of feel like he just wants to promote the fact that he's "expanding globally" as promised to sr mgrs but in practice it's not practical execution.

Anyway, he responded by basically saying he was thinking of using the 30 minute meeting time as just introducing ourselves to each other and that we would probably have time for what I wanted to cover. I asked him the goal of these meetings moving forward and that's when he sent me this Ai-generated response about expansion.

Am I crazy??? I feel like I don't have anyone to talk to about this. I tried talking to my core manager, but it's kind of hard to explain when I'm not sure if this is normal and I also don't want to be seen as a shit-talker who needs to be hand held.

I'm 23. I do have some dating experience with people my own age -- I had a 2 year relationship with another 23 year old. However, I never felt the intense passion and lust that I do with men who feel like my older brother or father. It's almost obsessive and it's scary how quickly I fall for older men who are really kind and encouraging.

In my 2 year relationship (first and only), we did end up splitting for incompatibility reasons, but I remember doubting the relationship a lot for the first several months because even though we got along well, I just didn't feel as intensely as I thought I should. It was only later that I realized I don't experience such intense emotions unless the guy feels...paternal. My ex also looked much older than his age due to premature wrinkles and was very self-sufficient/lived alone etc, and there were times where I felt he "parented" me as well because we trauma bonded a bit over emotional neglect and he said I reminded him a lot of who he was when he was still seeing his parents more frequently. I definitely liked him more after finding out about his background. Despite all that, we did have a mostly healthy and communicative relationship, but I'm very concerned that I might fuck up in the future and make poor decisions because what I feel versus what I think I should do don't align. I currently am heavily attracted to my coworker, whom I rarely even see since we don't work together anymore, but he's in my head at all hours of the day and I constantly replay all the kind things he's told me that I recently realized I've never heard before from an older adult

How am I supposed to form (or trust) healthy romantic connections if my emotions are constantly guiding me towards paternal figures? I feel like I seek out a father figure wherever I go

This will be my first solo trip. I'm a pretty small woman so kind of nervous and just looking to mitigate the anxiety by getting some feedback on general plans. Some concerns -- safety, travel time/burning myself out.

Here's what I am thinking...

2 days Coast Starlight from LA to King Street Station. Arrival time is 8 pm which I don't love, but thinking I could then take the light rail to Seatac and pick up my car rental from there. It doesn't seem like there are many open rental options at this time. Would the area be sketchy? I'll have a backpack and large suitcase with me.

I plan to stay in an AirBnB in Ashford for 3 nights. First day, Skyline Loop -- but I think I might be exhausted so may switch this with the third day. Second day, Burroughs Mountain Loop. Third day, Bench and Snow Lakes trail + Naches Peak Loop.

Fourth day, drive from Paradise to Forks. I'm a bit nervous I'm going to be really tired having to come back from Forks but I really want to cover both Rainier and Olympic.

Fifth day, 5-Mile Island Hoh River Trail. Will probably do a couple short ones as well, looks beautiful. Sol Duc probably.

Sixth day, Rialto Beach Trail.

Seventh day, maybe start making my way slowly back to Seattle or do more hiking.

Eighth day, either do the full 6-hour drive or relax. I would probably try to stay close to thei airport in a hotel before heading to Seatac early in the morning the following day to catch the Amtrak back to LA.

Am I trying to do too much? I could add a rest day and do a total of 11 days, or maybe try to pack bigger hikes into the same day. I could fly back as well or maybe fly there and then take the train back.

Warning: there are detailed descriptions of physical violence.

I'm 23 now and it's taken me years to come to terms with the fact that much of my childhood was miserable, but when talking to friends, I realize I did have some adverse experiences. Teachers reported my dad to CPS twice, I was beaten nearly daily -- sometimes multiple times a day and oftentimes for reasons completely unrelated to me, I went to the hospital for concussions twice, there were some weeks where I would sleep sitting up in bed because the back of my head was covered in welts and even lying down on the pillow hurt me, I had scars on my back from being dragged across carpet that took 2-3 years to fade, my room was trashed and items thrown around, I was slapped and choked, and though my father generally never threw punches, I still sometimes ended up with bruises, and I always had welts from his ring. I have some diary entries from when I was 12-13 that discuss how much I hated myself and how I was a "pussy" and "crybaby" who had to resort to self-harm. My father was actually aware of the self-harm and told me I should cut deeper, among a great many other things like how disgusting, repulsive, and worthless I was, and how he wanted to throw up looking at me. I was told things like this every single day for a decade.

Now that I am older, I find myself reflecting on how big a mental toll that really had taken on me, especially with my current friends, who I have begun to realize might never understand what that kind of constant abuse does to a person. It was relentless, starting in the mornings before school to the afternoons after school to the evenings before bed. I lived in a constant state of fear and self-hatred. I had a very hard time making friends or socializing, and people thought I was weird for always wearing long sleeves. I used to skip first period to go cry in the bathroom because my father would hit and yell at me in the car on the way to school, but eventually I accumulated so many tardies and absences that the school called me into the principal's office and reported the issue to my parents. So for a year or so in high school, I would show up to first period, start crying, and then spend the rest of it in the bathroom. It was a humiliating experience. Fortunately, I went to a small private high school where kids were more inclined to leave me alone and not talk to me than bully me for being a crybaby, and so that ended up being one of the greater privileges of my life, since if I had been bullied in school on top of everything at home I would have probably taken my life.

I know that what I went through can't exactly have been "not a big deal" because I was a very emotionally unstable kid, though I never really thought about it until more recently, always passively viewing it as just a "kid" thing. I would try to sell myself or do fucked up "dares" for money; cut, burn, and hit myself resulting in many scars that I have to this day; punch walls and doors; go completely mute; have periods of extremely heavy dissociation where I would blink and suddenly not remember who or where I was, sometimes embarrassingly in very public spaces, where I would realize I had no idea what I was doing there or what I was supposed to do. When eating, I would select seats where I had my back to the wall because at home whenever I sat at a table to eat, I would usually get hit from behind or thrown off my chair. There were a few times in high school where my sports coach (the only adult I really had any prolonged interactions with) would wave his hand while speaking and I would flinch or raise my hands in defense. I was a very twitchy kid. Then later on in high school there were periods of hypersexuality, drug abuse, humiliating myself for money, etc.

What makes it so difficult for me to validate my abuse is that the adults in my life never stood up for me, and the only people who cared were my friends. So I always felt like I was manipulating my friends. Everyone who met my parents always had good experiences with them, and much of my childhood was also happy -- great Christmas gifts, opportunities to travel, a great education, etc. When I was in elementary school, my dad was reported to CPS because a school nurse had been confused why I kept saying my back hurt but wouldn't explain why. When the social worker came over, she saw I had no bruises. My dad also told her that I had probably reacted poorly because he had yelled at me and shouldn't have. When she asked why he'd yelled, he told her it was because I purposely put my greasy, food-covered hands on his face. She couldn't understand why I'd done that and kept asking "why." But I was nine. I didn't know how to explain why. (Answer: I had eaten a pizza 30 minutes before and wiped my hands on a napkin, thinking that it was a sufficient cleaning. I'd wandered over to my dad seeking affection and had reached out to cup his cheeks with both hands. He was working at his desk and was stressed, which I didn't understand. He leaped up and shoved me to the floor and slapped me, screaming about how disgusting and filthy I was.)

In middle school, we showed up to a family dinner one day. My extended family is very tight-knit and we used to get dinner together every week. My dad had been hitting me right before this and I ran out of the restaurant and broke down on the curb. My aunt and uncle followed me and I started sobbing about how tired I was of "being hit and yelled at, even though I knew I sounded spoiled." My aunt laughed and told me she hadn't said that. She then turned to my uncle and said, "See? I told you they weren't perfect." That moment is burned into my brain. My aunts and uncles were always jealous of my family for being wealthier and more successful. We had all come from the same opportunities, so my grandparents would kind of compare their kids, asking why X and Y hadn't turned out like my parents when they were given (or not given) the same things. That moment showed me that I was totally alone. It was a really bad, humiliating feeling.

Also in middle school, my mom and I would get into arguments before school and then she would take me to the principal's office, explain the argument, and ask them to make me apologize. One day I snapped and started crying (in public btw! in front of my peers!) about how I only swore at my mother because she was always calling me stupid and useless. One teacher took my side, the other took my mom's side. At my middle school graduation, the teacher who took my mom's side came to me and gestured to my huge family that had showed up. (At the time, was feeling very miserable because even though I had skipped a grade, I hadn't gotten into the top-ranked private school in the area and my dad was telling 12 year old me daily what a pathetic loser I was and how disappointed in me he was.) "See?" she said. "Do you realize now how lucky you are?"

In high school, my grandpa (mom's side) would tell my dad not to hit me, but I don't think he knew the extent of it, nor did he know about the verbal abuse. Also, the difference between me and the older generations of my family is I grew up privileged, whereas they had to work very hard for their lifestyle. So my grandpa would constantly tell me how lucky and spoiled I was. I would agree because I was grateful for my opportunities, but it made me feel hateful too. It didn't mean anything to me that my dad would make a point to show up to all of my games and graduations, because he would always tell me how terrible I was, how stupid and pathetic and worthless I was. I would cry after every game. Even when I was placed in "first team" for the county for my sport for private and public schools and was in the local news, my father threw the award to the ground and said that if I had managed to place highly, it was because everyone else must be a fucking loser, and I shouldn't let it get to my head because everyone probably thought I was a loser anyway, and that would never change, etc, etc. I still remember this moment... I had been so excited, thinking he would be proud of me, asked if he wanted to know what the giant plaque in my hands was, only for him to say no.... It is so brutal and humiliating, literally begging someone to be proud of you....

My grades suffered a lot because I was always so miserable that it was hard to focus. You can tell that it really was an issue of environment because generally people will say college is more difficult than high school, but I graduated high school with a 3.4 and college with a 3.75 in a difficult major. Since my high school graduation year was covid year, we did a drive-through graduation and I remember crying in the car because my dad was telling me that the college I was going to was for lowlifes and stupid pieces of shit who would inevitably waste their lives and their parents' money. Ironically, I could have gone to a higher-ranked school, but my parents also had a condition that the school they paid for had to be close to home. I just cried a lot that year in general. I cried in line TWICE while waiting to take the SAT because my dad had beaten me prior to the exam the first time and my mom told me that maybe I was too stupid to do well the second time. As I write this I begin to think that maybe I'm so confident now because the amount of very public humiliation I endured as a kid has given me unimaginable strength, lol.

Also in high school, I got really drunk at a team party one night and confessed to how much I hated myself and how stupid I was and how tired I was of being hit, and then a group of people I really looked up to reported my dad to CPS, which is how CPS came into my life for the second time. My teammates never talked to me again because of how awkward our relationship had become, and I was never close to them in the first place because I had severe social anxiety and people only became nice to me when they saw I could play. Per some friends who knew them, supposedly they were very concerned about me, but they never spoke to me again, and the last time I talked to them I was crying, so it really didn't encourage my faith in people. They kept the case open for months even though we kept saying that everything was fine and my teammates had just made a mistake, and it's true that my dad rarely hit me again after that, but the criticism didnt stop, and during the months where the case was open, he didn't speak to me. Already he would always alternate between hitting me or ignoring me. He could go days without acknowledging me at all. During that time it was weeks.

I felt so lonely. My friends cared but it wasn't enough. I wanted people to care who werent hearing about the situation from me. But no one did care. It made me feel like the situation was all in my head. No one in the neighborhood ever called the cops on me sitting outside crying on the front steps, nor alerted about him hitting me in the front seat of the car. My family never cared, they just saw it as proof that we weren't better than them. None of my teachers ever noticed or cared that I was crying or late to class or constantly skipping. When I was older, older men just took advantage of me. Why didn't anyone care??? Was it not that bad??? Was I that unlikable??? Why didn't any adult ever think to do anything. Was it just bad to me because I had never experienced anything worse?

I hate old people so much now. I see people my parents' age and resent them by default. I look at older men and women and automatically classify them in categories based on how I think they are as parents. There are plenty of perfectly nice people in my office where I'm still like, yeah they definitely hit their kids, or yeah they definitely will stop loving their daughter as soon as she hits a certain age, or yeah they definitely make their children feel worthless and not good enough. I just don't trust them.

Especially now that I've come so far and am so far removed from the traumas of my past, I feel my current friends will never completely understand who I am. They have their own hardships that I have never experienced, like divorced parents and cheating parents and alcoholic parents and dead parents, but I feel that my wounds are old, things you can't really bring up anymore as factors in how you behave now. And for the most part, I don't feel the need to wallow in my pain anymore. But sometimes I still want to. I also feel like people don't really believe me, usually because they grew up very differently and can't believe someone is capable of stuff like that, or because they experienced similar things but can't fathom how I could have a good relationship with my parents despite all they have done, or because I'm so stable-presenting now that I just really seem like I came from a great, loving home. Like, I still see my parents once a month, am able to carry on fun superficial conversations with them, and do things like grab dinner together and go to family gatherings. We were never, ever outwardly unstable, but it's really hard for people to understand unless they have experienced the same things. I don't go to my parents for emotional support; I saw them days after leaving a 2-year-long relationship and said nothing. I saw them a week after my friend hung himself and said nothing. But yes, I can have a conversation with them and spend time with them, even if not altogether pleasant. I DO value family.

And I do have a steady job, my own apartment, and a great social life. I make incredible money at 23 and got promoted after a year. I work super hard. I am confident and friendly. I do not talk about my past. None of my friends now even really know I "have" a past, or they have a very superficial understanding. My first and only relationship ended maturely. I am softspoken and polite. I have an outwardly excellent relationship with my family, including extended family. I grew up financially privileged, never going hungry at night, never without shelter. I wasn't really bullied at school. I dress well. Most people at work assume that all my positive traits or even hobbies come from my parents. Nothing about me would indicate all the old rage I have inside me.

I feel very isolated I think. I think too I'm feeling this way because I just got out of my long term relationship recently, and though it was the right decision due to some incompatibilities, he was a good guy, and more than that, we had similar childhood experiences, and though he was more of the "golden child," he still experienced the protracted fear of family violence and has no support from his family. As an adult I feel that my friends are wonderful but there is a very core part of myself that they will never be able to access. Sometimes I just want to scream, do you even understand what this does to a person? What 2 decades of violence and criticism do to someone? How far I've come from spending my whole life in fear? Nowadays my friends think i'm either "too serious" about financial matters, or they don't get why I'm so happy about adult life. I'm serious about finances because I will never again allow myself to be indebted to people who can hurt me and I refuse to be in a situation where I have to move back home. And I'm happy about adult life because I spent so much of my fucking childhood living in fear of literally everything that everything from then on has been better.

I am so proud of who I am today and I just feel like no one will ever really understand how far I've come I guess.

I live in the heart of downtown LA. Our public transit might be better than certain other cities, but that's not saying much -- sketchy areas, not a ton of people using it in the late hours, they started charging for the Dash, bus drivers ignoring you sometimes even if you're at the stop, etc. If I want to get through Skid Row at midnight, I'm not gonna bike or walk through it. You know? And since I live here, I'm not going to blow $10 a day on Ubers, meters, and parking lots. So even though I take the train/bus a lot during the day, I don't take it at night, and that makes going out at night extremely difficult.

But even that is not so bad. I don't mind city driving and I'm mostly used to it. Downtown driving is not the real issue.... You know what I do hate? Hills. The hills and hills of LA. That, I'm not used to. Who decided to build so many cool places with zero parking so that the average driver is forced to park on ninety-degree-angle hills, with half the streets marked as permit only, and curbs that are three feet tall so if you get too close to it while trying to get as close as possible to avoid your car rolling down the hill, you might scratch your rear bumper? And the two way streets with room for only one car, so that you see some fuck ass Waymo charging at you not realizing how narrow the street is, and there's literally nowhere to pull to the side, and to make matters worse your car is already vertical because the hill is so steep. Spending thirty minutes driving in circles on narrow streets is even worse. Why do they even allow cars to park on both sides? Pure insanity. What happens on trash days? What do people do?

Or the narrow ass parking lots in some of these places. People park illegally all the time so we're all crammed and sometimes can't get out. I had to do like a 30 point turn to get out of a spot once because the parking lot was microscopic and a car had blocked me into my spot. I don't understand how people do it. See I don't even mind living in a city and I don't even mind parking a mile away from my destination and just skating or walking over. I do that all the time. At least there's parallel parking and the roads are acnormal size. But how anyone can stand the stress of so many of these skimpy little streets on such slanted hills is beyond me, I hust feel like that's a dent waiting to happen