r/TrueOffMyChest

I just got fired from my job. I worked in patient registration and I got flagged for being in a patients chart and I had failed to document it. I am the only one that runs the front desk while I’m working, so I sometimes have a bunch of things to do and I sometimes forget to document minuscule things when a patient calls. The patient whose chart that got flagged happens to live in my apartment building above me. But I live down the road from my job and a lot of our patients live in my building or in my neighborhood. I already had a level one strike against me due to too many unexcused absences during the first half of the year due to medical issues. Me being flagged caused compliance and hr to give me a level two strike. That brought me up to a level three which requires immediate termination. My manager told me 10 minutes after I clocked in for my shift today. She has little compassion for her employees, so she just told me I was terminated immediately and to turn in my badge and leave immediately. This is the worst possible time to be fired because I just got on my works insurance and I get kicked off my dads’s insurance at the end of the month because I turn 26 on the 29th. I am disabled and take a lot of medications that I can’t afford out of pocket. I sent an appeal letter to try to get my job back while I look for something else, but I feel like I was unfairly fired. I’ve been nothing but a good employee for almost two years and I have never had a complaint against me before. I was already struggling financially and I don’t know how I’m going to afford my medication and rent. The job market is so horrible and I don’t know what I’m going to do.

I am a climate scientist, and I cannot take it anymore.

I am cursed with knowledge and it sucks the will to live out of me.

I finished my PhD 1 month before my 30th birthday, and got diagnosed with ADHD 6 months after it.

I am old enough to know what I know, young enough to lament the loss of my own future, and have a brain that is over-tuned toward pattern recognition.

The facts are that the climate is changing, it is changing more aggressively, our best efforts have not worked, we do not have the political will to make the changes needed, and we are out of time. (Not almost. It’s done)

There are things to be hopeful for. There is a bright future somewhere. But it is on the other side of human beings arbitrarily dying in their millions (or more). Just biblical-scale death.

I go to work every day and slowly watch the smiles melt off of 20 year old faces over the course of a semester. While I sit there and can’t honestly reassure them about the future when I’m wondering if it’s worth procreating myself, (and on increasingly limited time).

Trying to slow the wheels of the most powerful and profitable energy paradigm in world history is not lucrative.
I don’t get paid all summer, so for 1/4 of the year I can barely afford to smoke a joint so I can get out of bed. I can’t even get a job at Home Depot, they think I’ll unionize the store (I will).

The changes are so obvious and all encompassing and yet confident people constantly laugh in your face or devalue your career, or tell you that you should have done something different.

The poor fools haven’t seen what I’ve seen.

I did this because I care. I did this because I love earth, and all the earthlings.

I do this for the children of people who don’t believe me. When I don’t have any of my own.

It has turned me bitter. My only purpose for continued existence is the tantric release of getting to say “I told you so” some day, increasingly soon.

I wish so badly that the science was wrong. If I met a genie, I’d ask him to make CO2 absorb the same amount of heat as normal air, and maybe a Diet Coke.

The perpetrators have the power. The victims defend the perpetrators because they are afraid of living a little less comfortably (maybe?)

I can’t take it anymore. I am a hostage on the only planet we know about by 8 billion people with eyes and ears and skin who can see the videos of disasters getting closer, and closer, and closer, they can hear us screaming warnings, and they can feel it getting hotter.

But they look at you and call you a fool.

No amount of therapy can fix this. Until there is a therapist that can make it not be too hot for sweat to evaporate in the most populated place in Asia, I’ll continue to eat therapists.

I’m not gunna give you the facts. I don’t have it in me today. Read the IPCC AR6. I worked on it. It’s fine.

I have come to terms with the fact that my life will not end peacefully. I wasn’t born at the right time for that.

I watch old war movies and don’t even pity them anymore. They had a future to fight for, clear steps to achieve it, and they earned their hard won future.

We won’t even have the opportunity.

Edit: I keep being warned of horrifying comments. Haven’t got there yet. Will stop.

Didn’t stop.

EDIT: CHECK MY BANNER YOU ASSHOLES. Bots don’t write on their fucking diplomas

I ran into Food Lion on my lunch break to grab some quick grub. It was pretty busy, but there were 3 full service registers open and 1 express “12 items or less” register. The full service registers were pretty backed up with several people with full carts and the express register had a couple people with a handful of items.

I only had 4 things, so I start heading to the express checkout. As I’m making my way over, I see a lady pushing a nearly overflowing cart towards the registers. She was ahead of me and I saw her pause, look at the full service register lines and how busy they were.

Then I saw her look at the express lane. She saw only a couple people in it with a few groceries. I watched her look up and read the “express 12 items or less” sign before she looks back over at full service. I could practically see when she made the judgement call, and she headed over to the express lane.

By this time, she and I are almost getting there at the same time, so she speeds up and maneuvers her cart in a way that cuts me off and she basically “butts” in front of me with her full-ass cart.

The cashier was helping a customer check out, so the lady already started unloading several of her groceries before the cashier noticed her cart. She told the lady it was an express lane with 12 or fewer items, but the lady ignored her and said the other lanes are too busy so she came over because there’s hardly anyone here. Meanwhile I’m standing behind her holding my 4 items.

The cashier wasnt having it. She sees me behind the lady and flags me to come up so she can quickly check me out. I squeeze past the lady who is now huffing and puffing, and she muttered something like “I didn’t know it was the express lane and it’s not that serious.” (That’s a lie, I saw her read the sign and go for it anyway).

Meanwhile another person with only 1 item lines up behind the lady with the full cart. The cashier waves him up to check out in front of her too, and the lady got more huffy and started muttering that she’s being treated unfairly lol.

After him there was a lull and the cashier did her best to check out the lady as fast as possible before anyone else came up. But it was nice to see the express lane being enforced like that. Most cases the cashiers don’t say anything when someone with a full cart comes thru an express lane (and I don’t blame them for that) but I appreciate the no-nonsense cashier not putting up with it and prioritizing people who are trying to quickly grab a couple items and go.

I'm extremely unattractive, ugly even. I've even posted many times here in the amiugly subreddit and I've gotten downvoted and some really harsh comments on my looks. My problem is I have terrible jaw issues-- I had braces put in before my jaws had fully developed and so my midface basically collapses due to lack of facial support. So I have a recessed midface and a very narrow lower jaw. To add insult to injury the left and right halves of my face look like they belong to different faces. They don't align at all and are completely different. And this isn't just my assessment. I've been told this by doctors too. The two sides even move differently and while the average person won't catch it, their initial impression would be that something is really off. So my entire face just looks super weird. I even sound weird.

I have anterior pelvic tilt and really large thighs so my body is weird, and of course it had to be topped off with severe hair loss and almost no eyelashes. I could star in the freak show segment of a circus. I went through life seeing guys hit on every girl I was with and humor me. Some wouldn't even look at me, they would talk to the pretty girl and just pretend I didn't exist. Others would talk to me only when they were drunk. My husband was the first guy to even remotely give me attention and tell me I was beautiful. This was almost at 28. By then I had started to develop some nerve issue on one side of the face and the asymmetry was getting more and more prominent, and no guys liked me while being in the arranged marriage process so I married my husband. But I hate being in photos, I'm very conscious of showing my face in public. I still try but I feel like crumpling up and crying every time I see my photo.

I even tried dance performance series and you know how many times they cut me out of the dance videos ? In 200 photos I would probably be in 2 or 3 of them. It's like the entire universe telling me how ugly I am. I'm now 35 and I want to get my jaws and face fixed but I don't know if they can fix everything. Even at my wedding the photographer complained they couldn't get any good photos, because in addition to everything I had bad allergies too and so I looked even worse. To this day we don't have even one wedding photo or any photo of mine hung up in the house.

I feel so remorseful for this, and I genuinely need to confess because it’s eating me up alive. I feel terrible for it because I know it’s not just a harmless fantasy, it started out as me seeking older porn and I fell into this niche rabbit hole by starting to watch gay porn made in Eastern Europe in the 1990s.. it fulfils this niche craving in the moment, but god do I feel sick. I’m pretty sure none of those men wanted to be there and just did it for the money, I’m sure they were probably exploited because they desperately needed that money, but I still watch it. I’m such a hypocrite, and worst of all is I want to be against it so badly and I say that I am and stand against it, but I still come back to watch it because I like the material. I’ve looked into it so many times as to why it’s morally terrible, I’ve read into the circumstances and still. I want to be against this so badly, it goes against my morals and I feel so sick I could throw up. The worst part is I’m from the West and I’m middle class so I’m sure it’s exploitation and poverty porn in every sense of the word. I guess it’s technically not illegal material, but I feel so terrible inside.

It makes me want to die with how bad I feel over it, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I feel so ashamed. When I think about how I’m probably feeling pleasure at their expense, or worse, some part of me likes it because of that(I hope that’s not true but it’s my worst fear.)

whether its service, size of product, quality, career, whatever, its all continuously getting more and more shit while simultaneously getting more expensive. and its constant. i can't even hold onto positives in my life because every other step im faced with something going to shit. i constantly feel like i need to double check the work of "professionals" because no one gets paid enough to really care anymore so i have to become an expert in anything that becomes an issue. whether its cars, HVAC, carpentry, or whatever, orders are constantly wrong and work is done incorrectly. i wont even take my Toyota to a Toyota dealership for such basics like oil changes because of the number of stories i've heard of dealers screwing up basic services (literally draining transmission fluid, and double filling engine oil. or forgetting to add oil after draining. or not tightening the drain bolt causing the engine to dump its oil and blow up. damage from careless techs. and so much more). but dont worry, your warranty will be void if anything happens and toyota didnt do the oil changes!

• oil change kit for my car, same one i've used for nearly a decade. price is suddenly $20 higher than before (~30% increase) and the oil filter included is incredibly low quality to the point i thought it was a counterfeit. asked the seller about it and they confirmed "this is the new filter and we assure you its just as good!" . yeah of course you do, how else are you justifying your price hikes. now i have to go out of my way to go buy an OEM filter from the dealership for 2x the price so now i've spent well over $100

• pet insurance: After finally being priced out of my old policy (annual increases to push people off the policy), my new pet insurance is now just giving a constant run around. claims submitted, claims denied. using their bullshit system to submit information which can only be done via an app and none of the documents uploaded properly so they ask for the documents again days later. 1 visit was for an allergy shot and a skin injury. well since its all 1 visit and allergies are preexisting conditions nothing is covered. i should have made 2 separate appointments and paid for them separately! its been near daily calls and emails to try and sort this out with no progress

• work raises delayed. Work bonus conditions changed to make it nearly impossible to achieve. pay scales at times 50% below market averages. all while being asked to bring in more revenue, more work, more talent. PTO is abysmal with only 10 days EARNED per calendar year and that includes sick days. currently sitting at like 18 hours of PTO total available to me. hope i dont get sick....and good thing i dont need a break /s

• i switched medications because of health issues and getting onto my new meds was delayed over a week while insurance demanded proof that im actually suffering from crippling depression and anxiety. so now im under-medicated trying to catch up

i've never felt more depressed. im anxious all the time. i never feel like i have enough time to get essentials done, let alone the increasing pile of not-time-critical chores that are making a mess everywhere. everything in my life is getting neglected to some extent like my parents, siblings, my partner, my dog, my work, my health, my friends.

i guess im at least walking 2-3 times a week now which is 2-3x more than i used to. i wish i could say it makes me feel better but the reality is it just keeps me from feeling like more of a piece of shit from neglecting my health or my dog

it doesnt feel like my meds are keeping up and having in-person conversation about any of this just stresses me out more. there is no solution short of uprooting my entire life and starting over, somewhere, somehow. and these are the issues i've dealt with in just the last week...im just tired

EDIT: Oh yeah and my Kindle is no longer supported so i can't load any new books in it. like WHY!? why can't 1 product in life just improve for once

I hate my dog.

We have an 8 year old lab and I absolutely hate him. I grew up with labs, always loved all dogs, but this dog has made me never want one again. When we first got him he was in puppy training lessons. We have had 3 other professional dog trainers work with him throughout the years. I have spent hours learning about dog training and spent hours working with him. Nothing ever sticks.

He barks all the time. If he is outside he barks the whole time. Inside as soon as you sit down he barks and is jumping all over you. People cannot come to my house without him being put outside or else he will just sit snd bark at them and jump all over them. I have stopped doing over night trips to our family camp because we cant bring him. He will wonder into the bush and get lost, not listening to any commands. If we tied him up he sits there and just barks for *hours.* We cannot go on vacations anymore as everyone refuses to dog sit for us. The last time we took a vacation 3 years ago, we brought him to one of those doggy hotels and when we returned we were told he was not welcome back.

He eats his own poop. I try to keep up with picking it up, but he will literally shit, turn around and eat it. Its disgusting. Iv talked to the vet about this and all the other problems but recieved no help.

I take him on 2 1.5 hour walks almost everyday, but i have to take him early in the morning and late at night when there is less people as he will just bark and pull at anything that moves. I am so tired. No amount of exercise seems to calm him down or tire him out. He should honestly be studied lol.

Im ashamed to say iv even tried a shock collar (something iv said I would never do) after years of positive reinforcement to no avail, but that does nothing. He will just bark through it.

We have tried to rehome him, but as soon as someone interested meets him they back out. I cant bring myself to surrender him at the shelter.

Honestly deep down I cannot wait for day he's gone, and i hate that i feel this way. I will be sad, but I imagine a giant relief being lifted and life getting so much better.

My sister is a few years younger than I am. I am the oldest daughter. This girl is one of the most self serving individuals I have ever had the displeasure of encountering in my life. She has some of the nastiest yet sneakiest traits and yet when I call them out, I’m called “sensitive”. I’ve honestly had enough of her and I refuse to interact with her at all at this point because it very clear if you are not providing what she wants, she’s treats you like trash.

Recently, we all had to take a trip. And for whatever reason she wanted to bring her boyfriend. It’s a family trip, and none of us has even met him. They’ve only been going out for few months.
The accommodations were a little tight so it was decided she and him would be staying in an Airbnb. All of a sudden she messaged me in the night a few weeks before the trip saying that she needs the room I’m staying in. I have to find somewhere else to sleep for 3 days because she has to do and needs the room because it would make it convenient for her. I told her no. The room im staying in, was our grandmother room. She passed one year ago, so I was extremely uncomfortable with her and hey boyfriend in the room. I’m not saying they are doing anything inappropriate but our grandmother (and everyone else law who lives on that property) has NEVER met him. it’s just weird.

Iregardless, I told her no. When I tried to explain it she cut me off and said “I don’t like to hear people explain themselves. If it’s no, then it’s no”. I was kinda floored because you don’t want to try to work something out? There were options but if it wasn’t her and him in a room together she didn’t want it. As I was trying to figure it out with her, she hung up the phone on me. I was super shocked by it. She texted me later saying that it’s a bad habit of hers and she trying to do better, in reference to her hanging up on me. I didn’t respond until a few hours later with “I get it”

Cue to a few days later. I was watching a video on TikTok that was talking about narcissistic traits and the type of people you might encounter that will try to use them on you. And of course the two examples they used are parents and romantic relationships. The TikTok is 3:44 long. I sent it to a few people because I recently had to deal with a narcissist friendship and work bullying situation so I found the video very informative.

My dear, *dear sister…* cut the video down to 1:21 and sent it our mother. Obviously that had the reaction you would think if your sibling basically told your parent that “hey so and so thinks your a narcissist!”. It opened up a can of problems that I’ve been dealing with for an over a month. My mother basically started to ignore me and then I when I reached out to her (my sister) she sat on her high horse and spoke down to me. “You can’t say that about her”. “She’s a single mom”. “She worked hard for us”. Never once, I did I EVER say it was about our mother. Never even insinuated it, however that didn’t stop her from presenting it that way. I called her 18 times over the phone. She refused to pick up. I had to then text her to get a response out of her. She played the card of “I’m your sister and I care but this wasn’t right” and when I asked her “when did I ever say this was about our mom?” She deflected and said “the first 30 seconds is damning”. After a litany of voice notes back and forth, she sent one saying “wrong is wrong and right is right and two things can be correct at the same time. I love and care about you so if you want someone to blame, you can blame me but you need to work out the resentment you have I. Your heart against our mom”

When I tell you all that I was floored. I have full messages that she had sent me saying VERBATIM. “She is a bitter baby mother” yet I am the one with resentment? Riiiight….right.

And then after that last message she proceed to block me through messages and on TikTok. So I said “cool”. And blocked her on EVERYTHING. This has been a tactic of hers since we were kids. If something or someone isn’t doing what she wants then she drops them or punishes them in some sort of way. I’m over it. I’ve tried my whole life to understand her but now I’m done. Just because I told her no, she is going to ruin the relationship I have with our mother? To me, that’s insane.

Now fast forward to the trip. She’s the last to arrive and of course she wants us to pick her up from the airport. That’s fine. Except, we landed about 8-9 hours before she did so they all decided to hang out around town for her flight to land so we all drive back together.
Except, her flight got delayed. So we had to hang out in town until 12pm cause her flight was supposed to get it at like 8pm. And she sat and tried to say that it was hard travelling for 12 hours. Like we didn’t all wait for her with all our luggage dragging behind us. I understand the flight being delayed wasn’t her fault however her wanting us to pick her up and not being forthcoming with her flights details caused this. If she had just told what freaking airline she’s on would could have been watching it and just went home and drive up to get her but no. She only told us when it was supposed to get there and they basically had to pry the information out of her.

Now she’s on the trip and trying to talk to me like it hasn’t been WEEKS since she blocked me and I blocked her on everything. I ignored her. I have nothing to say to someone who will twist the truth to get what they want. She complained to our mom that I wasn’t speaking to her. So our mom basically chastised me for not speaking to her and that I should forgive and forget because we are family and we are all that we have to each other. I told my mom no. This is something that woman has done multiple times in her life and to me and I’m done with it.

That girl literally talks down to me like I’m below her. Honestly, it’s better to say she talks to me like I’m an untrained, unruly dog. She constantly talks and belittles about my looks, the fact I’m single, my hair, my clothing, everything. She constantly finds ways to make it seem like I’m dumb in conversations and I’ve snapped on her multiple times about that. For example, her and I were on a trip together and my back was hurting so I kept reaching behind me to rub down my spine. She then says something adjacent to “stop scratching your ass”, I started to explain to her that my back hurts and I’m doing that to get the muscles to relax, I started to mimic the motion action to show that I was in fact not going to town down the middle of my ass crack in the middle of freaking Magic Kingdom, she cut me off mid sentence and said “SEE! your scratching right now!” With this grin on her face that said ‘caught you in a lie’. I almost started to yell at her that day because why you cut me off as I’m explaining something to you? And on top of that, it’s in a strongly made effort to make me look like I’m an idiot?

The relationship between my mom and I has gone to dogs too. It’s never gonna be the same again. My “sister” effectively ruined my relationship with my mom over a man. And the kicker? He couldn’t get the time off from his job to even come on the trip. So, she imploded my life at her own convenience and when she realized “oh! It worked out another way” she crawling back expecting me to what? Roll over and wag my tail?

The last I checked, I was born a human being. Just like her. So it confuddled me how she thought she could just….waltz back in? No apology? No made effort of remorse? Just a continuation as if nothing ever happened in the first place?
In the past? I would have done that. Just let it go and let bygones be bygones but not this time. That was my mistake of allowing her to let her think that I was this indestructible, all giving, all forgiving creature whose sole purpose in life it make hers easier. Im not that. Im my own person with my own feelings and problems and wants and desires. Im not a tool for anyone. Especially her. I don’t want anything to do with her.

If she could do this to me just because I wasn’t moving to her wishes, what else could she do in the future, if , I were to forgive her.

What if I have children and she asks something of me and I tell her no, is she going to call CPS and make a fake report on me? Is she gonna call the police and lie about me or my future partner?

If that’s the person she is, then I want NOTHING to do with her. To lie and manipulate to get what you want tells me you have no consideration for anyone in your life.

She’s old. Probably at least 13-14 years old. She’s still pretty active for her age, she likes playing and can still climb up and down her cat tree. I think my bed is getting hard to be on though because I have hardwood floors and jumping probably hurts her joints.

But for a while now she has been coming into my room at night and just is screaming. Wandering out. Coming back to scream. She’ll walk back and forth a lot too. When I start playing with her her interest lasts a few minutes max and then she is done and out of my room again. At some point in the night she calms down to sleep. In the day she is mostly sleeping too.

So I looked up the signs vets use.

Vocalization. Yes.
Interactions. Pulling away but becoming very clingy
Sleep cycle. She is pacing at night and sleeping all day.
House soiling. Not really. Only when the litter box gets missed with its cleaning.
Disorientation. I haven’t noticed.
Activity. Less playing
Learning and memory. Good there, she knows her names and nicknames and knows where her food is.

I don’t know if what she is experiencing is dementia or old age, she would have to go to a vet.

It makes me so sad though because she is getting old and she is my childhood pet. I love her so much and just having her in the same room brings me peace. She makes me feel less alone when I’m struggling with my loneliness. Her cuteness brightens up my mood so much. I don’t want her to die even though I know it’s getting closer.

I check her breathing every now and then because I’m so paranoid. I keep imagining she’ll live as long as I do too which is a hard dream to be crushed.

On February 14th, 2026, we spent the entire day together. I genuinely loved that day. I felt like I fell in love with him all over again.

But now, looking back, there’s one moment that I keep thinking about.

We ended up getting a flat tire, and his immediate reaction was to panic and get frustrated. I remember being scared too, but instead of leaving him to deal with it, I stayed. I didn’t even know how to change a tire, but I held the light, tried to help, and did whatever I could because I loved him. I wanted to be there through the highs and the lows.

What really hurt was that he seemed genuinely angry at me for the situation, even though I was already scared and was trying my best to help. I kept thinking, what if this is something we have to deal with together in the future? What are we going to do then?

I realized I don’t want a partner who panics or lashes out when something goes wrong. I want someone who can take a breath, think analytically, and figure out what needs to be done. Whether I’m there to help or not, I want to know that my partner can handle a crisis without making me feel like I’m the problem.

I would still want to be there. If he needed a moment to himself to figure things out, I’d give him that space. But I don’t want someone getting mad at me because something went wrong when I’m standing there, scared, holding a flashlight and genuinely trying to help.
And weirdly, I think I’m grateful that this happened.
Because even though I loved him, that moment showed me something I probably needed to see. Loving someone through the highs and lows is important, but so is being compatible in how you handle the lows.

I’m glad we didn’t end up together. I think that flat tire showed me a version of our future that I didn’t want.

I just don't... care. Everything is organized around that visit right now. I spent 6 hours in a catatonic episode, then came out of it myself. The treatment is highly standardized and pretty much any psychiatrist can diagnose the condition, considering that I had pretty much every symptom of hypokinetic catatonia. I was aware the entire time and all they really did was run irrelevant tests and act like I was unconscious while my fiancé kept telling them about my history of catatonic episodes, and how (1) I was conscious and aware and (2) they should call down a psychiatrist.

They discharged me with a catatonia diagnosis, they just didn't treat me for it. Which is great, considering that actual treatment doesn't end with the cessation of a stupor: APA guidelines say 24-48 hours of IV lorazepam is the clinical indication. Not that I expected to be sent home with an IV, but somehow I expected them to actually help me, they did absolutely nothing except for act useless and dehumanize me, and they diagnosed me with a condition they never bothered to treat me for.

I see a psychiatrist who specializes in complex cases on Friday about the recurrent catatonia. I moved up the appointment because of the ER visit. I just don't... care. I've got no idea why I haven't maxed out my credit cards, or something. I asked my old therapist if we could do a single session just to see if they might be able to help me get my head right. I'm looking for a new therapist but essentially choosing based on entertainment value: I ended up emailing someone whose entire practice is Halloween-themed. Who gives a shit if they're good? I don't. Fuck me up, Dr. Pumpkin Spice.

It's getting a little better, slowly. I know what's indicated for an acute post-traumatic stress response: a short-term 6-session exposure therapy or EMDR protocol. But I don't want to do that, so instead I'm arranging a consultation with the therapist I am referring to as Halloween Lady, because why the fuck not? Maybe she's good. When I saw that her website was Halloween-themed, I was really hoping there'd be signs that she was an entertaining and unprofessional train wreck, but unfortunately she seems to have actual standards.

I got my PCL-5 score (a scale of PTSD severity) from 68 to 25 over 2 years. Now it might end up back to being clinically significant and I might be considered to have CPTSD again. I can't wait! I really just didn't have enough to deal with. The world is an empty place where nothing matters and you'll never be treated like a human, recovery isn't real, and I'll never lead a meaningful life where I'm anything but cripplingly disabled.

Logically, I know that recovery is real because I've more-or-less done it. Emotionally, everything and everyone on Earth can just go and fuck itself, and nothing has any meaning or value or point, and the world is a cruel place that's random and chaotic and horrible.

I really don't want to hear about how our brave emergency workers did everything right in their fucking clown makeup. This is literally impossible considering how I was diagnosed with a medical condition that I didn't get treated for, they didn't listen to my fiancé's clear explanation of my symptoms and medical history of diagnosed catatonic states, and somehow 6 hours is just too long to call down a psychiatrist for one of the only conditions in psychiatry known to have direct morbidity.

I'd call it a pipeline for iatrogenic harm, but that implies any actual health care was performed, when all they really did was stick me in a bed and consider giving me one of the very specific drugs that are most likely to induce malignant catatonia, which, judging by my total lack of treatment, probably would've just killed me. I'd like to personally thank every single medical professional involved in fucking up this entire situation with absolutely no reason to do so, and for destroying my mental health and putting me in this state where nothing matters and my entire life feels ruined.

I'm going to go cry again now. I spend a lot of my time crying since Sunday.

I really thought that the emergency room would help me. Instead I was violated, dehumanized, medically neglected, and thrown out of the hospital with discharge instructions to... follow up with the people I already had appointments with. Dr. Useless is really doing a stand-up job over at the clown hospital.

This is just a sh\*t situation all around and it still makes me want to throw up when I think about it.

I landed a job in a new city that truly felt like everything I had been asking for. The pay was decent, the benefits were decent, the growth potential was decent, the people were decent. I started off as an assistant to a department manager. He was my direct report, so we worked together every day on projects. He would do the more advanced technical things and I would do smaller, more tedious tasks. I didn’t mind it. I knew I had to start small to grow. And I got along really well with my manager. He was super easy to work with, stayed calm under pressure, was a really good collaborator- we just complimented each others strengths well and, with him having more experience as well, he became someone I looked up to. He was a great leader. But his personality was kind of goofy and similar to mine, so work was more fun. We didn’t have any inside jokes or anything, more like we watched some of the same comedy TV shows and would throw out the occasional reference when relevant and have a good laugh about it. We considered each other friends at work, but also knew the very clear boundaries that needed to be maintained. We never had any sort of physical contact (except maybe a high five when we solved a difficult problem? Lol), never contacted each other outside of work hours unless it was work related or an emergency, never spent time together outside of work, never spent personal time one on one.

Some time later, he ended up getting fired from the company because the owner of the company didn’t feel like he was a strong enough leader. Apparently he had made several mistakes that the company owner couldn’t look past. I didn’t agree with the decision, but it wasn’t up to me. We said goodbye and that was the only time I had ever given him a hug. I did text him to let him know about some other sketchy things that were going on within the company after the fact, but again…nothing personal.

Maybe a couple of weeks later, I got a LONG text from his wife, in short, asking if “anything happened between us.” I immediately thought “what the actual f\*ck??” I couldn’t imagine where she could have gotten that idea. Had she ever read our text messages, she would have seen that we only ever talked about work, and the occasional deliberation on whether or not I should quit because I wasn’t being treated well by someone above him (a situation in which he defended me). I told her that I felt like she could just ask him directly instead of going behind his back to text me, which I wasn’t comfortable with. I didn’t want to be involved in someone else’s marital issues. She said he had given her my number and told me she was welcome to text me. So I texted him letting him know his wife reached out to me to make sure he was aware, and he said he was. So I explained everything to her honestly.

I told her we worked closely together because I was initially hired to be his assistant and I looked up to him as a mentor because the life he lives is very much where I hope to be when I’m his age. Married, kids, house, financial stability, no debt, owner of multiple companies, smart with investments, etc. I appreciated how much I was able to learn from him, as he was always willing to teach me things and never belittled me for not knowing something. I told her he was never inappropriate, nor was I. He talked about his wife and kids at work ALL the time, and it was clear that he loved his family. She thanked me for my explanation and we left it at that.

I was immediately crushed. Because I knew, after that kind of accusation, I could never talk to him again. I knew that there can be no friendship after someone’s spouse suspects an affair. Which is what I told him on the phone when he called me several days later to apologize for putting me in an awkward position. And I agreed, because it was really f\*cking awkward and I was genuinely insulted that someone would accuse me of stepping out on my own relationship to try and have an affair with a man who is married with multiple young children. But she doesn’t know me, and there are some really awful people out there in the world. I just didn’t understand where she got the idea in the first place. And his explanation was that, when he would go home and tell her about his day, my name came up too often. (Hello, we work directly with each other). And I guess she started to get suspicious. I don’t know. I apologized to him for any part I may have played in causing turmoil in his marriage and thanked him for everything he had taught me. After that phone call, I cried.

I spent over a year working with this person, forming a genuine friendship. He had met my boyfriend and even gave him advice and guidance as well. There were conversations about future opportunities to work together outside of that current job, which I was really excited about because, as mentioned earlier, I was not being treated well by someone higher within the company. But he talked about working with multiple other people in our company in the future, not just me. We had a smaller office so we were all friends with each other. Office doors stayed open all day so we could go in and out and talk/ask questions when needed. We all agreed that we couldn’t stay working for that company for long, and many of us agreed we could get together on our own venture.

It just sucks. I lost a really good friend and mentor. And, as someone who has worked so hard to gain more experience in my field and work my way up, I’m also losing opportunities to work with him in the future in already successful projects. With other layoffs, I have no other allies at my job. I’m stuck working where I’m not treated as well as I should be. But there aren’t any other job opportunities that can give me the salary I have here- assuming I can even make it to an interview in this job market. But this situation as a whole has me feeling disheartened. I was so optimistic and excited for the future, and so thankful that I had a manager that I worked so well with. It makes me feel like I need to walk on eggshells with male coworkers. But if the group setting is all friendly and joking around and treating each other like friends, how do you know when a boundary is being crossed? The culture of the office was the same between everyone. We all made jokes and small talk with each other. But this shifts my entire perspective, and now I’m hyper-analyzing everything and feeling really insecure and embarrassed.

Hope this doesn't come across as whiny, just wanted to share my experience 😅

I feel like it's difficult to enjoy life and achieve things when you're unattractive.

People treat you so differently that it affects all aspects of your life.

Dating is near impossible. You can get laughed at for even having the audacity to want to date and find love.

Making friends can be difficult cause even if you are an interesting, kind, loving person as soon as someone better looking walks in the door people tend to gravitate towards them.

In the workplace attractive people get favoured. Sometimes they get away with doing less work, people are more likely to listen to them in meetings, they can easily slack off without much consequence.

You're more likely to get laughed at in the street by teenagers and have them mess with you when you're just minding your own business.

I could go on but you get the point.

People will say 'be confident' but it's kinda hard to have confidence when you have a lot of unfair situations happen to you and over time it can wear you down. I try not to be upset as I know sometimes people do it subconsciously.

These are just some experiences I have had. Would love to know if anyone can relate.

i’ve always been so optimistic because i am so fortunate to have a great life. but recently i’ve taken a turn completely in the opposite direction and i’m so constantly anxious that the world is going to end OR the world is going to become hell to live on, very very soon.

i read an article from an ex-openAI employee, who said if ai continues to be built on and invested in, there’s a chance we could all be gone by “the end of the next decade” and i broke down. i have never had such a feeling of hopelessness wash over me. this wasn’t the start of it all but this was what made me truly feel completely helpless after days of misery.

i just feel like nothing i do will ever matter now because i might not even get to see 2050. ive been planning to build a tiny house with my mum on our family property but all the joy has been sucked out of that because i might not get to live in it long term. i’m in university getting my degree but once i’m done and i find a career, how long will i even be able to do anything in that career?? i finally have a boyfriend after years of no luck, we’re one year in, and you’re telling me i don’t get to spend a full lifetime with him?

not to mention the el niño that’s brewing in the pacific that’s about to slam my home country with a horrible summer of bushfires and death following europe. i’m so scared all the time and i can’t do anything without being petrified that i’ll die a slow and painful death in the next few years or that i’ll have to watch my family and pets go through that.

i have a generalised anxiety disorder and ive seen psychologists / therapists about these thought spirals in the past but they have never ever helped. i just want to skip to a different timeline or something because i cant handle hearing more and more terrible news all around the world that my life is probably going to be cut short and i just have to sit and wait around about it.

I am not talking about situations where one's safety is at risk due to psychological and/or physical abuse, of course. I know it's probably a very common thing to vent about but still - when you realize that he/she is just not the right person for you for any reason (any is valid), at least be a decent person and let them know definitively why you don't want to talk to/see them anymore before you cut ties.

I've been on a receiving end of a particularly painful example of ghosting and blocking of any contact from the person that I had almost two months of great relationship with. Which ended so abruptly without me even having a chance to respond/say sorry for whatever I did wrong. It's been 2 years and I still haven't fully recovered from that experience and it brought me so much heartache that I woundn't wish this to my sworn enemy, it really is that bad. It has severely affected my ability to actually develop feelings for people, it was a literal heartbreak where my heart as a place where feelings should flourish is just not the same whole functioning thing anymore. Thank you for listening and I hope at least one person sees this post and it helps them to not totally ruin another person's mental state thinking ghosting/blocking is ok in literally ANY situation.

This happened like 5 or 6 years ago and I don’t think I’ve really talked about it with anyone.

My stepdad passed away and we were flying to his hometown in Massachusetts for his funeral. My mom was having a really hard time and didn’t want to lose him, so she carried his urn with her (carry on). That was my first time traveling on airplanes in the USA so I didn't really know what to expect.

(For context, we are not from the USA. My mom flew all the way to the USA and paid for his funeral and land so he could be buried in his hometown. We landed in LA then transferred to MA)

When we went through TSA, they stopped us and opened the urn to check his ashes. They were doing it like it was some suspicious drugs or dangerous powder. I thought they could treat him with basic sensitivity and dignity, but the whole experience ended up being really disrespectful and dehumanizing. It's the way they handled him.

I just remember standing there crying watching them go through my stepdad’s ashes while my mom was already grieving. The whole thing was distressing and traumatizing.

I know they have security procedures and everything, I was 15 at the time but it’s been 6 years and I still think about it sometimes. I’ve barely ever talked about it with anyone

This is genuinely one of the reasons I hate tsa and lax.

I can remember the exact moment I realized I was truly free.

I was on a cruise, surrounded by some of the most gorgeous, inspiring, breathtaking scenery I'd ever seen. I was walking the decks, looking around at all the people, when I stopped and thought to myself: Where is everybody?

The chairs were full, the bodies were there, but there was zero presence, it was like walking through the decks of a ghost ship, not a single person had their head up. Tables full of people sitting together, every one of them with a phone in their hand, on Facebook, FaceTime, Instagram, posing for pictures.

I stood there looking at them and thought, Man, you're fucking free.

Six or seven months before that cruise, I was the definition of a social media whore. From the time I was a teenager until my early 30s, I spent an enormous part of my life on it. I lived my life for the post.

Half the time, I wasn't even present for the cool experiences I was having because I was too busy taking a picture of myself to prove to everyone else that I was there.

Then reality hit hard.

I got into a really bad car accident, lost my job, and watched my income start to dwindle.

For the first time in my life, I wasn't the one posting the cool life. I was the one scrolling, watching everyone else live theirs.

Slowly, day by day, I fell into a deep, dark depression. I started thinking, Woe is me. The world is against me. Why don't I have all these nice things?

Everything I saw was starting to hurt me. I'd get pissed off, jealous, depressed, or just generally miserable, and I couldn't figure out why. I didn't connect the dots. I had no idea I was sitting there feeding the fire every single day.

The turning point came in a pretty fucking weird way.

I was starting to pull myself back up and opened a business with some friends. I went onto a local Facebook group to advertise it, and out of nowhere, I got banned and kicked out. When I made a comment about it, people I thought were my friends came out of the woodwork to attack me.

That was the day I said, Fuck this.

I shut down my Facebook.

For the first six weeks, I went through what I can only describe as withdrawal. It felt like quitting cigarettes, maybe not as physically intense, but mentally, every bit of it was there. The itch to check, the phantom pull to scroll, the anxiety that there might be something happening that I was missing.

But slowly, as the days passed, the noise started to quiet down.

I thought about Facebook and Instagram less and less. I stopped wondering what everyone else was doing. I stopped comparing my life to theirs. And gradually, I started to feel something I hadn't genuinely felt in over a decade:

I felt happy.

Why Reddit and YouTube Are Different (in my opinion):

People often ask me how I can use platforms like Reddit or YouTube if I "quit social media."

To me, the distinction is night and day.

Facebook and Instagram were about me. My identity, my appearance, my life, what I was doing, where I was going, what I owned, and how other people perceived me. I was constantly putting a highly curated version of myself on display and then waiting to see how people reacted to it.

Reddit and YouTube aren't really about that for me.

I use YouTube to learn how to fix things, explore weird little hobbies, watch documentaries, and listen to people talk about things I'm interested in. I use Reddit for anonymous, topic-focused communities where nobody knows my face, nobody knows what I drive, where I live, or what kind of life I'm living.

It's information and shared interests, not an arena for personal vanity.

I don't scroll a feed to see how much better someone else's life looks than mine. I use the internet as a tool again, rather than letting it use me as the product.

Looking Back:

Standing on that cruise ship hit me so hard because I wasn't just looking at strangers.

I was looking at my past self.

I was looking at people giving away their present moment so they could curate an illusion for people who probably weren't even thinking about them five minutes later.

And the funny thing is, I used to be one of them.

Now, I'm about to embark on a bucket-list trip, and I get to do it knowing there are four and a half years between that trip and the last time I closed my social media apps.

Four and a half years of actually being there.

Four and a half years of memories that don't need to be posted to be real.

That's what freedom ended up looking like for me.

Not my parents, not my sister [ESPECIALLY my father] no classmates, no so called "friends", no teachers, no strangers (obviously), no people in my neighbouhood

They all hate me for either no reason or just hate me for who i am and what i represent

NOBODY wants me to succeed

Nobody likes me or loves me

Nobody wants good things for me

Nobody wants me to study or work hard

Nobody wants me to chase my goals

Nobody wants me to be confident

Nobody wants me to have a good life

Nobody wants me to have good grades or get in a good college

Nobody wants me to have friends

Nobody wants me to be happy

Nobody wants me to be ANYTHING good

And i have let them make me insecure and underconfidemt and depressed and i have let them give me imposter syndrome for all my life so far

BUT NOT ANYMORE

Everyone has been hating me and trying to bring me down from the moment i was born - my mom and dad used to tell me i was gonna be a failure - all my teachers said so

My sister used to make fun of me and agree

And i was very bad at school and public speaking for years

But i was always an ambitious kid

I started working hard - i got better grades than my sister and all the kids in my neighbourhood who the teachers liked and hated me

And started participating in debates

And now i see who they really are - THEY HATE ME NOW - my sister doesnt even talk to me anymore

My mom and dad dont even acknowledge me

My teachers dont tell me anything

They cant say bad things, they wont say anything

AND TBH NOW I FEEL MORE CONFIDENT THAN EVER

THEIR HATRED FILLS ME WITH JOY

I want them to be miserable sacks of shit for the rest of their lives

Just one more year

I am going to be wildly succesful in my final year of school get into a top college

AND THEN I WILL BULLY THEM

FUCKING RATS

WHY DID THEY DO THIS TO ME? I was just a kid a fucking toddler and my parents have been discouraging me and hating me ever since and telling me im good for nothing

I AM SMARTER THAN ALL THESE PEOPLE

I CANT WAIT FOR NEXT YEAR

THEY ARE GOING TO HATE ME EVEN MORE

AND I WILL LOVE EVERY SECOND OF IT

I AM GOING TO BULLY THEM, TELL THEM EVERYTHING ABOUT HOW USELESS AND WORTHLESS THEY ARE - and they will know its the truth

They give me so much motivation and drive to work hard and be confident

I WILL HAVE MY REVENGE

I’m going to die soon,
I had hope for myself till today but it’s over,
I’ve spent the last few weeks sorting out legal things live finalising my divorce, updating my will, sorting my pension out, I am working on setting up a medical directive so no one intervenes if things don’t go as planned,

What would you all do if you had a month left?
I am going to be spending two weeks with my entire family in early September,
Then after that , it’s over for me.
What else would you all do? If you have just weeks, what should I do?

I'm tired, man. I'm tired. Simply that. The last two years have been nothing less than BRUTAL.

August 2024, my international logistics company with 14 years on the road started going bad.
December 2024, the situation becomes critical, we can't pay our suppliers, we leave clients hanging.

Ironically, the last installment referring to the last refund of one of the several clients that sued us during the pandemic was paid here. (Context: We received 20k, passed 18k to the suppliers, pandemic, cancellation of services, clients asking for money back, suppliers already paid didn't return us, we had to return everything fully).

January 2025, the company closes. I start living off the money I had saved, which wasn't much.

One year before that the company was moving millions, and I was personally organizing delegations with embassies and meeting with ministers abroad. Now I was doing odd jobs, I even washed cars in a parking lot near here. Without the slightest shame, on the contrary. It was hard, but I was always somehow calm in the medium/long term. Still am, really. I knew that the structure I had built up to that point in my life was fragile and I was going through a process of demolition so that I could build something more robust on top. I just didn't imagine the demolition was gonna be total.

From January to September, I survived on odd jobs, looking for work (which for me is hard, since I dropped out of high school and have always been self employed), and trying some business ideas, and nothing really worked out.

In September I made an app for myself, to manage the media I generated locally. Posted it on the InvokeAI sub and in one day it became the top most upvoted/commented post of the sub. Man, from there I went full throttle on this program. Kept improving it, making it more professional. Working full time on it.

All this taking care of my 73 year old mom, with a minimum income and literally surviving on the help of friends.... "we'll help you with an amount there per month until you get back on your feet".

I'm truly blessed for that, and I don't know what would've become of me if it wasn't for their help.

Anyway... in January of this year I start selling Pro licenses. I really believe in the app, cuz it's good. It's fucking good, and every day it becomes more robust. So it started selling, little by little. Its not enough yet for my subsistence, but its improving... slowly.. and I'm sure that when I find the right channel to distribute it, things will get better.

But it's not even that that I'm tired of...

July 20th my bank accounts get blocked because of a lawsuit from a client from the old company. It went by default, and out of state. Since then, I've been struggling to reverse these unconstitutional blocks, because the little money I receive comes from help of third parties and from my work as self-employed, the app sales, and it's exclusively for my subsistence and my mom's - these are protected by law here and can't be seized under Brazilian law.

The lawsuit was frivolous, it was made by two sisters months before the company shut its doors and contained false allegations that we tried fighting in court on the early stages. All services were provided. But they filed it on their state, that's literally across the country from where I live. By the time they filed it, we were already having problems, and although we did hire an attorney there to take care of this matter for us, with everything that had been going on we really couldn't put the attention that the matter deserved.

I contacted the public defender's office of that state. "We can't assist you because you're from out of state". Ok, fair. I contacted the public defender's office of my state "We can't assist you because the process is running in another state". Ok, guess I'm fucked?

I sent an email there with my bank statements showing the situation of my accounts. The blocks are ridiculously small, like 40, 50 bucks... literally all I had in my bank account, and it's literally what I have to eat. They'd happen randomly, usually at around 6am. (the account itself is still usable, but any money that is there whenever there's a block will be seized).

I sent the email on the 30th explaining everything.. They added it to the lawsuit on the 5th of this month, on the 13th the judge denied alleging insufficient proof that that was all I had.

So fuck it, I don't know what else they want. On the 17th, BAM another block. 80 bucks. I sent a new email, grounded it the best I could, got a declaration from a friend that helps me showing the origin of the little I receive, attached the Stripe payouts and the subsequent blocks. On the 18th without a fucking cent in my pocket. I borrow 100 bucks from a friend, buy medicine for my mom and cat food and still had 35 to buy lunch today and BAM another block.

Result: without a fucking cent in my pocket, with rent overdue, with electricity overdue, with little food at home, having to take care of a cat with FELV and an elderly bedridden mom, working like a condemned man on the app for the fucking justice system to block the only money I have to buy food.

Nice.

But I'm still here, still standing. Well, dragging myself really... having to do technical support for the users that bought the app while developing the new update (both tasks that I love doing) and promoting it (hate it so much), clean the house, wash clothes, make lunch, get groceries, take care of medications for both the cat and my mom, juggling the bills and creditors. I believe in the app, I know it's really fucking good, and getting better by the day. I also know that it will sustain me eventually.

But man, I'm tired... And it sucks to open my accounts and see that the balance of these last two years right now is $0.00.

Other than that, all good, how about you guys?