Physical therapy wallingford seattle

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I'm getting tired of my Glion Dolly 215 struggling on hills (Seattle) and I'm tired of no suspension and no physical brake. I had another close call when I didn't see the car behind the car I slowed down for. One of these days I'm going to plow into the side of a car or get run over. If I'm going to spend some money it needs to be able to ride on the road at times and not be a slow moving road hazard. I'd feel more comfortable on the 9 with a max speed of 30mph. Not sure about the 8+ max of 24mph ish. Weight appears to be the same between 8+ and 9+. I have to lug it up 2-3 sets of stairs every day.
My Glion fits perfectly on the train under the seat and I do use the vertical stand quite often when the train is packed for a sports game. I'll miss the vertical feature and can just go a mile down the road instead if needed, however the folded size is going to be a big change. The Vsett 8 is just an inch longer than the Glion so it should still fit under the seat more or less. The Vsett 9 is 10 inches longer and 19.5" high is crazy. No way that will fit under any seats.
I also hate to pay $950 for an 8+ when a 9+R is only $1250. Also for some reason the only model the new LCD is not available for is the 8+. Unreal.
Because everywhere I go has some kind of hill, I see in the review videos the 9+ is way better than the 8 on hills but I can't seem to find a comparison between the 8+ and 9+ on a hill.
Anyone have a hill comparison between the 8 and 8+?

Starting in the middle of last semester I started experiencing mental health problems. I have ADHD, PTSD, Dysthymia, and probably symptoms of other disorders. I go to therapy and I've tried medications that haven't helped. I have a long back story but I'm not going to get into that, all I'll say is my sister died, my dad has stage 4 cancer, and I lost the only woman I ever truly loved. The aftermath of losing my sister and my ex have taken a toll.
Besides all that, I was coping really well and trying to heal with therapy and trying to find meds that might work with my doctor. I don't know what happened but starting a few months ago I started a downward spiral into what I can only describe as a mid-life crisis and a crisis of my spirit. I am lost. When I say lost, I mean it in it's truest definition. I'm lost mentally, spiritually, physically, and even kind of geographically (I really don't feel like I belong in the place where I live).
I feel like I've only ever made people's lives worse. I feel like my family members that love me only love me because they feel obligated to. I look at the people that used to be in my life and they are usually doing better than when I was a part of their life. Especially my ex. I've realized that I really don't like myself at all. In fact I hate me, I think I'm worthless and only make things harder or actively worse. I burden everyone I come in contact with even if they don't see it.
I'm so fucking tired of having to live through these thoughts and feelings everyday. Nothing seems to help and my everything in my life is suffering. I have genuinely tried to reach out for help and prioritize my mental health. I have tried to slowly make progress and expose myself to new situations. It helped for a bit but I've fallen back further than when I started. I don't recognize myself and I don't really know who I am anymore. I know it sounds selfish but I need someone to come help me because I am not capable of helping myself right now. It can't be any of my family because not only do they have their own lives, they're also part of my unresolved trauma. I'm scared, and alone, and I just want someone to give shit about me and have a solution. I don't know why I'm even posting this because it's never helped before (because it's just a screen to me), but I don't have any options.
I feel so disconnected from my heart and soul. The few people I used to go to for advice are gone. I don't want to exist like this anymore, I can't. It hurts too much and I feel like I can't access parts of my mind. I used to believe in things, the big one being love. Now I'm 29 and I feel like I'm unlovable. People say all the time that you have to work on yourself and learn to love yourself before you can love someone else. They say once you do that you'll naturally find someone to love. I tried every way I knew how to work on improving myself in the ways I could and accepting the things I couldn't change. I tried to love myself and yet here I am broken and alone. I know it sounds opposite from what most people think, but I just feel like it would be easier to learn how to love myself if I had someone that I could love. I loved my ex deeply, even if my love for myself wasn't there. It didn't end the way you probably think.
I don't know if this post will do help at all, and I'm pretty sure it won't do anything, but I like I said I'm out of options. I hate myself and all the morals and values I grew up with don't seem to exist in our society anymore. That or our society is ignoring them and letting them die. I don't know what's next but honestly it's getting dark. I feel like I'd be doing the world a favor by dying, and I wouldn't have to feel so much pain anymore. The people I think about when those thoughts pop into my head are starting to seem like a reason to do it instead of a reason not to. They're also don't have to cope with living with this pain. The biggest thing that holds me back from doing it is my doggo. He still needs me. I know I'm probably just seeing patterns where there are none, but it seems like everytime I run into something good, something happens to take it away.
Anyways, thanks if you made it this far. The song of hope may never stop, but at this point I can't hear it. That being said, I hope someday I can write something more uplifting on here if I'm still around.

I'm an entrepreneur, and after a couple of years of burnout, my condition has significantly worsened two months ago, and I've been diagnosed with moderate/severe clinical depression. I've been having an indescribable feeling of sorrow, anxiety, apathy and helplessness; in the first week, it was even hard to get out of my bed. Whenever I think about work, I experienced an immense sense of anxiety, fear and (sometimes) anger, as well as physical symptoms, such as massive headache, body tremors, and faster heart beats (and one time, almost hyperventilating). As a result, I've not been productive at work and of course found it extremely difficult to work, or even think anything about work.
Recently, I've been taking a month off work, been in therapy and have fixed some parts of my life (mostly living healthier, through exercise, diets, sleep, meditation), but recovery has not been linear (some days are better, some days are worse), and the intense anxiety and fear around work remains. I still can't open/reply email, or think of anything/anyone around work at all -- all of these give me tremendous fear and anxiety. At the moment, I don't know how I could get back to work at all.
What would you do if you were me?

TW is for mentions of abuse and sexual assault, no intense descriptions.
I spent my 20s bouncing around living situations because my mom died without warning right before my High School graduation. We grew up dirt poor and I found out a few years ago that she was months behind on rent too, but the house was owned by my grandparents or else we would have been homeless.
A little over a decade later, I found out that a cousin had been pulling the strings behind the scenes and manipulated my grandfather to change over his will. I didn't find out about this until everything was all said and done. My college fund was taken as well, since it was in my mom and grandmother's name, so he got control of it. My cousin even got the house I was told in my teens that I would likely inherit.
The ONLY thing that didn't get stolen through elder abuse was an irrevocable trust set up in the early 90s by my grandparents. I'm the beneficary, and a certified financial planner who has been a friend of the family since the 80s is the trustee. Basically, I can't get money out of it on my own, I have to go through her and she's legally obligated to act in my best interests. Apparently, there was SOME money my cousin didn't know about that went into the trust per my grandmother's will. However, I'm no "trust fund baby". I can't go out and buy luxury items let alone rely on the Trust to pay all my living expenses for the rest of my life.
Here's another wonderful kicker: I'm disabled physically and mentally. Autism spectrum, PTSD, generalized anxiety and major depression (likely related to the trauma and distress over the years). I was born with stickler Syndrome, which is a degenerative connective tissue disorder. Marfan and Ehlers Danlos are more well-known but fall under the same general umbrella, but Stickler is basically that your body doesn't produce collagen correctly, leading to bone, heart, vision, and hearing problems varying in degree from person to person.
I already have severe enough joint problems that physical therapy can't fix. I have fissures, cysts, and completely worn down cartilage and I'm only in my early 30's. I can't walk or stand for more than 20 minutes without severe pain and risk of falls, and I'm not supposed to use stairs frequently. Even sitting for more than 4hrs a day with breaks causes pain.
I've also been having neurological issues including 24+hr headaches and week+ long vertigo that seems to crop up randomly (even today, I was staring right at my laptop screen when I suddenly felt like I was drunk for no reason) and am awaiting an appointment for imaging tests and possibly Multiple Sclerosis testing. All of these things- diagnosed and not yet diagnosed combined, primary care doctors and therapists have agreed that I should be on social security and shouldn't exacerbate some of my conditions by continuing to work (unless I can find something that's fully accommodating).
I grew up in PA but bounced all around during my housing instability. The year before Covid, I was put back into housing instability when my housemate could no longer afford her inherited home and had to sell, so I had to leave the first stable and SAFE home I'd had in almost a decade, and my accommodating job as a result. I struggled to find that stability again, and while Covid was the first time I felt like I wasn't under pressure to find that stability immediately (I was living with a friend) it did fuck up my chances of finding employment once things started opening up again. My friend wanted his rec room back and told me I needed to move out (something he says he now regrets doing, but I understand). My only option was to move with an online friend in CA.
That went spectacularly, by which I mean he turned out to be incredibly histrionic and unstable and almost rendered me homeless. Other online friends helped shack me up in a motel and then let me couch crash for a bit. I ended up losing half my stuff including things from my mom and all my art from the past decade, because he kept changing the goalposts on how and when I could come get my stuff, and technically I was living with him off his lease, and didn't want to render him and his 7yo homeless by trying to take legal action.
My partner is one of his former best friends. Former because he's completed disgusted by what was done to me, and has heard a lot of flat-out lies from this person as to what happened. Shit like saying "multiple therapists warned me about him" to make me look like a terrible person, when 1. He only had 1 therapist and she moved out of network 2 months before this went down so he had none. 2. Feeding a patient's negative thoughts about someone based on hearsay and conjecture is a MASSIVE liability and something any therapist worth their salt knows not to do.
I was working night audit at a small hotel from February of last year until December, when I was immediately pulled and put on state disability by my primary care doctor after a fall while I was alone at work. California's state disability aid is based off taxed income, so there's a limit to how long you can use it. Mine runs out July 1st and after that I have no income and can't work. In CALIFORNIA. A lot of our homeless are disabled because it's so impossible to live in this state if you can't work full time.
I will be applying for SSI, but up until last February, I had NO medical records due to not being able to afford health insurance or stay in one place long enough for appointments. I had my PTSD and depression diagnosis, but not even records of my Stickler birth defect. You need ample documentation to apply for Social Security, and with a rare birth defect and specialists often having to be scheduled months in advance, that's not quick and easy task. I'll FINALLY be applying late this summer.
I acknowledge I'm WAY luckier than most people in my situation, because of the Trust, but that's where my current hurdles are. Like I said, I can't just pull from it willy-nilly, which I'm grateful for in some ways as panic-spending might have depleted me a while ago.
Back in April, the Trustee said that I could get a mobile home in a park back home in east PA, up to 75k$ budget. There are homes in that range, but I also have to keep in mind location and lot rent. With SSI being 914$ federally (PA has no state supplement), obviously I can't go for a park with a 800+ lot rent even with assistance programs like SNAP and LIHEAP. PA isn't a rent capped state thanks to a lot of legislators owning rental properties, so landlords can legally increase rent by a hundred per year (and they have). Ever since the housing crisis, mobile home parks have become the affordable option, and some parks have been bought up by corporations who are trying to price out Social Security recipients so they can get more money from people trying to get out of apartment living but who can afford lot rents closer to apartment rent costs.
Today, my top choice home got scooped up, and the Trustee is saying that she would rather I move back and rent so I can go see the mobile homes in person rather than relying on a local friend to do the tour with me on video call. Which, yes, I agree, except...
How the fuck am I supposed to do that when no apartment- independently or company owned- will rent to me when I am not employed and my only source of income is an irrevocable Trust? My credit score is 684 and climbing, I have no debt history, my current housemates can vouch for me in terms of cleanliness, respect, and always paying rent in advance. Even with all that, landlords want things like last two pay stubs, proof of 2-3x rent in stable income, or someone else who has those things to be on the lease with me.
Room rentals? Also borderline impossible. It took me almost half a year to find my current room rental. I have a cat with an ESA letter, but that doesn't allow me past no pets policies in most room rentals. I also got ghosted more than half a dozen times when I was talking with someone about a rental and then informed them I'm transgender, which could be anything, but I'm willing to wager more often than not it was discriminatory. My physical disability also means I can't get anything that requires frequent stair use, like a basement or upper level room rental, or one of the many split-level historic homes that have been converted into the only low-income apartments in the area. There's even apartment buildings so old they don't legally need to have elevators.
Section 811 exists for disabled folks, but county and city housing agency I contacted either doesn't have it, or it requires you to already be in crisis and unhoused. Senior centers can accept up to 20% resident population that's non-elderly but disabled, but either have NYC luxury apartment prices because of the amenities, or a huge buy-in.
I'm just so. Utterly fucking exhausted.
I spent most of my formative adult years just trying to get stability, while spending my formative childhood years in deep poverty with a mother whose mental health was deeply impacted by a stroke she suffered when I was 16 who laid her hands on my throat once, would alternate between being a loving "hip" mom and screaming at me over mundane bullshit, and would constantly tell me that she could have another stroke and die if I upset her. In my housing instability, I've been sexually assaulted, verbally harassed, or just lived with couples who were constantly fighting.
I want a stable and safe home where I'm not at risk of having to move within ten years. Housing in general is ridiculous, but it's like for us disabled folks, unless we have family or a spouse to live with? Not even the housing options meant to keep us from ending up homeless are available.
I already have my plane ticket (fully refundable) back home for September 9th since I had to book early to get a good deal and lock in my cat's registration for the flight.
I'm just worried that even though I have an opportunity a lot of struggling people don't, I won't even be able to get anything.
If I'm being forced to find a rental, it would be a miracle if I find something in time that won't turn me away for having a cat, relying on Trust for income, being queer, or being unable to use stairs.
I don't want to settle for a mobile home, but likewise, I honestly just want safety and stability. I don't care if it's fucking grandma floral wallpaper and 70's bicolour shag carpet everywhere. It's mine, and the Social security administration is going to force me to spend before I hit 2k$ in assets anyway, may as well throw an entire Lowe's at it.
I know this is a lot, and I honestly don't expect anyone to read it, but I'm so fucking tired and I just want stability before I die (of old age or health, since I guess I'm genetically per-disposed to breast cancer and strokes on top of the rest of all this shit).

I (f30s) found my husbands (m30s) multiple dating apps and I guess porn subscriptions(I don’t mind porn). Claims nothing was ever physical but I don’t believe that for a second and some of my evidence also points towards the probability of at least two. (It’s also possible he is waiting till we are in person to talk more about the situation.) We have been together 7 years married 6. Children also involved. (Have an std test scheduled)
This is now the second time I’ve found some form of infidelity in the last 5 years ish. I can’t remember the time frame of the first time but it was at least 4 years ago. He is military and gone at the moment so I couldn’t confront him personally but I did take screen shots of all my evidence before because I know he is going to deep clean everything before he gets back.
The first time it happened I asked if he wanted to do therapy and he said no. We got past it. But this time he went and got one, with out me prompting and was diagnosed with a sex/porn addiction. I can see it honestly.
Our relationship has been amazing other than this. I felt our sex life was great (2-3 times a week) and after the first time I did make sure to “check in” but with out bringing up the past again. I’m a big believer of if it’s been “rectified” to not bring it up again in the future unless relevant (like now). He’s a great dad and pulls his weight financially and with some of the housework. We all get along with the others family.
I’ve always said that I would NEVER tolerate cheating. But since I knew for a fact the first time wasn’t a physical one I thought we could work through it and give him another chance. Told him if it happened again I was out. Well it’s happened again and now there are children and a medical diagnosis. Not that it’s an excuse but if it is truly an addiction then marriage is in sickness or health. He has agreed to marriage counseling or what ever and is currently working the 10 week program. I also know that accounts have been deactivated and even his insta is down. He has also gotten self help books and all that. So it does seem he is making a great effort even though he still isn’t back (in my text to him I told him to get it all out of his system before he gets back since he seemed to be doing it regardless) so he kinda has a “free pass”. He isn’t back for maybe another month or more. He is also doing the whole “I’ll do xyz when I get back.” Like the bargaining or the groveling.
Im trying to keep communication for him for the sake of his relationship with kids but it sucks because I don’t want him to feel like all is ok even though I told him I was willing to work on our marriage. I’m still very raw and just overwhelmed from now this and just doing everything else by myself.
I don’t know what advice I want as much because half the stuff I want to do (tracker, phone access, accounts access etc) I just feel so grossed out by it. He isn’t a kid. He is a grown ass man and can make the choices not to put his penis in something with out me being big brother. But I also want that peace of mind kinda even though there are ways around all this.
What boundaries would you all put up? What rules or anything would you enforce? I already have an out plan should I decide to leave. It’s the staying that’s going to be hard.
TLDR: husband sexts with multiple people from multiple dating apps. Diagnosed with porn/sex addiction. Staying at the moment till therapy but seeking advise on boundaries or rules to instill.
Edit:also cross posted.

tw: suicide mention, dv and emotional abuse mention, dissociation mention and descriptions
this is definitely NOT a long term solution but it looks like it would have to be a short term one to prevent me from going to a different long term solution....if you know you know.
i feel like i have cycles of forgetting and those cycles (maybe like 6-14 months at a time) i forget emotions and trauma and i'm sooo productive and "normal"
and then all of a sudden it hits me like a ton of bricks and i start remembering everything and i'm stuck in a depressive spiral that lasts like 10-20 months.
i've had the worst most intense spiral of my life since the end of january bc i had to go thru a major retraumatizing event in which i found out there was most def abuse from old court papers even tho my parents always said there wasn't any and that i was just lazy and stupid, and essentially realizing some specific attributes that i always just thought was just inherent to how i am are actually connected to those specific forms of abuse. my day is constantly filled with memories and anger and emotions and i feel like i'm reliving different parts of the 24 years of my life every fucking second, i can't even focus on something for like more than a minute or 2 (i do have ADHD but this is....not it, i've never experienced something like this before aside from some other traumatizing things but that only lasted a few days or weeks, not months)
so i realized this def is not good, and i need therapy to process all this. i bounced around different therapists and they're reluctant to start EMDR therapy w me to process trauma bc they're (rightfully) nervous about how it would affect me considering i live with my mom and im essentially triggered all the time and i don't even have my own room, so there really is no safe space to process this. she they that they wouldn't want me to be triggered and then dissociate, but unfortunately i've been constantly triggered and reliving memories and dissociating hard since january
i understand the therapists' perspective, i don't blame them at all.
the thing is, to move out i need money, which im really low on bc of both physical and mental health problems and i haven't been able to work since october. i can't go back to my old job bc of this spiral i cannot interact with other people normally anymore since jan, like i cannot have a conversation without trauma dumping it's BAD so i just want to avoid social interaction until i am in therapy. i've been applying for other jobs and trying to take online courses but the assessments, the application questions, the cover letters. all these things that used to be tedious but relatively easy are fucking impossible and take days to get thru instead of an hour or two bc i cannot concentrate for more than 1 minute at a time, im just distracted by emotions and memories.
i used to be really good at dissociating and forgetting but its been harder since getting older, my best strategies used to be to think of myself as a tv show or book character, think of life and myself as a video game, or think of how i could turn everything horrible that happened to me into a funny joke. none of these work anymore
tldr: how do i repress my emotions and trauma for at least a year so i can be able to function, get a job and save, move out of my moms house which is a constant trigger, stop and finally get EMDR therapy bc my therapist will be comfortable doing since im in a safe space?

I wish medical euthanasia was legal, accessible, etc. it feels so unfair that I have to live life and feel like every little thing is so extremely hard. I bet I do have potential, but why does it matter if none of my thoughts can come into fruition? If I constantly just feel like the world is so painful, so hard, and that I have to do more things than I hate than things that I like to survive. I am unemployed, can’t find a job, dropped out of college, and I don’t speak to my parents anymore. I don’t have anyone but my ex girlfriend who I live with and she’s my best friend. I am attractive-ish, yet I feel so unlikeable unless that person is interested in dating me. I can’t hold a conversation most of the time. I constantly feel like people judge everything that comes out of my mind. I’ve been working to buy everything I use since I was 17 and I am 22 now. I am exhausted. I feel like I can’t work and yet I keep forcing myself to go back and then eventually quit, and can’t find a job again because of the market. I had m last job for 8 months. I was made supervisor with no pay raise and most people disliked me (unrelated to that), we were severely understaffed and a whole store would be closed by two people. If not, our hours would have so many ups and downs. Constantly between 0 hours and 30 a week. I don’t want to go back to customer service and get yelled at, take on the job of a manager, etc etc just to be given 5 hours the next week no matter what bills I have to pay. I am so broke and my debt is building up but going out and spending literally like 10 bucks in parking is the only thing I can do for cheap to make me happy for at least one day. I don’t even drink. I feel like life is not for me, no matter how hard I try or how low my standards are. My level of trauma is just unbearable: from sexual to physical to verbal, I can’t even have sex and even if I try, I very often don’t trust people’s intentions. I feel so damaged and honestly wish I had the courage to pull the trigger. I’ve been in therapy since I was 13, I’ve had 9 therapists and maybe 4 psychiatrists. Ive been verbally abused by my therapists, and also had some tell my parents I was going through a phase and to just ignore it because it’ll go away eventually (I was 13). I’ve been diagnosed with so many things, taken so many meds. I’ve tried acupuncture, therapy massages, crystal stuff, homeopathy, shadow work therapy, even joined a culty fucking thing my sister was part of for “self improvement”. It feels endless. My feelings feel like each day they get worse. I have good days, I have things that make me happy, but things simply don’t seem to go well for me and I seem to have no drive or easy way to maintain myself while also staying happy. It feels like I get a job and I feel shit because I can’t take it, I can’t take not having a break, but I don’t have one and feel like a failure and a burden to my ex’s parents and to her even. I’ve only been unemployed for a little over a month but the debt stresses me out every day. At this point I either get a job or kill myself. I can’t take being a burden anymore.

Hello! I am a bespectacled femme lesbian with a doctorate in the humanities who studies languages and lives abroad in Asia, studying the Chinese language, and working from time to time on the side as a volunteer for animals and pro bono as a community organiser and English tutor for marginalised (and, often, flat broke) queer people in this part of the world.
Physical things: my hair is a slowly greying dusty blonde curly thing; I am diminutive in stature (162cm/5’3” and 63kg/139lbs) but spirited in manner, though as I continue this life I find I have mellowed out a lot, and have grown quite content, in many ways, with my own company — I used to be quite the party monster, and sometimes still am, though I feel this isn’t often enough!
I am fine with an LDR, at least for a while, and by a “while” I mean, perhaps years, for the right connection — I would expect this, in fact, given the fact I’m only in the United States once a year for a week at a time for my VA healthcare checkup. I tend to date fellow femmes, whether cisgender or transgender. I have been on hormone replacement therapy for long enough that, at this point in my life, being trans is not all that huge a part of my life, if I’m being perfectly honest. I always did exist in a world composed socially almost entirely of women, and felt most comfortable around women, and this decade of my life has been no different. I do guard the most private aspects of my life very vigilantly in what has grown to be an intensely dangerous world for queer people, but I find it easy to open up to others, once given the assurances of the passage of enough time and of the establishment of a good reservoir of mutual trust.
I seek a compassionate woman who is committed to minority rights, particularly progressive and intersectional politics, the rights of transgender, non-binary, and other queer marginalised communities, who wouldn’t balk at the prospect of being in an intimate relationship with a slowly aging, visibly queer femme. (That said — in my defence — I may not be as young or as supple a person anymore, but I definitely take cracking care of my health, and I eat well and walk anywhere from 8-20km a day, so I’d say I’m doing okay!)
A little about me: I did my undergrad in classical philology at a “southern Ivy” in the USA and at a university in the UK before "going on" in English literature. In my work, I help people learn to perform strong readings of literary texts and to master the finer points of English, Spanish, and Latin grammar: my main portfolio involves IELTS training at the upper levels and something called “English for Academic Purposes,” in our community referred to as “EAP”. My academic specialisation is in late-Victorian poetry and most of my published work is in the literary translation of poetry and Victorian and Edwardian women poets. (I am currently translating a major Victorian narrative poem for publication, which if I identified would definitely doxx me — that’s how small my scholarly field is.) I translate and study languages very often, like every single day. I’m vegan because I care deeply about all the nonhuman animal suffering not less than all the human animal suffering in this world, and I see the health benefits (which have been considerable) as being just a side blessing. I try and do the best I can simply to be a good person in this life. I seek meaningful and mutually beneficial relationships, in whatever form they should come my way.
Before sort of semi-retiring from my nearly 20-year teaching career at universities and high schools in the USA, I was a certified Spanish, English, and Latin teacher, and I still work in literary translation for various scholarly/academic societies on a commission basis. I'm also ex-Navy and I am a survivor who has been through a lot but I work hard to ensure that the things I’ve endured no longer get the privilege of defining who I am. It's been "a long, strange trip"; that's for sure.
I enjoy all kinds of stuff: history, literature (obviously, since it's what I do professionally — right now I’m enjoying a nonfiction book about the varieties of contemporary devotional polytheism), ambient music and darkwave (my favourite band has always been the Cocteau Twins), grammalanguages. I enjoy binge-watching romances, "human-drama" narratives, historical fictional narratives, C-dramas -- that sort of thing. I enjoy yoga and travel, and I absolutely love to cook bright, spicy vegan dishes packed to the brim with nutrition and vivid colours. Politically speaking, I am fairly left-wing, but I am easy to get along with — I don’t exactly live for “discourse” the way I used to do when I was younger and more willing to engage people who refuse to be reasoned with. I vote every single election, every two years, dropping my blue-state ballot into the international mailbox with the pert attitude of any confident and indomitable progressive.
Languages: as mentioned above, my Chinese is still decidedly elementary, but I am working diligently on the problem. I state this outright for honesty's sake. I also lived in Vietnam for a couple of years, and I have no business claiming Vietnamese either, although I'm probably at CEFR A1+/A2 or so. I speak Spanish fluently, from the cradle, as I am Latina. My French is decent, and I can read ancient Greek and classical Latin, the latter of which I still teach to this day. And yes, I have read Sappho in the original Aeolic Greek. (She’s actually one of my very favourite poets, for many reasons that are probably more boring than the ones you’d imagine.)Re: the whole monogamy/polyamory matter: so, I have been in both arrangements and would consider either for the right connection. I was in a monogamous marriage for 13 years and we are still close friends today, though, so if that bothers you I'm possibly not your jam. Jealousy has cast a dark shadow in my life in the past, and I respect the autonomy of others, and demand it in my own life, particularly in intimate relationships.
Feel free to DM me, if you would like to chat or connect. I am always just as sincerely looking for sweet people as friends, as I am hoping for (a) possible relationship(s)! I crave connection that is genuine, and I am open-hearted.
Thanks so much for taking the time to read my post! Let’s see what happens next. :)

Hi I’m 25 F and April 2022 my life changed. I started having chest pain on my life side that felt like stabbing out of no where. I went to the ER and did a chest ct, ekg, blood work and nothing. This has not gone away. I’ll get stabbing chest pain mainly on my life side and behind my ribs on the left side near the last couple ribs at the bottom. When it gets bad enough I’ll go to the ER. I’ve gone to the ER probably 4 times at this point. I’ve done everything from physical therapy, musculoskeletal doctor, multiple x rays, heart monitor, ct scan on heart, stress test, blood work on top of blood work, egd (no samples taken). They were supposed to take a sample but the doctor forgot. I’ve spent upwards of 7,000 on medical bills.
My doctor thinks it could be anxiety and the more I advocate for myself the more I feel like I’m crazy. I’ve previously struggled with depression and anxiety but this is so much more than that. I never felt like this until I was a couple weeks into dealing with this. I feel like I’m going insane between the pain and severe anxiety and panic attacks. I just wish I could have my life back. I’ve been seeing a counselor because I have been feeling suicidal and so down with this going on. I feel so defeated.
My symptoms are primarily the stabbing chest pain, I’ll occasionally get a really acid taste in the back of my throat, bloating, burping, and shortness of breath. Sometimes the chest pain will be dull like pressure.
What is the best test to be accurately diagnosed? I’ve heard of the breath test but I don’t want to do something that’s not accurate.

I posted this in a narcissistic parent group and someone tagged this group and honestly I just need to scream this whole issue somewhere bc I feel like I’m losing my mind
I (26f) went home to visit my parents this week to go wedding dress shopping. I was originally going to elope and turn the event into a wedding/honeymoon but my mom and my sister practically begged me to have a real wedding. Hey if the parents are paying for it I won’t say no. (And I would love to have my sister there) We found the perfect mother of the bride dress for my mom while we were shopping. I was really excited. Today (now yesterday) I found my dress. I was crying I was so happy!
Then while my dad was paying for the dress (they are fulfilling my grandma’s promise to buy my wedding dress since she passed of cancer and they got the inheritance) my mom was trying once again to convince me to have the wedding where they live. I’m across the country and am planning on having it near where I live. My mom is a pro at the guilt trip and mentioned if we do it where I live my grandparents and aunts and cousins (all her side since everyone on my dads side is dead now) won’t be able to come. Well after a week of this I basically told her (gently) that I really want my friends to be there, and for their safety I wouldn’t feel comfortable inviting my extended family in the first place. Especially my grandparents.
For context, my grandparents and mom are the textbook definition of Qanon trumpers. My grandma was talking all about how she supports book banning after one of my appointments and her and my mom are convinced the election was stolen. Now my friends are all very liberal people. Among the guests we have non-binary individuals, queer individuals, a drag Queen, and a polyamorous throuple. And I finally let my mom know this because it just came to the point where it couldn’t be avoided anymore. I wanted to make sure she knew to be polite around them. She looked like she would be sick. But the kicker came when I mentioned one of our guests is immunocompromised and we were going to ask people to be up to date on their shots.
Now this woman has gotten Covid and had to go to the emergency room. She had to have a respirator. She had long Covid afterwards and started losing her hair. She looked me in the eye and said “maybe I shouldn’t have gotten that dress then.”
She would rather not go to my wedding at all than get vaccinated to protect my friend from dying. She would rather not wear a mask than watch me walk down the aisle.
Luckily my dad is sane and vaccinated but he is so “don’t stir the pot” that I know he won’t do much. The whole thing killed the joy of finally finding my dress and I want to cry. My mom has disappointed me and crossed boundaries and just been a conspiracy theorist wack job my whole life but the little part of me that has been holding out hope and just wanting her mom is crushed. I wanted to cry.
This morning I told my dad that my partner and I would be willing to figure out some compromise with having her take Covid tests leading up to the wedding and he said he would bring it up, but with him and my sister being the only family basically coming that they would no longer pay for the wedding if my mom couldn’t come. Like I never said she couldn’t come I just wanted her to be aware and not potentially make my friends really sick. She’s the one choosing if she would come or not and putting it all on me. She keeps saying how much I’m upsetting her like it isn’t MY WEDDING that SHE is making all about HER! She’s the one who wants to die on this hill. She tried telling me not to invite my friends so she could go but I’m absolutely NOT going to do that bc they are close friends of ours and some are even responsible for my partner and I getting together in the first place. They are like family to us.
And my dad taking her side on the issue by basically threatening to stop funding it (the money would be up to him more than my mom so it’s really a him decision) is honestly the worst part. All these years I gave him more credit than he deserved. Up until now I always felt like he had my back when it came to my mom and that he was someone safe. I just can’t look at him the same after this.
She has begrudgingly agreed to the Covid tests (though she’s still upset bc somehow the government will track her through an at home test or some shit) and I’m guessing they are still funding the wedding now that we have come to that “compromise” but our relationship will never be the same after this. I’ve spent years trying to fix the relationship with my mom but she’s made it impossible. I honestly don’t want her to come anymore after cooling down, but I went through so much just to get a compromise out of her that I might as well just leave it so I can at least have a wedding before the relationship with my parents absolutely dissolves.
Fuck trump and fuck Qanon for making her so much worse than she was. I remember when she believed antivaxers were idiot hippies. At least that was one thing we could agree on. Now she tells me she “woke up” my friends and I are lucky our hearts haven’t exploded or some shit while my friend AND my fiancé have both lost people to Covid. And I know so much of it is fueled by extreme evangelical shit that she keeps spitting even now like there weren’t three raptures that were supposed to occur since I was in the third grade. Oddly enough I wish she was even a little like she was back when I was in the third grade. At least she wasn’t this bad.
What really sucks is IM the one who feels guilty. I feel like I did something wrong. I feel like I’m somehow the selfish one and a disappointment. I just want to go home to my fiancé and cry in bed. I feel like I mean so little to both of them right now. But like… it’s my wedding. Even if I am being selfish, isn’t it at least a little understandable? Am I somehow in the wrong here and just not seeing it?
And cutting them off completely would hurt my mental and physical health because due to a few mental illnesses I have trouble keeping a steady job and am therefor financially dependent on them, especially for things like dr and therapy appointments which I need to stay sane and get my medications.
Once I’m back with my fiancé I’m sure things will feel a little better but this pit in my stomach hurts. Sorry this turned into a big old trauma dump rant but this shit keeps weighing on me.
Sorry about format and all that shit. I’m on mobile.

Starting in the middle of last semester I started experiencing mental health problems. I have ADHD, PTSD, Dysthymia, and probably symptoms of other disorders. I go to therapy and I've tried medications that haven't helped. I have a long back story but I'm not going to get into that, all I'll say is my sister died, my dad has stage 4 cancer, and I lost the only woman I ever truly loved. The aftermath of losing my sister and my ex have taken a toll.
Besides all that, I was coping really well and trying to heal with therapy and trying to find meds that might work with my doctor. I don't know what happened but starting a few months ago I started a downward spiral into what I can only describe as a mid-life crisis and a crisis of my spirit. I am lost. When I say lost, I mean it in it's truest definition. I'm lost mentally, spiritually, physically, and even kind of geographically (I really don't feel like I belong in the place where I live).
I feel like I've only ever made people's lives worse. I feel like my family members that love me only love me because they feel obligated to. I look at the people that used to be in my life and they are usually doing better than when I was a part of their life. Especially my ex. I've realized that I really don't like myself at all. In fact I hate me, I think I'm worthless and only make things harder or actively worse. I burden everyone I come in contact with even if they don't see it.
I'm so fucking tired of having to live through these thoughts and feelings everyday. Nothing seems to help and my everything in my life is suffering. I have genuinely tried to reach out for help and prioritize my mental health. I have tried to slowly make progress and expose myself to new situations. It helped for a bit but I've fallen back further than when I started. I don't recognize myself and I don't really know who I am anymore. I know it sounds selfish but I need someone to come help me because I am not capable of helping myself right now. It can't be any of my family because not only do they have their own lives, they're also part of my unresolved trauma. I'm scared, and alone, and I just want someone to give shit about me and have a solution. I don't know why I'm even posting this because it's never helped before (because it's just a screen to me), but I don't have any options.
I feel so disconnected from my heart and soul. The few people I used to go to for advice are gone. I don't want to exist like this anymore, I can't. It hurts too much and I feel like I can't access parts of my mind. I used to believe in things, the big one being love. Now I'm 29 and I feel like I'm unlovable. People say all the time that you have to work on yourself and learn to love yourself before you can love someone else. They say once you do that you'll naturally find someone to love. I tried every way I knew how to work on improving myself in the ways I could and accepting the things I couldn't change. I tried to love myself and yet here I am broken and alone. I know it sounds opposite from what most people think, but I just feel like it would be easier to learn how to love myself if I had someone that I could love. I loved my ex deeply, even if my love for myself wasn't there. It didn't end the way you probably think.
I don't know if this post will do help at all, and I'm pretty sure it won't do anything, but I like I said I'm out of options. I hate myself and all the morals and values I grew up with don't seem to exist in our society anymore. That or our society is ignoring them and letting them die. I don't know what's next but honestly it's getting dark. I feel like I'd be doing the world a favor by dying, and I wouldn't have to feel so much pain anymore. The people I think about when those thoughts pop into my head are starting to seem like a reason to do it instead of a reason not to. They're also don't have to cope with living with this pain. The biggest thing that holds me back from doing it is my doggo. He still needs me. I know I'm probably just seeing patterns where there are none, but it seems like everytime I run into something good, something happens to take it away.
Anyways, thanks if you made it this far. The song of hope may never stop, but at this point I can't hear it. That being said, I hope someday I can write something more uplifting on here if I'm still around.

Vital Environmental Factors That Can Prevent Recovery From BPD:
If, as a result of childhood trauma, we have developed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or borderline personality disorder (BPD) our post-traumatic environment can have an extremely strong impact upon our chances of recovery. I list some particularly important factors below :
LACK OF SUPPORT FROM FRIENDS, FAMILY AND THE WIDER COMMUNITY / SOCIETY
If we are not provided with such support, but, instead, are shunned and ignored, it is highly likely that our feelings of worthlessness, vulnerability and isolation will be intensified.
Support needs to be non-judgmental, empathic and validating both of our emotional pain and also of our interpretation of how our adverse experiences have affected us.
Also, those providing the support need to be 'emotionally literate' (i.e. able and willing to discuss feelings and emotions in a compassionate and understanding manner)
NOT BEING BELIEVED
Obviously, if people we talk to about our traumatic experiences don't believe what we are saying or believe we are exaggerating the seriousness of what happened to us (or the seriousness of the effect it has had upon us) our psychological condition is likely to be severely aggravated: our lack of self-esteem, sense of despair, sense of worthlessness, sense of unlovability, feelings of isolation and any feelings of anger, bitterness and resentment we may have are all likely to be severely intensified.
SECONDARY VICTIMIZATION
We need to avoid those who would cause us secondary victimization. Secondary victimization occurs when those who ought to be helping us instead harm us further. Indeed, the example of not being believed (see above) is one such form of secondary victimization.
Other examples of secondary victimization include :

• having a doctor who minimizes/trivializes the seriousness of what has occurred to us and its effects
  
• being stigmatized by society for having developed a psychiatric condition
  
• being shunned and ostracized by friends/family due to our condition
  
• being made to feel ashamed in connection with what has happened to us and its effects
  
• having the vulnerable nature we have developed as a result of our mental condition exploited by an intimate partner (the risk of this is especially high as those who have suffered significant abuse in their early lives are frequently (on an unconscious level) driven to seek out intimate partners who are likely to abuse them further (this is sometimes referred to as a repetition compulsion).
  

On top of these problems, it can, too, be difficult to get professional support:
A recent study carried out by Proctor et al., 2020, has produced further evidence that BPD sufferers frequently find it highly problematic gaining access to effective treatment such as dialectical behaviour therapy, or DBT. (In relation to this problem, you may wish to read my previously published articles: How Malignant Alienation May Impoverish Care BPD Patients Receive.)
Whilst many professional used to believe BPD was typically unresponsive to treatment, this can no longer operate as a feasible excuse as there now exists an increasingly large and growing body of evidence that a substantial proportion of those who have been diagnosed with this extremely serious condition (which is closely linked to severe and protracted, interpersonal, childhood trauma) can be treated effectively, at least to the degree that they no longer fulfil the requisite criteria necessary for the diagnosis of BPD to continue to be applicable.
The authors of the study suggest that difficulty obtaining proper treatment is linked to the continued stigma attaching itself to a BPD diagnosis. However, as sufferers of the condition become increasingly knowledgeable about the illness and of the existence of evidence base therapies like DBT (see above), so too should their confidence assertively to request the opportunity to access such treatment. After all, about one in ten BPD sufferers eventually die by suicide, so the need for such individuals to be offered compassionate, non-judgmental, empathetic and non-discriminatory treatment can hardly be overstated. The treatment of extreme mental pain is just as much of an ethical imperative as is the treatment of extreme physical pain.
The Australian study surveyed 500 patients between 2011 and 2017 and found that those offered appropriate help often waited between a year and a year-and-a-half to receive it. The author of the study pointed out that this not only resulted in unnecessary suffering for the BPD sufferer but also placed extra strain on hospital emergency services (i.e. due to more BPD sufferers reaching crisis point, attempting suicide, self-medicating with dangerous levels of alcohol and/or narcotics, extreme self-harm such as self-cutting and self-burning etc.).
The researchers concluded by emphasizing the importance of health professionals applying NHMRC BPD guidelines in order to support front line services responsible for the welfare of BPD sufferers.

Trigger Warning: PTSD, Sexual Assault, Sexual Harassment, Chronic Illness
Hey everybody, I hope you all are doing well and staying safe!
First off, I want to start off by acknowledging that the fact that I'm in college and able to study fields I enjoy is a huge privilege because I don't want to misrepresent myself and make it seem like I'm suffering more than I am. That'd be super wrong of me. However, I've been really struggling with regret lately for transferring and needed to talk to somebody about it if that is okay with you all.
I also know this is a super long post, and I'm sorry about that. Thanks so much for reading this.
While I have a lot to be thankful for with my youth, there were also very difficult moments without a doubt. When I was a very little kid, my aunt molested me, I witnessed a kid getting beat up by his mom and was pressured to keep it a secret, dealt with bullying and racism from both other students and teachers.
I hoped that going to high school would help, but it unfortunately didn't. Once I went through puberty, a lot of adults in my life like my mom's friend and a swim coach began to say creepy things to me and sexually harass me, and I was also sexually coerced over and over again. Furthermore, my high school was a really racist, misogynistic, transphobic, and homophobic place, so I wanted to get out of there fast.
I also got a lifelong physical illness that while thankfully is not lethal as long as I keep watching my symptoms, a cure is not known yet and it's caused some permanent markings on my body, which really interfered with my athletics and my self-image.
I was hoping that with college, I'd have the chance to start over my life and kinda live a coming-of-age movie/book cliche life where I meet an amazing group of friends and get to process my trauma.
And for my first year of college, it kinda was like that. It wasn't without its struggles. I initially did struggle to be accepted by my college initially, and the administration when they discovered I was struggling mentally was very unsupportive. However, it was also the first time I was able to start therapy, learned that I had PTSD, and seek treatment for what I was going through. Furthermore, halfway through the year, I made a group of incredibly wonderful and accepting friends, and people at the college began to embrace me, which I really appreciated.
I also began to do really well academically for the first time, and I even met professors who didn't abuse us and really cared, which really changed my life for the better.
However, as much as I wanted to stay, I realized I wanted to study something else, and it led me to transfer. And somehow, my new university became a really horrible experience I dreaded. It was like my high school life was rebooting.
While things weren't as bad as when I was in high school, I still dealt with a lot of really horrible situations like people sexually harassing me several times, dealing with people who constantly enabled horrible people and made jokes about sexual assault/harassment (even administrators from the university would do this too, which was really upsetting), a dorm that was way too into partying to the point where my stuff was constantly getting messed with, etc. I knew from orientation I made a huge mistake coming here.
It's made me really miss my former college, and on top of that, it hasn't helped that as someone who isn't into partying/drinking, I've had a lot of trouble finding connections because so many of my classmates at my new school are into that. To make things even worse, upon taking classes in a new field here, I have realized I actually prefer my old field, which made transferring completely useless for me.
All of this has made me regret leaving my former school so much, and I feel a ton of guilt. I feel so shameful that I got greedy and left a group of friends who treated me really well, and I've lost a lot of touch with them which really saddens me. A lot of them are doing well nowadays, and I'm so happy for them. I truly am, but there's a selfish part of me that's so sad that they've been able to move on from me. I also lost a ton of really good academic and extracurricular opportunities that could have helped me with my future grad school and fellowship apps, which just makes my regret bigger.
Worst of all, I'm so scared this is it and my life is just going to stay this horrible and/or get worse from here. What if I peaked my first year of college? The thought that could be true makes me so sad and terrified, and I just don't know how to move on from this regret honestly.
Thank you to everybody who read through this, and I hope you all have a great day/night. I really appreciate you all.

mostly just a vent, advice if you have any? not expecting any though, I just need to vent also not proofread, sorry
the following is very long, tldr I am incredibly lucky and well off and have every reason to be happy but I'm a shitty selfish person who wants easy instant gratification more than to improve and I can't get myself to care about anything enough to try hard enough
I have grown up in an upper middle class family, my parents are cheap because they grew up poorer then dirt but I have never felt insecure about money or that my needs and wants weren't met financially. my parents have some issues, products of traumatizing childhoods they treated with alcohol when they were younger and now they try and ignore, but they are certainly not awful. My dad can irrationally angry and yell, my mom will flip from being the most loving adoring person to seemingly despising me over the exact same thing, but I have in no way ever been physically abused and at worst maybe got a couple overly harsh words... well paragraphs (she does not know when to stop talking even when she's just digging a deeper hole for herself) from my mom. their worst attribute is probably just the gaslighting that fights never happened or went differently then I remembered but it's not that big of a deal and to be fair I have god awful recall so maybe they are right???
I have a wonderful boyfriend, he lives across the US from me right now because his dad is in the coast guard but we spent a very nice couple months together and are still going very strong. he is the most kind, loving, and supportive person in the world, I love him more than I knew I could love anything.
I don't have many friends because I either pushed them away directly or indirectly because I am a shut-in online college student and will forget to respond to text messages for weeks sometimes, but I have a couple who still try even despite how god awful of a friend I am.
I am not doing the greatest in college, but I am not doing terrible either, my state has the Running Start program where you can take partially school-funded college classes from the local community college to count as high school credits junior and senior year, I've been doing that the last 2 years. I am graduating from highschool next month and from college with a business associates next year in March hopefully. I also skipped kindergarten, meaning I am very far ahead in things.
I am in discussion with a local CPA accounting firm about a part-time junior accountant position which is an incredible opportunity in the accounting field as is regardless of how young and relatively inexperienced I am to be having these conversations. It's one of the few things I'm actually good at (at least so far) that I don't despise AND makes good money, I am very excited for it.
I am a trans guy, took me a while to realize it because I tried so hard to convince myself I just needed to "be a girl better" and that's why I hated myself, literally made my own "girl-bootcamp" where I tried to teach myself to be a girl in the most toxic feminity misogynistic way possible like a fool. I'm out of it now though! I am dressing the way I want, I go by a preferred name now, I was out in my highschool's theatre program and everyone was chill with it, I am not working right now so I'm not stuck getting dead named and misgendered all day anymore, and I just had my first appointment with the best gender clinic in my state and I'm supposed to start testosterone in a month. I should be happier then I've ever been.
but in the last month I almost killed myself 3 times, I had only gotten that close to an attempt once before. I've gained this sickening awareness, now that I've met all the imaginary conditions for happiness and success, that I am not getting any better, and it's because I don't want to.
As a kid I daydreamed so hard about the future, so sure the future would make everything better for me, that I became a maladaptive daydreamer and I am still no better about that to this day. eventually I stopped being able to imagine having a future at all, any event planned to happen past this afternoon doesn't feel real until it's occuring. I got out of toxic friendgroups, got in a relationship, got out of it, did therapy, got ADHD meds, did more therapy, got antidepressants, did virtual intensive outpatient therapy, did more therapy after that. I got good grades, I discovered myself, I got a job, I dropped the job to focus on school and myself, I fell in love, I make planner after planner after planner trying to organize my life, I try everything I can to find things I enjoy doing that make my happy and might give me motivation, I have did everything I was supposed to and I am the same trash I was at the start.
I take a shower maybe once a month I brush my teeth maybe once every couple months I eat average 2 meals a day, often just one I stay up late into the night, sleep long into the morning, or fall asleep a 6pm and wake up at 6am, I fall asleep all the time randomly and fatigue clings to me like plastic film I pace for hours and hours daydreaming, or ranting out loud to myself when I'm home alone I doomscroll until my eye sockets feel hollow I play stupid games I know are wasting my time when there are urgent things to be done I rot. I lay in my bed in rot. I sit on the couch and rot. I pace in the kitchen and rot. I sit on my phone and rot.
I can not control myself, I only care about self-fulfilling instant gratification and nothing else. eating is hard and I don't like it, won't do it. showering is hard and I don't feel like it, won't do it. brushing my teeth is hard and I am tired, won't do it. going outside is hard and I know secretly they can't help but judge my stupid girly voice the moment I open my stupid fucking mouth, won't do it studying is hard and I am too stupid for this shit anyways, won't do it
I am not getting better, I am only getting worse. I am at the highest dose of ADHD meds I can comfortably take before the side effects start to bug me, I take a pretty high dose of anti depressants. I know I am chemically better than before, it's not raw exhaustion and disinterest and misery, I get very happy and excited and energetic, but only if does something for me NOW. I get excited about dandelions and weird bugs and Hank green tiktoks and playing Stardew valley and city bus rides and zoos, but only in the moment and once it is gone I am hollow. if something is at all out of reach, no matter how good it is, how much ecstatic euphoric joy it brings me in the moment, I will not fight for it. no matter how miserable I am, if improving the situation is perceived as even slightly more uncomfortable for the tiniest moment, I won't do it. I sometimes have... bladder control issues, absolutely not fucking fun. I used to be so ashamed and proactive about it, and I still feel awful and disgusting and ashamed, but if it's the usual small amount where I can convince myself "it'll dry", I'll literally rot in my own filth for a week or so. it's disgusting, I am disgusting. I have been trying so hard to do better but it's never enough because I can't put my full heart in it, I just want my simple easy pleasure and then die. I am still trying to keep up with things, but I am continuing to worsen. the same cycle happened to me with both jobs I worked, I'd start out a star employee, learning really fast, showing up early, being very responsible, then I'd progressively show up a little later, just barely on time, a minute or two late, 5 minutes late, 10, 20, I call out "sick" an hour before my shift, I do this a couple times, I put in my two weeks/quit. I make up some excuse, usually some mysteriously serious and private family matters, and rot in bed because I fell behind on work or just couldn't find the energy to go and then I realized I'm a shitty employee and leave. I am at the "realizing I'm a shitty employee and leaving" stage in my life as a whole, but that's not allowed. Giving up is a terrible sad tragedy, but the only cure to sadness is to want to be happy. The only way to get better is to want to improve and push through the hard times and work hard and someday things will be easy and good. There's no cure to being the selfish asshole who cares more about not having to brush my teeth then living for my loved ones. I don't want to fight anymore, I am tired, the fighting isn't making me better, my ADHD and depression and arfid all keep from doing the things to fight my ADHD and depression and arfid enough as is, simply not having the will to fight is the final nail. I'm so tired, I want to take off from school and ignore the job opportunity and ignore any needs or responsibilities or meals and just play games and watch science videos and walk around town solely just to walk and look at things in stores I'll never buy and make weird clothes and pick flowers and impulse buy that Amtrak ticket to Monterey so I can visit the aquarium and sleep outside because I'm too young to book and stay in a hotel room alone and catch a bus going somewhere I don't know just to see where I end up and walk through the woods behind my house and try to find animal bones or a snake or something, I want to scream and cry and tear myself to shreds and laugh until I can't breath and spend every second and those awful unproductive dangerous stupid expensive waste-of-time wonderful perfect soul-filling tiny tiny little moments and then just drop dead. no more responsibility to anyone, certainly not myself, just ecstasy and permanent sleep.
it's not fair, I don't deserve that at all, it's selfish to want it when every person in my life has been through so much worse and are doing a thousand times better, I'll hurt people, life isn't that hard, ADHD and depression and common and executive dysfunction happens to people all the time and they do incredible amazing things and all I'm asked is to eat my dinner, take my 2 online college classes, and not fucking kill myself and I am failing at all 3 and I don't deserve to be getting away with this, even if I live but keep up tis behavior I will hurt people and ruin myself, but I just don't care enough to try because at night when I'm standing in front of the bathroom door, more than enough energy to brush my teeth for two minutes, knowing I should, knowing it's easy and fine and good for me and I need to I really need to, I still turn my head and walk into my room. I yell at the people trying to help me, I shove everyone away, and ruin my own life again and again and again and I'm never going to stop because I don't want to. I am shitty selfish person and I don't fucking care and I want to care but I just can't fucking care.

I, 16F, recently resorted to the decision to stop seeing my father after years of many different events. I should firstly make it clear that I wasn’t subject to abuse in any of this I don’t think, I know I wasn’t physically though. So, when I was 7, my parents had divorced and my dad very soon after started dating another lady and moved in with her whilst I stayed living with my mum. Before he had left, he was always such a lovely and funny dad - well, that’s what everyone tells me anyway as I don’t have any memories of him living with us. However, after he left he started changing lots and now he’s nothing like he was before. His girlfriend would very often criticise and make constant pokes at me. It became very apparent quickly that she didn’t want any involvement with me, and wanted my dad for herself. Many times she would do cruel things and say some pretty harsh things. One time I was staying at their house for the weekend but wasn’t feeling well enough to go and see my dad’s girlfriends’ family for the day. Later that day when they got home, she was meant to be cooking dinner for us and because I didn’t feel well enough to see her family, according to her, I was apparently not well enough to eat and whilst they sat with their full plates, I was sat with a small snack and a few slices of cucumber. Another time I had accidentally spilt a glass of water to which she got pretty angry, shouted at me for a bit before storming outside to sit in her car for about 6 hours until I left to go home as she refused to talk to or speak to me. One time on New Year’s Eve we had celebrated with family and were going back to a hotel after. Keep in mind the hotel only provided enough pillows for the three of us to have one each. I felt very sick when we got back to the hotel so I sat in the bathroom almost throwing up. Once I went back into the room when I was feeling slightly better, my bed had no pillow, whilst my dads girlfriend had two and overheard her whisper shouting to my dad “she’s not my daughter, why should I care about her?”. So basically I was feeling really unwell and she couldn’t even spare a small ounce of empathy or sympathy by leaving me a pillow for my comfort? No. She didn’t care about me as she so clearly said. These are only a scarce number of the things that happened between me and them. No matter how many times I would tell my dad how disregarded and unwelcome I felt around them and told him the things she had done/ said, even if he witnessed them, he would always back her up. Anyways, fast forward to lockdown, him and his girlfriend got pregnant and despite the rules in the uk saying that fathers and mothers living in desperate households can still see their children during the pandemic, he would make up excuses, which was fine whilst she was pregnant, however as time went on and my half brother was born, the excuses not to see me didn’t stop. He would say he couldn’t see me, yet his girlfriend would be posting photos of her and ALL of her family (keeping in mind the uk rules were that you could only meet with one other household) and it became so frequent to the point my mum would have to comfort me at least two or three times a week from just seeing her new posts and being pushed away. My half brother is now turning three this year and I’ve only seen him 6 times at most which kind of says a lot. Anyway, at the start of the year I was diagnosed with a condition that causes me to faint often. From the multiple trips to the hospital, we learnt that on top of the other thing, I was clinically diagnosed with trauma and anxiety caused by my dad. Funnily enough, the only cause for the other thing I was diagnosed with that would make sense for my situation, is trauma. I honestly wasn’t surprised about the anxiety. It got to a point where even if I saw a message come through from him, I’d shake a lot and my eyes would well up with tears. When he called was even worse and I physically couldn’t press the answer or call button. This now takes us to a few weeks ago. I called him up, well, got my mum to press the call button for me and sit in the next room over and shut the door. I told him that I constantly felt anxious around him and his girlfriend and how unwanted they would make me feel which I had already told him over the years, to which he went on to try and manipulate me into thinking I was in the wrong and was victimising himself which I was starting to buy into and I’m assuming my mum had heard me crying on the call and some of what I was saying as she came into the room and nodded at me to hang up. So I told him not to contact me and I hung up in tears. I spent a whole hour or two after that call fully shaking badly and sobbing in my mum’s arms whilst she had to comfort me and reassure me that I wasn’t in the wrong and I haven’t done anything or said anything bad to them and she had to continuously explain to me how he was essentially gaslighting me into believing I was the one who had messed it all up. Long story short, I am getting put on a waiting list for therapy and have cut contact with my dad and am not planning on seeing him any time soon, or hopefully ever again. I’ve been trying to think of things I could have said or done that could cause them to act how they do with me and I mean, I have sent a few messages before which I expressed my annoyance in and also on a call but in those times it was 99% of the time to defend and stand my ground. Now I have a bit of an issue, with Father’s Day coming up in the uk, it has me constantly envisioning my dad sitting and waiting for a message all of the day to have the realisation that he has essentially lost a daughter. I keep getting a picture in my mind of my dad breaking down staring at the empty notifications on his phone and I’m scared that the stress will push him too far. He has always been one to bottle things up and then let it all out and as much as I hate him for what he has done, I don’t want him working himself into a heart attack or something. He’s still my dad. I don’t even know if he cares enough about me for it to hurt him but I keep getting this crushing guilt in my heart which is what has led me to being sat here at 3:45am on a Sunday typing this up. I really don’t know what to do and whether I’m in the wrong for what I’ve done or not because my friends all tell me that my dad and his girlfriend are in the wrong but my mind makes me believe they’re just saying it because they’re friends/ family and don’t want to hurt me. Please be as honest about me as you want in this because I need a genuinely honest opinion from people I don’t know so I can’t get biased responses. So, am I the asshole for dropping contact with my father?

It is important to note that this article is only a thought experiment for the purposes of reconsidering our implicit assumptions and societal conceptions of the necessities for civilization and what is “normal” behavior for humans. In the article about mysticism I pointed out that I was a psychotherapist not a theologian. Here I need to point out that I am not an economist either. This thought experiment is not advocating for any kind of specific new political or economic reality. Instead it is a way to reconsider the things we take for granted and meditate on new ideas that might allow us to conceive of a healthier and more stable society.
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If we didn’t have gold what would money look like?
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If we didnt have nonperishable precious metals like gold and silver, what would money look like. There are not many other goods we can make hold value in such a small and convenient package like gold, platinum, and silver to a lesser extent do. All the noble metals have a high luster, malleability, and do not spoil with age. How would society store value without them?
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Well there are a couple examples of how money developed in places without gold. My favorite is an island called Yap where there was little to no money. Instead native Yapese used 20ft tall limestone disks that weighed hundreds of pounds. So how did this money work? How do you put a 200 lb stone in a vending machine or slide it across a bar?
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The Yapese never moved the stones they used as money. Instead they kept an oral and collective ledger of who owned what stones. Money that can’t fit in your wallet might seem like a crazy idea, but think of how your debit card works. There is a collective ledger somewhere out there that changes every time you slide your card even though no physical money is moved.
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How did Yap money work?
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On the island of Yap, the acquisition and distribution of rai stones were closely tied to prestige and social merit. The process of awarding rai stones was based on various factors that reflected an individual’s status, achievements, and contributions to the community.
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The primary means of acquiring rai stones was through social recognition and acknowledgment of an individual’s accomplishments. These accomplishments could include successful leadership, acts of bravery, or notable achievements in various fields such as agriculture, craftsmanship, or diplomacy. The more esteemed and respected an individual was within the community, the higher the likelihood of receiving rai stones.
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The recognition and awarding of rai stones were often carried out through public ceremonies and gatherings. These events provided a platform for the community to acknowledge and celebrate the achievements of an individual. The stones were typically presented by influential community leaders or elders who acted as the arbiters of social merit.
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It’s important to note that the awarding of rai stones was not a purely individualistic pursuit but rather a collective decision that reflected the consensus of the community. The opinions and judgments of community members, particularly those in positions of authority or with significant influence, played a crucial role in determining the social merit of an individual and their eligibility to receive rai stones.
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The rai stones bestowed upon an individual were not meant to be hoarded or accumulated solely for personal wealth. Instead, they served as symbols of prestige and social standing. The possession of rai stones demonstrated an individual’s contributions to the community and their ability to garner respect and admiration.
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The Yapese monetary system served as tangible representations of honor and status, reinforcing the social fabric and common good of Yapese society.
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So in answer to the original question “How could society store value without gold?” We would store it through a reputation system rewarding benevolence, generosity and innovation. The people who gave back to society the most would be awarded the most value in the form of reputation, not by how many precious metals they owned.
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How did gold change our conceptions of society and culture?
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Gold has long fascinated humanity with its allure and intrinsic non-perishable value. The presence of gold on Earth almost did not happen at all. If there were a few changes to astrophysical geometry you may not have been able to buy gold jewelry in the store. So, why is there gold on earth?
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The symbolism of gold in mythology usually relates to to the concept of the Self, a central archetype in Jungian psychology representing the totality of the psyche. Because the ancients associated gold with being so rare and so precious, it came to represent knowledge of the authentic and hiddens self. Fair tales that have to do with reclaiming a lost treasure are metaphors for self discovery and reclaiming lost parts of our identity. In fairy tales, gold often appears in the form of a golden key, a golden crown, or a golden apple, serving as a powerful symbol of the transformative potential of self-knowledge. These objects are typically guarded by mythical creatures or hidden in remote locations, emphasizing the arduous nature of the journey towards self-understanding.
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The origins of gold as an element on planet earth trace back to the formation of the universe itself. In the earliest moments following the Big Bang, only light elements such as hydrogen and helium were present. It was within the cores of massive stars, through the process of stellar nucleosynthesis, that heavier elements like gold began to take shape. These elements were forged through the fusion of lighter nuclei in the intense heat and pressure of stellar environments.
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As these massive stars reached the end of their lives, they supernovae explosions. These scattered their noble metal enriched contents into space. The remnants of these supernovae, containing elements like gold, spread across the cosmos in the form of dust and gas. This dust and gas later condensed into rocky masses of meteors that had high concentrations of gold.
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The earth itself almost had no gold. While the primordial Earth held minuscule amounts of gold, it was not until later stages of our planet’s evolution that the precious metal became concentrated enough for us to mine or value them. The late heavy bombardment period, around 4 billion years ago, witnessed a barrage of meteoritic impacts bombarding the Earth’s surface. These meteorites, originating from various sources within the solar system, carried with them a wealth of elements, including gold.
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If it was not for this coincidental bombardment of asteroids there never would have been enough gold on earth for you to wear gold jewelry. There certainly would not have been enough for us to use as money, let alone build a monetary system around. So what would have happened if we never associated gold with money, power, or value?
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Why is gold associated with money and currency
Gold is durable, divisible, and portable, making it an ideal medium of exchange. Additionally, gold has intrinsic value due to its luster malleability and non reactivity to other elements, which further contributed to its use as a form of currency.
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The use of metal coins as a form of money emerged around 600 BCE in ancient Lydia (present-day Turkey). These coins were made from precious metals like gold, silver, and bronze, and their value was determined by their weight and purity. Gold, due to its scarcity and durability, became a preferred choice for coinage.
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Over time, gold became widely accepted as a standard for money. Its scarcity, divisibility, portability, and resistance to corrosion made it an ideal medium of exchange. Gold coins became a trusted and standardized unit of value in many ancient civilizations, including the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, and Persians.
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In medieval Europe, goldsmiths played a crucial role in the evolution of money and debt. People entrusted their gold and other valuable assets to goldsmiths for safekeeping. In return, the goldsmiths issued receipts, which could be used as a claim to the deposited gold. These receipts gradually started circulating as a form of paper money or representative money. This practice laid the foundation for early banking systems and the issuance of paper-based instruments representing value.
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The concept of the gold standard gained prominence during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Under the gold standard, the value of a country’s currency was tied to a fixed amount of gold. Governments held gold reserves to back their currency, and individuals could exchange paper money for gold at a predetermined rate. The gold standard provided stability and confidence in the currency, as the money supply was limited by the availability of gold.
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The gold standard era began to decline during the 20th century, particularly after World War I. The need for increased flexibility in monetary policy, and the costs associated with maintaining gold reserves led many countries to move away from the gold standard. Gradually, most countries shifted to fiat money, where the value of the currency is not backed by a physical commodity but rather by the trust and confidence in the government issuing it. This meant that even though there was scarcity and competition for money like there had been for gold, money was no longer backed by anything real.
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Put simply, even though we do not use gold as currency or the basis for the economy any more, gold still informs our ideas about money and power. Even new forms of money like crypto currencies and NFTs are based on these old notions of scarcity that come from our ancient relationship to gold. Our ideas about money, debt scarcity and our relationship to power are informed greatly by the function that gold has played in our economy.
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What does money without gold look like?
In isolated or preindustrial societies, without gold, people had an understanding that resources were meant to be shared and distributed evenly. When a need arose in society others met the need with gifts or loans. The understanding in these cultures was that safety was found in generosity and compassion not hoarded material goods. They took care of others because when they need help others will take care of them. Social merit functioned like a kind of insurance.
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In these barter, communal, and gift economies power does not become the most precious resource. Instead reputation and social merit become the most precious resources. Because wealth and value cannot be hoarded materially then society allows for individuals to accrue value by being useful, inventive and generous. These systems reward people who innovate and live compassionately because societal regard becomes the most important resource, not electronic debt or precious metals.
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This is because things like food, clothing and tools often degrade and lose value over time. There is no way to horde wealth because all things that contain value slowly lose that value if they are hoarded. When there is no way to horde wealth with precious metals or an electronic debt ledger, then everything is depreciating all the time. In these cultures money and value are always trending back to equality because everything is losing value all the time.
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People are incentivized to share and live communally in gift economies because clout and reputation become more valuable than any good or service. These systems are empowering because when needs arise society is naturally incentivized to meet those needs not ignore them. Material wealth is always decreasing in value so social wealth has more value. Value is stored in the social ledger of reputation not a material ledger of debt.
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In debt and precious metal based systems value is disempowering because wealth tends to snowball. The people with more money have access to more power and likely use that power to get even more money ad infinitum. In these systems society is incentivized to ignore others’ problems because the endless competition is for non-perishable money that increases in value, not reputation for being a benefit to society. Actually, in this system other people’s problems are a GOOD thing for me because they mean others have less power and are less likely to get the money we are all in competition for.
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Why does the non-perishable nature of precious metals like gold lead to scarcity, competition and inequality?
The scarcity of precious metals allowed individuals and institutions to accumulate and hoard wealth, creating disparities in the distribution of resources. The accumulation of gold and other precious metals became a means of showcasing one’s economic power and social status. This concentration of wealth in the hands of a few individuals or entities often led to economic inequality, with limited access to resources for the majority of the population. It also led to imperial wars and conflict. This happens when the purpose of a society becomes hoarding power instead of building sustainable or equitable systems.
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Is there an alternative system?
What did non industrial societies do before there was gold?
Barter and gift economies operate on different principles that can have positive psychological and environmental effects. In a barter economy, individuals engage in direct exchange, which fosters social interaction and builds relationships within communities. The act of bartering requires individuals to negotiate and understand each other’s needs, creating a sense of cooperation and interdependence.
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Gift economies, where goods and services are given without the expectation of an immediate return, promote social cohesion and reinforce communal bonds. By focusing on reciprocity and sharing, gift economies prioritize the well-being of the community as a whole rather than individual accumulation of wealth. This can contribute to a sense of psychological well-being and social harmony.
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Moreover, both barter and gift economies can be more environmentally sustainable compared to the hoarding of precious metals or debt based systems. These systems rely on the utilization of resources within the community, promoting local production and reducing the environmental impact of long-distance trade. In debt based systems production is outsourced to the cheapest place where the workers have the least power.
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While the nonperishable nature of precious metals like gold has shaped a scarcity-based money system conducive to wealth hoarding, alternative economic systems such as barter and gift economies offer psychological and environmental advantages. These systems promote social cohesion, reduce economic disparities, and foster sustainable resource utilization.
Key Characteristics of a Gift Economy:
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Gift Circulation:
The primary mode of exchange in a gift economy is the circulation of gifts. People give goods, services, or resources to others without an explicit agreement for immediate return or compensation. The act of giving is motivated by social bonds, altruism, and the desire to contribute to the well-being of others.
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Social Relationships and Trust:
Gift economies are deeply rooted in social relationships. Trust and reciprocity play a vital role in sustaining the system. Gifts are not seen as isolated transactions but rather as a way to build and maintain social connections within a community or group.
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Non-Monetary Transactions:
Unlike traditional market economies where goods and services are exchanged for money, a gift economy operates outside the realm of formalized monetary transactions. The value of gifts is not determined by their market price or exchange value but rather by the relationships and meaning attached to them.
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Abundance Mindset:
A gift economy often operates on the assumption of abundance rather than scarcity. It is based on the belief that there are enough resources and goods to meet the needs of individuals and the community as a whole. The act of giving is seen as a way to create and reinforce a sense of abundance and well-being.
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Social Obligations and Prestige:
In gift economies, there are social obligations and expectations associated with giving and receiving. Individuals are motivated to contribute and give back to the community, as failing to do so can lead to reputational consequences. The act of giving and generosity often brings prestige, respect, and social recognition within the community.
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Reciprocity and Sharing:
While direct reciprocity is not expected or demanded in a gift economy, there is a general understanding of the importance of reciprocity over time. Recipients of gifts may feel an obligation to reciprocate or share their own gifts with others in the future, creating a cycle of giving and receiving.
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In Conclusion:
Economic systems that prioritize collaboration, generosity, and a departure from the notions of individuality, competition, ego, and scarcity can indeed contribute to mental well-being and foster a more harmonious society. One such alternative economic concept is the idea of gift economies, which emphasizes the practice of generosity and the exchange of resources without the expectation of immediate reciprocation.
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What’s the point?
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We assume that ways that our culture and systems works are the only ways it can work. This can limit our intuition, creativity, and stifle our ability to imagine a better world. What if those asteroids had missed our planet billions of years ago and dumped that gold into the black void of space? Would our culture or monetary system look anything like it does now? Again the point of this article is not to change the monetary system. Instead it is to reflect about how and why we assign value and purpose in our lives and culture. It is a reflection on what money means to a society and the way those implicit assumptions affect our psychology and well being.
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Many people misquote the bible that “money is the root of all evil” however that is not what it says. The quote is that the “love” of money is the root of all evil. We all interact with money daily but rarely think about what it is and that the way we think about money changes the role it plays in our lives and how we behave.
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We often talk about values in an abstract and hollow way in politics, religion and identity. We seldom talk or think about what value itself actually is. How do we decide what has worth to us and what doesn’t. These assumptions about what is valuable and good and what the point of our societies should be is often based on outdated and unhealthy assumptions it does not occur to us to reconsider. By moving away from a mindset that prioritizes individual accumulation, gift economies encourage a sense of collective responsibility and interconnectedness. This shift in perspective can have positive effects on mental health, promoting a sense of belonging, trust, and reduced feelings of isolation, paranoia or competition.
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Most of the patients that I see suffer from a profound sense of separation and disconnection. Our civilization would benefit from assuming the intrinsic value of all beings and the importance of meeting collective needs rather than amassing individual wealth. Not just in economics but in our lives we should prioritize collaboration, generosity, and move away from the emphasis on individuality, competition, ego, and scarcity. What a person or society values is one of the best indicators of who they are. Reflect on where you unconsciously place value and what that says about you. We have limited time on earth and it is important to stay in touch with what we want the purpose of our life to be. Where does your worth lie?
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Read more articles like this one @ GetTherapyBirmingham.com

I have made numerous posts about this but i am 24F and have never been in love. This has always been very hard on me as it’s been my dream since i was a little girl and something i was so excited to experience. I never imagined i would have made it this far without experiencing it.
Then, everyone in my life, all my friends suddenly started getting into relationships. What “sent me over the edge” was my little sister getting into the relationship that i imagined for myself with a guy who is exactly my type. How is that fair? This is the first year i called the suicide hotline and have been struggling with the darkest thoughts of my life relating to hurting myself and even others. I am in therapy but god this feeling is so unbearable. It just feels like absolute dread and doom and hopelessness and hate and anger and anxiety. I get literally triggered when my sister brings up her boyfriend. Like, physical response. When that happens, all i can think about is how i just want to die.

Hi everyone, I hope this is an appropriate place to post this. November of last year I had a bad car accident and broke my pelvis on both sides and 7 ribs. I was very lucky in that I was pretty much otherwise okay. I had two major surgeries to fix my pelvis and have plenty of pins and plates, etc. The total 26 day stay in the hospital and rehab center was pretty traumatic but I had/have amazing support in my fiance and family.
I came home in December last year, and I could not bear weight for 3 months. I was either in bed or my wheelchair. Used a commode for toilet. Fiance had to do basically everything for me, sleep was awful (in hospital and at home) and it was a hell I would not have survived without my fiance.
All that to say it is now May, I am in physical therapy and I no longer use a wheelchair or a walker, I can walk. I am eternally grateful. But my walk isn’t normal yet and I can’t walk/stand for long because it causes awful back pain on the left.
I can’t work right now. I’m home all day. It’s difficult to stand to cook/clean so I can’t even pitch in much around the house. I’m painfully bored and feel useless. I can’t bend at the knees or do any sort of squat or even put on my own socks (from being bedbound and unable to bend my legs like that for so long). I know these things should improve, but I don’t feel like me! Every step is hard, every trip to the bathroom, the kitchen wherever is hard. I can’t go to a store and walk around for long.
I try to talk to my fiance or mom about how depressed and unlike myself I feel. I just get the “you are so lucky, etc” which I know that I am, I could have died! But I’m depressed. I feel like I’m in some kinda weird prison with no where to go. And I feel like I’m stuck in my body because I know how to walk but I just can’t do it right or for long.
Sorry this was so long, not sure if anyone will read it all. I just feel so sad all the time, and a listlessness that is like…in my bones, no pun intended. I’m scared I won’t improve physically or mentally from here.

This is a kind of half-vent, half-seeking help type post? Apologies if I haven’t used the right flare, and apologies that this is so long
I always thought I was an empathetic person, I thought I was good at supporting people and understanding how they were feeling. I almost prided myself on it. But recently I learnt that I’m not, in fact, I’m not even sure if I am capable of feeling empathy at all, maybe I used to be but not so much anymore. I’m devastated by this realisation. I feel like an awful person.
I’m diagnosed with autism and bpd alongside other conditions, including adhd. There are a lot of people with autism and/or bpd who are capable of experiencing a lot of empathy, but I’ve been told that there a lot of others that aren’t so much or perhaps experience it in a different way.
When my closest friends or loved ones are upset, recently I’ve noticed that a lot of the time I just don’t feel anything for them. I just feel empty and often uncomfortable. Sometimes I even feel angry or frustrated. Sometimes I get upset too but not for them, for myself, because I’m so easily overwhelmed by my own emotions that I feel unable to handle others’. And whilst I don’t mean to, I often perceive their strong negative emotions as a sort of threat. It’s not uncommon for me to feel as though the reason that person is upset is because of me, and subsequently I can become scared or panicked and/or get quite defensive which can result in some aggression.
When my friends are upset, instead of consoling and supporting them, I often end up having a meltdown myself. I feel strong emotions overcome me and I act immediately on impulse before I even have time to think. It means that some of my friendships are very one-sided, and I end up making the other person feel a lot worse. It’s caused me to lose many of close friendships in the past. It’s not fair on them.
Following the meltdowns I feel an enormous amount of regret when I start to come back to my senses and I realise what I’ve done. I’m disgusted with myself. I do believe I feel remorse. The amount of despair I feel is indescribable and unbearable, and I become terrified as I beg the other person not to leave me. Often they eventually do when they’re not able to take it anymore, and whilst not all of them in the past have been perfect themselves in hindsight, I do ask myself if I can really blame them for leaving. My heart has been broken a million times and it feels as though it’s my own fault.
I’m in my early 20s and have undergone what psychiatrists have described as very significant and extremely complex trauma. I was quite severely physically, psychologically and sexually abused by close relatives throughout my childhood, I experienced the death of a close childhood friend at a young age, I have been homeless, bullied, gone through extreme financial hardship and much more.
I hate all this “trauma olympics” bullshit, but most of my friends will say that I have had a much more difficult life than them, and I think that’s part of the problem. Deep down I’m bitter and jealous, and sometimes I even struggle to feel happy for them when good things happen in their lives. I understand and recognise that those with “easier” lives than me can still undergo extreme hardship and feel immense emotional pain and are totally deserving of support due to that. But sometimes when my friends with “easier” lives than me get upset it’s almost like I struggle to to understand why, because I think to myself that despite the hardship, if I had their lives I’d be happy. This may be why I get frustrated sometimes too. I absolutely hate feeling like this and I’m so ashamed of it. I firmly believe that my friends with “easier” lives than me are still deserving of empathy and support, and I despise myself when I’m not able to provide it or even react in a way that makes them feel worse.
I also feel as though maybe the fact that I wasn’t shown much empathy and compassion or provided much support when I was upset growing up may also be a factor. It’s almost like I was never taught.
I’m scared that I’ll never be able to feel empathy at all or in a ’normal’ way. There have been times in the past where I’ve been good at supporting people and they say I helped them a lot. For whatever reason, in those moments I had better impulse control, was more emotionally regulated and somehow knew what to do. But even then, I guess I was sad that they were feeling that way, but I’m not sure that I felt actual empathy. I felt nothing at all, I was just numb.
I’m heavily reliant on emotional support from others, it’s vital that I am able to provide that emotional support back. That’s how healthy relationships work. Even if I don’t feel empathy, I would at the very least like to be able to do what I can to support my friends when they get upset. I want to be able to put myself in other people’s shoes. I want to be more emotionally regulated. I want to have better impulse control. From the bottom of my heart, I’d give anything. I want to be a good person and a good friend.
I need to learn how, I want to learn how. I’m so desperate. I don’t want to hurt people. I’ve been in therapy for ten years. I’m terrified that I will never learn these skills, and will experience more crushing heartbreak which leaves me isolated and alone. My therapist says I need to learn how fo separate my friends from my abusers so I can understand that when they are upset it is not necessarily a ‘threat’ and it does not mean that they’re going to hurt or leave me. I don’t know what to do and where to start.

in November of 2022, I broke up with my ex-boyfriend because he was toxic/controlling and just not very good for me. we did have a lot of good times together, but honestly, the entire relationship was a mistake in my eyes (caused by me) and breaking up with him was one of the hardest things I ever had to do because he kept begging for me back and just made me feel super guilty. I finally broke up with him around thanksgiving (I had ended it with him around three times total) and I was in a really emotionally vulnerable spot, I was having a hard time moving on and I didn’t know what to do with myself. I had started talking to a coworker who I ended up developing a crush on (after my breakup), who ALSO had gone through a breakup around October of 2022, and we started talking around end of DecembeJanuary. he was really going through it, and it felt good for me to be able to be there for someone and take care of someone (which made me feel better about myself). one of my love languages is acts of service, so I practically stuck by him while he was going through depressive episodes/really hard times for a few months.
I am the type to show people unconditional love regardless of how they treat me due to some unresolved trauma and issues with my parents (specifically with my father). during the time we were talking in DecembeJanuary, my feelings with him were escalating and we had agreed to stop talking around 3 or so times because we knew that it probably wasn’t a good idea since we had both gotten out of relationships. all three times we ended things, obviously we ended up continuing to talk. I grew very quickly attached to him since I wasn't in a good spot, and I had someone who actually liked talking to me and showed interest in me that way. I caught feelings pretty quickly and brought up the idea of a relationship early on. he just wanted a friends with benefits, and I made it clear that I did not want that. our relationship ended up turning sexual anyway. he was still hung up over his ex, and made this clear to me when we talked because he felt comfortable enough to rant to me about her (even though I liked him a LOT and hearing this any time he spoke hurt me really badly, I never said anything because I wanted him to have an outlet to talk about his feelings). fast forward to February, we had our first kiss , and eventually he did ask me on a date. the day he was going to ask me to be his girlfriend, he ended up NOT asking me because he felt very disconnected from me and just unsure (we talked about it after our date since I could tell he was disconnected). basically, from around the beginning of February all up until April 13th, he was very back and forth with his feelings with me. he had cut me off once because of religious differences (he is Muslim, I am not) and feared his family wouldn’t accept me so we decided to stop talking. This absolutely broke my heart because when we decided to end things in the car, I told him I loved him and he said it back. I had reached out to him a week or so later trying to start things again. We 'fixed' things, but then he cut me off AGAIN because I expressed some feelings I had about what I’d want in a relationship and he said he felt a lot of pressure from me and ended things with me. I was fine with this, I kind of knew it was coming, and this was over text so I wasn’t as broken as when it first happened. Two weeks later, he reached out and apologized, saying he made a giant mistake and basically insinuated that if I was open to it, he wanted to try again. I knew I shouldn’t have responded to his message, but I did and I gave him another chance. He seemed like a changed man – the way he spoke to me, the way he acted with me. He seemed like he really thought about what he did and knew that he wanted to be better. I could see it in his actions.
A few weeks later, sometime in April, we were having a casual date and we brought up a topic that honestly made me so uncomfortable. He is Southeast Asian, raised in a Muslim family, with some conservative values. I am a progressive feminist, traumatized by both my parents, basically liberal as hell. He said something I thought to be a bit sexist – he made a close-minded statement about how women are always like, then said that if he ever had kids, he’d want to physically discipline them. I know this isn’t a big deal for some people, but for someone like me who experienced physical discipline growing up and is very against sexism, this conversation made me uncomfortable and I felt so detached from him when we were talking. He dropped me home, I didn’t even kiss him, and I went to bed. A few weeks later (I am so bad with the timeline), he asked me to be his girlfriend and I got so nervous. I knew that wasn’t what I wanted – we were going on dates, having sex, basically in a friends with benefits but to the MAX because at this point, I knew I had been in love with this man for months, regardless of how he treated me or any of his views. I was so scared to be his girlfriend because every time I imagined our relationship, it had an expiration date. I don’t even know if I want kids, but if I do, I don’t want to physically discipline them. This reason stuck in my head for a long time, and even though I knew I would’ve had doubts about our potential relationship, I said yes. Our relationship lasted three days. I texted him on April 13th, expressing that I don’t think we are right for each other. I said that you can love someone but know they aren’t right for you, and that maybe we are better off not being together. The entire time we were having this conversation, I was crying my eyes out. He asked me if I was sure that this was what I wanted. I said no, because I had really strong feelings for him, but I didn’t want to enter something that I had so many doubts with.
A month and a half later brings us to today. I am falling apart. I miss him so much, his birthday passed a few days ago and I reached out to wish him happy birthday (even though around 9 people told me not to) and I ended up crying during lunch while I was on vacation because I missed him. I had a mental breakdown sometime in April, it was so bad that I scheduled an appointment with a therapist because I couldn’t take what I was feeling. I had been talking about going to therapy for a while, but never came around to it. I have my first appointment next week. I miss him a lot and it's like my feelings for him get stronger as I'm more away from him, and I also miss being with someone. I haven’t reached out because he’s stubborn, I’m stubborn, and neither of us are going to change for each other. I am really struggling with being alone, but I recognize that I need to learn how to be happy on my own before I jump into a relationship with a person who can’t give me what I need. I really, really love him though, and being alone has forced me to reflect on all the mistakes I’ve ever made in my life, along with trauma from my parents that I’m forced to look at. In other words, I’ve been completely miserable ever since I ended it with him, and I don't have a safe space at home to distract myself or be okay anymore (my parents are renovating the house so it's loud all the time and they also are the cause of a lot of my issues). The idea of him being with someone else makes me want to rip my hair out. I know it’s only been a month and a half and I will feel better with time, but the way I feel with him, I haven’t felt with any other. Not even with my ex-boyfriend. Ending it over the whole physical discipline thing when I don’t even know if I want kids myself is really what has me hung up over this. He also has some mental health problems that he refuses to recognize (he doesn’t think therapy is an option for him). I honestly think he has some type of depression, and he also has a morbid view on life that makes me super uncomfortable. Is reaching out to someone who treated me like this out of the question?
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TLDR: I ended things with a boy I am in love with over something important to me, but now I need to know whether it's worth reaching out again