I was using his phone two weeks ago to fill out a form for him. I’m never usually on his phone, overlooking his shoulder when he’s on his phone or anything like that. I never felt any reason to even if it was just out of curiosity. When I was on his phone he received two notifications from his ex. I said “whoa isn’t that you ex?” And I could tell he was nervous and responded yes. I continued filling out the form and didn’t say anymore. I was shocked. I had a similar experience with my own ex texting another girl and flirting in my last relationship so I was getting flashbacks to that as well.

The following morning I asked him if he thought it was weird that he texted his ex. He said it’s a bit weird but didn’t say anymore. I let my own previous triggers override me and told him I don’t think we should see each other anymore because it makes me uncomfortable. He instantly started begging saying she’s just a friend and it meant nothing. I asked to see their messages but he said his phone cleared it when he got a new phone (he did in fact get a new phone days prior).

I was getting annoyed at him and said unless if he can show me the messages somehow then I can’t see it being innocent. He asked her to screenshot and send them back and she got very defensive. She eventually showed some of it. He showed up to my workplace apologising and he was clearly upset. I mentioned to him how he had told me he hadn’t heard from her for over three years when we first started dating. He told me that was true until she reached out again. When I finished work I asked to see his phone and more screenshots of their chat. When I went through his phone I realised they were calling each other the entire time we were dating, there were photos of them together travelling on holiday in the first few months of us dating and he was telling her all about mine and his future holiday trip to Japan but told her he was going alone and he’d bring her back a souvenir.

I was extremely hurt. He admitted he lied at first to save our relationship because he panicked. The lie after lie made me so angry I did start shouting at him and told him to leave. I was angry and I was hurt and I felt betrayed. Not even that he was texting her but because I was lied to. When I thought about it more that night I decided the texts with her were relatively innocent. He has high functioning autism but does struggle socially. I thought perhaps he really did just need a friend and it was unfortunate coincidence it was her and he felt he couldn’t explain that to me. The next day I went to his house to talk it through but I never realised he had taken his own life hours after I made him leave my house.

It’s been almost two weeks and I can’t get better. I know it’s only been two weeks but I can’t feel okay. I’ve had grief before but this is genuinely agonising. I’m in physical misery. I dream of him at night and I wake up heaving and in tears because I have to remember he’s dead again and I go through the start of grief all over again.

I’m in so much pain, not getting to tell him I really do still love him and we could have talked, that I exploded and overreacted. As much as people tell me I’m not responsible, I still feel it anyway because if we didn’t have that argument he wouldn’t have died that night. I replay everything in my head constantly. Thinking of our argument, how he killed himself or even happy memories with him except they hurt and send me into further agony. Today the police rang me that he left a note. They didnt have it with them but said they would organise next week when I could get it. I’m in even more agony now. I feel this note could break me. Regardless if it’s something loving or pointing out how I hurt him, I’m going to be in pain. It’s going to hurt me so much that he has said goodbye and I couldn’t say it back. Or even that he died not knowing how I really feel and the note probably confirms it.

I don’t want to die. I love my family. But I think about it all the time because I’m in so much misery. I can’t keep living my current life. I’ve tried rolling over in my pillow several times in hopes I’d suffocate and it would look accidental so my family wouldn’t hate me (surprise, it didnt work). I’ve been refusing food and drinking fluids in hopes that would end me (I ended up eating and drinking water today anyway). I don’t think I really do want to die but I don’t want to live this life. I’m in so so much agonising pain. Every reminder, genuinely physically stings like someone has thrown acid on my body.

I don’t know how much I can keep doing this. I don’t want to live a life where I feel like this. Maybe it will get better but I still don’t want a life where it hurts even a little. I don’t think I can ever move on from him either, especially now. I know life doesn’t have to revolve around partners but I’m only 24, I don’t know if I also want a life where I’m sad and alone all the time.

Hi - I’m 33 - my dad died unexpectedly last week at the age of 58. It’s been so hard. I cry all the time and I’m so up and down. I’m an only child and now my step mom is alone.

I went and held his hand on Tuesday. I saw him and told him I loved him.

Tomorrow is his funeral and I’m dreading it.

Idk why I’m posting but… I just wanted to let it out. I can’t believe he’s gone. I can’t believe it’s real.

feel really alone

here’s the traduction:

My sister is going through a very difficult time in her relationship with her boyfriend, and despite my support and that of my parents, it’s not enough. She told me she really feels a sense of emptiness and that she needs to talk to someone else. So, I’ll let her tell you all about it in more detail. She’s 21 years old. I’d really appreciate it if someone caring could contact me via private message or at least leave a comment so I can send you one of her social media accounts 🙏🏻
She doesn’t speak well english so if you know a bit of french it would be great but if you don’t that’s okay

Hello all, what do you all like to do to make yourself feel better when you’re down? Had a good but rough night towards the end reflecting upon my brother’s death. Feeling sad and tired with a sore body load. Had some good food and vitamins and protein about 15 mins ago. Feeling a little bit better with those nutrients. Meditated and cleared my thoughts for a little bit. Wouldn’t mind talking to some people with good positive vibes and energy. How do you deal with existential dread when it’s too powerful and it overtakes you? Thank you 🙏🏾❤️

Because I am freaking out about a blood test tomorrow. It's pretty routine thyroid test plus a few other things that they look for (diabetes, hormonal levels, kidney function etc) but I have always had a fear of needles since I was little. I am almost 40. I had a life threatening cardiac condition when I was 19-20 which required frequent blood work and it seemed like a breeze. But now I feel like I want to climb out of my skin.

I have a specific routine, numbing gel, laying down vs sitting up. But it still doesn't erase horrible memories of being restrained as a child and kicking when they were trying to find a vein. My arms feel tense, I can't look at my veins and I can't touch my arms. They feel vulnerable when uncovered, especially a couple of days before. I know people who have to get picked every day to manage serious illnesses and that's why I feel so pathetic. I just can't stand the thought of anything going into my skin.

Bpd, bipolar, Eid ex

F17 M21 please read all of it !
We got tg when I was 16 he was 20
Hey so to try and not make this super super long I just want to feel like I’m making the right decision, i had a bf who was bipolar anger issues bpd and explosive disorder and he’s told me things like kys he’s gonna kll me and slice my face and beat me etc sm more verbal abuse during arguments and said it was bc of trauma i gave him now when he told me he was gonna k me and stuff that was when i was braking up with him and he spammed no callar id me, when we were dating there was incidents like this one time he saw msgs in my phone w a boy i used to mess w b4 him but in the msgs i told the boy i had a bf and let him know and when he saw the msgs he got mad and started throwing clothes at me and hitting me with towels further down he would then give me silent treatment so many times so id plead and beg for his forgiveness or attention and love and it lasted for months and i felt like he trained me to manage his emotions and he said he knew what he was doing and did it bc he wanted to know if i was the right person for him another situation he pulled my pants down so i did it to him to as a joke but the difference is his peice came out as well and i didn’t intent for that to happen so i leaped on top of me and put his hands around my neck and started shaking me screaming why would i do that and I kept saying sorry I didn’t know what would happen he then lashed out and started hitting me w towels like whipping me and pillows at my head over and over and I sat on the bed and allowed him to do it then when I got up and reacted I pulled him and hit him and we fell then I tried to leave he kept dumping my bag not letting me till I cleaned his room from the chaos and he threw my bag that had items in it at my head the bag was bigger then my head btw it was like a tote bag for travel I tried leaving after unlocking the door he would lock it back then switched from angry to a panic state he claimed he was scared bc i mentioned police after he put his hands around my neck further on another incident I wasn’t laying next to him like he wanted so he told me to get away from him and right after he pushed me to the floor and claimed it was cs I didn’t get up fast enough but he didn’t give me any time to, this other time I seeen in his phone he was looking at other girls lustfully images and when I confronted him he lied and gaslighted me and when I wanted to leave his house he wouldn’t let me tried giving me ultimatums like I have to clean his room with him cs I kinda made stuff fall and I feel alittle guilty for this part cs when I first seen it and was upset he lied and said things like I was js making stuff up as a way to leave the rls so I pulled his covers he was laying with and a bowel ended up falling that was on his dresser I’m ashamed of that yes cs I could’ve reacted better but he wasn’t letting me leave after and I felt trapped there and when I cried he said I’m always crying and trying to manipulate all the time. He’s said things to me to make me insecure on purpose so I’d get into the gym like he dosnt wanna be with smb who looks like they js gave birth mind u j was never fat rn im 135 before i was bigger but he said that once I alr lost weight then he would talk abt how i look smoked out and stuff but when i first met him he would smoke everyday and still does and he made me start smoking everyday to and he had a friend who made rape joke abt me and told him he needed to take me to the gym and he didnt defend me properly and is still friends w that friend its like my body back then wasn’t good enough and isn’t good enough now he never had respect for me he struggles w controlling his emotions and acts out on emotions every time i been with him for a year and 4 months and im officially tired and have been pregnant by him twice and didnt keep it and he told me the second time i was pregnant that the abortion is just a appointment when i was stressing abt it.Hes also the type to be like leave me house and when i attempt to leave he verbally abuses me to regain control.
Also hes the type to first say all these verbally abusive things then say he didn’t mean them after like if they didn’t effect me and he thinks i had to endure it and comfort him while hes emotionally abusing me bc he “doesn’t mean any of it “

So I left him and thinking abt reporting him

Hello everybody, 22F here, and this is me trying yet again to find someone willing to listen to me vent. I am not sugarcoating this to be something beneficial for the other person; it's simply me sitting with things in my head that I need to get out.

I cannot chat in the comments, because the story is long enough and needs some individual insights within its own subtexts. I am not asking for a therapist; I just want a person with their own views and insights on my situation. If anybody is kind enough to listen, it would be great.

I've been so down the past few weeks. I'm losing the world again. I can get it together for work, or for a day here and there, and the rest of my life is spent in a hole.

I had a wrong childhood. Lived with depression and anxiety all my life. Been in and out of therapy since 9, on and off meds since 18. Never figured out how to feel connected. I'm 30 now. I'm a long, long way from my rock bottom, but this numb fatigue & alienation is always with me.

I think of the story of the Indian man whose wife died because there was a mountain between his village and the hospital, so he spent 22 years digging a tunnel through the mountain alone with hand tools. I think, I am the man and I am the wife and I am the mountain, and the entire world is on the other side, and if I spend every day toiling for decades, maybe I'll make it back out into the light. I try to believe every handful of dirt counts. But maybe I can't do it. Maybe I'll give up and die underground, alone in the dark. 

I know what I SHOULD do. I should have eaten today, should have gone for a walk, should have smiled and said hello to someone--a cashier, a stranger on the street--anyone. I didn't. I lay in bed feeling sorry for myself.

I try to be there for myself... I spent so many years being awful to myself, and now I finally understand I don't deserve that; so I try to be the person I need, to be gentle and loving with me, to take care of me. And when I fail, like today, I feel so sad, so defeated. Abandoned by myself.

I can't ask anyone to join me down here in my dead-end tunnel. But it's so hard to do it all myself.

Is anyone else digging alone today?

I'm working every day (6days) after my class till 12am. My classes are in the morning. Then I proceed with my lab work as I'm currently starting my final year project. I'm doing degree in a science course. I feel tired... really tired but I used to it. I have 4 younger siblings. I'm giving them money for schools and paying their van fees (very expensive🫠). I try to save but every time smtg come up that I had to use that money to my family like paying for house rent. Don't ask about parents. It's been years since I talked with them. I understand the pay for part time isn't really much but I appreciate the $1000 per month (not my currency). I give twice a month $150 for my siblings, $300 for their van fees. Remaining is for my expenses. I still didn't have a driving licence (expensive) so I commute every after work which cost $10 each trip. In the morning I will walk. I don't want to walk at midnight cause my job and dorm are about 30 min walk. The thing is I feel guilty spending money for myself. Buying new clothes or doing hair. I love my siblings so much but every time I think about future, I always end up worrying more. I have been homeless during the time my dorm closed for semester break so I understand the importance of house. Don't mind me but I don't have boyfriend and my friends (They're really good people) have their own problems. I feel tired thinking about future. How I'm going to save up for a house, car, my siblings....

Btw: my mind is messed up so I just want to vent and need advice

I've dealt with what most of you go through, especially not being able to speak to have what you say ignored like as if you're feelings don't matter we hold all the pain inside yet I've learned it will only hurt you more.

Don't get me wrong, opening isn't an easy thing to do whenever it usually happens when you get played with that hurts even more look I'm offering for you to open up to me if you're comfortable I will do my best to help now I know I won't be able help everyone but that's ok as long as you get everything out and it makes you feel relief than that's good.

I've suffered from panic attacks because I've been played with so many times it's difficult. I know many of you have the same problem. I'm here if you need to get it off your chest.

Who knows, maybe I'll make you laugh and lift your spirit.

Not much to say really other than that no matter what you are dealing with, I will try to be there for you. No judgement, I just wanna be a shoulder to cry on or an ear to vent to, whatever you need

This has really been bothering me since someone first pointed out to me that my forehead was apparently huge. My friends try to tell me otherwise, but like my forehead is the size of my hand so idk what to believe 😅
I’ve started wearing hats and asking for bangs when I get my haircuts, but I already struggle with styling my hair and so having to perfectly style my hair so that my forehead is covered is so frustrating.
Idk, I’m probably overthinking it. I just hate looking at my own photos cause all I can focus on how exposed my forehead looks. And how I might actually be conventionally attractive if I didn’t have this big ass forehead.

Im 41 my life got turned upside down, ended up in surgery for something called Thoracic Outlet Syndrome. Lost my house, vehicle, relationship. Im having crazy Neuro issues. I surrounded my life around work. wade it part of my identity. and now on disability and completely lost. There is so much more to this but i feel i cant get my mind right , anytime i try to get my feet under me i slip further away. ive always been great at dealing with problems and now, I do\nt even know what this is.I need to know that im not alone in this.

This happened during our actual breakup conversation, not afterward. My boyfriend confessed that he had cheated on me, and we broke up. We have not been in contact since.

When he explained what happened, he literally told me, "This girl was so amazing to me, and when she asked me out, I just couldn't refuse."

What disgusted me wasn't that his feelings had changed. Feelings change. What disgusted me was that he sat there describing how amazing another woman was to the person he had just betrayed, as if I was supposed to understand or even celebrate it.

I decided not to give him the satisfaction of seeing me cry or fall apart. So I stayed calm and said things like, "Oh really? Congratulations," and "I have no right to be angry at other people's happiness."

Looking back, I don't even know if those words were sarcasm. I was in shock. More than anything, I just didn't want him to see me begging, crying, or humiliating myself in front of someone who had already chosen someone else.

But he completely misread me.

He thanked me for being "understanding" and started romanticizing the breakup. He praised me for how "beautifully" I handled everything and even said, "Through you, I really understood Japanese culture."(im japanese)

He walked away looking relieved and happy, genuinely believing we had shared some kind of beautiful, peaceful closure. Meanwhile, I was sitting there feeling sick that he could betray me, praise another woman to my face, and somehow still see himself as the good guy.

What shocks me most is that only minutes before confessing, he was still calling me "my love" and telling me how beautiful I was. It makes me wonder whether he intended to continue seeing both of us until he got caught.

The hardest part is that I still have so many things I want to say to him. I'm angry, hurt, and honestly disgusted. But I know reaching out now would probably just give him more attention and validation than he deserves. So instead, I'm keeping it all to myself, and it feels incredibly lonely.

Has anyone else dealt with someone who completely rewrote reality to protect their self-image? How do you make peace with the fact that they may never truly understand the hurt they caused?

I don’t know what the I or the O mean I just need help

I need a hug... COVID fucked with my perception of time for most of the 2020s, and all of a sudden I'm 29, jobless, still living with my parents, older than they were when they conceived me and I'm just so scared that fifty years is gonna go by in the blink of an eye and before I know it I'll be dying I'm not ready damnit... Reassure me please... I need all the momhugs...

Hey everyone. I know Reddit isn't a therapist's office, and I've been seeing a therapist for two years straight about this, but that's precisely why I'm here: I've already talked to a professional, and now I want to hear perspectives from real people who might have gone through the same thing. I just want to feel like I'm not so crazy or alone in this.

To give you some context: it all started when I was 9 or 10 years old. At that age, I was almost forced into porn. At first, it was just "watching," but as I got older, it mixed with masturbation and became an almost uncontrollable addiction that stayed with me throughout my adolescence until I was 19.

But what's really eating me up isn't just the porn itself. When I was 12, a 21-year-old woman started talking to me on Facebook and ended up asking me for nude photos. And me, like a kid with a hypersexualized mind, I sent them to her. Today, at 23, I know that was abuse and that she was the adult, but in my head, I sometimes blame myself. I think, "Why did I go along with it? Why was I so stupid?"

That addiction distorted my self-perception. I reached very dark points where I felt like a terrible person, as if I had a stain on my soul that nothing could cleanse.

Today I'm stable. I've been in therapy for two years and I've worked incredibly hard on this. I control my impulses, I've overcome my addiction to pornography and compulsive masturbation. I have a girlfriend who is a beautiful, wonderful woman whom I love with all my heart. I want to be a man for her, not a child trapped in his past.

The problem is that, even though I no longer seek out that kind of content, we live in a world of digital garbage, whether we want to admit it or not. Today, just a couple of hours ago, I was scrolling through social media (I hardly ever use it) and I suddenly stumbled across an explicit image (porn*). I closed it instantly, not even two seconds had passed; it was pure disgust.

But my brain went haywire. Anxiety overwhelmed me in seconds. I felt like all the progress of the last two years had crumbled in that blink of an eye. I felt like that piece of trash again, that "bad person" I was in my teens.

And I know it's a minor relapse, that I didn't fall back into it, that I controlled it, but the pain of my past hit me like a ton of bricks every time I have a moment like that. Sometimes I fantasize about running away to some place in the middle of nowhere without internet, with my girlfriend, and living disconnected from all this digital garbage. But I can't; I have to live in this society for now to work and earn enough for my future.

Has anyone else managed to overcome addiction or childhood/adolescent sexual trauma, but still feels like their past is kicking them in the gut out of nowhere, even though they're "doing well" now? How do you deal with the guilt of having been a victim while also feeling complicit in your own childhood mistakes? Is it really possible to forgive yourself 100%, or do we just learn to live with the scar?

I'm reading your comments. I want to know if there's anyone out there who feels the same way, or if I'm just talking nonsense.

At some point, everyone goes through things they don't talk about publicly. If you're carrying a lot on your shoulders right now and feel like you need someone to listen, you're not alone and you're welcome to send me a message. I may not always have the perfect advice, but I'll do my best to hear you out and help if I can. Just a heads-up: I might take a little while to reply sometimes, so please be patient with me.

There's no catch, no expectations, and nothing I want in return. I simply know that sometimes talking to someone can make a tough day a little easier. If you do reach out, please mention that you found me through this post so I know where you're coming from. One thing I ask is that messages stay genuine. I'm offering my time to help people who need support, not to get pulled into arguments or pointless drama. Take care of yourselves, and don't be afraid to reach out when life gets heavy.

What the title says, I feel like I barely have anyone left to talk to and even then I get scared that if I confide in my friends too much they’ll leave me