My grandma passed away last year and I was the only one with her near the end. She was pretty confused that day. The last thing she actually said was asking if someone had fed her cat. That cat had been dead for years.

After the funeral my aunt asked what her last words were. Everyone was looking at me and I couldn't bring myself to tell them that, so I said she told us to take care of each other.

Now my mom brings it up at family gatherings. She even has those words framed in her hallway.

I know my grandma would've wanted us to look after each other, but every time I see that frame I feel awful. Nobody knows I made it up and I don't think I'll ever tell them.

I'm 30 and never learned how to swim. Had a pretty bad experience at a pool when I was a kid and avoided swimming ever since. My family loves beach vacations so I've spent years pretending I just don't enjoy being in the water.

For the past six weeks I've been telling everyone I work late on Thursdays. I'm actually taking beginner swimming lessons at a local pool with a bunch of other adults.

Last Thursday I managed to swim across the shallow lane without stopping for the first time. I was ridiculously happy about it.

My dad called yesterday to say he's proud of how hard I've been working lately. Almost told him the truth but decided to keep it a secret until I can actually swim properly. It's a little silly being this excited about something most people learn as kids, but I am.

Throwaway account, and sorry for my English, it's not my first language.

I need to write this somewhere. It's been in my head for days and nobody around me takes it seriously.

There is a girl I know a little. Not close, we have common friends and sometimes we end up in the same group. She is very shy and reserved, she dresses covered, she talks quietly, and with men she is always closed. Someone who knows her well once told me, very carefully, that something happened to her in the past. I never asked more. I didn't need to, you can see how she protects herself.

A few days ago a friend showed me a video on his phone and said "look, you remember her?" It was an adult video. It was her. I recognized her immediately, even though she was trying to hide her face the whole time.

I want to be clear: I'm not judging her for being in it. Everyone can do what they want with their life and body. What shocked me is that from the first second it looked like she didn't want to be there.

The person who seemed to convince her to go was a friend of hers, and she was nodding with the face of someone who wanted to be anywhere else. During the video she kept covering herself, she kept hiding from the camera, and she kept getting scared. Every time, someone calmed her down and it just continued. There was no violence. In a strange way that made it worse.

She never said no. Not once. But I also don't remember one real yes. Just small nods, a nervous smile, eyes always somewhere else. Other people in the video looked like they were having fun and chose to be there. She just looked like she didn't know how to leave.

At the end she was just sitting there, lost in her head, like she had already given up long before.

Now this video is out there for anyone to see, and she is the most private person I know.

What makes me feel crazy is my friend. For him it's a funny story, almost an adventure, and he didn't understand why I went quiet. I feel like I'm the only one who saw a person who wasn't okay.

I feel guilty that I watched it at all. I feel guilty that I know. If I tell her, I think I would humiliate her even more. If I say nothing, I feel like I'm just one more person who saw and did nothing. I barely know her, so I don't even know if it's my place to feel this way.

I don't know what I expect from writing this. I just couldn't keep it only in my head anymore.

Last night, he went to go gas up the car. We have one car, and commute to work with each other every day. Everything was good, I was cleaning up, getting dinner ready. Figured he’d be home in about 10-15 minutes since it’s around the corner.

He left around 8:50, and told me he got the gas around 9:05. Then, never heard from him. I have his location, he was just in the parking lot. Just sitting there for some reason. Figured he was on the phone with his mom or something. I kept texting him, calling him, pinging his phone after about 30-40 minutes as I started to get worried something happened to him.

I called his mom and she said she didn’t hear from him either. So, after no response from him the only option left was to go there myself to see if he was alright. I started walking, for reference, we’re in a smaller town so Lyfts and Ubers are hard to come by at 10:30 at night. So I started walking, finally got an uber thankfully about half way there since it was an hour walk.

Pull up, walk over and there’s a strange girl standing there in the parking lot, cars parked side by side while my fiancée was leaning on my car smoking and she was blushing and smiling.

I immediately lit into him, went off like a crazy person, and started questioning them both. I asked where they met and the girl says “I don’t think that matters” and continued to stand there. My fiancée was flabbergasted, didn’t know what to say or do, maybe he would have known I was coming if he didn’t mute me on his phone.

I totally understand this is his fault and he’s a massive scumbag, and yes we are no longer together. Even though we moved into this place a month ago, I packed what I could and came to work this morning. I didn’t want to but it’s my first week at a new job and I can’t let the ball drop.

She wasn’t honest either. She stood there wishing I would leave so she could have more time with him. She said she’s a “girls girl” and that’s total bullshit. When I kept pressing she didn’t know what to say and finally said “I’m going to go now”. I said “good idea.” I’m not going to tarnish my future or reputation for two stupid people that deserve each other.

If you’re going through something similar or have in the past, I’m so sorry. It’s not fair to the crowd of us that respect and cherish our partners, and put our whole heart into a relationship that never meant anything to the other person.

So I'm a biracial black woman. I had been having a crush on this guy for some time now. (He is white) He lives very close to me. I've been flirting with him occasionally, and he seemed to be interested in me. Or so I thought, because yesterday, when we went to a bar, what I thought to be a date, while I was hitting on him, then he suddenly said to me, "Sorry, I wanna have white children.". I felt so weird and shocked after that. I guess its fine to have preferences who you wanna date, but the way that came out of him sounded gross and racist. Like he seems attracted to me, yet refuses to date me because he wants like "pure white children"? 

I need to get this off my chest because the grief, anger, and guilt are eating at me, even though I know I did what I had to do to survive.

Years ago, I found out my Nana on my Mom's side passed away. I was already no contact with my Mother because of how badly she mistreated me. At the time, I was living down in Florida with my Dad while spending my summers living at his girlfriend's house in Massachusetts, splitting my time between both residences. My Nana left money in her will for me and my sister (who I also don't speak to because she sided with my mom). To protect my SSDI benefits as an autistic adult, my Dad set up a trust with that inheritance so I wouldn’t lose my safety net.

Fast forward two years. I found out Florida was involved in the Texas v. Kennedy lawsuit, and to avoid the risk of involuntary institutionalization under those shifting policies, I realized I had to move back to Massachusetts permanently and secure my own housing.

I formally asked my Dad to terminate the trust so I could use my own inheritance money to secure housing in Mass. I explained the law and the situation to him. He flat-out denied my request. His girlfriend backed him up completely. I even offered to pay his girlfriend rent via the trust just to have a stable roof over my head in Massachusetts while things got sorted out, and she denied that too, enabling his control every step of the way.

My Dad’s attitude was that I should just "work” instead of “rely[ing] on the trust" completely ignoring the fact that the entire legal purpose of a trust is to cover my basic needs, including housing, and completely brushing off the danger of the lawsuit I was trying to protect myself from. We have completely opposite politics (I’m liberal, he’s conservative), and he refused to listen to a word I said.

Because he refused to give me access to my own money for housing, I was forced to take legal action against my Dad and his girlfriend.

I eventually got 100% of my money back. But instead of just settling like reasonable adults, my Dad and his girlfriend went nuclear and retaliated against me in every way they could think of in response to the lawsuit:

They cut me off the family phone plan.

They got my car impounded (he owned the title at the time, though I own it now), forcing me to pay out of pocket for a rental car just to function.

I was served eviction notices from BOTH residences: My Dad's house in Florida AND his girlfriend's place in MA.

I was completely uninvited from family dinners, gatherings, and major family events.

I literally overheard his girlfriend telling him that she "would be happy if she never spoke to me again."

Even though I know suing them triggered all of this fallout, I didn't have a choice. I was standing up for my basic right to safe housing and autonomy.
Now, I'm living in Massachusetts full-time. I'm not homeless, I have a job, I bought my own car title from my Dad, and I have an incredible, supportive group of friends who actually care about me. But I would be lying if I said it didn't hurt. I miss having a family. I miss my relatives. I felt so much guilt for missing a huge family event recently, even though I know I did nothing wrong by fighting for my own life.

I ended up having to block my Dad on both phone and email. He doesn't have social media, but it wouldn't matter anyway… there is zero way to repair a relationship with someone who would rather ruin your life, impound your car, and render you homeless just for asking for your own money back.
I survived it, but I am still so angry that I had to sue my own Dad and his girlfriend just to exist.

Growing up, I carried a lot of sadness and felt ashamed of being autistic, especially when my Dad openly supported controversial, harmful comments about autism without caring how deeply it hurt my feelings. Looking back, that same disregard for who I am as an autistic person is why he thought he could control my life and ignore my basic needs in the first place.

Just wanted to get this off my chest, but man do I feel brand new. Truly a rollercoaster of a ride I had with this one, cried my eyes out, never felt so much empathy before, I even started crying for my cat for being so worried about me and I’m crying right now as I’m typing this out. This trip made me realize how miserable of a person I am to everyone and how miserable my life is right now. I’ve always been such a prick and selfish person and taking these shrooms made me look at myself from a third perspective and truly analyze myself for who I really was. I am thankful for this experience and I am thankful to be alive, and I will strive to be better. I just never had much empathy for others before and I always looked down on myself in such a negative view. I learned of who I am and I know my situation is fucked, but I also know that 10 years from now I will look back and laugh at how I thought my life was over. That’s it from my Ted Talk, thanks for reading and know that life is great and love all that is around you.

I recently had a big academic/career accomplishment. My parents made a big fuss about it on facebook and told me to log back into my account that is mostly untouched and thank people for their kind words.

I have not been on that cesspool website in months, so when I returned, I was delighted by all the kindness I received, but the posts were also filled with total strangers saying such foul things about me. Comments attacking me for my appearance, trying to downplay my accomplishment and claiming it was only achieved by cheating, through financial support of my parents, or just general nasty chauvinistic remarks.

I then spent a bit more time scrolling and it feels like every single post, regardless of topic is just nonstop bitterness from boomers. Even on a post about puppies, boomers will find some way to criticize, tear down, or complain about the person in the post.

I know that GenZ, millennials, and even GenX have their own unique problems surrounding social media and media literacy, but holy shit. What the hell is happening that could make the boomers so incredibly bitter this way? It seems so sad.

I'm a 20 year old girl with a 22 year old sister. Our relationship is generally a good one, typical sibling relationship. We vent to each other here and there, we help each other out, and we fight. Nothing out of the ordinary. However, this situation has been eating me up for weeks and weeks. My sister's in a relationship with this really awesome guy who's just a couple years older. I don't know a WHOLE lot about their relationship but I can tell he treats her well. He's always coming by to see her and take her out somewhere. For her birthday this year, he surprised her with tickets to an artist she's been trying to see and I remember her talking about it nonstop. He's even sweet to me as well. I would consider us friends.

Lately, my sister has been sleeping with other guys at our house. I found out because one night, I came home from work to very loud and unmistakable sounds of pleasure. I thought it was her boyfriend but I later found out it wasn't. I didn't say anything because I was kinda in shock and I didn't want to believe it. Long story short, a new guy would come home every so often and there would be more of those sounds. I didn't count but there were quite a bit of them. It was always late at night when nobody was around to hear or when my parents were out/asleep and I was in my room or outside. I confronted her about it some days ago and asked why she was doing something so gross and while in a relationship. She denied it up and down until I told her what I would keep hearing and seeing (the dudes, not the act of course). She told me if I ever told her boyfriend, she would out me to my parents (I'm into girls but my parents don't know, I'm scared to tell them due to past homophobic comments). I told her he'll find out regardless and she told me if he ever confronted her about it, she'll assume I was behind it and tell our parents either way. I'm anxious because I want him to know but I'm not ready for my parents to find out about me being a lesbian. I feel like a bad person and have no clue what to do. I hope all gets revealed in due time but in the mean time, I have no clue what to do. My best friend thinks I should tell him either way but I'm just so anxious.

As someone who wants to go into graphic design, the AI boom is terrifying. I'm also scared for it's environmental impacts as well. It's getting to the point where I'm losing hope in the meaning of life if all we're headed for is poverty and desperation. I want to believe that there are upsides to using it, but the job layoffs, environmental destruction, and literacy declines are keeping me up at night worried for the future.

I got called into work for a mandatory meeting. Turns out they were letting people go. I was panicking because I take care of my disabled mom and my 19 year old dog that has seizures.
I was panicking bad enough I was having chest pain. I thankfully still have a job.

But I came home to my dog not doing so well. We already spoke to the vet about letting him enjoy his last days and when to consider euthanasia… I think it’s time. I’ve been in bed with him holding him. He’s sleeping heavily on my arm right now. He wont give up my arm and I will stay with him.
I keep crying cause he’s my little heart. He’s been the reason why I got through a lot of tough times. Ive been so blessed to have had him for so long.

I don’t know if he’ll make it to morning. I honestly wish he passes peacefully in his sleep. I don’t want his last moments in a vets office he hates.

I moved to Latin America a year ago. The exact country is Argentina so I apologize if I’m generalizing, as I’m sure that not every country is the same. I also want state that my experience is based on observations but does not reflect all Latin American nor Argentinian people.

My spouse is Argentinian and we moved to Buenos Aires in November. I speak Spanish but I’m not a native speaker, and as a result it can be hard to communicate warmth and express myself as fluently as I’d like to be. I feel like a very cold person here because I don’t smile as much nor engage in as much small talk as those around me. I come from a more direct European country (Germany) where people are quite honest and quiet, and where convesations usually have a motive rather than being a source of entertainment.

I want to start off by stating that I love the sense of community that exists here and the warmth of the people. However, it’s hard for me to live in a country where people often are expected to follow social curtsies and engage in a lot of small talk rather than say what they intend. For example, when I can’t attend a social function, in my culture it’s perfectly reasonable to decline an invitation, but here I’ve been told it’s rude and one is expected to cancel at a later time with a general excuse (that may or may not be a lie). For example, if I can’t attend a party, I’m expected to accept and then apologize and make an excuse at a later date. To me, as the event planner it would be annoying to plan for 12 attendees and have 6 cancel on the day of the event, but here this is quite normal.

In my culture, I think actions are abit more important than words, so for example, arriving late to an appointment is deemed rude, but here, people are more relaxed and don’t have the same strictness about time, which can be difficult for me to adjust to.

I also think that occasionally, some people can act very nice while concealing more devious intentions. For example, we own a bakery and very warm and kind customers sometimes lie about what they purchased or try to take things (like money from our tip jar). We also have vendors (also very friendly and nice) who try to overcharge us. This happens even with really nice people and it makes me sad because I have to be more cautious, even with the people I would generally trust in Germany. I’ve learned to be very cautious, and I rarely trust anyone here. Sometimes I ask myself why feeling like part of a community is so important to people here if they generally can’t trust anyone in that community.

In my experience, people here talk big quite often as well, especially men, and machismo seems more prevalent. For example, my spouses male relatives don’t help with chores around the house nor engage in any “women’s work”, which frustrates me to no end. A lot of people also talk big about achievements or capabilities but don’t always work as hard as their words would make them seem.

Anyway, I don’t want to complain about a country I’m living in, as this is very rude. However I had to get it off my chest. Has anyone else has had similar experiences in a country where the culture differed from their own? What compromises did you have to make?

two years ago when i was a junior in college i had a fling with my history professor and i havent told anyone about it. it started when i went to his office hours before the midterm to ask a few questions and we really hit it off. i kept going back each week and we built up a good friendship, talking less and less about class-related things each time. i realized slowly that i was attracted to him, and the feeling was becoming mutual. one afternoon i decided to test the waters and sat in the chair next to him rather than across, and he as we were looking at something in my notebook he put his hand on my thigh and it stayed there for a while. it felt so right. as i left his office that day he said that i should consider getting drinks with him that weekend and it kind of flustered me but i told him id think about it. so that weekend came and we met at a bar a few towns over and we drank and talked and i kind of forgot he was even my professor.

we went back to his apartment and it was a little awkward at first, i wasn’t sure what to do so i just looked at the books on his shelf and he told me about them. i said it was cute how passionate he was about what he studied. he said he’d always found me adorable. we got to making out and then he led me to the bedroom and the rest is well, history.

this continued somewhat regularly over the course of that semester. he told me not to worry about my grade and i reassured him i wasn’t sleeping with him for an A but he gave me one anyway even though i definitely wasn’t the best student haha.

25F

A few weeks ago some guy messaged me offering money if I degraded him and told him what to do. I was broke and curious, so I said yes.

Now it’s become a semi regular thing. He sends me money and I spend the next hour calling him pathetic, giving him humiliating tasks, and making him do weird stuff over chat. Nothing extreme, but definitely things that make me feel strange afterward.

The money helps a lot. That’s the part I can’t ignore. But every time we finish I feel this mix of power and discomfort. I don’t think about him as a real person while it’s happening, and that bothers me more than I expected.

I haven’t told anyone. It feels too weird to explain.

For context I live with my dad and my brother, im 18 (F) who really values hygiene, and it’s annoying that I have to live with people who don’t keep up with theirs, they leave their facial hair around like the sink area when they shave, sometimes body hair on the toilet seat, hair in the shower after they wash their hair, and sometimes they don’t flush at times so I have to deal with seeing other people’s waste. It disgusts me sometimes I have trouble eating because I can’t get the image out of my head, and every time I ask them to clean up or stop doing what their doing they don’t listen and just continue. For example I asked my dad to clean his facial hair off the sink and he asks me why don’t I clean it, like have you lost your mind why would I clean your mess? It’s just disrespectful and not fair to me.

I'm not really here to ask for advice or anything. I genuinely just want to get this off my chest. Two years back I met this guy, he was very unconventionally looking, but still very beautiful. We clicked very well and became friends to romantic fwb slowly. It all kinda ended after I found his tinder profile w photos from a week ago. We had a huge fight and just went our separate ways. Six months later I reached out asking if we could be friends (embarrassing ik), but he was a really interesting fella and I enjoyed his presence outside of the little fling we had. He wasn't really into the idea so whatever.

Today Instagram decided to push his profile on my fyp, so I checked it out, I was curious. Of course I was , and here is the reason I'm even typing this whole thing. I saw his new girlfriend. She may be one of the most beautiful people I've ever seen. Genuinely she could be a supermodel. I feel so incompetent next to her beautiful face. The voices are yelling at me of course he left - look at her. I have a long term boyfriend who I think likes the way I look? But idk atp, and I've been feeling quite confident about my looks for a bit but after seeing her I quickly spiralled to my 14 year old self. Took me so long to build my confidence. I hate being ugly

My older sister used to torture me on long car rides when we were kids. She'd play the same songs over and over because she knew they annoyed me, and whenever I wanted to listen to something she'd either change it or make fun of my music taste.

A few months ago I was babysitting her 5 year old son and introduced him to Crazy Frog. He absolutely loved it. We played it probably 10 times that afternoon and he kept asking for it again.

Last weekend we had a family dinner and she spent a good 15 minutes complaining about how her son has become obsessed with that stupid song. Apparently he requests it every morning on the way to school and throws a fit when she changes it.

She thinks another kid at school introduced him to it. I just sat there eating my dinner.

I'm almost 30 and this is probably the pettiest thing I've ever done, but I have zero regrets.

Hi all, this is my first Reddit post so I hope I’m doing his right. A couple of days ago I (23 F) was having a conversation with my bestfriend (23 F) about her and her boyfriend’s relationship and how it’s been going lately. Might I add that I set her and this boyfriend up (the boyfriend is/was my friend from work that I’ve known for maybe 4 years let’s call him Tyler) maybe a year ago and it was all well up until lately. I am also in a relationship, and with another woman. My bestfriend has asked me before if i’ve ever thought about having a threesome with her and my girlfriend, and I told her I haven’t thought about her being apart of it because I didn’t see her as the type. However the conversation has come up again in the midst of Tyler being…a douche to say the least. This time around the conversation went to me asking my girlfriend if she could be apart of something, and how much she thinks we’re both beautiful and she’s interested in “seeing what that’s like.” Not sure if Tyler knows any of this and I still see him every day at work. I’m really only saying this here because I don’t have many friends that I can go to and just get this off my chest andddd I’m not sure my feelings towards the whole thing. She’s beautiful I mean goddess worthy but I don’t know if this is a good idea for her to go through with. I mean, I feel like I’d be fine but she’s never been with women before and that’s a jump to go from none to two at the same time.

My partner (19NB) and I (20M) have been dating for four years tomorrow. We got together in 10th grade, now we’re year 2 in college (three for me, but I started classes early). We have some amazing friends, but genuinely no one treats our relationship like it’s concrete, especially their parents. Sometimes, even our best friends don’t treat us like a serious relationship. Some have suggested that it’s because we got together when we were really young and high school relationships don’t really last, but we have two friends that are middle school sweethearts but they are treated seriously, more serious than we ever are.

For slight context, we were an out-of-the-blue couple in high school. It just… happened. I didn’t tell anyone I liked them and they said yes. No rumors, no runaround. One day we weren’t a thing, and the next we were an item. A lot of people were saying that we should breakup. We barely knew each other and were two completely different people. But we got to know each other and we genuinely became best friends and fell in love.

They have seen me on the edge of death and stayed with me in the hospital during it, waking up whenever I was in pain. I’ve seen them grow as a person, from an awkward closeted kid to confident in themselves and not caring what anyone else thinks. I feel like they’re the only person I can be myself around, and they feel the same towards me.

It seems like everyone our age, at least among the people we know, are getting married, engaged, or having kids already. I can’t really open socials without seeing something along those lines. We have rings we wear but haven’t done anything official because their family isn’t very supportive of us getting married right now, and that includes getting engaged. Kids aren’t in the question, period. Biology is against us, as if this moment.

Our close friends seem to think that we are all about sex or just friends. We’re both home bodies and prefer renting a movie or playing games together or cuddling our cat instead of going on date nights. We maybe go out on two dates a year, mainly because of my health issues. If it’s too hot or humid, I can struggle to breathe and get too dehydrated. If it’s too cold, I could get sick and my joints will hurt too much. We have to find places to go where I can sit down a lot, be comfortable, and could possibly use my wheelchair or crutches to navigate. In the end, we usually decide our bed is comfy and order delivery or takeout and watch a movie. Because of my health issues, intimacy looks different as well. Sometimes, we can have sex a few times a week, sometimes we go close to a month without doing anything outside of massages, which are intimate but also help with my joints and circulation.

To be clear, we both agree on our dates. They would rather just be with me and relax after a rough week than go out and do anything. We’re introverts, what can we say? I just don’t want it to seem like my health is the only thing taken into account, although it’s a huge factor.

I’ve asked people why our relationship doesn’t seem genuine, and it’s usually because we are still in the dating stage and haven’t made effort to get married or anything like that. I try to explain that my partner has to take their parents into account, that my health is super fragile and we’re not sure if we are ready for the next thing until we can find a normality, and that overall we’re not sure we’re ready for it with how young we are, but it’s always that no one is going to take us seriously if we aren’t at least fiancés.

It’s gotten to the point where we both have people flirting with us, despite both of us never shutting up about the other. It’s usually by people we thought of as friends, too. Not close ones, but still. They’re no longer friends, of course. They would always say “Well you and them aren’t THAT serious, right?” whenever we would ask what the hell they were thinking.

I have no idea if the un-seriousness is a cultural thing where I’m from, if it’s because we’re queer, or because of how different our relationship is thanks to my health. I’m 99% sure the people flirting is just young adults being young adults, to put bluntly. Obviously, we’re not breaking up over this and it doesn’t even cause fights. It’s just… annoying. It feels like the only way that others will call us a couple and acknowledge us as something long-standing and not a freshly new thing is if we do stage a proposal or marriage, which could risk them getting cut off from their family, which neither of us want right now. It’s literally the only downside of our relationship and we can’t wrap our heads around why.

I need you to know that I didn't leave because I
stopped loving you, or because I didn't try. I left
because my nervous system literally couldn't take
it anymore.

For two years, I stretched myself past my absolute limits. I work two jobs and support my family and myself, yet I still poured whatever energy I had left into our relationship. But to keep the peace, I shrank myself to fit into your life on your terms.

I accommodated your insecurities as a broke student, waiting endlessly for dates because your pride wouldn't let me pay, yet watching your ego allow you to borrow money from me for a high end GPU. I was hidden from your family for two years, forbidden from even picking music in your car, and shouted at or called “tanga”, “bobo”, "stupid" whenever I asked for basic help.

Whenever I tried to express pain, you dismissed me, avoided me, or called it “drama”, daming ebas." The hardest part was watching you give the best parts of yourself to everyone else. You had endless energy to people-please your friends and play PC games for hours, while leaving me on silent video calls with breadcrumbs of check-ins.

I lost my spark the very first time you made me feel small. I isolated myself and stayed until my own friends got dissapointed watching me break down in secret. My nervous system couldn't take another day of existing in perpetual fight-or-flight.

I didn't give up; my body and mind simply gave out. I miss myself way more than I miss the ghost of who we used to be. I realized that was just all in the beginning. I cannot carry the weight of this relationship on top of the heavy load of my own life anymore. I am choosing to break my own heart today so that I can finally save my mind, my spirit, and my life. This time, I’m not guilty anymore.

this only happened a few hours ago and my brain is all over the place so please excuse the messy writing.

i was driving to a store with my bf and i saw a girl standing on the wrong side of the railing and not holding on. i told my bf to stop the car and i immediately jumped out to try to speak to her. i tried to get close enough to have a conversation but not too close that i would spook her. i started asking if she was okay and some girl walked up to me and told me to leave the girl alone and go away ! i moved back a little thinking that i was too close and this girl knew her and she didn’t. so i didn’t leave and i continued to try to talk to this girl and give her comfort while trying to keep her focused on me and in the moment. she kept saying she was fine and i could go but i refused and kept telling her that i was here for her and i didn’t want her to fall. another couple arrived and tried to speak to her too and make sure she was okay and they were super sweet. after a while of trying to make a conversation with her she reached her hand out to me and asked for my name. i asked if i could hold her hand and she said yes and then i told her my name as asked for hers. i spoke to her about my own struggles and how just a year ago i was in the exact same situation as her and how life gets so much better and trying to offer my empathy and support. she opened up to me a little but was actively leaning back and had her toes on the edge of the bridge. i refused to let her go and held on with all the strength i had while i did everything in my power to show her that i cared and other people care and things can get better. the police got called and they eventually arrived and my bf and another guy jumped in to grab her and stop her from jumping when she say the police. they helped her down and took her back to their car to talk to her and keep her safe. but all i can think about is if i said the right things ? what if she had fallen while holding my hand ? i’m 5’2 and 90lbs and not very strong. what if i hadn’t gotten there before that rude girl who told me to just leave her be ? i’m still shaking now just thinking about it. but at the end of the day im just so glad we were able to save her life and show her at least a little bit of compassion and love. i just needed to get this off my chest and write it down somewhere. thank you for reading.

last night i was over at my boyfriend's house, and somehow the conversation of our first times came up. we were just talking normally, and i wasn't expecting him to tell me anything crazy. but then he told me something that i honestly haven't been able to stop thinking about since.

he told me he lost his v card when he was 10 years old, and it was with his stepmom.

i genuinely didn't know what to say. i was sitting there trying to process what he had just told me because how does something like that even happen? he was literally 10 years old. i can't imagine being that young and going through something like that, especially with someone who is supposed to be part of your family.

what makes the situation even more complicated is that his stepmom is STILL married to his dad. she's still in his life, and i have no idea how to feel about that. i keep wondering if his dad knows, but my boyfriend specifically told me not to tell any of my friends or his dad.

now i feel stuck because i don't want to betray his trust. he chose to tell me something really personal, and i don't want him to regret opening up to me. but at the same time, i can't just pretend i didn't hear what he told me. it's been sitting in the back of my mind ever since last night.

i don't know if he sees what happened as something serious or if he's just used to talking about it that way. he didn't tell me much about how he feels about it, and i don't want to start asking a million questions and make him uncomfortable. i just keep thinking about how young he was and how the person involved was an adult in his family.

i also don't understand how i'm supposed to act around his stepmom now. i've been around her before, and now i know this information that i never expected to hear. i don't want to treat him differently, but i also can't help feeling weird about the whole situation.

the fact that he told me not to tell his dad makes me wonder if he's scared of what might happen if anyone finds out. i don't want to assume that's why he said it, though. maybe he's just not ready for anyone else to know, and i want to respect that.

i feel bad even writing about this because he specifically asked me to keep it private, but i honestly don't know how to process it by myself. i'm not trying to expose him or embarrass him. i just need advice from people who aren't involved in our lives.

i care about him, and i want him to feel safe talking to me. i don't want him to think i'm judging him or looking at him differently because of something that happened when he was a child. if his stepmom involved him sexually when he was 10, he was a child, and it wasn't his fault.

i know this is a lot, but i genuinely wasn't expecting this conversation last night, and now i can't stop thinking about it.

It happened a couple months ago. I remember sitting in my boyfriend’s bathroom with the positive test in my hand, I didn’t feel any big feelings at the moment. I called the clinic right away, I didn’t even think about it; I immediately scheduled an appointment. I remember telling him and he reassured me that everything was going to be fine, so that was nice.

There following couple of days were strange.

I went to a dance class, I went out to drink; I just lived my regular life. Then I started to get the weird cravings: chips with Tabasco and pickles, mozzarella with pickles and salmon and so much more pickles… My face started to get rounder and I might be wrong but there was the tiniest little bump ( I was around 7 weeks). It was weird knowing that I was pregnant, that I wasn’t really alone anymore and nobody knew. It made me a little happy.

I liked caressing my stomach or looking at the mirror to see if anything had changed. I loved taking to her when no one was around. But then the day came, the did an echo before the procedure and there she was: the tinniest little dot. I felt a bit of sadness, knowing that I had to let her go. I wouldn’t be able to give her a good life at the moment, I want to get everything in order so I can be the best mother. But I wish I could’ve kept her, I wish I could’ve seen what she looked like, what kind of person she could grow up to be.

And now every time I see a pregnant woman, I think of her. I would’ve been six months by now… It makes me so sad, I want her back. I wanted to watch her grow up, I wanted to see my boyfriend be a father, I wanted to be her mom so bad.

I’m so sorry I wasn’t ready to be your mom yet.