Life Stories and Everyday Drama

Alexithyma

noun

the inability to recognize or describe one's own emotions.

I live in a broken family

My family was not like this, even if we weren’t perfect we all still loved each other and was somewhat okay. A few months ago my father had an issue with his job and left it, thus financial problems started. My sibling who is abroad does their best to support us. Our relatives from both paternal and maternal side cut contact with us and started talking behind our backs because we do not have the financial stability anymore, not even our grandparents talk to us or ask about us, even though we have never asked for money from them and never would have asked for it. But nobody even calls or texts us, instead they sometimes come over to spite us and leave us out of important familial information. This obviously broke my siblings and my heart but my parents are devastated because of this.

Gradually my parents started fighting more too, always creating this gloomy atmosphere at my house. My parents started blaming themselves at first for not being able to do the same for me as they did for my elder sibling then they started to blame me for not being a good enough student even though I’m working 24/7 to maintain a scholarship and earn money. Then my dad had to cheat. Well some might say it was not direct cheating but we caught him on a video call with another lady and saw their texts. My younger sibling hates his gut now, we had to adjust, cause what can we do, what else can be done. My parents aren’t in love anymore, not like before, I’m pretty sure if we did not exist they would divorce, at least that is what they tell me all the time.

90% of the time I feel dissociated, I don’t know if I’m supposed to thank “god” for keeping me alive or hate god for making us go through this. I hate living here now, everyone is always fighting, everyone is always depressed, it feels like even staying at my stupid university will be better than staying here.

I just want everything to end.

I’m 13, a girl, and stuck in 8th grade with the person who assaulted me. I don’t want to live. If I don’t get help I’m killing myself.

Robbie (he/him) again! I'm really just rambling.

I've really been struggling with the subject IT lately. Or rather I've always struggled with it. When i started taking the subject last year i was heavily depressed, and remained depressed throughout the year. As a result I didnt learn much in this new subject and the teacher even had issues with me since I had handed in a really bad quality the end of year Practical assignment. I handed in such bad assignments and didnt do the work in class, and couldnt focus in class, nor study for tests due to the depression i had and the like, super traumatising chronic stress inducinng "friendship" i had all year. Like I either didnt care or didnt have the time to study or learn when i did care. And that situation continued until early this year, but after ending that friendship life has been so much better for me. BUt like academically it's hard to catch up on a year of not learning the work. ANd so my marks have been fluctuating heavily in IT ever since, One term it's 80% and 50%, another it's 40% and 50%. Middle of this year my teacher even thought i'd been cheating on a test, because my marks went up with like 20%. The teacher really freaked me out with that whole ordeal and I know it really got me demotivated about the subject for the whole next term.

Like for a subject where I have to code, the code really doesn't stick in my head for long. So I kinda have to study all the time right before a test, so I can achieve 70-80%. And generally speaking I've kinda had a slump recently, A bit of a depressive episode, and I can't find the motivation to do IT work. And over the last few months we've had do our end of year practical assignment, and I genuinely wanted to not at all repeat last year's issues about it where my teacher sent me my PAT back asking me to improve it (nice of him but freaked me out).

So I wanted to work on it from the get go, and as time passed i realised I just never worked on it, but when friends asked and my family asked I'd reverted to lying that I'd done this that and the other recently, or that my PAT included whatever code. So i've had a thorough idea of my project since the get go just never the actual project. ANd like this is better than last year at least since i know what i have to do for the project, I know im capable, and I know i have the time. But time passes, I'm kinda depressed and all of a sudden we have to hand in the written part of the project, and i had nothing, so I wrote something in one day. It wasnt great but it was pretty damn substantial. Like an okay grade, and very much a passing grade. And i felt okay enough about it, nevermind the procrastination. And i resolved to do the code aspect throughout the next week so I could hand it in in time. And no matter how much I thought about it, no matter if i had everything next to me I'd need, no matter if i had the resolve, I just didnt code it, And then didnt hand anything in. And that was the Friday before last. And over this past week Ive been meaning to code it and I've been lying to friends that I couldnt hand it in because my house didnt have internet over the weekend (over said weekend I did actually turn off wifi on all my devices to make that lie believable). And then someone actually broke my phone this last Monday so if I had the project done i couldnt hand it in anyways, because I needed my phone for access to Teams. So eventually on Wednesday, I'd messaged my teacher telling him I'm sorry for the delays in handing in my project and I'd lied to saying the no wifi thing, and id added the truth that I now couldnt hand it in because of the phone breaking, and id added the truth that i emailed the school's techs to help me gain access to Teams again. And then I turned uninstalled the app my teacher would need to contact me again (it's exams now so I didnt actually need to go to school after wednesday this week), and I resolved to code my project on Wednesday. And then I didn't again, ad again and now it's sunday and I havent coded it yet. And I literally have not thought about anything else this last week, and yet i can't bring myself to code this thing i know im capable enough of coding.

I feel so scared of somehow being found out, or the teacher having even more against me, and im scared of the school reprimanding me since i dont know if i could handle my parents knowing I've lied ect ect. And i kinda have just been feeling absolutely terrible about myself this last week because of this. It's not that i dont want to do this, or that i'm doing more fun things instead, or that i dont care, I'm just so scared about this subject in general because of everything regarding how I feel very behind in IT, and I'm scared of my teacher since he thought I was cheating, and I'm scared my parents will know, and I'm scared my friends will know, I'm scared of my loved ones finding out just how much i lie. I've been thinking recently that I might have become a compulsive liar over the last few years where I generally hide my mental health issues from everyone, and then later how i hid was essentially being emotionally abused for a year and a half by my "best friend".

Oh, i dont what to do at all. I even had a nightmare where I was horribly scared the entire time, and i realized the nightmare was because i spent the whole week scared before the nightmare, the emotion went into my dreams even.

Thank you all for reading, I really appreciate it.

Im 24 for context and living with my dads parents who are expecting me to go to church but I dont even believe or want to be back in mormonism so Im just sitting here dreading it as they get ready for church.

Recently today I was caught using my phone on an exam and of course my teacher scolded me but left me with a warning and I didn’t study for this so I just want to ask what methods do u recommend on this platform as my finals are in another 5 months and I do not want to repeat this mistake again I do hope you all can help me

Hi? To be honest I am not doing well but people around me thinks I am haha. It’s just hard to express what I feel when all my life I feel like my feelings were always invalidated or I feel like I am being a burden. My family is really going through it all right now and it fucking hurts. I just gradually escaped my academic pressure and self validation but this is whats happening like another problem gosh. I thought after all the hell I been through with me and my self validation like I thought I would get better but no. Having a physically absent father and physically absent mother who is emotionally unstable is not for the weak. I still talk to my Mom but she doesn’t know that it pains me a lot knowing that they’re all in a different family now haha. Like what about me? But I understand, I always understand haha. I have been through hell since I was a kid, like my asthma condition was so worst that I almost died. It really pains me because I took care of myself growing up, always pleasing everyone to get the validation I needed, to feel loved. I just wanted to feel loved by my parents that’s all haha. I raised myself, I was a middle child but I was the one who raised us. Why you asking? Because I was always the one who knows about our family problems, always needing to be the mature one. Like can’t I be a kid and run free? Haha. I was pushed into something I didn’t want bruh, I just wanna be a kid too. All the favoritism is crazy. I am still living but a part of me already died. Seeing people commit suicide especially the influencer I love because she’s literally the reason why I loved my tanned skin, it literally triggered something in me. And it hurts, ’cause I am always so close of doing it just for the pain to end. It really hurts y’all but I don’t wanna be selfish but all I needed was my parents, I didn’t wanna be like this.

I have a friend and at first, we had fun together, vent to me, and , trusted me with secrets. but recently, I noticed that she can just go a full day (in our school) without even saying hi to me, talk to me, takes super long to reply but can reply fast in our circle of friends gc. I was with our friend earlier and she only greeted and even hugged her excitedly asking how was the theatre play we watched like I wasn't there but she only noticed me when she was asking about where am I gonna wait. I feel like she just used me from the beggining cause I was always left alone in school and can be seen as very vulnerable. she said that she wants to protect someone who's vulnerable but she only cares about what person she sees and not like remember the other people. she also said to me that she got used by having the personality of happy go people though. this more happened when she got closed again to her crush who repeatedly hurt her by ignoring the chats and not responding to them. she even reposted posts about being left outland forgotten but I always see her with someone else, other people that always find her, and her that is willingly talking to them. she even left out us for our other friend. she just confuses me idk if she really cares about me. I'm a sensitive person and I can't help to notice and deeply care about what I noticed and what I feel so idk if I'm just being overly sensitive..

one of the most important and fulfilling things I can do in life is helping others. all I mean by helping others, is sticking by their side when things get tough, being a listening ear when needed, or whatever it is the people in my life may need me to do. however, I have always hated asking for help for myself. weather it was on a math problem at school, or lifting something heavy at home. I am an oldest child, and my mom has multiple sclerosis, and has always been through bouts of depression. this would leave her with very little energy to take care of the house or my little sister. I don't blame my mom one bit for this. she is the strongest person I know, and she has always done her best to be there for us. she is someone I aspire to be like every day. this however, makes it more difficult for me to see her completely drained some days. seeing this has made me feel like I need to step up and help her do the things she struggles with some days. i have gotten so used to this, that it feels like I need to be the strong one in my family, who keeps everyone sane when things are falling apart. I often forget that asking for help is even an option, or when I do think about it, I decide not to ask. there is a multitude of reasons why I choose not to ask for help, but the main reasons are that I don't want to burden others with my troubles, if I ask for help I feel like I am letting people down because I can't always be strong, and if I have to ask for help I have to admit to myself that I can't carry everything. I have also gotten so used to volunteering to do everything for everyone that I feel like if I stop doing that, I will be letting everyone down. recently I feel like the weight of all of this has been pressing on my shoulders, and I would rather let myself fall before burdening anyone else with my troubles. especially since I know that there are so many people out there who have it worse than me. so I tell myself that I shouldn't even be struggling with it. anyways, I just needed to get that off my chest. thank you for taking the time to read all this

So I hv this girl I’m currently best friends with I’m just gonna say her name bc like 1,000 girls hv it. So I’ve been best friends with Sofia only recently we acc only became friends

Friends because we had mutual ones but anyways in around middle school I started getting really sensitive about things and for a while I thought I was bi and like I’m not right now, but she would say I was like mentally insane because of it and I had about three other friends in that friend group they were all friends from elementary school and they honestly never really listened to me like maybe I didn’t talk enough or like didn’t try hard enough to be included but like I feel like I did like that’s what they say that I didn’t try hard enough to be included and that it was a really long time ago. There was like a lot of little things that she did like I remember there’s this homophobic guy that went to another school and she says that she didn’t but I feel like she gave him my phone number and then he texted me saying about how like people act like insert school knew I was dating a girl and they don’t support my white @ss and then swore at me and it didn’t actually bother me, but it was the fact that she like did this and before she gave him my number she was talking to him about like hey do you know that (my name) is dating a girl and I literally wasn’t. She was actually just making stuff up… well I guess maybe she wasn’t because like I had this joke that there’s this girl that was my wife, but it was actually a joke like I literally told her it was like a platonic wife and also we were in middle school like I was not dating anyone… and so she was talking bad behind my back about me with this homophobic guy and saying how weird and unnatural it was and so one of my other friends, L she sent me pictures of the Gmail’s that Sofia sent to that guy and so having like solid evidence, I confronted her about it but around that time I was getting made fun of for being too sensitive about stuff so I tried to make it like a joke like Sofia I just heard that you were talking behind my back with this guy what but like I made it sound like a joke and she just like laughed like straight up laughed like I mean I guess I was doing as a joke but and like denied it, but like what I literally saw the Gmails…. And there was like a lot of other things that she did like she made fun of some of my other friends constantly she basically called me ugly a bunch of times, but those might’ve been jokes to be honest. So obviously all of this like really hurt my feelings like honestly the only reason I actually think I thought I was bi was because my friendship with them was so bad that I thought having actual friends was like liking someone and so because of that I became like severely depressed. It started off as me just wanting to run away, and I was actually making plans to run away like I was. I had this whole thing planned like I was gonna like run away into the woods and I had this like drinking straw you can get water from rivers and it’ll be clean, but after that once I didn’t do that and nothing got better. I started considering killing myself and it was so bad like every single day that was all that I could think about like constantly ringing in my head I just wanna die. I just wanna die. I just wanna die and I would cry myself to sleep every single night I’d call all the suicide hotline people. They never helped. I’m terrified of pain, but I actually managed to cut myself a little and I know this doesn’t count as like self harm, but even now I still sometimes like pinch myself really hard or scratch myself and like in sort of like a weird way I’m proud of it cause like I don’t know it makes me feel less weak, like I hurt myself That makes me feel less weak. One time I did kind of like a pathetic suicide attempt I tried to suffocate myself with a pillow obviously it didn’t work. And so like all of what she said and with my other friends, but that’s another story like really messed me up in the head and right now I’m in counseling and I’m actually gonna be getting like antidepressants and I still can’t tell if it’s all in my head or not like she didn’t mean it like she actually did not mean it or maybe she did I mean she meant everything she said, but she just didn’t mean it to hurt me because like she doesn’t think before she speaks, but I’m honestly so tired of like Excusing her for what she did like. She’s apologized and stuff, but it doesn’t help. It does not take away the three years that’s still going on that I’m depressed and sad and wanting to kill myself. I just can’t blame her for it because she always has an excuse and it makes me feel crazy whenever I like talk to her about it so that was all like the past stuff there’s a lot happening right now, but I don’t think it will allow me to have this many words so thanks for reading all of this I hope you have a good day

is it healthy. to be,, like. so attached to some..iosjne. that lowk,, you wouldnt care. ho.w. bad they may,, act towardsyou and you would still wait,,for them. to return to uou..,, I feel like. a #bad. partner for it,,

"I will love you forever

my love is infinite"

my bf said something in front of some people who did not need to hear it. It was super upsetting. and now he feels bad bc I ignored it when he tried to apologized.

should I apologize?

(Convo I had with my bf this morning, we started off talking about Papa by Rosendale)

me: yeah so I can’t play that song for my dad bc of that one part, he’s gonna be like “oH tHIs Guy Is TRaNS???” nah man he’s just gay

him: heh… your boyfriend is trans!

(there were two kids behind who went to the same middle school as us and had just heard that)

me: (nervous) the fact that you just said that with those two behind us (laughs it off nervously)

him: OH SHI- oh well I don’t care what they think

me: yeah, well I do… (I turned and went down the nearest stairway, usually me and him go down the second stairs instead of the first and hang out under the stairs over there, but I went down the first and then just went to class as fast as possible)

like I know he doesn’t care what people think but I do and he probably knows that

this was actually so upsetting I immediately found my friend/platonic child Allen (not real name) and vented to him about it like-

I have been friends with jemma for a very long time, or at least over 2 years. This past summer she invited me to join her at her church's sleepaway summer camp, which was around 5 days long. I agreed, thinking that it would be a great bonding experience and a way to get closer to God. Some context, I new only 3 other people going, none of which I was friends with.

We get on the bus to go to the camp and not even an hour into the bus ride I am sitting alone, jemma decided to hang out with a group of kids in a circle a little ways behind me. I only knew 1 guy out of all of these kids, lets call him caleb. He noticed that jemma had been kinda excluding me and called her out on it and invited/demanded me to join us in the circle, this was really nice of him, he even introduced me and made sure I was participating in the conversation. But jemma still wouldn't talk to me, she instead was completely focus on hanging out with some people she only met an hour ago, she's very extroverted and charistmatic, which works wayyyy in her advantage.

We get to the camp and jemma convinces me to bunk not in our assigned room, but with 7 other girls in a different room. The next day she ends up telling me that her and one of the girls are going to move into abbigale's room. They had been planning this allllll day, and only told me right before they finished packing up their stuff. She asked if i wanted to move rooms to, and because I literally knew nobody else there, of course i said yes. It didn't end up mattering anyways because the church leaders caught everybody switching rooms and made us move back to our original rooms.

Later that same day we went to the chappel, for our evening service. Our church plays a lot of music, and we all like to sing along infront of the stage. The thing is that jemma would walk away from me with these other girls, so i would be left alone the majority of the time. After the service jemma and this girl sophie, who was actually really nice, convinced me to walk around with caleb and this guy jemma liked. caleb and this other guy went back to their cabins to grab hoodies for us, cuz it was raining and we didn't want our hair getting all soaked, sweet right? Yeah, until you remember there are 2 guys and 3 girls.

I'm pretty sure you can quess how that turned out....

So I ended up getting soaked as we all walked around the campgrounds, which was basically a bunch of cabins in the middle of a secluded forest, at night. Eventually me and sophie get separated from everybody else, cuz we were talking to caleb's step-mom who was a volunteer there. The entire time we were walking around the camp, about an hour, they were all walking in a line next to each other. And guess where i was. Behind all of them. The guy jemma liked noticed i was kind of excluded and maybe i looked down so he asked if i was okay, and you know what jemma said, yeah, shes just quiet....

WHAT! THE! HECK!

Anyways me and sophie make it back to the hotel the girls were staying at and we were told that we needed to move back to our original rooms, my stuff was already packed up so i moved to my original room immediatly. Jemma still wasn't back, and we had a curfew, that she definetely didn't follow. She never ended up coming to our original room, instead she moved to the room with abbigale, with the girl she said was also moving with her. She somehow convinced the leader to not only let her move, but also let the other girl. Apparently there wasn't enough room left in the room for me, also apparently the girl you met not even 2 days ago takes priority over the girl you have known for 2 years....

Basically she brushed me off the next day and as the week goes on i hang out with other people, because every time i hung out with jemma i was excluded, which was something i was used to. She would exclude me allllll the time when we would hang out before this. But this was too far. Then she got mad at me for not hanging out with her, and hanging out with people who didn't exclude me. Like be sooooooo for real. I even invited her to hang out with me and my new friends on the last day because i knew she was really mad at me, which was completely uneccessary on my part, and she then told me that she was just planning on napping during the free time....instead she got an entire makeover with fake lashes and cornrows....which was an interesting choice because both me and her are WHITE white, but i can't really have an opinion on that.

The worst part was that at the end of camp the people in the room the me and jemma had moved into the first night found jemma's hoodie (we have matching ones) on the bathroom floor, and they almost had to throw it out because she didn't come to pick it up until right before we had to leave.

I end up sitting with sophie on the ride home and we had a good time. But when we got to the church and i saw my parent's she acted like we had soooo much fun together at camp and hugged me and told me she loved me and was going to miss me, but it was only because we were right in front of my parents....

I tried contacting her a little after camp to talk things through and instead of apologizing she blamed it on her feeling "off" the entire time we were at camp and tried to flip it around to me having more fun with another one of my friends than i do with her, which honestly came out of nowhere. I end up informing all of my friends about this and a week or 2 into the new school year we all decide we are going to distance ourselves from her.

Well 2 months later and they are all joking around with her, inviting her to their parties, and telling her everything i told them in confidence.

Yesterday i found out from my sister that jemma was telling people that i was "following her around like a dog" at camp.

Woooooowwwwwww

way to blame the victim....anywayssss. I told all of my friends this today and guess what, nobody cared. They all still hung out with her after school, made jokes with her, and probably even told her what i said to them. I love my friends but the thing is that jemma introduced me to these friends, so i can't expect them to not be friends with her any more. She can be really manipulative, like she has done realllyyyy bad things to these friends too but they just tolerate it.

I have this one friend ash, and she supports me wholeheartedly with the jemma thing, but she is also really mean at the same time. Like when i tried to vent to her about the new thing with jemma she just brushed me off and proceeded to tell me that she "is always secretly judging me", she can also get really defensive, for instance one day i asked if she could refrain from teasing me that day because i was feeling really down. Later that day i hear that she was telling me friends that when i "snapped at her the morning it ruined her entire day".

She also tends to make fun of the clothing i wear and my physical appearance, and whenever i say ANYTHING she just tells me "oh my gosh that sounded so fake", like gurl i was just saying goodbye to my neighboor, what are you talking about. but it makes me really self concious. I just feel like friends should lift you up, not drag you down.

This one was realllly long, so sorry for that, but if you ended up reading all of this thank you! I've just been feeling really insecure in my friendships recently, so if any of you guys have tips on how to navigate this, with jemma, or my friends, or with ash, that would be amazing!

“Can I tell you a secret? Well… it’s not really a secret anymore, since you know it, but nonetheless… I need to share something that has weighed on me for as long as I can remember.”

I was a victim of cocsa like when I was young maybe 4-5 my cousins and me were in a big gallon like a big one where you store water in them my mom got me from my dad (they were separated since I was born ) then leaves me on my cousin's house they set up for that big gallon for us to like take a bath and play it was big and deep like I could hide inside it and need assistance getting out we played right and then my girl cousin said to position his younger brother ( my boy cousin) at my back and I thought it was a game so I didn't question and just did it anyway and he started pulling his pants down and rubbing his thing in my thighs I told them to stop and my girl cousin said that he won't stop until he realises after that I've became hypersexual,then when I was seven me and my grandparents were in Mindanao and there's this boy who's older than me (I was 6 and a half and he was like 12-14 ) idk he then kissed me and touched me between my thighs until it reaches my private parts and stuff I didn't fight cause I thought it was normal and stuff and he told me not to say it to anyone that same boy had a brother he then asked his brother if he can pull out his Weiner and like go at my back while I was drawing when I turned around I was traumatized and I told my grandparents and they told me that it was fine cause he was young and so... After that I went to my cousin's home cause my mom didn't want me in hers anymore and said we needed space and stuff and they would touch me when I was asleep I would wake up with a hand on my ass or my breasts (that's why I go to sleep with my bra on) they would grope me make me sexualizes things and so telle it was all a game and so (the same cousins in the first part) then this happened the two of them fought and me and my boy cousin were sharing a bed then I woke up with pain in my ass and I realised he slid a finger in he then touched my private parts and proceeded to touch my chest but I holded a pillow tight so he couldn't ( I was pretending to be asleep and jolted or move so he would take the finger out) then they still grope me him and her sister she would hold my ass or my boob or my private parts when I was a sleep same with his brother which is my mothers favourite ( my mother wished that it was him that was her child and constantly compares him with me not only her also my stepdad he took him out for movie in his birthday I didn't even know or cared honestly what made me cared when they said " noticed how your step dad and your sister went into movie after that we also took your cousin ( the boy for the movie) and we didn't took you we actuallyade some excuse we were buying a washing machine ) I wanted to scream and tell them what they did to me that time or the fact that my grandfather (mother side) masturbated at my back was normal ..................... I told them at first I thought they were really concerned cause of their reaction they told me if I wanted to report it but my mother said that it would hurt her ( though she physically, mentally, emotionally, psychologically abused me) cause it's her sisters son then after a week or two they treat him like nothing ever happened,and even invites him to sleep there I CANT SLEEP PROPERLY I HAVE INSOMNIA SCARED THAT SOMEONE WILL TOUCH ME WHEN IM UNCONSCIOUS I WAS SCARED THAT WHAT IF HE'D ALREADY TOOK MY VIRGINITY AND I DIDN'T KNOW I FELT DIRTY I FELT UNWORTHY I FELT LIKE SOMEONE CRUSHED ME and they ask me why Im not close with them? They ask me why I don't trust them