Life Stories and Everyday Drama - page 26

I finally passes out highschool and there's like a common exam in my country where over 10k people give exams every year for college entrance. People get to study at respective colleges in respective fields acc to the rank they obtain and I just made so many stupid mistakes on my exam and I just feel so hopeless. I've really wanted to get into my dream college and over the months I know there were so many times I slacked off but at the same time I studied, I made efforts. I'd take 3-4 hour classes in the morning, try to study at home and take 4 hour online class at night. Though I didn't pay attention alot in online class and some physical classes and didn't study some days, there were days I made effort, paid attention to class and my results will be here tomorrow and I just feel so shit. I became so demotivated during my last moment and got distracted and ended up studying nothing even though I've always wanted to make efforts..... I just hate it I hate it so much, I feel like I'm the only one who did my exam shit. I feel so shit and I really want to give up. This means alot to me really, people just take this as a light joke but to me it means so much so much to the point I feel like running away and giving up. What about my efforts that I made, why does it have to go to waste. Why is life so unfair, I just want to be happy, it just sucks so bad right now.... I really feel like giving up........

A Home That Doesn’t Feel Like Home

Lately, I feel like my own house isn’t my safe place anymore. Ang ingay ng sigawan at away ni mama’t papa, parang wala nang pahinga. I thought after losing kuya and mommy, they would see me, take care of me, hold me a little closer. For a while, they did — but only for a short time. After three months, they went back to their old ways. They knew my triggers, they knew how much their fighting breaks me, pero parang wala lang.

When I got sick, I just wanted to be found. I left my door unlocked hoping mama would come in, sit beside me, ask how I was. Pero when papa told her to check on me, she answered coldly, like caring for me was a burden. Masakit marinig na parang wala akong halaga.

It hurts even more because I help her at home. I wash the dishes, I clean, I do my part. Pero kahit gano’n, mas maalaga at mas sweet pa sila sa pinsan ko, kahit hindi naman siya nakakatulong sa gawaing bahay. Ako na nga yung gumagawa, ako pa yung parang hindi nakikita.

That’s why these past weeks, I’ve been cold to them. Parang mas gusto pa nila yung pinsan ko kaysa sakin. They don’t realize how much it kills my spirit when I give, give, and give, but I don’t feel cared for in return.

I feel so fragile. I miss kuya, I miss mommy, I miss the way they made me feel safe and loved. I just want someone to take care of me, especially when I’m sick. Pero sa halip, I get sharp voices, cold answers, and the feeling that I’m too much to deal with.

Sometimes, I just want to leave this place. Ang hirap tumira sa bahay na parang hindi tahanan. I want peace, I want love, I want to breathe.

And maybe they’ll never really understand, but I know this: my pain is real, my longing is valid, and I deserve the kind of love that doesn’t make me beg for it.

Even if my own house doesn’t feel like home, I’m learning to carry myself and be my own safe place.

It is my time to say goodbye now

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JdNLbap0V8QYpjjrcZCqpRVawIJI48Y6KT0DDjr8BMY/edit?usp=drivesdk

I graduated college today but instead of being happy, I feel sad. :<

So I’m a 29-year-old guy, and I guess you could say I’ve hit that stage where life has shifted gears pretty fast, and now I’m stuck reflecting on what it means to still be a good friend when my circumstances have changed so drastically; my best friend and I have been close for more than 15 years, practically brothers, and while I’ve always thought of myself as someone dependable, consistent, and available, I can’t help but feel lately that I’ve been falling short in those categories because starting a family has naturally consumed a lot of my time, energy, and emotional bandwidth, and I don’t want him to feel left behind or like he’s not as important anymore because that is absolutely not true, but it’s tough, really tough, to maintain that same level of commitment when you’re balancing a full-time job, parenting duties, home maintenance tasks, and just the overall operational workload that comes with adult life 😅. We used to hang out almost every weekend, talk almost daily, and share every little update about our lives, whether it was venting about work stress, sharing new music we discovered, or just sitting in silence playing video games like we always did; now, our conversations are fewer, our meetups are sporadic, and most of the time I’m the one having to reschedule or cancel plans because something came up with my wife or kid, and although he says he understands, I can’t shake off the feeling that maybe he doesn’t completely, or maybe he just doesn’t want to admit it because he doesn’t want to pressure me, but in reality, it makes me feel like I’m letting him down when I know he probably misses the old dynamic as much as I do. I’ve been reading a bit about emotional labor, time management frameworks, and the importance of maintaining social capital, and while I can apply these theories at work or when organizing family commitments, applying them to a friendship feels oddly transactional, which is not what I want, because I don’t want our relationship to feel like I’m just “slotting him in” whenever I can, but sometimes that’s exactly what it looks like, and it frustrates me. I wonder—do I owe it to him to be more proactive? Should I set recurring reminders to check in, even if it’s just sending a meme or voice note? Would that feel authentic or robotic??? What does being a better friend actually mean in this stage of adulthood??? Is it quality over quantity now, or should I fight harder for quantity too??? I think back to all those years when he was always there for me without question, and it makes me worry that now he needs me more than ever, and I’m too distracted or occupied to notice. Some people say true friends don’t need to talk every day, and when they reconnect, it’s like no time has passed, but does that still hold weight when one person might silently feel the gap more than the other? There’s this concept in organizational psychology about “relational maintenance strategies,” and I wonder if I should treat our friendship in that structured sense—open communication, assurances, shared activities, even if limited—because clearly I need to recalibrate; I don’t want to overthink this, but I also don’t want to assume everything’s fine when maybe it isn’t. I want to learn how to balance the dual responsibilities of being a present family man while also not dropping the ball on a friendship that has been foundational to who I am, and maybe that means I have to be more intentional about the little things, like shooting him a quick text during lunch breaks, or planning something once a month no matter what, even if it’s just a coffee or quick catch-up call, because consistency might matter more now than spontaneity. At the same time, I also don’t want to ignore the fact that relationships evolve, and maybe he’s okay with less contact and I’m the one projecting, but if that’s the case, wouldn’t it still be polite and respectful to actually ask him rather than assume??? I guess what I’m really struggling with is how to reconcile this new version of my life with the old, without feeling guilty, because guilt doesn’t help anyone, and yet it lingers, making me doubt whether I’m doing enough, whether I’m being enough, and whether I even know what the definition of a “good friend” is anymore.

I keep circling back to the question: is friendship supposed to adjust naturally to life stages, or should it be actively managed like a project with KPIs and feedback loops??? That sounds sterile, but when time is scarce, intentionality is everything, right??? Maybe the real answer is to simply communicate—tell him what I feel, ask him directly what he needs, and go from there, instead of assuming or silently carrying this pressure on my own. What do you think—does being a better friend mean doing more, or just being more open??? 🤔

I’d really love to hear other perspectives because I know I’m not the only one facing this type of transition; do you think I’m overthinking it??? Or maybe underdoing it??? What would you expect from a friend if you were in his position??? Thanks for listening.

So guys, this is about some stuff where I need your guidance and experience with this. I'm a young teen, and I have some stuff which bums me out like some chronic illnesses. I suffer eczema, and have been since I was 2 years old. As much as I have the creams, I hate putting them. I hate feeling that I can't ever be a girl who can wear makeup or dress up like a regular girl my age, I can only put on creams and Vaseline with lip balm. I feel like a stone with eczema, not a girl. I even developed a new set of allergies from cat fur, so now I can't even pet my cousins's three pet cats without sneezing and swelling up, and I discovered this while being at their place and one time in Malaysia, in a cat cafe when I petted a chonky cat, rubbed my eyes and it swelled. Now my orthodontist saw that my adenoids and tonsils are more sensitive than usual, hence why I cough more easily when eating cold ice cream or drinking cold stuff. Maybe I have asthma because my maternal grandma has for many decades now, and while hers has gotten better (she doesn't use an inhaler much and stays with the three cats), but she's 64 now. Now with a lot of these health concerns, I wanna give up so badly.

I don't wanna meet up with an allergist or ENT or dermatologist because it's too expensive for my parents and besides, my paternal grandpa used to be a dermatologist, and he was kinda brash. He would yell at everyone, like, EVERYONE, at work, patients, his family and he's now quite jaded with many things, binging all sorts of carbs and foods and not going out much. He's 75 now. I just wanna give up, I already don't feel like a girl and I hate my eczema, my tonsils, my allergies, and my fear of developing asthma because they're part of the atopic triad. I just wanna doomscroll, not do anything, binge all the snacks and sweets to become like my grandpa, and isolate from people because they are all more normal than me. I feel so hopeless, and I wanna know, if anyone is like me. Anyone who's a teen, or anyone with asthma, eczema, or allergies, I wanna know.

so like I've been questioning the possibility of being trans!!! but also not. because I feel like I want to be a guy, but I feel like if I transitioned, I'd end up wanting to go back, and then go back again and again and I just don't know. And if I were biologically a guy it would be the same; want to be a girl, transition, want to go back, go back, want to transition again over and over. it's so weird and I don't understand it. It's not like being gender fluid, where it changes; it's like being both but also one or the other and also neither ALL AT THE SAME TIME ALWAYS. It's so weird and I don't have a label to stick on myself or pronouns or anything

BUT also good thing my mom said I can go to the Renaissance Faire in three weeks so maybe that'll take my mind off of my whole gender thing

How could I have ended up alone? I tried to do everything right with others. I tried to fit in with others. I tried to do everything to connect, and I still haven't succeeded. It can't be that at this point in my life, I've ended up alone. This is hell for me, from every perspective.

I'm envious of the friends I met, the ones I've interacted with, because they have lives, and I don't. I'm starting from scratch, like a newborn baby, except I don't have the chance to go to preschool. How do people like me want to start over? I'm looking for a new life.

It can't be that I have to settle for the life I had. In fact, I'm alone because I felt that the life I had, its relationships, were ineffective and actually harmed me in terms of my development, in terms of my ideals of taking care of myself, of my spirituality.

I was building a life based on trampling on that, however, I found it wasn't the path, because it didn't allow me to be free, to be critical, to be aware of what was happening in my life. It was like being at the mercy of injustice, of unconsciousness, and there's nothing worse than that. I feel that's why I stayed alone, because I didn't support those kinds of thoughts. My goal in life was to be conscious and to defend that no matter what, and frankly, I'm proud of it.

Unlike when I started writing, I'm happy to be alone if it means keeping a distance from people who don't advocate for consciousness, for self-exploration, regardless of the path I have to take. And I have to say, even in these, therapists have been a hindrance, which is why I also had to keep my distance. To this day, I'm glad to have recognized that both this environment and this help, in the end, only advocated for a defective, half-baked, and non-holistic development.

Without a doubt, many of your lives are filled with girlfriends, friends, and well-paying jobs. However, I need to point out, they are prisons, at which point you have decided to sell your conscience in exchange for conformity, in exchange for receiving defense and a position of power by following a trend in which other people are also involved, and not being alone when faced with a situation. Of course, all of this is based on not believing in yourself, and it's just the opposite; it's the starting point I want for my life.

Indeed, being alone, unlike in your case, which means having deliberately disconnected from relationships, in my case represents the constant reinforcement of my belief in myself, as a starting point, to safeguard my life. Without a doubt, this prevents me from being attentive to others. I will be attentive when there are commitments, but in the meantime, I won't. It's interesting to have them, but you also have to admit that they are out of your control, and they are better when they happen spontaneously.

I feel sorry for myself for reaching this point of remaining alone solely to strengthen my spirituality and allow life to move forward completely naturally, allowing it to be contemplated as such. Creating artificial moments is precisely covering up those spiritual points that need to be worked on, and that's what I don't want; I need to develop them in order to achieve this goal with spirituality. Now I understand why I have the life I have.

It must be said, in the midst of this accumulation, which indeed pressures and makes one feel overwhelmed, many take advantage of it to make suggestions, which is simply a way of taking advantage of a development of ideas, a boiling point of ideas, to gain a follower. This is an attack on their development, on their individuality.

I don't understand how I ended up alone, without a girlfriend, friends, or even family. I have no one to turn to for my life. I keep everything to myself.

No one calls me to find out how I'm doing, where I am, or what I'm doing, or to show interest. It's because of my father, but it's not the same. I don't maintain any relationship structure.

My life in relationships ended in complete disaster. I've even tasted sex, even a courtship. It's been a long time since I kissed a girl; I barely kissed her, and it was only briefly when I was in my early teens, and it was purely a dare.

No girl has ever been interested in me, or even wanted to have something more with me. I can't believe I haven't been attractive to anyone. I also can't believe no one has wanted to be my friend.

I even have a job worthy of respect from others. It's a public one, too. I don't practice my career; I gave it up. I have no basis for this life in the midst of this capitalism.

Without contact, without a boyfriend, without a family, or a career, I'm at the mercy of a current where I can't transcend. I admit it, I got rid of everything because I wanted to start over.

I had superficial relationships, I didn't like my career, dating seemed like something I wasn't ready for, and the connections I had were fraudulent. My father doesn't help me at all because his line is precisely to return to that old life.

Right now, when I feel more prepared than ever to start over, I can't do it. I feel like the system isn't prepared for people who want to start a new life.

I don't know where I'm going to get friends, a girlfriend, contacts, and even restart a career, without an environment that doesn't support me but rather harms me as a father, only making me unstable when it comes to this new goal, if I set it.

I feel like my father is one of my main problems, and I have a strong desire to slam the door in his face, no matter what. I can't start my life if I don't start from scratch. He's the only one who prevents me from doing so, but starting from scratch would also mean losing the financial support he provides.

This isn't easy. With everything else destroyed, and wanting to start slowly, I can't because there's someone, my father, who wants me to recover that. It's the last straw. I wish I hadn't lived the life I chose under disastrous principles. It's not fair that starting over is complicated. I admit that sometimes I feel like going back to the way things were before. There was progress and a certain foresight about what would happen with everything.

Now that I'm going against the grain, nothing is ever predictable. The culture doesn't support me at all. I swear, I wish I could give up many times. However, I feel like the only path left for me is to manage by distancing myself from everyone and maintaining it. Under these conditions, if I want to start over, have some support, and gradually build my life, the best thing is to be alone, to start from there, from that axis, and progress along it, avoiding leaving, consolidating that it is the path, the foundation, to rebuild my life.

In the midst of everything, being alone allows you not to look to others, to that other part of yourself, that you seek to give in to, and that you seek out in itself, precisely because you want to rest. I would like to find someone who can support me on this journey and who can also support my father or my family, as they have also been factors that have served to unify those around me against me, against the path I want to follow.

Being alone, as I say, implies both maintenance and effort, through constant introspection, and this system is not designed to ensure this, but to advance at its own pace, according to a bureaucracy. I fear that they won't be able to cope with each other and I'll end up falling along the way. This introspection is the only thing that has kept me grounded in my ideals.

I think that this is less of a question and more of a vent. I was at a festival recently and for the first time in a while I felt genuinely happy and optimistic about my life and my future, it was 100% one of the best days of my life. Though afterwards, my dad sent me all of the videos and photos that he took and I’m in nearly all of them. I’m so ugly in each one and it’s not subjective or me being insecure, I am truly ugly and there’s no redeeming me. It makes me feel really sick and I got so angry at my dad for ruining my memories by reminding me how I looked, and how even when I was my happiest and smiling I still looked dreadful. It makes me embarrassed to go outside because I know that people are seeing my face and judging me. Even if they’re not judging me, they’re feeling sorry for me or are disgusted. I struggled to sit with my family for dinner tonight and nearly cried because I was aware that they could all see my face, and that’s mainly what made me write this. This sounds silly but I wish that we were all nothing but our souls, and had no physical bodies to worry about. I regularly struggle with suicidal thoughts anyway and I feel hopeless because every time I start to feel better I gain something else that makes me want to die. I suppose I’m just looking for validation on here so does anyone else relate? Or has anyone else also accepted that they’re ugly and have learnt to live with it? I’m 15 so perhaps my face will change overtime, but for now I can just see myself getting fatter and uglier by the day because of my horrible thoughts, so no hope.

Yesterday night turned into one of the strangest and most unsettling experiences of my life. I’m 41, married for 13 years, and I thought I had a pretty solid grasp of where my marriage stood, but last night really shook me. My wife went out with her girlfriends, which I’ve never had a problem with—she deserves time with her friends just as much as I do. Usually she texts me at least once to say where she is or when she’ll be home. But this time, I lost all contact with her. Her phone went off, no messages, no updates, nothing. For 24 hours I had no idea where she was. I barely slept, checking my phone every ten minutes, even calling some of her friends who gave me vague responses like “she’s fine, don’t worry.” Fine? How am I not supposed to worry when my wife is just gone without explanation? It felt like those long nights back when we were first dating, when she’d sometimes disappear after arguments, except now it’s not just some casual relationship—it’s our life, our home, our marriage. By the time she walked through the door the next evening, I was a mix of relief and boiling anger. I asked where she’d been, and she said she didn’t remember where she slept. Didn’t remember. Who comes home after a night out, missing for 24 hours, and just says that?

I’ll be honest, I lost it. I yelled at her like I haven’t in years. I accused her of cheating, because how else can you explain being unreachable for an entire day, coming home with vague and nonsensical answers? She kept saying things like “I think I crashed at someone’s place” or “we had too much fun, I’m not sure.” That just made me angrier, because I know her memory isn’t usually that bad, and even when she’s drunk she still remembers the basics. She didn’t smell like alcohol, her clothes didn’t seem dirty, and she acted almost too casual about it all. I felt like a fool, standing there with my voice raised, demanding answers, while she just shrugged and gave me half-sentences. After a while, I realized I wasn’t even getting anywhere—I was yelling into a wall. So I stopped. I sat down, let her walk away, and just stared at the table for what felt like forever. It reminded me of when my dad used to disappear for days when I was a kid, always coming back with some excuse, and how much I hated that uncertainty; now here I was reliving that same feeling, only with the person I chose to build my life with.

Now, a few hours later, I’m calm but still completely lost. I keep replaying it in my head, wondering if I overreacted by yelling, or if my reaction was justified. On one hand, I know trust is the backbone of any marriage, and disappearing without explanation for 24 hours is a massive breach of that trust. On the other hand, I can’t prove anything happened, and maybe she really was just careless with her phone and drank too much. But how do I get past the fact that her answers don’t make sense, that she seemed almost rehearsed in being vague? I don’t want to be the jealous, paranoid husband who jumps to conclusions, but I also don’t want to be the naive guy who ignores red flags. I’ve never felt this unsure before. Do I press harder for the truth, or do I let it go and hope it doesn’t happen again? Part of me thinks about counseling, another part thinks about giving her space, and another part thinks maybe I’m already losing her and this is the beginning of the end. Am I overreacting? Or would anyone else in my position feel the same way 😔?

"It's filthy disgusting

So ugly, I'm sure

I'm ugly, disgusting

And filthy for sure"

this lyrics reminds me of myself lol, like how come did i mastubrate wishing someone would rape me bc of how unloveable i am? im the youngest sibling, the loner, the ugly side character. i felt loved by the slightest affection, i felt chosen when i was sexually assaulted. i just wanted to feel loved. but since im not even half decent, i just know no one would date me, so i touch myself imagine it was someone else's just to feel loved. how pathetic.

So there is this guy in my class that i am friends with. He says he has dated a lot of girls (16 girls to be exact). And i have only dated 1 guy ever before. So while i don't like that he is a so called playboy, Idk why but i still like him.

We used to spend a lot of time together cause he is in my class and we also live in the same building. and one night he got icecream for us so we went on the terrace and sat together eating it.

So he initiated all of this by getting the icecream, eventually we both said we liked each other and then we even kissed (full blown makeout session actually)

All of this meant a lot to me as it is my first time at it. This continued for like a week, he "lovebombed" me. We even went on two movie dates. It was all like too good to be true types. It was very perfect to me, so i started really really liking this guy.

And well he basically stopped talking to me abruptly. And that has left me all heartbroken and clueless. Like why would he himself initiate the spark, tell me that he likes me, do all these nice things for me, and then just leave?

My boyfriend works in management at a private school, and during the holidays the school does a big clean-up. Recently, he brought home bedsheets, pillowcases, blankets, and even the curtains from the nurse’s office so that I could wash them. I don’t mind doing the sheets and bedding, but the curtains are extremely heavy, and on top of our regular house chores and laundry, it feels like a lot to put on me.

When I asked why he didn’t just use the outside service the school mentioned, he said it would cost the school money and that since we have a washing machine and a dryer at home, it made more sense to do it here. I tried explaining that the curtains are heavy and not easy to deal with, and his response was simply, “I bet.” It left me wondering why this task has suddenly become my responsibility in the first place.

Not a day goes by that I don't ask where she might be. I don't know, but I somehow feel like she'll return sooner or later. It's as if the distance we took had been a time for closure.

We became engaged, but she immediately asked me to distance ourselves. We didn't bother maintaining contact through other means. The one we had was simply our face-to-face meetings. She didn't bother with this aspect, and I didn't want to insist. I felt tense.

I don't know why it didn't go further, nor do I know the reason why she cut me off. It's the feeling that I make her tense because we're dating, and also because of the other people's needs. I have to admit, I felt that the other people didn't want our union, and it's a lie that people respect unions; they play a lot of games to destroy them.

Likewise, I left contact between us, despite everything, and I strategically managed to get her to store me among her contacts. I can't communicate with her because she's blocked me, but that already means she's putting me in a holding pattern and she can turn to me. I had to do it discreetly, so she'd have an excuse for blocking me, and not just leave me hanging or reject me, which would make my head spin.

The relationships surrounding her were definitely an issue for me, as well as for her. I was trying to get out of there. It's hard to give in to your personal desires when those around you pressure you to change the subject. I don't think I'm being a panderer or someone who's doing things in vain, but I won't deny that this is tiring. You can't tell anyone, and people, if they're interested in making you give in on something, pressure you to know; they're not interested; it's all at the expense of their own interests.

In fact, when we agreed or started dating, she was in another relationship that she still couldn't get out of. Deep down, I feel like she's looking for motivation through, well, a relationship with me, where she's not worried about what I'm doing or how I'm doing it. Of course, the perfect remedy is this distancing, but it's not routine and therefore isn't supported. Rather, the tension induced by the abnormality of the situation isn't understood by many. The fact that it's new makes it hard for me to share, mainly because it arouses terrible prejudices.

My boss even wanted to intervene in the matter, one I had, but since he wasn't attending the place where I was, and also because he didn't need it for anything other than his own fears, I ended up making up an excuse in front of his superiors, making him and another woman who was pressuring me look like a bunch of exaggerated people.

In short, the strange thing about the situation lies in, first of all, this distancing, which for me, as from what I'm seeing, is resulting in support for her, and at the same time, the persistent belief that sooner or later she'll end this distancing. However, now that I'm reading this, it doesn't surprise me, because I'm allowing her to live her life, maintaining stability regarding my anxieties, something she didn't even remotely have with her boyfriend. In the long run, this situation is a spur of attraction for her.