u/Vaeogon

I heard about this for the first time a few days ago, and unfortunately, I have to agree with it. Often enough, there was this unconscious wish and hope: “If I communicate better, people will understand me.”

No. They didn’t want to understand me. Most of them didn’t.

That realization is hitting me hard right now, and it hurts unbelievably much.

I heard about this for the first time a few days ago, and unfortunately, I have to agree with it. Often enough, there was this unconscious wish and hope: “If I communicate better, people will understand me.”

No. They didn’t want to understand me. Most of them didn’t.

That realization is hitting me hard right now, and it hurts unbelievably much.

I’m 25, getting married this summer, leaving my current job in a month, starting university in October, losing weight, wanting to quit smoking, start new hobbies, and just generally make sure I’m doing better.

I’m standing between two chapters. The current big one started five years ago. You’d think I should be happy, right? Nope. I’m completely exhausted. 🫠 I’m still in the process of clearing out all the remaining baggage from this chapter, because it has no place in the new one, and it’s just draining.

April was pretty intense for a lot of people.

I’m 25, getting married this summer, leaving my current job in a month, starting university in October, losing weight, wanting to quit smoking, start new hobbies, and just generally make sure I’m doing better.

I’m standing between two chapters. The current big one started five years ago. You’d think I should be happy, right? Nope. I’m completely exhausted. 🫠 I’m still in the process of clearing out all the remaining baggage from this chapter, because it has no place in the new one, and it’s just draining.

April was pretty intense for a lot of people.

Hey everyone. My cousin and I are the same age. Her mother always compared us to each other. I wasn’t allowed to go to her house, I wasn’t invited to any birthdays, and her mother also didn’t want her to come visit me.

When I was 18, I cut contact with her because it seems like those comparisons went to her head, and I became either her emotional dumping ground or someone she could look down on in order to feel better about herself. Because as long as I was doing worse than her, everything was apparently still okay with her and her life 👀

I went to therapy, have a good job, am continuing my education, have a great relationship, and amazing friends. I really pulled myself together and am making the best of my life.

Two years ago, she reached out to me again. I’m 25 now, just so you have a rough timeline. And I thought, okay, maybe she has changed. After all, in five years you can become a completely different person, right?

And then she unloaded everything: she has debt, no friends, had just gotten out of a toxic relationship, can’t cope with being alone, and so on. I let her talk. We were in daily contact, and I visited her. Then I started telling her about myself, and from that point on, she started acting weird.

She would leave messages unanswered for weeks, sometimes even MONTHS. I already had a gut feeling, but I couldn’t quite pin it down because we hadn’t seen each other enough. I really should have listened to my intuition.

She couldn’t, or didn’t want to, listen to me anymore. She only wanted to talk about herself. But then she suddenly found a sore spot: my brother, whom I no longer have contact with. She works at a food truck, and he was a regular customer. She constantly told me about him, even though I told her I didn’t want to hear anything about that person anymore. Suddenly, she was able to reply very quickly and regularly 👀. During conversations, she would set “traps” for me to get me to say something bad about him so she could pass it on to him.

At some point, I had enough and told her that I didn’t want to hear anything more about him, but that she shouldn’t take it the wrong way. That’s when the mask slipped even more. Her reply was: “I’ll only misunderstand you if I want to misunderstand you, and then you’ve already lost anyway.” Oh wow.

She uses third parties to speak badly about me, saying that in their eyes I’m “stupid/can’t do anything/fat,” and so on. If we’re being completely accurate, those are her own statements and views about me.

What she didn’t expect: I asked those people about it and confronted my cousin about it a few months ago. After a lot of “I don’t know what the problem is” and a lot of “I don’t understand,” she got angry, then acted friendly again a few days later, and then became demeaning again.

Phew, I could tell so many more stories.

TDLR

Hey everyone. My cousin and I are the same age. Her mother always compared us to each other. I wasn’t allowed to go to her house, I wasn’t invited to any birthdays, and her mother also didn’t want her to come visit me.

When I was 18, I cut contact with her because it seems like those comparisons went to her head, and I became either her emotional dumping ground or someone she could look down on in order to feel better about herself. Because as long as I was doing worse than her, everything was apparently still okay with her and her life 👀

I went to therapy, have a good job, am continuing my education, have a great relationship, and amazing friends. I really pulled myself together and am making the best of my life.

Two years ago, she reached out to me again. I’m 25 now, just so you have a rough timeline. And I thought, okay, maybe she has changed. After all, in five years you can become a completely different person, right?

And then she unloaded everything: she has debt, no friends, had just gotten out of a toxic relationship, can’t cope with being alone, and so on. I let her talk. We were in daily contact, and I visited her. Then I started telling her about myself, and from that point on, she started acting weird.

She would leave messages unanswered for weeks, sometimes even MONTHS. I already had a gut feeling, but I couldn’t quite pin it down because we hadn’t seen each other enough. I really should have listened to my intuition.

She couldn’t, or didn’t want to, listen to me anymore. She only wanted to talk about herself. But then she suddenly found a sore spot: my brother, whom I no longer have contact with. She works at a food truck, and he was a regular customer. She constantly told me about him, even though I told her I didn’t want to hear anything about that person anymore. Suddenly, she was able to reply very quickly and regularly 👀. During conversations, she would set “traps” for me to get me to say something bad about him so she could pass it on to him. I don’t think I need to explain that any further; you know exactly what I mean. We’re not in this sub for no reason, haha.

At some point, I had enough and told her that I didn’t want to hear anything more about him, but that she shouldn’t take it the wrong way. That’s when the mask slipped even more. Her reply was: “I’ll only misunderstand you if I want to misunderstand you, and then you’ve already lost anyway.” Oh wow.

She uses third parties to speak badly about me, saying that in their eyes I’m “stupid/can’t do anything/fat,” and so on. If we’re being completely accurate, those are her own statements and views about me.

What she didn’t expect: I asked those people about it and confronted my cousin about it a few months ago. After a lot of “I don’t know what the problem is” and a lot of “I don’t understand,” she got angry, then acted friendly again a few days later, and then became demeaning again.

Phew, I could tell so many more stories.

I’m 25. I’ve known my best friend since we were 10. I’ll use the fake name “Lena” for her here. I’ve known my closest male friend since I was 16; I’ll call him “Noah.”

Lena and Noah are extremely passive people. Looking back, they’ve always been that way. I first really noticed it when I was 18.

Lena was visiting me, and I was a bit exhausted. She just sat there, didn’t start a conversation, and there was absolute silence.

When I was 22 or 23, it got to the point where she stopped reaching out altogether, never asked to meet up, and so on. I brought it up with her. She told me it wasn’t because of me, that she didn’t know why she was like that, but that I was important to her and she wanted to show more initiative.

Six months later, nothing had changed. I brought it up again and, in tears, admitted to her, “It hurts me how you treat me. Honestly, I should let you go, but your absence would hurt me more than the current situation.” I was truly desperate.

Before the questions come up: yes, I asked her questions with genuine interest about her life, listened to her, always offered help, and was simply there for her. I have already unfairly blamed myself for that too, because if I were 100% the problem, I could also fix it. But in this case, I’m only 50% of the problem, and I’ll come back to that later.

After that emotional reaction from me, something actually did shift for her. She said again that I was important to her, and so on.

The only thing that changed is that she now asks to meet up on her own. But here’s the thing: nothing. Happens. And what completely confuses me is that she’s now the one regularly asking, but then nothing comes of it??? If I don’t plan anything, we just sit around. If I don’t say anything, we sit in silence.

It’s exactly the same with Noah. It’s confusing. He texts me every day and regularly wants to see me, but nothing happens. And when I ask why, he has no answer.

Neither of them has developed any further since they were 18 or 19. Both of them are still living in their childhood bedrooms. Not because they don’t have the money, but… yeah, I have no idea, and they don’t have an answer for that either.

And yes, I have also wondered whether this behavior might have something to do with depression, and I even brought it up carefully once, but both of them insist they’re doing fine. Better to ask one time too many, because you never know.

I, on the other hand, have grown, taken countless leaps, and gained experience. And I think we simply don’t fit anymore, but at the same time, I don’t want to accept that.

By now, I’m tired of planning outings, keeping conversations going, and so on. Like I said, I feel like daycare. I’m getting married in August, I’ve decided to go back to university in October, and I’m about to start a new chapter in my life. She is my maid of honor, and I specifically asked her a year ago whether she wanted to be, and told her that it would be important to me for her to support me a bit. Well, she hasn’t even asked a single question about whether or how she could possibly help me.

Why did I say the situation is 50% my fault? Because I allowed it. I kept doing and planning everything, and by doing that, I unconsciously confirmed to both of them that it was okay to have this kind of relationship with me.

Since talking doesn’t help, and I really have tried, I’ll probably just let things fade out.

I’m 25. I’ve known my best friend since we were 10. I’ll use the fake name “Lena” for her here. I’ve known my closest male friend since I was 16; I’ll call him “Noah.”

Lena and Noah are extremely passive people. Looking back, they’ve always been that way. I first really noticed it when I was 18.

Lena was visiting me, and I was a bit exhausted. She just sat there, didn’t start a conversation, and there was absolute silence.

When I was 22 or 23, it got to the point where she stopped reaching out altogether, never asked to meet up, and so on. I brought it up with her. She told me it wasn’t because of me, that she didn’t know why she was like that, but that I was important to her and she wanted to show more initiative.

Six months later, nothing had changed. I brought it up again and, in tears, admitted to her, “It hurts me how you treat me. Honestly, I should let you go, but your absence would hurt me more than the current situation.” I was truly desperate.

Before the questions come up: yes, I asked her questions with genuine interest about her life, listened to her, always offered help, and was simply there for her. I have already unfairly blamed myself for that too, because if I were 100% the problem, I could also fix it. But in this case, I’m only 50% of the problem, and I’ll come back to that later.

After that emotional reaction from me, something actually did shift for her. She said again that I was important to her, and so on.

The only thing that changed is that she now asks to meet up on her own. But here’s the thing: nothing. Happens. And what completely confuses me is that she’s now the one regularly asking, but then nothing comes of it??? If I don’t plan anything, we just sit around. If I don’t say anything, we sit in silence.

It’s exactly the same with Noah. It’s confusing. He texts me every day and regularly wants to see me, but nothing happens. And when I ask why, he has no answer.

Neither of them has developed any further since they were 18 or 19. Both of them are still living in their childhood bedrooms. Not because they don’t have the money, but… yeah, I have no idea, and they don’t have an answer for that either.

And yes, I have also wondered whether this behavior might have something to do with depression, and I even brought it up carefully once, but both of them insist they’re doing fine. Better to ask one time too many, because you never know.

I, on the other hand, have grown, taken countless leaps, and gained experience. And I think we simply don’t fit anymore, but at the same time, I don’t want to accept that.

By now, I’m tired of planning outings, keeping conversations going, and so on. Like I said, I feel like daycare. I’m getting married in August, I’ve decided to go back to university in October, and I’m about to start a new chapter in my life. She is my maid of honor, and I specifically asked her a year ago whether she wanted to be, and told her that it would be important to me for her to support me a bit. Well, she hasn’t even asked a single question about whether or how she could possibly help me.

Why did I say the situation is 50% my fault? Because I allowed it. I kept doing and planning everything, and by doing that, I unconsciously confirmed to both of them that it was okay to have this kind of relationship with me.

Since talking doesn’t help, and I really have tried, I’ll probably just let things fade out.

And I don’t mean that in a funny “hehe, I’m having a second coffee in the afternoon” kind of way. For me, it’s 7–10 cups a day. Shift work in healthcare. I don’t think I need to say much more.

I get headaches if I don’t have my first coffee within three hours of waking up.

It’s almost 6 p.m. and so far I’ve only had one cup, because otherwise my head is going to kill me, and I’m about to have a second. Tomorrow I finally want to quit…

I wish I were someone who could enjoy coffee and turn it into a proper Sunday morning ritual and have a lovely time with it, but apparently I’m too prone to addiction.

Has anyone else been through this? Were you eventually able to find a healthy way to handle it?

I’m 25, and I didn’t have Wi-Fi for the first time until I was 19 because my mother simply didn’t want that kind of thing and saw it as unnecessary. But of course, the TV was on 24/7 in our house…

Back then, I had mobile data and only 100 megabytes per month. Once the data was used up, I could only send and receive messages on WhatsApp. Websites could load, but only with a lot of patience.

At the time, I found it annoying, but honestly, it was exactly what I needed. I spent a lot of time outside with friends, focused on hobbies, and just lived.

Then, when I had Wi-Fi for the first time, things slowly escalated. On top of that, it was 2020 at the time, and we all had to stay home. Since then, nothing has been the same.

For a while, I was genuinely addicted to TikTok and did nothing else.

I’m generally an ambitious person. I’ve always continued to educate myself professionally. I genuinely enjoy acquiring knowledge. Theory isn’t the problem; I can watch YouTube, documentaries, and so on… But apart from that, I just lie around doing nothing and let myself be passively entertained.

A lot has happened, and now I live with my partner in a house. We live in the upstairs apartment, and my mother lives downstairs.

I see myself as pretty ungrateful. I’m sitting in a two-family house that’s paid off, where we only have to pay our utilities, on a 2,000-square-meter property with a garage and workshop. And I do nothing with it…

I WANT to plant all kinds of things in my own garden so we can partly provide for ourselves. Everything is there, and I do NOTHING.

All my other hobbies are being neglected too. I do have ONE art project, but right now I can’t get myself to keep working on it.

So I guess I’ll have to “take everything away” from myself. 🫠 My biggest problem is probably this: all my devices can do everything and have everything. So now I’m going to uninstall everything. My laptop will be used for writing, and maybe occasionally checking Reddit, Tumblr, and so on, since I upload my art and have been working on an indie series for a year so deleting absolutely everything wouldn’t be possible. I have to make it inconvenient for myself.

My PlayStation is basically only used for YouTube now and less for gaming so i will delete YouTube. My iPad should only be used for drawing and work. My phone should only be used for calls and messages.

Wish me luck and perseverance. 🫡

I’ve been with my partner for 10 years. We met when we were 15 and 16.

Unfortunately, his mother emotionally abused him by treating him like a “replacement husband,” and because of that, he struggled around women for years. Not in the sense that he hated women, but he felt extremely uncomfortable in the presence of other women. These days, that discomfort is gone.

I remember that back then, she would give me something almost EVERY WEEK. At some point, I started refusing the gifts. Partly because she was just giving me random stuff that didn’t suit me at all, and partly because I started feeling like she was trying to “buy” a relationship with me. She took that very badly and started talking badly about me.

He was still very young at the time and was heavily influenced by her. According to her, I wasn’t good for him. I didn’t appreciate her gifts. I was pushing myself between the two of them, and so on.

Back then, we broke up twice for a few weeks, but we always found our way back to each other. When I was 18, I ended things because I just couldn’t take it anymore. But after a year, we both realized that we wanted each other and loved each other. At first, we kept the relationship hidden from her.

Good lord, I’m glad I’m not a teenager anymore.

After that, he started spending more and more time at my place, and when we were 20, we moved in together. By then, she knew we were back together. There were long conversations between her and me, and every single one ended with her crying, throwing things at my partner, and insulting him.

Eventually, we pulled back more and more because it became clear that talking wasn’t getting us anywhere.

Then she started driving to our apartment uninvited again and again. Some residents in the building would sometimes leave the front door downstairs open, so she would just come in and start a huge scene all over again.

At one point, he asked her, completely fed up, how she imagined this was supposed to work whether he was supposed to live with her until he was 30. And she seriously said yes. She said she wanted him close to her and that she wanted physical contact with him.

That made me feel sick.

I didn’t want this woman in our lives anymore. He was completely done with it all too, so he cut contact.

After that, she “recruited” family members to try to talk sense into him and pressure him into contacting her again, but he didn’t engage. His brother told us that she threw all of my partner’s childhood pictures in the trash, and it broke my heart.

Then letters suddenly started arriving too, which of course he didn’t answer. She still showed up at our front door every now and then, and he told her that if she ever showed up there again, he would call the police.

After that, things were quiet for a while.

THEN, in December 2024 even though we’d had no contact for three years and had moved SHE SHOWED UP AT THE FRONT DOOR OF MY PARENTS’ HOUSE. My grandparents passed away a few years ago, so we took over the upstairs apartment, while my mother lives downstairs.

I really hope things will finally stay quiet now. But that tension still comes back every now and then, like it is right now.

We’re getting married in August, and because this woman is absolutely unhinged and word spreads quickly around here, I’m scared she’ll just show up and ruin our day.

Hey everyone. I randomly remembered this after YEARS, and back then I just pushed the anger aside, so I’m going to vent about it here.

My partner was still living with his parents at the time. I was on my period and changed my tampon in their bathroom. I wrapped it in a thick layer of toilet paper and threw it into the bathroom trash can. The trash can also had a plastic bag in it, so there was basically zero chance of anything touching anything else. It was not bleeding through the toilet paper.

A few days later, my partner told me that his father had seen it in the trash and thought it was disgusting, and that I was expected to throw “stuff like that” outside in the main household trash from then on.

Wtf.

Now that I’m thinking about it more, I’m wondering: how did he even see it? Did he actually rummage through the bathroom trash and unwrap it after I used the toilet?

Years later, it came out that this man had a porn addiction, so honestly, it somehow wouldn’t surprise me if he had gone through the trash hoping to find something that might turn him on. He was generally very weird, and after finding out what kind of stuff he was watching, a lot of things suddenly made sense.