u/zrepht

Okay so basically, I’ve had this one work email for the past couple of years that I almost exclusively only use to make online purchases related to my work.

In 2024, I got myself the premium subscription of an AI assistant, and my dad who was doing PhD at the time occasionally needed help with research stuff so we ended up sharing the email. The AI assistant in question could only be accessed if the gmail account associated with it has been logged in to your device, so yeah.

But later on, this would become a recurring thing where whenever anyone would hear I have the subscription they’d ask me if they can use my account as well.

Generally, I’d say no, but the “premium package” I had bought could be used by up to 10 people at a time. And so I thought, I’ve already spent the money, why not help out my friends too, and there’s nothing personal on there anyway it’s just boring work-related stuff. So I ended up sharing the gmail with 6 other people: 4 of my colleagues, 3 of them are childhood friends of mine, and the 4th is my aunt. The other two were my doctor and now-ex-girlfriend, both of them needed it for research stuff in their fields/studies and all.

In hindsight, it was definitely a rather dumb thing to do, to share it with so many people… but I need to emphasise that all of these people are genuinely some of the best people I know (yes, including the ex), and I can vouch that none of them would try to explore something like this, ever.

And all of them are straight women and this is a very important detail because the “disturbing material” in question is… let’s just say a very peculiar kink that no straight woman would ever even think about trying to access.

Now, a few days ago, my dad who never, ever texts me, texted me a vague message about how we should refrain from indulging in morally questionable sexual things and all. I was, of course, very very confused, but I tried not to think about it too much.

Today I opened that email of mine for the first time since then and when I went to Google drive and saw the list of documents under “suggested files”, I saw one that was tagged “NSFW”. Now, this wasn’t anything out of the ordinary really, since I work in the true crime industry and I assumed it’s just something I saved a while back for some documentary I was working on, but then I saw that it was actually someone else’s file that was accessed with my email. Curious, i click it, and to my sheer utter horror and disgust, I see this “cartoon” of multiple men gang-raping a woman. I instantly click off, but then I see more files, and more files, and even more files… and I’ve only mustered up the courage to click on two more of them so far that were stuff of a similar nature. And there are like, 42 or so in total.

According to the other info that Google drive provides, I’ve only been able to find the email that those files originally belong to, as well as the date they were first accessed through my email, which is December 14 2025.

Now my first instinct was, of course, that someone close to one of the people who have access to my email must’ve used their device and unknowingly used my email that was already logged in to get this stuff.

The only problem is that when I went to the “your devices” section in account settings, the device of the only person who has another person living with them shows that it’s been inactive… so thats ruled out.

Another possibility is that of course one of the people with the account details could’ve shared it further with someone else.

Anyway, I was just wondering if there’s any way I can find out more on what happened here. I obviously want to remove all traces of this from my email but haven’t done so yet in case anything can be used as a clue or a lead or something. The only concrete thing I have is the email address of the person who those files originally belong to, and the files themselves, that’s it.

Orrr… should I just forget about this, change my password, unlink all devices, and delete everything…??

Not a very optimistic start, I’m aware, but accepting that problems will always be a part of life was the first step. I know we tend to imagine that an “ideal life” would be free of all sorts of problems, but that’s just a fantasy, albeit a very beautiful one. I mean, that’s how we got so many people believing in religion, but anyway. 

I think the right way to envision an “ideal life” would not be to envision a “perfect” one, rather, an “easier” one, and by that I mean, instead of wanting to live a life free of all sorts of pain and problems, try to live a life where your pain and problems are the ones you’ve chosen for yourself, and hence are easier to deal with. 

Because the thing is, we are actually not that bad at dealing with problems in general. We’re much better at dealing with problems than most people, actually. What we struggle with specifically, are problems that are not in our control, stuff we think we can’t fix, and struggles we didn’t choose for ourselves.

So let’s swap it with ones we chose ourselves. 

Allow me to elaborate with an example. 

For me, an “ideal life” would be one where I have moved out and live by myself. I have my own car, and I focus on my career, while pursuing my studies at the side. 

That’s it. 

For you, it might be something else, but for me, that’s the kind of life I wish to have, because it replaces all the problems that I try to avoid with problems I know I can handle well. Although with a lot of difficulty, I can deal with workload, studies, and bills simultaneously without feeling like the world is literally ending. What I can’t deal with without feeling like the world is literally ending though, is the constant surveillance from my family, all the conflicts that arise from it, and the feeling that I’m doing nothing with my life. 

So I’m just “trading” problems that I can’t deal with, with problems I can deal with.

Then, I think of a sort of a “roadmap”, i.e., what are the things I need to do to achieve this “ideal life”? For me, it’s to save up enough to afford an apartment and a car. It is NOT AT ALL easy, but it’s easier than dealing with my family and the feeling of worthlessness, so off I go to do just that. And so, in the last 4 months, I’ve worked my ass off and have saved up half of what I’d need to move out, in another 4 months, I’ll move out. Hasn’t been easy, but then again, easier than dealing with family and feeling worthless.

The next important thing is this:

Healing is not a linear process. I really wish it was, that you just kept on getting better and better until you achieve this state of “being healed”, but it's just not. It’s like, you wake up one day, it’s a random Tuesday, and you’re just overcome with this need to turn your life around, and you do all these things and make all these decisions and promises that tomorrow is going to be better than today, and so on and so forth. 

But when you wake up on Wednesday, things have somehow never been worse. And you think to yourself, this is it, this is how it has always been, this is how it is, and this is how things will always be. This is it. 

You sleep through the day and into Thursday, and things are still somehow worse than they’ve ever been before. 

And it's the same on Friday. 

But on Saturday, you wake up, and it’s just, okay. Like, not *okay* okay, but things will be okay. And now you’re suddenly overcome with this need to turn your life around, and you do all these things and make all these decisions and promises that tomorrow is going to be better than today, and so on and so forth.

 

But then you wake up on Sunday, and things have somehow never been worse. 

But this time, you’re back to feeling okay-ish the very next day on Monday instead of next Wednesday, when you are once again just overcome with this need to turn your life around, and you do all these things and make all these decisions and promises and yada yada, allat, you know how it is.

And over time, those bad days just happen less, and less, and they last not as long either. And with time, they disappear altogether. Or sometimes, they don’t. Or rather, they just happen so less frequently that the time between them is so long that it makes you think that it is done, you’ve finally achieved this state of “being healed”, fully. Hooray. 

But then weeks later, maybe even months later if you’re lucky, you wake up again on a random day, and it's Tuesday. And you have no idea that Wednesday has a really nasty surprise in store for you. Things will soon be worse than they’ve ever been before. 

That’s life for us. That’s what we’re all up against. But the important thing is to not let yourself believe that the world is literally going to end because you’re not getting a text back. We’ve all been there, and we can all agree it feels horrible and it’s impossible to believe things will be okay in the moment, but, just try telling yourself that. Maybe it doesn’t work, but maybe it does. Who knows. Only one way to find out I guess. But yeah, try trying to remember all those times in the past when you’ve been in this exact same position on Wednesday but then Saturday arrives, and maybe you won’t have to wait till Saturday to feel better. 

Anyway, I hope this rant thingy is useful for someone out there.

And I hope things get easier for you. 🫂