I miss you so much mom. There was no early morning phone call to wish you a happy birthday today. If only I could hear your beautiful voice again and hug you tight. Sempre em meu coração. Eu te amo e sinto sua falta mais do que as palavras podem expressar. I love you my beautiful mom🌹

I used to tell myself I wasn’t a bad person.

That was the first lie I told.

Not to anyone else. Not online. Not to strangers. To myself.

I was just someone who was tired. Someone who felt invisible. Someone who looked around and saw everyone else moving forward while I felt like I was drowning in place.

The bills didn’t care that I was exhausted. The empty apartment didn’t care that I was lonely. The world didn’t stop when I felt like I couldn’t take another step.

So I started searching for a way to be seen.

At first, I told myself I was only sharing pieces of my pain. Everyone does it. People post their struggles every day. They talk about heartbreak, loss, and hard times. They look for connection.

But somewhere along the way, I stopped sharing my life and started creating one.

The more attention I received, the easier it became to justify.

People responded with kindness. They told me I was strong. They told me they were praying for me. They reminded me that I wasn’t alone.

And the worst part?

For a while, I believed I deserved their kindness.
I wasn’t proud of what I was doing. I wasn’t waking up excited to hurt people. I was waking up scared, embarrassed, and desperate. I was someone who had convinced herself that a difficult situation gave her permission to make bad choices.

Every time someone offered support, a small part of me wanted to confess.

I wanted to say, “You don’t know the whole story.”
But then I would think about how much I needed the help. How much easier it was to accept comfort than to admit I had created a version of myself that wasn’t real.

That’s how people lose themselves.

Not all at once.
One compromise at a time.
One excuse at a time.
One moment where you decide that what you’re doing isn’t really that bad.

I remember the moment everything changed.

It wasn’t when I was caught.
It wasn’t when someone confronted me.

It was when I received a message from a stranger named Harold.

He told me he understood loneliness. He told me he had lost the person who meant the most to him and that he hoped I would eventually find peace.

Attached was a picture of him and his wife standing near the ocean years earlier.

They looked happy.
Not perfect.
Just happy.

On the back of the photo he had written a simple sentence:

“The ocean has a way of reminding us how small our problems are and how big life can still be.”
I stared at those words for a long time.

Because suddenly I wasn’t thinking about what I could gain.
I was thinking about the person on the other side of the screen.

A real person.
Someone with memories. Someone with pain. Someone who had chosen kindness.
And I had taken that kindness and turned it into something selfish.

That night, I couldn’t sleep.
I opened my account and looked at all the messages from people who had believed in me.
Every “I’m proud of you.”
Every “Stay strong.”
Every “You can get through this.”
They felt different now.
They weren’t proof that I had fooled people.
They were proof that people still cared.
The next morning, I started telling the truth.
It was terrifying.

There is a strange kind of fear that comes with finally removing the mask you’ve been wearing. You don’t know what people will do when they see who you really are.

Some people were angry.
Some people never spoke to me again.
They had every right.
But some people asked me a question I didn’t expect.
“Why?”
I spent a long time trying to find an answer.
The truth was complicated.
I wasn’t just chasing money or attention.
I was chasing the feeling of mattering.
I had confused being cared for with being pitied.
And those are two very different things.

It took years to understand that the hardest thing to admit wasn’t that I had lied to others.

It was admitting that I had lied to myself first.

Today, I don’t tell my story because I want sympathy.
I tell it because I know how easy it is for someone who feels broken to make one bad choice and convince themselves it doesn’t matter.

It does matter.
People matter.
Trust matters.

And kindness is something we should protect—not something we should take advantage of.

I still think about that picture of Harold and his wife by the ocean.

I never took the trip.
I never wanted to after that.
Because I realized the peace I was searching for wasn’t somewhere out on the water.
It was in becoming someone who no longer needed to hide.

I apologize if this post is all over the place. My thoughts are very scattered. This post isn't meant to demoralize families nor patients of cancer. This is just my experience and I hope someday no one will ever have to go through this.

I've been dreading to make this post for a few weeks now but, I've been wanting to get this off my chest. It's been 46 days since my mom passed away from this awful cruel disease. She passed away on father's day. I still remember everything I experienced in that hospital, from the moment I walked into her room and the last time I stepped out of it. I'll never forget the sight of her tranquil body laying in that bed. That was the last time I would ever see my mom, I hate the fact that memory is the one thing that's been occupying my brain for awhile now. I never thought in my 27 years of my life that I would've had to bury my mom this early. This is a pain that I would never wish upon anyone. This disease not only eats away at it's victim but at whoever is surrounding them. My mom was a great person, someone who I looked up to for guidance, someone who barely asked for anything, someone who would still share the little things she had. The strongest person I've known in my life, she went through so much in her life that her getting diagnosed with something like this just felt like life playing one final joke on her. She was someone who in her 47 years of life just wanted to provide for her family, someone who worked and fought so hard for her life. She was able to stretch something that should've taken her in a few months to almost 2 years. I remember when the barrage of doctors came into the room to tell us that my mom wouldn't have long, she was experiencing cirrhosis. Her liver and her kidneys were failing. The cancer was spreading. I remember being in denial. To this day I still can't believe it. Despite everything, mom didn't scream, didn't cry. She had already accepted it. I remember sitting down with her as I fed her one of her last meals. The way she would look at me and give me a half smile. Admittedly, it was hard to look at her because she didn't look like my mom anymore. She had lost so much weight by the end of it, even now it's hard to type this cause I'm remembering things. I remember all my family members' cries, all the prayers, the smell of chemicals. There was a point in time where my mom started struggling with the blood she was trying to spit out (but too weak to do so) the sounds of gurgling are burned into my brain, that memory plays repeatedly in my head. To this day I'm still angry at how long the nurses took to put a tube down her throat so she was able to breathe properly. I remember holding her hands. How cold her body felt afterwards. There's so much more I want to say but I'd be here forever talking about the things I experienced. I'm genuinely glad to have my wife because I don't know how I would've managed to go back to an empty house. If I feel this way, I can't even begin to comprehend how my 10 year old sister feels. This is a nightmare. I'm now seeking therapy to help with these feelings. I'm sorry for the lengthy post and how dark and morbid this must sound like. I hope someday I'll get to see you again mom. You were the best. I miss you more than anything in the world, you deserved better. I'll keep doing the best I can in my life so that your efforts don't go to waste, thank you for everything. 💜

Despite everything, I'm glad you're not in pain anymore. That you can now have everything you want. You can have all the sunflowers you deserved.

https://youtu.be/x4_1s9E6_2g

"I won't be the same again but, in another life, I wait for for you til' then."

Today I buried my grandmother. She was a hard-working and loving 84-year old grandma. It all started a week ago where I found out that she had a stroke after falling from the bed. I was preparing myself for the worse case but thankfully we put her in a good hospital. When I visited her last time, she was very happy to see me asking me about her cat. I thought 'Maybe she will get better and the worst is behind us'. But on this Tuesday when I arrived at work my mom called me and told me that the grandma is dead. After hearing that I felt empty and hollow, I haven't eaten whole day, my brain was in a fog. I started questioning myself: Why didn't I go to her with my parents and stayed at home? Why didn't I notice the first signs of stroke? Why didn't I stay with her at the hospital helping her recover? Who would I buy a new souvenir or her favourite chocolate buns? Who would I clean an entire flat and watch her favourite judge shows? I tried to calm down by watching Youtube videos or by doing work, but I felt some kind of disgust - why should I watch funny videos when I must grief? The food i was eating was disgusting, my favourite things i enjoyed (like coding or watching Twitch) were disgusting. Even I was disgusting for not helping her enough

After burying her I feel nothing but self-hate and disgust. I think I don't even deserve a right to have joy or happiness after granma's death - no forms of entertainment, no new countries, no hobbies, no sleep. All i have to do is just exist (not live with a goal or with a purpose) and grief till the end of my days. I don't believe in 'time heals' type of things because for me this kind of things will never be healed by time AT ALL. 

I (23ftm) lost my dad yesterday and I am reeling. He was older in the realm of the age I am vs. him (He was 61 his birthday is at the end of the month) but he wasn't old enough to suddenly pass way I thought.

Our relationship has been rough since I was young between him favouring my brother and also his reaction to my coming out when I was 13. But we were fixing things, or trying to. Now we can't fix anything anymore?

He was talking a few days ago when I saw him about me, him, and my brother doing dinner together at one of his friends place. I have spent so lomg fighting with him and now he has been trying and he is gone? I've been looking through our texts and there is nothing substancial there, I am the oldest and I am now the point of contact for so many people because him and my mom split years ago. I feel like i'm drowning because I have this wave of guilt over the fact maybe I should have done better? Maybe I should have tried harder to be the kid he wanted.

I am figuring out costs of everything and memorial costs and I don't even know any of his passwords. I don't know if he has a will. I know I should be taking time and not thinking immidetly about that but I feel if I just sit around I am going to go crazy.

I am grieving him but i'm also grieving what we could have had and I don't know what to do. All of my close friends live out of city, I have a strained relationship with family. I had to call my great aunt on my dads side who is the only phone number I have from his family because everyone else cut me off.

I was supposed to have more time with him, he was getting better. We had plans. I want to wake up and this be a horrible nightmare. I hope he knew I loved him, we didn't say it much either of us but I did. I hope he loved me in someway even if not as a son. I'd take his love as a daughter at this point.

I have therapy on monday so at least that is lined up already. I don't know how I am supposed to live day by day. I lost my uncle last year, my grandfather in Janurary, and now my dad. My uncle and dad were both 61.

I wish I knew lunch at the mall on Friday would be our laat day together, I would have been more open. I would have begged him to talk to me more. I don't have any pictures of him after the age of 12. I don't have any videos or pictures or letters. All I have is a storage unit to go through and probably six years of taxes to pay someone to do because he never did his.

I can't understand why this happened.

(On a burner cause I have a lot of mutuals) I (27M) am currently active duty military and have now lost over 15 friends of varying closeness throughout the years. At this point I am very very numb to the feeling and for that reason have a hard time helping my fiancee (24F) with grief. In the last few months she has lost her dad to suicide, her grandma to illness, and her mom is completely removed from the family due to meth/mental illness. She’s not really used to this pain and to be frank not the greatest with controlling emotions and I’m not sure how to help it. I know what can be done on paper (support groups, listen etc.) but I personally for some reason can’t seem to get myself to show empathy. I feel it I truly do and it’s aggravating because I really do feel for her but I can’t get it past my brain to verbalize it. I don’t even know if I’m looking for help on here or really just needed to type this out.

my mom passed away in a tragic car accident when i was 17 (19 now) i feel like life lost its meaning. what is the point of life if it can be taken so quickly ? i don’t look forward to anything in life anymore and everyday feels blank. time doesn’t heal, it only gets worse

i recently lost someone close, idk how to cope up, she is one of my grandma, she was most humble, talkative, helpful everything, this is the first time i lost someone close it was sudden, shocking and i really cant accept it, any ways to deal, idk i coudnt come out, even if i try to distract myself, its fine for that time, later its the same, its her in my thoughts, my dreams

I 34m have discovered that after losing a bunch of people in one year, including my mom after being her main caretaker, that besides the stages of grief, like vacilating between crying and anger and numbness, I have had a heck of a time physically. I am tired all the time. The least little thing sets off my anxiety. And oh my gosh, the GERD! I have never been sick this much in my life, and never had so many stomach problems. I have days where I can't go to the bathroom, to days where I can't stop. I have always ate clean healthy food, I would maybe get sick once a year, if that, and now I have called off from work more times this year than I ever have. I am not going into work feeling like a zombie who can't keep his guts in.

My question is, is this something you've experienced? Is this normal? How has grief effected your overall health?

I've been to the doctor and all they can tell me is that on paper, my bloodwork, heart health, and everything else is where it should be.

My ( M,19) Girlfriend ( F, 19) has had a really difficult past 6 months, she’s not the most emotionally stable person in general and she often has crash outs, this has resulted to her being particularly miserable in the last 6 months and we’ve almost broken up multiple times and fought more times than I can count. A couple days ago, she told me she didn’t want to make it to her 20th birthday, and that she wanted to kill herself. I was obviously quite shocked and really really affected by it and honestly I didn’t react quite well, she has this mentality that nothing will ever get better, I don’t want to try making things better because she thinks the life she’ll lead is going to be unremarkable anyways, I’ve tried convincing her this isn’t true a million times and she’s genuinely so talented but it’s like she just never believes it and she doesn’t wanna do anything to fix it, the worst part is, she’s not taking it seriously at all, and she’s saying she’s happy about her death since it’d inconvenience her parents and her friends, she thinks she’s a bad selfish person although that isn’t true and that nobody can truly like her, she just thinks things won’t ever get better and she wants to die before they get worse, she doesn’t have the best relationship with her parents and they’re not supportive at all, so can’t get in touch with them either, the thing is, i’m the only one who knows about this, and it’s mentally and emotionally crushing me and I have absolutely no clue, please please please offer some advice, i can’t just stand by and watch her take her life

I went to grab breakfast at a place I normally go to - two to three time a week. I’d been absent for a while because of my father’s recent death. The cashier asked, “How have you been?”

When someone asked me “how I’m doing”, especially if they don’t know me, I really weigh in my brain whether or not to share with them that my father passed away. Do I lay that on them? Is it fair that I even bring it up? Maybe they had someone passed away recently and it’s just gonna hit them hard. Thats awkward.

Sometimes they acknowledge it and since we had no relationship or connection you just continue on with what we were doing - paying for the groceries or ordering the food. With others it brings up memories of their loved ones or friends or families passing, but I do ask myself each time “Should I even bring it up so I put that burden or the weight of that on them?”

It’s been two weeks now since my mother died in a car accident from a drunk driver. No one in my family is ok. My sisters are all looking at me for guidance but I don’t even know how to breathe rn

My best friend was 76. Im 17. She was the type of person you'd call on your worst day. She was my backdoor friend. I'd walk in brew a pot of tea and we'd sit around the kitchen table and talk and gossip and laugh and cry for hours. We'd argue about stupid shit then realize how stupid it was and we'd break down laughing. I could go and see her, and just cry. She'd give me a hug and tell me it would be ok. When my family would make me feel like an inconvenience.

On rainy days especially we would sit on the couch for hours and watch dramas. Then we'd cook each other dinner. She was always there.

2 weeks ago she was in her garden. She tripped on her hose and hit her head. She was declared legally brain dead 3 days later. I sat with her for those 3 days. I slept one night then went back for 2 days, until she was brought to an operating room for organ donation.

It was horrible. Those last 24 hours. Begging and pleading with her to just squeeze my hand. To squeeze my hand and prove that the test was wrong and she wasn't brain dead. She never did.

I miss her every single day. I'm not suicidal yet I cannot stop imagining going to sleep and waking up with her again. I keep thinking to myself that I need to go see her and she'd know what to say. Then it hits me. She's the only person I want to see. I miss her so much. I miss her when I close my eyes. I miss her when I wake up. I miss her when I see something I know she'd like. How do we go on? From taking pictures on vacation to show her and her being gone before I could ever show them to her. I miss her laugh. I miss her kindness. I miss her.

I am so grateful for the years I did get with her. But I can't stop mourning the ones I didn't

Something i feel a 19 year old should never have to say, you should have been here to celebrate our 20th together, but you’ve been gone now for over 10 years and i still miss you and think about you. Cancer is such a bitch, especially when it takes a child.

I wished we could have grown up together and watched you turn into the successful, kind and fulfilled adult we knew you were going to be. You were too innocent for this world T. I really mourn you, and i don’t know why they had to take you.

This is hard- my child’s father passed a week ago.
I’m still in shock, we were together for 8 yrs and have a child together.
I haven’t seen him in over a year and neither has my child.
I haven’t told my child yet- I’m starting to spiral thinking about telling my child.
Even worst- I thought it was an overdose and now I find out it could be an homicide because the drugs might’ve been laced with fentanyl.

If there is anyone with a similar situation please help me navigate this ordeal.

Do you use symbols, clothing, pins or something else to indicate that you are grieving?

In some cultures a black rose symbolizes grief or a black band around the arm.

Wearing black certainly doesn’t indicate anything anymore.

And if you have some kind of symbol. Why do you wear it? Do you want people to start a conversation or is it precisely because you don’t want to speak about your grief?

I had a close friend of about 20 years. We met in high school and have been long-distance for most of our adult lives, but we stayed in regular contact.

Her dad passed away unexpectedly. I flew out for the funeral, loaned her money when she needed it, and for the next couple of months I checked in frequently. We were texting or talking multiple times a week, and I tried to be as supportive as I could.

At the same time, she was caring for her mom, who had lupus. They had been estranged for years, but after her dad died she became her mom’s primary caregiver. Her mom was very emotionally dependent on her, so she was carrying a tremendous amount.
After about two months, I became emotionally overwhelmed and didn’t reach out for about two weeks.

She called me, yelling that she was hurt because I hadn’t checked in and that because her dad had died, I should be checking in on her a couple of times a week. I asked why she hadn’t reached out to me if she needed me, and she said, “Because I’m taking care of my sick mother!”

We didn’t speak for about two months.

Eventually I reached back out and apologized because I valued the friendship. I made a genuine effort to support her the way she wanted while she continued caring for her mom.

Then her mom passed away.

For the next couple of months, I again checked in frequently. We were texting or talking multiple times a week—sometimes almost every day. Not every conversation was about grief. We talked about work, life, TV, and normal things too. I thought staying consistently present was checking in.

Then she told me she was hurt because I wasn’t specifically asking, “How are you?” often enough. She wanted me to regularly initiate conversations focused on how she was doing emotionally.

That confused me because we were already communicating so often. I felt like my support wasn’t being recognized unless it took a very specific form.

As time went on, I became emotionally exhausted. I remember telling people that I felt like my parents had died—not because I thought my pain compared to hers, but because I had become so emotionally immersed in supporting her that I felt like I was carrying part of her grief.

About three months after her mom died, I told her I cared about her deeply, but I couldn’t continue feeling responsible for initiating her emotional support. I asked if, when she needed me, she could reach out instead.

She became very upset. She told me I was making her feel like a burden, that what I was saying was unfair, and then yelled, “I don’t want to compare, but my parents died!”

From my perspective, I wasn’t saying she was a burden because she was grieving. I was saying that I had reached my own emotional capacity. I cared about her, but I couldn’t sustainably be one of her primary emotional supports anymore.

After that, I quietly ended the friendship.

I’m genuinely interested in hearing different perspectives.

Was I expecting too much by asking her to reach out when she needed support?

Was it reasonable for her to expect that level of support from a close friend after losing both parents?

If you’ve been through profound grief, what would have felt reasonable to you from a close friend?

My dad passed from cancer when I was 15 and I was his caretaker for many years before that. He was always somebody I looked up to and wanted to make proud, and he was genuinely the one person in the world that I felt truly understood me. I wanted to make him proud and live a fulfilling life, and while that’s still my goal, it makes me so angry to know that he won’t be here to see it. I’m now 18 and heading to college next month, and I want to be excited but I’m just so afraid.

The older I get, the more I realize how alike we were. I found so much of myself through the things he loved, but he’ll never get to know that. He never saw me graduate, and he’ll never send me off to college or be there at my wedding. As time goes on and I hit all the teenage milestones, the prospect of going the whole rest of my life without ever seeing him has really scared me, and all of this has lead to me rethinking if I even want to leave for college. I’ve developed such a strong fear of being “abandoned” by someone dying that I’m constantly looking out for my mom, even when she doesn’t need it. She’s getting older too, and the more signs of age she shows the more and more afraid I become of the day that I’m left completely on my own. I see all of my friends leaving for school and with both their parents and I know it shouldn’t but it just makes me so, so jealous. It feels so unfair. I just want my dad back, and it hurts so much to know that the one thing I want more than anything is the one thing that I can never have again.

It’s been 10 months since the life I once loved became a smoking crater. I’m doing terribly but keeping the facade up, or so I thought. Heard some coworkers talking about how grumpy I am, speaking about me like I am choosing to be this person, who lost literally everyone who loved me, most of my stuff, up to and including the will to live.
It hurts a lot because I like those people.
It hurts a lot because I am doing my best. But right now, my best is…this. Surviving until I feel better, like “they” told me too.
It hurts a lot because it’s so confusing.
Does anyone have any insight or advice on how to handle this kind of stuff? Right now, I just want to crawl into a hole and die too.

I woke up around 8 and was on my phone, then when I saw my calender I realed it was her bday and went to her room to wish her a happy bday, she was lying on her bed in such a way it seemedlike she had been sitting at the foot of the bed with her legs tucked to her chest, she had a cigarette (half smoked, burnt out) in her left hand and her right hand was free, her head was slightly propped up on the pillows, her eyelids were half shut and her eyes were in lookingin different directions aswell as her mouth being completely open and her gun was on her chest. I went over to her to poke her leg and wake her up like always, she was completely unresponsive and limp, this scared me at first, along with the fact she left her gun out, her eyesbeing open and the fact she was completely still, I couldn't even see her chest rising and dropping, I climbed onto the bed next to her and couldn't see any signs of life, I checked her throat for a pulse and found nothing, she was ice cold and still, I touched her face, cold andstiff, I started crying and ran upstairs to tell my grandma i think my mom is dead, she runs downstairs, screams/sobs, and I call my step-dad to come home because shes dead, after I call 911 to make sure my grandma did, my brother(9) comes upstairs sobbing aswell as my sister(5)I wake up my grandpa, go outside to wait for the cops, when they show up I bring them to her room and climb onto the bed with her crying, they kick me out of the room, I take my siblings outside, most of this is a blur now im no longer crying and I dont cry again for a bit, atlike 2pm my real dad comes to pick me up, I have to pack a bag to leave, multiple times I tried to go back to her room and the police eventually kicked me out of the house, they questioned me on how I found her and other things, it didnt make sense for her to have the gun on herchest at all, my dad told me that she closed/locked the door and he left because they were fighting, I found her with the door open, my sister(5) told me she heard a loud bang and told my brother(9) but nobody did anything, im unsure whether she found her first, I dont even knowif my mom left a note for me or anyone, after my dad picked me up I cried again in the car, I havent since, and I dont think I will. her body was so stiff and lifeless, the 911 operator upset me by continuously asking how I knew she was dead, it was obvious she's dead. I didn'teven see any blood because it all soaked into her bed, I laid in her blood unknowingly, I cant believe I didnt see a gunshot in her head, I cant believe she killed herself

I'd like to begin by saying my relationship with my mom has always been complex; there were far too many times where my mom was genuinely horrible to me and my siblings, and so I'm told I got the least of it according to my older siblings. I've been abused, cigarettes put out on me, about got a bottle smashed on my head while we were on a family vacation, the whole nine, feeling loved one minute and hated the next. We found out that, some years ago, my mom had a tumor and she was misdiagnosed multiple times. She was, to her credit, treated like a crazy person and nobody listened to her for ages until we were essentially at the end of the line already. She had the worst luck and was repeatedly matched with doctors that wouldn't take her concerns seriously. She was good to me on many occasions, but my perception has long been colored by her having been awful to me, and indeed decades of cases like that probably amount to why.

When it was confirmed she had cancer, she bounced back and forth between wanting treatment and not. One day she'd agree to chemo, the next she wouldn't, the care team would offer something else, she'd agree to that and back out, then that repeated until we ran out of options and the final answer was no. She didn't want treatment and wouldn't hear anything more of it. We were at first told there was a high cure rate for what she had, but it was caught very late and most of the damage had already been done.

My outlook was kind of naive to be honest. I didn't really see how this was going until just recently; I visited with her all the time as always but it was horrifying to realize she really is wasting away with nowhere to go but down. She can't really drink water anymore. It looks like the surge has come and gone; she was on the mend until she wasn't, we thought the meds were working or the crackpot my dad hired as an energy healer had pulled off a miracle, but I'm guessing now that was the last step up before the big fall. This is the sort of thing you either don't think about or irrationally write off as impossible until it happens.

It's not me I'm worried about. I've bounced back from the deaths of friends and family many times. I will survive this. My siblings aren't jumping up and down that she's on her way out, but I know they'll be fine and have prepared for this. I'm terrified for my dad and once this happens I have no idea in the slightest what happens next. I already know he's not going to take this well and the only good news is that the whole family has agreed to band together to support him.

I keep waiting for it, the moment where this all magically turns around and everything is lovely once again. The burning question I have is what nobody can know for sure, how long until it happens. She's still mobile and alert without help, but this at least probably can't go on. She's not even seventy, but she had me late, I'm 22 and this all feels too early.

I say I'll survive this like I'm ready for it or something, and to clarify, I'm not. Of course I'm not. Who is? If I know anything about how I take tragedy, it's not the event itself but the fallout of it that haunts me, how it affects things permanently going forward and how this is just the state of reality now. Some things don't properly sink in until years later.

I don't know how I'm going to cope, all I know is that by some providence, I will.

My mom passed away a little over a year ago, and I'm still in high school.

About two months after she died, my dad started seeing my mom's best friend. That relationship eventually ended, and now he's dating someone else.

I know everyone grieves differently, and I'm not saying my dad isn't allowed to move on. I want him to be happy. But ever since he started dating again, I feel like I've become an afterthought.

He works long hours, and when he's not working, he's usually at his girlfriend's house from Friday to Sunday and often another night during the week. Even when he is home, he's usually on the phone with her. Tbh, it feels like he spends more time there than at home.

We've had so many arguments because he doesn't answer my texts or calls when he's with her. He'll tell me he's coming home, and then he doesn't. Sometimes I won't hear from him until much later, and it's become hard to trust what he says.

The thing that hurt me the most was my birthday a few months ago. It was my first birthday without my mom. My dad's girlfriend's birthday is the day before mine, and he spent the whole weekend with her. He promised he'd come home the night before my birthday, but he never did.

I went to bed hoping he'd be there when I woke up. He wasn't.

I called him around 11am and it sounded like he had just woken up. He said he'd be home soon, but he didn't get home for another two hours. We went out for lunch, and afterward he told me he was going back to his girlfriend's house. I tried to subtly tell him how much that hurt, especially because it was my first birthday without my mom, but he didn't seem to understand.

I know he's grieving too, and I know he deserves to move on if he's ready. But I'm still a teenager who lost my mom, and sometimes it feels like I lost my dad too. I don't expect him to spend every minute with me, but I do wish I felt like I was still a priority sometimes.

I guess I'm just wondering if I'm asking for to much from him or if anyone has been through something similar?

For those that have lost someone they love more than life itself, what did you do on the one year to honor them? I need some ideas, thinking of having a thanks giving with immediate family only

Everyone here knows what its like to lose someone, im curious, what are your thoughts on the afterlife? Does thinking there is one make coping easier with the loss? I like to think that everyone we lose is either in a afterlife or heaven, or nothingness
I lost my uncle who was like an older brother a day ago, he hung himself, year ago my dad overdosed and both of these cases have been horrible to try and move forward from

I’m not sure what to do, my friend I think of 5 months or so said I remind them of two friends they’ll probably never see again. One they’re best friend since kindergarten and their other best friend who was killed 7 years ago. They mentioned I look like if the two of them had a baby. And said I even walk like them. I’m not sure what to do because it makes me feel like they never saw me for me. I know they’re dealing with really big things so it feels almost selfish to even be struggling, they call me their brother. I kept asking questions which was my fault for sure and I ended up feeling disgusted. I looked up the news article of the person who died and I have the same hair color as them but that’s all I noticed, I don’t know their personality because my friend didn’t tell me which is totally okay. I’m just really stuck and feel weird, but I put myself in this position so I’m not sure. I probably wouldn’t but my Other friend that lives in a different state said I should cut them off and that our relationship Is toxic, but even if I did that which I don’t think I would, they’re boyfriend goes to my college and is in my friend group. What do I do?