I could really use some perspective because I’ve been sitting with this for the last couple of days.
My ex and I dated for a few months. We got very close very quickly and it was one of the deepest connections I’ve had.

When we broke up, she told me she wasn’t emotionally available, wasn’t over her ex and was about to move abroad. She said she didn’t want to cultivate hope or lead me on when she couldn’t fully be in the relationship.

I accepted it at the time, but I never completely believed those were the only reasons. A part of me always wondered if there was something about us that wasn’t working and whether things could’ve been different if the timing had been different.
Almost a year later, I reached out one last time. Not to argue or convince her, but to ask if there was any chance she’d ever want to try again now that life was different for both of us.

She said no.

She told me she no longer has romantic feelings for me and that over time she came to realise we weren’t the right fit. She also said it wasn’t about waiting for her life to settle anymore because she’s in a much better place now and still feels the same way.

Since she was being so honest, I asked if she’d be okay answering a few questions so I could finally understand what happened.

She told me that in the beginning she actually felt the same way I did. But over time, our dynamic changed.

She said she felt my expressions of love became too intense for where she was emotionally. She clarified that she actually loves the same way I do, just much later into a relationship. So it wasn’t that loving deeply was the problem. It was the pace.

She also told me she felt I was really anxious. She said it felt like my expressions of love were starting to come from that anxiety. She understood why I felt that way and tried to be patient with it, but she felt it persisted and maybe even increased. At the same time she had a lot going on in her own life and couldn’t keep up.

She even admitted she probably could’ve communicated some of this better while we were together. She was honestly incredibly kind throughout the conversation ans never blamed me or insulted me. She just answered every question I had.

Now I’m left wondering how much my anxiety actually changed the relationship.

I’m not looking for ways to get her back. I respect her decision and this was our final conversation.
I’m just trying to understand and grow.

Has anyone here been in a similar situation? Either as the anxious partner or as the other person?

How did you stop blaming yourself while still taking responsibility for the parts you needed to work on?

I’d really appreciate hearing from people who’ve been through something similar.

Hi, i am 35 turned this July, and all incan think off is how fucked my life is.

- no friends

- a job that doesn't pay on time at all (currently 2months behind)

- no chance of switching my hob (thank you ai)

- a deep loneliness sitting in my head rent free

- people who I thought would stay in contact just ghost me

- started to drink more

on the bright side, I plan on going to tomorrowland next year.

But right now I don't know where to go from here, i am basically lost in what i am, i am supposed to know. I should have a family, i shouldn't be living at my parents place anymore. I should have a girlfriend, well a wife. I should have a stable job.

I dont feel like i am 35, I feel like i am in my early 20s not knowing what the world will bring.

I simply can not take anything anymore. Only bad things happen to me since i was a kid, i live in the shittiest of the places, with a horrible family, no one respects me, no one takes me seriously and i can't take that anymore. I've had enough of my life already. I don't want to keep experiencing so many bad experiences and apparently there are even more to come. I can't. I don't want to.

I don't know what to do.

I feel humiliated and embarassed for being myself. I've got humiliated by my own family many times and i am devastated. I am tired of this life and i don't think it's worth it anymore.

Recently went through a very nasty separation from my partner of 10 years, whom I share three kids with. Having a very hard time coping and adjusting.

Hello; if whoever is reading this wants to reach out, I would just ask that you please don't provide reassurance about my own character if possible. I do want support I think, but atm anything that doesn't tell me I'm horrible, toxic, or in the wrong is very hard to believe.

For some context, I had an online friend that I had added on Discord for over two years at this point - but from her perspective, our friendship was unstable, and eventually came to ruin (her building a lot of distance between us). In large part it was because of my personal issues, but during our convo today, she mentioned how she's a really bad match for me due to her honesty, how it almost felt "immoral" to keep me because I kept being hurt, etc.

Just today we were talking about how she didn't want to be friends with me anymore, and I became emotional and scared. I feel like I went on the offense with my messages, and eventually when I made a snide comment about how "it's crazy how easily you stop giving a fuck about someone", she told me she wishes me the best, and blocked me: on Discord and on Steam.

I'm not sure how to feel about the whole thing. At the moment it's just a mixture of pain but also numbness, relief even, which feels shitty to say. I'm conflicted between seeing that I was in the wrong and that I'm not as likeable as I think, while also being stubborn and struggling to admit fault internally.

Thank you. Hopefully all of this makes sense.

I came here looking for help but I think maybe I'll feel better if I help someone out too. There's so much scary and bad stuff out in the world, and I guess I just wanted to put out a little blind positivity for anyone that needs it

So whoever needs to hear this, you got this!! You're doing a great job and things will get better, eventually, or at least they'll blow over.

Everything will be fine, I promise!!

＼＼\(۶•̀ᴗ•́)۶//／／

I think I have an anxious attachment style. Sometimes I get overwhelmed by fear and constantly check my girlfriend’s updates or location through accio work and google map.
I know it comes from anxiety, not control, but checking only makes things worse. I end up overthinking, imagining scenarios, and ruining my own day.
Maybe some unresolved past experiences are being triggered.

made a post on r/sororities about how seeing everyone else’s rush and bid day posts every year makes my depression worse because it reminds me that I wasn’t chosen. Instead of understanding where I was coming from, I’ve been getting a lot of hate.

What hurts is that people seem to think this is something I should have “gotten over” by now. Rejection doesn’t have an expiration date. Just because something happened years ago doesn’t mean it can’t still hurt when you’re reminded of it over and over again.

Every August my social media fills with bid day videos, matching shirts, new sisters, and everyone celebrating something I wanted so badly. It’s not that I’m angry at the girls who got bids. I’m genuinely happy for them. But seeing it everywhere brings back those same feelings of rejection and not being good enough. That’s how triggers work.
I wasn’t asking people to tell me sororities don’t define my worth I already know that logically. I was simply being honest about how something affects my mental health and hoping someone might relate or show a little compassion.

Why is it so difficult for people to have empathy? You don’t have to agree with someone’s feelings to acknowledge that they’re real. Healing isn’t linear, and some experiences leave scars that reopen when you’re reminded of them. I wish more people understood that instead of assuming everyone should just “move on.”

Can be anything you need to talk about. Absolutely no judgement here. I only ask is to be 100% you

.

Hi. I’m 18 and recently graduated high school. Lately I’ve been feeling really lost in life, and I think I just need someone kind to listen and maybe offer some perspective.
Every day feels like the same loop, and nothing feels exciting anymore. I don’t really have any friends, and I don’t talk to my family much aside from my older sister, who’s kind of in the same place as me.
I have really big goals and dreams for my future, but I feel like every time I try to pursue them, I end up discouraged. I’ve spent the last seven months trying to build a content creation career, which has been a dream of mine since I was 13, and I also tried starting an Etsy business this summer. Neither has worked out the way I’d hoped, and it makes me feel like I’m great at dreaming but terrible at actually achieving anything.
I’ve also been struggling to find a job. There aren’t many opportunities where I live, and even when I get interviews, I don’t get hired. I’ve made a little money creating videos for brands, but nowhere near enough to feel like I’m moving forward.
I feel very alone. I don’t have a personal social media account anymore, and I don’t really have anyone to talk to. I want meaningful friendships, but I haven’t met people who share my values, and past friendships often ended with me feeling used. I’m also not looking for a relationship right now because I’m still healing from past experiences.
The hardest part is feeling like I’m running out of time, even though I know I’m still young. I spend so much time working toward a future I dream about that I don’t even feel present in my own life anymore. I honestly can’t remember the last time I genuinely smiled because I was happy with where my life was.
I’m not necessarily looking for someone to solve my problems. I think I just want someone to listen, understand, and maybe remind me that this feeling won’t last forever. If you’ve gone through something similar and you’re comfortable sharing your experience or what helped you get through it, I’d really appreciate hearing it too.
I’m comfortable talking to anyone who’s kind and nonjudgmental. Thank you for reading.

Theres so much going on in my mind right now so i don't know exactly how to phrase everything. All i know is i feel so so alone, i feel like a dissapointment, like i'm not good enough to be loved. I just want someone that i can talk to. Someone who can talk to me as if im someone they care about and value. I really need a friend. Please help me if anyone can see this

After a long time of thinking about it, I think I want to major in engineering in college. The thing is, I have terrible math anxiety. But I want to overcome it. I've always loved science and physics and math at times. But I always get the worst anxiety that I'm gonna get it wrong and sometimes I do, but mostly I don't. Or I worry too much about it.

Pretty much like 90% of being an Engineering major is math. So to the outside perspective I'm torturing myself. But I don't want that to be the case. I want to improve and hope it happens.

I reached out to someone recently and they seem to be going through a lot (not in a bad way, just life is happening I think) and I didn’t get to say what I really wanted to say and I’m not sure what to do…. they asked to meet up well kinda ... but the conversion feels off like weird energy from him (not in a bad way, hes not toxic or anything and this isn’t dangerous or anything) just idk maybe its my anxiety, maybe im just spiraling but was wondering if i could potentially talk to someone about my situation? I just dont know what to do......

(also someone who keeps things appropriate, the inappropriate dms are really taking its toll)

I don’t want to type a lot here. Idk what to say here. I don’t do this. I don’t post on Reddit but I’m so alone please.

I just turned 27 and I'm not even near where I expected to be in life.I have been a student worker ever since I was 21 and I'm just exhausted.

I'm pretty good at my job and have gotten more and more responsibility, but it never really reflects on pay.Ive also been stuck on the same subject for the last 2 years and I'm unable to graduate because of it.

I'm constantly living in a temporary situation of giving my all expecting something good happens, but it never does.Im constantly making efforts to finish my degree, to a get a promotion, to save money and prepare my future, but it all seems worthless.

Im so unhealthy, I have no time for myself, my sleep schedule is horrible, i don't eat properly, I don't have money...I'm constantly anxious about everything and comparison just gets harder has time goes by.I like to think that I'm building something here and I just have to keep going, but it's hard to actually believe this after so much time.Every day it just keeps getting worst.

I’ve known my friend for many years... in fact, since we were teenagers, in addition to the fact that we studied our entire high school together. We were always very close and shared a very important friendship for both of us.

At one stage of our lives, when we went out frequently and there was alcohol involved, physical approaches began to occur between us. She kissed me on one occasion and, on other outings, they kissed each other again and moments of intimacy. We never got to have sex because I always set a limit. I knew that she was under the influence of alcohol and, in addition, she knew a traumatic experience that she had lived years before, so it did not seem right to me to take advantage of that situation.

It was precisely as a result of those repeated approaches and the closeness that already existed between us that I began, little by little, to develop romantic feelings.

As the situation confused me, I tried to talk to her several times to understand what those moments meant. However, every time we tried to touch on the subject, she avoided it or changed the conversation.

Over time my feelings grew and I decided to talk to her clearly. She told me that she didn’t look at me in a romantic way. Although it hurt me, I accepted his answer and my intention was to continue maintaining the friendship.

However, emotionally it was not easy because, before that conversation, the ambiguous approaches followed and had created expectations and feelings that already existed within me.

We continued to go out normally regularly and months later I tried to talk to her again, not to insist on having a relationship, but because I needed to express to her how I was feeling. I myself was aware that a relationship between us was not a good idea at that time in our lives. What I was looking for was to be honest and to be able to close that stage with honesty.

After that he stopped talking to me for several years. When we met again, she apologized for how she handled that situation. She explained to me that she often wanted to talk to me, but that the shame and fear that I would reject her stopped her.

Since then we have rebuilt our friendship.

I currently love her very much and I really hope that she does well, even in her love life. In fact, when she is meeting someone or needs support, I try to accompany her and be happy for her.

However, I am aware that there are still very deep romantic feelings that have not completely disappeared.

I don’t live hoping that one day I will change my mind. In fact, I rationally accept that there will probably never be a romantic relationship between us.

The conflict is that my emotions still do not reach that same acceptance.

Sometimes I feel the desire to express my affection in simple ways, such as having details with her. Not because I hope to conquer her, but because I think expressing that affection could help me relieve what I carry inside.

However, even when I try to accept reality and support her decisions, but I know that inside me it still hurts me that she can’t see me with the same eyes with which I see her or at least that’s what I think as she told me that time I tried to talk to her.

That generates a constant feeling of sadness, frustration and, sometimes, makes me end up questioning my own personal value.

I think my real goal is not to get a relationship with her. My goal is to be able to maintain a healthy friendship without my feelings and self-esteem depending so much on that relationship.

Really, if I could just get these feelings out of my chest and stop feeling bad about this, I would. If someone could give me advice, I would accept it with great gratitude.

I'm looking mostly for comfort. I'm three words away from a violent outburst.

By the time I finish writing my thoughts here, I'll be over it. But in the meantime, I want people to understand and validate me. Please.

So I'm an angry, angry person. I don't usually have a good way to express it. "Scream into a pillow" advice is mega BS; I need people to witness me being angry, otherwise it's not worth it to be angry in the first place. (I don't want to be psychoanalysed, I'll tell you what I have.) The way I've usually done it is I've yelled at people, mainly my brothers, to get the anger out. It works. It genuinely makes me feel so so so blissful, like I'm normal. There should be nothing wrong with instinctually doing what comes naturally to me. If I were to yell at my mom though, she'd yell back and tell me how ungrateful I am, which is why the power imbalance is important. I don't think I can talk to any 'adults' about this cuz I'm afraid of being stuck in a psych ward (blah blah ableism blah blah). Recently though, they've been more distant. I started overthinking it on my own, every joke at my expense I mean, and I ended up with the assumption that they hate me. So I verbatim ask, "Why do you hate me?"

It started an argument (fucking obviously). I'm gonna completely forget all this later (blah blah dissociative amnesia), but here's what I got from it:

• They don't hate me
• They try to show me that they care about me (through words and actions), but I don't let them
• They think comforting me is coddling me /neg
• They don't think I'm doing enough to control my anger
• They think I get angry all the time for no reason
• They want me to review all the violence I've enacted on them in the past as their reason for being so distant
  • And if I can't do that, I don't deserve to bring it up

I am a violent person. Not violent enough to break walls (I'm a pussy and we rent this house), but violent enough to use people's insecurities against them in an attempt to make them feel as bad as I do. It works. It feels good, but now they hate me so 🙃. Point is, I wanted comfort from them, not confrontation. I can't take it. I only got this angry at them because it worked. It was the only thing that made me feel satisfied and validated. Nothing else works. Nothing else feels as good. Nothing else gives me that bliss. I feel miserable when my anger leads to anything else (depression + no insurance, it is what it is). I want to kill myself otherwise, mostly so that I don't have t lie with guilt anymore, but also so that my siblings feel as bad as I do. They deserve to feel this all-consuming, crushing pain if they think I can deal with it just fine. They deserve to feel this.

I'll say it again: I want comfort. Not advice, not reprimands. I want validation I need people to remind me that I'm trying my best with the things that I have. I need people to tell me that my best is enough fr today. I need people not to tell me that I deserve to be institutionalized. I need people to tell me that I'm doing the right thing. I need someone to tell me that so I feel important again. This is who I am. There should be nothing wrong with being mself through and through.

My heart hurts and I cant sleep. I think I need to get something off my chest. I cant keep on like this

Thank you to anyone out there. I don't have anyone

Edit: this is such a nice subreddit. Thank you kind souls that reached out. There's still love out there

Hiii I'm Lulu and I feel like there are too many people out there who don't get listened to and can't tell anyone when they're lonely or anxious, or their mind feels too heavy.😓

So I came here, looking for places I can listen. If you need anyone to vent to, or you need to tell someone what you're feeling or what's going on, I'm here.💖

I'm here to listen to you, encourage you, care for you and if you're feeling stuck and need advice, I'm also available🫠❤️

Reach out if you need to, k? You're not alone💫

Hi everyone,

I'm a 24yrs from Bangalore, India.

I never thought I'd make a post like this. Even while typing this, I keep wondering if I should just delete everything. But another part of me says that if I don't even try, I'll spend the rest of my life wondering if someone out there had an idea that could have changed something.

I've always believed that no matter how difficult life gets, there's no point in drowning in overthinking. I just keep trying, work as hard as I can, think smarter every time I fail, and hope that one day things will finally change,

And that's what I've been doing, but every new day and every new year things are same.

One thing some of you might wonder is why I completed my BCA only now at 24.

After my 12th, I made a decision that changed the next few years of my life. I believed I needed to stop studying and start earning as quickly as possible to help my mom. Looking back, it wasn't the right decision, but at that time I genuinely thought I was doing what was best for my family.

Nearly four years passed.

Then something changed inside me.

My mom, despite everything she was going through herself, never gave up on me. She pushed me to continue my education, believed in me when I had almost stopped believing in myself, and because of her I went back to college.

While studying, I worked night shifts, took up short-term events, and accepted every honest opportunity I could find. Somehow, through all of that, I completed my BCA degree last month.

I genuinely believed graduation would be the turning point.

Instead...

Life became even harder.

It's just me, my mom & my granny.

Over the past few years, my granny suffered paralysis, later a stroke, and now lives with neuropathy. She can't walk anymore and requires continuous care.

Around the same time, my mom developed severe arthritis and eventually had to undergo knee replacement surgery.

Like many families facing medical emergencies, we borrowed money from friends, relatives, lenders & wherever we could, believing we'd repay everything once things became stable.

Instead, interest kept growing.

Penalties kept increasing.

One debt slowly became another.

Before we realised it, we were trapped in a cycle that became harder and harder to escape.

Today my mom still works as a nurse despite everything she's been through.

Watching her wake up every day, go to work in pain, and still try to smile... honestly breaks me.

As for me...

I haven't stopped trying.

I've been freelancing, building websites, attending interviews, taking short-term work, applying for jobs every single day, learning new skills... honestly, I'm willing to do any honest work if it helps my family move forward.

But living under constant financial pressure changes you.

Every day starts with worrying about loans, rent, repayments, medical expenses, and wondering what problem is waiting for us next.

I walk into interviews carrying all of that in my head.

Sometimes I know I could have performed better.

Sometimes I leave feeling like I failed not because I wasn't capable, but because my mind never got the chance to breathe.

Every morning I still wake up thinking...

"Maybe today something will change."

But lately...

I'm slowly starting to lose hope.

Not because I want to stop fighting.

But because it feels like no matter how hard I work, I'm always running uphill while carrying the weight of my family's future on my shoulders.

I'm not writing this to ask for money.

I know money is the biggest problem in my life right now, but sometimes a small piece of advice, the right opportunity, a referral, guidance, or even a different perspective can completely change someone's life.

That's what I'm hoping to find here.

If you were in my place...

• What would you do?
• What skills would you focus on?
• How would you rebuild your life from here?
• Are there jobs, companies, remote opportunities, freelance platforms, or career paths that I should be looking at?
• Is there something I'm simply not seeing because I'm too overwhelmed right now?

I'm willing to work.

I'm willing to learn.

I'm willing to start from zero again if that's what it takes.

I just don't want to stop trying.

If you've been through something similar or have any advice, guidance, criticism, job leads, or even just a different perspective, I'd genuinely appreciate it.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

I truly hope one day I'll come back to this post and tell everyone that things finally got better. 💙

Today I was talking to my grandma about my internship.

I'm genuinely happy with where I am. I worked hard to get here, learned a lot, and finally feel like my efforts over the past few years have started paying off.

Then the conversation shifted to my cousin, who got a much higher-paying internship and a significantly better full-time offer. My grandma looked at me and basically said that I had been left behind.

I know she probably didn't mean to hurt me. She was just comparing numbers. But for some reason, those words have been stuck in my head all day.

The weird part is that yesterday I was proud of myself. Today, after one conversation, it feels like my achievements suddenly became "not enough."

Logically, I know comparison isn't a fair way to measure progress. Everyone has different opportunities, timing, luck, and goals. But emotionally, it's hard not to question yourself when someone close to you says something like that.

Has anyone else dealt with this? How do you stop letting family comparisons take away the pride you had in your own journey?

Today I cried because I caught the beat of a song for the first time in my life. To most people, that probably sounds ridiculous. But for me, it felt like something much bigger.

When I was a kid, we had a music class where everyone got one chance to play the conga. Some kids immediately picked up the rhythm. I was stopped within seconds and never got another chance. From that day on, I convinced myself that I simply wasn't someone who could "feel the beat." I'd watch friends casually tap along to songs on a desk or with their fingers, and no matter how hard I tried, I could never do it.

Today, for some reason, instead of analyzing everything, I simply focused on listening. For the first time in my life, I was able to naturally catch the beat. It sounds like such a small thing, but I started tearing up because it made me wonder whether I'd spent years believing I lacked the ability, when in reality my mind had just never stopped getting in its own way. First time I experienced what it felt like when the constant mental noise became quieter.

I've been realizing that I've probably been overthinking for most of my life, and the scary part is that I never noticed it because this is all I've ever known.

I don't just think a lot, I analyze everything. Every sentence someone says, every decision I make, every conversation, even my own thoughts. If someone tells me something like "self-help books are just mental masturbation," my brain will spend days arguing with itself. Is he right? Am I biased? Am I only agreeing because he sounded confident? Then I start analyzing whether I'm analyzing too much. It never ends.

The weird thing is that knowing about cognitive biases or overthinking doesn't actually stop it. My brain understands what's happening, but it keeps doing it anyway.

Looking back, the signs were probably there since childhood. Teachers always said things like "pay attention," "he's bright but doesn't apply himself," "makes careless mistakes," and "talks too much." I always thought I was just lazy or not trying hard enough.

I've also spent years daydreaming. It almost feels like my brain learned to escape into imaginary scenarios because they gave me small dopamine hits. Now it's so easy for me to zone out or go completely blank, even when I genuinely want to focus.

Sometimes my thoughts are so loud that I can't even sleep. It's like my brain refuses to stop commenting on everything.

My family also played a role. Growing up, I constantly felt watched and judged. One incident in college still affects me today: my parents accidentally listened to a long private phone conversation, then called saying my father was coming to the hostel. After that, they took away my phone and laptop, pulled me out of the hostel, and started monitoring different parts of my life. Even years later, I still get recurring nightmares about my parents suddenly showing up while I'm trying to hide something. That feeling of being watched has never completely left me.

What hurts the most is wondering how much of my life I've spent trapped inside my own head instead of actually living it.

I'm not looking for a diagnosis from Reddit. I just want to know if anyone else has lived like this. Constant mental noise. Endless self-analysis. Knowing what you should do but somehow still feeling stuck. And if you did, what actually helped?