That my mom’s cancer was terminal.
My father and I already weren’t speaking and we all knew that it was coming. But I was in my early 20s and not ready to not have parents anymore. We’d also always been super close.
I survived, she obviously didn’t, and most people are fortunate enough to outlive their parents these days. But it’s brutal to lose a loved one decades early.
“Sir, this IS the XL size”
“Grandma died during surgery”. I didn’t call her the night before because I thought it’d be awkward and I didn’t acknowledge the risk of heart surgery.
My wife telling me that she can’t deal with me anymore in November 2024. We were together for twelve years. TBH, I was also sore that Trump just won the election despite that Project 2025 was public knowledge, so I was super vulnerable already, and her departure pushed me into a long-term psychotic break.
I had been getting progressively crazier in the years leading to her announcement. My psychotherapist discontinued my service to go on maternity leave some years before and I had then moved to Sacramento. Then the COVID-19 epidemic hit, everyone needed psychotherapy and so they all stopped taking Medicare since their schedules were packed with better payers. And then they all burned out.
So I went without mental health care for years figuring I could deal better than those who are not used to being crazy. Evidently not so.
There are more factors. Her job in construction was going south so she changed jobs to a non-profit that helps victims of human trafficking (and is still brutally busy but is far more fulfilled by her work), and the income difference affected our lifestyle.
its happened a few times in my life so i dont have an exact quote. i always wanted to be a part of something bigger than myself, be on a team, make something with my friends, help someone with their dream, whatever. i was basically told “you have no skills and no ability to help, so you would only get in the way”. it hurt so much to be deliberately excluded by people who i thought were my friends, to be told im worthless to them, im incapable of helping them. after a few of those i cant even bring myself to offer anymore, and no one ever asks. part of me doesnt see the point of living if this is how people see me.
This reminds me of my situation. I had always had an interest in investing and was interested in starting a business. So I spent a lot of time during my youth trying to get my family onboard. They never took an interest until it served my parent’s needs. In 2012 my dad got himself fired and decided to take early retirement.
I suggested a real estate business to replace his income with rental income. I offered to move back home with my partner who was also down with a real estate business. The rents agreed and we made the move back to wonderful Wisconsin. Over the course of two years I found and set them up with a very lucrative stream of rental income in a still booming housing market. Then they decided my partner and I were no longer doing enough or working hard enough and they cut us entirely out of the business.
Anyway I don’t talk to them anymore. Hope things are turning around for you.
do pretend we have class solidarity you fucking leech
Learning how to take advice from people you hate is a valuable skill. Be discerning, obviously, but coherent perspectives different to your own can offer a lot of value, regardless of your feelings towards that person.
Just being told I was ugly. Objectively I’m fine (although, of course, it’s all relative) and it took a while to work out.
I’m not conventionally handsome, but I have been fortunate enough to have good looking girls be attracted to me when I was a younger man. It blew me away as I believed I was a troll, thanks to toxic fuckers who took it upon themselves to comment negatively on my appearance when I was a teen. I still vividly remember one day in class this spotty new guy went on a sustained and articulate tirade about how weird looking I was. I had to fight to hold back the tears. This was 30 years ago and I still wince at the memory of it.
I’d pretty much come to terms with how weird I looked, then I went to uni in the city I was staggered to find that girls liked me. And not just for being the funny guy or whatever - there were genuinely women that would come on to me in clubs. It freaked me out to be honest.
To this day I don’t know if I was some sort of ugly duckling or what. Or maybe my face was just wrong for my rural home town, whereas the city, with it’s wider gene pool seemed to like me.
I also don’t get why these pricks (all men) wanted to bring me down. Guess some people are just mean bastards.
I have a bit of a story to tell about this particular question.
It’s a question I asked of myself.
Brought on by my sister calling child protective services on me after my wife died. She left me. With four children, and I was in mourning and not dealing well.
It led me the ask the most painful question of myself. Am I a good father?
The answer was no.
I wasn’t a good father. And I’m glad she made that call. It woke me up, and I changed everything around. Or at least, I hope so.
How long ago was this, and how are things today? Username doesn’t check out, I hope?
It was 15 years ago. It all worked out well. My kids grew up, well adjusted and loved, and we talk all the time. We’ve talked through what happened as well.
Well done on rising to the challenge and putting the work in.
Not something I would be capable of TBH.
Depends on the kind of crack. Maybe he’s a plumber.
I used to compete in an annual competition in high school, one year I got 4th, the next third. You needed first to progress to national level.
A friend of my teacher said “when do you just shoot the horse” right in front of me.
Thankfully I never saw that guy again, but Jesus, what an asshole. That was the last year I did that competition.
I’m so lost. I feel like I’m missing something obvious here. Are you the horse? What does this mean?
Yeah, he was saying how many times do I have to lose before they stop sending me to the competition.
Wow, what a douchey thing to say >:-(
What the fuck? Were there so few participants that 3rd was a bad result? High school has four years, right? 4th, 3rd, 2nd, 1st place, seems to me you were on track.
No, it was a province wide competition, and I worked really hard to prep. Top 3 was very good.
The first place people were always awesome.
Probably a horse shooting competition
What an absolutely awful attitude to have around children. Forget celebrating all you achieved, or the fact that you’re clearly improving, it wasn’t good enough after two attempts so just give up forever.
It was two occasions about eight years apart. One was Mom calling to tell me Dad died, the other was my brother calling me about Mom.
“you’re an open book”, like they thought they knew me and that’s all I’ll ever be
A guy screamed in my ear so loudly i got tinnitus
I’m leaving you.
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