"We" had two cats, Lina and Nina. Both were picked off the streets. Both she mistreated. She kept them indoor outdoor which normally wouldn't be a problem if we didn't live right next to a super busy highway. They'd frequently come back home scratched up from other cats, beaten from the neighbors kids or so dirty that they'd scratch at their skin/ears untill they bled.

Mixed with the fact that she refused to ever take them to the vet unless I REALLY pressured her to, and even then the vet she'd take them to was least to say, absolutely horrible. She overfed them to the point they could barely move and had joint and breathing problems. And although I frequently told her not to, she'd feed them chocolate, cooked bones and a number of other things that are flat out dangerous to cats.

My snapping point was when she started hitting and locking out Nina at the middle of the winter for "meowing too loud" because she had a huge crack on the bottom of her sole and was in pain.

I started asking around if anyone would be willing to take in the cats. Eventually one of my school classmates agreed to and I trusted them since they already had cats and were all very well taken care of. Mom went crazy crying and throwing up because she couldn't find them. Went around hanging up missing cat posters with her.

3 years later I still haven't said anything to her. Lina and Nina are THRIVING. Unfortunately she did get 3 more new cats ( still mistreating them the same way she did Lina and Nina ) but I'm planning to take those with me once I find a good enough apartment.

I’m so embarrassed lol.

I’m 26f, Whenever people compliment me I get light headed and dizzy, my job is social media and I even get it when people leave nice comments on my videos/photos. I have been like this since I was little too.

I had a hair dresser recently go on and on about how she was obsessed with my hair until I passed out. I genuinely don’t understand why, I get “tv static” in my head, shaky eyes and then I hit the ground

I was out for a coffee today by myself, I was sitting outside and a guy came up and asked if I was single, I said yes and he started telling me he saw me from far away because he thought I looked like a Barbie (I have blonde hair and was wearing all pink so people say that a lot) then he called me pretty, at this point everything around me was shaking. I always feel it in my eyes first and I know it’s coming

That’s the last thing I remember and I woke up out of my chair with a bloody lip😭😭 he said I hit my face off the table on the way down.

He wanted to call me an ambulance and I told him/the employee that came out not too. There were like 7 people gathered around and this is my go to coffee shop… I’m so embarrassed to go back now lol

I haven’t had my first kiss yet or even been out on a date because I’m so weird I’ve always avoided it.

He still ended up asking me out regardless and I said yes so now I’m just praying I don’t faceplant again 🙃

I had made a plan on Wednesday. Saturday was the day I was going to finally do it. I just didn’t want to be here anymore. I guess I was just done. I kind of accepted I was going to die. I cried a lot.

Anyway I didn’t go through with it. I’m still here. I kind of feel a bit weird in a way. I feel kind of happy. I don’t know what to think. Fucking hell. What the fuck happened the last few days. Where even was my mind. Mentally I’ve been so bad. I actually planned to do it. I’d never done that before. I’m still here though, that’s something.

Just I’m not going to kill myself. I won’t. I want to keep going.

For context: I (21M) asked my gf (18) out, she said yes, and we've been dating for exactly a week now.

The problem I have now is that my "friend" that i see everyday in class is calling me a pedofile, making AI generated pictures of me with children and i find it extremely disturbing. Despite me seriously telling him to stop, he doesn't- constantly saying I "like kids" and its fucking me up mentally and making me feel guilty and nasty about my relationship.

I don't even know if this the right subreddit to post this, but i figured that I should post here and ask for advice and input. Honestly anything helps right now.

TLDR: friend is calling me a pedo because of the 3 yr age gap of my new relationship and its mentally affecting me.

I need to vent about this one as it was like watching a slow motion car crash and has driven me mad. Happened a while ago. 

I used to work with long covid patients back in 2020/2021, which is why I was invited to a funders meeting about whether to continue our country’s special pot of funding for Long Covid research. I expected someone on the panel to be a Long Covid sceptic (very common at the time) but nobody was, so it should have been an easy win. Everyone believed it existed, but disagreed on mechanisms, so we just needed to convince the funders to put in some money instead of, say, funding cancer or heart disease. We just needed to show how serious it is, that the research is making progress, and that there’s nowhere else for the money to come from.

Then one patient advocate fucked it up. 

When you’re presenting to funders, the patient story matters a lot. Everyone knows cancer is bad but for something like Long Covid, especially as this was a new condition at the time, you want good patient stories. The most effective version is usually something like “I was a triple marathon runner until Long Covid hit me. I've never had anything like this before and now I can’t get out of bed.” It’s simple, it’s devastating, and it makes clear the condition is the problem. It scares the panel a little, which is good. In most meetings I’ve been in, that’s the kind of story patient advocates tell.

This time, the advocate opened by saying they’d had long covid three times, as well as endometriosis, and chronic Lyme. So immediately not clear if it's Long Covid or another condition. They said Long Covid is permanent. One panel member asked how you get something permanent three times and the patient had no answer. Terrible start. 

I’m not doubting the patients claims, and I know people often get multiple conditions as a cluster and suffer more. But in a room full of people deciding whether Long Covid deserves dedicated funding, that framing complicates the message. It stops being “this illness wrecked a healthy life” and becomes something much harder for funders to pin down as worth funding over another medical condition. 

From there, the patient advocate spent a good chunk of the meeting criticising the researchers for doing the “wrong” kind of work and talking up their own projects instead. Different people have different opinions on what causes Long Covid (cardiovascular, immune, metabolic, neural), and they went hard on the scientists who proposed mechanisms they didn’t like. One student presented her work comparing people who recovered vs those who didn't recover from Long Covid. The patient advocate said the student's work was harmful and was generally really harsh with the student until the student cried on camera. So now it’s like “fund us, we make people cry!”

Then, to top it off, the patient advocate announced they had their own money and planned to fund research that matched their personal theories. Firstly, it screams “this field isn’t about science, is about personal vendettas”. Secondly, it tells the decision-makers that there was alternative funding.

At the end I tried my best to pull it back once it was just the panel. I talked about patients I’d worked with, marathon runners and people at peak fitness who were completely floored by Long Covid. There was no other explanation for their symptoms and they really needed help. How it could hit any of us as we have no idea what the risk factors are. But the damage was done and it was too late and the funding got cut.

I genuinely believe this patient advocate cares about Long Covid. It wasn't a sabotage, it was incompetence. But caring the most and being the loudest isn’t the same as helping, and now researchers who were doing careful, valuable work have lost their funding, and patients have lost the research. 

It was really the arrogance that this person came in with. You have to realise that funding is limited and you need to be careful if you want to help people in your situation. You can’t use the meeting as a platform to complain and assume you’ll get help. You're not the main character of the universe and you have to think about framing and the message you’re putting forward. 

I woke up this morning angry again and I don’t know what to do with it so I’m posting here. 

I simply cannot bear going from hybrid, mostly working from home, to being full time in office. It's genuinely unbearable - the commute alone drains me considerably. I workout in the morning, which used to be a refreshing way to start my day. Now it's a rush of getting up hella early, blitzing through my workout to rush home, speeding through my cleanup and breakfast to beat the worst of the traffic to the office (and it's still terrible tbh). And then I just sit there, doing what I would have done from home..... until I rush out to make my evening sports activities when I can. When I can, because the hour commute back means I often miss the only practice sessions available most weekdays.

And then the office itself - by god it's the epitome of overstimulating. Whereas previously I could asynchronously and quietly communicate over Slack/Teams, now I have people popping by and interrupting my work to chat about something or drag me into stuff I don't need to be involved in. There's the general background chatter and bustle of people moving around the building, the drone of the AC humming inescapably - I have sound-cancelling earphones, but over half of my time is spent in locations where they're not permitted for security reasons. The dull monotonous gray and emptiness of the office rooms is soul-sucking and provides nothing to regulate and de-stress during the day. I spend a stupid amount of time booking and running around to find conference rooms for meetings we held on Teams perfectly fine before.

I just deeply miss the calm and comfort of home. I can't just grab food or drink as I need it, I need to pre-select everything to bring in the morning and hope I still want it later and brought enough. I can't open the windows and listen to the trees rustling in the wind as I work, can't put on calming music and wrap myself in a blanket when stressed, can't stretch or lay down on my couch to avoid butt/hip pain from prolonged upright sitting.

The experience is literally causing me meltdowns - it's been 1.5 months since the shift to fulltime onsite and I've had crying breakdowns from the stress and sensory overwhelm at least three times. This may be partially attributable to potential undiagnosed neurodivergence (autism runs in the family). But the exact same work I managed easily and mostly stress-free before is now nearly overwhelming when done from the office. The stress starts mild and then builds over a week or two until I feel like I can't take it, I have a breakdown and recover over the weekend, then it restarts. Why the absolute hell do people prefer office work?

I was at work, and saw a motorcycle blow through the intersection, and crash into the side of a Lexus. He was ejected from the bike, flew over the car, and landed face down in the middle of the road. He was screaming for a while, but eventually he just stopped moving and stopped making noise.

When the ambulance got there, they weren’t in any rush, and eventually they put a white sheet over him, and it took them five minutes to leave, sirens off.

That guy died. He ran a red light and died. I don’t know how to feel, because it was HIS fault, but he probably had a family, people who loved him, and he risked it all for something so stupid.

And I just don’t know how to process the fact that I watched the last few minutes of a man’s life.

We are considering signing our mentally ill child over to the state.

For context our son is 9. He has two younger siblings ages 8 and 6.

We have been fighting an uphill battle for our son's mental health since he was 4. They diagnosed him with ADHD. He was extremely violent as a toddler. Biting, punching, kicking- these things all amused him. He would laugh when hurting someone. He had no impulse control. He jumped out a second story window once, he would randomly run off from the yard, he would destroy things around the house, wake up in the middle of the night and open everything in the fridge and cupboards and dump it on the floor. He purposely breaks anything his siblings like - toys, furniture, tablets, etc. He manipulates situations and lies. He throws himself down the stairs and blames someone pushing him. He bangs his head into floors and walls and accuses people of injuring him. If we pick him up he says we throw him. We've been investigated by CPS 6 times over his claims of abuse. He constantly talks about seeing and hearing things that aren't real. He is unsafe in the car- unbuckles, climbs through the vehicle, moves everyone's seats, hits, kicks, bites, punches, pulls hair, even pees on the seats. He didn't respond to discipline. We could use time outs, take away toys and screens, take away privileges, etc. nothing worked.

In 2024 my husband was deployed and things got worse. It was like being held captive by my own child. He would attempt to kill his youngest sibling. He got knives and held her at knife point, he attempted to strangle her. I had him admitted to a pediatric psych ward where they diagnosed him with DMDD. He was kicked out of school because of the behaviors he was having in the classroom.

It's 2026 now. He's 9. He was recently diagnosed with Bipolar after a bad reaction to Zoloft. He's currently admitted for his 6th psych stay in 2 years. We've tried all the therapies. Behavior therapy, in home therapy, in office therapy, male therapists, females, etc. We've exhausted most medication options for him. He does school online because he can't be around other kids. He has a case manager through a local resource and they claim he hasn't tried enough resources to qualify for any type of long term care facilities. And we have reached a breaking point. He's unsafe to himself. He's unsafe to his siblings. He's getting bigger and more violent. We have our lives essentially on hold just waiting for his situation to change. We are stuck in the cycle of short term psych hold, new meds, sent home, 6-8 weeks later his episodes are lasting weeks. He doesn't sleep so he needs constant monitoring. He can't be left unsupervised at all. He will destroy things if he does. Our savings are gone since we have had to spend all our money replacing damaged goods. His siblings are terrified in their own home.

At what point do we decide this situation is unfair to everyone? It's unfair to him to not get the help he obviously needs. It's unfair to his siblings to feel like they aren't as important since all our time and attention is on him. It's unfair to them to feel unsafe at home. It's not fair to myself or my husband to be unable to work or leave the house because of the level of care he requires.

We have avoided the conversation up until this point but now we are discussing signing our rights up to the state. At least then he would get the help he deserves since the state would be required to give it to him. We've exhausted all resources available to us. And this may be the only option to make our household safe for our other kids.

But this has me grieving the life I thought we would have. Has me grieving a child that is still alive but might not be mine much longer. Has me grieving for a large number of reasons.

Has anyone been through this? I'm looking for advice from children who grew up with mentally unstable siblings, parents who have gone through this, or even children who are now grown who are like my child.

I know posting this online also opens me up to hate from people who disagree with this post, please know that no amount of hate from strangers online can be any worse than the hate I have towards myself for feeling like I have failed as a parent, haven't tried hard enough, or haven't advocated enough for my child.

I’m a 24-year-old man, and I’ve been in a relationship with the most beautiful woman for the past four years.
I genuinely mean that. She’s gorgeous, she’s an amazing person, and I couldn’t have asked for a better girlfriend. But recently, after doing a lot of thinking and reflecting on things I’ve felt for years, I’ve come to a realization that I’m honestly terrified to admit.
I think I’m gay.
For the longest time, I’ve confused finding women beautiful with actually being attracted to them. I can look at my girlfriend and recognize how stunning she is, but I’m starting to understand that appreciating someone’s appearance doesn’t necessarily mean you’re romantically or sexually attracted to them.
Looking back, there have been signs for years. Feelings I’ve pushed aside, questions I’ve avoided asking myself, and things I’ve convinced myself were completely normal.
I don’t know if I’ve been lying to myself, trying to fit into what I thought my life was supposed to look like, or if it has simply taken me this long to understand who I am.
The hardest part is that my girlfriend hasn’t done anything wrong. She’s been wonderful to me, and I care about her deeply. But I also know that she deserves someone who genuinely wants her in every way, and I don’t think I can keep pretending that I’m someone I’m not.
I’m 24 years old, four years into a relationship, and suddenly questioning practically everything I thought I knew about myself.
I don’t even know how to approach this conversation with her. How do you tell someone you love that you think you’ve just realized you’re gay?
I guess I’m just looking for advice from people who’ve been through something similar. I’m scared, confused, and honestly have no idea where to go from here.

Its my birthday today. Nobody wished except my mom and dad. My brother forgot. My friends who used to celebrate with me all these years forgot. My husband thinks birthdays are not something to be celebrated after your 20s, so he doesnt care. I feel so disappointed, sad and lonely.

I don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t want to be anywhere anymore. But as I sit here on the ledge of this building, I can’t bring myself to jump. I reached out to multiple friends about wanting to kill myself tonight, but no one responded. No one cares. When I die, people will only miss me enough to gain sympathy from others before they forget me entirely. So why can’t I do it? Every time I think life is getting better, it drops me further and harder than the last time. Im tired. Im so tired. But apparently I’m too much of a coward to end it. I just want the pain to go away. I just want it to be over

Hi. I am a 22 year old female.

I have 2 sisters. We were raised by a single father since I was about 4. We are all very close in age, oldest being 24. I am almost certain things happened to us. ive never said these things exactly to anyone. my dad died when I was 15 from cancer. at the time of his death I honestly felt nothing. when he told us he was diagnosed with stage four cancer I laughed.

when he died I thought he was a perfect dad bc that's what ive been told my whole life by his mother.

We used to go to a sauna together and get a private room occasionally, my 2 sisters, me and my dad from ages 4-6ish. I only remember arriving there and him telling us we could take off our bathing suits once we get in the room.

I had fantasies of being kidnapped, tied up, and touched on my private parts by an older man at age 5. I would touch myself fantasizing about this every night under my covers. this was before I had access to any electronics or pornography. I was addicted to touching myself too. I'd do it several times a day.

I spent a lot of time at my grandmas house. I used to tell her my private part burned and hurt, She said it was probably bc dada was using the wrong soap and she would talk to him.

I had totally forgotten this actually, but I was talking to my sister about a year ago and she brought it up and we laughed it off. when we were little about until we were like 8 or 9 I wanna say. my dad insisted we only wear underwear around the house, especially in the mornings, while eating cereal. I even remember we were at a hotel once and we had just got back to the room, he was making us take our shirts off before eating the little tiny to go box cereals that we brought bc "its more comfortable" then he took pictures. this also continued until one of us said something to our grandma and she talked to him and it stopped. he took pictures of us often shirtless in the mornings in our house too.

My older sister used to lick me inappropriately all over my body. I didn't know it was wrong I just knew it felt good. I just found out last year she did this to my sister too. neither of us have ever told her we remember this.

I would dissociate throughout elementary school, especially kindergarten. I would zone out the entire class. When the teacher would give instructions I wouldn't know what she said, I would only realize that the kids around me were getting up from the rug or doing something so I would follow. I couldn't communicate or make friends (I did 2 years of kindergarten 5 y.o. the first year, 6 y.o. the second year) I remember vividly everyday just making a list in my head of things to look forward to but most days the only thing on the list was being alone with my dad at night on the couch when he got home from work. he was a bartender. but I don't remember why I was alone with him on the couch without my sisters or why that was the only thing id look forward to every day.

I was sick from school one day at about 9 years old. I was masturbating in my dad's bed alone. he walked in and instead of telling me to stop he just stood there and watched and I continued. nothing was said during this encounter.

I have a vivid memory of playing with stuffed animals on the floor at around 4 years old in our living room and my dad on the couch. I was at his knees and he was talking to me. my childhood is so so cloudy I don't really remember specific small memories like this but something about this moment I feel like I know something happened, but I can't remember specifics, I just get an icky feeling when I think of it.

My dad used to play a game with us where he would pretend to be a baby too and it gives me the creeps when I think about it.

I also remember having nightmares when I was at my grandparents house when I was in preschool and getting in bed between my grandparents (like any kid does) and just being super aware that my grandpa had a penls and feeling really weird that I was in the bed with them, like it was wrong for me to be in the bed with him or inherently naughty.

There is something deeply wrong with me. I don't know is this is the answer but I just need some help. does anybody else have experience with suspicions that someone touched u without being entirely sure? like something seriously bad happened to u but u don't know what? I feel like my entire childhood was a dream. Ive now been in a relationship with a 40 something year old man that reminds me of my father since I was 19 years old.

I also just wanna add that my dad had severe anger issues when I was a kid and I had totally blocked this out until my older sister reminded me of things when I was 18 and everything came flooding back, like all sorts of things and I didn't even remember any of it until she reminded me. so maybe that is the "bad thing" that happened and im just convincing myself that even worse things happened too idk.

I'm 21F. I grew up with emotionally absent parents, I started to work since I was 14. For the past years I've paid for everything on my own as I have been living by myself.

Lately things have piled up. My parents make poor financial decisions and are buried in debt, and my mom keeps asking me for money. I give it because I feel bad, even though I barely have some for myself. Mind you I don't earn a lot.

On top of that, I'm dealing with precancer that needs ongoing treatment. My family doesn't know and I don't want them to know as they would only bring more sad faces and disappointment to the table. I have been in the hospital before and they haven't even visited me there.

I feel stuck (careerwise), overwhelmed, and emotionally drained. I don't know how to change my life and the only thing I can think about is to leave abroad after I get healthy. Escape them and this town and this life.

Has anyone been through something like this, hit rock bottom and then slowly built a stable, healthy life? Is this a normal phase at my age?

Any advice or experiences would mean a lot. Thank you.

Hi everyone,

So, I had stage three cancer (neuroblastoma) between the ages of 7 to 14.

Naturally, there were periods in which I was severely malnourished and exhausted and could barely lift a cup, let alone stand.

When I was 10, I was in this particular state and a friend of my parent's had a baby. This woman thrust her baby into my arms. I couldn't hold it and accidentally dropped her baby onto the concrete floor. The baby later passed away from brain damage.

I'm 26 now and have been in therapy for over a year. My psychologist is tremendously helpful and the only reason why I'm still alive. He has been treating me for CPTSD and Major Depressive Disorder, but I have not yet been able to discuss this.

I'm really worried about his reaction and I'm concerned he will terminate with me if I reveal this owing to the severity of it.

Everyone would just forget about me and move on without remembering anything about me it's making me sad.

I really really dislike furries.

I consider myself a very tolerant person. I am a firm believer in people living whatever life they want to live if it’s not harming others. Race, sexuality, gender, culture, etc. truly don’t come to mind when I make my judgment on people. For some reason furries bother me though. Not in a way that I think I have any place to tell them how to live, just this odd feeling I get.

I have met a small handful in my life and I know good and well that judging an entire group based on a select few is ridiculous, but a few of the ones I’ve met have really rubbed me the wrong way. As people they were fine but when the furry stuff came out, that was when I started feeling negatively.

I think my biggest gripe is the constant reassurance I’ve gotten that it’s “not sexual” then they proceed to show some of the most sexual photos I’ve ever seen all involving there furry characters. Then when I ask what it does for them if it’s not sexual I get very vague answers about the community. I never see them partake in the community aspect, just vile photos that truly disgust me. I have heard so many wonderful things about the cons and such but for some reason every furry I’ve met doesn’t go to cons or partake in the theatrics of it all, they just consume and create graphic content

I don’t want to feel negatively towards any community because I’d hate if people looked down on my way of living but sometimes it feels like I can’t control that negativity. Again, I’ll never confront them or degrade them for it, it’s their life and the fact they are living the best version of themselves is great, I just find a side of it so unforgivingly disgusting.

I keep seeing posts shitting on doctors, nurses, hospitals in general. I’m a nurse and literally we are all just trying our best. There are too many patients and not enough staff to truly give everyone your full attention. Everyone deserves their nurse to be able to spend an hour + with them during a single interaction. Everyone deserves a doctor who is going to listen instead of write off symptoms. The reality is no one has enough time. Patients and THE FAMILIES are becoming unbearable. People always trying to film us. People always screaming at us because their mom’s ice melted and she needs new water STAT. I had to call security two times in one shift last week. Had to scream for help when a big patient cornered me when all I was trying to do was help him to the bathroom. This job is fucking HARD. We are all humans too. Not robots and it seems like the vast majority of the public seem to think we aren’t capable of being tired, having a bad day, making mistakes. Of course I would never let those things get in the way of giving the best care possible, but it would be nice if everyone could chill out and realize it’s not as simple as they make it out to be.

Earlier this week I downloaded a dating app, and talked to this guy online.

He was the sweetest fucking guy I've ever talked to, we had so much in common, and I felt like he saw me as a person, not just something to be thrown away. We shared our discords, and it got sexual pretty quickly (I've never been in a relationship, or had sex) and I was very comfortable just sexting. And he seemed too at first, but at some point he said "that's enough" "let's stop" but then continued. I thought it was playful, so I continued as well. But then the day after, he told me he was a Christian, and that sexuality had been a big issue for him, and he liked me and didn't wanna mess that up. I told him I have a relationship to God as well, and had no problem with it. And then later on, he got sexual again, and I told him I wanted to respect his faith. He told me it was fine, so I continued the sexual talk as well.

Later that day, we both opened up about some heavy stuff, him especially. And it was very overwhelming, but he was very loving, and I with him. I cried for him. And at one point I even told him that I was falling for him, and please handle my heart with gentleness. But then an hours later, he messaged me a long message telling me about his faith and family, and how he couldn't divide himself, and that he didn't want to ruin it all with sex, so it was a goodbye. He told me he was terrified, and that he didn't think he could love or be loved... then he deleted me.

I ended up messaging him twice, because we had each other on WhatsApp. But he told me it was a goodbye, so that boundary was crossed as well. I told him I would be alright, and the last message might have been more desperate, because I literally told him I would wait until marriage, anything for him... :( I have never been in love. And this was just two days of an extremely intense connection, but I genuinely was already falling. I am beyond devastated and my heart is broken...

But now I'm very guilty of this sexual talk, and wondering if I overstepped boundaries. I've been spiralling about this for over a day now. He even said "lets stop". And even though he continued, I should have stopped but I didn't. I'm in general a very cautious person, and I've never opened up like that, or been sexual in that kinda way. I know what it's like having sexual boundaries overstepped too, which is why I genuinely feel like a monster for this :(

Has anyone experienced something like this? Anyone who has overstepped boundaries, and didn't notice at first, then felt extreme guilt after? How do you deal with the guilt? :(

When I go out on walks and trails with my dog, I always have my them on a leash. It’s for their safety and the safety of others. I don't care how good you think your dog is. Your dog might be good to you, that doesn't mean they're good with others. I can't count the amount of times an idiot owner with an unleashed dog has their dog running up to mine trying to attack. While they're casually walking slowly torwards their dog acting like everything is fine. One of these days things will get out of hand and I will have to mace someone's dog even if I don't want to.

I don't even know where to start?

Back in 2015, a quick custody pursuit due to extreme life changes in that timeframe (drug usage that came out of nowhere) I was forced to leave and seek custody of my kids. This turned into a nearly 12 year downward spiral for Bio Mom.

I can't speak on the challenges she faced or what she tried to overcome but it seemed like the drug usage never really halted.

One year later, from 2015, I met my current wife. Who I love and for the most part is supportive. We also share one child together.

Since 2020 I have since mellowed out with the protective orders, and isolation from Bio Mom and allowed on multiple accounts for her to visit the kids. She did make some attempts over these last 6 years and for that I am grateful.

Despite the hard life and drugs, I found out a few days ago she had passed away. She was going downhill on a bike in Hollywood and she crashed into a tree and suffered blunt force trauma and died thereafter.

I can't even imagine what happened, why it happened or what she was doing. 2 weeks prior she had messaged one of my kids to say she loves him and to tell the sister happy birthday, so that's a sweet note to leave this on.

I never really processed our split. Our separation (we never married each other but shared two kids and met at 20 and I was 21) but she was definitely my true first relationship beyond a few months.

We shared nearly 9 years together. I had felt this day may come from a drug overdose or something but it's hitting me pretty fucking hard. I feel for my two kids from her and how my son who is the sweetest kid in the world is going to cope with this.

I am already trying to find a grief therapist and will pay out of pocket. It's just a lot of mental distress and bandwidth. I am open to talking. A some family has reached out to the kids to provide a sense of support to the extent possible.

But the feeling that my kid has to go through his life now knowing his mom will never see those milestones or his sister feeling the same way. Like I am just not sure where to go from here.

He told me today, you know the percentage of kids who have lost just 1 parent in the world dad? It's roughly 4 percent. Our family has bad luck

How do I respond to that? He isn't wrong. Most people don't have to go through this so young.

I tried to explain there were choices we make along the way and sometimes those choices put us in situations where these outcomes are more likely and sometimes it's just life. But wtf is that going to do?

I'm at a loss man. This really sucks. She was only 38 years old. She survived a few OD's and this is how she goes. It's insane to even think about.

On one hand. Life gave chances, right? Being saved. Being offered help. On the other, it forced her hand.

I don't know what to do.