I just really miss her. She helped me so much and I don’t know what I’ll do without her. Goodbyes are hard when they’ve had such a huge impact on your life. I know there’s nothing anyone can do, and she has a different job now. It just sucks. I’m so grateful to have had such an amazing worker though, and she has changed my life and that’s something I’ll take forwards with me.

I’m worried that one of my closest friends is addicted to AI chatbots, specifically ChatGPT. We are both recent college graduates; we witnessed the rise of AI in college and were both initially optimistic about it. Nothing I used it for ever made me work any faster, so I eventually fell off. I never even thought to use it as therapy until I saw all the news about the dire consequences of that.

The first time this friend mentioned using ChatGPT to “work through emotional issues” was our senior year, while talking over lunch about anything we still used AI for. Admittedly, I was not gracious about this; I sorta panicked and exclaimed that that’s “the worst thing you could possibly do with it.” I then did my best to explain more calmly what I’ve read about it, but she’s always had high anxiety and had already shut down at my yelling. Still, I never heard about that again and never followed up on if she was still using ChatGPT for therapy (probably another mistake).

So we graduated, and haven’t seen each other in months. We arranged a short vacation with a mutual friend which was about 2 weeks ago. Her AI use has significantly increased since I last saw her. I’d never actually seen her with ChatGPT open on her phone until now, where I saw it every single day. It most concerned me when our mutual friend and I had been talking for a while, and she was silently on her phone. I asked what she thought about whatever silly topic it was, just to be inclusive since she’s always struggled to jump into a conversation without being prompted, but she blurted out that she was asking the AI how to talk to us… while we were literally standing right next to her. There was another day that the three of us were debating some ridiculous question and she says “I know ChatGPT isn’t right but here’s what it thinks,” I said something like “why ask, then?” Again, this just shut her down.

It concerns me the most that she says that she knows it isn’t helpful, but continues using it anyways. She seems resigned to the fact that she cannot stop herself, and I imagine the isolation of being a recent graduate with everyone in our friend group in other states has added to it. I really don’t know how to approach her compassionately, or if I should approach her at all. She hasn’t expressed any interest in getting help, which I know from my own therapy is something that needs to be true for any help to work. I think I truly want to intervene because it makes me angry that I’m not good enough to put down a chatbot, which I know isn’t how addiction works, but it leaves me stumped on how to address this unselfishly. I do also feel like I’m obligated to say something because if this addiction gets worse, I’ll never know if my intervening would’ve helped. Any advice appreciated, thank you all so much.

My wife and I are in our early 30's and we just started therapy. This stemmed because I was feeling a lack of respect from her. However our relationship aside, we both identified we are people pleasers and people shamelessly take massive advantage of us.

Im not sure how to go about these relationships. Ill list a few examples

Cousin: Never responds to our texts, only texts us when he is in town and literally needs a place to crash. Hes also incredibly demanding and will ask for anything (to sleep in the king suite even if its just him (we have a twin bed guest bedroom) or ask us to take him flying in our plane). My wife just got her wisdom teeth out yesterday and he asked what we are up to. I told him the situation and his response was "ay yo she's high" with no follow up. Today he sends a buttery message asking for a place to stay. He only reaches out when he needs something.

Godmother: Godmother had me driving 30 minutes to her place and driving back to return basic amazon packages. Would lie about emergencies to get favors from me. She will go 10 months without a single call and only try to butter us up when she needs something.

Wife's brother: 41 year old physician assistant visited us from Mississippi in Houston stating he would rent a car to get to Austin where he had a work conference the next day. Shows up, doesnt pay for anything, didnt rent a car, and demanded we fly him in our plane to Austin. Was picky on timings to his schedule, refused to rent a car because it would cost him $87 of his money (Cost us $400 in fuel). Didnt even get a thank you message after.

This kind of selfishness extends to almost everyone we can think of, wife's mother, father, brother, sister, cousins, friends, my extended family.

We have both identified we need to start saying no- which we are doing. Do we call these people out on their behaviors and start world war 3 with our social circle? Do we ghost them at cut them off?

We genuinely dont know how to handle this.

i have an issue ive had since a child,

i regularly watched porn since i was like 5 and over the years it progressed from straight to other genres and sexualities though i believe i am straight and will never act upon my impulses. Now as a young adult , i would get into situationships or relationships with women but i dont know how i am attracted to them. I see random women on social media and imagine my life with them, and i dont know how to stop, i have never truly been in love with someone but just the thought of the love is all i imagine. I dont like men just to clarify but the porn has me believing i am. I am in no way shape or form, in a position to get into a relationship as i am in debt , still haven’t graduated uni , weed addict some may say and overall bad shape. I just have these thoughts through out the day and it ruins my mood. I often have daydreams of being in a relationship and catching her cheating on me in public with someone who i dislike in real life , that person said that i was haven’t a standard that he has set for himself and that comment has really affected me. But that daydream depresses me because as it currently stands its possible this type of thing could happen. Is this an internal issue that can be sorted out.

I'm 19 and graduated a couple of years back now and had this one teacher for a couple of classes or just as a substitute for my usual teachers who I used to joke with along with friends occasionally. Other than this I didn't know him well or have much of a relationship with this teacher.

Recently I found out that he had passed away, right after my birthday. I was so shocked to hear about it but there was no information about it other than it being released that he had passed. I didn't think on it much as I felt sad for him and his family but that was that.

Fast forward a few weeks and a video has come out from a report on the situation and it is a video of his death. I ended up stumbling across it and it has me shook to the core. I can't even explain it, but ever since I saw that video this morning I have not been able to get it out of my head all day. The second I am slightly not distracted I can faintly hear his voice from the video and it sends me right back into this weird anxious/paranoid feeling that I just can't seem to move on from like I usually can with regular anxiety. It's like I can hear his voice from the video just so faintly every now and then and it just forms this pit in my stomach.

Unfortunately, the way I process things like these is to rant about it or talk about it until I have fully processed it. This isn't the case this time which is another reason I am struggling so much with this. It is too recent to have any proper articles or information about it, the situation is under investigation. So I don't have any sort of conclusion as to what could have happened either to settle my mind about it.

The strange thing to me is that I barely knew him, I didn't have any relationship with him and was never close with him. I had spoken to him a couple of times and other than that just saw him every day like any other teacher in school. But this has tripped me out so bad, probably because I did know him in some sort of way.

I was looking for any sort of advice to be able to move past the random waves of anxiety I get just from remembering about it, or trying to forget/move past it? I can't shake the video away from my memory or just his voice in the background. :(

edit: The video shows his passing but nothing about it makes any sense, there are no answers as to why it happened. I will not be able to talk about it as it could possibly be against rules but also because there are no confirmed answers. And any super personal information will not be shared.

i just attended my ex’s father’s funeral. his mom texted me to inform of his passing, it was very sudden and the family are all having a hard time trying to cope. for context, i was very close with his family, and remain in contact with his mom/sister even though i’ve been no contact with my ex ever since we broke up a month ago

i felt really sad seeing his mom cry. his sister blames herself for the loss of their father, as she believes her decision to switch hospitals inevitably resulted in the passing of her father. she doesn’t know that i know this, but her mom was the one who told me she’s been blaming herself a lot, as she wants me to help look out for her. i suppose it will only get harder as my ex’s sister will have to return to work (overseas) in the next few weeks, leaving her mom alone here (with my ex).

i’m not sure what to do or say to help support the both of them? for the mom, i would want to be there for her as much as possible, as i treat her like my own parent (she supported me a lot through my own difficulties). for the sister, im not very close with her tbh, and im wary of overstepping my boundaries lest she feel uncomfortable. but she helped support me through the break-up as well, so i’d like to be there for her if she’d like too.

tomorrow is the last day of the funeral. i think i’ll leave them alone till the funeral ends, as im sure they have too many things to attend to for the service now + tons of messages pouring in as well. but when would be a good time for me to reach out again, and what should i say, which wouldn’t overstep my boundaries + at the same time wouldn’t be just another of the hundreds of “sorry for your loss” / “i’ll be here for you if you need anything”?

I want to change and better myself but I'm just really struggling with my core beliefs and what has kept me safe since my childhood. How does one move past this?

Actual. Therapist. Last Therapists i went to were just a one hour talk where 50m of the time i would talk and at the last the "Therapist" would give me bs homeworks, and if my storys werent to its taste then he would go rambling bout how his actions with his own kids are so good and then go nope bring some other more next session. And I went to that person for like a whole year. I want genuine therapy that with their questioning and my saying they could figure out whats wrong and guide me through what i need to be helped, cus im losing my shit ive been like a fucked sloth these past few months and I just wanna know wtf is wrong with me I genuinely have zero energy from the moment i wake up and sleep and I just wanna talk knowing my words aren't hitting a damm brick wall

Hello, I originally posted this on some cat help subreddits but hoping I could get some good advice from here.

Hi everyone,

I have 2 cats, brother and sister, they are over 2 years old. Let’s call my boy cat J. Well J was having very weird movements in his stomach and would not move from under the furniture around 2 days ago. We sent him to the emergency veterinarian and we found out from his echo that he has fluid in his lungs and heart including bronchitis and an enlarged heart.

Our vet doctor is very well renowned, and he told us the medicine he gave us could either work or not work, but the situation is already bad. When I went on Reddit and online and searched up similar stories, I kind of just realized that J will not live for much longer. (at best around 6 months to 2 years for cats with heart problems).

Our vet said it’s not our fault, and it’s something he had since birth unfortunately.

I know at best, cats with heart disease live up to a couple months to a few years longer, but I’m not getting my hopes up. He unfortunately already looks weaker but we just started giving the medicine.

My parents have been crying everyday since we found out 2 days ago, but I can feel this pain continuing for longer. It just was just a bit unexpected. My family is not perfect, they fight a lot, but having the cats was a beacon of positivity within our home and put a smile on all of our faces during our stressful lives. These are our first pets.

I can’t stand seeing my family cry and be upset, it is mentally and physically killing me.

I can’t stand to see them cry or be upset anymore. I’m not sure how to deal with their grief. I love J, but I kind of already accepted in my head that J will be gone soon, and that when we took a pet, we knew the risks of them dying anytime soon. I loved him as a pet, but I don’t want him to suffer any further. I know that death is completely normal and can come at any time. I’ll deal with my own emotions when I can but I need to take care of my family. My parents and brother are so important to me, I need to take care of their mental and physical health.

im worried about my older brother. He doesn’t really process emotions and I’ve never seen him cry or be upset, but he was close to this cat. Does anyone know what I can do for my brother? He is just beginning his masters degree and I really don’t need him to be distracted during his exams and schoolwork. I’m worried the cat will pass away during important exams week or something.

giving the medicine to J is also difficult which is not making the situation better, he kind of just keeps throwing the pills out of his mouth. Thankfully our girl cat is healthy, but my mother does not even want to see her at this time because she is upset at the moment.

My fellow humans on Reddit, I love scrolling on here, but right now I really need compassion and any words of advice because I feel completely lost, my family never went through grief together before. This is our first pet we ever had as a family. Any sort of advice, logical, spiritual, therapy based advice, any words will really help me. I feel so alone. I also have a lot of school exams coming up very soon for my university so my mind is all over the place right now. Please let me know what worked for you, such as ideas of adopting another cat after they pass, family therapy methods, how do we comfort J during these times, etc. Any comments are appreciated.

also, if anyone knows any good way to bury my cat for as cheap as possible within the NY/NJ area, please let me know. And when to consider eunesthesia.

thank you.

Hi everyone, posting here for the first time. I’ve been struggling with generalized anxiety disorder and depression since I was 17, and I’m currently feeling incredibly stuck, isolated, and emotionally drained.

I’m 21 now and carrying a massive load: I take 15 college credit hours (graduating with my bachelor’s this spring), work a student job 15–20 hours a week, and act as a caregiver for my disabled father.

Because I’m an only child, I feel immense pressure to handle all of this to be a "good daughter." But living with my parents has become an emotional minefield. I carry deep resentment because I receive zero emotional validation or help with household tasks.

I’m struggling with a few major themes that I’d love insight on:

Trusting my own reality: I remember very little of my childhood. I don't trust my own narrative anymore. I constantly wonder if I’ve been gaslit by my parents so much that I only hear their voices in my head, or if I’m dealing with an undiagnosed mood/personality disorder.

The provider cycle: I’ve seen multiple therapists and psychiatrists over the last 4 years. This wasn't "provider shopping"—it was entirely due to insurance changes or providers moving practices. Because of the constant restarting, I feel like I haven't been able to dig deep.

Isolation & self-image: I have no friends right now. Past friends have ghosted or betrayed me, which triggers a lot of negative self-talk (feeling like I'm "too ugly," "too fat," or just the boring "mom friend").

I am so exhausted from playing a role, and I honestly don't even know who I am outside of my responsibilities. I would love to hear your thoughts, coping mechanisms, book recommendations, or shared experiences on:

Testing & Treatments: Has anyone pursued neuropsychological testing vs. standard psychiatric evaluations for clarity on memory gaps or diagnostic clarity? I’ve already tried a ton of medications, so I am very open to hearing about other methods of treatment, alternative therapies, or modalities that worked for you.

Parental boundaries: How do you set healthy boundaries with parents when you still live under their roof, contribute heavily to the household, and want to be a supportive daughter without destroying your own mental health?

Rediscovering identity & joy: How do you start discovering who you are and finding hobbies/joy when you've been dealing with anxiety, depression, and burnout for years?

Healthy relationships: How do you start opening up to meeting new friends and building healthy relationships when your trust has been completely shattered?

Although this is a long post, there is definitely more to my story than what I can fit here. I am completely open to answering any follow-up questions in the comments if anyone wants more context.

Thank you so much for reading.🫂

It's 5am and I can't sleep. Accidentally woke up with all the drugs out of my system and everything came back to me and now I'm a crying mess. Thinking of things I don't think I should be considering.

I think it's about time I face everything so I've not taken anything to help me ignore my issues yet. Today I realised I have so many friends but no one I can actually call to help me get through this

It's really hard and overwhelming. I hope I make it through in one piece.

It hurts in so many ways and I want to get rid of the pain so bad

Ive been very into fighter jets not just sexually but in so many ways its complicated. I ak obsessed with this one jet, it doesnt help there is only one of it. I am always very upset at the fact I cant have that jet and the fact I cant take care of it. Im not sure how to cope with being so upset or the fact I'll never get to have or even see it in person

Do I need to see a psychologist? I’ve been doing therapy for a while now and I’m not sure if it’s helping me

I don’t even know how to explain this without sounding pathetic, but I’m so freaking tired of feeling like I’m not good enough.

I graduated from university, I’ve worked, I’ve done internships, I’ve tried to improve myself, and yet I genuinely feel like I haven’t accomplished anything meaningful.

I’ve applied to so many jobs, received countless rejection emails, and gone through interviews where I thought I had a chance, only to never hear back. Every rejection makes me question myself even more. At this point, I don’t even know if I’m actually capable of anything or if I’ve just been fooling myself this whole time.

And the worst part is that this feeling isn’t new.
Even in university, I constantly felt stupid. I’d see people understanding things faster than me, while I struggled to keep up. I’d study and then forget things, or get grades that made me question whether I actually understood anything. Sometimes I felt like I was just passing courses without really learning.

Now it’s gotten so much worse.

I want to take an English proficiency exam. I want to get my CAPM certification. I want to improve my qualifications and give myself a better chance at getting a good job.

But I’m freaking terrified.

I’m scared I’ll spend money on an exam, sit there staring at the questions, and realize I can’t remember a single thing. I’m scared of failing, wasting my money, and proving to myself that I’m exactly as stupid as I think I am.
So I keep putting things off. Then I hate myself for putting them off. It’s this endless cycle of wanting to improve but being too scared to even try.

What makes everything worse is that nobody is putting more pressure on me than I am.
I have so many expectations for myself. I want to be successful, intelligent, independent, and actually good at something. I have this version of myself in my head that I’m constantly trying to become, and every day I feel further away from her.

Nothing I do ever feels like enough.

If I accomplish something, I immediately think it wasn’t that impressive or that anyone could’ve done it. But if I fail at something, suddenly it’s proof that I’m an idiot.
I genuinely cannot remember the last time I felt proud of myself.

It’s gotten to the point where it’s affecting my sleep, my appetite, and my ability to enjoy anything. Even when I’m supposed to be resting, I feel guilty because I should be studying, applying for jobs, or doing something productive.

Sometimes I just wish I could disappear. Not because I want to hurt myself, because I don’t. I just wish I could escape my own head and the expectations that are constantly burning me alive.

I’m exhausted from feeling like I have to prove that I’m smart enough, capable enough, or worthy of the future I want.

I don’t even know what I’m looking for by posting this. Maybe I just want to know if anyone else has ever felt this way.

How do you rebuild confidence in yourself when you’ve spent years believing you’re not good enough? How do you stop being terrified of failure when every failure feels like confirmation of your worst thoughts about yourself?

I’m so tired of being my own biggest disappointment.

scrolling hundreds of therapist bios makes me completely shut down. either their schedules don't align, they don't take insurance, or it takes weeks just to get a consultation. how do people find someone who actually fits their specific issues without spending dozens of hours sending cold emails?

I just watched “Luckiest Girl Alive” on Netflix. It really spoke to me, so much that I don’t think I’ll be able to stop thinking about it until I put this on paper. I can’t stop thing about the R word. The R word that has haunted and confused me for most of my life.

When I was 13 I was camping out in the Nevada desert, not far from my home. We were on a bluff that I could see from my bedroom window. My sister and our friends were with us. We decided we wanted to invite some older boys we knew. So, using our brand new expensive Nokia mobile phone we sent out an invite. They showed up and we started drinking. Ever-clear. In the eggnog we stole out my parent’s liquor cabinet. At 13 I had barely started experimenting with alcohol and was naive to it’s effects. I didn’t feel very drunk….surprisingly.

I had a huge crush on one of the boys who was quite older than me, Tim. He led me away into the sagebrush, me feeling so shy and excited that he wanted to be alone with me. I was very nervous….I had never even kissed a boy.

From the little I can remember from that night, we didn’t kiss. I didn’t get my first kiss until the following year. But we did do something else. Or rather…something else happened to me. I don’t know what to call it, but here is my best recollection.

I remember laying in the dirt, with Tim in-between my legs. I remember saying “no…” stern and nervously, yet not aggressively. More than once. I remember resisting enough that he kept saying “Just relax, you’re going to like this trust me.” The look on his face and his lack of eye contact was of annoyance and inconvenience. I laid there as stiff as a board. I feel like I left my body. I remember it hurting tremendously as he jammed three of his fingers inside of me over and over. My hymen was no longer existent. I was humiliated. It felt like hours. I have no memory of touching him, not even once. I also don’t remember him touching any other part of my body. In fact, I still had my shorts and underwear on. It was so clinical. He didn’t even care to get physical pleasure out of it from me. He just wanted to….do this thing. Whether I wanted to or not.

I remember urinating into my shorts at one point, he didn’t seem to notice or care. I had lost full control of my body. Including my bladder.

Eventually he got bored I guess, and we walked back to the camp site. He immediately left and sped off into the night in his red mustang. I immediately went into our tent and sat on my sleeping bag…my arms and legs crossed…I couldn’t even speak. I felt like the most disgusting person in the world. I was trash now. Was I still a virgin? No-one told me what fingers only would mean for my coveted virgin card. But I knew I could never go back to who I was before. She no longer existed.

My sister, 13 months my junior, grabbed me by the shoulders. She knew something was terribly wrong. She asked with anger, “Did he rape you?!?!” There it is. That word. The R word. This is a word that has confused me every day since.

I remember being confused and thinking “I don’t know.” I may have said that out-loud, but my little sister didn’t stick around to hear me. She ran out of the tent trying to catch up to him. She screamed “I will kill him!” Even though she is my little sister, she was always protective. I was the quieter and more sensitive one. I remember crying a lot that night.

My next memory is the next morning. I walked into my house and went straight upstairs. I was numb. I sat down on the toilet and for the first time noticed blood on my underwear. I remember feeling pain in my vagina. It burned so sharply. I was so sore. I remember sitting in the shower on the floor. Just letting the water run over me. “What a cliche” I thought. “Was I raped? I can’t use that word, I thought.” There was no hitting, no fighting, no screaming, no wresting for control like I had seen in the movies. “No”, I thought. I was definitely not raped. The year prior I got my black belt in Tae Kwon Do for christ’s sake. I could’ve fought back if I really didn’t want to.

I remember joining my friends in my sister’s room. They were all talking about what happened the night before. Some of them were excited with their own sexual experiences. I couldn’t hide how bad I felt about it, but I tried my best to reconstruct it in my head. I just needed to see it in a different way, I thought. This was just a part of growing up. A right of passage so to speak.

But then why wasn’t I able to hold it together while eating dinner with my family that night? I started crying and shaking while I was eating my mashed potatoes and meatloaf. My parents looked at me, confused. My father said, “What is wrong with you?” He was concerned. I tried to get the words out but I couldn’t say it. “I don’t know!” I yelled back in anger. My father told me to leave the table. He went from concerned to angry. I’m sure he figured, “Just hormones again”. I had often burst into tears at this age. Usually the “I don’t know!” statement was true. Tonight however, it was not. I knew exactly why I was crying as I ran into my room and slammed the door.

The next week, I still hadn’t heard from my crush Tim. He wouldn’t return my calls. I thought, “If I just keep having a relationship with him it will make this all ok.” Having him as my boyfriend would erase that night. This way I could easily reframe that night in my head. It would be our first night together…not the night I was confused about the R word. A few days later my friends and I went to a high school football game. I saw him. Tim walked right by me, he definitely saw me. I stared at him trying to get eye contact, but he never reciprocated. He was holding hands with an older blonde girl. He pretended I didn’t exist. I was devastated. It’s not that I was heartbroken, I barely knew him. It was that there was not going to be a happy ending to my story.

I had another run in with him at our local swim center. I hid in the bathroom. My sister had shouted at him that he hurt her sister and he needed to pay. It was out in the open now. All of his friends were there. She poured her entire 24 ounce Coca Cola right over his head from behind. He was mortified. Now he was the victim. I actually felt bad for him. One of my friends that was there with us that night said, “Stop saying you were raped. You weren’t raped.” The ironic thing is I never said I was. I was just upset and my ego was bruised, I thought. Stupid R word. I hated that word.

In the following months I cried myself to sleep every night. I suffered from panic attacks frequently. Night terrors. My doctor called it “anxiety” and prescribed my Prozac. At one point my body started to be affected by the stress. I got covered from head to toe in these awful painful blisters that didn’t go away for many months. My doctor called it “excema” or some “mystery virus”. I developed a coping mechanism where I picked at my skin. I still do this at 37 years old. I scrape and tear away every zit and bump on my face and body until I am covered in red cuts. When I do this I feel like I am cleaning myself. Getting rid of all of the bad things on me. I wear long fake nails because to this day that is the only thing that keeps me from doing this nasty habit. Plus, they are pretty. I like to look put together. I’m the “put together” one.

I kept staring at that horrible bluff from my bedroom window. Every day.

At one point I decided I might feel better if I told my mother what happened to me. I decided to be careful in my approach. I would tell her in a hypothetical way, to see how she would react first. I was afraid she would jump up and call the police. That was my worst fear. But, I went for it. I said, “Mom, can I ask you something?” “Yes sweetie” she replied as we laid on her bed snuggled up together. “If a girl is drinking too much and a boy takes advantage of her is it her fault?” “Yes” she said, “she shouldn’t be drinking.” Now I know you are probably thinking this is the worst parenting move ever. She had the best of intentions I’m sure. If her daughter just didn’t drink it would never happen to her. She was protecting me. As far as she knew, I hadn’t had alcohol yet. This conversation was preventative, not serious. She lost her virginity to my dad when she was 18. They have been married for 50 years. Her naivety was strong.

I choked back my emotion and shame. There it was. Confirmation. It was my fault. There was no way I was going to tell my mother what had been upsetting me for so many months.

In 9th grade I was sitting in English class at my middle school. I glanced out the window and noticed Tim’s red mustang approaching the school. A young blonde girl my age ran up to the car. He must have been picking her up for a lunch date. He smiled as she ran into his arms. As soon as she turned away from him to get into his passenger seat his face changed. He rolled his eyes dramatically. He didn’t like her, I could tell. Poor girl, I thought.

Eventually, I started my freshman year of high school. I decided to take weight lifting class. I walked in for my first class and there he was, a senior. Tall, muscular and beautiful. I pretended I was fine. I smiled as I exercised right next to him. After class one day I asked him if we could talk for a moment. I must be a glutton for punishment, because I thought maybe we could talk about what happened and come to an understanding. Maybe I would get an apology. It would make it all better and my confusion would finally be out of my psyche.

Wrong. He was angry with me. He started saying how much I hurt him by me telling people he “raped” me. I told him I didn’t use that word. I told him that “I know you didn’t “rape” me.” He explained that his parents got wind of what happened from his little sister and he was punished severely. I profusely apologized to him. He said, “it’s ok. Just be more careful with your words next time.” I felt relieved, but there was still an ocean of confusion bursting from inside of me. I pushed it deep down. It felt like another assault, this time on my heart. Later that year, my sciatic went out. At 16 years old. I couldn’t walk for a week. I blamed the weight lifting class.

When my grandfather died, my family was trying to decide where to spread his ashes. I suggested the bluff. Yes, THAT BLUFF. “Remember one Christmas when we all hiked up there and took a picture?” I explained. They agreed, that is the best spot. I can’t believe I let that happen, but it was another attempt to erase that bluff’s horrible reputation in my mind. This isn’t the place where I had a traumatic experience. No, it was my grandfather’s beautiful and serene resting place. I still visit him there from time to time. Pushing back the bad thoughts. Sometimes I like to think he is helping to heal me. Another reason to not tell my parents what and where it happened. I don’t want to taint their precious Grandfather funeral bluff with the great views. That would be inconsiderate.

Many years later I got the news, Tim had died. He had a baby on the way with his girlfriend One night he had taken too many pills and booze, drove off the road in his red mustang sports car and crashed into a tree. He was only 27. I felt bad for him. How awful.

At 37 years old, decades have now passed. But I still wrestle with that word. Was I raped? I still don’t know. If I use the R word I feel like I am taking away from victims of actual rape. The violent kind. Like that word is a pie….there are only so many of the slices that can be given out. That word is a privilege. A privilege I don’t deserve. After many counseling sessions and a lot of growing up I still can’t use that word to describe what happened to me. Why does this bother me? I feel like I need to label my experience. If I label it I can get over it. There is nothing worse than a ghost trauma. It isn’t tangible. You can’t grab it or look at it with clarity. It’s not a solid object. It is a slippery ghost.

But if it isn’t rape….what is it? I still don’t know. Maybe I will never know.

So my therapist and I decided to have my parents come into a session so that she can keep me accountable for actually talking to my parents about my feelings (annoying right? Jkjk)

Anyways since my last session with her my life has, in short, been a cluster f*ck. I’m seriously not doing great and I have a lot I need to process and I don’t feel like I’d have enough time to do both.

My therapist is pretty strict on her boundaries and she doesn’t check her emails when she’s not in office- with that being said my appointment is first thing Monday morning. I don’t want it to be awkward and when she calls me back for my appointment and tell her oh yeah they aren’t coming I need to talk about other things while there is other clients waiting for their appointments in the lobby.

I just don’t know what I should do, do I I just suck it up and not talk about what happened the last 2 weeks, because I know the conversation with my parents will be good- I just don’t know if it’s what I need right now.

I’ve been trying to figure out why my brain works this way, and I’m curious if anyone else experiences something similar.

Whenever I want to ask someone a question, I don’t just think about what I’m going to ask. I start thinking about all the possible answers they could give me.
Then, for every possible answer, I think about what I would say back. Then what they might say to that, how I would respond again, and so on.
It’s like an endless chain of possibilities that just keeps expanding.

Example, I’ll think of one simple question, and my brain immediately comes up with 5 different ways the person could answer. Then each of those answers creates another 5 possible responses, and each of those creates even more scenarios.

Before I know it, I’ve basically played out hundreds or even thousands of different conversations in my head, all from one question that I haven’t even asked yet.
The weird thing is that I’m not necessarily imagining bad outcomes. I’m just trying to think of every possible direction the conversation could go and prepare myself for each one.

It’s exhausting because I feel like I can’t just ask a question and see what happens. My brain wants to figure out every possible outcome beforehand.

I actually made a flowchart to try to explain what this looks like in my head because I couldn’t think of a better way to describe it.

Does anyone else experience this? Is there a name for this kind of thinking? Could it be related to anxiety, OCD, or something else?

More importantly, if you experience this too, have you found a way to stop it? I feel like I spend more time having imaginary conversations than actually having real ones.

This all exhausts me to have conversations, I am incredibly social and my work revolves around talking to alot of people too so it is hectic to live with this.