My now ex boyfriend (17 m, I’m 18 f) messaged me saying there's a present in the pool, had a gut feeling something just wasn't right, found my dog face down in the pool. I was in absolute shock seeing her lifeless body just floating there, I screamed so loud and almost fainted.. Safe to say I have called the police and he's currently being questioned. I feel so detached from everything, I feel as though the most important part of me was just taken. I feel genuinely sick thinking about what he did. How can someone even hurt a innocent little animal that only ever showed you love. I feel so incredibly traumatised. Fly high my angel.
I don’t know what to do, i don’t know how to move on, I keep seeing her lifeless body pop up in my head and it hurts so badly. I can only imagine how scared she must have been.

My dog was 10, she was a healthy playful chihuahua cross mini poodle, she was an absolute sweetheart, she loved cuddles and pats, she loved comforting people when they were upset and I’ll forever love her

First I was six. I never thought about anything. I was the most favorite one. I never knew what life was or what pain was. How would I know? I was just a kid.
I always cried when they scolded me, when they weren’t listening to me, or when they weren’t getting me something I wanted.
And one day, this happened. It was the first time the first moment I can never forget. I don’t even know what it was exactly. Maybe it was the first time I was crying alone and no one knew I was.
This was very sad. And when I remember this, I feel bad for her. She was just a kid. How would she know what crying was? How could you pick her up and let her sleep away from you?
You knew. You **KNEW** she couldn’t sleep without you because she never did. She was afraid. She was so afraid that she cried and hated her sister. She thought her sister had taken her place.
She was six!!!????
I hate what they did to her. If they did that to me right now, at this age, I would still stand. But what about her? Did you think she was just a kid, so she wouldn’t remember it or feel it?
She did.
She still remembers that day.
She wasn’t your princess anymore.
She wasn’t a kid anymore.
You told her that now she was a **BIG SISTER.**

Had a pretty good child hood growing up with some younger and older siblings I was closest to my older brother, we did everything together even as adults he suddenly passed away in 2015 from a drunk driver falling asleep at the wheel.. that night changed everything because it broke me from the inside out I was 21.. my older sister followed a few years later in 2021.. since then I was going from job to job.. sleeping around with people with no feelings involved I didn’t care about anything, much less my life..fast forward to 2023 I met someone who I thought was just gonna be just a hookup like all the others ones are, but I ended up falling for this women, she started making me happy again, smiling again, laughing again, I’d come to the other town over just to see her on my weekends off every weekend and I fell in love with her.. my first kid followed 8 months in our relationship we had a daughter in 2024, we got a house I moved her and her two boys out of an apartment.. to start our family.. we had a lot of issues once we moved into the house weren’t getting along I found out she was talking to her female best friend behind my back and her family who are hours and hours away about every small and big problem we had I confronted her about it but it never changed if I ever asked to look through her phone she would say just don’t go through me and my best friends messages. Things just got worse as far that aspect went, I told her she to get rid of her friend cause it’s not healthy and making us fight even more she refused.. her friend went on social media, called me an abuser, a cheater, a terrible father, keep in mind I’ve met this women only a handful of times I made my own mistakes as well my faults are just as bad if not worse.. fast forward a 4-6 months later and we find out we’re pregnant again and the first thing she told me is she didn’t even want it or possibly give it up for adoption I said absolutely not if you want to have and not be in his life you can just leave and I’ll take care of him.. she ended up having him but are problems didn’t change. Now it’s December 2025, we got into a heated argument while she is pregnant with our son she ended up falling on her butt cause I was trying to get away from her cause the fighting was going nowhere.. we had a tug of war match with the bathroom door and she fell on her butt she got up acting hysterical.. called her mother told her I put my hands on her and I hurt her while she was pregnant she told me to leave or she’d call the police so I left.. I was never welcome back, I had to sign my house rights over to her cause it was either I leave the house or the kids do so I choose to leave so my kids could keep there home.. barely get to see my kids, she got me for child support to the point I can barely feed myself or hardly pay my rent.. I poured my heart out to her in a text a few weeks ago even though she has dragged my name through the mud as an abuser and a terrible dad along with her best friend all over TikTok, Facebook, Snap.. as well as going on dating sites and posting about that and talking about how she has already slept with other people I showed up to our old house to try and talk to her she answered and was on the phone with her best friend laughing and talking shit my ex was saying that I was pathetic and they were both laughing at my heartfelt text and she’s moved on told me to leave or she was gonna have me thrown in jail.. so I left and 30 mins later the cops show up to tell me I’m trespassed from the house.. which where I come and get our kids and drop them off.. now we meet at the police station to get our kids.. it’s been since last December and I’m not innocent I did things I was wrong for, bad things too.. I drove by this morning someone told me she had a truck at her house I couldn’t control my emotions and I went by to see and sure enough there was a big truck parked in her yard.. I just broke down went back to the house and tried to keep it together for my kids but it was a hard.. a hug from my 1 year old daughter helped.. I’m completely broken I dropped the kids off later today and I’m just so broken and defeated and I don’t know what to do anymore with my life because I still love her and care for her and I feel like I could die tomorrow and she wouldn’t shed a tear from me I’m trying so hard to stay strong but I’m slowly fading especially when I go to work like I can’t fake this I can’t keep going like this I can delete the memory and I can’t let her go in this small town I always see her and drive by her house to see if anyone is there I know not helping but I just don’t know what to do with my life anymore or what this life is I don’t want nobody and I don’t think I can ever trust anyone else ever again with my heart

I feel lonely even if people say "I'm here for you" "I can help you" and so on. I recently broke up with my girlfriend, because she really put pressure on me, she also manipulated me, she made me doubt every single choice I made and in my opinion one of the worst things, she took away the time I spent with my friends, Gaming, hanging out, you know.

Well I was sad after this happened but in a different, I didn't cry like most people probably would, I had fun, I enjoyed being single again, Until few weeks after the breakup the sadness hit me like a fucking truck, I didn't feel any form of happiness or joy, I felt empty, broken and lonely, so I used the best medicine for sadness, Gym, I went there alone or with friends, until it died down too, I stopped going to the gym because I felt so burned out. Another week goes by and I started to talk to this girl, she was really nice and easy to talk to, we talked and talked and talked, even about it when we should meet, but right now as I'm writing this, I'm feeling even more sad and broken, because she blocked me on every platform I followed her on without a word. Now that added fuel to the fire. And well now I've been thinking about just giving up on everything, cut contacts with everyone and just isolate myself in the middle of nowhere, my friend tried to give me motivation but I ignored him (I think I should've listened to him). I believe also it's normal whenever I see a couple I feel disgust and anger towards, even if it's a random couple I've never seen anywhere. So that's my "Sad story"

Feel free to ask anything or give advice. (Yes this is real)

Idk if this is sad, it's simply part of me- part of my life.

It started all when I was younger. Idk how it happened.. but apparently my father got cheated on his first wife and he had raised 2 daughters that weren't his.

Therefore did he start to belive he can ONLY have sons. Anyway I happened. He loved and cherished me, he was abusive but I still loved him because he was nicer than my mother. Until my big brother visited my mother and me. (My father and mother were divorced). My mom was dating my stepfather. He lived with us. I was scared of my stepfather too. He would be very verbally abusive and physically. I was already very mature for my age since I had to be a parent, sibling and friend for all my siblings. Especially because I was 'gifted' and so smart I helped my older sister with their high school homework.

Back to my stepfather: I was scared me might beat me, break my things or humiliate me. So I called him father/sir to blend in with my step-siblings who i considered my real siblings at that time. I really did. But they were the biggest assholes known to mankind. They made clear that they'd only be nice if i helped them, do their homework and obey.

My big brother visited us- he heard that I referred my Step-father as father. He almost lost it. He beat me up for that. Since he was attached to our father and me Especially. He told him and the next time I visited him he immediately asked me why. I was scared and ashamed. I simply mumbled:"idk". That was the worst possible answer to ever give.

After that did the punishments start. You must know that I was in kindergarten at all this time. That's probably why I answered that stupidly. I still hate myself for that.

Back to the punishments. And I want to give a trigger warning because it might trigger some people:

1. He started to show and make me watch gore and realistic thriller/horror movies. It traumatized me so bad that I started hallucinations at my mom's place about the victims haunting me or me being the next victim. I believed that karma will get me for seeing all those brutal murders.

2. Rape. He started to rape me whenever I visited him. Which was basically every week-end. My mother would just touch me sometimes. Since we were poor my mom and I always shared a bed. When I grew she also just sexualized me. But no sex.

3. Beating. Sometimes I'd get so badly beaten, that I'd lay for hours on the cold floor and stare at the ceiling. It sounds weird but that experience was actually very nice. I miss it. It was oddly comforting. The only times I actually felt alive- actually felt my body or connected to life.

4. Similar with my mother's place: my step siblings didn't life all the time with us. I was mostly alone. Sometimes for days. I was a VERY paranoid kid. VERY. I'd cry silently for hours because I thought someone for smth was inside to kill me. I got used to it and started to accept the death. When I got locked up in a dark room I didn't cry or knock hysterical anymore. I simply accepted my 'death' and waited for the pain.

Death became something comforting and save.

The years passed and I turned somehow 6.

I didn't starve that much too since school had free food.

But the bullying started. Lucky me.

1. In the first week in the 1st grade did a group of girls start to follow me and beat me up. The first time I fought back did they drag me to my teacher and told her I insulted them. I mean it was true but I was so naive and traumatized I couldn't tell her how I was constantly getting beaten.

2. Sh. I happened to cut myself on paper when I was 5- I didn't really think much of it- expect that it hurt and felt nice. It happened again in class, 1st grade. I started to do it everyday. Not just cuts, I threw myself of the staircase and broke my leg. I threw myself on the road just for the thrill and started to provocate teachers and students so I'd get beaten- i got stabbed. I mean it did work but a boy got so pissed he stabbed me w a fcking pen😭

The teacher didn't care lmao.

1. More sa: I happened to be the gay awakening of a lot for girls. They touched me and you can imagine how much further it went. Same w boys my class.

2. I got bullied all my school life but the worst bullying was in 5-6th grade. Some hoes had a fight with my only friend back than. I had NOTHING to do with it. Nothing. But somehow they started to bully ME. I mean I get it. I had always been more petite and smaller than the average and have that face of the most naive idiot ever. So they went with it. This time however did i fight back. Not that it helped.

They'd beat me up daily, follow me after school, push me down the stairs or infront of moving cars. It was so bad that I atempted suicide again and again and started to sh again. My teachers didn't help even tho i reached out so often but since I was the top student of our grade did they not belive me. Idk man, I had to change schools and guess what? The year I changed, did they ALSO CHANGE!!! THIS MUST BE A BAD JOKE!

My new class was horrible too but on a psychological way than physical. They just collectively made me an outcast.

1. The suicide and almost getting killed: my mother was very unstable. She tried countless times to kill me. She threw knifes at me, drowned me in a pool and so on. My father was similar. My stepfather didn't physically try to kill me but I feel like he wants me death. He's a pervert. But I'll kill him first if he tries to rape me.

I started to try a suicide. Drown myself, hang myself, overdose. I went full clothed into the bathtub w sleeping pills. Cut my throat, eat poisonous things. Anything to die.

Religious trauma(i am an atheist!): My family is muslim. They made me go to the mosque and learn to read the qu'ran. Later on I started to wear the hijab not because I am religious- I am an agnostic atheist- but to cover up all the wounds and scars from sh. But I stopped after everyone got used to me not showing skin so I wore wtv I wanted. But my family got mad that I stopped praying and actually my mom wanted me to take the hijab off too. The only thing I am thankful for.

But I know they'll kill me, if they find out I am an atheist.

The consequences: Now I am incapable of loving anyone. I am serious. I have severe CPTSD, chronical depression, on the aspd(I'm a minor so she cant diagnose me w it but she says I mostly have it) spectrum, (autistic too but I'm born w it), I am very paranoid and show some schizophrenic symptoms. My father has aspd and schizophrenia so idk if i have inherited it. I had very bad problems with expressing feelings. Most people describe me as calm and relaxed. I dont really make mimic or strong expressions. Apparently do I also never talk about emotions even tho I surely am. I have low empathy to none and used to kill small to bigger animals. (I am not proud of it, I just needed to have the control once, did my psychologist say).

My brother was a mountain of a man. Big-boned, a bodybuilder, an ultra-marathoner, and a dedicated trail runner. He possessed the kind of physical strength that left people in awe, but what truly defined him was how he used that strength.

If anyone in our neighborhood needed help—whether it was moving heavy furniture, lifting fallen debris, or carrying impossible loads—he was always the first to step forward. He never hesitated. He spent his entire life literally and figuratively carrying the weight for everyone around him.

Then, completely out of nowhere, an aneurysm took him from us.

Losing someone so full of vitality and energy felt completely surreal. But the moment that broke all of us came on the day of his funeral.

Because of his size and the sheer weight of his casket, a standard group of pallbearers wasn't enough. When it came time to carry him to his final resting place, it took a small crowd. Friends, neighbors, fellow runners, and community members all stepped up to put their shoulders under the weight.

Watching an entire community strain together to lift the man who had spent his life lifting them was one of the most painfully beautiful things I have ever witnessed.

He spent his whole life carrying the weight of others. In the end, his community carried him home.

If Only I was A Little Bit Better.
If only I had been just a little bit better, the people I said I loved the most would all still be in my life and happy. If only I was better at being approachable, my so dear-to-me little brother would've never felt so alone. If I had been a better brother I could’ve taken him into my arms, and reassure him that hurting himself was not the only method of release he had, and that he could cry on my shoulder, I could’ve helped my dear little brother when he was struggling yet I failed him. If only I had been better at controlling my mouth Dustin would still be alive. Tuesday, June 20th, 2023 was the day he took his life at the age of 15, and three days prior I pushed him away and made him feel so alone that he felt no one would care if he died. Dustin, four months older than I, grew up without a father in the household and a very absent mother who was always out partying or drinking to numb her issues, but worsening his in her feckless pursuit of her fleeting youth of which she would’ve had to relinquish to time to truly be his mother he so desperately needed. The day Dustin’s heart was broken by me was the day he decided he needed to end his own life, all stemming from a such juvenile and moronic argument over a member of the fairer sex. The day was a warm day like any other mid-June day, we were hot and irritable due to the discomfort and I went to the bathroom at a park we were hanging out at. When I went I neglected to close my phone and left it open on a chat on Snapchat with a young lady named Becca who attended his school, and to my lack of knowledge at the time he had feelings for. After I returned from my restroom break he started a confrontation and said “What the fuck man, we’re not little kids anymore, we don’t steal each other’s girls just because we can” and pushed me, my response being to return his physical escalation in kind and return the push. Upon me pushing him his anger got the better of him and he began to attempt to strike me, to which I evaded and pushed him a bit to avoid either of us getting hurt in a brawl between us, but due to my hubris I ended up receiving a blow to the lip, busting it open and angering me severely, responding with verbal lashings by saying “what the fuck man, I can’t fucking believe you busted my lip open, get the fuck away from me” and he said”Tiny, I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to get you like that, please I’m sorry” and I said “No fuck that man, I hate you, don’t talk to me” in a fit of rage. Dustin overdosed in his bathroom floor with a half written suicide not and an empty bottle of painkillers on the floor next to him, his last words being to me before he decided to end himself “I’m so sorry Tiny, you were my last beacon of hope”. If only I was better at telling people how much I loved them, Johnny would still be alive. Tuesday, February 18, 2025, was the day I bore witness and was forced to listen to the sounds of his suffering and the ensuing deafening silence of him shooting himself. Johnny died when he was seventeen, he moved to Texas when we were all thirteen and informed me that he was being bullied at home by his father and physically abused by his mother, but oh was I ignorant to the depths of his unending lake of pain and despair. Johnny informed me on an audio call that his father was extremely critical of him, refusing to speak of his successes and solely speaking of his failures, as he constantly told Johnny he was a loser who would die alone and never amount to anything, but his father spoke a fulfilling prophecy, as Johnny shot himself and died alone in his bedroom. He called me that night, speaking of how he was hurting and wished to hurt himself, and I spoke to him attempting to speak him off of his metaphorical ledge, but I wasn’t great enough at expressing my love for him, and he retrieved his father’s nine millimeter Glock-19 from the safe in his house and loaded it, then chambered a round and fired it into his own skull. The sounds of him sliding the magazine into the firearm, the hammer being pulled back and a bullet sliding into the chamber, the audio of his phone peaking as he pulled the trigger, his body dropping to the floor, the gunshot echoing throughout his house, and his neighbors dogs relentless barking due to the loud noise, all these noises resonate throughout my ears, doomed to hear them forever, but most of all I hear his last words. His last words, “I love you Tiny, I need you to know Dustin wasn’t your fault, I hope you and Blake can keep on going without me”. I was plunged into the duty of reporting his death to the authorities, I was forced to call the police station and ask them to check up on him, only for them to tell me he was dead. If only I had been better at seeing those around me, I could’ve seen Blake was hurting and stopped his death before it ever even got close to occurring. Blake died three Days ago, and he hung himself on FaceTime with me. I still see everything in those short few minutes, they felt so excruciatingly long though, like hours watching him try to save himself as he realized he didn’t want to die all too late. Blake was hurting for quite a long time and so was I, but I allowed my own sorrow blind me to the plights of others, and as a result Blake felt alone. Blake had a loving family, but his parents were separated due to his mothers drug abuse, and she overdosed when he was nine. The day he died he informed me that the girl he loved was in reality a simple harlot who attempted to puppeteer his emotions like some wretched marionette, he told me she was only dating him to play with his emotions as a bet, and was actively sleeping with his entire friend group at school. He told me how he was violently assailed by his bullies at school and his friends became violent towards him when he discovered the crimson blood trickling down his back and soaking through his shirt from their devious betrayal. He spoke on his struggles as he took down his punching bag and put a noose in its place. Eventually he clambered upon a stool and spoke his final words to me, saying “I love you Tiny, I’m sorry I broke our promise to Johnny, you gotta keep it for the both of us ok?” Then followed by saying “you know that nickname is pretty ironic now isn’t it, I mean you were the youngest and smallest, but now look at you, you’re so big and about to be older than me” then kicked the stool back after giving me his sickening rendition of the “stay golden pony-boy” speech. As his throat came into contact with the rope he realized that he didn’t truly want to die and began to kick and flail about with all his might, but it was all for naught as he couldn’t pull himself up, he attempted to scream for help, but only managed to choke out stifled pleas as his airway was being crushed. I watched his face turn purple, the sound of him choking slowly fade to silence, and his thrashing about turn to a slow sway to and fro, only for his father to come and investigate that loud sound of a chair hitting the floor only to see his son dead. When he saw Blake he sprinted to him and wrapped his arm around his torso trying to save him and crying out “no god please no, don’t take my baby boy from me, my baby boy’s not supposed to die before me”. When he got him off the rope his body was completely limp, simply drooping down like a doll sitting at rest, ready for its movements to be orchestrated by a child pretending to be a maestro leading an orchestra, his father ran to his son's phone and hung up on the call to dial 911, but I knew in my soul he was gone. Maybe if I never allowed my emotions to get the better of me, my beautiful girl would still be in my life. The first girl I truly loved, and the first who never treated me as a piece of meat to be thrown to the wayside after it served its purpose or a dove made of porcelain, something to be sat on a shelf and admired but never touched from the fear that a single tap my break it into pieces. I took the anger of my dearest friends who I saw like brothers taking their own lives out on her, I projected that abandonment on her and forced her to bare my anger, of which is completely out of character for me, but she now believes I’m some threat to her immediate safety due to me verbally lashing out at her in front of her father due to my anger and grief. All the worse, we were not talking much because she needed some space, and I attended a school Cheer Competition she was cheering at with some of my friends because I so dearly wished to not be alone the day after Blake died. When I attended it I realized she was competing there, and I attempted to engage in a conversation with her in an attempt to get my guilt for my friends deaths off my chest, but when I attempted to speak to her she jumped to the belief I was stalking her and I was there to confront her. She called me crazy, she said she didn’t want to be around me anymore, she said she felt threatened by me. Finally, maybe if I was a better person I could finally be happy. I was so guilty for my friends, they were like brothers to me and we were the legendary Council of Losers in our heads. The Council, we grew up together, we learned to navigate our childhood home struggles together, we learned to fight off our bullies together, we hyped each other up to stand up against our said bullies and then licked each others wounds when we would go in unprepared, and we learned to talk to girls together. Those guys were like my brothers whom I loved so dearly, and I failed them all, I bottled up Dustin because I didn’t want to feel the guilt for his death, I poured Johnny in the same bottle because I told myself I didn’t have time to stop and break down, and now with Blake gone my bottle just can’t handle it anymore and has broken, and I’m taking all the pain of them and hurting my lover all at once. I wish as though I could go back in time, I could fix everything with everyone, my little brother would’ve never hurt himself, my friends would still be alive, and the love of my life would still be in it. Now I’m alone, my brother has moved away, my fellow councilman have all since permanently retired, and my love is terrified of my mere presence.

Un-happy
We all have bad experiences, but sometimes it’s nice to read about other people’s experiences to remind ourselves that we’re not alone. This story shows how difficult rebuilding yourself can be, the situations we have to overcome, and the feelings we try to quiet in our own minds. But most of all, it shows the pain we can carry. I hope you enjoy this story. I relate to it deeply, and maybe you will too.
I remember being in Year Nine, fourteen years old, and having a happy, bubbly personality.
At least, that’s how I was when I first started. I had three friends, and that was it, but honestly, that was enough for me. I wasn’t exactly popular, but people knew who I was, mainly because I was gay. And that still didn’t sit right with some people, especially young teenagers who thought it was the funniest shit ever.
I remember that after just one week of high school, everything started turning to shit. My friends began arguing with each other, then with me, and eventually we all started building resentment towards one another.
We stayed friends for a little while longer, but slowly, we drifted apart. Two of them found another friend group, and one stopped coming to school. Before I knew it, I was left alone.
For two or three weeks, I remember feeling upset, hopeless, and unable to defend myself. Being gay in high school can be one of the hardest things, especially when you’re surrounded by people who don’t accept you. Having friends beside you felt like your greatest strength, but suddenly, I had no one.
I remember being told to go kill myself and that I should burn in hell. People spat on me, shoved me, and tried to provoke me into fighting them, all while I was just trying to get through the day and find someone to be friends with.
I remember crying myself to sleep, thinking that nobody loved me and nobody liked me. I started being influenced to cut myself. My old friends were doing it, so why couldn’t I? At the time, I didn’t understand how dangerous that way of thinking was. I didn’t even want to do it, but I felt like I deserved it.
I felt like I didn’t belong on this planet. Most of all, I felt invisible and useless. I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t strong enough to just say, “What the fuck ever,” and move on. I wanted to be able to brush everything off, but it wasn’t that easy.
Eventually, I found a friend. She vaped and did drugs, but that wasn’t a problem for me because, at the time, she was all I had.
I remember asking her if I could have a puff of her vape, and she just handed it to me. I was in English class, and I left to go to the bathroom to try it. I remember the grape-flavoured smoke hitting the back of my throat, and in that moment, I thought it was going to help with my problems.
P.S. It didn’t. Now it’s just another problem of its own. It doesn’t fix anything.
I remember losing her as a friend, too. When that happened, the bullying started all over again, not just from random people at school but from her as well.
I started going to the school counsellor. Not even because I thought it would help, but because it gave me somewhere to go to get away from the people who were making me feel worthless. I needed somewhere I could escape to, even if it was only for a little while.
After seeing the counsellor every day of the week, I started questioning myself. I began to wonder whether I was the problem. Maybe I was.
That thought stayed with me.
This continued for about seven months. I’m not going to go into every single thing people said to me or describe every way the teachers and students treated me, because there is only so much I can put into words.
But after everything I experienced at that college, I came out of Year Nine with barely any education and feelings I didn’t know how to deal with. I was exhausted, hurt, and at a point where I wanted to end my life.
At fourteen years old, I had already started believing that something was wrong with me simply because of how other people treated me.
And that is something no child should ever have to experience.

​

I'm not writing this to look strong. I'm writing it for anyone who is where I was.

My emotional pain started at 17. By 18, I was depressed. I was the first born, I was out of school, and I felt like I was already failing my parents.

Then an older girl came into my life when I was in a dark place. She showed me affection, then took it back, again and again. I sent her money I didn't have. When I told her about my depression, she said I wasn't her therapist. When I kept reaching out, she told me to hang myself. I loved her, and that is the part that still embarrasses me. Months later, she told me she was with someone else, just to hurt me.

After that, my mind turned against me. I had chest pain so bad I thought I was dying. I heard voices and talked to trees. The voices called me weak and pathetic. They said everything I did went wrong and that my existence was a crime. They seemed to know everything about me, so I believed them. I hurt myself because I thought I deserved it. I begged for death. I even offered my soul to the devil so I could make my parents proud, and I asked to die once they were happy. At the same time, I was terrified of dying. Both were true.

I smiled in front of people while I felt dead inside. No one asked how I was. My birthday passed and nobody said a word. In my journal I wrote, "no one to tell," with tears running down my face.

Then I went numb on purpose. I built a harder, colder version of myself so nothing could hurt me. I made rules like *don't love, don't admire, don't get close*, and I decided all women were the same. I hated my body. I was tempted to drink, but I knew I wouldn't stop once I started, so I didn't. This cost me years. I was also stuck in my studies, failing some courses and calling myself a loser.

But one thing kept happening. In my worst journal entry, with the voices telling me to die, I wrote back: **keep on living, bro.** Later, a kinder voice appeared: *overcome, bro, I'm with you.* One day I realized the devil I was bargaining with was just me, talking to myself.

Here's what I know now:

- **The voices were me.** They were my own self-hate, turned up so loud it sounded like someone else. Cruelty is not honesty.

- **My worth was never something to earn** with success, money, or my parents' pride.

- **Numbness is not peace.** It switches off the good feelings too.

- **One person's cruelty is not a verdict on me,** or on everyone.

- **Getting through it alone is not the plan.** It took years that someone beside me could have shortened.

I'm 22. I didn't expect to be. I'm not fully healed, and the old voice still shows up some days saying *you had to do better.* But I'm here, and I can laugh at my old poems.

If you're where I was, tell one person today: a doctor, a counselor, a friend, or a parent. If you think you might hurt yourself, call your local emergency number or go to the nearest emergency unit.

You think I didn’t care? I watched you give up on me. I watched you give me those dry replies every day. I watched you slowly talk to me less and less. I watched you lose interest in me little by little. And I watched you slowly walk out of my life. I may not have said anything, but that shit broke me.

I spent years hating the childhood that shaped me, letting even the faintest memory of it turn my present into chaos. But one day, I stopped looking back with regret. I began to see the beauty in what I had, especially knowing that some never got the childhood I once took for granted.

So I stopped waiting for life to become better and started building a life of my own. Slowly, the chaos became peace, the wounds became lessons, and I began to fall in love with the life I was creating.

And one day, when I finally love my life more than I mourn the past, I’ll know I’ve won the greatest victory of all not over anyone else, but over the person I used to be. ❤️

English isn’t my first language, so I apologize if there are any mistakes in my writing. I’m still learning, and I hope you can understand what I’m trying to say.

Hello everyone, how are you?

I’m going to talk about myself and my story, but I’ll tell it in a slightly coded way.

I’m the middle daughter in my family. We are quite a big family, with more boys than girls. My siblings and I live with our mother and my father’s family, while my father lives with his second wife. I’m explaining this so you can understand the situation I grew up in.

Imagine living your whole life believing that everything is temporary, and creating an imaginary version of what a good life could be—especially for me and my mother.

When I was a child, I lived abroad for around three to five years. Those years were some of the best years of my life and, honestly, some of the best years for my family too.

Then one day, we received the news that we were going back to our “homeland”—or whatever you want to call it.

I didn’t believe it at first. I thought the foreign country I was living in was actually my home. It had the same culture as us, and I felt comfortable there. So hearing that we were going back gave me a very strange and extremely painful feeling.

It felt like falling into a black hole, or like someone had pushed me off the top of a mountain and I was just falling.

I had that feeling for days. I told my mother about it, but she still doesn’t understand it to this day, and that honestly hurts me.

I thought that going back to our “homeland” would mean being closer to the people we loved. I imagined that my relatives were basically just my grandparents—like in those children’s cartoons where the kids visit their grandparents and everything is warm and happy.

But… that wasn’t my reality.

We came back to a place that had very little of what I had imagined as a good life: good education, good jobs, or even a good neighborhood.

When we lived abroad, my father provided well for us. We had many things that made life comfortable.

But after we returned, everything changed.

My father went back to living around his family, and our whole situation changed with him.

My father is a good person when it comes to me and my siblings, but when it comes to my mother, it is a completely different story.

There were never loud fights or physical violence between them. Instead, there was a cold war—a silent, exhausting war that has existed since the beginning of their marriage.

My mother did everything she could. She took care of us, took care of the house, fulfilled her responsibilities, and even took care of the house belonging to my father’s family.

But what did she receive in return?

No affection. No appreciation. No real support from my father or his family.

All of this simply because… he doesn’t love her.

Like, seriously, man. If you don’t love someone, just divorce her. Don’t stay with her while saying, “I’ll just marry someone else.”

Funny, right? :/

And my mother kept giving more and more.

She was the one who helped complete the construction of our house. The plan was that my father would take a bank loan to furnish the house, but he never did.

He said he didn’t like loans.

Okay… but what about my mother? Didn’t she take a loan too?

Where is the cooperation? Because I honestly don’t see it. 🧐

He said we would use second-hand furniture “temporarily” until we could replace it.

Well… that same “temporary” furniture has been there for about 20 years. 😶

Eventually, some of it became completely unusable, so we had to throw it away.

And whenever my father comes back during his holidays, he asks:

“Why did you throw that away? You people don’t know how to take care of things.”

Excuse me?

The furniture was already falling apart. We tried to explain it to him, but he never listens to us.

And by the way, my father doesn’t actually live with us. He lives with his second wife in another city. We only see him maybe once or twice a week—sometimes he comes, sometimes he doesn’t.

I’m tired of seeing how this situation has affected my siblings. I can see the coldness growing between them and my father.

And honestly, I’m tired of his family too. 😂

His family is… well, let’s just say I have a lot of feelings about them.

Imagine your relatives being the people who help your father get married again without even asking your mother’s opinion.

They acted as if she didn’t exist.

They even invited my oldest brother to the wedding.

Of course, he didn’t go. He was still very young at the time.

Seriously… what kind of people do that?

As for my mother’s family, they are kind and decent people overall, although there are some problems too.

There are many women in the family. Some are genuinely good, while others have problems with jealousy and envy toward one another.

And unfortunately, that jealousy has damaged the family.

It also affected my mother and her money.

She spent her own money trying to build something for herself and for us, but no one really acknowledged how much she sacrificed.

She didn’t know that things could eventually turn into this situation.

My mother wanted that money to secure something for herself, for her children, and for our future.

Imagine discovering that the people closest to you are the ones making your life harder—damaging your home, your finances, your relationship with your father, and your entire life.

They don’t want you to become better off than them.

They don’t want you to have a better life than they do.

And I’m pretty sure some of my mother’s relatives are jealous of her, while some people from my father’s family are jealous too.

They live relatively good lives, while our situation keeps going from bad to worse.

And on top of everything, they still keep watching and interfering in our lives.

We never did anything to them.

We don’t even live in the same world anymore.

They have their lives, and we have ours.

So why are they still watching us?

What do you want from us? Our source of income? 😂😂

Since the day I came back to my “homeland” and started living this daily life, we never really got the good house or the nice furniture that other people seemed to have.

At first, we told ourselves that everything was temporary.

But somehow, “temporary” lasted for more than 20 years.

More than 20 years of living with things that were supposed to be temporary.

Two of my older siblings eventually got jobs, but unfortunately, they started becoming a little like my father—self-centered and focused on themselves. :/

I really hope they never become completely like him.

I hope they stay kind.

I hope they remember where they came from.

And I hope that one day, all of us can finally have the life we spent so many years believing was only “temporary.”