I went out walking and came across an injured or what looked to be an injured baby opossum.

I picked it up and brought it home and made some phone calls to see what could be done. The little guy is sooooo freakin cute and it really broke my heart to see dog walkers letting their dogs sniff it and potentially attack it when it was clearly scared and its chest was beating rapidly.

It’s safe now with me and I’m just waiting for wild life to come and get it while its sleeping or laying there.

I took some photos and a cute video of it yawning and decided to share it with family and coworkers.

When I shared it with this one particular coworker that I’ve been crushing on for months, he said “my dog just killed one in my backyard”

And nothing else.

I immediately felt all my feelings for him die in that moment. Not just because of the level of insensitivity, but the callous nature to not even understand how emotional it was to find this baby scared on the sidewalk…

I’ve loved animals since I was a kid and I refuse to accept that level of unkind behavior from anyone let alone a crush. Just… wow.

Edit: Thank you all so much for the support and reassurance that I’m not crazy for thinking that level of insensitivity is a crush killer for sure.
Also, unfortunately, the wildlife rescue person determined the baby was too injured and would potentially have to be humanely euthanized. I cried basically all night. But at least I tried. That’s all I could really hope for so it didn’t die knowing no one cared for it.

I would post a pic, but idk how. I’ll see if I can put it in the comments.

And, again, thank you all so much for the love and support. I’ll continue to rescue possums in need when I see them regardless of what anyone thinks.

My pet, my angel, my baby, my world, passed away in my arms gasping for breath, and it’s ingrained in my mind. It’s also so hard bc I thought I had so much more time to spend with him, and it feels terrifyingly impossible to grasp with the reality that he is gone forever, it makes me want to throw up. Seeing him on the ventilator, probably uncomfortable, gasping is smth that pains me to no end. I did absolutely everything I syringe fed him, gave him all his medicines, took him to the vet all the time, and it still happened. Ik there’s no reason but still sometimes I just feel like WHY did this have to happen to me. I don’t know how to get past the fact that he was young but is still gone, and every time I think abt him on the ventilator and the fact he was probably scared in his last moments makes me feel like sobbing uncontrollably, he is such a sweet angel. I love him so much, I’m sorry u didn’t get the time or comfort you deserved my sweet baby, I hope me holding you made you feel somewhat safe at least, and please know I really did try.

In the UK, working with a summer school who want to post pictures of the children who attended onto their website. Communicating via email of course.

Me: "I have the photos, please send us a form confirming that the parents consent to having these photos posted on the internet for marketing purposes only."

Them: "yes we have the parents consent"

Me: "that's great, can you send me a copy of the consent forms"

Them: "oh it's fine, the parents always love seeing their kids on the website doing the activities"

Me: "that's great, can I just get a copy of the form"

Them: "the parents always complain if they DON'T see their kids somewhere lol"

Me: "I'm sure they do lol. Can you just send me a copy too as it's a legal requirement"

Them: "Oh we don't have copies, but the parents never complain"

Me: "Ok, I can't let you upload these photos without the parents consent. We could all get in a lot of trouble"

Them: "Oh but the parents are always posting pictures of their kids on facebook, instagram or making AI edits"

Me (ignoring my issues with all that): "Well great, but I really can't send you the photos until the parents sign consent forms"

Them: "Our marketing team really need the photos up ASAP so we can advertise for next year's summer school"

aaaaaaarrrrrrrrrggggggggghhhhhhh

Edit: I didn't realise I'd get so many questions as I was mostly just venting. This is a summer school, not a regular school, it's got 2 members of staff. I'm also not the person who took the photos, I am just liaising for my company with these very helpful people

For context: I am in a family where verbal abuse is prominent and so are liars. There is no such thing as treating others with decency. I also do chores (folding) for 14 people in total, including myself.

I feel stupid. I cried again in front of them. I shouldn't have, i feel shameful. It started off with my grandma demanding i kept her bedsheets, fold it and keep it. She kept calling me lazy and insulting me while my grandpa said be patient since she has dementia.

I got angry and teary. Than i did the regretful thing. I ranted at them (my siblings - family) first. How they have the audacity to make such demands since i dont even do my own siblings. How the other people have lesser to keep.

Than it escalated as i hear someone say "be kind". I said how should i expect me to be so grateful a roof over my head being treated like trash and no human decency. I got more angry one thing lead to another...

I ranted to how i didn't feel human in this home. How i felt like a tool. How i hated i cant go out because they always ask me for something or ask where I am. It felt like a cage. How i sometimes starve because im too tired or scared to go to the kitchen or dining room because people ask for things.

Tears poured out, i couldn't hold it back. I even said how i felt so good being treated like a human outside of the home. I cant tell if my friends are super nice or is it basic human decency. Well than the guilt and shame came in the end.

Thats all... i feel so tired. Im stuck there i know. I know i dont have the worst. But i should've cried in the bathroom like i usually do monthly or whenever i need it - i dont count.

I wish I was born a girl. I hate being this way. I've met so many wonderful people since coming out, but the pain of dysphoria isn't worth that. My soul hurts because this was never supposed to be my body. It just hurts so much.

Even tho I've met so many new and great people, I've never felt more alone. I feel like an outsider everywhere I go. I feel so alone.

I’m a young mom with a 4 year old son. Me and his dad were together and I chose (joint decision) to join the military with the plan that they move with me.

Here we are 9 months later, me and my husband have split up so them moving here won’t be happening. My son stayed with him and his mom since that’s where he’s been since I left for bootcamp in January and I have no help in my new city.

I had this child every day of his life until I left to boot camp. This sweet boy has been my entire world since the second I found out I was pregnant(he was an accident, me and his dad were not together at the time. Somewhat related).

They came to visit me throughout the month of August. They went back home August 26th. I don’t know when I’ll get to see him again.

I feel so empty. I think about him all throughout the day, every day. I hate doing stuff because I see him there with me. I go to the beach and I see him asking to go play in the water. I go out to eat and see him sitting across from me. I go for a drive and I see him asking to hold my hand and calling my truck “mama’s monster truck”.

I hate being home. It feels so empty and I get so anxious. His clothes are gone. His toys aren’t all over the floor. His chocolate puff cereal isn’t in the cabinet anymore. He’s not following me around or there to say “mama look” and then give me a goofy smile until I smile back.

I feel empty. I cry on a daily basis. I regret ever joining the military. I joined because I was struggling to find stable work. I’ve never been financially stable my entire life. But if I knew this is how things would be, I would’ve chosen to stay in my struggling job a million times over being away from my baby. I hate myself for not being there with my baby. I feel like I ruined my life.

I miss my sweet boy so much and he’s always been such a mama’s boy. I hope that never changes.

I work at a fast food restaurant that is owned by another company. A lady comes in and asks me for a burger and fries, and she is on the phone with someone, and she's going back and forth between talking to me and her friend. And she says "yeah I didn't know this company and that company were sister companies" and I said "yeah that company owns this company" and she says "mhm that's what I said thanks for listening to my conversation" like I was a baby. Maybe if you weren't on your phone 2 feet away from me we wouldn't be having this issue, if you don't want people listening to your conversations get off the phone, I genuinely thought she was talking to me when she said that, if your gonna talk to a person who's trying to do you a service, it's completely rude to be on the phone talking the whole time, I understand if it's an emergency, but she was just giggling and laughing, it wasn't urgent you could tell.

Coming from a mentality that my dream was to have a family, I feel like I'm disappointing my parents. The truth is, I just can't see myself loving again. I used to want to have kids of my own. To have a cohesive family, unlike my own.

Now I can't even see myself with someone. And I wish I could say that it's grueling or eating me inside, but it's not. Love isn't worth it. It's not a fairytale.

I've trusted too many who just destroyed me. And I overstayed because of that stupid fantasy of making things work because my family never could. How dumb was I to think I'd be the exception.

I guess I just want it to solidify in writing rather than carrying it in my mind.

I don't want to have children. I don't want to fall in love anymore.

I just want to be at peace and live a meaningful life from now on. I don't know how I'll move in that direction yet, but I'm sure I'll figure it out. I know it'll happen. Every day, that desire to be in love fades away more. It's only a matter of time, I guess.

Unfortunately, I'm still holding on to a stray sliver of "hope." But it's mostly my survival instinct. The one that kind of wants you to procreate. But I'm steadily destroying it, or muting it.

That's it.

Without making it into a whole life story post, I just generally feel so incapable of doing things it's honestly miserable.

Things have been going slowly downhill since I've been a preeteen, but it was barely noticeable tbh. Then I took a sharp decline around my 18th birthday and never fully recovered it seems.

Since then (I'm 24 now) I've tried a whole lot of things, going to various doctors, doing therapy, not doing therapy, moving out, studying, living with people, living alone, going back to my hometown, working full time, working part time, I've tried it all...

And yet everything is just so hard still and everything's bad and I feel bad in one way or another all the time. I don't even know how to explain it I just feel like everything requires so so much effort, I can't even shower regularly anymore since the 18th birthday year, I never recovered even this skill.

Genuinely I've given up I've never been so hopeless.

I am an adult woman. I don't talk to my mom much because she was mean and neglectful when I was a child and at 27 years old I just finally "graduated" from therapy after unpacking and learning to live with the shit she put me through and allowed to happen to me. I don't like my mom as a person and she makes me uncomfortable, and now her appearance is revolting to me.

I saw her for the first time in a year. Her natural nails are grown out super long, which would be fine if they were nice and painted instead of yellow/brown. Her teeth are rotting out of her head. One of her front teeth is basically half of a tooth because it's rotted from one side and chipped away. Her legs were so dry that her knees appeared scabbed over and calloused. I was so uncomfortable looking at her and being hugged by her that I left early. I am disgusted by her inside and out and idk how I am going to get through the holiday season. I need to be there for my brother and niece but holy shit I don't want to.

I'm 15 years old and my own mom seriously called me a "pig" for eating snacks (she was already in a bad mood and exploded on me after I spilled a cup of water and made a mess which I APOLOGIZED FOR) When I'm underweight because of malnutrition and multiple chronic health disorders... And then, she turns around and says "WHY DON'T YOU EAT MORE" and gets mad if I skip ONE meal because I'm having literal diarrhea from stomach issues 😭 Dude. 😭 How am i pig when I'm built like a fucking STICK dude. How? I'm gonna cry. I eat full 3 meals even when I'm in digestive pain and am trying to improve my health and eat well and she does this shit.. honestly really hurtful, I'm used to her cruel comments but this time I'm really sad when she knows how much I struggle with food :)

Everyone (like doctors) acts as if I have an eating disorder even when I DID NOT, and it's to the point i feel like i'm starting to develop an actual ed (out of pure spite at this point) or at least disordered eating because of this shit, but not because i find myself ugly or WANT to be thin, I actually hate my body SO MUCH because of how underweight and thin I am and I hope I can gain weight and get better. it's just that my relationship with food is terrible because of my digestion issues. idek anymore i just want the pain to end

Hi everyone..

Between work, life, and the kids, my free time comes in random 30-minute timeslots (at best).

I used to be an avid gamer, play everything from consoles to PC, then I starter working, then I had kids.

I’ll spend weeks watching people play games on YouTube or Twitch. I get really hyped, buy the game, and sit down excited to jump in. I play for an hour, love it, probably for a couple more days and then life happens. I don't get back to it for several days.

When I finally boot it back up, I'm completely lost. I forgot the keybinds, the spell rotations, the crafting trees, and whatever quest I was supposed to be doing. The thought of spending half my remaining play time re-learning the mechanics feels exhausting. It starts feeling less like fun and more like a task I must do, almost like homework.

I really like to play and when this happens I eventually return to those games I'm really used to play for the last several years, missing out brilliant new games and it sucks because the passion to game is still 100% there, but the bandwidth to be proficient at new titles just isn't.

I’m just tired of dropping €70 on a game, playing for two hours for a couple of days, and then watch it collect dust while I wish I actually had the time to enjoy it.

I'm a 31M and being single is hard. The girl I was seeing ended things after two months and the hardest thing by far is going from talking to someone everyday, the texts gradually getting less and less and then to absolutely nothing the next. We texted everyday and even talked all day when we worked at the same job sites. The conversations were just so easy and fun and random and it felt so nice to have someone who was thinking about you non stop and wanted to talk to you everyday.

I've never been lucky or successful with relationships so I've never had anyone around long enough to have long conversations about life, struggles, ideas, people, the future, food, activities, quirks, games but when this girl came around it felt amazing. I know this is a normal part of a breakup and getting used to your own company but I genuinely enjoy just talking to people especially someone who is into me.

What I find somewhat interesting is that I enjoy talking to women more than men. I enjoy talking shit with the boys over beers and making dumb jokes, typical boy talk but theres something about conversing with women, I like the way the conversations develop with females. I am a sensitive deep thinking person. You could maybe call me more feminine, I don't care. I'm still a dude at heart.

I'm trying my best to make this easier by talking to co-workers (especially female), striking up conversations with strangers, chatting with people at the climbing gym (new hobby). Even my guy mates font really talk much.
It's just in my downtime I'd really like someone to be around just to talk. I know it's up to me to enjoy my alone time but still it just is.

Anyway that's my vent. Cheers.

My partner can't handle any sense of obligation without completely shutting down and this makes it hard to do anything. Simple decisions like what she wants for dinner tonight are so stress inducing it can cause her to have a breakdown. Her birthday is coming up and I don't feel like I can get her anything without stressing her out. She likes drawing and art so I considered art supplies, but often she gets too depressed to make art, so if I get her something art related it will make her feel obligated to do art and she'll get stressed about it.

I'm not pressuring her to do anything, these are pressures she puts on herself because she feels guilty for being depressed despite me giving her support and assurance that it's okay. Her being in possession of the art supplies is enough to make her hate herself for feeling too depressed to do art, on top of feeling obligated to do it because I bought it for her. These two factors will cause her to completely break down.

There has been several times over the past couple years we went out to have fun with friends or family and she couldn't have fun, she felt depressed and anxious and like she's not "cool" enough to be doing these things. When she's feeling that way I'm not allowed to take any pictures and I often just end up sitting next to her in a place while she sits there shut down and anxious. She tells me I can go have fun, but then she just sits there crying and moping and spiraling herself into suicidal ideation.

I've been trying to be here for her and do everything I can but at this point it's wearing me down. I have to be cautious about everything I do so I don't trigger her, but then when she's not feeling depressed she gets upset with me for still being cautious, which makes her feel bad about herself like she's forcing me to change my behavior (she is), and then I have to console her about her making me feel like I have to that (but I do have to.)

I'm just frustrated. I love her but this is really wearing me down. I worry that if I take space she'll do something drastic but at the same time I feel like I have no space left for myself.

I'm sorry but I need to vent about something dumb. I have a small pantry where I keep my meal prep and some canned and shelf stable food so that I can try to keep my food costs down. At times it involves canned meat of any variety. It was at one point in life, affordable. Less than $2. Now a can of spam is more than $5. What is the damn excuse for a can being $5? That's more than the fresh cuts of pork from the same damn grocery store. Armortreet is getting there too but it's $3 at the moment which is already too damn high. I get canned and smoked pork for shelf and fridge stable meat that was affordable. This shouldn't be as expensive if not more than fresh cuts

When you see people talking about friendships that involve lies/boundaries being crossed, you always see people defending the cheaters and shitting on the “jealous” partner. Emotional cheating is extremely normalized and defended.

Especially friendships with ex’s. People pretend that’s healthy. It’s healthy 10% of the time. The only time it’s healthy is if there’s absolutely transparency and you’re not dumping on your partner every time you hang out with the ex.

I can’t tell you how many men have defended interactions and conversations by saying, “it didn’t count. Nothing physical happened.” My response is always, “Okay. If these are the boundaries you want, I’ll start behaving this way with my male friends.” And big surprise! They’re not okay with it!

People lie to themselves and make excuses. The man children I’ve dated like to say, “I didn’t know any better, but I’ll work on it.” I thought treating people the way you want to be treated would be common sense by your late 20’s.

I’m sick of dating. I’m sick of poly ENM people projecting their beliefs onto everyone else. I get that my partner will look at other people or be attracted. The lying is the problem. The lyinggggg. And the gaslighting. And manipulation. Attacking me when they’re defensive.

I truly believe that people who are poly or ENM have unresolved external validation issues. Every time I’ve asked them “Why are you poly?” They say, “It’s not fair to expect one partner to fulfill all of your needs.”

Absolutely correct.

Even if you’re monogamous, you shouldn’t do that. You should find fulfillment by spending time with friends and family, but more importantly, you should have an internal validation system. You shouldn’t depend on constant dopamine hits from the approval of possible sex partners. Endless sex partners. Dating apps.

What did you do before you dated? When you were single? When you were alone with yourself and your thoughts?

As a bi guy who's like 85% into women and 15% into men, I recently bit the bullet and downloaded grindr. Most guys are not my type, so I get approached (read "sent dick and hole pics") a lot and have to let them know I'm really picky about my type and wish them the best of luck elsewhere.

A small handful do that thing where they're like "okay, we can just be friends, no pressure" even tho they're still clearly thirsting. But the vast majority, like 95% of guys are like "no worries, good luck to you too!" some of them even thank me for being honest.

I never stop hearing stories about horny guys being pushy or petty when you tell them no, and it's such a relief that it's a tiny minority of guys I'm talking to

I'm just a complete waste of space. My mind is fucked by a relationship I put myself through for all my 20s. I was seriously messed up. It made me lose all my identity my life. The ending was insane and dragged for years. I still have flashbacks and something like panic/anxiety attacks. I hate myself for having lived that. I hate myself for how I reacted to stuff that happened. I see only black and now one understands it. They all make me feel like it's possible to just tell myself I'm fine and then I'm fine. Like I need to just go to the gym and I'll get over it. I tried that. If that fixes your mental problems good for you, for me it was just nothing. It's nice that I'm fit, but I'm just a waste of space. I missed my life, I don't want the next part and I don't know how to want it. I just want to have a moment of peace and quiet but I'll never have that because life just keeps passing me by and I'm paralyzed. Therapy doesn't help, the meds I have been on for the 2.5 make me feel horrible and I'm pushing 32. I'm worthless, have experienced nothing and I can't do it anymore.

St

I was in the bathroom, my dad said that I needed to come out, so I came out and he started berating me because one of my trampoline springs launched out of the mower (not even hitting him.) and he said “if I see one more spring on the ground I’m gonna throw it at you as hard as I can, and I’m taking it to the scrapyard.” (It was a present to me from my grandma.) then said he wishes I was dead because then he wouldn’t have to deal with this.

This isn’t the first time my family has been scummy to me, a few days ago, my dad called me a pussy because I sprained my ankle at a trampoline park and forced me to walk on the sprained ankle.

Then probably a few weeks ago, my grandma (my dads mom) sat on my $150 ipad 6 and broke it, and when I told her, she didn’t even apologize and just shrugged it off, that same day she condoned my dad pinning me to the ground by my neck and threatening to break my skull open in April.

Also one time in 2024, my dad found out I was extremely depressed so he handed me a kitchen knife and encouraged me to end myself. So yippee I’m glad I have such a loving family.

I feel like I’m always giving giving giving and no one cares about me it’s exhausting. My sibling has been having a tough time so he’s been staying at my room I have been staying with my gf so it’s ok the room is empty he needs it more than me
Now my gf wants to take the key back because she doesn’t want be coming back whenever I want and whatever and I can’t go back because it will wake her up and she has to wake up early basically trying to be like my house my rules she knows what’s going on so I left because I didn’t want to sleep yet but now I can’t go back because she’ll flip out if I wake her up and my brother is in my room am probably gonna sleep on my own couch but like I’m just tired like I just want to rest in a bed and she decided to do this now I just feel like I’m stuck I want to shower and honestly I’m just tired of her she wants to boss me around and nag at me all the time quite frankly I’m over it at this point I just want my room back but my brother has nowhere to stay and he is going to find a place soon but damn dude I feel like she’s kicking me while I’m down and it just makes me really want to end things with her like this is how you’re responding to me wanting to go see a movie ? I can’t come back because it’s too late ?

It’s bullshit

Ok I’m 30 and my friend is like 28 or 29. He has contamination OCD. Google it if you don’t know because I’ll probably butcher it if I explain it. Anyway because he has this he won’t let anyone ride in his car, he has to wash his hands everytime he touches his phone (if he’s touched something else), he washes his hands before and after using the bathroom.

Let’s focus on the car thing because the other stuff doesn’t really affect me. Now when my car was messed up he wouldn’t give me a ride home. My dad had to come get me and I live about 20 min away from work. So my dad had to take that time to come get me waste the gas and I had to wait for my dad. When my friend could have just gave me a ride home.

Because of this OCD he won’t drive us anywhere to hangout so I have to. Now me I’m down to eat and call it (I’m a homebody) however he wants to go 3 or 4 additional places like he wants to make a day of it. Now this uses a lot of gas because I use the air conditioning and going a lot of places. He will not chip in on gas or anything. He just rides and wants to go places that really I don’t wanna go.

Genuinely I’m at the end of my rope with him. Like he a cool guy and everything and I like hanging out with him but this one thing could be a friendship ender tbh. I just feel taken advantage of and feel like a chauffeur

PS I don’t make a lot of money and he makes around 4 more dollars and has less bills than me so there no reason he can’t chip in on gas besides being cheap.

I have told him how stupid his OCD is and he should seek therapy but he won’t

Me and this girl I like from work were on the run from the police. Basically moving from apartment to apartment because they kept finding us.

We even snuck into a corporate building that eventually got raided because they somehow knew we were in there.

The funny part about it is all this shit started off as an eviction… then the police decided to escalate and track us down. We even hid in a Burger King lmao.

Anyways I probably won’t drink again for a while after that…

i want a close friend. a boyfriend/girlfriend. intimacy, emotional or otherwise

in my mind, its a well-kept secret. i don’t want to admit that level of vulnerability

it’s embarrassing, but par for the course for my age demographic—always, that’s the response i find

but the more time passes, the more i feel this way, the more i am convince that there’s something inherently wrong how i behave, how i speak. . . my brain, my thoughts. . . who i am

it makes me want to throw away all ambitions, all dignity; why shouldn’t i live a life of hedonistic self-objectification if it’s the only thing that has pried me away from this misery

I (19f) just got off the phone with my boyfriend (20m) and I just told him so much of how I loved him and just letting my heart out to him and then after that he just said “you’re so cute” and then I waited for him to say something cause he wasnt talking for a a good 5 minutes and then I call out to him like 5 times and then he’s like “huh” I tell him that I was calling him and he says “oh sorry I was on TikTok” he was on TikTok this whole time while I was all smiling thinking this was gonna be a cute moment and he was gonna say something about me! So I burst out crying and he was like “what? What’s wrong” (to me he sounded annoyed) and I told him I thought he was gonna say something else like at least say I love you too?? he just said “okay well sorry I didn’t acknowledge you more. I’ll think about it more later ig? I wanna go to sleep now” and I just said fine and hung up cause wtf was I supposed to do or even say?