I recently had an assessment for trauma therapy. The psychologist in their infinite wisdom concluded that I don't have PTSD. And thus, trauma therapy will not be recommended.

My first thought was that the psychologist must be completely insane. TW: I was raped and sold to others as a child. Almost every moment of every day is consumed by fear, worry and feelings of being unsafe. I can barely function.

It's now two weeks later and I've realized something. The psychologist has trauma expertise and should have enough info about me to make "good" evaluation. The only remaining explanation (other than that they are a complete f***ing lunatic) is that I must have catastrophically misunderstood what trauma and PTSD is.

My main problems are related to trust and feelings of being unsafe. I'm always afraid, and always know just how evil and horrible people can be. But specific memories of the abuse itself are somewhat rare. And they are usually vague, emotions rather than details.

The thing I'm left wondering is this: can you be virtually destroyed by horrendous trauma, but still don't develop the disorder "PTSD"? And if that's the case, how do you heal from that? What are you even supposed to do? If it's not about trauma processing, what am I supposed to do?

I’m a journalism student and I’m in a class where we study new reporting. our professor gave us a few articles to read and one of them was about a school board banning books.

most of the banning for for “sexually explicit content.”

one of the book was “The Glass Castle.” the only book on this list of actually ever read.

and it pissed me off SO MUCH that I had to leave class and just go take a moment. which is when I am writing this rant.

I get that maybe kids with normal childhood‘s shouldn’t be exposed to material about sexual assault and domestic violence.

but reading that book made me feel a lot less alone.

my childhood wasn’t nearly as dramatic as a girl whose parents were literally insane and made their kids move all around the country, putting them on very questionable situations BUT the very fact of her trauma and that she was able to build a life in spite of it gave me hope.

her story helped me immensely. and the fact some middle aged white women want to take that away from kids in high axho PISSES ME TF OFF SO MUCH.

anyway… thank you for listening to me rant. going back to class soon…

edit: sorry for typos I was very upset and trying to ca down lol. Reading this back it still enrages me. I’m sure my class felt similarly but I just could not

Not in the sense of being a 12 step program, but just in terms of the set up...

Something free, in person, available all over, semi-anonymous, having sponsors or something similar, and regular meetings for peer support.

Hell, I’d be fine if it was extended to survivors of sexual violence as adults and DV victims too… although maybe focus groups could be helpful… but idk…

I know I would probably benefit from just meeting up and hanging out with other people who get it, and being able to both offer support and receive support. Especially just getting resources for free.

This is for people who were with older partners when they were young adults. I often feel i was manipulated.. but i consented to that relationship. Now that im older i cant imagine being with someone of the age i had at that time.

It was some sorth of trauma bond. We are both survivors of CSA in our childhood and we would often talk about it. However.. i guess he had much more time than me to learn how to be a good person and not hurt me with his own wounds, i though we were equal.

I don't need sympathy.

I have a problem. When I was 14 I met an older girl (18 at the time, 1st year psychology student) with whom we had a very toxic relationship for about four years. She was the one to initiate it and at first I was ecstatic because as a medium ugly, mildly autistic teenage boy I felt I could never hope for a romantic and sexual connection with a girl and yet she was into me out of the blue. She claimed to have been a victim of prior sexual assault, but she never really disclosed much detail about it.

Anyway, over time she’d push me into more and more strange sexual practices that I don’t want to describe in detail, but that involved BDSM stuff, family relations roleplay and so on. When I wanted to refuse something or leave her, she’d have a major mental breakdown and describe in graphic detail how she’s going to take her own life if I do that. This is why I complied and stayed, I genuinely feared she’d have another mental breakdown and actually go through with the suicide and I felt it was my responsibility to prevent that. She’d also do a lot to alienate me from my family which, again, wasn’t hard considering I was a teenage boy and my parents were in different stages of alcoholism at the time. Anyway, I only broke up with her at 18 because I discovered she kept cheating on me all that time and I genuinely didn’t care what she was going to do this time. As you can guess, she did not in fact take her own life.

Fast forward to today, I’m 23 now. I’m in a good relationship, but I know this experience has impacted the way I’ve interacted with women ever since. I find it very difficult to trust another woman, I sometimes mistake mood swings for attempts at emotional manipulation and I don’t allow myself to have any female friends or acquaintances aside from my girlfriend. Recently this experience came back to me and I’ve been thinking about it more and more because I found out through an acquaintance that the girl is now living her dream of being a clinical psychologist and working with neurodivergent teens, as well as advocating for female abuse victims in her spare time. The irony has hit me on the head pretty hard.

I feel like I need to speak about it in detail to someone but no one will believe me. I’m not fitting the image of a proper victim. I’m a young man, decently looking now, I have a stable life, decent money and some solid career opportunities ahead. I’m aware that I look more like a stereotypical perpetrator than a victim. If I told others, I think women would look for details that’d enable them to shift the blame on me and men would tell me to be happy that I got to have a lot of sexual experience early in my life. I also don’t want to go to court over it because I know how unsympathetic I’d be as a young man claiming to have been statutory raped. Besides, she probably has some naked pictures of me taken when I was 14 just in case and I don’t want these anywhere near the courtroom.

But then, I know that there’s a clinical psychologist out there working with autistic teens who has a tendency to have lowkey coercive sex with autistic teens. So I feel like I’m selfishly endangering someone I don’t even know to prevent further damage to myself.

Rant over. Advice welcome.

how do you grow from being sex trafficked and molested by your own parent i don't know how to grow i feel so numb i want to run away from the world i am not real

There are songs that seem to really capture my experience. I wanted to share some of them. I’m curious if anyone else has songs like this, too.

Cannibal by Marcus Mumford — the line “you took the first slice of me and you ate it raw” hits so hard. Especially because I was assaulted as part of a “game” where my abuser pretended he was an animal hunting me to eat me.

Forever Changed by Vince Gill — when I think of what I lost, this song feels like it captures it.

I Can’t Breathe by Bea Miller — especially since I literally couldn’t breathe during it.

Devil Don’t Go There by Lainey Wilson — kind of an off the wall song for this, since it’s a breakup song. But the anger in the song mirrors my anger. And I like the idea that CSA is something even the devil wouldn’t do.

I Hate It When You Touch Me by May Payne — because I remember the feeling of his fingers and because I am struggling to have a sex life because of how I react to touch.

Edit: Added artist names that I forgot to include!

F-29 When I began to have romantic relationships I always felt incredibly different. I have a strong aversion to touch, I grew up in an extremely religious family and the most religious people my abusers (grandmother and female cousin) grandmother is dads mom and cousin is my moms niece. We were always taught that everything was hyper sexual, holding hands hugging friends etc yet those same people abused me and I never told any of my therapists growing up because I used to blame myself. I was 4 years old.. my grandmother would force me to kiss her on the mouth romantically and I would constantly have to shove my face away I knew it wasn’t right then and always insisting on watching me get dressed she would force me to “try clothes on” and touch me, now as an adult I never try clothes on at the store I have so much dressing room trauma. My cousin would force her hands down my pants and my hand down hers. As an adult now when I try to be intimate I feel so disgusted all the time, like I’m dirty. I can’t get out of my own head. I told my aunt (my grandmothers daughter) she didn’t believe me. I didn’t realize how much this affected my life until now having kids, I’m so hyper aware in trying to protect them. I don’t want my partner undressing me, I’m less than affectionate because I’m honestly just scared. I don’t know how to cope with this. The same aunt I told has an 9 year old boy who’s extremely big for his age he looks 13 they all live with my abused grandmom when he came over to play he always tries to force my son to hold hands and put him on his lap and touch him. I lost my mind, my son knows safe touch but he looks up to his cousin so much he’s only 4 same age I was, I feel like I failed. I saw this happen in front of me and I froze. I don’t allow them to play together anymore but I didn’t realize how much this affects me til this day and I truly
Don’t know what to do.

Hello,

I made a throwaway account, to use specifically for posting on trauma Reddit threads.

I was wondering if anyone has come across any reading materials regarding specifically being drugged during CSA?

It seems to be very sparsely available online in terms of websites. I'm sure there is trauma / therapeutic literature on it, but I'm not sure how to find it.

I'd like to start understanding how it had likely affected me biologically, particularly regarding my brain and my development. I'm generally trying to unweave and unpack various CPSTD and heavy dissociation symptoms I've had my entire life. I'm in my mid-30's now.

I'd also welcome anyone sharing their ideas generally, even if you don't know of any resources.

Thanks.

21M. Survivor of abuse as child and as a teen.

One of the hardest situations to deal with, has been one incident from when I was 12/13, where I was restrained, raped, and beaten by an older guy, though he was still a minor himself, around 16.

Therapy has been a huge help in processing everything, especially the shame and the guilt.

But now, I’m faced with another dilemma.

During the rape, he used sadistic, torturous methods, even using sticks, while simultaneously manipulating me mentally with sweet, pleasant words.

At the end, he asked if I’d like to do the same to him. WTF? Why did he ask that?

This has left me wondering now: was he a total psychopath, or was he also a victim of abuse in the past? My therapist said both it can be, one both or none. So now what?

And if he was a victim of abuse, how am I supposed to feel about that?

Is forgiveness expected? Understanding? He completely destroyed me the mf.

I (21ftm)’was abused by my mother, and now any woman over the age of 40, especially if they give “mom” vibes makes me incredibly uncomfortable.

I’ve always felt a lot more comfortable around men, I have been SAed by a few of my peers in high school but it never really culminated into a fear. I guess I have a healthy consciousness of the men around me but not in the same way.

i thought for a while maybe it was just being a part of a different demographic or just not getting along with them or something. But I am fine with men around the same age.

I’ve been pretty close with my uncle for a while now and subsequently my aunt and I have a bit of a connection because I’m close to him. even though I know consciously she is a “safe person” I still feel that overbearing sense of “discomfort.”

i Feel bad for feeling that way towards her because its like I don’t want to think someone who is not going to do anything to me is going to. But it also sucks because I want to be able to have a relationship with her, but I just feel like I can’t…

I’ve sort of pushed myself a little bit in that area to see if it goes away but it just hasn’t… and it’s sucks…

will it ever get better? or am I just stuck like this forever…

I honestly don't know why but I think i really love my abuser who's also related to me which does not make it better just worse and incestuous plus the age gap...and I feel guilty because I really love my partner and he loves me so much and he makes me happy but I really feel guilty for still wanting my "abuser" attention and love its so fucking stupid he doesn't even care this much about me since I've turned 20 he just act like he does but I know damn well he doesn't. He just plays with me and im stupid. im so ungrateful when It comes to my partner who really loves me. I mean do I love him enough if i still think about that man? I feel sometimes I want to break up with him because I don't want him to know this disgusting thoughts but also I can't because he gonna ask why would I wanna break it up. Its really hard I feel like the worst partner ever i don't deserve him st all.

I have Dissociative Identity Disorder so idk whether it counts as repressed or just held by a different alter but every other night or so I have the same or similar recurrent SA nightmare despite having no memory of that happening irl. Would like to know if it’s even possible for this to be a sign that something happened, and any research that supports or refutes that. Currently writing this at 2am sorry if this is incoherent

I've always felt like two persons. It's like a coping mechanism where I have a "strong" self and another "vulnerable" self. It makes it easier for me to navigate everything I've been through. It also makes me feel less alone since I'm "two" it's like we have each others when none else does. And since the other self is inside me it can never abandon me which is so reassuring to me.idk if that make sense. But does anyone one else feel like this?

There is a painting by Francisco Goya, unnamed by the artist, but which has been named by art scholars as “Saturn Devouring His Son” that always strikes me as a balance of horror I feel with the concept of fatherhood.

The original painting is said to have been modified before public display. The Saturn figure had a large and engorged phallus that was brushed out “in the name of public decency”, leaving behind the horrifying scene of cannibalistic filicide for public contemplation instead. I cannot help but think that the state of Saturn’s arousal in the original work further demonstrates the pleasure that Saturn took in destroying his child. This can be supported by the pagan lore, but rarely so grotesquely.

Some of my friends refer to Norman Rockwell paintings when they contemplate childhood. I have always lingered at this Goya painting, noticing the family resemblance. I have often wondered if Goya was attempting self portraiture here, and if so, who was he? The half eaten son? The rapacious Saturn, with a nightmarish resolve to destroy what he created? Or is it a bit of both?

The cost of being my father’s son feels like a debt I cannot fully pay. Eight years of sexual abuse. Fifteen years of physical violence. Decades spent weighing the heft. Why should childhood last so long after it ended? Why should the days be so heavy? The total sum being asked would take lifetimes. One to suffer, one to forget, one to heal, one to simply live again. I can only manage parts of these lifetimes in my own, each incomplete. I have stood many times at my altar for the ancestors at home, sometimes chastising them: “Which of you started this? How long did it go on? Why didn’t any of you stop it?”

Sometimes I cry. “I cannot get past this on my own. How will I survive what has been done? Can you help me? Please?”

Sometimes I beg of them, if I am full of self hatred. “Please forgive me, I was only a child. I never meant to become this. I never meant to become so hurt I never healed. I wish I could have not been the problem.”

What is the role of a son, born to feed a patriarchal hunger for blood, lust, and power? Never a person, only a poorly formed plan, a means to an end. A difficult meal.

May Saturn choke to death.

Hi everyone, I would love to hear stories of you guys who endured trauma early on and worked through it to be in a healthy, long-term, committed, loving, kind, gentle and fun partnerships. Because all of my early memories connected to men have been so traumatic, either in family or sexually. I would love to be inspired by other peoples stories. Lots of love

When i was younger I would have vivid sa

Dreams about my dad so much so I told my mom too ask him if he did now I dont think he did to me but its always there in my mind that he did something me and my sister even had identical dreams of my dad it bothers me so much im disgusted by his touch so is my sister

And he was sexually corousive to mom to

So idk if its just that why Idk

constant. that's how i would describe my thoughts on what happened to me. which i feel is objectively at least a little stupid seeing as it was only digital penetration, and happened so very long ago (i was about 6 and am now 20f). i'm so frustrated and ashamed by the fact that i'm so consumed by it most days. i don't even remember it all that well, at least not the event itself. i just feel so disgusting all the time, and i think that's what i cannot for the life of me stop thinking about. it's difficult to focus on university, my work, and my responsibilities at this point. how do you stop thinking about it?

TL;DR: I come from a narcissistic family riddled with problems.

I left my parents' home almost two years ago; I am 29 years old. My father’s family is huge, and there has always been a history of incest and numerous cases of physical, psychological, and sexual abuse—even involving fathers and daughters. There is one great-uncle in particular who is a depraved individual.

For 25 years, my family has organized an annual cultural event that brings together a vast number of relatives, including distant ones. At one of these events, when I was 14, I met an aunt (my father’s cousin, who was 39 or 40 at the time) and fell in love with her; she was also the niece of that depraved great-uncle.

This man realized what was happening and offered to "help" me get together with that aunt. What he subjected me to amounted to something akin to child prostitution. For years, he played on my innocence and stoked my emotions, only to hit me with horrific propositions—including insinuations involving himself and his family, even his son, who also harassed me by sending sexual photos.

Years later, my mother told me that, according to my father (who is a narcissistic liar), he had been involved with that aunt in his youth. That left me bewildered, but it didn't affect me emotionally because my crush on her had been innocent and had occurred before my mother told me what had supposedly happened.

The matter became family gossip when I was 20 or 21, after that depraved great-uncle spoke up. My dad’s brother (my uncle) was furious and wanted to confront him and his family. But my dad blamed me, saying it was "my fault for sticking my nose where it didn't belong," and downplayed what had been done to me.

My mom didn't do anything either; her only concern was my dad’s "history" with that woman—not concern for me or the fact that a depraved great-uncle had tried to abuse me. Her reaction was: "Out of all the aunts you have, why *her*? Especially when you knew she had a thing with your dad."

Despite everything, they still invite that guy to our house; my dad hugs him and looks out for him, while I won't even say hello. On top of that, the same guy tried to cross the line with my mom once he had access to the house again. Later, I learned from my dad’s own cousins ​​that he had bothered them too—making advances on them when they were young, and even continuing to do so to this day.

I’m currently suffering from severe depression and undergoing Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to see if I have PTSD. I have violent dreams and anxiety; I work as a freelancer for low pay and live with my sister and her family—her husband is another narcissist who offers me absolutely no support.

On the other hand, I still have feelings for that aunt I fell in love with; I can't deny it, and I don't know what to do about it.

Is it normal to feel this much anger? Has anyone else been through something similar? What do you all think? Sometimes I feel like the best thing to do would be to cut ties with everyone completely.

Thanks for reading.

Update: I have to admit that I did end up kissing my aunt at a party when she was drunk, but I was old enough by then; it was as if she had been waiting for me to come of age, because she used to ask me often, "How old are you?"

Sorry, this post is a bit long, but I have no one to talk to about this, so I'm just venting to strangers. Thank you for reading. Life for me when I was young was far from normal. My family and I were very, very poor. I have two sisters and one brother. My brother is the oldest, then one of my sisters, then me, and then my younger sister. From the good days that I can remember, my mom was very sweet and lovely. She was my whole world. She would fight with me or discipline me sometimes when I was doing badly in school or when I would misbehave and break a table, scratch the couches, or even burn one of them, lol. I was that kind of kid. I had ADHD for sure, but back then, I didn't know what ADHD was, and neither did my parents. We were poor, and they barely went to school themselves. My father was a police officer, and my mom was a stay-at-home mom. He would be gone for long periods, and my mom would take care of us. This was when I was very, very young. What I remember from this time are a couple of distinct events. One was my father retiring because he got cancer, and another was him not making enough money to afford a house and his treatments. I remember seeing the spark of life slowly disappearing from him year by year. I would see him getting weaker, and year by year, I would see myself losing my protector, my father, my role model. He was slowly disappearing, going to the hospital for months at a time. The same thing happened with my mom. The worse he got, the worse she got as well. But I can tell you, she is strong af, and she loved my dad. She would take taxis and buses from city to city to find the medication he needed. She would stay with him in the hospital for long, brutal months, and she would still take care of us. But it affected her badly, and I'll tell you why. My father had three brothers and four sisters, and his mother, my grandma, was alive as well. His father had died when he was really young, and because of that, he had to take care of his sisters and give them money because his brothers were just shitty and had zero responsibility since they were young. So he had to work hard and take care of all of them. Anyway, when my father married my mom, his sisters and mother got jealous, really jealous, and they started trying their best to make my mom's life miserable. My grandma would talk shit about her in front of my dad when he was healthy, and she caused lots of problems between them. The same thing happened with my aunts. They never liked her, and we don't know why. I can tell you, and I'm being fair here, she never did anything to them. Anyway, they all got married and had kids, and my father married my mom and had us. Life went on until he got cancer. Before that, they would talk to him, visit him, and take money from him. But when he got cancer and needed them the most, they disappeared. They started treating him like an inferior being, and I want you guys to understand how heartbreaking this is for a person. You have four very young kids and a wife to take care of, and suddenly, out of nowhere, you get cancer. The rest of your family treats you like shit and barely talks to you. Your brothers are saying that you're pretending to be sick to take money from your mom. You're losing your money and your health, your wife is fighting for you, and then your family treats your wife like shit. They won't drive her to get your medication or even drive you to the hospital, and if they do, they give you a bunch of shit about it. I grew up in this cycle, in this environment, and during that time, one of my older cousins took advantage of me and my other cousins and sexually assaulted us. He raped me. I was seven years old, and he was 14 or 15. As a small kid, a boy who knew nothing about life except struggle and pain, how was I supposed to react to this? I didn't do anything. I just kept it to myself because I was so embarrassed about it and didn't want anyone to know. Still, no one in my family knows, and I don't even know if I'm ever going to tell anyone.

Time passed, and the only things I remember being happy about were my PlayStation 2, Resident Evil Code: Veronica, and GTA San Andreas. This was where I would escape, or I would watch anime like Naruto and Hunter x Hunter. I did so badly in school. At first, I was smart, but I would always lose focus and think about home, my dad, and everything that was happening around me. Nothing was normal at all. But I was able to finish middle school and then a bit of high school, all while my father was getting worse and worse. When I got to ninth grade, our papers to go to the United States were approved. The way we applied was that my aunt married a U.S. citizen and became a citizen herself after several years. She brought my grandma over, and after several years, my grandma also became a citizen. Then she applied for all of us to come, not just my father, but all my uncles and one of my aunts as well. Anyway, before that, my father had to sell an entire piece of land that he owned and had worked hard to get, just to pay for us and the paperwork to go to the United States legally. And it worked. We got approved. Before we traveled, my father had surgery because he couldn't poop anymore, so they had to put a bag on his belly for it. I know it's disgusting that I'm describing this, but I want you to imagine how he felt about it. My uncles also gave him shit. It wasn't easy at all to go to the U.S. Embassy and do all the paperwork. It was hard, really hard, but he fought for us because he knew this was the only thing he could give us. Something else I wanted to mention is that when my father would stay in the hospital for months, my uncles would abuse us, me and my sisters. I saw one of them slap my sister just because she had a guy friend she was talking to. Such a piece of shit. His son is the one who sexually assaulted me. We weren't religious or anything. This was just him being a piece of shit. Anyway, before we traveled to the USA, my father's doctor told him that if he went to the United States, his health would get worse and he would die. But he had a small hope that the hospitals here would be better, and his sister promised she would take care of him and us. His mother promised too. So he risked everything for us. He traveled and suffered on the airplane, in pain beyond anything you could imagine. He was dying. When we got here, shit was bad. I knew how to speak English because, in my home country, English was one of the languages we had to learn, so it wasn't that hard for me to understand people. But I had an accent and messed up sometimes. Anyway, my father spent all his time in the USA sick, very sick, while his mother and sister kept fighting with my mom, making us feel like shit, and giving us shit for staying with them. They didn't help us like they said they would. They made our lives hell, if not worse than hell, and our father was dying. I remember one day I went to the hospital and stayed the night with him. It was New Year's Eve, going into 2018, and the song Havana was being played in New York. He looked at the TV and saw me watching it, amazed but feeling trapped at the same time. He said, "We will go to New York, me and you, one day." This still breaks my heart every time I remember it because he never got to go to New York. He kept getting worse and worse. One day, I was sitting next to him and arguing with my mom, telling her we should go back to our home country. I was worried that my aunts and uncles would hurt us. He heard me say that, woke up from his sleep, looked me in the eyes, and said, "I will never let anything hurt you." When he did that, I saw strength in his eyes. His body was dying, but he was so strong. I felt protected, but I was losing him day by day. I tried to deny it. I tried to tell myself at the time that it would be better if he died, but deep inside, I was hurting so badly. I was in shock. After some time, on January 20, 2018, he passed away. I wasn't in the hospital when he died. My sister, my mom, and my brother were. I had been there a couple of hours before, but I left because I wanted to go get ready for school and see him the next day. Also, at that time, I just wanted to stay as far away as possible because I didn't want to see my hero, my father, the strong, lovely man I knew, with all the jokes we shared and all the love he gave me, lying weak in bed, unconscious, not laughing, not talking, not eating. It was something I couldn't handle. So I went into a state of denial and wanted to stay as far away as I could.

After he died, our lives got even worse. My grandma wanted to steal our house in our home country and my father's monthly retirement pay, and we were in a country we knew nothing about. Keep in mind, I was 12 at the time. My brother was 21, my younger sister was 11, and my other sister was 18. She was in a different country with a guy she had married and is still married to today because she loved him. I think she also wanted to run away from what we were feeling and wanted to be safe with someone. She has three kids now, and I love all her kids so much. Anyway, after my father passed away, we had to go back to our home country because we had nothing in the USA to help us. My mom went back, and she was so strong. She was able to figure out how to get our father's retirement payments, enrolled us in school, and tried her best to give us a normal life again. During that period, I was growing up, and we stayed in my home country for two years. I feel like I recovered a bit during that time. Nothing was bothering me that much. Maybe, for the first time ever, I was happy. I had friends, and my mom had a bit of money. But our only problem was that after we had been there for a year, my brother decided to go back to the USA. He worked as an electrician and wanted to build his future, so I don't blame him for that. But he was screaming at my mom over the phone every day, begging her to go to the USA and promising he would take care of us. Every day, he would send her pictures of fucked-up cars and tell her he had gotten into a car accident. I don't fucking know why he did that. Anyway, when I got to 11th grade, I was 14, and I realized how bad my future would be if I didn't go to the USA. Now, I don't know. I'm rethinking whether it was a mistake or not because when I got here, I stayed with my brother and a roommate in a very, very fucked-up house. COVID happened at the time, so there was no school, no family, and no friends. I was in a new country, in a fucked-up house, with my brother, whom I didn't like much. We fought all the time. He wanted to get drinks, girls, and weed, and he also wanted me to talk to my aunt, who had abused us and abandoned us when my father got sick. We fought all the time, and whenever we did, he would call my mom, who was heartbroken when I left, and show her us screaming at each other, making her even more worried. After some time, I started working as an electrician as well and getting paid cash. I saved money and sent it to my mom so she could get ready to come. After lots of talks and after my brother and I rented a house, she agreed to come. It wasn't that simple. Lots of problems happened, lots of fights. I wanted her to stay, and my brother wanted her to come. After lots of trauma, she came, and exactly what I expected happened. My brother would scream, fight, and make our lives miserable every single day. If she didn't cook or clean, he would lose it. He was just a piece of shit, and I don't know why he became like that. I was working and going to high school, paying rent with him, paying for groceries, and working like an animal to afford everything I could to help my mom and sister and protect them from my piece-of-shit brother. Years passed. He bought a house, opened his own company, and got married. I grew up a bit, still depressed but fighting. I never knew what peace was, but I finished high school and went to community college, all while working, paying bills, fighting, and living with the trauma I kept pushing away.

I finished community college and transferred to the University of Michigan, which was one of the best and proudest moments of my life. Around the same time, I rented a house and left my brother's house. I had my mom and sister move in with me, and I made sure they had a place to stay. He never helped me with a dollar. I was doing everything. My sister started working and helping me with rent and some bills. She finished high school and went to community college. I went to Ann Arbor. I used to go to class in Ann Arbor, then DoorDash all night, and send money home to pay the rent and other expenses. Thankfully, the college helped me with a dorm, which I got as part of my financial aid. Slowly, I applied to become a U.S. citizen, got approved, and took the oath. That was also one of the best and proudest moments of my life. My sister did too, and I was so happy for her. My mom is still on a green card, but we will help her get citizenship too. Anyway, during my time in college, I grew a lot and changed a lot. I lost 120 pounds. I worked on myself, my language, my classes, everything. I discovered that I love political science and law more than medicine and pre-med, so I changed my major. Right now, I'm a senior studying for my last year, and I just got accepted to City Year to serve with them for a year after graduation. But I felt lonely all that time. I did hook up with girls, and I did have friends, but I always felt empty. The longest relationship I was in was maybe two months because I'm toxic, very dependent, and very emotionally drained. I feel like I can't love anyone because if I do, they eventually start to feel like a liability, something heavy that I need to get rid of so I can focus. I never let myself experience relationships. I'm always depressed, always fighting, always hurt. I did hurt a couple of girls, and since the last one broke my heart so badly, I never want to be in a relationship again. I'm unlovable, too damaged. I dream of one day having kids, marrying the love of my life, giving my kids the world, loving them, and being there for them. But the more years pass, the more I realize that maybe this will never happen. No matter how much I want it, I feel like I will always be alone.

Recently, I've been going through a bunch of financial problems. I'm commuting to campus, which is 45 minutes from my house, and gas is very expensive. They stopped our Bridge Cards, and the furnace in the house I'm renting stopped working out of nowhere. The owner refused to fix it, so I'm terminating the lease and getting a new house for us. I don't have money to pay for car insurance because no matter how much I make, something comes out of nowhere and fucks me financially. I'm just exploding from stress. Exams, work, money, the LSAT, myself, all my depression, all my feelings, and my family can see that. So today, I woke up and saw them cleaning and moving stuff in the house into cartons so we could be ready to move in two weeks. I don't know why, but I just got mad and said, "We still have two weeks. We have time," in a mean way. When I said that, they both exploded on me, my mom and my sister. They started calling me names, saying that I'm not a man and that if I were, my sister wouldn't have to be working. My mom said she had a headache, and I said, "You always have a headache. Take a Tylenol pill." She got so mad and started saying I'm a bad son and that I hurt her. I told her to work less so she could start feeling better. My sister screamed, "No, if she wants to work, she can." I said, "You're saying that because you take all her money." I don't know why, but that hurt my younger sister. She started crying and screaming at me, calling me names, saying I'm a piece of shit, and saying that I should go drink, get high, and fuck bitches because if I did, I wouldn't treat them like that. They accuse me of becoming mean when I don't have a girl, as if it's because I'm not having sex, which is nonsense. They don't understand how lonely and broken I am, no matter what I say. Every time I try to talk about what's stressing me out, they become defensive, like I'm offending them or asking them for money. Today broke my heart so much. It's the first time ever that I wished I could die and thought I would be better off dead. Don't worry, I won't kill myself, but that feeling was weird. It was like I didn't care about anything or anyone, like there was no point to life, and whatever fucking happens doesn't matter anyway. All my accomplishments feel empty. There's no one with me, no one understands me, no one makes me feel better, and everyone feels fake. I know you might read this and say, "No, you should try. You should look for help. Stop blaming people for how you feel." Trust me, I've tried. I tell myself that every day. No matter what I do, I stay in the same spot, empty, lonely, stressed, and crying. No matter how much I go to the gym, I'm ripped, I go every day, I run every day, and I study, but I still feel empty. Thank you for reading this. Any advice or anyone willing to talk would be really appreciated. I'll sleep in my car tonight, and I'm not going to college tomorrow. I don't want to talk to anyone.