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Hi, how are you? Mental health support and discussion thread (September 2025)
This is a monthly thread for those who need it. Vent, share your experiences, ask for advice, talk about how you are doing. Let's make this a compassionate space for all who may need one.
I had a miscarriage last week. We had nearly made it out of the first trimester...but not quite. Every day is a new flavour of awful, and the thought of having to be kind and conscientious to people outside is still utterly exhausting. I'm heartbroken and most people don't know and won't understand.
/user/cheep_cheep
I am deeply sorry for your loss.
I'm sorry. I can't even pretend to understand what it must be like but still, I'm sorry.
I didn't know either until now, and I didn't think it was possible to feel so many things about what I would previously have considered "the potential to be a person." But it is very, very different when that potential is growing in you, and is so entirely dependent on your body and choices to bring that life into being. And similarly, it feels like an equal magnitude of failure when that potential doesn't turn out, even when I did everything "right". Miscarriages happen, and especially around that point, but it doesn't make it any less devastating when you happen to be on that side of probability.
I'm grateful for being in a space where you share about this experience.
In my day-to-day I (cishet middle age man) don't hear about miscarriages a lot, especially considering how common they are.
I, of course, don't mean to take away from your experience by saying you share it with many others, I'm just genuinely perplexed by how little this is talked about - even in comparison to death in general.
I wish you to have all the possibilities to feel all your feelings in the ways you need with the support of your people.
First, I'm so sorry that this happened to you. You and your family didn't deserve this and the pain much be unbearable.
Second, based even on your short comment I'd bet a lot that you're a kind person. And that's a great thing! But something a lot of kind people really struggle with is this: it's okay to be a jerk sometimes.
You're right, people won't understand. It's going to get under your skin when they're unintentionally hurtful. But you don't owe anyone your compassion. Especially not when you're hurting. Putting kindness and compassion is good for the world and good for your soul, but it's not a REQUIREMENT. And right now? You're suffering and going through a tragedy. Fuck everyone who doesn't understand, if they can't see how serious it is they're not worth the time of day.
Even close family and friends. Boundaries are always really important to maintain but now especially is the time to be enforcing some very rigorously. Focus on healing and being with the people who support that.
You can get through this. I believe in you!
A few weeks ago I posted in that week's support thread link and got some good advice from the community. I was having some trouble negotiating the waters of a friend-turned-life-coach situation. Thank you all who commented.
I have since followed through with the advice. I am no longer using her life coaching service. I left her a positive review and was honest (she did help me with some practical advice I was able to implement pretty quickly). I am not sure how she felt about it. I believe she felt like she didn't do her job well enough, otherwise I would not have quit the coaching program. I left it at that, didn't want to go into anymore details (just rip the bandaid).
I'm feeling better, like I can breathe easier. I think this kind of thing just isn't for me. It wasn't really a reflection of her doing a poor job. I think she's probably pretty good at it, and I am very likely a bad candidate for any couch/councillor/therapist. I find it odd and unfair to open up and talk so much about myself to someone without them also opening up (whether it's free or a paid service). It's like I feel I am giving the other person too much power over me while they remain safe and distant in their tower. Maybe this is why the very idea of counselling or therapy never appealed to me in the first place. I have no issue talking about deeper things, when the other person is also sharing equally deep things. I don't like feeling like a patient, especially with someone who was a friend previous to being a coach. That kind of shift in the dynamic left a bad aftertaste and I am glad the whole thing is over.
I'm glad you were able to bring things to a good resolution. What a relief!
This is so interesting. One of my favorite things about therapy is that the person is completely outside my circle and has a duty of confidentiality, so it's the one place I can say anything that's on my mind and not worry about hurting people's feelings. I use that space to hold up and examine some of my frustrations and it really helps me decide whether to hold on to those feelings or not.
I'm not trying to change your mind about therapy, I just never thought about it in the terms you mentioned. Always fascinating to me how many different ways there are to be people.
I have to convince myself really, really hard and over and over again to not act on my reads of the therapist (or similar), to not try and please them or to not make them open up and use the time to talk about themselves.
I think I'm just hypervigilant in the situation and maybe what @Paul26 wrote is a clue... The lack of reciprocity might make me unsafe so I deploy everything I know to feel less unsafe, will have to think about it, thanks to both of you for giving me something to consider.
I have this problem too. I have to work to really open up and not minimize the issues because I want to appear to be doing well. I remind myself this is supposed to be the safe place to let it all out, and if I don't, I'm wasting both my time and money.
In my experience (US mainstream healthcare, license therapists), therapists are generally pretty good about setting good boundaries in this regard. I have been with my current therapist for over five years, and I can think of just 4 semi-personal facts I know about her. For example, I know he husband has some kind of chronic illness, but not what it is or how it's going.
By contrast my first psychiatrist had no boundaries, and we would often spend our time talking about her problems, or her dogs problems (no lie!). It was not a productive relationship.
Which is just to say, IMO a good therapist should be reflecting the focus back to you and helping you get away from this feeling about involving them. It's certainly a thing to bring up and discuss with them if it weighs on your mind. And if you find that it has become a place of reciprocal sharing ... it might be time to get a new therapist.
To be fair, she did do that. I think she will be a good therapist / life coach - for other people.
Yeah, you got a point there about spending the time talking about your therapist's dog problems, paying good money for that would be a little crazy.
That's what I was feeling too. Like I had to stop seeing this person as a friend, and just see her as a professional providing a service. It took too much effort, and for sure I did see myself wanting to "do well", please them, get "good grades". I think to me "helping out my friend" took priority over "helping myself".
In my case, having known the therapist before, as a friend, may not have helped. In fact, I think it may have been a bad idea to even give it a shot to begin with. Then again, if a friend asks for help, I tend to say yes (not to sound cheesy, but "that's what friends are for"). Perhaps trying again with a therapist who does not know me at all may yield different results. I am not saying "no" to it forever, but not right now. I have been reading and listening to some books that fill some of the need. Atomic Habits is full of useful tips to build good habits and break bad ones; some Zen-related books help me be more mindful and get out of my own head (quiet the mind); and this book called No More Mr Nice Guy helps me work through some issues where I tend to be too nice to everyone else and not put enough emphasis on my own needs. I think working on all these things with a professional therapist can yield even better results, but if you're introspective enough and in touch with yourself and your issues, you can get some OK results with books.
I sort of drafted a short essay that's 4 years of toxic trauma brain sludge and upon review, it's a lot that really shouldn't be out like that. And more importantly, those feelings aren't me. But it's getting really really hard to keep remembering that.
To summarize, I'm at the tail end of the worst month after 6 other bad months in what was supposed to be the good year. And looking down the line, it's bad all the way through to March next year.
And the rational part of knows that it's an incredibly tough time for everyone and you need to help where you can.
But when you are so desperate for help and i take stock of what people say and treat me compared to others, I really get the sense that people don't believe that I need help. Or worse, they are actively witholding it.
So you got a lot of toxic feeling creating toxic ideas and it inevitably starts affecting behaviour. Toss in the complication of spending 65hr/week doing a bullshit job at the family business and there is literally no escape, especially in this job market. And generating your own income is a little hard when you're running on fumes and prayers.
And even when I try dealing with it in the healthy way. Communicate my feelings and struggles and set and clear expectations. But after a minute of lip service, and maybe a single concession its right back to the same old. Everyone just has this way of saying that you're being lazy and spoiled or entitled or weak. So you drop it.
So yeh, this stagnation is becoming soul crusing right now. And right now the only thing I'm asking for is just some time of not dealing with things. But its been made clear over the years that it's an impossiblity.
I definitely feel the same way. Almost six months since being laid off and I can't even find any temp work and I've fallen short in nearly every single interview I've done. Currently living off savings (with my parents) because I don't want to apply for Universal Credit and go through the same horrible dehumanizing process I had to with Jobseeker's Allowance eleven years ago.
Had to withdraw from an apartment purchase for that very reason, and it's a shame because that was a golden goose opportunity given how expensive SW-England is.
My brother (works as a software engineer for a big tech firm) has been extremely pushy about referring me for jobs at his place, but the roles he's referred me to have been way above my paygrade, way above my actual qualifications and I don't want to relocate or commute 150 miles into London every single day, because the c-suite looks upon remote working with disdain.
Now thinking about ditching accountancy entirely and retraining towards IT or cybersecurity, to the point where I signed up to TryHackMe a few weeks back. Maybe the training providers advertising all these courses are a bunch of grifters, but IT and cybersecurity are interestingly one of the few subjects you can get funding for a second degree to do.
Hahaha, it's so dumb!
I've been anticipating this topic for a week, I really like it, it feels like one of the things that makes Tildes feel like a place for me.
Now I feel like I have to write something interesting or unique or engagimg. It feels dumb to just tell you how I'm doing.
Maybe I just don't know...
(And typing that out made my eyes fill up with tears... Is the "correct" expression "made my eyes well up"?)
Oh well...
"Well up" is probably more usual to me, but "fill up" is perfexrlt fine and understandable.
It's okay to just say how you're doing :) I find that refreshing about Tildes - that everything is not driven on engagement. I, for one, am here for the everyday stories too.
Whether your problems seem big or small by comparison, they are still your problems. It's good to find a place to talk about them, whether or not it's here.
I like this weekly thread a lot too. It's a good avenue for talking about stuff (big or small) and getting some really insightful perspective from others. I don't always post something, but I always check it out and read through.
meme voice
im just tired boss.
can't even figure out the words to express how much of a trainwreck my situation is sometimes between chronic fatigue, executive dysfunction memory windows, and RSD/anxiety/depression telling me
shut up, nobody carestook days to challenge myself to comment this as a simplest possible task
matrix resucrrections neo voice
On the bright side, I've been exploring some of this thru fiction - with the common themes of time loops, branching possibilities and systemic antagonists.
Not sure how to post about it, especially the incomplete bits or the ones that are mostly sketches.
Sometimes it do be like that. Where you can only really express bits and pieces due to being tired, or being unstable, etc.
I hope you can have at least some rest soon, despite(or perhaps especially because) of the chronic fatigue.
Yesterday I had a very intense therapy session of EMDR. Some old memories resurfaced after my recently acquired self-love and the way it had a titanic collision with some toxic parts of me. It ended up being a complex web of memories giving my early puberty a really nasty experience in a way I did not expect, although it did explain a lot...
I'll have to do another session or two for sure. But my head feels much lighter already. And I understand my own life better and better as this experience goes on.
In another note... I've been struggling with the state of the world but in an unusual way. I'm not directly at threat of any of it, at least in the near future. But a lot of people I know are, and there are some things that are difficult for me not to take personally, or I understand the consequences of some very specific "policies" a bit better than other people. And it's strangely isolating. Like I'm not the victim in a lot of different cases. Which, I could handle if it was just a few things. But when stacked together it's something else.
Paired with how much my own life improves and, well, it's not exactly survivor guilt. But it's not not that either. It's a strange dichotomic feeling that is difficult to put in words.
Been an awkward month.
Two weeks ago, a friend who I've known for the past three years (I'll just call her Lucy, obviously not her actual name) came on to me and I feel like things got too friendly between us. She kept making flirty comments (i.e. suggesting I get a tattoo of her name on my knuckles), had grinded on me a few times, and kept asking me to kiss her on the lips. We did kiss a few times, but it was her initiating it. On one of those times, I thought she was just going in for a smooch. Next thing I know, her tongue is in my mouth and she is full-on snogging me. I feel bad that I reciprocated.
Almost immediately after I got home, she apologized for kissing me via text, told me it was a friendly kiss and that she really values me as a friend. I'm not hurt or heartbroken about it, just confused about her intentions. We haven't messaged since (I gave her space because she had to have an operation recently) but I feel like I'll need to get back in touch with her. She's hosting an event this weekend and offered to give me a lift (the day before this all happened), but I forgot that I'm actually meeting another friend earlier in the day so I don't think I'd even be home by then. My friends think she's bad news and I should just ghost her, but I can't do that to somebody who offered a lift to me.
Alcohol was involved, but she was acting this way towards me early on in the evening, even before she had drank her first glass of wine. And she was compos mentis enough to apologize to me as soon as we got home.
Lucy is somebody who I'd have sex with, but not necessarily date, partially due to the age gap (she's 15 years older than me), but also because she has a bit of a reputation for being a maneater. I also would have been wary about going back to her place, because I wouldn't take advantage of a drunken woman, nor would I want to put myself in such a situation.
I met up with her because I was worried about her mental health. Her boyfriend broke up with her nearly three months ago and I heard a rumour that she allegedly tried to take her own life. But also, this ex-partner has a tendency to get jealous and confrontational, and she had actually dumped him and tried to get with a mutual friend of ours over a year ago (he turned her down, but the damage had already been done.) I actually worry about him finding out and flipping out at me, even though he seems to be over her and moving on.
I don't know how to approach this situation. Should I just ghost her or tell her I actually made other plans earlier in the day to visit another friend? Should I even go to her event?
I don't understand the advice you're getting to just ghost her, but I only have what you said here to go on. Unless she's dangerous or something that seems like a pretty dick move though. So why not just tell her the truth about everything? (i.e. How you felt awkward/confused about that night, how you feel about the idea of a potential "more than friends" relationship with her, the fact that you already made plans so might not be home in time to meet up with her before the event, etc)
Gonna avoid elaborating too much on this.
I've heard from friends who know Lucy much better than I do that she's narcissistic, manipulative, toxic, even physically abusive behind closed doors, and that she's done bad things to people they care about. I haven't personally seen that side of her.
My main worry has been hurting her ex, who is also a good friend of mine. He hasn't said anything directly to me about their breakup (unusual for him, as they've split and gotten back together several times over the past two years), and I feel like he's been deliberately avoiding the subject with me, even though he's told others I know about it. This is an ex who supposedly got mad with somebody when Lucy told him he winked at her.
I'm also unsure who broke up with who, if they still have feelings for the other, or even if the rumours she tried to take her own life were true.
Gonna have to tell her about the conflicting plans anyway, I think I'd be a dick if I said nothing. But also, I don't want to make it about the kiss.
I'll admit, I enjoyed the evening a lot. But I also see her as a really good friend. It could also be that I'm aromantic, cagey and just really struggle to develop romantic feelings.
That definitely makes the ghosting advice much more understandable. I personally still think it's a dick move to totally ghost someone though, and prefer to be up-front about things. It sounds like you're also similar, so at the very least I would explain to her that you would prefer to just remain friends, if that is indeed the case.
Your uncertainty about what to do is also understandable given those circumstances as well. :/ Were it me, I still wouldn't completely ghost or shun Lucy just because of their ex also being a friend of mine, and them being the jealous type... especially if I still enjoyed Lucy's company (as another friend, or as potentially more than that). But I'm also not afraid of potentially serious confrontation after telling a jealous ex to fuck off either though, should it ever come to that, so YMMV. :P
Sure, I get that but if you don't actually properly address it with her at some point, is it going to become a giant elephant in the room? If not, then cool, try to forget about it and keep hanging out as friends like you did before the kiss ever happened. If it will/might though, would it not be better to nip that in the bud?
I'm someone who avoids violence and thinks the best martial art for survival is the 100m dash. The most fighting experience I've had was a few kickboxing classes, a single Brazilian jiu-jitsu lesson and someone picking a fist fight with me in secondary school. Her ex by comparison is a former doorman who works for a security firm. I would lose that fight.
That being said, they broke up nearly three months ago and a big part of me thinks I won't be in danger if he found out. From what I've heard from everybody else other than Lucy and her close friends, the ex is over her. He even said to a mutual friend that he thought she'd try to get with him next.
If he did get pissed... well there were witnesses who said she was all over me and I seemed a bit awkward about it at times, I have receipts of her apologizing, and I've told two close friends what happened in case things did kick off in their vicinity.
Potentially. It's more like...
Don't get me wrong, I do try my best to avoid violence too. But I've also been in enough fights over the years, and had my ass kicked plenty of those times, that I'm not afraid of getting into another scrap. So if someone is being a dick, I'll tell them.
As for your question in point 3, I can't help you there. When it comes to understanding women's minds I'm pretty clueless/oblivious since I've mostly just hooked up with other gay/bi/pan men, who are generally a LOT easier to read the intentions of. ;)
I avoid confrontation because it's the best thing to do for survival when alcohol is involved. I went to school with somebody who got punched to the ground and kicked repeatedly in the head on a night out. He was left in a coma and died a week later. His case actually made national headlines in my country because he was only 17, and exposed a massive problem with underage drinkers and doormen not checking ID.
Fair. I'd ask for advice about it on Reddit but I think the people on there understand women even less than we do. As for Lemmy, I don't think they even have a relationship advice community.
Also, I worry that my post might go viral and end up getting regurgitated on social media. And Lucy is rather active on Facebook...
Welcome to the table, we are thrilled to have you! <3