Personal loan agreement, amortization

How do I politely decline constant financial requests from relatives and friends?
My relatives and friends constantly ask me for financial assistance. I have assisted many times for payment of school fees, food etc. 2 years ago I loaned my brother some money to start a business with the agreement that he will start paying back the next year. It's been two years now and he is not even talking about the money.
Last month, my aunt asked me for financial assistance for her business. My nephew also asked for assistance for my sick half brother. The problem is that I am on maternity leave as I just had a baby 4 months ago so I don't know where they expect me to get all these money from plus, I have 4 children to care for.
I feel obligated to assist my aunt because she had assisted my mom in the past (while we were kids). My half brother is ill so would really need my assistance.
I don't have too much to spare, I am just financially responsible not living above my means. The last time i told my brother I had no money to spare, he said I was disrespectful in how I talked to him. I have also lost a childhood friend because she thinks I am proud because i refuse to give her money. She even spoke with my brother who agreed with her I have changed and don't help. How do I respectful decline? Do I need to explain to them that I don't have to spare?

I (F22) was having a phone conversation with my boyfriend (M23) and he was ranting to me about what was going on in his moms house. To get context his mom opened her arms to a lot of our friends to live there when they didn’t have a place to stay. A lot of people, even my boyfriend (her son) left except 1 friend, and the rest of the house was replaced by family members. This one friend is tired of staying because of the disrespect in the house towards my bfs mom and him with being too loud, ect. he found himself a place and is planning to leave before the lease ends in july. My bf is complaining to me how he thinks he should stay because they all agreed to stay until that time and it’s just 2 more months. I really held my tongue on what I really wanted to say because i’m trying to be sympathetic with his situation so I said, “I don’t think it’s his responsibility to stay if he didn’t want to and maybe you and your family members should find a way to take care of his portion of $500.” What I really wanted to say was that yes they opened their arms to let his friends stay their but they have the option to leave when they didn’t sign a written contract, only verbal and i guess good faith they would stay. My bf (her son) even decided to leave and the house is in his name as well leaving his mom with the bills. He also knew his mom was dying 4 years ago with a terminal illness and decided to move out 2 years ago. I feel like if it was my situation I would’ve stayed and wouldn’t burden my mom to take care of her financial situations and wouldn’t ask my friends for help. Especially when they don’t have to follow a verbal agreement and then try to force one person to stay because I decided to not be responsible and get a new apartment hours away from home instead of staying by her side. Personally my mom wouldn’t let me be in the situation where I have to take care of her financial issues but if I had to I would drop everything and do what I could vs leaving it to my friend when I was the one who left. There are family members that stay there as well, there are family members who come to visit that can help with the $500 lost when the friend moves out. I just thought it was unfair for our friend to put that on him when my bf left as well knowing the situation and allowed other people to leave. and his excuse is “i stay at my new apartment i don’t have the funds to do it, my aunt doesn’t even pay rent now she ask her new boyfriend to pay it.” Thats a horrible excuse in my opinion and im a logical thinker and very proactive in decisions dealing with close family members and my life so that really just pissed me off. Because if someday I was to marry him and i turn sick or our children turn sick how would he handle it. Maybe I should’ve kept my mouth shut and listened to him rant but he always feels like I don’t say much when he rants and it’s because I do not agree with a lot of how he handles things and that’s me having sympathy for his situation by not giving my opinion. I think I was just fed up this time and just started sharing my opinion without even thinking about it. but, as a true friend and girlfriend I can’t sugar coat everything and i’m not going to agree with everything. So, i’m going to give a logical opinion that will hopefully help him realize that he gotta step up to the plate and not depend on other people to fix his problems. After the conversation transpired he hung up on me(which i thought was very childish) and we havnt spoken for 2 days. I was going to reach out and swallow my pride because he needs support right now but in a discord this girl texts his name wrong and then retypes it and he responds with the same thing and she says she drunk texted him. She has his number to do that privately and she barely responds in the discord. But, why is this girl drunk texting you. very off topic but that just seemed weird as if they were trying to get at me or something is happening. Overall i feel bad that i hurt his feelings but it needed to be said because his friend are gonna sugarcoat it and not tell him how it is.

My mum gave my sister and her husband a $29,000 CRV car because my stepdad had dementia. The deal was they would pay $3000 up front and when they came into some more money they would pay her back. This was. Verbal agreement. Fast forward 12 years, my sister has now come into a lot of money, over $400,000 plus, she has not offered any money back to my mum who is now on a pension and has to live week to week, my mum has an $11,000 credit card debt that is keeping her from getting ahead, my mum has hinted to my sister about the repayment of the car and she just keeps dismissing it, can my mum take her to small claims court even though the car was in her husbands name and he is now deceased? It is just so frustrating to see this happening and to make matters worse, the car was for my sister but her husband drove it everywhere. my mum as is such a loving and giving person, and help them out when they were struggling and now they pretend like they don’t owe anything!! any Australian law advice would be appreciated thanks 🙏

I (F22) was having a phone conversation with my boyfriend (M23) and he was ranting to me about what was going on in his moms house. To get context his mom opened her arms to a lot of our friends to live there when they didn’t have a place to stay. A lot of people, even my boyfriend (her son) left except 1 friend, and the rest of the house was replaced by family members. This one friend is tired of staying because of the disrespect in the house towards my bfs mom and him with being too loud, ect. he found himself a place and is planning to leave before the lease ends in july. My bf is complaining to me how he thinks he should stay because they all agreed to stay until that time and it’s just 2 more months. I really held my tongue on what I really wanted to say because i’m trying to be sympathetic with his situation so I said, “I don’t think it’s his responsibility to stay if he didn’t want to and maybe you and your family members should find a way to take care of his portion of $500.” What I really wanted to say was that yes they opened their arms to let his friends stay their but they have the option to leave when they didn’t sign a written contract, only verbal and i guess good faith they would stay. My bf (her son) even decided to leave and the house is in his name as well leaving his mom with the bills. He also knew his mom was dying 4 years ago with a terminal illness and decided to move out 2 years ago. I feel like if it was my situation I would’ve stayed and wouldn’t burden my mom to take care of her financial situations and wouldn’t ask my friends for help. Especially when they don’t have to follow a verbal agreement and then try to force one person to stay because I decided to not be responsible and get a new apartment hours away from home instead of staying by her side. Personally my mom wouldn’t let me be in the situation where I have to take care of her financial issues but if I had to I would drop everything and do what I could vs leaving it to my friend when I was the one who left. There are family members that stay there as well, there are family members who come to visit that can help with the $500 lost when the friend moves out. I just thought it was unfair for our friend to put that on him when my bf left as well knowing the situation and allowed other people to leave. and his excuse is “i stay at my new apartment i don’t have the funds to do it, my aunt doesn’t even pay rent now she ask her new boyfriend to pay it.” Thats a horrible excuse in my opinion and im a logical thinker and very proactive in decisions dealing with close family members and my life so that really just pissed me off. Because if someday I was to marry him and i turn sick or our children turn sick how would he handle it. Maybe I should’ve kept my mouth shut and listened to him rant but he always feels like I don’t say much when he rants and it’s because I do not agree with a lot of how he handles things and that’s me having sympathy for his situation by not giving my opinion. I think I was just fed up this time and just started sharing my opinion without even thinking about it. but, as a true friend and girlfriend I can’t sugar coat everything and i’m not going to agree with everything. So, i’m going to give a logical opinion that will hopefully help him realize that he gotta step up to the plate and not depend on other people to fix his problems. After the conversation transpired he hung up on me(which i thought was very childish) and we havnt spoken for 2 days. I was going to reach out and swallow my pride because he needs support right now but in a discord this girl texts his name wrong and then retypes it and he responds with the same thing and she says she drunk texted him. She has his number to do that privately and she barely responds in the discord. But, why is this girl drunk texting you. very off topic but that just seemed weird as if they were trying to get at me or something is happening. Overall i feel bad that i hurt his feelings but it needed to be said because his friend are gonna sugarcoat it and not tell him how it is.

I’m new-ish to reddit, but this has been weighing on me. All names are changed for the sake of the story. My ex (19) Sam and I (19f) started dating when we were juniors in highschool. I had gotten out of a horribly abusive relationship, and we were already close friends. Aside from friend group drama, our relationship was great. We were head over heels in love, and had plenty of mutual friends.
Fast forward 1 year to the night before my 18th birthday. We heard about a house party and ended up going. They had invited their friend, Alex (20), to tag along. This wouldn’t have bothered me, but they invited them before they invited me, and only invited me when I practically asked to be invited. Later in the night, we all got pretty drunk. I’ll preface this by saying that Sam and I were in an open relationship sexually, but not romantically. Alex, Sam and I all ended up kissing. I befriended Alex.
I then found out from someone else that Sam and Alex had been hooking up, which was not the agreement of our relationship. The agreement was that if either one of us wanted to sleep with someone, we should tell the other before the fact. I manage to move past this after a very long conversation about trust.
A few months later, Alex ghosts me because I made a joke that made them uncomfortable. I tell them that I wished they would have told me, but understood, and I wouldn’t want to continue the friendship either if they were the type of person to drop someone without an explanation like that. That’s that. Still, Sam and Alex are hooking up.
Eventually, I tell Sam that as their girlfriend I don’t feel comfortable with the fact that they are hooking up with Alex, who has made it very obvious that they don’t like me by actively talking shit about me. I tell them that, as a matter of fact, I don’t like that they’re still friends with them. Sam says they don’t have many friends, and that Alex is their best friend and the person that they trust the most in the world, with anything and everything. I’m convinced Alex has feelings for Sam, and a mutual friend of mine and Sam’s, and formerly Alex’s, even tells me that Alex has been raving about how Sam is the best sex of their life, and that Sam is so hot, and so perfect, and they’re being completely obsessive about Sam. I also bring this up. Nothing happens, and Sam and Alex remain friends, but stop hooking up.
Then, one day I’m talking to Sam, and ask what they’re doing. They say they’re at home, but we had gotten Life360 for fun, and I remember seeing that they left home, so I check. Then I see that they’re at Planned Parenthood, right by my house. I ask, and they reveal that they’re taking Alex to an appointment. I ask why, and they say it’s personal. I tell them that that’s really suspicious.
By this point Sam is staying at Alex’s almost nightly, seeing them 4-6 times a week, and I only see them 1-3 times a week. Eventually, right before Valentine’s day, I tell them that I think they’re having an emotional affair, and I need them to treat me like they’re my partner, not Alex’s. After this fight, we break up mutually, and they say that nothing I say makes sense and I was entirely paranoid. We had attempted to stay friends, but currently are no contact. Am I the asshole?

26F; I am going to list it down in sequential events. TL;DR need to learn how to detach

1. Had a friend for almost two years, we used to vibe like crazy. One day we ended up hooking up. Had an agreement that we can stop when either of us feels like it but no relationship.
2. Cut to 6 months later I developed feelings for him
3. Conveyed the same to him 2 months later, we continued the hooking up part, but we didn't take it to the next step.
4. The hooking up continued for 10 more months.
5. In the meantime, he forgot my birthday; we never met to just hang; we still used to talk almost daily; he didn't go out on a date or anything with anyone else. We never met when I wanted to.
6. Recently had some shit going on in my personal life and I wanted to meet in person and talk to which he outright said no, and gave AI generated response when I tried texting. I lashed out and sent long paragraphs how its not working and we shouldn't talk anymore and he said okay.
7. In hindsight during our last conversation (Saturday) I also said somethings which as a friend I should have never said.
8. I apologised for what I said on Sunday night, and even called him (I had said something really nasty). I called him again to apologise last night as well but he didn't answer.

How do I move on from him? It feels like a part of me would accept him no matter what, when I know I shouldn't. even during our last fight I made it clear that we both wanted different things and its not okay that he gets what he wants while I am left confused. The thing is he says he doesn't want to get in a relationship. Even though I have apologised he hasn't reached out or tried to pacify things which makes me feel upset.
TL DR: how to move on from this? considering that we used to talk almost daily.

[ENGLAND]
Hello
Bit of a tricky one. Lender has lent £6649 for a PA system (sound system for events). We drawn up a contract which states the amount lent will be used for purchase of said sound system and fully owned by myself. No deadlines of when this is to be done by. Both parties have signed the loan agreement.
The money is the be paid back at £200 a month, I've made the first payment so far.
Nothing has changed my side and I continue to hold my end of the loan agreement. 90% of the money has been spent on a PA system. The remaining is waiting for an opportunity to arise for more audio equipment.
The lender seems to have gone off the rails a bit; weeks later phoning that I'm "ripping him off" - He wants to see invoices or hes going to his barrister and so on. We have those; its not a problem as the equipment was purchased new.
However I've explained to him the money he invested has been spent on the goods; hes been to my property and seen this.
Hes made suggestions over the phone he will rip up the agreement and sue me etc.
Does he/she have any recourse of this?

As you load into the shuttle you run over your cover story once again. All of you are officially acting as bodyguards for the Faction Paradox representative, this will allow you to move around the ship without any suspicion. The Ultra Lux is a one of a kind starship, divided into two sections. At the centre of the ship is the guest sector, with its own seperate docking port where all of the luxuries of the ship are located, filled to the brim with every kind of entertainment imaginable. Surrounding the guest sector is the military sector, responsible for managing the ship's vast defensive systems and keeping the numerous valuable assets on the ship as safe and comfortable as possible. The ship is captained by Ariana Lux, second in command of Trion's interstellar relations department who manages the company's shadier associates. Most well known for betraying the Great Houses, a collection of colonies ruled by old world aristocratic families, during the colonial wars in return for retaining her family's power over the now resort world of Favonious as well as a prominent position within the company. Surrounding the ship are numerous fleets bearing the flags of countless factions, everything from guilds to pirate clans to major sovereign powers (mostly Hegemony). All of these people are the kinds who can afford personal battlefleets. All of this is part of the agreement Trion has with the guests of "necessary donations" to ship security, essentially to intimidate anyone from attacking with the amount of enemies they would make as well as to maintain the company's influence and enforce Trion's will over the various business deals that occur for as influential as these people may be, they are still bound by the will of Trion Incorporated. Your shuttle docks and you are escorted to the main hall, filled to the brim with luxury foods and decorations where the guests have at least five obvious bodyguards each, and multiple more hidden. You recognise a number of Hegemony senators, a handfull of high ranking CAC operatives, a representative of the Ragamuffin company, the leader of a significant Vermensk clan and even an ork warboss to name the most notable guests alongside numerous miscellaneous guild leaders, rulers of independent planets and pirate warlords.
Your Faction Paradox agent instructs you to take his luggage to his room, the signal for the job to commence.

One of the “softer” sections in my opinion. Relates more to mindsets and ways of thinking. No real definitions to study, it really just emphasizes the importance of diversity, inclusion and ethics. A good understanding of labor laws will help this section click better. Outsourcing: The transfer of some work to organizations outside the employer’s payroll. The vendor may be across the street or across the country.
Off-shoring: The transfer of some work to sources outside the United States. On-shoring (home-shoring): The relocation of business processes or production to a lower-cost location inside the same country as the business. Near-shoring: Contracting part of the business processes or production to an external company located in a country that is relatively close. For the United States, that could mean Mexico or Canada.
Organizational Approach to International Business
Ethnocentric: Headquarters maintains tight control over international operations Polycentric: Each international operation is treated as a distinct national entity Regio-centric: Operations are managed regionally Geocentric: Organization is viewed as a single international business rather than a collection of individual headquarters-country and international operations
Unfair Labor Practice (ULP):
The NLRA, or Wagner Act, prohibits employers from engaging in ULPs The LMRA, or Taft-Hartley Act, prohibits unions from engaging in ULPs
Collective Bargaining patterns:
Pattern/Parallel bargaining: Union negotiates agreements similar to those existing in the industry or region. Referred to as whipsawing Coalition/Multiple employer bargaining: Multiple employers, negotiating with one union Coordinated Bargaining: One employer, negotiating with multiple unions
Weingarten Rights: A union employee has the right to have another employee present during certain investigatory interviews
The person attending must be affiliated with the union that represents the employee, not an attorney or relative.
Types of Contract Negotiations:
Positional negotiation People are locked in positions Parties lose sight of underlying problems Emphasis on winning Principled negotiation Separates people from problem Focus on interests, not positions Invent options for mutual gain Insist on objective criteria
Collective Bargaining Subjects:
Mandatory Subjects: Subjects that directly impact — wages, hours or working conditions. These are subjects over which the parties must bargain if a proposal is made by either party. This does not mean that the parties have to reach agreement on such proposals, but rather that they have to engage in the process of bargaining in good faith over the subject. Overtime Seniority Vacation/holidays Illegal subjects (unlawful by statute): Subjects that cannot be legally bargained over by either party. They are subjects that would violate the law and cannot be entered legally into a collective bargaining agreement even if both parties agree to do so. Closed shops (a place of work where membership in a union is a condition for being hired and for continued employment) Discriminatory hiring Permissive subjects (voluntary): Subjects not directly related to the work. The list can be infinitely long. The parties may agree to bargain over these but are not required to by law and can refuse to discuss them without fear of an unfair labor practice charge. It would also be a violation to strike over a permissive subject. Benefits for retired union members Settlement for ULPs Neutrality agreements
Formal Grievance Procedure:
Immediate supervisor Intermediate supervisor Higher-level management Third party #shrm

My spouse and I have been working in a small software business for a few years. The team I was on completed a multi-year project (on time). As part of this multiple year project, as an incentive, I was supposed to get a substantial bonus/payout next month, and then another moderate bonus in a year if I stayed and moved over to the new company. However, the agreement with the third-party company somehow collapsed. Though they were essentially paying us the entire time for the dev work, they decided they now want to throw it all away and are not going to go through with the acquisition leaving the software company I work for, which nearly exclusively relied on this client, essentially out of business.
My goal is to somehow figure out how to rework my entire financial position to see if any of this is salvageable with the time I have left.
I could find another role but I may have to take a substantial pay cut for a short time just so I can quickly ramp up on technology that is desirable in my area and get some skin on my very barren resume as I've been with one place for so long writing very niche software for a niche platform. I'm just worried about survivability even if it's 6 months. Also burning through any retirement is truly terrifying to me at this point in our lives and I just assume I'm working until at least 67.

The good:

• I have a paid-off cabin + property in a desirable location that I could sell for at least $60k+ (maybe a little more if I didn't want to sell it quickly). I could maybe rent the cabin but I'd want to do it long term, and that would maybe bring in $6k a year? Renting doesn't seem viable, but who knows. It's too far away to make AirBNB manageable.
• I have some pretty substantial physical assets that I know I could sell off quickly if I absolutely had to for another $50-60k.
• I have other smaller assets that I could liquidate that would take time, but I could maybe get another $20k+ out of them but not quickly. It would take a chunk of time.
• I could move the family member in the rental into our current home which has essentially a separate apartment in the basement at the same rate. Combined the rental could bring in $1.5k a month, the family member would add $500/mo for a few years while they're getting on their feet, that could add $2k a month to the income stream.
• We have about $360k in total retirement, $225k in stocks, $65k is in 401k/Roth/SEP, $40k in a VUL, and $30k left in a money market account for emergencies. Also about $20k in HSA.
• There is a slim possibility I might get at least $100k, but it's all conjecture at this point and I can't make big decisions on that or trust that it will happen. From what I understand I'd have to take a hit on taxes for this money as now it'd come in as cash income instead of a stock conversion.

The Bad:

Job market collapsed in my area in '09. BK in 2010. Lost everything including a house I had moderate equity in. Had to live off 100% of my 401k withdraws and lost 10 years of retirement and equity because where I lived at the time it was so bad I couldn't even get a job at a grocery store and I had two babies at the time. I wasn't just broke, I was super-broke for an extended period of time. I still feel the scars from this.
Eventually dug myself out, learned new skills, and moved to a different area with more job options but I was still behind both in salary and definitely in retirement for years after that. This bonus was supposed to help me recover my retirement and debt from the crash + BK. Now I'm in my mid 40s, my partner is in their early 50s and we've only recently gotten ourselves to a place that started to feel safe for retirement and back on track and started putting away in our Roth + HSA regularly and wanted to start maxing that out asap.
And now it feels like quicksand all over again.

The Ugly:

The stupidest thing I did was because we'd reached this milestone towards the end of last year and I stupidly assumed it was a done-deal -- I rewarded myself by going out and getting a vehicle I'd always wanted. I paid into it with some down payment to get me in it at 3%, but because of market conditions and other programs that reduced the value of the vehicle a few months later -- even if I sold it 3rd party I'm probably at least $25k upside down in if i tried to sell it outright.
We now live in a HCOL area so housing is kind of outrageous. Due to a medical emergency with my spouses parents we had to purchase a house quickly a couple years ago to accommodate her parent with pretty significant medical issues on very short notice so we took a bit of a bath to acquire it quickly. Because of the timing we had to float mortgage payments at two properties for almost a year which burned a lot of our emergency savings and then some of the profit from selling our previous house. Also lost the 2.75% rate 😭.
She also couldn't work during most of the year so she could take care of them which didn't help.
We were able to find our current home on short notice that met their needs at the time, but then her parent died less than a year later and now we are in a house that's way more expensive and way larger than we really need. Also we are now back to the beginning of the new mortgage where we're paying almost all interest even with 20% to avoid PMI. With the market going up and what I have in it, even with the couple years of almost all interest payments, I could maybe get $150-$175k out of it if I had to sell.
We have a rental property that is nearly paid off (maybe $60k left?). We had good tenants for quite a few years, but the last one was horrid and basically destroyed it. I just put a bunch of remodeling into the house to update it and make it easier to transition between tenants if we had to. But because I'd assumed I was going to be paying it off with the bonus, I'd paid for a lot of the first round of work with cash and put the materials on a CC. Also in the process another family member was struggling with a life change so to help them get on their feet and have a second set of eyes on the property while it was all happening -- we let them stay in the house for the last year at cost (only charged them the mortgage). With that all wrapped up, now I'm in the position where it's technically costing me money to have them in there even at cost. They can't afford regular rent. That agreement is technically up in July.
I have about 40k in misc high-interest debt from material costs from the remodel.
How:
I'm trying to determine what the best course of action is at this point. I'm concerned about keeping my head above water on monthly expenses as it's going to quickly snowball to an unmaintainable nightmare if I don't get things under control fast. But at the same time I do not want to jeopardize our retirement. But I absolutely have to reduce the monthly burn rate to make this work. If anyone has insights or suggestions, I'm all ears.

1. I have to get all the high interest debt paid off first ASAP. It's more than 15% of our income per month if I don't take care of it soon. Because I depleted most of my emergency savings, should I take the rest of the cash out of the emergency fund? I could spend a couple months selling the larger assets, and either replenish the MM or go ahead and max out Roth's for the year then replenish or switch to HYSA for a couple percentage points?
2. I really don't know what the best approach on the vehicle is. I could try and see what a dealership might do on a much more sustainable vehicle for 1/3 the payment, but at the cost of throwing away $30k in cash most likely. I don't want to finance the delta as it completely defeats the point. Should I just pay it off so it's not taking up 20% of the income per month and keep it until the wheels fall off?
3. From what I understand, I assume my VUL is completely pointless at this point. The whole purpose was to provide a vehicle for the large bonus. Should I move the value in it to a more traditional investment since all the benefits were reliant on the bonus lump sum? I didn't really like the VUL as it seems insanely complicated anyway. Not sure if this should be more of a financial advisor question or not.
4. Should I keep the rental property or sell it and put that towards my current mortgage to try and greatly reduce the monthly cost of my home? With maybe $1.5k a month in rental income -- paying off my current house would save me almost $2.5k a month. Even ideally, the rental income would take 10yrs before I got the same benefit. However one of the reasons I might want to keep this property is if things got truly dire over the next few years I could throw the bulk of my stuff in storage and we could move into it if absolutely necessary because it's only about $400/mo in taxes and insurance where our current home is more like $1.2k. If I had no other choice, that is at least someplace I could always live a few years and squirrel almost everything away.
5. The mortgage is the biggest expense in our budget and at nearly $4k/mo, it is almost 1/3 of our combined current income (if nothing changes). If I take a hit on salary in the short term it could be 1/2 or MORE of current income at least for some short period of time. Does it make sense to keep it for x years and then sell since I'm already a few years into the loan and just figure out how to accelerate the principal so we can stay in it long enough to not completely have wasted the last few years of payments? Then hopefully 1031 it into a more affordable home in prep for retirement?
6. In a world where I got the $100k or more, is it worth while to pay towards my current home & do a recast, or put that in an investment? I'm a little worried about binding it up in the house, but the long term benefits may be worth while in a few years if I can just bust my ass and get the delta covered and get it to a point where I'm not burning money only on interest.
7. Literally any other suggestions! Especially the most effective uses in the case of the much smaller bonus if it does come in and what I should do with that given the current scenarios.

An open letter to Benedictine College and Harrison Butker
I first came across the Harrison Butker’s 2025 commencement speech at Benedictine College on Twitter. It was a short snippet of the speech and I was in disbelief of what I heard. Intrigued, I went to YouTube to find a recording of the whole speech before drawing further conclusions. Now, I am nearly beyond words.
I grew up in the Catholic Church, attended a Catholic high school, and do still consider myself to be Catholic, although not without my own qualms with the church. However, this is not about that. I am also a more recent college graduate. I graduated from a large public university 5 years ago and am looking forward to obtaining my graduate degree next year, both degrees I have worked incredibly hard for and am immensely proud of. I don’t remember my own commencement speech, but if it was anything like this, I am glad I don’t- I loved my undergraduate experience and will be proud to have my diploma framed and hanging one day. Harrison Butker’s speech is condescending, out of touch, and against the very values of your school. You both, Benedictine College and Harrison Butker, owe these graduating students an apology.
As a proudly Catholic college, I do not hold issue you or your choice in speaker with promoting Catholicism and the beliefs of the Catholic Church, even in regard to politics; while I may not agree, that is your choice to do so and one that underlies the foundation of your school.
The class of 2025, as with many recent graduates and current students, have had to work through a unique set of hardships as a whole, beyond the personal hardships we all face. Mr. Butker is not a recent graduate, nor is he working directly with a school or university. College is a change for everyone from high school, with the course load, schedule, and independence, but beyond the nervousness and uncertainty that comes with this new phase, students are able to rely on the fact that since its inception, the college experience has been relatively stable, until the COVID-19 pandemic. Students, and faculty, were forced to rapidly adapt to a situation that we knew very little about and had no history to guide us. To minimize that, say that “it is not unique,” especially as someone who was not experiencing it from an educational aspect, is disrespectful to students and faculty, regardless of beliefs on the issue. Pandemics are not new, nor are controversial policies, but what these students faced, was new. I know of no other time during our history, where thousands of students were nearly overnight told to immediately leave their housing and worry about their finances and shelter as not everyone has the means to find new housing or go back to their parents, have food outside of the dinings halls, or access to a computer and internet to complete their coursework where they had planned on attending in person or using university resources, when these things are apart of what students pay thousands of dollars for or take loans to afford as part of their college expenses. Whether or not you support these policies and changes, that does not lessen the unique hardships faced or make a student wrong for adhering to them when failure to do so could result in greater consequences. If there is another time where this has happened, I am happy to be referred so that I can learn. It is one thing to say that the feelings of uncertainty and anxiety around new policies and adapting to them are not unique, but another to say that the challenges these students faced as a result of policy is not unique, it is disrespectful, condescending, and completely out of place as someone who did not experience it.
Beyond this, it is even more disrespectful to diminish the accomplishments of particularly the female graduates of your university by allowing your speaker to advocate forgoing using their degree and instead, choose being a wife and mother. To Benedictine College, if this is what your school advocates, then why charge tuition to your female students? How will they pay for it or pay off their loans for it? Do you expect your female graduates to marry a man who will pay off their debts? What happens if they don’t or if they choose a vocation in religious life, are their debts forgiven? To take it a step further, why admit female students at all if their degree is not meant to be used? A yearly tuition of $35,000 seems a greedy ask to attain what becomes a useless degree. Maybe this is not something you support, but I have yet to see any statement indicating dissent with this position. The Benedictine sisterhood and St. Scholastica, its founder, take pride in education and she herself do not choose the vocation of marriage. How would St. Scholastica be able to attend your college when she found her vocation to be in the religious life? To Harrison Butker, how dare you? I am happy for you and your family that your wife can be a homemaker if that’s what she wants to do, but that is completely out of touch for what nearly all of these students will face as they graduate. Your family can comfortably live on just your salary of over $4 million per year, but you are a minority in this situation. You speak of not allowing cost of living to prohibiting where you live, but with your salary, I’m sure there are few areas you cannot find suitable housing and access to food. Is one supposed to choose to live in circumstances where they do not have a stable shelter in favor of a more traditional priest? Earlier in your speech you mention “accepting your lane and staying in it,” I believe you should have taken your own advice, because your lane is far wealthier than mine and likely all of the graduates you are speaking to. Most families will need two salaries to live in even a fraction of the comfort you live and even then, may not be comfortable. From what I understand, you went to GT on a scholarship, another minority, factor in student loans, and the comfort fraction becomes even smaller. Should a family live in a constant state of worry about money so that a woman can be a homemaker? You spoke of charity and the platform God has given you, but I do not see you using your wealth for charitable acts to support the lifestyle you advocate in these graduates. You decide to speak for women and presume they are most excited at the prospect of marriage and children when you are speaking to congratulate them on a major accomplishment that has little to do with their future as a wife or mother. Can a woman not find fulfillment and a calling as a valuable member of the workforce and a wife and mother. As a woman who anticipates graduating from medical school in one year, is being a doctor not part of God’s plan for me? As I understand it, my vocation, is not between being a wife and mother or being a doctor, but of the calling to serve as a married, single, or religious person. You make it seem as though I cannot be both a doctor and family woman one day. You make remarks about controlling how and when children are conceived. You condemn IVF and surrogacy when a large portion of woman and men in this country struggle with infertility or health conditions making a pregnancy incredibly dangerous. If a woman cannot naturally have a child then is she not to be a mother? Do you also condemn adoption as it a choice and controlled method of becoming a parent? Is it only if a woman is unable to conceive naturally that it is acceptable to work rather than be a homemaker? I have always been taught in my experience with the Catholic Church to welcome children into your life whenever they come about, not as a barrier to being a working mom. You have laid out the options as black or white, mother or worker, when I believe the advice is to be open to and welcome God’s plan for you in both areas of your life. Not only do you advocate for the females graduates to forgo the workforce when this is an unrealistic path for most, but in doing so, you add extra pressure to the male graduates to provide in an unrealistic way. At what cost do men take higher paying jobs they are unhappy in so that their wives can be homemakers? You have worked hard to get to where you are, say you are doing something you love, and are able to show the fruits of that labor, should these graduates not show all of the knowledge and skills they have gained through earning their degree?
To Harrison Butker, I, too, am Catholic. I believe we also are similar in that we question right from wrong and do not just blindly accept the things that are fed to us. You say that our priests and bishops are anointed by God, but quickly question that anointing. I now question you, in who you are to question who has been anointed by God. You point out it is your duty as a father to lead your son. In our faith, we call our priests Father, but you call us to question and right them, should they not lead us? Should we not follow the quote you use of trusting our priests to translate the teachings of the Bible for us? Does your son question you and what is your response? You call for priests and bishops to be righted but also to stay in our lane. I do not mean to support the actions of our church leaders either way, but as an individual am not following what you ask of these graduates.
To Harrison Butker, you say you speak from experience, but it seems your experiences are vastly different than most of the graduates you speak to. Your statements contradict one another, in questioning our church leaders, staying in our lane, and even speaking of your wife as someone who converted to Catholicism but later question being with someone of a different faith, not allowing for change. As I have stated before, it is one thing to speak of shared feelings, but another to speak of a shared experience. You give advice in black or white rather than ideas for consideration and reflection. Listening to your commencement speech, I can’t imagine I would have found excitement for the future and wisdom as I start to move forward on my own. Had this been my speech to give, I couldn’t speak to a lot of the challenges these students faced, but can empathize with the fears of stepping out of the student life and uncertainty about my future. I could speak to how being able to adapt to challenges, facing hardship in my own way has made me strong and able to persevere and that they too have grown to be stronger and able to persevere too, even if they are not confident. I could speak to how money is not always the most important thing in life, your church, your family, your community are all things to reflect on when making decisions about the future. But, this was not my speech, it was yours. My ideas may not be right, maybe it has more “fluff” than yours, but they do not tell me the right or wrong way to live my life, as that is between me and God.
To Benedictine College, much of this is address to Harrison Butker. However, this is the person you chose and supported in giving a commencement speech. What is address to him, is also a reflection of what you support and believe, and the message you hope to send your graduates off with. I am not one of your graduates, happy to say I am not with this speech, but at least for me, this is the representation I have of your school.
To Benedictine College and Harrison Butker, you both owe the graduates an apology for these disrespectful and confusing sentiments as they enter a new and stressful chapter of their lives.
To the Benedictine College class of 2025, congratulations!

I am an NRI and have a NRE account with ICICI and really interested in the ICICI emirates Emeralde Credit Card.
The card is listed to be only issued to Indian Salaried person and dont I have an relationship manager listed on my account to check and push him to get it done. (its useless anyways).
Any one has any contacts (CC sales executive) who can get it done for me. I am based on Mumbai and currently in India.
I have pretty good CIBIL score 820+ (have a housing loan and CC and no defaults ever).

That kinda sucked.
I was like over Mob's rampage by the first fight scene and it was obvious he was just gonna bulldoze the rest of the guys that showed up. It was very nice to see the development of everybody Mob helped, but man seeing him bulldoze everybody was boring as hell.
It only got interesting when we actually saw why Mob, or rather Shigeo, was doing these things. It was honestly confusing why a car collision set him off. Well, that's not true, a car collision would rattle anybody, but it just looked like a very expensively animated tantrum. Once we learn that it was Shigeo, Mob's psychic side that he had been suppressing since childhood taking the reins it made sense.
I really liked that actually, I just wish him being an antagonist was foreshadowed, cause honestly this alternate ego came out of nowhere. The dialogue between him and Mob was way more interestring than the fight scenes, whihc is why his fight with Reigen was the most interesting. We don't just see Reigen can thrashed around, we listen to Shigeo's perspective on Reigen. It was like how Mob argued with Mogami that the Claw Plant guy was worth saving, which is later proven true. I would have loved to hear Shigeo's perspective on the ex-Claw Boss and all the other people Mob helped.
My BIGGEST gripe however is that we don't see Mob get rejected. COME ON. I did not just watch this guy destroy the city, rather bored, to not see him CONFESS. THAT'S WHAT IT WAS LEADING UP TOO.
I'm not mad he got rejected, but why didnt we get a proper scene of him getting rejected? wtf.
And Reigen....as cool as he was, he was honestly not needed and it is incredibly disappointing they use him again to calm down Mob. All these people in Mob's life and it was Reigen....well I guess if it had to be anyboyd it should be Reigen. AND IT WAS....2 SEASONS AGO! And we see more of him than we see of Tsubomi. He has an emotional moment with Mob, and I'm like cool...Tsubomi's turn..NOPE. Mob walks back a second later and we get to see reigen again be a good guy. I just think Mob should have calmed down for other reasons and not because Reigen confessed to not being a psychic. We see that arc in season 1 and 2. The ENDING of the this season was even kinda about him. It;s nice that he has these people to support him and care for him, but OI already got that impression yonks ago I did not need that cemented.
My other gripe is the understanding between Mob and Shigeo. Wasn't Mob supposed to open up to his psychic side after this? In the ending, he doesnt use his psychic power once. What the hell was the agreement about? I don't see 2 personalities finally reachig an agreement, I just see Mob.
It is honestly dissapoitning. I though him embracing his psychic side would introduce a personality change. Like he's still gentle, but way more assertive and maybe even snarky.
God, and him laughing at the end was so creepy. Typing this, it reminds me of that amazing scene in GOTG 3 at the end where Nebula screams at the top of her lungs in pure joy. It was beautiful to see this character come so far from being her abusive father's slave to finally having a family.
I am honestly very disappointed with this final arc.
Here's the things I did like:

1. Ex-claw members being reformed. That was great. The best scene was with the flower guy.
   
2. Reigen. Despite my gripes, I can't not love that man. And Dimple coming back to help him was great too. It was so hype to see Reigen just try his damnest to get to Mob.
   
3. Tsubomi being proper friends with Mob afterwards. I've been through that moment where you get rejected by the girl you like and they say they're better off as friends. It's nice that this is what seems to be happening for Mob and Tsubomi. Getting rejected wasn't the end of their relationship, in fact it seems to be the start of their friendship since they hadn't talked consistently in years. Once again, this would have been better if we saw the dialpogue between them when Mob DID get rejected. Oh my God, I'm still pressed about that.
   

Overall...I really dislike it. Maybe if I watch a youtube video deconstructing it I'll like it, but mannnnnnnnn it has a lot bringing it down for me.

I was underpaid for my last week of work at my old job, so I'm short of funds till my next salary comes in next week. Still need to make a good impression at the new job though! Mulling over a personal loan to cover the transition period. May not have to, since all my bills are paid for the month.
Heres the good impression morning prelude I just had:
Wake up, my cat ("the boy") is screaming at me for food. Feed the boy, shower, apply clothes, oils, and trinkets. Decide to make a coffee and get as far into it as possible before I leave. If I catch the next bus, maps has my commute timed with 10 minutes to spare.
Pick up my everything bag, get out, start journey. While walking, check my bus card for funds - balance is negative. Try to top up on app. Declined. Check bank balance. Balance also negative. An ancient annual WordPress subscription that I never used has appeared from the warp and debited 130 quid. Shitshitshitshit.
While still walking, and with my bus a mere 6 minutes away from my stop, I apply for a personal loan on the app to cover me. Buried in phone populating required loan details while transversing traffic, ramming through women, children, and the elderly. "Peter and the wolf" is playing through Spotify.
Approved for loan right away. My bank trusts me. Bus is 2 minutes away. Try to top up bus card again. Declined (card expired). Shitshit my old card's details are in this app. Start populating new card details in app. I can see bus stopped at traffic down the road. "Bellbottoms" is playing on Spotify.
Moments later, flagging down bus while saving card details and topping up bus card. Sweat, blood, expired bank cards, old receipts, and splattered bugs on my glasses. I collapse into my my bus seat and I'm pretty sure everyone in the bus can see phosphenes. I sure can. I need a hug.

Am I missing something or buying a car with personal loan could actually a better option?
Yes personal loans have higher interest but imo you could easily make the difference by negotiating (since you are paying in cash).
Also much more smoother experience and have complete ownership of car

Hi.,
I live in Hungary, starting with 2024 no tax agreement with USA anymore. I invested my cash via my Ltd into T-bills on interactive brokers as well as a personal account for myself. Is Ibkr deducting the Usa tax part? (they say they usually dont deduct taxea from tbills) How I should pay taxes on my earnings on T-bills?

TW: brief mentions of depression, suicidal ideation, and attempted suicide
When I (28F) was growing up, I was the golden child of the family. I didn't know it back then. Up until I was in high school I had a younger sister and an older half sister I only saw a few times a year. It wasn't like I never got in trouble or got yelled at, in fact I have a very vivid and hurtful memory where I was called a liar by my parents when I was being 100% truthful (they just didn't want to hear it and wanted someone to be mad at I guess), and then I was told to just "suck it up and get over it". But compared to my younger sister, who was compared to me in every way, I always had the perfect grades, perfect attitude, perfect behavior, etc. Our parents, especially our mother, who was the main parent taking care of us during the week, pretty much pitted us against each other constantly. My little sister was being told she needed to be more like me, and I was told my sister was a bad kid. I would try to help her stay out of trouble as a kid and would get mad when she didn't listen to me because i didnt understand she was just being herself and didn't need to be exactly like me. Up until college, I didn't understand that my sister didn't need to change, she needed her parents to love her as she was and help her instead of trying to mold her into some ideal of perfection. We were picked apart constantly about every little thing we did, and I was expected to always somehow know everything even if I'd never learned it before. My house was full of constant yelling due to the extremely high expectations and my mother's terrible temper, and it became a very stressful place to be starting when i was around 10. We went through a lot of financial hardships as well since I was very young, so I dont want to dismiss how hard things were for my parents and how much they went through. But I have always been hyper aware of how much it costs for me to exist as my mom stressed so many times over the years that she couldn't afford to buy even a new shirt because she had to buy stuff for us, as if that was at all our fault.
When i was in high school, my baby brother was born. He pretty much instantly became the new golden child, not only because he was the youngest and the only boy, but because it became clear at a very young age how intelligent he is. I was a straight A honors kid and he was blowing me out of the water since he learned to read. I didn't mind at all because 1) I was going to be going to college in a couple years, and 2) with our age difference, he was as much my son as my brother, and I took on a very loving parental role with him of my own volition. I also saw the promise in him and I wanted him to live a happy life. My little sister and him are very close to this day, at least to my knowledge. During this time they were still coming down really hard on my little sister, treating her as well as they always had - meaning they still yelled at her constantly and were overly critical of her and everything she even thought about doing. They talked about sending her to military school more than once, and pretty much resigned themselves to the idea my sister would never be able to live on her own before she even got to high school, let alone graduated.
Flash forward to when I was in college, I started coming home and noticing things about how my parents treated my sister, and for the first time I saw it for how terrible it was for her. The distance and time I spent away from the house helped my little sister and I completely change our relationship by my second or third year. What really solidified it was a series of events that happened my junior and senior years of college.
My sister moved to our town with her husband with their 2 very young boys, and we soon found out she was pregnant with twins. That is kind of where it all began to fall apart. Time showed not only that her husband is a massive pos, but also potentially abusive, although we never got concrete proof. As my sister's pregnancy progressed and they struggled to get on their feet, my parents started watching my nephews for hours at a time, sometimes the whole day. And if my parents had to babysit out of nowhere and put their lives on hold, me and my younger siblings were expected to do the same. No toys, no books, no games - nothing. Essentially, the entire house was expected to babysit in a way that i have been told wasn't normal. Even my little brother was expected to take on this role in caring for kids who were only a couple years younger than him. I spent my entire childhood taking care of my little sister and then my baby brother, and I hated seeing how they were doing the same to him when me and my little sister were at the age where it shouldve been left up to us. I started really butting heads with my parents as the situation progressed because they started yelling at my baby brother when the boys would even bump their heads even though it wasnt his fault. He never mistreated them, hit them, pushed them , or anything, so my parents justified it by saying he wasn't being a "good uncle" by "letting them" bump their heads on the tv stand, for example. He was expected to let them play with all of his toys, and my mom tried letting the boys use things that were very important to my brother, which would've ended up with the boys taking those things home. Saying it that way makes it sound a lot more mild that it was, but I'm trying to save time and not give out too many personal details. I guess you could say in short, my parents began expecting my elementary school age brother to give up his time, his space, his toys, his gifts - anything that meant anything to him, to help care for children when he was still a child not much older than them. I ended up giving my baby brother my room to not only keep his stuff in, but to sleep in.
In the end, my sister had the twins and then moved back to her home state about 6 months later. We think her no good husband lied to her about us and she cut contact with all of us, and we haven't heard from her since. In our house, the damage was done. I had long conversations with my little sister when our parents weren't around about how she needed to get out because of how they were treating her, and how I would eventually graduate and move to a city where I could find a job. But neither of us wanted to leave our little brother in that house because we were worried how they would treat him when we both left. Our parents had already proven they would throw any of us to the side at any second, even their golden child baby boy, and blame even him for anything that went wrong. Our parents have a history of spilling all our business at any holiday meal and badmouthing any little mistake. They would talk shit about us in front of us and shame us in front of family our entire lives, and if my sister and i weren't there to take the brunt of it, how long until they turned on my baby brother. Would they even wait until he wasn't "perfect" anymore?
Throughout all of this, I was struggling a lot in college, and starting around junior year i became very depressed and suicidal, which resulted in a major attempt in my 5th year of college, which to this day i don't like talking about. Before that, however, I went to my mom about feeling depressed and told her i thought i needed to talk to someone. She brushed me off. I was dumb enough to think that maybe she thought i was exaggerating, so i tried a second time to ask her for help about a year later, and she brushed me off again. Part of me blames her almost entirely for my attempts, because i came to her before any of them because i knew thats where it was headed if i didnt get help. All she had to do was make a couple phone calls to find me someone to talk to and she couldn't even do that for me. I was a scared girl who needed her mom's help because i didnt know who to turn to, and she turned her back on me. After my final attempt, I pulled myself up and got help, but my financial aid ran out and I was unable to return to school and finish my degree, so I went back to my parents house and was absolutely miserable for the next 6 months. I felt like a failure, like I wasn't "perfect" like i was supposed to be. I felt suffocated every single day and like the only ones who wanted me there were my siblings. One day I tried a little experiment and sat in the living room with my mom for the entire day and she didn't say one single word to me, didnt even acknowledge my existence. Ever since the stuff with my nephews happened, I had doubled my efforts to protect my siblings and take the brunt of my mom's anger, so I pushed back a lot when they tried to get onto my siblings for ridiculous things. I ended up ghosting my friends for 3 months because I was so depressed, and it really scared them. It was then I knew i had to get out of that house or it would kill me, so I moved into my grandparents' house a town over.
Things at my grandparents' house started okay, and i was even able to confide in them what had been going on at my parents' house, which in the end turned out to be a big mistake. I got a job working overnight at a retail store and met the guy who is now my boyfriend of 3 years. Unfortunately, the longer i spent at my grandparents' house the more i saw where my mom got it from, and they ended up treating me just as bad as what was going on at my parents' house. The only difference was that my sister wasn't there so i was taking the brunt of all of it. When things started getting tough for them after my grandpa retired, instead of sitting down with me like an adult and asking if it would contribute financially, my grandpa cornered me in the car when he was driving me back from work and guilted money out of me with a sob story. And guilted me at the dinner table the second time when they needed more money. One time i walked in the house after work and before i had even taken my shoes off or put my purse down to get my wallet out, he blocked the door to my room with his hand out like a loan shark to give him the money. I payed for all my own expenses, took short showers and kept as many lights off as i could, and told them not to buy me anything, even food. And in the end, even though they guilted me for money, then more money, and promised they wouldnt kick me out, they sold the house out from under me when they knew i was still trying to save for an apartment with what little money i had left a month. I ended up having to live with my best friend and her husband or i wouldve been homeless. I still helped them move even when they f-ed me over. And even after all that, I still went to holidays and visited my parents from time to time.
The last time i saw my grandparents they ran into me and my best friend in a store. My grandpa saw me first (he and my grandma were in different parts of the store), and starting yelling at me for pretty much cutting them off since i hadn't been to see them for months, and then when he started realizing he looked like the bad guy tried to make the reason i stopped talking to them about politics (i live in a conservative area) as if that would justify it. When my friend and i were trying to grab one last thing before we left because i was humiliated and trying not to cry, my grandma cornered me at the deli counter, had me pinned between the counter and a cart so i couldn't leave, and started yelling at me too. I was so broken back then, but i tried to tell both of them i would talk to them but not in the store. They just wanted to scream so we left. I haven't spoken to them since and have no plans to.
Eventually i moved 2 hours away back to the city i had went to college in. During that time, my grandparents drove the 3 hours to try to find where i lived, and then called trying to get me to come downstairs. I was asleep for work at the time but it made me feel so uncomfortable that they would do that. And after living there a year and my bf and i commuting to visit each other every other week, it came to the point where if i wanted our relationship to continue i had to move back. This is not something he ever brought up to me, this was a decision I came to on my own. So two years ago I moved back to the area I grew up in. We live an hour away from my hometown and 30 minutes away from the town i met my boyfriend in. And although he has family in both areas that we visit, I haven't seen or really talked to my parents or siblings since i initially moved out of the area.
A year ago, after a year of silence from me and from my parents, I dropped a box off at my parents' house when they weren't home with souvenirs i got them on vacation when i first moved back, short letters to each of them about the gifts, and a long video letter on a flash drive explaining everything I felt because i knew i couldn't go on without being honest and i knew if i tried to have a conversation in person, they wouldn't listen to me. I told them i wanted to keep them in my life but i couldn't ignore everything that had happened and the ways they treated me and my younger siblings. I told them i had no interest in continuing a relationship with my grandparents and that anything they have told them probably wasnt true. I sent them scans of my diaries as "proof" that i wasn't lying because that's the kind of house i grew up in - if you couldnt prove it, it didnt happen. I laid myself completely bare so that i could heal, knowing the whole time they may never want to speak to me again. I gave them pictures of me and my boyfriend and my new phone number anyway. The only thing i didn't give them was my address because we live on his family's land and his family, knowing a bit about my family and also about my grandparents essentially stalking me, don't want anyone from my family nosing around on the property. I don't want that either so i agreed not to give it out. The people in my life who knew about the box and the letter turned video letter were supportive of the idea given all i had been through, and I thought dropping it off would be the end of things.
Since then, I have healed from everything that has happened. I'm still angry and sad and i feel like I'm grieving every day, but I'm not the spineless, scared girl i used to be. My boyfriend has helped me become a better person in so many ways. But i still miss my family, especially my dad. I feel like he didnt deserve what i've done for reasons i cant go into, because the reality is he depends a lot on what my mom tells him because he works, and he trusts her deeply. I feel like in some regards he depended too much on her word, although he isnt completely innocent. There's obviously a lot more to my story that what I have here or else I'd be writing an autobiography, but just know if this all sounds like it isn't a big deal, I have so many stories and so much more detail that isn't safe to give out here.
The reality is my parents and i pushed each other away until we all became strangers long before everything blew up. I felt like a stranger from the time i left for college. I was made to feel like if i wasn't at home, i was a second thought, and a lot of very serious issues happened while i was away that i didnt find out about until i came home. My last year of college i was physically starving and could only afford to eat one meal a day if that. When i had left for school at the beginning of that school year my mother made it clear i had to figure it all out myself because they had no money to give me, but then i came home for Christmas and everyone but me had all new electronics. I cried asking for money to buy my uniform to start my campus job but they bought all new computers and tablets. And that stung.
Last Christmas, my parents and siblings messaged me. It was the first time I had heard from them since before i dropped off the box. It was just a Merry Christmas, but it absolutely shocked me. And then they all messaged again on my birthday. Same thing, just little pleasantries, but it makes me feel like maybe that door isn't closed. However, I have absolutely no idea if we can move forward, if they want to, or even if its a good idea to try. I have struggled a lot since college about whether or not all of this and everything I wasn't able to share here is or is not a big deal. I've had people close to me listen to my whole story and call it emotional neglect and abuse, but I just don't know. I feel crazy most of the time, and I'm afraid I'm exaggerating or making it up for attention or something, which also doesn't make sense. I struggle a lot in my day to day. I am ruled by the emotions of those around me and i cower like a kicked puppy when people around me are upset, even if its not my fault. I get ashamed when i make a mistake or i'm not "perfect", and if my feelings are valid I have no idea if it would be a good idea to get back in touch. But i think about if/when my boyfriend and i get married, and how i have no family to sit on my side. It sometimes feels like it's my fault because i wasn't strong enough to just shut up and deal with it anymore. At this point I dont know what is the right answer, what's going to finally give me peace. For now, I just keep moving forward trying to build a better life with my boyfriend and hope all the pieces will fall into place later.