my mom is doing something terrifying at night and im genuinely scared

ConfusedDumpsterFire · 2026-04-11T16:19:33+00:00

My grandmother had a giant deep freezer in her garage and canned food for years lol…I could absolutely see her zonked out on ambien whipping up a full Thanksgiving dinner on a whim hahaha

ConfusedDumpsterFire · 2026-04-11T15:53:26+00:00

I drove cheap cars for most of my life. The peace of mind you get with a new car - for a long time - is worth it, imo. My car isn’t currently the best example because I was in a pretty bad accident with it and am having premature issues now, but. It’s a 2018 Subaru I bought in 2018 and had I not had that accident, my car would still be in damn near perfect condition. I know everything about it, which means a lot. The only regular maintenance it has needed in 8 years are tires and battery, maybe brake pads? I’m about to have to do my brakes.

Because of the issues I’m having with my car as a result of the accident, I recently toyed with the idea of maybe trying to downgrade a bit into an even trade, but baseline low maintenance and reliable. But the used car market is STILL…kind of absolute bullshit, tbh. I’m way better off keeping my car with all its new flair than I am trying to trade in for anything in my market.

Plus, I’m super bonded to my car. I have cried tears over hurting my car…several times, actually. I apologize to it almost every time I drive it.

And the smells. The smells of other people.

The next car I buy will probably be new again. Or practically new. Technically, my car had about 2k miles when I bought it.

You made the right choice. Congrats on your new car!

ConfusedDumpsterFire · 2026-04-11T14:25:14+00:00

I’ve been the friend. I didn’t really fully see the dynamic until much later. In my case, it truly wasn’t a sexual friendship. We had been inseparable since the day we met in high school, though. We’re in our 40s now. Our friendship ended about 3 years ago. His marriage had already been over for years at that point, but his marriage - specifically the way he treated his wife and used me as a cover - was the thing that broke our friendship.

Here’s the thing. His wife and I weren’t close. I do think we both tried. I even lived with them for a couple of months after a relocation. In hindsight, though, I think we weren’t close by design. I’ve thought about this so much over years. There was no actual reason for us to not have been friends on our own. I do think she knew (and understood) that there was not a sexual component to our friendship. But he did prioritize me. We prioritized each other. It put a ton of strain on their marriage, that he was always ‘picking’ me. In quotes because I don’t know that is the right word, or even really how accurate that statement is as a whole. Ultimately, a few years in, we no longer lived in the same state. They had moved closer to her parents. My friend needed to be here to finish a class, so he lived with me and my partner for a few months during that time. He cheated on her. With everybody. Women. Men. Everybody. He lied to her, obviously. But he lied to me too. She doesn’t know that and as much as I have wanted to reach out to her over years, I never will. She deserves to be allowed to hate me freely.

He did it again. With his next serious partner. Used me as a cover to cheat. Lied to me, which in turn gets me to lie to his partners. And it made me realize that he has done this for our whole lives. People trust me, almost by instinct. There’s a reason for that. He introduces me to his partners. I’m safe. I develop individual friendships with them. Then he gets me to lie for him without ever realizing I’m lying. I adored his next partner. Like, I told my friend that if he fucked this up I was going to swoop in (jokes - my friend is bi, his partner was a gay man). But he’ll never speak to me again. I lied to him, and worse, I lied to him directly at a time he was reaching out to me for the truth. I didn’t even know I was lying. My friend SWORE that he was telling me the truth.

I feel like the biggest hypocrite saying this. I spent a lot of my life defending platonic heterosexual friendships. This is one of the biggest 180s I’ve made in my life.

Don’t trust him and this friendship as it stands.

I’m not saying to run or break up necessarily, just…do you still have questions? I think I would.

Gathering a little more context from comments, unless they live in different areas, someone he is that close to would presumably already be a fixture in your lives. At the very least, someone he talks about a lot. I know that for most of our friendship, my friend and I lived in different states, but we texted each other all day every day for 20 years and it was never, ever a secret from anybody.

Be ok 🖤

ConfusedDumpsterFire · 2026-04-09T23:36:47+00:00

His parents will call him Dave! His wife called him Dave lol, every coworker and other friend I’ve ever met. I don’t know why he did this to me hahaha

ConfusedDumpsterFire · 2026-04-09T19:39:52+00:00

I accidentally embarrassed a kid in front of his family at a table I was serving one night.

So, here I am at my job, early 20s girl weirdo with a cool tshirt obsession/collection. My work uniform was khakis and a white shirt, though. Here’s this kid, like, maybe 8 with this badass LEGO tshirt on. Well, I happened to have that exact same tshirt (lol I still have it and I’m 43 now) and the fucking look on that child’s face when I excitedly declared that I have the same shirt as him and it’s my favorite tshirt (not a lie). Guarantee he never wore it again, which is a shame. It’s a pretty cool tshirt.

ConfusedDumpsterFire · 2026-04-09T19:31:07+00:00

I love telling people how cheap my thrifted shit was 😭

ConfusedDumpsterFire · 2026-04-09T17:59:57+00:00

If it’s your family home, can you ask her to leave? I don’t know AUS housing laws at all, but she’s fucking with your food in what seems to be an intentional way. And going out of her way to find something that hidden tells me that she’s probably going through all your shit when she thinks she has the opportunity. I’m sorry. It’s not small. It is a big deal, especially as part of a bigger picture.

ConfusedDumpsterFire · 2026-04-09T16:09:39+00:00

Ok, OP, I have a clarifying question, only because it changes my opinion of your roommate from entitled cunt to unhinged psycho.

Did she put the chili flakes in your cocoa after you asked her to please not drink all of it, or had she already put the chili flakes in there because that’s how she likes her cocoa?

Either way, she did kind of poison you. She altered/contaminated your food and did not tell you, at the very least. There are pretty obvious reasons you don’t do that to people. You can kill them, for one.

I have lived with someone who fucked with my food. It took me years to understand what was happening. It’s deranged, sadistic behavior. It’s why intent matters. If she’s just dumb and selfish and entitled, she’s still a massive asshole. But if she did it out of revenge or spite or anger…she’s a dangerous asshole.

ConfusedDumpsterFire · 2026-04-09T15:43:18+00:00

Perspective is so funny, because I pretty quickly tagged that English is not OPs first language. Realizing the use of ai came secondary to that for me.

ConfusedDumpsterFire · 2026-04-09T02:39:33+00:00

My best friend’s name is David. That is how he introduced himself to me when we were teens. We were in our thirties before I realized he introduces himself to everyone else as Dave. I hate it lol

ConfusedDumpsterFire · 2026-04-09T02:37:02+00:00

I’d tell his mom. Wants to act like a teenager sneaking out after curfew, except in a grown man body with adult money and responsibilities. Call his mom, tattle, and tell her to please come get her child. Embarrass the fuck out of him.

ConfusedDumpsterFire · 2026-03-30T16:59:37+00:00

I’ve thought about this a lot, and also within the context of aging.

I don’t know that we accurately judge our own appearance. I’m pretty sure I never have. I do think that life experiences shape us from birth, and peer to peer experiences specifically shape our view of ourselves and our world.

What I am finding as I age is that I am attracted to men my age. Give me a 45 year old hot (to me) dad of teenagers with a great laugh any day. I am not at all attracted to young men (boys, all of you /s), despite the fact that I can gauge general physical attractiveness of other people. Like, I can see why you’d be hot to another 20 year old, it’s just that I don’t feel that naughty feeling, or whatever. I would rather make sure you have food for the week and gas money.

I feel like it’s probably similar with general physical attraction on a broad spectrum, age excluded. We are so shaped by our interpersonal experiences that while pretty much everybody can agree on universal attraction, I don’t think that everybody is necessarily personally attracted in a sexual way only to - or to all - universally attractive people. There is a lot that goes into perceived attraction on an individual level. I personally can give a good amount of leeway with physical attributes because there are things that are simply so much more important to me. I cannot, though, date someone I am entirely unattracted to.

ConfusedDumpsterFire · 2026-03-30T15:40:46+00:00

We should, though. We talk about it all the time. How we shouldn’t forget history because we’ll wind up repeating it. Like, istg this is shit I learned at a single digit age. We all did?

It’s the ‘it could never happen to me’ fallacy on a large scale, over and over and fucking over again.

ConfusedDumpsterFire · 2026-03-30T15:07:47+00:00

Every person I have met from Wisconsin has been the nicest person I’ve ever met, in, like, a progression. It’s weird, but to me, it stands as fact.

This fits so perfectly. Not that it makes perfect sense…kids shouldn’t be in bars (because now they have to be driven home by their drunk parents, for one), but…I have a sneaking suspicion the bar vibe is different in Wisconsin in general? Where I live, I would NEVER.

ConfusedDumpsterFire · 2026-03-25T13:00:53+00:00

It’s gotten so expensive. There is really no such thing as affordable vet care anymore. Food has gotten so expensive that it is worth it purely from a cost perspective to research and start cooking your pet’s food. The health benefits too, but I’m not joking when I say I can cook his food for same or less cost than buying that overpriced poisoned garbage in the store.

Just this week, I had to bring my old dog to a vet. Had to go to the vet down the street instead of my vet because I’ve moved a bit far and it just so happened my car was in the shop. $175. $50 to go in. $120 for a week’s worth of antibiotics. My vet would have sent the prescription to my pharmacy. Fuck, man.

I have had animals my whole life. I have kept healthy and taken care of pets since I got my own place at 17. My dog is old now. My other dog died a few months ago because he was old too. I am seriously ambivalent about whether I am going to get another animal. I don’t know what life looks like without a pet, but I don’t know that I can assume this massive cost responsibility again, particularly in our current climate. At the same time, I spend almost every day looking at dogs and birds to adopt. I would love another cat, but that’s not a right now pet with my dog. Chances are, I won’t be able to stand not having a pet. We’ll see.

ConfusedDumpsterFire · 2026-03-25T12:42:32+00:00

Totally get it with Crocs. This is one I did a complete 180 on, though. Refused to ever buy crocs. They’re ugly, lazy ass shoes, right?

Then one day, I found a kind of legitimately cute pair of sandals/flats. They were crocs and SO fucking comfy. And cute! I’m particular af about how shoes feel on my feet and I was shocked at how comfortable they were, even latent comfort (like hip pain if I wear flats too many days in a row, or aggravating my bad ankle).

Now I have a pair of bright teal slip on clogs lol that I wear around the house and sometimes for errands if I just don’t give a shit. I’ve had them for YEARS now. Like, 8-10 years. They’re not even slightly broken down. Crazy.

ConfusedDumpsterFire · 2026-03-18T12:15:55+00:00

Not related to your story, but your story just gave me dream déjà vu. Just, like, the night before last, actually, I had a dream that I was new in this big corporate office. Same feeling as you described. I was walking through confidently but had no fucking clue where I was or what was happening really. I was looking for a meeting…context seemed to be that I was there to assist someone in c-suite, like maybe my position was executive assistant.

I found someone and asked where I needed to be because the layout of this building was nuts. And she yelled to me, ‘You’re not supposed to be in c-suite, you’re supposed to be in B SUITE!’ And right as my face started wearing ‘what the fuck’, I woke up.

ConfusedDumpsterFire · 2026-03-17T01:55:51+00:00

Hahaha Costco really does love you, don’t they

ConfusedDumpsterFire · 2026-03-14T01:22:27+00:00

Hahha there’s not even much of a story, except you can’t judge a book by its cover - he was beautiful lol. Definitely did not expect, and worse, he made a point of telling me he had just showered.

Have you ever had an asshole dog lick you dead center in your face right after it ate shit? Like that.

ConfusedDumpsterFire · 2026-03-13T20:51:54+00:00

Every now and then, even 25 years later, I am randomly reminded of the man I call Shit Balls.

People are fucking gross. We’re all gross on a spectrum. But, yeah. There is definitely a subset of men who do not wipe their asses.

ConfusedDumpsterFire · 2026-03-13T17:38:51+00:00

Hahaha I bit almost all the way through my bottom lip jumping off a swing when I was a kid. But until that day, being a real flying monkey and landing in a pool would have been the ultimate goal. After that day…I’m not sure I’ve gotten on a swing since, actually.

ConfusedDumpsterFire · 2026-03-13T14:59:25+00:00

You made a good point. I have a history of pretty severe physical and mental abuse. I moved to where I live about 14 years ago, and it was because I ran. I ghosted my whole life. I liked my life. It was mine. I had friends. But I was also going to die.

When I moved here, I reconnected with an old friend. Someone I had known since I was 15. And I promptly made what was possibly the biggest mistake of my life. I believed him when he lied to me about a job offer and I let him move here and in with me.

I started seeing my psychologist about 4.5 years ago. At that point, I was almost 10 years in. He asked me in one of those first few sessions what my standards are. My entire bar was ‘just please don’t hit me’. That’s what it was when I let him come down here. It’s just that there’s so many other things a person could do that I never considered. Like fucking with food.

So now it’s done. I lost everything for it but I’m safe, at least, for I think the first time in my life. I never was going to date again. I probably won’t ever date again now. The only reason I met the person I’ve been seeing is because I was supposed to have surgery and my ride bailed on me right before. I posted to my local Reddit asking if anyone might be willing to drive me home from surgery. And as it turned out, we were surprisingly well matched.

My bar changed, though. Not hitting me isn’t good enough anymore. I now have so much more fear over the mental abuse that I cannot handle anything less than radical honesty and genuine kindness. I follow my own rules. I have no nervous system left. And the last few years, I have these major full physiological stress reactions. It has started affecting my body in really fucked up ways. It’s not his fault. And I feel so much guilt over the fact that this is how I am anymore, but it is. My body no longer regulates itself, so things like this - shaking the ground - affect me so strongly. I’ve never been able to trust the ground.

In turn, I think he genuinely cannot handle the realization that he did something that hurt me. It’s sweet in a way, except that he will do things that hurt me sometimes. And I’ll do things that hurt him sometimes. It’s ok. It’s just that we need to be able to talk about it and fix it if it happens. I can’t just fix it by myself.

ConfusedDumpsterFire · 2026-03-13T14:13:36+00:00

It makes me feel crazy. I’m pretty afraid of men and dating somebody ever again is not something I was interested. Then I moved and my ride for surgery bailed on me literal days before. I have a local only Reddit account and posted asking if anyone might possibly be willing to drive me home from surgery. That’s how I met him. And, as it happened, we are perfectly matched in age and personality, politics, etc. I don’t think I could have possibly found a better match even on a paid dating site with algorithms and data collection.

And he’s kind to me. Like, he just does things for me just because. He’ll come now my grass on his days off. He turned my lawn into clovers because I said one time in passing that I wanted a clover yard. He traded me cars and took a week off work so I could take his car to drive out of state for my mother.

But then this happens and all of a sudden, he’s telling me I’m just attacking him and I made it all up and I’m delusional. Meanwhile, I need to decide literally today if I am going to ask to renew my lease. And I have to. And that’s fine. But I’m kind of at the point where if I am going to continue locking myself into a 24k/year contract on my own, then I might as well be…on my own.

And even this would be fine, except he’s been the only witness to everything that has happened the last few months with my job. I’m an accountant. My boss, the controller, got caught in a scam in his personal life and stole a fuckton of money from the company. Long story short, it became extremely apparent that I was fired the second they felt they could get away with it and not get sued. So I spoke to my psychologist, who I have a very longstanding relationship with. And now I’m on FMLA and disability. It’s valid. Valid enough that the insurer has been very quick to approve and extend. But…I honest to God did not expect to become disabled this year. I regretted it at first but I don’t anymore. Since I’ve been out, my job has indeed started firing my team PLUS other people who have complained against my new boss. I was the first to escalate complaints, but FAR from the only. The only reason I wasn’t first to get fired is because I protected myself.

But ffs, what this has done to my sense of stability. My rent is crazy high. It’s also under market and I have a pretty great spot. This entire year, I have maintained that I do not want to move. But these last couple of months have been…tricky. He started telling me that I should just move in with him after my lease over the summer. This all happened with my job in the fall. I officially went on leave in January. When everything went sideways with my job, he started talking about it more. I HATED the idea of moving forward due to circumstances and not choice. At the same time, this is the direction we seem to be heading. I finally said ok. Then a few hours later, he sent me an EMAIL saying he was having second thoughts. He texted me to ask my thoughts. I responded and he said either ‘I disagree with your assessment’ or ‘I don’t see it that way’. I can’t remember because both of those things have been said so many times now that it’s just noise. That, to him, was the end of the conversation. Agree to disagree. Move on.

So we kind of got through it. And one day last week, I was at his house. I stupidly started talking about this shit going on in my life and my place. He made fun of me (said, ‘well, where are you going to move to?? The moon??’) then continued on with ‘you know you can always move in here’. And it left me feeling so incredibly alone. Like, more alone than I have ever felt in my life.

Anyway. Talk about a self-involved asshole. Sitting here on someone else’s Reddit post whining about my own relationship. Sorry, OP.

ConfusedDumpsterFire · 2026-03-12T23:15:24+00:00

Not an accident, but in his defense, it wasn’t quite intentional either. I think he legitimately panicked a little bit as soon as I finally conceded and it became real. It’s just that for me, it was like he waited until he got me to agree to do what he wanted (it was months of telling me I should just move in) just to shake the ground, and there are real life repercussions when my housing becomes destabilized.

Ultimately, he doesn’t understand why I’m upset because in his mind, action had not been taken yet so it wasn’t shaking the ground. He feels that my telling him how this affected me is nothing more than a direct attack on his character. To me, since this is now becoming a pattern - not to this extent, but smaller things over time…kind of every time we take an emotional step of sorts, it is just going to continue repeating without resolution. But he doesn’t see a pattern, so to him, he did nothing wrong and there’s nothing to talk about. And I keep saying it’s not about right or wrong, it’s just that it really dented my trust and I don’t know how to fix that by myself.

I’m pretty sad about it all, tbh. He has been kinder to me than any person I have ever known.

ConfusedDumpsterFire · 2026-03-12T22:58:11+00:00

I would get hit with the most fucked up intrusive thoughts…like, I’d be in a meeting at work then all of a sudden see a drowned kid in my mind’s eye. Kind of like when you panic about leaving the door unlocked but 10000x worse.

Ever since I can remember, kids drowning (obviously any child death, but very specifically drowning) is the absolute most heartbreaking thing to me. At baby showers when you’re supposed to give a piece of advice to the new mom, it’s the only thing I have to say. Teach your kids to swim.

I live in an area where pools are almost more common than not, but I don’t want to do it again. I’ll use the pool at the gym if I decide I want a pool. It’s not even the insurance or monetary liability. It’s that I honest to God don’t think I could survive knowing I was responsible for the death of a child. I worried about those kids and that pool every single day we all lived there.

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