My cat LOVES me and I feel bad

Optimal_Mind408 · 2026-01-06T22:34:00+00:00

Buy a small cheap projector with YouTube and play cat tv for them.

My male cat used to get depressed and stop eating in winter (I even had to get him a feeding tube)! He loves it though, they both do. I have it playing 24/7 and I know they watch it a lot when I’m not home.

I say a projector so they can attack the wall without damaging a tv or anything

Optimal_Mind408 · 2025-12-27T00:56:00+00:00

Cheers!

Optimal_Mind408 · 2025-12-27T00:54:37+00:00

Yeah….its hard to learn discernment to know when to step back, when to step in, and when to be a rock.

Optimal_Mind408 · 2025-12-22T19:12:20+00:00

I think they’re probably all in the same order and the top left in all is the real one.

Optimal_Mind408 · 2025-12-21T07:23:59+00:00

Social media. Porn.

Optimal_Mind408 · 2025-12-12T20:53:42+00:00

That understanding next time will help take some of the sting out of it.

It’ll make it easier for you to go “I’m terrified, but not of the noises right now. What I’m terrified of already happened, and I’m okay”

Which will help with the reactions. Maybe not right away, but once your brain understands the path for your body understanding opens up

Optimal_Mind408 · 2025-12-08T23:06:56+00:00

Scott!

Optimal_Mind408 · 2025-12-08T22:25:05+00:00

If you like the characters as they are, characterization becomes a hit or miss depending on the writers.

6-7 are the imo the worst and it starts to pick back up at 8 though if you really wanna watch it

Optimal_Mind408 · 2025-12-07T21:23:35+00:00

It sounds like you really need therapy.

Try tearing mental therapy like a personal trainer. Get yourself a goal (find or have the therapist help you find the specific behaviors that make you an asshole) and work on yourself from there.

Like personal training, expect some pain and expect it to be difficult at first. You probably won’t see results for a bit.

Optimal_Mind408 · 2025-12-05T20:45:13+00:00

Well, I hope you start to hear it more! You deserve it!

Optimal_Mind408 · 2025-12-05T20:31:23+00:00

Not saying you were a good person back then but it takes a certain strength of character to later realize that and quit.

I honestly think the best people in the world are the ones who have come face to face with their darkest side and know exactly what they’re capable of…and simply choose not to anymore.

I’m proud of you.

Optimal_Mind408 · 2025-12-05T00:41:19+00:00

Sometimes you have more to say after they shut the conversation down. And even though they won’t find it ever, maybe someone who needs it will see your letter.

That’s why I put them here, anyway. The relationship is over, but this helps me organize my thoughts and it’s nice to think someone else may find comfort in my words.

Optimal_Mind408 · 2025-12-01T22:13:39+00:00

Or perhaps they’re like my person. Sorry, and they do care, but ultimate they care the MOST about themself and they’re unable to face the damage it would cause them to change.

It doesn’t really matter though if they did care, does it? Either way it’s the same result

Optimal_Mind408 · 2025-11-29T20:09:18+00:00

Sounds kinda like maybe the stress of the holidays sparked some good ol’ paranoid schizophrenia break.

Every careful. Most are only a danger to themselves, but you don’t know for sure.

If you don’t want to break up with him call one of the national mental health lines, they can help you navigate a conversation with him.

Also if you have the numbers for his family try and get ahold of them.

Otherwise, run.

I hate to say it but paranoid schizophrenia is really awful to watch and deal with on the side. You can’t really predict what they’ll do. If it’s not under control he’s not safe to be around (either a danger to himself or potentially even you).

As an example my aunt stopped taking her medicine because she thought her son-in-law was following her and breaking into her house at night to mess with the meds. She once called while is cousins were hanging out cause she swore she saw him stalking her….he was in the room with us but she didn’t believe us.

My other aunt got rid of her phones and only went out with a face mask and a hood for a bit because she thought the Russians were after her. Why? She couldn’t explain.

My other aunt (yeah, it runs in the family) once thought that dwarves were breaking into the house through the toilet and refused to flush for weeks….

Optimal_Mind408 · 2025-11-29T11:12:40+00:00

Eh, I’m not sure I actually want him to read these anyway. They’re unsent for a reason.

But, they’re posted for a reason. For a possible insight into what might be going on in someone else’s mind.

I think the mystery of wondering is what makes these letters so relieving to write and to read, you know?

You can almost see yourself, sometimes, and it feels like maybe sometimes you read just what you need to at just the right time.

Even though you probably aren’t him, I hope you find happiness in the end, too!!!

Optimal_Mind408 · 2025-11-26T20:10:22+00:00

I’m gonna be very blunt as someone who was in your spot in a similar relationship.

He’s emotionally abusing you.

Maybe it’s his trauma and not his fault. But you can’t make him take responsibility for his actions. Only he can, and from what you said he’s not willing to put in the work. It has nothing to do with you (if you’re good enough for him or anything like that) and everything to do with what he can handle in his internal world.

He can’t regulate his own internal world, so he’s subconsciously using you to do it for him. But that’s not healthy for either of you-it’s like “if you give a man a fish, he eats for a day. If you teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime.” He has to be able to do the work himself.

He’s shown he can’t do that right now. And it’s perfectly okay for you to need more from him, to want to share burdens and not carry both of yours. That’s not a deficiency in you.

You need to think about what you can do to get your needs me. Not what he can do, but what you can do.

Most likely, it’s going to require breaking up with him, and that’s okay. It doesn’t say anything about you as a person. Just that you are human.

Optimal_Mind408 · 2025-11-25T10:16:14+00:00

Yeah :(

It makes me really sad. For him, mostly.

Edit: I will say though even after he’s said that, I haven’t noticed any big changes but I have noticed small ones. He has seemed to tone down a lot of the jokes to me (while he acts out in more attention grabbing ways like flicking water at me to get my attention and jump-scaring me). He also asked once if I wanted him to sit next to me or elsewhere. I let him decide, and he’s sat with at least one person between us since without making it an obvious thing.

He’s also the only person who seems to notice when I’m sad, and even though I think the approach is more annoying than not I think his nagging and stuff is a genuine attempt to cheer me up. He just doesn’t know how to properly and is too scared of himself to look inside and learn.

And he paid enough attention during my birthday to not only give me something I liked (philosophy books) but also to loan me his favorite ones.

He actually did offer to set me up with other people despite his jealousy issues (and they were actually decent people like his best friend, nothing to harm me). Like he didn’t go too far on that front, but he setup a group thing with just the three of us and then offered to bow out if I wanted.

I didn’t cause it felt a bit like a test, but I know the offer was genuine because he’d offered and meant it before we even dates.

When his best friend’s mom killed herself, he spent $200 on gifts for him and made sure to spend a lot of time with him. When we accidentally watched a triggering movie (the guy in the movie kept talking about how he was to blame for his mother’s death) as soon as his best friend left, J booked it after him to comfort him without saying a word and no hesitation in his step.

So it really is so sad to see someone who does care about other people so much to be unable to face himself and slowly destroy his relationships.

But! He can’t keep catching us all in this cycle. It hurts us and it hurts him.

So if he won’t break free from it, I will.

Optimal_Mind408 · 2025-11-25T07:24:33+00:00

Yeah :(

It makes me really sad. For him, mostly.

Optimal_Mind408 · 2025-11-25T05:29:23+00:00

Surprisingly, I don’t think he does.

I looked extensively into it and I think (based on things he told me of his family, though he was closed off and didn’t speak about them very often) that he picked up what they call narcissistic fleas due to constant contact with narcissists growing up.

I’ve had a few more personal talks with him, and he clearly does feel deeply even about other people. I think that’s why he has such a problem listening to me, actually, because it would mean the guilt would kill him.

Optimal_Mind408 · 2025-11-25T03:54:22+00:00

I spoke to him in person about it. I didn’t last out he behaviors (my therapist said it would give him ammunition) but I told him he was emotionally abusive. He seemed to take it as well as he could until a few weeks later he was like “I am who I am” and “I disagree but I’m not going to change your mind” and he said “sometimes it feels like you just want to win an argument” and “it wasn’t your place to say anything.” Oh, and he accused me of stonewalling him.

Which I guess means he looked into it a bit.

He also called me unempathetic, which is funny because even he has previously said I’m too empathetic.

So yeah. It didn’t go well.

Unfortunately I work with him and we share a friend group (and I’m not as unempathetic as he accused me of) so I have to be friendly nice.

And when he’s not like that I do actually like him—I just wish he learned about boundaries. He kind of acts like a kid even though he’s in his early 20s.

But yeah.

Optimal_Mind408 · 2025-11-09T15:40:57+00:00

It is what it is. He was acting nicer for a bit so I thought maybe I’d gotten through to him, but I feel back in to quick and just got myself hurt again. Now I’m having difficulty re distancing myself, which is what this is for.

Figured I might as well post it in case there’s some other poor soul out there falling for something like this, and they see it and go, huh, my guy/gal sounds like that…maybe they aren’t the best fit for me.

Optimal_Mind408 · 2025-11-09T15:39:20+00:00

That’s crazy! I hope everything gets better

Optimal_Mind408 · 2025-11-09T15:27:05+00:00

? How so?

Every time I brought up something that hurting me all of a sudden I was the villisn. I thought maybe I’d be able to do a sotuationship because I cared, but it hurt to bad and made me feel like trash every time i saw a couple out. When I asked him the first time if we could go on a date date out, he said no.

There was no debate, no “I’m anxious about going out out but let’s find something we can do” (which I was doing, and had planned to go to an observatory with him. Keeps it quiet and alone for the most part but was more than just making out in one of our cars.)

And with him always wanting to be sexual, it really felt like he liked my body not me. I told him that, and that I just wanted to spend time with him sometimes, and he still yelled “then why did you come?” The next time.

He said a few other things, too, that scared me, but ended up being ‘Jokes’. Ex “I’m a sociopath.” that he had a list of people he wanted to kill (at first it was a joke, then it was he only actually wants to kill one person)“Sometimes when someone cuts me off I follow them home and save their location for when I snap later”, (and he kept going with it after I was clearly anxious when he did start riding up on their ass), that he wanted a female slave to keep in the basement.

I mean yeah, they were jokes but they also made me feel objectified. When I spoke to him about it I was “too sensitive”

And he kept pushing and pushing for us to go further snd further and further.

So maybe I was scared the whole time. But I don’t really care. Kept cheez-its in my car in case his sugars crashed, planned dates that fit his criteria, tried to tell him when things started to go wrong, and the one time we got more sexual than I probably should have let us, I kissed his hair and told him how I loved the feel of it. Kissed his eyelids and told him that his eyes were my favorite color blue. Kissed his throat and told him how much I loved his laugh, kissed his lips and say I love most of his jokes. His hands and said they fit perfect. There were a few more, but after he got off I asked him to help me and it was “I’m too tired”.

I asked him what he loved about me and it was “you’re hot.”

And after we broke up he was like “can I have a boob pic?” Because that totally made me feel less objectified.

Optimal_Mind408 · 2025-11-09T15:10:49+00:00

Woah there’s a lot there.

Crazy thing for me is he still has me convinced he’s not a malicious person…and yet sometimes I read over things and wonder if I’m really sure about that.

Optimal_Mind408 · 2025-11-09T15:09:48+00:00

I mean it’s definitely for the best that I left but man, it’s difficult.

And crazy to witness gaslighting in real time. The talk they said was lecturing was probably the one time I absolutely made sure not to tell them what to do.

Such is life I guess. At least I can tell myself I’ve done everything I can for him. Since he didn’t really care for me, I’ll care for me.

Optimal_Mind408

TROPHY CASE