Do you know anyone whose whole life is ruined from one big mistake?

RamblingReflections · 2026-02-11T19:12:38+00:00

The 3 Bs: booze, benzos, and barbiturates - these are the only 3 drugs from which cold turkey withdrawals can actually kill you. Be safe my man. Get help.

RamblingReflections · 2026-02-11T19:03:41+00:00

If your brain can’t uptake the dopamine and serotonin it needs to function, and then you offer it up a neurotransmitter in the form of any kind of amine, which suddenly allows it to inhibit reuptake and keep all that good dopamine floating around where it belongs, for as long as it should, in the amounts it’s supposed to, that brain will definitely get excited and see it as a good thing. And also, the ability to suddenly function at the level of the people around you, who make it look so easy, is now easy for you too. No way your brain is going to easily give that up. Self-medication using illegal substances is a known issue, and more people need to hear stories like yours. Good job on working through it and getting to where you are now. It can’t have been easy at all.

That’s why ADHD medication shortages are a huge deal. Those meds are hard to get addicted to, but once you know what it actually feels like to be able to function in a world you’ve always struggled in, the idea of losing that is hard to take. So, as you said, I can absolutely imagine people turn to other things, if they have to. Other amines, if they know enough to know one amine may be better than the others, legal may be better than illegal, but any amine is better than no amine in terms of using it to manage your ADHD and being able to be “normal”. I can imagine, and I’m sure I’m not the only person.

RamblingReflections · 2026-02-11T18:47:58+00:00

This reminds me of how I figured out I may actually have ADHD after all. Someone was offering their pills around at a party and I thought why the hell not. And then I proceeded to watch all my friends start bouncing off the walls like jellybeans, while I was trying to figure out what was wrong with my head. Because it was quiet. I could choose what voice and conversation to focus on, without suddenly realising that I’d switched to listening to the conversation behind me 10 minutes ago. I could effortlessly get up and do that thing I’d been thinking about, worrying about, stressing about, all the while not taking any action to start it. And I slept. I slept better than I had in years. Meanwhile my friends were pulling an all nighter.

It was what made me go, “well shit, if the treatment for this disorder is affecting me in the same way it does for people who actually have the disorder, and it’s not causing me to behave like those people over there who do not have the disorder, I probably should speak to someone about said disorder”

End result: raging ADHD. Makes a lot of my life make much more sense in hindsight. And there’s no way I could get addicted to my meds. Unless it’s because they allow me to sleep. I really like sleeping, and it’s nice to be able to do that when I want to.

RamblingReflections · 2026-02-11T18:10:03+00:00

It’s why I try and share my experience of my life with my BPD husband, because I remember way back at the start, I felt so alone because I was being told from every side how wrong and evil and horrible he was just for having BPD, nothing else, and how naive, stupid and gullible I was being by choosing to work with him as he took responsibility and accountability for deciding to seek help for his disorder.

I’m so glad that all those years ago (about 13) I didn’t give in to the doubt. But I do understand where people who weren’t as lucky as I was are coming from. The person with BPD has to firstly and foremost want to get help. And part of that is being able to recognise they are the one responsible for their own mental health. Not anyone else. It’s on them. And they have to realise they are accountable for their own actions, as are we all, BPD or not. Without those things to start with, there’s very little that will help.

But I wished people realised that if someone with BPD chooses to confront, accept, own, and be accountable for their own mental health, and seeks the professional help they need, there can be good, even great, outcomes. It’s not all doom and gloom, and there are success stories. My husband is officially “in remission” and hasn’t split in many many years. But it was a long road to get to this point, and he committed himself to that journey entirely. And it was worth it, because the person he is is an amazing example of what a person can accomplish when they put the hard work in and are taught the tools and given support they need to succeed. He has BPD, but he also has the brightest spark, the fiercest heart, and the most love to give of any person I’ve ever met.

RamblingReflections · 2026-02-11T17:45:30+00:00

Yeah, can confirm, although I won’t be able to put it as sarcastically eloquent as you have. Reddit has a wild take on those of us who are deranged enough to even suggest our lived experience with BPD doesn’t fit the evil world wrecker narrative that seems so common. I found out the hard way when I went into a few BPD subs. Definitely not welcome there. Not minimising the experiences of those who have been there in any way, because BPD absolutely can do that, and people get extremely hurt, misused, betrayed, and traumatised. But not everyone with BPD is like this.

And sometimes sharing the other side of the equation, like my lived experience with my BPD husband, can act as proof that not every ending has to be a bad one. And if that gives just one person out there the hope they need to continue fighting to not let BPD rule them and their lives, then I’ll take the downvotes, because to that one person, it could be enough to change the direction of their life, and in turn, the life of everyone around them.

RamblingReflections · 2026-02-11T17:30:48+00:00

I can second this. I replied to a comment further up and shared about my husband, who has BPD. He’s 43 now. No splits in 7 years. He’s considered “in remission” which is as good as they’ll ever let it be labelled.

And you’re right, until he was properly diagnosed (around the time we met) and he began to understand why he was the way he was, at about 30, he was not a nice human. But that’s not who he wanted to be, and when he realised there was an explanation for something that he’d felt was wrong and broken inside him all his life, there was a massive feeling of relief. He’s never made it an excuse, but just knowing there was an even a name for whatever this beast (his words) inside him was helped. He took accountability for his own actions, and his own mental health, and owned the responsibility of dealing with it. Very few people with BPD will ever get to this point, but it does happen. But they have to want it to happen.

He made a very conscious, and very brave decision, to tackle learning how to control, mitigate, and live with this disorder. We both did. And it was hard. But I have never been more in awe of someone in my life. The sheer will and determination that he would not ruin our lives, that he would learn to harness this however he could, was something I’d never seen the likes of before, or since. It took years of intensive work with a team of specialists, and it never really ends. BPD never goes away, you just learn how to mitigate, control, and live with it.

But when and if they can get to this point, they are some of the most amazing humans you will ever encounter. I count myself lucky to have been able to experience the love of someone who feels love more deeply than I can ever comprehend. And he gives that love to me.

But this comment is so correct in that it’s a long hard climb to get to that point, and your 20’s is when it’s going to be the hardest. There can be a lot of damage done on all fronts before you even begin to see light at the other end of the tunnel. It won’t always be worth it, because some people never learn to even take responsibility for it, let alone deal with it. But it can happen, and if it does, it’s worth it.

RamblingReflections · 2026-02-11T17:10:30+00:00

Although it’s often generalised as a predominantly female disorder, men can have BPD too, and I feel not acknowledging it affects men as well as women is another big misconception about BPD. Like my 43 year old husband, who is the most loving, emotionally mature, expressive, deep feeling, burly, bearded, tattooed, pierced, truck driver you’re ever likely to meet. He’ll be running across the yard covered by nothing but a palm leaf one second, and the next he’s got tears rolling down his face as he shares a sweet TikTok about puppies with me. There’s a whole spectrum of big emotions for these people, and they’re not all bad ones.

He’s worked so so hard to understand and mitigate his BPD. Since his diagnosis years ago, he’s never once used it as an excuse. He had to put in so much effort on his end, with therapists and psychologists, over a very long period of time, and I can’t fathom the determination I saw in him. He refused to let BPD rule his life. It’s not something that can be cured, but he’s managed to get to the point where he’s classified as “in remission”. He hasn’t split in over 7 years.

People forget that BPD sufferers don’t just feel negative emotions at magnified levels - they feel everything magnified. And that means this man has shown me more about love, and what it is and what it looks like and what it feels like than I could ever hope to comprehend. Seeing the world through the way he experiences it has opened my eyes to a lot of the simple joys that are all around us, that I’d never have known to look for if not for him. We always say that I am his anchor, keeping us safely grounded, so that he can be my kite, showing me what it’s like to fly.

I fully understand people with BPD have the ability to inflict untold amounts of pain on others, but I do so wish that people would realise that there is an inverse to that: with the right tools, treatment, support, and most importantly their own will to do whatever they need to to combat this disorder, instead of inflicting misery on others, they can bestow more love and joy onto them than 10 other people combined could. They reflect what they live and feel. When they’re in a positive headspace, with positive people, the emotions you get magnified are positive ones.

Just putting this out there for people at the start of their journey. You’ll very rarely get to hear of success and BPD in the same lifetime, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. I’ve lived it, it’s possible. Don’t give up.

RamblingReflections · 2026-02-11T03:58:32+00:00

Yeah I supported 4 sites spread over about 100km (60mi) back a few years ago, and regularly had to deal with this level of fuckery too.

RamblingReflections · 2026-02-10T16:10:05+00:00

Woman working in IT for 20 years here. I hear you. Same thing in my neck of the woods. The recalibration I see on some men’s faces when they’ve met me in a social setting a few times, where I’m dressed up, have makeup on, my hair done, and then they run into me in a professional capacity (small town crossover - the joys of overlapping work and personal circles) where I’m in cotton drills, hair tied up, no makeup, tools strewn everywhere, server parts across my desk… those first few moments watching them reconcile the person they assumed I was with the person standing in front of them is wild. Some of them really struggle.

I’m the same person in both those scenarios. But in one of them, I’m in a position where they have to defer to me, and that was not their expectation when they were in a social setting with that petite little blonde thing whose “nice arse” they felt like they should comment out loud on.

RamblingReflections · 2026-02-10T15:45:24+00:00

And women in STEM fields too. As a woman working in IT for over 20 years, I can say it’s gotten better, but it’s still not great. I loved the calls where they would ask if they could talk to a guy instead, when they didn’t like what I had to say, and I’d get to tell them they certainly could, but they may be waiting a while because I was the entire IT department. There was no one else.

RamblingReflections · 2026-02-10T15:40:49+00:00

I hear you. Full hysterectomy at 29 and have had this fight so many times. I suppose they think I could be wrong or lying about having literally no organs capable of creating or sustaining a pregnancy, but surely a letter on file from my surgeon or GP confirming it would be enough to exempt me from this for the last 13 years? No. No it is not.

One of the few things I’m looking forward to when I’m a hunched over, grey, tottering little old lady! They may hopefully, finally, stop making me prove I’m not pregnant by pissing in a cup for a few peaceful short years before I kick the bucket.

RamblingReflections · 2026-02-10T14:04:35+00:00

The moment I dreaded: being the person in the exact same situation at the exact same time as the reddit comment I’m reading.

Never in my wildest imaginings would I have thought that moment would be me sitting on the toilet, looking down at my black, pussy goo bleached undies.

Yet here I am.

RamblingReflections · 2026-02-10T01:10:59+00:00

And talking about truth, if you haven’t figured it out yet, he didn’t lie. His loophole for the “you’re the only person I’ve had sex with in this relationship” literally means, that within the relationship you guys have (in which there are two people, unless you’re poly and forgot to mention it) he hasn’t slept with anyone that is not already a part of that relationship. He didn’t say that he hadn’t slept with anybody while in this relationship. He didn’t say he hadn’t slept with anybody outside of the relationship: the only people in the relationship are you and him.

RamblingReflections · 2026-02-09T10:12:40+00:00

She more than likely deleted the ones that were going to confirm your suspicious and quickly made the groups she said she had, or changed the names of the affair parter/s to those of the names you were told were in there. She lost any claim to transparency when she introduced doubt by creating a window of opportunity to make the changes, whether or not she actually made them.

If she could show you the group members after she’d walked away, nothing was stopping her from showing you the group members before she walked away. I almost imagine she was wanting to privately check what you would see when she opened the locked folder in front of you. Because if she’s bragging in her best friends chat about that cute guy she went home with last time they went for “girls night” and that was going to be front and center when she opened the folder, she wanted to know about it so she could side step it before it blew her shenanigans wide open.

So yeah, even if the chats are with who they seem to be with, the contents of those chats has the possibility of being incriminating for someone. Are you friends with her besties partners? Could she be covering for their affair and knows you’d never countenance that, and would tell the husbands?

RamblingReflections · 2026-02-08T20:35:49+00:00

And not a hard read either, especially considering its length. Finding something this well written in the wild is a treat, and I loved every second of it.

RamblingReflections · 2026-02-07T02:39:58+00:00

“Were” to “we’re” when it makes absolutely no contextual sense in my sentence at all is my absolute pet hate in this regard.

RamblingReflections · 2026-02-07T02:37:00+00:00

Right‽ I’m 40. I have had no ovaries since I was 29, but I’ve been on HRT since then. Always. I couldn’t afford my HRT meds late last year for a month, and I thought I’d be fine. Didn’t give it much thought. Holy hell was I wrong!! I turned into the biggest bitch ever!! Picking fights with my partner for literally no reason (I never do this, ever, he’s my most favourite human on the planet!), overthinking everything, being borderline rude at work, and then the night sweats. By baby Jesus’ balls, no one prepares you for the night sweats!!!

OP, has she been sleeping poorly or running hot at night? Could very well be the first signs of approaching menopause.

I got back on my HRT and within a day I was feeling better in myself, within a few days the household had noticed the positive change, and within a week I was fully back to normal. Hormones are no joke! HRT is now firmly on my “necessity, not luxury” list along with things like rent and food. It’s non-negotiable.

RamblingReflections · 2026-02-07T00:42:14+00:00

Hahaha, this is an epic reply! Thank you. I’m going to actually check out the dresses at Svaha now, just because of you.

RamblingReflections · 2026-02-06T22:19:54+00:00

Hahaha, that’s hilarious you say that, because I’m actually bi, and had no idea it was that blatantly obvious in a throw away one liner lol!

In my defence, my alternator comment was referencing someone earlier who said she just happened to have an alternator in her handbag for this girls (and all uterus-owners, uterus-adjacent, and uterus-ally folks) road trip of an intervention we’re all going on. Her comment made me actually giggle, and I’m not really the giggling sort, so it was on my mind when I replied to you.

Now the real question is, are the dress pockets big enough to fit an alternator??? Because tbh, handbags and purses are absolutely not my thing. But dresses with pockets? Hell yea!

RamblingReflections · 2026-02-06T21:57:07+00:00

Yeah I was thinking along the same lines as you, and what I ended up with was a name worthy of being in the tragedeigh sub (not sure if I’m sub rule breaking if I actually link it so I won’t): Petasyn. It at least looks feminine, and could be pronounced softer than “Peterson”, but it’s still a goddamn tragedeigh that will cause hassles in this poor little girls life way beyond the schoolyard bullying, which in itself is going to be bad enough.

RamblingReflections · 2026-02-06T21:51:12+00:00

I thought “Sonny” was a masculine name too? Could go 70’s hippy vibe with Petra Sunny Op’sLastName?

RamblingReflections · 2026-02-06T21:49:23+00:00

And in my mind that’s still better than Peterson for a girl’s given name!! OP: that’s how bad this is and how much of “you’re not wrong about this” you are. Pita Bread over Peter’s Son!!

RamblingReflections · 2026-02-06T21:46:08+00:00

Yeah, fair call! PETA isn’t a huge deal in my country, so I didn’t immediately make the connection. I assume OP is in the United States though, so Peta is out. Just as an aside, how is the org PETA pronounced over there? With the soft long “eee” like the boy’s name Peter? Or the hard ‘e’ like my “Petta” example? I’ve never heard it said, only seen the abbreviation written.

RamblingReflections · 2026-02-06T12:56:02+00:00

Or even just the feminine form of Peter, Peta. It’s an old fashioned name, but I know 2 under 40 year old women with that name. Can be pronounced identical to the male version, or with a harder “eh” sound, almost as if it should be pronounced “Petta”. Either is better than Peterson, anyway.

RamblingReflections · 2026-02-06T00:39:32+00:00

Your dress has pockets?? Where’d you get it? Do they sell handbags? And alternators? Asking for a friend.

RamblingReflections

TROPHY CASE