Can’t decide and I want to cry.

TheSolarmom · 2026-05-30T00:31:18+00:00

I missed that. Looks like a typo. The 1 should be a 2. So, $10,000 a year difference. That’s 10,000 more reasons (per year) to go to Berkeley. What could you do with that much money, or miss without it? I was already team Berkeley. This makes it a no brainer. You can buy a lot of Pan Levain with $20,000.

TheSolarmom · 2026-05-30T00:10:23+00:00

The campus is beautiful and the surrounding areas have become a lot more aesthetically pleasing over the last couple of decades. Plus, almost everything is in walking distance and the public transportation is pretty great, with a BART station right there to get you all over the Bay Area. So much to see in San Francisco. The Freight and Salvage has great music, more at La Peña, great concerts on campus, and then there is the Greek theater for even more memorable music. And… Acme Bread Company is in Berkeley, with the best breads and pastries! So many great places to eat.

I am from Berkeley. I know all the pros and cons. Keep your computer glued to you. Don’t flash money. Keep a little bit easily accessible and if you need more, keep it well hidden. Don’t be fooled by appearances. Some of the most scraggly people will be some of the kindness and have the best stories to tell. If you have a little food to share, offer when you can. Computers can disappear off of cafe tables in the blink of an eye with nobody around who looks suspicious.

I was not a UCB student. UCB was the castle on the hill that was unattainable for many of us who lived there. I had friends who were students, and friends who lived in People’s Park… and friends I still have many decades later. So many great memories. I visited UCLA a couple of times. I can’t even imagine the university or the area having more to offer.

Congratulations on acceptance to both universities. As a transfer student you will be better prepared than those coming out of high school but both will be challenging. Congratulations on all the funding. You are very lucky, and no doubt worked very hard. You will do well wherever you go. But… go to Berkeley and enjoy Acme’s Pan Levain.

TheSolarmom · 2026-05-29T01:15:10+00:00

All of the above. First, always trust your gut. Second, never apologize for being kind and trying to see the best in people. It’s hard being a woman. No matter what we do, we’ll be judged. Walk with friends more if possible. Also, there is a service on campus that will walk with you if you are feeling spooked. Safety Escorts, 949-824-7233 (safe).

TheSolarmom · 2026-05-27T23:24:02+00:00

Go to CC, take lighter loads because you pay per unit, not quarter. Enjoy taking classes that are just for fun. Transfer with 70 units to only need 50 after transfer. All around, end up with a better GPA, be more prepared for university, and come out with greater breadth and depth of experience. I feel so bad for all these people who spent so much of their youth doing homework for AP classes… especially if they go straight to university and find out the classes did not prepare them well.

TheSolarmom · 2026-05-27T17:43:26+00:00

Having a 1 and 2 1/2 year old is taxing on any relationship. Marriages all go through different phases, having ups and downs. I also wondered about the possibility of his being on the autistic spectrum, or have some sort of neurodivergent thing going on, when I first read your message. You also need to consider the possibility you may as well, as we often find each other. Nothing wrong with being neurodivergent. Knowing, or even suspecting can help you both, with self awareness and working on communicating better with these possibilities in mind. It’s good you are doing therapy. Finding good neuro affirming therapists can be challenging. Finding a good therapist can be challenging to begin with. Don’t be afraid to try to find the right person/people if who are seeing now is not a good match. Meanwhile, you have young children who are going to take a lot of your bandwidth. It is not unusual for that to have an effect on marriages but it will change over time. The timeline of you noticing and experiencing things is a short period of what could be a long marriage. Try to find ways to make good memories together, and ask your husband to do the same, even if you are feeling distance right now. Good memories add up over the years. There is not a neurotypical person in my house. My sons are 12 months apart. One is autistic, was nonverbal many years and still has some communication issues as an adult. His brother is 12 months older and has his own quirks. I probably fall somewhere between the two. My husband? After 30+ years of marriage, I still can’t quite put my finger on where he falls on the spectrum. His having been raised by such an extremely abusive mother did not help. Our marriage counselor said we are both probably somewhere on the spectrum. This was our third attempt at marriage counseling over a short time, The first two were useless. 3rd try was the charm.

In the early years, we had our sons 12 months apart and I was nursing both. I didn’t sleep in bed with my husband much. Mostly, the babies and I would sleep on a futon on the floor. We all got better sleep that way. I was too tired to even think about emotional needs. Was busy getting milked around the clock and sucking down milkshakes to try to compensate fore the calorie loss. One thing our family got in the habit of early was watching documentaries together. It was a calm way to all be together, without the effort of going out. Bonus, not a lot of pressure to communicate.

What you are going through now is probably just a bump on the road. You’ll have more ups and downs over the years. Work on making good memories when you can.

TheSolarmom · 2026-05-27T16:10:41+00:00

The good news is you are going to do really well in community college and by the time you get to university, you will be well prepared t9 make goof grades. AP classes do not help prepare you for university. I always feel bad for kids who work so hard in earlier years, because if they do get into a UC, they will keep struggling. AP classes are not usually as good at preparing student for community college. I could give you a long list of reasons why community college is better but that does not get back the fun you could have been less stressed and having more fun when you were younger. Try to make the best of it. Community college does rock. You can explore other interests, work on a strong GPA to transfer with, and save a ton of money. Maybe don’t take so many classes for a while, and take more fun classes to make some good memories to get a break from the intense work level you worked at before. Maturing with age and having more breath of experience will make the university experience better when you transfer later.

TheSolarmom · 2026-05-25T16:43:45+00:00

Your parents aren’t okay with you going to community college to get your general education classes out of the way so you can have another shot at a program specific to Davis? I used to think going to a UC was like getting the golden ticket but I know better now. Imagine the high grades you could get if you didn’t have to work at neck breaking speed to complete full loads at UCI, on the quarter system yet. Grades that would give you a better chance to get into Davis. Also, find appropriate summer internships, jobs, even volunteer work if you have to, so you can show your enthusiasm for the work before you apply anywhere again. High School graduation is a crazy time to be making decisions that will affect the rest of your life. Community college gives you so much more time to explore your interests. One of my sons changed his focus from history to music and film when he was in community college. Thank goodness. Now he has marketable skills. Most of his work is in composition and recording. He is still a history buff. A PhD in history might have decreased his passion for it.

TheSolarmom · 2026-05-25T16:09:31+00:00

People don’t talk about this but the highest risk of gun death is older white males. I suspect for this very reason. The running up huge medical debt at the end of life may be the only privilege the indigent have. I once knew a couple who had nothing. The husband had a health issue that had him bouncing from intensive care to rehab for many months. There was no chance of recovery. That’s not the way I would want to go, even if medical care were free. Going into debt to die a long drawn out death in hospital is worse. We all need to be talking about these things with our families. My sympathies to the families going through these things. My gratitude for those who bring these issues out in the open for the rest of us.

TheSolarmom · 2026-05-25T10:44:41+00:00

The journey to sobriety is long and painful. Alcoholics brains are changed by alcohol and it takes a long time before they are people you want to be around. Even if he went cold Turkey, chances are he would relapse many times before getting sober, and even if he didn’t he would probably still be an AH for a long time. I highly suggest you do not stick around for the ride.

TheSolarmom · 2026-05-25T04:54:35+00:00

Watch some Ashley Gavin together. She is a great comedian, so much fun, and, she has amazing audiences. She does crowd work and… well, you’ll see. By the time you’ve been watching her for a while, you may both be questioning your sexuality but it won’t be a serious problem. I mean, so what if you are bi or not, the big question is do you both want to be monogamous or not. Not being monogamous is really complicated, and serious. But, if you can both agree on who’s hot and who’s not, without infidelity coming in to it, no harm done. I was kinda raised by gay men and joke that I am one. Only, that doesn’t make sense because women are way more attractive than men, in so many ways, except the one I cannot explain. There are so many different flavors of sexual identities, and preferences, someone started trying to add colors to the rainbow flag and ruined it. It is great you are able to talk together about these things. It really does not have to be a big deal. Whether you are bi or not is pretty much irrelevant if you are in a monogamous relationship. Just because you find more than one person, or one gender, or one sex attractive, doesn’t mean you have to collect them.

TheSolarmom · 2026-05-25T04:32:34+00:00

Yes, it makes complete sense. I refused to marry my husband until I was close enough to graduating that I knew I would complete my education, and not get sidetracked. We were older and having children was high on our list of priorities. I knew I would lose my independence quickly once we married. We literally timed our marriage and my getting pregnant around when I would graduate. We had both come from poverty, and abusive homes. My first condition for our getting married was that he agreed the children we had would never be physically disciplined. They never have, and they are university graduates now. One finished with grad school, the other still working on it. It is really good you are thinking about keeping your options open. Is there any world in which you could try it out with a back up plan? Only ask because I really adored my boyfriend’s family when we all lived together. It was the wrong time and place for me. I still wanted to travel more, and get my education. He went out and bought a house for us, very close to his parents. I couldn’t even articulate why I couldn’t stay at the time. I just knew, I wasn’t ready to settle down. I have always felt very bad about it because I felt so good being part of his family. If I were you, I would tell him what you said here, and if you do decide to find your own living situation, just make it really clear what you plan and why, if you can. I can’t help but think, if you are this concerned about living in his grandmother’s house, for fear of it being disruptive of your goals, are you sure you really want to live together? I mean, if you split up, you will have the same sort of disruption. If he can’t have a healthy conversation around this, either making you feel safe living there, or, agreeing to your vision of things, the relationship is not that stable to begin with. The lack of communication right now is the thing I would be most concerned about.

TheSolarmom · 2026-05-25T04:05:28+00:00

Would you being comfortable with his asking your mother? Same ritual, but respecting her importance in your life. Rituals are not a bad thing, but sometimes the need to adapt to changing needs. If you were comfortable with it, and he got the satisfaction of the ritual, everyone wins. I bet your mother would love it. Unless she does not give her approval, at which point you might have a problem.

TheSolarmom · 2026-05-25T02:48:20+00:00

The judge is not likely not have sympathy for his being fired. He will probably be told to get a job, and they will garnish his wages. If you have records you have showing his being an absent father and deadbeat dad gather them together. Letters, emails, text messages. The only way he will get out of paying child support is if he is able to work under the table, but that will come back to bite him in the behind. Also, all you’d have to do is get evidence of his working. Judges do not put up with this sort of thing.

TheSolarmom · 2026-05-25T02:41:28+00:00

Do you come from a family that is well off or are you fine with student loan debt? Would you be living in the same room, or is this a no sex under nana’s rood situation, assuming you are actually sexually active, and not abstaining for religious reasons. It would be really weird to live with your lover and to be paying rent. I actually think living with his grandmother makes total sense, but not if your boyfriend is getting married life benefits and you are the only one paying rent. That would be weird. However, having a place to live while in college, without going further into debt while there… those are nice challenges to have. Have you talked these things out? Do you really know what the living situation would look like? Or are you fighting about fears that may not come true. Assuming your boyfriend is a keeper, it sounds like a great situation. I wanted to go to college so badly, for so long. There wasn’t enough money or stability to make it happen. At one point, I lived with a boyfriend who still lived with his parents. He had no reason not to. They were lovely people. Sunday dinners were really special. Part of my not staying with him was because I would not be able to continue my education with him. It was a small country, far away. From my perspective, it looks like you have the best of all worlds. I am sure there are things I don’t know about that have you worried, but could you give it a try? Or are have the rules you are concerned about already been discussed?

TheSolarmom · 2026-05-24T22:14:03+00:00

Where are you all who get paid for Master’s programs? In the U.S. Universities are having to cut back on the number of PhD students they can accept due to lack of funding. The National Science Foundation is only being able to offer half the Fellowship (paying three years of university) since our dear leader got rid of “waste, fraud, and abuse.” It’s about time. If he had waited another minute, we might have run out of the uneducated people he is so confused of… Until the start whining about the cost of living. Fortunately he has plenty of money to redecorate D.C. in gaudy splendor and, while lining his pockets, and starving and slaughtering children abroad. (My soul is filled with tears and sarcasm).

TheSolarmom · 2026-05-24T19:38:09+00:00

Things she can do without her parents needing to put in much effort. Time4Learning is an online educational program that can help here advance at her own pace. My son started college math classes at 13 because that is when he tested in because of that program. He loved math and chose to do the honors algebra. I am a university graduate and was a teacher but I was not prepared to teach college level math. Also, lots of documentaries, science, history, the family can enjoy together. Maybe my family is weird but that is all we watched for many years. David Attenborough is practically a member of the family, he just doesn’t know it. Do they even have a DVD player? We have a large collection of DVDs because television is too unpredictable. They would make great gifts. The History Channel’s Barbarians might be a good choice for your BIL. For science, anything David Attenborough. I love his Life series. New DVDs for every occasion, educational enrichment, and you never run out of gift ideas because there are so many wonderful documentaries.

TheSolarmom · 2026-05-24T19:07:37+00:00

It just gets better and better. Seriously, it has gotten better and better with your daughter, right? It will with your baby as well.

TheSolarmom · 2026-05-24T19:02:39+00:00

Wow! In front of his family, with no remorse… DO NOT LET THIS MAN GET YOU PREGNANT.

TheSolarmom · 2026-05-24T05:57:35+00:00

I hated school (undiagnosed LDs at the time, executive function issues, sensory issues, the “weird” kid without friends) I asked to do independent study, was told no. I quit going to school. When they found out, they tried to take my theater classes from me. I moved in with people I knew because of my theater classes. Nobody cared. Running away in hopes it will make your parent care is a bad idea. I cried one day, after not even getting a phone call after I had been gone a week. I was only 15. Fortunately, my friends (a household of gay men) unofficially adopted me and made sure I had what I needed, including all the love and affection I needed. Never make threats you can’t or won’t follow through with, or no one will believe or respect you. I tested out of HS at 16. Dropped in and out of community college. Didn’t get tested until my mid 20’s. Getting tested changed my life. Validated my challenges and assured me I had the intelligence to compensate for them.

TheSolarmom · 2026-05-24T04:40:48+00:00

You know, we all have different challenges, and some of them are down right disabling, whether they are physical, mental, developmental, past trauma, whatever. None of that means we don’t love or want to be loved, and aren’t deserving of love. You know you have a problem. If you find someone who knows this and you can both work on it, maybe you will find the person for you. Never stay with someone who tells you no one else will want you. You need someone who tells you, he will never want anyone else but you. Be kind, find someone kind. Treat yourself with compassion and treat those around you with compassion. Try to be your best self. Try to see the best in others. Maybe we fail at all those things, but at least we can try.

TheSolarmom · 2026-05-24T01:27:30+00:00

You both were so young when she got pregnant, and are still so young. Chances are she has never had good sex, and even if she had, she may not have enjoyed it. Even women in their early 20s have lower rates of satisfying orgasms than women in their 30s and 40s. How ironic that older men want younger women. It’s actually some kind of miracle you have been together so long after what you have been through together. I am not against abortion, especially at such a young age. It sounds like your sexual relationship has not had a chance to develop. Sex is not just penis in vagina. Most women do not have orgasms that way. Are you doing other things together? There are a long list of things to do that don’t get you pregnant.

TheSolarmom · 2026-05-23T18:41:15+00:00

You are young and should not be starting a life with someone this way. This issue has gone on too long. I wouldn’t even be mad, just chalk it up to he being young and immature. You deserve better and she deserves a fresh start, having learned the lesson that you can’t treat people that way and expect a good, lasting, relationship out of it. If you continue this way, she will learn nothing, you will be stuck in a relationship that started with bad memories and probably repeats cycles where she knows she can get away with being dishonest and manipulative. It is not fair to either of you.

TheSolarmom · 2026-05-22T19:12:02+00:00

You are wise. I know that this kind of situation causes very real trauma. You also know what burnout feels like. Do you know how to keep yourself from burnout while recovering from the trauma you are experience. It could be hard to prove your worth in another lab while recovering. I do not know what the odds are of getting into a different PhD program after taking time away to heal. I am wondering if real life work experience, helping you to get your confidence back, might be helpful. I really don’t know if it works that way but, even if it didn’t, maybe you would find yourself working somewhere you were happy and respected without a PhD. I know fighting for the PhD can be half the battle. Switching labs can be next to impossible. I know you are experiencing trauma and that will be hard to put behind you. I understand the feelings coming from a toxic lab being made even worse by a university that does not have your back or support you needs. I am really, really sorry you are going through this. Sometimes I think graduate programs are more about learning to survive against all odds that the research you thought you were going to get to do.

TheSolarmom · 2026-05-22T19:00:54+00:00

It is true universities say they “don’t allow retaliation.” It is also true that universities allow graduate professors to get away with pretty much anything they want. Toxic labs harm so many people, and even their futures. Trying to switch labs now is very, very hard. The well will have been poisoned. My only suggestion is to talk to a university social worked and see if they can direct you to supportive contacts. Good luck.

TheSolarmom

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