Prison guards have to maintain order and are responsible for the supervision, safety, and security of the prisoners in their care. We've all heard tales of terrible corrections officers, and while they do exist, there are quite a few out there doing what they can to make sure that prisoners' lives maintain some level of dignity.
After Redditor CowWarrior2 asked the online community, "Dear prison Guards of Reddit, was there ever a prisoner that you felt bad for? Why?" many came forward to share their stories.
Warning: Sensitive subject matter ahead.
"Most of us..."
I currently work as a correctional officer.
There's one inmate in particular I think about all the time, and it breaks my heart.
Most of us don't usually get involved with charges or how they got there, we just do our job and look at everyone equally.
This guy was about 50+, balding and skinnier looking. He was on a suicide watch, which is when they have to be checked in every 10 minutes. The cell he was in was across from our desk. We usually keep higher-risk people here. I came in to relieve the day shift and took over. Naturally he sits in the staff's eyesight at all times.
All night, he was reading a book watching tv and minding his own business. Whenever we ask how he was doing, he would nod and continue reading his book until he went to sleep.
In the morning about an hour before shift change, he started crying on his bunk. The soft crying turned to all out sobbing, and he was also grabbing his head and squeezing it. We asked if he was ok but wouldn't even acknowledge us. We kept a close eye on him and I decided to look into his history a bit.
Turns out this guy murdered his wife with a knife, and the niece who was staying with them temporarily saw the whole thing. The reports said he was compliant with police and correctional staff. It was odd, so I did a bit of research.
The guy used to be a plump, jolly dude and was loved in the community, owns a bakery, wife is the baker and family runs it. Not a mean bone in his body. It was a shock to look at a photo of him months before compared to now.
After reading that the guy starts seizing.
We took him into the hospital and I was with him again that night. He was talking and doing ok at this point, but was delusional. He would say things like "have you met my wife? She's a fantastic baker! You would love her apple fritters, swing by the bakery and I'll give you guys one on the house!".
Turns out the guy had multiple cancerous brain tumours and was in the last stages. His mind started to go and one night he snapped and stabbed his wife. He has no idea where he is most of the time, but Every now and then, he would snap back to reality and realize where he was and what he'd done, and he would break down, only to forget everything minutes later.
His family would come visit him at the hospital while I was working and I would talk with them. They explained the whole story and I let them know he was in good hands with us. They even brought him and us a doughnut from their bakery (we don't let inmates have anything from the outside unless it's searched and approved by management, but in this guys case I let it slide) the family of his wife even say it wasn't his fault and they still love him.
"My county was pretty progressive..."
I worked in a jail as a deputy for a little under two years.
My county was pretty progressive and the jail was pretty nice, all things considered. Most inmates had come to terms with why they were there and life wasn't too bad, just boring. I don't know of any inmates who maintained that they were innocent, or that they didn't belong in jail. There were plenty of people that seemed like good people that had just done a bad thing, and plenty of people that seemed like they were actively trying to improve themselves. I know a lot that got GEDs while in jail.
There were a few times that I really felt sorry for any of them. Once when a repeat offender got a much longer sentence than he expected (because he was a repeat offender). The thing was, he had actually misunderstood the judge. He was sentenced to I think 9 years, with 4 suspended (so 5 total) and didn't really understand what that meant. So he was walking around all morose, he got kinda happy when I got to knock 4 years off his sentence!
The other circumstance was whenever I would have to notify an inmate that a close family member had died. I had to do this a total of five times, for some reason it always happened on my shift. Often they weren't able to go to the funeral service because they were incarcerated.
Being in jail, those guys had to act like they were tough, try not to cry when hearing that their mom or brother passed away, but of course that's always emotional. It was always hard to keep myself from crying. I pretty much have those guys the key to the city, unlimited phone use, extra food if they wanted it, unlimited rec time, and I'd let them have a friend or two out on rec with them so they had someone to talk to, chaplain on speed dial. I can't imagine having to go through that under those circumstances.
"Three."
Yes.
Three.
One killed his niece's rapist. And yes, it was proven that the niece was raped by the "victim"...it's just my inmate got to him before the police. He has been released though, a year or two ago. After doing 20+ years.
The second guy was an inmate who was the getaway driver for three other dudes. He was 16 iirc at the time of the crime. He never flipped on the other three and ended up doing 40~ yrs before finally being paroled about 2-3 years ago. He literally grew up in prison. He has an amazing support system though, thankfully, and he stayed local to the facility, so a few of my coworkers have seen him on the outside and caught up with him. He's doing great. It just amazed and saddened me that it took so long. His accomplices had been in and out of the system multiple times, they kept getting those chances, and he didn't. Pissed a lot of us COs off too that it took so long.
The third one...he was a(n) Hasidic Jew, from NYS. I think 18-19 yrs old when we got him. Very high up on the Hasidic Jew totem pole. He threw a Molotov cocktail through the window of another HJ's house. No casualties, I believe just an arson charge, and he got a flat 8 yr bid. Now, the reason I felt bad for him...in these communities, grooming runs rampant, and no one talks about it, and certainly no one steps up to accuse an abuser a lot of the times. At the age of 12, the inmate was sent to live with the "grand poobah" of rabbis, to be like his house boy or whatever.
The victim was a dude who wouldn't go to temple where grand poobah rabbi held services, choosing to pray with old folks at the adult home, or hospitals, etc. This didn't sit well with GPR. Then this kid, who was pretty much sheltered (and I believe groomed) all of a sudden shows up with a Molotov cocktail, and now he's in prison? I truly believe he was coerced/forced into doing this to send a msg to the victim and every higher up washes their hands of it and let him take the blame. I even said as much to the inmate, and his response was a half grin as he walked away. I can't remember the kid's name, but with the info given, I'm sure you can find the articles. I read the articles and it just screamed "THIS KID WAS GROOMED AND FORCED INTO THIS".
We have a couple prisons and we respond to them. One is a max prison. Got a call there for a 21 year old having seizures. He's in segregation (literally what they call it), which is pretty much a room by himself. No one can tell us how long he's been seizing. Straight up in status epilepticus - a seizure without any breaks. It's so bad that his airway is going and I was ventilating him on the way to the hospital.
He shares the same birthday as my younger brother. He was admitted to the hospital and in the ICU for over a month. Thankfully he made a recovery but never found out the cause of his seizure.
I looked up what he did.
Possession of Marijuana.
Every generation has its own trends.
As a millennial, I’ll be the first to admit we had our fair share of silly or stupid trends.
Remember the cinnamon challenge? Or all the Harlem Shake videos? We were not the brightest crayons in the box.
Girls wore only skinny jeans, boys adopted Justin Beiber’s side-swept haircut, and we spent more time on YouTube than any other social media site.
Those who belong to Generation Z think we were pretty stupid too, but everyone else thinks Gen Z have their fair share of weird trends. Tide pods, anyone?
If we turn to Reddit, those Gen Z trends can be easily identified.
Curious to find out more, Redditor Distinct_Bee_4580 asked:
“What’s a trend among Gen Zs you find weird?”
Pictorial Evidence
"Documenting themselves committing crimes then posting them to social media."
– Shaveyourbread
"was at a (car) accident reconstruction engineering office this summer and a 20 ish yo guy drove of the edge of the road and died and his snap story from the night was a video of his speedometer at 100+ in the dark in the rain and he was bragging that he was going fast (and also drunk)"
– Puzzled_Passenger_34
Look How Stupid I Am!
"They film EVERYTHING"
– AnOkFella
"I went out drinking with a mixed age group. We got silly drunk, and had a good time. A few months later, one of the younger girls posted a "hilarous" video of me blackout drunk and acting stupid. Nothing illegal, just embarrassing. It was horrifying. Like, why would you video someone that vulnerable, and then put it out in public? Like, what other videos did they take? She took it down, but didn't understand at all why I was so angry at her - because "she posted dumber sh*t of herself all the time!""
"Never again. I'll just stick with my older friends who know not to film anyone doing stupid sh*t."
– Lexi_Banner
"this. gen z getting themselves fired from work over tiktoks is such a common occurrence."
– sane_fear
Be Sensitive
"Gen Z here. Romanticization of mental illness or crime."
– Justatroubledgirl
"fr it’s embarrassing because they treat it like it’s a competition or something quirky like… no it’s not? stop making your mental illnesses your only personality traits"
– yeehee087
Evolution Of Hair
"Brocoli haircut. Will definitely age like milk"
– ehjtarretetoutdsuite
"Ahh the “Meet me at mcdonald's haircut”, no seriously that’s it name, you can google it"
– ElOliLoco
Like e.e. cummings
"Finally I can ask this. Why do a large amount of gen Z's not use capital letters? Is capitalization going the way of cursive writing?"
– Themanwhofarts
"It's probably because of texting. Over time, texting with capitalized letters became seen as too formal, and people began to intentionally remove capitalization to seem more laid-back and informal."
– SignificanceBulky162
"Millennial here and a lot of people my age used to not use capital letters either in our early twenties. Might be regional, might just be a general "trying hard to appear chill" kind of thing"
– LatelyTea
Use A Dictionary
"Saying gaslighting every f*cking day with no comprehension of the word."
– joshjamon
"I know what it means stop gaslighting me"
– Technical_Watch2137
Here's My Life Story
"Oversharing personal struggles, overdramatizing common anxieties/struggles, and flaunting "going to therapy" to the point where it's clearly a means of seeking attention and staying relevant."
"On a related note, since I see it on dating apps all the time, when every other bio puts "going to therapy" as a green flag. Like yeah, that should be normalized, but mental health practices are turning into a new form of virtue signaling."
– WrongSperm95
Not Funny
"Bothering people just trying to go about their day in the name of "pranking.""
"I've seen one that regularly goes into a store like Home Depot and pretends to be an employee and then films the real employees who seem to be going a little overboard in their reactions; but I'm just like this poor guy is just trying to get through his workday without this bullsh*t."
"I just saw a man was getting charges pressed against him for attacking a kid that was "pretending to steal his luggage as a prank." The 'prankee' grabbed the kid by the hair and probably did go a little overboard but the number of comments I saw defending the kid amazed me. JUST LEAVE PEOPLE ALONE!!"
– steelbydesign
Feel The Beat
"Stupid Tik tok dances"
– greenok12
"At least they're getting some exercise"
– ImNotTheBlitz
Times Change
"Trying to “cancel” singers/rappers/actors for things they said 30 years ago when social norms were different"
– WhosMurphyJenkinss
"Gen z is the most pretentious moralistic and puritanical gen since maybe the lost gen"
– muldervinscully
The Capacity To Care
"For me it’s the insinuation that I’m supposed to care about every problem/issue in the world. It’s not realistic- we as humans don’t have the emotional bandwidth to care or even keep track of all the issues in todays world. Social media is constantly bombarding these kids with the most recent catastrophe and everyone is expected to be an activist for it until the news cycle breaks. Pick an issue you’re passionate about and do something, but letting every atrocity in the world affect your emotional state is counter-productive and makes you feel like the boot is against your neck at all times"
"My opinion is that this contributes to the rise of mental health issues like depression-"
– br0therbert
Let People Be Who They Are
"Queer discourse. Not in general, but the way I see now. People fighting each other over Pronouns, attacking each other because they don't believe someone else should go by the label they use."
"It feels like the LGBTQ community is running around in circles, nibbling at its tail and not realising its bleeding to death."
– confused-as-f-boi
Cause And Effect
"For me it's claiming everything as abuse..."
"*got punished for doing or not doing something they were told/asked to do or not do a thousand times... gets punished... that's abuse... wtf... actions and inaction have consequences... Don't want the consequence then don't do or do what I asked/ told you to do or not do... It was that simple when I was growing up..."
– SecretaryKey3923
The Internet Can't Help You
"As a gen-z myself, I'm also confused on why everything has to be posted on social media:"
""OMG I'm gonna die 😭😭😭""
""He made it into my house 😭😒🥺🥺""
""Idk what I should do now 😔😔😟😭😓""
"So you decided to post about it on social media rather then calling the police or ANYONE ELSE FOR HELP?"
– DaGamingTurtleB
Invited In
"Or the other way around"
""Look what a fun life I have, I'm here on the mountains with my entire family" nobody is home for 2 weeks pls come rob me"
– QBekka
"They are really the first generation with the capability to do that easily. They’re like the oldest siblings who makes all the mistakes so the younger ones can learn from it. I salute their sacrifice."
– littlegreenb18
Fascinating…or questionable.
Do you have any trends to add? Let us know in the comments below!
Life gets frustrating or hard, or even downright depressing sometimes.
We do our best to make things better, but sometimes the only thing we can really do is lie to ourselves.
It's not exactly healthy, but we all do it.
Sometimes, the lies are small and harmless. I would sometimes take on a little project, like alphabetizing my DVD collection, get halfway through, then decide to finish the next day. That day never really came.
Other lies are not totally harmless but are common. Before I started working out regularly, I'd always tell myself I'll start the following week, but always found an excuse to continue my existence as Couch Potato Girl when the following week came.
Some lies are really just a way of running away from your problems, like telling yourself your bad grades will be better than you think when your report card comes out, even though you know that's not true.
Redditors have admitted they tell themselves lots of lies, from the harmless to the harmful and everything in between, and they are ready to share those lies.
It all started when Redditor mikaloha asked:
“What is the lie you tell yourself most often?”
Some lies are simple and funny.
And One More After That
"Just one more episode."
– UnimaginativeFish
"next minute you're already watching the season 2"
– mikaloha
"Can confirm! Also one last chapter. Next thing I know I'm looking for the second book because the first one ended in a cliff hanger"
– lexi2222222222
Too Tired Today
"That tomorrow I am going to exercise."
– gametime-2001
"99% all diets and exercise regimens start on Monday."
– Thencewasit
The Feline Problem
"That I own my cat, and he doesn't own me."
– Rouxxx90
"LIE! your cat owns you, that's a fact"
– mikaloha
Teeth Care
"Dentist: Do you floss?"
"Me: Yes"
– Downtown-Assistant1
"I just tell the truth. No"
– cardinalkgb
Just So Delicious!
"That fried chicken is healthy for me"
– evildorkgod
"keep lying who cares chicken are yum"
– mikaloha
Others were heavier and shows what people are really going through.
There's Someone For Everyone
"That someone out there actually wants to date a divorced 38 year old man who lives in a crappy apartment, only makes 30k per year, and has a kid."
– jamesofearth1
"Your age, apartment, marital status and job don’t define who you are as a person. Those are your current circumstances. Plenty of women are looking for a good human, a good dad, and someone who hangs up their wet towels. Just gotta find the right one who is worthy of your love."
– brain_always_on
"The love of my life was a divorced 37 year old man with a four year old daughter and lived in a duplex. We met on Tinder. I was 35, no kids, never married, doing barely okay financially, entrenched in my loneliness. Three and a half years later, we are still in love, have enough money for weekly pizza night, and my stepdaughter is the most important person in my life. He never thought someone would want to gamble on him and I never thought someone would break through my depression. It's incredibly hard but it actually does happen."
– lokiandgoose
Positive Thinking
"That my life will magically get better if I just keep my chin up and stay positive."
– FuzzMcBeefy84
"Staying positive and keeping your chin up is important on improving your life, but it's just the requirement for being able to do things that will then improve your life. If you've been able to keep positive attitude despite adversities, you are really strong already."
"Things won't just magically happen, but even small improvements can bear big fruit. If you think of most people in the world, they aren't really go-getters, yet their lives go perfectly okay. For most time, life doesn't need great deeds to go well. Just keep doing your small improvements where you can, and remember to look behind yourself sometimes to see how far you've come. You can do this."
– ConservativeSexparty
The Future Is Bright
"That the next generations will find all the solutions to the human condition."
– therealstrongwoman
"Not if as kids they are watching Bob the sponge!"
– lexi2222222222
"Oh they've been found long ago, it's just a matter of taking power back from those who misuse such powerful information, and implementing the proper measures to advance our evolution, rather then stiffle it and reap profit from our miseries."
– Other-Time-3115
Build Up Confidence
"That I'll not let it get to me next time. But when next time comes around..."
"Although I think I have made some progress over the years. Thinks get under my skin a tad bit less often now."
– ballsOfWintersteel
Everyone Moves On Eventually
"that im doing alright. that i am okay with leaving him. that im over him. that i dont love him anymore."
– Deleted User
"You will be alright- one step at a time. You will be okay because there's a reason you left. You don't get 'over' or stop loving someone instantly and you can also still love someone but also know that you can't be with them."
– Faith5v5
And of course, there are those lies that we all tell ourselves.
Eat Better, Feel Better
"I'm starting my diet next week"
– bettyfordslovechild
"Tell yourself you'll start it right now. And if you mean it, hopefully it'll happen. It's easier to do something in the moment than to postpone it."
– StickyBlackMess69420
"And also, remember to be specific with what you’re eating. If you say, “I want to eat less treats”, then you’ll end up eating the same. If you say, “I will only eat (X) treats every day”, then you’ll end up doing that. It worked for me, I hope it works for you."
– Thedownrihgttruth
Could Use a Rememberall!
"That I'll remember something and don't need to write it down.. whatever it was"
– CasualSlacker
Yeah, That'll Happen
"I'll stop scrolling Reddit in 5 minutes and go to bed."
– LazyLion65
"The legend says, he's still scrolling"
– Ill_Gas4579
Why Do Today…
""I'll do it tomorrow""
"I have delayed stuff for months and some of them are things that would take me like 30 minutes to do."
– Raigheb
"procrastination is a disease. there are ways to stop it but i'll tell you how tomorrow"
– mikaloha
Yeah, I’m a victim of that one myself.
Do you have anything to add? Let us know in the comments below.
There are just some things in life that people need to respect and steer clear from.
So that makes being careful not a weakness but a strength.
If we pay attention, we'll know what things are not meant to be messed with.
Fire burns. It's intoxicating to try to dance with it, but really we should just stick with the smoke.
Redditor Halloween-365 wanted to discuss the things in life that we all need to stay far away from, so they asked:
"What don't you f**k with?"
I don't mess with most things.
Just one more dollar...
"I worked in a casino once so gambling. I've seen people over time ruin their life."
Ouija429
"My husband works with bankrupt people helping them get their lives back together, and the most common reason he sees for bankruptcy is gambling addiction. It's a sunk cost fallacy - people buy a lottery ticket every week, which is totally socially acceptable, and then it's two tickets, then five tickets and a few scratch cards, and the more they lose, the more they spend in an effort to get their money back."
"They get to the point where they haven't got enough money for gas, so they borrow money- not to spend on gas, which would help their immediate problem, but to spend on their bingo app so they can win thousands and fix all of their problems in one go."
MerylSquirrel
A Bad Flow
"Electricity."
Beginning_Winner_105
"Electricity doesn't care about you. It just wants to kill you."
gingernipples16
"I mean, it's really worse than that. It just cares about getting from point a to point b, if you happen to be obliterated by being a part of that path, that's a you problem, not an electricity problem. Electricity couldn't care less. Electricity is physics answer to honey badgers."
Akegata
The Monster
"Water. Was trained in Swift Water Rescue when I was younger. Water doesn't care who you are. It's stronger than you."
leftshoesnug
"I live in Chicago and I call Lake Michigan our beautiful monster. She takes a couple dozen lives every year. 3 or 4 times a year someone walking along shore in the city slips or stumbles in and drowns."
"There are a lot of places where it's a stone retaining wall with no easy way to get out of the water...cold water will take a good swimmer too, you only have a few minutes to get out if you survive the initial shock and good luck finding the nearest ladder in the dark. Be careful out there!"
fergehtabodit
Stay Away
No Way Beer GIF by BuschGiphy"Heroin. Especially since the growing popularity of stepping on it with Fentanyl."
LiterallyOuttoLunch
"I've lost at least seven friends to heroin overdose in the last eighteen years."
crass_cigar_cowboy
Heroin is an evil beast.
Bad Odds
Fart Prancing GIFGiphy"Gambling a fart when you have a stomach bug."
No-Conference-6242
"I lost this gamble at work one morning. Nothing says freedom like going commando all day in a woollen suit."
Sir_Arthur_Vandelay
Show Some Respect
"People who make my food. And janitors."
Herodotus_9
"I have a general rule of thumb; don't f**k with janitors, servers, or secretaries. These people have the keys to every door and will make your life a living hell if you treat them badly. If you are kind and show them the respect they deserve, not only as human beings but also for doing some absolutely vital jobs, they can open up a lot of doors for you."
"And let's be realistic here, most of us are a helluva lot closer in social status to them than to the CEOs we are told we should worship."
Dash_Harber
Life Basic
"Monkeys. No specific reason it just seems wise to adopt a 'no monkey policy' in life. I’m not so enamored with the species that I would need to risk being bit, face torn off or transmitted some exotic fatal disease. You might say 'well this Species would never do that' or 'that species isn’t disease' carrying or whatnot i just don’t have the time or energy to discern what’s what so many think it’s best to stay away all together."
missanthropocenex
Full Stop
"As a surgeon, never f**k with the pancreas."
tragalpointer
"As someone who has endured a continuous acute pancreatitis attack for 2 months straight... this tracks. Nothing offered even the slightest bit of relief, and even when I finally managed to pass out from pure exhaustion I felt the exact same level of pain in my damn dreams!"
"I straight up would rather just die than go through that again... full stop."
hkspowers
Hire People
the adventures of pete and pete season number GIFGiphy"Don't try to fix your own garage door. It can take your arm off if you don't know what you're doing... actually, it can take your arm off even if you do know what you're doing."
rhendon46
I hope we all complied a survivor's list here.
Humans make mistakes.
It's part of the deal with life.
But some mistakes and choices can have huge repercussions.
The trick is to not dwell on the outcomes.
That dwelling leads to a lot of regret.
Redditor FroyoNecessary5999 wanted to hear about the things we could all change about the past, so they asked:
"What is something you did that you deeply regret doing?"
Sometimes I feel like my whole life is one big regret.
Time
GIF by Ariana GrandeGiphy"Putting time and efforts into relationships/friendships that I should have just let go the first chance I had."
illeatyoura***
"Alternatively, not putting enough time and effort into relationships/friendships that actually were worth it."
TCSK8
We just can't...
"Probably rejecting my grandpa when he wanted to play chess, he then fell from a roof like a week later and I never had the chance to play chess with him again, still bothers me that I kinda never had this moment with him.."
nemgtas
"I have this fear now, while my parents are still alive. And my psychologist says the most sensible thing: we can't spend every moment with the people that love us. We just can't. And they don't expect us to. It wouldn't be healthy. And so we will ALL have SOME moments where we have said no. And that's okay. Or else we'd be resentful."
fanghornegghorn
Good Night
"I was seven years of age, I had an argument with my mother the night before she died. Before I went to bed she asked me for a hug I told her NO and stormed off to bed. The next morning I woke up to find everyone in the house was gone, it was very surreal and confusing. My father came back in that morning crying and told me my mother had died of a brain hemorrhage."
"Never go to bed on an argument."
Kellbag91
Gift Horse
"When I was 7 or 8 years old, I snapped at my dad for getting me the wrong video game and I can still see the disappointment in his face. Haunts me to this day."
Caxozma
"I remember my grandma taking me to the mall as a kid, and I was getting super upset I couldn’t get this $50 Pacsun hoodie. $50 hoodies are common now, but it was very expensive then. I freaked out and even said I pay her back. We ended up going back for it. What haunts me most is I didn’t even wear it. I really don’t know why I acted that way and still feel terrible."
Cobonmycorn
Too Young to Know
Make It Rain Money GIF by SpongeBob SquarePantsGiphy"Not opening a retirement account when I was 18 like I was told to."
"That and not investing my money I made bartending in my 20s. When you're that young you don't think about things like that unfortunately."
buthomeisnowhere
I'm still at a loss about investing.
I need to figure that out.
Maxed!
credit card debt GIFGiphy"Use my credit card too much to buy things I didn’t need. Now I’m dealing with a maxed out credit card that’s killing me every month."
MrRontendo
Practice is Perfect
"I deeply regret letting my creative writing and piano playing skills go to sh*t. Ever since I entered the corporate world 19 years ago, it has consumed me, and I no longer feel passionate about those things. I stopped practicing everything. When I try to make myself do them, it feels like just that, like I am forcing myself and it is no longer fun. I feel like I’ve become a shell of my former self in so many ways."
La_Reina_Rubia
Too Young
"Getting married to my first girlfriend at 19. I rushed the relationship because it felt good to not be alone and I thought that I could help her with her depression and anxiety, was hoping to have kid with her as well. However as time went on she just got worse and worse and kept using her depression as a crutch to justify every shi**y thing she did."
"When I started experiencing depression I stopped trying to keep things together and we got divorced a few years ago. I still haven't recovered mentally from it and between that and the pandemic I feel like a shell of the man I used to be."
ancap_attack
Peace Out
Phaedra Parks Bye Felicia GIFGiphy"Being too loyal and putting up with poor treatment from so called friends to the detriment of my mental health... not anymore *itches."
"Cut them all out when I realized they were unable to respond to me in a healthy way and still expected me to be on default fawning mode."
No-Conference-6242
Biggest Lesson? Don't let life slip by.