Vr Headset For Phone

...directly from your phone and use the headset without needing to...Headset Once enabled, a new app called Gear VR Service will appear in your regular phone... installed. Place the phone into your Gear VR headset. It will run your ...chosen application in VR without triggering the... This tricks your Samsung phone into treating the Gear VR like a standard Cardboard ...

...VR. 128GB storage capacity with this Meta Quest 3S Mixed Reality Headset...Pass. Play games on your phone without using your mobile data... Meta Quest 3S Mixed Reality Headset, £50 EE GameCard to...Meta Quest 3S mixed reality headset, exclusive EE Data Passes ...moment feel breathtakingly real. This headset also offers double the performance ... WhatsApp, all in one headset. If you’ve already purchased content...

... 간소화된 VR 홈 경험 VR 홈에는... that Meta may bring back phone link ing in some form... to receive phone notifications in your headset and use your phone for text...

... a use-case in my opinion. VR headsets will eventually go the... ability to make crystal clear phone calls, and be able to... can be delivered via the phone app. The Ray-Ban Display glasses... buying (or even trying) a VR headset, I can actually see myself ...

Strange..... I have a purchase button..... I don't even own the game �♀️ Where do you try buying the add-on, in the headset? Try different stores, on the phone app - log out and back in, maybe restart the phone and see if this helps. Try it from the webstore on pc Fireteam Elite on Meta Quest | Quest VR games | Meta Store (en-gb)

...head and rotating horizont causes vr sinkness..purge them. Its a... and change channel in phone app and back and wait) ... option.maybe still damages headset for ever.turn off steamvr ... etc etc.use fps vr,monitor temp even after sleep ... radio operator.use fps vr,bios settings xmp/expo,3d ... yo can put some vr apps (game,vrserver,compositor,dashboard,... than me.try steam Vr supersampling over 256res but only ...

... trying to connect my Gear VR to SteamVR using a Samsung..., when I plug my phone into the Gear VR headset, it still just shows... necessary apps through the Gear VR app and the Setup Wizard... the end about disabling Gear VR updates in the Oculus app... cause of the issue? "Allow VR API without OSIG" is enabled. ...

... tell the difference Extended Reality (VR + AR) is expected to hit... perception — not the laggy, pixelated headset experience we have today. Think... room in New York. Your phone will work literally everywhere on...

My Meta VR headset was hacked. Because it linked ... to my: email, phone number, authenticator app, and the headset. I've provided my full... Horizon purchases, photos of the headset and remotes, a picture of ... can't have them either. My headset was the only vulnerability I ...

... VR headset on while playing a puzzle game, I got woke up by the phone... and I was starting at the VR desk in a VR room, I put... a haze even after the phone call. Moral of the story, don’t fall asleep with a VR headset on.

... the store inside the headset. If it shows a price... accounts logged into the headset (like a secondary account or...headset to refresh the list of owned digital licenses. ​5. Force a Sync via the Phone... but won't appear in VR: ​Open the Meta Horizon app on your phone. ​Go to your...This usually wakes up the headset and forces it to start ... app (or restarting the headset while connected to Wi-Fi) usually ...

... Meta Horizon Worlds for the Headset, that does Not get rid .... I grant, there is still VR Chat, and such. I am ... and Make Use of your Headset as best you can. I ... to play on a Phone. I might try it, but I love my headset with the New...

... market segments. Much like mobile phone gaming. This isn't how I... put Qualcomm chips in their VR headset. The problem here is that...

...head and rotating horizont causes vr sinkness..purge them. Its a ...app and change channel in phone app and back and wait) ...clockrates option.maybe still damages headset for ever.turn off steamvr ...maybe yo can put some vr apps (game,vrserver,compositor,dashboard,...MotionBlurQuality=0 r.SceneColorFormat=3 vr.PixelDensity=1.2 r.EyeAdaptationQuality=... than me.try steam Vr supersampling over 256res but only ...

... but Royal Fail delivered my VR headset accessory to an unrelated address... Fail who kindly answered my phone call after a mere 40 ...

... some films on the headset and was also able to ...never seen anyone use a headset during a flight. Non of ...price of the.headset and seemed interested in getting one. It feels like VR is still very...YouTube videos showing how good VR is just don't cut it. ...the jump to buying a headset. I wonder why that is? ...a marginal improvement on the phone they already have. Maybe VR headsets have an image problem? ...

... the household uses the house phone then you can not remove... an online forum for your VR headset, then ask on there for...

... opening Steam link on a VR headset* (Meta quest 3) and though ... Steam Link on an Android** phone, and got the same result. ..., THEN launching Steam Link (on VR headset*) so it goes directly to ...

... laptop screen and not the headset I have a gaming laptop... to that of a portable phone. In some laptops, there is... a similar one) can display VR.

... aren't reading this inside a VR headset, you’re probably reading it on... bedroom, and TiviMate on my phone during the commute. It’s the ...

... VR headset Serial Number. I never lost access to the associated email address or phone... own fault for keeping my headset logged in with no MFA. ...

I was gifted a VR headset. On the gift it said "to *me* and SHARE WITH YOUR DAD". I went looking on the shop for some games and saw that the game I wanted wasn't free. So, I decided that the next day I would ask my mother if she could purchase it for me since I did not have a credit card and obviously you can't pay with cash. The next day, I go back to try and remember the name, and could not get on. There was now a password where I had to put in a specific pattern. The same password type as my dad's phone which was a dead giveaway of who did it. I confronted my dad to which he said it was his VR headset, not mine. It said to share with dad and had MY NAME on it, not his. My dad said he would not tell me the password, and I have not seen him use it once. Now my dad is upset I won't let him make an account on the Playstation I was gifted a different year when he has both my headset and his own Xbox he bought himself. Edit: for those saying he's playing "games" I am 99% sure you're right. My dad was caught cheating on my mom and he acted the same. Every time he does something my mom shouldn't see he does this. He didnt even have a password on his phone until he was caught texting an ex girlfriend Edit 2: Thank you for engaging and the kind words. For those who are talking that my mother should divorce my father, she "doesn't believe in divorce". She tells me christianity is against divorce, and she has thought about it before. submitted by /u/zerowintergreen to r/mildlyinfuriating [link] [comments]

I’ve been prototyping a system where your phone acts as a 6DOF motion controller (kind of like VR, but without the headset or equipment). The game includes mini-games built around that motion input, designed for couch co-op with multiple phone controllers (similar to Wii Sports): saber-style combat light-gun style shooting Wii Sports Resort–style flying Looking for a sanity check from my peers before I sink more time into this: Does the phone-as-controller idea seem fun and understandable, or does it look gimmicky? Do you think there’s an audience for this type of gameplay experience, or does it feel more like a tech demo? What would make or break this idea for you? I know that this subreddit is full of devs, and not necessarily this game’s audience, but I’m mainly just looking for a gut-check. I’ve put a lot of time into building out the 6DOF motion tracking system on the side of my full-time job, and I’m trying to decide whether this is worth pushing further or not. If anyone’s curious, I have a Steam page here with more info (Motioncade) submitted by /u/Timely-Ambassador-39 to r/IndieDev [link] [comments]

i'm 14 years old and since 9 years or si i wanted to play VR. my mom bought my sisters some VR headset but It was just some piece of plástic in where you put the phone. I'm looking for something good but not expensive as hell. i want recommendations are second hand headsets good? submitted by /u/EeOoRr719 to r/VRGaming [link] [comments]

I am going to be as concise as possible and as clear as I possibly can be here, but neither me, my fiancee or my mother know how to handle this situation in an appropriate way that will ensure the perpetrator gets justice. I will also answer questions to the best of my ability. To start, my fiancee and I are in our early 30s, we do not have kids, havent really planned on it either. I have 5 siblings, 4 brothers and a single sister who is the youngest of my siblings. My sister's dad is not in the picture for various reasons. The context: A bit over a year ago, my sister was a normal teenager/preteen and was beginning high school. Pretty typical behavior for her age, had her first serious boyfriend had tons of IRL friend drama, etc. She was with her first boyfriend and they were doing fine until all of a sudden she broke up with him out of nowhere and completely stopped talking to him. She then started cutting all of her friends out of her life one by one. We started noticing because whenever theyd see us theyd ask how she was doing and we would be confused thinking that they would probably know better than we would. But they dropped on us that they hadn't talked to my sister in months and she just stopped talking to them out of the blue. During this timeframe while she was living at my mothers, it seems that she secretly developed some sort of online relationship with this guy who I will refer to as BN. My sister complained about being bullied at school and demanded to be home schooled and refused to go back to public school out of the blue. Her school district accommodated this and gave my mom the option to set her up for home schooling. She had to wait until the next semester before she could start so she was out of school for several months and during that time became heavily attached to this online persona BN. My mother had started to discover a bunch of warning signs that there was weird things going on, with her leaving her IRL boyfriend, her cutting off all of her friends and self isolating to make this guy her only support system. My mom intervened on multiple occasions and each time she would try to stop the communications or find out more my sister would run away or go off the deep end trying to harm herself or other things in that vein. My fiancee and I were living together in a different part of town, and at the time, we knew nothing about any of this situation. Didn't know my sister was doing any of this or having any problems until one night in September I received a phone call from my sister at 2 in the morning. My sister called me crying asking me to pick her up saying our mom abused her and that she ran away and needed someplace to go that was safe. (This was not something too out of the realm of possibility from my perspective so I took it at face value) I immediately went to go pick her up and we brought her back home, she was crying and saying all this stuff about how our mom was abusing her, etc. We got home, talked for a while, I set up a place for her to sleep and then my mom reached out to me. My mother says something along the lines of: "The reason she ran away is because I tried taking her phone and computer away. I found out this guy had been trying to coerce her into self harm and killing herself by signing a suicide pact with him that if they ever broke up she would have to kill herself" my mother continued saying "I have tried to get him to supply me with an ID, or talk to his parents, and each time he would hang up the calls and disappear or your sister would scream and cry and say that he had shown her his school ID before" etc etc. This person, BN, is apparently 17. or thats what he has told my sister and everyone else. They have been together for atleast a year now, and would now have to be atleast 18 if hes actually the age he says he was, but we have all reached the point to where we do not believe her or him anymore. Shortly after my sister moved in with us after running away, her sole focus was finding a way to get her oculus VR headset back from our mothers house. For about 2 months she did everything she could to make it seem like she wasnt talking to the guy anymore. She didnt have any electronics other than a school provided laptop. So my mother allowed her to have the VR headset back. Immediately after receiving the headset back, my sister has had the headset on 24/7. She has the headset on all day every day from the moment she wakes up to the moment she falls asleep. She sleeps with the VR headset on every single night and in addition to that she sleeps with her laptop on with a one way video call active on discord to this guy BN the entire night. Our original perspectives on all of this after she moved in were that, yeah she seems to be in a really weird long distance relationship that probably isnt the most healthy, but my fiancee and I are both millennials, and we went through similar experiences growing up around her age, and hadn't really seen anything too concerning aside from the obsessive codependent behavior All of that has slowly unraveled over the last couple weeks as this guy has now suddenly started messing with her bad. He's been "breaking up" with her basically every day and during these instances she opened up to my fiancee and finally revealed the true details about a lot of what she has been doing. THE SITUATION: My sister stated that early during their relationship, she "cheated" on this guy, and then tried to maintain their relationship. The only way he would allow her back is if she gave him complete control and access to all of her social media accounts and email accounts. This branched into controlling every aspect of every online account that she has and Shortly after she have him this access, he went in and somehow removed my mother as a parent/guardian on all of her accounts and locked her out completely. This, turns out to be why he appeared to be controlling all of her accounts. Its okay, my sister says, it is what she has to do to prove that shes not cheating on him..... sure.. Then, my sister reveals that BN controls IF and WHEN and WHAT she get to eat. We began noticing that she was exhibiting habits of eating disorders. She would accept plates of home cooked dinners from us acting excited to eat, and yet we would find the completely untouched plate sitting in the microwave the next morning, or all the contents scraped into the trash. It turns out that she has given this guy the ability to control her entire daily routine, whether she is allowed to eat, what she can or cant eat, how long she can spend eating, etc. BN is also in control of how long she spends away from the computer going to the bathroom or other things as well. my sister revealed to my fiancee that he forces her to be on a 24/7 discord call with him at all times so he always knows what shes doing, this is supposed to be "proof" that shes not "cheating on him again" She also revealed, that shes not allowed to Google search or look things up on the internet without BNs permission, as well as many other things. The final nail, for me, is the major thing that she revealed to my sister. during this recent "break up" of theirs, it was revealed that this guy has regularly been extorting, blackmailing and coercing my sister to perform sexual acts on VR chat with him. She was originally apprehensive and refused but he "broke up with her" the first time and told her that he'd just find a girl who would do it, and she begged and capitulated to him anyways. So in total. This guy has taken complete control of every aspect of her bodily autonomy. Controls when she wakes up, when she sleeps, if and when and what she eats, if and when she gets to use the bathroom and for how long she is allowed to do so. He regularly forces her to perform sex acts either over the phone or via discord/VR chat, and we also found out that she used some of her chore money to buy these full body trackers that she straps to her legs and arms and she is always wearing those 24/7 as well. I am absolutely sick, my soul aches over all of this and I have no idea what to do. Every time anyone has tried to intervene she has either tried to harm herself or ran away. This guy has completely brainwashed her. She has previously been committed to an institution the last time something like this happened, she was there for about 3 months and got better just to come out and have this happen. Each time my mother has tried to intervene, she warns BN and he goes through and scrubs the entirety of all of her and their accounts and logs, chats, etc and basically disappears off the face of earth until she finds some way to establish a secure communication channel with him again and start doing it all over again. This guy previously said he was 17, homeschooling, lived with his parents in Reno, Nevada. before things got too crazy my mom had jumped into their convo one night and offered to drive my sister out to Reno NV so they could meet, and the guy went absolutely ballistic and said that my sister wasn't allowed to reveal information to my mom about him and all this other stuff and the very next day he made up some elaborate story telling my sister that he moved to a different state and was no longer in Nevada. Ever since that moment between her and my mother, he has prevented her from discussing or talking about pretty much anything to her or anyone involving their relationship. When she originally moved in here I didnt know about any of this and thought she just had a normal relationship, she framed it to us that our mom was abusing her badly and going off the deepend and making stuff up about her and her boyfriend on purpose to control her. (Our family has been pretty complicated and I wasnt on the best terms with my mother at the time so this wasnt super unlikely to me at the time) But now its turned out that my sister has been lying to literally everyone to facilitate this relationship with this guy. My fiancee is the only person she has been actually opening up to about all of this stuff and we are trying to figure out some kind of plan to go about having an intervention that will give us the ability to get some kind of proof of whats going on in hard tangible evidence to connect to this guy so we can properly file reports to the authorities. So we are taking things one day at a time right now and im trying to get as much advice as I can on how to deal with this. I know this is a lot to read, and im sorry if its disjointed.. its been causing my fiancee and I so much stress we can barely function. We are currently planning out an intervention or some kind of hard stop to all this with my mom, but we desperately need to find some way to hold this guy accountable for what hes done. This level of abuse and meticulous control is not something that could be done by just some random 16/17 year old. The abuse hes putting her through is clearly extremely meticulous and methodical and I genuinely do not believe for a second that he was every the age purported... If anyone can give me some helpful advice here, or literally any information or similar experiences it would be extremely helpful... Thank you for reading.. submitted by /u/Afflictionxx to r/Advice [link] [comments]

EDIT/UPDATE: New post and research at https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1rtd51g/update_i_pulled_irs_filings_for_the_org_that/ Website: https://tboteproject.com Support Findings: https://tboteproject.com/donate/ Repository: https://tboteproject.com/git/hekate/attestation-findings I've been pulling public records on the wave of "age verification" bills moving through US state legislatures. IRS 990 filings, Senate lobbying disclosures, state ethics databases, campaign finance records, corporate registries, WHOIS lookups, Wayback Machine archives. What started as curiosity about who was pushing these bills turned into documenting a coordinated influence operation that, from a privacy standpoint, is building surveillance infrastructure at the operating system level while the company behind it faces zero new requirements for its own platforms. I want to be clear about what this is and isn't. I am not the author of the earlier r/linux post by aaronsb and I'm not affiliated with them. I titled this to draw attention on this subreddit because the privacy implications go well beyond Linux. Every source cited here is a public record. What the bills actually require you to hand over Most reporting on these bills says something vague like "age checks at device setup." The statutory language is more specific and more invasive than that. California AB-1043, signed October 2025 and effective January 1, 2027, defines "Operating system provider" under Section 1798.500(g) as "a person or entity that develops, licenses, or controls the operating system software on a computer, mobile device, or any other general purpose computing device." Every OS provider must then: provide an interface at account setup collecting a birth date or age, and expose a real-time API that broadcasts the user's age bracket (under 13, 13 to 15, 16 to 17, 18+) to any application running on the system. Read that again. Every app on your device gets to query a system-level API that returns your age bracket in real time. This isn't age verification at the point of accessing restricted content. This is a persistent age-broadcasting service baked into the operating system itself, queryable by every installed application. Colorado SB26-051 (passed the Senate 28-7, now in the House) copies the same definitions in the same order, same penalty structure ($2,500 per child for negligent violations, $7,500 for intentional ones), same exemptions. The template is the ICMEC "Digital Age Assurance Act," and it's been introduced or is pending in Illinois (three separate bills), New York, Kansas, South Carolina, Ohio, Georgia, Florida, and at the federal level. New York's S8102A goes further. It requires device manufacturers to perform "commercially reasonable and technically feasible age assurance" at device activation and explicitly bans self-reporting. The AG picks the approved methods. That means biometric age estimation or government ID verification before you can use a device you purchased. Exemptions in all of these bills cover broadband ISPs, telecom services, and physical products. None contain any exemption for open-source software, non-commercial projects, or privacy-preserving verification methods. The status right now: State Bill Status CA AB-1043 Enacted, effective Jan 1, 2027 CO SB26-051 Passed Senate, in House committee LA HB-570 Enacted, effective July 1, 2026 UT SB-142 Enacted, first in nation TX SB-2420 Enjoined by federal judge NY S8102A Pending IL HB-3304, HB-4140, SB-2037 Pending Federal KOSA, ASAA Pending The privacy architecture these bills create What's concerning about these bills is they don't just verify age once. They create persistent identity layer inside the operating system that applications can query at will. The commercial age verification vendors who would provide this infrastructure (Yoti, Veriff, Jumio) charge $0.10 to $2.00 per check, require proprietary SDKs, demand API keys tied to commercial accounts, and operate cloud-only with no self-hosted option. Your age verification data goes to a third-party cloud service. Every time. Compare this to what the EU built. The EU Digital Identity Wallet under eIDAS 2.0 has a reference implementation published under Apache 2.0/EUPL and uses selective disclosure credentials. A user can prove they fall within an age bracket without handing over their date of birth. The EU's Digital Services Act puts age verification obligations on Very Large Online Platforms (45M+ monthly users), not on operating systems. FOSS projects that don't act as intermediary services are explicitly outside scope. Micro and small enterprises get additional exemptions. The EU approach is not without its own problems. The reference code is open, but the operational system is not self-hostable. You cannot run your own trusted identity provider. The wallet apps require Google Play Services or the iOS equivalent, which locks out users of privacy-focused Android distributions like GrapheneOS, CalyxOS, and LineageOS. Device attestation requirements effectively ban rooted or jailbroken devices. The zero-knowledge proof privacy guarantees only hold if you trust that credential issuers and verifiers are not colluding to correlate your activity. ZKP is a cryptographic mechanism, not a trust architecture, and it cannot solve the problem of collusion between parties in the chain. Even with those caveats, the architectural gap between the two approaches is wide. The EU model does not create a persistent age-broadcasting API at the OS level. It does not mandate commercial vendors. It does not force biometric data into a third-party cloud on every check. The US bills assume every operating system is built by a corporation with the infrastructure and revenue to absorb these costs. The EU started from the opposite assumption and built accordingly. EU approach US bills Who's regulated Platforms with 45M+ users FOSS exemption Yes, five separate mechanisms Verification method Open-source wallet, zero-knowledge proofs Cost to non-commercial projects $0 Privacy architecture Selective disclosure, privacy by design Works offline Yes Who wrote the legislation This is where it gets interesting. Rep. Kim Carver (R-Bossier City), the sponsor of Louisiana's HB-570, publicly confirmed that a Meta lobbyist brought the legislative language directly to her. The bill as drafted required only app stores (Apple, Google) to verify user ages. It did not require social media platforms to do anything. Meta deployed 12 lobbyists across 9 confirmed firms for this single bill, paying at least $324,992 (described as a "very conservative estimate"). The confirmed firms include Pelican State Partners (who also lobby for Roblox, letting Meta frame this as "broad industry support" rather than one company's project), Adams and Reese LLP (the #1 ranked Louisiana government affairs firm), and State Capitol Solutions. Nicole Lopez, Meta's Director of Global Litigation Strategy for Youth, testified at the House Commerce Committee in support. She also testified in South Dakota for a similar bill. She's Meta's national point person for these laws. HB-570 passed unanimously at every stage: House 99-0, Senate 39-0. So why did Meta need 12 lobbyists? Because the votes were never the concern. The lobbyists were there to control the text and block amendments. The key amendment battle came from Senator Jay Morris, who expanded the bill to include app developers alongside app stores after Google's senior director of government affairs publicly questioned why "Mark Zuckerberg is so keen on passing these bills." When Morris introduced his amendment, Meta went silent. The conference committee compromise maintained dual responsibility but kept the primary burden on app stores, which is what Meta wanted from the start. At that same Senate hearing, Morris directly questioned DCA Executive Director Casey Stefanski about who funds her organization. She reportedly deflected, said she "wasn't comfortable answering," then under continued pressure admitted tech companies provide funding but refused to name them. The advocacy group that doesn't legally exist The Digital Childhood Alliance presents itself as a coalition of 50+ conservative child safety organizations (later inflated to 140+, though only six have ever been publicly named). It has been testifying in favor of these bills across states. Here is what public records show about its legal status: I searched all four regional extracts of the IRS Exempt Organizations Business Master File (eo1 through eo4.csv), which cover every tax-exempt organization registered in the United States. DCA is not there. No EIN exists for this organization. I also searched for incorporation records in Colorado, DC, Delaware, and Virginia, plus OpenCorporates (200M+ companies), ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, GuideStar, and Charity Navigator. No incorporation record exists in any of them. DCA's domain was registered December 18, 2024 through GoDaddy with privacy protection and a four-year registration. The website was live and fully formed one day later: professional design, statistics, testimonials from Heritage Foundation and NCOSE staff, ASAA talking points already loaded. This is not a grassroots launch. This is a staging deployment of a pre-built site. 77 days later, Utah SB-142 became the first ASAA law signed in the country. DCA processes donations through For Good (formerly Network for Good, EIN 68-0480736), which is a Donor Advised Fund. For Good explicitly states in its documentation that it serves "501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations." DCA claims 501(c)(4) status. DCA is classified as a "Project" (ID 258136) in the For Good system, not as a standalone nonprofit. I searched all 59,736 For Good grant recipients across five years, roughly $1.73 billion in disbursements. Zero grants to DCA, DCI, NCOSE, or any related entity. The donation page appears to be cosmetic. Bloomberg reporters exposed Meta as a DCA funder in July 2025. The Deseret News detailed the arrangement in December 2025. No version of the website, across 100+ Wayback Machine snapshots, has ever disclosed funding sources. Every blog post and testimony targets Apple and Google. Meta is never mentioned or criticized. DCA's leadership traces directly to NCOSE (National Center on Sexual Exploitation): Casey Stefanski, Executive Director, spent 10 years at NCOSE as Senior Director of Global Partnerships. Unusually, she never appears on any NCOSE 990 filing as an officer, key employee, or among the five highest-compensated staff. A senior director title at a $5.4M organization for a decade with no 990 appearance suggests either below-threshold compensation, an inflated title, or something else about the arrangement. Dawn Hawkins, DCA's Chair, simultaneously serves as CEO of NCOSE. John Read, DCA's Senior Policy Advisor, spent 30 years at the DOJ Antitrust Division investigating app stores and Big Tech. NCOSE's own 501(c)(4) structure turns out to be complicated. Tracing Schedule R filings across four years reveals that NCOSE created "NCOSE Action" (EIN 86-2458921) as a c4 in 2021, reclassified it from c4 to c3 in 2022, then created an entirely new c4 called "Institute for Public Policy" (EIN 88-1180705) in 2023 with the same address and the same principal officer (Marcel van der Watt). By 2024 the original entity had disappeared from Schedule R entirely. Despite NCOSE's website describing NCOSEAction as "created by NCOSE," and Schedule R listing the Institute as a "controlled organization," all 19 transaction indicators between NCOSE and the Institute are marked "No." No grants, no shared employees, no shared facilities, no reimbursements. Zero reported transactions between a parent and its own controlled c4 while staff move freely between them. Concurrently, NCOSE's lobbying spending tripled from $78,000 to $204,000, coinciding with DCA's launch and the ASAA legislative push. $70M+ in super PACs, deliberately fragmented Meta poured over $70 million into state-level super PACs and structured every one to avoid the FEC's centralized, searchable database: Entity Meta's contribution Type Notable detail ATEP $45M Bipartisan 527 PAC Co-led by Hilltop Public Solutions META California $20M State PAC Chaired by Brian Rice, Meta VP of Public Policy California Leads $5M State PAC Union-partnered Forge the Future Downstream from ATEP State PAC (TX) Policy priorities mirror ASAA language Making Our Tomorrow Downstream from ATEP State PAC (IL) Also chaired by Brian Rice By registering every PAC at the state level rather than federally, Meta scatters filings across dozens of state ethics commission databases with different formats, different disclosure timelines, and no centralized search. Each filing is technically public. Aggregating them into a coherent picture requires manually querying each state. This is structural opacity by fragmentation. Forge the Future's stated policy priorities include: "Empowering parents with oversight of children's online activities across devices and digital environments." That is functionally identical to the ASAA framing. Of 20 Meta-backed candidates across Texas and North Carolina primaries, 19 won (Washington Post, March 12, 2026). The firm that bridges both tracks This is the finding that connects two things I'd been tracking separately. Hilltop Public Solutions, a Democratic consulting firm, shows up in three distinct contexts: Co-leads ATEP, Meta's $45M bipartisan super PAC Involved in DCA's messaging coordination, per investigative reporting Connected to Forge the Future, the downstream Texas PAC with ASAA-aligned policy priorities This makes Hilltop the first confirmed entity bridging Meta's political spending operation and the DCA advocacy campaign. The firm helping Meta elect "tech-friendly" state legislators also coordinates messaging for the nominally independent grassroots organization pushing those legislators to pass ASAA. The dark money network Meta's Colorado lobbying runs through Headwaters Strategies, paid $338,500 since 2019, with monthly payments jumping from roughly $5K/month to $14K-$30K/month starting July 2023 as state-level age verification bills accelerated. Headwaters co-founder Adam Eichberg simultaneously serves as a registered Meta lobbyist in Colorado, as Chair of the Board of the New Venture Fund (the flagship entity of the Arabella Advisors network, $669M revenue), and as founding board member of the Windward Fund (another Arabella entity, $311M revenue). The Arabella network operates four entities from the same building at 1828 L Street NW, Washington DC, with combined annual revenue exceeding $1.3 billion. NVF transfers $121.3M per year to the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)(4) with no donor disclosure requirements. I parsed the IRS Form 990 Schedule I filings across all five Arabella entities. That's 4,433 grants totaling approximately $2.0 billion. I searched for every child safety, age verification, and tech policy organization I could identify. Zero matches. The Schedule I grant pathway is definitively ruled out. If Meta money flows through this network, it would have to travel via fiscal sponsorship, consulting fees, or non-grant payments, which are inherently less transparent. The Eichberg connection matters not because it proves a pipeline, but because the person receiving Meta's lobbying payments chairs the governance structure of the largest anonymous-donor-funded advocacy network in US politics. That structural overlap is documented regardless of whether money moves through it. The company that benefits Meta's own Horizon OS (powering Quest VR headsets) already has Meta Account age verification, a Get Age Category API, Family Center parental controls, Quest Store age ratings, and default minor account protections. I scored Horizon OS at 83% compliance readiness with these mandates. Meta is not opposing these bills. In Colorado, I pulled lobbying records from the Secretary of State's SODA API and found Meta's four registered lobbyists on SB26-051 listed in a "Monitoring" position. Not amending, not opposing. Watching. On every social media regulation bill in Colorado, Meta takes an "Amending" position, actively fighting changes. Across 117 lobbying records on 22 bills: Bills regulating social media: Meta position is "Amending" (fighting) The one bill putting the burden on OS providers: Meta position is "Monitoring" (watching) Meta fights bills that regulate Meta. Meta watches bills that regulate everyone else. In California, Meta spent over $1 million on state lobbying in the first three quarters of 2025 and publicly supported AB-1043, breaking ranks with its own trade associations (TechNet and Chamber of Progress both opposed it). Meta supported a bill that creates surveillance infrastructure at the OS level while leaving social media platforms untouched. Meta's LD-2 filings with the Senate explicitly list H.R. 3149/S. 1586, the App Store Accountability Act, as a lobbied bill. The filing narrative includes "protecting children, bullying prevention and online safety; youth safety and federal parental approval; youth restrictions on social media." In the same filing, Meta also lobbies on KOSA and COPPA 2.0, which would regulate Meta directly. Meta supports the bill that burdens its competitors and lobbies to weaken the bills that burden itself. Both positions appear in the same quarterly disclosure. The privacy questions I've tried to present findings here, not conclusions. But from a privacy standpoint: Why does the company that profits from collecting user data draft legislation requiring every operating system to collect age data and broadcast it to every installed application via a system-level API? Why do these bills mandate commercial age verification vendors (Yoti, Veriff, Jumio) whose business model is collecting biometric data, while the EU's equivalent uses open-source zero-knowledge proofs that reveal nothing beyond "over 18"? Why is there no data minimization requirement in any of these bills for the age verification data itself? AB-1043 creates a persistent age signal API. Who governs what happens to the data flowing through it? Why does Meta fund an advocacy group with no legal existence in the IRS system to push legislation that creates new data collection infrastructure at a layer below Meta's own products, while Meta faces zero new requirements? Why does the company whose lobbyist drafted one of these bills write it to specifically exclude social media platforms from the age verification mandate? If the goal is child safety, why regulate the operating system, which has no direct contact with children, instead of the social media platforms where the documented harm occurs? What you can do If you're in CO, IL, or NY, these bills are still in committee. Comment on the record. System76's CEO met with the Colorado bill's sponsor on March 9 and the sponsor suggested excluding open-source software. The conversation is happening now. Contact the EFF, FSF, and Software Freedom Conservancy with the specific statutory language and compliance gap numbers. They need to know these definitions cover volunteer-maintained software with no exemption. Read the actual bill text. CA AB-1043 is searchable on leginfo.legislature.ca.gov. CO SB26-051 is on leg.colorado.gov. The definitions are what matter, not the news summaries. If you maintain software that could be classified as an "operating system provider" under these definitions, start thinking about your response now. CA AB-1043 takes effect January 1, 2027. Louisiana HB-570 takes effect July 1, 2026. Sources (all public records) Bill text: CA AB-1043 (Chapter 675, leginfo.legislature.ca.gov), CO SB26-051 (leg.colorado.gov), LA HB-570 Act 481 of 2025 (legis.la.gov), NY S8102A (nysenate.gov), TX SB-2420, UT SB-142 (le.utah.gov) Federal lobbying: OpenSecrets Meta profile (opensecrets.org, client ID D000033563), Senate LDA filing UUID b73445ed-15e5-42e7-a1e8-aeb224755267 Colorado lobbying: CO Secretary of State SODA API (data.colorado.gov, datasets vp65-spyn, dxfk-9ifj, df5p-p6jt) Louisiana lobbying: LA Board of Ethics, F Minus database (fminus.org/clients/pelican-state-partners-llc/, fminus.org/clients/meta-platforms-inc/) California lobbying: CalAccess (cal-access.sos.ca.gov), Bloomberg Government Super PACs: Forge the Future (texasforgefuturepac.com), Texas Ethics Commission, Illinois State Board of Elections, Politico (Feb 2, 2026), Washington Post (Mar 12, 2026) DCA records: WHOIS/RDAP (rdap.org), Wayback Machine CDX API (100+ snapshots), IRS EO BMF (eo1-eo4.csv), OpenCorporates, ProPublica, GuideStar NCOSE: IRS Form 990 FY2020-FY2024 including Schedule R; NCOSEAction/Institute for Public Policy (EIN 88-1180705); original NCOSE Action (EIN 86-2458921) via Schedule R history For Good/Network for Good: forgood.org, DCA donation page source (targetable_type=Project, targetable_id=258136), For Good 990s via ProPublica (EIN 68-0480736, 59,736 recipients searched) IRS 990 filings: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer: NVF (EIN 20-5806345), STF 2024 (sixteenthirtyfund.org), DCI (EIN 39-3684798), Windward, Hopewell, North Fund, NCOSE (EIN 13-2608326), ConnectSafely (EIN 47-3168168) Campaign finance: CO TRACER bulk data (tracer.sos.colorado.gov), FollowTheMoney.org, FEC API (Meta PAC C00502906) Reporting: Bloomberg (July 2025), Deseret News (Dec 2025), The Center Square, ACT | The App Association, Dome Politics, Pluribus News, Nola.com, Privacy Daily EU framework: EUR-Lex (Digital Services Act, eIDAS 2.0 Regulation), EUDIW GitHub repository, T-Scy consortium Technical: freedesktop.org, GNOME/KDE documentation, Meta developer docs (developer.meta.com/horizon) Full dataset, OSINT tasklist, and all processed findings are published with sources embedded in each file: github.com/upper-up/meta-lobbying-and-other-findings This is an ongoing investigation. Pending: Texas Ethics Commission records for Forge the Future expenditure recipients, NCOSEAction's first 990 filing, IRS Form 8872 for ATEP, and FOIA responses from Colorado and Louisiana. If you have access to lobbying data from states I haven't covered (IL, NY, UT, GA), I'd appreciate a heads up. I am not claiming Meta wrote every one of these bills. Louisiana is confirmed by the sponsor; the others use a shared ICMEC template. I am not claiming there is a direct Arabella-to-DCA funding pipeline; I checked $2 billion in grants and found no evidence. I am not claiming child safety isn't a legitimate concern. What I am documenting is: the company whose lobbyist drafted HB-570 wrote it to exclude its own platforms; the advocacy group pushing these bills nationally has no legal existence and is confirmed funded by Meta; the same consulting firm bridges Meta's super PAC and DCA's messaging; none of these bills exempt open-source or non-commercial software while the EU equivalent does; and the mandatory age-signal API creates persistent surveillance infrastructure at the OS level with no data minimization requirements. The records are above. Draw your own conclusions. This section documents what happened when this investigation was posted to Reddit, and provides context on Meta's documented history of using astroturfing, coordinated reporting, and platform manipulation to suppress unfavorable content. What happened The original version of this investigation was posted to r/linux, where it was mass reported and pulled down pending moderator review (150 upvotes, roughly 15k views before being pulled down some 40 minutes after being posted) The content that was suppressed names Meta lobbying firms, traces documented payments, cites Senate LD-2 filings, and links to IRS records. It identifies Hilltop Public Solutions as the first confirmed entity bridging Meta's $45M super PAC and the DCA astroturf campaign. This is the kind of content that a well-resourced actor would have reason to suppress. I cannot prove the mass reports were coordinated rather than organic. That is the point of the tactic: Reddit's infrastructure makes it impossible to distinguish genuine community objections from manufactured ones, and it rewards the behavior either way by automatically removing the content. Meta has done this before In March 2022, the Washington Post reported that Meta hired Targeted Victory, one of the largest Republican consulting firms in the country, to run a nationwide astroturfing campaign against TikTok. Internal emails obtained by the Post showed the campaign: Placed op-eds and letters to the editor in regional news outlets across the country, none of which disclosed the connection to Meta or Targeted Victory Promoted stories about dangerous TikTok "trends" that had actually originated on Facebook Pushed local politicians and political reporters to frame TikTok as a threat to children In an internal email, a campaign director wrote that the "dream would be to get stories with headlines like 'From dances to danger: how TikTok has become the most harmful social media space for kids'" Meta's spokesman defended the campaign by saying "all platforms should face a level of scrutiny consistent with their growing success." Meta did not deny hiring the firm or directing the campaign. The story was confirmed by the Washington Post, Fortune, Variety, CBS News, Engadget, Tortoise Media, the Boston Globe, and Techdirt, among others. This is not speculation about what Meta might do. This is what Meta has been publicly documented doing: hiring firms to plant stories, manufacture public concern about competitors using child safety as the framing, and conceal the corporate origin of the messaging. The Targeted Victory campaign and the DCA campaign use the same playbook: fund an outside entity to push messaging that serves Meta's commercial interests while hiding Meta's involvement. Reddit's bot and astroturfing problem is structural Research published in Nature (Scientific Reports) documented coordinated political astroturfing patterns across platforms including Reddit. A separate study found that at least 15% of content in surveyed subreddits was posted by corporate trolls or bot accounts designed to manipulate public opinion. Since June 2025, bot networks have been systematically exploiting Reddit and Meta's own moderation systems through mass reporting. Thousands of legitimate Facebook groups were deleted after coordinated bot reports triggered automated enforcement. The same mass-reporting tactic works on Reddit: a small number of accounts can file reports, trigger automated removal, and flag the poster's account for site-wide spam filtering, all without engaging with the content. Venture-backed firms like Doublespeed now offer astroturfing-as-a-service across Reddit, TikTok, and Instagram, operating physical phone farms to bypass platform detection. The infrastructure for suppressing content through coordinated inauthentic behavior is commercially available. What this means for this investigation Meta spent $26.3 million on federal lobbying in 2025 and deployed 86+ lobbyists across 45 states. It funded a nationally active advocacy group (DCA) with no legal existence in the IRS system. It hired Hilltop Public Solutions to simultaneously run its $45M super PAC and coordinate DCA's messaging. It previously hired Targeted Victory to run a covert astroturfing campaign against TikTok using child safety as the narrative frame. This investigation documents all of that with primary sources. A post containing those findings was mass reported on Reddit within hours and suppressed site-wide by automated systems. Whether the reports were organic or coordinated, the outcome is the same: the content was removed from the platform where Meta has both the motive and the documented capability to suppress it. The research is published in a git repository with every source embedded. It does not depend on Reddit's infrastructure to survive. Sources Washington Post, "Facebook paid Republican strategy firm to malign TikTok" (March 30, 2022): https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/03/30/facebook-tiktok-targeted-victory/ Fortune, "Meta paid a Republican consulting firm to turn the public against TikTok" (March 31, 2022): https://fortune.com/2022/03/31/facebook-meta-paid-republican-consulting-firm-targeted-victory-turn-public-opinion-against-tiktok/ Variety, "Facebook Parent Company Defends Its PR Campaign to Portray TikTok as Threat to American Children" (March 31, 2022): https://variety.com/2022/digital/news/meta-facebook-tiktok-pr-campaign-1235218866/ Techdirt, "Facebook-Hired PR Firm Coordinated Anti-TikTok Campaign To Spread Bogus Moral Panics" (March 31, 2022): https://www.techdirt.com/2022/03/31/facebook-hired-pr-firm-coordinated-anti-tiktok-campaign-to-spread-bogus-moral-panics/ Tortoise Media, "Meta 'astroturfed' TikTok" (April 5, 2022): https://www.tortoisemedia.com/2022/04/05/meta-astroturfed-tiktok CBS News, "Report: Facebook Hired PR Firm To Smear TikTok": https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/report-facebook-hired-pr-firm-to-smear-tiktok/ Engadget, "Meta reportedly paid political consultants to smear TikTok": https://www.engadget.com/meta-targeted-victory-tiktok-smear-campaign-133139892.html Boston Globe, "Facebook paid GOP firm to malign TikTok, internal e-mails reveal" (March 30, 2022): https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/03/30/business/facebook-paid-gop-firm-malign-tiktok-internal-e-mails-reveal/ Georgetown Free Speech Project, "Facebook hires GOP consulting firm to smear rival TikTok": https://freespeechproject.georgetown.edu/tracker-entries/facebook-hires-gop-consulting-firm-in-dc-area-to-smear-rival-tiktok/ Nature Scientific Reports, "Coordination patterns reveal online political astroturfing across the world" (2022): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-08404-9 Medium/HR News, "Study: At Least 15% of All Reddit Content is Corporate Trolls": https://medium.com/@hrnews1/study-at-least-15-of-all-reddit-content-is-corporate-trolls-trying-to-manipulate-public-opinion-49cb302c26a5 TechCrunch, "Facebook Group admins complain of mass bans" (June 24, 2025): https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/24/facebook-group-admins-complain-of-mass-bans-meta-says-its-fixing-the-problem/ YNet News, "Public opinion for sale: The new startup causing a storm" (Doublespeed): https://www.ynetnews.com/tech-and-digital/article/hyraenbmzx Meta Transparency Center, "Inauthentic Behavior" policy: https://transparency.meta.com/policies/community-standards/inauthentic-behavior/ The Hacker News, "Meta Disrupts Influence Ops Targeting Romania, Azerbaijan, and Taiwan" (May 2025): https://thehackernews.com/2025/05/meta-disrupts-influence-ops-targeting.html submitted by /u/Ok_Lingonberry3296 to r/linux [link] [comments]

Like I said if this is a dumb question or there’s something I don’t know, do be nice :) Im surprised to see that the majority of mainstream VR headsets still use LCD. Meanwhile, the phone industry has developed and iterated on AMOLED high-density, high brightness displays for over a decade. My understanding is that these screens are not that expensive to manufacture nowadays, especially considering the smaller size needed for a VR headset. Is there something I’m missing? Why isn’t it the standard on high and mid-range headsets? submitted by /u/MicroUzi to r/virtualreality [link] [comments]

I'm trying to use my phone as a VR headset. I need recommendations for some low-budget controllers that can interface directly with VR games, skipping the need for the headset in between. submitted by /u/Pale-Recognition-599 to r/virtualreality [link] [comments]

submitted by /u/AbdelYG to r/virtualreality [link] [comments]

I couldn't stay silent on this one because it's just so fucking ridiculous. I forgot how much I actually hated New Headset Season because the collective IQ of the community always tanks whenever a headset is announced. So I'm gonna go line by line picking out all the common shit I see the Dunning-Kreuger cases and midwits bandying about under the guise of 'discourse', because frankly half of the talking points are quite literally just fighting over literal misinformation and wrong assumptions. THE QUEST 3 DIRECT COMPARISON FALLACY Let's start with the direct comparison to the Quest 3 and the price point. Put simply, the Quest 3 is a $700 headset sold for $499 because of the Meta subsidy. I sincerely doubt anyone would argue with this idea or the number. Based on other devices running mid-range Snapdragon 8 series chipsets, the optical stack, and the other components, this seems like a pretty reasonable number and the Pico probably doesnt shake out for much less than that and only due to labor costs and probably the optics. It's still subsidized, and this time by the Chinese Communist Party. If ALL THE STEAM FRAME WAS is a Quest 3 with a Valve logo on it, it would only have to hit a target of $699USD to be a direct comparison and competition to the Quest 3. There are plenty of people that would spend $200 to avoid Meta, and tons who have spent far more to do so. But it's not. The Steam Frame has very real, very relevant hardware differences and advantages over the Quest 3. First of all is the slight bump from the XR2gen2 to the 8gen3. Not a lot, but it's there. Two of the big ones are eye tracking and dual-radio Wifi6 streaming. Yes, your Quest 3 can have good streaming quality. Mine does. But in practice, a lot of people will not see that kind of result. Differences in network topography, hardware, configuration and congestion means that 9 times out of 10, youre not simply going to walk into a situation where your Quest 3 is streaming over wifi at full, steady speed with no visible compression artifacts or lag. The Puppis is a solution, but Virtual Desktop is a requirement. The Frame entirely blows this out of the water by not only including a high speed dedicated wifi dongle, but a system implementing dual radios splitting the entire streaming system across multiple channels, potentially doubling throughput. Crisp, clean, fast, responsive visuals and controls are all but guaranteed. The only downside is not being able to relocate the dongle to a different room from the machine, but if you're going to go through the trouble of that route you can still likely just do that regardless with another router. The fact that your Steam Frame will JUST. FUCKING. WORK. with steamVR is far and away going to be a better experience than the average experience of a Quest 3 user. Again, my experience has been better than most. It generally just connects straight up to VD and Steam VR and usually works well, is usually stable, and I usually have minimal compression artifacts, though not none. A lot of folks do not have an experience anywhere near this smooth, especially with Meta's own software. Lowering the friction and time from picking up the headset to the game loading up is absolutely critical for retention and the Frame absolutely gets this right. The other half of that is foveated transport. This reduces the bandwidth required even further. Ive actually heard it said that this isn't so much of a gain because "other headsets already do this". Which is fucking baffling to say, because in the same breath, every single person who I've seen mention this is FULLY AWARE that those headsets are using FIXED foveated transport, which offers less than half the gains of active foveated rendering because its still only foveating 75% of the screen instead of the far smaller region that active, eye-tracked foveation will work with. The fact that Valve considers their eye tracking solution to be performant enough for this also means that games that support active foveated rendering as well will see even better gains. In addition, the reduction to the encoding workload will be a blessing and a boon to users with cards that have weak encoding hardware, like a lot of the AMD cards that people with midrange builds often resorted to. After that, you still have plenty of other advantages over the Quest 3. Comfort looks like its going to be quite good. The device is almost as light as the BSB2. The facial interface seems to be very nice, which should help with face pressure. And despite the constant reminders of the downside of doing so, you folks have finally got the battery in the back of the strap like you wanted, rebalancing the headset somewhat. Despite the fact this makes headstrap changes complicated, and the fact that relocating the relatively light battery doesn't actually do much to change the balance of a headset like a Quest 3, the Frame is actually extremely light for its class which improves both comfort overall as well as the effect that moving the battery to the rear has on balance. This is going to be a MUCH more comfortable headset than the Quest line. And adding a little top strap shouldnt be hard either, if you want that for a bit more support. In general, the Frame is going to occupy the same sort of position as the Deck where the device itself isnt perfect or a world-beater specs wise, but taken on a whole as a package its going to deliver an overall far better overall user experience that puts it ahead of and beyond anything in its class despite any hardware weaknesses it might have in comparison. WHY ISN'T IT WIDE FOV? Let's be frank. People who are genuinely tilted that it only has a slight vertical FOV gain over Quest 3 simply do not understand the costs of increasing FOV over 110°. The best you can do without genuine changes to the way the optical stack is constructed is the approximately 125° FOV of the Index, when you've done absolutely everything you can to squeeze every degree out of it. We're also completely ignoring the price of keeping the pixel density up as you increase FOV. The Square Cube Law does not know what lube is and it does not use condoms. You cannot escape the cost of spreading those tiny screens across such a wide FOV. They compound exponentially. So not only are you having to switch to an entirely different optical stack, with entirely differently shaped lenses, unless you SOMEHOW incorporate pancake lens design principles into a sectioned or curved lens design, we are straight back to having just a clear center sweet spot and increasing blurriness as you get away from the center. Look at the lenses for all the past and current wide FOV headsets. They are a fundamentally different kind of optical system. The Index got the FOV as wide as it is by absolutely maxing out what you can do with a 'straight' optical stack by placing it as close to your eyes as possible and sacrificing binocular overlap to can't the screens outward. There are no possible gains with these types of optics beyond that point. This is ESPECIALLY true with the mini/microOLED screens that people are screaming for. But we'll talk about OLED in a minute. YEAH, AND WHAT ABOUT THAT RESOLUTION? 2K PER EYE IN 2026!? Yes. Unfortunately. Pop quiz; what is the most common GPU on Steam today? Hint; its not the 5080. This thing is targeted square at the average Steam user and the 2060/3060/4060 that most of them are still rocking and unable to afford upgrading from. And the Frame is going to run fantastically on these GPUs. Especially for games that support foveated rendering in addition to the foveated transport that will work at all times. I would not be surprised if games like Compound worked at entirely full speed on something like a 1660Ti, or even on the Frame itself at low settings, but full speed. The thing is that its still going to look better than the Quest 3, because in most of these cases, your foveated zone is actually going to be at native resolution more than likely. Getting a Quest 3 to run at native res requires quite beefy hardware depending on the game, and of course your network has to be absolutely flawless. The Frame is gonna be approaching or hitting native res a lot more often than the Quest 3 will given the same PC hardware, which we again owe to the foveated transport and rendering where applicable. In addition, this is also affected by the sheer availability of panels themselves, and a better option might not even have been available anywhere near the price point or quantity that Valve needs. BUT WHERE DISPLAYPORT?! This headset does not need DisplayPort. Between the dual radios and foveated transport you will be getting the full uncompressed resolution and minimum latency. Adding video input is not free as it is not a feature of ARM SoC and would require additional hardware, and it would not "cost pennies" as some moron I just saw suggested. Video decoding chips are not free. Extremely low latency decoders even more so. You do not need a cable. End of discussion. IT WOULD BE CHEAPER WITHOUT THE CHIP >:( It would also have a fucking Rift S cable. You do not get to have a wireless SLAM headset without an SoC, period. Something has to do the video decoding. Something has to do the SLAM tracking. Something has to interface with the controllers. And if you don't have an SoC on board to do that, you don't have a wireless headset, period. Nor can you just use a "cheaper" SoC because then it wouldn't be powerful enough to handle SLAM tracking. What would the fucking point of that be? Then it'd be a fucking Quest 1, and it wouldn't be capable of one of the main points of this fucking thing, which is for some reason, playing flat games on a big screen in VR using the onboard chipset. Which brings us to.. WHAT IS THIS ABOUT 2D GAMES? AND WHY?? Look. I don't believe in playing flat games in VR. You don't believe in playing flat games in VR. Using current VR headsets for "pRoDuCtIvItY" just sounds entirely ridiculous to both of us. But the fact stands that the Xbox streaming app is still in the top ten apps on Quest and people are still constantly asking how to play their Xbox and PS5 games on their Quests and such, so what the fuck do we know I guess. People are fucking weird about how they use VR and apparently there's a fuckton of people who genuinely use their headsets mostly to "play my games on a big screen in a nice place :)" no matter how dumb that sounds to you or me. This feature will be heavily used, especially if the x64-ARM translation system is at all more reliable, performant, or user-friendly than Winlator and GameHub. I've tried them. The promise is there but the software is definitely not, yet. But it will be, and that's inevitable. If Valve has already gotten its FEX implementation to the point they consider it to be almost ready for full release, that would put it leagues beyond my experience using Winlator/Gamehub on an 8 Elite phone, and would be absolutely amazing. So, you know, to each their own, but this is going to be a far more popular use case than most of us care about or care to think. MUH OLED! REEEEEEE!! MUH INKY, INKY BLACKS! Here's the problem champ. Since the GameBoy, portable devices have been entirely defined and engineered around the screens they can actually get their hands on realistically. The Steam Frame, as it exists, exists at the price point it does because the screens it uses are available at the price point that they are. Pancake lenses means that the screen has to be bright enough to actually get an image, which you have been told repeatedly isn't the case with the vast majority of OLED screens. Mini/Micro/Regular OLED panels that are that bright come a huge premium, which is why OLED pancake headsets like the BSB2 go for such a premium on their own. Do not forget that you still have to buy all the peripherals separately too, and in the BSB2's case the small size of those OLED panels (you do realize how small those mini/microOLED screens are, right?) impacts its ability to create a large FOV as well, sacrificing binocular overlap to reach the middling FOV that it does have. So youre robbing Peter to pay Paul again for the sake of your fucking InKy BlAcKs. I am typing this on an OLED phone. It does not impress me. I also had both the CV1 and Quest 1. If you come near me with another pentile display I will choke you with it. So if you genuinely believe that the Steam Frame could be an OLED headset, and that there's a screen they could order to maintain the price point that it needs to under the Index, great. Show me. Show me the SKU. Show me that it exists. Show me that its not 3x the price of the LCD panels that are in there now and that they are in fact bright enough to drive pancake optics and that Valve can order them in quantity at a workable price, and that you're not just assuming that the panels you want are even available. I'll wait. And for the last fucking time. WiFi and Internet are NOT THE FUCKING SAME. Saying you use "internet" to connect your headset to the PC is like saying you take the interstate to get from your bedroom to the kitchen. "INTERNET" DOES NOT MEAN ANY CONNECTION BETWEEN TWO DEVICES. IT IS YOUR CONNECTION TO THE INTERNET, AS IN A PROPER NOUN, AS IN THE ONE SINGLE WORLDWIDE NETWORK THAT IS EVERYTHING ON THE FAR SIDE OF YOUR MODEM OUTSIDE YOUR HOUSE. YOUR WIFI IS A LOCAL AREA NETWORK, OR LAN, AND HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH THE INTERNET OR YOUR INTERNET SPEEDS. Out of respect for the moderation staff, I will not be responding to comments or posting further from this account. Fight eachother below. submitted by /u/No_Sleep6984 to r/ValveIndex [link] [comments]

I mean generally it is not a main headset, but is there any exemptions about this anytime it would be good at all? submitted by /u/Radiant_Mongoose1459 to r/virtualreality [link] [comments]

I bought my first Quest 3 a few weeks ago. Until now, I had only tried virtual reality a couple of times, and those sessions were quite short, but since I bought mine, I’ve been hooked, haha. I have a friend, so I’ve been playing almost three hours every day. Now, at no point did I feel nausea or anything like that; I adapted pretty well. But lately, I’ve been having really strange dreams related to virtual reality, and specifically in the past few days, I started feeling weird. For example, today I haven’t touched the headset, but I woke up with this feeling. It’s as if my brain thinks I’m inside a game. When I look at my phone screen, it feels like a virtual reality screen, and I feel like my hands are moving strangely, as if they have a tiny delay. Has anyone had similar experiences when starting with VR? It’s not annoying for now, but it is a really strange sensation. submitted by /u/macuto2000 to r/OculusQuest [link] [comments]

I am NOT OOP. OOP is u/justathrowaway282641 Originally posted to r/TwoHotTakes + her own page Previous BoRUs: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 [New Update]: My family forgot to invite me to my grandparents funeral, but they are convinced I was there. NEW UPDATE MARKED WITH ---- Trigger Warnings: death of loved ones, emotional manipulation, gaslighting, harassment Mood Spoilers: super wonderful!! Editor’s Note: removed all relevant comments from older posts to make space for new updates. To see all older relevant comments, check out the previous BoRUs above RECAP Original Post: November 14, 2023** I’m 30s F and caused a major blowup in my family and now none of them are talking to me. For background, my hometown is tiny (500pop) and when I went 2 hrs away to “the city” (15,000pop) for college, I loved it. I ended up staying after graduation, got married, and am happy here for a decade. I visit my home town every few weeks or so, call/text my family near daily, and thought we were all good. My family’s pretty small. Just my brother, mom, step dad, dad, step mom, and an aunt and uncle (mom’s siblings, never married, no kids). My mother's grandparents moved to my home town when I was in high school and were just down the street from us. My family has always been pretty drama free (aside from my parent’s divorce when I was a kid) and we’ve been happy. The step-parents were blended in perfectly and we share holidays and celebrations together. We’re all super close and just the perfect little group. Ever since I moved away, the topic of “when am I moving back?” is constant, and I’ve always laughed it off. My home town has nothing. You have to drive 30 minutes for milk and bread. 60-90 minute one-way commutes to work. And floods shut down the main road every Easter. I love the town, but I love here more. I have parks, stores, community events, a library! The “city” is great. My family grumbles that I need to move back, but I refuse. I've been trying to encourage them to come here, especially since it's not an hour drive to the nearest medical facility. Now to the meat and potatoes: both my grandparents passed over COVID times. They were both old and their health had been failing for a while so it was only a matter of time. Thankfully they didn’t catch it, but it made visiting them impossible and we survived mostly through FaceTime. They both passed in their sleep months apart. Both were cremated and kept securely under the kitchen sink for safe keeping while the pandemic blew over. That was 2021. Well, I just found out my family held a funeral for them and scattered the ashes in my uncle’s maple grove over the summer. No one said a word to me about it. I’ve visited numerous times before and after and not one word. I only found out because my great uncle from California posted on Facebook a few weeks ago that he is entering hospice and was so thankful his health stayed strong enough for him to see his little sister (my grandma) to her final resting place. I was confused and called my mom. She was all “Yeah, the funeral we had in July, remember?” Ya’ll, I visited them for the 4th of July. They did the funeral the 8th. Not a word about it to me. They had planned this for months. Long enough to arrange for my infirm great uncle to be brought over from the other side of the country. Apparently, they talked about it “all the time”. Everyone is convinced I was at the funeral. They SWEAR I was there. I can prove I wasn’t because Google’s got my location history. My hubby is baffled because he was supposedly there, too, but he had to work every weekend in June and July. Time clock doesn’t lie. My family straight up forgot about me. I’m hurt. I’m sad. And they’re pissed at me “for lying”. They think I’m causing drama over nothing. Nothing I say can convince them I wasn’t there. My family is united in this. And they’ve all put me “on read” until I admit I’m wrong. They think I’ve gone nuts. Either there’s a doppelganger of me attending events, or my family doesn’t want to admit they screwed up. I’m not backing down. Thanksgiving is coming up, and my family’s been vague posting on Facebook about “forgetful kids” and mental health. It’s so freaking weird and I don’t know if I’m in bizzaro world or what’s going on. My mom’s best friend reached out and said I should just admit I was wrong and apologize, that I’m causing my mom so much unnecessary stress. I asked her if she’s checked everyone’s home for CO2. She hung up on me. (We checked our CO2, and our testers are running just fine.) I have reached out to a few people in my home town to check in on my folks, and they all say they're fine. I even spoke with the local volunteer fire fighter group to see if they could check for gas leaks. Not sure if they were able to. I don’t know what to do. I’ve shown them the proof I wasn’t there, but they know I’m tech savvy and just assume I’ve Photoshopped it. Hubby says we need a break, and we’re going to be staying home this holiday season. Edit: I don't know the update rules, so I'll post updates to my profile should anyone want them.   Update #1: November 27, 2023 (13 days later) Not sure how to do updates on posts, so figured I'd post anything on my profile. Folks have private messaged me and this will be easier I think? It's 11/27 and Thanksgiving just happened. Hubby and I stayed home. We got a small turkey and made our own little thanksgiving. It was nice. We ate around noon, then watched a movie, and later sat outside with a bottle of wine to watch the sun set behind the trees and neighbor houses. We usually take the day before off, drive to my folks, stay the night, and help with the Thanksgiving Day cooking. So it wasn't until Wednesday night that my mom broke the silence. Mom called and asked when I was showing up, and I told her we were staying home this year, but for them to have a happy Thanksgiving, and to give the rest of the family my love. She was quiet for a long time after I said that, and I think she eventually mumbled an "okay", or something, and hung up. It wasn't an angry hang up. Just a hang up. On Thanksgiving day, I sent a group "Happy Thanksgiving!" gif to our family group chat. I received a few "happy Thanksgiving"'s back. No one's said anything else. There's been no posts on Facebook.   Update #2: December 12, 2023 (15 days later) So, I think I mentioned in one of my comments that my dad and I usually talk on the phone every Sunday morning. We're both early risers so we'd chat over our morning coffees and watch the sunrise. Him and I haven't really spoken since this all went down and it's been tough. I'm used to talking to him, you know? Well, I was sitting outside in my usual spot, watching the sun rise and freezing my butt off, and he called me. I'm not entirely sure how to describe the emotions I felt. It was a mix of panic, hope, terror, happiness, and dread. I ended up answering because I just had to know what he wanted. It was an awkward conversation. He didn't address the current "drama", but instead tiptoed around the situation with all the grace of an cow on stilts. For instance, a simple "How are you doing?" Type question was answered with a "Not good." And the whole conversation would stall out for a bit because he knew why I wasn't doing well. So we ended up talking about the weather, the various winter birds we'd seen in our feeders, and the Christmas decorations around town. Things like that. Eventually he asked if we were coming out for Christmas, and sounded sad when I told him we weren't. He asked if him and step mom could come visit us instead, and I told him it wasn't a good idea this year. That hubby and I were going to spend a quiet holiday together. I let him know he should be receiving some gifts at his PO Box any day now, so to please pick them up from the post office and put them under the family tree for everyone. He said he'd ship ours to us as well. And that was pretty much it. No crazy drama to report. The only posts on Facebook have been the usual Christmas excitement ones, countdowns, photos of Santa, silly gift ideas, photos of company Christmas parties. On a personal note: Hubby and I are doing alright. Our health is good, our spirits high, and we're as solid as ever. We each got Christmas bonus' at our jobs, so we're excited about that. They're not large, but we're happy to have them. We have also done advent calendars for the first time ever. I got him a Lego one, and he got me a hot chocolate one. We're going to do the calendars again next year. Maybe make a tradition out of it. Everyone please have a safe and happy holidays.   Inheritance: December 16, 2023 (four days later) I've received a lot - A LOT - of messages and private DMs urging me to check into inheritance and such. I'm really touched a lot of Internet strangers are worried about me and I wanted to ensure everyone that inheritance is most likely not an issue here. I'd almost be relieved if it was, because then it would at least make some sense. Money does weird things to people, you know? No one in my family is wealthy by any means. After my grandparents' passed, their small estate was used to pay for their end of life expenses and remaining assets split up. Everyone directly related got an equal split (so excluded my dad and the step parents). I don't remember the exact amount I received, but it was around $5k if I recall. My brother gave me his share, too, so I could finish paying off my college debt while the interest freeze was active. The great uncle from California has kids and grand kids, and great grandkids of his own, and also isn't wealthy. I think one of his kids makes good money doing something in finance, but I'm not entirely sure. I can't imagine he left us anything, as we hardly knew him. My mom, aunt, and uncle only met him a few times in their lives, and my brother and I even less. Grandma and him were close, but I don't think he liked my grandpa much.   Christmas: December 25, 2023 (nine days later) I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I've received a lot of support through my posts and I'm really grateful. Writing these updates have had a therapeutic effect. Yesterday was Sunday, but I didn't answer my dad when he called. I just really didn't feel up to a pointless chat, so let it go to voicemail. He tried to reach me a few times throughout the day, but I didn't answer. Our bestie last minute invited us over to his house for Christmas day lunch (today), so husband and I were busy all Christmas Eve making cookies, peanut brittle, and homemade suckers/hard candies for his kids. Mom tried to reach out as well, but I also ignored her calls. We had a BLAST at lunch! Our friend's kids are a lot of fun to be around. They got some techy presents from their grandparents (Quest vr headset and steam decks, lucky little rascals) Friend and his wife aren't good with tech, while hubby and I are, so we helped get them set up while our friend played a good host to his folks and inlaws. The grandparents didn't realize that a Steam deck required a Steam account, so we got the kids all their own accounts set up, added them to our steam friends lists, and gifted them some games. We also bought them a few VR games for their headset, and they were off to the races with Beat Saber in no time. As for my folks: My brother texted and asked if we could talk sometime tomorrow. I think me ignoring mom and dad has caused some kind of upset. Which they deserve.   Brother’s call: December 26, 2023 (next day) Spoke with my brother over the phone this morning. For starters, he apologized for everything. Him and I are good (for now). For a bit of background, my brother and I are only 2 years apart. There weren't a lot of kids around growing up, so the two of us were often stuck doing stuff together. So we have a lot of shared interests and passions. He's been pretty silent on this whole matter, but still "part of the group", if you know what I mean. I think the thought of losing him out of my life was probably the most painful, because he's always been there. He was my rock until I met my husband. He's definitely a Mama's boy, though, so anything mom wanted, he made sure she got. I'm happy to have him back. Without further ado, here's the story from the horse's mouth: Mom apparently had a cancer scare late last year (which no one told me about, go figure), and dad had a stint put in his heart back in January (which I did know about). This "sense of mortality" has apparently lit a fire under Mom's ass to get me back home. But since I wasn't reacting to her passive aggressive hinting, she and step mom decided to go full crazy. My great uncle's health was bad, and he'd been asking about funeral arrangements for his sister (my grandma) for a while, so the moms decided to plan it. And use the event as a giant middle finger to me. They kept all the planning pretty hush-hush between the two of them, so no one on our side of the family actually knew about the funeral until like 2 weeks before. The moms said they'd invited hubby and I. No one thought anything about it. No one thought to mention, confirm, or check with me. The plan was to scatter the ashes, say a few words, and maybe head to town for lunch. It was a small affair. The mom's didn't even tell the family that our great uncle was coming for it. Like I said, it was a small thing. Barely a footnote. No one thought it was odd because we're pretty chill people. 4th of July happens. Hubby and I are out. No one thought to mention it, as we were all busy celebrating and having a great time. Any time the topic of "this weekend" would start, the conversation would be quickly shifted by one of the moms. We went back home. 8th of July happens. Great uncle rolls into town with a few of his kids, grandkids, and great grandkids, and it's a surprise to everyone (but the moms). Everyone drives to the maple grove and the moms have brought a ton of food and stuff. It's a full blown party. No one on my side noticed I wasn't there, because there were so many extra faces outside the usual group. They did the spreading of the ashes, they said their words, they ate, they had a great time. It wasn't until our great uncle left, and all his side left with him, that they realized I wasn't there. And hadn't been there. And this is where the crazy went up a notch. My brother says the moms were happy no one noticed I wasn't there. And that this was proof to everyone that I needed to move back because I was so easily forgotten about. Because none of them thought to reach out, right? They basically did a ton of guilt tripping manipulation bullshit and it made everyone upset at me for not showing up. Somehow it was my fault for being excluded. So suddenly everyone was on their side with "sticking it to me". But then a few months went by, and tempers cooled, and then I guess the horror of it set in. Followed by the shame, but by then they were "in too deep". How do you undo something like this? And since I hadn't brought it up, I guess they figured they would all just stay quiet about it and hope I never asked about a funeral. That's when I discovered the situation from my great uncle's Facebook and called my mom, who panicked and went with the stupidest solution. Claiming I was there. Don't I remember? I ended up talking with a few friends from high school, mentioning the situation, and word got back to those in town. So suddenly town gossip and little old church ladies got involved. Was I, or wasn't I at the funeral? Did my family forget to invite me to the funeral of the only grandparents I'd ever know? Or am I just causing a ruckus? My brother said they all just went with mom's answer. Of course they wouldn't forget me. Of course I was there. Of course they're good people. And it just snowballed. The family expected me to eventually fold. I'm usually a nonconfrontational person, so me sticking to my guns was unexpected. And then I missed Thanksgiving. And now Christmas. With no sign of backing down. And I guess the realization that I could just stop being part of their lives is setting in and my parents are panicking. He's tried just getting them to apologize and explain, but stubbornness prevails. They want to rug sweep, but I'm not letting them. My brother is upset with everything that's happened. He's realized just how crappy it all has been and he wants nothing to do with it anymore. But since he lives with my mom, he can't "get away from it". He has asked if he can come stay with us for a little bit. I spoke with hubby, and he's in agreement with me that my brother can come crash in our spare bedroom for as long as he wants. Brother works remotely, so it's no trouble for him to pick up and go. I believe he's making the trip today or tomorrow. Not entirely sure, but I expect crap to hit the fan when he arrives. On a side note, hubby's stoked that my brother and I made up. The two usually game together, but haven't due to "the situation". He's downstairs right now setting up his man cave in preparation for my brother's arrival. I'm happy to see him so excited.   Brother's Here: December 27, 2023 (next day) My brother rolled in late last night. He'd obviously been crying and when I opened the door, he just held me and sobbed. I'd never seen him like that before and soon both of us were just standing in the doorway crying into one another. He kept apologizing. Over and over again. Said he wasn't sure why he went with it. Just kept saying sorry. Hubby got him all set up in the spare bedroom while brother and I talked. My brother's a wreck. He's always been a big guy, but he's lost a lot of weight and his clothes just hang off him. If I didn't know better, I'd think he was on drugs. We talked for a little bit before bed and he re-explained everything for my husband. I'd told hubby the story, but it was just so weird that hearing it again helped. This morning my brother was up at dawn making some coffee and getting his work day going. Hubby's off all week (lucky) so hubby made us working folk some pancakes and bacon. So far everything's peaceful. We've decided not to answer any calls from our family. They've been made aware that he arrived safely, and that we are going to spend the New Years together, and that we're not answering any calls until January 1st. They may text if they wish. I'm sure they're losing their minds. Serves them right. Everyone, have a safe and happy new years! Don't drink and drive!   Happy 2024!: January 2, 2024 (six days later) I hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable holidays, and may the new year be full of joy and happiness! Not too much of an update. Things here have been quiet. My brother's settled in nicely and he's a great housemate. Our place isn't very big, but we have full basement and a nice outside patio/porch area so it doesn't feel crowded at all with the extra addition. He's a quiet and clean guy. No hassle at all. He got some fresh clothes from the Walmart, a haircut, and trimmed his beard, so he's more "presentable" now. He's a lady killer when he gets cleaned up. He's made nice with the (very nosy, but kind) retired couple next door and is adapting to "city living" nicely. Folks back home have been mostly well behaved. There's been a few texts back and forth, as we're not answering calls. Mom mainly wants to know when brother's coming back, but he's keen on staying here for a while. Mom said I can't "keep him" and I told her he's a grown ass man and can do what he wants. Brother says he has her blocked after she ORDERED him to return home. Brother has tentatively asked if he could stay long term, should he decide to, or at least longer than a usual visitor would stay. Which we're fine with. He has a good paying job and could afford an apartment, but he's never lived on his own and I would guess he has some anxiety about it. Should that be the case, he'll start paying us some rent and we'd probably adjust to give him the basement as his own space.   Had to change the locks: January 17, 2024 (15 days later) My brother is officially staying with us for the long haul. Hubby and him spent all Sunday organizing the basement and shifting things around so he now has his own area to be comfortable in. He's pretty handy and has also started fixing little things around our house. Our windows and doors have never closed and locked/unlocked smoother. He even fixed one of the closets we never use because we can never get the darn door open. Sadly, he also had to change the locks on our house and get us all new keys. This is because while hubby and I were out this Saturday, the moms showed up. They'd been calling and texting us all week, but we weren't really answering them, so I guess the two decided to drive over and hash it out in person. They have emergency keys to my place, and just let themselves in. Brother told them to leave, they argued, and my nosy (but kind) neighbors called the police when they noticed the commotion. So, we get a call from neighbor's wife, return home to some cops in our yard, all the neighbors out "vacuuming their trees", and my nosy (but kind) neighbors standing on my porch with my brother behind them, doing their best Gandalf "You shall not pass" impression. Had to talk with the cops, explain that we were having a family dispute and word vomited. I don't really remember what all I said, and was shaking a lot. Our local cops are really great. Fantastic guys and gals in blue, and took it all in stride. It's really cold here, so one had me join him in his cruiser with the heat on, and gave me a bottle of water to calm down while we talked. They asked if we wanted the moms trespassed but I wasn't sure if that counted as a criminal charge so just asked the cops if they could just make them leave, which the cops did with no fuss. I think the moms were shocked we were taking this so seriously. They didn't fight or scream at us. Just left quietly. My dad promised me he'd make sure his wife left us alone. "Or else". He said he'd also have a stern talk with my mom. Him and I talked Sunday morning, and he seemed absolutely at the end of his rope. Husband jokingly told my dad he could move in, too. To which he declined. Not sure where to go from here, but we're getting some ring cameras installed once they arrive. And everyone but my dad is blocked. Hopefully they all just leave us alone.   Nothing New To Report: February 2, 2024 (16 days later) Had a lot of DMs for updates, but don't have much anything to report on. The moms are behaving themselves. All's quiet on the western front. Felt weird ignoring or copy/pasting "no updates" to everyone, so here's what we've been doing, should anyone care. Dad got a new bird/squirrel feeder from Amazon (looks like a little picnic table for a child's dolly but has a mesh top for the bird seed. I think it's supposed to be for chickens?) It's totes adorbs. To his horror, it also works as a Cooper hawk feeder, so now he's "fortifying his defenses" and putting up some trellises around it. He'll have to wait till warmer weather before planting anything to grow on them. We had some ring cameras installed and put in a motion-activated camera that double functions as a light bulb. It goes in the light fixture outside the front door and is pretty cool. Video quality isn't all that great, but it's a nice addition I guess. It does overlook the bird feeders, so I've been watching it on my lunch breaks on the days I have to go into the office. Hubby and brother are feuding. They started a coop farm in Stardew Valley a few days ago and they both want to romance Leah. My husband confided in me that he's also been romancing Sebastian as a backup. I'm not sure why he's keeping this a secret, but he's pretty smug about it.   Update: February 27, 2024 (three weeks later) My dad came out for a visit over the weekend. We had a good time and the weather was lovely for some grilling and beers. It was really nice to see him again and he seemed healthy and in good spirits. Here's his report from back home: Step mom (dad's wife) has started to realize she's screwed up. I credit her change of mindset to the fact that my dad sat her down and laid it out for her: she leaves his kids alone, or she's getting divorce papers. That apparently shut her up right quick, because they had a prenup done when they married and I'm not sure the details of it, but it wouldn't end favorably for her. She hasn't worked in years, so I imagine she'd be eligible for alimony? But I'm not versed in any of that legal mumbojumbo. Dad didn't seem too worried about it, so I'm not gonna worry about it. Step dad was pissed the police were involved in the last "mom visit" (despite no one getting arrested or anything) and was in a "the kids are out of control and need to be reigned back in" mindset. When my dad pointed out that "the kids" in question were all in their mid-30s, it took some of the steam out of stepdad's sails. According to my dad, even my mom looked a little surprised when he said that. So, part of me is wondering if a good chunk of this whole thing is my mom not truly realizing that her kids were grown, and no longer children she could make demands of. Both of the moms have left us alone. I expected my mom to continue to kick up a fuss, but I think the cops spooked her. There was a wonderful suggestion by a comment or to get their pastor involved, which I passed along to my dad. Dad has since spoken to their pastor about everything. He's a young guy, relatively new to their church, and joked that his first month on the job he had to do 3 funerals in a row and his new "flock" were just dying to get away from him, so he's got a sense of humor which is nice. The new pastor agreed to sit down with everyone and help the family hash it all out in a true "Come to Jesus" type moment next month, so that maybe we could celebrate Easter together as our first holiday as a family. Dad said the pastor was aware our family was having some troubles, but unsure of exactly what was going on, and since he was new, the pastor didn't want to pry. He has also agreed to do a small service down at my uncle's maple grove later in the summer, as it usually floods and is a muddy mess all spring. According to my dad, my aunt and uncle are so over all the drama and just ready to move on, so I expect hugs and apologies from them when we next meet. Stardew Valley Update: My brother was victorious in the grand fight for Leah. It was a hard battle. Well fought. When my husband exposed his plans to woo Sebastian all this time, it was quite the betrayal. Dramatics aside, their farm is really cute and I'm so happy they're enjoying the game!   Update 4/1 - Final one I think: April 1, 2024 Happy April Fools everyone! I hope you all check your caramel apples for stray onions before taking a bite! I also hope your Easter weekend was a delightful one. It is with great joy that I tell you all about our most recent update! Possibly even a conclusion to this whole ordeal. The entire family (aunt, uncle, moms, dads, brother, me, husband) and pastor met at my dad's house and we all sat down to hash the situation out. As expected from what my dad said, my aunt and uncle greeted us all with apologies and hugs, which was nice. My uncle usually helps host the Easter egg hunts with the church and he brought our Easter baskets to give to us in case us kids weren't sticking around the for the weekend. I'm not sure why but seeing it made me tear up and feel stupid, because it was just a basket of candy but it meant a lot to me for some reason. The pastor led us in a prayer and talked about forgiveness and such. He then asked us all to talk one at a time about how we're feeling and what we want the end result of today to be. No one was allowed to interrupt so everyone got to talk. It was nice. The consensus for the group was that most everyone wanted things to go back to "normal". The only ones who had any variance off this was my mom and step dad. They both wanted all us kids to move back to the area. The pastor asked them why they wanted us back, and neither could give a good reason other than "because family", and the pastor asked us if we were thriving where we were. And we said we were. He asked if we were happy there. Which we were. He then asked my mom and step dad if they wanted us to give up our happiness to make them happy. And Mom broke down and said no. We all had a good cry. The pastor then asked about the funeral and lies that led up to it and followed it and how it made us all feel and what we wished we'd done differently if we had the chance. It was all very emotional, but in a good way, you know? Everyone apologized and admitted they f-ed up and did a really crappy thing. We all talked for a long, long time and the pastor was a great mediator. Eventually we all reached some sort of resolution and I think we're good now. Emotions are still high and a little raw in areas, but we stayed for Easter weekend and had a nice time. We're going to keep moving forward slowly and try to repair the relationship, but I believe we're well and truly out of the woods. As for my brother, he's still staying with us, and mom will stop trying to guilt trip him back home. He's thinking about renting a small apartment in our area but we're not pushing him to make a decision. He knows he's welcome to stay as long as he wants. I think he wants to try dating (he's had a few girlfriends but never anything serious) and is embarrassed to bring any girls around our place, lol. He's been going to a few random classes/bookclubs at the local library for something free to do and hitting it off with all the little old ladies who attend, and they keep trying to hook him up with girls his age who they know. He has been on a few lunches/coffee dates with a couple girls, but I think he's too embarrassed by the attention to give it a real try at "dating" any of them. He's happy, though, which is all I could ask for. I'm not sure if there will be any more updates, as I think it's all be resolved about as much as it can be at the moment. I wanted to thank you all for your words of advice and giving me a place to vent and scream into the void. Please be kind to one another and to yourselves. Thank you.   Small, happy update: May 7, 2024 Things as wonderful as the moment. Still doing baby steps with The Moms. We're texting and talking on the phones more, which is nice. Very civil. Dad "accidentally" bought a bunch of hand crafted bird feeders at a craft fair. By accidentally, I mean: he had a little too much fun in the beer tent, went for a stroll while step mom wasn't looking, and stumbled upon a guy's booth and bought "one of each". He wouldn't tell me how MANY "one of each" was, but he cackled like a witch when I asked. Step mom said she's forcing him to give a few to me, so I'm expecting a delivery or a Dad-visit any day now. My brother is officially "going steady" with a girl. We've met her a few times and she seems like a real sweetheart. She's our age and has a little boy (5-6 years old, I haven't asked) from a previous relationship (The dad's not in the picture from what I can gather). She's the granddaughter of one of his Book Club members, so the old ladies made good match makers in the end. The relationship is still very new and I'm routing for them. No new Stardew Valley updates. Work has been a little crazy lately and I haven't been able to play much of anything, and brother has been distracted by his new lady friend. So, husband finally started Baldur's Gate 3, and fell for Gale's "magic trick" so now those two are a thing. I expect him to be sufficiently distracted from reality for the next few weeks.   ----NEW UPDATE---- Been a while: March 3, 2025 (10 months later) I hope everyone's doing wonderful! I know it's been a while. Lots of little happy updates incoming! My brother moved out! He's like 5 minutes away, so it's not far but he's officially living on his own. He's going steady with the same girl. She's a catch! Sweet as can be! She fits in to the family so well and everyone just adores her. She's going to school to be a nurse and I know she's gonna crush it. Hubby and I get to babysit her kiddo on the regular and he's a total hoot. At first, he was overly polite and a bit shy, but one day my husband picked him up and husband was wearing his SCP hoodie. Turns out the kid is a MASSIVE SCP fan. So we've all bonded and he's really opened up around us. Assuming my brother and her are still together come August (we're hoping they continue going strong) there's talk about kiddo taking the school bus to our place after school. There's a stop at the bottom of our street and it would be no trouble for us to have him chill at our house for a few hours until mom's off work. Have him work on homework or whatever. I might have to learn whatever "new math" is, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there. Mom's mellowed the frick out. She's stopped her insanity and seems to have accepted the new normal. Dad says she's "turning back into the woman he once married." Which is a bit depressing, but also good, I guess? From what he says, mom has started cross stiching again. Which, my brother and I never knew she knew how. Apparently, she used to be massively into the hobby, but after my brother and I were born, she was terrified we'd get into the needles and hurt ourselves, so she put it all away and never touched it again. Step-dad says she's much more relaxed and calm lately, which I'm happy about. She's respected our boundaries and has only come to visit when we allowed it. Our relationship has improved drastically. Dad and step-mom are also doing well. Step mom and us actually bonded quite nicely during January. She needed hip surgery and since Dad's house has more steps than High Hrothgar, it was decided that she would stay with my husband and I. Her doctor scheduled the surgery at our local branch of their hospital and after she was released, she came back to our place. She ended up staying with us for most of January due to a massive ice storm that came tearing through the area. I've spent time with the woman, but never like this or for this long. It was like seeing a whole new side of her I never knew. When dad finally came to pick her up, I was actually sad to have her leave. You will all be happy to hear that we did manage to do a memorial for my grandparents. It was exactly what my soul needed. I didn't realize how much I NEEDED to have that closure until it was done. Like someone took a weighted blanket off me and I could breathe again. It was a lovely service and a few of the little old church ladies made us some finger foods to have back at the church afterwards and we all sat around eating and sharing stories about Grandma and Grandpa. Our next scheduled visit is for Easter and I can honestly say I'm looking forward to it. I feel like I have my family back again. Please be kind to each other and take care of yourselves. Thank you for letting me shout into the void. Commenter: Oh this is a fantastic update. I am so pleased that this whole saga has come through the other side in a nice way. So often these kind of things don’t have happy endings and I’m thrilled that this one does. Thank you for updating us all.   DO NOT COMMENT IN LINKED POSTS OR MESSAGE OOPs – BoRU Rule #7 THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP submitted by /u/Choice_Evidence1983 to r/BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]

So, to start off I have ADD and possibly also Aspie (didn't get to official diagnose, just multiple doctors hints) I have spent my entire life alone, never met my father (turned out he already had a family and kids and my mom was just a teenage party fun), mother consequently abandoned me at grands. Finding any friends was nearly impossible due to my differences. Despite being really smart as a kid (learned to read and write early enough to be accused by other kids and teachers of "learning the whole text at home by memory with help from parents", learned programming games on C64 with only rudimentary English knowledge and logic at 12yo, didn't have books or internet) I kept failing classes, skipping entire days just to avoid bullies and social situations, being hit and laughed at by griuos of bigger boys etc... Just school life. Because of that I barely finished elementary and then did a cheap adults school of IT. No uni for me. Poor family, no internet back then, couldn't do any private stuff. I felt stupid and hated school and learning. I have spent my entire childhood and half of adulthood locking myself up in mmorpg games, doing nothing productive or positive. No jobs for years, and when I did get one I soon did something stupid socially and get fired. I have been actively hating myself and destroying my life from the start all the way till I turned 35. At that moment, I was low enough to hit the bottom and that gave me something to jump up off. I went to live in another country on a whim decision. I picked up learning piano and game dev again. I picked up learning art, and languages. I fell in love with high quality music. I love simply creating and doing things again, without it being dependant on opinions of others. Since then I have learned to love myself, and not fight for others attention and acceptance. I got a well paid, high position job. I bought myself everything I have dreamed of, things that allow me to pursue my numerous hobbies and special interests that I have ignored all my life as "childish and unworthy of time" based on external opinions. I became egoistic to the point of actually being happy with my own happiness, not others. While I still lack any kind of close, or even far friends, or any family other than my gran, I feel like... Life is worth living. There are things to do out there, goals that we can reach, and reasons to exist that we ourselves can create or find, and not just hope to be "given". I no longer feel like waking up after sleep is competely optional, and not even welcome really. I believe I have, more or less, fixed my broken life. Why even write all that? Because we're getting too many "i destroyed my life at 18/20/25" threads. You have not destroyed anything. We are all learning, all our lives, and there is no point at which you can't fix everything up - no matter how much you think you mess up. -- EDIT: Thank you so much for all the replies and passed on love everyone! At the moment of writing I had no clue the situation will resonate with so many great people - I sincerely wish all of you to succeed as well! To answer some of the questions that keep being asked: I have moved to the UK, and lived there for several months but that is not where I got my current job - I have failed there terribly, worked the lowest night shift jobs there are, and walked hungry, sick and broken more times than I can count before coming back for those, and many other reasons. I still think it was one of my best decisions to try, ever - it taught me a LOT and living there with the thought of staying at first, and trying to integrate and think like people in that country let me experience a completely different society, mindset and culture, nothing that simply being a tourist and travelling around gives you - and that is what I believe was a big part of what helped me change things up when I finally came back. A fresh look on life and how things can work. I did not see going back as a "failure" and end of the world - but simply another part of the adventure! For the people asking for the way I got my job - I am sorry, despite my bearded, long-haired looks I am not Jesus and I do not have all the answers. I can only share what helped me, but can not guarantee it's the "one way" to make things work, just hope a part of it helps you too! Before the travel, I was in a mindset of "try to find a job you can do and like to do ['perfect' job, which doesn't exist], cherry pick, and if you find one desperately stay there because you might never find anything else!". After coming back, I started applying to all kinds of jobs that were even close to what I could do a little bit [IT (I only had a little technical knowledge, I mainly used the PC to play games before), driving, some office work], even if I did not fully fit within the requirements. Then I have found the job I am at right now. It required some administration experience... I thought well, due to my years of MMO addiction and authority issues I was always creating and leading my own guilds, working spritesheets of members, coding little programs to help me manage large numbers of individuals, that's... kind of like administration right? Right? It required knowledge of multiple systems I have either never used, or even heard about [Active Directory for example... I simply spent a few hours watching youtube tutorials here.], [Another example was a weird system I could not find tutorials for anywhere, which turned out to be an internal system used in the services and built for them, so understandably there were not any books or youtube tutorials about it] It required knowledge of certain government laws about the medical system, which luckily were available on the gov websites, so I gave it a few reads - I have never worked a position like that before, or had any knowledge about laws like that, so it was a completely new experience Simply put, I tried my best to fill up holes and put in time to be a "fit" INSTEAD of [like previously] instantly flagging it as "I have no experience in this, I don't know what those things are, it's not a position for me", and then I went on with it - applied for the position with all the necessary documents, not just a simple "hey, im interested, hit me up", and went to the interview when invited - without any kind of hope of getting it, or despairing that I might not - simply to see how will it go, how does it look like, and if I needed to prepare anything better next time. Seeing the interview as just another experience, and not something that "decides my life and if I fail I'm doomed". Not something "way above me". Just like with all the previous interviews I went to after changing my approach to them. And this time, after a few days or weeks [by the end of that month if I'm not wrong], when I did not even expect them to contact me again - I have received the call, and started a week after that. :-) No matter what was it - luck, random chance, whatever you call it - it would not happen if I did not do the steps I did - preparing, learning, and then just going there. It would not happen if I gave up after one of the previous failures and lack of calls back. That's what I think worked for me - doing my best to prepare, not worrying overmuch over things I can't control [can't suddenly pop 5 years of experience in something you had none in] and just keeping trying, no matter how many times you fail and feel like it will never work. Yes, my life is still not "perfect", and I never expect it to because that's not possible. There will always be problems. But I think it's important to not focus on them, and thinking your life is over because of one too many rejections, and instead appreciating the good things that happen - no matter how small they are. And I still think, as of right now and compared to MYSELF from the past - my life and attitude is fixed, and I am ready for the challenges ahead - much more than I ever was before. Giving up is no longer an option that I see as a "possibility" in life. How do I deal with having no friends, wife/girl or much family [other than granma - I am so fucking grateful for everything she and gran, when he was alive, did, even if there were problems and it was not a "perfect situation" and for her simply being there - if she needs me I will come back from another country, drop my job and sell everything I own if that's what's needed to help. I am not very social, but (or maybe because of that) I believe if you do have someone close, even just a single person, they are worth more than ANYTHING you could ever own or accomplish.] - close socializing in the real world is pretty much not possible for me. I no longer have a paralyzing social phobia induced by years of getting bullied as a kid, I can be friendly and talk with people, and I can stand up to them and react pretty bad when I sense they're the bully type [instead of making me feel helpless it just triggers me now], but forming a deeper connection just does not seem to work anymore irl. Therefore I find ways to silence the loneliness so it does not keep me from doing things that make me happy - I got a VR headset and when it gets bad I go into VR chat and just hang around people. It's much easier for someone like me to just join a group of people chatting in there and join in, where irl it would be pretty damn awkward - imagine having a dinner with your work colleagues, talking about personal shit and suddenly some random stranger stands next to you and stares! :-D I also believe, due to my numerous hobbies and limited time, that having internet friends simply suits me better. We can always talk or do things whenever I have my phone on me, I don't have to sacrifice piano time, or game dev time to travel across the city for an hour and then spend time half enjoying it, half hoping I could already go back to doing my things. So, again - simply found my niche. Didn't overthink everyone saying it's "wrong", "go out and meet real people", "force yourself to be someone else", "internet friends are not friends" or care about it - I know this works for me, it fills the hole, and is more beneficial than the other thing, so I simply do that. And if I find a similar person, that also needs just that somewhere deep in the internets - who's to judge if it's "right" or "wrong" if we're both better off because of it? :-) If you can't move a rock, find a way around it! That's what mostly worked for me - if any of it can make your day better, find your own way or just rekindle the hope a bit - I'll be happy for you! And I'm so, SO sorry for the edit being such a brain dump - I just chased the squirrels all over there.. Hopefully it's at least partially readable. Much love, never give up. submitted by

I am NOT OOP. OOP is u/justathrowaway282641 Originally posted to r/TwoHotTakes + her own page Previous BoRU #1, BoRU #2, BoRU #3, BoRU #4, BoRU #5, BoRU #6 Editor’s Note: removed all relevant comments from older posts to make space for new updates. To see all older relevant comments, check out the previous BoRUs above NEW UPDATE MARKED WITH ---- [New Update]: My family forgot to invite me to my grandparents funeral, but they are convinced I was there. Trigger Warnings: death of loved ones, emotional manipulation, gaslighting, harassment RECAP Original Post: November 14, 2023** I’m 30s F and caused a major blowup in my family and now none of them are talking to me. For background, my hometown is tiny (500pop) and when I went 2 hrs away to “the city” (15,000pop) for college, I loved it. I ended up staying after graduation, got married, and am happy here for a decade. I visit my home town every few weeks or so, call/text my family near daily, and thought we were all good. My family’s pretty small. Just my brother, mom, step dad, dad, step mom, and an aunt and uncle (mom’s siblings, never married, no kids). My mother's grandparents moved to my home town when I was in high school and were just down the street from us. My family has always been pretty drama free (aside from my parent’s divorce when I was a kid) and we’ve been happy. The step-parents were blended in perfectly and we share holidays and celebrations together. We’re all super close and just the perfect little group. Ever since I moved away, the topic of “when am I moving back?” is constant, and I’ve always laughed it off. My home town has nothing. You have to drive 30 minutes for milk and bread. 60-90 minute one-way commutes to work. And floods shut down the main road every Easter. I love the town, but I love here more. I have parks, stores, community events, a library! The “city” is great. My family grumbles that I need to move back, but I refuse. I've been trying to encourage them to come here, especially since it's not an hour drive to the nearest medical facility. Now to the meat and potatoes: both my grandparents passed over COVID times. They were both old and their health had been failing for a while so it was only a matter of time. Thankfully they didn’t catch it, but it made visiting them impossible and we survived mostly through FaceTime. They both passed in their sleep months apart. Both were cremated and kept securely under the kitchen sink for safe keeping while the pandemic blew over. That was 2021. Well, I just found out my family held a funeral for them and scattered the ashes in my uncle’s maple grove over the summer. No one said a word to me about it. I’ve visited numerous times before and after and not one word. I only found out because my great uncle from California posted on Facebook a few weeks ago that he is entering hospice and was so thankful his health stayed strong enough for him to see his little sister (my grandma) to her final resting place. I was confused and called my mom. She was all “Yeah, the funeral we had in July, remember?” Ya’ll, I visited them for the 4th of July. They did the funeral the 8th. Not a word about it to me. They had planned this for months. Long enough to arrange for my infirm great uncle to be brought over from the other side of the country. Apparently, they talked about it “all the time”. Everyone is convinced I was at the funeral. They SWEAR I was there. I can prove I wasn’t because Google’s got my location history. My hubby is baffled because he was supposedly there, too, but he had to work every weekend in June and July. Time clock doesn’t lie. My family straight up forgot about me. I’m hurt. I’m sad. And they’re pissed at me “for lying”. They think I’m causing drama over nothing. Nothing I say can convince them I wasn’t there. My family is united in this. And they’ve all put me “on read” until I admit I’m wrong. They think I’ve gone nuts. Either there’s a doppelganger of me attending events, or my family doesn’t want to admit they screwed up. I’m not backing down. Thanksgiving is coming up, and my family’s been vague posting on Facebook about “forgetful kids” and mental health. It’s so freaking weird and I don’t know if I’m in bizzaro world or what’s going on. My mom’s best friend reached out and said I should just admit I was wrong and apologize, that I’m causing my mom so much unnecessary stress. I asked her if she’s checked everyone’s home for CO2. She hung up on me. (We checked our CO2, and our testers are running just fine.) I have reached out to a few people in my home town to check in on my folks, and they all say they're fine. I even spoke with the local volunteer fire fighter group to see if they could check for gas leaks. Not sure if they were able to. I don’t know what to do. I’ve shown them the proof I wasn’t there, but they know I’m tech savvy and just assume I’ve Photoshopped it. Hubby says we need a break, and we’re going to be staying home this holiday season. Edit: I don't know the update rules, so I'll post updates to my profile should anyone want them.   Update #1: November 27, 2023 Not sure how to do updates on posts, so figured I'd post anything on my profile. Folks have private messaged me and this will be easier I think? It's 11/27 and Thanksgiving just happened. Hubby and I stayed home. We got a small turkey and made our own little thanksgiving. It was nice. We ate around noon, then watched a movie, and later sat outside with a bottle of wine to watch the sun set behind the trees and neighbor houses. We usually take the day before off, drive to my folks, stay the night, and help with the Thanksgiving Day cooking. So it wasn't until Wednesday night that my mom broke the silence. Mom called and asked when I was showing up, and I told her we were staying home this year, but for them to have a happy Thanksgiving, and to give the rest of the family my love. She was quiet for a long time after I said that, and I think she eventually mumbled an "okay", or something, and hung up. It wasn't an angry hang up. Just a hang up. On Thanksgiving day, I sent a group "Happy Thanksgiving!" gif to our family group chat. I received a few "happy Thanksgiving"'s back. No one's said anything else. There's been no posts on Facebook.   Update #2: December 12, 2023 So, I think I mentioned in one of my comments that my dad and I usually talk on the phone every Sunday morning. We're both early risers so we'd chat over our morning coffees and watch the sunrise. Him and I haven't really spoken since this all went down and it's been tough. I'm used to talking to him, you know? Well, I was sitting outside in my usual spot, watching the sun rise and freezing my butt off, and he called me. I'm not entirely sure how to describe the emotions I felt. It was a mix of panic, hope, terror, happiness, and dread. I ended up answering because I just had to know what he wanted. It was an awkward conversation. He didn't address the current "drama", but instead tiptoed around the situation with all the grace of an cow on stilts. For instance, a simple "How are you doing?" Type question was answered with a "Not good." And the whole conversation would stall out for a bit because he knew why I wasn't doing well. So we ended up talking about the weather, the various winter birds we'd seen in our feeders, and the Christmas decorations around town. Things like that. Eventually he asked if we were coming out for Christmas, and sounded sad when I told him we weren't. He asked if him and step mom could come visit us instead, and I told him it wasn't a good idea this year. That hubby and I were going to spend a quiet holiday together. I let him know he should be receiving some gifts at his PO Box any day now, so to please pick them up from the post office and put them under the family tree for everyone. He said he'd ship ours to us as well. And that was pretty much it. No crazy drama to report. The only posts on Facebook have been the usual Christmas excitement ones, countdowns, photos of Santa, silly gift ideas, photos of company Christmas parties. On a personal note: Hubby and I are doing alright. Our health is good, our spirits high, and we're as solid as ever. We each got Christmas bonus' at our jobs, so we're excited about that. They're not large, but we're happy to have them. We have also done advent calendars for the first time ever. I got him a Lego one, and he got me a hot chocolate one. We're going to do the calendars again next year. Maybe make a tradition out of it. Everyone please have a safe and happy holidays.   Inheritance: December 16, 2023 I've received a lot - A LOT - of messages and private DMs urging me to check into inheritance and such. I'm really touched a lot of Internet strangers are worried about me and I wanted to ensure everyone that inheritance is most likely not an issue here. I'd almost be relieved if it was, because then it would at least make some sense. Money does weird things to people, you know? No one in my family is wealthy by any means. After my grandparents' passed, their small estate was used to pay for their end of life expenses and remaining assets split up. Everyone directly related got an equal split (so excluded my dad and the step parents). I don't remember the exact amount I received, but it was around $5k if I recall. My brother gave me his share, too, so I could finish paying off my college debt while the interest freeze was active. The great uncle from California has kids and grand kids, and great grandkids of his own, and also isn't wealthy. I think one of his kids makes good money doing something in finance, but I'm not entirely sure. I can't imagine he left us anything, as we hardly knew him. My mom, aunt, and uncle only met him a few times in their lives, and my brother and I even less. Grandma and him were close, but I don't think he liked my grandpa much.   Christmas: December 25, 2023 I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I've received a lot of support through my posts and I'm really grateful. Writing these updates have had a therapeutic effect. Yesterday was Sunday, but I didn't answer my dad when he called. I just really didn't feel up to a pointless chat, so let it go to voicemail. He tried to reach me a few times throughout the day, but I didn't answer. Our bestie last minute invited us over to his house for Christmas day lunch (today), so husband and I were busy all Christmas Eve making cookies, peanut brittle, and homemade suckers/hard candies for his kids. Mom tried to reach out as well, but I also ignored her calls. We had a BLAST at lunch! Our friend's kids are a lot of fun to be around. They got some techy presents from their grandparents (Quest vr headset and steam decks, lucky little rascals) Friend and his wife aren't good with tech, while hubby and I are, so we helped get them set up while our friend played a good host to his folks and inlaws. The grandparents didn't realize that a Steam deck required a Steam account, so we got the kids all their own accounts set up, added them to our steam friends lists, and gifted them some games. We also bought them a few VR games for their headset, and they were off to the races with Beat Saber in no time. As for my folks: My brother texted and asked if we could talk sometime tomorrow. I think me ignoring mom and dad has caused some kind of upset. Which they deserve.   Brother’s call: December 26, 2023 Spoke with my brother over the phone this morning. For starters, he apologized for everything. Him and I are good (for now). For a bit of background, my brother and I are only 2 years apart. There weren't a lot of kids around growing up, so the two of us were often stuck doing stuff together. So we have a lot of shared interests and passions. He's been pretty silent on this whole matter, but still "part of the group", if you know what I mean. I think the thought of losing him out of my life was probably the most painful, because he's always been there. He was my rock until I met my husband. He's definitely a Mama's boy, though, so anything mom wanted, he made sure she got. I'm happy to have him back. Without further ado, here's the story from the horse's mouth: Mom apparently had a cancer scare late last year (which no one told me about, go figure), and dad had a stint put in his heart back in January (which I did know about). This "sense of mortality" has apparently lit a fire under Mom's ass to get me back home. But since I wasn't reacting to her passive aggressive hinting, she and step mom decided to go full crazy. My great uncle's health was bad, and he'd been asking about funeral arrangements for his sister (my grandma) for a while, so the moms decided to plan it. And use the event as a giant middle finger to me. They kept all the planning pretty hush-hush between the two of them, so no one on our side of the family actually knew about the funeral until like 2 weeks before. The moms said they'd invited hubby and I. No one thought anything about it. No one thought to mention, confirm, or check with me. The plan was to scatter the ashes, say a few words, and maybe head to town for lunch. It was a small affair. The mom's didn't even tell the family that our great uncle was coming for it. Like I said, it was a small thing. Barely a footnote. No one thought it was odd because we're pretty chill people. 4th of July happens. Hubby and I are out. No one thought to mention it, as we were all busy celebrating and having a great time. Any time the topic of "this weekend" would start, the conversation would be quickly shifted by one of the moms. We went back home. 8th of July happens. Great uncle rolls into town with a few of his kids, grandkids, and great grandkids, and it's a surprise to everyone (but the moms). Everyone drives to the maple grove and the moms have brought a ton of food and stuff. It's a full blown party. No one on my side noticed I wasn't there, because there were so many extra faces outside the usual group. They did the spreading of the ashes, they said their words, they ate, they had a great time. It wasn't until our great uncle left, and all his side left with him, that they realized I wasn't there. And hadn't been there. And this is where the crazy went up a notch. My brother says the moms were happy no one noticed I wasn't there. And that this was proof to everyone that I needed to move back because I was so easily forgotten about. Because none of them thought to reach out, right? They basically did a ton of guilt tripping manipulation bullshit and it made everyone upset at me for not showing up. Somehow it was my fault for being excluded. So suddenly everyone was on their side with "sticking it to me". But then a few months went by, and tempers cooled, and then I guess the horror of it set in. Followed by the shame, but by then they were "in too deep". How do you undo something like this? And since I hadn't brought it up, I guess they figured they would all just stay quiet about it and hope I never asked about a funeral. That's when I discovered the situation from my great uncle's Facebook and called my mom, who panicked and went with the stupidest solution. Claiming I was there. Don't I remember? I ended up talking with a few friends from high school, mentioning the situation, and word got back to those in town. So suddenly town gossip and little old church ladies got involved. Was I, or wasn't I at the funeral? Did my family forget to invite me to the funeral of the only grandparents I'd ever know? Or am I just causing a ruckus? My brother said they all just went with mom's answer. Of course they wouldn't forget me. Of course I was there. Of course they're good people. And it just snowballed. The family expected me to eventually fold. I'm usually a nonconfrontational person, so me sticking to my guns was unexpected. And then I missed Thanksgiving. And now Christmas. With no sign of backing down. And I guess the realization that I could just stop being part of their lives is setting in and my parents are panicking. He's tried just getting them to apologize and explain, but stubbornness prevails. They want to rug sweep, but I'm not letting them. My brother is upset with everything that's happened. He's realized just how crappy it all has been and he wants nothing to do with it anymore. But since he lives with my mom, he can't "get away from it". He has asked if he can come stay with us for a little bit. I spoke with hubby, and he's in agreement with me that my brother can come crash in our spare bedroom for as long as he wants. Brother works remotely, so it's no trouble for him to pick up and go. I believe he's making the trip today or tomorrow. Not entirely sure, but I expect crap to hit the fan when he arrives. On a side note, hubby's stoked that my brother and I made up. The two usually game together, but haven't due to "the situation". He's downstairs right now setting up his man cave in preparation for my brother's arrival. I'm happy to see him so excited.   Brother's Here: December 27, 2023 My brother rolled in late last night. He'd obviously been crying and when I opened the door, he just held me and sobbed. I'd never seen him like that before and soon both of us were just standing in the doorway crying into one another. He kept apologizing. Over and over again. Said he wasn't sure why he went with it. Just kept saying sorry. Hubby got him all set up in the spare bedroom while brother and I talked. My brother's a wreck. He's always been a big guy, but he's lost a lot of weight and his clothes just hang off him. If I didn't know better, I'd think he was on drugs. We talked for a little bit before bed and he re-explained everything for my husband. I'd told hubby the story, but it was just so weird that hearing it again helped. This morning my brother was up at dawn making some coffee and getting his work day going. Hubby's off all week (lucky) so hubby made us working folk some pancakes and bacon. So far everything's peaceful. We've decided not to answer any calls from our family. They've been made aware that he arrived safely, and that we are going to spend the New Years together, and that we're not answering any calls until January 1st. They may text if they wish. I'm sure they're losing their minds. Serves them right. Everyone, have a safe and happy new years! Don't drink and drive!   Happy 2024!: January 2, 2024 I hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable holidays, and may the new year be full of joy and happiness! Not too much of an update. Things here have been quiet. My brother's settled in nicely and he's a great housemate. Our place isn't very big, but we have full basement and a nice outside patio/porch area so it doesn't feel crowded at all with the extra addition. He's a quiet and clean guy. No hassle at all. He got some fresh clothes from the Walmart, a haircut, and trimmed his beard, so he's more "presentable" now. He's a lady killer when he gets cleaned up. He's made nice with the (very nosy, but kind) retired couple next door and is adapting to "city living" nicely. Folks back home have been mostly well behaved. There's been a few texts back and forth, as we're not answering calls. Mom mainly wants to know when brother's coming back, but he's keen on staying here for a while. Mom said I can't "keep him" and I told her he's a grown ass man and can do what he wants. Brother says he has her blocked after she ORDERED him to return home. Brother has tentatively asked if he could stay long term, should he decide to, or at least longer than a usual visitor would stay. Which we're fine with. He has a good paying job and could afford an apartment, but he's never lived on his own and I would guess he has some anxiety about it. Should that be the case, he'll start paying us some rent and we'd probably adjust to give him the basement as his own space.   Had to change the locks: January 17, 2024 My brother is officially staying with us for the long haul. Hubby and him spent all Sunday organizing the basement and shifting things around so he now has his own area to be comfortable in. He's pretty handy and has also started fixing little things around our house. Our windows and doors have never closed and locked/unlocked smoother. He even fixed one of the closets we never use because we can never get the darn door open. Sadly, he also had to change the locks on our house and get us all new keys. This is because while hubby and I were out this Saturday, the moms showed up. They'd been calling and texting us all week, but we weren't really answering them, so I guess the two decided to drive over and hash it out in person. They have emergency keys to my place, and just let themselves in. Brother told them to leave, they argued, and my nosy (but kind) neighbors called the police when they noticed the commotion. So, we get a call from neighbor's wife, return home to some cops in our yard, all the neighbors out "vacuuming their trees", and my nosy (but kind) neighbors standing on my porch with my brother behind them, doing their best Gandalf "You shall not pass" impression. Had to talk with the cops, explain that we were having a family dispute and word vomited. I don't really remember what all I said, and was shaking a lot. Our local cops are really great. Fantastic guys and gals in blue, and took it all in stride. It's really cold here, so one had me join him in his cruiser with the heat on, and gave me a bottle of water to calm down while we talked. They asked if we wanted the moms trespassed but I wasn't sure if that counted as a criminal charge so just asked the cops if they could just make them leave, which the cops did with no fuss. I think the moms were shocked we were taking this so seriously. They didn't fight or scream at us. Just left quietly. My dad promised me he'd make sure his wife left us alone. "Or else". He said he'd also have a stern talk with my mom. Him and I talked Sunday morning, and he seemed absolutely at the end of his rope. Husband jokingly told my dad he could move in, too. To which he declined. Not sure where to go from here, but we're getting some ring cameras installed once they arrive. And everyone but my dad is blocked. Hopefully they all just leave us alone.   Nothing New To Report: February 2, 2024 Had a lot of DMs for updates, but don't have much anything to report on. The moms are behaving themselves. All's quiet on the western front. Felt weird ignoring or copy/pasting "no updates" to everyone, so here's what we've been doing, should anyone care. Dad got a new bird/squirrel feeder from Amazon (looks like a little picnic table for a child's dolly but has a mesh top for the bird seed. I think it's supposed to be for chickens?) It's totes adorbs. To his horror, it also works as a Cooper hawk feeder, so now he's "fortifying his defenses" and putting up some trellises around it. He'll have to wait till warmer weather before planting anything to grow on them. We had some ring cameras installed and put in a motion-activated camera that double functions as a light bulb. It goes in the light fixture outside the front door and is pretty cool. Video quality isn't all that great, but it's a nice addition I guess. It does overlook the bird feeders, so I've been watching it on my lunch breaks on the days I have to go into the office. Hubby and brother are feuding. They started a coop farm in Stardew Valley a few days ago and they both want to romance Leah. My husband confided in me that he's also been romancing Sebastian as a backup. I'm not sure why he's keeping this a secret, but he's pretty smug about it. RELEVANT COMMENTS fractal_frog I hope your dad can outsmart the hawks! OOP: He'll be able to, I just know it. He's used to dealing with the wildlife and having hawks about, but he just wasn't expecting one to snag a meal right from his new feeder. I told him it was "technically" still a bird feeder. Just....for bigger birds. Which he thought was funny. He said he might make a little "no hawks allowed" sign to put up next to it. MissOP: keep the updates coming. the moms are so close to folding it's just a little bit more. LMAO also, the bro mance between your husband and brother is so cute. lol Honestly, I think your husband making sure he has a side piece of Sebastian is absolutely the play. OOP: So far still no word from the moms, but I hope you're right. I would love an apology and for us to begin moving past this. But I NEED that apology. I feel selfish saying that, but I refuse to "be the bigger person" on this. I just won't. As for my brother and husband, yeah, they're basically soul mates. The two hit it off immediately when they first met, and they've been thick as thieves for years.   Update: February 27, 2024 My dad came out for a visit over the weekend. We had a good time and the weather was lovely for some grilling and beers. It was really nice to see him again and he seemed healthy and in good spirits. Here's his report from back home: Step mom (dad's wife) has started to realize she's screwed up. I credit her change of mindset to the fact that my dad sat her down and laid it out for her: she leaves his kids alone, or she's getting divorce papers. That apparently shut her up right quick, because they had a prenup done when they married and I'm not sure the details of it, but it wouldn't end favorably for her. She hasn't worked in years, so I imagine she'd be eligible for alimony? But I'm not versed in any of that legal mumbojumbo. Dad didn't seem too worried about it, so I'm not gonna worry about it. Step dad was pissed the police were involved in the last "mom visit" (despite no one getting arrested or anything) and was in a "the kids are out of control and need to be reigned back in" mindset. When my dad pointed out that "the kids" in question were all in their mid-30s, it took some of the steam out of stepdad's sails. According to my dad, even my mom looked a little surprised when he said that. So, part of me is wondering if a good chunk of this whole thing is my mom not truly realizing that her kids were grown, and no longer children she could make demands of. Both of the moms have left us alone. I expected my mom to continue to kick up a fuss, but I think the cops spooked her. There was a wonderful suggestion by a comment or to get their pastor involved, which I passed along to my dad. Dad has since spoken to their pastor about everything. He's a young guy, relatively new to their church, and joked that his first month on the job he had to do 3 funerals in a row and his new "flock" were just dying to get away from him, so he's got a sense of humor which is nice. The new pastor agreed to sit down with everyone and help the family hash it all out in a true "Come to Jesus" type moment next month, so that maybe we could celebrate Easter together as our first holiday as a family. Dad said the pastor was aware our family was having some troubles, but unsure of exactly what was going on, and since he was new, the pastor didn't want to pry. He has also agreed to do a small service down at my uncle's maple grove later in the summer, as it usually floods and is a muddy mess all spring. According to my dad, my aunt and uncle are so over all the drama and just ready to move on, so I expect hugs and apologies from them when we next meet. Stardew Valley Update: My brother was victorious in the grand fight for Leah. It was a hard battle. Well fought. When my husband exposed his plans to woo Sebastian all this time, it was quite the betrayal. Dramatics aside, their farm is really cute and I'm so happy they're enjoying the game!   Update 4/1 - Final one I think - April 1, 2024 Happy April Fools everyone! I hope you all check your caramel apples for stray onions before taking a bite! I also hope your Easter weekend was a delightful one. It is with great joy that I tell you all about our most recent update! Possibly even a conclusion to this whole ordeal. The entire family (aunt, uncle, moms, dads, brother, me, husband) and pastor met at my dad's house and we all sat down to hash the situation out. As expected from what my dad said, my aunt and uncle greeted us all with apologies and hugs, which was nice. My uncle usually helps host the Easter egg hunts with the church and he brought our Easter baskets to give to us in case us kids weren't sticking around the for the weekend. I'm not sure why but seeing it made me tear up and feel stupid, because it was just a basket of candy but it meant a lot to me for some reason. The pastor led us in a prayer and talked about forgiveness and such. He then asked us all to talk one at a time about how we're feeling and what we want the end result of today to be. No one was allowed to interrupt so everyone got to talk. It was nice. The consensus for the group was that most everyone wanted things to go back to "normal". The only ones who had any variance off this was my mom and step dad. They both wanted all us kids to move back to the area. The pastor asked them why they wanted us back, and neither could give a good reason other than "because family", and the pastor asked us if we were thriving where we were. And we said we were. He asked if we were happy there. Which we were. He then asked my mom and step dad if they wanted us to give up our happiness to make them happy. And Mom broke down and said no. We all had a good cry. The pastor then asked about the funeral and lies that led up to it and followed it and how it made us all feel and what we wished we'd done differently if we had the chance. It was all very emotional, but in a good way, you know? Everyone apologized and admitted they f-ed up and did a really crappy thing. We all talked for a long, long time and the pastor was a great mediator. Eventually we all reached some sort of resolution and I think we're good now. Emotions are still high and a little raw in areas, but we stayed for Easter weekend and had a nice time. We're going to keep moving forward slowly and try to repair the relationship, but I believe we're well and truly out of the woods. As for my brother, he's still staying with us, and mom will stop trying to guilt trip him back home. He's thinking about renting a small apartment in our area but we're not pushing him to make a decision. He knows he's welcome to stay as long as he wants. I think he wants to try dating (he's had a few girlfriends but never anything serious) and is embarrassed to bring any girls around our place, lol. He's been going to a few random classes/bookclubs at the local library for something free to do and hitting it off with all the little old ladies who attend, and they keep trying to hook him up with girls his age who they know. He has been on a few lunches/coffee dates with a couple girls, but I think he's too embarrassed by the attention to give it a real try at "dating" any of them. He's happy, though, which is all I could ask for. I'm not sure if there will be any more updates, as I think it's all be resolved about as much as it can be at the moment. I wanted to thank you all for your words of advice and giving me a place to vent and scream into the void. Please be kind to one another and to yourselves. Thank you. Relevant Comments emjkr: What a nice and hopeful update, I’m really glad you stuck to your guns when everyone threw sanity out the window! But, could your mother explain how she thought this would work out in her favour? OOP: I don't think mom thought too far ahead. I believe she assumed it would all just magically work out the way she wanted it to. She said she wasn't sure what she was expecting to happen (which I think was a lie, but I wasn't going to push it). mak_zaddy: This was a great update! But ummmmmm no stardew valley update? What gives? Has Sebastian been woo’ed? How’s Leah? What’s happening? OOP: Sebastian has indeed been wooed (and whoohooed) There's kids and cows and chickens. The two are still having a wonderful time at the game. They're working on completing the community center but it's slow going as they aren't trying to speedrun and just doing things as they want. I believe they're thinking about going into the desert mines once they complete that bundle, but they're both super chicken shit about it! -my-cabbages: I don't really understand what you had to apologize for ... but I'm glad you're happy and the situation seems to be settling down OOP: There wasn't much of an apology on my end, as everyone agreed I had done nothing wrong. Mine was more of a "I'm sorry you didn't feel as though I would listen." Type apology, which I don't really believe is a proper apology because apologies like that push the blame back on another. I mostly expressed my feelings and the shock of it all, and how betrayed I felt.   ----NEW UPDATE---- Small, happy update: May 7, 2024 (1 month later) Things as wonderful as the moment. Still doing baby steps with The Moms. We're texting and talking on the phones more, which is nice. Very civil. Dad "accidentally" bought a bunch of hand crafted bird feeders at a craft fair. By accidentally, I mean: he had a little too much fun in the beer tent, went for a stroll while step mom wasn't looking, and stumbled upon a guy's booth and bought "one of each". He wouldn't tell me how MANY "one of each" was, but he cackled like a witch when I asked. Step mom said she's forcing him to give a few to me, so I'm expecting a delivery or a Dad-visit any day now. My brother is officially "going steady" with a girl. We've met her a few times and she seems like a real sweetheart. She's our age and has a little boy (5-6 years old, I haven't asked) from a previous relationship (The dad's not in the picture from what I can gather). She's the granddaughter of one of his Book Club members, so the old ladies made good match makers in the end. The relationship is still very new and I'm routing for them. No new Stardew Valley updates. Work has been a little crazy lately and I haven't been able to play much of anything, and brother has been distracted by his new lady friend. So, husband finally started Baldur's Gate 3, and fell for Gale's "magic trick" so now those two are a thing. I expect him to be sufficiently distracted from reality for the next few weeks.   Latest Update here: BoRU #8   DO NOT COMMENT IN LINKED POSTS OR MESSAGE OOPs – BoRU Rule #7 THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP submitted by /u/Choice_Evidence1983 to r/BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]

I am NOT OOP. OOP is u/justathrowaway282641 Originally posted to r/TwoHotTakes and her own page Previous BoRU #1, BoRU #2, BoRU #3, BoRU #4 EDITOR’S NOTE: Removed all relevant comments from older posts to make space for new updates. To see all older comments, check out the previous BoRUs above Please note that OOP's latest new updates were not on this sub NEW UPDATE MARKED WITH ---- My family forgot to invite me to my grandparents funeral, but they are convinced I was there. Trigger Warnings: death of loved ones, emotional manipulation, gaslighting, harassment RECAP Original Post: November 14, 2023 I’m 30s F and caused a major blowup in my family and now none of them are talking to me. For background, my hometown is tiny (500pop) and when I went 2 hrs away to “the city” (15,000pop) for college, I loved it. I ended up staying after graduation, got married, and am happy here for a decade. I visit my home town every few weeks or so, call/text my family near daily, and thought we were all good. My family’s pretty small. Just my brother, mom, step dad, dad, step mom, and an aunt and uncle (mom’s siblings, never married, no kids). My mother's grandparents moved to my home town when I was in high school and were just down the street from us. My family has always been pretty drama free (aside from my parent’s divorce when I was a kid) and we’ve been happy. The step-parents were blended in perfectly and we share holidays and celebrations together. We’re all super close and just the perfect little group. Ever since I moved away, the topic of “when am I moving back?” is constant, and I’ve always laughed it off. My home town has nothing. You have to drive 30 minutes for milk and bread. 60-90 minute one-way commutes to work. And floods shut down the main road every Easter. I love the town, but I love here more. I have parks, stores, community events, a library! The “city” is great. My family grumbles that I need to move back, but I refuse. I've been trying to encourage them to come here, especially since it's not an hour drive to the nearest medical facility. Now to the meat and potatoes: both my grandparents passed over COVID times. They were both old and their health had been failing for a while so it was only a matter of time. Thankfully they didn’t catch it, but it made visiting them impossible and we survived mostly through FaceTime. They both passed in their sleep months apart. Both were cremated and kept securely under the kitchen sink for safe keeping while the pandemic blew over. That was 2021. Well, I just found out my family held a funeral for them and scattered the ashes in my uncle’s maple grove over the summer. No one said a word to me about it. I’ve visited numerous times before and after and not one word. I only found out because my great uncle from California posted on Facebook a few weeks ago that he is entering hospice and was so thankful his health stayed strong enough for him to see his little sister (my grandma) to her final resting place. I was confused and called my mom. She was all “Yeah, the funeral we had in July, remember?” Ya’ll, I visited them for the 4th of July. They did the funeral the 8th. Not a word about it to me. They had planned this for months. Long enough to arrange for my infirm great uncle to be brought over from the other side of the country. Apparently, they talked about it “all the time”. Everyone is convinced I was at the funeral. They SWEAR I was there. I can prove I wasn’t because Google’s got my location history. My hubby is baffled because he was supposedly there, too, but he had to work every weekend in June and July. Time clock doesn’t lie. My family straight up forgot about me. I’m hurt. I’m sad. And they’re pissed at me “for lying”. They think I’m causing drama over nothing. Nothing I say can convince them I wasn’t there. My family is united in this. And they’ve all put me “on read” until I admit I’m wrong. They think I’ve gone nuts. Either there’s a doppelganger of me attending events, or my family doesn’t want to admit they screwed up. I’m not backing down. Thanksgiving is coming up, and my family’s been vague posting on Facebook about “forgetful kids” and mental health. It’s so freaking weird and I don’t know if I’m in bizzaro world or what’s going on. My mom’s best friend reached out and said I should just admit I was wrong and apologize, that I’m causing my mom so much unnecessary stress. I asked her if she’s checked everyone’s home for CO2. She hung up on me. (We checked our CO2, and our testers are running just fine.) I have reached out to a few people in my home town to check in on my folks, and they all say they're fine. I even spoke with the local volunteer fire fighter group to see if they could check for gas leaks. Not sure if they were able to. I don’t know what to do. I’ve shown them the proof I wasn’t there, but they know I’m tech savvy and just assume I’ve Photoshopped it. Hubby says we need a break, and we’re going to be staying home this holiday season. Edit: I don't know the update rules, so I'll post updates to my profile should anyone want them. Update #1: November 27, 2023 Not sure how to do updates on posts, so figured I'd post anything on my profile. Folks have private messaged me and this will be easier I think? It's 11/27 and Thanksgiving just happened. Hubby and I stayed home. We got a small turkey and made our own little thanksgiving. It was nice. We ate around noon, then watched a movie, and later sat outside with a bottle of wine to watch the sun set behind the trees and neighbor houses. We usually take the day before off, drive to my folks, stay the night, and help with the Thanksgiving Day cooking. So it wasn't until Wednesday night that my mom broke the silence. Mom called and asked when I was showing up, and I told her we were staying home this year, but for them to have a happy Thanksgiving, and to give the rest of the family my love. She was quiet for a long time after I said that, and I think she eventually mumbled an "okay", or something, and hung up. It wasn't an angry hang up. Just a hang up. On Thanksgiving day, I sent a group "Happy Thanksgiving!" gif to our family group chat. I received a few "happy Thanksgiving"'s back. No one's said anything else. There's been no posts on Facebook. Update #2: December 12, 2023 So, I think I mentioned in one of my comments that my dad and I usually talk on the phone every Sunday morning. We're both early risers so we'd chat over our morning coffees and watch the sunrise. Him and I haven't really spoken since this all went down and it's been tough. I'm used to talking to him, you know? Well, I was sitting outside in my usual spot, watching the sun rise and freezing my butt off, and he called me. I'm not entirely sure how to describe the emotions I felt. It was a mix of panic, hope, terror, happiness, and dread. I ended up answering because I just had to know what he wanted. It was an awkward conversation. He didn't address the current "drama", but instead tiptoed around the situation with all the grace of an cow on stilts. For instance, a simple "How are you doing?" Type question was answered with a "Not good." And the whole conversation would stall out for a bit because he knew why I wasn't doing well. So we ended up talking about the weather, the various winter birds we'd seen in our feeders, and the Christmas decorations around town. Things like that. Eventually he asked if we were coming out for Christmas, and sounded sad when I told him we weren't. He asked if him and step mom could come visit us instead, and I told him it wasn't a good idea this year. That hubby and I were going to spend a quiet holiday together. I let him know he should be receiving some gifts at his PO Box any day now, so to please pick them up from the post office and put them under the family tree for everyone. He said he'd ship ours to us as well. And that was pretty much it. No crazy drama to report. The only posts on Facebook have been the usual Christmas excitement ones, countdowns, photos of Santa, silly gift ideas, photos of company Christmas parties. On a personal note: Hubby and I are doing alright. Our health is good, our spirits high, and we're as solid as ever. We each got Christmas bonus' at our jobs, so we're excited about that. They're not large, but we're happy to have them. We have also done advent calendars for the first time ever. I got him a Lego one, and he got me a hot chocolate one. We're going to do the calendars again next year. Maybe make a tradition out of it. Everyone please have a safe and happy holidays. Inheritance: December 16, 2023 I've received a lot - A LOT - of messages and private DMs urging me to check into inheritance and such. I'm really touched a lot of Internet strangers are worried about me and I wanted to ensure everyone that inheritance is most likely not an issue here. I'd almost be relieved if it was, because then it would at least make some sense. Money does weird things to people, you know? No one in my family is wealthy by any means. After my grandparents' passed, their small estate was used to pay for their end of life expenses and remaining assets split up. Everyone directly related got an equal split (so excluded my dad and the step parents). I don't remember the exact amount I received, but it was around $5k if I recall. My brother gave me his share, too, so I could finish paying off my college debt while the interest freeze was active. The great uncle from California has kids and grand kids, and great grandkids of his own, and also isn't wealthy. I think one of his kids makes good money doing something in finance, but I'm not entirely sure. I can't imagine he left us anything, as we hardly knew him. My mom, aunt, and uncle only met him a few times in their lives, and my brother and I even less. Grandma and him were close, but I don't think he liked my grandpa much. Christmas: December 25, 2023 I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I've received a lot of support through my posts and I'm really grateful. Writing these updates have had a therapeutic effect. Yesterday was Sunday, but I didn't answer my dad when he called. I just really didn't feel up to a pointless chat, so let it go to voicemail. He tried to reach me a few times throughout the day, but I didn't answer. Our bestie last minute invited us over to his house for Christmas day lunch (today), so husband and I were busy all Christmas Eve making cookies, peanut brittle, and homemade suckers/hard candies for his kids. Mom tried to reach out as well, but I also ignored her calls. We had a BLAST at lunch! Our friend's kids are a lot of fun to be around. They got some techy presents from their grandparents (Quest vr headset and steam decks, lucky little rascals) Friend and his wife aren't good with tech, while hubby and I are, so we helped get them set up while our friend played a good host to his folks and inlaws. The grandparents didn't realize that a Steam deck required a Steam account, so we got the kids all their own accounts set up, added them to our steam friends lists, and gifted them some games. We also bought them a few VR games for their headset, and they were off to the races with Beat Saber in no time. As for my folks: My brother texted and asked if we could talk sometime tomorrow. I think me ignoring mom and dad has caused some kind of upset. Which they deserve. Brother’s call: December 26, 2023 Spoke with my brother over the phone this morning. For starters, he apologized for everything. Him and I are good (for now). For a bit of background, my brother and I are only 2 years apart. There weren't a lot of kids around growing up, so the two of us were often stuck doing stuff together. So we have a lot of shared interests and passions. He's been pretty silent on this whole matter, but still "part of the group", if you know what I mean. I think the thought of losing him out of my life was probably the most painful, because he's always been there. He was my rock until I met my husband. He's definitely a Mama's boy, though, so anything mom wanted, he made sure she got. I'm happy to have him back. Without further ado, here's the story from the horse's mouth: Mom apparently had a cancer scare late last year (which no one told me about, go figure), and dad had a stint put in his heart back in January (which I did know about). This "sense of mortality" has apparently lit a fire under Mom's ass to get me back home. But since I wasn't reacting to her passive aggressive hinting, she and step mom decided to go full crazy. My great uncle's health was bad, and he'd been asking about funeral arrangements for his sister (my grandma) for a while, so the moms decided to plan it. And use the event as a giant middle finger to me. They kept all the planning pretty hush-hush between the two of them, so no one on our side of the family actually knew about the funeral until like 2 weeks before. The moms said they'd invited hubby and I. No one thought anything about it. No one thought to mention, confirm, or check with me. The plan was to scatter the ashes, say a few words, and maybe head to town for lunch. It was a small affair. The mom's didn't even tell the family that our great uncle was coming for it. Like I said, it was a small thing. Barely a footnote. No one thought it was odd because we're pretty chill people. 4th of July happens. Hubby and I are out. No one thought to mention it, as we were all busy celebrating and having a great time. Any time the topic of "this weekend" would start, the conversation would be quickly shifted by one of the moms. We went back home. 8th of July happens. Great uncle rolls into town with a few of his kids, grandkids, and great grandkids, and it's a surprise to everyone (but the moms). Everyone drives to the maple grove and the moms have brought a ton of food and stuff. It's a full blown party. No one on my side noticed I wasn't there, because there were so many extra faces outside the usual group. They did the spreading of the ashes, they said their words, they ate, they had a great time. It wasn't until our great uncle left, and all his side left with him, that they realized I wasn't there. And hadn't been there. And this is where the crazy went up a notch. My brother says the moms were happy no one noticed I wasn't there. And that this was proof to everyone that I needed to move back because I was so easily forgotten about. Because none of them thought to reach out, right? They basically did a ton of guilt tripping manipulation bullshit and it made everyone upset at me for not showing up. Somehow it was my fault for being excluded. So suddenly everyone was on their side with "sticking it to me". But then a few months went by, and tempers cooled, and then I guess the horror of it set in. Followed by the shame, but by then they were "in too deep". How do you undo something like this? And since I hadn't brought it up, I guess they figured they would all just stay quiet about it and hope I never asked about a funeral. That's when I discovered the situation from my great uncle's Facebook and called my mom, who panicked and went with the stupidest solution. Claiming I was there. Don't I remember? I ended up talking with a few friends from high school, mentioning the situation, and word got back to those in town. So suddenly town gossip and little old church ladies got involved. Was I, or wasn't I at the funeral? Did my family forget to invite me to the funeral of the only grandparents I'd ever know? Or am I just causing a ruckus? My brother said they all just went with mom's answer. Of course they wouldn't forget me. Of course I was there. Of course they're good people. And it just snowballed. The family expected me to eventually fold. I'm usually a nonconfrontational person, so me sticking to my guns was unexpected. And then I missed Thanksgiving. And now Christmas. With no sign of backing down. And I guess the realization that I could just stop being part of their lives is setting in and my parents are panicking. He's tried just getting them to apologize and explain, but stubbornness prevails. They want to rug sweep, but I'm not letting them. My brother is upset with everything that's happened. He's realized just how crappy it all has been and he wants nothing to do with it anymore. But since he lives with my mom, he can't "get away from it". He has asked if he can come stay with us for a little bit. I spoke with hubby, and he's in agreement with me that my brother can come crash in our spare bedroom for as long as he wants. Brother works remotely, so it's no trouble for him to pick up and go. I believe he's making the trip today or tomorrow. Not entirely sure, but I expect crap to hit the fan when he arrives. On a side note, hubby's stoked that my brother and I made up. The two usually game together, but haven't due to "the situation". He's downstairs right now setting up his man cave in preparation for my brother's arrival. I'm happy to see him so excited. Brother's Here: December 27, 2023 My brother rolled in late last night. He'd obviously been crying and when I opened the door, he just held me and sobbed. I'd never seen him like that before and soon both of us were just standing in the doorway crying into one another. He kept apologizing. Over and over again. Said he wasn't sure why he went with it. Just kept saying sorry. Hubby got him all set up in the spare bedroom while brother and I talked. My brother's a wreck. He's always been a big guy, but he's lost a lot of weight and his clothes just hang off him. If I didn't know better, I'd think he was on drugs. We talked for a little bit before bed and he re-explained everything for my husband. I'd told hubby the story, but it was just so weird that hearing it again helped. This morning my brother was up at dawn making some coffee and getting his work day going. Hubby's off all week (lucky) so hubby made us working folk some pancakes and bacon. So far everything's peaceful. We've decided not to answer any calls from our family. They've been made aware that he arrived safely, and that we are going to spend the New Years together, and that we're not answering any calls until January 1st. They may text if they wish. I'm sure they're losing their minds. Serves them right. Everyone, have a safe and happy new years! Don't drink and drive! Happy 2024!: January 2, 2024 I hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable holidays, and may the new year be full of joy and happiness! Not too much of an update. Things here have been quiet. My brother's settled in nicely and he's a great housemate. Our place isn't very big, but we have full basement and a nice outside patio/porch area so it doesn't feel crowded at all with the extra addition. He's a quiet and clean guy. No hassle at all. He got some fresh clothes from the Walmart, a haircut, and trimmed his beard, so he's more "presentable" now. He's a lady killer when he gets cleaned up. He's made nice with the (very nosy, but kind) retired couple next door and is adapting to "city living" nicely. Folks back home have been mostly well behaved. There's been a few texts back and forth, as we're not answering calls. Mom mainly wants to know when brother's coming back, but he's keen on staying here for a while. Mom said I can't "keep him" and I told her he's a grown ass man and can do what he wants. Brother says he has her blocked after she ORDERED him to return home. Brother has tentatively asked if he could stay long term, should he decide to, or at least longer than a usual visitor would stay. Which we're fine with. He has a good paying job and could afford an apartment, but he's never lived on his own and I would guess he has some anxiety about it. Should that be the case, he'll start paying us some rent and we'd probably adjust to give him the basement as his own space. Had to change the locks: January 17, 2024 My brother is officially staying with us for the long haul. Hubby and him spent all Sunday organizing the basement and shifting things around so he now has his own area to be comfortable in. He's pretty handy and has also started fixing little things around our house. Our windows and doors have never closed and locked/unlocked smoother. He even fixed one of the closets we never use because we can never get the darn door open. Sadly, he also had to change the locks on our house and get us all new keys. This is because while hubby and I were out this Saturday, the moms showed up. They'd been calling and texting us all week, but we weren't really answering them, so I guess the two decided to drive over and hash it out in person. They have emergency keys to my place, and just let themselves in. Brother told them to leave, they argued, and my nosy (but kind) neighbors called the police when they noticed the commotion. So, we get a call from neighbor's wife, return home to some cops in our yard, all the neighbors out "vacuuming their trees", and my nosy (but kind) neighbors standing on my porch with my brother behind them, doing their best Gandalf "You shall not pass" impression. Had to talk with the cops, explain that we were having a family dispute and word vomited. I don't really remember what all I said, and was shaking a lot. Our local cops are really great. Fantastic guys and gals in blue, and took it all in stride. It's really cold here, so one had me join him in his cruiser with the heat on, and gave me a bottle of water to calm down while we talked. They asked if we wanted the moms trespassed but I wasn't sure if that counted as a criminal charge so just asked the cops if they could just make them leave, which the cops did with no fuss. I think the moms were shocked we were taking this so seriously. They didn't fight or scream at us. Just left quietly. My dad promised me he'd make sure his wife left us alone. "Or else". He said he'd also have a stern talk with my mom. Him and I talked Sunday morning, and he seemed absolutely at the end of his rope. Husband jokingly told my dad he could move in, too. To which he declined. Not sure where to go from here, but we're getting some ring cameras installed once they arrive. And everyone but my dad is blocked. Hopefully they all just leave us alone. ----NEW UPDATE---- Nothing New To Report: February 2, 2024 Had a lot of DMs for updates, but don't have much anything to report on. The moms are behaving themselves. All's quiet on the western front. Felt weird ignoring or copy/pasting "no updates" to everyone, so here's what we've been doing, should anyone care. Dad got a new bird/squirrel feeder from Amazon (looks like a little picnic table for a child's dolly but has a mesh top for the bird seed. I think it's supposed to be for chickens?) It's totes adorbs. To his horror, it also works as a Cooper hawk feeder, so now he's "fortifying his defenses" and putting up some trellises around it. He'll have to wait till warmer weather before planting anything to grow on them. We had some ring cameras installed and put in a motion-activated camera that double functions as a light bulb. It goes in the light fixture outside the front door and is pretty cool. Video quality isn't all that great, but it's a nice addition I guess. It does overlook the bird feeders, so I've been watching it on my lunch breaks on the days I have to go into the office. Hubby and brother are feuding. They started a coop farm in Stardew Valley a few days ago and they both want to romance Leah. My husband confided in me that he's also been romancing Sebastian as a backup. I'm not sure why he's keeping this a secret, but he's pretty smug about it. RELEVANT COMMENTS fractal_frog I hope your dad can outsmart the hawks! OOP: He'll be able to, I just know it. He's used to dealing with the wildlife and having hawks about, but he just wasn't expecting one to snag a meal right from his new feeder. I told him it was "technically" still a bird feeder. Just....for bigger birds. Which he thought was funny. He said he might make a little "no hawks allowed" sign to put up next to it. MissOP: keep the updates coming. the moms are so close to folding it's just a little bit more. LMAO also, the bro mance between your husband and brother is so cute. lol Honestly, I think your husband making sure he has a side piece of Sebastian is absolutely the play. OOP: So far still no word from the moms, but I hope you're right. I would love an apology and for us to begin moving past this. But I NEED that apology. I feel selfish saying that, but I refuse to "be the bigger person" on this. I just won't. As for my brother and husband, yeah, they're basically soul mates. The two hit it off immediately when they first met, and they've been thick as thieves for years.   Update: February 27, 2024 My dad came out for a visit over the weekend. We had a good time and the weather was lovely for some grilling and beers. It was really nice to see him again and he seemed healthy and in good spirits. Here's his report from back home: Step mom (dad's wife) has started to realize she's screwed up. I credit her change of mindset to the fact that my dad sat her down and laid it out for her: she leaves his kids alone, or she's getting divorce papers. That apparently shut her up right quick, because they had a prenup done when they married and I'm not sure the details of it, but it wouldn't end favorably for her. She hasn't worked in years, so I imagine she'd be eligible for alimony? But I'm not versed in any of that legal mumbojumbo. Dad didn't seem too worried about it, so I'm not gonna worry about it. Step dad was pissed the police were involved in the last "mom visit" (despite no one getting arrested or anything) and was in a "the kids are out of control and need to be reigned back in" mindset. When my dad pointed out that "the kids" in question were all in their mid-30s, it took some of the steam out of stepdad's sails. According to my dad, even my mom looked a little surprised when he said that. So, part of me is wondering if a good chunk of this whole thing is my mom not truly realizing that her kids were grown, and no longer children she could make demands of. Both of the moms have left us alone. I expected my mom to continue to kick up a fuss, but I think the cops spooked her. There was a wonderful suggestion by a comment or to get their pastor involved, which I passed along to my dad. Dad has since spoken to their pastor about everything. He's a young guy, relatively new to their church, and joked that his first month on the job he had to do 3 funerals in a row and his new "flock" were just dying to get away from him, so he's got a sense of humor which is nice. The new pastor agreed to sit down with everyone and help the family hash it all out in a true "Come to Jesus" type moment next month, so that maybe we could celebrate Easter together as our first holiday as a family. Dad said the pastor was aware our family was having some troubles, but unsure of exactly what was going on, and since he was new, the pastor didn't want to pry. He has also agreed to do a small service down at my uncle's maple grove later in the summer, as it usually floods and is a muddy mess all spring. According to my dad, my aunt and uncle are so over all the drama and just ready to move on, so I expect hugs and apologies from them when we next meet. Stardew Valley Update: My brother was victorious in the grand fight for Leah. It was a hard battle. Well fought. When my husband exposed his plans to woo Sebastian all this time, it was quite the betrayal. Dramatics aside, their farm is really cute and I'm so happy they're enjoying the game! RELEVANT COMMENT Ok-Meeting-8588: That sounds nice, and I hope this does get resolved peacefully. Just make sure the pastor doesn’t try to use the whole “mistakes were made on both ends so everyone needs to apologize because everyone equally messed up.” You did nothing wrong and you don’t owe anyone any apologies. OOP: Oh, I definitely plan on it. Dad's confirmed that we did nothing wrong, that we were done dirty, and I think he passed that on to the pastor. Though, I am expecting some "turn the other cheek" talk, which is to be expected.   Latest Update here: Final BoRU   THIS IS A REPOST SUB – I AM NOT OOP submitted by /u/Choice_Evidence1983 to r/BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]

I am NOT OOP. OOP is u/justathrowaway282641 Originally posted to r/TwoHotTakes and her own page Previous BoRU #1, BoRU #2, and BoRU #3 Editor's Note: removed some previous relevant comments due to some space needed to add new updates. To see other comments, you can find them in the previous BoRUs linked above [As of January 24, 2024] - NEW UPDATE MARKED WITH ---- [New Update] - My family forgot to invite me to my grandparents funeral, but they are convinced I was there. Trigger Warnings: death of loved ones, emotional manipulation, gaslighting, harassment RECAP Original Post - November 14, 2023 I’m 30s F and caused a major blowup in my family and now none of them are talking to me. For background, my hometown is tiny (500pop) and when I went 2 hrs away to “the city” (15,000pop) for college, I loved it. I ended up staying after graduation, got married, and am happy here for a decade. I visit my home town every few weeks or so, call/text my family near daily, and thought we were all good. My family’s pretty small. Just my brother, mom, step dad, dad, step mom, and an aunt and uncle (mom’s siblings, never married, no kids). My mother's grandparents moved to my home town when I was in high school and were just down the street from us. My family has always been pretty drama free (aside from my parent’s divorce when I was a kid) and we’ve been happy. The step-parents were blended in perfectly and we share holidays and celebrations together. We’re all super close and just the perfect little group. Ever since I moved away, the topic of “when am I moving back?” is constant, and I’ve always laughed it off. My home town has nothing. You have to drive 30 minutes for milk and bread. 60-90 minute one-way commutes to work. And floods shut down the main road every Easter. I love the town, but I love here more. I have parks, stores, community events, a library! The “city” is great. My family grumbles that I need to move back, but I refuse. I've been trying to encourage them to come here, especially since it's not an hour drive to the nearest medical facility. Now to the meat and potatoes: both my grandparents passed over COVID times. They were both old and their health had been failing for a while so it was only a matter of time. Thankfully they didn’t catch it, but it made visiting them impossible and we survived mostly through FaceTime. They both passed in their sleep months apart. Both were cremated and kept securely under the kitchen sink for safe keeping while the pandemic blew over. That was 2021. Well, I just found out my family held a funeral for them and scattered the ashes in my uncle’s maple grove over the summer. No one said a word to me about it. I’ve visited numerous times before and after and not one word. I only found out because my great uncle from California posted on Facebook a few weeks ago that he is entering hospice and was so thankful his health stayed strong enough for him to see his little sister (my grandma) to her final resting place. I was confused and called my mom. She was all “Yeah, the funeral we had in July, remember?” Ya’ll, I visited them for the 4th of July. They did the funeral the 8th. Not a word about it to me. They had planned this for months. Long enough to arrange for my infirm great uncle to be brought over from the other side of the country. Apparently, they talked about it “all the time”. Everyone is convinced I was at the funeral. They SWEAR I was there. I can prove I wasn’t because Google’s got my location history. My hubby is baffled because he was supposedly there, too, but he had to work every weekend in June and July. Time clock doesn’t lie. My family straight up forgot about me. I’m hurt. I’m sad. And they’re pissed at me “for lying”. They think I’m causing drama over nothing. Nothing I say can convince them I wasn’t there. My family is united in this. And they’ve all put me “on read” until I admit I’m wrong. They think I’ve gone nuts. Either there’s a doppelganger of me attending events, or my family doesn’t want to admit they screwed up. I’m not backing down. Thanksgiving is coming up, and my family’s been vague posting on Facebook about “forgetful kids” and mental health. It’s so freaking weird and I don’t know if I’m in bizzaro world or what’s going on. My mom’s best friend reached out and said I should just admit I was wrong and apologize, that I’m causing my mom so much unnecessary stress. I asked her if she’s checked everyone’s home for CO2. She hung up on me. (We checked our CO2, and our testers are running just fine.) I have reached out to a few people in my home town to check in on my folks, and they all say they're fine. I even spoke with the local volunteer fire fighter group to see if they could check for gas leaks. Not sure if they were able to. I don’t know what to do. I’ve shown them the proof I wasn’t there, but they know I’m tech savvy and just assume I’ve Photoshopped it. Hubby says we need a break, and we’re going to be staying home this holiday season. Edit: I don't know the update rules, so I'll post updates to my profile should anyone want them.   Update - November 27, 2023 Not sure how to do updates on posts, so figured I'd post anything on my profile. Folks have private messaged me and this will be easier I think? It's 11/27 and Thanksgiving just happened. Hubby and I stayed home. We got a small turkey and made our own little thanksgiving. It was nice. We ate around noon, then watched a movie, and later sat outside with a bottle of wine to watch the sun set behind the trees and neighbor houses. We usually take the day before off, drive to my folks, stay the night, and help with the Thanksgiving Day cooking. So it wasn't until Wednesday night that my mom broke the silence. Mom called and asked when I was showing up, and I told her we were staying home this year, but for them to have a happy Thanksgiving, and to give the rest of the family my love. She was quiet for a long time after I said that, and I think she eventually mumbled an "okay", or something, and hung up. It wasn't an angry hang up. Just a hang up. On Thanksgiving day, I sent a group "Happy Thanksgiving!" gif to our family group chat. I received a few "happy Thanksgiving"'s back. No one's said anything else. There's been no posts on Facebook.   Update #2 - December 12, 2023 So, I think I mentioned in one of my comments that my dad and I usually talk on the phone every Sunday morning. We're both early risers so we'd chat over our morning coffees and watch the sunrise. Him and I haven't really spoken since this all went down and it's been tough. I'm used to talking to him, you know? Well, I was sitting outside in my usual spot, watching the sun rise and freezing my butt off, and he called me. I'm not entirely sure how to describe the emotions I felt. It was a mix of panic, hope, terror, happiness, and dread. I ended up answering because I just had to know what he wanted. It was an awkward conversation. He didn't address the current "drama", but instead tiptoed around the situation with all the grace of an cow on stilts. For instance, a simple "How are you doing?" Type question was answered with a "Not good." And the whole conversation would stall out for a bit because he knew why I wasn't doing well. So we ended up talking about the weather, the various winter birds we'd seen in our feeders, and the Christmas decorations around town. Things like that. Eventually he asked if we were coming out for Christmas, and sounded sad when I told him we weren't. He asked if him and step mom could come visit us instead, and I told him it wasn't a good idea this year. That hubby and I were going to spend a quiet holiday together. I let him know he should be receiving some gifts at his PO Box any day now, so to please pick them up from the post office and put them under the family tree for everyone. He said he'd ship ours to us as well. And that was pretty much it. No crazy drama to report. The only posts on Facebook have been the usual Christmas excitement ones, countdowns, photos of Santa, silly gift ideas, photos of company Christmas parties. On a personal note: Hubby and I are doing alright. Our health is good, our spirits high, and we're as solid as ever. We each got Christmas bonus' at our jobs, so we're excited about that. They're not large, but we're happy to have them. We have also done advent calendars for the first time ever. I got him a Lego one, and he got me a hot chocolate one. We're going to do the calendars again next year. Maybe make a tradition out of it. Everyone please have a safe and happy holidays.   Inheritance – December 16, 2023 I've received a lot - A LOT - of messages and private DMs urging me to check into inheritance and such. I'm really touched a lot of Internet strangers are worried about me and I wanted to ensure everyone that inheritance is most likely not an issue here. I'd almost be relieved if it was, because then it would at least make some sense. Money does weird things to people, you know? No one in my family is wealthy by any means. After my grandparents' passed, their small estate was used to pay for their end of life expenses and remaining assets split up. Everyone directly related got an equal split (so excluded my dad and the step parents). I don't remember the exact amount I received, but it was around $5k if I recall. My brother gave me his share, too, so I could finish paying off my college debt while the interest freeze was active. The great uncle from California has kids and grand kids, and great grandkids of his own, and also isn't wealthy. I think one of his kids makes good money doing something in finance, but I'm not entirely sure. I can't imagine he left us anything, as we hardly knew him. My mom, aunt, and uncle only met him a few times in their lives, and my brother and I even less. Grandma and him were close, but I don't think he liked my grandpa much.   Christmas - December 25, 2023 I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I've received a lot of support through my posts and I'm really grateful. Writing these updates have had a therapeutic effect. Yesterday was Sunday, but I didn't answer my dad when he called. I just really didn't feel up to a pointless chat, so let it go to voicemail. He tried to reach me a few times throughout the day, but I didn't answer. Our bestie last minute invited us over to his house for Christmas day lunch (today), so husband and I were busy all Christmas Eve making cookies, peanut brittle, and homemade suckers/hard candies for his kids. Mom tried to reach out as well, but I also ignored her calls. We had a BLAST at lunch! Our friend's kids are a lot of fun to be around. They got some techy presents from their grandparents (Quest vr headset and steam decks, lucky little rascals) Friend and his wife aren't good with tech, while hubby and I are, so we helped get them set up while our friend played a good host to his folks and inlaws. The grandparents didn't realize that a Steam deck required a Steam account, so we got the kids all their own accounts set up, added them to our steam friends lists, and gifted them some games. We also bought them a few VR games for their headset, and they were off to the races with Beat Saber in no time. As for my folks: My brother texted and asked if we could talk sometime tomorrow. I think me ignoring mom and dad has caused some kind of upset. Which they deserve.   Brother’s call - December 26, 2023 Spoke with my brother over the phone this morning. For starters, he apologized for everything. Him and I are good (for now). For a bit of background, my brother and I are only 2 years apart. There weren't a lot of kids around growing up, so the two of us were often stuck doing stuff together. So we have a lot of shared interests and passions. He's been pretty silent on this whole matter, but still "part of the group", if you know what I mean. I think the thought of losing him out of my life was probably the most painful, because he's always been there. He was my rock until I met my husband. He's definitely a Mama's boy, though, so anything mom wanted, he made sure she got. I'm happy to have him back. Without further ado, here's the story from the horse's mouth: Mom apparently had a cancer scare late last year (which no one told me about, go figure), and dad had a stint put in his heart back in January (which I did know about). This "sense of mortality" has apparently lit a fire under Mom's ass to get me back home. But since I wasn't reacting to her passive aggressive hinting, she and step mom decided to go full crazy. My great uncle's health was bad, and he'd been asking about funeral arrangements for his sister (my grandma) for a while, so the moms decided to plan it. And use the event as a giant middle finger to me. They kept all the planning pretty hush-hush between the two of them, so no one on our side of the family actually knew about the funeral until like 2 weeks before. The moms said they'd invited hubby and I. No one thought anything about it. No one thought to mention, confirm, or check with me. The plan was to scatter the ashes, say a few words, and maybe head to town for lunch. It was a small affair. The mom's didn't even tell the family that our great uncle was coming for it. Like I said, it was a small thing. Barely a footnote. No one thought it was odd because we're pretty chill people. 4th of July happens. Hubby and I are out. No one thought to mention it, as we were all busy celebrating and having a great time. Any time the topic of "this weekend" would start, the conversation would be quickly shifted by one of the moms. We went back home. 8th of July happens. Great uncle rolls into town with a few of his kids, grandkids, and great grandkids, and it's a surprise to everyone (but the moms). Everyone drives to the maple grove and the moms have brought a ton of food and stuff. It's a full blown party. No one on my side noticed I wasn't there, because there were so many extra faces outside the usual group. They did the spreading of the ashes, they said their words, they ate, they had a great time. It wasn't until our great uncle left, and all his side left with him, that they realized I wasn't there. And hadn't been there. And this is where the crazy went up a notch. My brother says the moms were happy no one noticed I wasn't there. And that this was proof to everyone that I needed to move back because I was so easily forgotten about. Because none of them thought to reach out, right? They basically did a ton of guilt tripping manipulation bullshit and it made everyone upset at me for not showing up. Somehow it was my fault for being excluded. So suddenly everyone was on their side with "sticking it to me". But then a few months went by, and tempers cooled, and then I guess the horror of it set in. Followed by the shame, but by then they were "in too deep". How do you undo something like this? And since I hadn't brought it up, I guess they figured they would all just stay quiet about it and hope I never asked about a funeral. That's when I discovered the situation from my great uncle's Facebook and called my mom, who panicked and went with the stupidest solution. Claiming I was there. Don't I remember? I ended up talking with a few friends from high school, mentioning the situation, and word got back to those in town. So suddenly town gossip and little old church ladies got involved. Was I, or wasn't I at the funeral? Did my family forget to invite me to the funeral of the only grandparents I'd ever know? Or am I just causing a ruckus? My brother said they all just went with mom's answer. Of course they wouldn't forget me. Of course I was there. Of course they're good people. And it just snowballed. The family expected me to eventually fold. I'm usually a nonconfrontational person, so me sticking to my guns was unexpected. And then I missed Thanksgiving. And now Christmas. With no sign of backing down. And I guess the realization that I could just stop being part of their lives is setting in and my parents are panicking. He's tried just getting them to apologize and explain, but stubbornness prevails. They want to rug sweep, but I'm not letting them. My brother is upset with everything that's happened. He's realized just how crappy it all has been and he wants nothing to do with it anymore. But since he lives with my mom, he can't "get away from it". He has asked if he can come stay with us for a little bit. I spoke with hubby, and he's in agreement with me that my brother can come crash in our spare bedroom for as long as he wants. Brother works remotely, so it's no trouble for him to pick up and go. I believe he's making the trip today or tomorrow. Not entirely sure, but I expect crap to hit the fan when he arrives. On a side note, hubby's stoked that my brother and I made up. The two usually game together, but haven't due to "the situation". He's downstairs right now setting up his man cave in preparation for my brother's arrival. I'm happy to see him so excited.   Brother's Here - December 27, 2023 My brother rolled in late last night. He'd obviously been crying and when I opened the door, he just held me and sobbed. I'd never seen him like that before and soon both of us were just standing in the doorway crying into one another. He kept apologizing. Over and over again. Said he wasn't sure why he went with it. Just kept saying sorry. Hubby got him all set up in the spare bedroom while brother and I talked. My brother's a wreck. He's always been a big guy, but he's lost a lot of weight and his clothes just hang off him. If I didn't know better, I'd think he was on drugs. We talked for a little bit before bed and he re-explained everything for my husband. I'd told hubby the story, but it was just so weird that hearing it again helped. This morning my brother was up at dawn making some coffee and getting his work day going. Hubby's off all week (lucky) so hubby made us working folk some pancakes and bacon. So far everything's peaceful. We've decided not to answer any calls from our family. They've been made aware that he arrived safely, and that we are going to spend the New Years together, and that we're not answering any calls until January 1st. They may text if they wish. I'm sure they're losing their minds. Serves them right. Everyone, have a safe and happy new years! Don't drink and drive!   Happy 2024! - January 2, 2024 I hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable holidays, and may the new year be full of joy and happiness! Not too much of an update. Things here have been quiet. My brother's settled in nicely and he's a great housemate. Our place isn't very big, but we have full basement and a nice outside patio/porch area so it doesn't feel crowded at all with the extra addition. He's a quiet and clean guy. No hassle at all. He got some fresh clothes from the Walmart, a haircut, and trimmed his beard, so he's more "presentable" now. He's a lady killer when he gets cleaned up. He's made nice with the (very nosy, but kind) retired couple next door and is adapting to "city living" nicely. Folks back home have been mostly well behaved. There's been a few texts back and forth, as we're not answering calls. Mom mainly wants to know when brother's coming back, but he's keen on staying here for a while. Mom said I can't "keep him" and I told her he's a grown ass man and can do what he wants. Brother says he has her blocked after she ORDERED him to return home. Brother has tentatively asked if he could stay long term, should he decide to, or at least longer than a usual visitor would stay. Which we're fine with. He has a good paying job and could afford an apartment, but he's never lived on his own and I would guess he has some anxiety about it. Should that be the case, he'll start paying us some rent and we'd probably adjust to give him the basement as his own space. RELEVANT COMMENTS TNTmom4: Where is the step-mom and stepdad in all of this? Have they reached out to apologize? OP if your WHOLE family each made a SM post FULLY ADMITTING what they did in deal would you forgive them? OOP: Everyone else has been pretty quiet about it. Step dad does what mom wants. End of story there. If she's holding firm, he's got her back. I'm guessing step mom is also still firmly on mom's side, because she helped orchestrate the whole thing. Which leaves my dad in a dilemma. Support the wife? Support the child? I'd HOPE he'd pick me, but I also understand that he might feel stuck. My aunt and uncle? Haven't heard much anything from them outside of the "Happy " texts. I think if they apologized. Truly, honestly apologized, I would forgive them. If they explained themselves, made an effort to show me that they're truly sorry. To work to rebuild, and not just stick their heads in the sand, I think I'd be okay with having them (marginally) back in my life. Hell, at this point, I'd be happy to receive a Hallmark card saying "I fucked up!" With the picture of a cat in an upturned laundry basket. Anything to just show me that they realize what they've done. ----NEW UPDATE---- Had to change the locks - January 17, 2024 My brother is officially staying with us for the long haul. Hubby and him spent all Sunday organizing the basement and shifting things around so he now has his own area to be comfortable in. He's pretty handy and has also started fixing little things around our house. Our windows and doors have never closed and locked/unlocked smoother. He even fixed one of the closets we never use because we can never get the darn door open. Sadly, he also had to change the locks on our house and get us all new keys. This is because while hubby and I were out this Saturday, the moms showed up. They'd been calling and texting us all week, but we weren't really answering them, so I guess the two decided to drive over and hash it out in person. They have emergency keys to my place, and just let themselves in. Brother told them to leave, they argued, and my nosy (but kind) neighbors called the police when they noticed the commotion. So, we get a call from neighbor's wife, return home to some cops in our yard, all the neighbors out "vacuuming their trees", and my nosy (but kind) neighbors standing on my porch with my brother behind them, doing their best Gandalf "You shall not pass" impression. Had to talk with the cops, explain that we were having a family dispute and word vomited. I don't really remember what all I said, and was shaking a lot. Our local cops are really great. Fantastic guys and gals in blue, and took it all in stride. It's really cold here, so one had me join him in his cruiser with the heat on, and gave me a bottle of water to calm down while we talked. They asked if we wanted the moms trespassed but I wasn't sure if that counted as a criminal charge so just asked the cops if they could just make them leave, which the cops did with no fuss. I think the moms were shocked we were taking this so seriously. They didn't fight or scream at us. Just left quietly. My dad promised me he'd make sure his wife left us alone. "Or else". He said he'd also have a stern talk with my mom. Him and I talked Sunday morning, and he seemed absolutely at the end of his rope. Husband jokingly told my dad he could move in, too. To which he declined. Not sure where to go from here, but we're getting some ring cameras installed once they arrive. And everyone but my dad is blocked. Hopefully they all just leave us alone. RELEVANT COMMENTS Natopor Damn I did not expect for then to show up! Well I did suspect the posibility. But still tought the chances were low. Forgive me for asking but what exactly did they talk with your brother? Like how did it went? Did bro manage to tell them how he aired their "master plan" to you? Also I am happy to hear you and your dad manage to get along. But did he confess and apoogize for his own contribution to mom and step-mom plan? Cuz it would only be fair to you. OOP My brother says they were just THERE in the living room and he freaked out. Started yelling for them to get out. He doesn't remember what they were yelling back. But suddenly the neighbors were there and they got the moms out in the yard. The moms know that I know the whole story. They're aware that my brother spilled "the beans". And yes, dad apologized as well. I think I missed sharing that. Dachshundmom5 What was your Dad's apology? Or reasoning for going along with emotionally abusing his child? OOP He said he wasn't sure what he was thinking. He had the mom's all up in his head, making him think: I was the bad one. I was the wrong one. I was the one causing problems. It was all me, me, me. He had hoped it would all just go away, but no one was letting it, and he felt completely stuck and alone. He told me he just wanted his baby girl back, and he'd do anything to make it up to me. Apologized and begged. Our relationship is still rocky, but we talk on the phone, text, and send bird feeder photos. We're taking it slow and it's honestly been nice.   FOR THE LATEST UPDATE ON THIS SAGA, PLEASE SEE HERE NEW UPDATE   REMINDER - THIS IS A REPOST SUB – I AM NOT OOP submitted by /u/Choice_Evidence1983 to r/BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]

I am NOT OOP. OOP is u/justathrowaway282641 Originally posted to r/TwoHotTakes and her own page Previous BoRU #1 and BoRU #2 NEW UPDATE MARKED WITH ---- [New Update] - My family forgot to invite me to my grandparents funeral, but they are convinced I was there. Trigger Warnings: death of loved ones, emotional manipulation, gaslighting RECAP Original Post - November 14, 2023 I’m 30s F and caused a major blowup in my family and now none of them are talking to me. For background, my hometown is tiny (500pop) and when I went 2 hrs away to “the city” (15,000pop) for college, I loved it. I ended up staying after graduation, got married, and am happy here for a decade. I visit my home town every few weeks or so, call/text my family near daily, and thought we were all good. My family’s pretty small. Just my brother, mom, step dad, dad, step mom, and an aunt and uncle (mom’s siblings, never married, no kids). My mother's grandparents moved to my home town when I was in high school and were just down the street from us. My family has always been pretty drama free (aside from my parent’s divorce when I was a kid) and we’ve been happy. The step-parents were blended in perfectly and we share holidays and celebrations together. We’re all super close and just the perfect little group. Ever since I moved away, the topic of “when am I moving back?” is constant, and I’ve always laughed it off. My home town has nothing. You have to drive 30 minutes for milk and bread. 60-90 minute one-way commutes to work. And floods shut down the main road every Easter. I love the town, but I love here more. I have parks, stores, community events, a library! The “city” is great. My family grumbles that I need to move back, but I refuse. I've been trying to encourage them to come here, especially since it's not an hour drive to the nearest medical facility. Now to the meat and potatoes: both my grandparents passed over COVID times. They were both old and their health had been failing for a while so it was only a matter of time. Thankfully they didn’t catch it, but it made visiting them impossible and we survived mostly through FaceTime. They both passed in their sleep months apart. Both were cremated and kept securely under the kitchen sink for safe keeping while the pandemic blew over. That was 2021. Well, I just found out my family held a funeral for them and scattered the ashes in my uncle’s maple grove over the summer. No one said a word to me about it. I’ve visited numerous times before and after and not one word. I only found out because my great uncle from California posted on Facebook a few weeks ago that he is entering hospice and was so thankful his health stayed strong enough for him to see his little sister (my grandma) to her final resting place. I was confused and called my mom. She was all “Yeah, the funeral we had in July, remember?” Ya’ll, I visited them for the 4th of July. They did the funeral the 8th. Not a word about it to me. They had planned this for months. Long enough to arrange for my infirm great uncle to be brought over from the other side of the country. Apparently, they talked about it “all the time”. Everyone is convinced I was at the funeral. They SWEAR I was there. I can prove I wasn’t because Google’s got my location history. My hubby is baffled because he was supposedly there, too, but he had to work every weekend in June and July. Time clock doesn’t lie. My family straight up forgot about me. I’m hurt. I’m sad. And they’re pissed at me “for lying”. They think I’m causing drama over nothing. Nothing I say can convince them I wasn’t there. My family is united in this. And they’ve all put me “on read” until I admit I’m wrong. They think I’ve gone nuts. Either there’s a doppelganger of me attending events, or my family doesn’t want to admit they screwed up. I’m not backing down. Thanksgiving is coming up, and my family’s been vague posting on Facebook about “forgetful kids” and mental health. It’s so freaking weird and I don’t know if I’m in bizzaro world or what’s going on. My mom’s best friend reached out and said I should just admit I was wrong and apologize, that I’m causing my mom so much unnecessary stress. I asked her if she’s checked everyone’s home for CO2. She hung up on me. (We checked our CO2, and our testers are running just fine.) I have reached out to a few people in my home town to check in on my folks, and they all say they're fine. I even spoke with the local volunteer fire fighter group to see if they could check for gas leaks. Not sure if they were able to. I don’t know what to do. I’ve shown them the proof I wasn’t there, but they know I’m tech savvy and just assume I’ve Photoshopped it. Hubby says we need a break, and we’re going to be staying home this holiday season. Edit: I don't know the update rules, so I'll post updates to my profile should anyone want them.   RELEVANT COMMENTS teaandtomes: Yeah- they know they messed up big time and don't want to admit it. But they created this narrative to make themselves look/feel better and now have pushed it so hard that friends and the community are in on it. They might even believe it themselves at this point- it can happen. I agree with your husband. Take a break and decide what is best for you going forward (IOW, what can you live with and how much do you want them in your life given the gaslighting). So sorry- families can be difficult, especially with self-created drama. OP: That's kinda our thoughts. That they forgot, and don't want to lose face in the community. And now they've dug themselves in too deep to get out. If they truly do believe it, it scares me that they've all agreed to this delusion. squarziz: I feel like I need more info but not even sure what to ask. However to me it sounds intentional they didn't invite you, and were maybe hoping this would make you want to move home again so you don't 'forget' anymore family events? If anyone said something like 'well if you lived in town you would have known ' then that's the answer. It would also make me want to find out how everyone else was told about said funeral. Were they called? Texted? Emailed? Told at 4th of July? Maybe if everyone else was invited in person they did just forget to invite you, but even that he would seem kind of like a stretch if you do go back visit and call as much as you say. OP: I thought this at first, but it just seems so cruel and unlike them. They like where I live. Say it's nice and occasionally visit. I don't know how the event was organized, but I'm guessing word of mouth. Like I said, I was there just a few days earlier. We had a big meal and set off fireworks. Hubby and I had taken the 5th off and we left that evening after a lovely dinner and some board games. We talk all the time on the phone. My step mom calls me almost every night. Used to anyway. It's been a weird few weeks not talking to them. I get home from work, and start automatically pulling up someone to call, and then I remember. I usually talk to my dad every Sunday morning while we drink our coffee. Not having him call this week had me sitting outside in my usual spot and just...sitting? I don't know how to describe it. Felt kinda numb and weird. Hubby's been working on cheering me up. He's so angry at this whole thing. I'm afraid he's gonna just leave one morning, drive over there, and start knocking heads around.   Update - November 27, 2023 Not sure how to do updates on posts, so figured I'd post anything on my profile. Folks have private messaged me and this will be easier I think? It's 11/27 and Thanksgiving just happened. Hubby and I stayed home. We got a small turkey and made our own little thanksgiving. It was nice. We ate around noon, then watched a movie, and later sat outside with a bottle of wine to watch the sun set behind the trees and neighbor houses. We usually take the day before off, drive to my folks, stay the night, and help with the Thanksgiving Day cooking. So it wasn't until Wednesday night that my mom broke the silence. Mom called and asked when I was showing up, and I told her we were staying home this year, but for them to have a happy Thanksgiving, and to give the rest of the family my love. She was quiet for a long time after I said that, and I think she eventually mumbled an "okay", or something, and hung up. It wasn't an angry hang up. Just a hang up. On Thanksgiving day, I sent a group "Happy Thanksgiving!" gif to our family group chat. I received a few "happy Thanksgiving"'s back. No one's said anything else. There's been no posts on Facebook.   Update #2 - December 12, 2023 So, I think I mentioned in one of my comments that my dad and I usually talk on the phone every Sunday morning. We're both early risers so we'd chat over our morning coffees and watch the sunrise. Him and I haven't really spoken since this all went down and it's been tough. I'm used to talking to him, you know? Well, I was sitting outside in my usual spot, watching the sun rise and freezing my butt off, and he called me. I'm not entirely sure how to describe the emotions I felt. It was a mix of panic, hope, terror, happiness, and dread. I ended up answering because I just had to know what he wanted. It was an awkward conversation. He didn't address the current "drama", but instead tiptoed around the situation with all the grace of an cow on stilts. For instance, a simple "How are you doing?" Type question was answered with a "Not good." And the whole conversation would stall out for a bit because he knew why I wasn't doing well. So we ended up talking about the weather, the various winter birds we'd seen in our feeders, and the Christmas decorations around town. Things like that. Eventually he asked if we were coming out for Christmas, and sounded sad when I told him we weren't. He asked if him and step mom could come visit us instead, and I told him it wasn't a good idea this year. That hubby and I were going to spend a quiet holiday together. I let him know he should be receiving some gifts at his PO Box any day now, so to please pick them up from the post office and put them under the family tree for everyone. He said he'd ship ours to us as well. And that was pretty much it. No crazy drama to report. The only posts on Facebook have been the usual Christmas excitement ones, countdowns, photos of Santa, silly gift ideas, photos of company Christmas parties. On a personal note: Hubby and I are doing alright. Our health is good, our spirits high, and we're as solid as ever. We each got Christmas bonus' at our jobs, so we're excited about that. They're not large, but we're happy to have them. We have also done advent calendars for the first time ever. I got him a Lego one, and he got me a hot chocolate one. We're going to do the calendars again next year. Maybe make a tradition out of it. Everyone please have a safe and happy holidays.   Inheritance – December 16, 2023 I've received a lot - A LOT - of messages and private DMs urging me to check into inheritance and such. I'm really touched a lot of Internet strangers are worried about me and I wanted to ensure everyone that inheritance is most likely not an issue here. I'd almost be relieved if it was, because then it would at least make some sense. Money does weird things to people, you know? No one in my family is wealthy by any means. After my grandparents' passed, their small estate was used to pay for their end of life expenses and remaining assets split up. Everyone directly related got an equal split (so excluded my dad and the step parents). I don't remember the exact amount I received, but it was around $5k if I recall. My brother gave me his share, too, so I could finish paying off my college debt while the interest freeze was active. The great uncle from California has kids and grand kids, and great grandkids of his own, and also isn't wealthy. I think one of his kids makes good money doing something in finance, but I'm not entirely sure. I can't imagine he left us anything, as we hardly knew him. My mom, aunt, and uncle only met him a few times in their lives, and my brother and I even less. Grandma and him were close, but I don't think he liked my grandpa much.   Christmas - December 25, 2023 I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I've received a lot of support through my posts and I'm really grateful. Writing these updates have had a therapeutic effect. Yesterday was Sunday, but I didn't answer my dad when he called. I just really didn't feel up to a pointless chat, so let it go to voicemail. He tried to reach me a few times throughout the day, but I didn't answer. Our bestie last minute invited us over to his house for Christmas day lunch (today), so husband and I were busy all Christmas Eve making cookies, peanut brittle, and homemade suckers/hard candies for his kids. Mom tried to reach out as well, but I also ignored her calls. We had a BLAST at lunch! Our friend's kids are a lot of fun to be around. They got some techy presents from their grandparents (Quest vr headset and steam decks, lucky little rascals) Friend and his wife aren't good with tech, while hubby and I are, so we helped get them set up while our friend played a good host to his folks and inlaws. The grandparents didn't realize that a Steam deck required a Steam account, so we got the kids all their own accounts set up, added them to our steam friends lists, and gifted them some games. We also bought them a few VR games for their headset, and they were off to the races with Beat Saber in no time. As for my folks: My brother texted and asked if we could talk sometime tomorrow. I think me ignoring mom and dad has caused some kind of upset. Which they deserve.   Brother’s call - December 26, 2023 Spoke with my brother over the phone this morning. For starters, he apologized for everything. Him and I are good (for now). For a bit of background, my brother and I are only 2 years apart. There weren't a lot of kids around growing up, so the two of us were often stuck doing stuff together. So we have a lot of shared interests and passions. He's been pretty silent on this whole matter, but still "part of the group", if you know what I mean. I think the thought of losing him out of my life was probably the most painful, because he's always been there. He was my rock until I met my husband. He's definitely a Mama's boy, though, so anything mom wanted, he made sure she got. I'm happy to have him back. Without further ado, here's the story from the horse's mouth: Mom apparently had a cancer scare late last year (which no one told me about, go figure), and dad had a stint put in his heart back in January (which I did know about). This "sense of mortality" has apparently lit a fire under Mom's ass to get me back home. But since I wasn't reacting to her passive aggressive hinting, she and step mom decided to go full crazy. My great uncle's health was bad, and he'd been asking about funeral arrangements for his sister (my grandma) for a while, so the moms decided to plan it. And use the event as a giant middle finger to me. They kept all the planning pretty hush-hush between the two of them, so no one on our side of the family actually knew about the funeral until like 2 weeks before. The moms said they'd invited hubby and I. No one thought anything about it. No one thought to mention, confirm, or check with me. The plan was to scatter the ashes, say a few words, and maybe head to town for lunch. It was a small affair. The mom's didn't even tell the family that our great uncle was coming for it. Like I said, it was a small thing. Barely a footnote. No one thought it was odd because we're pretty chill people. 4th of July happens. Hubby and I are out. No one thought to mention it, as we were all busy celebrating and having a great time. Any time the topic of "this weekend" would start, the conversation would be quickly shifted by one of the moms. We went back home. 8th of July happens. Great uncle rolls into town with a few of his kids, grandkids, and great grandkids, and it's a surprise to everyone (but the moms). Everyone drives to the maple grove and the moms have brought a ton of food and stuff. It's a full blown party. No one on my side noticed I wasn't there, because there were so many extra faces outside the usual group. They did the spreading of the ashes, they said their words, they ate, they had a great time. It wasn't until our great uncle left, and all his side left with him, that they realized I wasn't there. And hadn't been there. And this is where the crazy went up a notch. My brother says the moms were happy no one noticed I wasn't there. And that this was proof to everyone that I needed to move back because I was so easily forgotten about. Because none of them thought to reach out, right? They basically did a ton of guilt tripping manipulation bullshit and it made everyone upset at me for not showing up. Somehow it was my fault for being excluded. So suddenly everyone was on their side with "sticking it to me". But then a few months went by, and tempers cooled, and then I guess the horror of it set in. Followed by the shame, but by then they were "in too deep". How do you undo something like this? And since I hadn't brought it up, I guess they figured they would all just stay quiet about it and hope I never asked about a funeral. That's when I discovered the situation from my great uncle's Facebook and called my mom, who panicked and went with the stupidest solution. Claiming I was there. Don't I remember? I ended up talking with a few friends from high school, mentioning the situation, and word got back to those in town. So suddenly town gossip and little old church ladies got involved. Was I, or wasn't I at the funeral? Did my family forget to invite me to the funeral of the only grandparents I'd ever know? Or am I just causing a ruckus? My brother said they all just went with mom's answer. Of course they wouldn't forget me. Of course I was there. Of course they're good people. And it just snowballed. The family expected me to eventually fold. I'm usually a nonconfrontational person, so me sticking to my guns was unexpected. And then I missed Thanksgiving. And now Christmas. With no sign of backing down. And I guess the realization that I could just stop being part of their lives is setting in and my parents are panicking. He's tried just getting them to apologize and explain, but stubbornness prevails. They want to rug sweep, but I'm not letting them. My brother is upset with everything that's happened. He's realized just how crappy it all has been and he wants nothing to do with it anymore. But since he lives with my mom, he can't "get away from it". He has asked if he can come stay with us for a little bit. I spoke with hubby, and he's in agreement with me that my brother can come crash in our spare bedroom for as long as he wants. Brother works remotely, so it's no trouble for him to pick up and go. I believe he's making the trip today or tomorrow. Not entirely sure, but I expect crap to hit the fan when he arrives. On a side note, hubby's stoked that my brother and I made up. The two usually game together, but haven't due to "the situation". He's downstairs right now setting up his man cave in preparation for my brother's arrival. I'm happy to see him so excited.   Brother's Here - December 27, 2023 My brother rolled in late last night. He'd obviously been crying and when I opened the door, he just held me and sobbed. I'd never seen him like that before and soon both of us were just standing in the doorway crying into one another. He kept apologizing. Over and over again. Said he wasn't sure why he went with it. Just kept saying sorry. Hubby got him all set up in the spare bedroom while brother and I talked. My brother's a wreck. He's always been a big guy, but he's lost a lot of weight and his clothes just hang off him. If I didn't know better, I'd think he was on drugs. We talked for a little bit before bed and he re-explained everything for my husband. I'd told hubby the story, but it was just so weird that hearing it again helped. This morning my brother was up at dawn making some coffee and getting his work day going. Hubby's off all week (lucky) so hubby made us working folk some pancakes and bacon. So far everything's peaceful. We've decided not to answer any calls from our family. They've been made aware that he arrived safely, and that we are going to spend the New Years together, and that we're not answering any calls until January 1st. They may text if they wish. I'm sure they're losing their minds. Serves them right. Everyone, have a safe and happy new years! Don't drink and drive! ---- NEW UPDATE ---- Happy 2024! - January 2, 2024 I hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable holidays, and may the new year be full of joy and happiness! Not too much of an update. Things here have been quiet. My brother's settled in nicely and he's a great housemate. Our place isn't very big, but we have full basement and a nice outside patio/porch area so it doesn't feel crowded at all with the extra addition. He's a quiet and clean guy. No hassle at all. He got some fresh clothes from the Walmart, a haircut, and trimmed his beard, so he's more "presentable" now. He's a lady killer when he gets cleaned up. He's made nice with the (very nosy, but kind) retired couple next door and is adapting to "city living" nicely. Folks back home have been mostly well behaved. There's been a few texts back and forth, as we're not answering calls. Mom mainly wants to know when brother's coming back, but he's keen on staying here for a while. Mom said I can't "keep him" and I told her he's a grown ass man and can do what he wants. Brother says he has her blocked after she ORDERED him to return home. Brother has tentatively asked if he could stay long term, should he decide to, or at least longer than a usual visitor would stay. Which we're fine with. He has a good paying job and could afford an apartment, but he's never lived on his own and I would guess he has some anxiety about it. Should that be the case, he'll start paying us some rent and we'd probably adjust to give him the basement as his own space. RELEVANT COMMENTS TNTmom4: Where is the step-mom and stepdad in all of this? Have they reached out to apologize? OP if your WHOLE family each made a SM post FULLY ADMITTING what they did in deal would you forgive them? OOP: Everyone else has been pretty quiet about it. Step dad does what mom wants. End of story there. If she's holding firm, he's got her back. I'm guessing step mom is also still firmly on mom's side, because she helped orchestrate the whole thing. Which leaves my dad in a dilemma. Support the wife? Support the child? I'd HOPE he'd pick me, but I also understand that he might feel stuck. My aunt and uncle? Haven't heard much anything from them outside of the "Happy " texts. I think if they apologized. Truly, honestly apologized, I would forgive them. If they explained themselves, made an effort to show me that they're truly sorry. To work to rebuild, and not just stick their heads in the sand, I think I'd be okay with having them (marginally) back in my life. Hell, at this point, I'd be happy to receive a Hallmark card saying "I fucked up!" With the picture of a cat in an upturned laundry basket. Anything to just show me that they realize what they've done.   Latest Update here: BoRU #4   REMINDER - THIS IS A REPOST SUB – I AM NOT OOP submitted by /u/Choice_Evidence1983 to r/BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]

I am NOT OOP. OOP is u/justathrowaway282641 Originally posted to r/TwoHotTakes and her own page Previous BoRU NEW UPDATE MARKED WITH ---- My family forgot to invite me to my grandparents funeral, but they are convinced I was there. Trigger Warnings: death of loved ones, emotional manipulation, gaslighting   RECAP Original Post - Nov 14, 2023 I’m 30s F and caused a major blowup in my family and now none of them are talking to me. For background, my hometown is tiny (500pop) and when I went 2 hrs away to “the city” (15,000pop) for college, I loved it. I ended up staying after graduation, got married, and am happy here for a decade. I visit my home town every few weeks or so, call/text my family near daily, and thought we were all good. My family’s pretty small. Just my brother, mom, step dad, dad, step mom, and an aunt and uncle (mom’s siblings, never married, no kids). My mother's grandparents moved to my home town when I was in high school and were just down the street from us. My family has always been pretty drama free (aside from my parent’s divorce when I was a kid) and we’ve been happy. The step-parents were blended in perfectly and we share holidays and celebrations together. We’re all super close and just the perfect little group. Ever since I moved away, the topic of “when am I moving back?” is constant, and I’ve always laughed it off. My home town has nothing. You have to drive 30 minutes for milk and bread. 60-90 minute one-way commutes to work. And floods shut down the main road every Easter. I love the town, but I love here more. I have parks, stores, community events, a library! The “city” is great. My family grumbles that I need to move back, but I refuse. I've been trying to encourage them to come here, especially since it's not an hour drive to the nearest medical facility. Now to the meat and potatoes: both my grandparents passed over COVID times. They were both old and their health had been failing for a while so it was only a matter of time. Thankfully they didn’t catch it, but it made visiting them impossible and we survived mostly through FaceTime. They both passed in their sleep months apart. Both were cremated and kept securely under the kitchen sink for safe keeping while the pandemic blew over. That was 2021. Well, I just found out my family held a funeral for them and scattered the ashes in my uncle’s maple grove over the summer. No one said a word to me about it. I’ve visited numerous times before and after and not one word. I only found out because my great uncle from California posted on Facebook a few weeks ago that he is entering hospice and was so thankful his health stayed strong enough for him to see his little sister (my grandma) to her final resting place. I was confused and called my mom. She was all “Yeah, the funeral we had in July, remember?” Ya’ll, I visited them for the 4th of July. They did the funeral the 8th. Not a word about it to me. They had planned this for months. Long enough to arrange for my infirm great uncle to be brought over from the other side of the country. Apparently, they talked about it “all the time”. Everyone is convinced I was at the funeral. They SWEAR I was there. I can prove I wasn’t because Google’s got my location history. My hubby is baffled because he was supposedly there, too, but he had to work every weekend in June and July. Time clock doesn’t lie. My family straight up forgot about me. I’m hurt. I’m sad. And they’re pissed at me “for lying”. They think I’m causing drama over nothing. Nothing I say can convince them I wasn’t there. My family is united in this. And they’ve all put me “on read” until I admit I’m wrong. They think I’ve gone nuts. Either there’s a doppelganger of me attending events, or my family doesn’t want to admit they screwed up. I’m not backing down. Thanksgiving is coming up, and my family’s been vague posting on Facebook about “forgetful kids” and mental health. It’s so freaking weird and I don’t know if I’m in bizzaro world or what’s going on. My mom’s best friend reached out and said I should just admit I was wrong and apologize, that I’m causing my mom so much unnecessary stress. I asked her if she’s checked everyone’s home for CO2. She hung up on me. (We checked our CO2, and our testers are running just fine.) I have reached out to a few people in my home town to check in on my folks, and they all say they're fine. I even spoke with the local volunteer fire fighter group to see if they could check for gas leaks. Not sure if they were able to. I don’t know what to do. I’ve shown them the proof I wasn’t there, but they know I’m tech savvy and just assume I’ve Photoshopped it. Hubby says we need a break, and we’re going to be staying home this holiday season. Edit: I don't know the update rules, so I'll post updates to my profile should anyone want them.   RELEVANT COMMENTS teaandtomes: Yeah- they know they messed up big time and don't want to admit it. But they created this narrative to make themselves look/feel better and now have pushed it so hard that friends and the community are in on it. They might even believe it themselves at this point- it can happen. I agree with your husband. Take a break and decide what is best for you going forward (IOW, what can you live with and how much do you want them in your life given the gaslighting). So sorry- families can be difficult, especially with self-created drama. OP: That's kinda our thoughts. That they forgot, and don't want to lose face in the community. And now they've dug themselves in too deep to get out. If they truly do believe it, it scares me that they've all agreed to this delusion. squarziz: I feel like I need more info but not even sure what to ask. However to me it sounds intentional they didn't invite you, and were maybe hoping this would make you want to move home again so you don't 'forget' anymore family events? If anyone said something like 'well if you lived in town you would have known ' then that's the answer. It would also make me want to find out how everyone else was told about said funeral. Were they called? Texted? Emailed? Told at 4th of July? Maybe if everyone else was invited in person they did just forget to invite you, but even that he would seem kind of like a stretch if you do go back visit and call as much as you say. OP: I thought this at first, but it just seems so cruel and unlike them. They like where I live. Say it's nice and occasionally visit. I don't know how the event was organized, but I'm guessing word of mouth. Like I said, I was there just a few days earlier. We had a big meal and set off fireworks. Hubby and I had taken the 5th off and we left that evening after a lovely dinner and some board games. We talk all the time on the phone. My step mom calls me almost every night. Used to anyway. It's been a weird few weeks not talking to them. I get home from work, and start automatically pulling up someone to call, and then I remember. I usually talk to my dad every Sunday morning while we drink our coffee. Not having him call this week had me sitting outside in my usual spot and just...sitting? I don't know how to describe it. Felt kinda numb and weird. Hubby's been working on cheering me up. He's so angry at this whole thing. I'm afraid he's gonna just leave one morning, drive over there, and start knocking heads around. tropicsandcaffeine: The majority of the people if pressed would not remember you there. They just think that because no one remembers who is at a funeral. You are being gaslight by your parents. They do not want to admit their mistake. Just stay home and enjoy your own time. If anyone says anything tell them you can provide proof you were geographically elsewhere. There is no reason for you to lie. And ask them for proof you were there. Photos. Standing up to talk. Anything. They will not be able to do so. OP: I asked for photos. They sent me the one we took on the 4th of July a few days prior. When I pointed out the sparklers the neighbor kids had in the background, step dad just got testy about it. Now they've all just stopped responding to any of my messages and requests for proof, or my presenting of proof.   Update - Nov 27, 2023 Not sure how to do updates on posts, so figured I'd post anything on my profile. Folks have private messaged me and this will be easier I think? It's 11/27 and Thanksgiving just happened. Hubby and I stayed home. We got a small turkey and made our own little thanksgiving. It was nice. We ate around noon, then watched a movie, and later sat outside with a bottle of wine to watch the sun set behind the trees and neighbor houses. We usually take the day before off, drive to my folks, stay the night, and help with the Thanksgiving Day cooking. So it wasn't until Wednesday night that my mom broke the silence. Mom called and asked when I was showing up, and I told her we were staying home this year, but for them to have a happy Thanksgiving, and to give the rest of the family my love. She was quiet for a long time after I said that, and I think she eventually mumbled an "okay", or something, and hung up. It wasn't an angry hang up. Just a hang up. On Thanksgiving day, I sent a group "Happy Thanksgiving!" gif to our family group chat. I received a few "happy Thanksgiving"'s back. No one's said anything else. There's been no posts on Facebook.   ---- NEW UPDATES ---- Update #2 - December 12, 2023 So, I think I mentioned in one of my comments that my dad and I usually talk on the phone every Sunday morning. We're both early risers so we'd chat over our morning coffees and watch the sunrise. Him and I haven't really spoken since this all went down and it's been tough. I'm used to talking to him, you know? Well, I was sitting outside in my usual spot, watching the sun rise and freezing my butt off, and he called me. I'm not entirely sure how to describe the emotions I felt. It was a mix of panic, hope, terror, happiness, and dread. I ended up answering because I just had to know what he wanted. It was an awkward conversation. He didn't address the current "drama", but instead tiptoed around the situation with all the grace of an cow on stilts. For instance, a simple "How are you doing?" Type question was answered with a "Not good." And the whole conversation would stall out for a bit because he knew why I wasn't doing well. So we ended up talking about the weather, the various winter birds we'd seen in our feeders, and the Christmas decorations around town. Things like that. Eventually he asked if we were coming out for Christmas, and sounded sad when I told him we weren't. He asked if him and step mom could come visit us instead, and I told him it wasn't a good idea this year. That hubby and I were going to spend a quiet holiday together. I let him know he should be receiving some gifts at his PO Box any day now, so to please pick them up from the post office and put them under the family tree for everyone. He said he'd ship ours to us as well. And that was pretty much it. No crazy drama to report. The only posts on Facebook have been the usual Christmas excitement ones, countdowns, photos of Santa, silly gift ideas, photos of company Christmas parties. On a personal note: Hubby and I are doing alright. Our health is good, our spirits high, and we're as solid as ever. We each got Christmas bonus' at our jobs, so we're excited about that. They're not large, but we're happy to have them. We have also done advent calendars for the first time ever. I got him a Lego one, and he got me a hot chocolate one. We're going to do the calendars again next year. Maybe make a tradition out of it. Everyone please have a safe and happy holidays.   RELEVANT COMMENTS CHA0T1CNeutra1: I'm curious, was your dad also gaslighting you about the funeral? In your other posts it sounded like it was your mom's side. OP: Yes, dad was as well. Mom and step-mom were the ones doing most of the talking, but dad was on their side and pushing the same narrative. That being said, I think he'll be the first to "break", for lack of a better word. He's already texted me a few pictures and "good morning" type texts since our call. Tomorrow's Sunday, and I feel as though he'll call again. I hope he does, but also kinda don't. It's a weird feeling. No one else has reached out.   Inheritance – December 16, 2023 I've received a lot - A LOT - of messages and private DMs urging me to check into inheritance and such. I'm really touched a lot of Internet strangers are worried about me and I wanted to ensure everyone that inheritance is most likely not an issue here. I'd almost be relieved if it was, because then it would at least make some sense. Money does weird things to people, you know? No one in my family is wealthy by any means. After my grandparents' passed, their small estate was used to pay for their end of life expenses and remaining assets split up. Everyone directly related got an equal split (so excluded my dad and the step parents). I don't remember the exact amount I received, but it was around $5k if I recall. My brother gave me his share, too, so I could finish paying off my college debt while the interest freeze was active. The great uncle from California has kids and grand kids, and great grandkids of his own, and also isn't wealthy. I think one of his kids makes good money doing something in finance, but I'm not entirely sure. I can't imagine he left us anything, as we hardly knew him. My mom, aunt, and uncle only met him a few times in their lives, and my brother and I even less. Grandma and him were close, but I don't think he liked my grandpa much.   DISCLAIMER: OOP HAS UPDATED AFTER THE BoRU WAS POSTED SO PER RULES UPDATE IS INCLUDED   ---- NEW UPDATES ---- Christmas - December 25, 2023 I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I've received a lot of support through my posts and I'm really grateful. Writing these updates have had a therapeutic effect. Yesterday was Sunday, but I didn't answer my dad when he called. I just really didn't feel up to a pointless chat, so let it go to voicemail. He tried to reach me a few times throughout the day, but I didn't answer. Our bestie last minute invited us over to his house for Christmas day lunch (today), so husband and I were busy all Christmas Eve making cookies, peanut brittle, and homemade suckers/hard candies for his kids. Mom tried to reach out as well, but I also ignored her calls. We had a BLAST at lunch! Our friend's kids are a lot of fun to be around. They got some techy presents from their grandparents (Quest vr headset and steam decks, lucky little rascals) Friend and his wife aren't good with tech, while hubby and I are, so we helped get them set up while our friend played a good host to his folks and inlaws. The grandparents didn't realize that a Steam deck required a Steam account, so we got the kids all their own accounts set up, added them to our steam friends lists, and gifted them some games. We also bought them a few VR games for their headset, and they were off to the races with Beat Saber in no time. As for my folks: My brother texted and asked if we could talk sometime tomorrow. I think me ignoring mom and dad has caused some kind of upset. Which they deserve.   Brother’s call - December 26, 2023 Spoke with my brother over the phone this morning. For starters, he apologized for everything. Him and I are good (for now). For a bit of background, my brother and I are only 2 years apart. There weren't a lot of kids around growing up, so the two of us were often stuck doing stuff together. So we have a lot of shared interests and passions. He's been pretty silent on this whole matter, but still "part of the group", if you know what I mean. I think the thought of losing him out of my life was probably the most painful, because he's always been there. He was my rock until I met my husband. He's definitely a Mama's boy, though, so anything mom wanted, he made sure she got. I'm happy to have him back. Without further ado, here's the story from the horse's mouth: Mom apparently had a cancer scare late last year (which no one told me about, go figure), and dad had a stint put in his heart back in January (which I did know about). This "sense of mortality" has apparently lit a fire under Mom's ass to get me back home. But since I wasn't reacting to her passive aggressive hinting, she and step mom decided to go full crazy. My great uncle's health was bad, and he'd been asking about funeral arrangements for his sister (my grandma) for a while, so the moms decided to plan it. And use the event as a giant middle finger to me. They kept all the planning pretty hush-hush between the two of them, so no one on our side of the family actually knew about the funeral until like 2 weeks before. The moms said they'd invited hubby and I. No one thought anything about it. No one thought to mention, confirm, or check with me. The plan was to scatter the ashes, say a few words, and maybe head to town for lunch. It was a small affair. The mom's didn't even tell the family that our great uncle was coming for it. Like I said, it was a small thing. Barely a footnote. No one thought it was odd because we're pretty chill people. 4th of July happens. Hubby and I are out. No one thought to mention it, as we were all busy celebrating and having a great time. Any time the topic of "this weekend" would start, the conversation would be quickly shifted by one of the moms. We went back home. 8th of July happens. Great uncle rolls into town with a few of his kids, grandkids, and great grandkids, and it's a surprise to everyone (but the moms). Everyone drives to the maple grove and the moms have brought a ton of food and stuff. It's a full blown party. No one on my side noticed I wasn't there, because there were so many extra faces outside the usual group. They did the spreading of the ashes, they said their words, they ate, they had a great time. It wasn't until our great uncle left, and all his side left with him, that they realized I wasn't there. And hadn't been there. And this is where the crazy went up a notch. My brother says the moms were happy no one noticed I wasn't there. And that this was proof to everyone that I needed to move back because I was so easily forgotten about. Because none of them thought to reach out, right? They basically did a ton of guilt tripping manipulation bullshit and it made everyone upset at me for not showing up. Somehow it was my fault for being excluded. So suddenly everyone was on their side with "sticking it to me". But then a few months went by, and tempers cooled, and then I guess the horror of it set in. Followed by the shame, but by then they were "in too deep". How do you undo something like this? And since I hadn't brought it up, I guess they figured they would all just stay quiet about it and hope I never asked about a funeral. That's when I discovered the situation from my great uncle's Facebook and called my mom, who panicked and went with the stupidest solution. Claiming I was there. Don't I remember? I ended up talking with a few friends from high school, mentioning the situation, and word got back to those in town. So suddenly town gossip and little old church ladies got involved. Was I, or wasn't I at the funeral? Did my family forget to invite me to the funeral of the only grandparents I'd ever know? Or am I just causing a ruckus? My brother said they all just went with mom's answer. Of course they wouldn't forget me. Of course I was there. Of course they're good people. And it just snowballed. The family expected me to eventually fold. I'm usually a nonconfrontational person, so me sticking to my guns was unexpected. And then I missed Thanksgiving. And now Christmas. With no sign of backing down. And I guess the realization that I could just stop being part of their lives is setting in and my parents are panicking. He's tried just getting them to apologize and explain, but stubbornness prevails. They want to rug sweep, but I'm not letting them. My brother is upset with everything that's happened. He's realized just how crappy it all has been and he wants nothing to do with it anymore. But since he lives with my mom, he can't "get away from it". He has asked if he can come stay with us for a little bit. I spoke with hubby, and he's in agreement with me that my brother can come crash in our spare bedroom for as long as he wants. Brother works remotely, so it's no trouble for him to pick up and go. I believe he's making the trip today or tomorrow. Not entirely sure, but I expect crap to hit the fan when he arrives. On a side note, hubby's stoked that my brother and I made up. The two usually game together, but haven't due to "the situation". He's downstairs right now setting up his man cave in preparation for my brother's arrival. I'm happy to see him so excited.   Brother's Here - December 27, 2023 My brother rolled in late last night. He'd obviously been crying and when I opened the door, he just held me and sobbed. I'd never seen him like that before and soon both of us were just standing in the doorway crying into one another. He kept apologizing. Over and over again. Said he wasn't sure why he went with it. Just kept saying sorry. Hubby got him all set up in the spare bedroom while brother and I talked. My brother's a wreck. He's always been a big guy, but he's lost a lot of weight and his clothes just hang off him. If I didn't know better, I'd think he was on drugs. We talked for a little bit before bed and he re-explained everything for my husband. I'd told hubby the story, but it was just so weird that hearing it again helped. This morning my brother was up at dawn making some coffee and getting his work day going. Hubby's off all week (lucky) so hubby made us working folk some pancakes and bacon. So far everything's peaceful. We've decided not to answer any calls from our family. They've been made aware that he arrived safely, and that we are going to spend the New Years together, and that we're not answering any calls until January 1st. They may text if they wish. I'm sure they're losing their minds. Serves them right. Everyone, have a safe and happy new years! Don't drink and drive!   Latest Update here: BoRU #3   THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP submitted by /u/Choice_Evidence1983 to r/BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]

I am NOT the Original Poster. That is u/sci31123. He posted in r/relationship_advice. I replaced letters with names. Trigger Warning: false underage sexual assault allegations; mental health issues; Mood Spoiler: the healthiest ending for OOP, but no closure Original Post: July 17, 2023 I first posted this on 'relationships' and it got autoremoved and I got no answer when I tried to get them to check it manually. Please note that NO ONE involved is under 18 anymore and the situation DID NOT involve sxual abuse. That's the whole point. Hi, I've never had an account on Reddit before, but someone on another forum linked this subreddit and I've been reading some stories. If this is the wrong subreddit, please let me know. Also english is not my first language, so bear with me. It's pretty much like the title says. I just feel so lost on what to do. This is tearing up wounds and old rage is building again. Let me give some backstory. I've grew up in what was probably the most normal of normal households. Parents worked a lot, but still managed to care for me and my 3 older sisters. We were never super close as a family, but never had any issues either. Same goes for my extended family. They always lived a few hours away, but we saw each other during summer holidays or christmas and always got along great. But when we got older we naturally grew apart as everyone had their own lives. I'm 31 now. In 2014, when I was 22 and attending Uni, I got a phone call from my mother that turned my life upside down. I remember I didn't even answer at first, because I was gaming with friends. But she called again immidiately after the first call. This was an unwritten rule in the family. If you call twice like that, it's important. Like someone died-important. So when she called again, I excused myself and answered, only to hear chaos in the other end. Like people were arguing. But when my mom realized I had answered, it sounded like she went to another room and closed the door. I just asked what was going on and I heard she was crying. My memory of this conversation is a bit blurry, but she basically asked me if I had something to confess to regarding "Eve". Eve is my cousin on my moms side and is 7 years younger than me, 15 at the time. At that point I hadn't even seen Eve for several years. I just said no and asked what this is about. She just cried even harder and started accusing me of sxually assaulting Eve back when we were children. That Eve had told everything to my sister, and that my sister told my mother and my aunt. Eve had told them that back when she was 9 (and I 16), she'd been playing in my room when I came in and started feeling her under her clothes and kissing her. My mother screamed at me to say something, but I couldn't even speak. It was all so absurd. I remember thinking that must be some bad joke. The last thing I remember saying was that it's not true and that E is lying. But then my mom goes on saying that how Eve gave such a detailed description of where and how. Then she kept asking something like "did you do this?! did you do this?!" and I just scream back at her "no!" each time. It all ended with my mom putting me on speaker and both my mom and dad saying that they don't want anything to do with me and never to contact them again. Two of my sisters texted me later that day, pretty much saying that I'm disgusting and then blocked me. I know it's weird, but after that call I went to have a long shower. To this day I still don't know why I did that. After calming down, I started calling and texting everyone, even Eve. No one answered and the ones who hadn't blocked my number by then quickly did so. The only thing I heard back was from my father who texted me to stop contacting them and that they need to heal. That was 9 years ago and I haven't spoken to anyone in my family since that day. To say this f*cked me up is an understatement. I was living in a haze for weeks after that and hardly ate at all. It didn't help that this was right before I was supposed to defend my bachelors thesis and was already stressed out. Luckily my co-writer sensed something was up and saved me by controlling the conversation so that I got the easy parts. Without him I sure I would've failed. Needless to say, no one came to my graduation. Then started the worst period of my life. I spent the first year expecting the cops to knock on my door and arresting me for sexual abuse. I didn't land any jobs, just living off my saved money. I drank a lot and did oxy. I also grew resentful and violent. The only reason I didn't hurt anyone is because no one was around. My neighbour called the cops on me once after I had smashed a glass, but I managed to convince the officers that I had just dropped it, and they went away since there were no others inside my apartment. Instead of sleeping, I spent my nights planning how I could hurt Eve and make sure no one ever found out. Even thinking how I could actually do the things she'd accused me of, but much worse. (I know, I'm not proud of that) I landed my first "real" job in my field in late 2015. Only then did things start to improve. I focused all my time on my job, as it gave me something "normal" to do. Recovery was a slow process, but I drank less (sober now for 4+ years) and smiled more. I lived cheap and earned good money, so I made a point of buying myself a nice gift for my birthdays, a VR headset, a motorcycle, Lego etc. And last year I moved from my shitty apartment and bought a small house. It was an old dream of mine to have my own garage and a garden to care for. This has boosted me even more. So my life is "OK" now. I still got problems. I've been on anti-depressants for the last few years and while they help, it's not in a happy way. They simply remove the dark thoughts and replace them with dead ones. My trust in other people is close to non-existent. I've tried dating, but only been on two dates with two different women. It's really hard to speak like a normal person when it comes down to it. And what would I tell a potential partner when she ask about my family? "Oh you know they accused me of a heinous crime and we're not talking anymore. But I didn't do it, I swear!" My field is very male dominated, so the only woman I really speak to is my therapist, who I like a lot. If this text was difficult to follow, I apologize. I'm not good with words on the best of days, and I started rambling a bit when it all came back to me. It's already getting long so I will fast forward to my current issue. A few days ago, I received a text from my mother. It felt unreal and I was scared to open it at first, so I just stared at the notification for hours before opening it. Yesterday, another text followed. Translated, they basically say: Text 1: Hi, It's been so long since we talked. We miss you and want to know how you're doing. submitted by

I first posted this on 'relationships' and it got autoremoved and I got no answer when I tried to get them to check it manually. Please note that NO ONE involved is under 18 anymore and the situation DID NOT involve sxual abuse. That's the whole point. Hi, I've never had an account on Reddit before, but someone on another forum linked this subreddit and I've been reading some stories. If this is the wrong subreddit, please let me know. Also english is not my first language, so bear with me. It's pretty much like the title says. I just feel so lost on what to do. This is tearing up wounds and old rage is building again. Let me give some backstory. I've grew up in what was probably the most normal of normal households. Parents worked a lot, but still managed to care for me and my 3 older sisters. We were never super close as a family, but never had any issues either. Same goes for my extended family. They always lived a few hours away, but we saw each other during summer holidays or christmas and always got along great. But when we got older we naturally grew apart as everyone had their own lives. I'm 31 now. In 2014, when I was 22 and attending Uni, I got a phone call from my mother that turned my life upside down. I remember I didn't even answer at first, because I was gaming with friends. But she called again immidiately after the first call. This was an unwritten rule in the family. If you call twice like that, it's important. Like someone died-important. So when she called again, I excused myself and answered, only to hear chaos in the other end. Like people were arguing. But when my mom realized I had answered, it sounded like she went to another room and closed the door. I just asked what was going on and I heard she was crying. My memory of this conversation is a bit blurry, but she basically asked me if I had something to confess to regarding "E". E is my cousin on my moms side and is 7 years younger than me, 15 at the time. At that point I hadn't even seen E for several years. I just said no and asked what this is about. She just cried even harder and started accusing me of sxually assaulting E back when we were children. That E had told everything to my sister, and that my sister told my mother and my aunt. E had told them that back when she was 9 (and I 16), she'd been playing in my room when I came in and started feeling her under her clothes and kissing her. My mother screamed at me to say something, but I couldn't even speak. It was all so absurd. I remember thinking that must be some bad joke. The last thing I remember saying was that it's not true and that E is lying. But then my mom goes on saying that how E gave such a detailed description of where and how. Then she kept asking something like "did you do this?! did you do this?!" and I just scream back at her "no!" each time. It all ended with my mom putting me on speaker and both my mom and dad saying that they don't want anything to do with me and never to contact them again. Two of my sisters texted me later that day, pretty much saying that I'm disgusting and then blocked me. I know it's weird, but after that call I went to have a long shower. To this day I still don't know why I did that. After calming down, I started calling and texting everyone, even E. No one answered and the ones who hadn't blocked my number by then quickly did so. The only thing I heard back was from my father who texted me to stop contacting them and that they need to heal. That was 9 years ago and I haven't spoken to anyone in my family since that day. To say this f*cked me up is an understatement. I was living in a haze for weeks after that and hardly ate at all. It didn't help that this was right before I was supposed to defend my bachelors thesis and was already stressed out. Luckily my co-writer sensed something was up and saved me by controlling the conversation so that I got the easy parts. Without him I sure I would've failed. Needless to say, no one came to my graduation. Then started the worst period of my life. I spent the first year expecting the cops to knock on my door and arresting me for sexual abuse. I didn't land any jobs, just living off my saved money. I drank a lot and did oxy. I also grew resentful and violent. The only reason I didn't hurt anyone is because no one was around. My neighbour called the cops on me once after I had smashed a glass, but I managed to convince the officers that I had just dropped it, and they went away since there were no others inside my apartment. Instead of sleeping, I spent my nights planning how I could hurt E and make sure no one ever found out. Even thinking how I could actually do the things she'd accused me of, but much worse. (I know, I'm not proud of that) I landed my first "real" job in my field in late 2015. Only then did things start to improve. I focused all my time on my job, as it gave me something "normal" to do. Recovery was a slow process, but I drank less (sober now for 4+ years) and smiled more. I lived cheap and earned good money, so I made a point of buying myself a nice gift for my birthdays, a VR headset, a motorcycle, Lego etc. And last year I moved from my shitty apartment and bought a small house. It was an old dream of mine to have my own garage and a garden to care for. This has boosted me even more. So my life is "OK" now. I still got problems. I've been on anti-depressants for the last few years and while they help, it's not in a happy way. They simply remove the dark thoughts and replace them with dead ones. My trust in other people is close to non-existent. I've tried dating, but only been on two dates with two different women. It's really hard to speak like a normal person when it comes down to it. And what would I tell a potential partner when she ask about my family? "Oh you know they accused me of a heinous crime and we're not talking anymore. But I didn't do it, I swear!" My field is very male dominated, so the only woman I really speak to is my therapist, who I like a lot. If this text was difficult to follow, I apologize. I'm not good with words on the best of days, and I started rambling a bit when it all came back to me. It's already getting long so I will fast forward to my current issue. A few days ago, I received a text from my mother. It felt unreal and I was scared to open it at first, so I just stared at the notification for hours before opening it. Yesterday, another text followed. Translated, they basically say: Text 1: Hi, It's been so long since we talked. We miss you and want to know how you're doing. submitted by

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