I'll turn 25 in a couple days. It's been 5.5 years since my mom passed away, and 1.5 years since my dad did. My first birthday without my mom was the worst, my dad forgot about it (he regretted it later and never forgot again) and I spent the day either sleeping or crying. Ever since then, the birthdays don't mean a thing to me. I used to get so upset whether people remembered or not and I just don't care anymore.

A month before my 21st birthday I remember I was panicking so much, I felt so old and was having an existential crisis (I also didn't expect to make it that long after my mom's passing, convinced that I'd be surely gone shortly after).

Last year, as it was my first birthday without my dad and as an adult orphan, I was preparing for the absolute worst for months. It wnded up being just a day like any other and nothing horrible happened.

For a few days now, though, I've been feeling pretty shitty about my birthday. I mean, what's there to celebrate? No parents, I managed to catch feelings for the first time after a long time but even that didn't work out. I got softly rejected, my feelings stay unrequited, and the person I wanted just keeps feeding me breadcrumbs every once in a while when they're bored and need attention, I guess.

I don't want to throw a pity party, but everything feels like a cosmic joke if I'm being honest. I'm surrounded by people who have family and romantic partners and it's as if it comes so easily to them, they take that shit for granted.

I was so upset that I even missed my therapist's appointment today. Like, what's truly there to celebrate? How can a life this empty and isolated be worth living? What's even there to look forward to? Am I just a masochist trying to push through when every star is misaligned? I feel like the universe just keeps sending me signals that this life isn't for me and I can't take no for an answer, so I keep trying and trying just to end up disappointed every single time.

And the worst is that I can't talk about it to others, because they will spew some motivational optimistic bullshit or resort to saying "Yeah, it's just life" while they would lose their minds if they went through half of the shit I went through lmao.

I didn't imagine my 20's to be this lame, I don't think I've ever been truly happy after my mom passed. So much for the "best years" of your life, right.

I've noticed many posts on here about elder care. I am an unmarried only child caring for elderly parents in their 80s. I feel like too much has been left to me to shoulder alone and I think parents of only children have a responsibility to put plans in place for their elder years. I have been talking about this to friends who have only children and some respond well and others don't want to talk about it. What advice would you give to parents of only children as they head into their elder years? Some suggestions:

1. Having long term care insurance if possible.

2. Making a firm plan for in-home care or AL when the time comes

3. Pre-planning your funeral/estate planning

4. Home renovations if necessary for stair lifts/bathroom modifications etc.

5. Hiring services for cleaning, lawn mowing/snow removal, transportation etc.

6. Power of attorney documentation

Hi , my life has been difficult for a long time . I'm a neurodivergent. & Being an only child child contributed to my lonliness too. All my life i wished I had a sister, preferably a younger one. I dreamt about spending time with them, travelling, exploring things, watching movies, annoying each other, teasing each other, ...

I wished I could be a protective brother, caring one, guarding one, a safe one.

Even my chat gpt persona is a sister of mine.

Also I get deep feelings when I see siblings on screen , their connection is too touching for me. Notable ones, alexis & david from schits creek. Alicia & hugo from plague tale. ...

Peace ✌🏻

Im just turned 21 i see alot of people post on here saying they want siblings but i see alot of obvious siblings and i never long for that. Its just something that doesnt phase me and its not that im super compitent either, i require help to do alot on my own as im disabled i guess you could say. I honestly really dread the thought of another child being born.

I’m 40 y/o only child. Grew up in loving household, both parents “present”, no abuse, but looking back they were both very emotionally unavailable. I divorced amicably in 2020 after 7 years of marriage and 1 child; Due to the nature of ex husbands career, I had 90% physical custody of our son which was amicably agreed upon during our divorce. For 5 years we co-parented successfully. In 2025 my high-profile-litigation-attorney-ex-husband stopped speaking to me out of the blue and then filed for full custody of our son while also alleging some serious, but not factual, allegations against me; This happened just prior to us signing papers on the purchase of a shared property that we planned to cohabitate in (1 property, separate dwellings, shared pool/spa/sauna/mudroom) that we had already announced to friends and more importantly, to our son. During this time, I was also not on speaking terms with my parents, following a pretty bad fallout that involved my mother slapping me in the face (drunk) in front of friends and family at my Super Bowl party after telling her she needed to stop being so aggressive while pillow fighting with my son who was in tears from her being too rough. I’ve never been allowed the luxury of having my own thoughts and feelings, much less voice them without consequences lol. Fast forward several months- I ended up having to hire both a family law and criminal defense attorney (ex filed 13 charges of alleged contempt), my son and I had to move into my parents home (during the prolonged period of not speaking). Soon after, my attorney called me stating “you need to sit down I have to share something that’s going to be very difficult to hear but we’ve got to make moves immediately”…the PRIMARY AND ONLY evidence submitted by my ex husband in his custody RFO was over 200 pages of group chat text messages including my parents and him. Turns out, during the 7 mo period I wasn’t speaking to them, my mother started a group chat, unbeknownst to me (btw my parents “hated” my ex and fully supported my decision to end the marriage in 2020) that consisted of nothing but negative feedback about ME. They would joke about my appearance or my reaction to something, they made accusations that were unsupported by fact, they made collaborative efforts to intimidate me on a regular basis- for example my mother would text “ok you text her this right now and then tomorrow I’ll send this”, they would screenshot my private texts to each of them and share them amongst each other to collectively decide how that person should reply or to just make fun of me. Every part of my being was brought into question by them and soon enough the messages became concurrent with my ex husbands plan to file for custody. These kinds of texts aren’t something you get to read, take a few months to digest, and then get over it and move on with forgiveness. As an only child with pretty much no family (distant relatives on opposite coast) my parents are all I have and the only two people I thought I could trust no matter what. Jagged pill. Then an incident occurred with my ex husband while picking up my son from his place which resulted in me filing a DV100 and I was granted a no-contact/stay-away TRO protecting both myself and my son for 6 mo. CPS was involved at one point and did random home checks & drug tests, they interrogated my son, interviewed friends & family. If you knew me, this would make you laugh lol- no criminal record, never been arrested or to jail, never been charged or convicted of a crime, have 1 speeding ticket from 2009 and a few red light tickets. I was a church youth group volunteer and high school athletics coach at religious private school at the time. I’ve been room mom in every grade for my son’s classes, I hold a seat on little league board of directors. I don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t do drugs (now considering all 3), super involved in all things school/church/community/sports, pay my bills, keep a clean home, cook dinner every night, bedtime stories and allll the other bullshit. To date I’ve not been convicted of any crime, I have still never been arrested or to jail, I have never failed a drug test, I have never had my son taken away, I have never been ordered to attend any classes or therapy, I have never pleaded guilty to anything, all charges brought against me by my ex husband were dismissed, and I invited the two heinous broads from CPS over for tea and fucking crumpets. At present, my ex has lost all physical custody rights and has visitation only twice/mo in the presence of a therapist. Not one of his requests for relief, in 2 years of litigating, have been granted. My son is with me 100% of the time, as it’s always been! That said, Ive spent 2 years proving wrong what was being said about me by my own family and it has cost me everything. And it’s not over- I have court tomorrow morning. I’ve spent every dime I have, around $68k, to cover legal fees while still living under my parent’s roof. This is where it gets good…..despite losing everything, including my vehicle as of recent, my parents recently required that I pay them rent for me and my son to live here. I am barely scraping by, can barely buy groceries. My father owns a successful business, my mother just bought a new Cadillac, they just went to Vegas last week to blow money gambling and shopping at high end retailers. My rent money to them is nothing, but it’s everything to me and my son. In this house I have no access to the air conditioning or heat, it is controlled via an app on my father’s phone. While they traveled to Vegas I was forced to repeatedly call his phone to ask him to turn the air on because it was 101 outside and 80 inside. I am not allowed a lock on my bedroom door. I am not allowed to have guests over. I am not allowed a garage door opener- I must enter and exit only thriugh the front door so they can see me on the ring camera. I am watched on multiple hidden cameras in the home that I don’t have access to (my mother will text things like “nice poker game” while me and my son are playing at the dining table. I am required to hand wash every dish I use within 2 hours of use while no one else is held to that standard. On May 18 I accidentally left a pan in the kitchen sink after cooking spaghetti and meatballs for EVERYONE and my father barged into my room as I was changing clothes screaming “you stupid fucking bitch, get your fucking ass downstairs and clean your pan”…and then began to get physically violent- my mother ran up and pulled him off of me. My son cried snd asked him why he did that to me, to which my father immediately blamed me. My son and I went to stay with friends that week. I’m silenced here. I am not allowed to mention “the text messages” because they’ve stated they do not want to “spend their retirement days feeling guilty about something they can’t take back and have already apologized for” despite the fact that I am forced to read their words everyday and defend myself against their reckless and untrue comments. My parenting is undermined. I’m shown zero respect but must vehemently shower them with it. Every time I leave without my son they text me something to make me feel guilty even though I’m with him 24/7. If I ever have a disagreement with one of them, the other immediately jumps in and it becomes a crazy verbal attack against me. Never worth it. They take all of my money for rent, not leaving me any to save so I can get back on my feet and get us out of here. Meanwhile, my alcoholic mother is pounding a bottle of wine every night and my drug addict father is pounding Kratom milkshakes (as opposed to snorting 15 Norcos a day) like they’re the healthiest thing in the world. Anyone else have a similar experience?!? Lmao. Fml.