My Fiance won't stop masturbating. We've been together for a year and a half. In that time, we've had sex at least twice a week, average. And he has been able to finish only a handful of times. I have begged him to stop. Tried to explain to him how awful I feel when I can't make him finish. Nothing works. Today, we had a big fight about it. Because he told me, yet again, he hasn't stopped. He tried to compare the fact that I cannot finish during sex to him not being able to. He makes me finish every time we attempt to have sex, it isn't vaginally but it still makes us both feel good. He was mad at me for not having the ability to finish while he is inside me. Something I can't help, something out of my control. He thinks that is the same despite the fact that this wouldn't even be an issue if he would just stop masturbating. Claims that if I can't, its okay that he doesn't even though it makes me feel awful knowing he is just going to do it later. We are getting married, planning our life together. What if we can't have children because we can't have sex? What if we end up resenting each other because of this? Am I wrong or crazy to think that something has to be done?

Rightio, guys! Welcome to my world! It's great in here, albeit the landscapes may appear a little cerebral and neurotic sometimes. I lead the fine young life of an Irish student. Yes, student life is... well, chaotic. Effective organisation is always precluded by the necessities of student life (i.e. sleeping erratic hours, inconsistently meeting inconsistent deadlines, and an all-round simultaneous lack of planning and spontaneity). I am doing what I love (that's binge-reading on metaphysics and critical theory and writing highfalutin essays on it all), and even if it doesn't make me happy, that's okay, because I'm doing the right thing with my life right now. Clarity helps.

Happiness (whatever it is) is a thoroughly overused term these days. Why on earth should I be happy just because I have everything and my life is pretty darn good?! 'Erm... perhaps because you have everything and your life is pretty darn good...?' This is called circular reasoning, a logical fallacy. In fact, the entire pursuit of happiness in itself is both illogical and pointless. For a fact, nothing makes me happy. Ought I be stricken now by an avalanche of guilt? Not really. It's okay to feel whatever you feel and it is absolutely ridiculous to feel what someone else (or society, in fact) tells you to feel, because that's even more absurd that not feeling good, when life's good. In fact, the pursuit of happiness makes people depressed, because it's cheating logic and breaking down the faculties we rely on to make clear distinctions between things!

I like my life. I don't like my depression. I live life with depression. I do not live a depressed life. When I am really depressed I am not living my life, but this has nothing to do with my life and everything to do with my depression. It is important when I am very depressed to never wish my depression to end, because this would mean ending my life. And I like my life. It is much more likable than my depression. It only makes sense to say, then, that I like my life more than I can ever dislike my depression, because depression requires life in order to exist and wishing my life to end because it will end my depression is completely absurd, because it denies the origin of depression, which is not life, but absurdity. Yes, depression is absurd, but life is not and in order to affirm what is true and meaningful (i.e. the fact that depression is absurd) we must affirm life.

Of course, it may appear to be problematic when philosophers say that life is absurd and melancholia is a natural reaction to the absurdity of life. This may be true (and if it is it becomes difficult to distinguish depression from life), but even these philosophers find a way of affirming life, even if only in spite. For Camus, absurdity must be affirmed because our lucidity is the basis of all that we have. According to him, we must continue to push the boulder up the hill knowing it will fall back down, because acknowledging the pointlessness of this task liberates us to accept it. For Kierkegaard, it is defiance: rejection of help or escape which gives us strength to be our own and endure. For Nietzsche, life, suffering and all the tragedy in the world must be relished in order to rise above the adversity of slavery and become masters of ourselves through strength and creativity.

I was diagnosed with AvPD and SAD and I was wondering if anyone has a horrible problem with eye contact and being touched?
I have never been able to make eye contact unless I absolutely felt like it was necessary so that I didn't seem rude.
I can't make eye contact with my dad no matter what and I can barely make eye contact with my mom.

I also have a hard time dealing with being touched. When someone accidentally touches me, I literally cringe. I then feel like I need to go wash whatever part they touched me. I can't be touched by my dad because it just feels horrible! If he touches me, I feel like I'm going to cry. I'm okay with my mom touching me SOMETIMES, but she doesn't want to touch me because she has issues of her own.
I just hate being touched so much. Hugs and hand shaking are horrifying for me.
I want to get over this, but at the same time I just really don't want to ever be touched.

Hi, this will be my first post on here and I really need some advice or help and I’m beyond desperate. My mother is a shoplifter, and I’m only a teenager and I’m the only one in the family that knows and I’m scared to go anywhere with her because I know she will steal items.

So basically since before I can remember, my Mom would steal things. Mainly it was groceries (she would get plastic reusable bags and bag everything up in an empty aisle and walk out looking like she payed) and I remember watching her do this when I was around 5 and not realizing it was stealing. I didn’t realize until i was around 7. She wouldn’t just steal groceries tho, she would steal perfume, lotion, makeup, shoes and other goods. This is where it gets a bit complicated, after doing this for years, she got caught around 2years ago and was put on house arrest, I am the only person who knows that she has ever shoplifted/ that she was on House Arrest. At the time, she told me she had a disorder and was going to seek treatment, but she never did. After she attempted a fake 2 minute apology for years of emotional distress, I sort of forgave her. I know it seems impossible but deep down inside, i wanted to believe that she just made a mistake and that everything was going to stop. And for a little bit, it did. I didn’t really see her take anything and I thought she was better, until she started again. One day we were at the store and I saw some stuff she stuffed into her purse and I couldn’t take it and ran out of the store into the car. She then came into the car after finishing shopping, and flipped out. She kept on pressing me to tell her what made we leave and sorta came off scary when she began listing off random reasons I ran out, (Did you see your crush? Did something happen on Instagram? Etc) then she got this overly confused (and sort of scary) exaggerated face and went, “is it because of ME?” I just kept on saying no to everything she said cause I didn’t know what else to say. Things have just gotten worst from there, one time I was in the store with her (cause she manipulated me to go with her I didn’t want to) and I was walking behind her and she started getting REALLY mad at me for no reason. She said “stop stalking me you weirdo” and “go find this random thing, NOW”. I just walked a few feet away and I kept my eye on her and she went into an empty aisle and shoved some stuff into her purse. When we were waking out the alarm thing went off and my heart sank but nothing happened, we just kept walking and no one realized. In the past months or so she has appeared with new makeup and luxury soap and lotion and all this crap, and she has come home with groceries in reusable bags, meaning she stole it. Recently she noticed I was getting extremely distant from her (and I think rightfully so),and we had “a talk”. after prying for ever, I told her it was because of her taking stuff and she took a FIRM position that she hasn’t taken anything since she was on House Arrest and that she only stole stuff in the first place because she was “desperate” and didn’t have money, however that’s a straight lie. We aren’t by any means super well off, but when she started stealing my Dad had a great job and we were going on vacations to Disneyland, Las Vegas and California. Not to mention my grandparents are relatively well off and would help us out if we really were that “desperate”. Anyways, she started pathetically crying SWEARING she hadn’t done anything, but I know for a fact she has. That night I went to a friends house and she sent me an angry text saying I was going to start showing her respect “and stop treating her like a thief” BUT SHE IS ONE. Now, we are in an awkward position, and it’s extremely complicated because she’s my mom and I want to love her and sometimes we get along sort of (it sounds crazy I know) but I’m starting to come to a breaking point. Thank you so much if you’ve read all of this.
I’m currently crying while typing this, it probably ...

[ Continued ]

My mom wants me to get rid of my scars...But i find i really don't want too. I don't not want to wake up and not see them there on my left shoulder, on my left wrist and my right hip bone. Sick? Very, i know. My own mom looked at me like i was crazy when i told her, which i probably am. No healthy person cuts themselves, that's obvious. Or at least in my case, used too.

I stopped cutting maybe a couple of months before high school graduation but it wasn't due to my mother finding me out. Instead my boyfriend did and made me promise to never do it again, cutting my mother to the punch line. My mom found out a month after him, i believe. She didn't believe me when i told her i stopped, so i gave her the scissors i used to hurt myself. That was my second step to stopping i guess. My third had to be when she got me medicine to take away the scars...but now on the fourth step, actually putting the stuff on, i'm stuck.

I've put it on once or twice but not religiously. I hate the idea of them not being there. They give me comfort and make me feel better. Am i wrong in wanting them there?