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People rally around woman who ghosted friend after his husband's sudden death

"This was a catastrophe..."

via Liza Summer/Pexels and Canva/Photos

A woman upset she's not talking to her friend.

A woman’s social media post begs the big question: How far should someone go to put themselves out for a friend after they experience a traumatizing situation together? It all began when a woman made friends with her neighbors, Eli and Leo, a same-sex married couple. However, she began to distance herself from Eli after a while because he was “selfish” and “not a very good friend.”

One day, as she was leaving the house to go shopping, she received multiple calls from Eli that she didn’t pick up. He then texted her, “Leo just passed. Please answer.” She rushed home and saw an ambulance in front of the apartment building. When she got to Eli’s apartment, she saw Leo lying dead on the floor with Eli hugging him, sobbing inconsolably.

“They were watching TV when Leo suddenly got up and said he has pain in his chest, then collapsed. Paramedics came and pronounced him dead. They said we now have to wait for the police,” the woman wrote on Reddit. “We were waiting like this on the floor—Eli sobbing and hugging Leo’s body, and me hugging Eli—for almost 2 hrs. Then police came, and we sat on the couch right in front of Leo for another few hours. I did my best to stay calm and collected and help Eli. Many hours later, they took Leo away.”

ambulkance, heart attack, health care, emergency, ambulance driverThe back doors of an ambulance.via Canva/Photos

Eli asked the woman to call and tell Leo’s parents, who didn’t know that he was gay or married. They didn’t believe her. Eli’s cousins came over for a while and then left. “I stayed till late night, ordered food, cleaned, etc. We watched TV under the same blanket I used to cover Leo’s body. I didn’t sleep that night,” the woman continued.

Over the next few days, Eli kept calling the woman, asking her to come over, but she told him she was “sick” because “the thought of entering that apartment makes me shake.” The incident was so traumatic for the woman that she has made an appointment to see a therapist. “I feel deeply affected by what happened. I keep seeing flashbacks. I’m afraid to leave my apartment because I’m afraid to run into Eli. I was already depressed and I’m so so lonely,” she wrote. “I feel so guilty for ghosting Eli in this horrible situation when his whole world collapsed.”

upset woman, sad woman, trauma, woman staring at floor, brunette, woman on couchAn upset woman with her thoughts.via Liza Summer/Pexels

She asked the online forum if she was in the wrong for ghosting Eli, and just about everyone supported her choice.

“No, dear, [it’s not your fault]. This was a catastrophe, and you are in crisis and need help. What happened to you was very traumatic, and you are traumatized; you need to find help from your loved ones (or professionals, if those resources are available to you) to heal from this. You can't draw water from an empty well, and in my opinion, you should only consider assisting Eli in ways that contribute to or at least don't completely derail your recovery. You've already been more help to them than anybody else has. You can't keep anybody warm by setting yourself on fire. I'm so sorry this happened to both of you, what a horrible, tragic experience and loss,” the most popular commenter wrote.

“His husband just died, and you were kind enough to help him through the immediate aftermath. It does suck that he doesn't have a support system he needs, but you don't either,” another commenter wrote.

via Canva/Photos

The only person with a problem with how the woman handled it believes that she needs to give Eli a reason why she isn’t responding to him. “[You’re in the wrong] for ghosting him without explanation. That only makes things worse. You are emotionally drained and do not have the bandwidth to support him. That is completely fine. You just need to communicate that fact to him,” they wrote.

Ultimately, the commenters believe the woman did the right thing to stand by Leo’s side, even in the most disturbing situations, and she deserves praise for her kindness. In the comments, the woman wrote that she has no support, so the positive response, even by a Reddit forum of strangers, has to have made her feel some relief at a time when she is so traumatized.

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Fatherhood

Dad who grew up poor perfectly explains why it’s so hard to shake the poverty mindset

Even when you're doing well, the mindset never seems to go away.

via Blake Kasemeier, used with permission.

Blake Kasemeier and his children.

A video created by Blake Kasemeier has made a lot of people feel seen because it perfectly explains the mindset people develop when they grow up poor. But it’s not just about remembering the hard times of the past. It describes how even though Kasemeier has overcome poverty as an adult, the effects of growing up financially disadvantaged still follow him to this day.

Kasemeier tells stories on social media about parenting, grief, growing up, and where they sometimes collide. He documented the loss of his mom in the 2019 podcast series Good Grief and has written for some of the world’s leading health and fitness brands.

The video begins with Kasemeier admitting that when he was young, he'd always save half of his food until he got home "just in case." It was a symptom of living in a financially unstable family with a single mother who had him at 23 years old. To help them get by, she occasionally wrote "hot checks" at the grocery store and blasted a Counting Crows tape to cover up any scary sounds coming out of the car.

Even though sometimes it seemed like they wouldn't get by and it was “close most days” — "moms always find a way."

The video ends with a poignant stanza about the lasting effects of growing up in an economically unstable home.

“It sits inside of you. Kinda like a worry but a lot like a flame,” Kasemeier says. “These days, we are doing alright. Maybe the fire finally went out, but there is a part of me that will always taste the smoke.”

"The thing about being born rich or, rather, not poor, is that when you are broke, it feels like you are a tourist on a bad trip. A place that you don't belong," Kasemeier continues. "The thing about being born the other way around, is that as hard as you work to escape it, it's always gonna kinda feel like home."

The post received some emotional reactions from people on Instagram.

"I feel the last sentence is the most profound of this video—and the underlying sense of entitlement many have vs the underlying sense of lack of self-worth others may have," one commenter wrote.

"Tasting the smoke is a great way to put this. Growing up this way really makes you look at some of your frugality and not norm habits in a new light. Hard to relearn," another added.

Even though there were hardships growing up in an economically disadvantaged family, Kasemeier wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I am deeply grateful for the way I was raised,” he told Upworthy. “Unfortunately, everyone experiences some trauma in their upbringing—I wouldn't want to trade mine for someone else's. I grew up to be grateful for what I have and without a feeling of entitlement to success: I expected that everything that came to me was going to come through hard work and being kind to people and that has served me very well. It also allowed me to have a great deal of empathy for what everyone is going through.”

Kasemeier further explained the mindset to help those who weren’t raised in that environment better understand the mentality.

“I can tell you that what I experience is a feeling that the other shoe is going to drop, that when I'm up (financially), I don't expect it to last—that leads to a lot of imposter syndrome,” he told Upworthy. “There are little things—like constant anxiety that your card will decline when you go to check out at a grocery store (knowing full well that you have more than enough money). There are big things, like financial literacy.”

The video talks about economic insecurity, but is also touching tribute to his late mother, who, as he said in the post, "found a way.”

“She came from a tiny farm in rural Arkansas, moved to Hollywood where she met my dad and had me at 23 without a degree or any connections,” Kasemeier said. “They had a shotgun wedding and divorced shortly after, my mom was left to navigate parenthood in a pretty challenging way—something I appreciate so much having kids of my own at a totally different place in my life than she was.”

If you or someone you know is experiencing poverty, check out these resources to get connected with organizations and support.


This article originally appeared last year.

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Identity

Gay dad has the perfect response to a 7-year-old child who called gay people 'the devil'

“I'm sorry but if you teach your kids to hate I'm going to teach them to disobey you."

via Mick Haupt/Unsplash

A child looks really upset on a playground.

Robbie Pierce, his husband, Neal Broverman and their two young children were traveling on an Amtrak train in California in 2022 when they were harassed by a fellow passenger at a stop in San Jose. Broverman is the editorial director for print media at Pride, The Advocate's parent company,

"All of a sudden, there was a man standing there next to me," Pierce told The Advocate. The man told their son, "Remember what I told you earlier. They stole you and they're pedophiles," Pierce recounts. The man also said that gay people are abominations.

The police were called and the man was thrown off the train, but the incident was a frightening reminder that gay families could be the target of bigots, even in liberal Northern California. "It's a new level of homophobia out there," Pierce added.

Seven months later, Pierce’s son was the victim of harassment, this time from a child at a park. "A random unattended 7-year-old at the park told me and my son that gay people are the devil,” he recounted in a viral X thread. "My son scoffed, but the boy said it was true because God said so."

Pierce reacted to the boy’s hatred — which he probably learned at home — with his own lesson. “I told him parents made up God to make their Kids do what they want. His eyes got so big,” he wrote on X.

Addressing complex issues like religion and sexuality with a young child, who’s a stranger, is a tricky needle to thread, so Pierce admits he had some reservations about his response. But he stands by his decision.

“I'm sorry but if you teach your kids to hate I'm going to teach them to disobey you," he wrote on X.

As someone who has been harassed by religious, homophobic people in the past, Pierce took the opportunity to help steer a young child away from hatred. At the age of 7, most children believe whatever their parents tell them. However, Pierce planted a seed in the child’s mind that may one day encourage him to challenge his indoctrination when he gets older.

The vast majority of commenters on X agreed with Pierce’s response to the child’s comment.

However, some people thought Pierce’s response to the child was inappropriate.

No matter how one feels about Pierce’s reaction, what’s clear is that there is something very inappropriate about a 7-year-old child openly harassing LGBTQ families. The unfortunate problem is that this type of hyper-religious upbringing can cause lasting emotional and psychological trauma to a child. And it’s a common problem. A recent study in the growing field of religious trauma found that 1 in 3 Americans suffer from trauma related to religion at some point in their life.

While we might be quick to dismiss the child’s behavior as innocent or simply as a symptom of growing up in a religious household, the more we learn about religious trauma, the more these children appear to be the victims of abuse.


This article originally appeared last year.

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Family

Couple turns heartbreaking pregnancy loss into funny TikTok video that's surprisingly healing

The video is captioned, “When your resignation from being DINKS is denied.”

Photo credit: Canva

Humor can help us talk about the stuff too painful to open up about.

When we are grieving, there are moments of tears, and moments of laughter. Each is healing in their own special way, and are all part of the process.

This might not at first seem to apply to something as devastating as pregnancy loss, but one couple’s comedy video, and the overwhelming positive response that followed, suggest otherwise.

Husband and wife and content creator duo Alexandra Madison and Jon Bouffard are no strangers to creating funny skits about the regular goings on of their lives—one of their most popular being inspired by becoming pregnant.

In the clip, the couple arrives at “DINKS” (“Dual Income No Kids”) Headquarters, where they proudly hand off their resignation letter to a curmudgeonly office worker.

Cut to a few months later, and Madison and Bouffard lost the baby.

Madison told Today that while she and Jon had certainly experienced something “traumatic, heavy and sad,” there was a point in their healing journey where moments of joy were beginning to return, and they wanted to honor that without feeling guilty. They decided that making a lighthearted follow-up video showing them both might do the trick.

In the video, titled “When your resignation from being DINKS is denied,” Madison and Bouffard once again barge into the DINKS office and snatch up the application handed over in the previous video, since clearly that application was rejected. And as MAdison put it, “we don’t handle rejection very well.”

“We never thought we would be here making this follow-up to our first video resigning as DINKS, but here we are, “ Madison wrote in the video’s caption.


@alexandramadison_ We don’t handle rejection very well here 🙃 Jon and I have always posted skits inspired by what's going on in our lives, and that includes this one. We never thought we would be here making this 'follow-up' to our first video resigning as DINKs (Dual Income No Kids), but here we are. And that's life. Real life. There are ups and downs, and along the way, I've discovered that a little (sometimes dark) humor brings moments of relief. This post is a small part of that journey, a reminder that it's okay to give ourselves and each other permission to laugh again. We can’t thank you all enough for your continued outpouring of support. And to all the couples who had their DINK memberships renewed, did you turn your nursery into a wine cellar? We haven’t…just asking.
♬ original sound - Alex and Jon


“And that’s life. Real life. There are ups and downs, and along the way, I’ve discovered that a little (Sometimes dark) humor brings moments of relief. This post is a small part of that journey, a reminder that it’s okay to give ourselves and each other permission to laugh again.”

The video picked up speed very quickly, racking up nearly 8 million views. But more importantly, it seemed to be extremely cathartic for other partners who found themselves in similar situations.

“We were denied twice before our application finally went through,” one peronse wrote.

Another added, “We were denied three times (3rd application denied late stage) before our application was accepted/ The granted application is currently sleeping in his bassinet.”

Still another commented, “dark humor is the only thing getting us by these days.”

Others were moved by Madison and Bouffard’s willingness to be so open about their experience.

“I laughed…and then I cried. Thank you for sharing your journey…all of it. This is a vulnerable place to be and you guys always show up amazingly.”

Another echoed, “God bless you both for not being silent about this matter but sharing these hard times with us. We love you very much.”

Madison and Bouffard might have been concerned that they were being “insensitive” by making their video, but the support they’ve received has subsided that fear. After all, many therapists consider humor as a perfectly viable coping mechanism for trauma. It helps make tough things easier to digest and discuss, and it can help painful experiences feel a little less lonely. Which is what this couple accomplished. Hopefully it continues to help them heal a little more each day.

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