Woman Finds Out that Boyfriend Has Been Using Her Struggles to Grow His ‘Self-Help’ Social Media Page

Romantic partners are supposed to be safe places to land, especially when life gets overwhelming. But for one woman, opening up to her boyfriend during burnout ended with her private pain becoming public content.

The Reddit user, who works in healthcare, shared that she went through “a full-on burnout,” complete with panic attacks, constant exhaustion and crying in the shower at 6 a.m. before work.

She’s 27 and has been with her boyfriend for three years. At first, he seemed like the perfect support system: cooking for her, picking her up from shifts and reminding her to drink water and rest.

Around the same time, he started a small mental health TikTok account. In the beginning, his posts were harmless and wholesome — motivational quotes and clips of their cat. Then, one night, she heard something that made her stomach drop.

He had recorded and used a metaphor she’d shared during a very low week — that she felt like “a used up phone battery that never fully charges again” — and turned it into an inspirational voiceover. In the video, he captioned it, “my girlfriend taught me this and it changed my life.”

After that, she noticed a pattern. He began asking her deeper, more personal questions when she was clearly struggling. Later, those same phrases would appear in his TikToks. He never used her name, but as his videos gained traction, people around them started to connect the dots.

A coworker even pulled her aside to ask if she was okay because “that TikTok sounded exactly like you.”

When she confronted her boyfriend and said she felt “exposed,” he brushed off her concerns. He told her she should be proud that her words were helping others and accused her of overreacting.

Instead of feeling appreciated, she felt like she couldn’t “vent to my own partner” without worrying her pain would show up in his next viral clip.

Now she’s wondering if this is something they can fix by setting firm boundaries, or if the fact that he’s “using my worst moments as material” is already a dealbreaker.

Many commenters urged her to leave the relationship, pointing out how unhealthy it is when someone’s success depends on another person’s suffering.

“Your personal health and struggles are just that — personal,” one commenter wrote. “You have every right to want them personal. I would struggle trusting someone with my deepest thoughts, knowing there’s a good chance they’ll end up on their public social platforms.”