alluringinure

[alluringinure]

HELP MY SISTER ANIYAH AFFORD HEARING AIDS!

hi yall i am jaqueline and i live with my 25-sister aniyah. when she was in 6th grade she survived a drive by shooting, but unfortunately suffered some major hearing loss as a result.

two days ago we went to an audiologist (who is wonderful), and she got diagnosed with moderate-severe conductive hearing loss.

aniyah’s hearing loss has a significant impact on her speech, social access, and overall quality of life. along with her hearing loss, she has what’s called recruitment.  this is when someone gets a headache when hearing loud noises. which means not only does she struggle to hear, but she also can’t have things too loud or she gets SICK. after her audiology evaluation, it was concluded

 the pair of hearing aids that would best support her needs is around $5,000,   which won’t be covered by insurance.

we’re blessed to have supportive friends & family who are contributing all they can, but it falls short, and we still need to raise $1500 for the remaining cost.  

PLEASE PLEASE help if you can!!! any bit will be immensely appreciated. 

$0/$1500

cashapp: $jaquelinelewis paypal:  paypal.me/jaquelinelewis

[alluringinure]

rant - “staring at the ceiling and waiting for this feeling to go away”

TW: self harm, depression, anxiety, self hate

My doctor wants me to see a psychologist. She thinks I need to see someone else to get mental health assistance, and I haven't even told her most of it. All she knows is my anxiety and/or OCD. I got so bad before diagnosis that I couldn’t breathe. I spent everyday short of breath, and the moment I got stressed, I would be gasping for breath at all times. I often get so stressed I feel like vomiting, and I can’t get myself to calm down. I want to get help, but it feels so hard. 

I can’t sleep, and when I finally do, I sleep too long. I have not slept before 6:30am more than a day or two a week for the last few weeks, and I can still wake up after only three hours, then I still can’t go back to sleep the next night. Sleep feels like the only time I feel comfortable, nighttime is the time I feel the most at peace, but is also the time I am the most sad. It is an oxymoron, I am sure, but that is the only thing that feels correct to me. 

I have almost fully neglected my health issues. I have so many issues, but I can’t bring myself to even take my medications. What the fuck is the reason for having them if I don’t take them? I don’t fucking know. Migraine prevention is all I can get myself to take, and only because it is impossible for me to function without it. I am no longer taking my anxiety medication. I know I need to, but I just never can just make the active choice to do it. What the fuck is wrong with me? Why am I not doing the things I can to help myself? Why am I such a fucking mess?

I have stopped going to the grocery store except with my boyfriend. I almost never eat anything before dinner time, if I do it's a small snack at best. Maybe some saltines, or a bag of chips if my boss offers it to me. Monday, all I ate the entire day was some saltines, two slices of stuffed crust pizza, and a single breadstick. Any day I work, the most I eat before work is a small snack from Dunkin’ on my way in. I live with a close family to me, and the only “rent” I pay is just because it covers the things they share with me (food, shared household things, etc). I only eat actual meals if I decide to stop after work for dinner, or if they cook dinner. My boyfriend buys me food too, but I cannot bring myself to care about whether I eat any actual meals anymore. 

TW : Self harm

I keep getting set off into downward spirals constantly. Any negative comment, even as a joke, sets me off into days long sadness. One negative comment and I go into a spiral of self hate, destroying my skin with my nails, a precision knife, hitting myself. Why can’t I just be normal? Why do I need to fucking punish myself when I feel like I have done something wrong, or when I am so sad I just need to make the pain physical to help me distract myself? 

[alluringinure]

depression rant - “hey, what’s up, you useless fuck?”

TW: depression, self hate, anxiety 

I have been constantly listening to Inside, because as sad as it sounds, I feel so connected to the songs about his mental health. To quote Bo Burnham on how I feel about myself and my motivation currently, I, “Look in the mirror and say, ‘what’s up, you useless fuck?’“ Pretty much all of “Shit” describes how I have felt for so long now.

I feel like I am constantly just stuck. I love language learning, but I feel so stuck trying to study more. Why do I feel like this? I want to study so badly but I have no motivation to do literally anything. How do I get out of this motivation slump? I am so frustrated with myself because I struggle to do literally anything productive. 

I have noticed lately that I have started to just stop being able to think about my life without feeling like things aren’t real. I will think about how I am in a relationship, and I can’t bring myself to understand that I actually am. I go from being normal when I think about things, to suddenly thinking about how there is no way that I am actually with my boyfriend, things that I did over the last few days don’t feel real. I feel like I am daydreaming about what I would have wanted to have been doing. 

Nothing feels real. I go from normal, to feeling so disconnected from myself that I can’t accept that parts of my life are real. I so often wake up and just nothing feels real, everything seems wrong. I always just forget that things are supposed to happen, I feel like I lose track of the days and time. This never used to happen, but now I wake up thinking it is a different day and get anxious that I missed important events. 

I can’t get myself to do anything I need to do. I spend as little time as possible doing well in my summer classes, I can barely convince myself to even fully unpack after spending the weekend with my boyfriend. I almost always just swap out things before going back. Laundry? I can’t bring myself to do it until absolutely necessary, and I often leave clothes out that need to be put away until I have already done a second load.

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I tried to tell my mom about how my health is, and what my doctor told me. she instantly started talking about my cousin and acted like i did not say a word, and i tried to bring it up again, and same thing: instantly talks about something else.

she always asks about this stuff but the second I respond she changes the subject. why would you ask, if you really don’t care?

[alluringinure]

tw depression, anxiety/ocd?

for the last 3+ years, I have never been able to sleep in my bed without showering. I have always had issues with contagion, washing my hands to the point of bleeding, having like i’m still dirty no matter how much I wash after touching certain things, etc.

one thing in particular is getting in bed. before I moved from my mom’s house, I had to shower if I sat anywhere outside of my room. I could not get in bed if I hadn’t, I had to sleep in the floor, on the couch, etc. if I even just sat on the couch I had to shower. solid surfaces were “safe”, kitchen chairs, the coffee table, etc. sitting on these surfaces is still more comfortable than cushioned chairs mostly because of this anxiety.

now, it has changed into where I go in the house. if I sit on the couch, I can sometimes get back into my bed. if I leave the house at all, even just to a gas station up the road, I can’t get in bed. I physically can’t get myself to do it, I feel like i’m going to contaminate it. if I DO decide to give in and sleep in bed without showering, I have to wash the bedding I touched. I always avoid sleeping how I normally do (under comforter (not sheet), with a blanket(or 2) around my upper body, and on pillows in some way. I do this so I do not have to wash ALL my bedding, because my blankets don’t directly touch me much usually other than my arms, but they’ll be contaminated if I do when I haven’t showered.

i am only home 4 nights a week. I know that i should not struggle this much with sleeping in my bed. I can wash my bedding, that’s normal; but I CANT.

sometimes, this can be a good thing. I often can’t bring myself to have the motivation to do things I need to (like shower, wash laundry, etc), but this compulsion can help. if I want to be in bed, I need to shower. if I want to be in bed but refuse to shower, welp gonna need to do laundry. when i’m at my lowest and don’t have the desire to do anything I need to, the compulsions I have against contamination, helps me to have at least something driving me to do what I should.

I hate how stressful this makes me, how I have to often sleep on the floor, but I also hope I don’t fully get rid of the need because I can’t afford to not have this motivation either.

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some “jokes” don’t feel like jokes but yet you’re the asshole if you say something against it . shit sucks

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when you touch something that bothers you and you can just,,,feel it after. even if you wash your hands it just won’t go away

doesn’t matter if it’s actually gross or not if I touch things I don’t like the feeling of I can just Feel It after

[alluringinure]

playing a fun game of “do my clothes actually feel wrong or am I just being crazy” featuring my clothes, freshly washed, which all feel weird to me for some reason and now I want to peel the skin off my fingers after I felt them a lot to see if it was genuinely “wrong”

[alluringinure]

OCD is not a fucking adjective to describe a neat/organized person

i know this has been said but before but for fucks sake describing anyone who is very neat and particular about messes as “being OCD” makes me so damn angry for so many reasons.

1. saying “being OCD” shows that you clearly know jack shit about OCD. People are not “OCD” they HAVE OCD. Saying this is like saying “they are being anxiety”.

2. it undermines the difficulty that comes with this condition. wanting things to be very neat and getting annoyed when they aren’t is nothing compared to having such bad anxiety that you wash your hands until they bleed, or have anxiety attacks if you cannot complete a ritual. Or having thoughts that are unwanted and feeling like a terrible person because you can’t stop the thoughts you have.

3. similar to number 2. but it adds to the stigma that OCD is not that serious, and that it’s just “aha I like my things to be organized this way, i’m so OCD about this !” OCD can be extremely hard to deal with. it can effect so many parts of your life and simplifying it to this makes people not take it seriously and act like someone with the condition is dramatic for the things they deal with.

to summarize my thoughts as I want to :

dont fucking contribute to the stigma. OCD is not some thing to describe neat people. you are undermining the real struggles people face and it hurts the people who are struggling. so many people don’t take OCD seriously and it’s because so many people throw it around and talk about it like it’s a quirky personality trait. a mental illness is not an adjective you can use to describe someone that just likes being neat and organized.

this rant is inspired by the day i’ve had, where my friend’s parents joked about him being OCD about the house being neat, and then my mother referring to at least 7 people we know as “being OCD” because they are concerned about COVID and like their houses to be clean and organized and dislike clutter. fuck that noise i’m stressed.

[alluringinure]

OCD

may 23

this is a vent mostly, but if you do read this and have anything you think of what I wrote, please feel free to message me in any way and i’d love to talk to someone who knows what I’m feeling. it doesn’t even need to be advice, but mutual venting and discussion is welcome.

I really appreciate anyone who takes the time to read through any of this.

My whole life has been spent knowing that I very likely have OCD. Some of the earliest memories I have is relating to the anxiety I had over certain rituals, and my parents’ responses over them. At the age of 8, I used hand sanitizer in such excess in class because I constantly felt like I needed to clean them. I’d find any reason I could to go to the teacher’s desk to get hand sanitizer. I knew it wasn’t normal to use it so much, but the urge was so strong and I got nervous if I couldn’t do it. It wasn’t just hand sanitizer, but it was washing too. Constant washing and sanitizing isn’t good for your skin, especially in winter. My hands would crack and bleed, and it hurt a lot but I could not stop. Before lunch, my teachers are would have us line up to use hand sanitizer before lunch, but I had to be given special permission to wash my hands in the bathroom before lunch everyday. Because washing my hands normally was preferred over the alcohol in my already cracked skin. My teachers were advised to not allow me to use it too often, because it was seen as a clear issue by them.

A common issue in OCD is numbers. For me, I have specific number rules. All odd numbers are okay. I like odd numbers bc there is always a clear median number. Math was always stressful to me in a way that other subjects weren’t, and I believe it was due to the involvement of math. I enjoyed finding the median, but I much preferred doing it with odd numbers. there was always a clear median, such as with {3, 7, 11}. There is always a clear middle number, instead of needing to average. Exceptions to this rule are multiples of 10, and numbers that have a pattern repeat numbers (11/22/33). I also have to count in odd numbers of odd sets. What I mean, is when I do a ritual, I must do it an odd number of times. If I take 3 sips of water but pause, I have to do another set of odd numbers (say 5), then another odd set (say 1). I do this with everything I do. I count when I drink water, when I grab paper towels, etc. I hate this because there are so many things that I know are wasteful about this but sometimes the stress outweighs my conscious about this. Numbers feel like they ruin my life because I get stressed if I only take 2 sips of water, or if I have to pick between eating only 1 thing of food when 3 is too many instead.

Another one of my issues was my bedroom door. I do not know where this started, but it went on for as long as I can remember prior to moving out. I had to constantly make sure that my door was closed. It was sometimes as simple as just pressing it to see if it was closed. Anytime I was near the hallway to my room, i’d have to go check. If I tried to leave without it, i’d start feeling panicky and it would not subside. I could go at least an hour without shaking the panic. As the panic over it grew, so did the length of the ritual.

I started to have to open my door, close it a very specific way, and if it did not feel right, i’d have to repeat. If I repeated it 2 times, I had to do it a 3rd. I can’t do even numbers. I’d do it over and over, everytime I was in or near the hallway. I would avoid going near the hallway to avoid the inevitable stress that I would have over this.

Sensory issues in another. I smell things that no one else notices, clothes sometimes have a weird feeling of just disgust and it’s like my skin crawls when I put it on. The smell of lots of clothes has me panicking if I have to wear them, and I had anxiety attacks getting ready for school in my bedroom trying to convince myself that my uniform shirt, which was clean, was not dirty and should not feel wrong like it did. Clothes, which smell and feel perfectly fine on other people, I cannot bring myself to wear. No matter if I perfume the shirt or if it has any smell to others, it’s unbearable to me. I can’t handle certain things on my skin. Most lotions I can’t stand feeling to the point i’ll wash them off immediately. I am working on this, but it’s so hard to do. Any oily feeling on my skin makes me want to scrape my skin off to avoid the feeling.

One that causes significant impact in my life is my bed. I have had issues sleeping in my bed since I was a kid. I have sleep issues in general, and a lot of anxiety relating to sleep. I cannot sleep in my bed without having showered immediately prior. If I even just leave my room and go to the living room and sit in there, I feel revolted to get in my bed. I get nervous and can’t sleep if I try to convince myself it’s okay. I sleep on the floor frequently because I don’t always feel up to shower, and the floor is fine. I have designated blankets that I only use in my chair in my bedroom, and on my floor. My “floor blankets and pillows” are just blankets that i use exclusively when napping or sleeping on the floor, as the name suggests. It’s a known thing in my household that I have these.

There are so many others that I haven’t discussed, such as intrusive thoughts, and much more. Many involve thoughts of harming myself, and I often have thoughts of harming myself to get rid of certain triggers , which is irrational thinking but it doesn’t stop the thoughts from coming.

I feel judged so often over the things that I struggle with that are visible. I am too embarrassed to talk about these things, and I don’t want to seem like i’m faking. I have so many issues as is and I don’t want to make people think i’m doing this for attention. I want to seek treatment, and my primary doctor suggested I see a psychologist for testing and potential treatment, but it feels so daunting. I don’t want to tell anyone I want treatment, so many of my issues are internal or behind closed doors, and the ones that are obvious are written off as me just being dumb. How do I seek help, when the cost is so great? I want to feel better but I can’t avoid the treatment I need to do so.

I don’t know what to do from here. I want help, I know I need it, but I can’t afford it. I can’t afford most of my health issues, so I have to just deal with them. I can’t do anything but wait around and hope it doesn’t get worse before I finish school and can get better insurance than my parents insurance. My family does not take my issues seriously and it feels impossible to improve in any way from here.

[alluringinure]

[alluringinure]

it hurts to be the friend that is “easy to pick on” and also easy to hurt. it’s easy to cover how words effect you but allows for the comments to continue, on and on. many friends have a dynamic that allows for jokes, for teasing jabs that are meant in good fun, but it seems to be the one who can “take a joke” that is most hurt by them.

my friends don’t mean harm by it, but it feels that they do just the same. I don’t want to exist and my self doubt allows for the words to hit deep. they shouldn’t, they never used to hurt, but being so low and already so hurt it feels inevitable that their words will penetrate the shell I try to maintain.

their teasing comments about being annoying, too talkative, having too much of an appetite, hurt so much but it feels wrong to say so. I have always been the one who could take a joke without offense, so why now is it so painful to hear them?

[alluringinure]

I found the coolest mac app for deaf/hoh music lovers!

It’s called Hearing Corrector and it’s $11.99, but it’s worth every cent. 

Basically you put in your audiogram info. Then you load a song. Then you hit calculation and save the song. And the converted song is tailored to your hearing loss. I boosted the equalizer to maximum for my profoundly deaf right ear, though it’s a lifesaver on both sides. Anyway, I highly recommend it. 

[alluringinure]

hate me today

march 20, 2021

3:05am

I resent the person that I am. I cant help but to hate everything about me. I talk too much, I am too needy, I am too easily hurt. I cant stand up for myself, I instantly assume someone no longer likes me the moment they seem slightly upset with me. I want to change, I want to be someone else. The ideal me is so different, it would be impossible to become her.

She would be quiet, calm, and tough. She would be someone people thought of as someone who is kind and caring, but with a strong presence. Someone who people wouldn’t think of as soft, someone that people look at and think they are talkative.

Despite the positive things others say to me, I can’t get past the bad. I am described as caring, intelligent, friendly, easy to talk to, good at comforting. But I am so filled with self hate that the only things I can see is that I’m too talkative, I am annoying, I am needy, I am anxious, I constantly need reassurance that I am cared for.

It is like everything about myself has flipped as I have gotten older. I so often wish that I could just leave my life behind. I want to change things about myself so badly that I wish to pack up my things and move somewhere completely new, where no one knows me, and cut all ties to the life I once lived. The thought of doing so causes a deep longing in my heart that hurts to think about. I just want to be a whole new person, change my name, do anything possible to make myself feel different. But I can’t do it. I would be judged by those around me, and I can’t handle the judgement.

So I will just sit here, listening to my favorites playlist, unable to sleep and feeling a deep longing for a life that does not even exist. My heart hurts, because I hate myself. I do not hate the people in my life, but the me that lives in it.

[alluringinure]

Homesick

November 11, 2020

9:15pm

I used to always believe that being homesick could only be for a place. My little mind always thought that to be homesick, you had to just miss being at your home. But something I soon learned is that you can be homesick while lying in your own bed. It’s this feeling of longing for that home like feeling, which isn’t for everyone found in a physical place. I learned from meeting you that being homesick, can be for a person too. I never truly felt homesick before because I had never felt so at home anywhere in my life. I would lie in bed at night, feeling like I was in a strange place I had never been before, where the only place I truly wanted to be was with you. A house will never truly feel like home until its one where I am living with you.

[alluringinure]

writing: love, fear, and growth

November 9, 2020. 6:18pm

I have always loved writing.

I have been writing since I was young. I have memories of times when I was just a child when I would be in the car, writing a story that I had been imagining. I would get pencil and paper, and just pour out the images I had in my head onto it. I did not do this through drawings, but through my words. No one told me to write at this age. I chose to write down these stories because they were all that i could think about, all that ran through my mind. I wanted to show to others what I had imagined, and the way I knew how was through my words. I used words as an instrument in the way that an artist would use a paint brush. They were the means to share my thoughts with the world and I loved it. It was my greatest passion, something I wanted to make a future out of. I wrote everything from stories to poems, short and long. All I wanted was to write and be able to do something with that passion. I took writing classes, entered contests, wrote for my school newspaper. I did everything I could to practice, and just do the thing I loved. I received encouragement from teachers, friends, and family. I won’t lie and say I was a fantastic writer, but I enjoyed writing and others said they enjoyed reading it. Many people in my life said to make it a career, and that was my dream, but --

I became scared.

I became scared that I would never amount to anything. I became scared that those around me were lying, only saying the things they did because it was what they wanted me to hear. It didn’t matter then that I always did well on any writing assignment I was given, or that I was known at my school for me being a writer, or that my entire family knew me as “the kid with the active imagination who likes to write and tell stories”. To me, all I knew was that I was afraid to fail, and afraid to embarrass myself. My fear became a limiter, I became too scared to share my work with those around me, even those who supported me throughout the entire time I knew them. It didn’t matter to me that all those I loved were there to back me, all that I could think about was the fear of failure that overwhelmed me. My greatest fear in life is not amounting to anything and not succeeding. I don’t need to be famous for my writing, or even be a published author, I just want to share what I write without constant fear of not being good enough.

So, I am choosing to grow.

I am choosing to write again, with the intention of sharing my work. It may not be good, and it may not be paid attention to, but it is something I enjoy. It is something I can do for myself that can make me happy. I am actively choosing to push aside my fear and choose to be better for myself. This is a type of growth I need to do before it is too late, and I have wasted so much with fear that I never got to create the things I always dreamed of. I am not the person child-me imagined. I’m sure she always dreamed I’d be writing full length novels, maybe even be published somehow. I’m sure she’d be disappointed, but I can’t change that now. But i can actively choose to set aside my fear and work towards that dream that she had, and hopefully someday be the writer she always thought I’d be.