#I honestly like looking at the two disorders as being on sort of a spectrum

[alpydk]

So BPD/EUPD (my essay)

I said I'd make a post - Not BG3 related in any way, so ignore if you're not interested in that. - Warning it's long. -

Also TW (sui, s/h, MH...etc...)

BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder) / EUPD (Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder)

I only got diagnosed in 2022 - late for most who get this, but looking over my life, there are a lot of big red flags that show I should've got diagnosed earlier. Going to be from my life with it, can't speak for the others with it, so hey, this is how it is for me. Like all illnesses - It's A sPeCTruM!

So I'm EUPD type Borderline under the DK rules. Some argue there is this 4 types things but there's no research at all here for it. They treat with meds (useless for me I've found) and DBT (basically used for mental illness, it feels like.) - I am raw dogging life thanks to circumstance which explain why I can be a little tetchy at times.

To be diagnosed, you must fulfil 5 of the 9 criteria below (which honestly feel so fucking vague and overlap with so many other conditions basically anyone could be diagnosed it feels like.) There are a number of people who find they're actually AuADHD / CPTSD etc and yeah, BPD can be a problem once it's on your file, so find a good doctor who knows their shit. This is not a fun condition to have. Around 10% of people with BPD are estimated to die by suicide, a rate far higher than the average. - Fun right!

The 9 criteria are:

Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment (Note: Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behaviour covered in Criterion 5) - For me, I cut people off instantly or even before I get to know them. It is simply easier to be alone than risk being abandoned. Backwards isn't it? - If you've got into my circle somehow you're probably off the wall fucking nuts (like me). I will push people away to prove I'm right and that they will abandon me because that's easier to manage.

A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterised by alternating between extremes of idealisation and devaluation - When I had my break, I became obsessed with a guy I knew. His emotions dictated my emotions. If he was happy, I was happy (you get the picture.) - If he worried about me, I felt validated and so I spiraled. How worried could I get him to be? When he didn't answer or didn't reply in the way I wanted, he became an asshole in my world. (splitting) Instantly he'd be cut off, or he'd be goaded into speaking with me until I was happy with him again. This went on for months.

Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self - See Nana. This is a difficult one to explain without it getting depressing. I have no concept of who I am as a person. If you ask about core values, I don't know. If you ask about hobbies, I'll usually mirror what's being presented in front of me. I have been so conditioned growing up to hold back that I build no connection unless it is acceptable, and now I'm older, I'm basically lost playing in masks. Yeah, enough on that...

Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g. spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating) (Note: Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behaviour covered in Criterion 5) - Binge Eating and spending are my big two. I did drinking when I was younger. Sex is.... a topic...

Recurrent suicidal behaviour, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behaviour - I have not S/H'ed in over a motherfucking year! Does that mean I don't want to? Fuck no. I just don't have access to it.

Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g. intense episodic dysphoria, irritability or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days) - Like a fucking seesaw. You'll see it on my feed. Major depressive angst and then I'm wanting to fuck Rugan and Gale in some sort of super masc sandwich, all in the space of 3-4 hours. When I say a mood will pass, I fucking mean it.

Chronic feelings of emptiness - yeahhh. Self explanatory, right?

Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g. frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights) - I lose my shit pretty often. I've learnt how to bring it down, like I'm not one for temper tantrums and public displays. It's all internal and brewing constantly. Take, for example, the other night. I lost my shit over something really minor (simple insecurities causing me to lash out. I have since blocked the offender like a mature moron, even though they probably don't realise or even understand why. I'm still angry at them though.) - Either way, gives an idea of what it's sort of like in my head.

Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms - This hasn't been as big a problem as it was during my breakdown. At that point, I'd travel to work and could not tell you how I got there. I still have moments of dissociation which are problematic, but it's manageable.

Anyway - That's the 9 and as you see, I get a nice big tick next to each one. People with BPD pretty much always have a nice trauma backstory to boot as well.

Personal things that bother me. Someone questioning my diagnosis. A big thing with BPD (at least for me) is validation. Having someone say my diagnosis could be wrong doesn't help me when my sense of identity is so fucked. I trust my doctors. They were thorough and they have so many more years of experience than google.

The other thing is the "my ex had, my MIL had..." Did they? Or are you just doing some arm chair psychology to explain why they were a jerk and as such preventing people like me from getting real help due to stigma? On this note - 7 psychiatrists I went through before one would even agree to see me, simply based on a potential diagnosis. Patients would be easier to work with if Drs didn't have preconceived ideas before we walked through the door.

Oh, one last thing of annoyance - FP's (Favourite person) - I fucking hate this term. You see, the obsession thing earlier - That's technically what this was, but thanks to tiktok and other social media sites some people like to RP mental illnesses now and FP's are their fucking lives. I just.... bug bear rage there.

So yeah, that's me. That's my essay on my mental health and over sharing for the week, and possibly an explanation for why things have been so erratic recently.

[romance-incubomp3]

being avoidant in childhood and teens and then turning schizoid is such a weird experience, it’s like you become a completely different person. you grow up craving close friends but you feel so deeply inferior that you can’t make them yourself because you’re so terrified you’ll embarrass yourself or be hated. you yearn so much for connection that it eats you up. every new person you meet you see as a potential friend but it very rarely happens. and then something happens. you’re rejected or ostracized one too many times. you grow distant from too many people in your life. you’re deeply hurt by people who were closest to you and who you thought loved you. you lose too much in a short period of time. then the stress and trauma causes your brain to change again, and suddenly it doesn’t matter anymore. you couldn’t care less about making friends. you don’t miss the friends you do have when you can’t be with them. you don’t want human connection and cut off the part of you that used to want it. you become apathetic to others. you can no longer remember what it was like to yearn for friends and deep connections. you can’t relate to the person you once were at all. and the thing is you don’t really care.

[justasimplesinner]

You thought I was done with dumb jock s/o? You fool, you absolute swine! Maybe they lose contact for a while when Johnny pursues being a professor/yeeting himself into jail and they meet again with d.j. studying at the uni. Twist, they had adhd and are using Johnny's teaching methods to get by. They are so excited, but who the hell is this Scarecrow everyone is whispering out? Jock's just here chatting about Crane without a clue on the connection.

im not sure if i understood exactly what u mean but hope this can suffice

Jon and Dumb Jock His Beloved having a reunion hcs:

there was no fucking chance for you two to meet again. you knew each other back in Georgia and then he went off to uni, and despite you trying to visit him as often as you could and putting the effort to keep in touch, he got lost in his studies and the contact died. not that he didn't miss you, because he so fucking did, and sometimes he felt so helpess without you, but... he changed. a lot. and he didn't want you to drag your ass halfway across the country just to see him for a few hours. he was in Gotham, and you were there, far far away, doing your shit. as i said, there was no chance for you to meet again, and yet, it happened. somehow, someway, the universe brought you two back together

you just started to pursue your college degree while he already had his phds, teaching experience as well as his employment contract terminated because of his "unconventional teaching methods". both of you were starting a new chapter in your lives, you in college, him in professional villainy. keyword - starting

Jon wasn't quite that (in)famous yet, but he was slowly making it to the top. The Scarecrow was known, as well as his identity, and yet somehow... you completely missed that. you were out there, trying your best, hearing from your friend's friend that your ol' buddy Crane used to work just at the Uni you studied at, and he wasn't particularly well-remembered (except for some of his old students, the ones that actually gave a shit or two about psychology). but apparently, a thing he was still praised for up to this day was his understanding of people on the autism spectrum as well as many disorders such as adhd, bpd and depression. and maybe people didn't run around firing guns in class anymore, but - after students protested intensly - things like fidget toys, chewlery and all that jazz were allowed in classrooms, and with that, the grade averages increased noticeably. and you were one of the people that such policy helped a lot

anyway, let's talk about the reunion itself, because it was so painfully random it looked like a badly scripted comedy romance - you quite literally bumped into each other on the street. besides being a supervillain, mad scientist and the self-proclaimed Master of Fear, Jon was also a human, and humans - unfortunately - do need to eat. he was out there, in a disguise, just trying to peacefully buy groceries at literally 2am in the morning, in the cover of darkness, and yet, you recognized him. he had no fucking clue how, he honestly had no fucking clue about how in the world you two managed to cross paths again either, but he couldn't he didn't feel some sort of... joy at seeing you. at having you gasp his name out loud and bulldozer your way right to him, because you remembered. you remembered him and the time you two spent together and this... "thing" that was going on between the two of you in the past. you remembered and you cared, and it's like you weren't mad at him at all for cutting all contact with you at some point, for not putting the effort he should've (and often wished did) into maintaining the relationship you two formed. it's like you were acting  clueless about his new life, not once asking him "what happened to him" or something of the kind, not once criticizing him or even mentioning

he found out quite soon you weren't just acting. you were quite literally oblivious to the fact of who he was now. apparently, you did know there was some "muppet-esque Mr Potato Head on drugs" prancing around the city, gassing people and stealing shit, but you had yet to make the connection that the "sack-wearing fetishist" was literally him. he almost forgot how... dense you could be at times

maybe your words hurt his pride a little bit, but despite all that, he didn't quite want to tell you. yeah, of course, his research was the thing he was most proud of, it was his legacy now and the only thing he wanted was to get better, reach higher, but... it was nice having you talk to him like a normal human being. treating him like your old friend, with the same kind of love and respect you harbored for him all those years ago. he couldn't deny liking the deja vu he got when he, now an adult, was invited to your house and could sit with you in your room and help you study for your exams and assignments, watching stupid movies and commenting on the horror games you played. he couldn't deny the overwhelming soaring of his heart whenever he had you back in his arms, when he felt your arms circle him and practically crush his spine with your all-consuming bear hugs. but most of all, he couldn't deny the fact that he hasn't forgotten either. hasn't forgotten what was once between the two of you nor how he missed it when you were gone

he doesn't want to hurt you though. he doesn't want to go back to being that close, because he's different now. dangerous. he didn't want you to wake up one day and realize just exactly who he is and what he's doing, how many deaths he's caused and how many fell victim to his plans. he didn't want you to hate him. he knows that one day he will have to tell you, he'd prefer you hear it from his own lips than find out on your own, but... he plans on postponing that day for as long as he can. maybe it's selfish, maybe he's fucking cruel, but... he wants to be happy again. even if just for a little while

[sohmariku]

RIKU’S RANDOM LIFE: MENTAL HEALTH

May is the mental health awareness month, apparently, at least in the US. The perfect moment to tell you I only discovered yesterday, well into adulthood, that I have most definitely ADD. (Attention Deficit Disorder) A subtype of ADHD, the one without hyperactivity. Everyone knows it, right? That said, have you ever looked up the symptoms of ADD? Because I certainly didn’t. The list includes stuff like: forgetful and chaotic due to bad short-term memory, increased need for sleep, trouble expressing emotions, easily distracted, prone to (day)dreaming, difficulty staying on task and short attention span.

THAT’S LIKE THE PERFECT DESCRIPTION OF ME! WHY DIDN'T I KNOW THIS!?

I’m pretty sure my mother didn’t read this list either, otherwise she wouldn’t have wondered why I always seemed to forget every task she ever gave me! They had to literally block my bedroom door with the laundry basket to remind me. And even then, I would often forget to hang the laundry. I’d just step over it without even noticing it. It also explains why I found it hard to pay attention in class and especially in later years of secondary education found my mind drifting off far too often. Not to mention, as long as I can remember I’ve been sleeping 9-12 hours a day. It’s just three examples how ADD has affected me in my life and it still does.

Now, a disclaimer before I move on. I’ll be throwing around a lot of terminology from this point. However, I have no degree in psychology, nor do I have any official diagnosis. I speaking of personal experience and whatever information the internet fed me. This is a very incomplete account of everything these disorders/diablities entail, please don't use this to diagnose yourself.

Let’s continue, I was also yesterday years old when I discovered what PPD-NOS (Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified) actually is. This terms has been all around me growing up with siblings diagnosed that way, but until yesterday, I didn’t quite understand what it meant. It was always described to me as “a diagnosis you get, when they can’t quite figure out what’s bothering you.” That doesn’t really make it sound like the diagnosis PDD-NOS has any meaning, but apparently it does. Did you know that PDD-NOS is actually an autism diagnosis? I sure didn’t. It means you’re autistic, but don’t fit into the other (two) old subtypes. Though, not too long ago everything was mashed together and now we're just speaking of ASD (Autism spectrum disorder), if I'm not mistaken.

While we’re at it, I actually learned only a few years ago that I am (most likely) autistic. I am not officially diagnosed, but reading and listening to other people’s experiences, it just makes so much sense. I recognize myself so much in other autistic people’s experiences. Discovering this, I felt such relief. I finally figured out what made me different from other people. Or rather, I discovered I was different and that was all right. I wasn’t just a failure as a human being. Autism can affect many parts of life. My struggles were real. It’s quite nice to know why I had these explosive meltdowns, even long after puberty ended. Or why my interests could be very intense, why I seem to dislike certain foods so much. Quite honestly, it explains everything! (Especially now I’ve added ADD to the mix.)

Social anxiety, performance anxiety, depression. It all stems from my autism (and ADD). It’s almost unbelievable no one caught on to all this sooner!

Well, to be honest, I think my mother knew to a certain degree. She has told me to see a psychiatrist, to find out if maybe there was something more. Unfortunately she never named the something. And my anxiety ridden body only imagined people giving me tasks to conquer my fears. Not people who could actively help me. So I refused. I would have been nice if I had known what ADD and PDD-NOS really were. Maybe just maybe I would have seen a professional sooner. Maybe just maybe I wouldn’t have struggled as much as I did. And maybe just maybe I wouldn’t have eventually wasted my time (and money) on some psychologist who, after a few sessions of me crying my eyes out, told me: “You need to get a grip on your emotions, otherwise we can’t start treatment.” …thank you, that’s was very helpful… NOT! I quit seeing her not long after that.

Today I'm mostly depression free, chronically stressed, the executive dysfunction is real, possibly in a burnout and constantly on the edge of a meltdown. After reminding myself five times, I finally put some chap stick on my dry lips. My short-term memory is still crap. (Reminder to myself: do the dishes and clean the kitchen, please!) But other than that I’m doing relatively well. I have an amazing boyfriend, who fortunately doesn’t seem to mind that I don’t have a job (and likely never will). The sun is shining (for now) and I spend my days mostly doing what I like while desperately trying to keep my house from descending into chaos. So, all is good. Good enough at least! Just taking it easy and waiting for better, covid-free times. ^^

(And now my anxiety is telling me that sharing this post may not be such a good idea... 'cause, what if people misunderunderstand what I wrote and think I'm doing worse than I am? ...so, please don't worry about me. I take good care of myself. All is fine... Sort of... As fine as it can be considering we're in a pandemic and I'm tired of having my boyfriend at home 24/7. Don't pity me... I am good as I am... I better stop rambling and just post this thing.)

[theschizoidblog]

Getting diagnosed

Blog 1: 19/05/2020

I started therapy on the 23d of July 2019. I was 35 years old at the time, and I had decided to go into therapy for the following reasons:

I felt permanently exhausted

I felt like somewhere during my adult years I had slipped into a depression I’d never gotten out of and I wanted to feel happier in life than I did at that time

executive dysfunction - I still need regular help from my mom to keep my household in order

I lacked any and all ambition to do anything with my life

I had begun to suffer from anxiety and sometimes tiny anger outbursts which were occuring more often than before, which was a sign to me something was wrong and only getting worse as I aged. 

I had tried seeing a psychologist when I was 30. It was a man who I disliked so much that after 2 sessions, I ghosted him. I could go into more details, but let’s just say he was not a match for me.

It took me five years before I gathered enough energy and courage to try again. In a way, Tony Atwood helped. I’d stumbled across his videos on Aspergers in women and I’d begun to think that maybe it was Aspergers then. The above symptoms would not be misplaced in a women my age with Asperger - and it was until I got my diagnosis two weeks ago, on the 8th of May, that I was bracing myself for an Asperger diagnosis. 

When it turned out to be Schizoid Personality Disorder, I was like: “I’m a what now?”

But kudos to Tony Atwood’s videos for at least encouraging me to seek help and to approach a possible diagnosis with optimism. Even if it’s not Aspergers, I needed that little push in the back. 

Why did it take from July to May to get a diagnosis?

Something which may be atypical for someone with Aspergers or SPD, is that I am rather open when asked questions, and I can’t give short answers to complex questions. 

The first sessions were about painting a picture of the people in my life - my parents, my sister, her husband, their kid, other important figures in my life like my grandparents, the sort of household I’d grown up in - were my parents constantly fighting (quite the opposite) or did I suffer abuse (no), stuff like that. 

They also asked a lot about friends. Did I have a lot of friends as a kid, was I bullied, who were my friends now, had I kept my friends from when I was younger (definitely not).  

What about my job and hobbies, what jobs had I taken, what education had I had. She wanted to know when I moved out of my parents place (when I was 25), if I’d had many romantic relationships (none longer than about 8 months).  

It took months to get through all that personal information. In sessions of 1 hour (which are sooner sessions of 45 minutes than a full hour) it’s hard to paint the complete picture. Sometimes I went twice a month, sometimes I skipped a month due to the full agenda of my psychologist, but on average I went once a month. 

Then after that, this was already in 2020 I think, we started an autism questionnaire, to determine whether I was on the autism spectrum scale (which seemed likely due to the problems I’d mentioned). The psychologist also invited my mother for one session, where she asked questions about my childhood. 

“Did Jessie have a lot of friends?”  “Yes, she always had friends over.”  “Yes, mom, but that’s because you arranged the play dates with the other moms - I didn’t always have a lot to say about it.”  “I guess that’s true - you did always enjoy playing on your own. One party, a mom told me that all the kids were playing in the garden and you’d gone inside to play alone with some of the toys - not bothering with the other kids.”  My mom remembered that as being odd. I’m far from surprised by that. 

After the interview with my mother, I also answered a questionaire about other personality disorders. This is where questions were asked to determine if I had, for example, borderline or schizofrenia or bipolar disorder etc. It was to check if any of the disorders on the DSM-5 applied to me. 

And so after about 2-3 sessions of answering those questions, I finally got my diagnosis last session. It was during the last five minutes or so of the session, I was like “and, and, what is it? what have I got?”

I felt numb when she told me what it was - also because I did not understand. I had *never* heard of schizoid personality disorder. And in five minutes, she didn’t have the time to fully explain it to me either. And since I was a little numb from the news, I don’t think I retained the information she gave me as well as I otherwise would have.

She explained that while it’s called a disorder, she is not fond of the word ‘disorder’. She also told me it’s something hermits and loners often are, which made sense to me. She told me that schizoids don’t mind being alone and often prefer it, and once again that struck true. 

I also asked why it wasn’t autism then, to which she briefly replied that in my childhood, I did not seem to have difficulty with learning social behaviors. 

Next session, I will receive more information from her on the schizoid personality disorder, abbreviated as SPD, and possibly we’ll also check on differences with Aspergers, just cause I am terribly curious about that and will ask for it. 

It’s still a week or two until my next session - and in the meanwhile, I’ve looked for more info online. I’ve read the wiki, then continued on other articles online and found a few Facebook groups to join. The more I read about it, the more I’m seeing myself in stories of others. 

I’m no longer numb from the diagnosis - but it did take me a day where I was exhausted, cried a bit, lay in bed, before I was like “okay this ain’t bad at all!” 

I plan to continue this blog to describe things I learn about myself, to report on my “treatment”, to report on schizoids in modern-day society and to shine a light on what it is to be a schizoid woman. 

If you think: “Oh, could I be a schizoid?” - I honestly can’t tell you. Nor are there online internet tests that will give you a conclusive answer to that question. I do recommend seeing a psychologist for that - but it might be harder than ever to get on a waiting list. With the Corona crisis most psychologists have their hands full these days, due to all the mental problems the neurotypicals are going through as a result of the lockdowns. 

If you are a schizoid who lives alone and are now allowed to work fulltime from home for the first time in your life, you might feel like I do: that this lockdown is the best thing that ever happened to you. My anxieties are practically gone, while the anxieties of neurotypicals skyrocket. 

[5typesoftrash]

Okay.

TRIGGER WARNING: mentions of past child abuse, anxiety disorders and PTSD

++

“I’m sorry, you’re what?”

The words are odd and distorted, like someone put sound through a funhouse mirror – is that even possible? Cas doesn’t know – but they don’t sound like the voice of the man he loves and he’s terrified, terrified of the way that hurts him, how it digs down into his skin and burrows into the deepest, most shameful parts of himself and activates things he never wanted to remember existed.

He’s not hearing Dean’s voice anymore; he hears his father, his older brother, his eighth-grade girlfriend, that boy who was his best friend for two years. He hears the voices of a thousand people over a thousand years it seems, all saying the same things.

“You can’t be that.”

“That doesn’t exist.”

“You’re confused.”

“You’re broken.”

“You’re fucked up.”

You’re a freak.

You don’t exist, Castiel Novak, and you never have.

His throat closes up, he stares at the floor.

Maybe he should back up.

His name is Castiel Novak. He is 41 years old. He is married to a man named Dean Winchester Novak. And he is demiromantic.

He has known this for many years. And his entire life he’s been harassed and even abused for it.

He’s stopped telling people. Because no one believes him when he tries. So he’s hidden this secret from his husband for exactly twenty years of marriage. He’s coming out today.

But backing up further.

He was always a studious child. He researched things for fun, learned all the facts he could fit into his young, impressionable, precocious brain. He searched for answers to the issue of why he didn’t experience ‘crushes’ like his friends did. He found the aromantic spectrum. He discovered the term ‘demiromantic’ and decided, this feels right. This fits.

And he tried to come out to his father. His father slapped him across the face.

That’s what his identity has always been associated with – pain.

He had a girlfriend who broke up with him on the spot when he tried to explain.

His best friend of several years never spoke to him again after the day he came out.

His older brother taunted him with it from the time that he was 10 until he left the house at 16 – an emancipated teen who needed to get away.

He married Dean at twenty-one, young and soft-eyed and easily tricked, but he trusted Dean like he’d never trusted another person in his life. Dean was kind, and gentle, and beautiful, and Dean had treated him like a real, honest, functional person. Dean had found him a therapist, had helped him work through his trauma. Dean had sat there when Cas woke up screaming at 2:30 even though Dean had to be up in an hour and a half. Dean had held him through the worst panic attacks he’d ever had. Dean had stroked his hair when he flashed back to his father. Dean had sat at his side when he vomited into the toilet at the thought of what was done to him as a child.

And now, because of this, Castiel is going to lose him.

He comes back to himself furiously, incredibly fast and abrupt, with a jolt that almost knocks him off his feet. And the world slowly resumes turning just the way it was before.

“I- I’m demiromantic,” Cas repeats in a hushed, choking tone of voice.

Dean looks confused. “Isn’t that, like, only being romantically attracted to someone after you’ve been friends for a long time?”

“Yeah,” Cas confesses.

“Then why did we start dating as early as we did?”

Cas swallows the lump in his throat. “I was attracted to you, just not… romantically. Yet,” he adds. “I was queerplatonically attracted to you, which means that I felt more for you than friendship, but not quite romance. There’s sort of an odd gray area in there for me that doesn’t exist for some other people, but for me it was there and it was like ‘I want something with him, I want to hold his hand and paint his nails and kiss him in a movie theater and bring him to my Christian family’s Thanksgiving dinner just to give them a grand fuck you’ but I as of then I couldn’t have honestly said ‘I want to marry him and have children and three dogs in a fourth-floor apartment in the Kansas suburbs’.”

He comes down from his rant, still staring at the floor and not his husband.

“Cas,” Dean whispers. “Do you love me?”

Cas nods slowly.

“Do you love me romantically?”

Cas nods again.

Warm arms envelop him and he nearly sobs. Even after twenty years with Dean, his touch starvation is still very prominent and sometimes he can’t bear to be touched at all without breaking down. But he needs it, he needs it so desperately. He leans into Dean’s solid, larger body, desperate for any comfort Dean wants to give him. And oh, does Dean give it. He gives Cas all the comfort he never knew he needed.

“Our relationship was not built on a lie,” is the first thing Dean whispers. “And we have never had a problem. You and I, Cas, we’re made to last. We fight, yeah, who doesn’t fight with their spouse? We’ve never even really been in danger, though. Cas, you and I are okay. We’ve always been okay and we’re always gonna be okay. Don’t you dare forget that. And please, Cas, for the love of all that is holy, don’t give up on me.”

Cas is sure he looks positively awful, his face covered in snot and tears, but he laughs in relief and kisses his husband anyway, and for yet another perfect moment to place into the scrapbook of his life, everything is perfect.

[idratherlivefreetofail]

Almost 25 years old and a brand new chapter.

Hey everyone it’s Vannessa. I just wanted to make a post because I have some good news and because I’ve thinking about some things lately and I haven’t made any posts just talking about something in a long time. 

I know I’ve been behind on Seán’s videos lately not because I don’t like him anymore or anything like that. Far from it actually! It was because Animal Crossing came out so I didn’t feel like screenshoting videos and only wanted to play that xD and the videos he was posting at the time were consistent longer videos and he was also uploading two videos a day again too. Plus because I wasn’t in the best place mental health wise at the start of this year I’ve been giving myself more breaks from making posts. I’m trying not to put a ton of pressure on myself to screenshot videos when I don’t feel like it because then this hobby of mine will start feeling like a bad job and I don’t want it to. Eventually I will catch up on the videos I promise.  But screenshoting Seán’s dumb face aside! I have some good news I wanted to share. I FINALLY got accepted by Social Security to get disability. Which means that I now officially have an income! I won’t be broke af anymore. Funny how I got accepted during a pandemic when we have to stay in the house and away from people most of the time. xD Which has been my lifestyle already these last 7 years I think? For any of you that don’t know I have Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Asperger’s Syndrome/Autistic Spectrum Disorder. Ever since I graduated High School in 2013 my life has been in a weird place. My anxiety which I didn’t even know I had at the time got heightened. Then because of that with the combination of just the way my brain works, dealing with the fact that how I’ve grown up isn’t normal and the pressures you feel to figure out everything about your future when you’re a teenager as well. I ended up in this very dark place where my brain couldn’t process all the irrational fears I had and my brain would just freeze whenever I tried to take any step towards my future or make a decision about my future. I couldn’t get a job because of my mental health and I didn’t want to go to college because I knew it wouldn’t be for me, I wouldn’t be able to afford it at all and I wouldn’t be able to handle the workload of it either. So at the end of my teens and pretty much all my early 20s I’ve been in this very heavy place that feels like I’m not moving forward at all. There’s been times where I got extremely depressed and pessimistic, there’s been times where I just felt hopeless about anything getting better, there’s been moments where I felt like a burden, there’s been a ton of moments where I just didn’t feel like I knew who I was anymore and many more dark moments and places. Obviously I am a disabled adult but since late 2014 I’ve been fighting to get disability or SSI so I could have an income and could make a step towards some sort of independence for myself. This process and fight has been so difficult and exhausting because it’s very stupidly hard to prove that you are disabled to the US government. There was so many times where I felt super awful about myself and extremely invalidated about my mental health because I was constantly getting denied by social security. It even got to the point where I had to go to court for it a few years ago and I got this asshole judge who didn’t even want to listen to anything I had to say and was just trying quickly write me off as someone who just hates people and is “difficult.” Which made me feel like I was crazy and that all my struggles have just been me over reacting because I just couldn’t handle being an adult. Which obviously wasn’t true but when you’re constantly getting something you’ve been struggling with invalidated over and over again it really gets under your skin after a while. It was one of the biggest reasons why I felt so depressed, lost and confused during the start of this year and most of 2019 too. I was so tired of this song and dance I’d been doing and I was so damn sick of getting denied for dumb reasons or because Social Security didn’t look at everything or even loosing some of the stuff in my case file at one point. I was sick of being in the same place with barely any change for so long. It’s been a long hard road but finally I’m out of that song and dance and I feel like I’m finally starting a brand new chapter in my life. I mean some things still feel uncertain but I feel like I’m at least taking some sort of step forward which I haven’t felt in such a long time. I don’t even know how to feel about all this at this moment.  The biggest reason I’m making this post though is because I’ve been thinking about Seán lately and how much he’s meant to me cause of some of the things he’s been talking about in some of the videos I’ve been screenshoting lately. I’ve been watching him for over 5 years now and I’ve basically known of him for all of my 20s so far. Honestly I don’t know who I’d be or where my life would be if it wasn’t for him just making me laugh, smile or think deeply about certain things. Seán inspired me to find my own strength to keep myself moving forward and to really connect back to who I feel I am deep down inside. It’s not a situation where I depend on him for happiness or anything like that. I mean more that he inspires me to best version of myself FOR myself. Somehow just by making laugh or smile or feel a little more positive it makes me realize that I’m so much stronger then I think and that I have the power deep inside myself to be the hero of my own story and to make the most out of everything I have even when things feel hopeless or uncertain. Which I could never for the life of me describe how much all that has meant to me personally. Almost every time I felt down, I felt overwhelmed, I felt awful, I felt hopeless or bad about myself. He and his videos were always there to keep me company or to give myself something to do with all the free time I had or to give me a break from everything that was bringing me down. I know that I don’t know him personally but it still felt like a friend was there. There’s so many times even now where I wish that I could talk to him and not even about all this just having a conversation about whatever and just being myself in front of him. Not being “the weird girl that screenshots his face on Tumblr” or just some random obsessive fangirl. But being a regular person and just being me, Vannessa. I remember the first interaction I had with him and it was on my 20th birthday and I made a post talking about how a video he posted that day almost made me cry and he liked it on here. Now next Monday on the 20th of April I’ll be turning 25. So many things have changed over the years for me and obviously for him too of course. I hope that we both continue to grow and change as people as we go through our lives. No matter what happens though. I’ll carry in my heart everything that Seán has ever taught me, made me realize or inspired me to do for myself.  So Seán ( @therealjacksepticeye ) if you ever see this post or read it. It might sound dumb or silly to say but. Thank you, for everything in these last 5 years. :’)

No matter how hopeless things seem everyone. Don’t ever give up on the things you want or the things you know you deserve to have in your life! Trust yourself, follow your heart and trust your intuition about the things that feel right to you. Life is unpredictable and scary but it’s also beautiful and can surprise you in positive ways that you’d never expect. Keep going no matter how hard life can be. Hang in there and don’t loose hope about the possibility of your situation getting better. :)

-Vannessa

[ionfusionpunk]

Supernatural and My Religious Beliefs: An Introspection Through Fanfiction

So, I’ve been working on an SPN fanfic for the last couple of weeks. I’m not very far in, only 24 pages, but it’s given me a lot of thoughts.

Background: I am a young adult member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. (It’s long and it’s a mouthful, but even though you’d recognize it better if I said I’m a ‘Mormon’, that’s not... correct? Sorry, different thing for a different time. Moving on.) This gives me a different view on certain biblical events and interpretations not widely accepted by other religions. I’m honestly okay with that. I’m not going to preach about who’s right or wrong. My point is just that, when I watch Supernatural, I’m either not familiar with the concept they’re discussing at all or I’ve just learned it in a - sometimes very - different way. 

Angels are a good example of this. I believe they exist. I have for years and years, and the Church (how I refer to it) teaches that they are real - just not how Catholicism or Judaism or Islam or any other religion might potentially perceive them. I believe that angels look like you and me, that they watch over us sometimes, that they even, on occasion, walk among us. They are not the confused, petty, bickering siblings seen on SPN - at least not to me. I think the second-biggest doctrinal thing I struggle with when watching SPN is that I’ve been taught that all of us were spirits before we were born, and that sometime after we die we will be resurrected: that our mortal bodies will be restored to their proper order - maladies healed and such - and that our spirits will be returned to our perfected bodies never to be separated again. We will not experience pain or thirst or hunger, we will not be able to die, and anything that might have possibly been wrong with us during our mortal existence will no longer ail us - physical and mental infirmities all will be healed. This includes anxiety, depression, bipolarism, autism spectrum disorder - everything. The point of all this is that we will be able to live in relative peace and comfort. Our goal in life now is to try to become the best we can be by following Jesus Christ so that, when it’s our turn to be judged, we can receive eternal happiness which is the opportunity to live with our Heavenly Father for the rest of eternity. Regardless of your personal opinions and beliefs, I think that’s a beautiful thing. My friend is an atheist, and she agrees that it’s a beautiful thing. This leads into the angels-vs-spirits debate; spirits are what we were before we had bodies, and angels, while used even in my church as a broader term for both angels and spirits, are technically spirits that have previously experienced this resurrection. Maybe now you can begin to understand why I’ve been struggling to write an angel OC in my SPN fic? lol. 

Anyway, it’s sometimes difficult for me to reconcile what I believe with what I’m watching on the show. Not that the show makes me believe any less, but when I sit down to work on the fic, there are just some things I believe to be so right that I can’t ignore them or even really separate them as I’m writing - the above being a perfect example.

My religion’s ‘take’ on God, for example. God is a benevolent being. He loves us all. Angels are not separate from humans because they are us - but I can work around that. I don’t believe that God has abandoned us. I understand why others - including my atheist friend - might believe that, but that’s just not an opinion I share, and we’re all okay and aware of that fact. I even appreciate SPN’s take on it, because it’s entertaining, and I know how to keep my belief’s separate from those of others. 

But when I sat down two weeks ago to write a fanfic, I realized that I didn’t want to write a God like Chuck. I wanted to write a God like the one I believe in - but I also wanted to stay as true as I could to characters of the show because I appreciate that sort of continuity. 

Now, as my dear friend and senpai can attest, I’ve done a ton of research into the angles of other religions in order to better understand what the heck is going on in the show and as a way to better write them. Like I briefly mentioned, I ended up creating an angel OC. In fact, some of you might know him: Zadkiel, the Archangel with dominion of mercy, benevolence, and freedom. It was an interesting pick for me based on the other OC I created: Lilianne Winchester, Sam’s younger twin, wanted by Heaven to be put to death because of her lack of destiny or fate decreed by God. In other words, she’s a wild card that could potentially change the destinies of her brothers (welcome to the biggest plot point of my fic). But Zadkiel chooses to save her life - and this is where the introspection really began.

I have been taught - and I truly believe - that God’s greatest gift to us was the gift of agency: the ability to choose. Regardless of what you believe, you have the God-given right, literally, to believe what you want. This is why you will never see my bash on any one else’s beliefs (and why I sincerely hope that anyone who’s still reading this is of a similar mind. Ha. Haha.) I was not expecting to put anything specific of what I believe into this fanfic, I really wasn’t. But, as I was writing, I actually came to gradual epiphanies that shed greater light on my own personal beliefs and how those things have affected me. Somehow, those epiphanies and beliefs have manged to come together in surprising fluent ways as I’ve been writing. They just - wrote themselves in without me really noticing. And I was surprised, because, what the heck, this isn’t what I was going for. But I’ve managed to somehow set up in 24 pages the basis for why the rest of the story, why Zadkiel and Lilianne are so important, and why God did what he did in the show, are so important. I’m just - mind blown. 

I didn’t set our to write a fanfic quite like this. I wouldn’t change it for all the money in the world. 24 pages, and I’m in love. I may not have set out to write anything quite like this, but I’ve put to words some of the things that I believe in ways that I’ve never encountered before and that, ultimately, have inspired me to write this freakishly-long rant.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/25814548

Above is the link to the 24 pages if you’d like to read them yourself. I don’t know if I’ll ever finish this fic now that I’ve posted this, but, idk. You never know ;)

[rockandrollstorytime]

Rock and Roll Storytime #11: Keith Moon’s Wild 21st Birthday Party

While I’ve talked about Keith Moon before, this is the first chance I’ve given myself to truly talk about just what a crazy bastard he was. In fact, Alice Cooper once said, “Think of it this way: about 40 percent of what you’ve heard about me or Iggy or Ozzy is probably true. Everything you’ve ever heard about Keith Moon is true and you’ve only heard a tenth of it.”

There is no doubt that Keith Moon had an appetite for destruction, considering that there are many, many stories about him blowing up hotel toilets for shits and giggles, sometimes with John Entwistle’s help. In fact, there’s speculation that Keith may have had Autism Spectrum Disorder and/or ADHD. Given that I am only a college student (who’s not even studying medicine) and that Keith died 22 years before I was born (so obviously, there’s no way for me to know him personally), I feel it would be unwise of me to try and figure out what was going on with Keith’s brain.

What I can do, however, is to tell you just one of the many stories I’ve heard since I started listening to the Who on what would have been Keith’s 73rd birthday.

At the time I was originally writing this, the only two stories I knew much of anything about in a substantial way was this and the time Keith accidentally killed his bodyguard, and given the bevy of depressing stories I’d recently written about, I decided to go with the former. I’ll try and write about the other story at some other point down the line.

This story takes place at the tail end of the Summer of Love: August 23, 1967. Keith Moon was about to turn twenty-one, though, up until this point, people thought he was on the edge of twenty, because people loved making musicians look younger than they were (possibly to look more in with the youths). Of course, Keith, being Keith, decided to celebrate in grand fashion.

The locale for this truly bananas story is Flint, Michigan, many years before the water crisis would devastate the area. That evening, the Who performed a concert before heading to the local Holiday Inn where, apparently, things started peacefully (for once). At one point, as you might expect from the stereotypical birthday party for a young man, a naked groupie popped out of one of the five-tier cakes that were brought in, and this still managed to be one moment during the sane part of the evening.  Before long though, a food fight broke out, and considering that there were two five-tier cakes involved, you can probably already imagine the massive clean-up effort that would ensue. Indeed, at least one witness later recalled that by the time all was said and done, the interior of the room looked like the inside of a birthday cake.

And somehow, the night only got crazier, as you might expect from classic rock and roll.

By some accounts, clothing at this party was entirely optional. The birthday boy himself was allegedly either running around with only a t-shirt on, just underwear, or nothing at all. Given that this was the 1960s, alcohol flowed liberally, and shenanigans of all sorts were occurring in the swimming pool. Some were fighting with fire extinguishers, which had the side effect of taking the paint off several cars, causing further property damage. The piano was destroyed to the point where, if Keith is to be believed, only splinters remained. At one point, Keith Moon allegedly drove a car into the swimming pool (more on this later). And then, as if things couldn’t get any more out of control, police officers showed up with guns drawn. A reportedly naked Keith Moon tried to run in the opposite direction but given that the floor was littered with the remains of two five-tier cakes, he slipped, fell, and ended up knocking out part of his front tooth.

Once Keith was in police custody (and probably given something to wear), Keith was rushed to the dentist, where because Keith was intoxicated out of his mind, doctors were forced to pull the remainder of the tooth without anaesthesia. (This is one of the very few times I will ever hope someone was blackout drunk, because otherwise, that would have hurt like a bitch!)

Keith wound up spending the rest of the night in the local jail, and after he was released the next day, the Who just went back on the road, onto Philadelphia.

The damage the partygoers left in their wake was extensive. The ceiling stucco, floors, and wallpapers all had to be replaced, several cars were left with ruined paint jobs, and if Keith really did drive a car into the pool, then of course, that had to be dredged up. The Who received a bill for $24,000 ($154,473.65 in 2020), and if some versions of the story are to be believed, then the Who also found themselves banned from the entire Holiday Inn chain and Flint, Michigan (annoyingly, Holiday Inn has refused to confirm or deny these rumours).

I think now is an appropriate time to discuss the car-in-the-pool part of the story, because this is one of the most disputed parts of the whole story. Some people, such as Keith Moon and Peter Cavanaugh, claimed that the incident was 100 percent true. Roger Daltrey was frustratingly neutral. However, others, such as John Entwistle, Edd McCann, and Barry Whitwam, have all since claimed that Keith was just making shit up. Most likely, we’ll never know for certain whether it really happened or not, but honestly, I wouldn’t put it past Moon the Loon either.

I just know that if I ever host or attend parties at anytime in the future, I’m going to stick to the safe and sane parties.

Sources/Further Readings: https://www.loudersound.com/features/keith-moon-takes-a-car-for-a-swim https://www.mlive.com/news/flint/2017/08/50_years_ago_today_who_drummer.html https://findery.com/MixTape/notes/keith-moons-21st-birthday-at-the-holiday-inn https://www.969theeagle.com/online/the-legend-keith-moon-21st-birthday-party/Qj24jxKTEAUxjrQaDL7D8H/ https://rockcheetah.com/blog/legend/worlds-most-infamous-hotel-stay-keith-moon-birthday/ https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/roger-daltrey-interview-2018 https://www.travelandleisure.com/slideshows/celebrities-banned-by-top-hotels?slide=129285#129285 http://www.feelnumb.com/2011/05/04/keith-moon-drove-a-car-into-a-pool-on-his-21st-birthday/

[artistjojo1228]

Rock and Roll Storytime #11: Keith Moon’s Outrageous 21st Birthday

I once heard a quote from Alice Cooper that went something like this: “Think of it this way: about 40 per cent of what you’ve heard about me or Iggy or Ozzy is probably true. Everything you’ve ever heard about Keith Moon is true and you’ve only heard a tenth of it.”

So, let’s face it, Keith Moon had a sort of appetite for destruction. I’ve also heard speculation that he might have had autism spectrum disorder, but this blog is neither the time nor place for me to speculate what mental or physical disorders somebody may have had. What this is for, however, is for me to tell such crazy stories, and lord knows, in the month since I’ve started listening to the Who (I started listening to them on Keith’s 73rd birthday, August 23, 2019), I’ve heard plenty of crazy stories about Keith Moon. 

And honestly, I’d rather talk about how he celebrated his 21st birthday as opposed to relating how he accidentally killed his driver (I’d rather save that for another day). 

So, this story takes place at the tail-end of the Summer of Love. Keith Moon was about to turn 21 (though, for a while, people thought he was about to turn twenty because people just loved shaving a year or two off of musicians’ ages), and he decided to celebrate in grand fashion. 

Keep in mind, by this point in time, he already had a reputation for flushing pyrotechnics down hotel toilets (it’s even been claimed that he got the Who kicked out of just about every hotel they ever stayed in). 

This particular bout of Keith Moon craziness takes place at a Holiday Inn in Flint, Michigan (later known for its water crisis as of 2014). The Who put on a concert earlier that evening, and the night, for once, started out semi-peacefully. And then a food fight started up. Keep in mind, there were apparently five-tier cakes and at least two of them involved (one of which also having a nude female fan hiding in the cake, which I find is a common trope in birthday parties of any kind). Anyone who’s ever been in a food fight can probably already imagine the massive amounts of time and effort it would take to clean that up (one witness even stated that the interior of the room looked like the inside of a birthday cake by the time they were through). 

You might still be asking, “So, how much crazier does this get? It just sounds like a really big, epic food fight took place.”

Let me tell you, you still ain’t seen nothing yet. 

Reportedly, clothing at this party was optional (sources vary as to whether Moonie was running around in just his underwear or just a t-shirt with nothing covering his you-know-bloody-well-what, or even just completely naked), alcohol flowed freely (of course), hijinks ensued in the swimming pool (probably falling under all five ratings of the MPAA movie ratings system), there were fights with fire extinguishers (which had the side-effect of taking the paint off several cars), a piano was destroyed, and as the party was in full swing, police arrived, guns drawn. Keith tried to run away, but given that there was cake and marzipan covering the floors, that went just about as well as you’d expect. He ended up knocking out part of his front tooth.

So, Keith ends up being rushed to the dentist (probably having been given something to wear by now), and because he was so bloody intoxicated, doctors had to pull out the rest of the tooth WITHOUT ANESTHETIC. 

At this rate, thank god the man apparently got blackout drunk quite frequently, because that would’ve hurt like no tomorrow (and I’ve been fortunate enough to not even need wisdom teeth removed). 

So yeah, Keith apparently spent the rest of the night in jail, and the next day, the Who were back on the road towards Philadelphia. 

Oh yeah, and I didn’t even mention the part where Keith (allegedly) drove a Lincoln Continental into the swimming pool. Some people, such as Moonie, himself, Roger Daltrey (in some ways), and Peter Cavanaugh, claimed that the incident had happened, but others, such as John Entwistle, Peppy Castro, Barry Whitwam, and tour manager Edd McCann, all claimed that the story was a fabrication. 

Regardless of whether it happened on the night of Moonie’s 21st birthday, some other day, or never, I wouldn’t put it past him (after all, this is the guy who made the band go back to one of their hotels just so he could throw the TV in the swimming pool). 

In either case, damages were extensive. The ceiling stucco had to be replaced (as did the carpets and wallpapers), the Who were sent a bill for around $24,000 (adjusting for inflation, this would be about $108,299.05 today), and according to several tellings, the Who were banned for life from the Holiday Inn chain (though, like with the car-in-the-pool thing, this is also disputed and it doesn’t help that Holiday Inn has apparently refused to comment on the matter). Also, the band was apparently banned from Flint, Michigan, though I have yet to find sources that prove or disprove this. 

Either way, it sounds like a fun time, but on the rare occasions that I do decide to party it up, I prefer to keep things sane. 

Sources/Further Readings: https://www.loudersound.com/features/keith-moon-takes-a-car-for-a-swim https://www.mlive.com/news/flint/2017/08/50_years_ago_today_who_drummer.html https://findery.com/MixTape/notes/keith-moons-21st-birthday-at-the-holiday-inn https://www.969theeagle.com/online/the-legend-keith-moon-21st-birthday-party/Qj24jxKTEAUxjrQaDL7D8H/ https://rockcheetah.com/blog/legend/worlds-most-infamous-hotel-stay-keith-moon-birthday/ https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/roger-daltrey-interview-2018 https://www.travelandleisure.com/slideshows/celebrities-banned-by-top-hotels?slide=129285#129285 http://www.feelnumb.com/2011/05/04/keith-moon-drove-a-car-into-a-pool-on-his-21st-birthday/

[chrispinkard]

Sorry, I’m new...

Hi. 

Thanks for joining me. Whether you’re here deliberately or by accident I do appreciate you taking the time to stop by. This is my first post here so bear with me as I sort some things out. 

Let’s start things off strong...I am autistic. Or I have Autism...or I’m on the spectrum… Truthfully I’m not sure just how to say this - so much for starting strong. There are some underlying implications on how my chosen self-identification reflects how I see myself and Autism in general - but for the most part, the reason I’m not sure what phrasing is correct is that I, at the age of 33, was just diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Honestly, I have no idea how to feel or what this means for me or if it even matters at this point in my life. It’s confusing and uncomfortable and disruptive and totally makes sense all at the same time. There’s a part of me that still thinks my doctor is wrong. But each day that part gets smaller and smaller. As I look back over the past few decades that doubt in my doctor’s diagnosis turns into me thinking, “How did I not see this before”.

I’ve learned a lot about Autism over the past few weeks, but I think the thing that has stuck with me the most is that I’m not alone. I’m not alone in what I’m experiencing. There are a lot of other newly diagnosed adults out there who are now having to find ways to cope with an entirely new paradigm. 

So here’s what I know for sure...1)  My diagnosis has me feeling some kind of way, and 2) I’m not alone in that. 

Yea, so...what now?

This makes me think of how I felt when I found out I was going to be a father. I was scared and confused and excited and had doubts and felt pressure and didn’t know who to talk to about any of this. At the time I was working as a journalist and had been in talks with my editor about doing a weekly column. I was struggling to find something that I could write about regularly and then it dawned on me...I had a platform to solicit advice and get things off my chest. I wrote every week for nearly two years about what it was like to be a dad for the first time. I learned a lot - and it was great to be able to get my thoughts out of my overly crowded head. 

So I’m doing that once again. This blog will be my opportunity to work through what it’s like to be a newly diagnosed Autistic adult. I’m hoping this not only helps me with my own journey but helps others on a similar path. I hope that sharing some stories and asking some questions leads to a better understanding for me and others. And I’m looking forward to being able to track just how my thoughts, ideas, and opinions will undoubtedly change while on this journey. 

Thank you, in advance, for joining me on this journey. I hope this becomes a mutually beneficial endeavor and I hope that through this I am able to contribute something of value to the Autism community.

[admirable-mairon]

Update on my life and whatnot

Some of you have asked/wondered what happened in my life and just....... How I’m holding up. 

Something that’s always worked for me is to simply write everything down in a long rant post, and so that is what I will do. Both for those who are curious, but also so that I will be able to put this down without having to worry about it bombarding me in every waking moment of every day. 

There will be few happy things under the cut. TW for abuse (physical and verbal), trauma, threats of self-harm and suicide, mental illness, insults and harsh language.  Despite all that, I promise that the post ends on a good note

Alright so where do I begin.......

Back in April I started going on Tinder and Her - Two dating apps. Not because I was looking, per se, but because I wanted to push myself out of my comfort zone and hopefully gain some form of confidence. I just wanted to try this whole ‘dating app’ thing out. 

And well, it went........ It went better than I had expected. I met a person that I fell in fast love with, something that was ENTIERLY new for me. Sure, when I was together with my ex I loved him - and I still do - but I had never felt this intense... I don’t know. I had never felt anything this intense before. I both jot this down to this being my first ever girlfriend, AND the fact that I had gotten my diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder earlier the same year (a really short and simplified description of that would be a lack of intuitive nuance.Emotions are either really bad or really good - not in between on a spectrum). 

Fast forward and as the end of 2018 was creeping closer I had moved in with them, I had gotten myself a dog (whom I love very much still), we had a bigger apartment than before, I only have one year left at uni, they started talking about marriage, etc.....

And then, on the 28th of December 2018, my life completely shattered.  They threatened to hit me and physically forced me to not leave their presence. 

For clarification, my ex, and abuser, is a gender-fluid lesbian whose prefered pronouns are They, which is what I will refer to them as. 

So how the hell did it all come about?

Well - My grandpa died last summer, my grandma lives in a home now, and so my mother is cleaning out their old house. Naturally, she asked me and my brother whether there were any things, furniture etc, that we wanted to keep. I said “I’m interested in at least one of those” and left it at that. 

As I told them when they woke though, around noon, they immideately grew..... Intimidating. Scary. Turns I wasn’t allowed to keep that piece of furniture, and the fact that it had belonged to my grandfather “didn’t matter”. I refused to take that kind of talk, especially first thing in the morning, and told them that the discussion was over. I didn’t want to talk about it. 

Once again, I was not allowed to say no. They kept going, and seeing as they ignored my verbal ‘no’, I took up my phone to scroll around and show them physically that I wouldn’t keep talking about it.... At which point they reached forward to take my phone from me. 

My rapist used to do that - my latest abuser - and I reacted on instinct, and took it back. Seeing as my nails are long I accidentally scratched them, which they used against me even as I tried to apologize. 

“You’re lucky I’m not like you, or I would have broken up with you now, because you hurt me physically”

“I know - I’m sorry! I panicked when you tried to take my phone!”

“Well that doesn’t matter. I didn’t try to take it, I tried to push it down. I COULD have just taken it and thrown it to the other side of the room and into a wall”

Aka I should be happy that it wasn’t worse. 

Feeling REALLY unsettled now I tried to leave the bedroom, but I wasn’t allowed to. They PHYSICALLY placed themself in front of me and blocked my path, towering over me and refusing to let me leave. They physically blocked the doorway, but seeing as I’m stronger and heavier I managed to push myself out through a surge of adrenaline, and I ran to the bathroom so I could lock myself in until it was safe. 

That didn’t happen. They ran after me and forced the door open, not letting me tug it closed no matter what I did. At this point I was desperate and screaming at them to leave me alone, but they refused. I didn’t get a choice in the matter. So finally I screamed what had been echoing subtly at the back of my head for weeks:

“It doesn’t feel like you want a girlfriend - It feels like you just want a servant!”

And that is when they raised their hand in a clear threat to hit me. They did so twice, and I was deadly afraid at this point. I screeched at them to leave me alone and all they did was keep repeating the phrase:

“What’s wrong with you? Why do you always exaggerate?”

They also physically tried to shut me up by pushing a finger onto my mouth, and I was desperate and pumped with adrenaline at that point. But I wasn’t just scared - I was also angry. Beyond angry - I was blindingly furious. 

I don’t remember why atm, but they suddenly started crying about the whole ordeal, and I quite frankly said that I didn’t feel sorry for them. I was furious, and THEY threatened me, not the other way around. 

Things escalated further then. They ran into the bathroom and started tearing out every single box and cupboard and shelf - all in search for razors so they could cut themself. Realizing this, of course, I threw myself after them and used all my strength to pull them back. When they didn’t find the razors (and because I held on) - They ran into the kitchen and struggled to get to our kitchen knives. Yup - I’m talking about meat knives, vegetable knives, bread knives, etc.

I managed to pull them back into the living room at which point they calmed down somewhat. I said I would call the doctor - and they promised me dearly that they would jump from the balcony if I did.  They later admitted that they deliberately struggled to force me to hurt them when I restrained them, aka they used my body as a tool to self-harm.

At that point I was just......... Exhausted. Empty. Drained. And so unbelievably hurt and betrayed. But our dog needed a walk, so I took him out and called my best friend meanwhile - telling her about the situation. 

I want you to understand why I didn’t leave right at that moment - I had nowhere to go. Where WOULD I go?! Gothenburg is a hellscape when it comes to finding apartments or homes, I had already paid the rent for that apartment, etc. The only reason I didn’t leave then and there was because there were too many loose strings. There were couches I could sleep on, sure - but what about an apartment? What about my own room? Where would I live safetly?

During all this time, I also updated my chosen family in Denmark about what happened, to which the response was “We will get you down here. You’re in danger. We support you in everything you do”. 

I decided to stay one more day at least. I planned on writing two lists - One with pros of staying and one with cons. That, and I needed to think...... AND we were going to see the Hunchback of Notre-Dame the day after. I had waited to see that show for FIVE YEARS and I was not going to miss it because my partner decided to be an asshole. 

Fast forward to the evening of the 29th. The day had gone on...... Fine. But I knew from experience that I wasn’t actually feeling it. I had no romantic feelings, no love - no affection for the human next to me other than the barest form of compassion that is “I would really like you to not die”. 

I wrote the list, I read it to them, because parts of it also came down to their reaction to being told what not to do. 

Well - I wouldn’t be writing this if they had realized their mistakes, would I?

The immideate response to everything was to throw blame on everyone else, on me for making them mad, for provoking them, on their mother, on their illnesses and their autism, which I shut down immideately. I have mental illnesses as well as BPD, but that doesn’t give me the right to blame ABUSE on it and refuse to correct my behaviour.

I broke up with them then, though it was in..... more careful terms than I would have wished. I wish I had just said it outright, but it’s hard to dump someone you know? I am a compassionate person - I didn’t want to crush them further, especially cause they had threatened with suicide the day before. They begged me to stay, naturally, and said they would do anything to have me stay. However, when I brought up that I would like for her to go to the doctor, while I went down to my family in Denmark, they once again refused. They wanted me to simply sit at home, because she saw it as punishment. 

After a lot of going back and forth I managed to convince them to go to one of our neighbours, their best friend, while I made some calls and sorted out my brain. 

I called my best friend, to sort my thoughts out, I called the doctor to get advice and information on how their routines work, and then I called my ex’s father to explain the situation. He had the right to know that his child was heavily suicidal and that I wouldn’t be there to take care of it. Furthermore, I needed him to watch our dog just for a couple of days. Not forever, but just until I was in a safe place, and had made quite a lot of calls just in case we would have to sell him on. 

I also packed my stuff that night, and bought my ticket for Denmark. But what does one pack when one is running for one’s life? I packed necessities, naturally, but also valuables I didn’t need, because they had proven to be violent so I had no way of knowing they WOULDN’T destroy my things while I was gone. 

They soon realized what I was doing however, as I kept in contact with both the friend and their dad, and I was ORDERED not to go to Denmark, at which point I’m honestly proud of my reply. 

“If you leave for Denmark, we are over” “Great. Then the relationship is over at 10.55 tomorrow morning”

All night I also had to watch over our puppy of course - The last night I would ever spend with him, and this is the part where I usually break into tears. Even now. I can tell the rest of it with a certain cold hate - I do not mourn my relationship, but I......... I mourn my little baby boy. 

He had no idea that that was the last time he would ever get to see his favourite mommy. He had no idea that he would never get to sleep on my chest again, that I would never kiss his little head or nose again, that this time Mommy would never again come back once mommy left. I’m crying now that I write this. Only now, because I miss my baby boy so much - I love him....! But I can’t take care of a dog, I barely have a home, I don’t have the time because of my studies, and while my ex doesn’t have a lot of money, they have resources. And if they can’t take care of him, I contacted his previous owner to make sure that there was a safe place he could go. 

I miss my Hanzo so much that my heart breaks, and seeing little dogs downtown actually physically hurt nowadays, because I know that somewhere there’s a darling boy who will never know where his Mommy went. He will never know how much I love him. 

I had to leave though, and leave I did. I called my internship and explained the situation, I contacted Hanzo’s first owner, AND surprisingly, I called my mother. I guess no matter how much anger and disappointment I have towards her - When my life shattered I really really just wanted my mom.  And for the first time she actually supported me in the way I needed. She was THERE for me! I wasn’t scolded for what I had done, I wasn’t blamed for my own abuse - She actually behaved like I’ve heard mothers are supposed to. 

I healed rather quick after that, or rather I put myself together thanks to my family in Denmark. There was disney, and food, and DnD and just so much love and freedom. I wasn’t even SAD that I had left - I was just so relieved and happy and free! Like I could breathe again, even though I couldn’t pinpoint when I had stopped, you know? All through it my parents and friends back home did everything they could to help me solve the issue of the fact that I was now homeless. I am so privileged and happy to have them in my life - I had help and support where many might not have. Some might not have had the opportunity I did. Some might not have been able to run away, and honestly I can imagine few things that are worse than being stuck in that kind of prison. 

Remember my earlier note about being seen as a servant? Yea - that was very confirmed. The Ex tried to contact me and give me orders all through that week - talking to me like I wasn’t even a human being. There were demands and orders and things I HAD to do, things I HAD to pay, etc etc. I was insulted, compared to abusers (ironically), and overall treated like I was a mere object and possession. I called them out on it and politely told them to stop using such a derogatory tone and treat me with some form of basic human respect. The excuse for that attitude was that “Well you don’t understand simple commands unless I say them in this way. Grow up. Respect is earned”

There was still the problem of moving my things out of the apartment, but through many calls, texts and the effort of both my friends and my family, I had help both economically and physically to move all my stuff out.  We had been promised that the apartment would be clean and ready to be packed and moved, so to speak, as she was going to “switch back” to the smaller apartment. 

However when we arrived it was......... I don’t even know how to describe how nasty it was. Unwashed dishes (MY dishes), rotten food and trash, dirty floors, dirty laundry and it was damn near impossible to move around in there.  Luckily they weren’t there when we arrived, but I had my key, AND we had been in contact with the couple we had switched apartments with, who were now supposed to move into that... mountain of garbage. They had apparently also been lied to and used while I was away in Denmark. 

When They - the ex - finally came, they threw a fit, and I literally nearly attacked them. Not because they were there, per se, but because they threatened my mother. They treated my mom just like they had that day, they were threatening and downgrading and kept telling my own mother that I was “A worthless excuse for a human being, and I honestly can’t imagine anything more nasty than your daughter”

This is where my mother grew in my eyes. If I ever doubted that my mother loves me, or is proud of me, it changed in that very moment.  Because I got to see my mother - my daint little ladylike mother - stand up to my abuser and command the entire fucking room. 

“You can think whatever you want, but there is nothing in this world I’m more proud of than my daughter, so take that attitude, stick it somewhere, and get out of my face so we can pack our stuff and finally get you out of our lives”

Let me tell you, those hours of packing were long. All the while, we had my abuser going around and at every possible moment they insulted me. Thanks to mom’s outburst earlier however, my hate for Them simmered down to a cool form of disgust, so I didn’t take any form of provocation from them. Not even when they sat next to me and just spewed insult after insult. 

“What’s wrong with you?” “Dunno” “Like seriously - what’s wrong with you” “Dunno” “There has to be something cause you’re so pathetic that I almost feel pity for you” “Mhm. So this box of things is mine right?”

It pissed them off quite a lot. There was also a real threat from our side that if they escalated things or kept being threatening, we WOULD call the police. Let me tell you, there were some close calls - Especially when they dropped a box full of stuff on my mom’s back. 

But then we could leave. We were done. I blocked them on my phone and I will never look back. 

---

That................. Became a longer post than even I expected honestly. 

But after all that - How am I doing now?

So. Much. Better. 

Not only has my relationship with my mother improved, not only am I free to live my life and by my own rules, but I have also come to the genuine realization that I’m not single because I am not worthy of love, but because I’m WORTH waiting for something good. Until that comes along however, if it ever does, I’m WORTH being happy and living my life for ME! 

I live in a room in my aunt’s place, and honestly it’s so damn cozy? It’s cheap and worth it, I feel safe, there are cats, my cousins are here sometimes and honestly my aunt and I get along great! 

The only remaining issue is that of Hanzo, which I’m looking into more properly, ergo “Will I need a lawyer? Is my case strong enough?” - Not to have him live with me, but to have him live with someone who can afford bringing him to the vet, buy him food, and NOT having him live in a filthy home with rotting trash and food everywhere. 

Overall I like to look at this experience like a REALLY nasty bout of having to clean out the shower drain. 

Cleaning the shower drain is nasty, and it doesn’t matter how many layers of protection you wear - It’s still gross. It smells, and the filth can be hard to get rid of, especially if it’s sewage that’s been stuck for a bit and had time to grow.  Even when the procedure is done and the clog has been flushed down the toilet, one feels rather nasty and grimy and as though one will never be clean.  But ALAS!  After a shower, or twelve, that nasty feeling is gone and now that the drain has been cleaned, the water flows freely - clean - and natural. And everything feels so much better. 

My abuser is that clog, but they have been flushed away - Cleaned up, the water flows freely, and I feel like a new person. 

I haven’t even taken my anti-depressants for a couple of days and felt NOTHING!

---

TL;DR: Even though this was my second abusive relationship, I’m safe and happy now. I love living - I love breathing - I love studying! 

Even though flashbacks might occassionally haunt me - Even though words will occassionally come back to sting - I will not let them stop me in my life.

Thank you for reading <3 I’m done now <3 I promise

[aquarianlights]

Life is great, guys. :) (It really does get better.)

So I just wanted to talk about this for a minute coz for those of you who don’t know, this blog isn’t like an aesthetic blog or whatever; it’s a personal blog. I’m usually flooding it with verbose text posts, vlogs, selfies and whatnot. I haven’t been able to do that since finally pursuing my passion of medicine because the field is all-consuming. But I’m back for like another week or so, kind of. Lol. I’m going to be writing up an update on what’s going on and why I disappeared for so long and all that because I’m doing some REALLY COOL STUFF! :D And I’m excited to share it with everyone! :) I really missed you guys and I missed my blog. I may not get that text post up tonight, but here’s this one. Lol.

I know I have said I beat my depression before, but even now as I have slipped back into a depressive state and even seriously had points where I considered suicide, life is still really great. I even had a night where I relapsed for the first time in 2 years and gave myself exactly 3 cuts and had pills laid out ready to OD and you know what? The decision to text my next door neighbour (who is turning into a good friend) to come over and chat instead of going any further with all of that was SUCH an easy decision to make.

You all know how impulsive I am. I’m on the extreme end of the borderline  personality disorder spectrum. I’m as impulsive as they come. Even as depressed as I can get sometimes, overall, I’m still happy. And I want to illustrate how that can be so that everyone with depression can understand exactly HOW it gets better and what you have to look forward to in life.

There was a time when I was having a total breakdown on my closet floor. Like, panic attack and all. Couldn’t breathe, felt like I was legitimately going to die, had my phone on 911 with my thumb over dial because I really did feel like I was dying from the panic attack. As I laid there, sobbing and gasping for air, torn between “I wish I would just die” and “I should call 911 coz I feel like I’m dying”, my panic attack began to subside. As it did, I laid there sobbing unable to get up, unable to even move. But what was the very first thing my mind thought at that moment as my mind began to clear? Normally, I would think “God, I just want to die” or maybe thinking of ways to kill myself or ways to justify killing myself. But no. I didn’t. The very first thing I thought was “Wow, I’m so glad I’m alive. My life is the best it has ever been, it is so wonderful and I am so happy. I wouldn’t want to lose it.”

In that moment, after a horrible breakdown, all I could think about was how happy I was and how great my life was.

And even now, despite me being more depressed and suicidal than I have been in 2, maybe even 3 years now, I feel more motivated, driven, content, in control of my own destiny, powerful and like I really enjoy the life I’m waking up into than I ever have in my entire life. For once, I don’t mind waking up into *my* life. Sure, I would change it in a fucking heartbeat if I could. I think everyone has at least one thing about their life they would change. But I’m now one of those people that wakes up and feels motivated and excited to take on the day more often than not, instead of waking up with pain and this unbearable weight holding you down in bed not allowing you to even get up. I’m no longer that person that wakes up and just instantly bursts into tears and does everything in their power to go back to sleep. Those days are finally over for me... I dare say for good.

I don’t know what I did to deserve being happy. . . but I’ve worked so goddamn hard to get to this point. I’ve taken all the right steps over all these years and I guess it has all paid off. I’ve gone through a decade worth of finding the right combination of medications. I’ve finally found the right psychiatrist/psychologist team for med management and therapy. I’m exercising every day, I’m starting to do a bit of yoga, I’m trying to eat right and *trying* to learn to cook (even though it isn’t going well lol), I’m not starving myself anymore, I’m going to physical therapy once a week, I’m keeping myself busy, I’m exercising my mind constantly, I’m doing all the “homework” my therapist sends me home with every week...

After ALL the trial and error of sorting through therapist after therapist... I FINALLY found which “kind” of therapists work for me and which don’t so I can INSTANTLY tell from almost the very first session now if they are going to work for me or not. If I can’t tell, then by the end of the month, I’ll know for sure. I know all the coping mechanisms in the book and I now utilize every one that works for me. And when my therapists ask me what I need from them, I know exactly what to tell them.

I have worked SO. GODDAMN. HARD. ...and it has paid off. It has FINALLY paid off.

I Pavloved my brain honestly. And it worked.

See, my VERY FIRST psychologist as an adult told me I had “Learned Helplessness”, which I did, due to my mother, who is still trying to inflict it on me. It had caused a *LOT* of my depression. This psych had suggested to me that I do corrected thinking, which I’m sure a lot of you are familiar with.

It’s where every time you have a negative/bad/degrading/those kind of thought(s), you *immediately* correct it in your mind and if possible aloud, as well. I thought that was stupid back when I was 18. I thought everything was stupid back then. That psych tried so hard with me and kept me for a year before she finally had to discharge me for noncompliance after I refused to speak for like.... 10 sessions. Idk why she tried so hard for so long, honestly.

Fast forward like... at least 5(?) years from that time.

I was living with my parents after one of those many traumatic break ups I had. Idr which one. But it was one that reminded me of my learned helplessness. And I was in with a new psychologist and they told me the same thing and I was like “oh”. So I started doing it.

Fast forward like a year later. It’s now a habit. I’m now doing it subconsciously without me even realizing it. But the bad thoughts are still the primary thought and I’m still having to correct myself. It’s just that I’m not consciously doing the correcting anymore.

Fast forward to that moment in the closet. That was the first time I realized that my negative thoughts are no longer the primary thoughts anymore. The corrected thoughts are now the primary thoughts. Those were things that I had been telling myself over and over to try to convince myself to believe it. “Fake it till you make it.” My psychs had always told me “even if it isn’t true, if you tell it to yourself enough times, you can make yourself believe it”. Now, studying medicine, I know why. It all makes sense now. Conditioning is so real. And it works. It changed the entire way I think and go about life. My outlook on just about everything has totally changed and the way I do things has just flipped. Things that would have sent me to a psych ward for a suicide attempt in the past in like 0.2 seconds are now motivators for success for me and give me reason to keep doing what I love. It’s unreal what positive conditioning can do if you just change your entire outlook by devote yourself to correcting all your negative thinking every single time until your brain starts doing it on its own.

I’m going to buy a clicker that they use on dogs and click it every time I feel motivated because that’s something I still sometimes struggle with more than happiness and I need motivation more than I need happiness, honestly. (I had to pick one or the other; Can’t pick both, you have to focus in on just one when doing this.) So I’m trying to sort of...bottle motivation, if you will. If I can just click it every time I feel a rush of motivation, which is at random throughout the day multiple times a day, in about a year or two time (I hope, maybe longer), I’ll be able to click it and get a rush of motivation from the sound. :)

ANYWAYS.

I know I post a lot about my journey with mental illness, so I just wanted to let you guys know that, uh... it hasn’t changed. My “it gets better” posts are still happening. It did get better. It stayed better. Just because I feel suicidal or depressed sometimes doesn’t mean it isn’t better anymore. It is still very much better and I am still very much as happy as can be. I am allowed to feel suicidal and depressed within my bubble of overall happiness. That’s what a lifetime of major depressive disorder and suicidal ideation can do to someone. I still feel like I beat depression even though it is a bit more prevalent in my life now than it has been in a long time. I feel I beat it because I can deal with it so much better than I ever have been able to do before. It’s so much more than sadness, but it’s not something that is going to ruin me and kill me like I was in danger of prior to this transformation, if that makes sense. I’ll kill it before it kills me.

So.

I’m going to write up that update post on what is going on in my life. Why I just disappeared off the face of the planet all last month and a little before that and a little after and so on and so forth. I’M DOING SOME REALLY COOL THINGS, YOU GUYS, AND I’M SO EXCITED FOR THE COMING FALL SEMESTER!!!!!! :D

Be sure to read that whenever I get it posted up! ...maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow. Idk. Probably tomorrow, honestly. [shruggy emoji] I’ve got a lot going on right now, but everything is so much slower paced than I’m accustomed to at this point so I feel like I have so much free time. Haha.

Anywayyyyys...

It gets so much better, you guys. Just hold on till it does. And if you ever need anyone to vent to, just hop on in my inbox. Anon is always on! I don’t wanna lie, but chances are, I probably won’t answer you for like... weeks to months at a time to be totally honest coz I’m hella busy, but know I’ll read them! I always do. :)

-KQR

[thevoiceiskillingme]

Withered

So, I should probably write a little bit about everything that's been going on in my life. But that would take hours, and I honestly can't be bothered. It will probably come out here and there anyway, and right now I have the need to write about what's happening these days. This is a very long post.

I have schizoaffective disorder (depressive type), ptsd and anxiety disorders. Sort of a mix of a lot of them. I got diagnosed in 2018, where I spent 10 months (approx) inpatient. It probably sounds super depressing to be inpatient so long, but it wasn't - for me. I met a lot of cool people, some who I consider good friends still. Some I have of course lost contact with - as I was living in another place then, and now I've moved closer to my home town, about 10 hours away. Meaning I can never really see them, and communicating through text etc., is not any of our strong suits. I do however miss some of them a lot, and the memories with them are some of my best.

I've never really experienced clicking with people in my life, but there I found several that I went along with really well, and who seemed to actually appreciate me as well. I could be myself in a way, which I suppose is understandable as it was a psychiatric ward. We could understand each other, on another level than mentally healthy people can, at least. I feel like none of my friends from younger years do, and that's difficult.

I have to admit, although it hurts, that I don't really have any friends (that I meet and talk to regularly). I'm not counting the friends I met then in this statement. I live in the same town as my best friend from age 7 till.. 22? We spent so much time together when we both lived at home, but since we moved out we never were in the same city, so naturally we couldn't meet often, but we still talked online and on videochat. Now we never hang out. I can't remember the last time we did, and it just feels like everything's changed between us.

Maybe it's just normal, growing apart? But I honestly feel a little betrayed. I've tried a lot, but I don't really try anymore, as I'm not getting a lot back. But to be honest, she's in school, she has a boyfriend, she has study-friends, she has a life (as much as you can nowadays), I have nothing. I'm on disability, I am engaged (somehow), and I'm crippled a lot by my disorders, but that doesn't mean I'm not the same person as always, and still have a need for social interaction. I have another friend in this town as well, but the situation there is pretty much the same.

I guess maybe I find it all very difficult, as we can not relate to each other. This pretty much goes for all of my friends from before, whom I still am considered friends with, but not really. We can talk and they'll tell me all about what they've done lately; exams, friends, work, adventures etc etc. And then they ask me, and I get stiff. What can I say? I do fuck all. "Well, I've watched this and that, and read those books.. I'm working out a little, but only indoors. I see my psychologist, psychiatrist, and my doctor. Oh and I got disability recently, after waiting for some time, so I basically will probably never lead a normal life with school and work." What the fuck? We're on completely opposite parts of the spectrum, and I understand that it's difficult.

I feel a little less than those who've followed the "normal" curve in life, but why should I? I didn't choose to be sick, I hate this life. I'm crippled by my illnesses, which are pretty fucking debilitating ones, mind you. I go around every fucking day scared shitless of losing my mind again, worse this time. I have diagnosis which is basically a mixture of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, the two most severe (not my words, it's stated).

Being on medication ruined my life and took everything away from me, so I quit them in december 2020, of course with support from my psychiatrist. But now I have other struggles (physical and mental) that's also ruining my life. When do I get a fucking break? The only thing I have going for me, is that I'm losing weight. No, I'm not promoting ed's or anything, I was huge because of comfort eating, medication and a hormonal disorder. I'm still huge. Losing weight is the only thing I have to cling onto, and I'm doing so healthily.

Thankfully I feel better now that I'm smaller, and as I'm off medication I actually have the energy and motivation to look good. I take care of my hair, I put on makeup and I dress nice. That feels like the only thing I have now.

But I'm not gonna spend all of this post complaining, a lot of good things have happened as well. You know, when I was younger, I couldn't stand the thought of living an a4 life, the societal ideal. But the last few years, I've wanted nothing more. I can't get an education or work, but the other stuff is pretty much in place. I met the love of my life in 2019, and we are engaged. He is a psychologist by the way, which is somewhat ironic when I think about my diagnoses and stuff, but fuck it; I'm intelligent, decent looking, and I have a lot of good qualities, so why shouldn't he like me? I'm tired of brining myself down.

Anyhow, I'm engaged. A few months ago we bought a house, in my hometown, and we're moving in about half a month. We own a car, and we're planning to expand our family. I have a lot of good things going on, but my personality have always been pessimistic, and as I struggle with certain things, I can't completely comeprehend all that's going on. It doesn't always feel real (more in a derealization way, not psychosis). But I feel like I've achieved a lot, even though I haven't taken the standard route. In a way I'm ahead of my friends, when it comes to settling down. That's a good feeling.

This post is so fucking long, but I'm in a ranting mood these days. I had to sneak in a few updates as well, to have things make sense. I'll probably post some more in not too long, as I, as stated, have a lot in my mind I need to write down. If you've read all of this, thank you, and you deserve a medal.

[myaekingheart]

Let's Take a Moment to Talk about Eating Disorders

This is the only thing that's been running in the back of my mind for days, weeks, maybe even months so I think it's time I sat down and really talked about this for a second. First off, I really hate myself. Let's just get that out of the way. If I didn't, I probably wouldn't be putting myself through so much torture. Not that I can even control much of this. The issue is that I know I have an eating disorder, but I just don't know what the fuck it is. I feel like eating disorders are very hit-or-miss in the diagnosis department. There's a handful of really well-researched and apparently common ones and then anything that doesn't fit the bill gets tossed into a junk drawer full of wide spectrum scenarios. I am one of those people in the junk drawer. I don't fit into any of the other boxes. I am an outlier, an unusual suspect. Of all the cases in which I am the strange, uncategorized lowlife, I never thought that the same would apply to eating disorders, as well.

Should I see a doctor or a therapist or something for all of this? Probably. Will I ever? I guess we'll see what happens. The thought of sitting in a room with a stranger going over all of this just comes off as unnerving and intimidating. Granted, not that spewing all of this nonsense out onto the internet is any better. At least here, I'm not guaranteed anyone will listen. I can tell you all I'm carrying the child of a one-eyed alien and you'd all probably go about your business as normal. But in a doctor's office, that's another story.  They're staring at you taking notes on everything you're saying and the worst part is that you're shelling out tons of cash for them to do so. Then they'll look over everything they wrote down and overanalyze you, diagnose you with fifteen million different problems, and hand you a prescription and send you on your way. Probably. I've never done this sort of thing before so I wouldn't know, but that's how I assume it happens. Either that or it turns into a commitment where you're obligated to return once a week to chat about your problems and your pseudo progress. What a waste of time. Just like this entire paragraph.

Anyways, back to the important shit: the whole reason I'm even typing out all of this crap at 8am on a Wednesday. I have some unidentified problem and I don't know how to fix it. I've always had problems but I feel like more recently, they've only gotten worse and that scares me. When I was a kid, I had some mild eating issues but I don't ever remember it being anything too drastic. My earliest memory of disordered eating was when I was about three. My parents were having some kind of party and all I remember is sitting on the floor in the basement-turned-playroom among all the other kids while a marathon of Mr. Bean tapes was playing on the TV. I specifically remember the one where he meets the queen, the scene in which he's having trouble with his fly and has his finger sticking out of it to look as if he's whipped his dick out. Lovely to think that Rowan Atkinson gave me just the slightest first glimpse into understanding male genitalia. But anyways, I don't remember what exactly happened at this party to make me do this but somehow I must've spiralled into panic and that manifested itself in a refusal to eat. I went almost a full 24 hours without eating, if I remember correctly, and was fixed only when my mom whipped out a vintage Fisher Price nurse we fondly called Nurse Peggy who convinced me to nibble on some Ritz crackers. I don't have too many other wildly vivid memories of Nurse Peggy but according to my parents, she needed to be whipped out A LOT. I guess I was just one of those kids who didn't like to eat, or was a wildly picky eater. I remember panicking one time because my mom made tuna noodle casserole, one of my favorites, but there was a dark piece of mushroom in it that I swore was the missing leg off one of my little plastic ladybugs and it terrified the fuck out of me. But yeah, so this shit has evidently been going on for quite some time.

Ironically enough, around the same time this eating bullshit started, so did my anxiety. My very first panic attack had to have been when I was about three years old, as well. My mom and I were on ebay looking at a vintage Fisher Price castle when I guess I got so excited that I spiralled into a full-blown anxiety attack. I remember becoming suddenly overwhelmed with a loss of control over my body, shaking and hyperventilating and feeling like I was going to be sick. I have a very distinct memory of my mom tucking me into her bed and calling her own mother in an absolute panic, asking her what the hell she ought to do and being fully ready to drive me to the emergency room if need be. Obviously I calmed down after a while but it was the most terrifying experience of my young life. Little did I know that it was only the first of many panic attacks. Probably about ten or so years ago, I was officially diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. In fifth grade, I was having panic attacks every single night to the point where it became disgustingly routine. My doctor took what I told her into consideration, diagnosed me, and prescribed me some anti-anxiety meds. They didn't last very long. Sure, they made me feel great but all I could think about was what my doctor told me about there being a high risk of addiction. I've never been one for medications for that exact reason (when I was little, during Red Ribbon Week one year we were literally given a coloring page about how you shouldn't take medicine if you don't need it and that doing so can kill you-- I distinctly remember it was two panels of two kids in a bathroom and I'm pretty sure there was a medicine cabinet filled with drugs and it was all very Schoolhouse Rock-esque in style but carried a very dark and brooding message). That coupled with the fact that the medication gave me some pretty hefty bathroom issues, I gave up on it after a couple of days. I know you shouldn't quit any medication without a doctor's consent but quite frankly, I didn't give a fuck. I wanted off and I wanted off now. Looking back, sometimes I wonder if giving up on those pills was the wrong decision, if I would've been better off if I had continued them all these years. Sometimes I wonder if I needed them more than I was willing to admit. Anxiety has affected and influenced every aspect of my life from irrational panic attacks during college orientation to trichotillomania during times of stress or when I'm insomniatic to, you guessed it, eating disorders.

Sometimes I feel like my brain is a playground and all the disorders going on in my head are small children running rampant together at recess, playing tag and hide and go seek. They all work in conjunction with one another like the cogs of a clock, winding together and grinding together. Anxiety is the queen bee, the line leader, and everything else follows suit in response to it. I pull my hair out sometimes because I'm anxious. I don't sleep because I'm anxious. I don't like high ceilings because they make me anxious. I don't eat because I'm anxious. And if anxiety was to have a little sister, it would be called emetophobia. I've been emetophobic for as long as I can remember, even though for the longest time I didn't have a word for the disorder. It was just that terrible, debilitating fear of throwing up. There was one girl back in first and second grade who used to tease me about it. She'd just sit there at lunch and say puke or barf or vomit and I'd instantly lose my appetite and feel woozy. I wonder if she ever regrets doing that to me. I wonder if she even has any idea the affects that had on me as a kid. Obviously nobody thinks vomiting is pleasant, even those with the more well known eating disorders who induce themselves (I doubt they find the actual act pleasant, regardless of how purging themselves makes them feel) but with me, the hatred and discomfort toward it is so extreme that it-- you guessed it-- gives me panic attacks. This has been perhaps the most recent culprit of my eating issues as of late, this emetophobia. And unfortunately, this isn't the first time something like this has happened.

When I was a kid, during the time I was getting panic attacks every night, one of the big things I feared was vomiting. A few days after my birthday that year, I had eaten a slice of leftover cheesecake at 9:34pm while watching reruns of I Love Lucy and later that night, I violently threw up. I still even remember what it looked like ten years later if that gives you any indication of just how bad this vomit phobia is. The cheesecake tasted like coffee and because of this, I couldn't stand the smell of coffee for a year or two afterward, having massive freakouts when my parents would make their nightly cups and forcing them to spray Febreeze throughout the entire house to try and mask the scent. To this day, the smell of coffee still sends a shiver down my spine. One of the main reasons why I don't drink it. Because of this experience, however (and the fact that almost every time I have vomited, it's been at night), I quickly fell into this vicious cycle of situational restriction. I refused to eat after dark out of the absolute fear that nighttime alone would cause my vomiting. This honestly became incredibly debilitating, and was especially a nuisance when daylight savings time ended and it began to get darker earlier. I'd constantly try and get my family to cater to this irrational fear, begging for dinners as early as 4pm just so I could avoid the possibility of thowing it all up after dark. Eventually, this all somehow petered out and I got back onto a more normal eating schedule but for the longest time, this was a massive problem and I'm terrified to say that I think it may be making a comeback.

The past few months have been pivotal for me. I spent a year straight toiling away in college in order to get my associate's degree as quickly as possible, then literally the very next day after my last final exam, I moved 300 miles away into an apartment with my boyfriend. It's been taking a while to adjust and I still find myself having some troubles even now three months later. In a way, a part of me feels like perhaps I wasn't entirely ready to move out in the first place. I can't drive, I've never had a job. I basically fall behind in every single aspect of adulthood except academically. And even though my boyfriend and I had been planning this months ahead of time and spoke of moving in together very early in our relationship, it still feels like everything moved outrageously fast. Living on my own has been wildly different than living with my parents, as well, both for the good and the bad. The good involves a newfound sense of freedom and the excitement of starting a new life-- one in which my boyfriend and I are not long distance, the beginning of spending the rest of our lives together. The bad, however, includes a chaotic aimlessness, a lack of structure, and crippling reponsibility. In the short few months I've been living on my own, I've found myself spiraling into a series of strange habits that are probably good for my finances but bad for my mental health, and the majority of them revolve around eating. First and foremost is the comeback of the nighttime fears. Because my boyfriend works retail, he works a broad range of hours that can fall anywhere from early morning shifts at 6am to closing shifts where he doesn't come home until almost midnight. This makes our routine very unstable because things change every day. Some nights we'll eat dinner at a solid 7pm and other times, food won't even be a thought until almost one in the morning when he gets home and has taken some time to relax. In a perfect world, this would be great. I always wanted to live aimlessly with zero structure, just eat and sleep whenever I please. Now that I'm here, though, the implications are terrifying. I've been getting panic attacks every single night for the past month or two whenever I eat without fail. But they're not the normal types of panic attacks that involve hyperventilating and full-body trembling and sweaty palms. Instead, these are much quieter and more akin to a persistent fear than anything else. It's a rising in my chest, a lump in my throat, the feeling that I can't swallow or that the food is going to come back up like acid reflux. It's the constant feeling that at any second, my chair is going to tilt back or a giant hand is going to peel the ceiling away or the floor will cave in and an immense gravity wil suck me down to the earth's core. This isn't so much a problem with breakfast or lunch or whatever the fuck you can consider my daytime meals these days. It's only at night when things get heavy and I feel like everything is caving in. Because of this, I feel like I can't eat. Even if I wanted to, even if I'm starving, I physically cannot bring myself to overcome these feelings and just eat. Every time I try, my throat tightens up and I'm seized by this overwhelming sensation of something rising up within me and my body jolts in the same way as when someone sneaks up behind you and touches your shoulder or your back or your arm. I spend my nights hiding this as I glance at my food, shift uncomfortably in my seat, rub the back of my neck or tug on my earlobe or squeeze my foot, constantly chanting over and over again in my head to just breathe, that I'm fine, that I'm not going to be sick. For a while, I just attributed all of this to leftover symptoms of a cold I had a few months back. I had insane postnasal drip which, as an emetophobic, I refused to hock up and spit out so it just stayed in my system building up and circulating and choking me. A part of me is still convinced that's part of the problem. But now I know that it's also so much more than that. It's not just leftover phlegm, it's also anxiety and restriction and absolute fear.

The other big contributing issue here has to do with obsession. Obsession with ingredients, obsession with calories, obsession with body image. This is where the more textbook features of eating disorders come into play. I've always had a love-hate relationship with my body image. I've always been very petite, always the shortest kid in my elementary school classes and I could still fit into size 3T skirts when I was in, like, second grade. At first, it wasn't anything other than just being small. I was still a healthy weight for my height and age, I had some baby fat on me. I looked fine. Second grade, however, was when everything hit the fan. I think at the end of the day, it all boils down to my teacher. I remember her as this chubby woman with gray hair and glasses who kind of reminded me of Ursula from The Little Mermaid. She was the first teacher I ever had who never blatantly praised me. All my other teachers were incredibly kind and nurturing women who saw so much potential in me and made me feel like I was capable of anything. I'm not saying that this is entirely the greatest tactic just because I don't think we should teach our children that they are the best ever and that they can do absolutely anything no matter what (just hang on here, I'm not sadistic, I'm making a very valid point), but I'm not saying that being really tough on them is great either. I firmly believe in teaching our children that they can do whatever they set their minds on given that they work hard. That success is directly influenced by effort but that they can accomplish anything so long as they just work for it. It's a very Tiana-esque method (from The Princess and the Frog). My second grade teacher, however, was one of those really tough women. I always felt like nothing I did was ever good enough for her. I remember getting freaked out after she lectured us on the dangers of plaigiarism and watched us sinisterly as we worked on a classwork assignment about it, then graded us harshly and marked points off if even a snippet of a sentence was exactly like the passage. She also made us use those stupid rubber grips on our pencils that forced us to hold them a certain way and she'd yell at us if we took them off. Now, for some kids I understand that this kind of discipline is good for them but I was not like most kids. I started reading when I was two and always colored inside the lines. In third grade, I found out I was mentally gifted and spent the rest of my elementary school career spending one full day a week doing additional classwork in gifted programs. My mind has a very specific way of working that this bitch was not tolerant to. It was exactly like that quote about how you can't test a fish on it's ability to climb a tree and expect it to do well. No matter what I did, if I didn't do things her way, she wasn't satisfied and that was really detrimental to my self esteem. It was this year that I started really changing for the worst. I lost all my baby fat and became incredibly thin. I was still a super picky eater, restricting myself to things like carrots + dip and chicken nuggets. This was also about the time when I started becoming really moody and disagreeable, which has honestly never changed since. I used to come home from school in a really good mood, like my parents would pick me up and I'd be happy and bubbly and ramble on about my day. Instead, now I was snappy and rude and easily frustrated. School wasn't coming to me as easily as it used to. I'd spend hours staring at one homework page struggling to figure things out and breaking out into tears because I just couldn't grasp it. Granted, this was never an issue with vocabulary  homework, which I excelled at no matter what, but math homework was the devil. My dad and I would get into heated arguments about it because I just could not understand no matter how hard he tried to help me. I'd get angry with him because he'd try to show me the solution in a manner that was different than the way my teacher taught us in class and I was so hellbent on doing everything to cater to the teacher's methods that I would lose my mind if anyone even so much as considered forcing me to do things a different way. Again, this harkens back to that god-awful second grade teacher. This was a recurring thing throughout all of school, even to this day. I have constantly felt obligated to the best in everything I do, whether that's academically or socially or personally. Despite my academic success, socially I've hardly ever been fluent. There was a time as a young kid when I was very outgoing and unfiltered but after years of being bullied and just pushed around, I gradually crawled into my shell to the point where sometimes I can't even fully be myself around my own parents or boyfriend because I get nervous or second guess my decisions, overthinking reponses until it's too late. To everyone else not within my social circle, I'm just really quiet and perhaps a bit intimidating. The resting bitch face is strong with this one. I struggled to retaliate against the harsh words of classmates or the pressures of friends who craved popularity, attempting to force myself into a box in which I did not fit. I was that lanky nerdy kid with the glasses and crooked, oversized teeth who looked like a walking skeleton with pigtails. Sometimes I look back at picture of myself as a kid and wonder how the fuck I didn't even die, I was so goddamn skinny. My childhood best friend came from an Italian family who was very focused on good food. Looking back, it's no wonder I'd sometimes catch her mother glaring at me at the dinner table because I just never fucking ate. I'd take a few bites and then say I was done, then run back off with my friend to play. I don't know how I even had any energy, honestly. I swear I must have been running on empty.

High school, as I remember it, saw a brief intermission in my eating issues. There were a few instances where things were difficult for a time but they weren't anywhere near as monumental as my childhood eating issues, I don't think. Rather, my focus in high school was more on rejecting college, having fun with my friends, and obsessing over boys. Things didn't really hit the fan again until my first year as a full-time college student. As an adult, this is when I began to take things a little more seriously in regards to eating disorders. This was when my IBS started, which has remained a staple in my digestive issues ever since. Everything I ate made me double over in pain on the bathroom floor so I resolved to just not eat. Can't suffer from digestive cramps if you have nothing to digest. This was obviously directly linked to a lot of personal stresses I was facing in my life, what with all the changes that were getting tossed at me left and right. It was a very monumental time filled with a lot of new experiences and fears. I was trying to adjust to the fact that I was actually an adult now and that I'd never step foot in my high school again (which, even though I hated, I had grown rather attached to), never hang out with my friends again (because the majority of them left me), never pass my crush in the hallway ever again (granted, he graduated a year before me and I'm living with him now so that all worked out). The minute winter break started, I caught a nasty cold during which I was sleeping a lot and barely eating. It wasn't until after this that I realized something was seriously wrong with the way I looked. I had always been thin but this was like advanced thin. This was needing a belt on size zero jeans thin. This was dangerously thin. From that point onward, my obsession with my weight and eating habits has been an uphill battle of more adult proportions. I struggled for months afterward to get back on track, to gain the weight back, to push through the crazy intense IBS pains and start really eating again once and for all. It worked for a time and things went relatively well. I got back on track, I started adjusting to college, I got a boyfriend who cares deeply about me. Things were going well. Now, however, is when I feel like I'm slowly slipping off the wagon again.

Because of timing, I spent from August 2016 to August 2017 in school non-stop so I could get my degree and move in with my boyfriend when the lease on his old apartment expired and his roommate moved in with his own girlfriend. I didn't mind doing this. After all, it meant earning my degree quicker and moving in with my boyfriend sooner. A year straight of school wasn't all that awful anyways. Summer courses weren't really anything to write home about, I got through them and then I was done. It was no big deal. Or at least not until finals week. Things started out alright but I was on a massive time crunch. Everything was chaotic, a massive whirlwind. I felt so much pressure to do well, knowing that if I failed any of my tests it would drop my grades and I'd put myself at risk of having to retake classes and essentially ruining everything. I was really hard on myself about academics and added even more stress by procrastinating on packing. A part of me didn't quite register that all of this was really happening in the first place, not until I started moving all of my things into boxes and seeing my room grow barer and barer every day. The peak of the week came the night of my history final. My teacher was incredibly disorganized and let things overflow into the very last day of class so that not only did we have a final to worry about, but we had to wade through an hour and a half of boring presentations beforehand. I was suffering from a rather nasty headache that day, some jaw pain probably caused by a wisdom tooth coming in, so I took what I thought was plain ibuprofen before class. I gulped down two pills and thought I was good to go. What ensued was basically evidence as to why I always reject medication. As it turns out, the pills I took werent't actually ibuprofen but migraine meds with massive amounts of caffeine in them which, as I have recently discovered, I am intolerant to. This would further explain why the coffee flavored cheesecake as a kid sent me into a panic attack and made me puke, why premade brownies are potentially dangerous (my boyfriend and I bought organic brownies from Lucky's Market a few months back that had non-alkalized cocoa powder in them which, surprise surprise, has 4x the caffeine was cocoa powder processed with alkali. I had one fucking miniature brownie and within minutes I was shaking, hyperventilating, and ran to the bathroom on the verge of throwing up. I also realized just today that this also may have been the reason why I vomited a few years back after having eaten a brownie at a Disney resort), etc. I was struggling through the entire night, shaking uncontrollably with sweaty palms. I was dizzy and constantly felt like I was going to puke. I barely made it through my final exam but forced myself to finish because I knew I didn't have time to reschedule. This incident has drastically affected my own eating habits, however. Ever since, I have been wildly obsessed with what's in my food, shying away from sweets and always checking ingredients labels and refusing to drink any soda but Sprite (which, thank the lord, is both delicious and caffeine free). That moment has made me insanely paranoid, though, and a little too mindful (in the bad way) of everything I put into my body. I am so terrified of ever putting myself through something like that ever again that it leads me to restrict even more than normal. The same goes for the way my IBS affects my eating habits, as well. I'm constantly previewing menus for potential restaurants I might end up going to, thinking long and hard about the food I'm going to order. There are certain places where I don't even deviate on the menu, I stick to the same thing every single time I go there no matter what. I am terrified of trying something new and having an adverse reaction to it. With that in mind, I've just come to terms with the fact that restricting just seems easier. None of this is anything new, though. I've been restricting for as long as I can remember. There is, however, one other contributor that is new and that is finances.

Up until now, I have lived under my parents' roof where they paid for everything and I didn't have to worry one bit. They'd let me pick out whatever I wanted in the grocery store and the kitchen was free reign. I could eat whatever I wanted whenever I wanted and that was great. I didn't think about restricting as much back then, except for when it came to IBS. Now, however, things are different. My parents support me financially when it comes to bills and rent but other than that, I am basically on my own using whatever financial aid money I have leftover from my past year of school. I can afford things but I know that until I get a job or start school back up in January and get more financial aid, that that money is what is going to carry me through things like grocery trips and dinners out. It's incredible how much more analytical you become when it's your money that starts being spent on necessary things. Because of this, I've found myself and my relationship with food transforming and probably not for the better. My boyfriend and I are very aimless when it comes to grocery shopping. We don't meal plan, we haven't been couponing, we don't write shopping lists, and we don't seem to make a habit of rationing meat out for multiple meals. We basically just go to the grocery store, grab whatever we want, and hope for the best at the checkout counter. Coming from a home where my parents meticulously plan grocery store trips and buy certain things in bulk, this is a cold shock to me and it's difficult to figure out how to navigate. What I lack in physical lists, I try to make up for in overthinking during the trip itself which then only makes me come off as slow and confused. My boyfriend even described it like I was acting drunk once but it's all because my brain is trying to process so much all at once, like walking into a test after having not studied and never even attended a class. There's a lot going through my head and not a lot of time for me to process it. I don't like doing things this way but I don't know if I even have the motivation to work towards being a more organized shopper. But anyways, because of this our grocery costs tend to rack up pretty quickly which makes me feel guilty and almost uncomfortable since I know we only end up getting a limited number of meals out of that haul. This is where the restricting comes in. Grocery money is always in the back of my mind which essentially translates into this desire to make everything last as long as possible. I greatly ration my food and restrict myself out of the fear of running out and having nothing to eat. I live for leftovers and I make sure I eat just enough at restaurants or during homecooked meals for there to be something to put in the fridge at the end of the night. This doesn't always mean I eat until I'm full, though. Most often times, I'm not that full. Not that I could eat any more even if I wanted to (see a few paragraphs above). This would work great if not for the fact that I'm also obsessed with expiration dates. If something has passed it's expiration date or we have leftovers that have been in the fridge for a while, even if they are actually still good and safe to eat, I will not eat them. I threw out an entire pack of baby carrots the other day because they were one day past the expiration date and they looked dried out and therefore I considered them unsafe to eat. I have never had full-on food poisoning in my life before and I don't ever plan to because it seems my goal in life is to be as delicate and restrictive as possible so as to prevent myself from ever throwing up. If I do, I have failed and will overthink it for the next couple weeks. I get so paranoid every time I get sick that it's going to happen again that I just starve myself because I assume you can't throw up if there's nothing in your stomach (newsflash: you can and I learned that the hard way-- I went almost twenty four hours with barely eating something once and I ended up violently vomiting right before I had plans to go out with my best friend and ever since, I have also been terrified of not eating enough and doing the same exact thing to myself again. So basically, if I eat too much, I'm scared I'll throw up. If I don't eat enough, I'm scared I'll throw up. If I eat anything at all, I'm scared I'm going to throw up. It's real fun). The worst experience of this starvation-after-vomiting thing was in sixth grade. It was the day of a huge standardized test and I was not feeling good at all but I knew I couldn't afford to miss this and my mom refused to let me stay home so I sucked it up, did my best, and went to school. The doors hadn't even opened yet and I was already losing it. Literally a full minute before the teachers opened their doors, I started puking down the entire sixth grade hallway in front of EVERYONE. My friend immediately jumped into action and dragged me to the nurses office as I left a trail of vomit behind me. It was the most traumatizing experience of my life and I will never forget it. After this, I refused to eat for days. I went home, my mom gave me a bath, and I slept on the couch for hours until lunchtime when my mom brought me home a Subway sandwich that I could barely eat without feeling like I was going to be sick again. The day passed in a haze and the next morning, I guess I was looked upon with varying shades of disgust and humor. In a way, I think I kind of unwillingly became some sort of legend at that school because everyone remembers me as the girl who puked down the hallway. The next day was like the big celebration for finishing all of those rigorous standardized tests and as such, my teacher bought donuts for everyone. I love donuts so the normal part of my brain was rejoicing but the traumatized side was in a fetal position in the corner having a panic attack. I did end up grabbing a donut but whether I ate it or not was another story. Sometimes I wonder if deep down everyone in my class knew I had some sort of eating disorder because eating that donut the day after I got sick was like trying to teach a fish how to fly and everyone knew it. Everyone saw I was struggling, everyone knew I had a problem. I don't remember if this was an everyone thing or not but I do distinctly remember the boy sitting next to me was watching me eat and egging me on like I was running a marathon. It almost felt like I was the age I am now and attending a kegger where some frat guy is shouting "CHUG! CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!" Just like that, it was simultaneously motivating and condescending. I swear, everyone was watching me as I struggled to just eat that goddamn fucking donut. I never did finish it. I think I ate about half before tossing it in the trash and making peace with failure. It all still haunts me to this day, though. Especially because I put myself through the same torture day in and day out with my eating nowadays. I stare at the food on my plate and I can hear the voices in my head screaming at me to down the damn thing, meanwhile inside my digestive tract is a bunch of blaring sirens and flashing lights for absolutely no goddamn reason.

Will any of this ever get better? Who fucking knows. By now, I've come to terms with the fact that this is an endless cycle and that it's something I will have to struggle through and face time and time again for the rest of my life. Do I enjoy that fact? Absolutely fucking not. But is it realistic? Yeah, I think so. I don't know if there's ever such a thing as true eating disorder recovery, or if I'll ever even find out what the fuck kind of disorder this even is. It's hard to try and treat something that's so complex and that also doesn't seem to fit into any of the commonplace categories. Sometimes I wish I had anorexia or bulimia instead solely so I could at least pin a name to this torture. Otherwise, I don't know how to cure what doesn't even have a name. Sometimes I wonder if this even actually is some sort of eating disorder or if it's just the conglomeration of multiple different issues combining into one giant super disorder that's wreaking havoc across my entire wellbeing. I have no goddamn idea but fuck, do I wish I knew. If only I fucking knew.

[sinesalvatorem]

What I’ve Learned From Thousands of Conversations

I really, really like talking to people. It’s just a phenomenal experience. I find communication in general exhilarating, and every new person I meet makes me feel like my mind is expanding.

However, not all conversations are created equal. For me, personally, most of them are good. However, there’s definitely a gap between good and amazing, and I’ve noticed that some things can influence where a conversation falls along that spectrum.

I think the two most important things I’ve learned are that almost everyone is interesting and most people are bad conversationalists. There is actually nothing contradictory about these, and I’ll examine them each:

Almost everyone is interesting: Most people have a variety of unusual life experiences, ideas, opinions, hobbies, etc. Even people who see themselves as boring pretty much always have these. The thing that distinguishes self-identified boring people from self-identified interesting people is the degree to which they look at their own experiences and see them as same-old, same-old or as “Oh, wow, I bet tons of people have no idea what this is about”. This probably has a lot to do with how much you believe the people around you are different - I have rarely met an immigrant who hadn’t learnt that they weren’t boring.

In my experience, what makes an idea or experience interesting to learn about is when it’s distinct from my own experiences, but I can also see the relationship between it and what I know and care about. Seeing the path from here to there. The existence of that pathway, and how clearly I can see it, is what leads to the feeling of stimulation.

This is related to the idea of inferential distance. If someone’s interests and experiences are very far away from yours, you may see no obvious route to them. This is where a lot of the work of making conversations interesting comes in - you have the build the pathway, so that each step seems natural.

This is where people being bad conversationalists comes in. Most people don’t do this naturally or, when they do, they do it in a rather slip-shod manner. This has led to me having to very awkwardly ask “Oh, so would you say X is like Y?” a lot, while often getting an “eh, not reeeally...” reaction. But, hey, you gotta try a few possible connections until one sticks. Once you have one, you can get pulled along toward the object of interest pretty quickly.

Another way most people are bad at conversation is topic generation or topic-chaining. Most people don’t come up with things to talk about at a particularly high rate or do it very clunkily. This works out OK once someone else is willing to adopt the work of keeping the conversation moving forward. What’s much worse is when people respond to your attempts to open up the conversational field by shutting it down. The reason social advice warns against responding to questions with one-word answers is because it limits the potential to move the conversation, but people do this all the time anyway.

Which is alright for me, honestly. I can still usually get to great conversational territory, even if I have to wade through poor conversational skills to get there. But I think this is another axis of social interaction that’s often overlooked: Patience. You can be a good conversationalist without being a patient conversationalist, or vice versa.

A good conversationalist can maintain a good conversation. A patient conversationalist can put in the time and effort it takes to make the conversation good. Two good conversationalists can have an exciting conversation, but an exciting conversation with a bad conversationalist only happens when the other person is very patient.

I know some good conversationalists who are very impatient. They walk into a conversation and expect it to go from silence to glowy-Buddha-brain!insightful in under sixty seconds. They definitely have pretty cool conversations, but they have them with only a small number of people, while thinking the vast majority of people have nothing worthwhile to say.

While those people are a minority, I definitely expect I’m waaay into the tails when it comes to conversational patience. I know very, very few people who are as patient in conversation as I am, and they tend to become counsellors or priests or something else that utilises edge-case levels of patience. Personally, I just like bumping into people who’ll talk to me and going from there - I can give pretty detailed biographic summaries of the last four Uber drivers I met.

After a self-sustaining conversation is established, there can still be things that make it more or less pleasant. Most of the things I find unpleasant manifest as some sort of conversational friction. They make the conversation grating and difficult to engage in. An external cause might be a loud environment, and an internal one might be having an auditory processing disorder.

However, the most important ones (and the hardest to deal with) tend to be interactional. ie: they’re only the case because of the specific people interacting. It might be a failure to understand each other’s accents, or each other’s politeness customs, or to communicate boundaries. The worst ones cause an interaction to just fail, but many of them are just small annoyances that add up to a less pleasant experience. A common one for me would be being interrupted.

Another thing that seems to mess with most types of conversation is having an elephant in the room. Whether it’s the small talk before a sales pitch, or chatting with your professor before working up to asking them for a recommendation, the conversations that are built around dancing toward a request tend to suck. Like, really bad, compared to almost anything that doesn’t have this aspect. I think this might be part of why talking to people on online dating sites is so terrible: besides people just being bad conversationalists, they’re also being bad conversationalists with an elephant in the room (ie: going on a date).

Unfortunately, I can’t really give an exhaustive list of causes of friction, because I don’t hold them all in my head. It’s mostly a matter of being distracted by them in the moment - having the grating feeling - before setting it aside to get on with the conversation. This has costs and benefits. It’s good that I can set it aside quickly so that I can keep enjoying most conversation, but bad in that it makes it hard to figure out what I should do about it. One of the few things I’ve definitely been able to figure out is that, on average, I experience markedly more friction with men, which may have left me with an unconscious bias toward spending time with other women.

Generally, as people get to know each other’s ins and outs more, the friction goes down. They figure out how they need to communicate with each other to be understood and not get on other’s nerves. Most of the elephants leave the room. They become familiar enough that the feeling of awkwardness (often the most oppressive friction) goes away.

I’ve found that, by far, one of the things with the largest influence on conversational quality is the environment you’re conversing in. Even apart from the obvious things like how noisy it is, the environment can have a dramatic impact. One way is by reducing tensions and making the participants feel relaxed. (I generally find sitting on beds to be most relaxing, but a lot of other people seem to read this as sexual, which makes it more uncomfortable.)

But a less-appreciated way is by priming conversations. A room with a lot of stuff in it does this well, because lots of things pop into your head as your eyes drift over the items in it. Each gadget and doodad and tchotchke fires off a different thought, which can lead to a new line of conversation or alter the path of your current one. Having lots of books or magazines or art around is ideal for this.

Of course, it’s important to have a stimulating environment, rather than a distracting environment. A stimulating environment keeps your brain generating new thoughts. It will prod you to think of things when your mind wanders, but can itself fade into the background when you’re in the middle of something more important. A distracting environment is one that can’t fade into the background. It’s one that detracts from conversation by making it harder to focus on what’s being said. In my experience, having objects that move around or flicker is the worst for this.

An environment can also be stimulating by being good for eavesdropping. If people nearby are having interesting conversations, it can prompt you to also go down interesting lines of conversation. Here it’s again important to distinguish between stimulating and distracting - you want interesting conversations to be audible to you, but not to drown you out. And, of course, you want this to be a space where overhearing others (and being overheard) isn’t rude. I’ve found that study halls and common rooms at universities are the best places for this. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were intended for this purpose.

For reasons of coziness and stimulation, I’ve found that the very best place I can go to have a meaningful conversation with someone is to their home. If not there, a study hall is the best runner up (or anywhere else that’s like a library you can talk in). After that, I’d go with a walk along a quiet road, or going off into nature.

Notably, I’ve found that conversations over text usually aren’t as good as equivalent conversations in person. This is largely because a text field is less stimulating, but also because text conversation is usually far lower bandwidth. People tend to speak much more quickly than they can write, so you can usually have a higher level of stimulation from speech (unless you think very carefully before you speak, or you have an auditory processing problem). The gap in information-transfer jumps much further if you can read body language. For these reasons, I will pretty much always prefer speaking in person to texting (even apart from the fact that I like physical contact and gesticulate a lot).

Given what a huge part of my quality of life consists of human interaction, I might be happy living as a nomad for a year or more. Traveling from place to place to meet new people and learn new things from them. This was basically my experience of couch-surfing in London, and it was very good for me. I would love it if I could be like Paul Erdős; travelling from place to place to meet as many people as possible and share ideas (though probably with less math).

As it stands, my house is a pretty good substitute. The people in it don’t change much, but all my housemates are fun people to talk to. It’s especially exciting to get several of them into a single discussion, because they bounce ideas around really well. They all have broad knowledge and broad interests, but with specialties in different areas, which I think is ideal.

But I want to talk to everyone - no matter how bad of a conversationalist - because everyone has unique interests and insights. And, for finding new voices and new perspectives, nothing seems to beat going to where the people are.

[Is there anything you’ve learned in your life about how conversations work, what your personal preferences for them are, or what the strengths and weaknesses of different environments might be? Please let me know!]