#btw DO NOT START SHIT. the last thing my recovery needs is some long ass dm abt how someone harrassed her

[hairscare]

Obviously don't say anything you don't wanna share on the internet and sorry if this is invasive but also I'm so nosey and I heard the words "petty drama"

(looks around sneakily) ........ found out today that my ex from hell posts creepypasta smut where jeffs misogynistic and also passive aggressively told people to harrass me. average monday afternoon for tumblr user hairscare

[anonil88]

TLW Gen Q Episode 6

Spoilers below

So going into this I saw one meme that spoiled one thing but other than that one thing I am not ready for the drama

Oh this is like that one time when Bette had to throw that shitty lady under the bus and that bitch brought up her and Tina's miscarriage.

I would drop out the race to be honest like what can you salvage at this point

What did I say keeping it from Alice was not the right thing to do

I am sure she is having fun with her lil boo

Uncle Shane for the win

Bette fucking her life up yet again because she can't keep her fingers to her damn self, like a kid in a candy store.

Awwww Tina.

You can totally break up with someone be friendly and still be a sense of support for them. To all you baby gays that does not mean talk to your toxic ass ex.

Tess has to go to a meeting asap she def started the steam train but Finn kept that engine fired all the way up.

Oh so they know, mom's always know and Angie has 2.

Tina Kenard despite all the shit that you have done I still fucking love you.

Oh yea that does affect their relationship when she is a PR manager.

Finn also avoids the actual conversation and yes just a lil touch of stupid.

I want all of Dani's outfits for real, please put them on my body and in my closet and God give me the height for it.

This puts a stain on everyones fucking career and their hopes that is why BETTE SHOULD HAVE ENDED THINGS WHEN THEY FUCKING TOLD HER TOO.

I do not feel sorry for Bette right now and 🖕 Felicity.

Dani, just let her drop out of this race please

Chiara is so damn foine like god 😍.

This throuple dynamic is super sweet the PDA was so fucking natural. Ugh god give me more.

Co-parenting from separate states is probably super fucking hard.

I still love tibette and their tit for tat convos. Petty but not wrong at all, Bette really was the breadwinner and took over every fucking thing in that last season.

Yea Tina you should have been there, that is wrong as hell.

Tess and Finley should not have had sex.

Who swims with glasses???

Another reason Fin should not have had sex with Tess because she is still in her emotions about starting to fall for Rebecca.

Oh she is going to confess her feelings and I oop.

Chiara reminds me of my "wife" aka my bestfriend in terms of outfit and stance.

Can my friends kids call me uncle? Please. I really want that for my future...

Angie's eye liner matches her hair that is great.

Shane said go say it with ya chest.

I love Shane and Chiara no cap, awe Chiara giving Shane them I am so in love with you eyes.

Awwww the "I think I love you" 😭😭😭 awww first kisses.

Exactly Shane you are going to make a great Dad for real.

🤣 this throuple is too cute and Gigi is me angry driving, but I love Alice being the rationale middle ground here. This is too freaking cute.

Alice said you are an awful driver lmao.

👀....nvm I can't be mad I have been angry and said some shit like this about an ex.

Tess is working that bar still I see. Also Tess is a snack.

Yea Finley you are being super weird.

Having sex with friends can be safe and not at all awkward.

Ugh she's still off the wagon completely and yea Finley and her do not need to be buddies.

Sophie is super cute.

This is fucking adorable JUST AS FRIENDS btw ⬇️

The bops.

Oh thank god.

☕ Do NOT make someone else your identity. You are an individual who deserves your own life outside of your partner.

Tell your friends you love them.

Lmfao they really are bickering like an old married throuple. That is too cute. OMG the cards 😭.

So let's communicate these feelings and express them healthily. Alice is a great ass listener to be honest when she needs to be. Alice is in it for the long hall sis, your kids call her malice, your ex wife literally ruined your first hook up, and she has not left yet. Sis is in it for the long haul not the uhaul.

I would have dropped out tbh but I do get why she is not. KIT DESERVED BETTER, also they do ask at some ERs but not all. If you are the family of an addict or you are in recovery do tell the nurses of their/your past drug abuse history because they will prescribe you or them opiate pain killers.

😭😭😭😭 ⬇️

Awwww they are all cuddled up with the munchkins awwwww. Yes thankyou a healthy polyamorous relationship 😭.

Aww they sleeping cuddled up and Dani doesn't even bat an eye. I think it's because she trust her fiance completely but I feel like they are setting up for one of them to cheat or the engagement to be broken off. I hate that.

Lmfao she took a breath.

This is a really good speech.

Can y'all please have a fucking conversation, this is what being in a relationship with someone who is super verbally stunted is like. I have been on both sides of that to be honest.

Oop Tina said 🤔

Preview thoughts: Yes more Mama T and B, ooo a date. So should I tell the story about how I walked in on my ex partner having sex with their ex partner in our room and had 0 heads up and I freaked out. Haha don't do that people. Ughhh Dani Dani Dani. Two more episodes 😩

Kit Porter Deserved Better

[garbageivereleasedintothevoid]

10-21-19 (Monday)

Had a seizure upon arriving home today. So that was fun.

Also I want to apologize and clarify my behavior.

I am sorry for getting so upset with you. It isn't your fault. But I do feel kinda trapped rn. You're not a bad person or therapist. Your personality isn't... Bad. You are who you are and theres a no changng that. But yeah, sometimes you grate on my nerves. But there really isn't a better option out there for me. I do feel like I've made far more progress with you than any other therapist but I want you to understand that my ability to talk about my gender openly and have it maybe not personally understood but conceptually at least... I've never had that in a therapist and it was pretty well game changing.

So thank you. For putting in the work to understand. It means the world to me both to me personally and for my community. That's something we desperately need. Therapists typically don't understand these things. And yeah, it makes it REALLY hard to deep dive gender related trauma when you have to explain the concept of pronouns to someone several times. So I think a lot of my progress has come from that. And it means a lot to me. But I'm not sure there really is a good solution to this problem. If you can think of one, please by all means suggest it. Maybe write it down and let me think it over between sessions? Because rn I am struggling to maintain composure in some fairly straightforward situations. I have a lot of rage built up and a BUNCH of frustration. I'm still reeling from the loss of Sara from my life and I'm honestly really bitter rn. You are far from the first person I've snapped at but I am desperately trying to keep it under control. Because it's not anyone's fault and no one can change it and I get that. So I just feel worse when I realize what I'm doing. Idk.

This isn't an easy situation to be in and I'm sorry you've gotten caught in the middle of it through no fault of your own just for doing the right thing and learning things for your patients. I do want you to understand how much I appreciate that. It means a lot to me. And I don't want to chase you off from learning more. I just am very very frustrated because there's probably a therapist out there that I'd actually vibe super well with and everything but they won't fucking learn their shit and I won't benefit from it otherwise. Many therapists who have been in the field for a while feel like they know everything. And that's Gabel's biggest issue. She thinks she knows damned everything about trans people but still subscribes to "You have to want surgery, HRT, binary pronouns and designations, and everything must be binary no matter what." As a treatment method. And that's not helpful. That's in fact very very harmful to the vast majority of trans people out there ans hearing a young trans person break down and SOB because Gabel told them they weren't trans because they're nonbinary is heart wrenching and it will literally make you hate her. I didn't hate her for saying it to me. I hated her for saying it to others who cried over it. I hated her for being the trash that tries to strictly control access to our community's most vital methods of dysphoria reduction.

I really do want you to understand that you aren't doing anything really wrong with me. You're doing the best with what you've got. The situation is just kinda fucked. There's a whole lot I need to sift through and I'm not fully convinced that any singular therapist can help me with it all. But rn... My options aren't very expansive and I'd rather not go searching when I could be making small amounts of progress. And yeah I do feel like the progress is still THERE. It's definitely happening more slowly but it's there. Idk what there really is to do in order to speed it up or if there even is anything. Maybe I need a break? I don't know. My brain seems to want to do more fun stuff than productive stuff rn. And like idk. It's weird for me. I never really got into the habit of doing productive stuff. For a good long while there was no action I could take that could truly be productive beyond basic survival. And I was never taught a good many skills most people learn young. I was very VERY fortunate my granny taught me to cook. She taught me the basics and how to eyeball measurements and all that and luckily cooking was something I started to enjoy. Especially making weird stuff. I made this chicken dish several times as a teenager. Basically came of a misunderstanding over the phone between me and my granny. I ended up using a seasoning mix my mom used called "Nature's Seasons." And putting that into some flour, and like putting a fuck ton I mean of that seasoning, and putting some water in it until it was the consistency of runnyish pancake batter. Like, will pour but not super quickly and some will be left behind to scrape out but ultimately you won't have to scrape out the majority. Cut potatoes into irregular fry shapes (like triangles and cubes and thin slices all at once.),put them in a greased pan to about 1/2 - 3/4 of the way up, parted them and put two to three seasoned chicken thighs (bone in) nested into the potatoes and poured the flour, water, sesoning mixture over it and let it bake for about an hour or two (I can't remember how long it took but it was a full pan of raw food so it took a long ass time) at like 375 - 400 degrees and then after I was certain everything was fully cooked through, I would turn it onto broil at 450 and let it set in there for 10 minutes and it'd get nice and crispy and it was FUCKING GOOD. Also forgot to mention to season the potatoes because it tastes way better if you do.

I figured it out. The first time I was intially trying to make something else but when it became clear it wouldn't work, I switched it to something else and it worked and it became really good. I made that like twice a month or more and ate on it for a few days. My parents actually started asking what I was making because it smelled good and they were like "Why has the oven been on for like 11 years?" Which, yeah, fair question. And I let them try it and my granny and they all liked it. It doesn't LOOK appetizing at first. It actually looks gross af. But it's goooooodddd. That last ten minutes makes it look way better though. Crisps it up. Especially the chicken skin.

Idk why I just got onto a tangent about cooking but I said what I said.

I really... I do want to make sure I make it clear though that... I don't really blame you for any of this and actually appreciate what you've done. Just sometimes I feel trapped (and this has happened before) because no one seems to know what the fuck they/them pronouns are. And hell, you still fuck that up sometimes but I can see the effort. The effort is what matters to me. Btw that's not a value judgement. Sara fucked it up sometimes too. Until the very last appointment. But she kept trying. And so did you. That's like the one thing you have in common with her, lol. But yeah, that's something people are gonna fuck up but I can't babysit a therapist and correct them every time they use pronouns for me because magically in the span of five minutes they've forgotten that my pronouns are they/them. There's a difference between you or Sara accidentally using a binary pronoun set for me or someone else who uses they/them like once every few times we see each other. But when it happens mutliple times in every session? That's pretty blatant. They're not trying. And at that point, I cannot trust them. If they cannot self-regulate their use of pronouns, how tf can I trust that they're keeping aware of any other aspect of my recovery? And that's something I do think you struggle with sometimes. There are many layers to me and remembering more than like three of them can be pretty daunting. But I do believe you're giving it your best go. And I'm not just giving you BS credit here. Sara forgot things a lot too. She eventually just said "Please just tell me because my brain isn't cooperating." And she wouldn't apologize. Because she'd done nothing wrong. She would just calmly and patiently direct me on what she needed from me in order to move forward. I don't expect you to remember everything. But please ask directly if you have even the slightest doubt. And yes, often that will frustrate me. But you know why I didn't get like that with Sara? She made it very clear in a very concise way that she just couldn't remember. I don't expect you to just be Sara. That will never happen. But I think there are some skills she's learned that could be useful to you. Just ask. I don't need to know that you're sorry. I know you are without you telling me.

Sara and I came to that understanding fairly early but I think it's because we had this weird mind meld ability to read each other. Like absolutely a fuckin trip because she'd call me out and I'd be like "Damn you're good. Holy shit." And then I'd interpret something in my head and then it'd get brought up in verbal communication and she'd just look at me and be like "How did you know that?" And I explained my reasoning and she would look impressed for a split second before turning away and looking at her computer for a moment and (probably questioning all her skills at hiding her emotions she's ever learned in her life) and do something for a moment. She really met her match with me lol. We're both tough nuts to crack lol. But we cracked each other wide open. And wow the more I say this the more it sounds like sex puns oh god no. Anyway. We can read each other really well, I think partly because we have similar ways of thinking about things. And idk. That helps a LOT.

She did her part though. She got me motivated and mommed me into doing rhings like cleaning. Told me she was proud of me whenever I did something I needed to. Okay, not every time. But it was nice to know that someone was proud of my progress. That there was someone looking at me fumble through life and thinking "God, look at them. They're like a baby but I know why it's like that and I am so proud of them for learning now. Look at them go." and she eventually got me semi-stable and that's when some of the trauma started to come into play and she knew that wasn't something she was equipper to help me with. So she sent me over to you. And that was a wise decision on her part. And I think you've helped me a lot. I'm just... Not sure what my options are moving forward. idk. I'll write more later.

[whenmusicspeaksfl]

Guide To An Existential Crisis

Guide to an Existential Crisis

By Hali Neal

This has been a hard post for me to write mostly because I haven't wanted to face any of the shit that led to my moving back to Miami (more on that in a bit). Except now my brain is tired of all the effort it takes to sustain that type of compartmentalization. I know this because of this restless, irritated, disillusioned (annoyed??) feeling that infected me in the two weeks since I've finished my summer job. It refuses to go away. And then there's the fact that both good and bad memories of my year and a half in Orlando keep flooding my mind.

If I'm being brutally honest with myself, which is sometimes a hard task, it really started last summer. Last summer when it looked and sometimes felt like I was on top of the world: I worked my ass off in school, my job, and to make deeper, meaningful connections in the music industry. I was fortunate enough to grab the attention of Mike Ziemer, owner of Third String Records and founder of the So What?! festival through a competition he was running to shadow him at So What?! and because of that, he offered myself and others who participated in the contest free two-day tickets to his festival. We all teamed up to find inexpensive accommodations, flights, and rental cars. We also decided to be a part of the So What?! documentary and that experience still stands out as one of the best (and coldest!) weekends of my life.

I also had the opportunity to attend the first Warped Tour press conference/lineup announcement in Orlando, which drew a lot of the more influential players in the industry to it. I was able to network with a few of them and got offered a(n unpaid) position to tour with MetalFortress Radio, one of Warped Tour’s sponsors that year. Also definitely two of the best weeks of my life. I was also approved to cover Pierce the Veil’s (one of my favorite bands) sold out “Misadventures” show in New York, Acceptance’s (another favorite band) show in Orlando, and the opportunity to cover both Fort Rock and the Cincinnati date of the Vans Warped Tour. I thought I had everything locked up as far as pursuing the creative career I’d always wanted: I’d been offered a full-time job as a photographer for Sharpshooter Imaging that was to start as soon as I got back from Warped Tour with MetalFortress. 

Then it all came crashing down in spectacular fashion. It started with me and my friend Adria covering the Cincinnati date of the Vans Warped Tour. The online publication I’d been writing for since 2012, Examiner.com, e-mailed me to tell me and the others that the site was shutting down in favor of keeping AXS.com, the company that bought out the original owners, running. Writing for Examiner was how I got my start in music journalism and how I’d gotten as far as I had in the industry. Naturally, I was crushed. As for AXS, I’d only just started writing for them in February after applying for the job three previous times. And anyone who’s ever had a long-term job knows what happens when a new company comes in: they kick all the old people out and start fresh. That’s exactly what happened to me. This wouldn’t have been as big a deal as it became if I hadn’t been 1) struggling to find the right medication to help me manage my depression and generalized anxiety disorder 2) literally in West Virginia driving to Ohio to cover Warped Tour for AXS. 3) constantly broke because of my focus on what I thought I wanted as a career for myself. 

These points are all interconnected in terms of how I got to where I am now so get comfortable and grab a snack or some coffee, because this is going to get long. This is what happens when you bottle stuff up too long and feel like you’re going to burst. Not the healthiest way to deal with stuff (don’t follow my example, kids). And I know this, which is why I’m attempting to excise these feelings the best way I know how: through writing.

1)   I’ve been quieter about my own mental health struggles than I probably should have – the majority of people who aren’t close to me (or my friend on Facebook) seem to think I’m the picture of someone who has their shit together, but in a lot of respects, nothing could be further from the truth. I’ve found ways to function despite my illness, which I think has more to do with my being stubborn as hell and feeling like there just has to be something more than this – than these circumstances.

a.   I’ve also been quiet about it because a lot of it is still me coming to terms with it and how it’s affected my life (still working on that, btw). It’s like waking up after a 10-year nap or something and realizing that you woke up in the middle of the apocalypse.

b.   It’s also EXTREMELY difficult to find health insurance on a limited income, the right psychiatrist, the right medication to help manage your symptoms (especially when you’re like me and have a propensity for experiencing ultra rare side effects) and never mind trying to find the right psychologist to deal with the emotional sludge you have to slog through to get to the light of what’s called recovery. I’ve made a lot of progress in those areas, but I can tell this is only the beginning.

c.    I’ve struggled with feeling shame’s ugly wings flapping in my ear when it comes to my anxiety disorder and depression. I’ve struggled with the two of them in some form my entire life but I only reached what addicts might call “rock bottom” toward the end of 2015. I’d just moved to Orlando to pursue what I thought would be my dream job, digital media/mobile journalism, was literally sleeping on my best friend’s floor (and putting up with her incredibly awful, toxic roommates), and working a shitty job I knew I’d eventually come to hate but I needed something to get me through until loans came in.

d.   I felt myself falling into a familiar hole around my birthday in October as my only paying writing job, Miami ArtZine, became impossible to keep up with and everything became a fight. The other thing of significance that happened was that two South Florida friends (both of whom are no longer in my life, one for reasons other than what I’m about to describe), were supposed to come up to Orlando for my birthday to see Bring Me The Horizon (a band who’s become important to me because “That’s The Spirit” is such an accurate depiction of how it feels to have depression). One of the girls literally waited until the day of, a few hours before they were supposed to leave, to tell my other friend that the car wasn’t going to make it up to Orlando. The other friend doesn’t drive and the show was sold out, so it’s safe to say that wasn’t my best birthday.  

e.   Losing the gigs with AXS and Examiner.com, struggling to find the right medication, and the photography job turning out not to be what it promised (leaving me scrambling to pay bills and afford gas/food) were just the straws that broke the camel’s back. The medication I was taking during my trip to Cincinnati, Cymbalta, ended up making me more depressed/suicidal than I’d ever been and it just made everything 10x harder to handle. I also found out that the psychiatrists I thought were helping me were actually awful doctors, so I felt like I was up a creek without a paddle.

The one-two punch that finally finished me off while I was in Orlando had everything to do with my living situation: first, it was apartment drama that ended with me and my roommates getting kicked out of our shady apartment complex for literally signing a complaint one of the roommates gave to the property manager and then thinking I’d found a place only to have it fall through at the last minute (which would become a theme with my jobs too). This led to me bouncing around from place to place basically every month: one month included living with an emotionally and physically abusive couple, another an extended stay for two weeks, to the same “best friends” I’d stayed when I first moved to Orlando telling me they weren’t kicking me out but I needed to find somewhere else, and finally a halfway sober house whose only requirement was that you had to be homeless and have a job (you didn’t necessarily have to have a problem with alcohol to qualify… main requirement was to be homeless. However, if you were newly sober, you needed to be 3 months sober). The halfway house is where I finally ended up because I was tired of moving and the property owner was only charging me $225 a month all-inclusive (with the exception of internet -  there was no wi-fi, which complicates things when you’re a digital media major who works most mornings or is in class).   

Then the problems started. I discovered that the mattress the property owner had so kindly provided for me was ridden with bed bugs, which, it turns out, I’m highly allergic to the bite of. I was in that house for three months and ended up sleeping on the living room couch or chair for relief, a place I often had to fight over with a cranky, sick old man obsessed with Fox News as well as a creepy, older manipulative crack addict that didn’t seem to actually want to get better and constantly stole everyone’s food. It got to the point that I depended on food pantries or my job as my main food source. I felt like I was sinking even lower into myself as we had to deal with the fact that the house was basically falling apart and the property owner would say she’d fix it and then never do it, drama that involved the crack addict and the cops and eventually the addict leaving. As I’ve been made aware, this was a lot for anyone to handle, never mind someone trying to juggle a 28 hour/week work schedule and classes. Then I lost my job and only reliable source of income in December as a result of stress and being on the wrong medication… again (this time the offender was Wellbutrin. My blood pressure before I was finally able to be taken off it was 161/something else obscenely high). 

The final straw came in January when my roommate and only sane person in that entire house told me the addict was coming back in February. Neither of us were about that life so we both knew we needed out before the end of the month. She left first and moved in with a friend she’d made at the house next to ours. Meanwhile, I was still stubbornly refusing to give up on my dream career and metaphorically dragging myself to classes. With everything going on, I only had enough energy left to pony up half-ass effort for my classes. The spring semester just started and already I’d forgotten to go to one of my classes and was full of resentment and other negative feelings for a class I’d normally enjoy: college newspaper.

My thoughts swirled and sounded something like this: ‘What am I doing with my life that I'm being so stubborn/subjecting myself to abhorrent (bed bug ridden) conditions...?’ ‘And for what?’ ‘What has this ultimately brought me but misery topped with more misery (and a generous sprinkling of debt)?’

I’d gone to Valencia when I was first having housing problems and was able to utilize their emergency fund. Unfortunately, that money went to living with the abusive couple for a month. I went back to Valencia to see what I could do and if maybe the emergency fund could help me again. Turns out it really is a one time fund. I felt screwed. I explained the situation to the counselor and he gave me the “come to Jesus” talk I didn’t know I needed. He told me that add/drop wasn’t over yet, that I could still drop with no liability, that it was okay to take a semester off, and even though it might be hard to ask, to ask my parents if I can come home and let them help me. Add/drop ended after that weekend (I went to the office Friday), so I had to decide quickly. I texted my parents the situation – everything from the housing thing to the difficulty I’d been having finding a job after being let go from Dunkin’ Donuts in December. To my surprise, they understood (the reason I was surprised is a post for another time) and I knew that whatever disagreements and issues I’d had with them, it had to be better than the conditions I was currently living in. I dropped my classes that day and moved home the next day.

Adria helped me find a job once I moved back and I’m still at said job – working as an after care counselor at the school she teaches at. I’d already finished the process to be a substitute teacher in Orlando, so I just transferred my info down to the Broward office and voila – steady-ish jobs, one of the biggest issues I had in Orlando. I still had the editing job I’d started in Orlando at Odyssey, which eventually ended up becoming a content mill that was less than honest about its changes. This was the punch that knocked me out for a couple of months and the start of my existential crisis in regards to writing.

I’ve discovered that, while I’m learning to live healthily with depression and generalized anxiety disorder, I need a job that won’t give me paycheck anxiety. Also living paycheck to paycheck is miserable.

I feel like making writing a paying career is such a long shot at this point that I’m afraid of even wanting it anymore. I’m flummoxed as to what to even do with my life if it’s not writing. I’ve thought about social work since a secondary passion of mine is psychology and I like creating a supportive emotional learning environment for the kids but… I don’t know. I’d need to do my masters, which I wouldn’t mind, but it would have to be fully funded or mostly at least. I don’t want to make it hard for myself to pay back my student loans. I’ve finally found a psychologist that seems promising and he’s helping me to believe that I can have good things, to let the past GO mentally, and that I need to forgive myself for my past mistakes and/or failures. I also found a decent psychiatrist who actually knows what the hell he’s talking about and I think I might have finally found the right medication to help me manage the more physical symptoms/destructive thoughts/behaviors this illness would rain down on me before. Also, about music journalism: I still like doing CD reviews and interviews, so maybe the key is being more selective about the ones I do so I don’t get as burnt out as I’ve gotten? We’ll see what happens. All I know is that I hope I get this shit figured sooner rather than later. Figured you guys should know why I’ve been a bit of a ghost in regards to music journalism… been trying to get my head right.