#i am so stressed i need to externalise my shit to friends and to the blog to keep it together

[reitziluz]

got a free pad thai and vietnamese coffee, and grabbed a melon popsicle on the way home.

there's nothing i can do to get details cleared and plans locked in about the move until monday. saturdays are when i do not have to get anything done. and yet, i feel like i can't focus on anything fun because there are Large Tasks looming ahead.

so i'm going to get an easy task done (take out trash), meditate, and see if i can get a craft or writing based trance going for the rest of the day.

or at least i'm Prohibited from talking and preferably not even thinking about more apartment stuff until tomorrow.

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

you’re not the poison; it’s me.

... um. titans 2.07 absolutely WRECKED me you guys, and i would like to tell you why in excruciating detail:

SPOILERS ahead

(and before i go ahead, i just want to say this: this episode deals with ptsd and psychosis and suicidal ideation explicitly, in ways that even i found difficult to watch. it’s very intense. please keep that in mind if you decide to watch it.)

1. usually genre tv shows like to pile on the trauma but deal with its fallout either rarely or in oblique ways--shots of the character brooding, a couple of ‘candid’ talks filled with frustrating euphemisms, then it’s on to tackling the next plot point. not titans tho--for this show, the trauma is very much the point. the plot is wafer-thin and takes a backseat as the show takes episode after episode to break down its central characters and hammer it in that there are no easy fix-its for complex trauma, and that Dealing with it is a continuous, sometimes lifelong process. it forces you to keep re-evaluating and re-contextualising the actions of these characters and challenges your assumptions.

1.5. for instance: let’s take donna troy. in s1 she was the put-together big sister to dick, content with living her life outside the superhero community while giving sound advice to dick about how he can get his own life back on track. now? she’s a stressed, paranoid wreck, plagued by horrible memories and taking her insecurities out on dick and jason and whoever else is available. deathstroke’s machinations aside, there’s something deeply dysfunctional about the way the original titans operated, the ways they brought both the best and the worst out of each other. it seems like none of them really understood the seriousness of what they were doing until they did something truly terrible that they couldn’t take back, and it was earth-shattering enough that donna completely abandoned her old life to live as a civilian. trigon’s vision for her in 2.01 reminded her that she was fooling herself; coming back to titans tower and actually having to face what made her run away in the first place has broken down the walls she’s spent five years putting up. it’s not pretty to watch, but... it tracks.

2. after having written post after post about dick cracking under relentless stress and the weight of his own guilt complex, it was startling to see him actually fall apart. halluci!bruce was absolutely brutal and really brought home the fact that Good Lord, Dick Grayson Is So Far From Okay That It’s Not Even Funny Anymore. 

because here’s the thing: dick is deeply unwell, and however the show proceeds with his character from here on out, this episode made absolutely no bones about that fact. his single-minded dash to find and kill slade is framed as both irrational and suicidal. he’s visibly on edge, bursting into bouts of uncontrollable rage. he’s shown to carry a guilt complex the size of mount everest, to the point where it actually seems delusional. he’s fucking terrified of abandonment, to the point where he’d rather cut off ties on his own rather than have others leave him. he’s constantly berating himself and this doesn’t give him a moment to sit down and think and try to form a rational plan. halluci!bruce even mentions meds and “uppers and downers” to cope, and i am genuinely concerned that that was what dick actually did to cope in the immediate aftermath of whatever the fuck went down with him and joey and deathstroke. maybe it’s ptsd with a secondary psychosis triggered by nearly losing jason the same way he lost his parents (and massive sleep deprivation, i imagine), or maybe there’s another underlying chronic mental illness. either way, he needs help. 

man but halluci!bruce was vicious. if this is what dick has running in his head at all times, no wonder he broods, and no wonder he takes others admonishing his choices with barely any protest! 

2.25. looking at this from a different perspective, tho, here’s another way in which bruce wayne functions as a symbol on this show. phantom!bruce is how dick normally externalises everything he hates about himself, and this dynamic plays out very literally in this episode. 

interestingly, and somewhat heartbreakingly, it took dick accepting and internalising his low opinion of himself and his veritable ocean of guilt for judgy!bruce wayne to turn into loving, concerned!bruce wayne, who would comfort dick and wipe his tears. (it is entirely heartbreaking that that’s what dick subconsciously craves from bruce.) dick must debase himself for love and acceptance. it’s fucking tragic. 

2.55. and what does it mean--for dick and for his friendships with the og titans--that he’s so convinced that they would leave him if he told them the truth about jericho? for one, even back then, it seemed like dick was doing a lot of the emotional labour for the team: as a leader he both funnelled and executed the team’s plans, with responsibility for the fallout falling unevenly and mostly on his shoulders; he acted as the go-between for the team and bruce, for donna and garth, probably for hank and dawn, given he was dawn’s rebound. later, hank and dawn are visibly concerned by how viciously he fights. after re-forming the titans, he continues to shoulder responsibility for the shit-show that deathstroke rains on them, although he didn’t know deathstroke was alive when he re-opened the tower. of course he thinks that the team will think that he’s beyond redemption if they find out the truth; of course he’d want to go and finish off deathstroke on his own--or die in the process--before any of them finds out. 

2.75. but guys, here’s the thing: in spite of all of this, dick grayson still went around to check on conner and jason and assure the latter that he didn’t blame him for running off on his own. he saw jason standing there on a precipice right at the end, and decided he was going to be opaque anymore, or fall back on what he learned from bruce. he sits down with jason and finally divulges the secret that he had been willing to die to protect--making himself vulnerable to save jason’s life. he’s trying so goddamn hard even though his brain is rioting against him right now and probably has been for years. it’s just--i can’t imagine a truer, more sensitive portrayal of dick grayson than this.

3. watching jason reach his breaking point was,,, Not Fun. it’s one thing to be seemingly passed on like unwanted baggage from guardian to guardian. to be viewed with contempt and impatience when he just wants to make sure his voice isn’t lost in the constant shuffle. to be looked at as an impostor by the very people he looks upto. to be assigned the role of hot-headed fuck-up despite all his attempts to be useful, to prove himself. but to have all of that fall on him all at once on top of (poorly) dealing with a near-death experience? yikes.

3.25. and the horrible, tragic, human part of it all is that donna and the others probably didn’t even know what they were doing to jason by piling on him like that? he’s a relative outsider to both rachel and the og titans. he’s an arrogant prick that’s easy to hate. without dick and gar to stand up for jason, he’s cornered by people who haven’t even gotten to the point of seeing him as a vulnerable kid that’s struggling, just like the rest of them.

3.5. and so the two robins perch on the ledge, each convinced that they are poison that will either kill or drive their friends away. it’s a fraught moment of connection that stops jason from jumping, but he doesn’t step away. both of them are on a precipice in more ways than one; i can only hope they help each other land on the right side.1

also, bruce wayne? send your sons to therapy MY GOD

4. kory and rachel using their awesome powers in concert to cure conner! kory using her cultural background to connect to and help conner! conner mumbling in kryptonian! krypto fucking shooting across the sky with eve on his back! in such a sad and intense episode, it’s important to remember that some fantastic things happened as well!

5. here’s the thing: i don’t think dick killed jericho in the way that he probably thinks he does. dick is a hugely unreliable narrator--that’s been his Thing since s1. part of me thinks jericho should be dead; whatever happened with him and the titans has been built up to be such an earth-shattering event that it would kinda be cheating if he survived anyway. the other bigger part of me says: fuck that noise. JOEY WILSON LIVES, and that’s that

6. gar was sleeping? are you kidding me??? i’m assuming deathstroke drugged him or something so that he wouldn’t be there to Talk Sense and stop these melodramatic fools from tearing into each other. i can only hope that there’s some Big Plans for him down the line. 

[lifeafterthewake]

11.12.2018

I wasn’t and I’m still not sure what to do with this account. I’ve started it as an attempt at blogging and it’s clearly not working. Then again it usually is quite a challange for me to write as I live with a person who talks a lot and I seek their presence. Oftentimes I talk and all the content inside my mind gets spilled and discharged. But right now I’m in a bit of a pickle, staying at a friend’s house while they’re away so naturally more thoughts come to my mind and the need to express them is more apparent.

I wanted to write a little bit about self-control or self-control issues. I’ve never been good with self-control. Whether it’s money, food, learning for important exams, managing my time, speaking to other people or managing the power I have in relation to them - there were always issues.

My weight is an issue of great concern to me as my whole childhood and adolescence I was bombarded with contradicting communicates: that I eat too much, that I don’t eat enough, that I’m too fat, that my weight is fine, that I should do more physical activities while I was going to extracurricular classes almost all the time (karate, dancing, swimming, horse riding for a short period of time). My parents are obese and they eat too much and so I was overweight ever since I went to elementary school. The most I ever weighed was 102kg I think. I was 15 years old then. It was a turning point for me as when I crossed the 100kg line I thought to myself ‘this is too much, this is dangerous, I have to do something about it’. And so I did.

Before going into highschool, so 15/16 years old I’ve imposed a set of strict dietary rules upon myself. I ate every 3 hours 5-6 meals a day, I chewed every bite 30 times or until it was practically dissolved in my mouth, I’ve only eaten one meal at a time, so no multiple dish dinners. I avoided sweets and juice, drank mostly water. As a result I’ve lost... I’m not sure really. The least I weighed was 76 or 78 I think. Let’s go with 76. So I’ve lost 26 kilograms. In 6 months time. I looked like a different person. I wouldn’t say I was mentally happy with myself but physically I felt so much better. I still had to deal with comments from my family about how I don’t eat anything and how I look ‘so thin’ but it was managable.

I’ve stopped sticking to my ‘no sweets’ rule about a year into high school. It was hard to keep it up. Generally my eating habits have loosened since then but I still feel like it was much needed, even though it wasn’t a safe thing to do, for me to feel that I can achieve something if I try hard enough. You see, I never really had to try to do anything in school. I’m an intelligent person and I’ve never had problems with grades during my time in lower education. It is a bit of an issue now that I’m studying but it’s still mostly managable.

When I moved out of my parents house I got drunk on the money. I still can’t responsibly spend my money although I have taught myself to spend less on food. My father rented me a flat and sent in about 330$ a month for me to live on. I don’t live in US or UK so it’s actually quite a lot of money for a student’s needs (for measure: a loaf of bread in a chainstore costs about 0,68$; 1,5L bottle of water 0,39$; 1kg of chicken breast +/-4,74$) . In the beginning I was spending it like crazy, mostly on food that I was eventually throwing away. I was cooking a lot back then too. You see, I say I’m bad with money but if I am bad then my parents are horrible with it. They probably spend about 530$ a month on food itself, and probably throw away about a 1/5 of it. Every time I visit their house the fridge is brimming with food (and it’s usually cold cuts or cooked meat that I don’t eat often anymore). So you can imagine what kind of an environment I was subconsciously trying to recreate and why it was so costly.

Food apart I don’t manage my money well unless I absolutely have to. My father usually sends me extra cash whenever I need it so I got lazy about controlling my spendings, I splurge on material items and then run out of money for food or I irresponsibly spend money on food in the city center because I don’t have time to cook and I hate planning meals ahead so I run out of cash very quickly (a dinner in the downtown area costs me about 5,26$ per main course; for the same amount I can cook a meal for 3 days). This semester I got super lazy with my diet as well, preciesly because I had so classes at uni. I usually try to avoid grains and wheat because my body doesn’t deal well with gluten in excess. Lately I’ve let myself completely loose (because of personal reasons as well) and I feel horrible.

I feel horrible to the point where I’ve made myself vomit my food twice during the last two weeks. The first time was when I came back from my grandparents’ (02.12). I ate a lot during the small party they threw and I was feeling very sick. ‘I ate a lot’ doesn’t cut it. I stuffed myself. Partially because seeing my family is always very stressful for me, it’s emotionally difficult, I can’t seem to find a way to deal with them and I think it’s getting worse the longer I ignore the issues that I should address. But it’s exactly the lack of self-control that is keeping me from doing it. My parents are very manipulative and the slightest chance they get to change the topic or steer the discussion in a different direction than the issues that I’m trying to discuss they take it and I fall for it. I get emotionally torn apart and die inside and after some time I realise that nothing has really been discussed and I feel like shit. And it keeps repeating itself so I get discouraged even more and it’s even harder to touch upon anything relevant to me.

The second time was today (11.12). I came back to my friend’s flat after spending crazy amount of money on home appliances in Ikea. I went to a shop and bought ingredients for a cake and food to eat for the next few days. I bought a loaf of bread because I can’t control my goddamn self. And a bar of chocolate. Went back to the flat. Ate 5 pieces of bread with generous amount of butter and a cheese slice on each piece. Ate the whole bar of peanutbutter chocolate. May I add I was alterating: I ate 4 sandwiches, I ate a bar of chocolate, I ate 1 more sandwich. Plus I’ve drank half a cup of tea. So then I felt sick. There are a few types of sick in my world. There is drunk-sick, there is stretched stomach pressing on intestines-sick, there is stressed-sick, there is acidic food-sick and there is wheat-sick. We’re going with both wheat and stomach pressing on intestines sick this time.

I don’t really vomit involuntarily unless I’m really drunk and I haven’t been really drunk for at least 2 years I believe. It’s always a decision just as much as spending money is a decision, just as much as stuffing myself with food that makes me feel sick is a decision. So I’ve decided to make myself vomit. In a way it’s cathactic, in another it feels like my mental health is in a really bad state right now.

There is a point I want to make here. I feel like overating isn’t a purely physical act just as eating disorders are mental health disorders. For me overeating is a way of dealing with emotions. I externalise my emotions, put them into food. I then put the food in my self. In a way we always do that but we’re also animals that have to survive so eating and hunger are totally normal and natural. When we analyse something we put a point of focus where we see fit. So I put in my self. I chew it, swallow it, stomach it, it goes through my intestines. All the time my body is breaking this food apart into simpler substances and redistributing them throughout my body. Perhaps the emotions I put into food come back into my body with these simpler substances going straight into the cells. I put bread inside of me, a product that I don’t deal well with - a testimony of hatred. Bread gets broken apart, emotions get inside of me - I get fatter, my nose gets stuffed, I get atopic eczema. Vomitting is an act of desperation. It’s not as much about getting the food out of my system - it’s about getting rid of the discomfort I’m experiencing because of the food I put into myself. But this discomfort is an effect of my actions.

I’ve been feeling like a puddle of pure terrible for about a month now. No, for exactly a month. I’ve done something very stupid and hurtful to people I’ve felt sympathy for and to myself and I can’t get over it. I can’t get over many feelings from my past as well. They haunt me. It’s easier to vomit and for a split second feel like I - this bag of flesh - am not anything much more than a bag of flesh feeling all these sensations that you get when you throw up. But then your thinking and feeling kick in. I still feel like trash and I still haven’t dealt with those feelings that are inside. I’ve tried to push them out and eat them in a different way but in the end I couldn’t deal with them. I hope that I can teach myself how to be in control of my life to the point where I am able to deal with my feelings before I hurt myself or someone else. I want to do it step by step. Right now I’ll stick to avoiding wheat and eating more consciously. It’s the little things that make up the base of our existence. It’s the little things that will pull us apart rolling away if we lose control over them.

---

Laser hair removal update: had my third appointment on monday (10.11). Sometime after my first post the lymph nodes on my neck got infected and it hurt like a mofo. So for the second treatment we went with lower power. Not much inflammation afterwards but also not much effect. My beard is thinning out but not many bald patches so far. For this appointment we went up with power. Very painful especially down the middle of my face and neck (mustache, under the lips, chin, under the chin). A lot of inflammation after the treatment. Today is a little better, a lot of zits, I hope the hair strands will come out easily. Spraying myself with Octanisept and trying to avoid face-skin contact. Doesn’t hurt, feels slightly hot and I’m still puffy.