not-that-blog

[not-that-blog]

My housemate and I had a really honest discussion about my experiences with anorexia today and I won’t tag this and so this is the trigger warning of I’m about to ramble about the kind of ED experience where it’s actually severe and advanced and calculated… so it is not a light topic and not one for those who are sensitive to it. Because I will be talking about my mindset at the time, the mindset of my old friends in the forums and the things I had to accept for choosing recovery.

So most of the discussion on the way home from my gp was more about how gym bros with eating disorders are super similar to hardcore competitive anorexics on proana forums.

Which has been like hitting me all evening about how fucked up my eating disorder was because I was admitting to my housemate about it and explaining niche ED things.

Like if you were ever in deep, there is a specific three letter ‘diet’ that you know and you know how difficult it is and that anyone who is doing that has essentially knowingly chosen death or hospitalisation.

I had to explain to my housemate this ‘diet’ and we googled the average caloric intake for adults and toddlers bc of this and learned that at the peak of my ED on average I was getting less than a quarter of a toddlers daily intake.

And his response was ‘holy shit, no yeah that’s active malnutrition and dying��

To which my response was ‘I got pregnant during recovery from that when I was still eating less than recommended for a toddler. It’s why I blame myself for that miscarriage and resent my mother telling me I was ‘bloated and looked sick and pregnant’ when she demanded that I go gluten free…. Because I was sick and pregnant.’

(To which I somehow just realised her response was to force me to go gluten free instead of take me to the doctor or discuss if I was feeling sick… and the rage has flared back up about her medical neglect)

But because of this we also got to talking about the competitive nature and the fact eating disorders make you fucking mean. Like you’re not meeting your basic nutritional needs, you’re fucking delirious all the time, your logic and perception are completely skewed and even if you were like me and the body image issues were yourself specifically and didn’t actually apply to those around you (ngl; I was suicidal and didn’t want to be seen as attractive to anyone whom I could actually respect because I was afraid of being emotionally betrayed by someone I trusted because I was terrified of being seen as a sex object. I didn’t trust the opinion of anyone who found me hot while I was actively anorexic to the point it’s why I was anorexic. It’s a concerning thing especially with why stress and breakups sometimes trigger my disordered eating purely because I don’t want to be seen sexually so I want to not exist). But others who are anorexic or dieting bc of fatphobic mindsets still surround you and that shit fucks with your head and you can’t always spot and fight it when you’re so physically exhausted that you can’t stay awake in class anymore or do basic math.

(Also just realised the time they were looking at bipolar, I was actively struggling with recovering from disordered eating and suddenly my erratic behaviour makes more sense)

And important to where this ramble is going; I only chose recovery because a friend in the community died and her mum begged all of us in the server to seek recovery. She was not the first to go to hospital or die. It’s just the first time that someone cared and wanted us to live despite knowing we were all actively in there choosing death.

It was a very suicidal group chat where we were all discussing in brutal honesty what it looks like to die from anorexia but how much more afraid of recovery we were because we all knew we had gone too far to not be physically fucked up from it.

The reason I knew to keep an eye out for diabetes in my early 20’s and begged doctors to take me seriously when I said that I was showing symptoms? Because no one lives malnourished for that long without doing damage to their pancreas. It was an active discussion in the forums and chat about the fact multiple people had developed type 2 and eventually type 1 diabetes because they had been so malnourished for so long that their pancreas stopped producing insulin.

There were discussions about how to stay glucose stable on minimum calories. I wish I didn’t still have those memorised but I do. And tbh sometimes they save my life now and it definitely did while I was bedbound… but it’s fucked up information to have with how I have it.

I told my housemate what zero calorie days looked like on different anorexia ‘diets’ and how prolific laxative abuse is bc we were talking about how one of the long term effects is that when you don’t eat for that long, your body stops making stomach acid/bile. It doesn’t make enough to digest food. And by that point, you also have really severe muscle wastage so your body actually can’t digest food easily even if you did. And that there’s some niche knowledge that I have that I will say I learned from the spinal injury and FND forums that was probably also on there… but I actually learned it from other anorexics because you can’t recover easily without learning how to eat again slowly not bc you mentally can’t… but because you physically can’t.

The thing with that super advanced three letter diet? Is it triggers gastroparasis eventually because you have probably been drinking coffee or smoothies as your only form of nutrition, once a day, and timing it for your very specific bathroom break. Because you know how long it takes. Because it’s all you have. And you can’t eat solid foods without laxatives anymore.

Everyone thinks the soft food choices and the veganism and the liquid food diets are all calorie and weird ‘making sure they eat in recovery’ choices. It’s not, the actual reason that mashed potato is a common recovery food is because it’s easy to make nutritional and calorie dense while being easily digested. It’s why broccoli is not a team favourite and spinach is the leafy green choice of recovery. The same with why we all have to readjust to low dairy in the form of cream and why it takes forever to reintroduce cheese and pizza. It’s also why most people who go from anorexia to bulimia do it in recovery; it’s not just fear of consuming calories. Learning how to digest food again hurts. Like physically hurts and is incredibly uncomfortable.

I couldn’t eat fish and chips for years because it was so bad I threw up in the shower. I just didn’t have the stomach acid or the energy to digest it.

That’s the other thing; digestion actually takes a lot of energy and your body will just shut it down to bare minimums when you’re that malnourished.

Like I still know the feeling of the weirdest sensations bc of my eating disorder. And sometimes that weird insight is the only reason I don’t completely regret it… but also so many issues I have are directly caused by it and people don’t realise how close to hospitalisation I was.

Like I am pretty sure most of my original FND symptoms were actually just anorexia and that’s why it got better when I recovered from my eating disorder and why I am currently flaring bc I unintentionally go into ED habits when stressed bc it was my core coping mechanism for the most formative phase of my life so far.

My mother and sister actively both diet to the point of disordered eating, my mother less so now but my sister absolutely counts as too low on the calorie intake and so I am fully aware no one close to me was catching my eating disorder.

And I was careful enough to eat my ‘planned intake’ around other people… because I was calculating and ridiculously dangerous to myself especially with a strong support network of other anorexics who were working so hard to hide their disorders and knew what they were doing and we’d share how we did it and how we ‘Burned off the calories in lunch’.

Normal people don’t have a full workout routine they can do while sitting ‘still enough’ and it doesn’t help that I am AuHD so it was essentially just stimming with a pattern and I still do them when I’m working and need to stim ‘quietly’. (It’s entirely just flexing different muscles in your body with small movements. Again, great quiet stimming technique, horrific when you’re using it to ‘burn excess calories’ on-top of full workouts and malnutrition)

And sometimes I forget how advanced I was and how close to death I was and that it probably wouldn’t have been that much longer until I was hospitalised for it.

It would’ve been in the hospital where I got caught tho. No one would notice at home. Or do anything if they did. I saw how they treated my brother when he obviously also developed anorexia…. And they actively made that worse despite me telling them that they were doing it wrong and giving them resources on how to navigate anorexia because while I didn’t care about me, I love my baby brother.

I forget my experience with anorexia is far from the normal bc I did a lot of things that are actually really hard.

I regularly ‘won’ proana competitions that were willpower not weightloss.

It sucks when the only thing you achieved in your life for the longest time was best at disordered eating without dying in the public knowledge.

Bonus points; the argument for why I wasn’t anorexic by others around me was that I still had boobs. I am a trans man; trying to get rid of them was part of the reason why I kept doing it. There were entire forums dedicated to how to keep or lose them and I was very 50/50 bc I liked not being caught but I hated my chest.

But one of those things that only certain people seem to know and it’s those who hardcore diet; if you recover you will become plus size not because of diet or moral failure or anything like the things diet culture suggests… and this is something no one explicitly says until the point where you’re all choosing between death or a painful life in recovery… your body will never forgive you or forget that it was so malnourished it almost died.

And it will never let you forget.

Like it was the thing that was made very very clear to me when I chose recovery; ‘You have spent the last few years obsessed with staying small. You will never be socially thin again. Especially because you’ve been this small, a normal size will feel large on you to others and they won’t understand and neither will you. But the majority of us end up plus size if we recover because our bodies will never ever be the same and they will not forgive what we did.’

And I just accepted it.

Because genuinely; plus size me was always going to be healthier than anorexic me.

And the thing that I have always kept in mind when they tell me how plus size individuals are more likely to die from certain conditions is that most of those conditions are actually caused by yo-yo dieting.

Because I know that because I watched us die, not just myself but literally I was in several competitive af group chats where the group motto was essentially ‘Well at least I’ll be a pretty/concerning corpse’ (because we know that dying like that we don’t actually look pretty, but when you’re that fucked up we felt like the willpower and stubbornness it takes to die like that made us pretty and we all felt pretty… because anorexia is a very severe mental illness and genuinely we don’t talk enough about the fact it’s not vanity but a need for control and eventually a need to control the way we live in order to die. Like not everyone gets to intentionally dying. A lot of people stay in just obsessive with numbers and calories and staying small for a long long time and just continue going way too far because control. But the reason proana is known as red flag 🚩 anorexia point is because that is the warning sign that it’s someone competitive and probably ready to die for the level of control they need to feel. They want to control their life and how they die. They want to die. It’s slow suicide and a need for control. I don’t think people get that enough so I will harp on about it. Because the last thing anorexia is, is vanity. It’s linked to OCD. Most anorexics have OCD. You treat OCD when you treat anorexia).

And the thing with being in several group chats where you indepth honestly discuss what it’s going to be like to die of anorexia and plan your funerals…. Is you learn how and why your body shuts down in what order.

Do you know that the first organs to get fucked up are all digestive? Pancreas, liver, kidney, intestines, stomach. Pretty much in that order depending on personal genetics.

That once there’s no fat to burn and your body will actually keep a layer of it first, it’ll start consuming muscle. And tbh, most anorexics by this point don’t have a lot and you’re exercising non stop anyway…. So your muscle is already weak and damaged because you haven’t been providing proper nutrition and you have not given your body a break despite that…. So your heart is already not in good shape because it’s overworked af and you’re anorexic so you’re constantly stressed and your body has lived off adrenaline and cortisol for years because it couldn’t live off food…. And then your body starts consuming muscle for energy and suddenly you’re even more at risk for heart failure because it’s so weak and broken. And even if you recover you will forever have a heart that is more at risk of heart attack and disease because it is heavily broken. And there’s nothing you can do.

Because when you choose recovery and to try and fix everything you did with malnutrition; you can’t fix the insane damage you put your heart through.

And sometimes when you gain weight after years of starvation; your body just covers everything in excess fat cells to try and keep you safe.

Because historically; famines are fucking deadly and ones that last years and still require you to keep going like that are incredibly severe natural disasters that will come again. So your body changes its entire system to prepare and protect you, so that next time you don’t even come close to dying. So you can think because malnutrition really fucks with your brain and when you’re in a natural disaster or something, that’s crucial.

And it’s going to impact future generations genetics too.

Everyone who had an almond mum and then continued getting shit for their size? Her dieting and her making you diet as a kid added to it. Congratulations on your crippling insecurities and constant pain and health issues… I am right here with you (genuinely, my family triggered my disordered eating at about 10/11… it became conscious about 13-14).

We’re about to see a rise in youth disordered eating again and as someone who teaches teenagers I’m terrified of it. I’m terrified to see the kids coming in with disordered eating over the next few years because I know what that looks like.

And here’s the thing about having spent years in a group named ‘The pretty corpses’; you discuss a lot how ugly and medical that death will be.

How much beeping, how there will be needles and IV fluids and feeding tubes and machines and slow inevitable organ failure and how exasperated nurses get about needing you to eat… etc… we know it’s a very very slow and painful death. Some have a goal weight they plan to just end it at or a specific milestone, others live for the dramatic ending, some of us swear we’ll recover at the last possible minute and it’ll be fine. I actually was in none of those camps, I didn’t think I would ever make it to hospital because no one would notice and I would just die one day at home. I was a teenager and not very logical, but tbh even now I don’t think they ever were going to take me to get help. I think I would have been there when I hit organ failure and they would have to be like ‘she’s dying’.

And recovery looks ugly.

Not in a ‘oh no, I’m gaining weight’ which is more a loss of control and not liking that you can’t control how your body gains weight and when thing, at least for me.

But in a ‘you’re going to piss yourself at some point bc your pelvic floor is a muscle and you don’t have those anymore. You are also going to have to learn to use laxatives responsibly bc you never have but now you need to be mindful and wean yourself off them so your body can learn to digest food again.’ way. And the thing that they tell you in recovery is ‘everyone has a poop story, it is inevitable. Every time you full on relapse tho, you will gain another.’ along with the information of how you have to reintroduce foods slowly because you haven’t eaten them in years and everyone who cut out cheese and dairy has a poop story specifically from that or a ‘I threw up the first time I ate more than two small slices of cheese pizza because it’s been so long I genuinely couldn’t digest it and the pain was excruciating’.

Also the first time you eat meat again. I don’t like eating chicken outside of a few very specific ways because I couldn’t physically digest it after anorexia and I was more prone to food poisoning.

As an adult living independently, I still mix a lot of fibre additives into my meals specifically bc of the damage I caused with anorexia.

But a lot of us can’t eat meats easily and they forever just taste a little wrong after years of eating disorders.

Also if you purged a lot, some foods are forever just that meal you constantly purged.

I have a handful of things I no longer eat because of it.

And all this is currently haunting me because ever since the wicked promo… I see it.

I see Mary-Kate and Ashley. I see Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton. I see the ‘How they did it; weight loss diets of the rich and famous’ on trashy magazines again. And the knowledge that it’s coming again.

I used to obsess over Victoria Secrets models.

If anyone else was on proana websites in the 2010’s, there was an entire thread dedicated to them and I remember the time everyone got obsessed with counting their ribs and comparing their own.

I saw Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo’s interviews and my instant thought while watching all the holding hand compilations was ‘Oh god the wrist measuring trend is going to come back.’

Because between ozempic now being more for weightloss than diabetes in the public eye, that people are going to be looking at hyperglycaemia as a weightloss solution (which makes my diabetic ass scream in panic), that actresses are once again shrinking before our eyes and going for constant surgeries for a very specific kind of face that is just a fucking image of white supremacist bs…. I am here like ‘Oh no, this is exactly how it happens’.

Because if you’re hungry you can’t see and you can’t complain and it’s really easy to feed you propaganda when you’re so focused on yourself and your image and that you can’t afford clothes and food if you decide to rebel against their ED culture…. And everyone is going to fall for it again.

And hungry people are bitchy and judgemental.

Anorexia makes you a fucking bitch not because you are one inherently; but because when you’re so starved you can’t think and suddenly you’re just taking in the worst of everything bc you’ve triggered your survival instincts which need you to be prepared for threats and you’re running on empty…. And you just become a cruel and bitchy person.

And that’s also why almond mums are the fucking worst. Because outside of the body image issues… they’re so fucking hungry and empty they don’t have the energy and mental capacity to parent. I now force my mother to eat regularly when out because otherwise she’s a bitch to me and service workers and I refuse to allow that.

I just see it all happening again and I dread it and hate it.

[not-that-blog]

My DID is out of control for the first time since I was maybe 19¿ and it's nothing like it was then; not destructive or chaotic or life destroying...

Just so switchy and scared and detatched.

And I'm in one of the queerest and happiest relationships I've ever had and I should be better at communicating and admitting to myself and my partner how much I adore them.

And I talked to my cousin tonight and we were doing 'shadow work time' and talking and he's one of the few people I'm fully honest with because him and my housemate are the two people in this world I know will never judge or hate me for my dumbassery from mental illness and trauma as long as I keep recovering long term.

Those two are heaven sent when it comes to my sobriety especially.

Anyway, we were talking and it came out of my mouth how I'm honestly still afraid of being queer and every time I date someone and have to confront it again, I realise that everything that goes wrong I mentally read as a 'punishment from god' because growing up christian that is a lot of what I got told.

So when I missed pride last weekend and couldn't see my partner because I had/have a bacterial infection that was highly contagious and is now still left me with an ear infection and post infection lung issues… I still struggle to not blame myself for it feeling like I did something wrong to make some higher power mad.

And part of converting to Judaism was the 'These things are not punishments, they're just living organisms living' approach most people give me and that for the first time in my life I had people not blaming me and my queerness as a reason my first girlfriend and her sister died.

Or why I lost my babies. And may never be able to get pregnant.

Or telling me that I was abused as a kid because I was queer and it was a punishment for being 'inherently sinful' and that I somehow deserved the abuse because I didn't grow up to be a 'perfect christian housewife.'

I struggle to tell my partner that they're as amazing as they are and how much I genuinely love and want them, or ask the questions that I need to ask for the reassurance we probably both need at this point; because I has so much religious trauma from being raised christian that at 25, nearly 26, after years away from it; it still makes me feel like maybe I'm better off dead because I am so afraid of being punished for being gay and trans.

And he is honestly so fucking incredible and kind and patient and caring and strong and stubborn and I love them dearly.

I doubt my polyamory less than I doubt my queer.

Purely because that one feels less like I'm going to be hated for it.

No one threatened my life for being polyamorous.

No one made their kid homeless for dating me because of polyamory.

No one glassed someone because they stood up for me being polyamorous.

No one told me that my babies were dead because of my polyamory.

But being bi? Being trans?

I had a panic attack when Moose just called and told his father he's bi and dating a man when we were dating. I cried for months over the fact that went well. I still cry over it.

And he'd been told how I'd had an ex's father threaten to kill me after I came out as trans bc I 'turned their son gay'.

But I don't think I've told many people how I watched my first girlfriends sister get glassed to the face when she stood in front of two 13/14yr old teenage girls and a 45+ yr old drunk man who was furious about 'having a faggot dyke of a child who should've never been born in the first place.' and was definitely going to try and kill us.

It's my partners birthday.

In like 6-7hrs we're going to brunch.

And all I can think is how I keep trying to shove down this trauma as if it doesn't constantly make saying the words 'I love you' to them absolutely terrifying because I spend every second of my days fighting my OCD that my existence is not going to hurt them and I can not push them away because I'm scared of something horrifying happening when there's no evidence of that happening.

They have a supportive and loving family.

I have cut my toxic family off and am low contact with my mother.

I am safe and living out of home and I shouldn't still be this scared.

But I still can't really imagine myself getting old and I wish I could wrap myself in their arms more often and just hold them close because even holding their hand is usually enough to stop the spiral in my head because just the reassurance they're here and real and safe is helpful. (I have hallucinations and have been literally haunted by hallucinations of my ex girlfriend's death and her sisters since honestly hours about hearing she died and how. I sometimes have this fear that everything around me is a hallucination and I'm going to lose everyone because of it despite my hallucinations having not been that level of severity since I was like 7-9¿ish and had been awake for almost a week straight from panic attacks from how much traumatic shit was happening and it was like right as my parents started talking divorce and we were getting dragged out of bed to go to my grandmothers constantly which is where I was being SA'd so like; no safe home life, no safe school life, just night-terrors.... hallucinating a whole new world because I was that sleep deprived and fucked up wasn't the worst thing to happen but as an adult it's my biggest fear because now it would be life destroying when back then it was just another bad month.)

I don't know how to unpack this trauma anymore. Or what to do.

I just want to be able to love my partner without being afraid of losing them.

I want to be able to tell them how much I love them while sober. I don't want to get drunk to feel safe enough to love someone.

I don't want to be so scared of my own feelings that I accidentally numb myself because I'm still afraid me being queer will mean I'm a danger to my partner.

I just want to love him how he deserves to be loved.

[not-that-blog]

The worst part of the waiting and the fear and the knowledge regardless of what this comes back as I am responsible for making sure my cousin has this medical information is that I know, without any doubt, that the Hamilton bastards are going to show their faces and manipulation again.

And if it's as severe as I suspect my doctors suspects it might be... anyway from stage 2-4.

I am going to lose my shit.

They're not coming anywhere near my family.

Especially if it's likely to kill me.

I'm writing it down.

All of it.

And if they so much as come near my mother or my nibblings or heaven forbid my sister; especially if this is 45%....

It's not only getting published.

It's going viral.

That fucker doesn't get to hide being a pedophile because the most vocal victim might die of cancer.

If it's cancer. If it's spread. If I am likely not making it 33…

His name will be known.

Very very easily.

Because I will be dead and my deadname will be publicly known.

And if there is anything I trust the internet for... its our universal understanding of that kind of rage.

[not-that-blog]

Having a body that's starting to function after years (decades) of gastrointestinal issues is wild.

Bc like all I can think all the time is 'are humans actually means to go to the bathroom this much? Was it always meant to be this easy? This is normal?'

It's wild. So so wild.

[not-that-blog]

The more my family kinda talks about the impacts of the stolen generation and the great great grandmother from Nauru and the very questionable situation we're all like 'we know, we absolutely know, we're all just yet to confirm it via genetic testing, but like look at this one grandchild especially (me) who definitely has impacts of it on both sides of the family and suddenly you can very clearly see the evidence in family photos.' is the realisation how pale those of us get and how quickly we tan and why they were so adamant to keep 'white passing' kids out of the sun.

I'm translucent. Like currently struggling with vitamin D deficiency and its impacts majorly and we've hit 2yrs without adequate daily sun time and suddenly you see the the Scottish British ancestry very very clearly.

And we know without a doubt that there's some impacts of dads sides bc in the words of my mother last week 'The Williams's were up at Mt Morgan for generations, it would be less than a surprise.' (Also like, there's comments made at family gatherings and sometimes people just say things and you just -know- what kind of family 'secret' they mean.)

But I especially, the least white looking of all of the grandkids despite being the baby who was genuinely translucent (I was not a healthy baby), tan so fucking fast and get the darkest of us.

And so when people talk about how these kids just disappeared and were often sickly and kept covered and inside... it's very obvious to me that yeah, they tanned super quickly most likely and were probably quite pale as babies and very easily vitamin D deficient in the days before we had the words for vitamin D deficiency. Probably also a little prone to skin cancer bc my English ancestors were not made for 24/7 sun and my definitely a fuckton whiter half siblings full of burn like little lobsters then shed while I burn then tan.

And the thing is, before I realised that the racist under handed comments were coming from legit family history and not just being an asshole bc I tan, I didn't get it but I also couldn't understand why I tanned so dark when the only family I knew who came close were the Williams's who had farms and were outside 24/7 for 40+ years.

It's also really hard in hindsight seeing how other families who were knowingly impacted by the stolen gen saw it in me and my father especially first. And I look at him and myself and them my white af family members and just go 'Oh.'.

Like I also don't know what to do about this information anyway. Like what do you do with it in your mid 20's knowing it absolutely impacts your health history but also knowing that it's really hard to find any info on it.

My grandmother has it, but I refuse to contact here anymore bc her husband is a monster.

But the hard hit of 'Hey, your family history, your home here, it's under a detention centre you've always hated anyway, but you also have no one to ask about this.' Hurts a little bit more and more each time.

[not-that-blog]

So I have major death anxiety and my way of dealing with that is planning, a lot of planning and trying to prepare myself for the fact that when people die, it is going to absolutely fucking suck and I am going to hate it and it will rock my entire world all over again.

And I don't know her umblr despite knowing that I used to follow her on my original account, but I follow Berklie on TikTok and her dad just died and there's one where she mentions how she's mad at her brother again for dying and leaving her to face the funeral decisions alone.

And it hit me with the hardest fear that I had not considered actually....

How much will I hate my disowned sibling when we lose our mother.

How much will I hate him when I have to bury my father.

How will the three of us who actually 'talk' do when we have to bury either or both of our parents.

What happens when I lose my sister?

Like, tbh, we always thought that I would go first, but actually it looks like I am going to be the one who successfully fights death until I make it to my 90's or higher because honestly... I actually have a will to live not just not die…

But my sister also has a potential brain bleed and has had a stroke and is at high risk of stroke and all I can think is that at any moment my sister could die and she doesn't talk to me and I am clueless to what she would want tbh.

Similarly with my little brother, but mostly bc he does mixed martial arts and I worry about the impacts of yo-yo dieting for weight classes and head injuries for him... plus he still lives with our parents and that's just not a healthy environment. I moved out of that house and stopped having seizures every fucking day so that tells you a lot.

And the disowned sibling? The one who cut us off and us in return went 'cool, we're deadbolting it behind you asshole.'… I dread his return in any of those circumstances.

But if he returns for our younger siblings in the very very distant future, bc idc how much I fight with my younger sibling being an asshole too he's not allowed to die anytime before his 70's at least... I will lose my shit at him.

Our sister, I'll shut up a bit.

Our mother, I'll give him some shit but let him grieve.

My father? If he shows up there I'll tell him that I don't care about his grief there or whatever, he can fuck off, he can cry over his direct family members only, but for mine and our little brothers only piece of fucked up family? He's not welcome and he can go back to the abusive Hamilton fuckers he chose.

But I think with my father, who probably won't stubbornly kick it anytime soon but if he does...

Potentially the shirt he married my mother in. It's the kind of sentiment he would like because as much as I am team 'they should have gotten divorced years ago', they've been together coming towards 40yrs (I think mum was mid twenties when they met and she's 60 in February), married for 19/20 in September? I can't remember if I was 5 or 6 when they got married, but I think it's 20 this year bc mum was talking about going to Tassie for their 20th wedding anniversary.

My mother is probably getting dressed in something pink, flowy, long and floral. And she wants to buried, but also under a plant. So if I can, her headstone will be made so that I can put a rose bush on it. She refuses cremation so I can't just seperate her into necklaces and give people memorial plants. I will do memorial plants anyway for her, she'll get a little memorial plaque in a personal rose garden when I have a permanent place.

If my father doesn't go in his wedding shirt, probably something with coloured birds or a car on it. I have several shirts in mind he could go in, but I would also want to make essentially in memorial bears or blankets or something.

Because as much as my parents suck, I do actually care and believe they're good people at heart and I have seen that in them... they're just severely fucked up from some horrific levels of trauma and both are actually at risk of alzheimers, mum genetically and dad from all the head traumas and drugs. He's already dealing with major cognitive declines, it's just the curse of he's always been so fucking smart with a photographic memory and a decent enough amount of social skills from growing up rural that he hides it too well from medical teams and he's going to be so far gone before it shows up in testing. Because I haven't recognised my father in 5-6 years so, it's just painful.

I'm also responsible for everything now.

My sister has walked out and gone NC.

My younger brother is the kind of autistic that doesn't cope with it at all and I am actually completely terrified for what his response to grief will eventually be.

Our other brother has been gone for a long time and I am aware that if he shows up while I'm grieving I will lose my shit at him because the rage is there....

But I am the oldest child of my mother's second marriage and my father's oldest child.

I'm the one who's been designated to go through and remove things on behalf of both of my parents that they either: 1. Don't want the other to find. 2. Don't want the other to accidentally toss because it's valuable in some way and they both acknowledge occasionally that the house is affected by their hoarding habits.

I'm going to be responsible for burying my parents and I have never been so heartbroken and relieved to realise that I am going to be doing it alone.

Although realising this, I am going to sort out my own life insurance and funeral arrangements soon bc fuck leaving that stress to my loved ones.

[not-that-blog]

I unlocked trauma tonight.

Really fucked up shit that honestly makes me feel so close to depression again just knowing it.

Years of therapy tools and techniques are paying off, but the saddest truth about being an adult is that, I know with 100% certainty that it doesn't matter that this horror hasn't yet impacted my view of myself or my self worth, it's just made my distain for a number of disowned and cut off family grow even deeper into a line of hatred, betrayal and honesty horror at how much they're fucking monsters who I once saw as the most amazing humans in my life but now they're not just cowards who enabled a monster, but actually willing participants in the monstrous movements themselves..... I shouldn't be left alone tomorrow because that won't last forever.

But even if by some miracle it does... it won't hold the weight of the ptsd from crashing down upon me in the daylight.

Right now the sleeping world is all that holds my peace.

I mumble the few prayers I've memorised in slight comfort, I take note of the feelings, name them, feel where they sit in my body, feel the discomfort and then relax and let it fade. Repeat mantras, walk myself through the motions of productively using my ability to maladaptive daydream to walk myself through safe spaces.

Try to stay grounded in who I am so I don't split and really settle myself so that it doesn't break me because damnit I am so so fucking close to having a complete fusion of this system and learning what it's like to be alone in my own brain and life and I will be damned if that fuckers betrayal that's already happened and done causes me to undo a decade of therapy work at becoming a functioning human being.

I was a system of at least 75.

Always, always being taken over and my life in shambles and constantly sabotaged and destroyed before it even had a chance.

There's now maybe more than 5, but most of the time it's just Gemma and I.

There's two of us that exist full time and the others are so close to being fused that I am disappointed when they front because although I love them dearly and there's a part of me that misses my life in our inner world... they should not exist and their existence is a sign of pain and suffering for forced survival because the only ones that exist that aren't Gem and I are trauma holders.

And little E, they're holding the last of my childhood trauma. Eliza is holding a lot of guilt and pain for my teenage years that honestly... I am not ready to touch and I am still more incredibly grateful than sad bc she's a ridiculously level headed trauma holder who also holds a lot of my hopes and dreams and religious trauma from the christian upbringing. And Cicely... when she splits off again when I am in trauma mode, she breaks my heart because she's the artistic director of my heart and soul and the holder of all the broken heartedness from lost potentialities and the way I wanted the world to be. She is my romanticism personified and fuck I love her and I hate when she shows up because if we split again and she returns it's like the sign our heart is so broken we actually lost our core connection to ourself and need to hold it separate to protect it.

Gemma is functioning through anxiety and the ability to keep control. I am everyday life and just pushing us through healing and being the host and accepting this is my reality and my life and my responsibility and I am host and it's my life and I owe it to that small child to give them a good life and a good world where they're safe and healthy and happy and truely themselves.

And I will be damned if the behaviour of a fucker who used to take every opportunity to terrify me and make me afraid and miserable is going to keep hurting me for the rest of my life.

I was the only child not given a biblical name.

But mum wanted to name me Naomi.

I intend to have my Hebrew name be Naom. (I was thrilled when looking at jewish baby name blogs to learn this was an option)

The (darker) humour is not lost on me that of all of us, I am the one who actually follows any of their names. Both given and chosen.

[not-that-blog]

So I keep seeing swerf shit while looking for some cool art (literally on the site I'm on, I typed in masturbating, and it's one specific swerf who's clearly got a decent enough following to be buying her stuff).

And it's that popular 'your boyfriend masturbates to women being SA'd' thing.

And don't get me wrong, I am aware of the attention snuff films get...

But all I can think every fucking time is; dude, they're getting off to me and one of my coolest friends putting our titties in each others mouths, me making her cum because I am competitive and she refuses to not cum genuinely in her porn, so when we're together I like seeing how many different ways we can play. And then we have fun filming that shit, taking photos and being super excited and hyping each other up.

There's a better chance that your man is getting on VR chat and fucking someone in an 18+ online dungeon in a custom skin and fucking someone also in a custom skin and having a blast.

Or that he's watching videos on OF or Fansly of POV deepthroating or riding and watching titty and ass jiggle.

Like girl, if your man is worth it, he better be paying for his porn and watching these girls masturbating for coin and enjoying tf outta themselves.

Or watching paid for custom fetish content by SWers who specialise in it.

Some of us even specialise in hardcore pornography, and do it because we enjoy it.

I have intentions of getting into some harder stuff with time.

Like, swerfs suck and they're fucked up with how they treat everyone as these criminals for experiencing an ounce of attraction or a fetish or kink... and at the same time criminalising and diminishing the real work and dignity of swers.

Like damn dude; I chose to get fucked on camera.

I chose to take photos of myself.

As a fully grown adult in their mid twenties, I made the conscious choice to do digital sex work.

Knowing fully well what it entails.

Just let me suck cock in peace.

[not-that-blog]

Fuck the perception of the man or bear argument.

Bc someone said how if it was a man they knew, of course they would pick the man over the bear.

And I will be completely honest... no I fucking wouldn't.

If I had to unexpectedly face a man in my life or a pissed of red belly black snake or a funnel web or a brown snake (ya know, more realistic for my actual area because all three are available within a 20min drive and probably a 20-30min walk from where I live)… I would pick the wild animal.

Like 1. None of the men in my life hike so like, no.

But 2. You think after 25yrs with 23 of them being straight up trauma at the hands of men I even completely trust the ones I trust?!?

There is two, just two men who wouldn't trigger an immediate reaction of fear.

Both of whom I have ran to and cried into the arms of after realising that I was being abused by someone in my life.

Both of whom I have essentially lived with at some point for at least a month.

But I do not want to run into any men in my life randomly in the bush, under any circumstances.

And like I have reason, I don't trust my brothers, I don't trust my father (who has physically assaulted both of my brothers at some point in a way that could easily be described as potentially lethal intent), I don't trust my uncles, I don't trust my male friends, I don't trust anyones boyfriends, I never trusted either of my grandfathers (rightfully so bc one was an abusive asshole the other was a worse abusive asshole).

I don't trust men.

I have had men that I knew for seven+ years get drunk, handsy and sexually assault me.

I had men who actively engaged to prevent one kind of sexual assault happening to me to later feel entitled to my body because of that.

I had men who I believed were my best friends at the time later make it very clear they saw me nothing more than a body the group of them were just trying to sleep with regardless of my feelings about it.

I have been physically assaulted by strangers, by family, by friends.

Avoided handsy adult men as a teenager by being ridiculously loud and vocal. Constantly. And making it a threat. Making my voice a very clear and direct threat that no matter what you threatened me with, I didn't care enough to keep my mouth shut.

And that only worked because I had already kick started a criminal investigation into an adult man who was 'highly respected' in his communities and unfortunately my biological grandfather who is genuinely the worst human being.

So I was known for just going to the cops and when the cops couldn't do shit, I took it into my own hands by not shutting tf up about it.

I don't need to be asked 'bear or man' or 'snake or man' or whatever fucking else.

Nothing on this fucking planet is less trustworthy than a man.

And somehow this because a 'man or bear but the man is XYZ' for some reason...

The answer doesn't change.

Nothing makes me change my answer.

If I can't trust my own brothers, or my father to be someone I would be comfortable running into the bush, people who have lived with me most of my life, why the fuck would I even hold hope for a stranger?

Even the men whose moral codes I have trusted, do you really think that I ever fully believe in them to keep it? When I have watched the seemingly kindest and most protective men that I had willingly given my heart to, get drunk and refuse my no and still be stronger than me when they are completely smashed and I am stone cold sober.

When men I was ready to spend my life with decided stealthing was the route they were taking, or that they were going to constantly masturbate over me in my sleep and clean it up with my bright pink girl guides towel, ruining a priceless piece of my childhood by linking it to traumatic events, or deciding to rape me in my sleep, while I was dressed in a shirt my dad gave me when I was like 7 and winter pj pants... just pulled my clothes down, pinned me on my side and raped me... first thing in the morning while no one else was home.

Those were men that I had trusted.

One of them I had actually gone hiking with.

I have also faced a freshly shed, starving red belly black snake as it considered biting me for getting in it's way and almost stepping on it but the wallaby it was going after ended up being its choice.

I have grown up around brown snakes, at hatching season there's regularly just baby brown snakes on the foot paths where I live bc I'm close to an embankment where they lay their eggs.

I also live near a rainforest that is known for having a few different species of funnel webs, yes I have seen them first hand, on a tour of the rainforest thankfully with a professional showing us them.

Anti-venom on site.

But I have seen how incredibly fast and huge and deadly they are first hand.

I have also seen the damage of a fully grown red kangaroo on a truck, or the speed and bite of a dingo, feral pigs, crocodiles taking down prey in Northern Queensland, the head injuries from a dumbass who pissed off a cassowary, etc.

Like I am not 'blissfully unaware' of how violent and dangerous these things are.

But I know without a hint of doubt, that I would rather take on Australia's deadliest animals, knowing that I have no fucking reflexes to defend myself from them... then ever deal with a man.

Because there is not actually a single man who I trust enough to meet in the bush even if sometimes I say to them I would.

I don't believe in trusting the hands of anyone to not be violent, because I don't believe that anyone is truly a complete pacifist because I believe every act of peace and kindness is a choice and a conscious one, and so are acts of violence.

I would rather experience a torture by another creature than violence by a face and hand that matches mine.

[not-that-blog]

I'm lowkey trauma dumping to the internet again in the tags bc it got to me.

[not-that-blog]

I relapsed into alcoholism.

It's really easy to be pushed over the edge when it's December but today hurt.

A little lie from someone probably not meant to even be noticed by me but I checked discord bc I was waiting for a message from my niece.

A friend mentioning intent on moving to the other side of the world is 6mnths.

My mother blaming me for my breakup and also blaming me for other things.

Grief hitting like a bitch.

My birth control changes causing cystic acne that makes me super self conscious about working, because it's all over my body.

Struggling to clean my depression room.

CPTSD meaning constant flashbacks atm and me not being able to say what I really want to say to someone which is 'actually I feel really scared but you make me feel safer, please come hold me.'

And just other things that are lowkey crushing me.

So I grabbed a cider and a bottle of wine and honestly feel both really guilty and like I just don't care because it hurts so bad and dissociating doesn't help.

And alcohol doesn't either but it feels different.

And alcohol takes the edge off the shame that I didn't cause myself.

It lets me just admit it hurts.

Let's me cry.

Let's me acknowledge that I was so so broken and that what happened to me was incredibly fucked up.

God it's so fucked up.

[not-that-blog]

I fucking hate that I still have feelings for him.

I hate him.

I hate him for breaking my stupid heart.

I hate him for hurting me.

I hate him for doing everything after I left.

I hate him for not loving me when I was there.

I hate him for calling me.

I hate him for asking me to stay.

I hate him for working his stupid way into my stupid stupid heart and getting into it.

And fuck him for not leaving it alone.

Fuck him for hurting me and then acting like I'm fine.

I'm clearly not fine.

JUST FUCK YOU FOR LOSING ME WHEN I WAS FALLING SO IN LOVE WITH YOU AND YOU BROKE THE PROMISE OF EFFORT.

[not-that-blog]

I'm stubborn, angry, hurt and very heartbroken so the diary style posts will be continuing for a while.

Especially because irl I can't complain or work this stuff out without accidentally creating fucked up consequences for one of both of us and neither of us deserve to be punished socially for trying to heal from an amicable breakup that was just human flaws meets human nature and shit just ends.

Not dramatically or easily, but enough that it's an end and that hurts.

Anyway this is one of those dramatic diary style posts.

I have become stubbornly self care obsessed a little.

Learning how to love my body when I have hated it for two deca because I wasn't the 'beautiful child' to anyone and that was exploited by a child predator.

So I am now an adult working through trauma and trying to tell myself that every part of me is loveable just by existence.

And the parts of me that are hard to love are probably not what people expect.

I have no issues with the stretch marks or the scars (bio oil was amazing for the few faint self harm scars I had left and most people, let alone the people who've seen me naked in the last handful of years will never know where or what scars I once inflicted. I personally can see the slight discolouration in my skin, but no one else has ever seen or commented on it) and I have no issue with my stomach or thighs and the dysphoria from my boobs is minimal.

My actual self image issues are like my ass or the way my neck is floppy when I have seizures and that my joints never really fit in place and that I have anxiety about if I can see my ribcage because that was such a thing on eating disorder forums that the fear or seeing my own bones is real and the idea of someone tracing my collarbones and 'dipping their tongue into that well' makes me feel sick and weirded out (if you know the posts, you know what I mean).

And like; I don't actively think of those things often anymore. Usually just in mild rage or laughing at how we romanticised something so fucked up because accepting that we were dying an ugly and painful death was way too traumatic and we painted it as something else and were way to gothic romantic about it. I can't think of a worse way to die for honour, because it was sickening what we did to ourselves.

Being afraid of numbers and food, upping our mathematical ability while killing the brain cells needed to do it. Hiding secrets like we were doing something right for it, cheering each other on by tearing each other's bodies apart with insults and yelling praises at every bone and thigh gap.

White panties with pokadot hearts in red and a red ribbon, laying down and breathing in and feeling hip bones…

I didn't consider myself recovered until I had a layer of fat over every bone I had sent photos of in proana kiks; my hips especially.

And I am now obsessed with my oral hygiene for my own health and wellbeing, not to try and hide the effects of when my ed slipped into the other side and binge-purge became a thing.

And then just cycling between eating disorders for years.

And now I have a lot of fucked up health problems and a heartbreak that isn't being met by starvation but by actual looking after myself and trying not to hate my own guts.

It's kinda weird when self harm isn't your first instinct anymore. But it's kinda nice to when it starts to feel less familiar and less like home.

It's always there; but it's not the road most travelled anymore and choosing it wouldn't feel like strength it would feel like the ultimate failure.

It didn't feel like that at 16.

At 16 it felt like this fucked up hope.

Hope someone would love me, but not want me, that I would be so boring to fuck that no one would want to. I would be nothing.

And now as an adult, I don't care who wants to fuck me or why. I care about having a body that might actually function. I care about living past 35 and making a sustainable and loved life.

That's it. I just want to love life.

[not-that-blog]

Conversations of existential crisis:

Me to Gemma: 'What if I am single forever? What if I never date again?! What does my life look like if I don't have a nesting partner who is there and get married and have kids? What does my life actually look like if I maybe never take a lover like that again?'

Gemma: 'You're not actually afraid of being single right, because you can date?'

Me: 'Oh no, I know if I was that terrified, I could very easily play perfect house spouse and get married and have a husband in like two, three years. But like, doing this, planning to be alone; I don't know how to do that.'

Gemma: 'Oh yeah, no clue.'

[not-that-blog]

If you ever find yourself questioning how you constantly feel like your needs are unmet but all of theirs seem to be…

Realise that you're probably carrying the fucking relationship again.

[not-that-blog]

Sometimes the cruel things that make you feel insecure were never the things aimed at you.

My sister is the most critical voice in my head, her opinion is the one I valued most growing up and I wanted to be her… this cool, powerful, protective, unstoppable force that no one was capable of hurting. (Aka; I was a very isolated and abused child who couldn't stop feeling so I idolised my older sibling and cousin who seemed to be able to avoid/cope with the pain.... they were not, but a small child looking at an older punk teen who manages to seem stronger than the cruel adults is always the 'cool' one).

But the thing with the person who raised me and was my default background voice (and often still is) being an angsty teenager who was grunge/alt in the 90's and early 00's; is that voice is cruel and judgmental af just in a super different way than the rest of the family's impacts on my brain.

And today it hit how much that hurts.

So I am still okay and I haven't relapsed into anything; which is probably an important note to add.

But I had a photoshoot today and I was vulnerable and my insecurities were on display, but so was my body. And I haven't seen myself in a full length mirror outside of a shopping centre since early February.

And I have gained weight and my body and face has changed on T and I very much look like an incredibly different person.

And I still think that I look great, I am fat, I am plus size, there's no arguing that and I give very few shits about it; because I don't see that as insulting or bad... it's my body and it's neutral and the only frustration I have is knowing that I have been bed bound a lot lately and I can see the early stages of certain pressure sore prone spots starting to get into the red and irritated warning sign stage. (Because I am disabled and I do have to keep those in mind)

I also look like my family members that my sister and other family members whose voices were my internal dialogue for my youth spent a lot of time insulting physically.

Mostly my grandmother and my aunty.

I look like them, eerily so sometimes to the point where I recoil because the last person I want to feel like I look like when taking photos of myself in lewd poses is my aunt... but like ignoring that context where anyone would have a 'oh that feels too similar' moment; I as myself never looked at these women and thought of them as anytime but beautiful.

But I can hear the insults that were made about them and the dieting rambles of theirs and it hurts.

Because my sister would never say those things to me (I think anyway, if she did they would be shut down with full harshness) but those comments about my grandmother and my aunt are imbedded into my brain to the point where I know that is a perspective she would potentially have about me.

That she may have given her children about bodies like mine and they may never be able to look at people around them with the knowledge that a body is just a body and people are beautiful.

I look at photos of myself and regularly hear my father insulting his sisters appearance (the sister who you could put photos of us together and not know whose belonged to whom) and my sister and mother also commenting on her weight and appearance and their comments on my grandmothers body and weight.

I remember the 'chicken wing/turkey neck/lunch lady arms' comments and I was so confused for years.

Because all I could see was women who had been strong, women who carried heavy objects and had rough pregnancies and hormonal conditions and who fought really hard.

I never looked at a body with that cruelty until I was taught to.

I am so angry that their insults at other people, people who even if I despise for other reasons; I can still acknowledge are beautiful in their own right, have impacted how I see myself to a point where I had a viscera reaction of fear and horror at first to seeing my weight gain.

I'm so beautiful and I am so proud of myself for gaining weight back after years and years of killing myself because of anorexia, and I still have to fight those voices.

And the worst part is; they're crueler than my eating disorder.

Yeah; the comments that my family made were bitchier and crueler than the mental personification of a disorder that was determined to kill me or control me.

But my disorder didn't make me feel irreparably ugly. My family did that.

And honestly, if my father didn't have dementia, I would make their life hell for it.

'Why'd you do something like pierce your face'

'Because I wanted to and you were calling me an ugly toad every time you call your sister it because I am her fucking clone; so… like I give a fuck what you say anymore.'

'Grandma was fat'

'Yeah, and I am the same body type as her; there's valid reasons to call her a bitch, let's go with one of those... including her obsession with policing everyone else's bodies because she felt insecure in hers and that if we actually grew we weren't the kind of target her abusive husband wanted'

'That thing looks so ugly, why tf would you do that?'

'Idk Megs, probably because I just don't give a flying fuck about being pretty when no one good or kind gives a fuck if I'm not'

And that's really it isn't it; no one worthy of my time gives a fuck if I'm not traditionally attractive. So why should I be.

[not-that-blog]

Today the realisation came that the csa started in 2001.

When my mother was in hospital pregnant with my little brother for months because she was high risk and it was a genuinely almost fatal pregnancy.

I was SA'd at 2.

It was a lot less traumatic when I thought it started at like 5....

But it probably started as a genuine infant and no one noticed because there was never a change of neuro chemistry....

I was just genuinely always set up to be suicidal and depressed because I wasn't safe for infancy.

… I don't know how I'm going to cope with coming to terms with that but later I will be angry about it.