#And to be really honest I think it’s a personality disorder and I’ve done my own research and I show majority of BPD symptoms

[ajxrn-archive]

I’m going to. rip my fucking hair out.

[ijustthinkhesneat]

Outta the way I’ve got hot takes coming through!!!!!!

Dick doesn’t resent Jason pre-death: I have found no evidence to support this. He definitely has issues with Bruce but Dick taking his anger out on Jason is so ooc. I think they were never super close though, partially because Dick wasn’t around much and Jason wasn’t around that long.

The Joker Jr of it all: I honest to god don’t know how I feel about this. On the one hand if Joker Jr had had a bigger impact on canon I really would have liked the dynamic it would create and how the Batfamily would react to Tim. On the other hand this absolutely could never happen because Batman would go full serial killer at that point. I personally think Joker Jr was the best version of Arkham Knight/Dick being mind controlled by the Joker.

Damian Wayne is an asshole: Yeah I went there. I’m throwing your Cherubic God King on the pyre and what will any of you do to stop me?! I understand Damian needing a lot of time to adjust and going through an immense level of trauma but like guess what he is still a jerk. I totally hate that he so rarely gets just brutally humbled in canon. Like their is the time he picks a fight with Jason and just gets absolutely bodied and he tries to fight previously mentioned mind controlled Dick and also gets rekt. But I swear he is way to arrogant for someone who gets clapped by like every other character.

NO ONE WOULD EVER WANT TO BE FRIENDS WITH ANY OF THE BATS EVER IRL: Yup it’s time to address the elephant in the room. All of the Bats with the exception of Cassandra who has never done anything wrong in her life and maybe Barbara if you close your eyes and ears, are terrible people.

Bruce Wayne: Look I could forgive helping old ladies while dressed up as a furry, I could over look being an emotional nightmare, I could even see why he didn’t murder the joker. But I cannot forgive his greatest sin. Being a fucking BILLIONAIRE.

Tim: Emotionally manipulative, a liar, has zero respect for other’s boundaries, also a billionaire, no fashion sense. He is that emo boy in a coffee shop who you think is deep but he is just stoned as hell and will ruin your credit.

Jason Todd: It’s the child murder for me, It’s the being an actual drug lord for me, it’s the duffel bag of severed heads for me. Truthfully those things are iconic, but this man is PTSD ridden and armed to the teeth with guns. I would get up to get a glass of water at night, sneeze and then Stable Mabel would blow my head off.

Dick Grayson: That friend who is never okay. Dating him would be like dating any generically attractive boy in college, yeah he’s hot but the eating disorder and body dysmorphia are reaching a turning point. Have you ever met a college gymnast? I don’t think he would be as gross but like he is a cop so if his friend assaulted someone he definitely wouldn’t tell anyone about it. I feel like he would gaslight me into breaking up with him only for his jackass to show up on my doorstep at 3am sopping wet. Also he’s a circus kid, that is a theater kid with talent and no shame. He would be so fucking annoying, like you would be embarrassed to be seen with him.

[herboretum]

since i’m full of hatred and negativity i will be answering this

(to emphasize Like these are just nuances and inconsistencies i’ve found with myself and the fandom Like genuinely idrgaf i could care less about any of the points i will make in retrospect)

the anthropomorphization of unpleasant from this fandom has genuinely WRECKED its character and made it. not that unique compared to the other npcs. like i dont know it being this like fucking gooner-type character is so awful? and i really hate it? if anything that trope given to unpleasant should have stayed with scag and ended with her, since she’s a genuine npc with more writing and thoughts attached

i saw people bring up this point again and im glad but HELLO!!!!! LETS STOP JUST ASSOCIATING LAMPERT AS WALLTER AND MARK'S SON? EVEN WHEN IT HAS BEEN DISCREDITED /MULTIPLE/ TIMES? like DAMN this fandom only attributes characteristics if it is attached to literally anyone else besides that person. its horrible. people NEED to learn to find the balance between having fun with that headcanon while also acknowledging lampert as his own separate person that is (to be quite frank) not even associated with them that much in canon

(+ people saying that the headcanon of lampert being wallmark's son is canon and fucking REPLYING saying to people who ship wallter & lampert or mark & lampert that they shouldn't. you are fucking embarrassing)

more of a fandom thing but yall ship too much lmfaoo. like guys i promise, you can interpret some of these relationships as genuine friendships i promise you'll live. can we stop with the rhetoric that just because two characters have good dynamics with each other that means that theyre in love (heavily side-eyeing protoscag and lampfected and milby dare i say)

the regretevator fandom is EXACTLY like the phighting fandom with how shipping is handled. i mean this in not a positive way

people gotta stop relying on the wiki for information man. so much lore from yeucc's tumblr has been retconned and at this point, when there's now WRITERS for the game that are actually keeping tabs, all if not the good majority of what is said on the wiki should be taken with a grain of salt. nowadays the lore is unpredictable, and only a select few (by few i mean like. 4 out of the 17 npcs) has had their lore expanded on significantly

general facts i think is fine so long as theres an annotation backing it but my point still stands . moreso with lore generally

also saw this point being brought up in the qrts but the demonization and infantilization of certain characterss (cough spud pilby pest and poob) is like. wild. i dunno i can't say much since i'm very fortunate enough to not have seen that much but my god is it prevalent from what people are saying

with pest especially since he has npd and aspd i do think that. people generally associating him as evil has NOT been the greatest thing, especially since it reduces him to a stigma of people with personality disorders which is horrific and terrifying. idk what goes on in the background but i feel like the fandom + yeucc & the people working on regretevator should have done more research on the disorders and consulted people who do have these issues better instead of using those labels haphazardly

another thing i will and always will be vocal (dog on) about the axosun team is them keeping gnarpy. like there was no reason to keep xem in other than for revenue gain let's be honest and True to ourselves. the philosophy "ohh but you can separate the art from the artist!!!!" i feel does not really apply to this scenario cause xe got a whole ass revamp despite the obvious fact that it STILL is gnarpy, a character created by a bad person regardless of the ownership change and discredited history. its the underlying thought that they were essentially built off a bad origin if this makes any sense. idk i think it wouldve been better for everyone if xe were just removed ENTIRELY from the game but. you do you i guess

lastly in this essay: i think more people should Be Kinder to each other in this fandom <3 peace and love

[sipswithtea]

My therapist told me to start blogging

I semi recently got a new therapist. I’ve always had issues keeping therapists because I never feel comfortable enough to be honest with them. I always end up pretending I have nothing to talk about or can’t think of anything going on. It’s so much easier than having to get into all the bullshit.

So why did I go back? Well I’d have to go back to last year, when I had the fun task of having to find a new psychiatrist because I aged out of my parent’s insurance. I started the appointment the way I do with any new psychiatrist: I got straight to the point. I let her know I have bipolar and BPD, diagnosed since 2016. She tells me she’s not convinced. Mind you, this ends up being one of the longest psychiatrist appointments I’ve ever had. Those things are like 30 minutes MAX, this one was well over an hour. Being diagnosed by multiple other doctors was not convincing her. She told me she’s thinks I’m just depressed and suffered a lot of trauma, and that I need therapy.

She told me that in August 2023. I took the bait. Since I was diagnosed in 2016 I’ve had a love/hate relationship with therapy. I think I try to Pavlov myself into believing it works. But nonetheless, I decided maybe she was right. I had just gotten insurance through my job and I was finally gonna be able to see my *favorite* therapist that I had years ago before I had an insurance change. I ended up booking a session with her as soon as my insurance came through.

When I say favorite, looking back now it was definitely a Pavlov moment. She was one of my first therapists, from when I was 18-19. She probably was a really great therapist for my teenage self, because I was so detached from reality. I wasn’t nearly as self aware as I am at 26. So once again, it didn’t last very long.

I tend to talk about very superficial topics during therapy to avoid any further discussions. It’s much easier to talk about how annoyed I was at a situation than the fact that I had a meltdown down and bashed my head into a wall over it. I also hate the obvious “your childhood is the reason you’re the way you are” undertones of therapy. Like no shit. But there’s nothing to be done about it but move on. No I’m not gonna write my parents a letter. No I’m not gonna relive traumatic events in order to somehow finally move on. It all sounds like actual nonsense.

So I stopped seeing my *fave* after 3 months. I figured I’ll just stay on my meds and try to keep doing what I always do. I stayed with the psychiatrist for a few more months too. She ended up putting me on meds that I was on back in 2017. I told her that back when I was on this specific medication I experienced a lot of seizure activity. She told me since it was such a long time ago I’m probably remembering wrong. (Literally don’t know why I kept seeing her as long as I did I’m sorry) Long story short I ended up having seizure activity once again while on this medication.

That ended up being my last straw. This wasn’t just a small bump in the road. I was out of work for 8 weeks straight because I was having so many seizures. I couldn’t even stop taking the medication cold turkey because that would cause more seizures.

After I was fully weaned off of the medication I decided to find a new psychiatrist. I really tried to do my research this time so I wouldn’t end up in a similar situation. The only issue was I would have to wait almost 2 months to get an appointment.

Having both bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder, navigating through life unmedicated is just about impossible. I know I tried. But life doesn’t pause itself no matter what’s going on. And that’s exactly what happened. Life continued. I was out of work. I suffered a loss in the family. It was all so much.

So I caved. I went back online to look for a new therapist. This was during one of my manic episodes, so I had the energy and motivation. I read through every therapist’s bio, looked through their qualifications. I tried to look for anyone who looked like they would truly hear me. Someone who would understand that my brain is very complex but I am still a person who loves and has feelings.

After a long search I found a therapist that I feel comfortable enough to express my thoughts. I am able to recall events without feeling pitied or judged. I’m not gonna sit here and act like I’m 7 months into recovery. It’s literally been 6 weeks. But I feel like I’m heading the right direction. I have a lot of shit going on in my head but I just want more than anything to be able to function like everyone else. So I’m blogging. Something I’ve literally never done!

[plural-affirmations]

Hiya so I don’t have any idea who to contact but I’ve been starting to think that I (we?) maybe could be a system. Here is a few traits I’ve noticed:

I forget A LOT of crap going on throughout my day, especially when its related to past trauma | Ex.: Yesterday, my therapist had asked me to describe a day living with my mom. I kinda forgot what happened during that conversation? She tells me that I swap how I act a lot, and don’t answer to my name as much.

My childhood is mostly forgotten, and kinda mixed with things that happen now. | Ex.: When I was trying to think of a specific childhood story, I started talking about something I did last week. I couldn’t remember the story after that.

I have, like, really complex stories and world inside my head that I can’t control very well that I see in the first person. These people try to talk to me but they’re voices sound misted.

There are voices in the my head that give me instruction, and I hear them more right before I disassociate and forget what happened. | Ex.: I have never fixed a computer before but my head started to tell me how and now my computer isn’t broken anymore.

A lot of the time I will go to bed and then wake up on the couch with a movie playing 3 hours later. | Ex.: I somehow watched half of Falcon And The Winter Soldier last night.

When I was younger these symptoms were much worse, and I would go to school and come home from school in seeming the same hour, but I could remember what my teachers taught me? | Ex.: There was this one day where I made an entire new friend, and she talked to me about stuff I didn’t like. I had 0 memories of her, except passing her in the hallway a few times.

I used to think this was just weird PTSD stuff but I’m starting to think it might be DID or any other kind of Dissociative Disorder. I haven’t done a crazy huge amount of research yet but a decent amount. These are just the things I can think of off the top of my head. I’ll continue doing research, but I just wanted to hear your thoughts?

So... I can't, in good-faith, say (over the internet, nonetheless,) "yes, you're definitely a system".

I will say that, to me, those do not seem like ordinary experiences a singlet would have.

That doesn't mean it's impossible; you very well could just be forgetful or have some other condition(s) going on.

But! In my honest opinion... the things you listed sound similar to when my dissociative symptoms were at their worst. They're not like that anymore, though they definitely were at one point. I think you should definitely do more research. I'll link a post @/multiplicity-positivity made:

Research by itself can be beneficial, but I think if you start seriously considering the possibility of being plural, you should reach out to a local mental health professional.

As stated in the linked post, it's best to rule out traumagenic/disordered plurality before anything else. If you do it in the reverse order, you could have the possibility of assuming dissociative features to be non-disordered plurality, and that would be a pretty messy situation to find yourself in.

That's just what I think. I hope you find what you're needing to, anon!

Good luck! /gen

🖤💜💙💚💛

[imnotoverlyobsessive]

Alright anon, I blocked you because, as I’ve said, that’s what I do with anon hate, so. But I’ll respond anyway.

Okay so first of all, and read this very carefully: this is my blog and I can do whatever I want on it. Just to reiterate in case you didn’t understand, this is my blog and I can do whatever the fuck I want on it.

Bullies attack people directly. Am I voicing my opinions to her? No. My opinions shouldn’t have any effect on her. That’s how I like it. If I saw her irl, I honestly would not bother her. Not because I don’t like her, but because I have a policy of not being a dick to people (I keep my opinions within my “stupid little community” as you call it) unless they’re a dick to me first. Even then, I’d probably just walk away from her, honestly.

I don’t think me voicing my opinions about a billionaire on my private tumblr blog with less than a thousand followers is me being rude. She won’t ever see it. Me messaging her or saying it to her face, that would be rude. And I have no doubt people have done that to both her and Timothée. And unless those people know either of them personally, I do not support those people choosing to do that.

Oh, I accept her for what she is. Sometimes, what someone is, is a bad person. Sorry 🤷‍♀️

Sure, it matters that she’s confident and happy. But she is aware that she promotes harmful beauty standards to people like her own daughter. She is aware that she is a public figure. And not only did she get that stuff done anyway, she wasn’t open about it. She lied about it. I wouldn’t mind half as much if she hadn’t lied about it. Someone getting surgery to feel better about themselves, that’s absolutely fine with me and I won’t mock them for it if they’re being honest and not hurting anyone. But she is hurting people. Her behavior has given people eating disorders. Does she care? No. If she did, she’d change her behavior. So yeah, I’m gonna say how I feel on my own blog. If you dislike that, the door’s right there.

Sure, he can date whoever he wants. Absolutely. And guess what? I can say whatever I want on my own blog. I’m not breaking any laws, I’m not contacting either of them with this or saying it where they can see it. What I think and say here has zero impact on them or their lives, which, again, is the ideal situation in my mind. So… I don’t really care if you think I’m a bully, anon. If I was, I’d be bothering them with my opinions. I’m not. However, you came onto my blog and brought your opinions about me up with me. It would not have affected me if you had voiced your opinions on your own blog without interacting with me. Notice the difference?

[compassionatereminders]

A little vent, ignore if you want:

So I have adhd and I’ve been on meds since I was very young. I’ve tried just about every med on the market during that time. But when I was in middle and high school, I developed an eating disorder and started using my meds as appetite suppressants, even lying to my psych about them not working well enough so she’d give me higher doses. I figured out what I was doing wasn’t healthy toward the end of high school when it sent me to the emergency room and made an effort to significantly reduce my med usage. Through college, I gradually reduced how often I took them and worked on improving my body image accepting my weight. It’s now been about 7 years since I’ve taken any adhd meds and I think I’m in a much better place, but if I’m being honest, my ed will probably never completely go away. Things can still trigger it, even if I have better tools to cope with it now. The problem is, I’m trying to get my masters degree now so I can get enough money to live on in my field, but being back in school has been an uphill battle. Without adhd meds, getting work done is a massive struggle. I’ve researched currently available meds to see if there was anything new that might not be an appetite suppressant, but I haven’t found anything. I just don’t want to risk going back on meds and relapsing. Im trying not to blame myself for the choices I made as a kid, but it’s hard not to be bitter that I’ve ruined what could have been a valuable tool for the rest of my life. One of the most annoying parts is that I’ve never met anyone else with adhd who has dealt with the same thing. I’ve been in multiple adhd groups and talked to people online and I’m always the only person who will never be able to medicate and it feels really alienating.

I'm so sorry you're in this situation stuck between a rock and a hard place, but I just want to say that I am so proud of you for working through your eating disorder and prioritizing your physical health even though it means that there are meds you can't use anymore. That is incredibly impressive and you deserve to be really proud of yourself for getting to this point of recovery. And I hope that you will continue to find more tools and strategies that will allow you to cope better with the ADHD without medication, but it is okay that this is still a work in progress and that it will take time and patience. You are doing a great job. I am proud and very impressed

[doubletalkingmaeve]

aries, taurus, mars, moon and 1H

Get to know me with these questions

Aries - Are you an impulsive person?

I am and I hate it. I have bipolar disorder which definitely adds to it but I’m on better medication now so I’ve calmed down a bit

Taurus - What’s your favourite food?

I like soup and curries. I like loads of foods to be honest. Pasta is up there along with just tomatoes in general 😭 I can’t give you a definitive answer because it changes constantly

Mars - Are you the type to approach others first or do you like others to do that instead?

I normally approach people first unless it’s someone that makes me really shy. I’m normally the type of friend to go up to a celebrity they like and get them to talk to them (if that makes sense, it does in my head)

Moon - Do you suppress your feelings?

I suppose in real life I don’t really talk about how I feel because my family just never done that and it’s weird to me, but online I think I’m more vocal

1H - Describe your style

My style is basically anything comfortable. I normally wear band shirts or other merch and those cycling/legging shorts. I’m good at doing my eyeliner so my style is basically: comfortable goth

[midisty]

Love= Literal gagging

Before reading my blog, just know I am no one special. I don’t mean this in a bad way toward myself, but I am not someone who had it very tough growing up. I wasn’t physically or emotionally abused. I have no trauma. No PTSD. Just borderline personality disorder, which we can get into in another post. I just need a place to vent and bitch and complain. Let’s face it. I’m an attention whore. I’m not one to hide it or even be ashamed about it. I guess that’s the performer in me and why I love singing so much. That high of all eyes being on me. If you would have asked me when I was 15 if I loved attention I would have probably denied it. Now I wear it loud and proud. I’m unapologetically myself nowadays. Flaws and my beauty. Here it is, all on my sleeve.

Todays message from my ex earlier today triggered me to start my first blog post in a really long time. Out of the blue, this guy I dated in Tennessee messaged me, saying he was in Boston, just an hour away from where I live. He asked if he could “visit” me. Not meet up. Not buy me dinner. Not go out on a date, but visit me. In other words, try to get in my pants again. This guy is a real piece of work. His name is Eugene; Gene for short. He is a bilingual, IT tech piece of shit. I met him on the bus that took us to and from our place of employment in downtown Nashville, Tennessee. What drew me to him, was his perceived innocence and the fact that he was older than me. Date #1-he blew me off. That was the first red flag. Red flag #2-“Im not looking for a relationship or anything serious”. Back in this year, I still had hope for these boy type creatures, thinking I could change his mind. I did this a lot out of fear of abandonment and being alone. I wasn’t honest with myself. Red flag #3-He avoided sitting next to me on the bus WHILE we were dating/sleeping with each other. Red flag #4-he took me out to dinner, but then had a full out conversation with our waitress in Spanish so I couldn’t understand what they were talking about. Red flag #5-He completely bailed on me for the 4th of July and blocked me for no reason. When I went to his house, crying and trying to understand why he wouldn’t talk to me, he turned me away. I moved back to New Hampshire, and this guy convinced me to stay with him for a couple nights. He said he’d pay for everything and certainly didn’t. Then when I returned home from the trip he pushed me away again, saying he was seeing someone else. Yeah. I tried way too hard and it came back and bit me.

I have a long history of jerks that I have dated. I have lost count of how many people I’ve dated and forgot names. I now have a block on my heart. No matter how much I miss the feeling of being crazy and obsessed with someone, I can’t seem to bring myself to give anyone a shot. I fooled around with a guy a couple of months ago. I gagged. He didn’t taste bad. I’m definitely attracted to him. He smelt fine. It’s just the literal thought of being with someone again makes me sick to my stomach. My sex drive and desire to love? Gone. I’m passed desperate. I’m passed hurt. I’m passed angry. I’m passed bitter. I literally just don’t want it. I may be single the rest of my life unless somehow this block can be lifted. I have been a desired side piece to marriages. I’ve been used. I’ve been lied to. I’m just done. I love my alone time with my cat. I have no desire to try anymore. And that goes for some other things too….

That’s a story for another time ;-)

[iron-fifty-nine]

gonna sit here and bitch for a minute, sorry in advance.

I think the worst part of being an able bodied mentally disabled person is the fact that you know you could do better. Even if you can’t “do better”, you sit there knowing you could do the dishes or put away your laundry or go to class if you just tried harder.

I’m working on college shit rn and my mom nearly cried with joy when she heard I actually applied. She asks me daily if I’ve moved forward with admissions. I ran into a minor problem while trying to sign up for classes and it was like hitting a brick wall facefirst at 80 mph. Every day she asks me if I’ve done what would probably take me two emails and 30 minutes of my life. I haven’t done it. Every day I disappoint her and disappoint myself because I know I can physically do better. I can do more. But my brain won’t let me. I won’t let me.

I have a violent hybrid of depression, anxiety, adhd, autism, a dissociative disorder, and years of trauma my brain can’t handle processing. I cry when I think about going to school because I’m terrified. Just thinking about going in public gets me shaking. And I’ve convinced myself I can just be better if I put in more effort. I’ve stopped putting in effort to things that hurt me. These things hurt me. And that comes back to what, to me, worst parts of being disabled: being humiliated that you’re broken, not good enough, faulty. I could be so much more and everyone knows it. I know it. And that’s really what hurts the most.

I’m smart, I’m capable, I’m kind, I’m funny, I’m proud of myself and brave, I’m responsive to people’s needs and am level headed. I’m honest, I’m truly my own person, I’m unique, I’m curious. I know I have value. But at the end of the day it doesn’t matter to society because they want to shove me through endless bureaucracy and pain to prove something. And I can’t do that. I can’t force myself to do that. I just can’t do it.

[jodilin65]

I keep debating what I do and don’t want to include in public journals. On one hand, I’m not doing anything wrong if I keep it legal. But on the other, I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable—even if my comments about them are positive or neutral. With Becky, I’ll use my best judgment. She’s familiar with my bio and doesn’t mind being mentioned by her first name.

We’ve talked about her and her husband’s health. She has a whopping five autoimmune diseases! She also had surgery to correct her septum, which I might need as well. I’ll only know if I can ever get in to see an ENT that doesn’t bail on me.

Interestingly, we picked a new healthcare plan that includes an ENT outside of that shitty group that kept canceling on me. But the ENT in network is 88 years old. Yes, 88! Why would you want to work that late in life unless you really love what you do? I can’t imagine they would let him do surgery at that age, but as Tom said, that’s a good thing because then he’ll be more honest as to whether or not he thinks I need surgery to begin with whereas a surgeon would be quicker to say I needed it because that’s how they make money.

I’m still figuring out my sleep apnea treatment plan, but thankfully, I won’t need referrals with this new coverage. And if I do, Rhonda, who I’m sticking with, can take care of that. So long as the provider is in-network and keeps appointments, I should be okay.

I’m dropping my glaucoma doctor, though. Not all of his services are covered, and I don’t see the point in spending money each year with such a low chance of developing glaucoma.

The plan offers virtual urgent care but lacks the ongoing care for chronic diseases that Galileo provided. It sucks but I’d rather not pay $250 a year for Galileo who may or may not be compatible with my insurance, especially until we’re in a better financial position.

As for Becky’s husband, he’s been through hell. He got shingles in his eye, leading to a series of seven strokes. He was on so much medication that it nearly killed him. Coming off the meds, he had seizures and fainting spells and was in constant pain. Becky took a gun out of his mouth one day. I totally understand his pain and desperation, although my reasons are different.

Becky and I were also remembering Lisa from school. As Becky described her, Lisa was almost feral—completely batshit insane to the point where not even the staff could handle her. Becky suspects Lisa may have had multiple issues, possibly a developmental disorder along with ADHD. Lisa told her she was molested as well. She was unique in that she was very pretty. Most of the headcases I’ve seen were either plain, unkempt, or downright ugly. Years later, when the article came out about the school being shut down and the owners imprisoned, Lisa left bizarre comments. Becky reached out, but Lisa never responded.

I almost asked Becky to pass along my email to Marie, but then I reminded myself that people don’t change—not in major ways, anyway. Marie would have to be a totally different person not to fall into the same paranoid, accusatory, and delusional patterns she used to. So I kept repeating to myself, “People don’t change!”

I’ve also been watching a documentary on the Gypsy Rose Blanchard case. Her mother had Munchausen syndrome and kept Gypsy in a wheelchair even though she could walk and both caused and made up various injuries and illnesses. Eventually, Gypsy snapped, tired of being trapped and hurt. She killed her mother and spent ten years in prison. Personally, I don’t think she should’ve done any time. She’s incredibly smart and articulate and has a patient, positive attitude despite everything. At one point, the parole office jerked her around with conflicting instructions, and I could relate. Parole and probation often feel like an extension of jail. A part of me wished she had put her foot down like I wish I had. Why should they be allowed to be a bunch of fucking hypocrites and not stick to agreements while everybody else is expected to do so?

Earlier, I saw a crime clip about a tragic case where two young women—one 17, the other 27—beat a 30-year-old woman to death out of jealousy. Shockingly, the 17-year-old laughed about it during interrogation as if it was one big old fucking joke. It makes you wonder if they’ll ever look back on it and cringe with shame and embarrassment or if they’ll never feel a shred of guilt or remorse. I’m betting on the latter.

Haha, Tom said he thought something was wrong earlier because the garbage truck sounded so loud. Then he remembered he had his new hearing aid in! I can understand why he’d want to hear people better, but why deal with all the loud shit in the world? I wish to hell I was as deaf as he is.

I was up for a long time last night and only managed 4.5 hours of sleep. I did get a few more hours later, though. Interestingly, I’ve been having some rather steamy dreams lately. Too bad those old, dead hormones aren’t cooperating in real life.

I also dreamed we lived in a new place, though I don’t know where. It was very cluttered.

In another dream, Becky was in a two-story house with her kids still at home and she told me she slept downstairs because of her arthritis.

[mllemouse]

still feeling really peeved about a conversation i had on sunday with a new friend at drinks. he thinks he’s ‘mildly autistic’ and also was telling me about his reservations with trying klonopin after being prescribed for anxiety. at another point in the night, the group of friends was talking about OCD and dismissing me, and i was like, guys, i’m diagnosed OCD!!! listen to me! and now like hilariously, that convo triggered hours and hours of rumination. also part of my convo with this guy was about his dislike of pathological terms even though he kept trying to discuss things in pathological terms, after i had been like yeah, i really haven’t had a good time using pathological language with my providers yet and i don’t think it’s useful to always think in these terms. to me he came off as very attention-seeking about all of this and i really didn’t vibe with it. the friend i know him through is one of my closest people and we didn’t start having really honest conversations about mental health until like a few months ago after over six years of friendship, so idk, it doesn’t feel like i’m having a similarly honest convo with this guy. 

anyway I think what’s bugging me is that this person was explaining why they felt they had certain conditions and it felt like they were being dismissive of the severity of mine, and i still feel like i wasn’t conveying that accurately considering the entire table didn’t understand that i’m not talking about mental health conditions i’m worried about having but rather conditions i have been diagnosed with. and i’m kind of left now like... angry that people don’t understand, still having trouble accepting that i do indeed have a chronic disorder, and feeling shame about it cause i’ve spent hours and hours thinking about it but my house is gross and i haven’t done the tasks i need to do. 

and the overall take away i guess is that this has happened in a few days where i’ve skipped my meds and i can’t! fucking! do that! 

[furiousgoldfish]

Personal post; on trauma, measures to deal with osdd, and this blog

I'm at a weird place right now where sometimes, I can be functional for a little while, and then sometimes not, and I've learned that for my specific condition, it simply takes a lot of maintenance and constant actions I have to do in order to stay functional. This kills my vibe because I don't like routines, I don't like having constant chores to do, I always wanted to live impulsively and do things as they come to mind. I've been resistant to the idea that I have to maintain my mental health constantly, but at this point I have to admit that doing the maintenance and being functional is far far preferable to not doing it, and then falling out of function, and being in a lousy shape in bed in chronic pain and exhaustion.

Stuff I need to do isn't the regular self care, it's dictated by alters and their wants. It seems that as a kid, I had to be separated and dissociated from any human need, so most of the time I will just want for nothing and feel zero desires. My alters are the ones holding all of my needs and wants, and for a long time, I've been just shutting them down, because I didn't think I could fulfill any, I didn't think it makes sense fulfilling it, I didn't believe it would make me happy, and I didn't think I should indulge too far with alters anyway because of some bad advice I read on the internet (haven't we all).

Indulging with my protective alter led me to take care of my appearance a little more and to communicate with people in ways that makes sure I get something out of it, which to me personally sounds utterly evil, but they're convincing me it's normal to have both-sided gain in an interaction. Indulging with my child alter has led to me going to parks more, sitting on swings, eating more candy (so much candy), being randomly silly and just doing ridiculous cringy stuff that I personally don't see a point in doing, but if I do it, my child alter doesn't cause me to fall into depression, and that is a very worthy goal to pursue.

Sometimes, however, maintenance doesn't help either, and I'm currently in that state, stuck in the bed, unable to go out, or do chores, take care of myself or my alters, and I've been simmering in guilt for days, only to finally accept it now. I'll be able to move, when I'm able to move, and no amount of shame will help me get there sooner. I didn't fail and cause this, I'm ill and that's not my fault. If all I can do is stay in bed, then it's my best, and I have to accept that.

I don't know if I've been leaving an impression of a person who is doing well or is well put together, if I'm honest, a lot of this blog was written while I was just done having flashbacks, or trauma episodes. Sometimes I would write it still crying or engulfed by rage, and then after a few days when I would gather my thoughts better, I would re-write it or write it again. I would also write every time I had a realization, or when I would realize a certain problem came from a certain type of abuse. Some posts were created after research, some when I realized some other things weren't obvious to everyone. Sometimes people would talk to me and I would realize where exactly they needed reassurance or additional info, and I'd write about that. And most often, I would just write it to myself. I don't get anyone saying these things to me, and when I write them out to myself, I feel comforted. I feel better, if I'm kind to myself. And then if other people agree, I feel as if they've comforted me too, just by saying 'yeah, that's correct!' or 'I needed to hear this too'.

I remember some 10 years in the past, I was just coming down with ptsd, and I didn’t know what it was, it was a spiral of panic to discover that nobody really knew anything about it. In the place where I live, it's not recognized as a real disorder unless you've participated in a war. I talked to several psychologists, psychiatrists, and a wide variety of people to see what they thought, and nobody recognized it or could tell me what was wrong with me. If I mentioned I suspected it was ptsd, I would be shut down immediately, by every single person. I read every book and every article I could find, rummaged thru any blog and social media, talked to other people who struggled with abuse and still I learned obscenely little. Or, the things I've learned were already obvious to me, and a lot of information was plain wrong, unhelpful, biased against victims, silencing, explaining away, blaming, shaming, teaching how suppress or ignore symptoms, teaching how to forcefully push the emotions back in, how to endure more, how to pretend to be normal. I resented it. I didn't want to repress or act normal, I wanted to explode and feel everything at once, even if it killed me. Soon I was to realize that, it would, in fact, kill me if I continued to try to do that. I learned very slowly that I have to feel only in small waves and episodes, if I want my life to be livable in any way.

I went on to study everything about child abuse and ptsd that was possible to find for 5 years. I was disturbed by the lack of resources, and kept gathering what I knew, kept exploring how it worked on myself, and I felt guilty for every piece of knowledge I harbored, because I knew it should be shared. Everyone should know it, everyone should have resources, and know that abuse effects us in this way, that this is what happens. Speaking to people in private had no results, because this isn't the stuff people want to hear, it's stuff they have to discover. Pushing this on people has only bad results. Nobody wants another person to explain their life to them. It's rude, presumptive and ineffective.

When I started writing, I was relieved I could finally put out what I knew should be available, but I was also cautious and afraid, because at that point I knew that I was taking a stand against something powerful. I expected to be shut down immediately, and by a miracle, I wasn't. Very few people attacked me and fought against my information (for instance, insisting children need to be hit, trauma shouldn't be talked about, traumatized people need to just suck it and stop being the way they are), and I could easily see their motivation, shutting down victims, protecting abusers. So I could easily block them and know that this is not an opponent to argue against, I just needed to convince the victims that they're right.

It took a long time, way longer than I expected, to get to the serious backlash, and at that point I wasn't surprised. In the meantime, so many other trauma-resource blogs popped up, I felt that even if I am taken down, the change has been made. I don't think I've contributed much, the survivors themselves started figuring it out, just like I did, and stood against what was hurting them. They've changed the public mindset, shared their knowledge, and helped others escape from abuse. I couldn't be more happy or grateful for it. Predictably, the backlash came for all of us, and it surprised me that at this point, we all were a threat enough for abusers to actually organize and attack us as a group. I haven't seen that before, though abusers do very much validate each other and support each other's ways whenever interacting, they usually rarely go for group effort to subdue victims, and I only hope that we can do the same, organize and stand our ground as a community.

I felt isolated when when I was first targeted; and there was the initial shock at the hatred and contempt that was shown to me, twisting my words back to me and assuming the worst intentions. When it happens, at first you can't react calmly, you feel like it's deserved, you doubt yourself. I questioned if I did write something harmful, and even if it was a long time ago, was it irresponsible and harming someone? Do I deserve people to unconditionally despise and hate me for my wrongdoings? But in the end, I realized it mattered very little what I wrote. It would have been misrepresented, twisted and used against me anyway. Anything can be taken out of context and presented as evidence of an 'evil monster' if someone tries hard enough – and of course these people tried very hard.

These people didn't want an apology or admission of guilt, which they could have easily gotten from someone as easy to guilt as me – they wanted a complete shut down, deletion of all of my content, my blog erased. I knew that wasn't right. Thousands of messages thanking me for the content, saying how it helped them feel less horrible, or even escape, that wasn't fake. If I was wrong once, it didn't mean everything I ever did needed to be destroyed. The fight isn't against me personally. It was just about suppressing information about abuse, and protecting abusers.

I later found out that all of the blogs that were most heavily affected by trauma were targeted – people struggling with ptsd, cptsd, did, osdd, all of those hit by the extreme abuse were now scapegoated and written about in modern-type language as 'bigots and ableists', like it made any kind of sense that people struggling the worst and sharing advice, comfort and resources, would be someone who needs to be kicked out of the community. The words 'violent' were thrown into every accusation, as if the action of spreading support and information to victims of abuse could be any form of violence. Abuse of language to accuse victims of what they will find the most triggering – violence.

Due to the harassment and threats, for a while, writing this blog became a problem for my mental health. My protective alter told me to back out of it, and some of my friends, horrified when I told them whats up, told me to give it up. But I couldn't do it. The messages of people telling me how my work helped them, are the only thing that kept me going thru my ptsd. Often in the past, I was doing very little except for writing this blog, and people coming to tell me that it helped, were the only proof that I wasn't worthless, proof it was good that I was still alive. It was even comforting me to read my own blog sometimes, when the self doubt kicked in.

Abusers then decided then to attack anyone who dares to interact, and of course, by using the modern language of anonymous message saying 'block this person, they're actually the big bad in the world, you're evil for sharing this!'. And it was always anonymous, because they always had something to hide. I thought it would be very obvious what they're doing, because harassing victims is so obviously evil, but I realize now it would work, because the targets of it are the children, mostly abused children, that the abusers are intimidating and very loudly insisting do as they say. Of course it would work on children. Of course the most loud and scary person telling them to distance themselves from abuse resources because the writer is secretly evil, will sound normal and legit, and it will be something they're compelled to obey. This again, prompted me to consider if what I'm doing is helping, because now there's kids being harassed over it, people getting intimidated and scared from the backlash directed at not me, but them. But then we'll be going back to the past. To the place where resources don't exist. That's exactly what the abusers want.

And I considered doing so many things to migitate the damage, to re-direct it back to myself, to try to defend myself – and I couldn't do it. Because it's already been enough of arguing. Someone getting convinced on a single user twice over whether they're good or bad, is just extra stress. It doesn't hurt me the slightest if there are many people considering me to be evil or malicious. I just need to make sure that the resources are still available. It's what's being fought against, and what I'm trying to protect. Even if my contribution is just a small one, if it helps someone, it's something worth protecting. And I love writing this blog. I'm surprised at how much I still have to say, almost every single day. Abuse is so prevalent and integrated in this world, and the effects are so overwhelming and lasting, that there's no end to writing about it.

[noco7]

What do you think of All Stars and how the writers handled the characters?

Now, I don’t know how much of a hot-take this is, but I don’t find All Stars that uniquely bad, at least for Total Drama. Unjust eliminations and lost potential? I’m a Noah stan who had to watch I See London, and then see Blaineley take his place. Villain that nobody votes out despite the obvious? I’ve watched Heather dodge elimination after elimination in Island and World Tour alike. Random evil mental disorder? That’s just Trent in Action, baby. All Stars is more of the same bad writing, just cranked up a little higher and all at once. But it’s still the same bad writing. Tho, I may be a little biased here. Not because I like All Stars, I don’t - but I knew how bad it was before I watched it. I had seen the rants about every major plot point before I watched a single episode. So I never had hopes for the thing. Perhaps that explains my detachment during viewing. And I'm gonna be honest - I *don’t* have strong feelings on most gen 1 characters, so it’s hard for me to work up the passion about their character derailment. 

But if you still want my specific thoughts on each character:

Courtney: As one of the few gen 1 characters I do care about, I should probably be more mad about Suddy Muddy Sundae then I actually am. But uhhh. I actually like it when Courtney is evil and mean, lol. So the idea of her betraying a close friend? That’s funky, that’s cool - in isolation, that is. In the context of the show, it doesn’t really work. There’s no foreshadowing to the twist, there’s no gradual darkening of her character. It’s just “And Now Courtney does something Evil.” Great. My condolences to anyone who watched this show blind and thought they were getting a character development arc. Probably felt like a slap in the face. But out of context, the idea isn’t that bad. 

It's like that Game of Thrones thing, with Daenarys going evil. Could it believably happen? Sure. But should it have happened so fast? NO.

Gwen: ... Ehh. I think this season was trying to redeem her from WT. That's why she's trying so hard to apologize, that’s why Gwuncan breaks up. And that’s why Gwen says "he wasn't your boyfriend.” I don’t think she was trying to lie, but that the writers wanted us to genuinely believe that, retcon style. But overall, she was fine. A little weird, because WHY is she trying so hard to makeup to Courtney, the girl she was barely friends with? WHY would she ever go back to Total Drama, the show that she hates being on, just for the girl that wasn’t even that good to her in the first place? That’s weird. But “character derailment,” is a lot easier to swallow when it makes the character a nicer person, isn’t it? Also the joke in the beginning where she's the only villain character trying to be sincere and help the team is pretty funny.

Aleheather: I’m grouping them together because they’re very similar people. Evil, conniving villain that no-one really trusts because they’ve seen it all before. They do both get more stupid in AS (why would Heather just leave the victory idol? and why does Alejandro not like... do more with the Mal plotline). But they’re still funny in their own rights. But as a ship, they were disappointing. I think that's because the writers did not know what to do with them after they got together. Which tbf, isn't just a TD problem. A lot of stories end when the characters get together. The romantic plotline is fulfilled. So what are you supposed to do in the sequel, when the Will-They/Won't-They is done? What now? TD's answer was just to pretend that their romantic arc WASN’T finished. So now they're back to hate-flirting, in the exact same way they did in WT. I think a person who cared more about Aleheather (@tdsierra) would probably have a lot more to say about the ship in All Stars, that might even contradict what I say here. But this is all I have to say on them.

Duncan: I don't hate him in AS. I think the whole "no one can know im a nice person," although exaggerated in AS, is true to Duncan as a character. He always had a masculinity so fragile a tap-dancing ant could break it. So whatever, I guess. Probably didn’t help that the girlfriends who used to boost his ego - Courtney and Gwen, left him behind. Tbh, he might be the best written character on All Stars. His ending of blowing up Chris’s house and going to jail does feel odd though. It’s such a sad end to his character. In TDI he was growing to open up, but in AS he’s so defensive that he ends up in jail. I don’t think it’s a bad ending persay, that he regressed. But it’s definitely sad to see. Also the bird he was friends with was ridiculously cute. I love that bird.

Sierra: Gonna be honest, although she is very different in AS - (in a like, psychosis way, when she never had them before) I don't know if I'd call it "character derailment," that she’s still obssessed with Cody and still a creep. Because honestly, I don’t think she ever stopped being one. We’ve never seen her acknowledge her actions as wrong, nor has she apologized/promised to do better. Even in the episode in WT where she accepts being Cody's best friend, she also tries to kiss him again. Perhaps this is the true hot take - Sierra never underwent character development in the first place. I also don't understand why she's on the Hero's team. Was it *heroic* when she stole Cody's underwear? Was it? Did the writers just put her there so as to even the numbers? Or did they buy into the idea that Sierra is a good person, despite being a stalker, because stalkers act out of “love,” and she always just wanted to “protect him.” And therefore, she’s a hero. But perhaps it’s just that she’s not a standard villain. All TD villains are in it for the money and have master-ish plans, while Sierra... does not. I guess that’s close enough to being a hero for AS team designations. Anyway, Sierra should have been cut from AS all together. Nothing here adds to her character, she didn’t belong on the heroes team. [However, if they put her on the villains team and she had to grapple with the idea that her actions were evil and terrible and learn from that... honestly could have been a baller redemption arc.]

Lindsay: Whatever. She was there for one episode, what do you want me to say? Lol. I guess I could say that I don't think she was "character derailed" (she has voted for herself before, and has been bad at voting, so I don’t think it’s OOC for her to vote for herself. 

SECOND GEN

Sam - I agree he should have been replaced with Brick. He doesn’t have anything to do this season. It is touching that he wants to be a mutant to be with his mutant gf though.

Jo - they did her such a disservice im crying thats my girl!!!! like she was such a cool character who had obvious development that needed to happen, and then they just chose not to. It's so weird. Especially when Cameron is on the show, and there's already a history between them. They could work smth out! Or not, but still. And if Brick was indeed on the show - that's another avenue for development! I love Jo, and she was still funny on AS but... they should have taken the chance to flesh her out. But they didn’t.

Honestly, the 2nd gen characters deserved more focus. And I'm not talking about Mike and Zoey, but Lightning and Jo. 1st gen had 3 whole seasons already to flex, but 2nd gen had only one shortened season. As such, maybe focusing on them would have been better.

Lightning: Man also deserved better. He was very funny though. But still.

Scott: This one's weird, because AS Scott is funny, but he is also a completely different person from ROTI Scott. I don't know what I would change about AS Scott, other than make him more like ROTI Scott. Also maybe he and Cameron could have teamed up to expose Mal, considering Scott also has experience with Mike's Alters.

Cameron: why did they make you so stupid. and why was he not able to expose Mal earlier? why? i did like the scene where he used Scott as bait for Fang tho. That was really funny. And I always wished Cameron had ended up as the Villain of ROTI, so it was gratifying.

Mike - ugh. Using his DID as his only plot point was bad enough in ROTI, but to also use it as the main plot of AS? Really guys. Read the room. Also, they were wrong about alters, and as multiple people have said, Mal should have been more of a protective alter, rather than just evil for the sake of it. But I think Mike was always a kind of boring character because his main/fronting alter is Mike. And Mike's just a boring guy. I feel like TDI was trying to do the activist thing where "people with X can still be good people!" and so you get the blandest characters. Think of the Love, Simon movie. "im such a normal guy EXCEPT im gay." that's the vibe with Mike. "im a normal guy EXCEPT i have DID." to prove that people with DID can be "normal." But it stops the character from being interesting, and also... is *normal* the thing we need to be aiming for? There's a lot of interesting discourse around that, but that's not important for this post, lol.

Zoey - she's Zoey. She wasn't a great character to start with and she's not a great character now. And she's also very stupid - Mal has that effect on people. It's hard to have strong feelings on a character you never cared about in the first place.

Overall I'd say that TD had a bad vision of making their most "evil" villain yet, and what makes a villain frightening is how much power they have over their victims... but the victims were all capable people who had won survival shows and were known for being smart and/or athletic. And instead of taking that into account and writing the villain better, they just... forced all the victims to be stupider. 

I think they should have written All Stars as a “wrap up loose character development season,” instead of coming up with a mega villain plot. Because total drama fans are in it for the Characters more than anything else. So just focus on growing them, and people would have been happy.

[jincherie]

important; please read

hello everyone! long time no see! to be perfectly honest, I'm pretty ashamed at how long it has been since I have tended to this blog.

To cut a pretty long, convoluted story short: this past year has not been good to me.

In fact, I could argue that as it went on, it just got progressively worse. My mental health has taken the biggest blow it ever has in my life, and to be honest that makes me a little ashamed because I thought I would be able to handle myself better after how harshly it suffered when I was living with my mother. The culprits are anxiety, stress, and the somewhat-recent diagnosis of ADHD and a mood disorder that throws me into depressive bouts every so often. I have always been easily overwhelmed, but this past year it feels like that has been the only way I have lived.

My room hasn't been truly clean in over a year; I'm constantly drowning in clutter both literal and figurative because I'm so overwhelmed I don't even know where to start sorting it out and tidying it up. My grades have suffered, my body has suffered. As I write this I am also writing a 'show cause' response for my university because I haven't made satisfactory progress through my degree and if it continues the result will be expulsion. fun!

This is probably oversharing, but to be honest everyone here has supported me so much, so long, that I think you deserve to know what's been going on behind the scenes.

I did start to get a little bit better around the start of the year, actually. But that progress went down the drain faster than it was made due to the unfortunate combination of emotional distress caused by my mother being herself, one of my much loved family pets passing away out of nowhere, and my grandmother having a number of heart incidents only for the last one to lead to the discovery of something cancerous on her lungs. I am not having a good time.

I am so fucking ashamed of myself for letting things get so bad, despite the admittedly little control I had over it. I have still so many things I want to write and finish and so many ideas that I wish I could just will into existence that it's not even funny. I want to continue to write and create without having this tremendous stress hanging over my head all the time. I can't even think about writing on a good day without feeling so damn guilty because there's so many things I need to write, and so many other things in my life that I also need to be doing. It's overwhelming.

I am at the point where I have to acknowledge, however, that I cannot keep up the lifestyle I used to and I need to put more priority into certain parts of my life. And so, I need to announce a few things.

I will be going on indefinite hiatus for the time being.

This will be my first official hiatus. I intend to continue my writing at some point, however it's not something I will be able to even think about doing until my current semester is finished and I have some control back over my life.

I will be refunding all commissions received that have not been completed and posted.

this is something I should have done a while ago, but I didn't want to hand the towel in because I wanted so badly to write the wonderful things that were submitted as commissions. I wanted to show my thanks for the support given to me, and above all else I didn't want to disappoint. However, as a result I probably ended up disappointing you all even more.

To those who commissioned me and didn't end up receiving the goods that you paid for in a timely manner, I sincerely and wholeheartedly apologise. In all honesty, I feel so fucking awful that it almost makes me sick. It was never my intention to take your commissions without fulfilling my end of the transaction for so long, and for the fact that it ended up that way I cannot apologise enough. It has broken the trust you had in me and I don't think I will stop beating myself up about that for a while. You who supported me so willingly deserve better than the way this ended up.

Those who commissioned me, please message me your paypal details and how much you paid -- please send it to @jooniecherie. I will be refunding the money as soon as I see the message. Again, I can't apologise enough for making you wait so long.

There are a number of commissions that I started and are part-way completed. I will be endeavouring to complete these and post them after my hiatus, but those who commissioned them will still be refunded.

Ultimately, I am so incredibly sorry that my own personal issues and struggles have bled out to affect others in such a way. A number of you have worried about me and checked in, and for that I am eternally grateful. I'm fine without really being fine, if that makes sense? But I'm grateful for the support I've gotten over the years, and I'm sorry I haven't been able to live up to expectations. I hope to do better, but first I need to heal myself and my life.

Thank you for reading this. I sincerely hope that you're all doing better than me, and I hope it won't be too long before I'm updating you all again. <3

[chained-to-the-mirror]

Some introspective rambling about eating and weight under the cut!

I’m going to go ahead and ramble publicly about some personal things. Maybe it will help someone - maybe me, I don’t know.

If you have followed my blog for a long while, you may have come across my post with a self portrait (not the recent one, the one longer ago) that also had a ramble about my history with eating disorders. I think it was in 2019, and I was genuinely in recovery back then. Food was not really an issue for me, though I still was binging sometimes. It just didn’t come with guilt.

If you haven’t seen that post, to recap: I have a history of various eating disorders, and a few hospitalizations, all in some part related to those eating disorders. That history begins arguably when I was about 7-8 years old, and has continued for most of my life. In 2019 it had been quite a few years of relatively smooth sailing when it came to food - it had been about 6 years since I was last inpatient, and I was feeling confident that I was moving away from those things with every passing day. There was a short relapse in 2020 (I think) but it passed rather quickly. 

Recently, about two months ago, I started intermittent fasting. It has been a great decision for me in general - the 15:9 rhythm suits me perfectly, and I have only had one minor binge since I started. For the longest time I was high on routine and balance and feeling good and light. 

Then I had some blood tests done, and my usually super high HB was down by a lot. It’s still in the normal range, but I can definitely feel the difference. I’m having a follow up doctor’s appointment next week, having taken an iron supplement for a bit first. This was just inconvenient, but not really that big a deal. But anyway, I had the bright idea to track my eating for a week - to see if I really am not getting enough iron. So, I used a calorie tracking site.

A bit of history about me and calorie counting. At my very worst (2005-2007) I was literally weighing the spices I used in my food. I tracked EVERY calorie, meticulously. It was like a religion for me. I also tracked the carbs/protein/fat in everything I ate - even while in the end I was taking in 500 or less calories per day. It was a full on obsession that came with a bunch of other obsessions, and for years and years after I stopped tracking them I had the automatic calorie counter in my head. I thought I would never get rid of it, but somewhere around 2020-2021 I finally did.

But now? I tracked my eating for a week, as planned. Turned out I was not getting nearly enough iron - or protein. Or vitamin B12. No wonder I have been sort of tired all the time. So, in that sense it was good that I did the tracking. It was useful information. I have started taking a B12 supplement since then.

The bad news is that the calories were tracked too. That’s what the site is really for, let’s be honest. And I noticed I was not eating as much as I had thought. The first day of my tracking, I had 1600 calories. The next day, 1400. Then it was around 1500 on all other days of that week. I was surprised, genuinely. I was not hungry, I was not suffering from cravings. I thought all was fine. But apparently I am eating about 500-1000 cals less than I need every day. And I guess I had been eating that way since the fasting began.

Now, it must be pointed out that I am quite overweight, so it’s a good thing that I’m eating less than I burn. All this would be great, if it didn’t come with the baggage of my brain and the thoughts that spring up. Like: I must continue tracking the calories, to make sure I stay below 1500 calories per day. But not too MUCH below that. I managed to resist for like three days, and then I was back on that site. It’s a reputable site, and for a regular person it would be fine. I should not have gone there. I have managed to not weigh my foods to get the exact calories, but I’ve estimated with a LOT more thought than is necessary. I can admit that now, because I feel like I have to step in for myself. 

Today I have not counted a single calorie. I had a home cooked meal, no idea about the calories. I have had chocolate. I didn’t hold myself back from eating. I think I ate about the same as the other days, but it’s been different. More like when I started the fasting and everything just fell into place. I hope I can continue to just be intuitive with all this.

The real reason I was supposed to write this was the issue of weight. I have not stepped on a scale since 2012 I think, and even then my back was turned because I didn’t want to be told the number. I was lighter then, in my estimation, but I was very much troubled with all things eating. And I have not owned a scale in years and years, because that was another of my obsessions when I was worse. I weighed myself multiple times each day, and my mood was completely tied to the number. (Except at my rock bottom when it just didn’t matter anymore - I just had to continue my routines no matter what.) I don’t ever want to go back to that. But recently I’ve become curious. At the calorie counting site I had to enter my current weight, and goal weight. I have no frame of reference for what my current weight is, so I estimated. But what is the truth? I’ve been thinking about it for about two weeks now, and last time I saw my nurse, I brought it up. I told her that I had no idea what I would do if I actually got the real number. It could go any which way. It could be way higher than my estimate - in which case I would have a panic/self loathing attack of epic proportions. It could be right, which would make me disappointed. Or it could be lower, which would… and that’s what I don’t know. It might trigger me to cutting the calories further. This is the reason I have not attempted to diet, despite being hugely overweight for years now. Because what if.

The nurse told me that I have to make my own decision, of course - but there is always an option of getting weighed when I go to see her. And this has kept my mind running in circles since my last visit. I have been going from ”yes” to ”no” on a loop. I have asked for advice from friends. And they have all been wise and told me that I have to really consider WHY I need to know the weight now, and what are the pros and cons of knowing. Well, friends, if you are reading… I have not been able to come up with a single reason why I need to know my weight. There just isn’t one. The only reasons I can think of are unhealthy, and lead to worse outcomes and quite possibly a lot of unnecessary suffering. So, I guess I have decided that I don’t want to OR need to know. I will try to go on as I have before, because for a good while it was working for me. Why try to fix something that already works?

The conclusion of this ramble? I have been humbled to admit that I may not be as recovered as I previously thought. I’m not in any acute danger of a bad relapse, but I do feel like I just closed a door to a dark downward staircase, at the last moment. I can lean on the door, but I won’t enter. It’s not worth it, it never is.

Thank you to anyone who read this. I feel calmer after writing it. I will tag this with some basic tags, if there is another tag you want me to add, let me know. I hope this only brings light and not darkness.