#Maybe I should go back to therapy

[rival-the-rose]

So, last week, just before my birthday, I developed dysphagia, gastroparesis, and ileus due to a weird viral infection (came with a fever and sinus inflammation but nothing else). In layman's terms, this basically means all of the muscles in my entire GI tract have stopped working - esophagus is not moving food to the stomach, stomach is not opening to allow food nor is it opening to release food, and my intestines are not moving things along, just being inflamed and full of gas.

This is obviously deeply uncomfortable, I have been on a liquid diet and barely reaching BMR, on top of being dehydrated bc plain water causes a lot of pain (adding a neutral-basic substance to high acid environment=bad).

On top of that, I am not a layman, and therefore I know that generally this suite of symptoms are associated with the Big Bad Diagnoses and once they show up they are frequently lifelong and not infrequently fatal. I also know that my history and symptoms don't match any of the Big Bads and it's more likely a weirdly dramatic response to viral inflammation, and I think we confirmed that with my doctor today. She's an osteopath who used to specialize in post-GI surgical care and felt that my intestines responded to manipulation in a way that was more similar to inflamed intestines than intestines that are no longer enervated. I would tend to agree and also she relieved so much pain today, I can take deep breaths again.

However, she hasn't seen or heard of this before. She expects that if there's no active damage being done, the inflammation should be mostly resolved in a week or two, but that's based on physiological knowledge rather than specific disease etiology.

So I'm having a lot of emotions. Anxiety, bc these are serious issues that I don't have a solid timeline on resolving. Anxiety 2, bc any time my body does something weird I become paralyzed with fear that this is going to spiral into profound disability again. Shame about Anxiety 2 bc I feel like I'm being dramatic and also being paralyzed with fear makes me feel bad about myself. Concerned that this is going to trigger an eating disorder relapse. Excited that I get to relapse "legitimately" and the fact that I've been on half rations for awhile is relieving the thoughts around how much weight I've gained since getting back from Vermont. Concerned bc I'm already feeling some of the emotional effects of calorie restriction (weepy+fussy) and physical (so tired.) Shame bc I feel like I should be done being sick and I'm tired of cancelling things I really want to do and also bc I look fine and I do feel ok as long as I haven't eaten recently. So I feel like I'm letting ppl down for no reason/I should be toughing it out more. ???Bad bc this is the eating disorder dream and why can't I be functional while doing it (aka being confronted with the reality that I can't indulge my disorder in a safe way which is so scary). Fussy bc I don't actually feel sick so I still want to do things but then I do and I'm uncomfortable/tired/frustrated immediately. Shame about just lying on the couch so much. Fear bc I want to start T and I'm in the process of applying to vet school and I can't do either of those things if I keep having organ systems shutting down (I really thought my lungs were doing better but they're apparently still not deflating appropriately).

Logically I can see that if someone told me they had these symptoms I would be like "why are you not in a hospital" (as long as I can keep up on calories and liquid reasonably it's not necessary). But I'm the one experiencing it and it's not that bad so why can't I do more stuff. Even though I worked full time this week and went to a doctor appointment today and OT yesterday. But I cancelled hanging out with my bestie on her birthday today so I feel really bad about that.

Idk. I just want to feel better. Except for the part of me that wants to starve to death. I'd say that's the core of the issue lol.

[shittyness]

i had another dream..

atp i’m really just posting these for fun, and so i can look back and remember them lol

(also i’m not posting all of them, cuz a lot of them are the same lol)

anyway, watchers terrorizing me pt 3!!

ok so, for context, i was home alone at my moms last night, and i share a room with my sister there (who, just to be clear, was not there at all last night)

anyway

my dream opens with me waking up, but not opening my eyes, to my sister doing homework/reading a book out loud

and while my eyes aren’t open, i can still tell the lights are on and such, so i’m really annoyed because im tired and want to go back to sleep

so i ask her to shut up

then she gets really freaked out, asking who said that and such

and i responded with some smartass line like ‘who do you think?’

and she stops for a second, before continuing to read aloud

that’s when i try to open my eyes to sit up and say something to her

and i can’t open them

but i can still see

i can suddenly see in third person that my sister isn’t there, and as i claw at my bed and eyes to try to pry them open

then i think maybe this was a dream

so i go to look at the clock (i normally can’t see numbers in my dreams/nightmares, so that’s how i tend to figure it out/get out of them)

and when i turn the disembodied eye that’s giving be third person pov to the clock, i see that it’s in galactic

and it says ‘watch’

then the scene turns purple and i’m snapped back into my body (where i’m still trying to pry my eyes open) and i hear:

you will learn to see

you will watch

and just then, i manage to get my eyes open, and through the tear-fogged vision i see my hands covered in purple blood (?) (i don’t actually know what it was, but based on the context of: i was clawing at my eyes two seconds prior, i think it was supposed to be blood)

and then i woke up

and the craziest part (to me) was that i was only asleep for less than 30 minutes

normally when i get these weird dreams and nightmares it’s when im in a deep sleep, and i wake up at like 4 am

so that really unnerved me

[my-melo-reads]

nobody gets me like mitski and nirvana do

[campingwiththecharmings]

I wish I could understand why it's so hard for me to be close to people, even my family.

[lnkedmyheart]

Took a third option and sent a stressful email instead of making a stressful call. You know what sucks about an anxiety disorder? This bs shouldn't even have me this fucked up. But it's still making me feel like it's better to just d13. God I hate this.

[gothnitsa]

How does one get over Irony poisoning?

Ok, so I already know this is going be something I don't think anyone can give me solid advice on, but I saw Ethel Cain's post about how no one takes anything seriously anymore and I feel like this is something that has seriously infected my thinking too.

I am already a deeply self-conscious person due to my upbringing and the pretty severe ridicule I suffered as a child and I feel like I've been very slowly drip fed poison over the course of my life.

I feels as though I can't make or do anything without being observed by an unknown and deeply judgmental audience and must thus make things a joke. This isn't just an online thing for sure. I feel like any attempt at sincerity will be met with people making jokes about it. I think part of my coping regarding this is to embrace it. "I'm making people smile, I'm making them laugh; so what if it's at my expense, they find it funny." But This just makes my life and creative endeavors feel kind of hollow. Like, don't get me wrong, I love to laugh and I love making people laugh. But sometimes it just feels so mutually exclusive. You either have to be the most stone faced unmovable bitch alive or the sunny smilely girl.

It's honestly gotten to the point where it's infiltrated my sexuality: I feel like I can't even be "unironically horny" anymore. I feel like I have to even make my own sexual arousal a joke. My own attraction to people has to be couched in several layers of irony and humour and scarcasm. I can't confess love to anyone anymore. I can't even say I love you with out peppering jokes or cutting in with "jk I actually hate you" and then immedately appologising and trying to say I love you again before the instincts come in and tell me to call them a "butt face" or something.

I just wish I knew how to shut these little nagging voices up. The voice in my head that is rolling its eyes are every attempt at expressing myself in a genuine way, not just online or even just creatively.

When I try to tell a story of something traumatic that happened or express my love for my friends I feel like I have to couch it in humour to disarm the judging voices in my head. Or maybe that's just the fear of intimacy talking and that's a separate issue altogether. I just hate being like this tbh. I wish I didn't feel like I had to live in this binary of being a clown or being a statue. I am tired of needing to make people laugh, I hate that I feel almost uncomfortable if I don't make people laugh. Like if someone doesn't laugh at my story of the worst things that have ever happened to me in my entire life I failed somehow. Now that I think about it, it honestly feels like I am afraid of being treated like a child. Because that's how I feel whenever someone laughs at my sincere attempts at anything. I feel like a kid. I feel like everyone around me is a grown up laughing at how funny it was that the stupid little girl tried to do something and it's so cute how she is trying. I feel a weird amount of remorse over this since i myself have a chuckle at really self-serious Shadow the hedgehog fan edits with Three Days Grace playing in the background. But, at the same time, I know this is something that I myself would have made as a kid. There's a weird perverse sadomasochistic pleasure in laughing at yourself. Like, it's fine to not take yourself so seriously, but I feel like so often I become my own biggest bully. Like I'm just paroting everything that the kids who made fun of me used to say and do.

This is a rather long and nonsensical rant but I just wanted to put this all out in writing because I think it's been a problem that's plauged me my entire adult life and is greatly hindering me now in many many ways. I recognise that this is a problem that has been building over the years and is not entirely my fault —as my therapist once said "you did not put those voices in there"— but I do still feel a lot of responsibility to fix myself and it's frustrating that it feels so impossible.

Anyway, I should probably watch the Contrapoints cringe video again. I feel like that woman has made videos specifically addressing each of my brain worms and i just watch them and am like "Wow, awesome, I will internalise none of this and only remember the jokes and cunty outfits she wore."

[yoshimitsubignaturals]

Every day I wake up not looking like ravengriim is another day wasted wanting to off myself

[cardinalisred]

DODDAMN YEAH

I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY THE TIME RAN SOOO WILD

[riverfigs]

every now and then I'll remember or realize how terrible I was in high school and want to dieee lol

[delphiniumjoy]

You know what's really annoying? Being able to articulate exactly what your trauma is and how and why it affected you, and then still having to deal with being traumatized by it.

What do you mean it doesn't go away when I understand it?

[amongtony]

I've watched perks of being a wallflower like 5 time in the last 2 days

[nonpostingqueer]

Sorry but, why the heck would a 30 something year old want to date a 20 year old for?

Exactly. No other reason than to take advantage of said 20 year old who’s only 2 years old in adult years.

Don’t even get me started on the creeps that go after 18 year olds bc they’re “legal”. 18 and 20 is not much of an age difference.

Now I find this ship funny bc until I know otherwise, I see Soyona as a women in her 20’s bc she looks it to me.

A different kind of "Partner"

[shepscapades]

Hey! i’m really into the dbch story and i was wondering if doc and xisuma ever tell bdubs the specifics of why etho lost his memories, cause if they do that is prime self blaming angst for bdubs

I’m inclined to believe they don’t. Actually (and maybe I should do a small comic for this so more people see it) I imagine, once a month or a few pass and they finally return etho to bdubs as reset, I imagine they are VERY serious about warning bdubs not to try to force Etho to re-deviate— they don’t go into specifics, but they probably tell bdubs that whatever happened had to do with something that was emotionally overwhelming, and that forcing him to redeviate/not letting it happen naturally could trigger the same error. They have no idea what could happen so bdubs needs to be very careful and let Etho find himself again on his own.

Whether or not bdubs gets impatient or can only go so long before he doubts it would be that bad if he tried pushing Etho in the right direction is another story.

But yeah. I don’t think Xisuma or Doc really… tell anyone that this happened. Etho’s error seemed like a very specific one-off scenario, so it’s not something the other hermits should be trying to avoid or be careful about happening to their own android friends, and the only thing telling people would do is make them worried about the situation. All they need to know is that etho was broken and that they need to be careful with him. I don’t agree with their decision to keep what happened to themselves but I understand it I think. Xisuma “i don’t want to worry the hermits” Void and Docm “eh this isn’t the first time I’ve replaced this arm, people won’t question it” 77

[touchlikethesun]

i do think there is something wrong with me because i am realising that my reactions to some of the things that luo binghe did because of his love for shen qingqiu seem to be relatively muted compared to others’. like don’t get me wrong, luo binghe definitely did that like he for sure went there but like at the same time i think he’s so fucking valid and maybe if people just stopped judging the kid for being the teensiest bit obsessed and took the time to understand his hangups then they’d see that too

[algrenion]

not to be a downer or anything but it's really hard to perform basic tasks when you live moment to moment riddled with guilt and shame without really knowing why it's there

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

Me, progressing further into Maruki’s confidant and becoming increasingly more uncomfortable with the direction this is taking: