#but over the past 2-3 weeks I've been struggling really hard mentally again

[mainfaggot]

tw eating disorder talk in the tags btw. just me being open for the first time in a long time but no numbers or specifics that could be triggering do nawt worry

[official-megumin]

Hey, I saw your recent post about how you're struggling. I know you don't know me, but I just want to tell you that you're not alone. There's a lot you said you're struggling with that I've gone through as well. I understand. I want you to have some solidarity, even if it's just because a stranger chose to share a piece of their story with you.

When I went off to college, things were fine at first. I went through my first semester with flying colors. Second semester started the same, but deteriorated quickly. I fell behind on homework, so I didn't understand what was happening in class, so I stopped going to class as much, and this spiraled until I stopped going to class all together. I spent most of a semester either in bed or *shudders* on League of Legends, only leaving my dorm to eat at the dining halls. When I failed all my classes, I was invited to never return. It was very much a dark place to be, and I can only hope that you're not stuck in as bad of a mental space as I was.

Of course, I don't know the full severity of your mental health, and I don't expect to either. I'm sharing this next bit of wisdom in fear of the worst, in fear that it's as severe as mine was: Find a reason, any reason, to stick around, and latch onto that. For me, that was my cat. I saw a meme once where the poster shared they were only sticking around cause their pet wouldn't understand why they were missing, and why they never returned home. Point is, the reason doesn't have to be something grandiose. No matter how trivial a reason may seem, like not ever tasting ice cream again, or not being able to see a new season of an anime, or even just cause of a meme, it's always a valid reason to not give it all up. Find what that reason is for you, and latch on tight.

I'm sure you've heard "things will get better," a million times, and I understand just how hard it is to believe, especially when depression takes hold. Instead, know that no feeling is final, and there will always be a tomorrow. Your mental state does not define you, and there will always be time for it to change.

Take care.

thank you so much for the taking the time to respond.

I'm no longer a student, I haven't been for years. But back when I did go to school, I also started off with near perfect attendence(granted I couldn't keep up even at the start) but as time passed and my mental health worsened, I started not completing homework and just staying home from time to time. I did end graduating, but only barely. And without covid and a hospitalisation that stopped me from going to exams, I wouldn't have passed at all.

Since then, I've been on sick leave. And it's been over 3 years by now, first year I spent just trying to get the doctors to listen to me telling them something was wrong. And in the process I tried to end my life a time or two and I was admitted to the hospital 3 times.

End the end I came in telling them about my experience with "Hearing voices" really it was just my alters, but still I was granted 2 years of intense therapy.

Now those years are over and I still haven't really improved much, my depression is as bad as ever, so is my BDD.

The only thing that has improved is my social anxiety. Which I am thankful for. But really it's not enough of a change to really make a difference.

Luckily I have grown older and wiser over these past 3 years, I haven't tried to kill myself for over 2 years for once(apart from one time this week where I was very close to attempting it) and I have learned the importance of having something to keep you going just like you said yourself.

I'm not really good at talking about this sorta thing, but when you sent this ask yesterday. You did it at the perfect time, I was very very unhappy when I saw it, and it cheered me up a lot.

I know that it to you probably didn't seem like that big a thing to do. But it was, it genuinely was.

I'm also really sorry if I caused you any sort of worry, my intention with that post wasn't to ask for help really. I think at least.

But more to show that there is more to my life, and to so many other trans people out there than just happiness. And that it's not a failure to not be happy all the time, even if it seems like everyone around you is doing great. That was what I was trying to do.

I hope you have a good day, and a good rest of your week. And that you feel like you made even just a tiny difference in the world.

I hope you feel like you have the strength to help others, as well as other people may feel inspired to reach out to others whom they feel could use a hand.

The world needs more light in these dark times, and honestly this interaction with you has been a highlight, thank you

[libmoopsychblog]

End of an MRes era

I really don’t know how to start this post or even how to express all of the emotions that I am feeling right now into words, but I’ll give it a shot…

This week is my final week on the MRes course and it couldn't have come at a worse time in my life (brutal, I know). I had just started to find my footing, make meaningful connections and focus on my studies but life seems to have gotten in the way a bit too much at the end. I can't let this cloud the good memories that I have made during the year, so I think it's best for me to take a step back and appreciate some of the great things that have happened during this time.

I feel so overwhelmed by how quickly I managed to make friends on the course, especially considering how closed off I was at the beginning. I know for a fact that I wouldn't have been able to deal with the recent changes and mental blocks that have happened in my life if it wasn't for the friends that I have made along the way. However, I can't help but get upset as I write this as I know that once this blog post is over, the clock is just counting down to graduation and, then, to never be on this course again. I am so overwhelmed with a mixture of different emotions and have found this past week one of the hardest I have been through because of this.

Saying this, I know that what I am feeling now is a natural reaction to the changes that I have felt in my life. It is normal for change to impact a person, I just know that it is made so much worse for me because of my autism. That being said, I look back at this year so fondly and wish that its ending wasn't such a negative one. I just need to be better at accepting that some situations, like this, can be bittersweet.

Overall, I would relive this experience 10 times over if I was given the opportunity. I won't let the external, negative influences that have happened in my life change that in any way. I have made so many amazing friends, challenged myself beyond belief and managed to (somehow) stay afloat when going through the biggest struggle I have faced in my personal life. So, here's my final action plan on how I will use this experience to better myself and put this degree to more use than academic achievement.

1: Pushing myself

This course has allowed me to prove to myself that I can do anything I put my mind to. I've managed to pull grades out of the bag when I least expected it, but through working hard and holding myself accountable for my past mistakes. I need to make sure that I implement this into wherever life takes me after this course.

2: Putting myself out there

Another thing that has paid off this year is basically just inserting myself into situations to make friends. I know it sounds sad when I put it like that, but it's worked! I need to make sure that I am not closing myself off and I am allowing myself to be in situations that are outside my comfort zone in order to make friends.

3: Embracing change

For me, this is the main one. I have experienced change in so many different ways during this course, and have struggled on many occasions to deal with it. I need to welcome the changes in both my personal and academic life with open arms instead of wanting to curl up in a ball in fear at the first sight of something not going exactly how I want to.

Apart from that, this is me signing off from this blog (with tears in my eyes). I am so grateful for this experience and can't begin to explain how jealous I am of next year's intake that are yet to experience what I have!!!

[icypantherwrites]

Announcement: IcyPanther is Quitting Fanfiction

I had planned to make this announcement a little later, but with some current things ongoing I figured I may as well do it now.

As the title says, I am officially quitting fanfiction (and writing). I made this announcement to my Patreon back in January and they very kindly kept it internal as requested. There's a bit of a process to this, but following filling commissions slots this month on my Patreon I will no longer be writing any new fanfictions, save for those Patreon supporters who monthly get custom content written for them based on their tiers.

I'll be writing those smaller custom fics through "Phase 2" of my quitting of fanfiction, which will be ongoing until the Patreon exclusive Mer!Lance fic titled Bottled Ocean finishes publishing (it will first publish in April 2022 and while not yet completed should be wrapping up ~October 2022, possibly a month or two longer) and then I will officially be done with writing.

I still obviously have a lot to publish as I've got over 350,000 words of written content in my Google drive (and more still to come as I have some commissions I still have to write), so for as long as my mental health permits I'll be posting it on AO3 and also on my Patreon, which will be transitioning to a full early release model. Just as an FYI, at the very end of Phase 2 I will be locking my Patreon so anyone new joining will not have access to my over three years worth of Patreon exclusive content unless they pay for one particular tier with a pricetag to match what they'd gain access to. Two new tiers will be created to offer financial support and be granted the bonus of early release content, but my Patreon archive will essentially be locked save for that one access tier.

I doubt very many people are even going to see this announcement given recent Tumblr reach and of those very few are going to care. But I've always striven for transparency and given that I've been in this VLD fandom for just about 4 years now wanted to give a heads up. To be honest, most of you won't even realize anything has changed as I'll still be updating, possibly with even more frequency to award early release bonuses on the Patreon, until I stop and even then, given how my hiatuses these past couple years have gone unnoticed, probably not notice even when those updates cease.

I had a lot of fun and I'll always be grateful for what the return for writing and this fandom's enthusiasm and engagement meant to me. It brought me out of a dark place and kept me here. But, unfortunately, what was once stars has become a black hole and it is sucking the life right back out of me again. I've struggled so hard to make it work, but I have to finally do what's best for me and that is quitting writing and leaving this fandom as there's no future for me in writing and I can't keep wishing on stars for one.

Again, y'all won't really notice anything different for a long while if you're just active on my AO3 and if you're on my Patreon you've already been briefed on how the changes will be coming down the pipeline. I'll do my best to make it as smooth as possible.

Take care,

Icy

Just to keep a record, below is the post I made on AO3 on Absent, of which I am deleting today as I don't like having an author's note as a chapter. I just wanted to add here too.

Quitting fanfiction announcement posted on AO3

Hello everyone,

I have an announcement to make and I've been trying to figure out the best way to post it to my AO3 audience (this went up on my Tumblr and Instagram last week) and given how Absent's final chapter went I figured this was as good a place as any. Please note: this author's note will be deleted on 3-9-22 as I do not believe in having full chapter author's notes and it is not related (entirely) to Absent. So while you can leave a comment here, please know it will be deleted when the chapter is removed.

My announcement is thus: I have made the decision to quit writing fanfiction.

It was not an easy decision, but it has been one a long time in the making and the writing has been on the wall for years and practically graffitied on the past several months. I will always be grateful to the Voltron fandom for restoring my love of writing and pulling me from a very dark place back in 2017 as getting to share my works and hear from everyone in the comments was such a light in my life. Unfortunately, that engagement is just not there anymore and it's made it really difficult for me to continue to post. Posting used to give me a boost, now it drains me. I have to spend days, sometimes weeks, summoning up the energy to post an update or a new story and then when people don't show up it hurts. I spend a lot of time, pour a lot of heart and soul, into my works and as anyone who has ever spent a lot of time on something for it not to be appreciated the way you hoped it really, really sucks. I've tried so many ways to keep going: taking hiatuses (planned and unplanned), posting on a schedule, posting not on a schedule, hosting events and games, giving how-to guides on how to comment, telling myself not to ask for any engagement at all and leave it blank... but it has come to the point where the only solution I see to help my mental health is to quit writing. And so that is what I am needing to do.

I understand that Voltron especially is a dying fandom and I have come to terms that things will never be what they once were back in its heyday. I get that. There are less people reading in my niche -- whump and gen content -- and that's okay. It stinks, but it's understandable. But what isn't and what really hurts is when I see so many hits and subscriptions and kudos on my works but those people do not engage. Take Absent here for example. It has over 700 kudos which means 700 individual people clicked this story and liked it enough to keep reading. It had over 180 subscriptions (down a bit since the story finished on Saturday) which means that's at minimum 180 people who were getting alerts for this story in particular not to mention the over 1,500 people on my author subscriptions, of which I'd like to hope maybe half of those are active. This story has over 170 bookmarks (about half of those are private) which means over 170 people loved this story enough to save it to go back to. But what it doesn't have? Engagement. The last chapter I posted got just over 20 people popping in.  When I just listed that easily over 700 persons had at one point been reading this. Where did those people go? Did they hate the ending? Does my writing suck that much? I've had a lot of doubts to that latter as the engagement has dwindled, as I'm told how much people loved my stories like Sin and Color and Hope but no one ever shares a story written in the last year, let alone two or three. Obviously in Color and Sin's cases they are longer stories, but length should not necessarily mean quality. It just makes me feel crappy about my works that I used to take such pride in.

I try not to make a big deal out of this, but I have depression and it has been getting worse and worse. It's actually why I avoid writing stories with that theme as they hit a little too close to home, but I took a chance with Absent and seeing the earlier support it got was personally so healing. Which then made it even harder when the last couple chapters, which were my favorites as we got to finally see the healing and support and open communication, didn't have a lot of people showing up, especially the last chapter. Back in the day the final chapter of a story was where everyone showed up. Not anymore. And that is one thing I am really, really struggling with.

What I've never understood is why engagement is so difficult. I was raised to always say thank you, to show appreciation for even small things. It doesn't have to be a long comment, doesn't have to be a book excerpt. It's just nice to know that people are here. It's nice to see them. To know that my time and effort and hopefully a little talent was enjoyed and appreciated. 95% of readers tend to leave a comment immediately after reading if they are going to leave one, but there's nothing that says you can't come back later if you don't have time then. But if you made the time to read I struggle to understand how there is no time left to engage, even with a few words or a sentence.

I'm not trying to make this just about comment engagement. I'm going through a lot of personal stuff too but where fanfiction always made me feel better and it was my light in the dark, it has become a blackhole to me and just sucks out what energy I have.  I've really tried to keep writing and posting and sharing my work because I know in the past it has resonated with people. I know it's helped. I know it can be an escape.

But it's not mine anymore.

I am going to continue posting the works I have already written (over 350,000 words saved in my Google Drive) for as long as I can because I do want people to be able to read and enjoy those works that I put so much love into. I'll hopefully, if I'm able, be posting well into 2023 just given the sheer build up of stories, but I cannot promise anything.  My hope is just if you do pop in, if you do read something, please, engage. Leave a comment (if you were reading Absent feel free to go back to the final chapter and give the story a little love). Share a thought. Be a light, a star, in my life. Help build others up rather than tear them down, of which if the only thing you have to say to this post is unwanted criticism of myself please, keep it to yourself. I am really struggling mentally right now and I do not need negativity in my life.

Thank you for your kindness. Thank you for reading this wall of text. I hope to see you around AO3, perhaps my other platforms. Stay safe, stay well, and take care ♥

Icy

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Hi Steph, I feel a bit embarrassed but I also don't know who else I could tell this to... I've been feeling more isolated than ever before in my life. Not getting along with my dad, my brother and I don't speak, feeling like my friends only like me when everything is about them all the time, living alone, work just takes advantage of me, etc. I'm currently working really hard to change my life, which includes downsizing my living space and getting rid of 75% of stuff that I own. (ds 1/2)

But in doing this, I can't stop thinking about how much easier that would make committing suicide. I wouldn't leave much mess behind for people to clean up and I could get all my affairs in order first. I just... I don't know. I can't get it off my mind. I've struggled with suicidality on and off for almost a decade now and I'm just so exhausted... I don't see the point in trying anymore. Thank you for listening and I hope you're having a good day otherwise. 💕 (ds 2/2)

Hey Nonny *BIG HUGS*

First of all, I just want to say, I’m not a professional, but I really do think you need talk with one. Please. Because I’m worried for you and they can help you sort through your brain. I know, I don’t practice what I preach, which is why you can only take my words as anecdotes I use to help y’all feel more relatable, and let you know the things I’m doing wrong so that YOU can do them right.

So that said: I know how it feels; I’ve struggled with suicidal thoughts here and there since I was 10, and there was a point in my life after dad died that it got very difficult and hard and everything was crashing around me. I felt stagnant in my job, and my life, and just existing, wondering if it was worth it. And again this past winter it hit me bad when everything piled up (the fraud, the theft, the write-off accident, the slip-and-fall, the insurance issues, the loss of my phone, the annoyance about not feeling respected at my job...) all in a 2 week span, during time off I was looking forward to because I hadn’t had time off since April 2019 (I still consider this the case, since Christmas was a bust), in the middle of the worst bout of seasonal depression I’ve ever had. 

It’s very tough to move on from stressful life events when you have mental health issues; it makes packing away our lives feel as pointless as continuing on after a catastrophic couple weeks.

And I know it’s different for everyone, but Nonny, I promise you, even just talking with my best friends has done wonders. I do need to talk to a therapist, but the ones available to us at my job are all booked up and take people on a minimal basis, so it’s been hard to also be now locked up and looking forward to a summer I can’t really enjoy. I can still go out for walks, but the fun of my walks was walking 10 km to the specialty doughnut shop, and then eating it on the bus ride home, or walking 5 km to the Sunday Market, have a little brunch at the shops there, and walk home. I feel I can’t do that kind of distance now because I need to be close to home so I can run to the bathroom if I need to (on those long walks, I would stop in at a Timmies or something for a break and continue on. My bladder isn’t what it used to be). ANYWAY, this point of me telling this story was because I love summer, and I’m trying my best and making do with the situation. I try to get out and do things I enjoy, just in different ways until All This™ is over.

And let me tell you: It’s worth living. This is why I wait until I’m in a good headspace to answer asks like this, Nonny, because I said that without hesitation. Because it really is. I MAKE things that I’m looking forward to so I can carry on, even during All This™. I bought new games, I’m looking forward to spending my weekend playing them. I’m looking forward to the weekend so I can go spend it outdoors. I’m looking forward to getting a home instead of a shit apartment, and possibly getting a cat, so I have someone else’s life I need to ensure is safe – to give myself a purpose. I’m looking forward to eventually see my sister again, and go on holidays with her. That was our summer plan, but obviously it had to be pushed back.

So, Nonny, you need to find out what you’re looking forward to, no matter how big or small: seeing your friends, your favourite artist’s new album, a movie coming out, going to the zoo, Christmas, whatever your fancy. And keep making yourself little things to keep moving on.

Because it’s worth it, Nonny. It really truly is. And this is coming from someone who has a lot of Dark Days and Demons that perpetually keep me in a negative mindspace. But it’s taken me years to realize I need help, and when I’m able, I’m going to.

And finally, Nonny:

741741 Suicide Helpline / Texting Crisis Service

7Cups Online Emotional Support Therapists

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (USA)

Crisis Services Canada

Suicide SupportLine (UK)

I know there’s a post going around that I thought I reblogged, but these should get you started. I’m sure that if you called any of the National lines, they will most DEFINITELY have your country’s helpline if you’re not from US, Canada, or UK (sorry, a lot of my audience is from either of these three so these were my first picks).

AND, if you think no one would care if you’re gone, I WOULD. WE ALL WOULD. Please, Nonny, I love you, and I care about you and I want you to know that it does get better. <3 Talk with your closest friends and family too. They will help you.

[cosmictulips]

Good time, it's very nice to know you exist 🍵🛶🏰🪔🍯🍯🍯 I'm 18, T, libra sun, leo moon, cap ris. if u could help, that'd be a big thank you

recently I've been feeling kinda shut off from any type of spirituality, universe, can't trust my own mind because i don't want to make things up and go with a lie, not imagination play - a terrible lie to oneself. so, i can only trust others. been asking for a clear sign that i wouldn't doubt for as long as i can remember, and nothing... am i tryna knock on the door that wasn't meant for me? then i don't understand anything. i feel left out of my own life. i try pulling out any advice, but then, my intuition may be just wishful thinking. nothing i ever do comes as i intend. I've let go of logic, of expectations, but it feels like a one way communication. can't remember dreams. locked out of everything and losing hope. i don't think it's a wall i made. i don't want to make up a voice in my head, it is my biggest fear, i want to actually hear one.

so, one question - why am i being unanswered?

pun unintended

thank you in advance, you're very kind.

have a wonderful weekend, and every weekend some good news

Hey Friend =) I truly hope other people see this ask too because I think your ask is very important.  so I hope you don’t mind that I kind of get personal with you.  Truth be told,  I’ve been feeling the exact same way recently.  it’s happened when I was first starting out with the Craft -as I like to call it -  and it happens from time to time.  even now.  these past two weeks have been a wreck for me and it really feels like I haven’t been heard by the universe.  No, not heard.  I’ve been heard.  but to me, it feels like I’ve been deemed unworthy.   

And especially with divination,  reading for myself has always been wrong.  which is why I no longer trust reading for myself.  and I don’t particularly trust it when people say they read for themselves. because too me, how do you know you’re not lying to yourself? I always, always tell people to be careful because the universe can and WILL tell you what you want to hear.  it’s hard approaching divination with a very unbiased, neutral head.  and it’s kind of why I’ve fought some people over their readings.  people only ever project to others and to the univeres what they want. so if I or you were to tell them otherwise, it’s wrong. 

So you’re right to take a step back if it doesn’t feel right to you.  and here’s where I’m going to start contradicting myself a little bit here.  You need to start trusting yourself.  fully, undoubtedly and ruthlessly.  trust yourself so much that people almost think you’re full of arrogance.  and that’s the key word, almost. Be open minded enough to new ideas and to change the way you think of things.  but always, always trust yourself to know what is best for you. Only YOU are going to know the best route to take for yourself. 

I started being answered when I started trusting the guidance that was coming in for me.  I started to notice the little signs at first.  Notice any repeating numbers?  colors?  any certain phrases you hear too often? read too often?  is there an animal or group of animals that tend to show up at odd places?  slowly start to take notice of these things.   Also,  truly dig deep into what you believe in.  if you want to get into spirituality,  ask yourself why. what is it that you believe that matches that.   I got into it because I felt so alone in a church and no one was listening.  and for awhile, I was thrown in circles the minute I opened myself up to the universe.  but instead of blocking it out,  I kept pushing.  I kept trying to see the pattern, and I kept trying to change it. 

and that could be what’s happening for you.  I know you said that you think it’s not a wall you built. but darling, it is.   I think it comes from a fear you’re not ready to recognize yet.   it could be the fear of the unknown, it could be a fear of failure,  but you’ve built a wall.  

Spirituality is made for everyone.   It’s okay to have blocks,  to doubt your abilities and be unsure of whether or not the universe actually hears you.  the universe brought you to me.  so obviously it hears you.  =) 

but you cannot hear it and I think that’s what needs to change.  

So let me give you some advice on what I do when I begin to feel these blocks. like I have been recently. 

1. I pray to my gods.  you don’t have to be into worshiping gods.  you can simply pray to the universe like I did and still do from time to time.  You’ll know it’s listening when you feel the warmth of the sun, and the gentle breeze of the wind.  perhaps you’ll see an animal or two ;) my sister is a good example of this, she sees dogs everywhere when she’s looking for a sign from the universe lol.  2. I turn to divination.  My readings for myself may not be true but it’s good practice.  I also turn to other forms to try to grow in those skills as well.  Runes, bindrunes, automatic writing,  etc there’s SO MANY divination techniques.  tarot may not be your thing but scrying might be.  look around and see what fits.

3. I play hertz music.  I find that music really helps me out lol.  hertz is juts frequency waves set to a certain wave length so parts of ... our... ... so like our energy can pick up on it.  there’s a better explanation for it but for me, it really helps lol  4. I keep pushing.  even when it feels like I’m not being answered, and sometimes you won’t be answered. that’s the thing.  the universe wants you to better yourself. and to grow.  and sometimes that means trusting yourself to know where to go because it won’t give you an answer.  be brave, and go forward. 

I’ll go more into what I want you to do, but let me pull out your cards first so you finally have a reading lolol.  

So for you I pulled the Lovers, Strength, The Sun and the Knight of Pentacles. with the Ace of Cups as the overall energy. 

so it’s really what I’ve been saying lol.  The knight of pentacles here is telling me to move slowly.  it’s okay that things don’t make sense to you right off the bat.  Patience is a virtue here.   Going into your craft, your practice,  it’s okay to question things.  spirituality is a lot different than most religions so coming from a different place and settling into a new one can be tough.  it requires a lot of change.  and that tends to scare some people.  Ya know?  we’re all so used to hearing different things -mostly bad-  about sprituality and how it’s all “fake”  but darling,  dipping your toes in and slowly breaking the surface is how everyone starts out.  Once you get comfortable with the idea and with your own intuition the fun will begin. 

Next you have the Lovers, Strength and the Sun.  This is telling me you need to let yourself love.  bring courage and strength into this.  It’s going to take you loving yourself,  being confident in yourself and going forth even if it seems fake.  does that make sense?  You might have a mental illness. I’ve got some strong anxiety that borders on paranoia.   Okay,  but in my heart of hearts I knew this was the call for me because I’ve seen too much shit to not believe spirituality wasn’t my path.  so I forced myself to be more confident in my abilities.  I forced myself to be open to the universe even if it felt like I was talking to a wall.  I forced myself to sit down and learn divination and kept a dream journal even if most nights there was nothing but darkness.

and you need to bring that to yourself.  if you are serious about this,  learn to open yourself to the universe.  In the beginning I had to lie to myself.  it’s just what it is.  but the more I connected to the universe,  and the more I began to trust my intuition,  the more the lying ceased to happen.  because suddenly it was true.  suddenly those signs told me I was on the right path.  and suddenly everything I was studying made sense.  given time it will make sense for you as well. 

People, including me,  are telling you what you already know.  You just don’t trust yourself to hold onto those words.  you don’t trust yourself enough to put that same love into you and out into the universe.  and maybe you’re afraid of getting hurt.  being vulnerable to the universe does mean that sometimes we go through rough patches.  we have to break old cycles for new ones to begin. but much like the Lovers,  once you make that choice to love and be loved,  you will shine. 

The ace of cups tells me there is something new coming for you.  but you have to choose to let it happen okay?  you have to stop thinking you’re not good enough and that you’re not being heard.  because you are... because you’re here talking to me ;)   the universe wouldn’t have sent you to me if that wasn’t the case.  and I think a part of you knows that. 

so here’s what I want you to do.  Take the first steps.  Start keeping a dream journal.  the only way we as humans can recall our dreams is if we’re actively thinking of them when we first wake up.  that means no media ;)  lay there and think about what you dreamed.  Like last night I had a dream I set the house on fire and was crying that I lost a textbook.  idk, it was weird lol.  dreams don’t have to make sense.   write them down.  keep a glass of water by your bed. for some reason it helps. 

If you’re gonna sit there and tell me but you’ve tried everything, try again ;) try it from a new perspective.  instead of going in all “this is going to fail”  think of it as “this has already worked once and I’m doing it again to better myself”  

let your confidence shine.  I had to lie to myself everyday until I finally believed I was a decent human being.  I still struggle with it but damn have I gotten noticed by more people who tell me that I literally shine like the sun.  people notice your changes.  some of us just won’t say it ;) that being said, be prepared to fight for your beliefs. 

Learn what your beliefs are. Learn to defend them.  because the universe does not take this journey lightly.  the minute you start to doubt that you’re ever made for this, is going to be the second it closes on you until you force yourself to try again.  much like how we’re both in this spot now ;) trust and KNOW that the universe wants what is best for you.  

Tap into your higher self and your shadow self.  work on what needs to be healed and what your higher self wants for you to do.  this could literally be anything from getting therapy, to doing art, to listening to music, to talking to people who have hurt you.  like it’s endless but it helps.  

Lastly,  understand that these things take time.  You have some major energy wanting to work with you.  you need to start trusting yourself more, and letting down that wall. you built it, you can destroy it.  

I don’t hear a voice telling me which way to go.  I get feelings.  very strong ones.  that I’ve had to learn are different from my anxiety.  In the beginning that meant I had to pretend to ignore the feeling to see what the reaction would be.  when something happened and I knew it was going to happen,  I knew what I had felt was my intuition. 

Learn to recognize what is your instinct and what is your intuition. my instinct is that my hands get a little shaky and I can’t stop moving around.  my intuition keeps me still.  it’s quick and alert.  for you it could be something different.  you might actually hear a voice.  

I’m willing to work with you if you want me to.  I’ve been in that exact same situation and form time to time I feel the same way.  it’s never about the destination, it’s always the journey.

You’ve got this.  You know you do.  break down the wall,  and come join us ;) I hope this helps sorry for the long.... long post lmao If you ever need anything, please reach out =) 

[letsdiscoverkitty]

Hi Kitty, i've been following you for years and i'm so sorry to see that you're really unwell and that your team doesn’t offer the proper support you'd need. I remember a time, idk 2-3 years back (?) when you were doing better, when you were in active recovery and you had recovery wins. Yeah, you relapsed BUT that can happen and that you were doing better shows that you are capable of recovery/that it's not only something possible for other people but for you as well. Maybe this part of you (1)

(2) isn’t accessible right now but I do think that it’s still somewhere in you. You are capable of making changes, you’ve shown this in the past. I also believe that you’re strong, otherwise you wouldn’t be here anymore. (and I’m really glad that you’re still here). I’m rooting for you and no, you didn’t let me or others down - struggling is human and you’re still here. You’re still fighting. I wish I could give you a physical hug but there is an ocean and a couple of countries between us (2)(3) so a mental one it is! *sending hugs* Take care xxx

Oh love, I am so so sorry for only just messaging back/replying to your message, I completely lost track of my inbox/messages with everything that has been going on and have been trying to not spend too much time on social media.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for your constant support and kindness over the years, and thank you especially for taking your time to message me and spread some hope during this very difficult time; I am truly touched. You are right by saying that I have been in better places before - I have proven to myself in the past that I can make changes and do things that I didn’t think I could (even if on looking back all I see are faults and errors and mistakes and everything that was wrong). No things were not perfect or ideal and in many senses I think I have only ever managed to get to some low level of quasi recovery, however that does not take away the challenges that I faced and the progress that I did make.

I have begun pushing myself the past week whilst holding onto my main two motivations: Being around for mum and not getting sick with this virus. I may not have made groundbreaking changes but things are slowly beginning to shift. Right now it might feel incredibly small/stupid but any change compared to where I was so stuck is a difference. However I know that I can’t let anorexia stop me here. I have no wiggle room in the slightest and deep down I know that the changes I have made are not significant enough to have much of an impact/be enough to keep me at home. Finding the balance is so hard: trying to not being too hard on yourself but at the same time trying to nudge/push myself enough in order to continue to make changes and not fall into disordered traps, which would only lead to me being admitted. sigh.

I am sorry for going on a bit there and being such a stuck record. I truly truly hope that you are keeping safe and well during this very uncertain and difficult time in the world. Thank you again for everything, you are a true gem xxxx

[highermagic]

Hi I'm typing this by banging my head on the keyboard. I've loved your fics since octo!cas and you seem to be one of the most productive writers. How do you make your fic go from point A to point B? I have a darkfic wip. I've written 1/3 to 1/2 of what I want and I have drafted the final chapter because I know exactly where I'm taking it... and I got stuck. The line between needing that final conflict and making one of the characters completely unredeemable is so thin I don't know how to walk it

Ahh okay I’m sorry I took so long to reply to this! I’ve been thinking about it all night because there are a lot of things I’d like to cover so forgive me in advance if I seem to ramble:

First, getting from point A to point B.

This is something I actually struggle with a lot sometimes *shocked gasps*. Usually my fic ideas/story ideas spawn from an opening scene, or a single scene idea. Take, for example, ‘Look Mother’. I wanted to write a fic where Will, for whatever reason, wanted a baby with no strings attached. That was it. The entire premise was I wanted to write breeding fic where Hannibal was the easy-going Alpha who was totally willing to mate with a pretty Omega boy and then leave him be.

As you can see from the gross explosion of word count and plot, it didn’t go that way.

Take another example: ‘Daydreamer and the Shadow Man’. This fic came up because I watched ‘Bellevue’ and there’s a scene where the main character is a child, getting letters from her strange helper, and she’s convinced it’s the ghost of her father and has a mental breakdown when her mother tries to get her to stop leaving letters. That one scene sparked the entire fic, and from there it grew teeth, and claws, and consumed me for the week it took to write it.

Now, I get it. Starting with a premise or starting with a closing scene is honestly the worst, because at least with a middle you have something to look forward to and something to bounce off of if you get stuck in the beginning. And endings are hard, anyone in the SPN fandom will agree with Chuck there.

The issue is you need to figure out a way why this point B cannot happen NOW.

Why can’t the characters just leap to the resolution? Is there still some lingering conflict, some mistrust, some plot point that needs resolving before you can move on? Is there still a big bad? Has the main romance not happened and point B won’t be as impactful if they’re not in love and therefore hurt by the betrayal, the heartache, the death or separation?

Why can’t it happen now?

You say you want a final conflict, but the way I’m reading it means that there’s a very thin line that says if the conflict happens a certain way it’ll make a character past the point of redemption, yes? Okay - that happens a lot, it’s totally fine to have this problem, and there are a couple things you can do;

If you haven’t already, give this character some time to explain their actions. Whether it’s in the narrative already, or not, you have to have laid SOME groundwork as to why they’re doing what they’re doing. 

If you want them redeemable, there’s a chance they believe they’re doing it for the greater good and will see the error of their ways. We see this kind of character change all the time and it works, really, if you take the time to make it work.

Does one of the protagonists love that character? Perhaps you could soften the antagonist in their eyes.

Is the character being redeemed/redeemable…actually important? Take ‘How the Mighty Fall’. Mischa behaves in a way that really harms Will, and Will and Hannibal’s relationship, even in the end you could argue that they’re not in the best place because of what she’s done - but in the narrative I explained her behavior, but I did not go out of my way to justify it. Why? Because I didn’t have to. She’s a dragon, she doesn’t think like humans do. Granted, that was one of the fics that kind of went sideways, but my point still stands.

But, again, you need a reason why this cannot happen now. Don’t be afraid to let the story take its time. Some fics gallop, some fics plod along, and neither of these things are wrong. 

Some fics just yeet themselves into oblivion and take you for the ride and you gotta let that happen if you trust your characters and your writing enough.

I’ll be honest with you - when it comes to planning fics out, drafting chapters and outlines and all that jazz, I am not the person to ask. I will say this loudly, and without shame: I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing half the time. At any point in any chapter I have about four different options of how they’re going to go and end, kind of like a ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ book.

BUT I understand how stories work, I’ve studied them and emulated them for over half of my life. For every chapter I’ve written, about three days of thought goes into them beforehand so that I can just sit down and create when the time comes. So that when I write, I know why things cannot happen now, but I also know what has to happen now to get that other thing to happen. 

I guess my advice is really the only advice I can offer, because it’s what I do: just keep thinking about it. The answer is there, I promise. Everyone has the ability to problem solve, anyone who has managed 1/3-½ of their story can manage the other half, it just takes time, and patience, and a lot of dedicated thought because if you’re like me, stories don’t just go away. They can’t. But you can’t force them to run if they’re a walking story, you can’t slow them down if they’re a galloping story.

It sounds like you have a walking story, and it’s complaining because there’s one last hill. You have to encourage it to go up the hill with you, convince it that no, you can’t just walk around the hill, you can’t burrow under the hill. Up and over it is the best way. And it might need to rest, and that’s okay, but you’ll both make it and I promise, the view from up there is wonderful

[wildreckless]

Thoughts I've accumulated today that I can't share anywhere else:

1. Bre is lazy and it's infuriating. I bought popsicles and brought them in on my off day for a child's last day last week. Did she give them to them? No. I ended up using them today for a kids surprise last day. She had the audacity to say they were freezer burnt. Guess what? They wouldn't have been if she had used them a week ago.

2. I switched schedules with bre and told her she needed to paint with the kids (it's what the student wanted to do for her last day). Did she get them up on time so they could paint before the last day kid left? No she did not.

3. Bre then left an hour before she was supposed to. Did she tell admin? No. Was I stuck in the gym with 19 kids, ten over ratio, by myself? Yes.

4. Rhonda got back with her boyfriend after saying she was really done and found a place to move. I have my thoughts and opinions, but I try very hard to keep them to myself bc it's her life and her relationship. But honestly? I'm so fucking annoyed. He is not the person for her, at least at this point in time, and she keeps settling for so much less than she deserves. She's settling for things she never would've in the past. And again, I know it's her life. I wouldn't say this to her (or anyone else). But I really believed she was done this time and I was so proud of her for that. Love is great but not at the price of your self worth and mental health.

5. I feel very insecure about work. I'm not doing enough, I'm not being a great teacher, and I hate it. I'm really struggling to find the energy to do anything. Both physical and mental energy. I am jealous of Taylor who is not only a phenomenal teacher on her own, but she has a great co-teacher as well. I'm mad I get the co-teacher who can't even stay awake all day, stay off her phone, and actively supervise and engage with the kids. And I'm mad that even if I did have the great co-teacher, I'd still really be struggling with all of it right now.

[vaporwavegirl]

2017 has been the craziest most emotionally damaging and most exhausting and weirdest year of my life. But through all have that I've met some amazing people and learned so much and grown up so much as a person I'm really started to learn about who really am and I've opened up and really matured alot this year. Started college and really starting to save up money and buying my own car and turning 18 and being given so much more freedom becoming so much more open and with my mother and forming such a close unbreakable bond with the women who adopted me and saved my life really was I was a baby. SHe and my father (who recently divorced) gave up alot to adopt me and my brother and raise us the best they could. We're not perfect and we definitely are difficult and mean and make stupid decisions sometimes but our parents despite going through alot them selves and our family struggling with alot of deaths and being broke and not having jobs for awhile have still done what they could to give us a good life. My mom is still there for me and is trying her hardest to take care of me and this year has been shitty but it has transformed me into an entirely new and happier and better person honestly. I've become much more spiritual and I'm so much I more in touch with myself .I'v been through alot but I wouldn't have it any other way it has been for the best. I have met so many of the most amazing people this year some of which were only in my life for a short time unfortunately. But I hope to keep in touch with these people and grow and thrive with them and I'm so happy I'm entering 2018 with some of the most amazing talented creative beautiful people I have ever have the pleasure of knowing in this life. This year is going to be about becoming an adult and making my way out of my mom's house and being on my own and figuring my future and my life out. I plan on moving across the country to the Washington /Oregon Seattle or forks or Portland or something because that's where i really feel like I belong and will thrive the most. I currently live in Alabama and there is nothing for me here except all the friends I've made. But I really feel like I want a fresh start somewhere completely new and amazing and meet many more new Amazing beautiful and live my life to the fullest. After Tonight I'm quitting all of my partying and drugs atleast until I get financially stable enough and atleast am moved out of my mom's house or am living on my own somewhere and I can afford to party and live my life a little so that will probably be when move to Seattle and weed and stuff is legal and it's more acceptable to be who I am up there. I'm quitting smoking weed for atleast like 2-3 months after today. Only reason I am not longer is because I smoke marijuana to medicate myself for my depression and anxiety and shit as opposed to prescription stuff because the stuff doctors give me just make me feel numb and not myself and I'm still low-key depressed. I'm only taking a break from weed to start saving up money and really try to focus and finding a place to move out to when I graduate around may and saving up to do so. Don't judge me but while I'm taking my few months off from smoking and I'm going to be selling a bit of bud to my close friends to make some extra money on the side because weed isn't quite legal here yet and it's a little difficult for my friends to get sometimes and it's going to help me out as a student who finds it hard to find a part time job that doesn't pay minimum wage (7.25 fuK THAT) and gives me decent hours it's always not enough hours for decent pay or they work me to FUCKING dEATH for shit pay and it stresses me out. I quit my recent job about a week and ago I'm started 2018 fresh with a new job starting pay a little above minimum wage at 8.50 an hour and after a few weeks I'll get a raise. They say I'll hopefully get decent hours like 25-35 a week and it's a small Japanese/ Asian/ pop culture shop owned by a Chinese lady that coincidentally has the same name as me and there's only like 3 other people that work there and they are all really cool good friends of mine that's I've met through cosplaying the past few years. So starting with a new hopefully better job. Starting off sober with my mind focussed on graduating cosmetology school and saving up money and working hard and getting my life together. The last thing I'll probably really spend money on and do for myself this year is Kami con at the end of this month. My family has helped get me different parts of my lapis lazuli (gem from Steven universe) cosplay for me as Christmas gifts and it is tradition that if at all possible I will do everything I can to attend each year and I have for the past 5 years and this year I will have my first legitimate good cosplay and I'm excited. But after that every bit of my money is to school tuition, helping my mom with the phone bill and our car insurance and groceries when she needs it and saving the rest for moving out and starting my future. When I move to Seattle and hopefully become successful enough? at cosmetology that I open my own salon that I'm hoping my unique edgy choice in hairstyles with be accepted and eventually apprentice as a tattoo artist and open a piercing/tattoo/body shop open up like with my salon that like a super weird dream of mine I had for awhile and honestly I'm probably not going to be good enough but I'm going work my ass off and be sober and focus on my future so I can reach my fullest potential I have been put through too much and made it way too far to not try and live my life to the best of my ability and do everything I can to really be happy and stable and eventually fall in love and maybe have a kid and honestly I truly believe I'm going to marry this boy that I've been on and off with since freshman year of highschool. We both lost out Virginity to each other after dating for the first like 6 months and that was the first time we dated which was almost 11 months after we broke up and went a little crazy and just kinda started dating random people not really for love just because I was so scared of being alone and I hated idea of it. So I just fucked around alot and never really had anything as serious as my dude (I don't wanna say his name but if u know me and ur reading this u probably already know who I'm talking anyways. We were distant and not even on speaking terms for maybe two years. After i grew up a bit and started actually making goals and becoming a young adult I contacted him and asked if he wanted to meet up and catch up on our lives and try to give being friends a shot. Its been maybe a little over a year since I had reached out and started talking to him again. We've tried dating again and we have been on an off since then and we both are young adults trying to figure out our lives and we are both struggling alot as far mental health because of the stress of having to grow up kinda and it just kept fucking up out relationship and my emotions were so all over the place and I was really struggling with trying to figure out what I need in life and how to be happy without have to rely on a relationship or drugs or material things. I had to learn how to enjoy the actual important things in my life like all the beautiful amazing people I've had the pleasure of knowing in this life and how to cut toxic people and thinks and places out of my life if it's affecting my mental health and over learned that it's ok to be sensitive and to want to take care of yourself and have a good mental health. I've learned how to just live in the moment and to surround myself with positive vibes and only be around good honest genuine people that actually care about me and want me to succeed. I want the people in my life now to be people that I know forever and people that are going to be there for me in future. Anyways Over those two years me and the boy didn't talk i never got over him matter how hard a tried and thought I was and that i could potentially be falling love with some one. I just cant. I am in love with him and always will be no matter what. If i still feel so happy and deeply in love with him after.he broke my heart and didn't talk to be for 2 years I know this man is meant to be apart my life forever weather it is as my lover or as one of my closest friends. We are soul mates and I know that I will absolutely love him completely and unconditonally for the rest of my life. Those two years when I wasn't with him kept failing my classes in high school freshman and sophomore and was extremely suicidal and didn't give and fuck about school and even went to the mental hospital for awhile towards the end of my sophomore year and at that point i literally thought I was so stupid and worthless and not even worth the effort of living and being such and disappointment to my family and my friends because I could pass one class in high school and I had given up. Until my counselor transferred me to a kind of alternative school that I could do everything at my own pace and only do the essentials and stuff I absolutely need to learn instead of busy work and stupid shit like public school. This place had no semesters or exams or grades. It has 4 different very well educated and super cool and awesome genuine teachers that actually care about helping you get the best education and they really do care about their students and they are so passionate about helping these kids actually learn and have an opportunity to have a future. Theres one teacher for each subject and 5 councilors that the 70-80 kids are divided between them and it was such an amazing really healing place and i met some really amazing people that year and learned alot about myself and started doing art therapy and I got my work done and realized I wasnt actually stupid like I had been so sure I was but I'm actually very intelligent I just have manic depression and severe social anxiety and I just needed to start working on myself and start making the effort to keep myself happy and actually work on my life and be the person I want to be. After that year during summer I made the decision not to go back to public school for what would have been my senior year so as soon as I was 17 I dropped out of high school and got my GED and I started cosmetology school at 17 years old before my graduating class even finished there senior year. My GED teacher was also a councilor and i became very close to her and she's honestly helped me make a future for myself and she supported me and saw how smart I was and she would help me no matter what and still to this day if in need to talk or need help with something i can call her and she will 100% help me because she is such a good and selfless and kind woman that genuinely cares about me and my future. It's rare that you meet teachers that actually help their kids . I honestly made the decision to do whats best for me and my mental health and i got my career and life started as early as I could because I'm determined to live my life to the best before I'm too old or die super young I'm some crazy way because honestly life is so short and way too short not to do everything u can to just really be the best you can be and enjoy life and do what makes u fuckin happy. So starting this year I am being sober so I can graduate school and work and save money and start my life as a young independent adult. My teenage years have been so wild and I've been through so much but it's I wouldn't trade these last few years. I've met so many kind beautiful amazing souls and I've learned so much about life and other people and relationships and I've learned about happiness within myself and I've learned alot about who I am and what it really want in life. I've learned alot about my mental illnesses and how to cope with them the best way possible for myself. I've had some of the best and most amazing adventures and i made so many amazing memories so despite the bullshit I've been through in my teenage years and all the stress of becoming a young adult in this super fucked up world we live in today I know that I have made it this far and I become stronger and better everyday and I'm thriving and finally getting where I want to be. I'm becoming more content with who I am and I'm learning to love myself and be who I am and I'm so happy with the person I becoming and I know I'm going to continue growing and thriving and becoming a beautiful and amazing person living the best life I can. This started out as a new years resolution post but im on alot of stuff right now and I felt like I needed to just write about stuff. Anyways. Happy new years yall here's to a fresh start and then beginning of my life as I figure out how to be my own person. 2018 is going to be so fucking good

[chooserecovery]

I've been in counseling for several years. The progress in my life has been more than I would have ever imagined. I still shows signs of PTSD but I function without it having a major impact on my daily functioning. Both my depression and anxiety are managed now. Where I am stuck is self-hatred. Any advice on how to truly let go. I recently relapsed with self harm & pills. I don't think it was because depression, it was because I hate myself. I've tried to work on this. I don't know what to do.

If you are still in counseling and you haven’t done so already, then bringing this up with your counselor may be a good idea; self-hatred often seems to come along with PTSD, anxiety, and depression, so there’s a good chance that if your counselor works with people who have those things, they may be able to help you work through this as well.

I know that you’ve said that you have tried to work on the self-hatred, but I don’t know you or what you have done to deal with it, so, because I’m trying to hit the basics, I’ll probably say things that you’ve already tried, but hopefully there will something in here that you haven’t.

Because working takes time and the changes are very gradual, people often don’t notice the progress that they’re making as it’s happening. For some people, it can can help to keep track of little achievements throughout the process. If you’re the type of person who likes gratitude journals, that type of thing can work for this. Or you could just have a notebook or an online writing area or whatever where you just throw in little analyses of things when they happen, such as “tried to contradict a self-loathing thought this afternoon. Felt slightly less stupid this time than it did last week.” It’s just meant to be a place where you can reflect on what you feel, and have a record of your progress that you can look back on when you start feeling discouraged. It can be whatever that looks like to you.

For a lot of people, a large part of self-hatred is the automatic mean thoughts that pop up, either when you feel like you’ve done something wrong or sometimes just because your brain felt like making noise at you. I like to call this jerk-brain. There are a couple of major strategies for dealing with this:

1. Contradict the thought

When self-hating thoughts pop up, argue against them. For example, if you’ve made a small mistake and your brain jumps to saying that you’re a failure or that you always mess things up, point out that it is just one mistake and that it doesn’t reflect on the rest of your life, think of things that you can do well or times you have done that specific task well, if it’s something that you’re new to doing then point out that you’re still learning, etc. 

The self-hatred is almost always some sort of distorted thinking, so trying to fight against it can help you to see the situation and yourself more clearly.

2. Offer yourself understanding

Perhaps the most commonly known strategy. A lot of people who struggle with self-hatred hold themselves to unreasonably high standards, so anything that they do seems wrong. A lot of learning to get past it is to extend to yourself the same feelings that you would probably give to anyone else. 

For example, it’s easy, when you hate yourself, to focus on all of the things that you think are wrong with yourself, or how you could have done better if you just were a little better. But usually, it’s over things that the average person probably wouldn’t be judging someone else for. It can help to imagine someone, such as a close friend, and what you would say to them in the same situation. Again, trying to imagine someone else in the situation can help you to see if you’re just being biased against yourself and treating yourself too harshly. Try to talk to yourself the same way that you would talk to a friend in a similar situation.

3. replace the thought

If your brain likes to throw out the same phrase as a reaction to things, then it can be helpful to pick out a different phrase that you’d rather your brain use and try to switch your brain over to using that one instead. For example, my brain used to habitually throw out “I ruin everything” at the slightest mistake. Not helpful. So I would try to notice when I thought that, and then correct it to “okay, how can I improve this?” which would let me look for a solution rather than just leading me into a guilt spiral. 

It can be hard to jump straight from a jerk-brain thought to what many would consider an obnoxiously positive thought, so it can help to take this in stages, gradually making the new phrase be more useful to you until you are satisfied with it. For example, I replaced “I just want to [insert self destructive thought of choice here]” with “I’m just tired, I want a nap,” which was easier to convince myself of than something more productive; over time I got the nap to be the default, and from there it was easier to hand my brain more and more helpful phrases instead, because they didn’t feel as fake as they did with the original self-hatred phrases. 

4. Reframe the thought

The other suggestions work well for individual actions and situations generally, but this one works more on specific traits that you dislike. It’s also particularly well suited to body-related hatred, but can apply more generally to any stable thing that you dislike. 

Basically, you just try to shift to thinking of the positives of the thing instead of the negatives. For example, if you tend to think of yourself as being too loud, you can try to mentally reframe it as being outspoken or outgoing; try to find a positive spin on whatever it is. 

That’s not to say that you can’t try to change a behavior if you feel that it is really causing problems for you. But even then, the point is not to completely get rid of a trait so much as find a middle ground where you can do things without it interfering with your life.

Also, I’d recommend checking out this page. There are some pretty useful suggestions for dealing with self-hatred.

You can use any or all of the suggestions above, depending on what the situation requires. But all of them tend to rely on you noticing when the jerk-brain thoughts pop into your head. If you already do usually take notice, great, that part is already taken care of. However, if you tend not to notice what you’re thinking until you’re already a good way into the hate-spiral, then it can be hard to interact with the thoughts as they appear. It may help to practice mindfulness techniques. If you want more specific instructions, you can find a lot just by Googling. But more generally, it’s the practice of actively paying attention to your thoughts. The goal isn’t to judge them or to force yourself to not think of things, just to see them and how they’re making you feel. After you’ve got a handle on that, you can intervene as you see fit, by implementing any of the above, redirecting your thoughts, or finding something to distract yourself. 

Self-hating thoughts, like most negative thoughts, also often seem to get worse when someone is stressed or otherwise not feeling as well as they could. So, in order to make them less frequent or at least slightly easier to manage, it can help to just make time for general self-care stuff. Make sure that you have a chance to spend a few minutes doing something that you enjoy every day, and that you’re doing all the basic body-maintenance things like  getting enough sleep if at all possible (if you have a crazy schedule, I know that sometimes it’s not), and getting enough food and water to keep your body running properly. You can also check out this flow-chart if you’re not feeling great and want something to walk you through some options on what to do next.

Mostly, just try to treat yourself like a person and not like a burden. You’re allowed to make mistakes, you’re allowed to take care of yourself, and you’re allowed to say “no, I don’t deserve to be treated this way” even when it’s just your brain saying things at you. It can be hard to try to do that when you don’t like yourself, but, like most things, it tends to get easier the more that you work on it. Some days you’re going to not feel like doing anything about what your’e feeling because you’re too tired or too irritated or just flat-out don’t want to. Everyone has some days like that. But if you can do your best to work against those thoughts whenever you’re able to, then you should be able to make progress, even if it’s just a little bit at a time.

--Luke

[airmom]

Hey airmom💕 idk if this is really a call of help but I need to take this out of my mind asap cause it isn't healthy. I've been thinking like crazy about my ex. We were done over a year ago and we have talked a couple of times after our break up. Every time we talk again the same *clic* happens and we feel attracted to one another but for some reason we always end up fighting. He hasn't been treating me right the last time we spoke tho, so I did quit and ignored all his texts. This was two...(1)

(2) months ago already and until this week I can’t stop thinking about him. Tbh I don’t like this but I feel I can’t stop it cause he’s even in my dreams. I’ve been dreaming about him at least two days in a row and I’m kinda tired cause I know I deserve better. Yes, we have the cutest connection but I noticed he tried to play me one or more times, so nope, I quit. This gotta stop. So, to the point: I know you know something about tarot and I’ve been wondering if you could spread and ask…..

(3) what’s up with this and our ended relationship. Even an advice from you or your cards will be amazing. I really need to get out of this thoughts and this random dreams tho. I wanna thank u for even reading this and thank u even more if you take your time to spread those tarot cards. I’d really appreciate it :) (sorry for the long ass post bb!!!!) 💛💛💛

Btw sorry if it isn’t accurate, like I said, I’ve been lacking energy and a bit of intuition lately, but I hope my cards got the message!

1: Current State: Four of Pentacles - So, this shows that one of you both are trying to hold on to something of value. Perhaps that you just love him dearly that you can’t let him go. It could that one of the partners is possessive with the other, or not very giving. Lots of clinging into feelings. A bit controlling, jealous, lack of sharing and selfishness. The card shows a man, so it’s possibly that it’s him who feels this way, perhaps?

2: Why Stay: Ace of Swords ***- This card fell out while I was shuffling, and it appeared in the reading, so it kind of tells me that you shouldn’t hesitate to speak your mind, and you have all the choice and power to stop a relationship if it’s no good. I’m a bit confused, because this card means mental clarity, so perhaps staying gives you more of a clear mind of what you want from a relationship.

3: Why Go: Six of Swords - Now my card are making more sense hehe, this card means to move on and to escape from difficulties. You’ll progress and move on, but in a slow manner. You are making an escape, and you may have mental relief. It’s a good healing card, definitely to leave to heal.

4: How You’ll Feel Staying: Ace of Cups - Kind of want to yell at my cards because of this card, but I’m unsure of what may be happening within you. When you stay, you feel love and happiness, that you only have this strong connection with one another. Like there is a spiritual connection with them. Or this can represent how you felt (cards can sometimes bring up a past rather than future).

5: How You’ll Feel Leaving: Ten of Wands - So here, it shows that you have a hard time leaving, (it shows a man holding a bunch wands in a struggling manner, there’s a possibility the guy you’re talking to will struggle). Perhaps you’ll hold on to these things he’s done to you, and carry them on your shoulders as you’re trying to move on. Probably because you’ve already have been trouble leaving him numerous times, but it never works out.

6: Overall Advice: Nine of Pentacles - My cards advise that, you should work on loving yourself more, start a journey to be independent, strong, and someone who doesn’t need anybody.  Figure out your goals; do what you want to be happy. My cards wish you happiness! And that you are in control of what you want!

My advice: Definitely leave bb, if you know he isn’t right for you and that you deserve better then you deserve better! You need to waste your time on positive people and just learn through life. Don’t let something hold you back to hurt you numerous of times. You gotta let go, so you don’t have to deal with it, and so you can just open your arms to new things that may come your way soon! Learn from this experience, and go on with life! Usually dreams like that can signify that they’re always on your mind, and/or you can’t stop thinking about them. I know you’re a wonderful angel! You deserve so much better than someone who keeps wasting your time!

[mysnarkyslytherinsecret]

Getting over exercise bulimia and an exercise addiction has been the hardest. The more weight I gain, the more obsessive exercising I've been doing and it's not even helping. It's like my life revolves around when or how I'm going to exercise. I'm gaining weight and I'm scared I'll gain more if I stop. I know you struggled through something similar, any tips?

 HI Anon.  

First off, I know that you are a Good, Smart person.  I want you to know this because if you’re anything like me, you probably are telling yourself the exact opposite.  That mean old mental voice really sucks, doesn’t it? And it really doesn’t go away.  If it’s not my body, it’s my intelligence or my ability to make friends or my writing is shitty or whatever.  It’s like a gremlin with a voice that sounds suspiciously like my mother has wormed its way into my brain and taken up residence.

The thing is, any disordered behavior is a hole you dig yourself into one shovelful at a time.  When you get yourself to the bottom and look up, it looks impossible to climb out of. However, the truth is that you can, but it’s not really as simple as it sounds (and I don’t want to minimize your struggle by making you think otherwise).

But the truth about pretty much any climbing expedition is that before you can begin a huge undertaking like this, you have to have your tools:

1) A plan for how you’re going to get from where you are to where you want to be.

2) A can-do attitude and positive-thinking strategies to sustain it.

3) Support network, which includes people who are on your team.

All three of these things can take time and energy to get ahold of, so don’t feel discouraged if you can’t start working on your current hole situation for awhile. When you stress out about your disordered behavior and thinking, it only makes that behavior worse.

For #1 above, seeing a therapist or someone who has experience in eating disorders/exercise bullimia is optimal, but lots of people have stigma issues, lack money to pay for it, or simply don’t have access to anyone in their area that does this sort of work.  If that’s the case, then you’ll have to make your plan alone.  I recommend writing it down because writing things down makes them easier to keep track of.  Think of your start (where you are) and where you want to end in an ideal world.  Leave a lot of room between the two.  Then, between the beginning and end, write out approximately however many weeks it took you to get to where you are from where you used to be before.  Once again, this will vary. But, as I said before, this helps you bring things into perspective.  Most people who start trying to make a change to their lives try too hard to get everything fixed at once, and then they give up because, hey, that’s impossible to do.

So the important thing is to create the small steps so that you can track your progress even if your progress is less than what you’d prefer it to be. 

#2 is also important, though you can’t do a lot about it until you get #1 finished. #2 is about creating healthy thinking habits.  It starts out silly as hell by self-actualization speech (telling yourself in the mirror that you’re a good person and kind and capable, etc), but will eventually transition to being seamless thoughts in your head that you don’t consciously have to force yourself to listen to.  It seems silly, but sometimes you have to start out in the painfully obvious before you can get that internal voice to change its tune.  Things like learning mindfulness/meditation techniques (which can control anxious thoughts and depressive thinking, and can help you endure when things get tough).

#3 is essential if you want to complete your journey and be able to reach out if you feel yourself falling into old habits.  Emotional support from others who are on your side and will help you out when you can’t help yourself will keep you doing the new things that you’ve learned and give you an outlet for negative feelings on bad days.

You have a long way to go, and sure, you might gain some weight, but you’re also going to get older, get gray hairs, your eyesight will get worse, and eventually things will sag no matter what you do. If you give birth or your PC muscles lose their tone, you might end up peeing a bit when you sneeze.

There’s all kinds of things that are going to happen to your body that you can’t control.  But, at least for me, it isn’t necessarily the fact that we’re all on a depressingly slow walk towards death that makes life worth living, it’s the fact that there’s a lot of great stuff out there to do and see (and enjoy), before that happens.  And there’s great people to share it with, too.

I’m a lumpy, scarred person who isn’t winning any beauty competitions anytime soon, and yet, I’m doing cool things and I’m married to a great person and I am very loved by many people.  Many times we tell ourselves that we aren’t worthy of the things that we crave until we are “good enough,” but the thing is, you are good enough already.  You have problems, yes, but everyone has problems pop up, even after they’ve solved all the problems they had before.

I want to finish up by saying that I know that you, anon, are a good person. You are kind and have a good heart.  You are stronger than you think. You are also capable of being kind to yourself even if you have been cruel in the past. 

You deserve love, anon, love from yourself.  But you also have to be willing to work at it, and that’s going to take a bit of planning. I hope that I’ve helped you with some of the beginning steps, though, and I hope that you can work through your issues and find a healthy way out.

[my-autistic-things]

I went into more of an explanation about that but I deleted it, my bad. I get how this post can be concerning so I'll write out more stuff now.

I stopped eating due to physically not being able to. I've struggled with mental eating disorders in the past, and still do, but this is all due to a physical eating disorder. I couldn't eat for over 2 months, but the past 3 months I've been able to eat up to a meal and a snack every night (I can't eat for 5+ hours after I wake up), but it's been very difficult and my stomach is currently relapsing and I'm down to pretty much no completely safe foods again. I am very well aware that starving yourself is the absolute worst way to lose weight. Like I said, I lost 20lbs of that in a healthy way and that's why I'm proud of myself. But I've lost appx 5-7lbs this week due to not being able to eat and I just got really sick and haven't been able to eat for almost 3 days. The extra couple lbs to make it under 200 last week was due to starting up being allergic/reacting to food again, which really sucks. My goal is not to be skinny, I don't have the body type for that at all. My goal is to be healthy. I'm trying very hard to work towards a point where I am healthy, but it's very complex and difficult when being healthy means losing weight as well as eating more (and also not being able to eat a variety of foods, or even anything without dealing with pain/bloating/discomfort). Not to mention, school, work, chronic illness, and mental illness interfering a lot with everything.

Thank you for your concern. I'm really sorry you have to deal with all of that. I hope you're able to get to a place where you can have the healthiest body possible due to circumstances. Struggling with your weight and body image is extremely difficult and it affects every aspect of your life. Mentally and physically being healthy can be conflicting and I really hope you and everyone can get to a place where they have at least a functional relationship with food.

I just wanted to post about this bc it's a really big deal for me but it's also hella conflicting bc it's not all due to good reasons sooo I don't mind comments but please don't congratulate me

Last week I finally made it under 200lbs. I've lost over 60lbs, and about 20 of it is from exercising and dieting (forced dieting, but still a diet). It's only been about 5 months from when I stopped eating until now, so it's been quite a drastic change in my life. I'm really impressed and happy I'm under 200lbs now tbh it's a really big deal for me.

[followtheintuition]

Hey! I've struggled with anorexia for about a year (restricting&occasional exercise) and got to a super low weight. In August I decided I'm going to recover. I practically ate 8000 or so calories/day and quit exercising. Got to a rather healthy weight, but I was afraid of gaining even more so I lowered my intake and started doing cardio 3-4, then 5 times/week. I started having these HUGE binges several times/week so I compensated with starving/exercise, which only led to even more binging.*part1

[questions continues] part2 Last week I gave in, stopped all the exercise, but since then I have been eating around 10 000 calories daily, even though I'm at a normal weight. I have been feeling so sick in this past week because of the amount of food/sweets. Is this normal? Or should I go back to therapy? I'm not really bothered about the weight I'm gaining anymore, more so about that I have no idea if this is a bad habit & really binging or not??? I'm super scared. :(

[answer] you should definitely seek more help. it can be very hard to recover on your own, you need a strong support system to keep you on track. since you were recovering your body was just in a process of getting better, but then you relapsed and started restricting/exercise it will only exaggerate hunger more and more. this is why i tell people to be very consistent in recovery - many think they can cut corners and “control it” but this only makes things worse as the hunger can come back even bigger. so know that restriciton is not an option, you need to stop exercise as well. get help with theraphy. eat regularly 3 meals a day + 3 snacks, every 2-3 hours. eat calorie dense foods, rest and sleep more. mentally always remind yourself that you will never restrict again and therefore the hunger can go back to normal. right now your body may feel it cant trust you yet. so you have to be consistent with recovery from now on and always reassure yourself, to your body/brain that the starvation is over and you will always have abundance of food around. so therefore there is no need to eat like its the last time you gonna eat. hope it makes sense, i did a video about it few weeks ago, how to reprogram your brain.

[lvcthng]

I know most of you were shocked at my weight loss. Yes, everything got smaller - shirt size was S now XXS, and waistline was 26 now 24. Forget about the bra size 😂😅 Danggg, I'm sooo petite. Wtf? Lol. I don't like being called "tiny" before but hey, you guys finally have my permission lol

To those who were complaining, stfu! To those who were asking why I got so skinny, read this.. It's kinda long.. 😅

It started in March this year. My mom and I had an issue, we could've fix it but she involved our immediate family that it gotten so big. I was so stressed that I couldn't handle it anymore so I ran away. I moved to a new city that's 6 hours drive (580.1 km) away from them. Just in 2 or 3 days after I moved, I got quarantined for 2 weeks for being in close contact with some individuals who were COVID-19 positive. It was that period when I noticed my boyfriend losing his interest in me. I asked, he denied, but boy I felt it. *sigh* Do you know how hard it is to immediately leave your 2 jobs, your friends, and moved to a different city while having bad terms with your family?

I found a job after quarantine. My family and I were finally in good terms again, yay! I was happy, I felt lighter and refreshed but unfortunately, after a week I got tested positive for COVID-19 (variant). It felt like my world turned upside down because I know I will be effin isolated. 😔 I thought I was slowly working on getting life back on track, but I was wrong. I had no idea my life is already on its way downhill again. So much has happened during my isolation, there's one night I wanted to go to the hospital because I was having a hard time breathing, I asked for help but my bf didn't care about me at all. Fuck it! It seemed like I was just a silent wind, he can't see and hear me. 💔 During those days my bf and I broke up, I also found out everything - I was living in a world full of lies, and that is more painful. I did what I think is the right thing to do, and that is to let go - the greatest act of love. Trust me, I've been through hell and back. I have past traumas, I've survived things no one should ever go through. My life has been nothing but a misery since birth. 🥺

Everything I've loved became everything I lost. I'm experiencing health and financial struggles... until now. ☹ My job got really affected because of these bs, yep I passed out while working!! When I was in the ambulance, paramedics couldn't start an IV on me because of severe dehydration. They tried looking for my veins from both of my hands tho, kept poking me over and over till they gave up lol that hurts btw!! I was diagnosed with Vasovagal / Neurocardiogenic syncope. Dr told me fainting can happen again in the future and can be worse. A lot has happened why I'm experiencing severe emotional distress, but I decided not to mention them here. I know I've been through shit, but these never happened to me before. Tbh, naa pa'y uban health related issues na wa na nako gi mention diri. Mygod, how embarrassing!! So, I finally gave up my job which I really love and came back home to my parents' place.

Too much damage has been done. I am emotionally, spiritually, mentally, and physically drained. I need to save myself from the dangerous person I've become. Please help me pray for my peace and complete healing. 🙏

To the guy who ruined my life, you have made me vulnerable and have opened up my wounds from the past. One day I'll get back up and hopefully forgive you even though you weren't sorry for the things you've done. I've let you go, I've set you free, I've made a lot of sacrifices for your happiness, even if it's without me. But it's alright. You know why? Because I know my worth and you don't deserve me.

I'm leaving everything behind na. God is watching. He knows everything what happened. To the person who made me walk through hell again, I didn't bother mentioning your name. You know who you are. If you get to read this, good. If not, then it's still ok. Wa na nako gisulti tanan nahitabo kay mutaas kaayo. Hehe anyway I don't wanna talk about this shit anymore. Bye!

Xoxo,

L' Vonnessa ♡