#truly it is kind of debilitating and also i know nobody’s perfect and nobody should be put on a pedestal but that doesn’t make the

[green-cargaytions]

anyone else get that intense & debilitating need for approval from one specific person who almost by definition cannot give you approval

[cummunication]

The craziest people I know (don’t go to therapy)

Therapy... I have an appointment today actually. I’ve been going for the last ten years. I first started seeing the school psychologist, going to my YFS center (youth and family services). I started going more regularly after my father died which was perfect since I would go during my lunch period. I had nobody to sit with at lunch so it was a perfect excuse to go. I began receiving outside counseling in eleventh or twelfth grade, once a week. At this point I was a minor so my mom paid. Now as an adult, I am thankful my mom brought me and paid because I see how inconvenient it can be and how it adds up. Even though most therapists accept insurance, some don’t. Even with insurance you can be paying 65$ up every time which is usually once or twice a week. That being said, I truly believe the best and most important thing we can invest in is ourselves and therapy is worth it. Therapy is being brought into the open which I’m very happy with but still, there is a stigma attached to counseling. The first thought most people have when they hear you are in therapy is “what’s wrong with them? Are they mentally unstable? Or, why do they need therapy?” People associate receiving help as something wrong with you or you can’t handle yourself. This is simply not true. The most mentally sane (or emotionally healthy people) are in therapy, receiving help for their issues. This is because they are open minded and willing to admit their flaws. They are ready to be proactive and willing to better themselves. I firmly believe everyone should be in therapy. Therapy isn’t just a useful tool where you receive an honest, outside opinion from a professional, but a time to be truthful with yourself, reflect, and gain useful insight. It’s immensely helpful in learning emotional intelligence and how to deal with feelings. Sometimes, when I suggest therapy to people, they say “I don’t need it, I’m not crazy” and to be completely honest, these are the people who need therapy the most. They are close minded, in denial and not willing or ready to deal with their shit. We all have things we should be willing to face, change and improve in ourselves. It’s not just people who have a diagnosable mental health disorder or went through a trauma that should go to therapy. I also hear therapy is “paying someone to be your friend”. This makes me sad because yes, like any other service, therapy is a business; but people who enter the human services, social work or psychology field are generally empathic people who truly care and want to help you. “If I go to a therapist, does that mean I'm crazy, weak or a failure? What will others think? What if I'm seen coming out of that kind of office? Such concerns are quite natural given our socio-cultural conditioning. Unfortunately, as a result, many people decide not to pursue counseling despite experiencing significant emotional, physical or mental distress. Let's clarify a few things. Most people who initiate counseling do not have a serious mental illness. They have serious life challenges or are going through difficult life-cycle transitions that may be taxing their current ability to cope. This, in turn, may be adversely affecting their well-being and ability to function as well as they would like. Examples of serious life challenges can be dealing with chronic work-related stressors; career issues; financial problems; health issues or a recent health diagnosis; family or parent/child conflict; cultural assimilation; and academic issues. Examples of difficult life-cycle related transitions can be the death of a family member or friend; the ending of a romantic relationship or close friendship; family/couple changes related to the addition of a child; getting married or divorced; care giving for loved ones due to illness or disability; and decision-making challenges related to these life choices. These are just some of the reasons why people decide to go to counseling. So, if you are going through one or more of these challenges at the same time, you're not alone. The effects are often cumulative, which is generally referred to as a 'pile-up' of stressors. Counseling during these times can be quite helpful in providing both the support and skills to better address these life challenges. Ultimately, it is an invaluable investment in your emotional, physical and mental health, an act of courage not weakness, and a gift to those whose lives you touch. But what if you’re not in a moment of “disaster relief?” Surprisingly, the best time to start therapy may be when your life’s going relatively well. Despite the fact that more than 59 million Americans seek the services of a mental health care professional each year, there’s a stigma that therapy is only for people suffering a debilitating mental illness or going through a massive interpersonal issue. The benefits of therapy extend far beyond periods of crisis. Many people want more than to be ‘not depressed.’ They wonder what they can do to be the happiest, most productive, most loving version of themselves. Because achieving your full potential requires a heck of a lot of self-knowledge, self-control, and—let’s be honest—hard work, it’s best done when you’re not in freak-out mode. What’s more, if there’s an issue in your life that’s causing you distress, it’s better to deal with it sooner than later. Over time, minor difficulties can bloom into disasters that have you hitting the tissue box hard. But the earlier you go to therapy and engage in introspection, the better off you are in the long run. The benefit of seeing a mental health professional is that it’s literally their job to reserve judgment and guide you toward what’s best for you. Whatever your decision, keep in mind that people’s resistance to your pursuit of mental health typically comes from their own fears: If you’re in therapy, it must mean they should be too. Or if you’re in therapy, you’ll change in a way that makes you less willing to be friends (or romantic partners) with them. Therapy simply allows it to happen with less trauma. While therapy can help remove the wool from your eyes, it won’t create problems where there were none to begin with. If you (rationally) determine you’re not in the right place—career-wise, romance-wise, or otherwise—congratulations! You’ve just identified a buried source of suffering. And by clarifying the origin(s) of your distress, you’re that much closer to living an authentically happy life. The most common types of therapy include cognitive behavioral, psychodynamic, family, and group. Whether you’re looking for a quick(ish) fix to a bad habit, anxiety issue, or phobia, or you’re just interested in some serious soul-searching (“What’s my life’s purpose?” “Why do I keep doing ____ in romantic relationships?”) there’s a therapy that’s waiting for you. Therapy isn’t supposed to eradicate all sadness, anger, frustration, or other negative emotions (envy, embarrassment, self-doubt, etc.). And thank goodness! Because often those tough emotions serve as an internal cue—if you’re listening. That’s where therapy comes in. It’s there to help you learn how to sit with, accept, and not be debilitated by these feelings—all while cultivating self-awareness. The result? You’ll be able to tune in and make choices that make the most sense for you. Rather than achieving perpetual bliss, the end result of therapy is to confidently navigate your life off the proverbial couch.” Also there are many excuses people will make to avoid or get out of therapy. I don’t have the time or money is a big one. What’s more, there are many free or low-cost support options, from hot lines to help groups. Those interested can visit the National Alliance on Mental Illness’s website for more resources. You can also check with your health care insurer to find a professional in your network, or search for practitioners in your area online. Or, if you’re a student, contact your campus health center. “Keep in mind that it’s important to find a therapist you “click” with. Often, this can mean trying out a few different providers before settling on the one who feels right for you. Therapy isn’t just for moments of earth-shattering personal tragedies. It can also be useful in reorienting yourself toward your true wants and needs, training yourself in the art of self-compassion, and better understanding, respecting, and communicating your feelings. And—surprise—it’s often easier to pursue these goals when you’re not wrestling bigger, darker obstacles. So consider this your permission to give therapy a try, even if your life is going hunky-dory. Your future self may just look back and say, “Thanks!”

[islandpcosjourney]

Hindsight

29th December 2020

3 years ago, after a lovely family Christmas and a crazy few weeks beforehand redecorating the kitchen & dining room, I was enjoying some down-time. Facebook reminded me today that we were removing my fireplace in town – a big job involving big hammers and lots of sweat, on hubby’s part anyway ;) I had also just said goodbye to my Dad for the last time, although I didn’t know that. My final words to him were “Please go see a doctor” as we had noticed that he wasn’t himself while he was with us Christmas week. If I’d known in hindsight that I’d never see or speak to him again, I’d have never let him go. For the last 3 years I’ve punished myself for that. But in all honesty, I’m glad I didn’t know, despite the shock of his untimely passing, as I spent no time trying to cling onto something I wouldn’t have. He was just my Dad, it was just an ordinary Christmas, we were just hammering concrete out of a fireplace, as per usual and it was his time to go.

This year. The year of COVID. The year of cancellations. The year of worry. The year of unknowns. The year of excess screen time. The year of FOOD! This was the year of a fresh start. A chance to really sit down and think, quietly about anything and everything. In a year where our health has been debated so much in the press and in the community, I chose this year to sort it out, head on. Or rather, this was the year that my body chose, to WANT to sort itself out.

Many of you will have read before of the trials and tribulations that my PCOS gives me daily. It’s a vicious circle of physical and mental symptoms caused by external and internal factors. But before this year, although I’d done tons of research and I knew everything I could about my difficulties, I still couldn’t solve them. Something was always stopping me and that was indeed me.

We are what we eat. I truly believe this and always did but mentally I was always being drawn to the wrong foods. I still am, I am human after all but while most people had a kill switch to stop themselves from eating junk, my switch was broken, or so I thought. I understood the theory behind what foods would be good for me but putting it into practice is always the hard part and I’m sure many of you will have faced this before yourselves!

During lockdown, like many others, I was forced online to work. It wasn’t long after that I started noticing daily headaches, getting worse and worse. After a while, it was debilitating, and I was at the point (when in normal circumstances) where I’d have run to the GP for some stronger pills! But this wasn’t really an option this time and it forced me to think alternatively. I was convinced it was screen time to blame so I took a wee break and combined my teaching days/hours to make sure I had a long weekend away from the computer to recover each week. Around the same time, I was also experiencing buzzing in my ears – one Sunday thinking I was going insane hearing somebody strimming in their garden, when of course nobody would do that up here on a Sunday! Kevin definitely thought I’d gone mad and I was certainly believing I was! We figured out it was tinnitus or something similar and deduced I’d just have to ignore it, along-with my headaches. Fast forward to June when I finally decided to move a huge pile of recipe books from the landing upstairs. I can’t remember why they ended up there in the first place but rather than putting them back downstairs again, they’d just sat there in a tall pile for months. It was at this stage that I came across Jason Vale’s Turbo Charge Your Life in 14 Days book. A book I’d had at college and had used to lose weight before my degree’s final recital in 2009. I remembered losing 7lbs in 7 days. I sifted through all the pages and got swept back through memory lane and my tastebuds started to remember the taste of some of the juices. Mmmmmmmm yummy. Especially the Turbo charge smoothie – Pineapple, apple, lime, spinach, cucumber, celery & avocado. The ONLY form of avocado I would eat as I hated its taste but seemed to love its creaminess in a smoothie! Avocado being an essential fat that I KNEW I should be eating with my PCOS…… So, the next shopping trip I decided the buy the ingredients, dig out my juicer and before I knew it, while planning a week away to see my Mum & brother, I also planned a detox! AND it timed in perfectly with Jason’s BIG juice challenge between 6th – 12th July! Perfect, all meant to be.

So now, let’s cut a long story very short. I returned a week later totally rejuvenated, hadn’t eaten a single morsel of chewable food in 8 days and I’d lost 8lbs – here, something was working! I felt amazing, my headaches had gone, my skin was glowing, my teeth were whiter, I had tons of energy and I no longer had any ringing in my ears – all after just one week. Ok, so let’s continue! Nearly 6 months later incorporating juicing into my daily diet and I’m 30lbs down (It was at 33lbs, but Christmas was far too good hahahaha). I’ve set myself a target of 100lbs but the biggest reason for this dietary change is not to lose all the excess weight I’m carrying, although of course that will help, its to always put my health first and live the healthiest life I can. In a year where health has never been more important, I am finally on top of mine. I have finally found a way to control my symptoms and my cravings, naturally. I know it probably all sounds ridiculously obvious, but we are what we eat. My body was consuming junk therefore I was junk – I was overweight, chronically fatigued, had oily/acne skin, excess hair, moody, depressive, stressed, dull, no fun – the list is endless. I will now consume, in an average juicy week: 7 pineapples, 56 apples, 7 limes, 28 celery sticks, 28 asparagus spears, 7 courgettes, 2 bags of spinach, 1.5 bags of kale, 3.5 cucumbers, 3 broccoli stems, a few bananas, massive handfuls of mixed berries, beetroot, 7 pears, 7 avocados. Safe to say I am now bright, bubbly, happy, positive, glowing, full of energy, no back pain or headaches, smooth skin everywhere and best of all, I am reducing my PCOS symptoms massively. I’ve been at this weight before; I remember how I felt at this weight before. My weight has nothing to do with this feeling. The food I am eating is directly responsible. Finally, an answer to all my troubles. I know it sounds obvious but how many of us will turn to medications or look for other factors to blame for our chronic conditions? I did! As soon as I was diagnosed, I continuously went running back to the GP/consultant for more and more pills. One to sort that, one to sort this, another one to counteract the last one etc etc. I KNOW categorically that the medications were intoxicating me and that the fuel I put into my body causes the relevant energy output whether strong or weak. I know that if I wake up in the morning and feel tired, a juice will sort me out, not caffeine. I know that if I’m tired at night it is because of the incorrect fuel I’ve put into my body earlier that day, for whatever reason I decided to consume it. I am seeing a direct long-term result of it all too.

From previous blogs, you will know that I DID NOT have a menstrual cycle without medical intervention. As of Boxing Day this year, that is no longer true. It may have taken since July to regulate my hormones naturally, but it has worked. Obviously, time will tell if I’m going to restore any kind of regularity to it but in all honesty, that’s not a concern right now as I can’t remember having a regular cycle since I was a teenager, so we’re talking around 20 years of hormonal disruption to be reversed and Rome wasn’t built in a day! Interestingly the last “natural” cycle I had after stopping years of medication also appeared on Boxing Day, in 2016 ;) In August this year, I was convinced “mother nature” had come to visit but she only said a very brief hello in a socially distanced way for a day so this time with the COVID restrictions lifted a little she was able to come to stay with gifts of stomach cramps, carb cravings & headaches as a way of getting us reacquainted again. Needless to say, she was made very welcome and I’ve never been happier, especially by hugging a hot water bottle.

Not everything is quite sorted but as you can imagine, its well on track! I now choose my food wisely, looking for naturally wholesome options as is humanly possible and just being more conscious of what I am eating (of course I eat treats ocassionally but I’m doing it consciously). Would you put dirty fuel in a car? Of course not. Would you put dirty oil in during an oil change? Of course not. That’s what I believe medications do to chronic conditions – they throw dirty oil into an already dirty engine. Our cars need servicing each year where they get an oil change, where the filters are cleaned, where essential maintenance is done, so why don’t we do that when we’re chronically sick? Why do we turn to pills to sort a condition we’ve developed rather than look to what we’re fuelling our body with and give it a good clean out? Of course we need medicines for acute conditions but chronic ones can be reversed if we clean out the “filter” and do an “oil change”. I’ve seen tons of documentaries recently where I’ve learned of people curing their Asthma, Eczema, Psoriasis, Diabetes etc I’ve even seen a documentary where cancers have gone into remission for dozens of years through eating raw food alone. I know it’ll sound very “out there” for some people and it would’ve done for me too had I not gone looking for Functional Medicine (using food to heal) research after years of understanding the theory behind it but not finding the right way to put it into practice. But, never in my whole life and in spite of a worldwide Pandemic, have I felt more alive or healthier than I do right now. I may have turned the clock back 3 years on my weight but energy-wise I feel about 15 years younger which is far more important than any number on the bathroom scales.

In hindsight, do I wish that I’d reached these dietary conclusions earlier? Not at all. It wasn’t the right time. In hindsight, I can see that all of the information that I have been armed with over the years, are the tools that have set me up for the success I now have. Like a fine wine, I needed time to breathe, time to mature to become the best I can be. No point in opening it early, you’ll just be disappointed. A good teacher is somebody who’s struggled themselves and I’m a better, stronger person for having had my major struggles. There’s probably many still to come. Life is never boring!

Now that I’ve written this, I logged into Tumblr to copy this blog across and to see when I last posted and to my amazement it was Boxing day last year! I love coincidences of dates & Boxing Day seems to have cropped up a number of times. I said that my goal was to increase my energy levels as I really struggled this time last year. I had said regarding Christmas day:

“I want to be able to, one day, wake up early to make the breakfast, open stocking presents, get dressed inc. make up, cook a Christmas dinner, watch a bit of Christmas TV, play some board games, do the washing up and still feel like a proper woman – not some shadow of one who can only do one or two tasks a day.”

Well I did all those things! I’d totally forgotten that I’d even set that goal (for one day!) but I reached it a year later and more. I never thought I’d be sizes smaller than a previous year as my pattern has always been to be one size bigger each year ;) I recently ordered a few jumpers for the harsh winter, one a size 16-18 and one a size 14 for the future. Well, although a stretchy material, I’m in the size 14 jumper and had to send back the other as it just hung off me! Considering I was a size 20 last year, ballooned to a size 22 by the middle of the year and now I’m back to the size I was 3 years ago, I’m delighted. I also don’t get the violently ill episodes when I eat gluten/dairy now that I did before when I religiously followed a PCOS diet and ocassionally slipped up. I honestly think fruit & veg is healing my gut, my hormones, my skin, every organ in my body! There’s a lot to say for eating a plant-based diet, not only for my health but also the purse-strings but there’s also lots to say for eating balanced nutrition and listening to one’s body for what it really needs. My ears are wide open now.

[nolongeractive---sorry-blog]

i’ve avoided talking about this my entire life, but like, i’m an adult now and this is my blog and i want to open up about my trauma for the very first time, okay? so um,

when i was a child, i was brainwashed and recruited into a cult. they call themselves all kinds of shit– apostolics, pentecostals, church of god– but they’re not christians no matter how much they want to believe they are! it’s a fucking cult, and like i said, i’ve never talked about this before so i’m going to use some “characteristics of cults” to help me explain my experiences within the cult

The group displays excessively zealous and unquestioning commitment to its leader and (whether he is alive or dead) regards his belief system, ideology, and practices as the Truth, as law.

while they don’t have one leader, each church’s pastoral line (yes, it’s usually biologically inherited) is viewed as the Truth, law, their word is 100% correct and they have no flaws (at least not flaws that can’t be corrected by Jesus)! the pastor is a healer and can make a paraplegic rise from their wheelchair and dance! the pastor can wish financial well-being on you and you’ll magically come into large amounts of money! the pastor can put his hand on your head and your headache will disappear instantly!

Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.

you are not to speak of doubt/questioning/dissent. all other religions and beliefs are wrong. only the beliefs of the church will save you. any doubts were very, very, very unspoken of and i would’ve been terrified to speak out against them.

Mind-altering practices (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, and debilitating work routines) are used in excess and serve to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s).

they “speak in tongues”– meaning everyone has to pray by blabbering nonsense, and sometimes we would all stand in a circle and people would take turns blabbering nonsense, and they called it “Jesus speaking directly through [those people]”. speaking in tongues happened at every service. sometimes people would say “that person’s tongues are in [language] even though they can’t speak that language!” “that person’s tongues sound like they must be an ancient version of [language]!” they taught that tongues was the holy spirit speaking through us and they were an actual language somewhere in the world. i can literally guarantee you it was entirely gibberish!!!

The leadership dictates, sometimes in great detail, how members should think, act, and feel (for example, members must get permission to date, change jobs, marry, or leaders prescribe what types of clothes to wear, where to live, whether or not to have children, how to discipline children, and so forth).

we were not allowed to date outside of church. women could not cut their hair or wear pants, and men were encouraged to dress like they were going to church even if they weren’t. homosexuality was the ultimate abomination. you couldn’t have certain jobs. you couldn’t do drugs or drink alcohol, and those things were extremely wrong and made you a horrible person. you needed permission from your family (and sometimes the church) to date and marry.

The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s) and members (for example, the leader is considered the Messiah, a special being, an avatar, or the group and/or the leader is on a special mission to save humanity).

they believe they’re the only people who are going to be saved and hold themselves up above other christians and other religions. people outside of the church aren’t truly happy and don’t truly love one another. i actually remember being taught that relationships outside of the church were doomed to fail because they couldn’t truly love one another if they weren’t pentecostal. it’s the church’s purpose to “save” as many people as possible because the rapture (end of the world, where all pentecostals are saved and all non-pentecostals are doomed to destroy one another and burn in hell for all eternity) is coming soon!! soon!! very soon!! perhaps obama is the antichrist!!

The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality, which may cause conflict with the wider society.

again, we couldn’t date outside of the church. we were taught that we were the holiest of people. there were good people, and there were bad people, and we were the good people. everyone else was bad, evil, corrupt, sinning! our church was perfect and happy and nothing bad ever happened within it. everything outside was tainted and evil and scary. we were actually taught that people who believe in evolution were inherently racist because it meant they believed that nonwhite (more specifically, black) people were closer to apes than white people! yeah, seriously! we were taught that shit! we were also taught that Harry Potter was of the devil and rock music and shit was about satan lmao

The leadership induces feelings of shame and/or guilt in order to influence and/or control members. Often, this is done through peer pressure and subtle forms of persuasion.

the church would spread rumors about you if they didn’t think you were being “pure” enough. this happened to me and became the final straw in my leaving the church, actually. i wasn’t tithing (donating 10% of your income to the church, which was thoroughly documented btw) because 1. i was a fucking child and 2. i was dirt poor!! and they started spreading it around that i was cutting my hair and wearing jeans outside of church, which i wasn’t. they were constantly pitting members against members who weren’t “doing well enough” to serve the church

Subservience to the leader or group requires members to cut ties with family and friends, and radically alter the personal goals and activities they had before joining the group.

if you’re truly part of the church, you can’t be in contact with friends and family who aren’t, because they’re corrupt and will try to corrupt you. people were constantly pressured to stop talking to their family and friends who weren’t pentecostal. you had to minister to people and/or go on a “mission” (you go to poor countries and brainwash desperate people into believing in God). you were supposed to go to bible camp, retreats, etc. and you were supposed to attend church at least three times a week (mine usually met four times per week, and that’s excluding times we would visit sister churches in other cities)

The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.

again, they center around brainwashing children, the poor, the weak, the vulnerable in any way, shape, or form

The group is preoccupied with making money.

they excommunicated A FUCKING CHILD for not donating 10% of my income lmao??? literally you had to donate birthday money, christmas money, your paycheck, mortgage/loans, whatever, any kind of income you had, 10% had to go to the church. and btw the church looked like shit but the pastoral family had 10 acres of land and nice, brand new, expensive shit, none of them had jobs outside of the church. i wonder where all the tithes went??? :-)

Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group and group-related activities.

i touched on this one a bit ago but yeah basically all of your extracurricular activities were within the church and they discouraged you from participating in extracurricular activities at school or elsewhere

Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members.

touched on this already

The most loyal members feel there can be no life outside the context of the group. They believe there is no other way to be, and often fear reprisals to themselves or others if they leave (or even consider leaving) the group.

this is extremely true and leaving them was, and still is, soooo fucking hard!!! they literally had me convinced that nobody outside of the church could be kindhearted. nobody outside of the church had the capacity to love. nobody outside of the church was trustworthy. nobody outside of the church wasn’t evil, and all of their thoughts/actions/etc. were tainted by the devil. you would never love or be loved. you would never find happiness. you would never be financially secure. you would never be healed if you were sick. oh, btw, a lot of people didn’t get treatment for their or their childrens’ conditions. like i said, we believed the pastor was a healer!

they also taught that people could have special abilities. one person could see a word over someone else’s head, that was whatever sin they’re struggling with. as mentioned, another person could put their hand on you and heal you, or another person could magically know another language. i remember a speech where a woman talked about how she had an abortion and she could hear the baby scream and stuff, and looking back, i now know that it was a performance based entirely around fearmongering. i remember so many fearmongering sermons, honestly. i used to take notes, so they’re really ingrained in my head, even after all these years

this is so cathartic but at the same time i’m anxious and shaking lmao! like, it’s been years, i know that none of what they taught is true and they can’t hurt me, but i left the cult scarred with PTSD, OCD, and anxiety. the reason i’m talking about all of this for the first time is because my new manager is in the cult. i saw her and just knew. i see people out in public and just know. it fills me with a feeling like i’m going to puke and i get overwhelmed and usually i can just go home, but this time, i can’t bc i’m at work :-) 

it prompted me to read stories from other ex-members of the cult and i was reminded of things like the term “backslider”, which was used to describe people who left the church and “went back to being ~worldly~” or whatever? and that children were conditioned to being afraid of the dark, afraid of being alone, afraid of demonic activity (especially in scary movies, which i still can’t watch to this day because even though i know they’re not actually scary, i was brainwashed into believing they were evil and if you watched them you’d be letting demons into your life and they would corrupt and kill you)

they made it impossible to make friends because all of your friends were in the church, so i and many other ex-members had and/or have a very difficult time developing and perfecting social skills. i was taught that swearing was evil. we were taught to say “oh my word” instead of “oh my god”, or other phrases. i’ve noticed that myself as well as other ex-members swear a ton and used “oh my god”, “jesus fucking christ”, etc. deliberately taking “god’s” name in vain and swearing to excess, as a means of therapy, or maybe defiance, or a combination of both from being so demonized by the church

apparently we all still struggle with flashbacks to the brainwashing songs we heard, learned, and sang. in general, we all seem to experience varying levels of PTSD, OCD, and anxiety as a direct result from the cult, which isn’t uncommon of cults, but it’s only recently that i’ve begun to allow myself to look back on it and recognize that it was a cult, it did this to me, and it’s fueled…many of my beliefs and interests, to put it quietly. i’m still not ready to talk about all of it. this is literally the most i’ve said about it in the last six years. i’ve never discussed it in detail. i’ve rarely allowed myself to think about it in detail. i have never told anyone about it directly– not friends, family, partners, therapists…nobody :-) 

so yeah here’s a lot of baggage unloaded lmao i’m going to try to relax now!!!! this is more than enough for today!!!!!

[buddaimond]

Kristen Stewart talks fashion, fears, text etiquette - and 'Personal Shopper

by Fiona Williams 18 Apr 2017 Q: With Personal Shopper you give us an insight into that rarefied world of high fashion, and how it works.

There are a very, very small group of people who actually go and shop at Chanel showrooms and those people are the real “other worldly” wealthy people. It’s couture, it’s delicate, handcrafted, really precious one of a kind works of art so you are investing in an artform when you go and buy their stuff.

Chanel does stand separately from most of the others - they are an independently owned company, still, which is the last of the luxury brands. And you feel that. There is a genuine, very compulsive faithfulness to aesthetic and care for that aesthetic. They really do stand apart from the people who do it for farcical reasons. A lot of people want to look like they appreciate an aesthetic and beauty but… Some people look at a sunset and it brings them to tears. Some people don’t look twice. It’s a really human spiritual thing to be moved by an image. So within fashion, those people really stick out because those who don’t have it are there because they want to be popular, they want attention. They want to be looked at in a certain way and it validates them in some way to be looked at. That’s actually very empty. It’s just really easy to tell the difference between the two.

Q: You’re back working with Olivier again. How was it different this time? How did you build on what you’d learned about each other from Sils Maria?

The roles are very different, for one thing. Olivier and I have a great relationship because we really ‘see’ each other. I feel like he really understands me and I don’t really have to explain myself to him. We usually agree. There’s a great, real friendship and a closeness that provides a trust that, like, just puts you in the perfect position to explore a difficult subject and always feel like you’re going to be caught by this safety net if you ever really, truly, fall too hard. And that only got deeper on the second go around.

Also just by nature of the movie, it’s so much more sad and you know, Sils Maria was bittersweet and a little bit tumultuous between those two characters, and there was pain in that, but it wasn’t as deep and as fundamental as the pain in this movie. It didn’t bring into question things that don’t have answers and that’s what this movie is about. It’s really about finding peace in not knowing where we’re going to end up and who are are and whether or not our reality is just our perception or whether it’s something that we share. We’re never going to know that. But it’s worth asking the question. It’s worth being aware of it. For both of us, we found that you need to be so raw in order to address those things. We’re just so close now. We’ve been through so much together now that we have those footholds to base a relationship off of, and we’ll only go deeper.

Q: What was it like to have an iPhone as your co-star in so many scenes? How did you approach that and try to make those scenes interesting?

Oh God, what you can project onto an iPhone and into messages from somebody can sometimes be so one-sided! I was basically playing with my own version of myself. Also I felt like anytime there was going to be a close-up or an insert of the messages, it should feel like a close-up of me. You should feel the tension in my hands. You should feel every typo. Every choice in punctuation should speak volumes, because it is a new language that we’ve all sort of written ourselves. You have a different text voice, whether you capitalise something. Or put a period on it, or put a lot of spaces in between something, it says a lot! This is this sort of new language that’s interesting. That... [motions texting, with intensity]... I mean… [laughs]

Q: Are you a big texter? Ever feel like you need a digital detox?

I’m not constantly reaching for my phone. I have a personal Instagram that allows me to stay connected to people that I don’t see on a regular basis, but I don’t have social media, I don’t have this heavy phone addiction. So I’ve never had to detox from it. There are times I find myself reaching for my phone for no reason and I just literally, go, ‘What are you looking for? Nothing!’. When i notice myself doing that, I realise that i’m actually just bored and that I should occupy my time with something else.

Q: What did you think about the ghost story aspect of the film?

When I read the script, I kind of missed the fact that it was a ghost story, because my character, the way she was written, wasn’t that afraid. There was such fervent curiosity that drove her towards the ghosts that I didn’t find them scary in the script. I thought that there was just like a need for questions to be answered, and that need overpowered any fear-based impulse. Then when we got to make the movie... the unknown is terrifying and I don’t care who you are. That was much more theoretical, that idea of not being afraid. It was something that i could implicate conceptually, but literally, on the day, nobody could face those things and not be literally, physically, shaken by it because it’s like, I mean it is scary! It’s really scary. It’s just that while I was reading it, I didn’t realise that it was such a - quote-unquote - horror movie.

He really goes for some effective scares

I know, right?! But to be honest, I still find the scarier parts of that movie are when you can see someone suddenly aware of the fact that we’ll never know where we are or who we are necessarily. Those moments where Maureen starts reeling, and things become incredibly uncertain? Those are debilitating, anxiety-inducing, physically stifling thoughts. I know that feeling. I was like, ‘God, I’m so happy I’m not in one of those places, I’m so happy that I’m not um, in that right now’. Because I’ve had moments like that where I’ve been racked with absolute physical manifestations of anxiety, and it was just like, the only way to get out of that is to go for a run or to physically get yourself moving and really exert your physicality and get yourself out of your brain. Because you’re never going to find the answer. Again, it’s finding peace in the not knowing and finding an appreciation for whatever it is that connects us, and i know it is something invisible, it’s worthwhile because it makes you feel less alone. And that’s really what we’re all hoping to do anyway.

Q: On the subject of physicality, I notice you’ve made Maureen intensely tactile. She’s always gripping at belts, and scrunching up these beautiful pieces of jewellery as she inspects them. How did you work that in as a Maureen mannerism? Why does she do that?

I think Maureen’s attracted to things that she’s ashamed to be attracted to. So she’s aggressive with them. These really delicate necklaces, she’s so taken by them but she’s feeling guilty about it, so she almost wants to harm them. Do you know what i mean?

Not personally, but sure.

Because she’s not the most self-assured person and she has so many aspects of herself that don’t typically go together, finding a balance in that is kind of the struggle of the movie. There’s one side of her that’s purely animalistic and very feminine and really just embodies... She’s like a tigress. She’s like a really sensual, immediate, impulsive animal, but there are also other times where she’s so moored by thought and those defences go up immediately. And those defences are very hard and very masculine and androgynous because she misses her brother. She’s half a person and she’s trying to emulate him. It’s like there was a strength that he had that she doesn’t have without him, and she’s trying to do an impression of him in order to feel strong and it’s just not her. It’s sad to watch that kind of thing, it’s clearly just somebody that’s trying to hide.

Q: You’ve played a lot of celebrity assistant roles lately, with this, Sils Maria, and also recently, in the Woody Allen film. Are you referencing relationships that you have with people who work with you?

Yeah, it’s funny role reversal. I know that job inside out. But I don’t have a personal shopper. That’s not a very common job. [Grabs at blazer] These clothes that we wear to press conferences and red carpets and stuff, they’re all lent to us. I don’t have people going out and buying opulent elaborate pieces for me for my own collection, it’s an interaction with that artform which is temporary and within the context of promoting a movie.

Q: Some celebrities seem to use fashion as an escape, or a bit of armour, for want of a better word. You seem really connected to the clothes you wear, though.

Absolutely, I think when clothes really can do their job, they’re the opposite of armour, they can make you feel like you don’t want to hide, and you’re the true version of yourself in the right outfit.

Some people don’t have much interest in it, and some people don’t have very defined taste. A lot of actors really just don’t care, so they hire people that do, to help them. But me? I really like it. The reason I’m not ashamed of that is because it’s coming from a really true place. I don’t find it to be superficial at all. I think that when I put on the right garment I feel like a truer version of myself. I feel there are stories to tell with clothes, and when you find people that feel the same way, it’s really fun to work with them.

I think it’s pretty obvious when there’s the opposite of that - it’s obvious when people are drawn to that world because they want attention. I don’t want to look good because I want everyone to stare at me; I want to look good because I want to feel like myself. It’s about feeling like you, and clothes can help you achieve that.

http://www.sbs.com.au/movies/article/2017/04/17/kristen-stewart-talks-fashion-fears-text-etiquette-and-personal-shopper

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[relativelyanonymousgirl]

Who am I?

If I ever do get a real blog (maybe in a couple of weeks, maybe in a month? we’ll see), then this would be my ‘about me’ page. Probably tumblr has one as well but I’m taking this exploring a blog thing one step at a time. And I already added an image to one of my previous posts so..

So who am I and what am I doing with this blog (and why should you be doing the same?)

Right, let’s skip on the who am i question and get to the interesting stuff. I’m 21, which means for me that I’m in the phase of my life where you have to unlearn all the ‘bad stuff’ your parents raised you with and you kind of have to raise yourself on all the stuff you wish they’d raised you with. I think for some people this happens automatically and probably at a younger age and for some people this doesnt happen at all. But I have wanted to do this (to change) for as long as I remember and it never really seemed to work. Now it is working and I guess I’m taking you all (that would be all the 0 (zero) people that follow this blog and the 0 people I’ve told about this blog) along for the journey. Both for me, because typing shit out makes them more real and makes the changes more real and because I’m learning a lot and I think other people might benefit from the lessons I’m learning.

So what’s the starting point? Like I said, I’m 21 and I just finished my bachelors in artificial intelligence. I spent my last semester in Spain and this is where I realised I couldnt continue living the way I was. I didn’t not only not want to keep living the way I was, but I genuinely couldnt. I think I have anxiety disorder and it’s been interfering with my life in many, many ways. But even if you do not have anxiety disorder, the same mechanisms that are making my life really hard are probably making your life a lot more difficult than it has to be. So in a way I should be grateful for my anxiety because it’s forcing me to explore these concepts that I otherwise wouldn’t have and maybe my life at the end of this journey will be better than Iif I hadn’t been given these obstacles in life. Yeah. Maybe someday I’ll actually believe that.

So anxiety is the big problem and then there are the sideproblems and coping mechanisms that initially, if you’re walking a similar path to mine, you might think are the things ruining your life and are also the things that you want to change so badly, but can’t seem to. You think that doesnt make sense, why can’t I just stop picking my face? Why can’t I stop binging on chocolate? But it’s because I didn’t factor in the underlying reason: the anxiety. So my coping mechanisms aren’t that original probably. Number 1 would be ‘distraction’. Whenever the anxiety kicks in, which ranges from 50% of the time to 100% of the time, I’ll feel stress and fear and I’ll try to distract myself from feeling that and my brain from thinking related thoughts by either looking at memes, scrolling on pinterest or watching series. I would spent literally every minute of my time I’m not doing something and thus occupying my brain on my phone/laptop. Now I’m not saying memes are bad or series are bad, or unhealthy food is bad (woo shocker), it’s all about your relationship with them. Number 2 is food. I am not lying when I say that I would think of food every couple of minutes. And that’s hard. Because it feels like your dieting your life away, every time you have to tell yourself no. Then there is the fact that you have limited self-control. So for example, you have to finish a project for uni. This project in itself is giving you anxiety, of course so you’ll get the desire to eat unhealthy food. Now you can either put your self-control in denying yourself food, or you can put your self-control in working onthe project, both are a lot harder than they should be and both are a lot harder than they are for most other people. Obviously, I chose working on the project, which meant I was always eating a lot of crap when I’m studying. C’est la vie. Number 3 is a bit more strange. I pick my face. I look for any unevenness and god forbid clogged pores and I scratch, pimp and tug on my skin until the unevenness is even and bleeding or the clogging oil is out of the pores. And bleeding. This means my face often looks like a warzone (at least to me) and it’s been one of the harder habits to kick and it’s also the one that makes the least sense to me. I’ve never really cared about appearances much, I wear comfortable clothing (usually from my current boyfriend, and I don’t mean just a cute oversize blouse. I’ll wear his pants and his already oversized sweaters etc. I just care about comfort, which I think is also partly to do with my anxiety), I don’t wear make-up and sometimes I’ll brush my hair. But there have been nights where I laid awake hating my face, wanting it to burn, simply because my skin is not ��perfect’. Yeah, it doesn’t make sense to me either, but that’s how it often is with anxiety. 

Then, what I think lies at the core of my anxiety is fear of failure. And this one is different, because fear of failure I’ve had my entire life. Beating anxiety takes a lot of determination. Just like changing yourself does (not if you follow my amazing advice, that is, I truly believe that change isn’t that hard if only you know how). And I’ve always been able to refer to the person I was ‘before’, so back when I had a healthy relationship with food, I simply didn’t think about my skin at all and seeing my roommates around the house didn’t fill me with a sense of fear and impending danger. If I had been that way before than I could go back to it. I’m stubborn enough to think that if life can change me this way, I’ll change my way back (that’s not how it works, you become someone else, but more about that later). But it’s harder when there is no ‘before’. Because if someone hasn’t showed you that you can change then who are you to believe you can? Well fuck that, I’m me and that’s all I need, I truly believe I can change EVERYTHING and I will keep believing this until proven otherwise, but guess what, since I’ll keep trying until I die, you won’t be able to prove me otherwise. 

Fun fact on this matter actually is that not having this belief can truly, seriously be one of your biggest enemies of change. So apperently it’s a big deal to run a mile in under four minutes and nobody thought it could be done. Until one guy did it. So this ‘barrier’ that stood for decades get broken and less than fifty days later someone else breaks it too. And then a year later, 3 people also break it, in one and the same race. By now, thousands of people have broken that ‘barrier’. It’s not a barrier. It’s your thinking. So stop that. 

So I had Fear of Failure (FoF) all my life and then there were some circomestances (it was high school, big shocker) and then I developed anxiety disorder. I’ve been talking mostly about a lot of symptoms of this mental foe, but there is also of course, the social aspect. And that one is so, so hard. It’s not the worst side-effect for me. I have friends, I know how to make friends, I go out to parties etc. But it’s the one that’s most debilitating. No one can prepare you for this one. For thinking you are not ‘normal’, for never fitting in, for that to even become an option, then a self-fullfilling prophecy and then just a part of who you are. 

It’s also the hardest to change, because you can stop eating food and stop looking at your phone (this is completely the wrong way to go about change, but Im siumplifying) but you cant just ‘feel comfortable’ in social situations. You can’t just ‘increase your self-esteem’, you can’t just ‘set bounderies and feel good about it’. I mean I tried to do the things while ignoring the emotions thinking it would go away. AND THIS DOES NOT WORK. it made it all so much worse. So don’t beat yourself up for ‘isolating’ yourself. Sure, isolation without a solution is gonna make the problem worse and you should definetely still catch up with your close friends and do the things that are light-to-medium-exhausting. But just ‘getting out there’ isn’t gonna make your anxiety go away, it’s just gonna make it worse. That said. You need to actually address the problem if you are noticing that social situations have become harder for you. 

Okay, so this is me. This is where I am at right now. Finishing my bachelor thesis for uni was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, even though the stuff I actually had to do wasnt that hard, but I had to fight for every single word I wrote. I couldn’t have continued to my masters. My parents came to visit and I cried at a restaurant, finally telling them my problem and then I decided to take a year off and focus on getting my life back on track. I’m now four months into this year and there has been many, many changes and definetely not enough. You can read about them here if you want to.

Sidenote. I’m living at my parents, which has its own challenges of course. But it’s been really helpful for me, since I didn’t feel like I had a comfort zone anymore, and this place is the closest thing to a comfort zone and I think it had slowly become one. Well at least my room has. One thing that seems obvious when you want to ‘find yourself’ is to travel, but I don’t think that would have been the best decision for me. I’ll write about that some other time. 

[allmymisters]

For the Love of Moving Forward

This is a little late, but not really. Chinese New Year celebrations just ended. While the rest of the politically correct world rants and roars about the rights and wrongs of races in America, I don’t ever get a Happy New Year come Chinese New Year because nobody sees me as Asian. This is my grandfather, Bonifacio Lee. I’m not sure of his background, but know he was indeed Chinese. It has been very difficult connecting with this part of my family tree. My family is quite keen on keeping the skeletons in closets locked up. It is the only image I have of my grandfather. The only history I know of him is that he was a Chinese professor teaching in Panama where he met my grandmother, Josefina Peñalba. The two married and proceeded to have 15 children. Yeah, I know. My dad is one of 10. Both my parents are the youngest of their siblings. The story goes like this, my grandparents went to China during the 50s and while there, the war broke out. They called all Panamanian citizens back and as my family fled, my grandfather was shot in his collarbone. They made the trip back to Panama. My mother was born shortly after. The bullet was never removed from his collarbone and it resulted in relentless pain which was relieved by the numbing effects of alcohol and eventually, ironically, a self-induced bullet. My mother tells me of stories of seeing his ghost working in the yard and how the dinner table would end up turned over as they prayed for him. I’ve always loved history and my own family has been a mystery for quite some time. I have a thing with lack of closure.

In 2003, on my birthday, 16 years ago, I had received a birthday card from one of my best friends. The card stated very promptly that our friendship was over and no details of why such an action had to be taken. Fast forward to 2017, where once again, my best friend broke up with me for reasons unknown. Both of these times created great anxiety in me due to lack of closure or conversation. The biggest non-closure of my life was getting divorced without ever speaking about it. Sure, there were specific facts that lead to such things, but I have yet to have a conversation as to why these things actually occurred. I don’t know if you know what that feels like? It gnaws at you. I don’t care why people dismiss me or not, it’s the conversation that never took place that bugs me.

So, here I am in 2019, and it’s the Year of the Earth Pig. It is the end of a cycle if you know anything about lunar calendars and its zodiac. The pig is the last to win the race, thus its position. It is slow to say the least, but also a very wealthy year is in the works. As with all new years, I write a letter to the world. It basically gives all my well wishes and happy holidays to the people in my social network, work, friends, family, etc., etc. Every year I set new goals. Some are reached by December 31st and some bleed into the next year. This past year was particularly full of ups and downs, personally and occupationally.

I had started off the year strong with real estate. I love my work. I love that I can be creative and talk to people and mostly help others. In celebration of my 45th birthday in last February, I decided to add yet another skill to my palette, Real Estate Agent. I figured if I’m going to be in this business, I’m going to be in it to win it. So now, I am doing three different jobs, freelance work, and waiting tables twice a week, and yet, I still struggle to pay bills or eat sometimes. I don’t think I’ll ever get it. I don’t think I’ll ever be that person who buys a new car or gets to find the perfect fit jeans. I honestly think my sole purpose in life is to work a myriad of different jobs and never financially succeed and becoming 45 was challenging. You women know what I speak of for sure. I’ve never felt so bad about my physicality before. I had the worse anxiety of my life this year. My first panic attack. My first missed period in a lifetime and well, it has come to my attention that, yes, yes I’ve just about completed any hopes for future humans. I don’t fit in my clothes. It hurts to wear heels. I have a hard time keeping my balance most days. It is a very debilitating experience that they don’t tell you in health class. Sorry, for the realness, but hey, I just want to give a fist up to my sisters. I however can relish in the success of getting hit on while playing Trivia Crack. There are a lot of bored husbands out there!

There is no worse thing for me than the feeling of being unsettled. I felt this past year was a bunch of rushing around and a lot of hurry up and waiting. I felt like I was being pulled, pushed, and hurried for everything while feeling quite stuck. I’m looking around the house at the unfinished hutch, the still unopened boxes, and last week’s laundry waiting to be folded. I mean, have you ever felt like you were literally unmoved? So, that’s all the bad stuff, well that and of course death which seemed unruly and unsuspected more times than I can count. I had a lot of unfinished business in 2018.

Finally, the present. Sunday, I turned 46. It was the most uneventful birthday of my life. I’m not saying that because I’m upset about it, but because it truly had no fanfare. A simple dinner at moms, a small gathering of friends, and a lot of HBD’s on my Facebook feed. It was a lowkey transition to say the least. I’ve been sick for quite a number of days which is unusual in and of itself. I keep freaking myself out with the fright of the possibility of getting pneumonia and dying. That’s my thought process these days, “Oh my god, what is that feeling, do I have cancer?” It’s all eminent. I will say, as February approached, the heavy weight I felt of the last year seem to lift. I have more direction right now and focus which I didn’t have in 2018, what was unstuck has become loosened.

So I come back to closure. Just as I’m trying to figure out the history of my genome, I’m also trying to do what the kids and that Marie Kondo are doing, tidying up. Getting rid of the weight of clutter that has commanded and influenced my physical and mental states. It has not been easy for this greeting card saving, ticket stub framing kinda gal. I’ve been holding on for dear life the life I used to live and realize I cannot do that anymore and why should I? That’s the real question. Why don’t I deserve closure?

To part with history is to part with a limb for me. Amongst the dated wine corks, cards, and matchbooks, I find that bond starting to fade. I can’t say I like it, it’s very uncomfortable, often times I find myself hyperventilating at the thought. It does make me sad to know that what once was will never be again. Living in the past is what has gotten me into the future and now the past wants to say goodbye and I’m not sure i know how to handle that. I feel like if I let go of it, it’s me giving me up. Then there’s the other side of that. Isn’t it time for me to be happy on my own? How long do I have to live with feeling guilty for my decisions? Have I not been true and honest? I feel like I have, but I feel like it’s not without judgement. I feel like I’m done waiting to be invited. I don’t need to have that validation anymore, yet it still hurts. I’ve only got so many olive branches and most of them are ill deserved. I think I’m just one of those people that needs to have that conclusion, kinda like when someone breaks up with me, I need to know why?

I never thought at 46 I would be growing a new branch, but I will say for the first time in a really long time, it feels good and right. You know when you are looking for a house and you’ve gone to a million of them, all great houses, all with things you want in them, yet there’s one in particular that when you walk in, it showers you with “YESSSSS! This is home”. You can’t explain it, but it just feels like it fits and that’s where I am today, something I want to do, just fits. I have a tendency to get stuck in a routine. I’m a fixed being. I feel most comfortable when I have this continuous realm, but I also crave change. It’s very conflicting. My days are quite quoted with work, home, family, etc, and it terrifies me, like in one of those Twilight Zone kind of ways. But, something happened in January and I’m rolling with it. Some sort of energy has come out of nowhere and gotten me off my ass mentally. Then, yesterday, as I walked into WaWa contemplating a sub and Cheetos, I saw the blinking dots of an awaited answer to ‘what’s for dinner’. As I looked up towards the back door, the face was familiar, but somehow seeing my Mister randomly catch my eye in unsuspecting manner, made me smile. It made me happy. He wasn’t walking in the front door of our home. I wasn’t meeting him at the bar. It was just this moment of “Hello, stranger.” And in that moment I remembered this is my new beginning and we both just walked in at the same time feeling the same way.

So, although my life is full of shut doors full of undisclosed information, this year I’m choosing the door in front of me and opening it up wide. Why should I wait for others to come to terms with their baggage when I can move on free of mine. Happy Year of the Pig, it’s going to be sweet and slow and an end to the 60 year cycle. I’m planning on rolling around in the mud on this one and collecting the wealth it brings.