so fucking upset. i looked up what's considered concerning weight loss and got a statistic. i looked up the same question but specified teens and i got a bunch of articles about how to lose weight. what the fuck

if it’s not too triggering, why were you institutionalized for being picky? (If it’s too personal feel free to delete this ask, sorry)

Hi! It's no problem, it is triggering, but i think about it a lot, and it is something i sometimes shared on here, after it just happened, because i was in shock and had to let people know and to reach out like hey? has this happened to anyone else? but right after that it became too hard to put words to and too triggering to talk about so i talked about it less.

but its a story i want to tell now and am becoming more okay with telling, because i want people to know what happens to people, what happened to me, and what could very well happen to me again

and also, it just so happens i have been thinking about it a lot recently and thinking how to tell my story because i have been psyching myself up to tell my girlfriend.

so like. suuuuuuuuper long story below the cut. can be very triggering, its a very upsetting story. tw for like. institutionalization (obvs), suicide, medical abuse, eating disorders, psychiatric abuse, parental abuse (?)

I was kind of institutionalized. At first, it happened almost 9 years ago, I remember the anniversary every year. I was 16, my doctor recommended I be put in a childrens hospital eating disorder program. I have ARFID, no one really knew what it was at the time. I've had it since i was an infant and went from doctor to doctor and no one had ever seen anyone like me or knew what to do. One doctor said I wouldn't live past 21 if I continued to eat the way I do, but clearly that was not the case.

I am forever astounded by the amount of people I run into on here and online in general who identify as having ARFID or being that level of picky eater, though talking with some of them more in depth, it seems like they are often not on the level of pickiness i am on and seem to have experienced less shame and be more open about discussing it though everyone is different and impossible to tell.

I was excited for the program at first before it started. I thought they were going to help me and I would finally be a normal person. I was so tired of being harassed by random strangers, laughed at by waiters, and ridiculed by my family. Every person I made friends with I had to at some point make a terrifying confession to and going on dates (for the small regrettable amount I did it in high school) was near impossible when I had to show the part of myself that I was most ashamed about and hated the most on the first date.

I thought at the program I would find specialists who would sympathize with me and help me and would fix me. And when I got there, before anything even happened, I had to sign all these papers, and my parents did too, and I didn't know what they were, I didn't question it. What I signed didn't even really matter anyways, I was 16. And the first day I brought my phone with me and a book, and my bag with some other stuff. But after I signed everything, they took everything I had away, and we went to this room with all these doctors, 'my treatment team', I had never met them before, they barely looked at me or talked to me, but they talked about me and my 'treatment plan' and they were never caring to me, never talked to me like a person.

The plan, as it was for everyone, was that they give you three meals a day, of whatever food they bring you, you have to eat all of it by the time an alarm they set goes off, you have to drink every drop of water they give you, have to use every packet of sauce they give you. If you don't do this, you get moved down a 'level' and you get privileges taken away. Things like watching tv, or being around other patients, but most of all, I found out that being moved down a level just meant you usually get locked in a room by yourself for a few hours because that happened to me. a lot.

i was very upset when i found this out. this was not helping me. because as i found out, it turns out no one really knows a fucking thing about helping people with mental illnesses or eating disorders or developmental disabilities even though the medical establishment likes to talk about how much it has progressed. they don't know a single fucking thing.

so i finally went out to the common room with the other patients. i was crying very hard and told the doctors that was it i wanted to leave i didn't want to be part of the program. but they told me it was too late i already signed the consent forms. so i don't know if medical consent/institutionalization is still like this almost 10 years later, if someone was lying to me or if this is true, but my mom also told me the same thing, and apparently if you consent to this kind of thing you cannot take it back. which by definition, makes it not consent.

i remember sobbing in the common area with the other patients (they were all girls, about same age as me), and there was another new patient, also sobbing. the other girls tried to comfort us and talk to us, but the orderlies (i don't really know what else to call them, all they really did was sit and watch us and make sure we didn't do anything that wasn't allowed. they were all college girls. they were extremely mean to us, they thought we were being dramatic) wouldn't let them, we weren't really allowed to talk to each other much and we weren't allowed to touch each other and we very specifically for some reason were not allowed to comfort each other.

i was crying especially hard because i knew that this program was expected to last for a couple months. but as i talked to the other girls there the small amount i was able to, i found out that most of them had been there for much longer than a couple months, many of them for over a year. i managed to catch my parents as they were leaving from dropping me off and talking with the doctors (i had only been there still only like 3 or 4 hours) and screamed at them to get me out of here. my mom seemed really shaken by the way i was acting and the doctor told her not to worry and i specifically remember him saying "they all act like this at the beginning".

it is something i will never forget because every time i tried to convince my mom to get me out of there she seem conflicted based on the fact that the doctor said that. and it hits me every time that all the doctors, the nurses, the people working there, can see children. children. acting like that about what they are doing to them and think they are doing the right thing. i will never forget it ever. and every person who came in after me did the same thing! because it was prison! it was punishment! for having a eating disorder! for being autistic! when i was able to talk to my mom, she kept saying "we are not trying to punish you" and the more times she said i realized she was trying to convince herself.

i ate some of the foods they gave me but i never got used to them like they said i would. i just got knocked down a level every time and got locked in a room. and the thing is, unlike most media and reports about mental wards or asylums. it was a nice hospital. it was brand new. the room i was locked in was not a padded room. one of the walls was just a window. and in some ways, that made it worse. because it looked out on a highway and i saw all the cars going to and from work, going to the store, going to eat. and they were so free and they could go where they wanted and eat what they wanted and when they wanted and they weren't locked in a room. and they passed this hospital and had no idea what was happening to me or to anyone else here and it made me so angry and so defeated. i felt so close to being away from a waking nightmare but i knew i would never get there. a year!!! i could be there for over a year.

a year without going where i wanted when i wanted. no access to my phone. i wasn't allowed to see my friends. i wasn't allowed to read my books. i wasn't allowed to eat what i wanted when i wanted. i did therapy a few times a day but it was more like an interrogation. when i was a high enough level to be in the common room, i sat in the corner and did puzzles obsessively so i could just dissociate and focus on the puzzles. eventually the therapist told me i wasn't allowed to do puzzles anymore because it was "distracting from my recovery" and i "wasn't thinking about my eating" (i don't know what the fuck i was supposed to be thinking about). it got to the point where i felt like i didn't have ownership of my own mind anymore. i wasn't allowed to dissociate. i wasn't thinking about what they wanted me to be thinking about.

they told me if i "was good" (aka if i reached a high enough level, not going to happen) i could write them a list of 100 songs. they would load all the songs on an ipod shuffle to loan to me. but only after they listened to all of them first to make sure they were appropriate. they told me if i "was good" maybe i could see my best friend for a few hours for one weekend. a few hours. for one weekend. i was understanding how truly controlling the program was. seeing a friend for a few hours once a month is a privilege. listening to a few songs they approve is a privilege.

but it didn't matter. i realized after the first day that obviously i had to kill myself. i was already in a pretty bad place before the program and was passively suicidal but i realized instantly that i could not live like this and if i was going to be stuck here indefinitely then my only way to escape was to end my life. i didn't have a plan at that point but i knew for certain i was going to do it. the loss of control, the violation, the loss of body and self was unbearable.

every morning they had us strip and then weighed us and did an ekg. why did they have us strip and do an ekg? it doesnt seem like it has much of a point. they watched us go to the bathroom. it all seemed like humiliation and violation for the sake of it.

even after the second day i had realized that i didnt want to be fixed or get better and i had to come to the very quick realization that there had never been anything wrong with me. when i went to therapy they asked me questions like "don't you want to be able to go to restaurants?" "don't you want to be able to eat with friends?" and i realized none of that had to do with my health. the reason i had problems with restaurants was because they didn't accommodate to me and the reason i had problems with friends was all social. all these reasons i had for wanting to be fixed and all these reasons they had for me to want to be fixed were other peoples' problems. the way people treated me was not my problem.

for your treatment plan, one of the first steps was to admit in group therapy that you had an eating disorder and what your problems were (i fucking know) and that would get you more privileges but i decided i wasn't going to do that because i didn't have a problem, my "problem" was everyone else's problem and the way they treated me. so i refused to every session and got locked in the room every time for this. they fucking hated me for it.

if you can't tell how long i was there for based on this. i was only there for a week. because after a week our insurance came back and declined to cover the program. i always hate myself that it was a week. it doesnt feel long enough. for the amount that it did for me. for how much it does to me almost 9 years later. it doesn't feel like enough.

i got home and screamed at my parents. i was so angry. my mom had allegedly been trying the entire time to get me out of the program, but my dad had been trying to keep me in. when i got home my dad had taken away my phone and my laptop and said he wasnt giving them back. i screamed at him and cried and he threatened to call the hospital and have them lock me up forever. i was terrified, i tried to get away from him, to hide. and he got out his phone and took video of me, at my worst moments, he claimed to show to the doctors. i ran away. for a few hours. i had nowhere to go. i ran about a mile. and then sat down outside the rec center and cried until it got dark. and then i went home.

i had nightmares that i was still there for months. it never ended. i was so paranoid about everything. i thought people were coming to lock me up. i couldn't draw any attention to myself or i thought i would be locked up. every time we drove anywhere near the hospital i thought my parents were taking me back there. i was so paranoid i couldn't sleep i couldn't sit i couldn't do anything i had to be looking out for everything and i trusted no one. i walked around, angry at everyone, that they were so carefree in everything and they had no idea what happened to me. i was angry it happened to me and they were worried about things that had no importance. i was angry when adults thought they knew more than me and i felt i had been through more in life at 16 than they had at their age. was it true? i'm not sure.

i think the most important thing i learned, whether true or not, besides not needing to be fixed, was that i could never trust anyone and never ask anyone for help again. i thought they would help me and i was excited. for some time, i thought it was my fault. at least partially. but now i am angry. i was 16. who would do that to a 16 year old who was looking for help because of how people had treated them?

for a while after i talked about arfid a ton on tumblr and also on wordpress. i created the actuallyarfid tag but became disillusioned when so many people in the tag just talked about wanting to get rid of it or their progress in getting rid of it. and eventually i couldn't even talk about it anymore. it was too tied to everything that happened and i was still so ashamed of it. it was to triggering. i stopped.

i think for similar reasons i have stopped associating so much with the autistic community online. i think it has jaded me so much to see so many people who have only had the slightest negative consequences of being autistic and do being autistic like putting on and taking off a coat after something like this happened to me. it was in this program that doctors first told my parents they think i am autistic though i wasnt diagnosed until later. i recognize now that having arfid is part of my being autistic but i don't like to talk about it in the context of having arfid because i don't feel like i 'have' anything. it is just me being me. and i use autistic as a label when i need to explain my needs and differences to people quickly and its fun to make jokes about being autistic sometimes but i dont like to constantly identify myself that way.

my parents are "health" nuts (fake garbage health bullshit) so they were still convinced my eating was going to kill me and many years later have taken me to see several nutritionists. and all these years later, after doctors many years ago declared i had a problem and would die, most of them did not see a huge problem with the way i eat. one of them in particular who i love and have seen over and over again at the behest of my parents has pointed out many things to me. there are plenty of adults who don't eat or barely eat fruits and vegetables. there are plenty of adults who eat the same thing every day (bring the same thing for lunch at work everyday anyone?). the world does not end. if you are different and you do it. then you are a problem and you need to be fixed. but if it is within socially acceptable norms, then it's okay.

i've always thought that some day i wanted to write about what happened to me publicly. in a paper or something. i want people to know. that this happened to me. that this happens to people. still. that it could very well happen to me again. though i'm not sure i could take public response if i did write about it. and after i got out of the program, i wrote it all in a journal, but then ripped it up and shredded it because the words weren't enough. they were so insignificant and i could never ever find the words to capture how horrifying it was what happened to me and how badly it ruined me and destroyed me. it changed my whole life and my perspective on everything. but i think now, almost 10 years later i am starting to find the words. and i think now i am less scared.

I posted 12,921 times in 2022

That's 7,439 more posts than 2021!

608 posts created (5%)

12,313 posts reblogged (95%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@wizardpotions

@clumpofglitter

@niceferatu

@lake-lady

@officialbogwitch

I tagged 975 of my posts in 2022

#community nbc - 41 posts

#save - 37 posts

#nonbinary - 33 posts

#mlp - 22 posts

#dont rb - 22 posts

#arfid - 21 posts

#lgbt - 20 posts

#art - 19 posts

#nephs art - 19 posts

#nephs ocs - 18 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#this is so presumptuous about the reader like yeah i am working towards a better life and a better self. establish that this isnt universal

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

PSA on second hand shopping

more people need to shop at thrift stores, rummage sales, estate sales, consignment, flea markets, and the like. I don't care if you can afford new stuff, if you think it's dirty, if you don't feel like spending the time sifting through things you don't want. fast fashion and other quick moving industries are killing us.

so many thrift shops are begging people to buy more, and they have to stop taking donations for a while. a lot of rummage sale sellers will throw out what they don't sell by the end of the weekend, and they can negotiate and give you deals..

even if you don't want clothes, chances are you will find something you needed anyways, or find something you didn't know you needed. I promise you can find time in your hurried schedule to make a weekend out of rummage saling, and it's so much more fun then taking a minute to add a new shirt to your cart on amazon.

and while you're at it, set up a rummage sale of your own if you can, even in favor of listing it online. there's people in your community who will take a weekend to check it out, and those people are often in need of cheaper options for things like clothes, shoes, kitchenware, etc.

and please for the love of god if am item is still in working condition, use it as long as possible, or give it/sell it away if you must. do not throw away perfectly good items.

buying second hand saves the earth

134 notes - Posted May 2, 2022

#4

See the full post

135 notes - Posted April 4, 2022

#3

the greendale 7 deadly sins

I did these based on the characters' weak points if u know what I mean?

britta- pride

- she is confident in herself without reason. at the beginning of the show, she seems confident and smart. Later, we find out about her failed activism, her inability to back up her statements, and her shaky relationship with her parents. Not to mention the whole therapist situation.

troy- envy

- it's discussed in the show that troy and abed spend too much time together. they've mentioned how much his identity was tied to abed. he wanted to be like abed, spend a lot of time with him, live with him. he wanted abed to know he was out there somewhere and look for him! he had envy knowing that if he met abed, he would have been so much different in his high school years.

abed- gluttony

- not in the sense that most media portrays gluttony, but it's also depicted as lack of self restraint. Abed often has to learn when he's going too far such as hiring celebrity lookalikes. Frankie ends up teaching him to rely on things other than TV, like he did in the past.

jeff- sloth

- this one is self explanatory I think. Jeff does everything he can to do less work both as a student and as a teacher, even as a friend. he would only break into a light jog!

annie- lust

- as much as I hate to say it, annie did spend a lot of the time wanting a relationship with Jeff. though even even admitted it wasn't even jeff that she wanted, I was just the idea of love. but even at times when she isn't going after Jeff, she's thinking about romance in the future, like her missing lover tapes. she's very anxious about her future in this sense.

shirley- wrath

- shirley has an entire backstorys worth of anger issues. she started as stabbing kids with Foosball sticks, to trashing slaters office in the name of Jeff. now, she takes out her anger on more organized matters such as any of the schoolwide games, or various heists the group does. she definelty expresses her wrath healthier than she did in the past, but it's still very intense compared to her usual self

pierce- greed

- he wants everything. he wanted the handshake, he wanted Shirley's sandwiches, and most of all he wanted constant inclusion. But none of it was things he deserved, given how he treated his friends. And if he didn't get it, he forced his way into it (with money usually)

feel free to add on your opinions :)

159 notes - Posted March 31, 2022

#2

active member of the adhd symptom fandom

227 notes - Posted February 12, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

hc that every human character matt berry has played is just lazlo pretending to be human. the grifting professor in community? that's just lazlo having a grand old time!

974 notes - Posted September 5, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

Lynn 42 and trigger warning for eds

I saw she had the door open slightly but I didn’t know if she was ready for me so I waited outside. I heard her say hey and I cracked the door open slightly more and asked if she was talking to me or if she was on the phone. She laughed and said she was talking to me and I could come in. I sat down and she asked how I was doing, and I said I was OK and how was she. She said she was also OK but I could tell that her shoulder is bothering her so I asked how her shoulder is. She said that she had had physical therapy that morning and her shoulder was actually really bothering her but she had just put a bunch of essential oil’s on which really help, and she took an Aleve so she was thinking it would be starting to ease up. She laughed and said the essential oil’s are probably a bit strong and I laughed and said I was used to organic natural kinds of smells so definitely didn’t bother me. She said lemongrass was really good for inflammation and then it really does help. She said that if I see her looking uncomfortable or trying to adjust to know that it has nothing to do with me. I told him that I was sorry that her shoulder is still bothering her. She said she was surprised by how strong the little physical therapist is because she’s so tiny. I said I guessed with enough practice anyway I could get good at it and she said yeah the girl really gets down in there and pulls those muscles.

She asked how my week and weekend have been and I said I brought a list but would try to go through it quickly so that I don’t waste a bunch of time rambling. She smiled and we both knew what I meant LOL. I started off by asking her mom if I could ask her something and said that she didn’t have to answer if she didn’t want to. She said that I know her and there’s a good chance she’ll answer it so go for it. I said you know how me and amanda both have mommy problems and I was referred to it as just being mommy problems and then it’s sort of just this general sense of always wishing you could be adopted by some loving mother figure and feeling really sad when positive mommy and her actions take place in front of you, and I asked her if she had had those mommy problems. She paused and said let me think about it for a second and then eventually said she thinks that our experiences were very different, and that she thinks when she was my age she was a lot more angry than she was sad. She said her mother was severely bipolar and the mania had started when she was in college. Growing up she always knew her mom is being sick and had thought that that was just normal so she didn’t really know that anything was wrong because she didn’t know that her mom is bipolar and depressed, she just knew that her mom was always sleeping. She said that there were definitely times in her adulthood though where she had those thoughts of wishing that she could have had her mom there to help pick out clothing for her daughters or in times when she felt really overwhelmed by her kids remembering wishing that she should call them and say what the heck do I do with them or thanks for dealing with me when I was a hormonal crazy teenager. She said she remembered picking up the phone and wishing she could call her mom for support but being angry that she couldn’t because she was really sick and that she didn’t realize she was sick until graduate school really when she started to realize that her mom was definitely bipolar and not just sleepy. So, she said it was different but she didn’t understand what I was saying. She said she hope that answered my question and I said it did, and that she didn’t have money problems quite like me and Amanda or Shannon do. I told her that the client had asked me that and ask if it gets better. Lynn said that she really thinks it does get better and that something that also helped as a protective factor for her was that she made it a point to grow relationships with alder positive women in her life and that even today she has a lot of positive older female influences in her life. She says that she has reminded her self before that having the mom she did made her a better mom because she did have to learn everything on her own and that also she might not have the relationship she does now with people if she hadn’t had to seek them out because of her mom. I said that makes sense and I told her that it is getting better and it’s definitely better than it was and then I had seen the acupuncturist this past weekend and had told him about the mommy issue event I would get to you at the bottom of my list, and that Chad had said my mom was really messed up and that you just can’t fix everybody, to which Lynn agreed. I told her about how chatted pointed out that I do things like standing up for myself to my parents and I usually tell my parents how it is which is a way that I’ve also grown over the years and is probably something that helps me to not ruminate because I’m actually doing something about it although that doesn’t always feel good. Which Lynn agreed. And then I continued with my list.

I started to tear up and I’m not even sure why at this point but I explained how my boss is leaving work August 10 and it’s for real and it is stressful but I just keep avoiding it even though I shouldn’t but it’s change and I don’t like change and I don’t really know what text fact at this point and it’s stressing me out but it is what it is. And then I asked her if she knew what ARFID is, which she did not, so I explained it. I told her about my new kid who has it and then I lost it and started crying explaining how the mom said that she had never forced her kid to eat things he couldn’t eat and how she just kept saying if you really love your kid you can see the panic in their eyes and you would never put them through that, and I continued crying while explaining how my mom and dad never did that for me and they for some reason never saw the panic and I didn’t care that I was panicking and they just let me go to bed hungry or let me eat dog food as if all of that was normal when it fucking wasn’t. And then I said how I have the one client who has the absolute perfect aunt and uncle and home she had brought up that when you love your kids you have to hug them and that maybe think about home my mom really didn’t hug me and how that mom and I were discussing attachment and using healthy forms of physical touch to develop attachment and how I said you know she’s not a baby anymore so it’s not exactly appropriate to always be picking her up and holding her, and the mom was like well yeah but there are times when she’s really upset or sad or I just kind of hold her and let her cry and rock her until she calms down and it just made me think about how long that’s what I’ve always Woman just makes me sad and then I cried some more explaining to the bone and the mommy scene which Lynn was like what the heck about the bottle and I was like look past that but how it triggered my mommy stuff because that was a literally the epitome me of what I’ve always wanted is just to feel like I could actually cry in front of my mom and have her just hold me and let me know that it’s going to be OK. And then I explained how I have that perfect client who discharged and how they had pointed out wanting to be content in their future and how I went on the shame loop of feeling like my clients are better off than I am and I’m crazy and that type of shame spiral. And then I started crying explaining how Wayne at church really pissed me off making the comment about did I get my husband straightened out and I had to explain that playing guitar at church isn’t a fucking performance and therefore I don’t feel like it’s my job to force him to come to church with me and then it got me thinking about how many people are judging me and even though nobody at my current church outside of Wayne has ever said anything with that would imply that they are judging me, there have been times in previous churches where people said stupid shit about not being on evenly yoked and the husband being the spiritual leader of the household and like that’s not my reality and it fucking sucks but I can’t do anything about it and it is what it is but so going to shame spiral how about how I’m not good enough wife and all of that. And then I said how I had a client who brought up knowing someone name Lynn whom had recently died of the same rare neurological disease my grandma had and then I burst into tears explaining how it just wasn’t fair because this lady Lynn didn’t have the mental health decline as a symptom of the disease but my grandma did and it wasn’t fair to have to see her change and fall apart like that, and I didn’t go into details because I was crying and so I moved on and said I was at the last thing which was the big mommy issue.

I told Lyn about how I was really excited about seeing dear Evan Hansen and that I was OK with going by myself to the show, which she was like yeah you’re from there and I was like well not exactly but close and she was like yeah but you’ve been to the city by yourself before and I was like no actually I haven’t but I’m certain that I could find my way around no problem, but that my husband was stressing out about it and wanted me to go with somebody and he convinced me to ask my mom to go with me. And that he had said you know Surely my mom would want to go with me for my birthday. So I told her that I was texting my mom back-and-forth and it was the evening and then I had texted my mom asking if she would want to go with me for my birthday to see the show, and then I burst into tears and I explained that my mom wasn’t busy because it was the evening and we had literally been texting the minute before me and that I waited a fucking hour and then finally texted her and was like it’s OK if you don’t want to go and she responded back immediately saying yeah I don’t really want to go and I explained how I just felt super disappointed and that it kind of just reminded me of all the other times when she’s been selfish and hasn’t wanted to do anything that I’ve wanted to do and hasn’t wanted to connect with me and do something that I really want and that the only thing she’s ever really asked to do with me is get my nails done and guess who fucking can’t get their nails done because they have been anxious their entire life and always bit them way too short. I told her that my husband and I had had a pretty good week and that he was actually supportive when I told them about my mom being disappointing that he had said he was sorry and was disappointed and my mom for not seeing how I need her and then I had responded that I don’t need her as Lynn always reminds me but that I want her and that still sucks. I explained that I haven’t been eating the greatest and that I just don’t want to be around my mom and and I want to go home and I’m just avoiding them even though I’m going in August and that it’s stupid but I find myself thinking about being anxious about going home and going to the beach with them and thinking they might say something about me being fat even though logically I know that I am 5 foot nine and 128 pounds which I explained that I haven’t been eating the greatest and that I just don’t want to be around my mom and and I want to go home and I’m just avoiding them even though I’m going in August and that it’s stupid but I find myself thinking about being anxious about going home and going to the beach with them and thinking they might say something about me being fat even though logically I know that I am 5 foot nine and 128 pounds which by the laws of science with me and then I physically cannot be fat but there still that anxiety of knowing that I was 14 pounds lighter in treatment and my parents thought that it looked good then and that I didn’t look too thin then. And then I said I don’t know I’m just stressed out and haven’t really had the greatest of weeks. And then I apologize for rambling so much and crying.

Lynn asked if There was any chance that my hormones are off and I knew what she meant and I said no and she said are you sure because I know you’re not on birth control and I said no we use the pull out method but I’m not pregnant. She said are you sure and I said no I honestly I don’t even think we had sex last month and I had my period like a week and a half ago to it she said it’s possible that I’m ovulating and that would mean my hormones are shifting now. Which I said maybe it’s just weird because this usually does not happen. I looked at the app after therapy and it looks like I will not be ovulating for another few days though so her theory was off, I am just a basket case today and maybe part of it is just not eating well and lately not getting good sleep. But she went with her theory of possibly ovulating and saying that my hormones maybe shifting in that maybe part of it, which I said maybe. I said that I just don’t want to be around my mom right now and she said sure, that’s protecting yourself. She said I want to pause them and tell me a little bit about how you’re not taking care of yourself. I told her that I know I haven’t been eating enough and I haven’t been drinking enough and that our scales battery died so I went out and bought a new scale which it really doesn’t matter but realistically I know that I can’t let myself get as sick as I wants was because there’s a shelflife for how long people will care and I’ve already used up Chris’s shelflife and my parents never had a shelflife so there’s literally no point in using The eating disorder to gain attention or connection with people, but that it’s like when I feel upset like this I just don’t even want to eat and I explained that there is this sort of almost euphoric kind of feeling or I’m just not thinking about the things that are really bothering me and I know that’s not healthy and I’m aware of it. Which she said yeah I am but it sounded like my husband was there for me and I said no not really not at the end that shelflife for an hour he was really caring in the beginning but then, but she interrupted me and said she meant the other day when I had told him how disappointed I was with my mom and I said oh yeah he was supportive with that. I explained how we don’t talk about mental health issues and that I could never in 1 million years imagine myself ever telling him if I’m not eating well or if I’m ever struggling with wanting to purge or something like that because it would send him into an absolute panic attack and he would lose his shit and probably leave me and that I don’t want to lose him because I really do love him and I know if I would ever get really sick and I really think he would leave me this time because based on our last fight he had said the comment about not knowing why had stayed or regretting staying in even though he tried to clear up the air on that there’s a part of me that knows he doesn’t want to go through that again. She asked me if I thought that part of everything bothering me might have to do with that previous fight and I said I’m sure it didn’t help. We talked briefly about the dear Evan Hansen show and I said how I was really disappointed I won't be able to see it because an individual ticket is like $500. She laughed and said she wouldn't pay that either and for that price I might as well see hamilton. Also I said I wished that I was rich, and told her about how yesterday I met a kid who I told was a therapist and he said wow you must be wealthy. She laughed and said that was cute and hat therapists don't make enough because insurance rates have never gone up with inflation, but they've been cut and she doesn't know why anyone goes into this field anymore. lol I was like I mean some of us are good people. I told her I'm only half joking but I'm banking on winning the Oreo contest. She asked what it was and I explained and she said she doesn't care for Oreos much but always likes the weird flavors and said I need to try the jelly donut one because it's delicious and tastes just like a jelly donut. She said her husband and kids love the regular Oreos. She asked what flavors I made up and honestly I lied and said I didn't know because I didn't want to say a stupid idea.

She asked me why I’m going home in August and I said well because the tickets have been paid, but at this point I just don’t want anything to do with my mom and I don’t want to be around her and I don’t want to go and see her and have to pretend like everything is fine when I’m actually just really disappointed in upset with her. She said I don’t have to go and I said well yeah the tickets have been paid for, and she said yeah but I’m sure we can come up with it a reason why you can’t go, you could literally call and say something with work came up and you could literally pay the $150 difference to change the flight and offer to come back with your husband in the fall when he has vacation days. She said being around my family is not healthy and I need to protect myself, and that it’s only healthy if I have something kind of support or back up with me there. I ignored that and said I would just feel really really guilty I’m making them cancel the tickets and cancel their plans and then I just feel like I’m being dramatic. I already quoted her response below so I’m not going to repeat it, but I started to cry again and she talked about why I’m not being dramatic and that I nearly died from an eating disorder and my family is not healthy and it’s OK to not want to be there. I said what bothers me more is that a week ago before my mom rejected going to the show with me, I was fine with going home. There’s always some anxiety over feeling like they will comment on my weight or make me feel fat, but that I think if the issue with the dear Evan Hansen tickets hadn’t come up I wouldn’t be as stressed and upset and avoidant of it because I was actually looking forward to it last week and I explained how I will get to see Amanda and then I’m excited for that. She pointed out that ultimately I need to really take care of myself and it’s OK to put myself first for a change and that it’s imperative that I put myself first. She also asked what I can do to take care of myself. I said I can go get lunch after session and then I stammered a bit and said I’m here and not quitting therapy. She laughed and said good. She said I need to take care of myself and physically if I want to really get better emotionally, and I said I know.

She said coming full circle it sounds like I’ve had a lot of really stressful triggers come up this week, and that I have been doing really well for a while as we were doing the EMDr and that she thinks we need to really pick back up with that next time. She asked me if I’ve seen wonder woman yet and I said no but my husband made me see planet of the apes and The new Spiderman over the weekend but that I actually hate movies and I kind of hate TV because I always end up getting overly involved with the storylines and really stressed out and anxious and I have to like physically remind myself it’s fine it’s just a movie there will be a good ending but it’s just not comfortable to feel things so fucking deeply it’s annoying. She said that she is on a feminist empowerment kick and that is my homework to go see it. I laughed and said that it is five dollar movie night at the theater tonight and music practice was canceled because if you BS so I can actually go tonight. She said she doesn’t care when I see it as long as I see it before next session. What sucks is she said she won’t be here all of next week, I don’t know where the hell she’s going but whatever she’s entitled to another vacation lol so we planned for the following week. I paid her, and I notice she put the wrong payment and then I told her and she laughed and said oh my God I probably charged the person before you wrong also. I laughed and said hopefully it’s not a big deal. And then I headed out.