Judy2

there's some anxiety and a sense of unsafety, for sure. there always is when i'm in a new, unknown environment. but i'm getting along well with the hosts and trying my best to make this a good experience....exploring the new cities and everything. it's tempting for me to restrict when things are like this, but i also know it's not good for me and it usually backfires later - so despite the anxiety, i'm trying to be a bit rigorous about feeding myself well and regularly. i told myself what to meal-prep in advance, so that i don't have to overthink it now that the emotions are kicking in unpredictably. breakfast and lunch for tomorrow are sorted...after work i may try to find a gym, and then i can figure out dinner when i get home. ....so i can go to sleep with a good feeling, overall, and things may be well. when i am calm, sometimes i tell myself i love myself...weird. maybe i do this to reinforce or underline the calmness, which is always such a rare experience for me.

Internship Craze - Day Zero some counsellor a few months ago told me i hadn't done enough placements for my cv yet (i hadn't done a single one at that point), so somehow i ended up here, aiming to do a six week streak of three two-week placements in a row. this afternoon, i got to the station and drove to the big city next to the smaller city where i'll be tackling placement number one starting tomorrow. by the time i arrived, my apathy from the hours prior had subsided (i had been stuck in freeze mode being barely responsive)....felt some excitement when driving into the city, and listened to music as i took the tram to get to my accommodation. now i'm staying in one of my parents' friend's attic. ate some tofu and i'm HOPING to feel safe and stabilise here soon.

i'm hurting a bit and feeling bad because of how destabilising the weeks since christmas have been for me. i don't like how the unstable environment has made my eating and meal structure equally unstable, and has been harmful to my psyche and body....don't know if it will get any easier from here, but i'm hoping that my accommodations during the two work placements this month will provide enough safety to help me get back on track in terms of routines and stability. hard to think of that right now, cause i'm despairing a little.

this view and emotion is not permanent. it'll keep on shifting.

yeah, i've also had bad experiences with therapists but know it'd be similarly harmful to throw out the concept of therapy entirely....just need to find the right one. clarity comes and goes. "embrace uncertainty" - maybe that could be your new mantra? what is true to you, regardless of whether there is certainty or uncertainty in the moment? what grounds you?

i think everybody's moved on from Tinder and dating apps in general for quite a while. it's also not really your fault that you're not doing well on there - that's pretty much built into the system. you can find videos explaining that on YouTube.

i don't know...i feel like i should have been more intentional with the journal. be clearer from the start on what i am actually trying to accomplish here.... instead, i'm just winging it and figuring it out as i go.

do you have a counsellor/therapist you can talk to if it gets all too much? i sometimes bring this up in cases like yours because i've personally experienced the confusing overlap between emotional catharsis and awakening, and i know it can be tough to navigate even if you feel you've finally seen through all your mental health issues. one doesn't exclude the other....you can still seek support regardless.

are you exhausted?

it can go both ways. for some people, excessively exercising can be a dysfunctional behaviour when trying to regulate themselves. that being said, for most people, it isn't, and most of us would benefit from exercising more. in that case, exercise is also nice because it offers both more immediate and long-term benefits for emotional regulation: it can be implemented as a routine for general stability, and as a spontaneous skill in moments of crisis (running around the block, doing a few squats, running up and down the stairs to deal with an immediate emotional trigger or stressful situation).

gluten isn't bad for you unless you have celiac disease....i think that's the scientific consensus these days, at least. if you have a good blender, you can make your own hazelnut butter:)

i like using stevia as a sugar substitute. the powdered version works well for baking because it has the same volume as sugar. - any thoughts on this?

i've been wanting to share this point here....that sometimes, i'm obviously anxious when things are bad, but i'm also - very oddly - quite anxious when things that i know are usually bad (or a source of major discomfort and self-rejection) are suddenly "good". good body image, most prominently. because there's so much pressure still, knowing that the not-having it is such a huge source of suffering and self-hatred....but when it's finally good, i'm feeling anxious, clingy, paranoid, wondering how long it will last, knowing it can only last for so long. i wonder if anybody on this planet relates to this - any of the women with an ed history who've gone through phases of perceiving themselves to look good while feeling miserable, or feeling better but looking worse and feeling bad about that....or some other combination of the above. i wonder if i'm alone with that. i guess that's why seeing my own underweight body last year was such a huge trigger. because it felt so good even though i know it's not a good life when i try to maintain it....and this is still such a huge source of sadness, sometimes. and i feel alone with that. i also feel quite stupid for not choosing it and not living it when i feel the trigger - cause living out that triggered fantasy would be the greatest way of honouring it - but then it also consumes my entire life, and my life will be only that, and nothing more. ....and this is all a bit too meta but while writing this, i got triggered by some stuff (the writing and some other things), paused, thought it's not worth doing something stupid over, got triggered some more, felt too many things, couldn't cool down, did one of the things that are not good for me in the long-term. but this is where online honesty has to end because i can't share that openly...not sure how to balance this with writing about the solutions i try to find. (it's also difficult to balance being honest and expressing an authentic part of me with sounding too much like i'm supporting or promoting harmful behaviours, or showing them off in some sort of fetishistic manner,..which is not my intention!)

body image today is comparatively good, anxiety moderate.

@Natasha Tori Maru that's really nice to hear, thank you♡

i don't know how, but i'm suddenly feeling good this evening? still a little anxious, and the anxiety will keep coming...but i'm also feeling a bit of enthusiasm or something? or maybe relief because i got some things sorted for the weeks to come, and now there's a bit more space for the excitement to shine through (which i didn't even know existed at this point, with all the stress to cover it up)...i'm leaving on sunday and starting my first placement on monday. anyway, i randomly polished my nails and now they're nice and shimmery. reflecting the light really nicely. i also played the piano earlier while wearing my white cardigan with the black details on the sleeves. this put me into a bit of a poetic mood for a few seconds, as it had before, when it made me think how, as in life, melodies on the piano are played by combining black and white keys. fittingly, i also bought that cardigan about a year ago when i was in hospital and on my last day, i was sat there in that sweater with everybody, playing chess.... on a black and white board. what a vibe. people like to say "it's not black and white". well, it is. it's black AND white...and also red. and yellow. and green. and blue. and violet. and on and on. with a bit of glitter, too. i used to enjoy saying that as a little girl (the glitter part was really important).

@Natasha Tori Maru thank you for sharing:)

i keep thinking about - and sometimes stressing about - my career prospects. my latest idea is that i might want to study nutrition, but then i started stressing about how complicated it will be to apply, etc. idk if it's okay to stop thinking about something once i start stressing about it. that seems like a recipe for procrastination... but maybe it's enough for today and i can continue tomorrow.

i think it's okay to be frustrated at this for some time....but after a while it can flip and even partial love is seen as Love? so you can start to appreciate the beauty of gestures that you recognise as "immature" or "temporary"in their development, too. for example, if you watch a movie that's very stage blue and it celebrates forms of love that are a bit limited and conservative....once you get to the other stages and watch that movie again, it can be disheartening. but then you can also reach a point where you look back and appreciate the love and beauty and see that it "counts" regardless.

@Eskilon yes i've thought about this before. i don't have the perfect answer but i guess if you're wise and open-minded, this conflict is resolved (at least partially) with age and life-experience (?).

@PsychedelicEagle okay thank you for explaining.

i agree on the first one, but the second point i'm still figuring out tbh:)

okay:) just out of curiosity, are you vegetarian or vegan? do you have any implicit guidelines when selecting your meals, e.g. by focussing on whole foods or cutting out particular food groups?

i don't know....personally, i don't like eating late at night, either. from what i've seen online and discussed with my dietitian, eating in the morning isn't a bad idea because it counteracts the natural cortisol response after waking up. but nutrition is always so confusing because there are so many conflicting messages out there and even nutritionists keep contradicting each other. so who knows....

... feels so much better now that i have a word for it.