Judy2

i'm a mess and i'm no angel i'm but an imposter pretending and worrying for a lifetime how i can make myself look the most innocent don't be fooled, it's all a game, all by design, carefully crafted what an actress i am

maybe it is justified though that i want these pictures to be seen they are my pictures after all they show me at my most vulnerable they show me at my strongest, at the peak success of a lifetime, as screwed-up as that is they're my pictures and i have a right to share them but still it's probably inappropriate and still, it saddens me every time i look at them and know i can't share them all, can't rub them in everybody's faces, from every angle every shot that still couldn't quite capture just how skinny i was imagine skinny, and i was just skinnier than any skinny you would think of i remember what it was like to have that body to meet every sight of my own legs and arms with surprise, at how unreal they were skinnier than any kind of skinny you'd normally imagine if the narcissism comes through now, i apologise like i said, i have no idea if or how harmful this expression is but it's the most honest reflection i can offer of my thoughts regarding this subject matter i think there's this implicit assumption that technically people are only allowed to talk about death (or suicide, for that matter) after it was too late. if they didn't do it, it couldn't have been close enough, they're exaggerating, they're overdoing it. it's been five years, i should suck it up, it couldn't have been that bad if i made it out alive, if i gained back all the weight on my own....yada yada yada. i know these thoughts, and i know they used to be a big trigger point that kept me going, kept me sick for longer, for months and months and years on end, disallowed me to even attempt recovery, disallowed me to dare and let go, to dare and stop hurting myself, to dare and live. these thoughts are a mess, they're not pretty, they're narcissistic. everything's wrong with me. i can only do it wrong, i'm always too much, always exaggerating. i don't care anymore. i'm so sick of holding back, sick of censoring myself. you want honesty? here you go. enjoy the mess, the chaos, enjoy all the selfishness and impurity of my thoughts. it wouldn't do any good pretending like it's not there anyway.

i feel a desire to share some old pictures. i feel this every year during this time, sometimes in the months inbetween as well, and it may not be the wisest thing to do, i don't know if this nostalgia is healthy, i don't know if i have the right to share these pictures, if this is harmful in any way ...but i feel the desire to share, and maybe this is the wrong place...if so, please let me know, and i'll delete, but i don't know where else i could share them. so these pictures are five years old, and i survived, i "got better" soon afterwards, but when i look at these pictures, my brain still goes she was beautiful maybe more beautiful than i'll ever be, moving forward ( - sadness arises.... desperation) i don't think i want to go back, back down there....but yes, i do still feel some nostalgia from time to time, looking at these images. i was sick back then, i was tired, i was dying hurting myself to the degree that i had to dissociate away, had to leave the body be for a second, to "let the body live", while i refused to identify with it any longer it's messy, it's complicated, it was intense existential impersonal but yeah, i feel like words aren't enough and i want to share these pictures with someone. not sure if it's harmful though. it feels heavy having them on my phone and knowing i'm the only one who's ever looked at most of them. i was pretty alone during these hours when i was, as it felt, at my most beautiful - hours which could have been my last. they aren't instagrammable. most of these shots are pretty ostensibly disordered, aren't the product of photo shoots, but disordered rituals and body checking ceremonies.

we had another group session to talk about dissociation and i came up with another definition of what dissociation is, which i find kind of interesting. so it's not dissociation when the self is still there and it still feels like thoughts, feelings, and sensory impressions are "mine" but during dissociation, the self is under so much pressure that it goes into hiding and pretends like it's not there anymore, such that thoughts, emotions and sensory perceptions/experience are no longer "mine" super interesting to think about and i've heard doctors say that some people's vision or auditory perceptions get imprecise and foggy, but for me it tends to be the opposite; i become hyper-aware of my thoughts and environment when i dissociate. although at the same time perception of pain goes down, so i would notice a bit late that i am biting my lips or cheek real hard, for example.

i've been on a bit of an emotional roller coaster today...just appreciating the ride for what it is now, i guess. had a difficult session with my therapist here at the clinic, and afterwards i had to go pick up an ice pack. then i went back to talk to her again and she gave me some ammonium (ammonia?) to smell and we talked through a plants and flowers alphabet. and she made me do an exercise where i had to list objects of different colours in the room. then i went for my walk through the woods, mostly pacing and without a podcast this time, and just now i wrote some random list of nice smells, flavours, physical and visual sensations. and then another list of relaxing activities like swimming or reading. usually i am of the opinion that this isn't for me, but i guess it wasn't so bad this time. even though it seems nonsensical to go smell some ammonium when really i want to hurt and punish myself. functional coping doesn't express the emotion in quite the same way. but maybe now i can say it was almost fun, having allowed myself to feel through all of that? i'm not sure...

@Ramanujanevidently, i am not qualified to answer that yet;)

Der Weg in die Unschuld, ins Unerschaffene, zu Gott führt nicht zurück, sondern vorwärts, nicht zum Wolf oder Kind, sondern immer weiter in die Schuld, immer tiefer in die Menschwerdung hinein.

"Zurück führt überhaupt kein Weg, nicht zum Wolf, noch zum Kind. Am Anfang der Dinge ist nicht Unschuld und Einfalt; alles Erschaffene, auch das scheinbar Einfachste, ist schon schuldig, ist schon vielspältig, ist in den schmutzigen Strom des Werdens geworfen und kann nie mehr, nie mehr stromaufwärts schwimmen. Der Weg in die Unschuld, ins Unerschaffene, zu Gott führt nicht zurück, sondern vorwärts, nicht zum Wolf oder Kind, sondern immer weiter in die Schuld, immer tiefer in die Menschwerdung hinein. (...) Statt deine Welt zu verengern, deine Seele zu vereinfachen, wirst du immer mehr Welt, wirst schließlich die ganze Welt in deine schmerzlich erweiterte Seele aufnehmen müssen, um vielleicht einmal zum Ende, zur Ruhe zu kommen. (...) Jede Geburt bedeutet Trennung vom All, bedeutet Umgrenzung, Absonderung von Gott, leidvolle Neuwerdung. Rückkehr ins All, Aufhebung der leidvollen Individuation, Gottwerden bedeutet: seine Seele so erweitert haben, dass sie das All wieder zu umfassen vermag." - Hermann Hesse, Der Steppenwolf

@Grateful Dead i noticed that, too. might explain why i find this so difficult. making decisions is THE WORST.

@Rishabh Rcongrats:) sounds like you did a good job!

@Davinothat sounds great! yeah, i should definitely also schedule another appointment with my professor.

@kbonethank you:) and i guess i can see where you're coming from:)

@UnbornTaookay i will check that out:) thank you!

@kboneidk...i remember having a lot of fun during a seminar a few years ago where i learned how to prepare more engaging presentations. plus individual slides are easier to shove around and my psychological blockages aren't as intense this way. if i take too many notes on paper, i'll force myself to copy those word by word later on and waste a lot of time doing that. been there...

So i figured i'll prepare a power point presentation with the goal of giving a 40 minute introductory talk to my mum. That way, I'll have to put things in a comprehensive order and if I record and then transcribe the talk, I'll probably get a good 20 pages out of that and that'll be a good foundation to work with. Then I can add in some more quotes from secondary sources as I move along. ....something like that. thank you:) i'll do that, too. unfortunately, yes. i am working on that...

@kboneI've already got about 200 pages of notes (all very incoherent though) and need to hand in a maximum of 50 in the end. The major difficulty lies in organising it all, also because the secondary literature includes a mixture of "big-picture" insights, as well as some very specific "small-picture" level type of information and interpretations. Somehow that's very confusing to me because I don't know how to prioritise these things/if I should just select things at random. Also, editing a 200 page-long document is extremely difficult because my memory is not sufficient to remember all the tiny bits I could potentially include or move around. That also makes it difficult to temporarily delete stuff because it will probably get lost forever, even though it's useful (even juicy/brilliant - stuff that will look good if it makes it into the final version) information. I tried to work around that by having a "discarded" file, but that file itself is probably a 100 pages long and too much to memorise, so I don't have a good overview and lose sight of all the information I could potentially include....so it becomes difficult to decide where to include it, if my memory is too limited to look at all the information all at once.

@kbonethank you so much:) i'll take some time to keep trying and come back if i run into any more problems.

i'm really trying but neither of these strategies seem to work

i paused the project for a couple of weeks, but am trying to get back into it again and could use some advice to help me trouble-shoot as i identify all of the problems i am having during the process....which is why i am turning to this thread again. the amount of notes i am facing again is completely overwhelming and i'm not sure how to approach this now. would you say it's best to work my way down, i.e. take the 200 pages and start cutting things out? or should i start a completely new document and write things from scratch, based on what i remember? and then select the best quotes, essentially in order to "decorate" my own summaries? i've tried both strategies before and given up on both of them as things got too overwhelming... so i'm really not sure which approach is going to be worth another try.

like, maybe i do want other people, but i want people who just 'get me'. who know exactly what i need and how to interact with me. how to talk to me, comfort me, and take care of me. talking in extremes again: someone who knows me better than i know myself, who knows what i need more than i would know myself. basically someone who can read my mind, decipher every emotion, ... and so on.

paradoxically, after a long day of stress, overstimultion, being surrounded by too many human beings, and missing my peace and quiet (along with a good dose of social isolation...) ...i also feel re-emerge this desire to be held, cuddled, squeezed. haven't really felt that in months.

@meta_male ok:)

continuing today's psychoanalysis and putting things together... ... again: apparently, you just can't have it right with me. i want people to tell me what to do and take zero responsibility for myself. i want to stop existing as a real entity, have someone or something else reabsorb me, and explain to me what to do with myself, because i've got no clue. yet, i feel so hurt and threatened by their mere presence (maybe like nothing they offer is good enough for me?) i want to be CHOKED, because i feel so cold on my own, but then i quickly start complaining about the heat. i know i don't do well in isolation - but i seem to hate company. (..."i hate you - don't leave me.")

@meta_male it's a little bit concerning to me that it's always when i'm being explicitly toxic or sharing about dysfunctional patterns that people start complimenting me on my authenticity

...admittedly, it's also quite an immature (though desperate) way of saying "hey, look, i am hurting in this environment" i could also just say that with words, without writing it down on my skin. it'd be less impressive, but perhaps more functional long-term.