Judy2

@Leo Gura well now it all makes sense why duolingo taught me to say that the butterfly is reading a book and the caterpillar is sad.

in this context i mean that certain emotions may be there (lingering underneath the surface) but not part of your awareness and thus contributing to your "state" despite not being felt explicitly. a shift in state can occur that would make the contributing emotions explicit and re-shape your present experience/where awareness 'goes' as a whole, or what is part of your scope of awareness. don't quote me on this, i'm just making it up as i go. sorry if it sounds very fuzzy...i'm just trying to point to stuff you can observe in your present experience and how it 'morphs' from moment to moment. maybe it would work better with an example.

good question:) i think it's like the totality of my physical and emotional sensations, my subjective experience (thoughts, feelings) and how they all interact with and influence one another, how they are basically entangled in some sort of matrix.

@HopefulMan that sounds really difficult. if you don't mind that i keep digging (let me know when it's too much)....you say "intense situations" - what demarcates a situation as such, aside from an emotion that may or may not be felt? for example, in such a situation, do you fidget a lot or feel yourself dissociating (most simply in the form of depersonalisation/derealisation, "feeling strange in your body", or like your self/ the 'doer' is not there anymore)? where are your thoughts going? again, the theory i was taught in this context is that internal pressure or a perceived crisis can be so intense that access to emotions is completely blocked, and the way to access them is to start by releasing and regulating tension. i don't know if this applies to your situation, but maybe you can check in and see if this feels accurate next time things seem intense. one way of checking is if physical stimuli (exercise, hot/cold water, very spicy or sour food) change your state at all. ....and something else that came to mind: can you give yourself some self-compassion throughout this? it might make a huge difference for your system to know that you're not blaming yourself for struggling at the moment, and it's okay that you are still working on figuring things out.

@Ramasta9 @Natasha Tori Maru hey:) i had to think of our discussion again this afternoon, particularly the timing of meals. i was wondering how you do/would handle things if you have a workday or some other thing impacting your meal timing. does that upset you at all? for example, i'm currently doing an internship and don't feel comfortable eating at work, so to make that fit my schedule, i have to eat before work at 7am and then after work at 3pm... which is not ideal for me, but i don't see how else i would make that work. do you mind it when you have to eat your meals outside your home, and in this case, would you just eat at work to stick to the timing, or adjust your timing to be able to eat at home? sorry if i'm being so meticulous about this topic:) i'm currently working on figuring out a new structure that works for me and try to hear inspiration from people who seem to have their relationship with food figured out:) btw i tried training fasted a few times and it went okay depending on how late i had my last meal the day before, and also depending on the intensity of the exercise.

@HopefulMan yes, i can relate to this problem of either not talking about things, or talking about them while being very detached and cut off from my emotions. i believe there can be a gradual learning curve with this, though. it helps to stop yourself once or twice a day, maybe close your eyes, breathe, and tell yourself that you'll stay with you and your emotions. if you can't share your emotions with others (yet), it's okay to focus on feeling on your own for now, or to find points of connection that feel more accessible and less serious or grandiose.

money can also be a trap:) "is everything a trap?" - no, but the tough part is it takes some discerning with any given thing, situation, or circumstance. saying that everything is a trap - that, too, is, unfortunately, a trap. you don't need to freak out over traps, just be conscious that some may be out there and even if you fall for one, you can get up again and keep going.

i'm sorry you had to go through that. you can keep trying with the psychedelics, although i don't have much input in that regard. what i would suggest though is that you can definitely supplement a psychedelic routine with a number of daily habits that can help you connect with yourself. journalling comes to mind....it might make you aware of some of the things that you didn't even think were there. if you feel a lot of tension in your body, you might not know that there are ways to down-regulate this tension that will then help you access the underlying emotions. these are gonna be more of the uncomfortable ones (guilt, shame, fear, hatred, anger, despair, hopelessness, grief...) but accessing them temporarily - knowing that they can't kill you and they will pass - can open the door to other emotions (joy, desire, excitement, happiness, gratitude, hope, love, ....) as well. speaking of which, i wouldn't necessarily give up on therapy entirely, especially if you can afford it/insurance can cover it for you. sometimes it simply takes looking into a different approach or finding the right practicioner. if you have ptsd as a result of the abuse, have you ever looked into dbt?

it's good to hear that you seem to be finding your way:) take care!

hi there:) things are a bit all over the place here at the moment, so i am partly distracting myself by asking this, but also trying to address at least one tiny piece of the puzzle. in the past two months, certain symptoms have gotten a lot worse for me as a result of increased interactions with my parents. i feel really bad that i am basically still so childish for letting them affect me this deeply - but they are one of my most prominent triggers to this day. most recently, i got triggered quite badly by them simply asking about my future plans and when i will get my degree... - and i have a feeling this lingering dependence on them, even if it is subtle, is also enhancing pressure at the moment. but i'm also stressed in and of itself trying to figure out my career and financial independence. i've shared this many times before, but for my anorexia recovery, a critical (life-saving) aspect was moving away, and then i stayed away for five years without visiting once, until last summer. during this time, we had a number of phone calls that resulted in similar bad reactions on my end, though. due to my current increase in difficult symptoms, i am wondering again if reducing contact with my parents is the only way for me to get better. i guess the alternative would be to radically improve our communication and my own stress tolerance during our interactions, but i don't even know if i want this... sometimes i don't even want to improve things with my parents - i just want to RUN. ...but they're also not bad enough for me to cut them out completely. i like comparing myself to my brother and, for reference, he seems to be okay when interacting with my parents, or at the very least he experiences less personal conflict when trying to navigate being close vs. needing space. so i guess my question is - is it healthy to reduce contact or is that the lazy/easy way out that actually bypasses any opportunities we'd have to improve together? is my unwillingness to give this a try just avoidance of the growth we could achieve together if we actually wanted to? i also keep wondering to what degree i am just weird and a horrible person that acts weird for no reason vs. my parents are toxic and it is only natural i turned out this way. or something inbetween - it's hard to tell how much of what i feel is justified vs. just toxic.

i am thinking that i could start something (blog, website, IG) that's very low-level for the time being. but then there's the pressure of actually finding a company/website/IG account name....how do i come up with something i won't end up hating in case the vision crystallises and becomes clearer/more ambitious in the future? right now, that's holding me back a bit from simply trying things out, because it seems like i have to know exactly where i'm going, and i don't.

hurting myself is how i win arguments. that's another one i can add to the list. along with the revenge-motives, this idea of balancing the scales when my needs are ridiculed or not taken seriously in a relationship. it's very childish, i know. like "oh look, i'm suddenly physically hurt, that must mean i'm right and you're wrong, and you should be kinder to me". very childish, kinda smart, but also very, very childish, simplistic, immature.

@Majed how do you know that would work? maybe temporarily, but what happens then?

it's kind of like being enlightened as a monk vs as a regular person having to handle financial attachments etc. you could argue that the monk has it easy because their life is set up in such a way as to discourage any sort of attachment they may have - so have they really mastered detachment, are they really enlightened? i think the same logic can be applied to suicide: it's easy to exist undefined, as God. existing as a form that needs to survive WHILE maintaining detachment from said survival, that's the challenge. so is living through the ugliness and corruption of survival while ultimately still looking back and going "oh, that still counted though. that was still a valid form of Love, no matter how small and contracted". all these spiritual ideas on and around suicide, if anything, are more a case in point for human attachment to survival. if you weren't attached to your experience (suffering vs no suffering), you would not care about being alive. you would not even notice whether or not you are alive, because yes, indeed, there is no difference.

oh my God, i'm really sorry to hear that! it's very strong and brave of you that you manage to see the Light and Goodness in such a traumatic event. i know i'd be fighting that perspective, and i can tell it takes a lot to be able to see the light in all the pain. i guess financial independence would be nice. i have a job, but not enough to cover all my expenses. if i could make enough to cover all my living costs on my own, they'd have less of a say about what i do with my life. working on that in the months to come. it's always funny because i feel so lost and helpless and want "the Universe" telling me what to do, but every time my parents try to get involved, it's like the worst thing that could happen. it's weird to crave guidance and then reject it when it comes from them. i guess this is just something i can't quite make sense of psychologically - and i'd like to make sense.

no thanks:)

@Ramasta9i guess that still doesn't point to how i should handle this specific situation, whether what you say is true or not. my best guess, regardless of that, is that there's probably, as usual, some kind of middle way to be found, i.e. "reduced contact" instead of "no contact" - but then that itself is a lot messier to navigate than the black-and-white solution.

who knows:)

true:)

@Hojo i have anxiety because i fear them getting too close, i think. to a pretty absurd degree, it seems. like they usually say and ask pretty innocent stuff but it makes me react in very disproportionate ways.

the confusing thing is that i would identify as a people pleaser in certain social contexts, but around my parents i seem to be almost the opposite. sometimes i give silent treatments and stuff, which i wouldn't do around other people. it feels like it would literally hurt me to be nice, friendly and forthcoming to them.

@theleelajoker yes you're right that i'm a bit of a black and white thinker, and i'm working on that. actually, now that you bring this up, sometimes in my posts i drift off too much and focus on all the things going wrong - haven't found the right format to share the things that are going well, or maybe that would feel awkward because who cares? with negativity, at least it's sort of justified that i reach out for help because i'm suffering. if i randomly start writing about what songs i played on the piano today, people might get confused:) i like your idea of treating my struggles as a series of small experiments. that certainly adds some nuance:)

the days keep getting rougher and the despair has been building up a bit. although yesterday, post-symptom, i told myself with surprising calm that one day i'll have this figured out, and i'll be just fine. then tonight - as my anxiety had quite reliably predicted - things escalated a little bit. eventually i just walked out the door, took my bike and cycled around the villages until it got dark. there was no anger - just a lot of sadness and despair. when the emotions got too strong - and heaven knows how i did this, because i usually don't manage - i started with that stupid alphabet skill, saying out loud fruits and then boy-names in alphabetical order. i stopped, thought again about my dire situation, felt more despair, cycled up a hill and eventually back home. then my mother said she wanted to talk to me and, again, i don't know how, but i actually pushed through, got that massage ball to run across my wrists and knead in my hands while talking to my parents. i had been thinking how much we hate each other all throughout my bike ride, how i should just never talk to them again, or maybe only on Christmas and birthdays....i had thought about how ugly i felt, too, and how sometimes i don't. ....but then they were actually trying hard to sound nice and understanding, so when i was having a tough time getting the words out and considered just leaving, i forced myself to stay and talk just a little bit....and now i just wanna rest and think about solutions tomorrow.

@Ramasta9 okay, that's interesting. good that you have figured out what works and what doesn't:)

@Ramasta9 okay that's good to know! thank you:)