Judy2

maybe it is wrong that i am sharing so much of myself, my psyche, my deepest emotions online.

acknowledging what's difficult/challenging: i feel as though i am too much i feel guilty and embarrassed for having expressed too much of myself on here (my emotions, contemplations, struggles) i feel as though some of you guys are judging me because i'm still struggling while in recovery. maybe this feels bad because i fear that i'm doing it wrong, or i feel misunderstood, or i feel as though you guys don't believe me that i'm really trying to do better atm. i feel worried that people may think i'm too much when i have so many emotions to share all the time. maybe it's wrong to share all of this publicly...not sure. acknowledging what's good, positive, what i am grateful for: my mood is alright this morning (edit: it's good. i feel positive, hopeful, safe, and good and comfortable in my own skin...) i had an enjoyable session at the gym and it felt as though i had more energy than on Wednesday it is valid that i want to look good and feel good in my body i am hoping to be productive and make progress with my thesis today dad and i plan on going cycling by a riverside this evening, and if it's anything like last evening's ride in the cool night air, it'll be quite nice:) i finally got the ratio right and really enjoyed my shake this morning

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@Schizophonia please don't feel obligated to respond to everything i wrote today:) i wrote most of that just because it came up and not to you in particular...and it's not your responsibility to help me deal with all this. i myself am getting a bit of a headache now cause all this was quite a lot to ponder.

idk it's like when i'm fully here and not engaging in any form of dissociation, that's when people and life and conflict can really get at me. and the other part is that i think i uncovered a bit of an attachment paradox just now. that i desperately want to be saved but for that i need to get close to people and that in itself feels unsafe so i preferred saving myself and recovering without help when i was in that situation, but then i still felt unwell after that. but you're right, technically it doesn't even make sense to say any of this because there's no actual danger. there's just a lot of perceived danger in life and in social interaction. emotional vulnerability, i suppose.

expressing that i feel weak and that i want to be protected and loved and taken care of. it also didn't work in other regards, for example the part where i'm able to fully participate in life.

this makes me confused because i am always fundamentally confused about whether i can be that good self or if i'm doomed to be the bad self that i fear i am deep down. (borderline...and maybe some vulnerable narcissistic traits, i was told.) my soul is probably just as conflicted as me, cause i am my soul. and even if it's disembodied, it is carrying out the exact same strugges. the exact same desperation to achieve perfection and purity, the unwillingness to tolerate contrast. so there's not really much resolution to be found in thinking of this as non-physical, disembodied energy...because already, the theme of wanting to be weak and wanting to be saved has always gone far beyond physical appearance. ...but i re-read the task and it didn't ask if my soul was good, it said my soul is safe, good enough, and the inner goddess that i want it to be and that i sometimes feel it can be. so maybe i'll just have to take that as a given and feel into it from there, and note down the associations that arise.

i feel angry at the world and the people who tell me to love myself and that i can only save myself, but when i do save myself it's also wrong because it's actually okay to want to be saved, but when i wanted to be saved and did a pretty good job putting myself in a position where i needed saving, no one was there and no one saw me. and then i hear 5 years later that i would have been saved, but i wasn't, and so maybe it was just stupid of me that i recovered all on my own. but really i hate people and i don't like anyone being too close to me anyway so it's not like i would have enjoyed being saved because that itself would have felt too vulnerable and unsafe...which is why i moved halfway across the country and away from everyone i knew, because i knew they'd only make me feel triggered and unsafe...but then even when i recovered i kept feeling unsafe and like i want someone to save me. ...or in other words, i'm weird, and there's some serious attachment trauma causing me to feel so conflicted, and that's a deeper underlying thing that is probably persistent in my psyche even beyond the realm of the ed. @Schizophonia not angry at you:) just trying to understand/feel through the emotions.

it feels wrong. why do i call it recovery from an eating disorder if it's not ill, if it is in fact the cultural norm for a woman to care about a certain beauty standard? and if it is in fact socially accepted as essentially feminine to put on a performance of weakness, to play victim, to depend on someone to save me? isn't it stupid of me to start loving myself, if i should in fact keep waiting until someone loves me because i'm so good at hating myself? i was very good at that. but when i do that, people keep telling me how i got it wrong. yet, when i try to do it differently, it's also wrong. this is difficult to deal with, psychologically.

acknowledging what's challenging/difficult: triggering thoughts about the ed and everything related to it - i mean it's also good to confront these emotions, but it's still challenging. part of me feels ugly and bad about myself. maybe when i think about how profound and "smart" the ed is, and i feel like i'm stupid and ugly for being the character who let go of embodying that and can now only theorise the profundity while looking ugly and being too stupid to engage in those behaviours...""".... like i said, it's challenging to confront all this. i feel ugly. i feel as though i'd be more beautiful and everything that is good about me would be more beautiful if i wasn't so stupid as to choose recovery. (this is where the split gets so intense that i project my disdain onto the bottom half of this list and tell myself "all those gratitudes are annulled by the fact that you're so ugly and bad now"....and i don't even feel that ugly today, but energetically it's still a thing...ugh... it's an odd thing, but recovery and health have been associated with guilt for a long time, and this keeps popping up sometimes. it hurts to be dealing with this. i feel guilt and like maybe i am doing something bad by trying to be healthy and nice to myself. i feel as though it might be bad of me to no longer hate myself and hurt myself. maybe people like me better and find me more beautiful when i'm mistreating myself. maybe i shouldn't have stopped doing that and it's bad of me that i try to heal and be healthy. maybe by doing that, i'm ruining any possibility of me ever being loved, or accepted, or good enough, or beautiful....ouch [feels like this supersedes what would be appropriate to write in a "gratitude journal"...] ...why am i so stupid as to "confront all these thoughts and feelings" when maybe i could just accept the beauty of how it works when one lives as an overtly vulnerable, frail, fragile self? i feel stupid for being too lazy to keep hating myself. it feels bad to choose life, and health, and recovery. i'm really stupid for doing that. gratitudes: i like the current length of my hair this afternoon i noticed that i was procrastinating, noticed that it didn't feel good, and stopped myself made some progress with my thesis after all:) feeling inspired to write down a schedule for myself again to keep track of daily routines:) my triceps feels different because i trained it yesterday this evening i spontaneously went cycling around town, in the dark, with my hair down. i felt the cool wind in my hair and on my skin. it felt nice. [it's hard right now to resist the very familiar thought that all of these don't count because i'm ugly and bad and not good enough...] [it hurts that i am kind of happy, i kind of feel good, i felt happy when cycling, but i also feel an inner conflict. ouch.]

@Schizophonia okay i do feel a little triggered. but it's kind of my own fault and i don't know if there's anything we can do about it. i don't want to live like that anymore, but it hurts to be reminded that it worked. it worked better than anything else, anything i could say with words now. and still, in those moments no one was there and i had to save myself. it hurts to think that maybe i should have just waited longer and then someone would have come around to help me. in my experience, that never happened and i had to let go of it all by myself. although i suppose there's the additional aspect that i have disorganised attachment so either i feel as though i depend on people saving me but never fully accept help, or i run from it and feel too vulnerable to let others help me.

@Schizophoniait's okay:) thank you

@Schizophonia ... idk. i have many thoughts on this. it's okay though.

when i'm underweight or healthy? this is the part that tends to confuse (and trigger) me.

"Imagine that you are a soul without a physical body. So you don't have any access to a body to determine whether you are safe, good enough, or a goddess. Begin to imagine how you would connect with a sense of safety, being good enough, and your inner goddess, without having a physical body as a reference point. (Dont try and figure this out with the mind, just allow yourself to be playful and feel into it." (credit and a big thank you to @Wilhelm44 :)) first of all, i feel a bit stupid for never having asked this question before. i'll take some time to feel into this and observe what comes up:) also...i've been wanting to mention here that this past week, i've heard of at least two women on YouTube who want to "get in shape" for their wedding. now, this is not uncommon; it's very much socially accepted...but it also felt a bit odd to me, hearing it like that. i understand the intention of wanting to look your best for your wedding, i'll probably start thinking in similar lines before my own wedding...but there's also something odd about it, although i currently can't find the right words to describe it.

@Schizophoniaalways:)

again, this is random...but every now and then, when i think about getting pregnant and having children, i have this feeling that i might get twins. would love to, it feels a bit fated, even though i can't really explain it....i'm very curious to find out and am so looking forward to experiencing pregnancy and motherhood ♡

@UnbornTao @Carl-Richardok:) thank you

i slept well good body image this morning i feel comfortable in my body; my belly is doing well. feeling motivated to keep working on my thesis today:) no appointments today so i am free to go about things in a slow, relaxed pace. i really appreciate this and this has been very much needed.

pushed past the overwhelm and resistance and worked on my thesis for a few hours this evening:) i'll keep it up tomorrow. body image is still pretty okay/good this evening:) i am hoping that i'll keep making progress with my thesis tomorrow:) as exhausted as i was after my workout this morning, i think it had a pretty decent effect on my entire body. my arms and legs feel good. also, my belly is doing fine/better than last week - i'm very glad about that.

feeling a bit of tension, self-hatred, insecurity....pressure

@Carl-Richard @UnbornTaonow i feel a bit guilty?.. or like i did something wrong. like maybe you're mad at me because i'm not doing this right.

acknowledging a painful emotion: dad said something that invalidated my perception that the noises he makes in this household are uncomfortable. it felt like a sting for a second and triggered an urge to self-harm because he wouldn't believe me that this really is uncomfortable and painful to me. i find it unfair of him that he talks as though this is nothing, as though he knows that i am the one who is being delusional here, as though i am the problem and i'm delusional for being sensitive to sounds. this is painful, it really hurts me that he doesn't want to understand this. i am not going to cut myself, but this is the type of situation that really makes me want to do it. his resistance to acknowledging my sensitivity also makes me want to make it a matter of principle, and his unwillingness to be careful to my sensitivity makes me feel extra-triggered and hurt, independent of the actual noise level. - wrote him an email to say that my emotions are real for me, and that i feel hurt when he tells me otherwise. i have a feeling that gaslighting has led me to develop quite dysfunctional patterns, so maybe it's important to point it out and correct it every time it happens. and to say "no matter what you tell me, i know that my emotions are real. and i can stand by this without needing to hurt myself to show it." (i think? i don't know) i feel stressed. how am i supposed to focus on my thesis when i have such big emotional issues to handle all day?? *stressed out.

this is random but i've been thinking that maybe i'd like to train for a half-marathon, or at least a 10km run. this is the kind of thing you gotta do when you're still young, and i'd like to be able to say that i did this at least once in my life. i'm also curious to see how far i can push my body. in a loving sort of way, to gain some confidence and see what amazing things my body can accomplish if i let it. (saying this after i couldn't do my cardio after strength training today because i was too exhausted lol. i guess i'd have to train cardio on separate days for this....so i'll probably have to wait until after the thesis...otherwise, everything's a bit too much atm. but it's nice to have that goal in mind, and to slowly work my way towards it.)