Judy2

...trying to pick myself up and be a bit hopeful, here and there, but really i could use a therapist to support me - which i currently don't have, and things are still unresolved, complicated, scary. (living situation, weight situation, BA thesis,...) this is part of the update i never gave, but i got a new gym membership last Monday. apparently i've got nothing better to do in life and don't know what else to do with myself, so this is something to fill my days with. i'm also finally getting into strength training, which i've been wanting to do for years. ...i enjoy killing my legs on the stairmaster until they feel like lead - later on, they carry me with more ease. i enjoy trying some pull-ups with a little bit (- 66%) of support from below...that's something i find strangely (unexpectedly) pleasant and want to keep working on. and i noticed that the few exercises i'm doing for my core have already changed my default posture to be a lot more upright. but yeah...the general tone right now is desperation, and hopelessness. it's just that the gym is ONE HELL of a triggering place. (just like Zurich, where i visited my brother this weekend. i spent all day analysing body types and it seems like the ancient statues at the tops of some old buildings have the healthiest body fat percentage overall, which was the one reassuring element throughout the experience, the rest was pretty concerning. *of course my brain is not interested in registering the amount of overweight or healthy people, only comparing myself to the skinniest 10%). hundreds of bodies to look at and compare myself to. the amount of women there whose body weight is ostensibly too low is frightening...and it's absolutely triggering. this morning i weighed 48,4kg...which for me is a bmi of just about 18. probably getting my period back in a few weeks, which is something, i guess. i'm already feeling so chubby in the face, already way too fat again...maybe i'm already too much. which is odd, seeing that number now, knowing it can't be so if it's barely a healthy bmi and the doctors said i should get to a minimum of 21. then in some moments i notice i'm still quite skinny (note to self: i still have a thigh gap at this weight) and want to keep it that way (feels nice, having small legs and arms...being slim...others do, and no one calls them eating disordered for that), but feel very divided because i'd probably have to go back to very unhealthy, disordered levels of restriction and ed-behaviours to maintain a weight that is still quite low. but i want to look skinny! because i feel so, so, so small on the inside (emotion coming up: tears). i feel so small, and being a tiny woman (just small enough for it to be a noticeable feature, an "oh she's so much smaller than most women!") best reflects what i feel like on the inside...but restricting and counting calories and being hungry all the time isn't making me happy, either. isn't what i want in the long term. isn't what i would want for my own daughter, frankly (...emotion...). i guess i can still look good at bmi 21, if i work out. i see other women at bmi 21+ all the time who i think look good....but they're not me. they don't have that awful face that turns chubby and round and ugly unless i'm at least 2kg underweight. they've got the confidence to carry all that weight. myself, i certainly don't. i need to be skinnier than average, need to be unusually slim...because i've got nothing else! and i feel so small, i feel so tiny...i want people to see that - otherwise they NEVER believe me (tears...), never see how messed up and broken and scared and lost i am on the inside. ...so yeah, the thoughts are LOUD and i'm trying to hold against that, but i could totally use a therapist to help me deal with all of this. it's all too much and the thoughts are so loud...it's difficult to resist and ignore all of them. but i don't want to be going to the gym while starving myself - that sounds like one big hell of an experience, not very pleasant. i don't want any more weeks and months, or even days, trying to get satiated on 2kg of veg and walking around town either constipated or with diarrhea. it's just that i look in the mirror and, being barely at a healthy bmi range, i still can't decide if i look quite skinny or already too fat. because some women at the gym have it as their goal to be where i was coming from, to be super toned and lose their periods and restrict and stuff their stomachs with veg and aaaaah.... this is SO triggering...and i have to deal with it all on my own, no one knows or sees the struggle i'm going through...makes me sad. makes me desperate. not even my best friend understands...whenever i mention this topic to him, i only feel massively invalidated and the pressure to self-harm spikes when i feel misunderstood in everything that concerns this very, very important topic... very important. because it's literally about the image of myself that i show to the world. this is so difficult, it's such a struggle, no one knows this or sees this, i'm all on my own.

Hey @soos_mite_ah if you don't mind my commenting here... i've had a similar issue with my screen time for years. it got better when i took the focus off the screen time itself and onto the things i'll do instead. it sort of comes naturally when i've got other things to do or people to talk to that i spend significantly less time looking at my phone. sometimes it also helps to leave my phone in my room or at home, if i don't actually need it. just thought this might help:)

i feel so exhausted

why is my life so complicated, why do i have to feel so unsafe all the time? i can only do it wrong, all the time. i always have to be feeling bad about something, always have to be hating myself, always have to be tense and on the lookout for potential danger

i just want to be safe and i don't know how

i want to cry

i'm not safe. not anywhere.

i'm scared!

scared! anxious!

a quick note based on the little psychoanalytical expertise that i have, insights from this past week: i'm not the typical borderliner in that i rarely express anger. but around my parents, i tend to be the most narcissistic, apoplectic, rude, unfriendly, closed-off bitch. sometimes i don't like it when they're touching me. sometimes when they talk to me i don't reply, sometimes i urge them to "leave me alone!" what they can't see is that this stems from an intense anxiety that they might get too close to me, that they might do or say something that enters my system, my sensory aparatus, my body - without my personal consent, violently, irrevocably. it gets to me too quickly, too much. so i'm usually anxious (and by extension, angry) around them just by default, especially around times when drama and conflict is to be expected. i despise their advice, i hate it when they comment on my affairs, when they tell me what to do. which is so funny, because i've always wanted to be an adult around them...but maybe in truth i was just trying to get some space, some sense of autonomy...because now, as an adult, true responsibility scares me like hell (as i've already mentioned a million times before, but it's interesting in the context of me refusing, or even dreading, parental advice). playing the adult was just a trick i played on them and myself to be able to distance myself a little bit...but i have no f*ing idea how to be an actual adult, how to actually live and make sense of life and take care of myself....it's just that my system is screaming "away! run away!" whenever i'm near my parents. i don't know why i'm this messed up and evil. why i'm this complicated and ugly. being so conflicted about my own self-image doesn't make it any easier when i feel vulnerable around my parents. it only makes it worse, because already there is such conflicted emotion within myself, and they're intruding upon that and only making everything harder. ...i don't know... just wanted to summarise this insight. got a lot of "figuring out" to do in life, these weeks and months to come, i guess. things are very difficult and confusing. i don't even know whoi am or who i should be or what i want - and especially, if i should want the healthy path or the unhealthy one, or something inbetween...it's always especially complicated when i have to account for so many parts of myself, the one that wants emotional quick-fixes, the one that's a bit wiser, and the wiser one that gets desperate because even if i am trying to be wise, life is so complicated that it's jist not so easy and maybe it would be okay to keep a little bit of illness/dysfunction, because everybody does... so yeah it gets confusing and i got no clue what to do or where to go!

still feeling very, very lost still got nothing to hold onto no place, no person, not even myself i don't even know what to do with myself, who to be, if i should be underweight or at bmi 18 (a little skinny but healthy looking but probably not entirely healthy for me personally) or 21 (ugly and fat but able to eat whatever i want)... i don't know. ...overwhelmed. i want to cry. i don't know what to do, or where to go. tears are flooding my eyes...

...made it back to my flat, now i have mixed feelings. i have a very tidy room (almost too perfect and tidy), but noisy neighbours and lots and lots and lots of bad memories (as opposed to the good childhood memories attached to my parents' place). i'm a bit overwhelmed and still don't quite know what to do, still don't know where things are going/supposed to go. it's a lot. do i really want to stay here to write my thesis, or go some place else? ... got an appointment with my professor next week, so it makes sense to stay until then, and see what to do after that. oh well. Life is difficult, this place is difficult. so. many. challenges. oppressing environment.

...just got a lot going on and it's difficult enough figuring things out by myself - hence the silence. i've attempted to write things down and give a longer update several times, but so far i haven't managed to come up with a coherent version that covers everything. maybe that'll come later:)

i don't want to gain any more weight. i feel a lot more comfortable being lean.

i want someone to explain my situation to me and tell me what to do

i'm stupid, i hate myself, and i most definitely hate my parents.

i feel like i have a gigantic self-worth issue and i don't know how to fix that and i want to cut into my legs i feel overwhelmed with the situation. i don't feel good. i don't know where this is leading (supposed to lead) and i don't know if it will be alright....if everything is just gonna turn into one gigantic catastrophe.

i'm feeling pretty depressed. if i eat enough to get to a healthy weight again, soon i won't fit my clothes anymore, i'll feel too ashamed of myself to leave the house, talk to people, do things outside in the real world, go swimming... i hate myself, i hate my life. i love Life, but my life's always such a mess, there aren't any easy answers, it seems. i don't feel good.

i hate myself and this is all too much i feel so stupid for always doing the hardest bits all on my own, all by myself, without any support without anyone knowing or witnessing or realising what i'm doing

it's too much, i can't handle this, i don't know why i opted for doing all the most difficult things all at once and why i chose to take it all upon myself all at once, without any support...it's so much more than i can handle all on my own. i don't know why i'm like this, this is stupid

struggling. overwhelmed. ... just a thought, but maybe if there's no one and nothing to hold onto...i could just "fly". whatever that means. it's all quite a lot, i'm this close to hurting myself... i feel stupid for doing all the hard bits without psychological support, as usual. i don't know why i'm like this. it's all too much, i hate this.

i'm probably a really horrible person.... i'm sorry!

i hate my parents, i don't feel safe around them, i don't feel good...they're ruining everything and making all things beautiful so ugly and stressful. i wish they could just leave me alone, wish i could exist without them and live the best life ever. really, if it weren't for them, this would have been a perfect day.

meeting my brother's long-term girlfriend for the first time ever tonight, which should be lovely....but yeah, feelings are mixed because the situation in general is so stressful.

to top things off, we went on, took our bicycles and rode to a nearby stream to bathe. the landscape was beautiful, sublime. near-perfection, paradise. i probably haven't been this alive in years. maybe everything might be alright after all... still, there's a latent sense of conflict and anxiety. ... i hate my parents. by the end of the day, we still return to their house; their presence is ruining everything. i hate their noisiness, i don't feel safe, they're making me anxious, they're cutting right through me... leave me alone, please!