Judy2

@Jannes aren't you also part of a theatre group? i'd like to give something like that a go next year and imagine it could be fun.

apparently, some people take advantage of this phenomenon by using DnD as a therapeutic setting where players can explore new facets of their personalities and make different choices. i found the concept really interesting, but unfortunately never received the DnD therapist's contact info to ask more questions. anyway... i wanna be a fairy

thanks:) that's nice

you can watch animated videos for kids with familiar stories such as fairy tales. once you are more advanced, you can also read or listen to (audio) books that you have read/listened to before in your native language. stuff like Harry Potter, where you know the key words that are repeated a lot. with streaming-services, instead of watching Spanish original productions, you can choose series that have been synchronised in Spanish, +Spanish subtitles. this way, the audio quality is much better. i've done this before with French. imao, it is also worth investing some percentage of your study time into more technical grammar revisions. vocabulary is important, but grammar is the glue that holds the words together and creates meaning through structure.

i'm sad again. for exactly two and a half days, i thought i had figured it all out, but now i am so disappointed in myself i can't even lean into the stress and the hyperactivity, the "i can fix this! i'll do it ALL, watch me, i'll go to the gym and to the orthopaedist and i'll study and i'll look pretty and and and". it all seems pointless now, so i just want some time out, some time off from this incarnation, which is impossible to get as a human being. i feel unlovable, ashamed, and so alone. most social interactions i am a part of nowadays make me feel so un-seen, and they trigger so much emotion that i then have to deal with in isolation, and nobody knows a thing about it. i spent all weekend thinking about one stupid sentence i said at a lecture on Friday, and there are more examples of this.

I am very prone to worrying, too, but the title "worries about the past" got me thinking that the only way for this to make sense is if you are worried that the past could still determine your future. Is there a way for you to reframe and make sense of your past and to invent a narrative that is compatible with the future you wish to create for yourself? This could be what sets you free, ultimately:)

Since when have you been dealing with depression? What are the approaches that you have taken to cure yourself while sober? Have you understood the root causes of your depression? Psychedelics may help answer the third question, but remember that trips tend to have a harsh temporal limit. Meaningful shifts can happen during those hours, but then you will be back to dealing with the structures that exist in your daily life. So the impact of looking at what your everyday life consists in may be just as meaningful...think exercise, social life/friendships/relationships, meaningful pursuits in the workplace, and so on. For example, you cannot fix loneliness by sitting alone in your room with a bunch of LSD. Maybe the LSD will eventually tell you: "okay, we are done here, take your time to come down, and then go out and change something about how you live your life every day while sober." And that is not to say I am anti-psychedelics....but some specific issues need other solutions and tripping can be an escape from doing what really needs to be done. Your situation might be different, or it might be similar to what i describe here:)

...* the friend has now sent me a link to the university's counsellor lol. not what i wanted to achieve, but okay.

i have been reflecting a little in the past few days, and have also felt through some things....so i thought i would share some insights or try to put into words some of the shifts in awareness that i have experienced. *my nighttime dreams keep reflecting to me that i am still ashamed of my body weight, and, essentially, ashamed of having recovered from anorexia and being in a healthier, bigger body now. today was actually the first time that i acknowledged this properly, and maybe i am breaking the spell at least a little bit by writing about it. i keep thinking so much about external circumstances that are not quite right yet....but there also seems to be this big internal blockage, and it got me thinking today what potential i could unleash by acknowledging and overcoming this. as of now, i study psychology but have not told a single person in this city that i almost lost my life to an eating disorder, or that i was diagnosed with a personality disorder a few years later. it's tough for me to talk about it, for some reason. but maybe i could do good in the world by acknowledging what it took to survive these things...even though a part of me hates me for it, and for 'being healthy' now? i am still so focussed on not being enough, and having been at a bmi of 10.5 still seems like a much bigger achievement than the mental labour it took to let that go - even though i know what infinite degrees of courage it took. but i feel i have no right to talk about that anymore, since i am healthy now, and nobody who looks at me now would ever believe me that i once was underweight. in short, it is still a struggle to find a stable sense of self (outside of being the illest, thinnest, daintiest, weakest girl in the room) even after so many years. *i am in a sad mood. the past two weeks of lectures and seminars had me really stressed, since i am not quite content with where i am at in my life. it got me thinking about the following paradox: that i believe i am not enough....and so i am also being way too much at the same time, trying way too hard, ....instead of letting myself be. there is a certain elegance about Being that i miss in my life, and that i wish to express and embody more of. in more practical terms, i can tell that some of my friends at uni feel that i am way too ambitious and stressed - which is true, so i tried to do the mature thing and communicate to two of my closer friends why exactly i behave in this way....and this communication in itself made me a little sad or emotional, i don't know why. but i figured it is important to foster some authentic relationships, too... just as important as i believe it is to 'be productive' or 'make progress' - if not more. in the context of these two social dynamics, i also noticed that the core belief "i am annoying" keeps coming up, and i noticed it and held and felt myself throughout that. it had me thinking, though, because i tend to believe that the others are perfect and i am flawed... but they might also have their reasons for feeling annoyed, not understanding me, judging me... and again, that was just one more reason to seek an honest conversation and express truthfully what is really going on with me, and to give them a chance to connect with me on a different level... don't know if that makes sense, but it is part of what made me so emotional. i suppose i have noticed that i try to do too much on my own, i am alone with my own mind so often, i am so absorbed in it, even if i have a larger social circle nowadays... so that's not really healthy. i won't be happy if i rush through life at the cost of joyful presence, friendship, and authentic connection. *with the above in mind, i tried to be more conscious on my walk yesterday. i picked a thistle, plucked away its thorns and twirled it in my hands, brushed its soft petals across my cheeks and forehead... and i connected a little more with the present moment and also the love inside me. i know i am so stressed, constantly struggling, and the present moment is never good enough, i am never good enough....but i know how much love is inside me, how much good will, which is always trying to make things good. ...now i forgot the rest, but something to do with love. the above is just words, but it is all interconnected through presence...so this is all a little more profound when not seen in isolation:) *i have also been thinking a little more about my father, and that i hate him sometimes...but i also love him, and i would be devastated if he died. then i thought about why i like to think about people dying and why i kind of enjoy being sad about it...and it occurred to me that it is the permission to feel and be fully present with what is that i find appealing? i wouldn't have to hold myself together if something really bad happened, i'd be allowed to cry and scream and hyperventilate in front of everybody. maybe it's a relief to understand myself better in this regard now.

In your series on Conscious Politics, I found your position on gun regulation interesting, as I am European and biased in the opposite direction. Essentially, you talk about drastically reducing access to guns, but then you go on to reassure (American) listeners that their weapons will not be taken away completely and they may still use them to "defend themselves". This seemed to me like a cultural adaptation you may have repeated, instead of really thinking from scratch and asking if weapons are even necessary for the average citizen. It was just a half sentence and not an elaborate argument you made, but I found it striking when I listened to you.

you should ask them all at least a hundred times using different accounts, then cross-compare lol:)

Sundays are annoying. I've tried my best to make them more fun, and usually that works until I hit mid-afternoon and I feel bored and lonely again. Throughout the week, I am so stressed with appointments, but Sundays are just... blank. I've been on two walks, listened to a new podcast twice, done my laundry, studied, read, revised some French on Duolingo, embroidered, polished my nails, cleaned my kitchen, cooked lunch... and I feel empty. Had I set a time to meet some friends, I probably would have felt stressed and uncomfortable because of it - but I feel lonely as is and wish they would make time for me on the weekends. It's not for a lack of passion or interests that I am so bored. Things are just difficult to coordinate, and I can't be a cook, dietitian, cookbook author, language teacher, and psychology student all at once...so while I do have to decide on a few things at a time (because of conflicting schedules and the physical distances between appointments) ... somehow, between all this, Sunday afternoons are still so sad and empty. I could go to a café, and maybe I will next Sunday, but this would be another appointment to stress over.

i finally pushed myself to keep reading my French book, and it's almost quite romantic....except that it's set in the 1930s and the love interest is called "Hans Krüger"....so i can't quite take it seriously, especially when i practise reading aloud.

wives poisoning their husbands used to be a lot more common when divorce wasn't an option yet and women had minimal rights, i.e., there was no other escape if a marriage was abusive. same with infanticide (=mothers killing their own children), which used to be more common some 150 years ago due to social structures that condemned unmarried single mothers rather than supporting them. nowadays, when these things happen, it is likely (not always) due to pathologies of the individual. although, apparently, there are still a lot of women in prison who killed their abusers in self-defense and had to go to jail for it.

okay. i mean a certain degree of change (i.e., development) is to be expected.