Judy2

that seems so far away again. i am not happy. there is so much sensory overload with all the public transport i have to use almost every day, and i still hear so many noises in my flat, which shouldn't be that way, but it's messing with my sleep and generally making me feel so anxious. i also keep seeing those Instagram posts by my former classmate's younger sister. she's a year younger and got all those modelling contracts. i feel so behind in life, IT'S NOT ENOUGH, I'M NOT ENOUGH, aaaaah.... i hate myself.

or maybe i did have bad therapists as a minor...therapists that thought it was their job to convince me of their beliefs rather than be a neutral party to help me process and acknowledge everything going on in my own system. if anything, there was probably a lot of gaslighting on their part when i was in hospital; a lot of blaming, too. none of them ever stopped to ask "why do you NEED anorexia?". none of them ever cared to look at our family dynamics or tell my parents that they weren't so innocent, either....it was all just to be blamed on me and my symptoms....and no one cared to ask why i needed my ed. they were all so keen on treating symptoms and never cared about how i felt. no one understood or cared about the fact that they could send me back home and OF COURSE i would relapse in that environment, because what choice did i have, as a sixteen-year-old trapped in a dysfunctional family?.... or in short, no, not all therapists have thought about their patients' povs and inner conflicts in depth.

while i'm at it, i may as well share a little anecdote that i was reminded of during the seminar before i forget it again. when i was an inpatient (15 years old), at one point i didn't want any dairy on my meal plan and the treatment team got upset about it. my assigned therapist thought it was a good idea to tell me a story about cows and make me touch milk with my fingers (which she later drank?) in the spirit of "exposure therapy". ....it's a funny story because this therapist clearly got her methods mixed up and that was so obviously not the right approach when she was dealing with someone who's got an ed, not a phobia or anything, and besides that, my wanting to avoid milk was more about veganism at the time.

last weekend, i had a block seminar (the best one yet?) that was quite an experience. the instructor was really nice, we talked about therapeutic practices (without the pressure of needing to write homework or exams on it, which made it so much more fun and interesting) and also did some therapy role plays (very difficult, not nearly as easy as you would think it is). i almost felt happy that day, to be honest. we were in a different part of town i had never been to before, where the university hospital is, and i really liked the aesthetic of the buildings, the little garden space and fountain, the sunny weather. it was a huge, scary shift for me to suddenly start talking DBT (eds, bpd) from a therapist's perspective when last year around the same time, i was a DBT patient myself and struggling through the depths of it. it's crazy to realise that therapy is, in fact, not random, that therapists seem to have considered at least some of the conflicts patients are in beforehand (it always felt far from that whenever therapy was forced upon me or even when i tried to make it work for myself....). although i guess as a patient, there is also a deep (unconscious) sense of comfort and pride in "not being understood", as painful as it is? ...

i don't think i've ever been this busy in my life. it's stressful at times, but at this point i'm rolling with it and decided that maybe the energy can help carry me forward and be okay with all the things going on simultaneously these days. summer break will be a shock for me....i'll feel so bored and lost when missing the luxury of the very, very neat containment my schedule forces me into atm. i try to prioritise going on walks or cycling in between everything, and this morning on my walk, i almost thought i was happy. which is paradoxical, during such a busy, stressful phase. but maybe that's exactly what i needed?

(video in German) i've been learning more about developmental attachment trauma and it's been a very helpful perspective to make sense of people's behaviour and suffering - maybe other people's even more so than my own. the above is just one piece of the puzzle for me, and all in all everything still seems very confusing since i can identify antagonistic strands in my psyche (undereating and emotional eating; anxious (=clingy) and avoidant attachment,...), but understanding some of this helps me feel more hopeful. i like that Gopal touches on the fact that 'treatment contracts' ("you have to gain x amount in 1 week", "you have to eat 10 cashew nuts and one apple this afternoon", "you may only go to the clinic school once you have reached 40kg",....) are so backwards with anorexic patients...which is something i've had to experience myself. practitioners (and my parents) never wanted to understand how these contracts only made things so much worse for me. the past few videos about specific ed-symptoms and how to communicate urges had me thinking that maybe i could also resolve SH-urges by communicating them more clearly - but idk how to find a socially acceptable way to go about that. anyway, like i said, overall this is making me feel more hopeful that i may be able to resolve some issues in my life moving forward, and also interact with others by seeing through their patterns. i ordered the book and will read it after my exams in July. this perspective also has me considering for the first time that developing secure attachment would be a valid goal? normally, i am quite identified with being ill and it's more about "do i wanna be the kind of ill where i'm clingy or avoidant?", "do i wanna be the kind of ill where i'm underweight, or would it be okay to be ill and just have panic attacks instead?", "i miss my dissociative episodes" (still do, though), "i don't think i can't quite let go of SH yet, i like it a little too much whenever i look at my left forearm and think about how this would be obvious to certain groups of people who interact with me".... considering this new lens, i am also still a little bit ashamed of this journal's title. i remember that when choosing it, it felt like i was doing a good thing by giving myself permission associating my name with such a "whole", beautiful concept. oh well. can't change it any more, so i'll keep it for now.

thank you for sharing:)

oh, i see. how is it now? do you think you could willingly replicate the experience?

i've made the switch again from feeling stressed to feeling utterly, utterly bored and empty. and kind of disappointed because will this stupid cycle ever end? last time this happened, i put up a list on my wall to see what activities i can do when i feel this way. nothing, none of it, seems even slightly appealing now. i would like to resolve this, but i do not know how. weekends really aren't good for me, as much as i want to get there during the week. i am so much better off when i have at least one appointment or two to fill my schedule each day.

@cetus sounds cool:)

thank you for all your suggestions!

but it's a delusion that many people share, so that makes it a bit more real. didn't fully understand the rest because there's too much Freud in there.

i do experience a lot of bloating, though. any guesses why this could be, aside from the sucralose lol? Germany:)

that is crazy. aren't you super bloated? do you live in Germany? Alnatura's the best:)

yes, i actually made a commitment to cut out protein bars a couple days ago:) i already eat a lot of fibre and fruit, maybe even too much.