Judy2

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.

my neighbour's stomping woke me up last night, and it's just super triggering overall. makes me feel so trapped. people say i should relax more, but i don't know how i possibly could. i can't wear headphones 24/7. i could move to a new place, but that's not so easy to find, and it's not guaranteed that it will be any better there. i try to be reasonable and stop playing victim, but it's usually not working out. and then the despair just grows all the more.

@PsychedelicEagle yes i've gained a lot of muscle mass since last year but i've also gained body fat. if i just went on a cut, i'd look alright, but idk how to go on a cut without harming my mental health and i wouldn't know how to eat sustainably after that, either. i am not sure if counting calories works for me. i know exactly how to do it but things could tip over very quickly and feel more harmful than helpful and make me very anxious around food.

@Osaid thank you for sharing your perspective:)

yes, i can literally feel my brain fighting to just accept that i can still be pleasant and soft at a higher weight. i would like to be those things, of course. i don't know if this is what you mean but yes, when the body lacks resources it responds to external stimuli differently and also processes emotions slightly differently. that can look like hyperarousal or it can also look like depression. i've also been much more prone to experiencing dissociation at low weights.... and having a very cloudy, foggy, borderline delirious inner monologue. you assume i haven't but i have gained weight since last year and also exercised a lot and built some muscle, but i'm really uncomfortable in my body. you wouldn't think that, but even just having more weight on my body does change the way i carry myself a lot. and i just know i'm prettier when i weigh a little less...in fact i get sad every time i see myself in the mirror and think my complexion is pretty, but it all goes to waste because my size is so wrong...i just don't know how to go about that in a healthy way. going on a cut or diet might not be the best for my psyche, but i don't know what habits/dietary guidelines to pick up to be healthy and lean long-term (without experiencing too much querulousness, as you say). you underestimate how tough it can be psychologically to have a history of restriction and then figure out moderation, of all things. ....i do try to be hopeful about it, though, and trust that one day i'll figure it out. please be aware that this is a vulnerable topic for me and something i usually battle very silently on my own:) please don't say anything mean.

what did the practice consist in?

yes i can see that. it could even be a type of neurological "disorder" if it happens a lot. really fascinating:)

@PenguinPablo i looked into it briefly and basically from a neurological pov, an OBE is a sensory mismatch when your brain receives (or produces?) conflicting information on how the body is positioned in space. (and of course it can get much deeper than that, but that's the basics.) i get this a lot when i take afternoon naps and my sleep is very light. that's when i'd be prone to getting close to waking up but my body is still asleep, and sometimes i confuse bodily sensations or feel as though there is the sleeping body and my other body with which i can be in slightly different positions. this has also gone as far as feeling as though i got up and walked through my apartment, only to realise that i had done so in a dream-like state and my real body was still in bed.

@Oppositionless do OBEs occur for you shortly after falling asleep or shortly before waking up? is there a relation to how light your sleep is, how well you remember dreams, or a tendency to experience sleep paralysis?

i haven't fully experienced either but have had glimpses of both. in my understanding, the two are quite distinct. you don't "need" one to experience the other. during an OBE you still experience yourself as a separate entity travelling through non-physical dimensions. but there can also be experiences of unity/God realisations occurring during these journeys. God realisation is the dissolution of the sense of a separate self (basically you flip inside out and become everything). leaving the physical body is not necessary; rather, God realisation is a metaphysical recontextualisation of what it means to be/have a body in the first place. the body can still be here as part of your consciousness, no problem with that. your visual field doesn't have to change for God realisation to occur, either - of course it can, but that's not the core of it.

my father is also overweight. but he also has very questionable views on nutrition. my brother is ripped, though. dentists have literally told me that i should consider having surgery for my jaw because it's so narrow. so i'm not making that up:) i know you don't believe me but i have direct experience of being at different BMI ranges and how people treat me differently in relation to it. sure, BMI ~11-14 maybe isn't perceived as that attractive (though there was one thirty-something-year-old dude messaging me recently on the basis of Instagram pictures from many years ago when i was an anorexic minor and said he wanted to meet me? don't know what's up with that but it's creepy; and several people have said i looked so cute when i was emaciated - yourself included). but the real problem is i've had direct experience of being maybe BMI 22ish vs BMI 17 or 18, and at 17/18 i wasn't healthy at all, but unfortunately, that's the kind of skinny that people can still think of as healthy, and that's also when i got more attention than i ever did at healthier BMIs (where i also felt more stable with my behaviour independent of the BMI charts). that's incredibly painful to deal with.