Judy2

difficult, stressful, overwhelming day.

it really hurts, to know that i have had a pretty severe eating disorder and even in the years after, when i'd slice into my skin to carry some of my pain outward... all my mother felt was blame, of all things. and that she thinks i did all those things because they're "fun", i guess?

my mum and i spoke on the phone yesterday, and we generally got along well, except she casually dropped a line that has me feeling quite bad now. i was asking about whether i annoyed my brother when we were little, and she said it was difficult for him "when it was all about me". i only realised after we had hung up that she didn't mean our childhood, but our adolescence, when i was having mental health problems and they sent me away from home for a year... so actually, she must have had plenty of time for my brother, given that i wasn't even home with them to begin with. i feel like this is so unfair. she still blames me for it, she still thinks i was ill on purpose. it's not my fault if she thinks she didn't spend enough time with my brother... she could have easily done something about that, i didn't actively keep her away from him or anything. even the staff on the psych ward thought i was ill on purpose. and now, some eight years later, every time i feel bad and try to feel better but can't, i still have this belief that i am just not trying hard enough. this is also the reason i have never tried antidepressants or anything... because my entire treatment as a teenager consisted in being told that i just didn't try hard enough to recover... so technically, i should be able to eradicate all difficult, unhappy feelings through sheer willpower.

it was really good and exactly what i needed to focus again on the things that matter in life ♡ i talked and laughed a little too much and felt kind of awkward about myself at times, but it was really wholesome to connect with the people i love and care about. it made me feel really safe, despite the fact that there are still a few things i haven't figured out in life. one friend is about to have her first baby, and it was so interesting to talk about her pregnancy and the upcoming birth. apart from that, we went to my favourite café, had Indian food, went to see a movie, drove into the woods for a walk, and did a few quieter activities at home. i'll try to take this feeling of being recharged back home with me and hold onto the hope and love i got to feel here♡

@Jannes okay, thanks for sharing:)

this weekend, i'm visiting the city that i lived in for the first 5 and a half years of my adulthood. it feels a little weird, but i am staying with friends and my best friend says that it is as though i had never left. i've missed my friends here, and i feel a lot of love every time i think of them♡ so this is precious and i am glad we could finally arrange a visit.

@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.