Judy2

i need to get this off my chest and hope it won't be used against me by anyone. i have been teaching three sisters French for a couple of weeks, since they switched schools and need to keep up with their peers. i have an undergrad degree in English with French as a secondary subject. the girls' dad pays me cash after the French lessons and is sending me heart emojis all the time. (that combo makes me feel like a prostitute.) more hearts and kisses than i have ever received from any lover. he praises me a lot, touched my back twice when showing me out, but other than that, he hasn't acted inappropriate. he insists on paying for lessons that we had to cancel, and i am hesitant to accept that because usually, no one has ever offered to do that, let alone this amount. he also pays more than any other parents have ever paid me before for tutoring their children. i feel a bit overwhelmed and don't know how to communicate with him. my goal was to hand in a document for my tax report in September (since i also have other students and would like to advertise my private tutoring services more officially), but his response was "don't be like that" and i felt too shy to be more persistent. what do i do? do i just start writing official invoices and present them to him via email, and he'll have to accept that? he's so fond of me for some reason and voluntarily upped the amount he pays me a couple weeks in, so if he thinks i'm so important, he should handle the fact that i want to do this the right way? i think it's just so strange he voluntarily sends me more money all the time.

communication would simplify things a lot here, cause it would interrupt this ceaseless process of spinning stories in your head about what if, and what would this other person possibly/probably/likely think, and do i have to lie to preserve a sense of harmony, etc. just state what is true for you and then listen to what she says in response. for example "i don't want to hurt you" "i feel confusion" "i don't know what this is or if we are compatible" "when i think about this/us, i feel...."

@Leo Gura ok

agreed. do you have any insights into what could/what does? wisdom? experience? emotional awareness? what is the essence of mental illness and how can it be healed?

@Leo Gura not if you are on your own and have a mental illness. for some people it can be that straightforward, but definitely not for all. so if anything, we'd need centres with trained professionals to accompany psychedelic therapy sessions.

@Realms of Wonder okay, thanks for your reply.

some of you may not know this, but in some countries, public health insurance covers certain therapies....so it's essentially "free" for those who need it. in Germany, this includes CBT (and sub-forms such as DBT and schema-therapy), systemic therapy and psychoanalysis/modern versions of this. the question is, is it effective? and i think, unfortunately, in most cases the answer is no, or it's usually just to stabilise people to some extent, but they stay miserable or relapse pretty quickly. but what are our alternatives? if CBT doesn't actually resolve mental illness at its core, and idk if any of you have ever tried classic psychoanalysis but that stuff isn't necessarily great, either. what are our options here as a society to provide effective help to all who need it? is 1:1 therapy even ideal, considering there are year-long waiting lists? what therapeutic approach(es) actually, reliably help people?

i especially agree with this last section

yes, the big problem with CBT is that it mostly targets symptoms and behaviours while completely ignoring root causes which often necessitate the return of the exact same behaviours and symptoms. telling an alocoholic to "just stop drinking", telling an anorexic to "just eat and restore weight", telling a person with OCD/GAD to "just confront their fears", telling a depressed person to "just get up and do something", .... maybe there is a time and place for CBT and deliberate behavioural changes to help stabilise some patients by teaching them certain techniques (as DBT does), but stable does not mean healed, by any means. although sometimes stability (sobriety, nourishment, skills to regulate your nervous system when experiencing a strong emotional reaction, being able to stop showering for 5h/day, being able to get out of bed and clean your room) are requirements, or at the very least useful, to even have the cognitive resources to work on proper healing.

he is now asking me to send him photos from my holidays.

generally, this is one of the main functions of emotions: to quickly evaluate situations you find yourself in. but there can also be such cases when emotions are under- or overly present in the sense that they are either repressed or disproportionally triggered due to prior experiences, so they do not "fit" the severity of the present situation. a goal for a healthy human being may be to tune in with themselves enough to develop emotional regulation that is somewhat adequate to present situations, because in this way emotions can serve to help answer questions such as "is this person treating me badly?". or at least if a disproportionate emotional reaction occurs (realistically speaking, we all get triggered from time to time), it is helpful to recognise this as such. take anger, for example. some people don't get angry enough when boundaries are being violated, and feel sadness instead, blame themselves, etc. others feel overly angry. both dispositions are likely shaped by past experiences. there can be a healthy amount of anger, too, which serves the function of letting you know reliably when your boundaries are being crossed, for example, by family members.

also Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem about Mont Blanc.

i like William Wordsworth (Romantic) and William Blake (more "ancient" sounding English, metaphysical themes).

~ , ~

just now, i had a conversation with my mum about insurances. she responded in a bit of a snappy tone that i will have to tell any new insurance company that i've had anorexia in the past, and then they won't want to make me an offer. what she didn't say, but what i think was nonetheless evident in her tone, was blame, anger, maybe superiority. as if she could somehow reclaim her righteousness by presenting it as though my mental disease was born out of a void, out of mere teenage stupidity. it's easier for her to present it that way, after all this time. easier than to consider that something was "wrong" with our family that made developing anorexia exactly the right course of action for her daughter. perhaps there was some element of choice, yes, but my mother still doesn't see how this choice was born out of dire emotional necessity. sometimes i'm still a little sad that she doesn't understand, after all this time. i can accept that she doesn't, and maybe she never will, but i do feel a bearable amount of sadness when i think of this.

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@HopePaul now i'm impressed with my Italian skills:) thought i'd forgotten it all by now. concerning the psychedelics: in my experience, a certain degree of mental stability is necessary to have a higher success rate with these substances. it's not your fault if they aren't the right fit for you atm. i can relate to this feeling of being a bit behind in life. concerning the "social pressure": is it really society pressuring you, though, or is the much more immediate pressure something you yourself are doing and recreating in your own head? is this pressure constant, or does it change over time? i would suppose that it is subject to change, is it not? i don't know what you are referring to?

i get this lump in my throat, too, from time to time. for me, it is mostly associated with sadness, sometimes a little fear or despair. aside from the physical symptoms and the stress/anxiety, what emotions can you register? what behavioural patterns are they linked to? what thought patterns are they linked to?

if a friend told you this, what would you advise them to do? my personal opinion is: it's your doctor's job to handle these things professionally and to support you. the hallucinations will, most likely, not go away on their own. therefore, the 'right thing to do', in my opinion, is to open up to your doctor (even if it's hard and it may seem inconvenient to you in one way or another). this will most likely not result in any compulsory hospitalisation (unless you are an acute danger to yourself or others), but they will work together with you to figure out the appropriate ways to help you.

friendship is generally created through proximity and similarity. on top of that, i think it's important to forge an atmosphere of mutual support: when you can easily share resources (knowledge, emotional support, inviting someone for a coffee, etc.), you do so gladly because you know you'll also benefit from your friends' support soon enough. this is opposed to explicitly weighing favours against each other or keeping close track of "who invested how much".

any HOTD fans on here? how do you feel about season 3? who is your favourite character? who is the character you can best identify with and/or relate to? what do you love about season three? what do you hate about it? (spoilers are allowed)

@Carl-Richarddo you generally avoid soy?

calcium-fortified soy milk and tofu. but i haven't actually counted. my most recent bloodwork came back looking good, though.

i generally enjoy going to the gym, but sometimes i find that environment overstimulating. there's loud music and lots of people are walking by, sometimes a little too close. usually, i don't get ill that often, but this year i had a bad cold twice, so that was a reason for not going....and then while preparing for exams, i also couldn't go that often. i'm trying to make up for that now. in general, i think a lot of people are afraid of going to the gym because it seems like a bit of a harsh environment that invites a lot of judgement and comparison. imagine being overweight or even obese...i'm sure it's challenging to start going to the gym when there are lots of well-trained people there, and it seems as though all eyes are on you. personally, whenever i notice someone like that, i feel a lot of respect for them, but it's probably quite tough for them mentally.

i mean that scene was disgusting and just wrong but also isn't that why we watch GOT/HOTD? to be a little grossed out at times.