TheCloud

@enzyme Do you have any plan for if seeing a therapist ends up being more useless than you'd hoped?

You mention a hospital. Are you unwell? I like cats as well. Can you name some of the crimes that have been or are being committed against you? Have you been injured?

It's one thing to be having a hard time, but it must also be very lonely for you if you can't even talk about it.

What kinds of things are happening to you?

I appreciate your high evaluation! I don't know the particulars of your situation, but I truly hope that it isn't actually hell, and that there is some beauty and peace for you. It can't be totally bad if you have cake and internet, right?

This kind of situation can be largely attributed to the lack of consciousness in the people involved; in a more actualized environment, it would be obvious for you to talk to your sisters, and for your sisters to talk to your cousin. It's only because everyone is half-asleep that things got like this. It's actually good for something shocking but ultimately benign like this to shake things up. Anyone who goes back to sleep after being shaken like this is depriving themselves.

One piece of advice I have that will always apply is; always put people ahead of your ideologies. It's great if you have a vision of right and wrong that you want to live by, but not everyone can or wants to understand that vision. That vision is something for you to enforce on yourself, not on others. In this case, you took what your sisters thought was private and made it public. You didn't consult your sisters first, and give them a chance to choose to come clean. You tried to be honest, which is virtuous, but you denied the opportunity of honesty to your sisters. I presume you did this because it was easy to tell your cousin the truth, but hard to get your sisters to tell your cousin the truth. Probably so hard that you didn't even consider it. Our instincts can trick us that way, turning us unawares from what's right to what's easy. If you need something to apologize for, I think that would be it. I don't think it would violate your ideals to admit you should have talked to your sisters first.

If I may presume, those high expectations and standards aren't yours. Any goal where you can fail and be looked down on for it isn't yours; it belongs to the haters and the name-callers. Real greatness doesn't come from success, it comes from a higher consciousness, which is something haters know nothing about.

Who do you trust?

Who says that you are supposed to go to hell? If someone says that you won't go to hell, will you believe them?

Yeah, any medication or doctor's advice takes precedence over what I say. I'm not an expert, I'm just relaying the information I use to guide my own diet.

Awesome! I don't know if it helps, but the naming part can be fun. The next step requires some negotiation skills. The disintegrated parts of you generally have singular goals that they will pursue to the extreme and at any cost to the rest of you. It's not that they're malicious, it's just that they've been alone and therefore have had no reason to learn how to co-exist. Your purpose is to convince them to come to the table with all the other parts of yourself, and consider their overall impact. If they know they'll have a turn to speak at the table and that they'll be listened to by the rest of you, they'll eventually be socialized to healthy co-existence. As they integrate, with time the difference between them and you will disappear and you'll unite as a single entity with a singular will, all the stronger for having united. Something to remember is that no part of yourself has privileged information; every part of yourself is you, knowing everything you know and knowing nothing that you don't know. So if you don't know why the Exiled Child was exiled, neither does the Exiled Child. That's something you'll have to figure out together. Another thing is that not all parts of you will join the table. Some will realize that they are inessential, and fade away. No part is so malicious that it will remain while knowing that it has no place in you. I believe it will never be necessary to go beyond negotiation to "kill" a part of yourself. Conversations aren't limited to two sides. If you're not getting anywhere with two of you, sometimes it helps to bring in a third persona, to mediate or add a new perspective. You can divide yourself up as many times as you can keep track of the parts. I'm glad you're finding the technique useful. If you want, please keep updating if you make progress.

Has it happened that any of your grandparents have passed? If so, how did your parents handle it?

I'm in a comparable situation to yours, except I'm older. There's a difference between opportunity and obligation. There's a big difference between having a chance to succeed, and being nothing if you don't succeed. You need to toss out the obligation to see the opportunity. Dogs aren't born with a purpose, and regret nothing if they die having accomplished little beyond eating and shitting. Their life was worth living simply because they took pleasure in it. Have you ever taken pleasure in your life? If yes, then you can be considered to have lived well enough. No dog can look down on you. People who have money, success, or fame, how do they know that they're better than dogs? They tell each other they're great and pat each other on the back, but they're not living in a world that every dog born hasn't. Do you know what condescending on a life like yours or mine is? It's abuse. It's not something nice people do. It's not something actualized people do. It's something that we have learned to expect done to us, though. And, goodness forbid, we've probably done it to others. So is it ok to lose? If it means I can't pat my own ass and condescend to others, then maybe it is.

When I first posted here, I had hopes of learning something from you. You gave the impression that you had something to teach, and an open mind to learn yourself. At this point, I'm not being taught anything, and no other person who has replied appears to have learned much either. Rather, you've spit in everyone's face, and made not a single friend or ally, let alone students. Nobody appears to be trolling, yet everyone somehow has ended up in conflict. Your students are not your enemies, so if you spit in their faces, they won't come to learn. Perhaps you've succeeded in defending yourself, but you didn't start this thread in order to accomplish that. You started because you had something you wanted to share. It can be presumed that nobody made you do it. Since you started this for your own purposes, only your efforts can achieve those purposes, and it's your error if you fail to achieve those purposes. Instead of fighting with everyone, perhaps learn some magnanimity and how to teach. Whether or not you're a victim in the rest of your life, you can't be the victim here; everyone who came here to learn is.

That's tough. It's hard to do your best when your environment is so unsupportive. In any case, I would still say that the number one thing you can do to improve your diet is to reduce sugar. Natural fats like olive oil and butter and lard are not your enemy; fats have gotten a bad reputation for purely commercial reasons, because of grain lobbying and crappy 90's diet fads. As for fiber, there are two kinds; insoluble and soluble. Insoluble is long and stringy, like celery, and just passes through you undigested. Soluble is the same structure, but much shorter pieces that you can't see. It's still not directly digested by your body; it's purely for your gut biome, about which very little is understood. Strictly speaking there's no strong scientific reason one way or the other as to whether you need fiber or not. If you're having digestive issues, though, then a decent low-carb source of soluble fiber would be the less-sweet berries like blueberries, and nuts. Don't pig out, because both still have some carbs, but you can have a handful. If you're still eating cake, though, then you don't have to be so strict. Oats are a good source of fiber. Beans are a great option for soluble fiber, and additionally they are a high-quality source of complex carbohydrates. The more complex a carbohydrate, the slower it is digested, and the less it causes fluctuations in your insulin levels that can lead to energy crashes and in the worst cases diabetes. Sugars are the simplest, and cause the greatest fluctuations, followed by starches like corn and potato and wheat flour. Beans and lentils are complex carbs and much better staples, though they still aren't permitted on a low-carb diet. Another thing you can try is fasting. If you can, try to go at least go twelve consecutive hours a day without eating. I go for fourteen to sixteen. This gives your body and digestive system time to normalize and do repairs. There's also every-other-day fasting, where you fast for a day, then eat twice as much the next day. This one is probably a bit harder, but it's an option if you're someone who needs to pig out once in a while to feel satisfied. I've tried it, and it doesn't work for me, but I know people who it does work for, so it's your personal preference.

Your ultimate deceiver is you, the one who finds self-centered reasons to believe in lies. Humans instinctively prioritize survival, so when self-interest conflicts with truth, we are naturally more inclined toward defending the former.

It's unsurprising that life doesn't end until you die.

Carbs are not an essential dietary element. As long as you eat fat and protein, any carbohydrates you need can be created from gluconeogenesis of amino acids (protein) in your liver. Also, pork fat isn't necessarily unhealthy, it's just fatty. That just means that a little of it has a lot of calories when compared to carbohydrates. For me, a low-carb diet (I try to stay under 30g of carbs a day, not including fiber) does wonders for my health and well-being. My energy is higher and more consistent through the day, as is my mental clarity. You do not want to yo-yo between a low-carb and high-carb diet, though, because your body goes through an adjustment period in both directions and you'll end up making yourself sick. So it's something you have to kind of commit to, and it is very restrictive. Even if you don't go low-carb, I still recommend you try to find alternatives for the least healthy aspects of your diet. For example, can you cut out the frosting on the cake and still satisfy your craving? Can you replace some of the white flour with whole wheat or oatmeal? There are lots of artificial sweeteners on the market, and while people are wary of ones like aspartame (which I personally dislike as well), you are allowed to use your own judgement and find out for yourself. Don't just consider the health-effects of the sweetener, consider the health effects of what it is replacing: sugar. Other than alcohol, sugar is probably the least healthy way to get your calories, and anything that can help you reduce or eliminate it is worth considering. Don't aim for perfection; aim for something better that works with your body and mind, something you can live with for a long time. Try to find a rotation of acceptable foods that satisfy your specific cravings, then find ways to compensate for the deficiencies. Also, supplement electrolytes: potassium, calcium, magnesium. Unless you have kidney issues, there's no risk to it, it's inexpensive, and you almost certainly are out of balance compared to your dietary sodium intake.

Are you apprehensive about your ability to connect with your parents in the event of a tragedy?

That's not a productive discussion, that's me being one-sidedly dictated to. I get the message that you're uninterested in what further I might have to say. Peace, I guess?

@mr_engineer If I've come across as being unwilling to listen to reason, that would be my mistake. I do acknowledge that you have some insights I think are keen and worth developing on. If I've said something inflammatory or in an inflammatory way, beyond conveying my opinion and experience, I hope that you will highlight that for me. I would like to convey a willingness to learn from you in a mutually constructive discussion.

To me, it sounds as if your trace of victim mentality is the idea that you're an (equal) victim of the survival game. You're assuming the survival game is real, so you have no compunctions if you drag others into it. Perhaps your next step could be to develop your humility and consideration for others. If someone is stuck in the survival game, help them get out of it; in the wake of your efforts, you might find yourself falling out of the survival game as well. I'm not intending to accuse you of arrogance or selfishness; it's only that your survival mentality may be fostering a certain mindset. If you develop traits opposite of that mindset, you might find something new.

In terms of diet, I find the key is to find the flavors and textures that are connected to my cravings. For example, crispy, or sweet, or fresh. Then find a nutritious or at least benign source for that sensation. For example, on a low-carb diet, pork rinds can provide the crunchy sensation that would otherwise be satiated with potato chips. So cake might be "soft" and "sweet". You don't necessarily need to fulfill both these cravings with one food; you could find something healthy that's soft, and something else healthy that's sweet, and together those foods replace the less healthy cake.

I would say the same to women. Women who cling to men (or children) to solve their own loneliness are just digging their own graves. That's how battered wives and single mothers and helicopter parents happen. It's a lot worse than ending up an incel. Sure, women have power over men, but it's a soft power. It's the power of men's desire for them. If a man doesn't want them, that power goes away, and there's not much they can do. They don't have the force to fall back on that men do, or at least they aren't as enabled to use force as men are, just as men are not brought up to use the power of appeal the way women are. Sure, you might not hit a woman, but you know you could, and so does she. Where there's power, there's someone who fears it, and she can fear violence just as surely as you might fear rejection. Some women might use a "first strike wins" mentality and undercut you by calling you a creep. So yes, everyone has to resolve their own deep-seated loneliness. It's not a gendered issue.