( Talk about normalization, wanting to feel normal )

This is a really rambly post, so I hope I caught all of the triggers.

( difficulty managing money, guilt/shame, relationships, spirituality, Christianity, brief mentions of bipolar disorder/flashbacks/anxiety/sex, relying on partners for support, grad school, grief at accepting that chronic mental/physical illness is disabling, dealing with giftedness/lost potential?, healing beyond survival mode )

"History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be un-lived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again."

- Maya Angelou

( Cut for length, discussion of abuse, harassment, stalking, and inability to escape. )

( emotionally stunted, not accepting of body/sexuality, brief mention of ED beginnings. )

( Never feeling like I've actually grown up. Stuck in the emotional state and mental state as I was at 12-13 when the worst abuse started )

( Triggers: validation-seeking behavior (healthy and destructive), friends asking for/demanding support, passive-aggression, feeling like a failure or a bad friend. )

Just to warn everyone before they even click... this is gonna be long.

( Triggers may include relationships, confusion re: sexual feelings, mention of sexual abuse, cutting, swearing. )

[Last night:]

I'm shaking and I can't stop.

Forty-five minutes of sex in new ways is apparently not all good.

[Back Story:  Yesterday, I rattled off my ex's phone number to a friend for prank calling purposes as a joke, and was shocked that I still remembered the number, nearly two years after I left him.  Curious, I Googled the phone number, which ( Read more... )

This year has been a lot better than last year. My depression has improved and I'm about to cut my dosage down under the watchful eye of the doctor ( Read more... )

Ambivalence is a commonly mis-used word. In common language, it's usually used to describe feeling little to no preference between two things - more like apathy. But ambivalence quite literally means feeling *two* things with great strength, and therefore not being able to choose between them ( Read more... )