(no subject)

[musical_emjay]

Woah. What UP, Livejournal? Goodness, it's been over two months since I last updated. That's gotta be some kind of record for me.

Where do I even start? Here's some of the big stuff that's happened:

• I turned 23! Yikes. I don't know why that feels so old to me, but it does. Twenty three is almost twenty five! WHICH IS HALF-WAY TO THIRTY! HORROR!!!!
  
  
• My dog Duff died just after New Years, which...yeah. It was pretty horrible. He's been sick-ish since September (he had kidney disease, I think?) but once we hit December he was noticeably more ill, then he nosedived completely the week of Christmas. So we decided to put him down. It was all very abrupt, and very upsetting, as he was only eight years old. God, I miss him so much ;__;
  
  (To no one's surprise whatsoever, my mum is already looking into signing up with the provincial Westie (West Highland Terrier) Rescue so we can adopt another dog. The process can take up to a year, however, so it'll probably be a while yet.)
  
  
• 
  
  MENTAL: My anxiety has evened out thanks to my new drug cocktail, but the problems that remain aren't things that can be fixed with drugs. My emetophobia/agoraphobia still makes going out, taking transit, etc etc a very real struggle, and still affects my eating patterns in a fairly significant way (i.e. withholding food for various and sundry reasons, not eating in public, etc.)
  
  I went to see a psychiatrist that my aunt (who is a psychiatric nurse) recommended back in November, and he was FANTASTIC. I was so at ease with him, and felt we immediately developed a good rapport. He seemed very much in tune with what I was saying, seeing red flags where I wouldn't have thought to notice them, and knew exactly how thorough and uncompromising to be with his line of questioning in order to get to the heart of things. Somewhat surprisingly, he seems to think I have a mild form of PTSD from my hospital adventure this past summer, which makes a fair amount of sense really (the surgery being the culprit is obvious, but the horribly violating ultrasound experience certainly didn't help matters either). Ultimately, he determined that I would most likely benefit from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy with a particular psychiatrist of his acquaintance that apparently would be well suited to my particular set of issues. He sent a referral, but so far I haven't heard anything, which is incredibly frustrating :/
  
  PHYSICAL: I seem to have finally stopped losing weight, and I've been hovering around 120 lbs for a while now. My hair also appears to have stopped falling out at such an alarming rate, thank god. The food thing remains so fucking complicated it makes me want to set myself on fire. THINGS I AM FOR SURE NOT EATING: gluten and caffeine. THINGS I'M NOT SURE ABOUT EATING: anything dairy. I think I've finally managed to convince myself that I'm not lactose intolerant, but I still would rather avoid dairy because it's safer that way JUST IN CASE!!!!!! Which is so ridiculous, but, well. Nothing about this whole farce of a situation HASN'T been utterly ridiculous since day fucking one. I don't see that changing any time soon.
  
  Related to my weight loss: I was cleaning out my closet the other day looking for clothes to give away to charity, and found two huge Rubbermaid bins full of stuff I'd completely forgotten about. Seeing all the clothes I used to wear made me realize just how tiny I am now. Like, I'm about half the size I used to be. (Man, it still shocks me that it took other people pointing it out to me before I realized I'd lost, like, forty pounds. How the fucking hell did I not notice? Warped body image hooray!)
  
  Here's the thing: I have some extremely complicated feelings about the weight-loss, which I feel sometimes might be getting more and more problematic as time goes on. Like, the rational part of me knows that it was very, very unhealthy, but the rest of me still likes being thin and is terrified of gaining all the weight back. It doesn't help how much my mum comments on it, even though I know she thinks she's being helpful or whatever. ("You're skin and bones!" "It's so cold outside, you have to wear a coat, you've got no fat on you!" "Blah blah blah you'd better do x y z before you lose any more weight!" "You should eat more!" ad infinitum). I mean, I wasn't fat or even close to overweight before, but the thought of looking like I used to just...so, so repugnant to me. Hopefully this is something that can be fixed with CBT??? We'll see I suppose.
  
  
• Fannishly, I'm still drowning in X-Men: First Class feelings. SO MANY FEELINGS. I've been trolling my way through the kinkmeme like it's my fucking job, reading everything that remotely interests me, and wonder of wonders, I've even started writing fic. Of course, it's probably the most fucked up prompt I could possibly fill, but that's no big surprise, really. It's just about cracked 20k, which is fucking hysterical, but ever since I finished writing this one really important section it's been like trying to draw blood from stone. I'm powering through like a pro, but it's haaaaaard. *kicks feet*
  
  Speaking of the kinkmeme: I'm seriously never going to get tired of this fandom's obsession with writing fic in universes where Dom/sub roles are hardwired into a person's DNA, ESPECIALLY when this coincides with soul-bonding. WHY DO I LOVE THIS SO MUCH. IDEK. (Don't even get me started on the whole alpha/omega thing with dudes going into heat and knotting and SELF-LUBRICATING ASSHOLES with OPTIONAL MPREG. I mean, what the fuck. It's like the very best of badfic, and yet my lizard brain just fucking short-circuits over that shit. SUPERNATURAL FANDOM THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT *shakes fist*)
  
  My feelings when it comes to Supernatural, on the other hand, remain as complicated as they've always been. I was all set on finally giving up on the show for good, and then the last episode happened which was genuinely enjoyable and happy-making in a lot of ways, so now I'm all conflicted again. I haven't read a single Wincest/J2 fic in a LONG time, though, and have no interest in doing so in the near future, so perhaps that says something. SIGH.