Lizard Queen

It's alright, I know she meant no harm It did have relevance to what we were discussing and I don't think she realized the suggestion was going to rattle me because of the sort of stuff we talk about already (this part of the family is pretty open about personal mental health stuff) and how she knows me. Also, she's not my therapist -- we're related by marriage and she is a therapist professionally.

A therapist relative told me she thinks I'm on the spectrum, and the suggestion left me feeling shocked for a couple of hours. It did have bearing on the topic at hand between us, and we're pretty open about and accepting of mental health stuff in this family, so I don't think she guessed such a suggestion would unnerve me. I didn't inquire at the time as to why she thought that because of my shock, but I'd like to ask later. How do we put stuff in the hide-y boxes?

(Vent, not sure I want to discuss the topic)

Thank you for your well-wish :). (I didn't realize you'd sent it, so now I've responded "late") Sounds like you're doing good work on anxiety and it's been better lately for it . Hopefully a health scare that turned out to be an non-serious wound can help you feel more optimistic if you go through any sort of similar incident in the future? --------------------------------

[Vent]

I've felt weird since yesterday. I have two school tests this coming week. A friend of mine has had breathing problems for months and has slept a ton this week after getting sick with what seemed like some bacterial or viral infection. No diagnosis has come up yet for the breathing issues, but their recent bout of sickness I think just simply worried me more than I probably would have been given the breathing issues and feeling a little more stressed than usual anyway. The friend also had cancer in the past (which was part of my worry), but it sounds like that's not the probable cause of their breathing difficulties from what they explained of their diagnostic tests so far when I asked today...

It works for individuals too . Well, as I've understood it -- identifying your emotions in a detached way (such as with "this is sadness" or "I am experiencing fear and worry", instead of just going with the emotional flow or personally identifying with it (for example, "I am sad")) helps you to put your head over the water when you're emotional. You won't be as caught up in your feelings and whatever they are compelling you to think and feel. The article author exemplified this when she wrote about keeping a centered/healthy detachment from her emotions while her husband was seriously ill -- she told herself "I know that I am experiencing anxiety and fear right now and I don’t know what will happen, but I am going to just ‘be’ with it.” She was able to avoid going into some painful, counterproductive thought processes as a result. This detachment should dull the pain of whatever you're going through, and ground you a bit more. Well, perhaps to the contrary in some cases, you might become more emotional after identifying and acknowledging an emotion because you hadn't allowed yourself to feel it beforehand (you might have been blocking it out, whether you meant to or not). That's still good -- that means you are now letting that emotion out to run its course. That's what the acknowledging and accepting part is about -- just letting yourself process your feelings so they can leave your system. The detachment piece helps you to keep aware that you're just experiencing an emotion, and it's not going to last forever and the nasty things it could be telling you aren't necessarily true.

Thanks (this is the article I followed, if anyone is interested: https://www.gottman.com/blog/6stepstomindfullydealwithdifficultemotions/) And thanks for your own tips (they were directed at Toth, but of course anyone could use them)!

I feel like talking about how I let out a lot of emotions to process them a few days ago, but the whole thing sounds weird . I think I'd unintentionally bottled up many emotions over something that's played out over a few months, and I'd also been upset on and off about something that happened on NYE that is connected to it. I had a moment a few days ago where I just felt emotional and tried to deal with it in a different way than how I had been. I Googled about emotional detachment because it was a technique that had been helpful for me in the past to process emotions. Found an article on "dealing with difficult emotions" that ended up being very helpful. As to detachment, it suggested saying something like "this is [emotion]" as you otherwise let yourself emote. I followed the other suggested steps (I did cry). I felt better afterwards, and didn't realize I still had pain over some of the things I emoted. I'm not really upset about the NYE thing anymore, and it hasn't pained me to think about some of the things I was sad about (with/without realizing it) from months ago. Well, I felt angry about the latter drawn out situation over the past few days, but I think that was probably healthy and normal as I move on...

I believe I've been hormonal -- I'm feeling sad right now after feeling mad almost all day. Earlier I was alternating between feeling like being alone and then feeling needy, hahaha (that's a new one).

I've had a drawn out drama with a now exfriend since we quit being friends in September. I won't go over the details (well, not all, ha)... He sent me a text a few days before Thanksgiving where he called me "loco" for no reason apparent to me. It was harsh and kind of out of the blue. I blocked him after that. We have mutual friends and we all talk as a group over WhatsApp and do stuff together (of course). So it worried me that he seemed to harbor acrimonious feelings towards me since I can't avoid him. It also wasn't helpful for my moving on process to see messages from him to our other friends all the time, and stuff he was doing with some of them that I would have been invited to previously... I happened to find an automatically rejected phone call record in my phone's call history around the middle of Dec. He called again (to no avail because of the block) the day after Christmas when I was talking to a couple of our friends in our shared WhatsApp group. He left a nice reply to a NYE gif I posted today. I think he feels guilty about being nasty to me. Maybe I won't bother talking about many situational details. I was mostly over the friendship loss by late October or early November. But events last night left me feeling upset about this crap again. Basically, I think I just feel like he left me (as a friend). Some of the things he did or said after our friendship loss were just nasty and uncalled for. Even emotionally manipulative (like when he told me I'd been "bat shit crazy" and said he thought I was "loco"). I really never did anything to hurt him. I always just wanted peace and for us to be respectful. I've felt mad about the disrespect again today. I don't like him now. I don't plan on talking to him over the phone about whatever he was going to say. Frankly I don't care about the apology I think he wants to give. I also don't care to discuss what's happened between us. I'm also partly worried the discussion would backfire like our other "discussions" did. I'm tired of drama, and I think it's understandable for me to bypass talking to him given how he's spoken to me in very inappropriate ways that upset me. I did block him for my mental well-being. I just want him to not bother me again, which I don't think he will at this point.

The semester is officially over for me. My time of the month started again two weeks to the day of the last one's start and I think I have a cold. I didn't feel that stressed though!

I got tired of working in my room, and I think my mind had a hard time not associating it with "off the clock" so I just wouldn't stay on task well in there. The small change that was moving to the living room seems to have made a world of difference, ha . I've never hanged out in here much, so maybe that was why I came to view it as a place to work (and switch into the according mindset) pretty easily. I bought a stationary bike desk weeks before quarantine began where I live (I had no idea quarantine was coming at the time). I've been using it a lot again. I just don't get as sleepy using it like I do if I'm just sitting, and it obviously allows me to conveniently exercise, so that makes me happy. I'm still having motivational troubles, but these small changes seemed to have been very helpful... And that makes my spirits better.

Long vent... Are there spoiler boxes ? Edit: Yes there are!