u/Complex-Chipmunk-666

Hello fellow grad students!
I am starting my in-person MS SLP program is less than two weeks.

I don’t have a lot of experience working with kids, or people in general, except for the two jobs I had during high school.

I am super nervous about clinic. I did my 25 observation hours on Master Clinician a year ago and feel like I’ve forgotten everything, ugh.

Any advice? How do I build rapport with both younger and elderly clients? Many people in my cohort have shadowed an SLP or were RBTs, but not me. I feel behind and would greatly appreciate any help or advice. Thank you!

Hello everyone,

Tonight, after months of working on myself intentionally and diligently, I think I found my true self. I’m not sure if I can say this is a spiritual experience or awakening but it feels transformative.

After journaling for a while, I came to realize that no matter what, I will and have always had only one person in life and that is my self. I have realized that in the darkest times, I still had me. I learned that I am a bit like a rose that must be protected. And the protector of that rose is myself. I have the responsibility to take care of me and nurture me. I have promised to take care of this rose for life. This rose is valuable to me because I have invested in it.

I then realized that everything I have attempted to search for in life has been myself. I look for myself in others. I project aspects of myself, both positive and negative onto other people. Kind of like the Jungian idea of shadows.
When I get disappointed or disillusioned with people I realize that I didn’t find what I was looking for. Because I was actually looking for myself! I was looking in the wrong place and I had to look inward.

I keep coming to the conclusion that what I look for in the world, in
people, in everything, is actually myself. Parts of myself that feel missing which are actually there but just undiscovered. Parts of me that are undeveloped or uncultivated. Parts of me that need to blossom.

I realized that seeking validation was asking for permission to love and accept myself.

Then I had a sudden realization : what if this self that i am seeking to improve or looking for in external things in inside me. It’s not my body, voice, thoughts, or personality. It is something stable within me that has been with me throughout life since the day I was born. It is stable and everlasting. It is within me. It is who I truly am. Its maybe my essence or my core or my soul. I am not sure what to call it.

I realize that I have been looking for me all along. That I have made the world a canvas to project myself in hopes of finding me. That I seek for love for myself in others even though the source of that feeling has always been me.

It feels like my true inner self has always been there but I have just found it. Like its always been calling to me. I am my own mother and my own child. I am my own lover and my own beloved. Not in a narcissistic or selfish way, but in a self loving way. In a self-discovering way. In a “I am all I seek” way.
I am the rose which I tend to.
I am also the protector of the rose.

I have all I need within me. I have me; someone who will always be with me. I have an eternal friend and ally. I am my own parent and my own child. I am my own savior.
My true self has always been there but I just recently acknowledged its existence. I am in awe. I am bewildered. I am speechless.

I feel so comfortable and at peace. I wish for everyone to discover this. It is a magical way of being.

Hello everyone,

So I have attempted to post here multiple times but each time I have just let it go and forgotten about it.

I have always been in a larger body/“obese”. I developed AN in high school going from a larger body to an underweight body. That was when people started to notice and stopped praising me for my weight loss. Due to the severity of my ED, I didn’t go to school for two months to get outpatient help. Fast forward two years and I became “medically obese” again. Doctors started to recommend weight loss and dismissed my ED history. I am now classified as very obese. I am short so I don’t have to weigh a lot to reach that category.

After gaining all the weight back plus some in recovery, I attempted to lose the weight 4 times. I relapsed every time.

This last time has been hitting me especially hard but because of my higher weight, I don’t think I am being taken seriously. I am so tired of thinking about food, my weight, and exercise every single day. I am genuinely exhausted of ED thoughts and ED behaviors

Everyone says Im unhealthy now because I’m larger. Or they think I have BED, which I don’t. I am also super scared because my PCP and insurance keeps changing and I have to see new doctors every year who scream at me to lose weight.

Any intentional weight loss triggers me and sends me relapsing. Please let me know if any of you have this experience of obese to AN to obese with remaining restrictive tendencies. How do I recover when I am in a larger body? I feel so alone and like no one else has had a similar experience to mine.