u/Hotjazzinyourface_

Ive always felt like jumping straight into her diaries would be a bit confusing, I've seen suggestions to first read a section of diaries right from the middle of her career, I don't know if it makes sense but I'm just scared that it would be disorienting when trying to make out a timeline or general theme? Or is that irrelevant? I've thought about reading her short stories first but would really love to know if I should read the diaries first, or if theres a specific one of her works of fiction to start with. Thanks!

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19 female 165cm 56kg diagnosed with panic disorder and not currently on any medications no alcohol or recreational drug use

It's been going on for about 16 months, I have my panic attacks mostly under control via therapy and coping strategies, but I still have the occational impending sense of doom/panic attack. So a little over a year ago I could feel a panic attack coming on, I don't really know what lead me to do it but I had a cigarette with me and after I smoked it my anxiety was reduced significantly, and I was able to talk myself into reason. This was really strange, because even if my attacks have become fewer and far in between I'm usually completely at mercy to them unless given benzodiazepines. Since then I've been smoking cigarettes when I feel them coming, it happens 1-5 times a month I'd say. Sometimes less sometimes more, I thought maybe it was the ritual so I tried mock cigarettes without nicotine and even a quitters device to mimic the act but it didn't work or reduce my panic. I know it's not good to smoke so I've tried a variety of methods and none of them work like a cigarette, vaping and pouches delivers too much nicotine to my system and makes me more anxious and succeptable to panic, and patches don't work at all. I don't smoke at all outside of panic attacks. So what do I do? Keep smoking the occational panic cigarette? Or is there another similar method that could work?

19 female 165cm 56kg diagnosed with panic disorder and not currently on any medications no alcohol or recreational drug use

It's been going on for about 16 months, I have my panic attacks mostly under control via therapy and coping strategies, but I still have the occational impending sense of doom/panic attack. So a little over a year ago I could feel a panic attack coming on, I don't really know what lead me to do it but I had a cigarette with me and after I smoked it my anxiety was reduced significantly, and I was able to talk myself into reason. This was really strange, because even if my attacks have become fewer and far in between I'm usually completely at mercy to them unless given benzodiazepines. Since then I've been smoking cigarettes when I feel them coming, it happens 1-5 times a month I'd say. Sometimes less sometimes more, I thought maybe it was the ritual so I tried mock cigarettes without nicotine and even a quitters device to mimic the act but it didn't work or reduce my panic. I know it's not good to smoke so I've tried a variety of methods and none of them work like a cigarette, vaping and pouches delivers too much nicotine to my system and makes me more anxious and succeptable to panic, and patches don't work at all. I don't smoke at all outside of panic attacks. So what do I do? Keep smoking the occational panic cigarette? Or is there another similar method that could work?

I know why it's the gold standard, I wish we could all live without the plague of this disorder and eat and live well. I know why full recovery is promoted, a ton of people would be discouraged from recovering wich is the opposite of what I want. Recovery saves lives, but for people that cant fully recover, so does harm reduction. Some of us just can't recover until cured, wether the disordered behavior is so ingrained into us, or we don't have the support system, or for another very personal reason or a completely unknown reason. My ed is very much akin to an addiction, I will have to conciously abstain from it the rest of my life and I'm human so sometimes I can't. And in those times harm reduction/a kind of recovery not focused on full recovery has saved my ass multiple times and propably my life too, and it's sad sometimes it really is and I wish I could never deal with it again. But thats just not reality for me, and I manage to be happy and live and eat enough to be pretty healthy regardless. It's not quasi and it's not failed recovery, it's just whats realistic for me. And it keeps me alive.

Ive been obsessed and preoccupied about food/weight/body checking since I developed my ed years ago, and honest to god theres not much else going on in my head unless theres a major catastrophe unfolding right infront of me. Like it is on my mind all hours of the day and it's still in the background when I'm thinking about something else, and theres a comforting aspect in the fact it protects me from feeling and thinking about unpleasant things. So I just don't understand, the fuck do non disordered people think about all day? Do they just think about the things happening around them? Do they ponder the concept of free will? Heartbreak? Family? Friends? The amount of free space in their mind must be insane, what do you even do with all that if you don't think about food all day.....