I loooove me some TF and so does my teen daughter, but we just never wear the traditional scrunch bottom sweatpants. I would DIE if Teddy Fresh came out with straight leg sweatpants or fold-over flare leggings sets because we both live in those. And imagine a Juicy / TF crossover moment 😍
I am in the process of purchasing a home in Rolesville that will need new flooring. I am going with LVP and due to the size, I am leaning toward a professional install. I see quite a few big box places that provide this service, but was also curious about contractors as well.
I don’t know if I’m going crazy or not, but the last few days I feel like it’s been hard to breathe. I assumed yesterday it was just the heat since I was outside, but even today I am feeling it while inside with the AC blasting. My allergy meds and inhaler aren’t helping it either.
I spoke to my psychiatrist about the past month being filled with extreme mental duress. I couldn't really explain it in any capacity, aside from saying my brain was in such overdrive and overthinking that I wanted to scream and crawl out of my own skin. He said he believes I have bipolar and has considered it for the past year.
He brought up the mood stabilizer I am on, which for some reason I never think about the fact that I take it. I have been on it since before seeing this psychiatrist and vaguely remember that it was initially prescribed for similar periods of mental duress.
Bipolar never crossed my mind because 1. These periods of time are highly distressing and feel horrible. I don't feel self confident, I feel like I am no longer a normal, functioning human and question everything in my reality. And 2. I don't really feel any marked periods of depression or depressive symptoms, aside from just not feeling like I did in this episode.
But, after having this discussion with him, I really sat and went over what happened during the month I felt like this, and it completely blew my mind putting it on paper. I filed against my son's dad in court because I felt he was keeping my son from me, broke up with my boyfriend (to be fair, he is actively relapsing and was a huge cause of my mental strain), planned multiple trips, bought a very expensive medicinal treatment package, looked into wellness retreats and also inpatient facilities, bought a stupid amount of clothes and random crap online, started going to more meetings, talking to my sponsor daily again and decided to go back through my 12 steps (I have been sober for 4 years now). I also felt, while redoing my steps about a higher power, that the universe was speaking to me through weather and bugs outside (saw fireflies and convinced it was the universe telling me I was doing the right thing). I also felt like the random and intense thunderstorm that happened while I was breaking up with my BF was an interconnectedness between my emotions and the universe.
And now I am just sitting here blown away that I go through these things and have never, in retrospect, thought something was happening. I am blown away that I have just been taking a mood stabilizer every night and not really questioned why or how I got on it. Or why antidepressants or anti-anxiety meds never worked for me and always had adverse effects.
Before I dated my ex, I was very nonchalant about relationships, sometimes to a fault even. I didn’t really care if a man didn’t continue talking to me or we didn’t vibe. It was very…. Go with the flow. I was confident in who I was and what I wanted. Now, after 3 years of hell, I’ve come out the other side feeling like a codependent, insecure and neurotic woman. Even with friends, I obsessively check my phone to see if they text back then wonder if I said something weird. I rethink and overthink the most basic things. I literally feel manic in every dynamic I have with other people. I feel like a lost puppy dog following around my boss or my brother or my friend or the freakin receptionist at the therapist office. Does this go away with time???
Hi all! I have been looking into Ketamine infusions for Treatment Resistant Anxiety and CPTSD. For some background, I am an alcoholic and have been sober for four years. My recovery has been strong and because of that, I am very particular about what meds I will take, like no benzos or prescription painkillers. I have read about how amazing the results are from Ketamine treatments, but not much about the treatment feeling itself. Does it make you feel 'high' the same way a Xanax or Percocet would? I don't want to take it then end up in some drug fueled high for hours.
**edit to add: Thank you all for such thoughtful and thorough responses! To be honest, I was nervous to post seeking advice, as most subreddits usually end in arguments, negging and sarcasm. I was so pleasantly surprised by everyone's kindness and descriptions, and it really is a testament to the efficacy of the treatments!
I remember my first time going through the steps, there were things from my past I was determined to take to the grave. The sheer depravity of stories my sponsor shared, the amount of stories they probably heard in their 30+ years of recovery, none of that would somehow compare to the horrors of my mind. As if I am that special haha so, I did my 5th step but I kept my secrets.
I remained sober and 3 years in, I decided to go through my steps again. With more clarity of mind and less of a mad dash to recovery as the first go around, I was able to really dig in deeper. And shockingly enough, my super dark, degenerate secrets meant nothing to my sponsor and they didn't even raise an eyebrow to them. All of that weight and burden for nothing.
So, I am posting this to not only stress the importance of a thorough 5th step, but also am here if someone just cannot fathom doing it with a sponsor, a priest, a stranger, etc. If you need to DM me and give me a powerpoint presentation of your innermost demons and battles, I am all ears. And I promise I have heard worse. And if I haven't, I'm impressed.
Ex-local here, so it has been awhile since I lived there. I will be in town with family for a week and want to give them a spread of iconic dinners to really show what SD has to offer. Lunches I will probably take them to different taco spots like TJ oyster bar and maybe pop in somewhere near where we are tourtist-ing. So far, for dinner reservations, I have Sushi Ota for the food, Seneca at sunset for the views and Costa Brava on Wednesday night for the music. Any other iconic dinner places? Maybe newer spots I haven't thought of?
Edit to add** Two of the nights we will be with a 13 year old and 6 year old, so family friendly spots would be great 😄
Robert Ben Rhoades was born in 1945 in rural Iowa. After high school, he joined the military following his father's suicide while awaiting trial for the sexual assault of a 12 year old girl. In 1964, Rhoades found himself in similar trouble and was dishonorably discharged from the Marines. After being rejected from a position in law enforcement, he went on to long distance trucking across the US and seemingly lived a mundane life for the next 20 years.
Tony Costa was born in 1944 in a small town in Massachusetts. He married right out of high school and had three children before his drug use and violent behavior led to a divorce. By 1963, he had abandoned his wife and children to live a transient lifestyle in California. In the few years he lived on the west coast, multiple women were reported missing after last being seen with him - two young women who were hitchhiking and a third was his former girlfriend. He skipped town again and spent the latter half of the 1960s backpacking across the country before heading back to Massachusetts to start a marijuana farm.
In 1969, police unearthed the bodies of Susan Perry, Sydney Monzon, Patricia Walsh and Mary Anne Wysocki on Costa's farm in a case that shocked the world. Perry and Monzon had gone missing while backpacking and Walsh and Wysocki went missing while vacationing together in Cape Cod. The salacious headlines of violence and rumors of cannibalism created a media frenzy. The young women had all been hitchhiking or traveling at the time of their disappearances, and all had experienced extreme torture over the course of days before being killed.
While serving a life sentence for the crimes, Tony wrote a biography explaining the murders before committing suicide. In his book, he referred to his friend, under the pseudonym Carl, who participated in the crimes and carried out the bulk of the violence. Due to the violent nature of his crimes and the time period, his book and accusations were largely ignored and the case drifted into history.
Two decades later in 1989, a different Patricia Walsh and her husband, Douglas Zyskowski, went missing while hitchhiking in Utah. According to later accounts, the husband was quickly killed and his body discarded, while Patricia was kept alive for up to a week being tortured before she was ultimately killed. Their murders had initially gone unsolved and due to the violent nature of the deaths, had become highly publicized.
A year later, Regina Kay Walters and Ricky Lee Jones, who were 14 at the time, ran away from home and began hitchhiking to Mexico. They were picked up and Ricky was killed immediately, while Regina was kept and tortured for up to a month in a dilapidated barn at a rural farm.
These deaths were later linked to Robert Ben Rhoades when another victim was found chained up in his truck. During the investigation, they found what would go on to become a famous photograph of Regina Walters.
There were other strange aspects of the photograph itself, aside from it being moments before her death, that contributed to its infamy. She was in a rigid, unnatural stance that seemed posed, in a dated dress and heels, and her long hair had been shored off into a pixie cut. He never explained these decisions, but it seemed clear that the photo was replicating something.
It seems we will never truly know who Carl was or if he even exists. We will also never know how many more women were killed by Rhoades, why he dressed Regina the way he did or cut her hair for the photograph. All we know, is both men were highly transient in the late 1960s, both found guilty of abducting and murderding pairs of travelers, both killed a woman named Patricia Walsh, exactly 20 years apart, and both killed women in black dresses with brunette pixie cuts.
So, who is Carl?
In AA, I often hear the old timers chuckle and say “you can’t turn a pickle back into a cucumber” in regards to alcoholics thinking they can learn to drink like a ‘normal person’. Because we know that there is no cure for alcoholism. We do a 12 step program to learn acceptance, forgiveness, and practice being the best version of ourselves everyday. We go to meetings, therapy, read self help, chat with sponsors, help sponsees, meditate and pray. But I know I’m not “healed” in the sense that I could go to a bar and sip a beer without inevitably destroying my entire life in the process.
I understand my alcoholism is not “curable”, just a daily reprieve from the craving through self awareness. I understand my ADHD is not curable, just a daily reprieve with medication and timers and calendars and checklists. So, what of trauma? Is this something, in your professional opinion, that can be worked through? Or is it a permanent fixture of the psyche that we learn to placate, navigate and mitigate with tools like therapy?
I often hear about working through trauma and healing, but feel that mine, like my disorders and addiction, is doing pushups in the proverbial parking lot, waiting for a bad day, week or month so it can barrel back in and leave me in a childlike state of mania/anxiety/despair.
Have any of you personally worked through trauma and actually entered a state of “healed?” Sometimes I sit with my crazy ass thoughts like ‘damn, and THIS is what it is with therapists, psychiatrists, AA, sponsors, Lamictal, Buspar, Concerta, exercise, good nutrition and daily multivitamins”
I moved to the east coast about 5 years ago now and curious if there are any spots I missed when I lived there or newer places I should check out. My current must haves when coming home are: TJ oyster bar, Shanghai Saloon, Hash house a go go, Mongolian hot pot, TJ tacos in Escondido, Pho Van and L&L/In n Out because we don't have either over here.
I am hoping to get some insight on how best to approach another person's (13F) health anxiety. I feel like I walk a tight rope between enabling and ignoring. And what I mean by enabling is that feeding into her perceived ailments will amplify and balloon them.
I wouldn't say her dad has munchausen's, but he was constantly telling me she had illnesses and ailments that I never confirmed at my house. She would come home with treatments for lice, worms, rashes, infections, etc and I could never corroborate them. He said she had a reaction to penicillin that I never saw and we recently tested her for and found she has no allergies to it. So I can see where this all stems from. She also has generalized anxiety and ADHD, which are rife with thought loops and hyperfixation.
Where I struggle as the parent is knowing that not meeting someone's needs, real or exaggerated, is emotionally damaging. I also know that if she catches any wind of something or someone cosigning her ailment, it's like the floodgates open. A small thing becomes debilitating. When she is with her grandparents, I am surprised she doesn't keel over and pass away, because she is literally on a deathbed every time she is with them. And again, real or exaggerated, that is emotionally damaging. So I feel stuck between two negatives. Tamp it down and risk her feeling unheard, or promoting and her feeling she is constantly sick or injured?
As of now, I try to be an active listener without fully endorsing what she thinks is happening. I offer some more mild treatments like tylenol, ice pack or rest and tell her we will readdress the next day. Usually, the thing is forgotten about within a few hours. It is just getting harder, as she gets older and has access to the internet, where the things are becoming more intense and she is gathering information overload on it all.