u/filmfoto

I'm an adult still living at home - like so many these days.

I had my friends over for a cafe lunch and hangout. We return home and at some point my mother enters the conservatory (where my friends are) and puts on her 'teenage girl act' - acting like one of their best friends and starts berating me for

: having not fed them or given them alcohol etc.

• Previously, I asked my friends what time they wanted to head home - a sunday, they have work in the morning and I let them know there's unfortunately no food in the house

Once I enter the room Ma asks why I can't order food for everyone in front of them. I respond plainly that I have only just gotten a temp job after months of unemployment after a redundancy. She sends me money to buy food for everyone.

I leave the room - she plies with alcohol retorting that 'just because you don't drink doesn't mean everyone else has to'

Every time I leave to get plates, coffee, tea she enters while I'm away and talks about me. Then, in front of them confronts me about where the $30 she gave me for groceries went. This $30 was days ago. I told her - I used it to buy groceries, hello?? why did you feel the need to do this in front of my friends.

With a loud booming voice like a performance, she continues to make fun of me.

My lifelong friends just eat the free food (what she sent me covered very little too so i paid for most of it) and laugh in thanks etc - while both of them, with full time jobs, offer nothing to cover their share.

Insist when she leaves we have to get food for her (which means I am buying food for her, they aren't. It's not like they are thanking her with food because they aint paying)

The kicker?

As soon as she leaves she complains about the money spent and says "they better not have drank all the alcohol" - complaining about them TO ME??

I feel so sick and they didn't care. She's just the 'fun spunky mum' - the kind that treats her daughters friends better than her daughter for the sake of embarrassment.

I feel like I can't talk to anyone about it,  especially not my friends and not even my partner because they both reap the benefits of my mom's behavior in front of them.  As soon as they leave she says “I can't believe they did this I can't believe they did that“  

almost blaming me for the fact that her choosing to try and embarrass me cost her money.

Has anyone read “the 12 keys to shrinking nasal polyps by Bertrand Waterman“?

I’m going to be giving a read and share my findings. Maybe it can help out in someway and I can let you guys know if it’s worth reading! ♥️

EDIT 1: I'm already gaining new information about potential nasal irritants I would never have considered We all know about AERD (and thanks to this subreddit I know of GERD) but I have never heard of : 1. A tooth root or deep cavity being the potential cause for nasal polyps, specifically the premolar and upper molar region. 2. Heavy metal fillings in molars.

Fun fact : the area of the brain that controls stress, is the same area that controls the nasal mucosa cycle. Being stressed can literally cause nasal irritation - more mucus and postnasal drip

When do you accept that things are better, but aren’t exactly where you want them to be? And maybe… That’s going to have to be enough?

I’m currently one month post a course of long-term steroids

I’m taking Nasofan daily, alongside fluticasone drops.

The general status is
- have some minor blocking which tends to alleviate if I take my medication (but is a daily feeling, switching between nostrils)
- have almost complete smell loss unless it’s a strong perfume
- I’m unsure if I’m ever gonna be able to have more than a single drink of alcohol ever again due to inflammation

I’m okay with how the blocking symptoms are now – but I’m aware if I do ever miss medication it is instantly worse – which is my worry

The smell loss is so painful and I’m not sure whether to push and see if I can get at least somewhat better – or just accept that this is what it is.

My ENT requested a CT scan but I haven’t seen it and I may request it so that I can have a look at how things were in the middle of my steroid course

I’m coming to terms that if I want even a sliver of an unblocked nose, I’m going to have to be strict with myself alongside the medication.

I recently finished a long-term steroid course and have been trying to mitigate the return of my blocked nose + smell loss.

I realise that alcohol is a massive trigger for me and I’ve been trying to broach the topic of being sober with my friends and my partner but I keep getting similar responses from my friends

Aka

“Live a little!”
“You need to treat yourself!”

Most shockingly, I’ve had a friend who also has a chronic illness tell me “us girls was chronic illness, we need to find treats for ourselves and not restrict ourselves because we have such a hard time already” - bear in mind she does not have nasal polyps she has a completely different issue

Then with my partner, I was literally hung over from my friend‘s birthday party where I allowed myself to drink, a party he knew was happening and he knew it was a one off for me

The next day hung over he buys me a cider

I can only assume he bought it because he wanted a beer because I’ve never drank cider even when I do drink alcohol

I initially wanted to just limit my alcohol intake, but considering the fact that no one can respect my boundaries when I say no, I might just have to cut it out completely and be entirely sober for them to respect that line

The next day after the cider, I was crying because I could feel that my nose was blocking up and I had smell loss and when I told my partner, he couldn’t understand why it was so upset that I was losing my smell again

I am honestly starting to hate the people around me because of their lack of compassion towards nasal polyps in general. These are people I LOVE and i'm finding myself in search of new friends bc they can't conceptualise the change

I've only just realised I might be one of the younguns here, I'm sitting at 23, first developing polyps at the start of my second year of university, must have been about 19/20.

It feels hard to track how this really started. I had a drunken and cold winter night at a party for my favourite lecturer leaving the university, I remember waking up the next day with such a sore throat. A lung infection that seemed to spread to a nasal infection, a burst of new adult asthma and I was on steroids for that so polyps weren't bothering me and sat in the rear view.

Spent the rest of my university days drinking at parties and pubs as one does. Now I'm getting into normal work life and can't smell burning batteries, couldn't walk up stairs without breathlessness from simple lack of airflow and hating the heaving of breathing from my mouth.

Now settling into the 10000th round of new medication testing and finally having an ENT. Alcohol is my biggest trigger, second comes general coldness and third seems to be lack of sleep

I feel like the battle never ends and I'm wondering how anyone does it and is fully offline. I have waves when things are good. I'm great at being no screens with other people around but as soon as i'm to myself something switches.

Today I spent the whole day in bed scrolling, watching netflix etc - doing absolutely nothing apart from a morning dog walk.

I know there might have been some external factors. A lovely weekend ending, a lot of online admin coming up this week, a messy room and just deciding to pawn it off on tomorrow but I'm so disappointed in myself. Was feeling stressed, sad and scared and it's only the exact same if not worse.

I'm in between a big career shift so I can blame that too but there never is a real excuse is there, it's just THERE and convenient

This, I suppose is more of a general question but I'm most active in this reddit community so it makes sense to put here

Why do people have merch shelves?

Maybe this is just because I don't spend as much as the people that do have those shelves but why would you pay money for something to just sit and collect dust? I really don't get it?

I'm a really maximalist person too, just looking around my room now, I have : lanterns, jewellery boxes, seashells, figurines all on display but i can't imagine having a cubby hole with it all concentrated in one area... like for what? I have signed posters on the wall where I can actually enjoy them, I wear tour merch from other artists etc, the jewellery boxes get used, the lanterns get lit etc

I guess this is also less of a question but more so a discussion on wealth and how it manifests in these display cases that will unfortunately, either collect dust forever or be later resold as "display item only never used"