u/kuu_panda_420

I'm not sure what the explanation will be, but the "brain" flair feels most relevant.

Whenever I ruminate, or hear about other people's rumination, it's always a negative thought loop. Things like "I'm bad at this ----> I suck at everything ------> Nobody loves me ------ > I have to be better ------ > But I suck at everything..." Go on and on in people's brains so easily. Personally, I experience this kind of rumination often. My question is, why is this sort of pattern so easy to develop, whereas it seems that almost nobody experiences the opposite? Of course I understand that nobody will be complaining about their positive thought patterns, but it seems weird that I've never heard of such a thing being studied. The only "positive" thought pattern I ever notice is related to sex (and once the sex is had, those thoughts go away). Other than that, I find it hard to recall any time when I've had a positive thought pattern where I was able to feel good and build on that feeling - Whereas it's very easy for me to start off feeling bad and spiral into a breakdown.

Is this just a result of our brains focusing on negative feedback? Could it be linked to a bad childhood? For people who have generally "healthy" development, would it be normal to have positive thought loops? As an aside, I've heard that some people with NPD have a tendency to come up with extravagant conjectures, wherein they'll start small and build upon, for example, a very mundane opportunity and turn it into a future of wealth and unlimited happiness in their minds. Could that be considered positive rumination, and if so, would that mean rumination is always a bad thing due to its repetitive and maladaptive nature?

I finally decided to start doing affirmations in the morning, because I've been recognizing negative thought patterns a lot lately and I want to actually achieve some kind of change in that. Meditation is really powerful for me so I thought affirmations would probably work really well. I found a few that sound like things that would really benefit me (since there are a lot of affirmations that I think just sound cheesy and wouldn't work for me personally).

However, when it comes to saying them, I feel like a teenager being asked to perform something in front of my friends and parents simultaneously. It feels mortifying, and not because the affirmations themselves are particularly inadequate. It's like I look at them and my brain recoils. I find it very difficult to say them and even though they mean a lot to me on paper, saying them makes me think things like "this is so ridiculous", " this is never going to work", "I really hope nobody finds this notebook". I don't know if I'm just embarrassed because of some preconceived idea about affirmations themselves, or if this is just my brain showing how deep the negative thoughts go. Is this normal at first? Will it get easier?

I'm taking english comp 1 and I'm all done with my first essay, which is supposed to be a short narrative. The requirements say 500-800 words long, or 2-3 pages. My essay is a little less than 3 pages long with the required formatting, but it's still around 1200 words even after some heavy editing. I'm really happy with the product and the essay is about something that's important to me, so I'm hesitant to change it from it's current form. However, I don't know if they'll accept it as is. Aside from the word count, I've done everything they asked for in terms of requirements for submitting the essay. I don't mind if they dock points for the length, but I'm worried they won't accept the essay or bother grading it if it's outside the requirements like this.

Does Sophia still grade an essay that's longer/shorter than the expected word count? It does say 2-3 pages and my essay falls within those parameters, but the word count requirement worries me.

I'm not really sure if I have ARFID as I wouldn't really call myself a "picky eater". However, I figured this community might be able to help with my problem. Even if I don't have a recognized eating disorder, I think it's safe to say I have some very unhealthy eating habits that I always fail to fix.

For as long as I can remember, I've just sort of grazed on food. We never really had snacks at my house when I was little, but I used to fill up on things like saltines or cut up blocks of cheese and just eat mindlessly until it was all gone. My brother and I used to spend our allowance on snack chips on the first of every month, and then eat them all in a few days and go back to grazing around the house. I recognize that this wasn't very healthy, and it probably affected my eating habits down the line. Anyways, aside from grazing, I've always just eaten whatever was for dinner without really thinking. There are plenty of foods I dislike, but my brother always got in trouble for complaining so I learned early on to just eat whatever my parents made without comment.

In the mornings, breakfast felt like a chore and I didn't really like any of it. I felt grossed out by sugary cereal because I knew it was bad for me, but eggs and other high protein breakfast foods make me nauseous when I eat them. Usually all I could manage was a smoothie. That way I didn't have to think about the texture or physical feeling of what I ate, and I could just go.

Lunch at school was nothing spectacular, but it was edible. I ate it quickly without savoring it and just liked to get it out of the way. And of course dinner was just for fuel as well, so I ate it because I knew I needed to. I didn't ever really enjoy eating but I was never picky about it. In fact, of all the people I know, I'm probably the most likely to try something exotic or gross looking if I've never had it before.

Now that I'm an adult, it's like I'm completely incapable of having regular meals. I got so used to food just being available, and being mindless, and now I have to put real thought into it. I have a really hard time figuring out what to buy for myself that I actually like. I don't need food to be amazing, I just need it to be appealing enough that I'll eat it. I generally feel like food is a waste of time and often I get decision fatigue and don't want to eat anything, because I feel like if I choose wrong, I'll have a carb crash or get a stomach ache later. I know I need fuel but I find it so unappealing and it's difficult to make myself eat anything. Sometimes (especially late at night, including right now), I get really nauseous or my stomach just feels weird (some of which is probably related to my anxiety), and those sensations make me want to avoid eating anything because I feel like it'll make me sick.

I just feel so frustrated because I've been feeling like shit for months and losing weight without trying to, and I was already lighter than I wanted to be. When I first moved out I went from 135 to 120 within the first few months, and I was devastated because I'd been trying to gain muscle and eat more. I've since had fluctuations, but I'm right around 122 now and I feel like I can't possibly get back to my frequent eating habits. Eating healthy feels impossible because I'm not very good at cooking (planning, staying organized, and working in a messy kitchen are all outside my comfort zone and very stressful) and I don't enjoy cooking. Even when I have lunches and dinners available, I feel completely disinterested in eating them - Especially if I have to microwave leftovers. I hate lukewarm food and it feels gross, and I've let food go bad in my fridge so many times that I almost expect it to be bad when I go to prepare it.

I legitimately only have one healthy thing that I can rely on myself to prepare, and that's my breakfast smoothies. Even so, sometimes I get grossed out thinking about drinking the same thing every day. And if I add too much or too little of something, it's either a really soupy smoothie that makes me gag, or a really thick one that feels impossible to drink.

I'm just at a loss here because I kind of have to keep my energy up right now for work and other activities, and I've been barely getting by on a diet that's severely lacking for at least a year now. I don't know what I really like and I don't know how to make myself interested in food. Eating feels unimportant and like a chore of its own, but I desperately need to do it regularly so I'm not always tired and irritated. Being nauseous all the time is probably also caused by me living on an empty stomach.

I just don't even know what to do. I'm not interested in food. I also have ADHD and in my personal experience, that makes it a lot harder to force myself to eat or prepare food when so many other important things demand my attention. If someone can give me any advice on how to work on my eating habits or how to figure out what I like, please help me. I'm sick of being hungry all the time and just barely tolerating whatever I put in my body. I've been living off of smoothies, raw fruit, bread and a shit ton of potato chips for way too long.

I have a lot of dreams where the entire theme is that I really want/need to do something, but I just can't. Most often, it happens when I need to use the bathroom. I'll spend hours trying to find some where to piss, finally find a toilet and get ready and then, uh oh! There are snakes coming out of it! Usually I'll wake up having to pee so it's not too hard to figure out.

But I have similar dreams about other stuff. Often I'll have a dream where I'm just really horny, but every time I have a chance to be alone with someone, my mom shows up and knocks on the door or something, or my sister will inform me of some serious issue that I need to address first. Then last night, I had a dream of a similar nature. In waking life, I practice figure skating at least once a week with a coach. In this dream, I was at the ice rink and it was huge and mostly empty. In the dream, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to practice some jumps and other stuff I have a hard time practicing when it's busy. But when I went to do literally anything, I just did a really bad job and ended up falling a lot. I'd either mess up the jump myself, or an otherwise perfect jump would be interrupted by someone skating right in front of me.

Is there a reason for dreams like this? It pisses me off a little because it seems to happen whenever I'm lucid, too. I don't have many lucid dreams but when I do, it's often a similar issue: I try to do something and aspects of the dream world constantly get in my way, or I just can't do it. Does anyone else have a lot of dreams like this? What do you think they mean?

I'm working on a really pretty piece right now, and I've been looking at tips to improve quickly. I've been practicing at 50 BPM (about a third of the final speed, which is typically where I start with most difficult pieces) with a metronome. I've been playing hands separately first, then together, in time. I've also been focusing on individual sections, as opposed to playing the whole thing every time, and trying to focus on playing every note properly with the same fingering every time.

That being said, some sections are really slow and easy (especially at the beginning). Usually if a piece feels too easy at a slow speed, I'll pick up the pace a bit and try to master it going a little faster. For most songs, though, some parts are harder than others. My question is this: is it better to keep the entire song at this limited speed until I can play it consistently, or to treat each section like it's own challenge and increase or decrease speed based on that? I know the song well enough that I don't think my overall tempo would suffer from such a practice, but I'm not sure if it would be as effective to learn that way.

Usually I'll just increase speed for individual sections and eventually I end up bringing them all together at one speed. For example, I started learning Carol of the Bells and was able to play some sections at 90 BPM, while I could only go as high as 60 for other sections. Over time, I increased the speed for both and I can now play the whole song at 110 BPM consistently. However, I've heard this can lead to sloppiness for harder sections and it's not something I typically see people do. Which method is better technique-wise and for learning fast?

I live in Idaho, and they recently passed a law that criminalizes trans people using bathrooms that align with their gender identity. It goes into effect on July 1st and applies to both government buildings and any private businesses open to the public (so basically, anywhere that I might need to piss other than my house).

I usually pass very well as male, and fortunately there is a gender neutral restroom where I work. That being said, it's a single stall and I can definitely see myself needing to choose between the men's and women's in the future. Many of the people I work with know that I'm trans so if any of them have an issue with me, I can see it becoming a problem. I would pretty much 100% be using the men's if I had to choose, despite the fact that it will be illegal (unless the ACLU wins the lawsuit they've got surrounding this bill).

The main concern with the bill is that it would be difficult to enforce the law and difficult to discern someone's gender without "inappropriate or invasive questions and searching". For that reason, I want to know what exactly my rights are in the event that someone sees me in the men's room, decides to call the cops, and has an officer show up. I don't think it's a likely scenario but I obviously don't want to risk going to jail. I don't know much about my rights in that sort of situation. Would I be required to answer certain questions, and if I lied in any way about my gender, would they need to verify that/would I get in more trouble? To what extent can a cop search me in that situation before it's illegal and grounds for *me* to seek legal action? More importantly, how should I act to convince any suspecting cop that I'm definitely in the right place? I'd prefer to avoid a confrontation entirely if I can, but I want to be prepared.

I'm getting into songwriting as a beginner and I'm really struggling with the lyrics part. I play piano and I'm usually able to come up with a chord progression and melody that I like, but lyrics stump me. I feel like I'm usually a very descriptive writer, but when it comes to writing song lyrics, they never feel authentic or descriptive. Sometimes it feels like I'm trying so hard to come up with words that fit the melody and make sense that they end up sounding super generic. An example is this chorus of a song I'm writing:

"My time is your time, but I can use a little bit to take you home.

Because I give it up, give it up, give you my life, and with a bit of grit I can make anything happen.

Running out of time - Somebody shut me up, shut me up, before I run away.

My time is your time, but if I had enough, had enough, I could spend it all on my dreams."

Currently the only thing I have is the chords, melody and lyrics for the chorus, and the song is about being a people pleaser and trying to do everything for others, which leaves no energy to care for myself. I usually try writing a rant and then pick out phrases and words that I want to incorporate, but sometimes it doesn't make sense and doesn't fit the melody. The only other option is something like what I have written now, which I feel sounds generic and a bit cheesy.

What are some ways that I can improve my lyrics and make them sound more original and creative? Should I build the melody around the words instead of the other way around? What are some useful exercises or tricks that might help me organize my thoughts more efficiently and make them sound a little more unique?

I've seen some people say that singing can lead to a "somatic release" where it reflexively causes you to cry. While I think that's part of the issue, I also cry when I'm just listening to music. It doesn't necessarily have to be something particularly emotional - Even dance music makes me cry. I was literally dancing in my car last night listening to Hot To Go and it had me welling up. Music is pretty much the only thing that makes me cry, and it happens every single time without fail.

Is there a way to train myself to just sing through the tears? I was practicing just now and kept choking up, but sometimes I was able to get through a note just fine and the tears just fell. I don't know if I'm reflexively tensing my voice to stop the lump from forming or what, but I'd like to be able to sing while I'm tearing up. I don't think the emotional response is something that's going to pass because I've always had this experience with music and it's not really related to the lyrics or anything.

I know people use background noise to sleep and calm anxieties. Most of the time that's the answer being given, but I'm more concerned about the biology of it.

I cannot sleep with a light on unless I'm extremely tired, and it's unintentional. I can't consciously choose to sleep with a light on, a TV, or even with too much ambient light from the window at night. I need it to be pitch black to even fall asleep most nights. However, many of my friends are able to conk out instantly as soon as they turn on their favorite cartoon on TV. I get that sleep anxiety can play a role in that (I personally used to use a very quiet podcast or classical music to fall asleep because of intrusive thoughts), but I'm wondering if there's a biological component. Why is it that I can't stand to sleep with lights on or any noise above a slight whisper, but my friends can sleep uninterrupted all night with a bright TV in their faces, with the volume just below conversation-level? Is it just a matter of what they're used to vs. what I'm used to, or is there some mental or physical component that allows some people to produce more melatonin despite bright lights, or be more capable of drowning out distractions at night?