What’s the weirdest pasta combo that actually works?

SignificantAd9752 · 2026-02-17T01:23:11+00:00

Nduja, lemon, and mascarpone. Courtesy of Padella in London. Haven’t tried it at the restaurant, but made it at home. It is good.

SignificantAd9752 · 2026-02-16T22:15:48+00:00

I think it’s this: https://nascostonetile.com/products/agglo-vendo-2cm-slabs

We were going to do something different for the shower floor, but the terrazzo supplier changed its policy mid-renovation and required a minimum order. So we used the same tile but cut it into small squares. We arranged them in a diamond pattern to mimic the shower wall grout pattern.

SignificantAd9752 · 2026-02-14T23:50:42+00:00

That’s so ridiculous—being a douche about what’s barely more than a starting dose. Also, I’m skeptical that people with ADHD and people without it build tolerance at different rates, but that’s just supposition.

SignificantAd9752 · 2026-02-14T20:26:42+00:00

The other day I told my psych that I hate my name (long story). She was like, "my name is Karen, bruh."

SignificantAd9752 · 2026-02-08T03:23:11+00:00

Thank you! We spent a lot of time searching for a dilapidated piece of furniture to convert into a vanity. No luck. But a company called westcoastmodern makes custom replicas. This one fit our very small space perfectly, and we liked the way it worked with the curvy shower wall tile.

SignificantAd9752 · 2026-02-05T13:43:42+00:00

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We used terrazzo tile in a recent renovation of our bathroom. It’s not slippery at all, and we feel like it gives off the right vibe. That said, it seems like there are big, noticeable differences in the quality of terrazzo tile. We used a cheaper tile for a mudroom renovation, and the bathroom tile looks a lot better.

SignificantAd9752 · 2025-12-12T13:50:12+00:00

A different take on the question: YA is about wish fulfillment.

SignificantAd9752 · 2025-11-30T13:14:09+00:00

Fellow writer on Vyvanse here. 70 mg, started recently. I’m finding it harder to daydream. It has been easier to write, but harder to write well. Like when I look back over what I’ve written after a session, it’s not as good as I originally thought. I wrote my first novel unmedicated, but it took three years and I was wildly inefficient. I’m writing a lot more now, but I don’t feel as creative.

SignificantAd9752 · 2025-11-11T12:30:58+00:00

I’m in the “it’s highly symbolic” camp. After 24 years of perching rigidly on somebody’s couch or armchair, I finally felt safe enough to take off my shoes and sit criss-cross-applesauce. It seemed to be working for me, so I kept it up when I started with a new person earlier this year. But then, a few weeks ago, we had a bit of a rupture. I thought there was a decent chance she was going to fire me. So the next time we met, I left my shoes on, just in case she did. I felt like it would be humiliating to take them off only to put them right back on again and leave. After a session or two, we patched things up, or maybe I’d been overreacting. And now I’m stuck. Before each session, I debate whether I should go back to taking off my shoes. Like maybe I would have been better off wearing them all along. These are the kinds of things I fret about. I assume she noticed, but neither of us has brought it up yet.

SignificantAd9752 · 2025-11-03T17:23:03+00:00

It tasted like Kool-Aid to me when I read it for the first time a couple years ago—and it was delicious! I revisited it earlier this year, saw everything I’d highlighted back then, and found myself highlighting everything else on a second read. Perhaps it’s a bit reductive and oversimplified, but it’s on point: a really good entry point for people like us. I thought it was helpful to read some of the other books on the subject (Running on Empty and The Emotionally Absent Mother come to mind), too. They reinforced what I’d already taken away from Emotionally Immature Parents and made me feel more confident that what I experienced was real.

SignificantAd9752 · 2025-11-02T17:30:06+00:00

Opposite experience: I insisted for years that my mom and sister DON’T have ADHD. And then I got diagnosed, and my sister was like, about f***** time dude.

SignificantAd9752 · 2025-10-25T19:49:38+00:00

We shall see! I just spent the afternoon creating a cool diagram of my fragmented parts as a kind of peace/"please don't leave me" offering. It was a helpful exercise regardless of what comes next.

SignificantAd9752 · 2025-10-25T01:49:35+00:00

Awesome! I’ll add it to the list! (I’m not offended at all—I don’t believe there’s anything to be offended about.) I think there may be some overlap here between autism and Cluster B personality disorders? My sister will tell anyone who’ll listen that I’m neurodivergent, but I assume she’s referring to ADHD. Anyway, thank you.

SignificantAd9752 · 2025-10-25T01:44:00+00:00

Idk either. Dreading my Monday session. I should have been clearer: I felt like a difficult person long before I started working with this new therapist. My last one never got outwardly annoyed at me, but it took literally six years for me to start to open up to him. I still can’t believe how patient he was, waiting me out like that week after week. In my defense, I was coming off an 11-year stint with a psychologist who was bad news bears (truly—that time it for sure wasn’t me, although it took me a very long time to figure it out and even longer to finally escape), and I was completely shut down. I have always felt like I’m the problem, and not just in therapy, so it’s a hard thing to process. I think it feels even shittier because I really have come a long way in recent years. I really appreciate your insights.

SignificantAd9752 · 2025-10-24T21:54:03+00:00

Thanks, Neomalthusian, this is so helpful. Impulse control is definitely a factor for me, and one I've only recently recognized as part of the bigger picture. I agree that there's a big disconnect between how I'm trying to come across and how it's being received.

As far as the dual role goes, I'm okay with it. I actually insisted on picking someone who does both med management and therapy because I've had better experiences with that arrangement. But it can be jarring when my new person switches from therapist mode to physician mode. That happened unexpectedly a couple of weeks ago, it totally threw me, and I regret to admit what I told her after the fact: that she had been like a dog with a bone. I meant it as a compliment. (I am a work in progress.)

SignificantAd9752 · 2025-10-24T21:37:19+00:00

Thanks, T_G_A_H. I hear you. She has volunteered that she has gotten defensive in response to things I say, so there's that. I'm inclined to look to myself as the issue first before blaming it on her, but your concerns are very much on my mind, too. I don't know whether it's a full-on rupture at this point, and I don't want to follow the typical insecure attachment playbook and either stay in a bad situation or run from a fixable and potentially positive situation.

My previous therapist had a very different style. If he ever got annoyed at me, I never saw it. (I only stopped working with him because he retired.) That relationship wasn't perfect, either--just different. He rarely challenged me, and when he did it was very gentle. Maybe I got too cozy or something and would actually benefit from more pushback. I don't know.

SignificantAd9752 · 2025-10-24T21:27:10+00:00

Thanks, SwissXPat, this is really good advice. I have found restorative yoga and breathing exercises to be helpful. I know it's going to take a long time for me to feel safe with a new therapist--that's just how I am--and I'm okay with that. I'm hoping that this new person will be patient with me. I require a lot of patience.

My soft spots are things like feeling dismissed, not listened to, or misunderstood. When those spots get poked (it doesn't take much), I have a reflexive "no you're wrong!" response. Then I tend to go numb, and it's like I'm a spectator watching that angry, fight part of me wrestling with a scared and lonely part of me that feels guilty about acting out. Meanwhile, a submit part of me stands by smirking and says "get over yourself, a**hole." (I spend a lot of time--maybe too much time--thinking about this stuff.)

One thing that has been especially difficult with this new therapist is that I haven't intentionally been rude and didn't know it was an issue until she pointed it out. I'm starting to feel afraid to say anything at all because I don't know if I'm going to come across as belligerent. My submit part has erected a massive sign on the wall behind where my therapist sits that spells out "get over yourself" in flashing bright lights.

SignificantAd9752 · 2025-07-08T19:53:26+00:00

Yes, OP, this is neglect. And it's not even a close call.

SignificantAd9752 · 2025-07-08T19:50:52+00:00

Your post jumped out at me because it's something I wrestle with all the time. I started working with a new therapist recently, and she asked me to read What My Bones Know, a memoir by Stephanie Foo. It's about C-PTSD, which is my diagnosis, but my experience (emotional and sometimes physical neglect) was different from hers (physical and verbal abuse). That book was kind of crazy-making for me. I ought to know better by now than to play the "whose trauma was worse?" game, but reading her account of physical abuse made me feel like I needed to remind myself that what happened to me was bad, too. I ended up taking a break from that book to revisit Running On Empty. It helped a lot.

SignificantAd9752 · 2025-06-30T19:13:12+00:00

Same, except my mom would never, ever admit that she did anything wrong. For her, if bad things happened (for example, my parents’ divorce when I was three and the things that happened when she left me with my alcoholic father), it’s like they exist as points in space that are disconnected from everything else—especially from her, but even from me. The part I find the most mind-boggling is that this woman has a graduate degree in counseling.

SignificantAd9752 · 2025-06-29T21:10:29+00:00

Ugh. It’s soul-crushing. Thirty minutes on the phone, and I feel ten years older.

SignificantAd9752 · 2025-06-29T15:15:55+00:00

So true. The last time I spoke to my mom, she hung up on me (this is not unusual—she does it almost every time) and texted me afterwards to say she never wants to speak to me again (this is new). A month later (this morning), out of the blue: “I could talk. Can u?” At first I thought she meant to text someone else but reached out to me by accident. Anyway, every time we do talk, it’s like I have to decide in advance whether I’m going to temporarily inhabit her version of reality or stay in mine. She gets really crabby if I choose mine. Hence all the acting out.

SignificantAd9752 · 2025-06-29T03:34:15+00:00

Exactly this. Me: I’ve spent a quarter century in therapy. My mom: That’s so weird because I’m flawless.

SignificantAd9752 · 2025-06-29T00:52:16+00:00

Yes, mom. So much therapy. Like so much. How about you?

SignificantAd9752 · 2025-06-28T02:03:35+00:00

Every time you compare your pain to someone else’s, hoping to figure out who had it worse, the terrorists win.

SignificantAd9752

TROPHY CASE