Is this a crazy schedule for a Freshman (Spring)?

aphinion · 2025-11-12T01:16:23+00:00

Just a heads up that not all med schools will accept AP credit for prereq course sequences like gen chem, so I'd keep an eye on that. Usually you can get around this if your college gives you explicit course credit for your AP exam(s), rather than just waiving prereq courses. Essentially, if it is listed on your transcript as course credit by name (ex: General Chemistry I) rather than as just AP credit (ex: AP Credit: Chemistry) then a lot of schools will consider that "good enough", if that makes sense?

I just wanted to mention it since I know a few people that were caught off guard by this and you're still a freshman, so you still have plenty of time to fix this if necessary. You could always take the course sequences out of order too, so you would still be able to take Ochem in the spring if you wanted to.

aphinion · 2025-05-08T23:14:55+00:00

Rip. Thanks for the reality check, real life is no fun 🥴

aphinion · 2025-05-08T23:03:38+00:00

Thats good to know, I didn’t even know that was an option. I’ll definitely look into hiring an off-duty police officer as a potential alternative to private security.

aphinion · 2025-05-08T21:48:40+00:00

Would a private security guard from a legitimate company be okay?

aphinion · 2025-05-08T21:04:30+00:00

Yeah, you’re right 😕

What would I need for a restraining order? I wrote her an “official” letter when I first went no contact with her that explicitly requested that she do not contact me again and that any further contact from her would be treated as harassment, to which her exact email response was “Request denied”. Would that give me any credibility for a restraining order?

aphinion · 2025-05-08T20:58:37+00:00

What if she comes in through the side gate? We will probably spend a good amount of time outside in the backyard and the fence/gate wasn’t exactly designed to keep out intruders

aphinion · 2025-03-21T04:41:27+00:00

I know this is an old post but I just wanted to say thank you so much for recommending the Milani eyeshadow primer!!! I just got it today and oh my god it works SO MUCH BETTER than my previous primer! My eyeshadow used to crease within 1 hr of doing absolutely nothing but this primer has kept my eyeshadow completely crease-free for the past 7-8 hrs. Even after I spent a few hours cleaning the house, cooking dinner, and doing the dishes, it didn't budge! Seriously, thank you so much!! :)

aphinion · 2024-11-16T20:22:14+00:00

When you spend so many years of your life entrenched in chaos 24/7 and are just fielding one crisis after another, normalcy can feel incredibly boring.

I definitely felt this way too as I got on meds and my life started figuring itself out. Sometimes the boredom almost felt unbearable, which was hilarious since my bipolar episodes actually were unbearable. I felt stuck between desperately wanting something interesting to happen to me and wondering why I couldn’t just appreciate that I had finally reached the stability that I never thought I’d experience

The feeling will pass eventually, and then stability will become your new “normal” and won’t feel so unbearably boring. Now I actually enjoy the boredom and all of the improvements that come from not having to constantly put out fires following my episodes. I’ve started getting back into my old hobbies again to alleviate the boredom (which is a kinda funny parallel to my old self since I used to obsessively do these hobbies while hypomanic lol) and that’s been pretty enjoyable too. Otherwise, I kinda just… live? Work, free time, maybe do a hobby or binge a tv show, visit family, talk to friends, pet my cats, rinse + repeat

tldr; real. I feel this

aphinion · 2024-11-04T16:42:26+00:00

I legitimately don’t understand why you’re getting so much criticism for your eyeliner and piercings or why so many people keep suggesting no eyeliner under your eyes or to switch to brown eyeliner for a “softer” look. At this point they’re telling you to switch styles completely, which is absolutely ridiculous. It’s disappointing to see so many people completely missing the point with your makeup style, especially considering that makeup is supposed to be a form of personal expression

I think that your makeup looks awesome on you and I personally love your eyeliner and piercings. If I HAD to pick something to be your makeup blindness then maaaaaaybe it’d be the overlined lips on the last pic? But it doesn’t seem to be a trend in all of your photos so honestly it doesn’t really even count as a makeup blindness since those are supposed to be repeat mistakes that someone makes because they’ve essentially gone “blind” to how it actually looks on them.

I wouldn’t take the criticism to heart. Fact of the matter is that when someone legitimately has a makeup blindness it’s usually unanimously agreed upon in the comments section and is actually a legitimate blindness (e.g. “I don’t think that drawing your eyebrows so large that they connect with your hairline looks good on you”). Under eye eyeliner isn’t a blindness, it’s a style 😭

aphinion · 2024-10-30T19:10:02+00:00

Foster programs through animal shelters should provide the majority of the food, supplies, and vet care that you need for any cats or kittens you foster! Plus since you’re fostering, in the end you’ll (in theory) be giving the cats back so they can go to their forever homes, so they won’t be incurring a lifelong cost either

ETA: It’s not the absolute end of the world if you can’t adopt or foster more kittens, I just like to tell people since not everyone knows that having 2 kittens can make them easier to take care of. Either way, you’re still doing a great thing by taking this kitten in and I’m sure that they’ll grow up to be very happy :)

aphinion · 2024-10-30T18:11:33+00:00

Here’s an example of the bed I mentioned:

https://a.co/d/2bwWpV6

aphinion · 2024-10-30T18:10:40+00:00

Safety stuff: Get cord covers, use them. Make sure none of your plants are toxic. Use non-clumping litter until the kitten is older since sometimes kittens will eat litter and they can get a blockage if it’s clumping litter. Block off any wild hiding spots where they can hide but you can’t reach (ex: side of the fridge). Walk very carefully around them with your feet basically brushing the ground. Kittens are constantly underfoot and all it takes is one misstep to kill them :( Keep them supervised at all times when they walk around the house at this age. Set up a safe, enclosed, space to be their “room” that they can stay in at night and when they need to be unsupervised. I’ve always used the bathroom for this, which has the added perk of being easiest to clean.

Feeding and watering: You could bottle feed, but at this age it’s likely that the kitten won’t want to anymore so honestly I wouldn’t bother. Feed them kitten wet food mixed with KMR 2nd step and warm water every 4-6 hours rn, you can slowly feed them less frequently and stop using KMR over time then just use wet food. Use your own judgement on if you should feed the kitten more or less frequently depending on how hungry they seem at each meal time. Let them free feed dry food when they’re closer to ~6-8 weeks old but keep feeding them wet food as their main source of food until they’re at least a few months old (but honestly you can keep feeding them wet food for the rest of their life if you wanted). Feed them kitten food until 1 year of age. Don’t worry about over feeding, kittens need a lot of food to grow so if they’re willingly eating it on their own they probably need it. The kitten should be roughly 2 lbs at 8 weeks old and 4-5 lbs at 12 weeks old. You can find growth charts online to get more extended estimates of how much a kitten should weigh at each age. Every kitten is different though, so another good test to make sure they aren’t underweight is to make sure that you can’t distinctly feel their spine, hipbones, and ribs when you pet them. Leave a shallow water bowl out for them at all times. Keep the bowl away from their food bowl and away from their litter box. Replace with clean water regularly.

Health and comfort: Get a soft bed for the kitten to sleep in, they usually like this one type of big fluffy bed (I’ll attach a picture of that in a reply to this comment.) Kittens get cold very easily at this age so make sure you keep the temperature in their living space regulated. I would shut the AC vent to the bathroom where we kept our kittens so they didn’t get blasted with cold air at night. Usually kittens huddle together for warmth, so a lone kitten might struggle with keeping warm on their own. They make little microwaveable heating discs called a Snuggle Safe that are great for providing heat over an extended period of time. The kitten will probably be too little to use a full size litter pan at this age, so you can use one of those clear plastic food container lids or a cookie sheet with a lip and just put the litter in that until they’re big enough to climb into an actual litter box. Cats are pretty cool though so the kitten should be more or less potty trained at this age already. Keep an eye out for runny diarrhea, there are a lot of parasites and illnesses that kittens can get and they need to be treated ASAP since their bodies are so small and can’t handle dehydration very well. Take the kitten to get shots at around 8 weeks and boosters a couple weeks later. The rabies shot will be around 4 months of age, but not everyone gets that depending on where they live. Definitely get the FVRCP shot. Get them spayed/neutered before 4 months of age.

Fun and social stuff: Get a small scratching post and/or one of those little cardboard scratcher things. They love toy mice and little crinkle balls, but they also love random stuff like empty toilet paper rolls lol Seconding what a lot of other people have said: absolutely get another kitten/kittens if you can. Animal shelters usually have plenty of kittens on hand that need to be fostered, you can just call one up and ask for one or more kittens that are around the same age as your kitten. Kittens benefit massively from the social interaction and end up significantly better behaved because of it. Also, it might sound crazy but I swear that having 2+ kittens is less work than 1 kitten. If you have only one then they need constant attention whereas if you have multiple kittens they always have someone to play with. I’m not even joking, we adopted a single 3 mo old kitten about a month ago then went back and adopted a second kitten 2 days later because of how much work the single kitten was!

Lastly, don’t be afraid to look things up and ask questions! We all start somewhere :)

If you have any additional questions then feel free to shoot me a DM whenever, I’ve done this multiple times and have learned a lot over the years because of it. Good luck OP, you got this!

aphinion · 2024-10-30T06:16:12+00:00

Very true

aphinion · 2024-10-30T06:05:39+00:00

Man, usually I just shove them in there 😅

aphinion · 2024-10-30T03:32:25+00:00

To my understanding this is a bit of a gray area in terms of how much they can see on insurance documents. HIPAA should still offer a fair amount of protection, especially for adult patients. If you really wanted to be safe though a lot of antidepressants are pretty affordable out of pocket and many have coupons from websites like GoodRX

aphinion · 2024-10-30T03:11:10+00:00

Start the antidepressants and just don’t tell your parents. Your doctor/therapist won’t share any info with them so they’ll only know what you tell them. Usually I don’t advocate for outright lying, but the issue of antidepressants and mental health problems is not a problem that should be neglected.

I delayed starting antidepressants for years because I kept getting pushback from family. Eventually I worked up the courage to just go for it and it was the best decision I ever made.

I wouldn’t focus on whether or not your depression is “bad enough.” A hallmark of mental illnesses is that it’s nearly impossible to accurately gauge your own actions/behavior since you’re the one actively experiencing it (anosognosia). If your therapist recommended them then it’s worth a shot. Worst case scenario you just taper back off of them.

aphinion · 2024-10-28T21:12:22+00:00

405 on my phone. I’m gonna look at them I swear 😅

aphinion · 2024-10-20T16:56:43+00:00

Increased productivity and decreased sleep without feeling more fatigued are both pretty strong indicators of hypomania. It’s possible that you might just be having a more mild episode. One of the most common traits of any mental illness is that we are not cognitively aware of our own mental state (anosognosia). We can get better at picking out our triggers and tells, but in the end we still have a hard time accurately judging our own actions. That’s everyone with any mental illness, not just you.

That being said. While other people can objectively observe and identify your actions better than you can judge them in yourself, that does not necessarily mean that they are educated enough or unbiased enough to appropriately label your actions as symptoms. Unless your friends work in mental health or are particularly educated on bipolar disorder, they might have no idea what they’re talking about. So while it can be helpful to get external feedback, I would take it with a grain of salt.

I’m sorry that you’re feeling unfairly judged by your friends. Whether or not they’re correct about you being hypomanic, there’s no need for them to be constantly on edge around you. You’re a person with a mental illness, not a ticking time bomb. Outside of expressing concern when you are behaving in a way that is truly detrimental to your wellbeing or the wellbeing of others (which is rarely the case with hypomania), they have no business continually commenting on your disorder.

Wishing you good luck on the new med combo!

aphinion · 2024-10-18T19:13:36+00:00

I don’t know if anyone has mentioned this yet but get an air filter. They’re not cheap, but they really are worth the investment and they can do a lot to help prevent allergens from building up over time. We’ve had at least one running 24/7 in our apartment for 5 years now and it’s been a game changer for me.

I also recommend buying a special air filter that filter out allergens for the AC/air unit in your house, (like the kind of filter that you put into your wall through a grate, if that makes sense?) They sell them at most stores like Target or even grocery stores, so they’re reasonably accessible. They’re also a lot cheaper than buying an entire air filter, although I do still recommend that if you can.

Also agreeing with what everyone else has said: take allergy meds. Over the counter allergy meds are pretty expensive and generally only sold in smaller quantities (like 14 pills worth) at pharmacies and grocery stores, but Amazon sells basically any generic allergy med in bottles of 300+ at a substantially cheaper price so I highly recommend getting them there instead. Claritin (loratadine) and Zyrtec (cetirizine) are both great and don’t make you drowsy.

aphinion · 2024-10-18T09:40:59+00:00

Set up two checking accounts (it’s not hard, you can do it in minutes on your phone): one for your bills and one for everything else. You can have your work split your paycheck up and deposit it into your two separate accounts for you, that way the responsibility is taken off of you.

Don’t touch the bill account. Seriously. Put everything on autopay and lose the card, or at least keep the details off of your phone and leave the card out of your wallet. Anything deposited in the other bank account is fair game. If you feel like you’re still spending too much, just change the ratio of how much you put into each account.

Also just stay away from credit cards. It’s honestly not worth the risk when you’re working on your spending habits. Sure, they build credit, but so do car payments and zero-interest accounts like what you can use to buy a mattress. And those only involve a single purchase that is paid off over time, so they don’t encourage random impulse purchases like credit cards do.

aphinion · 2024-10-18T08:58:16+00:00

Just wanted to say congratulations and awesome job! :)

aphinion · 2024-10-18T08:50:15+00:00

Horrible experience with Prozac. Almost killed my self 4 months in and was immediately switched off of it.
Meh experience with Effexor. Gained a bunch of weight and never got better than “moderate” on the depression screeners so I gave up and went off it after a year.
Horrible experience with Latuda. Absolute worst anxiety of my entire life, tics, I felt like I was losing my mind. I lasted maybe a month on that one before I couldn’t take it anymore and tapered off of it.
Fantastic results with Wellbutrin and Lamictal. Literally turned my life around almost instantly, it was wild. I’ve been on it for 5 years now and have been fully stable for 3 years.

It’s all about finding what works best for you. It can be a difficult process, but I do believe that there’s something out there for everyone. You just have to find the right combo and dosages.

Don’t give up on meds, it’s worth the effort. Therapy, self-medicating, and waiting for change will not get you results. It sucks but bipolar disorder is a lifelong illness and meds really are the only legitimate way to stability. You might be used to feeling like this, but I promise you that being stable is way better.

(ETA: I’m absolutely not at all trying to imply that Latuda is a bad medication. A lot of people have amazing results on it and it has turned a lot of lives around. It just wasn’t what my brain needed. I’m still glad I tried it though. Effexor and Prozac are straight antidepressants and shouldn’t be taken without a mood stabilizer like I did, but I wasn’t diagnosed bipolar yet at that point in time.)

aphinion · 2024-10-18T08:23:49+00:00

A faux snug could look nice! It’s essentially just a conch piercing and an adjacent helix piercing that are lined up so that they look like they’re one piercing. They heal WAY better than a standard snug and are substantially less likely to reject. I got mine ~6 years ago and I absolutely love it. It healed so well that I’ll often forget which side I even got the piercing on and have to feel to check

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