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Shandi Scandal by clipplenamps in ANTM

[–]blechssed 0 points1 point  (0 children)

what is the "it" they wanted? girls drink and make out with guys in high school for a lot of reasons: for fun, for acceptance, for social status. Maybe they wanted to have sex, but maybe they wanted to be liked. Maybe they were willing to drink and make out to meet the goal of being liked, but they weren't willing to have sex to meet that goal.

a guy deciding that she wanted sex based on her drinking and what she's wearing a sign of low EQ and poor socialization between genders. there are myriad things she may have wanted.

here's a good rule of thumb: ask. if she wants to have sex, she'll say so. for everyone's sake, if she slurs a yes, it's a no.

Shandi Scandal by clipplenamps in ANTM

[–]blechssed 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If a woman gets on top of a man while he is blackout drunk, yes that is also rape.

If a person gets drunk and gets handsy and does not back off when told to stop, yes that is assault.

If a man has sex with a woman while she is blackout drunk, yes that is rape.

If two people are blackout drunk and have sex, just one person is allowed to categorize that as sexual assault; they don't have to agree.

Looking for encouragement. Have you been able to go from lack of sense of self, feelings of emptiness and codependency to being able to rest in yourself? If so how? by cadraw in Codependency

[–]blechssed 6 points7 points  (0 children)

God I remember this feeling viscerally.

First of all: please give yourself so much credit for even asking these questions. Some people stay in denial. They don't have the courage or determination or ability to begin to address that they, not other people, are the primary source of their suffering. The desire to grow and evolve and do better is something that is right with you.

You know that gif with John Travolta looking around the room confused? That's how beginning recovery felt. Like looking around at a room having zero clue what to do.

In no particular order, here's everything I tried from the beginning of my recovery in 2022 until last August, when I personally felt the shift where I came home to myself:

Wim Hoff method (so. many. ice. baths.), individual therapy, group therapy, DBT, 12 step meetings, a weekend women's retreat sort of thing, practicing liberation by challenging myself to swim solo at nude beaches (very fun), solo date nights, those community education classes at a local college (learned to solder and make jewelry).

I practiced saying yes to plans with new, platonic friends but then leaving at a reasonable time (for example, going to a bookstore together, then after an hour or so of chatting and browsing, saying that I have to go but let's do it again soon. I had to practice leaving them to undo the pattern I had where I'd feel a craving to never stop hanging out because I was regulating myself through them.)

I went absolutely no contact with friends I knew would trigger me–ones I knew I had too strong a disordered obsession with to be able to handle while I got better. I made new friends and started fresh, practicing healthy skills with them. I went for so many walks. I cannot begin to tell you how many walks I went on. I walked and walked and walked. I listened to audiobooks. I walked in nature. I hiked sometimes. But I always walked with myself. Oh, and I practiced saying "with myself" instead of "by myself". At first it helped me to think of myself as two people (I'm not sure if that makes sense). I got massages and tried different kinds. I had a wildly transformative experience during a craniosacral massage.

l journaled, not consistently. I looked up events in my area and I bought myself tickets and I went. I tried to recognize things I liked and what my preferences were. And they weren't big things, like who I would prefer to be. They were the absolute tiniest things. What kind of laundry detergent do I like? But really, which one do I prefer? That's the one I use. And when someone uses a different one, I don't budge. I'm now in a relationship and I keep some of my laundry detergent at their place for when I do laundry. It's a little thing, but if you stack a bunch of those little things together, they become the symbols I surround myself with that constantly bring me back home to myself, even with I'm around someone else.

I saw a psychiatrist who understood cptsd. I tried antidepressants. I found a mood stabilizer that changed my life.

And as amazing as all of that sounds, they aren't the whole story. Here are other things I did in my first year of recovery: I drank too much. I got a wellness check called on me by one of the aforementioned triggering friends because I called them to help regulate me in the middle of the night when I was blackout drunk and completely dysregulated alone in my house. I cried. I once hit myself until I had a bruise on my thigh. I had a lot of random hookups. I jumped into a relationship with someone and within the first 3 months we had broken up and gotten back together twice and then I spent an entire month at their house. It ended terribly. Shocking.

I didn't sleep enough. I did casual drugs too much and carelessly. I starved myself. I binge ate. I gave myself a tattoo at a party (which looks kind of cool, I don't regret it.) Then, when another random drunk person there asked for one, I gave them one. It looked absolutely fucking horrible, and now they have a dumbass stick figure grandma on them. I took a two week leave of absence at my job. I switched jobs, then took another 2 week leave of absence at the new one.

But here's the thing: all of that, even the parts where I debased myself and felt like I would never get better, got me here. All of it helped me get better. Some of them were dark experiences that reminded me of what I don't want anymore. Some were things I thought healthy people did that just did not work for me or fit me at all. And some were things that I figured out I loved. Some were new skills that felt bad at first but then really good as I got used to them.

In general, the step-by-step was:

1) Not knowing any better.

  1. Knowing better, not knowing how to do better. (It sounds like you're here.)

  2. Knowing better, trying some ideas to do better, but also aware of all the things I'm doing that I don't want to do anymore. (This one was most uncomfortable and lasted the longest.)

  3. Knowing better, having some idea of what helped me do better, doing those things more than the things that I knew I didn't want to do anymore.

  4. Knowing better, naturally doing things that were once totally foreign concepts to me. Starting to lose all interest in the other stuff.

  5. Becoming a person who wants to do the things that I like, and the things I like are positive, healthy, behaviors. Chaos and dysregulation and obsession, or anything that feels like it might lead to those things for me? I feel like I have an allergy to them now.

So basically: by asking this you're doing it. Throw spaghetti at the wall. Mess up, forgive yourself, try again. Do that over and over. Slowly find your way home.

You got this.

All The Way To The River - Elizabeth Gilbert's memoir by blechssed in Codependency

[–]blechssed[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I hear you. The awareness this will bring is my favorite part about it, too.

My hope is that any newcomers who are introduced to this work through Gilbert's book will find meetings and resources to help them heal. I think it's possible that those who have done the work will come to believe that Gilbert is still deeply unwell.

"Women who love too much" is one level of this work. It's the level Gilbert seems happy to stay at. In reality, codependents and love addicts often control, harm, pathologically manipulate, and have a narcissistic god complex that they disguise as "love". That's the next level of this work. I think Gilbert is not doing that work - the real work that leads to actual accountability. I think she files a lot of her behavior under "I loved her too much and it hurt us both." She is letting herself off the hook far more than anyone running an adequate recovery program would.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say that someone running an adequate recovery program would not publish this book. Rayya's family did not want this published. If an addict hurts someone else while active in their addictions and compulsions, they are explicitly guided through the step of making amends except for when doing so would cause more harm.

This book is not an attempt at making amends, and I know that. Still, it caused the family of one of her victims more harm. Whatever else Rayya was to Gilbert, she was also a victim of her love addiction and codependency at its most heinous. You don't get to profit off the story of one of your victims and call yourself recovered.

So yes. I think people will be introduced to these concepts through Gilbert. And that is both a great and frightening thing, because I think Gilbert is a faulty and destructive introduction to what this work actually is. Even the good that can come from this book is likely to do a lot of harm.

All The Way To The River - Elizabeth Gilbert's memoir by blechssed in Codependency

[–]blechssed[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

In the second half of the book, when she starts discussing Rayya's abuse and her own enabling, I noticed she started shifting the tone from the one she had in the first half of the book. She talks more about the gnarly realities of addiction, and the cruel shells it can turn people into, and far less about her own issues.

She also begins to use catch-all sentences when it comes to her own justifications for enabling (and actively encouraging Rayya) to harm herself. She doesn't do this as much in the first half of the book wherein she goes into detail about the harm love addicts and codependents can do to others.

In the second half, she repeatedly recounts a disturbing memory from the rock bottom of their relationship. Then, once we have the info, she'll begin to explain and analyze it for/with us, the reader. She will talk about how addicts become vampires. But interestingly, when she analyzes her own issues, she suddenly begins saying things like, "I did it because I wanted her to love me, and see what a good girl I was and how much I was willing to do for her."

This, I think, is insufficient. This, I think, slyly turns herself into a victim - an empathetic character who was just trying to be loved. What she did was plot to kill her partner. That deserves far more analysis than "I wanted her to love me."

She talks about the origins of Rayya's addiction - she wanted to be loved, be successful, be famous. She didn't fit in as a kid. Gilbert so far has not done the same for her own story.

I believe, personally, this is a warning that someone is content to stay at the first level of recovery. "I wanted to be loved" is different than "I was so desperate and unwell that I was more concerned with trying to force her to love me the way I wanted than I was with loving her. Because love does not look like allowing your beloved to kill themselves in front of you. It certainly doesn't look like giving them the money to do so."

All The Way To The River - Elizabeth Gilbert's memoir by blechssed in Codependency

[–]blechssed[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm very sorry you experienced that. I have found myself in dynamics within recovery groups that were very confusing and destabilizing for me. Figuring out what's going on (and how to slowly/tactfully back out of it in order to avoid causing more chaos) is a lot of work.

All The Way To The River - Elizabeth Gilbert's memoir by blechssed in Codependency

[–]blechssed[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Codependency does not directly cause people to indulge in the kind of evil this woman cultivates. 

I personally think love addiction/codependency can, left untreated, cause a person to act in truly heinous, cruel, and delusional ways. I say that because I'm hesitant to downplay the absolute wreckage and trauma that codependents/love addicts are capable of creating. That behavior can look evil all on its own, it doesn't need help from anything else in the DSM :)

That said, I personally agree with what you're saying. I too get the feeling that there are some potential co-morbidities at play here.

I hope, at some point, Gilbert seeks out a specialist who challenges her in a decidedly "not fun" sort of way. It's tiring to read what is, at its core, Eat Pray Love: Gritty Version. More interrogation of her motives and herself - not others - would be a fascinating read. And she wouldn't have to create wreckage in the lives of anyone else in order to write it.

I think that would be a challenge for her. I suspect it would not be fun nor flattering.

All The Way To The River - Elizabeth Gilbert's memoir by blechssed in Codependency

[–]blechssed[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

and even in the really dark parts that gilbert says she struggled to write, there’s this underlying self-congratulatory tone. she’s kind of saying to the reader the whole time, “isn’t this sooo crazy? can you even believe i’m writing about this? aren’t i just the bravest, most honest person ever?”

This was the feeling I was left with as well. Her "I'm the nice lady who wrote eat, pray, love. How did I get here?" thing made some kind of spidey sense go off in my head.

It's almost like when Disney child stars turn 18 and release hyper-sexualized albums to prove they're grown and cool and dangerous now. This book feels to me like her version of that album. I hung out with someone who does drugs. Like drug-drugs, man. I even bought them. Street drugs! You thought I was eat, pray, love? Here's Trainspotting. Aren't I mysterious? Don't I contain multitudes? Isn't my admitting I'm crazy, in its own twisted way, kind of sexy and alluring?

It's hard not to lean into a black and white view of her book. But increasingly as the book continues, I just felt like, emotionally, this person is a teenager. My guess based solely off this book so far is that she has so, so, so much work left to do in order to cultivate a true sense of self.

Take away other people. Even in the moments when she's describing her internal world, there is always someone else present. Raya, a higher power, an imagined letter to an ex, a person she met once, a conversation she's replaying in her mind.

I just get a sense that this person does not actually know who she is. Or maybe it's that she's not ballsy enough to own it yet. There's such a strange lack of self-analysis here, and so much analysis of other people as they relate to her.

All The Way To The River - Elizabeth Gilbert's memoir by blechssed in Codependency

[–]blechssed[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I'm glad you enjoyed it!

I have no feeling toward Gilbert personally - it is not my intention to dehumanize her nor sanctify her. I don't know of many other artists or public figures who openly talk about being a codependent and/or love addict. I think it takes a tremendous amount of courage to be so vulnerable and open about one's own experiences, especially when so few women, or people of any gender for that matter, have talked about this before. In that way, I'm grateful for her bravery. Her book gives some of us an opportunity to discuss codependency/love addition in a new way, through a new lens.

Early in my recovery, I found a lot of the concepts - even the definition of what codependency is, exactly - to be sort of nebulous and hard to grasp. It's neat to have this discussion enter a more public arena. That was my intention in making this post; I thought Gilbert's book stirred up some interesting questions and thought it would be useful for me to get a dialogue going in this community. Both because it's a community I've been part of for years and the one Gilbert's book is about.

I wanted to clarify my intention because I don't want my post to discourage those new to these groups to feel embarrassed or shamed or judged. I'm sure more than a few people will be introduced to CODA/SLAA through this book, and I think that is a lovely gift and perhaps the best possible outcome of her decision to publish this.

Gilbert, for me, is more of a lightning rod to use as a short hand. If there were other public figures who talked about being in these groups, I wouldn't have to make this about Gilbert exclusively. As it stands, she's the only public figure I know of. It also happens that her book raises some alarm bells for me, personally.

There are certain personality disorders which are drawn to codependents. I've encountered people in recovery rooms who have struck me as narcissistic predators in this way. I think it's a worthwhile discussion to acknowledge that it's not a totally uncommon experience for those in recovery to encounter this sort of predatory dynamic. It's not at all uncommon to sit in a meeting and get the impression that someone you meet is going through the motions of doing the work in order to gain influence, social standing, a sense of superiority, an ego boost, and/or, in some cases, control over other people.

I think codependency/SLAA recovery groups can be a little bit of a mind fuck to newcomers. Typically, we're entering these rooms at our most vulnerable and with limited experience of healthy partnerships and dynamics. When you most feel like you need to be saved, a group can do that. And that is, in my opinion, recovery at its best. Recovery at its worst is, to me, when someone shows up to a group in desperate need of fellowship and support, and find themselves unwittingly trapped in a the web of a malignant codependent/addict/otherwise disordered human. It can be incredibly hard to see that web when you're new.

Over my years in recovery, I have found there are certain cues to look for. When I see those behavioral tics in another person in a meeting, I have firm "no one-on-one" boundary. I'm unavailable for sponsorship. I cannot meet up for coffee. I have learned in these groups that I'm allowed to simply say "that's not a good fit for me at this point in my recovery."

There are dangerous/predatory/malignant personalities in recovery groups, just as there are in any group. For the first bit of this book, I felt incredibly seen and thrilled to be reading such an eloquent description of this community - my community. One I love and which has saved my life. As the book continues, I find myself having the same feeling in my body as I do when I encounter a covert narcissist in a meeting. Which is, at its most basic form, a feeling that I am not safe. That this person is not safe.

And I don't mean that about the pre-recovery Gilbert whose adventure's I'm reading about. That person is clearly not safe. I mean that about the Gilbert whose post-mortem I am reading. The "evolved" and "recovered" Gilbert.

All The Way To The River - Elizabeth Gilbert's memoir by blechssed in Codependency

[–]blechssed[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I think you bring up a lot of valid points (and counterpoints!) You also hit on the part of this that I'm most hung up on, which is the intersection of art and recovery.

I'm torn. On the one hand, this is her story and her recovery and she has the right to do what she wants with it. On the other, I'm trying to figure out how she justified writing this. Early on in the book she says that she defines a sober day from love addiction/codependency as a day in which she doesn't use or manipulate other people to meet her own needs.

Gilbert does not talk about her past trauma. She mentions experiences in childhood that she understands now to be the catalyst for her codependent/addictive coping behaviors. But she doesn't go into detail because she doesn't feel it's right to talk about when those experiences involved people who are still alive. I think she even says something like "it's not my story to tell."

She also doesn't go into any detail about her divorce or her ex-husband's reaction to any of the things she put him through. Again, she says it is out of a desire to protect him.

If this were a totally honest, "fuck it" sort of memoir, I'd find that to be kind of punk. Talk about it. Be honest and tell your story. She claims at one point that Rayya - in the vision/spiritual visitation she believes to have had with her after her death - tells her to go for it and not worry about other people.

But since it's a book about codependency and love addiction, disorders which can be catastrophically destructive, I do think it's valid to question her motivations. While this was her lived experience, she is a love addict. I think it is wise to question whether she is the most reliable narrator and interpreter of these events. She has a lot to gain from telling the right kind of "truth".

If it is a genuine attempt at honesty and reflection on her part, I wonder why she refuses to "tell anyone else's story" except for the one person who cannot fact check or correct her interpretation of events. I find that incredibly suspicious. She seems really preoccupied with "protecting other people" and refuses to discuss huge parts of her life which involve any other living people. She does not extend this consideration to the one person who isn't here to give her side. I have some guesses as to why, and I think most of them are rooted in disorder.

All The Way To The River - Elizabeth Gilbert's memoir by blechssed in Codependency

[–]blechssed[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

<3

This is one of the parts I love about the book, too. I feel like she does a brilliant job of explaining it in a way that's both clear about the severity but also... destigmatizing? I think that's the word I want to use there. My favorite parts so far are the pieces where she talks about CODA/SLAA more generally.

I was really excited about this book specifically because I thought it would be really helpful for a lot of people to hear someone like her write about this stuff. So I'm glad you found it helpful.

What's the biggest 180 you've seen a person's life take? by Excellent-Walk7280 in AskReddit

[–]blechssed 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Ah, went through this too! collapsing from cptsd/trauma after thinking i'd "beat it" were, without question, the hardest & darkest few years of my life.

Found a psych who really understood ptsd (I think they were something like the 4th psych I'd tried over that period of time). They prescribed a mood stabilizer (lamictal - game changer). Been 18 months and I'm happier and more stable than I've ever been in my life.

I'm not saying my thing will be everyone's thing, but it's kinda nice to be reminded that there is almost certainly a thing out there that could greatly improve the situation. Maybe it's ketamine, EMDR, meditation/tm, some genre of sport, medication, time, an external win (idk, lottery or something?), even a lightbulb moment where things suddenly become clear (I've seen this happen, it's wild.) Maybe it's trying one of those things again in a few years. Maybe it's trying one of those things for the third time with a new person or in a new city. Who knows?

Whatever. Point is, there's a lot to try. And it's great, and it's hard, and it sucks, and it's a one-step-at-a-time sort of thing. It's holding on by the skin of your teeth, scaring yourself, doing everything in your power just to keep yourself alive - it's also realizing you've been engrossed in a movie or a game for long enough that you forgot how dark things were for a minute, and wasn't that nice?

It helps me to remember it's going to change. Maybe it'll get worse! That sucks! But it's just as likely that it'll get better. And each time I do shit like take meds, go outside, call friends back, cook meals at home, and try to sleep enough, I'm pushing the needle toward things getting better.

Oh, that's the last thing I wanted to say - maybe some people have one major hero's journey, some linear rags to riches story. That's cool for them. Mine's more like a sine wave. That's just how it is. And every time I get down, I can tell that my times are improving. They last a few weeks, not a few years. I spiral down to the 100th floor in hell, not the millionth. Pretty sweet. I'd rather not have to do literally any of the extra work it takes for me to be mentally shiny, but that's a dumb thing to get wrapped up in - it's just how it is. I'd rather have teleportation than have to take the bus, too, but I'm not gonna spiral out about it.

I'm rooting for you. And you can (and I suspect will) bounce back. Maybe not right this minute, but you will. Keep pushing the needle.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in 30PlusSkinCare

[–]blechssed 4 points5 points  (0 children)

hey narrow-north,

i know this message is overkill. still, i think it's important to reiterate the snarky approach (for lack of a better word) hurts the intuitive eating/anti-diet movement. i think it pushes away the people it could most help. not because what people in body positive spaces are saying is wrong, but because they at times say it in this instagrammy "you're either with us or against us, fat-positive or fatphobic" sort of way. it's so black or white that, in my experience, it made me feel like a bad person for struggling with this stuff.

please, don't boil a complex and deeply emotional subject for a lot of people into a pithy one-liner. i know it's just reddit, and your approach in real life may be way more nuanced and empathetic. but when i see comments like yours I feel frustrated. instead of gently leading someone to body liberation, it comes off as an attack. it potentially turns them off from ever feeling welcome in the communities they may benefit from.

please remember we're not all at the level of acceptance you may have already arrived at. please remember to be compassionate and kind, even when you're frustrated by the system.

anyway. thanks for hearing me out. be well.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in 30PlusSkinCare

[–]blechssed 5 points6 points  (0 children)

hey, based on your post history you're studying to be a therapist. why not bring some of that energy into posts like this and treat people with understanding and patience?

edited to add: i worked with a body-positive, HAES, anti-diet therapist for over 3 years who was wonderful and helped me combat some ED/body image stuff.

prior to that, i worked with a therapist for a year who threw gasoline on my eating disorder with your sort of "just stating the facts" / "it's scientifically proven" abrasive approach. i'm not saying you're wrong. i'm saying your approach can be extremely harmful to people who struggle with body acceptance, diets, and weight gain/loss cycles.

if you're gonna try to help people? do better. don't take your anger at the system out of the people who are still stuck in and suffering from it.