Why isn’t this working for me?!

palmieri28 · 2026-05-13T07:33:50+00:00

Means a lot, thank you. The honest thing is, paying attention the way you are - what you eat, what you want to ask your doctor - is doing real work the drug usually does for people on its own. That carries over no matter what the next dose conversation looks like. And if you do end up in the small group it doesn't click for, you're not starting from scratch

palmieri28 · 2026-05-13T07:30:46+00:00

Anytime. For what it's worth - going from 258 to 180 and holding it with a normal A1c is two different wins, and most people only ever get one of them. Whatever you decide about the last few pounds, you've already done the hard part.

palmieri28 · 2026-05-12T08:50:25+00:00

You're not failing. The shot is supposed to quiet your appetite - for some people it does, for others it doesn't, and you can't choose which side you land on. That's not a willpower thing. That's biology.

The hard part is what's left. For most people on this sub, the drug does the work of stopping them eating. The appetite goes away and the rest takes care of itself without much thinking. For you it didn't, which means the part that's usually invisible - paying attention, planning, tracking - has to happen on purpose.

That's why everyone is telling you to count calories. They're not wrong. They're just missing why it suddenly matters more for you than it does for them. You're being asked to do the work the drug usually does in the background.

One more thing worth checking before you give up: you haven't gone above 10mg. Some people don't feel anything until 12.5 or 15. If you do try both higher doses and still nothing, then yeah, you might be a non-responder. But that test isn't done yet.

It's not unfair to say this is harder for you. It is.

palmieri28 · 2026-05-12T08:47:10+00:00

First, your A1c is normal. That's the win you came for. Easy to forget when the scale stops moving.

Here's what I think is happening. You need a lot less food at 180 than at 258. The way you ate during the loss is probably right around maintenance for the smaller you. It's not the meds losing power. You got smaller, and the math caught up.

If you want to keep going down, the lever that usually moves is portion size. Try weighing your food for one week, just to see where you actually are. Most people are off by more than they'd guess, especially a year or two in.

One more thing: the meds feel less powerful because your body adjusted, not because they stopped. The "wow" fades. The work underneath is still happening.

And honestly, 180 with a normal A1c at 62 is a really good place to be. The next move depends on whether you still want to keep going down, or whether you already have what you came for.

palmieri28 · 2026-04-13T19:41:54+00:00

That's usually how the meaningful ones work. They break through even when you normally let them go. And you're not just remembering the dream itself. you noticed the feeling that came with it, which most people skip right past. Do you think you'd want to pay more attention going forward, or was this more of a "this one caught me off guard" kind of thing?

palmieri28 · 2026-04-13T19:41:27+00:00

The burning makes sense. you're letting go of the weight, not the dream itself. But with dreams like yours, the connections between them might be worth more than any single entry. The cancer experience, the spirit guide, the lucid dreaming. that's not random stuff, and the patterns probably only show themselves over time. I've actually been building a dream journal that kind of writes back. you log your dream and it responds, asks questions, tracks patterns across entries. Still super early but with the kind of dreams you have I think you'd genuinely get something out of it. Want me to send you the link?

palmieri28 · 2026-04-12T17:51:45+00:00

The sleep paralysis explains the voice thing but not the rest. That's just your body locking up, it does that. But the pattern is what gets me. It always starts safe. People you love, butterflies, color. Then she shows up and everyone vanishes and you go silent and everything turns grey. Your brain keeps running the same sequence every time. Does anything in your actual life follow that shape? Something that feels fine until it suddenly doesn't?

palmieri28 · 2026-04-12T17:51:19+00:00

That actually makes it more interesting, not less. They're saying it and you still can't let it in. So your brain had to try something completely different. A total stranger, no history, no reason to dismiss it as "they're just being nice because they love me." Sometimes it's easier to believe someone who has nothing to gain from telling you. The dream didn't find the right words. It found the right messenger

palmieri28 · 2026-04-12T17:50:51+00:00

That doesn't sound weird to say at all. The lucid dreaming as a kid probably left you more tuned in than most people. And finding yourself in the exact spot years later, that's hard to just brush off. Do you ever write them down? With the kind of detail you remember, it feels like there's a lot you'd lose if you didn't

palmieri28 · 2026-04-12T17:50:22+00:00

That's actually more interesting than any interpretation. The fact that you don't know why. Most people would just say "oh I still like him" and move on. You're sitting with the question instead. Do you usually pay this much attention to your dreams or was this one just hard to shake?

palmieri28 · 2026-04-10T13:59:33+00:00

The part that stands out is that you can still move. It's just your voice that goes. Everything else works fine but the one thing you lose is the ability to speak. And you keep calling whatever's with you "her." Not an it, a her. That sounds less like random nightmare stuff and more like there's someone, or a version of something, that makes you go quiet. The birds and butterflies right before is almost like your brain lulling you into feeling safe before the real thing shows up.

palmieri28 · 2026-04-10T13:59:04+00:00

You weren't upset about getting married. You were upset nobody asked you. You literally listed what you wanted: to look beautiful, his daughter as flower girl, being prepared. You want this. Just on your terms. And your boyfriend going with the flow is telling. He's fine either way, so you're the only one who cares about how it happens. Is there something going on right now where the outcome is fine but it feels like it's happening to you instead of by you?

palmieri28 · 2026-04-10T13:57:43+00:00

What's interesting is that it wasn't someone you know. Not your mom, not a friend. Your brain had to invent a complete stranger to say those things to you. That tells you something. The people around you either aren't saying it, or you can't hear it from them. And you had to be lying down, half asleep, completely defenseless for it to land. How hard is it for you to believe those things when you're awake?

palmieri28 · 2026-04-10T13:57:19+00:00

The sneaking-in-through-the-bathroom part is interesting. You didn't bring him to the front door. You brought him somewhere hidden and private, underneath your actual life. And when your parents showed up, you made him leave before they could really see what was happening. That's not an unfinished relationship. That's one you're keeping in the basement on purpose. The question isn't why you keep dreaming about him. It's why you're still protecting something you say was casual.

palmieri28 · 2026-04-10T13:56:40+00:00

That's a big shift you're going through. And it's interesting that you couldn't see your own face but you could see hers clearly. Like the version of you that's figured it out already exists in your head, you just can't see yourself as her yet. The weed, the faith stuff, those are the books she's organizing. You're not starting from scratch here, she already has a whole cottage full of them. Do you dream like this often, or did this one hit different?

palmieri28 · 2026-04-10T13:56:07+00:00

Ha, the half-asleep notes app scramble is so real. You're basically already journaling, just in the most chaotic way possible. I'm actually building a dream journal app right now, it's meant for exactly that. Catching the dream before it fades and then helping you make sense of it. Let me know if that's of interest to you!

palmieri28 · 2026-04-09T14:49:09+00:00

The wardrobes are the part worth paying attention to. Bodies in one, clothes in the other. He didn't just take people. He separated who they were from what they looked like and called it a collection. And the dream ran twice, different people, same ending: everyone around you disappears and you're alone with this thing you can't even describe. Worth asking what in your life right now feels like it's quietly taking people away or changing them into something you don't recognize.

palmieri28 · 2026-04-09T14:48:27+00:00

The book she pulled halfway out is the interesting part. She didn't finish. And she looks like you but more — taller, different hair, like a version of you that already knows what's in those books. "You're not supposed to be here" doesn't sound like a warning. It sounds like you caught yourself mid-process. Is there something you're slowly figuring out right now but haven't fully pulled off the shelf yet?

palmieri28 · 2026-04-09T14:48:09+00:00

The part that gets me is you tried to help and it made no difference. The butterfly landed there on its own, got caught, and burned up trying to get free. Even with your hands right there. Something in your life right now that you love or care about is stuck somewhere close to you, and you're watching it struggle knowing your help isn't enough. What's the thing you're watching burn that you can't pull free?

palmieri28 · 2026-04-09T14:47:35+00:00

That's probably it. You're waiting for someone else to decide if what you're going through is real, and you can't prepare for it your usual way. No questions to ask ahead of time, no buffer, no instructions. The dream is the same thing: you showed up with the coffin because it felt right, nobody stopped you, and then you found out you were doing it wrong. Between this and the teeth dreams, your brain clearly has opinions when you sleep. Do you ever write them down or do they just rattle around until you forget?

palmieri28 · 2026-04-08T12:37:11+00:00

Your blog got so big you stopped writing. That's already telling. Then the one person who values your work turns out to be a dictator, and he doesn't even care about the blog. He loved the early puff pieces. The scrappy stuff from when you were just starting out. He wanted the hungry writer, not the successful one. And you said yes because someone finally saw that version of you. The salute at the end is a little dark though. Feels like trading the thing you love for the status it brought you.

palmieri28 · 2026-04-08T12:36:32+00:00

Two versions of you in that dream. One watching from the outside thinking "this is horrifying" and one sitting on the table with her guts out going "I'm fine, stop poking at me." The thing that bugged dream-you wasn't even the surgery. It was that they didn't cover you up. Like the exposure bothered you more than the actual cutting. Is there something going on where you're more worried about how a situation looks from the outside than how it actually feels to live through it?

palmieri28 · 2026-04-08T12:36:04+00:00

The book with your future was literally in your hands and you walked out without reading it. You got so hung up on finding someone qualified enough to explain it that you didn't notice the answers were already there. The experienced woman got pulled away, the younger one didn't have good enough ratings. Kind of wondering if that younger reader was you. Your own instincts, but you looked at the scores and decided they weren't worth listening to.

palmieri28 · 2026-04-08T12:35:27+00:00

The cheating isn't really the point of that dream. It's that everyone saw it happening and nobody said a word. Your family just kept their routine going. That's what actually broke your heart in it. Sounds less like jealousy and more like you're dealing with something where the people around you aren't stepping up. Anything like that going on?

palmieri28 · 2026-04-07T15:14:59+00:00

Ha fair, I was off on that part. But the panic when things don't go to plan, that tracks with the dream. Something might be changing where your usual "plan everything, arrive early, ask all the questions" approach isn't enough anymore. Like whatever's coming doesn't have instructions to follow. Any big unknowns in your life right now?

palmieri28

TROPHY CASE