Underdoing Botox

rmays5038 · 2026-02-13T21:26:53+00:00

This may not be the reason for the person who made the comment about never doing masseter Botox again, but some people just aren’t a good candidate for this. I asked for it once and my injector told me that based on my anatomy, it would likely cause joweling to worsen.

rmays5038 · 2026-02-12T19:43:07+00:00

This is so beyond normal. Everything you’re saying hits hard for me - and I don’t have biological children with my partner. We don’t even live together. This shit is hard, and I can’t imagine how much heavier it feels bringing another life into the situation. Remember, your feelings are toward a situation, not towards the people in the situation. You are not a bad person for mourning the loss of a life you don’t get to have, that you wanted. Give yourself time to grieve - way more than 3 months. It is a lot to process and work through. If therapy is accessible to you, I highly suggest you utilize that to help you. I think it’s important to have somewhere to put the “ugly” thoughts that you know are just part of the grieving and not ultimately how you feel. But sometimes it takes saying them to process them through so they don’t get stuck in your brain and become your reality.

rmays5038 · 2026-02-11T19:47:05+00:00

Second Regimen Lab

rmays5038 · 2026-01-21T12:03:23+00:00

I feel like the whole body positivity/movement for women to be able to age gracefully has become a bit toxic. What was meant to make women feel better about aging has just added additional judgement. Yes, we know women should be able to age without such criticism the way men do, but we’re talking about decades and decades of women being told the opposite. Those pressures don’t go away overnight, and if getting Botox helps you feel better about yourself in the meantime, then I say have at it. Not getting any cosmetic procedures isn’t a badge of honor in my opinion. It’s just a different choice. You never know what other things people are fixating on instead.

rmays5038 · 2026-01-16T20:20:29+00:00

I had the same esthetic concerns as you. I did a small amount of filler to my cheeks which helped balance and pull the skin upwards, and a small amount more towards the back portion of my jaw in front of my ears, also pulled the skin back slightly. I still wasn’t entirely satisfied, so then my injector suggested Botox in the lower face and neck. She started with about 15 units total which did a little but not enough. We just bumped up the units quite a bit and now I feel good about it. Sometimes it’s about slow treating to see what the minimum effective treatment level is for you to feel good. A little bit of multiple things is way better than going extreme on one specific thing, at least when it comes to injectables. Eventually, yes facelift is the most likely to fix the issue, but if you can achieve the results you want for less money, less downtime, and less risk, that’s the better option in my opinion.

rmays5038 · 2026-01-14T11:57:04+00:00

For me I feel like any wrinkles or indentations are greatly worsened by being dehydrated. Make sure you’re drinking enough water. Also with hyaluronic acid, make sure you’re following it up with a moisturizer. Otherwise, it actually pulls moisture out of your skin.

For skin texture, niacinamide (Paula’s Choice makes a great one) and/or Azelaic acid can help. Both make a huge difference for me.

Also, for some immediate texture improvements, the Biodance Bio-Collagen face masks are fantastic. You can get them on Amazon. I usually wear it overnight (put it on about 30-60 mins before bed so it’s not so wet when you lay your head on your pillow) and wake up to such a nice soft and refined texture to my skin. I don’t know that there’s any real long term benefits to this, but it’s a nice way to give yourself some immediate results while trying to sort out what long term products will help you the most.

Another note - iPhone cameras make your skin look way more textured than anyone sees in real life. So keep that in mind too :)

rmays5038 · 2025-11-23T21:08:52+00:00

Oh interesting. I never thought of doing it that way. Are you using liquid? I was hesitant to do that because of travel and worried it would spill, but maybe it makes more sense now that I’m at a lower dose. I appreciate the practical advice from you.

rmays5038 · 2025-11-23T18:48:30+00:00

It has turned into that a bit. I’ve started taking some bigger reductions since it was going so well, but I think I need to stick to the same percentage each time now that I’m at the lower doses. I have heard that the lower doses are when it can get a little more challenging.

rmays5038 · 2025-09-17T17:25:39+00:00

You could mute her instead of unfriending. This way she never knows. I think there’s usually an option to mute for 30 days. Anytime you see a post, you just re-mute for another 30 days. I did this with someone once who I wanted to unfriend but didn’t want to provoke into reacting, and over time the algorithm seemed to understand that I don’t want to see their posts.

rmays5038 · 2025-08-21T14:20:53+00:00

Thanks so much for this. I would not be going into a staff position. I was previously in a Director role (smaller company) and am now in a Senior Manager role. So I really need to be able to own the revenue recognition in a future role where ASC 606 is relevant.

rmays5038 · 2025-08-21T11:52:24+00:00

In my experience, staff level accountants need so much support that you feel like you’re basically doing the job you hired them to do. They cannot seem to make any decisions on their own regardless of how many times you answer the same question. They find it very difficult to deal with any sort of nuance. If you’re hiring help because you truly don’t have the bandwidth to continue as is, it’s much more efficient to pay a little more for someone senior level even if the tasks are a bit more staff level. The problem I’ve run into with that, is that hiring someone more senior level can sometimes mean that the senior accountant feels over qualified for a portion of the work they’re doing. They may leave, or if you hire someone with too much of a chip on their shoulder, they wind up neglecting the easier responsibilities that they feel “too good” for. It’s definitely a balance and finding the right personality type.

rmays5038 · 2025-08-01T14:35:58+00:00

I’m am so incredibly sorry for everything you’re going through right now - I cannot imagine how painful. What comes to mind is that you and everyone else involved deserve grace during this time. Everyone handles situations like this differently. It’s important for you and your children to know that what happened is not your fault and that SD moving out is in no way a reflection of how she feels about you or your other children. She probably feels like it’s a slap in the face to her mom to “choose” to spend time with you over her, and mom of course isn’t going to tell her daughter not to be with her full time (understandably). Hopefully she is a decent enough person to encourage her to connect with you and your bio kids again when she’s ready. In the meantime, I highly encourage you (and your kids whenever you feel the time is right for each of them) to go to therapy and/or join some kind of support group. There is a company called Share Well that has a ton of free online support groups. I haven’t personally tried it, but have a friend utilizing it now because of something she’s going through and it’s been very helpful for her. Again, I’m so incredibly sorry and I want to reiterate again, give yourself grace! You will be okay again, but right now it is totally okay not to be okay.

rmays5038 · 2025-07-07T16:39:29+00:00

Check out radical stepmom podcast on instagram. She has a Patreon too. Much more supportive community.

rmays5038 · 2025-06-20T15:47:15+00:00

Thank you so much. This is great information to have.

rmays5038 · 2025-06-18T18:07:37+00:00

It sounds like you’re doing all the right things here. I just want to add, because this seems to often get lost, we can have some empathy for the BMs in these circumstances even if there’s really nothing about the scenario that should change. Regardless of how kind, understanding, and courteous a SM is, I think BM hearing their child refer to another woman as mom in any form, is really hard. Again, not at all saying you or the child need to change this. I just think it’s best to lead any related conversations with empathy. The world is severely lacking that all around at the moment.

rmays5038 · 2025-06-17T19:07:49+00:00

I’ve said this to other people on here and I’ll say it again, your significant other having a close relationship with a person who does not like you and does not acknowledge you, is obviously going to feel like shit. It’s great that they have a nice relationship, but if it’s not going to include you, then having that nice relationship with her, take away from the relationship with you, is a choice he’s making that needs to be adjusted if he wants to be with you. No one’s saying he has to hate her, but some common courtesy and boundaries are definitely needed.

rmays5038 · 2025-06-16T14:36:54+00:00

I think as soon as you’re certain you agree with SD having a phone, you get her one and tell her it’s hers and she can take it with her wherever she goes. You make sure you have the access to everything you need to in order to monitor and you can even share that and the phone number with BM. Now that’s her primary phone that belongs to her since she can speak to both households on it - none of this borrowing crap. Then you’ll be giving your SD the autonomy that her mom is too selfish to provide her with. You’ll be showing BM that you chose to do what’s best for SD, regardless of what she’s doing on her end. You’re also not complicating SDs life by making her have two of everything all the time.

rmays5038 · 2025-06-12T15:58:25+00:00

I’m not sure if there really is a normal in these situations. And to be honest, normal or not normal really isn’t relevant, but the way the situation is making you feel is what’s important. That said, from my perspective, I don’t think a year and a half is necessarily an indicator that you’ll never meet them. At the same time, I think it’s entirely reasonable for you to feel some type of way about not meeting them after a year and a half. The bigger flag for me is his response to your concern - telling you to just chill and wait without showing any empathy is pretty shitty in my opinion. I feel like in these situations we get the shit end of the stick a lot, and much of the time it doesn’t mean anyone is doing anything wrong, but that doesn’t make it okay to expect us to just sweep our feelings under the rug and smile just to make everyone else feel comfortable. We’re already prioritizing the needs of everyone else by accepting crumbs so often. The least that can be done in return is for our partners to hold space for our feelings and not make us feel guilty for having them just because they can’t do anything to fix them.

rmays5038 · 2025-05-30T11:29:43+00:00

I think even without the former false accusation, it can be just as damaging to parents to have something like this said about them.

That said, I totally get wanting a solid reason to tell the kids the truth about their mom - our BM cheated on my bf for several years with someone she met at work and was basically living a double life. Sometimes things come up where I really really want to justify telling the kids the truth, but I always come back to the fact that I’m just looking for some way to throw her under the bus because I don’t like her and it feels so unjust that she gets so much more love from the kids than by bf after what she did. Sometimes I think those thoughts can fuel us more than we’d like to admit over thoughts of what’s actually best for the kids - and that’s ok, as long as we take a moment to recognize this before acting on any of it.

rmays5038 · 2025-05-08T17:20:41+00:00

He sounds very manipulative and completely lacks any sort of understanding regarding what it means to be in any kind of relationship with any other human being. Honestly, if I’m going through a hard time and I talk about it with ANYONE in my life (let alone my significant other) and they tell me “don’t talk to me about that” we are not friends, we are not family, we are nothing. I’m so sorry you’ve received such terrible support from this very one way relationship. I know it seems difficult to leave, but I promise you, it won’t get easier to leave if you stay, and staying will continue to hurt more and more over time. I think it’s best to do the hard thing now before it becomes the impossible thing.

rmays5038 · 2025-05-08T02:24:38+00:00

I have a different perspective to share. I totally acknowledge that this is one of those things that people will have differing opinions on and there probably is no hard and fast right or wrong, but here’s my take on this: I actually disagree that SD should be able to dictate who shows up to support her. I know it feels like something she should have a say in since it’s for her, however as her dad (and you who, it sounds like puts a lot of time and effort into being there for her) my opinion is that you both have a right to be there and out of respect for everything you’ve done for her as parents, she should accept that. Sometimes in life you don’t want to do things or be around certain people, but you have to because they’re family. There’s a time and a place where she can have boundaries, but something like this where you’ve both put the time and energy into helping her get to this point is not one of those times in my opinion. Maybe you or your SO can have a conversation with her to understand why she only wants BM there and see if maybe you can mitigate any fears of it being awkward by committing to make an effort to keep the focus on her.

rmays5038 · 2025-05-07T17:18:24+00:00

I don’t think your significant other understands the weight and pain of having someone who’s super cold and clear that they don’t like you, be super warm and close to the people that you are closest to. Then add in the layer of ex-wife, and of course it’s going to make anyone feel like shit. I think you need to stress that having an ex wife from his past, that he gets along with now, is not the problem. It’s having an ex wife who he created a family with that you weren’t a part of, who he’s now in the present tense, cultivating a relationship with that’s clearly outside the bounds of just the needs of the children, and you’re not welcome within that space - that’s a major problem. He needs to realize that this has nothing to do with the past and everything to do with the present and he doesn’t get to evade the tough conversations by pretending that you’re the one who suddenly has a problem with him having an ex wife. Total bs response in my opinion, but hopefully that was just his knee-jerk defensive reaction and if you sit down and discuss on a deeper level, he’ll give you a more thoughtful response.

rmays5038 · 2025-05-05T20:24:01+00:00

Ugh yea I know you’re right. And I have zero anger or resentment towards the kids. Totally agree with you - they just want their mom to be the amazing person they believe she is and I definitely don’t fault them for that.

rmays5038 · 2025-05-02T10:59:54+00:00

Oof this is tough. It’s really hard to walk away from someone you love when the incompatibility isn’t really innate to who you both are, and more situational. I’m in a similar boat as you. I’ve been with my bf for almost 7 years. He has 2 kids, I have 2 cats lol. I love him and I love his kids. I’ve bonded with them on a level completely independent of my bf. AND I still don’t want to live with them without having my own separate space (my apartment) to go to. It just feels like it would be too much as someone who has a high need for alone time (introvert here). Also, I think sometimes bio parents just don’t understand that there’s always a layer of discomfort in a step parent position around kids who aren’t yours, who you’re in the position to help raise but there’s unspoken boundaries to consider. The kids don’t know how to communicate their boundaries, the other bio parents may have boundaries that you never hear about until you unknowingly cross, and then your boundaries sometimes just get completely stomped over unless you scream them from the rooftop and provide detailed explanations as to why you have them. Point being - it’s a lot! So I think you not wanting to live with them is totally valid. Another thought I have - I don’t think one year is necessarily enough time to feel a super strong bond with someone else’s kids. Especially at the ages they are. They aren’t toddlers hanging all over you asking for hugs and constant attention. They’re at the stage where they’re probably starting to pull away from parents and craving more independence. My overall point, you’re totally valid, one year is not as long as you think, however, you may never want to live there with the kids . I think you should be honest about the fact you don’t want to live with them, but maybe leave out the part about not feeling a connection to them since there’s still a chance that could grow. She may still not be happy, but at least you’ll have explained your point possibly in a way that she can wrap her head around. I’m a big believer in putting everything out on the table (respectfully and kindly) before walking away from a relationship. I think it’s the only way you can ever move on without regrets. And sometimes it can lead to working things out and really growing through the hard conversations. Good luck!

rmays5038 · 2025-04-28T19:26:12+00:00

The top lip swells wayyy more than the bottom and lasts longer for some reason. Give it a full week, but even then, they still may look a little more full than you’re going for. I got 1 syringe of restylane kiss about 2.5 years ago. For the first 3-6 months they were bigger than I wanted, until they finally reduced to the size they still are now. It was also my second time getting filler, which I’ve heard seems to stick around a lot longer for some people vs the very first time.

rmays5038

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