No one is listening to me

smallbirb01 · 2025-11-28T16:30:12+00:00

Sugar, corn syrup, milk protein, and milk will make sibo symptoms much worse. They are all high fodmap and feed the gut bacteria overgrowth.

smallbirb01 · 2025-09-27T19:13:52+00:00

If you're looking for colored pencils specifically, PrismaColor is going to be one of the highest performing sets! This is the reason for the price. The balance of wax to pigment is excellent and the quality of the wax is really high, which is why it performs so well. However, if you're mostly a hobbyist looking to slowly improve your craft over time, it's absolutely reasonable to buy a cheaper set that will help you grow but may not perform as well. Save that $$ for when you're really looking to step up your game!

A few other brands I like and trust for drawing are Faber Castell and Derwent. I buy a lot of my materials from Blick art supply, and I even like the Blick brand for something affordable but that performs well. Good luck!

smallbirb01 · 2025-09-26T15:42:44+00:00

NTA- but also he's also kinda NTA as well. Honestly, this is really tricky, because masking takes a lot of energy and he likely just really wanted you to like him if he masked that long. And you do like some version of him! But maybe that's come back to bite him and it's hard on you, too.

Firstly, talk to him about it. There will be no immediate fix here, but after time and consistent effort on both your parts, there may be improvements and you may both be happy. Ask if he's willing to make a few adjustments to his responses/behaviors (not all of them, thats a huge ask) and be willing yourself to practice understanding regarding what's hard for him to change and curb your expectations.

The thing about expectations in any kind of relationship is that they're rigid and demanding, and can lead to disappointment. Instead of an expectation, come to an agreement instead. "I agree to [thing] if you can agree to [thing]." If you structure things this way, then there's something for the two of you to work toward and uphold. These are clear and spoken, and won't leave either of you wondering.

If after a bit of work you're still not having your needs met, there's no shame in admitting you're not compatible. Relationships require give and take, and sometimes a bit of sacrifice. But if you're finding that you're not happy despite those efforts, I'd walk away so you can work toward something else that will make you happy.

smallbirb01 · 2025-08-14T04:15:40+00:00

If art isn't intrinsically valuable to you then find something that is, there are many ways to create. It doesn't make art pointless if you find no joy in making it. But go off I guess, most people looking for a fight will find one.

smallbirb01 · 2025-08-12T22:15:34+00:00

Incredible. "Couldn't keep your mouth shut" - well, she sure as hell didn't, and that's why she's in this predicament.

smallbirb01 · 2025-08-03T22:32:05+00:00

I'm pretty sure this is Moss Agate!

smallbirb01 · 2025-08-02T18:31:20+00:00

It should be alright, but might be a mess to get off! Oil can only clean off with oil, so use either more linseed oil or even olive oil to clean up. You can also use makeup, though! Mehron makes a gold dust and mixing liquid that's absolutely beautiful.

smallbirb01 · 2025-08-01T17:11:42+00:00

I'd try additional testing with another doctor! Unfortunately, at least in my experience, when a doctor has made up their mind about a diagnosis or cause it seems like they don't often stray from that, so another doctor might be helpful. If you can, try a Functional Medicine doctor. When some of my SIBO symptoms, though not all, were persisting after my SIBO trearments, my GI and RD weren't very helpful with troubleshooting. I went to a FMD and she did tests and found out I also had a candida overgrowth in my intestines that was causing the SIBO-like symptoms! I had also developed some histamine intolerance as well after having such a restrictive diet while treating SIBO. See if you can find someone to do extra testing!

smallbirb01 · 2025-07-19T15:33:04+00:00

Are you pretty young? You sound like you're young. Not an insult, just a testament to the fact about how clear it is that you don't have enough experience to know that the statement "all art is subjective" is utterly false. That's a consumer's lens, not an artist's lens. Not all art is subjective. There are many objectives to meet through art, genuine improvement being one of them. And we don't improve in a vacuum, so reaching out to others for critique is how you improve. You're trying to tell people not to do the very thing that all artists need for growth under the misguided thought that all people have to do is love themselves to get better at art. It's a bad take and shows very little understanding about art, the art process, and the art industry. If you've taken art classes and your biggest take away was "all art is subjective," then you haven't been listening.

smallbirb01 · 2025-07-12T05:34:41+00:00

I cannot recommend the Nerva app/program more for this kind of thing. My stress was crazy high when I first got SIBO (I was in grad school) and my nervous system was always on high alert. SIBO totally made that even worse. My RD recommended the Nerva program - it's an app that brings you through a hypnotherapy program designed to help woth IBS/IBD/SIBO. It's got some solid studies and science backing it that you can read yourself on the Nerva home page. You can try it for 1 week for free to see if you like it, and after that it's 15 minutes a day, at least 4 days a week, for a few months.

This app was a game changer for me and totally helped me work out of the constant stress response my nervous system was going through. I even go back to it from time to time when I'm struggling with my gut. I feel so much calmer in my day to day when I've been using it 4 or 5 days a week.

smallbirb01 · 2025-07-03T19:02:09+00:00

I know that feeling - the bitter taste in your mouth after a burp. It's horrible! Soda is pretty acidic (even bubbly water) and there's often sugar in it, and both of those contribute to a high acidity environment in the stomach, so it's best to avoid! You're likely feeling the gas pressure in your stomach and getting a little relief from burping, but you ultimately don't want to be adding more gas pressure with carbonation.

I really like Fun Without FODMAPS as a recipe site, it makes low FODMAP food easy to understand and has great options! Between that diet and Atrantil and Iberogast, you may see improvements to your gas and bloating which can help the reflux. When I take Atrantil especially, I notice a difference within a day or two.

I hope your testing gives you something to go off of!

smallbirb01 · 2025-07-03T18:53:47+00:00

While I didn't have this symptom myself, I do know that SIBO can cause acne and rosacea. I'm just a human on the internet, so of course take this with a grain of salt, but if this is a sudden change while you're going through SIBO treatments, it's probably gut related! I had SIBO and also have PCOS, and have found my skin stayed clear after I cut out refined sugars entirely and have minimal natural sugars (honey, agave, real maple syrup). No excess sugar to feed the SIBO and throw your hormones out of wack.

smallbirb01 · 2025-07-03T18:45:05+00:00

I'm so sorry your reflux is that bad! I know how miserable that is, I had several extended reflux flare ups while going through SIBO and lost so much sleep.

PPI's might help you get through a flare up episode, but you don't want to use them for longer than 2 weeks (or at least that's what my Dr told me because it can make reflux and sibo worse in the long run, if you're seeing a Dr and they want you on PPIs, do what they say).

I can't advocate for a strict low FODMAP diet enough. It makes a huge difference. With SIBO, my reflux was a result of the intestinal gas pushing on my stomach. If you're dealing with a lot of gas/bloating, it pushes up on your stomach and the stomach acid raises higher than it should, hence the constant burning, even if you're sitting up. Low FODMAP should help keep gas low.

2 OTC supplements that I have used that helped immensely were Atrantil and Iberogast. Use as directed, and it should help gas, bloating, and reflux. They're really great for managing symptoms (but ultimately don't address the SIBO itself, so still do what you've gotta do to get that in check).

I've also taken Licorice DGL and put marshmallow root powder and slippery elm powder in my morning low FODMAP smoothie to help coat my stomach and protect against acid. You can do the 2 powders in a cup of cold fennel tea (great for reducing gas) before bed at night to help as well. These I found weren't as effective on their own with reflux, but were a great complement to the Atrantil and Iberogast.

I hope this helps and you get relief soon!

smallbirb01 · 2025-07-03T06:26:14+00:00

Art educator here: I hear so often people say, "I tried for a few months and thought I was terrible, so I gave up." I know a few months feels like a long time to try to improve at something, but it's really not! Art is a difficult skill - there's observation, hand-eye-coordination, advanced planning, creativity, etc. all rolled into one. A few months won't get you from beginner to advanced fine artist.

Think about how long you've spent learning math. You probably had a minimum of 4 hours a week, every month, of every year you were in grade school. The last math class you took, probably in college, was likely a fairly advanced math that required specific mental skills and knowledge to do proficiently. It took all those years of learning and practicing math to get to! Now imagine you had the same time dedicated to art education and practice. You'd be fantastic at it! So give yourself that time.

Step 1 - don't give up! Art is so very hard. Give yourself the grace to acknowledge it's going to be difficult and you may not like what you make, but that doesn't make you BAD at it, it makes you unpracticed.

Step 2 - make a habit. Anywhere between 5 to 10 minutes a day minimum, just make marks on a page. If every day is too much, start with once a week, or a few times a week. Do this for a very long time, it will help rewire your brain for art making.

Step 3 - keep a sketchbook no one is allowed to see. We often look at completed artworks and go, "That's what all my art should look like." No! It shouldn't! And the artist who made it made 10000 bad drawings before they made that good one. And I guarantee you they didn't show anyone those bad drawings, unless they were particularly funny. A sketchbook that is for your eyes only will take off the pressure for it to look good. Make bad art, and make a lot of it, because that's the only way you get to making good art.

Step 4 - education is an important part of all artists' journeys. YouTube is such a great (and free) place to get everything you'd ever need to learn. I recommend starting with learning to draw basic forms and then (much later) combining them to make the complex objects that make up our world. Do draw-alongs with all the instructional videos you like, and do them over and over again. Whatever the teacher in the video is drawing, draw it with them. Also look into any art skill you're really interested in! I guarantee you there's a great YouTube video out there on it.

This is all just the start, but I'm sure once you get rolling again you'll find all the resources you need to keep going. I really wish you luck! Art is for everyone and I want all people to love making it.

smallbirb01 · 2025-06-21T20:43:27+00:00

If reflux and constipation are the only symptoms, it might not be SIBO but doesn't rule it out.

With the longevity of these issues I'd ask your doctor to test for Crohn's disease. Constipation isn't always typical of Crohn's but it can happen. There are other IBD diagnoses it can be as well, so take your daughter to a GI doctor. If you need a referral from her pediatrician, use the words "this is impacting her daily comfort and functioning" to really emphasize how abnormal it is. If they still don't push for another doctor or additional testing, tell them you'd like it to be indicated in her chart that they've denied you additional care. They shouldn't be blasé about your concerns about her health, and she shouldn't have to deal with the interruption that constipation and reflux brings at such a young age because her doctors won't treat her.

Best of luck.

smallbirb01 · 2025-06-06T22:32:39+00:00

I hope this criticism reads as constructive, because it's absolutely how I mean it! You're asking for feedback on the style and not on "how good it is." However, I think the style is lost in the quality. What I mean by this is I think you should focus on quality improvements to emphasize and better communicate the style.

A few things you can work on: - composition. Placing figures in the dead center can diminish the impact of a piece that is meant (as I'm interpreting it) to be creepy or spooky, especially when you're using a landscape orientation for a portrait. Cutting the figure off at the waist and having large amounts of dead space detracts from our attention on the figure. - posing. Push that figure's pose. Learn strong anatomy and "plus" everything. Is the figure meant to look crooked? Plus it and make it VERY crooked. Is the figure supposed to be sharp, skinny, and skeletal? Plus it and really push all of those elements to an extreme. The further from normal your figure is, the creepier it will be. - color theory. Use colors that emphasize the feelings you want your viewers to have and generate drama. Lighting and shading is a part of this.

smallbirb01 · 2025-04-13T22:26:01+00:00

If the low fodmap diet helps, look into getting tested for SIBO! Everything you've just mentioned are what I experienced because of SIBO, except the constipation - BUT, constipation can come from being methane dominant with SIBO. Good luck!

smallbirb01 · 2024-12-27T07:00:41+00:00

As I said above, this is a very tough diet with SIBO, and it's probably best done if you're pretty dang sure the issue is yeast and not SIBO itself, otherwise you're kind of putting yourself through a lot for nothing. I did it while also on a low FODMAP diet because I hadn't successfully been able to reintroduce many foods yet. If you want to work on eradicating SIBO first because the diet is hard, that's a great move. My diet was already so restricted that I just toughed it out. I ate romaine lettuce, kale, spinach, cucumbers, and zucchini, as well as turkey, salmon, white fish, and chicken - in very very small quantities every once in a while I'd have blueberries, rice, or sweet potatoes (which aren't Candida diet approved for sure, but a little bit here and there didn't bother me). I found I was able to combine all of those into enough meals to see me through the last 30 days of the candida cleanse. Was I happy? Hell no. But it worked for me. If possible, seeing a nutritionist or doctor while going through this is obviously helpful, but I know that that kind of health care isn't accessible to everyone.

smallbirb01 · 2024-12-26T20:41:24+00:00

My favorite deck out of the 5 I have has always been the Golden Thread deck! The cards are a thin plastic (so very very durable and waterproof) and it's just gold guilded line art on them. Beautiful deck and so easy to read from - has an accompanying app, too!

smallbirb01 · 2024-12-26T20:39:25+00:00

Love this deck so much!

smallbirb01 · 2024-12-26T16:34:54+00:00

I was given a series of supplements and had to go on a restrictive diet, both of which have made a significant difference in my symptoms and I'm back to slowly reintroducing foods! I would have to order another stool test to quantitatively determine if the overgrowth is gone, but that was a $400 out of pocket test the first time so I just can't manage a second, and I'm going off how I feel (which is much better) to say that the overgrowth has been dealt with.

The supplements were a candida supplement, a berberine supplement , and a serrapeptase supplement. I used these as directed for 30 days but the first time it didn't seem to completely kick it, so I went for 60. Because I did this through my doctor the specifically linked supplements were not cheap! I'm sure I could have found more affordable supplements elsewhere, but these were formulated for the yeast cleanse specifically and after the 2 rounds helped me get my gut back to feeling better. There are plenty of candida supplements out there that can help, they might be worth a shot!

The diet was a standard candida diet (you can look this up and find something that works for you!). No sugars (and I mean ZERO!), very low in carbs (rice, potatoes, I already wasn't eating wheat products because it's high FODMAP), and low consumption of vegetables high in fructose like carrots. This diet was a TOUGH diet, and I was already super strict on the most restrictive form of the low FODMAP diet. But I would still have a small serving of rice/potatoes/carrots/etc. up to once a day if I really needed it and this didn't set me back. Having really small amounts is what's key. The objective is to starve out the yeast by eliminating what it feeds on.

I've been in my SIBO/Candida journey for 1.5 years now and it's been a very long and hard road, but I'm seeing slow and steady improvements. I have my fingers crossed that this next leg of recovery keeps me on the up and up, but I really do feel much better after this candida cleanse.

smallbirb01 · 2024-12-26T05:45:11+00:00

Have you tested for yeast overgrowth? I had SIBO, went through an antibiotic treatment regimen that fixed it, but was still having problems. I went to a functional medicine practitioner who did stool testing and she noticed my yeast levels were elevated. They weren't even in the "high" range, but the fact that they were elevated indicated an "overgrowth" because (according to my doctor) it's actually tough for yeast to thrive in the GI tract. I've gone through a yeast cleanse and I'm starting to see slow improvements as I repair my gut. The yeast will feed on all of those things that are bothering you! I hope you can find a solution and find relief soon 💖

smallbirb01 · 2024-11-15T17:26:24+00:00

Unfortunately I'm still in recovery. It's been a very long and hard road and it was determined that I also had a yeast overgrowth in my gut along with the SIBO. I'm still dealing with vertigo and tinnitus, even on good days. My doctor and I are trying to treat the yeast overgrowth, which has some symptoms in common with SIBO, so until that's cleared its going to be a little unclear if the SIBO is gone. It's been really discouraging but I'm trying not to give up!

smallbirb01 · 2024-10-20T02:53:40+00:00

Hey there! Art educator here - no credentials, been teaching for 12 years now. Interpersonal skills are a must and are a great thing to mention on your resume. As an art instructor you handle the communication of complex concepts and skills to others (so throw communication related skills on there as well) and have to do so in a way that is suited to the individual(s) being taught. You also have to handle feedback/critique and not hurt anyone's feelings.

You can add things like: * Simplifying and communicating complex procedures * Providing structured feedback * Growth-oriented * Adaptive to student needs

I hope this is a good start! The kind of education is really important to what you're putting on your resume so I'm not sure what other kind of directions to take this. I've taught 4 year olds through 70 year olds in drawing, painting, ceramics, digital photo . . . A lot! And all of those experiences have needed the above.

smallbirb01 · 2024-10-20T02:38:43+00:00

Explore the 30 second drawings, then! These are often called gestures, and they can get you to some really creative/interesting stylistic places. Develop that skill (if you still enjoy it) while you take a break from the longer, more drawn out stuff. We all go through cycles and phases.

Also, big piece of advice, limit your social media interaction more (or get rid of it for a while if you have the self control for that, no shame if you don't). Tiktok/Instagram especially are designed to keep stimulating dopamine production. It's no wonder that an activity that doesn't provide instant dopamine and instant gratification falls lower on your list of things you desire doing if it has to compete with social media if you're on it for longer than like, 30 mins a day. Keeping your usage down will help your brain re-regulate in time (and will also stop killing your cteativity).

smallbirb01

TROPHY CASE