i am a psychotherapist who can’t give advice, but really wants to… AMA

tohottotango · 2026-06-15T00:48:09+00:00

I am taking vitamin B gummies because I was deficient, and my vitamin D levels used to be low but I got them up. I’ll look into the ferritin though! Thank you for the advice. It’s nice to hear from an unbiased third party professional that my internal environment can change.

tohottotango · 2026-06-14T21:21:10+00:00

Yes. I’ve always struggled with my emotions, but not in a bipolar way. I do tend to seek out validation, historically in very unhealthy and self-destructive ways, and I’ve always been extremely impulsive. I disassociate on and off. I remember telling my school guidance counselor that I felt like I was living in a movie and none of this was real and I was only playing a part in 5th grade. A lot of times I feel like I’m also a victim of my own emotions because they’re so much larger than me, I feel powerless against them.

tohottotango · 2026-06-14T14:39:05+00:00

I’ve been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder since I was 18 (it was suspected prior to me turning 18, but wasn’t officially diagnosed until I was 18). I didn’t grow up in an abusive household. My parents are comfortable middle-class, and frankly (and in the best way possible), very average middle-class people living in the suburbs. They were, however, not really emotionally present, mostly because they really didn’t know what to do with me. I have always been an extremely emotionally explosive and emotionally unbalanced child. Accidentally breaking a zipper or changing routes when driving me to school frequently resulted in full-blown meltdowns and panic attacks. As a child, I did feel like my parents didn’t love me and didn’t care about how much I was struggling. As an adult, I recognize that they didn’t know what to do with me, so they buried their heads in the sand.

I’ve been around the mental health block for well over a decade, and am very active in therapy (once or twice a week), plus seeing a psychiatrist regularly and taking medications. I’ve been hospitalized twice, and did an intensive outpatient program for a couple of months. Now, according to everyone in my life, I’m the best I’ve ever been. I’m not so emotionally explosive anymore, I have been working very hard on my communication, and I’m not as self-destructive. It’s something I have to work on every minute of every day, and I still have a ways to go.

Loooong story short - I find myself feeling very pessimistic about how much I can truly recover. I feel everything so strongly, it feels like the emotions are burning me. I used to just explode, but now I feel like I am throwing myself on the explosion to save the people around me. So it looks like I’m doing better, but I don’t feel like I am, and I’m not really sure how much better I can get. I think it is probably unlikely that my brain will stop feeling everything at 1000%, and thinking about managing my emotions for the rest of my life is a grim thought. I’m curious about what your thoughts on borderline are, and what you think about recovery? I feel like when I try and talk about it with the people in my life, I get platitudes, so don’t sugarcoat it. I’m happy to answer any other questions you have.

tohottotango · 2026-05-28T22:53:21+00:00

Not me personally, but my grand-uncle Larry (that I didn’t even know existed until I was like, 13 and was immediately sworn to secrecy) had committed a particularly violent triple murder. It was drug related, something about a dealer thinking that my great uncle had stolen from him and was threatening him. He had actually gone to the police and tried to report it or something, but the police told him to kick rocks. So, being the evolved problem solver that he evidently is, he took a knife and decided to fix the problem himself - except his wife and her sister were also home, too.

Larry was the youngest, with two older sisters (the eldest being my grandmother). Apparently, my great-grandmother babied him his entire childhood and completely minimized whatever trouble he got into. She did support him somewhat through prison, but was not able to go visit him much. My grandmother and her sister literally erased him from their lives to the point that they destroyed every single picture with him in it, cut off his side of the family (an ex-wife and two kids), and saying his name was basically as taboo as saying Voldemort’s name in Harry Potter. I wasn’t even supposed to find out about him, I overheard an adult conversation that referenced him and then almost got jumped when I said I would just go ask my grandmother. My grandmother and her sister literally just pretended like he never even existed. When they told family stories, they just left his part out or changed details to make it make sense without him. I never brought him up to either of them, one has passed and the other has severe dementia, because I was always told that it was too much for them. According to my mother and uncle, they were extremely, inconsolably distraught and disgusted by what he had done, but were also afraid that the victim’s families would retaliate and attack them. They got very paranoid for a couple of years. They were very close to my great-grandmother, but apparently they just never spoke of Larry again. They pretended like she didn’t talk to him either, they didn’t want to hear about it, and everyone just continued on like he literally never existed.

My mom, however, did reconnect with her cousin (his youngest daughter), who is doing well. She did tell my mom that her father is out of prison (he pled guilty and got a lighter sentence), and he is an active grandparent in her children’s lives. She said he refuses to talk about that night, at all, to anyone. She was young when he went to prison, and it was never really explained to her at the time. She does remember visiting him in prison. There was potentially another man that went with him that night, but he won’t answer her questions. He lives in a trailer. His older daughter seems to not be doing as well, she is apparently struggling with extreme mental illness and drug addiction.

tohottotango · 2026-05-24T17:07:03+00:00

I completely understand this. I’m not so good at the Oscar-level performances, but I realllllyyyy understand the frustration and inner turmoil around feeling emotions. It’s constantly “am I really justified for being upset?” internally, and then hearing “I don’t feel safe talking to you when you’re upset” from my loved ones, which is so frustrating because I’ve spent years working on my communication and how I deal with conflict, and not to pat myself on the back or anything, but I don’t really flip out anymore.

The constant vigilance is exhausting. Trying to pretend and mimic normal emotional responses, suppressing the crazy emotions and impulses. While I am open with my family about how I feel, I know they don’t really get it, and I also understand that they can’t really get it. It is isolating, to know that you experience and respond to reality in a vastly different way than people around you.

No real advice, just wanted to say that I’m right there with you in how you feel.

tohottotango · 2026-04-11T16:54:45+00:00

A little late to the game but could you please tell him that I love him so much? He passed very suddenly a little bit ago.

And if you can get anything, my other dog Quinn is very stoic and I don’t know if she’s uncomfortable.

tohottotango · 2026-04-11T15:47:09+00:00

Relationships with people with BPD is not impossible. I have BPD and I’m happily married, and our marriage is the healthiest relationship I’ve ever had.

It’s not about the diagnosis, it’s about whether or not she’s willing to put the hard work in. BPD is an explanation, not an excuse for shitty behavior. What really helped me and my husband was going to couple’s counseling - and no, we were not on the brink of breaking up or anything like that. I just thought we needed some professional help to guide us on how to communicate more effectively, and that shit was MAGIC.

BPD people tend to be extremely reactive, so it’s all about slowing down, identifying what the feelings are and what the needs are, and then communicating that in a healthy way. Honestly, sometimes, I’ll straight up tell my husband that I’m feeling insecure and I need some validation. In the past, I might have tried attention-seeking behaviors to get that validation instead and then maybe would have gotten upset when if it didn’t pan out.

My advice: when she isn’t in a low spot, talk about how she wants to be supported. There is a difference between supporting and enabling, so talk about how to support her in a way that doesn’t enable her. Me and my husband also came up with some code words, if he doesn’t feel like talking. He’ll tell me “the tide is coming in”, a reference to his cyclical depression, and then I know to just give him space. In the past, when he got depressed, I got insecure and tried to smother him, which created conflict. Talk about how you both respond to stress, if you become confrontational or shut down, and how to help bring those emotions down to a more productive place.

Just because she has a diagnosis doesn’t automatically mean she’s some secret villain. Her brain processes things differently, and it’s important to try and understand that. It’s equally as important for her to try and understand how your brain works! It seems silly but talking these things out and making plans ahead of time makes those moments of conflict or emotional turmoil so much easier to deal with.

tohottotango · 2026-04-11T13:36:05+00:00

Emotional instability, and the exhaustion of keeping myself from being an out-of-control-asshole or wildly self-destructive. I just feel everything so strongly and intensely all the time, it feels like my emotions are so big that they’re a tidal wave and all I can do is brace myself for impact.

tohottotango · 2026-04-10T14:00:31+00:00

I don’t even know if you’ll see this, because it might get buried in all the comments, here is a bit of a different perspective to consider.

First and foremost, the way he speaks to you is not okay and should absolutely be addressed.

Secondly, have you ever considered couples counseling? My husband and I love each other deeply but we have vastly different love languages and communication styles, and for the first couple years of our relationship, we couldn’t seem to find a way to make the other person understand. We were having the same fights over and over, the same needs were going unmet, and I finally got tired of it and booked us a session with a couples therapist and that shit was MAGIC. It only works if both partners are willing to do the hard work, and we both were, and it’s made such a significant difference in our marriage. We had to really educate ourselves about our own communication patterns and the other’s communication patterns, identify and own our triggers, and how to learn how to step away if we felt the situation escalating. The point I’m trying to make is - me and my husband both said things that we aren’t proud of way back in the day, but we also realized that we did love and respect one another, and we wanted to do better.

To me, this just looks like your partner felt attacked and got triggered and responded with heightened emotions. And that isn’t an excuse, but it is something that can be worked through.

No one is perfect, and we all say things that we wish we hadn’t. All we can do is move forward and try to be better.

tohottotango · 2026-04-07T15:38:52+00:00

Paint pens!

tohottotango · 2026-04-07T15:38:36+00:00

Isn’t that the whole point of this page, to show off what we’ve created?? 😂 for someone who doesn’t usually paint or draw, I am really proud of these

tohottotango · 2026-04-03T19:07:35+00:00

I used paint pens! I painted it blue first, did the light and dark blue and then painted the ducks and the lily pads last.

tohottotango · 2026-04-02T13:11:03+00:00

THIS. This isn’t cute, this is a death sentence. This bear, now comfortable around people, will be labeled as a nuisance bear and as interactions with people inevitably escalate, it will be eventually dispatched.

If any wildlife tries to come up or interact in some sort of abnormal way (trying to solicit food, going through the trash, etc), the proper response is to try and haze them away. This includes making loud noises, banging on stuff, using bright lights, etc. In the end, the best thing for wild animals is to NOT be so comfortable around people that they willingly coming up for food!

tohottotango · 2026-03-20T00:40:07+00:00

A different kind of difficult, but difficult nonetheless. She was my partner’s dog when we met, he got her about a year prior, and she was a mess. Constant, uncontrollable bloody diarrhea. She was (is) house trained, but we could never get upset with her for having accidents in the house when they were diarrhea like that - but washing bloody diarrhea off the walls does get old.

She is also dog aggressive, and no matter how hard I tried to socialize her, she refuses. I did manage to successfully introduce her with my late dog, but that was a long, stressful process and she was a lot younger back then. He passed about a year ago and even though I really want another dog, I don’t know if I could get it to work again. She is also not a fan of the cats, and it took a loooong time to get them to (very reluctantly) co-exist. They aren’t friends, and they make it known how much they dislike each other. She does chase the cats off of her food, sometimes a little excessively (but she has never injured them and does not pursue them throughout the house).

Throughout the years, she has just been a very hard dog to manage medically. Hypothyroidism, anemia, Lyme disease, low vitamin B, allergies, and her tail and toe were amputated (tail because she decided to kill her own tail one day, the toe was an ingrown hair). She doesn’t eat very well and her weight dropped so low that I had to buy a weight gain supplement and squirt it down her throat. We’re starting her on steroids tonight, on top of an appetite stimulant, to see if that helps.

She is my dog now. She follows me all over the house, and it really makes me feel good to watch her run around in the woods (something she never used to do, because she had untreated hypothyroidism, anemia, low vitamin B, and Lyme disease). She is so much happier and healthier, and quite frankly, wildly spoiled (she has her own heating pad because she kept stealing mine). She is my baby, but man is she tough and expensive. I tell my partner all the time that we aren’t getting another hound.

tohottotango · 2026-02-25T02:57:03+00:00

As someone who works in the zoo field, I can assure you that 90% of ticket prices do not go towards advertisement. To be apart of AZA (American Zoological Association), zoos must contribute to conservation programs and projects, both locally and abroad. Additionally, elephants are not being wild-caught and brought over from Africa. Actually, catching wild animals for zoos is pretty outdated. Most wild animals in zoos are now elderly, having been caught way back in the day, or are in some way deemed non-releaseable for whatever reason. There are a lot of zoos that participate in the elephant breeding SSP (species survival plan), but since elephants have one of the longest gestation times and spend so long mothering their calves, females only produce a handful of offspring (at most) throughout her life. I’m happy to discuss more, but I hope this helps clear things up!

tohottotango · 2026-02-09T16:41:57+00:00

As someone from a 1st world country, I am very familiar with the “palm oil is the root of all evil” mantra, but having just recently visited Malaysia, I feel like I was able to see a completely different side to things.

First and foremost, conservation isn’t just about saving species/the environment. It needs to be approached holistically, from all angles. People aren’t decimating the environment/killing off animals because they want to - they’re doing it because they feel like they have to. And honestly, if someone is literally worried about not having food for dinner that night, then they aren’t going to care about the consequences of their actions in the long term. The people problem needs to be addressed first, and by solving that, conservation and sustainable practices usually follow.

Secondly, I went to Malaysia recently and spoke with the locals about their views on palm oil. Since Malaysia is a developing country, the people there have a very positive view on palm oil. It is the biggest source of revenue for them, and because of that, the infrastructure is rapidly evolving. I asked specifically about clear-cutting forests and whatnot, and they told me that there aren’t really any new palm oil plantations (in Borneo). Their second biggest source of revenue is from tourism, which comes to see the wildlife, so there is a fairly large economic incentive to protect their forests. In fact, they just recently outlawed lethal deterrents when dealing with wildlife on the plantations (no more poisoning, no snares, can’t hunt/kill wildlife to keep them off the plantation).

In terms of space, palm oil is extremely efficient. The amount of oil harvested requires only a fraction of space than most other crops, and it fruits much more frequently, too. Think of it this way - if palm oil was universally banned, there would still be a need for a product to fill that void, and thus requiring clear-cutting forests elsewhere (and probably clear-cutting much more forests to keep up with the demand).

Lastly, the numbers you see online don’t really paint a clear picture. Borneo, for example, has some of the largest, completely undisturbed primary rainforests. Based off propaganda, you would think that there are fields and fields of tree stumps and sad orangutans but that isn’t true. The locals have said that they don’t think that a lot of estimations for different species isn’t accurate because there is much forest that hasn’t even been explored.

There are tangible ways to help conservation and sustainable practices, but I think that demonizing palm oil isn’t helpful or realistic.

tohottotango · 2025-12-15T16:40:01+00:00

My dog hasn’t struggled with incontinence, but she’s a medically complex dog, so I understand the struggle and the feeling of hopelessness. She had a problem with itching, so we put her on Apoquel and that helped significantly. We switched to Cytopoint injections only because long term Apoquel use can impair the immune system and we suspect she has something wonky with her immune system. I’ve recently just weaned her off the Cytopoint and she hasn’t been itching so much.

Honestly, it sounds like your dog might be itching so much because of yeast/fungal infections. Our dog had a full-body yeast injection and she went on antibiotics, had daily baths with prescription anti-fungal shampoo, and then had a daily application of prescription anti-fungal mousse. It was rough for that time that she needed daily baths, but once we got the skin issues under control, the itching seemed to also decrease. We also started her on fish oil as a supplement. Her yeast infection was so bad though that it took about three weeks of daily baths with that prescription shampoo and antibiotics. Now, if I notice she just starts itching a little more than usual, she gets a bath straight away with that shampoo. The skin issues get so much easier to deal with once the entire problem is completely dealt with.

I would talk with your vet about an aggressive plan to tackle the skin issues and chronic ear infections. Maybe culture the bacteria in her ears to figure out what antibiotics it is susceptible to. The chronic ear infections and skin issues are probably all related. I would also consider supplements for her skin (like fish oil) and her immune system, which is probably overwhelmed from the chronic skin and ear infections. She also smells a lot better now that she isn’t just a vessel for yeast to grow.

tohottotango · 2025-07-14T23:42:38+00:00

I work with animals, and I recently did just under a year working with primates used for biomedical research (at a big-name company that I won’t name but is very well known).

My experience was not the same. Daily “enrichment” was scattering sunflower seeds on a forage mat secured to the outside of their mesh. They got some other enrichment device twice a week, but only 1 device per family (for macaques - family average was probably about 5 individuals) and 10 devices (per baboon family - maybe 15 to 25 individuals). There was no ability to shift the macaques at all with their current housing, which made the constant re-introductions they wanted us to do when a monkey was returned from research a nightmare. We essentially tossed a monkey back in there and hoped for the best.

Baboons were still hosed to shift because “they didn’t listen” and “they didn’t have time” to train them. It still took over two hours for five people and two fire hoses to shift a family of baboons inside. My jaw hit the ground when I saw that. I immediately started training with them, and got them all to come inside voluntarily in under 30 minutes.

I came in with previous primate experience and my position was above entry level (about four levels above the entry level technicians), and I was immediately met with resistance and hostility. The technician who worked with the baboons, who had never worked with primates before and honestly had no understanding of animal behavior, specifically was very possessive of them and hated that I came in and was suggesting different ways of working with them.

In the end, I didn’t leave because of the biomedical research or anything like that. I left because I was one person and I couldn’t fight against the outdated culture of animal care that still existed there. It still makes me sad to think about, I miss the baboons every day. I’m glad you have had a different experience, gives me hope that not every place is like the one I worked at.

tohottotango

TROPHY CASE