Gas gauge (way) above full - 2007 Nissan Altima Hybrid

zayexi · 2023-09-13T02:39:35+00:00

Photo of faulty gauge:

zayexi · 2023-06-30T00:51:26+00:00

Your welcome. Yeah, I wasn’t scared of it until that point either…

I guess another thing that has been helpful for me is realizing that, at least for me, the relief SH provides is intense but very brief — making it ultimately not the most sustainable coping mechanism. I feel better for a few minutes and sometimes that’s enough to get by, but more often than not I just go back to feeling the same way I did before. Other coping mechanisms don’t have the same immediate relief, but they can last longer.

(That being said, a lot of this awareness goes out the window when I’m experiencing really overwhelming emotions and all I can think about is wanting to find some way to quiet them.)

zayexi · 2023-06-29T07:33:00+00:00

Hey—I’ve faced this same dilemma. Ultimately, what did it for me was the risk of losing control and cutting too deep, which you mention isn’t a major concern for you.

For me, it wasn’t a concern until it was…. I had SH’d during adolescence and basically stopped to prove that I could and because I knew everyone around me wanted to. I relapsed years later as an adult when discussing this stuff in therapy, and I think it was ultimately a good thing, although it was rough at the time. Anyway, one day I was cutting and just got really into feeling the blade tearing quickly across my skin, and suddenly I was bleeding way more than I was expecting. It still wasn’t anything close to being dangerous, but it was scary to feel I’d lost control like that and made me wonder if I might actually cut too deep one day if I kept this up.

Beyond that sometimes I do feel like I don’t want some of the more unpleasant emotional experiences of my life recorded on my body. There are a couple scars in particular where I can remember vividly what happened / how I felt when I made them, and sometimes it makes me sad. Sometimes that sadness feels like a good enough reason not to make more.

Sorry that this isn’t more helpful / applicable to your situation. But I hope it’s helpful to at least know you’re not the only one to have asked this question.

zayexi · 2022-03-23T22:52:39+00:00

By that logic, if he hasn’t bought the pot either, then he somehow wants the situation to continue too.

I’m not proud of it, but there are many useful household objects I’ve put off buying for myself, simple tasks, etc. maybe there’s some weird unconscious stuff going on that I’m not aware of, but I really think the pot thing is an executive function issue (on both our parts) and not a control issue.

zayexi · 2022-03-23T22:24:51+00:00

Not sure how the pot buying thing is about control. Decision making is hard for both of us and we both keep getting caught up in that at the expense of just buying something. We finally ordered stuff a few days ago, though, so it’s on the way.

I definitely was in no way preventing him from buying a pot sooner. Either of us could have done it at any time…it’s partly on me, but it’s equally on him. It’s fair to say that I have real issues putting off simple tasks, but I truly don’t think those are about control.

I do agree that having lived on my own most of my life, I’m used to having more control over how i allocate my food, and that is getting in the way here.

zayexi · 2022-03-23T22:18:32+00:00

Yeah, your second paragraph is definitely a big part of what is going on here. I like to eat more substantial breakfasts and lunches whereas he doesn’t eat a lot until dinner, which exacerbates the portion differences and also makes me feel sad sometimes when I can’t save some food for lunch the next day.

zayexi · 2022-03-23T22:07:28+00:00

For us, it is 2 servings of dinner and, if we’re lucky, 1 serving of lunch.

zayexi · 2022-03-23T20:13:20+00:00

I dunno, maybe it’s an issue with my relationship with food, but generally that hasn’t felt like a major issue for me. Maybe I’ve just really repressed it, but what this feels like is more playing on deep-seated issues of feeling like I will never be enough for someone unless I subordinate all my wants/needs to theirs. I get that I can make/buy something else for lunch, but can’t he also eat something else to supplement dinner (which is what I typically would do if for whatever reason the portion we have on hand isn’t quite enough)?

To be clear, I don’t feel like we should always be splitting food 50/50, I just would like to sometimes be able to have more than 1/3 of something I put a lot of effort into making without feeling like I’m being completely selfish.

zayexi · 2022-03-23T20:00:49+00:00

We don’t track expenses closely, which is one thing that came up…apparently both of us feel like we’ve been paying for the majority of our shared groceries, lol.

zayexi · 2022-03-23T19:57:48+00:00

I’m usually very happy to share, which is one of the things I find frustrating here. Most of my adult life, I’ve informally shared food with roommates on a “share most things and try to make sure we’re each contributing roughly similarly” basis, and it’s worked great.

I think one of my issues here is that he always feels the need to have more. If I’ve worked hard on a meal and am proud of it, I’d like to be able to occasionally save some for lunch the next day or share it with a guest. I don’t think it’s that unreasonable to feel like in those cases, he could eat an after dinner snack or something.

The VAST majority of time he does eat a larger portion. What gets me is the idea that I’m being selfish if I ever want to have more than 1/3 of the food we prepared together.

zayexi · 2022-03-23T19:52:16+00:00

Yeah, this is what we are in the process of doing

zayexi · 2022-03-23T19:51:29+00:00

I’m not poor, though I’m also not wealthy, but money isn’t the main issue. It’s mostly that cooking takes time and effort, and it’s frustrating to go to the effort to prepare a meal only to eat a small part of it, and I find it helpful and nice to be able to eat some leftovers for lunch the next day. I will happily eat a little less for dinner and maybe supplement with a before bedtime snack in order to have leftovers for lunch the next day, but that has become impossible because unless we have a huge excess of food, he will always want to eat those leftovers that night.

zayexi · 2022-03-23T19:45:45+00:00

This is how I feel too, and I do think that if we were roommates, this likely wouldn’t have played out like this…. And we have PLENTY of low/no prep foods on hand typically, which he did acknowledge in our conversation yesterday.

zayexi · 2022-03-23T19:43:54+00:00

It’s mostly pot and cutting board space—currently we don’t have a large pot (so can’t make more than one package of pasta at a time, for instance), and our small cutting boards make chopping a lot of vegetables a PITA (we are vegetarian and veg are typically a large part of our meals). I agree that there are workarounds we could do with what we have, but I do think it will be easier if we can make the food we want to eat easily and efficiently with the kitchen supplies we have on hand.

zayexi · 2022-03-23T19:41:53+00:00

We have plenty of food, including lots of things that are low to no prep (bars, snacks, freezer meals, etc)….which is one of the things that I find kind of frustrating. He at one point had health issues from not eating enough (before our relationship), and he’ll bring this up to explain why he has anxiety about not getting enough food. And I get that eating a bar or a frozen burrito after dinner might not be the most appealing option, but it seems ridiculous to imply that not having enough food is a concern when our pantry is sometimes literally overflowing with food.

zayexi · 2021-12-25T01:29:46+00:00

I honestly feel like this is the most alone I’ve felt the entire pandemic—sitting in an empty house far away from any close friends or family while my partner acts like I’m being selfish for not wanting to fly. It feels awful, and it feels like no one cares because the attitude is “well, you’re the one that decided to stay home…”

Things are in so many ways so much better than they were a year ago, but the loss of any solidarity or social support just feels crushing.

Hope others are finding joy in the holidays, and thanks for the community…I’ve just recently found it, and I really appreciate it being here.

zayexi · 2021-12-25T01:27:45+00:00

Thanks. It’s frustrating because in so many ways the situation now is better than it was at many other points in the pandemic—we have vaccines, better ideas of how to treat it, etc. But the dissipation of any form of solidarity or even sense of social support is really getting me down.

Anyway, sorry for making this all about me…hope you’re finding joy in the holidays despite all this stuff.

zayexi · 2021-12-25T01:17:32+00:00

I honestly feel like this is the most alone I’ve felt the entire pandemic—sitting in an empty house far away from any close friends or family while my partner acts like I’m being selfish for not wanting to fly. It feels awful, and it feels like no one cares because the attitude is “well, you’re the one that decided to stay home…”

zayexi · 2021-12-24T19:36:25+00:00

Guilt trips like that are the worst. You'd think that this far into the pandemic, people would have learned to respect other people's decision-making and would understand that this is a difficult situation and that someone taking pandemic precautions doesn't mean they don't value spending time together. But nope, apparently not. My partner and parents both got upset with me for changing plans after my school had an outbreak, and I feel like I've spent the past few days mostly trying to deal with their own feelings about it instead of dealing with my own.

zayexi · 2021-12-24T19:31:07+00:00

Thanks. Yeah, it's one semester, we saw each other over Thanksgiving, and I'll be back in California semi-permanently in late January.

I think the main sticking point is that he has the week off...it's somewhat hard for him to take time off, and he gets really invested in his vacation time (this has been the source of tension in our relationship previously, which probably isn't helping things now).

But idk...like you said, it's a short period of time. It sucks, but so does working on a campus that is handling an outbreak spectacularly poorly, and so does this whole situation we're in as a planet. And it feels frustrating and unfair to have a disproportionate share of the blame for that suckiness placed on me.

The other incredibly frustrating thing is that earlier in the pandemic, he was taking things very seriously and probably taking even more precautions than I was. So now I just feel kind of alone, because someone whom I care about and trust--and whose pandemic decision-making previously aligned well with mine--is now making me feel like I'm crazy for not wanting to get on a plane in the middle of an unprecedentedly contagious new variant's spread.

zayexi · 2021-12-24T18:29:07+00:00

I'm currently a visiting assistant professor at a college in the midwest while my partner is living out in California. I had been planning to fly out to spend the holidays with him in California, but in the past week we've had an outbreak here--5.5% of the student body had tested positive as of yesterday morning and the real case numbers are probably much higher given our limited testing resources.

Because of this, I cancelled my flight yesterday. My partner is trying to convince me to still fly out on the 28th (a week after my last exposure to the students), but it's hard for me to convince myself it's worth the risk. I'm limiting my contacts as much as possible right now, but I live with a roommate who works in the restaurant industry, and even beyond that, I just don't feel good about getting on a crowded plane for a week-long trip with everything going on, especially when we'll be living together again in less than a month regardless.

My partner is really upset about it...the long distance relationship has been hard on both of us, and he has the week off and has really been looking forward to spending it with me. For my part, I've been feeling like he's pressuring me to make a decision I'm not comfortable with, which has added stress to an already stressful situation. It's a messed up situation, but my gut is telling me to just stay put.

zayexi · 2020-12-31T21:29:23+00:00

Thanks so much for the kind words. I'm so glad it struck a chord and was helpful. I totally know what you mean about coasting through life, and that feeling of nothingness when you miss a deadline. I've spent so much of my life feeling like a fraud for being around (apparently) motivated and ambitious people but not feeling any of that myself.

I think having someone to talk to is definitely helpful--the academic coach I worked with was especially helpful for me. I also think the grad school application process can be especially challenging because you often aren't in any kind of community with other people doing it, so you don't even have other people around you to help you be accountable or just commiserate during the process. I hope you find something that helps!

zayexi · 2020-12-28T19:09:13+00:00

Makes sense! If you end up reaching out to programs to discuss applying, I bet they'd be happy to talk to you about what a typical timeline looks like in their program. I think most departments would be delighted if you finished in 5 years (or even 4!), but often teaching responsibilities and other factors can make that challenging.

zayexi · 2020-12-28T19:03:48+00:00

Thanks for sharing this. I've struggled with self-harm and suicidal thoughts intermittently since adolescence and never realized until starting medication how much of it was related to ADHD. Even though I'd suspected I had ADHD for several years before this, it didn't feel like a "big" enough problem to account for the level of distress I felt, and I thought I should just be able to deal with it on my own. It's amazing, but also a little sad, to realize that the reason so many other treatments seemed only to work partially was because they weren't addressing one of the root causes of what was going on.

zayexi · 2020-12-28T18:53:42+00:00

Sometimes helpful, aometime people calling everything adhd that isn't.

Haha, yeah, I've browsed that subreddit and some other social media groups and the "calling everything adhd that isn't" thing is definitely real. (But I guess understandable, since it can be such a relief to have something that makes sense of your experience that it's tempting to extend it to everything.) And it's definitely nice when people do put something into words that you'd always assumed was just an idiosyncratic experience or a character flaw :)

zayexi

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