I had the literal actual best fucking therapy appointment of my life yesterday, holy shit.

I have been struggling with like really bad anxiety lately, to the point where I've had trouble eating and sleeping. During a therapy appointment yesterday, I realized that a part of me was reliving a particularly horrible fight I had with my first domestic partner, in which I became quite physically ill after.

Since she's a parts therapist, she suggested that this part of me that makes me feel sick from anxiety might be what's known as an "Exile." The way I'd describe it is "I'm not okay and I don't know what's going to make it okay."

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I can't get nexted spoilers working, so skip this paragraph if you don't want graphic imagery. I imagine it as a anthropomorphic heart with an arrow stuck in it, bleeding for 15 years, lol. (oh and most of the heart tissue is infected, too...)

She suggested that when I talk to people, I try to show up as my core self, instead of letting this part run things, and to treat it like I would a hurting friend.

So I sure did lose a couple of hours of sleep last night due to it flaring up, but I tried this method and despite being a bit sleep-deprived today, I feel absolutely great, the anxiety didn't take over, and today I feel like its possible for me to heal from this traumatic memory.

Thanks for listening, chat, I just needed to share :)

honestly, i doubt any of this will be relateable or helpful but at the very least i hope you feel seen.

i have been struggling with this. i was on 300mg spiro for a number of years and it i thought it had suppressed my sex drive, but when i switched to CPA things started changing for me, i think? but years ago i was kind of insatiable.

i find that arousal for me if a longer-term thing, vs an "in the moment" thing. if i read something that really tingles me, it'll start the little steam engine in my chest in a way that's difficult to ignore. it seems for me that my arousal needs time to breathe and needs to be more stoked like a fire. i think i enjoy the feeling of it building more than the release of orgasm. there's also like a kink element sometimes to it too, and there's a specific tone of voice that really works on me, too.

i started to put this picture together in the past few months - i thought i was acespike or even entirely asexual for a while because of how little of the kind of fantasy i needed to engage with i was engaging with. now i'm not really sure but i know there's at least more to it than just an alarm clock that goes off in my head that says i need to sex.

my therapist talked about the ideas of "brakes" and "accelerators" in sex - you know, classic stuff. brakes, for example, like your parents coming home, kill arousal. accelerators, for example, [insert secret fantasies here], will build arousal. i don't know if any of that would be helpful to you but separating these two kinds of inputs has been helpful for me.

i can't deny that mood could be a factor, though. for me, brakes also include a lot of second-guessing and performance anxiety, which can really make me anxious enough to not be able to be in the moment and enjoy. explicit roles helps me with that, letting someone else take the lead, etc.

ok, so, i'm losing my mind here. for like as long as i can remember, every time i go to brush my teeth, i gag on the damn toothpaste or brush. but lately, its getting really bad. this morning, i literally puked up a bunch of water (and maybe my meds that i just took??) i had just drank and just now at night i nearly lost my supper. i've been having trouble eating as-is for various reasons so i think its understandable that i'm frustrated at trying to keep food down and maintain dental hygiene.

wtf, chat? like, what do i even do about this? has anyone run into this before? i'm not like jamming anything on my tongue back there, so i don't know why - i've given up trying to brush my tongue at this point due to this.

you mentioned pronouns, but i'm curious as to what the frame you showed looks like untranslated since pronouns in Japanese aren't like English at all, don't suppose you have a link somehow?

i am not sick anymore!!!!! and um i got to hang out with my gf again for the first time in a while and was so nice :3 (she's so great)