Floater's diary

That anime sounds horrible to me. I hope you stop watching it. It can't be mentally healthy.
Good for you eating well. Your food sounds really interesting.
I actually finished it, and it had some really interesting philosophical stuff in it. It just sucks what nonsense was sprinkled in as "fanservice", but oh well. (I did Asian studies as my minor in Uni, so I can sort of put on a cultural filter I guess. And I have a high tolerance for horror themes, the genre has fascinated me since forever.)

Yeah this has definitely been one of my best food days this whole year - I
think it goes to show that the anime wasn't too distressing to me, haha. I should remember to post recipes or take pics every now and then!

I felt peckish so I just had a bowl of cold soba noodles with spring onion, raw shiitake, a miso marinated egg (I have another leftover for tomorrow) and nutritional yeast. I'm really happy that my vegetarian and Asian-inspired old favorite recipes are starting to get back into rotation.
 
Oh no, I thought I posted twice but didn't and now my reply to you @Cate got lost.i hope I didn't trigger you talking about the show! If so, I'm sorry!

I woke up super early today and took Nera for a nice, long walk. Everyone else was wearing hats and fluffy jackets, I was in a T-shirt and a thin denim jacket and was still sweating! I wonder why my body runs so hot? But it was a beautiful, sunny, crisp morning.

I had the rest of the cabbage and pasta thing for breakfast, this time with a miso egg. I tended to my plants, prepped more miso eggs, ran the dishwasher and washed two loads of laundry. And it's not even noon yet!

I'll start making rice now to get lunch started. I have a feeling that this is going to be a good day. Sometimes the approaching therapy on Friday makes me nervous, though. I have weird pangs of anxiety and shame, so stuff is coming up from my subconscious. But that's how it works...
 
All good with me, Floater :grouphug:
That is very thoughtful of you!
I do my best because I know how much it sucks when something pushes one's buttons. Better safe than sorry!

I was getting pretty grumpy and jittery while preparing lunch, so I probably should have had lunch a bit earlier. I kept messing up the simplest things, burnt garlic to a crisp my first attempt at frying tofu ended me with lukewarm, moist blobs that somehow still stuck to the pan, so I had to re-fry them, making my meal quite heavy on the fats. But rice, 220g of tofu, and a big, raw purple carrot cut into cute coins on the side was still a balanced meal. Sometimes simple works best, especially when my brain starts to misfire. Catastrophe averted!

I already washed and separated the cotton candy grapes for easy snacking later, and I'll have yesterday's curry for dinner. I'll need to come up with some sort of a side for it, though. But now I'll take a little break. (Assistance came over earlier, we ended up taking a walk with Nera and I did some light chores, but as they remind me, I don't always need to be super busy during the visits - the social support they offer is every bit as important as them helping me focus on daily tasks, and I do feel so much better after a walk and talk in the windy weather. And Nera was very pleased, too.
 
Hi Floater, just popped in to your diary because you liked my comment on LaMa's page. I'd been having a stressful week because we are packing to move and remodeling at the same time. So having your supportive "like" was so nice. I just read that you studied the Japanese culture, which completely fascinates me. I also love cooking Japanese and Asian food, too. I can't watch anime because of all the gore, but love the children's animation movies from Japan. I also suffered from PTSD from childhood stuff (violent dad), so I really empathize about that stuff resurfacing from therapy. What my therapists have told me is that this type of trauma usually resurfaces when you are strong enough to heal it. Mostly my anxiety and shame just need me to accept them as normal given what I experienced growing up. Anyway, hope you take it easy and pamper yourself with healthy wonderful things!! Your food sounds so yummy, too!
 
Thank you, @Marsia ! :grouphug: I really appreciate you reaching out <3 I'm sorry you have also had an unsafe and traumatizing childhood. But healing is always possible, and also, it's always a process. I find it a very comforting thought.

To be honest, I was just popping in to comment that I had such a bad flashback that I had to call a helpline, and after that I went to buy beer and Babybel cheeses and took a long walk across the fields back home just to get my mind off it. Just to keep myself in check and to remember that indeed, I'm getting these memories back because I'm strong enough to process them and let go, but the process is still going to be bumpy, and it is _allowed_ to be that. Perfectionism is what I used to do as a kid to cope with it all, and what matters now is that when I have a hard time, I "suffer responsibly" so to speak.

I think I don't want to share the flashback here just yet because I have a feeling there's more to it. The body reactions are still going on, but the walk helped calm me down and I'll have the cheeses after I've taken the dog out, and I have grapes and curry in the fridge so I don't need to worry about preparing food tonight. Maybe that's the reason I'm so calm about having this thing going on? I have a sense of safety because I have food. (I have probably said this before, I think it's a pattern in a positive sense.)

While I was out, I picked my new pair of Havaianas flip flops from the post. My old, trusty pair of Havaianas with storm troopers and Darth Vader on them served me for three summers, but last week I stepped on a stone and it went straight through the sole and into my foot, ouch. So they had to be laid to rest. Luckily, as the summer's long gone in Finland, I found a new pair on sale and I quite like the pattern - monochrome gradient sole with gunmetal straps. It's like I'm walking on a gothic rainbow, lol. My dog is black with two white socks so we will match nicely, hopefully for many more summers to come, but it's 12 degrees out as I'm writing this so it's not too late yet to christen the flip flops. They'll find their uses while cleaning and taking out the trash in the winter months, too, but I want to take them for a proper spin.
 
Wow, happy gothic rainbow feet! That sounds wonderful having matching feet to your dog and taking a calming walk together. My go-to for calming food is blue cheese. It has a happy side effect of making my cheeks feel like they are slightly radiating cool air, too.

I used to get bad flashbacks and some hallucinations, but I had a calming phrase I'd repeat the whole time the flashback was happening, "not real, not real, not real, ..." And I'd picture myself safe and cozy and in the present in a nice calming place when those happened. The flashbacks and hallucinations eventually faded and I no longer get them. I try to do this with negative thoughts, too, because I did a workbook that talked about how it's best to only believe your thoughts if they are both true and helpful. Anyway, glad you are doing so well with such hard stuff coming up, and doing well with the perfectionism, too. I really get that.

It's interesting thinking of having food as feeling safe. I never thought of that before, but I do tend to buy a lot of food when I am especially anxious. It is really satisfying opening the fridge and seeing a bunch of healthy food to greet me. It can be a healthy way to take care of yourself if in moderation. Nice idea!
 
I'm getting these memories back because I'm strong enough to process them and let go, but the process is still going to be bumpy, and it is _allowed_ to be that.
There´s got to be a sense of accomplishment in that. You´re impressively strong and differentiated.
I "suffer responsibly" so to speak.
I like that phrase and am totally stealing the concept.
I have a sense of safety because I have food. (I have probably said this before, I think it's a pattern in a positive sense.)
If food is comfort and good food is care I can imagine that having an easily-accessible stock of it would feel like someone´s there with you to keep you safe.
 
Thank you @Marsia and @LaMaria!

I have had a bit of a slow day as is to be expected after processing some bad stuff mentally. I have only eaten a miso egg and some broth for breakfast and a gordita and a taco for lunch. One of my favorite autism assistance persons drove me to the Asian store, so now I have a good stash of soba and rice noodles, fresh green peppercorns, mushrooms I don't know the name of, and plenty of seaweed chips. These will all come in need when I'm no doubt going to go through a wringer after the therapy session. And on that trip I got the Taco Bell "Cheesy Gordita Crunch box" as well; I still have fries and cinnamon twirls as leftovers from that. I'll eat them tonight, the vegan curry is surely still fine tomorrow (4th day from cooking).

I also walked to the supermarket and got more shiitake mushrooms, a granate apple, tofu, clingwrap, and four beers. After that I took Nera out to the fields and drank a beer while letting her run free and frolic in the grass that's been mowed down for winter. It's completely black outside and the sky is overcast, so a black dog would be easy to lose in the darkness. Luckily I bought her a glow collar last winter, and it works splendidly! It's basically like a blue rave glowstick that you can cut to the right length and then screw close, it's reloadable, and bright enough to increase visibility and saftety but doesn't seem to bother Nera and her sensitive eyes.

I'm now ready to share the memory that has been haunting me since tomorrow, but it's so bad that I'll put it in another post where I haven't tagged anyone. It's very much "Not Safe For Life" territory.
 
All right. Sorry that I'm trauma dumping again. But I need to write this down or else I can't physically eat. I need to purge this feeling so bad.
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TRIGGER WARNING
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CONTENT WARNING: Child abuse, s*xual abuse, sibling abuse, parental neglect, description of assault.

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Ok.

I have mentioned before what a sadistic shithead my brother was/is. We have a significant age gap, 11 years, so when I went to school he was already an adult, and the age limit for legal responsibility in Finland is 15. So everything he did to me from the point I was FOUR onward was a crime, and my parents should have reported him, but they obviously did not.

I have always known he molested me, but the memories themselves have been so ragged and lost within all the other shit (like him pushing me underwater and keeping me there until I thought I'd drown, on several occasions, while my parents knew but just brushed it off as "sibling rivalry"), that it has been so hard to try and make sense of these experiences. I have often felt a burning hatred towards him when I have had to share a space with him in my adolescence and adult years. I mean, he is deeply unlikable as a person anyway, but the red hot hatred and disgust I feel towards him is that of a person who has been deeply wronged. I remember when he had a kid and I asked his wife for a coffee, and told her to please be careful. I'm so happy that they are now divorced.

I think that he is a sadist, through and through. I reacted to my fucked up parents by losing myself and my identity, and becoming someone who lives for others and walks on eggshells even when I'm alone. I'm not saying this to boast or to say I didn't have my errors and vices. But I deeply hate the idea of subjugating others as a form of feeling better myself. He, however, grew exactly in that direction. He couldn't be a match for my parents, and my sister was off limits because most of the time she was away and when she was present, well, she was blind and my parents hovered over her all the time, so he only had one viable outlet. Me.

He started it as a joke, a play. Something that he could pass as a nice big brother spending time with his baby sister (as I was perceived as and even identified myself as; I had no concept of being trans even though I felt deeply ashamed about being treated and dressed as a girl). He was even praised for spending time with me. But he escalated things. He would ask me to sit in his lap while he was playing video games. He would play "dog and owner" with a skip rope tied around my neck. I remember not being into it at all, but he would always guilt me into doing it anyway. Eventually the skip rope was used for even worse stuff too. And all the time he would keep telling me that this was what I wanted and that I'm dumb for whining.

But the worst thing, the one that came back to me just now, was something that sounds so STUPID. This was the thing that made me break and try to go to mom and dad for help. I wasn't in school yet. He had wrestled me down (which, considering our size difference, didn't take much of him; and he did combat sports on top of that) and pinned me down, and he pulled my shirt up. After that, he started to insert fingers into my belly button. I mean obviously it feels disgusting, but there's the added factor of "why the hell?" to it. Like, especially as I grew up I was starting to brush the memory off more and more, because it really doesn't sound like the R word, right? Someone fingered your belly button, not very nice but what's the issue?

Well, folks who know about the human anatomy might already start to get why this was such a terrifying experience. It's not just that he had me immobilized and towered over me with an expression of glee on his flushed face. It's that as I begged him to stop, he kept pushing harder. I didn't see it of course, but I would not say it's out of the realm of possibility that he was knuckle deep inside my navel when he started to really dig around there. It's not so much the pain, but the fact that he was literally stirring up my guts; my skin was intact of course, but the navel is one of the places that gives access to the peritoneum - in layman terms, the membrane sack that holds our innards inside. (Another prominent example of getting inside from the outside is "muffing", where fingers are inserted into the canals underneath by pressing onto the skin by the side of the penis. I have no personal experience of this of course, as I don't have a dick, but I have heard it's a fairly common masturbation method for trans girls and women, and I have seen an ex do it, so I guess cis men can be into it too.)

So as I'm laying there on the carpet and feeling tears starting to run down my face, I suddenly realize I can't speak anymore. I can't make any kind of a noise - in fact, I can't even breathe properly. What little gasps I can get in are when he pulls his hand out, just to dig it right back in again. The adult me remembering this and writing this understands that the vagus nerve runs right around the area he was, uh, "overstimulating"; and this part of our central nervous system governs the autonomous nervous system AKA breath, body temperature, heartbeat, and digestion. I was made completely helpless by something that sounds so god damn stupid. And as he kept pushing it, I started to really believe I would die. I remember the pulsating, colorful lights I saw in my eyes as I was starting to run out of oxygen. I remember wanting to die just to have the sensation be over with. And I could tell my brother was turned on, even though I didn't see it as my vision was fading; I could still tell it from his breathing and the way his sweat smelled.

I have no recollection what made him stop; did he get worried I would actually die and leave him with a lot of explaining to do? Did the parents come home? Did I lose my consciousness and/or piss on the carpet? (I remember him forcibly tickling me until I did that, and then dead pan saying it was the dog once.) Whatever the reason, he let me live and when I got back to my senses, he had gone into his room and closed the door, and I have a pretty good idea what he was probably doing there; uh, "reminiscing".

But hands down the worst thing was when I, my whole stomach on fire, tried to tell about this to my parents, and they just brushed it off as "why do you always have to fight?". Rationally I know they probably did some unthinkable stuff to my brother as well, but... Who wants to make others go through the same they did? I know I don´t.

I have talked to every therapist and most of the psychologists and the majority of psychiatrists who have treated me how much of a phobia I have when it comes to belly buttons. I don't like to look at them, and I never touch my own one. When I was in nursing school (from which I dropped out due to mental health issues in my early 20s), I remember visibly cringing and gritting my teeth when the teacher mentioned that before surgery, the navel should be washed and thoroughly disinfected as it is teeming with bacteria. (When she saw my face, she asked me "well how often do you think people wash their navels?", and I had to skip the rest of the classes and get drunk, as I just felt so dirty I wanted to crawl out of my own skin.) And while I'm "OK", aka able to subject myself to a lot of discomfort during sex in other ways, I have always told every single of my partners to never touch me on the area between where my ribs end and my hip bones start. And I have enforced this rule like no other even though I'm a total pushover when it comes to sex and intimacy, usually.

Well, now I know for sure.

My brother has cancer. I do think that it is within reasonable karmic consequences for me to wish him a really slow and agonizing death; I hope he will get treated, but I also hope he'll lose the use of his dick if he hasn't already, and that he'll have a long long way to the release of death. I have every right to be angry and this is not a part of me I will ever bury again.

Rant over. I'm so sorry you had to read this.
 
Yay! After writing that horrible shit down, I got super hungry. I ate the leftover loaded fries cold, and also the cinnamon twirls. I'm still hungry so I'll either make noodles in miso broth with marinated eggs, or eat the rest of the curry tonight. I do think the action of cooking might help ground me further to this moment and the fact that I AM SAFE, so that's something worth consideration.

I do think the horrid story I just told helps to pinpoint one of the issues I have with food and eating. I really dislike having sensations in my belly area, so skipping meals is sometimes just a matter of survivng in the minefield of my triggers. On the other hand, the more muscle and fat I have, the farther away I am from the child I was. I am sure that balance will be found eventually, and considering the depth of my trauma, I am allowed to take my time to heal.
 
Haha, I just went for a heaping helping of seaweed chips and also tried chips made out of dried squid. I bought the latter both out of curiosity and because I though they probably contain a decent amount of protein, like "beef jerky of the sea" or something.

Well the squid chips are tasty, way too sweet for me to buy again but I'll definitely figure out ways to use them up. But they only contain 4g/100g of protein, whereas the DEEP FRIED, SALTED, CHILIED SEAWEED CHIPS HAVE 14,5G/100 of protein. :D :D

Makes sense why seaweed chips are one of my ultimate comfort foods; they don't just give me fuel, they have an astonishingly high protein content. Of course, they are very high in iodine which is fine either in small doses overtime, or in big portions every now and then, and there's even a warning about this on the package. But; the chips are kind of a different issue than using things like nori and kombu for cooking, as they only form a very small part of the meal, whereas snacking can ramp up the iodine intake a lot in a short time.

I really need to find some dried wakame so I can make my own wakame salad. I gorge on the stuff every time I go to a sushi buffet, and I have made it myself in the past, years ago. I don't know why I love seaweed so much, I loved it even as a kid when Japanese/South East Asian cooking weren't really known in Finland yet. (I went to kindergarten with a girl whose parents were Japanese and Finnish, and they once invited me and my mom over for dinner. I remember it so well! I was really shy, but it was so nice to see a home that was so different from my house. The parents treated us guests and their child with a lot of warmth and respect, and all the condiments and spices on the table were something I as a Finn had no previous concept for.

The main dish was hot pot, and I remember feeling a bit embarassed that I had to use a fork as I didn't know how to use chopsticks, whereas my kindergarten friend handled them like a pro. But the idea of having raw ingredients that would be cooked and eaten instantly, as a way to also make the meal last longer and make room for discussion, felt really giddy to me! My mom, despite being a horrid witch, actually wasn't a bad cook, but she never had much imagination and/or time for variety. When I was a kid I would sit on a kitchen stool and watch her cook, silently, learning by watching. This is actually one of the good memories I have of her - and the adults thought it was very cute. So sitting there in another family's table, being introduced to a whole other world of cooking, to the idea that there are kitchen appliances designed for hot pot meals, that it's commonplace to use a variety of sauces to flavor the food instead of just salt, pepper, and Finnish tears... It was so much new information that I felt overwhelmed!

Of course, it is overwhelming for any kid to have a several hour long meal but for me, as an autistic person, it was even more so. But this time the overwhelm wasn't too much to handle, it was just the result of my brain winding up and sucking in every detail of the meal I could. I do have a vague idea how my kindergarten friend looked, but otherwise I have forgotten how the adults looked - the only thing clear in my mind's eye was the beautiful, beautifully prepared pieces of food and how they danced in the boiling water.

After the visit, I remember going outside and waiting for dad to pick us up as mom had drunk with the adults while I was (very poorly) trying to do normal kid stuff and relate to the friend; I knew even then that she found me creepy. Back in those days, I was mostly non verbal and had poor social skills, shy to the bone, and hadn't yet understood that people hate being stared at. I was sad to see how she tried to play with me out of obligation, so I just withdrew into my shell and waited for the adults to be done.

Outside, it was one of the days of first snow. I remember breathing in deep and loving the smell of snow and my freedom from obligation of being "a good girl". It wasn't that I disliked the other kid, I liked her, but it was exhausting to have to put on a role of being a "normal" kid instead of the autistic sack of strange I was. While we were waiting for dad to come, mom would point at the bushes surrounding the family's home and say - "see, that's a snowberry bush! Like how *her* parents named her after!", which was nice and all but I also already knew it, as it had been said during the discussion. I remember saying "I know", and mom blowing up because she thought I was being disrespectful when I was just being... Factual. It had been said, I knew it. Mom went on to tell me that the berries are poisonous and I should never ever eat them. I remember thinking, why would I? I don't put foreign stuff in my mouth just so.

Thinking back, I believe mom had had some kind of a doctor assess me. She always treated me as a disabled person, like she did with my sis. And yeah I am disabled, but not in the intellectual sense. The kind of autistic I am, I consider to be mostly a condition that brings me personal suffering through overstimulation of my delicate senses, and social hardships because people can't understand that me who looks "normal" might melt down in a supermarket at the drop of a hat. I do think a lot of my talents and positives are also thanks to my autism. It's not a disease or an issue per se, it's just a differently wired brain, and I would not exchange it for anything in the world.

What a strange rant again. But I feel good now. I remember the hot pot and I remember the early snow against the black ground, and how it piled onto the snowberries. I remember the feeling of having learned and seen something important. And I'm so glad this interest in all things foreign and exciting has brought me this far.
 
Wow, your description of your brother's treatment toward you is so horrible. And so is your mom's lack of protection toward you and inability to soothe you or to keep your brother from becoming an evil person. I hope you can find ways of purging the stress in your abdomen. I was hit in the face a lot, so I carry tons of stress in my face, and when I relax sometimes, all the muscles in my face twitch like crazy while letting go of the stress. It's like the injured part of the body holds the memory. I agree completely about taking all the time you need to heal. I think being as compassionate to yourself as possible is always a good idea.

It sounds like you are a highly sensitive person, and that has so many plusses to it, even though it can really be tiring. When I learned that my dad died, I did cry for a few days because there were very wonderful parts of him, not just abusive parts, then after that I felt just so much safer in the world. It's good you are eating so much healthy food, and good you can write out the bad memories and let them go to an extent!
 
It's like the injured part of the body holds the memory.
This is so true. I have experienced this so many times, even when I was still pushing that pain and the memories way down.

I'm glad you have found balance and healing, it gives me so much hope too. Take care dear Marsia.
 
I just had the pomegranate as a snack; a horrid mess but it does taste nice. I would compare it to vegan crab or shrimp, lol. A lot of work for a tasty but meager meal
 
Agreed. I read enough of that particular story to know I can't read more :grouphug: I'm so glad writing it out made you feel better though!
Also:
I remember it so well! I was really shy, but it was so nice to see a home that was so different from my house. The parents treated us guests and their child with a lot of warmth and respect,
What a magical moment. Between that and ditting quietly while your mother cooked meals I'm not surprised food is so calming to you. You're doing so well and you deserve all the good things you're building for yourself.
 
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