I’m a recovering (fill in the blank)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What are you a former?

Smoker
Nail biter
People pleaser
Victim

The victim one is a hard one to drop!

You are a survivor, it's so much different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What are you a former?

Smoker
Nail biter
People pleaser
Victim

The victim one is a hard one to drop!

You are a survivor, it's so much different.

That is powerful. Thank you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Person who shrinks their personality to suit others

What was your wake up call?

When was one of the first times you didn’t shrink?

I kind of think that menopause helped with that because hormones during menopause make you care less about nurturing others.

I kinda didn’t realize I was doing it 100%. I kind of thought I should be doing it to fit into society.

But anyway, it’s been about three years that I’ve started shedding myself of friends that require me to shrink.

I’ve just started being more myself and then if my friends make passive aggressive statements about it, I think maybe that’s not my person. Or maybe they just stop inviting me places cause they think I’m too much which is great because then I don’t have to dump them.

That’s so interesting about the menopause effect. My sister and friends are a good 5-8 years older, so they had what I perceived as personality changes and now that I’m 40 I recognize situations in retrospect as simply their DGAF , self protective muscle getting stronger.

Can I ask what your “true self” does that makes certain friends back off? Like you are unabashed about your weird hobbies or you are the one dancing on the bar top after being the reliable doormat friend?

I am a little bit of a dance on the bar top type of person. I also do not dress conventionally. It’s not that I dress provocatively. It’s just that I will wear stripes and polkadots.

Here’s an example my brother is an alcoholic. In the past for a wedding, for example, we would just keep an eye on him to make sure he didn’t get too drunk. If he did one of us were just driving back to the hotel early. The last wedding I said you’re not invited unless you are 100% sober and you bring your sponsor with you.

There was a group of us that was going to the movies and there was like back-and-forth and back-and-forth and back-and-forth when we were gonna go and I finally just sent a text saying I’m going on Sunday at 3 o’clock if you wanna join me. A few people cant make it and I don’t care. Because the people that couldn’t make it ended up never being able to find a time.

When I tell a story, I said exactly what happened instead of trying to make one or two of the parties sound better than they are. Someone might say well Joyce was being a little bit much and then Marcella just had to walk away. And I’m like no Joyce told Marcella that her dress was ugly and Marcella told Joyce to F off and walked away. (That happened)

[Anonymous]

I'm a recovering poor person. I am financially independent/will never be poor again and yet still, mentally I can't shake the poverty mentality and don't enjoy money except when traveling. And then, when I return, I worry that i wasted money by traveling.

and clothes. I want better work clothes but when i go to the store, everything is so expensive. So I buy trash from Target/Amazon.

I feel like I need therapy or something.

[Anonymous]

political kid

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a recovering poor person. I am financially independent/will never be poor again and yet still, mentally I can't shake the poverty mentality and don't enjoy money except when traveling. And then, when I return, I worry that i wasted money by traveling.

and clothes. I want better work clothes but when i go to the store, everything is so expensive. So I buy trash from Target/Amazon.

I feel like I need therapy or something.

There is therapy for this. There’s also ways to set up your money so you don’t feel guilty when you buy expensive things.

I’m like this and my financial planner set a set amount of money I have to spend a month

[Anonymous]

NP

Expected to read that many would claim to be a recovering Democrat.

[Anonymous]

Hoarder.

Not really but we have too much stuff and are in need of serious decluttering. I’m working on letting things go.

[Anonymous]

I am a recovering compulsive eater.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Super anxious person!

My whole life, really, but I've made major strides in the last 10 years (I'm 41) and new people I befriends are surprised to hear about my anxiety.

Having three kids really helped. Perfection is impossible, so you might as well just enjoy the chaos!

What are your coping strategies? Kids have made me more anxious

PP here.

1) Get enough sleep. For me, that's number 1. We sleep train early and don't mess around about it. Outside of when a kid is sick, we don't parent from 8pm to 7:30am. When I was pregnant with #3 I had a self imposed, very strict 10pm bedtime and slept 10:30pm-7:30am nearly every single night.

2) Get space. We each take a chunk of time each weekend "off" from parenting duties, plus two weeknights a month.

3) Routines, routines, routines. We know what to expect, the kids know what to expect. Get home, shoes off, hands washed. Before dinner, chores, after dinner, clean up toys. Standard morning routine. Standard bedtime routine. Etc, etc.

4) Never plan to just hang out at the house for more than 3 hours unless friends are coming over. Otherwise, get out and go somewhere, even if it's just the park.

5) Equal partner spouse. In fact, this should prob be #1.

I think honestly though, a lot of it is your "type" of anxiety. If you're someone who always worries about bad things happening, kids are going to make that worse, not better, I would think, since the stakes are higher. But for someone like me, who has a STRONG perfectionist bent, it's been great, because sometime early in the life of kid #2, I needed to accept that perfection was not possible. I can't get every kid exactly what they need all the time, it's not possible. Sometimes one kid needs snuggling and one kid needs her butt wiped and one kid needs quality playtime with mama and guess what? I can't do all three things at once! So you triage, and you get used to needs not being perfectly met and you realize it's totally worth it because you've got three amazing kids and they have each other.

[Anonymous]

I used to care. Then around 40 I just stopped. DGAF.

[Anonymous]

I'm a recovering people pleaser and obese person. The two worked hand in hand.

When I stopped trying to please others, I lost the weight. It was pretty amazing.

[Anonymous]

Judger

I'm still working very hard on this. I relapse often, but still swallow as much of it as I can.

[Anonymous]

DCUM addict. Currently relapsed.

[Anonymous]

Chronic masturbater