aki's flailing at the world thread

As someone who has known Aki for...like holy shit 12 years now and visited frequently. Their mom buys a lot of stuff and then says they can't have it because its for her or her grandkids or some family meal they're having. but then she lets it go bad. like i legit used to visit every few weeks and throw away tons of expired food to try to help Aki find something edible. x.x Now i just straight up buy them groceries when i can bc its ridiculous. (lets not talk about the FUCKING MOTH INFESTATIONS D:)

My mom is a shitshow in other ways but she would always make sure I ate nutritionally balanced meals (even if she was bad about respecting what foods i hated...bleh)

Aki's mom also flips out about us not cleaning up right away after cooking so we usually have to do it at night when she's in bed. Like she gets weird and anxious and hovers and repeats herself a bunch of times about it and it's just. ugh.

I'm real bad about cooking because its usually too many steps for my ADHD brain, Aki likes cooking but hates cleaning up/gets overwhelmed by it, I clean obsessively, so we balance each other out, lol. Put us together and we're one fully functional person!

 

withholding food/enforcing diet is absolutely abuse, it was one of the main things that the Aunt did. I lost ~35 pounds at her place, which she thought was great even tho I was miserable.

I will dig up that recipe and pass it your way then! A lot of saffron rice is apparently better with chicken stock instead of water, which you can easily fake w/ chicken cubes. I live for food variety, haha, even with a dose of texture issues and crying at most hot foods.

(Man I go through onions by the sackful, ahaha we tend to throw them in everything here...)

Also not a thing you've got right now but baked potatoes are another thing that takes relatively few ingredients to turn into a meal, and also you can chop potatoes and throw them in soups and stuff. There's a reason they became such a huge staple the minute they were introduced to Europe, and they're the other thing I go through by the 5pound bag.

@Enzel yeah I'm the same type as Aki, love to cook hate to clean up. Before my back started being a problem I had more spoons for it, and cooking was actually a spoons-return because I like frying things. Now though my back is a bitch and standing up/slightly bending over a stove or sink sends me into nopetown in like half an hour, which is why my cooking takes forever these days.

 

I just had a realisation that the reason I would always want to go to friends houses when I was younger even though it was a spoon/overload sink (too much socialization stressed me out) sometimes was because their parents would give me the emotional stability of an actual family and take me places with my friends after school and on the weekends like I was part of their family. Also they always had food I had access to throughout the day/night when I visited.

Spoiler: examples

My friend K was a friend of mine in middle school... basically she and her siblings would have full run of the house 24/7 because their parents worked horrific hours. K and their siblings made the rules, ordered out if there wasnt something they wanted to eat or didnt have food in the house. Their parents always left money on the kitchen table just in case. They had no bedtime, stayed up til 3 AM on the internet or watching TV but got enough sleep somehow that they weren't tired in the morning. They all still did their homework and chores and did their responsibility things, but I really benefitted from that safe space where there was food and I could make my own decisions and have them be valid.

My friend A was the one who threatened to call social services. The two of us attended alternative schools for kids with psychological/developmental/behavioural issues so she had experience with identifying when shitty shit what shitty enough to do something about it, so I trust/trusted her judgment about the situation. Id spend weekends at her house, we'd watch R rated horror movies and have food that we cooked ourselves on our own time. I learned how to manage my own time (like when to have fun and when to be responsible) because I spent so much time with this family.

My best friend R, even though her mom was a general control freak and never let her sleep over at my house for the 15 years i knew her, would be one of my favourite places to go. Her family is Taiwanese and they had a very strong sense of family and tradition so I learned how to cook etc from her mom. R and I would spend some of the day doing fun stuff, another section of it was homework, and the rest of it was either going to church with the family (im not religious), or going to other exclusively taiwanese events/gatherings... which is how I know they treated me like family because I'm not taiwanese lol and those events are super exclusionary. I love the idea of community based groups but I'm not surrounded by a society that does :D;
[/spoilers]

 

@Starcrossedsky I am glad to know that. There were times where I would go on family trips to see extended family as a wee one and I would rather play alone than play with cousins or talk to relatives. when dinner came around (I WAS REALLY PICKY as a kid) if it was something I didnt like or wasn't sure I'd like, I'd ask my mom to make something else, or ask if I could eat dinner later when everyone else wasnt around to see me spit out food if i didnt like it (too many people used to and still do stress me out even if its family members). I didn't want to offend the cooks. She'd get really angry and say 'if you cant eat whats on the table with the people that are there (usually 15+ people) then you cant have dinner at all'. Maybe that works to manipulate regular kids, but not me. I would always choose to go dinnerless with a hunger migraine and at least try to enjoy playing pokemon or drawing in a dark room on the other side of the house instead.

Thanks, I would appreciate that recipe, it sounds good!

The Irish in me got excited about potatoes its ok. XD Baked potatoes with some cheese or sour cream is always a fave of mine. Ill have to get a bag of them next time! Onions are great, I would've bought more but I was running out of money lol

Cooking frands ftw (^.^)/\(^.^)

 

[skims plurk] ah here we go

I am probably going to live on potatoes and hot dogs for like the last three days before my food stamps come in this month so I feel that. Maybe do up some super plain fried rice, we got the huge bag last month so we're set for like another three...

 

@Starcrossedsky Thanku!

Potato Town here we come! and oh man, I forgot about hot dogs. I always get stuck on the cooking my own balanced food that I forget about the easy to make comfort foods 8( gotta get those too XD

 

Chili dogs are one of my go-to "this can at least PRETEND to be a balanced meal" things, and my landlord eats them for breakfast practically every morning, so we go through a lot of hotdogs around here.

Like six packages a month a lot. >.> Betweeb my hormone issues and my depression I need a high amount of protein to be a sane and reasonable human being so hot dogs are a saving grave for me.

 

Ahhhhh that sounds amazing tbh. I've never had enough stuff to make a proper chili dog but now im gonna try to get stuff for that. Yeah I really need protein too. I feel like if I ate more protein that would solve some of the 'weight issues'. I'm not even that overweight (confirmed by dr lmao). A lot of it 'my body is starving' bloating that'll probably start to go away once I move out.

 

Nalley is the brand I would rec for the most chili-dog chili experience, it's got the right balance of flavors and goopiness. They can definitely be messy to try to eat, but they are Very Good.

You honestly might always have weight issues because of development shit, I don't know enough to say for sure. My weight issues are PCOS related as well as genetics, my dad's family is all Big, lol, so I was pretty doomed.

 

mmmm I will take a look for that brand. :D

Yeah probably, but I do know that I am able to lose a decent amount of weight and turn it into muscle as I've done it before. I was a very active kid and my weight only became an issue as I got older and had to deal with depression, pain and less exercise. I love exercising so Ill probably get a gym membership once I move out, and I have a much better PCP now thatn I did as a kid. But its not really the weight that bugs me so much as my mom continually screaming at me about it. And my weight kind of distributes itself fairly evenly on my body so im not really super noticably overweight. I'm pudgey and short but my mom catastrophizes it as unhealthily morbidly obese X_X im just calm the frick down mom 8|

and aw dang PCOS is suck and idk how my genetics are as im adopted. But my half siblings are muscle builders and slimmish but not super thin. We share an Irish/European mother. But my father is mestizx and most likely from el salvador so I'm not sure what his side of the family is built like.

ultimately I really dont care what I look like or what my weight is as long as my lifestyle is healthy. My body will get to the ULTIMATE FORM its supposed to be eventually. If that's still pudgey and overweight then I am A-0k with that.


mostly just give me my thigh and arm muscles back pls.

 

ffs i wake up to take a shower to take care of my still somewhat infected eye. I was excited to draw today because i had an awesome dream i want to work with. (following shit killed my mood) mom comes in bathroom, asks me whats up, whats new. And then immediately asks me 'WHICH BED DID @Enzel SLEEP IN??? I CANT TELL. I WANT TO BE ABLE TO CLEAN IT" and I seriously don't know where she slept??????????????????????????? Why are you asking me??????????? oh right because you have a history of screaming at me for not cleaning up my friends beds/plates/pile of clothing/messes when you didn't ever tell me to. All of my friends have repeatedly told me that they witness these conversations with her and that she should just ask THEM to strip the beds/clean up if that's the endgame here. NOT yell at me. But despite telling her over and over to just tell my friends, she keeps flipping out over how THATS WHAT YOU NEED TO BE DOING AS HOST (first of all this is my partner and friends I've been friends with for over 10 years. THEYRE FAMILY. WHY DO I NEED TO BE THEIR HOST???? THEY don't think i need to be!!!).

I switch the convo back to "they asked me to ask you to just TELL THEM TO CLEAN THEIR SHIT and they'll DO IT". And she flips out, and cancels my birthday dinner on wednesday that i was excited about BECAUSE "you and your friends are always teamed up against me!!! I don't want to be there!!!"

Nooooooo sometimes I just have criticisms like ANY OTHER PERSON and you can NEVER HANDLE THEM.So EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM EXPLODES.

Because she can never be wrong. Ever. Clearly.
And she keeps claiming she always admits to it when shes wrong and ALWAYS owns up to and fixes it.

/rolls eyes

And then she switched to "YOURE ALWAYS SO HOSTILE" and im like you're always yelling at me! and shes like NO IM NOT. so i imitated how she yells up the stairs at me and continues doing it until i come downstairs ANNOYED because she wont STOP even though ive been responding back the whole time! She just cant hear me for whatever reason. So therefore she thinks I cant hear her so she keeps screaming at me.

And Then it switched to "And you get so angry and disagreeable about the news!!!" and im like "Because the news on TV is always sensationalized!!!! It's not what's actually going on!!!"

Spoiler: cw: Standing Rock/DAPL coverage

I've literally had a conversation with her about Standing Rock and DAPL and told her that the police militarized against them and shot them at sub-zero temperatures with a pressurized hose, used tear gas against them and shot them with pellets etc... and her literal response is "THATS RIDICULOUS YOURE EXAGGERATING. THEY WOULDNT DO THAT"

I literally cannot deal with the fact that my mom can't handle being wrong or owning up to being wrong.
She's also fucking hella conflict avoidant. Whenever I think we are getting somewhere in a conversation to fix our relationship, if something makes her uncomfortable she stars backpedaling, telling me she doesnt want to have this conversation anymore. That's shes not wrong, that I'm attacking her and she literally walks away. And then I sit there feeling resentful and like I want to cry because I can't actually HAVE A CONVERSATION WITH HER without her somehow taking SOMETHING TOTALLY UNRELATED TO HER personally. And then after arguments where I assert boundaries, she comes to apologize to be like 'im sorry, i don't like fighting, lets make up' about topics that convern my mental or physical wellbeing and opens her arms for a hug. and im just like no. omg. BOUNDARIES!!! ENFORCES THEM!! dont hug me rn!! and shes like YOURE ALWAYS SO HOSTILE!!!!!! and she'll laugh at my discomfort and act like im being... gasp!!! "Absurd!!"

Her favourite things to say i swear to god are "that's absurd" or "that's ridiculous" when I tell her something I know to be truth. Like afforementioned spoiler up there. She said it about various police killings too.


AGH MY BRAIN CANT HANDLE THIS BACK AND FORTH. I can't even tell if its gaslighting, but it fucks with my perception of what actually has happened sometimes, and I have to record everything right after it happens to make sure I can remember right. I dont even know if its intentional or not on her part. She's always telling me she did or didnt say something when I casually mention the opposite as context for something else. She says she 'didn't mean it THAT way'.

Honestly I can read a record or know something to be true and still feel guilty about the validity of it.

Get me out of here jfc i can't handle this anymore.

EDIT: I just remembered that I've taken video of her saying stuff to prove it before, and when I show her she shuts it down with 'i didn't mean it like that. you misunderstood'. Like hell i did arsehole.

 

Spoiler: suicidal ideation and related stuff and ranting

I've been literally diagnosed with ideation. I'd never actually follow through because I think killing myself is the least rewarding thing on the many faces of the fucking possible multiverse, but like, it doesn't stop me from considering the peace of it. but peace means nothing if you can't experience it and while I'd like to think theres an afterlife of SOME sort, part of me thinks theres literally nothing. So that makes it absolutely worthless as a choice to make, personally.

I have a cousin who killed herself back in 2012. She had a lot of issues, and hid it very well (magna cum laute and worked for child social services) but she spiraled further and further downwards until one day she was dead. I feel like if I had just KNOWN what her problems were I could've reached out to her. It might've helped her to know that someone knew what she was going through. like REALLY knew. But my family never actually specified what was wrong with her, and when I asked they blanket stated it and generalized to the point where all I knew about her was 'she has some behavioural issues and acts out a lot'. I didn't know she was depressed I didn't know she was bi-polar, I didn't know she had anorexia/bulimia UNTIL she was DEAD. My family covers up mental health crap, minimizes it and claims they don't know how to help, meanwhile NOT LISTENING TO THE PERSON WHO IS SUFFERING.

The night it happened, I caught her goodbye post the SECOND she wrote it on FB. It was vague, but I knew what it meant because so many of my friends struggle with it too. I've had classmates kill themselves in high school. I told someone she posted this but because no one was physically close enough to her, no one could stop her in time.

My aunt, started a fund in my cousin's name to help people like her. Started a non-profit to help with suicide prevention. She urged me to join, but while she helps people, so many of her approaches behind the scenes comes froma really ableist place. When I was having trouble with feeling depressesd and hopeless she literally tried to be inspirational and said 'the only person you can rely on is yourself'. Which, I'm lucky I'm me because I recognized that as fucked up. But, if she's handling suicidal/anxious/depressed teenagers??????? I really worry for them with that sentiment. I'm also lucky that I whole heartedly DON'T BELIEVE THAT. I believe some people are individual self-centered fucks, but personally I want to support and be there for people who are struggling because I know what it's like to be alone feeling like that. It SUCKS.

People who survive their loved one, and read the notes these people leave before they commit suicide usually read some version of 'its not anyone's fault/it's not your fault'. But if I were to ever leave a note, I would want to write 'It IS your fault, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise' because my family really is the reason I'm like this. I have my natural issues, but they never support me and that made it worse.

But I also would feel terrible for leaving that note even though I wouldn't necessarily regret it. So I'm glad I would never do this. I'm so fucking glad.

I'm turning my cousin's age on Monday.

 

Blah I feel better writing this crap down at least. Time to draw fun things.

 

...for the record, your mom can't tell which bed I slept in because...I cleaned the sheets and remade it before I left...so she wouldn't yell at you.

I guess THAT didn't work. Jfc. I'm so sorry. :(

 

lol. well its just more proof thats she's obnoxious. water is wet I guess. :\

 

It really seems like she wants to get upset all the time? Like she could have just asked you to text me and ask...it's not like we don't talk every single day...but clearly she wanted something to be mad about. Ugh.

I'll definitely remember to bring the air mattress next time...it's not going to cure her addiction to bullshit but at least she can't complain about where I sleep.

I really don't understand why she can't just talk to me...but that's not your problem to sort out. I can still come over next week and help w the cleaning and we'll go get food even if she's going to be an ass about your bday.

 

I'm going ot try and talk to her about the bday shit honestly. I really wanted to go and she always blows up and is fine an hour later anyway.

 

Ugh I'm sorry, Aki. :l even if she's fine again in an hour that doesn't make her being a shitlord not stressful. If anything it makes it worse at least in my experience because then she can act like the reasonable one and "it's over now why are you still upset?"

 

@Starcrossedsky I managed to talk her back into it because i really WAS excited about the birthday dinner. So at least delicious food and hopefully nice birthday is going to still happen. And yeah i really hate that it ends up that way all the time :B but thank you for the support ♥. sometimes i just need to hear another person's opinion because my brain invalidates my own half the time.

 

WHY DO I GET MIGRAINES EVERY DAY.

oh my god it stopped for a few years and now its BBAAaaaaAAAck. ;___;
Note to self: tell Doctor. Screeches.