[frookie]

Spoke/cried at counselling today about how I feel like an alien and have been full of self-loathing since. I know the only way to make friends as an adult is to ultimately just do things - joining wee clubs and hobby groups and whatever else - but it feels beyond me. I'm so afraid of trying, so afraid of being perceived, so afraid of being vulnerable. Chronic illness has taken so many things from me but the one I can actually work to get back is some confidence and it just feels impossible despite putting in (what feels like) a lot of effort this year particularly. I'm scared I really do have nothing to offer.

[frookie]

Happy New Douglas Stuart Novel Day to those who celebrate. I'm ready to feel emotionally unwell once more.

[frookie]

5*. Didn't leave me crushed and changed forever in the same way that Shuggie or Mungo (albeit to a lesser extent) did, but I loved it just as I knew I would.

[frookie]

Borb.

[frookie]

I started collecting Pokemon cards again and it's taken over my life. It's all I think about. I bought a new binder for my cards, I watch TikToks of people opening cards, I've been all over trying to buy new packs myself, I downloaded an app to keep a digital catalogue of which cards I have from which collections and to track their current value. Send help.

[frookie]

In my entire working life there has always been two types of colleague I've known - the people themselves have changed a few times, but the details remain the same: one will be a woman over 50 and has been in the role/company a long time.

The other will be a young woman, or any age in her 20s really, who is very affable, good at her job, pretty, and well liked by everyone, except the woman over 50...who will just be inexplicably cold/horrible to her for no apparent reason, thus creating a bad work environment for everyone else as well.

It's so, so sad and so, so weird.

[frookie]

Mum feeding her bab!!!

[frookie]

Therapy talk under the thing if anyone would rather not engage.

I was really wobbly for the night after the first EMDR session then felt a bit calmer for the last couple of days, but about an hour ago I was sorting things as normal and suddenly was hit by the sound of my mum's voice shouting the exact words she shouted during the scariest night of my life. It hit me like she was in the room. Immediately I felt like I could smell stale alcohol and blood, and that I could hear my old kitchen floorboards creaking, followed by a drawer loudly slamming shut. When I closed my eyes it was as if the image of her face was imprinted on the back of my eyelids. Then came her voice again. I don't know why since I'm here alone but I instinctively ran into the bathroom and locked the door, then did the sort of crying where you just hyperventilate through it until it stops.

I'd been told I might feel "unsettled" either from flashbacks or having disturbing dreams, but that made me feel quite litetally insane. How can it be possible that I thought I smelled, heard, and saw things that I didn't? When I ran to the bathroom it felt like I was being chased. I'm not sure what to do - my next appointment isn't imminently and I know that the brain carries on the work between sessions but I'm terrified of that happening again in even more detail.

[frookie]

My preferred book genres:

- gay and miserable catholics

- women who have been wronged

- women who have been wronged (mormon edition)

[frookie]

Please let this be it...the best I hoped for with the Mirena was that it might just make my periods lighter and more manageable, but if they were to stop altogether it would truly be a dream. There was a point where I couldn't imagine not having to set alarms through the night every 90 minutes because the bleeding was so severe.

Now all I need is a date for my endo surgery and I'll be doing cartwheels.

[frookie]

Do you know that post that went around saying "the most horrible person you know is in therapy right now being told it's okay to be selfish sometimes"?

What about "the least harassed and most out of touch person you know is posting about how they "really needed this" from one of their four holidays a year"

[frookie]

Work was so bad today that I cried. I really don't think I can work in pharmacy anymore. Might just need to have a menty-b about it tonight and will maybe feel clearer tomorrow but I feel like a husk of a person.

[frookie]

I was reading a deep dive about "people who always have to be the sickest in the room" and it made me do the biggest sigh, because if you are a person with a chronic illness who has delved into any sort of online community based around said illness, then you absolutely will know...that people really do want to be the sickest person in the room, and it's so weird. There was a video on TikTok recently where someone was talking about going through chemo hell and there were legit people in the comments being like "actually, this is what it's like having CFS every day of my life" - like obviously I don't doubt that's hard, but nobody asked though? People talking about one illness being horrific isn't equal to them saying all other illnesses a) don't matter and b) are easy. Life isn't a Having A Shit Time competition, not everything is about us.

[frookie]

Have I mentioned that I love my bird camera xo

[frookie]

It's so fucked up how it's become normal to film retail workers during confrontations/complaints only for them to be posted online and have thousands of cunts in the comments spit pure hatred about them. If someone wants to chat about something and they whip out a camera you should immediately be able to tell them to leave and if they don't then they should be forcibly removed. It's all the worse when it's about a store policy set by higher ups that the worker had absolutely no part in implementing and they're having to face backlash over it. People also seem to think that an incorrect ticket price means it must be honoured - not true! Another example where staff should be allowed to just tell people to fuck off.

[frookie]

🫪

[frookie]

Mis-Teeq coming back is the only good news of 2k26.

[frookie]

There's this person who has made a million complaints at work about issues that are nothing to do with us, it's the same old thing of ordering meds too early and the surgery knock them back and then they escalate it on our end because we're easier to shout at I guess, but every time it happens they go "I mean, I'm a retired doctor, you know? I know how this stuff works" and I love it when people say stuff like this because it means fuck all in the moment, it changes nothing. It's always "I used to be a lawyer" or "my daughter's actually a nurse!" like...cool story I guess.

So when I was making small talk with them yesterday after trying to difuse things I was like "So was it general practice or hospital you worked, or...?" and they went "I'm a doctor of philosophy actually" ??????? I mean it wasn't relevant in the first place anyway if they were a retired medical doctor because evidently they don't know how this stuff works otherwise they wouldn't have made their complaints, but it's even less relevant if they're a retired doctor of something else entirely. This is the same person who claims "they've got silly little girls on reception in that surgery printing and signing prescriptions themselves"

They should give me one day a year where I'm allowed to tell someone to fuck off properly, I need it for my health at this point.