The meadow of a fluffy sheep

Happy Wednesday!

Valentine’s Day was super fun! I got flowers from three friends, a bracelet from a friend, and candy from another friend. 

I went to a boba tea place with two friends I haven’t seen in quite some time. 

I practiced singing Tate McRae’s new album Think Later. I’m going to her concert in August! 

DBT has been going well, I’m learning new skills and getting support. 

I went to a teen self-care night with my mentor. We blew up balloons and wrote down everything that was stressing us on them, and then popped the balloons. We also made slime and lip scrub. 

I went on a long bike ride to the store and the mall.

I went to my school’s choir concert. I wasn’t in it, but four of my friends were. All four of those friends hugged me and I was so happy. My friend and her sister are literally the sweetest sisters I’ve ever seen. It was so amazing, but also emotional. During the performance I was sitting next to some people and they said “(friend’s name) good job” and I said “Oh you know (friend’s name)?” And they were like “Yeah we’re her parents” and internally I was like omg. And I was thinking about if I could ask that friend if I could hug her after the performance and if I should look away while I ask so she has the opportunity to say no and if I should just ask her if I could high-five instead (we aren’t that close after some things that happened last year) and I was so lost in my thoughts that I missed the clapping time at the end of two songs. But then I was in the choir room with three of my friends and all the others and she smiled and put her arm around me in a hug and said “It was nice to see you” and I was like omg. Also my FP (favorite person, it’s a BPD term, basically a very special attachment figure, in this case my best friend) was really happy and I love seeing her happy. After the concert ended she got up on the stage and started doing silly dances and one of her friends yelled “(FP’s name) what are you doing on the stage” hahaha. And my FP’s partner/my other friend looked so amazing they were wearing this slay outfit and their makeup was yummyalicious. I love them so much. They’re literally the most amazing friends I could imagine. I hope we’re friends for the rest of our lives because I’m just so glad we met. They’re so sweet and supportive and silly and we just understand each other so well. There was a song about saying goodbye to a relationship and I thought of how I never want to lose them. And afterward in the choir room my friend’s younger sister was crying like sobbing because she had a solo and she did well and she was also really tired from a lot of songs and my friend was holding her and stroking her hair and caressing her cheek wiping her tears away and kissing her forehead like omg these are the sweetest sisters in the entire world I wish I had a sister like that. And my FP’s partner/my other friend was wearing heels and they were happy about being taller than they usually are (they’re my height) but they were uncomfortable on their feet especially after running in them and so they took them off but then they were shorter again and they were like nooo I’ve lost my height and ran up onto the choir stand thing idk equivalent of bleachers but for choir for people to stand on, it was really funny.

Evie was out and she drew a picture with crayons. 

I went to my school’s one-acts (short theater plays) and they were definitely interesting, the first one was my favorite. My FP was a crew member and it was lovely to see her there.

Thank you for being here and have a wonderful week!

@JemmyX0X0 

Hey Jemmy friend ❤️ it’s been a while and I wanted to check in ❤️ how’ve you been? ❤️

@Fluffysheep8 Fluffyyyy! It's been so long! How have you been? I just read your recent entries and it was so sweet to hear about your lifee. I've missed you, hope to see you in the chatrooms soon <3

Wow, it has been a wild past few weeks. It started when I had a mental health cr!s!s and was in the emergency room two weeks ago. They discharged me from the hospital and let me go home, but the parent I usually stay with said she was overwhelmed and needed a break, so I’m staying with my other parent now. 

I stayed home from school for a week for my mental health. I had an intake for PHP, Partial Hospitalization Program. It’s an intensive mental health treatment program. I also had my intake for my neuropsychological evaluation. The three things my parents and I want out of this eval are 1) results to bring back to the gender clinic as the next step for top surgery, 2) school accommodations possibly for special education, and 3) living on my own skills or documented proof of struggles with these skills so I can get help from the government once I turn 18. 

During that first week, I watched a lot of YouTube and things on Disney+. My parents took away my devices for my mental health, so I had to use the TV. I listened to music, watched Sims 4 videos, nature videos, and animal videos. I went to a bubble tea place and got brown sugar milk tea with boba, and I got a haircut. I watched the Eras Tour on Disney+ for the second time. I called my best friend/FP. I found a recording of my school’s choir concert and I watched it with my mom and pointed out who my friends were. 

I took a lot more walks and called my best friend/FP again. I went to a super good pizza place and watched The Princess Bride with my mom and brother. The next day, we went to an amazing Asian food buffet that I hadn’t been to in over a year. I bathed my dog, ate Girl Scout cookies, shopped for clothes, got dog treats for my dog, and continued watching the Eras Tour. I went to a super good bakery and then went to the library to get books for the child alters. I called my friend and took another walk. 

On Monday, PHP started. At PHP, there are one and a half hours of school, where you just read and take notes so that the hospital can tell your school to give you credit. Then, we have check-in, where we say our name, pronouns, age, what we’re working on in PHP, and answer a daily question, and then we say what our mood is, how much sleep we got, our appetite, depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and coping skills we plan to use are. Next is process group, which is where we can share what’s on our mind, talk about things, and get feedback from the group. During skills group, we drew our mental illness in the form of monsters. This was helpful to recognize that our mental illness isn’t our whole self and we can manage and live with it. We have lunch, which is actually very good. We get a soup or salad, sandwich, two sides, a dessert, and a beverage. Next, we had education group, and we learned about the DBT feelings wheel and how there are eight main feelings and many more variants and more specific feelings. We got slips of paper with feeling words on them and we had to act them out. We also picked two goals from a sheet. I picked “Each day I will write one way to reduce or eliminate anxiety” and “Each day I will write one step I will take to engage in social and recreational activities”. Then we wrote poetry and had check-out and that was my first day of PHP.

Tuesday, we had school, check-in, and process group. During process group, I talked about why I was there and how I had an SA flashback during school and that combined with gender dysphoria and feeling inadequate for my mom led me to have SIB (self-injurious behavior) and end up in the hospital. There was a boy named Tim there, and he introduced us to a meme where there was a guy walking down a sidewalk swinging his arms and another person recording from a window and saying “swing swing swingaling” and so we called Tim “Tim Tim Timalimb”. When people discharge from PHP, we have to call them Past Patient and then the first letter of their name for confidentiality, and Tim asked us to call him Past Patient Swing or Past Patient Limb when he was discharged. I was sharing about my BPD symptoms and another patient said “You are very self-aware” a staff member agreed and said that was a big strength of mine which I agree with. I also learned that DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) was created by someone with BPD for people with BPD, which is really helpful and great because professionals are more aware of how to treat anxiety and depression than BPD, and BPD has one of the highest suicide attempt rates of any mental illness, so I’m glad that there is hope for me. We had sleep hygiene jeopardy, which was about good and bad sleep habits and impact of poor sleep. During process, people were asking for advice on boundaries, and I gave some examples of how I have clear and healthy boundaries with my FP. For example, she asked me not to hug her from behind because she doesn’t know who it is, so now I always tell her it’s me and ask before hugging her from behind. We also call each other “love” and “lovely” and “my love” but she isn’t comfortable saying it in front of people, only over text. One day I forgot and called her that in front of other people at school and she texted me later and reminded me she was uncomfortable with that so I haven’t done that since. Next was lunch, then we had a discussion on DBT and school, and how we could use DBT skills in school if we got emotionally dysregulated. A staff member asked “Who here gets emotionally dysregulated at school?” and every single person raised their hand so it’s nice to know I’m not the only one. We also made a plan for going back to school to make it easier. We did perler beads and I made a special heart for my best friend/FP. We listened to music on YouTube and the TV said “your network connection is unstable” and I said “He just like me for real!” and everyone laughed because we’re all unstable. 

On Wednesday, I was struggling because I hadn’t been hugged in a week and a half and I missed my FP so much because I hadn’t seen her in two weeks and the last time I was separated from an FP that FP left me. I talked about that in process group. We had a break and in skills group we learned about the wellness wheel. The eight components of wellness are physical, mental, social, intellectual, environmental, spiritual, occupational, and financial. There are ways to take care of each one. If one is thrown off, the rest tend to follow. For example, with social, if you get dumped, you’re probably going to neglect exercising and sleeping and hygiene, which are physical, and you might not clean your room, which is environmental. It’s a good idea to find where the problem started and fix it there, that way you don’t need to do things for all eight components. We had lunch, then spirituality, which is not about religion, more about values, this time we talked about forgiveness. During activity time, we signed cards for the three people who were discharging. We watched Inside Out and it was my first time watching it. I’ve never cried at a movie before, but at the saddest scene, I started ugly crying and I was caught off guard. I actually had to step out of the room to finish crying and then come back in when I was calmer. 

I got very triggered Wednesday night and used my new DBT skills. Observe - one mindfully. Choose something physical to focus on, notice distractions, gently bring self back. I focused on how I felt tense. Describe - nonjudgmentally. A feeling is just a feeling, it doesn’t have to be our actions and choices. A thought is just a thought, it doesn’t have to be true. I listed my feelings: lonely, touch starved, anxious, frustrated, yearning. And my thoughts: she might leave me, she might stop loving me, I miss her, I want her here next to me. Participate - effectively. Allow the feeling to come to the surface all the way. What coping skill would be most beneficial right now? What does the feeling want me to do? Don’t give into unhelpful urges. I used self-affirmations, I reread an affirming email I was sent, I used my attachment coping skills, tuned into my stable sense of self, and was writing + sitting with it + contradicting anxious thoughts with secure ones. At the beginning, before I used my coping skills, I was a 0 on a scale from 1-10 if 10 was the best. It felt all-consuming like it would eat me and the world would end and tomorrow felt like an entire lifetime away. But with my new DBT coping skills, I was able to get from a 0 to a 5 all by myself, which I had never been able to do before. I was incredibly proud of myself and so were my peers and staff at PHP the next day.

On Thursday, skills group was centered around self-esteem. We had a discussion on what self-esteem was and what healthy and low self-esteem look like. During family communication, we learned about attachment styles in relationships, which I’m an expert on, especially anxious attachment style because I have such bad issues with that. We made our own stickers during activity time. After PHP, I got clothes, my stuffed unicorn, pens, and slime from my other parent’s house. 

On Friday, we shared some of our poetry during process group. We had break and then did an identity narrative tree project. The roots were our strengths and personality traits, the trunk were our hobbies and skills, the branches were our goals, and the leaves were the people in our lives. We ate lunch and every Friday we get to go to the hospital Starbucks and get drinks and the hospital pays for it. During education group, we planned nurturing, fun, and productive things to do over the weekend, as well as who we intended on spending time with. 

This weekend, I cleaned the house and had a friend over. It was my first time seeing a friend in over two weeks. We made brownies and hot cocoa bombs, went for a walk, talked about PHP and friend stuff, and I talked to her about dogs from my dog encyclopedia. Now, I’m writing this update post. Later this weekend, I’m going to brush my dog, spend some time in my fantasy world, set up my closet situation, do my laundry, get chew treats for my dog, text my friend, plan to see another friend, update my PHP goals and PHP school plan, and shop for a new notebook because mine is halfway used. 

Thank you for being here as always and have a wonderful week. I know this was a lot, so any feedback given is appreciated but not expected.

Welcome back to my meadow! On Monday, we had school and process group. Then, we wrote an “I am” poem, a poem about your identity, goals, fears, and things like that. Then we had lunch, then we learned about the DBT skills ABC. Accumulating positive emotions for the long term, build mastery, and cope ahead of time with difficult situations. Then we had activity group and family therapy. I'm going to stay with Mama for a while because Mom needs a break, but I can visit for short periods of time. During activity group, another PHP patient was drawing snails, and I said “Snailed it! Haha” and people laughed at my pun. We watched a little bit of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour movie but then we watched Twilight because that's what everyone else wanted. In my opinion, the entire premise and plot of Twilight is very problematic. And the word “twilight” is such a pretty word, so it's kind of unfortunate how now most people associate it with that vampire movie. 

On Tuesday, I had family therapy with Mama and I talked about how learning new DBT skills have helped me stabilize and feel better. In inpatient hospitalization, I learned the distress tolerance module of DBT, which is all about distraction, lots and lots of ways to distract yourself. It was helpful and got me through a lot but you can only go so far with distraction. I didn't know there were three other modules of DBT and so many different types of skills until recently, and I've been learning and using my skills to feel more confident. In education group, we learned the DBT TIPP skill. DBT is full of acronyms. The goal is TIPP is to reduce extreme emotion mind fast. Tip the temperature of your face with cold water to calm down fast, intense exercise to calm your body down when it's revved with emotion, paced breathing to pace your breathing by slowing it down, and paired muscle relaxation to calm down by pairing muscle relaxation with breathing out.

On Wednesday, after school and process group, we learned about the 5 love languages. Mine, in order, are physical touch, words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, and acts of service. I feel like if I wasn't touch starved as a child, my natural love language would be words of affirmation and quality time, but because I was pretty deprived of touch as a child, I crave more of it now. In education group, we learned about anxiety triggers. Mine in order from most triggering to least triggering: conflict or drama in my family or friendships or relationships, raised voices, being unprepared, negative thinking, having too much time to think, having too much to get done, getting criticized for something I did wrong, trying to make other people happy, any kind of sudden change, grades or stress from schoolwork, performing or presenting in front of others, and then the others were low on the list. During group, I was trying to get people's attention and I said “guys” twice and nobody listened so I demonically said “guys” in a super low growly voice and people laughed and the staff said “Yes? Can I help you?” And I laughed. There's a staff named Charlie who I call Charzard like the Pokémon and there was a new patient and he introduced himself as Charzard and I laughed for a hot minute.

On Thursday, we talked about boundaries, and Jordan, one of the staff, drew SpongeBob characters to represent each type of boundaries - rigid, healthy, and porous, except she's bad at drawing and she jokes she's the best. She said “It took me 27 years to reach this level of incredible artist so please don't get jealous”. Squidward has rigid boundaries because he isolates and doesn't let anyone in, Sandy the squirrel has healthy boundaries, and SpongeBob has porous boundaries because he says yes to everything and takes on other people's problems, but we joked about him literally being porous because he's a sponge. I was impressed at how Jordan spelled porous right and she said “Yeah, I did pass English pretty good” and did finger guns. In education group, we learned about communication styles - passive, passive aggressive, aggressive, and assertive. In activity group, we dyed wooden eggs. Jocelyn and I have matching dino profile pictures, hers is green and mine is pink, so I made the same shade of green and pink eggs to give to her to be the eggs our dino profile pictures hatched out of. When I was playing a song on YouTube, there was an 18 second taco ad that I couldn't skip and another PHP patient said “Ah yes I love that song” as a joke.

On Friday, we played coping skill bingo and planned out our weekend. I went to Mom’s after PHP to visit. Yesterday, I went to the Mall of America with Jocelyn and we got boba tea, pretzel bites, and popcorn. I got my glasses adjusted at the glasses store and went to Old Navy and Claire's to get things for Evie. It was super fun but I wore heels and was walking the whole day and my feet hurt so bad. Seriously though it was wonderful to see Jocelyn after three weeks and spend the day with her. I wore a gold sequin dress with a gold sequin purse and a gold hair accessory and I felt fabulous. Today I'm writing this update, texting with my friends, and packing to go back to Mama’s tonight. Mom took away my computer and iPad and put a bunch of restrictions on my phone so I'm feeling frustrated that I can’t text my friends outside of 2-6 pm or play the Sims 4 or check my email to see when the next ANSR event is. I'm waiting for it to be 2 so I can text my friends. Also, she took away my device with my to-do list on it and so I had to install a new to-do list app on my phone and add all my tasks again. But I'd like to end on a positive note, so Mom and Paul (her new husband) did make and hide Easter baskets for me and my brother and they have good candy in them. Happy Easter and thank you for being here!

@Fluffysheep8 

thinking of you all. 💜 i really miss you all. 💜 *sends hugs if okay* 

This week, I went to Easter church with my previous singing lesson teacher, played the Sims 4, and finished my neuropsychological testing. 

In PHP, we learned about self affirmations, and I wrote a bunch of them centered around shifting from anxious attachment to secure attachment. We also learned about self-image. A symptom of BPD is an unstable self-image, but I’m really grateful I have a strong, positive, stable self-image. We talked about how you think people see you, how people actually see you, and who you really are.

I went to a meeting for ANSR and we played jeopardy on anti-tobacco advocacy. I’m going to a tabling event on the 20th. It's a community event, and ANSR has a table where some other ANSR members and I will sit and educate people on the dangers of vaping and why we’re advocating to end the sale of flavored tobacco. 

In PHP, another patient and I were repeating the word “yippie” over and over again to each other, trying to sound like the autism creature, and one of the staff said “As much as I love hearing the same word over and over, it’s time to make slime” and I found her sarcasm funny. I was struggling with obsessive hypersexual thoughts and asked for some multiplication sheets to distract myself and focus on something else and then I asked that staff to check my work. Turns out she hadn’t done multiplication in ten years and she thought 45x6 was the same as 45x60 and that 50x75 was different from 75x50. I said “Don't worry Jordan we don't judge here it's a judgment free zone!” And she and I laughed.

In process group, I shared about how the hypersexual thoughts were difficult to cope with and how I was also frustrated with the wait for top surgery. I started binding and wanting top surgery when I was 12 and my parents called to get me on the waitlist for a gender clinic when I was 13. The waitlist was 16 months and I got in September of 2023. They said that because I’m autistic, have sexual trauma, have dissociative disorders, and I’m a minor, any surgeon would need a neuropsychological evaluation to rule out complications. The neuropsychological evaluation was originally scheduled for September of this year, a year after I had visited the gender clinic, but we got it in for late March/early April. We’re going to have a feedback meeting this week to discuss the results, and then we’re going to take those results to the gender clinic to review next steps. I’ve wanted and needed and pleaded and begged for top surgery for three and a half years now and I’m so tired of living in this disgusting body that isn’t mine. I just need top surgery now. I need a flat chest. I’ve had dozens of dreams about having top surgery and waking up and feeling free and euphoric and then waking up and feeling horrible. We’re making progress, and I am grateful for that, it’s just *** to wait this long with dysphoria.

I was talking about being in ANSR and working on my business plan and one of the PHP staff said they were really impressed with my ability to channel my focus, energy, and passion into something and not give up. I knew I was passionate, but it made me realize that’s a really special trait of mine. 

Also in PHP, we made a SUDS scale. SUDS stands for subjective units of distress. It’s a scale from 1-10, 1 being no distress, 10 being the worst distress you’ve ever felt. Next to the numbers, you write what that level of distress looks on the outside/what other people see, and next to that, you write things you can do to help yourself.

Thank you for being here, have an awesome weekend.