it's not for the better. it sucks and it's awful and it makes me want to cry. but i'm not the one who walked away.

I probably just ended my relationship. maybe it's for the better. i can't keep living a lie.

liver and onions for dinner, making roe cakes tomorrow. chicken stock being made as we write, from nothing but chicken feet. i should add some carrots and onions, i completely forgot... i feel lonely and sad despite a productive day. i wish simon would come on and talk to me, make me feel good. to do: 1.go see the urologist - benefit: a diagnosis 2. get money from bank - benefit: no longer have to carry balance on credit card 3. pay taxes (includes getting T4 from various places) - benefit: maybe get some money back, don't have to worry about it coming back to bite me 4. list things on ebay (buy boxes, take photos) - benefit: get to see if they sell, start of business 5. apply for real jobs - benefit: am getting a lot of failing out of the way 6. get happy

My body is doing weird things and I feel so out of it and I think it might be in my head but my hands feel like they're losing dexterity. Simon makes me feel unloved when he's away. I feel unworthy because of my mental health. He doesn't know what he's supposed to do to show he loves me. I don't want him to have to think of what he has to do to show me. I just want him to reach out to me and show me that he needs me in his life, despite the wonderful distractions of travelling through vietnam. Doesn't he miss me? Doesn't he wish I was there with him? Or is he just relieved to not have to think about me and be able to just have fun? Maybe. I guess that's not the hallmark of a great partner.

From reading posts on Denise Minger, Chris Masterjohn, Mark Simmons and the Weston A. Price institute websites, I can only conclude that the types of grains, meats, oils and possibly produce I've been consuming have been making me sick in various ways. What I don't yet know is what I should be including in the bulk of my diet, and whether I should address my crippling mental status with medication or a grain mill and some raw cheese and liver. Ultimately, my relationship is suffering, my body (especially my bladder) is suffering, my brain is in a constant state of fog, anxiety or depression. I am one sick pup. What I need is a bit of moderation and sanity in this journey. Despite my attempts to jump in with both feet into what I know will be an all encompassing rabbit hole of nutrition, I don't want to land in the realm of orthorexia and use food, nutrition and diet creation as a way to escape or cope with my grim reality of severe anxiety and depression, unemployment and a severely anaemic savings account. What terrifies me about pharmaceuticals is becoming numb to the realities of my body and brain. If my anxieties are due to some nutritional deficiency or contaminant, won't taking anti-depressants simply leave me more vulnerable to other diseases and conditions? What if my mental state is somehow linked to my poor bladder health? Nevertheless, it's possible that nutritional changes won't be enough to bring me into a functional state. A very real possibility evinced by the existence of crippling depression throughout the ages, even in populations of healthy, robust people. Correcting, or at least attempting to correct this imbalance is something I will have to do. Just like supplementing with bladder ease has helped my symptoms, perhaps supplementing with Effexor or whatever kind of drug this doctor decides to prescribe me will be benefitial in the long run. In other news, my relationships is a disaster. Now being able to be with Simon has put me in perpetual defence mode, past passive aggression and part mopey, whiney, boring girlfriend who doesn't want to talk on Skype. It's a mess, really. I keep thinking he doesn't love me, isn't thinking about me, isn't professing his love for me enough, isn't doing any of the things I feel like he should be doing. And then I inevitably go back to blaming myself, shaming myself, and all around loathing my very conspicuous lack of a life in absence of aimless travel and perennial unemployment (I was "finding myself!" I scream...) Long distance relationships are difficult, insecurities abound when one is unemployed and generally unwell. The beaches and forests of Vietnam provide ample distraction and care free fun times for a boyfriend who for the past six months has been mired in his girlfriend's intractable mental and pelvic pain. It's hard. It's a tough little pickle we're both in, isn't it?

Foods I feel are good for me: yams greens salad peppers squash water chestnuts carrots cauliflower broccoli fish shrimp apples blueberries almond milk coconut milk beets celery lots of soup, salad, fish, fruit

Women's math conference today...would be so great if I were here in life. What do I need: I need to be involved in something outdoorsy. I wouldn't matter if the hike I went on was 2 miles from my house instead of on the other side of the world. Exercise. I don't think I can do this without help from medication. Maybe I could but what might I be losing out on? I might be losing out on several months of productivity. Months of thinking clearly. I'll do it. I have to know that I'm going to heal. I'm not going to resign myself to doctors. I have to learn that they really don't understand the complexity of the issue and neither do I. I don't want any nocebo effect. I'll start selling things on ebay.

Vegan food: soups salads burgers/balls pasta rice/beans baked veg stir fry pate there must be more?

And then there's the gut cleanse program. There are all these things that could be wrong with you from your emotional life to your spiritual life to the toxins in the environment to the amount of omega 3s you're eating. who knows. I'd be curious to see if the pegan/elimination diet would work for me. i guess i could experiment for a few days and see if it's worth it. buy a magic bulllet. I'm not going to be able to fix my life in a day. it takes a lifetime to fix a life.

I need: 1. Financial stability 2. The ability to be in a relationship without feeling guilty for having feelings/being upset 3. A community 4. Feeling loved and nurtured, respected 5. Feeling like I am serving a purpose 6. Doing something I feel passionate about 7. emotional cleansing: getting over childhood neglect, guilt, trauma 8. Feeling like I'm being authentic I don't know what to do about Simon. I don't like that he's in Vietnam and that he's going treeplanting just a month after coming back, where i'll have to go to him because it makes more sense, where we'll just hang around in pajamas watching bad tv while he's on the computer and i feel lazy and guilty for not doing something else. Not feeling like I have any right to voice any discontent because really, what do I want from him? It's not fair for me to blame him for my lack of direction/nurturing in my life? He's good to me isn't he? I guess I make it easy on him? But do I? I was pretty sick in Vietnam and I've had so many breakdowns. But I've always let him go places. I don't know. I don't know what's fair for me to expect. Maybe he's holding up his end of the bargain. I don't feel like I deserve better. What do I deserve? Do I deserve someone who would drop the trip and come back to Toronto with me? Visit me at my dad's place? look for a job so that we can get a place in toronto together as soon as possible and give up treeplanting because i need him right now? I guess I've never had that kind of attention so I don't know if I need it or deserve it. I'm not his wife, do I want him to make these sacrifices for me? Wouldn't that make me indebted to him? Do I want to be with him? i feel like I need to be with him because I'm so poor in all areas of my life. No home, no money, no connections, no health, no job. Everything is such as mess. how did I get this way? How did I manage to ignore everything that was screaming at me? Screaming for creativity, art, love, sex, happiness, connection, nurturing. I guess I felt like I couldn't have those things, wasn't meant for those things, didn't deserve, didn't know how to seek them out, didn't know how to accept them if they were offered. All this time. I want to make money. Selling stuff on ebay, working a phone job, maybe teaching english over the phone, finding temp jobs, doing child care. I want to buy a house one day so that I have some security. I want a source of income, like a business, I want a home that generates money for me, I want savings. Passion, financial security. As for friends and a relationship...I don't know. The sexual satisfaction I can get on my own, I'm good at that. The creative aspect...making yoga routines, blogging, i want to be making some sort of art but I always feel like such a fraud and like I'm wasting money. What's the point of me painting something, for example? Do i even have the skills to make soemthing other than an experiment with technique? I have so much to catch up I don't even know where to begin. I have to hope that my body will come back into balance if I pursue these goals. That this is only temporary, that this is going to propel me somewhere authentic and amazing. that this is how it was meant to be. I want spirituality in my life. I want something I can turn to. I want to believe the universe is an incredible place, full of life forces and mysteries and incredible, unexplainable things. i want to feel connected to it all.

What is healthy? 1. Essential Nutrient Requirements: How were these calculated, how accurate are they? Some dispute re: optimal fat, protein etc. 2. Once we establish our requirements, how do we source these nutrients? Bioavailability, product safety, animal welfare, etc. 3. Are any of these sources toxic? Grains? Fish? Meat? 4. Do we supplement? 5. How do we "heal" our bodies? 6. Beyond essential nutrients: how do we decide what food to include based on it's non-essential properties? Butter, ex. Random topics today: 1. DHA/EPA/ Flax/Fish Oil 2. Paleo/Vegan debate 3. Calcium bioavailability in fortified foods like almond milk 4. Omega 6 content in things like nuts, seeds, peanuts. Does ratio even matter, or is it damage? 5. Flours: evil? 6. Whole grains: difficult to eat in large quantities, hard to make palatable 7. Saturated fat: how bad is it? 8. Satiety: more than just nutrients 9. Cost/availabiliy of speciality foods. 10. How do we measure success? 11. Oxidized oils