So. I'm disabled, but I'm able bodied. I have autism, adhd, bpd, ptsd, and a host of other mental health problems that severely impact my ability to function in every day society. If I'd been properly diagnosed earlier in life, I would have never done veterinary school. I always told myself I'd be able to keep up and function like a normal person and everyone else once I got better. But I am never going to get better. I will never achieve a higher level of functioning. And because of that, I'll never be able to work a traditional vet clinic job.

Vet med entails long hours, poor working conditions, and a super competitive environment that will eat you alive. I can't work over 30 hours a week without burning out and becoming a danger to myself. Most people in the specific field of vet med I do work a minimum of 60+ hour weeks, often more. No one will accommodate for me. No one. I get laughed out asking for accommodations and people treat me so poorly for it. Vet med already treats everyone poorly and horribly, it's even worse if you're disabled.

Being 100% honest, it might be possible, but I see it as extremely unlikely. You'd have to strike gold to find a program that would accommodate for you *and* employers that will accommodate for you. The reality of that happening in this field and industry, in a traditional vet clinic, is almost impossible.

My advice is to start off as a veterinary assistant. It doesn't require any credentials or schooling. See if any clinic will take you, and you'll see firsthand what work you can do with your limitations. Anesthesia you might be able to sitting down, though it would also require you to act and move quickly in an emergency. Hospice care might have some things that you can do, but if your mobility is limited, a lot of veterinary medicine will be difficult.

If you really want to work with animals in the veterinary field, you're going to have to find a way to do that within the context and limitations of your disability. It's so hard. People are not going to want to help you or understand and care. Vet techs and assistants get treated so poorly and cruelly already. You might get lucky if you find the right work environment willing to accommodate for you, but the reality of it is no one wants to do that. Especially with the current state of vet med where private equity firms are snatching up clinics. Try looking for nontraditional settings, like rescues. You'll probably have a better chance there.

Good luck <3 Keep your hopes up, pursue your dreams, but also be realistic and know the reality of the field and the work. Find a way to practice your passion, but don't put it over your health and wellbeing.

There is only one AVMA accredited school in Latin America, and it's in Mexico.

The ECFVG is an extremely difficult and long process that has only been made worse by bureaucracy, there's a current backlog of thousands of candidates fighting to take very limited spots for the CPE (Which has an extremely high failure rate, most candidates end up needing to retake some of the exam).

That being said, it is still hundreds of thousands of dollars cheaper than vet school. Read the process for the ECFVG carefully. It takes a few years to do everything, and also requires a language test. There are tons of facebook and whatsapp groups where you can find other foreign vets talking about it.

I went back to my home country to do vet school there for the purpose of later homologating my career through the ECFVG. 7 years later, I despise veterinary medicine and feel like I wasted my life doing vet school in a country that pays $3 usd per dollar for a veterinarian. If you're 1000% sure you LOVE veterinary medicine and all the hardships and abuse you'll face because of it, if you're incredibly smart, a good student that knows how to study and memorize properly, it's an option. I'm too disabled for vet med, I find.

I'm in a similar situation, a recent grad, absolutely dreading the CPE. There's a current backlog of CPE candidates and thousands of people fighting for limited spots to take or retake the CPE, so I don't anticipate taking it any time soon at least.

I originally had a clinic that was going to teach me everything about anesthesia and surgery and they ghosted me... So I started looking into surgical classes I could take in my country. A few universities offer continuing education courses on canine and feline sterilization, maybe your country's unis have something similar?

The reccomendation I've always gotten from professors at my vet school was that mass sterilization campaigns are the best way to gain surgical experience for sterilization. After participating in one, I saw that was absolutely not the case, because they work at extremely accelerated paces and no one has the time to teach you during them. That being said, it's still an option. There might be some in your country. There are also a lot of places and organizatons that accept veterinary volunteers for sterilization campaigns in poor third world countries, but you usually have to pay them in order to participate.

Good luck!!!

YES. I live in Latin America. White people love moving here because everyone is so extroverted and friendly. To me, it's a living nightmare

Elopement can be dangerous. Especially in young children than can get lost, or when the person elopes into a dangerous situation like oncoming traffic. It's different for everyone, but for some level 2 and 3 autistics, it can put them in danger

I love it!!! Turning something so painful into art

My first thought was "wouldn't they be high in calories?" because in animal husbandry, they have the reputation of being fatty little treats. I'm surprised they're that low in calorie

Thank you for sharing your experiences. It's important for others to know the possibility exists that they don't respond to the treatment.

Is it okay to ask what specific mental health problems you suffer from? I remember seeing in some studies that patients with specific conditions (bipolar disorder is one I remember) tended to respond less to treatment. It's possible that might have something to do with it, and I hope we get more info about it in the future as the treatment becomes more widespread

That's the luteal phase of your cycle! It's what causes PMS. I have PMDD, so the luteal phase of my cycle makes me suicidal and puts my life in danger. As if I didn't have enough mental health problems to deal with already, ugh

I love my EMDR therapist. Even if were not doing EMDR, shes still a therapist that was trained to work with traumatized patients and has a lot of experience in helping them. Maybe look for one that way and explain what youre looking for?

I got diagnosed with ADHD the same time I got diagnosed with autism and I recently started ritalin! So far it's only made me very very sleepy. But hearing that some people have been able to work with them gives me hope to keep trying to find one that works for me. Thank you

No problem! I wish you luck with your mental health journey moving forward!

It can be difficult to try and pinpoint what might be causing certain feelings and behaviors and actions. It's usually a mix of all three. But the way I get when my BPD acts up is, to me, a very unique feeling of anger and toxicity and self-destruction that can't be attributed to my developmental disorders

For example, extreme toxic jealousy that I feel when my friends start dating people. Every time my friends enter romantic relationships, I become so irrationally hostile and angry lash out to them and try to sabotage my relationship with them.

Certain self destructive behaviors I can attribute to my BPD. Like when I purposely try to destroy and ruin friendships by acting out and being nasty. When I purposely burn bridges and try to hurt people to further isolate myself. The feelings I get are very distinct and I know come from BPD.

But other times, self destructive behaviors, like self harming because I can't control my emotional response and in an attempt to self regulate, feel like a mix of both bpd and autism.

If you feel like it doesn't describe your experiences, you can reject the label and diagnosis. Misdiagnosis for AFABs is rampant thanks to sexism, misogyny, and other systemic forms of discrimination found in the medical field.

Being diagnosed as borderline to me gives me relief, because it allows me to know why I feel like I do, and what specific treatments I can do to help improve my quality of life so it doesn't control me. But if you simply don't feel like that's truly what's causing all your struggles, and that it's coming from a lifetime of neglected auDHD, you're more than welcome to accept that you were misdiagnosed and move forward as if you have auDHD if you feel it best describes your life experiences. You deserve to find answers and find ways to help relieve your symptoms, even if you haven't been assessed yet

I've been officially diagnosed with BPD for around 5-6 years now. I got diagnosed with AuDHD a about half a year ago, and my neuropsych suggested that my BPD was a misdiagnosis.

Though, tbh, I think I have all three. The auDHD has been present my entire life, but I can trace back a specific timeframe in my life *when* I developed BPD and how much it fucked up my life. I responded very well to DBT therapy. I don't struggle with it daily like I used to, but when I do have symptoms, they feel pretty separate to the auDHD. So personally, I think I have all three.

If you think it's a misdiagnosis, try to identify what symptoms caused you to be diagnosed with it in the first place. And from there try to see if you agree that these symptoms come from BPD, and not just untreated and undiagnosed auDHD. It can be hard though, since a lot of the symptoms overlap and if you do have these conditions, they can all effect each other. Good luck with your assessments!

Omg, I love your use of yellows!!!

I flew in and out of the states internationally recently with my ita bag. I had no issues! When I flew in, had the pins on the window ofbthe bag on some cardboard covered with construction paper. When I flew out, they were all loose inside the bag. Had zero issues. Ymmv but the pins shouldn't be considered weapons. If anything they may stop and check it but I don't think they'll stop you from boarding with it

So I'm asexual, and to me, roleplaying romance and and smut with my rp partners in no way translates to me wanting or desiring my rp partners in any way. One of my longtime rp partners is also asexual and has told me that she's so relieved we can roleplay smut without me projecting any sexual feelings onto her, which is a problem when she tries to roleplay smut with other people.

You need to ask your partner how he feels. Is it possible to rp but to just not have any romance or sexual elements in it? I think that would be fine, it'd be like playing a D&D game with friends. It's prossible that he may be okay with you roleplaying sexual and romantic elements, or he might not. I've seen a few people in rp ads mention that they're in relationships and that rp for them is strictly fantasy that doesn't involve them, so some people's partners might understand how it's different. Kind of like how romancing a character in a video game isn't cheating.

But yeah, roleplay is amazing for socializing and having fun and being creative. Roleplay has also been very therapuetic for me for processing certain life experiences and traumas. It's a great coping mechanism. Explain that to your partner and let him now how it's helped you in the past and that you want to continue doing it, but still respect his boundaries. Good luck!

Unfortunately, all the clothing is gender locked. There are fishnets for the feminine frame, but not for the masculine. Though the more feminine clothing options for the masculine frames have left me very happy

So something that can make binge eating really difficult is that a lot of time the people you live with will bring in trigger foods into the house. It can be anything from specific foods that are triggers, to the amount of food you buy (large portions, large bags, multiple servings, etc), to the presentation (do foods that are are ready to eat make it easier for her to binge? Would buying mostly ingredients help with that?). When you go grocery shopping together, make sure she's onboard with what you guys are bringing home and see if changing these things can help with her binging.

Another common thing that sucks when you have any eating disorder, is that a lot of social events often involve food (going out to eat at restaurants, parties that might have food, etc). I'd say *most* social outings between people tend to involve food in some way or another, and that's not something people tend to notice if you don't have an eating disorder. Like going out for coffee, meeting for brunch, going on a dinner date, going to the movies. If outings like these tend to facilitate or trigger binging, it's worth finding alternatives for things you can do that don't involve food or have less food.

Thank you for supporting your wife through this! That's so sweet and caring, I'm very glad she has your support. Hopefully now that she's diagnosed, you two can find ways to help make it more manageable.

With your extensive history of TRD, it's baffling she brushed it aside so flippantly. A lot of doctors let their own prejudices affect their judgment.

If you're still interested in ketamine, I highly encourage you to still pursue it. It's mechanism of action may provide you relief where your 20+ psych meds failed

Rune Factory 4, a jrpg + farming sim, has the best romance and dating system I've seen in any game I've played. Each romanceable character has different dialogue every single day in game, and there are variants of each date that you go on. The dates also change when you're married and have children. There's tooons of new flavor text that you get when you start dating someone, and I think that's so fun to try and find. All the marriage candidates are unique and interesting, and you can date all 6 of them at the same time. The only downside is that you can't do same sex romances and you can only date and marry characters of the opposite gender as your player character. Otherwise, I very much reccomend it if you're looking for a fun little switch game with a really well developed romance system!

Thank you, I'm starting to think I shouldn't confront him and jeopardize my living situation. It just breaks my heart knowing they're getting hurt. The second girlfriend loves me dearly and has opened up to me about a lot, told me she sees me as her family. Not telling her just feels like such a massive betrayal

Thank you so much, I really appreciate it, that's a really good idea ♡

I'm kind of terrified that he might kick me out if the fallout is too bad. I don't think he'd do that, but I don't want to potentially jeopardize my housing situation while I'm in recovery and therapy. But I still feel a moral and personal obligation to do something

Thank you <3

hugs

You're not alone. I often feel like eating is the only source of joy in my life. It's so hard