Juliana doesn't look good. Aside from the obvious (duh) she had terrible rings around her eyes and really poor color in her face. She works a part time call center job she hates where they don't even want her to come back to work and Coco who is unemployed as far as I can tell, just locked them into a mortgage on a house that needs major renovations. I think she is killing herself with food out of despair.
The dark rings around her eyes have always been there, but they're really bad now. And it looks like she's developing acanthosis nigricans in her wrist folds, as well. This is the best screenshot I could get of that with my phone:
My God, the level of denial in J's latest Patreon post is almost painful to read.
It's just staggering. I think we're all capable of a certain amount of denial about our own unhealthy/dysfunctional shit, but to see somebody like this, whose quality of life is abysmal, and ability to perform basic human functions is long gone, talk about their latest woes and still refuse to see how they got there, much less how they might get out of it, is just incredible.
"I kept telling myself that I'm supposed to be a resource for folks struggling with this kind of thing, while also hating myself for being such a crab and "letting myself get to this point." There's a lot of shame there. I've never felt such shame about myself before." Not to sound like a Sith lord here, but: give in to that hatred, J. You should hate the fact that you let things get to this point, and you should let that hatred of your situation motivate you to change it.
What strikes me here is that she has set herself up in her own mind as somebody who is an expert, a "resource," who others look up to and depend upon. She's hurtling toward her own certain destruction, one mouthful and one untaken step at a time, with her quality of life and state of health growing steadily and conspicuously worse—yet believes she's there to serve as a guide and encourager of others.
And now the shame she's always felt at letting herself get to such a terrible state has come roaring to the surface, and she hasn't known how to deal with it. But as she posted in her Insta stories, thin people, and the progressive left in general, need to "show up," to step up their game, in advocating for fat people, and it is a major failing that they don't. So after all of the events of the last month or so, in which she's had plenty of occasion to look at her life and realize what she's done to herself, she's still going to blame a "fatphobic" society, and others not advocating loudly enough for fat people, for not making her life easier.
Shit, she's now blaming the pandemic for her physical decline, and inability to climb stairs. She's not taking any responsibility for the fact that she didn't try to remain as active and mobile as she could. No; it's entirely due to "the panini." She didn't have to climb stairs, so she didn't, and how was
she to know that muscles atrophy from disuse? Unbelievable (and yet, totally believable).
Juliana's Narcissism is subtle. She doesn't make grandiose statements about herself; if anything, she's more inclined to make statements that imply she's really humble. But at the same time, she expects to be able to do exactly as she pleases (regardless of others' opinions, or consequence) and that others must accept and accommodate her, no matter how fat she gets, or they're bad, hateful people. She's hijacked ideas about systematic oppression and equal access for the disabled, and uses that (as well as her pronouns) to put well-meaning lefties on the spot, and dominate conversations about the consequences of her fatness. And when things go bad for her, she takes responsibility for absolutely
nothing; she is never wrong; there is always somebody or something else to blame.
It's all classic Narc shit, in a low-key package, and unless you've been watching her closely for a long time, chances are you wouldn't even connect the dots and realize what she really is. Shit, she had some of us Kiwis fooled (including myself), for a remarkably long time.
"And it felt disingenuous to preach self love, kindness, and advocacy while I couldn't seem to conjure it up for myself. I'm not an expert at living life comfortably while fat." It IS disingenuous to preach self-love while promoting self-harm, and no human can be an expert at living comfortably with that much fat, same way no human can be an expert at breathing under water.
"I'm not an expert at living life comfortably while fat": yet that's
exactly how she's presented herself for years, now. Shit, it's even her screen name. But this is her first big step in distancing herself from her role as expert, which is significant. It indicates just how bad things have got for her. She's reached a point where she can no longer pretend that her life is great and her fatness isn't creating major challenges for her, on the most basic levels.
"This injury really terrified me. It brought out parts of me and my values that I think need some healing." Wait, what's this? Could J be on the verge of a useful self-insight?
"If I had to choose values I align with, what would they be? What am I aiming for? Peace? Collaboration? Capital? Health? Self reflection? Compassion? Resilience? Do I value movement? Stability? Access? Challenges? Consistency? If I truly believe others have worth outside of what they can physically do, where did the deep dark depressive monster crawl up from when I was injured?" No, no self-insight. What you value above all else, J, is eating. Which is why you're still eating Taco Bell by the bag even after losing the ability to take a bath or move through your own house. And that dark depressive monster is your last remaining bit of self-awareness screaming at you to stop destroying yourself with food.
Notice how her talk about "healing her values" leads to no actual insight or conclusions. It's just a collection of words she wants to be associated with, but she has nothing to say about them.
Where did that "dark, depressive monster" come up from? Probably from the fact that she's just had a major wakeup call regarding just how immobile and unable to function she really is—and that it's not going to get any better, and that she's now stuck living in a house she can't function in. She's no doubt had similar wake-up calls before: not being able to wipe her own ass; not being able to fit in public toilet stalls; not being able to get her socks on. You can't tell me she didn't experience depression at the realization she could no longer do those things. You can't tell me she doesn't feel depressed each time she realizes her clothes no longer fit, and her options for new ones are narrower than ever.
At yet, nothing changes. And nothing ever will.
Yeah, put open shelving in the kitchen, Corissa, where everything will get covered in a fine layer of dust and cooking grease, which you will have no trouble standing on a stepladder to clean. Go for it!
(Seriously, if you cook, open shelving only works well when you use it to keep things you use every single day within immediate reach; as storage for less-used items, it's shit.)
If it were my house, I'd remove the uppermost cabinets, because visually they're too heavy, plus they always end up as dead storage for shit you never use.
As for the divider between the kichen and dining room, that raised bit is there so nobody eating at the table or sitting in the living room has to look through and see dirty dishes and other kitchen mess. So go ahead and cut it down to counter-height, Corissa. But in the meantime, water that poor, shrivelled pothos.
corissa bought this house to kill JULIANNA confirmed
That Corissa gave no thought whatsoever to how Juliana was going to function within this particular house has been screamingly obvious, but it's nice to see it confirmed.
Joke's on Corissa, though; she obviously can't function within it, either, given how unwashed she's been.
I’m loathe to admit sympathy for Juliana considering her childishness and obnoxiousness, but she never really had a chance, did she? Child of addicts, foster kid, fat since forever— she was never given the opportunity to develop healthy behaviors or experience life as a healthy person. And as much as we can adopt a bootstraps mentality about just getting up and doing something, it’s clear she just doesn’t have that capability.
I don't feel any sympathy for her; not for her adult self.
At any point, she could have realized that what she's doing to herself is sick and unhealthy and destructive—or at least not what she wanted—and sought help to do something different. She could still realize it. She knows different ways of living exist, and at any time she could make a decision to try one of those ways.
Her Narcissism is an impediment; her entire ego and identity and sense of moral rightness is bound up in being fat, and that community is where she gets the validation she craves. But if she could find a way to re-frame a decision to lose weight in a way that lets her feel right and get positive attention from others, she could do it. I've seen Narcissists do complete 180s, becoming completely different people almost overnight, once they decided there was greater benefit to be had by doing so.
Or, she could just choose to do it by stealth: quit snacking; quit drinking her calories; order only two people's worth of food instead of three. Chances are, Corissa wouldn't even notice, given how wrapped up she is in herself, and Juliana could drop a crazy amount of weight before anybody caught on. And then she could handwave it with, "It's just falling off naturally; I'm not doing anything different," or, "I've been so depressed, it's really been affecting my appetite."
I feel sorry for the child that Juliana was— if not so much the adult— unlike Corissa and Anna who had multiple resources at their disposal, who know what it’s like to lose weight/be at a closer-to-average size, yet have just said fuck it and ate themselves into oblivion.
Juliana has plenty of resources at her disposal, and always has. Most people who choose to clean up their diets or otherwise un-fuck their lives do it without professional hand-holding; they used to do it by reading books, but now they've got the entire internet at their disposal. There's no fucking excuse.
It wouldn't help get to the second floor but couldn't they get a ramp?
As far as I can tell, the second floor in that house is just an attic; all the rooms are on the ground floor. I didn't see any evidence of a staircase in the photos, so it's probably only accessible by a ladder that pulls down from the ceiling.
By "stairs," I am absolutely certain Juliana means the steps to the front and back porches, and that's it. Not actual stairs. But when you're that fat, five steps to the porch might as well be a full flight of stairs.
I wonder why it's easier for her to get in and out of the basement, because there have got to be steps down into it, as well. Maybe the steps are shallower. Maybe there are no steps, but a concrete ramp. Who knows?
