Oh Robin. Hoping all the best for your niece. At least the family is aware of the problems and the probabilities and she's already getting help.

I hope the therapist can help, Robin. I really do think that it's a lot harder to be a teenager today than it was when I was young.

I think I've mentioned before I have a- I don't want to say bad reaction- but a reaction to really old things. I get vertigo if I'm alone in museums. My favorite bar in NO is hundreds of years old and I get dizzy and queazy walking down the stairs. It's overwhelming to me to think that hundreds or thousands of years ago, someone just like me or someone I know walked down those stairs or played with that doll in the case or walked past that frieze. There's some sort of connection with the rest of the human race, past and present, that gives me the spins.

I expected to be overwhelmed like that when I went to the Tower of London, particularly the spot in the courtyard between the Chapel and the Tower Green where Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, and Jane Grey were beheaded.

But I wasn't. I hate it when big significant things don't touch me.

But I wasn't. I hate it when big significant things don't touch me.

Me too. It's like not being blown away by that overhyped movie that everyone loves.

And on that note, I'm off to see Sideways.

I can't help but believe that there is something, some molecular-level memory that lingers

For me, the place I find this happening the most is in churches. My own personal survey of European churches in Spain, Germany and England showed me that I prefer German churches by feel. Spanish churches were downright painful, I felt mainly fear when I entered them. One of the most disconcerting experiences I had was entering the Islamic mosque in Cordoba, which was expansive and welcoming and then walking into the cathedral that had been built inside one end of the mosque after Cordoba returned to Spanish control. It was one of the most wrenching feelings, from peaceful to nauseous by stepping over a threshhold. Mostly, they reminded me of death. English churches felt stuffy, hidebound. They were very pretty, but reminded me of a knick-knack cluttered parlor in some stuffy upper-class home. German churches felt almost neutral, even vaguely antiseptic, which was great because then I could concentrate on the out of body experience listening to the organist gave me. All I felt was an infusion of spirit from the sound of the organ echoing through the space, it was incredible. It felt like I was sitting in golden sunshine despite the fact is was cloudy and raining outside. Very uplifting. Unfortunately, I don't know how much of that to attribute to the organist and not the church itself. As a way of contrast, most American churches leave absolutely no impression on me at all. They are just structures. I think because most of them don't have enough history yet. That resonance with humanity hasn't had a chance to get strong enough to be felt.

Yeah, they thought it was an eating disorder for a long time, but the therapist and the doctor don't think it is. I think it's coke, due to other clues which are too long to post here. I am all the way across the country and am one of the annoying adults in her life she is hating on right now, so I can't really say anything to her. My SiL is a lovely woman, but her impulse with her daughter is to avoid conflict, whcihI don't think is the way to deal with an angry, depressed teenager. For example, she eats alone in her room, as she got in too many fights with her brother and sister and told her mom she "couldn't eat" with them around, and her mom is so worried about her eating she said that was okay.

It's very frustrating and sad-making.

How extraordinary, Sail. I've not been in Spanish nor English churches, but German ones to me felt...a little overwrought. And my first case of "looming vertigo"--that is, the weight of tall things, skyscrapers when I'm at ground level and can't see the sky, for example--was in the Dom cathedral in Cologne.

expected to be overwhelmed like that when I went to the Tower of London, particularly the spot in the courtyard between the Chapel and the Tower Green where Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, and Jane Grey were beheaded.

But I wasn't. I hate it when big significant things don't touch me.

See, but it's not that 3 queens were beheaded there that would've gotten me. It would have been that Anne, Catherine and Jane, in between worrying about their deaths were sitting there thinking, "It's cold in here" or "Whoops, nearly tripped on my petticoat." Not the significant stuff. Though I suppose that's not entirely true either, because we read about these people and know much more about their lives than it's likely anyone will ever know about ours, but they're not exactly real fleshy talky meat until you think that they were sitting right there thinking about the weather or the state of their petticoats.

I've never had weird haunted house experiences -- but two of the most terrifying things that ever happened to me happened in my parent's house, which is mostly definitely NOT haunted, and in house I lived in in college. Using Occam's Razor, the most likely explanations for one story is a mouse, and the other...just psyching myself out. But I felt the most visceral lizardbrain terror in both instances, and I just don't know.

I DO know I wouldn't step into that house's cellar again for anything, and that that was the creepiest damn mouse in the world and that it watched me for 20 minutes while I huddled in bed, not breathing.

she eats alone in her room, as she got in too many fights with her brother and sister and told her mom she "couldn't eat" with them around,

That sounds like classic eating disorder behavior to this non-expert. Not to say that family dynamics can't be pretty fucked up and a teenage want their "own space" even at dinner time. However, hiding your food consumption, one way or another, is a primary sign of an eating disorder.

I hope the therapist can do some good. In the absence of any concrete advice, though, I'm sending lots of {{}} to Robin and her family.