Not my nails, obvs.
Some (beginner-focused) tips for painting your nails:
Lighter colors and solid colors are easier to work with. Pick a good color or few, you don't need to start too fancy.
Don't shake nail polish, that can mess it up. Roll it slowly if you ever need to mix.
Don't just do the coloration and call it a day, put clear nail polish on first, and put it over the color. That will protect your nails.
Consider getting nail polish remover when you get your nail polish, mistakes are easy.
Put your nails down on a flat surface, clean your nails (maybe with that nail polish remover?), and apply the clear base coat (doesn't need to be perfect). Stroke from the base of the nail to the top, until the nail is covered. It might get on your skin, that's normal, anything on your skin can be dealt with at the end. Let it dry, like you would any other kind of base coat.
Now that it's dry, do like what you did with your clear polish for colors. Base to tip, going from the center outwards. If you can still see through after it's covered, wait for it to dry a little, then do another layer.
Then apply your top coat to make smooth, shiny, and somewhat protected painted nails. Wait for it all to dry (very important), which could as long as normal working hours + commute. Don't mess it up. If you do, you might have to restart on some nails.
Now that it's dry the polish on your skin should act sorta like glue, where you can just peel it off, but if it's stubborn you could use a cotton swab with nail polish remover to carefully remove it (don't let it touch your nails!).
Now you should have nice smooth nails.
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::: spoiler spoiler that sucks, im sorry theres so much avoidance right now
spoiler
Highly worried it will be permanent and one of us will be forced to break it off. I really want to work towards secure attachment but it's so hard when I'm crashing out every other day.::: spoiler spoiler
Thats such a scary place to be in, i hope you can get to a securely attached place. I wish i had like advice or wisdom but the best i have is a listening ear if you want/need to vent or talk
mental health, self-harm (kinda)
I'm starting to think my partner might be going through a hypomanic episode. I've been doing self-harm by going through our texts to try and figure out where everything went wrong and they were so sweet and understanding when I had my anxiety attack and continued to be until just a couple weeks ago. Our old messages are overflowing with joy and love for sharing a life together and it hurts so much to read them now. It really brings how drastically things have changed into perspective.Their recent behavior change seems totally unprompted on reflection. Two nights before they became distant we had watched a movie with friends and they were quite affectionate. The night before the change we had a lovely little chat on the phone before bedtime. The next day they were extremely detached, cold, not present, and unwilling to talk to me about what was going on, all very out-of-character.
It's now two weeks since then and their mood has been extremely high since at least Saturday night. I hadn't seen them for a week prior to that but it sounds like they've been flying high the whole time. I don't know if that fits hypomania but our relationship was so full of love and understanding for each others' needs and they've thrown it all away. The change was so sudden and so severe that I can't imagine it was solely an avoidant pattern being triggered. We had such good communication that they would have kindly asked for space instead of all this happening, as they had done many times before. This just seems too erratic to be anything but a mood disorder. No matter what's going on with them, I'm so worried for them but they're almost completely unresponsive to me right now and I know they would get angry at the suggestion that they need to seek help if their mood can change that much that quickly. I don't know what the fuck to do.
I saw them tonight for band practice and everything was "pleasant" but they ended practice early (they host) saying they needed to go to bed but seemed way too animated to be tired. When I was leaving they gave me and told me they loved me but it felt so hollow. We used to share such unbridled joy together but now they're (seemingly) doing so well and they share nothing with me. Fuck, why does love have to hurt so much
::: spoiler spoiler
Thats really painful, im sorry things flipped so quickly and so drastically. Do they have a history of bipolar or mood disorders? If it was sudden and rather out of character, that does imo indicate something not-"normal" going on...
Are they at all willing to talk to you about whats happened and is happening for them? Can they give any clarity to their behavior? Like, you said they are sharing nothing about their life with you, if you asked them to share something, even just little things, would you get shutdown/the runaround/etc.?
Do you have mutual friends you can talk to about this who you trust, people you can check in with and ask for help from? If this behavior is such a severe change id imagine their friends have noticed it too.
You said theyve been flying high the past week, when ive talked to people about hypomania it tends to not be as severe as that, rather, it shows up more subtly such as with pressured speech, minor increases in impulsivity, and a more mild but consistently elevated mood than what one would call "flying high". Maybe this comes down to me having different context around that word, but when i think of "flying high" i think of people on heavyduty uppers, full blown or even psychotic mania, etc. But im also not a psych and dont know these things, so its kinda not for me to say.
If this is a (hypo)manic episode, i would think that they would be happy to continue having you in their life, and that this is temporary, but thats also dependent on you being able to deal with the effects of an episode, which youre not obligated to be. Its incredibly hard not only on the person experiencing the episode but also on loved ones and the people close to them. I will say, when ive had my departures from reality (either emotional reality or rarely cognitive reality) it has been incredibly helpful to me having a safe person who still loves me when i come back, but this doesnt mitigate the damage ive done. It takes a lot to heal from that damage, and it does modify my relationships when it happens, either in the boundaries established or the ways we engage together or what have you.
Above all, im so sorry this is youre experience right now, its really painful and difficult to navigate and scary. I hope that they get to a more communicative point and you two are able to discuss what has happened.
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False alarm on the mood disorder, or at least not as bad as I thought. We had a good talk this morning. According to them, they're at a loss for how to care for my anxiety without getting overwhelmed. I brought up that maybe pulling back as far as they did was a gross overreaction that only made things worse, which they agreed with. They specifically mentioned that they were afraid of a relationship escalation situation where I just want more and more until we're married, which is not at all how I mean to come across. I've asked them vaguely about the future before, just to check in on how I can continue to show up in the most comfortable way possible but they seemed to take this as fishing for a long-term commitment, starting them on the path to overwhelm.For my part, I have been spending more and more time with them but always with their consent. When we started dating I had a fairly busy social life outside of the relationship, which I've receded from over time to spend more time with them. Earlier in the relationship there was serious longing for each other when we couldn't be together due to work or other reasons and I did what I could to make more time for us. In doing so, I inadvertently deleted my social life and spent nearly all my free time with them, which was fine during the new relationship energy period. As that began to wane they started expressing a desire for more time apart and that activated my anxiety. I was still in the throes of love and passion but their perspective on where we were in the relationship was very different. For reference, their longest relationship was ~4 years while mine was over 15 years so 6 months seemed like a decent amount of time to them while it went by in the blink of an eye to me. I realize now that I was doing some self-harm by putting all of my social energy into one person, no matter how much I love them, and committed to getting out more on my own.
During our talk, I let them know about my weekend plans to see friends I haven't seen in a long time and get out of the house instead of wallowing in despair, overanalyzing everything. I still fear for the future of our relationship but they seem to be genuinely working on their end (they reached out to me this morning, for example) so I feel the need to reciprocate in good faith.
Thanks for all of your advice and comforting words, by the way. I wish opsec wasn't necessary so we could be friends IRL
::: spoiler spoiler
Im so glad things are moving in a more communicative direction for you two! Im sorry the response to all of this was withdrawl instead of communication but it sounds like thats getting resolved and you two are reaching a better point of understanding with each other.
Big fuckin mood. Ive had that with people where my longest relationship was 8 years and all of theirs were much shorter so the perception of time spend in a relationship was really different between us, it can be a bit difficult to navigate. Im glad you two are talking about it.
Of course! I also wish opsec wasnt a concern, i would love to be your irl friend
but im happy to be an online friend and my inbox is open if you ever want to shoot a message and chat ^^