u/ClockwiseSuicide

Oily skin girl here struggling with mascara brands.

I recently realized that the only mascara that doesn’t smudge on my eye lids for me is tubing mascara, which makes me really sad. I just tried a few of my past drugstore favorites (Lash Sensational and Maybelline Colossal, and while they look absolutely amazing, 1-2 hours later they are all over my eyelids/below my brows and make me look like a raccoon. So bummed. I remember now why I stopped using them. I’ve tried everything, including adding lots of setting powder and finishing up with setting spray. It still smudges.

I kept looking into it and found out that tubing mascara is the only solution. Which seems odd because the one I normally use is not waterproof (ILIA). Why would be non-waterproof mascara not smudge but all waterproof mascaras seemingly do??? That seems backwards lol. I do love ILIA and will likely repurchase their mascara eventually, but it doesn’t give me the volume that the Maybelline Colossal gives me.

Note: I am currently in Europe, so recommendations for a brand of tubing mascara that’s available in Europe (Czech republic) are much appreciated. Is there anything that’s similar to Maybelline Colossal, for example?

Please help this oily girl not look like a raccoon. It’s embarrassing!!

Oily skin girl here struggling with mascara brands.

I recently realized that the only mascara that doesn’t smudge on my eye lids for me is tubing mascara, which makes me really sad. I just tried a few of my past drugstore favorites (Lash Sensational and Maybelline Colossal, and while they look absolutely amazing, 1-2 hours later they are all over my eyelids/below my brows and make me look like a raccoon. So bummed. I remember now why I stopped using them. I’ve tried everything, including adding lots of setting powder and finishing up with setting spray. It still smudges.

I kept looking into it and found out that tubing mascara is the only solution. Which seems odd because the one I normally use is not waterproof (ILIA). Why would be non-waterproof mascara not smudge but all waterproof mascaras seemingly do??? That seems backwards lol. I do love ILIA and will likely repurchase their mascara eventually, but it doesn’t give me the volume that the Maybelline Colossal gives me.

Note: I am currently in Europe, so recommendations for a brand of tubing mascara that’s available in Europe (Czech republic) are much appreciated. Is there anything that’s similar to Maybelline Colossal, for example?

Please help this oily girl not look like a raccoon. It’s embarrassing!!

My best friend (39) of 17 years has been experiencing a psychotic episode since last August. We live in different cities approximately five hours away, so being there for her in person has been nearly impossible when I work 60-80 hours a week.

Last fall, she started making very odd associations within her dating life that initially made me think she was joking, and I took them lightly. She talked a lot of new age stuff, but a lot of people do that, so I didn’t want to be judgmental. It wasn’t until I realized that she was being dead serious and when she started making associations that were paranoid in nature that I started trying to talk to her more serious. I never pushed her, and simply tried to ground her back to reality while telling her that some of her thoughts were harmful to herself. I told her I was concerned. I tried ordering her food to make sure she was still eating. I kept checking in on her to make sure she was okay.

All signs point to her having paranoid schizophrenia. She also has schizophrenia in her family, which I only found out about recently. She never exhibited signs of this in the past though she does deal with depression. I wonder if perimenopause or potential early menopause could have been the trigger.

However, since I refused to support many of her harmful delusions and didn’t agree with her about some of her (insane) theories, she started shutting me down and refused to talk to me. We used to talk for 1-2 hours a day on the phone and saw each other several times a year. She refused to talk to me about any and all topics. She was saying the same things to her other friends, and all of them heard the same paranoid theories.

I thought she was only shutting me out, but I later found out that she was isolating and shutting out everyone else as well. I’ve spoke with her four times total (via text) since last fall. Every time I do, the conversations are completely different than they were in the past. She is incredibly cold and doesn’t engage in any meaningful dialogue. She also often does not respond at all. I found out she did the same to others.

Since then, I’ve found out that she has been doing a lot of illegal things, which isn’t like her at all, including trespassing, potentially hard drug (waiting to get this confirmed), she did highly inappropriate things in a hospital setting and refused help from doctors. She also ended up moving back with her parents temporarily who struggle so much in trying to care for her that they begged her friends to come help them. She also suddenly left the state and went across the country for no reason at all, where we all assume she was homeless. I do also suspect that she started doing hard drugs just based on certain information I’ve been told.

I am at a loss. I don’t want to abandon her. I feel like I should be trying to connect with her more, I want to drive down to her city to see her but am afraid of how she will react. I am trying to pinpoint what the trigger to all of this was. There are multiple suspicions about toxoplasmosis, and she has many cats. I don’t know much about this parasite and didn’t even know that there was an established association between it and schizophrenia. When I first heard that there could be a link, I laughed because it sounded absurd. But then I remembered that two weeks before all of this started, she kept telling me that her cats had severe infections and my mind keeps thinking this was the trigger because nothing else makes sense. I have no idea if she got tested and what her results were for this parasite

Importantly, she was completely sober for well over a year before all of this started. She seemed to be doing well. Her finances were in good order. She had more supportive friends and was seemingly more social than she was in past years. She seemed happy. She did start ADHD meds about it a year prior, but everything seemed normal when she was taking them at first.

I’m lost and confused. I don’t know how to support her when she shuts everyone out. I don’t know what I could have done differently. I was hoping that things would get better with time, but all signs point to her still being in a state of psychosis.

Questions:

*Is it possible that she has been experience an episode for 6 months?*

I’ve had psychosis myself in the past (nothing severe or that involved hospitalization or any sort of intervention), as I deal with bipolar. My episodes lasted a few hours to a couple of days maximum. *Is it possible that she has actually been in a state of psychosis since last fall?*

I do know of some of the major triggers for schizophrenia, but I can’t seem to link hers to any specific event. I know her life very well and was always in the loop. The only trigger I can think of is being on dating apps and getting rejected by random men, *but is that really something could have sent her into an 7-month episode?*

*What can I do to support her? How can I help if she seemingly wants to shut me out? How do I not feel like I’m abandoning her?*