"Acting out" - trying to understand it

"Acting out" - trying to understand it
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EGL

Registrant
I've seen various people describe episodes of what we call "acting out" on here, which as I understand it is behaviors not healthy for a normal person and are reactions to abuse.

I've been thinking back to my earlier days about 20+ years ago (late teens, early 20's), remembering how I used to get pretty well loaded with booze to deal with any and all problems. My brother-in-law and I went out one night, drank several bottles of liquor, and went driving down some gravel roads in the wee hours, at high rate of speed. He was driving and lost control of it going around a curve. There's a bridge over the river just around that curve and we ended up with the girder of the bridge coming through the engine compartment (truck was totalled). I got a concusion from being through to the windshield. We were tettering there on the girder, the truck literally half off, half on the bridge - on one side was the road, on the other was a drop off into the river. We crawled out my side and walked several miles into town for help.

So, I guess I'm wondering if all that was "acting out"? Do we know it when we're doing it? Can we recognize it now in looking back? This particular episode was when I was 21 after my (first) wife had told me she had had an affair with my brother (my sexual abuser). I do remember not caring much which way the truck went when I realized we were tettering there. Makes me wonder at times why it didn't go ahead and fall into the river.
 
When we are sitting on unpleasant feelings and want to get away from them, we have choices. Sometimes it is taking them out through Acting Out (taking it out on people or things... verbally, physically). We might take them out on ourselves, Acting In (emotionally beating up on ourselves with putdowns, such as "I'm such a loser, I don't deserve to live". The ultimate form of acting in is suicide. The ultimate form of acting out is homicide.)

Or, we can Numb Out with alcohol, drugs, tv, sex, food, work, even exercise. Sounds like with the alcohol, you numbed out.

The fourth choice is an Intervention, doing something that empowers you rather than something that leaves you feeling disempowered. If you pm me I will send you an article I wrote about this.

Ken
 
Usually "three out of four" is a good score, but I missed the 'intervention'

Dave :rolleyes:
 
Sometimes I feel like the Rabbi in "Fidler on the Roof"...I have a saying for (almost) everything. Appropriate here is - IF YOU DON'T TALK IT OUT, YOU ACT IT OUT. If you aren't able to express your emotions verbally then you act those emotions out. EXAMPLE: I get angry at the boss, hold it in, come home and kick the dog. OR I get unacceptable sexual feelings toward someone, I hold it in, I drink to numb out that feeling. Etc.

The feeling isn't necessarily wrong; the thought is not necessarily wrong; but it's the action in response to the feeling or thought that does get us in trouble.

Howard
 
I know that I have done negative and stupid things in the past. I don't know if they are 'acting out'. I don't know if I have actually done that. Sometime I have a hard time to think on that, 'acting out'. Because sometime it seem like some way to not accept responsibility for our behaviors. I don't know, maybe I just judge myself too hard.

Leosha
 
I love Ken's list. Acting out, acting in and numbing out. Never quite heard it that way before.

I would just add that you can also use these things together, as in your example where you drank in a way that led you to act out some self-destructive feelings. I know I used to use alcohol this way.

As to whether you can identify it at the time. I think that's the thing I find hardest. I'm always trying to figure out how to catch myself early enough so that I can head off the disaster that's coming.

In your example, I suspect it's easy enough to tell that you've done something wrong when you've just gone into the windshield and you're teetering over the edge of a bridge. The question is how can you develop that early warning system that will prevent you from ever getting there. Let me know if you figure it out.
 
How small a trigger do we ( I ) need before we start acting out?

Yesterday I was having a good day, I was working on my 4x4 out in the sun, and as usual my workshop became a social club. It's on the side of the road and passing friends pull up and chat, the neighbousrs wander over, and chat. And I get very little done, but I don't mind; I love having the craic with people. But as usual I was then late packing up, and when I came in my wife said "I expected you up an hour ago"
She wasn't being nasty about it at all, she knows what I'm like, and the 'social club' factor. She was just passing comment, as married couples do.

But I went straight into a negative state, an acting out state I suppose, and took her comment as a put down. I started to apologise and explain as though I was an axe murderer. She said it didn't matter, "just drag the barby out if you want your dinner" and was laughing about it.
But I still carried on in my negative way, and went upstairs with my usual sex fantasy in my mind. It had appeared instantly, and, predictably, I masturbated in the shower - and felt bad about it after.

This drives me mad. I don't expect to go through life without being critisized at times ( and this WASN'T critisism ) So why do I take innocent comments that aren't 'positive' as automatically 'negative'
I think I expect(ed) to be always treated in a negative way, and it's a hard thing to shake off.
It was really bad up until a few years back, it's far better now, but sometimes it creeps back.

Yesterday, immediately after my shower when I was enjoying my steak, I recognized the stages with more clarity than I had before. I could see the trigger and the progression.
I'm not so "hung up" that I feel guilty about cranking one off in the shower, that's not the problem. My problem is the sequence of events and the inevitability of them. Once the sequence kicks in I know where it's going, how it's going to end.

I need to break in and rip it apart. But that's not always easy, is it?
Dave
 
Dan88 wrote:
Acting out, acting in and numbing out. Never quite heard it that way before. I would just add that you can also use these things together, as in your example where you drank in a way that led you to act out some self-destructive feelings.
Click to expand...
My favorite example of a "triple play" was a juvenile I worked with in a residential treatment program some 14 years ago. When talking about these "compensatory behaviors", Mike said, "I did all of those on one move". Asked to explain, he said that he was a morbidly obese kid in school. He would get teased and picked on (negative feelings and thoughts) throughout the day. When he got home from school, his grandmother, who babysat for him and his younger brother would tell him to not pig out so soon before dinner. He continued to defy her and overeat from the fridge.

In his understanding, he was ignoring her (essentially telling her to "fuck off" - acting out) orders not to eat, ate because it felt good (numbing out), and basically hurting himself (acting in) because it messed up his diabetes and was making him even more obese.

I'm sure there are other examples of a triple play, but Mike always gets a gold star for the best example I've heard of.

Ken
 
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