Feeling stuck
dark empathy
Registrant
At the moment ISick of reading inspirational stuff
Feeling stuck
- Thread starterdark empathy
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I get that way too. And I get tired of the "warm fuzzies" people want to throw your way about how it'll all just be grand some day.
Some days I just want either silence or an acknowledgement that this crap is soul crushingly hard. Then after that admission is made shut up and just sit with me.
Some days I just want either silence or an acknowledgement that this crap is soul crushingly hard. Then after that admission is made shut up and just sit with me.
dark empathy
Registrant
Sorry I actually had a much longer message that I wrote out in wordpad and copied into the forum, but for some reason it only coppied the first sentence, so my appologies for how this came out.
unhappycamper
Registrant
dark empathy said:
I think your message is clear, and I'm sure we've all gotten fed up with "inspiring" self-help stuff at times. For example, I can't stand "meditation" schemes, because I always fail at the first step. The gurus assume that anybody can "find a quiet place."
I'd rather just try doing something I enjoy in the moment, without expecting to receive some kind of "inspiring" revelation. Peace!
John
dark empathy
Registrant
The full message was more on me feeling just frustrated generally with all this recovery, sinse I've been hear 7 years and my life hasn't changed, I'm still genophobic, I still struggle with thinking myself worthless, and the hole relationship thing, the thing that started this crap hasn't changed.
I have been through all the "learn to love yourself" and such, but I'm just getting frustrated with nothing actually changing and not a lot doing good and my only response being coming ontto this forum and winjing sinse it is the only practical thing I can do, indeed where as before I'd try to think about things, now I just come on here, get pissed off, then go off and watch a dvd or make myself a coffee sinse hay if nothing is to change what is the point!
"what is the point!" is largely the feeling I have these days, indeed that is very much why i have not found it in me to respond to other's posts as I used to, sinse what is the good of me trying to be helpful when nothing has actually worked.
Heck, even the emotion has changed, I've not had any late night tears, any moments of utter hopelessness, any fugues that end with me seeing the dawn or feeling something positive and breaking down, I just sit around and say "what is th point!" and that is that!
Recovery has lead me lots of places and ultimately gone no where, this is something I've been feeling for a considderable time, and it's bloody frustrating!
I have been through all the "learn to love yourself" and such, but I'm just getting frustrated with nothing actually changing and not a lot doing good and my only response being coming ontto this forum and winjing sinse it is the only practical thing I can do, indeed where as before I'd try to think about things, now I just come on here, get pissed off, then go off and watch a dvd or make myself a coffee sinse hay if nothing is to change what is the point!
"what is the point!" is largely the feeling I have these days, indeed that is very much why i have not found it in me to respond to other's posts as I used to, sinse what is the good of me trying to be helpful when nothing has actually worked.
Heck, even the emotion has changed, I've not had any late night tears, any moments of utter hopelessness, any fugues that end with me seeing the dawn or feeling something positive and breaking down, I just sit around and say "what is th point!" and that is that!
Recovery has lead me lots of places and ultimately gone no where, this is something I've been feeling for a considderable time, and it's bloody frustrating!
unhappycamper
Registrant
Those are often my sentiments exactly. I often feel that I'm returning to Square One, or that I never left. Now I'm coming up on the 20th anniversary of my personal implosion, when the flashbacks started. Things are better than in 1994, but I no longer expect a solution or "graduation day." It has long been clear that the FB-era "Me" is here to stay.
These cognitive therapy tricks (list 10 things you like, chant a mantra, talk to your "inner child," etc.) can seem cheap and shallow at times... just prescribed distractions... but seems to me such techniques are all anybody has, to get them past any kind of big or small problem.
We can't "confront" our CSA traumas 24/7--that's called the Crisis Phase. We can only think about two things: (1) the CSA, or (2) something else. So these days when I get that familiar "what's the point" feeling, I pick up a Discworld book, have yet more coffee, web-surf, take a walk, wash the endless supply of dirty dishes... anything that's Something Else. Maybe that's the point: just to get back to Something Else. Peace, and stick around!
John
These cognitive therapy tricks (list 10 things you like, chant a mantra, talk to your "inner child," etc.) can seem cheap and shallow at times... just prescribed distractions... but seems to me such techniques are all anybody has, to get them past any kind of big or small problem.
We can't "confront" our CSA traumas 24/7--that's called the Crisis Phase. We can only think about two things: (1) the CSA, or (2) something else. So these days when I get that familiar "what's the point" feeling, I pick up a Discworld book, have yet more coffee, web-surf, take a walk, wash the endless supply of dirty dishes... anything that's Something Else. Maybe that's the point: just to get back to Something Else. Peace, and stick around!
John
dark empathy
Registrant
I don't know, it used to feel as if something worked if nothing else because of the response in me. I had some really bad momentts, the fugues, the late nights, but then I'd play some music, I'd watch the dawn and something would hit me and I'd break, I'd feel something positive and start crying, and if nothing else the release was cathartic.
Now, it just seems I'm thinking "what is the point!" Either I'm considdering my life, or I try to do something, heck even the things I do have narrowed.
I see your point about there being no big graduation, but for me there is a point, or at least there is something I want, namely a close intimate relationship with someone. I've tried ignoring it, I've said "I'll fix myself" but nothing has actually done any good, the older I get the worse this gets.
I'm not saying I want a happy until death do us part relationship, or want 2.4 kids and a house, those are both alien things and way beyond what I see as possible, indeed I could imagine a short relationship which ends with me and the other person going our separate ways, but just knowing someone at some point wanted to be close to me would be at least something. I can't say how painful it is that the closest I've been to anyone was while having my face spat in, that I look down at my body and know the only person beside me to touch me intimately was someone calling me a fucking bastard!
That just hurts, and the longer this recovery shit goes on, the more impossible it seems anything will change. and all the positive reinforcement in the world doesn't change that.
I'm stuck in a real catch 22, I'm genophboic and still find s/x disgusting, yet part of me realizes there is something special about love making, a physical and emotional connection just feel the lack of as painful, actually physically painful!
And this has not changed, I've still never kissed anyone or anything similar, and I'm still genophobic, ---- oh well there's always distraction again I suppose.
Now, it just seems I'm thinking "what is the point!" Either I'm considdering my life, or I try to do something, heck even the things I do have narrowed.
I see your point about there being no big graduation, but for me there is a point, or at least there is something I want, namely a close intimate relationship with someone. I've tried ignoring it, I've said "I'll fix myself" but nothing has actually done any good, the older I get the worse this gets.
I'm not saying I want a happy until death do us part relationship, or want 2.4 kids and a house, those are both alien things and way beyond what I see as possible, indeed I could imagine a short relationship which ends with me and the other person going our separate ways, but just knowing someone at some point wanted to be close to me would be at least something. I can't say how painful it is that the closest I've been to anyone was while having my face spat in, that I look down at my body and know the only person beside me to touch me intimately was someone calling me a fucking bastard!
That just hurts, and the longer this recovery shit goes on, the more impossible it seems anything will change. and all the positive reinforcement in the world doesn't change that.
I'm stuck in a real catch 22, I'm genophboic and still find s/x disgusting, yet part of me realizes there is something special about love making, a physical and emotional connection just feel the lack of as painful, actually physically painful!
And this has not changed, I've still never kissed anyone or anything similar, and I'm still genophobic, ---- oh well there's always distraction again I suppose.
NoSimpleMachine
Registrant
I see two approaches to recovery in general, one that works and one that doesn't.
One is to pile all the corrections on top. I am A, want to be be B, therefore I must do B-A and then that will be fixed. This doesn't work. This is band-aid work, and it becomes even MORE stressful because it requires active management all the time. Math may say that "A + (B-A) = B" but the brain doesn't work that way. The other way is to accept the structure of the brain as it is, correct its instinctually-derived (but unhealthy) habits based on memory response, and have a new core within yourself that is more at ease with the world and the situations in it. From there, comfort and peace in being who you are and engaging in real life situations flows naturally without active thought. Particularly when you give the brain its time to relax and pull its own threads together under the surface. Sleep, meditation, play, all very important.
I just had this conversation with a friend yesterday...he basically said, man, I'm still hung up on this breakup from last year. I KNOW it's in the past, it's so stupid I still FEEL bad about it (emphasis mine). Here's what I told him:
The mind is an inertial entity. Temporal logic fails to apply to something that is built on memory and emotion. By that I mean, if the mind transcends the linear passage of time on a regular basis in its everyday function, why would linear temporal logic persuade it? (Somewhere in there is the basis for the phrase "lateral thinking")
I'm addressing the idea "the linear temporal logic says I should already have accepted this, but I haven't". Right tool for the job. Convincing the brain to restructure its stimulus response is not the work of linear logic.
My model of the brain has become more...it's a memory storage and retrieval tool. The memories record emotional content that is derived from the amygdala on storage, and activates the amygdala on retrieval. We have some innate responses to emotions, particularly negative ones, that are self-preserving in an instinctual sense but are socially dim-witted and pretty ill-equipped to deal with the complexity of our contemporary way of living. So the issue becomes when the emotional response of a retrieved memory invites a certain instinctual response that is self-defeating, and you get trapped in those loops, and it takes a pause button to stop mid-cycle. To go, wait, this response is self-defeating and emotionally inappropriate for the actual situation. Have to step out of the realm of being on emotional autopilot and take the challenging step of trying something new and unproven, and if that comes out more positive, it's the beginning of a new response that is healthier. That then needs to be consistently reinforced until it becomes habit.
Think it's important to look at the common threads that bind your actions not as being connected in time, or by certain situations, but instead by emotion. Then, what is the core of that emotion? And is that core a falsehood or a reality? Example: the core of my emotion of guilt and shame is the sensation I remember from being abused that I wanted to scream but couldn't get it out. My whole life, I took on my shoulders the burden of not protecting myself. But that is a falsehood. I was 3 being attacked by someone aged 40. There is no sense in being ashamed of being overpowered and defenseless then. So now when I am in the middle of feeling shame or guilt, I sense that emotion and say "ah-ha, is this an inappropriate or appropriate application of this emotion to the situation I am in?" A lot of times it's not. I can choose to do something different, like speak up instead of biting my tongue, or acknowledge my stress levels and breathe or adjust my posture to bring me back down from an anxious state. Slowly but surely, I'm tearing down a lot of my old assumptions about who I need to be and how I need to act. And developing more positive new habits along the way.
One is to pile all the corrections on top. I am A, want to be be B, therefore I must do B-A and then that will be fixed. This doesn't work. This is band-aid work, and it becomes even MORE stressful because it requires active management all the time. Math may say that "A + (B-A) = B" but the brain doesn't work that way. The other way is to accept the structure of the brain as it is, correct its instinctually-derived (but unhealthy) habits based on memory response, and have a new core within yourself that is more at ease with the world and the situations in it. From there, comfort and peace in being who you are and engaging in real life situations flows naturally without active thought. Particularly when you give the brain its time to relax and pull its own threads together under the surface. Sleep, meditation, play, all very important.
I just had this conversation with a friend yesterday...he basically said, man, I'm still hung up on this breakup from last year. I KNOW it's in the past, it's so stupid I still FEEL bad about it (emphasis mine). Here's what I told him:
The mind is an inertial entity. Temporal logic fails to apply to something that is built on memory and emotion. By that I mean, if the mind transcends the linear passage of time on a regular basis in its everyday function, why would linear temporal logic persuade it? (Somewhere in there is the basis for the phrase "lateral thinking")
I'm addressing the idea "the linear temporal logic says I should already have accepted this, but I haven't". Right tool for the job. Convincing the brain to restructure its stimulus response is not the work of linear logic.
My model of the brain has become more...it's a memory storage and retrieval tool. The memories record emotional content that is derived from the amygdala on storage, and activates the amygdala on retrieval. We have some innate responses to emotions, particularly negative ones, that are self-preserving in an instinctual sense but are socially dim-witted and pretty ill-equipped to deal with the complexity of our contemporary way of living. So the issue becomes when the emotional response of a retrieved memory invites a certain instinctual response that is self-defeating, and you get trapped in those loops, and it takes a pause button to stop mid-cycle. To go, wait, this response is self-defeating and emotionally inappropriate for the actual situation. Have to step out of the realm of being on emotional autopilot and take the challenging step of trying something new and unproven, and if that comes out more positive, it's the beginning of a new response that is healthier. That then needs to be consistently reinforced until it becomes habit.
Think it's important to look at the common threads that bind your actions not as being connected in time, or by certain situations, but instead by emotion. Then, what is the core of that emotion? And is that core a falsehood or a reality? Example: the core of my emotion of guilt and shame is the sensation I remember from being abused that I wanted to scream but couldn't get it out. My whole life, I took on my shoulders the burden of not protecting myself. But that is a falsehood. I was 3 being attacked by someone aged 40. There is no sense in being ashamed of being overpowered and defenseless then. So now when I am in the middle of feeling shame or guilt, I sense that emotion and say "ah-ha, is this an inappropriate or appropriate application of this emotion to the situation I am in?" A lot of times it's not. I can choose to do something different, like speak up instead of biting my tongue, or acknowledge my stress levels and breathe or adjust my posture to bring me back down from an anxious state. Slowly but surely, I'm tearing down a lot of my old assumptions about who I need to be and how I need to act. And developing more positive new habits along the way.
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I worry about sending a touchy-feely message, but here goes:
Anyone can give up, its the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, thats true strength. - Unknown
Anyone can give up, its the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, thats true strength. - Unknown
dark empathy
Registrant
@Machine this is indeed why I am starting counselling (sinse I couldn't get cbt). The problem however is that you assume there is actually something positive there anyway, and that I'm responding inappropriately.
The plane fact is if I walk into a bar right now, nobody will speak to me. If I meet any new group of people I'll have to wait probably hour before anyone talks to the strange blind man, and even longer before people stop treating me like something weerd they just want to avoid.
I applied to opera school because my performance on stage is one of the few times I can! feel the positive apspects of myself, and what do I get? a blatant brush off!
In a recent screaming match with my parents my mum said "Be happy with your situation" I replied "I hate! my situationn!"
I managed to fail the thesis I've been working on for as long as recovery earlier this year, and right now am trying to insert more stuff into it, and god knows what I do when I'm finished, all my friends have fucked off round the country and I'm alone most of the time, indeed about the only positive thing I can say is I have a lovely dog.
This is why I am desperate for a relationship, even a short one, sinse the entire world pretty much treats me as a waste of space anyway, indeed sometimes I can understand why people strap bombs to themselves and fly into buildings sinse that feeling of always being lost, crushed in the crowd of the collective,ignored as a background chracter is just over whelming! (I am not saying I'd do this, I still have my empathy but I can understand the impulse). I used to have the fortitude to say "up yours! I'm not going away, i'm going to do something useful! I have a brain and am not afraid to use it!" but I haven't felt that for a long time, I'm just left pretty much in the dark feeling worthless and disconnected from others, and of course how most people treat me is just a reinforcement of that, heck just today a stupid man from the counsel showed up to discuss permission for a shower and treated me as though i had the interlect of a five year old and demanded to speak to my dad.
Living as a disabled person means being alone and pretty much ignored by most people, that is a plane fact.
I sometimes feel if just one person could show me that sort of connection that everyone else takes for granted so much of of the time, I'd have something to go on, I'd be able to say "well I've been recognized by someone in the most intimate way"
There is a lovely quote from Leonard Cohen which really expresses this:
"We are so small between the stars, so large against the sky, but lost within the subway crowds I ctry to catch your eye"
but once again this doesn't fucking happen, and increasingly these days I'm just frustrated!
@Nothing man, I used to agree with you. I used to say "persistance is the one constant"
The problem is I've persisted and persisted and persisted! and what good has it done me? has it actually changed anything?
i'm just frustrated with persisting and getting nothing back! seeing no change, donig no good whatsoever. How long must I fucking persist? Why should I have all this " having to be strong business and keep getting nothing! why should my life be so fucking sshit when everyone else gets what I want by defrault! I'm sick and tired of all this fucking persisting! and of my only response being coming on this forum and winjing about not having a girlfriend.
Oh well don't worry, I'll go off and play a computer game and have some coffee and feel better as per usual, and nothing will change but so what's new.
The plane fact is if I walk into a bar right now, nobody will speak to me. If I meet any new group of people I'll have to wait probably hour before anyone talks to the strange blind man, and even longer before people stop treating me like something weerd they just want to avoid.
I applied to opera school because my performance on stage is one of the few times I can! feel the positive apspects of myself, and what do I get? a blatant brush off!
In a recent screaming match with my parents my mum said "Be happy with your situation" I replied "I hate! my situationn!"
I managed to fail the thesis I've been working on for as long as recovery earlier this year, and right now am trying to insert more stuff into it, and god knows what I do when I'm finished, all my friends have fucked off round the country and I'm alone most of the time, indeed about the only positive thing I can say is I have a lovely dog.
This is why I am desperate for a relationship, even a short one, sinse the entire world pretty much treats me as a waste of space anyway, indeed sometimes I can understand why people strap bombs to themselves and fly into buildings sinse that feeling of always being lost, crushed in the crowd of the collective,ignored as a background chracter is just over whelming! (I am not saying I'd do this, I still have my empathy but I can understand the impulse). I used to have the fortitude to say "up yours! I'm not going away, i'm going to do something useful! I have a brain and am not afraid to use it!" but I haven't felt that for a long time, I'm just left pretty much in the dark feeling worthless and disconnected from others, and of course how most people treat me is just a reinforcement of that, heck just today a stupid man from the counsel showed up to discuss permission for a shower and treated me as though i had the interlect of a five year old and demanded to speak to my dad.
Living as a disabled person means being alone and pretty much ignored by most people, that is a plane fact.
I sometimes feel if just one person could show me that sort of connection that everyone else takes for granted so much of of the time, I'd have something to go on, I'd be able to say "well I've been recognized by someone in the most intimate way"
There is a lovely quote from Leonard Cohen which really expresses this:
"We are so small between the stars, so large against the sky, but lost within the subway crowds I ctry to catch your eye"
but once again this doesn't fucking happen, and increasingly these days I'm just frustrated!
@Nothing man, I used to agree with you. I used to say "persistance is the one constant"
The problem is I've persisted and persisted and persisted! and what good has it done me? has it actually changed anything?
i'm just frustrated with persisting and getting nothing back! seeing no change, donig no good whatsoever. How long must I fucking persist? Why should I have all this " having to be strong business and keep getting nothing! why should my life be so fucking sshit when everyone else gets what I want by defrault! I'm sick and tired of all this fucking persisting! and of my only response being coming on this forum and winjing about not having a girlfriend.
Oh well don't worry, I'll go off and play a computer game and have some coffee and feel better as per usual, and nothing will change but so what's new.
