Learning Optimism

[sunblue]

I'm wondering if lack of optimisim is a shared characteristic of those who have been recipients of N families or relationships?  I find it hard to be optimistic, and am wondering what comes first-----positive life events which lead to optimisim or an optimistic attitude which leads to positive life events?  I've had many negative life events and although I try my best to maintain some level of hope to move forward, it seems impossible for me to be one of those eternally positive, glass half full people.

The other day I took my 11 year old niece to a concert she wanted to attend and on the way there, she proclaimed proudly that she is a very positive person and her parents believes she is the most positive person they know.  Now, I will tell you, as far as children go, my niece is truly blessed.  She is an only child who was cherished from the time she was born.  She is the family's only grandchild and my brother and his wife tried for awhile before getting pregnant.  They were fearful it wouldn't happen.  She has many family, friends, neighbors and others who think of her in many special ways.  My brother and his wife heap love, attention and time on her....she is the focus of their lives.  She has every material thing a child would ever want.  So, she has huge advantages over other children I know out there who have had a much harder time in life.

Now, I'm glad she is positive....I truly hope she remains so....but it got me thinking how do you learn optimism when your life has been battered by narcissism, neglect and negative life events?

Has anyone found that they have a hard time maintaining optimism or being a positive person?  Do you think it has to do with the narcissism in our lives and how we have studied it and understand it well?

Just wondering.

[teartracks]

Hi sunblue,

I'm wondering if lack of optimisim is a shared characteristic of those who have been recipients of N families or relationships?  I find it hard to be optimistic, and am wondering what comes first-----positive life events which lead to optimisim or an optimistic attitude which leads to positive life events?  I've had many negative life events and although I try my best to maintain some level of hope to move forward, it seems impossible for me to be one of those eternally positive, glass half full people.

Here's what I think.  Optimism or pessimism are the words used to describe one's outlook on life based on what is perceived to be their reality.  I think that what a person views as their reality is the other side of the optimism coin and the pessimism coin. 

Wouldn't it make sense that if a person whose disposition has always been one of optimism wakes up one day and sees the potholes in their life (as in the way we discuss them here on VESMB), that their view or reaction would  be affected by the situation in which they find themselves?  And that this new awareness  would not necessarily change their basic disposition to one of pessimism?  I think most of us on the board have found ourselves in situations that require varying degrees of tweaking to get us to an adjusted reality that accommodates  our individual disposition more effectively,  but that our particular  dispositional bent whether it was O or P pretty much remains the same.

Has anyone found that they have a hard time maintaining optimism or being a positive person?  Do you think it has to do with the narcissism in our lives and how we have studied it and understand it well?

Again, I think this would be situational, but certainly not an assignment written on a rock that we must change our dispositional bent to either O or P on account of the situation. 

Edit in:  One could argue that there is no identifying line between the two and that it is but a fluid continium between the two.  I don't know.  I'm just adding my two cents.

tt 

[Hopalong]

Hi Sun...

I once interviewed Martin Seligman, author of Learned Optimism.
http://www.amazon.com/Learned-Optimism-Change-Your-Mind/dp/1400078393/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1229835771&sr=1-1

I can't recommend him to you more!

http://www.happier.com/research.jsp

love,
Hops

[Hopalong]

Article for you, Sunblue--

http://www.salon.com/env/feature/2008/12/22/loneliness/index.html

The Letters at the end of the article are worth perusing too--a lot of very smart people post there. This one in particular was revelatory to me (a 58-y/o woman who "somehow" felt compelled to spend the last decade of my middle age with the Nmother who damaged me so...out of her own damage...)

Cacioppo is entirely right about the evolutionary basis for distress,
Dumm is not wrong, and praise be to god on high for a feminist writer who has no apparent fear of evolutionary psychology:

In children the same psychological/physiological/behavioral need, distress, and somewhat different set of reactions gets constructed as “insecure attachment”, “overanxious disorder of childhood”, later “ADHD” and other disorders. The dependence on others for safety and psychological security is even more profound and its failure potentially more damaging in early childhood (it is a dependence for survival) and sets attachment-injured children up at greater vulnerability to anxiety-related disorders as adults.

The medical solution? – astonishingly, to chalk it up to biology, “disease” model, dose them with medicalized speed (er . . . stimulant medication) and not worry about lack of evidence for long-term benefits, potential side effects, or prevention. At least articles like Ms. Mieszkowski’s can help move us past medical models of distress and toward better understanding, prevention, and treatment.

Clinically distressing loneliness in adults is related to early experiences and the internal templates they generate. Learning to tolerate solitude and create relatedness paradoxically depends initially on secure attachment to, then its opposite - separation, independence, and differentiation from family. Retained need for connections with family of origin is a developmental failure, representing lack of capacity to independently choose and create new relationships with other adults, and as such will be experienced as a form of aloneness. Western cultural norms, medical models, and parenting advice have tended to work against these basic developmental needs.

-- J.C. Miller [Read J.C. Miller's other letters]Permalink Sunday, December 21, 2008 08:53 PM

Blue, please do not fixate on the "failure" word above, because he's not using it as a judgment. He's saying, as we developed, because we hadn't received a kind of affection and emotional safety we needed, we cling to the FOO as adults. In my life, havoc ensued. But it is neither too late for me at 58 nor for you at your age to reach this understanding, and make a serious commitment to "create relatedness" OUTSIDE our families.

I know you can do it.

love
Hops

[teartracks]

Hi sunblue,

I wanted to add that arguments have been made  that a healthy' state of pessimism is an equally good and productive attitude.  O am an optimist.  I like it that way, but I respect those who have for whatever reason adopted or adapted to an attitude of pessimism.  Whatever floats your boat, I suppose.  What I'm saying is that it may not be one's  personal best to force one or the other of the attitudes upon oneself.  I don't know if I'm helping or hurting, when it comes to your questions.  I'm trying...

tt

[Hopalong]

Hi TT...

I've read about that too, that mild pessimism is healthy.
I don't think Sunblue's depression is just pessimism and I worry about her being deeply stuck.

I just want her to know that her frame of mind and preoccupations don't have to be permanent.

(Sorry, Sunblue, talking about you in the 3rd person!).

Love to you both,
Hops

[teartracks]

Hi Hops,

Hi sunblue,

Stuck.  I've been there.   If that is where you are, remember you have a place and people here to lean on and talk about it. 

tt

[sunblue]

Hi Everyone:

Happy Holidays!  Thanks everyone for your input and comments to my post.  It's taken me awhile to absorb it all.  I read the Drumm article and took the Loneliness Test contained in it.  No surprise that I'm rather high on that scale.  I'm actually very familiar with Martin Seligman's work....have ready his books and studies and responded to his initial questions for his study.  He strikes me as an incredibly positive person.

I have studied my family's dynamics long enough to understand that independent thinking was not fostered in our family unit, indeed it was feared and punished.  I suppose, in always trying to understand my family's lack of attention and care for me, I endeavored to do the right thing, be the mediator, not make waves.  While that in no way has made me a "yes" person, a la Jim Carrey, I have felt the effects of the punishment that ensured because of it.  It's odd, my "healthy" brother makes a grandiose point of telling everyone how "independent" he is....I have told him it is easy to be "independent" when you've never had to be alone. He, for example, has never spent a single day alone.  He doesn't know what that means or how hard it is.  He has no compassion, for example, for his mother-in-law who now lives alone due to the death of her husband.

I think it is very true that clinical loneliness is related to early experiences.  In my N family, independence was not allowed.  Family, just the immediate family unit, were the only people allowed in our world.  My parents, especially my N mother, made it clear the entire world revolved around her.  So, yes, differentiation and separation from family seems so, so difficult....because that's all I knew.  Even though I know my family never cared about me and do not feel the same about me, I'm not sure I know who I am apart from that dysfunctional family.  We all, in my family, had to think first of the Ns in my family.  No one ever thought about my feelings or what I wanted or needed.  But that is the way in N families.

I thought what Dumm said in her article was correct.  Loneliness, clinical loneliness, is about loss.  We have experienced so much loss...and there just seems to be more of that loss...perhaps as we come to terms with our reality. 

So am I depressed?  For sure....I think it is both biological and environmental....but especially environmental.  I remember feeling extreme sadness at a very young age, to the point where teachers would ask why I was so sad.  So that kind of sadness definitely emanated from family circumstances...and was just exacerbated through the years.

Am I stuck?  I think I am.  But I also know I have done thins to try to change.  I tried to be a friend to others...and I have been a good friend to others.  But it was always one-sided, as were my relationships with my family.

This Christmas, I slowly came to understand that the great love and closeness I felt for my brother, the one I always thought was "healthy", has always been one-sided.  He doesn't mind having a superficial relationship with me....but he really has no interest in anything else.  And I don't know how to make that ok....

So, yes I'm sad and stuck....but it is helpful to read all this that you have written..and the articles you pointed me to.

But am I a pessimist.  I really, really don't want to be a pessimist.  I want to be positive....and hopeful.  And I am that way when I try to encourage and support others.  But I can't be for myself....Don't know how I guess.

Thanks for all your support.

Nancy

[Hopalong]

Nancy's a beautiful name...

Sunblue...
I wonder if the missing emotion is anger?

I did not begin to get better until a few years ago when I became very very angry.

I can't live in anger, I didn't stay there. But there was a cleansing force to feeling it that cauterized me out of my lethargy.

I began to fight for my psychic life.

I hope I always will guard it. I got a glimmer that many people ordinarily do...my submission and codependence and enmeshment with my mother--they weren't my only options!

Wishing a window will open for you
even if you have to smash it.

love
Hops

[teartracks]

Hi sunblue,

Sending hugs and atta girls to you.   I bet when (if we're able) we review this message this time next year, you will have made great strides at navigating your way through the things that are weighing on you now.  There's something about the passing of time that aids emotional healing.  I think this is especially true for someone like you who searches for enlightenment. 

tt

[sunblue]

Oh no!  Sunblue messed up and let her real name appear...Alas, I was typing too fast and mindlessly included it...LOL...Oh well, the secret's out.

Hops:

Thanks so much for your insight about maintaining your psychic life....I couldn't help wondering when you talk about being enmeshed with your own mother...when you pulled away from her, did that change anything?  Did she take notice?  Did she try to engage with you?  Did she appear to miss you on any level?  Knowing what I've learned about Ns, I would guess not....but still it is interesting to understand.

As for anger...I do feel anger...as well as deep resentment and some bitterness...from my entire N family.  Mostly, I feel angry that there has never been anyone in this world whoh cared about me.  I don't say that out of self-pity....but just an acknowledgment.  Doesn't every child, even every adult, deserve to feel loved and cared about at some point in their life?  So I guess I am angry at them for not caring about me...for making me feel worthless.  But, given the family I was raised in, I'm not really able to express that anger.  It is siimply not allowed in my family.  And the truth is, it wouldn't matter much.  If I yelled or screamed, no one would much care...and certainly wouldn't listen.

So, yes indeed, I so hope a newe window opens...I hope 2009 brings me one single person who I can engage with in a healthy manner....to help bring a new perspective in my life.

But thanks so much for your always insightful feedback and input. 

Teartracks:

I think you are perhaps right about time....it may help to diminish the level of hurt....If something good would come into my life, that might also help to diminish it as well so I wouldn't be exclusively focused on it.  It's interesting though that time does not seem to diminish the level of narcissism in the Ns we know.  If anything, as they age, it seems to intensify.  It's amazing to me that they have no regrets....no feelings of loss over the lloving relationships they could have had with their children or spouses....But I guess some things about Ns I will never truly understand...

Hugs back to all of you...That is rate for me..Even vritually.  Hugs did not happen in my household )...

Sunblue

[Hopalong]

Hi Sun,
Heck No, Mom didn't begin to love me more...though I believe she cared more than some Nmothers, less than others. She would try to re-engage me always though, because she had an insatiable, and I mean insatiable, appetite for attention. I got over my anger eventually when I grew in compassion...but mostly after my anger had led me to say NO.

The anger I mean, that I hope for for you, is not anger for anyone else to respond to, or to wake up your Nfamily. It's you, alone in a safe beautiful natural place, howling out some fury at the universe for the unfairness of feeling so unloved by your biofamily. That, I believe, would lead to cleansing grief. After a time of grieving, one day the world would begin to tempt you out of the hurt...then you could begin to re-engage in your own life, with curiosity.

You never know what's around the next corner. (You DO know, with your family. And what percentage of the world is your biofamily...) I know how large they loom.

But I hope you build an internal mother, who does listen, does accept you, does love. Then She, and only She, can urge you out and you'll be safe in her company...

love and happy 2009!

Hops