The Process of the Process

[Meh]

Backwards excavation into childhood. Only occasionally finding the right text, right author that puts it just so in words that make sense. Time put into figuring and piecing it together like a puzzle the picture of the SELF and the missing or broken parts only slowing coming into conscious awareness.

I don't think I would wish to undo the self-exploration that I have done. I only wish it was quicker and more dramatically "healing".

It has felt like playing a soccer game in pitch darkness sometimes making contact with the ball and other times not, all the while kicking like crazy in case the ball comes along in my direction.  

There have been moments, days that were...well momentous....followed by months or years of no deep insights.  

It's painful and full of grief to uncover the areas where I was stunted or emotionally neglected as a child.

Even worse is realizing that the chances are I will not conjure the right combo of events to "heal" these parts to make me whole.

I think I'm just saying something about the process of THE PROCESS.

Without real guidance no shaman and the therapists that I did see didn't explain to me anything most just wanted to give me a few antidepressants and call it good.

Why wouldn't a therapist explain to a patient where the broken places are....why did I have to find them sometimes more than once to understand how "I" developed.

The PROCESS has been interesting and maybe even sometimes a hobby, a self absorption to fall into to fill the gaps of loneliness and meaning?

The PROCESS also started in a compulsive way when I was a kid trying very hard to understand why I was struggling so much, crying and being a lonely and introverted child. That is when I started to FIGURE as if my brain could come up with a solution to make the family situation right. So my whole life, my brain maybe in a little bit of an anxiety and stress response has focused on the issues or problems...that equalling the PROCESS.

Sometimes I wonder if my brain is in process mode too much and if that is a result of stress and it is never resolved.

I don't like the way THE PROCESS feels unhealthy sometimes. When I am compelled to figure on something but there is no resulting point that changes my life, the activity sometimes seems like a nonsense activity.

I just felt like writing this and was wondering if anyone else wanted to write about the compulsion to PROCESS if that is what this is?

I imagine there is a lot going on and it's over simplifying to say compulsion to process ---yet for me that is part of the picture. My mind falls onto process mode sometimes when maybe it would be more fruitful for my activity to be on a different mode.

I wonder if process mode is indicative of a stress level. If stress level is from 0-100. Maybe if I am always near 50% or more I process but if I was at 5-10% stress level maybe I would not be compelled to go into process mode of thinking thinking thinking. ??

Why out of all the things my mind could do it devotes it's energy to THE PROCESS. Is THE PROCESS an addictive behavior....a self-soothing behavior....an escape and avoidance....is it scholarly...

When I picked up my first self-help book (teenager) there was a promise that I could learn and grow and my life would become more palatable. I have to admit all these years later I still am a self-helper but my life doesn't show any signs of equal improvement.

Is process the act of an undeveloped confidence in SELF. The SELF's lack of confidence = more processing?


Is anyone else let down sometimes by trying to make your self whole or healthy or mo'better.

[Twoapenny]

BTR, there have been so many times when I have thought "I'm not doing this anymore.  I'm just going to numb it all with anti-ds and do what so many other people do to cope - drink, smoke, eat too much, shop, etc etc.  I'm going to get into a relationship with some bloke who will 'do', just because it's easier than delving through all this crap".  And there have been times when I've done more or less that, abandonded all the soul searching and just got on with it, and for a time it's worked.  But there's always something that pulls me back to pulling it apart, learning more, wanting to know more.  My inner child pleading, saying "Listen to me, I'm still here"?  The intelligent part of my brain saying "This needs to be done, you can't ignore it".  A more basic part of myself saying "You won't survive if you don't deal with this"?  I don't know which, or maybe none of those things, or maybe bits of all of them and others.  I've been frustrated at the pace many times.  I'm twelve years in now and still going.  But I can look back over those twelve years and see big changes, not only in my own life but also in the lives of people around me.  Four years ago I was living in one room in a shared house with my son.  We were sleeping on a sofabed (although to be fair neither of us were really sleeping back then).  His autism had just been diagnosed.  Social services were trying to put him on the at risk register.  We had no money, my mum was in full control mode, I was scared of everyone and everything and didn't see how I'd ever fight my way out.

Now we've got a nice house, with a garden.  My little boy is the happiest, healthiest litte chap around.  Social services didn't put him on the at risk register, my mum's little plan of attack didn't work, I've shown them all they can't order me around anymore and life is good.  I still have horrible days, sometimes horrible weeks, sometimes longer than that.  But slowly, slowly, it's clearing and getting better.  My homeopath said, last time I spoke to him, that he thinks things can shift without you noticing, that it isn't always about huge lightbulb moments or epiphanys, but sometimes more like little grains of sand trickling away a tiny grain at a time.  I think he might be right.  I figure time passes whatever you do, however you spend it, so in five years time I'd rather be five years older and have five years more understanding under my belt than still be in this place I am now - because although it's better than it was, I think it could be better still?

It's alright to take a break, though.  A few hours, a few days, a few months, whatever feels best.  Just to enjoy little things every day - the sun on your face, flowers growing in your garden, a friendly chat with a stranger in a coffee shop, a new skill or hobby, reconnecting with an old friend you haven't seen for ages.  I try and take the approach now of just going with it - not trying to control it or shape it but just going along for the ride and watching to see what happens.  I don't always do it!  The old messages and habits are still there, but I try and I think I'm getting a bit better at it

Hope things start to clear a bit for you soon.  It's horrible when your brain is constantly clogged up with stuff.  I think it does get easier over time xx

[lighter]

Boat that Rocks  ****Only occasionally finding the right text, right author that puts it just so in words that make sense. Time put into figuring and piecing it together like a puzzle the picture of the SELF and the missing or broken parts only slowing coming into conscious awareness. ****





I identify very strongly with what you wrote above, Boat.

Spot on, really.

Lighter






 

[sKePTiKal]

Ah... Boat... you ask an important question about whether the "process of processing" is the right path to healing. And what you've written is so clear and simple to understand, eloquent even. So much of your post connected with me and my experience. I especially can relate to this:

It has felt like playing a soccer game in pitch darkness sometimes making contact with the ball and other times not, all the while kicking like crazy in case the ball comes along in my direction.

I read your description yesterday of being interrupted while appreciating the sunset and there's a useful contrast in that I think, with this question of process/processing. As I fumbled around in the dark - like you described kicking like crazy just in case the ball was there - my T put me onto a book/author that Dr. G had mentioned, a few years ago. It's NOT a self-help book, yet it's become quite useful in how I understand how my brain works, how my processing works or doesn't - where the tracks had been ripped out so the "train" had to detour making things cumbersome, awkward and uncomfortable for me... resulting in over-processing or compulsively processing.

I'll try to describe my "theory" for you and see if it might have some parts that you can make use of; see if anything helps or fits - or not. Sometimes, it doesn't even seem to apply to me! And then, after some time has passed... I do see places where it fits. It helps to remember, that as humans, we don't ever reach a "status quo" - a place where we are done learning, we know everything, where we have all the answers. Even when I thought I did have an answer - duh - later on, I've decided I was wrong. Even the *quote* NORMAL FOLK *quote* aren't neat, complete, tied up packages of personality and characteristics... there's no "done" for being a person with senses, self-reflection, creativity, the ability to connect/share/appreciate... that "awareness" is called being alive. Not everyone who breathes is alive, tho... and you know I mean the PD zombies.

[Enough preamble, Amber!! god, I'm such a didact... maybe my verbosity is related to over processing.]

I'm sure you've run across the book or idea of "drawing on the right side of the brain", right? And you know about the mainstream idea that people are predominantly left or right brain beings, right? Well, most of us actually were or are integrated brain beings... in that we can shift quickly from different "specialities" in those parts of our brains... we aren't limited to only one orientation (L or R) as our main way of perceiving. That's where we're most comfortable... in that fluid shift from emotional Rbrain to analytical, process-oriented Lbrain... even using both at once, say while painting or sewing. Your ability to appreciate and be totally absorbed by music or the sunset - is a Rbrain speciality. Your laser like ability to use words together in such a clear way to express your Self and your meanings... is more Lbrain oriented. Your ability to knit is Lbrain... but your color combinations are Rbrain - instinctive and emotional.

This fluidity of being comfortable moving back and forth from one specialty in our brains to another can get disrupted. The train tracks get ripped out, in a small section - maybe on a sharp curve or over a very deep ravine. Poor, abusive parenting can be part of the explanation for what happens to that section of track; trauma; or even something physical or biological - like stroke or disease. [For the best intro explanation of L-R brain stuff, I'd refer you to the book "Stroke of Insight" by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor. She's a neuro doctor who experienced a severe stroke and describes her own brain workings during the stroke and recovering; it was my starting point to understanding what you were saying about the compulsion to process...]

The second part of the "theory" is based on studies done by a doc, Daniel Schore. He studied the effects of neglect, abandonment, and "good enough" parenting on children from infants to toddlers. Maybe he's doing more now. Basically, he's found just this kind of disruption [the ripped out train tracks] in folks like me and others who were vulnerable enough to our poor parents that it screwed around with how our brains developed. Sometimes, it's not noticeable - people learn to "cope" with things like mild dyslexia, you know? Or sometimes, people will develop their own, idiosyncratic "workaround" to function close to "normal". Mine was healing itself, about the time I was 11; I had "substitute moms" that I was subsisting & surviving on... and then, when I experienced trauma & how my mom dealt with it and me... it re-opened that problematic "attachment" wound I had suffered as a much smaller child and made the wound more significant... the orginal weak point in my train tracks, to go back to my analogy.

Before I get into full lecture mode [duh] - my point here is that sometimes our brains get "stuck" into open-throttle processing BECAUSE at a young age we quickly learned that it was dangerous, or scary or "bad" or "not allowed" -- or anyway you describe it -- a problem with "us" that had to be fixed -- because someone ELSE was uncomfortable with the fact that we were able to access that place in our Rbrain were well-being - just being - exists. Jealousy, envy... inability to comprehend the reality of that place... I don't know why some parents are like that.

But they INSIST and browbeat and push and isolate these kids into believing that the ONLY right way to be.... is that Lbrain compulsive processing, computer-like programming. Maybe those parents are ashamed of their own emotions and therefore think it's their responsibility to beat those emotions out of their kids. I don't know; this is just my theory - and it still needs work.

This is too long for one post, already. And I probably haven't explained things with all the details to make myself clear. It's taken me a few years to put what I have of the theory together. But I have to also make the point that this isn't a hopeless, irreversible, brain-based, lifelong "disability". It IS possible to teach ourselves to be comfortable in those Rbrain, well-being places again. It is possible to re-connect the train tracks... re-engineer how they're built, so they're stronger.

The SELF's lack of confidence = more processing?

I think you're right about this; and I think it fits into my theory... but I'm not sure - or able to say yet - how. Maybe you've got some ideas about that. I have one idea that I've been working on related to confidence of the Self - and that is, that if we are accepted by a parent as WHO WE ARE (complete with our individual "do knows") then, we automatically grow that confidence of self... and we don't second-guess ourselves... we trust that self... and there's no need to spend all that time processing... because there's really nothing WRONG that needs to be FIXED.

So whaddya think? Am I over-processing myself into complete craziness????? LOL... some days I wonder about that. I think I'll just lay in the pool today and try to decide what the clouds look like.

[Guest]

I know parents who are very afraid of most emotions - their own or other people's. Mostly they get angry with emotion (ha!).

We're never through with being human that's for sure.

[SilverLining]

Why out of all the things my mind could do it devotes it's energy to THE PROCESS. Is THE PROCESS an addictive behavior....a self-soothing behavior....an escape and avoidance....is it scholarly...

Hi Boat.  Seems to me we get to a point where questioning the process is part of the process.   I've been there the last couple of years.  I see myself going back and dredging through the same old stuff over and over.  So then the practice becomes letting the stuff just roll past, like watching clouds go by in the sky.   And in my experience the newly exercised detachment from  the past opens up new insights into what was going on.  I see more patterns of the craziness I experienced, without letting it ruin my present moments.   

I've been more successful at this as long as I keep my distance from the family members.  The next challenge is keeping my head straight with routine contact.  They seem almost hell bent on creating a constant stream of insanity to keep me in the game.  This too becomes a mental pattern to observe and then release.   

[Hopalong]

Hi Boat,
I do agree with you. I think you're really on to something. I thing processing to an extreme degree, and compulsively...is not always liberating or a sign of growth or self-mastery. I think people who are determined to process DO usually have breakthroughs and leaps and times when there's a big lurch forward.

When one looks back one imagines it must've been the result of All That Processing. I am certain that sometimes it probably is. Straining and sieving, just like in science or archeologogy. No way to see the whole without identifying enough fragments, and then one day, it leaps into view.
So I'm not dissing the value or the rigor of that self-scholarship.

Other times, though, I do think some important leaps forward, or major healing intuitions, are only able to happen because one actually drops the damn processing for a while. There can be, imo, moments of grace and understanding or maturing that are only able to happen because, without noticing, one actually escapes the self-consciousness of that relentless questioning for a while.

So I think it's balance, and it's always shifting. And maybe there are just chapters in life when one's head is deeply wedged into one's navel because one has to map the walls of the womb before being born into healthy adulthood. Sometimes they're very very long chapters.

But then maybe the same book is broken up by poems, or drawings, or blank pages, or sudden origami, or color.

The thing is, to keep turning the pages. You don't know. There can be marvels.

These books are extraordinary.

And btw, I hope you will write one. Your writing pierces and lifts me at times in the most unexpected ways.

xo

Hops

[Meh]

[Enough preamble, Amber!! god, I'm such a didact... maybe my verbosity is related to over processing.]

Before I get into full lecture mode [duh] - my point here is that

 

And maybe there are just chapters in life when one's head is deeply wedged into one's navel because one has to map the walls of the womb before being born into healthy adulthood. Hops

 


You guys made me laugh a little tonight.

[sKePTiKal]