Pain + Avoidance --> self-abuse

[Hopalong]

You got it backwards, (((PR))).

what you so accurately describe as a self deeper than the inner child even, that is fighting against my own strength of will to survive...

The deeper-than-inner-child and deeper-than-thinking-self I was describing is NOT fighting against your survival.

Your strength of will is.

Your body doesn't care. It just takes in what you give it as as if you were pouring pesticide on a flower. At some point, the fine mind housed by this body will lose its landlord.

The deep life force I was describing is on your side.
(But it's not much interested in your strength of will. Or your thinking.)

It (that deepest life-force-self, kind and vast) wants you to live.
And be well.

(Me too.)

love,
Hops

[sKePTiKal]

Maybe I do have it backwards; I'll ponder a bit. There is a way that fits, for sure. Fits - and makes sense...

IF... that duality I'm aware of was a result of intrusion, enmeshment & projection (the "evil twin" self-concept inserted by mom)...
then, AT THE TIME (and only then) the intentional, deliberate adoption of a "slow, agonizing death" via smoking...

was the available means to rid myself of the foreign invader... and validate my own, genuine self.

Hmmmmmm. That I could have it backwards, in this way... could absolutely be due to that conditioning, reinforcement and programming... (and ya know, that goes back to the idea that it's always my responsibility; my fault too)...

Truly, I'll think on this Hops. Seen like this? As you suggest? Fits that feedback loop concept a lot better than where I was going or was able to SAY... something felt kinda forced into the "mold" with yesterday's post...

So.... off to be and ponder for a few days...

[sKePTiKal]

QUESTION!  :: hand raised, wiggling in chair, can't contain myself...

I finally realized I was literally fighting against my own life force. Smoking was my weapon against it.
I eventually REALLY accepted that I wanted to lose.

I wanted it...that self deeper than any imagined inner child....way way deeper and more kind and more vast than my own clever rationalizing mind...to win.

You wanted two contradicting things, simultaneously? The first, as much as the other one?
Or, you are speaking from two different places within yourself?

Are you saying your mind turned to struggling with your own life force?


I've accidentally stumbled across something in one of those "books with no redeeming healing value"... which kinda hits the nail on the head of this topic for me. I am currently processing all that and won't have time for a few days to explain. During which, I'm hoping to get it distilled down to level of just enough words to be coherent... instead of my usual ocean of blather. That's what brought me back to what you wrote, Hops and my questions...

because what I'm seeing right now, is that my own life force - united with strength of will (and yeah, rationalization too) is precisely what is so attached to smoking -- as a means of achieving autonomy, inner control, essentially... survival in unbearable conditions. It's akin to the warped mental/emotional underpinnings of anorexia... or any other physical compulsion. I'm not ruling out the viewpoint I thought I heard you say... or trying to contradict it... still digesting and trying to make absolutely sure (if it's possible) that I understand what and how and why.

[Hopalong]

Hi hon,
I'm saying that smoking, even apart from the huge biological power of the brain-addiction itself (which all my rationalizing was pissing in the wind of), was at the deepest level a warped submission-to-my-emotional-damage that it was okay to kill myself.

When I "met", though hypnosis, that deepest, vastest, kindest life-force-self, I realized that my neurosis and damage and fears and inherited stuff...was all adding up to those surface (didn't FEEL surface, but were more superficial) parts of me, which were waging an unholy war against my deepest desire to live, to thrive, to be whole (and not get lung cancer).

In the deepest life-force self (beneath personality, thought, IQ, imagination, and even verbosity) -- there was a vastly KIND and LIFE-FORCE self that craved my health. My well being. It was loving. (I helped conjure it up with the "peace and relaxation" scenario I provided the hyptherapist for our session...but still, it was bigger than me.)

I didn't know about that until I literally encountered it in the hypnosis session. (MUCH mind-chatter of mine can drown out all sorts of deep things.)

So....because I was so desperately addicted, and had finally encountered an equivalent desperation to not die that way I had watched an old friend die...I decided to take a risk of trusting a tool OUTSIDE of my own will.

My own will had perverse reasoning. I had to get humble. (Not ashamed, just humble.)

And when I got out of its way (by seeking hypnosis and the help of that human)...it amazed me.

Any help?

love to you and respect for your integrity in working with this...

xo
Hops

[sKePTiKal]

Yes, thanks Hops!

Gotta do some research now on anorexia - because of the obvious similarities - and more pondering, connecting, trying to "see"...

Then, I'll be back.

[sKePTiKal]

Research update -

So, I found a book that supports the idea that we can literally "change our minds" with current neuroscience data and a bit of new-agey spiritual twist to it. I like the phrase "change our minds" -- that's the direction I'm going in about the collection of self-abuse/sabotage habits I am working on, including the ocd-smoking rationalizations. I am however, having to suspend my belief about the strength, reality, and intangible substance and power of feelings and emotions with the utmost patience, as the author goes through every little thing he knows about neuroscience -- without making the association or connection yet with the practical how-to of making changes. It's his "scientific" belief that emotional feelings are merely the result of chemical processes in the brain that's more than slightly indigestible to me... but for the sake of seeing how it all ties in at the end of the book (and it's pedantically, tediously long) I am reserving judgement. My brain can accept that this explanation of emotions/feelings is valid; but I can't quite accept that in the context of how intensely I feel things. At least not yet.

That said, my subjective experience (and therefore the reality and tangible substance) of my feelings is sort of a parallel inquiry, as it relates to how I "went wrong" somewhere and decided that self-harm was a rational path to walk and I'm trying to understand - in the vocabulary of emotions, not science - how I might best be able to change the emotional reflexes (and warped rationality) that both prompt and demand this sort of solution - and what to replace it with. I found something useful in Out of the Fog's definition of invalidation... and their explanation of self (as in personality) injury from chronic invalidation and am pursuing that now. Everything I've previously described about me, what happened to me, the way mom and bro are.... and where I know my "buttons" are the most sensitive... is "invalidation", even in the mild everyday not-personal forms. This is the big gaping wound that I've only now gotten around to really taking a better look at, I think. A lot of the details and experiences I've chronicled can be tossed into a category simply called "chronic invalidation". Names, definitions, and explanations are all very important to me.

These quotes provide the link between that level of invalidation and intentional self-harm:

Linehan (1993a) investigates 'invalidating environments' and relates them to self injury.

"An invalidating environment is one in which communication of private experiences is met by erratic, inappropriate, or extreme responses. In other words, the expression of private experiences is not validated; instead it is often punished and/or trivialized. The experience of painful emotions disregarded. The individual's interpretations of her own behavior, including the experience of the intents and motivations of the behavior, are dismissed..."

and --

If a person's self expression is inhibited, or even forbidden, then it may lead to such a crisis that they turn inwards, only expressing themselves internally, and this might manifest as self harm. Self harm can be seen as 'communication to one's self'; a person who self harms may feel that the only way to have a voice, is to keep it silent and private, to express their feelings directly on their own body. If there is no one who will listen to the emotional outbursts of a frustrated and distressed person, they may turn to self harm as a form of emotional expression. By creating physical harm to themselves, they seek relief from the emotional distress that they are forbidden to express publicly. [My emphasis; this reminds me of the statement I made: I just need to HEAR my self... and it's a certainty, that I was in extreme frustration and emotional distress when the whole reality of my rape and the later events were dismissed as a "figment of my imagination" or a bad dream via my mom's denial.]

"One factor common to most people who self-injure, whether they were abused or not, is invalidation. They were taught at an early age that their interpretations of and feelings about the things around them were bad and wrong. They learned that certain feelings weren't allowed. In abusive homes, they may have been severely punished for expressing certain thoughts and feelings."

and --

"When your awareness rises, you'll begin to notice such (invalidating) comments on a regular basis. Together, they take their toll on us. We wonder if there is something wrong with us for feeling how we do. It seems fair to say that with enough invalidation, one person can figuratively, if not literally, drive another person crazy. This is especially possible, I believe, in the case where one person has long-term power over another. Examples of such relationships are parent/child, teacher/child, "spiritual" leader/follower, boss/employee, spouse A/spouse B. Such a sad scenario appears to be even more likely when the person being invalidated is highly sensitive, intelligent and has previously suffered self-esteem damage."

Me, again. The recipe for an antidote to that... the way through to changing the automatic, defensive reflexes... is boundaries and explicit, non-aggressive communication, I think. Tools we're already familiar with, within the context of our emotional vocabulary. But not being content with that, I'm going to keep looking... after all, I still don't trust my self that I've been thorough in my research yet... or am giving in to bias or making connections where there are none. I do see... that chronic invalidation could very well be behind my habit of constantly seeking outside approval and validation for my ideas and plans and even self-work -- i.e., my chronic babbling here over the years.

[sKePTiKal]

So, I think I have the concepts now... how feedback loops work in our brain and emotions; why some emotions are triggered before we're even aware that we're being triggered and then act like runaway trains with our attention; what generates an emotion biologically; and oy vey! even the proper order of what I've been calling the mind-body connection... and how that fits into what I know from experience about conscious self, subconscious self and unconscious self.

I can see, feel, taste and touch and maybe even smell... how to edit my own feedback loops. Specific steps and how-tos. It was really validating to see how close I was, thinking through this stuff on my own. [ASSUMING in a big way, that this book's theory actually works; I have yet to try it.] I was missing at least one very important piece: that was the strong connection between a part of our brain that handles all our auto-programming for physical actions that we do without having to consciously focus on them... like brushing our teeth, washing a skillet, sweeping a floor... riding a bicycle... the connection between that part of the brain and the body... and that particular feedback loop that creates the awareness, sensations, and consciousness of what we generally call our "Self". Our comfort zones; our "normal".

The author repeated himself almost obsessively and it irritated and exhausted me. In the last third of the book, I finally recognized his technique as being an example itself of the process for change that he is proposing. He does make lots of real-life examples... in the vocabulary of emotions and healing that we use, but I felt as if that association wasn't strong enough. For a lot of us, the emotions that we seem to be stuck in from time to time are more real and concrete than anything else and they seem to control us, rather than just being a part of us. This was the piece I didn't understand; was right in my face and I wasn't seeing; and is THE most important part of the damned negative feedback loop. For this neuro approach to change to make sense to people like us, that side of things needs more explanation, more clarity, more examples to relate our own experience to. I think I can start to add some of those, after my brain rests, cools off, and I get a few things off my external life to-do list. That'll also give me time to experiment a bit with the techniques and let the ideas settle and connect to my experience... see if it "fits".

It's not a one size fits all situation for us, so if this does work... it's only one more tool in our toolbox that might work for some folks. But for my particular "discomfort" it seems to be a possible solution and I was already working on this path of concepts anyway. It's gonna take me awhile to distill it down so, this time I'll write off-line until I get there.

OH - and I titled this whole thread incorrectly. It should've been Pain + Shame --> self-abuse. At least now, I have an idea of how that actually happens and why... and therefore I also have the pieces of the "programming language syntax" to write a new program. My wacked out FOO provided ample current-lunacy clues to making that change in the title. Avoidance is still a big part of the process - the almost instantaneous recoil reflex I have to insanity... and I'm starting to understand why, and what I've always misunderstood in the past. FINALLY.

So, until I'm back with my "opus"... the book is called "Evolving Your Brain: The Science of Changing Your Mind"; author is Joe Dispenza. It's easily readable but I suspect in paper form, it's a big long book. On the Kindle, I think it's the longest I've ever read. I was able to ignore some of his new agey, sorta out there claims... I've heard that crap before, you know? Maybe there's something to it, but that's not the focus of what I needed from the book. And the quantum physics stuff? same deal... I get the connections that he's trying to make... and I'm skeptical, but I won't totally dismiss it... so one can gloss over those parts of the book, because there are enough real-life examples given for the brain's mechanics to help someone figure out what's going on with themselves... and THAT'S worth the price of admission: the repetitive, pedantic way he makes sure we remember what he covered in Chapter 4 and the sometimes unnecessary illustrations.

It is actually a good thing, that he's written this way despite how it bothered me and I resisted it. It finally sinks in that this is the way our habits, personality traits, and those "hangover effects" from experiencing abuse... our old, currently dysfunctional coping strategies... were created in the first place... and it is also the process for creating "something completely different". I also liked his definition for what we call "letting go" of something.... it is simply to shift our concentrated attention to something ELSE. Point well taken, I think. If our attention is on something that brings us joy or peace or contentment... we're not experiencing the other negative stuff, you know? and repeated often enough and long enough... then the negative, in real terms, isn't such a big part of our lives (if we agree that what we experience through our days, weeks, years ARE our lives). This definition of letting go is the only one to date, that I can agree with wholeheartedly. Everything else I ran across, worked with... just wasn't complete for me; something was missing... or it was silly and I couldn't subscribe to it... or as in the case of forgiveness - it only created another conflict of meaning with accountability; a fuzzy, gray-shaded boundary of no-mans land... it just didn't function right for me.

This however, is easy for me to start immediately... to remember to practice... and I was already doing that - I just didn't associate it with "letting go". DUH. This isn't the same thing as "forgetting"; it's simply paying attention to something that feels better than the old stuff.

There are lots of "DUH-moments" in what I'm processing - things that I didn't learn because of the circumstances of my life in the past. But instead of spending time, energy and attention mourning the loss of those basic things or longing for relationships that never existed... well, I can just say "OK, that makes sense. I didn't know that before"... and move on to the next step.

See ya guys in a little while.

[Guest]

"Chronic invalidation" well-names the process I think..or rather, feel.

"letting go" of something.... it is simply to shift our concentrated attention to something ELSE. Point well taken, I think. If our attention is on something that brings us joy or peace or contentment... we're not experiencing the other negative stuff, you know?

Been doing this for a while now, very occasionally doing it mindfully, mostly finding myself doing it and noting it as it occurs or after the events, if that makes sense. It is pleasant to recognise.

The terms 'letting go' and 'forgiveness' have little meaning in some areas of things that are tucked away inside my head. They are irrelevant as everyday terms...but if I take a step back...letting go is simply recognising 'attachment' for what it is..and forgiveness is recognising how people are built: noone is responsible for how they were 'built', but we hold them responsible for their adult (loose term) behaviour because, because it meets the needs of society. Not because it's morally correct, but because it works in a practical way. The moral part is where we want them to change and feel remorse which I guess is our collective attachment to ......a good world. Neutrality is very difficult and I'm not sure it should be a goal......although....it's a very peaceful position. Aurgh!

[sKePTiKal]

To start finishing up this whole area of topic...

I decided that it simply doesn't matter if I am persuaded that our brains generate the chemicals that we are aware of through our body... and that this is ALL emotions are. I can still work with this as a provisional premise, even if I'm not totally convinced of this. Somehow, I still "feel" that emotions are a little more than this combination of thoughts/chemicals experienced physically in a feedback loop... but I can accept for instance, that meditation or tai chi can activate and condition the parasympathetic nervous system and enough experience of this can counteract chronic runaway thoughts or anxiety. Or that addiction itself is a feedback loop, involving dopamine and other chemicals that "feeds" the body what it thinks it wants/needs.

So... that begs the question of whether the body itself has intelligence, or if it simply has a 1/0 perception - on/off, feels good/bad - like some bio-switch. Is it the body that sends out an immune response to heal a scratch? Or is it the brain? Or is the brain part of the body... and if so who's in charge? The book I read also proposes that some magical chemical combination of brain and body creates the "mind"... and supposedly the "mind" is in charge, in a smoothly functioning system (i.e., person). Ah... but then things get too complicated... with the automatic brain processes related to body (like breathing)... and unconscious, subconscious... and what we normally call "consciousness" - which is still subject to the telescope like lens of perception and attention-focus.

If I haven't lost ya yet, what occurred to me... in trying to "translate" or create a dictionary of understandings between our emotional language and this neuroscience approach... is that in my own case, I've let my body dictate to my brain what my habits will be. It goes against everything I rationally know to smoke, I've lost people whom I really cared about, because of smoking. I tried to find some emotional "key" to unlock whatever un- or subconscious process would let me gain control over that habit. But I should've been looking for that emotional key in the body, rather than my mind.

THIS is still total conjecture/theory/guessing on my part... but what I think is going on, is that I'm highly aware of my body states... and by fixing my attention on how my body feels... I'm actually letting it decide or choose what I do - whether it's good for me or not. How I became so aware is probably a combination of DNA, and the turning inward of attention via the environment of invalidation soup that I experienced in my FOO, and perhaps also my unique reaction to the high level of shame I felt - some of which, really wasn't mine even though it was tossed in my direction and "pinned" on me.

The flip side of that body-awareness is psychosomatic symptoms, for me. Particularly, stress-related. Particularly, anything emotional or a conflict... anything involving my mother or brother... and also my new "role" of business owner, because it's finally my job to make the choices and decisions instead of being told what to do... and then trying to confront my own self and make these "habit changes" I want (intellectually). My body can raise such resistance and misery for me... that it seems to want to be in control of deciding and choosing... instead of respecting my mind's rational understanding, limits and desires. The body "mind" can even be pro-active and create panic, anxiety, physical pain and discomfort through muscles and skin eruptions to even keep me from starting or sticking with a plan of change. It can literally "fight" me... and seems to have a mind of it's own, though that's limited and doesn't have the neo-cortex's higher reasoning capability.

Just coming to this understanding or description of what I think is going on with me, is quite enough to send my body into overdrive to create pain and misery to stop me pursuing this path. My old shoulder injury flared up worse than I've experienced since I was 12; lots of nerve based referred pain, as well. I have an old friend who's a PT and her suggestion of ice (instead of heat) has helped. Then, I am going through a case of hives -- either that, or some insect has been making a huge meal of me, un-noticed (hardly likely). I had hives way back when, too... and was told that I was allergic to chocolate (not true)... it was most definitely a reaction to a specific kind of stress, involving serious change. The only other time I experienced this was for a month or so, when I graduated high school and was making plans to leave home and never return.

What brought all this on, is that I reversed a common strategy for smoking-cessation. My body-brain is programmed for more, more, more with absolutely no concept of "too much of a good thing". So the tracking of my smoking - recording each one that I smoked - actually backfired; it was like my body was trying to get a higher score! I've tried this maybe 10 times, with exactly the same results until I finally gave up. This time, what I'm doing is counting backwards - I'm writing down how many I choose to smoke today (always moving to lower numbers, gradually) - and then crossing off the highest number as I smoke one.

In effect, I rationally, consciously imposed a limit on the body's nicotine/dopamine appetite that it isn't smart enough to get control over or sabotage... so it's venting discomfort via the psychosomatic symptoms above. I didn't really anticipate this reaction; I was still working out the ideas about emotions - body chemicals - etc. But this whole theory make SO much sense to me, given that the ONLY time my mom paid attention to "how I felt"... was when I presented physical symptoms to her; at least, until the time I finally turned all that inward on myself -- and then her physical approach to my "discomfort" was completely inappropriate and only made my emotional distress even worse...

... and that paragraph above, reminds me of the movie inception: a dream within a dream within a dream - only it's multiple feedback loops instead... in different programming languages between my brain, emotions and body. I keep wondering if I might just be making myself nuts... trying to work through this by myself - with only hubs' feedback. But I don't think so.

It seems to me, given the specific physical ailments I'm experiencing, that I've struck a little too "close to home" - spot on even, with this new approach and some other things I'm working on simultaneously. It's too coincidental that it's exactly the same physical stuff I experienced in reaction to my mom's denial that I'd been raped, you know? And I've observed that with the counting down technique -- I pay attention to it once in the morning, so I'm not spending a lot time thinking about smoking - just crossing off this one... and just like the opposite process clicked into the more-more-more... this process, seems to leave a few not crossed off - and so not smoked - at the end of the day. With no typical withdrawal symptoms or cravings. Go figure.

The other association I can make with the idea that my body thinks it can make decisions; is in charge... is that this is exactly what my mom drummed into my head... this was her "technique" for dealing with emotions - all emotions. It's like she got the old wives' tale about fevers and colds all twisted up: feed a "feeling"... so it goes away, changes, you don't feel it anymore... more-more-more (because it doesn't work, you know?). And I've got a whole wagon-load of feelings about my mom - still - that it's friggin' pointless to express to her; that venting here hasn't removed, though they are less intense and importantin my daily activity... and I'm currently disobeying the mom-law of feeding those feelings some substance to make them disappear... so I think I need to do some intentional "letting go" via limiting my exposure to thoughts of those feelings - and my mom in general. Maybe that'll help with the physical symptoms... we'll see.

[sKePTiKal]

YAY! I finally got to the "nutshell" version of what I'm trying to say.

Just like my mom "helped" me get the definitions/meanings of certain words for feelings all scrambled - like turning "excitement" into anxiety or dread...

she also helped teach me to scramble up mind-body-emotion... the normal working hierarchy and "order of control". Because she couldn't tell a physical sensation from a pure emotional feeling... she made sure I couldn't either. Therefore, when I did experience the difference.... a.) I was completely totally sure I was losing it and b.) that made me a "problem" for her.

God, I wish it wasn't so hard to see what's so damn simple.

[Guest]

Wow. So we're the problem if we're not like zombies. Yup. We're the weird ones and must be controlled.

she couldn't tell a physical sensation from a pure emotional feeling
that's fairly unhealthy eh Amber? I think so. It takes some dredging to get to the bottom of that one. Nicely put.

And, as that idea has stayed with me, I have to ask: just what disorder, or illness, produces that effect? We're not talking just Nism here I think? Interesting.

[sKePTiKal]

I don't know that this has a name, Guest. It might just be a symptom of several different, recognized disorders.
Hence, my interest in neuroscience... something chemically - yet almost "mechanical" - is OFF or non-functional in a big way. I don't think it's the complete answer... but it's at least another framework for trying to think about it.

At the same time, I have to confront myself on why I bought into this. It's just so nutz and so far from my own way of thinking about, seeing, being... sigh. I guess survival is enough of an explanation. Living long enough to figure this particular weirdness out. For me, at least.

[Guest]

Living long enough to figure this particular weirdness out.

resonates a lot with me Amber; although...many days I think to myself, about my past situation (and it is not my present, if you see what I mean) that it was what it was and whatever the causes, reasons, labels...it is over for me, in terms of my connection to it..yes there is the past and its effects today, yes there are still people alive, but I have changed and irrevocably too (can you tell I just wrote a legal note? bah). Living long enough to figure it out, I dunno, oddly for me my curiosity here maybe has a limit. But I doubt it. I probably don't have enough knowledge about the brain; I probably have been too darn whacked out by events of the last three years. I feel mentally tired so that dealing with the stupidity I have to deal with atm is about all I can do, even with the involved and thoughtful help of my partner.You keep going but people and their behaviours take a toll. Anger is a reasonable energy-giver but then that takes a lot of energy so that you live in fits and starts; not forgetting the ever-present background low hum of uncertainty, which some days makes me smile with the strangeness of it. You can learn to live with anything, absorb it.

Maybe the thing that is off is akin to autism of some kind, or similar. Way beyond my readings but with my family background there are things that even now I have no idea of the diagnosis or label and I'm not sure the FOO members do. Perhaps similar to your example here. I really don't know. I survived too, that was enough.

[sKePTiKal]

Guest, I hear ya! I believe that I've "worn out" my brain trying to figure all this out... and as you say, I've changed too.
This only comes up while I'm still trying to make even more changes - in me - and the question why? always points back to the same old, same old. But I do have this lovely collection of explanations now! Haha... so many different ways to see it.

I've still got a long ways to go, with my own self-neglect/self-abuse habits and it's going to take a lonnnng time to get to the "downhill" section of the learning - replacing - making a new habit as "automatic" as the old ones... but shucks, that's no more interesting than what I had for dinner last night! or housework or pulling weeds in a large yard or....

it's all just chop wood; carry water now...

[Guest]

everything is chop wood carry water...............

whatever it is.