Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Voicelessness and Emotional Survival => Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board => Topic started by: Sealynx on May 13, 2010, 05:37:03 PM
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I was watching a program last night on Ferrel children. They were talking about research related to them and how after a certain point the children could not be taught to speak. They could learn words but did not understand how to put them into sentences. I watched as they showed the children, all of whom related better to animals than people and in several cases had been raised among dogs and acted like them. I kept waiting for them to talk about what was missing in their relating process but they didn't go there. The language comparison gave me something to think about.
So many of us describe the same issues with not being able to attract friends though we seem to be socially appropriate at work and can conduct ourselves well in most social situations. The thing that is missing is almost intangible. We have the behaviors, we have the feelings, we are missing......???? It is likely that our mothers failed to read our emotions and normal signs of need when we were babies. Their care of us must have seemed random and beyond our control so we likely gave up using what babies are supposed to use and develop to call out and to bond with others. Perhaps it is a kind of expectation that is read as attractive energy by others???? An expectation we lack????
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An expectation that is read as attractive energy by others - sounds possible/probable Sealynx.
And?
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My friends who have large social circles don't doubt that other people will like and accept them they take it for granted.
It's confidence. Along the lines of charisma.
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It may be that our chances of developing this intangible thing are zero...no matter how much therapy we get. They were completely unsuccessful in teaching the language skills and they at least knew exactly what they were trying to teach.
I remember in Dr. McBride's book on Daughters of N mom's she pretty much accepted that one path for a daughter was to remain alone. She was talking specifically about partnering here but did not really address the friendship issue which has perhaps less to keep it together socially. I think more could be written on this but no one seems to have scratched the surface. When you search the info on "loner" adults you are either shuttled off to anti-social or schizoid personality disorder or Aspergers syndrome in the Autism spectrum. There is no real class for people who were given a kind of "ferrel" emotional upbringing.
I know that unlike me, my sister had lots of friends as a child. I was left alone with my mother in a distant state while my father was at sea. I had no one to engage in correct stimulus /response behaviors with. Even though I might have lacked the "spark", that drew people to me, I could still respond normally to my sister and who was four years younger. In early Christmas videos of me at about 7 or 8, I am shown caring for her. For instance she got one of those spring rocking horses one Christmas and I am shown struggling to help her onto the horse. I was able to respond to her signals of need which would have allowed her brain to develop those engagement patterns.
It would make sense that we would have soulmates of a sort in other daughters, but then NPD in women is actually rather rare with males predominating, so we are few and far between. Perhaps this is why we have such a hard time getting our stories heard by others. There is also the problem of some of these daughters having N traits themselves and not being available for relationships of any kind.
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Sealynx - I think you made a brilliant deduction. That fascinates me and explains so much.
Just me - I would not go so far as believing that we cannot learn. I am convinced by modern science that the brain is continueally capable of rewriting over past learned behaviors and patterns. It is not quite so easy perhaps but possible nonetheless. That is my belief and my hope.
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Sealynx,
Good food for thought. I think you raise some interesting points.
Gaining Strength,
I agree that we can learn. My social skills have always been below my peers. But through reading and learning I learned to function in a social setting, engage in conversation, restrain my antisocial comments. But the learning has not made me feel better about myself. I anticipate that I will not fit in, that others will prefer the company of someone other than me. Deep down I feel I am a misfit in society. I am never relaxed, even with those I have known for decades. Outwardly, I am normal. Inside, I wait for the rejection. I expect to always be alone.
Regarding friends that I had as a child and adolescent, NM either criticized the friend or criticized the way I interacted with them. According to NM, I never made a good choice. And if I confided something I said to them, it was always wrong. As an adult I see now that NM made the same mistakes she accused me of. And has no long term friends.
One thing I do remember is always wanting to move to a different place. To start over. Where nobody knows me and I can try again.
The intangible. That intangible that is just out of my reach. Could be that attractive energy. So am I a born introvert? Or was I made a loner? Seems to me a born introvert would feel good about themselves. A loner feels bad about themselves.
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Since I wrote this I've done a personal social inventory of sorts and given some thought to things I've read about attachment theory.
What I've read...Children whose mothers don't come when they cry or ask to be held often turn their attention to objects in the environment. After a while they may not try to engage adults.
Question...Is this behavior carried over to relationships with other children???
My earliest memories of being around other children... I was brought to a nursery school and immediately sought out a toy to play with. I only became aware of the other children when a little boy came over and took my toy. I didn't protest or try to interact. I just accepted that the toy was gone and turned my attention to another. I did not occur to me find an adult or cry. I never remember actively playing with another child or the name of anyone in that class.
Next memory. Nursery school. I tried to break up a fight between two boys and was made to stand in the corner. I don't remember having any relationship to either boy before or after. I just knew it was wrong to fight. I know from pictures I was in a carnival ball with another child named Linda and that we went to her home once or twice (mother and I). I remember being nice to her but cannot remember ever playing with her or having fun.
Even at that early age I was already alone and watching the world as if from a glass jar. I had emotions, compassion for others and from a very early age could understand their intentions, though not always why they engaged in things like selfishness-which is interesting. What I already lacked was expectations of joy related to other children. I was good to them but I didn't expect them to provide me with any kind of emotional satisfaction. I didn't look forward to visiting a friend or not.
When I look at the above I think it totally mirrors my early parent response from my mother. I didn't understand selfishness because I was already a giving machine, trained to operate, not internally from my own core needs, but externally by adjusting to a chaotic environment where I might suddenly be hugged tightly in front of guests or thrown up in the air by a returning father I barely knew. My brain could not create a PLEASURE response to human interaction...because it WASN'T PLEASURABLE....so it created the necessary hormonal relationship to DEAL with uncertainty.
So what does a PLEASURE RESPONSE consist of....CHEMICALS!
As it stands I would guess that we would be amazed at what other people feel at the thought of spending time with others or even a simple touch. Their brain responds by pumping out endorphins which are opiates that give a feeling of well-being (just like they were trained to do by mom in infancy). If they had a warm responsive environment when young, other people are a drug. They get an anticipatory high just thinking about any kind of pleasant interaction. We are probably more likely to pump adrenalin or other corticosteroids related to pain and inflammation or just feel neutral. In this way people may even be bad for some of us because each negative association strengthens our childhood programming.
So if we look at a fun social setting...we must come across as a little flat initially. Everyone is already high when we get there, alcohol or not!.
When I look at my closest relationships today, they are not based on pleasure in the emotional sense. They are based on shared interests of an intellectual nature. I would say that my social skills are excellent and I can function sexually but there is a pleasure gap between the two and other people can sense its not there.
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Hi CB,
I don't think we are damaged in the same way as the Ferrel kids, but I do think that brain development might be affected, not so much in capacity as in what it later "rewards". I think our EQ and our IQ are largely inherited and barring any severe damage, we will tend toward a certain personal expression. Some of the twins separated at birth studies seem to suggest this.
There is no lack of emotional understanding in me, nor does there seem to be in any of the daughters on any board I've ever been on. What does seem different is that reward factor. What does the brain reward with pleasurable feeling? I think this is very along the lines of Pavlov's dog . I think our physiological responses can be trained without altering our basic emotional outlook or capacity. If that were not so, we would not have a much needed fear response to things like fire. But the brain doesn't always decide to pump adrenalin at the right time. How I handled my mother not coming when I cried and how my brain/body interpreted that in terms of its perception of the relationship between people and pleasure is in the realm of conditioned response. The difference between feeling that going to an event won't make a difference in my life and the feeling that it will be at least nice (like last time and the time before) is huge.
This in no way diminishes my innate capacity to care and feel for others, in fact I am valued (too much in my opinion!) as a counselor by people who know me. So as you say we do make deeper associations and I think understand others very well. The problem in my opinion is that I was not conditioned as a child to associate and feel pleasure when relating to others and that pattern seems to have played out through childhood and lingered on into middle and high school. BTW, I was about 5 and not 2 when the little boy took my truck. When I was 2 I was still alone with my mother in California while my father was on a Navy ship somewhere.
Oddly enough, when you ask me where I got my nurturing ability...the only kindness I remember in childhood was from my pets. I always had one!! So not everyone raised by a dog turns out badly...LOL. My mother worked and even the people she hired to care for us were cold distant "rule oriented" people. As far back as I remembered I nurtured things, even though no one nurtured me.
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Sealynx
interesting and I can understand what you're talking about here. I can relate to not having a 100% pleasure response to (anticipating/or) being with people.
I'm not sure if it's important to me though. I don't get to an event and see everyone else high: I see individuals, many many of whom are obviously stressed at the situation. I see far more differences in people in social situations. And as for people who eat up social interaction as though they're dependent on it, without paying any attention to others, individually ... there's a lot of it about.
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I agree Portia, but I think a theory can be useful without fulfilling the scientific requirement that it be universally applicable at all times and to everyone. What I have seen on many boards is a generalized pattern of discomfort in the area of friend formation. What I know from watching people around me is that most seem to have an emotional response to being with familiar people that is self generated. If you look at some of the personality disorders that involve traits of feelings of social isolation (such as Avoidant or Schizotypal), you will find that each mentions "having an emotionally detached or mentally ill parent"among the possible causation factors. Personality disorders are by definition extremes of behavior, they don't encompass those who show a tendency toward one or two traits, but that doesn't mean that the same forces aren't at work when milder forms present. Each also suggest that positive experiences in childhood are needed to reverse the disorder and little can be done in adulthood to reverse the trend. This suggest to me that the parts of the brain involved in relatedness are "set" in a similar way to what happens with speech.
When I got up this morning, something else about the Feral children program hit me. Many people who are essentially loners still take joy in relating to animals. Is that because at the point where their brain was looking for a social response it found it in small furry creatures and attached a healthy dose of endorphins to even the thought of them? I sat for a moment and compared my feelings about friends I had over this weekend with what I was feeling for my pet house rabbits.
I enjoyed getting up and fixing breakfast for the guys as I tend to enjoy nurturing people and one of the guys doesn't have any family at all. It was mother's day and I was glad he could be with us. I enjoyed playing games with them the night before. However, in terms of FEELING, in terms of the way my mood lifted, thinking about seeing my pets gave me a much more physical, tangible pleasure. It made me high even though they had much less to offer me in terms of interaction (other than a dirty pen to clean!!). I felt like we were part of each other. My body reacted to thoughts of them with a feeling of well-being. I wondered...is that what most people feel when they contemplate a night out with friends??
I also contemplated the reverse, people who were frightened by a large dog in childhood and continued to have issues with dogs all of their lives. They only had to see a dog to be frightened and the dogs seemed to know it! I had a friend recently who was attacked by a dog on a road frequented by runners and walkers. Why did the dog pick her? Probably because she is scared of dogs. Supposedly we can still "smell fear and friendliness" though we don't identify it as a smell, it may be responsible for that uneasy feeling in our stomachs around certain people.
Last night I wrote to a neurologist and asked if any research had been done on the relationship between social extroversion/introversion and related endorphin levels. She is also a psychiatrist with a radio program. If she writes back and seems open to a little more dialog I'm going to ask her about what she knows about NPD moms and related attachment disorders. Perhaps she can steer me to some good reading to share here.
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This is interesting.
I have been doing a little "Get Well "program of my own. I found a program on disassociation. It says you MUST force yourself to be real and present.
I began to force myself to share things I really felt --NOT what I though I should/looked good.
I was afraid--in a sense--but in another sense--I felt at peace.
This is ME. No one can shame me cuz I am not hiding.
So--I have found people who are not screwed up the way I am .
They all say I am normal LOL
It is strange to think that maybe I AM buried treasure who was always OK---just a regular person with all that entails.
I am thinking that is the case.
I called my M --yesterday. She cried that she missed me. I cried but I got off fast LOL
Can't take a good thing too far with an N :lol:
No--Siree.
My relationship with my guy is different. I try to take my hands off it .
I can be real and that is beautiful.
It is a winner relationship if you and he can be real.
You can't hold on to anything --really. Death is gonna take us all away--anyway
Ami
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I had normal routines with my childhood pet cat. I would feed her when she meowed, I would let her in or out when she mewed. She would follow me around outside in grassy fields. I would get catnip mouses for her. I remember my cat making eye contact with me.
I don't remember my mother making eye contact with me as a kid. I would guess that she did but I have no recollection of that as a child.
If my mother and my cat had photos in my highschool year book, I would look back at my cat and think "that was my friend", I would look back at my mother and think "I never knew that person very well, only passed in the hallways".
I think Narcissistic people are constantly threatened by their own children. Any child emotion, any child individuality.
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Helen,
I would bet that children who always had a pet did learn nurturing, eye contact, empathy, intuition and a host of other relational skills from the pet. This did not stop the brain from labeling social interaction with people as a cause for either no endorphins or added adrenal secretions because it was unrelated. So the skill set is there to relate to people, but the reward isn't.
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S: This is fascinating topic. I have never considered the Nar-issue from quite this angle before-in terms of endorphins vs adrenalin.
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Gaining Strength,
I agree that we can learn. My social skills have always been below my peers. But through reading and learning I learned to function in a social setting, engage in conversation, restrain my antisocial comments. But the learning has not made me feel better about myself. I anticipate that I will not fit in, that others will prefer the company of someone other than me. Deep down I feel I am a misfit in society. I am never relaxed, even with those I have known for decades. Outwardly, I am normal. Inside, I wait for the rejection. I expect to always be alone.
Logy - have you tried any techniques to challenge those thoughts? Paricularly the thoughts right here, " I anticipate that I will not fit in, that others will prefer the company of someone other than me. Deep down I feel I am a misfit in society. I am never relaxed, even with those I have known for decades." I have found and continue to find that identifying such thoughts and processing them is a very powerful agent of change for me. I have used Jeffrey Schwartz' 4 Steps, Ruiz' Four Agreements, EFT and now Byron Katie's The Work to help me shift these beliefs that are obstacles to the life I believe should be mine. Each of us respond to different concepts, perhaps there are others that would work for you. But the first question would be would you like to let go of these thoughts and then do you believe you can. If you answer "yes" to both then I encourage you to start your journey by looking for a process that feels great and conforms to your belief system.
Sending great encouragement and hope to you.
Just read more and want to add.
Regarding friends that I had as a child and adolescent, NM either criticized the friend or criticized the way I interacted with them. According to NM, I never made a good choice. And if I confided something I said to them, it was always wrong. As an adult I see now that NM made the same mistakes she accused me of. And has no long term friends.
One thing I do remember is always wanting to move to a different place. To start over. Where nobody knows me and I can try again.
The intangible. That intangible that is just out of my reach. Could be that attractive energy. So am I a born introvert? Or was I made a loner? Seems to me a born introvert would feel good about themselves. A loner feels bad about themselves.]
If you are at all like me, then it would be possible to assume that you are "stuck" in the emotional reaction that you experienced when your mother criticized your friend or your interaction. That it happened repeatedly over time suggests that your reaction probably was repeated as well and became a kind of cement that stuck you so that when the thought of making a friend came to you it also called up the anticipation of the negative emotional reaction to your mother's harsh and painful criticism. That would be enough to cause that entire natural longing to make friends come to a grinding halt. (I, of course am speaking out of me own experience. Apply it if it fits and throw away if not.)
I also see as an adult that my mother constantly projected onto me her own mistakes and fears and shorcomings. But I am also seeing, that even though I have lived into these things for years that I do not have to continue to repeat these patterns. My freedom has not come by wishing or hoping but be finding a way to bring up these painful experiences and processing that pain and eventually releasing it.
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Sealynx - I have come to believe that a key to this process is identifying the emotion attached to memories. In the two nursery school memories that you write about can you remember what emotion you felt? When that toy was taken away - how did you feel? When you tried to intervene in that fight, how did that feel and how did it feel when you were sent to the corner as a punishment for your kindness? Do you know how you felt?
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Yes, GS. I do remember. In all cases it was a feeling of resignation. Perhaps more telling was something that happened that ended my time at nursery school. I used to love to swing really high (perhaps providing the pleasurable stimulation that was missing in my life?). I fell off the swing one day on the playground and badly skinned my thigh. I did not cry or seek help and no one saw me fall because I got right up as if nothing had happened. My first feeling was not concern for my injury which I hoped would just go away, but fear of what my mother would do when she saw it. I told no one and did not cry. Of course my mother saw it when I got home, threw a fit and removed me from school. Even though I was very bright, the world didn't make great sense to me back then, probably because of my mothers sudden rages. My only defense was to hide things.
As I grew older this became my mother's favorite criticism of me, that I was too passive and didn't stand up for myself. That very physical feeling of resignation still attacks me when I sense something going wrong in a relationship. My body wants to give up immediately and save face in what it suddenly "feels" is a hopeless situation. I don't think we can separate the mind/body connection.
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I get it, Sealynx. I hadnt understood completely what you were saying.
I find that I dont look forward to being with a lot of people either but it doesnt really upset me that I dont. Does it bother you to not enjoy or look forward to that the way you see other people doing? Is it kinda like you wish you were different, but you dont know how?
This is a very good topic with a lot of possibiilties.
CB
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Exactly CB,
I wish that the thought of being with people filled me with the same contentment I feel at waking up to my pets in the morning. I don't ask to be exuberant with everyone just what I think may be the way someone with a better maternal response is able to feel. I know I missing a level of feeling in-between madly in love and indifferent (or perhaps resigned?).
If my theory is correct it also brings into question the value of dwelling on early negative patterns. I think it is important to consider what happened but I don't personally see the value in extensively reliving the emotions related to those feelings...after all, they are with me every time I meet people. If my theory is correct, the best fix for this (if one can be had) might be something similar to what is used with a person who has anxiety reactions to bugs or spiders. Building short positive experiences with the phobia rather than dwelling on how scared I am. The problem here is that bugs and spiders are easy to come by and practice with in controlled situations, people are not and part of the problem is an inability to attract the people in the first place.
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Helen, your comment - "I would bet that children who always had a pet did learn nurturing, eye contact, empathy, intuition and a host of other relational skills from the pet. This did not stop the brain from labeling social interaction with people as a cause for either no endorphins or added adrenal secretions because it was unrelated. So the skill set is there to relate to people, but the reward isn't."
I do agree. I do have the skill set to interact with people but don't feel that reward and peace that I feel when I interact with animals. I have always had a pet (from age 2 on). I always felt rewarded and acknowledged when I reached out to them. No matter what the reaction - a tail twitch, eye contact, coming over to me, rubbing up against me. Of course, people do interact with me when I approach them. But I don't feel the "ah, I'm happy" feeling I get with animals.
I remember when I was about 8 years old telling NM that I was never going to have children, just lots of animals. The message given to me as a child was that children were a burden. What is interesting to me is to watch old home movies - and specifically after my brother was born. NM doted on him, made eye contact, played with him, while I stood in the background or by the side. NM never looked at me. The only time I ever received any attention from her was when I was paying attention to brother. And as a child and an adult, brother is a social butterfly.
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Sealynx, could it be that heavy sadness and hopelessness are underneath that resignation?
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Gs,
I don't think the underlying emotion is what is important, if I'm right only its biochemistry remains embedded in the brain.. Whether it was hopelessness, sadness, anger or something else, if my brain was trained to respond to interpersonal encounters by producing the chemicals related to one of those feeling AND this occurred at a neurologically vulnerable time, when my brain was (like the speech example) imprinting relational responses, then I may well produce those chemicals in response to thoughts of being with people even today.
GS and All,
Hopelessness is a good example. Say the underlying chemical feed to me is hopelessness. When I approach others, no matter how lonely I am, my biochemistry produces some approximation of the the physical feeling of hopelessness that I must resist and overcome. It doesn't matter if I understand that I had a reason to feel hopeless and everything is fine now because it is not an intellectual response, it is a neurological response that may be reflexive in nature.
If the other person who meets me was at that same critical time treated to loving touch and a responsive environment, they will likely feel hopeful about the encounter and expect that it might contain a cocktail of relationship maintaining opiates that allow it to grow. No, they don't think that, they just expect to feel good while talking to someone new.
Therein may lie another interesting thought. It isn't just the approach that generates positive brain chemicals in children who were responded to in a positive way...It is likely that there are relationship maintaining chemicals that keep them engaged. How did their biochemistry change after being held for 5 minutes? 15? After feeling safe enough to fall asleep???
Since we were never engaged by our mothers what we know biochemically is likely to be something like bad feeling chemical followed by cut off. In other words our brains may not have been trained to continue responding and we find ourselves hard pressed to build on the initial encounter. Biochemically we may not have a relationship path other than to skip up to sexuality.
Certainly we all wouldn't have the same kind of responses here as not all of us were limited to one caregiver in childhood.
So...even though I can give a list of things I felt as a child and have come to terms with my crazy mother, and don't feel depressed or angry...I have yet to change the chemicals that flow out of my head when I meet someone, because those chemical may be set for life.
If something else, like a hobby or sex keeps me attached to the person and I have enough fun with them, I can probably increase the positive flow of anticipatory chemicals for that person and form a relationship with them... But the question may be...will they feel my lack of initial engagement, sense that I am not acting like our initial engagement is building and walk off before I have a chance to do all that???
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"Biochemically we may not have a relationship path other than to skip up to sexuality. " Interesting comment - hit a nerve for me. From age 13 until I was in my thirties, the only way I felt connected to another human was through sex.
I may have missed a point in previous comments but..............Sealynx, can you explain further?
Logy
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Logy,
I think sex is a good example. We think that our partner is responsible for orgasm, but actually our brain is responsible for orgasm. If we are not particularly motivated to have sex, our partner can do exactly the same thing they would when we are "in the mood" and nothing big happens for us.
Here is an interesting reply on a site run by Columbia University about the uses of sex...
http://www.goaskalice.columbia.edu/0483.html
In the above, a student asks if too much masturbation is bad and the answer talks about how the endorphins released can be addictive if sex is used to relieve depression rather than for pure enjoyment. It also talks about how laughter and other things release endorphins.
As we know, sexual feelings BUILD to orgasm, we don't just join some parts and instantly have the big one (as some men are prone to believe!). I couldn't find a link to it but I believe that in one of Dr. Christiane Northrups books (famous gynecologist) she talks about the different chemicals the brain puts out to SUSTAIN our interest during sex.
So back to the idea of endorphins maintaining and building on an experience. Since the increasing rush of endorphins leads to orgasm, could something similar be happening when people have an enjoyable conversation with each other. Certainly they don't at some point fall down writhing in ecstasy but if you look at the example I used in another post of the mother and baby, their brains have probably been trained to prolong pleasurable contact with another by making them feel better and better.
So if the first part of a conversation goes well (for a person with positive parenting history) then those chemicals that allowed the baby to relax in mother's arms kick in and build an increasing sense of comfort and security. If I'm right, we start out having to overcome the negative chemical related to our early imprinting and then have to literally jump start the happy part of our brain and keep it happy until something about the other person strongly interests us. Many of us probably lack the ability to look forward to being with another human automatically and we don't necessarily move naturally toward greater engagement because we never went there in infancy and don't have that brain pattern. It is all about the pattern in our brain.
So if this is true...what can we do about it...I'm thinking on that one.
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Hi Sealynx - I've been reading & pondering - this is an excellent topic! One thing stood out to me:
I don't think we can separate the mind/body connection.
Well, yeah - there are so many connections, conscious & unconscious between the mind & body that it appears futile to even think about it. However, it IS possible to watch, observe, & study those connections - and also learn where the "switches" are that generate our ingrained mental, emotional, relational "habits". After learning where those switches are, it is also possible to intervene in reflex flips of the switch... to whatever our "pattern"is. (I'm sort of reminding myself of this too, as I'm explaining...)
This kind of observation is best learned through a physical activity that requires proprieception (awareness of the body) like yoga or tai chi. I'm sure those aren't the only ways... but I do know this HELPS. Even in relating to, interacting with, other people.
Your original post really connected with me. It's something I've thought a lot about - repeatedly - and have no hard/fast answers. The idea that because of flawed attachment to mother.... we never learned certain social cues or skills, that affect our present lives in ways we'd change - if only we knew how to re-wire our brains. Well - we can rewire our brains, however the process isn't magical, easy, or quick. Just like stroke victims can re-establish neural pathways and recover speech, the use of an arm or a leg - with enough practice.
Logically, one would ask: if you've never experienced that feeling of peace, connection, or "being with" someone - how do you know when you "get there"? Sometimes - you don't - until reflecting on the experience later. But when you're aware of it in the moment - you just "know". It's all part of the learning & rewiring process.
And the question of "is this (connecting with others) important"? winds up being one of personal preference. Some people like being connected to lots of people, being very busy socially, having their phone ring constantly with another friend... some of us actually DO LIKE and even NEED more solitude than that... and that's OK, too. My "processing" brain gets overloaded & overwhelmed when in a large group of people... so even though I would like to be more comfortable in groups and continue to try different things to "make it so"... I also know I'm allowed to ask for and maintain my restorative "cone of solitude" until I get myself recentered.
I'm wondering if there's another question behind the question you asked?? Like maybe you're really asking if it's "OK" to be a hermit? Or deciding how important those connections are to you....
:D Anyway there is a ton of food for thought in this thread and it's sounds like it might be a relief to put it out here for you. Your posts always get me thinking about things, sometimes from a whole different angle.
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However, it IS possible to watch, observe, & study those connections - and also learn where the "switches" are that generate our ingrained mental, emotional, relational "habits". After learning where those switches are, it is also possible to intervene in reflex flips of the switch... to whatever our "pattern"is. (I'm sort of reminding myself of this too, as I'm explaining...)
Yes but look at all we have to do in order to do that. And I have found that recognizing the pattern and knowing what the switch is aren't that helpful. The switch is encountering another person. Perhaps practicing Yoga every day and upping my meditation sessions to four hours a day would put me in a state of eternal bliss where I would love everyone...but then I wouldn't have time to go out and when I found my endorphins running out while the other person seems to be becoming more engaged I couldn't stop and do a quick lotus position!!!
Let's take a quick look at what we know about a real disorder involving the inability to form close personal relationships. Granted this is much more severe than we are dealing with here but the suggestion that something that goes wrong in childhood may not be repaired later is there....
Here is a quote from the Mayo Clinics info on Schizotypal personality disorder, which is an extreme form of interpersonal dysfunction..
Definition
By Mayo Clinic staff
Schizotypal personality disorder is a serious condition in which a person usually has few to no intimate relationships. These people tend to turn inward rather than interact with others, and experience extreme anxiety in social situations.
People with schizotypal personality disorder often have trouble engaging with others and appear emotionally distant. They find their social isolation painful, and eventually develop distorted perceptions about how interpersonal relationships form. They may also exhibit odd behaviors, respond inappropriately to social cues and hold peculiar beliefs.
Now look at what is says about treatment...
Schizotypal personality disorder typically begins in early adulthood and may endure throughout life. There's no cure for schizotypal personality disorder, but psychotherapy and some medications may help. Some research suggests that positive childhood experiences may help reduce symptoms of schizotypal personality disorder in affected young people.
Why only young people??? Could it be that at some point the brain will not let go of a relating pattern and keeps pumping those negative feelings?? Could it also be that unlike using good spiders to overcome a fear of spiders, that our limited ability to attract and keep people makes it much harder to build a neurological inventory of good associations in adulthood???
I do enjoy my time alone and don't feel the need for people very often, but I do wish I could feel their fascination with each other. I think that with enough motivation nothing is impossible but in this case we have a lot working against us. Like the child..we need to build positive associations. That means that bad relationships may damage us much more than the average person because they support our existing emotional predisposition. We may also need to avoid dwelling on those negative feelings from our past.
This brings up an interesting question about therapy. Once we know what happened and make the association between our current feelings about being with people and negative parenting...Is it good to dwell on all the pain and negative emotions which appear to be our natural inclination? Does that just make it stronger and our attitudes more entrenched? Would it be better to engage in supportive therapy that focused on expanding the happiness in our lives as many New Age philosophies extol???
In any case I think this strongly suggests that we should work very hard to guard our brain from negative emotions and people of any kind.
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Sealynx, two questions occur to me:
is there such a thing as a 'good' spider? (I think not.)
Seriously:
I do enjoy my time alone and don't feel the need for people very often, but I do wish I could feel their fascination with each other.
What is this thing that you see happening between other people, this 'fascination'? Can you describe an example of what you mean, because, I wonder if you're missing out as much as you may imagine. Because if you can see it, I would guess that you're capable of it, that you have it. On the other hand, your perception and interpretation of other people interacting may not be accurate.
Negative people can bring you down for sure. But then you get to practice running your own brain and deciding its status regardless of other people.
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LOL...Sounds like you don't like our spider sisters and brothers!! Actually some cultures consider them to be lucky! Most of the ones who don't hide in the dark, or have a big red hour glass on their back are harmless.
Perhaps fascination is not the right word and it would be wrong to assume that my level of interest in this topic is equal to the amount of suffering it causes me. I'm not fascinated with my pets in the morning but the thought of being with them gives me a feeling of well-being. I automatically feel good when I think of visiting with them. It is not a huge feeling. It is a subtle comfort zone that is missing with people. I would hate to leave this life missing anything!
I also like ideas and the more I read about this one, the more it intrigues me. I learned yesterday that there is a "Reward Deficiency Syndrome". While it is related to genetic issues in children of addicts, the concept is interesting. It could be, as the Mayo Clinic data suggests, that there is a relationship between age related intervention (brain development?) and deprivation that is not related to genetics.. A lot of research into addiction suggests that addicts are seeking to avoid depression or anxiety by providing their brain with "substitute" feel good chemicals. No major studies that I can find have been done on the genetics, brain function, or addiction patterns in children of N's. There are also addictions that often are not treated, such as eating and shopping.
I've also read things on depression that suggest that the younger someone is when they suffer depressive episodes, the more likely they are to repeat. Brain patterning again?? Of course none of this is useful unless you can change it. Studies suggest that often you can't without medication. While I certainly don't advocate not taking medication if you need it or discussing feelings with a therapist...I do think all of this suggests that we take REALLY good care of our moods and avoid the people, places and things that produce depressive chemicals.. That strongly supports going NC, leaving Mr. Wrong, dissing friends who put us down and generally protecting ourselves from negative environments rather than blaming ourselves for not being able to handle them.
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That means that bad relationships may damage us much more than the average person because they support our existing emotional predisposition.
This is a very important statement in the thesis you're developing, Sea. IMHO. In some ways, those early relationships make us more vulnerable and sensitive to later "bad" relationships. And yes, reinforcement of a belief that somehow people aren't safe or fun to be around... can get, let's say, "out of hand". The statement is important, but I can't yet place it anywhere on the "good/bad" scale... whether it's opening a possibility of shooting oneself in the foot or not.
I wouldn't go so far as to throw myself into sappy, "everybody be happy" fantasies either - because they're just as distorted, to my way of thinking, as the other extreme. But on the other hand, I've found that sometimes I've worried excessively, needlessly, and flat-out wrongly about what other people think/feel about me in relationships and their motives - what their "payoff" in the relationship is. My perception is skewed by that reinforced belief and the more I retreat into solitude and my own little bubble of existence... the more I sense I'm missing an opportunity to get out of my own boring rut.
Slowly but surely, I think I'm seeing that there simply aren't any "rules" about relationships and how they're "supposed" to be. That crap belongs to the universe of neglect/abuse between people and it frightens me, when I hear public figures start talking about making those kinds "rules" for other groups of people... I don't want to digress into that topic, though.
A couple things I'm learning at the moment about how people work together: communication - learning the language of the other and teaching the other my language opens a gate or a door between us. The opening is between our boundaries as individuals. Some people will freely pass through that opening, being self-confident, comfortable or attracted enough to enter into my shoes, my world as a visitor. Some people need an invitation - engraved, with RSVP too - before they are comfortable doing this. Some people enjoy being in another's space more; some people want to have company in their space instead.
I seldom invite people into my space. (makes for an interesting relationship with my husband!!) My fear & distrust of my own ability to tell trustworthy people from the other kind... was the ultimate reason why. Well, that's changing now. My MIL lives here full time. We are still working out routines, customs, etc. We respect each other's space, though that's becoming less formal now. I am also being visited in my new house by many people... and as hostess, feel that I am obligated to completely opening my "boundaries" to accomodate what the vistor(s) wish to do. That's uncomfortable, sometimes - but I can manage that better, for my own sanity I think; I'm still learning. Then, being in a new neighborhood, we're being invited to many more social activities than I'm accustomed to... it's a pretty social group, here and I've lived the last 30 years of my life being a hermit. I don't want to give the impression of rejecting them - sight unseen - but on the other hand, I'm very tentative and worried about my ability to relax in situations with groups of new people; I usually tend to retreat to the "tried & true" old strategies that I know are self-defeating...
... but such are the constraints placed on me by my past conditioning: that I am such an outcast, misfit, that I'm unfit to be around "normal" people and should be ashamed of myself for thinking I belong with them. At the core of my social hesitation and discomfort - that is the feeling that is controlling me - and that I'm trying to let go, outwit, trick, and work through.
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PR,
As I noted to Portia, this is not about ecstasy at the thought of other people. It is more of a subtle base feeling that things will go well and spending time with people will most likely be more rewarding in a feel good sense than staying home alone. I have heard over and over on boards that the base feeling is not even a mild anticipation...more of overcoming either indifference or mild apprehension. I think is very different from what most people feel.
Good luck with those neighbors and don't hesitate to instigate a new boundary even if you tolerated the behavior yesterday. Neighbors can be difficult learning material because you often don't realize their shortcomings and the need to establish a boundary until they've trampled it. Many things you don't notice at first can become problematic. For instance I learned too late that one of my neighbors is an alcoholic and is not someone I want at my home, especially when entertaining colleagues! He helped me put up a ceiling fan when I moved in and I ended up giving him far more access to my social life than he could handle. Another neighbor was quite friendly and even introduced me to people outside the neighborhood I enjoyed meeting and have become friends with. Unfortunately she has no sense of decorum and freely disseminates information about me to relative strangers that I consider private and personal. Asking her to stop doesn't work. There is no filter between her brain and her mouth and I have seen her do the same thing to people who have emphatically asked her not to say certain things...one is even a cancer victim who doesn't want his condition known. Once gets going..she forgets!! In general the people around me seem to enjoy getting together for alcohol every afternoon. I have nothing against alcohol but I need more emotional and intellectual engagement than it provides.
When I moved here I didn't have any support system in this new community, but neighbors aren't always the best friends. If I had to do it over again I would keep to myself and seek new associations by reaching out to people via special interest clubs or organizations.
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Amber:
Some people will freely pass through that opening, being self-confident, comfortable or attracted enough to enter into my shoes, my world as a visitor.
Interesting description. I think i do this, although I do it out of interest...(oh to see if I can *help*?!) ...perhaps I do it now simply to get a check on someone (i.e. 'mostly harmless', or not). Very very rarely will I invite someone into my space, although my other half does get invited, probably a lot to his chagrin. Well it's reciprocal.
Sealynx
I know about the wee critters but it's *fun* to observe my reaction to the harmless, big,hairy ones that really get me. The tiny fatal ones don't bother me! I think it's the movement that's the worse thing....scuttling...yuk. I can't kill any of them though.
The 'mild apprehension' before meetings - I can get this, but I think it's based on being too realistic. I have a very good idea of how things will turn out with people, and I can imagine too well how I will be tired, ratty, head-full-up etc. I can imagine the good feelings too, so try and concentrate on those.
PS agreed aboutneighbours. I'm one and I can be a right PITA. 8)
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Portia,
Before Katrina I was unknowingly living in a house that was a virtual breeding ground for Brown Recluse Spiders! My landlord who lived behind me in a flourplex had the building raised and didn't replace the mud under the slab because he wanted watch for plumbing leaks for several months. It filled with water, attracting breeding insects to the dark space and made it a perfect spider nest. He was bitten by a spider hiding in his jeans!!! He was also an engineer who lived a spartan existence, giving the spiders very few dark places to hide. Apparently my love of furniture, books and art supplies gave them more room to hide and allowed us a peaceable existence! I never saw one out in the open.
The 'mild apprehension' before meetings - I can get this, but I think it's based on being too realistic.
Don't we always give a name to the things we feel in our bodies?? But the question here is more chicken or the egg. When we look back, we see all the reasons we have for feeling the way we do. But before we knew those reasons...when our mother didn't come when we cried, when we didn't feel safe in her arms...at all of those times the brain was putting out stress hormones. So the tendency may have preceded the reasons because the body preceded the logical mind.
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Good grief. Brown recluse spiders. How do you cope with that?????
It is like a metaphor for what lurks out there. If we focus too much on our fears we cant function. But there is a point where you have to call the bug specialist.
Body memories are so powerful and offer a key to the feelings of anxiety, loneliness and downright panic at social interaction. If we ignore them, they get worse. They provide such good information and intuition about what is going on.
I've been reading Alice Miller and she feels that one has to look at toxic parenting and really get into the feelings involved. Most people would rather die than face that their parents did not love them. Or they repeat what happened in childhood with uncaring narcissistic partners. It is all part of the same labyrinth.
Sea storm
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SS,
LOL!! My landlord was a "piece of work" in many ways. He wasn't a bad guy just a very bright young man from a very bad family. His dad was a terrible alcoholic and his mom a heavy smoker who died of cancer when he was in High school. If you wanted bug spray you had to buy your own! He hadn't been socialized for such things!! I would have done something had I realized what was going on but the spiders never bothered me because they had lots of cool places to hide other than my jeans!! I learned of the issue right before Katrina, I was at that time looking to buy a home anyway.
I like Alice Millers work and don't in any way think that denying what happened to us is a good thing. I just don't think that dwelling on the feelings is a good thing. I've read several recent studies on the toxic effects depression has on the brain and feel it is my best interest to limit feeling sorry for myself once I have an understanding of what went wrong. I see no reason to look back and every reason to ask myself what small or large pleasures I can create for myself in every moment.
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I like Alice Millers work and don't in any way think that denying what happened to us is a good thing. I just don't think that dwelling on the feelings is a good thing. I've read several recent studies on the toxic effects depression has on the brain and feel it is my best interest to limit feeling sorry for myself once I have an understanding of what went wrong.
The balance between the two is difficult indeed. I have been walking that line for some time. I finally landed in the concept of going back into the pain in order to transform that memory. It has been very helpful. Had I been able to find any other way to get out of the omnipresent anxiety I would have but I still think that going back was essential for me. I could not have done it without having identified a way to take that memory and shift my reaction to it - a way to detach while holding the memory so that the pain was visible but not sending the stress release to my brain.
I'm not sure why I am writing this. i don't think I am trying to persuade you but maybe it is a part of my own process - not quite sure.
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I'm trying to make sense of this topic relating the neurotransmitters to emotions and emotions to objects and conditioned responses.
I think I'm really not knowledgeable enough from a science perspective to piece it together that way.
Stop me if I'm psychoanalysing too much: it seems to me that the contentment you feel around your rabbits may be like self contentment. When a person feels very comfortable and whole in one's self. Maybe the rabbits represent the vulnerable childlike side of you. I think that maybe you trust your rabbits more then you trust people. Maybe you plus rabbit=a wholeness.
I wonder if that kind of contentment is not exactly the same as a conditioned response. I'm not sure.
I almost wonder if you are suppressing feelings around humans but not around the rabbits?
In terms of brain chemicals I don't know how that works. If one is suppressing emotions it means that the emotion is happening on a more unconscious level, so it's occurring in the brain but the person is not experiencing it?
There is a feeling that sounds like what you have described: The feeling of numbness.
Could it be that the current feelings are there within you but you are not tuned into them. Like the radio is turned way down low.
I see that you have written that you don't want to dwell on the darker sad feelings of the past. So not masochistically reliving the past continually.
About the emotional processing: I think there are different types of emotional patterns. Some people do get on a go nowhere obsessive thought-emotion loop. There are also emotions that come and go like laughing with friends, or crying with friends.
I think emoting is good and bad, the pleasant and unpleasant come together.
It also depends on the people and the social situation right, I mean all dynamics are different.
I personally don't go out to clubs, I live in a very club-filled city it's what people do for entertainment. They get all dressed up and then they go out and judge each other. The whole thing is not about contentment. It's about achieving a certain social image I think. When someone is trendy enough, hot enough, rich enough then they have won that social competition. So they drink and present themselves then look around and accept or reject based on fashion magazine type image.
I think it's ok if not every person likes to do that. Some people go to Antarctica and study neutrinos instead.
But I guess even Antarctica has a club.
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Hi Helen,
I've always had a really big question for traditional talk therapy....What if you already know all your deep dark secrets have worked through them and nothing changed???
The dominant belief that most people have today is that therapists are supposed to uncover emotions and the issue surrounding them at which point some magic happens. They are supposed to create "ah-ha" moments for the clients and help them discover things they didn't know about themselves. That process is supposed to effect positive change unless the problem is biochemical such as is evident in bi-polar disorder. Then meds are used in conjunction with supportive therapy to help the patient manage and stay on an effect dose of the drug. The few times I went to therapy in my early thirties I spent a lot of time nodding my head to the therapists insights...I'd already knew those things. I'm a very insightful person.
With the exception of the drug therapy this is the model that has been around since Freud and Jung. This is the approach that majority of books have been written about and are still being written in support of. Knowledge about the biochemistry of the brain and how it develops is a much more recent advancement and one that is still developing. The best science comes from long term studies which means a new idea may take 20 years to be validated..
A good example of this is the way Alcoholism was treated when I was 30. It was treated as a personal problem and people were placed in a 12 STEP programs that relied on some form of a "higher power". Today, the first thing a treatment center will do is run a full spectrum of tests to look for a chemical imbalance, assuming that the person is self-medicating for some biochemical reason.
At 40 I was probably very interested in what I was "hiding emotionally" because I bought heavily into the idea that I must have buried something and once I dug it up, I'd feel differently. I think I even invented a few feelings I didn't have and agonized over their possible existence just to make sure I wasn't skipping anything. After all, we daughters have no problem finding things that are wrong with ourselves!
But no matter how many feelings I uncovered, those feelings did not alter my need to be around people . In fact what I learned in that decade was more in the realm of behavior patterns encouraged by my parents that were causing me problems with others. It was much more "healing" to put an end to the people pleasing and acting out to avoid my insecurities than to uncover some deep dark fear or hurt.
At 59 I don't feel I suppress much of anything and tend to express what I am feeling at any given point very clearly (which a few men have found rather disconcerting!!). I don't feel that some deep psychological issue is "holding me back from joy." Looking back I just see that my general feeling about being with people has a lifelong undercurrent. I use the bunnies as an example of what it may feel like to have a positive emotional response to being around people because it is the best one I can come up with. As I watch my neighbors gather just to be together every afternoon I really don't know what they are feeling.
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Why does anybody tell a story? It does indeed have something to do with faith--faith that the universe has meaning, that our little human lives are not irrelevant, that what we choose or say or do matters, matters cosmically. Madeleine L'Engle 1918-2007
CB - your tag line seems really apropos to this topic, at least for me. Portia... that gate and inviting people in... if I don't invite people in - take a chance, give people a chance to tell their stories... if I don't do that, I'm afraid I might be missing something!! Not sure what that something is, though... it's not like I have a strong herd-instinct; in fact, I'm not overly fond of herds of people or being in them. But individually, each being in the herd, I know have their own stories.
Maybe I'm just insatiably curious about people and things and the universe. Or maybe I'm just suffering "terminal ennui" all alone in my own story, you know??
Sea: I get what you're saying about indifference. And I do agree with you about how tedious certain social activities are, especially when centered on alcohol and a self-centered group dynamics. Frankly, it's pretty boring. I learned early on in those HS years, that I didn't need to "belong" to any cliche and after one or two attempts, decided that I was happiest being able to "float" through lots of them - not really belonging as "member"; not needing that level of acceptance - but I was interested enough in one or two people in each group, that I would get to know them. I sort of developed the role of being an outside observer this way... maybe lone wolf... but it wasn't so much that I was preying on these groups; just subsisting at some primal level.
I would hesitate to try to fill in the blanks of a "norm" for social interaction and friends, still. For me, it is what it is. I'm a hard person to get to know (in person) and I don't have the same level of need for external stimuli in the form of other people, like "normals" do. So, for me - no rules about what's good/bad, normal or weird - is best. I'm just trying to decide if I'm rejecting other people out of ingrained habit, and perhaps missing an opportunity to hear their stories and I am willing to set aside judgement based on appearances & first impressions to see if there is "more" to the story than is first projected. How I feel about invitations and other people, is sort of irrelevant to that kind of curiousity. I just don't want to hide or be a hermit - because that's what "I've always done". I want to get out of that comfort zone some... just for something different. Who knows? maybe I'll end up right back where I started!
(((Sea))) This is still, to my way of thinking, an important line of inquiry... have at it!!
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CB,
Glad someone else didn't find that talking fixed things... Based on the theory I've discussed here, I worry about people who are encouraged to re-experience the intensity of the pain of their childhood to the extent that it results in extreme depression. I think one day the value of re-traumatizing the brain in that way will be called into question. It is one thing to know that you were traumatized and to find the reason why you feel a certain way or learn the traits of people traumatized in that way so you can work to deal with them more effectively. It is quite another to be encouraged to concentrate on recreating the pain of things that you can do nothing about in the present. As noted studies seem to indicate that depression is not good for the brain and can even lower immune responses. It would make more sense to me to have someone engage in trust and positive experience exercises such as the volunteer work you suggest than to engage in the prolonged recreation of terrible feelings. Once is more than enough!
I have to say my 50's have been very satisfying too, but as I approach 60 I realized that I don't have much time to enjoy the things I've always wanted to do but didn't because I was alone. I get on very well in short encounters with strangers and can engage literally anyone in a conversation. However those conversations are often all I feel the need for. I seldom develop 'friends" though I would really like to have more people who share my interests, like kayaking. I'd love to have some people to go out boating with who were equally involved in a hobby like photography. Some of the area sporting goods stores offer outings but most are centered around fishing.
PR,
I hated high school, don't attend any of my reunions and certainly don't miss the people I knew. I retain almost no friends from the time before I was 35 or so and cringe at the thought of meeting anyone from that time period. I just finished a book called "Where's My Wand" by Eric Poole. It is a story of very sensitive little boys journey from outcast to a sense of self-reliance. He moves from magical thinking based on his love of Eudora in Bewitched, to bargaining with the Baptist version of God and then finally learns that the only way to make sense of the world is to rely on himself and not hope for external miracles. It reminded me a lot of my childhood.
I tend to favor groups that share intellectual interests more than social. I have been wanting to attending a Manifesting group that meets in New Orleans but it meets on Wednesday nights and the round trip dive is 90 miles. Living where I do means I'm safe from flooding and don't have to evacuate but it is also very isolating. I know there are some cool people here but I've yet to find them.
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Amber:
Portia... that gate and inviting people in... if I don't invite people in - take a chance, give people a chance to tell their stories... if I don't do that, I'm afraid I might be missing something!! Not sure what that something is, though... it's not like I have a strong herd-instinct; in fact, I'm not overly fond of herds of people or being in them. But individually, each being in the herd, I know have their own stories.
Maybe I'm just insatiably curious about people and things and the universe. Or maybe I'm just suffering "terminal ennui" all alone in my own story, you know??
Agreed. But: I've heard quite a few stories; people seem to like telling me....then again, it depends on who you mix with, perhaps. - I'm reading Dan Gilbert atm and every so often I think: you're not writing this book for people like me, you're writing this book for middle-class degree+ educated people with a certain income level and type of lifestyle. He drops me from time to time because of that. There are also cultural differences which stop the flow for me. $1.80 for a Starbucks???! Am i missing something...I don't feel like it any more. But we have to structure our time somehow and like you, I remain curious about people, life. Not as curious as I used to be. 'All alone in {your} own story' - not sure what you mean by that Amber?
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P, being comfortable alone is like repeating a one-note melody... being with other people, in all degrees of relationship, allows for chords, harmonic & bass lines that weave in & out of the melody... with multiple rhythms... etc for a whole symphony. Sorry that's not a direct answer to your question; not sure I have much better than that to describe what I mean. By myself, I have only my own perceptions, thoughts, knowledge, history and emotions... interacting with others, sharing, talking, doing things... expands that "universe" or "story".
All alone in my own story, I feel like Clint Eastwood in Josey Wales when he says: a man has to know his own limitations. All alone in my own story, I felt unable to do a damn thing about those limitations... I was simply working with too small a data set... and once I found a way to interact with others outside my normal comfort zone... the data set grew; the sample size increased; and the range itself even seemed wider. All alone in my own story, my definition of those limitations - my perception of them - were all WRONG and I couldn't even know that... because I was only seeing, knowing, perceiving, experience the inside of my own story-bubble.
I know I'm probably not making a lot of sense... it's a hard thing for me to put into words; not sure if pictures would help - haven't thought about that until now.
SEA: I just finished a book similar to the one you described, that is "feeding" some of my creativity again and probably adding some shading to what I've said on this thread... and that you might like too. It's The Magicians - by Lev Grossman. It started out seeming like a Harry Potter story for adults; but by the end of it, I was finding and being touched by some very deep themes that still haven't completed reached the verbal part of my brain yet. I haven't read a novel like this, in some time (have been a lifelong voracious reader). I dove in and finished it in 2 days - and literally couldn't put it down. It was one of those books I'd picked up out of a table full somewhere... added to the stack... packed up in boxes... moved... and finally decided to open, last week. Even if the themes I see in it don't resonate with you... it was still quite entertaining and a good distraction while we have a pretty grey & rainy week.
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Thanks PR,
I just downloaded a copy using the Doc's Amazon link.
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Amber:
All alone in my own story, I felt unable to do a damn thing about those limitations... I was simply working with too small a data set... and once I found a way to interact with others outside my normal comfort zone... the data set grew; the sample size increased; and the range itself even seemed wider. All alone in my own story, my definition of those limitations - my perception of them - were all WRONG and I couldn't even know that...
I think I understand and can agree exactly with what you mean. It's finding that way I guess.
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Hi Helen,
I've always had a really big question for traditional talk therapy....What if you already know all your deep dark secrets have worked through them and nothing changed???
Yeah, I know what you mean, my experiences with talk-therapy have been disappointing also. Taking antidepressants hasn't improved the way I feel about socializing. The only thing that changes the way I feel about socializing is if I like the people a lot and the event.
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I 'socialised' today: a meeting with a neighbor and a public body, at my instigation. It was a stressful subject for all parties. I monitored myself and the others and it was interesting. I heard emotional appeals, blame-shifting, pure bullshit, covert bullying and I ended up thinking (1) why does it seem that the vast majority of people simply cannot do their jobs? and (2) it's pointless me listening to any more BS from these people, I'll have to write and see it what happens. Which is a shame. And someone, somewhere in a position of authority (their bloody job) is telling lies about events and facts. Crazy. But other than that, i found the 'socialising' pretty easy and stress-less. It helps knowing that most people are completely screwed up. It shows in their language and their attempts at manipulation. Pathetic. I think: just do your job. Just get it right. Follow the damn rules. I like a quiet life. But other people behaving badly interrupts that and <sigh>. It's no big deal. I choose to divert myself with it. And it's always good experience to 'socialise' and see how you get on. Isn't it?
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Helen,
I do best when I enjoy the activity as well, in fact it much easier for me to make friends if we are involved in activities rather than just spending time together.
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Oh Portia would you PLEEEZ secretly in vapor form attend my staff meeting with me tomorrow?
Your observations would be worth their weight in philosophers' stones, seriously.
Sigh. Uggh.
Think of me at 9:00 am EST, as I'll be maintaining a pleasant demeanor amid the waves of ego and puffery.
Igggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhh.
love,
Hops
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LOL Portia!!!
It was when I was having those kinds of observations in the same kind of meetings, that I realized by going through the healing I've done (and yes, via therapy - more cognitive, though I talked a great deal!!)...
in reality, I had more "power" than the folks with the fancy title and big paycheck - they were so out of touch with reality - facts - and themselves (no self-awareness) - that all they believed they were "doing" amounted to some odd dance of self-delusion. They didn't even know they had a choice to be different!!!!
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Hops, only just checked in but hope you breezed the meeting? Bet you did!
Amber - the odd dance of self-delusion, yes, that sounds bout right. thank you. And yes, no concept of my being very reasonable in the 'compromise' I'm suggesting, oh no. No concept of being different, stepping out of the role of all-powerful piece of **** vs. silly little woman. People. Mmmm yes. I used to this but differently. Now I know that I have that choice, even in the midst of it, I can still muse...what if I just walk away right now? (no chance, but it is an option.) 8) Activity even like this has positive effects. Bonding with neighbor for example.
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SL: I'm thinking about the concept of mind/brain sculpting. The claim is that visualizing an event in the mind starts to makes new neural networks. It's like when sports players visualize success.
Could some new emotional success (or what would it be called) be visualized to change the way a person feels?
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...visualising emotional success changing feelings...yes i think so. Example: if I decide to look after my own feelings (thinks: doing that re: that person makes me feel bad) instead of doing the usual of thinking about their feelings, what I should do etc...if I think: if I don't do that (or if I do that) instead, I might not have those bad feelings, and if I act on that idea - the bad feelings lift and instead I can feel good about looking after myself.
So I imagined I might feel different, I acted, and did indeed feel different.
How simplistic was that example?
Feeling good can be a range of things from refusing to feel anxious about someone else's drama, to letting it go, to actively seeking to do those things which affirm your life and beliefs.
At this point i wonder who is writing this post. It doesn't sound like 'me', which is interesting.
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I am a big fan of the book, "The Brain that changes itself". This can be done but you have to jump through some hoops to get there. The biggest problem is that many of us don't know how certain states of being can feel. It is like the example I gave a while back about the child whose first day at the beach is made wonderful by supportive parents who only show her the fun that can be had VS. the parents who frighten the child with all that can go wrong from rip currents to sharks. Child number two cannot recapture what she never knew because her feelings are forever tainted. She could if she managed to force herself, lessen her fear by hanging with people who loved the water, but it would be unlikely that she would ever know certain levels of open water aquatic comfort.
The same can be said of our expectations of people. Yes, we can make some changes but because we have never known certain states of innocence with people, it would be hard to visualize them. I would think it would be easier to visualize yourself doing a move, like dunking a basketball, that can be watched practiced and copied, than it would be to visualize a feeling you never had in its untainted state.
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Yes, I mean changing one feeling for another, but within my normal range. There are some feelings I just won't ever feel, I imagine. I know what those feelings are intellectually and I believe that people experience them. How does that make me feel. Envious, angry, depressed, sad, resigned.
Then I wonder just how many people live like that, for how long. is this imagined existence all that different from mine? Are there plusses and minuses on both 'sides'? That grey spectrum makes me feel very differently from the basic emotional responses.
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I would love to invent a machine that allowed us to try on someone's brain for a day...It would be cool to rent brains that already knew how to do many things, not just at the intellectual level but at the feeling level as well. For instance how much better to start a new business with a Donald Trump feeling about money! I think in the end it is all about energy and the quality that we manifest.
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I've seen and heard about newbiz start ups, met the folks. Some have no caution or idea of the pitfalls. Then they blame external factors when it fails. I'm very very cautious. Our Alan Sugar makes like a big Trump, but his money is from property investments, not from Apprentice-like start-ups. But who cares! Money consumes people. It's just a tool (mostly used badly). If it is all about energy and our quality, I'm probably living in the wrong century and civilisation...
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Somebody turned me on to the work of a designer who would like to do away with the whole monetary system and have everyone work for a uniform quality of life that was wonderful. Everyone would do what they were best at and could enjoy. Not likely that people would give up greed and selfishness for such a world but his ideas are cool.
http://www.thevenusproject.com/youtube-video
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I would love to invent a machine that allowed us to try on someone's brain for a day...It would be cool to rent brains that already knew how to do many things, not just at the intellectual level but at the feeling level as well..
Ooo Sealynx I love that idea. I would love to try different brains, especially at the feeling level.
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Hi Sea...
I remember your Beach metaphor... it's similar to a homework exercise I had in therapy - to draw pictures of different feelings. I had a full page of logo-type symbols on the "bad" feeling side and only a few on the "good" side - and it didn't even occur to me to try to draw "happy". That's been a long time ago now.
And it just came up the other day, for me, with my brother - a business event was very successfully completed yet he wasn't happy about it, at all. And I had one of those split-second realizations about how different our realities are - yet I USED to be in his reality, all the time. I used to not be able to describe "happy"; didn't know how that feeling actually FELT; didn't believe it EXISTED.
Didn't this thread start out wondering about what it felt like to be excited, looking forward to an event? Versus anxiety, dreading, or just indifference? Aren't they just flip sides (yin/yang) of the same experience? If A exists, then B does too. The yin/yang symbol isn't an either/or, B or W, symbol - it's an "AND" - and the teeny, tiny place in the tails is where negative turns positive in processes and vice versa - yet there always exists the black circle in the white, etc. A&B co-exist continually. If it exists, you can find it; experience it; feel it.
I'm not sure at all about the criteria of a process - the how-to - but I am sure that it is possible to learn new feelings for most people, even if you can't recall feeling that feeling before... like in your beach example. Helen's idea has merit; some people might actually be able to build a completely visualized experience in their imagination, right down to sensory & emotional input... and so be able imagine a new experience and new feelings. But another way would be to go exploring out into the world - a voyage for new experiences, new ways of being - a voyage of discovery... and being open to what comes without superimposing our old experience of "this is what I always feel in THAT situation"... and maybe, when fear is involved, it requires having a trusted "buddy" or "wingman" to go along and back you up... until the fear dissapates and confidence replaces it.
There must be other ways of "how-to", too. I can't really say how I moved from A to B; what I did. I can't pinpoint exactly what changed... or how... or why... if it was something that just magically "happened"... or if I was working on bits & pieces of it all at once and was too zoomed in on those details to notice that change had occurred. All I'm sure of is that it DID happen and I didn't realize it until after the fact. The sunshine is brighter, the rain is fun to play in, gray days are cozier with a book & a cup o' tea and even feelings and boundaries are clearer than they've ever been, as far back as I can remember clearly. (I can almost see them like a matrix or ley lines sometimes)
If you want to badly enough, I'm sure you'll find your own way to this SL - or if not, you'll at least make peace with it.
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Hi Pr,
I'm really not unhappy but most enjoy doing things that make me feel good physically like going out in my Kayak. I think it has been an interesting topic and hopefully will help some people to look at their issues in different ways. BTW, I love the Lev Grossmen book you recommended. I'm moving slowly through it so I can visualize each page!! Great fun!!.
Sea
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OK Sea, thanks for clarifying! I'm starting to get my own "stuff" muddled into the general discussion, I think. Glad you like the book! There are some delightful visuals that pop up throughout... and some interesting ideas re: groups of people vs individuals... "realities"... needs/wants... and what makes us "us"...
along the subject line of this whole thread, and the book, I wonder if what feral children miss the most is "PLAY"... especially in groups... groups of children talk & compare everything with each other (don't keep "secrets")... groups of children are exposed to other parents (who could pick up on those secrets)... groups of children live in other "realities", with other rules, with other permissions... that could threaten the authority of the reigning N-monarch...
... and perhaps, this play activity is where our inner barometers are set for life (until intentionally changed) about whether we look forward to mixing with groups of people, sharing activities with groups, are seeking out more relationships (or are indifferent...). I don't have any conclusions about this; just pondering... letting the ideas germinate... observing what goes on around me and in myself...