Posted by Stephan on March 27, 2010 under My Personal Therapy | 
Do I need to talk to someone? I’m not shure. I’m in a state between wanting to open up and .. not wanting. Nice thing about that is that I usually don’t have a problem describing stuff I am dissociated from. At least I just realised that my morning pain has stopped. Tip of the day: Do not get uncureable ill. It will just screw up your whole life. I don’t even know what kind of life I would have chosen if I would never gotten ill. Which happend when I was a little child. Some parts are screaming. I do not really know about what. I can’t always translate what they want.
I don’t know if I hate my life. Do I regret? What do I regret if I regret. Theoretically my life isn’t that bad. I don’t have to work and since I do not spend much I have more money than I need to survive. More or less. Not enough money to buy myself healthy. Meaning I could die from my illnesses if I don’t pay attention all the time. If I would let go of everything and start eating and drinking everything I want I could probably die a horrible death within some months. But the money aspect might change. But. There are some problems. What if I have all the money I need to do and buy all the stuff for my well being I need … and still wont get healthy? What then? Or if I get healthy. What do I do then? Will I be able to get over my posttraumatic stress disorder? Will I be able to loose my parts? To feel again? The screaming gets louder. I think they don’t like it because there are so many things I haven’t got an answer too. Not the what if rubbish. I wasn’t talking about what really concerns me. Well some of the stuff does but it’s not important stuff at the moment. I can’t write about the important stuff. Now.
I hate being screwed up. I’d like to scream. But. I wont.
Do I feel better now that I haven’t really talked about what’s concerning me. I guess not. Screw this blog. Screw everything.
Posted by Stephan on March 24, 2010 under Me Thinking, My Personal Therapy |
Some stuff I’ve written is bugging me. It wasn’t written clear enough making it too easy to misinterpret my meaning. And people can misinterpret about everything. So stuff should be worded as clear as possible to minimize that chance. If wanted, that is.
I was talking about taking sides, in the example of my family and generally. But it was not about making a decision on the conscious level. Taking sides itself was formulated wrong, more like standing up for.
Diffucult to find a good point to start. One big cause why I write this is because the part of the family I mentioned was always nice to me and I don’t want to put a wrong complexion on them. Since I am dissociated, for me this is only human behavior, just another variable among others, making it difficult sometimes to phrase things for those who don’t quite see things like I do. Like I’ve written as if it was about a conscious choice making some stuff sound sarcastic altough it was just laying down plain facts for me. Or theories.
People usually act different when a situation is explained to them and they make a decision based on that information. But choices are made nevertheless. Take children starving in the third world, how animals are treated to produce all the food made from them, children being trashed or raped and other stuff like that. All things that are just “too far away” to really concern you. They get blended away most of the time. That’s one of the causes why people than overreact that much when something like that gets big in the news for a while. It has nothing to do with them so it is ok to act indignent. Because it is save to do so. But I have to end now because my parts are getting uncomfortable with the subject.
Posted by Stephan on March 22, 2010 under Me Thinking, My Personal Therapy |
Although I was just recently thinking about deleting everything I’ve writen again, there just came something up I have to get off my chest.
The thought process startet when I realised that there is a way of feeling that I haven’t felt for a very long time now. To be precise a negative kind of feeling. There are some positive ones I haven’t felt for a long time neither but I don’t wanna think about that right now. But back to the negative one. I only felt this feeling when I had contact with my family … the bad part of it. And the last time I felt it was when I last seen them. It is the feeling of my parts freaking out. Well they do so without any contact too but not that intense. Like the difference between remembering a lion and standing right in front of one. And to my parts that’s exactly what the bad part of my family were to them - pretators. Beings you should be afraid of, pumping stress hormons into the body and being alert like hell, because you can never tell what they will do next.
But it only started there. The next thing I remembered was my time at the psychosomatic compartment at the hospital. I finally connected it to another problem. It was the same shit when I was send to therapists when I was a teenager. The message was that I was the psychopath. Not them. The stupid head doctor of the compartment even dared to judge me as a possible risk to others. That is just another nice sign of how sick our society really is. This doctor didn’t had a clue about me. Not. One. Single. Clue. Yes there has been a lot of aggression and hate inside me, which of course showed up. But I had spent years exercising to control them. Even then I already knew how to fight them, how to channel them into something else like destroying unimportant stuff or self injury. And I knew that out on the streets there where really really lot of people counting as normal with not even half the self control I had even then. And since then 8 years have past and the only things I did were some messages I left. Maybe devastating messages but no physical force. Unlike them.
And right there is the problem. The message was again. Something is wrong with you. Not with them. You can’t be trusted. Those people who snapped all the fucking time are alright. They don’t need to be here, you do. All they did was trashing little children and teenagers. Who cares about that? Socially viewed it is not very important. It is only a small peccadillo. That’s just how it is. If you can go to work and pay your taxes and play the role of a respected member of society, it is not important that you trash your children at home. Problems only occur if those children, as a result of the trashing, are to messed up to be able to play the role of a respected member of society. And if that happens they are the problem, not the people who trashed them. Our society as a whole just thinks shortsighted like that. Not only concerning this matter but about a lot of other very important stuff too.
There are a lot of important factors playing a role here, so you can dig deeper if you like. People doing the trashing (or whatever) of little kids usually have a higher status and more influence than the now grown up messed up psychological disturbed person. The have more money, they can afford the better laywers and so on. For example my family. And for this example I will take a branch that is not that close to me. The one of my aunt. Her husband, her children. What would they get if they would side with me? Nothing but trouble. After all I am mentally disturbed, I can’t leave my flat, I’m terminally ill (that’s what the doctors told me at least), can only eat certain foods and I have certain views about my parents and some of my siblings they neither want to share or even hear anything about. If they side with my parents it looks rather different. My parents are seen as respected members of society. My father was something high at the police, my mother was a secretary and is now doing a lot of work around my grand-someting-aunt Helene Maria Restituta Kafka who was beatified and helping out the nuns around this thingy. Of course my aunt doesn’t want to have a picture of my mother in her head as a raging and screaming monster trashing children. She has her own problems and in my mother someone to talk to. On bigger family gatherings my parents and the children coming along with them are an important part of the social group that is coming together on those occasions. And some of my cousins have children too. When my mother is holding them they don’t want to think of her as a children hitting monster. Whereas I was usually always only an attachment to my parents, not playing an important role at those occasions and couldn’t even attend because of my illness. I can’t blame them for taking side with my parents. Well I can. And I do. But that’s because of the general view. Let me explain. In the general view this kind of behavior adds taint to our sick and tainted society and makes it what it is. If I see it like that generally I can’t make an exception only because I consider them as nice. And it’s not an emotional kind of blaming but more of an intellectual blaming. A pointer to where part of the problem lies. After all there where only an example for the general behavior. In the very very very most cases people act exactly like that. Again. Our whole society works that way. It is understandable, but that doesn’t make it good. It is one of those disturbing aspects of society, were the picture society has of itself and how it is acting in reality are very different things. Even nice people and the doctors who are there to help you add to it. Maybe not all but definitly most of them. At least some people are adding more good stuff than negative stuff to it or so I’d like to think.
To add something positive at the end. I haven’t had a major breakdown for some time now. Long enough to be remarkable. I can’t remember a time where I felt that good that long. Well I still have smaller breakdowns and pain and still can’t leave my flat that easily but it’s a start at least. It could be much worse … and it was. So there is that. And that is it.
Posted by Stephan on March 13, 2010 under My Personal Therapy |
You wake up at Seatac, SFO, LAX. You wake up at O’Hare, Dallas-Fort Worth, BWI. Pacific, mountain, central. Lose an hour, gain an hour. This is your life, and it’s ending one minute at a time. You wake up at Air Harbor International. If you wake up at a different time, in a different place, could you wake up as a different person?
(Fight Club)
But I don’t really need to wake up as a different person. I only need to be able to lie to myself about myself, good enough for myself to believe it. You are a healthy person without problems, living in a nice and friendly world, where everything makes sense.
Theoretically, it can’t be that difficult. People are doing it all the time. Of course you are hitting your children because you love them and they earned it and it wasn’t your fault at all! Yes you are a good and nice person. The best boss there is. Of course you are right and everyone else is wrong! Your IQ might be a two digital number but yes if you repeat your stupid thoughts often enough everyone will see how intelligent you are!
Well it’s not that I never lied to myself or that I’m not still doing it. But I know that I am cracy. And everyone you does it must be crazy too. Being human means being crazy … and dumb. Especially living in our society leaves only two options - being totally crazy and lying to yourself or being enlightened.
Lying is an essential part of our society. Really really essential. This has been scientific proved. Children without the ability to like are considered rude outsiders - they couldn’t fit in. Though shallt not lie! - one of the ten commandments. Uh there are a lot of so called christians going to hell … at least in their believe system. But they usually don’t realise that because they are lying to themselfs. One of the requirements of being a christian in the first place. Ha! My parts just brought me a memory. I managed to make my mother cry once. Only. By. Talking. I logically explained her that by looking at her actions and her words, that she either is a very bad christian or no christian at all. Oh that was sooo much fun! A fond and treasured memory of my parts. I wish I could grap into her psyche and pull every bad thing she has done up to the surface where she just has to look at it. She would either break down or try to kill herself on the spot, so like a win win situation. The beauty of it would be that it is legal, not following any punishment from the law and I would get a big bonus from my parts. They would love that. Well they are the ones with the memories of being hit and .. stuff. I only know very little about that. Most of my actual memories about that stuff is locked away, but I know my parts remember that stuff. My poor parts. But I probably wouldn’t do it even if I could. Bad Karma and stuff. Ha it’s probably even bad karma only thinking about that stuff. But the thought has entertained my parts so it was worth it.
It is very difficult to say if my mother was a bad person. Well chances are very big that she doesn’t think of herself as being a bad person. And I know that she was and is a very stupid and crazy person. She probably meant well. But the outcome of her deeds are the ones of a bad person. And I know that there is only one person she really really cares about, and that is she herself. She would sacrifice everyone else if that meant that she might save herself.
But that’s a good example of how difficult it is to be positive and how impossible it is to keep the negative stuff out, since I intentionally wanted to write about something else. It’s also very difficult to be an ethical person. I did some bad stuff like the one I mentioned above. Well I was younger and a grown up that can’t react against the logical reasoning of a teenager is just a dumb shit. And she did some very bad things to … my parts. But to say she earned it, is a judgment that just can’t be done. Well it can but it wouldn’t be right to do so. I know it that wasn’t nice and that it wasn’t good. And I know that because I judged it that way. Oh and it might have been good. All things considered I don’t know if it was bad or good. But it wasn’t nice that’s for shure. Good and bad are after all only a human invention. So is “nice” but that’s easier to grade. Telling someone the truth might not be nice but it can be good in the long run. Again I reached the possibilities of words to express stuff I am thinking. And. I’m bored out writing.
Posted by Stephan on under My Personal Therapy |
This comparison came to my mind when I was thinking about my situation with my parts. I don’t know why Troja, but it is like a siege. Neither of us can really make a move. If there is something one of us doesn’t want the other to do there is no way that it will be done. Like if I want to go somewhere outside. They can just shut down entire parts of my body. Usually they fill my knees, my arms and my back with panic and depression. I often wonder how a dissociative identity disorder feels like. I wish I could control my dissociation more. If I could I would just create an entire new self to deal with everything. From the view of chinese medicin there is one part missing. The most important part that should govern the system. Well not missing, it’s just not doing its job. I have to do it. But since it is not my real job in the system I fail. Not entirely. But like the situation in Troja. I think the parts would listen to the missing part. He would be able to bring peace into the system. But he isn’t doing anything. I wish I could do the same. Then all there would be left of me would be the parts. And I have no idea how that would work out. I’m tired.
Posted by Stephan on March 7, 2010 under My Personal Therapy |
There are some nice and helpful aspects about writing a blog. It can help to get things out of the system and writing can also be supportive for thinking processes. Another thing is that I don’t actually have to write. I often think about stuff I want to write down, but then in the process of writing in my own head it clears itself and I don’t actually have to write it down anymore.
Of course I wouldn’t need a blog to do that, but it helps a lot. Like when you talk to another person in your mind. Theoretically you don’t need the other person to do so, but without the actual expirience of talking to another person, it would be rather hollow. So writing in my real blog gives the writing in my head its substance.
An interesting aspect for me is that some of the stuff I end up not writing down, might be interesting or even helpful for other people, but I do not feel eloquent or maybe confident enough to write the stuff down only on that account. But I know that stuff that came out of me has been helpful for others on not so few occasions in the past. But there are some other aspects too.
A very important one for me is that it is so much more beautiful when it is in my head. All my thinking is much more beautiful in my head. Having to use only words to express my thoughts is like putting them in chains. After all words are just variables who stand for certain pieces of information. Very small amounts of information. Well there are words that theoretically express a big amount of information like quantenphysics. But used in a conversation usually only certain aspects are relevant which have to be explained, while in the mind the information exists in a much purer form and can be more easily accessed and combined. At least when there isn’t too much pain to think properly.
Another one I have been thinking about lately is that I stopped caring. Which is true and also false. In general it is more true I think. And I am not shure yet if it is a good or a bad thing. And it just came to my mind that I don’t really know what I do care about. People who are or have been close to me. Yes. And if someone asks me directly for help even if I do not know that person I do try to help if it is in my power … and it’s not too inconvinient for me. To be true there are situations where it would just be too inconvinient not to help.
It is really difficult to put my finger on it. I do know there was something that isn’t there anymore. I am really not very bright on the emotional level. Well mainly because “I am” not emotion. My parts are emotion and “they” are dissociated from me. Although a “whole I” would involve them too. But that is not the “I” that I am expiriencing.
Writing that post has just lost it’s flavour. That’s it.
Posted by Stephan on February 28, 2010 under Me Thinking, My Personal Therapy |
That one’s a bummer. I have read some stuff related to that topic but there were a lot of different opinions. The topic is also handled in rather a lot of movies and tv show, but mostly in the way of the spoiled child blaming its poor innocent parents. In Two and a half men it’s maybe the most neutral one if have seen so far since there it goes both ways. You can see that Charly and his brother Alan do have a point when they are blaming their mother but also that they are often exaggerating a bit too much.
Because of my complex posttraumatic stress disorder I am very related to this topic and therefore have been thinking a lot about it. But without reaching a satisfying conclusion by now.
One of the problems is that whether or not you are right, blaming someone else doesn’t help and usually has even a negative effect on yourself. First, the thing happend and can’t be undone. Next part is that you are giving up your responsibility.
But. On the other hand if your parents did terrible stuff to you and you think of them as nice and loving people, you are just denying reality. And that wont help you neither.
Lets take a step backwards and approach this by an easier example. Someone hits you in the face out of nowhere. It was not your fault that you where hit and now you are injured. Blaming the person who hits you wont make the wound disappear. Any negative emotion towards this person will only damage yourself, like lowering your immun system and stuff. But emotions have a cause. Being angry at someone who hit you is only natural. It is an internal reaction of your body, that was developed before we had a civilization, even before we were humans. If you were attacked by an other animal you had to choose as fast as possible whether to fight, run away or do something else.
So in the moment of being hit your emotional or instinctual reaction can be very useful. And it is also useful to save this information for future reference, to know this animal or person is dangerous, pay attention. But this saved information can also be hindering in your everyday life, because it also depends on how you saved it. If it was the product of a logical conclusion it will probably be positive. But if it was saved subconsciously and linked with the emotional reaction there is a fat chance that the negative effect will outweigh the positive one.
Now back to the parents situation. It follows the same rules but is much more complex. They nurtured and protected you and stuff and are therefore saved as nice and trustworthy people. But if they did some terrible stuff to you this information gets all tangled up. As a child, chances are very small, that you will be able to create a logical and sophisticated conclusion from everything that happened to you. But if something that’s not nice happens to you, you certainly don’t want it to happen again. Since your parents are saved as trustworthy there must be a good cause for them to do something terrible to you, so in may cases the child will blame the fault on itself.
But the important part is that the saved information will be linked to the emotional reaction. Like judging youself for being such a bad person, fear that it will happen again, suppressed anger, and stuff like that.
Now we fast forward. The child is now a messed up grownup. Lets compare that to the example of being hit and look at the differences and the similarities.
- both create an emotional reaction
-
- in both cases it wasn’t your fault
- in both cases you now have an injury in some kind of way
- in both cases you have to deal with that injury
- in both cases the injury wont go away by blaming anyone
So why the blaming? No. Better question. Is there anything positive about blaming your parents?
Hmm. I think there might be. As mentioned it probably happens very often that the child blames itself. So in that context blaming your parents could be seen as a reassurance for yourself that you are not crazy. A step into the direction of getting a grip back on reality. And that can be very important. Because not only ones parents are the measurement of what’s normal and what’s not for a little child, but also the whole social circle. Like other relatives and friends and acquaintances of the parents. If they don’t intervene when the parents are doing some terrible stuff to the child it only adds to the picture that what the parents are doing is alright.
So blaming might be a way of getting the blame from yourself back to where it belongs. But this can only be one of the steps of letting go, else this too will get unhealthy.
Since I now have too think about this and possible following steps and stuff … that’s it.
Posted by Stephan on February 27, 2010 under Me Thinking, My Personal Therapy |
I must pay attention. I start to write again and all this stuff keeps popping up. I could write about this and that and hey that would be fun too. And then I’m overhelmed again and end up doing nothing at all. Specially when I get stressed out. But no. When I’m stressed out I am doing something, it’s just nothing productive or helpful or positive. And it is not “just” being stressed out either. It’s called an anxiety attack. That’s some levels above being “just” stressed out. And I know about anxiety attacks. I had them in many many many variations. Not nice. But I manage to cope with them rather well by now. It takes less distraction time before I manage to do something productive again. But since I have at least smaller ones about every day there is still not that much time for positive stuff to happen.
But back to topic. Overdoing stuff. Babysteps. That’s the key. One small, very very small step at a time. Less chance of tripping over and having to waste a lot of energy to troublesome getting up again for the next step. Always hoping that I am actually walking forwards.
On the other hand if I am not excited about doing cool new stuff I wont get anywhere neither. Well there is a cause that the happy medium is a very important part of buddhism. In my case it is a balancing act above a pit filled with spikes with a blindfold no safety net and someone sitting on my shoulders. Not easy but doable.
One of my theories about my whole situation is that I want or need all that stuff or it would just be too easy. What would be the challenge if I could just eat what I want without any big consequences? Or thinking without pain and without anxiety attacks all the time? In a way it is a rather nice training for the mind. Since I am a “crazy person” (I loved the question Evey asked V in V for Vendetta after his introduction “Are you like a crazy person?”) everything I think might be afflicted by unresolved issues, so I have to question my thoughts all the time. It is not as overdramatized as it might sound. I don’t do it all the time, it is more like having some kind of watchman inside of me that that stays alert and when in doubt, then I start reflecting about what I was thinking.
But often the things you take for granted are the things that should be questioned. What helps to spot these things is when there are strong emotions involved. They wont be there all the time, and only show up when they are triggered by something, but that is the moment for me to say stop and start questioning. Of course that’s not always possible, because emotions reduce the thinking capabilities, but in those cases I try to do it when the emotions have ebbed down again. There are several technics I use to do so, like using different explanatory models for the same thing or getting (more) dissociated (than usual). But I don’t want to go into detail about them right now.
That’s it.
Posted by Stephan on under My Personal Therapy |
So. I have set up the whole about thing again. I wonder how long it will last this time. At the moment the title of this post is “Just writing without purpose I” which is me just starting to write and see where it leads me. I like the idea of that. The “I” in this case stands for a number btw indicating that this might lead to a series. If it happens that there actually is stuff with a content the title will change so even this one might not stay the first .. although I personally doubt it.
So that is me writing without purpose. Not so easy but easier for me sometimes than writing about something I actually want to write. Like my head is filled with ideas about something but I can’t find a way of letting them out. Like I start writing a sentence. Then delete it. And again. No can’t write it that way, that sounds stupid. Delete. And the same again and again until I just give writing about the thing at all. But when I write without a purpose there is no sense in judging what I’m writing. Judging requires a purpose. Like it should be funny, interesting, educational or whatever. Here the purpose lies in the writing itself, so it could only be judged as bad if I haven’t writen anything at all. Even gibberish would fulfill the purpose here. And I can use as many word repetitions as I like. Or start sentences the same way. Or start sentences in an identical way.
Not judging myself. I like that. Have to do that more often. The not judging thing. Not that I do it all the time usually but more often than I would like and when I do it’s often very devastating. But that’s because of the way I was brought up. Parents and stuff. Not yet. That’s getting my parts worked up. My parts. Hmm. No. Not yet either. They wouldn’t feel comfortable at the moment with that. But they will be introduced. Another time.
Haven’t done much today yet. Not entirely true. I managed to write a new about page that should count for something. I usually don’t give myself enough credit for the stuff I’m doing. But well enough for now.
Purpose fulfilled.
Posted by Stephan on February 20, 2010 under My Personal Therapy |
I’ve just read a blog post containing a koan/story about budhha … which I already knew, exepct that in the version I had read the main charactar wasn’t buddha. Not important. The important thing is that it made me realise that my life is lacking exitement and the urge to discover something new. It actually feels like that there isn’t anything new and interesting left for me to learn.
It’s not that I know everything or that there isn’t anything “new” left for me to expirience. But everything “new” I learn lacks the big AHA! effect - I am not surprised anymore.
Like quantenphysics. So a cat may be dead and alive at the same time, and a stuff can move through other stuff in an interesting way and you can only measure where something is or how fast it is going and everything that exists might be created from scratch every damn moment. Fascinating yes, but I’ve read it and thought about it and now … it stoped being something that suprises me. It’s not new anymore.
Or neurobiology. The brain creates the self and controls the perceived information and does 11000000 bit information while the self does 40 bit and the self is an illusion anyway and so on and so forth.
Philosophy. So many many many theories. And I haven’t read them all. Or psychology, or buddhism, or hinduism, or sociology, or esoteric, or shamanism, or human behavior. Well no. Especially human behavior is boring and dull.
Or other stuff like marketing. Or the internet. Take facebook. The concept wasn’t new. You have a profile and can add stuff that others can read. And twitter just a smaller compressed version of it. Yeah it changed human interaction and stuff. But it’s nothing new or suprising about it.
Or learning new mechanical stuff like riding a bike. Just as an example I do know how to ride a bike. The concept of learning such stuff is always the same. You start doing it, you repeat doing it and then you know how to do it. Yeah …
Not that stuff can’t be interesting. Or fun. It is just … well … nothing new. Not suprising. After a while of accumulating concepts they all bore down to different variations of each other.
Well maybe this is just some kind of mood swing but when I think back it’s a long way back that I had a moment where I was thinking “what a suprising and exiting new concept! cool!”. Not that I ever thought it exactly that way, but you get my meaning. Same old same old.
Interesting that even learning something new and exiting is probably the same concept every time too. Hmm. Yeah probably just a mood swing.
That … would have probably been the perfect ending but I am not at ease just yet. I just remembred thinking about a philosophical problem in the tramway, one of those that just can’t be solved. That was some years ago and I realised that I was thinking about it some years before. Like I was traped in a circle.
I really really really need to find something that excites and motivates me. Now writing this post and everything I’ve written starts to bore me. If anyone ever reads this … well if you have read this far it is your own fault if you got bored. Period. And now I am going to dig out this concept about everything being recreated every moment - my brain feels so underused.
