Out with it, then
one guileless rose
know where to start.
Um. My Tarot cards tell me I think too much (and in no uncertain terms
do they tell me this--my beloved Morgan-Greer deck is really good at
beating me over the head when I need it, as well as when I don't). My
beloved lover tells me I think too much. My friends tell me I think too
much. So _why in the name of jumpin' Jesus Jehosephat_ can I not stop
thinking and thinking and thinking about everything?
If I upset someone, or think I have, and apologize, and have the apology
wholeheartedly accepted, as soon as I'm out of that person's presence
I'll wonder whether sie _really_ accepted the apology and isn't still
upset at me. I can play this fun game for hours, days, months, probably
years.
It was brought to my attention a short while ago that I have probably
about fifteen years' worth of anger bottled up inside me, and no
practice at all in expressing it--none, zip, zero--or healthy modes for
doing so. So I tried approaching anger management from a logical,
rational perspective last night and it was a dismal failure. Well, sort
of. I got a lot out of it, but nothing that I got out of it pertained to
anger management at all.
I need to disconnect my brain, or muzzle it, or _something_. Make the
voices in my head stop! There is so much noise in my mind, all the
time--and I mean noise as in static, not-signal--that I can't focus on
anything. This is what I took Luvox for; that was laughable. This is
what I have been fighting straight on for the past year, and obliquely
for who knows how long. This is what has me nearly in tears after an
evening that went better than I could have possibly hoped for, after
last night being deeply and powerfully magical in ways that I'm still
sorting out, after months of a life that should be nothing short of
sheer joy. (Yes, things have been fucked up for the last couple of
weeks, but they've de-fucked themselves pretty efficiently.) The only
flaw in this is _me_.
I feel broken again. I hadn't exactly missed it. *spit*
No, it's not voice-muffling that I need; I just need to teach all the
different voices how to take turns, and not all shout at once.
I note that this sounds rather different from most of my usual posts
here. That means I'm better at hiding it than I used to be. I'm not sure
I like that, and I feel really bad about what feels like leading people
on and putting myself out there as this wonderful well-adjusted woman
leading the perfect poly life, when I'm actually a reasonably (but not
extraordinarily) nice (but often bitter and viciously catty), not
terribly sane, very poorly-adjusted woman leading what is... well, it's
really a very good approximation of the perfect poly life.[1] I feel
like I've had all this goodness and glory, a whole huge stack of gifts,
dumped into my arms; and I can't possibly hold it up, and have no way to
put it down so that I can pick one piece up at a time and examine it.
All I can do is drop it and watch it shatter. That's a lousy feeling.
(This is, of necessary, an approximation; there are no words strong
enough to replace "lousy" and be less approximatory, so this will have
to do.)
I can't do my art because I can't focus. (Aha! There go the tears. I
thought that might do it. This is why I have Kleenex next to the
'puter.) Any of my arts. I can't stop thinking about myself and my life
and that leaves less time and energy to focus on others. Blessings upon
Harry: when I said last night that I felt things were horribly unfair
and I took and took and took from him and had no way of doing anything
for him like he's done for me, he said "Why does that bother you?". But
I still feel like I should be able to do more. Though I don't know what
more I could do... just maybe even find something to talk about other
than myself and my problems.
Last night... I basically married myself. I made the most solemn pledge
I have ever made to anyone or anything, and I swore to be kind and
generous and patient and gentle and honest and loving with and to myself
(and left lots of room for other adjectives to be added to the contract
as necessary or appropriate or just as they came to mind). I spoke it
and I wrote it and it was witnessed. But I don't know how to live up to
that, now. I'm just one more significant other I don't have the time or
energy for. I'm planning for at least a couple of weeks of honeymooning,
and for heaven's sake, I'm moving across the country so that I can be
alone with myself and really get some time for me/us to build up and
repair this relationship; but how the hell do I put off dealing with all
of this until then? All I want is to be _happy_ for the next three
months. That's really all I want. It doesn't seem like so much to ask.
The only problem is that I'm deeply entrenched in my own way, blocking
my own path forward. I don't even _need_ to be going forward right now,
but I keep bashing myself against that blockage anyway because I'm so
determined to be Doing Something Useful.
The cards told me, twice: Don't think so hard, don't work so hard. You
have your art. You have your self. Be. Just be. (And don't work hard at
being, or think about being. Ha--caught you! Thought you could sneak
that one by. Don't do it. Just be.) They're right, it feels right, it
sounds right, it tastes right (my synesthesia has been running wild;
last night "I'm sorry" was a pale green, and I've been tasting music).
But I don't know how. And I'm not allowed to apply any of my usual
learning methods to figuring out how, because figuring things out is
what got me in this mess in the first place. I don't know who I am; how
am I supposed to just be who I am if I can't put it into words in my
head? I need to be, without knowing what that means in advance. Talk
about scary. I fear that I won't like who I am--at least, not parts
(like the bitter and catty parts)--and that feels like an actual fear
based on reality, not a something-I-dreamed-up-that's-feeding-on-itself
type of fear, because I can't imagine actually liking _all_ of myself as
I am now, so obviously unfinished.[2] And I'll have to own up to the
parts that I don't like, and accept them as part of me. This is going to
be hard. I'm scared. *whimper*
The other big thing that came out last night was that people offer me
help and I accept it gladly; but I don't ask for it. At the time I was
thinking specifically of Harry, but it applies to the world in general,
and so I say to all of you what I said to him (with many deep breaths
and so forth):
"Help me. Please?"
Not that I think anyone can, really. At least, not with the be-ing. But
maybe someone has a suggestion for a mental pacifier, so that the voices
will pipe down and stop throwing words at everything and I can rest. And
be. Whatever that means.
--Rose, swallowing bile and hitting 'Send'
[1] Do not any of you _dare_ to take this as a compliment-troll. Even if
your first instinctive response is "But you _are_ wonderful!", I don't
want to hear it. I know there are good and beautiful parts of myself.
I'm wholly aware of that. They're what keep me going. I can point to
them and say "I am worthy of the trust of someone I trust and respect
beyond measure" and "I kept a person I care about from walking in front
of a train" and "I make beautiful things with my hands and my voice and
my mind" and "I'm in better physical shape than I ever have been in my
life, and my body is functioning better and more reliably than it ever
has" and many other things besides. That doesn't change my desperate
drive for honesty, soul-baring, long boring explanations about how the
good parts aren't all there is to me. One of the good parts I point to
is "I am honest even when it's painful". This is one of the painful
times. If there were anything I wanted to hear in response to all this,
it would be "Yes, I know you're not perfect, and I can recall several
occasions when I've seen you prove it. So what? You are nonetheless
loved, and that means you can be loved, and that means it's possible
that you can love yourself"--but don't say it unless you mean it.
[2] See [1].
--
There is something about singing--for me, anyway. It cleanses my heart.
It makes me whole again. I would sing, and I would become stronger.
--Sharon Shinn, _Archangel_
http://i.am/rwp * Spamfree email: <myfirstname>@callahans.org
Stef Maruch
one guileless rose <Thi...@Not-My-Real-Address.com> wrote:
>"Help me. Please?"
>
>Not that I think anyone can, really. At least, not with the be-ing. But
>maybe someone has a suggestion for a mental pacifier, so that the voices
>will pipe down and stop throwing words at everything and I can rest. And
>be. Whatever that means.
Is there anything that you currently do that makes the voices stop
temporarily?
--
Stef
** rational/scientific/philosophical/mystical/magical/kitty **
** st...@cat-and-dragon.com <*> http://www.bayarea.net/~stef **
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
After dark, all cats are jaguars
-- ButtonLady.com
piranha
>
> beloved lover tells me I think too much. My friends tell me I think too
> much. So _why in the name of jumpin' Jesus Jehosephat_ can I not stop
> thinking and thinking and thinking about everything?
pink elephants.
i don't believe it's "thinking" you need to stop. thinking is
good. i don't actually believe one can think too much.
one can worrywart too much. yes, i am verbing. it's more than
"worry". it means to worry excessively, out of all proportion to
reality, irrationally.
i recognize some of this. certainly i recognize the brokenness
and the neverending voices.
> No, it's not voice-muffling that I need; I just need to teach all the
> different voices how to take turns, and not all shout at once.
your voices need to learn to prioritize.
i am gonna cut all of this interesting post, except for this:
> "Help me. Please?"
i am not gonna use any weasel words. please just ignore this if
you feel i am terribly presumptuous. you don't need to give me
reasons why i am way off base and my suggestion is too dumb for
words -- i need no validation of the concept. it's all i have to
give to you, and if you can't use it, i won't think worse of you
for it.
i had a flash when reading your post, and it might not be about
you at all, or be any insight, since, after all, i don't know you.
but you seem to have everything going for you. you have quite
exceptional gifts. and yet you worrywart yourself into mostly
inaction. maybe something is wrong medically. have you had
everything checked that could be checked? no? then you know what
to do. yes? that's not it?
what is it then? fear of failure? spoiled by a charmed life?
too many choices? worried you can't live up to your potential?
i've got no idea. but here is something that _will_ change your
life, that will stretch you, that will demand things of you that
you can't even imagine now, but that you _will_ grow for (or you
are not the person i think you are), and that will prioritize what
really matters, IMO:
join the peace corps. medecins sans frontieres. the red cross in
a disaster zone.
i am not kidding. i think you need something to throw you out of
your ruts. i think you know it too -- you're moving across the
continent. but i am not sure that will do it, because it will be
all too easy to fall into the very same stuff; because you're cute
and bright and lovable and sexy and outgoing and people will flock
around you like they do now, and you will not be able to eliminate
all those external influences. you will still be in the US of A.
SF isn't that different from NYC.
if you find that becomes true, remember this. it might have to be
something that gets you away from civilization, away from all
you're used to, into the company of, if any people, those who need
help in a really serious way -- to survive. or to die with some
dignity.
if not working with people who need help in a very immediate way,
whose lives consist of daily struggle for the minimum, then the
next best thing might be a walkabout. be truly on your own. all
on your own.
i've learned that such things prioritized the voices in my head in
a way that nothing else could.
--
-piranha
Liz Williams
>In article <1eoya9x.15q7rln1jrap4vN%Thi...@Not-My-Real-Address.com>,
>one guileless rose <Thi...@Not-My-Real-Address.com> wrote:
>
>>"Help me. Please?"
>>
>>Not that I think anyone can, really. At least, not with the be-ing. But
>>maybe someone has a suggestion for a mental pacifier, so that the voices
>>will pipe down and stop throwing words at everything and I can rest. And
>>be. Whatever that means.
>
>Is there anything that you currently do that makes the voices stop
>temporarily?
I seem to have accidentally deleted Rose's post - still getting used to the
new news service - so I hope Stef doesn't mind if I piggyback off hers.
Rose, I'm guessing you've probably tried this already, but I thought I'd ask
just in case - have you tried meditation as a way of getting the voices to
be
quieter, and/or a way of learning to listen to them less?
Liz
--
"He's clearly a bad influence on himself." - Giles, on _Buffy_
Leslie
On Sat, 17 Feb 2001,
in <1eoya9x.15q7rln1jrap4vN%Thi...@Not-My-Real-Address.com>,
one guileless rose spake thusly:
="Help me. Please?"
=
=Not that I think anyone can, really. At least, not with the be-ing. But
=maybe someone has a suggestion for a mental pacifier, so that the voices
=will pipe down and stop throwing words at everything and I can rest. And
=be. Whatever that means.
What does your shrink say? I mean, this sounds to me like a job
for a professional, not an amateur -- ? That sounds like one
seriously *large* load of anxiety you're perpetually burdened with,
and it's going to take time and effort -- and the right tools and
methods -- to get it to shut up.
There are two books I can highly recommend:
_Learned Optimism_ and _What you can change....and what you can't_,
both by Dr. Martin Seligman, you should be able to order paperback
copies easily enough. These books are loaded with information and
insights and will help you to more easily pin-point where your
problems are, and will offer a variety of ideas as to how to fix them.
And if John were here, no doubt he'd put in a vote for checking into
_Driven to Distraction_, just in case ADHD might have a bearing on your
problems (and it's a great book).
Hints from _Learned Optimism_:
(for dealing with tormenting thoughts going around and around
in your head that you feel you can't stop:)
1. Do something physically distracting, like snapping a rubberband
on your wrist or dashing cold water on your face while saying, 'Stop!'
to yourself.
2. Schedule a specific time for thinking things over. ... When you
find yourself ruminating, you can say to yourself, 'Stop! I'll think
about this at 7:30 this evening.' ... if we set aside a specific time
for thinking the issue over, we undercut the very reason for brooding
now, so the brooding is no longer necessary.
3. Write the troublesome thoughts down at the moment they occur. Now
you can return to them not helplessly, but deliberately, when the
time is right for you. ....this robs brooding of its very reason
for existence.
=--Rose, swallowing bile and hitting 'Send'
I hope you're feeling better now?
=[2] See [1].
If you're upset at the idea of being 'unfinished,' I have bad
news. I can say with confidence that nobody here IS finished,
and you never will be, either. Just maybe less unfinished than
you are now. So you ought to ignore that strawman argument.
See your therapist. Get professional advice. That's my advice.
Leslie, forgoing a mention of _I'm Okay, You're Okay_. But, if you
get done with the other books....
--
* Spider Robinson info & alt.callahans FAQs: <http://www.vex.net/~leslie> *
** "If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane." -- J. Buffett **
*** New to Usenet? Get the FAQS: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/ ***
**** If you love any of your rights, defend all of them. ****
Annette M. Stroud
one guileless rose <Thi...@Not-My-Real-Address.com> wrote:
>Not that I think anyone can, really. At least, not with the be-ing. But
>maybe someone has a suggestion for a mental pacifier, so that the voices
>will pipe down and stop throwing words at everything and I can rest. And
>be. Whatever that means.
There was a point in my life in which my brain kept spinning on ice, the
voices kept interrupting each other, and I thought I would never have a
coherent thought again. (Bad marriage, new baby, lactation, graduate
program I wasn't sure why I was doing, poverty, gall bladder betrayal.) I
went on a silent retreat for a weekend. (Please don't turn me in to the
La Leche League.) It gave time for the voices to speak, without
interrupting each other or being interrupted by external things. It was
very helpful in quieting the voices and getting them to at least take
turns.
Different monastic orders offer lodging for temporary retreats from
society. I suppose one could just decide to do it oneself and go to a
hotel.
Annette
Aahz Maruch
piranha <pir...@gooroos.com> wrote:
>Thi...@Not-My-Real-Address.com (one guileless rose) writes:
>>
>> beloved lover tells me I think too much. My friends tell me I think too
>> much. So _why in the name of jumpin' Jesus Jehosephat_ can I not stop
>> thinking and thinking and thinking about everything?
>
> good. i don't actually believe one can think too much.
>
> one can worrywart too much. yes, i am verbing. it's more than
> "worry". it means to worry excessively, out of all proportion to
> reality, irrationally.
I call this "OCDing". OCD is "Obsessive/Compulsive Disorder". For me,
"worrywarting" is too specific; I use OCDing to describe any time my
brain starts an endless loop, which could be a worry thing, an anger
thing, a poing thing, and so on. One could just as easily call it
obsessing, period, but that doesn't have the right flavor for me.
--
--- Aahz (Copyright 2001 by aa...@pobox.com)
Androgynous poly kinky vanilla queer het <*> http://www.rahul.net/aahz/
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6
Why doesn't "Just Say NO" include caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, Prozac,
and Ritalin? --Aahz
Aahz Maruch
one guileless rose <Thi...@Not-My-Real-Address.com> wrote:
>
>scary. I fear that I won't like who I am--at least, not parts (like the
>bitter and catty parts)--and that feels like an actual fear based on
>reality, not a something-I-dreamed-up-that's-feeding-on-itself type of
>fear, because I can't imagine actually liking _all_ of myself as I am
>now, so obviously unfinished.[2] And I'll have to own up to the parts
>that I don't like, and accept them as part of me. This is going to be
>hard. I'm scared. *whimper*
Mmmm. Yeah. Well, that's part of the reason I often don't censor myself
when I'm getting ready to send a post that's likely to cause a flamewar
because I've hurt someone. Because if I can do things like that and
people still like me, then maybe I'm not such a bad person, and I have
to like myself.
one guileless rose
> one guileless rose <Thi...@Not-My-Real-Address.com> wrote:
>
> >"Help me. Please?"
> >
> >Not that I think anyone can, really. At least, not with the be-ing. But
> >maybe someone has a suggestion for a mental pacifier, so that the voices
> >will pipe down and stop throwing words at everything and I can rest. And
> >be. Whatever that means.
>
> Is there anything that you currently do that makes the voices stop
> temporarily?
Sleep. Not much help, there, especially because my dreams are so vivid.
I haven't been able to find anything else; and I was a sleep addict for
a number of years, and refuse to get hooked again. It doesn't calm them
down, it knocks them out.
--Rose
one guileless rose
> join the peace corps. medecins sans frontieres. the red cross in
> a disaster zone.
*much nodding*
I've thought that in five years or so, I'll be ready to leave SF. But if
I'm not ready to come back to New York, I'll still be ready to
leave--and I was fairly sure it would be towards a more extreme kind of
isolation.
> if not working with people who need help in a very immediate
> way, whose lives consist of daily struggle for the minimum, then
> the next best thing might be a walkabout. be truly on your own.
> all on your own.
I'm doing that, when I move--as soon as I have my own place I'm cutting
off all contact with the 'net, with my family and loves, with my friends
both local and distant; no email, no newsgroups, no phone calls,
nothing. That's been part of the plan since day one. Just me on my own.
That's what I meant by "my honeymoon". I'm planning on it lasting no
more than a month and a half, and I might be ready to come out of it
before then, but definitely a few weeks at least. I won't lock myself in
the house, but I'll avoid even minimal contact with strangers where I
can; I don't want to make new friends at a time when I wouldn't be able
to talk to them. I want to see what I do when I have nothing to do, how
I structure my life in a total absence of obligations. It should be
interesting.
Thanks for the suggestions; snipped and saved, and if this doesn't work,
I will definitely take them under serious consideration.
--Rose
Stef Maruch
one guileless rose <Thi...@Not-My-Real-Address.com> wrote:
>Stef Maruch <st...@panix.com> wrote:
>
>> one guileless rose <Thi...@Not-My-Real-Address.com> wrote:
>>
>> >"Help me. Please?"
>> >
>> >Not that I think anyone can, really. At least, not with the be-ing. But
>> >maybe someone has a suggestion for a mental pacifier, so that the voices
>> >will pipe down and stop throwing words at everything and I can rest. And
>> >be. Whatever that means.
>>
>> Is there anything that you currently do that makes the voices stop
>> temporarily?
>
>Sleep. Not much help, there, especially because my dreams are so vivid.
>I haven't been able to find anything else; and I was a sleep addict for
>a number of years, and refuse to get hooked again. It doesn't calm them
>down, it knocks them out.
OK. Really nothing else at all? Not hiking, sitting by a stream, being
in the woods in the early morning, having an orgasm, strenuous exercise,
becoming utterly involved in a project, having a bad cold?
--
Stef
** rational/scientific/philosophical/mystical/magical/kitty **
** st...@cat-and-dragon.com <*> http://www.bayarea.net/~stef **
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Suppose there were no hypothetical questions?
one guileless rose
> Rose, I'm guessing you've probably tried this already, but I thought I'd
> ask just in case - have you tried meditation as a way of getting the
> voices to be quieter, and/or a way of learning to listen to them less?
I have--for the first reason, not the second; I think they all have
useful things to say, they just need to learn how to take turns because
right now _no one_ is getting heard--and unfortunately, all it seems to
do is give a quiet background to the noise. I have a very hard time
meditating on one thing, since my mind tends to wander, and when I try
meditating on nothingness and letting my mind wander as it will, I
usually fall asleep. Perhaps I'm just not very good at it....
Thanks for the suggestion. It's something I should look into more, or
perhaps do in a more structured way, with a mantra of some kind. I've
developed a couple of things along those lines for grounding and
centering that work very well. (Happy to share them, if anyone's
interested.) The problem is partly that when I'm frazzled, I'm not
coherent enough to realize that I'm frazzed and do something about it,
so I don't use those as often as I should.
one guileless rose
> I use OCDing to describe any time my brain starts an endless loop, which
> could be a worry thing, an anger thing, a poing thing, and so on. One
> could just as easily call it obsessing, period, but that doesn't have the
> right flavor for me.
My brain definitely does this, which is why I want a process table and a
'kill' command, dammit.
--Rose
one guileless rose
> What does your shrink say? I mean, this sounds to me like a job
> for a professional, not an amateur -- ?
My last shrink was completely the wrong one for me, which is why I
stopped seeing him. And it doesn't make much sense to take up with
another two months before I move.
> That sounds like one seriously *large* load of anxiety you're perpetually
> burdened with, and it's going to take time and effort -- and the right
> tools and methods -- to get it to shut up.
Oh, I'm aware. What I want is a way to get through these next couple of
months. Then I can sit down and do some serious work.
> There are two books I can highly recommend:
Noted, and the suggestions from the first are helpful, especially the
one about scheduling time to worry, which I find perversely appealing.
*grin* Thanks!
> I hope you're feeling better now?
Some. Nine hours of restful sleep will do that.
> If you're upset at the idea of being 'unfinished,' I have bad
> news. I can say with confidence that nobody here IS finished,
> and you never will be, either. Just maybe less unfinished than
> you are now. So you ought to ignore that strawman argument.
Oh! No, that doesn't bother me--what bothers me are people who try to
tell me that I'm perfectly wonderful when I know I'm not, and who
downplay my downsides in an attempt to cheer me up. (This strikes me as
very similar to what Elise (I think) was saying about asking for help
with body image issues, and common reactions.)
> See your therapist. Get professional advice. That's my advice.
I will when I can. Right now that's not terribly feasible, I'm afraid.
But all I'm looking for is a stopgap until I can do that.
--Rose
one guileless rose
> There was a point in my life in which my brain kept spinning on ice, the
> voices kept interrupting each other, and I thought I would never have a
> coherent thought again.
That's it exactly. Though not as bad as it used to be.
> I went on a silent retreat for a weekend. (Please don't turn me in to the
> La Leche League.) It gave time for the voices to speak, without
> interrupting each other or being interrupted by external things. It was
> very helpful in quieting the voices and getting them to at least take
> turns.
I'm planning on doing this for a few weeks, but hadn't considered doing
it for just a weekend; maybe that will work as a temporary measure. The
problem is that my weekends are booked for the next few weeks at least;
but I'll find time in there, somewhere. Time on my own definitely seems
to help, but that includes freedom from a schedule and all sorts of
other things that I can't really get much of while I'm working and
dating three people. I'll give it a try if I can.
--Rose
one guileless rose
> one guileless rose <Thi...@Not-My-Real-Address.com> wrote:
> >
> >I need to be, without knowing what that means in advance. Talk about
> >scary. I fear that I won't like who I am--at least, not parts (like the
> >bitter and catty parts)--and that feels like an actual fear based on
> >reality, not a something-I-dreamed-up-that's-feeding-on-itself type of
> >fear, because I can't imagine actually liking _all_ of myself as I am
> >now, so obviously unfinished.[2] And I'll have to own up to the parts
> >that I don't like, and accept them as part of me. This is going to be
> >hard. I'm scared. *whimper*
>
> Mmmm. Yeah. Well, that's part of the reason I often don't censor myself
> when I'm getting ready to send a post that's likely to cause a flamewar
> because I've hurt someone. Because if I can do things like that and
> people still like me, then maybe I'm not such a bad person, and I have
> to like myself.
But what if they _don't_ like me afterwards and I'm left all alone? What
if my good parts aren't enough to make up for the rest?
That "what if" has kept me from doing a great many things and I'm
getting very tired of it. *sigh*
--Rose
one guileless rose
> You're not alone. Does that help any?
Yes, it does. Thank you.
--Rose
Menolly
(one guileless rose) posited:
>"Help me. Please?"
>
>Not that I think anyone can, really. At least, not with the be-ing. But
>maybe someone has a suggestion for a mental pacifier, so that the voices
>will pipe down and stop throwing words at everything and I can rest. And
>be. Whatever that means.
>
What sometimes helps me focus when my brain is just going round and
round is to distract myself with something entirely nonverbal (usually
a shape-matching game of some sort on my Palm or PC -- the Bejeweled
game on MSN is a good example.) This seems to help my listening
comprehension (in meetings, etc.) as well as my inner circling. I'm
not sure quite how it works. It seems to distract the front of my
brain [1] in a way that lets the rest of the brain get on with
processing. If you can doodle non-verbally, that might work, but I
have a hard time keeping doodles non-verbal.
Anyway, I find that after anywhere from a minute to half an hour or
more of this, depending on the severity of the brainspin, the next
step often just occurs to me, like everyone went in the back room and
worked it out once I got out of the way.
Aplogies if this doesn't make any sense or doesn't seem like it would
work for you at all. It's the first time I've really tried to
describe it, so I'm sure it's not quite coherent.
[1] This is where it feels like the effect is. It's not my whole
conscious. I don't know how to explaine it any better.
--
)\._.,--....,'``. | men...@inorbit.com
/, _.. \ _\ (`._ ,. | http://www.spy.net/~menolly/
`._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.' | Paranoid Cynical Optimist
piranha
<1eoz9di.1yf7227y7f2kiN%Thi...@Not-My-Real-Address.com>:
> Aahz Maruch <aa...@panix.com> wrote:
> >
> > Mmmm. Yeah. Well, that's part of the reason I often don't censor myself
> > when I'm getting ready to send a post that's likely to cause a flamewar
> > because I've hurt someone. Because if I can do things like that and
> > people still like me, then maybe I'm not such a bad person, and I have
> > to like myself.
>
> But what if they _don't_ like me afterwards and I'm left all alone? What
> if my good parts aren't enough to make up for the rest?
for some people they won't. but some other people won't like you
as you present yourself now because they won't trust that you're
all that nice and never have a catty or outright nasty moment.
it depends also a lot on what you do after the nasty moments, how
you deal with yourself and others. if you handle it well, lots of
people will actually develop _more_ respect and liking for you.
> That "what if" has kept me from doing a great many things and I'm
> getting very tired of it. *sigh*
you have to live with yourself all your life, every day. other
people will never be right there with you, inside your head. that
gives, to me, priority to be like _i_ want to be.
--
-piranha
Elynne
> Liz Williams <lizw...@MailAndNews.com> wrote:
> > Rose, I'm guessing you've probably tried this already, but I thought I'd
> > ask just in case - have you tried meditation as a way of getting the
> > voices to be quieter, and/or a way of learning to listen to them less?
> I have--for the first reason, not the second; I think they all have
> useful things to say, they just need to learn how to take turns because
> right now _no one_ is getting heard--and unfortunately, all it seems to
> do is give a quiet background to the noise. I have a very hard time
> meditating on one thing, since my mind tends to wander, and when I try
> meditating on nothingness and letting my mind wander as it will, I
> usually fall asleep. Perhaps I'm just not very good at it....
Y'know, the more I read in this thread, the more I'm convinced that I'm
brainsharing with you. My husband is a big advocate of meditation; when I
complain that I tend to fall asleep when I try, he says "That's
good! Relaxation is the goal, and if you relax into sleeping, it's
accomplishing the purpose." But, like yourself, I have been
sleep-addicted in the past (as an avoidance for severe depression), and I
really don't like the lure of going to sleep in order to not deal with
bad-thought-loops. I'm still interested in meditation, but I think what
would do me more good is specifically guided meditation - having somebody
talk me through it, give me a line to follow, so I won't get distracted or
fall asleep. :/
Elynne, seeing many paralells between her stress post and Rose's post, &
getting into some heavy ponder space
--
My web-page-esque-thing: http://www.tomorrowlands.org/elynne/index.html
"There are three kinds of people in the world: those who can count, and
those who can't."
piranha
>
> I'm doing that, when I move--as soon as I have my own place I'm cutting
> off all contact with the 'net, with my family and loves, with my friends
> both local and distant; no email, no newsgroups, no phone calls,
> nothing. That's been part of the plan since day one. Just me on my own.
> That's what I meant by "my honeymoon".
ah. i am sorry -- i misunderstood what you said before then (some
sleep does help, *snicker*). i thought you were just moving, tho
for the purpose of making a serious change in your life.
yes, a "honeymoon" sounds like a good thing to try (as in, this
would work for me as a sort of "retreat").
oh, and please don't expect of yourself that whatever you do will
work for the rest of your life. i hope you find something that
works enough to get you out of the spiraling you're in now, but i
think you should expect that you'll need "refreshers".
does writing work for you? sitting down and writing that post,
did that, all by itself, help in some way? i write a lot when i
"go away". it focusses the voices. lots of this involves very
small moves -- the voices go wild, and i listen and it's a
cacaphony, and then i hold on to one a little longer, let it go,
come back to it, let it go, and after a while, i hear that one
clearer than the others. and yes, i agree with you, they do all
have useful things to say -- some say things i really don't like,
but that in itself is useful to know.
somebody (annette?) mentioned meditation, and that also works for
me, though i don't do it anywhere as structured as others do it --
i find a place of peace. that can be somewhere outside (this is
why i can't live very well in large cities; such places are hard
to find there for me). it can also be in music; i can tune out
the rest of the world if i close my eyes and have my headphones
on. and then i hold on to some image i have, something
interesting, but calm.
if this becomes difficult to "schedule", i _know_ something is
wrong. i prioritize it then. do it first thing in the morning,
when i get up. or do it in the middle of the day, when i start to
feel frazzled by all that interaction with people. this hasn't
been a problem since i've changed my life to no longer be part of
the rat race -- that was a big change i made, which touches on
what elise said about "what do you want more of in your life, and
how can you make it happen".
what is still very hard for me, and stressful on its own is that i
can't do everything i want to do. it sounds like this might be
part of your problem as well.
> I'm planning on it lasting no
> more than a month and a half, and I might be ready to come out of it
> before then, but definitely a few weeks at least. I won't lock myself in
> the house, but I'll avoid even minimal contact with strangers where I
> can; I don't want to make new friends at a time when I wouldn't be able
> to talk to them. I want to see what I do when I have nothing to do, how
> I structure my life in a total absence of obligations. It should be
> interesting.
yes. you might be down on yourself in general now, but i think
you're doing very well in figuring out things that might work for
you. and if they don't work, don't kick yourself. i think that
anything worth doing has a certain failure rate; that's just the
way it is because none of us are born with perfect understanding.
i think trying matters a great deal -- the journey itself is
important.
--
-piranha
Lisa Geoffrion
<1eoz8yb.ohrp26bpoch0N%Thi...@Not-My-Real-Address.com> wrote:
>Liz Williams <lizw...@MailAndNews.com> wrote:
>
>> Rose, I'm guessing you've probably tried this already, but I thought I'd
>> ask just in case - have you tried meditation as a way of getting the
>> voices to be quieter, and/or a way of learning to listen to them less?
>
(snip)
>I have a hard time meditating on one thing, since my mind tends to wander, and
>when I try meditating on nothingness and letting my mind wander as it will, I
usually >fall asleep. Perhaps I'm just not very good at it....
>
>Thanks for the suggestion. It's something I should look into more, or
>perhaps do in a more structured way, with a mantra of some kind.
I have the same kind of trouble meditating. What works for me is a guided
meditation; either in a group with a person leading the meditation, or with a
tape. For the tape, I write a meditation, or read one from a book, and then
read it onto the tape. Works great for me.
Lisa
Aahz Maruch
one guileless rose <Thi...@Not-My-Real-Address.com> wrote:
>Aahz Maruch <aa...@panix.com> wrote:
>> one guileless rose <Thi...@Not-My-Real-Address.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>I need to be, without knowing what that means in advance. Talk about
>>>scary. I fear that I won't like who I am--at least, not parts (like the
>>>bitter and catty parts)--and that feels like an actual fear based on
>>>reality, not a something-I-dreamed-up-that's-feeding-on-itself type of
>>>fear, because I can't imagine actually liking _all_ of myself as I am
>>>now, so obviously unfinished.[2] And I'll have to own up to the parts
>>>that I don't like, and accept them as part of me. This is going to be
>>>hard. I'm scared. *whimper*
>>
>> Mmmm. Yeah. Well, that's part of the reason I often don't censor myself
>> when I'm getting ready to send a post that's likely to cause a flamewar
>> because I've hurt someone. Because if I can do things like that and
>> people still like me, then maybe I'm not such a bad person, and I have
>> to like myself.
>
>But what if they _don't_ like me afterwards and I'm left all alone? What
>if my good parts aren't enough to make up for the rest?
>
>That "what if" has kept me from doing a great many things and I'm
>getting very tired of it. *sigh*
Okay, so you'd end up alone. What's so bad about that? If and when
that happens, you can work on fixing *that* problem.
Consider this: if your *entire* social network consists of people who
can't handle "the Real Rose", is that the kind of social network you
really want? What good would that network be if you had real problems?
Is relying on a tissue paper network a Good Idea?
Now flip things around a bit: how would you react if one of the people
in your social network was talking the way you are? What makes you
think the majority of them would react any differently to hearing you
talk this way?
Elise Matthesen
Elynne wrote:
> I'm still interested in meditation, but I think what
> would do me more good is specifically guided meditation - having somebody
> talk me through it, give me a line to follow, so I won't get distracted or
> fall asleep. :/
I've been given to understand that getting distracted is a normal part
of meditation, and that if one just looks at the distracting thought and
acknowledges it and then lets it drift on past and out, that can be very
useful. Takes a while to clear the mind, from what little I know myself
(I'm by no means good at meditation per se), but the clearing process is
part of the meditation. That's part of what it's *for*. It's part of
doing it.
Grabbing a pitchfork and chasing the distractions around the room, and
then thwacking oneself for having had a distraction in the first place
-- those things are attachment. Courting distraction is attachment, and
fighting distraction is attachment. As near as I can figure out, saying,
"Yeah, OK, whatever" and just watching the distraction float or the next
one come along is a step in the right direction -- or maybe it's an
avoidance of stepping in wrong directions. <wry grin>
Nobody sits down to meditate and *bam* has a totally clear mind -- well,
I suppose there's probably people who do, but they've probably got a lot
of experience or something. And that's OK. It's not about how clear one
can get. It's about doing it. At least, that's what I was told. But
there are almost certainly people reading this newsgroup who know a lot
more about this than I do. So there's my two bent coppers' worth,
anyhow, and we'll see who throws in a dime later.
Elise,
on a Saturday, day eleven of getting better.
Ben Okopnik
one guileless rose of alt.polyamory speaking thus:
>
>It was brought to my attention a short while ago that I have probably
>about fifteen years' worth of anger bottled up inside me, and no
>practice at all in expressing it--none, zip, zero--or healthy modes for
>doing so.
[ ... ]
>I need to disconnect my brain, or muzzle it, or _something_. Make the
>voices in my head stop! There is so much noise in my mind, all the
>time--and I mean noise as in static, not-signal--that I can't focus on
>anything.
I used to do that. Not "do" that, but "have" that... well, whatever. A
very wise friend I had - my gf at the time - taught me something that took
a lot of work, but made the voices go away. As it turned out, a lot of
them were old anger, at that point almost 30 years worth. I'm not playing
"misery poker" here, either: I'm just making the point that it _is_
possible to make them go away.
What she told me was to *listen*. Yes, there are (seemingly) thousands of
them. Yes, they're all clamoring for attention, in a jumbled screaming
confusing mess of NOISE that interferes with rational thought and makes it
damn near impossible to single one out... Give the rest of them a promise:
that you _will_ listen to them all, in turn. Then, pick one. Sit with it.
Hear it. Sometimes, that's all it takes; for me, most of these were old
Things... most of them, just parts of me crying for attention that had
been denied them. When I heard them - *really* heard them, not "yeah,
yeah - I'm far too [tough|adult|smart|whatever] to have to deal with
_this_", they quietly disappeared. After a bit, it becomes a learned
skill.
Some weren't that easy. They'd built a loop out of the original hurt and
the hurt of being ignored which reinforced the original... on and on.
Those took more; it was something I came to call "making deals" with them.
I'd sit there and negotiate with them; find out what they would take in
exchange for quieting down. Sometimes, it was paying an emotional debt;
other times, it took changing a habit that I knew I should have changed
(that voice was something like a mini-conscience); <chuckle> once, it was
a quart of Haagen-Dazs.
Some - two, actually - took a few years apiece. I'm not really interested
in talking about _what_ they were, but it took going deeper and deeper
within myself to find the place where my beliefs and my actions diverged
by just _that_ much... and built over time, as things like that tend to
do, into a horrendous mess that I felt helpless to fix. <Sigh> Then, I got
to go fix it. Both times cost me tremendous energy, peace of mind during
the process, caused upheavals that I would far rather have avoided... and
left me a better person in my own eyes. If I'd known, up front, what the
cost was going to be... I'd like to think that I would have gone ahead and
done it anyway, but there's a fair chunk of doubt attached to that.
One man's experience, Rose. Take it for whatever Net advice is worth; I
hope that it helps you at least a little along the way.
Ben "be a neat thing if it did... another bit of paying forward" Okopnik
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
"If you consult enough experts, you can confirm any opinion."
-- Unknown
Jim Roberts
not the Gordian. Go off to a mountain cabin for a month with enough gorp and
vitamin pills, and a sun shower, and all will seem to be nothing at the end
of that time. No need to search for and try to worry each end of the knot.
Let he who is wiser than Alexander take another path.
jimbat
Kirsten M. Berry
one guileless rose looked up from the want-ads, turned to me and said:
<gentle snip>
}[1] Do not any of you _dare_ to take this as a compliment-troll. Even if
}your first instinctive response is "But you _are_ wonderful!", I don't
}want to hear it.
You may wish to go on to the next message then...but right now I
*need* to say this and know that someone else knows it. I'm sure that
one of the lovely people here will be Someone Else for as long as it
takes me to say it.
}I know there are good and beautiful parts of myself.
}I'm wholly aware of that. They're what keep me going. I can point to
}them and say "I am worthy of the trust of someone I trust and respect
}beyond measure" and "I kept a person I care about from walking in front
}of a train" and "I make beautiful things with my hands and my voice and
}my mind" and "I'm in better physical shape than I ever have been in my
}life, and my body is functioning better and more reliably than it ever
}has" and many other things besides. That doesn't change my desperate
}drive for honesty, soul-baring, long boring explanations about how the
}good parts aren't all there is to me. One of the good parts I point to
}is "I am honest even when it's painful". This is one of the painful
}times. If there were anything I wanted to hear in response to all this,
}it would be "Yes, I know you're not perfect, and I can recall several
}occasions when I've seen you prove it. So what? You are nonetheless
}loved, and that means you can be loved, and that means it's possible
}that you can love yourself"--but don't say it unless you mean it.
This is why I love you, Rose. So much of what you said in the above
post - even in this disclaimer - is what I see in myself as being
Wrong. But you've gone further towards fixing what's fucked up in
less time than it's taken me to even ask someone else "Is this really
a problem? And if so, why shouldn't it just be *my* problem to fix?"
I admire that courage.
In the midst of your own personal whirlwind, you took the time to
reach out to me and make sure *I* was going to be okay. It's hard to
see right now what I did to deserve that kind of concern...but you
think I do, so I guess I must.
And *I* think *you* do. You know where to find me if you need someone
to lean on for a while. (And I promise to lean on you if you think
the equation is unbalanced. *smile*)
Be well, my brother.
--
Kirsten M. Berry -- ksha...@mindspring.com -- K`shandra on IRC
http://www.mindspring.com/~kshandra/
"Expect the best. Expect the worst. Expect a f*cking miracle.
It's always Anything Can Happen Day." -Pamela Des Barres
Jim Roberts
those "professionals" knew how to live their own lives, they would be too busy
to help you, and would be making more money and getting more satisfaction.
Doctors Without Borders (Médicines sans Frontières) came up in this thread. I
cannot serve myself, having only Red Cross Advanced First Aid and CPR, but we
give them $1000-$500/yr, depending on the year.
In the few desperate times in which I was persuaded to see someone, I wound up
doing them more good than they did me. The last, when Katbat left us, when I
was particularly spooked and feeling helpless, was a resident at JHU. Being
from Mississippi, she had some unresolved insecurities, and was much more
ignorant than she supposed. I helped her resolve her problems and set her on
an educational path, so that after several months she got engaged, and was on
her way and much happier. A connection tells me she's doing very well now.
At the end, she said she should have been paying me. BTW, the depression pills
had no effect, mental or sexual. The best therapy is helping others, which has
come up elsewhere in this thread. The worst therapy is focussing on your own
insolvable problems rooted in an unchangeable past, which is why so many are
addicted to spurious therapy.
Yeah, I know, I shoulda been a doctor instead of an astronomer. Everyone tells
me so, and I know it. But then, who knows what kind of fool I might have
become had I gone to med school, and evaded a lifetime of contemplation. I
sure started out as a fool, and didn't begin to emerge from that state until my
20s, with a great deal of help from my friends.
This wasn't much about Rose - nice pics BTW! - but all anyone can honestly do
is tell their own story. That is the only thing that counts. Advice is
worthless, especially in that if it is good, it will not be taken, and if it is
bad, it will be.
jimbat
one guileless rose wrote:
> Leslie <les...@vex.net> wrote:
>
> > What does your shrink say? I mean, this sounds to me like a job
> > for a professional, not an amateur -- ?
>
> My last shrink was completely the wrong one for me, which is why I
> stopped seeing him. And it doesn't make much sense to take up with
> another two months before I move.
>
They are almost all wrong, unless you can help *them*.
>
> > That sounds like one seriously *large* load of anxiety you're perpetually
> > burdened with, and it's going to take time and effort -- and the right
> > tools and methods -- to get it to shut up.
>
> Oh, I'm aware. What I want is a way to get through these next couple of
> months. Then I can sit down and do some serious work.
>
It is not a problem. Give your obsessions 40 whacks. Take control. Any human
is better than their problems. Try voodoo, put the problems into a doll.
>
> > There are two books I can highly recommend:
>
> Noted, and the suggestions from the first are helpful, especially the
> one about scheduling time to worry, which I find perversely appealing.
> *grin* Thanks!
>
Bootless advice. Just keeps you in the quicksand. Perverse, indeed.
You know how to get out of quicksand? Lie out flat, stop sudden movements, and
roll. Never mind about getting utterly dirty. There's a good metaphor that
has a physical reality.
>
> > I hope you're feeling better now?
>
> Some. Nine hours of restful sleep will do that.
>
Then you are halfway there.
>
> > If you're upset at the idea of being 'unfinished,' I have bad
> > news. I can say with confidence that nobody here IS finished,
> > and you never will be, either. Just maybe less unfinished than
> > you are now. So you ought to ignore that strawman argument.
>
> Oh! No, that doesn't bother me--what bothers me are people who try to
> tell me that I'm perfectly wonderful when I know I'm not, and who
> downplay my downsides in an attempt to cheer me up. (This strikes me as
> very similar to what Elise (I think) was saying about asking for help
> with body image issues, and common reactions.)
>
Rose has no real body image issues, as she is quite beautiful. Someone along
the line messed with her mind. She should just enjoy her excellent body.
Skate, hike, climb, run, whatever delights.
Au contraire, we are all essentially finished by the age of two. What happens
after that is just details, rescue, or perversion. One's strength and pattern,
what gets you through life, is set at two. Research shows this, and it is very
clear from my life and that of my two kids that it is true. I gave them great
strength and groundedness before their mother divorced me, saying in her diary
that she wanted "to twist their souls, so that they grow up as screwed up as I
am". She embarked on a 10-yr program to do just that, allied with the evil
woman she was living with, but all she could do is to fuck up their lives, not
twist their souls, which are intact.
They have suffered enormous unrecoverable personal and professional loss
because of their mother, but they are still whole and will live and not ever do
the death spiral. That strength and mental integrity is all owed to what I,
and their mother before she went nuts, gave them up to the age of two, and
lesser stuff thereafter.
When you have your own kids, this is the most important thing to think about,
and to realize. Comfort, support, play, fix the *simple* toys, sing, dance,
tell stories, read literature that makes them think, at bedtime say goodnight
to every treasured thing - even those in the heavens - Jupiter, Venus, Sirius,
the moon, whatever is up there - and to every valued plant in the yard, break
limits - show them things that are real. (E.g., I took my daughter out to see
a chipper at work, which I called a "tree-eater". I explained to her how it
worked when she was 2½ and how brave were the men who worked it. She
understood everything in the comfort of my arms.) Change diapers gently and do
not get angry when a lashing foot goes into the poop. Diaper changing must be
a gentle, loving time.
Now, the hook. You cannot do these things well if you are selfishly focussed
on your own problems. Let them go, so that you can be good for others.
>
> > See your therapist. Get professional advice. That's my advice.
>
> I will when I can. Right now that's not terribly feasible, I'm afraid.
> But all I'm looking for is a stopgap until I can do that.
>
The worst thing you could possibly do.
jimbat
Liz Williams
>Elynne wrote:
>> I'm still interested in meditation, but I think what
>> would do me more good is specifically guided meditation - having somebody
>> talk me through it, give me a line to follow, so I won't get distracted or
>> fall asleep. :/
>
>I've been given to understand that getting distracted is a normal part
>of meditation, and that if one just looks at the distracting thought and
>acknowledges it and then lets it drift on past and out, that can be very
>useful. Takes a while to clear the mind, from what little I know myself
>(I'm by no means good at meditation per se), but the clearing process is
>part of the meditation. That's part of what it's *for*. It's part of
>doing it.
I'd agree with that.
Personally, I haven't found guided meditation helpful for making the voices
shut up. The guide became just another voice, and another thing I could use
to beat myself up if I found the instructions difficult to carry out.
Incidentally, I also like the suggestion of listening to the voices one by
one, even though it's almost the opposite of my own suggestion :-). I guess
it depends on whether the voices are telling you *useful* stuff, so that
the
problem is just that they're doing it all at once, or whether it's all junk.
It's possible you might need to listen to them for a while to figure that
out,
I guess :-)
Liz Williams
>I don't have an answer. Got an observation, though. You're not
>really thinking too much, you're worrying too much. There's a
>difference. Nobody ever went wrong thinking.
Dunno about that :-)
Being unable to stop thinking about stuff that wasn't at all worrying, but
was
exciting and intellectually challenging, seems to have been a factor in my
insomnia last autumn.
Janet Miles
<1eoya9x.15q7rln1jrap4vN%Thi...@Not-My-Real-Address.com>, one guileless
rose wrote:
> I've been hinting around this for quite some time and now I don't even
> know where to start.
>
> Um. My Tarot cards tell me I think too much (and in no uncertain terms
> do they tell me this--my beloved Morgan-Greer deck is really good at
> beating me over the head when I need it, as well as when I don't). My
> beloved lover tells me I think too much. My friends tell me I think too
> much. So _why in the name of jumpin' Jesus Jehosephat_ can I not stop
> thinking and thinking and thinking about everything?
I have read the rest of the thread, so I'm snipping all but the single
point I think I can respond to. It may not be helpful; it works for me, but
of course you are not me and it may not work for you, and no hard feelings
if it doesn't, or even if you don't want to try it, and like that.
I just hope no one laughs at me <sigh>.
Rose, what I do, when the anxieties get overwhelming and I can't hear
anything but their clamor, is personify them. I have a mental image of
(forgive me, but I'm pretty sure I came up with it before I found alt.poly)
a squirrel, racing in a wheel in a cage -- around and around, exhausting
himself and getting nowhere.
I imagine myself reaching into the cage, putting just one finger on the
wheel to slow it down gently without hurting or further upsetting the
squirrel. Once the wheel has stopped, I hold out a little treat for him --
a dab of peanut butter, maybe, or a small chunk of carrot.
As he calms down, I start to pet him -- gently stroking his head and chest,
just with one finger, 'cause squirrels are fairly small. After a bit,
he'll step up onto my hand, and I can pick him up and hold him against my
chest. At this point, I might cup a bit of water in my other hand for him,
or murmur to him, or just keep stroking his fur; whatever the anxieties
seem to need most.
I know it sounds stupid and foolish, but it really does work for me, and it
usually only takes about 5-10 minutes to calm me down.
JanetM
--
Posted by Janet Miles <jmi...@usit.net> <http://www.public.usit.net/jmiles>
Loyal Webcrafter: PenUltimate Productions <http://www.worthlink.net/~ysabet>
Ben Okopnik
Janet Miles of alt.polyamory speaking thus:
Doesn't sound in the least stupid or foolish to me, Janet. I'll just add
that to my own bag'o'tricks, should I need it again.
Gentleness and kindness to parts of yourself that are screaming for
attention is _not_ stupid or foolish. That, and learning to be 100%
rock-solid about keeping agreements, are the only things that I've found
that worked.
Ben "makes me feel a little less crazy, in fact" Okopnik
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Only users lose drugs. -- Mikey
Teal
<ltjt8t4i14snln6kl...@4ax.com>:
>On Sat, 17 Feb 2001 02:26:22 -0500, Thi...@Not-My-Real-Address.com
>(one guileless rose) posited:
>
>>"Help me. Please?"
>>
>>Not that I think anyone can, really. At least, not with the be-ing. But
>>maybe someone has a suggestion for a mental pacifier, so that the voices
>>will pipe down and stop throwing words at everything and I can rest. And
>>be. Whatever that means.
>>
>
>What sometimes helps me focus when my brain is just going round and
>round is to distract myself with something entirely nonverbal (usually
>a shape-matching game of some sort on my Palm or PC -- the Bejeweled
>game on MSN is a good example.) This seems to help my listening
>comprehension (in meetings, etc.) as well as my inner circling. I'm
>not sure quite how it works. It seems to distract the front of my
>brain [1] in a way that lets the rest of the brain get on with
>processing. If you can doodle non-verbally, that might work, but I
>have a hard time keeping doodles non-verbal.
Embroidery. I do embroidery during lectures or meetings where I don't
need to take notes. It performs the role you describe, more or less...
I think of it as something that takes up some of the spare capacity in
my head that wants to wander all over the place in these sorts of
situation, and thus permits the part of me to attend more to the
meeting/lecture without being dragged offtopic by a wandering mind
every few moments.
Teal
--
My website: http://tealspace.chromatic-dragonfly.com/
--
Teal
>one guileless rose spake thusly:
>="Help me. Please?"
>=
>=Not that I think anyone can, really. At least, not with the be-ing. But
>=maybe someone has a suggestion for a mental pacifier, so that the voices
>=will pipe down and stop throwing words at everything and I can rest. And
>=be. Whatever that means.
>
>What does your shrink say? I mean, this sounds to me like a job
>for a professional, not an amateur -- ? That sounds like one
>seriously *large* load of anxiety you're perpetually burdened with,
>and it's going to take time and effort -- and the right tools and
>methods -- to get it to shut up.
I second this one, wholeheartedly. I don't know whether you've tried
this already, but getting an assessment to see if there's some
underlying psych issue that can be addressed sounds like a damn fine
start. Some of the things you describe in your post sound a lot like
stuff I experience regularly. In my case, it's related to ADHD - my
ability to focus my attention *is* wired weirdly, as are a few other
bits and pieces; and the nett effect of wrestling with this
day-in-day-out can (and has, in my case) lead to anxiety and
depression.
Not that I'm saying that ADHD is necessarily the issue in your case -
there are no doubt all sorts of things that could produce stuff like
you describe. It's more a matter of saying that there *are* specific,
treatable glitches that can lead to stuff similar to what you
describe. And in my case, I've found that developing an awareness of
not only *what* is going on in my head, but *how* (and to some degree,
why) it does so can be very helpful in quelling the anxiety and guilt
and beating-on-oneself. In addition, I've personally found low-dose
stimulant meds helpful in getting the distractability and lack of
focus and motivation under control. They don't *fix* it for me, but
they do make it much more manageable; and that has been a great boon
in my life.
If you're unfamiliar with how ADHD actually works, here's a very good
webpage that describes what it feels like on the inside
(http://add.about.com/health/add/library/weekly/aa082597.htm?pid=2750&cob=home)
...Once again, this is not intended as a "this is definitely your
problem" hint, but more offered as a worked example to show how subtle
wiring glitches can affect more than would be immediately obvious. I
dunno if it's helpful to you; if you want to discuss this stuff in
more detail and you'd like to chat with someone else who has focus and
attention difficulties similar to the ones you describe, feel free to
drop me an email and I'll be happy to talk about it in more depth.
Teal, wondering if this is at all useful or helpful
piranha
>
> Rose, what I do, when the anxieties get overwhelming and I can't hear
> anything but their clamor, is personify them. I have a mental image of
> (forgive me, but I'm pretty sure I came up with it before I found alt.poly)
> a squirrel, racing in a wheel in a cage -- around and around, exhausting
> himself and getting nowhere.
>
> I imagine myself reaching into the cage, putting just one finger on the
> wheel to slow it down gently without hurting or further upsetting the
> squirrel. Once the wheel has stopped, I hold out a little treat for him --
> a dab of peanut butter, maybe, or a small chunk of carrot.
wow. that's a lot more personified visualization than i do, but i
bet it works well, possibly because it is so elaborate -- you're
really focussing yourself.
> As he calms down, I start to pet him -- gently stroking his head and chest,
> just with one finger, 'cause squirrels are fairly small. After a bit,
> he'll step up onto my hand, and I can pick him up and hold him against my
> chest. At this point, I might cup a bit of water in my other hand for him,
> or murmur to him, or just keep stroking his fur; whatever the anxieties
> seem to need most.
>
> I know it sounds stupid and foolish, but it really does work for me, and it
> usually only takes about 5-10 minutes to calm me down.
doesn't sound stupid and foolish at all. sounds pretty darn
nifty. do you remember how you came up with this?
(of course the squirrel motif is a bonus in this case, *grin*.)
--
-piranha
RJ
}I need to disconnect my brain, or muzzle it, or _something_. Make the
}voices in my head stop! There is so much noise in my mind, all the
}time--and I mean noise as in static, not-signal--that I can't focus on
}anything.
I've found that the voices in my head want my attention for some
reason. I cna't judge whether the reason is valid (signal) or
invalid (noise) until I acknowledge them. Doesn't mean I have to
_do_ anything with the information, but fif I want them to stop
yammering at me, the best way is turn to them and say, calmly, "I'm
listening; what do you want to say?"
It may take a while to deal with all of the ones in the queue, but
I've found it to be worth it.
===== RJ Johnson ==================================== r...@xocolatl.com =====
Xander: Who's the little fear demon? Come on, who's the little fear demon?
Giles: Don't taunt the fear demon. Xander: Why? Can he hurt me?
Giles: No, it's just... tacky.
===================== David Fury, "Fear, Itself" ==========================
Janet Miles
<uzofjf...@aegis.gooroos.com>, piranha wrote:
> Janet Miles <jmi...@usit.net> wrote in <Oe6POvJeCHZS95...@4ax.com>:
> >
> > Rose, what I do, when the anxieties get overwhelming and I can't hear
> > anything but their clamor, is personify them. I have a mental image of
> > (forgive me, but I'm pretty sure I came up with it before I found alt.poly)
> > a squirrel, racing in a wheel in a cage -- around and around, exhausting
> > himself and getting nowhere.
[...]
>
> doesn't sound stupid and foolish at all. sounds pretty darn
> nifty. do you remember how you came up with this?
Well, mostly Dale came up with it. About eight years ago, when I was
getting ready to quit the job I had then but didn't have any clear ideas of
what I might do next, I stopped in at the UT Career Center to take one of
those interest inventory tests. The interpreter who discussed the results
with me said she'd only seen results like mine a few times before -- all
over the map. She likened it to a "squirrel-cage" mind.
I mentioned this to Dale.
A year or so after that, I was having a period of *really* bad anxiety
attacks. Dale made some comment about the squirrel, and I agreed, and he
suggested imagining said squirrel and calming him down. The whole thing
sort of grew from there.
> (of course the squirrel motif is a bonus in this case, *grin*.)
Agreed :-) .
RJ
}Aahz Maruch <aa...@panix.com> wrote:
}
}> one guileless rose <Thi...@Not-My-Real-Address.com> wrote:
}> >
}> >I need to be, without knowing what that means in advance. Talk about
}> >scary. I fear that I won't like who I am--at least, not parts (like the
}> >bitter and catty parts)--and that feels like an actual fear based on
}> >reality, not a something-I-dreamed-up-that's-feeding-on-itself type of
}> >fear, because I can't imagine actually liking _all_ of myself as I am
}> >now, so obviously unfinished.[2] And I'll have to own up to the parts
}> >that I don't like, and accept them as part of me. This is going to be
}> >hard. I'm scared. *whimper*
}>
}> Mmmm. Yeah. Well, that's part of the reason I often don't censor myself
}> when I'm getting ready to send a post that's likely to cause a flamewar
}> because I've hurt someone. Because if I can do things like that and
}> people still like me, then maybe I'm not such a bad person, and I have
}> to like myself.
}
}But what if they _don't_ like me afterwards and I'm left all alone? What
}if my good parts aren't enough to make up for the rest?
Well, then you have new data to work with. What you do with that
data is whatever you do with that data.
}That "what if" has kept me from doing a great many things and I'm
}getting very tired of it. *sigh*
I don't know if this next bit will help you or not, but one thing
I've noticedover the years is that people will pretty much do what
they damn well please, my behavior and intentions seemingly
notwithstanding. In fact I had more than a little bit of egotism
and vanity wrapped up in the notion of "If I do X, what will
everyone think of me?" until I realized the answer was usually, "Not
a damn thing, as other folks are wrapped up in their own worlds as
much as I am wrapped up in mine to notice 99.9% of the stuff I
_think_ they are noticing."
I found that when I could say, "The rest of the world, for the most
part, is ignorant of my life and my decisions" without rancor,
suddenly I became open to doing more.
one guileless rose
> OK. Really nothing else at all? Not hiking, sitting by a stream, being
> in the woods in the early morning, having an orgasm, strenuous exercise,
> becoming utterly involved in a project, having a bad cold?
I found something, actually. When two of my lovers were absolutely
focused on making me feel pleased, pleasured, and loved, the voices
pretty much went away. That, or I couldn't hear them over my sobbing--I
was so overwhelmed by the utterly tangible love in the room that I burst
into tears. (I'm still overwhelmed by it. If I go over to my bed, I'll
probably still be able to feel that particular thickness to the air. It
was... like nothing else I've ever experienced. For those moments there
was no doubt in my mind that I was loved, truly and deeply. I have
received very few gifts in my life that come close to comparing to
that.)
Unfortunately, that's not really something I can do when I'm stressing
at work.
What does seem to help, and is more doable in a real-world context, is
speaking my mind. If I say what I'm thinking, it circumvents all the
"Should I say this?" "I think so." "Well, I'm not sure. You might upset
someone." "Who cares if it upsets someone?" "Are you sure it's what you
mean?" "What if it's taken the wrong way?" blathering in my head and
cuts down considerably on the general interior noise. It involves a lot
of bullet-biting, but it's getting easier the more I do it. And as I
remarked the other night when discussing this with my mother, it's
awfully nice to finally hear someone say all the things I've been
thinking.
one guileless rose
> you have to live with yourself all your life, every day. other
> people will never be right there with you, inside your head. that
> gives, to me, priority to be like _i_ want to be.
Mmm... that's kind of dangerous, to me. I've given myself two dramatic
_exterior_ personality makeovers in my life, in an attempt to be who I
wanted to be, and a lot of what I'm cutting through now is leftovers
from that. First, I think, I need to figure out who I am. I can't very
well sculpt myself if I don't know whether I'm working in wood or stone
or Silly Putty.
one guileless rose
> I have the same kind of trouble meditating. What works for me is a guided
> meditation; either in a group with a person leading the meditation, or with a
> tape. For the tape, I write a meditation, or read one from a book, and then
> read it onto the tape. Works great for me.
That's interesting. Can you give me some examples of what this would be
like? I really have no idea what "writing a meditation" means.
one guileless rose
> Y'know, the more I read in this thread, the more I'm convinced that I'm
> brainsharing with you.
Entirely possible. There's plenty of room, since at least half of my
brain currently resides in Liam's head (there were at least half a dozen
moments in the twelve hours we spent together yesterday where we cracked
up or just stared at each other over brain-sharing moments, and in
bed... yow! Complete wordless understanding. I've never experienced
anything quite like it).
> I'm still interested in meditation, but I think what would do me more good
> is specifically guided meditation - having somebody talk me through it,
> give me a line to follow, so I won't get distracted or fall asleep. :/
I'd thought of this and then forgotten it: I'm going to try and write
myself some mantras--a "line to follow", as you say--and see if I can
structure them sort of like a museum, where the building is always the
same and you have a map to follow through it, but what you find in each
room is often different from what you found the time before. I don't
want to be too specific, since I'd want to use them to deal with a
variety of situations, but if it's too vague I'll wander too far from
it. I'll let you know if I come up with anything.
> Elynne, seeing many paralells between her stress post and Rose's post, &
> getting into some heavy ponder space
Yeah, I noticed that too.
one guileless rose
> oh, and please don't expect of yourself that whatever you do will
> work for the rest of your life. i hope you find something that
> works enough to get you out of the spiraling you're in now, but i
> think you should expect that you'll need "refreshers".
This is a really important thing for me to remember. Thanks.
> does writing work for you? sitting down and writing that post,
> did that, all by itself, help in some way?
It did, somewhat, though not entirely.
> what is still very hard for me, and stressful on its own is that i
> can't do everything i want to do. it sounds like this might be
> part of your problem as well.
Heh. Eternally.
> yes. you might be down on yourself in general now, but i think
> you're doing very well in figuring out things that might work for
> you.
I certainly hope so! I'm putting a lot into this, and my hope that it
will be good for me and teach me something--some things--about myself
that I know but don't have words for, let me bring them out into my
consciousness and into the open.
> and if they don't work, don't kick yourself. i think that
> anything worth doing has a certain failure rate; that's just the
> way it is because none of us are born with perfect understanding.
> i think trying matters a great deal -- the journey itself is
> important.
I was reminded of this the other night, when my attempt at anger
management was such a laughable failure but I got a whole bunch of stuff
out of it related to other parts of my life. It does matter a whole lot
to me just that I'm trying things out, that I'm thinking about this and
trying to examine myself to see what I need and how I need to go about
it. Just learning to observe myself and acknowledge my truths has been
tremendously useful and energizing.
one guileless rose
> Okay, so you'd end up alone. What's so bad about that?
Whoof! Talk about things I've never, ever said to myself, that it would
never occur to me to say to myself.
I. Um. Let me get back to you on that. I mean, I can't really say "But
it would be lonely and I'd miss people" because I'll _always_ miss
people and there are always people to miss. And I can't say "It wouldn't
be good for me" because I'm about to take a big chunk of time to be
alone on the theory that it will be very, very good for me.
I think what I don't like about it is that I want control over ending
the aloneness. If I have the sense that, when I want/need to, I can go
and find people to be with who will appreciate me for who and what I am,
it gets a lot less scary. And I think I'm getting there. (It helps that
for the last couple of years I've really been brought to the awareness
that if I can conceive of something, there are probably a thousand
people who have thought of it, two hundred who think it's neat, and
twenty who've made it a fetish. There is _nothing_ that squicks
everyone. Therefore, for everything that exists to be
appreciated--including me, she reminds herself--there exists at least
one person who will and does appreciate it. I think I've really
internalized that. It helps a lot.)
> If and when that happens, you can work on fixing *that* problem.
Liam pointed out to me that perfect people have nothing to work on. I
can't imagine wanting to spend time with someone like that.
And when I told him--I have to put this here because I'm just going to
burst if I don't get to post about it _somewhere_ because it's too good
not to share--when I told him about marrying myself, he hugged me and
looked me in the eye and said "May I kiss the bride?". That made it so
_real_. I'm getting all teary again just thinking about it.
> Consider this: if your *entire* social network consists of people who
> can't handle "the Real Rose", is that the kind of social network you
> really want? What good would that network be if you had real problems?
> Is relying on a tissue paper network a Good Idea?
You know... I don't think I do have that kind of network. Because I've
been coming here and coming to my friends and loved ones elsewhere with
some _very_ real problems, some pretty ugly ones sometimes, and you've
been very, very good for and to me. So I guess you can all deal. You're
going to have to, at any rate. *)
> Now flip things around a bit: how would you react if one of the people
> in your social network was talking the way you are? What makes you
> think the majority of them would react any differently to hearing you
> talk this way?
Heh. I wish one paragraph were enough to talk me out of my double
standards. That's not going to happen anytime soon, though I am working
on it sort of in passing, since fixing other things is helping to fix
that. Yay logic. *)
one guileless rose
> Teal, wondering if this is at all useful or helpful
It is, quite. I've already looked into the possibility that I have ADD
(ADHD seems highly unlikely) and/or OCD, and there are some signs but
nothing that's really at the medicine-treatable level at this point. My
last shrink and I didn't agree on many things, but after a year or so of
treatment we both felt very strongly that my troubles were rooted in
psychological issues rather than physical/chemical ones, and even if I
do have ADD or OCD that doesn't change the fact that there are some
_major_ psychological things that I need to deal with. Medication has
helped me before and if I feel it's called for again, I'll look into it,
but right now that doesn't feel like the right path to go down.
Thanks for the offer of email. I would take you up on it, but I've been
_rotten_ about returning emails lately; a couple of people have mailed
me about this and the weekend left me no chance to reply (good-busy,
very good, but nonetheless busy), so I don't think I dare start up more
email conversations just now!
one guileless rose
> Rose, what I do, when the anxieties get overwhelming and I can't hear
> anything but their clamor, is personify them. I have a mental image of
> (forgive me, but I'm pretty sure I came up with it before I found alt.poly)
> a squirrel, racing in a wheel in a cage -- around and around, exhausting
> himself and getting nowhere.
This rings completely true to me.
> I imagine myself reaching into the cage, putting just one finger on the
> wheel to slow it down gently without hurting or further upsetting the
> squirrel. Once the wheel has stopped, I hold out a little treat for him --
> a dab of peanut butter, maybe, or a small chunk of carrot.
>
> As he calms down, I start to pet him -- gently stroking his head and chest,
> just with one finger, 'cause squirrels are fairly small. After a bit,
> he'll step up onto my hand, and I can pick him up and hold him against my
> chest. At this point, I might cup a bit of water in my other hand for him,
> or murmur to him, or just keep stroking his fur; whatever the anxieties
> seem to need most.
>
> I know it sounds stupid and foolish, but it really does work for me, and it
> usually only takes about 5-10 minutes to calm me down.
And this makes perfect sense. I have an image of my own that's very
similar, and it never occurred to me to try interacting with it. (I'm
sort of laughing-nervous about doing so, now, because it's a cartoon
character and I have no idea what he would do if I tried to feed him
peanut butter off the tip of my finger. Whatever it is, though, it'll
probably make me laugh so hard that I completely forget to be tense.)
Thank you _very_ much for the suggestion.
one guileless rose
> Thi...@Not-My-Real-Address.com (one guileless rose) excited the
> ether to say:
>
> >I'm planning on doing this for a few weeks, but hadn't considered doing
> >it for just a weekend; maybe that will work as a temporary measure. The
> >problem is that my weekends are booked for the next few weeks at least;
> >but I'll find time in there, somewhere. Time on my own definitely seems
> >to help, but that includes freedom from a schedule and all sorts of
> >other things that I can't really get much of while I'm working and
> >dating three people. I'll give it a try if I can.
>
> Explain to the people involved what you need and why. Then do
> it. If they don't understand, well, I'm sure you know the drill.
Ha! If they didn't understand that I needed to do this, they would
already be missing me--I'd be gone gone gone.
One of the things I treasure most about my SOs is that never, at any
time, has _any_ of them tried to keep me here. (And a couple of months
ago, Helen saying "If you stay for another year I think we could really
make this relationship solid" would have come as close to changing my
mind and my plans as anything possibly could have. Now... it _is_ solid.
Not least because she didn't say that.) They know that I need to move.
Two have gone through somewhat similar times in their lives of isolation
and exploration, and one will probably start working on doing so--not
completely, the way I'm doing it, but in at least some ways--sometime in
the next couple of years. They'll miss me and I'm sure as hell going to
miss them, but they know that this is what I need, and they love me and
want me to have what I need, so they'll kiss me goodbye and call each
other whenever they get the itch to call me and I'll bite my nails and
leave the phone unplugged, and we'll do what we have to so that I can do
what I need to. If they weren't the sort of people to do this right,
they wouldn't get the chance to do it wrong.
one guileless rose
> Menolly <men...@spy.net> wrote:
>
> >It seems to distract the front of my brain [1] in a way that lets the
> >rest of the brain get on with processing.
>
> I think of it as something that takes up some of the spare capacity in
> my head that wants to wander all over the place in these sorts of
> situation
Both of these descriptions make complete and perfect sense to me, just
so you know. *) I use music for this a lot of the time (especially while
driving--I can't drive well without something familiar to listen to),
and when I can't, stitching helps, or singing. I just wish there were
some way that I could learn to _use_ that part of my mind instead of
just sending it off to keep itself busy and stay out of the way. I can't
help thinking it must be good for something besides distracting me.
one guileless rose
> I found that when I could say, "The rest of the world, for the most
> part, is ignorant of my life and my decisions" without rancor,
> suddenly I became open to doing more.
That's interesting, and something I'll have to ponder. Gosh, this place
is good for stuff like that. *)
one guileless rose
> if I want them to stop yammering at me, the best way is turn to them and
> say, calmly, "I'm listening; what do you want to say?"
Ben Okopnik <ben-fu...@geocities.com> wrote:
> What she told me was to *listen*. Yes, there are (seemingly) thousands of
> them. Yes, they're all clamoring for attention, in a jumbled screaming
> confusing mess of NOISE that interferes with rational thought and makes it
> damn near impossible to single one out... Give the rest of them a promise:
> that you _will_ listen to them all, in turn.
Liz Williams <lizw...@MailAndNews.com> wrote:
> Incidentally, I also like the suggestion of listening to the voices one by
> one, even though it's almost the opposite of my own suggestion :-). I
> guess it depends on whether the voices are telling you *useful* stuff, so
> that the problem is just that they're doing it all at once, or whether
> it's all junk.
I guess there's a consensus, here. *) I'm wondering now why I'm so
reluctant to take this advice. I suspect that means that there's
something in there I really don't want to hear. Which means I had
probably better listen to it sooner rather than later. Which is a good
and useful thing to know. Thanks, everyone.
Aahz Maruch
one guileless rose <Thi...@Not-My-Real-Address.com> wrote:
>>
>> Now flip things around a bit: how would you react if one of the people
>> in your social network was talking the way you are? What makes you
>> think the majority of them would react any differently to hearing you
>> talk this way?
>
>Heh. I wish one paragraph were enough to talk me out of my double
>standards. That's not going to happen anytime soon, though I am working
>on it sort of in passing, since fixing other things is helping to fix
>that. Yay logic. *)
Well, perhaps it might be useful to print that paragraph out and post it
someplace obvious?
--
--- Aahz (Copyright 2001 by aa...@pobox.com)
Androgynous poly kinky vanilla queer het <*> http://www.rahul.net/aahz/
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6
The problem with an ever-changing .sig is that you have to keep changing it
Jim Roberts
one guileless rose wrote:
> Teal <te...@chromatic-dragonfly.com> wrote:
>
> > Teal, wondering if this is at all useful or helpful
>
> It is, quite. I've already looked into the possibility that I have ADD
> (ADHD seems highly unlikely) and/or OCD, and there are some signs but
> nothing that's really at the medicine-treatable level at this point.
The lady has IADD, inhibited attention deficit disorder.
[...]
jimbat
one guileless rose
> Thanks for the suggestion. It's something I should look into more, or
> perhaps do in a more structured way, with a mantra of some kind. I've
> developed a couple of things along those lines for grounding and
> centering that work very well. (Happy to share them, if anyone's
> interested.)
I got email[1] saying that someone was, indeed, interested, so here are
the two that I use most often. For each, as I think or speak each
sentence, I try to visualize what I'm describing as clearly as I can, to
make my image of it solid and real, before moving on to the next. That
tends to pace it somewhat slowly, which in and of itself seems to be
calming. And if I can, I try to _feel_ what I'm describing as well as
see it. I'll explain that a bit more once I've typed these out:
a) I use this one when I need to put things in a bit of proportion, and
regain my sense of my place in the universe. Since obviously others'
senses of their places in the universe may not match up with mine, this
won't work for everyone, but what the hey.
I am small compared to this room.
This room is small compared to this floor of the building.
The floor is small compared to the building.
The building is small compared to the block.
The block is small compared to the neighborhood.
The neighborhood is small compared to the city.
The city is small compared to the county.
The county is small compared to the state.
The state is small compared to the country.
The country is small compared to the continent.
The continent is small compared to the world.
I am [superlatively] small, compared to the world--
And yet I hold the world in my hands if I choose.
And my Lady sees me, and notices me, and holds me in her arms.
(Replace the place-vocabulary with appropriate terms for wherever you
are.)
The images that I work with on this one are sort of like a video camera
zooming back and back and back and back. I'm not sure how else to
describe it. With each larger image, the previous one--me in the room,
or the building on the block, or whatever--is marked with a little X and
a "You are here", or outlined or colored or otherwise marked off, to
remind me of relative proportions. Visualizing the Earth floating in
space, and myself as the tiniest of specks on it, and then my hands
coming into my field of vision to cup it and mentally following those
hands back along my arms to the previous image of my superlatively small
self gives me a really wonderful Escher-like buzzing feeling in my
brain. I try to force myself to take the smallest steps possible--hence
"room" to "floor" to "building", rather than just "room" to
"building"--so that I don't rush, since for some reason I have a
tendency to want to go through this one quickly, and it doesn't do me
nearly as much good if I hurry through in search of that brainbuzz.
b) The other is more to ground myself and feel a part of things, and
remind myself that the way things are is exactly the right way for them
to be at this moment and that everything moves in harmony. (Again, this
may not mesh with everyone's philosophy.)
It begins and ends with "I exist". Flat statement. Sometimes I
use "I am" or "I am here" but it has the same sense to it. And
then I just free-associate:
"I exist."
"My feet exist." (And I try to imagine what it's like to be a
foot.)
"My shoes exist." (And I attempt to imagine experiencing life as
a shoe.)
"The sidewalk exists."
"A tree exists." (This is particularly seductive... I can
spend _hours_ living life as a tree.)
"An insect burrowing into the bark of the tree exists."
"A hawk exists."
"A lake exists."
"A piece of cheese exists." (Sometimes my mind makes _very_ odd
free-association jumps.)
Gradually, I will find that my mind decides when it has done
enough of this, and bring it back through a few more steps to "I
exist"--and then put just as much effort into feeling what it is
like to be myself as I put into everything else, treating myself
as just another noun to be explored and speculated about.
It seems to help me remove myself a bit from the egocentricity that I
fall into when I'm tense or stressing or tired; it's sort of necessary,
since if anything distracts me from focusing on keeping myself upright I
will collapse, but if collapse or at least some modicum of relaxation is
called for, this is usually a good way to reach it. Approaching my
physical self with curiosity makes it so interesting just to live inside
my body and experience what my senses experience that I completely
forget to be tense or stressing: I'm so caught up in physical existence
that my mental worries completely vanish out from my consciousness.
Sometimes that means putting things off until I'm in a place where I can
deal with them, and sometimes it kicks me out of worry- or fear-loops.
Either way, it's been very useful.
Hope this is of some use. They both just sort of showed up in my head,
and they seem to be very geared towards my personality and its needs, so
I'm not really expecting that they'll be Just The Right Thing for
anyone, but I have enough mind-seebleengs here that I guess it's worth a
shot. *)
--Rose
[1] They _do_ support me in email! I told you so!
one guileless rose
> In article <1ep5ika.1s4vr7n9xqh8xN%Thi...@Not-My-Real-Address.com>,
> one guileless rose <Thi...@Not-My-Real-Address.com> wrote:
> >Aahz Maruch <aa...@panix.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Now flip things around a bit: how would you react if one of the people
> >> in your social network was talking the way you are? What makes you
> >> think the majority of them would react any differently to hearing you
> >> talk this way?
> >
> >Heh. I wish one paragraph were enough to talk me out of my double
> >standards. That's not going to happen anytime soon, though I am working
> >on it sort of in passing, since fixing other things is helping to fix
> >that. Yay logic. *)
>
> Well, perhaps it might be useful to print that paragraph out and post it
> someplace obvious?
I'm not sure how to put this... it's not phrased in a way that really
convinces me to think about changing things. I think the mentions of
"majority" and "your social network" are hitting "everyone is right and
I am wrong and I'd better conform really quickly if I know what's good
for me" buttons: since I wouldn't want to hear anything like that from
people I care about, I won't say anything like that to people who care
about me. Also, my gut response is to read it backwards and say "I know
how I expect them to react to hearing this from me, and so that's how I
ought to react to hearing this sort of thing from them" and the idea of
judging someone else the way I expect people to judge me is repulsive
enough to nauseate. I guess that's sort of a step in the right
direction, but I can't work out how to make use of it.
If I can figure out a way to word it that flips the right switches in my
brain, I'll probably put it up somewhere, but the big "What if?" across
from my bed is still pretty potent, so I think I'll stick with that for
now.
ElissaAnn
>I've been hinting around this for quite some time and now I don't even
>know where to start.
I'm sorry that it's taken me so long to reply, but I've gotten way
behind on my reading while a houseguest was here. I see that
the thread is long, and I may repeat what others have said, since
I haven't read them yet, but maybe I'll say things in a different
way.
>Um. My Tarot cards tell me I think too much (and in no uncertain terms
>do they tell me this--my beloved Morgan-Greer deck is really good at
>beating me over the head when I need it, as well as when I don't). My
>beloved lover tells me I think too much. My friends tell me I think too
>much. So _why in the name of jumpin' Jesus Jehosephat_ can I not stop
>thinking and thinking and thinking about everything?
>
>If I upset someone, or think I have, and apologize, and have the apology
>wholeheartedly accepted, as soon as I'm out of that person's presence
>I'll wonder whether sie _really_ accepted the apology and isn't still
>upset at me. I can play this fun game for hours, days, months, probably
>years.
Sounds familiar. I'm amazed that I can pull out ancient hurts and
fuss over them, even if I've done it a hundred times before.
>It was brought to my attention a short while ago that I have probably
>about fifteen years' worth of anger bottled up inside me, and no
>practice at all in expressing it--none, zip, zero--or healthy modes for
>doing so. So I tried approaching anger management from a logical,
>rational perspective last night and it was a dismal failure. Well, sort
>of. I got a lot out of it, but nothing that I got out of it pertained to
>anger management at all.
>
>I need to disconnect my brain, or muzzle it, or _something_. Make the
>voices in my head stop!
<snip>
>
>No, it's not voice-muffling that I need; I just need to teach all the
>different voices how to take turns, and not all shout at once.
<much snipping>
>"Help me. Please?"
>
>Not that I think anyone can, really. At least, not with the be-ing. But
>maybe someone has a suggestion for a mental pacifier, so that the voices
>will pipe down and stop throwing words at everything and I can rest. And
>be. Whatever that means.
I don't know whether I can help, but I can talk about my own experiences.
Certain kinds of meditation have been good for me. Several years ago,
I took a course from a clairvoyant who later became my voice teacher,
and he taught us some meditations that have been useful for me. I'd be
happy to show them to you while you're still in town.
Yoga (not just hatha, but all of it) has been a life-saver at various times,
for me, starting with the trip to the ashram that changed my life and the
way I think about love. The postures are useful, but the yoga is not the
postures, it's the relaxation that comes from the postures.
Running in the park has been useful. Thinking continues, but goes in
different paths. Long walks with friends are my guaranteed mood-changer
for all occasions. Volunteer work can move thoughts out of old patterns.
But I'm not really suggesting running away from the voices, just getting
a break from them. It's also important to listen to them. That same
clairvoyant I mentioned before guided me through this on more than
one occasion when it was ruining my voice lesson, when I couldn't
sing because of the distractions from my thoughts. He asked me to
go through it instead of around it. To look at it full in the face. To see
what it really was. For me, it's not voices, but visions, and the work
that we did took away the power that I was giving the visions.
I'm curious about the example that you gave about the kind of thing
that haunts you: did my friend really accept my apology? I sometimes
have trouble believing that people are telling me the truth too. But I
have decided that I am being disrespectful if I assume that they are not
being sincere. If it turns out that they were not, it becomes their
problem, not mine. It may sound cold-hearted, but it has helped me
get past some things that I used to fret about for days.
Elissa
Heather Anne Nicoll
>
> > I have the same kind of trouble meditating. What works for me is a
> > guided meditation; either in a group with a person leading the
> > meditation, or with a tape. For the tape, I write a meditation, or read
> > one from a book, and then read it onto the tape. Works great for me.
>
> That's interesting. Can you give me some examples of what this would be
> like? I really have no idea what "writing a meditation" means.
Rhythmic sounds of the voice that guides; soothing images, often
repetitious at the beginning.
(I know one trance-down sequence that starts out something like "You are
floating on a red cloud. Feel the cloud beneath you, and around you,
sink through the cloud, rest within the cloud, feel the cloud take you
downwards, downwards. . . . You are floating on an orange cloud. Feel
the cloud beneath you, and around you. . . .")
A lot of pagan/new age type books have meditation sequences in them; you
might want to have a rummage sometime. All of my readings of same are
something like ten years ago, and in borrowed copies of books; I'm
slowly building a library of my own.
One of the meditations I used to use a great deal had a space-of-my-own
thing that I designed. One takes the cloud elevator down, winds up in a
blank round room, like the inside of a pearl. And then steps out of the
pearl, onto a path cloaked in fog. What does the path look like as the
fog begins to clear? Where does it lead? Follow the path until it
reaches a place that feels like a destination. Study the destination.
What is there? How does it look, feel, smell, sound?
After I'd done the meditation that built that place several times, it
got much easier to "get" there -- a place where I was safe and centered,
where I could hear the hawks cry. Going through the sequence to get
there wasn't needful anymore, because I knew the place and the way there
so well that I could just. . . shift. Step sideways.
- Darkhawk, who actually hasn't been there in years, but
remembers it exactly
--
Heather Nicoll - Darkhawk - http://aelfhame.net/~darkhawk/
To love and to honour; to kick and to bite. . . .
-- Oingo Boingo, "Helpless"
Loyal Mini Onion
>Thanks for the offer of email. I would take you up on it, but I've been
>_rotten_ about returning emails lately; a couple of people have mailed
>me about this and the weekend left me no chance to reply (good-busy,
>very good, but nonetheless busy), so I don't think I dare start up more
>email conversations just now!
<nod> My e-mail conversations tend towards 2-year gaps.
--
Piglet, pig...@piglet.org
29 days down
1431 to go.
Aahz Maruch
Doug Wickstrom <nims...@uswest.net> wrote:
>
> [to Rose]
>
>You know, in a way I envy you. You're getting your mid-life crisis
>over early. Me, I _still_ don't know who I am. All I know is that I'm
>tired of being somebody else's something.
Hmmmm... I'm not sure I know who I am, but that doesn't stop me from
being pretty happy with my life. Personally, I think that knowing who
one is is a bit overrated.
Stef Maruch
one guileless rose <Thi...@Not-My-Real-Address.com> wrote:
>First, I think, I need to figure out who I am. I can't very
>well sculpt myself if I don't know whether I'm working in wood or stone
>or Silly Putty.
There is something about the above that feels off to me, but it's very
hard to put directly into words. So I guess I'll try noodling about it
instead.
I dunno how one can know who one is before one starts sculpting oneself.
I know that people sometimes look at a piece of raw material and "see" a
sculpture in it, but I think that often the sculpture not turn out
exactly the way they imagined it. I know that some people say if they
plan it all out beforehand then it feels like the soul has gone out of
the work, and they need to leave open lots of possibilities for change.
Have a dialogue with the the material, noodging it and letting it noodge
you. Sometimes artists say they don't feel *they* are doing the work --
sometimes they say they feel they're opening themselves to some source
of inspiration that they don't have direct control over, and letting it
flow through them. If a person tries to figure out who zie is before
that, might zie risk locking off that source of inspiration?
Noodling about the finished piece vs. the medium. The finished piece
feels like it is associated with "Who I am." It feels like it's
associated with everything one did and thought and felt, and it can't ever
be gathered all in one place, and it won't be there until one isn't any
more. The medium seems like it might be described better as "what I am."
Or maybe even not something so specific, but a collection of tendencies
and strengths and weaknesses. And in the case of a human, the medium and
the artist and the art all interact, so that each can change the other.
--
Stef
** rational/scientific/philosophical/mystical/magical/kitty **
** st...@cat-and-dragon.com <*> http://www.bayarea.net/~stef **
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
We love best of all what we cannot hope to resemble. -- Richard Powers
Elynne
> Elynne <ely...@eris.io.com> wrote:
> > Y'know, the more I read in this thread, the more I'm convinced that I'm
> > brainsharing with you.
> Entirely possible. There's plenty of room, since at least half of my
> brain currently resides in Liam's head (there were at least half a dozen
> moments in the twelve hours we spent together yesterday where we cracked
> up or just stared at each other over brain-sharing moments, and in
> bed... yow! Complete wordless understanding. I've never experienced
> anything quite like it).
Wow. That's very neat to hear! Not really what I meant, but good,
regardless. ;)
> I'd thought of this and then forgotten it: I'm going to try and write
> myself some mantras--a "line to follow", as you say--and see if I can
> structure them sort of like a museum, where the building is always the
> same and you have a map to follow through it, but what you find in each
> room is often different from what you found the time before. I don't
> want to be too specific, since I'd want to use them to deal with a
> variety of situations, but if it's too vague I'll wander too far from
> it. I'll let you know if I come up with anything.
I have a place like that... hm. It was developed as an aide to lucid
dreaming, but I haven't used it much, and there are areas that I put aside
for "some specific purpose" which I never figured out. Hm.
> > Elynne, seeing many paralells between her stress post and Rose's post, &
> > getting into some heavy ponder space
> Yeah, I noticed that too.
In fact, the thing you're doing of moving a long way away and not talking
to anybody for a while is also very familiar, because I've been
contemplating "running off" to a Buddhist summer camp (or something) for
many months now. Not because I'm particularly interested in being a
Buddhist... but to be someplace where the distractions aren't. I live
with five people. I love them, but they make noise, they talk to me, they
interact with me, they emote, watch TV, have friends over, cook, drop
things - while I'm working, riding the bus, reading, eating, replying to
newsgroup messages (heh), trying to sleep, doing various other project
things... I'm feeling an urgent need to just *stop* a majority of this,
but I can't figure out any way of doing so, other than running away.
I don't *want* to run away. The little irrational voice says that if I go
away, even if it's planned for a month or something, that my family will
replace me while I'm gone. The big rational voice says running away
doesn't solve anything, I'll just be bringing my stuff with me. But
that's the point, or at least part of it... I'd be running away to a place
where I can work on my stuff and know that it really is *my stuff*, not
stuff I'm picking up from other people or random environmental factors.
*slightly fretful sigh* I'm getting along okay without the running away
thing, but it's still there. I feel like I'm on the verge of something,
and I've been on this damn verge for almost a year now, and I'm ready to
find out what's on the other side of the verge already. Y'know? :/
Elynne, still working on stuff, rambling here a bit
--
My web-page-esque-thing: http://www.tomorrowlands.org/elynne/index.html
"There are three kinds of people in the world: those who can count, and
those who can't."
Elynne
> you have to live with yourself all your life, every day. other
> people will never be right there with you, inside your head. that
> gives, to me, priority to be like _i_ want to be.
*squish*! At least, I think that's the term. Generally speaking (when
I'm seriously depressed doesn't count, that's a case of malfunctioning
neurons), I like myself quite a bit. Okay, I think I'm damn nifty.
Which feels like an obnoxious thing to tell othe people, so I don't tell
other people that very much, but I feel it pretty often, which is much
much nicer than how I used to feel about myself. It doesn't mean I think
I'm perfect, or don't have any faults, but it does mean that I give myself
credit for finding and fixing (or reducing to a bearable level) my faults.
It means some other stuff, too, about compassion and forgiveness.
Elynne, having trouble staying focused tonight and rambling a lot
one guileless rose
> Noodling about the finished piece vs. the medium. The finished piece
> feels like it is associated with "Who I am." It feels like it's
> associated with everything one did and thought and felt, and it can't ever
> be gathered all in one place, and it won't be there until one isn't any
> more. The medium seems like it might be described better as "what I am."
*nod* That's a good distinction to draw. "who I am" as the future tense
of "what I am", perhaps? And an eternally evolving future at that...
perhaps the "what" is the immutable self and the "who" is the mutable
self.
> Or maybe even not something so specific, but a collection of tendencies
> and strengths and weaknesses.
I'm not really looking to find words for it (unusual for me), but just
to have a sense of it for myself, of where I'm coming from.
> And in the case of a human, the medium and the artist and the art all
> interact, so that each can change the other.
A very beautiful way of describing a very beautiful thing.
one guileless rose
> The big rational voice says running away doesn't solve anything, I'll just
> be bringing my stuff with me. But that's the point, or at least part of
> it... I'd be running away to a place where I can work on my stuff and know
> that it really is *my stuff*, not stuff I'm picking up from other people
> or random environmental factors.
*nodnodnod* This is what I mean when I say "I want to see what I do when
I have nothing to do". I'll be removing the environmental factors as
completely as I can--which includes not bringing very much with me, and
not unpacking a box until I feel the desire to look at or use something
in that box, and examining the desire before I consider whether to give
in to it. Different physical place, different people (or no people at
all, for a while), myself in a different physical shape than I've been
for a while (though that's unintentional, mostly). What's left is me,
the me-ness of me.
one guileless rose
> You know, in a way I envy you. You're getting your mid-life
> crisis over early. Me, I _still_ don't know who I am. All I
> know is that I'm tired of being somebody else's something.
Oh, so am I. I can't wait to be in a place where I'm Rose, and not
someone's daughter or lover or girlfriend or even, for a while, friend.
I wish you the best of luck finding that for yourself!
one guileless rose
<some good things snipped and filed away for consideration>
> I'm curious about the example that you gave about the kind of thing
> that haunts you: did my friend really accept my apology? I sometimes
> have trouble believing that people are telling me the truth too. But I
> have decided that I am being disrespectful if I assume that they are not
> being sincere. If it turns out that they were not, it becomes their
> problem, not mine. It may sound cold-hearted, but it has helped me
> get past some things that I used to fret about for days.
This works for me, unless I'm in such a deep funk that I start beating
myself up for having been so disrespectful and doubting of a friend; or
I work around it by saying "Well, I'm sure my SO meant it _yesterday_
when sie said sie loved me, but does sie still love me today?", or
"Well, I'm sure sie meant it _consciously_, but what if deep down sie's
getting tired of me and falling out of love?". (It's a sign of how far
I've come from my previous state of codependency--though I'm not wholly
out of the woods yet--that I don't respond to that internal question by
rushing to ask my SO whether sie does, indeed, still love me: I'm well
aware that if I don't want to believe the answer, I won't, and all I'd
be doing would be giving myself things to hold up as examples of how I
was driving my SO away.) In this case, it helps to have tangibles
around. Tonight I pulled out my Valentine's Day card from Helen and read
it over, and felt better. Knowing that someone has put something in
writing somehow makes it much harder for me to doubt its permanence.
piranha
>
> > does writing work for you? sitting down and writing that post,
> > did that, all by itself, help in some way?
>
> It did, somewhat, though not entirely.
somewhat is good. writing in general might work then. i can calm
the manifold voices if i sit and write. it starts often very
dissociated, but after a while a strand begins to separate. it's
my main therapy device, writing. not just a journal, i work some
things out in stories. more fun. :-)
> > what is still very hard for me, and stressful on its own is that i
> > can't do everything i want to do. it sounds like this might be
> > part of your problem as well.
>
> Heh. Eternally.
yeah. i have no good advice about that, other than remind myself
of what i have done every day, because if i don't i feel all the
time as if i am never doing anywhere near enough. and if i get
frustrated because life is too short, i go somewhere alone, where
it is beautiful, and just sit and try to be more accepting. does
work for a time, but i have to do it over and over again.
maybe they'll find an anti-aging thing before i die. i think i'd
be a lot calmer about this if my life expectancy were 1500 years.
> I certainly hope so! I'm putting a lot into this, and my hope that it
> will be good for me and teach me something--some things--about myself
> that I know but don't have words for, let me bring them out into my
> consciousness and into the open.
yup, it probably will do that. you're open to it, so i don't see
why not.
> > i think trying matters a great deal -- the journey itself is
> > important.
>
> I was reminded of this the other night, when my attempt at anger
> management was such a laughable failure but I got a whole bunch of stuff
> out of it related to other parts of my life.
yeah, that's something i've learned to count as valid. even if
things didn't turn out as i had hoped, i _did_ usually learn
something from them. humour is good too. laughing at failure. i
can handle some things way better now that i've learned to just
look at their ridiculous side, and laugh until i am in tears from
that -- beats being in tears from feeling like a klutz, idiot,
generally worthless blob of protoplasm (which again reminds me of
stef's "i am a pleasant, dry, firm cube", which inevitably makes
me grin).
this is in part what i mean by "the voices are useful". i have
some mighty destructive voices. but just knowing which ones are
destructive, that teaches me something. listening to them shows
me ways to handle them. it works way better than trying to
suppress them.
> It does matter a whole lot
> to me just that I'm trying things out, that I'm thinking about this and
> trying to examine myself to see what I need and how I need to go about
> it. Just learning to observe myself and acknowledge my truths has been
> tremendously useful and energizing.
*nod*. i feel better if i _do_ something, even if that doing is
not a direct solution to the problem in question. sometimes i
need to walk a while in new shoes before deciding whether they
have adjusted well to me, or whether they still pinch, and i
better get new ones.
--
-piranha
Liz Williams
>One of the meditations I used to use a great deal had a space-of-my-own
>thing that I designed. One takes the cloud elevator down, winds up in a
>blank round room, like the inside of a pearl. And then steps out of the
>pearl, onto a path cloaked in fog. What does the path look like as the
>fog begins to clear? Where does it lead? Follow the path until it
>reaches a place that feels like a destination. Study the destination.
>What is there? How does it look, feel, smell, sound?
>
>After I'd done the meditation that built that place several times, it
>got much easier to "get" there -- a place where I was safe and centered,
>where I could hear the hawks cry. Going through the sequence to get
>there wasn't needful anymore, because I knew the place and the way there
>so well that I could just. . . shift. Step sideways.
>
> - Darkhawk, who actually hasn't been there in years, but
> remembers it exactly
I have something similar (different details, naturally, but a similar
process
and a similar sense of safety). I went there a few weeks ago for the first
time in eleven years, not having thought about it much consciously in
between,
and found it exactly as I'd left it, down to some quite detailed objects
representing a resolution I had made all those years ago. I'm amazed at how
enduring and powerful such mental places can be.
I've also found that if I want to go to a *different* mental place, it helps
to go via that original one, so if I do want to use a meditation from a book
I
have to adapt the induction to allow for that. Otherwise it doesn't seem
real.
Liz
--
"He's clearly a bad influence on himself." - Giles, on _Buffy_
ElissaAnn
>Thi...@Not-My-Real-Address.com (one guileless rose) wrote:
>> piranha <pir...@gooroos.com> wrote:
>>
>> > does writing work for you? sitting down and writing that post,
>> > did that, all by itself, help in some way?
>>
>> It did, somewhat, though not entirely.
>
> somewhat is good. writing in general might work then. i can calm
> the manifold voices if i sit and write. it starts often very
> dissociated, but after a while a strand begins to separate. it's
> my main therapy device, writing. not just a journal, i work some
> things out in stories. more fun. :-)
The wonderful counselor that I used when I was depressed gave me
the assignment to write "morning pages" as they are described in
"The Artist's Way". I found that helpful. First thing in the morning,
three pages, long-hand, whatever comes to my brain, no editing.
It got out my complaints immediately, and there was a bonus: a
few months later, I read the whole series, and I learned some things
about what I wanted, thoughts that I was suppressing the rest of the
time.
Elissa
--
http://members.aol.com/elissaann
ElissaAnn
>ElissaAnn <elis...@aol.com> wrote:
>
><some good things snipped and filed away for consideration>
>
>> I'm curious about the example that you gave about the kind of thing
>> that haunts you: did my friend really accept my apology? I sometimes
>> have trouble believing that people are telling me the truth too. But I
>> have decided that I am being disrespectful if I assume that they are not
>> being sincere. If it turns out that they were not, it becomes their
>> problem, not mine. It may sound cold-hearted, but it has helped me
>> get past some things that I used to fret about for days.
>
>This works for me, unless I'm in such a deep funk that I start beating
>myself up for having been so disrespectful and doubting of a friend; or
>I work around it by saying "Well, I'm sure my SO meant it _yesterday_
>when sie said sie loved me, but does sie still love me today?", or
>"Well, I'm sure sie meant it _consciously_, but what if deep down sie's
>getting tired of me and falling out of love?".
Interesting. Do you change as quickly as you imagine others changing?
Are you as unaware of your inner thoughts as you imagine others are?
Do you want people to go by your words, or by what they imagine you
are thinking?
<snip>
> In this case, it helps to have tangibles
>around. Tonight I pulled out my Valentine's Day card from Helen and read
>it over, and felt better. Knowing that someone has put something in
>writing somehow makes it much harder for me to doubt its permanence.
Tangibles are good. It also helps me to get the opinion of good friends. I
just had a houseguest for a week, and we fought horribly. I knew it wasn't
entirely my fault, although he made it clear that he thought it was because
of my annoying personality, and my reactiveness, and it had nothing to do
with him at all. I spoke to some friends about it afterwards, and I was
surprised at their reactions. When I mentioned that we had fought a lot,
several of them told me that it was a rude thing to do to a hostess. I also
discovered that one of the things that he said to one of my closest friends
had really offended him. I started to rethink the whole week from the point
of view of an outsider, and I realized that this man had been rude and critical
from the moment he entered my house to the moment he left. It's so rare
for me not to like someone that I didn't even recognize that I dislike him.
On the other side of this, sometimes I don't realize how much someone
likes me, and kind someone is being specifically to me (I think, "zie's
always like that, and it's not personal"), until someone else notices and lets
me know.
Elissa
--
http://members.aol.com/elissaann
one guileless rose
> dark...@mindspring.com (Heather Anne Nicoll) wrote:
>
> >After I'd done the meditation that built that place several times, it
> >got much easier to "get" there -- a place where I was safe and centered,
> >where I could hear the hawks cry.
>
> I have something similar (different details, naturally, but a similar
> process and a similar sense of safety). I went there a few weeks ago for
> the first time in eleven years, not having thought about it much
> consciously in between, and found it exactly as I'd left it, down to some
> quite detailed objects representing a resolution I had made all those
> years ago. I'm amazed at how enduring and powerful such mental places can
> be.
I have a dream-place like that. The last time I tried to take conscious
control of my dreams and go there, my subconscious told me that my
conscious mind had no business in my dreams and to get the hell out. And
when I fought back, it drowned me in nightmares. That was a very, very
bad night.
Your description, though, actually reminds me more of the IRC channel I
built for myself. Perhaps I'll start with picturing myself there, which
I can just sort of do; the other place requires getting to, and I don't
seem to always be able to find the right path or be able to walk it if I
find it.
> I've also found that if I want to go to a *different* mental place, it
> helps to go via that original one, so if I do want to use a meditation
> from a book I have to adapt the induction to allow for that. Otherwise it
> doesn't seem real.
*nod* That was why I was trying to reach my safe place, initially, so
that I could go other places from there. I'll try it this way, in an
awake state rather than attempting to take over my dreams.
one guileless rose
> Thi...@Not-My-Real-Address.com (one guileless rose) wrote:
>
> >This works for me, unless I'm in such a deep funk that I start beating
> >myself up for having been so disrespectful and doubting of a friend; or
> >I work around it by saying "Well, I'm sure my SO meant it _yesterday_
> >when sie said sie loved me, but does sie still love me today?", or
> >"Well, I'm sure sie meant it _consciously_, but what if deep down sie's
> >getting tired of me and falling out of love?".
>
> Interesting. Do you change as quickly as you imagine others changing?
> Are you as unaware of your inner thoughts as you imagine others are?
The second is more apropos than the first. Since I've been in a couple
of relationships where, essentially, one day I looked at myself and
realized that I wasn't in love with my SO and hadn't been for some time,
but I didn't know when I'd gone from being in love to not being in love,
it's very easy to imagine that someone else--even someone very
self-aware--is just going on momentum and at some point the momentum
will run out and sie'll realize that there hasn't been real love
propelling hir for some time. I have some ways to work around this (I
don't automatically end phone conversations with "I love you" anymore,
fex, and don't let my SOs do it either, so that I know when it's said
it's really meant and heartfelt) but they don't always help. Sometimes I
can logic myself through it; sometimes not.
> Do you want people to go by your words, or by what they imagine you
> are thinking?
Touche. *)
> Tangibles are good. It also helps me to get the opinion of good friends.
That's certainly true. I wouldn't be where I am if Harry hadn't kept
telling me that Helen really _did_ care a lot about me, even if our
personality clashes kind of hid that sometimes. I sometimes feel that I
need to work out ways to deal with this that are wholly internal, but I
suppose that it's unlikely that there will be a point in my life where I
don't have any trustworthy friends. Which is a very nice thing to be
reassured about.
one guileless rose
> piranha <pir...@gooroos.com> wrote:
>
> > somewhat is good. writing in general might work then. i can calm
> > the manifold voices if i sit and write. it starts often very
> > dissociated, but after a while a strand begins to separate. it's
> > my main therapy device, writing. not just a journal, i work some
> > things out in stories. more fun. :-)
>
> The wonderful counselor that I used when I was depressed gave me
> the assignment to write "morning pages" as they are described in
> "The Artist's Way". I found that helpful. First thing in the morning,
> three pages, long-hand, whatever comes to my brain, no editing.
I've tried this, and it's _impossible_. My mind will wander, but not to
anything that I can write down, and it gets very frustrating. And
stories... I have a lot of pain, still, from trying to write stories. I
think writing here helps because there are people I'm writing _to_.
Perhaps I should work up a pen pal, a "Dear Diary" for myself. Right now
when I write out my dreams, I do it with the image in mind of a future
self looking back on them, so I know what I need to put in that will
trigger that future self's memories of the dream; I have to have an
audience or I don't know how to phrase things.
one guileless rose
> Janet Miles <jmi...@usit.net> wrote:
>
> > I imagine myself reaching into the cage, putting just one finger on the
> > wheel to slow it down gently without hurting or further upsetting the
> > squirrel. Once the wheel has stopped, I hold out a little treat for him --
> > a dab of peanut butter, maybe, or a small chunk of carrot.
>
> And this makes perfect sense. I have an image of my own that's very
> similar, and it never occurred to me to try interacting with it. (I'm
> sort of laughing-nervous about doing so, now, because it's a cartoon
> character and I have no idea what he would do if I tried to feed him
> peanut butter off the tip of my finger. Whatever it is, though, it'll
> probably make me laugh so hard that I completely forget to be tense.)
So on the bus coming home from work, I started getting that worry-loop
feeling, and thought of this. I looked inside and found my inner Daffy
Duck, and discovered that if you're thinking in Warner Brothers terms
it's very easy to reach a giant hand into the scene, pick up a character
and deposit hir somewhere else, in another setting. (I tried doing the
stroke-the-head thing and was given such a look that I nearly fell over.
People on the bus were also looking at me funny, but I didn't much
care.) Well... where have I seen Daffy Duck looking contented and
relaxed?
So I dropped him in a foldout chair on a beach with a lei around his
neck and a Mai Tai in his hand. Ta-da! Instant contentment. I thought
about adding dancing girls, but the first one who came to mind was Daisy
Duck, and that started me laughing too hard to concentrate on making my
image of her do the hula.
Thanks, Janet. I really do feel much better already. *)
Matthias Urlichs
one guileless rose <Thi...@Not-My-Real-Address.com> wrote:
> ... I have a very hard time
> meditating on one thing, since my mind tends to wander, and when I try
> meditating on nothingness and letting my mind wander as it will, I
> usually fall asleep. Perhaps I'm just not very good at it....
>
Different people seem to need differing styles of meditation.
The kind that works best for me are some sort of "active" meditation,
i.e. along the lines of Kundalini or Dynamic. Lote of those were
developed / popularized / whatever by Osho, but they might still work
for you even if you happen not to be a fan of popularised Indian
pseudo-mysticism. ;-)
YMMV, and all that.
--
Matthias Urlichs | noris network AG | http://smurf.noris.de/
--
A cloud cannot cast a shadow unless the sun is shining behind it.
Aahz Maruch
one guileless rose <Thi...@Not-My-Real-Address.com> wrote:
>
>
>I have to have an audience or I don't know how to phrase things.
This is so true for me. It's one reason I have a much easier time with
posting to Usenet or writing technical material compared to writing
fiction.
--
--- Aahz (Copyright 2001 by aa...@pobox.com)
Androgynous poly kinky vanilla queer het <*> http://www.rahul.net/aahz/
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6
"I used to have a .sig but I found it impossible to please everyone..." --SFJ
Liz Williams
>In article <1ep873d.buyei4px6k6lN%Thi...@Not-My-Real-Address.com>,
>one guileless rose <Thi...@Not-My-Real-Address.com> wrote:
>>
>> [on the difficulty of writing]
>>
>>I have to have an audience or I don't know how to phrase things.
>
>This is so true for me. It's one reason I have a much easier time with
>posting to Usenet or writing technical material compared to writing
>fiction.
I haven't seen the post you're replying to, but would it help to visualise
the
sort of person you think is going to be interested in reading the fiction,
maybe even give them a name, and write for that person? Or imagine that
you're writing for someone you know who likes your chosen genre, or even
just
write what you personally would like to read?
Disclaimer: I haven't tried to write fiction since the age of 17, so my
suggestions are probably worth even less than free advice usually is ;-).
Lit
crit is more my thing, and your comment brought to mind implied reader
criticism, which in turn made me think that perhaps there would be something
to say for taking the implied assumptions which authors usually seem to make
and articulate them for yourself.
Liz, not sure she's making sense, but interested
Liz Williams
[about mental places to go to when meditating]
>> I've also found that if I want to go to a *different* mental place, it
>> helps to go via that original one, so if I do want to use a meditation
>> from a book I have to adapt the induction to allow for that. Otherwise it
>> doesn't seem real.
>
>*nod* That was why I was trying to reach my safe place, initially, so
>that I could go other places from there. I'll try it this way, in an
>awake state rather than attempting to take over my dreams.
That was what I had in mind - I've had zero success with lucid dreaming and
the like. Also, most techniques I've seen for lucid dreaming involve keeping
a
dream journal, so if you're finding writing difficult, that might make for
an
uphill struggle. I use a relaxation technique followed by visualisation, and
I
definitely remain awake, although less aware of my surroundings than I
usually
am during other activities.
Do you have in mind some visual metaphors that you'd like to use for the
induction (getting to the point where you can see either your safe space or
the path that leads to it), or would it help for me to mention some that
I've
used, or know others have used successfully, in case they give you some
useful
ideas? Darkhawk's post contained a few, but as ever, different things work
for different people :-)
Liz
Liz Williams
>Well... where have I seen Daffy Duck looking contented and
>relaxed?
>
>So I dropped him in a foldout chair on a beach with a lei around his
>neck and a Mai Tai in his hand. Ta-da! Instant contentment. I thought
>about adding dancing girls, but the first one who came to mind was Daisy
>Duck, and that started me laughing too hard to concentrate on making my
>image of her do the hula.
*laugh* That's delightful! I may have to try something like this myself
some
time.
Liz, usually too verbal for this to work, but thinking it sounds too good
not
to give it a chance
one guileless rose
> Thi...@Not-My-Real-Address.com (one guileless rose) wrote:
> >Liz Williams <lizw...@MailAndNews.com> wrote:
>
> [about mental places to go to when meditating]
>
> >> I've also found that if I want to go to a *different* mental place, it
> >> helps to go via that original one, so if I do want to use a meditation
> >> from a book I have to adapt the induction to allow for that. Otherwise it
> >> doesn't seem real.
> >
> >*nod* That was why I was trying to reach my safe place, initially, so
> >that I could go other places from there. I'll try it this way, in an
> >awake state rather than attempting to take over my dreams.
>
> That was what I had in mind - I've had zero success with lucid dreaming
> and the like. Also, most techniques I've seen for lucid dreaming involve
> keeping a dream journal, so if you're finding writing difficult, that
> might make for an uphill struggle.
Actually, writing down my dreams hasn't been very difficult. It's
descriptive. I can usually do descriptive.
> Do you have in mind some visual metaphors that you'd like to use for the
> induction (getting to the point where you can see either your safe space or
> the path that leads to it)
Well, the room that I was originally thinking of using as my safe place
is a basement room off of a long hallway. But my dreams exist in places,
and I don't travel in them; so if I'm not in the building where that's
in the basement, I have no real way to get there. Getting to the other
place is easy: I just walk in, from wherever I am. That's why I'm
thinking of using it.
> or would it help for me to mention some that I've used, or know others
> have used successfully, in case they give you some useful ideas?
> Darkhawk's post contained a few, but as ever, different things work for
> different people :-)
Couldn't hurt, certainly.
David Vrooman
Elynne wrote in message ...
<snip>
>In fact, the thing you're doing of moving a long way away and
not talking
>to anybody for a while is also very familiar, because I've
been
>contemplating "running off" to a Buddhist summer camp (or
something) for
>many months now. Not because I'm particularly interested in
being a
>Buddhist... but to be someplace where the distractions
aren't. I live
>with five people. I love them, but they make noise, they
talk to me, they
>interact with me, they emote, watch TV, have friends over,
cook, drop
>things - while I'm working, riding the bus, reading, eating,
replying to
>newsgroup messages (heh), trying to sleep, doing various
other project
>things... I'm feeling an urgent need to just *stop* a
majority of this,
>but I can't figure out any way of doing so, other than
running away.
Well, I know that if I lived with five people, no matter
how wonderful they were, I'd want to *get away from them*
sometimes! When I ran a rooming house, I was *always*
surrounded by the activities of others-listening to
music,playing instruments, talking, cooking, coming and going,
etc. etc. I live with one person now, and zie is not home a
lot. So, when I see zir, I can enjoy the companionship, rather
than viewing zir as an inconvenience.
Perhaps a slight change in your viewpoint would help?
"Running away", to me, has some negative connotations. People
vary in how much social interaction they like/can handle. Some
people can spend all day with others, some folks have a
limited tolerance. Plus, there are different kinds of social
interactions. I'm mainly alone at home, so, if I feel
isolated, I go to my friend's house. But the level of
interaction between the husband, the wife, the two preteen
children, the talking action figures, the portable keyboard,
the tv, the stereo, the doorbell, the phone and the MIL can
get rather overwhelming. So, often I am glad to get home to
some "peace and quiet". So I enjoy that, until I start to feel
isolated again....
The form of interaction that I don't get enough of is the
one-on-one, adult conversation. No children interrupting, no
TV blasting, just two folks having a heart-to-heart
conversation about whatever is on their mind.
Sitting in the kitchen having coffee, or walking down a
leaf-strewn street, just that timeless feeling of being
connected with another.
To me, "running away" would sound much like "abandonment"
internally. If you see yourself as "abandoning" your family,
then it would not be a far stretch to see them "replacing"
you. I just don't think that "making some personal space"
equals "running away". The impression that I get from your
post is that you very much need some "space", that you have
needed it for some time, but that something has held you back.
Do you feel if you were "a better person" that you would never
have slight irritations with the people you co-habitate with?
Do you feel "if you really loved them, this wouldn't bother
you"? Maybe that you are "selfish"? I feel you have a
legitimate need. I would prefer that anyone I was partners
with would take care of their needs in this respect, so that
when we were together they were happy that I was there.
I would be curious to know how other poly folks handle the
"personal space" issue. It's always interesting to see what
other people's arrangements/needs are.
Dave
Liz Williams
>Liz Williams <lizw...@MailAndNews.com> wrote:
>> Do you have in mind some visual metaphors that you'd like to use for the
>> induction (getting to the point where you can see either your safe space or
>> the path that leads to it)
>
>Well, the room that I was originally thinking of using as my safe place
>is a basement room off of a long hallway. But my dreams exist in places,
>and I don't travel in them; so if I'm not in the building where that's
>in the basement, I have no real way to get there. Getting to the other
>place is easy: I just walk in, from wherever I am. That's why I'm
>thinking of using it.
>
>> or would it help for me to mention some that I've used, or know others
>> have used successfully, in case they give you some useful ideas?
>> Darkhawk's post contained a few, but as ever, different things work for
>> different people :-)
>
>Couldn't hurt, certainly.
Okay... feel free to ignore, or adapt, or whatever :-)
For me these would be ways of getting to the hallway, so if you can "just
walk
in" and have it feel real, you may not need anything like this anyway. I
find
that using it deepens the trance, though - it improves my focus and makes
the
experience more intense. Most of the books I've read on meditation have
recommended making the journey in reverse when you're done, but I haven't
found this necessary; I do find it helps to sit quietly with my eyes open
for
a while, though, getting my bearings before I try to stand up.
Things that have worked for me are imagining myself going down an escalator,
jumping into a well, or my personal favourite, slowly falling down a
rabbit-hole like Alice did :-). Once I get to the bottom, I generally find
myself walking slightly upwards through a tunnel with earth walls, and then
I'm in my safe place.
My safe place is underground, hence the theme of downward motion, but I know
other people prefer to go up, so things that I know have worked for other
people include going *up* an escalator, floating upwards on a cloud or in a
hot air balloon, climbing a tree (and then sometimes leaping off the top
branch and *flying* to one's safe space), and walking uphill to the summit
of
a mountain or up a stone staircase. When I've come across those last two,
it's usually been in the context of a mental place that's going to be used
for
religious rituals, though.
Few of the things I've come across have involved movement on a level, for
some
reason, but travelling across the sea in a small boat is one I've seen
mentioned.
And for someone who can make the transition fairly quickly, I don't see any
reason why walking into a Star Trek-style transporter chamber wouldn't work,
either, or using one of those nifty point-to-point devices from the later
series ;-). Might as well have a little fun...
Liz, also considering the potential of a stargate...
RJ
}Elynne <ely...@eris.io.com> wrote:
}
}> The big rational voice says running away doesn't solve anything, I'll just
}> be bringing my stuff with me. But that's the point, or at least part of
}> it... I'd be running away to a place where I can work on my stuff and know
}> that it really is *my stuff*, not stuff I'm picking up from other people
}> or random environmental factors.
}
}*nodnodnod* This is what I mean when I say "I want to see what I do when
}I have nothing to do". I'll be removing the environmental factors as
}completely as I can--which includes not bringing very much with me, and
}not unpacking a box until I feel the desire to look at or use something
}in that box, and examining the desire before I consider whether to give
}in to it. Different physical place, different people (or no people at
}all, for a while), myself in a different physical shape than I've been
}for a while (though that's unintentional, mostly). What's left is me,
}the me-ness of me.
*nod* That makes a whole lot of sense.
I remember setting a friendship aside for several years because,
though I loved him dearly, that fried was still seeing who he
thought me to be, rather than who I then was or who I wanted to
become. I didn't have the strength or energy to both deflect the
impact his expectations had upon me and make the changes in my life
I felt were needed.
Success to you in getting to your me-ness. If it is at like the
person who posts here on a regular basis, she's pretty darn neat.
===== RJ Johnson ==================================== r...@xocolatl.com =====
Xander: Who's the little fear demon? Come on, who's the little fear demon?
Giles: Don't taunt the fear demon. Xander: Why? Can he hurt me?
Giles: No, it's just... tacky.
===================== David Fury, "Fear, Itself" ==========================
piranha
<1ep873d.buyei4px6k6lN%Thi...@Not-My-Real-Address.com>:
>
> I've tried this, and it's _impossible_. My mind will wander, but not to
> anything that I can write down, and it gets very frustrating. And
> stories... I have a lot of pain, still, from trying to write stories.
*ouch*. well, then that's not gonna work.
> I
> think writing here helps because there are people I'm writing _to_.
interesting. that's precisely opposite from what works for me --
if i even imagine somebody else might read my journal, everything
dries up right then. there is a section in my will that specifies
destroying it, if i don't get to it first.
but this is enormously personal -- what you need to do is find
what will work for you. if it helps to write _to_ somebody, then
write to somebody.
does the other person have to read it? could you write to a
trusted friend, and not send it? (or send it -- i am just
thinking that this introduces another step you might not want to
take at all times.) i do sometimes work out things while i am
writing to people close to me; explaining something to somebody
changes the approach and can be useful. there is a long history
of people writing letters to others as a means of working things
out with themselves.
> Perhaps I should work up a pen pal, a "Dear Diary" for myself. Right now
> when I write out my dreams, I do it with the image in mind of a future
> self looking back on them, so I know what I need to put in that will
> trigger that future self's memories of the dream; I have to have an
> audience or I don't know how to phrase things.
i think i intrinsically write for myself, which means i myself am
the audience. i do go back and reread things, especially dreams,
and sometimes purposefully good things, when i am down. if
addressing your writing at your future self works for you, great.
there is no one way this _must_ be done. it needn't be writing,
either -- some people just can't do that. we're just tossing out
ideas.
--
-piranha
Liana
> "Help me. Please?"
In any way I can. Anytime. All you have to do is ask. (Yeah, I know,
that's a rather hard condition to put on the offer, but if I am not
asked I am not likely to know that help is wanted)
Liana
Liana
> Rhythmic sounds of the voice that guides; soothing images, often
> repetitious at the beginning.
> (I know one trance-down sequence that starts out something like "You are
> floating on a red cloud. Feel the cloud beneath you, and around you,
> sink through the cloud, rest within the cloud, feel the cloud take you
> downwards, downwards. . . . You are floating on an orange cloud. Feel
> the cloud beneath you, and around you. . . .")
I wish those things worked for me. For some reason when I try to picture
the images they either refuse to be there, or they show up in a bizzare
way, usually one that cracks me up, or free-associates with something so
totally weird that I can't easily leave it alone. (I have tried the
counting sheep to fall asleep thing a few times. Mostly they just teased
and taunted me, but a sometimes they got outright obscene. The
meditation thing does not work any better for me.) At best I end up
thinking about something odd and forgetting that what I am doing is
meditating.
Liana
Stef Maruch
one guileless rose <Thi...@Not-My-Real-Address.com> wrote:
>
>> Noodling about the finished piece vs. the medium. The finished piece
>> feels like it is associated with "Who I am." It feels like it's
>> associated with everything one did and thought and felt, and it can't ever
>> be gathered all in one place, and it won't be there until one isn't any
>> more. The medium seems like it might be described better as "what I am."
>
>*nod* That's a good distinction to draw. "who I am" as the future tense
>of "what I am", perhaps? And an eternally evolving future at that...
More noodling....
Yeah, and maybe there's no who-I-am that's accessible (it can't ever be
gathered all in one place...like you can't gather a stream in one place,
and you can't really describe it, although you can photograph it or map
it).
However, there are trends and memories and wants and thoughts at each
moment.
At each moment, those things will combine to create something that may
or may not need to be addressed by ... (something I don't have a good
word for. "will"?)
>perhaps the "what" is the immutable self and the "who" is the mutable
>self.
Something like that, except that (again speaking for me) I don't think
there's a whole lot about me that's entirely immutable. There is stuff
that hasn't changed for a long time, stuff that I resist changing, stuff
that keeps coming back over and over like the seasons but with different
periodicities, memories and habits of thought that influence how new
input gets processed and influence how previous input gets re-sorted.
That all gives a form to "me" and helps "me" seem predictable to myself
and to others.
But it's not immutable. I've seen stuff about me change that I thought
was really important and deeply ingrained, and I have seen stuff stick
around that I thought didn't matter.
I can influence what sticks around and what changes. Here's where your
metaphor of a sculpting medium fits, for me -- some things are hard to
change, take lots of energy and thought. Some things are easy to change.
Some things I'm trying to change need special treatment before they can
change (like heating or moistening changes the workability of some
media) or time to cure and solidify once I'm doing with the shaping
part. Some changes have unpredictable effects -- I'll have shaped
something and set it to cure and it just cracks and crumbles. And some
sculptures don't have the proper structure, so they just fall apart when
subjected to everyday forces. (I am terrible at building lego
sculptures.)
And sometimes what's best is to sit and look at the medium for a long
long time because you want to create the kind of sculpture that still
expresses the soul of the medium, more than you want to work the medium
into something that it doesn't look like on its own. (When I see
watercolors that look like oil paintings I'm impressed but not in the
same way as when I see watercolors that are expressing something that
only the medium of watercolors is really good at expressing.)
>> Or maybe even not something so specific, but a collection of tendencies
>> and strengths and weaknesses.
>
>I'm not really looking to find words for it (unusual for me), but just
>to have a sense of it for myself, of where I'm coming from.
*nod*
Speaking from a personal hunch, strikes me as a good thing not to be
trying to find words for it.
>> And in the case of a human, the medium and the artist and the art all
>> interact, so that each can change the other.
>
>A very beautiful way of describing a very beautiful thing.
Thanks!
--
Stef
** rational/scientific/philosophical/mystical/magical/kitty **
** st...@cat-and-dragon.com <*> http://www.bayarea.net/~stef **
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
It was the year of fire; the year of destruction; the year we took back
what was ours. It was the year of rebirth; the year of great sadness;
the year of pain; and a year of joy. It was a new age; it was the end
of history. It was the year everything changed.
-- J. Michael Straczynski, Babylon 5 (fourth season opener)
one guileless rose
> I would be curious to know how other poly folks handle the
> "personal space" issue. It's always interesting to see what
> other people's arrangements/needs are.
I make sure to talk about it, a lot. After seeing Harry on Saturday,
Saturday night, early Sunday, Monday at work, and Monday night, I
stopped by his desk at lunchtime on Tuesday and said "Would you like to
go to lunch, or are you sick of me?". I've learned that for him, absence
does make the heart grow fonder; and that if I don't reach for him all
the time, sooner or later he'll realize he misses me and reach for me,
and I love it when he does, so I do my best to curb my touchyfeelyness.
On his part, he reaches out to me more than he used to, especially when
I'm upset or at a low mood-point, because he knows that it helps me feel
better.
On the other end of the spectrum, Liam is as clingy as I am, so we make
ourselves take breaks from hanging off of each other's necks and catch
our breaths. (I would say our relationship is at a moderate to high risk
of becoming codependent. But we both know that, and we're working really
really hard to make sure that doesn't happen.)
I've found, too, that although part of me really enjoys the clinginess
and craves it, another part of me gets tired of it, and I think that in
part I've gotten tired of past SOs and relationships because I needed
elbow room and didn't know it, so I didn't get it. It's entirely
possible that I translated (in my own head) "I need some space" as "I no
longer love this person because I'm not as suffused with desire to touch
hir all the time as I used to be". I wouldn't go back and change
anything, because I love where I am now, but I certainly could have been
rather more self-aware than I was. Ah well.
I guess I'm talking in a mix of hour-to-hour and day-to-day. I've found
that if I spend more than about twelve hours nonstop around people, I
need to take at least five or ten minutes and go "re-find" myself. To
this end, I nearly always take showers by myself, or join a partner
halfway through hir shower so that I at least get some of it in
solitude. Being tired or underfed makes me much more touchy about such
things, and I need to spend more time on centering myself; I've said and
done some really stupid things because I was tired and hungry and
over-peopled, and I don't want that to happen again, so I'll bow out of
group activities that I'd really like to do because what I need, to be a
civil human being, is to take a nap all by myself. As long as I
communicate this clearly, it's fine. I think we all know what it's like
to overdose on company, so I can just say "I need some space, I'll
explain later" and they'll understand.
Once we were all together at a park and I wandered about ten feet away
from the table where we were having lunch and sat down on the grass.
Each of them, one after the other, came within a respectful
speaking-but-not-touching distance and held some version of the
following conversation with me: "Are you okay?" "Yes, I'm fine, I just
need a moment to myself. It's nothing anyone did." "Okay. We're here
when you want to come back." And then sie went back. There was
absolutely no pressure to come back before I was ready and no one took
it personally. They knew that I wasn't angry or upset, and that I would
come back when I could. I knew that they weren't angry or upset, and
that they cared enough about me to ask if I was okay and enough to leave
me be if I needed space.
I am still in awe of that moment. It was, to me, utterly perfect. If I
could have written the script, I would have written it that way. It was
a matter--I originally wrote "just a matter" but there's nothing mere
about it--of knowing what needed to be communicated (I am okay, no one
is hurt or offended, the love is just as strong even when physical
distance is there) and putting words to it, and we did it just right. I
can describe that, but I don't think I could teach it. I'd just try to
remind people that everyone, at some point, has needed alone-space,
sometimes needed it very badly; and everyone has come back from it, at
least sometimes, refreshed and renewed and better for it and more open
to good communication and shared time. So if people need that space, try
not to take it personally, and let them have it. It's worth it. Very few
things can't wait for someone to take a few deep breaths and approach
life with a clearer head.
one guileless rose
> Things that have worked for me are imagining myself going down an
> escalator, jumping into a well, or my personal favourite, slowly falling
> down a rabbit-hole like Alice did :-). Once I get to the bottom, I
> generally find myself walking slightly upwards through a tunnel with earth
> walls, and then I'm in my safe place.
This was the first thing I thought of, in my dream-world. At the time--I
was dreaming and then I "woke up", became conscious, within the dream,
so I was still in the dream setting--I was in one of the top tiers of
seats of a baseball stadium. My safe room is in a basement, so I decided
that the best way to get there would be to find a staircase in the
stadium and take it down. ("Across" is not a meaningful term in my
dreams. It's all vertical. I've always assumed this to be a metaphor for
getting deeper within myself, as well as related to my room in my
family's apartment being in the basement of the building, so if I needed
to go to my room, which was my RL safe place, I would go down the
stairs.)
I approached the doorway into the building, and suddenly a whole huge
crowd of people came through the door and pushed me back (not
intentionally; I was just swept along by the tide). They were laughing
and happy to be outside on such a beautiful day, instead of stuck in the
dank interior of the stadium with its drearily painted walls and reek of
hotdogs and spilled beer. The message was very clear: "Stay outside.
That's where you belong. That's where you'll be happy. You don't want to
come in. Coming inside will only make you miserable. You don't belong
inside." Basically, keep my conscious mind out of my subconscious.
I forced my way in and found a stairway, and took it a level down. I
emerged into a nightmare, quite literally: suddenly, I was no longer
able to control my movements in the dream, and though I was still aware,
it was a "normal" dream again rather than a lucid one. I watched myself
play out a sequence of events more repulsive than any I have encountered
in my dreamworld, ever. I don't want to go into detail, but... well, put
it this way.
<ALERT TYPE=SQUICK>
<!-- ALERT: The following may be upsetting or disturbing to anyone with
a sensitivity to discussion or description of rape or abuse -->
If someone is in the process of raping you and says "You like it, don't
you? Admit it", you can say, and _know_ inside yourself, "No, I _don't_
like it". I can't say that, and I can't know that, because I was inside
the head of my dream-self, and my dream-self _did_ enjoy doing things
that I find utterly repellant to think about while I'm awake. It's not
the physical actions, even, but the fact that I followed someone for
hours and begged hir to make physical use of me because sie was
well-known and popular and I was nothing, and this was all I was good
for, and exulted in having this confirmed when sie consented to briefly
use me before putting me aside as second-rate, for hir other hangers-on
to amuse themselves with, while sie went in search of something more
interesting.
Wow, that was difficult to type. I cannot express how divergent this is
from everything I believe about myself.
</ALERT>
I was afraid to go to sleep the next night, and I am never afraid to
sleep.
I would translate this, looking at it from a couple of weeks' remove, as
"You wanted to see what was inside yourself? Well, take a look at this.
See, I told you you didn't really want to know." But I don't think it
really _is_ a "hidden depth" of myself. I think it's a funhouse mirror
reflection of a caricature, and I want to break the mirror and find out
what's being hidden behind it. I want to find the great and powerful Oz
that's sitting somewhere in my head, terrified of being discovered, and
I am _not_ scared off from trying again. It didn't take me too long to
figure this out, either, from my initial terror that it really was me,
really was something that I deep-down wanted. Is that the best you can
do? It was repulsive, yes, but that doesn't stop it from being
two-dimensional. And anything two-dimensional can be shattered.
Shredded. Discarded. Laughed at. Which is what I am gods-damned well
going to do.
Whewph. Sorry about the digression, there, but it felt really good to
put that in words.
Anyway, working within the dream context didn't work. So if I try
looking for staircases again, I think I'll just stick them wherever I
want. Make it absurd on _my_ terms. Let's build a staircase from this
top tier all the way down to the playing field. Then it makes sense
(well, dream-world sense) to go from the playing field to the locker
room, since if I'm on the playing field I must belong there and
therefore I must be a player. If I'm a player then the locker room is a
safe, reasonable place for me to be. And so on.
> Few of the things I've come across have involved movement on a level, for
> some reason, but travelling across the sea in a small boat is one I've
> seen mentioned.
Mmmm. I will make an immramm, someday. I'm not nearly ready for it yet,
though.
> And for someone who can make the transition fairly quickly, I don't see any
> reason why walking into a Star Trek-style transporter chamber wouldn't work,
> either, or using one of those nifty point-to-point devices from the later
> series ;-). Might as well have a little fun...
That's a really cool idea. Since there's no "across" or "along" or
"through" in my dreams, (which means that if I'm in a setting that's on
a ship out on the ocean, or in a garden in France, or wherever, I have
no way to move from there to another place) it would be a great way to
get from setting to setting without breaking things too much. Thanks!
one guileless rose
> Success to you in getting to your me-ness. If it is at like the
> person who posts here on a regular basis, she's pretty darn neat.
*blush* Thanks! I really am starting to think she is, and that I'm not
as far as I thought I was from being able to put things into words
without the translation filters that I mentioned a while back. (I think
I mentioned them here. Or was it on a.c? Don't remember now. Anyway, if
it wasn't here I can clarify that.)
Serendipitously, I've recently determined to reclaim Depeche Mode's
/violator/; it was one of my favorite albums, and then I very briefly
dated someone who loved it, and so I associated it with her and had a
really hard time listening to it after we broke up (especially "Policy
of Truth", because of the circumstances of the breakup). It got very
inconvenient to go out dancing or spend time with friends who listen to
the radio and have to leave the room or grit my teeth every time
"Personal Jesus" or "Enjoy the Silence" came on. So I bought another
copy of the CD tonight, to replace my old scratched-up one, and started
with a song that never stopped being mine, "Blue Dress".
The track after that is "Clean", and listening to it took my breath
away. I will simply post the lyrics here, because I can't sum it up.
This, this is what I want from my "honeymoon". And suddenly, it's so
close I can taste it.
"Clean" (copyright (c) Depeche Mode 1990, reproduced without permission
but with much respect to the artists; this is retyped directly from the
liner notes of /violator/ and any errors are my own)
Clean
The cleanest I've been
An end to the tears
And the in-between years
And the troubles I've seen
Now that I'm clean
You know what I mean
I've broken my fall
Put an end to it all
I've changed my routine
Now I'm clean
I don't understand
What destiny's planned
I'm starting to grasp
What is in my own hand
I don't claim to know
Where my holiness goes
I just know that I like
What is starting to show
Sometimes
Clean...
As years go by
All the feelings inside
Twist and they turn
As they ride with the tide
I don't advise
And I don't criticise
I just know what I like
With my own eyes
Sometimes
Clean...
Sometimes.
I can't sing along with it yet. But I suspect that as I go through my
alone-time, I'll be putting together a collection of songs that describe
how I feel... and this will be the last one.
Even more serendipitously, I decided that I couldn't take listening to
this another time tonight, and swapped in my tape of Alice in Chains'
/Jar of Flies/ (more or less at random, since it happened to be sitting
on top of my stereo), which was rewound to the beginning of side 2. The
first song on that side is called "No Excuses". Now I need to buy the CD
so that I can rip it and put that song on my alone-time compilation too.
Near the beginning, I think. The whole album is about taking steps
(sometimes missteps) away from the life you know, and really about
starting to make those moves, or thinking about starting to. By the end
of that time, I don't expect any of it to apply, but right now, it's not
far off.
"Find me sittin' by myself
No excuses, then I know."
Ooh, and that makes me think of Voice of the Beehive's "I Say Nothing".
"There is a place somewhere / sometimes you'll find me there / and if I
am alone I will be sitting on the stair / I'll be as good as new / one
of the lonely few / who's laughing at the joke and as I leave I laugh
for you...."
--Rose, trying to hum half a dozen songs at once and not really
succeeding
one guileless rose
> Thi...@Not-My-Real-Address.com (one guileless rose) wrote:
>
> > I've tried this, and it's _impossible_. My mind will wander, but not to
> > anything that I can write down, and it gets very frustrating. And
> > stories... I have a lot of pain, still, from trying to write stories.
>
> *ouch*. well, then that's not gonna work.
Yeah. *sigh* I wish it could. But writing stories, to me, felt as though
with every word I wrote or typed, I lost a piece of my soul somehow and
couldn't get it back. Writing songs renews me: I finished a springtime
song last night--just in time for a nice few inches of fluffy white
snow, heh--after much work and what was, to me, excruciating patience,
and it felt so good to tap my heel in that particular beat it has and
feel the beat evoke the song and dance to my own singing as I got
dressed this morning. Stories drained me.
This was particularly hard on me because when I had given up on stories,
for a time I didn't know that I had songs, and I knew there were things
I wanted to tell and had no way of getting them out. That's where most
of the pain comes from: mental constipation, for lack of a better term.
I'm very glad I discovered songwriting when I did. And I'm getting
better and better at taking a specific mood or concept and designing a
song around it, so I can write with a purpose, which helps a lot.
> if it helps to write _to_ somebody, then write to somebody.
>
> does the other person have to read it? could you write to a
> trusted friend, and not send it?
I'd actually rather write to a group (like this) or an imagined and
fairly generic person. If I were writing to a specific real person, it
would definitely color my writing, since I would phrase some things
carefully to avoid pressing that person's buttons or possibly leave
things out altogether. Writing to a future me would work very well, I
think; it has so far with the dream diary.
> there is no one way this _must_ be done. it needn't be writing,
> either -- some people just can't do that. we're just tossing out
> ideas.
Indeed, and I very much appreciate it! I'm getting a _lot_ out of this
thread.
one guileless rose
> one guileless rose <Thi...@not-my-real-address.com> wrote:
>
> > "Help me. Please?"
>
> In any way I can. Anytime. All you have to do is ask. (Yeah, I know,
> that's a rather hard condition to put on the offer, but if I am not
> asked I am not likely to know that help is wanted)
You just did help, a lot, by saying this. Thank you.
Heather Anne Nicoll
> I would be curious to know how other poly folks handle the
> "personal space" issue. It's always interesting to see what
> other people's arrangements/needs are.
I have a strong need for alone-time and personal space. One of the
rooms in this house is designated as my office.
I don't use it much.
Part of it is that I don't go out much; the partner's at work all day,
and I'm nightshifted so I'm still awake after he goes to bed. I get a
_lot_ of alone-time naturally, so it's normal to me to bring Toy out
into the living room and work in the same space he happens to be
occupying at the time.
But part of it is also -- if I *needed* to do space-maintenance and
alone-time, I have that space. I can close the doors and sit down in
The Chair and work or read or nap or just veg out. And because I have
that space there, and know that if I retreat into it it will be treated
as inviolate, I don't *need* to go in there. Which explains the
long-term accumulation of debris only occasionally tidied, I suppose.
I'm also very prone to wanting touch. I enjoy it a great deal, and when
I'm functional (I've got a specific sort of brokenness that happens
occasionally that short-circuits this entirely) I'm much in the tendency
of, if sharing space with a partner, drifting over and giving a hug, or
a kiss on the back of the neck, or a squeeze of a shoulder, or something
-- just to touch.
I also like to be free to move. Sometimes this means that I actively
want to get away if I feel I'm being restrained; when I get like this, I
point it out and get loose and apologize, but I really do need to be
unconstrained to be comfortable, for whatever reason.
In a situation where I'm feeling actively uncomfortable, I need more
touch, though I'll settle for near proximity. (For example: if I'm
uncertain about the state of a relationship, I very much want to have
consistent contact, just holding hands, because it keeps that
uncertainty from spinning out into a problem. If I'm in a large group
of unfamiliar people and am with a partner, I want to hide behind him;
this doesn't always work, and I'll settle for sitting very near and
being quiet if the other can't happen for some reason.)
Unh. That's my thoughts for the moment on the subject of space.
- Darkhawk, who is too tired for this hour of the night
--
Heather Nicoll - Darkhawk - http://aelfhame.net/~darkhawk/
To love and to honour; to kick and to bite. . . .
-- Oingo Boingo, "Helpless"
piranha
<1ep9czl.1yrnnm2caia2oN%dark...@mindspring.com>:
> David Vrooman <dvro...@empireone.net> wrote:
> > I would be curious to know how other poly folks handle the
> > "personal space" issue. It's always interesting to see what
> > other people's arrangements/needs are.
>
> I have a strong need for alone-time and personal space. One of the
> rooms in this house is designated as my office.
i have an extremely strong need for alone-time and personal
space. i have my own room for sleeping and working. with a
door. which, when closed, signals: emergency entry only.
(a partner feeling really lonely can count as an emergency.)
> I don't use it much.
i use mine all the time. this is where i spend much of my indoors
time. surrounded by my machines ('cept for the firewall, which
used to be the paramour's, and is still sitting out there cause
there is more room), my books, stacks of interesting paper stuff,
and all sorts of non-paper stuff. more books. cds (music and
data). manuals. sandman issues which i may not read yet.
we both work at home, so the separation is really necessary, or we
might get on each other's nerves.
> But part of it is also -- if I *needed* to do space-maintenance and
> alone-time, I have that space. I can close the doors and sit down in
> The Chair and work or read or nap or just veg out. And because I have
> that space there, and know that if I retreat into it it will be treated
> as inviolate, I don't *need* to go in there.
this is very much similar for me. the more my space is respected,
the more i feel somebody doesn't just grudgingly accept it, but
really understands and gladly wants me to have it because i do
need it, the less i need to ensconce myself. i am living closer
with the paramour than i have ever lived with anyone else -- i'd
go nuts if i didn't feel that respect. and i also don't feel any
obligation to entertain zir; zie is a geek, perfectly self-
entertaining; just add computer game or cool project, and choice
of tv dinners and caffeinated beverages.
it is such a relief. i used to think i could never really live
with somebody, but i just needed to find somebody(s) who fit with
me and me with them.
> I'm also very prone to wanting touch. I enjoy it a great deal, and when
> I'm functional (I've got a specific sort of brokenness that happens
> occasionally that short-circuits this entirely) I'm much in the tendency
> of, if sharing space with a partner, drifting over and giving a hug, or
> a kiss on the back of the neck, or a squeeze of a shoulder, or something
> -- just to touch.
i do the latter, casual affection, but i am not very prone to
wanting it. i've learned to do more of it because i had bad
hangups and wanted to rid myself of them, and had very touchy-
feely friends for whom it was very natural and non-threatening who
let me "practice". i can go completely without it for a long
time, but the paramour likes it more, and so i do it a fair bit
now, and i don't really mind, because there is this clear respect
and no sulking or hurt if i just feel non-touchy on some days.
> I also like to be free to move. Sometimes this means that I actively
> want to get away if I feel I'm being restrained; when I get like this, I
> point it out and get loose and apologize, but I really do need to be
> unconstrained to be comfortable, for whatever reason.
this is incredibly important to me. i can't stand long cuddle
sessions for the sake of cuddling, they make me feel smothered,
and, what almost nobody understands, they bore me. i start to
think about something completely different from the person who is
all wrapped up in me, and who will inevitably ask "what are you
thinking", and then i get to say something really romantic like,
"how to implement quaternions because rotations with euler angles
are a bitch". that does not go over well with most people. i
have a tendency to break tender moments into itsy-bitsy, sharp-
edged pieces, *sigh*.
and yes, i think part of it is also the feeling of restraint --
makes me nervous. some day i shall have to deal with why.
people who can sit on a couch for hours and gaze into each other's
eyes lovingly boggle me probably as much as i boggle them.
> In a situation where I'm feeling actively uncomfortable, I need more
> touch, though I'll settle for near proximity. (For example: if I'm
> uncertain about the state of a relationship, I very much want to have
> consistent contact, just holding hands, because it keeps that
> uncertainty from spinning out into a problem.
interesting. i want less touch the less comfortable i feel.
but i tend to give more touch when there is something off in the
relationship, and we can't talk it out for some reason, or if we
had a passionate discussion with lots of disagreement on issues
(our political views are not terribly in sync :-) -- it's a
reassurance thing; i still love you, we're just not seeing eye to
eye. on the rare occasions that the paramour and i have done a
snap at each other (usually we can blame it on microsoft), the one
who snapped tends to come over to the other with a sheepish look,
puts zir arms around the other and mumbles something rather silly-
apologetic into zir hair.
--
-piranha
Ben Okopnik
one guileless rose of alt.polyamory speaking thus:
><ALERT TYPE=SQUICK>
><!-- ALERT: The following may be upsetting or disturbing to anyone with
>a sensitivity to discussion or description of rape or abuse -->
[ Snip ]
></ALERT>
>
>I was afraid to go to sleep the next night, and I am never afraid to
>sleep.
>
>I would translate this, looking at it from a couple of weeks' remove, as
>"You wanted to see what was inside yourself? Well, take a look at this.
>See, I told you you didn't really want to know." But I don't think it
>really _is_ a "hidden depth" of myself. I think it's a funhouse mirror
>reflection of a caricature, and I want to break the mirror and find out
>what's being hidden behind it. I want to find the great and powerful Oz
>that's sitting somewhere in my head, terrified of being discovered, and
>I am _not_ scared off from trying again. It didn't take me too long to
>figure this out, either, from my initial terror that it really was me,
>really was something that I deep-down wanted. Is that the best you can
>do? It was repulsive, yes, but that doesn't stop it from being
>two-dimensional. And anything two-dimensional can be shattered.
>Shredded. Discarded. Laughed at. Which is what I am gods-damned well
>going to do.
Damn. I _was_ just going to read one more post and go to sleep... it's
3am here and my brain is shutting down, but one thought before I go, in
line with what you've just said: *use* what you got. You've seen the
funhouse image, and recognized it for what it was... think about the
concept that they use in AA, that of "hitting bottom" - realize that what
you saw is about as bad as anything "the Great Oz" might throw at you...
and hold on to that victory. Knowing that you can survive the worst is one
of the biggest victories there is.
I hope that this - that _any_ of this - makes sense in the morning.
Ben "staggering blearily off to bed" Okopnik
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
I don't give a goddamn: You get a wind blowing away from a dairy, you're
going to get some smell. -- J.R. Simplot
Stef Maruch
Elynne <ely...@eris.io.com> wrote:
>I don't *want* to run away. The little irrational voice says that if I go
>away, even if it's planned for a month or something, that my family will
>replace me while I'm gone. The big rational voice says running away
>doesn't solve anything, I'll just be bringing my stuff with me. But
>that's the point, or at least part of it... I'd be running away to a place
>where I can work on my stuff and know that it really is *my stuff*, not
>stuff I'm picking up from other people or random environmental factors.
What if it's not running away? What if it's "taking time to do something
you want to do" or "exploring a different environment" or just "storing
up some silence"?
--
Stef
** rational/scientific/philosophical/mystical/magical/kitty **
** st...@cat-and-dragon.com <*> http://www.bayarea.net/~stef **
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Curiosity is a lust of the mind. -- Thomas Hobbes
Aahz Maruch
piranha <pir...@gooroos.com> wrote:
>
> this is incredibly important to me. i can't stand long cuddle
> sessions for the sake of cuddling, they make me feel smothered,
> and, what almost nobody understands, they bore me. i start to
> think about something completely different from the person who is
> all wrapped up in me, and who will inevitably ask "what are you
> thinking", and then i get to say something really romantic like,
> "how to implement quaternions because rotations with euler angles
> are a bitch". that does not go over well with most people. i
> have a tendency to break tender moments into itsy-bitsy, sharp-
> edged pieces, *sigh*.
I know you know this, but just to repeat: some people *do* find your
"really romantic" comment romantic.
Menolly
>In article <u3dd5k...@aegis.gooroos.com>,
>piranha <pir...@gooroos.com> wrote:
>>
>> this is incredibly important to me. i can't stand long cuddle
>> sessions for the sake of cuddling, they make me feel smothered,
>> and, what almost nobody understands, they bore me. i start to
>> think about something completely different from the person who is
>> all wrapped up in me, and who will inevitably ask "what are you
>> thinking", and then i get to say something really romantic like,
>> "how to implement quaternions because rotations with euler angles
>> are a bitch". that does not go over well with most people. i
>> have a tendency to break tender moments into itsy-bitsy, sharp-
>> edged pieces, *sigh*.
>
>I know you know this, but just to repeat: some people *do* find your
>"really romantic" comment romantic.
What zie said. Well, maybe not that specific one, because I don't
quite know what it means. But geeking out and cuddling go together
like peanut butter and chocolate, IMO.
--
)\._.,--....,'``. | men...@inorbit.com
/, _.. \ _\ (`._ ,. | http://www.spy.net/~menolly/
`._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.' | Paranoid Cynical Optimist
"We don't need cards, Keith has body parts!" -- Holly O.
Jim Roberts
Aahz Maruch wrote:
> In article <u3dd5k...@aegis.gooroos.com>,
> piranha <pir...@gooroos.com> wrote:
> >
> > this is incredibly important to me. i can't stand long cuddle
> > sessions for the sake of cuddling, they make me feel smothered,
> > and, what almost nobody understands, they bore me. i start to
> > think about something completely different from the person who is
> > all wrapped up in me, and who will inevitably ask "what are you
> > thinking", and then i get to say something really romantic like,
> > "how to implement quaternions because rotations with euler angles
> > are a bitch". that does not go over well with most people. i
> > have a tendency to break tender moments into itsy-bitsy, sharp-
> > edged pieces, *sigh*.
>
> I know you know this, but just to repeat: some people *do* find your
> "really romantic" comment romantic.
We can leave quaternions behind. Hamilton not. Euler angles we still need.
jimbat
Liz Williams
><ALERT TYPE=SQUICK>
><!-- ALERT: The following may be upsetting or disturbing to anyone with
>a sensitivity to discussion or description of rape or abuse -->
And I'm going to add a BDSM squick warning to that, just to
compound things even further ;-)
*
*
*
*
*
*
>
>
>
>If someone is in the process of raping you and says "You like it, don't
>you? Admit it", you can say, and _know_ inside yourself, "No, I _don't_
>like it". I can't say that, and I can't know that, because I was inside
>the head of my dream-self, and my dream-self _did_ enjoy doing things
>that I find utterly repellant to think about while I'm awake.
I know you know this, but let me say it anyway: what you
like in your dreams and what you like in real life are two
different things, just as what people fantasize about is
different from what they would want to do in real life.
I used to both dream and fantasize about being raped, and
was very disturbed by it until my partner of the time
convinced me to try the rather radical solution of acting
out the fantasy (the first introduction to BDSM for both of
us, as it happened). Exploring those thoughts in a
situation where I was in control, with someone I trusted
completely both to respect any limits I set and to provide
perspective, really helped me to understand the difference
between the dreams/fantasies and the reality, and to accept
that having those thoughts didn't make me bad or sick. It
sounds like whatever processing you did in the intervening
few weeks did something similar for you, which is great :-)
></ALERT>
[snip]
>
>Whewph. Sorry about the digression, there, but it felt really good to
>put that in words.
Nothing to apologise for :-)
>> And for someone who can make the transition fairly quickly, I don't see any
>> reason why walking into a Star Trek-style transporter chamber wouldn't
work,
>> either, or using one of those nifty point-to-point devices from the later
>> series ;-). Might as well have a little fun...
>
>That's a really cool idea. Since there's no "across" or "along" or
>"through" in my dreams, (which means that if I'm in a setting that's on
>a ship out on the ocean, or in a garden in France, or wherever, I have
>no way to move from there to another place) it would be a great way to
>get from setting to setting without breaking things too much. Thanks!
You're welcome - I'm glad you like it, and amused that the
suggestion I hesitated to post because it seemed frivolous
turned out to be the most useful.
Liz, who should probably self-censor a little less
Xiphias Gladius
> On 23 Feb 2001 00:24:48 -0800, aa...@panix.com (Aahz Maruch) posited:
>>In article <u3dd5k...@aegis.gooroos.com>,
>>piranha <pir...@gooroos.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> this is incredibly important to me. i can't stand long cuddle
>>> sessions for the sake of cuddling, they make me feel smothered,
>>> and, what almost nobody understands, they bore me. i start to
>>> think about something completely different from the person who is
>>> all wrapped up in me, and who will inevitably ask "what are you
>>> thinking", and then i get to say something really romantic like,
>>> "how to implement quaternions because rotations with euler angles
>>> are a bitch". that does not go over well with most people. i
>>> have a tendency to break tender moments into itsy-bitsy, sharp-
>>> edged pieces, *sigh*.
>>
>>I know you know this, but just to repeat: some people *do* find your
>>"really romantic" comment romantic.
> What zie said. Well, maybe not that specific one, because I don't
> quite know what it means. But geeking out and cuddling go together
> like peanut butter and chocolate, IMO.
I remember one morning, as we were waking up, Lis rolled over and snuggled
up to me and said, "I just had the neatest dream. I was working on
solving the four-color problem on a taurus. The difficult part was that I
was dreaming in black and white. . ."
- Ian
--
Marriage, n: The state or condition of a community consisting of a master,
a mistress, and two slaves, making, in all, two. -- Ambrose Bierce
SSBB Diplomatic Corps; Boston, Massachusetts