tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35939965856579144952024-03-13T03:03:59.118-04:00Brain Chemistry ChroniclesA journal of my struggles with bad brain chemistryCherylhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13885473550254826118noreply@blogger.comBlogger55125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593996585657914495.post-14049680999596109582016-12-27T09:00:00.000-05:002016-12-27T09:00:14.202-05:00Writing My Story<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSC9ehO1OxOlZEc8Lx0HDmit9uz2YwMOTWfBh3ZMAQBA17HvqSY4QSIXow8DiiWVb-pCzp0b2aTGcsioD-Fu5Ht_0GYhBKMZNKyKYMVzPE2CPYQEztaHgNPpBDrCdsilq2m3KQ3imLdHg/s1600/dark-night-of-the-soul-360x270.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSC9ehO1OxOlZEc8Lx0HDmit9uz2YwMOTWfBh3ZMAQBA17HvqSY4QSIXow8DiiWVb-pCzp0b2aTGcsioD-Fu5Ht_0GYhBKMZNKyKYMVzPE2CPYQEztaHgNPpBDrCdsilq2m3KQ3imLdHg/s200/dark-night-of-the-soul-360x270.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Taken from <a href="http://catholicinsight.com/persevering-through-the-dark-night-of-the-soul/" target="_blank">Catholic Insight</a></td></tr>
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I would love to be able to write a book detailing how I helped myself to move out of the darkness of depression and have an (almost) normal life. I want to help people who are still struggling as I was.<br /><br />But one of the things standing in the way of writing the story of how I stopped feeling depressed is that I want people to see that I didn't have to be miserable. There's this whole genre of "dark night of the soul" memoirs, where people go through some terrible time in their lives and somehow get through it to where they are now "cured" and better off. <br /><br />I can't talk about how I was cured because my sickness was always within my power to cure, I just didn't know it. My story is more one of slap-to-the-forehead realization. Why did I go through all that? Well, because I didn't know.<br /><br />I only seemed to be unhappy. I wasn't really unhappy. My brain was making me feel unhappy, just as the brains of my family members made them feel unhappy. I didn't have a bad childhood; it only seemed bad because I was seeing it that way through the lenses of my brain chemistry. My family and I had no reason to be unhappy. We had everything we needed--food, clothing, shelter--and the means to provide for ourselves. What we lacked--a light heart, an appreciation for life's blessings--kept us from knowing we were happy. <div>
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What made my childhood unhappy was the same thing that made my adulthood unhappy--an anachronistic brain. The glass half full/half empty theory applies here, but it isn't just a matter of seeing things in a different light. You have to notice that the reason you're seeing things that way is that your brain is making you see it that way. In other words, you have to realize that the light is within your control, or that the light you were born with is something you have work around.</div>
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Cherylhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13885473550254826118noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593996585657914495.post-4483927324866008352016-08-15T08:29:00.000-04:002016-08-15T08:29:43.514-04:00Chicken-pecking Problem<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Eating cake every day causes my brain to crave cake to take away the craving that has been created by eating cake. Arrghh!<br />
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It's like a protection racket: if you don't eat cake, I'm going to make you regret it. I need to eat cake to keep me from torturing me. I have to eat cake to protect myself from my brain. But my brain started it to begin with.<br />
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I feel bad, so I eat cake, which makes me feel better--until I feel bad again, but this time it's because I <i>didn't </i>eat cake. And I need to eat more cake to feel the same as I did before I ate the cake. Oh, it's bad.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxB0XHHNKWGLlz-sKgIm-lLUGoMFqj5SSReL8InlWwQ4QTcM1kAl360GtiZRHUD0qF7Yxa1eHIMX3JFjP1EaHFT7BB8HH5iDpEc_AD3h1A15WrNcNPLW3m-3M0nJaYXzk4t1F-ISs-RQQ/s1600/chickclerk5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxB0XHHNKWGLlz-sKgIm-lLUGoMFqj5SSReL8InlWwQ4QTcM1kAl360GtiZRHUD0qF7Yxa1eHIMX3JFjP1EaHFT7BB8HH5iDpEc_AD3h1A15WrNcNPLW3m-3M0nJaYXzk4t1F-ISs-RQQ/s400/chickclerk5.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b>Negative reinforcement: </b>doing something to prevent a negative outcome. Like those poor chickens in the experiment: keep pecking the lever or you'll get shocked. Keep paying the enforcer or you'll get your business burned down. Keep eating cake or you'll feel bad.<br />
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Cherylhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13885473550254826118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593996585657914495.post-51277951603862110232015-11-18T08:14:00.001-05:002015-11-18T08:14:33.225-05:00The Monster in the Middle<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
There's something else going on in the middle that prevents me from carrying on through to the end. Middles are not just non-stimulating; they can sometimes be downright <i>frightening</i>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAT12RHHN7gVR5LpTlr1qDnD1_ktonLhR7FXsJc38FYnWtq2Jz9qoEX23PW8aKgVveeKJPKbkf2zg2uJ70Mio07wtWkAh1fA5i9KsoAcrD2icPizSPHJx1mT1IdrUHIBgMtLy26Q2gDIM/s1600/Continuo4-BWV151M2Secco.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="142" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAT12RHHN7gVR5LpTlr1qDnD1_ktonLhR7FXsJc38FYnWtq2Jz9qoEX23PW8aKgVveeKJPKbkf2zg2uJ70Mio07wtWkAh1fA5i9KsoAcrD2icPizSPHJx1mT1IdrUHIBgMtLy26Q2gDIM/s400/Continuo4-BWV151M2Secco.jpg" width="400" /></a>Because the ever-present anxiety is not as effectively muffled or distracted in the middle, it can reappear. The fear is like a basso-continuo in a music score. It's there, you can <i>feel </i>it, but not really notice it until the the other, busier, higher register instruments have stopped or quieted.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKKOB092Yhq1v2rcRTyewtEW6BLU54IG2GD_tg9PTcJpH9gvh8p-aq4ktVKArEYRLngdzqxOIlnSBYcpB5xgFymqBAtYjcfjnk5LvQvkqOz2PbgrucbyaqrLebPVoSS2PjRtIJmAdSHDc/s1600/Uh-oh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="164" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKKOB092Yhq1v2rcRTyewtEW6BLU54IG2GD_tg9PTcJpH9gvh8p-aq4ktVKArEYRLngdzqxOIlnSBYcpB5xgFymqBAtYjcfjnk5LvQvkqOz2PbgrucbyaqrLebPVoSS2PjRtIJmAdSHDc/s320/Uh-oh.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
So more than any other phase of a project, the middle is where fear dwells. It's like a monster waiting in the clearing for me to cross, or like the enemy waiting to let loose on the troops who have to cross open ground to reach their objective. It's easier to stay where it's safe, but eventually I have to try to cross. Think of Pickett's charge at Gettysburg. That's what moving through the middle is for me.</div>
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What to do about it? I'm working on that.</div>
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Cherylhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13885473550254826118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593996585657914495.post-71577303903696839892015-11-18T07:44:00.000-05:002015-11-18T07:44:11.871-05:00The Trouble with Middles<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoLr-PD49ny0FmNhpJVJDZBNyKMQL4xRuc86TJ5IHVepgevxUenb8WUoXelx15fJBIjAxSln5eKaUvlxtFpfPJJEdCixGMSVx3PWZZ9m0SWpbJLIeTGcaQOpFrvc3ta2FHp-M3zitHk7s/s1600/dull+boring.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoLr-PD49ny0FmNhpJVJDZBNyKMQL4xRuc86TJ5IHVepgevxUenb8WUoXelx15fJBIjAxSln5eKaUvlxtFpfPJJEdCixGMSVx3PWZZ9m0SWpbJLIeTGcaQOpFrvc3ta2FHp-M3zitHk7s/s1600/dull+boring.jpg" /></a>Lately I've been considering my trouble with middles. I'm good at starting projects, but when I get past the "honeymoon" phase, I start to bog down and eventually stop (not quit, exactly) until the mood strikes me to take it back up again. Of course, at that point it's more like a new beginning because I've been away from it for so long.<br />
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This attraction to starting things has to do with my brain chemistry, I think. I like beginnings because I'm learning things and my brain is focused on understanding and acquiring skills and knowledge. Once I get past that phase of rapid and stimulating learning, however, doing the project helps me less and less. And because my brain is not absorbed in something challenging, there is room for anxiety to creep in, anxiety which will need to be put aside in order to continue. So, since the now familiar activity is no longer giving me the help I need, the anxiety stops me from continuing.<br />
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But unfortunately, starting but never finishing projects is not very productive, especially with those projects I really want to finish. So I've been working on how I can help myself to push through the middle and get the satisfaction that comes with finishing something.<br />
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Those few projects I have finished were difficult to continue with, and when I was finished I had a feeling of relief, but also irritation that the project was so difficult to complete. I didn't get the satisfaction of having completed it because I was remembering how hard it was to slog through. <br />
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So there has to be a situation where I can keep going but still enjoy the doing of the project while I'm doing it, not just the joy of having done it, of getting it over with.</div>
Cherylhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13885473550254826118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593996585657914495.post-91786388365093896992015-07-06T19:14:00.002-04:002015-07-06T19:14:14.263-04:00Misinterpreting Sensations<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
This morning when I woke up and felt the way I usually feel--terrible--I tried to identify the actual sensation. I determined it is not pain--in the physical sense, anyway. But people do talk about emotional conditions as painful. What kind of pain are we talking about, then?<br />
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It feels like fear, as I've said many times in this blog. But is fear painful, then? What makes it painful? Perhaps it's the autonomic responses to threat, such as blood pressure, heart rate, adrenaline rush. Are those things painful? I guess they are because the body is being stressed to the limit, but when the threat is real, the response is intended to be short-lived. Fear that is not based on real threat and that doesn't go away is called anxiety. The pain comes from the long term nature of the response, maybe.<br />
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Here is a quote from NIMH website that discusses panic disorder, when the full-blown fight or flight response is triggered by something other than a true threat:<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px;">Researchers have found that several parts of the brain are involved in fear and anxiety. Some researchers think that people with panic disorder misinterpret harmless bodily sensations as threats.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px;"> <a href="http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/panic-disorder-when-fear-overwhelms/index.shtml" target="_blank">Panic Disorder</a></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px;"></span></span></blockquote>
I believe that the lesser form of fear sensation, anxiety, is also the result of misinterpretation of bodily sensations, primarily originating in the brain. But maybe there are non-brain sensations that are being misinterpreted. I've never thought of that. I'd have to do some research to find out. By that I mean, try to pay attention to what is happening in my body when I feel afraid.<br />
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Can I make myself stop feeling it by not focusing on it? Or by focusing on it in a different way?<br />
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I have always said that the next step people who suffer take is the one that causes the problem: the misinterpretation of the sensations as threat, followed by the search for the source of the threat.<br />
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I'm doing some more thinking about this idea of misinterpretation.<br />
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Cherylhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13885473550254826118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593996585657914495.post-44076160042869632432015-02-07T09:09:00.001-05:002015-02-07T09:09:44.983-05:00Curiosity Killed the Fear<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyTlwNmx8aZjyRZfQnCKE-tipLOvPQO8FrozdhFgeIYqd36PSdPmdfXDeALeWFf13E43CWx90bWW5EW11j9PLz_5GHZYkEqZGREbY47oYtDobtfTXJoCpO9LnHak986QLj31Qc_xS_TL4/s1600/curious+cat.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyTlwNmx8aZjyRZfQnCKE-tipLOvPQO8FrozdhFgeIYqd36PSdPmdfXDeALeWFf13E43CWx90bWW5EW11j9PLz_5GHZYkEqZGREbY47oYtDobtfTXJoCpO9LnHak986QLj31Qc_xS_TL4/s1600/curious+cat.JPG" height="286" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Spike the curious cat, taken from Wikimedia</td></tr>
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I've been feeling bad a lot lately, and when I feel bad, it's mostly fear that I feel (occasionally anger). The fear is not rational, I believe, but is real nonetheless. It is a collection of sensations that are unpleasant and often interfere with my functioning, especially when they keep me from sleeping.<br />
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I try not to give in to baseless fear, but it's not easy. As I've said in this blog and elsewhere, fear is only one response to new phenomena. The other is curiosity. Instead of being afraid of changes in life, we can be curious about them, investigate their contours, see what there is to see that is interesting, amazing, strange, wondrous.<br />
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As we age, we experience more and more change, most of it unwanted, such as the death of loved ones, changes in physical capabilities, etc. How can we do something other than fear those changes? That's a good question. One way is to be curious about them. But how to do that? I don't know yet, but I'm going to work on it.</div>
Cherylhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13885473550254826118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593996585657914495.post-68449360442597602052015-01-24T09:53:00.000-05:002015-01-24T09:53:31.089-05:00Let It Be<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHa0njsQzE6s9CMMQYVGpbgYzpvNf6yzo6eO2ndazKjcmX3QWEqozk7N9dJFv9feat9kGX8igGYQADB-CuzMiyTe0-hwHjHWEMN6AFhkKmvqXfR2A_ZciSBTlb8wHQgUhsKkMAmEsI3Y4/s1600/Man-Facial-expression.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHa0njsQzE6s9CMMQYVGpbgYzpvNf6yzo6eO2ndazKjcmX3QWEqozk7N9dJFv9feat9kGX8igGYQADB-CuzMiyTe0-hwHjHWEMN6AFhkKmvqXfR2A_ZciSBTlb8wHQgUhsKkMAmEsI3Y4/s1600/Man-Facial-expression.jpg" height="400" width="268" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Taken from PsychCentral.com</td></tr>
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A feeling--whether good or bad--is just a collection of sensations until we identify it as a feeling. But we don't pay much attention to those sensations because we jump right to the identification, the judgment, if you will. Then immediately after identifying it, we look for the cause or the origin of the feeling so that we can control it--either make it go away or stick around a while longer. Usually we decide that the feeling is coming from something or someone outside ourselves.<br />
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"You make me happy," we say, or "You piss me off!" <i>You </i>is identified as being the source of the feeling in these two instances. If only I could get <i>You </i>to stop or continue doing whatever is causing the identified feeling, then I would be happy, we think.<br />
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Mental health counselors recognize this tendency people have to blame or credit others for our feelings, so they urge people to describe their feelings in a way that leaves out the blame by using "I" instead of "You": "<i>I</i> feel bad when you do that," or "<i>I</i> feel angry right now."<br />
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I think that's a good idea because it gets away from claiming a source outside oneself for a feeling. However, I think we need to go one step further: Don't be so quick to identify the feeling; instead, focus on the sensations. The sensations, after all, are what are actually occurring. They are the empirical evidence being used to draw your conclusions about what you're feeling. It seems very few people even pay attention to what feelings actually consist of.<br />
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But how does one do this? Well, you can pay attention to your breathing, your heart rate, whether or not you feel pain or congestion or cold or heat. Look at your facial expression: are your eyebrows up, down or neutral? Is your mouth turned down, poked out, open, closed? Are you smiling, grinning, snarling? All these are observations that can be compiled to determine what is going on inside of you.<br />
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So, instead of saying, I feel sad, you can describe your symptoms in a more physical way. Make empirical observations about sensations, facial expressions, body position, etc.<br />
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This not only slows down the rush to judgment, but it also allows you to pay more attention to what is going on inside of you. What you are sensing may be different from what you think you are sensing. And it helps you to calm down, to not immediately act on your sensations.<br />
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Think about how actors determine how to express feelings in a play or film: they observe others emoting and copy those expressions, body language, gestures. You can do it too if you make the effort. Look at an array of faces showing different expressions: chances are you can read them quite well. In fact, those who can't are at a considerable disadvantage in social situations. Then add body language, gestures and you get closer to identifying what is going on with the person.<br />
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But I think it's helpful to suspend judgment, even when you have what you consider to be a good set of clues. What sensations are you feeling <i>inside </i>when you're sad, angry, happy, scared, neutral?<br />
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Then, when you've got all the data you can collect, what do you do with it?<br />
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Nothing. Just let it be. Whether the sensations are pleasant or unpleasant, just hold on to them. Try to experience the sensations without labeling them or trying to act on them. Just note their presence.<br />
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Say to yourself, "I'm experiencing rapid heart rate, breathing is quicker, my chest feels heavy like I can't breathe." Think about how what you're experiencing now is different from what you were experiencing earlier. Then just let those sensations be there. Don't try to control them, but don't act on them right away, either.<br />
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Many of the feelings that cause people trouble start inside their brain with bad brain chemistry. Acting to get rid of bad brain chemistry involves doing something that doesn't cause harm to you or others. But before you can act constructively you have to recognize that the sensations are something other than what you first think they are.<br />
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Cherylhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13885473550254826118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593996585657914495.post-60590289642557296212014-12-30T08:01:00.001-05:002014-12-30T08:01:10.538-05:00Good reasons to feel bad <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Thought for the day: Just because you have a good reason to feel bad, doesn't mean it isn't brain chemistry making you feel bad. Your brain makes you feel bad, and when you cast around for a good reason to feel bad, you can find one sooner if something in your life is worthy of sadness. But you should still try to make the bad feeling go away if you can.</div>
Cherylhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13885473550254826118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593996585657914495.post-91292670989439685202014-12-14T08:33:00.002-05:002014-12-16T06:40:23.633-05:00The Ideal Team<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKWvJrTXQ4INf3lSwTfium2J0NLDpVetXVK2vjrXLwmLbaJqO_PAIat6aR9btGfvB9eA4F2PeOV1aRsmZeib-Yf9VJDs98B5P0R0eznc7gor7us7_wTfAgrQzgZ_xo8Kq87CesXqvsP9Q/s1600/tug+of+war.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKWvJrTXQ4INf3lSwTfium2J0NLDpVetXVK2vjrXLwmLbaJqO_PAIat6aR9btGfvB9eA4F2PeOV1aRsmZeib-Yf9VJDs98B5P0R0eznc7gor7us7_wTfAgrQzgZ_xo8Kq87CesXqvsP9Q/s1600/tug+of+war.JPG" height="200" width="200" /></a></div>
As I discussed in the previous post, many people grow up in families that do not embody the spirit of the ideal team as it is envisioned by employers. Yet they are expected to function in a work setting as if they did grow up in such a team. Or, they are expected to be able to learn to be ideal team players by merely being reminded that they should work as a team. Or, at the very least, they can learn to be good team players by receiving instruction in team work.<br />
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How many courses, workshops and seminars are given in teamwork: creating a team, developing a team, leading a team, working as a team? Businesses are very insistent these days that employees conform to the ideal team concept. You see it in every job description, every ad for a job opening, no matter how low-level. I think employers must often be disappointed when their employees fall far short of the teamwork mark, when even their leaders are not really skilled at teamwork. And yet functioning as an ideal team continues to be the goal of every group.</div>
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Is it a skill that can be learned? If so, then it does not consist of a simple set of behaviors. There's more involved, I think, in simply learning how to act in a group situation. And that is because every group situation is different, and most are not the type employers want in their workplaces. And the fact that they don't know that is hindering their progress in creating the ideal team.</div>
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But how can an employer find out what kind of team her employees grew up in? Just asking might be seen as nosy. Perhaps she'd be better off asking <i>herself</i> that question--start there, perhaps. But even if she could glean that information somehow, what should she do with it?</div>
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Good question. More later.<br />
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Cherylhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13885473550254826118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593996585657914495.post-43837972742460594612014-11-24T20:27:00.002-05:002014-11-24T20:27:34.031-05:00Everyone's a Team Player<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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For most of my life I've believed I am not a team player. When I was a kid, I didn't get picked for teams because I had no athletic skills, or so I thought. I probably did have such skills but didn't know it because no one encouraged me to play sports or do anything athletic, so I never practiced. <div>
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Since sports is where most people learn to be a team player, I felt like I missed out on that part of life. But being a part of a team, as I recently learned, is not limited to playing sports. People learn to be on a team because it's a naturally human thing to do. We are all on teams from the time we are born until we die because we are human and need to be with other people to survive.</div>
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Many times I've heard people say, "I don't need people. I don't need anybody." My father was one of those people. But he was wrong, and he knew it. We do need people, like it or not. And the liking of it is the sticking point for a lot of people who don't think of themselves as team players. Many of those people are proud of it, too. It's a badge of honor to be a loner in our culture, a maverick, a fiercely independent individualist. Unfortunately, that cultural value does not mix with the requirement of many occupations that an employee be a "people person" or to be able to "get along with coworkers"--to be a team player.</div>
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But the kind of team player most employers want is a very particular kind. He or she must be able to work together with others in a cooperative manner that results in getting tasks accomplished with creativity and friendly competition but no unpleasant conflict or strife. </div>
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Unfortunately, that's only <i>one </i>kind of team and certainly not the experience of many, maybe even <i>most </i>people who grow up in families in this country. As I mentioned in the previous post, our first and most influential team is our family, and that team is probably not very much like the ideal team sought after by most businesses. But it is a team, nevertheless. And what people learn about team is learned in that first group.</div>
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For instance, I learned in my team to be anxious about my team mates, worried and uncertain about how they were going to react, trying to figure out what I needed to do to get attention from them. I learned that helping and being cooperative were not valued. My father was an autocrat, so instead of cooperation, he got silent, smoldering acquiescence, or secret and sometimes bold, even at times harmful, rebellion. Constantly fearing rejection, my teammates never asked for help, or love, or attention from each other. They just got angry and sad when they didn't get it. </div>
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And the the failure to give the desired but un-requested help was seen as a sign of disloyalty, as was being helpful or friendly to people from other teams (such as friends). In fact, how we looked at other teams and people in them was the clearest sign of our sense of being a team. We expressed our team spirit by complaining about, criticizing and fearing other people who were not part of our team. Despite our longing to be like the families we saw on TV (Cleavers, e.g.), we expressed disdain for them because they seemed like phonies or some other such contemptible type of person--not like us.</div>
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People who grow up in teams like mine develop into the particular kind of team player who will succeed in that kind of team. Unfortunately, when we are forced to join new teams--when we go to school, go to work, get married, join the military or a club or a church congregation--we might have difficulty. It's <i>not</i> because we are not team players, though; it's because the team we played for was <i>different</i>, sometimes drastically so, and learning how to play on the new team involves much more than simply learning the playbook. It often means learning a whole new way of thinking about the world.</div>
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Cherylhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13885473550254826118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593996585657914495.post-31884995774229995702014-11-19T19:03:00.000-05:002014-11-20T15:37:49.882-05:00Missing My Team<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm7ZGDzr2fuX7youNW67nkGy2D8OTrfJL2JyUbpg-X95YbOMcAWQxj9Ul236YMbqhHjkpU_7oQr54R73OFDsobE1vcrrOphlfGn7N0JVik0A769pW4v-wv_8k2DrHi49F1ECz3-B-mD8Y/s1600/Rosgall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm7ZGDzr2fuX7youNW67nkGy2D8OTrfJL2JyUbpg-X95YbOMcAWQxj9Ul236YMbqhHjkpU_7oQr54R73OFDsobE1vcrrOphlfGn7N0JVik0A769pW4v-wv_8k2DrHi49F1ECz3-B-mD8Y/s1600/Rosgall.jpg" height="275" style="cursor: move;" unselectable="on" width="320" /></a></div>
Yesterday I watched a TV program about how retired NFL players sometimes have a hard time dealing with no longer playing football. One of the experts in the film talks about how humans are essentially group animals, that we are at our best when we are around other humans, our team. This expert used that idea to explain why professional athletes are especially unhappy when they separate from their teammates at retirement. They find they must replace their team with another sort of team in order to feel happy.<br />
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Not only do they miss their team, but they miss their function within the team and the sense of purpose and accomplishment they gained from being a member of that unit.<br />
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People's families are like teams. Whether they are functional or not, one's family members constitute a team with which a person feels more or less close. Even though you may not like your team, it's still your team and you belong there, whether or not that's a comfort to you. When you lose members of your team, you grieve for more than just the loss of that person. You are also grieving for your team.</div>
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Recently I lost both surviving members of my family nearly at the same time, and that has proven hard, not only because I miss the people they were, but also because they were my team. I no longer have a team to belong to and so I feel that loss too. I no longer have a place and a purpose within that team and so I feel diminished. Like the NFL players who miss their team and seek to replace it, I need to replace my team with a group of people who will provide me with a purpose and a sense that I can contribute to that group in some important way.</div>
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I've never considered my family as a team because we all had bad brain chemistry and so most of the time we were at odds with each other, feeling fear and anger much of the time, coupled with a longing for more closeness, for real acceptance and a sense of unity that never seemed achievable for very long. But we were a team, and did feel that we belonged together, even if it was because we were all miserable. When you're part of such a team, you get some satisfaction from being screwed up together. But unfortunately, it gives you a skewed view of what it means to be part of a team.</div>
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I think that's part of the reason why children who are abused by their parents and other family members express outrage and despair when they are taken away from those terrible people, even though the child is likely to end up dead or permanently traumatized. People who don't grow up that way don't understand it, because they can't fathom how anyone would want to be a member of such a toxic team. But you don't choose your original team, and it's hard to conceive of being without it; you don't see the foster family or the family you are currently staying with as your team. It's another team, and you might even see it as a rival team.</div>
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That people can hold such views is puzzling to people who grew up in a nice, helpful, well-functioning family. They believe the virtuous qualities of their family make them a strong team. They don't consider that it's mostly because they were born into this team and don't know any different that they want to hold onto it and to try to persuade others to leave their less healthy family group. Of course they're right to like being in a good family, but it's just luck that they were born into a functional instead of a dysfunctional team.</div>
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Anyway, it's kind of a revelation to me to realize that I do belong to a team after all, and that I had a purpose and a role in that team and now my team is gone and I'm alone and missing having a purpose in life. So like those NFL players who are sad because they miss playing football, I'm going to strive to find a replacement for my team.</div>
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Cherylhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13885473550254826118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593996585657914495.post-50449093210129675722014-11-07T11:11:00.001-05:002014-12-16T06:34:13.992-05:00The Calm After the Storm<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I have a temper, as other people often put it--a problem with sudden rage, a response to brain chemistry that I find hard to control. I start yelling at a coworker, friend or loved one for what must seem to that person like no reason, sometimes saying things I regret later.<br />
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What's interesting about this phenomenon is that though it looks like rage, the feeling is actually fear. The feeling is always fear, but the response differs. Sometimes it's flight, sometimes fight. Rage is fight. The best defense can be a good offense when you are being attacked.<br />
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But unfortunately, the rage is wrong when the situation doesn't warrant it. Chances are you are not being attacked; perhaps you're only being criticized, or thwarted, or confused. None of those situations call for sudden, uncontrollable rage. Yet it happens because the mind is reacting to what it perceives as danger. The stakes seem high but in reality they are not.<br />
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It doesn't matter that the response is wrong, however--not to the brain, anyway. Venting the rage works to make the person feel better, and that's what counts. Unfortunately, everyone else feels worse. The short-term effect is relief, but the long-term effects may be ruined relationships, loss of employment, or worse. People who take the rage past verbal abuse to violence might end up hurting or killing someone before they can stop.<br />
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For me, the rage is like a sudden, violent thunderstorm. It comes out of the blue and pow! Thunder, lightning, heavy rain, high winds. The storm wreaks havoc, then it's gone--just like that--and the clouds clear, the sun reappears and the sky is a bright blue behind a beautiful rainbow. Looking around, though, we see the downed tree limbs and the destruction the violent storm left behind. Sometimes the consequences are severe--damage to property or even life. It's never as if nothing happened. In the aftermath, there are always signs of the storm's power.<br />
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When the rage comes over me like a sudden thunderstorm, it leaves just as suddenly. I feel better then, but looking around, I see that no one else feels better. People might be angry, stunned, even frightened. Those are the lingering signs of the destructive power of my rage. Coworkers, friends, loved ones remember what it was like. They view me in a different light after that, one that includes a knowledge of my potential for sudden harm.<br />
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My mind selects this stormy solution, but only because it's familiar, it's convenient and it works. At least in the short term, anyway. I need to choose a different solution to the bad brain chemistry, but that's not easy because doing so requires that I see the storm coming and avoid it somehow. Depression can sweep over me without anyone (but me) noticing right away, so I have time to do something about it before it harms my relationships. Rage, on the other hand, is immediately consequential. The harm occurs and is over before I even register that it is brain-chemistry-induced.<br />
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So, I'm still working on that early-warning system that will help me in my quest to avoid erroneous rage.<br />
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Cherylhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13885473550254826118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593996585657914495.post-54503360425022412552014-10-01T06:19:00.000-04:002014-10-21T18:40:15.146-04:00Brain Chemistry Map<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Below is the map my husband John drew nearly 20 years ago when I described to him the process of responding to bad brain chemistry. I think it captures it perfectly!<br />
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Cherylhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13885473550254826118noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593996585657914495.post-65372995625360998942014-08-15T07:43:00.002-04:002014-11-05T20:28:16.193-05:00The Road Less Traveled<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Today is the first day of the rest of my life without my immediate, my <i>nuclear </i>family, as they say. We all had the bad brain chemistry, some of us quite painfully and for quite a long time. I have spent nearly all my life trying to help them; I don't need to do that anymore. But now I have to replace the project because trying to help them was a way to help myself, to give myself a reason to feel bad so I could feel better. But of course there are plenty of ways to feel bad--I'm in no danger of running out; I can always find someone or something to worry about. But I don't want to do that anymore. I want to find ways to <i>stop </i>feeling bad instead, followed closely (I hope) by feeling <i>good</i>. So, what are those methods?<br />
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Ah, there's the rub. As I've said over (and over) in this blog, making the bad feeling go away is not easy. It comes over me so fast sometimes that I forget it's not real, not based in the empirical world, but developing from my brain and its inconvenient wiring. So to recognize it is the first step, as always. Then to make it go away usually requires a focused activity such as scanning, reading mysteries, writing, exercising, bookkeeping, or one of the other non-destructive activities I've devised to put a temporary fix on my pain. But then what? How do I move from not-feeling-bad to feeling good? They're not the same, after all. Oh, it's true that the absence of pain can be a relief, can be elating all by itself. But after a while, being pain-free becomes routine and the psychic energy one expended on suffering must be expended somewhere else.<br />
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And here's where the road diverges: at the crossroads, the former sufferer must find another source of pain or find joy. It would seem not be a tough choice--who wouldn't desire joy over pain? But the pain is familiar, well-known, an old enemy, a noble adversary, even. Getting back into the fight is attractive; anticipating the struggle, the <i>agon</i>, is thrilling. The ever-elusive joy, on the other hand, seems illusory, a sham, a fiction found in romance novels and Disney films, as insubstantial as a rainbow. And as we know, the quest to catch a rainbow always ends in disappointment. So why try?<br />
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Well, the answer is this: because joy is <i>not </i>a rainbow, it is a feeling every bit as real as pain and can be experienced as easily. It is not something you obtain or achieve. It's something you already have access to, that exists inside your brain. You just have to find a way to release it. <i>I</i> have to find a way. That's my new project.</div>
Cherylhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13885473550254826118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593996585657914495.post-86069097071591104192014-05-16T06:24:00.003-04:002014-05-16T06:24:45.746-04:00Stepping into Joy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
This morning I was feeling quite oppressed by stress and the fear of stress and wondering when I was going to get to a place in my life where I could relax. But then I thought that stress is all in the mind and how I feel about what happens in my life makes all the difference. So if I interpret the challenges of life as stress and bad, then that's what they become. The fact that I'm predisposed chemically to fear all new experiences makes it harder for me to see them as positive.<br />
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Fear locks down the mind, forcing it to make fight or flight decisions. But if there is no reason to make fight-or-flight decisions, then the mind is free to wonder, to explore, to investigate, to discover, to delight in what life brings.<br />
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Getting rid of, allaying, or ignoring fear can be a way to step into exploration and ultimately joy.</div>
Cherylhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13885473550254826118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593996585657914495.post-61274951454984363782014-05-10T08:45:00.001-04:002014-05-10T08:45:25.020-04:00Good Reasons to Feel Bad: What to Do When They Fade<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Question for today: what happens to people with bad brain chemistry when they have a good reason to feel bad?<br />
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When people with balanced brain chemistry have that problem, they may feel bad for a while, then they feel better. A loved one dies, for instance, and the non-BBC-plagued person responds in a rational manner, feeling bad for the length of time needed to heal from the loss.<br />
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Someone with bad brain chemistry, though, may experience something different. Because this is a good reason to feel bad, that person clings to the reason, and when after a time of mourning the day-to-day bad feelings return, he or she continues to ascribe them to this reason. Now all the bad feelings that naturally cycle in and out in the suffering person's brain are blamed on this reason: bereavement. If this goes on long enough, people around the suffering person begin to wonder why their friend/family member is still mourning after so much time has passed.<br />
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"You need to get on with your life," the well meaning friends may say, thinking the person is fixated on the loss of the loved one. But though the BBC person feels the loss, he is at this point trying to cope with his day-to-day BBC, and not the loss. He just doesn't realize that is what he is doing.<br />
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As I pointed out in my last post, people with BBC who go to war want to cling to that life-or-death experience because it made them feel better in a strange sort of way. Mourning the death of a loved one is that kind of experience that explains bad feelings in a socially acceptable way. Coping with a serious illness also provides that kind of paradoxical relief because the BBC person can now solicit sympathy and support legitimately.<br />
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But if something changes (the person recovers from the illness or returns from the war), or a reasonable amount of time passes, the "good" reason to feel bad loses legitimacy, and if the BBC person clings to that reason, he or she is in danger of deteriorating into a dysfunctional or debilitated state.<br />
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So what's the answer? The same as ever: recognize that your brain is making you feel that way by sounding a false alarm; then, <i>find a way to turn off the alarm</i>.</div>
Cherylhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13885473550254826118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593996585657914495.post-87880683349810373542014-04-06T10:31:00.000-04:002014-04-06T10:35:07.754-04:00The Problem with Summer in Sacramento<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
A student I know who is studying the brain with respect to post traumatic stress tells me that the latest research indicates that the brain is physically changed somehow by traumatic experiences such as war. It's an intriguing idea and one which seems to offer a solution to the problem that so many suffer, especially the last decade or so when we've sent military (and some civilian) members to war zones repeatedly.<br />
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The latest shooting at Fort Hood underscores the problem of post traumatic stress, although it's hard to predict how people will react to combat experiences, as those who were helping the shooter will, to their dismay, attest.<br />
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It goes back to my theory that the brain chemistry a person inherits predisposes that person to painful feelings that come from the brain, whether randomly or in a predictable pattern or cycle. In an effort to explain those feelings, the mind fixes on a reasonable-seeming source of the pain and then sets about doing something to eliminate that source or mitigate its effects. The problem then is not the brain, but whatever the suffering person decides is the source of that pain.<br />
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Of course, as I've often said, it's pretty easy to find something to be upset about. No one has a perfect life and many things can be the source of discomfort or trouble. The problem arises when the identified source does not really match the level of suffering the person is experiencing. But the sufferer carries on nevertheless, making the external event into something bigger than it really is, working to eradicate the falsely identified source of pain no matter how illogical.<br />
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For instance, a woman who has this kind of brain chemistry suddenly feels bad when there's really no reason to feel bad. In an effort to explain why she feels bad, she comes up with something: why did her husband not call her at lunchtime? Every day he calls her and today he did not. It must be because he is seeing another woman and was with that woman during lunch. Now she has a reason to feel bad: her husband is cheating on her. Of course, this kind of thought process, because it's fictional to start with, has no bounds. In an effort to "explain" her bad feelings, she's prepared to go all the way. He's seeing another woman and has been seeing her for months, maybe years. She looks back at all the times he didn't call her or even those times he did call her and she scrutinizes them for signs of cheating. She remembers all the times he was absent or seemed distant and decides they indicate his preoccupation with that "other woman." She continues to accumulate "evidence" until she's convinced herself this is happening to her and now she has a reason to feel bad. When her husband gets home, she confronts him with this evidence and cries hysterically. If he is innocent he will be completely puzzled by her behavior. He denies the accusation, which only causes her to suspect him more and now she is really upset, crying hysterically and planning her future without him.<br />
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Paradoxically, it is this outburst that finally causes her to feel better. She has identified the source of the pain and has done something about it--confronted her husband. She has lanced the boil, so to speak, and now feels purged of the infection that was causing her pain. She may calm down while she contemplates her next move. The storm is over. For now, anyway. The husband's reaction may change the details of how she responds, but the end result is the same. Whether he denies it or not, whether he gets angry or offers comfort, she feels better afterward.<br />
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Moreover, even if she is right and he admits it, the same quiescence occurs. Whether or not the source of the pain is real, the outcome is the same: she feels better. In fact, the more <i>real </i>trouble she has, the better she feels.<br />
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Have you ever known someone who is always complaining about minor disturbances but when a real tragedy occurs, rises to the occasion beautifully, even heroically? I believe the reason is that the person is <i>prepared </i>to deal with disaster. His fight/flight apparatus is constantly honed and ready for action so that when real emergencies call on him to act, he can do whatever is necessary without thinking. That he seems overjoyed to get into the action is no coincidence. His brain chemistry gives him the tools he needs to respond to dire situations. Unfortunately, when there are no emergencies to respond to, he doesn't fare so well. The decorated soldier who redeploys home to his Army post only to find himself sinking into alcoholism or depression is an example of this phenomenon. His brain chemistry is still making him feel he is in a fight or flight situation when he no longer is. So he creates one to make himself feel better, not even realizing that <i>that </i>is what he is doing.<br />
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It's the kind of the situation Sacramento Valley weather forecasters find themselves in: there's not much to report on any given day, especially in the summer or during a drought--sunshine and heat, unremittingly. But because they make their money reporting on change, especially when that change is big or dangerous, they will try to find reasons to be troubled. When something does finally happen that causes trouble, they jump on it, barely containing their glee, it seems, at their "good" fortune. Thus "Rain Storm '98" or "Winter Storm Vesuvius" rules headlines for days or (if they can manage it) weeks.<br />
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Normal life for many Americans is like summer in Sacramento, California--every day is pretty much the same with safe, non-troublesome weather and the occasional short-lived, not-too-threatening storm of one kind or another. No tornadoes, no blizzards, no hurricanes, no floods. But if your brain chemistry erroneously sets off sirens in your head on a daily basis, you think your life is <i>not </i>normal and start believing there <i>must </i>be a storm around <i>somewhere</i> and go off looking for it before it wreaks havoc in your life.<br />
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The task for such people is not to find the reason for the siren, it's simply to find a way to turn the siren off. Simple, yes. Easy? Not so much.</div>
Cherylhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13885473550254826118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593996585657914495.post-9974547357274641032014-03-29T07:30:00.001-04:002014-03-29T07:30:02.112-04:00The Choice<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Once again, I'm convinced my brain's chemistry delivers fear which my mind then must find a rationale for. Not hard to do. My sister's problems qualify quite nicely for a reason to be afraid. In fact, all her life she's given me a reason to worry, something she herself needs.<br />
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Right now she's quite upset over being so helpless, but if she didn't have the brain chemistry she has, she wouldn't embrace her misery so completely. Having a reason to be miserable is making her happy, in a strange sort of way, because it allows her to explain why she is feeling so bad.<br />
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It's terribly hard to let go of that particular coping mechanism--believe me, I know. Feeling terrible is a way to feel better, paradoxically. It works, though, so people keep using it. Not only does it work, but it's hard to see it for what it is--something the person is actually doing deliberately. It's so automatic, so knee-jerk, it seems to be out of the depressed person's control. But we are doing it ourselves.<br />
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Just look at any depression-related website, especially blogs. There is a desire to have company in one's misery, to be self-righteous about feeling depressed. People should understand, we say, and not expect so much from us. They tell us to snap out of it, but we can't, so they should let us be the way we are. We want to cling to our misery, our suffering selves.<br />
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Medication is frequently tried these days but sometimes does not work, or doesn't work for long enough, or works in a detrimental way. If medication can't work, people must use their minds to help themselves to feel better. Unfortunately, many of the ways people choose to help themselves are ultimately destructive to them and people around them, such as abusing drugs or engaging in other behaviors that tend to increase adrenalin, such as cutting oneself, driving fast, compulsively having illicit sex.<br />
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It's rational to try to make a bad feeling go away. But it doesn't have to be a destructive method. It can be something innocuous like playing Solitaire or one of the other games people like to play on their hand-held devices. As long as it works, who cares how simple it is? There is, however, a danger that the behavior designed to solve the problem becomes a problem itself by becoming addictive. So you see people who can't stop playing with their phones even when it's a very bad idea to do so (during driving, for instance).<br />
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People don't have to miserable. They can choose not to. They really can. They just don't believe that the way they feel is physical and that it can be dealt with in a rational way, like any other physical ailment.</div>
Cherylhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13885473550254826118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593996585657914495.post-83883031100635544372014-03-09T09:29:00.000-04:002014-03-29T07:00:48.629-04:00So There We Are<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Feeling sad when there's no reason to feel sad--that's one version of bad brain chemistry. That's how I feel today. One could say I have a good reason to feel sad because of my sister's dilemma. And I do feel sad because of that. But other than that, I have no reason to feel as bad as I do, and if my sister wasn't hurting, there'd be some other reason to feel bad, at least according to my brain, that wants to have a rationale for feeling bad.<br />
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But my life is good, really, and for that matter, so is my sister's, if she would only acknowledge that and get on with the business of trying to fix what's wrong. She needs to work harder at losing weight and getting strong, but she chooses instead to be the victim, which gives her a reason to be angry and depressed. And that is truly sad because it just doesn't have to be that way. All that needs to change is her attitude, but she doesn't believe that. And she doesn't believe she can change her attitude even. So there we are. And there's not much I can do. I'm no leader, as I've often stated. But maybe I'm giving up too easily too. Maybe.</div>
Cherylhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13885473550254826118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593996585657914495.post-22532405348046310572014-01-19T08:25:00.002-05:002014-01-22T19:53:19.361-05:00Experiencing Peace and Happiness<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I was thinking about my sister whose main method for dealing with her brain chemistry seems these days to be rage. She used to be depressed often and only angry sometimes, but now she's angry all the time. This is not real anger, of course. As I've said in earlier posts, real rage has a cause. A legitimate cause. Her rage is coming from inside her, but she won't acknowledge that, of course. I don't know if I'll ever get through to her; she completely rejects my theories and remedies. I don't know what I'm thinking, trying to come up with a solution for people that involves sacrifice of their favorite methods of dealing with their brain chemistry.<br />
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Yesterday I was feeling depressed right after I talked to my sister. While that is certainly understandable, since she was singing her same tune about "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore," I've used that excuse for many years, and I don't think I want to anymore. And really I've been trying to examine it whenever I feel myself slipping into that mode. Here's how that works:<br />
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Instead of telling myself that I'm depressed about my sister's fate and leaving it at that, I tell myself that while I have every reason to be depressed about that, the magnitude of pain I feel is not commensurate with the reason for the pain. This particular time, the bad feeling came over me around that same time, but I recognized the bad feeling as the same bad feeling I have when nothing is going wrong in my life. The bad feeling is actually independent of what's going on in my life. Or maybe there's something more subtle going on--an interaction between my finely tuned, sensitive-to-trouble psyche and the external environment. I'll have to think on that more later.<br />
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Meanwhile, instead of focusing on the usual "what's going to happen to my sister?" worry, I focused on "what can I do to get rid of this bad feeling?" But when I say that it sounds selfish. I can hear my mother (and probably countless other people who have the same notion) saying: Don't you care what happens to your sister? That is the refrain my mother (and sister) sang my whole life--if you're not worried, you don't care. But worry is so useless. Do something, yes, if you can, but worry about what you can't control? That might actually cause more harm than good. Why do you think alcoholics in AA embrace the serenity prayer: Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.<br />
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In a Wikipedia article that delves into the origin of this prayer, there is a long history of people expressing the basic tenets of this prayer. I found it to be enlightening, especially the parts about ancient writers who promoted the philosophy it contains: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_Prayer" target="_blank">Serenity Prayer</a>.<br />
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I especially liked Epictetus' advice: <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;"> </span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens. Some things are up to us [eph' hêmin] and some things are not up to us. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: yellow;">Our opinions are up to us, and our impulses, desires, aversions-in short, whatever is our own doing. </span>Our <span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: #ea9999;">bodies</span> are <span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: #f4cccc;">not</span> up to us, nor are our possessions, our reputations, or our public offices, or, that is, whatever is not our own doing.</span></blockquote>
It's as if this fellow from first century Greece (55-135) had the same idea I have, except I put a modern spin on it. Here is what the Wikipedia article says about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epictetus" target="_blank">Epictetus</a>:<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;"></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">Philosophy, Epictetus taught, is a way of life and not just a theoretical discipline. To Epictetus, all external events are determined by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destiny" style="background-image: none; color: #0645ad; text-decoration: none;" title="Destiny">fate</a>, and are thus beyond our control; we should accept whatever happens calmly and dispassionately. However, individuals are responsible for their own actions, which they can examine and control through rigorous self-discipline.</span></blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">
</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: yellow;">Suffering occurs from trying to control what is uncontrollable</span>, or from <span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: yellow;">neglecting what is within our power.</span> As part of the universal city that is the universe, it is our duty to care for all our fellow men. Those who follow these precepts will achieve <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eudaimonia" style="background-image: none; color: #0645ad; text-decoration: none;" title="Eudaimonia">happiness</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ataraxia" style="background-image: none; color: #0645ad; text-decoration: none;" title="Ataraxia">peace of mind</a>.</span> </blockquote>
Epictetus is considered to be a <i>stoic</i> philosopher, but my understanding of stoicism was more or less negative until I read that passage. The sentence that seems to echo my vision is the one that says we are responsible for our own actions. Now, the stoics were big on control, but that sounds a lot like our notion of self-control: be Vulcan-like in denying your emotions.<br />
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But I'm not talking about denying your emotions, only understanding where they come from, especially if they're coming from your <span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">brain</span> [read: <span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: yellow;">body</span>] and are not prompted by outside events. Understanding emotions leads to happiness much more efficiently than merely trying to hold them in or pretend they don't exist, the way Spock seems to. In the Spock vs Kirk debate, Kirk always wins, it seems, because we (and TV show writers) tend to favor the passionate person over the stoical person. But uncontolled passion is just as inappropriate as rigid stoicism, and just as likely to cause suffering.<br />
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So, what did I do about my bad feeling yesterday? I did some Solitaire, followed by a bit of walking while listening to a mystery novel, which helped, then when the bad feeling came back, I ate a bit of chocolate (remedy of last resort). Finally I started to feel better and could get on with what I was doing. Later I was able to receive information about my sister's decisions with more calm, which is good for me. But perhaps as important is that it is also good for <i>her</i>.<br />
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The more I respond to my sister's irrational behavior with calm and compassion, the more I will help her in the only way she will let me--by not rejecting her when everyone else does. If I don't let her behavior upset me, I can see the suffering she is inflicting on herself. I do not suffer from her bad behavior. I feel bad that she can't see her way clear to stop suffering, but that's not the same as her <i>making</i> me suffer. I can't control how <i>she</i> behaves; I can only try to do what <i>I</i> can do. And since I can't control her, I can accept her and still love her and try to help her as much as she will let me.<br />
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And I can only do that if I understand that my bad feelings (and hers, too) come from the brain we were given. A good brain but one that doesn't always work in a way that's helpful for experiencing peace and happiness. </div>
Cherylhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13885473550254826118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593996585657914495.post-57360829452225557042013-12-14T11:49:00.002-05:002013-12-14T11:49:54.820-05:00The Pain Is In Your BrainMy brain chemistry has been oppressing me quite a bit this past week or so. I've been struggling to ride the waves of bad feelings I've been experiencing. I hesitate to label the feelings <em>depression</em> because of what comes with the term--a ready-made definition that causes people to shut off their minds and not see the condition for what I believe it is--a debilitating physical condition that can take many forms.<br />
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Oh, sure, thanks to pharmaceutical marketing, most people are now aware that depression can be helped with antidepressant medications--and that's a good thing. Lately, though, those medicines seem to be working less well than expected--at least if you believe the drug company ads which encourage you to "ask your doctor" about taking an <em>additional</em> medication for your depression (a medication that is in most cases an <em>antipsychotic</em> and not an anti-depressant). <br />
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Other than increasing awareness of the problem of depression (only <em>one</em> type of psychic pain), I don't think pharmaceutical companies are doing us any favors coming up with more and more (and stronger and stronger) medicines to treat depression because such marketing is causing the average lay person and even some psychiatrists to believe that taking antidepressants or other psychotropic drugs are all that's needed to fix the problem.<br />
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My own experience has taught me that medicine is not enough. Long term psychic pain brings with it so many behavioral problems that I am convinced one cannot get better by taking drugs alone, even if those drugs are well tolerated and effective (not always a given).<br />
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The behavioral problems result from the person's response to the pain: seek out the source of the pain and try to eliminate it. Of course, most of the time the person doesn't realize that the source is his own brain, and not the world around him. Identifying what turns out to be the wrong cause and then trying to eliminate that mistaken cause is what creates the problems. <br />
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If people didn't respond in trouble-causing ways to psychic pain then there would be no need for remedies. Yes, the pain is in and of itself a problem, but if one can tolerate the pain without responding in a way that complicates one's life, then at least the problem is smaller, more localized, and less debilitating. <br />
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I'm advocating that people should respond to psychic pain in the same way they respond to physical pain. Even though psychic pain <em>is</em> physical pain, people don't experience it that way; moreover, they are not conditioned to think of it that way because of the mind-body split concept that people have believed in for millennia. So thinking of your mind's pain as different from your body's pain, or that mental pain is not real and is somehow even shameful is part of what people must struggle against in trying to treat their depression and other brain-chemistry induced ailments.<br />
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Think about how we respond to physical pain: use medications if any are available, then just put up with it, work around it, or distract yourself from it. What we don't typically do is to blame ourselves for it, to feel ashamed because we have it, or look for causes outside ourselves.<br />
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For instance, if a person suffers from phantom pain from a severed limb, he doesn't blame his spouse or his boss or his job or his place of residence for the phantom pain. He doesn't believe getting a new wife will take away his pain. Changing any of his life circumstances might make his pain easier to bear or more convenient to deal with, perhaps, but it won't eliminate the pain. And he would never imagine that such a thing could happen (if he is rational).<br />
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So why do people who suffer psychic pain believe that changing something will make them <em>happy</em> (i.e. take away their psychic pain)? If a woman's brain is making her unhappy, what makes her think changing her job will make her happy? She still has the same brain, after all. She takes her malfunctioning brain with her to the next job, the next town, the next relationship where it will once again cause her pain that she will once again misconstrue as caused by something outside herself and start the cycle all over again.<br />
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The behavior that the psychic pain elicits is the problem that needs fixing--behavior that is sometimes dangerous, life-threatening, life-destroying. Sure, get rid of the pain if you can, but how do you get rid of the behavior that is now entrenched and habitual? By recognizing that the source of the pain is not outside yourself, that it is your brain. Think of it as physical pain, then deal with it the way you would a physical ailment. It's that simple. It's just not easy.<br />
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Cherylhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13885473550254826118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593996585657914495.post-32783320277661763652013-11-20T19:27:00.000-05:002013-11-20T19:27:19.957-05:00The Power of Ruby SlippersYesterday I was thinking about people who are self-righteous about their suffering. This is especially true of those who suffer <em>mentally</em>. Because they take some degree of pride in their ability to endure pain, they find it hard to give it up, I think, when they no longer need to feel it.<br />
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My theory that people with bad brain chemistry need to find things to feel bad about to make their bad feelings seem rational coincides with this phenomenon of being self-righteous about suffering. They don't want to stop being in psychic pain because to do so would mean that they always had the power to change and stop suffering and that they are not tragic figures after all.<br />
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It's like Dorothy's ruby slippers. As soon as she got them from the bad witch, she had the power to go home, but she didn't know it so she went on staying in Oz and suffering from homesickness. I think Dorothy was pretty ticked that she wasn't told. Sure, Glinda the Good Witch told her that if she <em>had</em> told Dorothy the trick the girl wouldn't have believed her. I can understand how Dorothy felt, but I also think Glinda was right because I've noticed that when I tell people that the solution to their sadness is something as simple as scanning, they don't believe me either. What would it take for the people I try to help to conclude, like Dorothy, that they can stop suffering by doing something simple? Would they still go through all the suffering that Dorothy went through to get to that point?<br />
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I kind of like this analogy. How can I go further with it? Well, if you really look you can find allegories in <em>The Wizard of Oz</em>. Glinda asked Dorothy what she learned on her adventure and she said basically that she learned she didn't need to go looking for happiness because it had been right in her back yard all along. That's what people with brain chemistry need to learn--that they have the power within them to be happy, that they don't need to buy a lot of gear or food or pills or books or personal trainers or gurus. They can simply decide to make their pain go away and believe that it's possible.<br />
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I think Glinda was right about Dorothy. She wouldn't have believed it could be so simple. She liked the idea of a quest, suffering through the dark night of the soul until she vanquished evil and rescued her comrades who proved worthy warriors. Sounds good until you remember that the quest was contrived by the Wizard who wasn't really a wizard (in the movie anyway) and couldn't bestow any of the things he claimed to be able to bestow. He was a con artist, like the one who came to Dorothy's farm in the beginning of the film. Dorothy learned she was strong, and that was valuable, I suppose. And she gained friendships she didn't have before. (Or, if you believe the "dream" ending, they were friends she had all along but didn't recognize how valuable they were.)<br />
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I think about these unnecessary quests when I read books by people who supposedly went through terrible trials to get to where they are today--someplace happier, healthier and on the other side of some treacherous divide where they look back in awe at how far they've come. People love those kind of stories, probably because they conform to the structure of the classic good story, complete with the typical story arc: complications, rising action, crisis, turning point, denouement. In order to please those readers, then, the writer has to contrive his or her story, make what might have been a much slower, more convoluted, more complex and much more subtle process into a straight-line quest--a journey to hell and back.<br />
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It makes me wonder--if the suffering person had learned the secret earlier--maybe learned that there was no need for the quest, that the answer was simple and easily obtained--would he or she have believed it? Would the suffering person have gone on suffering so as to come out with a great story later? Would the person have figured it out early but written a fictional account just to satisfy the desire of readers to believe in the power of suffering to redeem us? That's what Oprah's pal did before he got caught. That's what a lot of people did and do in order to sell a "true" account of adventure to the unsuspecting (but fervently believing) public. Even in Shakespeare's time people yearned for the truth that was stranger than fiction. So it's no wonder that the Wizard of Oz, old con man that he was, gave that story to Dorothy. And Glinda let him because she knew Dorothy would never go for the plain, simple, unvarnished and decidedly less glamorous truth that to be happy all she had to do was click her heels together three times, saying "There's no place like home."Cherylhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13885473550254826118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593996585657914495.post-27016789442905377592013-09-02T09:20:00.000-04:002013-09-02T09:20:40.799-04:00The InheritanceSo, if a person grows up in an abusive household, how does he or she avoid such situations in the future?<br />
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Well, becoming aware is essential. Chances are the person who was a child of abuse has inherited the bad brain chemistry that caused the parent or parents to behave in the way they did (that and the behavior they learned from <i>their</i> bad brain chemistry suffering parents). And so the child has also learned the ineffective behavior as well. Knowing about both the brain chemistry and the learned behavior will help. Part of the learned behavior is that method of survival that used to bring about a feeling of triumph or at least relief. One needs an abusive situation in order to deploy such methods though. That means that if one wants to avoid repeating an abusive home life one needs to find other ways of feeling triumph or relief.<br />
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Many people who weren't brought up in an abusive household achieve a feeling of triumph from accomplishing something <i>other</i> than survival or the avoidance of conflict. Imagine that! Feeling triumphant over a personal achievement such as winning a debate or acquitting oneself well in a baseball game or getting an A on a particularly difficult test in school or even something as simple as figuring out how to fix a broken toaster.<br />
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Often people who are abused or grow up with an abuser are not praised or even noticed for their achievements. They might think they don't have any, except what they've learned to stay out of Dad's way or avoid Mom's withering critique by being invisible. Or perhaps they show their disdain for praise by being troublesome or being even more difficult than their abusive parents.<br />
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I need to think more about this topic. Next time . . .Cherylhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13885473550254826118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593996585657914495.post-21739710027475315622013-08-25T09:04:00.001-04:002013-08-25T09:06:02.254-04:00Flee and Flee AgainToday I had a thought about people who stay in an abusive relationship. There is something in the relationship that the abused person craves. She does not crave the violence, necessarily, just the brain-effects that the violence provides her with. She accepts the violence as concomitant with the other.<br />
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And what is the other? Perhaps it is the thrill of victory. Living with an abusive person is like always being on the hunt, always having to read the environment for potential danger, as well as for potential sustenance. The abuser provides the danger, but not always. Sometimes he provides the sustenance: peace and calm and even affectionate attention. Either outcome is unpredictable, however, so she must always be on the lookout for both.<br />
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Living in such a relationship is like constantly being in a fight or flight situation--never being able to relax. But the person who is hyperalert is a person who thrives in such a situation. She feels good about having survived, of having gotten the goods, even when she occasionally pays with physical or emotional pain. Unfortunately, she gets addicted to the thrill of victory and tries to make it happen, to reproduce the circumstances of triumph in other relationships, even the abusive one she wants to escape. </div>
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And she does want to escape. Who wouldn't want to escape frequent near-death experiences in one's own home? But fleeing (and occasionally fighting) is the goal of the agon and is therefore what causes her to feel good when she reaches it. Once she escapes, however, she will eventually crave that situation of fight-or-flight that resulted in her triumphing over death and feeling that exhilaration. It's a kind of adrenalin addiction, I think, similar to that experienced by a dare-devil pilot or extreme athlete or combat soldier.</div>
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It's interesting, I think, that people heap scorn upon anyone these days who wants to suggest that an abused person (especially a woman) might play a role in her captivity, however small. Don't blame the victim, they say. "It's not her fault; it's the man's fault. He's the only culprit." But it's not that cut and dried, though we would like it to be. Despite all the help people currently have to avoid establishing relationships with abusers or to escape those situations, including shelters and mental health professionals, educational materials and even more stringent laws to punish the abusers, they are still ending up victims. Why is that? Why do people still let themselves in for that?</div>
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I think that it's simply much more complicated than it first appears to be. How do people end up in abusive relationships? Well, there may be a variety of reasons for that. But once there, some stay. Those are the ones who puzzle the people who want to help. Why do they stay? There are a lot of theories out there, but one I'd like to offer is that the abused and the abuser are co-dependent. <i>Each</i> is getting something out of the relationship. <i>Both</i> are suffering from brain chemistry that causes them to behave in a way that is not only counterproductive but may sometimes be downright toxic or even lethal. That they don't change may be because what they are getting from the survival-mode existence is something they need and don't know how to get in a way that is more constructive.</div>
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But those directly involved in the abusive relationship are not the only ones affected by it. If there are children, they suffer, too. Even if they themselves are not being abused, they experience the same struggle for survival watching their parents go at it in their presence, except for them it can be much worse because they didn't create the situation and have very little control over it. They might attempt to exert control by trying to intervene during a fight, by escaping temporarily, by running away, by acting out in school, by getting in trouble or getting hurt--all ways that work for a while, either to bring their parents together or break them apart or at least distract them for a time.</div>
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But all the while this is happening, the children are living with the daily struggle for survival, learning to deal with the dilemma of loved ones fighting--having to take sides but not wanting to. And those who succeed in figuring it out, who survive the situation, get something out of their success. They experience the thrill of victory, too, and later, when they grow up and do finally escape for good, they crave that same intense, ultimately life-affirming experience they had when they were children. And that's what it is--life-affirming. The adrenalin junkie might be addicted to that high he gets from courting and then jilting death--the neurochemicals that pour into his brain during and after a struggle to survive--but he is also affirming life, and that is exhilarating. And in this modern, safe, comfortable world where the true struggle for survival is almost non-existent, there are few opportunities for such exhilaration.</div>
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This, then, may be one of the reasons abused (or abusing) people stay in such painful relationships--they grew up in an abusive household, which means they not only inherited the brain chemistry of people who crave the agon, but they learned how to create it and play their parts in it. That there are other, better methods does not occur to them, of if it does, then they are afraid to try them for fear they will not work.</div>
Cherylhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13885473550254826118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593996585657914495.post-42370096502361089942013-08-04T16:00:00.000-04:002016-09-06T07:38:11.580-04:00Uncovering Happiness<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The pursuit of happiness is something we like to think of as constitutionally guaranteed in this country. We have the right to pursue happiness, whatever that might be for us, as long as we don't run afoul of the law. Like many people, I used to think happiness was some elusive state, difficult if not impossible to achieve. One who is unhappy must do something, go somewhere, change somehow in order to be happy. If only I could figure out what that something was, I could be happy.<br />
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Lately, however, I've been thinking that happiness is <i>not</i> something "out there," in the future or in another place, a state that I have to <i>get</i> to. Rather, I've come to believe that happiness is a quality I <i>already</i> possess, something that exists <i>within</i> me and need only be uncovered, drawn out, revealed.<br />
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My brain chemistry works to muffle happiness, to hide its existence, to prevent me from experiencing it. Why is it doing this? I suppose it's trying to protect me from what it mistakenly believes are mortal threats to my physical body. Happiness is, after all, a state of relaxation. To feel happy is to experience a time away from vigilance, to dwell in a place where peace and cooperation, creativity and curiosity hold sway. If one is afraid for one's life, one cannot afford to relax, to be curious, friendly, open, joyous, inventive--that is, <i>happy</i>. One must concentrate on surviving.<br />
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Hyperalert people whose brains make them believe they are in danger cannot afford to relax vigilance. They must stay alert to attacks from the outside world where predators lurk, where hunger and hurt await. Unfortunately, the source of the threat they feel is the brain itself, causing pain in the name of survival. <br />
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The hyperalert brain is creating a kind of autoimmune disorder, you might say. Autoimmune disorders occur when the body mistakenly believes its own tissues are a threat; it treats its internal tissues like external invaders. In much the same way, when the brain produces fear-inducing chemicals, the mind does not recognize the threat as internal and therefore harmless; instead it immediately looks outside the body for the cause of the fear, for the invader; and when it finds something, it responds by fighting the perceived threat or fleeing from it. The mind's response is like the body's response: it acts to protect the organism.<br />
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3593996585657914495" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a>What does the mind do? It prompts the body to attack, perhaps, through yelling or hitting. Or it prompts the body to flee through literal or figurative running: taking to one's bed and refusing to get up and go to work, for instance, or escaping via a tried-and-true route, such as changing jobs or drinking alcohol or gambling.<br />
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Though it may seem such actions are intended to <i>remove</i> obstacles to happiness ("If I could only find a job I like"; "If I can just get enough money to pay my bills"), they are in effect <i>creating</i> those obstacles by perpetuating readiness for a threat that doesn't exist. It's as if the person is patrolling through a war zone, anxiously alert for the hidden mine that will take his legs or even his life. "Be alert or be inert," as soldiers say. But that kind of vigilance takes its toll, even when the threat is real. At least a real war will end at some point and if he survives, the soldier will be safe. When the war is brain-created, there's no actual reason for vigilance and thus no hope of safety--no hope for a future happiness.<br />
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So, what to do? Look for the happiness that is hiding behind the artificial cloud the brain creates. Dispel the cloud, and reveal the sunshine behind it. Simple--but, of course, not easy.</div>
Cherylhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13885473550254826118noreply@blogger.com0