Related to my "Ghost in the Machine" thread: A recent event got me thinking about suicidal ideation caused by External events vs. by one's reaction to external events. Specifically, being upset that something that happened vs. the internal struggle to deal with those events.
I was dragged into an online debate the past two days that I was not looking to engage in, and the person managed to get under my skin. Despite trying to let it go I woke up this morning, and was still thinking about it. "Involuntary ruminations", you might say. This has been a long-time problem for me. Despite therapy, philosophy, self-help, and life experience, I find that the bigger threat is not always the outside event, but my internal reactions to them. "Old scripts playing out", as they say. This is despite knowing that those scripts don't always apply; sometimes the other person is full of it, or that it's not a big deal, and all the cliches about "don't respond; react", "be mindful", etc. It's like I have two minds, and they're at war with each other. I don't know if it's "flight-or-fight" or what, but it's torture, because it's involuntary.
When I'm more successful, I can talk myself down, sometimes by reasoning out the problem, sometimes by reverse psychology. But it's a constant struggle over big and small events. It's like a war of attrition, meant to wear down my resistance. I spend more time and energy dealing with the internal struggle than the external struggles in many cases. It's one reason why I limit my social media interactions, in cases like the recent one, and keep to myself. But it doesn't necessarily have to be an argument, it can be about a decision to make, even something as innocuous as changing phone carriers. It's always "flight-or-fight", to make the best choice or else.
I think it's partly biological, amygdala-wise, but also a response to childhood trauma and abuse, where I had too much burden from a young age, being parentified and taking the weight of the world on my shoulders as a result, with mistakes being costly. The other part of it, something that Stephan Molyneux said to me in my call-in, relates to the "two minds" comment I just made. When I was trying to justify my guilt over cutting my mother out of my life a few years ago after her abuse resurfaced, I said I was of "two minds" about it. He wouldn't let me finish that thought. He said I was NOT of two minds, meaning my own, but that HERS was the second mind, controlling me from a young age. Compared it to "The Eye of Sauron" from LORD OF THE RINGS. (That actually made sense, to me.) I'm being hindered by my own decisions by the programming she put in their from an early age, and it's ingrained in me, constantly at war with it, even at this age, and after identifying the problem and rejecting the voice. But it's still embedded. Logic and reason alone can't seem to eliminate it, they can only hold it at bay.
It's not just mental, either; the physical gets intertwined. I'm perpetually tense, even when I think I'm calm, and I don't even realize it until my body starts making me notice it. A lifetime of armoring and flight-or-fight sends my body into automatic defense mode when it's not called for, which affects my thoughts, subconsciously or unconsciously, and that takes work to be constantly mindful, and I spend time and energy just getting that under control. I've had pinched nerves and even shattered a tooth from involuntary jaw spasms because of the physical reactions.
That's where I think a lot of it stems from, for me, and it carries over into everything else, matters big and small. All the things I've learned to deal with it HAVE helped me get this far, but not without a cost. I feel like I've done everything I'm supposed to do about it, but it's never going to be eliminated. It's a constant war of attrition that I'm getting tired of fighting; diminishing returns.
Does this make sense to anyone else?
I was dragged into an online debate the past two days that I was not looking to engage in, and the person managed to get under my skin. Despite trying to let it go I woke up this morning, and was still thinking about it. "Involuntary ruminations", you might say. This has been a long-time problem for me. Despite therapy, philosophy, self-help, and life experience, I find that the bigger threat is not always the outside event, but my internal reactions to them. "Old scripts playing out", as they say. This is despite knowing that those scripts don't always apply; sometimes the other person is full of it, or that it's not a big deal, and all the cliches about "don't respond; react", "be mindful", etc. It's like I have two minds, and they're at war with each other. I don't know if it's "flight-or-fight" or what, but it's torture, because it's involuntary.
When I'm more successful, I can talk myself down, sometimes by reasoning out the problem, sometimes by reverse psychology. But it's a constant struggle over big and small events. It's like a war of attrition, meant to wear down my resistance. I spend more time and energy dealing with the internal struggle than the external struggles in many cases. It's one reason why I limit my social media interactions, in cases like the recent one, and keep to myself. But it doesn't necessarily have to be an argument, it can be about a decision to make, even something as innocuous as changing phone carriers. It's always "flight-or-fight", to make the best choice or else.
I think it's partly biological, amygdala-wise, but also a response to childhood trauma and abuse, where I had too much burden from a young age, being parentified and taking the weight of the world on my shoulders as a result, with mistakes being costly. The other part of it, something that Stephan Molyneux said to me in my call-in, relates to the "two minds" comment I just made. When I was trying to justify my guilt over cutting my mother out of my life a few years ago after her abuse resurfaced, I said I was of "two minds" about it. He wouldn't let me finish that thought. He said I was NOT of two minds, meaning my own, but that HERS was the second mind, controlling me from a young age. Compared it to "The Eye of Sauron" from LORD OF THE RINGS. (That actually made sense, to me.) I'm being hindered by my own decisions by the programming she put in their from an early age, and it's ingrained in me, constantly at war with it, even at this age, and after identifying the problem and rejecting the voice. But it's still embedded. Logic and reason alone can't seem to eliminate it, they can only hold it at bay.
It's not just mental, either; the physical gets intertwined. I'm perpetually tense, even when I think I'm calm, and I don't even realize it until my body starts making me notice it. A lifetime of armoring and flight-or-fight sends my body into automatic defense mode when it's not called for, which affects my thoughts, subconsciously or unconsciously, and that takes work to be constantly mindful, and I spend time and energy just getting that under control. I've had pinched nerves and even shattered a tooth from involuntary jaw spasms because of the physical reactions.
That's where I think a lot of it stems from, for me, and it carries over into everything else, matters big and small. All the things I've learned to deal with it HAVE helped me get this far, but not without a cost. I feel like I've done everything I'm supposed to do about it, but it's never going to be eliminated. It's a constant war of attrition that I'm getting tired of fighting; diminishing returns.
Does this make sense to anyone else?
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