Previously: the Deathcake Series (have you made Deathcake?) modelled the process of how a trigger causes a cascade into crushing depression. I learned how panic actually has a calming effect on a part of my nature. But it couldn't tell me why I keep crashing and burning. It took the cumulative participation on this board for several months to tell me something that I knew from the beginning--and underestimated the importance of.
I keep going back to Peeta's thread Dealing with insults because the answer to the question that's been bothering me for months is just under the surface there. Just beyond my reach. Starting with gonz post:
The hook's in the last line. "It's someone who actually does know me." Then tachyon logged a very specific incident he had, which prompted some new questions. kestrel's next post focused back to The Sticky Post of Gonz that started the cascade, and I realized I needed to move a sentence.
I rewrote gonz's post here:
The only time I see myself is at my worst or my most vulnerable. I see nothing to like there. I forget the likable things I do bring to the table; they aren't in context, and besides, I have to be reminded of them each time. Not because I need flattery, but because I need to believe that others see real gifts and communicate to me that what I see of myself doesn't match closely enough what they see. The Hanging Judge makes sure that I don't get to congratulate myself.
I see that every move I make in the world, I make blind. I learned early that my own family will ambush me, that strangers on the street will ambush me, that my classmates will ambush me, and finally I learned that ambushing myself was a form of cognitive-behavioral therapy...or whatever they call the therapy where you keep getting exposed to something until your anxiety decreases.
Um, doctors? My anxiety hasn't decreased. I've nearly died several times.
Really nearly died. Ambulance-and-IV drips-and-call-the-police scenarios. Running blindly through city streets scenarios. Waiting-because-there's-nothing-else-we-can-do scenarios.
I can't stop "screaming" silently about this.
As an adult, I now play the game at work, and I can't win, quit, or break even at the social stuff. I pour myself into the job, the problem, the opportunity. At church and grad school I poured myself into the books. There's nothing like what happens when the data fly together at speed and I surf it, joyfully, and turn to discover that the people in the room with me don't care all that much. Worse--the fact that I do care is going to rock the boat, because while "on paper" I'm doing 100%, "in reality" I don't understand what's tacitly important.
"You work too ****ing hard," said my closest confidant at work.
"She's amusing. And a little bit scary," muttered an observer to his good ol' buddy.
"She's lethal," said my boss to a peer.
"We didn't read the chapter," admitted the rest of the study group, under duress.
I think of all the nicknames I've earned over the years, and every one is a testimonial that somehow recognizes those first three quotes. Of myself, I only consistently see the first one.
And now I see the wire. It's one of the red ones.
View attachment 17540
My intensity when working through ideas and concepts, theologically, professionally, and personally, makes me intolerant of people who give less. I'm almost always around people who don't care as much as I do. They aren't trying to get away from the danger of other people. They aren't focused on the one special thing they do well. They aren't eating themselves alive because they're not good enough.
A recent boss told me, "To find people who care as much about this as you do, you'd have to go up another two layers." Into the Director and C-class.
But that's not where I work. Not where I live. And so very, very dependent on the very skills I've failed to develop and which I'm just not wired to have.
I should probably take this to see the new counselor next week. But I'd sure appreciate some comments, even if you can't solve it either. I just want to know if I sound like I'm onto something. Or if I make or don't make sense. I don't trust myself today, and I can't sit with it. It must out.
Help.
I keep going back to Peeta's thread Dealing with insults because the answer to the question that's been bothering me for months is just under the surface there. Just beyond my reach. Starting with gonz post:
Say some random person I'll never see again calls me an asshole; rather than ignoring it like some people would, or reacting with anger like I think most people would, I'll take it to heart. I'll assume that I must indeed be an asshole. I'll feel badly about myself for days. I'll reexamine every interaction with other people that I can remember. I'll assume the people close to me must secretly hate me.
It takes a long time and a lot of effort to get past it, to convince myself that the person insulting me doesn't know me, that their opinion of me doesn't matter, that they just might be the asshole.
It is infinitely worse when it's someone who actually does know me.
It takes a long time and a lot of effort to get past it, to convince myself that the person insulting me doesn't know me, that their opinion of me doesn't matter, that they just might be the asshole.
It is infinitely worse when it's someone who actually does know me.
The hook's in the last line. "It's someone who actually does know me." Then tachyon logged a very specific incident he had, which prompted some new questions. kestrel's next post focused back to The Sticky Post of Gonz that started the cascade, and I realized I needed to move a sentence.
I rewrote gonz's post here:
Say someone I'll see again tomorrow has an issue with me; rather than taking it in stride like some people would, I'll take it to heart. I'll assume that I must indeed be an asshole. I'll feel badly about myself for days. I'll reexamine every interaction with other people that I can remember. I'll assume the people close to me must secretly hate me.
And then when I do get past it, I am consumed with anger and fear: a failure to respond to this means that I look like a weak-enough target. I know that "they [bullies and swarms] just don't go away." It takes a long time for me to react with anger when it's fueled by a feeling of stupidity, that their opinion of me matters because they're going to gang up on me, that I'll have to be hypervigilant because I manage social conventions so poorly and don't see some things coming. As I hadn't as a child. As I didn't as a teen. Or now, when it comes to fitting into groups.
It's infinitely worse when I'm the one who doesn't know me, when I have to cling to a tell-tale phrase such as "vampire chi" and realize I walk into ambush every.single.day because I can't see the effect I have on other people. That I am the asshole, but not in the way that I assumed.
And then when I do get past it, I am consumed with anger and fear: a failure to respond to this means that I look like a weak-enough target. I know that "they [bullies and swarms] just don't go away." It takes a long time for me to react with anger when it's fueled by a feeling of stupidity, that their opinion of me matters because they're going to gang up on me, that I'll have to be hypervigilant because I manage social conventions so poorly and don't see some things coming. As I hadn't as a child. As I didn't as a teen. Or now, when it comes to fitting into groups.
It's infinitely worse when I'm the one who doesn't know me, when I have to cling to a tell-tale phrase such as "vampire chi" and realize I walk into ambush every.single.day because I can't see the effect I have on other people. That I am the asshole, but not in the way that I assumed.
The only time I see myself is at my worst or my most vulnerable. I see nothing to like there. I forget the likable things I do bring to the table; they aren't in context, and besides, I have to be reminded of them each time. Not because I need flattery, but because I need to believe that others see real gifts and communicate to me that what I see of myself doesn't match closely enough what they see. The Hanging Judge makes sure that I don't get to congratulate myself.
I see that every move I make in the world, I make blind. I learned early that my own family will ambush me, that strangers on the street will ambush me, that my classmates will ambush me, and finally I learned that ambushing myself was a form of cognitive-behavioral therapy...or whatever they call the therapy where you keep getting exposed to something until your anxiety decreases.
Um, doctors? My anxiety hasn't decreased. I've nearly died several times.
Really nearly died. Ambulance-and-IV drips-and-call-the-police scenarios. Running blindly through city streets scenarios. Waiting-because-there's-nothing-else-we-can-do scenarios.
I can't stop "screaming" silently about this.
As an adult, I now play the game at work, and I can't win, quit, or break even at the social stuff. I pour myself into the job, the problem, the opportunity. At church and grad school I poured myself into the books. There's nothing like what happens when the data fly together at speed and I surf it, joyfully, and turn to discover that the people in the room with me don't care all that much. Worse--the fact that I do care is going to rock the boat, because while "on paper" I'm doing 100%, "in reality" I don't understand what's tacitly important.
"You work too ****ing hard," said my closest confidant at work.
"She's amusing. And a little bit scary," muttered an observer to his good ol' buddy.
"She's lethal," said my boss to a peer.
"We didn't read the chapter," admitted the rest of the study group, under duress.
I think of all the nicknames I've earned over the years, and every one is a testimonial that somehow recognizes those first three quotes. Of myself, I only consistently see the first one.
And now I see the wire. It's one of the red ones.
View attachment 17540
My intensity when working through ideas and concepts, theologically, professionally, and personally, makes me intolerant of people who give less. I'm almost always around people who don't care as much as I do. They aren't trying to get away from the danger of other people. They aren't focused on the one special thing they do well. They aren't eating themselves alive because they're not good enough.
A recent boss told me, "To find people who care as much about this as you do, you'd have to go up another two layers." Into the Director and C-class.
But that's not where I work. Not where I live. And so very, very dependent on the very skills I've failed to develop and which I'm just not wired to have.
I should probably take this to see the new counselor next week. But I'd sure appreciate some comments, even if you can't solve it either. I just want to know if I sound like I'm onto something. Or if I make or don't make sense. I don't trust myself today, and I can't sit with it. It must out.
Help.
