[mental health] I wish to note for the record...

[kaberett]

... how immensely frustrating I am finding it that I am sufficiently psychologically literate and sufficiently self-aware that:

1. I can feel everything get worse the moment I get as far as thinking about saying "I hate being like this, I hate being me", and instantly better if I back up and reframe as "I am sad and overwhelmed and feeling lost and unloved and it's okay that I'm finding it difficult", and
   
2. I'm actually getting the levelling-up symptom of "noticing that I'm doing a thing that in isolation is superficially plausibly acceptable and reasonable, but as part of a pattern is indicative of some shitty behaviour on my part that I should Probably Address".

Like I know that being able to face up to and recognise and work with complexity and nuance and "it's okay for me to get upset about XYZ, but the way I'm currently handling that isn't optimal not least because I'm folding in being upset about ABC as well and not noticing immediately because XYZ provides a handy cover" is a Good Sign, and finding new! exciting! ways! in which I'm screwing up is a Good Sign, but dear GOODNESS.

Comments

[kaberett]

WHY ISN'T HATING MYSELF SOOTHING AND CATHARTIC, INTERNET. WHY. OBVIOUSLY IT SHOULD WORK. >:(

[jjhunter]

The first time I came across the concept of 'neg-stimming', I felt like I'd been dunked in a sudden sea-change, a seismic story-change. Disintangling that activities that stimulate my brain are not always good was rather eye-opening.

I don't know about you, but I think sometimes my hindbrain is under the impression that it should follow driving wisdom when I start metaphorically skidding - turn in the direction of the skid to regain control, then steer out. This is only effective if doing so actually increases traction and if I then 'steer' myself away - not so good if I end up driving off a cliff into a pit of unhappy brain weasels!

Anyway, I empathize. <3

[davidgillon]

Applauds skid-weasel metaphor!

[vass]

That is a beautiful analogy.

[sfred]

*sympathy*

[ludy]

*empathy*

[cosmolinguist]

It is so exhausting, isn't it. :) I send you affection.

[kaberett]

The lokum has been finished, with great enjoyment; many thanks from the household. <3

[cosmolinguist]

I'm so glad. It was intended to bring happiness, and it wouldn't have here, so I feel much better knowing that it lived out its potential. :)

Thank you.

[redbird]

I know this isn't why you made this post, but I think that first reframing or something close to it could be useful to me. There are specific things where I keep going "this is emotionally unpleasant, I hate being this way, I/we will have to wait it out." And maybe I can get that to "I am feeling sad/insecure here, and that's okay, I know there's nothing wrong here"* without the "I hate feeling this way" part, even if I still also need to wait the waiting it out.

*I know there's nothing wrong in those specific cases because of the repeated pattern of trouble asking for a specific thing/getting a yes or "yes, of course" when I do/still having trouble next time.

Re: Thank you.

[kaberett]

(Belatedly: ♥, I am very glad it is useful, thank you so much for saying.)

[sebastienne]

<3

[alexseanchai]

♥

[worlds_of_smoke]

♥

[jesse_the_k]

♥ and thankyou for demonstrating a valuable viewpoint on CBT-ish thought.

[alatefeline]

*hugs offered* It sounds like you are doing excellent and difficult work in this regard.

[milkymoon]

...This is a feeling I recognise all too well. ♥

[davidgillon]

I wish to note for the record that you're awesome.

Both in general, and for being able to logic your way through things at this level. It may be shitty, but you're aware it's shitty and poking it for solutions (I have a sudden urge to declaim 'for science!')

[ewt]

It's also okay to find the levelling-up tiring.

If you're practising, oh, I dunno, lip slurs on the horn, and you get to a point where physically all the right bits of skill are there and mentally you can coordinate them and manage a perfectly controlled, smooth legato sound from one note to another, it's great -- but doing that consistently is going to be hard, especially at first, especially if you also have limited practice time. You might get three of them the first day before it gets all out of kilter again, and after a few weeks it might be no problem to do twenty in a row but forty would still be tiring. And then in very hot weather or whatever, everything is different and you have to compensate and that adds another layer of complexity. Meanwhile part of your brain is going "it's just BLOWING RASPBERRIES DOWN A METAL TUBE, how hard could it be?!" and day-to-day improvement is hard to hear.

It's okay to spend some time getting better at doing a slur from C to E before going for C to G or an octave, and the first slur of a twelfth you attempt is probably going to be... well, mine were bad for a really, really long time, because how often do you really need to do a slur of a twelfth at short notice? So I never practised them, until I sortof decided I was done with not being able to just crank them out, and spent the time. (And they'd be terrible if I picked the horn up again now, even though they were pretty spiffy toward the end of my BMus; but recovery is less reliant on applied physical training, I think, because the skills you are learning have much broader application than, er, blowing raspberries down a metal tube.)

(In all of this I mean hypothetical-you, not necessarily you personally: the ways in which people learn musical skills are quite varied. But I haven't really found students who didn't improve with repetition, provided it was the right kind of repetition for that student, which might not be the right kind of repetition for a neurotypical student. And the right kind of repetition might be something that many neurotypicals wouldn't even recognise as repetition.)

(At the moment, I get frustrated because, due to trauma history and/or neurodivergence, the level of self-awareness/emotional literacy/etc that I need just to get by seems to be... higher than that of people who are neurotypical and did not suffer significant childhood trauma. It's not fair and I don't see why I should have to do all this work when they don't. But in actual fact, I am using more of my raggedly-improving skills for doing stuff I want to do than I am for dealing with neurotypicals, so there.)

[vass]

Ugh, I know. To both of these.

Self-knowledge is not fun.

*solidarity fistbump*

[silveradept]

We find new ways of trying to improve ourselves when the ones we're using are doing just fine.

It sounds like things are going well and you've added a welcome layer of complexity on top.

[untonuggan]

relatable. [low enough spoons that basically i'm empathizing by sharing]

recently I have been having the "I know this anxiety is because I'm having a chostochondritis flare and my brain interprets that pain as DOOM AND DEATH and is flooding me with adrenaline but honestly no brain this is just inflamed chest wall, we have done this before."

SADLY knowing what was causing the anxiety did not make it magically go away, but at least maybe it made it less bad overall? I don't know, I just got tetchy and kind of wanted to go find some doctors and be like LOOK I AM DOING THE THING, IT HAS NOT MAGICALLY FIXED IT UGH.