Eerie Anne's Journal

[Eireanne]

A breakdown is not merely a random piece of madness or malfunction, it is a very real – albeit very inarticulate – bid for health. It is an attempt by one part of our minds to force the other into a process of growth, self-understanding and self-development which it has hitherto refused to undertake.  If we can put it paradoxically, it is an attempt to jumpstart a process of getting well, properly well, through a stage of falling very ill.

The reason we break down is that we have not, over years, flexed very much. There were things we needed to hear inside our minds that we deftly put to one side, there were messages we needed to heed, bits of emotional learning and communicating we didn't do – and now, after being patient for so long, far too long, the emotional self is attempting to make itself heard in the only way it now knows how.

The conscious mind is inherently lazy and squeamish and so reluctant to engage with what the breakdown eventually has to tell it. For years, it refused to listen to a particular sadness; or about a dysfunction in a relationship - it is in flight from or there are desires it sweeps very far under the proverbial carpet.

[sanmagic7]

interesting stuff, EA. the more i read, however, the more i got triggered into a shame/guilt place, as if somehow my mind or i did something wrong. the word 'lazy' is very triggering for me - trauma around that one. so, i don't know how much i agree w/ some of this, or maybe it's my own issues.  but, an interesting take, new perspective about breakdowns.  love and hugs

[Eireanne]

@San, right there with you...some of these videos are just....wrong?  And I take everything with a grain of salt, but trust that it's triggering me too...listening to one on depression now that has everything just about completely "wrong" and yet I find a nugget of, "hmmm ok, let me think about that for a bit" so I leave it here in the journal to come back to once my brain sorts out the trigger.  Since different things trigger us, it may or may not work for you, I just hope nothing you read here offends you to the point you're upset with me, because that's NOT my intent 

[Eireanne]

Far from needing to be taken through reasons to trust that life is beautiful, depressives must be allowed to feel and to remember specific damage - and to be granted a fundamental sense of the legitimacy of their emotions. They need to be allowed to be angry, and for the anger to settle on the right, awkward targets. 

The goal in treating depression is to move a sufferersurvivor from feeling limitlessly despairing to mourning the loss of something in particular: the last twenty years, a marriage, a hope one would be loved by one's father, a career... However agonising the insight and mourning might be, these must always be preferable to allowing loss to contaminate the totality of one's perspective. There are plenty of dreadful things in every life - which is why it is wholly normal to feel sad on a regular basis. But there are also always a sufficient number of things that remain beautiful and hopeful, so long as one has been allowed to understand and known one's pain and anger - and adequately mourn one's losses.

[Armee]

Aside from the offensive use of the word depressives which I appreciate you crossing out there is truth in this last one for sure. Rug sweeping is not useful. Processing is painful but ultimately quite healing.

[Eireanne]

Agreed @Armee - there's so much in these videos that offend me, but I'm balancing out my "righteous indignation" and wanting to rant to trying to find the useful bits...and crossing out the words that are offensive. 

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We can tell that our Unbalanced imbalances date from the past because they reflect the way of thinking and instincts of the children we once were. Without anything pejorative being meant by this, our way of being unbalanced tends towards a fundamental immaturity, bearing the marks of what was once a young person's attempt to grapple with something utterly beyond their capacities.

For example, when they suffer at the hands of an adult, children almost invariably take what happens to them as a reflection of something that must be very wrong with them. If someone humiliates, ignores or hurts them, it must – so it seems – be because they are, in and of themselves, imbecilic, repugnant and worth neglecting. It can take many years, and a lot of patient inner exploration, to reach an initially less plausible conclusion: that the hurt was essentially undeserved and that there were inevitably a lot of other things going on, off-stage, in the raging adult's interior life for which the child was entirely blameless.

[Eireanne]

In consideration of re-parenting:

In an emotionally-healthy childhood, someone is on hand to put the best possible spin on our behaviour.
We're given the benefit of the doubt.
We are assessed by what we might one day be, not by exactly what we are right now. Someone is kind.

A harsh judge might, for example, say that we were 'attention-seeking'.  Our caregiver imagines that what we most stand in need of is a hug and some encouraging words.

We might have acted rather meanly. Our caregiver adds that we must, in the background, have been feeling threatened.

It looked as if we were negligent; the caregiver remembers that tiredness could have had a lot to do with it.

Our carer constantly searches beneath the surface for a more sympathetic set of explanations.
They help us to be on our own side, to like ourselves – and therefore eventually not to be too defensive about our own flaws, whose existence we grow strong enough to accept.

In a good different childhood, the relationship with our caregiver is steady, consistent and long-term.

We trust that they will be there tomorrow and the day after. They aren't volatile or fragile.

They are almost boringly predictable and happy to be taken for granted. As a result, we develop a trust in relationships that spreads throughout our life. We are able to believe that what has gone well once can go well again and let such an expectation govern our choice of adult partners.

We aren't always required to be wholly good boys or girls. We are allowed to get furious and sometimes a bit revolting, at points to say 'absolutely not' and 'because I feel like it'. The adults know their own flaws and do not expect a child to be fundamentally better than they are.
We do not have to comply at every turn to be tolerated. We can let others see our shadow sides. This period of freedom prepares us one day to submit to the demands of society.  We can knuckle down and tow the line when it's in our long-term interest to do so.

At the same time, we're not overly cowed or indiscriminately obedient either. We find a sound middle point between slavish compliance on the one hand and self-destructive defiance on the other. ummmm.....

There is no particular script the offspring has to follow to be loved; the child learns that things which break can be fixed. Plans can go awry, but new ones can be made. You can fall over and dust yourself off.

The carer models for the child how to calm down, plough on and remain hopeful.

A voice of resilience, originally external, becomes the way the child learns to speak to themselves.

The carer does not see it as their role to remove every frustration. They intuit that a lot of good comes from having the right, manageable kind of friction – through which the child develops their own resources and individuality. In contact with bearable disappointment, the child is prompted to create their own internal world, in which they can dream, hatch fresh plans, self-soothe and build up their own resources.

[Moondance]

Ohhhh that's how it should have been!!??

I didn't get any of that and I suspect the same for many of us.       

I really appreciate this info Eireanne - lots to think about.  Not just this post but all of them

 

[Eireanne]

  Moondance

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As humans, we are really good at noticing threats and weaknesses. We are hardwired for that negative. We're really, really good at noticing them. Negative emotions stick to us like Velcro, whereas positive emotions and experiences seems to bounce off like Teflon.

Being wired in this way is actually really good for us, and served us well from an evolutionary perspective.

[natureluvr]

Eiranne, thanks for your insights.  I especially identify with the ones about mourning ones losses.

[Eireanne]

People don't listen, no one truly listens, even when it's in print, you go back, you re-read and people aren't responding to what you are saying, because they are in the middle of a thought, they are finishing a thought, you are responding to it completely different than with the intent they are saying it...no one effing listens to each other.  And when it gets like that I feel like I'm underwater, inside out, so far away.  It doesn't even matter, nothing matters.  I don't even feel like a person most of the time, I feel like "the observer" like in this really bad movie I was watching the other day. 

I've been saying for so long, I want someone to listen to my story, I need to just write the story....and just keep writing it, and let all the parts say everything they've always wanted, and just listen to myself.  Because no one else is going to.  They don't know how.  They are too busy hearing the story hearing what someone is saying is telling them. 

Those are the conversations I want to have, those are the people that are for me.  The ones that see and want to talk about the story behind the story, but everyone else is too focused on fixing their own trauma (or numbing it with distractions).

It's just not fully formed, and it's so much easier when there are people...so I just have to keep digging.

[Hope67]

 

[sanmagic7]

As humans, we are really good at noticing threats and weaknesses. We are hardwired for that negative. We're really, really good at noticing them. Negative emotions stick to us like Velcro, whereas positive emotions and experiences seems to bounce off like Teflon.

EA, i don't really agree w/ this. i often go back to babyhood, how babies react to themselves and the outside world. i do believe we are hardwired to notice threats - that's a survival instinct, isn't it? but, i don't quite understand the 'weaknesses' bit, or being hardwired for the negative. we aren't born with shame or guilt - those are placed on us by others. and i've learned and fought w/ myself not to categorize emotions as good or bad - they're just emotions.

anyway, just my 2 cents.  provocative stuff here. 

and, i agree w/ you that you deserve to have your story heard. i've found that w/ my T, but not really w/ anyone else, at least not the whole thing.  one H knows a lot, and that was over 16 yrs., but there's really not enough time for the whole of it. love and hugs

[Eireanne]

Thank you so much to everyone that is reading and offering thoughts, perspectives and hugs, I feel bad that I'm "down in it" right now and I'm so focused on my own needs and understanding that I'm not being the people pleaser and responding thoughtfully in kind.  It's really not in my nature and bothers me, so please don't take it personal, my lack of responding to your kindness. 

  for everyone supporting me here, and for being patient with me as I work through this mess.

[Eireanne]

The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz

Not the actual book, but a YouTube summary from someone that read the book - so it's their thoughts, not mine. 

Your subconscious is always working away in the background and it listens to all these agreements and it gets to work at making them a reality so if your inner dialogue is filled with a lot of negative self-talk like I can't do it I'm a loser I'm not worthy then these notions compound and your subconscious is going to find ways to put put you in situations which validate these beliefs and then furthermore compound the belief about them verse about you so

others are going to have their own opinion according to their belief system so

nothing they think about me is really about me but it is about them and you may know the saying your perception of me is the reflection of you, nothing other people do is because of you it is because of themselves

all people live in their own dream in their own mind they are in completely different they are in a completely different world from the one we live in

when we take something personally, we make the assumption that they know what is in our world and we try to impose our world on their world now whenever someone gives you an opinion of you positive or negative we must never take it personally so

all opinions do is give you a glimpse into this person's reality or their dream as the book refers to it so you know we're all striving to operate at a higher frequency but you know

all people are at different levels higher and lower and you'll notice this when you communicate with different people the words that they use how they communicate all of these things give you insights into their reality their you know their paradigm so don't take the things that others say to you personally because you know different realities different belief systems and different frequencies