The Perks Of Being Neurotic

[Integra]

SCHIZOPHRENIC HYMN

Instead of reading this, I suggest you go make yourself some OJ jello.
Or lick some salt.

But I need to vent.

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This is a story of my cherished sense of victimhood. It served me well. Until my veins started popping up, notifying me I would turn into a she-Hulk soon.

Here I am, eating jello and cottage cheese, snorting taurine to heal my “Type A personality” caused by “early stress in life.”

Normal people are powered by love. Me? I run on serotonin, baby!

Let me raise a glass (of milk) to my victimhood!

It’s my badge of honor, my medal of the highest order, I have a list of keywords now:

childhood trauma emotional incest physical abuse war PTSD second-generation immigrant social dislocation high-degree neuroticism schizoid by default loves jello

And that’s that for the ‘affirmation’. Everyone can smile and sigh. Correctly diagnosed, I’m definitely right and everyone else is wrong, and vice versa, as we toss that ball around. (That's what it means to be "socially adjusted," or so I read). In conclusion then, I’m just quirky, a little eccentric, not at all causa sui batshit crazy

Now for the emancipation, Integra:

With the help of great art and literature, some taurine, and much salt, I realized that in the midst of all that ***t, every time, I chose to live. Amidst really bad options between horrible, worse, and the worst, I somehow opted for survival, again and again and again.

I could’ve killed myself a long time ago, but thanks to my neurotic demons, most of them wanted to keep me alive.

So, thank you guys. Really. You’re a wicked good bunch.
Some of you are like, really ugly. AND I LIKE IT

[you're less scary than some of the people I know irl, lol]

But a bit high maintenance: you woke me up at night with weird whispers, you made me fantasize about very dark places of the universe and my innerverse, you revealed to me levels of creepiness I couldn’t even imagine existed—to reach out for homeboy Blake, you twisted the sinews of my heart and showed me feelings I don’t even have accurate names for yet—so thank you, even though I’d rather lick the sole of my shoe than experience some of those again, but I will and I want to, no joke.

I’m here now, and I see you, and I’m here to stay. There’s none of your ugliness that I don’t already have in me. For all I know, you could be real and I’m just one of your imaginary monsters.

But Integra, this fragmented Integra can tell you one thing:
No matter what, I will never abandon myself again.

 

[Tenacity]

Life is meaningful, and that meaning is embedded upon energy. Life finds its meaning in adapting to challenge, and that requires energy. As life adapts it becomes complex, and better able to face challenges. You are a product of this system, one complex enough to understand and self-reflect on it. In that sense you are conscious energy. Never abandon yourself, because when you abandon yourself you will abandon all meaning that life is predicated on. It sounds like you have surmounted a great challenge, and become more complex and adaptable in the process.

Thanks for the vent.

 

[Makrosky]

Thanks for sharing this. I send you a hug.

 

[Integra]

Thanks both for hugs and kind words.

I'll be using this thread to sort stuff out. I will indulge myself here.
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NEUROTICISM: GENESIS AND PERKS (PART I)

I was like this as long as I can remember.

If we imagine normal people to be those with a strong inner coherence between what’s going on inside them and the external situation(s) they find themselves (at least on a daily basis), then a normal person would look something like this:

Essentially, ‘normality’ for me is the degree to which a person can fully and functionally inhabit the present moment while they are able to access their past and future for constructive purposes, and, this is a key distinction, at will. Just to underline: I don’t divide people into normal and insane, but I see normality as a skill that some people honed almost to perfection, and others, due to faulty wiring and/or bad experiences in the past, have trouble with.

I’m one of the latter.

So if the person I showed above could be described as normal, then my daily life (and probably that of most neurotic people, as well occasionally of so-called normal people) can be visually represented like this:

To put it jokingly, for a normal person the lights are almost always on and they’re definitely home; a clinically ill person can be ‘on’ and ‘off’, usually to such high degrees they need to be hospitalized, with one or more “personality” at home; while functional neurotics like myself are, just like normal people (no worries!), almost always ‘on’, but you don’t really who (or how many people) are at home.

Some more pictures, yay!

Here’s how a healthy person eats an apple:

Essentially, this coherence between perception, interpretation, and emotion goes both ways and flows smoothly. If they were computers, I’d call normal people (as an ideal type, okay?) the WYSIWYG folk. In other words, everything in their inner and outer experience makes sense (as in: there are no internal contradictions that cannot be grasped).

Their emotions are, and how bitter do I feel as I write this, appropriate and proportional to their external circumstances, so the person can move from one situation to another (I imagine) with little effort because they can deal with it without, well, losing their ***t.

And here’s the funny part: there’s no way to tell if you’re one of them if you’re neurotic. You think you’re part of the gang, and those little glitches are matters of circumstance, so:

- You were bullied because other kids were mean, not because you were improperly socialized
- You liked books and drawing so much because you were artistic, not because it was a form of escapism
- You had “an active” imagination as a child, not hallucinations
- You were clearly “special” in more than one way
- You were just a “serious child”, not that your capacity for playfulness was stunted
- You were dearly loved by your parents, who clearly had to do those things to you, for your own good

If you’re a neurotic deeply bound by such rationalizations, or you morphed into a narcissist (adopted an external personality that you’ve over time mistaken for your true self), you’ll get really pissed at other neurotics who are not lying to themselves.

You’ll be more likely to get angry at “victims” and belittle their “victimhood”, no matter how big or little it is.

After all, we all have our ***t, don’t we?
You’ve been through ***t yourself, haven’t you? And look at you—nothing wrong with you.
Toughen up, little one! … … …
And, one of my neurotic perks is the realization that all of these are half-truths. Like Peter Levine (thanks for your posts, @Xisca) mentioned somewhere, trauma is not in the even that happened, by in the neurological effects left behind.

As one neurotic to another, if you’re scared by something “stupid” like a leaf on the ground, let me tell you that you, as fragmented as you are, have a much greater capacity to experience true courage, instead of just bravado and nihilistic daredevilness.

You have that. Once you overcome those “fake” fears, you will not be even phased by things “normal” people are afraid of.

Your fear can allow you to be a very, very, small hero, but a real one. And let me tell you: your fears are VERY real, and most people don’t get this opportunity to fully feel their true fears, so they never learn what it means to be a hero.

Real heroes face things they don’t know if they have the power to tackle.
Once you’re a hero, you go like: “I might die, but I’m gonna do this, so shut the **** up” as you stare whatever or whoever is making your life miserable. You look them straight in the eye without blinking. Once you accept the possibility of death (which is always very real, just that we don’t like to think about it), you go, “I may not be able to choose when or how I die, but at least I have my choice on how I’m gonna act on my way there (to Valhalla, hehe, I’m trippin’ now).

But back to your own little weak self: if you’re neurotic, you won’t realize it until someone points out to you your odd behaviors, usually with well-meaning but hell-inducing statements like:

“What’s the matter? You look pale.” (while waiting in the supermarket)
“What’s the matter? It’s only raspberries.” (while I’m fighting the urge to throw up)
“Wow, this is nice! Great performance. Integra? Integra, you okay?” (while I’m shivering in a crowd, overwhelmed by something like claustrophobia)

I mean, there’s more gems from my life:
“What did that piece of paper ever do to you?” (as I maniacally tear it to pieces)
“Jesus Christ, look at your hands!” (nails bitten to the ground)
… I mean, the self-harm, the awkwardness, the panic attacks… I caught on eventually, but I stopped refusing to problematize it.

In Peat’s words, I learned how to grow curious about disturbing things.
And to me, there’s nothing more disturbing than my own mind, folks.

Oh, and about this book-style nonsense that ‘healthy’ emotions need to be:
- appropriate
- proportional to the situation
- socially sanctified may be correct, but is completely useless for me.

I had to consciously learn what it means that I’m overreacting, the way kids memorize multiplication tables.
It’s kind of like having hiccups your whole life and then someone tells you it’s not normal and that, next time you get hiccups, you need to look around and realize that you are most likely not correctly interpreting the situation and/or people’s behavior.

You learn to bypass the perceptual spectrum at the cue:
Hiccups ==> dream reality

The reason I drew the neurotic person as standing in a blurry spectrum is because, during moments when I’m slightly “off”, I have to be twice as careful about what I think, say, or how I relate to people and things.

I’m tearing up now because these moments are so scary inside, but I can’t show it outside because people will think I’m crazy (which is, okay, in a sense true), so I learned to whisper to myself when these blurry moments come along:

“This isn’t all of it.”
“There’s something I’m not seeing.”
“It will go away.”

And these things, in moments like these, feel like half-truths. What’s true is what’s around me—if I’m facing a three-headed monster, then it’s unfair to tell me it’s not real. In my reality. But in the physical reality, I could be sitting at the post-office surrounded by people swiping their phones and whatnot.

While it’s clearly a mental issue, you might as well call this conditiou perceptual difficulty, because that’s what it is in its generic form. But that’s not why being neurotic is such a pain in the ****.

Let’s see now how my folk can eat an apple:

(First let’s bring the healthy diagram)

And now how neurotics could be eating an apple:

I called this thread “Perks of being neurotic”, because I want to bring up some good sides about it. First, I need to lighten the load with some humor.

But beware, this is completely true for me, and always a painful experience, no matter how much I laugh about it.

I read somewhere that neurotics correspond to the Hero archetype, and I see why. Basically, my brain is like that of an ancient warrior—the kind of person that would sleep with a knife under their pillow—and that’s probably why I feel most discomfort during social rituals, situations required “relaxed” waiting for something, small talk (because it’s so structured and ritualistic), basically: anything that would require me to lower my guard (put that weapon down, NOW!) and feel safe, or safe enough to direct ALL of my attention to what’s going on outside of me. Because I never feel safe, except when I'm alone, ideally in a room or somehow private environment. What people see as isolation is plain and simple protection. It's comfortable, but reduces life quality in the long run. At any case, being absorbed in anything feels like a risk.

Here’s just a day in the life:

It can be good though, hehe, I caught many pickpockets mid-action. My spidey-senses are always a-tingling. I can almost instantly tell when someone is lying [with the careful note that it's impossible to prove this and that it's probably not true. I'm probably overestimating. Or saying that I'm overestimating is an effect of my neuroticism. It's a loopy trap].

But yeah--I can spot psychopaths, narcissists, other neurotics… I mean, the labels don't really matter, it's just that I can predict some behaviors pretty accurately. I can also tell what most likely happened to this person once I watch them for a couple of minutes their little habits and idiosyncrasies speak so much, they have no idea. I know how much I can count on them and when. With a little Machiavellian training, I’m pretty sure I’d be able to push their buttons nice and fine with painful truths.

Because my perceptual chain gets broken, I learned to spot similar “slips” in other, what you’d call usually normal people:

This means I can almost always tell when the person is lying to me, and even worse, to themselves. I am super-sensitive about their physical posture, voice tone, movement—everything. I pick it up and can very easily “read” people, paradoxically as a side-effect of being unable to read myself.

When I was in ground school, I realized one of our teachers was a pedophile based on the way the person carried himself, but when I went to the principle, they told me I was imagining things. I had no proof, but I just knew.

Little Integra playing with imaginary monsters again.
He was arrested five years later. There were about 20 cases of child molestation reported.

I think because I suffered abuse, I know that what people believe, what they say they believe, and how they act are three completely different things. And I’m better at detecting discrepancies between them in other people.

Out of respect, I try not to notice. I even have to plug my ears not to listen to them metaphorically: I can almost always sense when the message said is unrelated to what someone is actually trying to communicate. Kind of like, to use a brighter example, when two people are talking, and one says:

“How was your weekend?” to the other, but I hear something like “I love you so much.”I can’t tell person A that person B is madly in love with them. It’s none of my business.

Because of this, I sometimes respond with completely illogical utterances that actually make sense to the other person but it throws them off guard because I responded to the underlying truth or the emotional complex. It’s very uncomfortable to be around me when I act like that, so I almost never do it.

I think normal people can’t do this because they developed normal boundaries.
For me, picking other people’s moods was very often a matter of surviving. Whether I was gonna get beaten or punished that day. Whether I was going to be bullied. Prey animal skills, really.

I play pretend because I love these people, and people in general, but it’s very boring being around those who insist on formality, ritual, when all they do is being fake.

At least my imaginary monsters and inner demons are willing to come out with enough effort.

 

[Integra]

EDIT 1: normal and [in]sane ... Sigh. Talk about Freudian slips...
Insane is sane to me, it seems

 

[Integra]

Hahhahahaha!!! I should've proofread this a bit more. Another great one:

EDIT 2: "In Peat’s words, I learned how to grow curious about disturbing *selves."

Distrubing THINGS, Integra... Jesus....

 

[Integra]

NEUROTIC PERKS: GRASPING COMPLEXITY -- THE GREEN LINE OF THE SOMA

There's many theories of mind, and I'm not going to delve into those. I also don't separate mind from the body in the same way I used to before, but for the sake of discussion, I'll use these concepts to explain why being neurotic is really GREAT.

Back to genesis
Right, abuse. So, little kids like me were early taught that some good things are bad (leaving out of sight, playing with kids from a different street, playing with kids of different races (sigh)), and some bad things are good (bettering others, winning, blindly obeying orders, dressing up like a doll, etc).

Because of this, our inner sense of right and wrong, that feeling that comes from the stomach, when you just know that something is off, even though you may not always know what--well, that feeling was in continual contrast with the environment, which was basically our parents at the time. Now, the id and soma, I think, contain ALL of the human emotions, named and unnamed, the full spectrum, some existing only as possibilities at the current state of our neurology, but none the less, that's where your demons and angels are.

The reason demons are sometimes called fallen angels, I believe, is because they (in psychology) they represent originally positive, assertive actions that stem from the id, through the ego, up to the super-ego (parental-authority), which were then forcefully and painfully shut down. (Wilchelm Reich got this right, I think. His Character Analysis is a great starting point for this.) But shutting them down doesn't kill them.

There are several options what happens to them. Neurotics took middle-damage. Schizophrenics took most when they disassociate and later completely collapse later in life. That happens to be my grandma, lol. Then the next generation are schizoids, who are very similar to schizophrenics but they manage to keep it together yet pay dearly for their efforts, usually with eating disorders of the most severe kind. Then we have the neurotics, in which I'll clump all of the types by Reich from Masochist upwards--including Alexander Lowen's Achievers, Narcissists, Phallic-Narcissits, Psychopaths, etc. Like I said in the first post, the labels are endless, but all I care for is their general characterization as neurotics. As they develop, I think people morph in and out of different types (and I tend to believe this is a healthy development, actually; a rather belated compensatory individuation that takes place in more rapid and drastic shifts to create the balance that was thwarted in natural psychological development.) At any case, the neurotic journey is an exciting one, and for me, it began with a severe

Conflict between in and out
More precisely, intense feelings of fear, guilt, shame, aggression, that as a child, I couldn't express appropriately--nor have I ever learned to sense them physically in my body and in turn identify--but instead I turned them against my own self. I would self-harm in many ways, in which it's pretty boring to get into the details as the psychological mechanism is always the same.

So the first green ring on my pretty graph was tightly sealed, with only occasional outbursts of authentic emotion coming out.
Later in life, I learned how to compensate for this in art and seeking out pleasurable experiences that would dissolve it, albeit always temporarily and outside of my control. But there's a difference between the degree and manner of bringing such experiences in one's life.

COMPULSIVELY SEEKING (lack) -- WELCOMING (balanced) -- IGNORING/REJECTING (lack)

There's the Stoic subtype of Neurotics who shift the right on my little scale (and I reckon, politically right as well, hehehehe... jk jk) "Thrill seekers," "Hard workers," "Eccentric professors," "Visionary artists," "Spiritual leaders," "Hobby enthusiasts," usually live their lives bounded by this compensatory mechanism. It's hard to tell because these are also normal aspects of life and one can fall into the trap of pathologizing everything. But I know one when I see one.

When should the green line be dissolved?
Whenever you're safe, I'd say, and have nothing better to do. It feels like a single, unitary flow of experience. Everything merges, where you begin disappears and you're just vibration together with everything else. It's a sense of giving yourself completely to someone or something, melting, humming, wholeheartedly engaging in some activity... It's wonderful, but unfortunately not optimal for surviving in contemporary society.

How does being neurotic play into it?
Well, every time I bump into the green line, I tend to get a panic attack or a self-harming episode. My body clearly tells me whenever my true self, my deepest core (of angels and demons) is in conflict with the world. But the problem is that the demons there also need to be set free, otherwise they'll keep nagging you, scratching the surface to get out. That's the point of the whole trope "to become enlightened" is to let light in.

Getting in touch with them and releasing them is the tricky part though, and definitely not safe for the psyche. But if you're already neurotic, what you could gain is much bigger than all the things you could lose. You've already lost so much just by virtue of living in the current state of your nervous system.

If you manage to find, accept, and love the darkest aspects of yourself, you can somehow include them in everyday activities--unbridled anger turns into healthy competition, assertiveness on the job, speaking up, etc. The demons are happy to play outside as long as you make the effort to understand them and cafe for them. They turn into puppies, and are very cute.

'Normal' (socially adjusted, not necessarily individuated) people usually don't sense this as acutely as my folk does. That's why it's much easier for them to act as hypocrites, take on roles without feeling constricted by them... Mind you, that's also what makes them successful members in society, and it's not that I blame them, either. It's a trade-off. I'm still trying to find a way to play the social game without losing myself in it. I'm trying to be a 'genuine fake' as Alan Watts called it in The Book of Taboo.

I'll write later how being neurotic helps you understand society's bull**** at a level 'normals' (I'm sorry, dear normal people) rarely do.

Summary
Issues with the Id-Ego boundary give birth to a physiological alert system whenever your inner nature is at odds with the outer world. The same conflicts exist in most people, but to a much lesser degree, and rarely gets fully resolved--why would they bother? In turn though, they don't assimilate aspects of themselves and grow their personalities in ways that show distinctive, behavioral changes and shifts in life situations. They don't know how to love their enemy. :)

 

[Integra]

GETTING OUT OF THE NEUROTIC CAGE -- **** MEDITATION
Practical issues for dissolving the Id-Soma barrier

If you already know how to meditate and are getting great results with what you're doing, then please skip this text. It might just befuddle you for no reason. However, if you feel like something like blowing your brains out anytime someone asks you to sit still for longer periods of time, while you're waiting for something in a state of uncertainty, or if meditation feels like a waste of time, you're in the right place (I think).

Disclaimer: like with theories of mind, there are many kinds of meditation out there, and they work for some people. I'm not against them (for real). It's just that the most popular forms are not for me, and probably not for many others who experience a whirlwind of physical reactions by just sitting down on the floor. I just think that forms of meditation (traditional forms, at least) being promoted may not be suitable for homo westernicus, homo digitalis, and the least for homo schizo/neuroticus. :)

I can explain (from my own experience) why this is the case. As always, my experience is my experience only, and any statement that sounds like "and this is how the world works" should be seen as "so says Integra, a random internet stranger." You see I'm still messed up. Do weigh that against everything I say, kay? I won't bother mentioning this in the future.

How to reach neurotic nirvana - onwards!

There's something about the way my mind and body interact that needs to be addressed to understand how perhaps, other neurotics can get out of the morass of unattainable peace tauted by all spiritual ***holes out there (much respect, this is just my resentment talking).

I think it can be optimized for those of us who need to climb three mountains of pain before we can even get a glimpse of that body-mind joy that comes so naturally to other people.

The neurotic against the pillow

Meditation, in the sense of paying attention to the breath and then observing the thoughts and images that flash, learning how to "let them pass", as if they're clouds floating on the sky is great, but not at all useful for getting into the core issues. Here's why:

1. Your body needs to participate in the meditation.

Most meditation techniques encourage you to sit still. If you're carrying a lot of pain and emotional anguish in your body, this is the last thing you want to do. Traumatized people are damn good at cortical inhibition (but of a twisted kind--one that doesn't serve us in the long run): we can rationalize, ignore, think away and tense our bodies up like nobody else--that's what (in part) keeps us from shaking, having an honest emotional and physical reaction to whatever bad happened, and then completing the situation somehow. Making it okay in many ways, which I'd say vary from person to person.

Techniques that encourage physical stilness may just be reinforcing those old holding patterns, and I'll go back to Rech to explain why.

2. Resolving the Id-Soma boundary requires bypassing the ego, and this is much harder to do that for neurotics, because it represents an immense threat. It's a matter or survival. We need that ego. That ego serves us. (Because we don't have access to viable alternatives yet.)

So just "relaxing" is not enough. You can sit "relaxed", even feel your muscles getting loose, but your neurotic armor could still be fine and tight. You might have relaxed your larger muscle groups, but the smaller muscles, especially those around your spine (in the area of the so-called 'solar plexus'), in the lower parts of your neck (above your collar bone) and of course, in the pelvic floor, are most likely still contracted.

Not all muscles are under our conscious control.
Maybe if you're a Yogi master, but if you're reading this, I highly doubt it.

At any case, you can actually stream energy through the neurotic armor as long as you refuse to "fall into" the moment, to "release yourself" into the space around you. And if you're a sneaky neurotic bastard like me, you'll try ordering yourself around a bit:

"Let go!"
"Okay, relax now..."

Did it work, lol? The ego telling the ego to relax. :)

The Id-Soma is like a lake or a river, it doesn't care for your orders, it would flow out on its own if you can remove the dam. And the dam is the damn ego (hehe).

Do you understand now why the conscious attempt to relax as a way of "letting go" of the ego doesn't work?

Any desire or rejection (negative desire); anything you want or not want, all of that is the fuel for the ego. And you cannot want not to want anything... You see, no matter how you go about it, you'll get trapped in semantic loops, the minced meat of the neurotic mind.

This release is what they call an "embodied experience." You don't tell yourself sitting on the bike "okay, now start pedalling so that you go in a straight line without ever tipping over on one side." If you know that feeling-sequence:

--> raising the leg --> mounting the seat --> feeling the ground on one foot --> pressing the pedal with another --> leaning forward --> looking into the space ahead with a certain goal-oriented quality

All of those things flow as a unitary experience, and you don't order your brain around to go through all of those in stages demarcated by rules. You only start with the intention of riding the bike, and you already know how. You trust (no, you KNOW) that your body alone will take care of all the steps I listed above.

Neurotics sitting down to meditate in the classical way is like trying to sit on a rattled, dysfunctional bike, trying to go uphill, with little awareness of where you want to go, without knowing how to roll the pedals.

Haha. I'm slowly nodding as I write. So true.

You tell it how it is, Integra.

At any case, it's a fact I couldn't trust my body before. I KNOW it goes into a spiral if I sit on the "meditation" bike. And I don't know where it'll go--definitely not in a straight line. It was not safe for me to "fall" before and just "get going." I'm afraid I'll crash, because I did before, in life and in meditation.

It will just exhaust you really quickly, because , if you're like me, you'll be sending your energy from the soma and some will go to the Id-Soma boundary and reinforce it--kind of like a thick filter that also needs energy.

You're just fueling the same "you" that got you into this state in the first place.

It's a technique that teaches you how to dissidentify, remove attachment, become separate from whatever is going on in the mind.

Don't meditate. Play.

So just stop. Don't even try. Don't try to think about it or not think about it. Let the situation be as it is. Instead, try sitting down with the intention to PLAY:

The trick is to learn how to play with the ego. You put it to work to do exactly what it does best--focus your attention, combine and separate objects--until it naturally grows tired.

It is still fueled by your desire, but the ego is not going against itself.
You're telling the ego: look outward! What do you see! Separate! Categorize! Combine! Relate! Recategorize! Remove!

And your MIND WANTS TO DO THIS.

You're always semi-split, not fully split. The state of hyper-alertness if how you function, and it means that you always have the background of the Gestalt in your awareness. But in real life, situations that require full-blown focus require you let go of this, and you just can't. Not that easily.

In fact, never being allowed to pay attention to multiple things at once in all its glory and savor that multiplicity is a part of what makes you so damn neurotic.

Have you ever seen a dog running after a ball in ecstasy once you throw it far away? That's basically what you do with the neurotic mind, which is like a very anxious doge. And you give it a safe way to do exactly what it does in everyday life to its own detriment: simultaneous focus on multiple things.

Your mind is split. Almost never completely focused. Trying to focus it very difficult. But splitting it even further, not only allowing you attention to disperse but ENCOURAGING IT--it's the best thing ever.

Here's how you do it:

1) Find one object in the room and note it. Look at it. Feel it.
2) Find another object and note it together with first one. Look at them together. Feel them. Feel how they relate.
3) Add a third one.
4) Add a fourth one.

You can keep going, but for me, by the time I reach number four, I am so incredibly ******* HAPPY, like a dog that's been given just the right amount of exercise. It feels natural, and I'm just sort of enjoying the plurality of those four objects. I don't want to leave that state. And then...

Haha... This is the best...This is so great...

Then you force yourself to go back: remove one object out of the picture.... Then observe the relationships between the three. And so on, until you reach just one.

FOR NEUROTIC PEOPLE, THIS IS EXHAUSTING.
IT WILL FEEL LIKE DIGGING A DITCH AT ONE POINT.
VERY UNCOMFORTABLE. KIND OF SAD.

What happens to me is that, as I would go back to just one object, releasing the three from the composition, I would tear up, start shaking, discontinue the exercise spontaneously, my body would sway back and forth, shake, move into the most awkward and random positions (my torso once bent completely over my crossed legs as I was sitting on the floor). I completely lost conscious control over the movements. My body would rather go into this... dissociative, convulsive, reactive state, than to keep focusing.

So the release of the autonomous nervous system (I'm just blabbering here, but I think that's what somatotherapists are referring to) takes place peripherally, without your conscious awareness of what the feelings refer to.

Neurotic earthquake

What happened next? My body would just do its thing--I was alone in a closed room, and I felt safe--and just shake, shimmer, vibrate, whatever.

I'd try to go back to the exercise, but at one point, guess what?

The ego will grow extremely tired. You'll know because it would just feel like... You're there, you're you, you're not immersed, you're groundedly merged so to speak.
The anxious puppy that is your mind would go to sleep on its own.
You'll feel physically and emotionally tired.

I found myself so exhausted I could fall asleep.
I laid down on the floor with my arms and legs spread out and just...
Existed. It was neither good nor bad. I wasn't blank or spaced out, I was there, but I was tiredly alert.

Then the pulsations came. And the vibrations.
And the fear of associated with the release.
And the nirvana. Some more fear.
Covered by a layer of tiredness that made it pleasurably endurable.

This is a skill.
Once you get better at it, you will be able to slowly enter the soma-induced body-memory cognitively.

 

[Makrosky]

Honestly I haven't read it all.

For me there's a great relief in thinking... And I'm sure 100% of that... That any mental neuroticism I might have is not my fault. It is not me. It is not my family. My parents. I'm just as neurotic as the society and the system is. The system is totally and completely neurotic (if not esquizoid). I'm relieved.

One thing I can tell you for sure : The more you call yourself a neurotic, the more you talk about it, the more you indulge on it, the more neurotic you become.

As soon as I stopped blaming my parents, forgetting about all psychoanalysis, psychological theories, self-help books, fake spiritual gurus and all that ***t the less neurotic I became.

PS. Integra please don't take my comment as if you shouldn't be writing what you are posting or whatever, it is a well intentioned comment from my part. I know you're sensitive so just in case I clarify this. Whatever helps you, by any means do it.

 

[Integra]

I'm okay. :) I am just excited and maybe trying to rebuild a narrative. It's only a rant, after all. My lil' corner.
The more I go THROUGH something, the more it goes away.
I want to understand everything.
I found new connections. I'm eating different foods.
I have so many questions. It's so exciting.
I'm looking at the world in a different way.
I changed the way I walk. The quality of my voice changed. Everything is changing. I've been drawing and painting and my free time feels much more fulfilling.
My face changed so much I can't recognize my old pictures.
I'm using the tools that I have (writing, thinking) to work with instead of against the things that bother me.
Whether that means neurotic or not, I want to be more and more real.
And yeah, right now I am very, very sensitive. To the nth degree. After being dull and feeling shut down, it feels amazing. All of it. I'm learning to embrace everything and make it into my strength. So don't worry, I am and am not neurotic Mostly indulgent at the moment!

But I'll def. keep ranting

 

[Xisca]

Honestly I haven't read it all.

I have, and it is a good text. I can understand part of it, and try to Access a bit of a reality that is not mine....

I would need time to answer more.
At the momento, I would just want to explain to you Integra, that when people talk empty talk, they do so for a very basic human necessity of co-regulation of the nervous system.
Look for more in the poly-vagal theory of Steven Porges.

I am also bad at it, and could not understand it for long. Now at least I understand what it is, and understand its usefulness. Not being able to do so comes from nervous difficulties, either a shock at Young age, or neglicence in childhood.

Of course it comes with the advantage of being able to feel good on your own, and being more able to regultate oneself when nobody is available for help!

But definnitely, I do not call this useless or empty talk.

 

[Such_Saturation]

when people talk empty talk

There are very few people that enjoy doing this

 

[Integra]

Thank you @Xisca for the recommendation, I read the Wiki on PV theory and found an interview transcript that covered nicely some of the ideas. I read about the sympathetic/parasympathetic model in one of RP's books, but this angle seems to be more like what I wanted to learn more about. I'll be looking more into it, for sure.

 

[Aspekt]

Interesting ideas, here's a few random thoughts I had.

There's a system created by David Berceli called TRE (Trauma release exercises) that in short, aims to induce (in the words of wikipedia) 'neurogenic' shaking, that is, an involuntary twitching/vibrating/shaking directed by the nervous system. The theory is that traumatic experiences are stored by a the body of a person who is either physically unable to respond, as in the case of PTSD or has a tendency to supress the physical expression of any new traumas added, as with neurotics. The knowledge of self implicit in the human experience contributes to us choosing a reaction that conforms to the group. In animals, perhaps you've noticed how after a scuffle or alteraction between two individuals, there's often a physical shaking that happens immediately after the conflict is over. I've seen this with ducks in a few times IRL. This seems to help prevent the conflict from getting stuck in the body.

There's a series of physical exercises which are designed to fatigue your leg muscles, at which point you gradually begin to tremble from the exertion, then followed by lying on the floor with the knees slightly bent and open and basically surrendering your tendency to try to control your movement.

Because of the fatigue to the muscles, you take away control from the neurotic, suppressive part of you that would seek to hold a rigid frame. It seems like you've stumbled onto similar territory when you talk about experiencing the random movements and vibrations following the focusing.

I would highly recommend checking out this method, I just skimmed through David Berceli's book and tried a set of the exercises and it was profound, during, there was a calm sense of purpose and the thinking mind subsided, it was as if the body was saying to the mind 'It's cool, I can take it from here.

Interestingly, the pure physicality of it means you don't need to think about your traumatic experiences or difficult memories, there's a sense of being protected from those things.

Afterwards my body felt like a glowing piece of elastic, my voice was significantly deeper, and I fell into a deep sleep that was very refreshing- there was the sense of that always-on arousal state subsiding.

I don't do TRE as much as I should, I just did it last night for the first time in ages. Worth looking in to, it really does make a huge difference.

This would seem deeply related to Steven Porges' work. I think in today's western society, even healthy people are probably in a state of perpetual, low arousal, thanks to the incredible amounts of stimulation and the 'always-on' quality of interaction thanks to the internet and other commuication platforms.

My hypothyroid syptoms really started to manifest noticably when in high school and I was playing a ton of video games which increased the amount of time in this overstimulated state.

Pornography is probably an insidious contributer to this, I generally avoid it now as even opening the browser with the intent of visiting a porn site instantly floods me with adrenaline, tremors, sweating, elevated heart rate and so on.

With regard to Art, I'm studying art and having met a lot of art students and artists, it seems most are unconconsiously or otherwise trying to attend to some issue or trauma, ill health or unresolved conflict through their making

. In a few cases I can see how this has led the person to become so obsesssed with art, art theory and seeing the world through the lense of art, it's like a recatagorization of reality in which they're recreating a safe space for themselves, perhaps harking to points of safety felt in early childhood.

I started studying it when I realized that creative expression could give me glimpses that broke through my steady lifelong depression and gave me a vibrant, flowing sense of autonomy. The problem as I see it is that the traumatized artist personality is generally stuck constantly needing to feed the beast, because the art doesn't seem to be resolving the trauma but rather just relieving it temporarily.

I can paint or draw, sometimes feel fantastic for a few hours, but it always subsides. This is probably perpetuated by the unhelpful movement associated with art making, either cramped over a desk making tiny movements for hours at a time, at a computer or standing in front of an easel. The body often feels fatigued and tight while the mind feels free and excited. This plays into the idea of artists basically living in their heads and ignoring their bodies.

I think I'm probably unusual compared to most of them in that I'm easing my traumatic patterns and learned helplessness with the art making, but I'm also seeking ways to resolve those issues in a way that isn't reliant on a conditioned form of awareness like art making.

Just about all the 'talented' creative people I know who are expressing something uniquely theirs are also compulsively self medicating with alcohol, coffee, marijuana and nicotine, and many of them I suspect are subclinically hypothyroid. There's also a bunch of people at the school who seem neurotypical, and their art is generally less compelling and certainly much less individualistic.

There are very few people that enjoy doing this

Perhaps it depends on just how empty you're talking about, but I think most people enjoy this to some degree. Assuming we're talking about a style of conversation that, if you can pick up the social clues, has an implicit feeling of a cooperative effort at play. In my experience not feeling comfortable doing this or seemingly being incapable often points to some issue, whether it's trauma, fatigue, charecter armour etc.

I have a good friend who comes from a broken home who was severely bullied when he was a kid, and he really struggles to enter or even recognise this space, it's like there's a part of him that constantly redirects to neurotic analysis or what is essentially non fiction talk, even when we're in a group of people and the mood is clearly humorous. I don't think he's on the spectrum, as he's capable of humor, deep emotions, connective conversations and so on. It reminds me of Ray's quote "When the organism is traumatized, it hardens, and stops developing, and wants to impose its moral hardness everywhere; assertiveness is the antithesis of perceptive life, and devises ways to negate it."

I've noticed that generally people with good metabolism have a much easier time getting into this freeflowing, playful headspace- my own ability to do so is contingent on being warm and somewhat energized. The person I know who has the most ease in touching a state of effortless humour, freshness of expression and joy in the simplest observations is funnily enough, a Tibetan buddhist master.

Anyway, I could go on but that's enough rambling for now.

 

[Such_Saturation]

Interesting ideas, here's a few random thoughts I had.

There's a system created by David Berceli called TRE (Trauma release exercises) that in short, aims to induce (in the words of wikipedia) 'neurogenic' shaking, that is, an involuntary twitching/vibrating/shaking directed by the nervous system. The theory is that traumatic experiences are stored by a the body of a person who is either physically unable to respond, as in the case of PTSD or has a tendency to supress the physical expression of any new traumas added, as with neurotics. The knowledge of self implicit in the human experience contributes to us choosing a reaction that conforms to the group. In animals, perhaps you've noticed how after a scuffle or alteraction between two individuals, there's often a physical shaking that happens immediately after the conflict is over. I've seen this with ducks in a few times IRL. This seems to help prevent the conflict from getting stuck in the body.

There's a series of physical exercises which are designed to fatigue your leg muscles, at which point you gradually begin to tremble from the exertion, then followed by lying on the floor with the knees slightly bent and open and basically surrendering your tendency to try to control your movement.

Because of the fatigue to the muscles, you take away control from the neurotic, suppressive part of you that would seek to hold a rigid frame. It seems like you've stumbled onto similar territory when you talk about experiencing the random movements and vibrations following the focusing.

I would highly recommend checking out this method, I just skimmed through David Berceli's book and tried a set of the exercises and it was profound, during, there was a calm sense of purpose and the thinking mind subsided, it was as if the body was saying to the mind 'It's cool, I can take it from here.

Interestingly, the pure physicality of it means you don't need to think about your traumatic experiences or difficult memories, there's a sense of being protected from those things.

Afterwards my body felt like a glowing piece of elastic, my voice was significantly deeper, and I fell into a deep sleep that was very refreshing- there was the sense of that always-on arousal state subsiding.

I don't do TRE as much as I should, I just did it last night for the first time in ages. Worth looking in to, it really does make a huge difference.

This would seem deeply related to Steven Porges' work. I think in today's western society, even healthy people are probably in a state of perpetual, low arousal, thanks to the incredible amounts of stimulation and the 'always-on' quality of interaction thanks to the internet and other commuication platforms.

My hypothyroid syptoms really started to manifest noticably when in high school and I was playing a ton of video games which increased the amount of time in this overstimulated state.

Pornography is probably an insidious contributer to this, I generally avoid it now as even opening the browser with the intent of visiting a porn site instantly floods me with adrenaline, tremors, sweating, elevated heart rate and so on.

With regard to Art, I'm studying art and having met a lot of art students and artists, it seems most are unconconsiously or otherwise trying to attend to some issue or trauma, ill health or unresolved conflict through their making

. In a few cases I can see how this has led the person to become so obsesssed with art, art theory and seeing the world through the lense of art, it's like a recatagorization of reality in which they're recreating a safe space for themselves, perhaps harking to points of safety felt in early childhood.

I started studying it when I realized that creative expression could give me glimpses that broke through my steady lifelong depression and gave me a vibrant, flowing sense of autonomy. The problem as I see it is that the traumatized artist personality is generally stuck constantly needing to feed the beast, because the art doesn't seem to be resolving the trauma but rather just relieving it temporarily.

I can paint or draw, sometimes feel fantastic for a few hours, but it always subsides. This is probably perpetuated by the unhelpful movement associated with art making, either cramped over a desk making tiny movements for hours at a time, at a computer or standing in front of an easel. The body often feels fatigued and tight while the mind feels free and excited. This plays into the idea of artists basically living in their heads and ignoring their bodies.

I think I'm probably unusual compared to most of them in that I'm easing my traumatic patterns and learned helplessness with the art making, but I'm also seeking ways to resolve those issues in a way that isn't reliant on a conditioned form of awareness like art making.

Just about all the 'talented' creative people I know who are expressing something uniquely theirs are also compulsively self medicating with alcohol, coffee, marijuana and nicotine, and many of them I suspect are subclinically hypothyroid. There's also a bunch of people at the school who seem neurotypical, and their art is generally less compelling and certainly much less individualistic.



Perhaps it depends on just how empty you're talking about, but I think most people enjoy this to some degree. Assuming we're talking about a style of conversation that, if you can pick up the social clues, has an implicit feeling of a cooperative effort at play. In my experience not feeling comfortable doing this or seemingly being incapable often points to some issue, whether it's trauma, fatigue, charecter armour etc.

I have a good friend who comes from a broken home who was severely bullied when he was a kid, and he really struggles to enter or even recognise this space, it's like there's a part of him that constantly redirects to neurotic analysis or what is essentially non fiction talk, even when we're in a group of people and the mood is clearly humorous. I don't think he's on the spectrum, as he's capable of humor, deep emotions, connective conversations and so on. It reminds me of Ray's quote "When the organism is traumatized, it hardens, and stops developing, and wants to impose its moral hardness everywhere; assertiveness is the antithesis of perceptive life, and devises ways to negate it."

I've noticed that generally people with good metabolism have a much easier time getting into this freeflowing, playful headspace- my own ability to do so is contingent on being warm and somewhat energized. The person I know who has the most ease in touching a state of effortless humour, freshness of expression and joy in the simplest observations is funnily enough, a Tibetan buddhist master.

Anyway, I could go on but that's enough rambling for now.

I'm talking about talking about the weather

 

[Aspekt]

I'm talking about talking about the weather

Oh yeah, I guess I see a distinction between small talk (Not that fun but useful to set the stage for possible deeper questions or conversations) and light or empty talk, which I'm describing here.

 

[Fractality]

The worst thing about neuroticism is its tendency to cause one to ignore his/her gut instincts and suffer the consequences.

 

[Integra]

Thank you for the recommendation, @Aspekt. I have been doing bioenergetic exercises via Alexander Lowen and I discovered Peter Levine's concept of titration just recently, and I find it very useful. I use it especially in moments when I feel overcharged or unpleasantly hyped, and it produces exactly the same sensation you just described, that pulsating/melting feeling followed by warmth. Is it the increased blood flow? Reduced muscle tension? Stimulation of the nerve cells? I don't know, but it's truly wonderful and I recommend it to anyone with similar issues. I also found it ideal to be used at bedtime, because it leaves me feeling tired (but if I overdo it, simply drained).

These exercises are in part why I became interested in the nervous tissue--for instance, that leg shaking/trembling takes place by activating the psoas muscle, and I suspect a section of the vagus nerve. I have only recently started to focus on the section between my heart, throat, neck, cheeks and eyes. I realized that when I push my chin down, pull up my neck, and press up my tongue to creeate "good posture," I suddenly feel like a different person. Performing any activity this way feels foreign, and sometimes provokes chest pain, a sensation of burning in the throat, and then I start tearing up and crying.

And I have absolutely no idea why or wherethese emotions come from.

Pornography is probably an insidious contributer to [overstimulation], I generally avoid it now as even opening the browser with the intent of visiting a porn site instantly floods me with adrenaline, tremors, sweating, elevated heart rate and so on.

I think masturbation is either a substitute for sexual contact or a stress-reducing (and producing) strategy. Sometimes it contributes to a richer sexual experience, but pornography is typically devoid of any real erotic content, apart from plain visuals. Not all, but most.

I'm studying art and having met a lot of art students and artists, it seems most are unconconsiously or otherwise trying to attend to some issue or trauma, ill health or unresolved conflict through their making. In a few cases I can see how this has led the person to become so obsesssed with art, [...] it's like a recatagorization of reality in which they're recreating a safe space for themselves, perhaps harking to points of safety felt in early childhood.

I had the same experience. That's why I found it funny to discover that neurotics are jokingly called "failed artists." Art-as-therapy and art-as-a-gift-to-the-world can be related, but are usually not. Art-as-therapy comes off to other people as heavy-handed and tacky, mostly because self-medicating artists have little awareness of what they're acting out. They're producing whatever they need to reexperience to get out of it. But I don't think they're looking for safety, they're way beyond that point. I think desperation is what fuels such art (the precursor to fullblown despair).

The problem as I see it is that the traumatized artist personality is generally stuck constantly needing to feed the beast, because the art doesn't seem to be resolving the trauma but rather just relieving it temporarily.

Right.

I developed a theory how life works in neurotic ways: all the thoughts/feelings/fantasies/emotions you had but denied their validity (psychologically) or a physical space to exist (biologically, by rigidifying yourself against them) are the very same emotions that life will throw at you as you move into circumstances where the same emotions seem as products of your environment. This is a very convoluted way of saying that life will create circumstances that make you feel whatever you were trying so hard not to feel. But if you wait that long, everything will be magnified and justified, and that's not very good. I think this is what people mean when they talk about fate, and how closely one's fate is related to one's character/rigidity levels. In a sense then, the extent to which you are stuck in your old neurophysiological/psychological patterns is what makes your future relatively easy to predict.

There are very few people that enjoy doing this [empty talk]

I look forward to any opportunity for sweet bonding over the possibility of precipitation and humidity levels. I am also fond of ridiculing political figures in order to bond over the fact how much better we are than that guy, while perpetuating the very same tribalism we're supposedly ridiculing, IT'S THE BEST

*And I'm doing the same thing right now... It's inescapable

 

[Integra]

The worst thing about neuroticism is its tendency to cause one to ignore his/her gut instincts and suffer the consequences.

For me it's the inability to feel my own face or modulate reactions, the fight-or-flight mode in the stupidest, most mundane and non-threatening circumstances. When I meet other nercs out there, I can clearly see the wtf is your problem vibes other people have in reaction to them. But I'm just standing there, trying to stop my eyelid from twitching--

 

[ddjd]

trying to stop my eyelid from twitching

what causes this? i get it too