Ya know, I think I need to learn to be cool about having to learn the same lessons over and over again.
Some lessons don’t penetrate the whole way the first time. Sometimes it takes a lot of hits with a clue by four to make it really sink in.
Take the subject of this vid :
Patient readers know that I figured out long ago that the reason I find it so hard to do anything is that I have been stuck in a deep, extended freeze response for a long time.
Like, my entire adult life. And I am 50.
And yet, the video is like a revelation to me. I guess there is a difference between passively “knowing” something and truly understanding it on the deep, spiritual level that brings the healing you need.
Hopefully this swing of the hammer gets me somewhat closer.
Of course I am stuck in a freeze response. I mean, duh. That’s why I am always going on about thawing out the ice around my heart and talking about icebergs drifting south and not being my ice and all the rest.
But now I have.. relearned it? Maybe it would be more accurate to say that it has been brought to mind by that dude’s video just when I needed it.
I love synchronicity like that.
WARNING : The following video will 80’s the fuck out of your eyeballs.
Excuse me while I wipe off the drool.
Where was I? Oh right, freezing et al.
The thing is, I don’t think I am capable of applying his cure. I have no doubt that it is effective for some, but it is just so cheesy and stupid and lame and I honestly think the amount of bitter, angry sarcasm it would elicit from this crusty old Gen X heart of mine would be positively toxic.
To the point of threatening the lives of innocent bystanders.
I just can’t praise myself for sitting up in bed. Not even a little bit,. let alone doing it as lavishly as he proposes. My overdeveloped sense of irony won’t let me, as well as my entire sense of perspective and valuation.
I can just imagine where it would go.
“Well look at you, you sat up. Wow, that’s great. You’re so amazing for doing that. What’s next for you, Chief? Ready to tackle OBJECT FUCKING PERMANENCE?!?”
Yeah, that would not help.
But I can try to apply the lesson in some less overtly fatuous way. I don’t know what the hell that would be yet, but I will set my mind to figuring it out.
I grasp the idea of trying to exit the freeze state by feeding yourself little doses of reward. But to make it through to my mind, it can’t be fake, exaggerated, forced, insincere, or a flat out lie.
I just can’t do that shit. The very thought of it sickens me. I honestly think it would only make me hate myself more.
And I don’t know where to go from there. I don’t know how to make my life more rewarding without introducing a lot of cotton candy bullshit I can’t possibly hack.
I don’t know how to make myself happier.
I don’t know how to be more forgiving to myself.
Every potential solution proposed requires a lot of that mysterious substance – call it reward, or maybe serotonin – that I just plain lack.
It’s not there. There is no fuel in the gas tank. And that means that all the stupid fucking suggestions in the world can go fuck themselves because I can’t get there.
And if you’re too stupid to understand that, then leave me the fuck alone.
More after the break.
Like a crank
In other words, cranky.
I got pretty grumpy at the end of the previous section.
And by and large, that’s a good thing. I have a lot of anger that needs to be vented because I have been unable to express anger for a long, long time.
It was so bad at one point that this counted as a breakthrough : after a group therapy session at VGH, the 9 bus I needed to get back home to Duchess Street pulled away just as I was getting to it.
The breakthrough? That I yelled and shook my fist at it as it departed.
That’s it. Way, way back then (20+ years ago), it was a massive breakthrough that I actually expressed that much anger at all.
And I know that it’s a sickness. Anger is an important emotion. It’s a key part of both our psychological defenses and our motivational structure.
And I clearly have issues in both those departments.
I am not sure where this inability to express anger comes from. A (probably exaggerated) fear of my own power, I suppose, all mixed up with knowledge of what darkness I have inside me and the seriously crazy thoughts that go through my head.
But it’s all bullshit. Ghosts and shadows and rickety old puppets that my depression uses to keep me in its power by convincing me that if I let go even the tiniest bit, madness and disaster and acts of outright evil will inevitably ensue.
Like I am always only one little slip up away from turning into Mister Hyde.
But Mister Hyde only exists because Doctor Jekyll is so repressed. If I could find my way to expressing my anger more – even if it comes out as angry rants – the dark side of me would fade away and I would be a much happier person because now my emotional state can self-regulate a hell of a lot better.
Emotions need room to breathe. And they can’t do that if you’re all bottled up inside.
Maybe I will start ranting on TikTok again.
I suspect I might be really, really good at it.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.