Holy crap, exactly what I have been talking about!
Needless to say, when I watched this video I was absolutely rapt. Here was indpendent verification of what I have been talking about in terms of being in survival mode, and with plenty of fresh insight to boot!
I am thrilled to the point of giddiness for such an unexpected gift.
Whatever algorithm YouTube uses to generate my YouTube feed, you really hit the nail on the head today. And I am so very grateful to you for that.
OK, enough of my gushing. Let’s talk a wall through the entries.
(0). Survival mode is triggered when you feel overloaded.
OMG yes! I quite often feel overloaded by all the bullshit swirling and flashing inside my tortured mind. There’s just so much going on in there at all times, even in my sleep.
So no wonder I am in survival mode all the damned time.
(1). Lack of focus, or “What?”
Totally. Given my constant mental turbulence, it’s very hard for me to stay focused on the world outside my head. It’s like there is a non stop loud party in my head and I have to concentrate just to hear what people have to say.
Hence my absentmindedness. You’d be absentminded too if you had a riot in your head and an earthquake in your bones.
(2). Forgetting basic needs
Constantly. So much so that I can barely remember remembering them. I manage to eat somewhat regularly and use the bathroom when needed, though often putting it off for far too long because I am so wrapped up in what I am doing.
Other than that, forget about it.
(3). You feel more tired (all the time)
Um yup. It’s rare that I truly feel energetic. And when I do, survival mode shuts that shit down with brutal force. According to it, I am constantly in crises and must live my life like I am preparing for the longest winter ever.
But winter never comes.
The truth is that it’s no wonder I am always tired because my mind is at war with itself and most of my energy goes into that.
(4). You’re more emotional
Um….. I’m gonna skip this one, because I’ve been like this forever so I no longer have any frame of reference for whether I am “more” emotional. My usual feeling of depression is a deep, dark feeling of coldness and numbness – Midnight Tundra.
I would honestly prefer to be more emotional. At least I’d be feeling something.
(5) Memory issues
You betcha. I am always wandering in a daze and my biographical memory is terrible. I forget really basic things while still knowing a crazy amount about lots of things.
Two different kinds of memory, two radically different results.
(6) One task at a time (sweet Jesus)
Yup, although I have never ever been any good at multitasking. I have always had a one track mind. Like I always say, it’ a really BIG track but there’s just the one. I am more of the deep focus kind of guy.
I can fake multitask if it’s the sort of thing you can pick up and put down easily. But that’s really just task swapping – a turn based task.
Well that’s the basic rundown, anyhow. I will be thinking long on this for sure.
More after the break.
Wake the fuck up!
To the tune of this charming tune.
This is going to be super fun because I am very sleepy at the moment for some reason and now I have to eke out 400 words or so while desperately needing a nap.
My life is so goddamned random.
Still, I am very glad to have discovered the video from Part A. It’s really helping me forgive myself and thus heal. It’s a strong antidote for all the toxic bullshit that the sick part of my mind spews out.
The question I asked in the comments remains, though : how the heck do you exit survival mode? How do I reboot into normal mode? I have been in this artificial state of emergency for so long that I don’t even remember what life was like before it.
But I am eager to find out.
How do I convince my deep, presentient mind that I am safe and it can call off the alert, restore me to factory settings, and reboot?
Because the problem is presentient, there appears to be no rational solution. Or at least, no solution that is detectable by my usual laser beam of a mind that cut right through to the truth.
Or what seems like the truth if you ignore all the burnt flesh around the hole.
Surely that cannot possibly be more important than my need to feel smart!
Back to exiting survival mode. To change something that deeply buried and that radioactively toxic will take “going under” as Nietzsche called it. I am going to have to leave rationality and my brutal truth machine behind and venture out into the darkness of my subconscious mind in order to make the repair.
Not something I am accustomed to doing. I am highly accustomed to staying safe and secure in the bright cold light of my incandescent mind.
With its gigawatt lasers and molecular sharp razors and its ability to see through anythif like Superman with his X-ray vision.
I can always see to the very bottoms of things. Scan them inside and out. Know what they are made of like my mind is a gas chromatograph mass spectrometer. Understand how they fit into the big picture of life.
It’s really quite amazing.
What I can’t do is turn all that shit off, relax, and just enjoy things as they are, without any analysis whatsoever.
Via analysis and reduction, my brain can ruin anything. And it does so as a highly perverse way to protect me from the pain genuine goodness causes me.
Cover it in shit until it’s just like us.
Then we won’t be reminded of how much we stink.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.