The shells of PTSD

I don’t trust me well.

Let alone you. Or others.

I’ve learned that well.

That’s one of the biggest takeaways about this move, and about some of my personality in general. I don’t believe in my own skill set, let alone the rest of the haiku. Due to a variety of things, trust, including ideas of confidence, just isn't much of a part of my mental vocabulary. And so, more than being a “highly sensitive person,” I am “thin skinned,” but not in a “fly off the handle” way. Rather, it’s that I simply don’t seem to have a lot of emotional and psychological “insulation.”

When criticism arises,

I enter my PTSD shell,

A set of nestled Russian puzzle boxes.

Dissociating even deeper.

It doesn’t even have to be actual criticism, or conflict. It can be fear of possible or anticipated criticism or conflict that sets me off. Add in some physiological things like consecutive male births (the more consecutive boys a mother bears, the more likely the latest boy is to be gay, and there may be other effects from this “battle of the sexes,” too, for all we know, which is what I am getting at) and a family anxiety heritage, it’s probably not a wonder I feel like I had thinner “emotional insulation” to deal with the events of childhood as they hit me. I don't mean this to be sounding like a pity party. It's simply to say this is part of my heritage as a "survivor." In light of the Penn State and Syracuse scandals, or the Catholic priest scandals, some "survivors" adaptations are even more "primitive" than mine.

Anyway, therefore, I adapted as I knew or learned how. When I say dissociation, it’s literal, though not as severe as it once was, and it’s more conscious, at times, than in years past. I know that nobody likes criticism, and few people claim to deal with it well, though many probably deal with it “OK.” People talk about letting criticism be like water off a duck’s back. Well, to me, this is criticism like a rain storm, not just water, but being blocked out by enough layers of shells (I hope).

It’s easier not to trust just one

Rather than another, too. So I live alone.

Occasionally infused from within with childlike wonder,

While desiring a thicker skin that no wizard has to offer.

Bunting vs. swinging away: A life in baseball cards

I recently got done reading "Cardboard Gods" by Josh Wilker. He's about 4-5 years younger than me. He pens a memoir of childhood and early adulthood based on different baseball cards from his childhood. It's an interesting concept, though the book could be even more deeply biographical than it is.

Anyway, Wilker played Little League, albeit not very well by his own admission, through his childhood. In the last game of his last year, in Babe Ruth-level play, the manager on two separate at bats gave him a bunt sign. Wilker followed through the first time, and said he could accept it, but the second time, saw no strategic reason for it, and so he swung away.

An interesting thought. Bunting, even for a base hit rather than a sacrifice, is a "safe" move, versus swinging away. It's a metaphor for life that I'll hold on to for a bit longer. This is about "security."

I first thought of the jobs world, but, unless one is a deliberate risk-taker, "bunting" is wise right now. But, other issues? Hmmm ...

Passing down the anger, passing down the shame

I recently finished reading a great book titled "Payback." The subtitle of "Why We Retaliate, Redirect Attention and Take Revenge" tells in detail what this book is about.

As I note, in a selection from my Amazon review:

Briefly, the authors note that many animals either retaliate against aggression or else redirect it lower down the food chain while we (and chimpanzees) are the only ones so far known to also use revenge. From there, they look at how this affects/relieves stress, in both humans and other animals. ...

Both in humans and animals, besides stress issues, the authors note aggression, and the various ways of dealing with it, relate closely to social status issues. they suggest this is part of why simple apologies often don't satisfy victims. Rather, whether consciously or not, victims are looking for a restoration of lost status, and perhaps a diminution of the aggressor's status. That doesn't happen after a few words.

If you are a survivor of sexual or physical child abuse, doesn't this all ring so true? And, while being abused does not an abuser make, for those abusers who were themselves abused, doesn't this ring true about abusers, too? That they "passed on the shit"?

And, for we the survivors, no matter whom our perpetrators, some of us may have been more affected than others because we had little to no outlet to pass things on further. Or, as the authors of the book note, already in childhood, we showed that we had personalities who didn't naturally do that, or often even think of that as a possibility true to our own natures.

Anyway, you may find this book well worth reading.

With 'help' like this, secular sobrietiests don't need AA stepper 'enemies'

Skeptical blogger Ed Brayton, at the imploring of an anti-AA website, recently did a post on skepticism and the 12-step movement.

Of course, it was a dogwhistle for your usual assortment of steppers, who made the usual arguments:
1. Claims that, despite multiple federal court rulings to the contrary, AA and NA aren't religious, not even in the eye of the First Amendment.
2. Any 12-step "industry" is all Hazelden; AA has no blame, not even for getting in bed with Hazelden 50 years ago.
3. Steps, etc. are just "suggestions."
4. Nothing else that's wrong with AA is AA's fault.

Of course, steppers are immune to reason, but, it was good to refute them, anyway, for Ed's regular readers to learn more about AA. That includes learning that atheists in recovery can, will and do twist their reasoning enough not only to be involved with AA but to say it works.

Even that's not that unusual, nor is it new to me to run into them. (When you run into an atheist, or "atheist," philosophy professor who talks about praying, NOTHING a self-proclaimed atheist does is strange.)

But, then, a certain "Glenn" popped up about 3/4 the way through the discussion, with several bizarre comments.

First, he said alcoholism was a "moral issue." Now, he didn't explicitly say "just a moral issue," but it's clear that's what he meant. I tried to reason with him from several angles.

First, I pointed out what modern neuroscience is discovering about brain chemistry and addiction. He showed no interest in following up on that.

Second, I showed him that the "moral issue" was actually just what AA believed, when it claimed alcoholism was not just a "disease" but a "spiritual disease." That's why you have to admit powerlessness, ask a god to remove "defects," etc. Not only did he not "get it," he started, in essence, getting near ranting level about alcoholism being a moral issue.

Third, he then claimed that I supported courts "coercing" people into secular recovery groups like Lifering. He was totally ignorant of the fact that the issue isn't court power to "coerce" people into ANY sobriety support program, but rather, to unconstitutionally "coerce" people into a program that has been recognized as religious, in light of the First Amendment.

Nor did he get the idea that courts can and do "coerce" convicted criminals into all sorts of "conditions," like ankle bracelet monitors, community service, etc. Now, if a criminal doesn't like that coercion, he or she is free to take a spot in a county or state jail.

He then claims it's different, going on to talk about "abstinence coercion." Well, maybe you want it to be, Mr. Glenn, but, legally, it's not. And, what you want doesn't change law or the enforcement thereof.

Moral of the story?

If you don't know anything about addiction/alcoholism, then just don't talk about it. You do more harm than good, and, just like a zealous stepper, you're likely to make an individual alcoholic/addict less likely to get help.

Yes, we are heroes

From a support group email list, as translated from the German by a friend:

When You Meet a Sober Alcoholic

When you meet a sober alcoholic
You meet a hero.
His mortal enemy slumbers within him;
He can never outrun his disability.
He makes his way through a world of alcohol abuse,
In an environment that does not understand him.
Society, puffed up with shameful ignorance,
Looks on him with contempt,
As if he were a second-class citizen
Because he dares to swim against the stream of alcohol.
But you must know:
No better people are made than this.

-- Friedrich von Bodelschwingh (1831-1910).

Maybe it's time to start being kinder to ourselves

My first 18 months of sobriety, I was quiet active in AA. I was fairly active for the next 18 months after that.

So, I heard plenty of admonitions, chidings and warnings, rarely directed at me in person, usually as part of general meeting talk, about "pity parties" and "pity pots."

Even today, years later, I know what those phrases mean. And, I still hear on occasion the phrases, and more often the ideas, in Lifering meetings.

But, some new psychological research says that maybe we need to stop worrying so much about "pity parties" and instead have more concern about how kind we are to ourselves.

A LOT more concern, including learning it as a top-level life skill.

This is NOT the "give every kid an A to boost self esteem," the study makes clear. In fact, it notes that that technique often backfires, and can lead to neuroticism, emotional fragility and narcissism.

"It is not this nimby, bimby stuff," said Paul Gilbert, a researcher at Kingsway Hospital in the United Kingdom. "Compassion is sensitivity to the suffering of self and others and a commitment to do something about it."

Kristin Neff, an associate professor of psychology and the mother of an autistic child, writes about cultivating self-compassion from her own parenting experience as well as her professional background, in the just-published book, "Self-Compassion."

She lists three aspects to it: mindfulness, common humanity and kindness.

Mindfulness, whether done as a full meditative practice or not, is as Neff describes it, accepting emotions without either suppressing/blocking them OR fixating on/attaching to them.

Common humanity is, to riff on another old phrase from "the other folks," recognizing that our hurts and pains aren't "terminally unique" either.

And, kindness is kindness to ourselves as well as others.

The LiveScience authors go on to note that self-esteem of the type I stereotypically mentioned above still have a competitive and comparative element to it. Self-kindness does not.

And, speaking of competitiveness, other researchers, the story notes, believe that as the pace of modern Western life accelerates, self-punishment will likely increase.

But, won't being kind to ourselves a lot lead to a temptation to "let ourselves off the hook"? No, but that's been anticipated too:

(A)ccording to Neff, the most common fear about becoming self-compassionate is that it will lower performance standards and encourage laziness. But researchers have found that self-compassionate people are actually less likely to sit on the couch all day eating bonbons.

So, lighten up. Especially on yourself. And let's encourage each other on this.

Two new insights on PTSD

The first relates to depression, and notes that people prone to either problem may overgeneralize their memory. This overgeneralization may allow for a version of catastrophic thinking, in which a person cannot recall specific good instances to overcome overgeneralizing about bad issues.

The second says that fear may lead to losing out on noticing nuances of sound, and in turn be connected to sound hypersensitivity in PTSD sufferers.

Anticipation, anger, anxiety and frustration-fear

What a mix of emotions, eh? But, it's where I'm at right now. Hoping for something to change externally within 24 hour, or I'll likely be dropping an email hint to that end.

Yes, yes, CBD and Buddhism ... the emotional control is all within.

Nonetheless, it's easier with certain external circumstances in play.

More later.

That said, it's better than feeling nothing, or than not recognizing what I am feeling.

===

One day later, having sent my email hint, I've received a response that the process on which I am waiting is muddling along. Well, I can only wait and try to control my impatience, since I can't figure why the hell the process is taking this long.

Alcohol and anxiety

Had an anxiety attack earlier this week, the first one in a few months.

Like most of them, the final relief from it came by throwing up.

Tonight, while taking a brief walk earlier, I got to thinking about anxiety and alcohol. Anxiety issues, in different ways, run on both my dad's and mom's side of the family. In a more clinical sense, they're much more serious on my dad's side.

And alcohol, and somewhat tobacco, I'll venture, was used as an attempt to control that anxiety by many of dad's side men.

I got to thinking about that in my own case as well. I realize that alcohol just masked anxiety, it didn't control it. And, by actually exacerbating one symptom of anxiety, the churning stomach — at least when I was drinking on an empty or near-empty stomach — it actually made it worse.

Here's to one more reason for staying sober.

Here’s a good NYT story about how past adversities (if not overdone) can boost resilience in some ways, as far as ability to reframe adversity and more.

That said, I'd appreciate some positive life changes not too far down the road, rather than treading water after adversity, at least job-loss adversity and relocation adversity.

Welcome? to 2011

It's a new year, and I turned a year older by the calendar last week.

I'm hoping to continue to improve in acceptance of the outside world, self-acceptance, resilience, and what I can learn about myself, among other things, in the months ahead.

I am hoping to learn more about self-awareness of others' critiques of aspects of me, to distinguish critiques from criticisms and more.

I am hoping to "move forward" in other ways in life too.

I am hoping to improve job-hunting/networking skills if I don't "land" something new relatively soon.