Reminder not to underestimate your current circumstances

[Sarah79]

So, I have another symptom and was thinking about what was going on for me. And there's a lot about repressed anger and things from our past - but I was dipping into @Steve Ozanich 's superb 'The Great Pain Deception,' which is basically my bible, and I was drawn to two things. The first was to pay attention to what's going on for you NOW. And so I wrote a list;

1 - I recently got engaged. This is a wonderful thing, but also, bearing in mind it's a pledge to emotionally, financially, physically and legally commit myself to another human being, quite overwhelming

2 - said another human being then left to go overseas in his role in the military. We don't know when we'll see each other again.

3 - we live separately, but very close to each other, and his landlords have both suddenly, recently died, so their children are working out what to do with the house. I therefore am wondering whether I'll get new neighbours, whether me and partner will suddenly be expedited towards living together (we haven't so far due to there being children and us taking that integration slowly), how that might feel, its impact on my work and general routines, all sorts.

They are all massive things. Changes, uncertainty, loved one on the periphery of a war, a pledge to commit followed by sudden absence with no clear end date.

I then looked at his list of 'TMS-ing,' ie, the things we do to avoid feeling our own pain, and I realised I could tick many off the list - gambling (albeit low-grade interest in Omaze / lottery), physio, doomscrolling, massive procrastination - my to do list grows every day and then I open my laptop and just watch boxsets all day long. I don't feel a lot of emotion - though I am very easily startled at the moment - and everything that I 'should' be feeling - joy, a bit of fear, some anticipation - is just pushed aside for 'watch next episode now.' I realised how far away I am from all those feelings and how - by being so far away from them - I'm also woefully underestimating the changes and challenges of my Right Now.

I thought I'd post this just to help myself, and to hopefully nudge others to really notice what's going on for them at the moment; repression doesn't always mean 'many years ago,' - it can be 'happening right now but I can't bear to look at it, let alone feel my feelings about it.'

 

[BloodMoon]

I can so relate to this, @Sarah79!

Even coming on this forum and replying to people I recognise can be a distraction for me.

Baseball65 always used to remind us to look at irritation, fears, difficulties, etc., in the present in his forum postings.

IMO, you, Baseball65 and Steve O are so right about this!

I can only manage to approach and face such things in baby steps (I’m a baby-steps bore! lol).

I break things up and find it so much more palatable to spend no more than half an hour to an hour a day on stuff I really don’t want to face, assess or attend to—whether that’s taking action, writing an unsent letter or journaling about an issue. I figured that three and a half to seven hours a week is better than nothing.

I wish you well with all that’s going on in your life at the moment and for the future.

 

[Duggit]

Yes, I fully agree that it is important not to underestimate one's current circumstances. Frances Sommer Anderson, a psychologist who worked in Dr. Sarno's TMS clinic, had some good advice about attending to current circumstances in a book titled Pathways to Pain Relief that she coauthored with another psychologist in the clinic. Here is what she would tell her patients who were having trouble being aware of their current emotions:

"I recommend that they take a 'feeling inventory' several times during the day and evening: Ask yourself, 'What am I feeling about the events that happened during the past hour. How did I feel when my supervisee didn't meet the deadline and casually brought the work into my office without acknowledging that it was late? How did I feel when our nanny called to say that she had an emergency and had to leave immediately, possibily indefinitely? How did I feel when our 16-year old son showed up two hours past his curfew, undeniably drunk?" At the beginning of therapy, some people need to take this inventory once every hour."

ISTDP therapist Jon Frederickson, in his book Co-Creating Change, made the point that disappointing events are hardly rare. And he made the additional point that it can be hard to answer how-did-I-feel-when questions candidly because of a natural unconscious tendency to use Freudian defense mechanisms to repress emotions that we regard as impermissible to have.

"The reality of loss and disillusionment is the very warp and woof of our web of relations. Desires arise in each of us. Yet our loved ones can meet our wants in only one of three ways. They can deliver, delay, or disappoint. They cannot always want what we want. And even if they want to give us what we wish, they may not be able. The conflict between desire and reality is ineradicable. . . . Moreover, we [need to] concede that we are not who we wish we were. We cannot become our fantasy. And as the reality of ourselves slams into our fantasy, our fantasy suffers. And to avoid the pain of life, we ward off reality and our feelings about it by using defenses . . . [aka] the lies we tell oursleves to avoid the pain in our lives."

 

[BloodMoon]

Something @Duggit quoted above really struck a chord with me, particularly the reference to disillusionment and disappointment.

Although my life is night and day different for the better compared with when I was bedridden and housebound, I wonder whether my disappointment with my current circumstances and with life in general (now and over the years of my life) might be part of why I can't seem to totally shake off my remaining symptoms.

I may be, but perhaps I'm still not fully acknowledging how disappointed I actually am. If so, I don't know how to do that.

I think my gravestone should read:

'Here lies BloodMoon. She was told she made great salads and sandwiches, but she died disappointed.'