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Originally Posted by spiritual_emergency
Hello again costello,
I hope you didn't find my posts from yesterday to be too confusing.
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Yes, it's a bit confusing still. I think I'm getting a handle on parts of it, then it slips away.
I will say I do think there are issues with ego fragmentation. At least he seems to rock back and forth between thinking he's worthless and thinking he's the cat's meow.
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Originally Posted by spiritual_emergency
I've yet to speak to anyone who has experienced fragmentation and didn't become aware at some point that "something" was happening.
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I've asked this question a few more times - what do you think is going on with you? Usually I get no answer or, with a great deal of discomfort, he tells me that he doesn't understand what I'm talking about and that I don't know what's going on. (We really are like beings from two different planets trying to converse. This morning he decided to stop talking and started pantomiming.)
One time when I asked him to tell me how he perceived his experience, he gave me this video:
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Originally Posted by spiritual_emergency
In terms of my own child, we often referred to their experience as "a personal crisis".
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I've tried referring to it as crisis, distress, and other terms, but it seems that euphemisms only contribute to the miscommunications between us. He thinks I'm referring to his inner world - which I have very little knowledge or understanding of.
A couple of days ago I spoke to him and he didn't respond, because he was lost in his inner reality. (This happens a lot.) A few seconds later, he seemed to come back to reality and realized I had spoken. He apologized, which he'd never done before, and asked if it was rude to ignore me like that. I told him I knew he was absorbed in something very important right now, so I didn't take offense. Then I went on to add something along the lines of it's normally important to pay attention to the people around him but right now he's pretty distracted. I don't remember my exact words, but he homed in on the world "pay attention to the people around you." He complained that when I said things like that he thought I was referring to his voices and hallucinations.
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Originally Posted by spiritual_emergency
This tiny shift in perspective can also have a profound impact upon eventual outcome.
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No doubt it will. I've always thought that the story you tell yourself about your experience will effect the outcome. And obviously the labels you choose depend on the story you're telling.
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Originally Posted by spiritual_emergency
One important point about mentors is they must be self-chosen.
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Yes. I've found those same people you've mentioned. My son hasn't. And as you say I can't really foist what impresses me onto him with any real hope that it will "stick." Maybe the homeless guy in the video is his hero.
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Originally Posted by spiritual_emergency
It might be helpful to encourage your son to sit down and fill in the blanks:
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I'm going to have to do that.
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Originally Posted by spiritual_emergency
One of the values of this kind of exercise is it moves the individual in crisis into an active as opposed to a passive role. It helps move them toward reclaiming their own life.
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This is the key issue as I see it. It feels like
I'm putting out all the effort here. He's waiting, like a baby bird, to have nourishment dropped down his gullet. Or more likely to reject all suggestions as absurd.
On the other hand it could be that he's exerting a kind of energy I don't perceive or understand, and all my fluttering around is wasted energy. He really doesn't want me to supply answers for him.
On the third hand this morning he announced he's moving to Shreveport - which is nowhere near here and where we have no ties (he just thought it sounded "comfortable" just like the other day he thought Avandia sounded like a good medication). He was actually on the Internet trying to figure out how to get transport to Shreveport. It's things like that that make me despair.