Yahoo! Way to go, Altered State. Now you know how to start to think your way out of the wet paper paper bags we all have trouble exiting and dodge the trashcan lid (slightly mixed metaphor?)

Actually though, I've taking this "personality disorder test" (it's just fun, not official!) http://www.4degreez.com/misc/persona...sorder_test.mv and ended up scoring highest on histrionic myself. What I say is how I do things and I just assume, being narcissistic also that other people work like me when what they say resonates in what I feel reading them.

I wasn't so much talking about your thinking more lids are flying around than are (though that one could think that could be true as you so clearly state it) as that we don't pay enough attention to the lids that literally aren't flying around, the "good" lids. One can only pay attention to one thing at once so literally looking at and studying something that doesn't hurt one is a great escape from thinking about trashcan lids that appear to be too close to the middle of one's forehead. When you're concentrating on something else, the one's too close to hitting you tend to vaporize.

I was struck in the middle of your opening description of creating the situatuation you wish to avoid by the "safety" factor. I look for safety in all things, the familiar. When I like getting hit in the head with trashcan lids it's because that's familiar to me. How does one act when one is not getting hit? What does one do? (Where does one put one's hands?) I use to be afraid of my shadow and a lot of that was worrying about things I didn't know yet, whether I'd be able to handle them as well as I did the literal slaps by my stepmother. I could tell by the placement of my stepmother's chin and the look in her eye when I was in "danger" (of trashcan lids or getting my hands spray-painted black because I bit my finger nails) but how do you tell there's danger when you haven't been "there" before?

I think it's all right to be histrionic and nowadays I get a lot of fun out of exaggering things I have difficulty with (talking, making sense, the usual) to amuse my friends and loved ones. Hey, I'm using my strengths and making those I love laugh! Can't beat that. Maybe you should take up frisbee and think/work with your thinking while learning a new, related skill (or juggling?). I always do well when I get "literal" and find symbols to express what I'm thinking about because it often gets so squishy and slips away like mercury.