Hey Sister,

Yeah, helpful strategy as a kid, but not so helpful now when there are so many positive experiences out there to be had and when there is much work to be done!

It stops for a time... If I go overseas or something like that. I wake up rearing to get into my day. But after some time... A couple weeks... Back to same old and longing to spend some time in bed ruminating and dozing and dissociating. Things picked up when I all but moved in with my boyfriend. He is a morning person and he would jump up out of bed and put some coffee on. Even on the mornings when I had to get up at 6am to get to therapy on time! His enthusiasm for the day was catchy and I didn't really ruminate. But now he is gone :-( And now I'm falling back into old habits :-( I guess it would have been unsustainable with him around, anyway... But then who knows. I often think that external structure is just what I need... Perhaps the best thing for me to do is to organise my external environment such that it provides the needed structure for me... Perhaps.

>> playfulness, flirtatiousness, sponteneity

> Why these characteristics? Are these what you aspire to?

I guess those are the characteristics that occurred to me, so yeah, maybe it is that I aspire to those. Not at the expense of my other characteristics, to be sure. I don't see it as making me smaller (replacing some of my current characteristics / abilities with different characteristics / abilities). I see it as making me larger. Expanding my reportoir (however you spell that) of behavioural responses. The ABILITY to be playful and flirtatious and spontaneous. So I have a decision whether to be sombre or whether to be playful, for example. More decisions. More variety. More capacities.

At the moment... I guess it does occur to me to be playful or spontaneous or flirtatious even... Though flirtatious is harder... Mostly in the context of a relationship, I suppose. Though... There are people here who I find quite flirty and they kinda flirt with me at times... It would be nice if I could reciprocate to show that I liked 'em well enough. At the moment I kinda try... Smile at them and stuff... But I don't really reciprocate. Get all embarrassed instead. Shame... The great inhibitor...

> Our inner children may be hiding those other qualities and in time we can integrate them.

I... Would like to think so. But to be honest... I'm thinking that my ability to dissociate consists mostly in my ability to inhibit movement. It isn't that there are inner children with those qualities (I don't think) it is rather that I don't have those qualities. Never developed them. Though... Maybe once the shame lifts... Maybe... The fact that I find something appealling about those qualities and that I do have urges to display them (but then feel the bite of shame)... Perhaps that shows me that there is some aspect of me that has those feelings that are associated with those behaviours. Just that shame is the great inhibitor... Hmm... I do think, however, that since I never got the chance to display those and have them shaped into their adult forms that there will be something childlike and... Repulsive about them. The repulsion is hard to explain. Maybe it is... The unrestrained narcissism of a two year old. Grandiosity. That is something that brings out the most shame for me. I guess my mother and / or father might have been similarly afraid of that stage and that is when shaming was used most freely? Perhaps... Worth talking to therapist about, I guess...