Unsolvable life situation?

Right now I'm sane enough to agree. I just know I will run into some block again probably... and I might lose the battle against this evil too. I'm no longer sane at this moment talking like this.

I understand. Sorry if you've already answered this question, but what about medication?

No worries, I tried medication already, got off the last one due to a side effect. None of it really ever worked or not for long.

I want to say, if I sounded weird, I'm past some sort of crisis (first such one anyway, had quite different ones in the past), sorry, thanks for everyone trying to give input

Is it part of a condition with extreme highs and extreme lows? Ie: bipolar? Sorry if that’s too personal Just trying to understand

Tevelygo, what you're touching on here is something very important -- non-attachment... We can consciously evolve and progress to a state of being where we are no longer seeking acceptance/wholeness/completeness from 'externals' (individuals/relationships, material wealth/possessions, etc)... Where your sense of self (identity) is no longer reliant on the influence of others or on having to control/manipulate your external life circumstances and situation... This requires extensive inner-work, but it's absolutely achievable.

You know that familiar state of consciousness where your physical mind is constantly chattering about how certain individuals need to treat/view you a certain way, or how a certain set of external circumstances need to always be present in order for you to feel 'okay' inside. - in order for you to finally accept your 'self' and to be free of suffering. We live in a physical reality marked by constant change - and it's an impossible feat to exercise any control over how others choose to operate, and impossible to control the totality of our external circumstances (which are constantly subject to change)...

The less you (psychologically) attach yourself to externals - the more you will allow yourself to connect with the deeper/higher aspect of one's own nature that exists within all of us - and this is the path to finally securing total self-acceptance, completeness/wholeness, and peace of mind!

However I need to stress this... What I'm describing does not lead to a state of isolation or an experience of disconnection from others... It may seem that way early on, but that is not the final outcome or end result. As you consciously shed and transcend limiting ways of thinking and perceiving about yourself and others - you start to experience less and less barriers, less division and separation... And not just with other people, but with everything. Very hard to explain this with words but it is a state of awareness in which you are no longer identified with your physical form and with the temporary and conditioned aspects of your 'human identity'... You discover a 'sense of self' rooted in something much deeper, and transcendent... Not asking anyone to take my word for it - but to keep an open mind about this notion...

When a life experience is overwhelming and too difficult and challenging for us to consciously process, reconcile, and accept - it's like the mental/emotional reaction gets 'stuck' within us, and has no where to go (can't be released).... This is when it becomes an 'issue' for us and results in fears, sensitivities, and insecurities which can stay with us for a long time. Since the individual doesn't know how to work through (process) the challenging mental/emotional states that have surfaced - the instinctive reaction is to more or less push it away by trying to consciously avoid it or block it from our everyday state of consciousness... To push it into the subconscious mind, only to have it continue to affect us (subconsciously) and only to have it re-surface in a serious way later on in our life experiences... Sometimes you hear of individuals breaking down and allowing themselves to be vulnerable - and then an avalanche of previously suppressed/repressed emotional activity just pours out of them. Something they had been holding onto for a long time - because they previously could not consciously process it in a healthy/functional manner. And this is no knock on the individuals either - this is a natural part of the 'human experience'. What I'm describing above happens to everyone in some for or fashion - most evidently during our childhood/youth.

When we can and do consciously 'process' life's events and experiences in a healthy and functional manner - there is still emotional activity that surfaces, but it doesn't become 'stuck' inside of us and cause prolonged problems and conflicts. It's like it washes over us and passes through us. It doesn't get held onto and stored within us... This all ties back to one's state of awareness and conscious development ... The broader and more expansive our state of awareness, and the more refined our state of conscious development is - the more adept we become at being able to consciously process life's interactions and experiences in a healthy way... The less likely we are to accumulate 'emotional baggage' that would otherwise interfere wth our ability to experience contentment and peace of mind...

About 10 years ago I tried two different types of prescription medications - for about a year total... I also had issues with side effects and additionally had an extremely challenging withdrawal experience when I discontinued use of one of them. It wasn't long after that I realized that I wasn't going to be able to 'fix' my internal 'problems' with any type of quick-fix external solution (in this context, a pill)... I didn't know how I was going to heal myself - but I knew (in my case) I wasn't going to continue my previous 'strategy'... I had to continue searching...

In fact, I would later go on to experience the life-changing healing that I had longed for, for so long... And I can only tell you in hindsight that I now view my previous (and ultimately unsuccessful) efforts and strategies for healing myself with complete acceptance and understanding - because I realize that I necessarily had to explore and experience what ultimately would not work out for me, in order to finally guide/steer myself down the path that would bring about my healing and an end to my suffering. It's kind of like you're searching the entire house for something and you don't find it until you have looked everywhere else first and where it could not be found. You had to look everywhere before you would finally lead yourself to it's actual 'location'. Think of it kinda like a process of elimination.... You keep searching, and after enough searching you finally discover what you've been seeking all this time... And it changes everything!

I agree with Wolfgaze 100%. The 'Key' to our release (at times often elusive), is different for all of us. The important thing is to not ever give up searching for it.

No worries , I don't have bipolar. It's more like just getting emotional more than usual but it's not simply a positive mood, just simply being more emotional. It could include both negative and positive feelings, though with this crisis it was mostly negative. I don't know if there's a name for this kind of condition. But I do try to deal with it better than before.

The forward of the book is really over the top. The actual chapters are more practical. I was skeptical reading the forward too. Lol. Yes, the language is promotional and it's a self help book, but if you can get past the self help tone, it's actually good stuff.

Oh I think I heard about non-attachment before but I possibly don't fully understand the idea. Also, I do want to actually feel involved in life. I was very detached from a lot of things before, especially people. And so I was not really living a big part of life. It might be easier to want non-attachment when one has already experienced a lot of stuff like good meaningful and strong real life friendships and a real romantic relationship.

Does this make sense?

Not really familiar with that, constant chattering sounds draining. I'm kind of nonverbal in my head.

As for the external circumstances, sure, I do want some things and do like to achieve those. It's a natural instinct that I don't really want killed. To be more precise here, I'd be able to choose to go and vegetate for the rest of my life - no suffering but also no involvement in life, just eat, drink, sleep - but I don't really want that just yet. A part of mine wouldn't mind throwing in the towel like that but the rest of mine doesn't.

I would not call it a "certain set of external circumstances". It's a bit more flexible view than that. So maybe that's not an issue in my case?

I guess, on second thought, with people specifically maybe I did want a "certain set of external circumstances". Some regularly available connections and good feelings with people.

Interesting worldview. I'm a bit different, as in, I don't really see everything as constantly changing... yes changes do happen sometimes though.

Yeah like I said I've heard of this before, but I have a different philosophy.

I mean... What I'd like to achieve is maybe partially overlapping with this but in another way it's different.

Here's what it is: I'd like to be able to live life fully with the aspects mentioned above. Experience connection with people more while being able to deal with all of it in my own way that works for me. If there's such a way. It includes self-respect of course, so I would agree on self-acceptance (I just call it self-respect).

I am not entirely sure what's meant by completeness/wholeness.

I might be able to do this at age 70, I doubt I can before. I'm not trying to be facetious lol, I just don't feel capable of being this transcendent mentally.

And... I've already had enough isolation and disconnection really. So my gut tells me the right direction for me is more involvement. Unless I really do find it's not possible.

But! I did solve the current circumstance that was posing an issue - I managed to talk with that friend of mine and it actually ended up well!! And I understood some things I didn't before! That's why I'm past that crisis thing that was building up for a while.

Yeah, I get what you mean. For me a complicating factor is that I'm alexithymic, which means that my brain is neurologically different in terms of emotion processing, so for me such things are more challenging to consciously process than for the average person. I did get a lot of my emotions shut down a long time ago and trying to get back to normal with them no longer shut down means a lot of pain with that.

Exactly!

I blocked out so much of the world by my quit from emotionally reacting/being involved in stuff. I blocked out so much I started being nonfunctional though I wasn't too bad. But it was not sustainable forever... The rest of what you say about internal issues is also true, though since I'm alexithymic, I will never get to feel these things in the same way as most people.

My emotional shutdown and disconnect happened when I was a teenager.

Can I ask, what do you mean by "allowing themselves to be vulnerable"?

This would be good to have.

Yeah I do try to increase awareness of my internals, I just don't think I can have this very broad/expansive awareness and all that non-attachment in the way described, not for a few more decades at best.

But I do know that emotional baggage needs to be treated in some way so I get that part of your idea.

I completely agree that pills are just a "quick fix". Funnily enough, they don't even provide that "quick fix" for me anymore. There was a medication that worked for a short time before a negative thing happened to me and then the medication's effect was overpowered by it: it was bad enough to shut down my emotions including the positive motivation I got from the medication previously...

Oh I'm not blaming myself for not having solved stuff yet. I get your analogy though I'd change it a bit: while searching, a tornado arrives and the whole house crumbles on your head. Then if all the debris didn't hit your head in a deadly enough way, you maybe find some seemingly insightful bit lodged somewhere among the bits and pieces in the ruins and then you rebuild that house and in the process of rebuilding you may lose that bit (maybe not but maybe yes) and then the same repeats and so on.

See why it's so non-trivial?

Can you tell me what this thing was that you were seeking and once found, it changed everything? If it's not too personal?

Yeah lol, it's overdone. I did read a few bits of the book since then, I find it's not what I need, but the positive attitude was nice I guess, and there were a few interesting bits about emotion processing though it did not really answer my biggest questions in that area. But the book was not written for alexithymics so I'm not expecting it to solve all my issues lol. What I did also like was the notion of focusing on your vision more often. I do this by default already, but I kind of got a bit of extra perspective on this... sorry hard to explain. I had to add my own understanding to that bit afterwards. But really what helped in this crisis was talking with my friend (that last friend). And, as a result, resolving a fundamental misunderstanding of mine on how she relates to me. I do not think any self-help book can replace real friends, really.

I wonder if maybe the stress from this personal crisis has triggered an emotionally reactive state in you (??) I know that has happened to me before. I’m usually happy, but I suffered through a severe personal upset. It threw me into this dark place emotionally and I lost a lot of “friends” who were unwilling to stand by me. It was such a painful experience. I still have resentment deep down for the people who walked out on me while I was suffering

I'm not sure but I've had this going on for years. And yeah, I totally had the experience you are talking about. It was really hard to believe that some people can be like that even if they seemed to be really pretty good friends before.

That last friend who I managed to talk to in my crisis (and hence my crisis got solved) crapped out on me now.

So now what?

I cut her off too?

Then I really just can't manage relationships with ANY of the people who would be/were so important to me?

SEE NOW WHAT'S SO UNSOLVABLE IN MY SITUATION?

And what I thought was a positive insight in my crisis, it was meaningless lol

Lol no I don't understand people any better even though I thought it all made sense then with the "insight" (the "insight" was specifically about my friend's attitudes but it was wrong)

So like, I'm supposed to get rid of toxic relationships yeah? All of them were that category???

Or do I just expect too much? Or what?

Someone tell me this: about what percentage of people are mature enough to be willing to think things over after an issue and find their own responsibility in it, due to openness to the other person's issue and expressed feelings? I mean, no one is able to see it all perfectly in the heat of the moment but at least give it effort afterwards. And I am not even talking about close relationships, this applies to any relationship, because whatever you do in any other relationship is what you will do in close relationships too.

So. I just want to know this percentage. Any estimate? Thanks.

I also think I just was/felt unconsciously neglected for so long that I do not understand it now and take it all negative if someone doesn't do "good enough treatment" towards me, especially if that's someone I care so much about and where I did suppress a lot of feelings of feeling neglected about whatever stuff and other feelings of stress in general (taking on a lot of stressful tasks for these people, trying to solve their problems etc).

I mean, sure maybe these people did not act the best way, maybe they even ignored my feelings sometimes, yes, then at other times they did care, and I cannot follow it anymore, as to how much they really care, because when I try to express it when I feel negative about something, that just doesn't seem to go well.

My issue is I do not know how to get past all these feelings.

It's like all other people know how to relate to others without seeing every negative bit as catastrophic or something. And I don't know how to and I don't know how I even got into this state where I see things like this and react like this. I DON'T KNOW WTF IS GOING ON WITH THIS?

It is like I am psychotic almost. I did have two psychotic episodes before and I've been trying to get back to normal since then and of course I don't have delusions or disorganized thinking etc now but all this just feels like the emotional part of me is psychotic anyway, even if other parts of me are no longer psychotic. That part of me is just seriously out of touch with reality, and the more I care about someone, the worse.

Am I making any sense to anyone here?

I too lament the years lost and opportunities squandered. Time has seemed to stand still for me, years & years of wading through bouts of debilitating depression, coupled with my fear and dread of the world.

Mental illness bought on by an accident of birth, trauma, environment, faulty brain chemistry or associated illness/circumstances… is for all of us a heavy cross to bear, and is almost always exacerbated by those around us who perpetually tell us that we just aren't good enough, that we are damaged, that we have no value as citizens of the world.....a heartbreaking waste of life.

So where to from here?...how do we find our place in the world? A place where our endeavors are valued? A place where we can strive, accomplish and be all the better for it? Well to start with we need to be realistic….I would have loved to have been a dancer…but at my stage in life this just isn’t going to happen. However…I do have skills, bankable skills that I have slowly nurtured over my years of dark exile.

Yet choosing how and where to use these skills is the hard part…Self doubt, fear of ridicule, and indeed failure all come into play causing us to procrastinate and bemoan the inertia of our lives. I spent many many years in therapy and medicated...it wasn’t until I started implementing changes by modifying my thinking and behavior that I began to move forward...It was like the gears on my life had been out of whack, the only way forward it seemed was to realign them.

Several years ago...I took a long hard look at my list of personal beliefs and my reactions to the world, including my constant worrying of what others thought of me. Some of my ideas were keeping me safe, but most were toxic, outdated or downright ridiculous. I have now come to appreciate that 99% of people care little about what I think or what I do...they care more about their own lives. I now understand that I can’t wait around for others to tolerate, validate, laud or honour me...I must do that for myself. The worst choice we can make is waiting for others to choose for us, or waiting for permission to choose, as we may spend our lives choosing nothing at all.

Should I have chosen sooner?... of course I should have, but what is more important is that I have chosen NOW…and am so excited to see what the world has in store for me.

I wish you all the best in moving forward tevelygo.....find your place and live to it, live to the fullness of it. That really is all that's required imo.

Thanks for your post, I'm just not sure why you use the word "too". I wasn't talking about the past, I'm talking about how I'm reactive in a crazy way in the present.

Honestly, I don't like to try and be too realistic here because then the conclusion is "oh it's whatever then, this is unsolvable, just vegetate for the rest of your life". This, when I'm in stoic mode. Sometimes it's suicidal thoughts instead. The way I can avoid this realistic mode is by trying to look for some solution and then I waste the day on reading up on these issues, psychology articles etc... so that also doesn't take me forward.

That reality is:

1. I have no relationships and it turns out I also have no way to build them and my emotional side is almost like psychotic with how crazy it's gone about all this.
2. I have a motivation issue, very hard to get down to work. It seems very tiring to even try. It is very hard to get my brain to load up the dopamine or whatever it needs for that.

2) is especially upsetting because after 1) failed I decided to try and get work to be functional again at least in that area of life, but it turned out to be like this...

Luckily I'm not getting told that. I live alone, and I always hid all this from family members. I'm sorry if you were told such criticism.

I used to have bankable skills too that I actually did develop when I chose to go into isolation from people a long time ago. But then I did not yet have this motivation issue as much as now.

I have no idea how I realign the two things listed above.

OK just want to be sure I'm clear enough about expressing what my issue is - I'm not looking for validation or laudation of me. I'm looking for close friendship and romantic relationship with affection.

I don't get the idea on waiting for others to choose for me lol (sorry but I really don't get that).

I'm glad your life is being sorted out! Good luck & enjoy.

Unfortunately no, I can't live it to the fullness of it. I wanted that but see my two problems above.

I've been doing some serious reading about alexithymia since yesterday evening when I accidentally stumbled on an article that shocked me with how accurate some of the stuff was in it. Since then I've read Sifneos's original paper too (he coined this term originally), and that shocked me even more. And other writings... Maybe this is actually something useful finally... It's actually given me some positivity about some relationship stuff despite some pessimistic sounding prognoses in those papers (not all of it was pessimistic). It made me see my role in some issues better. (Along with other people's roles too, of course.) That helps and I started feeling better about some reactions of some people too. And the chat today with some members was very good too - thank you all again for that!

OK if anyone still remembers this lol idk.. ...... Then the answer to what all this was - it was a suicidal state.

And I had it because I got more emotional than usual, because I tried a BCP (yes birth control pill). Those often make me too emotional.

But of course, it was good for showing me what bad emotions I have underneath the detachment and my trying to find constructive solutions by default.

Rereading some posts, I had to laugh at the one that mentioned I seem to have many ANTs / automatic negative thoughts.

Yeah the BCP made them conscious and allowed them verbalisation. I repress that side by default and I find ANTs ridiculous by default.

But yeah well it showed me how suicidal and low on resources I was underneath trying to intellectualise away everything by default.

I still am low on resources...but not suicidal usually except when under severe enough stress which does happen

...

I am also seemingly still in the same bad place. I am still just, sleep, eat, try to work, failing to do so, stress, stress, stress, pressure increasing, I lose sleep, trying to work and not sleeping, then bad emotions come out, I try to process them to feel positivity finally, then I rest from the strain of all that, and then I'm able to start working. Then I catch up on lost sleep then cycle restarts.

No time to go outside, to do anything fun, I lost all friends, that friend too that I spoke of in the thread earlier. Etc

Well that's that. The one thing where I have progress is I have more emotions by default now. Too many tbh even without BCP, idk if it's entirely progress lol... My only hope is that it is

(Hey my emotions are close enough to the surface / to awareness now that I could feel myself protest to how I said I find ANTs ridiculous. Invalidating myself, ha.)

I sometimes think this with regard to escaping my situation.

What is your situation like?

Thank you for this post.