[venusss]

Bit strugglin' lately. Yeah, just when I thought I got it all figured out. I guess punishment from existialist gods

So it makes me wonder if one can really get better from their - as I call it - "quirks", or one just learns to deal better and gets used to that strange state of mind... I keep reminding myself how A luta e alegria (struggle is a joy).

what has your experience been?

[Open Eyes]

Honestly, bit struggling lately too. I hear you, I could say the same, just when I think I am all the wiser, I have yet another eruption of confusion and dismay. Well, part of it is perhaps life and how it just changes us as we live through it. And another part Venus is that as we do go through life, we are constantly learning and have to adjust our perceptions and in that we change a little, learn a little, and grow a little.

I just saw the movie with Julia Roberts, Eat, Pray, Love and as I was watching it I thought, gee maybe I should go to India and learn how to clear my mind too. I had to laugh because her chattyness and confusion and struggle to just be able to empty her mind is a good charector portrayal of myself. And I think I should see if I can watch that movie again and give it more thought because there were some really good messages in it. And it also reminded me of when I truely was exhausted dealing with a lot of loss and I did fall apart and I would have liked to have been in that kind of atmosphere where I could learn some skills that would have been much more helpful than where I did get, well, not the right help I needed.

I sure can say I was never perfect, I tried very hard to do my best to adjust. And your quote had really struck me when I first read it, because I did try to adjust to a profoundly sick society and it didn't make me healthy. Oh yeah, I had figured out the issues of others and always felt I had to do my best to accept these issues and work around them. I truely thought I faired well, but I didn't fair well, it did effect me without my knowing it.

The one thing I can say is that you have to figure out what your own gifts are Venus, and some of it is most definitely going to be genetic, none of us can escape that. And also becoming aware of our own personal weaknesses and making efforts to do our best to learn ways to overcome these weaknesses can be very helpful. I would want that if I was to go back in time to being your age. I will tell you that as much you know now, your going to learn more, see things differently and your going to change a bit, that is what life does to everyone. Your not set in stone, no one is really set in stone all any of us can do is listen to who we are and really try to be ourselves and not fall into unreasonable expectations of what any society thinks we should be. Because the reality that I have seen is the expectations of society changes, it has to in order to market something new.

Keep trying, make sure your not hard on yourself, we all have a tendency to do that.

Open Eyes

[beauflow]

Idk venus Halley :-| i like your question in your thread thou. I keep thinking it will get better but idk seems like the times it does i get slapped back down or when it's good times i'm awaitin the slap . . . Idk i'm not on meds and idk if those would help. I sort of fear both ways like meds help with my chaos in my head then i see me as a failure. If meds don't help with the chaos in my head well i just took Crap that could make my body worse :-| Blah. I'm interested what others have to say. I would like to know.

Open eyes you do have a point nothing is set in stone too

[splitimage]

I think for me it's a combination. I just had reason yesterday to decide to back up my on-line journal from another site to my hard drive, when I realized that I'd be devastated if anything ever happenned to my posts. So I copied it into a word doc. and saved it (685 pages - I'm long winded). I was glancing through it as I copied it and realized some things. I've been keeping the journal since 2003. In some ways things were way better, and in some things were way wosre back then than they are 9 years later.

I noticed that in a lot of areas my life has improved immensely. I'm no longer cutting. I'm a lot better at dealing with my emotions. I'm not suffering from the same degree of PTSD symptoms. I'm not trapped in the endless hell of relapsing and getting sober, rinse, repeat. In general I'd say I'm happier than I was.

I noticed that in some ways my reactions to things are very much the same - when I get overwhelmed, I shut down and procrastinate. One of the ways in which this manifests itself is the state of my apartment. I'm naturally a slob at the best of times, but when I get depressed, it really deteriorates fast. I have posts from 2003 saying how I've let my apartment get out of control again & how I have to spend the weekend cleaning. I have posts in 2011 saying the same thing. In fact I'm dedicating this week to cleaning.

And with other things I've gotten better at accepting this is just the situation and acknowledging that it won't change so I can just deal with it. My relationship with my brother falls into this category.

I do however have concrete evidence that things can get better with a lot of hard work.

splitimage

[venusss]

but do we "feel" better or is that mere damage control... I guess in coming at peace with our quirks... we may end up feeling better....

In a way I got comfortable in very wide range of emotions. There are times I feel horribly depressed, but "alright". I can function and I can soak in experiences even being so low... and then I find myself enjoying it retrospectivelly.

But I am not sure I am "better" when it comes to the symptoms... I just cope better for sure... and I guess the coping prevents me feeling bad about the damage that I would create if I did not react the way I do, but let my emotions rule me...

[sabby]

This is a really good thread and question. We all have quirks about us. I think back to who I was 10-15 years ago and the quirks I had then, never mind quirks, the dysfunction I had then and how I was tangled in it all.

I had a chip on my shoulder at least a mile long and I dared anyone to try to knock it off. Beware though, I had sharp teeth and claws and many felt them.

In 2001, I was facing a possible illness that would have changed my life forever. I was going for test after test, taking 18 pills in the morning and 14 pills at night. It scared the crap outta me. But what it really did was take me out of the "angry at the world" stage and opened my eyes to who I was. I did not like me at all!! I was nasty, I was sullen, I was angry beyond angry, I was mean and rotten, I had a biting tongue and I had no compassion for others. Not a pretty sight from my angle.

I realized that the person I was behaving like was not the person I truly was inside. From there, I made a list of things I wanted to change about me and things that I wanted to do to help make my life and behavior better. I would look at the list everyday and either add to it or detract from it and I would try to organize it by priority. It was not easy to do.

I picked one thing at a time that I thought I needed to work on and did just that. When I felt I had made good headway on that one thing, I would go back to the list and pick another thing I needed to do. I gave myself permission to take the time I needed to fix myself. There was no time limit. A few months later I decided to make a new list from the old list. I was quite surprised to find how much work I had actually accomplished. I reviewed where I was, considered if I needed to continue on things I had started or if I felt comfortable where I had gone with it. Then I made my new list.

Some quirks about me, I have left alone. I think they make me unique and different and those quirks are not harmfull to others. While I believe I have succeeded at becoming a person I am proud of and who is not angry at life anymore, I'm always tweeking my list and rededicating myself to those changes I've made and looking forward to the next change that I'll work on.

I guess what I'm trying to say in my long winded way is that if the quirks about you bother you, then maybe it's time to evaluate them and consider what you can do to change them. If you are comfortable with the quirks and they are not hurting others, then you can leave them be if that's what you want. It's all just a personal voyage and you are the captain!

[Open Eyes]

Quirky ways, ok, have you made a list of what you feel these ways are?
Do you put unreasonable expectations on yourself? Often some people do that because of the way they were raised, some parents expect certain things from their children and they actually think that they are helping their children and they are not, they actually push too hard, and it doesn't mean they don't love you or that you cant love them. Just sometimes they can put their children on these pedestals and not realize that it can lead to unrealistic expectations for the child, which can lead to them being really self critical, or too forceful with themselves, pushing too hard to continue some similiar expectation.
I have actually seen that happen a lot and parents are so unaware they are creating that difficulty in their child.

And you have to determine that for yourself, not for anyone here or anywhere else, but really think about that for yourself. And sometimes the reaction to that parental need for some kind of perfection can also lead to a desire to lash out and do the opposite, and yet at the same time, there is that hidden doubt. But that is something you have to find out, and it has nothing to do with wether or not you think your parents loved you.

As much as I do love my own parents, they definitely made mistakes, not really on purpose but there was a lack.

A wide range of emotions can be in person with a lot of passion, perhaps too much passion that needs to be more structured, that takes time and patience and experience.

The fact that you question yourself, that is pretty normal, all human beings spend a great deal of time trying to understand themselves and as life comes at all of us we are constantly being challenged, and it sure isn't always what we expect. No, life doesn't work that way. And at your age that really is a time when you truely begin to think about the organized structure you have known, like high school, college, grad school and then there is a big vast world. And that is a big change and the average youth has that time period for let me get a little crazy and test the borders a bit, so to speak. And some of that is actually driven by those wonderful hormones that we always seem to forget are there. And never underestimate the effect that hormones have on the human psychie.

And remember that because there will be a time in your life when you begin to level out a bit and you will look back and think to yourself, oh my, what on earth was I thinking? Well, you were not thinking all the time but acting on hormones, those tricky hormones they are.

Be good to yourself, and allow yourself some space for thought and really sit with yourself and recognize that what your feeling is a part of life, different stages of life and even those wonderful hormonal levels that are going to be changing throughout your life.
And by the way try to track your personal cycle and along with that track your emotions, very important.

Open Eyes

[lad007]

sabby
your post was so powerful to me. I think I have accepted what I cannot change-the bp, and learned that I can work on the things that I can change. It is refreshing that you take responsibility for your own behavior, and mental health.

[Willcat]

Some of my 'quirks' are still petty much the same, but I can better manage the effect they have on my emotional life. Learning CBT skills and having a Zen practice helps me reduce my MI symptoms that the psych med's don't treat.