Awareness

That picture reminds me of the "peanut butter jelly time" song. Oh god! I'll be singing it for weeks!

That is all you need. If you can identify the trigger when it is the trigger, you can make yourself take your finger off the trigger. It will be hard to do that at first, both to identify the trigger when it is "there", in the moment, but practice makes perfect

Why care why? As my stepmother rather callously put it, "it's not their fault, their mother fed them too many corn flakes as a child!", meaning that whatever initially was the reason, living in the here and now has to have its own reasons. X has to be your problem and Y your response; you're responsible for your actions; whether you get angry or not, that's up to you and what you want but your actions are totally yours, when you are angry you can choose to count to a zillion, walk away, punch someone in the face, smash your fist through a wall, yell and scream; what you "do" is yours, always.

So, do we have telly? I can't see the view counts from my phone, so I don't know how popular the "what's your favorite tv show" thread was where I said mine: DIRTGIRLWORLD. (Please do not confuse with "dirty girl" sites, that's a whole nuther ball o' wax, or should I say whacks.) It's on in the UK (incl Canada), comes from Australia, and on SPROUT TV in the US. KazzaX, wait till you see the slugs a la Marilyn Monroe. These people are truly nuts! There are some episode fragments on you tube, just search (not jellies). It's a show about ecology, but it's very psychologically oriented, I think. There's disappointment, frustration, confusion, fear, challenges, hope, losing your home, wishes getting fulfilled, friends helping, friends caring, all in 12 minutes - it's a lot like PC, only with a house band - 2, actually: a slightly off-tune mixed insect orchestra, and an awesome chicken rockabilly band... please check your local listings.

In my early therapy, we did quite a bit of dreamwork to help me figure out stuff. Now, not so much. My issues have become more accessible to my conscious mind so we can just use that. Have you done much work with dreams?

KazzaX, you sound like you have tried really hard using many ideas to help yourself. You say you looked into doing hypnosis but for depression and so didn't follow up with it. But I think it might be able to help you with making some connections your conscious mind is blocking you from doing. I have never tried it, but like dreams, it is a way of accessing the subconscious.

You mentioned you had a CBT therapist at one time. Is this the only type of therapist you have had? If so, for the next one, you might consider trying what is called an insight-oriented therapist. These often have a psychodynamic orientation. (My T is insight-oriented but is humanist, so psychodynamic is not the only type of therapist that is insight-oriented.) Also, I think having a therapist who is willing to "go deep" would be important for gaining insight. So if you look for another therapist, you could ask them if they do "depth work" and are "insight-oriented" when you are screening them on the phone.

I don't know of the origin of this for you, but something about it makes me think that it might be chemical. Have you ever tried medications to help with the anhedonia? (You said you had tried some meds but didn't say what symptoms you were targeting.) A few years ago I took a medication for anxiety called Buspar. It did not help my anxiety at all, but it increased my pleasure and enjoyment of things in life. Very specific things, namely sensory experiences. Eating a caesar salad or a strawberry could be an almost orgasmic experience. No joke. Or seeing the early morning, rosy glow on the big mountain that dominates the local landscape. Or one day I saw a powder blue Vespa parked by an empty lot next to some dandelions and yellowed weeds. Still remember that. Intense pleasure. I could give many other examples.

My point with all that is that the way our brain works can be altered by taking various medications, and pleasure is one thing that can be increased by certain medications. (After about 4-5 months, the intense pleasurable experiences from that med were gone. Darn.) So you might want to consult with a psychiatrist about the anhedonia and see if he/she can suggest anything. Sometimes the way we are can't be completely explained by looking into our past experiences. It's part of our physiology too. You may find that insurance does cover your visits to a psychiatrist, even if therapy is not covered. This is the case with my insurance. For pleasure, having more dopamine often helps (i.e. typical serotonin type meds like SSRIs will probably not be the ticket for anhedonia).

"In my early therapy, we did quite a bit of dreamwork to help me figure out stuff. Now, not so much. My issues have become more accessible to my conscious mind so we can just use that. Have you done much work with dreams?"

Sort of. Well the psychotherapist I used to have used to ask me about dreams every now and then but my dreams were just about the stuff I spoke about in therapy already. So it wasn't new information. I have been having some shockers of dreams recently though! Very vile, disgusting, and I wake up feeling all gross. Leeches and zombies and sexual predators, oh my! I have a site that I go to to look up the dream meanings and all this is the stuff I covered in therapy. Its still interesting though because originally I didn't think that dreams were of any significance, but they certainly do mirror my waking thoughts!

"KazzaX, you sound like you have tried really hard using many ideas to help yourself. You say you looked into doing hypnosis but for depression and so didn't follow up with it. But I think it might be able to help you with making some connections your conscious mind is blocking you from doing. I have never tried it, but like dreams, it is a way of accessing the subconscious."

Yes I think this is a good idea. Another poster mentioned it too - I could sort of use it as a tool to get information on things that are blocking me, sort of use it for a specific purpose (eg. how did I feel when I first got the urge to hurt an animal, etc). I'm going to follow this up when I go to the GP next, which will be very soon.

"You mentioned you had a CBT therapist at one time. Is this the only type of therapist you have had? If so, for the next one, you might consider trying what is called an insight-oriented therapist. These often have a psychodynamic orientation. (My T is insight-oriented but is humanist, so psychodynamic is not the only type of therapist that is insight-oriented.) Also, I think having a therapist who is willing to "go deep" would be important for gaining insight. So if you look for another therapist, you could ask them if they do "depth work" and are "insight-oriented" when you are screening them on the phone."

That is a good idea. Maybe when I get my next free sessions I could try this sort of thing instead of just "psychotherapy" - sort of be a bit specific. Good idea! Depth work especially, I think that would be very good. I had a psychotherapist but I have no idea what kind of therapy she did - I read that most psychotherapists take a bit of this and a bit of that from all the different types and sort of have their own box of tricks. But I will definitely be specific the next time around! Thanks for your ideas here - this will come in very handy!

"I don't know of the origin of this for you, but something about it makes me think that it might be chemical. Have you ever tried medications to help with the anhedonia? "

Yes, I have been on every antidepressant on the market here in Australia, and combinations thereof. And I have also combined them all with mood stabilizers and antipsychotics too. Well not me but the psychiatrist - she was very good. But I think it comes down to this: if you have a thorn in your foot, medication isn't going to make it go away - you have to get rid of the thorn! That is probably the reason why no medications worked. Oh well actually I am on a combo at the moment that, although it does nothing for the depression, it helps with the impulsive aggression a lot, it is very good for that. The anhedonia (I have been told many times) is a result of the depression, so to get rid of it I have to get rid of, or lessen, the depression. So it sucks when to get rid of the depression you are supposed to "do one thing you enjoy every day", but you can't because of the depression (anhedonia)!! Vicious cycle.


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"That is all you need. If you can identify the trigger when it is the trigger, you can make yourself take your finger off the trigger. It will be hard to do that at first, both to identify the trigger when it is "there", in the moment, but practice makes perfect

Why care why? As my stepmother rather callously put it, "it's not their fault, their mother fed them too many corn flakes as a child!", meaning that whatever initially was the reason, living in the here and now has to have its own reasons. X has to be your problem and Y your response; you're responsible for your actions; whether you get angry or not, that's up to you and what you want but your actions are totally yours, when you are angry you can choose to count to a zillion, walk away, punch someone in the face, smash your fist through a wall, yell and scream; what you "do" is yours, always.[/quote]

Yep, this is what I do already. I've worked like this my entire life, so I am pretty good at it. But it lead to my breakdown and, like a previous poster suggested, it's not a good idea if I went back to this modality of thinking for that reason.

I guess its like the thorn in the foot thing again. I can choose to ignore the thorn, I can choose to react in a healthy fashion when I feel the pain from the thorn, but the bottom line is the thorn is THERE and I need to get rid of it in order to heal that wound, or its going to fester and get infected and get much much worse. I try to think of it in this thorn fashion because its the only way I can really comprehend matters like this.. lol.

Heya Hankster,

Sounds like a good show. I can't believe I haven't heard of it and its from Australia (where i live)! I will definitely look it up, thankyou. It sounds like a good thing to watch.

I always had a problem with going to sleep at night. I think I might have worked out why it is. I attempted to do the "step back and observe your thinking" thing the last few times and I noticed a pattern. I lie there and think horrible things about my dad and I get all revved up and that is why I can't sleep. And the things I think about him are completely out of proportion - he really didn't do anything all that bad, but the things I think about him are horrible! Like what I would say to him on his deathbed (he is getting a lot older these days) to put the boot in. And the "an eye for an eye" thing - sort of like "you destroyed my life and now it's time for me to destroy yours" type thing. And I think of all these methods to do so, and what his reaction would be, and I get all revved up, etc.

So I thought "ok, then lets not think about him", but I find I am unable to turn it off. This is all stuff I spoke about in therapy for the 2.5 years so talking about it won't resolve it. If anything, it escalates it (because I didn't think these things before i went to therapy). And journalling doesn't help because I've been doing that since I was 9.

So does anyone out there know how I can turn these unwanted thoughts of??

I don't know if this will help you or not, this is what I am hearing from your post...You stated, You got to know what exactly is broken before you can fix it! I think that is true although you don't need to know how it broke! Heck with X just work on Y.

Yeah that could be a better (and MUCH easier) way to look at things. Concentrate on managing the Y. That's what I have always done but maybe I need to think up some different ideas as to what to do when Y occurs. The violence one will have to stay the same (isolate myself until I run out of steam) but the others could use a good bit of change. I will get thinking on this one! thanks

Man! I'd only ever seen the peanut butter jelly time banana on The Family Guy. Checked it out on you-tube. CLEARLY this is a rip-off! 10,000 more widda bat you-tube videos to go.. now break it downnn... love it! thanks! I really do not get out enough, even inside...