Judy2

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i'm curious about this concept....maybe a little wary of it, though. is your awareness of trauma meant to justify and/or explain present dysfunctions/suffering? how does the awareness of trauma help reduce suffering, in your opinion? or is that not even the goal? just trying to understand:) i have a book on trauma and its impact on attachment styles sitting on my nightstand and plan to read it as soon as i am done with my exams this summer.

i've been contemplating the topic of happiness and while there's been an increase in my baseline level of happiness, generally (but also practically) speaking, i still see some obstacles that i would like to discuss with you. i mean, even when life is good or when we see some improvements, we can still worry about the future, what may go wrong, what may be taken away, what may fail....and if we followed through with that logic, it could technically mean that we can never be happy because there is always a chance that something will go wrong. how do you free yourself from this anxiety? just detach completely? but it's also naive to say that our happiness as human beings isn't tied to certain conditions (health, social bonds, etc.).

i think i've even noticed an increase in happiness over the last couple of weeks - which is why it got me thinking more about those moments that still feel 'off'. parents: i hide vulnerable feelings from them most of the time because showing them can lead to dynamics that only produce more uncomfortable feelings. friends: mixed. sometimes, i feel comfortable expressing both honest joy/excitement and honest fear/frustration/you name it. other times, not so much. maybe it depends on how superficial those emotions are and how safe i feel in that moment. i think it worked a little differently for me, but i see what you mean:)

yes, i remember. i thought of that recently because there's a situation where i considered implementing your advice.

healthy bmi.

it's okay that i'm sad. maybe it's necessary.

i feel so sad now, and i don't even know why.

now i wanna cry....these pictures have so much to do with how i see myself, deep down, and i'm kind of sad that no one else ever saw me like that, or took care of me when i was going through that. i probably would have felt triggered af if someone had been there to talk to me during that time, but still. it kind of sucks knowing i'm the only one who saw me go through every minuscule detail of that experience, and bystanders didn't even know half the story. they saw how skinny i was with clothes on, but they never saw me naked and from every angle, the way i wanted them to, maybe. i took thousands of pictures during that time.

eventually, i got one random bruise in my face, i didn't know where from. and i remember having a nosebleed. and barely having the energy to get up to use the bathroom, or open doors.

now's the time of the year again when my photos app keeps showing me pictures from six years ago, when i was at my lowest weight. june and july were the lowest. i briefly look, then click away, but i still feel a desire to share these pictures with someone, cause that time was intense and i went through it all on my own.

a friend also tells me i have complex trauma. my parents wouldn't call it trauma but they know about mental health struggles. other friends also know. doesn't everybody have trauma,though? maybe i misunderstood your question.

that's confusing though, because we never really stop becoming. being is becoming. but it's still very easy to forget to be in the middle of it.

i'm working on it. i'd forgotten about it but it's true. always being busy/productive is tempting because i'm not enough yet, so at least i want to feel like i could become enough. maybe i should slow down a little and allow myself to be more.

yes of course:)

do you think trauma needs to be remembered to be cured? i have a somewhat opposite belief. some people confabulate elaborate traumatic stories only to maintain/justify their present dysfunctions. personally, i do get the appeal. in a sense, it would make things very easy to finally find out something bad happened when i was a toddler or whatever. but in the end, i'd only use that to justify why i "have to" be unwell now. maybe remembering can be helpful for some people, but i don't think healing hinges upon it.

i think the flipside is i can feel myself getting a little too delusional when i'm happy, and that feels wrong. i can be very naive and stupid. negative thoughts are hard to cope with, yes, but apparently, so are happy thoughts?

@Ziran yes i probably am but i don't remember any traumatic events. what does that have to do with the spontaneity question? it's not like i have ocd and clean all the time, i don't. it was just the first thing that came to mind. i do do spontaneous things. (:

that sounds good, though. still a little abstract, but i will keep that in mind and try to implement it. i will check out the video, too.

i think unfortunately the human mind quickly forgets about these things, and then it's back to groundhog day.

i spontaneously mopped the floor just now, if that counts:) yesterday, i participated in a sports event. the event itself was planned, but i would suppose within that context i still made a lot of spontaneous micro-decisions...all the way from riding in the car with strangers to crawling up muddy hills and sliding down into water. mopping the floor felt neutral to positive. participating in the event felt overwhelming, fun, but also stressful.

life is an open-ended story, though. shocker, i know.

@gettoefl thoughts are uncontrollable though, right? it's just that we think we control them, which is where all the trouble begins (?)