Kelley White

I like this, it goes with my theory we are wave-fields and not focal points....but I'm just a wee poet. HA! I think the thing I realized this morning was I have attempted to a detriment to control my emotions versus feeling them. (The contraction perhaps?) I watched Leo's Do Nothing mediation video and that juxtaposed with this video by Sherri Rosen ...all of a sudden it just hit me, I've been trying to figure out what to do by intellectualizing everything thinking my emotions were too much and monkey mind had to be controlled. My overthinking led me to be indecisive and over rationalize, justify, allow versus setting boundaries. If I had gone with my gut? I would have very likely been more assertive. Not trusting my feelings has actually harmed me more than it has hurt me. Shutting them down versus allowing them and finding more positive outlets... It was actually very liberating.

Someday Science and spirituality will learn to tango, but I think its going to take a bit more time to evolve there.

Now I am laughing pretty hard here @Isle of View since I fell into the trap of taking the trap test HAHAHAHA I even emailed it to my counselor just to drive the point home. HAHAHAHAHAHA @Laura, While I am laughing about it, I do think you make a positive point. There is a balance I think between focusing on the positive and the negative. Personally sometimes I can get mired in my own negative to the exclusion of seeing anything positive so the trap of the trap test is it could feel overwhelming or hopeless for some. There is a difference between reliving trauma to resolve it and rehearsing it which simply keeps you focused in that emotional state versus moving beyond it. It can be an interesting balance to find. That said, every now and again, it can take a brick to the head so to speak to face self defeating patterns so this can be a good tool for awareness of what to work on; exactly how I presented it to my counselor. Thank you for sharing it.

Hi @ IVONNE, I regret I did not respond to your thread earlier, I was moving. I guess my first question would be what is your morning routine?

@foninja, thank you for sharing. What kind of events usually trigger your stress this badly? Are they major, minor? Have they been building over time or are they immediate irritants? What kind of external circumstances not going your way seem to upset you and what is the prevailing emotion? Is it anger? Fear? I would recommend Dialectic Behavior Therapy there are numerous self help web sites and there is a section on mood regulation where when you get angry they will give you other options in that moment. This is a link to a not for profit site by a non licensed professional such as myself familiar with the approach... http://dbtselfhelp.com/html/emotion_regulation_handouts.html I wish you the best of luck with this and perhaps you can keep us posted on your progress?

Hey @Samuel karizan, I just wanted to check in with you and see how things were going for you? @Vlad Ropotica and @MartineF, thank you for your responses.

Hi @Cuzzo. So I am hearing you are making quite a bit of progress; that is really awesome. Okay, so I am curious? Are most of these bridges toxic people and your observation is you appear to have an inordinate amount of toxic people you are getting rid of as you grow? You felt wronged; you wanted to communicate your feelings is that correct? I take it they were less than receptive to listening and thus your frustration level built up? What does "Come back at them someway" mean? It sounds to me like she was inappropriate? Did you experience challenges confronting her initially when you first observed the behavior? What does "lose your cool" look like? How can you "make" her quit? Should, shouldn't, interesting words.... how would you feel without the should or shouldn't of the story? What if you should have gone about it that way? Is that possible? I don't know? I am asking. What do the women you are selecting to have relationships with all appear to have in common? What types of traits? Can you find your personal self defeating patterns? I get hung up on the right wrong thing. You know what I found myself asking me this morning? Is right or wrong a feeling or a thought construct? It feels painful? Frustrating? What does it really feel like? What can you change about whom you select that might lead to a happier feeling and fewer bridge burnings in the future? "...Acted like you did not care to save yourself the hurt..." how did that work out for you? I'm not being sarcastic but sincerely asking; text has no intonation and I just want to be clear. You state you were weak... what did you do that you perceive as weak? Is it possible you are depressed? You can be making positive changes and still suffer from depression. I also have found its not a linear process. Some days we do well, some days we seem to take a few steps back. It sounds to me from what you are saying, you push forward even though you have setbacks or you wouldn't be experiencing progress? Sometimes we can be really unkind to ourselves when we are depressed? What do you think? If you are generally liked and its been a rough few months is it just possible you are being a tad too tough on yourself? Again, I don't know, so I am asking.

I think you might find this helpful @step1.

I was guilty as charged of that very thing. I projected all of that emotion into the thought process of the other individual. I really have to say by direct experience I find this to be so true. Thank you for sharing.

@MartineF, thank you very much that is really kind of you. You made my morning @MartineF. Happy to "see" you again as well.

@Cuzzo, that's a very insightful comment on numerous levels.

@piotr, Thank you. I am glad you liked it. He introduced me to Pete Walker's books as well; I have the C-PTSD book. I have the Narcissism Abuse Recovery Course; it was his work and the work of Sam Vaknin (irony) and @Leo Gura that have been helping me with the same. I appreciate his sense of humor and the clarity he brings to what has amounted to decades of struggle and misdiagnosis. Really happy to hear you've been helped by his work as well.

@Elton, you re very welcome.

wait not long, your time will come love burns brighter then the sun When we can live and love as one? That work? @Nickfury7

Great thread; I see the validity in both processes; that said? I am coming more and more to embrace @ronzo1 's approach. I feel more zen and less monkey mind in my garden than anywhere else. Balance?

Great poem! I like it @Elton. Thank you for sharing.

@Emerald Wilkins, you are welcome.

@Natasha, thank you for the video. Awesome. I needed this. @The_Stubborn_One, thank you for asking this, great thread you began, at least it helped me. Thank you. @MartineF, Love your comment.

@Epiphany_Inspired, Hi! You asked for my thoughts, I will share them. No disrespect intended to @Henri, but I disagree with numerous aspects of his reasoning as a former domestic violence victim, a mother, a step parent, (who has navigated CPS and legal systems for numerous children for numerous matters) and a former law enforcement officer. Covert control, verbal abuse, all are still abuse and can and often do cause serious protracted emotional harm to the victim and to the children who may also be victims and are witnessing the covert control and verbal abuse. One of the first premises taught in dialectical behavioral therapy is that you cannot have effective interpersonal communication with someone who is incapable of effective interpersonal communication. What you have described as the behaviors manifested are huge red flags for someone who has issues that are not going to be resolved with rational logic and the same kindness than in a divorce where abuse; specifically covert abuse is not a factor. I highly encourage you to look at site related to covert control, covert narcissism, and become familiar with a different modality of thought very alien to yours or mine. I can't diagnose, you cannot diagnose, but a court sure can order a guardian to do a mental health assessment of both parents and both homes and come up with a great parenting plan which includes supervised visits, parenting classes, therapy, all sorts of creative resources so a child does not become the pawn of covert control once your ex no longer has direct access to you. There are even online programs that are very reasonably priced designed to assist you with interacting with your ex related to your child to ensure a clear trail of documentation for interactions and that interactions remain cordial and on point. I don't know how your last appointment went, and I would want more information to even begin to assist you with self inquiry. I agree with @Sarah_Flagg, its about finding the highest and best solution for you and for your child that will lead to the most stable and optimal mentally healthy environment for your child. There are pros and cons to different approaches; the first priority is being safe. Being safe is as much being safe from mental duress and emotional harm as it is physically safe; someone can impact your physical health with gas-lighting and or covert control. One of the best pieces of advise I consistently got in therapy was, take care of you first. Make you happy, if you are happy you will be happier mom and your kids will be happy. Ignore you...put everyone else first? You will burn out really quickly especially being chief cook and bottle washer. I've been there and done that and its exhausting. You are a human being with needs and if you deny those needs it will exacerbate your own mental health challenges. When I have been in situations such as yours, and I have been in more than one, I have had to take different courses of action based upon the totality of the circumstances and logical consequence responses to inappropriate conduct with firm boundaries; unfortunately this led to a no contact order as the other party chose to fail to respect boundaries and escalated with inappropriate illegal conduct. For me personally I try to take it by successive approximations sometimes I under-reacted, sometimes I over reacted, and I know the outcomes of either response can be damaging to the child(ren) involved as well as myself. There is no formula, no easy answers. I just finished a legal matter for someone where the child was essentially the pawn in a never ending war of the roses; the party I represented ironically once given the carrot of visitation upon completing reunification therapy lost interest in the child and blamed the child for the loss of interest. It was mystifying in once sense until I understood it was for him, never about the child but covertly controlling the mother and he was merely using me to do so by igniting my sense of injustice. In other words, he used a new situation to covertly control three people as he sat back and enjoyed the drama. Perhaps I am projecting my own negative experiences and fearing that you may be minimizing or that you are in a worse situation that you are? I don't know. Its why I'm asking. That said? My experience there is no happy ending where two divorced parents co parenting when one of them is into covert control and abusive. Per programs that work with abusers? Alcohol is not the issue, even if they work AA, they will still be abusive. They have to understand that they abuse due to whatever root cause and be willing to really work on that issue and the data on this is not optimistic for successful lasting change. I am proud of you for having the courage to get out. I am proud of you for being strong and protecting your child the best you can with the mental ability you have to work with. I understand what it is like to be there. I empathize greatly with your desire to not be a victim, as you know you are being victimized, the frustration of the mental consistency and not being able to maintain it; I can so empathize with all of it. I recommend trauma therapy for you and for your child with someone certified in PTSD, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy is awesome, so is Gestalt. Its one thing to take responsibility for what we allowed, but if someone passed us the Kool aide and said "hey, its great, drink, and fooled us?" Its pretty reasonable per the therapists I've been seeing to be angry, to acknowledge one was victimized, and take steps to ensure you won't be a victim again to that individual. I think @Henri 's advice is amazing advice when people can be rational and reasonable because both of them want to be. It takes two for that tango. I wish you the best of luck what ever you decide to do, and hope that it works out positively for you and your child.

I agree with @Ayla advice about looking into NPD. There are two schools of recovery based upon recovering from NPD abuse and one is rather controversial. I found there is a balance between understanding and feeling the rage of being exploited and not denying the rage versus remaining stuck or mired in a focused hatred. One releases you from the voodoo zombie witch doctor grip versus keeping you still focused on the narc. I find with my challenge saying no or setting limits this approach works better.

I have really found this truthful as well. @Emerald Wilkins

@Emerald Wilkins, that is really a succinct truth. Well stated.

Hi @Ross, nice to meet you. Humiliation is a huge challenge to deal with. I would like to offer this article as a baseline, I think it offers some great information and makes sure we are all working from the same understanding of what humiliation is and how it can impact us as well as tools we can use to get beyond humiliation and often shame. http://www.emotionalcompetency.com/humiliation.htm From my own direct experience, my observation is I feel humiliated when I either fear or believe there may be a facet of truth attached to the humiliating event. That is when I do very focused self inquiry on what is triggering those emotions and get to the core causes. For example; my oldest son murdered a young women in a high profile murder case which was followed heavily in local city media and somewhat in national media. It was a humiliating experience which morphed into a shameful experience. I then went through years of reflection, self inquiry, creating new stories around all of the situation; much of the time just so I could cope with the surreal reality which was, and still is, my reality on one level. Its not as if there is a guide book for what to do when... ...and in much of the public's view if you are the parent? You have the responsibility; particularly if your child is not of legal age at the time of the crime. Total strangers with no idea of who I was, what I had been through, what my child had been through, what had actually occurred had nothing but time and media attention, books, false facts, with which to create their own stories. There were actually people so insensitive as to publicly humiliate and blame the parents of the victim, as though they themselves were somehow culpable. This type of coverage continued for years. The guilt, the shame I felt? Crippling. How does one atone for that? Overcome THAT? It seemed so huge to me I thought my life was over. I was the parent. I was responsible. I deconstructed the stories. I still deconstruct the stories. I realize they are fabrications to understand the inexplicable. The horrifically paradoxical reality that my baby, did this thing I cannot even wrap my head around, and now I can still see him as a thirty year old man and not see that being who could have done what I read was done. Trying to fathom what was done is as mind bending for me as trying to wrap one's head around infinity as a concrete concept. Every time I rid myself of one story, a new one arises and I deconstruct the fallacies of that story and live with what is and who I am in the now versus the who I was that did whatever in the past. Once I could distinguish between the past me and the now me and that they were different? I could begin to let go. I could see the good things I did as well as the bad things versus before being focused only upon the negative or the shameful things I perceived I did and feared was the sum of who I was. Suddenly it was okay to say I was foolish and made poor choices and take responsibility because that was the old story and the old person. The person I am now would based upon those past experiences would make different choices in the now. The stories served to understand "the why" long enough to modify the patterns of "my how." I could then use that to help be of service to others which was very healing. I could understand perfection was a lie, that I was a work in progress and then I found people who could embrace my bugs as features. I gave myself and I received radical acceptance for inherent worth irrespective of utility. I came to understand that even though my son was seventeen at the time of the crime, he made choices that were his, and I cannot take responsibility for his choices or actions. I came to understand I was not the only one involved, I had no control, and to assume ownership really implied martyrdom which was challenging to hear and accept. I had to see the passive aggressive means I used to cope during that time of dysfunction and rather than beat myself up, forgive myself and begin to make corrections without internal value judgements. I examined how distrustful the event made me of people, and how cynical it made me, how needy and easy to manipulate it also made me. I detached, I asked myself, If this had happened to a friend of mine versus me what compassion would I be giving them I do not give me? Then I began examining self loathing and childhood trauma; rage, really digging into painful icky emotions and challenging self actualization work. I face the pain,the fear, whatever it is causing me the anxiety. Sometimes I may limit what I face to three or four huge fears at a time; I may not talk openly about all of them anymore; but I face those fears head on until I know they can't own me. Its been 13 years now; I still have good days and bad. I share this with you not to put the focus on me, as much as to say I understand humiliation and shame, I know how devastating they can be, this is how I have fought to overcome it. Its a process, it takes facing versus avoiding emotion, and I find being creative in anyway as an outlet really helps in releasing those emotions we tend to store in the body for years from humiliating events. If I can do anything today it is to impart to you that there is hope and a way past it; love yourself, be kind, be gentle to you.

@DrMatthewsausage, Hi! You are very welcome. Thank you for pondering it and responding. @Philip, some great tools offered in your comments. I also liked Leo's video on addiction; i personally used the tool of just sitting with the desire and not acting upon it, or substituting a healthier action for the self defeating or self harming action. I have found it effective and powerful. I also find having a shitability buddy is another great tool. Someone who you can draw upon for a reality check when you think you might not be capable of just sitting with craving. Sometimes just pausing for the reality check is enough to get you through the moment. I wish you the best in working on this.

Hi! @DrMatthewsausage, thank you for sharing and having the courage to tackle this issue. I have dealt with both anorexia and at one point during my life got up to 185 pounds eating for comfort. I have family members that really struggle with chronic overeating. Each has their own emotional reasons for doing so. I really agree with what many have said here already, will power is not always the sole issue. I agree that therapy and or a nutritionist could be very helpful for you at this juncture. Can you identify or bring into your awareness what emotions you are experiencing when you tend to gravitate towards food to feel better? What could you do to self soothe during those times that does not involve food? What sort of internal reward system can you set up, or even external reward system to help you create and meet small goals? I also agree with the questions posed about what types of foods are you gravitating towards? Is it a healthy or an unhealthy craving thing? Do you feel the sensation of satiation? (being full) How does your body feel when you eat beyond when you are satiated? Is it really pleasant? How do you feel after you have over eaten? I really like Dialectic Behavioral Therapy for issues like this because it gives you clear concrete tools in the moment you experience the desire to engage in whatever the addictive conduct is...in this case eating. If you have an oops, remember its not the end of the world unless you camp out there. Very rarely is lasting change a linear process. I also loved Susan Powers if you can still find any of her older books. She started out over 200 pounds and chronically overeating and she began her weight loss plan by walking down her sidewalk with one of her kids on her hip. Eventually she made it down the block, a year later she was walking miles a day. She changed what she ate and worried less about the quantity, increased her activity level, and as a result was healthier, converted fat to muscle, and eventually lost all the weight and with successive approximations made significant lasting lifestyle changes. I personally found success by looking at food as fuel. I make my own fruit smoothies, drink lots of water, don't buy the sugar or the processed foods, I do everything I can to set myself up for success and surround myself with people who will support those positive lifestyle changes. You are here, you are asking for ideas, you recognize the problem. That is a huge success right there. Thank you for being here, thank you for being courageous enough to not quit on you. I hope that some of the responses here can be an encouragement to you to keep going. Best wishes. Kelley