Becoming human

[Mysticalsoul]

Hello fellow seekers of self actualisation,  

I am finally making a commitment to further change my life.  

 

In the last years I have made a lot of progress, but especially during the pandemic I feel like I have regressed some of this progress. Thus I am finally making the commitment to change my self. Building habits and showing myself here.  

What I commit to:

- Regular updates to this journal.  

- Listening to my self Help books again (I have a lot of audio books)  

- Actually following the advice in these audio books  

- Talk to people! Expanding my social circle. Maybe someone here will be interested in friendship? message me or answer to this post.  

 

My path so far:

I grew up in an emotionally abusive home. My father expected me to be as cold as him and was never satisfied with my performance. At the same time my mother has been emotionally fragile and needed me to be her support to some degree. Unlike my sister who chose to rebel withdrew into myself and refused to treat myself as human.  

I was able to be kind to other but not to myself. I was driven to an unhealthy degree. And humour or simple joys were impossible to me. And I dearly wish people were able to help me before. But today I realise that even if people approached me by the time my self destructive behaviour developed they would have been unable to help me. I was set into one path and unable to see the truth that I needed to face my emotions and the bitter truth that I was unable to escape the abuse my father put me through until I hit rock bottom.  

And rock bottom I hit. many years later. By the time I moved out it took a few years of me not making any progress I realised I might have depression.  

Several time saying yes I need to help and then recanting to saying no that is not true I finally got help. Though it was my second therapist that finally go through to me. and only because I developed the willingness to put in the motional work myself.  

This is me just rambling on I will give a proper account of my path so far on a later point. this is just me letting things out.  

For those interested it was not depression but rather post traumatic stress syndrome. or maybe the complex variant with depression being secondary. at some point I even got diagnosed with narcissistic traits, though In my behaviour I was never exhibiting the stereotypical narcissistic behaviour.  

 

My major issues: (warning lots of unfiltered thoughts)

To this day I have major trouble forming emotional connections to people. In the past people were just "files" or concepts to me. I knew what I learned about them. knew which buttons to press. But forming a human to human connection was something complete foreign to me. and to this day I have trouble keeping connections. It is hard to me to find an interest in other people. Mostly because of my scars and my mostly negative experiences.

 

My mental health is still not where I would like it to be. I still feel big empty voids I try to fill with entertainment - though I catch myself more often in the act and recognize that my behaviour will not fill this void. The best way I can describe it is that during theses phases is that feelings become dull and nothing can bring me to feel joy again. It is the emotional equivalent of watching paint dry.

I am on a slow but sure way of improvement.

Professionally I am still in university. 10 years but I am almost complete with my degree. Sometimes it stings that I still have not completed my degree - but then I remember others don't have the burden of severe emotional trauma. And severe it has been. I had many years in which everything overwhelmed me. Be it light, sounds, smell - I had to retreat to my bed and sleep away the feeling of being overwhelmed by everything It took me many years to understand that the feeling came from within and had little to do with the present.

Still I had to deal with it and today I am mostly healthy.

I am just going to continue writing here fairly unfiltered because it helps me. And it helps me more than I realize it would because it gives me the feeling of common humanity. others have suffered as wel. Maybe not my exact situation but they understand that the suffering comes from within and cannot simply be erased by a "man up" or a evening of relaxation or any other consumer based approach of reckless indulgence.

I am so sick of people that are shallow and immature.

Luckily I don't have to be around those people. And I have cut many people out. Maybe too many since I am fairly isolated. But then again I am rather be alone than around toxic people who drag me down.

 

So yes I am seeking connections here. People who are trying to improve upon themselves. Who reflect upon themselves.

My current physical struggles include that I have seasonal allergies and that I am fairly weak to heat. so getting out of my dormitory can be hard because I have the choice of suffering because I am sleepy due to allergy medications and have reduced sneezing or that I sneeze a lot more. 

But that is just an excuse. One major issue is that my perfectionism wants me to do too much at once and thus I overload myself and fall back to the comfortable behaviour of not doing anything.

 

 

It is very good that I write these thoughts down because it helps me clarify some thoughts and find the lies I tell myself. for example the major issue is rather that I want to be understood but at the same time am still afraid of human contact. In one of my recent therapy sessions I have discovered that I had this giant expectations that others needed to be able to understand me tat they need to have gone through trauma and other stuff to be able to connect with me. but that is just putting on a burden on others to make connection impossible and thus reinforcing the safety of not being  able to be hurt by others. After all you cannot be hurt by others if you hurt yourself first?

well these kinds of thoughts are things I discuss in my therapy sessions and that are still hard to change in my overall life.

In the book Atomic habits by James Clear I have found a lot of advice that helps me build good habits. together with a new mindset of controlling the narrative of how I present myself is going to be a lot more productive at being a proper human.

Saying that I have some quirks due to my difficult childhood is ok and gives the others the necessary information. maybe even a point to relate to me. they don't need to have experience in depression and it also not necessary to wallow more in my pity and pain- in the present I decide who I want to be and I definitely want to be a lot more stable and happy. I don't need to hit them with a five ton anvil of all of my repressed information. It is neither helpful not giving them a chance to connect. I can give them a little snipped and just continue to give them little snippets once appropriate. I myself would not want to be overloaded in a casual conversation with all of the pain the other is facing

My purpose in life is not self flagellation by wallowing in my past. I can choose to be approachable and at least give others the chance to connect. A big part of my identity used to be the trauma. because I needed to and wanted to understand myself and the pain that is happening. but today this is not necessary any more. I just drawn back to the known. and that is misery. So I am slowly building the habit of telling myself that I am free.

 

 

So that was a lot of raw unfiltered thoughts. I may be able to to sort these thoughts at a later point.

 

 

[Mysticalsoul]

So far I have been fairly good at keeping up with actual talking to people.

I do some talking at my workplace (I am doing my thesis at university) involve them for quick chats - even add in some humour and complain about a few nuisances for my thesis for the sake of connecting to people. 

I introduce myself to people and so far it has been working. Still it feels weird to talk to people.

Another thing is that I am slowly getting conscious of what media I consume and that it is more of a distraction rather than an actual sense of curiosity. I do need some relaxation and maybe some light entertainment but being brutally honest helps me not demand senseless satisfaction which does not work. It won't give me instant pleasure.

I used to live for video games. But theses days I don't They feel the same for me. I see the various structures and bad writing - though the one thing I crave is making a living story through pen and paper gaming. And I still dread becoming a game master and having actual people that I make the collaborative story - so i delude myself be over preparing and making world building for the sake of worldbuilding

Yes I like world building and I really want to go into detail with some parts - but some parts are not important to play with the world

Choosing the iterative approach - thus playing a bit and refining as I go will be better for my sanity and for my players - because their action will shape the world as well.

 

Though my biggest concern is still my energy level I have limited energy each day. Thus I will not put needless pressure on myself. I will slowly improve myself.

Speaking of improving myself I will go to my Buddhistic meditation group and join them.

I am not 100% sure if all of their Buddhistic traditions fit me. But most do. I like the approach of seeking enlightenment. They are laymen Buddhists and thus no need to deny myself the laymen aspects of life. There are various Buddhist traditions or ways - but the diamond way seem to be roughly good fir me.

Anyway I will continue on my path. Chip away at my goals and become a human.

 

The becoming human thing:

What do I mean by that?

In the past I used to deny that I have needs and my identity was focused on denying that I was human. I was more akin to a robot. a puppeteer controlling this body - some kind of entity just controlling this body. 

I have long shifted away from this delusion. It was a safety mechanism. It was necessary in the past. Now i don't need ti.

I allowed me to survive without the need to feel human basic needs of connection, validation and many other things. albeit it was not perfect and let me stew in misery for many years.

I had to go through therapy and have lots of hard lessons to learn before I was able to let this go. But still to this day there are many things I have just never learned or incorporated. especially forming connections to others.

Going through this has taught me a deeper sense of empathy. I can relate to people that suffer. Because I did myself. My daily life used to be a nightmare. I had psychosomatic pain with no solution to ease the pain and unease. So anyone with pain I have something to relate to.

Anyone feeling lost I can relate to. Because I was lost for many years. and to a certain degree I am still lost. Just not as bad I was before.

 

Not that I am anywhere close to enlightenment - I don't think I need enlightenment - what I do need is peace of mind. And that is something that slowly improves.

 

 

 

[Opulence]

On 6/14/2022 at 10:22 PM, Mysticalsoul said:

I used to live for video games. But theses days I don't They feel the same for me. I see the various structures and bad writing - though the one thing I crave is making a living story through pen and paper gaming. And I still dread becoming a game master and having actual people that I make the collaborative story - so i delude myself be over preparing and making world building for the sake of worldbuilding

I'm trying to work on my video game addiction.