[sleepingbeauty]

lately ive been doing pretty good on the mental stuff. depression virtually gone, anxiety high but not keeping me from reaching my goals, i still have DR just as bad but ive accepted it as a handicap and work around it. i recently sold my car (i compulsively bought this huge mercury marque a few months ago but the damn thing was a lemon and i couldnt afford the insurance).

yesterday i see this old bomb for sale and since i love old cars i just had to have it even though i knew i couldnt. i drew out the money and called the lady this morning to look at it. i was all prepared to buy this thing i would have bought it without even looking it over luckily my mom was with me. she was disgusted. all the valves were shot the engine looked like the ******** it would take at least another 5 grand to get it in any shape for driving. but even so i didnt care i still wanted it and me and my mom got into this huge fight. long story short i ended up walking home in a full blown jibberish crying fit. i blamed everything on her. but the heart of the problem was my insatiable compulsiveness.

if i see something i want i HAVE to have it. even if it takes me cutting off a finger or a toe.. im gonna get it. its like this raging inferno that can only be quenched by the object i desire. it doesnt even matter if i need it or not. i buy so much crap that i dont need the only reason im not in financial trouble is because i buy just that. CRAP. cheap garbage. salvation army junk. dead people clothes. crap. but i cant stop myself. all this junk piles up in bags i dont even do anything with it once i have it so whats the point?

i feel like a druggie looking for my next fix. i try all kinds of self talk but it doesnt help when im in that state of mind.

 

[Martinelv]

SB, I can empathise with this.

A big problem with my personality is impulsiveness. It has got me into all sorts of scrapes, including problems with money, my divorce, excessive boozing. I always 'live for the moment', regardless of the consequences. Some people attribute it, in my case, to depression, and therefore my reckless desire to be constantly entertained to fend off the boredom and obsessional misery. I'm not so sure. I just think it's a shitty part of my personality that either I come to terms with, or live with. There is also the idea that obsessive and reckless impulsiveness may be linked to unconscious desires for self-destruction, but again, I'm not so sure. I tend to think that the most simple answer is usually the correct one, and everything else is just bluster to make us feel better. But who knows. Psychopathology is a complicated beast.

I don't think it's particually uncommon anwyay, especially with people who have neurotic conditions like us. In fact, everyone is impulsive and reckless once in a while, it's just a matter of degrees.

 

[sleepingbeauty]

you know martin.. you and i have been through alot of crap in our pasts that probably has a huge hand in it too. like.. weve had points in our lives where weve just about lost it all, major drama major trauma. shat hitting the fan and all that. i know how fleeting everything is.. so im reckless with everything. and its not all about enjoyment either. for me its about doing what I want and f#ck the consequences. it used to be about disgusting illegal evil stuff. now that im all cleaned up its about doing nice sweet things but too obsessively. for instance my aunt got me into crocheting recently which at the time seemed like a good thing for me except i have like 30 different projects going at once. none of them get finished i know thats ADD but the obsessive part is that once i get an idea in my head i HAVE TO DO IT right then and there. i dont say.. oh i can do that tomorrow or when im done with whats in front of me. i have to do it RIGHT NOW!!! its like i have a wild horn in my arse not just a wild hair. the bad part is that it controls me like a drug and criples my day to day life.

 

[person3]

i have that too. what i've realized is that i have to do it NOW because if i do it NOW it will go the way i planned it, it will be the BEST and it will absolutely blow people away. If i do it later, i won't have the right feeling and the storm of inspiration that will make the killer impression."

it's like you're subtly trying to control people through how they will react when you present your finished task PERFECTLY!. but even when you do finish it perfectly and as planned because you started right then, their reactions are unfulfilling because you planned it all along to be that way and expected them to like it.

but...if you sleep on it...you may have other factors creep in, you may not have the storm of inspiration but have to work anyway. then you risk people not liking the result as much. in the first option you were convinced that if you did it right then that's how you would magically win their approval.

but whether you wait or do it now, the results will be the same. the only thing changed is your confidence, which you feel will go down the drain if you hesitate even a minute. and then you do hesitate and DO give up, because you've had sufficient time to say "no, people won't like it."

part of neurosis is rejecting yourself before other people reject you.

get what i'm saying?

you need recognition, but you must do it all right now in a manic frenzy because if you stop to think you will have time to reject yourself. unfortunatley you don't learn from always doing it rihgt now. sometimes as i learned recently (and i had a bad minibreakdown over this myself), if you wait your product will actually be richer, deeper, better, more interesting to people because it won't be just a flamboyant display of your false perceived self. it will be something that everyone can appreciate. it will be the REAL you. doing it rihgt now, saves you from having to be the real you which you are afraid will be rejected. doing it later and slowly will mean that you will make mistakes that people may see you (a threat to your perfect godlike image, a humiliation) but grow more and your finished product will be better, and although the confidence may be lost and the road is scary, you will mostl likely be highly successful, more successful than in your manic frenzied attempt, and you will be so because you have put your true self into it instead of doing it solely for recognition.

Oh..and when people do applaud your slowly, carefully, lovingly finished project, the fulfillment will be overwhelming. unlike the frenzied projects. because THEY are approving you despite your flaws, they are approving of YOU, it is not a scenario where you manipulated them with doing something RIGHT NOW when you know they would like it. You are actually receptive to the reactions of REAL people rather than parts of yourself as in the first one.

 

[Martinelv]

I think I was born slightly neurotic, and my druggy days just exaccerbated it. Sure, my parents split up when I was a kid, and probably I've got some tediously buried problems about it, but I don't care. My recent trauma's are, mostly, due to my severely low boredom threshold and the need to blot out divorce/bereavements etc with booze. But I'm not a total fuck-up...luckily I can still function at a high level, get good jobs, charm the ladies with my one redeeming feature - the ability to create spontaneous and believable bullshit on the spot, and I make friends easily. Keeping hold of all these wonderfull things is my problem. Considering that I'm not stupendously intelligent, handsome or rich, I've had a pretty charmed life, without (to my knowledge) really trying. So I'm, not bitter, really.

I tend to think that people who are recklessly impulsive are those that think in black and white. Good and bad. I know I do. There is very little middle ground in my decision making, which is probably why I (we) do things without thinking of the possible consequences.