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Looking at hurt fully

1K views 7 replies 4 participants last post by  coolwhip27 
#1 · (Edited)
I noticed that I haven’t even been honest to myself about certain fears I have. I kept trying to “escape” from even the fact that I was experiencing fear. For example, I would do that so I appeared “normal” to other people. My life has been acting. And once you are constantly trying to “move away” from what’s really happening, you’re no longer aware.
So, I looked at myself face on, fully. I see that the fears haven’t ended because I know they are so stupid that more is created. But instead of having that reaction, you just wipe it gone. Because it’s stupid, end it! Seeing the whole reality of it without escape.
it’s having a motive because you see a goal on the other side when really there shouldn’t be one.
 
#2 ·
I think i know what you are on about, ive been going through a hard time the past few weeks and have wound up with my family all worried sick, everyone was coming together to support me but when my dissociation took over i felt like hey what’s the issue none of this is happening to me and when i started to connect more to my emotions in moments i’d realise fuck this is all about me and i keep checking out even though i don’t realise, i have a real hard time feeling my true emotions, i feel like my true emotions are linked to myself and where my anxiety comes from in my brain and my dissociation can create it’s own emotions which don’t feel familiar but can feel good at the same time, i feel like there’s a wall in my stomach between me feeling what is truly real and what isn’t and sometimes it’s hard to distinguish.
 
#4 ·
I relate. But when you’re talking about distinguishing between “true emotions” and “fake dp emotions”, technically having the dp emotions is as real as real is getting (at that moment of course). So don’t consider it fake. Couldnt the thought or belief that tells you its not true emotion just create more confusion? Because then youre not experiencing something that you should be or want to be, so reality is fragmented. Just an idea..
 
#3 ·
Sometimes I have something that might be similar. Some therapists seem to want to make me "realize" that some fears I have are irrational, as if I didn't know that already, and they just give me that look, like they managed to solve the problem and now that I know it's irrational my problem is going to go away. Or they kind of make me feel stupid for being afraid of irrational stuff, like if I still have that fear it must mean I didn't realize yet it was irrational. But most fears are irrational when you look down to the bottom, and still everybody has fears. Maybe for some people, for some fears, it is enough to realize they are irrational, but not for some others. People who are afraid of spiders are still going to be afraid of spiders even if they are explained such or such spider won't bite. This is not how one gets rid of fear of spiders for example. Same if someone dies, there is still a lot of work to do and it takes time to accept it, and it's not enough to just acknowledge that the person is never going to come back. People know this right from the start, and it is definitely not enough to bypass the whole grieving process. People who have fear of heights are not stupid, they rationally know that if there is a fence + 2m between them and the void there is no chance they will fall. For me, their attitude is invalidating. I can work on irrational fears but not with a therapist who seems to assume I am going to bypass all the necessary emotional processing with a simple swift intellectual affirmation.
 
#5 ·
I guess I’m talking about psychological fears, one’s that are completely isolated only to yourself. But one thing I want to point out about fear can be seen on fear of heights. If there is fear, you’ll be shaking more and naturally have a weaker handle on the situation. That’s just one example of fear making someone “fold up” inside. Or even public speaking. Know what I mean? Someone whose not afraid of public speaking is gonna naturally do better than the person shriveling up inside. Lol. That’s the nature of fear
 
#7 ·
I always found this odd whenever I was in therapy. Regardless of the “problem” that was identified, anxiety, depression, etc., there was always this central focus on the supposed irrationality of my thinking. And this idea that, if I can only become convinced that my anxieties or depressions were not consistent with objective reality, then I would be cured. Or something.

The concept of mental illness has always had been strongly associated with irrationality. I think that is most likely a product of enlightenment thinking. Because the idea of “rational man” was the basis for political liberty and democracy, “irrationality” then justifies depriving a person of his liberty and autonomy. It is essentially the legal basis for civil commitment / insanity defense and otherwise using coercion against certain people. Society cannot afford to divorce the concept of irrationality from mental illness.

Because when you think about it, why must anxiety, depression, and the rest be the result of irrational thinking? If a person developed a germ phobia and engaged in OCD hand-washing as a consequence of Covid-19 hysteria, is he necessarily being irrational? He might be over-reacting, but our culture did create that hysteria that led to that over-reaction. Or how about the child who was relentlessly abused by his father? If he experiences a PTSD response when he is around his father, or perhaps any man who reminds him of his father, is he being irrational? If I am suicidally depressed because I lost everything that was meaningful to me with no realistic hope of it ever returning, am is my suicidality irrational? And of course, there’s all that evidence that happy, well-adjusted people also hold very distorted beliefs…it’s just that their irrational thoughts tend to be favorable to them, or make them feel good.

The issue problem is not with your rationality, even if your attitudes are not necessarily in accordance with objective reality. The problem is you (we) are making associations that interfere with our sense of well-being or social/occupational functioning. It seems to me that the solution to our fears is not to understand that they are irrational (which only makes me feel worse when I’m told that), but to make different associations with the object(s) of our fears. How exactly that should be accomplished, I have no friggin clue, but I imagine the solution would have to be tailored to each individual.
 
#8 · (Edited)
Yeah. The mere belief or thought that your own fear is irrational won’t do anything. Because if a fear is irrational then that means the opposite of what is being feared in reality is true. That obviously isn’t always the case as you have pointed out. But the fear isn’t always just about the effect, about what we fear becoming true. It can be a linked causation, If I fear this then this bad thing might come true.

I start to fear that I will lose my grip on reality and then I do because there is so much fear.
 
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