[Guest]

This is a little tale written today specifically for Kechendrix but I think it might speak to many of you.

"Grandma's Mysterious Pit"

My grandmother?s bedroom dresser was pushed up against a wall nook that had a separation post built into the wall itself (kind of like a ?hutch? effect in the corner). There was a gap, or space, on the back left side of the dresser by the wall at this juncture ? and there was no way to close it or really cover it. There was also NO way to actually ?get to? it ? so if anything fell down there, it just stayed there forever more.
When we painted her wall at one point, we had covered the dresser with drop clothes, etc...and were standing on it to reach the top of the baseboards.

I looked down into the empty space and well....let me tell you. It was like a dustball version of a photo album. History itself was alive and well in that space ? tiny things from her dresser, over a span of 50 years, had fallen into the gap over the years, a piece of costume jewelry, some hair pins (the very old fashioned kind), a tiny photo (couldn?t even make out what it was), two keys (no idea to what), and dust and grime and odd-looking pieces of paper with writing on them, and something shiny and some coins and something that looked like some kind of figurine....it was a treasure trove. And...there was no way to ever reach it.

?SHOULD we try to clean all that out back there? we asked ourselves. ?It?s really really dirty and who the hell knows what?s in there...? and we also knew there was NO way to reach it, so it was honestly better to just keep painting and not even look.

That?s your unconscious mind.

And with all this self-monitoring and self-obsessing you?ve been doing 24/7, you are NOTICING the oddball things behind the dresser in the middle of decades? of dust that are jammed in there next to other little treasures.

?Merry Christmas? is a piece of memory, like a random lyric that has fallen off a piece of written music. Those words can "come to you" at any point in any day, seemingly unrelated to anything external. A COUNTLESS number of seemingly unrelated and bizarre thoughts are running through your head all the time ? for all of us ? but we do not pay attention to them because we are not focused on NEEDING to know our every thought.

When we?re feeling normal, we are HAVING thoughts, not watching thoughts. We are THINKING ideas, not assessing ideas for sanity content.
Just stand up, admit that you will never reach the pile of fascinating and filthy gems that fell down behind the dresser, and TRY to move forward. It takes time and a remarkable about of endurance ? but I promise you ? I PROMISE you ? you will never succeed in successfully monitoring or understanding all the weird thoughts that pop into your head, and the longer and harder you try, the deeper you will fall behind the dresser.

Hope you enjoyed our little trip down memory lane.

 

[SillyPutty]

Janine, can I send you a gift? I'm serious.You really should be getting paid for this. Seriously curious do you still collect bears?

 

[kchendrix]

All I can say is thanks,, that is a great lesson....

Thanks so much.

KC

 

[Sojourner]

OK, Soj here with a question: Why can't the dresser be moved?

 

[Milan]

Janine wrote:

A COUNTLESS number of seemingly unrelated and bizarre thoughts are running through your head all the time ? for all of us ? but we do not pay attention to them because we are not focused on NEEDING to know our every thought.

At times when I find myself slip behind my thoughts I become so aware of these low volume thoughts that are always churning in the background. Actually they are happening a light speed changing from one thought to another. At times there is association between them and at other times total random things pop in my head. When in the normal state you don't pay attention to EVERY thought but rather just sense them fly by because there is so much other mental noise happening at the time. When we find ourselves falling behind our thoughts we really need to get ourselves back into the drivers seat.

 

[Guest]

Excellent post Janine! I think once you get out of this hell & have a chance where for a while your brain functions normal you can really see how this whole disorder works & how to beat it. Its very hard to understand or trust in anything when you are suffering.

I think a good point to make is that what a dp/dr person is experiencing is just an amplified version of a normal mind. We are just too tuned into ourselves and until something of great interest breaks that thought pattern we get stuck in those roundabout thoughts.

You guys will get there you just got to break the habit of going back to analysing everything. Its more of a case of saying hey, I feel like crap, I have dp/dr today but I'm going to get on with it best I can. I know it seems impossible but saying this its like you are taking back control and little by little you will get better.

 

[Guest]

I am so glad you guys liked that. Esp. Mr. K.

Silly P: I DO still collect bears, lol...and it is my pleasure to help here. Please know that.

Soujouner: the dresser COULD be moved. However, it's a very very delicate piece of furniture. At this point, after all that time, if we moved it (and this is probably damn true of the actual dresser, lol), it would fall apart. The legs, the structure itself has "grown" into its setting over the years. A weakness here, a loose board there, a little weather change, etc..and the dresser, never meant to be moved, would crumble before you if you tried.

That's the brain. IN order to "move" the consciousness aside you would probably need to drop about 100 times the normal amount of LSD. That would do it. And it would also wreak such havoc on the Structure, you'd be very very sorry you ever tried.

That's not how we're made.

In therapy, sure, we can ACCESS that mysterious pit. But we cannot literally retrieve items. We can drop a mirror down there and by pulling some creative strings, we might get a much better idea of the contents. But they fell there to stay there.

If we work with HOW we humans work, our minds are wonderful.
If we try to work against it....well, just read any post here.

Peace,
Janine

 

[terri*]

Charger, I totally agree with you that it does take having one victory over the disorder...not necessarily having it completely gone, but just one time of seeing that you can overcome the really awful times. If one is unfortunate and has to deal with this for long term, it becomes easier to bounce back from those times because you do start using the tools you have learned and implementing the "teachings of Janine". ( :wink: )

It is almost like women ( or men ) who live in abusive relationships and never see it until they finally get out of the situation. Or, you could think of living in an alcoholic family and never knowing the difference till you leave one day and see how the rest of the world lives. If you must obsess over anything, keep reminding yourself you used to not obsess.

Janine, I have the same question as Soj...why couldn't you move the dresser? :? Nailed down? Might fall apart? Or is that one of them there mety-fours?

 

[Guest]

HOWLING, it is indeed one uh them ol' mety fours, but read the post above yurs. I done already caught ya an answer.

Sam I am,
grin

 

[Dreamland]

I agree with Janine Baker 100%; this might be a scary comparison but it's similar to having AIDS; the condition doesn't really kill you but because you're immune system is weakened you die of opportunistic pathogens and afflictions(pneumocystis, cytomegolovirus, toxoplasmosis) ....pathogens that would normally not harm a healthy person in the least bit. It's the same with going through a depressive episode; uncomfortable thoughts from your past begin to surface attacking your self worth and decision making skills. Thoughts that always have been there but never an issue.

 

[terri*]

Hey Sam I Am,

Totally didn't look up after I posted. :? Oh the well, glad I got you howling.

"I do so like green eggs and ham!
Thank you!
Thank you,
Sam I am!

terri*

 

[gem]

Janine, thank you I enjoyed your post.

gem.

 

[person3]

Really good point, Dreamland. Something I forget often. I still make a lot of decisions based on depressive or anxious guilt rather than "oh this is what I would normally do"

Claire weekes mentioned something like that in her book. It really helped me understand...that a lot of things that I feel are awful feel so because i'm in a mentally hurt condition, NOT because they are bad things caused by bad people.

Still sucks because I want to blame things on evil people. ugh.

 

[Martinelv]

How about smashing the dresser to pieces with a large hammer, setting fire to it, smashing it up some more, urinating on the ashes, dissolving it in some acid, burying the sludge in a nuclear bunker, and then carefully, over time, rebuilding a new one ? That's I want to do with my unconscious.

Nice post though.

 

[dakotajo]

I like martins idea better.

 

[CECIL]

I was about to say that Martin. Standing on that old rickety dresser is just as dangerous as falling down behind it - at any moment the construction of the dresser could collapse under you and you'll come falling down onto the ground.

But when you fall it doesn't kill you, it only means you can clear out the dresser and all the junk that's accumulated under it. You can stand firmly on the ground and paint the whole wall without any more fuss about said rickety construction (unconscious behaviour patterns) and accumulated junk/wealth behind it (missing pieces of your Self that you really want to get ahold of, understand and reunite with but can't because your behavioural patterns are in the way).

The way I see it, you could leave the dresser there and design the room around it, or you could take apart the dresser and design the room any way you imagine.

 

[Guest]

This thread's pretty cool.

 

[Guest]

But in the metaphor, you guys must trust me that IF one takes apart the dresser (dismantles the boundary between conscious mind and its unconscious processes) one is left with total dresser-destruction. You, the carpenter, could certainly reassemble the dresser (or build a bigger and better mousetrap even)....in the metaphor, you ARE your mind. Dismantle it, and welcome to psychosis. No way to be both the engineer and the dresser itself - the Mind and the Architect of that mind.

Although what you and Martin are describing is precisely what Timothy Leary proposed in his early LSD experiments - a way of so severely traumatizing the ordinary thought function that one "shakes up" every piece of perceived reality and ego identity, then "reprograms" the entire show as desired.

It's a Cute concept - but again, it implies omnipotence. We ARE the very mind we're talking about experimenting on, so objective architecture is a pipe dream.

Also, remember, the contents of the Pit in the gap between dresser and wall (the unconscious) is not filled with DYSfunction - it's not that it is somethign that "should" be cleaned out. It's perfecty normal and healthy residue of mental activity - it just PROVOKES us dp types because we cannot endure realizing that there are parts of our own mind that are UNreachable to us (again, the omnipotence).

Want to find out how your little snow globe works? Smash it against the wall and you can learn all about the pretty white particles inside. You also have a destroyed snow globe. Curiosity and control can be MUCH better exercised WITHIN the confines of reality.

Also, what I always love is that WE, people who can barely hold down a job and barely function day to day, are the ones who have the aspirations to re-program our own mental functioning. Interesting to note the Compensatory fantasies/goals of folks who are deep down fear they can't even succeed in the most ordinary of ways. (and I was exactly the same way, I'm NOT judging you - except as I'm laughing also at me!)

 

[person3]

uh most of my fantasies involve sex...NOT fucking up my brain. Dreaming about sex? Much more fun.

See guys? Look what you're wasting your time on. :lol:

 

[Da'Burgh]

Right on "person3".