Impermanence.

[Friday]

What hit me was the concept that instead of impermanence, it seems like you're actually struggling with permanent.

That the good times are temporary? You've got that.

That the bad times are temporary? That seems like where you're running face first into a wall. The moment something bad happens, sounds like that's it. The end. Finis. Never going to change. Might as well walk, it's always going to be this way.

There are times to call halt, for sure. But it seems like you're taking the decision away from yourself, as well.... If every time is calling halt.

#TrustIssues. Not trusting others to change. Not trusting yourself to make the right decision to stay or walk, depending they change or not, or if it's a walking-offense regardless of whether they change. So... Looks like you took the guesswork out and call halt on everything.

So: right is only temporary, wrong is forever, every crime is capital. Does that sum things up about right?

 

[Deleted member 1860]

I struggle with believing that anything relationship wise has a duration longer than 2.5 seconds.

This is pretty much the crux of what I am saying but I think that its getting lost on people? Maybe I'm wrong. That is, it is this EXTREME end of the spectrum that is problematic and that is what I am focusing on as I need to gain SOME concept of permanence in my life. NOT in an absolute sense, but in a given timeframe. That is, not having to live each and every moment of your life as it is separate and completely disconnected from every other moment of your life.

ie trusting that you have a job day after day
ie trusting that you have a house to go home to every night

I can go on.

I didn't want to turn this into an argument that there IS permanence in life, but the thing is that YES, we DO indeed build certain expectations in life that things will be as they were and will continue to be that way. THAT, in itself, IS indeed a certain sense of permanence, even if it is only for a given timespan. I'm not talking about permanence in an absolute state. I think this is getting some a bit hung up?

 

[Deleted member 1860]

So: right is only temporary, wrong is forever, every crime is capital. Does that sum things up about right?

Yep.


Good things were fleeting, bad things were held over my head FOR-EV-ER. Still are. Can't trust the good. Even when it was good, you'd get a future mind f*ck that told you that your sense of good was WRONG and that it really was a bad thing. The only thing that you could do was move away from the bad. Guess that's what I keep on doing?

I really hate my mind. I swear it is worse than the twilight zone in there. I get so lost on the basics and don't even know where to start. Where do you start? Everything is so upside down and backwards that you can't really trust a darn thing.

 

[Valentino]

I wonder if the label of impermanence is describing issues with memory integration.

The hippocampus in the brain is noted for having a big role in memory, and when trauma triggers the survival instincts it indirectly shuts down hippocampal function. Also the hippocampus is still developing in first 3-4 years of infancy, so trauma in that time period can create development delays or maybe even hippocampus disabilities.

The hippocampus is responsible to A. integrate the raw sensory data into a coherent picture, and B. put a “time tag” on it – transfer it into long-term permanent memory, where it can be retrieved later. That’s the only way to get it into conscious thought, which occurs in the frontal cortex, the highest cognitive part of the brain.
...
Siegel said that even if the hippocampus develops pretty well, trauma after 3 years of age and at any point in life, floods the body with so much stress hormones that this can turn off the hippocampus. “If you massively secrete cortisol stress hormone, at the same time you’re secreting adrenaline, cortisol, in high amounts, shuts off the hippocampus temporarily. Over the long run, it can actually kill hippocampus cells.
...
the hippocampus itself can be damaged during those 45 early developmental months (one reason it’s called “developmental trauma.”) If an infant or toddler has repeatedly frightening experiences, such as hostile adults continuously in the home, the neurology of the primitive brain stem gets thrown off enough that it can harms the development of the higher brain lobes — which are outgrowths of the brain stem. The hippocampus can be badly damaged, to where when we feel scared irrationally, we physically can not “think our way out”

-- source: http://attachmentdisorderhealing.com/daniel-siegel-2/

So your attachment and bonding issues could simply be symptoms of deeper development trauma, in particular the hippocampus.

This creates lack of memory integration, so it is hard for the brain to create a sense of 'permanence' when dealing with people or life experiences.

And it can get even worse when survival mechanisms are emotionally triggered, then higher brain cognitive functions get shut down, also limiting hippocampal function. Forcing your attention towards one primary threat, excluding all past unintegrated memories, indirectly reinforcing feeling of impermanence.

There is also a vicious cycle effect happening, because impermanence creates more feelings of fear, lack of safety and predictability, and your reactions to others can trigger impermanence feelings in them, which makes them more fearful and reactive, causing more feelings of fear for you.

 

[joeylittle]

I need to gain SOME concept of permanence in my life. NOT in an absolute sense, but in a given timeframe. That is, not having to live each and every moment of your life as it is separate and completely disconnected from every other moment of your life...ie trusting that you have a job day after day, ie trusting that you have a house to go home to every night

Is it fair to equate what you are talking about to the confidence of stability? I agree, it's easy to get hung up philosophically on the word "permanence", but I read your meaning as wanting legitimate stability. Things in your life you can point to and recognize as actually existing for you not only this moment, but in the foreseeable future.

I think I kind of identify - for me, I struggle with "if it's not in front of me, it's not real". Not so deeply as to be clinical; I do know intellectually that my apartment is still there when I leave it. (there are people who can't actually envision this, and I think it's what @Valentino is pointing to. There is a phase of neuro-development concerned with object permanence, and psychology has extended that concept beyond the tangible, involving not only things but relationships and ideas).

But: "if it's not in front of me, it's not real", for me, equates to nearly all relationships with other people, my career, and my financial security. I've had some success working on it using thought-challenging, starting with identifying evidence. Now, that's an approach that works for me because I do have employment that I can realistically rely on; one of my careers is unstable by its nature, but the other one isn't. People, I don't know how to address yet.

For you - would it be helpful to start by looking backwards a bit and identifying things that have emerged as being stable for a reasonable period of time? I wonder if your instinct will be to minimize or discount those things.

But also, you're talking about acquiring things you do not yet have, right? New relationships that can be counted on, future employment, independence in your living situation - is that true?

So you really do have a couple of things going on at once, maybe. You need to cultivate an understanding based on real evidence from your life that there is such a thing as stability/permanence. And you need to wrestle with goal-setting, so that you don't decide you can't have any permanence/stability before you've even tried to build the foundation of the things you'd like to have as stable.

Things that might challenge your thoughts on the former - do you consider your relationship with this forum to be somewhat permanent? I know you've been on and off, but you've been a member since 2009, and this place values you enough to work with your rough patches and allow you to come back, if you want. (I hope that example isn't shitty for me to bring up, it's just something that strikes me as real). Are there other things in your life that you have come to understand are relatively trustable?

Does it help to remember that there is also a thing we could call "negative permanence", and that's the stuff that sucks but you can count on being there. A little backwards, because it's not what you are looking for as you move forward, but (for me at least) it helps me get my head around the whole idea of it.

These are just thoughts, take what's useful, skip the rest.

 

[shell]

Impermanence is how I feel about all my relationships, that accepting someones positive feelings always felt like a very unwise and unsafe thing to do.

My husband was saying how much I meant to him, and how much he loved me on Friday, and I could feel how empty I felt at first, but then when I sat with the feeling of how it felt to feel empty, I noticed how distressing it felt to me to hear that. When I tried to explain to him how I felt about what he said, I could feel how panicked I felt about possibly accepting his feelings, as to do do I also realized that would involve risking losing him too. The more I talked to him about how it felt to consider accepting his feelings as the truth, the more my feelings changed. Underneath the numbness, distance and beliefs is a lot of fear, shame and sadness. This isn't the first time my husband spoke the way he did, but it was the first time I went out of my comfort zone and just allowed myself to consider another possiblility that he wouldn't run away screaming in horror as my parents did.

I was repeatedly rejected in everyway by my mother, and later my father joined her in hating me as a young child. I am always projecting my parents onto other people, it's only now that I am more aware of it, and challenge my thoughts and my reactions. The feelings that it is unsafe to allow other people in, still come up, only now I am starting to sit with the feelings.

It is the same expectation with my life in general, mostly at this moment my life is good, stable, safe and has never been better, but somewhere there is always this nagging feeling of impermanence that it can be snatched away at any time. It's only in the last year that I have had more of a interest in connecting with people, and challenging my beliefs and fears. I do a lot of things to protect myself from painful emotions.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Is it fair to equate what you are talking about to the confidence of stability?

Yes. Within the concept of stability lies permanence. (Not in the absolute sense, in the relative sense.)

I think it's what [DLMURL="https://www.myptsd.com/c/members/18955/"]@Valentino[/DLMURL] is pointing to.

Thanks for the FYI. @Valentino is the ONE person on this forum I will not unblock, no matter what, especially after the smack down I received in a thread not so long ago where he told everyone that because I'm so blunt, I don't appreciate their kind words as they aren't helpful to me. Suffice to say, I won't be clicking the "show ignored content" button on this thread as I do with most. His opinion means nothing to me and I do not value it in the least.

For you - would it be helpful to start by looking backwards a bit and identifying things that have emerged as being stable for a reasonable period of time? I wonder if your instinct will be to minimize or discount those things.

Yes, I am. I am looking at what is stable in my life and I am going with that. I have no other choice.

But also, you're talking about acquiring things you do not yet have, right? New relationships that can be counted on, future employment, independence in your living situation - is that true?

Yes, I also feel little stability in regards to things in the future. Its why I fight so hard to just be able to work again because it is the ONE thing I have the power to gain stability in. If I can work and support myself, I will be OK. I can't control relationships in the least....not that anyone has "absolute" control, but for me I don't even have "relative" control. That's why I need financial stability. I need at least one area of my life that is OK.

do you consider your relationship with this forum to be somewhat permanent?

No, actually, I don't. I just came back today to check on the two threads I started in the last few days. I wasn't going to reply, but decided to anyway. I know I need to stop using the forum as a crutch and learn to depend on myself completely.

 

[joeylittle]

Yes, I also feel little stability in regards to things in the future. Its why I fight so hard to just be able to work again because it is the ONE thing I have the power to gain stability in. If I can work and support myself, I will be OK. I can't control relationships in the least....not that anyone has "absolute" control, but for me I don't even have "relative" control. That's why I need financial stability. I need at least one area of my life that is OK.

This really resonates with me. I think it's been my way of being in the world for most of my adult life. I agree about relationships, actually - I don't know that they can ever be stable in this way we are talking about, because a relationship can't be under one persons' control. But, in a really practical way, work and income can be. (I'm going to get disagreed with on that one, but it's the way it looks to me).

I'm realizing, writing this, that my definition of stable actually includes a kind of inner thing. Like, the most important thing about my main job is that it gives me financial security. Absolutely. And even though I would move heaven and earth for it to be in a different city (because I hate where I live), I will not give it up unless there is something equally stable to move towards. But besides the money, I know who I am in that job. The 'me' that does that job is a head-space I am very consistent about, and that gives me comfort as well. It's not even that I love the work, necessarily - it's that I understand it, fully, and can show up and do it even when I'm in my more debilitated times. (And luckily, it's also a job that I can miss days of and that's not a huge problem).

I want to work on no longer wishing for there to be a stable person in my life. Anyone. The desire for that is a crutch, for me.