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Kintsugi
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@joeylittle I think I do the same thing, sometimes. Particularly when I was younger, I used to lyracize my life in my head as if it were prose I were writing: she steps from the shower and dries herself, beginning with her arms before carefully squeezing her hair from roots to tip, then wrapping herself and approaching the sink to brush her teeth.
I've noticed I've always done a lot of things that might be considered grounding activities, like counting. Sometimes I count the strokes when I wash a dish, or I count the lightposts when I'm the passenger of a car. I used to do all sorts of fantastical imaginations when I rode in the car as a kid, I'd say as a means of stimulation by escapism (until I mentioned one such activity to my mother one day, and she said, "Sometimes, Simon, I really wonder about you," in a flat tone, and walked away. :sorry:).
When I experience shame, I often repeat (out loud) the last word of the thought that brought the shame on, or I'll repeat whatever I'm listening to (usually on the radio): "Today in Baghdad, today in Baghdad, today in Baghdad..."
My T told me that this sort of impulsive talking was probably a way for me to avoid confronting my shameful thought. I don't know what to think about that. I sort of expected a pat on the back, like, "Good for you, that's a grounding tool!" But no, she didn't seem to think so.
ETA: the more I think about it, the more I see that I've been using this sort of total stimulation trick for as long as I can remember. I used to have a MagnaDoodle (a sort of plastic tablet for you lap with a screen that contained magnetic dust, which rose to the surface like ink when you drew on it with a magnetic stylus), and I took it everywhere with me. Any time I was not directly engaged in an activity, I would be drawing things on my MagnaDoodle. I probably spent hours a day, culminatively, drawing on this thing. Then, when I was twelve, I started writing books instead on a portable word processor, which lasted until I was about sixteen and had become so self-conscious of my writing (because I had been taking fiction classes at the college) that it no longer came to me so easily.
I've noticed I've always done a lot of things that might be considered grounding activities, like counting. Sometimes I count the strokes when I wash a dish, or I count the lightposts when I'm the passenger of a car. I used to do all sorts of fantastical imaginations when I rode in the car as a kid, I'd say as a means of stimulation by escapism (until I mentioned one such activity to my mother one day, and she said, "Sometimes, Simon, I really wonder about you," in a flat tone, and walked away. :sorry:).
When I experience shame, I often repeat (out loud) the last word of the thought that brought the shame on, or I'll repeat whatever I'm listening to (usually on the radio): "Today in Baghdad, today in Baghdad, today in Baghdad..."
My T told me that this sort of impulsive talking was probably a way for me to avoid confronting my shameful thought. I don't know what to think about that. I sort of expected a pat on the back, like, "Good for you, that's a grounding tool!" But no, she didn't seem to think so.
ETA: the more I think about it, the more I see that I've been using this sort of total stimulation trick for as long as I can remember. I used to have a MagnaDoodle (a sort of plastic tablet for you lap with a screen that contained magnetic dust, which rose to the surface like ink when you drew on it with a magnetic stylus), and I took it everywhere with me. Any time I was not directly engaged in an activity, I would be drawing things on my MagnaDoodle. I probably spent hours a day, culminatively, drawing on this thing. Then, when I was twelve, I started writing books instead on a portable word processor, which lasted until I was about sixteen and had become so self-conscious of my writing (because I had been taking fiction classes at the college) that it no longer came to me so easily.
