"staying In Your Head" Coping Skill

[JustBe]

Motivational speakers creep me out but I do agree with much of what has been shared in this thread.

 

[WillowMarie]

"What resulted was confusion and unpredictability."

I think I failed at quoting.. just looked at my post again, and saw I might have confused what I meant to quote. This quote was concerning childhood trauma and living in an unpredictable environment caused confusion and unpredictability. Not obsessing and analyzing things causing confusion. I was going to edit the first post to clarify, but I don't see an edit button...

 

[Eleanor]

Which book was this?

Running on Empty: Childhood Emotional Neglect. by Jonice Webb

The denial of reality thing is interesting - there was no abuse in my growing up house, just universal "disappearing" of unhappy or unpleasant stuff. My mom is world class at denial.

 

[franciemarnie]

Denying my reality screwed my head up pretty badly. I think that when I get caught up in obsessive thought going over and over stuff from the past, things I should have said in order to have my reality recognized, I think when I do that I am denying my own reality again. Their version is so powerful I am arguing it in my head.

When I come across some poor soul on the street who is screaming nonsense about Commies taking over, I don't argue it with him. They are clearly out of their mind for the moment. I don't go over and over it in my head as to how they are wrong later. But if it's my brother, I will go over and over it in my head. I've temporarily given his take precedence in my mind versus what I know is fact.

It's like I was a twisted rubber band on an attic floor for thirty years and it takes a while to get stretched out and not twisted again. But if I am not aware, I will switch back and curl up again into the position I held for decades. I am stretching out again tonight.

 

[Abstract]

Denying my reality screwed my head up pretty badly

Me too Franaciemarnie and I have also come to believe this is a big source of obsessive thinking things through for me. I don't have the presence of mind to write out what I mean but wanted to say I relate.

As for the topic on a general level - I think about thinking about thinking about something. I remember the first time I realised making progress actually involved emotions and working through them. :wideeyed::confused:

I've switched from reading fiction and getting lost in the world of fantasy to reading numerous books written by psychiatrists, psychologists, or self-help books.

Did this too when I could no longer hide in the books which I had done prior to this rather obsessively.

I suspect a lot of it comes from looking for safety in logic, reasoning or facts. A way of evading emotions and all that messy stuff or having to trust our intuition which we have often been trained to deny.

 

[Eleanor]

I suspect a lot of it comes from looking for safety in logic, reasoning or facts. A way of evading emotions and all that messy stuff or having to trust our intuition which we have often been trained to deny.

But there Is safety in logic and facts, that is where sanity lives. And hanging on to that helps in surviving. It is when it takes over other function ( like overgrown scar tissue or something) that it becomes a problem.

My big revelation recently is that I can be in denial or just ignorance about things that should have happened but didn't. Which explains how I can be so screwed up despite having a "perfect" childhood.

My T coaches me a lot on feeling my feelings and on how to self soothe instead of just stuffing. Really she is giving me the emotional parenting my folks didn't.

 

[Abstract]

I think I agree with what you mean Eleanor even though I would put it differently. I don't actually think that logic and facts are where sanity lie. I say that as someone who has certainly not been healthy but had plenty of those two and I know I am not alone. I think more unwellness is attached to lack of connection and being able to tolerate emotional states than anything else. I love the DBT concept of wise mind. The marriage of our internal emotional world and logic/reason which creates something larger that the two when they are separate.

Your t sounds great and denial is the most astonishingly powerful thing if you ask me.

 

[katiekat]

Wow. I am here because I have been doing hours of research daily about childhood neglect and you original post opened my eyes to the fact that I am totally obsessing over this stuff as an avoidance technique. I have been stuck in my head for days and tonight my fiance told me he misses me. I feel guilty that I am so deep into this avoidance technique that I don't really miss him in return and I would prefer to stay stuck in my head if it weren't for the insomnia caused by my racing thoughts and compulsion to seek information and rationalize my symptoms. I think my T is on to me but I think he also may have fueled this last round of obsessive research by emailing me a pertinent article about childhood trauma and brain development. Then I had a visual flashback of an attempted rape that I haven't thought about in 15years which is now causing me to obsess over it.

Despite the craziness of the compulsive researching I am comforted to know I am not alone in this habit.

 

[Stanley Shi-Yume]

High fives for the Daring Greatly and Running on Empty references.

I don't consider this a coping thing. This IS my brain. Attention Differential brain. I can not change it, I can only focus on mindfulness skills to let me concentrate and place my attention on the thing that will benefit me more than getting lost in fantasy.

Becoming aware of this trait is what started me down this bizarre path of understanding the core of traumas and severe emotional neglect, and
recognition of my counter dependence that has formed alongside dissociative symptoms.

 

[maryiscontrary]

This is a very personal thing to me, guys. I can attribute every creative project I have ever done to these autistic tendencies exasterbated by the same decrepit abuse as described here on this thread.

I was sitting in my home a year ago obsessing over the curtain rods, paint, light fixture covers...everything engineered from scratch. I obsessed how to insulate that home, and I did with 8 different materials. Everything engineered from nothing. The home is beautiful, and I did it with my hands.

This was to escape the deadly nightmares, flashbacks and dissociation. Total alternate universe.

 

[Rumors]

John Bradshaw

It's funny because I just read this as suggested by a friend. Pretty deep. I didn't work the exercises, but just read. If you didn't think you had issues with your inner child before you read that book, you damn sure are aware of them afterwards!

 

[untiltoday]

At the risk of sounding too far out there, has anyone else created imaginary people in their head? As in, an imaginary support system of family and friends that you needed, but didn't have? Also, do you talk with them and do they encourage you or talk back?

I've talked this through with my psych and it's not schizophrenia or DID (she believes it is rather high on the dissociation scale), but I'm just interested if anyone else has "people". ;)