[trevyn]

I’m not a fan of meditation, but recognizing that you can actually choose how to feel can be very empowering.

I suspect that some people get locked in a catch-22 like the following:

1) Because they feel down, they empathize with other people who feel down, and find it personally important to be just, helpful, extra considerate, and thoughtful toward others.

2) Because of this, any indication of injustice or discomfort feels like a personal affront to their values and identity.

3) Any anger or pain resulting from this causes a reaffirmation of #1, and the cycle is reinforced.

[tekkk]

Well I can tell you a story about the other end of spectrum for self-reinforcing thoughts.

I don't know if you have a social anxiety but after an embarrassing social incident you ruminate on your behaviour right? Well take that to its ultimate level and you are constantly being possessed with thoughts about not thinking about a thought that is driving you insane.

Just a small idea of the feedback loop: think about a thought. Now try not to think about it. Well you probably can do it but think that you are so anxious that you actually cannot do it. And the act of thinking about it makes you anxious so there's really no way of exiting the loop. Anxiety makes you anxious so to say and you feel fear so terrible that it makes fear you even more. You wake up thinking about it and you fall asleep.

Yeah it might not sound relatable but were you to discover the feeling that I mean. Oh boy. There exists emotions inside of us so terrible that you'd wish no human would have to discover. What cured it or well stopped the loop was distracting myself long enough for the anxiety to dissipate and not to remember the feeling (and therefore not to reinforce it). If there was a similar way to do it but for a happy thought I'd be all for it.

[trevyn]

>after an embarrassing social incident you ruminate on your behaviour

I like to reframe this as gratitude for the opportunity to reflect on a situation and come up with ideas for what I could have done differently, and eager to find analogous opportunities to test these new ideas out. Get enough of these opportunities and do enough “social experiments” and you can become more socially gifted than most.

Generally I reframe everything in terms of its positive effects, and I’ve found that some people are disbelieving — “you can’t possibly really think that way.” But it’s fantastically effective for my happiness, and I’ve noticed that excessive irrational positivity is also quite socially magnetic.

[stonedartist]

> There exists emotions inside of us so terrible that you'd wish no human would have to discover.

This. I have this terrible feeling that I cannot explain; It is so nebulous that trying to decipher it has taken lots of time, effort, intense/extreme emotional roller coasters, and I still don't know how to suppress it. I feel like I have literally lost several brain cells in the span of a year, lost several IQ points, lost my ability of sharp logical reasoning, analytical/critical thinking and also memory retaining power. All that I have now is emotional instability, irritability, impulsive anger. I'm sorry that I am pouring my symptoms here, which should definitely be dealt with a shrink. But whatever.

[kuerbel]

I have the same feeling, although it is going on for more than a year. More like three. Sometimes it feels like I had a small stroke or something like that (just as a comparison, I don't want to insult anyone who had a stroke which is a thousand times worse than what I have).

Just three years ago it was so easy to learn new things, to discover... now it feels like my brain is failing me. I have to say, I feel disabled. And I hope it will get better again. Because right now it sometimes feels hard to even hold a conversation and not forgetting what other people told me ten seconds ago. And my whole train of thought feels so... scatty, if that's the right word for it. Scatterbrained. There is a psychological term for it - thought disorder, and it's a symptom of depression, but I do not feel depressed in a clinical sense. Also my grades are still ok, at a US college it would be around an A- or B+.

I miss my "old" brain though. I'll definitely try meditation.

[stonedartist]

> Because right now it sometimes feels hard to even hold a conversation and not forgetting what other people told me ten seconds ago.

Oh my God! You just described me! I forget so many things that were told to me moments ago. It's getting harder by day because I have a job now, and it's getting tougher everyday. I have to keep in mind what the clients describe, and even if I'm jotting them down, I tend to forget what was said 5 seconds ago. For example, if I was told to do something in a sequence, I would totally mess it up. I can't perform a task in a sequence. Like for instance, if they ask me to perform a task in this particular order of A->B->C, I would do F->10->#.

I seem to have lost my resolute mannerism. I rage at everything. i rage quit, rage fight. I used to solve challenges that come to me logically, now I just approach in a violent way. Like, if someone is being a bully, kill him, if someone is doing a task ineffectively, shoot him. I have episodes of deep depression and in that time I get a lot of suicidal and homicidal thoughts. Sometimes I fear myself that, given a heated situation, if someone tells me I am wrong, old-me would have approached in a logical manner and solved it diplomatically, now I just fear myself that I would kill anybody who is confronting me. I feel like if I unleash my anger onto someone, I would go to pour all my bundled up anger of over 2 years on that person and maybe kill him; My anger is pressuring up day by day.

I feel like I have so many things to do to improve myself or come out of it, but I'm too tired, lazy and impatient. Just wanted to get these things off of my chest man. Maybe this is the first time I'm opening up to someone. I should see a shrink.

[2stepsforward]

For what it's worth, you've so eloquently described what I've struggled to put into words for years, so whatever brain cells you still have up and running are probably more than enough. Hang in there.

Edit: Find a CBT shrink if you can.

[spac]

It’s ok to share. You should try to talk to somebody about all this. Hang in there, man, and let us know how things are going.

[trevyn]

If there are specific things that trigger these feelings for you, please do your best to remove those things from your life.

[westoncb]

Sorry to hear you had to go through it. I feel like I'm getting damn close to finally escaping something very similar now, after several years of it dominating my life.

It's was largely a psychosomatic thing for me. It started with an RSI that I'd had for years, then I read about people with horrible RSI problems which turned out to be psychosomatic (through Sarno et al). Unfortunately, because I was already in a fairly paranoid state at this time from various things like a recent Type 1 Diabetes diagnosis (and pushing myself to use computers even though it felt painful)—while I felt I had enough evidence to confirm that my problem was psychosomatic, learning this made things go very wrong.

It seemed to me like my mind/body were sort of attacking me and giving me the RSI, and if it's not strictly physical, why should it have to be limited to my wrists? Every semi-controllable aspect of my body started going out of whack if I were to think about it happening (e.g. blushing, sweating, etc.). The longest lasting of these was a very distinct squeezing sensation on my forehead—just like a hand were placed on top of it, in a specific position. The intensity varied with my concern about it. There were times where I noticed everything was fine for a few moments and the sensations were absent—but as soon as I'd check for them they'd immediately come back and my thoughts would be dominated about how the situation was evolving moment to moment.

Anyway, I started meditating about 2.5 years ago (spent about a year reading about it before starting a regular practice, mostly avoiding it initially because I'd tried a couple times and it would horribly exacerbate the forehead squeezing sensations), and it's helped me tremendously. It's kind of like it restored a balance in which parts of my mind activate under different conditions: ordinarily someone is anxious and perhaps even aware of it, but they don't try making it go away through thinking about it—they trust at least to a certain extent that their body/mind know what they're doing and the response there is correct, and the 'problem' resolves on its own. At that point in time I essentially never left the conscious thought mode.

I can see all those possibilities of acting in one way or the other now—not perfectly, but pretty well often times. And the more clearly I see it the more often I make the choices which make things better rather than worse—finally escaping the feedback loop (woo!).

I've got a lot of thoughts on meditation now, and they're mostly positive at this point, but I also don't think I'd have gone so far with it unless I had absolutely no other choice. And it does seem a bit scary at times (mostly just from hearing stories)—but I think people tend to be fine as like as they 'take it easy': avoid extremes. I went through an extended phase where that bothered me a lot, but I feel pretty good about it now.

[montyf]

> I've got a lot of thoughts on meditation now...

Oh man, I love the delicious irony of this statement. I wonder if meditation actually helped with your ego problem or just made it stronger. Have you taken psychedelics or started a spiritual practice yet?

[westoncb]

It has definitely helped. I'm thinking less about useless stuff and feel significantly more calm and 'out of my head'. That said, I still think about things that interest me and meditation is one, so I've got some thoughts on it ;) (And I do still think about things that are probably useless and don't really interest me—but the amount has massively dropped off.)

> I wonder if meditation actually helped with your ego problem or just made it stronger

Interestingly, I think it did get worse before it got better—but I'm confident saying it's significantly better now. Not every time, but also not infrequently, I can watch it get better over the course of a few minutes during a breath watching meditation session.

I think some about how there might be room in my worldview for something that could be called spiritual. The closest I get for now is having an appreciation for how little we really comprehend of what reality is, and I enjoy trying to get an understanding of its 'character' nonetheless (but more like in getting to know another person's—not something analyzed necessarily). I guess you could call it a reverence for the mystery we're a part of.

[ada1981]

Yes. Learning how to unhook from other peoples trauma and pain was really critical in my recovery.

I realized that very often the charge we feel to dig in and solve someone else's issue is often linked to our own unhealed past.

Ironically, it's when we heal ourselves that we can actually be of the highest service to those who are hurting.

[icc97]

> Ironically, it's when we heal ourselves that we can actually be of the highest service to those who are hurting.

I think it's a two fold improvement, you stop being an emotional burden to others who worry about you and you are also more able to support them with their other worries.

[ada1981]

Agreed.

And in many cases the relationships we co-create when wounded are co-dependent and so those "worriers" who view emotions as a burden ultimately can't help us anyway -- if they haven't made peace with their own despair, for example, they will never be able to make room for us and will only amplify the pain.

Once we take responsibility for our own pain, we are less drawn to hide out taking responsibility for others instead of dealing with our own. And that allows us to lovingly empower others to take responsibility for their pain as well.

Of course, we can model what that looks like, we can help them feel pain that they are afraid to touch, but once we show them it's safe to hold, they will reorient towards it quite organically in my experience.

[goodroot]

> Ironically, it's when we heal ourselves that we can actually be of the highest service to those who are hurting.

Beautifully said. After creating my own healing, I feel compelled to give back in some way. Anytime I see a thread like this, it's a reminder how much work there is to do.

[0xcde4c3db]

> I’m not a fan of meditation, but recognizing that you can actually choose how to feel can be very empowering.

Are you saying that people choose to have mood disorders? It's kind of hard to escape that implication with how you've phrased this.

[grzm]

Have you ever calmed yourself down when you've been upset? Or recognize that you're getting emotional and take extra care when you choose your next words? That's the type of thing I believe your parent is getting at. This is some of the motivation behind techniques like CBT. It's not implying that people choose to feel depressed, but that one can have some control over how one is feeling when in the throes of otherwise overpowering emotion.

[0xcde4c3db]

I would describe those as coping strategies to avoid maladaptive behavior, not changing the underlying emotional state. I find it hard to see how "actually choose how to feel" can mean anything but the latter.

[grzm]

Then I believe, given the greater context, that you're choosing to read it uncharitably. If your point is to search for greater clarification and mutual understanding, as opposed to argument, I think you can likely do better than your current approach.

[0xcde4c3db]

> If your point is to search for greater clarification and mutual understanding, as opposed to argument

I don't believe those things are actually opposed in any meaningful way. Also, I think it's possible to take the principle of charity too far. At some point, it's just as much putting words in people's mouths as a knee-jerk misinterpretation.

[trevyn]

I'm saying that people capable of coherent thought can choose, over time, not to have mood disorders, which is a subtly different point.

I fully recognize that when you're in a depressive state, things seem hopeless and that you feel unable to choose a different state.

My proposition is that in all but the most serious cases, you actually can choose, if you're given the right mental frameworks and sensory inputs.

Of course, the devil is in the details of identifying and providing those frameworks and inputs.