[Deep Thoughts] A Better You

[Kyle]

What is holding you back from being the person you want to be?

[akiva]

Incompetence.

[WillyGilligan]

Distraction.

Focusing on the trees I didn't plant 20 years ago.

The general want to HAVE done things versus DOING things.

And all of that self-realization seems to not put a dent into my current actions.

[Bonefish]

sinus infection

[Cazmonster]

Poor Planning - when I am awake, I react to issues and try to deal with my crushing sleep deprivation
Complacency - I have an okay job with a crappy schedule. I've had it for almost nine years. It's like a favorite sweatshirt or blanket.

[Tahlvin]

Someone else keeps taking my winning Powerball numbers.

[Iantha]

I'm really scattered. Like, every day I feel like I have to drag my brain and attention to what I am doing *right now, right here, and please pay attention* because I'll be in the middle of a task and realize out of nowhere that I've suddenly been thinking about everything but the task at hand. Even on tasks that I enjoy. The other day I was reading up on how PTSD changes brain chemicals, sometimes permanently (super interesting and one of my future fields of specialization) and I realized that I had not only solved the N Korea problem, I'd also solved world hunger and planned my next three weeks worth of meals in the half an hour that I SHOULD have been studying. Seriously though, it's a problem. I think that it's been one of the main barriers to being able to work on my degree and doing what I really want to be doing.

[Zen]

A combination of chronic pain, lack of time, inability to concentrate (possibly impacted by said pain), and, frankly, the tendency to flit from one project to the next far to often without giving my full attention to the project before it is complete. (Wanderlust expressed through hobbies and activities instead of through movement in actual space...)

[Eliahad]

Depression, anxiety and a brain that is horrible to myself. And another thing that I'm not going to get into here.

[Phoebe]

Anger.

[Phoebe]

Interesting to look back on this two years later. Back then I thought anger was holding me back from being better. Instead it turned out to be the fuel permitting positive changes. If anything, I wasn't angry enough yet! I made a lot of progress that year, took on a lot of challenges and prevailed. But then I got really angry - so angry that I was just DONE with everybody's b******* and not interested in taking any more of it, including from myself. I was angry at the universe, at the fact that illnesses and suffering and other bad things happen to good people who least deserve it. I was angry at a few highly specific people, but most of all angry at myself for being weak and stupid. So I made a huge change, and it wouldn't have happened without all the anger.

[akiva]

I stand by my answer. I don't think anything's really changed.

[Phoebe]

An INCREDIBLE thing happened:
A basic fact of life for the last several years (I like to blame childbirth/years of stress and no sleep, but who really knows why!) is that being in high, open places absolutely terrifies me. Many examples of different kinds, you'd think it doesn't come up much but it happens all the time. Started taking a very mild, very lowest-dose SSRI. Went to very high open place that normally is scary and produces: trembling, full body sweats, gripping onto chair handles, slinking close to walls, unable to look out across the space without a little vertigo. This time... Nothing. I didn't even notice anything was different. My child noticed before I did because she was like, huh, mom isn't freaked out by this. Then I stood up and it hit me, I would not be able to stand here like this. I would be holding onto the chair, not able to look around myself from this height. Instead I was hanging out like, nothing happening! I got cocky with it and started focusing on distant objects... Still nothing! I tried pacing around a little. Nothing! I am not saying I'm ready to climb up on a construction crane today, but WHOA! brain medicines are worth the price of admission even if this is the ONLY effect they ever produce! I am honestly shocked - totally shocked - that this effect, so dramatic and measurable, happened. Unadvertised benefit. Stunning.

[Phoebe]

I read the fine print indications again and it turns out the medication I'm taking can in fact be prescribed to help people with phobias. I hadn't noticed that the first time through because I skipped over that part, thinking I knew why I was taking it. It's weird because I have finally achieved my cruising elevation of dosage and the transition phase is somewhat stressful - i.e. the opposite of where you want to be at the end. And though I'm having a lot of good mood periods, there's also a kind of brain fog and desperate desire for sleep - it's like normally I can force myself to go on functioning without sleep and now if I get sleepy I'm just going to sleep no matter what. I'm not sure my lifestyle is designed for that level of sleep.

Overall I would have to say it's worth it if it fixes certain problems, but if it does then how do you get off of it again? Do you just wait for a period of time when it's okay if you suck and feel like s*** and take the medicine back down to zero again? No idea.

[akiva]

[Phoebe]

Happy medicine is great for certain things: phobias, overall anxiety level, and depression. It helps restore energy and vigor and cheer. It softens the anxious edges without dulling the mind, but... But. BUT: Useless against compulsions, which still require difficult ERP. When something super stressful is happening and the brain has learned soothing compulsive responses, it easily overcomes any beneficial halo of the medicine. We are at a very low ebb in that regard. I have reasons, good reasons, but that doesn't matter. It still needs to stop. Migraine and OCD so utterly exhausting at this point I'm going to try a nap and hope that brings reset/relief.

[akiva]

I don't have anything that requires ERP that I know of (at least if I'm understanding ERP correctly). But . . . if I have certain big and stupid failures from my past . . . and a person I wish I'd never met . . . does thinking about them all the time count as ERP????

I knew I was doing it right!

[Ronster]

Time.
Time spent efficiently and not playing Fallout 4

[Phoebe]

[akiva]