identity constructs and meta-metacognition

[flamingsword]

So analyzing the filters through which I have been thinking about how I think my thoughts and all of the Sea of Doubt stuff is churning up my waters, and revealing some interesting landscape at the bottom of this particular stretch of my personal ocean. It's wild. It has been a few years since I have done anything truly outside the realm of rational understanding because of my issues, or had a disagreement with someone that goes beyond the norms of misunderstanding. And for the sake of accuracy, I like to keep my view of myself updated to prevent huge gaps in seeing myself not as others see me. I want to think of myself as not being crazy, and as being reasonably good with people, but it feels wrong.

So I have conflicting impulses. I was crazy and bad with people for the parts of my adolescence that I still remember as well as I remember five years ago, and those memories don't ever seem to recede, so I have identified with "crazy" all these years. Twenty feels so much longer ago than thirteen, and I can't describe why or how. So I can explain why it feels wrong to think of myself as this new thing even though the old identity still feels true, even though I am not desperate anymore, but I also feel like I need to be accurate and valid and rational to upkeep this tradition I now have of getting better. I used to do it because if I didn't someone was going to get dead and chances were only about 50/50 that it would be me. Now I have continued doing it because I like it and it makes the world better and it makes me feel strong. So I want to change, and this sort of identity matrix reassignment used to be a lot easier, but now it's been getting harder the last few times. Is this what getting set in your ways feels like? This barrier to plastic change? I know that it is setting in much later for me than for other people, and that this kind of change is still as easy as it is in other ways is possibly only because I am on the autism spectrum and we get a neuroplasticity bonus. But still. Bleh.

Normally I would think about what kind of thoughts I would have if I were that new person, and model the new behavior, and see if it took off organically just by jump starting the formation of neural pathways. This time I don't know if that will be enough, so if you have any ideas, things you have tried (even if they didn't work), or things you have heard of working for other people, hit me in comments?

[EDIT TO ADD: I asked my friendslist over on Facebook and among the many suggestions, one of my programmer friends helpfully pointed out that I am trying to batch process what would probably yield better results being broken down into discrete problems and processed serially. Which is amazingly accurate, and demonstrates two of my better problem solving skills: keep a diverse group of friends and ask for help when you are confused. Maintaining relationships with more than one type of person might be a lot of work, but it keeps you grounded and human. And people tell you to ask for help when you need it, but they never tell you when you'll need it, so just ask whenever there is a problem that might yield to different perspectives than yours.]

Comments

[ot_atma]

This is just an idea, but it isn't something I've ever tried deliberately, more like an observed trend.

I think our minds like cycles and shocks better than they like gradual adaptation. I know the intensity of memory is strongly related to emotion and weakly related to particular sense inputs. Therefore, maybe, an emergence that the new personality changes are an instrumental part of might be what it takes to 'seat' them properly. That is to say, an intense situation that you know your old self would have done one way, but your new self handles differently.

This might be kind of hard to set up as a deliberate thing - maybe a ritual is called for?

[flamingsword]

Except that I don't really use rituals like that? This is why I made such a weird pagan, I was bad at tuning into ritual space, and I like having routines that make me feel comfortable and grounded in my day, but I don't have magical thinking about what they mean.

Also, my visual memory is much stronger than my episodic memory. My feelings are not that intense. :/

[flamingsword]

1. Process serially instead of in batch.
2. Thinking of it as a temporary measure that I am trying out that I will discontinue if I do not like it.
3. Pavlovian rewards for using the new neural pathways.
4. Lie to myself. (nota bene: I am bad at this)
5. Change my appearance as a visual reminder that I have changed as a person.
6. Figure out what beliefs are generating the feeling of wrongness, update those first.

[ot_atma]

#6 deserves very high priority imo.

[flamingsword]

So I remember 12 better than I remember 20? Like, if it didn't happen less than three or four years ago, it feels like it somehow happened longer ago than my adolescent memories? They don't fade the way other things do. So it somehow feel more valid to think of myself as being still crazy and bad at people, and that's part of it, that I don't like change, even good change, and don't want to let go of my identity, and am being dragged along by it.

But I think I also may have set this up as a warning system in my subconscious? Because it keeps flagging at me, and once I started paying attention to it last night, they weren't error messages, they were danger messages. If I start thinking of myself as being sane and stable and good with people, I might forget what I am capable of, and that would be dangerous to everyone around me. I am capable of doing great damage, especially when I am not looking to question my intentions.

I may need to look more into being able to think of myself as having a sort of quantum truth, where both states can mutually exist in superposition. If I think of it as lying I'll fuck it up, but if I think of it as science, maybe I can keep up the juggling routine.

[ot_atma]

"Superposition" is a good way to approach it because it allows you to ungrip the notion that the two states are mutually exclusive. I think I've said this before, but it bears repeating that I think overlap is a more common, functional, and relevant category of relation than exclusion is.

Being inherently skilled at something is useful because you get good at it fast, but being inherently mediocre or unskilled at something is also useful because your skill ceiling can become higher considering the amount of analysis and effort it takes to improve. When my head is working better I will go find the article that articulates this more clearly. I think it's a useful distinction to have here maybe.

[flamingsword]

I understand. I am "good at people" in away that has the pieces of that understanding broken down further than other people's pieces, so some situations are more explicit to me than they are to other people. I don't know which things those are, though until they come up in conversation. :( Because I am quantum or covalent "good/bad at people".