shadow work, part 2
Oct. 10th, 2022 03:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flamingswordI'm going to try doing two journal prompts every Monday for the Shadow work with an eye to processing unfinished childhood business and shaking all of my trees until the hidden painful things those trees grew around fall out of the branches. Dredging up my sea floor and seeing what broken bike tires and old automobiles are down there. Excavating mummified hurts and fossilized neglects. So here goes, I guess.
"Nobody enjoys feeling hurt, anger, rejection, betrayal, jealousy, etc. What is the very worst emotion to experience for you personally? Why? Where does that come from?"
I've never really thought about this, so let's do process of elimination, I guess? I don't get shame anymore and never got jealousy to begin with. Anger is super comfortable as long as it's righteous anger at other people (or anger at myself, which is sadly normal). Sad and all of the branches of that tree: also pretty normal. I know how to let myself feel rejection and betrayal, even if those are Bad Feelings.
But what I don't know what to do with is helplessness. Fear. I'm used to controlling myself and my environment to keep myself and those I care about safe, and it really bothers me that sometimes the best thing I can do in a situation is ... nothing. So when I have no choice but to do nothing? Like when Mom was in the hospital? I am glad for having been on prescription-strength anti-anxiety meds that head off panic attacks, otherwise we would have had a repeat of that whole mess with dropping out of college.
I've had meltdowns and sensory overwhelm episodes as far back as I can remember, though not as frequently as other autists I know. But I throw myself into whatever I can do that helps even a tiny bit, or I ignore and disown my fears since I just don't know what to do with them. I don't know if I was ever taught skills around fear or what to do with it when I was a kid. It was easier when Mom was in the hospital also because I was learning to name feelings and I talked to Ghost and Ruby andotatma and named my fear and talked about it so that I was at least feeling the feelings and not letting them build up to intolerable levels. Maybe that is a good way of dealing with things. We'll see.
"What personality traits bother me? What behaviors get under my skin? Do I possess any of these personality traits or behaviors?"
It enrages me when you point out to people that they are being unfair and they respond that the world is unfair. Like, that's not a denial - it's a complete disavowal of all responsibility for being a fair person. I'm saying they're being unfair and they're saying, "Yeah I am and I don't have to be." And I know that I have the same human instincts to have huge blind spots about being unfair when I'm not thinking things through. But if my grown ups didn't let me get away with that, I'm not sure why I was not allowed to call bullshit on the same behaviour in them.
I get really irritated with people stonewalling me, when to others it probably looks like I am often distant and uncommunicative for long periods of time. I think that may just be an autism thing, but I'm not sure.
I resent people who drive recklessly and then honk at me for not going faster/getting out of their way on a busy road when I have no safe space to merge/refusing to let them merge into the lane when they decided to wait beyond the last minute and drive in the emergency lane rather than merge in a timely fashion. Let's be real: I'm not a great driver. My reflexes are crap (among other things), but I give myself headaches being on high alert so that I don't pull the sort of dangerous shenanigans that other people act like is their God-Given American Right(TM). Am I sometimes oblivious and almost miss my exit and have to change lanes in a hurry? Yeah, but often I will just miss my exit and U-turn at the next one. I don't do dangerous stuff if I can help it, and I don't drive on days when I know I'm having bad brain fog. But a solid 3% of drivers in Dallas are either not paying attention or are just assholes. Or both! Why sell Dallas drivers short? (Maybe that doesn't sound like a lot, but experientially it really is.)
I get really annoyed with other "I'm endangering people and imposing increased costs on others for my own comfort/willfully thoughtless behaviors" i.e., most "conservative" movements in the US. I get it, they don't want to think painful thoughts, who does? But when someone in a group with less privilege in an area than you have says you do a thing that hurts them, then change the thing! No reflection required! I used to be a colorblind racist, and I was had some challenging conversations with, and now I am at least not that thing anymore? And if stubborn-as-a-mule high school aged me can do that, then my racist Republican uncle who literally believes that "illegals are breathing his air" can do that, too.
sounds: https://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/bambooGardenSoundscapeGenerator.php
smells: Vanilla Sky by Skylar perfumes
"Nobody enjoys feeling hurt, anger, rejection, betrayal, jealousy, etc. What is the very worst emotion to experience for you personally? Why? Where does that come from?"
I've never really thought about this, so let's do process of elimination, I guess? I don't get shame anymore and never got jealousy to begin with. Anger is super comfortable as long as it's righteous anger at other people (or anger at myself, which is sadly normal). Sad and all of the branches of that tree: also pretty normal. I know how to let myself feel rejection and betrayal, even if those are Bad Feelings.
But what I don't know what to do with is helplessness. Fear. I'm used to controlling myself and my environment to keep myself and those I care about safe, and it really bothers me that sometimes the best thing I can do in a situation is ... nothing. So when I have no choice but to do nothing? Like when Mom was in the hospital? I am glad for having been on prescription-strength anti-anxiety meds that head off panic attacks, otherwise we would have had a repeat of that whole mess with dropping out of college.
I've had meltdowns and sensory overwhelm episodes as far back as I can remember, though not as frequently as other autists I know. But I throw myself into whatever I can do that helps even a tiny bit, or I ignore and disown my fears since I just don't know what to do with them. I don't know if I was ever taught skills around fear or what to do with it when I was a kid. It was easier when Mom was in the hospital also because I was learning to name feelings and I talked to Ghost and Ruby and
otatma and named my fear and talked about it so that I was at least feeling the feelings and not letting them build up to intolerable levels. Maybe that is a good way of dealing with things. We'll see. "What personality traits bother me? What behaviors get under my skin? Do I possess any of these personality traits or behaviors?"
It enrages me when you point out to people that they are being unfair and they respond that the world is unfair. Like, that's not a denial - it's a complete disavowal of all responsibility for being a fair person. I'm saying they're being unfair and they're saying, "Yeah I am and I don't have to be." And I know that I have the same human instincts to have huge blind spots about being unfair when I'm not thinking things through. But if my grown ups didn't let me get away with that, I'm not sure why I was not allowed to call bullshit on the same behaviour in them.
I get really irritated with people stonewalling me, when to others it probably looks like I am often distant and uncommunicative for long periods of time. I think that may just be an autism thing, but I'm not sure.
I resent people who drive recklessly and then honk at me for not going faster/getting out of their way on a busy road when I have no safe space to merge/refusing to let them merge into the lane when they decided to wait beyond the last minute and drive in the emergency lane rather than merge in a timely fashion. Let's be real: I'm not a great driver. My reflexes are crap (among other things), but I give myself headaches being on high alert so that I don't pull the sort of dangerous shenanigans that other people act like is their God-Given American Right(TM). Am I sometimes oblivious and almost miss my exit and have to change lanes in a hurry? Yeah, but often I will just miss my exit and U-turn at the next one. I don't do dangerous stuff if I can help it, and I don't drive on days when I know I'm having bad brain fog. But a solid 3% of drivers in Dallas are either not paying attention or are just assholes. Or both! Why sell Dallas drivers short? (Maybe that doesn't sound like a lot, but experientially it really is.)
I get really annoyed with other "I'm endangering people and imposing increased costs on others for my own comfort/willfully thoughtless behaviors" i.e., most "conservative" movements in the US. I get it, they don't want to think painful thoughts, who does? But when someone in a group with less privilege in an area than you have says you do a thing that hurts them, then change the thing! No reflection required! I used to be a colorblind racist, and I was had some challenging conversations with, and now I am at least not that thing anymore? And if stubborn-as-a-mule high school aged me can do that, then my racist Republican uncle who literally believes that "illegals are breathing his air" can do that, too.
sounds: https://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/bambooGardenSoundscapeGenerator.php
smells: Vanilla Sky by Skylar perfumes
no subject
Date: 2022-10-10 11:46 pm (UTC)I used to be a colorblind racist, and I was had some challenging conversations with, and now I am at least not that thing anymore? And if stubborn-as-a-mule high school aged me can do that, then my racist Republican uncle who literally believes that "illegals are breathing his air" can do that, too.
Thiiiiiis. [also, same]
no subject
Date: 2022-10-11 01:21 am (UTC)They say we resent in others what we will not allow ourselves to express. I can see that.
Yes and no? I'm trying to think about the things I resent in others and it's like, 50-50. Like the people who are just like, "ahhh, I'm gonna skate by and make other people carry my load at work"—I used to really resent that, because of course I can't do that or I look unprofessional. Or even the people who make a big feminist statement about not shaving or wearing makeup and it's like, well, you're thin and conventionally attractive and if I do that, I look unkempt.
And to some degree the masking thing, because I don't have the freedom to turn off the part of my brain that assesses risk based on known and unknown facts. Since it hurts and is uncomfortable and I'm in pain all the time, I want to slap the smiles off people's faces.
But there are other things that I resent more that I do not want to express. Like toxic positivity. I don't want to be that sunshiney, optimistic person who refuses to engage in reality. I don't think it would be fun for me unless I got real stupid real fast.