[renamed]: HERE! TASTE THIS BRICK!

[navkat]

I reach and smile and try to hang onto that impervious humor and then this voice says "Who are you kidding, you dumb cunt?"

I used to have a very similar problem, where one of the things I was suffering from was vicious self-talk like that. A particular thing that seemed to help immensely was to change it into the Cookie Monster's voice, or a highly melodramatic opera singer's voice, etc. Any tone that prevents you from taking it seriously.

I usually paired this with a sincere reminder to maintain compassion for people, which includes me.

Hope you feel better soon, Navkat.

I think I remember you saying this once. THIS is something I can do. Sometimes the ridiculous can reach me where logic won't. Unfortunately, that makes me a sucker for people who try to "smooth things over" by acting silly and making jokes because I absolutely can't stay angry when people are being silly and trying to make me laugh.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

The problem is: I hardcore don't trust my instinct because I've pretty much been programmed out of having one in a lot of interpersonal situations.

I think you might have just overridden it a lot, you know, the alarm bell goes off quietly but you disregard it and forge ahead anyway. We've all done that. IMHO the thing about telling it to shut up is that after awhile it starts to comply. This would probably cut both ways, though. I think you can get it back by paying attention and listening for it. Start with small stuff.

I hope I said that right. It's hard to explain.

I always come off as being full of shit because I've been programmed since I was five to have a guilty conscience and I get flustered and always feel like I have to explain myself too much. Every time I've been stopped by police or at the border, I've drawn suspicion and had to be questioned further because I have ZERO sense of "Of course I'm not gonna have a problem, I'm innocent." I always talk in a way that comes off as "I'm trying to convince this guy I'm cool and I haven't done anything." I think this plays a large role in my ability to sense others' BS.

I have a numbed sense of fear too. I generally don't feel afraid in situations where I should. This works very well for me in scenarios where most people are panicking. I'm completely dissociated from any sense of fear until there's no imminent danger and so I'm usually the one figuring shit out fairly calmly. When it's all over, I have panic attacks in private. I've even had a gun in my face when I was 17 and had a severely delayed reaction. "This isn't really REAL." is how the mechanism works. Later, it comes together and hits me like a brick.

That sounds kind of like a shock reaction. If you're the one thinking clearly and taking care of things, it's more of a boon. When the shit hits the fan, you deal with it, there's plenty of time to fall apart later. Also nothing wrong with falling apart later, we're humans. Show me somebody who's NOT shaken up at some point if somebody sticks a gun in their face.

I don't know what to do about that. I know I at least have some instinct because I was able to sense and respond to a patient having a seizure in the back of my truck, even when the 20 year medic didn't believe it was happening because the 12-lead didn't indicate anything abnormal (even later when the pt's respirations hit the ceiling). I know I have that ability to say "Something ain't right here," and respond. I can do it with my son too.

I just can't do it to save my own ass. When I'm in it, I'm drowning in it and completely blind.

I think about this a lot. It's a problem I'd like to solve if I can. I thought therapy might work but my therapist refuses to see that I have any problems at all and I've spent the last few months talking about this stuff and being told that somewhere along the line, I got this erroneous idea in my head that I'm different than everyone else. I can't simply will my way into being this perfectly-functioning, whole human-being just by saying to myself "The idea that I'm dysfunctional is a lie and it doesn't exist."

VA doc. I wonder if she'd say the same to me if her livelihood depended on retaining patients. It's probably a good thing that she doesn't and a bad thing that her caseload is over-capacity.

EMPHATICALLY what Nigel said.

[navkat]

GooooooooooooooooooooooFUCKyourself!

HIM: "There's nothing new in this philosophy that you're going to teach me. for fucks sakes."

ME: "Aaaaand THAT is where your biggest fucking blindspot is."

--Logs off--

Incoming text < minute later...

HIM: "Yeah, sure, take off and leave. That'll convince me to come back ... You're supposed to challenge me, right? Challenge me, motherfucker!"

*more blathering.* *comparison of peen*

ME: Who the fuck cares which is bigger? Both accomplish the same goal: Funn."

...
...

ME: Confuscious say He who roll rotten, antiquated apple into hall then walk away sees not people kicking wormy apple back his way."
"Aaaand He who not see kicked apple miss out on exciting game of apple-football."

HIM: "I'm not the one who's all butthurt over [it]."

ME: No one's butthurt...it's just a shame you won't join the fun."

HIM: "Then why are you whining at me in the middle of the night for?"

ME: "Was I whining? What a manic-pixie thing for me to do! My apologies!"

HIM: "Manic pixies don't whine. They flitter about, pouring their uselessness all over everything like vomit diarrhea."

ME: "I see..."
"Well, MY useless ass has a job interview with an Ambulance company in the morning. I will molest your important midnight online poker sessions no more with my watery copremesis."
"Toody-loo!"

[Cain]

Is this your friend who signed up the other week?

[navkat]

Maybe. What'll you give me if I tell you?

[Cain]

A wedgie.

[navkat]

Well then it doesn't really behoove me to tell you now, does it?

[Cain]

I never said what would happen if you didn't.

[hirley0]

:44 ??

I never said what would happen if you didn't.

[navkat]

It was waaaay worse than that. There were pissing contests between Reddit and the (unseen by this nameless person) ColbertGASM. There were links passed to a certain Scribd tome and refusals to read on the grounds that we are all a cliquish bunch of pretentious ego-strokers. There were assurances that nothing is personal. There were exclamations of how certain people don't Get It and retorts that certain people Get It just fine...get it sooooo much in fact that It ceased to become It a long time ago and that basically, if one wanted to stand in the middle of the room, declaring oneself unique and alien, one would have to take a number behind all the gazillion other unique aliens and that really, the only thing that remains somewhat unique and alien is to get off the fucking stage, take a seat and enjoy the clownshow of "unique aliens" declaring their uniqueness.

There were disclosures of planned one-upmanship perceived as "foiled" by circumstances believed to be intentional and directed at a specific poster but which are genuinely just another crazy easter egg. There was the attempt to describe the front entrance as a mirrored door and to point out the utter hilarity and pointlessness in the act of pecking out the eyes of the doorman.

There were closing, dead-end arguments and declarations of the importance and value of someone's time and the request not to be bothered with invitations to inferior "parties."

But I'm not naming names.

[Cain]

You should.  It's more fun if it can get blown up into a massive, inter-website hissy fit.

[navkat]

Ho-hum.

He's really a wonderful person. We were together once but we're two different, incompatible brands of crazy. I actually have a deep love for him still but he can be obstinate, stubborn and defensively self-righteous. It's like he sees the bars but then he fucks it all up by saying "Well, I'm glad I'm the only one who's got that sorted."

The funny thing is: I thought he'd end up getting along with you the best, believe it or not. He's a voracious history buff, tears apart war strategy/historical cause and effect in his mind like a machine, he's 7/8ths of the way into a degree in like, theology or some shit, is well-written, appreciates cynical irony and has a sharp wit that often goes below the radar because others are either missing knowledge or simply don't catch it.

He occasionally gets lost applying his knowledge of history to certain current events simply because he draws premature conclusions and sometimes fails to comprehend people's motivations.

I looked forward to seeing how he'd fit within the dynamic here and observing the two of you jaunt back and forth, turn each other onto new reading material, challenge each other and tag-team while taking down every chucklehead to make an uninformed or baseless declaration within earshot of your evil web of facts.

But ah, well...

[Freeky]

So he won't come back because we didn't like his thesis?   

[navkat]

He won't come back because we're pretentious, cliquish fucks who aren't REAL Discordians.

[Don Coyote]

He won't come back because we're pretentious, cliquish fucks who aren't REAL Discordians.

I vaguely remember that spag.