Not knowing what you are doing?

[dyslimbic]

Had my usual one on one with my therapist.Per usual it diverted from the anxiety onto other things.

I mentioned how when i become overly stressed/emotionally uptight i can go into irrational/rant and rave etc mode.

She asked me whether i ever didn't know what i was doing.
I am not sure whether this was her sounding out re psychosis.
I had also talked about experiencing derealisation when overly stressed/emotional.

The best i could answer her was that although on one level i
know what i am doing(based on the fact i can recall what i was like when i've calmed down) on another level when it is actually happening it all just pours out verbally with no thought at the time as to the fact i am irrational/ranting and raving.

I am not sure how realisation after the event ties in with
the event being 'psychotic (like)' or not.Or knowing after you have calmed down is a basis for saying you must have consciously known at the time.

The only reference point i have got is people talking about
when they were unmedicated/had a relapse they thought x or y bizarre thing was happening .
Although i am guessing that when it was actually happening
they didn't see it as such.
It was only after being on meds they could look back and see that they had x or y delusion.

I am not sure whether the above though is interchangeable in any way with my experience.

[yoyo_girl]

i am not sure Tim.. i have had a close relationship with someone who rages when psychotic and she remembers what she has done and said... but her ability to understand it is altered to fit her own need for a specific reality. She knows yelling or cursing or typing rants is inappropriate.. but she sees it as the other person's fault... they made her act that way. She had no choice and so on. Her reality isn't always necessarily psychotic, nor do i believe she is always psychotic when these events happen... i think it's more a reality construction that cannot be challenged. Trying to shift her focus to that causes immediate break down. She has NPD... but she has no real comprehension that she does, because any suggestion of it shakes her reality too much.

i don't know if that offers anything for you to think about or not..

you seem to have a clear understanding of the during and after portions.. what about the before parts? what are you thinking about before one of these episodes? what about leading up to one? is there a trend or commonality?

i have different behaviours which have proven to be real problems for me.. and that is something my T and i are looking at... what are the thoughts which occur just before? what are the exact triggers? i know you know some things which set you off... but what is the larger trigger there? What precipitates that?

you have a lot of very good reasons to harbour anger towards certain groups and individuals. It is not surprising that it burst forth from time to time... but why sometimes and not always? Rhetorical of course... just something to chew on.

i am curious Tim.. you have said on occasion that you believe in psychiatry as a set of theories, and not in the practitioners in general... which schools of thought do you subscribe to? Which ideas appeal to you more? And i suppose i am predominantly asking about psychology rather than psychiatry as the latter seems to have inbred itself into one animal more or less.

[dyslimbic]

i am not sure Tim.. i have had a close relationship with someone who rages when psychotic and she remembers what she has done and said... but her ability to understand it is altered to fit her own need for a specific reality. She knows yelling or cursing or typing rants is inappropriate.. but she sees it as the other person's fault...
they made her act that way. She had no choice and so on.


When i'm in the mode to rant and rave whether it be person to person or online i'm too caught up in the negative emotional maelstrom to
consider whether it's inappropriate or not.
It's when i feel invalidated/trivialised or that i feel someone has said something to hurt me or i feel i am being treated unfairly that this tends to happen.
I am emotionally thin skinned. When in i am in that state of mind all i think is they've hurt me etc and i'm having a justifiable go back.
Being told at the time that i may well have been hurt but my reaction was for
example a level 4 reaction to a level 2 hurt and getting negative treatment just tends to make me feel more uptight/defiant/paranoiac etc.

When i'm like that there is no thought as to whether i have a choice or not.





Her reality isn't always necessarily psychotic, nor do i believe she is always psychotic when these events happen... i think it's more a reality construction that cannot be challenged. Trying to shift her focus to that causes immediate break down. She has NPD... but she has no real comprehension that she does, because any suggestion of it shakes her reality too much.

i don't know if that offers anything for you to think about or not..

you seem to have a clear understanding of the during and after portions.. what about the before parts? what are you thinking about before one of these episodes? what about leading up to one? is there a trend or commonality?

The main commonality is experiencing a high personal level of
stress/being in a highly emotional state . Usually the triggers are as described
above or if i am faced with a situation that makes me feel frightened and out of my depth

The switch from being not in that mode to in that mode can turn on the proverbial dime.Once the trigger occurs then it's a headlong rush into rant and rave/paranoia/anxiety/irrational etc. Online when i get in that state as well as the rant and rave etc dimension there is often an impulsive reaction of 'that's it, i'm out of here.I'm 'nuking my account.(usually changing my email address to one i can't get confirmation email at. It can literally be 1 pm i am there alibi anxious/paranoiac/hurt/angry/frightened/unable to get my head round it all emotionally and a couple minutes later i've made the decision and i'm gone.
Then after a while(if i haven't been banned for emotionally losing it)i feel lonely/isolated/and want to get back to the forum because i feel lost being away from it.

[yoyo_girl]

When i'm like that there is no thought as to whether i have a choice or not.


i have no doubt about this because i experience that sense of no thought, choice or control, just in a different context. But that is once the trigger has occurred. What are the thoughts previous to that? Your idea of the experience thinking back on it niw might be that all was well... but next time it happens (and as you say, it happens) try to immediately write down what sort of thoughts you were having previous to the incident, what was happening to you during that time or even that day?

What i am suggesting is that the incidents themselves may occur when the stage has been set a particular way... so something which may set you off might not have done another time. i have seen that happen here with you in the past few months. Remember i remarked to you at one point i had seen great change in you.. that was because someone had said something which was not appropriate (apparently not intending to be mean but it sure sounded that way even to me) and i'll be honest.. i expected you to pop a cork. You didn't. You just calmly asked them why they said that.

so.. it seems it is not predestined in a constant way.

Stress is an obvious component.. when your wife was ill you were more sensitive to slights. One obvious solution in those times is to be aware of your stress level and spend your time only with people you trust most.

that friend of mine also has an issue with feelings of being treated unfairly or unjustly, it's a prime trigger. You have given a host of reasons why you might have developed wuch a sensitivity, but you also seem aware that many incidents are not to the degree you perceive at the time.

those are big things to tackle.. they are core to you right now.

it would be easy to suggest that instead of retaliating you try being kinder.. but i know that feeling takes hold.. it's like suggesting i try breathing exercises to stop the anxious self-destruct mode that hits me.

you need to dig into the roots of your feelings towards the people who have mistreated you... and especially those who mistreated Brenda. You need to get right in there and chop those roots apart. There really is no other completely successful way. It's painful, hard work. You need a T you can learn to trust.

i asked you once about schema therapy... originally designed for PD's. You might take a look. i think that it might be a good tool for you.. provided you can find a schema therapist.

as far as management on the day to day for now... you can try some things which will give you some better control, but will not fix the problem..

meditation.. of the Buddhist variety, not the yoga-relaxation sort: teaches you to allow your thoughts to arise without engaging them.

writing.. volumes of it. Pour as much hate, love, pain and tears into it. Keep it , send it, post it, mail it , burn it. whatever feels right. Getting those feelings to be external will lessen their power to make you act.

recognizing your stressors and trigger-points (the set stage) and then finding ways to spend your time which will remove you from possible triggering interaction... maybe even find a way to physically diffuse the energy, ie walking, kick-boxing, anything which allows you to channel anger.

of course, this is all meant to be helpful, but i'm hardly an expert. i struggle with my own seemingly invincible demons. What we have in common at this point is questioning those demons.. which can lead to questioning their supposed invincibility.

[yoyo_girl]

one other thing... and you don't need to answer, just ask yourself... do you ever cry when you feel you have been wronged? Even if no one knows it? Have you ever cried for all the things which have happened to you? One thing which bothered me about a previous T, and about CBT in general really, is the apparent lack of acknowledgement. i could say "...my god! they've cut my arm off!" and the response would have been ".. you still have one good arm, let's talk about you can use it.." There was never any acknowledgement of the obvious and deep pain... nor any time given to allow me to just bleed and grieve. i am not good at those things and needed the empathetic guidance to do so... but did not get it.

so i am wondering if this is true for you... you have suffered tremendous pain, much of which you have posted, but i dare say it gives just the barest glimpse of it's depth. If you have not taken the time to be gentle and nurturing to yourself it would be unlikely that you would find yourself being that way with others.

i may be way off.. it's just random thoughts i had as i considered my own turmoil

[dyslimbic]

one other thing... and you don't need to answer, just ask yourself... do you ever cry when you feel you have been wronged?

I very occasionally cry when i feel i've been wronged. I don't cry that much nowadays anyway.That isn't to say the depth of emotion isn't there but something holds me back. I used to cry unashamedly at sad or soppy movies etc when i was a child/teenager and got ragged quite often by my younger brother and sister for doing so.

Even if no one knows it? Have you ever cried for all the things which have happened to you?

Very occasionally.

One thing which bothered me about a previous T, and about CBT in general really, is the apparent lack of acknowledgement.

Never had it. Did have two abortive attempts with Ts that were both hell bent on pushing the 'If you repent the error of your ways you can be a good person' message. Neither were that empathetic/sympathetic re any painful experiences i had had. If they had been rape counsellors and i had been a female rape victim they would of been telling me 'next time wear a longer skirt and only walk in busy neighbourhoods '.

i could say "...my god! they've cut my arm off!" and the response would have been ".. you still have one good arm, let's talk about you can use it.."

There is a tendency i think for therapists,from my own admittedly limited experience and reading about other peoples, for such people to adopt a 'Candidian outlook' and to dismiss one's interpretation of experiences as being the product of depressively distorted perceptions etc.There is something of an inability to comprehend that to some degree the depressiveness may be a product of those very real and very painful experiences.There are some things that can not have a positive spin put on them no matter how much you are instructed to see them through rose tinted lenses.

There was never any acknowledgement of the obvious and deep pain... nor any time given to allow me to just bleed and grieve. i am not good at those things and needed the empathetic guidance to do so... but did not get it.

In my experience Ts and other psych professionals are better at excusing the actions of those who have hurt you, or dismissing them altogether, than acknowledging that 'obvious and deep pain. By doing so they
suerimpose one kind of abuse upon another.

so i am wondering if this is true for you... you have suffered tremendous pain, much of which you have posted, but i dare say it gives just the barest glimpse of it's depth. If you have not taken the time to be gentle and nurturing to yourself it would be unlikely that you would find yourself being that way with others.

I tend to be quite a gentle person outside of the emotional maelstroms. In fact i have a tendency to be too soft hearted for my own good.

i may be way off.. it's just random thoughts i had as i considered my own turmoil.

[yoyo_girl]

dismiss one's interpretation of experiences as being the product of depressively distorted perceptions

in CBT the term of favour is "irrational" Depressive thoughts are irrational. i found an article int psychiatric times called "cognitive therapy's faulty schema" that you will find interesting based on your above statement. I'd give the link but i wasn't ablt to get the page to load for some reason.

A lot of MH professionals, esp T's are going to be CBT people. It's very popular and effective for many people. Unfortunately, it's wonderful for the peak of the Bell curve only. Those of us at the long ends are out of luck wiht CBT.

i know the system there works in bizarre ways IMO. If you were in north america i would suggest shopping around for a T that was a good match, especialy a schema T. But admittedly i have no clue how the system works there. Is it even possible to do such a thing or is it all gov determined?