A few apples short of a picnic
Jan. 26th, 2004 04:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mousme:::more mental health stuff: it's the day for it, so consider yourselves warned:::
My mother asked me the other day if my leg's constant trembling bothers me at all. I don't notice it, of course, but I've been doing it for years. I just realised a few minutes ago that I was doing it again. It's a nervous thing, like cracking my knuckles. Been doing it since I was about nine or ten years old. It annoys the hell out of other people, mind you, and they're always telling me to stop. I do stop, when they tell me, and I pay attention after that, so as not to do it. But I always start again, when I get anxious. I rock, too. To the outside viewer, I must seem like a complete, barking loon.
In the last two weeks things have gone kind of hazy in my mind again, and unless I force myself to think of things that aren't vitally important, like gaming and television and stories and books, then the anxiety builds up like a huge black tsunami and threatens to engulf me.
I don't know how to break away from my own fears. I'm paralysed by the very things I want to get rid of. I'm a very, very sad excuse for a human being. :P Most people can just shrug off the things that to me seem too great to even contemplate. Why? If I knew the answer to that question, I wouldn't be in the position I am now.
Three years ago, I had none of these doubts. Or, rather, the doubts were there, but I was riding the crest of the tidal wave, faking my way through life. When the wave broke upon the land, it shattered me along with my illusions, and now I'm left to pick up the pieces, sifting my way through the pain and hurt and confusion in a desperate attempt to salvage what's left of my dreams, to build something new from the wreckage, to find hope at the bottom of the jar once war and pestilence and despair have escaped.
The funny thing is, that the more I learn, the more I try, the more helpless I feel. It's the inescapable pitfall of knowledge: the more you know, the more you realise that you don't know. All I know is that I know nothing.
Know thyself.
I have discovered that my self is largely a mystery to me. Rimbaud would be proud. "Je" est un autre...
In other, more lighthearted news, but still on the subject of the quest for the Self, I have a new psychologist. Dr. Dismissive recommended him. He's a psychology resident who needs a good long-term psychoanalysis case, and I'm a good long-term psychoanalysis case who needs an psychologist. Win-win.
What's a "good" type of patient for psychoanalysis, you may ask? I asked the same question. Turns out it's someone who is capable of dialogue with the psychologist, who is alread more or less in tune with their emotions or else acknowledges that they're not and are very willing to explore why they're not in tune with their emotions.
Someone who sits on the chair (or couch or whatever) and glares at the psychologist and answers in monosyllables and steadfastly asserts that they've never been angry a day in their lives, for instance, is generally a difficult case for a resident who's just starting out. ^_- So in essence I'm apparently doing them a favour and they're doing me a favour by getting me around the waiting lists.
*shrug*
It's all good.
Yay for weekly psychoanalysis. Maybe now we'll get somewhere. The group is sort of good, but for every step forward I take there I feel like I take two steps back. I don't know. I'll have to think about it some more.
*beats head on desk*
This mental health stuff is exhausting.
My mother asked me the other day if my leg's constant trembling bothers me at all. I don't notice it, of course, but I've been doing it for years. I just realised a few minutes ago that I was doing it again. It's a nervous thing, like cracking my knuckles. Been doing it since I was about nine or ten years old. It annoys the hell out of other people, mind you, and they're always telling me to stop. I do stop, when they tell me, and I pay attention after that, so as not to do it. But I always start again, when I get anxious. I rock, too. To the outside viewer, I must seem like a complete, barking loon.
In the last two weeks things have gone kind of hazy in my mind again, and unless I force myself to think of things that aren't vitally important, like gaming and television and stories and books, then the anxiety builds up like a huge black tsunami and threatens to engulf me.
I don't know how to break away from my own fears. I'm paralysed by the very things I want to get rid of. I'm a very, very sad excuse for a human being. :P Most people can just shrug off the things that to me seem too great to even contemplate. Why? If I knew the answer to that question, I wouldn't be in the position I am now.
Three years ago, I had none of these doubts. Or, rather, the doubts were there, but I was riding the crest of the tidal wave, faking my way through life. When the wave broke upon the land, it shattered me along with my illusions, and now I'm left to pick up the pieces, sifting my way through the pain and hurt and confusion in a desperate attempt to salvage what's left of my dreams, to build something new from the wreckage, to find hope at the bottom of the jar once war and pestilence and despair have escaped.
The funny thing is, that the more I learn, the more I try, the more helpless I feel. It's the inescapable pitfall of knowledge: the more you know, the more you realise that you don't know. All I know is that I know nothing.
Know thyself.
I have discovered that my self is largely a mystery to me. Rimbaud would be proud. "Je" est un autre...
In other, more lighthearted news, but still on the subject of the quest for the Self, I have a new psychologist. Dr. Dismissive recommended him. He's a psychology resident who needs a good long-term psychoanalysis case, and I'm a good long-term psychoanalysis case who needs an psychologist. Win-win.
What's a "good" type of patient for psychoanalysis, you may ask? I asked the same question. Turns out it's someone who is capable of dialogue with the psychologist, who is alread more or less in tune with their emotions or else acknowledges that they're not and are very willing to explore why they're not in tune with their emotions.
Someone who sits on the chair (or couch or whatever) and glares at the psychologist and answers in monosyllables and steadfastly asserts that they've never been angry a day in their lives, for instance, is generally a difficult case for a resident who's just starting out. ^_- So in essence I'm apparently doing them a favour and they're doing me a favour by getting me around the waiting lists.
*shrug*
It's all good.
Yay for weekly psychoanalysis. Maybe now we'll get somewhere. The group is sort of good, but for every step forward I take there I feel like I take two steps back. I don't know. I'll have to think about it some more.
*beats head on desk*
This mental health stuff is exhausting.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-01-26 04:32 pm (UTC)What you said there reminded me of a passage in a novel I read. "Phule's Paradise" by Robert Asprin. (It's the hilarious sequel to "Phule's Company".) Anyhow, inbetween all the funny bits, sometimes some gems show through. To paraphrase (and avoid any copyright issues that might be present), basically, Phule's attitude towards fear is the ostrich technique. The only alternative, from his perspective, is to become paralyzed by everything you can possibly worry about. He'd rather focus on things he /can/ deal with, because he wants to be a worker, not a worrier. Anyhow, I don't know if that helps, but I hope so or that it gave you something to think upon at least. It's the new paragraph on p.74 if you ever get around to it.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-26 05:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-26 05:20 pm (UTC)But thanks for the warning. I'll keep it at the back of my mind, and if it's warranted I'll give it more attention. You're a sweetie. :)
no subject
Date: 2004-01-26 06:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-26 07:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-26 11:19 pm (UTC)Sounds to me like you're on the right way. You've made the first steps towards a psychologist, and you have begon to know yourself. You may feel like you hardly know yourself, but (was it Descartes who said he knew nothing?) many people would have considerd Descartes a wise man.
Last, but not least, I'd like to say that your writing is so good, I feel like you can really express yourselve. The wave-thing, it really makes things clear.
Good Luck with your new psychologist.
Love Wietske
no subject
Date: 2004-01-26 11:33 pm (UTC)So no more Dr Dismissive? Al-RIGHT!!!
*pounce*hug*
insanity
Date: 2004-01-27 07:45 am (UTC)Lu
no subject
Date: 2004-01-27 10:49 am (UTC)*huggles*
no subject
Date: 2004-01-27 10:59 am (UTC)It was Socrates. :)
Actually, I blame Descartes for most of Modernity's problems, as he was the one who mostly posed the problem of the Mind/Body dichotomy. Cogito, ergo sum. The tragedy of the modern mind is that it falls too easily into the Cartesian solepsism and forgets that it is linked to the rest of the world. :P
Okay, I'm being a little facetious. But nonetheless, there's a grain of truth in there.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-27 11:17 am (UTC)I hope he's wrong for both our sakes, then.
But I really doubt that it's Tourettes in my case. It's a standard nervous thing that tons of people do. If I have Tourettes, then so did seven or eight other people in my ninth grade class. ;)