I absolutely agree. Our motivations are what we build ourselves into. What we see and focus on can become those motivations. If you see the glass half empty, that's all you'll notice, all the time. If you see the glass half full, you will find those silver linings more often.

It's like when you buy a yellow car and then all of a sudden it seems like theres yellow cars everywhere, but theres the same number as before, you've just shifted your focus.

Theres a moment where you decide what your life focus is, maybe it's always having better stuff than the Joneses, or maybe it's living up to others standards, or maybe it's finding balance and harmony in yourself and those around you. You can change your focus at any time, if you notice it's drifted. I'm sorry your parents didn't seem able to shift theirs as such. But go you for breaking that cycle!

Well done, for managing such a tricky situation so well! Absolute props to you!

The reason that worked is fascinating too, I love this stuff. When your fight or flight activates, it shuts down your thinking brain, so reactivating your thinking brain, is a cheat code to deactivating fight or flight.

Advice taken from influencers, doesn't discredit the advice, they're likely trying to get you to buy something, just don't buy the thing. Whatever you can find to help you when you're drowning, is useful. Don't make perfect the enemy of good enough to suffice.

I absolutely object to that train of thought, in my opinion depression needs a tool belt, a very individualised tool belt. You throw everything at it, every tool you can find, until you find the combination that fits you. In Australia our medications are $7 a pack, and it's illegal for doctors to get kickbacks from companies (had to look that last one up because my dad fell down that hole, ugh). I am so sorry your health system has become so hard to access, in which case, find all the tools available to you and do the best with what you have.

I absolutely object to that train of thought, in my opinion depression needs a tool belt, a very individualised tool belt. You throw everything at it, every tool you can find, until you find the combination that fits you. In Australia our medications are $7 a pack, and it's illegal for doctors to get kickbacks from companies (had to look that last one up because my dad fell down that hole, ugh). I am so sorry your health system has become so hard to access, in which case, find all the tools available to you and do the best with what you have.

I absolutely get you. And it should not be understated how immensely hard that is to do. Start small and practice. Start with the small emotions.

It's like how soldiers train repeatedly so when their fight or flight systems activate in a war zone, their muscle memory takes over and they don't freeze, they can keep going. The more you practice, the better you get at anything. This one is a hugely hard one. The more you practice, the smaller the bigger emotions become. Emotions are an emergency alarm system, and if it thinks you didn't hear the alarm, it gets louder and louder, until it's crippling. So the more you practice, the less often you get hit with the crippling emotions.

Nice!

All emotions are valid. All emotions are ok. All emotions are allowed space, and necessary. All emotions just want to be heard. All emotions are a message / alert from your nervous system. The meaning doesn't matter in first noticing emotions. You are not your emotions, you are not your thoughts. You are the entity that observes them both.

Your thoughts and emotions are not in any way connected parts of your brain. Any time your thoughts try and tell you they know what your emotions are about, those thoughts are guessing. So acknowledging or validating emotions doesn't need to be a thinking process. Validating or acknowledging emotions is just the opposite of suppressing or bottling emotions. Emotions don't need to come outward of your body. (Although completing the stress cycle after feelings large enough to activate your fight or flight, can be useful and that does involve moving your body)

They just want to be noticed. It's an alarm system, even if it's not about an alert, that emotional response system still wants to know you heard it. Or it gets louder.

So, if you can, stop and turn your attention inwards and notice how you're feeling. The more often you do this, the more you start to feel and differentiate your emotions. Because when you're in the practice of suppressing emotions, which we can be socially taught to do, they can be hard to notice, it just all feels like noise.

Emotions sit in your body. They are a tightening of muscles and structures, etc here and there. That all together form a signal, for each emotion, in the range of emotions.

When noticing how you feel, it can be helpful to scan your body to notice where those emotions sit.

After noticing emotions, thank your emotional system for the message (which will cause an emotional reaction of thanks) to help move past the emotion, and let it dissolve naturally. Completing the cycle.

The more you practise the better you get at it. I am absolutely learning all this stuff myself because I had an inability to connect with my emotions. I notice it can be really hard to remember to do all that stuff, when big feelings hit, it's so tempting to get caught up in a spiral and just constantly reactivate those emotions. But I suppose practise makes perfect, I'll get there.

Can be helpful to learn some breathing techniques that send signals to your body (and emotional system) that it's safe right now, no dinosaurs chasing you, or monsters under the bed, you checked.

I had that same song start playing in my head when I read hat man, too!

Thing is, as we grow we learn. You have actually upskilled a heap! You just listed off a heap of qualities that you don't appreciate in a companion, that's knowledge! And right now you have successfully learned that, and gotten away from every person who gave you an example of those qualities. You are so much more capable than you are giving yourself credit for. You absolutely have power to walk away from someone when you notice those traits. Start slow. Notice your feelings and listen to them. But also remember to say how you're feeling and if you notice people keep doing the things you talk to them about making you uncomfortable, then it's just time to walk away. Then you will have gained more experience and knowledge, some fun times, and you will at worst only be exactly where you are now. Right now you have time to contemplate and really listen to your inner self. Just make sure you're listening to you and not anxiety, you are not your anxiety. Anxiety is just an overactive self protection mechanism, that means well, but it can get super ott.

I've had some pretty severe childhood trauma, and I didn't know about bpd when I was younger (like 20's), but I feel like looking back I could easily have ticked those credentials (of having bpd). I've just spent so much time working on myself and trying to help myself with the big emotions and things that cropped up in my life that felt uncomfortable.

Bpd is essentially survival mechanisms you developed in childhood that get kinda stuck, and they definitely don't serve you in adulthood. None of it is your fault, and all of it is trauma.

I had absolutely no sense of self or self worth, or self esteem, and I would attach to toxic abusive people, expecting them to feed me this sense of self etc, but all they did was break me more. I found, those people I attached to, were always toxic, and it's because they feel familiar to the upbringing you had (not saying this is you). Just that it's common to find what's familiar. So if you grew up in a toxic home, and you try to escape, and then you end up choosing, subconsciously, similar people, because theres this safety in the danger you know. You survived the danger you knew. So it feels like a safe option. Yeah, I know, don't expect brains to be smart, they're not, they just calculate odds of survival.

Let me tell you some things I enjoyed learning on my journey to finding myself. You are not your emotions. You are not your thoughts, you are not your meat suit. You are the entity that observes all of that. And it can feel all consuming, when those emotions burn so hot, it's really hard to step back. And it's hard to feel safe. It feels like your world is spiralling out of control and your chest is so tight you don't feel like you can survive this emotion, and you would do almost anything for release.

But release never comes from the places that burned you in the first place.

All those big emotions, they're a communication from a part of your brain that is entirely non verbal, it is just designed to notice a need or danger, and help you survive it. And it gets a super work out, when you have lived through trauma, so it's a little super powered.

The trick to it is to learn how to turn off your fight or flight that's making you feel like clinging to that person is the only solve to those huge emotions.

I'll bet you are amazingly attentive and intensely focused and great at looking after those people you fixate on. Why not turn those superpowers back on yourself. Start by noticing. It sounds silly, but those emotions get louder and louder because they feel like they are warning you of a danger AND they feel like you don't hear them. So notice them. Stop where you are, place a kind hand on your chest and say, I notice I'm feeling some big feelings right now. And then turn all of those attentive superpowers on filling your needs, no matter how small, for the rest of the day (and always, but start there). Have you eaten, do you need to rest, is your clothing comfortable, are you thirsty, does your soul need a song and dance, do you need your favourite cup and a nice view. Take some time to pamper yourself and really look after yourself, until you're feeling a little better.

Then start doing all that stuff without the big feelings, just all day every day.

You get to spend the most time on this earth with yourself, no matter how long a relationship you end up in, nothing else comes close, so make that the best relationship of all, and everything else just falls in place. You got this, I believe in you.

Prolanolol, side effect from the aim at reducing migraines. You can try Physiological sigh, they're great at completing the stress cycle. Detoxing from light sources for a couple of hours before sleep. No screens, dim all lights. Theres one where you tense every muscle, hold and then relax and imagine its super super relaxed, one at a time, all the way from feet to head.

Personally I have to listen to a show that's just interesting enough to keep my attention and not too interesting that it'll keep me awake to see what happens. (And without a super boppy intro outro, or it'll wake me back up.) I can sit there for hours and not sleep, trying without a show, turn a show on and I'm out in less than 5 minutes. It's insane.

My daughters dog hated her father. Wouldn't stop barking at him. She didn't hate him, she moved in with him. She has no issues with men. I think you're forgetting dogs actually have autonomy and instincts. Dogs are capable of sensing danger. There are some dogs who don't necessarily hate all men, but they can instantly spot the dangerous ones.

And so endeth the lesson

Ooh, same. And I can viscerally feel the seats and dash etc. The weight of the wheel when you sit and bounce on the springy seats trying to turn the wheel from side to side, and it's so heavy. The creaking squeak sound of the windows as you turn the handle. The great thunk of the door, with it's steel weight and loud creak. My dad owned one of these for a small time when I was a kid, because he's a car enthusiast. There were no seatbelts in the back, so us 3 kids thought it was hilarious to slide all the way to each side of the car (mostly uncontrollably, but with added emphasis) every time it turned a corner. Dad didn't own the car long. No idea why. I remember him getting quite frustrated with us, but we were having so much fun we just laughed. I think he gave up on getting through to us. But don't feel bad for poor Dad, he goes on to invest and enjoy some marvellous cars over the coming decades, including helping his son, the youngest of us all, become a race car driver, coincidentally, of an older car model.

Thanks for the info! Brilliant to know! I was genuinely asking. I know it's hugely conflated, and co-opted the harm to birds. I'm not saying zero harm, just that the amount of harm caused is conflated in disingenuous ways (mostly from unreliable sources). No energy production is perfect, literally all energy creation has energy loss or bi product, etc. I didn't mean to come across as trying to portray a standard of perfection. Apologies.

Cool! That's fascinating! I love this stuff! Thanks for sharing that with me!

You forgot the Standard disclaimer that these can all be used interchangably as terms of endearment too.

He looks less evil, with those eyes.

I haven't read this article, but it's been debunked that they cause bird deaths, I had thought.