It's you who upsets you, not the events themselves.

[Mia]

And I will add that for many people with extensive histories of being told that their feelings are wrong and stupid and/or that they aren't allowed to feel things, or who have experienced a whole lot of gas-lighting and being blamed for terrible and painful situations that were absolutely not their fault, centering a therapeutic approach on the idea that their suffering is their fault can be very triggering and counter-productive. (Not everyone of course. A lot depends on the person, what works best for them.)

I agree, the idea of looking at some situations differently does help. Yet for some this approach overlooks the pain and suffering that people experience. Mind-altering abuse is not something that can be overcome easily, if at all. It can only be acknowledged and over extended periods considered. Healing from abuse can take a lifetime.

 

[Anarkitty]

Am I just continuing to misunderstand the premise?

@NothingToSeeHere summed up my position nicely. I just wanted to add that to me, the question of when it becomes the person's fault for thinking about or dwelling on negative past events does miss the point I was attempting to make. It's about suffering less, and self-blame only increases suffering. I wouldn't want a person thinking, "Look at me. I'm so worthless that I'm causing myself to suffer even more." That's not helpful!

Instead, my thought is, "I'm as worthy of happiness as anyone else, so if I can do something to alleviate my suffering, I should do that."

We actually have very little control over what memories our minds are going to toss at us at any given moment. We have very little control over what emotions we feel. Where we have control is how we choose to respond. We can choose to redirect our minds by simply focusing on the breath--think about how people who are overly agitated are often instructed to "take a deep breath." Just that action can distract the mind.

 

[Fino]

"I'm as worthy of happiness as anyone else, so if I can do something to alleviate my suffering, I should do that."

Not to ruin your good will, but that's very similar to the thought I often had to justify drug use!

 

[Anarkitty]

Not to ruin your good will, but that's very similar to the thought I often had to justify drug use!

I feel like I need to be very careful about what I say to you!

I read (or heard? can't remember) a saying recently that applies. A wise action is one that, in the long run, promotes happiness. An unwise action is one that, in the long run, promotes unhappiness.

Drugs, of course, can fall into either one of those categories depending on what the substance is and how it affects the person taking it. Many people find that taking a prescription drug for anxiety or depression promotes their long term happiness. OTOH, EVERYONE finds that taking meth promotes long term UNhappiness.

 

[Nauti]

I read the article and found it can't be applied to people with psychotic personalities as psychopaths have no empathy. Only their own narcissistic agendas.

I think you mean psychopathic personalities?
Psychosis is a different thing, more along the lines of separated from reality and delusional.

Yes it's true that psychopathically-wired people, neurologically speaking, process emotion differently and often experiences blunted emotion and I would say boredom is more where they would experience suffering, more commonly, as a characteristic of psychopathy is a comparatively heightened need to thrill-seek.

I believe suffering is a core part of the human condition and yet, it can be transformed into compassion, motivation and wisdom and it gives our lives meaning and purpose. Without suffering what means anything?

Nobody wants to suffer, unless they feel they deserve it so maybe it's more a matter of learning to think well? To draw the right or helpful conclusions from our suffering? The probem with this more post modern idea about "it's not the thing it's what you choose to think about it". Is it can put people in danger. If you are being badly oppressed and abused but you think "oh well, it's what I think about it that matters" then you can easily live in denial and that can be VERY DANGEROUS.

I do know about this, from experience, as I stayed in a very oppressive and life- and-sanity-destroying relationship for 20 years, that very nearly killed me and took my sanity. I used justifications and denial all the time, to avoid suffering and to avoid having to do the very difficult thing of extracating myself from the person and situation that was killing me. It was, very much, a frog-in-cold-water-that-she-doesn't-realise-is-heating-up-to-boiling-point situation.

The point of power is with the individual, I agree with that, but logic is only part of the solution, as logic has the inherent risk of being based on too little information, or, the wrong base premise, to be always reliable.

I think suffering is just a fact of life, prolonging it or distilling the wisdom of it, is another conversation.

The world is dangerous and full of things that can hurt and kill us (yes, I know this sounds like the philosophy of someone with ptsd, and I do have a diagnosis of complex ptsd) but this is not a fact that anyone can disprove.

Do I dwell the things that have caused me immense suffering? Only in as much as if I still have wisdom to develop around my relationship with those circumstances and in some instances I'm very dissociated from some of that, but that isn't a conscious process.
Edit -it's more of an unconcious process that requires consciousness and mindfulness to counter.

Dissociation, that is, is an internal mechanism, so that I don't become too overwhelmed by the memories and cease to be able to function enough to survive.

 

[Mia]

To draw the right or helpful conclusions from our suffering? The probem with this more post modern idea about "it's not the thing it's what you choose to think about it". Is it can put people in danger. If you are being badly oppressed and abused but you think "oh well, it's what I think about it that matters" then you can easily live in denial and that can be VERY DANGEROUS.

I don't think this kind of therapy is ideal for everyone, it's not a panacea for extreme abuse. Although for some individuals applied in certain ways, it may be helpful. Along with other aids and other kinds of therapy it can be used at varying stages of the healing process.

There is no one specific therapy or way, it's more a combination of things.

 

[RosaViolet]

I believe suffering is a core part of the human condition ...The probem with this more post modern idea about "it's not the thing it's what you choose to think about it". Is it can put people in danger. If you are being badly oppressed and abused but you think "oh well, it's what I think about it that matters" then you can easily live in denial and that can be VERY DANGEROUS...
The point of power is with the individual, I agree with that, but logic is only part of the solution, as logic has the inherent risk of being based on too little information or the wrong base premise to be always reliable.

I can totally see how breezing deeply could be helpful in a panic attack, but it would not be very practical in an emergency panic situation where urgent action is required. For action, we apparently need emotion.
We also need emotion for decisions.

How Only Being Able to Use Logic to Make Decisions Destroyed a Man’s Life

Remembering the emotion, retaining the pain helps us to sort out and remove less viable options during decision making. When part of the brain responsible for retained emotion is surgically removed, it impairs decision making. I read about this before, in an article about the 'lawyer who couldn't decide', which I couldn't find. But this link deals with 3 other cases, focussing on Elliot, whose life fell apart after brain tumor removal.

'Rational processing ..,unencumbered by passion,.. the “high-reason view” might be a compelling idea, but it doesn’t hold up when you look at the biological mechanics of decision-making...

'Looking at Elliot and medical history, Damasio discovered [that] when emotion was impaired, so was decision-making.

'Damasio's first insight occurred while talking to Elliot about the tragic turn his life had taken. "He was always controlled," Damasio remembers, "always describing scenes as a dispassionate, uninvolved spectator. Nowhere was there a sense of his own suffering, even though he was the protagonist … I never saw a tinge of emotion in my many hours of conversation with him: no sadness, no impatience, no frustration." Elliot's friends and family confirmed Damasio's observations: ever since his surgery, he had seemed strangely devoid of emotion, numb to the tragic turn his own life had taken.

'This led Damasio to formulate what might be his great contribution to the understanding of the brain (and the human body): what he calls the somatic (as in body) marker hypothesis. Essentially, he reasons, when you’re thinking about a course of action, you imagine your body to be in the potential situation, and you get, in layman’s terms, a “good” or “bad” feeling about it [procedural memories]. It’s not that right decisions come from that sort of feeling alone, but, Damasio argues, those “somatic markers” filter away lots of alternatives; they’re a shortcut to decision-making. While Elliot’s landscape of potential realities all had “flat” values [ he din't feel, forgot his pain and joy], healthy people weigh the potential outcomes that are left after “somatic markers” filter the other possibilities out.

'without the filtering provided by emotions and their somatic markers, the data sets for any given decision — whether it’s what to get for lunch or whom to marry — would be overwhelming. The working memory can only juggle so many objects at once. To make the right call, you need to feel your way — or at least part of your way — there.'

 

[Sherlock77]

Yup, yup, yup... It's a long weekend coming up for Easter weekend, in the wonderful world of the recycling industry we're working tomorrow on Good Friday, we are getting the extra holiday pay but I really don't want to work, more to the point...

I let this situation, plus the fact we're behind at work right now, meaning tons of 10 hour shifts coming up, it's springtime when I'm supposed to be active enjoying myself...

More to the point... I let it upset me and I'm convinced that that it's "ruining my life"... Other co-workers just seem to deal with with it, whereas I let it get to me, sometimes in a bad way

So... It is how I react to events, maybe I need to quit trying to make life too perfect... I'll shut up now, but I agree with the statement and it's something I struggle with

 

[Nauti]

Yup, yup, yup... It's a long weekend coming up for Easter weekend, in the wonderful world of the recycling industry we're working tomorrow on Good Friday, we are getting the extra holiday pay but I really don't want to work, more to the point...

I let this situation, plus the fact we're behind at work right now, meaning tons of 10 hour shifts coming up, it's springtime when I'm supposed to be active enjoying myself...

More to the point... I let it upset me and I'm convinced that that it's "ruining my life"... Other co-workers just seem to deal with with it, whereas I let it get to me, sometimes in a bad way

So... It is how I react to events, maybe I need to quit trying to make life too perfect... I'll shut up now, but I agree with the statement and it's something I struggle with

I agree. In this context and others like it, it's actually one's "cognitive distortions" that are at play and disturbing one's equalibrium.

I would categorize the one you seem to be operating under @Sherlock77 as, one of the top ten.
It's called "catastrophizing" and it's when we blow things up in our minds, exaggerating the "badness" of a situation or predicting the "worst possible outcome".
It's a harmful and peace-of-mind-destroying thinking habit, Indicative of some fallacious "core beliefs", as they are referred to in a lot of trauma recovery literature and programs.

Maybe something like "Things always go from bad to worse for me" ?

Other common cognitive distortions are things like;

minimising our positive achievements and attributes and focusing on our, perceived, failures and deficits in an imbalanced way.

Mind reading; we can't actually KNOW what other's are thinking, but that doesn't seem to stop people behaving and thinking as if we can.

Just to name a few. There are more, but, yeah, it gives an idea of what I'm talking about, to leave it at that, for now.

 

[Pats]

Sometimes. But I don't think it's always the case. Things do happen that is upsetting and it's not our interpretation. For example, bullying - someone wants to beat you up. So is it your interpretation that's causing you to be upset? Or are you supposed to find a positive in it? Death, incarceration, divorce, abuse, etc, etc - are you supposed to find the positives?

 

[Sherlock77]

I agree. In this context and others like it, it's actually one's "cognitive distortions" that are at play and disturbing one's equalibrium.

I would categorize the one you seem to be operating under @Sherlock77 as, one of the top ten.
It's called "catastrophizing" and it's when we blow things up in our minds, exaggerating the "badness" of a situation or predicting the "worst possible outcome".
It's a harmful and peace-of-mind-destroying thinking habit, Indicative of some fallacious "core beliefs", as they are referred to in a lot of trauma recovery literature and programs.

Maybe something like "Things always go from bad to worse for me" ?

Other common cognitive distortions are things like;

minimising our positive achievements and attributes and focusing on our, perceived, failures and deficits in an imbalanced way.

Mind reading; we can't actually KNOW what other's are thinking, but that doesn't seem to stop people behaving and thinking as if we can.

Just to name a few. There are more, but, yeah, it gives an idea of what I'm talking about, to leave it at that, for now.

A lot of that sounds like me...

 

[Fino]

A lot of that sounds like me...

Have you ever had CBT? She basically gave you a free sample of it. Now go eat the rest!

 

[Sherlock77]

Have you ever had CBT? She basically gave you a free sample of it. Now go eat the rest!

I've never heard of CBT before, too tied up with work right... And despite what I say sometimes, I still have a two day "non-long weekend" and the first classic car show of the year on Saturday, supposed to be good weather...

 

[Fino]

I've never heard of CBT before, too tied up with work right... And despite what I say sometimes, I still have a two day "non-long weekend" and the first classic car show of the year on Saturday, supposed to be good weather...

Basically, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is just like regular therapy except it's centered around the things explained by Nauti.

 

[Gracey]

For example, bullying - someone wants to beat you up. So is it your interpretation that's causing you to be upset??

Fear,
living in fear for that moment.
The fear of getting hurt and humiliated and feeling powerless can be soul destroying.
I imagine Most would want to avoid that.

What if there was a way to defend oneself effectively?

(I’m thinking of at school)
Same circumstances, same bullies, same bullying,
A different (changed) target (or victim)

Finding a way to change the outcome ?

Be that marshal arts, self defence, a smart mouth, hanging with a bigger gang, getting some kind of fearsome reputation, body camera to bring assault charges?

Would that be like feeling that initial fear but wanting; sometimes desperately, to change those feelings?

To find a way out of feeling powerless?
To change the circumstances or effect it has on us?

(I know what I’m trying to say but don’t know if it’s coming across like the picture in my head )

 

[Pats]

Fear,
living in fear for that moment.
The fear of getting hurt and humiliated and feeling powerless can be soul destroying.
I imagine Most would want to avoid that.

What if there was a way to defend oneself effectively?

(I’m thinking of at school)
Same circumstances, same bullies, same bullying,
A different (changed) target (or victim)

Finding a way to change the outcome ?

Be that marshal arts, self defence, a smart mouth, hanging with a bigger gang, getting some kind of fearsome reputation, body camera to bring assault charges?

Would that be like feeling that initial fear but wanting; sometimes desperately, to change those feelings?

To find a way out of feeling powerless?
To change the circumstances or effect it has on us?

(I know what I’m trying to say but don’t know if it’s coming across like the picture in my head )

To be able to change the circumstances would be the answer, but then the circumstances are different initiating different feelings. Right?

 

[Pats]

Changing our emotions, changing our interpretations of things - I think most human beings are limited in the capability of doing these things. Advertising, music, media, movies, etc easily plays with our emotions and people in these fields know that. If I want to be in a really good mood I can listen to Grand Funk Railroad and it somehow just puts me in a really good mood. Some things I've read how different people here have been treated, I cringe and almost want to cry. Our emotions ARE inner responses to the outside world. Sometimes we can control these responses, sometimes we can't. You see a video of a child laughing and playing with a puppy, you are going to smile inside. You're just going to. This is your immediate natural response. You have limited control over that immediate response. You CAN, over time, change the way you look at something. You can change the circumstances. But you can not change your immediate response which is your emotion caused from the initial event. "Oh, I'm being raped, let me put a positive spin on that so I can continue to be happy." Not going to happen - over time, you can - "I'm lucky I'm still alive." way of looking at it.
And no one can convince me that others cannot affect your emotions either. Ask anyone that's been in an abusive relationship. That's the reason sometimes emotional abuse is so bad. Because it DOES effect the other person. I'll give you one moment in time - I had been married less than a month and we're driving home and I'm feeling happy and loving. I'm saying to my husband how nice it is to have someone that wants to spend time with you, anxious to get home from work to be with you and thinks about you during the day and on and on. Come on - we were still 'kinda' on our honeymoon and the newness was still there. I was feeling the excitement of our relationship. He responds, "Oh, I don't love you like that." Talk about an instant change of emotions!! And I didn't do it to myself. I was flabbergasted and hurt, which I would never have chosen that emotion which I was feeling after he said what he said. I guess I should have tried to change my perception? Instead I changed my perception of my marriage - it wasn't what he had convinced me it was going to be. Yes, before we got married, he convinced me that our relationship was and would be those things. He lied to me about who he was and what I meant to him and suddenly I'm in a marriage that is none of those things.
We can control our physical and verbal responses to the outside. We can control how we deal with those things. But we can not control our immediate emotional response to the outside.

 

[Jojo_LB]

The description of CBT that Nauti gave is just a snippet of what it's all about. Obviously, one can't go full-on into what CBT is and how we can make use of it in our lives in a forum. A good book to read about CBT is Feeling Good by Dr. David Burns. I read it when I first sought therapy in 2002. I re-read about half of it about five years ago, just to brush up on some things.

I seem very emotionally sound to people, but this wasn't always the case. No matter how many times I tried to incorporate what I learned from reading about CBT and techniques therapists gave me over the years I still spent a good deal of my life suffering. As much as my logical brain knows how irrational I'm being, my emotions always seem to eat me up.

This is where meds helped me out a lot. My brain just does not naturally process emotions in a "healthy" way. If I was not on meds and I got a brain scan, neurologists would be able to see that my limbic system is different from NTs. So, I just accept that I was born with a limbic system that does not process emotions the same way NT's do.

I'm on Vyvanse, and if I'm to remain emotionally "even", then I'm going to have to be on strong amphetamines for a good portion of the rest of my life. No one really knows how CNS stimulants help in this regard, but for a lot of people like me, they just do. People hear or see the word "stimulant" and they think everyone gets amped up. For me, stimulants have a "paradoxical effect." They calm me in ways benzos never could. Anxiety disappeared. All the things that would usually anger me, take me from 0 to 100 in a second does not bother me as intensely.

So I guess i'm trying to say that it really is not easy for some people to put stuff in perspective and prevent their emotions from getting the best of them. I am proof that sometimes, that is so hard that not even years of CBT and SSRIs and mood stabilizers could even out my emotions. But, for somewhat mysterious reasons, amphetamines help me. And now I feel like I have what I need to process the emotions better. I'm not a zombie. I still feel emotions. But my mood is more stable and I don't allow the strong negative emotions to linger for too long to the point that it gets so unhealthy.

 

[JDShredds]

A lot of deeper discussion going on here that I really appreciate. I'll engage with it more when I'm a bit less... raw.

As I had mentioned earlier in the thread... having to put my cat down unfortunately did come to pass Thursday evening (aggressive cancer). So I'm in the midst of the painful suffering right now. She was the only companion I had in this home; the only other entity I took responsibility for taking care of, and all I wanted was for her to be happy and well.

But even in the midst of this, I know that it is not the event itself that causes my suffering, but my attachment to it. Would I be this upset if someone else's cat died in the exact same circumstance? No. Yet it was the same event; I just wasn't attached to it. Or what if I took care of this cat but with a detached indifference? Again, I would not have the same reaction. I think a mistake people make is using the term "fault" in this regard. This isn't about being "your fault." Its simply an observation; not a judgment.

As an aside, I'm also a proponent of CBT. It cured my panic disorder in my 20's (and by cured, I mean I no longer fear panic itself the way I used to, which is a hallmark of PD). With that said, it doesn't mean I don't still panic at times. What it DOES mean is it happens less frequently, and whenever it does I'm fully aware of what is happening and I'm able to observe it as a physiological response to perceptions of danger that are only that - perceptions.

"Change the way you look at things... and the things you look at change."

 

[Dubz]

Albert Ellis started a revolution in psychotherapy by introducing the world to a form of therapy founded on a profoundly helpful insight of the ancient Stoic philosopher, Epictetus. It goes like this: It is not the events in your life that upset you; it is rather the way you interpret or think about these events that can upset you. So, it is YOU who upsets you, not the events themselves. This is the foundation of all forms of Cognitive-Behavior Therapy (CBT), especially the original one invented by Albert Ellis, namely Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT).

Do you think that we upset ourselves, rather than things that happen in our lives?


Balance of the article here: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/what-would-aristotle-do/201403/logic-based-therapy-go

My mom died. Thats not what upset but my own personal interpretation of it. Really?!? My mom died. That is WHY I am upset. If thats what you want to call it. The next time a bomb explodes or somebody walks into a school and kills a bunch of innocent kids lets not get at the person with a bomb or the guy holding the gun. Lets turn that inward, maybe ask The Buddha. Why am I "upset" by this and why is it my fault? whatever... life sucks. dont blame yourself the next time someones a jerk to you. dont believe everthing you read. Psychology is crap