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Some dire statistics
- Thread starter Jordy
- Start date
Jordy
Well-Known Member
Okay thats settled than i guess
I don't think it's always easy, or an option, to just flip a switch and "choose" to be happy, and I also don't necessarily think anyone is telling you that you can or should do that, @phantom .
I said to someone yesterday that "nothing improves without effort." It's not like you would just wake up one day and be like "You know, I'm going to choose to never be negative again" and that's that. That's silly, and probably impossible for someone who has depression. And I understand that.
What IS a choice though, is the decision to change or improve. But most people have to come to that conclusion on their own and I don't think anyone telling you that you have to do it is going to help.
It isn't easy to accept that you need to work on stuff and most people don't like to think about it and don't like being told that. I certainly didn't. But the more negative and miserable I was when I was at my lowest point, the more my life and everything in it fell apart, and the more people around me suffered and started to dislike and resent me. I had to make a very conscious decision to get help and I resisted it at first. But I wasn't happy with my life and I hated myself. I also hated how miserable I was and I hated that no one wanted to be around me. That was enough to make me want to do something about it.
I said to someone yesterday that "nothing improves without effort." It's not like you would just wake up one day and be like "You know, I'm going to choose to never be negative again" and that's that. That's silly, and probably impossible for someone who has depression. And I understand that.
What IS a choice though, is the decision to change or improve. But most people have to come to that conclusion on their own and I don't think anyone telling you that you have to do it is going to help.
It isn't easy to accept that you need to work on stuff and most people don't like to think about it and don't like being told that. I certainly didn't. But the more negative and miserable I was when I was at my lowest point, the more my life and everything in it fell apart, and the more people around me suffered and started to dislike and resent me. I had to make a very conscious decision to get help and I resisted it at first. But I wasn't happy with my life and I hated myself. I also hated how miserable I was and I hated that no one wanted to be around me. That was enough to make me want to do something about it.
cornman
Well-Known Member
I typically don't consider slipping into eternal oblivion to be a valid option for dealing with life's obstacles. I think most would agree with me. The fact that you even consider it a option is disturbing to me. I think that it may be beneficial for you to seek professional help. I have, and its helped me considerably.
On the general topic: A very dear friend of mine is a professional trauma counsellor. Something she told me about her work:
"Many trauma survivors prefer to believe they can’t ever heal as a protective defense. It can be devastating to realize decades of our lives have been wasted when a solution might’ve been available all along. It can also be really scary for some folks to imagine a life in which their trauma story isn’t central to every aspect of their lives. This was a frequent topic in clinical consult on the psych unit, especially with our older folks. Is it better to medicate and intervene only to improve quality of life rather than engage the client in any form of therapy that might activate trauma the client may not wish heal from? Is it? I honestly don’t know but the good news is, clients usually tell us even if they don’t come right out and say it. Which is why I always let them lead the dance."
We talk a fair bit about life, the universe and everything. We both have complex PTSD - I say we have it, because trauma in childhood does lead to brain changes, and your experiences and how you dealt with them is always a part of you. The "good" outcomes from such brain changes, we actually both enjoy (we're both in midlife), and think are an asset to us (attention to detail, hyperfocus, independent critical thinking - all part of our childhood survival strategies for both of us). The negative outcomes, we've both spent a lot of time and energy addressing, and re-writing a lot of unhelpful "code" (and that's an ongoing, lifelong process - a perpetual evolution) - the way we see it, just because your hardware got a particular operating system put on it by the factory, doesn't mean you can't creatively start de-bugging and re-coding - and actually, we see that as our responsibility, both to ourselves and to others (but, that's just how we two see it, and people are free to see the world in different ways - more than one way to skin a cat etc).
Which hooks back into the topic of fault versus responsibility. It's not our fault that traumatic childhood experiences re-shaped our brains and affected our initial ideas, including in some really unhelpful ways - but it's our responsibility, once we are adults, to own ourselves and deal with these things constructively. It's pointless sitting back and saying, "This is the computer I got from the factory, it sucks, I'm outta here." We have this beautiful thing called agency. We have the ability as humans to become creative and solve our problems - with the support of others, often, with really complex problems, because who wants to re-invent the wheel when someone else can give you a technical drawing of it - and it's great to look at different strategies that are helpful for various people (none of them one-size-fits-all), but at the end of the day, it has to be us solving our own problems, not someone else. No matter why we have those problems in the first place.
The friend I've quoted above grew up with an alcoholic, violent father, a dismissive mother, an uncle who sexually abused her from toddlerhood to age 10, the eldest child in a poverty-stricken family in society's underclass where her parents worked several low-paid insecure jobs around the clock to make ends meet while leaving her to basically bring up her siblings and fend for herself. Close to zero emotional support for herself. She's a recovering anorexic and a fabulous writer, away from her daytime work with traumatised people. She has a wicked sense of humour and a huge heart. She's one of the loveliest people I know, and a delight to be friends with. Also a perfect example that having a horrible background doesn't mean you have no choices and you can't take charge of re-writing your own narrative, and living a meaningful, joyful life.
I'll go out with a piece of music by Bob Geldof - a parody that addresses "I don't care" on a personal and international level, from someone who has himself done tons of work on personal stuff, and also to help with international humanitarian crises. So this is completely tongue-in-cheek, and if you know Geldof, makes you laugh along with him.
But the ability to recognise the unhelpful and ridiculous in us is an important thing, and humour is a great tool with which to do it.
"Many trauma survivors prefer to believe they can’t ever heal as a protective defense. It can be devastating to realize decades of our lives have been wasted when a solution might’ve been available all along. It can also be really scary for some folks to imagine a life in which their trauma story isn’t central to every aspect of their lives. This was a frequent topic in clinical consult on the psych unit, especially with our older folks. Is it better to medicate and intervene only to improve quality of life rather than engage the client in any form of therapy that might activate trauma the client may not wish heal from? Is it? I honestly don’t know but the good news is, clients usually tell us even if they don’t come right out and say it. Which is why I always let them lead the dance."
We talk a fair bit about life, the universe and everything. We both have complex PTSD - I say we have it, because trauma in childhood does lead to brain changes, and your experiences and how you dealt with them is always a part of you. The "good" outcomes from such brain changes, we actually both enjoy (we're both in midlife), and think are an asset to us (attention to detail, hyperfocus, independent critical thinking - all part of our childhood survival strategies for both of us). The negative outcomes, we've both spent a lot of time and energy addressing, and re-writing a lot of unhelpful "code" (and that's an ongoing, lifelong process - a perpetual evolution) - the way we see it, just because your hardware got a particular operating system put on it by the factory, doesn't mean you can't creatively start de-bugging and re-coding - and actually, we see that as our responsibility, both to ourselves and to others (but, that's just how we two see it, and people are free to see the world in different ways - more than one way to skin a cat etc).
Which hooks back into the topic of fault versus responsibility. It's not our fault that traumatic childhood experiences re-shaped our brains and affected our initial ideas, including in some really unhelpful ways - but it's our responsibility, once we are adults, to own ourselves and deal with these things constructively. It's pointless sitting back and saying, "This is the computer I got from the factory, it sucks, I'm outta here." We have this beautiful thing called agency. We have the ability as humans to become creative and solve our problems - with the support of others, often, with really complex problems, because who wants to re-invent the wheel when someone else can give you a technical drawing of it - and it's great to look at different strategies that are helpful for various people (none of them one-size-fits-all), but at the end of the day, it has to be us solving our own problems, not someone else. No matter why we have those problems in the first place.
The friend I've quoted above grew up with an alcoholic, violent father, a dismissive mother, an uncle who sexually abused her from toddlerhood to age 10, the eldest child in a poverty-stricken family in society's underclass where her parents worked several low-paid insecure jobs around the clock to make ends meet while leaving her to basically bring up her siblings and fend for herself. Close to zero emotional support for herself. She's a recovering anorexic and a fabulous writer, away from her daytime work with traumatised people. She has a wicked sense of humour and a huge heart. She's one of the loveliest people I know, and a delight to be friends with. Also a perfect example that having a horrible background doesn't mean you have no choices and you can't take charge of re-writing your own narrative, and living a meaningful, joyful life.
I'll go out with a piece of music by Bob Geldof - a parody that addresses "I don't care" on a personal and international level, from someone who has himself done tons of work on personal stuff, and also to help with international humanitarian crises. So this is completely tongue-in-cheek, and if you know Geldof, makes you laugh along with him.
But the ability to recognise the unhelpful and ridiculous in us is an important thing, and humour is a great tool with which to do it.
I wonder if "work on yourself" people suicide rate may be different from "accept that is a nightmare" people suicide rate...
Do you have any stadistics about that?
Like you, I dont like people giving others certain kind of advices. In my case I dislike surrender advices.
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"I hope we can drop the just work on yourself attitude and accept that autism is nightmare for most individuals suffering from it."
There's no room for improvement if you ask people to stop working on themselves, and instead - take a melodramatic view that most on the spectrum are living in a nightmare.
Pull your socks up.
Ed
There's no room for improvement if you ask people to stop working on themselves, and instead - take a melodramatic view that most on the spectrum are living in a nightmare.
Pull your socks up.
Ed
None of this stuff fits me, having a good life, no doubt I'm autistic not a big believer that the exception make the rule.
This is really good to hear. If you don't mind me asking, why do you think you've ended up with a good life?
You have to work what nature gives you know your weeknesess, plan around them. Being an Aspie can be a gift, made me a excepional employee over and over Took me a while to realize what made me different. Ability to focus and make connections others could not see is a gift and I treated it as such.
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Brett and I have always seen being ND as a gift. While there have been challenges, NTs have plenty of those too, and we really like the brains we have and what we do with them, and what other NDs we've bumped into do with theirs. Admittedly we both don't have major problems being in society and we've both been in enjoyable professional roles for a long time before downshifting to the land, and we've always been able to create meaning for what we have chosen to do.
But then this is also exactly what one of our Australians of the Year said recently - paraplegic tennis champion who has tons more reason to feel disabled than we do (we've just never felt that way, seems absurd, Ubuntu is not less functional than Windows, it's just different) but he doesn't because look at his life - and that comes significantly to his attitude and the choices he makes. He could have sat back and said it's over, but he never did and now he has no regrets.
This is very pretty!
I think so too, it's a special piece of jewelry that is used with something we call a "bunad", it's our traditional folk costume. They can be very intricate and have price tags that makes you look like this:
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I think so too, it's a special piece of jewelry that is used with something we call a "bunad", it's our traditional folk costume. They can be very intricate and have price tags that makes you look like this:
View attachment 79375 View attachment 79376 View attachment 79377
Love traditional stuff like this. And I don't know why, but now I am thinking of the super Scandinavian movie "As It Is In Heaven" about a choir etc. Have you seen that one? Friend recommended it and we both loved it.
Yes, I think it is a good movie.
Au Naturel
Au Naturel
You're not dead so obviously, on balance, you didn't want to. Look for the things that kept you alive and pursue those.
Jordy
Well-Known Member
I keep myself alive with constant distraction so i don't think about the severe loneliness that i feel.
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