Psychological issues, when love feels like someone putting a gun in your mouth

[Meemai]

Before I start, I would like to say, I am at wits’ end. And you only read tihs when you think psychology has merits, I would not like to discuss things like ‘your more than your disorder.’ I know this, but a disorder is a facet of your personality and part of your foundation you cannot ignore it, doing so would mean you deny your very existance. Also please no posts that you’ll pray for me, I apreciate the thought but this is not what I want. If you did not like what you did read here, please do not comment or read on just hit the ‘back’ button. Also no 'go see a therapist my life is doing well, it’s only for the faith and towards God aspect of my life the religious life so to speak.

Index:

Explaining the problem
What I want from you.
Word of thanks.

Explaining the problem:

I was in a group of faith with a priest and people that believe in God, we would sing bible psalms, read the bible and talk about things that happen in our life. Pray and all those things, I never was one much for talking, and somehow the enviroment felt threatning to me.

I am writing this with pain in my heart, and watery eyes when I am thinking about it. But it felt hostile the whole group, not because they are bad people. No, in contrary they are quite nice and friendly, however as Jesus turned water into wine, my brain turns love and friendliness into destruction. Now let me explain this please.

So I have a disorder, and will try to explain it with a rough sketch, this means I am not going into detail but will tryr to write it rather roughly and generalised. Also I’ll just explain a facet of it that is relevant, no point in explaining everything now is there? So let me start.

It is hard to explain, but let’s take this angle, and note when I say you, I mean you personally as the reader. So you believe in God, so your convinced he is watching over you loves you and so on…

Now what I believe in, or well what I am haywired to believe in, it’s my own destructiveness. I am empty a empty scrap, I withdraw from everything because I am convinced I will destroy, myself.

… Arived at the the view, that love made hungry is the … problem and it rouses the terrible fear that one’s love has become so devouring and incorporative that love itself has become destructive. — The … sees the object as a desirable deserter, or as … calls it, an exciting needed object whom he must go after hungrily but then draw back from lest he should devour and destroy it in his desperately intense need to get total posession of it.

As the last:

He is unable to believe that he can fill
his own emptiness without reducing what is there to nothing. He
regards his own love and that of others as being as destructive as
hatred. To be loved threatens his self; but his love is equally dangerous
to anyone else. His isolation is not entirely for his own self’s
sake. It is also out of concern for others. A schizophrenic patient
would not allow anyone to touch her, not because they would do
her some harm, but because she might electrocute them. And this
is simply a psychotic expression of what the … individual
feels daily. He says, ‘It would not be fair to anyone I might love, to
love him.’ What he may then do is to destroy ‘in his mind’ the
image of anyone or anything he may be in danger of becoming
fond of, out of a desire to safeguard that other person or thing in
reality from being destroyed. If, then, there is nothing to want,
nothing to envy, there may be nothing to love, but there is nothing
to be reduced to nothing by him. In the last resort he sets about
murdering his 'self, and this is not as easy as cutting one’s throat.
He descends into a vortex of non-being in order to avoid being, but
also to preserve being from himself.

**What I want from you: **

So now I believe once you read this, try to think about it. Try to position yourself in my shoes, boots, loafers, clogs, etc. How hard would it be to believe in a God that is loving? How do I deal with this. Should I go to the faith group that is tonight tell them what I told you all here? What is it I should do? I am at wits’ end, and do not know what to do at all. The easiest thing is to withdraw to not go anywhere, to let the boat sink and to not even look at God again, but he keeps pulling me in like a magnet, where am I supoed to go. In the aspects of faith. Because I am doing fine in my life as I am now. It’s only the aspect of faith.

I wonder what I should do, how would you react when someone told you what I wrote in the op? Would you be accepting, would you feel pitty, would you try to comfort him? Note that these are all things that threaten and hurt me more in the run. Do you now understand how hard it is to go to church and such like this?
**
A word of thanks. **

Thanks if your still with me reading this, thanks I am looking forward to your (name removed by moderator)ut.

Warm greetings.

 

[Irishmom2]

I have read yourost. It is difficult to answe you when you tie our hands with what we are and are not allowed to say.

So I will say this. If a person goes to a therapist for psychologicalmor emotional issues they need help with, it follows that someone that has questions and issues with faith would speak to their priest. I would suggestbthatbyou not gomtomthe group meeting, but instead, make an appointment to see your parish priest. He will be able to help you individually. He will help keep your boat from sinking.

You may believe you are hard wired to self destruct, but God is calling to you to save you from that. He keeps pulling at you, trying to draw you closer to him. He is patient, but persistent.

 

[catholicbunny]

buying into the label that was issued by a doctor or psychologist is the first step of believing there is no hope.

you may have symptoms A - Z except for D Q and R, but that does not mean that you are “the label”.

you have symptoms. period.

symptoms are just a helpful way for professionals to guide them towards the treatments and therapies that would help a person who is exhibiting them. it is NOT WHO YOU ARE.

you are a creature, created perfectly by God.

under stress any creature will exhibit different signs and symptoms. go to an animal shelter, and see what stress does to animals. it is hard to see.

stress does this to humans too.

my advice to you is to focus on the fact that any illness, physical or mental or emotional, the illness can become worse or better, even on it’s own. like a wound will heal on it’s own, a broken bone, even unset will eventually mend itself in it’s own fashion.

be careful to look upwards first, towards God. if you look at earthly things, and friends, you will see only the earthly things, other imperfect beings, just trying to get by, to do the best they can and have faith and busy lives.

sometimes they can and will do sinful things, or things that are unintentionally hurtful. your job in this circumstance is to look towards God, to pray, have faith and realize that nobody really intends to hurt you or make you feel uncomfortable.

when you let go, that is when you can step forward in confidence and not be tethered to a label or an emotion. you leave that to God in prayer.

by asking for others not to pray for you or not offer to pray for you, this is absolutely the LAST thing you should ask. because i have seen miracles and they were only wrought through prayer. prayer is your most powerful ally in overcoming.

until you can embrace the fact that others can and do care about you, and that we can and will pray for you and that prayer is the most powerful weapon of all, you will always underestimate your ability to be whole and at peace.

so reconsider your words, i sense they were written in anger and frustration. sorrowful and tearful eyes are often a reflection of frustration and unacknowledged anger.

anger is just an emotion, frustration is also an emotion. pray for help with your anger and frustration and perhaps that will allow you to be more open to the fact that you actually are more than your label (or diagnosis) or whatever.

i hope that the others who read your post join me in prayer for you.

have hope. happier days will come. this i can promise you.

 

[Meemai]

I have read yourost. It is difficult to answe you when you tie our hands with what we are and are not allowed to say.

So I will say this. If a person goes to a therapist for psychologicalmor emotional issues they need help with, it follows that someone that has questions and issues with faith would speak to their priest. I would suggestbthatbyou not gomtomthe group meeting, but instead, make an appointment to see your parish priest. He will be able to help you individually. He will help keep your boat from sinking.

You may believe you are hard wired to self destruct, but God is calling to you to save you from that. He keeps pulling at you, trying to draw you closer to him. He is patient, but persistent.

I have no issues with it in daily life, for I can function. I can function without people and try to do so, this makes me have no issues. Living a happy life, the only problem is in faith. Because God is a deity based on love, love to me is poisonous. This is the problem, it’s a paradox god’s love turns into something that appears to me as wanting to destroy me. You could say me believing in God is even a masochistic way of hating myself. This is my only problem should I just let the ship sunk, or go on.

 

[Meemai]

buying into the label that was issued by a doctor or psychologist is the first step of believing there is no hope.

you may have symptoms A - Z except for D Q and R, but that does not mean that you are “the label”.

you have symptoms. period.

symptoms are just a helpful way for professionals to guide them towards the treatments and therapies that would help a person who is exhibiting them. it is NOT WHO YOU ARE.

you are a creature, created perfectly by God.

under stress any creature will exhibit different signs and symptoms. go to an animal shelter, and see what stress does to animals. it is hard to see.

stress does this to humans too.

my advice to you is to focus on the fact that any illness, physical or mental or emotional, the illness can become worse or better, even on it’s own. like a wound will heal on it’s own, a broken bone, even unset will eventually mend itself in it’s own fashion.

be careful to look upwards first, towards God. if you look at earthly things, and friends, you will see only the earthly things, other imperfect beings, just trying to get by, to do the best they can and have faith and busy lives.

sometimes they can and will do sinful things, or things that are unintentionally hurtful. your job in this circumstance is to look towards God, to pray, have faith and realize that nobody really intends to hurt you or make you feel uncomfortable.

when you let go, that is when you can step forward in confidence and not be tethered to a label or an emotion. you leave that to God in prayer.

by asking for others not to pray for you or not offer to pray for you, this is absolutely the LAST thing you should ask. because i have seen miracles and they were only wrought through prayer. prayer is your most powerful ally in overcoming.

until you can embrace the fact that others can and do care about you, and that we can and will pray for you and that prayer is the most powerful weapon of all, you will always underestimate your ability to be whole and at peace.

so reconsider your words, i sense they were written in anger and frustration. sorrowful and tearful eyes are often a reflection of frustration and unacknowledged anger.

anger is just an emotion, frustration is also an emotion. pray for help with your anger and frustration and perhaps that will allow you to be more open to the fact that you actually are more than your label (or diagnosis) or whatever.

i hope that the others who read your post join me in prayer for you.

have hope. happier days will come. this i can promise you.

I know this, I have gotten the official label, but they did not tell me much about my disorder. I have read, read and read on it. Read books, now the people that write books do so because they are passionate about the research not because they want to label you, or have you on pills and make money. I believe the people writing such books do so because they are passionate and a illness is like a puzzle they wish to take apart.

Now I myself when I read stuff I can relate to it. I do agree psychology has gotten a negative stigma itself. Of course I am more than just my disorder, however a disorder does of course have a strong influence. You can mix of course two drinks, but both tastes will be there. Same as with the person I am and my disorder, the disorder is tere strengthing things in my personality and watering stuff down. However the mechanism of defense that my disorder has, is the mechanism that influences my life the most. I cannot stop this mechanism because if it where that easy no one would have a disorder of any kind.

I am quite indifferent, the only thing that hurts me, is putting my skin on the table. By telling you what I find, this fears me even more when I think I would hve to talk about it with other people, it makes me anxious, it makes me fearful and it feels like I stabbed myself by posting this. Now I have a bodily illness and that one will just not be cured, same with my mental illness saying it’ll just go away. How much I would like to agree with you just won’t cut it.

I do not want people to pray for me, I would prefer it if everyone would just leave me alone, sadly this is not something I can realise. And with everyone that does include God in a way… I am tired of being pulled towards God, I do not know if it is my self loathing or something else, even if it’s God that is willingly pulling me in… I would still be diasatisfied.

And yes I am angry and frustrated but that is because I had to put my skin on the table. I’d rather not have done this and actually regret the topic already. I was expecting a miracle but that might not be possible… I do thank you for your comments, but I guess going to a priest is the only thing I can do, however I think they have no answer as well…

Well I hope the psychological impaired have a small corner in heaven.

 

[Mary_Estelle]

Hmm. No prayers, no therapist, generally no comments, but you desire (name removed by moderator)uts. I guess you just want to vent, and that is OK. I read your post, but don’t know what to offer to help you. Be at peace.

 

[Irishmom2]

I do not want people to pray for me, I would prefer it if everyone would just leave me alone, sadly this is not something I can realise. And with everyone that does include God in a way… I am tired of being pulled towards God, I do not know if it is my self loathing or something else, even if it’s God that is willingly pulling me in… I would still be diasatisfied.

I am not buying this. If you wanted to be left alone, you wouldn’t have come here. And unfortunately, you cannot tell anyone who they can and cannot pray for, so I guess you are out of luck there.

Go talk to the priest. You have nothing to lose, and everything to gain.

 

[Meemai]

Hmm. No prayers, no therapist, generally no comments, but you desire (name removed by moderator)uts. I guess you just want to vent, and that is OK. I read your post, but don’t know what to offer to help you. Be at peace.

Therapists are not there to help people with the questions of faith and God. That is all. Prayers do not help me much, that just is a ‘we do not know th answer but want to help.’

I did it so those that would not know what to offer would offer nothing. If somone does know what to offer he can offer that. What I was looking for was maybe something that does not exist, or maybe does. Like someone that really can take in what I wrote down and can try to place himself in my shoes, or someone that is in my shoes a person with the same kind of condition.

Later I realised it was a stupid idea but then again… No ones at fault.

 

[tawny]

I am not buying this. If you wanted to be left alone, you wouldn’t have come here. And unfortunately, you cannot tell anyone who they can and cannot pray for, so I guess you are out of luck there.

Go talk to the priest. You have nothing to lose, and everything to gain.

Well stated.

 

[tawny]

Bottom line: For mental health issues go to the Therapist. For spiritual issues go to the Priest. God bless.

 

[AnneElizabeth]

buying into the label that was issued by a doctor or psychologist is the first step of believing there is no hope.

you may have symptoms A - Z except for D Q and R, but that does not mean that you are “the label”.

you have symptoms. period.

symptoms are just a helpful way for professionals to guide them towards the treatments and therapies that would help a person who is exhibiting them. it is NOT WHO YOU ARE.

you are a creature, created perfectly by God.

under stress any creature will exhibit different signs and symptoms. go to an animal shelter, and see what stress does to animals. it is hard to see.

stress does this to humans too.

my advice to you is to focus on the fact that any illness, physical or mental or emotional, the illness can become worse or better, even on it’s own. like a wound will heal on it’s own, a broken bone, even unset will eventually mend itself in it’s own fashion.

be careful to look upwards first, towards God. if you look at earthly things, and friends, you will see only the earthly things, other imperfect beings, just trying to get by, to do the best they can and have faith and busy lives.

sometimes they can and will do sinful things, or things that are unintentionally hurtful. your job in this circumstance is to look towards God, to pray, have faith and realize that nobody really intends to hurt you or make you feel uncomfortable.

when you let go, that is when you can step forward in confidence and not be tethered to a label or an emotion. you leave that to God in prayer.

by asking for others not to pray for you or not offer to pray for you, this is absolutely the LAST thing you should ask. because i have seen miracles and they were only wrought through prayer. prayer is your most powerful ally in overcoming.

until you can embrace the fact that others can and do care about you, and that we can and will pray for you and that prayer is the most powerful weapon of all, you will always underestimate your ability to be whole and at peace.

so reconsider your words, i sense they were written in anger and frustration. sorrowful and tearful eyes are often a reflection of frustration and unacknowledged anger.

anger is just an emotion, frustration is also an emotion. pray for help with your anger and frustration and perhaps that will allow you to be more open to the fact that you actually are more than your label (or diagnosis) or whatever.

i hope that the others who read your post join me in prayer for you.

have hope. happier days will come. this i can promise you.

^^^ I seconds this post. ^^^

OP, You said ‘your brain’ … as if its some sort of separate entity: “…my brain turns love and friendliness into destruction…” Does it? Can you cite examples? With what were you using to write us here? I didn’t see any destructive evidence, not that I can read your mind or anything, but you didn’t respond in a destructive way.

What we believe manifests in our actions… feelings and thoughts being actions as well. The realm of psychology is a NEW ‘study’, and some even say its a religion of its own that contrasts Christianity. I’d ask you to just be aware of that.

Also, I just wanted to say that we are not allowed to give anything that would construe as medical advice… and that might keep a lot of people from posting or trying to help.

 

[AnneElizabeth]

Its not a bad idea. You are trying. You were communicating, that’s not stupid, and I can understand where you are coming from when you said you were looking for someone who might know and could offer help with your specific trouble… That’s not odd. That’s normal.

Its just that sometimes things are so subjective or even vague (or hard to describe) that people might not recognize it, that is, if they share those same subjective elements. Not everyone does. A good counselor is supposed to help in sorting out the feelings and emotions and thoughts. If they are not, then I’d say they aren’t doing their job.

Sometimes, I found things can be so subjective that its best just to take it to the Lord and put your trust in Him. God does send His Holy Spirit to guide.

I’m wondering how do you pray? What were you taught what prayer is and how do you do it?

 

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

… my life is doing well, it’s only for the faith and towards God aspect of my life the religious life so to speak.

I was in a group of faith with a priest and people that believe in God, we would sing bible psalms, read the bible and talk about things that happen in our life. Pray and all those things, I never was one much for talking, and somehow the enviroment felt threatning to me.

I am writing this with pain in my heart, and watery eyes when I am thinking about it. But it felt hostile the whole group, not because they are bad people. No, in contrary they are quite nice and friendly, however as Jesus turned water into wine, my brain turns love and friendliness into destruction.

… no point in explaining everything now is there?

… So you believe in God, so you’re convinced he is watching over you, loves you and so on…

Now what I believe in, or well what I am haywired to believe in, it’s my own destructiveness. I am empty a empty scrap, I withdraw from everything because I am convinced I will destroy, myself.

… Arrived at the view, that love made hungry is the … problem and it rouses the terrible fear that one’s love has become so devouring and incorporative that love itself has become destructive. — The … sees the object as a desirable deserter, or as … calls it, an exciting needed object whom he must go after hungrily but then draw back from lest he should devour and destroy it in his desperately intense need to get total possession of it.

As the last:

                                            He is unable to believe that he can fill

his own emptiness without reducing what is there to nothing. He
regards his own love and that of others as being as destructive as
hatred. To be loved threatens his self; but his love is equally dangerous
to anyone else. His isolation is not entirely for his own self’s
sake. It is also out of concern for others. A schizophrenic patient
would not allow anyone to touch her, not because they would do
her some harm, but because she might electrocute them. And this
is simply a psychotic expression of what the … individual
feels daily. He says, ‘It would not be fair to anyone I might love, to
love him.’ What he may then do is to destroy ‘in his mind’ the
image of anyone or anything he may be in danger of becoming
fond of, out of a desire to safeguard that other person or thing in
reality from being destroyed. If, then, there is nothing to want,
nothing to envy, there may be nothing to love, but there is nothing
to be reduced to nothing by him. In the last resort he sets about
murdering his self, and this is not as easy as cutting one’s throat.
He descends into a vortex of non-being in order to avoid being, but
also to preserve being from himself.

…

So now I believe once you read this, try to think about it. Try to position yourself in my shoes, boots, loafers, clogs, etc. How hard would it be to believe in a God that is loving? How do I deal with this. Should I go to the faith group that is tonight tell them what I told you all here? What is it I should do? I am at wits’ end, and do not know what to do at all. The easiest thing is to withdraw to not go anywhere, to let the boat sink and to not even look at God again, but he keeps pulling me in like a magnet, where am I supposed to go. In the aspects of faith. Because I am doing fine in my life as I am now. It’s only the aspect of faith.

I wonder what I should do, how would you react when someone told you what I wrote in the op? Would you be accepting, would you feel pity, would you try to comfort him? Note that these are all things that threaten and hurt me more in the run. Do you now understand how hard it is to go to church and such like this?

…

(quoting from you - end of part one of my post. My response below)

 

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

(part two of my post - my response)

Hi Meemai, I like you have several things to say but I hope you’ll follow them if I don’t put titles in.

Firstly I rather like the way you structured your post and the titles in bold.

I think part of your experience *may *be (or may not be) what a friend of mine calls, in passing, “exposure anxiety”. For her it is part of her autistic condition, which she has written a number of books about. I also live in that spectrum although I have never found for myself that passages of writing like most of the ones you have posted corresponded to my experience.

It may simply be that like me you find intensity quite a handful to cope with.

Parts of your description - I am not sure whether they are your original words or whether you chose passages because they corresponded - might also reflect migraine, epilepsy, a food allergy, all of those, all of those plus an autism spectrum condition, or all the aforementioned plus schizophrenia (I don’t claim any understanding of the latter by the way). Specific learning differences can co-occur.

I also am not claiming to be giving health care advice. I think we should read what each other have written on this forum and then continue our lives as we have done, including any treatments of course, and not be influenced. In addition to this, I would say that these are mostly areas where - in my country - very little professional expertise and intervention are available (if applicable).

Now I am almost three times your age. When I was your age I was not talkative and was shy.

I used to attend a mixture of Protestant and Catholic meetings and find them friendly but a bit bewildering. Now I find them friendly but I have got them sussed! That’s what the passage of nearly 40 years does in my case!

On the one hand talk of “destructiveness”, “devouring”, “possessing”, comes over as alarming. As a metaphor are these words in fact an exaggeration? Or are these things something that measures ought to be in place to deal with?

On the other hand we surely can all identify with the colloquial phrase “I wished the floor would swallow me up!” (It makes me laugh to say that phrase.)

Now what to do about your group. I think it’s good to say every now and again that you are shy and don’t feel like talking much but that you think it is nice. If you get extra confident you could eventually say that things make a deep impression on you (they do on me). Unless they need to put practical measures in place I don’t think it is helpful to talk about “destructiveness” with them. (I’m not very sharp so I may be wrong on this point. Because of my own disabilities, I don’t shoulder responsibilities towards others who are as vulnerable as myself or more so.)

It’s quite all right to just sit restfully.

I am not giving advice or bossing you about and it’s up to you to ensure anyone is with you that should be with you.

Is your landscape something that you can cherish? Are there things about being you that you like? For example I always enjoyed having my nose in books about trains and aeroplanes (until very recently), collecting stamps and viewing architecture. Now I am into atlases and history.

We need to be able to thank God for our gifts, then we know that God loves us each in His own most strange way! Love for words is a fabulous gift. I had a job for a while and, fortunately, writing short sentences and paragraphs was part of it. I like the way my body (including my motor slowness) and mind work for me.

You never know, if you run a few more things by us, it might ring more bells. At the same time maybe nothing I have written has rung any bells with you.

 

[Meemai]

^^^ I seconds this post. ^^^

OP, You said ‘your brain’ … as if its some sort of separate entity: “…my brain turns love and friendliness into destruction…” Does it? Can you cite examples? With what were you using to write us here? I didn’t see any destructive evidence, not that I can read your mind or anything, but you didn’t respond in a destructive way.

What we believe manifests in our actions… feelings and thoughts being actions as well. The realm of psychology is a NEW ‘study’, and some even say its a religion of its own that contrasts Christianity. I’d ask you to just be aware of that.

Also, I just wanted to say that we are not allowed to give anything that would construe as medical advice… and that might keep a lot of people from posting or trying to help.

The brain is a mechanism, so it is a part of me, so when I speak of ‘my brain.’ I mean the mechanism of my brain.

Yes when my mom wants to hug me, it feels hostile to me, and I want to get away. When I was dating a person, and she wanted to get close to me I felt threatened and felt hatred for myself for even being with her. I never really contacted her again…

When someone is kind to me, I feel like he either wants to destroy me, or is just killing time. But I see no reason for people to even be with me.

I doubt psychology is the contrast to religion, or it’s own religion. There’s theories and observations, and I know I am not like others. Psychology can help me, Christianity sadly has no real information on people with my type of affliction. There is of course a patron saint for the mentally ill, but it will give me no directions. With psychology I get some sort of direction and foundation to build upon.

I am not looking for medical help at all. Where do I say that? My life is perfectly fine, it’s only the aspect of life and this affliction only effects the path of faith. So I could either go without faith and just give up. Yet God keeps pulling me like a magnet always I get drawn back to christianity, it’s quite a cruel thing.

My post then was then meant to explain my situation. Maybe someone could have said.

‘Try to talk to that group, try to explain them.’
‘I would not go to that group of faith if it is hurting you, try to …’
‘Faith grows slowly, while you might have issues with praying or believing, I had them as well without your disorder, but I just did…’

‘There is this page in the bible on the mental ill, maybe look at it? (gives page, I do not even know if there is any.)’

Such examples would have been legit and fine, instead of trying to poke me with ‘go see a therapist.’ Thati s obviously not what I am looking for at all. What I am trying to say is, look I got some problems due to my affliction, which makes faith a little bit harder. And I have this group invitation, yet I feel bad in groups. Do you have any advice? That was all… Maybe I wrote it all wrong because I suck at communicating stuff.

 

[Meemai]

Needed 2 parts. See post below this one.

(part two of my post - my response)

Hi Meemai, I like you have several things to say but I hope you’ll follow them if I don’t put titles in.

Firstly I rather like the way you structured your post and the titles in bold.

I think part of your experience *may *be (or may not be) what a friend of mine calls, in passing, “exposure anxiety”. For her it is part of her autistic condition, which she has written a number of books about. I also live in that spectrum although I have never found for myself that passages of writing like most of the ones you have posted corresponded to my experience.

It may simply be that like me you find intensity quite a handful to cope with.

Parts of your description - I am not sure whether they are your original words or whether you chose passages because they corresponded - might also reflect migraine, epilepsy, a food allergy, all of those, all of those plus an autism spectrum condition, or all the aforementioned plus schizophrenia (I don’t claim any understanding of the latter by the way). Specific learning differences can co-occur.

I also am not claiming to be giving health care advice. I think we should read what each other have written on this forum and then continue our lives as we have done, including any treatments of course, and not be influenced. In addition to this, I would say that these are mostly areas where - in my country - very little professional expertise and intervention are available (if applicable).

Now I am almost three times your age. When I was your age I was not talkative and was shy.

I used to attend a mixture of Protestant and Catholic meetings and find them friendly but a bit bewildering. Now I find them friendly but I have got them sussed! That’s what the passage of nearly 40 years does in my case!

On the one hand talk of “destructiveness”, “devouring”, “possessing”, comes over as alarming. As a metaphor are these words in fact an exaggeration? Or are these things something that measures ought to be in place to deal with?

On the other hand we surely can all identify with the colloquial phrase “I wished the floor would swallow me up!” (It makes me laugh to say that phrase.)

Now what to do about your group. I think it’s good to say every now and again that you are shy and don’t feel like talking much but that you think it is nice. If you get extra confident you could eventually say that things make a deep impression on you (they do on me). Unless they need to put practical measures in place I don’t think it is helpful to talk about “destructiveness” with them. (I’m not very sharp so I may be wrong on this point. Because of my own disabilities, I don’t shoulder responsibilities towards others who are as vulnerable as myself or more so.)

It’s quite all right to just sit restfully.

I am not giving advice or bossing you about and it’s up to you to ensure anyone is with you that should be with you.

Is your landscape something that you can cherish? Are there things about being you that you like? For example I always enjoyed having my nose in books about trains and aeroplanes (until very recently), collecting stamps and viewing architecture. Now I am into atlases and history.

We need to be able to thank God for our gifts, then we know that God loves us each in His own most strange way! Love for words is a fabulous gift. I had a job for a while and, fortunately, writing short sentences and paragraphs was part of it. I like the way my body (including my motor slowness) and mind work for me.

You never know, if you run a few more things by us, it might ring more bells. At the same time maybe nothing I have written has rung any bells with you.

Thanks for your reply, which was also one of the replies I was hunting for, it’s sublime. I will follow with my reaction:

Hi Meemai, I like you have several things to say but I hope you’ll follow them if I don’t put titles in.

That’s alright!

I think part of your experience may be (or may not be) what a friend of mine calls, in passing, “exposure anxiety”. For her it is part of her autistic condition, which she has written a number of books about. I also live in that spectrum although I have never found for myself that passages of writing like most of the ones you have posted corresponded to my experience.

You have said so yourself:

Parts of your description - I am not sure whether they are your original words or whether you chose passages because they corresponded - might also reflect migraine, epilepsy,

Now with that in mind, in psychology a lot of things overlap, what could be a description of thing X could also be thing Z and also thing F mixed with thing R, now let’s not pay that to much heed, for we are not doctors! But it is true that anxiety is involved of course, I will not deny that.

Parts of your description - I am not sure whether they are your original words or whether you chose passages because they corresponded - might also reflect migraine, epilepsy, a food allergy, all of those, all of those plus an autism spectrum condition, or all the aforementioned plus schizophrenia (I don’t claim any understanding of the latter by the way). Specific learning differences can co-occur.

I chose the parts to try and set the stage as simple as I could. I could also say: that I am bussy with introspection, rationalisation of things and hyperreflection all the time about almost everything. These are however words that are a bit hard for me as I am not a native English-speaker. Instead of autism my problem is that I rationalise and internalise everything, I daydream all day, and you could say I almost live in a world that is my own. I have a great world locked inside my heart. It’s my master piece. My piece of heaven maybe?

 

[Meemai]

I also am not claiming to be giving health care advice. I think we should read what each other have written on this forum and then continue our lives as we have done, including any treatments of course, and not be influenced. In addition to this, I would say that these are mostly areas where - in my country - very little professional expertise and intervention are available (if applicable).

Haha don’t you worry, people with my disorder rarely seek medical help and when they do it’s by coincidence because of a depression or so on, I had a depression else it would never have surfaced. However I always knew something was wrong with me. But the professionals themselves do not even know how to help, and no help of that kind is really needed as I function fine. Oh and some proffessionals do not even call my disorder a disorder but most do. It’s a bit of two camps going on…

I used to attend a mixture of Protestant and Catholic meetings and find them friendly but a bit bewildering. Now I find them friendly but I have got them sussed! That’s what the passage of nearly 40 years does in my case!

I can imagine time does a lot of things to us all. I would go to your next post to explain the matter of social gatherings for me.

On the one hand talk of “destructiveness”, “devouring”, “possessing”, comes over as alarming. As a metaphor are these words in fact an exaggeration? Or are these things something that measures ought to be in place to deal with?

I will let you read this:

We are now in a position to appreciate the terrible dilemma
in which the … person is caught in object-relationships.
Owing to his intensely hungry and unsatisfied need for love,
and his consequent incorporating and monopolizing attitude
towards those he needs, he cannot help seeing his objects in the
light of his own desires towards them. The result is that any
relationship into which some genuine feeling goes, immediately
comes to be felt deep down, and unconsciously experienced, as a
mutual devouring. Such intense anxiety results that there seems
to be no alternative but to withdraw from relationships altogether,
to prevent the loss of his independence, and even of his
very self. Relationships are felt to be too dangerous to enter into. Thus,
the worst object-relations problem arises when the ego is driven
to seek security by doing without objects altogether, only to run
into the most alarming and ultimate fears of disappearing in a
vacuum.

So it does feel like devouring a little bit, I also always had a feeling my parents or people I care about would die when they went out. I always feel like that, later I read this is also something people with my affliction have, and I have always had it for as long as I could remember even before knowing I had the affliction. But I hope this explains the being swallowed up, for me when being with people it really feels like they are trying to devour me whole, as I would them myself. I also get really strong urges at times for food, or a game or something. And when I have it, guess what? I lose interest all together and do not care anymore. Hope that explains it a little bit?

Now what to do about your group. I think it’s good to say every now and again that you are shy and don’t feel like talking much but that you think it is nice. If you get extra confident you could eventually say that things make a deep impression on you (they do on me). Unless they need to put practical measures in place I don’t think it is helpful to talk about “destructiveness” with them. (I’m not very sharp so I may be wrong on this point. Because of my own disabilities, I don’t shoulder responsibilities towards others who are as vulnerable as myself or more so.)

Solid advice and I do agree, they can leave an impression and I am with people. Because this is something I must not forget I need to be with people from time to time, else I get worst. If I get isolated it’s game over so to speak. So you are right in your advice, so I need to give that thought.

Is your landscape something that you can cherish? Are there things about being you that you like? For example I always enjoyed having my nose in books about trains and aeroplanes (until very recently), collecting stamps and viewing architecture. Now I am into atlases and history.

Not much I do enjoy, but I have things in life I do like yes. Though the flame of things I like is extinguished quite fast I have a few things up my sleeves that keeps me valueing life yes.

We need to be able to thank God for our gifts, then we know that God loves us each in His own most strange way! Love for words is a fabulous gift. I had a job for a while and, fortunately, writing short sentences and paragraphs was part of it. I like the way my body and mind work for me.

I guess I always have been a bit angry at God, and a bit of uhm what’s it called in English, when you do not understand why this or that happened to you as a person. I feel cursed more than gifted, has to do with the past and other things sadly. But I am glad you like the way your made. Words are quite nice indeed.

You never know, if you run a few more things by us, it might ring more bells. At the same time maybe nothing I have written has rung any bells with you.

At least it was the kind of reply I was looking for, you got the message which is a nice thing.

 

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

That self-acceptance that has been nurtured in me and the great good fortune I have had has always been mixed with feeling indignant that God made me the way He did which has let me in for most of the trouble I’ve been through.

I hope something practical can be negotiated with your mother such as standing 3ft away from you and saying in jovial tones “Hail fellow well met!” perhaps not looking directly at you. I hope it will be an easy adaptation because some ladies have had it drummed into them they have got to be soppy to be sentimental. My parents didn’t have any trouble not being tactile because it suited us all equally.

I’ve scarcely dated either! One can always begin again later in life if one thinks one is starting to get a handle on it.

The new quote you gave confirms my surmise about the kind of metaphor that was meant with words like “devouring”.