My response:
Hm, this is a very interesting question and there are a lot of layers and complications to it because your question sort of gets to the meta issues of who we are and what does it mean to be a sentient being and have a sense of self.
Have you never taken mood altering or mind altering substances before? Never had fluctuations in hormones or felt the flood of adrenaline? Sometimes I have found myself suddenly "feeling" something and acting on it and later trying to justify why I felt that way (he made me angry, or that thing made me sad). When I started to become more self-aware and less self-deceptive, though, I started actually asking myself -- did he really make me mad? What about that thing is so sad? I started realizing that sometimes although I felt I was having an actual emotional response to something, it was more of an emotional hallucination. i talk about it here and here.
I realized that for the most part, what I really was sensing was some change in my brain chemistry -- more adrenaline, less seratonin, more dopamine, exhaustion, whatever it was -- and my mind was trying to make sense of these "feelings" by imbuing them with meaning, the same way that during a dream it may interpret the bang of a door from the outside world as a gunshot in the dream itself. After that realization, I started questioning every emotion I had and going through an additional mental process apart from the feeling process in which I tried to analyze whether it was an actual feeling, or just an emotional hallucination. If I concluded that it was an emotional hallucination, i.e. that there was no reason that I should feel particularly happy or sad, angry or grateful, then I would just ride it out and/or try to ignore it the same way that you might ignore a visual hallucination of a dragon just inside your peripheral vision.
Do you think that you are just messing with your brain chemistry and your brain is interpreting the new sensations as being certain "emotions"?
My other question is about how you remember being normal and having normal emotions before a certain time in your life. Might you be self-deceived about that or remembering incorrectly? Memory is such a fickle thing, and the way we remember things is frequently not the way they actually happened. particularly, our memory of things will be colored by our vision of reality and the truth about yourself. In the same way that the brain interprets certain stimulus in a dream in a way that it "makes sense," might you have been interpreting contemporary childhood events in a limited childish way that assumed that you were normal, had normal feelings, that your beliefs and feelings were objectively warranted by the situations you found yourself in, etc.. or is possible that your earlier memories are all colored by a distorted view of the world, the same way that someone suffering from paranoid delusions might interpret any small thing as "people out to get him"?
Best,
m.e.
Hm, this is a very interesting question and there are a lot of layers and complications to it because your question sort of gets to the meta issues of who we are and what does it mean to be a sentient being and have a sense of self.
Have you never taken mood altering or mind altering substances before? Never had fluctuations in hormones or felt the flood of adrenaline? Sometimes I have found myself suddenly "feeling" something and acting on it and later trying to justify why I felt that way (he made me angry, or that thing made me sad). When I started to become more self-aware and less self-deceptive, though, I started actually asking myself -- did he really make me mad? What about that thing is so sad? I started realizing that sometimes although I felt I was having an actual emotional response to something, it was more of an emotional hallucination. i talk about it here and here.
I realized that for the most part, what I really was sensing was some change in my brain chemistry -- more adrenaline, less seratonin, more dopamine, exhaustion, whatever it was -- and my mind was trying to make sense of these "feelings" by imbuing them with meaning, the same way that during a dream it may interpret the bang of a door from the outside world as a gunshot in the dream itself. After that realization, I started questioning every emotion I had and going through an additional mental process apart from the feeling process in which I tried to analyze whether it was an actual feeling, or just an emotional hallucination. If I concluded that it was an emotional hallucination, i.e. that there was no reason that I should feel particularly happy or sad, angry or grateful, then I would just ride it out and/or try to ignore it the same way that you might ignore a visual hallucination of a dragon just inside your peripheral vision.
Do you think that you are just messing with your brain chemistry and your brain is interpreting the new sensations as being certain "emotions"?
My other question is about how you remember being normal and having normal emotions before a certain time in your life. Might you be self-deceived about that or remembering incorrectly? Memory is such a fickle thing, and the way we remember things is frequently not the way they actually happened. particularly, our memory of things will be colored by our vision of reality and the truth about yourself. In the same way that the brain interprets certain stimulus in a dream in a way that it "makes sense," might you have been interpreting contemporary childhood events in a limited childish way that assumed that you were normal, had normal feelings, that your beliefs and feelings were objectively warranted by the situations you found yourself in, etc.. or is possible that your earlier memories are all colored by a distorted view of the world, the same way that someone suffering from paranoid delusions might interpret any small thing as "people out to get him"?
Best,
m.e.
I am the whore of my feelings
ReplyDeleteWow, M.E. I am very impressed.
ReplyDeleteYour answer put us all in the dust. No matter how alpha, sincere, funny, brilliant or 'terminator-like' our individual cosmic dust is you really took this one smoking beyond left field. Home run baby!
"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there.”
Jalal ad-Din Rumi
I will now spend the rest of the day ignoring the visual hallucination of a dragon which is just inside my peripheral vision.
Hm, people are a product of our chemistry. Emotions/Feelings do come from somewhere. That place is generally the chemical slurry that our brain concocts. People do give meaning to these feelings, which you don’t, but the compositional components are actually there. I don’t think these emotions are hallucinations, but void of imposed meaning. What are we as humans if not the components of our make up?
ReplyDeleteI keep thinking this and I’m probably continuously wrong but: I didn’t think S/P types were completely void of any kind of feeling, but that the ability to experience this was GREATLY reduced as is the magnitude. Having an occasional bout of feeling doesn’t make you not socio.
A monster today is a savior tomorrow. Chairman Mao would never accept or fit into the China of today. Henry VIII, Jesus & Judas, did they see this? Why are my thoughts filled with such today?
ReplyDeleteI don't think anyone or anything with a blood pump can be void of emotions, only machines have that incapability. 'Imposed meaning' is a good word that infers all sorts of subjectivity. In some culture's criminals typically smile at the press as they're sentenced to death. The homogeneity of meaning will always remain a pium desiderium because there is never only an absolute singular context for living things. That again, belongs to the realm of machines as we are capable of knowing or creating. Stoned and rambling..
ReplyDeletePray tell what dire consequence are produced by our hallucinations that is worse than allowing the contamination of its purity ? Could this be the cause of squirming agonizing deaths of those whose thoughts are convoluted whilst coursing through their cranial hemispheres at the moment of reckoning?
ReplyDeleteWow. I really regret(lol) not getting to comment on yesterdays post. I get a second chance though. The poster from yesterday has exactly what I have. When I was instituted and diagnosed with Bi-polar disorder they also told me that I was severely emotionally detached. They said I intellectualized to an extreme point. They actually nailed many of my sociopathic traits but at the time I had just turned 17 and I was in my amazingly impulsive liar stage. I also loved the callous person I was.(Ok so I started writing and I couldn't stop. So I'm going to give the post I made in segments instead of one huge ass post throughout the day.)
ReplyDeleteummm...before you start,in your reckoning was it a good thing or not to have been diagnosed? Is it like a cancer thing where the sooner rid the better?
ReplyDeleteYou can't rid yourself of bipolar. You can hope to contain the manifestations.
ReplyDeleteDiagnosis is an added dimension of self-awareness. Insight into why you are affected, or not, the way that you are. In that awareness you have the ability to choose a course of action. A new starting point to proceed from.
I don't know if this is the way for Kesu, but it is in part for me.
I don't know what you mean exactly. Was it a good thing to be diagnosed bi-polar? It gave me explanations. I didn't understand them until later in life. Just as me understanding that I'm a sociopath gives me context for my actions.
ReplyDeleteWe know sociopaths can feel a little. Rage, envy, paranoia and disgust are our prominent emotions, but why does he want to tell others that he cried? That's weak, is he looking for sympathy? I don't understand. I only cried when I was a child and it was an act to get what I wanted when I was denied, as soon as I got the money I was looking for I was happy again, but to cry out of a genuine feeling of helplessness is weak in my book.
ReplyDeleteThe psychiatrists put me on the normal mood stabilizers and anti-depressants. They told me when they did this that my emotions would come back online. They told me that I would start reliving some of the emotions that I had never dealt with. I was curious to what it would all feel like. After all I had spent a majority of my life without any emotions. I was sure that I could handle it easily. That the look of concern that they gave me when they told me this was unnecessary and that they were under estimating my mental fortitude. They knew my life story. I've always liked my life story. When you've gone through a lot people tend to just give you sympathy and submit to your demands.
ReplyDeletesince we're waiting,..question again. How secure is that self-awareness to contain the manifestations. Is like religion where cause and effect are taught explicitly to suit the temperament of the day? I'll stop when your long post begins.
ReplyDeleteI'd never take medication, it's not natural.
ReplyDeleteHow does mind-state altering chemistry work? Are some synapses chemically blocked which then forces new connections?
ReplyDeleteKesu, how good is your short term memory? I can't remember yesterday.
ReplyDeleteMy memory is peerless. I always forget things though that I give no importance. For instance a person who I don't have to interact with I may meet again and again and I won't remember their name 5 seconds after the conversations over. Also I often forget whether I have eaten or not. I try to keep track of that though.
ReplyDeleteAs far as my bi-polar goes I don't think it is like other peoples. Mine is more like a single cord on a guitar being played. Sometimes it is rapid, being strummed very fast, other times it is slow being plucked in a hard fashion. Over all it is the same cord.
(BTw it has already started I'm just trying to break into segments that I will give every hour.)
"How secure is that self-awareness to contain the manifestations. "
ReplyDeleteDepends on what you want to do with it. If you're content to to ride out the ups and downs, that in itself is an awareness of self, with an active choice to not contain it.
I'm not Bipolar, obvs, but in understanding the underlying cause/factors it does provide the ability to understand the subsequent actions and potentially alter future responses in a way that is more cohesive to the manner in which you want to live. Not a quick or easy process but the potential is there for it.
And yeah, often brain synapses are blocked or inhibited causing them to misfire, glands don't secrete enough of a certain chemical, etc. I'm not up on my neurochem enough to remember if it creates new connections, but I know often enough they just don't connect. It's more like a break in a water line. If the pressure is great enough some fluid will still make it into the other pipe opening, but a lot will be lost through the gap where it does no good/has no effect. Psych drugs attempt to realign these imbalances to provide a more 'normal' chemsitry. At least a chemistry that is less erratic and condusive to a lifestyle that is more acceptable to the patient.
(part 3)
ReplyDeleteWell the truth of the matter was that they were right. Small pin pricks of emotions started to come through in the first 2 weeks. I had no problem controlling those emotions. They were even some what enjoyable. After the first two weeks
I was released from the mental institute. It was about a week before I realized that the things I had interpreted as emotions weren't emotions. They were closer to the tingling sensation you get when blood flow is cut off to a body part and blood is rushing back in. When I started really feeling things all I felt was anger. Rage. I lack a word for it. I've had rage before. What I had at that time was beyond it. I didn't have a hair trigger I had a motion sensor. I felt like killing everything around me. In fact I think I might have tried to do just that a few times. During that time tears would stream down my face without my realization. I don't think sadness came back online for me. I think my mind refused to let it. I think my brain was trying to deal with it at least to a level where I might be able to handle it. Happiness didn't come either.
Same, unless the person is exceptional in some way I won't remember them, though I think a lot of people are like that.
ReplyDeleteYou talk too much about yourself Kesu.
ReplyDelete"more cohesive to the manner in which you want to live"
ReplyDeleteagain the way it's put,..definitely a question breaker.
I always believed that if I was somehow sent to a institution or even prison, I'd talk my way out of it, I'd throw the kitchen sink at them and see what sticks.
ReplyDeleteActually I've said this before but what I was in the institution I was a star. I was in there the minimal amount of time allowed. I knew exactly what would get me out. I played the part perfect. Strangely though I kinda didn't want to leave. Nothing was required of me there. Everyone was very happy to let me do what I want.
ReplyDeleteAdam said...
You talk too much about yourself Kesu.
If this was actually you adam(I doubt it) that would be hilarious coming from a narc. The only thing that I am really interested in is me though. So of course I talk about the only thing that interests me.
If you must throw the kitchen sink, Adam, I'd recommend that your Auntie not be attached to it. Personally, I bought the best lawyer I could, performed for the jury, seduced my shrink, and bribed a witness. Simple.
ReplyDeleteI have an appalling short-term memory.
ReplyDeleteBut to my mind feelings are facts *shrug* Some should be tamed and others should be encouraged to run free.
Experimenting with intensity of feeling by altering one's mind naturally or otherwise is always intriguing.
As far as the so-called validity of memories goes, make friends with your own subjective truths, and reframe them as you will.
No one else has to live inside your own mind but you.
Kids fighting in school. The boy who initiated it had tears streaming down his face. Childhood memories. Do tears always elicit empathy?
ReplyDeleteWait, a better question would be, if empathy could be taught, then wouldn't it be possible to program people as to what they should feel about what and when? What's happiness for you, is it always the same things that make you happy?
But we do program people to feel compassion according to our own moral biases, Gag: otherwise there would be no notion of deserving and undeserving people in this world.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I don't strive for happiness - it's transient so I strive for contentedness instead. To my mind it's a low-level hum of equilibrium when everything in my universe is true and correct.
To me happiness was always meant to be a feeling of elation. A feeling that I don't get. I get excited. A racing heart, intense concentration, and a drive. Oddly my fear reaction is much the same. Just in my fear response there is a tinge of hesitation. It is easily overpowered though. It is probably the reason why dangerous things are things that I often consider exciting.
ReplyDeleteAfter any event I no longer care about the event. The memory of the event gives me no real pleasure. Which is probably why I don't get addicted to things. Also it is why I am always on the prowl for the new.
"Personally, I don't strive for happiness - it's transient so I strive for contentedness instead. To my mind it's a low-level hum of equilibrium when everything in my universe is true and correct."
ReplyDeleteI've always told people I don't want to be happy I want to be content. This the way I think about it too.
without prejudice;
ReplyDeleteIsn't winning by exploiting gaps in the law and people as mediocre as it can get? If you were truly 'speshul' or god's gift to mankind wouldn't your prowess make any insidious act moot? ..jus sayin
"(mostly)I don't get addicted to things. Also it is why I am always on the prowl for the new."
me too
(part 4)
ReplyDeleteI too remember having emotions as a small child. Even till I was 7 and 8. Though I was already in the beginning stages of major depression by 8 and I was racking up emotional trauma like a pinball machine score board. Soon after 8 my emotions disappear or maybe it is more slipped away. I know by 12 I was totally devoid of them. I stopped caring about everything. Nothing had meaning. There was no beauty in the world. There was just the fight. Everyone was an enemy. I treated them as such. If you were in punching distance I was either distancing myself preparing or sending one your way. I didn't even want people to look in my direction during that time. If a person tried to turn around and talk to me in school they would quickly be told to fuck off and if they turned around again I'd poke out their eye. One person made me prove my words. I did. That was my seventh grade year.
My eight grade year would find me getting jumped a lot. I quickly found out why you need friends. I could already lie to adults or make myself appear in a form if I wanted to. Until this point I never felt a need to though. I hated people and I liked it that way. I learned to warp people around me. By the end of 8th grade I was starting to have a toxic affect on people. I was becoming a drug. Many of the teachers had noticed. They would even pull my friends aside. I knew the teachers were talking about me to them. I knew because they looked at me as they pulled the child aside.
Kesu, to my mind there are many types of happiness.
ReplyDeleteThere is the bliss of bonding, the exhilaration of elation, the enjoyment of laughter, and so on. All are tuned differently and unequally nourishing.
I used to travel to experience what you describe, which I personally call exhilaration. The thrill of throwing myself at the mercy of the unknown gave my life an edge and shocked me into feeling alive while I was in the moment.
But I'm not attached to travel memories - in fact it's as if they never happened - because I didn't bond with anyone. Similarly I just went from country to country seeking the next high.
Gag, I was once young and arrogant too, but poor judgement was my downfall. Just sayin'.
ReplyDeleteMy, my, my, anomic so young, dear Kesu.
ReplyDelete@Soulful; Sounds like like you were seeking out shamans from afar. IMHO Kesu's method (for himself) is more practical and cheap i.e. You can feel alive whenever you feel rage.
ReplyDeleteThat, can always be sustained as long as there's a steady supply of the undeserving (in his mind)to fuel the anger or resentment.
Do share Zeric (if you wish)
"There is the bliss of bonding,"
ReplyDeleteI don't make connections.
"the exhilaration of elation,"
I get this one. I need to feel alive. Since so little registers anyway.
*nods* I seldom make connections, or indeed feel tethered to my existence, but I am capable of making them.
ReplyDeleteGag, it was a long time ago now, so forgive me if my memory's a little hazy.
ReplyDeleteBasically, my girlfriend's parents hated me, and forbade her from seeing me.
So I convinced her to enter into a suicide pact with me, shot her up with heroin, and then walked away without fulfilling my part in the pact as I had always intended to.
I had simply wanted to know what it felt like to inhale a woman's last breath.
Maybe the day will come when you shall be severely reprimanded with;
ReplyDelete'That's so juvenile. You should know better!'
Well yes, I was a young buck ;)
ReplyDeleteWhen her body was discovered her parents didn't see it as quite the mercy killing I did. Sigh.
^Thus spake Zeric...
ReplyDeleteZeric, I recommend you read Amelie Nothomb's the Hygiene and the Assassin. (Hygiène de l'assassin)
ReplyDeleteobviously you suck at this.
ReplyDeleteAnon: Why thank you, I do adore French literature.
ReplyDeleteGag: Oh, but do I really? I've told you of my failure but not my successes. Alas, for them to remain my little triumphs, my lips shall remain sealed.
Ok. You do however realize that your biggest mistake was for not recognizing her parent's version of morality was more likely to hold up in court, hence the conflicting opinions about 'mercy killing' which led to your downfall.
ReplyDeleteOh, indeed, Gag. But it wasn't morality that was the problem it was the bloody heroin. I was never meant to be connected to her overdose. We can learn from past experience, and indeed I have. What a rubbish dealer!
ReplyDeleteAs I've always known. Trust is grossly underrated compared to money. No matter what you pay somebody else will pay more!
ReplyDeleteYour problem was being a fucking junkie and flipping the story into you purposely overdosing your girlfriend in some backwards Romeo and Juliet story.
ReplyDeleteMoney is material and trust is just prediction. Desire is at the heart of people truely staying loyal. When you fulfill someones needs and desires people will stay true most of the time.
ReplyDeleteBut Ukan, he said he didn't fulfill his part of the bargain. So does that still make him a hopeless junkie?
ReplyDeleteMarried life meeting your expectations, Ukan? That was the most romantic post you have made. A great king knows how to keep his subjects loyal. ;-)
ReplyDeleteGag, I am enjoying your soap box. You have a passionate mind today.
ReplyDeleteSo you are saying that it was not Zeric's destiny that the needs and desires of both the girl and her parents would line up as an event over which he could preside in greatness.
ReplyDeleteI believe Zeric's destiny was met in that he fulfilled the only need that mattered: his. All others were irrelevent.
ReplyDeleteDoes fulfilling a need equate greatness?
If so, then doesn't it depend on those you desire appreciate the act.
In this case, himself, therefore he achieved greatness.
Rambles.
Sleep defies me today. Is Kesu's long post finished? I look forward to hearing yours too soulful.
ReplyDeleteAh, M.E., that's an interesting angle you mention here. I've been doing what you describe for a while, but I haven't thought about it as 'hallucinations'. I've merely been very puzzled. None of the emotionality I've experienced have been at the scale Reader describes, but they're noticeable.
ReplyDeleteI've thought of it as a reaction to me having started to focus on them, wondering about how neurotypical people experience them. I should add, that it's been only twice, and one of the incidents was a dream. Maybe it doesn't count to others, but it does to me. It made me wonder.
I see you had the same questions for Reader as I did: LSD-like substances and being emotional at an earlier time in life.
I would've thought Sociopaths didn't remember having felt more than they do later, but I don't see why there shouldn't be exceptions. And it's a spectrum too, like psychopathy is, so, yeah...
Your final point is also good, it is exactly the conclusion I've made about how we see ourselves when reflecting back to the past.
Good luck, reader!... '^L^,
So the fulfillment from his need to inhale a dying woman's breathe was obviously greater than his own need for a hit and his aversion to being betrayed by the dealer who's needs and desires was apparently not met.
ReplyDeleteDamn haven, your last point could be read in so many ways!
ReplyDeletefor eg. What was clearly a great achievement for him as a young buck wasn't quite as clear when in later times the hallucinations of others were allowed to be projected into the purity of the original equation.
i heard somewhere that the majority psychopaths are likely to die a violent death, is it true?
ReplyDeleteWhat I said about loyalty had nothing to do with zerics post. I was addressing what someone said earlier about money buying loyalty.
ReplyDeleteMarraige is going well. The wedding was amazing. It was 1930s American phohibition. We robbed the ceremony, then had a find the rat game. Even the bartender got drunk and joined in. I went to the island of Moorea for my honeymoon where I went jet skiing and scuba diving, and snorkeling. On top of that they announced bin ladens death during my weddibg which caused people to inadvertantly celebrate my wedding day.
Oh I forgot to mention I checked myself in a institution and cried in the corner of my suicide cell for a week until they gave me some heroin mixed with amphetamines es. I only do this once a year but there it is. I'm a bipolar aspire maniacal psychotic schizophrenic sociopathic schizoid.
ReplyDeleteI thought of you when they announced Osama's death. And I said to myself. Only Ukan! Very auspicious.
ReplyDeleteI hate sychophanths, at least other peoples sychopanths.
ReplyDelete@anon 3:09PM; Maybe a little, if the Laws of of Cause and Effect in quantum physics or the concept of Karma in Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism is anything to fly with.
ReplyDeleteWhat does it matter if the death was violent or not except maybe in the eyes of the victim's survivors in their yearning for vindication? But can anyone be certain of such cosmic justice served by the inferred causality of violent deaths and willful malicious acts, especially if the target of the retribution actually feels no remorse or cannot be made to see the causality in precisely the same manner before he/she becomes a lifeless corpse?
Oh, and I forgot to mention I checked myself into a pampered institution called the Ritz Carlton and took hallucinogenic mushrooms with a handsome shaman. I only do this once a year but there it is. I'm a non-duel, hedonistic, playful, lusty, spiritual seeking, seducing, mercenary of emotional experience.
ReplyDeleteGag, you are asking very deep questions regarding the nature of Self, the law of Karma, etc. The ancient texts do deal better with death, war and its naturalness and its paradoxes.
ReplyDeleteYou are developing a conscious are you now? This is divine. What is more heroic, the death of Osama or the death of a love sick teen? What serves the self goes no where. In service (leadership) of others is a limitless field. For those of you who study power, you should all know this.
"A monster (self interest) today is a savior (servant of a worthy cause) tomorrow. Chairman Mao, Henry VIII, Jesus & Judas, ultimately served the collective.
I feel good today. Just thought I'd share.
ReplyDeleteIs it just me or is it that BPD(Bi-polar) and BPD(Borderline) seem to be very similar. Seems to me that the latter is amped-up version of the former.
Oh, and I forgot to mention I checked myself into a battle arena and fought to the death with an undefeated roman gladiator. I only do this once a year but there it is. I'm a combative, detached, ambiguous, undefined, charismatic, powerful, enigma of visceral entertainment.
"What is more heroic, the death of Osama or the death of a love sick teen?"
ReplyDeleteBoth are poignant to the relevant hearts but also equally meaningless or justified to those on opposite or unrelated consciousness.
For M.E. regarding your response,
ReplyDeleteYou are spontaneously following the insights of the non-dualists. And developing the field surveying abilities of the Witness. Enjoy these mind twists. And the rest of you pirates too!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nisargadatta_Maharaj
"You can observe the observation, but not the observer. You know you are the ultimate observer by direct insight, not by a logical process based on observation. You are what you are, but you know what you are not."
"The witness is not a person. The person comes into being when there is a basis for it, an organism, a body. In it, the absolute is reflected as awareness. Pure awareness becomes self-awareness. When there is a self, self-awareness is the witness. When there is no self to witness, there is no witnessing either."
"The difference between the person and the witness is as between not knowing and knowing oneself. The person is in unrest and resistance to the very end. It is the witness that works on the person, on the totality of its illusions, past, present and future."
"The person and the witness both are modes of consciousness. In one, you desire and fear; in the other, you are unaffected by pleasure and pain, and are not ruffled by events. You let them come and go."
"The pleasure to BE is the simplest form of self-love, which later grows into love of the self. Be like an infant with nothing standing between the body and the self. The constant noise of the psychic life is absent. In deep silence, the self contemplates the body. It is like the white paper on which nothing is written yet. Be like that infant, instead of trying to be this or that, be happy to be. You will be a fully awakened witness of the field of consciousness. But there should be no feelings and ideas to stand between you and the field."
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ReplyDeleteSomething's definitely up with this shaman.
ReplyDelete@Kesu... definite seems like Bipolar and Borderline have some striking similarities. My sister happens to be Bipolar so I'm pretty familiar with the ups and downs of that one too.
ReplyDeleteI'd say at least Bipolar has the manic upswings, but then again, when I'm infatuated nothing gets me higher. The lows f-ing suck though. Hah.
Medusa, your comment could be read in so many ways.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I've ever been depressed, I'm more of a schizoid. Depressed people feel sad and helpless don't they? But I couldn't be a classic schizoid because even when I withdraw I still put my hygiene and also my health first, and schizoids don't care about those things. It's as if I'm day dreaming most of the time, I go into deep trances staring into space, a friend said to me that I talk to myself when I'm in this trance like state but I have never noticed. It's interesting in that way, I can only figure out how other perceive me if they actually tell me in word. My mother told me that the rest of the family saw me as an asshole, I had no view on how they saw me.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteYour problem was being a fucking junkie and flipping the story into you purposely overdosing your girlfriend in some backwards Romeo and Juliet story.
ReplyDeleteOh, but I wasn't a junkie, Gag. I'm the slave of no cruel mistress and there was never any question of whether she would wither my veins. Nor was I a lovelorn teenager. I simply had a bloodlust to fulfil. Have you ever swallowed a soul?
Desire is at the heart of people truly staying loyal.
The perpetual gap between desire and satisfaction, expectation and reality, is only at the heart of loyalty until emotional carelessness unleashes the hounds of hell.
"I realized that for the most part, what I really was sensing was some change in my brain chemistry -- more adrenaline, less seratonin, more dopamine, exhaustion, whatever it was -- and my mind was trying to make sense of these "feelings" by imbuing them with meaning [...]."
ReplyDeleteWich is the definition of emotions given by science.
What would be the difference between a hallucination of having an emotion and actually feeling one?
To me, it's the same thing.
What I sense here seems a lot like the mixing of two (exausting) approaches: scienfically explaining emotions and subjectively explaining them.
If a brain has a said chemistry balance, and it's associated with emotion X, then that's it. If one 'feels' something, this is just a conceptualized entity saing what it makes of it. It's nothing different from a robot eplaining what it 'feels'. It can feel, just build a bionic brain and associate each chemistry balance with X or Y code, and it's instantly struck by the code's commands. And it'll describe as it - just like us, wich is totally fucked up.
From this perspective, taking psych drugs is literally changing your self.
If someone says there's a mind behind all this and tries to study it scientifically, and if this 'mind' can be scientifically measured, then the problem poses itself again and the solution is the same.
Wich leads us to conclude that either we're robots or we're something more, albeit manifesting an extent of our minds materially.
One could say we're so advanced robots, our emotions of feeling a 'self' is just that, a programming. Wich is even more fucked up.
Everyone's familiar with this case. It's what's the Matrix is about.
Take the blue pill.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing that often strikes me as intriguing is how often some in here describe emotional experiences by way of body manifestation (I felt my heart race, I was shaking, etc) as opposed to subjective descryption (I felt like falling apart, my world was bigger than ever, etc).
ReplyDeleteBoth of them occur, but I gather the first type is more prevalent than (I assume) it could be.
I often wonder if this is because of a lesser awareness than in empaths in average (not being so keen on what's going on emotionally).
Or if it's because unempaths don't have a big database on certain emotions, so when they feel them, it's easy to dismiss it as just a body experience (or a 'strange' body change, as I hear it sometimes).
@Morpheus:
ReplyDeleteI did, and it sucks.
Kesu said: "Which is probably why I don't get addicted to things"
ReplyDeletebut you hunt for thrills.
Try not doing that! Won't you get depressed? i do. so i have to use my logic very hard to choose where to get them. It is a challenge for me.
Personally, AMoralBing, I believe written expressions of self-awareness come down to one's preferences for different figures of speech. Not all cultures differentiate between the mind and body, after all.
ReplyDeleteI'm forever aware of my emotions and was born with an exquisitely thin skin. It absorbs everything. However, I only express my most intense emotions in private with a trusted few, which does not include game-playing on the interwebs.
My body and my mind are my 'self.' I strive to maintain an interconnected equilibrium with them at once. Feelings can be induced, or programmed, but either way they're just facts. I am, you are.
Plenty of so-called empaths cultivate a ridiculously low level of self-awareness because, I suspect, it's easier to exist that way.
but you hunt for thrills.
ReplyDeleteTry not doing that! Won't you get depressed? i do. so i have to use my logic very hard to choose where to get them. It is a challenge for me.
It makes sense that different divisions of the human species experience attachment to the world in different ways. Both are based on strong chemicals and enhance one's survival.
AMoralBing said...
ReplyDeleteAnother thing that often strikes me as intriguing is how often some in here describe emotional experiences by way of body manifestation (I felt my heart race, I was shaking, etc) as opposed to subjective descryption (I felt like falling apart, my world was bigger than ever, etc).
the second description catastrophizes.
it is much easier to recuperate if you take the first perspective.
"What do you "need" to take it down notch", as opposed to: "fuck, i'm drowning"
Oh, but catastrophising can be deliciously entertaining, too. It reinforces one's own importance in a way that rationalising does not.
ReplyDelete"which does not include game-playing on the interwebs."
ReplyDeletehow is this relevant to the topic?
Um, because I'm playing on the interwebs, of course. What are you, the forum dictator? Censor yourself, Anonymous.
ReplyDeleteyes, but if the feelings are true and real, i have heard that you can kill brain cells by "going there" over and over. Don't know if that is a myth...
ReplyDeleteCan't one habitualize the brain to make it easier to get seduced down the path to extremes?
I suppose I can choose to do this for fun. Or i can withdraw.
I will not censor myself. I will center myself.
ReplyDeleteI see your point. When you only see your feelings as the strongest,then you see yourself as the most important person in the room.. i get this. Tx!
ReplyDeleteI don't trust people claiming to be shamans. I mean who the fuck gave them that title? Last shaman I met was some pathological liar living off his girlfriend. I stole his girlfriend and married her.
ReplyDeleteAm I an addict, a hopelessly ensnared victim in a web of seduction, compulsively hitting Publish Your Comment for my next fix of The Biggest Badass in the World and his henchmen? Er, no.
ReplyDeleteI will not censor myself. I will center myself.
ReplyDeleteOm.
Ukan that proves you are the better shaman. Another name is urban shapeshifter. Obviously your female likes covert manipulators.
ReplyDeleteI'm playing with my jewels
ReplyDelete*sigh*
ReplyDeleteI need another pearl necklace
Shamans are more accessible than Steven Hawking or Oprah. If you find a good one, keep them close and loyal as your very own personal Nostradamus. My State' s omnipotent leader has a whole stable of them and he's still keeping all the wealth and power from 30 years of sucking the country's blood despite all the recent shit found and flung at him and his family.
ReplyDelete@Zeric; Soul. I doubt the possibility as I don't think my mind is wired to detect such entities apart from my (assumed) own. Actually I wonder if there are any means to conclusively determine whether one's soul has been swallowed by another.
ReplyDeleteIsn't the idea of you and the relationship problems for which she gave up life for also her personal reality? If so, isn't that something not entirely within the control of you or her parents?
Going back to Karma and the balancing of Cosmic energies. Given that such is the case, I suppose the idea of soul consumption may be essential for those inclined as a source of 'nutrition' to replenish or be absorbed into what they have lost or to change their current state.
FOR SALE; 1 almost new Kim Kardashian with original program.
ReplyDeletePrice; You can't afford it if you need to ask.
Let me just say there is nothing covert about someone who a always gets what they want, and b knows themselves to be a manipulater. Ukan has a way of telling you what you're getting yourself into, spelling it out ahead of time, and actualizing it later in a gruelling and captivating process from which a female cannot escape. Humanity has become so clear to him, that he's got iit like that, if you will. And he only hides his motives when it makes everything more amusing to himself.
ReplyDeleteGag, freed from its matter and absorbed into my bloodstream my ex-girlfriend's soul now dwells in my bones.
ReplyDeleteTo my mind the taste test is the only conclusive way to determine whether a soul has been swallowed: hers was especially salty with tears.
Oh, of course her personal reality was different to mine, that was her fatal flaw. I was everything she wanted me to be. Alas, I was also much, much more.
Why yes, I do indeed think of imbibing souls as a requirement for a nutritionally balanced diet.
But a soul transplant would be quite something! Just as heart transplant patients can invoke the behaviours of their previous owner, I would hope that soul transplant patients could evoke their emotions.
And you call that singing my praises, Whukan? Don't make me fucking laugh. Hand back what I paid you to type nice things about me, please.
ReplyDeleteI have no praises to sing, assuredly. Merely facts. Take it as you will, but know that its your own perspective that values a natural uncanny ability to manipulate people. I would hurl it as an insult more than a commendation of your superiority... but like I said. Its a fact.
ReplyDelete*schnigger*
ReplyDeleteOk Zeric so that's your trophy. Moving on?
ReplyDelete