[Nas]

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20220311-the-complicated-truth-of-post-traumatic-growth

Post traumatic growth is “the idea that many people not only recover from life-shattering events, but also experience a positive transformation in their values, actions and relationships. “

Trauma shatters your worldview and disrupts your core beliefs. And post-traumatic growth, at least theoretically, is the result of you trying to put your worldview back together in a way that incorporates that traumatic event. You come out the other side looking different in some way.”

But “in some cases, this narrative around the potential to grow could be oppressive. It creates the expectation that not only do I have to recover from what happened to me, but apparently, I'm supposed to become better than ever before.” And this pressure, he thinks, could lead to worse mental health outcomes for some individuals.”

I feel like I was more myself outwardly several years ago when I was told I didn’t have long to live.  Maybe that gave me the courage to really be me.  Then as the fear of having to reconstruct an entire life from scratch completely alone took over, the scared me became the me that took over. (Don’t get me wrong, I’m actually fearless in a lot of ways that I don’t think many people recognize as fearless.)

I am different under my current circumstances, but the core parts of me are still there. How we show up in the world does change with circumstances. When you know that the You that people see isn’t the You that really is, you feel very unseen.  But I’ve had a pretty interesting life, I have some pretty interesting thoughts and even have some wisdom gleaned from my interesting life to share, I’m interested in what people think and feel - if anyone ever decides to get to know me, they’ll see that.

Someone was recently telling me about an 80-year-old woman they admire, a widow who has faced a lot of adversity and doesn’t have a lot, but who embraces the simple moments of her life. They said, “She has no wisdom to share but her way of life is wisdom.“ I was really very taken with that statement and it stayed with me long after they said it. I have nothing to offer to anyone, I’m no one’s inspiration, I just hope that at least one person will see past the surface and see what I am rather than what I’m not or what I don’t have, maybe even see the fearlessness in me that most people don’t recognize.

Bottom line: IMO I think when we feel alone and so low after BD there’s a lot of pressure to be the Phoenix rising from the ashes, to prove to others that we are in fact worthy, that our lives are impressive, that someone, or many someones, will love us and want us and choose us, etc. (and under that pressure, we sometimes might even make choices or take actions to prove ourselves to the world - or let’s be honest, to our MLCers - rather than doing them because it’s what we truly want or need.) And it might be freeing to realize that you don’t have to emerge from this, or any other traumatic life experience(s), as a completely triumphant, ass kicking superhero. You just have to emerge and go on. Growth means different things to different people. Knowing what it means for you and living in a way that’s true to that is growth in itself.

🎶 https://youtu.be/0xrZ61cuKLk
Further we go
And older we grow
The more we know
The less we show 🎶

[MadLuv]

So well expressed and all so very true. I think for me, showing myself in leas than “put together” form was also a release of the control of the situatiin and need to be somewhere I wasn’t. Maybe if we all in life in a world of filters and illusion allowed ourselves to show our true lives of imperfections than there would not be the need for so many to live behind a mask.  Maybe depression wouldn’t be escalating. Maybe MLC wouldn’t be so extreme..

People thought I had the perfect life and were let down by its demise. Yet, I am sure many liked seeing it. Then they didn’t have to be so ashamed of the life they were hiding or living. That’s so sad. To want to see people you are envious of to falter.

Anyways, I loved what you wrote and your thoughts. Thank you got sharing.

[WHY]

A blueprint of our MLCers....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECnpu85EkcY

[Nas]

A lot of times a big unexpected life change necessitates a whole series of successive changes, big and small, ranging from inconvenient to terrifying. The big changes are often ones that are nonnegotiable, where doing nothing is not an option.  Sometimes we're afraid to commit to a change for fear of locking ourselves into a choice that's not great and is going to be hard or impossible to change again.  Sometimes we feel like we can't afford even one tiny mistake. There's lots of things that make making changes feel impossible, most notably when it feels like there are no possibilities, or the possibilities are all suboptimal. I don't think this exercise will help in every instance, but is still a good exercise to try:

https://psyche.co/guides/how-to-use-possibility-thinking-to-solve-problems-creatively

And of course, my musical selection:
https://youtu.be/vyrpRzdvp5U?si=ToaGfQix9qvlTfwb

[WHY]

Effects of Early Adverse Life Events on Depression and Cognitive Performance from the Perspective of the Heart-Brain Axis

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10452582/

[Nas]

https://psyche.co/guides/how-to-appreciate-what-you-have-even-when-it-is-not-perfect

I went into reading this article fully expecting to do a hard eye roll. But I actually really like its message,  it resonated and it’s actually really timely for some of the issues I’ve been batting around. I don’t think that I will find a fitting relationship, but I really would like to, and one of the things that I have made sure to work on in order to be ready in case it ever happens is practicing nonattachment and knowing that the fact that I value and appreciate and love something or someone doesn’t mean I can’t live without that thing or that person.

This is the longest I’ve been single since I was 16. For some time, because it can be lonely, I’ve been looking at it solely as a lack of a person to talk things through in tough times or share breakthroughs, new ideas, new experiences. I don’t give myself credit for being that person for myself because it’s not the same and I’m so busy thinking about not having someone to be there for me. But the reality is that I have been that person for myself for a very long time, through some very extreme circumstances, and that’s an accomplishment and who I have been to myself is something to appreciate. I don’t need just anyone. It doesn’t mean I don’t want companionship, but as an addition, not as something that provides me something I don’t have now so that if I were to then lose it, I couldn’t live without it.

Because what I have now is only myself and that has to be enough because that’s all there is. None of the good things I’ve had and lost in life defined me. They were just things. They were things I loved, and losing them hurt a hell of a lot, and nonattachment doesn’t protect me from the pain of loss (of things or of people). It just allows me to look back at what I lost and remember the good parts, in this case how hard I worked for them, how much I enjoyed them during the time I had them. They are losses, but that’s not all they are. Before they were losses, they were accomplishments. Sometimes in our grief, we forget that.

🎶 https://youtu.be/JeSXEuhQKqw?si=37Imw2KK8MJHIl1o

[JohnnyBravo]

Interesting discussion on creating mental illnesses for character traits (reification, and I'm an engineer, not a writer, so this is a lousy summary) as a way to remove people's responsibility for their actions.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhoDnp2qA24

[Nas]

Interesting read related to the idea of reframing:

https://psyche.co/ideas/philosophical-reflection-often-begins-with-a-disruptive-mood?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=f3d52bdfc7-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2024_04_27&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-0f6af19dd8-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D

And of course, musical accompaniment, the chorus of this one is going on my tombstone  :
https://youtu.be/DYcEZy4OAgQ?si=t0ZFnSPjdZ6ZxGKs

[Nas]

I just found this very interesting:
https://psyche.co/guides/feeling-overwhelmed-in-the-present-try-mental-time-travel


🎶 https://youtu.be/CZcQSMOqksU?si=Wdsc_d1YjHaIWnKs

[Nas]

I was deleting some of the years of pictures clogging up my phone to try to make it work faster and I came across a screenshot of my response to my former husband after he found out I had been diagnosed with cancer and told me that because of that, now he had to “play hardball.” (if you are confused by what that means, join the club. It was typical of the verbal abuse and gibberish and delaying the legal process I had gotten rolling. “This is what I have to do.” He just kept repeating it over and over, like a robot with a glitch.)

I don’t know why I screenshot it. Probably at the time it was to have it handy to read to my therapist. This was one of our last communications ever before he completely disappeared. But in reading it, and having other memories sparked, I realized, oh, I was absolutely a loving partner to this man for almost two decades. I don’t mean that in a “oh, I loved him so much, he was everything to me” kind of way. I mean I was always truly loving to him, in a way that frankly the world assumes that I wouldn’t know how to be because of the myth that you can’t love anyone until you love yourself.

I’ve talked before on this forum about teaching myself how to love due to my nightmare childhood. In order to love yourself, it is helpful if you have that positive feedback loop, if someone is loving you, especially when you’re young. I’m self-taught all the way. I think the myth that I can’t be loved or can’t be trusted to give healthy love because of the very fact that I have to work harder than most to love myself is quite frankly bull$h!te. I know and I’ve always known how to take responsibility for my emotions. I know and I’ve always known how to give space and take space for myself, how to leave space for understanding, how to not see in black-and-white, how to listen, how to change my mind based on new information, how to respond instead of react, how to ask questions and to seek understanding.

The issue was not believing I deserved the same in return. That it wasn’t just that I knew how to listen, but that I deserved to be listened to. It wasn’t just that I sought to understand, but that I deserved  to have others seek to understand me. it wasn’t just that I knew how to take responsibility for my emotions, but that I should surround myself with people who do as well. See, I taught myself how to love but not how to be loved. Reading my response to my husband’s absolutely abusive and cruel response to learning that I had been diagnosed with cancer really was a stark reminder of that.

I may have veered towards the familiar in choosing my marriage, and to the outside world that seems like I didn’t know how to love myself and therefore I didn’t allow myself to be loved, and therefore I shouldn’t seek to be loved (romantic, platonic or otherwise) until I love myself.

But again, that’s some circular bull$h!te. Sure, things might have been very different if I had a different “familiar” baseline (because we all choose familiar, that’s not something that only those of us with severely abusive childhoods or trauma do). Where would I be right now if I had been able to thrive in a healthy relationship, to put all those skills I taught myself into action. But I also know I’m pretty bad ass for persisting without it and still being able to be loving and to care for others and to know myself well enough to not seek love in any form to fix the things only I can fix.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/stronger-the-broken-places/202101/myth-you-can-t-love-someone-until-you-love-yourself?amp

🎶 https://youtu.be/PYTC79rPI1s?si=cNlqFZAS_uIaNS03
And if I seem a little strange
Well, that's because I am
If I seem a little strange
That's because I am…