deep waters raise crushing waves

[mellowtigger]

I don't do anger. It sets a bad precedent. I don't want anything to do with that path. I mentioned a year ago that I was communicating online with someone who had schizophrenia. It ended soon after that note with an angry comment from him. I closed my instant messaging program and haven't opened it up since. I don't do anger. Not even once.

Personal boundaries and self-interest are supposed to be good things. I've been told more than once that I should be more assertive about what I want. I've gotten myself into plenty of dangerous (political, or actually life-threatening) situations by simply doing what someone asked me to do. The alternative, though, developing skill in opposing other people because of what I want for myself... that's too dangerous to contemplate.

When I was around 5 or 6, I was the cause of an incident that escalated until I ended up getting a scar on my skin. Frustration is a bad thing when combined with an inability to modulate emotional states. It's better to keep the waters calm, always. Flirting with the excitement offered by playing with forces beyond your control is.... dangerous.

In the interest of Autism Awareness, there's another story that you should read...

A drug called Lupron.
I reached for my single semester of Latin. "Lupron? You want to take the werewolf out of him?"
"Exactly," said the Israeli. "But it's our last resort."
- http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2009/03/26/bauer_autism/index.html

As I keep insisting... when it's time, I'm walking into the forest and not coming back.

Today, though, I think I'm going to shower and then drive out to the zoo.  I'll bring my laptop with me in case I need to go out to the car and connect remotely to work computers to deal with any emailed isses that activate my pager.

(edit 1) p.s.  It was over 20 years ago when I chose the name "Mellow Tigger".  I chose that phrase for several reasons but mostly because it hints at exactly this issue.  There is a danger in feelings emotions too deeply.  It's best to stay calm, always.  When those rare issues arise that finally trigger my involvement, there's just no way to contain the energy that's unleashed.

(edit 2) p.p.s.  I changed the title from "deep waters raise towering waves" in order to improve the consistency of the metaphor.  The energy is the same, but the slow waves in deep water become the towering waves in shallow water.

Comments

[cosmomn.livejournal.com]

teach me how not to be angry

[mellowtigger]

Thinking about this issue, I had to go back and change the title of my post.

Waves in deep water seem to pass slowly but steadily. When forced to interact with land, though, both cease to exist. The waves rise and crash, the rocks get pounded and disintegrate to sand. All that frothy destruction when things were peaceably calm as long as the two forces stayed separated.

Rage is a fundamental emotion, more primal than most emotions that we have names for. Rage is meant to be destructive, pitting us against real foes where only one of us may survive the confrontation. Just as with Bruce Banner and the Hulk, managing anger is more an act of diversion than of control. It's a Tai Chi of Rage, I suppose, turning the energy elsewhere rather than trying to block it outright.

Learn the patterns. Isolate which triggers can cause the emotion to swell in you. Monitor yourself to identify when these triggers are causing the first ripples of hormonal waves in your body. As with the wave energy of the ocean, steer clear of the shorelines which will cause the energy to rise up and crash. As with alcoholics and other addicts, make the agreement with yourself that you will actively avoid those triggers that produce the behavior you want to eliminate. Go as far as needed to avoid the frustration... even if it eventually means walking away from civilization altogether and stepping into the forest alone. Just do whatever it takes to divert the energy from the destructive outcome into some new experience.

When that fails, another method that has worked for me is to take advantage of the self-ego of consciousness. The purpose of consciousness is story telling. Become an observer to your own creative story telling. When impatience swells, tell yourself, "If I were to design a compelling narrative situation in which my character would have to learn patience... this would be the ideal situation for it." Face the challenge, recognizing it as a further lesson to be studied. "If my character had patience to meet the challenge, I would do/say/withdraw/concede..." and then do exactly that. So even though you lack the instinct to produce the desired action immediately, you simply emulate the desired storytelling activity for the moment and then learn at some later date from the practice lesson that you had to complete today. Act out the story that you want to become; choose the life that you want to live.

Both methods require being able to recognize emotions before they escalate. Both methods require accepting the cost-to-self of acting in these ways (loss of income or social standing by diverting course to calmer seas, or loss of ego by acting as your ideal storybook self rather than your immediate self).

If anyone lacks these skills of self-reflection and self-sacrifice... then I don't (yet) have any suggestions that would help.

[mellowtigger]

This conversation seems similar (to me) to one that I had recently in someone's Friends-locked thread about Ghandi and why/how some people can sacrifice so much. I offer a quote from a poem:

"I would be strong, for there is much to suffer;
I would be brave, for there is much to dare."

I decided long ago that it's worth the sacrifice just for the chance to see if it produces something amazing. Angry confrontations are old news; they are much too familiar and boring. The world is already full of conflict. It's a lot more interesting to take that energy and go find something new to experience.

[mellowtigger]

p.s. There's also the matter of "checking out" (losing self-cohesion and awareness). I wonder sometimes if that's what possums experience when they faint. Maybe it's not an act, maybe they really are losing their conscious experience. Still, it's not something that I'd encourage except as a last resort for survival purposes. Stimming activities might offer the diversion that's needed to occupy the mind until the hormonal surge has left the bloodstream.

[hilltop.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you posted this, I just learned about something I had no idea about. You've mentioned the idea of walking into the woods, and never quite understood what would possess you to say something like this, but now I have at least a little bit of a clue.

I had no idea things turned crazy like this. I can relate a tiny bit to the fear of anger being released turning ugly. There are a few things that I've experience in my life that hit some sort of secret, unknown mental button I don't understand, and brought out a rage from nowhere, one that scares the hell out of me to see surface like it does. I have come to realize that I must do everything in my powers to insure that this genie is always kept inside the bottle.

I'm sort of surprised, actually, that I've never heard of any of this before. Knowing it exists and learning about it is always a good thing, so thanks for writing about this.

[mellowtigger]

It isn't just rage that disrupts self-cohesion (for some people), but rage is the one that produces the memorable and destructive (to other people) outbursts.

I can't find it now, but I thought I had written before about the incident in which I fought against a school bully after he harassed me one too many times. The loss of self-cohesion is evident there too. I couldn't remember wanting to hit him, but I became aware after the fact that I had hit him. Awareness breaks up into staccato moments instead of flowing continuously. Strong emotions, not just "bad emotions", tend to have that effect.

I think, given the unreliability of eyewitness testimony, that it's the same way for most people. Perhaps the desire to weave a consistent story is too strong, though, so most people end up creating "consistent awareness" after the fact. Maybe I don't succeed at doing that, so that's why the holes in my experience are unnerving. Regardless, it's best to avoid situations that produce emotional reactions. Keep a steady keel at all times and so maintain self-awareness.

[hilltop.livejournal.com]

In your writing you linked, this jumped out at me:
"I can "distance" myself from them, examining them without succumbing to them."

It's as if being bipolar, to the extremes that I am personally, I'm almost the total opposite. Emotions take over, and for the most part, I have zero capability to think that I can over ride them, or think them through and choose an action that's different from the overwhelming emotional response I automatically respond with. Lack of awareness, lack of self awareness, lack of anything in the toolset to recognize things for what they are. So many times something very simple becomes such an overwhelming, complicated monster that I go into sort of a sensory overload thing.. I shut down and lock up, I've got to wait for things to sort themselves out.

The human mind is an amazing thing.

[mellowtigger]

Not to dismiss the significance of Catholicism's seven deadly sins, but I'd say that the two most difficult emotions to manipulate this way are rage and despair. Even lust I'm pretty good at securing control over its persistence, although it still presents problems too.

Still, I think it's interesting that these 3 show up. I'd guess that they are some of the oldest motivators of animal behavior, and so they are least amenable to conscious control.

Rage: to destroy the threat before it destroys you
Lust: to produce another generation of offspring
Despair: to take desperate measures in desperate situations (like the urge to jump through a window to escape a fire, despite knowing the fall that awaits)

If I were designing a creature with limited processing abilities, I think those 3 motivators would do a good job of ensuring its survival in a dangerous world. Happiness is an optional add-in to be offered in later models. (yay, evolution! *grin*)

[hilltop.livejournal.com]

There's so much weird stuff hardwired into our brains from the caveman days.. truth be told, I'm not so sure I know what happiness is, aside from the absence of sadness and stuff, it just doesn't register. Happiness is over rated anyway. ;)
And yeah, evolution is a good thing.