DecimalRocket’s Recovery Journal : The Sky Is Not The Limit

[DecimalRocket]

To be honest, I'm worried about school. Yes, yes, maybe that sounds petty. Some people growing up gave me the message saying, "Other less smart kids need it more" or "Because you're smart but too lazy". Maybe I'm just deluding myself with these worries and interpreting it all wrong. Who knows?

Most classes I do well in, but the few classes I don't are also the ones that require more handwriting and my fine motor skills are kinda . . . delayed. Sometimes I can't answer practice sheets because I have trouble writing letters and lose finger stamina more easily. Less often, but sometimes sounding out words with my voice muscles get overly confusing. It has to do with sensory processing disorder and I go to therapy for that.

These also tend to be the most difficult classes. The last time with these about 70-90% of people failed and I barely passed. But I'm still worried. I'm afraid of not just the educational implications, but in life too. To be temporarily robbed of a voice, orally or verbally. . . is a deep validation of my own fears.

A deep reminder of those times in my home where I was being emotionally abused. . . and I couldn't speak or write.

[Blueberry]

To be temporarily robbed of a voice, orally or verbally. . . is a deep validation of my own fears.

A deep reminder of those times in my home where I was being emotionally abused. . . and I couldn't speak or write.

Sounds excruciating DR. No voice can mean no way to defend yourself in certain situations where physical defense would be way inappropriate.

I can really relate to feeling worried about the future because of health concerns, like lack of stamina.

I'm sorry what people said about you. They don't even bear quoting and were statements based on ignorance at best. If today is an OK day for hugs then  , if not then standing with you.

[sanmagic7]

d.r., it's terrible to be worried about the future like that, especially about not having a voice.  you have such a beautiful voice and heart as well. 

as far as i'm concerned, education is for everyone.  there's more than one education - not just the one from books.  experience, exploration, discovery, travel, language and any new thing we are involved in are all educating on different levels.  i think they're all important.  some come with age, with time, with learning and we collect all the information and translate it to ourselves and how we fit in life.  that's a lot of education right there.

i understand you have some struggles and challenges, but it seems to me that you keep at it, keep wanting to persevere and move through them.  i give you all kinds of credit for that.  those messages that go against your instincts are not in your best interest and they don't belong to you.  follow your heart, d.r. - you'll never go wrong there.

sending a hug full of hope, faith, and love to you.

[Sceal]

 

[DecimalRocket]

Hugs for all. 

Sceal, 

Blue, thanks for sticking around. Problems with health can make all kinds of things complicated. Hope you'll gain some strength with your worries too.

San, your affirmations over time have been slowly building my self worth. Follow my heart? I can follow my own head just fine. My heart? Well, my heart tells me to wallow in self pity and believe people's judgemental conclusions of myself. My heart still needs to be guided by others' wiser hearts.
....

I only saw love when people show it directly, but there are all kinds of ways people show it indirectly, huh? Even if people can't show much, the hidden efforts behind it still matters. More people here and real life care about me than I thought. I was just too socially unaware to notice.

I have people who are warm to me, but when it's hard to read body language, I get suspicious. But well, it's impossible to read body language on this forum and I can trust people here. If they continue to be warm, and that they're willing to show kindness through direct words and actions over and over even in weakness, then maybe I can trust that.

Not everyone likes me, but what good things have people who know me well say to me again? Smart, deeply kind and adorkable. Hey I'm not cute. I told them I was the dark lord incarnated. 'So you're Darth Vader." "Nooo, that's my cousin. I'm the Dark Lord. Get it right." The results say that my intimidation strategies are . . . still in progress.

Even if I can't find people who are as curious as me, I can find many different people who are are or more curious than me in specific subjects. I can learn a lot from them. Experience can beat natural smarts anytime after all. 

"How do you dance?" "Well, what do you think of when you think of Patrick Star?" I flap my arms like I'm making a star in the air. "When I think of Squidward, I do this." He makes a movement with his hands like playing a clarinet. I pause, and then I make movements like I'm conducting. "Yes, you get it!

I asked many questions from different people. How did you choose a drawing style? Who's Freddie Mercury? Why do you keep making communism jokes? Can you tell me about that nature documentary on seagulls you saw? Who are those hot Korean guys in your bag design? How'd you improvise music lyrics? What's this Black Panther movie people keep talking about?

Haha. Eh,  no wonder I needed a 5 day break alone recently from people in real life and a 3 day break from here. 

[Sceal]

I too require breaks from both social life, my flat mate and the internet sometimes. Technically more often than I can allow myself.
I am glad you took a break, we all need them from time to time to refocus, to relax, to not get too overwhelemd. 

[Hope67]

More people here and real life care about me than I thought. I was just too socially unaware to notice.

I have people who are warm to me, but when it's hard to read body language, I get suspicious. But well, it's impossible to read body language on this forum and I can trust people here. If they continue to be warm, and that they're willing to show kindness through direct words and actions over and over even in weakness, then maybe I can trust that.

Hi Decimal Rocket,
I am glad that you feel this way, and I agree that it's harder to know what people's thoughts and intentions are - both in real life and in online interactions too - but I've not come across any negativity here - and I also find that I am less triggered here - than I can be in 'real life situations'.

Just wanted to say that I would like to join in the group hug, and celebrate the fact that you're here and in this forum.   

I also totally agree with what Sceal said, that it's good to 'take a break' from any situation - when it's needed/required - it's good to refocus, to relax and not get too over-whelmed.  That is great to do.

Hope 

[DecimalRocket]

For Sceal and Hope,  .

Yes, rest eases the tiredness. Either I'm playful and excitable about learning new things with other people or I'm calmly pondering and writing my own thoughts on things in solitude. Not much in between really. Heh. . . extroverted me was fun to be in while it lasted though but I like to stay quiet most of the time.
....

I swam today for P.E class. A friend, J, taught me all the way through it. Turns out I could only swim backwards and it was downright hilarious to both of us. As we talked, she took one of the swim toys that looked like what people used to lift weights with but uses a material to help people float in water. She moved the "weights" to pile on one side and rowed it, saying she was kayaking without a boat.

That flashed an idea. What if I get two of those floaters and use it to row my way to swim forward? She laughed and gave me another. I held on and rowed it to the sides and I was swimming forward. I was swimming! HOLY **** I'M AWESOME! With this, I realized that the problem was that my hands relied too much on a floater, but I swam better when my hands were paddling by themselves.

I guess problems could be solved in novel ways after all, huh?

Here's another what if. What if my indecisiveness and lack of confidence was not a cause of not just having enough knowledge or ease with ambiguity, but a lack of reliance on instinct? Reminds me when a book gave an example of an Aspie I read that understood people like a mechanical system, finding out specific "rules" consciously, and well. . . I do that. Not just in my social life too. So what if I reverse that assumption and enhance my own intuition?

Michael Michalko, a creative expert who helped find solutions in political, business, social and military scenarios wrote a book called ThinkerToys that had creative techniques on intuition. I even tried those methods from New Age groups to see if it works and unexpectedly they do incredibly well. Many creative visualizations for intuition there seem oddly similar to the ones Michalko collected, and even innovates upon it. Different interpretations of why these work with how reality is defined, but still works either way.

I'm more confident to act, my thinking is more flexible and I understand people better.

Sometimes I say this to myself. Don't measure life's progress by speed, the distance over time. Velocity, speed with a direction to follow is healing. Now I might want to measure acceleration, how the velocity of my progress changes over time, so I won't just see what's happening. I'll see what has been happening in the far past so I can take a better look into the future.

In my calculations, life is getting better.

And they say physics doesn't teach you anything useful about life. 

[sanmagic7]

who says that?  is there anything we can learn that can't help us in real life?  somehow, at some point?

your heart, d.r., has been shown on this forum to be full of kindness and caring, and the longer you've been here, the more evident that's become.  i remember when you had problems with any words that pertained to emotions, either reading or writing them.  now i see you sending love, care, compassion and all kinds of heartfelt wishes to others, and you are able to receive the same as well.

that's you heart opening up to the beauty inside it, as well as to the beauty you can now see in others.  you've come a long way in a short period of time, sweetie (by the by, you are adorable - that's a word i'm able to use for people of all types and ages, not just for looks, but for their essence of being).  i believe those neg. messages that you say reside in your heart may have been put there by others pertaining to your self-worth.

the more you practice your heartfelt emotions and beliefs to others, like you've shown here, the less room there will be for negativity.  your heart will swell with goodness and love and push the crapola out.  give it time, d.r.  you'll get there.  you've got a good heart, and i have faith in the progress you've made that you'll soon be able to trust that soon.

i love your questions.  it's true that we can always learn from someone else because everyone has a personal perspective.  therefore, our learning is only hindered by our own reluctance to ask the questions.  by the by, freddie mercury and queen is one of my all-time feel-good rock bands.  i can't help but smile and dance when i hear him sing.

sending a hug filled with love, warmth, beauty, and trust.  you're doing great.  really.

[DecimalRocket]

Hi, San. Thanks for seeing the good in me. I don't see it in myself enough.

I can't say much about what happened today. I'm too ashamed to say it. Let's just say I had another fitful of sobs over feeling unworthy of kindness and it felt like the pain was shredding out of me. San, you were right that love would eventually push out the negative messages, but damn does it hurt. I feel more at ease and self compassionate to myself in general today, but at the end of it I'm left emotionally exhausted.

Sigh. I can understand logically what's good about me, but I can't feel it now. It just feels like there's something inherently wrong with me. I am nothing. I've done nothing. I hope nothing.

I remember the first time I ever opened up to someone with vulnerability since early childhood, the most vague sentences I told them would create the deepest suspicion of what they thought of me. And that they were judging and finding disgusting every word I said. Just placing the smallest amount of words online was enough to send me to deep sobs and panic attacks for a whole day.

Sigh. I'm just being pathetic, weak and horrible. I won't accomplish anything and I'll die alone in regret someday.

[DecimalRocket]

I'm alright emotionally now. Physically. . . well, let's just say I need to stay home in bed today.

[sanmagic7]

do what you need to take care of yourself, d.r.  i know this stuff can be draining.  i can't figure it out myself.  i felt pretty miserable all day yesterday, then, last nite, just watching tv, i could feel the 'miserable' simply leave and i felt much better.  don't know what i did, don't know that i did anything at all.  it just went away.

i know you're not pathetic, i know you're a good person.  i give you so much credit for being here, posting, sharing, being vulnerable - this stuff takes time, patience, and practice.  you'll get there.  i have no doubt about that.  sending a hug filled with love, caring, and lots of compassion.  we're all in the same boat here.  we'll get thru it together.

[DecimalRocket]

Thanks, San. 

I don't always feel gratitude when you're here since my emotions get numbed sometimes, but eventually I do.

In System Thinking textbooks, to analyze a problem well, they tell you to look for feedback loops. Cycles. There are a few cycles in my life that worry me.

Whenever I improve in some way, there's this reinforcing loop that tells me that because I've improved, I don't deserve help anymore. I often have to assure myself each step in the way that my problems are really difficult but what's a more long term solution? I need to be assured of my value as a person, not just when I'm having the worst of times.

I'm also a bit self conscious about stereotypes of the rich being err. . . spoiled brats. I don't think I've done a single house chore once in my entire life.

Whenever I open up to people more, I get suspicious of them. I have to assure myself about each person one by one, but is there a more general way I can think about people? Maybe a way to tell if people are worthy of suspicion or not to be less cautious about everyone.

Whenever I gain confidence, I feel responsible for people's possible envy. I have to calm down each time I think this, but is there a more long term cause of an unhealthy perception of feeling proud that I can work with?

Eh. Emotions are full of patterns, huh? Systems Thinking is usually used for scientific research, business analysis, political problem solving and all those big intimidating field. I've left the project due to how stressful life is but I'm still wondering if I can invent exercises in Systems Thinking that can be used for personal development like this.

Oh well. Let's see what happens.

[sanmagic7]

improvement is not necessarily an end goal, is it?  it's a goal along the way of progress, but i don't think that simply because we improve on or with something that that's all there is to it and we're done.  i don't know that i will ever stop improving - therefore, there is always something i can still be helped with.

to me, it's like learning.  just cuz i learn something doesn't mean that i now know everything and there's nothing left to learn.  everything changes, including us.  there are always more things to learn simply cuz we are not the same people today as we were yesterday. 

therefore, i see us as new in some ways every day, which means that we may need help again - either for something the same, similar, or different.  improvement has no end point in itself.  even the greatest minds kept learning, which was a way of helping themselves continue improving.    does that make sense?

so, deserving help, well, that's a given, to my mind, at least.  if we exist and we're in distress or looking to improve further, we deserve help. 

as far as being a spoiled brat, you don't come off that way here.  if you want to improve your knowledge about chores, go do some.  wash some dishes, clean a toilet, dust some shelves.   my mother sent me out into the world without teaching me much about survival on my own, and it came back to bite me in the butt.  she'd say 'you'll learn how to do that when you're married.' (no one could clean her house good enough, for one thing).

i had my daughters washing and taking care of their clothes from the time they were 13.  i thought it was something they'd need to know later in life.  same with cleaning their rooms.  those kinds of chores allow us to be more ready for the reality of being adults, no matter how much money you might have.  it also gives you an appreciation for what other people do to make a living.    however menial a task may be, there is dignity in doing it well. 

people's feelings, including envy, are there own.  yes, you can encourage emotions in others by pushing buttons, rubbing what you have in the face of others less fortunate, etc.  i've been envied, not for the money i have (cuz i've never had any) nor for possessions or other material things, but for my personality.   

people envied me my way of interacting with others and my free spirit, which screamed self-confidence.  i couldn't help that.  it was their insecurities and their own issues that caused the envy, not anything i had or did.  i lived my life my own way, and a lot of people were envious that they couldn't do that for themselves.  not my fault, not my responsibility.

i don't mean to sound cold about it, but i lived with some of that from friends for decades, and it wasn't pleasant.  i finally had to leave them behind - it was too wearing to feel that from them nearly all the time.  plus, they ended up not being very supportive when i had problems cuz they thought i already had more than my fair share of something they wanted, so they didn't feel very compassionate toward me. 

keep going, keep improving, keep getting more confident - you deserve all of it.  warm loving hug to you, d.r.

[Hope67]

Hi Decimal Rocket,

I just wanted to pop in to see you in your Journal and say 'hello' and also extend a hug  - if that's ok.     I saw that you wrote in very small type that you'd not done a single household chore in your life - and I know you wrote that in very small print, and I've repeated it in normal print, but you know - I wonder if you might wonder what it would be like to 'do a chore' and see how it feels?  Only if you want to - but they can actually be quite enjoyable.  I have the luxury of a dish-washer at home, but sometimes just washing crockery by hand can be 'calming' and the same with cleaning the house - I find it can be really fun - especially with some music on.

I don't want to embarrass you by saying that, and if you think I've over-stepped the mark to say it, please tell me - I just thought that maybe you'd enjoy seeing what it's like to tackle a chore.  The word 'chore' - it can be misleading - I think - because they are not necessarily a chore to every person.  Certainly, I wouldn't judge someone for whether they choose to do something or not do something.  I'm just wondering if you might consider experiencing something you've not tried before, and you might like it. 

I have admired the way you tackle books and different skills - and I think you'd probably enjoy all kinds of things.
You helped me to think differently when you mentioned V for Vendetta and her coping with the prison she was held captive in - and I hope that I can similarly make a comment that might be helpful to you. 

to you, Decimal Rocket.   

Hope