something doesn't feel right

[devils daughter]

I hope you're feeling better with some food in you. Thanks again for your feedback in the first paragraph.

The second paragraph sounds to me like projection/transference (projective identification, maybe?) from previous experiences, in other places, when you tried to express your feelings and responses? I hope that you don’t feel that I’m invalidating you by saying that. In fact, what I’m trying to say is that the second paragraphs looks like how you have been seen and invalidated in other places, in the past. Validating previous (painful) invalidation, in a way.

I hope that you are feeling seen and heard by me and LaLa – and I have read a lot of Malign’s posts and know how much he wants to help people and has helped people. (He also works in information technology, btw.)

I joined this community in January and it has been very helpful to me. Arguments can be very enlightening sometimes, I’m fond of them myself. I hope you will stay around and can find the support you need, too.

[benji]

Thanks. Everyone.

I think I’d like to toss everything out and start over. I just got back from my appointment with the person that prescribes my medications and we were talking about side effects and I came to realize in addition to lack of sleep, part of my problem lately might be that I haven’t been eating nearly as much as I should. I wasn’t even aware of it because I simply haven’t been getting hungry and I’ve been distracted by enough other things, but earlier this afternoon I got so shaky and lightheaded and I think that was it. He said that might explain my mood swing and could have been why I got so agitated. I don’t feel so agitated anymore. I think it helped to eat, but I feel weak all of a sudden. I have a phone consultation with a client in about half an hour, but after that I might just try a nap. But for now, I just want to say that I’m sorry if I acted in a way that caused any hurt feelings. I don’t even know if half the things I was rambling on about even made sense anymore. And thanks to everyone who tried to respond and put up with me.

[LaLa]

Those are good news - now you know one of the things that could help to change - the eating habits! That doesn't sound like a hard thing to do !

I'm pleased to see you feel better...

May I ask you what's the medication? Because the meds used in psychiatry I know so far have all rather opposite side effect - they increase the apetite. So I wonder which one can cause what you experience(d).

BTW, I realized one thing yesterday and I'd like to share it with you: It was when I saw, outside, a little kid crying when she had fallen on the ground. You described here why you think that it's impossible to change how we perceive situations when we are hurt. However, now I have an example prooving that you've been capable of such changes!!! Remember some things that used to make you cry when you were a little kid. As a small injury, for instance. (Or as when somebody you loved went out of the room when you wanted her/him to stay - when you were a baby...) Why don't you cry in those situations anymore?? The pain of the injury is still the same. But your attitude has changed: Now you know that "the pain will disappear soon, it's not something serious that could put my life in danger, ..." - you didn't realize those facts as a little child. Although these examples might seem specific, as I compare two very different ages, the principle of changes of attitudes (including emotions and the way we manage them and act or not act upon them) is (more or less...) the same all life long: We are learning during all our lifes, not only in childhood, that's why we are able to change even as adults - including the type of changes we talked about in this thread = the type of changes that can lead from mental problems to mental health and well-being.

I hope you feel the hope in these words ...

Take care!

[benji]

Devil’s daughter: I didn’t mean to worry you by saying I need to be erased. I don’t want to actually erase myself, it’s just that I keep feeling like I should.

The second paragraph sounds to me like projection/transference (projective identification, maybe?) from previous experiences, in other places, when you tried to express your feelings and responses? I hope that you don’t feel that I’m invalidating you by saying that. In fact, what I’m trying to say is that the second paragraphs looks like how you have been seen and invalidated in other places, in the past. Validating previous (painful) invalidation, in a way.

Yes. I think it is exactly this. While I think part of my angry reaction yesterday was that I had low blood sugar or something and needed food but wasn’t paying attention to my body, sometimes I get like that usually for a short period of time and my therapist calls it an “emotional flashback.” I am reacting in a way that might have been appropriate to situations that happened when I was a child, while failing to recognize that the present situation is entirely different.

I do appreciate everyone’s help and efforts. I sincerely apologize for throwing a “tantrum” of sorts. Someone gave the advice that I should take a step back. It might have been a good idea to listen to that and to remind myself that engaging while in a mood like that is never likely to end well.

LaLa3: I’m presently taking lamotrigine 200mg and Wellbutrin 300mg per day. I know most mood stabilizers and antidepressants cause weight gain. I seem to be taking the two that don’t. In fact, I’ve lost weight. I think Wellbutrin was once in a study to see if it could be used as a weightloss drug. One of the side effects, I think for both of the medications, is a loss of appetite. Eating enough so I don’t get dizzy was never anything I had to consciously keep track of before. I’d eat when I was hungry and everything was fine. Well I guess I wasn’t getting hungry, so I wasn’t eating, but my body still needed it.

I like your story about the hurt child. I think it makes a lot of sense too because I know from therapy that a lot of my emotional reactions are reactions that are more appropriate to situations that occurred when I was a kid. So maybe I need to grow out of it and be able to see current situations for what they are and to see that I can react with a better set of tools and that I don’t have to let things get to me so much because I’m not in a place anymore where the consequences of the hurt might be so big.

[devils daughter]

Thanks for writing back to us, Benji. Glad you’re OK.

I am in treatment for a dissociative disorder, so the notion of an “emotional flashback” seems related to something I'm familiar with. I can usually keep my things like that turned off, but when I am overstressed (physically and/or emotionally) – then I don’t have that much control. And part of my treatment has been to try to bring those pieces of myself into therapy, but sometimes they don’t show up until “triggered” somehow. So this is certainly a place for the hurt/angry little kid to be and to express himself.

I agree that LaLa’s example is a really good one. If you had to shut the angry little kid down (as I did) then he didn’t get a chance to grow with the rest of you and get a different attitude. Until now, maybe, and in therapy.