Entries tagged with ocd

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Envy.

Are envy and sex naturally intertwined?; two branches grown around each other; two snakes mating.

I know this isn't a healthy way to feel, but I need to acknowledge it.

I do a half-ass job of serious complaining. I'm not very good at having a healthy relationship with periods in my life where bad shit happened. I'm poor at saying "That was bad. I didn't deserve it. Now I'll deal with it."

Instead I'll say things like "It really bothers me when things like that happen to other people. What can I do to make sure that other people don't have to go through that."

I still don't know what underlies it. The need to feel in control? A lack of language to acknowledge what is, frankly, my experience at what can most succinctly be described as getting screwed over? The belief that since I have one form of priveledge on my side, that I can't take isse with other deficiencies? There. I said it.

I have a lot of good things going, and, yeah, I get it that others have it worse, but that's not a useful attitude to deal with rough patches: it teaches us that we have no right to feel angry or sad for ourselves as long as someone else is having a rougher time. Who is this singular person who is actually the worst off of all? Could they plesae stand up, or are they too weak from hunger, thirst, public ridicule, nervous disorders, and being pinned under an angry walrus? What do they tell themselves? It could, hypothetically speaking, get worse?

No. No. No. ~~We need to~~ I need to say "this sucks."

And then, maybe (read: "probably;" read "or soon, but I need to concentrate on this"), once I get that out, I'll say "okay then. let's fix it."

So I'm going to complain, and I will do so unapologetically.

( Read more... )

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Anxiety and justification: "There are technological solutions"

Note the special filter: not everyone can see this. I don't like springing things on people via LJ unless I have reasons to belive that they'll be cool, or I've spoken to them first.

[edit - the filter is gone]

I don't like it when people get attention by kvetching about their health. Asking for help, or community or understanding, is another matter and one with which I am largely unfamiliar but am giving a try.

Last couple of weeks, I've realzied that a lot of social justice theory is a way for people to justify themselves. It's regretful and dangerous that our society requires one to express emotion only if one has an intricate theoretical mobile to back it up. One cannot say "I find this behaviour to be rude" and be taken seriously. One says instead "I find this to be an example of a dangerous worldwide imperial... blah... blah... blah."

Case in point: me and gender. I had not appreciated the possibility that my feeling that gender was irritating and pointless might be a product not of my sophisticated mindset, but instead, my innate cognitive predispositions. In other words, the reason that otehr people are fine with conventional gender assumptions is not because they're miseducated, but because itn works for them.

My feeling of gender incongruity grates at me and, while it cycles, is getting worse over time. It has been most prominent when I'm distressed, or short on sleep, but now it's coming up more often. I'd dismissed this feeling as being the product of other partially unearthed psychological factors, but it seems that the reverse may be true.

OCD (and I assume healthy-brain anxiety though I'm not well aquainted with it) works like this. One thing causes anxiety, so one has obsessive anxious thoughts about that thing but in a different light. If one has obsessive thoughts about burning down a friend's house, it may very well be that one is bothered not by fire or arson or the possiblity of being an arsonist, but because the house makes one anxious and the mind, seeking a reason to justify this, spits out "you're an arsonist - bad!."

Gender then: while extreme gendered behaviour irks me, it seems that I'm not bothered by masculinity as a whole, but the expectations that apply to me though it. I'm not actually worried about coming across as demonstrating negative male behaviours - I just hate coming across as male.

More on this to come.

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Questions surronding the word "am."

Chronic psychological shittyness led me to seek out a physician and now I've taken two 37.5 mg doses of effexor. The big reason for this is that I was having trouble sleeping and, throughout the last 24 hours, I've felt as if I've just had two cups of coffee.

This raises questions surronding the word "am." Is this an altered state of me? Or would some medicated-to-the-point-of-"health" state be me? Or are they both? Or is the question moot?

Is this nine-volt-to-the-wet-part-of-the-brain feeling the medication? Or is it the medication under specific circumstances? Or is it just feeling good to be back, with my friends, at school, sleeping with Erin, and away from a really crappy week of death in Kelowna?
On the subject of feeling wired, there's an interesting variant on the placebo effect that bears consideration. I don't know it's name, but it goes...

"The worse the side-effects, the more potent the medication is perceived to be."

...if you're on a drug for chronic knee pain and you feel normal, it may or may not actually be working, but if you're on a drug that makes you dizzy and unable to see the colour green, you can be assured it's doing something. Besides, if the side effects are this bad, it must be effective.