Give me control!

"There's something in my head, and it's not me." - Pink Floyd

It's early morning right now, and I can't sleep any more. I woke up to find an intense clenching in my chest, and a heavy pit of tightly coiled energy in my solar plexus, signs I've learned to associate with intense anxiety, bordering on panic.

It didn't take long to realize there was a war going on inside of me - a familiar war, between longstanding narratives. "We have to get more done today!" says one. "No, you can't do anything well unless you downregulate yourself!" shouts the other. I tried to ground myself in the present moment, to let go of expectations of how the day was "supposed" to go. And for a moment, things are a little quieter. Then my attention slips, and the voices rush back: "You have to spend some time with your wife today, you haven't been connecting enough!"

Half an hour later, and here I am, doing my best to express the truth of what is running through me, knowing that doing so is often the only way I have of putting it to rest.

It's like a team of advisors are fighting inside, each trying to express and argue for the best way to put me at peace, and all of them contributing to the panic they claim to want to resolve. Then other voice jump in to try and quiet the advisors, and things get even more chaotic.

I know this. It's my rational brain trying to analyze itself out of something it can't solve, because the source of the problem is emotional, not rational.

That's a hard pill to swallow. For years, I saw emotions as the enemy, tried repeatedly to push them down and hope they died away in university, spent uncountable nights in cycles of shame, rage, and self-hatred before that. Now I'm 41, and while I have many more tools and a much deeper understanding of what is happening, it still overwhelms me sometimes.

Letting go of the need for control is for me one of the hardest things a person can do. There's terror in the unknown, a blank that is quickly filled by my worst fears and imaginings. What if my wife and I are falling apart? What if I'm in the wrong job? What if this panic never goes away, and then I make mistakes and let down the people I care about? The narratives, and the emotions they produce, each represent different learned strategies my body uses to impose an artificial illusion of control:

My anger rages against the circumstances and people it can't control, so it feels like I am "doing" something about it through knee-jerk reaction.

My worrying analyzes and reanalyzes the potential consequences of past actions and future events, in a desperate attempt to avoid anything ever catching me off-guard.

My sadness ironically pretends to embrace the lack of control in my life, but it's really just trying to steal it back sneakily, using a sense of helplessness to keep me wrapped up in a safe and cozy bubble.

And then the numbing starts, as I attempt to silence the wall of chaos in a flood of dopamine (my user name is no coincidence): Video games, fantasy books, mindless tv, YouTube, busy work, junk food, even daydreaming - literally anything that blocked out all the screaming was fine with me. In the past you could have added porn, drinking and weed to the list as well, but after my marriage almost imploded I finally found the strength to separate myself from those.

Of course, and as many of you know, the numbing only last for so long, and then the narratives and emotions come crashing back in, stronger than before. And the cycle continues.

In the end, I see no alternative to finding a way to breathing into what's happening in this moment, letting go of all the attempts to grasp and push away. It goes against all of our instincts, but when the day charges at us, we have to let it carry us away. Anything else is like trying to steer a river, or redirect an avalanche. It means looking at all the worst fears in your mind and simply saying in response: "If it happens, it happens." And that's f**king terrifying.

But on the other side of that letting go, is the peace we are looking for. I still don't see it often, but I'm close enough enough to see it's the direction I want to go. And if the voices start to rage in impatience that I'm not there already, I remind myself, hey, I've got decades of conditioning I'm unlearning here. Even the unlearning process has it's own value, because it's taking back the only thing I truly have control over - the attitude by which I greet what comes into my day.

If it happens, it happens.

First, I want to let you know that I think you're an amazing writer!

Okay, so I think you're on the right track with this: '...finding a way to breathing into what's happening in this moment, letting go of all the attempts to grasp and push away. It goes against all of our instincts, but when the day charges at us, we have to let it carry us away. Anything else is like trying to steer a river, or redirect an avalanche. It means looking at all the worst fears in your mind and simply saying in response: "If it happens, it happens." And that's f**king terrifying.'

In CBT, you might be gently encouraged to explore what might happen if you don't "get more done today." And you might be asked, "Who says you haven't been connecting enough to your wife?" along with "Why not discuss this with her?"

The answers could be different for us, but I know there's always something that needs doing, especially if you own a home. Check the oil, yes, but patching the hole in the roof comes first. The chop meat will go bad if I don't cook it, yet my wife needs to get to the ER because she's shivering and has a fever of 102F. (These are hypothetical scenarios that I've compiled from real-life events.) So the oil wasn't checked and yet the engine didn't seize up. The chop meat did go bad; just throw it out.

I did not have time to read the entire post, but read enough to concur with Square Peg Guy: you are an amazing writer. Can you channel this talent in the most productive way?

Thank you both - journaling was one of my first ways to turn down the volume on my emotions, so I've had lots of practice

TTJ, open to any thoughts you have on what channeling my writing might look like.

Thank you for your thoughts on this SPG. Do you ever find you have challenges prioritizing one task over another? Obviously the sick wife takes precedence over the meat, but sometimes the most important task isn't always so clear, and I don't always have time to draw up an Eisenhower Matrix every time I'm trying to choose. A big part of the emotional struggle for me is avoiding the overwhelm stage, at which point the tools I have to regulate myself tend to start shutting down. I often wonder if things could be clarified (first this; then that), it would calm me down and reduce the second-guessing part of the inner narratives.

I like much of the CBT toolbox, but I've come to believe that in this stage of my journey, I need a less rational approach. A parts work approach called the Completion Process has been particularly effective for me, because it attempts to reforge an emotional bond with the parts of me that are stuck in an old trauma response. I admit it's a bit dicey at times though - overusing it led to the most recent bit of overwhelm I was writing about above.

Hey DA. I agree, you do write well and you could try writing a story, of whatever length the story happens to be, of whatever subject it happens to choose for itself.
Aside from that, the internal struggle is a familiar one, especially the one against guilt.
You seem keenly aware of the unreasonable nature of it, that you understand that you don’t deserve it but nonetheless, it persists.
Also, it seems that you are already resisting, but to go to war with it is counter productive, which I also assume that you understand. You seem to be on the right track to better understand and eventually strip these negative “voices” of their power, and you should just keep at it, again, I’m quite certain that that is already your intention.
“Like wind on a rock” is how someone described imperceptible action, in this case, change, and though there is no clear indication of it, it is happening to you right now. We mustn’t let up.

I have a friend with decently managed Bipolar II dx.

He is my pen pal. We exchanged emails almost daily. He writes very well and cana write succinctly. He authors a technical blog. I cannot comprehend his blog posts in detail, as I am not a software engineer, but even I can understand his basic points, a testament to his ability to explain well. His blog posts occasionally go viral. He is not always clear about what made this post viral, but that post played to mixed reviews. Blogging helps with his mental illness management, in addition to psychopharmacology.

I wonder if you can do the same on any topic of interest. This is just one idea and in no way do I suggest it is better than alternatives. But... Would it be fun for you? You can write confessional prose, book and movie reviews, cultural commentary and what not

Yes, certainly, due to:

• some OCD
• laziness
• a desire to not spend money
• inability to estimate how long something will take
• expectation that I'll be needed and get interrupted

For example, I've been meaning to buy new tires for the old car for about 1.5 years. But because it's expensive, I've put the priority lower than it should be.
And I expect something more urgent will cause me to postpone the job, so I don't even make the appointment.

I might start something, get it to the point that its priority is lower, and then leave it unfinished for months.

There was a hole in the wall made by the doorknob from a door that was flung open in a fit of energy and a bit of anger. I've got the first coat of spackle in place, which hides the hole. But it needs another layer or two, then sanding and finally painting.

Newly unemployed, I am waking up at 4am with a whole bunch of "to-dos" going through my mind....

Thanks for sharing the Completion Process -- I'll add it to my pile!

It sounds as though it's grounded in the same ideas described in "The Voice of Knowledge" in that we free ourselves when we confront the harmful beliefs we were "taught" before we could reason.

I was going to suggest a blog, too, as @Tart Cherry Jam has. Actually, I maintain two. The one that's not "Thoughts of a Square Peg on a Round World" is a technology blog, coincidentally.`

Be sure to strive for anonymity. (Whoa, I spelled it right the first time!)

I found a PDF of The Completion Process on Archive.org: LINK.

Thanks Reptile. I mostly like writing about this stuff, so I suppose I'm where I need to be.

I've lately come to think there's an addiction to getting drawn into the narratives - the compulsion to seek relief, even if only for an instant, in the brief cathartic flare of rage, or the soothing down-regulation of depression and despair. The "voices" encourage this kind of behaviour, which encourages more voices, and so on.

The practice for me is often about shutting off non-essential thinking, and tuning into my body instead. And yes, it's often a VERY, agonizingly, slow process. And yet, sometimes all it seems to take is a slight shifting of the focus, a bit of silliness to break the momentum, and the resistance falls away.

Perhaps that's the most maddening part of it - this sense that the key to resolving the inner chaos is right there, if I can just look at it the right way. But then, that's just another way the narratives try to take control.

Good fine SPG, though I highly recommend purchasing the book and supporting the author if you can. It's a worthy read.

Thanks for the suggestions about starting a blog y'all. I gave it a try a few times before, but it didn't feel like it was reaching anyone, so I didn't feel motivated to continue. Frankly I'm impressed with the amount of engagement I've received on this forum however. I may give it another try at some point.

@LadyShadow has a great blog; I just wish I had more time to read it