the multiple vectors of an evil brain
This is long. I'm trying to work shit out by writing about it.
Here's an example, one of my favorites.
I went for a ride today on my bicycle. I encircled Mt. Norwottuck and the Seven Sisters of the Holyoke Range. Total ride distance was about 25 miles. Total time was about two hours, giving an average speed of about 12.5 miles per hour.
I was once in good enough shape where I could do 50 mile rides with ease and see a 70 mile ride as a challenge. But I never did this really with a loaded bike, I never did these any time but the weekend where I had tons of free time. This comes into play later when I get around to beating myself up.
A sane person might, after a ride like mine, be glad they went on the ride, lament a little that they're out of shape, then get on with their life. An insane person like myself... well, here's where my brain goes.
I do have a bit of brain in me that's sane. I'm glad I went for the ride, I'm glad I got out there and spent some energy and got some endorphin release. I suppose if I want to get back into riding seriously I have to start somewhere. I do lament that I'm out of shape.
Then Evil Brain kicks in, having a couple varieties of commentary.
One of them has a lot to do with a lesson I learned from years of being bullied, namely that any deficiency, any way that I'm not good enough with respect to my peers will be pounced on immediately and not let go of, ever. I am literally afraid that it will be pointed out that certain cycling friends of mine are better than me, that I let myself get out of shape, that I was never in good enough shape to compete with them in the first place, so why do I even bother trying, I should just accept the fact that I'll never be good enough. This is from lessons that bullies taught me numbers three and four, more or less.
The second way that Evil Brain serves to kill me is by tapping into my quasi-secret desire to out-do everybody in my peer group, the way I described it in this entry. This comes from parents, teachers and peers not having enough love and acceptance for me when I was younger. The only time in my life when I really remember feeling accepted was when I could compete with or succeed my peer group. That's the only time I felt "good enough". But now, comparing with my cycling friends, I find that they've always exceeded me, that their achievements far surpass mine, that I don't have any hope of measuring up to what they did. And now, comparing my paltry little pathetic 25 mile ride where I was huffing and puffing half the time to them, when they were taking 40 mile joyrides after working ten hour shifts at work and doing so with bikes loaded with their gear and work clothes.... this makes me feel like I'm so far from acceptance by them that it fills me with misery. This is also a fear of Evil Brain.
Finally, precisely because I never received enough support and acceptance and love growing up, I still want that now. So I want someone to see the fact that I rode 25 miles today and count it as an accomplishment for me, to tell me I did good, that it was enough, that I'm okay. But the chance that I'll actually listen to that and take it to heart is virtually nil, thanks to the two points above. Nevertheless, I still want someone else's approval because I don't feel comfortable giving it to myself.
*sigh* I went for a bike ride because I wanted to, but I also went for one because I felt I should be able to compete with my peers who are in better shape than I am and could probably go out and do 50 miles right now if they felt like it. In this way, my natural curiosity and ambition and desire to do things for myself becomes poisoned by competition and comparison and thus lose any appeal for me in the first place because I feel the very act of trying is going to end in disappointment and crushing defeat.
What can I do about this. Hmm. What can I see about this?
Three things.
First. My mind believes that I am still in danger of being persecuted by people who behave like bullies did when I was younger. So I beat myself up in advance in hopes to not make myself such a big target to them. Beating myself up before bullies got a chance to was literally the ONLY thing that worked. So I'd like to meditate on the notion that I don't have to preemptively attack myself for my weaknesses my failures fear of anything. Because it's not going to happen anymore.
I think the second point is worse than the first. The lack of acceptance of me. Because I think here is where I get stuck in the past, looking over people's accomplishments and seeing that they are greater than mine, then trying to mentally re-frame them so I "fix" them in a way where I don't look so incompetent/lazy/stupid/bad. Because I still haven't accepted my own past. I wrote about not accepting my own past a couple days ago. I keep fixating on it, judging it as being inferior, expecting myself to... if not change it, to be able to re-frame it so it exists in a way that isn't quite so bad when compared to the people I judge myself against. It is this that has been replaying over and over in my mind lately, that I haven't done well enough, that I haven't done well enough.
So what do I say to an evil brain that is so bent on these judgments, so dead set against accepting the past fifteen years of my life because they didn't go as well as they did for my friends and peers and family? How do I try to coax it to accept my present self, especially when I find my own present so scary? I have a very low paying job, I have shitty credit, I have $20 in checking and nil in savings until I deposit a paycheck. Buying food and putting gas in my vehicle is something that I have to rely on the charity of my parents to do. I do not like my living situation, but I don't feel I have any other options at the moment. My job is a charity to me, considering how randomly I show up to work and how unskilled I am at it. I feel like my life exists as leaping from one failure to the next.
I do not like my situation. I'm rebelling against it. I do not like my past, I'm still rebelling against it. I do not like the now enough to accept it, to be okay with it enough to use it as a representation of me.
Why. Why?
Partly, rationally, sanely, because my life is actually difficult when I don't have enough money to do fucking grocery shopping. But I think mostly because i don't like accepting the imperfections of me and my history and my past. I'm afraid that they'll be damaging to who I am, to other people's perceptions of me. to other people's acceptance of me. So what's the lesson for evil brain here?
There's a resistance to being gentle to myself when confronted with all the agonizing sins I've committed in the past 15 years, which includes the sins of not being able to compete with my peers. There's a huge desire to have done better.
What would get through to evil brain? Denial is a bad idea, that won't work at all. Acceptance of the present doesn't seem to do honest justice to the rational part of me that really is dissatisfied with my current situation and would simply like to improve it for its own sake. Acceptance of... what? Acceptance of my dissatisfaction with my life right now? How does that make it okay to suck at bicycling?
I haven't dissociated "myself" and "my life". I firmly, emotionally believe the latter represents the former. Okay. Let's skip this one for now and go to the next point, the next want, which I haven't gotten around to writing yet.
Wanting acceptance. I want external acceptance, love, caring, nurturing experience about myself, about all the failures in my life, about all the things that I'm not good at, about all the things where my peers run over me with successes and superiorities, I want... I want to be consoled and comforted that it's okay to not be as good as someone else...
But I also don't want to believe it, because at some level I DO want to... shine. Be superlative. Get the joy and the pride that comes from being the best.
Those of you who got the highest grade in your class or were able to go better or farther or longer or faster than anyone else you knew, don't fucking tell me you didn't feel pride in that, didn't enjoy that. I still want that, I still fucking covet that. And I've no idea how to let that hard desire go. I don't understand why I shouldn't want that anymore if everyone else still takes pride in success.
I think I lost track of something along the way while writing this. Let me look back...
yeah. I lost track of a sense of self that exists outside of my accomplishments. That sense of self is the one that wants to be consoled and comforted. This is what I think is so easily damaged by failure and inadequacy and the inability to compare and compete and do as well as my peer group. There is a fear of abandonment here, abandonment by everyone in my life if I don't perform well, if I don't meet those perceived qualifications for success.
I'm afraid there's nothing left of myself outside my successes. That fear keeps in place my strong desire to change and rearrange the perception of my life so it more closely resembles success, and keeps in place the huge fears of accepting that period of my life because I'm so fucking ashamed of it.
I feel like I'm about halfway there, wrapping my head around acceptance, still encountering roadblocks and hangups and other shit that's making this quest for my sanity so goddamn interesting.
Here's an example, one of my favorites.
I went for a ride today on my bicycle. I encircled Mt. Norwottuck and the Seven Sisters of the Holyoke Range. Total ride distance was about 25 miles. Total time was about two hours, giving an average speed of about 12.5 miles per hour.
I was once in good enough shape where I could do 50 mile rides with ease and see a 70 mile ride as a challenge. But I never did this really with a loaded bike, I never did these any time but the weekend where I had tons of free time. This comes into play later when I get around to beating myself up.
A sane person might, after a ride like mine, be glad they went on the ride, lament a little that they're out of shape, then get on with their life. An insane person like myself... well, here's where my brain goes.
I do have a bit of brain in me that's sane. I'm glad I went for the ride, I'm glad I got out there and spent some energy and got some endorphin release. I suppose if I want to get back into riding seriously I have to start somewhere. I do lament that I'm out of shape.
Then Evil Brain kicks in, having a couple varieties of commentary.
One of them has a lot to do with a lesson I learned from years of being bullied, namely that any deficiency, any way that I'm not good enough with respect to my peers will be pounced on immediately and not let go of, ever. I am literally afraid that it will be pointed out that certain cycling friends of mine are better than me, that I let myself get out of shape, that I was never in good enough shape to compete with them in the first place, so why do I even bother trying, I should just accept the fact that I'll never be good enough. This is from lessons that bullies taught me numbers three and four, more or less.
The second way that Evil Brain serves to kill me is by tapping into my quasi-secret desire to out-do everybody in my peer group, the way I described it in this entry. This comes from parents, teachers and peers not having enough love and acceptance for me when I was younger. The only time in my life when I really remember feeling accepted was when I could compete with or succeed my peer group. That's the only time I felt "good enough". But now, comparing with my cycling friends, I find that they've always exceeded me, that their achievements far surpass mine, that I don't have any hope of measuring up to what they did. And now, comparing my paltry little pathetic 25 mile ride where I was huffing and puffing half the time to them, when they were taking 40 mile joyrides after working ten hour shifts at work and doing so with bikes loaded with their gear and work clothes.... this makes me feel like I'm so far from acceptance by them that it fills me with misery. This is also a fear of Evil Brain.
Finally, precisely because I never received enough support and acceptance and love growing up, I still want that now. So I want someone to see the fact that I rode 25 miles today and count it as an accomplishment for me, to tell me I did good, that it was enough, that I'm okay. But the chance that I'll actually listen to that and take it to heart is virtually nil, thanks to the two points above. Nevertheless, I still want someone else's approval because I don't feel comfortable giving it to myself.
*sigh* I went for a bike ride because I wanted to, but I also went for one because I felt I should be able to compete with my peers who are in better shape than I am and could probably go out and do 50 miles right now if they felt like it. In this way, my natural curiosity and ambition and desire to do things for myself becomes poisoned by competition and comparison and thus lose any appeal for me in the first place because I feel the very act of trying is going to end in disappointment and crushing defeat.
What can I do about this. Hmm. What can I see about this?
Three things.
First. My mind believes that I am still in danger of being persecuted by people who behave like bullies did when I was younger. So I beat myself up in advance in hopes to not make myself such a big target to them. Beating myself up before bullies got a chance to was literally the ONLY thing that worked. So I'd like to meditate on the notion that I don't have to preemptively attack myself for my weaknesses my failures fear of anything. Because it's not going to happen anymore.
I think the second point is worse than the first. The lack of acceptance of me. Because I think here is where I get stuck in the past, looking over people's accomplishments and seeing that they are greater than mine, then trying to mentally re-frame them so I "fix" them in a way where I don't look so incompetent/lazy/stupid/bad. Because I still haven't accepted my own past. I wrote about not accepting my own past a couple days ago. I keep fixating on it, judging it as being inferior, expecting myself to... if not change it, to be able to re-frame it so it exists in a way that isn't quite so bad when compared to the people I judge myself against. It is this that has been replaying over and over in my mind lately, that I haven't done well enough, that I haven't done well enough.
So what do I say to an evil brain that is so bent on these judgments, so dead set against accepting the past fifteen years of my life because they didn't go as well as they did for my friends and peers and family? How do I try to coax it to accept my present self, especially when I find my own present so scary? I have a very low paying job, I have shitty credit, I have $20 in checking and nil in savings until I deposit a paycheck. Buying food and putting gas in my vehicle is something that I have to rely on the charity of my parents to do. I do not like my living situation, but I don't feel I have any other options at the moment. My job is a charity to me, considering how randomly I show up to work and how unskilled I am at it. I feel like my life exists as leaping from one failure to the next.
I do not like my situation. I'm rebelling against it. I do not like my past, I'm still rebelling against it. I do not like the now enough to accept it, to be okay with it enough to use it as a representation of me.
Why. Why?
Partly, rationally, sanely, because my life is actually difficult when I don't have enough money to do fucking grocery shopping. But I think mostly because i don't like accepting the imperfections of me and my history and my past. I'm afraid that they'll be damaging to who I am, to other people's perceptions of me. to other people's acceptance of me. So what's the lesson for evil brain here?
There's a resistance to being gentle to myself when confronted with all the agonizing sins I've committed in the past 15 years, which includes the sins of not being able to compete with my peers. There's a huge desire to have done better.
What would get through to evil brain? Denial is a bad idea, that won't work at all. Acceptance of the present doesn't seem to do honest justice to the rational part of me that really is dissatisfied with my current situation and would simply like to improve it for its own sake. Acceptance of... what? Acceptance of my dissatisfaction with my life right now? How does that make it okay to suck at bicycling?
I haven't dissociated "myself" and "my life". I firmly, emotionally believe the latter represents the former. Okay. Let's skip this one for now and go to the next point, the next want, which I haven't gotten around to writing yet.
Wanting acceptance. I want external acceptance, love, caring, nurturing experience about myself, about all the failures in my life, about all the things that I'm not good at, about all the things where my peers run over me with successes and superiorities, I want... I want to be consoled and comforted that it's okay to not be as good as someone else...
But I also don't want to believe it, because at some level I DO want to... shine. Be superlative. Get the joy and the pride that comes from being the best.
Those of you who got the highest grade in your class or were able to go better or farther or longer or faster than anyone else you knew, don't fucking tell me you didn't feel pride in that, didn't enjoy that. I still want that, I still fucking covet that. And I've no idea how to let that hard desire go. I don't understand why I shouldn't want that anymore if everyone else still takes pride in success.
I think I lost track of something along the way while writing this. Let me look back...
yeah. I lost track of a sense of self that exists outside of my accomplishments. That sense of self is the one that wants to be consoled and comforted. This is what I think is so easily damaged by failure and inadequacy and the inability to compare and compete and do as well as my peer group. There is a fear of abandonment here, abandonment by everyone in my life if I don't perform well, if I don't meet those perceived qualifications for success.
I'm afraid there's nothing left of myself outside my successes. That fear keeps in place my strong desire to change and rearrange the perception of my life so it more closely resembles success, and keeps in place the huge fears of accepting that period of my life because I'm so fucking ashamed of it.
I feel like I'm about halfway there, wrapping my head around acceptance, still encountering roadblocks and hangups and other shit that's making this quest for my sanity so goddamn interesting.