Posted in Mental Health

Anger’s Not the Bad Guy

Posted on by rsfahrudeen

There’s so much about controlling your anger and taking your anger and not feeling angry. I think anger is one of the biggest misunderstood emotions. I’ve heard anger being described as an act of pride. I suppose it can be motivated by pride, but that’s a very limited view. Personally I think anger is motivated by love of either ourselves or others.

Think about it. If you don’t care about someone or something, you’re not going to get angry when bad things happen to them. You just aren’t. The anger based on pride is motivated by the love of self above others. The anger you feel when someone you care for is hurt, which is usually harder to forgive, is based on the love of others above the self.

I don’t think either is really a bad thing. Anger comes when you perceive bad things are happening and think that the only way to stop it is to puff yourself up and be bigger and scarier than the other person. This may be because you were taught this by someone or by experience. It may even be true sometimes.

The problem comes when anger leads to violence and overt aggression over relatively small things, or makes the situation worse. Violence and aggression are seldom the answer to your problems. Sometimes it is, but mostly it’s not.

Do you have a right to get angry, probably. Do you have a right to defend yourself and others from physical or social harm? Even with violence and aggression? Yes. You often do have the right. But having the right to do something doesn’t make it a good idea. And it certainly doesn’t mean it’ll get you the result you ultimately want.

Anger is important. It tells you that something is wrong and that thing needs to stop immediately. It gives you the energy to fight if need be and the will to take action. This is not a bad thing. The problem is when you take actions that make things worse either in the short term or the long term.

Anger problems aren’t emotional problems they’re problem solving problems. When the only thing you associate with anger is violence and aggression, it’ll be the only response you think to have when you’re angry. Anger isn’t necessarily telling you to fight though, it’s telling you there’s a problem you need to solve.

Today’s world has a lot less physical threats than it used to when we were first evolving. The problems we’re most likely to face are social threats. That doesn’t mean they’re not real problems.

Words shape attitudes and behaviors and relationships which are vital to success and survival in the modern world. And yes, words can absolutely hurt you. Social disharmony can cost you jobs, friends, resources, and lovers. People who just focus on the fact words don’t make you bleed and call them harmless because of it are short sighted fools.

The problem is that using anger to fuel violence and aggression doesn’t solve many social or emotional threats. It creates a threat to the other person that they have to respond to and you never know who’s going to react in what way.

And the truth is very few people hurt people for the sake of hurting them. Pure sadism is incredibly rare. Hurting others is at worst merely an accepted side effect of benefitting and trying to protect themselves. At best it could be completely accidental and unintentional born of ignorance or clumsiness.

All three things need different solutions to get the best resolution. Sadists and the selfish need to be treated differently and the socially/physically inept need to be treated completely differently than both of those. That’s just how it is. And you have to learn to distinguish between the three.

So as I said, anger is not the problem. It’s a valuable survival tool/ alarm system, and needs to be listened to when it tells you something is wrong. It’s what you do about it that’s important.

I hope this has helped you. If you disagree or agree feel free to tell me. Have a good day.

Posted in Mental Health

Forgiveness

Posted on by rsfahrudeen

So I keep thinking about a day in group where we talked about forgiveness. The teacher said forgiveness was not about absolving someone of their wrong doing, but the more I think about it the more I realize that’s exactly what forgiveness is. It’s absolving someone of the wrong the committed against you. After all that’s what we mean when we ask for forgiveness.

I think this misunderstanding of forgiveness is born from the innate desire not to forgive the people who injured us or loved ones in some way. We want them to suffer. We want to be the ones to make them suffer. Forgiveness is the opposite of that. It’s saying you hurt me but I no longer hold it against you.

Then comes the question of should we always forgive everybody everything? The Bible says yes. The most poignant verse on the subject is ‘forgive them for they know not what they do’ I firmly believe that if people truly knew what they were doing when they hurt others they wouldn’t do it. If not what it does to others but what it does to themselves.

Every action has consequences, which is different from punishment. I’ve forgiven my abusive exes but they lost my love, my respect and all the good things I could have added to their lives, things that I wanted to give them. That’s not to say I don’t still get angry at them, but I’ve absolved them of the moral debt they owe me for hurting me the way they did. I have let it and them go.

People say that you have to forgive people even if you don’t feel like it and that forgiveness starts the healing processes. I disagree. You don’t owe anyone forgiveness especially not while you’re still in pain and not when they want it because they want it.

I believe that you have to find at least a little peace before you forgive. You have to heal the hurt enough to be able to breathe. You have to learn how to let go of the pain. You don’t have to forgive to let go. You just have to realize that the pain and anger aren’t doing you any good and it’s okay to stop. You’re free, it’s over and done you don’t need the motivation or energy to act anymore because you’ve already done it.

You don’t need to punish them because there are already consequences they’ll have to face beyond your personal vengeance. Some call it karma, some call it God, I call it the way the world works. To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. When you realize this, then you’re at a place where you can forgive.

I think the act of letting go of the pain and anger is what people think of when they say you need to forgive for your own sake. But letting go is not the same as forgiveness. But it is a necessary part of it. 

Furthermore forgiveness is not saying that what they did was okay. It’s also not saying you’ll let them hurt you again though and it’s not a promise to trust them again. Especially not if they’re not even remorseful. And even if they are you’re not obligated to keep them in your life. Especially if you’re able to forgive before the pain is gone.

Self care is not a punishment to the other person. If they suffer because you had to ban them from your life to heal, it’s simply a natural consequence of their actions and you are not responsible for it. If others think badly of them for it, it’s a natural consequence. Even if they go to jail, it’s still a natural consequence of breaking the law.

You don’t have to dirty your hands with revenge, they have and will cause their own pain. Besides I also like the quote ‘hating someone is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die’. It’s fairly accurate.

That’s not to say hate isn’t useful, so is anger. Anger says this is wrong and needs to stop. Hate says this person is hurting me or my loved ones and they need to be stopped. They are useful things to know and often give you the energy and courage to act. In those situations it’s a tonic. But when action is no longer possible, holding onto hatred and anger makes it becomes poison, just like too much of any medicine.

You often have a right to be angry, you often have a right to hate, you always have the right to withhold forgiveness. But that doesn’t mean it’s always going to be good for you. In the end only you can decide when and if you can forgive someone, and what to do with them afterwards. 

I hope this has been of some help to you. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the subject. Have a good day.

Posted in Mental Health

Struggling with Optimism

Posted on by rsfahrudeen

As far as I’m concerned when it comes to optimism and pessimism there are three types of people. The first two are glass half full and glass half empty people. The last are the people who know it’s a false dichotomy. There can’t be a half empty glass without a half full one and there can’t be a half full glass that isn’t also half empty. That one’s me.

Though the truth is I tend to be on the pessimistic side even so. For the longest time for me the full half didn’t matter as much as the empty half. I could see the real situation but not feel it. I could always see my virtues and list them, but given the situations I was always in, it was clear to me that my virtues weren’t as influential to my life as my flaws.

I’m not going to say that wasnt true. Our flaws can absolutely be greater than our virtues just as much as our virtues are greater than our flaws. But what I didn’t see was that a lot of my situation was out of my hands. I kept trying to fix things that weren’t my fault and not in my control.

You can’t control what hurts you. Not without being taught extensively. There are some things you need to learn from other people and if you weren’t taught that, it’s not your fault. I don’t like the idea that you should just automatically know how not to be hurt by things because it takes all the responsibility away from the people who hurt you and puts it solely on yourself.

But I’m out of many bad situations now and learning and growing and I’m realizing that not only are my flaws no worse than anyone else’s, my virtues are just as good as well. Not only that but I can fix my flaws. Things can get better. It’s not hopeless, it just takes a long time to heal from thirty years or more of various abuse and trauma.

I’m starting to learn that optimism is important. Not the blind, glass is half full, denial of half of reality kind, but the focusing on the positive kind. This is because it takes no effort to be pessimistic. Our minds focus on the negative automatically because  that’s what it took to survive.

Now though we’re so much safer in our daily lives that the alarm system we depended on before isn’t as helpful. It’s like a smoke alarm that goes off for everything from a hot shower to burnt toast. Mine especially. I was in emotional danger for so long it’s stuck that way. So much so that unless I keep my mind occupied or exhausted it reverts to constant anxiety.

It’s also filled with many more minor stressors. And less ability to process it. Before with fight or flight reponses it was usually accompanied with physical activity that let you not only process the stress hormones, but escape from the stressful situation. Not now though. I can’t escape boredom or crowds  or the need to clean things. People can’t just run away from work or start punching coworkers. So we have to find ways to minimize the stress.

That’s where optimism comes in. When you can focus on the good things in life it gives you the focus and energy to deal with problems you can’t solve physically. Mindfulness is really helpful too but it relaxes you. Optimism changes distress to eustress.

Eustress is energy and excitement. Distress is energy and fear. But both have the same physical and chemical components. The only difference is your view of the situation. It’s the difference between people who hate rollercoasters and those who love them.  (I’m in between I can only enjoy them with my eyes closed.)

Optimism is hard though and it’s not always appropriate. When in an abusive relationship optimism can be downright harmful and prolong a terrible situation with hope of change. Sometimes you need bad feelings like anger and sorrow in order to change things. I know if it wasn’t for my anger I never could have had the strength to leave my abusive exes as quickly as I did.

But now I’m out and normal life is too much for me to handle. I tend towards hopelessness and despair and stress and fear at the smallest things. I’ve been too primed for danger and now it won’t shut off. It exhausts me physically and mentally. I’m either anxious, depressed, or coping. Sometimes I can’t cope, sometimes it feels like all I’m doing is coping, not growing or healing. Coping sometimes feels like I’m slapping a bandaid over a wound that needs stitches.

I need to learn to see the good things in my life and appreciate them and acknowledge their importance and strength. Because I know the glass is half full, too and that’s just as important to know as the glass being half empty. I need to practice focusing on the silver linings and the good in me and others and my life and situation because I am safe now and I have to move forwards.

It’s hard. Especially with my chemical imbalances. My skill at optimism is a footpath in my brain at best but my depression and anxiety are paved highways at this point. So far medication and coping helps keep me off the highway, but it’s not building up the footpath which is just as important

I’m trying gratitude and affirmations, but it’s not working yet. It’s all stuff I believe and know intellectually, but it’s started making me uncomfortable doing it. Maybe that’s a sign that it’s starting to work. We’re resistant to change after all, so maybe I should be pushing into the resistance instead of backing off.

It’s hard and I don’t know if it’ll be effective. They all say it works but they never say how long and nobody told me how uncomfortable it would make me. I’m sometimes not sure I’m doing it right, or if it just won’t work for someone as broken as me. But it won’t hurt me, I know that much, and it gives me something to do besides ‘cope’ so I’ll keep trying.

I hope this has helped you in some way. Have a good day.

Posted in Random Thoughts

Exploring Stoicism

Posted on by rsfahrudeen

So I’ve been reading self help books a lot on micro learning sites where they condense them down to their basic points. Let’s face it, self help books have a lot of filler. But aside from mindfulness, stoicism comes up a good amount of time.

Stoicism is basically about being virtuous with self control, courage, justice and wisdom being the cardinal virtues. It encourages you to control what you can and accept and let go of what you can’t.

They categorize things as things you can control (your thoughts feelings actions), things you can partially control(your body, your possessions), and things you can’t control(other peoples thoughts feelings and actions).

I’ve always valued wisdom and justice higher than anything else and while I have trouble with them, I do acknowledge courage and self control as important virtues. This makes stoicism an ideal life philosophy for me.

I’m not a hundred percent sure that our thoughts and feelings are completely under our control though. There’s so much ingrained in our subconscious from our upbringing that just come out whether we fully believe it or not, and there are emotions we feel that are preprogrammed even just by biology.

But I do believe that while we cannot completely control them, we don’t have to be controlled by them. By examining our thoughts and emotions with reason and without judgement (yes mindfulness), we can slowly learn to dissect them and alter our responses to them.

I really like the emphasis on wisdom and self reflection in taking control of one’s self and ones behaviors. While doing so is often more complicated than just a matter of will, I do believe it’s not only possible but our responsibility to align ourselves and our actions with these values.

I think the practice of mindfulness and the philosophy of stoicism are highly compatible. Mindfulness encourages acceptance and observation of reality and so does stoicism. They both value self awareness as well. Stoicism may be a little optimistic about our capacity for self control, but mindfulness counters this with the acceptance of thoughts and feelings that may not be virtuous or accurate or helpful, without saying they’re right.

Mindfulness, to me, is also about the main virtue of love for self and others. While this is considered a subset of either wisdom or justice in stoicism, I forget, I feel it’s far more important and deserves to be its own virtue entirely.

I’ll keep on exploring these things and hopefully form my own unique philosophy of living. Or probably not. I may end up where many other people have wound up before. Who knows? I hope this was informative in some way. Have a good day.

Posted in Mental Health

Daily prompt 10/29

Posted on by rsfahrudeen

What’s one thing you own that holds deep sentimental value?

The preemie diaper I saved from when my twins were born. They were born four months premature and were only a couple ounces. The preemie diaper was too big for them. Dwarfed them really. That was twelve years ago. They’re doing great now but I still have it as well as their hospital bands and baby footprints from Valentine’s day.

Posted in Major Irritation, Mental Health

God/Energy/Quantum Physics Are Not Genies

Posted on by rsfahrudeen

One thing that annoys me a little are the self help things that claim some sort of mystical entity will grant you what you desire if you put enough desire, optimism or positive energy out there. Manifestation, quantum physics, energy wavelengths and even religion are being treated that way.

In quantum physics yes there is a string theory that says everything is made up of vibrating strings, but how they got ‘that will bring you wealth and happiness if you try hard enough’ out of that I don’t know. And energy, yes every living being puts out energy and we’re all less solid and more expensive than we think, but where did they get the idea that 1. We control that energy and 2. We can bring our dreams and goals to fruition with them? Don’t even get me started on people treating God like a genie.

This sort of thing is downright despicable because it puts all the blame for not getting your desires, wealth, happiness etc on the person. Because they didn’t believe hard enough. Because they weren’t happy enough or grateful enough or good enough of a person. Or they didn’t want it hard enough.

Life doesn’t work that way! Luck plays such a huge role in success. Do the people who succeed work hard, have talent, deserve their success? Usually yes. But as many people who don’t succeed work just as hard, have just as much talent or more and would deserve success just as much. It’s a pretty much a requirement for success, but not because it guaranteed it. It’s a requirement because without it you can’t step through the door luck opens for you. Some people just don’t get opportunities and it’s not their fault.

Alot of these concepts do often give good advice though, just for the wrong reasons. The reason the advice often works is because of cause and effect, natural consequences, and basic behavioral science, not because the universe wishes you well. The universe has a bias, it’s biased towards life just not your life in particular.

You can make your life better. You can make yourself happier. You can prepare yourself for opportunities that come your way and yes even prepare yourself to recognize opportunities you might not have before. But it’s based on what we have learned over a long period of time. Tested with repetition and now the scientific method. Maybe we don’t know why it works, but when it doesn’t it’s not your fault.

If you have anxiety and deep trauma meditation may be bad for you. If you’re clinically depressed, all the gratitude statements in the world will do is make you feel bad for not being happy when you have so much to be grateful for. If you’re in an abusive relationship or currently undergoing intense trauma or bullying, you have every right to be miserable about it. Or angry. If you fail over and over again that’s okay. You don’t have to be happy about that either. And it probably isn’t your fault.

Everyone does the best they can with the information and resources they know they have. Words can hurt you without your permission especially as a child and so can violence. Your body might malfunction for unknown reasons mentally or physically. It doesn’t matter how much you believe, or want or put energy out or how you attune to the vibration of quantum strings.

That’s not to say you can’t get better and things can’t get better, but look around. Don’t read just one book of self help. Read them all. You’ll see a pattern. So far I’ve noticed gratitude, mindfulness, exercise, a healthy diet, and taking tiny steps are repeated for quite a lot of things. I probably missed some things but start from there I guess. Read up on them, find out why they work, how they work. Or just trust that they do and try it. It’s up to you. See a psychiatrist and take meds too if your brain chemistry’s permanently fucked up for some reason like mine is.

Well that’s what I have to say about this. It’s just been bothering me since I’ve been studying self help stuff, that’s all. I hope this is of help to someone. Have a good day.

Posted in Mental Health

Multipurpose Habits

Posted on by rsfahrudeen

I’ve been reading a lot of non fiction books. Self help mostly. Productivity, happiness, habits, success etc and there a few things they all seem to have in common. Exercise, eating well, gratitude, tiny steps, and mindfulness. Apparently all five are basically self help panaceas.

It makes sense. Exercise is good for both body and brain. I’m constantly fidgeting as I write and go out for walks when I’m consumed by anxiety. I love swimming too though I rarely get a chance to. I hate other exercise though and can’t seem to keep it up on my own in any other way.

Eating well keeps you healthy and at premium functioning too. Eating poorly does the opposite. For example I ate half a key lime pie today and got sick to my stomach. Whereas eating fruit peps me up. And having a protein rich breakfast helps me start the day out better.

Gratitude…. Well. I have clinical depression. My happiness baseline is set on ‘meh’ and that’s actually an improvement. Gratitude, while I can do it, it doesn’t have much effect on me. Apparently you can be grateful and miserable at the same time. And then you feel guilty about being miserable because you have so much to be grateful for because that’s what depression does for you. But maybe it just takes longer to do in these circumstances so I’m going to keep trying. I mean it won’t exactly do me harm.

Mindfulness is a big one. Just learning to live in the moment and accept things as they are without judgement is a game changer. It alters your brain in so many positive ways and you don’t need anything special to do it. Though I do love incense cones. There are so many benefits I forget them all. It’s just hard to do when you’re stressed so you have to practice when you’re not too.

Finally tiny steps, micro habits whatever you call them are the new big thing. You make the task or first step so small you barely need any energy at all to do it. Like I managed to put all my clean clothes away by just taking five hangers at a time (I hang up all my clothes. It’s easier to see and go through) and changing my sheets I start (while still lying in my bed) to put the notebooks and books and laptop down on the floor next to my bed, clearing it off. Then I kick off my comforter and pillows then change the sheets. Easy peasy, energy efficient steps I barely need any energy to do which is good because my depression takes away a lot of my energy.

You can apply the micro steps to anything else too. Exercise? Do it for one minute then add another minute each week. That gets you almost to an hour a day after a year. Mindfulness? A minute of meditation. Gratitude. One thing you’re grateful for. Eating well add or replace something with one fruit or vegetable. You have writing goals, write one sentence, or even just one word and go from there if you can.

These things all seem to just give you a better life in general. They come up everywhere. Even in mental health and basic self care. I’m not going to say it’s easy, but they’re obviously effective and micro habits make things easier to handle when you’re trying to make these changes. Try it out. Or look it up. The library has a lot of online books you can read or do micro learning on apps like Deepstash where I got most of my info.

I hope this helps anyone even just a little. Have a good day.

Posted in Mental Health

Daily Prompt 10/21

Posted on by rsfahrudeen

What’s something you’ve done that you never thought you could?

Waitressing. My short term memory is terrible and I never thought I’d be able to memorize the menu or get the orders right but I did okay.

Posted in Mental Health

Daily prompt 10/09

Posted on by rsfahrudeen

Tell us about your morning routine.

I wake up at around 630 and get up and dressed around seven thirty when I take my medication. I get ready for the van to my day program which comes at eight thirty and at nine I eat breakfast. That’s pretty much it.