working with nothing

[dotcom]

thats how i feel sometimes. like i want to feel better but theres not much will or belief in me that i will. however, i know my will can go a long way so thats good. i cant spend much time here because now i am doing very well. i think perhaps i have too many triggers and thats no good. at work, i dont trust my coworkers and think sometimes they will do bad things to me. i find myself making u turns in front of my house and sometimes i dont tell my family about them because its something a crazy person does. i have issues with men, and i can be very nasty and innapropriate to family and friends even though they understand my outbursts it is sad to not be able to stop them.

i have accepted that my reality is pretty distorted. with the help of a psychologist/psych, ive found that i dissociate and have a few trauma related problems. also, drug use has made me paranoid but it has gotten better a little. like i said, im doing very well at the moment and want to keep doing what im doing so that i can enjoy this time while it lasts. i decided to be honest with my family about when i make u turns or avoid something because of overly paranoid feelings however strong and real they may feel. because theres something inside me that is rational. to have a real living breathing person validate that i made a rational decision makes me feel good. so, im back to enjoying my good days.

[splendra]

(((((LB))))

I believe it was very rational of you to come here and post. The more you acknowledge what is going on with you the more control you will have over your thoughts and actions.... I am glad you are doing great!!! By the way I am living and breathing at the moment!!!

[2Sunshine]

Longboarder,

I know that must feel good to feel that you are doing well and enjoying your days. I am excited for you. Keep doing what you are doing and improve along the way and before you know it, you will be saying to yourself, "I don't know when was the last time I had a bad day".

Honesty is always a plus---it releases you to be yourself and void some fears that we sometimes replay in our heads.

Congrats!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Take care.

Just keep taking steps into the future. I wish we could just get all the answers at once, but it just doesn't work that way. I just keep stepping until I step into them and then I need more answers.

It makes more sense with each year I age. I've earned my wrinkles.

Hugs,
MG

[zoomer]

Hello LB again. It's taken me years to get over trauma and I do not think I'll ever be done with it. I'm glad you where honest with your family on what is going on with you. I have my moments too when I'm out there,but there is alwasy a piece of me in the real time zone LOL!!! I don't worry about it much any more. It's just a part of me. I do crazy stuff too,but I'm not hurting anyone so who cares.... I still write e-mails to my mother who died last year and they get sent back to me... When I have no one to talk to I even send e-mails to myself talking about all the wierd stuff I think about. Mostly sience stuff,like evelution,problems with quantum michanics, what is the perpose of finding out the next habitale planet... I'm wierd, I know and I'd bore a person to death with my chattering!!! You not alone (and niether are the humans LOL) Just kidding!

[dotcom]

thank you for your replies splendra, 2sunshine, Morning Glory, and zoomer. i feel very good tonight. sort of like moving into "the unknown". but, the unknown is good. i hadnt really been out of the house on a weekend for quite sometime, but this evening i went out with some friends and had a great time. if i think about it too much, i wont see how i could do that.

feeling rational, being honest, accepting my nuttiness, and moving forward are all great things! i had thought they couldnt happen, but they are happening sometimes without my knowing it. zoomer, i think writing your mum is very sweet. i would do the same. i think about my grandma a lot, and perhaps i should talk to my psychologist about writing her? it might be therapuetic.

i am glad to know i am not the only one who feels some of their actions are nutty. that is something my mom says to me. that even she has some of those nutty things, the difference is being able to be a bit rational as compared to not being able to "decipher" reality. this is all very exciting really. instead of walking around not sure if my mom or myself is real (weird i know), i talk to her about my fears and she helps me see that talking to her about them is a sign of healthiness. i struggle a bit still with the paranoid thoughts of people harming me, but my mom helps me with that too. and medication is always an option.

well, thank you for letting me share. i am very happy and blessed to be having good days. i think they are here to stay. and if they are not, i have a lot of support and all the medical help i could possibly want. just knowing its there for the taking feels good.

thank you,

longboarder

That's great that you are able to talk to your mom about all of this. My daughter and I talk a lot and try to keep each other balanced as much as possible.

I hope you continue to have good days. It takes time to sort it all out. I'm glad you have a lot of support and a plan of action if you need it. It took me years to find my way. Good days were hard to come by. It is pretty frightening when your mind plays tricks on you. I thought I was losing my mind and it turned out to be anxiety and panic that were causing all my fears.

Wondering if you or your mom is real is a typical symtom of anxiety. Very common actually. Not wierd at all.

Just for fun I'm posting something that will show you that others think the same way.

<img src="http://www.publicbookshelf.com/public_html/images/outline_1.gif">

Rene Descartes: 'I think therefore I am'


['I THINK, THEREFORE I AM' - DESCARTES - FROM DISCOURSE ON METHOD]

I HAD long since remarked that in matters of conduct it is necessary sometimes to follow opinions known to be uncertain, as if they were not subject to doubt; but, because now I was desirous to devote myself to the search after truth, I considered that I must do just the contrary, and reject as absolutely false every-thing concerning which I could imagine the least doubt to exist.

Thus, because our senses sometimes deceive us, I would suppose that nothing is such as they make us to imagine it; and because I was as likely to err as another in reasoning, I rejected as false all the reasons which I had formerly accepted as demonstrative; and finally, considering that all the thoughts we have when awake can come to us also when we sleep without any of them being true, I resolved to feign that everything which had ever entered my mind was no more truth than the illusion of my dreams.

But I observed that, while I was thus resolved to feign that everything was false, I who thought must of necessity be somewhat; and remarking this truth--I think, therefore I am--was so firm and so assured that all the most extravagant suppositions of the sceptics were unable to shake it, I judged that I could unhesitatingly accept it as the first principle of the philosophy I was seeking. I could feign that there was no world, I could not feign that I did not exist. And I judged that I might take it as a general rule that the things which we conceive very clearly and very distinctly are all true, and that the only difficulty lies in the way of discerning which those things are that we conceive distinctly.

After this, reflecting upon the fact that I doubted, and that consequently my being was not quite perfected (for I saw that to know is a greater perfection than to doubt), I bethought me to inquire whence I had learnt to think of something more perfect than myself; and it was clear to me that this must come from some nature which was in fact more perfect. For other things I could regard as dependencies of my nature if they were real, and if they were not real they might proceed from nothing--that is to say, they might exist in me by way of defect.

But it could not be the same with the idea of a being more perfect than my own; for to derive it from nothing was manifestly impossible; and because it is no less repugnant that the more perfect should follow and depend upon the less perfect than that something should come forth out of nothing. I could not derive it from myself.

It remained, then, to conclude that it was put into me by a nature truly more perfect than was I and possessing in itself all the perfections of what I could form an idea--in a word, by God. To which I added that, since I knew some perfections which I did not possess, I was not the only being who existed, but that there must of necessity be some other being, more perfect, on whom I depended, and from whom I had acquired all that I possessed; for if I had existed alone and independent of all other, so that I had of myself all this little whereby I participated in the Perfect Being, I should have been able to have in myself all those other qualities which I knew myself to lack, and so to be infinite, eternal, immutable, omniscient, almighty--in fine, to possess all the perfections which I could observe in God.

PROPOSING to myself the geometer's subject matter, and then turning again to examine my idea of a Perfect Being, I found that existence was comprehended in that idea just as in the idea of a triangle is comprehended the notion that the sum of its angles is equal to two right angles; and that consequently it is as certain that God, this Perfect Being is or exists, as any geometrical demonstration could be.

That there are many who persuade themselves that there is a difficulty in knowing Him is due to the scholastic maxim that there is nothing in the understanding which has not first been in the senses; where the ideas of God and the soul have never been.

Than the existence of God all other things, even those which it seems to a man extravagant to doubt, such as his having a body, are less certain. Nor is there any reason sufficient to remove such doubt but such as presupposes the existence of God. From His existence it follows that our ideas or notions, being real things, and coming from God, cannot but be true in so far as they are clear and distinct. In so far as they contain falsity, they are confused and obscure, there is in them an element of mere negation (elles participent du neant); that is to say, they are thus confused in us because we ourselves are not all perfect. And it is evident that falsity or imperfection can no more come forth from God than can perfection proceed from nothingness. But, did we not know that all which is in us of the real and the true comes from a perfect and infinite being, however clear and distinct our ideas might be, we should have no reason for assurance that they possessed the final perfection--truth.

Reason instructs us that all our ideas must have some foundation of truth, for it could not be that the All-Perfect and the All-True should otherwise have put them into us; and because our reasonings are never so evident or so complete when we sleep as when we wake, although sometimes during sleep our imagination may be more vivid and positive, it also instructs us that such truth as our thoughts have will be in our waking thoughts rather than in our dreams.

[WHY I DO NOT PUBLISH 'THE WORLD']

I HAVE always remained firm in my resolve to assume no other principle than that which I have used to demonstrate the existence of God and of the soul, and to receive nothing which did not seem to me clearer and more certain than the demonstrations of the philosophers had seemed before; yet not only have I found means of satisfying myself with regard to the principal difficulties which are usually treated of in philosophy, but also I have remarked certain laws which God has so established in nature, and of which He has implanted such notions in our souls, that we cannot doubt that they are observed in all which happens in the world.

The principal truths which flow from these I have tried to unfold in a treatise (On the World, or on Light), which certain considerations prevent me from publishing. This I concluded three years ago, and had begun to revise it for the printer, when I learnt that certain persons to whom I defer had disapproved an opinion on physics published a short time before by a certain person (Galileo, condemned by the Roman Inquisition in 1633), in which opinion I had noticed nothing prejudicial to religion; and this made me fear that there might be some among my opinions in which I was mistaken.

I now believe that I ought to continue to write all the things which I judge of importance, but ought in no wise to consent to their publication during my life. For my experience of the objections which might be made forbids me to hope for any profit from them. I have tried both friends and enemies, yet it has seldom happened that they have offered any objection which I had not in some measure foreseen; so that I have never, I may say, found a critic who did not seem to be either less rigorous or less fair-minded than myself.

Whereupon I gladly take this opportunity to beg those who shall come after us never to believe that the things which they are told come from me unless I have divulged them myself; and I am in nowise astonished at the extravagances attributed to those old philosophers whose writings have not come down to us. They were the greatest minds of their time, but have been ill reported.

Why, I am sure that the most devoted of those who now follow Aristotle would esteem themselves happy if they had as much knowledge of nature as he had, even on the condition that they should never have more! They are like ivy, which never mounts higher than the trees which support it, and which even comes down again after it has attained their summit. So at least, it seems to me, do they who, not content with knowing all that is explained by their author, would find in him the solution also of many difficulties of which he says nothing, and of which, perhaps, he never thought.

Yet their method of philosophising is very convenient for those who have but middling minds, for the obscurity of the distinctions and principles which they employ enables them to speak of all things as boldly as if they had knowledge of them, and sustain all they have to say against the most subtle and skilful without there being any means of convincing them; wherein they seem to me like a blind man who, in order to fight on equal terms with a man who has his sight, invites him into the depths of a cavern.

And I may say that it is to their interest that I should abstain from publishing the principles of the philosophy which I employ, for so simple and so evident are they that to publish them would be like opening windows into their caverns and letting in the day. But if they prefer acquaintance with a little truth, and desire to follow a plan like mine, there is no need for me to say to them any more in this discourse than I have already said.

For if they are capable of passing beyond what I have done, much rather will they be able to discover for themselves whatever I believe myself to have found out; besides which, the practice which they will acquire in seeking out easy things and thence passing to others which are more difficult, will stead them better than all my instructions.

But if some of the matters spoken about at the beginning of the Dioptrics and the Meteors [published with the Discourse on Method] should at first give offence because I have called them 'suppositions,' and have shown no desire to prove them, let the reader have patience to read the whole attentively, and I have hope that he will be satisfied.

The time remaining to me I have resolved to employ in trying to acquire some knowledge of nature, such that we may be able to draw from it more certain rules for medicine than those which we possess. And I hereby declare that I shall always hold myself more obliged to those by whose favour I enjoy my leisure undisturbed than I should be to any who should offer me the most esteemed employments in the world.

[zoomer]

(((((((((((((MG))))))))) Wonderful!!!! Thank you for sharing this! LB the reason I e-mail my mother is that I beleive that the soul or our being is energy if you want to put in in a physical sence sort of way. So in some wierd way if my love gets trazmited though any particals of something that also uses energy,then it might reach my mother. LOL, there is always hope! I exsplained why I love the computer so much to my shrink and what happens when we get together on a message board such as SR. It is a form of mental telepathy and bio-feed back. I'm not sure if he got it,but he did show me an exsperiment he was working on. he had a plant with flowers half sitting in the shade and the other half by the window. The flowers of this plant where reaching twards the window and the light bending their little stems in the same direction to get the sunlight. He got real excited telling me about SADD (people who get depressed in the winter). He was even on TV giving a documentary on the subject. I did't say anythng, i let him talk,but I was like "duh, every gardner could say the same thing about plants and flowers." Anyway, that's why I go to a tanning booth. It's part of my own thyripy. So I write my mom using energy, I come to the message board for the light of truth and like those little flowers we all seem to be going in the same direction. And to me, God too is the light that guides me even when I don't want to follow. He is the biggestest energy of all

[zoomer]

In very simple terms of e-mail and message boards is that people use gestalt to get feelings trazmited and recieve the same as well. It's kind of a no brainer and does not need over analizing,but it's neat and I get a lot out of it!!!!

Don't fry your brain on this Zoomer. It was just a little something that shows others think like us, lol. This person is famous for this kind of thinking. We just do it because we can't turn our brains off. We just haven't found a way to make that work for us yet, lol.

I was trying to say that great people wondered if we really exist.

"I think therefore I am" was his answer to that question.

[zoomer]

LOL MG, I wonder though if he ever did talk while he was alive or this is better and more important when "he is no more" LOL! MG, my poor brain is already fried! I OD on shromms one a long time ago and disapeared... whre I went is any ones guess LOL!!!

[dotcom]

thank you MG, im glad im not the only one who has thought i didnt exist. i suppose that now, i can be certain that "at least" i exist because i exist while sleeping (i dream) and while im awake wheras some of the people in my dreams dont exist and vice versa. thank you zoomer, i like the idea of the sunlight and tanning booth! its brilliant! i like to think my grandma is always around or thinking about me and being proud of me. sorry to hear about the shrooming incident! ouch!

today is yet another good day. i plan on going out this evening as well. my dad commented to me yesterday that i "seem to be really enjoying life" and i was shocked to agree with him!


hugs,

longboarder

[zoomer]

Doing the happy dance for ya LB! (((((((((huggys)))))))

[dotcom]

(((((zoomer))))) thank you! i had a wonderful evening. i only stayed as long as i felt comfortable, and i left right when i started feeling tired. so, i got the best of both worlds.

longboarder

[zoomer]

[dotcom]

why thank you zoomer! so do you!