alphaomega

I just had a thought (smell the wood burning ?).

What I hear you saying is that you just want to be given the opportunity to live AUTHENTICALLY . Even if that means being in the darkest of the dark. Because in giving yourself permission to allow yourself to walk through the darkness, it may lead you out of it ? Maybe ?

And perhaps by loving yourself, even through the worst of the worst, you can love yourself to the Light ?

Ooooooh. Me likey.

courage2

Cow, I don't usually write much on your thread, but --

You've changed a lot since the first diary. You're interacting a lot more and are more open to others' ideas and dialogue than before. Your success in staying sober may be "sloppy" but your posts read like progress to me.

I have a lot in common with you. Although I haven't been given your diagnoses or tried your "cures" (since I've pretty much hidden from the world for getting close to 4 decades), I too can't understand what others mean by even simple things -- what does it mean to like another person? how do people find value in life? And I'm an atheist, in the sense that where another person might have belief, I have disbelief. Incredulity.

Another word I don't understand is "recovery", but I'm pretty sure that whatever growth happens as you work on being a more sober person, it will sometimes be slow or inconsistent. For me, after 1 year of sobriety, I've run into a mental challenge that I never imagined, and am having to try again, with changes. But 2 steps forward, one back, still adds up to forward.

I believe that you can achieve a better life than the one you've had up to now. It's fine with me if you rant, complain, whine, mope, or vent. It would also be fine to read about one thing you appreciate in a day, one day.

Cow

Jaynie, I think I has been as true as I can be, even to point of admitting when I total mean and uncaring and lie to loved ones. I hope to look back some day and see reality of what I go through and (hopefully) come out from. And also I hope to relieve other who is in same darkness. I get lot of private email from people who say I feel same but I never admit that, even here. That break my heart, because I think is SO MANY in very dark place who feel they has to pretend otherwise, as I did for many, many years. Yes, I does have wit. Is my "skill" or "talent." Is no secret that lot of comics is most depressed of all peoples. I guessing it like me and because they wounded individuals and develop wit to survive and soothe they self through what they going through. Ad also to gain acceptance. But is an intellectual strategy, not something that enliven the comic.

AO, I wish to hear of you experiences. I looked when I get here and was no journal areas on this site, so I not sure where to find you. I would love for everyone to dialogue on issues of life and addiction.

Cow

Courage2, please stay, and talk more to me. Is so hard to find fellow atheist! I not think my life have any more value than slug under rock in my garden. Why should it? I think humans is so arrogant! Everything just atomic dust. Universe not care about humans. We just tiny bubble in whole big soup. Is okay, we not have to be special, yes? Why we think we has to be special? Most people think this nihilistic thinking, but it just reality. Humans not like to accept that they no big deal. Doesn't mean we should no try to enjoy and make most of our lives.

diffingo911

I t-h-I-n-k We are Special in the Way that In the right circumstances we can actually "Bear Witness" to this Great Universe of Ours and appreciate its Beauty and Awesome ways and actually Make Record of it...In ways that no other Critter Can...?
Maybe?

foolsgold66

Ah, cow, I think humans are all too stupid to be Atheists, I just stick with non-theist.

Cow

AO, yes, I use to beat self up, deny, hide, and fake what I was. Now I does "allow" my dark self in secret and in here (not in real world). And I actual very tender to self, even when I ungodly sick of my own hand. I use to be brutally harsh and disgusted with self. Now I have internal dialogue that more nurturing and mothering, which I never really has mother, so I think is sweet. I has nurse myself through extremely sick times, stroking my own hair and speaking encouragements, like a momma would. Is not something I force myself to do, it just happen. I think is progress.

courage2

Yup. I don't really think about it a lot -- except in the past year it's been presented to me several times (by people in AA, mostly) as a problem. But I don't expect to achieve belief, or find belief, or whatever. I don't seem to have the capacity for supernatural thinking.

My challenge nowadays is to find reasons to keep making the effort to hold together the ingredients that compose my life. I have a husband and son, but thinking of them doesn't always keep me striving for order instead of disorder, growth instead of destruction. Routines help a lot, but not fundamentally. Fear helps a lot, because disorder is painful and scary. But I'd like to have more than a long, sober, frightened, rule-bound life.

I don't know if that's possible. I'm working on it tho. I'm asking for help, and seeking change. My pseudo-sponsor in AA talks about the daily reprieve as pulling off a magic trick, fooling herself into the belief -- against all reason -- that there was value in her day. Sounds like a good trick, no?

Cow

Humans is worst mistake evolution ever make! We most arrogant, destructive species ever. We only species to ever live outside natural selection, poison our own habitats, destroys entire ecosystems, make extinct innumerable other species, and partake of corruptions, violence and killing for own greed and pleasure. We catastrophic. I hope Earth shake human off like fleas before we total destroys planet and all living things on it.

Hasing said that, please has a pleasant evening everyone.

courage2

PS I don't think human belief in a deity or deities is arrogant. I've always thought the capacity for faith was a gift, like the gift of music. Or humor.

G'nite, cow.

Cow

Courage 2, mmm, mhmm. I hear you. I not bound by even duty of husband or kid, so I free to be total meaningless, which I actual believe everyone is in grand scope of universe. Stardust to stardust, with little blip of life in between. I not mean that in derogatory way, is just to me, all universal energies is equal. Whether is human or flower, or mosquito you smash with you hand. (For me, I never kill, I escorts every living being outside my loft.) To me, every living thing have its own intrinsic value and sense of meaning and this can surely be expansive and joyful and not dark and depressing and this is what I seek very much to find.

I total support anybody for any beliefs they choose if it enhance they life and not hurt other. It total make sense to me why most human have adopt shared and powerful belief systems to help them cope and unite. I walk this path in my youth, but ultimately, was not for me.

Cow

Reading lot of poet philosophers this week. Enjoy deep thinkers. Especially, when they not afraid to GET DOWN IN IT. Lot of human life is so euphemized. Nobody can tell truth. I forget which scientist say that because of human's calculating brains and social self-awareness, they no longer even capable of telling truth. And if you even try to talk about gritty animal reality of life and capricious nature of emotion or darker aspects of humans, is not acceptable because we all like to pretend we some fairy tale beings. Anyway, here is few of things this week that speak to Cow...

Lying is a lack of confidence in the other person.
– Dalai Lama

I have never felt any union that was permanent. Always what is united is disunited, what has been shared is returned to each. I can lure and enchant, but no one ever finds the key to me. No one can take possession of me, they circle around me. I want to be captured.
-Anais Nin

I understood the frustration of love. We imagine that the object of it is a being who is lying before us, enclosed in his body. Alas, it is the extension of this being in all points in space and time which he will occupy. If we do not possess a contact with such a place at such a time, we do not possess this love. And it is impossible to contact all of these points. If at least they were indicated to us, perhaps we could stretch ourselves toward them, but we fumble, and cannot find them.
-Marcel Proust

silentrun

Hi Cow. Ran across this today. What to you think?
Spirit Science 22 (Part 3) ~ The God Particles - YouTube

silentrun

I just read ran into a Marcel Proust quote for you Cow (I have no idea who that guy is)

"My destination is no longer a place, rather a new way of seeing."

—

Marcel Proust

kcvalentine

I disagree with the notion that because some see goodness and hope and light and beauty, they are pretending or not telling the truth. Perhaps this is not your truth, but ultimately we each have our own, no? I read your posts and sometimes my heart aches so much for you that I light candles in hopes that the light will find its way into your soul to set you free just a little. And even so I'd never want you to pretend or feign anything for us. Your posts are precious gifts - the heartfelt humanity and tenderness and struggles you share move me to no end. We have different paths and different stories, and I am no fairy tale being, but I do believe that one day you will find true, meaningful peace. xo

EverySngleNight

Just considering the sheer size of the universe, with all of it's variables and potential- how improbable, to become alive as a human being on a little rock somewhere within all of it- while possessing the intelligence to conceive of IT'S magnitude! That's actually pretty miraculous... and horrifying (*depending on how you look at it*).

And while I'm at it- it seems kind of off to be so dismayed by the insanity of our species, while at the same time fully understanding how insignificant we truly are... Especially if our insanity is directly linked to that very understanding.

I don't know if spirituality or faith is the answer for you cow. But never forget that within EVERYTHING there is a dichotomy. Usually, what feels "real" to us is based on the things that we place emphasis on within ourselves and in the world around us. Whether we place emphasis on the *negative or positive* aspects that exist within everything- is a choice.

It's all in the eyes of the beholder. Even though our perspective may've been negatively impacted by our past experiences, we still have the power to learn another way of perceiving things now. There is no reason that darkness from our past should overshadow and control how we think and feel for the rest of our lives.

You mentioned that you're a trauma survivor, as am I. I know very well it disrupts us down to our foundation. It's not something that you just "bounce back from". And clearly, if you could "think" your way out of it- you would've done so by now... because you're smart!

There are people out there that specialize in dealing with trauma along with the depression, anxiety, and dissociation that come with it. Trauma (as it's been explained to me) effects deeper forms of cognition than available via the prefrontal cortex. (fancy way of saying you can't think your way out of it! ;-))

I'm wondering whether you've spent any time with someone that specializes in trauma SPECIFICALLY? Helping people to heal from trauma requires a specialized skill set, that the vast majority of mental health professionals do not possess.

So far, you've tried everything that's been thrown at you. You've tried lotsa' stuff that works for other people. You really may need to do some seriously intense work and seek out a higher level of care. You may need to do something similar to what I'm about to do...

I'm working with an amazing psychiatrist to help me work out stabilizing my baseline through medications. I'm seeing a trauma specialist. Also, I'm "going away" for a few weeks to a center that specializes in working with traumatized women. I don't want to go away, but I know that I CAN heal with the help of these specialists. So, rather than fighting to live with all of this crap weighing me down- I'm going fight by doing whatever is required of me to get well.

Fixing this place- down to the foundation - will not happen overnight. It's not going to be easy. It's going to be extremely difficult! But it's what I have to do.

I encourage you with all my heart to seek out a higher level of care, even if it's scary.

Hawkeye13

Hi cow;
Thanks for sharing your list with us--I've been mulling over this and some of your other posts as well for the past few days.

I see you have tried many things, but to refine my initial question, would you say any of these are true "practices" for you--something that you do daily actively and alone for say 1/2 hour or more? Even when you don't feel like it?

Practice (as I'm defining it here) is to work on doing something, learning to do something, and so on--a sustained study / work on something which may be uncomfortable but builds a competence over time. Examples might be learning to play an instrument, yoga, learning a language, etc.

I have found doing something to build a skill every single day, or at least every other day, really helps you get outside yourself. That's why things like therapy and bodywork, which are very self-focused, don't really help me to lose my pain even though they may put me in touch with it.

Playing guitar and yoga is something I work on and can't do that well but I lose myself trying--paradoxically I can then be with myself pain-free. For people stuck in their intellect-mind mode, this is incredibly liberating. It is also boring and hard at times, which is why few people have sustained attempts as adults.

I can do this sort of self-rescue without religion, without philosophy, without needing anything outside myself except desire to focus and narrow my view, pass through the needle, and expand. It is in essence the self-possession Nin is talking about when she says she wants to be "captured", but you don't need a partner to do it.

You are very good at suffering, but how are you at being uncomfortable?

bigsombrero

Interesting time to check up on this thread. I guess I'll just throw this on out there, then:

I think sometimes we try and find some kind of special meaning to our lives, and miss the forest for the trees. You see, the cards have been dealt, we were holding them at birth. And we don't get to shuffle again. Now it's true, all we've got here is a pair of 4's and three off-suited low cards. But let's stop wishing we had a Royal Flush and let's play with what we've got, eh? Let's run with it.

We can't fly to the outer reaches of space. Things don't get better when we pray. There's no such thing as magic. And when we die, all the lights go out. All true. But what CAN we do? Well, we can see the world. After all, we're only here once, might as well look around a little bit. San Salvador, Madrid, Denpasar, Novosibirsk, Stoke-on-Trent, Guayaquil...there are things happening there. People, walking around, making food and going about their business. That's real. You can travel all alone with nothing but a return ticket in your pocket. Yes, you can. The feeling you get when the plane touches down in Guatemala City and you've got nothing but a backpack and some cab fare...well, at least you'll know you're trying. It's not scary or weird. This is our world, our earth. This is where we come from, where we'll spend all of our time, and where we'll die. Hell, take the Amtrak to Milwaukee or something, and walk around and see what's going on down by the river and watch a guy play the sax out on Water Street. What's wrong with that? It's real, anyway. You can touch it and feel it and smell it. Stop throwing $650 away for a neti-pot session and some acupuncture, and buy a ticket to El Paso instead. Walk around for a few days, open your eyes and touch the dirt, sit and watch the sun set over the Rio Grande and stay in a cheap motel. Why do we think we're "too good for that"? That's crazy talk. In fact I sometimes think that's as noble as we can get.

If you're still searching for something, maybe you're looking too hard? It's all right here. It might be a pair of 4's, but it's OUR pair of 4's, dammit. Spending time wishing we were dealt aces over kings is nothing but a waste of time, I reckon.

Kat60

^^^^love^^^^

Elseware

Great post, Bigsombrero!