Kazuo_Thow comments on Open thread, 3-8 June 2014 - Less Wrong
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I'm starting to maybe figure out why I've had such difficulties with both relaxing and working in the recent years.
It feels that, large parts of the time, my mind is constantly looking for an escape, though I'm not entirely sure what exactly it is trying to escape from. But it wants to get away from the current situation, whatever the current situation happens to be. To become so engrossed in something that it forgets about everything else.
Unfortunately, this often leads to the opposite result. My mind wants that engrossment right now, and if it can't get it, it will flinch away from whatever I'm doing and into whatever provides an immediate reward. Facebook, forums, IRC, whatever gives that quick dopamine burst. That means that I have difficulty getting into books, TV shows, computer games: if they don't grab me right away, I'll start growing restless and be unable to focus on them. Even more so with studies or work, which usually require an even longer "warm-up" period before one gets into flow.
Worse, I'm often sufficiently aware of that discomfort that my awareness of it prevents the engrossment. I go loopy: I get uncomfortable about the fact that I'm uncomfortable, and then if I have to work or study, my focus is on "how do I get rid of this feeling" rather than on "what should I do next in this project". And then my mind keeps flinching away from the project, to anything that would provide a distraction, on to Facebook, to IRC, to whatever. And I start feeling worse and worse.
Some time back, I started experimenting with teaching myself not to have any goals. That is, instead of having a bunch of stuff I try to accomplish in some given time period, simply be okay with doing absolutely nothing for all day (or all week, or all year...), until a natural motivation to do something develops. This seems to help. So does mindfulness, as well as ensuring that my basic needs have been met: enough sleep and food and having some nice real-life social interaction every few days.
Anybody else recognize this?
I recognize this in myself and it's been difficult to understand, much less get under control. The single biggest insight I've had about this flinching-away behavior (at least the way it arises in my own mind) is that it's most often a dissociative coping mechanism. Something intuitively clicked into place when I read Pete Walker's description of the "freeze type". From The 4Fs: A Trauma Typology in Complex PTSD:
Of course like with any other psychological condition there's a wide spectrum: some people had wonderful childhoods full of safe attachment and always had somebody to model healthy processing of emotions for them, some people were utterly abandoned as children, and many more had something between those extremes. The key understanding I've gained from Pete Walker's writing is that simply being left alone with upsetting inner experience too often as a child can lead to development of "freeze type" defenses, even in the absence of any overtly abusive treatment.
I suspect that using a combination of TV shows, games and web browsing as emotional analgesics (at various levels of awareness) is very common now in wealthy countries. This is one of the reasons I would like to see more discussion of emotional issues on Less Wrong.
I would also like to see more such discussion, but, as with rationality, more from the viewpoint of rising above base level average than of recovering only to that level.
Although on further thought, maybe that sort of discussion would have to happen somewhere other than LessWrong. Who can do for it the equivalent of Eliezer's writings here? Is there anywhere it is currently being done?
ETA: Brienne, and here might be answers to those questions.
If people on LW put half the effort in emotional issues they put in rational topics we'd be a whole lot further. Thank you for this quote very much.
Any insight explosion books I should read?
Complex PTSD: From Surviving To Thriving by Pete Walker focuses on the understanding that wounds from active abuse make up the outer layers of a psychological structure, the core of which is an experience of abandonment caused by passive neglect. He writes about self-image, food issues, codependency, fear of intimacy and generally about the long but freeing process of recovering.
The Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller focuses more on the excuses and cultural ideology behind poor parenting. She grew up in an abusive household in 1920s-'30s Germany.
Healing The Shame That Binds You by John Bradshaw is about toxic shame and the variety of ways it takes root in our minds. Feedback loops between addictive behavior and self-hatred, subtle indoctrination about sexuality being "dirty", religious messages about sin, and even being compelled to eat when you're not hungry:
Now that is quite some text to read. Thank you very much. My request was aimed at more general books though this is still useful.
You seem very knowledgeable on this specific topic. Am I right in assuming you are knowledgeable about emotional issues more generally? Would you be willing to write a post about these topics?
It's only been about 6 months since I started consciously focusing my attention on the subtle effects of abandonment trauma. Although I've done a fair amount of reading and reflecting on the topic I'm not at the point yet where I can confidently give guidance to others. Maybe in the next 3-4 months I'll write up a post for the discussion section here on LW.
What's frustrating is that signs of compulsive, codependent and narcissistic behavior are everywhere, with clear connections to methods of coping developed in childhood, but the number of people who pay attention to these connections is still small enough that discussion is sparse and the sort of research findings you'd like to look up remain unavailable. The most convincing research result I've been able to find is this paper on parental verbal abuse and white matter, where it was found that parental verbal abuse significantly reduces fractional anisotropy in the brain's white matter.
Please do. This seems like an important part of "winning" to some people, and it is related to thinking, therefore it absolutely belongs here.
Interesting, thanks. I had a pretty happy childhood in general, but I was a pretty lonely kid for large parts of the time, and I've certainly experienced a feeling of being abandoned or left alone several times since that. And although my memories are fuzzy, it's possible that the current symptoms would have started originally developing after one particularly traumatic relationship/breakup when I was around 19. Also, meaningful social interaction with people seems to be the most reliable way of making these feelings go away for a while. Also, I tend to react really strongly and positively to any fiction that portrays strong, warm relationships between people.
Most intriguing.