Just had a really disturbing friend break-up where someone I had generally trusted, although I noticed a few warning signs, got offended when I was direct about something I thought was important to discuss and then went on to be extremely, extremely disturbing. I gave some chances for us to talk through it and recover as friends but it just got more and more disturbing, with more and more narcissistic techniques.
I guess the message I should have heard was that the person was hurt or felt upset. I think that's how I'll interpret all of that, since I guess I am getting better at reading emotional code. The message was, "I feel sad, hurt, shocked, surprised, embarrassed, afraid of losing control of the situation and not getting what I want."
It was good to see myself responding differently than I would have in the past: recognizing warning signs which turned out to be true, not getting swayed by the narcissistic techniques to discredit the messenger.
But it was just really really freaky to have those things back in my life again, after spending so much time with that and then thankfully escaping it, and then getting re-trained in my much healthier current relationship.
It's just really difficult to deal with narcissism, even when you know what is going on.
It was so weird to be in a conversation where I was recognizing narcissistic techniques right and left, but I knew that if I started pointing them out the person probably would get more upset. It was weird to be able to see it this time (since I couldn't see it when I was with my ex) but not to be able to do anything about it.
Basically narcs are really really hard to deal with. I'm not strong enough. There are people I just need to avoid. It's a dangerous game. In cases where I can't fully avoid narcs I need to limit my involvement and maintain emotional independence so they do not have a hook into me.
It's just fascinating that people can have emotional issues that end up being so incredibly tricky and damaging.
I guess I have something like past "narc addiction" - where I used to be controlled by them, and I am prone to getting controlled by them, so I am perhaps more susceptible to them than most people, since I tend to be honest, direct, and vulnerable and to share what I am feeling. I tend to be trusting.
- - -
But what it made me realize was that in your life, the absence of certain people can have almost as large an impact as the presence of certain people.
I'm almost as excited to figure things about about a particular person and have them out of my life (I'm trying to use 'them' as a pronoun rather than he and she) as I am to meet a new person and have them in my life, because in both cases there's a wonderful new space/opportunity, something fresh and new and perhaps better.
- - -
The other thing I realize is that the greater mimics the lesser. Time and again, the way people behave in major conflicts or crises mimics how they behave in very minor issues.
I'm getting better at reading people based on small things they do.
I could tell from one of my current boyfriend's first emails to me that he was a considerate, caring, gentle person. I thought, "in another life I'd like to be with that person." It's been true! I read it correctly!
- - -
What else do I learn from this? Basically that emotional health and being good to others is not just the absence of doing bad things, but it's also a practice of learning what works and what feels good to people's nervous systems including your own.
It's a continual practice of seeing others do it, finding examples of people who do it well, reading about it, etc.
- - -
Also, the last thing is that there comes a point in a recovery process where you change so much that there is a break and you feel like someone different. I am feeling that break now.
- - -
I see I am still making mistakes. I'm not perfect. I'm just trying to do better this month, year, etc. than I did the last.
- - -
Monday, July 16, 2012
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Not all objects are the same
One of the most important things I've learned in my Lyme journey is that not all instances of a given symptom or behavior are the same!
When someone is hyperventilating, it does not always mean they are having a panic attack! They are not always able to stop it. It could be from chemical poisoning. It could be from a number of things.
When someone yells or is violent, it does not always mean they chose to do it, they have anger problems, or that they should be punished. They could have neurotoxicity and severely lowered irritation thresholds. They might not even be that upset. On another day the same upset might not have even registered with the other person or even with themselves.
We need to be more subtle and see things in CONTEXT of the individual and their case history.
Medicine is getting TERRIBLE, fucking terrible at doing that. There are flowcharts of symptoms and test results to reactions. And there is less and less room to learn about the individual.
- - -
When someone is hyperventilating, it does not always mean they are having a panic attack! They are not always able to stop it. It could be from chemical poisoning. It could be from a number of things.
When someone yells or is violent, it does not always mean they chose to do it, they have anger problems, or that they should be punished. They could have neurotoxicity and severely lowered irritation thresholds. They might not even be that upset. On another day the same upset might not have even registered with the other person or even with themselves.
We need to be more subtle and see things in CONTEXT of the individual and their case history.
Medicine is getting TERRIBLE, fucking terrible at doing that. There are flowcharts of symptoms and test results to reactions. And there is less and less room to learn about the individual.
- - -
It's a threshold problem, not an anger problem
It's funny, but the reaction I get to the occasional times when I've been angry related to Lyme disease and nervous system assault is perhaps the MAIN thing in my life contributing to chronic low-level anger and shame.
Which then are probably the biggest emotional component contributing to any perpetuation of this behavior.
When are we going to learn as a society that saying "No, you're bad, you can't do that, you're a bad person, we're going to shun and punish you"doesn't really help?
What I'm reacting to is a comment this morning on one of my youtube videos, where someone said, "you assaulted a doctor and screamed in a psych section of an emergency room. the doctor did what she had to do."
Sure I can see how it can seem that way to the doctors. I'm sure they feel self-satisfied like they "did what they had to do," even though I got the sense from them that they felt guilty about it. They seemed shifty and embarrassed and looked at one another when I asked "What did you give me?" They lied to me and did not tell me about the Haldol and said they had given me only Ativan. Little do they know how much they escalated the situation. Had the doctor not CALLED ME CRAZY when I was having a documented reaction to permethrin, I would have gone home feeling reassured that my symptoms were not too dangerous and my insurance would have saved several thousand dollars.
It's like, where is the outrage that the doctors were overlooking a normal medical reaction, that of muscle problems and nausea from permethrin?
I just feel so angry that I had a brush with a system that is "always right," and that most people do not want to question.
Because I happened to have an intense reaction, suddenly everything the doctors did was "right."
let's take a step back: Hyperventilation can be a symptom of chemical poisoning from Permethrin:
http://symptoms.rightdiagnosis.com/cosymptoms/diaphoresis/hyperventilation/tremor-sall.htm
Here is the list of signs of chemical poisoning from permethrin:
http://www.rightdiagnosis.com/c/chemical_poisoning_permethrin/symptoms.htm#symptom_list
What are they going to do the next time someone comes in with neurological symptoms related to chemical poisoning? Call them crazy, agitate them, and drug them even more?
- - -
Basically I have to remember that regardless of what society thinks, I KNOW from my own experience that thresholds for behaviors and such can change drastically based on neurotoxicity.
Many people have not experienced these drastic changes in their thresholds.
It doesn't mean that there's not a component from my emotional state, my habits, my childhood, or patterns.
It just means that the thresholds do change, and at times they are so low that it's unreasonable to expect me to keep all my triggers below the threshold, especially when very minor things (one time, a person asking me to move over in the subway) can exceed the thresholds.
Basically, that's why I haven't had much success from normal emotional control methods. I have wanted to work mainly on the biological side, because I need the thresholds to be high enough that I have some time even to work with things or notice what is happening in order for any other methods to work.
With the Budwig diet and ozone and getting more oxygen and beneficial fatty acids into my brain, I've raised the thresholds a lot! Now I actually can understand what people mean about observing your anger or making choices about it. I didn't have that option before, when I was always inches away from melting down (while dealing with Lyme herxing in the past).
- - -
I guess I am really upset that people have interpreted a biological problem of SEVERELY LOWERED IRRITATION THRESHOLDS to mean that there is something bad about me.
They assume that the thresholds are the same for everyone, since theirs have probably never changed, and they assume I must be doing something really wrong with my emotions if I am getting "that angry."
What's funny is that often when I would scream or throw water or whatever, I wasn't even angry.
I was doing things that made it seem like I was angry, but I wasn't even that upset at all.
It was just that my thresholds were so low that even minor irritation, what you might feel if you were getting a mosquito bite or if you were slightly embarrassed or annoyed, was enough to provoke full-out shrieking (because my nervous system felt attacked by the combination of the endogenous neurotoxicity plus the small amount of additional irritation).
It's actually very rarely that I'm very angry. I can deal with a lot in an easy-going way.
That's an important point to consider.
It hasn't been an anger problem; it's been a threshold problem.
- - -
Having lowered thresholds isn't a character problem. My character and behavior might have been the same all along. The main thing that changed was 1) lowered thresholds and 2) my life has been pretty hard and frustrating with Lyme and I'm chronically a little bit stressed, and that probably lowers my thresholds for irritation from an emotional perspective.
- - -
Which then are probably the biggest emotional component contributing to any perpetuation of this behavior.
When are we going to learn as a society that saying "No, you're bad, you can't do that, you're a bad person, we're going to shun and punish you"doesn't really help?
What I'm reacting to is a comment this morning on one of my youtube videos, where someone said, "you assaulted a doctor and screamed in a psych section of an emergency room. the doctor did what she had to do."
Sure I can see how it can seem that way to the doctors. I'm sure they feel self-satisfied like they "did what they had to do," even though I got the sense from them that they felt guilty about it. They seemed shifty and embarrassed and looked at one another when I asked "What did you give me?" They lied to me and did not tell me about the Haldol and said they had given me only Ativan. Little do they know how much they escalated the situation. Had the doctor not CALLED ME CRAZY when I was having a documented reaction to permethrin, I would have gone home feeling reassured that my symptoms were not too dangerous and my insurance would have saved several thousand dollars.
It's like, where is the outrage that the doctors were overlooking a normal medical reaction, that of muscle problems and nausea from permethrin?
I just feel so angry that I had a brush with a system that is "always right," and that most people do not want to question.
Because I happened to have an intense reaction, suddenly everything the doctors did was "right."
let's take a step back: Hyperventilation can be a symptom of chemical poisoning from Permethrin:
http://symptoms.rightdiagnosis.com/cosymptoms/diaphoresis/hyperventilation/tremor-sall.htm
Here is the list of signs of chemical poisoning from permethrin:
http://www.rightdiagnosis.com/c/chemical_poisoning_permethrin/symptoms.htm#symptom_list
What are they going to do the next time someone comes in with neurological symptoms related to chemical poisoning? Call them crazy, agitate them, and drug them even more?
- - -
Basically I have to remember that regardless of what society thinks, I KNOW from my own experience that thresholds for behaviors and such can change drastically based on neurotoxicity.
Many people have not experienced these drastic changes in their thresholds.
It doesn't mean that there's not a component from my emotional state, my habits, my childhood, or patterns.
It just means that the thresholds do change, and at times they are so low that it's unreasonable to expect me to keep all my triggers below the threshold, especially when very minor things (one time, a person asking me to move over in the subway) can exceed the thresholds.
Basically, that's why I haven't had much success from normal emotional control methods. I have wanted to work mainly on the biological side, because I need the thresholds to be high enough that I have some time even to work with things or notice what is happening in order for any other methods to work.
With the Budwig diet and ozone and getting more oxygen and beneficial fatty acids into my brain, I've raised the thresholds a lot! Now I actually can understand what people mean about observing your anger or making choices about it. I didn't have that option before, when I was always inches away from melting down (while dealing with Lyme herxing in the past).
- - -
I guess I am really upset that people have interpreted a biological problem of SEVERELY LOWERED IRRITATION THRESHOLDS to mean that there is something bad about me.
They assume that the thresholds are the same for everyone, since theirs have probably never changed, and they assume I must be doing something really wrong with my emotions if I am getting "that angry."
What's funny is that often when I would scream or throw water or whatever, I wasn't even angry.
I was doing things that made it seem like I was angry, but I wasn't even that upset at all.
It was just that my thresholds were so low that even minor irritation, what you might feel if you were getting a mosquito bite or if you were slightly embarrassed or annoyed, was enough to provoke full-out shrieking (because my nervous system felt attacked by the combination of the endogenous neurotoxicity plus the small amount of additional irritation).
It's actually very rarely that I'm very angry. I can deal with a lot in an easy-going way.
That's an important point to consider.
It hasn't been an anger problem; it's been a threshold problem.
- - -
Having lowered thresholds isn't a character problem. My character and behavior might have been the same all along. The main thing that changed was 1) lowered thresholds and 2) my life has been pretty hard and frustrating with Lyme and I'm chronically a little bit stressed, and that probably lowers my thresholds for irritation from an emotional perspective.
- - -
Interaction of thresholds and triggers
I guess I am just extremely frustrated that people keep blaming me for a symptom that I don't have a lot of control over.
It's easy to point fingers and say "well you were violent" if you have never experienced Lyme rage yourself, but in theory it could happen to anyone.
And forgive me for getting it down to low enough levels where it only happens if I am experiencing severe neurotoxicity, retching, and having involuntary muscle contractions. When it used to happen regularly, it was obvious that it was something unusual. Now that I've increased my threshold through Lyme treatment and healing myself, it only happens on rare occasions when something bad happened to my nervous system AND I was severely triggered, so it can come across as some deep emotional problem, and there's all this shame, because it's rare enough that it seems plausibly to be just emotional, and the "excessively low threshold due to biological states" issue can be ignored much more than before.
Any time when I experience these neurotoxic states again, I forgive myself for the previous times when I've had Lyme rage, because I remember how these brain states make it so likely. They don't make it happen, but they really lower the threshold for how much emotional irritation is needed to provoke a sudden reflexive self-defensive movement.
The best way to understand it is that at times, the level of neurotoxicity makes the threshold so low that normal life events are likely to exceed the threshold. What do I do in that case? Stop going through life?
If my threshold is low, I certainly should avoid being around my boyfriend, going to the ER, doing anything that is likely to trigger me.
It's a matter of the interaction of life events and the nervous system threshold. Sometimes the threshold has been so low that I've screamed in public over minor things like someone singing to themselves.
Lately, my threshold is so high that nothing happens unless 1) something terrible has happened to my nervous system, and 2) I am triggered at the core with something I abhor, like being called crazy or being left suddenly/abandonment triggers.
So there are two ways to work on it:
A) Increasing the threshold, through nutrition and brainwave entrainment and helping the nervous system.
B) Decreasing the triggers, so that the triggers do not exceed the threshold.
- - -
It's easy to point fingers and say "well you were violent" if you have never experienced Lyme rage yourself, but in theory it could happen to anyone.
And forgive me for getting it down to low enough levels where it only happens if I am experiencing severe neurotoxicity, retching, and having involuntary muscle contractions. When it used to happen regularly, it was obvious that it was something unusual. Now that I've increased my threshold through Lyme treatment and healing myself, it only happens on rare occasions when something bad happened to my nervous system AND I was severely triggered, so it can come across as some deep emotional problem, and there's all this shame, because it's rare enough that it seems plausibly to be just emotional, and the "excessively low threshold due to biological states" issue can be ignored much more than before.
Any time when I experience these neurotoxic states again, I forgive myself for the previous times when I've had Lyme rage, because I remember how these brain states make it so likely. They don't make it happen, but they really lower the threshold for how much emotional irritation is needed to provoke a sudden reflexive self-defensive movement.
The best way to understand it is that at times, the level of neurotoxicity makes the threshold so low that normal life events are likely to exceed the threshold. What do I do in that case? Stop going through life?
If my threshold is low, I certainly should avoid being around my boyfriend, going to the ER, doing anything that is likely to trigger me.
It's a matter of the interaction of life events and the nervous system threshold. Sometimes the threshold has been so low that I've screamed in public over minor things like someone singing to themselves.
Lately, my threshold is so high that nothing happens unless 1) something terrible has happened to my nervous system, and 2) I am triggered at the core with something I abhor, like being called crazy or being left suddenly/abandonment triggers.
So there are two ways to work on it:
A) Increasing the threshold, through nutrition and brainwave entrainment and helping the nervous system.
B) Decreasing the triggers, so that the triggers do not exceed the threshold.
- - -
Validation and esteem as the most important factors in psychiatric treatment
I think what people really want and what they keep moving toward or trying to create is a place where they feel safe to express themselves fully in all their goodness and badness and still be accepted and part of the community.
Psychiatry, especially the peer movement, can provide this. It can provide a space where it is ok to talk about suicidal thoughts, where it's ok to hear voices, where it's ok to do the best you know how to manage your life and emotions and nervous system, and it's assumed that you are probably doing the best you know how.
A place where you are given options but what you do is up to you.
It is in this place of safety that people can feel comfortable trying other options. When they feel safe and that the outcome will be ok even if it's unpredictable, people can feel more safe trying a different coping technique instead of the one they normally use.
When people feel respected as they are, that they are good, then they have the life-giving self-esteem that helps to give people more energy an
Validation and esteem and accepting social support are some of the best "foods" for "good" behavior.
People need VALIDATION as a fuel for doing hard things. Change is hard. Validation for what people are already doing right and esteem help them to have the motivation to try change.
- - -
Psychiatry, especially the peer movement, can provide this. It can provide a space where it is ok to talk about suicidal thoughts, where it's ok to hear voices, where it's ok to do the best you know how to manage your life and emotions and nervous system, and it's assumed that you are probably doing the best you know how.
A place where you are given options but what you do is up to you.
It is in this place of safety that people can feel comfortable trying other options. When they feel safe and that the outcome will be ok even if it's unpredictable, people can feel more safe trying a different coping technique instead of the one they normally use.
When people feel respected as they are, that they are good, then they have the life-giving self-esteem that helps to give people more energy an
Validation and esteem and accepting social support are some of the best "foods" for "good" behavior.
People need VALIDATION as a fuel for doing hard things. Change is hard. Validation for what people are already doing right and esteem help them to have the motivation to try change.
- - -
I guess I've found another cause -- violent people.
This is a group that almost everyone sees as the "other."
They seem so far from us, so vile, so evil. Even people with mildly violent behaviors are shunned.
I've realized from being in this group myself that violent people are one of the most discriminated against groups in society.
This discrimination is justified by the assumption that violence is a choice.
It is so funny how we discriminate between things that are not choices, which we indulge, and things that are "choices," as though it were possible to tell this from the outside.
However, violence is not always that much of a choice.
In my case I've come to see that it's a combination of factors. Probably 80% biological/inflammation/disrupted nervous system, 10% my history, and 10% current frustration or mental habits/ruts developed when Lyme rage was worse.
It is so strange to have this huge range of symptoms, and to have one of the symptoms thought to be entirely my fault, and to see how differently people treat this one symptom.
Was my bad memory my choice? Was the intense fatigue my choice? Was
Because those things felt if anything more my choice than the occasional times when I have yelled or thrown water I was holding or on very rare occasions hit people.
In all of those cases, things happened before I had an idea of what I was doing, and I was surprised to see what had happened. Does that sound like choice?
I am just sick of feeling like a bad person, when I am just experiencing a sort of Lyme-related nervous system reflex.
- - -
Nonviolent communication as a better way to talk about Lyme rage
I had a realization last night.
While dealing with Lyme-related agitation, people have been approaching it in two ways that have not worked at all:
1) You have to stop doing this because it's not acceptable.
For people with bad childhoods, hearing this makes them feel more shame. Shame leads to more violence. Also, so much in my life is unusual already. What is the real motivation to stop doing something just because it's "unacceptable" when I have had to do so many other unacceptable things to survive? (Think of how people in poverty might think the same.) "It's unacceptable" is a terrible motivation.
2) Bad things could happen.
Threats.
3) It's bad for me. You need to stop doing something that's good for you, and make your life harder, because it's bad for me (often someone who has a much easier life than me and a much less inflamed nervous system).
But those responses rely on shame and blame and force.
What ways of talking about Lyme-related violence would be better?
A) Concern for the person experiencing it.
Believe it or not, people committing violence are victims or symptomatic, the same way as people with other "conditions" or symptoms.
It's a symptom that something is wrong, whether with a person's biology, psychosocial environment, or their ability to meet their needs in other ways.
In the case of Lyme rage, it feels terrible. It's harmful to the body. It's likely neurotoxic and probably destroys part of the brain. The effects can last for hours. It feels like it fries the nervous system.
It would be a much more effective way to handle it, to talk to people experiencing Lyme rage and say, "Wow, it seems like this experience is harmful for your body and really unpleasant for you. Let's see if we can decrease the propensity of your nervous system to having it happen, and if we can decrease the occasions that can cause it."
Focus on the well-being of the patient.
B) Ask people what they need. What unmet needs could be related to this last-ditch effort by their bodies to protect themselves?
C) Talk about the impact on others, not as a "should," but just for the person's information. e.g., here's how I feel, it's not your fault, but here is the impact.
Blaming and "shoulds" almost never work. what works is listening to people in a nonviolent way, showing that you are interested in their well-being and they are in a safe place where they can get their needs met, and communicating nonviolently about one's own experience.
- - -
While dealing with Lyme-related agitation, people have been approaching it in two ways that have not worked at all:
1) You have to stop doing this because it's not acceptable.
For people with bad childhoods, hearing this makes them feel more shame. Shame leads to more violence. Also, so much in my life is unusual already. What is the real motivation to stop doing something just because it's "unacceptable" when I have had to do so many other unacceptable things to survive? (Think of how people in poverty might think the same.) "It's unacceptable" is a terrible motivation.
2) Bad things could happen.
Threats.
3) It's bad for me. You need to stop doing something that's good for you, and make your life harder, because it's bad for me (often someone who has a much easier life than me and a much less inflamed nervous system).
But those responses rely on shame and blame and force.
What ways of talking about Lyme-related violence would be better?
A) Concern for the person experiencing it.
Believe it or not, people committing violence are victims or symptomatic, the same way as people with other "conditions" or symptoms.
It's a symptom that something is wrong, whether with a person's biology, psychosocial environment, or their ability to meet their needs in other ways.
In the case of Lyme rage, it feels terrible. It's harmful to the body. It's likely neurotoxic and probably destroys part of the brain. The effects can last for hours. It feels like it fries the nervous system.
It would be a much more effective way to handle it, to talk to people experiencing Lyme rage and say, "Wow, it seems like this experience is harmful for your body and really unpleasant for you. Let's see if we can decrease the propensity of your nervous system to having it happen, and if we can decrease the occasions that can cause it."
Focus on the well-being of the patient.
B) Ask people what they need. What unmet needs could be related to this last-ditch effort by their bodies to protect themselves?
C) Talk about the impact on others, not as a "should," but just for the person's information. e.g., here's how I feel, it's not your fault, but here is the impact.
Blaming and "shoulds" almost never work. what works is listening to people in a nonviolent way, showing that you are interested in their well-being and they are in a safe place where they can get their needs met, and communicating nonviolently about one's own experience.
- - -
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