People can indeed be pretty amazing.JC wrote: ↑Thu Feb 22, 2018 12:05 am So I suppose as part of that (and something else I'll try and touch on later), I would try and close myself off from the world, like become just a statue on the outside and not give away ANYTHING (I suppose given the way I kinda grew up and then joined the army at 16, yeah that probably makes more sense with perspective?), except... It sometimes worked too well. I would do it involuntarily, like I didn't have control over myself anymore but I was a witness to my own existence or some mopey shit - if you've seen the film "get out", that deffo struck a chord straight away when they revealed the stuff. I wouldn't quite describe it like that generally, but that is about the best representation I can think of right now. And while it was sometimes helpful in a sense (I realise now it was some kind of mental defense thing), in a LOT of ways it was just utterly horrible. The worst things were the feeling of loss OF MYSELF, but even beyond that seeing the people around me who I care greatly about getting some kind of autopilot person to interact with and the loss of love and connection there, like each time it became a little more normal for them I guess, which really fucking kills me still. It really hurts discussing it now to be honest, but I guess it's already done and by trying to fix it, and by sharing my experiences maybe it might help some else before it goes on so much. On that note, I gotta say admitting what has been going on to my wife was my biggest fear and the thing that kept it in all these years, but she has been amazing about it all, if anything she's taken it better than I did because at least now she knows WHY I've been seemingly avoiding her and growing distant and shit, like I said initially she thought I was having an affair and that's the only reason I told her, but now I did I really regret not doing so sooner. I guess people are capable of much more understanding and compassion than you expect at times, right?
I had some dissociative-type experiences of this type this winter, in the worst parts of my depression when I was just emotionally exhausted, and my brain went "Well, enough of this feelings business" and just switched everything off, which sometimes was the extent of it, but occasionally also there would just be rat-bastard autopilot routines kicking in to deal with things. It's all a kind of defense mechanism. And meanwhile you're kind of watching things go on, and knowing it's not quite right, and there's stuff missing, but not really being able to do anything about it.
And eventually the proper you gets back in the driver seat, more or less, and you try to go forward.
Brains are weird, mate. We're all more or less along for the ride with the one we've got.
Fortunately, they are also fairly re-wire-able, and doing what you're doing now is a great and important first step in that task.
Yeah, been there (as I mentioned above). I'm of the opinion that it's very often a self-protective mechanism.EricK wrote: ↑Thu Feb 22, 2018 4:41 am Those are definitely interesting experiences. I have no useful advice, but I got a lot of empathy on the "autopilot" part. My wife says that I just "shut down" sometimes and become eerily cold, completely detached. There have been times that I was definitely upset or depressed about something and "shut down," and my wife wants to know what's wrong. I'll be aware of being "shut down" and want to say something, but it's like I don't listen to myself. Like my brain robs me of my access to words as a mechanism to prevent me from talking...
I hope things mend well with the misses. I hope/think that recounting stuff is helpful.
I imagine you've been in many situations where feelings were things you just could not afford, and your brain put together a way of sidestepping them in the moment. And once those systems are disengaged, they take time to fire back up.
I think we might find these aren't entirely the most uncommon experiences for men in the West.
