PepperBlossoms

I like the overlay idea. Like every moment has an overlay of an imagined past/present/future and that gives it imagined character and context. Like everything is kinda like rotating and intermixing with itself but there is no direction of moving from here to there (in the absolute sense) - since it all stays within itself (the universe) as itself (the universe). Kinda like stuff is vibrating in place and trading spots with each other (itself). I think I need those direct insights too to fully get it ugh yeah I was just wanting to fill the gaps and didn't fully grasp the concept yet but have heard people talk about it but also it just popped into my head and for whatever reason, I was kinda going over some of the ideas I had and that one could use some more work like when you say everything IS nothing, it is like two opposites. So past/present/future in a linear way made me want to explore some non-linear way. Even saying "everything is nothing" doesn't fully make sense yet other than the idea of oneness and not being "a thing" that could be considered separate from another "thing" since there is no where to make the dividing line absolutely and the idea that we can't tell if stuff is real or imaginary and it doesn't really make a difference either way. So I guess - it exists and doesn't exists, it is all and it is not anything (because there is nothing absolutely separate to compare to) oh so everything is now - - and the antithesis of that is everything is never (never as opposite of now) - or - - nothing is now (nothing as opposite of everything); or nothing is never agh maybe it doesn't matter. I just was thinking of time as part of a physical phenomenon's change but we could also say, nothing is changing, no time is passing (on absolute sense). I guess I need to stop talking and just wait. They still feel more like word games I guess. Interesting response. Makes me think of how we get ideas in our head and don't really know where they came from - unless the idea we are having for "the future" already existed/happened in "the future"- - but then, is there an infinite amount of things that already existed/happened and possibilities for what path we are to experience?

I realized that if you find yourself as both identifying and as adapting to a narcissist parent, what you could do is identify the good traits from both that you want to develop and identify the bad ones that you want to work on eliminating. NARCISSIST Bad - inconsiderate, judgmental, mean, power hungry, dominance hungry, toxic, deceptive Good - strong, confident, bold, brave, insightful, creative, successful, skilled, thorough CO-DEPENDENT Bad - weak, scared, intimidated, unsure, shy, annoying, nagging, needy, clingy Good - considerate, empathetic, friendly, kind, patient, kind, loving, loyal, supportive

It's also hard to not want to change others when your parents did that to you your entire life. Ugh. Parents can be the worst.

I guess all the people that tried to convince me to join their religion and get me on their medication and read their bibles - I am mad at them for being too unwilling to see my perspective but trying to make me see and join theirs.

I guess there is a part of me that just still has quite a hate for Biblical religion that I want to shout to everyone all the logical fallacies it has but also it is like, well am I going to look like an arrogant fool and it doesn't even matter in the universal notion of things and am I just as bad as a religion person that is trying to convert you if I do that... I guess when your friends tell you - I don't want to talk about it - for some reason, I get mad and don't want to be around them anymore - which is dumb but IDK.

Imagine - if no one ever had the desire to convince/convert/lure someone to try to adapt their ideas, organized religion WOULDN'T EXIST!! For it to survive, people have to be constantly trying to get/forcing others to join. (Same goes with science/history/language) It is weird at how we sometimes have this desire to convince others to agree with us or try what we are trying. We could think that it was helpful for us and that we are wanting to help others too and would get joy out of seeing them benefitted and feeling grateful for us. It could be that we think we see something that is wrong and that it would be so much better if we just commented on it and tried to change it by how we see fit. I used to have the same thing where I was like - Oh I can't have sex before marriage and would turn it into a discussion quite a bit but I completely left Catholicism and no longer worry about that thankfully. She thinks that she is doing what is right by not allowing herself to consider anything new because the religion wants faithful followers and she wants to maintain that but isn't patient enough to even allow 5 minutes of trying out a new perspective. I have been like that with stuff. I used to try to convince or thoroughly question my friends/family's religion and have noticed that it doesn't do anything and they are too far deep into it. Part of me would be like - I just need to get the logic to make sense in an easy enough way and there is no way they will be able to keep thinking what they do. As long as they aren't going to jail me for disagreeing or whatever, they can think what they want. I see though that parents raise their kids to be religious who then can raise their kids to be religious and the cycle repeats and now we have banned abortion and gays that could get killed in some places.

The funny part about religion meeting deficit needs like safety/esteem is that it also doesn't meet esteem needs because of the guilt part - like it is "supposed" to make you feel good but yet ends up making you feel bad I guess I can see that I would use it for both of the types you are referring to. I guess it is weird to describe. It is like - oh I am part of everything and this is mysterious but then it is like, I forget and think I am a human.

I am sorry to hear that. One of my parent's was tyrant/absent. I guess one thing I am curious about is - the notion of child, teenager, adult - - it is like, well, what is that supposed to feel like? I can feel a headache in my head right now and one leg on top of another and my arm on my leg. I can feel excited/sad/bored about stuff. Well - the notion of feeling like a child, or feeling like an adult, or whatever - - we are still going to have the body sensations and we are still going to have emotions about various things - so how does "feeling like an adult" contrast to "feeling like a child"? Is it the body pain from when you get older and are sore or may feel more fat if you ate some bad stuff whereas a child may not feel fat or sore? Is it the stuff you have opinions on like a child might feel excited about a Barbie/pokemon card while an adult may feel excited about a video game/concert/book? Or the stress where a child may be stressed about a test or the first day of school and an adult may feel stressed about a family reunion? I guess all I can think of is that the feelings are similar we may just be focusing on different stuff and may have different thought processing. Kids can be excited as can adults - unless we say that excitement is only for kids. I guess like, some people could like work and say they feel like an adult and some could say, no I hate work I like play and so they associate it as feeling like a child??? If our baseline is based on our past, then how are we supposed to know that our baseline is "CHILD" when we didn't start off getting to see what baseline "adult" was like? We could say, well I feel the same as I did 20 years ago so I am just going to say I am still child because it doesn't feel different and I assume that adult is supposed to be different? Ah well idk!!

The writer blames the entire syndrome on a tyrannical parent, which it says the person may adapt to them (adult child syndrome) or identify with them (covert narcissist) - - I have definitely had my moments where I have gone back and forth from those two. One just has to learn to stand up for oneself when someone is being judgmental in a bullying way and recognize the errors in logic/assumption that the person is using and take responsibility for oneself and not rely on or feel so impacted by the judgements of others. They can create boundaries when they no longer allow toxic stuff to slide by calling the person out on it or not engaging with them or being calm and not reacting to it. One can build oneself up with stuff one enjoys and find their own self worth. One can create their own library of values that doesn't have to merge with others and can be what it wants to be. They can develop a stronger sense of their identity/interests/values that when someone tries to pick at that, they will be able to defend it and not give in to the person's demands. One can stay away from aggressive people or try to understand why exactly they are aggressive so that it is not scary/uncertain but rather makes sense. One can start to value the idea of being considerate and respectful of other's needs and ideas and start to want to be more like that and be around those who are like that rather than being and being around those who are judging basically everything with no concern for the person/thing judged. One can start to value other disagreeing perspectives as another way to learn, explore, and experience life and not see them as something that must be changed to match one's own or fought with. I can see that if one is used to putting up with toxic people and so they surround themselves by it, they may be able to eventually learn how to cope/deal with it but they will also probably need to be around people who are not toxic so as to have healthy examples to try to be like which could then help the toxic people to be less toxic as well. One can find that one feels more empowered and stronger when they work on things they are proud of and when they are honest about their impact/role on the result, they can take more responsibility for what has happened and their effort/performance.

I guess like how we could say this is bigger than that, like a blueberry being smaller than an apple - well then, why can't we say that this happened before that? But then the notion of before and after creates a sense of linear like how the blueberry and apple create a sense of scale. So maybe it is rather that there is not really a direction that all of existence/time is moving in in the physical sense like going from Europe to Asia but there is a sense of NOW but yet we keep on seeing NOW as having changed. Ugh

@VeganAwake Okay so like, the notion of forwards and backwards is irrelevant kinda like up and down is irrelevant cuz you could look at the sky lying on your back and it looks like down is up... but then - like the calendar, days of the week, hours of the day, the seasons - this order that we have created and a notion of going "forward" during the day with the clock- - it is kinda all made up and there isn't really forward through the calendar but rather just happening But it isn't going from here to there or starting or stopping. Its just instantaneously happening over and over... The universe is staying in the universe and not going anywhere else cuz there is only the universe so no where else for it to go... But yet - it still feels like there is a past though.... BUTTTT we can't touch the past nor the future - we can only touch whatever we are currently touching. But yet, as stuff "seems" to be happening, we get memories that seem to be from the past because if there was no memory, the info may not be held long enough to experience -- -so it seems like by the function of how the experience happens, that the linearity is there. I guess it is like a ruler but there is no direction to point the ruler... This is the present arrangement - but that experience is constantly felt... agh I don't know. TY

Yeah sure!

How do you tell when something is trying to help vs hurt you?

Gosh I hate bullying so much I wish I would have never even bothered with that person....... UGHHHHHHHHHHH

UPDATE: It can sometimes be hard to tell whether a message is considered bullying, a joke, or when it is considered advice that we are just having a hard time accepting. Info that is painful and confusing to hear and process can sometimes be worthwhile for growth. Sometimes even though we like to learn and grow, the message can be communicated in such an unrelentingly disrespectful and toxic way that we decide that it is no longer worth exploring and that we are better of with moving on to some of the other seemingly infinite ways and sources to explore. I have since decided that some people are not worth sticking with and that y'all are right - sometimes the cord does need to be cut. There are so many ways to explore and learn that if something is just so inconsiderate about one's feelings, why bother? It is too distracting and we could be learning other stuff. I haven't been a perfect friend in the past but I have definitely learned to apologize and try to be sensitive to other's feelings and some people still have not gained that skill and may have no desire to. Also, if their reasoning/logic seems to be very disillusioned and they are making lots of assumptions and those happen to be negatively aimed at you, it can be hard to use logic when the other person isn't. AGHHH I hate bullies.

@Preety_India I think I am triggering myself by imagining things that aren't really there like the idea that I can't talk about xyz with them or that they will react like abc when I really don't know. Or imagining that it is even a problem in the first place when really I could just accept it and be done with it. I could also accept that I will just never fully understand them anyway as well as everything else. @SgtPepperAgreed on trying to be more conscious of how and why we communicate.

EDIT: Thank you to everyone who has been part of this experience.

@SgtPepper That's an interesting idea! But what about if I start talking about stuff and then start criticizing a religion that they just so happen to be in???? Then I could be offending them and creating tension.... then what?!?!???

So, some of y'all may have found that as you grew in awareness, your realizations about your job's impacts may have grown and you may have had a hard time reasoning with yourself to be able to keep on doing the job because your values no longer aligned with your actions. Did you quit? Did you stay? Did you have to rationalize quite a bit for your decision? Did you ever get over the cognitive dissonance? Did you revert back to compartmentalization/doublethink? Are you jobless and just waiting it out till you run out of money? Were your coworkers experiencing the cognitive dissonance too or were they too unaware/unconscious to even think about it?

Yeah totally agreed. People who have lots of money tend to be super dissatisfied with the corporate world and their job but feel stuck - - as my boyfriend said: some people can't afford to not have money; well some can't afford to have a job because it is just too psychologically numbing/depressing. Interesting points. On the disillusionment for the young people - well school doesn't talk about cognitive dissonance AT ALL really (mine didn't) and so it isn't until we get to the job and are there for several years to where, once we have learned how the job works, we start to learn the impacts and then shit - HOW THE HECK DO I allow myself to keep on doing this job?!?!? There is so much more to it than just working... the psychological/emotional impact is HUGE. Interesting idea on stockholm syndrome. I like that idea combination. I've heard that one applied to pets. "I am stuck here, I can't leave, I need to love the job, I love this job - you should love it too. "I hate working but I am going to act like I love working and hey you, you need to get a job and get to work." "I am going to act like I love my coworkers even though I kinda hate them!!" Agree that cognitive dissonance is going to be talked about more and more and that this anti-work movement could be just the beginning. As people start becoming more aware of things and realizing the impacts of their job and struggle with the value clash, work is going to get harder and harder to rationalize for oneself to keep doing.......... Yeah, I ended up quitting and am still processing the cognitive dissonance ha. it isn't the company though - it is the entire industry. I am unsure of how many people actually feel cognitive dissonance in the industry or if they are too unaware.. being unaware can be a blessing but also I would rather be aware than unaware.. (but meh what is awareness anyway...) I am currently writing a book and doing some research about cognitive dissonance in that field.... not sure what will happen next though.

Shrooms may help with OCD. I am sorry your dad feels the need to check everything. I can see that there could be times where things that were not checked had drastic consequences but also, if one spends hours a day checking and repeating things, that in itself can be an ongoing drastic consequence as they are missing out on getting to do other stuff and it could be bothersome to others. We don't get to pick our parents. Maybe try to work towards acceptance of your parents and letting go of anger about them and also distance yourself so that they can do what they do and you don't have to be bothered by it. You could try talking to your dad about seeing a therapist or not checking stuff or ask him some more to dig deep about what triggered him to do it in the first place. It is like a habit it seems and if he can just stop doing the habit for say 3 weeks, he may be able to break it. (I read in a book that it can take 3 weeks to make a habit but that could be wrong.) Maybe you are angry right now because you have seen him but once you get to go away again, the anger will subside and you can focus on other stuff. I can see that that can be a problem if someone's compulsions is keeping the others up, especially if the house is set up to where there is not enough privacy/distance from each other. I too would be mad if I missed sleep. I am sorry your peers do not think it is that bad. That is a very good point in that having parents who do not have any mental illness or traumas and can make it so much easier for the kids. There are lots of us though with parents with some sort of illness/trauma that they did not resolve. Also, it could be that the parents were "healthy mentally" but eventually life has its happenings and shit happens. Agh well good luck and I hope you can heal and move on. Anger is no fun and can take up a lot of headspace. Sometimes it can be easier to move on when you find something else to be angry about haha. Regarding OCD - I am no expert but if you/him could write down every single activity that is considered OCD on a piece of paper and then look at what is okay to be OCD about and keep doing and what is not okay/not beneficial and then decide which ones you will keep and which you will drop and then how you will drop it. Also looking at why you feel OCD about something and how you feel when you do not do it. Like, maybe learning to be okay with stuff not being perfect. I guess digging deep and trying to find the why for many things.

I guess what I have come to is that I would like to stop being so sensitive to jokes, comments, criticisms, and alternate perspectives. I can't just run away from every person that upsets me and feel I would be stronger if I am able to not get upset by it. When someone is doing any of the above, my first reaction would often be to cry, get angry, tell someone else how mean they are, block them, try to get them to go away, or distance myself- - but, there could be stuff to gain by waiting it out, listening, and trying to understand/learn. Heck, that person is wasting their energy thinking about me and thought it was worth the energy of telling me. It would be different if I was some person with millions of people criticizing me or if there was physical abuse. I guess I could also be upset because it is a blind spot that I am not wanting to accept as being true. I guess also I don't have many people to talk to anyway and so cutting even one out would take away my support system and I know that I am not perfect either and can say bad stuff to them sometimes as well. So, if someone says, "your hair is ugly", I could say, "your hair is ugly too." If someone says, "you act like a child", I could say "you act like one too" or "yeah I know haha" or "what do you mean" or "I know, right?!" or "yeah its fun". Like - I need to work on detaching and not being so OCD about what others say or think. I guess just getting better with making jokes back at them to keep the flow going while trying not to blow up. One time one of my friends said a comment that upset me and I didn't talk to her for years - - and so just getting better at handling feedback and processing it can be helpful and allow for growth whereas if I always ran away, I would miss out on that growth opportunity. I don't know - every person tends to think and act SO DIFFERENTLY from every other person so we are bound to have clashes and getting better at handling those differences in opinion can be helpful. I used to cry every time I lost a tennis match. I was very much the sensitive type. So trying to not be sensitive, if I am capable of that, would be nice. I guess it also depends on how the other person responds to feedback and if they can be honest with me, can I be honest with them...

I just have a really hard time when I keep on getting criticized because my response was "not good enough" or the way I am is "not good enough." I guess I have a hard time giving people my full attention and find it weird when people actually want me to listen to them because no one ever did growing up.

@Preety_India I guess its still hard though because it could be that someone is trying to help me with advice but I am reacting to it in a negative way instead of using it to help me. Like, I get criticism and I feel like the person is being a bully but yet, there is often some truth to what they are saying and I just have a hard time accepting it. So then, are they a bully or am I just way too much of a baby to just accept what they are saying?? Ughhh Example - "You were acting like a first grader." (I get mad and say that adults can laugh and smile just like kids can instead of trying to just understand more of why I am getting called that). Example - "Your dyed hair is ugly." (I get very upset). "You failed the test; it was just a joke and you should have just blown it off. (I get upset instead of saying, I don't care what you think or what do you not like about my hair?) (but yet, why would someone joke about that???) Example - "You are too slow at work." (I would chose to get upset instead of choosing to try to get faster). Example - "You can't be a doctor because you can't make decisions." (I get upset and give up that career path instead of trying to change or disregard that opinion) I often chose to be upset instead of choosing to learn/grow/get stronger from whatever and I am kinda mad at myself for reacting and letting stuff get to me. @catcat69123 maybe the lack of integrity needs to be developed some more