TheCloud

I started doing IFS precisely to avoid having to find someone to help me. Not that there's anything wrong with therapy, it's just that my emotions don't work on a weekly schedule, so I need something that works when I need it. It sounds as if you have a passing familiarity with IFS Parts work already. How familiar are you, and what do you get hung up on when you're doing it?

There is a treatment called Internal Family Systems (IFS) that I find helpful for these kinds of issues. I won't bore you with the details, but it's a method that has enabled me to directly address my traumas almost as if they were separate people. I can literally converse with them, and although they aren't always cooperative, one of the fundamental tenets of the system is that there are no bad parts of ourselves, only parts who are misunderstood. Ideally, if you were to use IFS, you would be able to directly converse with the younger version of you who had that horrible experience, to console and empower him to adopt a new perspective on his suffering. It's work that requires a lot of patience and consideration for yourself, because it's not unlike working with truly uncooperative little children at times, but for me it yields consistent and reliable results.

Alan Watts "The Book (on the taboo against knowing who you are)". He literally wrote it as a book one would slip to someone entering adulthood.

@trenton How does your PTSD manifest? Is it like a panic attack, or reliving the trauma?

Seconded. Denied access to healthy physical intimacy, people have a tendency to end up in a bad place psychologically. The desperation for such a thing can easily warp a person's personality. and while I have no formal evidence of such, I strongly suspect that evolution has created fail-safes to ensure reproduction in cases where healthy opportunities are lacking. This psychological switch changes the dynamic from one of connecting with the opposite sex to one of using the opposite sex, and once switched, it can be very difficult to switch back. In men, I believe this can lead to an opportunistic, dominating, and even predatory mindset, because evolution doesn't know the difference between sex and rape and everything in between when it comes to reproduction. For a modern man trying to live an enlightened or at least lawful life, this is a torturous internal conflict. Desperation has men looking for weak vulnerable women rather than appealing to strong stable ones. The worst part of it is that an opportunistic mindset fosters behavior that precludes the possibility of healthy sexual connection with strong stable women, so even "successful" sexual encounters go awry since it was achieved with the wrong mindset and probably the wrong woman, which further reinforces the desperation that led to the conflict in the first place. This is just a hypothesis of mine, and I haven't worked out how it works in women. I suspect something to do with fawning and codependence, since rape is a much less viable option for the prehistoric (or not) woman for multiple reasons. Anyway, the upshot is that I believe healthy sexual encounters are strong reinforcers for a healthy mind and body, and without those reinforcers, a chaotic mindset is hard to avoid.

I was the poster :-) And I wasn't disagreeing with you, or rather I wasn't arguing one way or the other. I should have started with stating that I tentatively agree with everything you had to say about this forum and the way Leo has influenced it. I typically avoid taking such bold stances because I find such arguments have a way of being flawed or incomplete, but that also does lend me a tendency to be wishy-washy and insecure. Part of the reason behind my question on what you do when you end up being wrong is because I'm curious about how one can intelligently manage such boldness and confidence.

I can feel the heat from that, even though it's not directed at me. You clearly put a lot of genuine effort into making proper arguments, but that's exactly why you have to be aware of the possibility that you missed or misunderstood something. Yet you still come forward with such boldness. How do you handle being wrong, procedurally and/or emotionally?

I was a little frightened how exactly this matches my own rules of behavior that I aspire to. I've never written them out this way, but every single one of those rules is one I'm clearly following myself. It feels weird seeing them listed this way. I'm a social idiot, so it's helpful for me to have socially conscious people like you around to explain what behaviors mean in a broader context. My social intelligence is just sufficient enough that things can be explained to me, but I'm simply incapable of cultivating and maintaining a persona the way you describe yourself as doing. Since I've already been inspired to respond, and the OP has expressed no clear motives on what kind of responses she's hoping for, I'll just spitball whatever I think of. Even though I'm following the same rules, my motives for being here have some definite differences. I'm mostly looking for a place to belong. This place definitely isn't it. I'm going to break my rules here and complain rather than be understanding; the average EQ here is abysmal. I wouldn't say my EQ is in any way impressive, as it's something I have had to develop and work hard for, but sometimes I feel like I'm talking about calculus in an elementary school when I suggest that someone here might have a feeling and that feeling might be relevant to their current issues. There just isn't a culture of emotional consciousness here. Trauma isn't talked about, and past experiences aren't looked at as a stimulus for current behaviors, like disembodied heads too fastidious to touch dirt. But, intellect is definitely celebrated here, and that is something I can bring to bear. Other places I find that have a solid EQ lack in IQ, which is even more difficult for me to tolerate. I need places to discuss thoughts and ideas, and to challenge convention, where thinking minds will respond to me in meaningfully unexpected ways. This place is maybe a little more than half of what I'm looking for.

It's not exactly the same as finding your strength, but that's a good place to start.. People do often come to admire themselves for something they are strong in, or put effort into and become good at something they admire. But sometimes people are talented at or put effort into things they don't particularly care for, too. Someone can be good at their job and still hate it, and someone can be mediocre at a hobby and still love it. When you meet a new person, what is it you really wish you could show or tell them? Do you want to make them laugh? Do you enjoy making people food? Do you like bragging and impressing people with your feats of strength or intellect or creativity or effort? How do you show your best side to others, and what is that best side? As for why you need to know this, it's because self-admiration is the thing that you can keep putting energy into even when you have very little. You did a hard workout last week, then crashed and skipped this week. If you focus your energy into things that aren't aligned with your nature, without knowing what really matters to you, this will always eventually be your result. It's not something practical you can decide with logic; you can't decide that because you see other men were successful in impressing others with their muscles, that your muscles are what's most impressive to you. Before impressing others, you have to impress yourself, and make that your key to making an impression anywhere.

If you suddenly realized enlightenment tomorrow, you would look at the person you just described as being a natural part of the universe. So why are you so down on yourself right now, when your enlightened self isn't? Although in stark reality there are no reasons, to the mind that has not evolved beyond reason, reasons must be given. The reason I would suggest to you is that you lack in self-admiration. What of yourself is it that you try to show people who you want to impress? I suggest this because I believe that whatever it is of yourself that you admire most, that is your key to your highest self. Anyone who does not admire themself for one thing they find truly worth admiration is lost, because without admiration there is no reason to question or wonder or struggle for yourself.

Did you learn or improve anything through this experience to share?

How are you planning to break your present financial situation to her?

And what about your feelings and compatibility? What else is drawing you to her other than that she's a 9/10 who's willing to talk to you?

Sounds as if you have her attention. Do you have plans or intentions for your next step?

What are your top messiest issues?