The relationship I’m referring to here is the one I have with myself – whatever “myself” means. The relationship goes a little kooky right off the bat due to this confusion I have concerning myself. Just the word – myself – is annoying to me. Me? Here comes more trouble. I might as well get “I” in here to so I don’t have to make a new section to address all the different words we’ve come to use.
For this little post I’ll just say me. For the last two days I haven’t had a real good relationship with me. After my last post I began to feel as though I was a complete idiot. I felt as though I didn’t really know anything, that I was probably wrong about everything and all I was doing was spouting nonsense. Furthermore I was apt to be doing a some harm by throwing around these nutty ideas.
I heard, or read, something the other day. I’d like to remember which, but I can’t. This may be, according to Daniel Amen, because I have brain damage from using opiates and alcohol. The case for my insanity just gets worse – or better depending on who’s side you’re on. What I heard, or read, was that our feelings control our thinking. We think what we do because of the feelings we have and so if we want to change our thinking we can just change the way we feel. Wooo…
Is this true? Sounds like a good case for prescribing drugs. In fact isn’t this what the drug companies are up to?
I’ve based the entire addiction help portion of this website on dealing with addictions and other nuttiness by dealing with the brain and thought. That feelings are the result of thought. If I’m wrong I might as well just delete the whole thing and sell shoes.
What I think is: Thinking is the problem and in thinking lies the solution. As far as the thinking part of me is concerned, I’m on firm ground. But this writing isn’t about what I know or don’t know. This is about my bad relationship. The relationship is having problems in the feelings department. Like I said, I was starting to feel like I was an idiot.
This doesn’t feel good. When my relationship with myself is going good I seem to feel good. Not necessarily feel good about myself or good about people, society etc. – but just feel good. I want to relate a short story real quick. I think I was off drugs about a year. I was driving somewhere and something had just happened that I was mad about, or confused, frustrated over, or some thing like this and the thought hit me that, I didn’t want to go get some drugs. I asked myself, what was different? The answer was, I didn’t feel bad. As a matter of fact, even though I was going through the same type of situation that had always led to a mad dash for the drug bucket – I felt good.
Not that I liked what was going on. I didn’t. What accompanied my dislike was the thought that I could do things to decrease the occurrence these situations. Thinking this, felt good. Different thoughts led to different feelings.
The feelings that I was a nut showed up the other day and on one hand it was kind of surprising. On the other hand, thinking about it, it was no surprise at all. In fact it’s a little strange that the “I’m stupid” feeling isn’t more prevalent.
But in thinking about it I can probably explain why feeling bad isn’t my constant companion these days. One idea that I hold onto is that feelings aren’t really all that significant. They are as significant as we decide they are. For me I see feelings as a result, not a cause. If I don’t like the way I feel I look for the cause. The cause, so far, is always rooted in my thinking
The Bad Relationship
What do I mean by a bad relationship? What does this recent rise in feelings of inadequacy really mean? First it’s important to get the feelings labeled correctly. Feeling like an idiot. Feeling like I shouldn’t even be opening my mouth – because I’m probably wrong about everything and might even be harming others – gets the “Feeling of Inadequacy” Label. That’s what feelings like self doubt, self hatred, self loathing and so on are. The statement I am making is, I’m not capable, I’m not adequate for the role I decided to play.
A mentor of mine said he was told early on in sobriety that his brain would try to kill him. He told me and I tell others…Including myself, over and over. What’s going on with these feelings is, My brain is trying to kill me. Is this due to brain damage? Absolutely. So am I wrong about everything? No. I’m wrong about some things. I look every day to find out where I’m wrong, where I’ve gotten hold of inaccurate information and ideas. I spend the day discarding things that aren’t working and looking for the best system we can employ to get the most out of life. Have I found some? Absolutely.
So what about the feelings? What do I do about this dysfunctional relationship? The truth is it’s not as bad and dysfunctional as it feels. That’s the problem, at least for me, at the moment. It’s not really the feelings – it’s the reaction to the feelings. For a minute, I let them overwhelm me. Not long – but to long. Dysfunctional would be to keep it up. Keep sinking into the depression created by the feelings.
The feeling are in reality a sign of progress. I am met with another obstacle, Yippeee. Once I deal with it I don’t ever have to deal with this, particular flavor of, nonsense again. That’s a positive, productive, way to think about it….I feel better already.
Now that I’ve got a factual label I can look at it realisticly. Adequate to what? What role have I assigned myself that I’m not adequate to play? When did my chosen role take on a level of seriousness and importance that I don’t feel adequate to fill? Oh, that’s not pretty. I guess there is a good reason why smart people say, “Don’t take yourself to seriously”.
