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Post by serenity on Jan 11, 2020 12:07:53 GMT
I'm sorry you feel so anxious lately Caroline. Its such a struggle to live with emotional distress, and associated thoughts, especially if some of them are deeply ingrained. I can see how you're struggling to separate triggers from reality too, and it can be hard. If you're interested, this article has a pretty thorough run down of coping strategies for emotional regulation during distress, including both adaptive and mal-adaptive types. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_self-regulation#Expressive_regulation_(in_solitary_conditions)I suppose the coping strategies that lept out for me most were `situation selection' and `situation modification'. Those are two areas that therapy helped me with the most. As a very young adult I had a tendency to remain stuck in toxic situations (usually work, sometimes a relationship), getting excessively distressed, triggered and feeling stuck. It was empowering for me to realize I could leave or modify a situation, compared to that powerless child state of feeling I had to stay out of dependency, and had no say in things. |
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Post by serenity on Jan 13, 2020 6:58:31 GMT
Also when you are distressed, you release the hormone cortisol, which promotes fatigue and fat accumulation. That hangs around in your body for a long time.
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Post by alexandra on Jan 13, 2020 7:06:12 GMT
I’ve also been thinking a lot about self soothing vs external soothing. I think one of the things I’ve realized about my self is that I learned to self soothe - vaguely - in unhealthy ways that end up making me feel more shameful and dislike myself more - but those were the only ways I could find / knew how in childhood. And now I associate those things with comfort yet while hating and being ashamed of them at the same time. One of them is eating unhealthy items, and I’m wondering if there’s something that’s developed over time that is like “auto regulation of anxiety” triggers “craving for these foods” as an attempt to calm down? Does that make any sense to anyone? And how would I stop help control that even while I’m working on rewiring myself? Emotional eating is a pretty big and established topic. I don't know as much about specific resources, but there's got to be a lot of information on it (maybe your therapist has some). There's usually emotional reasons that manifest in a lot of eating issues (ie anorexia / bulimia usually starts about having control in a life that's out of control more than it is about food), and you very well may have conditioning that happened in your childhood that led to eating as a way to feel good or accepted. Some examples may be a parent doesn't know how to make you feel better when you were upset, so instead of talking to you about it and comforting you gave you comfort food instead. Then you'd learn that food makes negative emotions better. Or, if your house was uncomfortable except everyone ate meals together, and mealtimes were the only time you felt connected to your family. Or maybe your mom comforted herself with food and you observed her do it and learned to do the same.
Plus there's the additional complication that @janedoe mentioned that food can have hormonal impact.
It's also like anything else used for soothing -- it's a distraction, it's something to do that temporarily changes however you're feeling, etc. (General) you can treat food the same way someone else treats drinking or smoking or sex or drugs or anything else that's an external way to cope with an internal issue.
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Post by serenity on Jan 13, 2020 8:11:46 GMT
Also when you are distressed, you release the hormone cortisol, which promotes fatigue and fat accumulation. That hangs around in your body for a long time. Thanks! I know about cortisol, but I didn’t realize it produces fatigue too. I do know it primarily produces fat accumulation around the waist, which is where I struggle with the most. I’ve actually been taking some anti-cortisol supplements but haven’t seen any big impact. Hugs. Yes its hard to deal with it all. I hope things become more steady in your relationship soon, I know how much that effects things. <3 |
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Post by iz42 on Jan 13, 2020 8:26:41 GMT
If you have a history of dieting, you may be depriving yourself of foods that you enjoy, and this can prompt stress eating or emotional eating. I know it sounds totally nonsensical, but I allow myself to have foods that I considered "bad" or "off limits" and they don't seem all that special anymore. I always keep sweets in the house and I find that I forget about them and they don't really interest me. I still soothe myself with food once in a while but I think it's a pretty harmless thing to do, all things told. I also have worked on developing other healthy coping mechanisms like meditation and journaling. The main thing I've found is that the harder I tried to "eat clean" and lose weight, the more I became obsessed with food and my self esteem plummeted. I eventually ended up with an eating disorder. I know this probably sounds weird and radical but i've done a lot of work and therapy to recover, so I figured I would share a bit about my experience. If you're interested, here are some resources: christyharrison.com/foodpsychwww.intuitiveeating.org/thefuckitdiet.com/ |
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Post by tnr9 on Jan 14, 2020 12:20:13 GMT
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Post by tnr9 on Jan 14, 2020 12:23:06 GMT
I try to employ intuitive eating. Intuitive eating is getting in touch with your body...not just your emotions...it is checking on your stomach and seeing whether you are actually hungry. What I like about it is that as an AP, we often disconnect from our body..but our body is part of us....and provides a wealth of information. Try it.
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Post by serenity on Jan 14, 2020 20:31:32 GMT
I've really hesitated in posting this, but I figured if the off chance it helps someone else, it's worth it. Today FA and I were going to meet up for dinner (he reached out and asked yesterday and was totally engaged etc today btw), and I found myself anxiously tailspinning into cleaning up my already clean apartment in case we came back here after vs. his house or parting ways. My apartment wasn't dirty at all, but it wasn't in "perfect guest condition." I started thinking about this, and I realized some other things.. I always knew that I had an easier time taking care of myself or home etc in front of other people — whether I lived with someone, they were coming over, around me, etc (not just romantic situations, this is all situations)— and I could recognize that it's because of a deep down self-hatred and low self-esteem / lack of respect for myself. I always hated that I did this. As I could magically find the energy to clean my whole apartment, get healthy food, etc, if someone else was coming over, but sometimes (not always) couldn't find the energy for myself. It's gotten a lot better since I've been living alone in some ways because overall I've felt better, but sometimes it's been bad. I started thinking about it more, and of course it goes back to "having to be perfect to be loved," etc — but I also realized that as part of this, I sometimes have a faux persona. I remember reading how FAs have this sometimes, like a mask, and I realized I do this to to a degree. I started thinking, these things aren't that far off from what I want to be — but they're like "a step or two up version of what I am" in some ways... so I thought why is it so hard for me to just do this all the time? Because like the loops I talked about above, this is similar, if I was just operating in this "more perfect" version, I'd probably be happier. It's not like it's so different, it's just a more presentable one that seems like I actually can take care of myself or love myself. I even noticed I do this with things like keeping up with the news etc. It's not like I don't want to do these things when it's just me, I just don't always... Obviously core solution is healing at the root... and learning to love myself as is first. Hard to explain even though it's pretty simple I guess, but seeing how AP-roots of "I'm not good enough" etc breed this nonsense as well. Hugs Caroline <3 I'm glad you're spending some time with your man. You sound like you have very nice manners and are hospitable by nature; I wouldn't worry too much about that. Not everything we learn in childhood is awful. I do especially relate to what you wrote about defaulting back to perfectionism when you feel relationship distress. Clean house and perfect looks (as well as perfect grades and perfect amount of extra curricular trophies) were my own mother's ideas of perfect. But what are my ideas? And what are yours? What are your real values? And what are his, really? |
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Post by serenity on Jan 15, 2020 21:47:53 GMT
Perfectionism is a cruel trap IMO. In order to evolve, explore, and learn new skills, its vital to be okay with the imperfection that comes with being at the beginning of any learning curve. A person who is constantly evolving will be largely doing things imperfectly.
Something else I learned in the workplace was the `Peter principle'... that when managing time efficiently, you can get a job completed to a standard of ``80% perfect'' in 20% of the time it takes to reach ``100% perfect'' Perfectionists are seen to waste time because it takes them 5 times as long to complete anything, for only a 20% improvement. That's not to say that some tasks shouldn't be completed to 100%, but as a default its a time suck.
I also feel its important to see that when you're raised by an avoidant parent, their demands that children be `impossibly perfect' is using fault-finding as part of their distancing and enmeshment with children. The goal posts constantly shift anyway. They don't want you perfect, they want distance via belittling you. I was able to meet all the goal posts set by my mother, and it still didn't make her love me. If anything it aroused her envy and led to long term undermining behaviour on her part (for example, when I left home after gaining entry into a prestigious Veterinary science school, she cut off financial support. Meanwhile she generously financially supported and even bought a house for my big sister who gained entry into a basic college my mother looked down on)
Something else I grew to understand about my mother's projected perfectionism, is she hung her self esteem on her home-making because she had nothing else. I have such different tastes to her. I prefer a home to be full of colour, beautiful art, exotic carved wood mirrors and furniture, lush persian carpets. I don't care if its spotless so much as the environment feels lush and comfortable. She prefers stark white to show off her spottlessing skills, but she keeps plastic over her louge suites to stop guests from `spoiling them' lol.
The perfect body thing is a joke and a setup. No woman exists who can age, fall pregnant, live life, and maintain the western media standards of a perfect beauty. No man either. I've only had very long term relationships with men who truly didn't care for beauty standards and saw women whollistically and as a complete package. Thats not to say I am not sometimes striking and beautiful. But living to project that image is unrealistic and attracts the wrong men IMO.
Just some ramblings...I've thought a lot about my mother's perfectionism and its impact on me too, a lot. <3
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Post by Deleted on Jan 15, 2020 23:51:15 GMT
my relationship with perfectionism ended when i saw how others got ahead in life, much more so than me, when they didn't care and just got "things" done. It didn't matter at all if the things they did weren't meaningful nor perfect nor had a point, they had "things" on their CVs. at the end of the day, the outcomes matter the most, and nobody really cares if it's not achieved through perfection and that it is imperfect. also, people pay alot less attention to you than you think; even if you've done everything carefully and perfectly, but you did not have an outcome, you become even less important in the grand scheme of things at your own expense. it's something i struggled with and still struggle with; i've always been stellar child, fantastic grades, president of every club, doctorate, and in the recent few years I just got dismissed and belittled more and more by my parents for knowing nothing, doing insignificant work, and not having a "real" adult job (i was doing my phd). caro i was often sick during school as well, just alot of pent up frustration and stress I believe from many various things, one of which the need to perform and the perceived inability to be seen/heard/accepted by others. I believe that anxiety results from the need for control that stems from worry about the future. Worry is wasting resources to solve a problem you do not have, and anxiety is a response of control (perceived) to that worry. You don't fret, you just get so tense and stressed and anxious because you're storing energy to "go" into action to solve these problems that you don't have yet. That's what I think of my anxiety. |
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Post by alexandra on Jan 15, 2020 23:54:44 GMT
caro, very common for AP to have a "waiting for the other shoe to drop" mentality. Part of it is related to it being very hard for insecures to truly exist in the present, so it's very hard to ever relax or drop this expectation. APs tend to worry about what will happen next instead.
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Post by serenity on Jan 16, 2020 0:08:25 GMT
This all makes so much sense... and I want to write more but upon reading this and some other things that happened this week - esp today made me have this realization: I’ve noticed sometimes when things I’ve been stressing about improve and things feel good that I sometimes feel bad. And I could never understand it, I always wondered if it’s just a) I hate myself so much that I’ll never be happy; b) It’s like after the end of the semester in school when you can finally stop and catch up - I used to always get sick, I guess cause I had stressed and powered through. Probably some of both, but today I realized that it’s most likely because I’m scared I’ll mess it up. Like I finally got what I want, and I’m so afraid I’ll mess it up that I don’t want to touch it. So frustrating. I feel this way now... and I’m just overwhelmed with anxiety BUT things are improving and good on the surface (minus my weight but ya know)... maybe also it’s because I’m still off from last weekend’s belonging realization. I was in a support group for adult children of narcissistic parents, and this theme often came up. The usual reason was the subtle dual message of `you need to be perfect, but don't outshine me' that some mothers can send out. Makes you feel pulled in two directions. And you never get the love you need and want no matter what you do, so you feel futile. I think this is where creating your own values comes in. If you are unconsciously trying to please someone from your past who can't be pleased, or punishes you for both pleasing and failing, you feel futility. If you follow your authentic value system, then you are truly doing things for you. |
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Post by alexandra on Jan 17, 2020 22:59:50 GMT
caro, you're basically describing a fear of vulnerability. It's very common for insecures of all types, and is a main impediment for getting past fantasy bonding. It is indeed, as you suspect, all wrapped up in your attachment system. If on some level you associate vulnerability with abandonment, and you fear abandonment (as AP and other insecures do), then you fear anything that you equate with potentially leading to abandonment as well.
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Post by serenity on Jan 24, 2020 10:34:26 GMT
Hey Caroline <3
I guess I wanted to ask, what do you mean by you are taking `it slow'? Do you expect him to change? Are you unhappy with things now?
I'm only asking because we are so prone to holding onto hope when a relationship becomes intermittent and unsatisfying. What are your hopes? Do you think they can become real?
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Post by serenity on Jan 24, 2020 21:57:45 GMT
Thanks for explaining Caroline; I get you!
I guess to me it sounds like you probably need some emotional support with your work situation? Things sound tough there, with someone making you feel like your job security is threatened. Do you have any friends, work allies, or even family you can get support from when its bad? I used to call my Dad a lot when things were real complex at various workplaces. He made me feel safe. Eventually I made some good friends who were in similar careers to me, who helped me a lot of over the years. Therapists are expensive, but that could be another place you could look to?
Avoidant partners aren't always good at giving emotional support, but they can give great advice which is their form of care. You could try simply telling him what happened, ask his advice if you want any, and let him know you'd appreciate his company this weekend. If he says no or rejects this kind of bid, you'll need to find support elsewhere probably.
Sorry your weeks been hard. I hope you will have a good weekend!
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