When Shannon released OF v4, I immediately went to the product page to read the description. Like other people have mentioned in their OF journals, the inclusion of instructions for “Special Use Cases” really got my attention. I scanned the list to see if any applied to me.
Nothing on the list really seemed to apply to me. Then I read the line that included Avoidant Personality Disorder, and I was like, “what is that?” I had never heard of it. So I looked up a couple different sites that had definitions and symptoms. Some of the symptoms sounded familiar to me, but the traits/reasons behind the symptoms did not really apply to me much, if at all. I was puzzled...
Until a couple of nights later. I was going to bed, and a memory from a few years ago popped into my head. It was the final night of a retreat I had attended, and the evening included a nice meal, a little wine, and a celebratory shot with toasts. So I got to chatting with the person seated next to me, who also happened to be a nurse. I don't know what prompted it, but I told her about three similar incidents from my childhood.
The first incident happened when I was six, because it was the day my mother dropped me off for my first day of kindergarten, (which is already traumatic enough.) My mother was pointing out other children, saying things like 'you remember Tommy' and 'look there's Susie.' But I didn't recognize any of them.
In a similar vein, I remember walking home from school, and a car pulled up, and someone asked me if I wanted a ride home, and I said no. Now of course the “don't get in a car with strangers' was in play here, but they could have been the next-door neighbors for all I knew, and I didn't recognize them.
And the third was a birthday party for one of my classmates...A whole room filled with children out of the context in which I knew them – this was agonizing!
When I finished my stories, the woman/nurse just looked at me and said very matter-of-factly “oh, that's face blindness.” My jaw must have hit the floor! When I got home I looked it up, and it is a neurological disorder, with various causes and symptoms. If that's the case, then OF may help with certain situational fear. But my gut is telling me that this might be trauma-induced (at a very young age) and OF v4 may just be the ticket. I'll keep you posted.
I did have my first two days of listening on Thursday & Friday, so I'm on my four days off. So far, pretty quiet.
Nothing on the list really seemed to apply to me. Then I read the line that included Avoidant Personality Disorder, and I was like, “what is that?” I had never heard of it. So I looked up a couple different sites that had definitions and symptoms. Some of the symptoms sounded familiar to me, but the traits/reasons behind the symptoms did not really apply to me much, if at all. I was puzzled...
Until a couple of nights later. I was going to bed, and a memory from a few years ago popped into my head. It was the final night of a retreat I had attended, and the evening included a nice meal, a little wine, and a celebratory shot with toasts. So I got to chatting with the person seated next to me, who also happened to be a nurse. I don't know what prompted it, but I told her about three similar incidents from my childhood.
The first incident happened when I was six, because it was the day my mother dropped me off for my first day of kindergarten, (which is already traumatic enough.) My mother was pointing out other children, saying things like 'you remember Tommy' and 'look there's Susie.' But I didn't recognize any of them.
In a similar vein, I remember walking home from school, and a car pulled up, and someone asked me if I wanted a ride home, and I said no. Now of course the “don't get in a car with strangers' was in play here, but they could have been the next-door neighbors for all I knew, and I didn't recognize them.
And the third was a birthday party for one of my classmates...A whole room filled with children out of the context in which I knew them – this was agonizing!
When I finished my stories, the woman/nurse just looked at me and said very matter-of-factly “oh, that's face blindness.” My jaw must have hit the floor! When I got home I looked it up, and it is a neurological disorder, with various causes and symptoms. If that's the case, then OF may help with certain situational fear. But my gut is telling me that this might be trauma-induced (at a very young age) and OF v4 may just be the ticket. I'll keep you posted.
I did have my first two days of listening on Thursday & Friday, so I'm on my four days off. So far, pretty quiet.
The banquet you enjoy depends on what you bring to the table.
