Random solutions to a an invisible riddle

[LionKing]

New thread. Still waiting on Overcome anxiety, but it seems likely I'll be running more AM in some form soon.

First related post is HERE.

The refresher seems to be treating me well so far. At work I'm definitely more decisive and even somewhat commanding, though it's still just some subtle subcommunication and not barking orders or bashing people. I had the thought yesterday that I do like my life - it seems that hasn't actually been clear since I've been feeling so out of control lately.

Interestingly it seems either I'm more social, or people talk to be more in a light fun casual way. I'm not feeling particularly social, so it could an effect of them acting out the slightly increased tension and respect. Or it could be that I'm not so overly anxious about performing socially, so now it's easier. Its just odd that socializing feels so much simpler and easier on AM than on DMSI. Especially on B I didn't talk at all - felt so weird I was just starting at people.

After work I have been tired and feeling some despair over how everything is so hard and to hard, somehow. It does pass when I go into it and experience it for a while. Also noticed something I used to do on AM before: if at first I'm feeling solid and then I'll start to lose that feeling, I'll try to maintain it and the effects by toughening up. Now I clearly identify that as resistance, and I'll search for the underlying negative feeling that I'm toughening up against. So in a way I guess all this healing and learning to feel does help, at least in this way.

[LionKing]

Ps. Sadly, it really seems computers are beginning to be outdated. I always have to type the post on the cell phone nowadays, because if there is a spot that I have time, then its highly likely I'll not be at my computer. Wrote these using the swyping style.

[LionKing]

AM refresher seems very potentially and I had good effects... so naturally I stopped it to do something else. I'm on OF 5G, day 6 now.

AM felt like a power sub, and I will return to it sooner or later for sure. Felt in control, centered, driven, aggressive, and sexy. Definitely back on track. Noticed that I was suddenly drawn to stretch and use my body and meditate, which I did not feel in the preceding months.

But after thinking about for a couple of days, fear is everywhere for me, and I'm always just trying to tolerate it. To resist and deal with all the performance anxiety, stress, social anxiety, conflicting goals. Fear of not being able to keep everyone happy, which I further traced to the thought "unless I can keep them happy, everyone will abandon me". Also for general interest I want to see how pure OF works, having already done E2 and OGSF. I'm thinking if I can clearly reduce the fear of emotions, and especially others seeing me experiencing negative emotions, I should be much better off.

So far, OF was slower to start showing or me feeling its effects. AM was day 1, OF maybe day 3. Now that I know I'm processing, I feel this is the right program for now. Not comfortable, but I don't really mind.

Stress levels at work are absolute crazy this week. Last night I dreamt I was in a group and we were all taking a math test. I was half-way through, then went to the bathroom, then they told me I can't continue after that and my test was the done. Feeling badly pissed and trapped because I could perform up to me best, and now everyone would think I suck. Seemed appropriate.

[LionKing]

OF, Day 15

Good stuff. Very "Feel the fear and do it anyway". Maybe a J type would have more of the latter response (do), but for me (P) it tends to be a lot of feeling the fear. In fact, yesterday I was thinking that ok, well, at least this gives me something to "do" (feeling is exploring is doing).

Right now I'm trying to learn to talk to others, communicate with others, and just act in the world, from the mental and physical location where I feel the fear the most. That sort of makes the fear a non-issue (since I seek rather than avoid the experience of it).. but only sort of, since I can be so engulfed in it that from the outside I'm likely quite passive. It does negate any brain fog, and I feel my vision and eyes are quite clear when I do that. Being afraid makes me tired, though.

[LionKing]

OF, day 20

Yeah, its going well. By well I mean I mean I kinda feel some fear all the time, but in general I think I'm progressing.

At work I find myself taking on challenges a lot more boldly - like I used to before, in much smaller circles back then. Also at home.. we're fighting a lot less. I'm pretty sure she's somehow being affected by tge program, even though I listen with headphones at night, quietly, and often she even has earplugs on herself. (And NO, I do not snore.)

Hard to say, but in general I feel like I'm on the right track - but also that its gonna take a while.

[LionKing]

OF Day 27

Easily irritated and confrontational. Time does not fly when on this sub. I keep checking how many days in I am, at least once every day. But, definitely want to keep going.

Worried about the gf, since it seems she's being affected and not coping very well. It'd seem highly unlikely that she would be, but then again not sure if I believe it can be a coincidence (placebo on my part) either, AND I really want to keep going myself, so I'm feeling conflicted.

Feeling pushed when every night everything is going wrong, then feeling work stress clearly etc. Constant drain. For example, last night I dreamt that I was banging some hooker who later told me I was a horrible person for doing something to her, and pretty sure I got into other arguments over it in the dream as well. Lots of work-related dreams of stuff going somehow wrong in multiple ways at the same time.

Feeling fear makes me want to embrace it or attack it. Also makes me feel very clear headed. Its like a beacon if I feel someone's being an ass to me and I detect that tinge of fear of confrontation, I get the juices flowing and in my mind I go "ok, let's fight then." and turn into it. I probably have some stuff going on - maybe its that bunch of past experiences that make me subconsciously think everyone's going to attack me, or threaten to attack me that causes a lot of my social anxiety and uncertainty in any case, and I want to confront them on it. I know its usually not a real challenge though. Journey it is, I suppose.

[LionKing]

ARA 5.5G, Day 3

I did was OF 5G for some 34 days. The process of it was in full swing, and definitely still unfinished. What it seems to do is to point out the fear is everything quite obviously, and then you just slug through it. I was expecting a lot of nightly scares and paranoia and such, but I really only got one scare dream that I remember - a spider dropped on my head. Otherwise its about everything going wrong - about what you fear could happen. Its quite tiring, and I think I might be giving off bad vibes because I expect I have to struggle with everyone, and I know I have been short with people. Also wake up tense every morning. But this is the stuff I am normally tiring myself out unconsciously avoiding, so its good to face it. The drawback is that it has now become my main hobby to just explore all kinds of fear-feelings I find - not a very active way of living.

The thought of ARA has been growing on me, and I wanted to try it. I think you never know what a program will really be like for you until you try it. Don't really have much to say yet. The dreams have been similar these first nights - facing anxious situations. This is likely just my imagination at this point, but I'd expect ARA to be more about "I feel anxious know, doing something, because I think maybe something bad could happen" vs OF is "my fears came true and all this nasty stuff IS happening - now how do I face it". The drawback to the latter is you may start to develop a kind of grim attitude because you'll always assume the worst will happen, and then begin to mount your brave counter offence early. In a fiction novel, the main character said anger is my shield against fear... (later) ... the way to defeat way is with reason. In this I think it could be good to realize the probabilities and real costs of things and choices, then drop this anxiety and relax and enjoy and succeed.

[LionKing]

Ran ARA 5.5G till Day 26 (yesterday). I like it. Having now tried both, I'd recommend it over OF5G. Some notes:
+ It was never instant relief for me. More like when the was playing I'd encounter the anxiety (build up), and then the relief came later. But this one was more clearly aimed at that relief, whereas OF felt like the Sims was always towards the next battle.
+ Still have plenty of work stress, but I have noticed that its more that I stress because there's so much I want to do and problems I want to solve and stuff I want to achieve (instantly), whereas before I felt that underneath but it was masked with this anxiety that I cannot do this and I feel that the cost of making mistakes is somehow less now. I'll kinda jump into things a little more without the preliminary worry about whether or not I'll succeed.
+ Its going much, much better with the gf as compared to when i was on OF. Finally relaxing a little more. But there are so many factors that this is just an observation.

Definite at least another month would've been good. But I feel like gambling a bit, and started on SE lady night. I'm thing either it might dig into the reasons why I feel like I have to always perform so we'll, and improve socially a lot because I've identified for done time ago already that I believe that people don't really like me - and that I push and reject etc against that assumption by default. Or it might not do that much at all, in which case I can return to ARA or DMSI .2.

Merry Christmas to all of you!

[DarkPlouf]

Hope SE does wonder for you. I will jump into it at the end of the month so I am looking forward to your journal.

[Have at ye]

Yeah, neurotic pressure to perform (and the resultant anxiety) one enforces on oneself is directly tied into self-esteem issues, I think. Basically of the "I base my self-esteem on how others value me" type, resulting in "my sense of self-esteem requires constant reinforcement from outside/other people".

Enjoy your run of SE!

[LionKing]

Have at ye - agreed on all but the last sentence which is imprecise-enough to be misleading in my case.

Cause you gotta factor in that I despise approval-seeking behavior, especially in myself, so going around constantly asking for that reinforcement would absolutely kill my self-esteem. What I do instead is I feel I'm constantly needing that approval from myself. I think how that works is I mostly reject approval from outside (or assume its not given), and then to compensate for that I have some sort of levels of values that I set for myself, so that if I live up to them I could feel good enough without other's approval. So I guess I assume "real" approval (approval that is not given with a purpose to get something back) won't be given, so I've deduced that if I'm somehow "better" (e.g. more skillful) than the ones not approving me, then I don't need to give a fuck what they think.

With dating, that manifested in me (seemingly) not really caring much about how individuals perceived me, but aspiring to build that skill or appeal or mojo that'd get the approval from myself. But its very much based on comparison - I'm just comparing myself to an unreachable image of what I "should" be.

So with others, I'm not easily motivated by gaining approval, but I am annoyingly-easily manipulated to avoid disapproval or guilt. Which, coincidentally, was my mom's MO when I was growing up.

Anyway, SE could be good! Not expecting it to be that fast-acting, though.

[LionKing]

SE, Day 12.

I don't know, I like it. Just feels slightly right, somehow. I've noticed that the sound of the track doesn't really bother me at all on plugs at night - often i even enjoy it - whereas before I've often gotten annoyed with it.

Could also just be this new year's resolution time and backslash from all the eating that was going on at Christmas, but me and the gf have both been streering to a clearly healthier direction during this last week. Just came from the gym now, and likely restarting a hobby of mine soon. The gf seems to be giving me more space, and has had some related thoughts of her own as well.

Mostly SE has been a gentle experience so far, and I at least want to day that I've had less worries about appearing this out that way in general. There have been maybe two or three rough days, though, where I've just been feeling down. But I like it - happy to continue.

[LionKing]

SE, Day 50

I still like SE. For a moment there it got to feeling like I had gotten all I could from - like nothing was happening anymore. Then I got sick (bad flu), and I was mostly feeling somehow too pressured and down, so I took 2 or 3 nights off. Coming back SE felt better again. Now its... idk, its always subtle, but it always feels like there's probably something good going on, behind the scenes.

I think SE is a program that kinda supports me being me, and not caring to much about what I "shouldn't" be doing (because it's not my place) it something like that. It can also have a slight isolating effect because I'm an intro type, so if I don't feel the need to keep pushing myself to me more social (which I think I feel I should be, just to be a higher-quality person or something), then I can just ignore that a lot and keep doing stuff on my own. But on the other hand, socializing is also getting easier because I'm not trying to be louder or dominant than I happen to be atm, so it's easier to talk "person to person".

Sex drive had been really low, and I just haven't been really interested. Except now really lately, now its been going up for a couple of days. Yes, could be TID, but could also just be me recovering from the sickness, gf cycle, placebo about the possibility of, expectation of 3.2, etc.

Looking forward to DMSI again - a little more excitement in the social area. But I would definitely not be going wrong with just continuing with SE. It feels good to question myself less on what kind of activities I "should" do more, and what I "should" be interested in more. I notice I tend to read and try out some more nerdy stuff, and even game a little without feeling bad for it after. Also I like exercising now a lot because it's more like I'm just doing something interesting again, and not making myself sexier or smt more ego-based and trying to reach for that validation.

[LionKing]

Now about a week "dry" from SE, some days before that with 4/6 loops. Liked it, would recommend for a long-term program. Now waiting for 3.2.