Haven't posted much during 3.3 yet, so I'll post a change in perspective from my private journal:
I'm seeing a pattern in my preemption habits that might finally indicate why DMSI keeps bringing up the subject for me.
I logged in my 3.1 journal (here) how I've had a tendency toward preemption to avoid the stress of others' "needs" (desires) and expectations. If I do it before they ask, I don't have to endure their impatience over something that I never necessarily owed them in the first place (but they insist that I owe them -- and that everyone else owes them -- merely by the nature of their desire for it).
My pattern has tended to be that, if I grant their wish before they make it, I don't need to carry the repeated weight (and badgering) of their desires, starting from their initial request until I've finished. Probably stems from non-stop parental pressure in my formative years.
So I formed two reactions to manage this pressure, depending upon the specific desire-of-the-moment being demanded: 1) if their request passed the test of my own values (up to the point of compromise), do what was wanted before it was wanted, and 2) if their request didn't pass my value test, decide that their request had very little to do with me.
To a degree, I do see this as somewhat healthy, as no man is an island. I can't ignore other people entirely and still expect to interact positively with them, but I can't place them above my own needs either. My coping pattern here isn't perfect, but it does address both sides, even #1 of can lead to short-term stress while #2 can lead to conflict. Of course, if I forget to check with myself on whether or not I'm pre-fulfilling something against my own values, that could be problematic. In most situations, I do check in with myself first, though, I think, as I can and do say no, can debate as respectfully as possible with others on group decisions, and can make unpopular choices easily.
But, this week, I'm seeing something related that I've missed. Much as I preemptively fulfill, I may preemptively punish myself too (in the name of fulfillment). This might also be traced back to parents, both for punishment and pressure reasons. Unfortunately, this specific case looks like it's been getting a free pass not to check in with me before being pre-fulfilled. My parents didn't consult me on whether I deserved punishment, and I may have picked up their habitual discounting of my personal values when punishing me for a breach of their personal values.
Worse still, this all gets warped further by the fact that preemption, no matter its intent or subject matter, is (knowingly) based on speculation, however probable, rather than on reality. I don't know anyone else's values, really; I can only speculate (inaccurately) as to what they are.
What does this have to do with DMSI? Well, I suspect that I'm trying to point out to myself where my 95% no-people-at-all and 5% everybody-at-once social behavior comes from. On one hand, it reduces the stress of people's wants by reducing my contact with them, while still making me feel extremely social when I have the stomach to tolerate those demands. That hand makes it all seem very positive and well-managed. I get to bake my feeling of being very socially active and interactive, all according to my schedule, and I get to eat my lack of stress too. It feels very win-win. But there's the other hand that's been hiding in a pocket somewhere: I may be using the first hand as a seemingly positive way to punish myself. To send myself to my room for 95% of my life, only letting myself out 5% of the time for good behavior.
It's possible that I'm letting some degree of social self-imprisonment occur due to a fully operational (punishment-related) gate in my peer-pressure fence that I didn't know that I'd built, all because I'd gotten used to not being consulted on my own past punishments. And I may be feeding imaginary punishments through that gate, based on the speculation inherent in trying to pre-fulfill what isn't actually being requested.
And, because, in pre-fulfilling, I got to choose the punishment myself (sort of an unnoticed second exception to the first exception where I forget to consult myself, possibly also due to how my childhood punishments worked), I could make it a pleasant-but-strict one (without making sure that it was a necessary one first). So, forgetting to verify the need for punishment while also effectively disguising the punishment as a reward.
Others, particularly those who feel pain from rejection, abandonment, or loneliness more easily than I do, may see isolation as unbearable punishment, while I find it a relief from others' selfish demands. An analogy for me to make sense of this for others might be something along the lines of a gamer choosing to punish themselves by playing a slightly older version of their favorite video game to show that they were suffering, while still rewarding themselves with their favorite game (as it was before the new version turned the old one into a "punishment").
So, at this point, I'm beginning to question how much is or isn't self-punishment, despite how enjoyable the punishment might seem.
I'm seeing a pattern in my preemption habits that might finally indicate why DMSI keeps bringing up the subject for me.
I logged in my 3.1 journal (here) how I've had a tendency toward preemption to avoid the stress of others' "needs" (desires) and expectations. If I do it before they ask, I don't have to endure their impatience over something that I never necessarily owed them in the first place (but they insist that I owe them -- and that everyone else owes them -- merely by the nature of their desire for it).
My pattern has tended to be that, if I grant their wish before they make it, I don't need to carry the repeated weight (and badgering) of their desires, starting from their initial request until I've finished. Probably stems from non-stop parental pressure in my formative years.
So I formed two reactions to manage this pressure, depending upon the specific desire-of-the-moment being demanded: 1) if their request passed the test of my own values (up to the point of compromise), do what was wanted before it was wanted, and 2) if their request didn't pass my value test, decide that their request had very little to do with me.
To a degree, I do see this as somewhat healthy, as no man is an island. I can't ignore other people entirely and still expect to interact positively with them, but I can't place them above my own needs either. My coping pattern here isn't perfect, but it does address both sides, even #1 of can lead to short-term stress while #2 can lead to conflict. Of course, if I forget to check with myself on whether or not I'm pre-fulfilling something against my own values, that could be problematic. In most situations, I do check in with myself first, though, I think, as I can and do say no, can debate as respectfully as possible with others on group decisions, and can make unpopular choices easily.
But, this week, I'm seeing something related that I've missed. Much as I preemptively fulfill, I may preemptively punish myself too (in the name of fulfillment). This might also be traced back to parents, both for punishment and pressure reasons. Unfortunately, this specific case looks like it's been getting a free pass not to check in with me before being pre-fulfilled. My parents didn't consult me on whether I deserved punishment, and I may have picked up their habitual discounting of my personal values when punishing me for a breach of their personal values.
Worse still, this all gets warped further by the fact that preemption, no matter its intent or subject matter, is (knowingly) based on speculation, however probable, rather than on reality. I don't know anyone else's values, really; I can only speculate (inaccurately) as to what they are.
What does this have to do with DMSI? Well, I suspect that I'm trying to point out to myself where my 95% no-people-at-all and 5% everybody-at-once social behavior comes from. On one hand, it reduces the stress of people's wants by reducing my contact with them, while still making me feel extremely social when I have the stomach to tolerate those demands. That hand makes it all seem very positive and well-managed. I get to bake my feeling of being very socially active and interactive, all according to my schedule, and I get to eat my lack of stress too. It feels very win-win. But there's the other hand that's been hiding in a pocket somewhere: I may be using the first hand as a seemingly positive way to punish myself. To send myself to my room for 95% of my life, only letting myself out 5% of the time for good behavior.
It's possible that I'm letting some degree of social self-imprisonment occur due to a fully operational (punishment-related) gate in my peer-pressure fence that I didn't know that I'd built, all because I'd gotten used to not being consulted on my own past punishments. And I may be feeding imaginary punishments through that gate, based on the speculation inherent in trying to pre-fulfill what isn't actually being requested.
And, because, in pre-fulfilling, I got to choose the punishment myself (sort of an unnoticed second exception to the first exception where I forget to consult myself, possibly also due to how my childhood punishments worked), I could make it a pleasant-but-strict one (without making sure that it was a necessary one first). So, forgetting to verify the need for punishment while also effectively disguising the punishment as a reward.
Others, particularly those who feel pain from rejection, abandonment, or loneliness more easily than I do, may see isolation as unbearable punishment, while I find it a relief from others' selfish demands. An analogy for me to make sense of this for others might be something along the lines of a gamer choosing to punish themselves by playing a slightly older version of their favorite video game to show that they were suffering, while still rewarding themselves with their favorite game (as it was before the new version turned the old one into a "punishment").
So, at this point, I'm beginning to question how much is or isn't self-punishment, despite how enjoyable the punishment might seem.
