05-14-2015, 09:06 AM
Well I was wrong, oh well. I figure this post is important anyway. That apathy I talked about a few post down, I've realized it's actually a form of dissociation. When I was younger I'd "check out" to avoid the anxiety because it got so intense at times. This bad habit has followed me into adulthood and if I'm not careful I easily slip back into it. The hardest part is when I dissociate, there's no self growth. It's like pulling out of myself, going on autopilot and doing what needs to be done, but I never address any of the things that might have been triggering the anxiety or negative thoughts. So in essence I've learned to function, but not in a particularly healthy manner.
I think there's definitely a lot of fear still associated with being myself out in the world. And there's been a lack of real exposure because I have that bad habit of dissociating. It's important to face my fears, but I have to make sure I'm actually present when facing them, otherwise I'm just further conditioning my response to dissociate in the face of anxiety. I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that dissociation is why a lot of the times in the past I didn't see a lot of changes when using the subs. It's like a whole system shutdown, pretty much a stonewall approach.
I think there's definitely a lot of fear still associated with being myself out in the world. And there's been a lack of real exposure because I have that bad habit of dissociating. It's important to face my fears, but I have to make sure I'm actually present when facing them, otherwise I'm just further conditioning my response to dissociate in the face of anxiety. I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that dissociation is why a lot of the times in the past I didn't see a lot of changes when using the subs. It's like a whole system shutdown, pretty much a stonewall approach.
