kid mongo wrote:covertmetaphor wrote:Desteni is either schizophrenic or has a solid understanding of human psychology. I'm opting for the latter. My first impression was that she saw through all the bullshit and was just spitting it back, most likely for her own amusement. Sounds fun to me.
Why schitzophrenic?
Human psychology is very easy to understand. Its starting point is based on fear.
LOvecraft said that the oldest of human emotions is fear, and the most powerful fear is fear of the unknown. But that is a totally useless quote, right?
our behavior and our psycho physiology creates and destroys knowledge, and they also create and destroy "demons" and "angels". Or, rather, they turn demons into angels and angels into demons. Everything gets transmuted in one way or another when you consciously start to work with the physical brain in the ways I will describe, namely with the amygdala.
Any psycho physiologist who knows their stuff will ultimitely agree that confronting your fears and letting them wash over you, while at the same time consciously making those fears, and the thoughts and sensations associated with them, as bad as humanly possible, will literally reprogram the amygdala to be non anxious and unafraid very rapidly. This is a scientific fact, and I know from experience that it works. This is not a fancy form of escapism from moments of actual clear and present danger. What I am about to describe is a methos of freeing the mind from terrible amounts of worry, stress, obsession, anxiety and the mother of it all.....fear of fear.
Remember that saying "there is nothing to fear but fear itself"? Honestly, look at how odd that statement is. It doesnt make sense, none whatsoever. Why would you be frightened of being frightened or have fear of fear? This is the very same vicious cycle that many people find themselves in which needs to be broken and dissolved. Why would someone, like a president, shout this over loud speakers and over television to millions upon millions of people? Think about that. These are not words of wisdom. They are words of a lunatic no matter who is saying it and you will soon find out why.
We have the gift of consciousness, but how often do we really use this gift? Very often people find themselves to be slaves to their own autonomous hinde brain for refusing to confront the unconscious mind with their conscious behavior. Behavior is the only thing that the hinde brain understands. You cannot fight the hinde brain, and you cannot yell and raise hell over your amygdala torturing you with its learned behavioral conditions. Actually, you CAN, but this is the vicious cycle I just mentioned. You are frightened of being frightened, you are angry at being angry, etc., etc.. This will not solve, cure, help or free anyone from this cage of behavior. Bar by bar the amygdala has learned to be this way, so in reality it is only doing its job by recording and reflecting back what you feed into it. It is autonomous. It records memories and records behavior through operant conditioning.
Operant conditioning is what you use when you are learning to drive a car, learning a new language or learning to play an instrument. You get better with repetition. But, we need to realize there are two sides to this coin. Just as you can learn and get very proficient with any passion you may have by constantly emmersing yourself into it, you can also learn and get very proficient at behaving irrationally with severe detriment to your mind and body. Often, once this process has begun, the "sufferer" feels as if they have been cursed by god, have been dealt a bad physiological card, or are just suffering from a certain "disease" or "illness" like anxiety, panic attacks, OCD, phobias and so on. These are not illnesses and they are most certainly not diseases. They are behavioral conditions.
Obviously, once you have absorbed this information that I am presenting, it may be as if you are seeing the world for the first time with new vigour and resolve to take control. This onion of behavior that is wrapped around the amygdala can dictate peoples actions, thoughts, lifestyles and so on into infinity. There is no bottom to this pit, and if you have half a brain cell you can see how governments use this psychology on the masses. Psychos using psycology. Can it get more insane than that? But I am digressing. Your power lies in your ability to consciously and bravely take the reigns of your own mind, brain and body. And now it comes to that horrible word.....responsibility. You are responsible for your actions and not just in a karmic way, but in a very real and physical way. This is how the brain works, and ones conscious behaviors are like the power lines that connect the conscious and the unconscious mind. It is very much a two way street. One cannot escape this, though many have tried to their utter ruin. That is, to live a life on the constant offensive and to see it about to strike at any moment, or that the universe is sneeking up behind you to say BOO. They call the hinde brain the reptilian brain for a reason. When it is in control of you, instead of you being consciously in control of it, you do not blink, you do not think, and you see nearly everything as a threat. And I do mean everything. Every thought, sensation, situation, memory...everything and anything. The amygdala, through operant conditioning, has been switched to anxiety ON...24/7, day in and day out, until you die. That is unless you take control.
There are many things to keep in mind and to pay strict attention to during this "process of recovery". Many times people have a poor diet which in turn makes the body very acidic which in turn may let the mind have grotesque but very imaginative fantasies about itself. Nutrition is important, but it takes a very firm second to ones own behavior. Someone else may have a very poor diet but still may be as jolly as old saint nick while still having a good dose of colon cancer. He is rotting from the inside out but he is content and happy. Why? Because we need to focus on behavior, consciousness, and the mechanisms of the physical brain. Think about it. When have you ever "talked" yourself out of an irrational and physically arresting fear? Never. You cannot rationalize the irrational. But what you can do is behavioraly take control over your life, immediately. Understand what is happening, understand what these disturbing thoughts are, understand where they come from, and understand what you have to do to reverse it right now.
Some people, and I know that you know at least one, worry so much that it just gets annoying after a point. They worry so much that they even begin to fear that their worry alone will literally create the situation they are worrying about!! I have heard this over and over. What I tell these people is what I am telling you. The more you understand what is happening in the physical brain the more you will be able to say "I know what this is, it feels horrible, but I choose to ignore it and go about my business. This is just a behavioral conditon that I have fed the amygdala over many years, and it is time to change my behavior,to re route the nueral pathways that say "I have anxiety", and it is time to take control of this sitution right now"....and forever. This is a firm decision you must make. You either decide to do this or not to do it. It really is that simple and anyone can do this. Speaking of which, let me introduce you to who I was four years ago.
I was then who I am now. I loved the internet, I loved to read, I loved good conversation and good people, and I loved to listen to and create music, but let me just say I was very affected by the condition that I have just described. No, I didnt find jesus, and no I did not find a miracle drug. What I did find is how the brain actually works. Up until the point of this discovery I was ravaged by panic attacks and anxiety and was taking up to five difference medications at once. Medications like valium, buspar, flurazepam, remeron, and xanax. Ill admit, there is immediate relief, but all these pills really did was mask the symptoms while allowing the condition itself to go septic. After a few months the anxiety was so horrid I was looking for alteranitive methods. I tried Reiki but that obviously was not my bag. Within a minute of being on the table, with the woman waving her hands over my solar plexus, it felt like something was trying to rip out of my stomache and I jumped of the table saying "thanks but no thanks". When I would run out of valium I would go to the liqour store, buy a big bottle of 18 year old Jameson, and start drinking to the point of seriously making my family afraid of me. I didnt care because I DID NOT want to have another panic attack. Then, in the morning during my hangover, I would have yet another extremely debilitating panic attack just like all the others. This is the definition of hell if there ever was one.
How did I change it? I fearlessly confronted it and said "bring it on". It took a while at first for this to soak in. I said to myself "do I really have to confront this make it as bad as I possibly can on purpose?" Truth be known, yes. I stopped taking all my pills immediately and started to bite my time until the next panic attack would arise, and when it finally came and started to wash over me , instead of fighting it, I bit it as hard as I possibly could. All the sensations, all the thoughts, all the fears, and all the phenomena that took place I chose to experience. Not only did I choose to be in that situation, but I made that situation as horrible, abbhorent, sick, and as terrible as I could imagine. I cannot describe the depths that I traversed. In these depths the I consciously took myself through there were many permutations of my fear, both physical and psychological. The visions flashing across my mind while putting myself through this are left for Lovecraft novels. But, there is a trick to my victory. That trick is that I consciously, behaviorally, and willingly took myself to this place and when I came out the other side it collapsed into nothing. I watched the sun rise that morning and was laughing at the sheer beauty of it. I was looking at the trees, the birds, and the sunlight pouring into my house with absolute conviction that this was the last time I would ever be here, and this was the last time I would ever have to go through this again. I was laughing. I was laughing the laugh of a warrior standing on top of everything that had just been defeated. I will tell you that it really felt like I was painting the world with my eyes. Everything I looked upon exploded with color and life, and it tickled. I never had another panic attack, and my anxiety abated and went away.
Now, this methos can be applied to anything, not just chronic anxiety, OCD, and panic conditions. It takes consciousness to do it, and it takes awareness of your actions. I did not just give up and say "finally, all done". Yes, the worst was over, and I had finally overcome the deepest depths of my fears and experienced one of the most exalting moments of my life, but in reality there was much residual anxiety to supplant. It was regimental for me to relax and enjoy life, to get sunlight, to eat right and drink refreshing water, and to totally negate irrational worries. Again, this is not about escapism from actual things that you would naturally worry about, this about retrainging the amygdala to be non anxious and un afraid. It is about not fearing fear.
The only thing to fear is fear itself? Why would anyone say that? I would fear a tiger in the bushes before I would ever fear the fear. If someone stuck a gun in my face I would be in fear. But, why in the hell would I be in fear because of fear....even if I am just sitting in my own goddamn house? This statement needs to be seriously analysed. These are not just some "brave words" by some "brave man."
I can wait to see this incisive display of bovine intellectualism! Moo.