And repeat as necessary.


It’s been an illuminating week and a half to be sure. Between spilling my guts, (here, here, and here, if you’d like a crash course recap), and being in contact with people from far and wide on the subject of depression, therapy, honesty, self evaluation and the like, I’ve inadvertently begun the process of rewiring my brain from the top down.

As I’ve said previously, I don’t presume this is going to be either a quick or painless process, but having finally touched on a set of concepts that I can begin to address, I feel like I at least now have direction, where for years previously I had none.

And in processing all of this newly acquired information, I had a pants-dropper of a realization. Some folks might recall this post in which I describe a defense mechanism I developed early on.

In short, because I felt intellectually inadequate, I beat any would-be attackers to the punch by kicking the shit out of myself first. In some instances it may have been physical abuse (which unto itself is another story entirely, and one that it would seem continues to this day), but more often than not, it was emotional.

I (figuratively) cut myself to the quick before anyone else had a chance to, and this has been my mode of operation for decades. Fast forward to the last three posts, and I’ve recently realized by recognizing and displaying some of my most securely closeted skeletons, I inadvertently took the power away from anyone I might fear would use it against me.

Displaying my fears, self doubt, and general pain, is the exact inverse of my years of self flagellation, but with the added benefit of actually being productive.

Moreover, having made all of this available for public consumption (as well as potential scorn) is hands down the punkest things I’ve ever done. You wanna know what finally running out of fucks to give looks like? From my perspective, just like this.

Second to this, it was just yesterday when I learned the term ‘metacognitive dialog’.

met·a·cog·ni·tion

/ˌmedəˌkäɡˈniSH(ə)n

noun PSYCHOLOGY

noun: metacognition; noun: meta-cognition

Awareness and understanding of one’s own thought processes.

I think this means an internal discussion with oneself, upon finally beginning to understand one’s own thought process.

The benefit of this is that once you start having this conversation, you very literally begin to rewire neural pathways, resulting in the eventual alteration of one’s own perception. In this case, it’s my own perception of myself, which up until this point has always been less than favorable.

But I will say one thing, in light of these recent realizations, epiphanies, breakthroughs, and declarations, and as I said on Tuesday, at long last I finally have something to hold onto, and a direction in which to swim.

This is a huge victory, and one that I can now at least try to accept all responsibility for achieving. Do I deserve it? I do. Am I worthy of it? I believe I am.

And even if I’m not entirely convinced, I will keep repeating it until it becomes truth.

Spread this like it's sick

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8 Responses to “And repeat as necessary.”

  1. Selene February 28, 2019 at 6:45 am #

    Amen.

  2. Sue February 28, 2019 at 7:59 am #

    Sounds as if you have a new mantra; bully for you! ?
    Momsue

  3. JP February 28, 2019 at 9:46 am #

    somebody along the way re-wrote the first vow of buddhism in a way that makes sense to me:

    beings are numberless, I vow to save them FROM MY BULLSHIT

    applies to yourself too!

  4. Loren March 1, 2019 at 1:17 am #

    Yeah, man!

  5. mattz March 1, 2019 at 10:53 am #

    excellent. oh, and yeah you DEFINITELY deserve it and are worthy of it.

  6. David Green March 3, 2019 at 9:09 am #

    Damn Stevil.
    Thank you thank you thank for sharing all this with us. I’m a practicing therapist and I always tell my clients how brave they are to share some of their most difficult feelings and thoughts with me, and indeed to even say them out loud at all. You’ve made a really bold decision to share this with all the folks who come to this site. But then again you’ve created and cultivated a really good community here, so I’d say you have pretty good reason to think this would be just the place to process these kinda things. Anyhow, thanks again.

  7. Ghostshipmatt March 3, 2019 at 1:27 pm #

    Hey Steve,

    Congrats, man. You are absolutely worth it, and it makes me happy to hear that you are making progress. I love you, my friend!

  8. Dr. Benjamin John Tobias March 3, 2019 at 9:14 pm #

    Life is mostly terrible, and ultimately meaningless. I’ve been having difficulty living up to my responsibilities, my general practitioner put me on Wellbutrin and asked me to see a local psychiatric nurse practitioner who insinuated I may be a sociopath and shamed me about not loving my parents or my kids.

    Do not run from it.
    Do not hide from it.
    Entropy will win out in the end.
    Chaos reigns.
    Darkness will surround you,
    for eternity.

    This week I was thinking a lot about how much I miss skydiving.