Do you think there is a space for people to respect your thought process and help you while not joining you and not resenting you for it?
Is the only way that you can get the emotional support you feel you need by having other people join you in taking the same measures that you are taking so that you feel less lonely or can people support you in your thought process and doing what you think is right for you and your family without coming to the same conclusions about what they should do for themselves?
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I can relate a little to how you are feeling johnny. My (probably much smaller) circle has been telling me to lighten up for a while. But, when I explained myself calmly and thoroughly (and repeatedly) that there are certain risks to my health and the health of others that I simply will not take, and established a clear boundary, that helped things a lot.
I dunno if it would help you because you’re much more established than I am but I basically have set certain boundaries throughout the last few years with most people I know. “This is who I am, this is what I believe, feel free to come along, but if not, feel free fo fuck off.”
And surprisingly, a lot came along for the ride. But I feel people give me a pass on a lot of things because of my mental health issues.
Sorry if this is extraordinarily unhelpful I just wanted to say I very much understand to some small degree the kind of pressure you must be under.
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Has anything helped you let go of the need to persuade them and instead just assert the boundary?
I find it supernaturally difficult to allow myself anything unless I can persuade myself/the other person it’s justified.
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I’ve heard people describe the “need to be right” and that always felt wrong (heh) for me because I never cared about ME being right, I just wanted us all to come to the best conclusion together. Don’t we all want to feel safe? Taking a break from that relentless process–be that me or the people around me–feels like a betrayal.
This comes a little bit more from my addiction background, but one thing that comes up in almost every twelve-step group is our addiction to excitement/stimulation. We are infinitely curious and capable of manifesting knowledge and meaning anywhere we look. But that also means that simpler things bore the fuck out of us. And few things are worse for an addict than the feeling of boredom.
It pushes us to relentlessly pursue stuff like this and then feel so frustrated when the people around us don’t hitch onto our wagon and race at the same pace. For me, that’s the harm I do to people by pursuing a healthy passion with so few limits that it’s no longer healthy.
Not saying this isn’t in part accurate, but it seems at odds with
Meaningfully considering your POV is more than a little at odds with also asking the other person to meaningfully consider the objective truth of it. The latter forces them to confront any similarities/differences in themselves, which is almost always going to come across as though they are fighting YOU, but they aren’t. They may not know the difference themselves. It just feels that way because they were pushed into an internal conflict and now guess who is to blame… 
I dunno if this would help you, but for me, it made a huge difference to do sort of what jmakin described with his boundaries and just be clear what I am asking for from the other person.
- I am asking for you to meaningfully engage with how I arrived at my position
After that, I may wish to discuss
- How you arrived at a similar/different position
and
- What we might learn from each other
I have to be clear with myself about that stuff before I even say anything or I can really quickly get pulled into trying to have all three conversations at once.
Thanks for coming to talk with us. We care about you and are just fine with you not being okay for a while.
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It probably goes back to when I came out to my family as an atheist after my dad died, when there was no reason to hide it anymore (it would have destroyed him). There was a lot of backlash and I really had to stand up for myself and what I believed in. At first, I felt a strong need to persuade others of my positions and why what I was doing was the right thing for me. I had to tell some people to get out of my life because they wouldn’t stop trying to convert me. But after a while I realized some things just cannot be reconciled and it was pointless to fight, so I made somewhat of an unofficial truce with my family that I will never change, and neither will they, so let’s just coexist with this reality.
Now in the trump era I have had another one of these confrontational moments where I’ve had to set boundaries and cut ties again. Now, I don’t really cut people totally off, but I just limit my interaction with them. I’ve had to do this with my step-grandma. She knows it, and it hurts her, but I just cannot really comfortably associate with anyone who has shown themselves not to just be racist, but viciously racist, among other things.
A lot of people outted themselves in the last few years, hell, even in the last year. You have to stand true to what YOU believe and not compromise. If they don’t understand why you’re doing it - I dunno, to me, it just feels like my sanity and morality is more valuable than their comprehension of it.
The result has been what I said this kind of uneasy truce where we just don’t talk about these things, ever. Which is fine. I don’t think you should discuss politics or religion with anyone you genuinely care about, unless you’re in LOCKSTEP agreement. If not, just leave it be. If they can’t leave it be, then byebye. That was my boundary. I just ask for the same respect I give to them. If they can’t respect me - why on earth do I owe them to convince them that what I am doing is justified and rational?
Setting the boundary is the important step there though. If you can establish a strong boundary, and people step over it, you know that they don’t respect you. Without that boundary you’re just left guessing.
I dunno if any of that made sense but this is something I’ve been dealing with for over a decade and it’s just such a natural way of thinking for me now that I don’t even consider that other people have a hard time with it. It’s left me a little isolated, but I rather surround myself with people who respect and care about me for who I am and what I believe rather than people who stomp all over it.
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Thank you for your post.
This part in particular shows me what piece I am sometimes contributing to the problem. I need to let go of these things when it’s clear we’re just playing the greatest hits.
I had some serious anxiety attacks when I started going outside again. Took some exposure before I felt comfortable going out for longer than a few minutes.
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Yea, covid stuff is a weird situation that I’ve been navigating as well. I’ve held very strong but also seen people I care about doing reckless and dangerous things. I worry about them and the people they’re probably hurting. But like, I can only control my own behavior, not theirs. I have to live with that or go crazy.
People have been pretty respectful to me about my quarantine choices. Relatives wanted to come to my house to drop off gifts on christmas and I would not allow anyone inside and said I expected masks to be worn. They complied. So thankfully I’ve had a fairly easy job with my family, despite knowing people I care deeply about are acting extremely recklessly and stupidly. Friends on the other hand have been a lot more difficult (but still understanding about it).
All I can really do is cross my fingers and hope nothing bad happens to them. Trying to convince them they’re wrong just feels pointless. If they ask my opinion, I’ll gladly give it, but they don’t care.
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Were they something you experienced in the before times?
I think it is definitely more about going from low stimulation, high familiarity environments and situations to higher stimulation, lower familiarity.
Looking back now. The other trips out since lockdown were just a few hours, and those were super familiar situations (go to a cafe, shop, etc) and even then i always came back drained with a feeling of “i have done a lot today”
I guess it makes sense. Our brains have deeply adjusted to a certain way of living. Suddenly being exposed to a new environment and a little stress probably feels to my brain like im being chased by a lion for 8 hours, in contrast.
So apparently its a thing that has a name.
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For sure! I’ll try to include an example or two that might be more relevant for you.
I must also tell you that being specific is my kryptonite so thanks for your patience if you need to ask for me to be more specific again.
- Sales: A precise objective makes the difference in achieving anything or nothing.
For example, objectives can be divided into three categories: brand awareness, engagement, persuasion.
Each of these objectives may feed into each other but often need a unique strategy for each objective. The strategy you take to persuade someone to buy your product is different than the strategy you take to increase their awareness of or desire for the product. And those too are different than the strategy you’d take to close the sale.
We all hope to find that magic bullet that accomplishes everything at once, but that’s vanity. You can transition between them and create strategies that are so complementary that they don’t immediately sabotage each other, but again, these are all different things.
So with your family, you are trying to do all three at once and thus defeating them all at once.
- A few days ago, my partner said something that hurt my feelings.
The unhealthy way I used to come at this is immediately debating whether her action was right or wrong. It wasn’t personal to me. We all want to do better, right? But that’s not the conversation the other person experiences when I talk to them like that.
What I need (but may not feel compelled to pursue LOL) is first to just ask her to confirm she cares about how I’m affected. She understands now that this is not an insult. Merely hearing the words makes all the difference for me.
Then I ask her to help me explore why that hurt my feelings. This is a blameless assessment and empowers us to more easily discuss what we both contributed to the situation, though the focus may remain on what I’m experiencing and what contributes to this that she has nothing to do with.
Keep in mind now that none of this involves the question of whether her actions were right or wrong. What we both value is each other’s well-being and the well-being of our relationship.
I feel the same approach has helped me with COVID. I don’t need the other person to agree with my standards in order for them to work with me to find a mutually satisfying compromise. I don’t need the other person to agree with my COVID precautions in order to acknowledge that they are important to me and my well-being.
It’s a tougher conversation if they are unwilling or unable to explore a mutually satisfying solution, but at least then we’re clear that this isn’t about being right or wrong. This is about taking care of each other, and I’ll be just as kind in trying to find a solution that’s good for them too.
- I think because so few people were willing to talk things through with me, I compulsively reach to be the person who is ALWAYS willing to talk things through with the other person.
Like when the tire goes flat. Do I really need to spend an hour talking to whoever was driving about the best way to change the tire?
But when I read your description of the situation, I imagine you being hyper-aware of what led to the tire going flat, why that’s dangerous, how much damage and death might happen next time if you don’t figure this out…
It’s a heavy price of admission when maybe they’d be more receptive if you started off just asking them to talk without needing to reach a conclusion.
The complexity of your engagement alone with the topic is more than many people can process. I’m not sure what will help you the most, just that I’m confident there are unexplored strategies on the table for all of you to be able to have the conversation you’re each trying to have.
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I’ve always been isolated because I just assume everyone is an idiot, so I have little expectation that people will do the right thing.
I honestly don’t have an expectation that people can figure this stuff out for themselves. I’m more bothered that they think they can and ignore public health authorities. I think the best you can hope for is to point to what the government says and not expect people to go farther than that.
I feel like I can talk about religion and politics because my social science mind knows how to practice moral relativism and be non-judgmental in just listening to people and gathering data on what they think.
If I can talk about myself for a bit. I think I’m fine right now. A part of me wants to laugh at jmakin because his COVID era social life is orders of magnitude better than my pre-COVID social life.
I know how to be alone. I’m not sure if I know how to be anything else. That might be incredibly unhealthy. I’m worried that whenever things open up, I’m not going to react well.
I think of myself that I am strong but brittle. When I break, I snap. It’s been weighing on my mind a lot. I feel like I am due for a bad episode. I feel bad for saying it, but the period of my greatest mental health coincides with the Trump administration. I’ve started and stopped multiple posts over the past few months to discuss this topic
I can give you advice on how to erect mental defenses to protect yourself and feel confident while being on an emotional island. I’m not sure that is healthy, though.
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Yeah. Now that ive realised whats going on, i can work on strategies to overcome it.
I am however a little worried by my work. Ive been leading the plan to have everybody come back to the call centre 1 day per week. (Melbourne at zero cases for 10 days, so this seems reasonable).
Having hundreds of people in to do a full day in a new environment seems exactly the kind of thing which would trigger “post-lockdown anxiety” in some of my team.
I.e. all the articles talk about going from 0 to 100 too fast, which is exactly right.
For work at least i will get some professional advice on how to manage this better.
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One of my good friends knows my depression has been a fucking battle lately, and is gonna get me some psilocybin this weekend.
I have struggled with depressive episodes my whole life and it is the medication resistant kind. This is complicated by PTSD. Several years ago I took a large psilocybin dose and it was surreal - not a pleasant experience AT ALL but all this repressed shit I didnt even know was there came flooding and it overwhelmed me. I cried for several hours straight and felt all at once in great detail all the pain and grief I’d bottled up for several years.
But the next day I felt great. And the next. And the next. For almost 2 years my depression was in complete remission until some other traumatic stuff happened.
I’m gonna give it a shot again, anyone else used psychedelics this way?
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For me my isolation is mostly voluntary - do you prefer being isolated? I can’t tell
I don’t know. The theory of not being socially isolated sounds nice in theory, but I don’t really know what that’s like.
I mean, you seem pretty well liked and sociable enough on this forum anyway. I’m assuming if we all met up in real life if we all met up you’d feel kind of comfortable?
You’re obviously smarter than the average person and I know what it feels like to look out there and just see an ocean of morons, but there ARE intelligent, thoughtful, and interesting people out there worth forming a social bond with.
I think using this forum and your interaction with it as a guidepost to your real life interactions might be worth thinking about. Just my 2c though
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Oh yes.
LSD once or twice a year.
IMO what’s important is to set your intention and have a trusted guide. You know how the drug alters your perception. Decide ahead of time what you want to use the drug to explore and process. Set the boundaries for where your attention will linger or it’ll become spontaneous. (which is okay if being spontaneous is what you wanted)
Then take the day afterward to explore the experience sober. It’s a lot easier to do this if you began by setting your intention, eg “process unresolved trauma,” so now you can reflect on what the drug made available to you and what meaning you’d like to manifest from the experience.
As you said, the experience in the moment might feel unpleasant, but that’s just me doing the hard work. As I became accustomed to the experience of processing and releasing conflict rather than perpetually cultivating new conflict, I’ve begun to distinguish hard/painful from bad.
Sometimes the way I’m processing something feels good but is stupid and isn’t helping. Other times it’s tough but I’ve done it before and can see that the process will bring me to a better place if I’ll just see it through.
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I was almost to the point where I wanted to meet up at the WSOP with whoever still plays poker. Some of the forum drama has me rethinking that, but I think I would have gone through with it if not for COVID.
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