Strange feeling

Well, I'm back to feeling severely depressed, and I decided to try to sleep for the entire summer...
So sorry if I don't respond to any replies to this topic if someone actually does decide to say anything... well, anyway...
I'm gonna go on my sleeping spree now!

Dont sleep all summer, im sure people will miss you. When you first posted you said you felt ok but something was missing, but a few hours later you say you feel severley depressed. What has happened between those times that have made you change?? I know with myself it only needs to take something small to trigger my change. I just wondered if you know what triggered the change then you could work on that.

Take care and I hope to see you post soon
Natasha xx

I don't know.

And I decided to not sleep for the entire summer.

Strange feeling


I'm new to this forum so I hope this posts fine.
No I don't think there is a word, maybe we can make one?

Antigreen, I can't give you an accurate reply because I simply do not know all the details, for this I apologize. What I can do is ask some questions and tell you a little about my self and maybe get to the bottom of this. All though you probably already know the answer to your question.

First a little about myself, for I hope it relates.
I spent most of my childhood in a strange blur....

Then sometime when I was very small I realized I wasn't quite like most poeple.
Now this isn't an issue of self-importance, I didn't feel different because I was special but because something in side me 'saw' in away others didn't see. It was like I was more awake... or something
As I grew up, I grew more and more inward and distanced my self from most poeple as I didn't have anyone to relate to.

This difficulty relating was seen by most as being do to conciet. As I would tell others that I just can't relate and they would inevitably believe they understood what I was saying but somehow I knew they didn't.
It was as if there was a fog infront of their noses and they could see no farther than themselves. You see Antigreen, occasionaly there was someone who did understand, who would not pass judgement and who by their singnals, and a certain glint in their eyes told me without speeking; "i've Really been there, where you've been." And this gave me temporary happiness because of course they were still alive. Such poeple were always listening more than others right from the get go.
Unfortunatly I havn't met that many poeple like that. Most minds are so closed, so now that I'm own my own and learning I Have to Face the World, I'm so happy when I find someone who is as I call it 'more awake'. So please Antigreen don't go to sleep, if you can help ever again of course I mean that metaphoricaly.

Well....at some point I also realized that there was something I needed that without which I could not and even would not be happy but that once I found it I would have a happiness that was more lasting than any other.

I could say more but if you are still asleep what does it matter, right?
Plus I'm not shore if this is the right place, please reply soon.....
just never forget that strange feeling and remember to always be true to yourself.
_________________
I know it sounds weird, but it might be true.
Now if everything were normal what fun would that be?

Hello Overstreet

That was a good account of your experience!

I often think that because everybody is going around acting like this is how things OUGHT to be, we lose sight of the fact that EVERYONE who is born on this planet might as well be an alien from the planet Zog.

You arrive here, no one asked you whether you wanted to come, you find yourself part of some family arrangement (or non-arrangement) somewhere, and you just have to SURVIVE. You have to do whatever it takes to stay alive, because you are small and helpless and at the mercy of the world around you. If you succeed in surviving, you can grow up to the point of beginning to think about your life, and whether this is your home, and how to relate to these other strangers around you. Even though they are from the planet Zog too, you don't know this, and nobody talks about it...

This is an analogy, of course, but somehow it seems to describe our experience pretty well!

Kathleen

Its exactly that we go around pretending, believing, acting.... like this is how it is and never asking the right questions at the right time to see that there's more to our individual as well as collective human experiance than we see or seem.
Sometimes I think that maybe even our deffinition of human helps to keep us from developing to the fullest, because we ALL are so much more than we think we are.

I replied to Antigreen in the way that I did because I once asked the same question but I asked it of my self and I didn't rest until I figured it out my self.

I replied to Antigreen in the way that I did because I once asked the same question but I asked it of my self and I didn't rest until I figured it out my self.

So please tell - what did you figure out in the end?

With regard to the notion of everybody "acting" I think there are two levels to this.
At one, fundamental, level, yes everyone is acting, according to the role they are try to fill - wittingly or not.
However there is another level.
Speaking from my own experience, some years ago I felt I didn't really fit into what most people considered "normal society". It was not because I was shy (although most people, annoying, applied that label to me), or unable to engage, but simply that I didn't find things such as "small talk", or speaking to someone for the sake of it that compelling. I suppose I spent a lot of time in "downtime" - introspectively pondering things within myself - much like Bell in another thread.
Then one day I decided, for some reason, that I wanted to appear more part of that "normal society", so I *acted* the part that people thought they expected to see. I was outgoinging, always the first to make a move, making new friends, boldly stepping up. I drew people to me. I was so successful in it that I began to feel a little guilty because to me it was just an act.
Since then I have made different changes. I largely fill the same role, but feel more genuine about it - but I am still conscious that the way I act is through choice, and in many respects I am perhaps more conscious about my social interactions than the average person.
More recently I have learnt more about the underlying pschological make-up and, in particular, the role and development of the emotional circuitry of the brain. I now understand more fully how I can do things consciously that other people do without thinking, and why what I once thought of as "acting", while true, is not necessarily a bad thing - it is part of the protocol by which we interact and communicate as humans and can either be learned through early experience, or later through choice. The former being more readily absorbed as part of our emotional response, the latter taking more effort, but can still be ultimately passed on to the subconscious emotions.

There are some people that just seem to live in the outside world without ever really thinking about it. This can seem ridiculous and unworkable to those of us that spend a lot of time in "downtime" (introspectively pondering within ourselves), but in fact they are probably more in tune with how our minds are setup to function effectively. It could be said that they miss out more on the intellectual pursuits of life, which are always painted as being so much more pure and edifying. We have the capacity to think as well as feel our way through life. As always balance is the key. As always balance is hard - especially when we come to deeply ingrained thinking habits and styles. For the introvert, reasoning on how the different parts of their brain can best interact with the outside world is probably the best focus initially.
But speaking from the other side I can tell you - it's fun out here

Regards,

Milamber

I discovered my reason for being. I discovered how it is discovered and so much more, but thats to much for one post and I'm kinda busy. So I'll give you something short and simple thats more than enough. Some say it's the key to lasting happiness, you decide. Very simply put, practice being inside and outside of yourself all at once. I could word this one thing a million dif ways bt just try it. No imediate results for most poeple and to perfect it it usualy takes a life time of practice and a lot of thought about the practice its self to better understand it to develop it farther.

I don't personaly like the terms introvert and extro...very much simply because classifications of one's self usualy hinder the process of which I hinted. Yet you can learn to call yourself one thing but never actualy identify to it.
Its good to go through the mental inventory and find all the classifications of yourself like:
I'm fat
I'm ugly
I'm a losser and even the good ones
like I'm good
I'm smart
I'm beautiful
I'm a winner. De-identify your self from these beliefs. If you try it on even one of them, its best to start with the negative because its easiest to see why you would not want to think of your self as ugly, you will see why it is good to not have them.....Freedom!
Well I could talk for ever but I got to go work. I hope this is useful to someone.

(I hope this inspires a long discussion )

It didn't

Essentialy what I learned can't be spoken of verbal, everyone has to figure it out themselves. All help is just reminders of what we all already know.
Antigreen will do himself good to watch the history channel.

For Antigreen think of why you are drawn to certain things and not to others, you will find your answers when you can piece it all together.

Overstreet, you make a good point that our "discovery" of what these things really mean to us is a very personal one - even if the facts seem black and white (and they never are really, of course).
Sometimes something that people have been telling us for years just suddenly "clicks" and we don't just understand, we know what it means - to us!
Does that mean that we shouldn't tell others when we learn something, or discover something, like this? Absolutely not! These things can accumulate, so even if a difference is not observed immediately persistence can pay off. And sometimes you can just reach someone straight away!

The points you were making about identity, if I read them correctly, were also very good. We are not our behaviour, we are not our appearance, we are not even our beliefs and values (although these are closer to our core). Any of these things can and will change - or the interpretation of them (by ourselves or others) may change. But we are still us. Aspects of us may change but we ourselves are the same person.
So, yes, it can be liberating to free ourselves of a way of thinking that implies that we are these things - even the positive ones!
While most people will see the wisdom of not entertaining such thoughts as "I am ugly". However there is a subtler danger in saying, I am beautiful", although this has a positive spin too. Ideally we might say, "my appearance may be interpretted by some, at some times, as being beautiful, by however they measure beauty at that time".... but it's a little unweildy
Sometimes we have to make compromises. Perhaps if we use an expression like, "I look beautiful", it still keeps the separation between identity and attribute, but tolerates the ambiguity of when and who and by what measure.
Am I rambling again? Sorry, I'll shut up now

Best regards,

Milamber

Hi,
I just posted something under the depression forum thing but then I read the posts on this thread and it has answered my question!
I particularly wanted to say how relieved I was to read your thread Milamber about being downtime. I couldn't have put it more succintly myself.
I went out on Sat night with some people I had not seen for a long time and I felt like a complete FREAK! I just couldn't believe how extrovert these people are....they were talking so quickly I just couldn't keep up with them.
I felt really dumb...and also had that horrible feeling when I talk that people's eyes are glazing over. I tend to anaylse things in a very deep way. I like to ponder things and question things and I talk slowly. I feel boring. I feel like women find me boring (I'm female). I have no close friends and I think this is because I am boring and I hate going out. I prefer my own company but then I feel lonely..
But what you said about the brain was really interesting....are some people just more internalised? What do people like me do with their lives?
Um, anyway...I'm rambling, but I am relieved I guess. I think the hardest part is accepting that I am like that. I AM AN INTROVERT. I AM AN INTROVERT. I feel better already.
YOG

Hi Yog

I recommend Dorothy Rowe's book "The Successful Self". She gives a brilliant account of introversion and extroversion which really helps understand these differences without "pigeonholing".

I think you'd like it!

Kathleen