-there’s a story behind every person
-there’s a reason why they are the way they are
-think about that before you judge someone
Let’s not forget that there’s a reason - Anxiety and Depre...
Let’s not forget that there’s a reason
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Starrlight
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61 Replies
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AGREE 🙌🏼
TOTALLY AGREE!!!!
I'd like to add that this is good to be reminded of from time to time. I admit that I've been quick to judge at times. I think everyone has at one point; it's part of being human. I appreciate your reminder.
Isinatra• in reply to
Judging is a basic instinct meant to protect ourselves from harm. Assessing a person or situation. It’s when the instinct runs wild is when it can become harmful to ourselves or others. So we shouldn’t be too hard on ourselves when we find we are judging a person or situation. It’s part of life. Just try to rein it in. 😁
• in reply toIsinatra
very true. It's interesting to take a look at our animal instincts. I asked my therapist why it is that we care so much what others think. She said that caring what others think is an instinct as well -- one used to control our environment an ensure how we fit into society.
Isinatra• in reply to
👍🏼
I’m so glad you added this Isinatra thank you!!!
😊
I agree with your observations -- we should always endeavor to understand where others are coming from -- but would add that despite these points, actions and choices have consequences, sometimes unpleasant ones.
For instance, if a person of age to make his own decisions and choices, chooses to believe in white supremacy, then he is deserving of all the condemnation coming his way.
At the end of the day, if our beliefs or behaviors are beneath contempt, they should be judged appropriately, regardless of the why and wherefore of it all or the personal backstories -- though context and intent should always be taken into account.
Oh yeah definitely great points there MrMonk, thank you. We are responsible for our actions and deserving of karma. Whatever we give out, we deserve to get back, not that it always works fairly. ❤️
They do have consequences, and rightly so. But...
I don't know mrmonk. I hate to disagree with you, but I don't know.
Your for instance is a good example. How long it took for good, decent people -- living in an environment where slavery was commonplace -- to see any evil.
Huck Finn comes to mind. I'll probably misquote, but "Alright then, I'll go to hell" (something like that) hit me very hard when I was a child. Eye opening.
Or "Is you joking, Mr. Clemens?" Chilling.
Can we know more than our society and our environment allow us to know?
I've only lived in the northern United States, so I was stunned when when an older black man told me he preferred the up-front racism he'd experienced in the deep south to the two-faced bigotry he experienced where we live.
So, is it my belief about consequences in general that you disagree with or only as it concerns race? If the latter, I hope it's clear that I mean that any person who chooses in the present day to believe in the demonstrably false (and unquestionably vile) concept of white supremacy deserves nothing but antipathy (though I fail to see how anyone at any time in history could view slavery as just). And growing up in a different time or locale is no excuse when information and the breadth of human experience is just a keystroke, mouse click, or screen-tap away. Our society is global and interconnected now -- for good and for ill.
I've never read any of Twain's books, so I can't speak to them, but I don't see much of a point in castigating the dead, anyway -- talk about diatribes falling on deaf ears!
I think it is consequences in general. I don't believe we are as free to choose as you imply. To me, people seem to be constrained in what they may become by what they experience. With very few variations.
My examples were from a distant time, but for me they illustrate what I see about me today. We are fixed in a groove and follow it with very few glitches. Unless something radical changes our course. For me, Mark Twain knocked me from the path I was given, and forced me to rethink my life.
I thought we'd talked about the "Is you joking" quote another time. My memory again.
I'm sorry, you've lost me completely with your comment about castigating the dead. I can't muddle through.
Is it possible we're completely misunderstanding each other?
I think I misunderstand most communication, so it's a fair bet that I'm misunderstanding you. Ultimately, I don't think the nature of choice matters -- there are still consequences for our words and actions, regardless.
Please ignore the "castigating the dead" bit; it's been a long day, my mind was wandering.
It's good to hear from you any which way. How are you doing?
Got an abdominal ultrasound yesterday, but the results were partly inconclusive.
While I was at the hospital, Tara bit the bullet and took a train to Maine to make sure the boxes and other belongings in storage were fit for transport on Thursday (you and the good folks on the forum have our gratitude for the input).
Although there were boxes stacked in the back of the unit that she couldn't reach to test by lifting, they all seemed visibly intact and the ones she did pick up were sound, so (fingers crossed 🤞🏼) hopefully there won't be a problem there. She did have to secure some plastic storage containers and loose board games with packing tape.
And it turned out that my poetry vinyl record collection was unboxed (though I would have sworn I boxed them), neatly arranged in a row on the same shelving I used to store them at our old apartment. This was a problem because Tara didn't have time to hunt around for a box that would fit them snuggly, so (long story short) she ended up bringing nearly half of them home with her last night (she used a portable grocery cart that happened to be there in storage to transport them), as well as a briefcase full of old letters, photographs, and (gulp!) some of my adolescent diary entries! (Exploring those was a quite a trip down memory lane...)
Tara got the records back in perfect shape and I'm so grateful to her, as the ones she brought back included the voices most precious to me -- my Betjeman and Larkin records, as well as some amazing anthologies of various poets reading their works...oh! and there's Richard Burton reading Wilfred Owen! and there's Basil Rathbone reading Poe! I can't wait to get the rest of the recordings and my record player on Thursday...
😹 (those are tears of joy)
It sounds wonderful. You're going to be busy for a while! Oh, I'm jealous.
I'm confused though. (So what else is new?) I thought you were having someone ship everything for you. Is one of you going on Thursday? I hope everything goes great, not a boo-boo in sight.
Amazing is right! My poetry anthologies disappeared in boxes long ago, and the internet is all I have left. You'll have books! Real books! To touch. If you're like me... to sniff! 🙃 And soon you'll be listening! Wow.
I hope the medical things turn out okay. Will they be redoing the tests? Its frustrating to go through the tests and still not know.
But you're surrounded by happy now. I'm so glad for you.
I have a little bit of happy too. I told you I'd found the first three seasons of Monk at a library sale a while back? (Right after Peacock priced them out of my reach.) Well... Ta-Da! I found four and five, unopened I might add, at a second-hand store today. I'm getting there.
I've already got my favorites on repeat most nights. (Thanks for letting me know I could do that.) It's so comforting.
Tears of joy. Wow. Ya mrmonk. I'm so happy for you.
Oh yeah, we did hire movers, but we just need to be there to unlock the unit and grab the remaining LPs. We will definitely try to keep the boo-boos to a minimum, thanks!
The radiologist report recommends a follow-up abdominal MRI, so I'll talk to my primary care physician about that soon.
I've already assembled four bookcases, three more to go. I'm not sure how many we need, but I know I'm going to sleep better with beloved books on all sides of me in my room. I don't know about you, but just the presence of certain books eases my anxiety and brings me some peace. Whenever possible, I bring a book with me when I have to go somewhere that makes me anxious -- a coping mechanism I've used since I was a kid.
That's so cool that you found Seasons 4 and 5 in new condition; soon, you will have the complete set! Yes, Monk on repeat is such a comfort to the weary heart and restless mind.
Speaking of Monk and "repeat," if sleep still won't come, maybe chanting this as a mantra will help: "Pete and Repeat were in a boat. Pete fell out. Who was left?"
"just the presence of certain books eases my anxiety and brings me peace."
Yes, yes. YES! I'm so glad to hear you say it! That's exactly what I feel, and by coincidence, just last night, I read it's therapeutic for anxiety.
I've been unable to meditate. It seemed as though it was everyone's solution, but it hurts me. Yesterday I was hurting so much I searched "Am I the only one who gets worse meditating?" And I found out I'm not! Even though therapists told me it's my fault for not persisting. The alternate suggestions included "read". Duh! I can do that. It's not easy anymore, but as you say, our books are who we are, and so calming. I've been trying to read something short daily on the internet (where I can adjust font size to read more easily).
What you said about having a book with you in anxious situations, yes, that's me too. When I was little I had a flashlight under my pillow and my favorite book. When the lights went out, the flashlight went on. It was wonderful -- mostly. I remember reading Conan Doyle's "The Speckled Band" and Bierce's "The Boarded Window" that way. Bad idea. I couldn't even pull the covers over my head and hide. (I'd hear "sssss". 🐍)
My imagination's a little too good. I just gave myself a fever. 🤪
Complete set! Yes yes yes!! The magic words!
Oh. I'm such a pessimist. The down side: Peacock always edited out the final song at the end of the final episode. I can't make it through without tears streaming down my face. Curses on you Randy Newman; you're too good at what you do. 🤣 🥲
Very funny mrmonk. Just what I need. An earworm. Here's one for you:
"Oh, I went down South for to see my Sal
Singing Polly Wolly Doodle all the day" 🎵
Oh! I forgot. Could you send me a link to the bookshelves you got? That'd be wonderful!
I bought three different sizes of bookshelves: a narrow four-shelf, a narrow five-shelf, and a wider five-shelf -- which interests you?
I'm not sure, but maybe the wider?
How are you tonight?
Keeping in mind that I had to stay within a very tight budget, so they're all just cheap, particle-board bookshelves, here's a link to the wider, five-shelf:
walmart.com/ip/Mainstays-5-...
I haven't assembled that one yet, but the rest are all in place.
Tonight, I'm just excited about tomorrow! The books, the board games, the recordings...we even have a VCR/DVD player in there, apparently, which means I'll be able to finally digitize all the 8 mm video footage we took in South Korea, as well as a bunch of video recordings taken in England and early recordings of poetry reading events I organized in Florida...it's like Christmas has come early!
How about you? Which episodes are in the Monk rotation tonight?
Ohhh. I need bookshelves and it seemed such a nice coincidence you're assembling some now. But Tara can't tolerate the off-gassing from particle-board. Durn.
I can see your excitement! Wow, you have good reason to be!
I'll give you a couple hints. Sharona quit. Again. Poor Mr. Monk had a rat land on his shoulder. (I'm weird. I think the little guy's adorable. But that's me.)
I'm sipping ginger ale hoping the tummy boo-boo goes away so I can safely go to bed.
Hopping around HU. Lotsa sad.
I hope to get updates as you unpack your Christmas treasures. Bet there'll be a few thrills.
I'm so happy for you.
I have an air purifier with a HEPA filter and a carbon pre-filter, so the off-gassing shouldn't be a problem here.
Ah, ginger ale had seen me through many an upset stomach back in the day...hope it helps.
Just saw this. I'm glad you're safe.
In my imagination, I see excitement fill your face as you open your toys, and go to bed surrounded with what you love. I wish you joy.
YES, it's a fine line between judgement and discernment and wisdom comes from knowing when not to cross it.
So true Designguy thanks so much for adding this! 😊
Thanks.
How are you doing?
I'm doing much better than I was a week ago. A week ago a felt like I had been run over by a horde of truckers, turned out I had covid. Fortunately i've had all the shots and boosters so it didn't get into my lungs. My wife also had it which helped so we didn't have to quarantine from each other. It's been an up and down recovery, drinking lots of fluids and eating soup and doing nothing. Taking major doses of Vitamin C. Starting to get my appetite and smell back bit still some head draining and fatigue but much better. Sure glad I got the vaccines, it could have been much worse. Also glad i've resolved my anxiety issues, it could have been pretty anxiety provoking. Practiced a lot of self-love/compassion this past week. Looking forward to drinking a beer when over it. Sure does make you take it a day at a time and appreciate waking up each morning.
How are you doing, hope you don't have covid too - LOL!
The compassion, rest, liquids and vitamin C sounds good. I feel like I have a virus. Glad you are feeling better now. Glad your anxiety is not bad now. How did this happen?
Do you mean how did I get covid or how did I resolve my anxiety issue?
I’m curious how you resolved the anxiety you had.
It's definitely not been a linear process, and not been one big specific thing but a series of them. I would say the most helpful thing was learning what the role of anxiety is, that it's our built-in warning system to protect us but now that we are adults it no longer needs to but we have to make friends with that part of ourselves and convince it that we can actually protect it and ourselves so it quits responding. The other big thing I learned and continue to reinforce to myself is to never believe the anxious thoughts and feelings no matter what and know and believe they are lies. Another thing I've found helpful is that if anxiety comes up for me, I now know to lean into it and push to make the anxiety even bigger and get curious about what it is trying to tell me. Another big helpful thing is realizing that I suffered still from low-self-worth and low-self-esteem and started doing what I could to improve that part of myself. I think it is fundamentally at the core of so many of our mental health issues, definitely was for me. There is a lot of good info/resources on youtube about how to improve it. I really liked the writings of Dr. Bernadette Sewell and did her Break Free program. There is also a good book "Drive your own darn bus" by Julia Kristina I really like as well as her youtube videos. I found it's really important to investigate and understand what thoughts and beliefs we are telling ourselves subconsciously as well as consciously so we are then able to choose what still works for us and what doesn't because they are what are driving us. I've read a lot of books on anxiety and I found the DARE Anxiety book and youtube videos to be very helpful and sum up what I found to be the best approach to healing it. Another important thing for me was determining why and how my anxiety disorder developed so I could better target my therapy/efforts. Mine came from growing up in an emotionally repressive household with emotional and physical abuse and I was shamed for expressing normal anger, showing any kind of pride and for trying to stand up for myself. I was bullied in middle school and developed social anxiety. There was no awareness of anxiety/panic disorder back then so I developed high-functioning anxiety disorder. I had panic attacks but got over them but continued to have anxiety. i did what is now an online program for social anxiety which helped but I still had anxiety issues. I then realized I was actually dealing with c-ptsd/trauma from the bullying and repressive family environment and found a therapist that specialized in treating trauma/c-ptsd. One of the therapies he used was emdr which I found very helpful for helping me investigate, process and heal the emotional trauma/shame I had been carrying and it really helped. Another god helpful book for me is "There is nothing wrong with you" by Cheri Huber that is basically about practicing sitting and meditating some every day and learning to resolve our issues with our ego and how so many of our problems, anxiety/depression are caused by our ego and misunderstanding. I found this book a number of years ago and it made a lot of sense, I always knew intuitively that there really was nothing wrong with me in spite of the anxiety. I also have found meds helpful for healing my anxiety.
This is a long answer to your question but a short version of my story, feel free to ask me anything else.
wow I really appreciate your response and i I was just studying self worth and self esteem to try to understand what I need to do to improve…because I know it’s part of the root cause …I also am trying to pay attention to the thoughts I have that drive the lack of worth, like you have.
Hmm how and why anxiety came… I think I know several reasons and the sort of situations that fueled it for me… but I do think it is in part from genetics for me.
”There is nothing wrong with you” sounds really good. I have other books on the ego and I do meditate but maybe not with helpful techniques in mind, I don’t know… I think I could go deeper into myself in my meditations, you know? So I’ll try that plus writing deep down feelings that pop up.
Thanks again it’s incredible how helpful your answers to my question is. I’m happy for you, too, that you have found freedom from anxiety.
You're very welcome, glad I can help. i do agree with the genetics thing, I ran out of room in my first answer - LOL. On my dad's side of the family there is a history of depression and I think my dad had unacknowledged social anxiety disorder so i figured I was predisposed to it. I spent a number of years trying natural supplements without any success and then did the pharmaceuticals. When I first tried Klonopin it was like a switch being flipped for me, it really lowered my anxiety and I was finally able to feel and know what "normal" was like without anxiety. I wound up tapering off of it but glad I was on it for a while. Personally I think meds can be very helpful especially if they have minimal side affects and it improves the quality of your life, there is nothing wrong with that.
Nature and nurture- interesting stuff.
I think meds are good too. Once in a while though I wonder what the long term effects are. I used to take benzos too and for a while it was good for quality of life but then they just became annoying like my body would crave them and I quit them altogether.
I take some from a psychiatrist and I take a lot of natural stuff in combination.
I agree, and no longer take the benzos. I found an antidepressant (Pristiq) that works well for me along with some natural supplements and it's all helped to even me out and mostly stay in balance. My med prescriber is a functional medicine doctor and is really good and uses a combination of meds and natural supplements which works for me. Sounds like you are taking a good balanced approach also, good for you.
Have you been able to determine where your anxiety stems from besides genetics?
If I remember right, I got the impression from some of your previous posts that you might be dealing with bipolar issues, is that correct? That is not something i've had to deal with.
I do think my anxiety stems from a traumatic experience when my brother killed himself and my mom and I found him. It makes me feel that if that bad of a thing can take place then what else will happen especially to my kids. And yes, you are correct in recalling I do have bipolar. I think it tends to make me swing back and forth with intense emotion.
Sorry to hear about your brother it's really tough, my brother did the same, I had to call my folks and tell them, one of the hardest things i've ever had to do. It's an awful experience for us survivors. I thought I was dealing ok with it but I was so clueless then and had my first major panic attack not too long after his death which started me on my journey. I also wound up going fo a while to a suicide support group which helped. It is definitely a major traumatic experience and i've done a lot of healing and anger work around it. I've also known or had contact with a number of people that committed suicide throughout the years. It's something that had never occurred to me before my brother did it. At one time when my anxiety was raging I had thoughts about what if I ended up doing it, etc... but I realized it was my anxious thinking about worse case scenarios and the reality is that it's not something I would even consider. I think one of the other really valuable things i've learned is the ability to reframe thins and question my anxious thinking and not get stuck and to remind myself that life is not black and white.
I can only imagine what bipolar is like, I guess it's about learning how best to manage it and make it work for you instead of against you. Are there specific meds for it that help balance it out or is that something you have to figure out on your own?
wow what a coincidence I am sorry for your loss, Designguy. I think that’s so important- to reframe things and question anxious thinking as I tend to have self doubt a lot and that hinders me if I’m not careful. Right-and not seeing things as black and white.
Im was taking Lithium for balance but after doing bloodwork it showed it might be harming me I think the liver … im taking Zyprexa, Buspar, Paxil and then Propanolol as needed.
I think a lot more of us have been affected by suicide, we're just not aware of it.
Glad you've found the right combo of meds that seem to be helping you.
One of the other therapies I found helpful is ACT Therapy, it's about learning to focus in on our distressful emotions, investigate them, allow them and process them and realize that they aren't "bad" and can't harm us and that the way to heal them is by going into and through them. Might be helpful for you, it's another tool to help us feel safe in our own skin.
I love this ACT you speak of and will practice it. I’m very grateful to you for sharing what you know to help others. I feel now that I have a better understanding of what direction to go in.
I'm glad you like it, the whole idea that being open and curious and having the courage to feel and process our emotions instead of repressing them makes so much sense to me, especially after finding out how to really deal with anxiety. I read somewhere a number of years ago that a premise was that depression was actually repressed anger and it also made sense to me. I had so much repressed anger from never being allowed and even being shamed and punished for trying to express normal anger and also from being bullied. I started working on getting in touch with it in therapy and beating the crap out of pillows and then started doing it at home with a plastic baseball bat. I even would get a sledgehammer and go outside and beat the crap out of rocks. I realized that part of my anger was at myself so I was careful to mentally visualize who or what i was angry about and get in touch emotionally with the anger as I beat away. It felt so good to release it and vent.
I love this. Im glad you could vent. I feel paralyzed I hope to deal with this depression (repressed anger possibly) that has come upon me these last few days.
It could be worth a try for you, makes me feel good after doing it, hope it helps you too.
I hate being judged but if Iv`e done something wrong then fair play to judge me on that issue and nothing more.
I feel that way too. Good thinking Kenster.
I still get judged by people from 30- 35 year ago sometime it bothers me but sometime I look at it as It`s them with the problem and not me.
Tgat makes sense because after a while I believe we can let the past go and focus on what’s important now.
I've been an outsider all my life, shunned by society due to my health, meeting them now 30-35 years later, strange how many of them now, whose health is now near the par of my own, a levelling of the playing fields🤔
i live by that rule ❤️🙏☺️
❤️
Thank you for this! !
True.
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