How does stuff not affect people on here like it does me?

General Discussion
21

Well I don’t know what else to think since when I ask about it I don’t get an explanation, it’s just “you don’t get it”.

And just because the tourism industry says something doesn’t really make it true. People think that going somewhere else will make their problems vanish because they “get way from it all” but the reality is that you still carry it with you if the problem still exists.

I am doing counseling but the issue is with the topic and what it means, I keep asking for stuff on it but get no response.

22

That’s actually a common and damaging myth of people on the spectrum. Also America’s Got Talent is a terrible example of that.

Not everyone has strengths they can play.

But it’s not beaming emotion at you otherwise it would affect everyone the same. If it were the circumstance wouldn’t it be the same for everyone. Like they told me, the feelings come from inside you.

Well isn’t that how our imagination works? Also I have been denying my feelings but it’s not been helpful.

That hasn’t really been possible for me, especially not now but in the past I’ve been the least trustworthy interpreter of my emotions. I don’t and never have known myself.

23

Perhaps instead of trying to create emotions (as you say), you need to excise an emotion or two. Since they come from you, you’re the only one who can choose to let them go. Nobody else can make that happen.

24

If I could choose that I wouldn’t be writing stuff like this or asking people about the stuff I read and posting it on here.

25

How would you know if you refuse to sample life?
America Got Talent is the greatest talent show on earth with over 10 million viewers per season.

As ex-musician myself, this musical genius made me weep with emotion.

A star was born that night.

26

Currently reading then I am myself the world by Christof Koch.
This little diddy was mentioned in the book.

All Sisyphus’ silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him.
His rock is his thing… Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity
that negates the gods and raises rocks.
He too concludes that all is well.
This universe henceforth without a master seems to him
neither sterile nor futile.
Each atom of that stone,
each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself forms a world.
The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart.
One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

by Albert Camus

27

If you are talking about the Pathway to Happiness people, they don’t have answers. People here have given you a variety of answers, you reject them.

28

I have sampled and read up on this stuff, you are incorrect. A talent show televised to the world is not evidence of anything.

I’m familiar with Camus and he was wrong when he wrote that. The man seemed largely divorced from how life really is.

like what, I have read and reread this stuff but they aren’t answering the stuff people on there said.

29

Because the “people on there”, by whom I assume you mean the Pathway to Happiness people, deliberately obfuscate, they give circular reasoning, they give bad advice, they say you can just decide to be happy. They are wrong. They took some pop-psychology and made it worse. There is a big difference between “no one can make you feel bad without your permission” and “no one can make you feel anything”. There’s a big difference between “you can be the source of your own happiness” and “nothing makes you feel anything”.

So, no, I’m not going to attempt to address people I don’t care about, who say things I think are wrong, and worse, I’m addressing what you quote to me. I’m not doing that.

30

No, you haven’t sampled what I recommended.

I agree that not all contestants are great, but then they get voted out.
But a talent show where the contestant gets a standing ovation and is voted to the next round, is evidence of excellence.

31

Why would that be? We are all different. Even the same family, everyone holds a different position and winds up with their unique perspective on the “family” and happenings …

Why?

We all perceive the world and events through our own unique lens.

Sure. Your unique body/brain interacts with your unique circumstances.
If the two of us were on the same trip, don’t you think our experience of the “same” events would be different?

Don’t worry about interpreting so much. Why not start by simply observing yourself? Perhaps you’re too busy judging and condemning yourself, to see beyond?

That’s sad, and it explains a bit about your commentary stream.
Still, that doesn’t make getting to know oneself, any less important.

Good point.
Goes with learning to forgive yourself.
How about some serious exercise, running, hiking, it creates all sorts of healthy hormone cascades.

For me one of the cascading insights that came from better understanding the duality of Body/Brain <> environment = mind, is recognizing how some of my “worst” qualities were intimately bound up with some of my “best” qualities. It helps the whole balance of life thing, make a bit more sense. But it demands making an effort.

32

It’s one data point, that doesn’t really prove anything. Like I said, the notion that people on the spectrum have something they’re good at is a damaging myth.

33

Exercise hasn’t done that for me in the past. I never felt different after a workout.

It’s not likely to happen. If I didn’t know myself growing up it’s not likely to happen now.

I’ve been trying that for years but I don’t really learn everything. Nothing is the same from one day to the next.

I get that, on some level. Even if part of me is still trying to work out if they are right. Because I know things are inherently neutral (that was part of when i was on some nihilism kick) but I can’t shake that the thing about feelings is…off. Some other people I ask say it triggers things inside you which makes more sense.

34

Like to add further I was also told “nothing is good or bad, it is only thinking that makes it so” and that it’s also past associations occurring in the present that make us feel.

That the confusing thing is that it’s the thing making us feel because apparently our language confuses us but rather it’s our mind and the stored memories and associations that do that and not really the thing itself.

The other claim is that these are all stuff programmed into us from childhood, but that doesn’t really explain how everyone ends up different from each other or how people take to some things and not others and how adults can end up different than when they were as kids.

35

I believe that locking yourself up is the most damaging thing one can do.

For one thing, I think that you are a very good writer.
Being an ex-writer myself I can see depth and meaning in your writing, that I would like to see translated into a story.

I don’t presume to know your situation, but I can assure you that there are people of generous disposition who love to see other people succeed against difficult odds. That shows the human spirit at its best.

36

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You take these words, like “programmed” and interpret them without thinking about them. We aren’t machines that can be duplicated, that’s just silly. There so many possible experiences in the world it would be impossible for everyone to turn out the same,

37

Maybe this is a question you should ask your counselor then. IF you were to ask them then it would tell him/her what you need to work on in therapy or at least give them an idea. You could rephrase it slightly so it doesn’t relate to just this forum. I’m sure this is something that happens in other parts of your life too.

1 Like
38

This seems to be key. If you are referring here to your counselor, then tell your counselor. If you are referring to this forum not responding, then that’s silly.

39

Those are two different matters.

That’s throwing out the baby with the bath water. For me it’s about not getting overwhelmed and lost, in either. Glory in the good moments, aware that shit is going to happen and I won’t like it when it does, the real point is not to let it get to me. This too shall pass. It’s a smoothing out and achieving a broader perspective.
And if I don’t feel/act as ideally as all that, I don’t make a big deal out of that either.
Get up, dust off, and move on.

Of course, you are today the cumulative sum total of all the experiences you’ve gone through, past present and intimately intertwined, and set the stage for tomorrows. You can never escape your past, you are your past. (I marvel that I’ve reach the utterly unimaginable age of 69, yet, that feeling of being 18 is still so very near, it’s mind-blowing. That’s the difference between us, I got lucky, and was able to made my life a grand adventure, and it’s been heroic and splendid (even if on a paupers budget) and these days with the grounding of grandkids popping up all over, the adventure simply continues, until the black swan catches up with us.

I’ve come to believe that our “expectations” can be our worst enemy, the huge build up, and reality being something less. Could that be part of your rut?

For me, the best sentence to come out of talking with psychologist:
What will you be present?

Give it a try. For me it’s been a meaningful companion for many decades. A touchstone of sorts. What will you choose to be present to? Because if you live, you wind up choosing anyways, so why not take the helm.

Or not.

Thanks for giving me an excuse to ramble, I wish you the best.

40

It’s not locking myself up, others just have always been better than I am.

I get that, in a sense. But the greater thing I think about is that liking something, anything, is just living in the past because we are just triggering memories and past associations like they say we are.

It’s just anywhere really. I’ve tried to tell the therapist but they keep deflecting to something that isn’t related.

But aren’t events technically neutral and that it’s just what we make of them?

That’s never been a helpful statement because not only is it wrong (we don’t live in the present) we don’t really have a choice. If what you do is based on things that came before then you aren’t really free or choosing.

But like I told you before brains don’t work like that, I can’t flip a switch. Even when I did it didn’t help because it just led to me doing nothing and not wanting anything.