The point of life/living

General Discussion
61

Saying that is all I have.

I’m not trolling but…well I don’t really know what else to say.

I can’t stop it on my own and even though I know lots of people tell me it’s wrong I don’t know why that’s not working. Like I’m missing some key flaw in their argument or that I haven’t attacked every angle to be sure I’m not missing something so that I don’t misrepresent them and take the easy way out by attacking a misunderstanding.

I…don’t really know what I’m doing I guess…

I just get more and more lost the more I think about it and the more I do the more I can’t help thinking of ways they’re right even though I don’t want them to be.

God…I’m fucked aren’t I…? Like, this is a mess…like flailing in the dark. I keep wondering what’s it gonna take to make things snap in place or reach that understanding instead of just sinking deeper down. It’s hard staying a float and focused most days.

I can’t really escape this because it deals with emotions but then when I think about it I get nowhere. I’m tired but can’t escape it…and I can’t really put that frustration in words. It’s like I’m living a contradiction.

I keep wondering when I’m gonna feel a chord with something enough to fight for it, work for it, instead of just doing things to prove or perform for people. When’s it gonna feel real and not like acting?

I don’t know what I want because it changes every day, and yet every response I give feels like it’s the wrong answer. Like everything I do is wrong.

Ugh…I’m just tired. All that thinking that happens every day just wears me out. I’m spinning my wheels.

62

You handled it just fine a couple posts ago.

That’s the autism. You can’t use logic to get out of it. You need to treat the autism as autism. I can only point you to articles because i don’t know how to do treat that.

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63

Like what? I’m not sure if I did or not. What if I’m mistaken?

I’d read anything at this point.

64

You may begin by reading what “action potentials” are and how they are produced.

Perception

Perception is an individual’s interpretation of a sensation. Although perception relies on the activation of sensory receptors, perception happens not at the level of the sensory receptor, but at higher levels in the nervous system, in the brain. The brain distinguishes sensory stimuli through a sensory pathway: action potentials from sensory receptors travel along neurons that are dedicated to a particular stimulus. These neurons are dedicated to that particular stimulus and synapse with particular neurons in the brain or spinal cord.

All sensory signals, except those from the olfactory system, are transmitted though the central nervous system and are routed to the thalamus and to the appropriate region of the cortex. Recall that the thalamus is a structure in the forebrain that serves as a clearinghouse and relay station for sensory (as well as motor) signals. When the sensory signal exits the thalamus, it is conducted to the specific area of the cortex (Figure 42.2.1.242.2.1.2) dedicated to processing that particular sense.

Sensory Processes

How are neural signals interpreted? Interpretation of sensory signals between individuals of the same species is largely similar, owing to the inherited similarity of their nervous systems; however, there are some individual differences. A good example of this is individual tolerances to a painful stimulus, such as dental pain, which certainly differ.

more… 42.2.1: Sensory Processes - Biology LibreTexts

65

That’s not about autism

66

You are right. But it is about thinking in general and how sensory stimulus creates the “action potentials” that allows you to experience.
Autism is related to that function.

67

Then use the google for something other than the stupid Path to Happiness website. Ask for help and don’t argue when people help you.

Obsessions and repetitive behaviour - a guide for all audiences.

You said you didn’t like this one but I doubt you tried anything in it.

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68

That’s not any help to me.

69

That first one brings up fears that people will always treat me like a kid, even when I read through it I felt like that.

As for the psychology today one I did try the stuff in there:

Number 1 doesn’t work because I can’t avoid what causes the loops.

Number 2 I’ve told myself a lot but it doesn’t register.

Number 3 doesn’t help either. I’ve written it down in a journal, nothing. I’ve tried to meditate but it just makes the problem worse. I can’t distract myself from it.

Number 4 didn’t really work out because of the same reason number 1 didn’t work.

Number 5 didn’t help much either. Even when fed, rested and all that nothing changed.

Number 6 doesn’t apply because I don’t have substance abuse issues.

70

In part, but everything in your brain is chemicals, neurons, dendrites, etc. and to have a thought is to have a chemical reaction in your brain. Since everything within you is found in the universe, think of it as space… The brain is truly the final frontier and we are still in the dark ages when it comes to psychology, neuropsychology, and psychiatry. When it comes to such medicine, we’re still barbaric about it, but that’s another topic.

The thing is when we have a thought, an emotion, or physical reaction, there is chemistry. Sometimes it’s a burst of chemistry and sometimes it’s a study flow. Someone does cocaine, it blocks the uptake of dopamine and when the cocaine wears off, their body if suddenly flooded with it. If one is depressed, serotonin levels maybe low or a variety of chemicals maybe low. Bipolar disorder chemicals are going nuts. If you look at space, that’s sort of what is happening in your brain at various times. Anytime one shares thoughts and beliefs or has a memory, chemistry is occurring.

You may have to find what works for you by soothing. Nothing is a one size fits all.

The therapist shouldn’t be giving you meds. A doctor/psychiatrist does that. If one med doesn’t work then there are others that might work.

And what do you think happens with the external stimuli your eyes are seeing? A chemical reaction in the brain. It’s all chemistry.

So is love, but you don’t see anyone complaining about that. As Stevie Nicks said in the song Rhianna, “Love’s a state of mind”. In reality, it’s a chemical reaction in the brain, triggering other reactions in the body.

OK we’re done and that’s what every other therapist in your life should have long since said to you. You don’t have to talk to anyone to be fed BS, More of it, or Piled high and Deep. You know it all and can feed yourself BS out that wazoo. You have a plenty of it. What are you? 16? Oh no, I forgot, you’re spinning your wheels. My younger son was Dx with high functioning Autism and he stopped fixating on crap in his twenties. Then again, he is now fixated on other things, but he’s no where near as depressive sounding or depressive insistent as you are. It’s about time someone shook you out of your funk, but you’re too stubborn to get out of it because you want to stay in it. So, we’re done talking.

71

Okay. You’re not going to even try. You’re not going to look at the root cause.

Nothing I can do

72

You have no desire to do so and you don’t want to.

You don’t want it to register.

You’re not actually meditating. You have to clear your mind to meditate and you have to also relax. If you don’t want to do either, it won’t work.

The same goes with everything else you say doesn’t work. If have to want it bad enough and since you don’t there is no point in even discussing it with you. IMHO, everyone needs to stop feeding into your obsessive and repetitive thinking. Just keep both feet on the ground and you’ll do better.

73

Yep.

The Pathway site is designed for obsessed people. They make money off of them.

And inthedarkness is very good at getting people to listen to his plight. But, he ran out of things to say and contradicted himself too many times.

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74

Well I do get that it’s chemicals. Some say that you aren’t the heart or mind but consciousness (the people on the website), but I don’t buy that. I remember my convo with them was like “the content of consciousness changes but awareness doesn’t change” and he used psychedelics as an example. But to me awareness can change, I know because I was knocked out when put under anesthesia. The last thing I remember was closing my eyes and then it was over. I blinked and missed it all. No dreaming, no darkness, nothing.

So I know this is the brain and chemicals and not whatever word games they wanna play. I even asked him what was awareness if it’s not awareness of something. He’s trying to act like there is a distinction between content of awareness and awareness. Just sounds like mush to me that they’ve never actually thought about.

The problem is I ran through the list and nothing did.

The psychiatrist did and they didn’t do anything. Meds don’t work.

Almost. The acceptance of meaninglessness is sorta going against our natural desire, but then again that’s how science works.

They actually do, in fact there are papers about how it means nothing because it’s just a chemical reaction. Rick and Morty did a bit on it too.

No I don’t want to stay in it, but the things people have told me to do and try haven’t worked. So what else is there?

Even now you’re doing the same dodge other therapists did to me when I try to get into this stuff. The recent one I had now lied to me about an assessment and I was almost involuntarily hospitalized. Now I can’t really get deep into how I feel or else they might do it again.

It doesn’t matter what your son has, everyone on the spectrum is different.

75

I’ve been trying, that’s what I do every day. But I’m not getting anywhere. I don’t want to feel this way each day but nothing I do escapes it.

I’ve been doing that for several months but I can’t avoid the trigger when the trigger is LITERALLY my emotions. If it were just the website I could do that, but it’s not.

Incorrect. I can’t help it if it doesn’t. No matter how much I repeat it to myself or try to force it through it doesn’t stick and I don’t have any other ideas.

Again I’ve tried that before, but it just comes back after meditation. Either that or it doesn’t stop during the process.

NO IT FREAKING DOES NOT. It’s not a matter of wanting it to work, I want it to but it’s not.

If it were as simple as keeping both feet on the ground I wouldn’t be here. But it’s not. The best I can hope for most days is not feeling anything but as soon as I do then this stuff pops up. I don’t want to feel nothing forever.

Like…is it that foreign to think that someone can want to get better more than anything and yet not see results from having done everything. I don’t like this stuff not working because then that means that’s one less tool I can turn to.

How do you think I feel knowing the contradictions swirl in my head and nothing makes sense but for some reason I can’t stop it. I keep thinking why other people aren’t like this, what I’m doing wrong or what they see and I can’t understand.

I keep asking every chain “where are you going with this” and I can’t find and answer but I can’t stop it either. Nothing makes sense and yet I can’t let it go. All I know is that other people don’t think or feel like this when I show them but I don’t know how. I asked my therapist one time why solipsism didn’t bother him and he just said “it just didn’t” and I couldn’t see how. I was hoping for some answer or trick he knew but…

I want things to make sense again.

76

Exactly. YOU ceased to exist for that duration.
But note that your autonomous Homeostatic system remained functional and kept you body’s chemistry in balance.

But awareness itself is also a selective process, because your brain cannot handle all the incoming sensory information and it must select only that which has your specific interest at any given time.

It is called “selective attention”

I think I have posted this before but it may be of interest to new readers.

77

So, now you say you have emotions tha can be triggered, but yesterday you said emotions don’t work that way. That’s why we can’t help you. It’s why a journal would help.

You can learn more about meditation. It’s more than sitting quietly. But you want argue with your teachers, so you need a teacher that understands autism.

Because you are talking to people who don’t understand autism. We don’t understand your different way of thinking. And, when I showed you something specific to autism, you rejected it. Get help.

You will never not be autistic. Me, I will always have anxiety. I have to learn to live with it every day.

78

That’s what happens to everyone under anesthesia. I don’t believe that you don’t know that. Didn’t you talk to the nurses? They told you but you forgot or didn’t listen. Or, You are full of crap.

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79

Make your own list. Sometimes you just have to help yourself. Others can’t do it for you.

You don’t have to go against your own natural desire to find meaning. That’s not how science works.

Rick and Morty is a lame cartoon for adults. Now that’s meaningless. Sponge Bob is worse though. That kills braincells. However, love can and does have meaning for some people. It maybe a chemical reaction, but it is one that is important to others.

What is it you want? Maybe you need to try doing what you want instead of what other people tell you do. Sometimes one of the worst things one can do is what others say they think someone should do.

It’s the truth though. It’s not a dodge at all, but the truth and if other therapists have told you this, then why the heck are you still going to them? If therapy is so bad and you’re insisting it doesn’t work, then why bother with it?

You were almost involuntarily hospitalized? Very interesting. Why am I not surprised? You know, a therapist and especially a psychologist can legally have you placed on an 72 hour hold for psychiatric evaluation- involuntarily or not. Even the police can place you on a 72 hour hold in a psychiatric ward and you’d have no say about it. Certain behaviours and words/thoughts can easily get you a 72 hour hold, legally, by a judge, police (warrant necessary), doctor/psychiatrist, sometimes even a psychologist (depending on state).

And that’s what I’ve been saying about people in general.

80

Your emotions are not the trigger. I have PTSD, the Orange Menace can trigger it, but it’s not my emotions that triggers it. There are other things beside that Orange Menace, but my point is, the emotions are not the trigger. It’s the external stimuli that causes the emotions and traumatic memories.

You know what, I can that say the Orange Menace isn’t going to hurt me (actually if he gets into office again, he could, but that’s not happening. I have to believe it’s not happening) but that doesn’t keep that sick egotistical, hypocritical, racist, sexist, xenophobic, bigot from triggering a PTSD moment. You know what I’m doing about it though? Besides believing Kamala is going to win? I’m campaigning for her, just as I did Obama. I have to believe she will win or I’ll go mad. That’s what you do though- you DO SOMETHING! You don’t just sit around and say, “Well this doesn’t work.” It won’t work if you don’t DO SOMETHING!

No, your really don’t want it to work or you would have worked to find something that does work. You reject everything. So what’s the point?

You know what? Sometimes if others fail you, do it yourself. I can tell you stories (not so much therapists, but teachers, my own mother…) how others failed to protect me as a child. Guess what? I did something and it worked. I was not with my abuser as a teen (7+ years- from at least 7 year old to 14 years old) any longer. Will I ever fully recover from the abuse that some therapists compared to that of Holocaust survivor? No, but it gets better. I raised two sons by myself after a divorce, have two degrees, and have a fairly good life. Can’t complain, though I look forward to retirement in a about (oddly enough) seven more years.

And yes, everyone on the AS is different, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be a functioning member of society. My other son has Bipolar disorder and he’s doing well. It is possible and guess what? There are a lot of Veterans who have PTSD too, not from abuse, but from war and they manage to function in society too. It doesn’t matter what you Dx is, if you have a desire to work on whatever it is to improve it, it is possible.