Did morbid sensitivity ruin you?

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I used to be a very angry and bitter person, very snide and cutting to people who ticked me off. Carried the past with me like a sword, constantly hacking at my own heart. If I wasn't angry about something, I just turned it inwards and hated myself. Boy, I've got a PhD in hatred I think.

But in my 30's, I got tired of feeling that way. The depression became more powerful than the outwardly directed anger, and it felt just miserable to be alive. I knew I was capable of feeling differently, and just decided that I would.

Over the last 20 years, I've made significant progress in re-training my mind away from bitterness and hatred and towards kindness and... well, accepting that life isn't fair, everyone has their s**t, all of us hurt each other's feelings, and it's not worth ruining my day over someone elses F***-up.

So, when you finally get tired of feeling the way you do, and want to be more pleasant company for yourself, you'll find the means. You'll change your own mind. If not, you'll get to spend the rest of your life with a bitter, hateful, whiney, pathetic victim. {{shudder}}

We're here to help one another out. Creating ways to cope with issues. It does not help when someone mentions how much their life sucks, b/c of so so... Don't mention it...we all know... we dont need to be reminded.

Well, you don't really have to be reminded, just read another post. Sometimes you do need to talk about it. There was once a time when the treatment for shell-shock was to distract the patient from the memories, block it, not speak of it, never mention it. What needed to get out found ways of escaping anyway... nightmares, violent behavior, madness... Well, you get the picture.

It's a mistake to wallow in it forever. Trouble is, how do you stop? I don't think any of us are trying to stay this way (yeah, okay, I kind of admitted I have been, I really am working on that). I don't believe my life was ruined. But there are a lot of people who did a pretty good job of trying to ruin it, just as they do to kids every day of school, every year. I suppose seeing more done to stop that would help. For now, I continue to try to resolve my own issues. And sometimes we need to say so. And sometimes we need to hear each other say so.

I say it doesn't help to tell people not to speak up about their problems. We can't learn to cope with issues if no one is welcome to mention that they have any.

Postperson, that's another part of it that's such a trouble. You know you're supposed to forgive. In concept, you want to. But deep down...

Well, there it is, Cap'n Tripps... I've been a ruminator (is that a word) for as long as I can remember. So long, in fact, that I've formed a strange sort of cooperative life with my own dark side. I guess these days I'm just afraid to do without what has been part of what I am my whole life, or almost my whole life. I relate very much to The Logical Song by Supertramp:

When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful, a miracle, oh, it was beautiful, magical
And all the birds in the trees, well, they'd be singing so happily, joyfully, playfully, watching me
But then they sent me away, to teach me how to be sensible, logical, oh responsible, practical
And then they showed me a world where I could be so dependable, oh clinical, oh, intellectual, cynical

There are times when all the world's asleep
The questions run too deep
For such a simple man
Won't you please, please tell me what we've learned?
I know it sounds absurd
Please tell me who I am!

Watch what you say, they'll be calling you a radical, a liberal, oh fanatical, criminal
Oh, won't you sign up your name, we like to feel you're acceptable, respectable, oh presentable, a vegetable

There at night when all the world's asleep
The questions run so deep
For such a simple man
Won't you please, please tell me what we've learned?
I know it sounds absurd
Please tell me who I am!

Funny thing is, I know who I am and what I am. I just don't know where I fit in this world, this life. All the good works to do seem to involve people, every need I see requires risk to meet, and the right thing to do is too often something I'd rather avoid. Ah, but I expect I'm being petulant... I've certainly hijacked the danged thread! I guess it's just that what you describe here has been so much a part, a crutch, and a poison in my life, that I am awestruck at seeing it described by others... There is much to my life apart from it but still it is there, a lingering disease, no cure found that cures all who bear it. I have to cure myself, and work out what it is that I am missing for myself.

But I stand by my statement in a previous post. Heaven forbid we should stop mentioning our problems just because others have them, too.

yeah, don't stop mentioning your problems Irishwhistle, I usually enjoy your posts. They're often very insightful

Yup, me too on that one. Not talking about your problems, especially on this forum, is sorta like not talking about the dump the elephant in the room just took...

Everyone does know about not talking about the elephant in the room, don't they?

irish, I'm working on developing the idea that I can help by doing things on my own that help others... I've done bookkeeping for my church, I learning how to grow enough vegetables to share with the local soup kitchen, and now this last week I find I'm sewing weighted blankets for friends... which may become an offering to the Alzheimer's Assc. or nursing home.

I think there's stuff we can do like that... if you've got the ability to get out and deal with one or two people, anyway.

At the very least, offering a flower garden for passersby, or something. Tithe to an organization you support.

We as humans tend to think in such large, grand terms, and overlook the small talents and gifts we can offer. Maybe not earth shattering, but if it helps one other person it's that much less suffering in the world.

Martin Luther King didn't do it by himself, it took an awful lot of little people to accomplish his vision. Without all those small offerings, he was nothing.

I don't like going out at all with people because people make fun of me and i can't take a joke at all I used to get picked on at school a lot used to. I miss read people a lot still do