About Lying, Illusion and the Predator's Mind

[Buddy]

Buddy, what you describe IS a situation of high trauma. Trauma doesn't have to be physical abuse.

Indeed, and the fact that you never forgot it also suggests that it was traumatic. I have always remembered a similar type of family-life dynamic. I must have been 7 or 8 and had come home from school to find a kitten in the back garden. I took it into the kitchen and gave it a saucer of milk. A couple of hours later my father came home from work (I can't remember where the kitten was at this stage) and saw the empty saucer of milk on the kitchen floor. He had apparently asked my mother about it and got the story, but decided to pull me in for some rather disingenuous questioning anyway.

So I remember standing there and him looking rather severe, pointing at the saucer and asking me "what is that doing there!?" I was already in a state of fear because of the dynamic and perhaps it was that that led me to interpret his question literally, i.e. 'what is the saucer actually doing on the floor'. Of course, the saucer was not actually 'doing' anything, so I couldn't really give an answer. My father got more angry at my apparent refusal to answer his question and repeated it, with increasing anger and vociferousness, several times more, until I, teary-eyed, blurted out "It's not doing anything, it's just sitting there!".

Yeah, I know how fear like this can make you literal-minded and increase the frustration during disingenuous questioning. For me, part of this kind of experience includes a silent cry-out that goes something like: "Why are you asking me this!!!! Why don't you just ask me what you really want to know??? What do you really want to know?????"

I know this sounds sort of comical, but at the time it was pretty traumatic for me and something I had, unfortunately, become accustomed to.

I've emotionally processed a few of these kinds of experiences. They are both comical and very serious. They become more comical the more pain is released so that you can eventually look at the experience again without being emotionally triggered. Thanks for sharing that with us.

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quote from Buddy:

How could I possibly have ever come to emotionally reconcile and understand what was really going on around me without "telling stories" to myself and others?

I don't think that you could have. You show a lot of empathy for your dad, his struggles and his rage at failing to meet his own expectations of himself. In a way it's harder that way because you can't really get angry at him or hate him because you see him as a flawed human being whose best is woefully inadequate.

Yep, I understand what you're saying. Fortunately I no longer hold to false notions like: "duty to...", whether it's duty to love a parent because he's a parent, or however you look at it. Truth is, I will feel like I hate him, love him, resent him, feel proud for him, and any other emotion as it comes, when it comes, without feeling guilty for how I feel but also without expressing the hurtful stuff in raw form like that. I tried that once. It was a confrontation where I dared him to hit me. He made a face-saving back-down, but it hurt me to see him even in that kind of position. Now, I'm committed to finding win-win solutions when a situation seems to ask for it.

Perhaps you may be afraid that if you allow yourself emotional expression you could become like your dad.

Too late. :) I used to have that fear before I was faced with the fact that I was already like him in many ways. I was lucky to have realized this back in the late 90's so that I could come to terms with the truth and begin practicing some changes before I landed on here only to get bounced out. Thanks, webglider, for your input here.

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Although I disagree with HSP as "type", the description applies to me all too well. I was pleased to see the author/editor of the Wiki entry mentions high sensitivity as both 'result of trauma' and 'initial condition'. I suspect 'initial condition' applies to me since I recall always being this way. Also, high sensitivity to sensory stimulus has been linked to the "set point" of the thalamus - a condition commonly connected to AD/HD, though not necessarily limited to it.

Your initial reaction towards this info was almost an exact replica of mine, when I first encountered this typology about 10 years ago. It would be adviseable, I think, to first get acquainted a bit further with the specifics of it and then let it sink in for a while, playing a bit with these new notions as you observe yourself from this new perspective and different point of reference.

I'm sorry, but I'm a bit confused. Are you saying that I should consider that I AM a label (HSP), yet should NOT identify with a label (AD/HD)? Or do you mean I should consider that I may not have the sensitivity levels of the "HSP" and that it may be something else?

I'm OK with either possibility. I was going to finish the post that was making the case that I was suspecting, except that I got caught up in the emotional memories.

What I should have added includes the results of certain comparisons to other people's comments and observations over the years. Physiologically, my sensory experience is ordinarily kind of intense when I'm not feeling foggy-headed or very tired from the day's work. Ordinarily, colors are bright, vibrant, seemingly with a depth to them. Sounds can be very sharp, distinctly made out from other sounds occurring together and make me feel that some resonator in me is humming along with the rhythms that I'm able to perceive. Air temperature and breezes on my skin are noticed and noticed how wonderful it feels to be so compatible and in tune with Nature. Tastes and smells can feel like little explosions of sensate and flavor in the nose and mouth that sometimes give me the impression that there is way more information there than what my conscious intellect can translate and recognize.

This probably sounds all weird, so I'm just saying that I believe it's possible that all our senses, taken all together, provide all of us with way more information than we are accustomed to recognizing and using right now.

It also might help you to get a bit detached from the AD/HD label which you seem to have a very strong rapport to/with. I even think to have noticed several times that you hold up that AD/HD label as a sort of shield - as a warning sign you're not to be tampered with, or for us to not tresspass any farther.

I'm a strong proponent of de-labeling and have made the case for how labels just create more boundaries around people to objectify them in an 'us vs them' kind of way. That may not always come through in my writing though, because I sometimes get tired of qualifying the comments out of fear of distracting from the point I was wanting to make. Not that the practice helped much I see.

Each trauma has objective and subjective sides to it. In the example you gave, playing ones kids one against the other and embarrassing them both in passing, is a very cruel thing to do by any account, objectively speaking.

Moreover, would highly sensitive really appear to be one of your attributes, it then seems easy to comprehend that you operate from a different vulnerability threshold than a 'normal' person (statistically average) would. That is to say, you could get traumatised by situations, persons and experiences where others wouldn't flinch nor blink. This constitutes an objective difference between people and is a fact of life.

I noticed this difference as a child. In my naivete, I assumed that part of my growing up includes learning how other people developed or naturally had a "thick skin". Today, I rather like that all I need is a light touch to get any sensory message, but obviously sensitivity has its down side as we are all discovering, OSIT.

Trauma arrests the flow of feelings and emotions and fixates that 'snapshot of the situation' into bodily residues (crampings, muscle tensions, postures, shallow breathing, high bloodpressure and the like). It thereby becomes a real, psychosomatically anchored burden that you carry along with you until Work is applied.
To be called "a wimp" for that, or naming (and blaming) yourself as such or as whatever, would be a subjective part of this - mainly because of opinionated judgment in stead of scientific analysis.
However, in an objective sense this namecalling could be a cause of deeper traumatizing on top of the initial one. And so on and so forth...

Totally agree. "Mindfulness" practice has helped me to glimpse this.

Exactly this heaping up would amount to an entanglement of the quantum variety, see?

I do indeed and I appreciate that reference.

That's one of the reasons why these predicaments are so difficult to unravel and the emotional upheavals so difficult to manage and/or to rearrange on an adequate footing, specific to your essence and core being, and in accordance with your aims.

Agreed. Quantum entanglements because all is in flux, no-thing stands still and in the process of observing, looking, hunting, it can be very difficult to get a "fix" on some "state".

Thank you, Palinurus. I'll finish those links tonight.

 

[anart]

I'm sorry, but I'm a bit confused. Are you saying that I should consider that I AM a label (HSP), yet should NOT identify with a label (AD/HD)?

I think it's a good question. Quite frankly, I'm not a big fan of labels at all - 'HSP' - I'm sure most people here could be 'labeled' as that - is it objectively helpful? I don't see the benefit. I think the point here is to understand the self, not to grasp at labels that try to linearly define the human experience, which is, by definition, not linear. I think there is much more to human beings than such labels can define and, thus, they are inherently limiting. Just my take, of course.

 

[Palinurus]

I'm sorry, but I'm a bit confused. Are you saying that I should consider that I AM a label (HSP), yet should NOT identify with a label (AD/HD)? Or do you mean I should consider that I may not have the sensitivity levels of the "HSP" and that it may be something else?

Sorry to get you confused. I didn't properly state what I meant to say, apparently. So, thank you for letting me try again.

All these diagnostic 'labels' are to be taken with a grain of salt and you should not identify with any of them, whichever. They at best give indications of what specifically to look at when you encounter experiences out of the ordinary or when obstacles to smoothly functioning are becoming some kind of a handicap. I presume you would want to minimise wasting energy on unnecessary fretting or on feeding the matrix in any way, if possible. So I just tried to convey the need for an experimental attitude around this labeling and wanted to warn not to switch out the one for the other, but to keep a distance (detachment) to them both - and any other for that matter. That's all. I'm glad Anart already indicated more or less the same thing to you.

Having said that, then there is this:

What I should have added includes the results of certain comparisons to other people's comments and observations over the years. Physiologically, my sensory experience is ordinarily kind of intense when I'm not feeling foggy-headed or very tired from the day's work. Ordinarily, colors are bright, vibrant, seemingly with a depth to them. Sounds can be very sharp, distinctly made out from other sounds occurring together and make me feel that some resonator in me is humming along with the rhythms that I'm able to perceive. Air temperature and breezes on my skin are noticed and noticed how wonderful it feels to be so compatible and in tune with Nature. Tastes and smells can feel like little explosions of sensate and flavor in the nose and mouth that sometimes give me the impression that there is way more information there than what my conscious intellect can translate and recognize.

This seems an apt description of something very rare, as far as I know. Most peoples' senses ordinarily are very dull, at best; except maybe when they are very young. That's why they seem to need strong inputs and all the repetitiousness thereof as well - which in turn dulls their sensing even more. They would be incapable of both experiencing what you summarise and of wording it the way you can, based on continuous efforts of self observation.

Anyway, this quote seems to give all the more reason to explore the specifics of the HSP 'label' in the manner just indicated above, I would think.

 

[Buddy]

All these diagnostic 'labels' are to be taken with a grain of salt and you should not identify with any of them, whichever. They at best give indications of what specifically to look at when you encounter experiences out of the ordinary or when obstacles to smoothly functioning are becoming some kind of a handicap. I presume you would want to minimise wasting energy on unnecessary fretting or on feeding the matrix in any way, if possible. So I just tried to convey the need for an experimental attitude around this labeling and wanted to warn not to switch out the one for the other, but to keep a distance (detachment) to them both - and any other for that matter. That's all. I'm glad Anart already indicated more or less the same thing to you.

In case it wasn't clear, when I said "I'm OK with either possibility", I was referring, not to labels, but to whatever you were talking about. I see myself very simply as someone somewhere on a spectrum or continuum.

This seems an apt description of something very rare, as far as I know.

Or it could seem rare because few people IRL who are aware of this difference between people are willing to make the effort IRL to explain it in simple language because folks wouldn't understand it anyway because maybe their senses have become dulled for various reasons. If certain folks don't take the time to explain "hyper" sensitivity "issues", it could be due to a simple energy investment calculation.

Anyway, this quote seems to give all the more reason to explore the specifics of the HSP 'label' in the manner just indicated above, I would think.

Already done. I'm only partially Elaine-Aron-version "HSP". Have you read this thread on "HSP"? I took the test with others and reported my results. Also included are some thoughts on an apparent distortion of Jung's "innate sensitivity" concept.

For the record (and I probably need to modify the practice), when I mention "AD/HD" or any other "label", and that is not the subject of the discussion, I do it for the same reason I would wear a watch (if I could remember to): because other people believe...

 

[anart]

For the record (and I probably need to modify the practice), when I mention "AD/HD" or any other "label", and that is not the subject of the discussion, I do it for the same reason I would wear a watch (if I could remember to): because other people believe...

Bud, I don't think that's the case. If you look back over all the posts in which you've mentioned your AD/HD, it's really obvious that you believe it about yourself and use it, quite often, as the reason for many behavioral patterns. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what you are saying, but if you're saying that you only use the AD/HD label because other people believe it, and you don't, I think that's really disingenuous.

 

[Buddy]

For the record (and I probably need to modify the practice), when I mention "AD/HD" or any other "label", and that is not the subject of the discussion, I do it for the same reason I would wear a watch (if I could remember to): because other people believe...

Bud, I don't think that's the case. If you look back over all the posts in which you've mentioned your AD/HD, it's really obvious that you believe it about yourself and use it, quite often, as the reason for many behavioral patterns. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what you are saying, but if you're saying that you only use the AD/HD label because other people believe it, and you don't, I think that's really disingenuous.

I understand both "sides" of the question in the linguistic and conceptual terms it's almost always presented. More fundamentally though, how could I believe something that is only a relative perspective and doesn't really, objectively exist? Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to explain "how I feel", or how hard this is for me to explain when I "see it so differently?"

 

[anart]

I understand both "sides" of the question in the linguistic and conceptual terms it's almost always presented. More fundamentally though, how could I believe something that is only a relative perspective and doesn't really, objectively exist? Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to explain "how I feel", or how hard this is for me to explain when I "see it so differently?"

Honestly, I think you assume that others don't have exactly the same problem - you deeply buy into the idea that you are the only one who 'sees things so differently' and you're not. I think you vastly over-estimate your 'different-ness' and that you use these labels as a shield, to keep yourself 'safe'. fwiw.

 

[Buddy]

[quote author=anart]
Honestly, I think you assume that others don't have exactly the same problem...[/quote]

I am not consciously aware of any such assumption.

[quote author=anart]
- you deeply buy into the idea that you are the only one who 'sees things so differently'...[/quote]

Do you believe that? I buy into no such absolute idea, deeply or otherwise, as far as I know.

[quote author=anart]
I think you vastly over-estimate your 'different-ness'[/quote]

That's possible, but I think sometimes I do and sometimes I don't and sometimes I have no clue whatsoever whether I even know anything.

[quote author=anart]
...and that you use these labels as a shield, to keep yourself 'safe'. fwiw.[/quote]

A shield can be used to deflect some impact, but really...'safe' from what? I don't know that I'm 'safe' from anything and if you mean "shield" in the sense of "requiring accommodation", that's just sick. It seems I have really, really messed up here trying to talk about a 'subject' I don't even believe in (in the conventional terms) and have little clue how to talk about with others without making some preliminary assumptions so that a discussion can even be held.

 

[anart]

Hmmm. Let me try to put it another way that you'll hopefully find less offensive. If a person has a deeply held belief that they are different from the others in a group in a way that the others simply can't understand (because they are not him/her), then does this belief create and maintain a barrier between said person and the group?

How could it not?

Whenever you mention your AD/HD you do so in the context of how different you are from others. In fact, this sentence you wrote:

Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to explain "how I feel", or how hard this is for me to explain when I "see it so differently?"

is a great example because the premise of what you are stating is that there is no way I could know 'how hard it is for you'. Do you see the implicit barrier you create?

Can you consider that this barrier - this shield - serves not only to keep others at a distance, but to insulate yourself from any real input or impact of others because you always have this internal belief to fall back on that we 'just don't understand' - because you think you are 'different'. This same dynamic comes into play in a myriad of ways with many, many people - the 'difference' can be many things, but the key is that it always acts as a shield - a barrier - between that person and the group and thus is used internally to buffer against input that goes against ones deeply held beliefs.

Does that clarify with less offense? I don't think you've 'messed up' anything, I'm just trying to communicate how I think your use of your 'diagnoses' often comes into play. I'm truly not trying to upset you.

 

[Buddy]

anart, yes I understand and I see and understand about the barrier. I'm sorry, I'm tired and probably should have delayed response until I could be more considerate and thoughtful. Please accept my apologies.

 

[ana]

Buddy, you sure know how labels can affect people, and the negative effects such labelling has on the person. It can lead to a self fulfilling prophecy in which expectations about a person (or a group of people) can come true simply because of those expectations.

Labels exert “steering function” over our psychology.

We all have been "planted" with a particular cognitive strategy in our minds, or with a set of them that limit our our free will to a maybe complex but limited frame of development.

The truth of the matter is that we have a self-regulatory control over our behavior which can go beyond expectations and the limits previously expressed.

It all amounts to what Gurdjieff tell us about identification, and so our only hope is to stop identifying and see ourselves as a work in progress whose only limitations lie in the lack of knowledge that as is acquired can be freely used by the being.

anart already explained how this label is being used as a shield:

Can you consider that this barrier - this shield - serves not only to keep others at a distance, but to insulate yourself from any real input or impact of others because you always have this internal belief to fall back on that we 'just don't understand' - because you think you are 'different'. This same dynamic comes into play in a myriad of ways with many, many people - the 'difference' can be many things, but the key is that it always acts as a shield - a barrier - between that person and the group and thus is used internally to buffer against input that goes against ones deeply held beliefs.

And this is the work of the predator's mind.

Predator's Mind

Through the mind, which, after all, is their mind, the predators inject into the lives of human beings whatever is convenient for them. And they ensure, in this manner, a degree of security to act as a buffer against their fear.

We know this is hard, just remember that the possibilities that lie to those who face the predator are worth it, because we are talking about recovering our free will.

 

[Gimpy]

For the record (and I probably need to modify the practice), when I mention "AD/HD" or any other "label", and that is not the subject of the discussion, I do it for the same reason I would wear a watch (if I could remember to): because other people believe...

Bud, I don't think that's the case. If you look back over all the posts in which you've mentioned your AD/HD, it's really obvious that you believe it about yourself and use it, quite often, as the reason for many behavioral patterns. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what you are saying, but if you're saying that you only use the AD/HD label because other people believe it, and you don't, I think that's really disingenuous.

I understand both "sides" of the question in the linguistic and conceptual terms it's almost always presented. More fundamentally though, how could I believe something that is only a relative perspective and doesn't really, objectively exist? Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to explain "how I feel", or how hard this is for me to explain when I "see it so differently?"

Hi there Bud.....I'm also an emotionally centered person, and I have a tough time saying what I mean in a clear concise way. It takes a long time when the emotions are engaged...it might help you not to post until the emotions are not as intense. When it comes to posting on the forum, and there is something I want to contribute, I write things out in a word document and just get all the reactions/thoughts down in words best I can. Then I go back and edit it down to rid the text of anything that 'makes me feel good', and leave in what focuses on helping the other person. (Thank you to anart for that suggestion a while back. Works great!)

Its also a reason that some of my posts are emoticons only....when I have no words and a commonly understood image works better, that's what I use.

Also like you, there are shields I tend to use that are not necessary. In my case its the 'brain damage' shield. Great for Strategic Enclosure, lousy when it comes to taking out the garbage.

Make sense?

 

[Palinurus]

Already done. I'm only partially Elaine-Aron-version "HSP". Have you read this thread on "HSP"? I took the test with others and reported my results. Also included are some thoughts on an apparent distortion of Jung's "innate sensitivity" concept.

Briefly, just the facts here.

Before giving you the references I gave about HSP, I first used the search function - which I routinely do normally, and in this case also because of a vague reminiscence that this subject was covered sometime ago. Alas, I got no result whatsoever using both Elaine Aron and Highly Sensitives as search clues. Otherwise, I would have included the link to the thread you gave me now in the initial list I compiled for you.

Anyway, thanks for that link. I've bookmarked the thread and I'm going to explore it asap.

 

[Buddy]

Hi Gimpy. Thanks for the feedback. Now I know why your concise penetrating insights blow me away sometimes. I will practice the journal thing more, but if you can stand one more post, I'd like to share something. I hope this doesn't come across to anyone as a "you just don't understand me" or a "it's all about me" kind of post because I just wanted to connect in a meaningful way.

Like many others on here and IRL, I have always seen through the social ego with its meaningless babble and needs for ritual and stroking. As far back as I can remember, deep down I've wanted nothing but to simply, painlessly and instantly connect with people on a meaningful level with NONE of that hand-shaky, "hey, howya doing? How's your mama an 'em?, watch the game last night? Didja see Cal Petty make that long free-throw down the football field, ring the net, bounce off the goalie and knock out the pitcher?, why you look like that? Something wrong? Are you sick?"

This stuff is everywhere mind-numbing and every time I have to go through two days of psychobabble ritual before I can connect with someone on a serious, meaningful level just so I can say a meaningful heart-felt word to them, buy something at a 'convenience' store, ask a question about my car or share a bit of joy about anything at all, it can become quite painful to bear, and to bear witness to, in more ways than just one because neurologically and physiologically, I just don't naturally tolerate it well, that's all.

My "do it again" pleasure center seems to work a-typically due to my particular brain chemistry or configuration, so at times while I was growing up, avoiding social contact to avoid a bit of neurological or emotional pain while feeling a deep emotional need to connect was just part of my life and probably made me un-sane or whatever.

Thanks for listening.

On a side note, I think I discovered what was triggering me about "HSP". Along with real sensitivities, Aron seems to have included the sensitivities of the social ego with its needs for reinforcement. I don't see where she distinguishes useless "sympathy for self/other" from real compassion and empathy. As a possible result, if I were the kind of person who would lose an appointment with a client to help you go get some gas for your car, or give you the shirt off my back because you needed it, yet I do not operate from a social ego or I do operate a 'defective' one, I will score low and be "insensitive". The "normal" or "HSP" will be "sensitive" and see me as "insensitive" while I see them as foolish and shallow, and if I show that, the showing will be seen as confirmation of my "insensitivity".

For me and from my perspective, this is just everyday life: a "normal" person gets a good idea to raise awareness of something, but winds up getting it backwards.

That's it! No more unasked-for talk about 'me'.

 

[Guardian]

As far back as I can remember, deep down I've wanted nothing but to simply, painlessly and instantly connect with people on a meaningful level with NONE of that hand-shaky, "hey, howya doing? How's your mama an 'em?, watch the game last night? Didja see Cal Petty make that long free-throw down the football field, ring the net, bounce off the goalie and knock out the pitcher?, why you look like that? Something wrong? Are you sick?"

I could be wrong, 'cause I'm out of my area of expertise here...but it seems to me that you have to actually care about the answers to these questions if you want to "connect with people on a meaningful level"

I can tell you how all my friend's mamas are doing, in fact, I can usually tell you how their major household appliances are holding up too. If you don't listen to all the "little things" in your friends lives that matter to them, how can you be their friend?