Gordy

Well, I think it's great you turn those feelings into aggression and communicate clear boundaries with people. Another way, which I do and don't like that I do, is I blame myself for over reacting, then push the feelings and act completely normal. That makes me feel more gross, leads me to passively trying to work around other people crossing boundaries, and makes the situation feel more abusive. Like I'm repeating some pattern from my screwed up childhood, where I'm always trying to hide my feelings, act normal above all, and seem to value other people's convenience and happiness more than my own.

I also feel like dealing with this is either not entirely an intellectual exercise, or that I don't have the intellectual ability to think my way out of it. All of my current problems feel like psychological issues, that I know can get severe, and solving them by 'thinking right' or 'thinking straight' or being analytical has never worked for me. It can help in some ways -- motivating me to try and fix this, and moving between different strategies when one doesn't work, seeking help here, and etc, but thinking alone hasn't been able to fix it.

There's this model of the mind where inside our brain is a little person, a homunculus, driving. That's an out dated model, but, anyways, the way I understand the idea is that the little man or homunculus is our top level thoughts: the top of our consciousness that's made out of sentences and paragraphs, the thinking part of our brain. And that's not supported by our modern understanding of how our consciousness works. I've read the analogy that it's more like dolphins swimming beneath the sea, and that top level is just whatever dolphin is breaking the surface at that moment. There's a lot more going on than a little man directing things, and ... I don't know, that somehow feels more apt to my breeds of crazy. I've learned I just don't have the ability to drown the dolphins with PTSD by having some little man inside me make all the right intellectual moves and constantly think exactly the best way. I tried that as a coping mechanism, as a child, and fortunately had the awareness that it was making me more crazy, and leading me down a kind of OCD rabbit hole that I knew would end up nowhere good.

That barely makes sense, and is probably wrong, but anyways it's kind of funny so I'll leave it there.

Edited February 18, 2019 by matts

I don't know if I'd call it aggression lol, just I'm forceful about letting them know I don't like being touched.

I've only had to actually resort to violence to Define boundaries twice, that I can recall right now on top of my head. Once I already mentioned about the Hell's Angel I stabbed in the foot. And once I had to pull a firearm to stop a rape. This gym rat decided at a party I was attending that he was going to have sex with that girl whether she wanted to or not. And everybody else at the rest of the party both male and female,were kind of ignoring it. She was sitting there by the campfire hugging her knees to her chest kind of crying cuz the guy just would not leave her alone. Her  ride didn't want to leave because she was having fun. And the gym rat was one of the cool kids and pretty big. She Don't Know Me so I didn't think she'd get in the truck and leave with me. So I went to my truck strapped my pistol on went over and told him it was time for him to leave. He flared  his muscles up and asked me what I was going to do about it. I pulled my weapon pointed it at his face and told him it was time for him to leave. He left. 38 hollow points don't care how much you can bench press. She was grateful everybody else at the party, both male and female was mad at me for harshing the buzz, the party broke up soon after that , they were willing to let  it happened  just so they weren't inconvenienced . I think it was the last time I hung out with them. That was after I quit drinking.

And I've always had this little vision of the man in my head, lol.

He is a beat up guy covered with scars blood and bandages, Waist Deep oily filthy water. In the engine room of a slowly sinking ship, half the Machinery in the room doesn't work and the other half is held together with bailing wire duct tape and sections of the electrical panel has jumpers around all the fuses. The only light in the room is that which is reflecting through the doorway from the fires in the other compartments. And all he's trying to do is just keep the Machinery that still works working. And every now and then something shorts out, he has to rewire it hot to turn it back on, and every time he does he gets shocked. But he not going to stop.

 

And now I got the poor little bastard trying to pry open doors we welded shut decades ago. I don't think he likes me much.

LOL. You write so well, that's such a vivid scene in my mind.

"But he is not going to stop." --  I think that's the key.

Thank you . There's a quote that I like from a movie titled "the Tank"it's about a Russian tank lost in Afghanistan during the USSR Afghanistan invasion.

I've been told it's morbid but I like it.

" when out of fuel become a pillbox, went out of ammunition become a bunker, and when out of time become a martyr." Lol

When in doubt bunker in.