Personal Development for Smart People^TM Forums

I PLAY COMPUTER GAMES · 08-01-2009, 12:25 PM

This is a big one for me. I'm 25 and too lazy to support myself so I'm living under my mom's roof, even though I can't stand living with her and would rather be alone. Well... every day I go nuts and cuss her out all the time and shake with rage... this has to stop... I don't even intend to do so, I don't have any grudges against her or hold her responsible for anything crappy in my life... I just totally lose it in the moment when she does something that I magnify by 1000 which I find annoying... this of course leads to her acting nasty as well in retaliation and makes it a very bad place to live.

It probably sounds like I'm a nasty person and I live in a hellpit, and to some xtent both are true, but when I'm nice and helpful to my mother, and cooperate with her as a team member to make this tiny apartment a better place, it's actually quite nice how we get along and how peaceful things can be. I guess this trial is about self discipline and not indulging my petty annoyance and anger any more. I think it may be quite tramatic actually... because I'm used to being a paranoid raging ******.

HOnestly if I can accomplish this trial I could probably do anything o_O

I don't think I'll ever really be close with my parents or even associate with them during the course of my life aside from getting a roof and food due to my laziness (maybe I'll stop that some day) but at least I can learn to honor them and treat them with respect eh?

BEGIN!

I PLAY COMPUTER GAMES · 08-01-2009, 06:23 PM

Well I passed my first test which was a difficult but short-lived one. I actually feel physical and some other form of distress from her accusations, but I think it's really just my reaction to the accusations that's my pain. So far maintaining equanimity under pressure hurts like hell. I guess I got to exercise my equanimity muscles eh?

Grey · 08-01-2009, 06:36 PM

I would suggest asking yourself - "Who am I really angry at?"

I PLAY COMPUTER GAMES · 08-01-2009, 06:49 PM

The answer is "my mother" LoL

But it's an in the moment anger not a seething one. A habitual reaction to stimulus if you will. Like pavlov's dog and the bell

Annabelle · 08-01-2009, 09:15 PM

It would help a lot to move out of your mom´s house. Take responsibility for your acts, get a job, be independent. It feels really good.

jamesbiz · 08-01-2009, 10:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by I PLAY COMPUTER GAMES

The answer is "my mother" LoL

But it's an in the moment anger not a seething one. A habitual reaction to stimulus if you will. Like pavlov's dog and the bell

Sorry, but the answer is you. You made her the way she is, for starters. You chose to be at home. You chose to show her that her 25 years have been a waste by you not doing anything with the life she's given you. The only person you hate is your self, and you put that onto her. You hate her for what, raising you? For probably giving you free ****, even tho you are a 25 year old grown man? How about for LETTING you live at home, as a 25 year old grown man? Do tell us why you hate your mom.

I PLAY COMPUTER GAMES · 08-01-2009, 11:04 PM

I'm writing this trial here to bolster my effort in the trial. That's all. If yall wanna drop in like wrecking balls with your suggested courses of action and psycho babble that's up to you. I'm just here to try to be nice to my poor old mama for a month. My previous record is 3-5 days.

jamesbiz · 08-01-2009, 11:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by I PLAY COMPUTER GAMES

I'm writing this trial here to bolster my effort in the trial. That's all. If yall wanna drop in like wrecking balls with your suggested courses of action and psycho babble that's up to you. I'm just here to try to be nice to my poor old mama for a month. My previous record is 3-5 days.

A wrecking ball? I'm just trying to make you understand that it's not your mom that you hate, yet you still seem fixated to feel that it has NOTHING to do with you. Not a single person on this forum would disagree with me on this point. I'm sorry for being the only one to not hold your hand and coddle you. This is real life, and you need to face facts with courage, and not cowardice. Hey, maybe I'm biased, as my mom died to early for me to even have a chance to hate her. Or maybe I'm coming to this with an even greater understanding then most. You decide. If you want to play victim, then play victim.

Your 30 day trial is worthless if you don't figure out WHY you feel the way you feel. Suppressing those feelings for 30 days will just have you jump down her throat even worse eventually.

Your " poor old mom"

I don't doubt she's a poor old women, but you are for sure not treating her like a mom. Stop this stupid trial, and figure out WHY you feel the way you feel instead of hiding those feelings. That would be an awesome trial

" 30 days of figuring out why I hate my self ( I mean my mom)"

I PLAY COMPUTER GAMES · 08-01-2009, 11:57 PM

That's right jimmy boy... keep fighting, chipping away... you know there's a feature on this forum called the "ignore list"... I was considering using it but your message was so entertaining I think I'll hold off on that for now. I want to see what other material you come up with before I get bored with your lectures ^_^

jamesbiz · 08-02-2009, 12:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by I PLAY COMPUTER GAMES

That's right jimmy boy... keep fighting, chipping away... you know there's a feature on this forum called the "ignore list"... I was considering using it but your message was so entertaining I think I'll hold off on that for now. I want to see what other material you come up with before I get bored with your lectures ^_^

lol just by that I can see you have no desire to not hate her. Have fun with that. Please ignore me tho. Just means you are too weak to actually have a good rebuttal. Try to think to your self, why what I said has such an impact that you actually wanna ignore me. Or you can hate me too because of your diluted perception of the world around you. Because of course I'm FIGHTING YOU. No, not trying to help you in anyway. I'm just an evil man trying to fight you, because I want to see you suffer.

" ugh, nuh ugh you are wrong, I'm gonna ignore you"

to bad you can't go crying to your mother.

I PLAY COMPUTER GAMES · 08-02-2009, 12:15 AM

Don't tell me that's all you got. Come on, let me have it with both barrels. I want your doctorate thesis on this one, not some index card summary. I've got all the time in the world Jimbo... I'm all ears (or eyes as it were)

I PLAY COMPUTER GAMES · 08-02-2009, 02:49 AM

It's too bad Jimmypop didn't wanna come back this evening. Maybe he got tired and is taking a break before he returns?? I know I'm tired.

So it's been a full day of holding back my usual hair-trigger temper. It was pretty hard, especially toward the end. But I think I figured out a couple useful things already or maybe atleast got some good clues for laterr.

One thing I noticed is that when I'm tired and closer to needing sleep is when I'm most open to "dark influences". It's a more vulnerable time and when I'm more vulnerable I'm also much more likely to have an animal fight/flight response to anything that suddenly bothers me, I'm also more drained of energy so I'm weaker.

Another thing I noticed is that I overeat, and overeating really makes me prone to raging. The last time I fasted I wasn't even capable of being provoked anymore. I was completely amazed that I wasn't getting angry. I might just fast soon. I've been really over eating lately.

WEll those tips are nice but ultimately it comes down to making a choice not to be nasty to my mom anymore and following through on it. The hardest part I'd say is maintaining consistency in every moment of challenge, because it's easy to slip up just a moment out of a thousand moments. You're going great 999 times out of 1000 and then bam, everything jus thappens at the wrong place at the wrong time at the worst possible moment. That's how it is with everything I've found

Oh well that concludes day 1... so far a success.... gud nite

I PLAY COMPUTER GAMES · 08-02-2009, 03:13 PM

I update a lot here, but from past experience I've found when making difficult changes that, whether I like it or not, constant talking or writing are usually necessary to ensure the change sticks. I've done successful 30 day trials before, breaking addictions. It's usually a good idea to write a journal or have someone to talk to every day. We humans are so attached to words we got to use them sometimes to make our body do things it doesn't usually do.

Right now I feel like how could I have got into this... 29 more days... I'm destined for failure. Why even bother? Strange such a small change would be so tramatic. This is a typical part of altering any behavior. Once we're solidified in a certain way we tend to resist any change. 30 day trials which change one little specific thing are sometimes the only route to change... focus a large chunk of one's power on a very small aspect, which leads to overwhelming force over this small aspect. That one change can be what leads to unravelling a whole slew of other things like dominos. You never know.

When you're like me, living in a stuck hell, which is the end result of all the choices and actios you've taken all your life, you'll resort to all sorts of strange things to get out of your rut. Personally I hate talking to people about things I do and writing journals and crap, but I gotta do what I gotta do.

The world of actions can be a very hard and brutal one, ruled by practicality. It's kind of like surviving in hard times, not that I have any experience with that. You'll find that you'll do anything to make it to the next day or meal. That's the world of action, you never know what sort of **** you'll resort to to make it another day. Reality and practicality are real ego bruisers which show us just how worthless our ideas of the world really are.

My suggestion for anyone who tends to preach preach preach their mantra to people is to jump out of their normal existence and do something completely different which they are not familiar with and feel completely alien to. It should help restore some humbleness. But there's also a possible side effect that if they end up mastering that arena eventually, that the ego will grow even stronger and more overpowering. It's a constant challenge.

jamesbiz · 08-02-2009, 04:19 PM

Yeah, luckily I've been through a ton of different arenas and I'm constantly changing my surroundings. That means I'm allowed to preach preach preach my mantras right??? When are you going to restore your humbleness? Ever think that the reason people are ( as you say) preaching, is because we've already experienced this same crap before, or worse? Of course you are destined for failure if you won't even figure out why your habit is the way it is. But no, keep ignoring the obvious and go the easy way out.

I PLAY COMPUTER GAMES · 08-02-2009, 05:22 PM

I'm still awaiting your paper, Jimmy, you get 5 points off per day that it's late

I PLAY COMPUTER GAMES · 08-02-2009, 05:35 PM

I just thought of something Jimmy... hopefully you're not too busy working on your doctorate thesis... you've mentioned something suggesting you may have "experienced the same crap"... perhaps you would like to share your experience with the class? I'm sitting in the front row you know, with my note pad and pen, eagerly awaiting your words

jamesbiz · 08-02-2009, 05:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by I PLAY COMPUTER GAMES

I just thought of something Jimmy... hopefully you're not too busy working on your doctorate thesis... you've mentioned something suggesting you may have "experienced the same crap"... perhaps you would like to share your experience with the class? I'm sitting in the front row you know, with my note pad and pen, eagerly awaiting your words

I yelled at my grand mother day in and day out. I left my house at 23, so I was stuck with it for awhile. Completely blew my top off every time. I started doing exactly what you are doing now, and just ignore it and not say something. That just made things worse. I bottled it up and that made my life even worse, because before, I could at least let it out. Every tiny possible thing she did started to annoy me more and more. If she whistled wrong, I yelled. Just kept getting worse and worse, with no end in sight. I started to stay away from the house as much as possible, which helped a little. I ALWAYS blamed her I HATED HER with a passion. I absolutely could not stand the site of her after so many years of bitterness towards her. But holding it on just made it come out even stronger eventually. It's funny, I blanked that out of my memory, and up until just now, I didn't even realize why your post bothered me so much.

By the time I finally discovered Steve Pavlina and learned to stop blaming everyone else, she died a month later, after I had already moved out of the home. So no more grand mother do be mad at. A month later my other grand mother died too, so no more grand mothers period.

I PLAY COMPUTER GAMES · 08-02-2009, 06:42 PM

Thanks, that was a quality post, with many striking parallels to my situation but also with differences. I'm sure you understand why prior to this post I really found nothing of value in the responses to my thread. This is the internet and when someone doesn't qualify what they say with some meat of written out experience, I tend to gloss it over. I've wasted 13 years arguing with people on the internet so I've learned what to filter out and what to pay attention to. On the internet what tends to happen is ideas and judgments, conceptual systems, begin to take priority over stories and practical reality. It's real hard to tell what someone brings to the table when you just met them yesterday over text no less, so usually all that can be worked with is what's presented in text.

One similarity between your story and mine is the tiniest mannerisms driving us completely insane. For instance I tend to find my mother disgusting in sound, sight, and behavior. The way she hums tends to drive me up the wall. I've often times fantasized about beating her to death and chopping her up.

The principle difference between our stories is the bottling it in part. When I write of being nice to my mama it isn't bottling anything in. I'm pretty experienced with bottling things in. I've done it most of my life. So I know if I'm bottling something in or if I'm not doing that. Bottling things in I would classify as the same as a reactive explosion. It's both the same response, just channelled differently. Technically speaking, most of my reactions to her, even with screaming and cussing, were still bottling it in, because what I really want to do is beat her to a pulp in those cases, and all I'm left with is shaking in rage, maybe sometimes breaking something.

This may sound like an artificially created mental concept I came up with without grounding in experience, so let me qualify this idea.

On one hand I've gone crazy non-stop from the smallest things about my mom. On the other hand, often within the same 30 minutes, I've found that nothing about my mom bothered me at all, and had no problem with her. Sometimes it was somewhere in between. How can this be?

When I fasted and temporarily altered my eating patterns, all my anger vanished for weeks. I even enjoyed arguing candidly with my mother, which often led to her being nasty most of the time, which was unpleasant, but did not have an effect on my equanimity. Odd huh?

Now... since I shift in and out of the anger/non-anger states during this trial, and I'm not fasting or undergoing a diet alteration at this time, I can't count on these things to keep me treating my mother without nastiness. What then do I do to prevent such? Well, it really comes down to control and discipline and not indulging. Sometimes when she does something that makes me want to go crazy, I just have to accept it and let it be. I can feel the desire felt as need to enrage. I've found that it's really just an indulgence, just like overeating, or masturbating, or constantly reading news or checking for blog updates.

What's a little spooky is that when examined closely, at least 99% of all my anger reponses are actually indulgences.

This is going to sound a little newagey, but I've found that usually when I get angry at something it's because I refuse to accept it, and getting angry is a way to reject it. Something in me finds my mom's behavior, mannerisms, appearance, sound, etc. not to my liking, so I reject it with much energy. Same for anything else that pisses me off.

So during this trial, and with previous less official attempts, what usually happens is my mom will do something that really offends me, and with discipline and control I completely cut off the rejection/reaction default and whether I like it or not, just "take it." And it hurts real bad to just take it, but all I'm doing is not trying to resist what's happening. When examined more closely, what she's doing, and what others do that I get angry at, is just something that my ego finds so offensive that it will go through all sorts of histrionics to bury it. And this ego thing is so ingrained that to force it to accept something happening is felt as physical pain, like the person is actually hurting me with their behavior, despite the fact that when I'm in different states, such behavior doesn't have the same effect.

But I just take it, and lo and behold I feel better soon after, and my overall energy is heightened from taking it.

So that's what my trial is.

Kaybee · 08-03-2009, 12:41 AM

Wow. Your mom loves you a lot; otherwise, she may have thrown you out. It's sounds to me as if you are more discontent with yourself than your mom.

BTW: I love the title of this thread. You really peaked my interest.

Kim
Self Improvement and Motivation: For Those Who Want More

Grindin · 08-03-2009, 02:22 AM

Move out.

ChrisN · 08-03-2009, 07:28 AM

I would quote your threads but i would be here for hours... Look, jimmy is right you need to man up and take responsibility for your life. Instead of whinning that were are throwing you psychology crap and giving you advice, shut up and take it. If you came here to post about how you can't even show your mom some respect for 30 days and your not willing to take our opinions then maybe you shouldn't post at all. Your mom most love you one hell of a lot to support your ass like she is and I wouldn't blame her if you sit at your computer all day and play games and expect her to pull your load.

Get a job, move out and grow up. Go ahead and ignore me and jimmy but really if you can't look at yourself and see that you need to look inside yourself, it must make you angry your not living on your own, earning money, living life like you want it and taking it out on your mother isn't helping you one bit. The more you do it, the more and more distant your relationship will be. I suggest you look at my recent blog post on choices because buddy, you have some serious life decisions to make...

thats all i have to say

ShIxtan · 08-03-2009, 12:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jamesbiz

You made her the way she is, for starters.

I'm sorry, but I somehow doubt this. Isn't the parent the one who creates the child? Isn't the parent the one with the responsibility to teach things like how to manage anger? How to talk and think about your emotions rather than act on them? For at least 13-14 years, and probably more, this guy's Mom had all the power in the relationship, and somehow where it turns out is his fault?

I agree with what you are saying on one level. At some point a person has to take responsibility for themselves. I just don't think we can credibly say that the child creates the parent.

IPCG: I can see that there is a lot of anger and (I'm guessing) pain for you. I'm terribly sorry, I myself have the opposite problem, and tend to ignore my anger for as long as possible. Would you mind telling me some more about what kinds of things trigger the anger for you?

Also, would you mind telling me a little bit about your childhood? I'd really like to know more about your situation, because I think my mother was trying to create a similar one for me (I'm not suggesting your Mom is like mine, Who is very needy and manic depressive. I'm just curious if there are parallels.)

For what it's worth, I think this is a wonderful trial. This might not be the reason for it, but I think it's a perfect way to test James' theory that you make her this way.

If I might make a tiny suggestion, I think sharing your feelings with her would be very helpful. When you are feeling irritated at her humming, don't blow up, but don't ignore it either. Just tell her "Mom, when you hum like that I feel irritated. Do you think we could talk about it?" Or something along those lines.

-Aaron

I PLAY COMPUTER GAMES · 08-03-2009, 03:41 PM

I decided to apply some of the practices I'm using dealing with my mom to you guys, since some of you are really o_O

I'm going to read your responses very slow and let them seep through me

I PLAY COMPUTER GAMES · 08-03-2009, 04:00 PM

I can only conclude, as many times before, that I have a serious ego problem, and unfortunately or fortunately, this trial is becoming an extremely broad one out of necessity. Time and time again I get offended at the doings of people around me and want to fight them, bury them, or filter them out. I have to accept everything you guys are writing here and not fight it, or else this trial is worthless.

Not to mention I only found one recent response that actually really pissed me off. I just got in a fighting mood and lumped all the other ones together with it. Which one it was, is irrelevent.

It's time to stop filtering experiences with ego and take it all. Poor ego >_<

I PLAY COMPUTER GAMES · 08-03-2009, 04:40 PM

I was driving around for a couple hours late last nite to deliver something to someone, spent some extra time driving and just sitting in a parking lot. Halfway through my drive all my sorrows hit me at once and I was devastated by my shortcomings, and living a life of fear. Even driving around I felt fear, of what I wasn't sure. My body temperature went down a lot and I had the heater on full even though it was 60 degrees out. I did keep the window open for ventilation though. Continuing to drive it felt more like I was in dreamland than in normal reality. Driving through my favorite street almost home I was seduced by the beauty of the night so when I got back I went out for a walk for an hour. I found that when I got home and hours afterward my trial was the furthest thing from my mind, actually everything was. It was like life was some strange dream that I'd never understand. I also found myself much more easily angered by my mother, in a very animalistic way. On one hand she wasn't in my attention, on another hand if she made a noise or momentarily got my attention somehow, it would effect me a lot. I almost went off on her a couple times but I didn't want to dirty my "awareness" by "aligning with her" so I shifted away from that and forgot about her.

I know on one hand my problems with her stem from ego, but I know on another hand that our energies are at odds with eachother and ultimately we're not supposed to be together. Rite now she's bitterly cussing out her computer because something's not working... i feel pulled ino normal awareness again... oh well... it's noon on a monday... everybody's up and about going about their daily business... so everyones awareness is in the more mundane right now around here.. gravity effect

I've found that whenever I go outside the bounds of normal perception, people and things around me conspire to "put me back into my place"... because it's not allowed in our techno-prison matrix world to go outside the bounds

Sorry I don't wanna get into personal history on this thread. It's something we all gotta deal with at some point.

I PLAY COMPUTER GAMES · 08-03-2009, 04:47 PM

I think now a lot of ego and anger and fighting soothes and covers up fear, and glosses over personal shortcomings. We're always fearless when we're enraged. But I don't like always being either afraid or angry, or devastated by my impotence as a human

ar81 · 08-03-2009, 07:30 PM

The older people become, it becomes harder for them to change.
The only thing we can do is to accept them.

You have said you would like to change and that's good.
It means you are not anymore a passive taker of behaviors, a puppet of other people who invite you to a fight.

I have found that when we react to provocations we are slaves of external stimulation. So when we do not react as expected, we are creating a behavior, and others will get into it.

To me it looks like you wanted to be happy, despite of the invitations of your mom to fight or to feel bad. Sometimes mothers have an emotional need and they express it with annoying behaviors, but if you attend the cause of their emotional needs (if it is within your reach), their annoying behavior may slowly cease as they become happier and they learn from you to be happy.

I PLAY COMPUTER GAMES · 08-03-2009, 10:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ar81

The older people become, it becomes harder for them to change.

The scariest thing about that is I already feel like I'm old and decrepid and incapable of change, like an old dog that just needs to be shot

LoL

I PLAY COMPUTER GAMES · 08-04-2009, 04:39 PM

So I'm on day 4. Feels like I'm on cruise control... sort of like there's nothing more to this except letting another 26 days pass. The plateau effect is kind of a danger zone, though, cuz it's easy to just forget about the whole thing and gradually default back to normal behavior after several days. Supposedly the Japanese swordsman Musashi would sometimes make his opponents think they won, only to cut them down when they make themselves vulnerable in their feeling of victory. I've been on both ends of that maneuver in many multiplayer computer games and sports games, we probably all have

jamesbiz · 08-04-2009, 04:47 PM

If you are on cruise control, then it's time to figure out more on why you feel this way and how to not have your self feel that way, instead of just preventing the reaction to feel that way. Be proactive, and not reactive.

08-01-2009, 12:25 PM	#1 (permalink)
I PLAY COMPUTER GAMES Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 29	30 Day Trial - Being Nice To My Mother This is a big one for me. I'm 25 and too lazy to support myself so I'm living under my mom's roof, even though I can't stand living with her and would rather be alone. Well... every day I go nuts and cuss her out all the time and shake with rage... this has to stop... I don't even intend to do so, I don't have any grudges against her or hold her responsible for anything crappy in my life... I just totally lose it in the moment when she does something that I magnify by 1000 which I find annoying... this of course leads to her acting nasty as well in retaliation and makes it a very bad place to live. It probably sounds like I'm a nasty person and I live in a hellpit, and to some xtent both are true, but when I'm nice and helpful to my mother, and cooperate with her as a team member to make this tiny apartment a better place, it's actually quite nice how we get along and how peaceful things can be. I guess this trial is about self discipline and not indulging my petty annoyance and anger any more. I think it may be quite tramatic actually... because I'm used to being a paranoid raging ******. HOnestly if I can accomplish this trial I could probably do anything o_O I don't think I'll ever really be close with my parents or even associate with them during the course of my life aside from getting a roof and food due to my laziness (maybe I'll stop that some day) but at least I can learn to honor them and treat them with respect eh? BEGIN!

08-03-2009, 02:22 AM	#20 (permalink)
Grindin Banned Join Date: Jul 2009 Posts: 84	Move out. Last edited by Grindin; 08-03-2009 at 03:30 AM.

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08-01-2009, 06:23 PM	#2 (permalink)
I PLAY COMPUTER GAMES Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 29	Well I passed my first test which was a difficult but short-lived one. I actually feel physical and some other form of distress from her accusations, but I think it's really just my reaction to the accusations that's my pain. So far maintaining equanimity under pressure hurts like hell. I guess I got to exercise my equanimity muscles eh?

08-01-2009, 06:36 PM	#3 (permalink)
Grey Junior Member Join Date: Jul 2009 Posts: 26	I would suggest asking yourself - "Who am I really angry at?"

08-01-2009, 06:49 PM	#4 (permalink)
I PLAY COMPUTER GAMES Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 29	The answer is "my mother" LoL But it's an in the moment anger not a seething one. A habitual reaction to stimulus if you will. Like pavlov's dog and the bell

08-01-2009, 09:15 PM	#5 (permalink)
Annabelle Member Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: I divide my time between Guatemala and L.A. Posts: 85	It would help a lot to move out of your mom´s house. Take responsibility for your acts, get a job, be independent. It feels really good.

08-01-2009, 11:04 PM	#7 (permalink)
I PLAY COMPUTER GAMES Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 29	I'm writing this trial here to bolster my effort in the trial. That's all. If yall wanna drop in like wrecking balls with your suggested courses of action and psycho babble that's up to you. I'm just here to try to be nice to my poor old mama for a month. My previous record is 3-5 days.

08-01-2009, 11:57 PM	#9 (permalink)
I PLAY COMPUTER GAMES Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 29	That's right jimmy boy... keep fighting, chipping away... you know there's a feature on this forum called the "ignore list"... I was considering using it but your message was so entertaining I think I'll hold off on that for now. I want to see what other material you come up with before I get bored with your lectures ^_^

08-02-2009, 12:15 AM	#11 (permalink)
I PLAY COMPUTER GAMES Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 29	Don't tell me that's all you got. Come on, let me have it with both barrels. I want your doctorate thesis on this one, not some index card summary. I've got all the time in the world Jimbo... I'm all ears (or eyes as it were)

08-02-2009, 02:49 AM	#12 (permalink)
I PLAY COMPUTER GAMES Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 29	It's too bad Jimmypop didn't wanna come back this evening. Maybe he got tired and is taking a break before he returns?? I know I'm tired. So it's been a full day of holding back my usual hair-trigger temper. It was pretty hard, especially toward the end. But I think I figured out a couple useful things already or maybe atleast got some good clues for laterr. One thing I noticed is that when I'm tired and closer to needing sleep is when I'm most open to "dark influences". It's a more vulnerable time and when I'm more vulnerable I'm also much more likely to have an animal fight/flight response to anything that suddenly bothers me, I'm also more drained of energy so I'm weaker. Another thing I noticed is that I overeat, and overeating really makes me prone to raging. The last time I fasted I wasn't even capable of being provoked anymore. I was completely amazed that I wasn't getting angry. I might just fast soon. I've been really over eating lately. WEll those tips are nice but ultimately it comes down to making a choice not to be nasty to my mom anymore and following through on it. The hardest part I'd say is maintaining consistency in every moment of challenge, because it's easy to slip up just a moment out of a thousand moments. You're going great 999 times out of 1000 and then bam, everything jus thappens at the wrong place at the wrong time at the worst possible moment. That's how it is with everything I've found Oh well that concludes day 1... so far a success.... gud nite

08-02-2009, 03:13 PM	#13 (permalink)
I PLAY COMPUTER GAMES Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 29	I update a lot here, but from past experience I've found when making difficult changes that, whether I like it or not, constant talking or writing are usually necessary to ensure the change sticks. I've done successful 30 day trials before, breaking addictions. It's usually a good idea to write a journal or have someone to talk to every day. We humans are so attached to words we got to use them sometimes to make our body do things it doesn't usually do. Right now I feel like how could I have got into this... 29 more days... I'm destined for failure. Why even bother? Strange such a small change would be so tramatic. This is a typical part of altering any behavior. Once we're solidified in a certain way we tend to resist any change. 30 day trials which change one little specific thing are sometimes the only route to change... focus a large chunk of one's power on a very small aspect, which leads to overwhelming force over this small aspect. That one change can be what leads to unravelling a whole slew of other things like dominos. You never know. When you're like me, living in a stuck hell, which is the end result of all the choices and actios you've taken all your life, you'll resort to all sorts of strange things to get out of your rut. Personally I hate talking to people about things I do and writing journals and crap, but I gotta do what I gotta do. The world of actions can be a very hard and brutal one, ruled by practicality. It's kind of like surviving in hard times, not that I have any experience with that. You'll find that you'll do anything to make it to the next day or meal. That's the world of action, you never know what sort of **** you'll resort to to make it another day. Reality and practicality are real ego bruisers which show us just how worthless our ideas of the world really are. My suggestion for anyone who tends to preach preach preach their mantra to people is to jump out of their normal existence and do something completely different which they are not familiar with and feel completely alien to. It should help restore some humbleness. But there's also a possible side effect that if they end up mastering that arena eventually, that the ego will grow even stronger and more overpowering. It's a constant challenge.

08-02-2009, 04:19 PM	#14 (permalink)
jamesbiz Banned Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Fort lauderdale, florida Posts: 593	Yeah, luckily I've been through a ton of different arenas and I'm constantly changing my surroundings. That means I'm allowed to preach preach preach my mantras right??? When are you going to restore your humbleness? Ever think that the reason people are ( as you say) preaching, is because we've already experienced this same crap before, or worse? Of course you are destined for failure if you won't even figure out why your habit is the way it is. But no, keep ignoring the obvious and go the easy way out.

08-02-2009, 05:22 PM	#15 (permalink)
I PLAY COMPUTER GAMES Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 29	I'm still awaiting your paper, Jimmy, you get 5 points off per day that it's late

08-02-2009, 05:35 PM	#16 (permalink)
I PLAY COMPUTER GAMES Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 29	I just thought of something Jimmy... hopefully you're not too busy working on your doctorate thesis... you've mentioned something suggesting you may have "experienced the same crap"... perhaps you would like to share your experience with the class? I'm sitting in the front row you know, with my note pad and pen, eagerly awaiting your words

08-02-2009, 06:42 PM	#18 (permalink)
I PLAY COMPUTER GAMES Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 29	Thanks, that was a quality post, with many striking parallels to my situation but also with differences. I'm sure you understand why prior to this post I really found nothing of value in the responses to my thread. This is the internet and when someone doesn't qualify what they say with some meat of written out experience, I tend to gloss it over. I've wasted 13 years arguing with people on the internet so I've learned what to filter out and what to pay attention to. On the internet what tends to happen is ideas and judgments, conceptual systems, begin to take priority over stories and practical reality. It's real hard to tell what someone brings to the table when you just met them yesterday over text no less, so usually all that can be worked with is what's presented in text. One similarity between your story and mine is the tiniest mannerisms driving us completely insane. For instance I tend to find my mother disgusting in sound, sight, and behavior. The way she hums tends to drive me up the wall. I've often times fantasized about beating her to death and chopping her up. The principle difference between our stories is the bottling it in part. When I write of being nice to my mama it isn't bottling anything in. I'm pretty experienced with bottling things in. I've done it most of my life. So I know if I'm bottling something in or if I'm not doing that. Bottling things in I would classify as the same as a reactive explosion. It's both the same response, just channelled differently. Technically speaking, most of my reactions to her, even with screaming and cussing, were still bottling it in, because what I really want to do is beat her to a pulp in those cases, and all I'm left with is shaking in rage, maybe sometimes breaking something. This may sound like an artificially created mental concept I came up with without grounding in experience, so let me qualify this idea. On one hand I've gone crazy non-stop from the smallest things about my mom. On the other hand, often within the same 30 minutes, I've found that nothing about my mom bothered me at all, and had no problem with her. Sometimes it was somewhere in between. How can this be? When I fasted and temporarily altered my eating patterns, all my anger vanished for weeks. I even enjoyed arguing candidly with my mother, which often led to her being nasty most of the time, which was unpleasant, but did not have an effect on my equanimity. Odd huh? Now... since I shift in and out of the anger/non-anger states during this trial, and I'm not fasting or undergoing a diet alteration at this time, I can't count on these things to keep me treating my mother without nastiness. What then do I do to prevent such? Well, it really comes down to control and discipline and not indulging. Sometimes when she does something that makes me want to go crazy, I just have to accept it and let it be. I can feel the desire felt as need to enrage. I've found that it's really just an indulgence, just like overeating, or masturbating, or constantly reading news or checking for blog updates. What's a little spooky is that when examined closely, at least 99% of all my anger reponses are actually indulgences. This is going to sound a little newagey, but I've found that usually when I get angry at something it's because I refuse to accept it, and getting angry is a way to reject it. Something in me finds my mom's behavior, mannerisms, appearance, sound, etc. not to my liking, so I reject it with much energy. Same for anything else that pisses me off. So during this trial, and with previous less official attempts, what usually happens is my mom will do something that really offends me, and with discipline and control I completely cut off the rejection/reaction default and whether I like it or not, just "take it." And it hurts real bad to just take it, but all I'm doing is not trying to resist what's happening. When examined more closely, what she's doing, and what others do that I get angry at, is just something that my ego finds so offensive that it will go through all sorts of histrionics to bury it. And this ego thing is so ingrained that to force it to accept something happening is felt as physical pain, like the person is actually hurting me with their behavior, despite the fact that when I'm in different states, such behavior doesn't have the same effect. But I just take it, and lo and behold I feel better soon after, and my overall energy is heightened from taking it. So that's what my trial is.

08-03-2009, 12:41 AM	#19 (permalink)
Kaybee Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 112	Wow. Your mom loves you a lot; otherwise, she may have thrown you out. It's sounds to me as if you are more discontent with yourself than your mom. BTW: I love the title of this thread. You really peaked my interest. Kim Self Improvement and Motivation: For Those Who Want More

08-03-2009, 07:28 AM	#21 (permalink)
ChrisN Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Australia Posts: 169	I would quote your threads but i would be here for hours... Look, jimmy is right you need to man up and take responsibility for your life. Instead of whinning that were are throwing you psychology crap and giving you advice, shut up and take it. If you came here to post about how you can't even show your mom some respect for 30 days and your not willing to take our opinions then maybe you shouldn't post at all. Your mom most love you one hell of a lot to support your ass like she is and I wouldn't blame her if you sit at your computer all day and play games and expect her to pull your load. Get a job, move out and grow up. Go ahead and ignore me and jimmy but really if you can't look at yourself and see that you need to look inside yourself, it must make you angry your not living on your own, earning money, living life like you want it and taking it out on your mother isn't helping you one bit. The more you do it, the more and more distant your relationship will be. I suggest you look at my recent blog post on choices because buddy, you have some serious life decisions to make... thats all i have to say

08-03-2009, 03:41 PM	#23 (permalink)
I PLAY COMPUTER GAMES Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 29	I decided to apply some of the practices I'm using dealing with my mom to you guys, since some of you are really o_O I'm going to read your responses very slow and let them seep through me

08-03-2009, 04:00 PM	#24 (permalink)
I PLAY COMPUTER GAMES Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 29	I can only conclude, as many times before, that I have a serious ego problem, and unfortunately or fortunately, this trial is becoming an extremely broad one out of necessity. Time and time again I get offended at the doings of people around me and want to fight them, bury them, or filter them out. I have to accept everything you guys are writing here and not fight it, or else this trial is worthless. Not to mention I only found one recent response that actually really pissed me off. I just got in a fighting mood and lumped all the other ones together with it. Which one it was, is irrelevent. It's time to stop filtering experiences with ego and take it all. Poor ego >_<

08-03-2009, 04:40 PM	#25 (permalink)
I PLAY COMPUTER GAMES Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 29	I was driving around for a couple hours late last nite to deliver something to someone, spent some extra time driving and just sitting in a parking lot. Halfway through my drive all my sorrows hit me at once and I was devastated by my shortcomings, and living a life of fear. Even driving around I felt fear, of what I wasn't sure. My body temperature went down a lot and I had the heater on full even though it was 60 degrees out. I did keep the window open for ventilation though. Continuing to drive it felt more like I was in dreamland than in normal reality. Driving through my favorite street almost home I was seduced by the beauty of the night so when I got back I went out for a walk for an hour. I found that when I got home and hours afterward my trial was the furthest thing from my mind, actually everything was. It was like life was some strange dream that I'd never understand. I also found myself much more easily angered by my mother, in a very animalistic way. On one hand she wasn't in my attention, on another hand if she made a noise or momentarily got my attention somehow, it would effect me a lot. I almost went off on her a couple times but I didn't want to dirty my "awareness" by "aligning with her" so I shifted away from that and forgot about her. I know on one hand my problems with her stem from ego, but I know on another hand that our energies are at odds with eachother and ultimately we're not supposed to be together. Rite now she's bitterly cussing out her computer because something's not working... i feel pulled ino normal awareness again... oh well... it's noon on a monday... everybody's up and about going about their daily business... so everyones awareness is in the more mundane right now around here.. gravity effect I've found that whenever I go outside the bounds of normal perception, people and things around me conspire to "put me back into my place"... because it's not allowed in our techno-prison matrix world to go outside the bounds Sorry I don't wanna get into personal history on this thread. It's something we all gotta deal with at some point.

08-03-2009, 04:47 PM	#26 (permalink)
I PLAY COMPUTER GAMES Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 29	I think now a lot of ego and anger and fighting soothes and covers up fear, and glosses over personal shortcomings. We're always fearless when we're enraged. But I don't like always being either afraid or angry, or devastated by my impotence as a human

08-03-2009, 07:30 PM	#27 (permalink)
ar81 Family Member Join Date: Aug 2008 Posts: 2,756	The older people become, it becomes harder for them to change. The only thing we can do is to accept them. You have said you would like to change and that's good. It means you are not anymore a passive taker of behaviors, a puppet of other people who invite you to a fight. I have found that when we react to provocations we are slaves of external stimulation. So when we do not react as expected, we are creating a behavior, and others will get into it. To me it looks like you wanted to be happy, despite of the invitations of your mom to fight or to feel bad. Sometimes mothers have an emotional need and they express it with annoying behaviors, but if you attend the cause of their emotional needs (if it is within your reach), their annoying behavior may slowly cease as they become happier and they learn from you to be happy.

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08-04-2009, 04:39 PM	#29 (permalink)
I PLAY COMPUTER GAMES Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 29	So I'm on day 4. Feels like I'm on cruise control... sort of like there's nothing more to this except letting another 26 days pass. The plateau effect is kind of a danger zone, though, cuz it's easy to just forget about the whole thing and gradually default back to normal behavior after several days. Supposedly the Japanese swordsman Musashi would sometimes make his opponents think they won, only to cut them down when they make themselves vulnerable in their feeling of victory. I've been on both ends of that maneuver in many multiplayer computer games and sports games, we probably all have

08-04-2009, 04:47 PM	#30 (permalink)
jamesbiz Banned Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Fort lauderdale, florida Posts: 593	If you are on cruise control, then it's time to figure out more on why you feel this way and how to not have your self feel that way, instead of just preventing the reaction to feel that way. Be proactive, and not reactive.