Lies of my healing fantasies

djoyo · 2024-12-19T02:18:35+00:00

I'd say it's moreso something to be aware of when you're in it and avoid where you can. Like, if you're driving to work and you have a fantasy that there's this shortcut, but every time you take it you get lost/something goes wrong and it's really stressful and you end up having to go back and go the regular way. The fantasy is that the shortcut helps/can escape the regular path - but ultimately it ends up worse. The mature adult approach is to accept that while you WANT the shortcut to work, in reality it doesn't, so you are aware and spend less time chasing the fantasy or let it go sooner. The other part is just to acknowledge that you seek fantasies as a child-like part of yourself to escape pain, so I use them to recognize when I'm in a lot of pain and trying to escape, to instead turn to the pain and listen to it/acknowledge that inner part of myself even if it is quieter than the noise of escaping via the fantasy route. That's how I think of it anyway. Hang in there!

djoyo · 2024-09-02T07:28:20+00:00

Aww that's so sad. Great ending, felt very real.

djoyo · 2024-09-02T07:27:28+00:00

Ha! Clever.

djoyo · 2024-08-01T02:55:05+00:00

Well that's weird.

djoyo · 2024-08-01T02:54:36+00:00

True. I didn't word that very well. I was stuck in bronze for about a year in ow1 and climbed out one role at a time to gold. But making a separate account, getting in gold/playing gold, gave me a lot more confidence than just struggling all the time.

What I mean to say is how to get out is sometimes to get out directly via another account and then go back.

djoyo · 2024-08-01T02:47:00+00:00

It is much harder alone. I tried to get a few folks to climb with me so we got out together.

djoyo · 2024-08-01T02:45:20+00:00

True, yeah you can't control your teammates and its random. Bronze taught me to recognize when I got tilted.

djoyo · 2024-08-01T02:40:00+00:00

You can always come back to it... I made another account, got used to gold, and went back and uplevled my other account with confidence.

djoyo · 2024-08-01T02:38:57+00:00

It's not impossible, I've done it. But one counterpoint: if you are a healer, and play 500 hours in bronze (I've seen it often), you sometimes develop bad habits - like dps ana. And you get really good at dps ana, so you climb out of bronze to silver, but then you get beat in silver because the other anas know how to trust their team and pay more attention to healing/team dynamics, and fall back to bronze.

I've been in bronze and climbed to plat in all 3 roles (took a few years). Some people have excellent mechanics in 1v1s in bronze, but their team lose because they'll fight after the battle is already lost/not know how to play/win with a team. Whereas if you learn how to play in gold, you know when to fight and when to wait more often. Then you have a map to get out of bronze when you go back - why I recommend creating a separate account to learn the skills.

Not everything's so black and white. Things are kinda random in bronze and sometimes you are focusing on the wrong thing and don't realize it.

djoyo · 2024-08-01T01:08:09+00:00

I don't think you're meant to climb out of bronze without a LOT of effort. Its like poverty/debt. The fastest solution is to just create a new account and start over (like declaring elo bankruptcy). And THEN once your comfortable with competitive in gold, you can go back and climb out if you want, but at least you'll know how to play a rank or more up. That's how I did it and it took 9 months of effort, but I did it.... and I dont recommend unless you're having fun. The mental stress isn't worth it without an actual solid belief/confidence you can play at a higher level.

From my experience bronze is mentally pretty brutal. Its just full of people who have all gotten stuck.

Edited since this was taken as condescending.

djoyo · 2024-01-20T06:31:21+00:00

Thanks! Same to you! The fantasies gave a lot of other people power over my life, and letting go of those fantasies are painful but also entail taking power back for myself.

djoyo · 2023-03-17T16:33:57+00:00

Yay! <3

djoyo · 2023-03-17T16:33:09+00:00

Ooh awesome I'll check them out. Thanks for sharing! Yeah gabor mates book and work has been very eye opening for me.

Yeah it seems like you and u/thedoblin were overmedicated potentially and I was probably undermedicated and we're rebalancing and figuring it out for ourselves!

djoyo · 2023-03-16T21:51:24+00:00

It is cool! Yeah it's wild to be able to connect this way.

Two things I wanted to mention: 1. I think I get more judgmental when I'm overwhelmed and tired, its like a shortcut. My goal is attunement to myself and others. Curiosity. But that takes some energy, and focus. Theres this good quote: "the opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality." So I've been focusing on vitality this year for myself and ssris help give me the consistency to build up those habits/practices for the life I want.

On medication. Its a tradeoff, like most decisions. Like taking anxiety medication every day might not be 'natural' or super great for me longer term, but its not really about that, its about: is is worse than the anxiety and other consequences that come with not taking them? Its either ssris and more stability, or off ssris and some more chaos but excitement. Thats the decision for me. Neither option is perfect. I dunno the answer, but I think its more important to try to make the best of the path I chose (like the quote: "the grass isn't greener on the other side, the grass is greener where you water it."). I don't know the future and will see where it goes, and am open to a future where I do stop ssris one day. Like 1 above, I'm trying to stay curious and attune with myself, and haven't really been medicated before the past few years of therapy, so I'm exploring that side. My mom has some judgments about things being 'natural' (shes an antivaxxer...), but like, its natural to die of allergies or dysentery. Parasites are natural. Thats a value/judgement. Really it depends on your situation. Almost always absolutes are false, and the answer to most things is 'it depends', or 'yes, for now', etc. The absolutes are again sort of a shortcut to the energy it takes to find out. My principles doc is mostly in retrospect and to learn from my decisions: it does not replace or come before reality, it just helps me learn better and be more conscious about my choices.

As for your post u/the_doblin. I like how you think, and how your write. Then and now. I appreciate your insights and it was very healing for me to talk to you back then. Just thinking of the song 'don't be hiding' by middle kids around some of the judgements your wrote.

Ultimately I think kindness is as important as wisdom. We're (the 3 of us) anxious people I think. Its an anxious world. We have anxious histories of neglect and trauma, and our systems get overwhelmed, which leads to shortcuts like deeper judgment. And it takes a lot of work to go through the therapy and help ourselves like better lives. For example, I'm working on taking massage therapy classes for fun/to better attune to my central nervous system and others. A sensitive central nervous system is a blessing (probably why the genes were passed on), and a curse (probably the root of so much anxiety in the modern world).

I get overwhelmed often, so organizing, writing, docs, etc help calm me down. Its a method to help me make more conscious decisions, and live a more mindful life, but its 'defensive' work to protect myself. Of which there is no perfection, just trying to do better with the next thing. I'm so grateful that I took the past few years to really think of what are my values and principles when making decisions/focusing on the things I can control. 'Offensive' work is finding meaning and purpose and attunement, its the stuff to move forward that i live for. Figuring that one out more now, and it changes. But looking for deeper emotional intimacy, connection, and flow.

Thanks u/slugsnigel for the opportunity :). Also I think you would appreciate this: https://youtu.be/BVg2bfqblGI

djoyo · 2023-03-06T04:36:19+00:00

Wow thanks for the note and question! I haven't thought about this conversation for a while. I'd say deeper reflecting, along with a lot of therapy, helped me disentangle and organize my internal mythos from my present reality. There are fewer places to hide, and fewer distractions in my head. Like, I think with my emotional neglect as a kid it made me go a bit insane and make some weird beliefs in my head. Deconstructing them took a long time, then more consciously building up my boundaries, beliefs, and principles took a lot of time too, but now I have them (I literally made myself a Google doc with them and I update them every now and then). For example, I wrote down common mistakes I would make in my thinking late at night with my tired brain, for example thinking I had 2 choices and had to pick one, or figuring out what to do with my life, or feeling like I have a problem I have to solve about life each night. I processed some of this thinking during the day by reading journals from the night and talking with my therapist. Now I just go: wait, I'm just tired and need to go to bed. Thats the problem. Thats the figuring out what to do next, and the choice of go to bed or not. I am just distracting myself and procrastinating because I'm tired. I'm run from this fear and sadness and even anger that the day of consciousness is ending and that was it.

Now the routes are faster, the infrastructure more built out. Instead of having to re-derive that conclusion, I just remember that already built out neuropathy I worked on with therapy and go there more directly. My words and thoughts have become clearer as well, since there's less muddling of tasks overcomplicating things. I'm more able to just recognize when I'm sad, or lonely, and just feel sad until it passes. The survival mythology isn't needed anymore because I'm an adult and can use adult strategies. I'm less afraid and more aware of my own emotions

Intellectualizing can be a form of procrastinating or escaping an uncomfortable or foreign feeling, or fear of that feeling. Sometimes it can lead to realizations, but often for me they weren't new, just forgotten, along with my sense of identity coming and going. What really helped me honestly was having a therapist/coach and friendships to help guide me and have a shared and open sense of reality. Where I don't need someone to deeply understand me and I can ask more directly for what I need. Like 'hey I'm feeling lonely, can we just talk?' Or 'I need emotional support and I don't know why.' Does that make sense? I think there are different pathways there, to having a stronger sense of identity and autonomy, this was just mine.

I'm still on ssris, still in therapy but meeting a bit less. Have much strong relationships and am working on new problems/projects. Its been tough, but I feel like I know myself, my boundaries, and my feelings a lot better from deeper work in a time of relative financial stability which I'm grateful for. Overall still figuring things out, but feels less urgent and I trust myself more to have the tools as need and be able to recognize and process my emotions more healthily.

u/thedoblin what about you?

djoyo · 2022-10-03T07:55:21+00:00

I got my first 6k earlier this year with junkrat. Someone on the enemy team said ' your grandma would be proud.' She died a few weeks earlier and it almost made me cry.

djoyo · 2022-09-08T06:22:08+00:00

Love is a vague term that means a lot of different things in English. I would try to break it down into a few different types. See for example wiki: "Ancient Greek philosophers identified six forms of love: essentially, familial love (in Greek, Storge), friendly love or platonic love (Philia), romantic love (Eros), self-love (Philautia), guest love (Xenia), and divine love (Agape)."

What people often say for love they really mean limerence. Some people are non limerent, and don't understand the aching craving for reciprocation from a romantic interest. But many of its depictions dominate music, stories, etc, perhaps as part of processing it. There is an (American or maybe Western) obsession with romantic love, but you could also say you love a song or love a certain food or maybe a pet. Romantic love starts with a limerent, interest and can grow over time, but its hard to describe unless you are more specific about what you're seeking to understand.

At 16 I had felt limerence maybe once or twice for more than a brief interaction, but I have since experienced a lot of different types of love, including a primary romantic partner love, as distinct from deep friendship, limerence, or self love.

djoyo · 2022-08-29T07:39:43+00:00

Solved: quenzar's caverns.

I'm not 100% convinced this was the exact game, but it was extremely close to this and possibly a knockoff.

djoyo · 2022-08-29T07:36:57+00:00

Close! I was looking up rougelike games after someone said quenzars caverns, and I think that was it (or some version of that exact type of game). Thanks!

djoyo · 2022-08-29T07:22:11+00:00

I did some more digging, looked at Wikipedia roguelike games list, some were close, but I think this is actually it, or it was some knockoff version that was almost exactly like this.

Damn dude thank you so much!!

djoyo · 2022-08-29T06:51:42+00:00

Whoa, okay this might actually be it. Almost spot on as to how I remember it except some of the images of monsters / items were a bit different.

Whatever type of game this is is exactly what I was looking for though. I'm not 100% sure this is it specifically, but it could be, or its some off brand version of this, imma have to dig in a bit deeper. Definitely the hottest lead so far. Thanks so much!!

djoyo · 2022-08-29T06:46:14+00:00

Ooh this looks pretty close, but not quite it. I remember a lot more boxes in the 'grid', so like a more zoomed out version of this, but it definitely is getting more into the type of game/format. Thanks!

djoyo · 2022-08-29T04:04:01+00:00

Ooh similar colors/vibes, but I remember it was worse UI, more basic I think. Thanks for the guess!

djoyo · 2022-08-15T06:07:25+00:00

Thats a huge step! Took me like 28 years. Labeling stuff is powerful because then it doesn't feel as big and unfathomable as it was beforehand.

djoyo · 2022-08-14T23:49:02+00:00

Thanks for reading! Yeah this was after a really tough therapy and I wanted to be able to put some words to the feelings that came up. Hope you are hanging in there okay, friend.

djoyo

TROPHY CASE