October 18, 2023

The most common form of despair

By Steve Hauptman

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Once you lose yourself,

you have two choices:

 

find the person

you used to be,

 

or lose that

person completely.

 

~ H.G. Wells

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 18th, 2023 at 9:11 am and posted in control. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

4 responses to “The most common form of despair”

  • alisonlowrie's avatar alisonlowrie
    October 19th, 2023 at 5:53 am

    Thanks for that post Steve.
    This has been the main focus of my recovery.
    Getting to know the ‘who i really am’ instead of ‘who i should be’ is a daily exercise. And its not always clear as to which is which. What i have found helpful is to adopt a consistent attitude of open mind ness to the options in any situation..and the best strategy i have found that works is your one of
    1. Dont take a craziness personally.
    2. Dont try to fix.
    3. Model healthy behaviour….which i interpret as being kind to myself and others as best i can.
    So thankyou 🙂

    Reply
    • Steve Hauptman's avatar Steve Hauptman
      October 19th, 2023 at 8:16 am

      Yes, it can be hard to distinguish the adapted self from the real self it was created to protect.

      One of my clients described this process as comparing two voices in her head, which she labels the Damaged Child and the Healthy Adult,

      When she encounters a challenging or stressful situation she listens to both voices and decides which to trust.

      At the moment she’s focused on abstaining from people-pleasing, so she gets plenty of practice.

      Recently a coworker criticized her for trashing a plastic bottle instead of recycling it. The Child voice wanted to defend and explain (“It wasn’t me, it was X who did that” or “Hey, I’ve been recycling for twenty years”). The Adult voice wanted to just nod and say “Okay.”

      She went with “Okay.”

      Which I think nicely incorporates your items 1, 2 and 3 all at once.

      Reply

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