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Vehicular liberation has been achieved. Given the inventory of the day, I decided to take the patient approach. I waited until the mud was dry enough to allow traction. Yesterday afternoon, I climbed in and * boom, zoom * my peppy little gent (the former squirt mobile) jumped his ruts. (all my cars are "male") I drove a few miles to let centrifugal force throw off the mud and done is done.
Nowhere is my "Inner Critic" louder than with my lifelong attraction to machines. In personal meditations, I call it, "The Engineering Puppet Show." I prefer that metaphor because when I am paralyzed by the criticisms bubbling out of my cPTSD cauldron, the voices of the criticisms are recorded from many, many sources. But... It is only a metaphor and "Inner Critic" is more recognized in current vernacular. Using recognized metaphors does expedite communications.
Yesterday morning, while the ground was still quite wet, the man of the neighboring house (the owners of the dog pack) drove his big truck the 200 yards from his house to my house, dressed for a muddy job, and offered to pull my car from the mud. He had the necessary tools in the truck. My computer desk faces the windows on the drive side of the house, so I saw him coming. I crumbled with anticipation. This man is constructo to the core and I do have difficulty "silencing The Engineering Puppet Show" in his presence.
I am kinda proud of how I handled it. I was able to thank him for his kind thought. It was a brief, courteous exchange. My peppy little gent was stuck within full view of his house and I was not able to go rescue him until he drove off in his big truck. "Stage fright" is one of my engineering dilemmas. I have had the experience several times of large commercial job sites falling silent so that everyone could watch me walk across the site with my tool box. Performance anxiety to the max... I had enough access to my reasoning centers to decide that more is better for the mud drying time.
Now for the tractor in the garage that seems to have a clogged fuel line...
Reality checks welcome.
Nowhere is my "Inner Critic" louder than with my lifelong attraction to machines. In personal meditations, I call it, "The Engineering Puppet Show." I prefer that metaphor because when I am paralyzed by the criticisms bubbling out of my cPTSD cauldron, the voices of the criticisms are recorded from many, many sources. But... It is only a metaphor and "Inner Critic" is more recognized in current vernacular. Using recognized metaphors does expedite communications.
Yesterday morning, while the ground was still quite wet, the man of the neighboring house (the owners of the dog pack) drove his big truck the 200 yards from his house to my house, dressed for a muddy job, and offered to pull my car from the mud. He had the necessary tools in the truck. My computer desk faces the windows on the drive side of the house, so I saw him coming. I crumbled with anticipation. This man is constructo to the core and I do have difficulty "silencing The Engineering Puppet Show" in his presence.
I am kinda proud of how I handled it. I was able to thank him for his kind thought. It was a brief, courteous exchange. My peppy little gent was stuck within full view of his house and I was not able to go rescue him until he drove off in his big truck. "Stage fright" is one of my engineering dilemmas. I have had the experience several times of large commercial job sites falling silent so that everyone could watch me walk across the site with my tool box. Performance anxiety to the max... I had enough access to my reasoning centers to decide that more is better for the mud drying time.
Now for the tractor in the garage that seems to have a clogged fuel line...
Reality checks welcome.
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I did the dumbest thing today. I charged my earbuds, unplugged the block and put the block in my little bag instead of the earbuds. I wasn't happy about that when I got to the gym. What a dummy!
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Ever since I stopped doing therapy because of insurance, I've been feeling that old tense and irritable sense of anxiety and stress. I hate that. I was making so many strides and changes during therapy, my therapist would acknowledge all of my progress and accomplishments, and I miss that reassurance. Today I thought about it, and I made those changes! She would always tell me that I chose to...
And half the projects I undertake are not necessary The house is fine. It's not shiny-new-perfect but it was built before I was born, so no shock there.... we live in it... we have pets... and more to the point, we had half the budget we needed to do the initial reno when we moved in, so...
I get these "tics" about making it "right" as if that will somehow... what? Make my subconscious "okay". Which it doesn't, in my case. Just busy-busy work to distract me from that inner crap.
More often, I have learned to simply declutter a bit and remind myself it's clutter, not filth, that it's old and squeaky not rotting and unsafe.... but oh the urge to turn it into some kind of external showpiece to "prove".... yeah. Filling in that blank is always the trick fo rme.
No idea if relevant or helpful but that's what it brought to mind to me.
Joneszy, I think you catch my metaphor quite well. I have more than one "Puppet Show" within my "Inner Critic." "Mean Girls." I will never be well dressed enough nor feminine enough. "Academics." My credentials will never be accredited well enough. "Preachers." My prayers will never have the proper words. "Politicians." "Social Crusaders" "Traditionalists" Etc., etc. The thing all these "Puppet Shows" have in common is that they are mental arguments I carry on with recorded input. The initial input - we take in ALLOT of data in a single day - is real enough. The resulting thought loops are not. That's my theory... Don't know if I am sticking to it, or knot...
Now good luck with that tractor!
Thanks, muji. Encouragement greatly appreciated. Still want that picture of your cheerleader uniform and pom poms... :-O Make sure the bottom of your leotard is peeking out from under the skirt...
So I try to make the house perfect, as if that is going to help. All it means is that my critics are criticizing my house, too. Through me.... Only see what's wrong, never what's good. (And try to fix y house intstead of me.)
I'm working on this, but it is very hard, and your insights are greatly appreciated, Arfie.
Don't feel bad for not understanding, PPW. Works in progress. Missouri hugs appreciated.
It helped a lot to have her come out in the therapist's office and find out she's 7.
She thought that if she bumped me off, she would be able to take over and do everything the correct way.
She's modeled after the way my mom was when I was 6 and 7:
(cue up waltz down memory lane)
Mom wanted me to do chores...but then again, she didn't. She would get me to start doing the chore, then criticize how I was doing it and make me do it over, RIGHT...Like she had to see the rows where the carpet was vacuumed, all the towels had to be folded exactly so, the beds had to have hospital corners, and if one plate was dirty, they ALL went back in the sink...
For any screwup she'd call me something derogatory, and being 6 at the beginning of this, I messed up a lot. This little drama mom enacted went on as she got angrier and angrier at me.
But mind you, I could not win. If I did it right, she'd say I was going too slow and ask the rhetorical "what's WRONG with you!" and so forth. Eventually she would come to the point of screaming at me telling me I was a selfish, selfcentered, stupid little brat and totally worthless and blah de blah, slap me one good one across the face and say "I can't even stand to LOOK at you! Get out of my sight!" ...My cue to go to my room.
I now remember the internal discussion...Miss Perfect was desperately determined to try and please mom...but Shawn spoke up and said "Can't you see? Mom just wants to scream at us and smack us. So we might as well make her mad as fast as we can, then we can go play."
And that's what we did.
Miss Perfect became one of my persecutor alters.
Mom and I talked...Mom wanted to see me cry. Mom lacked a rather crucial piece of information:
My dad, who also liked to slap me in the face, would KEEP SLAPPING ME if I cried. He did actually do that once. SO at I could not turn on tears for one and turn them off for another.
Recently I wanted to simulate the force they struck me with back then, only scaled up for my adult body? It took both hands and a Houston yellow pages to hit myself in the face that hard. I know my face was often red for several hours after they slapped me.
...The sad thing is, my mom could have gotten me to do every damn chore in the house if she'd used strictly positive reinforcement to train me. I would have done anything to get her love, affection, and approval.
While I was reading your description, I found myself remembering a character that used to haunt my dreams during the worst of my nightmare phases. This character was constantly morphing from one shape to another. Usually human, but not always. Often it was several people, kluged together in hideous parody. Parents, teachers, or whatever, all fighting for dominance of the character.
Whatever that whatever, sending you healing hopes.