This will be the last time I talk in depth about this MBTI stuff as I think I’ve changed my mind again and have gone back to ISTP INFJ again. Trying to stick with this one now.
Basically I see now that I’ve been leading myself through this forest of self-discovery in a self-deceiving manner as I take myself around in circles instead of finding an answer.
This part of my brain that deceives to protect myself works through the creative ideation and I’m doing it to keep running from my problems.
So I’m engaging now in what I think I need to do which is to plan my day to day living in a way which is good for me. And to introduce a little bit of structure.
I’ve been living at the behest of everyone else’s routines because I lack so much in the planning department and it’s never going to be my strength.
Regaining control of my life means being independent so I can manage what I need to manage in a way that is in my interest rather than someone else’s.
Ultimately I think that I need to be stronger and more confident in the physical world. I feel weak because someone is always trying to manage my life for me and I never felt physically safe around people because everyone around me treats me like a snowflake.
Their worries and anxieties, I picked them all up and absorbed them like a sponge. Living in the physical moment and feeling the physical world is really my only connection to the outside and yet I’ve come to fear and mistrust it.
I don’t care much about safety but I know how much I need to have that ability in my locker to pursue the excitement of living in the moment.
This is the vital support structure that bridges the gap between my ego and my inner child. How I actually support myself. Those who try to protect me are robbing me of the very means to grow up and connect with adulthood.
The other issue to fix is the social anxiety. I’ve thought long and hard about how and why this manifests. I’ve remembered now that I’m not really and never have been a people person. I’ve pursued life in a way such that I’m only in a small group of close friends.
Really it is just a matter of stopping this obsession with having to perfect and learning how to say it’s ok to be crap, ok to struggle, ok to ask for help.
It’s ok to fail and it’s ok to not care.
I don’t owe my fellow human beings the best at all times and I can’t expect the best from them.
I do want myself and everyone to be as good as possible but it’s not actually how things are and ultimately, people will do what they do and I’m free to not give a shit about people if I can’t help them.
Believing and trusting in myself is where I want to be. Learning from the pain of bad experiences is how we really grow.
They say that when we avoid things, our unconscious mind has a way of directing us towards repeating those things so we can finally process and deal with them once and for all to clean our minds of the problem.
Past traumas can be particularly hard to deal with. But what can I say? I’ve been reliving the same shit so often there’s something deep within me that I haven’t confronted.
It is probably that the fact that I have well and truly submitted my entire life and that I should finally grow a backbone, stand up for myself and stop being afraid to actually be myself.
I like the fact that I have very high standards but I should engage openly about when things aren’t working and I shouldn’t take everything as a personal injury.
I am weak and vulnerable. My mind frequently shifts into shameful submission. I need my mind to be stronger and for that, I need to understand that other people have done little to deserve the attention I give them and both I and they deserve to be masters of our own destiny.
And so the plan is to start the process of doing things I don’t normally like doing but I totally should do. Learning how to be comfortable and flexible in the realm of the difficult.
I’m giving serious thought to allotting my free time between 6 useful activities, Dice style, letting fate decide which activity I should pursue. Ideally restricting each one to an hour or two, then switching to make sure I’m balancing different things and not obsessing so single-mindedly.
Making music, creative writing, physical exercise, chores, lazing about doing nothing, socialising in some form, organising stuff. I should take an hour each evening purely towards nightly routine stuff to make sure I’m prepared for the next day.
I want to be as active as I can so I’m actually tired enough to sleep instead of staying up all night trying to make up for a wasted day.
I want to give my overworked functions a rest and work my underutilized functions. That will give me a better balance.
Few people will really understand the crippling effects of social anxiety and why the best thing to do is to stop caring about others needs and meet your own needs.
Being a hero to others is the purpose and meaning of my life but it is the last piece of the jigsaw puzzle and I’m still working on the edges, building the framework to establish the structure.
I use this metaphor because my autistic repetitive behaviour when I was very little was to do jigsaw puzzles.
Life is the hardest puzzle to solve and I long for the picture but the process is more important and I don’t know what I would do if I1 ever actually solved the puzzle. Find another one to do?
I’ve spent my entire life being crap at everything because I never learned how to deal with being crap at anything.
I’m working on a new techno track and I’ve finally looked into how to sample output from the laptop. And by jove, it’s exactly how I wanted it to work. I’ve got many ideas on what I can do with it but I’m being patient with it and taking my time to get the best out of it.
I’m less anxious about putting myself out there because it’s all about what I love and what interests me and it’s not for the pleasure of others (well maybe it is a little).
I guess that it’s all about learning what actually matters. My social anxiety is just my brain screaming that everything matters in ways I can’t even begin to understand.
I can’t help but feel that stuff that doesn’t matter is of no interest and everything should matter for the sake of actually meaning something worthwhile.
So the lesson to learn is that I should find my own self-worth and assertiveness be more important to me than anything else. I’ll look for those who share my interests and I’ll look for what is important to other people but never at my own cost.
Time and time I’ll say it again. I need to be self-centred to get myself healthy enough to be able to help other people and be a selfless angel.
And if people don’t like me for it I will judge them negatively for exposing their own selfishness. I can understand why they are selfish though and hopefully respond in the right way.
It is fundamental though, for me to finally admit that I’m not the man I believed I should be. I am in fact, only the man I can be. Contrary to bullshit societal shrieking, it’s ok to be who I am. But I have to reverse so much ideological poison to allow myself to act according to my own true nature.
My own subconscious is screaming at me to subvert every societal moral demand. My conscious and subconscious is divided. The key to inner peace to unite them. But you know what? My subconconscious loves it. It probably shouldn’t be the boss of me but it is.
More succinctly, I shouldn’t view the battle as an insurmountable conflict but as the natural argument of psychology.
The brain only wants me to fill it’s own gaps.
Thanks for reading as ever
Jamie
Jamie's Blog 