I Caught You Negative Loop! (Two)
My last post I left with the question, “How can they love me when they do not even know me?” Somewhere there is a disconnect, I am not sure how to bridge this disconnect. I believe that will manifest itself as I write about “love blindness” at a later time. (I should add “like blindness” as well.) The issue in this post is that my questioning is a negative thinking pattern. I have put some sort of conditions on their love for me – I do not know what they are exactly. Most people have not voiced conditions on their love for me. They just love me whatever parts I am giving to them they are loving.
I do not know how to accept what I visualize as levels of love.
I will write through all of this, but for this particular post my quest, is that I have trapped a negative thinking pattern in a net and I am closing in on it. All of my family dynamics cause me to go into familiar loops, which connected things that I have been reading about rumination. I read this post (AsperGirlMaybe) recently where she mentioned ruminating. I have gone back and forth reading about it through various other means, and loops of mine leading me to the question, “What is rumination?” I decided that I needed to look up rumination and spend some time on the topic. I have been ruminating. It also has made it clear that I am progressing very much in my thinking, but that I have a long way to go when it comes to mindfulness. I am getting there, I watched this Video: Asperger’s and mindfulness that was helpful.
Side note here…
I have to say that the concept of Buddhism makes much more sense to me than other religions I have encountered. While, I am unable to define my spirituality with any clarity at the moment I can say that I see many parallels with Jesus teachings and Buddhism. It makes sense to me – thinking in the now makes sense to me and it helps me stay balanced. Good read. Asperger’s syndrome and Mindfulness: Taking Refuge in the Buddha
Here are a few of my findings about rumination.
(I have taken some of this post from a post I wrote on another blog. Not sure why I had to share that, but I did.)
(Wiki page) Rumination is usually defined as repetitively focusing on the symptoms of distress, and on its possible causes and consequences.[1].
State Rumination involves dwelling on the consequences and feelings associated with the failure. Action rumination consists of task-oriented thought processes focused on goal-achievement and correction of mistakes. Task-irrelevant rumination utilizes events or people unassociated with the blocked goal to distract a person from the failure.[4]
Rumination: Problem Solving Gone Wrong
Do you “self-reflect” or “self-ruminate”?
By Alain Morin
Why Ruminating is Unhealthy and How to Stop
I am in a depressive state.
I am not truly depressed though, I can feel my mind pulling in that direction. I know that I am worn out, drained, feeling as if no one understands me in real life, and I am having moments of hopelessness. I know that this is a loop from over-stimulation due to many social and sensory situations in this last month. Along with this big move, change in my routines, and the inability to have one now. In addition, David is leaving next week, and I have lingering anxiety about Daniel and the car. I do have more people who can help me here so that is good. Knowing all of this does not stop my brain from going through the loop of emotional difficulties, and anxious fears.
I have had a reoccurring loop of someone I care about leaving me.
I cannot stop it, I understand that it is a loop and at times I can only ride it out. It has been a loop with different people – people that I have deeply loved throughout my lifetime. It started with childhood I am fairly certain it started with my father, and has jumped from every person at some point in my life. It comes as a form of self-sabotage. I do not want to have those fears, I do not want to think those things, but my brain does it. It does not help that I feel a block in the area of knowing if someone loves me or not. It hurts to be confused, and to constantly anticipate that someone you love is not going to love you anymore, or leave. It is a lingering fear. It happened before it can easily happen again. It has happened many times and I have been blindsided. People have told me that they love me and then, they leave me. They tell me they care and then, they say or do hateful, mean things. It is a familiar loop that I cling to because I know it; somehow, it has played like a drug in my mind. I am trying to protect myself.
I tend to convince myself that I am in control.
I convince myself without realizing it that by looping in a negative direction that I am stopping them from hurting, or rejecting me. I am actually hurting myself with make-believe scenarios, and creating anxiety and fears that I do not need to waste time on. This loop comes and goes, but it normally peeks its head around in my brain when I feel like I have no control over my real life situations. It is a lie that my brain has used against me to help me create a phantom fear so I can distract myself from reality. The main reality that I am trying to run away from is, I know that people love, but I do not understand how they love me.
I feel like they cannot possibly love me when they do not know me.
How can they ever love me when I cannot be myself with them? If I am unable to express myself well enough for them to understand and vice versa, then what? I want to see my family, but I have spun so out of control that I cannot even look at my phone. How can I communicate when I have lost my words? They do not understand a person losing their words. People do not want to only read my words, they want to see me, hug me, look at me, and engage with me. How do I do that when I go into a shutdown/meltdown that night or next day? They do not understand this – I have tried to explain it, but they do not get it.
See now this is the part where I need to be mindful.
That whole paragraph is full of questions that I need to let go. Those questions and the many flying around in my mind are not helping me. They can lead me down the path of rumination. I am feeling anxious, nervous, and scared by not following the negative trail my mind wants to go down at this moment. It is a difficult task. I am changing the course. I read What to Do on the Bad Days of Depression , which was on my fb feed this morning, I am going to focus on some of those things. I am trying to clear my mind and accept that my family loves me very much many of them are trying. Even if I am unable to connect the feeling of these emotions, I can write down all of the ways they have been trying instead of focusing on the few things that have hurt me and caused me to spiral. Maybe that will help me find words to express some things clearly to them. If I take away the feeling of “threat” possibly then I can find words. Who knows, I need to try something different.
I know that several of them do not know what to do, but they are trying to be supportive.
Because I do not know how to tell them, I have been the one who has cut them off. My own fears and confusion plummet me into a self-protection mode. A damaging negative looping mode. Some of the reasons are because of the past, and some of them are because of current interactions. It is scary to see where I need to change, but this cycle is too painful and damaging. I have to have a more positive way of processing family dynamics. I also need to figure out how I define love/support, evaluate it, and create a healthy outlook in that area. I do not know how to tell people what I am feeling. I can only lead them to books, or blog posts. This has caused some negative experiences as well that caused me to feel traumatized by words.
It has left me at a loss as to how I can express myself to anyone.
I am not sure how to move forward in the area of expressing myself to people in a way that they can understand. They have taken my form of communication and refused it. That makes me rather angry at times that I have to be the one to do so, but if I want to make changes in my life, I have to do so. I have to find a way to tell people that I am hurting, that I do not understand, or even when I am happy. I can only take one thing at a time.
My focus now is to recognize unhealthy rumination and stop it.
Continue to catch my negative thinking patterns that lead me to ruminating and going into a depressive state – not entertaining them. I need to deter my mind from creating negative scenarios and fabrications, such as me now thinking there are negative messages on my phone so I am refusing to listen to them. I am afraid of my phone and I have hidden it so I do not have to look at it. It is anxiety inducing not for any real reason other than I am afraid of the unknown, or that I may be required to call someone back. The thought of talking on the phone is sending me into a panic attack.
Those kinds of things need to stop.
Other resources:
The article I posted above is about this book Asperger’s Syndrome and Mindfulness: Taking Refuge in the Buddha, I think I may purchase it. I feel like the writer where they say, “the book made me think and want to explore the subject of Buddhism further. I doubt whether I will be a convert, but I will certainly be taking some of its lessons on board.” I am finding many beneficial things from studying, reading, and applying what I have been learning. I am progressing far more rapidly and with lasting results, than I have with other things I have tried.
I also found this, but have not read it all the way through yet. The first five pages seem really good, I will finish it later today. Mindfulness: A Promising Approach to Overcoming the Challenges of Asperger’s Syndrome © Jack Russell
Update: Joshua’s teacher just called – I answered the phone. It went very well, I am excited, though my words got jumbled at certain points overall it went well. Little social anxiety, but feeling very positive about the whole interaction. 
