Journals of Lord Malinov

the poetry of madness

dangling

Verb.  It's what you do. 

This message is brought to you by the American Association of Predicates.  Do Anything.

I drove the eldest son to a party.  On the way, I told him the facts of life.  First, I said, you will always want to be with women.  It's a genetic drive and it makes them irresistable.  The only way to end the torment is . . . let's just not go there.  Second, you cannot control a woman, or anybody else for that matter. The only person you can even come close to controlling is yourself.  Any control you think you have over others is illusory.

Fight these facts and you will suffer every sling and arrow.  Accept the uncomfortable torment of these cross directives, and you can enjoy every moment of your life, one that will certainly include the company of women.

Isn't it funny how the most controlling people tend to be the ones who have the least control over themselves?  People who externalize their problems are always annoying and often dangerous.

My work on understanding the mechanisms and development of anxiety contiues. 

I believe that we transferred the panic response to imagined stimuli because we have become oversensitized to threats, lacking ever-present mortal dangers, generally.  Without mortal threats to keep the troubles in our lives in perspective, we tend to over-estimate and purposely exaggerate the dangers of ordinary tasks.  But it is not a fear of failure or shame or imaginary death that drives us into a frenzy - those fears are best dealt with by taking action to evade or eliminate the problem - our stuck-in-the-mud wheel-spinning is generated by a fear of panic.  Once this horrid cycle is formed, fear of panic tending us toward the panic we fear, the viscious circle is remarkably difficult to break.  Everything that might cause panic becomes an stimuli to be avoided, a circle of avoidance that eventually consumes everything, perhaps leading to the complete isolation of agorophobia.

Our dread of panic - the core of anxiety - evolved because anything that caused us to panic, i.e., tigers, were best survived by avoidance.  Avoid the stimuli, avoid the panic.  Panic was to be avoided at all costs because things that cause panic are mortal dangers.  A very effective system until you eliminate most mortal dangers and begin substituting emotional troubles for mortal dangers.

When I was young, fear caused me to panic when I was confronted by a pretty girl.   I began avoiding girls so I could avoid panic.  My emotions for girls didn't diminish, so the panic was always a threat.  At the time, I hadn't be harmed by a woman.  (a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away) and I wanted desperately to be near them.  At the same time, I was terrified by the prospect of panic.  Later, encountering women, my fear of panic would cause me to panic worse.  The cycle deepens into a downward spiral.

I found ways around the panic.  Life always finds a way.  Now I have eliminated the panic.  So much better in so many ways.

Panic is the extreme end of the flight-fight response.  One of the first things to dissolve with the brain training is the tendency to panic and subsequently the fear of panic.  This is the aspect that takes much longer to change behaviorally, as avoidance keeps us from re-evaluating stimuli.  But this is also the piece that takes the shackles off the mind.  Without a fear of panic, so much wasted energy is saved.  The fear of panic is a civil war within our minds, expending precious mental energy on self-destructive tendencies while ignoring the world around.

Anxiety derives from sensitization - someone who faces mortal dangers on a daily basis is unlikely to expend energy reconsidering yesterdays actions or contemplating the future.  We don't worry about being late for work when we discover a hungry tiger in the room.  We eliminated the tigers, by and large.  The panic response should be reserved for lethal moments.  Most of our ailments derive from over-use of the panic response, which is sad because we HATE the panic response.  Fear drives us.  Impatience is an overflow of fear.

Perhaps evolution selects against intelligent-creative people by leaving the panic response tied to imagined stimuli.  Perhaps this is the switch that knocked down the Tower of Babel.

I also have a theory that my training could unleash mutant powers.  There is no evidence, so far, but we can't know until we try.  Cats is concerned that we won't be able to choose our mutant powers.  So many things to learn.

Enjoy,

M
 

posted by: Malinov at 09:18 | link | comments (3) |
psychobabble, tales of passing time

Comments:

#1  05 March 2006 - 19:26

 

my anxiety is largely a chemical imbalance rather than a learned response or behavior. the brain can trained to release the right counter balancing chemicals - breathing techniques adjusting the amount of oxygen processed are often effective - but usually its just easier to adminster directly if you can find the right stuff.

it seems to me that the person in your post that worries about being late to work does not do so because of a vestige of the flight or fight response, but from a gland secreting a bad dose that triggeres an inappropriate response to the given stimuli. most people don't worry about being late to work not so much because they face mortal dangers on a daily basis, but because when faced with the prospect of being late, they don't get blasted with the wrong chemicals for that particular external event.

i had my first anxiety attack a few years ago. it came out of the blue and it was triggered by no specific event, but i felt a overall sense of that i did not fit in this world and everything was bad bad bad. i mentioned the second attack a few weeks later to a friend who said she had the same thing and suggested st. johns wort. i take it every day and have no more attacks - a small skirmish every now and then, but no attacks.

love, anxiety, lust, sloth, obsession, are all just external manifestions of chemicals reacting with the brain. better living thru chemisty amigo.

bluematrix

#2  08 March 2006 - 09:23

 

the release of chemicals is part of the flight-fight response - the St. Johns is a placebo, a reasonable cure for most psychological troubles

Chemistry cannot be a suitable solution to a mental ocndition - the ability to control our chemistry on the fly is zero, and on the fly is the test.

M

Mo'nonymous

#3  09 March 2006 - 08:10

 

no disrespect cap'n, but your source for placebos is incorrect. i've been self-medicating since i was 15 and i know when drugs have an effect me. st. johnnies is no more a placebo than aspirin. and just like aspirin is pretty ineffectual for relief of migraines, so the wort is ineffectual against more severe forms of depression and anxiety, but ineffectual on some of the population does not a a placebo make. lots of studies point both ways, but i speak only of my body.

as far as the which came first the chicken or the egg (the omelette is my bet), the f/f response vs. the chemical reaction, or defining internal chemistry vs. human behavior, methinks it's mostly semantics anyways, and debating semantics with a lawyer/writer is probably not my wisest course of action.

so i meant no offense compadre, i was just throwin in my two cents worth from my perspective. bottom line is, life can be hard and whatever mechanisms we find to increase our joy without hurting ourselves or others, i say, bring it on.

peace.

bluematrix

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