Shortage of Mathematics skills, but no employment for the skilled

January 13, 2012 at 3:03 pm (Programming)
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

It seems that if you a wanting to teach or interested in financial mathematics, such as actuarial work, then mathematics jobs are available and advertised.

I keep hearing how this is a scare skill and how people want to encourage woman into scientific and research industries, yet nobody is looking for the skills.

I have my BSc degree with applied mathematics (and Computer Science) as a major and I did fairly well, yet it has been useless to me in terms of employment. This is not for lack of looking for an opportunity.
It looks like if you are in a university at an advanced level then some opportunities are available, but it appears as if nobody has as any interest in adult learners, or graduates under honors level.

There are some learner-ship and internship opportunities at the research institutions such as Meraka and CSIR, which I have applied for. I must have been shortlisted because I at least got the response that I had not got the position’s, however since they don’t give any real feedback, I am unable to establish whether I did not fit their age profile, academic mark level or other.

Is it that people looking for these skills are only willing to train up youngsters or is it because the industry is recruiting only through universities, or is there some other criteria?

Perhaps the skills aren’t that scarce after all, or they only become recognized at higher levels of training. Perhaps it is because the skills are only valid for those who pull straight distinctions.

I would love to combine my programming and mathematics skills, but I am finding no gaps to do so.
It’s most frustrating because I can’t think of any other options to pursue at the moment.

2 Comments

Ketosis, increased water consumption and headaches

January 11, 2012 at 12:13 pm (Health, low carb high fat (LCHF))
Tags: , , , , , ,

I have been aware for years that if I develop a headache it is either because I haven’t had coffee for more than a day or it is because I am dehydrated. In the latter case a glass of water resolves the issue.

I have read that when you are in ketosis, from low carbing, and therefore burning fat, it is a good idea to up your consumption of water to flush the ketones.

The issue I am having is that every time I increase my water consumption, I am ending up with a headache.
I’d love to know what causes this, but googling for the matter is not helping. The results I get from searching, for variations on this subject matter, all cover dehydration and the “should drink lot’s of water” versus “should drink moderate water” debate.

I have not found one single article discussing headaches resulting from increasing water intake.

I’d like to know if anyone else experiences this and I would like to know what causes this bizarre reaction.

Most odd.

Leave a Comment

So how does one stay un-cynical?

January 9, 2012 at 1:25 pm (depression, healing)
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I’m finding it really hard not to go off people.

I guess it really gets harder when you are in a city and even the way people drive is uncaring and unthinking.
How do you decide that people can actually be nice or do nice things for others and NOT expect anything back for it?

I wonder if it is my lessons with the horror of codependency, or the exposure to on all the divorce support forums as to how common sudden spouse abandonment is, and my parents divorce, that has skewed my perception of this.
I keep finding myself befriending people who eventually expose their selfishness in some or other manner and hide it behind “Nice Guy Syndrome”. It seems to be viral.

My entire life I’ve ended up holding onto only a small selection of close friends. I’ve lost all but one or two of them in the last couple of years.
One of the weaknesses of my Myers Briggs personality type, is the potential to end up cynical about people. I can see why.

For some reason I keep meeting the “angries” lately. Ugh! Is this what I am attracting at the moment?

I really need to decide to let someone closer, but it’s the last thing I have any motivation to do. The person I let closest not only cut me the deepest but also turned out to be a total stranger.
There are days when I want to hermit from the world and days when I go out and socialise, and even have fun, but it feels superficial most of the time.
I never enjoyed or appreciated small talk, and even though I now understand its value, it still feels false and I have no interest in arguing or debating anything nowadays because it seems to serve no purpose other than to maintain boundaries.

Is there such a thing as someone who doesn’t argue AND who isn’t conflict-avoidant? Is there someone in the world who is easy going AND isn’t building up hidden resentment?
Can the logic table for this predicate language be completed?

I suspect cynical and analytical go hand in hand, but the latter is an intricate part of who I am, even if it has dulled lately.

So here I am dancing all sorts of dances to the world’s music and changing the steps from time to time, but the people don’t change. I’m just more aware of their hidden steps, which I am trying hard to ignore or relearn.

This comes from a link I provided in an earlier post:-

The INTP has no understanding or value for decisions made on the basis of personal subjectivity or feelings. They strive constantly to achieve logical conclusions to problems, and don't understand the importance or relevance of applying subjective emotional considerations to decisions.

Maybe this is why I will never understand! It’s definitely why I continue to revisit it. Maybe it’s the driver behind cynicism. How I wish I could just decide not to be.

This also hits home:-
Another challenge for the INTJ is their tendency to be misunderstood. Often lost in thought, the INTJ may seem aloof or uncaring when, in fact, they are simply focusing on the powerful stream of information constantly barraging their imagination. And because the INTJ is skeptical of whether others can accept or understand this intricate inner world, they mayhesitate to share it with others until their trust has been earned. The INTJ, in relationships, is often skeptically searching for that rare person that they feel safe bringing into their vision due to a foundation of underlying shared worldview elements.

All of these factors can make it difficult for the INTJ, to make deep connections. When someone does manage to breach these barriers, however, and gain access to the INTJ’s inner world, it can be an exhilarating experience for the INTJ. Deep down, the INTJ often longs to share these aspects of themselves with others and, when they finally feel comfortable todo so, can form close bonds.

Close but one sided! Ugh. Time time time and more TIME TIME TIME TIME!

I guess since the INTJ, is only 1% of the population, and mostly male, I should understand why there are only a few people I want close.

There, I answered my own question.

I think I need to dream about my impending Zanzibar trip to lift my mood. Thankfully these feelings are transient. I wish they would go away completely already, but my mind never stops!

Leave a Comment

Mistaken Consensus

January 6, 2012 at 2:53 pm (Diabetes, Health)
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Low fat meals being good for you, is a fabulous example of mistaken consensus. It’s like when a population makes up its mind, mistaken or not, it’s behaves like an out of control train, heading for a wreck, that cannot be steered.

If you have any interest in seeing some interesting charts and evidence that the current food guidelines are incorrect then checkout the food revolution video.
The Food Revolution – AHS 2011

Before I realised what my problem was, I was always hungry. Not just hungry. Ravenous! No amount of food would make me feel full.
I’ve subsequently discovered that when your glucose is constantly high your body doesn’t get all the nutrients you are eating. No wonder you are hungry, but the sugar swings you get from eating carbohydrates also fuel that cycle.

Now that I’ve switched to Low Carb High Fat (LCHF), not only am I not hungry anymore, and the weight that I could never seem to get rid of falls off when I keep my carb count low, but my, “You’re full”, mechanism is functioning at full throttle.

Not only that, but the more fat I add to my meals, the less I can eat. My high cholesterol, which I could never figure out since I was on the healthy wholefood diet, has dropped. So much for eating fat increasing cholesterol.

My favourite things about this discovery are rice cakes. The ultimate diet food has way too many carbs to be good for it’s purpose.

I’ve referred to milk’s shocks in a previous post. Skim milk has 13(+)g of carbs while double cream has less than 2g, but because of the public’s mistaken consensus you battle to find unadulterated products on the supermarket shelf. Try to find normal fat yoghurt! Thankfully you can get the double cream.
There is more and more research backing the fact that the food pyramid is just plain wrong, but the juggernaut just keeps marching towards it’s diabetes epidemic.

“It must be because people eat wrong and are sedentary!” Yeah right!!

My favourite part is if I need to get weight loss going again, I just adopt the Atkin’s Fat Fast of 90% fat meals for 3-4 days and I lose 3 kgs, centimetres and body fat. So much for fat making you fat!

My pet hate phrase is, “stay away from sugar”. I never ate Soda’s, sweets etc. Since basically, as far as your body is concerned, sugar = carbohydrate, the phrase should be, “keep your carbohydrate consumption low!”

The other thing I could never figure out is how I could exercise as much as I wanted and it made f**all difference to my weight. I was running 100km a month at one point!
I now have some understanding of why. I always new that I had a better chance if I didn’t over exercise. Now I know that that is because my blood glucose levels bottom out, my pancreas kicks in, to address that, and I end up with high sugar levels and hence high insulin. A fat making recipe of note!
There is a lot of indication on the internet that “exercise => weight loss” is another myth.

The rules of my world have changed so much in the last three years. It is shocking. Sadly it has not just been my knowledge about what foods are healthy that has been trashed.

The rule in my world that changed the most also caused me indescribable pain, and still does.
I thought I was loved and cherished by an honest, caring, trustworthy person.

It turns out that I was mistaken on all counts.

Leave a Comment

the low fat obsession may be driving the obesity epidemic

December 3, 2011 at 4:19 am (depression, Diabetes, Health)
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I blogged about my rapid diabetes re-education in March (8 months ago). I thought I’d share a little more about my experiences, since I have been researching the condition since then. I am clearly no expert, but the overwhelming amount of other diabetics who have made clear what is really working is astonishing.

Say-No-ADA (Image from www.diabetes-warrior.net)


an example of this at the diabetes-warrior blog

As mentioned in the previous post, I had been following the American Diabetic Association eating guidelines for years prior to diagnosis and have had to reject the recommendations they are making. For those who don’t know, that is low-fat, wholefood/low-GI and 60-70% carbohydrates.

The first two books I read were Dr Bernstein’s, “Diabetes Solution” and Dewayne Mcculley’s, “Death to Diabetes” and I guess they were my original clue that low carbing was the way to go. This is not what my dietician recommended, although she upped my fat intake, and I stopped going to her shortly after she announced that I would be better off on the carbs and taking the medication. That’s a little bit like masking the symptoms without treating the cause. I had researched low carbing and there is more an more studies supporting it as being healthy.

I had also seen my father’s deterioration on that routine. I cannot tell you how horrifying it is when someone starts to go into a diabetic coma and they are too non responsive to want to drink the Coca Cola you are trying to force down their throat!

The information I got from these books, very rapidly (a few months), got my HbA1C back in to the 5 range without drugs, which I stopped taking at the one week mark, reversed the problem with my failing kidneys (microalbuminuria) and brought my horrifying blood pressure, which I had been battling with for about a year, back to normal. My cholesterol profile also improved dramatically and I started to lose massive amounts of weight on the diet. I also suspect that the link between diabetes and depression had a lot to do with my development of it.

It seems that carbohydrates cause a hunger cycle and from what I read the high levels of insulin also prevent all the nutrients from entering the body which then decides it is starving and you end up RAVENOUS! My body never told me when it was full. It now does.

In case you think the idea of low carbing for health and weight loss is a new idea, you may want to know that William Banting knew this in the 1800′s and was well enough known to have had his surname added to the English dictionary. In addition, the primary method of controlling diabetes, prior to the discovery of insulin, was the low carb diet.

Most of the low carbing resources suggest increasing fat intake. One of the striking things that my Glucometer showed me is that adding fat to a meal actually lowered the subsequent sugar spike of the food I was eating. This gave me my first clue that the low fat obsession may be driving the obesity epidemic

I also highly recommend the Udo Erasmus book, “Fats that Heal, fats that kill”, which is an eye opener.

Then I discovered the “Food Revolution”! Wow. The statistics in this video are shocking. My favourite being the direct correlation between the Swedish getting thinner as Butter sales increased!

But the final straw in the “fats are bad” coffin for me was when I briefly hit a weight loss stall and tried the “Atkin’s fat fast”, which is designed to kick start your metabolism and is only supposed to be continued for three to four days. It consists of eating 90% fat meals… and I lost over 3 kg in those few days!!

I had boarded the LCHF (Low Carb/ High Fat) train.

Here is some more interesting reading, with supporting research links challenging carbs, GI and fat entitled, Fat And Glycemic Index: The Myth Of “Complex Carbohydrates

For the record, I also have rejected the, “calorie in calorie out” theory of overweight. Again, the research is interesting. My reading has also caused me to reject the notion that saturated fats are a problem.

Although it has been known for many years that Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease, there is increasing scientific studies pointing to the fact that this is also the case for type 2. This basically means that the body is attacking itself.

This is a simplified description, but here goes:-
Specifically the “killer T cells”, which are the ones that help the body fight infections and viruses, turn on the pancreas’ Beta cells and kill them off. These beta cells are the cells that control insulin, amongst other things.
Researchers have , for the first time, managed to video this, in the pancreas, in real time. This kind of research indicates that a cure may come in the form of a vaccine, anti inflammatory or existing cancer drug.

It appears to be that autoimmune diseases are sometimes caused by inflammation. My current thought is that cinnamon, which is known to help for diabetes, also helps because of it’s other known benefit. It is an anti inflammatory!

Alcohol, which lowers blood sugar levels, converts directly to ketones. It seems the body uses these very easily, and will burn those ketones first, before any others. It therefore halts the fat burning process, until the alcohol is clear of the body. If I want to speed up weight loss, I have to cut back. It does not cause weight gain due to sugar, as most people believe!

I have been losing weight steadily for a year now and my body composition has changed. I know this because my body fat and centimeters measured at an earlier date, against the same weight, are hugely improved.

I always wondered how a vegetarians could be fat, and now I realise it is because vegetarian diets are generally heavily weighted towards high carbohydrate eating, and if you add the low fat recommendation to that, you have the recipe for trouble.

As an aside, I had an epileptic friend who cured his epilepsy by switching to a non vegetarian diet. Since there is a large body of evidence indicating that low carbing cures epilepy, I have to wonder if that wasn’t the distinction.

I will be repeating my glucose tolerance test one of these days. I just want to lose a few more kilograms first.

I strongly suspect that I am no longer diabetic.

A possible mediator of high carbohydrate-induced type 2 diabetes

3 Comments

The many worlds interpretation and the afternoon of life

November 23, 2011 at 1:51 pm (Divorce, healing, Midlife Crisis (MLC))
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

I am aware that my personality is different pre and post bomb. I was very confident and happy with myself prior to the train wreck, so I am less than clear on what has changed for the better or what has changed for the worse. I have had many people comment that I am a better person. I am less sure.

Some of it is not all that obvious, but the main reason I am bringing this up is because some of the changes are rather shocking.
For example, I was very logically orientated before bomb drop and very interested in studying and furthering my career and very goal driven. I wanted a PHD and was planning that path. I loved logical puzzles, so I was really enjoying learning about mathematics.
I couldn’t sit and do nothing and wanted to keep busy and I would really worry about the little things. I was quite confident that my experience of the world was logically accurate and useful to others.

Post bomb, I have zero interest in study. I am more aware of interpersonal relationships and feelings. I am very happy to do nothing, or potter in my garden, and let the world just happen. I don’t sweat the small stuff…or the large stuff for that matter. I’ve been through a list of tragedies that would have seen some people not cope and just handled everything.

A short list of that includes:-
my father having a stroke, and no longer being able to work, various moves into various old age facilities, him trying to commit suicide in my house and now his terminal cancer.
My mom’s 3 visits into hospital for various very serious operations, my car being rendered completely unusable for weeks at a time due to serious components breaking, accidents etc on at least four occasions.
My house being struck by lightening, twice, rendering a significant portion of my appliances and the alarm system, which I’ve had to replace three times in just as many years, completely frazzled.
The death of five of my beloved pets, one due to extremely unfortunate circumstances. I was diagnosed as diabetic and had to rethink what I thought was healthy eating.
The company I was working for going under, resulting in a tenuous and unpredictable salary for at least 7 months, combined with the repressed job market and the resulting contractual obligation that is now keeping me stuck.
My employee of a decade, suddenly walking away.
Then the little things:- broken washing machine, re-dug septic tank, broken TV, damaged electric fence complete with car driving into the corner fence pole all of which I efficiently fixed, and the almost two years it took to disentangle myself from wasband, wills, post office, insurance etc

My book shelf pre bomb contained Math and quantum Physics books. My book shelf post bomb drop contains self help, diabetes, adultery, what makes marriages succeed, personality disorder, travel and other such books, none of which I would have even considered reading prior.
I find myself dreaming about leaving the corporate rat race and starting to do something completely unthinking, like running a small hydroponics farm, selling heritage vegetables or unusual plants, for a living.

I seem to be dumber, like I left some brain cells in my previous life, but I explore a lot more. I am less perfectionist. I don’t always finish everything I start, as I used to.

With the less worrying, I feel like some of my enthusiasm for life has waned. I don’t think in such big, leaping pictures. I am not certain that those are improvements, but I don’t really care.

Along with the questioning of self, it really feels like I got picked up out of my universe, that had one set of rules, and placed squarely, without warning, into another multiverse with a different set of rules.

Knowing that many of us question, and make changes, at this time in our lives, is comforting, but I feel like I got brutally chucked into the “afternoon of life” several years early.
The only constant between my multiverses was my art, even my taste in music went off track there for a while. I assume that, like my music tastes, I will slowly veer slightly back, to who I was, just as a pendulum will settle back to it’s stationary point, even though someone moved/bumped it’s frame.

But its interesting, and now that I am starting to understand the rules of this multiverse, I am thriving.

I am planning a Zanzibar trip, with a friend, early next year, and the break is going to do me good. I am really excited about it. I want to slow down.

What is many-worlds?
Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

Leave a Comment

On personal filters and relationships

November 17, 2011 at 3:00 pm (Divorce, healing)
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Yeah OK, it’s another backward rant, but here goes anyway.

I really don’t want to be in a place where I reject the idea of being in a relationship. I was very happily married even if wasband wasn’t. I enjoyed being a couple.

I keep sabotaging myself though. Here are some ways in which I am doing that.

When my trust was initially shattered and I was in IC discussing with my therapist ways that I ended up divorced, some of the following discussions came up:-

Firstly I spend a great deal of time figuring out how I attracted a codependent, his label, because the literature mentions that they choose borderlines or unemotional people.
I established that I am not borderline or personality disordered, in fact I did not play the dance I was supposed to play for a codependent.

I don’t feel cold or unemotional, in fact my pain tells me the opposite, but when I look at my myers-briggs personality type INTJ, which the tests tell me I am, or INTP which feels a bit closer to me, they are both listed with the weakness of “not being in tune with other peoples feelings”.

So I’m left wondering if I’m just going to keep attracting the same shit and I cannot really imagine myself changing a whole lot to accommodate touchy feely, although I am making slight adjustments after being aware of it. Give and take yes, personal improvement, yes, but radically shifting how I operate in the world? No!

So starting a new relationship, and why I would even do anything like that, came up for discussion. My IC is discussing how it’s like rolling a dice and ever time you throw it you still have six options for what it is like.
One look at the divorce statistics, indicates that that the analogy is incorrect. 2nd marriages have a 65% chance of failing and most people have not addressed the issue that caused the first failure.
Not that I have any idea of what that was in my case. I guess it’s also easier to divorce the second time round because, not only have you already been divorced but some of the illusions that where part of what we considered love the first time round have been shattered.
I’m talking here about the idea that one particular person is “super” special or the only one for you and perhaps the reassessment of how much trust you can or will give has been adjusted. The rose coloured glasses are off, the pixie dust wiped away.

I’m talking here about realising that people’s communication isn’t enough to keep a relationship together or the lost trust that your partner will actually share with you when they are having problems. I’m talking about the knowledge that anyone can have an affair just like anyone can fall in love in the first place, and that the cheating statistics are so high.

I’m talking about the fact that I now have some understanding of how our family of origin (FOO) influences our choice and now am confident that I may attract that again. I’m talking about the knowledge of how your perception of someone, based on your own experience can be so off, so that they appear to radically change into someone else.

Going into a long term relationship knowing that someone can change like that inspires ZERO confidence that relationships can be long term.

So I’m independent. I’m have a good life. I do not NEED anyone! Why, oh why, oh why, would I want to open myself up to potentially experiencing more pain?

Well, right here is one of my filter problems. I haven’t managed to adjust my filter to want short term relationships. I also haven’t experienced a relationship that is just a healing relationship and I clearly get too attached.
Right there is another issue. Why would I want a relationship where I am independent, they are independent and there is some sharing in between? Ignoring physical intimacy for a moment, I have friends that serve that purpose.

Another problem with my filter is a scar. All I was exposed to at the end and during my marriage was someone being extra nice to me. I thought it was genuine, I had never heard of, “Needing to be needed”.
My Lizard is going to RUN LIKE HELL FROM ANYONE TOO NICE!! The poor person who tries to court me by showing affection is going to see my dust, which is all the more disturbing when I am told that nurturing is how men are, which may or may not be horribly generalised. That is another discussion.

I know that someone special may come along, and when chemicals kick in I may throw caution to the wind and start again, but I seriously doubt it.

There are at least three men that have indicated less than subtly that they are interested. I have been honest with them.

I am not.

More on INTJ
and INTP

2 Comments

beauty returns

October 30, 2011 at 6:28 pm (healing)
Tags: , ,

One of the things that flew out of the window along with Seratonin was my appeciation for the subtleties in, my favourite thing in the whole world, music.

At the time, my world turned grey, and finding enthusiasism for any and all of my hobbies, was an ellusive chore. Even the simple hobbies, such as gardening were a forced routine, rather an enjoyment.

But music…..MUSIC.
Even through the blackest moments in my gray world, I could always find some colour through my ears. It was, however, distressing as I stopped listening to all the music requiring that extra attention to detail. I started listening to simpler music. Music with potent lyrics but little intonation.

It’s so great to be emerging from that dark cocoon. The physio therapist has straightened my damaged finger enough for me to sit at my three quarter grand piano and play…

Nothing in my experience excites me like this does! I wonder when I dropped this dream? I know why, and I continue to steer clear but if there was one item of utter colour, emotion and beauty, music is it.

One part of me wonders if it isn’t because, as a logically orientated individual, music inspires because, although it has analysable structure, there is a component to it that completely defies logic! An emotional aspect to it that cannot be switched off. A broadness to it, a variety, that defies the imagination.

Music is better when played with feeling, with passion and with abandon, yet at the same time, it is disciplined, patterned and requires skill to play.

I wonder how many people miss the sound of fingers sliding on strings and the musician’s irregular breathing as they concentrate. The fact that one bow of a violin string can sound so very different based on the angle, direction, speed and player.

To quote John Miles, “Music was my first love and it will be my last”

I’m slowly going back to listening to the more subtle things in my collection. The Astor Piazolla, I have on today, at a less than reasonable volume, has me on a complete journey.

2 Comments

On Moving on

October 11, 2011 at 3:01 pm (Divorce, healing)
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

I gave myself two years to recover. I thought that was ample time to grieve or do whatever it was that I needed to do. Isn’t that a logical thought!?

When I was still grieving at the two year mark, I booked myself back into IC and revisited all the logic. The problem is that the heart doesn’t appear to be logical on any level.
Even though your head is in the present your heart sabotages you.

It does this in a number of ways. One of the worst ways it does this is in your dreams and you are presented with either a distorted rerun of your past or a fantasy presented in the present based on knowledge, you know no longer to be the case.
Some dreams are intimate, some excessively violent, some trite, but in all case your mood is sabotaged before you even wake up and it takes considerable effort to regain composure before your day starts.

No amount of logic, can stop your mind presenting those dreams.

Another way you get sabotaged is when memories are triggered. I thought I would take a while to get over these because my entire house has over a decade of them and I thought I would just keep confronting them until they passed.
But the heart has a way of sabotaging that too, and at arbitrary times it will find a new memory to pull randomly from the archive!
Every now and again you enter an environment you haven’t visited for a while, and something in the environment will trigger the recall, like driving down a sand road and vividly recalling mountain biking down it or walking into a book shop and recalling their reactions and enthusiasm for certain subjects.

And they come at any time.

I drove past a truck loaded with Rosewood the other day and suddenly recalled enthusiastically spending a great deal of time in a specialist wood warehouse choosing the exotic wood for our home project that we spent months finishing. But the level of detail of the memories is mind boggling.
In that one moment I could remember specific pieces of wood and specific details of the warehouse and snippets of conversation, flashbacks, and I don’t know where that detail is coming from. I don’t want these memories. They hurt, deeply, and what I want most is for them to stop! So I shove them away as quickly as they surfaced, but my mood has already swung!

It’s like your heart and your head are the devil and angel on your shoulder, except that I’m no longer clear on which is which.
Even the logical one cuts me off at the knees by replaying the tapes of things that don’t make sense yet. Even though I now know that they will never make sense, I know the puzzle pieces are stolen, the inner dialog keeps starting up on it’s loop and I have to shut it down.

I am in year three and I am wondering, when will my heart will leave me alone? Why is it fighting my head? I’ve got everything else organised and working. My head thinks there is nothing missing, my heart has a chasm and the lizard keeps screaming.

1 Comment

ME Work! – What it was in my case

September 23, 2011 at 2:37 pm (Divorce, healing)
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

My Tree was shaken empty and now I’m filling it with “the gifts” that traumatic change brings

I thought I’d write down some of my achievements and lessons, since my life was unexpectedly derailed.

I never asked for these lessons, I’m not glad this happened, but I have to look at them and look at my path and marvel at how much I’ve learned and I have to acknowledge that I am probably a better person for them.
They are my gifts, put into my experience truths, and therefore I have no expectations that they will be true for anyone else, but some of them rework how you experience life and change your behaviour

Some of them took some time to, acclimatise to. They were shocking and so radically different from how I used to think, and they managed successfully to damage some of my memories, and so it took some time to view them as gifts.
The label came from my IC, who has been calling them gifts all along.

I had to work really hard not to direct every bit of blame for the train smash inward, as apparently, I’m really hard on myself. I’ve identified this as part of my FOO.

The Lesson Gifts

codependency

This was the first gift my IC labelled. I learned how a codependent sees the world. I’ve learned that a relationship with a codependent has very little chance of success, because they play the Karpman Drama Triangle, without sharing anything but rescuer mode with you, so when the victim and persecuter modes emerge, it’s one hell of a shock!
I’ve learned that the codependent is not really capable of true intimacy, because most of their interactions with the world are aimed at protecting themselves and keeping people at arms length. They make you feel really good, though because they shower you with what you think is love and affection, to fuel their “codependent supply”. I’ve learned that the codependent has low self esteem and is EXTREMELY sensitive.
They also play the, “if it weren’t for you”, game of transactional analysis. They have NO CLUE, what healthy boundaries are and many won’t say, “no”.

I found this article to be particularly illuminating.
The wrong person leaves the relationship claiming to be the victim, but they are the victim of their own issues, behaviours and choices.

conflict avoidance

This is another way to trash a marriage predictably, before you say, “I do”. Conflict avoidants won’t bring to the discussion anything that needs to be addressed, so firstly, their partner gets zero opportunity to address any problems or self correct, and the avoidant personality starts festering inside, until one day they snap.
That’s also a surprise to their spouse, since nothing was on the table to begin with, so the sudden implosion appears to come out of the blue! The lack of any arguments in a marriage is the “tea leaves” that should have been the bright red flag shouting, “RUN AWAY!”
Conflict avoidance goes hand in hand with codependency and passive aggression.

nice guys, really aren’t nice at all

They will pad the truth, to protect your feelings, so you have no clue where you stand. They will make promises, that they have won’t keep, just to keep the peace.
The book, “no more Mr nice guy”, is informative. The rant’s about “Nice Guys” on the heartless-bitches website are eye opening. A google for the phrase “nice guy syndrome” contains about 3 million results.

passive aggression – A Form of Covert Abuse

Wow. How to abuse someone without either of you knowing that abuse has occurred! This one is a crazy maker.
There is too much to write about this, so I’ll refer to another article:-
Passive aggressive behavior stems from an inability to express anger in a healthy way.
Passive aggressives will say, “yes”, when you ask them to do things, but will intentionally not do what you asked. It’s a power game fought by people who’ve been taught that they have no voice and it’s played from the underdog position, the same position that the Martyr adopts.
It’s the person who stabs you in the back, while smiling at you. This is the cowards way of avoiding conflict.

Communication won’t save/protect a marriage

Hell, I remember having that discussion, when I got married. I sure as hell thought we both believed that communication was important, and that we were actually communicating. The joke was on me.
I’ll leave that there, and refer the topic of communication in marriage to Al Turtle and his excellent relationship wisdom at Al Turtle’s relationship Wisdom.
He has so many pearls on that site, validation, safety, mirroring, IMAGO, realiable membership….and how how it can be that even agreement is an illusion.

People don’t want happiness, they want safety!

gaslighting – another form of covert abuse

Sometimes you are even aware of it, because you can’t put your finger on the something that is bothering you. Ugh! Gaslighting doesn’t have to be intentional, but it’s just as crazy making either way.
I’ll leave this one to google, but in a nutshell this is when someone presents you with information that is skewed from the truth, making you doubt your own memory and then they often redirect the conversation with blame, to avert attention from the real matter at hand.
I’m reminded of the part in Roald Dahl’s, “The Twits”, where Mrs Twit keeps filing off bits of Mr Twit’s chair and then keeps telling him he is shrinking.

Transactional analysis

I explored this as part of my exploration in how to improve my communication with people.
If you do explore TA, be sure to explore 6 level TA, the three levels that are further split in two, so that 12 states are interacting at any time. Otherwise you miss the full model.
An example of those states here. Wikipedia explains the transactions that occur, without the further breakdown of the states.
So for example parent has a nurturing and critical subgroup. Child has natural, adaptive and rebellious.

TA teaches several things including the levels/Ego states on which people operate and the Games/dysfunctions within those states

It’s actually very interesting how you can influence a conversation when you switch to communicating on the same level as the person who you are talking with.
A person communicating on the child level is not going to compute, the response on the adult level.

Transactional analysis also taught me about stroking and why phrases like, “are you OK”, which have no logical component are actually really important to people. It is also the lesson that taught me to tell people that I love them, even though I think the word love is so nondescript, in that is has so many meanings.
I still cringe when I say it, but I’m working on that.

It’s also interesting, because I spend far too much time in adult and although I reject the child level, that is the level where we experience all our creativity and all our fun!!
It’s also the level where we hide from things that frighten us!

I spent a lot of time with someone who functioned often in nurturing parent mode, which kicked me into the fun creative child. An area where my creativity shines! I’m working at forcing myself into that mode by being my own nurturing parent, since I appear to be lacking on that level.

The self discovery gift and some of my faults

personality disorders

I’ve learned that I used to exhibit some narcissist behaviours, which I’ve addressed. I am not a Narc, as I don’t have some of the key elements that true Narcs possess, such as avoidance of true intimacy. I know that I am capable of true love, which is why I got hurt so badly.
If anything, my “narcissist supply”, was being loved and looked after, by someone other than me. Now I know that was out of balance, and I supply my own nurturing.
Al Turtle’s discussion on , “how to identify a bully by mastertalk”, was an eye opener and I am actively preventing myself from speaking that way.
Multiple people have identified that I am very hard on myself, so I am working on the techniques I have learned to improve my self nurturing.

I’ve learned that my personality type (INTP – myers briggs/type 5 eaneagram) loves operating in logical mode, but I’ve also learned, that apart from being entertaining, with it’s patterns and puzzles, that logic is useless and can be used to cloud your view of the world. I will have to completely discard all of these lessons, if I want to participate fully in life….. If I ever want to risk being in another relationship with anyone.

If you ever want to spice up how interesting life is and get out of a rut, then start to associate with people who make you feel uncomfortable, because they are the most likely to share concepts with you that you haven’t thought of trying to experience.

I have realised that I was too focused on driving towards goals, instead of enjoying the journey. I was maybe too perfectionist with myself and wouldn’t let me function at a suboptimal level. Thankfully I don’t expect this of others!!!
I am addressing this.

I love imagery. If I can paint images in my head, I can drive myself. Solutions Based Brief Therapy works really well for me. Questions like, “if you knew you couldn’t fail, what would you be doing?”, really set my vivid imagination flying!

How we are affected by FOO (Family of Origin) Issues

These are painful to learn and identify because when you do identify them your mental picture of your parents changes and it puts the emphasis on your inherited faults.

It’s interesting to see how you pick the familiar, even in a spouse. I’ve discussed IMAGO relationship counseling before, but I’ll mention briefly again that according to that theory people tend to marry the same characters again and again because their choices are based in their FOO.

Some spiritual gifts

A Shaman gave me an exercise I found useful. He told me that I think too much and that it is only one level of experience. The exercise was to pretend that I was sitting at a corner cafe and pretend that the passers by were my thoughts. The idea is that you don’t interact with strangers and it is interesting trying not to interact with or influence your thoughts. You just sit and watch them.
I could never do nothing before! Now I’ve learned to appreciate the experience.

I have a new definition of truth. Everyone has their own truth and it’s based on their recorded experiences. It therefore, since memories can be rewritten, change from one moment to the next.
I’ve learned that we taint our experience of the now with our “truths”. We project our experience onto the real experience and lose information in the process. (Much like Linear algebra can project onto one axis in the chosen basis).

Viktor Frankl’s Logotherapy and his idea of dimensional ontology describe parts of this idea. Fascinating stuff, and possibly the reason you can never really know someone else!

The Buddhists call this state of experiencing without projecting your view onto the current experience, “the philosophy of emptiness”. It’s also this projection of our truth onto the now that causes us pain! The idea repeats in many religions.

People need people. We are herd animals and we thrive off the chaotic input from others. When we don’t have it we get bored with our own ideas and seek more input.
Once you realise that there is no single truth, but that sharing is important, an interesting thing happens.
You share your truth, but you no longer declare it as ultimate fact, or try so emphatically to convince other people of yours! Another of my faults squashed!

Since I’ve learned that logic, taints your experience of the world I’ve had to also take it that emotion, with its illogicalness is another side of the multifaceted thing we call experience, and is no more or less superior.

intact…or not

My choice of morals are intact, but maybe reinterpreted. My belief in telling your truth, no matter what…but my definition of truth is somewhat altered. My belief in honesty first and foremost, now coloured with my understanding of humanities desire for safety, coloured with my understanding of personality disorders and badly placed boundaries!
My life motto of, “ahimsa”, “path of least harm” is still intact, but tainted with the knowledge of “nice guys”!

Things I am still working on

I still cry at the drop of a hat. I am trying to figure out why, but mostly just accepting that it is what it is and that I may just need more time. I mostly don’t do this in company anymore.
Maybe it is because I realise that I never had, what I thought I did, and after the lessons, I can never have it again.
That my mode of operating in the world was faulty…

I roller-coaster between appreciating the lessons and wishing I could have my Rose Coloured glasses back is still evident, but running slower.

I also don’t think I’ve touched the tip of the iceberg in trying to convey all my experiences and I no longer think that it can be solved or explained by logic and I most certainly don’t think it can be communicated, since it will be interpreted by everyone’s own experience!

There is no one single truth!

I’m also laughing because I just looked at my previous post and my roller-coaster is rather obvious!

6 Comments

« Older entries

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.