Looking back down the hill...
I am so grateful for all of the people who went over this territory before I did and who helped me gain perspective and find a better way for myself. I remember them all as being patient with me and explaining things, but when I watch myself deal with people going through territory that I've covered I don't feel patient at all.
Of course, being patient and feeling patient are two completely different things. In the way that one can only be brave when afraid, one can only be patient (that is behave in a patient way) when one is not feeling patient.
And when I think back to those times when Those Who Traveled Before educated me most, it wasn't them being nice or gentle with me. It was more like a snap to my leash and a sudden jolt of attention to something that I needed to work on. Something that they weren't going to do for me. Something that I needed to notice.
Sometimes I'm talking with someone and I realize that they're completely activated. It's a lot easier to notice when I'm speaking with them in person or when I can hear their voice, but in chat I'll find that I'm sometimes reasonable and helpful when that person is so checked out on their own energy that they can't even perceive me.
It's not that they're not listening or that they don't care or that they don't want to make things better for themselves. It's that they are activated and their complex cognitive functions are offline. All they can perceive and process are gross perceptions and anything that doesn't align with their reality tunnel in that moment may well feel like a threat.
This is why we never tell a grieving person that their loved one is “in a better place” or a recently disabled person that it's “all part of god's plan” because in their reality tunnel in that time it is perfectly reasonable for them to bite our faces.
Intellectually I know that the only thing I can do once I realize someone else is caught in an activated state is back up and do my best to be as present as I can without adding any more energy to the situation. And, I don't want to sound petty, but that's boring as fuck. And it takes time. And while it's helpful for me to think about these situations, and to work through them emotionally from a distance, it feels a lot like sitting in a bar talking to someone drinking bourbon while I was in my first year sober.
But, I could do that now without any stressors.
Maybe in time it'll be easier to sit with people who are activated and not get annoyed and not make it worse and not have to fight to behave patient when I'm not feeling patient. But maybe I also need to work out a way to excuse myself from those conversations. Which means that I need to work out a way to determine when someone's reality tunnel has been hijacked by activation.
In person it's easy. The rigid eyes focused forward. The tension in the shoulders. The way the head tips back and pins the anxiety nerves in place. The vocal tone gets brittle and the diction staccato.
In text, I find that I have to do a little test by introducing an idea about a possible way forward other than the one that is being expressed. If the other person engages with that idea they don't seem to usually turn out to be activated. If they dismiss that idea and/or immediately jump to another issue, then that's probably a good sign that they're activated.
I think that this might mean that I need to learn how to not beat myself up for not noticing that someone IS activated BEFORE I've performed this test. I want to learn how to not feel like an asshole when I don't have the energy to engage mindfully with someone who is in an activated reality tunnel.
See, I don't get an option when P is in an activated reality tunnel. I'm her caregiver and the most I can do is sit quietly and not pour energy into her storm. I can't walk away because it's my responsibility to keep her from harming herself. (She's got advancing alzheimer's) I can walk into the other room or disengage, and I do that, but I don't have the option of saying, “I'm leaving this engagement completely.” With other people, I can. And I need to because I don't have that luxury with her.
Also, I'm not sure how to explain it to someone (I'd never even try while they're in the tunnel) because it sounds completely batcrackers. Like, “When you're activated your complex cognitive processing is offline and my complex cognitive processing will go into overdrive to predict the chances of you harming me so... could we just not talk until we're on even levels of cognitive function, please?”
That sounds too much like, “You're too emotional.” “Why can't you be rational?”
Oh, wait. I see it now. See, I just typed it. People in activated states read as threats to me and my initial response is to probe and determine the full level of hazard.
Well, isn't that interesting.
So, in a way, I think that my willingness to disengage from someone who is activated might be a huge sign of growth for me. I don't feel a compulsion to continue pushing the buttons until the bomb goes off just so I don't have to endure the tension of there maybe being a bomb.
Yeah, I just paused to look up intellectualization and Bipolar Disorder and that is apparently a thing we do. Which would have been really useful for me to have known some years ago. When my psychs and therapists have told me that I seem to be intellectualizing it has always sounded like a judgement or a scold that I'm doing something wrong, but it makes sense that it's a symptom and if I wouldn't have to use it to notice it and be able to work with it that would be a lot less recursive.
But... knowing that it is a symptom means that I can identify hallmarks of it and pay attention to when it happens and work the DBT and CBT skills to help myself live more skillfully.
Huh. I wasn't expecting my frustration over someone else's symptoms to lead me to new insight on my own symptoms. But that's the Universe for you. Always ready to point out how far I am down the hill when I start complaining about the people who are farther down the hill than I am.
When I start thinking about the hill I could might think that it's time to go back to thinking about the swamp. Hills imply a consistent level of change in a specific direction. Swamps are whimsical and have hummocks and channels in seemingly random places.
Am I talking too much? I feel like I”m talking too much. But it doesn't feel pressured or compulsive. And I'm sleepy. So I'm going to shower and tuck into bed.