Like I said on Tuesday, I am regularly reminded of the need to change my attitude rather than my external circumstances, such as my living situation, in order to improve my quality of life. There may be some truth to this, in that I will always take me with me wherever I go. In this sense, having an internal locus of control – a sense that I myself can change my outlook on life, irrespective of external circumstances – may be the more functional choice. But is it true?
Ultimately, whether I change my attitude or I change my circumstances, doesn’t really matter, in that I am the one doing the changing, and in this sense am the one at least apparently in control, when in reality, I’m not. I, being a Christian, believe that God is ultimately in control, but even if He isn’t, control seems to be a rather elusive thing.
This post was written for the Six Sentence Story link-up, for which the prompt word this week is “control”.
It’s interesting that, since deciding to want to start the process of finding me a more suitable care home, I’ve had the lyrics to the Josh Wilson song “Dream Small” in my head a lot. This is a Christian song about the fact that, while there’s nothing wrong with wanting to change the world in big ways, small contributions matter too.
Of course, that’s probably not the meaning behind these lyrics being stuck in my head. I don’t dream of ending world poverty or solving the climate crisis. In fact, the reason I want to move to another care home, has little to do with wanting to improve other people’s lives.
However, in a sense, the title of this song speaks to me, as do certain points in the lyrics. I may want to change my life in a big way by moving to another care home (assuming one can be found), but that doesn’t mean I don’t need to pay attention to the little ways in which I can improve my life right now. I still need to focus my attention on my current quality of life.
I am grateful that I finally found the motivation to look up a polymer clay video tutorial again. I couldn’t at the time actually go and work on the project taught in the tutorial, but I will later this week.
I am also grateful to have started reading again. I finally picked up Thrive by Kenneth Oppel, since I really need to finish the Overthrow trilogy even though Hatch was a bit disappointing.
All that being said, dreaming small does mean that small setbacks can get me to become unstable easily. For example, yesterday I found out that the headphones I bought at the end of March and that stopped working two weeks later, most likely hadn’t been sent out to the manufacturer by the store I bought them at. The lack of clarity about this sent me spiraling out of control. It may just be a pair of headphones – material things, money if you will -, but to me, the situation was quite unbearable.
With respect to the care home situation, I am also reminded of a fellow patient on the locked psych unit who told me I needed to focus on changing myself, not my living situation. This was over fourteen years and four living places ago. I do not fully agree, but partly, I do, in the sense that my distress is partly caused by internal sources. If I keep focusing my attention on external circumstances, these internal sources will not change. If I can reframe my thinking around those, I can decrease my distress. The problem is, I can’t usually reframe my thinking.
I’m not sure I’m valid. I joined some groups for highly sensitive people and empaths on Facebook. I relate to literally almost every trait associated with being an HSP/empath. Then again, I’m also autistic and this means I don’t have the cognitive ability to know what’s expected of me in social situations.
I’ve heard there’s some theory about autistics being hyperempathetic where it comes to feeling others’ emotions but less able to know what another person needs. Something with cognitive empathy being lower than emotional empathy. Or was it the other way around? I have no idea and am too lazy to google it now.
I always feel like I want to see myself as a lot more positive than I am. I mean, some people close to me have said I even have some narcissistic traits. Some people think of me as a pretty stereotypical autistic and I’ve always felt good about that, as it validates my feelings of being different and my need for support. Empath/HSP only validates my feeling different.
Yet sometimes I feel that my seeing myself as somehow highly sensitive, is a way of obscuring my negative traits. It’s not that I don’t see them, but that I label them positively in a way. I mean, 90% of empathy traits are worded at least somewhat negatively. For example, have you been told you are “too sensitive?” Do you need alone time a lot? When a friend is distraught, do you feel it too? Heck, I sense negativity a lot, but isn’t that just me being a generally negative person?
I have a feeling that part of the reason I want to see myself as unique somehow, has to do with an external locus of control. I don’t want to see my huge flaws and instead go label them as assets or blame them on my childhood trauma.
And yet most people say I have a negative self-image. My CPN from mental health wants me to do a module of cognitive behavior therapy on helping me get a better self-image. Maybe I need to learn to see myself as just the ordinary person I am without either negative or positive stuff that make me different. After all, when I say I’m a pretty good writer, people close to me often say: “Well, about average for someone with your education.” Apparently I’m quite arrogant in this respect.
So am I allowed to feel different or is that just an excuse to set myself apart from the herd? Remember, feeling like you can only be understood by certain people, usually those with high status, is a narcissism trait in the DSM. I’m not sure. I want to feel okay about myself, but doesn’t that mean seeing my negative traits too? And seeing them as well as the positive ones for what they are: just traits? I guess I’ll learn this in the module.
I’m joining in with #SoCS, for which the prompt today is “val”.
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”―- Eleanor Roosevelt
This is so beautiful! It pretty much says that you’re yourself responsible for your feelings. NO-one “makes” you feel anything. I won’t go as far as to say we choose our own feelings, but we have remarkable control over our thoughts and our thoughts influence our feelings.
If someone tries to make us feel inferior, it’s our choice to rise above it and see this as something about them, not us. Another person does not define us – we define ourselves.
That doesn’t mean it’s easy owning our feelings. We struggle with this a lot. We are often told we have an external locus of control and that’s probably partly true. In oter wrods, we look to other people or circumstances to “make” us feel good. That’s not how it works and I realize this.
Of course, being a trauma survivor, I do not need to blame myself for having post-traumatic symptoms. A mental illness is not a choice. On the other hand, it’s not my abusers’ or anyone’s responsibility to make me feel better either. In our case, most of the trauma we endured was not intended as abuse. That doesn’t change its effects, of course. It doesn’t mean we don’t suffer and we are allowed to hold the people who hurt us responsible for their actions. But not for our feelings.
This does not mean the trauma we endured is not an explanation for our symptoms. It is. However, it’s not an excuse to wallow in self-pity. Enduring trauma is not a choice. Having post-traumatic symptoms is not a choice. Recovery, however, is a choice.
A Multitude of Musings 