whining

A woman whom I was a hospice volunteer for had just passed away. It's so much bigger than my gripes about money--it's life or death.

I'm slowly getting it. And I can't be mad at other people who have no empathy, selfish people who lie to their parents or cannot imagine how difficult my situation is yet not extend their empathy. I get it. This world is not full of people like me. It will not always be warm, giving, understanding, tolerable, or kind. I get it.

Not receiving help... I don't think that's my issue. I think it's the acknowledgment that I am doing okay with my partner even though it has been tough. We, the two hippies, are doing alright despite my family's values about money, and despite my background growing up with money. I feel like a person should not live beyond her means.

Here we go: the real reason. And it took some time to reason to it, huh? I feel like an outcast, and I am tired of having to try to appease others' anger about not understanding or believing that i do NOT need money, that I am doing well living my life as a lifelong student, working with children for low pay, and volunteering with old people who tell awesome stories. My beliefs of happiness outweigh my desires to be wealthy. It has always been this way, yet my family cannot let it go. They fear that I will be a financial burden in the future, yet there is no proof. I have been fine on my own for years. I wish the projection would be aimed at the right person.

I feel like it's completely unfair for me to pay for my parent's mortgages when I haven't fully lived my own life. Hell, I don't even have a family of my own. I don't have any money to spare. My mother waited until she was 35 to have me--I wish she could extend me the same timeline before I had to give up part of my dreams, dreams which require money, to take care of her. It's no fun being in a sandwich generation. If I have to pay for their mortgages, and supplement her lousy retirement pay, I'm not going to have children. FORGET IT.

I would be an awesome parent. People have told me this for years, and parents remind me that I will be when they see how successful I am with their children. This stress and unwanted burden will push me over the edge, and perhaps we will adopt in the future. As for now, I'm not having children. I feel like it's such a waste of my knowledge and experience to have it thrown away because of this added responsibility. Ah, experiencing another loss of a dream.

I will be okay. My partner and I will figure something out. For now, I'm sad, and a little spiteful. Life isn't always fair, and I will find another dream to fulfill. Patience is one of my strengths, and I am thankful to have it grow every year I work with children or the elderly.

learning and memory

My professor is highly critical of clinical psychology (he's a neuroscientist) and I guess I am as well--this idea of normality is so vague. People who cannot function with whatever brain or emotional imbalance should get diagnosed so they can receive treatment and learn to cope, but I don't know. He said something that made me piece together another part of my personal puzzle. I understand that there is childhood 'amnesia' purely because the brain is still pruning itself and working out the most efficient wiring techniques, so I do understand why languages or skills acquired during childhood would be more successful than those acquired during adulthood. The wiring is there and the connections between the entire brain have been strengthened over time. (it's the whole use it or lose it thing. i believe it's true.) Anyways, he said the entire purpose of memory is to learn and survivability. In a person who has not developed maladaptive thoughts or recalls memories over and over, he or she will remember things that serve a purpose for survival. We are more likely to retain something that is unique to other events in our life so we can retrieve it for future reference.

I was always confused with why my memories were so jumbled. He used this analogy of a card catalog system: when we experience something similar or new to something we already have memories about, this new information is put on that same "card" so details can be mixed up. He said instead of forming a new 'card' of information, if the experience is similar to something you've already 'catalogued' it will go onto that card. It's very cool to learn that knowledge is limitless but it's usually the 'jist' of an experience; we learn details. When we recall, there is this unconscious fabrication involved with explaining events we believe to be true and vivid recollections. Since we have only learned the important details, or purpose of an experience, our minds try their best to piece it all together in order to make a recollection appear seamless.

There have been studies of people who were on a polygraph telling unconcious fabrications that they believed to be true. Their brain waves and functioning appeared exactly the same as those who were telling the truth. So, I learned that eye-witness accounts and polygraphs are lousy evidence (~60% accurate). Hooray for our justice system. We respond differently to key terms, and "leading" questions can also affect answers as well. These are tests administered by and evaluated by people...

Anyways, back to me... I am the subject >_> I have been unable, for the life of me, forever... to recall events from the past correctly and I've always wondered, "Why?" I think I'm getting closer to my answer: my brain chooses to keep "important" information, and I guess I had no choice what I wanted to keep as a child. I remember trauma, pain, and some happiness. I'm assuming this is normal, but it can also be maladaptive. A classmate says he remembers near-death experiences when he was two. I am sure these memories were not removed during pruning because the brain acknowledged this information as important for later survival, "If i experience a similar event, I will use what I learned from it to survive" kinda mentality? I think. For me, I have jumbled routines as memories because that's basically what I have as my past. I cannot differentiate one day from another, my childhood was very monotonous (for me). I know it was fun, but as a teenager with depression, my emotions reinforced the memory of certain events over others.

I know something will trigger happy memories to resurface, but I can accept it not happening. I have learned to live in the present, and accept myself as all that I am. My past made me, but dwelling on the "why's" will not move me towards the "hows" I can improve.

respect for others

I might edit it later. but... I just wanted to blurb on how I've noticed there is a huge lack of empathy or ability for people to see how a situation is for someone else. Is it that difficult to be empathetic? I don't understand why the first response for so many is to try to convert someone into believing that their way of living or viewing a situation is the right one. I can't understand why it's difficult to step back from oneself and say, hey, this person does NOT see things the way I do, but it does not lower my standard of living, it does not affect my life at all, so I shouldn't let it bother me. Many still get angry at people who live different lifestyles or respond to something in an alternative method. Why can't there be a respect for others and agreement to disagree?

This was brought on by a family member disagreeing with my methods and reasoning for dealing with negative behaviors. I admit I'm still stubborn and will run my point through the wall to make sure someone understands and respects my perspective, but it's only to prove that there are many ways to see a situation, no view is better than the other; they are just different. I said I ignore negative behaviors and a person said that is a wrong way to go about it. I felt a little attacked, and I wanted to spew all my knowledge of my guidance and discipline class, my three years' worth of studying and practicing certain ABA techniques in the classroom, clinic, people's homes as well as in my own life. ABA principles are basically conditioning, so it's reinforcing the behavior you want to keep, and extinguishing the behavior you want to get rid of. It's very basic rules, extremely difficult to be consistent at especially if there is an emotional barrier between the person who has the negative behavior and the person who is trying to alter the behavior. I think having the ability to work with children who are not related to me (even though I truly care for them) has enabled me to develop this necessary skill to do what is necessary despite the emotional ramifications.

Many parents become numb at the sight of their children crying. They feel like they don't want to be the bad guy, or they get so frustrated at their child for having a tantrum. Well, children need boundaries, they need consequences that make sense, and this needs to come from a parent who is calm and collected, someone who has the ability to reason with logic and not emotion. Acknowledging a child's and parent's true emotions is necessary. It's important to be honest about how we feel so when the child grows up, he or she won't end up learning to disassociate from his emotions, or not understanding what will make him happy, angry, sad, anxious... it all starts at home.

Having the ability to empathize will not make this world a weak place, I think it will make us able to understand and accept that we all make different choices in life, and there should be no fear for people who are different. Instead, we can ask questions to learn more. I have not experienced being more scared after learning something new. It's this lack of respect and this constant feeling of superiority that castes a need for offense or war against "those who are not like me." I feel more at ease and at peace with the world with each sparkle of knowledge I put in my pocket. (My partner likes to disagree with my world view, and I accept it because of his life experiences and his culture. I will not alter my beliefs because of him though.)

Positive guidance techniques

why i blog, what i learned about grief

There is this funny disconnect with my blogging, and wanting others to understand me better through reading my thoughts, yet never directly asking anyone significant in my life to do so. The thoughts are just here, I secretly wish people in my life would read it, but a part of me does fear their judgment. A part of me secretly wants them to see the world how I do, yet I already know our values and acceptance of other perspectives are not as flexible as mine. And it's not wrong, it's just different, and I will respect that. So here are my thoughts, for ten years! I should have some one-person celebration lol. 10 year anniversary woot! I've never had one yet.

Another reason for blogging was I guess, due to my former passive aggressive personality traits, I had kept all my emotions inside never addressing them or working towards understanding my true self. Blogging helped me rationalize my maladaptive thought process and the negative emotions that resulted in them, and the negative life experiences (or lack of life experience due to fear) that resulted from that. It's cheap therapy. As long as the person seeks knowledge and appropriately applies it to ones own life without trying to "convert" others into believing things, I think the search for self and peace will be successful. I was a hardheaded preachy savior complex ridden college kid. Some of the preachiness lingers, only because I'm so passionate about learning unmedicated methods of healing, but I admit and accept when I'm being an ass. My partner will remind me when it's time to shut it lol. My past preachiness came from many things: not wanting children to experience unneeded pain from stupid parents (I wanted to fix my past by preventing pain in their lives), having a friend commit suicide and then another die in a car accident months later with no models of coping.

My parents never taught me about grief, mourning or coping with life's events. I don't blame them, and it's taken me years to understand that after a certain age, I can either stay like this and blame others and search for the "whys" I turned out this way, or I can accept it, search for ways of positive growth, and move on with my life a better person. When K died though, I wanted to relive his life, up to the point of suicide. I just learned that this is a very common step loved ones of murder victims and those who comit suicide do. They retrace the steps of murder or suicide thinking that this will bring closure, or a better understanding of the death. A reverand stated that this grief can last a lifetime because instead of addressing the pain, they took the route of revenge or suicide themselves. So, people need to address pain, accept loss and live life fully. It's not feeling guilty to be alive, it's living with people's memories instead of constant wishing they were still here. It's cheesy, but the person who died would want you to be happy, not forgetting them, but be happy.

The video also mentioned how some feel like letting go of the pain means letting go of this relationship with the person who died. Personally, I believe it. I have experienced being comfortable with depression because it was the strongest emotion that linked me to K. Looking back, I wish those Psychologists at the school I was at took me through the steps of grief, told me everyone grieves in their own way and where to go for resources. No one is perfect, I was sad for a friggin long time, but I'm ok now. I shouldn't hold grudges, I'm just hoping others will get the resources they need when tragedies happen. So if you're experiencing loss, finding a support group of nonjudging people is a good step. Family and friends sometimes don't know what to say because they're uncomfortable with the topic, or they don't want to hurt you. Silence doesn't mean they don't care, it just means they don't know what to say. Sometimes we need to tell people what we need. We're not perfect. I hope everyone will learn to cope with loss, and that the world in general will become more open to talking about it. It's less likely for us to be fearful of things we know than things we do not. <3