Tobogganing into Hades

Do you have pent up rage? How do you deal with it? Here’s a fun story, I used to be an INFP. I was a walking sobfest. I empathized so strongly with others I literally carried their weight . It made me sick. That was also not figurative; I got sick from worry, stress, pain that did not belong to me. People liked to tell me their stories and lay their burdens on me because they said I was a “good listener”. Being a good listener is mostly a passive gig, and I’m pretty good at doing passive, even now. But back then I cared sooooo much about what others were going through I made myself ill, I thought about their problems at odd hours, I really wanted to be a person who could make them feel better. I wasn’t. At most what I could be to these people was a doormat, and I ended up on the wrong end of many a failed friendship and relationship because I was all give and no take. No demands, ultimate low maintenance. I guess it got boring after a while.

Then I started to change a bit, and I started to make demands. Although to be fair my demands were more like expectations. What I would be willing to offer to others I took it as a given that they would do for me as well. That also landed me on the tail end of many interpersonal conflicts, because people thought I was using THEM for my own selfish amusement. That did not fall too well with me. At some point (possibly after reading Steppenwolf) you decide you’re not gonna take any crap anymore. I couldn’t really pinpoint where the moving joint that turned me away from my previous temperament lies exactly, but I think it has to do with reason over feelings. I still care deeply about people, but now I’m HELLA selective about who’s gonna get my honest give-a-damns. I still give and expect (although demand is still a bit of a problem, and it’s needed sometimes), but whenever I know things are going to get intense my mind switches over to reason automatically. There are now markers in place, markers that help me decide whether advice is in order, whether or not there is even anything useful I can do or if I should just offer a willing ear and a sincere show of support, as well as offer to do anything in my scope of knowledge and resources to help. I don’t get bent out of shape about most things though, just the ones that insist and persist and dig a hole in my defenses like a drop of water.

I do tend to be reactive though, and I need to work on that. I antagonize when I feel cornered, and I have to work on that too. Sometimes I antagonize as a freakin’ sport, as someone recently pointed out, and I haven’t even been able to process that. I like a brisk discussion, but I guess sometimes I can grasp my point a little too hard and swing my arguments a little too fast.

Sometimes I don’t feel relatable. I feel like people pretend to understand but don’t; not really.

Anyway…

I managed to lucid dream for the first time since I started training about a month ago. I thought all the reality checks were not amounting to anything, but I finally saw them pay off.

I downloaded an app that makes me do random reality checks during the day. It tells me to do things like count my fingers, pinch my nose and try to breathe, read text twice and so on; and it was actually the breathing through the pinched nose that helped me gain awareness in my dream. The funny thing is that the dream felt real UNTIL I gained awareness, I always thought it would be the other way around. I was at WORK, ffs, I was checking in and something about the fingerprint scanner seemed off. Then I turned to the floor and it had these weird water puddles; and that’s when I knew it was a dream. I pinched my nose and breathed, then walked right up to the third floor to my classroom… except just now I’m realizing it WASN’T my classroom! It was another teacher’s. So then I notice that parents are waiting to flock into the room for a meeting… and I decide to exert power over them… mentally.

That is all I feel safe to disclose atm… it was just starting to get good when my daughter woke me up L. But this is good! I’m gonna keep working on this because it’ll help a lot with my plot direction. So stay tuned, folks! You might witness the real-time creative process of a true masterpiece, or my downward spiral into the abyss of ignominy and mental deterioration. Fun!