#do you know how sucky it is to be mentally ill and aware of it???

[fregget-frou]

I had a good day!!!!!!

[bbq-hawks-wings]

I can't believe I didn't think the todo/endev stuff would've been divisive. Like if you don't like it then that's it, you just personally don't want to see it, that's valid, but then you have some ppl calling ppl who do like it and even hori abuse apologists (despite some of them being survivors themselves) but THen you have ppl on the other side insulting those who can't stomach it and, why is this all a thing.

CW/ abuse mention

I'm not all that surprised it stirs up such intense reactions. Unlike saving the world or becoming a hero, the struggle of a household and each of its members healing from a horribly abusive past, complete with all its uncomfortable, different, ugly blistering wounds and scars is way too close to home for a lot of people. Even for those who may have never experienced the same "severity" (in quotes because comparing trauma to silence or talk over victims of any kind is not okay - different forms of abuse is still abuse that leaves lasting impacts and effects everyone differently) they can feel personally connected to that pain.

I'm not surprised whatsoever that Endeavor is such a controversial figure. I would argue that's a good thing. If we come to love his character after lots of growth it's because he's really changed in the ways he's needed to and continuing on that road. If we can't ever get past what he did it's still justified because he's legitimately left the lives of his entire household in shambles - a home full of people who his chief responsibility was to love, provide for, and protect - who will carry the scars (some literal) of what he's done for the rest of their lives.

What surprised me most, however, is how Dabi became to be such a chief spokesperson for the entire family despite being the most removed as far as attitudes towards Endeavor and his actions in response; and how he became the only "valid" victim for so many.

I absolutely pity what he went through. He was absolutely right to feel abandoned. He was abused as much as anyone in that household. His trauma was just as real, just as impactful, and just as valid as the rest. All of his childhood trauma was a result of his father's actions of which Endeavor does need to face and account for. Even his desire to lash out at the objects of his father's affection - his mother and siblings - as a child as a way in his mind to make the pain stop and regain what he legitimately needed in his father's attention and affection is understandable given the circumstances. He's very much damaged, and the onset of that damage is not his fault. He desperately needed help he never got.

But here's where the split happens: at a point he was removed from his family and their influence and became his own person at which point he decided to step on the gas and purposely cause collateral damage on top of the self-destruction.

To be clear, simply leaving that harmful environment and growing up does not erase the damage it caused. PTSD would not be a thing of that was the case. However, Dabi is in one of two states given his behavior: he's genuinely insane (mentally ill to point he doesn't recognize what he's doing - a justified legal defense of insanity) or he's at least lucid enough to know and purposely chose to inflict harm on others because of whatever benefit he feels he gets from it (not able to plead insanity).

Either way, he's a clear danger to himself and others and needs to be reigned in. If he's not in full control of his faculties he needs professional help and has to be taken into custody for everyone's safety. If he is all there, it's right for him to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law because trauma does not excuse making more victims of any kind.

And for some reason, despite these facts well being able to coexist, the fandom doesn't seem to accept that - at least not uniformly and the disparity of opinion is night and day. We have real life examples of people who went through traumatic childhoods who became serial killers, and we don't disagree that they needed to be institutionalized or prosecuted for the safety of the public and their survivors; but Dabi gets a pass somehow?

Perhaps the main divide comes down to some can't/don't/won't make a distinction between Touya the abuse victim and Dabi the abuser. Both can and do exist in the same person, but the focus of his life's goal has shifted to be distinct enough to make that distinction as the audience. As a child, he was a victim who was doing everything he could think to do to get what he needed in a horrible situation. As an adult with ample degree of rational thought and self-awareness, he leverages his damage to justify the homicide he commits against his own victims.

And this especially is why I have pity for Touya, but not for Dabi.

I knew someone who did that - who did that to me. Someone who I considered a friend, even "family" until I set boundaries and started acting contrary to what they wanted when it was like a switch went off inside them. They had a legitimately terrible upbringing and a questionable family situation, at best; but that didn't mean I had to suffer the effects those negative influences splashed into my life.

If something I did made them upset and what they only ever knew was to verbally express, "You're lucky I have the control to hit the wall instead of you when I get this upset" that anger is valid, but I was also right to say, "If this is a problem, I'll do what I can to make it right on my end, but you do not have the right to threaten me, emotionally manipulate me, or lash out in retaliation - and especially not without consequences or pushback. You need help, and I want to help you help yourself; but that was not acceptable. I am responsible for me and what I do, not for how you take things and respond."

It boils my blood thinking back how often they tried to peddle back and make me the bad guy in my own head by trying to guilt me with their own tragic backstory so I'd stay complicit. Clearly, I'm still not completely over it, and I was unpleasantly reminded of it not long ago when nightmares with their face came back to haunt me for the first time in years after just seeing their name again in passing earlier that day. It took a complete stranger I met at a house party telling me after I spilled my guts late into the night for me to even begin to recognize that I was being manipulated and abused.

So yeah, there it is yet again - the Todofam drama is way too close to home for too many people. The worst tragedy in that, though, is that no one can apparently be validated in their opinions unless they bare themselves like I did just now. That shouldn't be the case. These discussions should be able to exist as hypotheticals and discussing canon events instead of requiring everyone who wants to weigh in to have their own trauma validated.

It's easy to pile onto Endeavor because he's the clear "bad guy" in the scenario who will never be able to erase what he's done even if all of his family magically forgave him and he turned into the patron saint of puppies and kittens. But for some reason it's not easy to recognize people can feel the same way about Dabi who can recognize him for being both victim and victimizer.

I wish it wasn't the case. There's a lot of right and wrong and stuff that isn't wrong - just uncomfortable and sucky in this subplot; but fandom is too stuck on insisting in an all or nothing bad guy/good guy to fully appreciate the nuance in this plotline.

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

TW: passively suicidal, faith doubt, derealization. I was having a depressive episode full of intrusive thoughts Sunday morning, but I had to come downstairs and watch the chrch livestream. I don't rmember much of it bc I was crying but there was a song about the 10 commandments with the line "you'll be so happy if you live this way" and the pastor said at some point that believing God exists is a sign the Holy Spirit is with you already. My brain concluded that I'm not sposed to exist and (1/2)

(2/2) and my intrusive thoughts are my self destruct switch not working correctly, because if God is good and I believe He exists and I try to live by the 10, and my pastor says that those are signs, then why do I still feel this way? Why do my prayers not seem to calm the thoughts or keep them at bay? I feel betrayed and it's the first thing that's managed to shake my faith. My therapist isn’t Christian so she wouldn't understand. Idk what to do

_______________

Hey there, sorry for the delay in responding. My heart really aches for you. I’m so sorry you have to deal with intrusive thoughts, that you’re experiencing a feeling of betrayal, that your faith feels shaken up right now. 

I don’t have any easy fixes for you, but I’m here for you. I also experience some intrusive thoughts and derealization (though not as much as I used to these days), and it really sucks and is scary and I wish no one had to go through such things.

You are supposed to exist. Your intrusive thoughts have no secret meaning about who you are as a person or what you’re supposed to do; they’re not a self destruct switch or something you’re “supposed” to act on; they’re just a sucky symptom of mental illness. 

_________

So, if I’m understanding you right, your brain concluded you shouldn’t exist because:

 the pastor says that if 1) you follow the 10 Commandments + 2) you believe in God, then = the Spirit being with you already....

and does the Spirit being with you = all your problems going away / your mental illness being cured? 

And so your brain reasoned that:

if the obedience + belief = Spirit = perfect life formula isn’t what you’re experiencing in your life, then you’re the flaw in the system? and therefore you should’t exist?

...So the rest of my answer is based on that being what you are saying -- if I totally misread you, feel free to correct me. 

My dear friend, you are 1000% not the flaw in the system. You are loved deeply by God. God created you on purpose, and with purpose -- you are supposed to exist. 

It’s okay that you struggle with derealization that tells you otherwise -- that’s not your fault. But if you are able to, when your brain tells you you’re not supposed to exist, talk back to it with “No. I know you are saying that because intrusive thoughts tell me the opposite of what I really want. But I am supposed to exist. I am not the bug in the system.”

I do believe that God’s Spirit is with you -- but not because you’re following that obedience + belief formula. God’s love and presence are gifts given freely to us. They aren’t earned. They just are. 

But the other thing is that the Holy Spirit’s presence does not bring about a perfect life here on earth. It doesn’t necessarily fix everything, or “cure” you. Jesus himself, the Son of God, the Person of God incarnate, suffered -- from things like hunger and physical pain, and also from things like loneliness, fear, grief. (I actually just listed out a bunch of place in the Gospels where Jesus experiences different emotions here.) 

I don’t know why God’s presence isn’t a magic cure-all -- why God doesn’t sweep in and fix everything, and make our suffering go away! I actually just posted a poem I wrote about how the first thing I’m going to ask God is why the heck Xe permits suffering. But I do know that even though God doesn’t fix all pain, for now....God does stick with us through it all. God doesn’t abandon us to suffer alone -- She is present with us in the midst of it, and weeps when we weep.

It sounds like that pastor you were watching ascribes to something Barbara Brown Taylor calls a “full solar spirituality” -- where if you just believe hard enough, or do the right things, or give the church money, or pray hard enough, God will make all your problems go away! You’ll be happy all the time and never ever feel pain or absence. 

While that kind of spirituality is fine and dandy when a person is experiencing good times, it has very little help for us in bad times. For those times, Taylor says, we need to learn how to walk in the dark -- to bring all our emotions, the good bad and ugly, to God; to wrestle with God and not be afraid to let others see our weakness and accept that God’s not a wishing well that grants wishes if we throw in enough coins, but is rather a Companion, compassionate and protective and steadfast in the face of all our flaws and fears.

The book Taylor talks about all this stuff in is called Learning to Walk in the Dark, and you might find it helpful if you like to read! I’ve got a few passages here in this tag if you wanna check them out. 

________

Again, let me know if I misread your message and didn’t answer what you wanted me to answer. You might also find some encouragement in my #intrusive thoughts tag -- but please be aware of the content warnings on those posts and keep yourself safe! If hearing about others’ troubles hurts you more than it helps, don’t go through that tag after all. 

I’ve also got a post about prayer, and how for whatever reason, God doesn’t always “answer” them the way we’d want -- which really, really sucks when what your asking God for is some calm in the midst of intrusive thoughts! Believe me, I’ve been there. And I gotta admit, I’ve sorta let God have it in the past, yelling and screaming and demanding answers and assistance! 

God is there with you, feeling your pain with you, holding you close, even when you don’t feel Them there. And They welcome your questions, your doubt, your pain -- it’s okay to bring all of who you are to God. 

You are supposed to exist. You do exist, and the world around you exists, even when your brain is telling you otherwise.

[psychic-master-will-archive]

Do all on shipping!

Munday OOC Blogger ?’s : Accepting!

((I read this as do all of the shipping! and was laughing.

Under the cut for length!

Also note: I include platonic and familial relationships in my answers too, since there is far more than just romantic shipping!))

On Shipping

How do you feel about autoshipping?

((I have no idea what that is, unless your’re referring to canon ships?))

How do you feel about force shipping?

((Forced shipping isn’t cool; always check with people first and get their consent! Also, if it feels like I’m forcing a ship with anyone, please tell me because I am oblivious and don’t know!))

What’s your overall take on role play shipping?

((Role playing ships, no matter what kind, are fun and a blast! Especially if it’s a mutually agreed crack ship; there is nothing better than fleshing out a crack ship, for that is how rarepairs are born!))

How do you feel about jealous role players when it comes to shipping?

((I think that, if one becomes jealous of people who are shipping, nine times out of ten it’s over seeing another ship with the characters that are in yours, or other ships a mun has going with other people that you also have a ship with.While it is understandable to get jealous at times (I know myself I feel a bit jealous, though it’s in context of feeling left out), I think it’s important to recognize the jealousy and think about how to handle and act on it in a healthy and good way.

What I mean by that is, if you’re jealous of a ship other people have going, do not use that jealousy to be manipulative, abusive, or otherwise be unpleasant. Venting about it is fine, but I know from experience that excessive venting can bring about negativity and, sometimes lead to toxicity that isn’t good, healthy, or productive (I speak from my own experiences.) Instead it might be best to take a step back for a while, as well as focus on the ships and partners you already have! People are allowed to ship with whom they want, and that goes for you as well. However, shipping is also a mutual thing (see my take on force shipping) and not something you can force, coerce, or otherwise manipulate your partner into doing for whatever reason.

Again, there is nothing wrong with being upset or jealous over a ship; it is how you go about handling your feelings, thoughts, and emotions on it that is important! 

Again: Your feelings are valid, and I’m not saying you should never be upset or that it’s not okay to feel left out when people are having fun shipping while you are not. It’s a sucky feeling I’ve had one too many times, and it’s valid. However, those feelings do not mean that they can be used to force or guilt trip your partners, or used to excuse other negative behaviours. The same goes for venting: Venting about your feelings and talking them out isn’t bad, and it’s a good thing! The only problem is when it becomes excessive, in which case it is best to gauge your audience before venting, or perhaps finding alternate places to vent, or maybe even finding a hobby or a distraction to do while working out your feelings.

tl;dr: Having feelings and venting about them is okay and healthy. When it gets to excess (anyone who knows me can attest to this, and even to this day I still struggle with it, and this is largely due to mental illness), then I recommend stepping back and focusing on something fun in the meantime until the feelings ride themselves out. There is nothing wrong with taking time off from roleplaying and such when negative feels become too much, jealousy included! Also don’t use your feelings to be hurtful or abusive to another human being (Again see force shipping, guilt tripping and other manipulative behaviours).

Be good to others and treat them how you would want to be treated, and don’t suppress/deny what you feel, especially if you feel you don’t have a right to! That’s not healthy and it helps no one. Instead find other ways to express and vent your feelings, preferably in healthy and productive ways! Also do not feel guilty or horrible for having bouts of jealousy or other negative feelings about your rp experiences, because I know this is a common thing for myself and others (which is especially true if you have a mental illness); just be 

aware of them and work towards expressing them in non harmful ways.))

Can shipping lead to a good story and overall character development?

((Absolutely! It all depends on the time and effort that both partners put into the ship, as well as the compatibility of the muses themselves! There may be things that you can explore only within the context of a ship, or that are more prevalent in that context!))

Is shipping necessary for role playing?

((Absolutely not! I’ve had muses that I don’t ship, and that are difficult to ship with due to their character, and they are just as valid! Not having ships, especially romantic ones, is just as valid as shipping!))

[mikazukikannagisjourney]

A Deeply Personal Post about Suicide

A very personal and dark post about depression, its relapse, and suicide**

*you have been warned*

**A post with a whole lotta trigger warnings~ STAY AWAY if you can’t, or if you must. Otherwise, thank you for taking your time reading. This is not clickbait, and definitely not for the faint-hearted. You have been warned. Don’t blame me for any negative effects**

Yes, there, I have said it. I always had the urge to write this down but I kept getting depressed over and over and I really can’t write it if I’m still in that dark, constricting place. But I am so far OK so I shall be posting this stuff. If this post prevents at least, or even just one person from taking their own life and gets a new lease in life then my broken and torn heart will have its peace. It’s harder to live and easier to die. But if you’re spiritually awakened, then the commitment to stay alive is even more pressing. I salute you for staying alive. You can do it!

OK, that’s enough cheery stuff for now. Anything beyond this point can turn dark and ugly in a manner of letters so again, if this is a strongly-triggering topic for you, and you can’t face it, that’s ok. Just stay away, till you think you can handle this. Also I wrote this on the morning of August 28, 2019 but I also had to purge the energies on this post so it would be healing more than destructive, so it pops up a day later as a queued post.

Edit: accidentally clicked POST instead. Not that I mind, I was gonna anyway. Divine realm kept nagging me so.. here you go. 😆

I *MAY* HAVE BEEN BATTLING DEPRESSION AND SUICIDAL THOUGHTS SINCE I WAS A CHILD

I don’t think I have the need to completely spell out what depression is because again, the internet can do that for you. I will just focus on how it was, and is still manifesting in my life. But how did it materialized in my life then? Well... Mostly I just internalized all of my demons. If I was angry or upset or I feel envy or jealousy, I just sucked it all in. My household growing up was a battlefield of emotional suppression, thus I can’t cry, throw a tantrum, even laugh out loud for being too happy. What’s even more ironic is that I am actually a very emotional person, which made a whole lot of sense once I understood my natal astrological, human design, and gene key charts. So even if my sun was in Gemini and my ascendant in Libra, I pretty much have all the water signs in my chart as well, along with having a strong sacral center that thrives on generating emotionally-charged energy, and that’s where the waterworks come from. Thus the fact that I’m a Gemini cry-baby who gets too-emotional at just about anything makes perfect sense now.

But back to the subject at hand: Emotional Suppression caused my mental instability and depression. Because each time I had to stop expressing what I feel deep inside, I feel like I kept killing a part of me. Each time I kill a part of me, a gaping hole in my heart and soul would grow even larger. Like literally I feel chest pains as a child, which of course don’t show up on laboratory exams and thus I have been deemed healthy, a lot. I already started wanting to kill myself around 7 years of age, because I was forced to grow up quickly so I could take care of my siblings and myself. I really hated myself and the world a lot because I can’t do what I want and I can’t have anything I want, among other things. I mostly play alone, which was fine until the thoughts of wanting to die keep coming up. Maybe for some people these things are nothing, and they’ll start bragging about their own difficulties and that’s OK, I mean, what you feel will always ring true to you, no matter what the world tells you. The brain can lie to you, but your heart and your emotions never will. Feelings and emotions are always true, and what you feel is always valid. If something hurt you or made you happy, it’s because you have those things inside you. If people trigger you deliberately, then that’s on them. If you get triggered by other people, well that’s a whole other matter... BUT, whatever you do when acting under that feeling or emotion is entirely up to you, and you cannot blame other people for making you act in certain ways. Remember, YOU ALWAYS HAVE A CHOICE IN YOUR ACTIONS, THUS THE CONSEQUENCES ARE ALSO OF YOUR OWN DOING. The bottomline is: PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GLOB DON’T PLAY DOWN WHAT I AM WRITING HERE AND SAY THAT I’M IN THE WRONG. This entire thing is a personal account, and it’s mine. I get to write this thing because the whole thing is based on what I have experienced. *see? I told you I easily get emotional lol*

I got sidetracked, I apologize. OK, now back to regular programming

Anyway, thoughts of killing myself got even more intense, especially with not meeting parental expectations as well as neglect, abandonment, and rejection issues that popped up as time went on. To be honest though, I was, and still am a bit surprised that I haven’t taken my own life then, and up to this point. Either it’s because I am highly-sensitive to pain *my pain threshold is quite low*, or because I am still trying to find ways to kill myself without the hassle or pain. Basically I fear pain more than death. I guess that’s one of my major motivators for not choosing to end it yet. I just hate physical pain in all forms, even more so right now. So even if it kills me inside, I try to live one day at a time. Back then, I had to live because my siblings need me to cook their food, and I had to do my sister’s homework (she has autism spectrum disorder, which my parents just chose to ignore because they have no idea how to interact with special needs).

How is depression connected with suicide? Well, for one thing the hopelessness, helplessness, feeling worthless, or thinking that living is not worth it can just push a person to the edge. I am quite familiar because I have lost a sizeable number of people ranging from relatives to friends, to classmates and even a work trainee from suicide. I haven’t even counted those who died from natural deaths, those who got killed either in combat or by rebels, or through illnesses. The suicide-related ones just affect me so much because I felt survivor’s guilt, because I haven’t ended my life yet and these “seemingly-happy” people did. My stomach got all knotted up right now, just thinking about it. Especially when I recalled the trainee that killed themselves due to depression. I didn’t mentor them personally but I sorta felt that this person had depression and again, I didn’t reach out. Even then when I was already aware of being an empath and all that jazz. I just gave myself a break after sometime because to be honest, I had no idea how to heal others back then. So... Yeah. But still, survivor’s guilt is real.

RELAPSE ISSUES CONCERNING SUICIDAL THOUGHTS (HOW I HAD THEM)

This is the part where I will be explaining based on my own experiences why some people who were openly-depressed that “seemed” to have gotten a lot happier and brighter suddenly end their own lives with no warnings. Not sure about other people’s ideas, living or dead, but for me, it’s all about the relapse.

Depression relapse, that is. You may be much more familiar with alcoholics or drug-addicts who went to rehab, got all better *or so it seems* but then goes to relapse and either ends up getting even more addicted or worse, having an overdose and dying. Well, again, this is based on my own experiences but for me, because I am not on any kind of medication for my chronic depression so naturally, despite all my conscious efforts on fending it off, it comes back, with a vengeance. All the pain that I feel, all the thoughts that consume what small speck of happiness I have left become even stronger than before, and whatever I did to relieve myself of the pain just stop working no matter how many times I do it. Everything just feels sucky and my pains do not get relieved. I just cry and cry and let the wave pass, allowing a bit of relief, but then they just come back in waves of endless and bottomless anger and feelings of doom and gloom. It feels like I’m forever falling into the abyss of nightmares and frankly, the only solution I see clearly at that point is again, killing myself. Again, because I’m scared of pain, I did whatever I can to escape the pain, thus me ending up learning a lot of bankable and unbankable skills that, quite frankly amused some people I meet once the depression has been controlled somewhat and I got to socialize again.

If I survive long enough to at least raise my happiness levels a bit, I can continue to live, even for a day. I just tell myself “Well, I guess I’ll just have to die another day.” For each time that I tried to escape my pain and my urge to kill myself, I find something new to experience, learn, and have fun with. Thus, the skills I have, the dumb experiences I had, the movies and shows I gave so much of my love to, the ties to people I hold dearly, were not only borne out of a small curiosity, but mostly to prevent myself from ending my life right now. I don’t know how people will react to that, but for me, my hobbies, my passions, are not just due to the fact that these things are worthwhile. For me, these are my LIFELINES. If I didn’t have them, I MIGHT HAVE DIED A LONG TIME AGO. These are also the reasons why despite how many people or the public would shame other people for having weird hobbies or passions, I just let them be happy. I like seeing passionate people, because not only do they look so happy and pure, but also because for me, that might also be their lifeline. So that they CAN STAY ALIVE, because LIFE SUDDENLY HAS MEANING. And who am I to tell them what they or what they cannot do? *unless it’s illegal or hurts other people deliberately, or both. I have limits*

And... Unfortunately, for some of the people who took their own life out of their own accord they may not have been fully aware of it, but when they got out of the funk, they might have thought that YES I AM NOW FREE FROM ALL THAT GUNK. I’M GONNA BE HAPPY, I CAN LOOK FORWARD TO THE FUTURE, ETC. ETC. but noooope, depression is pretty clingy. It comes at the most inconvenient time, right about the time when you thought you’re almost at your goal, or at the time when you feel like you’re about to have that breakthrough. Once anybody who has been recovering from depression falls back into it, the urges, the pain, everything just gets even worse. Everything sucks maybe a hundredfold compared to last time, maybe a million times more. Everything just feels so overwhelming, and heavy, and it cuts through your entire being. The way out just got caved in and now there is no way out other than suicide. THAT FEELS AND SEEMS LIKE THE ONLY WAY. And for some of these people who actually take the plunge and succeed, this is the part where their loved ones who were left behind would comment things like “But I thought they were happy.. They were looking forward to the future.. They had so many plans.. They weren’t showing any signs...” etc. etc. Of course they won’t, and they probably had plans. If anything, they probably wanted to get out of the funk for the rest of eternity. BUt DEPRESSION IS ONE CLINGY F****R my friends, seriously. It is. It will slam everything in your face if it isn’t properly handled, either though holistic means or modern medicine methods, it will certainly choke out the light of any person who just do not have the means to fight it, let alone keep it at bay. Especially when it gets pushed aside. A lot. Each time you succeed at pushing it away or dealing with it, if it creeps into your being, even through just a small crack, it comes to you with a force stronger than a wrecking ball. It’s more of an avalanche. And it will bulldoze anything away till the entire path has been completely covered. Still scary as heck. Thus with each round of its return, it gets more and more strong, thus the need for better ways of fending it off. Or better yet, just facing it head on by all means necessary.

FACING (MY) DEPRESSION HEAD-ON (BY ALL MEANS NECESSARY)

Disclaimer: Again, before I start this section, I will remind everyone that this entire post is all my personal experiences as well as my own opinions on this matter, so please do not take this as a medical or health advice. You can take this as a spiritual advice and you can even ask me about it. I’m glad to help. Other than that, please seek professional help. BY ALL MEANS NECESSARY. I am not responsible for any losses of any kind due to following my own personal methods here, any bodily harm or mental injuries sustained by the end user are done of their own accord, and I am not liable for such losses. Everything here with regards to methods are RISKS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

OK. Now that’s out of the way, I will now write here how I deal with my own depression and suicidal thoughts,assuming that I’m still here. I’m not saying that I will not kill myself yet, but I am fully aware that other things can kill me and therefore those won’t count. Also, I haven’t watched the entire Fantastic Beasts franchise yet, and my need-to-watch anime and series lineup is still long, plus Avatar The Last Airbender is gonna be on Netflix next year so nope, I still need to live. 

Kidding aside, here is what I USED TO DO whenever the relapse comes in full-swing:

Binge-watch anything I’m interested in

Binge-read whatever is available

Binge-doing whatever activity I’m into at the moment (drawing, reading Tarot cards, learning Japanese, cooking weird food, etc.)

Binge-like anything on my tumblr feeds

Get super-obsessed with the canon and headcannon biographies of fictional characters (Hi wikia and AO3 lolol)

Cry and cry and cry even if I don’t know why (It doesn’t even matter how hard I try lolol did you sing that part in your head lol kidding I am trying to lighten up things here)

Of course, after doing all of these, I eventually end up wanting to die because the problem or the cause of my depression remains unsolved. Notice that I didn’t put “contacting close friends” or “connecting to loved ones” there. Because I don’t. I was never raised to ask for help, I was raised to do shit alone. And that also killed a huge part of me because quite frankly, I know that I need help but whenever I tried to reach out I get put-out or shushed, so eventually I never bothered to ask for any help. I just stuck it out all alone. While this method is typically great for doing GROUP PROJECTS by yourself (and cursing the other members out loud or in your head), this is definitely NOT ADVISABLE when dealing with mental health issues. Of course I didn’t know these back then, there was no internet, I didn’t have friends or relatives to talk to, plus I had no idea (or the people around me for that matter) that I was actually depressed. At 7 years old. Maybe 6. Around that time. This was in the early 90s.

But in this day and age, thanks to the internet, more and more information can be shared. Even better is that support groups are actually available, and you can join forums too, so people get to share so many stuff. Of course, I tried that, and it worked for about 6 months before I realized that in most groups I joined in, they weren’t exactly dealing with the depression in the most empowering way, so I got stuck in the victim mentality for a very long time. And the cycles of off-on depression mode kept getting worse each time. That’s when I decided to do things differently, and again, without drugs. FACING THE DEMONS IN MY HEAD is what I call it.

These are currently my go-to combination of methods when dealing with a depression relapse:

Shadow Work - Originally by Carl Jung, the principle is basic: identify the parts of yourself that you rejected due to external pressure, and heal them by understanding why it was rejected and suppressed, releasing the emotional charge by crying it out or something to that effect, and accepting that rejected part fully and without any regret. These aren’t the exact steps by Jung, but I just modified the method for myself. It’s pretty harsh because you need to face past trauma without any emotional attachments, and well, it can also do more harm than good. Only recommended to be done with a professional. Unless you’re a masochist. Just search the internet for Carl Jung and Shadow work for more info, I’m sure it’s quite famous.

Inner child healing - same as previous, but this time focusing more on the inner child (duh). Usually anything that persists for me, I would readily attribute to inner child issues so I would go to that part of myself and relive the trauma. Then pat my inner child and hug her till I stopped crying. By the way, crying is definitely included in almost every step. It’s soothing and also is a great way to transmute trauma. Provided that you’re fully aware of how the trauma happened and you’re able to release it fully. Again, if symptoms persist, consult a professional.

Kundalini Yoga and Meditation - amazingly there are many methods or kriyas and some are for dealing with depression. I call this method “killing two birds with one stone”, mainly because you get a real hard-core workout especially the upper body, and you lift your spirits up. Just search the internet for various methods, but I think 3HO is the one-stop shop for binge-reads. Again, crying is very much a part of this method because at some point, it will all just flow out.

Sound therapy - crystal singing bowls, gongs, tingshas, binaural sounds, isochronic music, subliminal messages, the works. I usually go to Youtube and just binge whatever I need at the moment. Sometimes I feel at peace, other times I just randomly cry. It just happens.

Energetic healing - again, there are numerous methods. I usually go for Reiki since it works for me, and because I can channel a bit more energy either from the original video or music, or on my own. Crying is again, an optional but very helpful step.

Emotion Code - This is the latest method I have learned, and tried. Created by Dr. Bradley Nelson, this method allows suppressed emotions, those you experienced yourself as well as the ones you inherited to be released from your body. You only need this chart, a fridge magnet, and determination. Also crying, if you can.

The stuff in my WHAT I USED TO DO list. - Seriously, self-healing depression is a very tiring and exhausting activity. Please, by all means, make yourself happy. In fact, YOU HAVE TO CHOOSE TO BE HAPPY TO SURVIVE THIS GRUELLING ACTIVITY. Whatever means necessary. Don’t worry, I won’t judge.

Other methods I tried in the past:

Parts work - It is like Shadow Work, but the rejected parts of your self have different age groups. I discovered it before Shadow work and for a while I tried my best to do it, but I still didn’t mesh with it after 2 months so I did Shadow Work instead. Maybe I’m just not cut out for it. I recommend the late Pete Gerlach’s website for more info and even methods and stuff. Super-educational, with some drawbacks. Still it maybe useful for others so please take a look.

Diet adjustments - Some say that food and nutrition affects moods,and maybe yeah, because many foods do create metabolites that become converted into chemicals that eventually become hormones. But for me, it didn’t work as well as the other methods. I mean, I eat a lot of veggies and fruit even before I was depressed and spritually awakened, and quite frankly nothing in this area changed me so I don’t include this in my list.

Again, note that I still haven’t included talking to other people in my list. Because again, I just can’t accept help properly, and I still want to do things on my own. HOWEVER, I tell the people I care for the most and also care for me that I HAD a depression relapse. I tell them after I won the battle, even for that moment. It kinda helps a lot. But this time I don’t want to energetically tie myself to others, I have to transmute my own shit so people won’t have to get mine. I also shield myself so their stuff won’t stick to me. It’s how I understand how karma should be worked out of our systems, it’s a DIY thing. Otherwise you just add more karma on top of your own.

Well, I don't know how to end this post, apart from the fact that this is still an on-going process for me. Case in point, honestly I am literally crying right now as I type this last part out. It took me 5 hours to type and it's a post worth almost my entire life so far, but I hope it's all worth it, for anyone who needs help in any way. I am not glorifying depression or suicide or even addictions here, I am putting this out there as information. This post has been at the back of my mind since the Lion's gate but I relapsed and I just got back so I could write it as orderly as I can. So please, I hope this post won't be misquoted or skewed or even be taken out of context. Again, this is mostly for educational purposes only. Especially when you feel like you're in the dark night of the soul.

Anyway, I hope this was helpful in any way possible. If you need any help *spiritual and/or energetic only, not a doctor guys* just shoot a comment or a message, and I'll see what I can do.

I hope you find the healing you seek. In love and hugs from Source above.

Mikazuki

三日月

**Special Note: While this whole thing is free to heart, share, attach a link-back of the original html (href, if you know what I mean), and to cite in any style (APA, MLA, Turabian, etc.) around 10-20% of its content, please, under any circumstances, FOR THE LOVE OF GLOB DO NOT COPY AND PASTE AND DECLARE THIS AS YOUR OWN. These are my own personal experiences, basically these are parts of myself that I need to transmute in order to heal. However, as this is already an output it is now included in the do-not-steal-entirely-or-else sections of the internet. Especially for people who just simply steal other people’s work as their own. I used to work as an editor and even now I do my best to cite sources, or at the very least insert links to sources that I actually used. Be respectful of content creators, large or small. Don’t take away from us the things that we made with all of our hearts. Those are the only things that help keep us up. Also, because you have no right do that you know. And just a reminder, Karma is a real b****. Just saying. Thank you very much for understanding. PS. If you found the information in this post to be very helpful, insightful, and of great value to you and your own personal journey, please feel free to reblog, share and heart/like, or if you feel super-generous, energetic exchanges are welcomed! Please click here and use this email address: may_chan_otaku@yahoo.comThank you so much and be blessed!

[marlaluster]

Emptying the cliptray.....

1. https://www.instagram.com/p/BuxK8jpAK8-/?hl=en 2. https://www.instagram.com/p/Bt4dfIsgiG3/?hl=en 3. https://m.youtube.com/user/igotmywingsifly/videos 4. Home Trending Subscriptions Library El chupacabra HOME VIDEOS PLAYLISTS 1:58 El chupacabra- people I know 2 views2 hours ago 1:24 El chupacabra- I won't give up 6 views12 hours ago 1:23 El chupacabra- WESTSIDE 11 views1 day ago 1:33 El chupacabra- how it's gonna be 9 views2 days ago 1:03 El chupacabra- 2 dolla sucky sucky 48 views3 days ago 1:19 El chupacabra- I don't really give a fuck 67 views3 days ago 1:51 El chupacabra - it's my time 36 views2 weeks ago 1:20 El chupacabra- insane 49 views1 month ago 1:05 El chupacabra - Jizzed In My Pants (remastered) 35 views1 month ago 1:13 El chupacabra- Jizzed In My Pants 591 views9 months ago 5. Hong Kong police blast anti-China activists with tear gas and water cannon as thousands take to streets - while activists chant 'God save the Queen' outside the British consulate By Associated Press and Afp 06:12 15 Sep 2019, updated 18:20 15 Sep 2019 6. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7465379/Hong-Kong-protesters-rally-support-British-Consulate.html 7. https://www.instagram.com/p/B0oKntWHHKL/?hl=en 8. I dont think autism is what is said. There are i think some people that say autism is caused by vaccines. But i dont think autism or almost anything here is really what is said it is. 9. Slaves during slavery thinking slavery was bad n wishing to be free was once considered a mental illness. 10. "Our culture has a hard time w nonrational states lf consciousness," 11. https://youtu.be/q2VzhyIyGkA 12. https://youtu.be/9_KSYu1Tqx8 13. Zakaria Chana Please avoid psychiatric drugs at all costs, they are a plague. There is no benefit in them, they stop the brain from working the way it should. Which do you honestly think matter the most for big pharma, their wallet or the life of a nobody they don't care about and they will never meet ? 1 year ago 4 2 GuitarGuy Destiny108 people with suicidal depression need a med. Dont be silly. 1 year ago KakashiKawaii +Destiny108 ''they stop the brain from working the way it should'' the reason why we need meds is exactly because our brains do not work the way they should 😂😂😂 11 14. Claude Rawson As a mental health professional, this video further stigmatizes mental illness and complicates the path to recovery. To begin with, psychiatrists primary function is to prescribe medicine. Psychologists, though varying by theory, usually spend the first session cultivating the therapeutic alliance and figuring out which treatment program to implement. Therapy requires work from both the therapist and the client, so it is important not to assume that by paying a therapist they will solve all of your problems. Peer support, which she mentions, is also a great resource. However, her account of her experience with the African American man was self-ingratiating and lacked racially awareness. Additionally, individuals may need to reach stage 4 prior for treatment to prove effective. A person has to be willing to receive help and that might require hitting rock bottom. I understand where she was trying to go with her discussion early treatment but the way it was phrased delegitimized the experience of many people. And lastly, people with mental illness can lead functional lives. The term "survivor" over-sensationalizes mental health and is not accurate regarding the journey to and of recovery. 2 years ago 12 2 15. https://youtu.be/lrZZoCm-nME 16. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Fb3VZmJfuBA 17. https://youtu.be/9_KSYu1Tqx8 18. https://youtu.be/CFtsHf1lVI4 19. https://youtu.be/q2VzhyIyGkA 20. "Our culture has a hard time w nonrational states lf consciousness." -- Phil Borges

[sadlonelywaifu]

Letters to my future boyfriend; Chapter III

Dear Soandso,

So you know a lot but we have to talk about something that is really important that i feel you should be somewhat aware of and that is my mental illness.. yup this is gonna be another heavy letter. sorry gotta get the sucky stuff out of the way first. 

In the last letter i mentioned my PTSD. that is a big thing because it is severe. another well a few other things i struggle with is as follows...

-depression

-anxiety

-Bipolar

-BPD (but they don’t call it that so cluster B)

those are big things to know about me because they will 100% affect our relationship and how i react to certain things. you see i may not meaning to jump to conclusions or overthink or even i block you and cut you out without reason..

a big point of mention is when i really start to love someone i feel like i start to self-sabotage the relationship and cause drama. (BPD) within the relationship. things could be going great between us and all of a sudden i will start a fight or argument over something silly. please remind me that i am being irrational. if i have shared these letters with you, i trust you enough to keep me in check about these things. 

i am also going to mention again about the abandonment issues because it’s really important. if i for any reason feel threaten, insecure or like your going to leave me in anyway, i may cause drama in those instants too.. i may either distant myself or become extremely clingy (more than usual)

if i have trusted you enough to read these letters, i have also trusted you enough to not cheat on me so i really don’t have to mention too much on loyalty BUT  i will mention this... in the case that i do feel some sort of way.. I may talk to other guys to make you jealous. if we got to that point in the relationship though, it’s honestly over before it even began because I would not do that if 1) i felt secure and 2) i liked you  

OH 

so i have this philosophy about guys... okay if were already dating i’m not to worried but i should mention it.. so there’s a big thing i’ve always done and said. If a guy makes me cry i usually stop liking them. There has only been 2 guys that has been the exception to this and one of them is my best friend, i’m sure i have talked about both of them with you. Adrian and Andrew. As you know Andrew is my best friend and if we’ve dated long enough you’ve already probably already met him and Adrian.... you hopefully already know the story so i don’t have to go into it. 

ANOTHER BIG THING 

self harm and hospitalizations. okay. this one might be hard for you to hear but in the last letter i touched on it but between October and April are the months i struggle really bad. my seasonal depression is something i really struggle with and a lot of bad stuff happened during those months for me so i may self harm... have suicide attempt or worst case end up in the hospital. this is something I've struggled with since i was 13. it gets really bad in Feb. that’s the month i will need the most support.. (November is an honorable mention) the holiday are also not the best time for me either... those months are usually anxiety ridden.

i’m sorry to put all this baggage and pressure on you but i want you to be aware of all this before you walk into this relationship. I need you to know, i hate asking for help so 10/10 when i’m struggling/overthinking/jumping to conclusions.. i wont tell you i’ll just act irrationally and make a rift between us... i hope with you reading this you’ll be able to ...be more understanding and not argue with me when i’m in those mood.. maybe help me through it and notice i’m not saying things i mean? 

Oh and don’t let me drink.. i’m taking meds and when i drink, my meds are ineffective and if we made any progress or i seemed fine or everything is going great, it will all go down the drain with that drink and i’ll most likely really fuck things up and usually it takes a couple of weeks for meds to start working again and the alcohol to ...lose its effect? 

sorry if that’s a lot ><

Love

SadLonelyWaifu

[calangkoh]

alphonse elric post-cos headcanons

based on my “teenage alphonse elric would be an absolute nightmare” post except it’s not as funny anymore now it’s just sad

al actually does have a lot of angst going on so let’s talk about that before we talk about how it manifests in his teenage behaviors: first off, general ptsd. now that his memories are back and he has a body and like, a brain to torment him, he’s gonna be having nightmares and flashbacks and anxiety and paranoia and days/moments where he’s feeling so overwhelmed where all he can do is sit in terrified silence. his survivors guilt from the end of the series returns and then multiplies, because he shouldve died but ed brought him back and now he and his brother are together and somewhat happy and it doesn’t seem fair. he also was the cause of the destruction in central, which definitely killed a buncha people. he has so so so much survivors guilt and has a hard time appreciating anything because it always comes with guilt. hes also resentful to ed for making his sacrifice at the end of the series mean nothing. like ed couldve had his limbs back and be happy in amestris but no ed had to play sacrificial ping pong and bring al back and make things ten times more complicated and make al have to live with all the guilt he feels

again before we get into what a nightmare al is i wanna talk about what an angel he is first (because to me it makes sense to talk about the good first and let you leave with the bad lmao). and it has to do with ed’s struggles. al knows his brother and knows how to calm him and take care of him and knows his patterns. at first al is frustrated with himself because ed has changed a bit and he has to readapt to this. at first he feels like he doesnt know his brother anymore, but he catches on pretty fast. Al is an angel because he still takes great care of ed, and knows how to tend to his needs. He can tell when ed is having a bad day, when he’s on the verge of a panic attack, when he’s anxious, and just in general knows all his ptsd markers and how to care for them. als teenage behaviors are also his way of defending ed from how messed up he is. he doesnt want ed to know hes struggling because he knows ed will blame himself. honestly as codependent as the elric brothers are, they have poor communication because they always want ot protect the other, but it never works because they know each other too well and can see right through each other. but they never talk about it. They just act on it. both of them are the most self-blaming people on the planet and it just snowballs because they’re aware the other is self-blaming, which they self-blame for, etc etc etc.

now onto teenage behaviors. so all this angst is what’s motivating it. and obviously, he misses home, too. and hes thrown into this totally different world and he doesnt know what to do with himself. i mean, ed has a resume now from working with alfons’s team, but he’s not gonna keep working for nazis so he’s gonna go get a research career at a university and be successful and probably even be a professor (this idea makes me extremely happy tbh). meanwhile al is like wth do i do with my life? some more relatable teen angst of “what is my purpose in this sucky world.” ed tries to include al in his work but al just is too distracted and depressed to be interested.

so what does al do? he snaps at ed a lot. Post cos ed has learned sensitivity and warmth (like in cos i really got that sense from him that he learned more social skill and grace) and he literally big brothers al all. the. time. and it comes from him caring for al’s mental health (like he knows what al is going through to a tee but he just doesnt know how to communicate verbally with him about it). he’ll bring work home with him and try and get al in on it and al will snap at ed ti leave him alone. ed will offer to take al to work and al will get pissed because why cant he just mind his own business and stop treating him like a kid? ed will offer to do things with al, he’ll do little things to try and make al happy and damn al is terrifying. i mean i have a personal story here: my older sister smothers me a lot and senior year of high school (she was living at home after graduating college) and im sitting in my room and she comes in without knocking, and in the sweetest voice is like “look at this shirt i had that you can wear to school!” and in the most demonic voice possible i just say “get out of my room” and she justs squeaks out “okay” and leaves looking terrified. Like THAT is ed and al. Ed will do something totally unexpectedly thoughtful to try and help al and al will just be a total shit leaving ed with nothing to do but run away for his life because nothing is scarier than a moody, teenage alphonse elric.

So yeah at first al just stays at home alone, wondering, “high school? or factory job?” And just isolating himself from the scary outside world that he doesnt recognize.

When ed takes him out al is so quiet. Ed talks pretty excitedly about his day, trying everything to help his brother out (because god he was just as miserable when he came to this world and the only reason ed is genuinely doing well now and is actually pretty happy despite his mental illnesses is because al is with him now. And ed just wants to freaking save al from this pain but it just...isnt working. he knows its not that he isnt enough; he knows al would rather be with ed here than in amestris without him but god he still cant help how muh self loathing he feels that he cant help his brother like hes able to help him) and al just zones out and plays with his food or sips his tea or looks at the sidewalk. its not that he doesnt care about his brothers day or that he resents him for being happy, its that he just does not have the energy to be present. and then that is snowballing because he feels like a sucky brother and then he feels like hes self-pitying too much and then its just this endless cycle

So al goes to high school because ed thinks the mental stimulation and learning about this worlds culture and science would be better than throwing him into a factory job. thing is, people who stayed in school past 14 in this time period tended to have money. And while ed makes money, he only makes enough to put al in high school and then provide the bare minimum after. and al cares about his appearance and about what others think about him. its just his personality. and even though hes a brilliant kid who picks up on what hes learning really quick, he still doesnt know much about this world and its current events and honestly amestris is so much more modern so al is confused about certain restrictions and stuff like that. so in school al is this poor, socially awkward, but super-good-at-school teachers pet and dude he is so so bullied and has no friends. remember he also has the mind of a 17-18 year old and so definitely appears to be an old soul among his actual 13-14 year old peers. so hes extremely outcasted. but now he also has a temper and he gets into fist fights.

now you’d think al would pummel these kids, right? Well no. you see when al gets into these fist fights, it kinda triggers memories of being in the armor and he becomes clumsy and out of touch with his body and sometimes forgets how to even move. some fights are better than others and the bullies are pretty shocked this kid has any skill at all, but al never wins against this entire group of kids

so yeah al comes home beat up and ed gets majorly pissed but now that theyre in this…normal life, having your big brother come into the rescue is not awesome. And ed doesnt get that because, well, when your bro is being beat up isnt the right thing to do to beat up the guy thats putting his life in danger? like these are eds survival/protective instincts from years of adventure and danger, so al telling him not to do anything is like...what? he doesnt understand. and al is getting super defensive about the whole thing. “Its none of your business” “leave me alone you’re not in charge of me” etc etc. and in a rational moment, al calmly explains that ed doing anything about it will make it worse. and now ed feels even more helpless and we all know that that is the worst thing ed can feel

and al is just such a nightmare now because hes getting in physical fights and sneaking out and losing his temper and snapping at people and being grumpy and rude. i can write a whole other list of headcanons for alter wrath both exacerbating his behavior but also helping his mental health (like him being friends with alter wrath/rudi as the fandom has named him really makes a “things get worse before getting better” situation

[wendybyday]

So a long and rambly post about that “not-cat not-person” thing from like a week ago.

(I knew this was going to be long and then it got even longer, whoops)

I don’t really know how it started/what set it off?  At first it was just a normal “shift” for me (quotation marks because experiences are weird and I basically feel like a cat all the time, the strength/amount just fluctuates) but then it flipped and I was just hyper-aware of every way I’m Not A Cat.  Like the obvious, yeah, I’m a human in a human body.  But down to specifics too:  I don’t have fur or claws, I can’t purr (even though I can growl and mimic various other cat sounds), I can’t really move or even just position my body in ways cats do (vague estimations, sure, but sheer anatomy gets in the way), I have to live and interact with other people as a person and not as a pet cat, in a home, with a Person, and more things but listing them out feels sucky, so.

And then there’s a whole other layer where I feel disconnected from the “community” of kin and therian.  I mean I never really integrated myself into it in the first place, because talking to people = ha no, and I know there’s not a monolithic community in the first place.  But there’s a couple topics that crop up time and time again that just don’t apply to me and feel instantly othering (regardless really of how people are talking about them).

One of those is the whole “reason” for being kin/therian.  No matter how many theories there are out there, and how many people explain their experiences with them, none fit me.  I wasn’t a cat in a past life, or in another reality, or otherwise meant to be a cat and ended up a human.  None of the psychological theories fit either, like there’s no root cause that made me a cat, I just am one.  (Also just pointing out that I’m not discounting these things for anyone else, just... that’s not how it works for me.)

And the other big thing is the whole concept of “kin selves” because like how??? do you know???  (No seriously, please.)  I’ve seen people talk about using meditation, or magic and astral-related things, or dreams, and none of that works for me.  I cannot for the life of me separate out an identity that’s me that doesn’t include my current human body.  I mean I know a few things, but those are all directly related to phantom shifts, because I can feel my long tail and I can feel my tall ears, and I can feel my fluffy fur.  But I can’t feel color.

There are colors I love, that I’m drawn to, that are aesthetically pleasing.  Solid grays of any shade or wide varieties of calicoes and tortoiseshells (the absolute Best is very mottled/little-to-no-white torbies).  But I can’t tell whether there’s some “that’s me” attraction to those colors, or its just because I like how those colors look on cats.  Nearly a decade of having cat OCs is a major part of that, but even the most self-inserty characters never looked the same, so there isn’t even some trend I could try and study there.

I was thinking about this a little further the other day (after getting my ears actually) that along with this/part of this/because of this, I see literally everything cat-like as “me” or close enough to that that it illicits the same response.  Pictures or art of cats of all shapes and sizes and colors are me.  Even non-domestic cats because they’re just some “wild” version of me.  (Exceptions being cats I actually know because they can’t be me if they’re already them.  I see a picture of Marty and its Marty, not some version of/relation to me.)  I take in any and all cat media I can find because it all gives me that “that’s me!” feeling regardless of how realistic it is or how relatable it actually is to me.  Which just makes it more difficult to figure out what is actually me or even what my “kin self” could look like.  (This is actually why I like the ears I bought so much, because they’re distinctly cat ears without being any distinct kind, breed, or color.)

And I think that disconnect when people talk about “kin selves” is mostly because of jealousy?  Because I wish I knew.  I want to know.  I feel like I’m missing some vital part of who I am by not knowing what I would look/be like if I actually had the body of a cat.

So basically that’s a really really long way of explaining the disconnect I was/am having with being a cat and kin/therian...

And then to compound that, the mental illness came marching in and said I’m not good enough at being a person to be a person.  The simple fact that I feel like a cat (and the conflict over feeling like not-a-cat) meant I couldn’t be a person.  And I don’t funciton in a way a person should (ie neurotypically).  And various other feelings that I’ve probably talked about a lot already, but all smushed together.  And if I’m not a cat and not a person, what am I?  And it just led to a weird lethargic slump over the last week that I think I’m kinda getting over, but all this is still rolling around in my head, so... now its also sitting on my blog I guess.

[not-poignant]

I sometimes wonder if the fuckton of psycho/physiological distress has made you the writer that you are today or if you could write so beautiful even despite of it. I wouldn't wish that on anyone but your transparency on the matter and your writing acknowledging so many ill aspects of our lifes and how to maybe deal with them is balm and food for the soul! It certainly has helped me a lot. I wish for the scales to always tip for the better days for you, thank you Pia!

I...think about this all the time, anon. Though your message had me thinking about it a bit more over the weekend (I would’ve responded sooner, but I had no idea what to say).

The thing is, I never planned to be a writer or an artist. Not like, as my main professions. I always wanted to be a scientist or to lecture media at university like any good media studies wanker graduate. But because of health, and mental health stuff, I have sort of been concertedly blocked from almost everything I’ve wanted to do on a professional level. Which has been very frustrating and...difficult. Glen says I’m a type A personality not allowed to live a type A life.

Ending up with art and writing - I have loved both, I do love both, but sometimes I have days where I stare out of a window and am aware how much of it is contextual and situational. How much of it is circumstance, and not ‘my childhood dream.’ (Whatever, dreams change, sometimes it’s good that they do). Glen calls me a fiercely independent person and I think most people who know me, know that I’d be happiest being financially independent and mobile, but I’m unable to drive, and I’m unable to be financially independent, and...writing and art both give me a measure of like...self-agency, but I work too hard at both a lot of the time to sort of carve a niche for myself where I feel like I’m working. Ultimately, I have used what I love to harm myself for not being able to do more.

I wish that was uncommon for people with chronic illness or chronic trauma, but apparently a lot of us do that to ourselves. It sucks. I’ve never met a chronically ill person who was like ‘yeah I love being able to do hardly anything it’s such a relaxed lifestyle’ (like the government kind of wants you to believe of people on disability welfare as I am).

So I think about...I think about who I’d be without all that distress, and what I’d write (if I’d even be a writer) and I always think you know, I wouldn’t be this person, I wouldn’t be writing this stuff, I wouldn’t be all of these things. I’d certainly not be writing trauma recovery stories as a central theme. I’d be so unrecognisable to myself. It’s such a weird thing to contemplate? But you can’t help it either.

But then on the other hand, I’m also tremendously grateful that I can reach out to people with this stuff, that I can share it, that there is a space for the things I write and even its heaviness or angst. That I’m not alone with it (which is on the one hand sucky, too many people are suffering basically - but on the other hand, means we’re *not alone with it*), and so on. Do I wish things were different? Sure. But being able to write what I do for people like yourself make things as they are now a whole hell of a lot easier to deal with and live with at times.

I’m so...fortunate, so grateful, that I can turn some of it into stories that resonate with all kinds of people, regardless of their life experiences. Sure, it’s not content for everyone, or even most people, but for those of us in this weird blanket fort that is Fae Tales and SAL and TGA and everything else, it’s like...you know sometimes it’s not a bad place to retreat to when life is hard. :)

I wish the scales to tip to better days for you as well, anon.

[operagheist-blog]

REMEMBER WHEN YOUR POTENTIAL WAS A PROMISE INSTEAD OF A REGRET?  ; aka the harry potter au, which i talked about writing & then rambled about to @diealive ( bless you, my friend ). this is really long, i am very sorry.

FIRSTLY, there are possibilities for variants of this, but the MAIN ONE involves erik as a ghost — an actual ghost, y’know. before he died, he obviously had a life, although true to poto canons, it was a sucky life. during the time period of the early 1800s in which he was born ( for this, the year 1832 ), it was probably not a good thing to be a magical child, especially one born with what other magical people called uriel’s touch gone wrong, & what non-magical folk just called deformity. since he was aware of the fact that he was terribly different from the people he was ( sometimes ) around, erik did what he thought was right — try his hardest to fit in. sadly, this attempt also involved attempts to suppress his magical abilities & anyone who’s seen fantastic beasts & where to find them knows what this results in. here is the harry potter wiki on OBSCURIALS & here are some important parts. see OBSCURIAL NOTES below this section.           an obscurial is a young wizard or witch who developed a dark parasitical magical force, known         as an obscurus, as a result of their magic being suppressed through psychological or physical         abuse. an obscurial may lose control when they reach their emotional & mental breaking point,         releasing their obscurus as an invisible ( or nearly invisible ) destructive wind. in extreme cases,         they may physically transform into an obscurus [1]. usually, children possessed by an obscurus         almost always die before their 10th birthdays, but as exemplified by credence barebone,         a wizard with tremendous latent powers can survive longer [2]. obscurials were believed to         have completely disappeared from the united states of america by 1926 according to seraphina         picquery [...] an obscurus had not existed in the united states for over 200 years [3]. while still         unconfirmed, ariana dumbledore was potentially an obscurial too, as the description of her "illness"         given by her brother aberforth fit the description of an obscurial; "it destroyed her, what they did:         she was never right again. she wouldn’t use magic, but she couldn’t get rid of it; it turned her inward         & drove her mad, it exploded out of her when she couldn’t control it, & at times she was strange &         dangerous. but mostly she was sweet & scared & harmless". it would also explain how, as         an untrained witch, she was capable of killing her mother in an uncontrolled rage with magic [4].         sidenote, ariana dumbledore was born in 1885. 

OBSCURIAL NOTES. [1] considering the fact that erik was a. born in the early 1800s b. born with the same deformities as in stage-movie combination ( which i use as reference, because continuity with icons oh my god ) c. a magical chid, he was likely abused. [2] let’s look at poto canon for erik: he’s a genius in many things, even in the 04 movie, madame giry: [about erik] he's a genius. he's an architect & designer, he's a composer & magician... a genius, monsieur!. other canon ( kay, leroux ) note that he was a magician for the shah of persia, where he designed many torture chambers. in general, if he’d been allowed to show his work to the world, he likely would’ve ben quite well loved & well known for his ridiculous amount of talent. translating those parts of various poto canon into harry potter things ( factor in that erik did, in fact, attend hogwarts, which will be explained later ), the latent potential he has is a lot. a ridiculous amount, oh my god. similarly to credence, he’d definitely make it past 10, which with his hogwarts years, he does. [3] it’s noted that obscurials hadn’t been in the UNITED STATES in over 200 years, but this is EUROPE, not america. [4] using the ariana theory in reference to the whole usa obscurial thing & factoring in ariana’s birth year being 1885, erik, born in 1832 with all of that shit stacked against him ( but with a fuckton of latent power that he gains at least some slight control over thanks to his hogwarts years ), erik may have had a lot of similar issues in emotional things, which also contributes to being an obscurial. if ariana was an obscurial, there was a fuckton of coverup for that. 

ONTO HOGWARTS YEARS ( see HOGWARTS NOTES for more elaboration / misc. things, also considering erik traveled a lot in poto canon, who’s to say he was initially born in france is that even ever mentioned? anywhere??? ). erik would’ve been sorted in 1843 because maths. like other young wizards & witches, he received a wand from ollivander’s, because the family has literally been in the wandmaking business since 382 BCE. due to the core of the wand, it may not have been MADE by the ollivanders. note, the wand chooses the wizard ( or witch ) is a legit thing, so there’s trial & error. factoring in wandlore & how wand wood & core also are important, due to his ridiculous musical aptitude ( which will be across literally everything i do, that’s the whole point ), the core of his wand is horned serpent horn — this core is sensitive to parseltongue, & can warn their owners of danger by emitting a low musical tone. the noted wandmakers to use this core are isolt sayre & james steward, meaning the wand was likely purchased or whatnot by the ollivander family, but was manufactured in america. the wand is made from hornbeam — hornbeam selects for its life mate the talented witch or wizard with a single, pure passion, which some might call obsession - more kindly - vision, which will almost always be realised. hornbeam wands adapt more quickly than almost any other to their owner’s style of magic, & will become so personalised, so quickly, that other people will find them extremely difficult to use even for the most simple of spells. hornbeam wands likewise absorb their owner’s code of honour, whatever that might be, & will refuse to perform acts - whether for good or ill - that do not tally with their master’s principles. they are particularly fine-tuned & sentient wands. NOW, ACCORDING TO WANDLORE, wand length is more of a PERSONALITY based thing, so uh the examples were hagrid’s wand at 16″ because he has a big personality & umbridge’s wand being short because of her tldr shitty personality. erik is a visionary, he’s filled with passion & whatnot, refer back to literally every poto canon, he’s also reclusive but proud of his intelligence & rightfully so. according to garrick ollivander, matching a wand to a wizard solely by height is a crude measure. long wands tend to suit those with big personalities, of a more spacious & dramatic style of magic. neater wands favour elegant & refined spell-casting. particularly short wands will choose wizards whose character lacks something [x]. with all of that in mind, the tl;dr of this is the wand he received was hornbeam, horned serpent horn, 11″.  the fact that erik was trained at hogwarts undoubtedly contributed to the fact that he didn’t still die as a teenager or something. 

HOGWARTS NOTES. erik was sorted into into RAVENCLAW HOUSE. he lacked the gryffindor pride & courage, his cunning came from his intelligence & not from ambition or a desire to get to the top regardless of what others had to go through, he does possess hufflepuff loyalty, but only to a very small handful of people ( literally like at most maybe 2 or 3, depending on timeframe ). the pride he does posses is in his intelligence, & he highly respects that in others. he used to end up in detention here & there for fighting with other students, often because they would attempt the jackass mask grab. honestly, he’s super lucky that no one died because of the obscurus. he probably excelled at OWLS & NEWTS with scores that could’ve gotten him a lot of jobs, but uh, you know. ERIK HAS THE POTENTIAL TO CAST A PATRONUS, BUT LACKS THE HAPPY MEMORIES TO DO SO. theoretically, he has the potential to perform a great deal of powerful magic, but due to the problem of being an obscurial, the latent ridiculous power he has is mostly directed toward NOT DYING. due to this fact, he never displays his full magical potential & power in any other scenario than one where he becomes the obscurus. he graduated in 1849. 

POST HOGWARTS YEARS & DEATH, again there’s a notes section for this. while the plot of poto is usually 1870, erik doesn’t make it to 1870. he makes it to the middle of 1862, giving him another 13 years to live after graduating from hogwarts. after hogwarts, erik made a living doing odd jobs, but never stayed in one place for long. often, he wished to return to hogwarts, the place he saw as the only ‘home’ he ever had. in early 1862, he demolished a good deal of shops & killed a good number of people in an uncontrolled rage. obviously, the ministry looked into this, as both muggles & wizards & witches were among the casualties. terrified at the fact that he’d lived so long as an obscurial, they sent aurors after him to eliminate him as a threat, which they technically did, but the greater majority of those sent after him also ended up dead as collateral. 

POST HOGWARTS & DEATH NOTES. after his death, erik’s ghost returned to hogwarts as he always wished. at some point during albus dumbledore’s teaching career as the transfiguration professor, erik was confined to the school grounds, as he was still incredibly volatile ( dumbledore vouched for confinement rather than the most extreme option — exorcism ). he gravitates to students who are shunned, bullied, lonely, or afraid as he wishes to help them ( erik literally hates himself so much, but he also has so much empathy for others who are suffering & he doesn’t want them to suffer ). 

MISC. NOTES & VARIANTS OF THE AU. variants include erik’s school years lining up with tom riddle’s school years, although other than that, nothing else changes about him. there’s also marauder’s timeframe, which is the same as everything else, but putting him in that ballpark for his hogwarts years. no matter what, erik literally despises tom riddle ( a handsome & deceptive little shit whom a great deal of people liked because he was attractive & erik just SEETHES because they can’t see tom for what he really is ). erik has been suspected of taking revenge on bullies for hurting other students, although he only ever attacks the bullies 1 from behind 2 when they’re alone. these attacks are sometimes attributed to peeves, because no one witnesses them, really. if he had been less of a mess ( even just not an obscurial ), he would’ve been interested in teaching at hogwarts. he’d absolutely adore myrtle & they’d definitely be friends ( godbless @diealive i never knew i needed this so much ). other possible friendships include severus snape & quirinus quirrell, the former due to honestly the very clear bullying, the latter also including the bullied factor & also attempts to help him have better perception of other people ( quirrell is noted to be ‘ a brilliant fellow ‘, although he was also completely deceived by voldemort; the likely conclusion is his genius is entirely academic ). he would be incredibly impressed with hermione granger. he’d probably also gravitate to neville longbottom. in the tom years & even in the marauder’s timeframe honestly ok ever since dumbledore came to be a teacher & wasn’t uh... in with grindewald, dumbledore would be his favorite faculty member. he also loves the fact that flitwick has a choir, ok. 

TL;DR, hogwarts helped a very hurt obscurial survive through a hellish life, although he ultimately meets a shitty death, but gets to return to the place he called home.

[whorchataaa]

Podcast: Your Gut Instinct is Bad For Your Relationships

While caring for his wife as she struggled with a severe nervous breakdown, Dr. Gleb Tsipursky put the cognitive strategies he’d long been teaching others to work on his strained relationship. After seeing the incredible impact it had on his marriage as a whole, he decided to write a book to share these relationship-changing communication strategies.

Join us as Dr. Tsipursky explains why going with your “gut” can actually backfire and shares 12 practical mental habits you can begin using today for excellent communication.

We want to hear from you — Please fill out our listener survey by clicking the graphic above!

  SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW

  Guest information for ‘Gleb Tsipursky- Instinct Relationship’ Podcast Episode

Gleb Tsipursky, PhD, is a cognitive neuroscientist and behavioral economist on a mission to protect people from relationship disasters caused by the mental blind spots known as cognitive biases through the use of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)-informed strategies. His expertise comes from over fifteen years in academia researching cognitive neuroscience and behavioral economics, including seven as a professor at Ohio State University, where he published dozens of peer-reviewed articles in academic journals such as Behavior and Social Issues and Journal of Social and Political Psychology. It also stems from his background of over twenty years of consulting, coaching, speaking, and training on improving relationships in business settings as CEO of Disaster Avoidance Experts. A civic activist, Tsipursky leads Intentional Insights, a nonprofit organization popularizing the research on solving cognitive biases, and has extensive expertise on translating the research to a broad audience. His cutting-edge thought leadership was featured in over 400 articles and 350 interviews in Time, Scientific American, Psychology Today, Newsweek, The Conversation, CNBC, CBS News, NPR, and more. A best-selling author, he wrote Never Go With Your Gut, The Truth Seeker’s Handbook, and Pro Truth. He lives in Columbus, OH; and to avoid disaster in his personal life, makes sure to spend ample time with his wife.

About The Psych Central Podcast Host

Gabe Howard is an award-winning writer and speaker who lives with bipolar disorder. He is the author of the popular book, Mental Illness is an Asshole and other Observations, available from Amazon; signed copies are also available directly from the author. To learn more about Gabe, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

Computer Generated Transcript for ‘Gleb Tsipursky- Instinct Relationship’ Episode

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Announcer: You’re listening to the Psych Central Podcast, where guest experts in the field of psychology and mental health share thought-provoking information using plain, everyday language. Here’s your host, Gabe Howard.

Gabe Howard: Hello, everyone, and welcome to this week’s episode of The Psych Central Podcast. Calling into the show today, we have Dr. Gleb Tsipursky. Dr. Tispursky is on a mission to protect leaders from dangerous judgment errors known as cognitive biases by developing the most effective decision-making strategies. He is the author of The Blindspots Between Us, and he’s a returning guest. Dr. Tsipursky, welcome to the show.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: Thanks so much for having me on again, Gabe. It’s a pleasure.

Gabe Howard: Well, I’m very excited to have you on, because today we’re going to be talking about how our mental blind spots can damage our relationships and how to defeat these blind spots to save our relationships. I think this is something a lot of people can really relate to because we all very much care about our relationships.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: We do, but we think too little about the kind of mental blind spots that devastate our relationships. I mean, there’s a reason about 40% of marriages in the US end in divorces. And there is a reason that so many friendships break apart due to misunderstandings and conflicts that don’t need to happen. And when I see people doing that, running into these sorts of problems, they are just suffering in needless, unnecessary way. And that really harms them, and that really kind of breaks my heart. So that’s why I wrote this book.

Gabe Howard: We think about the term cognitive bias and there’s just so many psychological terms that basically say the way that your body feels is lying to you. That just because something makes you feel good doesn’t make it good. And just because something feels bad doesn’t make it bad. And I know that you’ve done excellent work in helping business leaders understand that. And this book is sort of an extension of that work in helping people understand that just because your friend or lover or spouse makes you feel bad doesn’t make it bad. Is that what you’re trying to tie together here?

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: I am, and this work actually emerged from where my wife, about five years ago, had a nervous breakdown, major nervous breakdown, where she was in a pretty terrible spot. So like you said, I’ve been doing consulting, coaching, training for business leaders for over 20 years now. And I’m a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience, behavioral economics. I’ve taught at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and at Ohio State as a professor for fifteen years. Now, at that point when my wife had a nervous breakdown, that was pretty terrible. So she was just crying for no reason, anxious for no reason. No reason that she was aware of. And that was really bad. She couldn’t work, she couldn’t do anything. I had to become her caretaker. And that was a really big strain on a relationship. I knew about these strategies, which I was already teaching to business leaders, and I started applying them toward our relationship. And we started to work through some of these strains in our relationship using the strategies. And so seeing the kind of impact that they had on our marriage and where they pretty much saved our marriage, definitely would not have been able to cope without these strategies. I decided that it would be a good time to write a book for a broader audience about personal relationships, romantic life, friendship, community, civic engagement, all of those sorts of relationships that are really damaged by the blind spots we have between us as human beings that can really be saved if we just are more aware of these blind spots and know about the research based tactics to address these blind spots.

Gabe Howard: As I’m sitting here listening to you, I completely agree with you, I know your educational background. I know the research that you’ve put into it. I’ve read your books and I believe you, Dr. Tsipursky. But there’s this large part of me that’s like, wait a minute, we’re supposed to trust our heart and trust our gut, especially in romantic relationships, love at first sight. I mean, every romantic comedy is based on this butterflies in the stomach. So the logical part of me is like Dr. Tsipursky, spot on. But the I want to fall in love in this magical way part of me is like, don’t bring science into this. And I imagine you get this a lot, right, because love isn’t supposed to boil down to science. What do you say to that?

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: Well, I say it’s just like exactly the kind of love we feel for a box of dozen donuts. You know, when we see them, when we see that box of dozen donuts, we just have this desire in our heart and our gut. We feel it’s the right thing to do to just gorge on those donuts. They look delicious and it’s yummy. And wouldn’t it be lovely to eat all those donuts, right? Well, I mean, what would happen to you after that? 

Gabe Howard: Right.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: That would not be a good consequence for you. You know that. You know that, you know, five minutes after you finished gorging yourself on those donuts or eating a whole tub of ice cream or whatever your poison is, that you would be regretting it. And that is the kind of experience that we have where our body, our heart, our mind, or our feelings, whatever it comes from, those sensations, they lie to us. They deceive us about what’s good for us. And that all comes from how our emotions are wired. They’re not actually wired for the modern environment. That’s the sucky thing. They’re wired for the savannah environment. When we lived in small tribes of hunter-gatherers, fifteen people to 150 people. So in that environment, when we came across a source of sugar, honey, apples, bananas, it was very important for us to eat as much of it as possible. And that’s what our emotions were for. We are the descendants of those who were successfully able to gorge themselves on all the sugar that they came across, all the honey. And therefore, they survived and those who didn’t, didn’t. That’s an inborn instinct in us. That’s a genetic instinct. Now, in the current modern environment, it leads us in very bad directions because we have way too much sugar in our environment for our own good.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: So if we eat too much of it, we get fat. That’s bad for us. There’s a reason there’s an obesity epidemic here in the US and actually around the world in countries that adopt the US diet. And so this is why you want to understand that your feelings are going to be lying to you around food, around what kind of food you want to eat. In the same way, your feelings, the current research is showing very clearly, that your feelings are going to be lying to you about other people because our feelings are adapted to the tribal environment, when we lived in those small tribes. They are a great fit if you happen to live in a small tribe in the African savannah. But for all of you who are not listening to this podcast in a small little cave in the African savannah, they’re going to be a terrible fit for you. It’s really going to cause you to make really wrong, terrible decisions for your long term good. Because these natural, primitive, savage feelings are not what you want to be using for modern, current environment.

Gabe Howard: There’s a phrase and you reference it as well. Marketers say you can’t go wrong telling people what they want to hear, and that’s a great marketing concept to sell, you know, cereal. But it’s not such a great concept if you’re trying to encourage people to fall in love, get married or make decisions. Because if you buy a cereal that you don’t like, eh, you’re out four bucks, right. You’re out, you know, five bucks, big deal. You never eat the cereal again. But if you wreck a relationship that is good or you enter into a relationship that’s bad, this has real long term consequences.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: Right now, in the current environment where we don’t realize that go with your heart and follow your gut on the romantic relationships is horrible advice that will devastate your relationships, no matter how uncomfortable you feel about me saying that. People like Tony Robbins, I mean, he says be primal, be savage. You know, follow your intuition. That’s an essential message for people like Tony Robbins or Dr. Oz or whatever. All those other people who are on those stages and who millions of people listen to. It’s very comfortable to hear that message because you want to follow your gut. You feel good about it. Just like it feels comfortable, it feels delightful to eat those dozen donuts. It feels delightful, feels comfortable to go with your gut and follow your intuitions in your relationships, because that is what feels good. It doesn’t feel comfortable at all, you really have to go outside of your comfort zone to do the difficult thing and step back from your intuitions and from your feelings and say, hey, I might be wrong about this. This might not be the right move. I might not want to enter into this relationship or I might want to stop this relationship. That’s actually not good for me. But people don’t want to hear that. These people who tell you this advice, they actually are leading you in very bad directions, very harmful, very dangerous directions. Research shows clearly that they’re wrong.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: And if you don’t want to screw up your relationships and you’re not going to be part of the 40% whose marriages end up in divorce and whose other sorts of relationships are devastated. So this is something that you need to realize that you are going to be really shooting yourself in the foot if you follow the advice of to be primal, to be savage. Even though it feels very uncomfortable to hear what I’m saying right now. Of course, it goes against your intuitions. It doesn’t feel comfortable and it will never feel comfortable. Just like there are lots of unscrupulous food companies that sell you a box of dozen donuts when they really should be selling you a box of two donuts. I mean, that’s the healthy thing in the modern environment. We know that. That’s what doctors advise us, but it’s very hard to stop it when we have a box of dozen donuts. Well, why then do companies sell us a box of dozen donuts? Because they make a lot more money doing this then when they sell you one donut or two donuts. So the relationship gurus, they make a whole lot more money than people who tell you to actually do the right but uncomfortable thing. The simple, counterintuitive, effective strategies that help you address your relationships by defeating these mental blind spots and helping you save your relationships.

Gabe Howard: We’ll be right back after these messages.

Sponsor Message: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.com. Secure, convenient, and affordable online counseling. Our counselors are licensed, accredited professionals. Anything you share is confidential. Schedule secure video or phone sessions, plus chat and text with your therapist whenever you feel it’s needed. A month of online therapy often costs less than a single traditional face to face session. Go to BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral and experience seven days of free therapy to see if online counseling is right for you. BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral.

Gabe Howard: And we’re back discussing how our mental blind spots can damage our relationships with Dr. Gleb Tsipursky. One of the things I like about your book is that you talk about the illusion of transparency and you have a story that sort of surrounds it to bring this to the forefront so that people can understand it. Can you talk about the illusion of transparency and can you share the story that’s in your book?

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: Happy to. So the story was of two casual acquaintances of mine. They went out on a date together. George and Mary, when they went on the date, George, he thought it was wonderful. Mary was so understanding, so interested, listened to him so well. And George told Mary all about himself. He felt that Mary really understood him, unlike so many of the women that he dated. So as they parted for the night, they agreed to schedule another date soon. Well, the next day, George texted Mary, but Mary didn’t text back. So, George waited for a day and sent Mary a Facebook message. But she didn’t respond to him. Even though George noticed that she saw the Facebook message. He sent her an e-mail then. But Mary maintained radio silence. Eventually, he gave up trying to contact her. He was really disappointed, and he thought that, just like all of these other women, how can he be so wrong about her? So why didn’t Mary write back or respond back? Well, she had a different experience than George on the date. Mary was polite and shy and she felt really overwhelmed from the start of a date with George being so extroverted and energetic, telling her all about himself, his parents, job, friends, not asking her anything about herself.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: And she thought, you know, why would I date someone who overwhelms me like that? Doesn’t really care about what I think? She politely listened to George, not wanting to hurt his feelings. And she told George, she would go out with him again, but she had absolutely no intention of doing so. I learned about this, the really different viewpoints of Mary and George, because I knew both of them as casual acquaintances. George, after the date, started complaining to people around him, including me, about Mary’s refusal to respond to the messages. That he thought at least went very well. And George felt that he was genuinely sharing and Mary did wonderful listing so he was confused and upset. I privately then went to Mary, asked Mary about, hey, what’s up? What happened? And she told me her side of the story. She told me that she sent a lot of nonverbal signals of her lack of interest in what he was saying to her. But George really failed to catch the signals. Mary perceived him as oversharing and herself as behaving very politely until she could leave. Now, that’s the story. That’s the nature of the story. You might feel that it’s problematic for Mary to avoid responding to George’s texts.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: But you have to realize that there are tons of Marys out there who behave this way due to a combination of shyness, politeness, and conflict avoidance. That’s the kind of people they are. They’re kind of anxious about conflict. But at the same time, there are so many Georges, they are very extroverted, they’re very energetic. And as a result, they don’t read nonverbal signals from others very well at all. In this case, both George and Mary fell into the illusion of transparency. This is one of the most common mental blind spots or cognitive biases. The illusion of transparency describes our tendency to greatly overestimate the extent to which others understand our mental patterns, what we feel and what we think. It’s one of the many biases that cause us to feel, think, and talk past each other. And so this is the big problem for us, the illusion of transparency, because if you feel that, like George felt, that Mary understands him and Mary feels like I’m sending these very clear signals, why does this guy keep being a jerk and not responding to them? That is something super dangerous for relationships, harms a great deal of relationships when we misunderstand the extent to which other people get us.

Gabe Howard: One of the things that I want to focus in on is that she said that she was sending non verbals. On one hand, I am guilty of missing the nonverbal. So I’m going to tend to take Georgia’s side in this, which is that she didn’t speak up. She didn’t say anything, and instead she hinted. And it sounds like what you’re saying is that she felt in her gut that her nonverbals, her hinting, were enough and that Georgia’s lack of responding made him rude.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: Mm-hmm.

Gabe Howard: But probably from George’s side, as you said, George’s like, she said nothing. I carried on. And now she’s blaming me. So now we’ve got both of those sides. Now, they’re not going to work out as a romantic couple. 

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: Clearly.

Gabe Howard: we get it. It’s a bummer. But let’s pretend for a moment that you are much more invested, Dr. Tsipursky, in George and Mary than you actually are. And you’re like, oh, my God, if they can just get over this one tiny little hump, they will just be a beautiful couple forever. And I know you’re not a therapist, but if you could sit George and Mary down and say, listen, you two are actually a perfect couple. But you’ve let this primitive nonsense get in the way. How would you help them get over this hump so they could see that, actually, they do have quite a bit in common?

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: Well, I would think that one of the things they need to work on is let’s say they have, share a lot of interests and they have very similar values. They have a lot of differences in their communication styles. That will be a big challenge. First of all, working on the illusion of transparency, they need to be much more humble about the idea that the other person understands them, about their ability to send signals correctly. The essence of the illusion of transparency is that when we think we’re sending a signal, a message to other people, we think the other person gets it 100%. That’s just how it feels because we feel OK, we’re sending this message. Therefore, the other people understand it because we are sending it.

Gabe Howard: Right.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: We are way too confident about our own ability to be good communicators. And that is the underlying essence of the illusion of transparency. Everyone, all of us, and especially George and Mary, need to develop a great deal more humility about their ability to send the signals, whether verbal or nonverbal and have those signals be received appropriately. So that’s kind of one thing to work on. The other things to work on would be the differences in communication styles where Mary is clearly shy., conflict-avoidant. So she’s very unlikely to speak up just because of that personality. It will take her a great deal of emotional labor to speak up in these areas. So perhaps that she can, instead of speaking up, because specifically verbalizing things is pretty difficult for many people. She can have a nonverbal signal that’s much more clear, you know, raising her hand in some way to indicate that, you know, hey, I’m getting overwhelmed. We need to pause or something like that. So some way that you can clearly indicate that she needs a break and that the conversation perhaps is not leading to where she wants it to lead and that George needs to stop talking. And George needs to, by contrast, to be much more aware and clearly reading Mary’s signals of interest and not interest. Because, you know, George is a raconteur. He likes telling stories. He likes sharing about himself. He likes sharing about everything. And he just kind of does overwhelm people. Knowing him as a casual acquaintance, he’s kind of the life of the party. But life is not always a party.

Gabe Howard: So, you know, like I can absolutely relate to George, you know, it’s not an accident that I’m a speaker, a podcaster, or a writer. All of these things involve being the center of attention and sharing and talking. So I really can relate to George. And that’s kind of why I brought it up, because I have a lot of Marys in my life.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: Mm-hmm.

Gabe Howard: And I was completely unaware that I was overwhelming people because I just assumed that people would tell me to stop or something. I just didn’t know. So when I became older and more understanding and more socially adept, I realized that, oh, wow, people think that I’m ignoring their wishes. And that’s kind of why I want to touch on it. And obviously, I can only speak from my personal experience as being a George. But I’m sure that there’s a lot of Marys out there, that really think that they’ve been put upon or ignored by the Georges. Now that Mary understands that George did not realize he was doing it. It’s really sad when you think that somebody is ignoring your wishes.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: Yeah.

Gabe Howard: And as you said, her gut was telling her that George was ignoring her rather than what was actually happening, which was George misunderstood. One of the things you talk about in your book is developing mental fitness. And we want to overcome the dangerous judgment errors of cognitive bias because they’re wrecking our relationships. What is mental fitness?

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: Mental fitness is the same thing as physical fitness. So we talked a little bit earlier about our ability to restrain ourselves from eating that dozen donuts, because then otherwise you’re really in trouble at this point in the world. You needed to develop a good approach to a healthy diet in order to address this. So you had to have physical fitness. Part of physical fitness is having a good diet. And it takes so much effort to have a good diet in this modern world because it doesn’t pay our capitalist society, all of these companies, for you to have a good diet, It pays them much better for you to eat all the sugar and processed food, which is exactly what caused you to have bad diet, obesity, various diabetes, heart disease, all those sorts of problems. The society is set against you. The capitalist marketplace is set against your having a healthy diet overall, and you have to work really hard to have a good diet. So that’s the part of physical fitness. Another part of physical fitness is, of course, is working out. Not sitting on your couch and watching Netflix all day, no matter how much Netflix might want you to do that.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: That is not a good way of having exercise, which is another important part of physical fitness. You need to put on your sweats and go to the gym. And, you know, right now, maybe in the coronavirus, get some form exercise machine and exercise at home. That is hard to do. Think about how hard it is to have physical fitness, to do the healthy diet and healthy exercises. It’s just as hard and just as important to have mental fitness. Now, in this current modern world where we’re spending more time at home because of the coronavirus, working more with our mind than with our body, it’s even more important to have mental fitness. Meaning working out your mind, not being primitive, not being savage, but figuring out what are the dangerous judgment errors? What are the cognitive biases, the mental blind spots to which you as an individual are most prone to? And you need to work on addressing them. That is what mental fitness is about. You need to figure out where you’re screwing up in your relationships because of these mental blind spots and the kind of effective mental habits that can help you address this.

Gabe Howard: All right, Dr. Tsipursky, you’ve convinced me. What are some helpful suggestions to get us there?

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: So the mental habits, there are 12 mental habits that I describe in the book. So first, identify and make a plan to address all of these dangerous judgment errors. Two, be able to delay all of your decision making in your relationships, because it’s very tempting for us to immediately respond to an e-mail from someone with whom we’re in a relationship that caused us to be triggered. Instead, it might be much better for us to take some time and actually think about that response. Mindfulness meditation is actually very helpful for us to build up focus and focus is what’s necessary for us to delay our responses and to manage our response effectively. Then probabilistic thinking. It’s very tempting for us in relationships to think in black and white terms, good or bad, you know, something nice or not nice. Instead, we need to think much more in shades of gray and evaluate various scenarios and probabilities. Five, make predictions about the future. If you aren’t able to make predictions about the future, about what or how the other person will respond to things you do in the relationship, then you will not have a very good mental model of that person. And of course, that will hurt your relationship. So you can calibrate yourself and improve your ability to understand the other person by making predictions of how they will behave. Next, consider alternative explanations and options. It’s very tempting for us to blame the other person, have negative feelings, thoughts about the other person, just like Mary had negative thoughts about George’s behavior and George had negative thoughts about Mary’s behavior.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: None of them thought about the alternative explanations and options. You know, Mary didn’t think that George might have been misunderstanding her, missing the signals, instead of ignoring the signals. And the same thing with George about Mary. Consider your past experiences. There’s a reason a lot of people tend to get into the same kinds of bad relationships in the future as they did in the past. They don’t analyze the mistakes they made in the past and they don’t correct them. Consider a long term future when repeating scenarios. A lot of people get into a relationship just because of lust. They have this kind of desire for a dozen donuts and they don’t think about the long term consequences of getting into the relationship and the kind of situation, if this will be a series of repeating scenarios. Is this the kind of relationships that they want to have? Consider other people’s perspectives. That’s number nine. That’s very hard for us to do. It’s very easy to miss. We just think about ourselves and what we want to do and we don’t think about other people and what their aspirations are. Next, use an outside view to get an external perspective. Talk to other people, other people in your life who are trusted and objective advisors. George shouldn’t just talk to people who will say, yeah, you’re absolutely right, Mary is a jerk and vice versa. You should think about other people who would be trusted and objective, who will tell you, hey, you know, George, maybe you talk a little bit too much about yourself and here’s how Mary might be thinking about this.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: Then set a policy to guide your future self and your organization if you’re doing this as part of a business, as part of an organization. So what kind of policy do you want? If you’re George, what kind of policy do you want to have toward your dates? Maybe you want to make sure to not simply talk all this time about yourself, but make sure to early on in the date and throughout the date to ask the other person about themselves and have all of these habits, mental habits that will help you have a much more effective relationship. And finally make a pre-commitment. So that was the internal policy, this is the external policy. You want to make a commitment to achieve a goal that you want. So a common pre-commitment is let’s say you want to lose weight. You can tell your friends, people, and your romantic partners, whatever, that you want to lose weight and ask them to help you avoid eating the dozen donuts. So that they can tell you, hey, you know, maybe you shouldn’t be ordering two desserts when you’re out at a restaurant. One will do. So that pre-commitment will help your friends help you. So those 12 mental habits, those are the specific mental habits you can develop to develop mental fitness. Just like you develop certain habits to have good diet and good exercise, you need to have these 12 habits to develop good mental fitness to work out your mind.

Gabe Howard: Dr. Tsipursky, first, I really appreciate having you here. Where can our listeners find you and where can they find your book?

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: The Blindspots Between Us is available in bookstores everywhere. It’s published by a great traditional publisher called New Harbinger, one of the best psychology publishers out there. You can find out more about my work at DisasterAvoidanceExperts.com, DisasterAvoidanceExperts.com, where I help people address cognitive biases, these mental blind spots in professional settings, in their relationships and other areas. Also, you might especially want to check out DisasterAvoidanceExperts.com/subscribe for an eight video based module course on how to make the wisest decisions in your relationships and other life areas. And finally, I’m pretty active on LinkedIn. Happy to answer questions. Dr. Gleb Tsipursky on LinkedIn. G L E B T S I P U R S K Y.

Gabe Howard: Thank you, Dr. Tispursky. And listen up, everybody. Here’s what we need from you. If you like the show, please rate, subscribe, and review. Use your words and tell people why you like it. Share us on social media and once again, in the little description, don’t just tell people that you listen to the show. Tell them why you listen to this show. Remember, we have our own Facebook group at PsychCentral.com/FBShow. That will take you right there. And you can get one week of free, convenient, affordable, private online counseling anytime, anywhere, simply by visiting BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral. And we will see everybody next week.

Announcer: You’ve been listening to The Psych Central Podcast. Want your audience to be wowed at your next event? Feature an appearance and LIVE RECORDING of the Psych Central Podcast right from your stage! For more details, or to book an event, please email us at show@psychcentral.com. Previous episodes can be found at PsychCentral.com/Show or on your favorite podcast player. Psych Central is the internet’s oldest and largest independent mental health website run by mental health professionals. Overseen by Dr. John Grohol, Psych Central offers trusted resources and quizzes to help answer your questions about mental health, personality, psychotherapy, and more. Please visit us today at PsychCentral.com.  To learn more about our host, Gabe Howard, please visit his website at gabehoward.com. Thank you for listening and please share with your friends, family, and followers.

  from https://ift.tt/3hOsnNZ Check out https://peterlegyel.wordpress.com/

[ashley-unicorn]

Podcast: Your Gut Instinct is Bad For Your Relationships

While caring for his wife as she struggled with a severe nervous breakdown, Dr. Gleb Tsipursky put the cognitive strategies he’d long been teaching others to work on his strained relationship. After seeing the incredible impact it had on his marriage as a whole, he decided to write a book to share these relationship-changing communication strategies.

Join us as Dr. Tsipursky explains why going with your “gut” can actually backfire and shares 12 practical mental habits you can begin using today for excellent communication.

We want to hear from you — Please fill out our listener survey by clicking the graphic above!

  SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW

  Guest information for ‘Gleb Tsipursky- Instinct Relationship’ Podcast Episode

Gleb Tsipursky, PhD, is a cognitive neuroscientist and behavioral economist on a mission to protect people from relationship disasters caused by the mental blind spots known as cognitive biases through the use of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)-informed strategies. His expertise comes from over fifteen years in academia researching cognitive neuroscience and behavioral economics, including seven as a professor at Ohio State University, where he published dozens of peer-reviewed articles in academic journals such as Behavior and Social Issues and Journal of Social and Political Psychology. It also stems from his background of over twenty years of consulting, coaching, speaking, and training on improving relationships in business settings as CEO of Disaster Avoidance Experts. A civic activist, Tsipursky leads Intentional Insights, a nonprofit organization popularizing the research on solving cognitive biases, and has extensive expertise on translating the research to a broad audience. His cutting-edge thought leadership was featured in over 400 articles and 350 interviews in Time, Scientific American, Psychology Today, Newsweek, The Conversation, CNBC, CBS News, NPR, and more. A best-selling author, he wrote Never Go With Your Gut, The Truth Seeker’s Handbook, and Pro Truth. He lives in Columbus, OH; and to avoid disaster in his personal life, makes sure to spend ample time with his wife.

About The Psych Central Podcast Host

Gabe Howard is an award-winning writer and speaker who lives with bipolar disorder. He is the author of the popular book, Mental Illness is an Asshole and other Observations, available from Amazon; signed copies are also available directly from the author. To learn more about Gabe, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

Computer Generated Transcript for ‘Gleb Tsipursky- Instinct Relationship’ Episode

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Announcer: You’re listening to the Psych Central Podcast, where guest experts in the field of psychology and mental health share thought-provoking information using plain, everyday language. Here’s your host, Gabe Howard.

Gabe Howard: Hello, everyone, and welcome to this week’s episode of The Psych Central Podcast. Calling into the show today, we have Dr. Gleb Tsipursky. Dr. Tispursky is on a mission to protect leaders from dangerous judgment errors known as cognitive biases by developing the most effective decision-making strategies. He is the author of The Blindspots Between Us, and he’s a returning guest. Dr. Tsipursky, welcome to the show.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: Thanks so much for having me on again, Gabe. It’s a pleasure.

Gabe Howard: Well, I’m very excited to have you on, because today we’re going to be talking about how our mental blind spots can damage our relationships and how to defeat these blind spots to save our relationships. I think this is something a lot of people can really relate to because we all very much care about our relationships.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: We do, but we think too little about the kind of mental blind spots that devastate our relationships. I mean, there’s a reason about 40% of marriages in the US end in divorces. And there is a reason that so many friendships break apart due to misunderstandings and conflicts that don’t need to happen. And when I see people doing that, running into these sorts of problems, they are just suffering in needless, unnecessary way. And that really harms them, and that really kind of breaks my heart. So that’s why I wrote this book.

Gabe Howard: We think about the term cognitive bias and there’s just so many psychological terms that basically say the way that your body feels is lying to you. That just because something makes you feel good doesn’t make it good. And just because something feels bad doesn’t make it bad. And I know that you’ve done excellent work in helping business leaders understand that. And this book is sort of an extension of that work in helping people understand that just because your friend or lover or spouse makes you feel bad doesn’t make it bad. Is that what you’re trying to tie together here?

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: I am, and this work actually emerged from where my wife, about five years ago, had a nervous breakdown, major nervous breakdown, where she was in a pretty terrible spot. So like you said, I’ve been doing consulting, coaching, training for business leaders for over 20 years now. And I’m a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience, behavioral economics. I’ve taught at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and at Ohio State as a professor for fifteen years. Now, at that point when my wife had a nervous breakdown, that was pretty terrible. So she was just crying for no reason, anxious for no reason. No reason that she was aware of. And that was really bad. She couldn’t work, she couldn’t do anything. I had to become her caretaker. And that was a really big strain on a relationship. I knew about these strategies, which I was already teaching to business leaders, and I started applying them toward our relationship. And we started to work through some of these strains in our relationship using the strategies. And so seeing the kind of impact that they had on our marriage and where they pretty much saved our marriage, definitely would not have been able to cope without these strategies. I decided that it would be a good time to write a book for a broader audience about personal relationships, romantic life, friendship, community, civic engagement, all of those sorts of relationships that are really damaged by the blind spots we have between us as human beings that can really be saved if we just are more aware of these blind spots and know about the research based tactics to address these blind spots.

Gabe Howard: As I’m sitting here listening to you, I completely agree with you, I know your educational background. I know the research that you’ve put into it. I’ve read your books and I believe you, Dr. Tsipursky. But there’s this large part of me that’s like, wait a minute, we’re supposed to trust our heart and trust our gut, especially in romantic relationships, love at first sight. I mean, every romantic comedy is based on this butterflies in the stomach. So the logical part of me is like Dr. Tsipursky, spot on. But the I want to fall in love in this magical way part of me is like, don’t bring science into this. And I imagine you get this a lot, right, because love isn’t supposed to boil down to science. What do you say to that?

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: Well, I say it’s just like exactly the kind of love we feel for a box of dozen donuts. You know, when we see them, when we see that box of dozen donuts, we just have this desire in our heart and our gut. We feel it’s the right thing to do to just gorge on those donuts. They look delicious and it’s yummy. And wouldn’t it be lovely to eat all those donuts, right? Well, I mean, what would happen to you after that? 

Gabe Howard: Right.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: That would not be a good consequence for you. You know that. You know that, you know, five minutes after you finished gorging yourself on those donuts or eating a whole tub of ice cream or whatever your poison is, that you would be regretting it. And that is the kind of experience that we have where our body, our heart, our mind, or our feelings, whatever it comes from, those sensations, they lie to us. They deceive us about what’s good for us. And that all comes from how our emotions are wired. They’re not actually wired for the modern environment. That’s the sucky thing. They’re wired for the savannah environment. When we lived in small tribes of hunter-gatherers, fifteen people to 150 people. So in that environment, when we came across a source of sugar, honey, apples, bananas, it was very important for us to eat as much of it as possible. And that’s what our emotions were for. We are the descendants of those who were successfully able to gorge themselves on all the sugar that they came across, all the honey. And therefore, they survived and those who didn’t, didn’t. That’s an inborn instinct in us. That’s a genetic instinct. Now, in the current modern environment, it leads us in very bad directions because we have way too much sugar in our environment for our own good.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: So if we eat too much of it, we get fat. That’s bad for us. There’s a reason there’s an obesity epidemic here in the US and actually around the world in countries that adopt the US diet. And so this is why you want to understand that your feelings are going to be lying to you around food, around what kind of food you want to eat. In the same way, your feelings, the current research is showing very clearly, that your feelings are going to be lying to you about other people because our feelings are adapted to the tribal environment, when we lived in those small tribes. They are a great fit if you happen to live in a small tribe in the African savannah. But for all of you who are not listening to this podcast in a small little cave in the African savannah, they’re going to be a terrible fit for you. It’s really going to cause you to make really wrong, terrible decisions for your long term good. Because these natural, primitive, savage feelings are not what you want to be using for modern, current environment.

Gabe Howard: There’s a phrase and you reference it as well. Marketers say you can’t go wrong telling people what they want to hear, and that’s a great marketing concept to sell, you know, cereal. But it’s not such a great concept if you’re trying to encourage people to fall in love, get married or make decisions. Because if you buy a cereal that you don’t like, eh, you’re out four bucks, right. You’re out, you know, five bucks, big deal. You never eat the cereal again. But if you wreck a relationship that is good or you enter into a relationship that’s bad, this has real long term consequences.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: Right now, in the current environment where we don’t realize that go with your heart and follow your gut on the romantic relationships is horrible advice that will devastate your relationships, no matter how uncomfortable you feel about me saying that. People like Tony Robbins, I mean, he says be primal, be savage. You know, follow your intuition. That’s an essential message for people like Tony Robbins or Dr. Oz or whatever. All those other people who are on those stages and who millions of people listen to. It’s very comfortable to hear that message because you want to follow your gut. You feel good about it. Just like it feels comfortable, it feels delightful to eat those dozen donuts. It feels delightful, feels comfortable to go with your gut and follow your intuitions in your relationships, because that is what feels good. It doesn’t feel comfortable at all, you really have to go outside of your comfort zone to do the difficult thing and step back from your intuitions and from your feelings and say, hey, I might be wrong about this. This might not be the right move. I might not want to enter into this relationship or I might want to stop this relationship. That’s actually not good for me. But people don’t want to hear that. These people who tell you this advice, they actually are leading you in very bad directions, very harmful, very dangerous directions. Research shows clearly that they’re wrong.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: And if you don’t want to screw up your relationships and you’re not going to be part of the 40% whose marriages end up in divorce and whose other sorts of relationships are devastated. So this is something that you need to realize that you are going to be really shooting yourself in the foot if you follow the advice of to be primal, to be savage. Even though it feels very uncomfortable to hear what I’m saying right now. Of course, it goes against your intuitions. It doesn’t feel comfortable and it will never feel comfortable. Just like there are lots of unscrupulous food companies that sell you a box of dozen donuts when they really should be selling you a box of two donuts. I mean, that’s the healthy thing in the modern environment. We know that. That’s what doctors advise us, but it’s very hard to stop it when we have a box of dozen donuts. Well, why then do companies sell us a box of dozen donuts? Because they make a lot more money doing this then when they sell you one donut or two donuts. So the relationship gurus, they make a whole lot more money than people who tell you to actually do the right but uncomfortable thing. The simple, counterintuitive, effective strategies that help you address your relationships by defeating these mental blind spots and helping you save your relationships.

Gabe Howard: We’ll be right back after these messages.

Sponsor Message: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.com. Secure, convenient, and affordable online counseling. Our counselors are licensed, accredited professionals. Anything you share is confidential. Schedule secure video or phone sessions, plus chat and text with your therapist whenever you feel it’s needed. A month of online therapy often costs less than a single traditional face to face session. Go to BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral and experience seven days of free therapy to see if online counseling is right for you. BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral.

Gabe Howard: And we’re back discussing how our mental blind spots can damage our relationships with Dr. Gleb Tsipursky. One of the things I like about your book is that you talk about the illusion of transparency and you have a story that sort of surrounds it to bring this to the forefront so that people can understand it. Can you talk about the illusion of transparency and can you share the story that’s in your book?

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: Happy to. So the story was of two casual acquaintances of mine. They went out on a date together. George and Mary, when they went on the date, George, he thought it was wonderful. Mary was so understanding, so interested, listened to him so well. And George told Mary all about himself. He felt that Mary really understood him, unlike so many of the women that he dated. So as they parted for the night, they agreed to schedule another date soon. Well, the next day, George texted Mary, but Mary didn’t text back. So, George waited for a day and sent Mary a Facebook message. But she didn’t respond to him. Even though George noticed that she saw the Facebook message. He sent her an e-mail then. But Mary maintained radio silence. Eventually, he gave up trying to contact her. He was really disappointed, and he thought that, just like all of these other women, how can he be so wrong about her? So why didn’t Mary write back or respond back? Well, she had a different experience than George on the date. Mary was polite and shy and she felt really overwhelmed from the start of a date with George being so extroverted and energetic, telling her all about himself, his parents, job, friends, not asking her anything about herself.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: And she thought, you know, why would I date someone who overwhelms me like that? Doesn’t really care about what I think? She politely listened to George, not wanting to hurt his feelings. And she told George, she would go out with him again, but she had absolutely no intention of doing so. I learned about this, the really different viewpoints of Mary and George, because I knew both of them as casual acquaintances. George, after the date, started complaining to people around him, including me, about Mary’s refusal to respond to the messages. That he thought at least went very well. And George felt that he was genuinely sharing and Mary did wonderful listing so he was confused and upset. I privately then went to Mary, asked Mary about, hey, what’s up? What happened? And she told me her side of the story. She told me that she sent a lot of nonverbal signals of her lack of interest in what he was saying to her. But George really failed to catch the signals. Mary perceived him as oversharing and herself as behaving very politely until she could leave. Now, that’s the story. That’s the nature of the story. You might feel that it’s problematic for Mary to avoid responding to George’s texts.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: But you have to realize that there are tons of Marys out there who behave this way due to a combination of shyness, politeness, and conflict avoidance. That’s the kind of people they are. They’re kind of anxious about conflict. But at the same time, there are so many Georges, they are very extroverted, they’re very energetic. And as a result, they don’t read nonverbal signals from others very well at all. In this case, both George and Mary fell into the illusion of transparency. This is one of the most common mental blind spots or cognitive biases. The illusion of transparency describes our tendency to greatly overestimate the extent to which others understand our mental patterns, what we feel and what we think. It’s one of the many biases that cause us to feel, think, and talk past each other. And so this is the big problem for us, the illusion of transparency, because if you feel that, like George felt, that Mary understands him and Mary feels like I’m sending these very clear signals, why does this guy keep being a jerk and not responding to them? That is something super dangerous for relationships, harms a great deal of relationships when we misunderstand the extent to which other people get us.

Gabe Howard: One of the things that I want to focus in on is that she said that she was sending non verbals. On one hand, I am guilty of missing the nonverbal. So I’m going to tend to take Georgia’s side in this, which is that she didn’t speak up. She didn’t say anything, and instead she hinted. And it sounds like what you’re saying is that she felt in her gut that her nonverbals, her hinting, were enough and that Georgia’s lack of responding made him rude.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: Mm-hmm.

Gabe Howard: But probably from George’s side, as you said, George’s like, she said nothing. I carried on. And now she’s blaming me. So now we’ve got both of those sides. Now, they’re not going to work out as a romantic couple. 

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: Clearly.

Gabe Howard: we get it. It’s a bummer. But let’s pretend for a moment that you are much more invested, Dr. Tsipursky, in George and Mary than you actually are. And you’re like, oh, my God, if they can just get over this one tiny little hump, they will just be a beautiful couple forever. And I know you’re not a therapist, but if you could sit George and Mary down and say, listen, you two are actually a perfect couple. But you’ve let this primitive nonsense get in the way. How would you help them get over this hump so they could see that, actually, they do have quite a bit in common?

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: Well, I would think that one of the things they need to work on is let’s say they have, share a lot of interests and they have very similar values. They have a lot of differences in their communication styles. That will be a big challenge. First of all, working on the illusion of transparency, they need to be much more humble about the idea that the other person understands them, about their ability to send signals correctly. The essence of the illusion of transparency is that when we think we’re sending a signal, a message to other people, we think the other person gets it 100%. That’s just how it feels because we feel OK, we’re sending this message. Therefore, the other people understand it because we are sending it.

Gabe Howard: Right.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: We are way too confident about our own ability to be good communicators. And that is the underlying essence of the illusion of transparency. Everyone, all of us, and especially George and Mary, need to develop a great deal more humility about their ability to send the signals, whether verbal or nonverbal and have those signals be received appropriately. So that’s kind of one thing to work on. The other things to work on would be the differences in communication styles where Mary is clearly shy., conflict-avoidant. So she’s very unlikely to speak up just because of that personality. It will take her a great deal of emotional labor to speak up in these areas. So perhaps that she can, instead of speaking up, because specifically verbalizing things is pretty difficult for many people. She can have a nonverbal signal that’s much more clear, you know, raising her hand in some way to indicate that, you know, hey, I’m getting overwhelmed. We need to pause or something like that. So some way that you can clearly indicate that she needs a break and that the conversation perhaps is not leading to where she wants it to lead and that George needs to stop talking. And George needs to, by contrast, to be much more aware and clearly reading Mary’s signals of interest and not interest. Because, you know, George is a raconteur. He likes telling stories. He likes sharing about himself. He likes sharing about everything. And he just kind of does overwhelm people. Knowing him as a casual acquaintance, he’s kind of the life of the party. But life is not always a party.

Gabe Howard: So, you know, like I can absolutely relate to George, you know, it’s not an accident that I’m a speaker, a podcaster, or a writer. All of these things involve being the center of attention and sharing and talking. So I really can relate to George. And that’s kind of why I brought it up, because I have a lot of Marys in my life.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: Mm-hmm.

Gabe Howard: And I was completely unaware that I was overwhelming people because I just assumed that people would tell me to stop or something. I just didn’t know. So when I became older and more understanding and more socially adept, I realized that, oh, wow, people think that I’m ignoring their wishes. And that’s kind of why I want to touch on it. And obviously, I can only speak from my personal experience as being a George. But I’m sure that there’s a lot of Marys out there, that really think that they’ve been put upon or ignored by the Georges. Now that Mary understands that George did not realize he was doing it. It’s really sad when you think that somebody is ignoring your wishes.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: Yeah.

Gabe Howard: And as you said, her gut was telling her that George was ignoring her rather than what was actually happening, which was George misunderstood. One of the things you talk about in your book is developing mental fitness. And we want to overcome the dangerous judgment errors of cognitive bias because they’re wrecking our relationships. What is mental fitness?

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: Mental fitness is the same thing as physical fitness. So we talked a little bit earlier about our ability to restrain ourselves from eating that dozen donuts, because then otherwise you’re really in trouble at this point in the world. You needed to develop a good approach to a healthy diet in order to address this. So you had to have physical fitness. Part of physical fitness is having a good diet. And it takes so much effort to have a good diet in this modern world because it doesn’t pay our capitalist society, all of these companies, for you to have a good diet, It pays them much better for you to eat all the sugar and processed food, which is exactly what caused you to have bad diet, obesity, various diabetes, heart disease, all those sorts of problems. The society is set against you. The capitalist marketplace is set against your having a healthy diet overall, and you have to work really hard to have a good diet. So that’s the part of physical fitness. Another part of physical fitness is, of course, is working out. Not sitting on your couch and watching Netflix all day, no matter how much Netflix might want you to do that.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: That is not a good way of having exercise, which is another important part of physical fitness. You need to put on your sweats and go to the gym. And, you know, right now, maybe in the coronavirus, get some form exercise machine and exercise at home. That is hard to do. Think about how hard it is to have physical fitness, to do the healthy diet and healthy exercises. It’s just as hard and just as important to have mental fitness. Now, in this current modern world where we’re spending more time at home because of the coronavirus, working more with our mind than with our body, it’s even more important to have mental fitness. Meaning working out your mind, not being primitive, not being savage, but figuring out what are the dangerous judgment errors? What are the cognitive biases, the mental blind spots to which you as an individual are most prone to? And you need to work on addressing them. That is what mental fitness is about. You need to figure out where you’re screwing up in your relationships because of these mental blind spots and the kind of effective mental habits that can help you address this.

Gabe Howard: All right, Dr. Tsipursky, you’ve convinced me. What are some helpful suggestions to get us there?

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: So the mental habits, there are 12 mental habits that I describe in the book. So first, identify and make a plan to address all of these dangerous judgment errors. Two, be able to delay all of your decision making in your relationships, because it’s very tempting for us to immediately respond to an e-mail from someone with whom we’re in a relationship that caused us to be triggered. Instead, it might be much better for us to take some time and actually think about that response. Mindfulness meditation is actually very helpful for us to build up focus and focus is what’s necessary for us to delay our responses and to manage our response effectively. Then probabilistic thinking. It’s very tempting for us in relationships to think in black and white terms, good or bad, you know, something nice or not nice. Instead, we need to think much more in shades of gray and evaluate various scenarios and probabilities. Five, make predictions about the future. If you aren’t able to make predictions about the future, about what or how the other person will respond to things you do in the relationship, then you will not have a very good mental model of that person. And of course, that will hurt your relationship. So you can calibrate yourself and improve your ability to understand the other person by making predictions of how they will behave. Next, consider alternative explanations and options. It’s very tempting for us to blame the other person, have negative feelings, thoughts about the other person, just like Mary had negative thoughts about George’s behavior and George had negative thoughts about Mary’s behavior.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: None of them thought about the alternative explanations and options. You know, Mary didn’t think that George might have been misunderstanding her, missing the signals, instead of ignoring the signals. And the same thing with George about Mary. Consider your past experiences. There’s a reason a lot of people tend to get into the same kinds of bad relationships in the future as they did in the past. They don’t analyze the mistakes they made in the past and they don’t correct them. Consider a long term future when repeating scenarios. A lot of people get into a relationship just because of lust. They have this kind of desire for a dozen donuts and they don’t think about the long term consequences of getting into the relationship and the kind of situation, if this will be a series of repeating scenarios. Is this the kind of relationships that they want to have? Consider other people’s perspectives. That’s number nine. That’s very hard for us to do. It’s very easy to miss. We just think about ourselves and what we want to do and we don’t think about other people and what their aspirations are. Next, use an outside view to get an external perspective. Talk to other people, other people in your life who are trusted and objective advisors. George shouldn’t just talk to people who will say, yeah, you’re absolutely right, Mary is a jerk and vice versa. You should think about other people who would be trusted and objective, who will tell you, hey, you know, George, maybe you talk a little bit too much about yourself and here’s how Mary might be thinking about this.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: Then set a policy to guide your future self and your organization if you’re doing this as part of a business, as part of an organization. So what kind of policy do you want? If you’re George, what kind of policy do you want to have toward your dates? Maybe you want to make sure to not simply talk all this time about yourself, but make sure to early on in the date and throughout the date to ask the other person about themselves and have all of these habits, mental habits that will help you have a much more effective relationship. And finally make a pre-commitment. So that was the internal policy, this is the external policy. You want to make a commitment to achieve a goal that you want. So a common pre-commitment is let’s say you want to lose weight. You can tell your friends, people, and your romantic partners, whatever, that you want to lose weight and ask them to help you avoid eating the dozen donuts. So that they can tell you, hey, you know, maybe you shouldn’t be ordering two desserts when you’re out at a restaurant. One will do. So that pre-commitment will help your friends help you. So those 12 mental habits, those are the specific mental habits you can develop to develop mental fitness. Just like you develop certain habits to have good diet and good exercise, you need to have these 12 habits to develop good mental fitness to work out your mind.

Gabe Howard: Dr. Tsipursky, first, I really appreciate having you here. Where can our listeners find you and where can they find your book?

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: The Blindspots Between Us is available in bookstores everywhere. It’s published by a great traditional publisher called New Harbinger, one of the best psychology publishers out there. You can find out more about my work at DisasterAvoidanceExperts.com, DisasterAvoidanceExperts.com, where I help people address cognitive biases, these mental blind spots in professional settings, in their relationships and other areas. Also, you might especially want to check out DisasterAvoidanceExperts.com/subscribe for an eight video based module course on how to make the wisest decisions in your relationships and other life areas. And finally, I’m pretty active on LinkedIn. Happy to answer questions. Dr. Gleb Tsipursky on LinkedIn. G L E B T S I P U R S K Y.

Gabe Howard: Thank you, Dr. Tispursky. And listen up, everybody. Here’s what we need from you. If you like the show, please rate, subscribe, and review. Use your words and tell people why you like it. Share us on social media and once again, in the little description, don’t just tell people that you listen to the show. Tell them why you listen to this show. Remember, we have our own Facebook group at PsychCentral.com/FBShow. That will take you right there. And you can get one week of free, convenient, affordable, private online counseling anytime, anywhere, simply by visiting BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral. And we will see everybody next week.

Announcer: You’ve been listening to The Psych Central Podcast. Want your audience to be wowed at your next event? Feature an appearance and LIVE RECORDING of the Psych Central Podcast right from your stage! For more details, or to book an event, please email us at show@psychcentral.com. Previous episodes can be found at PsychCentral.com/Show or on your favorite podcast player. Psych Central is the internet’s oldest and largest independent mental health website run by mental health professionals. Overseen by Dr. John Grohol, Psych Central offers trusted resources and quizzes to help answer your questions about mental health, personality, psychotherapy, and more. Please visit us today at PsychCentral.com.  To learn more about our host, Gabe Howard, please visit his website at gabehoward.com. Thank you for listening and please share with your friends, family, and followers.

  from https://ift.tt/3hOsnNZ Check out https://daniejadkins.wordpress.com/

[brentrogers]

Podcast: Your Gut Instinct is Bad For Your Relationships

While caring for his wife as she struggled with a severe nervous breakdown, Dr. Gleb Tsipursky put the cognitive strategies he’d long been teaching others to work on his strained relationship. After seeing the incredible impact it had on his marriage as a whole, he decided to write a book to share these relationship-changing communication strategies.

Join us as Dr. Tsipursky explains why going with your “gut” can actually backfire and shares 12 practical mental habits you can begin using today for excellent communication.

We want to hear from you — Please fill out our listener survey by clicking the graphic above!

  SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW

  Guest information for ‘Gleb Tsipursky- Instinct Relationship’ Podcast Episode

Gleb Tsipursky, PhD, is a cognitive neuroscientist and behavioral economist on a mission to protect people from relationship disasters caused by the mental blind spots known as cognitive biases through the use of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)-informed strategies. His expertise comes from over fifteen years in academia researching cognitive neuroscience and behavioral economics, including seven as a professor at Ohio State University, where he published dozens of peer-reviewed articles in academic journals such as Behavior and Social Issues and Journal of Social and Political Psychology. It also stems from his background of over twenty years of consulting, coaching, speaking, and training on improving relationships in business settings as CEO of Disaster Avoidance Experts. A civic activist, Tsipursky leads Intentional Insights, a nonprofit organization popularizing the research on solving cognitive biases, and has extensive expertise on translating the research to a broad audience. His cutting-edge thought leadership was featured in over 400 articles and 350 interviews in Time, Scientific American, Psychology Today, Newsweek, The Conversation, CNBC, CBS News, NPR, and more. A best-selling author, he wrote Never Go With Your Gut, The Truth Seeker’s Handbook, and Pro Truth. He lives in Columbus, OH; and to avoid disaster in his personal life, makes sure to spend ample time with his wife.

About The Psych Central Podcast Host

Gabe Howard is an award-winning writer and speaker who lives with bipolar disorder. He is the author of the popular book, Mental Illness is an Asshole and other Observations, available from Amazon; signed copies are also available directly from the author. To learn more about Gabe, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

Computer Generated Transcript for ‘Gleb Tsipursky- Instinct Relationship’ Episode

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Announcer: You’re listening to the Psych Central Podcast, where guest experts in the field of psychology and mental health share thought-provoking information using plain, everyday language. Here’s your host, Gabe Howard.

Gabe Howard: Hello, everyone, and welcome to this week’s episode of The Psych Central Podcast. Calling into the show today, we have Dr. Gleb Tsipursky. Dr. Tispursky is on a mission to protect leaders from dangerous judgment errors known as cognitive biases by developing the most effective decision-making strategies. He is the author of The Blindspots Between Us, and he’s a returning guest. Dr. Tsipursky, welcome to the show.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: Thanks so much for having me on again, Gabe. It’s a pleasure.

Gabe Howard: Well, I’m very excited to have you on, because today we’re going to be talking about how our mental blind spots can damage our relationships and how to defeat these blind spots to save our relationships. I think this is something a lot of people can really relate to because we all very much care about our relationships.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: We do, but we think too little about the kind of mental blind spots that devastate our relationships. I mean, there’s a reason about 40% of marriages in the US end in divorces. And there is a reason that so many friendships break apart due to misunderstandings and conflicts that don’t need to happen. And when I see people doing that, running into these sorts of problems, they are just suffering in needless, unnecessary way. And that really harms them, and that really kind of breaks my heart. So that’s why I wrote this book.

Gabe Howard: We think about the term cognitive bias and there’s just so many psychological terms that basically say the way that your body feels is lying to you. That just because something makes you feel good doesn’t make it good. And just because something feels bad doesn’t make it bad. And I know that you’ve done excellent work in helping business leaders understand that. And this book is sort of an extension of that work in helping people understand that just because your friend or lover or spouse makes you feel bad doesn’t make it bad. Is that what you’re trying to tie together here?

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: I am, and this work actually emerged from where my wife, about five years ago, had a nervous breakdown, major nervous breakdown, where she was in a pretty terrible spot. So like you said, I’ve been doing consulting, coaching, training for business leaders for over 20 years now. And I’m a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience, behavioral economics. I’ve taught at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and at Ohio State as a professor for fifteen years. Now, at that point when my wife had a nervous breakdown, that was pretty terrible. So she was just crying for no reason, anxious for no reason. No reason that she was aware of. And that was really bad. She couldn’t work, she couldn’t do anything. I had to become her caretaker. And that was a really big strain on a relationship. I knew about these strategies, which I was already teaching to business leaders, and I started applying them toward our relationship. And we started to work through some of these strains in our relationship using the strategies. And so seeing the kind of impact that they had on our marriage and where they pretty much saved our marriage, definitely would not have been able to cope without these strategies. I decided that it would be a good time to write a book for a broader audience about personal relationships, romantic life, friendship, community, civic engagement, all of those sorts of relationships that are really damaged by the blind spots we have between us as human beings that can really be saved if we just are more aware of these blind spots and know about the research based tactics to address these blind spots.

Gabe Howard: As I’m sitting here listening to you, I completely agree with you, I know your educational background. I know the research that you’ve put into it. I’ve read your books and I believe you, Dr. Tsipursky. But there’s this large part of me that’s like, wait a minute, we’re supposed to trust our heart and trust our gut, especially in romantic relationships, love at first sight. I mean, every romantic comedy is based on this butterflies in the stomach. So the logical part of me is like Dr. Tsipursky, spot on. But the I want to fall in love in this magical way part of me is like, don’t bring science into this. And I imagine you get this a lot, right, because love isn’t supposed to boil down to science. What do you say to that?

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: Well, I say it’s just like exactly the kind of love we feel for a box of dozen donuts. You know, when we see them, when we see that box of dozen donuts, we just have this desire in our heart and our gut. We feel it’s the right thing to do to just gorge on those donuts. They look delicious and it’s yummy. And wouldn’t it be lovely to eat all those donuts, right? Well, I mean, what would happen to you after that? 

Gabe Howard: Right.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: That would not be a good consequence for you. You know that. You know that, you know, five minutes after you finished gorging yourself on those donuts or eating a whole tub of ice cream or whatever your poison is, that you would be regretting it. And that is the kind of experience that we have where our body, our heart, our mind, or our feelings, whatever it comes from, those sensations, they lie to us. They deceive us about what’s good for us. And that all comes from how our emotions are wired. They’re not actually wired for the modern environment. That’s the sucky thing. They’re wired for the savannah environment. When we lived in small tribes of hunter-gatherers, fifteen people to 150 people. So in that environment, when we came across a source of sugar, honey, apples, bananas, it was very important for us to eat as much of it as possible. And that’s what our emotions were for. We are the descendants of those who were successfully able to gorge themselves on all the sugar that they came across, all the honey. And therefore, they survived and those who didn’t, didn’t. That’s an inborn instinct in us. That’s a genetic instinct. Now, in the current modern environment, it leads us in very bad directions because we have way too much sugar in our environment for our own good.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: So if we eat too much of it, we get fat. That’s bad for us. There’s a reason there’s an obesity epidemic here in the US and actually around the world in countries that adopt the US diet. And so this is why you want to understand that your feelings are going to be lying to you around food, around what kind of food you want to eat. In the same way, your feelings, the current research is showing very clearly, that your feelings are going to be lying to you about other people because our feelings are adapted to the tribal environment, when we lived in those small tribes. They are a great fit if you happen to live in a small tribe in the African savannah. But for all of you who are not listening to this podcast in a small little cave in the African savannah, they’re going to be a terrible fit for you. It’s really going to cause you to make really wrong, terrible decisions for your long term good. Because these natural, primitive, savage feelings are not what you want to be using for modern, current environment.

Gabe Howard: There’s a phrase and you reference it as well. Marketers say you can’t go wrong telling people what they want to hear, and that’s a great marketing concept to sell, you know, cereal. But it’s not such a great concept if you’re trying to encourage people to fall in love, get married or make decisions. Because if you buy a cereal that you don’t like, eh, you’re out four bucks, right. You’re out, you know, five bucks, big deal. You never eat the cereal again. But if you wreck a relationship that is good or you enter into a relationship that’s bad, this has real long term consequences.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: Right now, in the current environment where we don’t realize that go with your heart and follow your gut on the romantic relationships is horrible advice that will devastate your relationships, no matter how uncomfortable you feel about me saying that. People like Tony Robbins, I mean, he says be primal, be savage. You know, follow your intuition. That’s an essential message for people like Tony Robbins or Dr. Oz or whatever. All those other people who are on those stages and who millions of people listen to. It’s very comfortable to hear that message because you want to follow your gut. You feel good about it. Just like it feels comfortable, it feels delightful to eat those dozen donuts. It feels delightful, feels comfortable to go with your gut and follow your intuitions in your relationships, because that is what feels good. It doesn’t feel comfortable at all, you really have to go outside of your comfort zone to do the difficult thing and step back from your intuitions and from your feelings and say, hey, I might be wrong about this. This might not be the right move. I might not want to enter into this relationship or I might want to stop this relationship. That’s actually not good for me. But people don’t want to hear that. These people who tell you this advice, they actually are leading you in very bad directions, very harmful, very dangerous directions. Research shows clearly that they’re wrong.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: And if you don’t want to screw up your relationships and you’re not going to be part of the 40% whose marriages end up in divorce and whose other sorts of relationships are devastated. So this is something that you need to realize that you are going to be really shooting yourself in the foot if you follow the advice of to be primal, to be savage. Even though it feels very uncomfortable to hear what I’m saying right now. Of course, it goes against your intuitions. It doesn’t feel comfortable and it will never feel comfortable. Just like there are lots of unscrupulous food companies that sell you a box of dozen donuts when they really should be selling you a box of two donuts. I mean, that’s the healthy thing in the modern environment. We know that. That’s what doctors advise us, but it’s very hard to stop it when we have a box of dozen donuts. Well, why then do companies sell us a box of dozen donuts? Because they make a lot more money doing this then when they sell you one donut or two donuts. So the relationship gurus, they make a whole lot more money than people who tell you to actually do the right but uncomfortable thing. The simple, counterintuitive, effective strategies that help you address your relationships by defeating these mental blind spots and helping you save your relationships.

Gabe Howard: We’ll be right back after these messages.

Sponsor Message: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.com. Secure, convenient, and affordable online counseling. Our counselors are licensed, accredited professionals. Anything you share is confidential. Schedule secure video or phone sessions, plus chat and text with your therapist whenever you feel it’s needed. A month of online therapy often costs less than a single traditional face to face session. Go to BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral and experience seven days of free therapy to see if online counseling is right for you. BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral.

Gabe Howard: And we’re back discussing how our mental blind spots can damage our relationships with Dr. Gleb Tsipursky. One of the things I like about your book is that you talk about the illusion of transparency and you have a story that sort of surrounds it to bring this to the forefront so that people can understand it. Can you talk about the illusion of transparency and can you share the story that’s in your book?

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: Happy to. So the story was of two casual acquaintances of mine. They went out on a date together. George and Mary, when they went on the date, George, he thought it was wonderful. Mary was so understanding, so interested, listened to him so well. And George told Mary all about himself. He felt that Mary really understood him, unlike so many of the women that he dated. So as they parted for the night, they agreed to schedule another date soon. Well, the next day, George texted Mary, but Mary didn’t text back. So, George waited for a day and sent Mary a Facebook message. But she didn’t respond to him. Even though George noticed that she saw the Facebook message. He sent her an e-mail then. But Mary maintained radio silence. Eventually, he gave up trying to contact her. He was really disappointed, and he thought that, just like all of these other women, how can he be so wrong about her? So why didn’t Mary write back or respond back? Well, she had a different experience than George on the date. Mary was polite and shy and she felt really overwhelmed from the start of a date with George being so extroverted and energetic, telling her all about himself, his parents, job, friends, not asking her anything about herself.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: And she thought, you know, why would I date someone who overwhelms me like that? Doesn’t really care about what I think? She politely listened to George, not wanting to hurt his feelings. And she told George, she would go out with him again, but she had absolutely no intention of doing so. I learned about this, the really different viewpoints of Mary and George, because I knew both of them as casual acquaintances. George, after the date, started complaining to people around him, including me, about Mary’s refusal to respond to the messages. That he thought at least went very well. And George felt that he was genuinely sharing and Mary did wonderful listing so he was confused and upset. I privately then went to Mary, asked Mary about, hey, what’s up? What happened? And she told me her side of the story. She told me that she sent a lot of nonverbal signals of her lack of interest in what he was saying to her. But George really failed to catch the signals. Mary perceived him as oversharing and herself as behaving very politely until she could leave. Now, that’s the story. That’s the nature of the story. You might feel that it’s problematic for Mary to avoid responding to George’s texts.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: But you have to realize that there are tons of Marys out there who behave this way due to a combination of shyness, politeness, and conflict avoidance. That’s the kind of people they are. They’re kind of anxious about conflict. But at the same time, there are so many Georges, they are very extroverted, they’re very energetic. And as a result, they don’t read nonverbal signals from others very well at all. In this case, both George and Mary fell into the illusion of transparency. This is one of the most common mental blind spots or cognitive biases. The illusion of transparency describes our tendency to greatly overestimate the extent to which others understand our mental patterns, what we feel and what we think. It’s one of the many biases that cause us to feel, think, and talk past each other. And so this is the big problem for us, the illusion of transparency, because if you feel that, like George felt, that Mary understands him and Mary feels like I’m sending these very clear signals, why does this guy keep being a jerk and not responding to them? That is something super dangerous for relationships, harms a great deal of relationships when we misunderstand the extent to which other people get us.

Gabe Howard: One of the things that I want to focus in on is that she said that she was sending non verbals. On one hand, I am guilty of missing the nonverbal. So I’m going to tend to take Georgia’s side in this, which is that she didn’t speak up. She didn’t say anything, and instead she hinted. And it sounds like what you’re saying is that she felt in her gut that her nonverbals, her hinting, were enough and that Georgia’s lack of responding made him rude.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: Mm-hmm.

Gabe Howard: But probably from George’s side, as you said, George’s like, she said nothing. I carried on. And now she’s blaming me. So now we’ve got both of those sides. Now, they’re not going to work out as a romantic couple. 

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: Clearly.

Gabe Howard: we get it. It’s a bummer. But let’s pretend for a moment that you are much more invested, Dr. Tsipursky, in George and Mary than you actually are. And you’re like, oh, my God, if they can just get over this one tiny little hump, they will just be a beautiful couple forever. And I know you’re not a therapist, but if you could sit George and Mary down and say, listen, you two are actually a perfect couple. But you’ve let this primitive nonsense get in the way. How would you help them get over this hump so they could see that, actually, they do have quite a bit in common?

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: Well, I would think that one of the things they need to work on is let’s say they have, share a lot of interests and they have very similar values. They have a lot of differences in their communication styles. That will be a big challenge. First of all, working on the illusion of transparency, they need to be much more humble about the idea that the other person understands them, about their ability to send signals correctly. The essence of the illusion of transparency is that when we think we’re sending a signal, a message to other people, we think the other person gets it 100%. That’s just how it feels because we feel OK, we’re sending this message. Therefore, the other people understand it because we are sending it.

Gabe Howard: Right.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: We are way too confident about our own ability to be good communicators. And that is the underlying essence of the illusion of transparency. Everyone, all of us, and especially George and Mary, need to develop a great deal more humility about their ability to send the signals, whether verbal or nonverbal and have those signals be received appropriately. So that’s kind of one thing to work on. The other things to work on would be the differences in communication styles where Mary is clearly shy., conflict-avoidant. So she’s very unlikely to speak up just because of that personality. It will take her a great deal of emotional labor to speak up in these areas. So perhaps that she can, instead of speaking up, because specifically verbalizing things is pretty difficult for many people. She can have a nonverbal signal that’s much more clear, you know, raising her hand in some way to indicate that, you know, hey, I’m getting overwhelmed. We need to pause or something like that. So some way that you can clearly indicate that she needs a break and that the conversation perhaps is not leading to where she wants it to lead and that George needs to stop talking. And George needs to, by contrast, to be much more aware and clearly reading Mary’s signals of interest and not interest. Because, you know, George is a raconteur. He likes telling stories. He likes sharing about himself. He likes sharing about everything. And he just kind of does overwhelm people. Knowing him as a casual acquaintance, he’s kind of the life of the party. But life is not always a party.

Gabe Howard: So, you know, like I can absolutely relate to George, you know, it’s not an accident that I’m a speaker, a podcaster, or a writer. All of these things involve being the center of attention and sharing and talking. So I really can relate to George. And that’s kind of why I brought it up, because I have a lot of Marys in my life.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: Mm-hmm.

Gabe Howard: And I was completely unaware that I was overwhelming people because I just assumed that people would tell me to stop or something. I just didn’t know. So when I became older and more understanding and more socially adept, I realized that, oh, wow, people think that I’m ignoring their wishes. And that’s kind of why I want to touch on it. And obviously, I can only speak from my personal experience as being a George. But I’m sure that there’s a lot of Marys out there, that really think that they’ve been put upon or ignored by the Georges. Now that Mary understands that George did not realize he was doing it. It’s really sad when you think that somebody is ignoring your wishes.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: Yeah.

Gabe Howard: And as you said, her gut was telling her that George was ignoring her rather than what was actually happening, which was George misunderstood. One of the things you talk about in your book is developing mental fitness. And we want to overcome the dangerous judgment errors of cognitive bias because they’re wrecking our relationships. What is mental fitness?

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: Mental fitness is the same thing as physical fitness. So we talked a little bit earlier about our ability to restrain ourselves from eating that dozen donuts, because then otherwise you’re really in trouble at this point in the world. You needed to develop a good approach to a healthy diet in order to address this. So you had to have physical fitness. Part of physical fitness is having a good diet. And it takes so much effort to have a good diet in this modern world because it doesn’t pay our capitalist society, all of these companies, for you to have a good diet, It pays them much better for you to eat all the sugar and processed food, which is exactly what caused you to have bad diet, obesity, various diabetes, heart disease, all those sorts of problems. The society is set against you. The capitalist marketplace is set against your having a healthy diet overall, and you have to work really hard to have a good diet. So that’s the part of physical fitness. Another part of physical fitness is, of course, is working out. Not sitting on your couch and watching Netflix all day, no matter how much Netflix might want you to do that.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: That is not a good way of having exercise, which is another important part of physical fitness. You need to put on your sweats and go to the gym. And, you know, right now, maybe in the coronavirus, get some form exercise machine and exercise at home. That is hard to do. Think about how hard it is to have physical fitness, to do the healthy diet and healthy exercises. It’s just as hard and just as important to have mental fitness. Now, in this current modern world where we’re spending more time at home because of the coronavirus, working more with our mind than with our body, it’s even more important to have mental fitness. Meaning working out your mind, not being primitive, not being savage, but figuring out what are the dangerous judgment errors? What are the cognitive biases, the mental blind spots to which you as an individual are most prone to? And you need to work on addressing them. That is what mental fitness is about. You need to figure out where you’re screwing up in your relationships because of these mental blind spots and the kind of effective mental habits that can help you address this.

Gabe Howard: All right, Dr. Tsipursky, you’ve convinced me. What are some helpful suggestions to get us there?

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: So the mental habits, there are 12 mental habits that I describe in the book. So first, identify and make a plan to address all of these dangerous judgment errors. Two, be able to delay all of your decision making in your relationships, because it’s very tempting for us to immediately respond to an e-mail from someone with whom we’re in a relationship that caused us to be triggered. Instead, it might be much better for us to take some time and actually think about that response. Mindfulness meditation is actually very helpful for us to build up focus and focus is what’s necessary for us to delay our responses and to manage our response effectively. Then probabilistic thinking. It’s very tempting for us in relationships to think in black and white terms, good or bad, you know, something nice or not nice. Instead, we need to think much more in shades of gray and evaluate various scenarios and probabilities. Five, make predictions about the future. If you aren’t able to make predictions about the future, about what or how the other person will respond to things you do in the relationship, then you will not have a very good mental model of that person. And of course, that will hurt your relationship. So you can calibrate yourself and improve your ability to understand the other person by making predictions of how they will behave. Next, consider alternative explanations and options. It’s very tempting for us to blame the other person, have negative feelings, thoughts about the other person, just like Mary had negative thoughts about George’s behavior and George had negative thoughts about Mary’s behavior.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: None of them thought about the alternative explanations and options. You know, Mary didn’t think that George might have been misunderstanding her, missing the signals, instead of ignoring the signals. And the same thing with George about Mary. Consider your past experiences. There’s a reason a lot of people tend to get into the same kinds of bad relationships in the future as they did in the past. They don’t analyze the mistakes they made in the past and they don’t correct them. Consider a long term future when repeating scenarios. A lot of people get into a relationship just because of lust. They have this kind of desire for a dozen donuts and they don’t think about the long term consequences of getting into the relationship and the kind of situation, if this will be a series of repeating scenarios. Is this the kind of relationships that they want to have? Consider other people’s perspectives. That’s number nine. That’s very hard for us to do. It’s very easy to miss. We just think about ourselves and what we want to do and we don’t think about other people and what their aspirations are. Next, use an outside view to get an external perspective. Talk to other people, other people in your life who are trusted and objective advisors. George shouldn’t just talk to people who will say, yeah, you’re absolutely right, Mary is a jerk and vice versa. You should think about other people who would be trusted and objective, who will tell you, hey, you know, George, maybe you talk a little bit too much about yourself and here’s how Mary might be thinking about this.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: Then set a policy to guide your future self and your organization if you’re doing this as part of a business, as part of an organization. So what kind of policy do you want? If you’re George, what kind of policy do you want to have toward your dates? Maybe you want to make sure to not simply talk all this time about yourself, but make sure to early on in the date and throughout the date to ask the other person about themselves and have all of these habits, mental habits that will help you have a much more effective relationship. And finally make a pre-commitment. So that was the internal policy, this is the external policy. You want to make a commitment to achieve a goal that you want. So a common pre-commitment is let’s say you want to lose weight. You can tell your friends, people, and your romantic partners, whatever, that you want to lose weight and ask them to help you avoid eating the dozen donuts. So that they can tell you, hey, you know, maybe you shouldn’t be ordering two desserts when you’re out at a restaurant. One will do. So that pre-commitment will help your friends help you. So those 12 mental habits, those are the specific mental habits you can develop to develop mental fitness. Just like you develop certain habits to have good diet and good exercise, you need to have these 12 habits to develop good mental fitness to work out your mind.

Gabe Howard: Dr. Tsipursky, first, I really appreciate having you here. Where can our listeners find you and where can they find your book?

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky: The Blindspots Between Us is available in bookstores everywhere. It’s published by a great traditional publisher called New Harbinger, one of the best psychology publishers out there. You can find out more about my work at DisasterAvoidanceExperts.com, DisasterAvoidanceExperts.com, where I help people address cognitive biases, these mental blind spots in professional settings, in their relationships and other areas. Also, you might especially want to check out DisasterAvoidanceExperts.com/subscribe for an eight video based module course on how to make the wisest decisions in your relationships and other life areas. And finally, I’m pretty active on LinkedIn. Happy to answer questions. Dr. Gleb Tsipursky on LinkedIn. G L E B T S I P U R S K Y.

Gabe Howard: Thank you, Dr. Tispursky. And listen up, everybody. Here’s what we need from you. If you like the show, please rate, subscribe, and review. Use your words and tell people why you like it. Share us on social media and once again, in the little description, don’t just tell people that you listen to the show. Tell them why you listen to this show. Remember, we have our own Facebook group at PsychCentral.com/FBShow. That will take you right there. And you can get one week of free, convenient, affordable, private online counseling anytime, anywhere, simply by visiting BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral. And we will see everybody next week.

Announcer: You’ve been listening to The Psych Central Podcast. Want your audience to be wowed at your next event? Feature an appearance and LIVE RECORDING of the Psych Central Podcast right from your stage! For more details, or to book an event, please email us at show@psychcentral.com. Previous episodes can be found at PsychCentral.com/Show or on your favorite podcast player. Psych Central is the internet’s oldest and largest independent mental health website run by mental health professionals. Overseen by Dr. John Grohol, Psych Central offers trusted resources and quizzes to help answer your questions about mental health, personality, psychotherapy, and more. Please visit us today at PsychCentral.com.  To learn more about our host, Gabe Howard, please visit his website at gabehoward.com. Thank you for listening and please share with your friends, family, and followers.

  Podcast: Your Gut Instinct is Bad For Your Relationships syndicated from

[vthiker09]

Have You Tried?

There are two aspects of being gimpy you can’t really prepare for.  The first, is the level of visibility you of all of sudden gain.  We are all visible in the sense that when we move around the world, people acknowledge our physical presence.  People will say “hi,” hold doors open, move if you’re about to bump into them, etc. Clearly, how you are acknowledged by the world differs based on your gender, race, physical appearance, among other characteristics.  At the same time, the world knows you’re there.  When you are gimpy, the world not only knows you’re there, but you suddenly move through the world with what will feel like huge blinking lights attached to your body and a sign which reads “ask me what happened and give me advice.” 

Before I hurt myself I was not a homebody.  Since I work from home, I spent quite a bit of time purposefully leaving the house.  The Oatmeal has a great series of comics focused on people who work from home.  They always start with well adjusted human beings degrading down to a sloth like figure who can barely speak English.  All comedy is based on some level of truth and if you work from home, you do in fact have to try a little harder to not become the sloth like figure in the comic.  At the same time, I would not call myself a “people person.”  Much like every other Vermonter, I like the woods better than most people and if you aren’t one the of twenty or so people I truly enjoy, I don’t feel a strong need to talk to you.

After I hurt myself, I became a home body.  This became my truth for several reasons.  First, the world is not gimpy friendly.  There are entirely too many doors, stairs, uneven surfaces and not enough pillows, couches, and ice packs.  Besides the practical difficulties being gimpy poses, there is another piece which I found much more challenging: how people choose to help.  In one very crappy step, I had become much more visible than I ever wanted to be and people wanted to help me.   At first, going out in public was something I just didn’t want to do.  I quickly realized the way in which I moved through the world was no longer really up to me.  My neon lights and sign, which were physically represented by my crutches and cast, all of sudden became an open invitation for people to stare and help me.

By surgery number four I became more comfortable with the attention, but at first I hated it.  I really truly hated it.  I hated it because I wasn’t happy about my reality and it seemed when I tried to manage the outside world, it was the only aspect of my existence people wanted to focus on.  All of sudden, people who before my injury would pretty much ignore me, wanted to know exactly what happened, how my healing was going, and were ALWAYS there to offer advice.  It didn’t matter who I was with, where I went, or what I was doing, my gimpy status had broken down the stranger danger walls and everyone wanted to talk to me.

Beyond 100% strangers becoming involved in my medical care and general well being, there were my friends, family, co-workers, and the 650 or so friends I’ve collected on social media over the years.  The visibility piece of being gimpy was instantaneous.  The second and much more prevalent behavior I’ve experienced from my human counterparts came a little bit later.  I began to notice as folks asked me “how are you?!?,” if the answer was not “great! I’m so okay,”  the response went something like this:

“Insert some sort of that sucks or I’m sorry statement paired with have you tried?”

All of sudden, I had a couple hundred sources of medical information at my disposal and if I’m to be 100% honest - it was awful.  My situation is unique because I have struggled for a long time.  It’s not unique because I’m not alone and I know there are a pile of people who break bones and heal without surgery and certainty not four of them.  Thus, I had the pleasure of the advice waterfall for much longer and it only gets more powerful the more you struggle.

At first, it was little things about how someone’s relative, friend, co-worker, mail person, etc. had used ergonomic crutches, walking stands, scooters or some other mobility enhancer to make moving a little bit less awful.  This advice was mostly unsolicited based on the sole length of time I was going to be on crutches.  At first, I had zero interest in bettering my mobility.  I had rules about the number of hours my leg needed to be above my heart, I felt awful, and my life didn’t require me to move all that much.  After surgery three, I would finally give in to the scooter because it made carrying objects easier.  The scooter, however, really had little to do with mobility and more with my mental health and a need to have some false sense of independence.  

The advice waterfall really started to pour after my first surgery and when I began to realize PT was not working for me.  What I quickly realized was I couldn’t talk to people, about how I was struggling, without them offering something which a) I had already tried or thought about trying and b) they thought would “fix me.”  With a few exceptions, it really didn’t matter who it was - if I was honest about how things weren’t 100% great, they were there to fix it.

We’ve all had less than great circumstances where we go to people and vent.  In its essence, it’s a very basic human behavior.  Something sucky or awful happens and you want to talk about it.  In most situations, people will respond with some level of “I’m sorry you are struggling.”  Clearly, the level of empathy will vary based on if it’s your local coffee shop got your order wrong to a family member passed away.  At the same time, you don’t often hear “I’m sorry for your loss - have you tried yoga?  My friend lost their mother last year and without yoga, I’m not sure where they’d be today.”  You don’t hear this because, over time, people have learned there are some things you just can’t fix for people.  More traditionally understood forms of trauma are universally understood as areas you a) aren’t qualified to fix and b) it’s not socially acceptable to try.  When was the last time you told someone who experienced sexual violence about the potential benefits of meditation?

Medical conditions, on the other hand, do not hold the same level of hands off awareness as their emotionally fueled trauma counterparts.  Medical conditions are seen as black and white - I broke a bone and blew apart basically everything in my ankle and this can be fixed.  Medical conditions also fall in the highly contentious world of people in camp traditional medicine vs. people in camp alternative forms of medicine.  When you mix something other people view as “fixable,” with something people have so many opinions about - you get an overwhelming amount of advice. 

In order, these are the top ten “fixes” people have suggested to me over the last twenty months:

1. Yoga  2. Acupuncture 3. Second or Third Opinions 4. Where to Seek Medical Care 5. Chiropractors 6. Alternative Mobility Devices or Braces 7.Marijuana 8. Essential Oils 9. Exercise 10. Vitamins or other “Health Foods.” 

If I am to be honest, many of these I did end up trying.  I got a second and third opinion, I ended up seeking care from a provider who was recommended to me by my parents, I used a scooter, I tried smoking weed and edibles, I went to a Chiropractor, I have every useful essential oil for my problems, I workout probably too much, and health foods are my jam.  At the same time, minus the provider recommendation, I didn’t do any of the above because someone told me to.  I did them because I have access to all the same information about their potential benefits the rest of world does and in most cases - one of my medical providers thought they would help.  That’s right - the people who I most often actually listened to were my medical providers.  You know why? because they went to school for a wicked long time and in theory, knew how to actually fix me.

I know people offer advice because they care about me and want me to get better and back to the activities I continue to truly miss.  I know it comes from a good place.  At the same time, this is what I have to offer when it comes to offering advice to someone with a medical condition:

1. You are not a doctor.  Even my PT’s, who are much more highly qualified to try to fix me, often times were reluctant to try to diagnosis what was going on or offer how to fix the problem, because they knew they weren’t qualified to fix me.  Yes - medical issues are very black and white.  Certain bones go in certain places and how tendons and ligaments should look and function is widely understood by the medial community.  At the same time, how to fix said problems can be complicated and they don’t let people even try until they’ve proved over and over and over they can actually do it.  This is why we all aren’t surgeons.  Remember - I had to go to three surgeons before I found someone who could actually fix me and these are the people who are qualified.  Yoga wasn’t going to do the trick - trust me.

2. This part is more important and if I can impart anything as part of my blog escapades it’s this: becoming ill or getting hurt is traumatic.  Without going into the less than pleasant details: I’ve experienced trauma in the truest sense of the word.  When I reflect on how I reacted to those experiences, how long it took to move past them, and what will never be the same - I have experienced all the same emotions, struggles, and non-physical pain as I did in those other situations, since I’ve been hurt.  I have cried so many times.  I have had panic attacks.  I have lost hope, become situationally depressed,  have thought about reverting back to less than helpful coping mechanisms, and have thought about hurting myself.  There were more times than I would like to admit, I thought it would be easier if I wasn’t around because things weren’t going to get better.

Yes - I broke my leg and damaged a pile of ligaments and tendons.  I also almost died on a side of a mountain, loss all my freedom, had to learn and adapt so much just to complete basic tasks, have basically had an identity crisis because many of things which were “Erin,”  I couldn’t do and still can’t do, and there were times when I didn’t know if life ever would be the same.  

Just like all those times when I went to people because I was struggling with how to cope with life situations, I went to people because I was struggling emotionally.  I didn’t need people to fix me.  I needed people to listen.  I cannot emphasize this enough - I needed people to listen.  I needed them to say “that sucks - what can I do to help?”  or just sit with me and pretend I was the same “Erin” they were friends with before I got hurt.  Granted there were people in my life who did this and those people I will be forever thankful to.  At the same time, there were too many people there offering yoga, who didn’t seem willing to listen about how I had cried myself to sleep for the 200th time.

3. If we think about what the difference is between more traditionally understood forms of trauma and medical conditions is - it’s visibility.  If you get mugged at gun point - you get to choose who knows.  You seek support from those you know will provide you with what you need and you will leave everyone else in the dark.  When you’re sick or hurt - there’s no hiding.  Everyone becomes involved in your trauma and what they have to offer isn’t always what you need.  This doesn’t mean they are bad people or they are trying to hurt you, it just means the net is bigger and because they aren’t bad people, they will ask you how you are.  I found it helpful, over time, to be careful about what I shared and with who.  There became a time when I couldn’t emotionally cope with the suggestion waterfall and the only way to stop it, was to say things were “okay.”  When I started to do this, I felt more in control when it came to who knew what and the support I did get.  I found this helpful because my main supports were strong and I found comfort in less high quality help. 

4. Unless solicited: don’t offer advice to someone who is sick or hurt. It’s overwhelming and 99.5% of the time, it’s not the real answer.   Just like your friend who just broke up with their significant other, your sick or hurt friend needs you to be there for them and they like Ben and Jerry’s just as much.  Your emotional support will be more appreciated than your desire to fix them because in reality - you cannot fix a person with a complex medical condition.  I know this may feel uncomfortable because we care about one another and want life to be, in general, “good.”  At the same time, it is more helpful to meet the sick or hurt person where they’re at and all you need to say is “I’m sorry and how can I help?”  I promise you this is so much more helpful than acupuncture ever will be.