What An Edgy Name

Thursday, Sept 28, 2023

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So. What’s with the edgy name for the blog?

Big spoiler alert for Oathbringer, book 3 of the Stormlight Archive.

I’ve been posting for a while now, and am pleasantly surprised that I have more than one reader. Welcome. Please excuse the predominantly gloomy atmosphere. I hope you find something useful or encouraging while you’re here.

The name of my blog ( youcanthavemypain.blogspot.com ) and the tagline I use both come from one of my favorite fantasy series, Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive.

In book 3, Oathbringer, one of the characters is wrestling with his past. Manipulated by an evil being, they did some horrible things. The same being later gives him an opportunity: to acknowledge that he was being controlled, made to do the unthinkable, and give his pain and suffering over. He would then be free of guilt. The pain would end, and he could move on. How could he have done any different, with a god pulling the strings behind the scenes, steering him into catastrophe after catastrophe.

Instead, the character says, “You. Cannot. Have. My. Pain.”

Sorry. Chills, every time.

The person making the offer asks, “What do you hope to gain, keeping this burden?”

The character answers, “Journey before destination. It cannot be a journey if it doesn’t have a beginning. I will take responsibility for what I have done. If I must fall, I will rise each time a better man.”

Now, I’m not guilty of the atrocities that this character had committed by any stretch of the imagination. Nor am I interested in self flagellation over my mistakes. That’s part of what I’m trying to accomplish, a more understanding and gentle approach to my own past. But what this quote means to me is facing the truth about the past - taking responsibility for your part in it - so that we can strive to be better. For ourselves, and the people we love.

Don’t push your responsibility onto someone else. Don’t stand back and say it wasn’t your fault. Sure, you may not be the only one in the wrong. It’s not healthy to shoulder blame for things you didn’t do. But don’t try to push it off on someone else, either.

We can’t grow unless we own our mistakes. We can’t move forward unless we know where we stand.

Now, if you read my first couple of blog posts, you’ll see that I was in a lot of pain. I grabbed the title of this blog because of that pain, and because I had hope that with time and hard work I would be able to 

Later in the book, the same character is thinking about his past, and how it is marred and ugly with mistakes. But he comes back to the same conclusion. “The most important step a man can take? It's not the first one, is it? It's the next one. Always the next step.”

The tagline is something else important to me. They are the oath of the first ideal for the knights radiant: “Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination.” They are surprising layers to those three lines that I am still unpacking. Maybe I’ll unpack them here.

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Life before death

Strength before weakness

Journey before destination

Emotional Content

Thursday, Sept 21, 2023

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It is always rewarding to see progress, no matter how small.

I recently picked up my kids for a short visitation. Pickup was 5:30 PM on Friday and drop-off was noon the next day. It’s not a lot of time, but I cherish it.

Something happened just as I was supposed to pick them up. It slammed my mood sideways, took over my thoughts, and threatened to ruin my time with the kids. They could tell I was in a bad mood, and they gave me the space and understanding that they shouldn’t HAVE to know how to give me.

Here’s the good part. I saw what was happening. I did a check in and did my best to change both my thoughts and my behavior. It wasn’t perfect, but I managed to savor the time I had with them. They responded to the change, and I think they recognized that I had swerved away from a potentially gloomy visit.

This is a small victory for me. But my kids know I am going to therapy and working on myself. I hope this example has planted seeds that will help them avoid the same problems in the future. A change in the system affects the whole system.

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In going over Mind Over Mood with my therapist, I shared with him a realization with him. I have told him story after story about life events that have affected me. He has even, on occasion, praised me for telling the stories in a way that doesn’t make me out to be a victim, or place blame on other people.

I mistook this praise as a sign that my storytelling was good. I hoped so, after all, since I am a writer. It turns out I had blind spots that I wasn’t aware of.

Go figure.

In doing the mood check-ins that I described in an earlier post, I kept uncovering moods that I hadn’t realized were part of the situations I’d been through. Sometimes these were subtle, easy to miss. Other times they were pretty massive, to the point where I was stunned that I had missed them at all.

Like humiliation.

I had described a massive event that I had gone through. One that left me shaken and off balance for some time. I had gone over everything in detail with my therapist, making sure that I was telling things as they were, to the best of my ability to do so, and leaving nothing important out. I knew there would be continual fallout from the experience for years to come, but I didn’t think I was leaving out anything so major as humiliation.

It wasn’t until I stopped to ask what my moods were during and after the event that I noticed that it was there. Frustration. Fear. Anger. And humiliation.

What my therapist told me struck me so hard that I stopped taking notes and just stared at my hand for some time. He said that I was very good at recounting the details of events that happened. I was like a journalist, or recounting a blow-by-blow in a movie. Nothing was left out.

Except emotion. 

My understanding of the situations I had been through lacked emotional content. A part of me was morbidly amused by this, because as a writer I know that storytelling without emotional content will bore the reader. Yet somehow, IN THERAPY, I had missed that crucial point.

He went on to say that in order to process emotions, I have to include them in my own story. They will linger, hidden behind things, polluting my thoughts and behavior unless I allow them to have a place in the narrative.

Somewhere along the way, I learned that telling THIS kind of story needed to be emotionless. I don’t know if it was out of a desire to be as correct as possible, without emotions clouding the facts. Or maybe my security reporting background steered my words, trying to make sure that I said only what happened, without putting opinion or feeling on the events - like an amateur journalist.

In therapy - especially emotionally-based or cognitive-behavioral therapy - that doesn’t work.

Well. What we’re good at can often hinder what we are bad at. It’s time for me to tell stories badly for a while, get it wrong, and flex that emotional content muscle until I get it right once more.

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What are my qualifications? None, except for my own experience and a desire to help. Going back to Doctor Who, “I am an idiot … passing through, helping out.” I hope my own struggle with my darkness can help you with yours, or understand the struggle of someone you love.

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Life before death

Strength before weakness

Journey before destination

Mood Check-Ins

Thursday, Sept 14, 2023

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Depression has crept back. For now it’s simply sitting with me, keeping me company. It’s making me nervous, wondering whether I’m going to get caught up in its grips again, and for how long. It’s like I just stepped out into the cold. I can feel the chill on my skin, but the cold has not yet seeped into my flesh and bone. Maybe there are things I can do to stave off the cold until I can get somewhere warm again. 

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Continuing where I left off with Mind Over Mood, I’ve been using what I learned about the relationship between my experiences (environment, situation, and life changes) and my mood. I have been taking up a practice of rating my own mood through the lens of specific situations, to get a better understanding of exactly what impact they have had on me.

As a reminder to myself, my internal workings (physical reaction, mood, thought, and behavior) and how they shape and are shaped by each other, and the external world.

What the book asks me to do is consider a situation, positive or negative, and describe it briefly with the W questions. Who am I with, where am I, what am I doing and what is happening, and when is it happening. I then identify the mood or moods I experienced as a result of that situation. Finally, assign a value to the mood from 0 to 100.

A nice example was being at home with my twins, relaxing on their bed on a weekend afternoon, watching shows. I felt loving (80) and content (70).

(I always feel weird assigning number values to sensations or emotions. What happens if I write 100, and then I feel something more intense? But that’s a me-problem that I’m working through.)

A silly negative example was driving myself and Spoofle (my partner) home after dropping Pogi (our youngest) off for the first day of the school year, heading down a busy intersection with traffic and construction early in the morning, and having someone try to drive across several lanes of traffic so they can get to the left hand turn lane. I was in their way, so they honked, gestured and shouted at me to move. I couldn’t even if I wanted to, so he continued to escalate his behavior. Eventually he pulled behind me, into the left hand turn lane, then up beside me. He leaned on his horn and made rude gestures at us. 

For my mood, I identified frustration (40), and calmness (60). I also discovered that I was being spiteful.

Interesting. I was surprised, not because I didn’t think I would be spiteful, but because I didn’t realize it was there until I took a careful look. My awareness had deepened, showing something about myself that I wasn’t sure I liked.

The idea behind these check-ins is for me to make it second nature to notice how the external world has an impact on my internal world, specifically my emotional state. It’s been less than a week, and I already catch myself taking mental notes that I hope will be helpful.

Specifically, I can see how tracking the who, what, when, and where of my moods will make it possible for me to structure things for success. If I am routinely in a bad mood when I am doing chores alone at 3 am, I should probably look at changing a number of those variables. Likewise, if I am feeling productive (is that a mood?) at 2 pm on a Saturday when everyone is busy with their own projects, I can use that to get stuff done.

However, even if I were a master situational architect, I wouldn’t be able to prevent all problems. So an important piece that I am anticipating in future chapters is changing the way I think about things when situations arise.

Lots of practice still to do, and lots more to learn. 

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What are my qualifications? None, except for my own experience and a desire to help. Going back to Doctor Who, “I am an idiot … passing through, helping out.” I hope my own struggle with my darkness can help you with yours, or understand the struggle of someone you love.

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Life before death

Strength before weakness

Journey before destination

A Change In the System

Thursday, Sep 07, 2023

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I’ve been very ill with a respiratory illness for a while now. It’s wreaking havoc on work, sleep, and daily function, and has comorbid interactions (fun!) with my diabetes. It sucks.

And yet I’m doing much better, mentally and emotionally. I always feel weird when people ask me how I am, because I tell them all the awful stuff happening with my body and then say I’m doing really well.

I guess it goes to show that you don’t have to feel well to do well.

Buckle up. This one’s a bit longer than normal. Also no proof-reading, so judge me if you will. But if I edit this, I won’t post it.

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As part of the work that I’m doing on myself, I’m reading Mind Over Mood (Dennis Greenberger, Christine A. Padesky). It focuses on cognitive-behavioral therapy approaches (CBT), and while I knew about them in theory, I haven’t really practiced it in my daily life. I’m still learning, so these are just my thoughts as I read.

The principles of CBT say that how we feel can be changed by the way we think, and the way we feel has an impact on everything else in our lives. 

Within us, there are four interconnected things: physical reactions, mood, behavior, and thoughts. Any change in one will influence the other three. A head cold will make me feel stuffy and gross, which puts me in a bad mood, which makes me grumpy, which makes me think things like, “I just can’t stand people”, “I’m disgusting”, and “No one wants to be near me.

On top of that, external forces have an impact on each of the four. These are the environment around you, the situations you are in, and life changes. Our environment is the place we live and the people that surround us. The situations are short term, like an argument, or long term, like a relationship or job. Life changes can be anything that alters the course of your life. It could be positive or negative, as small as meeting someone new, or as big as getting a new job, or the birth of a child.

A big life change, like divorce, illness, the death of a loved one, job loss, and so on, all have an impact on us. The impact can be on any or all of the four interconnected internal parts. And any change to one of those four will have an impact on the other three.

Years ago, I received a big blow to my health. I was diagnosed with type one diabetes, a life-altering condition that I will have for the rest of my life. This was a life change and a change in situation. My external reality had been altered drastically.

My physical reactions included all the side effects of high blood glucose. Headaches, thirst, hunger, tiredness, lack of focus, restlessness, etc. As my care plan developed, the reactions expanded to include the symptoms of low glucose, and all the physical reactions to daily insulin injections and blood glucose checks.

My mood changed, too. I became melancholic and gloomy, for obvious reasons. And to be honest, I was always afraid.

My behavior changed, as well. I became more cautious, avoiding certain activities and food because I feared a disastrous low glucose event. I began exercising less for the same reason, having experienced several frightening lows. This was a major change for someone who used to train martial arts several nights a week.

My thinking changed as well. “I am limited.” “I am fragile.” “I will die from this condition.”

Each of these things began to influence the others. My limiting thinking changed my mood, making me feel lesser than I used to be, fueling my depression. My exercise avoidance sabotaged my mood. My mood made me think less and less of myself. “I’m not a martial artist any more.” “I will never be healthy anymore.”

This is obviously an example of a major, negative life change and the way it devastated my interior life. It felt hopeless. It still does, sometimes.

But the problem - that a change in the system has an impact on the entire system - is also the solution. A positive change in the system will have a positive impact on the rest of the system.

I remembered, for example, that one of my heroes at the dojo I was a part of was type one diabetic as well. She was tough, fearsome, and no-nonsense. She was a force to be reckoned with. I trained alongside her for more than a decade, and NOT ONCE did she let her condition limit her potential. This helped me change my thinking.

I can enjoy my life, no matter what my life situation is. This changes my mood.

I can exercise, even a little. I can walk and swim and practice my martial arts. I can eat lots of good, tasty food that isn’t that bad for my condition (and occasionally have a treat.) This changes my behavior.

All of these positively affect my physical reactions. Over the years my diabetes has become easier to manage, although there are always challenges.

So there is hope. And it is hard work, especially when I’ve been immersed in a certain internal pattern, to correct my course.

Because while a change in the system can break down the entire system, it can also improve it as well.

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What are my qualifications? None, except for my own experience and a desire to help. Going back to Doctor Who, “I am an idiot … passing through, helping out.” I hope my own struggle with my darkness can help you with yours, or understand the struggle of someone you love.

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Life before death

Strength before weakness

Journey before destination