YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

Hi friends. I hope you are all doing well.

I can remember things in short-term memory, but when I’m reading from my phone or my beloved romance novels (I ran out of Amish ones!) I’ll have to re-read the last paragraph; not much is sticking.

My sleep is all messed up (surely I’m not alone with that), and not getting much sunshine (ditto). And we’re living through a complex, society-wide trauma which may cause this.

Anyone else experiencing this?

Am I losing it?

Brain fog sounds like it might be disrupted sleep. Also your body wants to work (if only out of habit) and the phone on it’s own isn’t giving the sufficient impetus to focus.

Eat, sleep, rest, breathe

Shaving is optional.

Can I also make some suggestions, take ‘em or leave ‘em?

I recommend sourcing a cheap or secondhand camera tripod, if you’re going to spend any amount of time on your phone? It will reduce static muscle loading. It will also allow your hands to be free to do other things; eat, take notes, fold clothes, Rubik’s cube etc. Get one of those little grips that holds your phone and screws into the top of the tripod.

You can also use it to position your phone so that you can lie down and angle the screen so your posture and eyes aren’t compromised. Position the device so you can rest your elbow without having to lift it to reach the screen. I’m doing it right now.

When your hands are free an activity I can recommend is soup can exercise. Google it. It’s a winner.

Thank you, Beany Boo. I took your advice and certainly feel better.

Through a moderate amount of discipline I was able to claw back my wake up time from 3 pm to 11 am.

This was immensely helped by cutting down on my screen time: I got some paperback books to read. This cut down on me holding my phone for 12+ hours a day (thanks for telling me about static muscle loading). I understand that screens activate our fight or flight response, and that we should not look at screens for at least an hour before going to bed.

I'm not sure I am totally "normal" (especially this is the first global pandemic I've lived through), but I am certain your advice helped me.

Your responses certainly read as normal. This is a beginning. When you have setbacks, take a breath and then keep paddling. In some ways you’re actually in a better place than you might have been. This is a growth phase. It’s important to be cautious and conservative about the uncertainty but, there might also be opportunities available to you now that weren’t there a few months ago.

At least that’s what I think.

Keep paddling.

I've been thinking about this since you posted it, Oak. How do I feel? Not my usual self, for sure. I'm foggy in some of the regular life stuff, yet the Observer part of my brain seems very active. I've been able to look at my behaviour in ways that feel clearer, or at least more reflective. Specifically, I've been able to look at two aspects of my behaviour, one that I was afraid to look at, one that seemed too big to approach. Specifically:

-What narcissistic traits do I have as the result of being raised by someone with narcissistic traits? When I first read this question in a book, I reacted with such fury that I knew there was something to look at there. I seem to have the distance and compassion right now to look at the situations where I was more initially concerned about, for instance, the fact that someone hadn't told me they were sick (I thought we were friends! Why wouldn't they tell me!) than concern for their welfare.

-Attempting to drop my adaptive behaviour of poker face/low expression of emotion/blend into the scenery. This kept me safe as a child when it was better to be invisible. I've been much better at letting some of my inward out, using the modelling of my therapist's behaviour. It's starting to feel natural now. People want to be liked, apparently /s. Beany Boo, I'm adapting the phrase you gave us in another thread, you are not essential to my survival, for my own brain, you are not essential to my existence. (I have probably not remembered it exactly). Because while my survival was certainly at stake, there was an implicit request from both my parents to simply not exist that I internalized.

Hope everyone is doing okay. You have all been so important to me through these last couple of years.
Heather

Okay, this is my experience;

People are less concerned about whether you’re a good person or not, and more about how well you negotiate the emotional distance/closeness between you and them.

You don’t have to continue not existing just to get your parents attention. It takes a lot of work to stay invisible.

People need to see that if they lose control in front of you that you’ll be okay. Pretending everything is okay doesn’t do that. At the same time, you can’t force it.

I have lived a life of invisibility. I know no other way to be.
I understand that feeling of anger at the realization that one may have the same narcissism that we dislike in others. For me, it was a learning thing to even accept that my parents were narcissists. I have always just seen all humans as serving their own self interests, so saw my parents the same way. It has been only in the last few years that I have any understanding what narcissism is. The realization that I may too have some of these traits is hurtful. I cannot objectively evaluate how much of a narcissist I am, but like you the anger I felt at the idea is probably proof that there is something there.

@Heather, BeanyBoo, and BrownBlob: Thank you very much for replies. Sorry for not replying sooner; these are difficult times!

And Heather, soon I might have a post about fury, or "fury". My example, I was "furious" at Jenny in the film "Forrest Gump", until the day I realized that *I am Jenny*. I had to learn to love, and that character has more of me in her than I was willing to admit. Maybe that is what made me "furious". I'd love to hear your thoughts on the "fury" the book you mentioned elicited in you!

In general, friends, the brain fog has lifted, and I am getting my blood back.

Strangely, I can't remember hardly anything from those two months of grief.

I'm glad to hear you are doing better. I always liked Forest Gump. A movie where good triumphs over intelligence. I always related more to Forest. I feel clueless and like I don't fit in wandering through life. I also relate to Lt Dan. A man who was completely committed to this straight path in life and then the road ended and he had to deal with and accept a new reality.