What scripts do you refer to? What alerts you that you're hearing a tape?
The familiarity of the words. The fact that, like Aimee says, if I stop a moment, I realize I'm stressed or tired or upset.
Turning them off usually requires really unhealthy behavior, like ignoring them and distracting myself with a book or the Internet or TV, and usually comfort food and additional cigarettes. And talking to Stephen, which is not unhealthy, but doesn't always help because I have this *other* tape that tells me The People Who Love You Don't Know What They're Talking About, and Will Say Anything to Make You Feel Better.
Okay, now I think I have to go back to therapy.
Turning them off usually requires really unhealthy behavior, like ignoring them and distracting myself with a book or the Internet or TV, and usually comfort food and additional cigarettes.
This isn't unhealthy...well, except for the cigarettes :). Distraction is a well-known effective skill.
I have three therapists! Almost as many as vw!!
t wink and smooch
Signs you are addicted to caffiene: Taking a shot of coffee with a Diet Coke chaser
So, back in the land of cognitive therapy. What methods do folks use to turn off their tapes?
My therapist keeps telling me that when I am thinking these things, I am not taking in all availible information, so I try to concentrate on reasons why the tape is not true. As far as realizing I am playing the tape, I am usually having at least a mini meltdown before I realize what I am doing. I am still working on that part.
I've gotten as far as making the cannellini bean dip and realized that I am out of plastic wrap. Back out into the real world.
How do you get beyond it?
Gin? Ativan?
I. Love. vw.
I've gotten as far as making the cannellini bean dip and realized that I am out of plastic wrap.
Huh. I stopped putting plastic wrap in my cannellini bean dip when the party guests started choking on it....
Huh. I stopped putting plastic wrap in my cannellini bean dip when the party guests started choking on it....
Bwah! I needed that laugh. I need the plastic wrap to put over the pretty antipasto platter I am making so I can put it in the fridge and start on the bolognese. I can't leave it in the container it came in because I am making it myself, otherwsise I totally would.
What methods do folks use to turn off their tapes? What scripts do you refer to? What alerts you that you're hearing a tape? How do you get beyond it?
When I wonder if I did the right thing in marrying Hubby, I picture life without him--especially in light of who I was when I married him. I became stronger and more confident because of Hubby, so in the scales of truth I'm probably ahead of the game.
I know I'm hearing a tape because my thoughts make me unhappy. Normally I get on quite well with myself. I know the identities of the mind creatures that try to sabotage me, so I'm able to look them in the "eye" and say "You're full of crap and we both know it."
The cast of characters:
The Puritan Caucus--a group of men in old-fashioned dress, behind a table. They think what I write is utterly unworthy of my talents--if I have any--and upbringing. I countered them with the feedback from lovely strangers, and they have subsided to muttering about the inappropriateness of slash. They occassionally have good ideas and primarily want courtesy paid to them.
Otis--the old man sitting in front of the feedstore and spitting tobacco juice more or less into a can. He tells filthy jokes and makes me laugh when he's not embarassing me with the truth.
But then there's Otis' sister, Martha, AKA The Old Woman Who Hates Me. She I've fought with most. She's always watching, always judging, always finding fault. She wears a long black dress with a thin white linen collar, and she sits stiffly upright in a hard chair with a large black purse on her lap. Nothing I've done with most of my life has pleased her, and she's taken glee in telling me how I've wasted myself and my potential. I keep an eye on her, because if I don't watch her, she slinks off into the corners and stabs me in the back.
I believe I finally beat her when I asked her for help, because I need that rock-certain stubbornness to cope with the eternal surgeries and illnesses of Hubby. She's not certain how to cope with me as a grown-up, and I don't trust her, but for now some of awful hate is gone from her eyes.
It may be odd to populate my neuroses with names and personalities, but it's cheaper than a guy with a doctorate.
When I start the tapes my therapist told me first to get out of the tape loop and to just let myself have the feeling I am having right that moment. The tapes are a way we develop while growing up of dealing with scary feelings, but they keep us away from the feelings themselves. Feelings, even the worst of them, are transitory. If one just goes, "I am lonely. I feel lonely right now." and acknowledges the feeling, that will pass faster than starting the "No one will ever love me. I'll die alone." loop, which can go on and on and keep reinforcing the feeling. I try to do something positive when I get in a loop, because I have learned that eating a ton of M&Ms helps while I am eating them, but is followed by feeling even worse. Of course, I didn't learn this until my 40s, so the rest of you have plenty of time....
