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DaneClark
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07 Feb 2017, 10:07 am

I have been preparing a self analysis of myself that I've been wating to give to a psychotherapist, but I won't be able to see her for a while. But I think I've come up with the most coherent draft of it that I'll ever be able to come up with, so I'd thought I'd post it here and see if anyone could give me some advice on how to make it through the next couple if months

"FINAL

I am a 31 year old male with aspergers and ocd. I have been suffering from some kind of derealization or something for more than 6 years now.

I think whatever caused it is related to a bunch of vitamins I was taking to treat my autism. I began taking these vitamins around March or April of 2010. At that time my OCD had been a bit worse than usual for about half a year, although some of my habits weren't quite as bad as they had been before. This worse-than-usual OCS made everything feel EXTREMLEY rigid but some of the things it involved were things that I still dont want to not care about.Then, in January 2011 (about two months before my 25th birthday), I suddenly lost that intense, hypersensitive, black-or-white world. I really really want it back because it helped me function and made things feel like they had meaning. I really really miss having all of my plans and expectations for the future set in stone down to the most subtle little details. This was also around the same time that my sense of confirmation bias was completely destroyed because my brain learned to deconstruct and second guess things.

Not long after I lost the "black or white", something really really bad happened to my brains ability to "ground" abstract data. Because of the way my brain can't stop over analyzing things, fixing it is going to be like finding a bunch of needles hidden in haystacks that are always dividing themselves by zero and with no reliable way of knowing if you found what you're looking for because I'm trying to do things that are very specific and extremly esoteric, and alot of it involves very personal stuff I don't want to talk about. The only words I can use to describe it are: Lots of chaos involving false vacuums that can NEVER be fixed the way I really really want it to be fixed while my brain tries to prune everything it possibly can. If you're wondering what a false vacuum is, it's a quantum physics term that is the only thing that even remotely resembles what im trying to describe. Having old vacuums be destroyed causes problems, having new vacuums be created causes problrms, and everything in between, and in many of these cases weather it's a good thing or a bad thing doesn't even have an answer answer yet it still causes problems. and most false vacuums that are less than 6 years old feel very hard to use and may not even be false vacuums like other things are. I also think that some of the updates I made to my plans for the future could be incompatible with the world I'm trying to get back, but I really dont want to change them back. And even though I'm never going to be able to fix it the way I really want to fix it, I refuse to give up until I can fix it absolutely the way I want to fix it even if that doesn't make sense. And exactly what the way I really want to fix it is involves lots of specific little details that I can't tell you about, and it also involves lots of things that are probably very unorthodox or something but that doesn't matter because they were working just fine before (or at least some of them were working just fine before, but they were probably still just as unorthodox). I also would like to point out that there is something very wrong with my sense of confirmation bias, it's like it cant make spontaneous changes to itself anymore or something. And I really dont like destroying false vacuums on purpose (except for some of the ones that destroyed ones I wanted to keep and maybe a few other ones, and some of the false vacuums I want to destroy will undoubtedly lead to some biases that I want to keep getting destroyed. Plus there are false vacuums where whether or not I want to destroy them feels like it has no answer) and I want some if the ones that were destroyed accidentally back. And false vacuums are always too rigid, slippery, and multistable to hold onto. There are also false vacuums that work best when they're not so "black or white" or something but I really want that type to be very rare. Also, what false vacuums I want to destroy and what ones I want to keep is determined by what is written down in the jargon I have saved in various files on the notepad app on my phone, doing it that way will cause lots of problems but I absolutely have to do it that way for reasons I can't explain. And doing it this way seems to push things into a place that is "so pure it's not pure anymore" or something. And there are other problems too, like having vacuums that are only supposed to exist temporarily when the whole concept of temporary vacuums isn't supposed to exist, or that the notes inside my phone contains lots of paradoxical information that all needs to be true.


I am aware that having the "black or white" back would mean having to face things that would be very painful for me, but my mind has the whole "ignorance is bliss" thing going on. Also, the precise location in my autobiographical memory where each of these problems techically begins could be off by months (some of these things could have even happened in stages) Lastly, in the past couple of months my brain has gotten really good at fixing things but it still wouldn't be able to fix things the way I really want and I can't afford to let it trick me into changing my mind, just know that by the time you read this (it was written in December and January) my brainwaves might make it look like everything is fixed, but I still can't fix it the way I really want to without your help."



the_phoenix
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07 Feb 2017, 10:10 am

It sounds like you might be overthinking thinking?

What do you spend your days doing?



Private Idaho
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07 Feb 2017, 11:06 am

I think your ocd is getting the best of you. It will be more helpful to your doctor if limit your statement to a description of your symptoms, and not what you believe are the causes.



DaneClark
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07 Feb 2017, 12:18 pm

There's just one little problem- not thinking about that stuff has a negative effect on my executive functioning skills



DaneClark
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07 Feb 2017, 2:05 pm

And because solving all this is the one thing I want more than anything else in the world



DaneClark
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08 Feb 2017, 12:13 pm

I know that I'm over thinking about thinking. The point is that I really really dont like what it did to me.

It would really really help if there was some kind of proper term for what I'm trying to describe, something that means "thinking too much about thinking but you really really cant stop because it involves things that have very deep personal value to you, made more complicated by the fact that you've been chemically lobotomized" If there is some kind of proper term for that I REALLY want to know what it is.



the_phoenix
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08 Feb 2017, 12:39 pm

Dane, I am praying for your healing.



DaneClark
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16 Feb 2017, 7:27 am

Has anyone else ever experienced anything like this?



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16 Feb 2017, 12:37 pm

I think to an extent you're struggling with existential questions. You're seeing the world as more complex and leaving the safety of the "black and white" world where everything was clear and certain. You may be maturing in your thinking and this could be a positive in the long run. Hang in there.



DaneClark
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17 Feb 2017, 10:08 am

I really really need things to be black and white, it's where all my religious and theological beliefs came from. I really dont like how confirmation bias can be destroyed simply by the idea that you used to perceive something differently.

Also:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absorption_(psychology)

Absorption was also very important to me, but it's all screwed up-my brain is permanately stuck with stuff that was never encoded correctly or should never have existed in the first place and everything in between . Further complicating things is the fact that one of the things my brain likes to do to absorb things is to "convert" things into stereotypes that match what things were like when I was a kid, if that makes any sense

having the future planned out to the last detail is just one of those things that absorption is all about.

If one were to study the Jargon on my phone they MIGHT be able to tell what my brain is trying to absorb and what the stuff that was never encoded correctly or shouldn't exist is - but the stuff on my phone is a bunch of very personal stuff that's for my eyes only, and even then, it all works in a way that can NEVER be fixed even when it seems like it can



DaneClark
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18 Feb 2017, 12:07 pm

DaneClark wrote:
I really really need things to be black and white, it's where all my religious and theological beliefs came from. I really dont like how confirmation bias can be destroyed simply by the idea that you used to perceive something differently.

Also:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absorption_(psychology)

Absorption was also very important to me, but it's all screwed up-my brain is permanately stuck with stuff that was never encoded correctly or should never have existed in the first place and everything in between . Further complicating things is the fact that one of the things my brain likes to do to absorb things is to "convert" things into stereotypes that match what things were like when I was a kid, if that makes any sense

having the future planned out to the last detail is just one of those things that absorption is all about.

If one were to study the Jargon on my phone they MIGHT be able to tell what my brain is trying to absorb and what the stuff that was never encoded correctly or shouldn't exist is - but the stuff on my phone is a bunch of very personal stuff that's for my eyes only, and even then, it all works in a way that can NEVER be fixed even when it seems like it can


This is the best explanation that I'm ever going to be able to give. Can anyone relate to this?



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18 Feb 2017, 1:20 pm

That seems a clear description OK, although it does not suggest an easy way out. I usually have a pretty good sense of direction, but if I've been driving around lost, I'm extremely prone to getting lost there again, following a memorized mistake.
Have you tried creating more archetypes? Instead of just "kitten" and "cat" there can be "juvenile cat" and then "blind kitten, small kitten, kitten, large kitten, small juvenile" - etc. This approximates to normal shading of meaning.

My counsellor sometimes hassles me over black-and-white thinking about people, but I'm reminded of a physical example. I was involved in a major house renovation, and near the end, was asked to make sure the house was secure. I went around to all the windows and doors in our work area, made a list of missing hardware, went to the store, and installed the lot. I was just standing outside thinking how well I'd done when someone else came out and locked all the keys inside. In a flash, I realized that I could still get in via the basement. People also have unseen possibilities all over.



DaneClark
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18 Feb 2017, 2:08 pm

Dear_one wrote:
That seems a clear description OK, although it does not suggest an easy way out. I usually have a pretty good sense of direction, but if I've been driving around lost, I'm extremely prone to getting lost there again, following a memorized mistake.
Have you tried creating more archetypes? Instead of just "kitten" and "cat" there can be "juvenile cat" and then "blind kitten, small kitten, kitten, large kitten, small juvenile" - etc. This approximates to normal shading of meaning.

My counsellor sometimes hassles me over black-and-white thinking about people, but I'm reminded of a physical example. I was involved in a major house renovation, and near the end, was asked to make sure the house was secure. I went around to all the windows and doors in our work area, made a list of missing hardware, went to the store, and installed the lot. I was just standing outside thinking how well I'd done when someone else came out and locked all the keys inside. In a flash, I realized that I could still get in via the basement. People also have unseen possibilities all over.


It sorta kinda feels like my brains ability to place things into multiple overlapping categories was damaged by synaptic pruning, but it also feels like that's just a tiny part of something much bigger that has no easy answers



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19 Feb 2017, 2:17 pm

Have you read "The Brain that Heals Itself" or anything else on Neuroplasticity? You might find your way out with a new insight for everyone. If nothing else, the case studies are interesting reading.



DaneClark
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23 Feb 2017, 12:13 pm

I'm stuck in a state where everything is always either too flexible or too rigid, often in ways that just aren't going to cut it, and there is absolutely nothing that neuroplasticity can do to fix this for reasons I really can't explain. The year 2011 contains reference points that involve the idea of trivial things not being the way I always thought they were, and I really want it to be as though those reference points never existed but it seems like that could be logically impossible. And there are lots of important biases that are just too disjointed to make any use of



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23 Feb 2017, 1:31 pm

Do you want help only if it does not involve change? Given that neuroplasticity is just the study of how the brain naturally re-organizes itself in response to problems, I can't see any other explanation of why that process can't help you.