I mean, this idea sounds about right to me (in general terms) and has direct consequences for my life. I’m in such a conflict right now, so I’m very motivated to find a way to deal with it.
(In case that you’re addressing this in an upcoming post soon, feel free to ignore this comment until then.)
I’m currently facing opposition between two different personalities and their associated goals. Roughly speaking, one side has a very stable, mildly entertained, completely withdrawn lifestyle that takes over the whole day, and the other has fairly specific, time-intensive, but exciting ambitions and is seething with hatred over all the wasted potential and seeming incompetence and tyranny of the dominant slacker side. (I’m willing to be arbitrarily explicit, but don’t want to derail into my crap unasked.) The situation is quite similar to the heroin addict, though not yet as unstable. Either side makes it look to me and to others as if it were the victim, exactly as you describe.
The conflict is clearly causing me much suffering and is not a satisfactory state of affairs, but it’s not clear at all to me what I can do about it. Here’s a (probably incomplete) list of things I’ve unsuccessfully tried over the last years (please note that I’m compressing quite some time and am focusing directly on the conflict, so this sounds probably more intense than it really is):
Accept fully the desires of both sides as valid. They are not, strictly speaking, in conflict. I can totally imagine spending, say, working some hours on a long-term goal and some other hours relaxing, or maybe find ways to integrate them. This does nothing. Sure, I don’t hate myself for the conflict anymore, but it doesn’t resolve it and one side is still utterly dominant for months until the other violently takes over.
Try to trace exactly what the conflict is. This was specifically influenced by the Method of Levels and PCT, according to which there must be 2 (or more) control systems that attempt to control for contradictory reference values. I’ve spent plenty of hours on that, but can’t actually identify any direct conflict. I do not get a situation where I can feel both sides pulling in different directions. Rather, I get completely mind-wiped by one side, which takes over, conflict-free, then background suffering builds up, another mind-wipe, the other side rules. If I try to become aware of the background suffering, I just get a completely unfocused, unspecific build-up of pressure in my head and stomach that is intensely painful. I can concentrate on this for hours, but get no further insight or connection to anything whatsoever out of it. (I have found MoL-like analysis useful for other minor issues, though.)
Different kinds of meditation. Vipassana. Concentration. Noting. Chanting. Prayer. Trying to be aware of as many internal events as possible. Ditto external. Focusing on rest. All this leads either nowhere or gets the results described in 1) and 2).
Drugs. Anti-depressants, uppers, downers, psychedelics, dissociatives, omega 3, whatever. Some make it feel like I’m resolving something (particularly the entheogens), but nothing changes. I always walk away with “oh, that’s why I’m suffering, now I got it!” and a few days later, at most, it’s all back.
Contracts. I’ve set up multiple contracts with myself, trying to negotiate conditions that are getting closer to resolution, but they hold no power and after a few days I start abandoning them, regardless of how severe the contract was.
Finding out what “my purpose” or “my real values” are, by introspection and writing. I don’t even get fake results that seem convincing at first, like with the drugs. I have lots and lots of pages of psycho-analytical babble, though.
Using CBT and The Work to repair broken or harmful thoughts. Did absolutely nothing for me. Most of the time, I don’t even have thoughts. (This wasn’t always the case. When I first meditated at 15, I found it hard to sit for 5 minutes and not get overwhelmed by my thoughts. Now I go blank quite often and then get bored.) And the thoughts I found were mostly not about me (but about stuff I read, like what’s good about Python, or explaining to myself how spaced repetition works so that I don’t forget the explanation). The few worries I could dig out were not really responsive to the approach. If I try investigating my feelings using these techniques, I simply get no results. “What’s this anxiety about?”, “What does it predict?”, “Who would I be without it?”, all just gets a mental shrug and “don’t know / don’t care”. I might as well ask what an itch is “about” or “who I would be without it”.
Using operant conditioning, trivial inconveniences and similar “behaviorist” tools to get rid of one side or keep it in check. (I’ve tried this with both sides, at different times of course.) No results, except that I changed a few food preferences in the process. Essentially every single akrasia tactic described on LW fails me here.
Blatantly and totally picking sides, embracing one personality as the only true one. (Again, did this with each side eventually.) This lead me to actively harm the other, often destroying things, leaving associated communities, the like. Of course, I made my decision public and took full responsibility for the previous conflict and for the new direction I was going to take. This feels great for typically a few weeks (and can trigger quite a manic episode), but then the other side comes back, “willpower” gets drained and I descend into total apathy. There isn’t even active opposition anymore; both sides are perfectly willing to commit “suicide” by now and let the other side take over, as long as this damn suffering finally ends, but they don’t go anywhere.
Give up. I’ve sat down, stared at a wall and said to myself, “I’m tired of this bullshit and will do nothing anymore! I won’t influence anything, won’t want anything, prefer nothing, decide nothing, just sit here and stare at this wall. Whatever happens then, I don’t care.”. I spent a few hours more or less catatonic, then had some kind of peace for a few days, but the background suffering just builds up again and the anxiety, self-hate and pain come back, making it impossible to enjoy anything.
I hope this isn’t too incoherent or tl;dr, but I’m frustrated that this looks as if there should be some deep understanding and solution that would actually help me, not just a fancy idea that signals how cynical I am.
I am going to take the unflattering guess that your expectations for yourself are generally unrealistic, and that you are unwilling to face this fact. This is not a conscious thing but an emotional and subconscious expectation trained into you during childhood (possibly). Quite simply, hard work and small incremental gains are beneath you. Failures on inconsequential steps are unacceptable. If only a simple solution were found, the key would turn, and an uber-awesome-individual emerge.
Many of the subjects addressed on this very website are grandiose in nature. By involving yourself, the signal is that you can participate in them: research topics from the deepest corners of academia, immortality, fate of humanity, superior general problem solving on all subjects, etc. We flock to them because we recognize they are important, and we flatter ourselves to recognize they are important, and yet our contributions to them are negligible. Sure we can admit we are horrible at decision theory or quantum mechanics or any specific item, but there must be something that can be found that will demonstrate the grand plan that features us as the hero. Even failing at quantum mechanics is better than the guy that thinks it’s a magazine that sits next to Motor Trend in the garage lobby, right?
This is narcissism spectrum stuff and very ego syntotic. It’s my new hammer and everything looks like nails, so I can easily be wrong. The (unconscious) decision is ultimately between living in a false fantasy of grandeur or living in a real world where you are one of many: striving for marginal gains, and doomed to grow old and die.
The guy that wrote this is mostly describing himself, is controversial, and is substantially more screwed up than almost anyone, but tell me if it rings any bells. He goes on elsewhere to differentiate cerebral from physical varieties of narcissism. It’s a word that kind of needs tabooing, but the underlying symptom is vehement subconscious guarding of a false fantasy persona. We aren’t secretly Harry Potter.
I notice that you don’t mention other people in any of your solutions (except #9 where you are causing an attention fueling ruckus). Why not?
Appreciated. I follow Crocker’s Rules, so don’t hesitate to call out my bullshit.
Quite simply, hard work and small incremental gains are beneath you. Failures on inconsequential steps are unacceptable. If only a simple solution were found, the key would turn, and an uber-awesome-individual emerge.
That rings very true. Intellectually, I’ve learned over the last few years how wrong this attitude is and how crucial hard work is. Also, there were things I did work hard on, say programming or writing, but this ability has essentially disappeared by now and I’m unsure why, though it very well might be because I’m getting less attention nowadays. I’ll look into that.
Same goes for the link. The description is quite fitting.
Masochistic narcissists keep finding themselves in self-defeating circumstances which render success impossible—and “an objective assessment of their performance improbable” (Millon, 2000). They act carelessly, withdraw in mid-effort, are constantly fatigued, bored, or disaffected and thus passive-aggressively sabotage their lives. Their suffering is defiant and by “deciding to abort” they reassert their omnipotence.
The narcissist’s pronounced and public misery and self-pity are compensatory and “reinforce (his) self-esteem against overwhelming convictions of worthlessness” (Millon, 2000). His tribulations and anguish render him, in his eyes, unique, saintly, virtuous, righteous, resilient, and significant. They are, in other words, self-generated narcissistic supply.
This in particular gets an “Ouch! Yeah, I might be doing that, I guess… ”.
However, I notice my pattern of “Oh, that’s a cool idea, that must be it!”, but it doesn’t entail any actual improvement.
Thing is, I’m totally willing to accept that I’m fairly narcissistic and a “special snowflake”, but I realize that this is causing me suffering and is not a good self-image to have. Consciously, I see the value of small improvements and how disastrous and crappy my past approach is, so I’m interested in changing that. Whatever is causing the problem, I wanna get rid of it, not “merely” understand it.
I suspected (because of MoL) that I was only changing my personality on a very superficial level, but the unconscious need for specialness and attention was unaffected and just undid my changes every time. But trying to mentally access these unconscious needs or modifying them hasn’t worked out at all so far.
I have already given up hope of a silver bullet that will fix everything at once, but maybe I wasn’t nearly as thorough about giving up this fantasy as I should’ve been. I’ll try working on that.
I notice that you don’t mention other people in any of your solutions (except #9 where you are causing an attention fueling ruckus). Why not?
Because I’m not very social. I don’t find other people particularly interesting or helpful to be around, so I’m not. (This doesn’t include appreciating all their useful outputs, but only the people themselves.) I can enjoy spending time with friends (introvert style), but actually talking to people is very boring most of the time. (And I’m no exception here. I’m nowhere near the most interesting person in the world.)
I have tried talking about my problems / finding solutions with friends, but I found it to be ultimately useless or inefficient. (I can introspect much faster alone when I don’t have to explain myself all the time.) It’s the general psychotherapy problem. I end up with lots of “great insights”, even have fun, get some “deep emotions”, but it doesn’t actually change anything in the long run.
I was in this “narcissist mini-cycle” for many years. Many google searches and no luck. I can’t believe that I finally found someone who recognizes it. Thank you so much.
fwiw, what got me out of it was to attend a Zen temple for 3 months or so. This didn’t make me less narcissistic, but somehow gave me the stamina to actually achieve something that befit my inflated expectations, and now I just refer back to those achievements to quell my need for greatness. At least while I work on lowering my expectations.
Why work on lowering your expectations rather than working on improving your consistency of success? If you managed to actually satisfy your expectations once, that seems to suggest that they weren’t actually too high (unless the success was heavily luck based, but based on what you said it sounds like it wasn’t.)
Also, that article didn’t sound like it was describing narcissists (at least for the popular conception of the word “narcissist”). It more just sounded like it was describing everyone (everyone has a drive for social success) interspersed with describing unrelated pathologies, like lack of “stamina” to follow through on plans and trouble dealing with life events.
I’ve been dealing with intrusive self-hatred for some time, and it isn’t tied to anything as clear as your pattern, though it’s frequently set off by working on useful things.
Lately, I’ve made some progress—I found out that there seems to be a background fear that a particular bad thing would happen if I made my life better, and reassuring myself that things aren’t entangled that way helps tremendously. Reassuring myself is more will-oriented than just saying it’s a fact that things aren’t entangled the way I feared.
Sorry to not be more specific, but the details are both sufficiently personal that I don’t want to post about them (a sufficient reason for not posting) and sufficiently idiosyncratic that it might not do much good for other people in any case. I’m down to relatively ordinary procrastination rather than utter paralysis.
Have you tried addressing the hatred from the second personality as a separate issue? It’s not as though it has a useful motivating effect, and my experience is that self-hatred is distracting and debilitating to a much greater extent than other sorts of intrusive thought.
One thing that’s helped gradually is to find out something about a habitual pattern of muscle tension which is associated with self-hatred—in my case, it’s in my upper back and may be connected to reaching. Learning this wasn’t a quick fix, but it made a difference to get a little distance on the emotion rather than having it just come from nowhere.
Something which made a big difference was realizing that there’s a difference between an intrusive thought and the habit(?) of amplifying it. I can’t directly control whether a thought appears, but amplification seems to have a larger voluntary component. Some of the time, I can refrain from amplifying.
My hypothesis about amplifying is that a large part of it is a desire for a feeling of energy. This isn’t pathological in itself.
Have you tried anything body-oriented to defuse anxiety? I’m thinking about yoga or Alexander Technique or such. I think one of the things which has helped me is realizing that there’s more to me than the feelings of anxiety.
Have you tried addressing the hatred from the second personality as a separate issue? It’s not as though it has a useful motivating effect, and my experience is that self-hatred is distracting and debilitating to a much greater extent than other sorts of intrusive thought.
Yes. I’ve been able to (temporarily) reduce it, mostly through anti-depressants and acceptance-based techniques. At my most successful, I was happily apathetic and really enjoyed staring at a wall. Alternatively, exercise channels the aggression outward, but as I’m not trying to eventually punch someone in the face, it’s not helpful.
I’ve also tried paying attention to the amplification, which is how I originally noticed that this is happening in the first place. I saw from looking at my chat logs and similar data that I was going through fairly regular cycles of one side being dominant or the other, with a period of about 3 months. (I suspected being bipolar based on that, but I’m not particularly manic or get much of an emotional change, nor did any typical bipolar treatment do anything.)
Unfortunately, I can now totally see one side starting to take over, but not do anything about it. I can exert willpower to postpone it, but not for long.
Bipolar is something to think about even if you don’t see strong manic components. There is a spectrum for bipolar just as for autism. Those on the “lower” end of the spectrum mainly just have depression (and I notice you mentioned anti-depressants)… and low-grade manic symptoms can easily be mistaken for “just having a good day”—especially if you aren’t in many social situations and therefore don’t get a chance for other people to notice/tell you that you happen to be acting strangely (eg as though you’d had ten cups of coffee).
The very fact that you have an active personality and a passive personality… and regularly swing between them… is a big hint it may be what you’re looking for—just perhaps in a form you wouldn’t normally recognise.
You say that “typical bipolar treatment” did nothing… but of course—you may need an atypical treatment—and you won’t know unless you try.
I’d suggest going to see somebody that specialises in bipolar disorder, and have a long chat.
Might be nothing, but perhaps worth investigating a bit more.
OTOH, the surge of bipolar diagnoses, esp. self-diagnoses, suggests it’s overdiagnosed. How would you test? (This is a matter of some interest to me as well.)
Firstly by understanding that psychology is not physics—and there are no definitive tests. This is an area where probabilities are the way to go.
If a person complains of regular mood swings of a long period of time—where for three months they are in an intense depression, then for three months they are literally manic—crazy busy and euphoric, working like mad on crazy new projects and speaking at a million miles an hour.
That would be a high probability of being classic type 2 bipolar.
note that I picked the period of “three months” at random, mood-period is highly individual and can range from a year to a few weeks.
If the depressions are suicidal (ie has to go on suicide watch) and the manias are accompanied by delusions of grandeur, then the probability of type 1 is raised. This often results in being “sectioned” (ie, been taken to a mental health facility to recover)
I’ve never heard of a Type 1 bipolar that has not been sectioned at least once… and usually repeatedly.
Both of the above “types” are fairly easy to diagnose. You can’t miss those symptoms—though the patient themself may not recognise them for what they are. Mania (especially hypomania) “feels like” being happy and busy and efficient and on top of the world. Depression “feels like” the world really is shit and everything you do just isn’t worthwhile. It often takes an outside perspective to point out that actually—the world is no different from what it was last month.
However—neither of the above “types” sounds like what muflax has. I raised the possibility, because a) bipolar starts small and gets bigger as you get older (and muflax is not old enough yet to know for sure). and b) there is a third, less-severe type that may well be over-diagnosed because it’s more difficult to pick out from the background noise.
but if you’ve seen and spent time with a type 1 or 2 bipolar person—you recognise the symptoms. Mood swings that are like a rising/falling tide with a regular rhythm, what muflux reports sounds like what mild bipolar feels like from the inside: periods of depression-like symptoms (including apathy) followed by a period of crazy-busy, happy-to-do-lots of projects.
Obviously this is not a convincing diagnosis… it just raises the probability of it being so. and thus my recommendation to go see a professional who will have an outside perspective and is experienced enough to be able to tell whether it really is, or not.
I agree that the problem with self-diagnosis is extremely bad atm. That’s why a professional, outside opinion is a Good Idea.
Possibly you’d take a good selection of people whom health professionals have proposed may be suffering from bipolar disorder, and randomly select for patients to either be treated for bipolar disorder, or for doctors to pursue an alternate explanation for the victim’s symptoms (such as regular depression or attention deficit disorder—the latter of which has been proposed to be responsible for the vast majority of “bipolar disorder cases” in children). Although this is a pretty sketchy concept. The alternative is for the other group to not be treated at all, but the ethics thereof are even more questionable.
Moreover, by “not treated at all” you merely mean “not treated with specialized medication for bipolar disorder”. Throwing lots of stuff (talk therapy, catch-all medication, support groups, random tricks and environment changes) at the problem until one sticks can work. I’m also rather skeptical of professionals—they have experience, sometimes permission to prescribe stuff, but they don’t seem to be all that awesomer than, say, a specialized IRC channel.
I had considered this. Further evidence: I have an atypical reaction to coffee. I get sleepy, then really calm. I react to very small doses and don’t seem to build resistance (except to the anti-tiredness property). This is not unusual for manics and ADD folk. Both my parents drink coffee right before going to bed, to sleep better. (I don’t, normally. Sleep quality goes way up, but caffeine also disrupts it, so memory suffers.)
But going with “alright, I’m bipolar” is just a label. I’ve gone through enough of those already.
As far as I know, there’s no good bipolar treatment. Lithium might be useful for more major cases, but my general mood is fairly stable as is. Inspired by Seth Roberts, I experimented with morning faces, movement and sunlight. Light therapy seems to stabilize my depression (though it’s too early to tell; winter is coming). The other two do nothing.
Besides the stuff I already listened, I’m not aware of any other promising treatment. I have a fairly low opinion of therapists, so I haven’t made a great effort to check them out. I studied all plausible methods though, often with neat successes, but unfortunately only for different problems.
(Don’t take this as negative dismissal. It’s just that so far I haven’t been successful down this road. Right now, I suspect that working on the level of thought or mood is useless as that’s not were the issue is. I’m trying to escalate the problem now to get a better picture of what exactly isn’t working, so I’m actively seeking out boredom, pain, guilt and so on. That’s certainly an atypical approach. I don’t know if it is successful or sane, but when you can’t find a bug, it always helps to have more data about what input causes it break...)
But going with “alright, I’m bipolar” is just a label. I’ve gone through enough of those already.
As far as I know, there’s no good bipolar treatment. Lithium might be useful for more major cases, but my general mood is fairly stable as is.
It’s a possibility to keep an eye on in any case. How old are you? Anecdotally there’s a tendency for the cycling in untreated bipolar people increase in amplitude and frequency with time. If symptoms worsen, consider the following:
If I remember correctly, historically Lithium cuts suicide rates in diagnosed bipolar people by a factor of ten or so (can dig up a reference if you’d like).
There are of course other mood stabilizers that one can experiment with.
CBT, self-monitoring & being monitored by others can be used to recognize the onset of (hypo)manic episodes. This can be useful because one can then take tranquilizers and/or atypical anti-psychotics to reduce the severity of (hypo)manic episodes. This in turn tends to reduce the severity of subsequent depressive crashes.
Maintaining a regular sleep schedule with enough hours a night is thought to be important to maintaining (relative) emotional stability. Also, sleep deprivation can trigger (hypo)mania.
I’m 25. I noticed the cycling at about 17, though it started at 14, I guess. The worst period was at 20-21.
If symptoms worsen, consider the following: [...]
I will. Should I enter full-blown mania or depression, I’ll give lithium a try. I’ll see if I can get access to some other mood stabilizers until then.
Maintaining a regular sleep schedule with enough hours a night is thought to be important to maintaining (relative) emotional stability. Also, sleep deprivation can trigger (hypo)mania.
I have rather the opposite problem (even when manic). I sleep 8-9 hours on good days and often 11 or more. This seems unrelated to how depressed I am, nor does my sleep seem disrupted. I’ve slept lots and really deep for all my life. Sleep deprivation (and polyphasic sleep in general) absolutely triggers hypomania. I rarely use this intentionally to get stuff done before a deadline, but it’s really destabilizing for at least 1-2 weeks afterwards.
Interesting study since one of the hallmark symptoms of bipolar is a lack of sleep, and BDNF is lacking in bipolar individuals who are depressed. I think more research should be done to see if this therapy can throw someone into bipolar disorder.
A bothering trend in the psychiatric community, which is now being recognized by mental health professionals, is the overuse of labels without looking at the patient’s individual symptoms and tackling them accordingly. The lack of objective tests also gives rise to misdiagnosis, even for severe disorders such as bipolar, and is dangerously more common than people realize:
“According to Zimmerman’s study, the underdiagnosis of bipolar disorder is not the case. Rather, only 43 percent of those surveyed who were diagnosed with bipolar disorder actually match the criteria for the disorder.”
In addition, some important institutions in mental health realize the current mental health institution is broken and want to incorporate genetics, cognitive science, neuroimaging etc. to develop a new one. While far from perfect, this is a step towards the right direction and will bring us closer to an objective test of mental health.
At the moment, people are being diagnosed on an illness built on shaky grounds, and there is a good chance that professionals won’t even bother to consult those shaky grounds when diagnosing.
Nice! I picked up the same idea some years ago from a therapist who used short-term sleep deprivation to get someone too depressed to do anything at all enough into a manic state to begin real therapy. (Sorry, no citation.) I wonder how sustainable this is, though.
I’m 25. I noticed the cycling at about 17, though it started at 14, I guess. The worst period was at 20-21.
From the info that I’ve seen on bipolar… it really “gets into the swing” when you get to your late 20s and early 30s. Earlier than this and it can easily be mistaken for normal moods affected by outside forces.
Lithium is a treatment that does not work on everybody. It is, in fact, the oldest of the known treatments, and the newer treatments are different and work with different people.
I have a bipolar (type 2) family member—who went through lithium and two other treatments before settling on seroquel. The best use of a “therapist” in this case is somebody that has great experience with what drugs are appropriate and what level you should be taking them at. After all, it’s always possible that lithium is your drug, but you were using the wrong dosage...
As to the other forms of treatment you’ve mentioned. These are emphatically not treatments for bipolar disorder. They are treatments for seasonal affective disorder (ie lack of sufficient light during the darker months causing emotional imbalance). Bipolar mood-swings occur regardless of light-levels.
Very tentative suggestion: Your post made me wonder about the underlying assumption that personalities just heal if damaging effects are eliminated. I may be on a path like that, but that doesn’t mean it’s true in general. It’s possible that sometimes improvements need to built rather than allowed to happen.
I’m not sure you and I mean the same thing by “amplification”. I meant something like “you’re such a piece of shit” (addressed to me), and then I start repeating it to myself, mixing it with thoughts about how defective I am for having something like that in my mind. What did you mean?
When I think about your situation, it does seem that you have a rather different tangle than I do.
This is sufficiently different from my experience that I don’t think I can help you.
My experience is not of two equal and opposite “personalities”, but of some consciously held beliefs and goals that I’m more or less successful at living up to. Do you identify equally with both these “personalities”, or do you consciously support one of them and assume the other one exists because of your actions?
Do you identify equally with both these “personalities”, or do you consciously support one of them and assume the other one exists because of your actions?
They are both “me”. I have tried siding with one in the past, but that didn’t help and only made me miserable and depressed.
I’ve had similar “splits” before, but always managed to merge or drop them. I saw a thread on reddit recently that mentioned that many teenagers develop different personas to experiment with, most typically as an offline/online split. (I did too. I guess I’ve gone through about 5-6 personas during puberty.)They never really diverge much, however, and often get merged later. It’s just that for me, the fork stayed and I now have (accidentally?) two fully developed sides that, despite lots of overlap, want to work in quite different directions, and I can’t undo or integrate them, yet. Unfortunately, economic strategies like time sharing or voting don’t work at all (or I just suck at implementing them).
Have you tried involving other people in whatever you’re wanting to accomplish, and getting in the same room together and working on it next to one another? This seems to work really well in practice. (Very similar to a having a “job”.)
Generally speaking, yeah it helps. You’ll still have to face trivial inconveniences and so on, but it’s useful.
Problem is, I find it very hard to find people who a) I can comfortably share an environment with, b) are interested in the same things as me (individual topics, easy—multiple ones, hard) and c) are actually anywhere near me. This might be easier if I lived near a bigger city (working on that, though I found it very hard even at a large university in Berlin). I’m skeptical however, as most of my “role models” in the fields I’m interested in were on the hermit side of the social spectrum. It seems to me that learning all the necessary skills and attitude changes to become more social (and benefit from it) is itself a major project and I’ll be better off if I instead invest my resources directly in the stuff I want. I’m on the look-out for cheap experiments, though.
The best compromise I found is working on trains. For some reason, that works almost as well, nobody bothers me and it’s not deafening silent like a library.
That must be rough. I want to sympathize with you even though I don’t know what your experience is like phenomenally. You were not satisfied with the outcome of (1). Why? Is the “violent takeover” the only bad part? Or does each “side” suffer when it is not in control, even if the side that is in control is pursuing the goals of both sides? Or does each side not want to cede control, even if the usurping side will pursue the goals of both sides?
(I’m definitely speculating here, as I can’t reliably identify the source of the conflict.)
The violent takeover or switches aren’t themselves a problem, but rather the background suffering each side produces when it is not in control.
even if the side that is in control is pursuing the goals of both sides
And exactly that I can’t manage to do. Say, if I let each side plan the next 12 hours, I would get back “play video games, 12 hours” and “study / read about these topics, 1 hour each”. Now, there’s no direct conflict, so I should be able to split it, say “6 hours each”, or any other fraction. But that simply doesn’t work, as I will get direct negative feedback the moment I start and once the background suffering gets too big, I switch / get apathetic. This ruins both activities.
But whenever I notice that, it’s obvious to me that this is totally bullshit and getting any split would be so much better, which both sides seem to fully agree with, but once one side is in power, it forgets / ignores (dunno which) the whole deal and acts just as stupid as before. (I’m totally aware who inane this is and fascinated that I can notice it, but not stop myself from doing it.)
It sounds like you’re describing two problems: Both sides renege on compromises, and neither side will tolerate ceding control as part of a compromise.
If I were modeling your sides as two different people, I’d say their behavior is understandable because they have a history of noncooperation. If I were tasked with mediating between two people who don’t trust each other, I’d start with very low-stakes exercises.
A practitioner of IFS has told me that when they make a long-term plan that requires a subagent to sit dormant for a long while, they have to periodically perform small favors or gestures for the subagent in order to maintain the subagent’s trust.
So: Though your experience sounds different from mine, it sounds like at least one of your problems is the familiar problem of your selves not trusting each other.
If I were tasked with mediating between two people who don’t trust each other, I’d start with very low-stakes exercises.
I have previously attempted “small” deals, say planning ~1 hour/day and leaving the rest unmodified. I will try even smaller stakes, on the scale of minutes.
One problem is that I’m very well aware that this is a trap. I know that if I get working deals, I would immediately start escalating them. Hm, you might be unto something with regard to trust issues.
Ok, but then what?
I mean, this idea sounds about right to me (in general terms) and has direct consequences for my life. I’m in such a conflict right now, so I’m very motivated to find a way to deal with it.
(In case that you’re addressing this in an upcoming post soon, feel free to ignore this comment until then.)
I’m currently facing opposition between two different personalities and their associated goals. Roughly speaking, one side has a very stable, mildly entertained, completely withdrawn lifestyle that takes over the whole day, and the other has fairly specific, time-intensive, but exciting ambitions and is seething with hatred over all the wasted potential and seeming incompetence and tyranny of the dominant slacker side. (I’m willing to be arbitrarily explicit, but don’t want to derail into my crap unasked.) The situation is quite similar to the heroin addict, though not yet as unstable. Either side makes it look to me and to others as if it were the victim, exactly as you describe.
The conflict is clearly causing me much suffering and is not a satisfactory state of affairs, but it’s not clear at all to me what I can do about it. Here’s a (probably incomplete) list of things I’ve unsuccessfully tried over the last years (please note that I’m compressing quite some time and am focusing directly on the conflict, so this sounds probably more intense than it really is):
Accept fully the desires of both sides as valid. They are not, strictly speaking, in conflict. I can totally imagine spending, say, working some hours on a long-term goal and some other hours relaxing, or maybe find ways to integrate them. This does nothing. Sure, I don’t hate myself for the conflict anymore, but it doesn’t resolve it and one side is still utterly dominant for months until the other violently takes over.
Try to trace exactly what the conflict is. This was specifically influenced by the Method of Levels and PCT, according to which there must be 2 (or more) control systems that attempt to control for contradictory reference values. I’ve spent plenty of hours on that, but can’t actually identify any direct conflict. I do not get a situation where I can feel both sides pulling in different directions. Rather, I get completely mind-wiped by one side, which takes over, conflict-free, then background suffering builds up, another mind-wipe, the other side rules. If I try to become aware of the background suffering, I just get a completely unfocused, unspecific build-up of pressure in my head and stomach that is intensely painful. I can concentrate on this for hours, but get no further insight or connection to anything whatsoever out of it. (I have found MoL-like analysis useful for other minor issues, though.)
Different kinds of meditation. Vipassana. Concentration. Noting. Chanting. Prayer. Trying to be aware of as many internal events as possible. Ditto external. Focusing on rest. All this leads either nowhere or gets the results described in 1) and 2).
Drugs. Anti-depressants, uppers, downers, psychedelics, dissociatives, omega 3, whatever. Some make it feel like I’m resolving something (particularly the entheogens), but nothing changes. I always walk away with “oh, that’s why I’m suffering, now I got it!” and a few days later, at most, it’s all back.
Contracts. I’ve set up multiple contracts with myself, trying to negotiate conditions that are getting closer to resolution, but they hold no power and after a few days I start abandoning them, regardless of how severe the contract was.
Finding out what “my purpose” or “my real values” are, by introspection and writing. I don’t even get fake results that seem convincing at first, like with the drugs. I have lots and lots of pages of psycho-analytical babble, though.
Using CBT and The Work to repair broken or harmful thoughts. Did absolutely nothing for me. Most of the time, I don’t even have thoughts. (This wasn’t always the case. When I first meditated at 15, I found it hard to sit for 5 minutes and not get overwhelmed by my thoughts. Now I go blank quite often and then get bored.) And the thoughts I found were mostly not about me (but about stuff I read, like what’s good about Python, or explaining to myself how spaced repetition works so that I don’t forget the explanation). The few worries I could dig out were not really responsive to the approach. If I try investigating my feelings using these techniques, I simply get no results. “What’s this anxiety about?”, “What does it predict?”, “Who would I be without it?”, all just gets a mental shrug and “don’t know / don’t care”. I might as well ask what an itch is “about” or “who I would be without it”.
Using operant conditioning, trivial inconveniences and similar “behaviorist” tools to get rid of one side or keep it in check. (I’ve tried this with both sides, at different times of course.) No results, except that I changed a few food preferences in the process. Essentially every single akrasia tactic described on LW fails me here.
Blatantly and totally picking sides, embracing one personality as the only true one. (Again, did this with each side eventually.) This lead me to actively harm the other, often destroying things, leaving associated communities, the like. Of course, I made my decision public and took full responsibility for the previous conflict and for the new direction I was going to take. This feels great for typically a few weeks (and can trigger quite a manic episode), but then the other side comes back, “willpower” gets drained and I descend into total apathy. There isn’t even active opposition anymore; both sides are perfectly willing to commit “suicide” by now and let the other side take over, as long as this damn suffering finally ends, but they don’t go anywhere.
Give up. I’ve sat down, stared at a wall and said to myself, “I’m tired of this bullshit and will do nothing anymore! I won’t influence anything, won’t want anything, prefer nothing, decide nothing, just sit here and stare at this wall. Whatever happens then, I don’t care.”. I spent a few hours more or less catatonic, then had some kind of peace for a few days, but the background suffering just builds up again and the anxiety, self-hate and pain come back, making it impossible to enjoy anything.
I hope this isn’t too incoherent or tl;dr, but I’m frustrated that this looks as if there should be some deep understanding and solution that would actually help me, not just a fancy idea that signals how cynical I am.
I am going to take the unflattering guess that your expectations for yourself are generally unrealistic, and that you are unwilling to face this fact. This is not a conscious thing but an emotional and subconscious expectation trained into you during childhood (possibly). Quite simply, hard work and small incremental gains are beneath you. Failures on inconsequential steps are unacceptable. If only a simple solution were found, the key would turn, and an uber-awesome-individual emerge.
Many of the subjects addressed on this very website are grandiose in nature. By involving yourself, the signal is that you can participate in them: research topics from the deepest corners of academia, immortality, fate of humanity, superior general problem solving on all subjects, etc. We flock to them because we recognize they are important, and we flatter ourselves to recognize they are important, and yet our contributions to them are negligible. Sure we can admit we are horrible at decision theory or quantum mechanics or any specific item, but there must be something that can be found that will demonstrate the grand plan that features us as the hero. Even failing at quantum mechanics is better than the guy that thinks it’s a magazine that sits next to Motor Trend in the garage lobby, right?
This is narcissism spectrum stuff and very ego syntotic. It’s my new hammer and everything looks like nails, so I can easily be wrong. The (unconscious) decision is ultimately between living in a false fantasy of grandeur or living in a real world where you are one of many: striving for marginal gains, and doomed to grow old and die.
The guy that wrote this is mostly describing himself, is controversial, and is substantially more screwed up than almost anyone, but tell me if it rings any bells. He goes on elsewhere to differentiate cerebral from physical varieties of narcissism. It’s a word that kind of needs tabooing, but the underlying symptom is vehement subconscious guarding of a false fantasy persona. We aren’t secretly Harry Potter.
I notice that you don’t mention other people in any of your solutions (except #9 where you are causing an attention fueling ruckus). Why not?
Appreciated. I follow Crocker’s Rules, so don’t hesitate to call out my bullshit.
That rings very true. Intellectually, I’ve learned over the last few years how wrong this attitude is and how crucial hard work is. Also, there were things I did work hard on, say programming or writing, but this ability has essentially disappeared by now and I’m unsure why, though it very well might be because I’m getting less attention nowadays. I’ll look into that.
Same goes for the link. The description is quite fitting.
This in particular gets an “Ouch! Yeah, I might be doing that, I guess… ”.
However, I notice my pattern of “Oh, that’s a cool idea, that must be it!”, but it doesn’t entail any actual improvement.
Thing is, I’m totally willing to accept that I’m fairly narcissistic and a “special snowflake”, but I realize that this is causing me suffering and is not a good self-image to have. Consciously, I see the value of small improvements and how disastrous and crappy my past approach is, so I’m interested in changing that. Whatever is causing the problem, I wanna get rid of it, not “merely” understand it.
I suspected (because of MoL) that I was only changing my personality on a very superficial level, but the unconscious need for specialness and attention was unaffected and just undid my changes every time. But trying to mentally access these unconscious needs or modifying them hasn’t worked out at all so far.
I have already given up hope of a silver bullet that will fix everything at once, but maybe I wasn’t nearly as thorough about giving up this fantasy as I should’ve been. I’ll try working on that.
Because I’m not very social. I don’t find other people particularly interesting or helpful to be around, so I’m not. (This doesn’t include appreciating all their useful outputs, but only the people themselves.) I can enjoy spending time with friends (introvert style), but actually talking to people is very boring most of the time. (And I’m no exception here. I’m nowhere near the most interesting person in the world.)
I have tried talking about my problems / finding solutions with friends, but I found it to be ultimately useless or inefficient. (I can introspect much faster alone when I don’t have to explain myself all the time.) It’s the general psychotherapy problem. I end up with lots of “great insights”, even have fun, get some “deep emotions”, but it doesn’t actually change anything in the long run.
I was in this “narcissist mini-cycle” for many years. Many google searches and no luck. I can’t believe that I finally found someone who recognizes it. Thank you so much.
fwiw, what got me out of it was to attend a Zen temple for 3 months or so. This didn’t make me less narcissistic, but somehow gave me the stamina to actually achieve something that befit my inflated expectations, and now I just refer back to those achievements to quell my need for greatness. At least while I work on lowering my expectations.
Why work on lowering your expectations rather than working on improving your consistency of success? If you managed to actually satisfy your expectations once, that seems to suggest that they weren’t actually too high (unless the success was heavily luck based, but based on what you said it sounds like it wasn’t.)
Also, that article didn’t sound like it was describing narcissists (at least for the popular conception of the word “narcissist”). It more just sounded like it was describing everyone (everyone has a drive for social success) interspersed with describing unrelated pathologies, like lack of “stamina” to follow through on plans and trouble dealing with life events.
I’ve been dealing with intrusive self-hatred for some time, and it isn’t tied to anything as clear as your pattern, though it’s frequently set off by working on useful things.
Lately, I’ve made some progress—I found out that there seems to be a background fear that a particular bad thing would happen if I made my life better, and reassuring myself that things aren’t entangled that way helps tremendously. Reassuring myself is more will-oriented than just saying it’s a fact that things aren’t entangled the way I feared.
Sorry to not be more specific, but the details are both sufficiently personal that I don’t want to post about them (a sufficient reason for not posting) and sufficiently idiosyncratic that it might not do much good for other people in any case. I’m down to relatively ordinary procrastination rather than utter paralysis.
Have you tried addressing the hatred from the second personality as a separate issue? It’s not as though it has a useful motivating effect, and my experience is that self-hatred is distracting and debilitating to a much greater extent than other sorts of intrusive thought.
One thing that’s helped gradually is to find out something about a habitual pattern of muscle tension which is associated with self-hatred—in my case, it’s in my upper back and may be connected to reaching. Learning this wasn’t a quick fix, but it made a difference to get a little distance on the emotion rather than having it just come from nowhere.
Something which made a big difference was realizing that there’s a difference between an intrusive thought and the habit(?) of amplifying it. I can’t directly control whether a thought appears, but amplification seems to have a larger voluntary component. Some of the time, I can refrain from amplifying.
My hypothesis about amplifying is that a large part of it is a desire for a feeling of energy. This isn’t pathological in itself.
Have you tried anything body-oriented to defuse anxiety? I’m thinking about yoga or Alexander Technique or such. I think one of the things which has helped me is realizing that there’s more to me than the feelings of anxiety.
Yes. I’ve been able to (temporarily) reduce it, mostly through anti-depressants and acceptance-based techniques. At my most successful, I was happily apathetic and really enjoyed staring at a wall. Alternatively, exercise channels the aggression outward, but as I’m not trying to eventually punch someone in the face, it’s not helpful.
I’ve also tried paying attention to the amplification, which is how I originally noticed that this is happening in the first place. I saw from looking at my chat logs and similar data that I was going through fairly regular cycles of one side being dominant or the other, with a period of about 3 months. (I suspected being bipolar based on that, but I’m not particularly manic or get much of an emotional change, nor did any typical bipolar treatment do anything.)
Unfortunately, I can now totally see one side starting to take over, but not do anything about it. I can exert willpower to postpone it, but not for long.
Bipolar is something to think about even if you don’t see strong manic components. There is a spectrum for bipolar just as for autism. Those on the “lower” end of the spectrum mainly just have depression (and I notice you mentioned anti-depressants)… and low-grade manic symptoms can easily be mistaken for “just having a good day”—especially if you aren’t in many social situations and therefore don’t get a chance for other people to notice/tell you that you happen to be acting strangely (eg as though you’d had ten cups of coffee).
The very fact that you have an active personality and a passive personality… and regularly swing between them… is a big hint it may be what you’re looking for—just perhaps in a form you wouldn’t normally recognise.
You say that “typical bipolar treatment” did nothing… but of course—you may need an atypical treatment—and you won’t know unless you try.
I’d suggest going to see somebody that specialises in bipolar disorder, and have a long chat. Might be nothing, but perhaps worth investigating a bit more.
OTOH, the surge of bipolar diagnoses, esp. self-diagnoses, suggests it’s overdiagnosed. How would you test? (This is a matter of some interest to me as well.)
Firstly by understanding that psychology is not physics—and there are no definitive tests. This is an area where probabilities are the way to go.
If a person complains of regular mood swings of a long period of time—where for three months they are in an intense depression, then for three months they are literally manic—crazy busy and euphoric, working like mad on crazy new projects and speaking at a million miles an hour.
That would be a high probability of being classic type 2 bipolar. note that I picked the period of “three months” at random, mood-period is highly individual and can range from a year to a few weeks.
If the depressions are suicidal (ie has to go on suicide watch) and the manias are accompanied by delusions of grandeur, then the probability of type 1 is raised. This often results in being “sectioned” (ie, been taken to a mental health facility to recover)
I’ve never heard of a Type 1 bipolar that has not been sectioned at least once… and usually repeatedly.
Both of the above “types” are fairly easy to diagnose. You can’t miss those symptoms—though the patient themself may not recognise them for what they are. Mania (especially hypomania) “feels like” being happy and busy and efficient and on top of the world. Depression “feels like” the world really is shit and everything you do just isn’t worthwhile. It often takes an outside perspective to point out that actually—the world is no different from what it was last month.
However—neither of the above “types” sounds like what muflax has. I raised the possibility, because a) bipolar starts small and gets bigger as you get older (and muflax is not old enough yet to know for sure). and b) there is a third, less-severe type that may well be over-diagnosed because it’s more difficult to pick out from the background noise.
but if you’ve seen and spent time with a type 1 or 2 bipolar person—you recognise the symptoms. Mood swings that are like a rising/falling tide with a regular rhythm, what muflux reports sounds like what mild bipolar feels like from the inside: periods of depression-like symptoms (including apathy) followed by a period of crazy-busy, happy-to-do-lots of projects.
Obviously this is not a convincing diagnosis… it just raises the probability of it being so. and thus my recommendation to go see a professional who will have an outside perspective and is experienced enough to be able to tell whether it really is, or not.
I agree that the problem with self-diagnosis is extremely bad atm. That’s why a professional, outside opinion is a Good Idea.
Possibly you’d take a good selection of people whom health professionals have proposed may be suffering from bipolar disorder, and randomly select for patients to either be treated for bipolar disorder, or for doctors to pursue an alternate explanation for the victim’s symptoms (such as regular depression or attention deficit disorder—the latter of which has been proposed to be responsible for the vast majority of “bipolar disorder cases” in children). Although this is a pretty sketchy concept. The alternative is for the other group to not be treated at all, but the ethics thereof are even more questionable.
I take offense to “having control groups is unethical”.
Moreover, by “not treated at all” you merely mean “not treated with specialized medication for bipolar disorder”. Throwing lots of stuff (talk therapy, catch-all medication, support groups, random tricks and environment changes) at the problem until one sticks can work. I’m also rather skeptical of professionals—they have experience, sometimes permission to prescribe stuff, but they don’t seem to be all that awesomer than, say, a specialized IRC channel.
I had considered this. Further evidence: I have an atypical reaction to coffee. I get sleepy, then really calm. I react to very small doses and don’t seem to build resistance (except to the anti-tiredness property). This is not unusual for manics and ADD folk. Both my parents drink coffee right before going to bed, to sleep better. (I don’t, normally. Sleep quality goes way up, but caffeine also disrupts it, so memory suffers.)
But going with “alright, I’m bipolar” is just a label. I’ve gone through enough of those already.
As far as I know, there’s no good bipolar treatment. Lithium might be useful for more major cases, but my general mood is fairly stable as is. Inspired by Seth Roberts, I experimented with morning faces, movement and sunlight. Light therapy seems to stabilize my depression (though it’s too early to tell; winter is coming). The other two do nothing.
Besides the stuff I already listened, I’m not aware of any other promising treatment. I have a fairly low opinion of therapists, so I haven’t made a great effort to check them out. I studied all plausible methods though, often with neat successes, but unfortunately only for different problems.
(Don’t take this as negative dismissal. It’s just that so far I haven’t been successful down this road. Right now, I suspect that working on the level of thought or mood is useless as that’s not were the issue is. I’m trying to escalate the problem now to get a better picture of what exactly isn’t working, so I’m actively seeking out boredom, pain, guilt and so on. That’s certainly an atypical approach. I don’t know if it is successful or sane, but when you can’t find a bug, it always helps to have more data about what input causes it break...)
It’s a possibility to keep an eye on in any case. How old are you? Anecdotally there’s a tendency for the cycling in untreated bipolar people increase in amplitude and frequency with time. If symptoms worsen, consider the following:
If I remember correctly, historically Lithium cuts suicide rates in diagnosed bipolar people by a factor of ten or so (can dig up a reference if you’d like).
There are of course other mood stabilizers that one can experiment with.
CBT, self-monitoring & being monitored by others can be used to recognize the onset of (hypo)manic episodes. This can be useful because one can then take tranquilizers and/or atypical anti-psychotics to reduce the severity of (hypo)manic episodes. This in turn tends to reduce the severity of subsequent depressive crashes.
Maintaining a regular sleep schedule with enough hours a night is thought to be important to maintaining (relative) emotional stability. Also, sleep deprivation can trigger (hypo)mania.
I’m 25. I noticed the cycling at about 17, though it started at 14, I guess. The worst period was at 20-21.
I will. Should I enter full-blown mania or depression, I’ll give lithium a try. I’ll see if I can get access to some other mood stabilizers until then.
I have rather the opposite problem (even when manic). I sleep 8-9 hours on good days and often 11 or more. This seems unrelated to how depressed I am, nor does my sleep seem disrupted. I’ve slept lots and really deep for all my life. Sleep deprivation (and polyphasic sleep in general) absolutely triggers hypomania. I rarely use this intentionally to get stuff done before a deadline, but it’s really destabilizing for at least 1-2 weeks afterwards.
One of the weirder citations I’ve picked up over the years is “Rapid antidepressant effects of sleep deprivation therapy correlates with serum BDNF changes in major depression”. Apparently sleep deprivation is a known treatment for depression?
Interesting study since one of the hallmark symptoms of bipolar is a lack of sleep, and BDNF is lacking in bipolar individuals who are depressed. I think more research should be done to see if this therapy can throw someone into bipolar disorder.
A bothering trend in the psychiatric community, which is now being recognized by mental health professionals, is the overuse of labels without looking at the patient’s individual symptoms and tackling them accordingly. The lack of objective tests also gives rise to misdiagnosis, even for severe disorders such as bipolar, and is dangerously more common than people realize:
“According to Zimmerman’s study, the underdiagnosis of bipolar disorder is not the case. Rather, only 43 percent of those surveyed who were diagnosed with bipolar disorder actually match the criteria for the disorder.”
In addition, some important institutions in mental health realize the current mental health institution is broken and want to incorporate genetics, cognitive science, neuroimaging etc. to develop a new one. While far from perfect, this is a step towards the right direction and will bring us closer to an objective test of mental health.
At the moment, people are being diagnosed on an illness built on shaky grounds, and there is a good chance that professionals won’t even bother to consult those shaky grounds when diagnosing.
Sources: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming-diagnosis.shtml http://hub.jhu.edu/2013/04/30/depression-diagnoses-study
Nice! I picked up the same idea some years ago from a therapist who used short-term sleep deprivation to get someone too depressed to do anything at all enough into a manic state to begin real therapy. (Sorry, no citation.) I wonder how sustainable this is, though.
From the info that I’ve seen on bipolar… it really “gets into the swing” when you get to your late 20s and early 30s. Earlier than this and it can easily be mistaken for normal moods affected by outside forces.
Thia was certainly my own experience; i’m 25 and didn’t figure it out until the past year.
Lithium is a treatment that does not work on everybody. It is, in fact, the oldest of the known treatments, and the newer treatments are different and work with different people.
I have a bipolar (type 2) family member—who went through lithium and two other treatments before settling on seroquel. The best use of a “therapist” in this case is somebody that has great experience with what drugs are appropriate and what level you should be taking them at. After all, it’s always possible that lithium is your drug, but you were using the wrong dosage...
As to the other forms of treatment you’ve mentioned. These are emphatically not treatments for bipolar disorder. They are treatments for seasonal affective disorder (ie lack of sufficient light during the darker months causing emotional imbalance). Bipolar mood-swings occur regardless of light-levels.
Very tentative suggestion: Your post made me wonder about the underlying assumption that personalities just heal if damaging effects are eliminated. I may be on a path like that, but that doesn’t mean it’s true in general. It’s possible that sometimes improvements need to built rather than allowed to happen.
I’m not sure you and I mean the same thing by “amplification”. I meant something like “you’re such a piece of shit” (addressed to me), and then I start repeating it to myself, mixing it with thoughts about how defective I am for having something like that in my mind. What did you mean?
When I think about your situation, it does seem that you have a rather different tangle than I do.
This is sufficiently different from my experience that I don’t think I can help you.
My experience is not of two equal and opposite “personalities”, but of some consciously held beliefs and goals that I’m more or less successful at living up to. Do you identify equally with both these “personalities”, or do you consciously support one of them and assume the other one exists because of your actions?
They are both “me”. I have tried siding with one in the past, but that didn’t help and only made me miserable and depressed.
I’ve had similar “splits” before, but always managed to merge or drop them. I saw a thread on reddit recently that mentioned that many teenagers develop different personas to experiment with, most typically as an offline/online split. (I did too. I guess I’ve gone through about 5-6 personas during puberty.)They never really diverge much, however, and often get merged later. It’s just that for me, the fork stayed and I now have (accidentally?) two fully developed sides that, despite lots of overlap, want to work in quite different directions, and I can’t undo or integrate them, yet. Unfortunately, economic strategies like time sharing or voting don’t work at all (or I just suck at implementing them).
Have you tried involving other people in whatever you’re wanting to accomplish, and getting in the same room together and working on it next to one another? This seems to work really well in practice. (Very similar to a having a “job”.)
Generally speaking, yeah it helps. You’ll still have to face trivial inconveniences and so on, but it’s useful.
Problem is, I find it very hard to find people who a) I can comfortably share an environment with, b) are interested in the same things as me (individual topics, easy—multiple ones, hard) and c) are actually anywhere near me. This might be easier if I lived near a bigger city (working on that, though I found it very hard even at a large university in Berlin). I’m skeptical however, as most of my “role models” in the fields I’m interested in were on the hermit side of the social spectrum. It seems to me that learning all the necessary skills and attitude changes to become more social (and benefit from it) is itself a major project and I’ll be better off if I instead invest my resources directly in the stuff I want. I’m on the look-out for cheap experiments, though.
The best compromise I found is working on trains. For some reason, that works almost as well, nobody bothers me and it’s not deafening silent like a library.
How about cafes?
That must be rough. I want to sympathize with you even though I don’t know what your experience is like phenomenally. You were not satisfied with the outcome of (1). Why? Is the “violent takeover” the only bad part? Or does each “side” suffer when it is not in control, even if the side that is in control is pursuing the goals of both sides? Or does each side not want to cede control, even if the usurping side will pursue the goals of both sides?
(I’m definitely speculating here, as I can’t reliably identify the source of the conflict.)
The violent takeover or switches aren’t themselves a problem, but rather the background suffering each side produces when it is not in control.
And exactly that I can’t manage to do. Say, if I let each side plan the next 12 hours, I would get back “play video games, 12 hours” and “study / read about these topics, 1 hour each”. Now, there’s no direct conflict, so I should be able to split it, say “6 hours each”, or any other fraction. But that simply doesn’t work, as I will get direct negative feedback the moment I start and once the background suffering gets too big, I switch / get apathetic. This ruins both activities.
But whenever I notice that, it’s obvious to me that this is totally bullshit and getting any split would be so much better, which both sides seem to fully agree with, but once one side is in power, it forgets / ignores (dunno which) the whole deal and acts just as stupid as before. (I’m totally aware who inane this is and fascinated that I can notice it, but not stop myself from doing it.)
It sounds like you’re describing two problems: Both sides renege on compromises, and neither side will tolerate ceding control as part of a compromise.
Do both sides have both of these problems?
As far as I can tell, yes.
If I were modeling your sides as two different people, I’d say their behavior is understandable because they have a history of noncooperation. If I were tasked with mediating between two people who don’t trust each other, I’d start with very low-stakes exercises.
A practitioner of IFS has told me that when they make a long-term plan that requires a subagent to sit dormant for a long while, they have to periodically perform small favors or gestures for the subagent in order to maintain the subagent’s trust.
So: Though your experience sounds different from mine, it sounds like at least one of your problems is the familiar problem of your selves not trusting each other.
I have previously attempted “small” deals, say planning ~1 hour/day and leaving the rest unmodified. I will try even smaller stakes, on the scale of minutes.
One problem is that I’m very well aware that this is a trap. I know that if I get working deals, I would immediately start escalating them. Hm, you might be unto something with regard to trust issues.