h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Absolutely first of all I have to say this ... everybody here should decide for him- or herself whether or not to talk about his/her experiences! This place is certainly not *just* about talking about bad experiences. But anyways, here are a few ideas that can maybe help you decide whether to talk, or not, and what the use would be of talking.

Kaz said she does not wish to go into details of her experiences or other similar ones because she finds it just distresses her. And that is fine! So she represents one side of a spectrum. Without having to talk about it, she could still be very valuable and valued here, and I hope she may also find much value from the rest of us here.

I think I may represent the other side of the spectrum. I really do want to talk about my bad experiences, because they just keep milling around in my head anyways. There's no way I can stop thinking of them or otherwise get rid of them. The only thing I can do is to get to the point where I can meaningfully process them and for this I feel I need to talk about them. I always feel more *positive* after having talked about something negative, because for me recognising a problem and trying to understand it, deal with it verbally and conceptually, is a step towards solving it.

My own 'issues' are rather complex. Especially because in my case my issues I see and experience as being connected to the issues of other people. I have for instance this 'issue' with large-scale institutionalised violence and abuse that affected me and keeps affecting many other people, people I care about. The 'issue' of every single friend and acquaintance of mine also becomes an issue of my own, because of how much I care about my friends. So I also wish to hear from others ... I want to hear about their problems, what happened to them, because firstly I then have an idea what they're going through and may be better able to empathise with them and possibly help them ... but also, I'll then understand what lots of other people are *still* going through ... it's usually the case that if something bad happened to you, the same sort of bad thing also happened to many other people, and keeps on happening to new people all the time.

For me there is this value in talking about the details of past bad experiences: we sometimes think we are alone in having experienced a certain kind of bad thing ... or we think we are alone in having been traumatised by it ... but then we discover that other people have also been through similar experiences, and also have found them traumatic. This makes us feel less alone.

And then there's the aspect of *recovery* from traumas. Suppose for instance I tell about some horrific event I experienced, and then I also talk about how badly this affected me, and then I talk about how I eventually managed to recover from it. Certainly this could give some people hope ... some person who has had an equally horrific experience and may doubt that her or she can ever recover ... if such a person reads about what other people have recovered from, then that person could derive hope from it, that s/he could also recover, is it not?

I realise that there is a danger in this ... for instance reading about someone else who has also had an extremely horrific trauma, rather than saying 'see, you're not alone, I also went through this sort of thing' may convince someone that the whole world is filled with horror ... and reading about how one person overcame a certain problem may only cause someone to think 'see, you're a loser, because look at this person, s/he has recovered from this, and here you are, taking it so hard! No matter if other people can recover ... you can't recover because you're too weak, you can never make it, there's no hope for you'.

People *could* react in that way ... but can I just ask everybody who reads these words to do his or her utmost to *not* react that way! If you look at it, and consider it ... you could just as well take the positive route, thinking 'here are other people who know and understand what I've been through, because they've been through the same ... and they got better, so I can get better too' ... it's not that hard to take that attitude, and really, you *can* get better! If you doubt it can I just ask that you spend a bit of time talking with me, please? I can tell you some incredible stories. And I'm certain that others here in this group can do the same!

It's still everybody's choice whether or not to talk, and how much ...

Comments from some other people here on the subject of 'talking or not talking' about traumas?

Just to clarify, I used to talk about it so much. I think I got everything out that I could at the time. But now I'm bored of it, thats a bizarre emotion to have in these circumstances, but there you are. I want to try another way, to move on and not hurt myself by remembering.

I realise that may charge in the future, we'll see. Its good to hear how everybody is, and to find out other approaches. Afterall we are not all the same.

Nearly forgot, like a lot of people I was told to keep it a secret, so to start with talking and talking is a good thing to do. Don't let anybody anymore tell you to keep quiet about it, its your decision whether to talk or not. Just beware, at first when you start you can talk all night for years! But its cathartic and its good.

"'see, you're a loser, because look at this person, s/he has recovered from this, and here you are, taking it so hard!'"... Bingo! I tell myself this at least ten times a day. I'm glad to know that maybe other people have felt that way before, too.

I need to talk about it, I need to stop internalising everything. And I need to hear from others that I needn't bear my cross alone. I also need to vocalise things, to process them in some way, and then work toward dealing with it. It's not going to go away, but it doesn't have to ruin my life. I can't let this stuff destroy me.

I also want to share my experiences with others because I feel like it will help them to understand me better. Then I won't have friends feeling like they 'blew it', when in fact they've helped me immensely. The fact that someone cares enough to just *be there* and listen is a huge help as well.

Also, I want to hear what other people have experienced, both to know and understand them better, and to learn different ways of dealing with 'stuff', with feelings and issues.

Well thanks greatly for your feedback Kaz and Psychocandy! Kaz, I'm glad to hear that you have indeed talked about it a lot and you feel it's been enough for now! Psychocandy, OK, I'd like to tell you about my experiences and hear about yours ... not right now, though! It is now half past seven the evening here and it's time for me to go listen to some really loud music and then take a really long, hot bath!

Good point Psychocandy, don't internalize it, let it out and share it with us. Most of the time its something one of us will have felt and we can understand and tell how it was for us or just be there for you.

Have fun Willem with the music, that can be a cure in itself sometimes!

Thanks Kaz, and everyone. For letting me get things out and for telling me how you all deal with things. I know my current approach hasn't worked very well so far.

Willem, I'd also like to talk with you, and hear your experiences, and share mine with you as well. I've filled just over four pages in my notebook... just need to find the right time to post them. Just writing this stuff down today while riding in the car was incredibly therapeutic.

Hey, I've just finished a nice warm bath myself, after a long day spent hiking at a nature preserve. And a very nice thing happened to me today, which I'd like to add to the 'good stuff' thread... but I feel guilty having something good happen to me (and feeling happy about it) when something really rotten is happening to a friend.

Glad you had a good thing, don't feel guilty about it, keep hold of it for as long as you can. Bad stuff will always happen and so will good stuff, so we have to accept both!

The thing with having friends is this ... some friends will be very happy and OK and some will be in generally bad shape and having a hard time ... and at once you want to share in the joy of the one and also in the sorrow of the other... and then there's also your own private and personal joys and sorrows that have to be fit in somewhere. I've found a way to manage this, by being happy and sad at one and the same time! I mean, it's not even very hard, but it's not something you often hear people say...

Well, I'll soon tell about my own stuff ... perhaps starting in 1992 when it was extremely bad, just to give an indication of where I've come from up till now. I'll do some writing in my introductory thread ... again, not now, because now it's almost eleven at night ... I had a great day, spent with my parents ... we visited a nature reserve and had a scenic drive and afterwards we watched a movie, 'Dreamcatcher' based on the book by Stephen King ... well not the typical 'family' movie but then we're not the typical family. Movie was weird and rather gruesome but so far from reality that it wasn't upsetting at all. But anyways now I'm back home and its way past my bedtime ... just came up to see if everything is still going OK with everybody over here, and everything seems to be as fine as can be expected - good! See you guys again maybe on Thursday. Goodnight, everybody.

Hi, Willem! I'm glad to hear you had a fun day. I haven't seen 'Dreamcatcher' yet (though I have read the book)... but I would love to have gone to the nature preserve!

I'll soon be posting some of my 'stuff', too, I guess I'll have to start a new thread up. I've got it all down on paper so I could try to make it coherent instead of my usual stream-of-consciousness.

Looking forward to hearing from you again soon, and everyone take care.

Well I've posted a bit of my story now into my thread, for whoever is interested.

Hi Willem, Kaz, Psychocandy,

Yes, talk/ not talk is a biggie isn't it? I think I've been through the whole range of emotions with this one from "if you tell anyone, life can only get even more horrific" to virtually talking about nothing else & boring not only the rest of the world but eventually myself with the subject!

I do think that one of the side-effects is a massive need to communicate in general; even if it is not about "that"; I hope I am now beginning to channel it into writing & art etc; rather than dumping it in its raw form onto an individual & expecting them to somehow magically take the pain away & hating them when they can't!

Guilt also plays a major role; for instance, I feel pretty guilty that I haven't emailed Kaz or Willem, yet on another thread I've just given my details to Psychocandy! The fact is that at some times, I am willing & able to discuss & empathise etc; at others I just can't & daren't do so; I have to keep on with the daily battle to try & be as utterly positive as possible. A very wise lady said to me once "Yes, it happened & it is grossly unfair that it did. You have absolutely every right to feel angry BUT why do you want them to win? It isn't happening now, use the experience but get on with a better life!"

I'm trying to live by that philosophy. I hope you all understand; I am sure you do.

It's good to have a place we CAN talk about it, even if we don't always feel willing or able to do so.



Terri

The best revenge is living well

For me there is a massive need to communicate ... about 'it', but also about other stuff, like Terri says ... a massive need to communicate in general. I've for so long believed that my opinions and ideas are utterly unimportant and irrelevant, and that nobody would have the least interest in anything I have to say. Nowadays, I do think that I'm worth a bit more than that, but often I fear that it is true that nobody wants to talk to me. A big part of my current problem, with the paranoid schizophrenia and everything, is this sense of isolation and alienation.

> "For me there is a massive need to communicate ... about 'it', but also about other stuff, like Terri says ... a massive need to communicate in general. I've for so long believed that my opinions and ideas are utterly unimportant and irrelevant, and that nobody would have the least interest in anything I have to say."

Ditto! It always comes as a shock to me when people *want* to talk to me. For some reason talking about myself makes me feel guilty. As if I'm less important than everyone else and oughtn't bore them with my thoughts and opinions. I expect to be ostracised. Maybe if I am, it's self-fulfilling prophecy?!

Like Kaz and Terri both said ... it can be a problem if we dump loads of our stuff onto other people, once we find people who are actually willing to listen ... if we talk and talk and talk just about ourselves. I can easily see how that can become totally too much for those other people and then they start pushing us away, basically to save themselves. Then we believe again that nobody wants to talk to us. So in that sense it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
There are other ways in which it can also become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I've had to work out some things for myself regarding this. Certain things that I have to reinforce, tell myself over and over again so I can start believing them, and to help me with interpersonal communication. Maybe they can help some of the other people here as well. Some of these things are ...

1. I am not an individual existing in isolation. I am not so unique that I am the only kind of person on the planet with my kind of problems. If I have some problem, then there must be other people who also have my kind of problems. Therefore, if I talk about these problems, I'm not talking about just 'myself' ... I'm at least potentially talking about these other people as well. Basically I search around for other people who have similar problems and try to involve them as well. Then it's not talking about 'myself', it's talking about 'ourselves'. And even though 'I' may not be so important, 'we' are definitely important.

2. I'm not just speaking about problems as a form of self-indulgence, self-pity, or trying to get people to pity me ... I'm speaking about problems because I want to *solve* them. I don't want to get stuck in the past, I want to keep moving towards the future. But talking helps with that. It helps me to solve these problems which are my problems but also similar to the problems of other people. The future should grow out of the past, it is never disconnected from the past. And also, I'm talking not for the sake of pity but for the sake of compassion. I want people to have compassion for me, and I want to have compassion for them. In our struggle to become good people we should really emphasise the development of mutual compassion. This is an attitude that is respectful that considers the other an equal to yourself and yourself an equal to the other.

2. If I talk about my own problems I try to set a limit to the amount coming at once. If I did not limit myself I would literally go on and on and on and nobody else would be even able to get a word in. So I set limits ... I insert pauses, and breaks, for other people to get their words in as well.

3. I try to also listen to what the other person has to say. And I try to find out about the *differences* between me and the other person, and then I try to talk to that person about things that are different between us as well. So if I like weightlifting and the person I'm talking to likes rugby, I'll try and talk to that person about rugby as well even though I don't like it so much. If that person is interested in something I know nothing at all about then I ask that person questions about that thing.

4. I have to force myself to try and find out what the other person is interested in and what topics there are that we can talk about, constructively. I force myself to want to learn from the other person, because I always want to learn things that I do not know yet.

5. I do have the right to my own opinions. I am potentially a clever person and I have indeed given lots of thought to many things. My ideas are at least as worthy of existence as other people's ideas. My opinions don't have to be 'good' or 'true' in order to have the right to exist. I have the right to hold mistaken notions because I'm just human ... BUT I commit myself to trying as hard as possible to find out what is really true, and to have really good, valuable opinions. The only way I can find out if my ideas and opinions are good or true is to talk about them to other people, and finding out what those other people think about them and what their ideas and opinions are. That way I can grow in knowledge, experience and wisdom, and maybe the people I talk to can grow as well. In this sense it is my duty to talk to people because it is my duty to grow to become the best person I can be ... not just for my own sake but for other people's sakes as well.

6. People do not *have to* speak to me, however. Maybe we just don't 'fit' each other and maybe we just can't get along well with each other. Maybe the person just isn't interested at all in my ideas, opinions etc. and maybe the person isn't even interested in speaking with me about anything at all. Or maybe the person has his/her own problems regarding the topics we tend to talk about. That happens, and when it happens, it mustn't be like the end of the world. It's just one person. If one person, or two people, or three or four or ten or whatever, don't want to talk to me, it doesn't mean that *everybody in the world* doesn't want to talk to me. I should consider other people who perhaps may want to talk to me, and not stake everything on this one person who right now doesn't want to talk to me. I should keep trying to talk to other people. Only if I see no progress ... if I see that very few people at all appear to be willing to talk to me ... then I should look at myself and the way I'm trying to talk to people, and maybe change something about that. Try a different tactic. I don't have to forever remain the way I am now. I can fix things that are 'wrong' with me, if they are *really* wrong with me, and not just feel wrong to me because of my insecurity.

These are some of the things I try and tell myself. In practice, though, communication is still hard for various reasons. For instance there is my fear of certain subjects. I am still having a hard time with lots of things and consequently I am actually afraid of discussing those things with other people, because when I discuss those things I can become very alarmed, disturbed, depressed et cetera. This hampers spontaneity of conversation. For instance I try to keep the conversation 'safe' by limiting it to topics with which I'm familiar and that I know I can handle, and that may prevent the other person from talking about what s/he is really interested in. This is a problem I still have to overcome and I'm working on it. I suspect other people may also have this sort of problem. The only way I can think of of overcoming it, is to try and make progress in small steps ... 'baby steps' ... every time I talk with someone else, to try and just a little bit talk about stuff I find really upsetting, and try to not get upset by it, and progress gradually to the point where I find this stuff less upsetting and can talk about it more easily. This is a very hard process to go through but it needs to be done. A very big part of my paranoid schizophrenia is this 'fear of what I might hear' should I ask people their opinions about certain subjects or even just talk about certain subjects. Because 'what I might hear' might be extremely disturbing. For instance the people we have around the house today have extremely weird notions ... they are quite racistic among other things, one of them for instance reproached my mother when she (my mother) called one of the black children she gives school to 'handsome' saying he looks somewhat like Freddie Prinz Junior. She (the person reproaching my mother) said 'Yechh!! Don't call a black person handsome!' Now I find that sort of thing very upsetting but I still don't know what to say to that. I still don't know if I have the right to tell such a person that I think her opinion has something seriously wrong with it ... though I do think there's something seriously wrong with such kind of opinions. But I still feel that I don't have the right to express my own opinions if they go counter to the opinions of people I'm speaking with...