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Circles of Control theory.
https://mindowl.org/the-circle-of-control/
(I tried finding a more academic source but DuckDuckGo wasn’t playing nicely so have the hippy self-help site instead)
ADHD
Autism
ADHD + Autism
I collect clusters and spectras
Minor inconveniences are things you potentionally have control over. Major events you most likely don’t.
I have two great example of this.
1-
Last month, the mountainside behind our house was set on fire. The neighborhood was evacuated as the fire burned ~20 acres. The inferno came within a few hundred feet of our house, and I watched it creep closer as we stood at a park across the main road. My only thoughts were “we are OK, we have resources that we can tap into if necessary” (the burn scar can be seen from over 20 miles away).2-
Last week, my wife’s ex nearly robbed her of a literal dream-come-true because he decided to be a giant fucking manchild and throw his new marriage into the trash. Several months prior, I had spent ~$450 on non-refundable tickets (thanks ticketmaster) for two back-to-back live shows as a birthday gift to my wife, based around the fact that the kids were going to be with bio-dad during that time. But because of his antics, we had to get the kids a week early (not mad at the kids, we missed them). We scrambled to find childcare, and luckily my in-laws were able to take the kids for two nights in a row so we could hit those shows as planned. But I wanted to murder that man. I still do, but that’s beside the point.Maybe remove that last sentence, in case someone else does too and wants it more than you do.
Sometimes that little thing is the straw. You’ve had a rough few days, all kinds of twists and turns, but hey you have a relaxing weekend coming up to recharge, so you held it together, then that little thing happens and it’s like “ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh fuck!”
That little thing, by itself, probably wouldn’t matter that much…but on top of everything else, it’s a different story.
You have no control over big events, so you’re not offended by them. The small stuff you can control (or at least think you can), so it’s immediately offensive to your sense of personal control and importance.
Modern society teaches you to care about all the irrelevant things, and ignore the major manufactured shifts in your life, that makes you more easily controllable. That’s how they domesticated you into working a 9 to 5, paying taxes, voting for a 2 party system, and ignoring major coverups like JFK’s assassination, the Epstein files, the Diddy trial, wars in the middle east, the fact that nuclear MAD is still literally one systemic failure away, yatta yatta yatta…
Who are “they”?
Whatever you want they to be!
ADHD and anxiety disorders will do that.
Yep, may even be caused by certain forms of c-PTSD. I was required to develop hypervigilance as a method of survival, so everything bad/unfortunate/uncomfortable sounds the alarm, while anything good/normal/producing joy is *mostly glossed over (*extremes are still registered), as the main goal is staying alive and the latter won’t kill me.
I don’t think people who haven’t experienced it really can understand.
It’s like something crazy happens.
People without complex PTSD freak out.
My ass is like, “oh, I was preparing for this” and then I deal with the issue.
I’m always right on the edge of losing my goddamn mind, so that when some crazy shit actually happens, I’m like, oh, okay. Ah, yes, this is what I was preparing for. Ah, feels so good to finally let the vigilance down and just actually experience life for a second.
Exactly!
And when it’s something from neutral to good, my brain goes: “Oh… ok, unexpected. Is it dangerous? Well, then don’t waste my time with it, I’m busy waiting for shit to get real.”
(still me, btw, managed to get into this account)
For me if things go well, I sometimes keep on looking where the bad in it is. I keep thinking: Okay, this seems good, so what am I missing here? And if people are nice to me and I feel I can trust them, I get scared and want to flee and be by myself. The more I feel there is genuine contact, the more scary it is.
I was diagnosed with cPTSD as well, by the way.
Very much so, yes! A constant state of expectancy, like a perpetual calm before a hypothetical storm, but the storm’s potential has real weight to my mind.
And yep, same urge, to overcompensate security when things are “suspiciously” safe, just in case. It’s like ‘things being good’ in and of itself is perceived as dangerous by that entire mechanism, because it is an unknown to my mind when sufficiently intense. And it’s fucking exhausting. It’s like @bizarroland said, it feels like catching a break when things go to shit, because I know exactly how to deal with it.
I’m really sorry you’re in this mess, too, and about all of the things which were done to you to get you in it :( … But we’re in this mess together, in a way! At least we still have people who get it, if nothing else. And, hey! Silver lining is we make for good crisis responders, we friggin’ thrive in the shit!:)))
And, as a last note, it can be relatively easier to sort of see it for what it is and manage it, because, in most such cases, it’s an artificial mechanism born out of a concrete need and not in-built psychological specificity.
Yes. I always say that it seems like my mind just does not have the program to process good situations and respond. It just does not know what to do with it and starts looping and responding as if it were a bad situation but it cannot find the danger.
Much (not all) of my trauma is due to emotional neglect and psychological abuse. Someone literally baked me a cake a week ago and now part of me never wants to see them again because it feels too dangerous. :-( It takes so much effort to go back and act like everything is okay. If someone hurts me, I do not like it, but at least I know how to deal with that. It feels less dangerous.
I am sorry to hear you have experienced so much you are in the same boat. I wish it wasn’t the case. I am a good responder in crisis as well. I immediately get energy and feel like I know what to do! Although in some cases I tend to underrespond.
A couple of years ago I saw some people fighting in the street. It was a typical situation where people seemed to be feeling the bystander effect and did nothing. So, I thought I should probably do something and I went calmly to the police station nearby to get them. Looking back and discussing with others that were there, in hindsight, this was a situation to run and get the police, not walk calmly. But I just thought it wasn’t that big of a deal. At least I did something.
Another time the fire alarm went of at my work. I started to search the building for people that needed help to get outside or did not hear the alarm instead of going outside myself. This was not my job. We had dedicated people for that. I should have just gone outside, but my automatic behaviour was starting to try and save people. It was a false alarm, by the way, but apparently it still triggered some kind of trauma response or something. My boss was angry with me as they could not account for me outside of the building.
I think you are right. I was ‘trained’ to always put others first even if it harms me. So that is what I do when the alarm goes off.
Have you found stuff that works? I write a lot of letters to express what I cannot say. This helps a bit. Also, some forms of massage help me. People touching me also triggers me, but I have found a message therapist that I somewhat got used to now. EMDR only worked for some of the more recent trauma’s, not for the more structural earlier ones. I recently started doing somatic experiencing as well, not sure yet whether that helps. I still have a long way to go before I start functioning normal again. (I did for a long time until suddenly I did not a couple of years ago.)
You learn behaviors from your parents. Whatever you see them do more often, you’re more likely to repeat.
If you saw them be angry and indifferent all the time, that’s what will come naturally to you.
My poor daughter, she reminds me so much of her mother.
I remember when I first moved in with her. We were friends. We shared a room and a king size bed and nothing happened between us for months, and then it did.
She was sweet for about two weeks. The first time it happened I remember waking up thinking she was being attacked. “AHHHHHHH!” I sat up in the bed in horror. “WHY WON’T YOU FUCKING LATHER?!!!?” BANG, BANG, BANG
I got up and pecked on the door, “Is everything alright in there?” sobbing “Yes, it’s just this fucking shampoo. It won’t fucking lather. I keep dumping it on my stupid fucking head and it’s barely even soap!”
I sat down just bewildered. Like, seriously? That meltdown occurred because the shampoo wasn’t lathering to her standards? I used it all the time. I’m a man who doesn’t care about those things, I just bought what my mom always bought. I never had a problem with it. Hell, it’s 20 years later and I still buy the stuff.
The next time I woke up to a slam and clattering metal sounds. I walked into the kitchen. “FUCK THIS PAN! FUCK THIS STOVE! I give up, GODDAMMIT!!” She had turned on the wrong burner.
It started happening more often until it was every single morning. I snapped at her one morning. BAM I slapped the bathroom door. “CUT THIS SHIT OUT! I’M SICK OF WAKING UP TO SCREAMING EVERY MORNING!” She sobbed, apologized, stopped for a few days, fired right back up when she was more comfortable.
I started setting my alarm earlier than hers so I could get up and go outside until she cooled off. She never, ever, ever woke up in a good mood.
She’s been dead for 3 years now, but man, my daughter will carry her shit around for a lifetime.
I can control it with her though, calm her down, shut her up, but you gotta be careful haha. NEVER compare her to her mother, even if you’re just trying to be sweet or funny.
My daughter is only about a tenth as bad as her mom was with it, but even that can be exhausting.
Sounds like my ex. The most easily-fixable things would cause her to fly off the handle. Non-issues like turning on the wrong burner; shit that could be resolved completely within 5 seconds if they would just take the time to shut the fuck up and think about it.
Sounds like BPD
Hey hey hey.
She was diagnosed with BPD right at the end of our relationship after I caught her cheating over and over again.
Of course once she done research on BPD I was lying and making it up and she never told me that.
Good lord man. What a nightmare it all was.
BPD meets Pathological Liar
Man I’m still finding out crazy lies she told on me.
Talked to my sister the other night and we got on the subject, she said, “You were pretty sadistic to her at times, but she was nuts.” I replied, “Sadistic? I wasn’t always kind to her, but sadistic? That’s a stretch.”
“Well, she told me some crazy stuff, like when you stuck a screwdriver in your ear and hit it with a hammer if she didn’t say exactly what you wanted her to say when you thought she was lying once.”
HOLY SHIT!
I said, “Well, I still have my hearing. If there was any truth to that, wouldn’t I be deaf? Like, at least in one ear?”
When I caught her with the guy she ended up with, she swore she was raped. He’s such a great guy too, and I’d never tell him that because it would crush him. He took care of her as she died from cancer.
Man, oh man. The stories I have with that girl. She lied about anything and everything. According to her, I beat her, raped her, was responsible for every failure in her life.
We were about to close on a loan for a home when she left me and I had to back out. She just sabotaged everything constantly. She took our daughter, left, told me her sister’s husband had guns so I’d better not come over to try to get my daughter. I said in anger, “If your plan is to keep my kid from me, he’ll need those guns to stop me from coming to get her.”
Phone calls from her family started coming in. “How dare you threaten to shoot up a house with your kid in it!?” What!? She said that? That isn’t what happened.
Beat herself up, sent me picture. “This is me without you. I’m literally tearing myself apart.”
Sent the same pictures to friends and family. “He beat me!”
Tried to convince our daughter that she witnessed me choking her out.
Good lord.
Life was good up until I caught her cheating the first time (verified anyway) and everything went nuts after that.
I have my daughter in therapy. For me, this chaos passed pretty quick. For her, it was a significant portion of her life.
Fuck, I had a friend like that. A best friend, no less. Made up a lot of stories and facts, always wanted to 1-up on skills he did not have, and would even do some stalkery shit as well.
When we reunited when he turned 30, he went to my house. When he was there, he told everyone else he was at “his girlfriend’s house”. That pissed me off. Also I could not tell if he was lying about some past sexual abuse from past coworkers he had or not.
Like you said, it was a mess. I’d rather be friendless with my computer than with him again.
Huh… That explains a lot actually.
Isn’t the answer yes? Some things are just so serious that you can’t let yourself be emotional about them. The little annoyances are the ones that it’s safe to feel upset about without being overwhelmed.
Seems like a sense of scale to me. Driving and hitting a speed bump is immediately disruptive, but ultimately minor, where you could drive up a mountainside and hardly notice.
Dealing with mental illness can be more like hitting personal speed bumps often and sometimes hitting a deer instead.
The mountainside inclined is the constant in the background.
Delicious PTSD
Are you me?
I didn’t realize that others did this as well.
I think its because when a minor inconvenience happens I fear it will escalate unless I do something. But I don’t know what to do
But when a life changing event happens… what’s done is done
Depression
