{"id":1910,"date":"2007-04-05T12:54:00","date_gmt":"2007-04-05T12:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/delascabezas.com\/blog\/index.php\/2019\/02\/20\/the-meaning-of-words-and-emotions\/"},"modified":"2019-02-20T21:57:09","modified_gmt":"2019-02-20T21:57:09","slug":"the-meaning-of-words-and-emotions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/delascabezas.com\/blog\/index.php\/2007\/04\/05\/the-meaning-of-words-and-emotions\/","title":{"rendered":"the meaning of words and emotions"},"content":{"rendered":"

i made a pretty obvious Freudian slip last night in ‘s lj.
\n
\n i was making a comment that one of the worst things that happened to the males of our species (culturally) is when grief was linked to weakness. what i wrote, instead, was “when shame was linked to weakness”.<\/p>\n

this was a pretty telling slip up on my part. i was raised to be ashamed of an outpouring of grief. that shame was tied to a reinforcement that to cry was to be weak – stoicism was the path to masculine idealism. to let something phase you was to be weak. <\/p>\n

i had a male role model who seems unassailable, and raised me to be tough as nails. i had a female role model who encouraged the full spectrum of emotional outpouring, and has suffered from depression for decades. what i find almost comical is that my father’s alcoholism is the vent to relieve the pressure. my insomnia, and the accompanying nightmares are mine. there was a time when i wondered if my migraines were part of that cycle as well, but i don’t think that is necessarily so, as they have been a constant across a wide range of psychological\/emotional strata.<\/p>\n

my stints with depression have been dealt with largely though repression or transference. i can push through trauma and loss by focusing on other people’s problems, solving other people’s issues, and making sure that i am the glue holding together other people’s shells. i can get through it by being self destructive. if you ignore something hard enough, it grows in, rather than blooming out. despite all my self-control, and the way i have analyzed so much of my internal workings, i can still be struck by something hits me from beyond my line of sight (theoretical or otherwise). sometimes these things impact me much more deeply than i would normally allow for if i were in control of the stimuli. weak points never really go away, no matter how much you plaster over them.<\/p>\n

i made a post a few weeks back about fear. i think my repression of grief is tied to my lack of concrete fear. i can wrap myself up in a cocoon of rationalization against anything front-and-center. the things that i fear are huge overarching ideas or happenings – issues where the will of an individual are about as meaningful as a stubborn grain of sand fighting against the incoming tide. <\/p>\n

frustration abounds in my life, and has for as long as i can remember. i used to express frustration through self-destructive behavior, or just outright cruelty. since recognizing this pattern, i’ve learned to be as patient as a stone. my main weakness is anger, and its big brother violence. between repression and genetic predisposition, i have a huge capacity to damage others and myself physically. it is a pattern i have read historically in the path of my line, and seen in its many psychological and genetic iterations in my living family. i have been very cautious about avoiding this cycle for many years now, certain situations notwithstanding. it takes a lot to make me angry, and when that threshold is cleared, it often takes me days to regain composure.<\/p>\n

i’ve always thought of grief as the sister of anger. she lulls you into relief in the face of an overwhelming event. my higher-order processes always leave me with a feeling of guilt after an expression of grief. the animal-human in me is cleansed, the computational-human in me is ashamed. part of this link is the aforementioned connection between grief and weakness. part of it is my own damn fault – the governing rules that i’ve made for myself, which allow no true satisfaction unless effort is put in to getting the satisfaction. grief is like a free ride – you get to release pressure with no real cost aside from others seeing you are in distress. i’m not good at it.<\/p>\n

REM says everybody hurts. that song\/video had a big impact on me when i was younger. all emotions, for the most part, are universal across the spectrum of humanity. how we express them is what makes us unique.<\/p>\n

i guess my point is, i’m the kinda guy who cries alone, on the rare occasion that life finds a way past my heavy psychological interference.
\n<\/lj-cut><\/p>\n

on a way lighter note, i got my first paycheck a few minutes ago. lets hear it for an increase in the standard of living.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

i made a pretty obvious Freudian slip last night in ‘s lj. i was making a comment that one of the worst things that happened<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"chat","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[69],"class_list":["post-1910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-chat","hentry","tag-thoughtful","post_format-post-format-chat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/delascabezas.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/delascabezas.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/delascabezas.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/delascabezas.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/delascabezas.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1910"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/delascabezas.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1910\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4483,"href":"https:\/\/delascabezas.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1910\/revisions\/4483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/delascabezas.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/delascabezas.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/delascabezas.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}