Ask An Expert

Question:

"How can you defeat someone with borderline personality disorder at their own game?"   -  CL, UK

Answer:

Individuals diagnosed with borderline personality disorder grew up in an unpredictably terrifying situation, unclear as to when and how their actual needs would be met even from infancy. No one diagnosed with this personality disorder is ‘playing a game’- their behavior is adaptive within the context they were raised. So there is nothing to ‘defeat’. No one behaves in ways that cause them and others this kind of harm on purpose.

Individuals with this diagnosis can benefit a lot from others being extremely clear and consistent with expectations and boundaries, even if they might lash out when they come up against those boundaries. If you can help their brain find reliable consistency and stability, you can help reduce the need for the behaviors that bother most people.

 2022

Question:

"Why am I so depressed, but I don’t know why I am depressed?"   -  JF, CA, USA

Answer:

It is helpful to think of Depression as nothing other than the mind’s response to helplessness- this is why you’re depressed. When the mind experiences helplessness in resolving anxiety/anger/grief/guilt/shame/regret, it causes what you experience as the symptoms of depression for protective purposes.

The more important question then is what is your stuckness in reaction to? Get that addressed, and the depression response will no longer be needed and will go away by itself.

 2022

Question:

"What does 'waking up' in the metaphorical sense mean and is there such a thing as really waking up?"   -  IG, CA, USA

Answer:

We are always dreaming whether we are awake or asleep. Sometimes we are aware of this and sometimes we can even remember some of it. When we are asleep, our senses aren’t providing the feedback that they are when we’re awake, so the dream seems externalized, a world that is occupied in spacio-temporal dimensions. When we are awake and the senses are providing that feedback, our dreams occur internally, in the the abstract dimension of mind. These waking dreams are the sole cause of all suffering, the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, self-consciousness. We know their activity as anxiety, guilt, shame, regret, pain, anger, fear, grief, exhaustion, dis-ease… every form of suffering.

To ‘wake up’ is to stop having these waking dreams, i.e. to stop believing in them as real or relevant or true or helpful or necessary, in the way that one might treat an episode of Sesame Street in terms of concern for its imminent impact on ones literal survival as an adult, and thus they lose their grip on your mind. To wake up is thus to end all suffering. Nothing changes other than you stop suffering, and when you don’t suffer, you can give of yourself and attach yourself endlessly and easily.

It’s like when you’re engaged in an activity that so absorbs you that ‘time flies’- but always. Life lived un-self-consciously. The importance of being there is a personal thing for each individual.

 2022

Question:

"Can the tempo and rhythm of music trigger psychological episodes such as depression, mania and schizophrenia?"   -  RT, Fayettesville, NC, USA

Answer:

Not in the way that it sounds you're thinking. Certain sensory data can trigger/call to being memories and associated emotional data, which can set off an intense response, eg. someone incurred some sort of traumatic experience while hearing a particular song and hadn't yet cleared it, a similarly sounding song could trigger a similar emotional response to what occurred, which- under the right circumstances- can trigger an episode.

2023

Question:

"How do I deal with anxiety?"   -  FR, ND, USA

Answer:

Anxiety is most usefully thought of as an ineffective, neglected assistant, trying to ensure you make the grade or prevent catastrophe by pointing out reasons you need to do so in a variety of overwhelming ways (you're not good enough, no one wants you around, etc.). It's trying to help- it wants to help- in the way a coach might point out how far a rumner is from the other runners or the finish line in order to get them to run faster- but your anxiety would absolutely prefer to stop and rest if it didn't think it needed to help you.

If we pretend that anxiety has a voice, our brains will cause anxiety to be able to talk to us. Whether you imagine anxiety is sitting next to you, you feel anxiety somewhere in your body, or you just pretend you can speak to it in your mind, talk with your anxiety, see if you can rewlly understand and appreciate where it's coming from. Assure it that it now has a voice to talk to you and that you'll listen and try to help, so it doesnt feel so alone and overwhelmed, as opposed to trying to ignore or get rid of it. Yoi can even give your anxiety a hig to help it feel better! 

If your emotions feel heard, then they don't need to get loud.

2023

Question:

"Why am I always so angry?"   -  TFF, NZ

Answer:

Anger is the name we give the human brain's effort at protecting us from feeling overwhelmed. Being overwhelmed is a normal, reasonably-expected occurrence in our world! Also, often we are encouraged to suppress anger or shove it away because of what we perceive may be the reactions from others. This of course complicates things and can make them worse. If we treat anger like a friend, imagine we can see it sitting next to us in our mind, trying to protect us, we can talk to it. When it feels listened to, it won't need to get so loud. No outward expression needed. If you pretend you can listen to your feelings as a friend would listen, they will speak.   

2024