Honeymoon is over

Well that didn't take long. I've had a very difficult couple of days - swamped by disturbing thoughts and images and feeling ill equipped to deal with them. Swinging from rage to weeping. I came a bit unhinged at times. What set me off? Someone took two bites out of a slice of bread and then left it on the cutting board beside the loaf. I just went nuts - fucking slobs!!!! etc. But it did me more harm than good. I definitely need to turn the volume knob down, to be much less prone to these overreactions. It was kind of the straw that broke the camel's back, but I live with slobs and I need to find better ways of coping. Maybe I should take up smoking pot again? I never bothered about a bit of mess in those days... [joke].

I see very clearly how ART is supposed to work, but getting on top is going to be difficult. I find myself doing the technique so often it's exhausting. My negative thoughts are largely NOT about my body and symptoms, but about frightening experiences past and (imagined) future.

I'm trying to read Joseph LeDoux's book The Emotional Brain. There is a long (I mean at least 5 chapters) introduction to the history of research into the neuro-anatomy of emotion which is dull at times. Hopefully we'll get onto his research into fear soon. There are two main points from the first 5 chapters. Firstly that the contents of the consciousness are largely the result of unconscious processes about which we mostly can't be conscious. We make up stories to explain how we feel based on previous experience etc. We can be completely wrong about the reason we feel as we do.

Secondly the idea that there is an 'emotional centre' in the brain is probably wrong. Specifically LeDoux demonstrates that the so-called Limbic System as defined by previous researchers (and still a feature of neuroscience texts being published today) doesn't really exist, or do what they say it does. An aspect of LeDoux's thinking is that different emotions are produced by different parts of the brain. Fear, and especially fearful memories, for instance are associated with the amygdala and it's interactions with other brain systems. This is the fact that Ashok exploits in the ART.

Anyway I'm fed up with the slobs and I starting looking into council housing and found that as a non-citizen I have to go the extra mile to prove I qualify. So I can't register online but must take my passport in. Registration takes 8 weeks to be processed (why does everything take so fucking long in this country!). Then the system has changed and one has to keep an eye on the listings and put in bids for desirable places. 3 bids per bidding cycle. So now I have to decide whether the slobs are bad enough for me to tangle with the bureaucracy and red-tape and all the stress that brings.