River: It's not like that at all

[mdlbear]

Over the last couple of days I've thought a little more about addiction and embarrassment, and realized that I've been wrong about them for years (though in different ways).

For years I've been saying that I have an addictive personality. I've been addicted to reading, Usenet news, a couple of solitaire-type games, and now LJ. Programming and writing belong on the list, too: when I'm deep in a project the rest of the world goes away, the same as it does when I'm reading.

That's the key realization: the rest of the world goes away. These are all activities that I do in a light trance state: intensely focussed and unaware of either my surroundings or myself. More like Zen meditation than drugged stupor -- alcohol addiction has no attraction for me at all; I'll happily drink enough to be relaxed, but hate the fuzzy-mindedness that comes from drinking too much.

In addition, the things I've been most "addicted" to, usenet and LJ, are both things that connect me with other people. I think I have to add deep, one-on-one conversation here as well. Not a real addiction, then, but something else. I'm not sure what.

 

It's the same with my social phobia: I don't think it's anything like what I thought it was. My aversion to embarrassment is so intense that I've learned ways to avoid any situation where I might possibly be embarrassed. I've been seriously embarassed only a handful of times that I remember (though I may have suppressed more of those memories). More recently the few times I've been forced into potentially embarassing situations haven't been so bad. I seem to have few limits on what I'll talk about, and many of those are things I think might embarrass somebody else.

My aversion to embarrassment is almost entirely due to observation of other people in embarrassing situations. It's empathy, then. I find this deeply weird.

Comments

[maellenkleth]

sure, our horror at someone else's faux pas is often driven by our own fear of doing something similar ourselves.

[kyrielle]

For what it's worth, my aversion to others' embarrassment is so strong I won't watch sitcoms or many movies, and have put aside books. Even if the person isn't embarrassed, if I think they should be it will bother me (sometimes even more, honestly).

[mdlbear]

Same here.

Addiction versus need?

[capplor.livejournal.com]

There are things humans need to live. Food, water, and air are not called addictions when used as needed. Food is sometimes called an addiction when significantly more is used than needed. These things have in common that everybody needs them. Social contact is a need, also, though people vary greatly in how much and what exact kind they require.

[firecat]

I have the same sort of "addictive personality" that you do. I do wish there were another term for it, because addictive implies that you have to do more and more of it and that it's detrimental to your life, and those are not true for my "addictions."

I usually call it "obsessive" instead, but that also implies detrimental. I have had truly detrimental obsessiveness, and it comes from the same place that my hyperfocusing comes from, but I don't think the hyperfocusing per se is detrimental.

[mdlbear]

I agree -- both "addictive" and "obsessive" are incorrect. I'm not sure there's a word for it; I haven't heard one, if there is.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Nothing weird about empathy. The only odd thing here is that you thought you weren't a people person, but if you empathize so deeply, maybe you are after all.

I myself find it very hard to appreciate the humor of embarrassment; there are shows I actively avoid because of that.

[mdlbear]

I'm slowly and bemusedly coming to that conclusion. But I'm a people person who isn't really used to being around people, if that makes any sense.

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

Much of this sounds familiar to me, esp. this para:

That's the key realization: the rest of the world goes away. These are all activities that I do in a light trance state: intensely focussed and unaware of either my surroundings or myself. More like Zen meditation than drugged stupor -- alcohol addiction has no attraction for me at all; I'll happily drink enough to be relaxed, but hate the fuzzy-mindedness that comes from drinking too much.

-- with one current reservation, a nitpick really.

I've done several types of meditation in my life. I recently enrolled in UPenn's stress management program, which is very much akin to the program developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn of UMass Medical Center, and described in his book Full Catastrophe Living. This program centers on "mindfulness meditation", which is closely akin to Zen meditation but without religious or cultural attachments. And in mindful meditation, you're not unaware of your surroundings at all. It's not that you become oblivious to things going on around you. Rather, when something attracts your attention you note that, but bring your attention back to what you are concentrating on, such as your breath. -- At least, that's how it is at this early stage.

[mdlbear]

You're right; that's rather different. What I do is much more focussed.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

I have noticed that many people (including me) who don't consider themselves "people persons" are actually quite strongly empathic, often to the point of it being close to telepathy, or Spider's "telempathy". I think we become withdrawn, bookish, geeky, and introverted because being around other people hurts too much, when we're young and don't know how to control it. However, once one learns how to shield against everyone else's emotions, it then becomes possible to unlearn that protective introversion. I did it, but it would take more time than I have these days to sit down and codify it, and explain all the different things that I learned along the way. (But one very quick observation - hugging people a lot is a very good start.)

[mdlbear]

Hmm. Add my inability to filter out crosstalk and a couple of other factors; I think you're on to something here.

Hugging is great, but I've been fond of hugs all along, including my depressed, geeky years. I'm not sure it makes anything easier.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

I was somewhat of a touch-telepath in my youth, so I was pretty choosy about who I hugged and who I allowed to hug me. I had also developed an ability to suppress almost all emotional reactions - this was, among other things, an instinctive attempt to shield myself from the emotions of people around me. Somewhere about 1966 or '67, the "encounter group" phenomenon hit the college I was attending. I couldn't afford the fee to participate, and I was more than a little dubious about the whole concept, but most of my hippie friends enthusiastically spent an entire weekend hugging, doing "trust exercises", crying, giving each other back rubs, laughing, and hugging some more. Everyone who had participated came out of it seeming much more together, happier, calmer, almost wearing a glow. I admitted that I envied them a little bit. Shortly thereafter, a bunch of my friends were discussing their experiences around me, and then - taking turns speaking to me, almost as if they'd rehearsed it, except they obviously hadn't - they said that, because I hadn't been able to participate, they'd bring the experience to me.

We didn't have a whole weekend for this, but on the other hand, there weren't as many people involved. To make a long story very short, I was given a rather compressed version of the process, including lots and lots of hugging, singly and in groups. A lot of things, almost all positive, happened to me then, but for now, suffice it to say that it was a watershed experience for me. And I've been a lot more generous with my hugs ever since.