{"id":19853,"date":"2024-07-30T18:52:18","date_gmt":"2024-07-30T22:52:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=19853"},"modified":"2024-07-30T18:52:18","modified_gmt":"2024-07-30T22:52:18","slug":"birthday-post-going-sane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=19853","title":{"rendered":"Birthday post: Going sane"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Rest Within His Sanctuary\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/EYxaE4YIhbc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>I\u2019ve loved the song above<\/strong> for a long time. And to my mind, it harmonizes with my theme tonight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This will be my birthday post (my age is for me to know and you not to care about). In honor of this auspicious occasion, I\u2019m going to break my custom of putting commemorative posts up on the day of the event (so it\u2019s too late) and post it the day before (so you\u2019ll have time to get me a present).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Also because I have something to say that may be significant, and I want to share it. It\u2019s been about three weeks now, and that fact suggests to me that the effects I\u2019m seeing may be permanent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>I believe I\u2019m going sane.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nobody could be more surprised than I am. Let me tell you about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">First of all, I think I won\u2019t be surprising anyone when I say that I\u2019ve always been a little\u2026 weird. Socially. Depressive. Awkwardly shy. Unable to make eye contact. Easily offended. Not one to pick fights, but one to distance myself, taking refuge in solitude. My great plague has been intrusive thoughts \u2013 shameful memories that came into my mind and would not be ignored. I knew of no way to handle them except to face them, experience the full shame, and then try to find something to distract me from them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This was tremendously tiring for me. In social situations, half my energy got wasted in dealing with those intrusive thoughts. This was how I lived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then something happened to me, about three weeks ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--nextpage-->\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I had decided, as is my custom, to try to lose weight \u2013 yet again. I\u2019ve tried this many times over the years, mostly to fail, but occasionally I\u2019ve succeeded for a while. Until I fell off the wagon again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I lay in bed one night (I wish I\u2019d marked the precise date on my calendar), wondering what I could do this time to stay on the wagon. To overcome the food cravings that have plagued from my youth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I believe I prayed about it. I\u2019m confident I did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The next morning, I woke from a dream. It was a dream I\u2019ve had a number of times over the years. I\u2019m in an apartment \u2013 one which I understand to be mine, though it\u2019s not familiar. I open doors in the wall, and find rooms \u2013 or whole sections of the house \u2013 I never knew existed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I now had the idea, somehow, that this dream had some relation to the problem I\u2019d been thinking about \u2013 how to control my appetite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I noticed an odd thing. When I thought about that \u201cDream Apartment\u201d (not a <em>dream <\/em>apartment in the ordinary sense \u2013 it\u2019s pretty shabby and furnished with thrift store castoffs) a great sense of peace came over me. And I did not feel like overeating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As I went on with my day, I thought about the Dream Apartment whenever I wanted to break my diet. And the peace came back. In fact, I noticed something more. The same effect kicked in whenever I had an intrusive thought. The Dream Apartment seemed to be a sanctuary \u2013 a mental space to run to, where I had protection from shame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As the days have passed, the effect seems to be persisting, and even improving. I seem to be going (in my mind) to the Dream Apartment automatically. I don\u2019t have to think about it most of the time (particularly bad memories do require conscious effort. But that effort doesn\u2019t involve anything more than just thinking about the apartment. I can even think about the outside of the building, of which I also have a mental image).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">How does this work? I have a theory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think there\u2019s a region of the brain whose function is to deal with memories that need suppressing, for the sake of mental health. This brain region does not grant one amnesia; instead it allows one to handle the memory, as it were, at arm\u2019s length. A place where stuff you don\u2019t want to look at directly can be put behind your back, to be recalled only when absolutely needed. I call it the \u201cForgettery.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I think I lost access to that brain region long ago, when I was a child, under circumstances I\u2019ll keep to myself (somewhere in my Forgettery).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Over the years, when I\u2019ve had that old recurring dream, it was actually my brain, trying to heal itself. It was telling me, \u201cWe have a function for dealing with your intrusive thoughts. You just need to remember that it\u2019s there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Remembering the Dream Apartment created a new bridge to that brain region \u2013 a way to close the synapse gap. Now that I\u2019ve found the way, my brain seems to be getting accustomed to the path. And I\u2019m more at peace than I\u2019ve been since I was 9 years old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I\u2019m calmer. I\u2019m happier. Binge-eating and other compulsive behaviors have fallen away without effort. I\u2019m looking people in the eye and speaking cheerfully, if not actually smiling. I feel, as I said, as if I\u2019m going sane at last.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Maybe I\u2019m fooling myself. Maybe my inner demons will find a work-around. We are all mysteries to ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But maybe this can help someone else. If you have a problem with intrusive thoughts, and if you\u2019ve had the recurring dream of a space with doors that open to unknown places, maybe that\u2019s your path to your Forgettery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I share this in the hope that that\u2019s true.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019ve loved the song above for a long time. And to my mind, it harmonizes with my theme tonight. This will be my birthday post (my age is for me to know and you not to care about). In honor of this auspicious occasion, I\u2019m going to break my custom of putting commemorative posts up &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=19853\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Birthday post: Going sane<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9,1],"tags":[5271,809,5272,5270,3881],"class_list":["post-19853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","category-uncategorized","tag-dream-apartment","tag-dreams","tag-forgettery","tag-intrusive-thoughts","tag-memory"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19853"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19855,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19853\/revisions\/19855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}