I wish I was stupid

[Kevin_D]

This might seem like a strange topic, but I thought a lot about this lately. I'm very intelligent, which is one of those things you can't brag about... But in my case, I'm beginning to feel that it's more like a curse.

 

When other people talk about a memories, they often make it sound so distant. That's not the case for me. Things that happened 10-15 years ago, feel like they happened yesterday. This really screws me up, since I frequently, for split-seconds, believe I'm still a child. I rarely tell people about this nowadays, because it freaks them out. They believe that I'm writing down every little thing they say or do, because otherwise, there is no way that I would remember these things years later.

 

It was eight years since I met my ex this summer, and yet, it feels like it happened last week. How I skipped the mechanics test to have a pizza with my friend, how we ended up at a party, how I borrowed my brother's fancy phone to be able to talk to her while I was away... I remember the clothes she wore, the perfumes, she woere, the food we ate, the movies we saw, the arguments we had... I most certainly be able to draw a timeline over the entire relationship and nail pretty much everything... And it lasted 6.5 years.

 

And my problem is... I remember the things that happened 7 years ago as clearly as I remember the things that happened 2 years ago.

 

Yes, I know what you're thinking... We always remember the good times. It's natural. But the thing is, I was never that in love with her. In fact, I remember that I thought the first year was rather boring. And when I've discussed this with my friends, they just don't seem to understand.

 

And there is another problem with being intelligent; I always look for logical reasons, which drives me crazy. Because I've always told myself that I'm not meant to be; That in the jungle, natural selection would most likely have killed me a long time ago. So when my sweet, caring, beautiful girlfriend left me for someone else... All I could see was how I was attacked by a bigger primate with better social value... and lost.

 

How the hell am I supposed to be happy if the logical part of my brain tells me that I'm really not meant to be? That I'm not able to compete with the alpha males. This is not self-pitying... I do my best every day to convince myself that I'm just being a cynical *******. I wish that I could believe in a higher power. That I could believe in ...something. I don't want believe that my girlfriend, who I still believe was all I ever wanted, left me because some guy who was higher on the social ladder started hitting on her.

 

Let me quote Woody Allen, who I believe pretty much nails it:

 

This is my perspective and has always been my perspective on life. I have a very grim, pessimistic view of it. I always have since I was a little boy; it hasn’t gotten worse with age or anything. I do feel that’s it’s a grim, painful, nightmarish, meaningless experience and that the only way that you can be happy is if you tell yourself some lies and deceive yourself.

 

But I am not the first person to say this or even the most articulate person. It was said by Nietzsche, it was said by Freud, it was said by Eugene O’Neill. One must have one’s delusions to live. If you look at life too honestly and clearly, life becomes unbearable because it’s a pretty grim enterprise, you will admit.

 

This is how I feel. I was stupid and ignorant. I wish I could tell myself "**** that whore, you'll find someone better". But all I can hear is what my mother always told me: "Don't date beautiful girls, because sooner or later they'll leave you for someone more popular".

 

I believe that I handled the breakup in a very good way. I didn't yell at her, I didn't call her names. I just told her that we should try to work on things, and when she didn't want to do it, I began NC. I know most people say it's better if you never hear from them again, and while I believe that, I just feel so worthless... As soon as someone she figured was a better deal showed up, she throwed me away like dirty sock and never felt the need to apologize.

 

I've been reading about GIGS, BPD and Bipolar Disorder... And people on LS have told me that I'm just trying to delude myself so that I won't have to face the real reasons for the breakup. And you know what? They are right. I don't want to face the truth, because the truth scares me. The truth is that I'm a nice, funny, talented but insecure boy. I let the bad boys step on me and lash out against the people I love because I'm too scared. And of course, most women, at least on a primal level, will realise that the bad boy is more suited to protect the family.

 

I realise that this is a really weird post. I know I sound like an arrogant, cynical ******* and not very bright. There's nothing attractive about a guy with this view on life.

 

I guess my relationship with her was my final attempt to delude myself that true love exists, that dreams come true and that life actually isn't all that bad. But she was too good to be true and stabbed me in the back after 6 year. And I don't think I'm ever going to fully heal this time. If she could do it, anyone could do it.

 

Anyway, I figured it was better to write this here so I can be happy around my friends...

Edited January 22, 2015 by Kevin_D

[Downtown]

I'm very intelligent... I always look for logical reasons, which drives me crazy.

Kevin (aka Bad Brett), your remarkable memory and logical abilities pale in comparison to your creativity -- so evident in the

you made. Moreover, listening to the logical "adult" in your mind is very difficult to do, so please don't beat yourself up if you need time to pull it off. The reason is that our inner child (i.e., the intuitive, emotional part of our mind) makes the vast majority of our important decisions. I was 50 years old before I understood that simple notion. And it took me 12 years to do it.

 

What happened was that, for 12 years, I took my bipolar foster son to a weekly family group meeting with the psychologist who was treating him. Whenever the psychologist challenged me on something, I always had an elaborate well-thought-out explanation for doing whatever I had chosen to do. Never mind that what I had chosen was not working with my foster son and never mind that I kept repeating the same pattern year after year.

 

The psychologist was always greatly amused by my explanations. He would laugh and point out, in his kindly fashion, that my elaborate rationalizations could not disguise the fact that my inner child -- not my adult -- was calling all the shots, making nearly all the decisions. In any contest between the adult and child, he claimed, the child would almost always win. But I just could not swallow this concept.

 

Yet, after twelve years of his gentle rebukes, it dawned on me one night -- right as I was about to drift into sleep -- why he had to be right. My inner child, I suddenly realized, is the sole judge of what is fun and what is not fun. That decision is all powerful. The adult part of my mind will nearly always conclude that it makes no sense -- indeed, would be preposterous -- to do something, go somewhere, or date someone I do not enjoy. My adult logic thus nearly always has to end up in the lap of my inner child. This is why learning about my exW's problem (BPD) and my problem (excessive caregiver) is the easy part. What is difficult is internalizing that understanding, i.e., transforming knowledge into wisdom, which requires that my feelings catch up with my intellectual thoughts.

 

Simply stated, I must persuade my child that my adult views of my ex's illness and my own excessive caregiving are correct -- an objective I have mostly attained. Had I failed in that effort, I would remain stuck in a destructive pattern, repeating my past mistakes over and over, because my child will be calling nearly all the shots. Because I had been in a 15 year relationship, it took me at least a year to bring my child's feelings into alignment with my adult's understanding. After just two weeks of intense reading on the Internet, I had a pretty good understanding of what I needed to do to get out of the toxic relationship and why I needed to do it.

 

Yet, because my child was over a year behind my adult, the child sabotaged my every effort to break away. It hindered me with nagging doubts, terrible guilt, and a strong feeling of obligation. It kept telling me that the theory floating around in the adult part of my mind was an insufficient basis on which to wholly abandon a sick loved one. Even after I had left her, I still refused to go No Contact for eight more months, at which point I finally realized she is incapable of ever being my friend. My adult dragged my child -- with him kicking and screaming every inch of the way -- to that shocking truth. How do you accomplish that? How do you teach a child -- who had felt for many years she was my best friend -- that she never even had that capability?

 

To bring the child and adult into alignment, what helped me a little was talking about my new found knowledge to anyone who would listen. Well, that was good for a week. Then their eyes glazed over. So what helped the most was coming to a forum like this, where I could discuss it with people who had been there, done that. Significantly, that helped my mind to associate feelings with each of the intellectual thoughts. That has to be done because the child largely learns from emotional experiences -- not from logic.

 

Writing and talking will help you internalize the information, turning knowledge into wisdom -- by connecting thoughts to feelings. If you doubt that, simply ask any university professor about its effectiveness. He likely will tell you he never had an intuitive, deep-level understanding of his subject matter until he had to teach it to someone else -- or had to write it down very precisely when doing research. Hence, what I found most helpful is talking about it to anyone who will listen and writing about it to anyone who will write back.

[mtnbiker3000]

Hahahaha. Nor weird at all. And not uncommon. Although only 5 years compared to your 8, instill remember it all very vividly as well. Every detail. The joke about sex I made, then quickly got nervous that it would be taken the wrong way (it didn't). I think we all do this to some degree.

[flitzanu]

if i may offer my perspective...don't let your intelligence be your weakness. if you want to compete with the alpha males that are dumb brutes, then do it. the world was built with strength, but it was certainly brains that designed the plans.

[IfiKnewThen]

when i think of alzhemier patients, i have always said that they remember yesteryear more than yesterday because they have been remembering it longer. its easier actually to remember something you have experienced more frequently in your thoughts. like yesteryear.

 

i do believe people with super fantastic...almost like a prodigy memory are almost living those moments repeatedly, in recollection.

you grieve the loss of what you can see more vividly in your mind. there is no question on my mind that can happen. but even if you cant recall things so vividly, feelings get etched in your heart.

 

the way i have tried to get over these imprints a wee bit easier was to make new memories in old places and in new ones. but love is love and when u really love someone you never really get fully over them. the people who we spend years and years together with. your memory is definitely a blessing and a curse. in the meantime it might help to take new seeds of thoughts and plant them somewhere else, to create new memories...of other things...people..etc to help cope. to give way to possible new neurons or brain pathways to direct you away from the old, as much. (whatever that means) ...at least try ; )

Edited January 25, 2015 by IfiKnewThen