Validating Self and dealing with blow outs

Hey,

When my boyfriend say something that i feel makes me invalidated, i do this thing which i called a blow out which can be identified as me 1. losing control of my behaviour and feelings 2. extreme feelings 3. urge to self harm or suicide 4. tell boyfriend i am feeling suicidal or want to self harm 5. suggest to boyfriend that the bottle shop man is better than him 6. body vibrations on extreme high and feel extremely stressed 7. sudden urge to drink/drug/chain smoke 8. yell at boyfriend 9. run away from house with stuffed animal.

After this happened for an hour today, i smoked 5 puffs of weed then calmed down and became aware that it had happened then had to identify the trigger which was feeling invalidated. It was very embarrassing and scary to be out of control like that.

What are things that i can do to either recognise it earlier or what a methods people have used to control themselves during a blow out? Boyfriend and i have agreed that he is going to tell me i'm being histrionic when it's happening but we are obviously unsure how this would go. I love boyfriend very much and have changed so much of myself with his help so i am hoping my true self will shine through and respond to him positively.
What's other advice though?
And what is the history behind the self validation? What from childhood? Is this also connected to the procrastination, talking about self ( i did do this for attention, i did it because i was constantly looking for someone to tell me i'm on the right path with recovery and i'm doing it now with you guys), self doubt? What about the core histrionic issue of don't trust self? How is it all connected?

Also, boyfriend is very science based and is an atheist. When i am trying to explain to him things about my ego defences or meditation or things from my childhood and what could have caused this, he wants evidence on everything. He says 'where is the proof there is an ego' and thinks i'm talking #######4. My psychologist keeps saying she'll give me some links to good stuff but never does.
What are possible responses to him telling me there is no such thing as ego?

-- Wed Apr 25, 2018 7:21 pm --

And if you know anything about it, i want to know how the 'nutty professor' ego defence my psych is telling me about usually develops in histrionic women. I am struggling to see how this one fully manifests in me?

Hi,

I have no good clear answer myself as to why some can self-validate, while others don't feel that is enough other than the usual, some combination of innate personality and experiences (both worth digging into with a therapist), but as for this...

histrionicsgetlit wrote:What are possible responses to him telling me there is no such thing as ego?

Feels like a bait question, that he probably doesn't really want an answer for. It would take very little effort for him to affirm the huge amount of material written about ego, or if he prefers, 'self-esteem', sense of self, etc. If he really wanted proof he'd seek it.

I suppose though if he is one of those pure objective types, who is asking for measurable proof that what humans think and feel is 'real', then he is not going to get it. I can however recommend an inexpensive book that speaks to that topic, for the extreme objective types...

"Hidden In Plain Sight 9: The Physics Of Consciousness" by Andrew Thomas

99 cents in ebook format.

Thank you very much xdude. That book is very appropriate as he has a physics degree so thinks that way.

I have somehow managed to cover a little bit on self-validation this week through life but not enough yet. Everything seems to take 3 weeks of heavy focus. It turns out though that i am also not actually validating other people like boyfriend. I wonder if there is also an empathy thing going on here?

I got accepting criticism done over the weekend. IT was crazy i didn't realise i was responding like that to it. Now i've been practicing with boyfriend and i'm not taking it so personally. We also hold hands while doing it so if i am feeling really supported while receiving constructive criticism.

What do you know about circumstantial speech? This seems very histrionic and also the other one where you don't even end up coming back to the topic is something i'd do if i were intoxicated.

Why do you think people have commented that i show signs of autism? I was also tested as a child for learning disabilities. I know with this one that when i am in child histrionic brain i am pretty much an idiot but when i am in normal brain i am at the same standard of my families intelligence. What's the thinking with the autism thought.

One more thing is was do you think about foundational morals? And not necessarily in terms of the exact philosophy of it but the idea that as a histrionic, my foundational morals may have been different to others. Now that i am aware and changing, they are shifting. If i actively read more philosophy and started basing a lot of my behaviour on those morals sort of in a way that religious people do, do you think that this would make me experience normal human emotions more often? I've noticed that when boyfriend wakes up in the morning he is loving me straight away where as when i wake up i sort of vacantly wander around and then start feeling. I am inconsistent with loving and it comes in huge highs and lows. Could this be connected to morals?

Hey histrionicsgetlit,

I really don't know the answers to those questions, so all I have is guesses from my own experiences.

About the only thing I can write is that my ex, who I think matched the criteria for HPD, exhibited a lot of personality/emotional shifts too. Some of that I thought was cyclical (i.e., I eventually could predict it's about time for her to shift in a new mode). Other times I think it was she was affected by something, or wanted something, and would switch.

I can only guess that she was far more affected by her emotional state than most people. That's not to mean that others don't have emotional states, just that they don't weigh them as strongly. Such as maybe I am not feeling so great today, or now, but intellectually I know that I should still show the people I care about that I care, and remind myself that they are important. The emotions will pass and catch-up.

So my guess is that people with HPD tend to end up more buried in their own emotions that the norm, but that is just a guess.

Here is another example that may help to clarify -

A few years ago someone with HPD had written that she felt it was a burden to care for her little brother or sister (I forget which, but it's not important), and that it wasn't honest to pretend otherwise. The thing is, that's true for everyone. Taking care of someone else is a burden, it's work, it can be a drain. The difference is some others will put that aside, weigh that a little brother/sister is important to them, and so do what needs to be done. Their emotions catch-up to their actions/thoughts.

Therapy is interesting because while part of it is about exploring emotions, beliefs, perceptions, the other part of it is about learning habits and practicing actions. I believe it's true that emotions, thoughts, and actions are all intertwined. So changing our actions can affect our emotions. But maybe with HPD that gets back to the core issue for some?

What I mean is, one theory is that people with HPD spent so much of their life denying their own personality (and emotions) to put on a show to appease others, that putting on another act to try and change those emotions yet again, feels wrong. That's just a guess though

histrionicsgetlit wrote:9. run away from house with stuffed animal.

This sounds like something I would do.

A bit off topic, but do histrionics tend to regress or infantalise themselves?