Lack of Remorse for Suicide

HSS wrote:"Learn how to communicate more effectively"... not so easy.
As someone that isn't that good at communication, I guess that the first step is to realize that it's a choice. I don't take responsibility for failing in communication process. I justify me closing the communication because of some temperamental or behavioral traits in someone else. I often live it as something unavoidable, not as a choice, depending on my willing. It's wrong, but I think that way. I guess that the first step is to recognize that it's in my hands.

I don’t know if this is directed at yourself or if you are speaking in general terms. I’ve improved my communication a great deal but it’s been a life long quest. A big part is just the willingness to explain myself, as I don’t feel the need to most of the time and assume others won’t understand anyway Or if they do they will use the information against me, but just taking this step has been a game changer. As I learn that people will understand if I take the time to explain it well, the more natural is seems.

HSS wrote:Btw welcome back @Vini, glad to read you again

Hi HSS,

Always glad to hear from you as well. But same as you, I am not certain if I'm "back" .

Esmoke wrote:I don’t know if this is directed at yourself or if you are speaking in general terms. I’ve improved my communication a great deal but it’s been a life long quest. A big part is just the willingness to explain myself, as I don’t feel the need to most of the time and assume others won’t understand anyway Or if they do they will use the information against me, but just taking this step has been a game changer. As I learn that people will understand if I take the time to explain it well, the more natural is seems.

I think that improving communication is an endless "work in progress".

Childhood: at the beginning every child is instinctively able and prone to express himself; but he isn't able to understand by himself complex replies, as he doesn't know the world around.
When adults aren't able/don't care to help him understand an unpleasant communication coming from outside, there is a problem. The child doesn't understand what caused others' painful behaviour, and he feels bad. By consequence, he will gradually try to prevent and condition others' answers, to avoid pain/get pleasure. He begins to “select” his statements to obtain something. This decreases his spontaneity and courage in self-expression, in exchange for predictability (control on environment).

In adult life, these maneuvers became an automatic “nature”, and authentic self-expression is compromised. Sometimes, “communication” between adults looks like an exchange between slaves: each one is conditioning/limiting/denying/masking himself, to influence the answer. Someone can be partially aware of his maneuvers, however nobody is spontaneous, and communication is distorted.

To communicate ourselves effectively, we have to rediscover our spontaneity and combine it with the skill that we didn't' receive “by default”: understanding others. Today we are more experienced. This is both a help and an obstacle: thanks to our experiences, we can understand or misunderstand others. In practice, we need to be careful about eventual projections, and develop perception.

I noticed that I have multiple feelings towards an event. I think that the first emotional reaction is the more respondent to “reality”, but it passes very quickly. It's the present. I can evoke it just retrospectively, through introspection. After the input, just one second later, our values, ideas, experiences, defenses, thoughts come. They arrive a little later. It's like they are heavier than reality and contemporaneity, and it's like they “need to move” to reach reality, that it's already on the place. They generate “secondary” feelings. These feelings aren't generated by the external input, but mostly we believe they are.

Then, there are several, interconnected elements influencing communication:

- responsibility, being aware that it's always our choice, as written in my previous post.

- understanding yourself, and the other one. Self-understanding: the topic would require one thousand threads. Understanding the interlocutor: if you understand the “origin”/cause of a negative reaction, your self-expression naturally modulates in a compatible way, you become emotionally and sincerely “well-disposed” toward him.

- our motivation. We usually communicate to receive something (logical understanding, emotional comprehension, esteem, appreciation, acceptation, absolution, attention, some material gain, ...). But there is an existential motivation too. We exist. And a life with no communication makes no sense, at least for many people. Imho this is the deepest motivation — I don't intend it in a judgmental way, but it's the most connected with our essence — and with this motivation, your communication doesn't stop even when you foresee to receive, or are receiving, negative reactions. It's just about your realization. When I feel this kind of motivation, I want to communicate - no matter the interlocutor.

- self-esteem plays a role too: how do we imagine our emotional response to a negative reaction? Do we think that we will be hurt, strong, destroyed, destructive, ...?

Then, it's complex. I assume that a real communication happens when we wish to share ourselves, with no other reason than the pleasure to do it, and moreover we are able to decode others' reactions without distorting/misunderstanding them.

HSS wrote:
- our motivation. We usually communicate to receive something (logical understanding, emotional comprehension, esteem, appreciation, acceptation, absolution, attention, some material gain, ...). But there is an existential motivation too. We exist. And a life with no communication makes no sense, at least for many people. Imho this is the deepest motivation — I don't intend it in a judgmental way, but it's the most connected with our essence — and with this motivation, your communication doesn't stop even when you foresee to receive, or are receiving, negative reactions. It's just about your realization. When I feel this kind of motivation, I want to communicate - no matter the interlocutor.

^this
mind and language are alike in this way. If you look up a word in the dictionary, it will give you other words. only together do they create themselves via their own seperation