Cognitive therapy. Working on actions instead of feelings. Ineffective actions. They probably stem from feelings initially. I am thinking that I learned these coping actions from some of the same people who caused the weird feelings. Maybe all of the same people. But the bad feelings may be passed on from their bad feelings, just like the bad coping techniques. So I am being misled into copying techniques which didn't work for them, either.

This journaling seems to be a superior coping technique, versus some of the ones I picked up. For instance, I may have actually learned dissociation. I was assuming that it is an instinctual reaction to unpleasant or traumatic situations, but it could also be a learned behavior, I suppose. "Depression is Contagious" style of learning. Environmental depression. Habitual depression. My low-grade depression goes hand-in-hand with my lower end coping techniques. They get me by, but not in a high-functioning way. It explains why I don't let myself stay healthy for very long without an infusion of self-destruction. I am finding that comfort zone where I am mildly depressed.

And there is another side - I am born with these propensities. They are both not taught and not reactions to anything. They are my biology. Or maybe they're a response to my biology. There's also my own behavior choices, which lead to ingrained ways of thinking and feeling - like being a musician might make me moodier or more solitary, or more introspective. Even being a cellist, to be very specific.

So what happens is I cannot trust my own instinctual reactions or propensities. I have been taught or born maladaptively, so I live that way. I live sad or I live manic. But sad and manic are not happy. Although everyone wears masks, mine are more prohibitive than most. They seem less functional.

I would like to accumulate a repertoire of pro-adaptive activities. I do try. They seem to come and go. They lie on the whispering wind.

If I pay attention, I see I am feeling hidden anger. Why must I wait until things get life-sized and difficult to manage?

But it's hard to pinpoint its source. Is it mostly long-forgotten and long-dismissed incidents from long ago? It seems like it. So if I've disregarded the importance of those old feelings, chances are I never went through any grieving-type process. I never actually let myself get angry, or sad, or forgave anyone, or had any other naturally occurring offshoots from painful experiences.

My tendency to hold in my anger, even to my own eyes, could be a result of my fear that if I start letting it out, it will overwhelm me and everyone in the vicinity. I also may perceive it as unclassy. Or maybe it will be underwhelming, and seem wimpy. It'll look like sour grapes, or like I'm a crybaby. Not like a real man.

The problem with anger is it's not a particularly constructive way of dealing with problems that come up in life. I mean, normal-sized problems. What would be better is to acknowledge whatever angry reaction you have to a situation, express or deal with the feeling somehow, and then be free to address the issues rationally. That's probably where things like catastrophizing come into play. That is an unholy combination of strong negative feelings and an attempt to fix the problem.

I used to be admired or commended for my ability to let things roll off my back. Really I just deal with my negative feelings differently - I don't deal with them, for the most part. They come out in odder ways, through my behavior and my difficulty doing things. And my ruminating. But one way or another, they are there and they affect me all too deeply.

I am sometimes in need of pencil and paper when I am at the gym, so I've resorted to using my mobile phone's little notepad for my mental machinations, as such:

One problem is that I think conversation is not worthwhile if it doesn't involve kvetching about something. Is that rational? Is it rational to think that that leads to happiness? Am I aiming for happiness? Am I allowed to experience contentment? What would happen then? Would the world come to a screeching halt? I'd say it comes to a halt the way things are right now! I don't know about anyone else, but that seems to be the way I work. Or maybe I don't understand the word contentment.

That took two note's worth of memory.

How about this one, which may be inevitable at a gym:

There are pros and cons to being attracted to many people while remaining faithful to one. The con is obvious - it's frustrating and creates an unraveling sense of yourself. The pro is less apparent - it is derived from the perspective making choices gives you. If you consider it for a moment, you will see how key it can be to a personal peace of mind. One cannot be monogamous and promiscuous simultaneously. You have to exercise choice to make the wiser decision. It's not just a decision - it's a long-term state of existence as you go along. That is the advantage of seeing the various angles of life. It's nearly impossible to determine the wisdom of things right off - initially, you're mostly swayed by emotion. It's only as you live hour to hour, day to day, that you can accurately judge how it all pans out.

Too many distractions. Hard to know what might be going on in this heart. Leaping around from thing to thing. But that seems to be the point. It is the distractions which are designed to cover it up. The whole of society enjoys them. Garbage in, garbage out. That may explain the driving need to express myself. I let in so much jumbled, chaotic gobbledygook that it's no wonder there's a boatload to unload. Maybe peace lives where nothing comes in and nothing goes out. Just a stasis, a balance point.

When you're a kid, it's almost expected that you will imitate, emulate, and basically ape your way through most complex interactions. I suppose that's fine, except for the fact that at some point it ceases to serve your true, actual needs as a person. Which is really annoying. How are you supposed to be able to suddenly tap your real self?

So then what happens is we all start to harden into our various facades, hoping we will grow comfortable with them enough to deem them the real us. Of course that just puts more barriers between us and Us. Don't you hate when you think you've uncovered something totally genuine, only to find you were duped by your own good intentions?

I hate feeling stifled. I am envisioning times in the past with no sense of that. Am I exaggerating reality? Falsifying memory? Living in the past that never really was? Why do I do that? It is so very confusing to not be in the present, and to misconstrue the past, longing for something that never was. That means you are left with nothing. No real, true memories and no present, and a deep fear of the future.

And what is the cause of all this? Bad things that happened, which I am spending great energy denying, and which laid the groundwork for not living in the present moment. Not only not living in the present, but being deathly afraid of the present. Much more than most people, it seems. I am truly trapped in the nether-region between the non-existent past (which could be anything, really, since it is no more than dust now) and the intimidating present. Where is that? Nowhere, really.

The past, present and future are all closed off to me, psychically. They seem to be laden with ghosts. Perhaps that was why a lobotomy seemed appealing for a time. Simple surgical removal of them. Seems so easy. But then you realize that the ghosts have great value, if only you could befriend them somehow. They are really the keys that unlock various doors.

I can be just as alone with other people as I am by myself.

But I'm not alone, even when I physically am. I am really rather cluttered with company - all my ghosts. Like Scrooge. He had his 3 ghosts. And like him, my ghosts would be willing to teach me some things, if I could redirect their repeating tapes. There are ghosts whom I am drawn to (much more than is realistic or appropriate or advisable) and there are ghosts I detest (again, more than recommended).

But all these ghosts keep me in a loop - their loop - and my life progresses at a snail's pace, if I'm lucky. I am stuck in a small room with lots of bodies - disembodied ones.

But I don't know the way out, is the problem. I am good enough at ignoring and blocking out all the ghosts while in the same room. That is not a great accomplishment. Or is it? Are they that scary and problematic that I should consider myself lucky to eschew them temporarily?