I am a slave to my baser instincts which often lands me in trouble.
After much analysing of my personality, it is clear to me that my baser instincts are what makes up most of my decision making, and then my cognitive rational self jumps in to analyse the validity of this decision making. It is often in conflict and so the process inevitably results in "discipline". What is the right thing to do? What has a better possible outcome? Will I be unnecessarily hurting anyone in this decision? Am I of sound mind to make this claim? and so on.
Due to feeling so unwell a lot of the time, I will often instinctively reach for whatever is at hand to make me more comfortable and I am a slave to routine. It is very hard for me to break habits whether they be good or bad. If it is familiar and reliable most of the time, then it is the first thing I will employ in problem solving and reaching favourable conclusions. Sometimes it will be at the cost of my health and I wonder how I could be so stupid. For someone who has a relatively high IQ and a fairly sound knowledge of things, I can behave and think like a child, driven by instant gratification, at the cost of all that is decent and rational.
I also cannot do things by half. If I start to exercise it will become a compulsion, and due to my physical limitations, potentially damaging. All of my health professionals say to me "take it slowly. Don't overdo it". This is my confusion. I understand intellectually the limitations of my body, but I do not understand "Take it slowly". I am an ex-ballet dancer and trained 6 days a week for 12 years in my youth. If you exercise, you EXERCISE. Doing it any other way just bores me to tears and makes little sense. I cannot marry "slowly" and "exercise" and so I do nothing as I sit paralysed by the inconsistency going on in my brain. Hence, lack of discipline.
Since only knowing of the AS for about 8 months now, the decline in my cognitive functioning happened long before that. I started to get more distressed than usual with change, I became a lot more eccentric and obsessive with things and most definitely became more rigid in my understanding. I simply did not have the stamina anymore to cognitively analyse every single minute of my life to ensure that I was behaving/reacting/deliberating properly. For 36 years, I was SO disciplined, that it nearly killed me. I lived by such a strict set of internal rules, while outwardly appearing to be fun-loving and confident because I learnt that that was the easiest way to avoid trouble, and too much investigation by others. Often, of course, the dam would burst and I would land in VERY hot water, so I covered it up with drugs and drink. A very strange way of disciplining oneself.
So as my inner self is starting to assert itself and grapple to the top for a breath of fresh air, I try and temper it with discipline and structure that is actually productive. It isn't really working and I find myself getting angry for no reason. As my chinese doctor says, "Your liver very hot. Too much anger. We fix, okay?" but in this process, I have had to make changes to the way I process anger, my diet and basically my whole unhealthy existence. For the first time ever, I am finding it very difficult.
I am fascinated by disciplined people. My mother is one of them. In fact, I am jealous as I am reminded of the regimental discipline I used to have, even if it cost me dearly. I think the conflict is that the areas I need to be disciplined in, don't actually interest me. I often find myself lamenting at the inability of my body to stand up to all weather, forever. i hate the fact that I need rest, and food and relaxation. I want to move and think as fast as I always did. I want to be a robot. Fanciful, ha? Well, the heart wants what the heart wants.
Anyways, that is my thought of the day.
Loup
