Eat. Watch. Read. Listen to.
Everything that you are exposed to has an effect. For example, people who watch, listen to, or read the news regularly tend to have a more negative view of the world and feel that crime has increased over time, because that is what they are exposed to.
I'm a highly sensitive person. Add to that extreme introversion and PTSD and you'll find that my nerves are all right there at the surface. Some of them may even extend past my skin.
I learned over a decade ago that I have to pay attention to what I let in. Very dark books, tv shows, and movies are hard on me. I take them inside me and the darkness tends to stick. I remember the most horrific things from such stories and they pop up years later. Given my obsessive thinking, it can take days to get the thoughts to go away.
When it comes to the news, I keep in mind the way it can bend your perceptions, so I mostly scroll over the headlines online.
Although I learned my lesson over a decade ago, I have to keep relearning it and re-remembering it, as I do with everything. I have remembered to not read books about serial killers that won't die, but I keep forgetting about TV shows. I watch CSI and CSI NY (I think CSI NY is less dark than the original). But the worst is that I've been watching Criminal Minds. That's all about mass murderers, serial killers, and bombers! It's one of the worst things I can do to myself. It's like an addiction. When the next season comes around, I'm going to remind myself to Watch Something Else.
Now, I cannot watch movies about psychopaths, because they are monsters that exist and I'll have nightmares and my anxieties will increase. But I can watch movies about non-human monsters, such as giant sharks and behemoths that come out of mountains. And I can watch natural disaster movies — the worse the disaster the better. Maybe these are cathartic for my anxiety, my PTSD. Certainly they stimulate me and make me breath faster, make my heart race. Perhaps they are helpful in balancing out how withdrawn I can become due to the hypersensitivity and the introversion.
Some of my friends are very thoughtful and mindful of my sensitivities and will caution me about various movies or books, even going so far as to say "don't watch that, ever" or "don't read that, ever." I love that they care and that they know me well enough to be able to tell me this. Their doing so makes me feel loved.
Lately I've been bingeing on monster movies, now that I have Netflix Streaming Video. It coincides with a lightening of my mood. I cannot even apply a correlation because I have nothing to base it on; there are other things that do have some correlation. However, the movies don't seem to have a negative effect on me, so I think I'll continue. Anything to feel better, right now. Anything to feel better.
This time I'll remember what is good for me to watch, read, or listen to. This time I'll remember what is bad. This time I won't listen to the little voice that says "it won't hurt you, you enjoy this." I'm sure many people have heard that voice and knew it meant the exact opposite of what it says. This time I'll remember to sick my big, protective voice on the evilly seductive voice. Who do you think will win?
This time I'll remember to take good care of myself. Forever.
When you write things like this, the reminders and the affirmations, they are becoming more solid. Manifesting the right things is where we always need to focus.
ReplyDeleteJulie
I was watching Cranford again yesterday. It's about a town of mostly women, shabby genteel, they have very little money. They're far from perfect--they're big gossips, often shallow; but they take care of each other when it counts. One night the new doctor needs to perform emergency (and new! radical!) surgery to save a worker's arm, or he'll lose his livelihood, but he has no candles. The ladies rally round and offer him their own meagre stores.
ReplyDeleteHe says to them: "Nothing like this would ever happen in London." The leader of the pack, a very serious and dour woman who only reads Dr Johnson tells him: "You're not in London anymore Doctor. You're in Cranford now."
I tear up every time. I love to watch shows like that, they fill me with good spirits. Cause there are people like that in the world. (Well, the Betties for one.) It IS nice to take a break from the doom and gloom to remember that.