Tonight, I'm just now catching up with last Sunday's papers. This article from the Washington Post caught my eye, mostly because I have a soft spot for the misbegotten and unusual-looking and because I love vegetables:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eat-the-crooked-carrot-save-the-world/2015/03/13/d6899452-c7fb-11e4-a199-6cb5e63819d2_story.html

 

nerves and nightmares

Salvador Dali

I have been having the most horrific nightmares the past few nights so I'm drinking coffee and planning on staying up late tonight because I can't bear to fall asleep anymore, even though sleep is exactly what I want most in life right now.

I think it's all a vicious cycle, emphasis on the "vicious." Not sleeping and being nervous leads to nightmares and bad nerves, which then leads to more not sleeping which leads to more bad nerves which leads back to the...well, you get it.

I am ashamed to admit that I have been having a glass of wine, sometimes more than one, a night to help me sleep. I guess because I don't have much experience with alcohol I didn't realize it can actually cause nightmares, though I've had nightmares since I was a little girl and am not sure alcohol is the sole cause. 

No matter, the cause, though...I'm through with the wine. I don't like how it makes me feel.

Anyway...today I have extremely frayed nerves so I'm trying to go to my Happy Place even more than usual and also using this article to help:

 http://www.wikihow.com/Not-Get-Nervous (with emphasis on the second step):

2

Go to your "happy place" or visualize success. Happy Gilmore wasn't full of it when he used a visualization technique to quell his anger before making a golf shot. You can use a "happy place" visualization to remove yourself from a place of nervousness and visit a stress-free place of happiness, whether it be a shopping mall or a deserted beach.

• Visualize yourself succeeding in the thing that is making you nervous. Positive visualizations can turn into actual successes if you truly believe that you can succeed.
• Remember to think happy thoughts and utilize your imagination to imagine positive rather than negative situations.

As for nightmares, if you suffer from them (though I hope you don't), I found the following articles helpful:

http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/guide/nightmares-in-adults


http://www.charminghealth.com/applicability/nightmare.htm


And this really old thing (the copyright looks like 1946) on guilt and nightmares:

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1368&dat=19461215&id=bk9QAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Tg0EAAAAIBAJ&pg=2558,564535&hl=en

I am propped up in bed, hoping to fall asleep because I feel like I haven't slept right in ages and sleep (good sleep) can be such sweet relief. It's amazing how something so common is so hard to find.

I'm also not really getting how to actually be lately, then I see this in the magazine I'm half-heartedly reading. I don't follow Dr. Phil at all, but this speaks to me. If fear of rejection is so common I wonder why humans (in general) aren't nicer to each other.

There are days when I'm almost afraid to leave the house, not because I'm afraid of people so much...as I'm afraid of how I will interact with them.

Except for work I really don't go anywhere but to the store and to get my errands done. I don't necessarily like being alone so much, but the worrying part of me prefers that, because it's impossible to unintentionally antagonize or annoy someone if you keep to yourself, by yourself.

The worst thing about good intentions is it doesn't always matter who you really are or what you mean...people often only see what is on the surface. 

A shy person comes across as a snob. A person who is fearful or been hurt whenever she dared open her heart in the past now may come across as cold or uncaring. 

Past experiences or tormenting thoughts can keep us from showing our true selves and we are judged by what we do or say, not by what we feel. So someone who comes across as a stumbling conversationalist or as having no emotions may be the exact opposite...some of us figure it's better to stay hidden than to venture out.

I wish (sometimes), like ET, we had heartlights so we all knew where we stood with each other.

Can you will yourself to stop caring about someone who doesn't want to be cared about by you? I don't know if it's entirely possible, but lately I'm pretty sure it's the right thing to do, even if only outwardly.

When you ask if someone is okay and someone else tells you "this has nothing to do with you," it may hurt, but it really gets you thinking, helps you realize your place and how you need to stay firmly inside it.

Closed doors, both literal and figurative, would be more than enough for me to figure out it's not good to push boundaries as to whether someone is okay or not. I would get that in some instances it's just not my right nor my place to care about some people, even if I hadn't learned that long ago in high school.

Meanwhile, when I tried to Google "what to do when you have no right to care about someone," absolutely nothing came up...surely, other people have liked people they're not supposed to...maybe, it's just common sense stuff, which scares me if I'm so clueless that I have to look that up.

I think it's one reason I'm not very good with people, in general. I am so bad at reading normal social cues and I tend to compensate for my shyness by trying harder to be outgoing and friendly, ending up being foolish instead of pleasantly sociable. 

I feel like sometimes I need an entire manual on how to be a normal human being.

And I've realized something else...once (not if, but once, since I have to!) I finally get over my feelings of unrequited love I am through with all of it and I never, never (never!) want to meet anyone I could like, reciprocated feelings or not. To paraphrase Quarterflash, "I'm gonna harden my heart."

It is exhausting...not the caring about someone, that is pretty much okay...what is exhausting is caring about someone and having to hide it, that is what tires you and your soul out.

But no matter what the situation, I don't ever want to feel so silly and irrational again in my life.

I think something my mom told me (when she insisted I tell her what was bothering me and I gave her the generals of it, very vaguely) might help. She said, "Maybe this person doesn't want you to care. If they did, they would have told what you was wrong." 

I know unrequited love makes no sense at all, but I don't think it's supposed to make sense. My whole life I've been going down a one way street in the wrong direction and now it's time to truly come to my senses.

This is a link below to articles and websites about unrequited love. A lot of the info refers to "pursuing" someone. The only peace I can take away from my experience is that I never ever purposely showed any outwardly interest...nor would have it occurred to me to show any.

If anything I have done everything not to...because that's one of the things about unrequited...it's completely one-sided and you know it's completely one-sided.

http://unrequitedlovehelp.com/unrequited-love-psychology