(no subject)

There's an idea that's been in my head for the past few weeks, and today I'm going to try to put it into words.

I'd been trying to think about how one controls once brain, and one's thoughts. A lot of people have "criticism tape recorders", that keep playing back the same criticizing messages over and over again.

(side note: there are times when I don't like the term "criticism" in this context, because criticism can be *good*... but I think everyone knows that I'm referring to the not-good kind here)

In a similar vein, I have attacks of bad memories coming back, and causing pretty nasty emotional responses. I also have ADD, which means that I have a hard time focusing on things, which includes the inability to dismiss certain things that have caught my attention.

(For anyone who hasn't heard this little speech from me before, ADD is really about having a problem with control of focus, rather than a problem with focus itself. A person with ADD can't control what he or she finds interesting, and thus can be distracted easily, or can get so pulled into something that it's nearly impossible to distract them from it. So, when a parent says that a child couldn't have ADD because the child can play video game for hours on end, that's not true. I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts the child has gotten into a state of hyper focus, and won't notice anything besides the video-game. Well, I'll make that bet if there are enough indicators of ADD already that the diagnosis should be seriously considered, but the parents are hesitating because "s/he *can* focus on video games (or whatever)..." )

What I've realized is not exactly something to do with learning to control one's mind, but is more about the idea of controlling one's mind.

( Little late for a cut tag, but oh, well... )

(no subject)

There's an idea that's been in my head for the past few weeks, and today I'm going to try to put it into words.

I'd been trying to think about how one controls once brain, and one's thoughts. A lot of people have "criticism tape recorders", that keep playing back the same criticizing messages over and over again.

(side note: there are times when I don't like the term "criticism" in this context, because criticism can be *good*... but I think everyone knows that I'm referring to the not-good kind here)

In a similar vein, I have attacks of bad memories coming back, and causing pretty nasty emotional responses. I also have ADD, which means that I have a hard time focusing on things, which includes the inability to dismiss certain things that have caught my attention.

(For anyone who hasn't heard this little speech from me before, ADD is really about having a problem with control of focus, rather than a problem with focus itself. A person with ADD can't control what he or she finds interesting, and thus can be distracted easily, or can get so pulled into something that it's nearly impossible to distract them from it. So, when a parent says that a child couldn't have ADD because the child can play video game for hours on end, that's not true. I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts the child has gotten into a state of hyper focus, and won't notice anything besides the video-game. Well, I'll make that bet if there are enough indicators of ADD already that the diagnosis should be seriously considered, but the parents are hesitating because "s/he *can* focus on video games (or whatever)..." )

What I've realized is not exactly something to do with learning to control one's mind, but is more about the idea of controlling one's mind.

( Little late for a cut tag, but oh, well... )