Day 6 Give men freedom, they’ll beg for chains…

‘Give men freedom, they’ll beg for chains’ is a lyric from a rap song by Billy Woods that has stuck with me since I heard it.


The nature of my anxiety has always been such that I tend to get overwhelmed by options and by limitless choice. I find boundaries and limits comforting, having certain things taken out of my hands, certain choices pre-made for me.


The other day, I was at my computer and a glimmer of a thought wizzed by - the thought was ‘if the pain does go away, I will have to actually make music again’. I felt myself trying to suppress the thought the moment it reared its head.


I love music and love making it. It’s my biggest passion and how I want to spend my life. One of the biggest ways I am cruel to myself is in the amount of pressure I put on myself to be a ‘good’ musician, and to ‘succeed’ at music - whatever that means. I constantly compare myself to others, judge my music harshly, and demand that I constantly make more, no matter how much I am producing.


One of the biggest inner conflicts I have had with music is whether I am a ‘real’ musician. My process revolves around sampling and processing sounds in a daw, and as such I think I felt like a fraud because I couldn’t play an instrument. Lots of my idols make music this way, and don’t play instruments - yet the notion that they’re not real musicians would never cross my mind.


I believe it’s possible I have become so institutionalised to the pain that freedom from it scares me, as I will have to start delivering all of the things I demand of myself and fear I will crack under the pressure.

 

@james9494
You are not alone!
I have had similar anxieties.
Many of the people I had really admired do not like my work. My question then has been why am I so attracted to pleasing such harsh critics?
(Including my own).

 

For me it may be from my father lol

 

I can relate so strongly, I cannot express it enough. I have the exact same problem with the only difference being my material is writing, not music.

As for the pre-made choices, I have been going so far as to create complex systems of determining what should I do at any given day. I would, for example, roll a dice to see which of the chores I should be doing next. I would roll a dice to determine if I would be doing housework in the afternoon or read a book. After all, on what basis should I choose if both options seem equally important? How do I know which flavor of chocolate should I pick? What should I have for lunch? Where to go on vacation? Which game to play? There are so many options to everything that making any choice seems impossible. How do I know know what to chose if I'm disconnected from my feelings? They should be guiding me and telling me what do I want the most at any given time. Instead, as with everything in my life, I turn to logic and resoning and they simply tell me "we have no idea if you should read book A or B today and we don't care".

Coincidently, today is my another attempt at leaving all the systems behind and trying do to what I feel like doing. I usually last a few days but hope today is the day when I'm through with dice-rolling my life. I'm simply very tired of having to operate the systems all the time.

 

Im

that sounds like a very intense level of executive dysfunction, and I’m sorry to hear of your struggles.

but I must admit, In the past I have considered constructing similar systems. I have a lot of work on my hands atm clearning out and renovating the house I live in, and there’s so many things of equal magnitude that need doing that there are days where I’m paralysed by it all and do nothing.

I’m considering an adhd screening. But I also think the executive function issues are related to my awful sleep, do you find the same?

 

My reply to you earlier went weird as it displays strange on my phone. What I had meant to say was:

I agree, I have actually gravitated towards more spiritual and religious thoughts since I began life with chronic pain. I think this is something that is important for me to get to grips with, what Alan Gordon says about pressure and fear really resonate with me.

 

Well, I usually do sleep at night and don't find myself sleepy during the day but the sleep quality is terrible. I always have these intense, unsettling dreams and wake up all tense and hurting.

 

when I said awful sleep - that’s what I meant. I do get sleep, it’s just the quality is usually poor. And my arm pain is worst lying down before sleeping. I get odd dreams too.