Increasing Vulnerability
Wanna know a secret? I don’t write this shit in order, nor did I start with any sort of comprehensive outline of how anything was going to tie together, so yet again I’ve found myself rearranging the entire structure to fit a new idea. Fortunately, I’ve come up with a significantly more organized plan that makes so much more sense than before. Unfortunately, that means I have a bunch of half-assed sections that barely made sense in their own context, and because I’m way more motivated by maintaining my word count than I am by creating quality content, I now have to awkwardly force them to be relevant to my new points.
Would it be more efficient to write the new sections from scratch, rather than spending time desperately trying to find a way to use 500 words that barely made sense when I wrote them two years ago?
Yes.
Have I given you the impression that we should should be making rational choices?
I hope not.
Ok, let me go see what I can do. Here’s some hold music. Or…here’s the book version of music. Go dig out your recorder from fifth grade and make a video playing it while I’m gone #givingupformeagan
The good news is, the topics in a few of those sections are way more relevant than I thought. The bad news is, the reason they are all incomplete is because I did a terrible job writing them and clearly just abandoned ship when I realized how far I had strayed from any semblance of a point. This is actually a great example of what I will be, or, if I moved everything around again have already, talk(ing/ed) about regarding how we should view our relationship to our past/present/and future selves. Past Meagan clearly didn’t care that Present Meagan was going to have to deal with her sloppy ramblings, because at the time she was Present Meagan leaving a problem for Future Meagan, and seeing how I’m currently Present Meagan, not Future Meagan, I can’t actually be mad, since I also am not concerned by the problems of Future Meagan.
It’s going to make so much sense.
But so far nothing I’ve written in this section has been on topic, so it’s probably time to get back to it before this becomes another dead-end document that I promise myself I’ll finish up another time as I quickly move along to something else.
Emotional Triggers
You can’t always predict when an emotion will strike because these nasty predators can be triggered to attack by the slightest stimulus.
A whiff of a familiar cologne on a fellow commuter.
A voicemail notification from an unknown number.
The third eviction notice slid under the door of the apartment you are squatting in.
Seemingly benign events like these can spontaneously evoke a myriad of emotions at a moment’s notice.
That smell may rekindle nostalgic thoughts of your beloved late-grandfather, filling you with sadness as you remember how the bastard cheated you out of millions when he forgot to add you to his will.
The unidentified caller could remind you that you’re waiting for results from an STD test you put off for way too long, and you feel disgusted thinking about some of the people you raw-dogged during your recent work convention.
The sound of paper across the floor, accompanied by the shouts of government law enforcement officials, might fill you with fear as you are transported back to the time a drug lord sent his goon’s to shatter your kneecaps after you couldn’t pay him because you snorted all the coke you were supposed to sell.
You are probably well aware of a few of your personal triggers. They’re probably something boring like the holidays or Adele songs. You may have even conquered your fear of encountering them by finding methods to prepare for and cope with the responses you have when they pop up.
Stop it.
Either forget your coping mechanisms or get some new, more unpredictable triggers. Actually, do both. The more the merrier! Instead of your bullshit approach, we want to live in permanent state of paranoia, anticipating that at any moment we are mere seconds away from having a complete mental breakdown.
How To Cultivate Fear of Emotional Triggers
Don’t identify your triggers
Don’t have a strategy for dealing with your triggers
Plan your life around avoiding any known triggers
Ignore emotional responses to triggers for as long as possible
Get mad at yourself for ultimately being overwhelmed by your emotions
Give up
Not knowing if/how a random moment during a routine day might initiate the fall of the first, in a very long line, of emotional distress dominos is incredibly stressful. Which is exactly what we’re going for! We’ll talk further on proper worrying techniques later, but for now just remain constantly on guard for all possible emotional triggers.
Accumulate Negative Experiences
You know how you can’t control the rise of bile in your stomach whenever you are reminded of shrimp, ever since a jumbo binge on a spoiled batch of the rosy little crustaceans led to a weekend destroying a defenseless toilet with violent assaults from all ends of your angry digestive system?
That’s close to the kind of total body aversion we are after, but I want to get all the senses on board. Below are some examples of things you can do to strengthen the distress you should be feeling when you experience an emotion.
Sight
watch your parents have sex
look at pictures you found on the dark web of Steve Bannon in his tighty [very much not] whities
Smell
keep a rotten potato in your pocket
take a hefty whiff of a sweaty hippy dude’s pants
Touch
step on a man-o-war jellyfish
Give your tongue a series of paper cuts
Sound
mix a track of babies crying underscored by vuvuzelas
listen to Fox News
Taste
drink coconut rum
lick Guy Fieri’s buttcrack