%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 |  A journey of self-improvement - or not. |
|
Sup? I'm Char. You may know me from timeless classics such as
and
I blog for things like
[Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Believin' all the lies that they're tellin' ya Buyin' all the products that they're sellin' ya They say jump and ya say "how high?" Ya braindead, ya got a fuckin' bullet in ya head |
Artist: Led Zeppelin Song: Communication Breakdown [Embed For Use By Upgraded+]  Prompt via "Invalid Item"  : Prompt 1: Reflect on the way you communicate with other people. What are the best and worst things about your communication style? What can you do to correct the worst aspects of your communication method and what suggestions do you have for strong communication skills? The Good I definitely have good aspects to my communication style. I'm a fairly empathetic person and can easily put myself in another person's shoes. If someone's talking to me about something, I can sense what they're feeling without having ever been in their situation. It's helpful to be able to read people's moods, especially in situations where someone clearly has trepidation about something, but is trying to be polite. For example, when I'm working with someone on a project, it helps if I can read what they're uncomfortable with and find alternative solutions that make them feel more comfortable. I'm also pretty good at communicating my feelings. I'm in touch with my emotions, so I can express how something makes me feel when I want to. I have family members who are totally out of touch with their emotions and literally just avoid any conversation that might involve emotion that isn't anger. The Bad The problem is that I don't always want to tell someone how I'm feeling. I can be a bit petty. If someone pisses me off, I can really get my feathers ruffled without ever communicating that I'm angry. That makes it so that people don't have an opportunity to correct the situation or apologize because they don't even realized there's an issue. Sometimes people just pick up that I'm pissed off based on my mood because I tend to have wild mood swings. That makes communicating with me a guessing game sometimes. Am I upset with you? Am I moody about something else going on? Am I pissed off at someone else? Is my anxiety just acting up? It's the worst kind of board game.  The Ugly Grudges galore. I can hold a grudge longer than, like, anyone I know. And that's not a good thing. If someone does something that really bothers me, I basically get a mental block on that person. It's like no matter what they do from that point forward doesn't really matter because my brain has already blocked them. At the same time, there are other people who can do quite literally anything to me and I still won't accept that they've done something bad. I noticed this even in childhood. I would have a friend for years and they would do something relatively minor, like snub me on an invite somewhere one time. It was like every positive feeling I had ever had for them just disappeared all at once. Every good memory I'd ever had with them suddenly seemed tainted or ruined. I wouldn't be able to think of even one redeeming quality about the person. It was like my brain completely dismissed them on a human level. If I even heard the person's name, I would feel complete rage. And even if they apologized, it was too late. My brain had already decided that they were a terrible person all along. On the other hand, I'd have another friend for years who repeatedly put me in bad situations, verbally/physically fought with me nonstop, and was just generally problematic. But I wouldn't have the same reaction. I would even defend them to my family/our other friends. "Yeah, he did give me a black eye, but in his defense, I was really mouthing off." Those were friends who I couldn't accept anything bad about. I just refused to believe they had an ounce of bad within them, so anything bad they did, I had to pass off as a natural reaction to something else, even if it meant taking the blame for their negative actions. I later learned that this is called splitting and it's a symptom of borderline personality disorder, which I've been diagnosed with. When a person with BPD "splits" on another person, they get a "halo" or "horns" effect. That means that they see the person as only good or only bad. They're either perfect or they're evil, nothing in between. Once I learned about splitting, so many of my relationships throughout my life started to make sense. The Solution I don't really know the proper solution for the negative aspects of my communication. I still split on people a lot. Those who know me well here could probably name at least 2 people I've split white on. Split white is the one where someone is an angel to you no matter what they do.  One thing I've learned to do is not tell someone when I've split on them. Whether I've split white or split black, I don't actually want to tell someone, like, "Hey, I'm yours to do whatever you want with forever now.  " I've even split on people here on WDC. The rage thing goes away, just so you know. Even if I've split black on someone and I'm rage-filled about it for a while, that subsides. After that, the person is more just like an icky aftertaste. I don't think much about them, but if I run across them, there's just this tainted feeling even if I'm not angry or upset at all with them. In fact, I still care about a lot of people I've split black on. I don't want anything bad for them at all. It's just that I can't get myself back to where we were before the split.I've also tried fighting against the split. I've tried to hold people accountable, even when I've split white on them. I've also tried to open myself up to rekindling relationships with people I've split black on. I've tried slowly starting to paint someone white after I've split that way on them. Honestly, it's a work in progress. It hasn't worked fully so far, but I have been able to be more civil and rational. The bottomline is that I logically know that no one is all good or all bad. Humans are complex creatures. They make mistakes. I can say this with a clear, rational head. But when splitting happens, it's anything but rational. That's the part I'm still working on overcoming. It's really easy for someone I've split white to get back in my good graces after being kind of terrible, and it's really difficult for someone I've split black to get through the wall I put up. I don't know to what extent other people experience this because I've only known and understood my way of thinking forever. Anyone have a perspective to fill me in on? Communication breakdown, it's always the same Havin' a nervous breakdown, drive me insane |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
