Forums IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ PhotoReading, Memory Optimizer Can neurotics photoread?

I've been wondering if my inability to photoread stems from my neurotic tendencies. I'm finding myself feeling physically ill from when I wake up to about 2pm - I have a feeling that my be psychosomatic to some extent. At the moment I am yet again at one of my low points - I keep beating myself up over why I can't stop acting like such an a-hole. So I was thinking maybe my inability to photoread is caused directly by the idea that whatever I do, I will in some way screw up. I'm going to yet again try tonight (it's only 5pm here in England) to crack my way into photoreading - I thought maybe I could photoread my books on cognitive behaviour therapy and rational emotive therapy . . .

Albert Ellis has written a couple of books that you might find useful. It might help you gain a new perspective on what you call neurotic behaviour.

I recommend starting with, "How to Stubbornly Refuse to Make Yourself Miserable About Anything--Yes, Anything"

Where exactly are you stuck with learning to photoread? Maybe just finding the way that works for you would solve the problem. Hnag in there

Alex

Thanks Alex.

I have an Albert Ellis book somewhere. It's my father's copy actually, falling apart at the seams (probably from overuse).

I think my main problem with photoreading is simply discipline - I can rarely work up the discipline to finally get round to trying photoreading. This weekend (today or tomorrow) I am absolutely going to try to photoread, I suppose if I think a little more positively I might actually get somewhere with it.

Not that it actually matters but my father thinks I have absolutely no reason to be depressed right now, "sure you have no girlfriends, no money, no job and consequently no real social life . . ." I think eventually he got to the point where he mentioned that I am actually doing something about it. But I digress, just as a final unrelated thought (unrelated to photoreading) I think I may have already largely purged myself of many of my neuroses and it is not being neurotic that is making me depressed - I think I am simply desperately lonely. What's the cure for loneliness?

It is a real challenge for me to answer that question. I'll give you a bit of my background and you might understand why.

I have no job and the Australian government has made it impossible for me to obtain a job by just applying for them in job ads. Due solely to the fact that I have been classified as permanently disabled because I am 90% deaf since 1995. Yes I have to turn the volume up on audio equipment when I wear headphones so loud that someone else can hear the accoustic and yes I have to ear hearing aids when I talk with people. The only thing I can do because of my deafness is use a conventional telephone with ease. Reason the output of the telephone is too poor to make louder. My electrotech friend had been trying to design a phone with better sound output for me. Time will tell if this problem can be solved.

When I take my hearing aids out I hear nothing and I cannot wear them while I sleep. I live alone and it is not unusual for me not to see or speak with another living sole for a week at a time. (I do have contact with others over the internet) I only sleep an average of 4 hours per night so I have 20 hours a day to amuse myself Since the Disability pension is 50% below the Aussie single person poverty line and almost all of it is taken up to pay for my rent going out isn't much of an option.

Depression used to be a part of my life, it took a while to deal with a specialist having told me. "Nope there is nothing you can do to get your hearing back, the nerves are permanently damaged. You are a candidate for a cochneal implant but to be honest you are better off with hearing aids, you seem to have found a way of making them work for you better than an implant would be."

You know what? I'm okay. Now given some of my background I think I am qualified to tell you what I learnt about dealing with loneliness

These days if I experience loneliness I know that I've been doing a bit of negative self talk and I also find that I can pull myself out of it better. What I have found is the real cause of loneliness and depression is telling yourself stuff like you're not good enough because...
Worse part is it puts you in the cycle. Eg haven't got a job so you feel bad about that but feeling bad about it makes it harder to get out of the cycle and get a job. You start thinking that way and the mind makes makes a detour and makes connections to so many other areas in your life where things are not going the way you would like. So you throw yourself into a depression cycle.

To overcome loneliness and depression you have to understand this and this is the tricky bit...nothing has to change, nothing needs to be fixed you are a decent human being already. You need give yourself permission to accept yourself for who you are and what you are. 9 times out of 10 you grant another person permission to be less than perfect, to make mistakes because you see that that is what make them special. Remind yourself that you are also a person of value and deserve the same respect you offer to other people from yourself. There are people who care about you and accept you for who you are right now. Just as you accept and respect them.

When you reach the point where you can accept your own company. You won't need to get annoyed with yourself if do or do not do something that you think would fix your life because you realise that your life doesn't really need fixing. It becomes an adventure. You wake up thinking what would happen if I... then you try it and see.

So learning to photoread becomes an adventure. Afterall you can read... is it really important to learn to photoread or is it just because you want to know what would happen if you could photoread? Sure there are benefits in being able to photoread but why make the benefits more important than the fun you can have from being able to photoread? Learn to do what is important to you for the sake of the adventure you call life.

One thing I have discovered... if you really want to kick depression. Turn off the TV. There is nothing worse than being bombarded with advertising telling you that if you had 'this' you'd be happier or if you drink that you will get the girl/boy of your dreams. A simplified explaination from what I learnt about advertising. To sell the product you have to point out a need or (the preferred method) create new need by making the consumer 'aware'(that's the advertisers nice way of putting it) that there is something lacking in their life. Then show how your product fills that gap. (This was an assignment topic for my advertising diploma) With so many commercials on the box selling their products this way is it a wonder depression is so bad in the western society? Forget about hypnosis its the repetition of these ideas that make people feel inferior. If you haven't got something to occupy your day find something else quick.

To summarise my post. Find a way to train your mind to focus on "what you are doing right", "what is working" and discover how you can build from there. Let go of trying to fix yourself... you're not broken. Your starting point is where you are right now and that is the right place to be, everyone has a personal challenge in life, just like I cannot restore my hearing there are other interesting things for me to find out about my life .

Alex

Why, thank you very much (Dr.) Alex. I think you make several important points there. I think once I can work up the willpower to photoread I'll be on the way. I think why I may feel so lonely all the time is that partly I feel everybody is against me and partly I feel that I am somebody who most people are better off not knowing. I think this recent bout of depression was brought on partly through recently meeting someone who reminds me of a dear friend of mine who I have not spoken to for 3 years - she was a kind, sensitive soul who helped coax me out of my depression through her bold-faced logic and rationality (I think all she said to me was "why are you depressed?" I couldn't think of an answer) my recent encounter brought back many of the same feelings and problems and a few new ones, I completely destroyed the relationship I had with my friend . . .

Anyway, that is all unimportant. It all seems a little overbearing sometimes - I'm only 20 years old and already I feel like the most neurotic person I know.

I think the remedy for all that ails me is a regime of - rational thought, discipline, hard work, exercise, improved diet, a little more of a congenial attitude and a hell of a lot of reading.

Go easy on yourself When you get depressed watch a dog chase it's tail or better yet take it for a walk. If you are going to do a lot of reading read some funny books... find a way to laugh at the world.

Everyone has their down days. I've never tried the hiccup cure on depression but I bet it works. My youngest brother once had a real bad case of the hiccups. We tried everything to help him cure it... Drink a glass of water upside down, (he got wet but still had the hiccup), sugar didn't help. He held his breath until he went a deep shade of red... lost it when he hiccup... Served the customers their wine, hiccuping away. My other brother felt sorry for him and decided surprise therapy might be the only way to cure him. 2 hours of him hiccuping was even too much for us to bear. Mum agreed but suggested using a small bag to as not to make too much noise with customers in the restaurant. So the other brother inflated a hot-dog bag and clapped it behind his back. We all jumped it was louder that the big bags! (mother knows best right?)... it took a few seconds for my kid brother to come back down from the ceiling. We thought dad was gonna kill us for making such a racket with customers in the restaurant... but we really cracked up laughing when we realised that the 'cure' worked. My kid brother had to explain to the customers what happened.

Anyhow... look to where you want to go not where you've been.

Good luck
Alex (nope am not a Dr.)

Join a gym, visit a musuem, go for a early morning jog, watch the sun rise every day, and make a personal asset list, keep a journal, say hi to strangers (or ask for directions if you are shy, hehe, it helped me get the hang of socializing), do some community service!, also read NATURAL BRILLANCE!

You remember when u first found out about PR.. that feeling you had.. wantign to learn it.. for all those reasons.. get back into that mood. if u cant just use it as motivation to get you up and going..

i feel kinda the same way as u.. i wake up.. after a 12hour sleep.. im to tired to do the tapes then.. so i leave it.. later on i goto do it.. i fall asleep.. too tired? always happens.. no matter just seem to be tired..

to overcome it i charge my mind on somethign else.. 'im not tired, wat am i thinkin.. time to do this, cmon kris now lets do it now'

once i got that happening and the real reason i wanted to learn pr.. the tiredness feeling goes and im ready to learn.

point? set your mind to something, and you'll get wat u want..

I forgot who to credit this to, but one thing that helped me out when I was depressed was the "ceiling tile" perspective.

Let's say you buy a home and when you go into the basement, you notice that the ceiling has a worn out, cruddy looking tile - just one. There's two ways to go about this. You can fix the tile, or you can just let it be and respect how great the rest of the tiles look.

In your case, you mentioned that you your friend would say, "Why are you depressed?" to which you couldn't answer. Sometimes we don't know, sometimes we know and we're so encumbered with the reason of our depression that we block it out. You alluded to your sense of loneliness, and I think it's highly possible that could cause a great bout of depression.

The same thing happened to me last year; I was essentially living alone, and coming home to an empty apartment is something that for some people can be very depressing. Add on to this an answering machine that keeps blazing a hurtful "0" messages in your face, and an AOL mailbox without any mail in it (or with tons of e-mail telling you their product will make you more charismatic).

I don't know the answer; my solution was to join a bunch of clubs at school and meet people there. I think Alex's post was excellent, and I wish I had asked for help here before I went nuts (this was an episode that was the absolute low-point for me, and a place I hope to not revisit).

Alex: My dad needed a phone at a construction site where it was really noisy; he looked around and found something called the "Mirafone", which uses bone conduction to transmit sound. The effect is that you hear the audio in your own head, very similar to when you slosh fluids in your mouth or when clack your teeth together. It helped at the site, and is actually primarily designed for the hearing impaired. I would check it out. Here's a link: http://www.chinasupply.net/en/phone/productindex.html

General info can be found on the main page of that site, located here: http://www.chinasupply.net/en/

-Ramon http://razor.ramon.com

[This message has been edited by razordu30 (edited September 17, 2002).]

Thanks for the information Ramon. Unfortunately it won't work for me. I have already been tested to find if this would suit me better than hearing aids. The short answer was no. It might help some others though.

Alex