Status Updates From The Examined Life: How We L...

“I wasn’t aware that I felt people were fundamentally fault-finding, that my idea of a person is of someone who wants to scold me. I just thought people were that way.”

“If you’re frightened of being criticized you’re probably pretty critical.”

“It turned out there was no grand trauma behind my feelings of depression and isolation. What there was, was my incessant scrutinizing, my calibrating myself to fit in with others.”

“All of our thinking about other people’s desires is assumption.”

On the violent, abused boy who spits:
“Thomas and I were at an impasse because neither of us could beat the thought that he was irreparably damaged. And it was only when we were both able to be sad, to despair because we couldn’t fix what was broken, that his spitting stopped serving a purpose for us and we were able to move forward.”

On the violent, abused by who spits:
“You want me to be angry with you, because if I’m angry with you, it means I believe you could be different than you are. If I’m angry, it means I still believe we can fix what’s broken.”

“Psychoanalysts are fond of pointing out that the past is alive in the present. But the future is alive in the present too. The future is not some place we’re going to, but an idea in our mind now. It is something we’re creating, that in turn creates us. The future is a fantasy that shapes our present.”

In the chapter on the girl who hopes the noncommittal man will change & avoids grief:
“You’re so caught up in your future that you don’t feel upset about how your life is now, in the present.”
“Breaking up means giving up not only their present, but the future they’d dreamed of.”

On the boring guy:
“When I spoke to him about what was happening in his life, his response was to look back, avoiding how he felt or what he thought now.”

“Graham’s being boring was aggressive — it was a way of controlling, and excluding, others: a way of being seen, but not seeing. It also protected him from having to live in the present, from having to acknowledge what was happening in the room.”

“We can take on a catastrophe to stop ourselves feeling and thinking — and to avoid responsibility for our own intimate acts of destruction.”

“Consciously, Sarah wanted to meet someone and fall in love, but unconsciously, there was another story. At this deeper level, love meant losing herself, her work, her friends; it meant being emptied out, neglected and possessed.”

“She was involuntarily negative because emotional surrender and attachment represented a loss. Her negativity was a reaction to her real feelings — to the prospect of love.”

“We are vehemently faithful to our own view of the world, our story. We want to know what new story we're stepping into before we exit the old one. We don't want an exit if we don't know exactly where it is going to take us, even - or perhaps especially - in an emergency.”

“Sometimes change comes not because we set out to fix ourselves, or repair our relation to the living; sometimes we change most when we repair our relation to the lost, the forgotten, the dead. As Scrooge grieves for those he had loved but put out of his mind, he begins to regain the world he had lost. He comes to life.”

“Like the paranoid, the lovesick are keen information-gatherers, but one soon notices an unconscious intent in their observations - each new fact confirms their delusion.”

“Often it's because facing reality means accepting loneliness. And while loneliness can be useful - motivating us to meet someone new, for example - a fear of loneliness can work like a trap, ensnaring us in heartsick feelings for a very long time. At its worst, lovesickness becomes a habit of mind, a way of thinking about the world that is not altogether dissimilar to paranoia.”

“People who are lovesick put off testing their fantasies against reality. But given the anguish that lovesickness can cause - the loss of mental freedom, the dissatisfaction with one's self, and the awful ache - why do some of us put off facing reality for so long?”

“Her paranoia shielded her from the catastrophe of indifference.”

“My experience is that paranoid fantasies are often a response to the world’s disregard (ex. increased paranoia in old age). The paranoid knows that someone is thinking about him.”

“Splitting: an unconscious strategy that aims to keep us ignorant of feelings in ourselves that we’re unable to tolerate. Typically, we want to see ourselves as good, and put those aspects of ourselves that we find shameful into another person or group.”

“Love can’t change what’s wrong with me, because love feels threatening. It’s the thing that made me break down before my wedding. Being loved is the problem, because love is a demand — when you’re loved, someone wants more of you.”

“When I’m in a couple I feel I’m disappearing, dying — losing my mind.”

“The person he most avoided was the person upon whom he was the most dependent — the person he most wanted.”

“When we succeed in feeling nothing we lose the only means we have knowing what hurts us, and why.”

This patient didn’t feel emotional pain. It makes sense that sociopaths don’t often seek treatment but their victims are the ones that do.