Summer Hiatus

I’ve been focused on poker for the last 2 weeks at the World Series of Poker. I just started the Main Event & did well on the first day.

This means I’ve been thinking about poker & not software design. I’m curious how my thinking will have changed when I return in a week (or more if I’m still in the tournament). In the meantime, I thought I’d share a couple of personal thoughts that came up at the poker table. Content warning: adult effects of childhood abuse.

I’ve been getting out-of-proportion excited while playing, leading to unprofitable play. Digging into it has been a difficult but rewarding task. I’m sure the same dynamics play out in a programming session.

Here’s me first addressing the issue:

It seemed to me that one problem with excitement is that it turns into a reinforcing, positive feedback loop. I’m excited so I breathe faster so I get more excited & my breath pounds & that gets me more excited. What I wanted to do in the moment was go ahead and experience the excitement but then let it go. I still have a hand to play.

Dune introduced the Litany Against Fear, including the phrase, “I will allow it [fear] to pass over me & through me.” That’s what I’m going for here. I want to feel excitement but not in an exciting way.

The other problem I noticed with excitement is more particular to my background. I grew up in a volatile, abusive household. Some survivors of abuse form highly tuned radars for emotions. If an abusive parent it about to go off, early detection is a survival skill. However, combine my radar with the lack of boundaries that come with surviving abuse & sometimes I don’t know whose emotions are whose.

And following up with how I think about out-of-proportion emotions:

I’ve been through many psychological journeys in my life, most notably coming to terms with what was done to me as a child. When I’m feeling or acting in a way that harms myself or others then only thing I know to do is dissect those harmful moments. I replay them in slow motion to try to understand the sequence of what at the time seemed like a flash.

The first flash I confronted like this was “instant” anger. I would get angry in a situation out of all proportion to what was going on in the outside world. For example, I might feel afraid (because a situation reminded me of my childhood) & a moment later transmute that fear into anger. Shame, fear, helplessness were all dry tinder for the flame of anger.

My response was to “insert logic”, to find a way to:

1. Become aware of the presence of the trigger.

2. Give myself a way to think instead of slip along the polished track from the primary to the secondary emotion.

Sometimes the logic takes the form of a phrase. “Okay, and next,” is something I say to myself when I’m overwhelmed by multiple tasks. If I’m experiencing dissociation, I run my hands over my head to bring me back into my body.

And here is a particular situation, dealing with a jackass at the table by not responding. This takes me right back to childhood, but I have more profitable responses:

It goes back, as so many things do, to childhood. That same chaotic, abusive household taught me that when things went purple, the best response was to disappear. Don’t do anything to call attention to yourself. I learned to dissociate as my best option for surviving, ego intact.

Not responding to a harasser feels like being an abused child. My emotions are a blender full of humiliation, terror, helplessness, & fury, the echoes of which bounce around for days.

I’m not sure how to insert logic into this situation. Maybe an affirmation like saying to myself, “I choose not to respond.” It’s not that I’m following the same dissociative pattern that got me through the day way back when. I’m doing something completely different—actively choosing not to respond in order to make more money. I have the full range of responses available to me. I’m just choosing the most profitable one.

I’ll be back in a week with thoughts directly related to programming & design. In the meantime, people are people. Peace.