Reddit mentions of Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, The

close. but i think you mean [The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Man-Who-Mistook-Wife/dp/1491514078) I'm glad you mentioned this, because its a great read from a brilliant neuroscientist that is fantastic at communicating his work.

Altered perceptual stuff like that kinda fascinates me. There are also some pretty crazy stories from neurologists about how brain disorders have altered the perceptions of some of their patients- probably way beyond any drugs ever have.

You might like this book:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Mistook_His_Wife_for_a_Hat

https://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Mistook-His-Wife/dp/1491514078/ref=nodl_

Thank you thank you thank you!


Would love to hear more about your trials and tribulations this year if you're interested in sharing.


Can PM or reply here (personally, I felt liberated by sharing mine with the world, but I understand if you prefer to keep it private--though who knows, some day you might be doing what I am right now and putting it all on the table).


Looking back, I can see how every experience I had led me to the moment of evolution, but two of them stand out.


WARNING: GRAPHIC LANGUAGE & SCENARIOS DESCRIBED BELOW


I don't want to glorify the behavior at all, and will do my best to describe it in non-specific ways, but some details need to be included for the story to be told. If anyone can teach me how to add those Reddit spoiler tags, I will cover any of the graphic stuff. Don't want to harm anyone.


Finding DBT, and the death of my therapist


I was in a very passionate, very loving, yet extremely toxic relationship with a girl and it all blew up last December.


I thought I was going to marry her, our families had met and hung out, I had spent the entire summer breaking my back in the New York City heat on a rooftop building a deck just to impress her dad who was a contractor (working 4-6 hours a day with him while also trying to run my online business).


It all blew up, and I went on a crazy bender trying to escape the pain.


I had a ton of extra money from working non-stop all through December selling Christmas trees, and my NYE "party" if you can call it that lasted until mid-January. Much of it is a blur, or lost to blackouts, but the parts I remember were scary because I had completely lost control of myself.


I was hanging out with friends, and doing normal social stuff, but I felt this inner pain and rage that had me acting like a crazy person. Smoking crack, getting in fights, drinking every day, cocaine, molly, and anything else I could get.


At some point, I knew I needed help, and I had been introduced to DBT before briefly in the past--one skill that had been taught to me for relieving mental anguish (and it worked), so I knew I needed to get more of that.


DBT is a scientifically proven method used to treat a variety of mental conditions, including: depression, anxiety, uncontrollable emotions, drug addiction, PTSD, and so much more. I've dealt with all of those listed. It is especially effective in treating Borderline Personality Disorder, which has no known cure (other than DBT), and if I had to pick a label that says "this is what I have", that's the one I would choose (though I'm not a fan of labels, because no two cases are completely the same).


I started therapy with Dr. Victoria Taylor, and walked into her office one day for the first session.


I have never been met with more understand or compassion. She used a DBT technique I would later learn as being called "validating", which is when you acknowledge someone's feelings and tell them it makes sense they feel that way (it might not be a rational feeling, but if you are thinking irrationally, of course it makes sense you feel the way you do).


It felt like I had been on fire and she poured a bucket of ice water on my head. She told me how DBT is scientifically proven (they're doing independent studies all the time) and that if I committed to the work, my BPD could be cured.


I have since come to realize that people with BPD don't have anything wrong with them at their core level. They, like all people are inherently good, but the conditions in their life (usually an invalidating parent) created a set of coping skills that later became problematic.


For example, I learned at a young age to use drugs to fix emotional pain. It worked for a while. Then it stopped working. Then it started causing problems.


I learned to use violence to end emotional pain inflicted by other people. It worked for a while. Then it stopped working. Then it started causing problems.


This cycle is the same for every destructive behavior any person can engage in (over eating, sitting around the house all day, watching too much TV or playing too many video games).


What I lacked were the exact tools DBT provides, which are:

1. The ability to deescalate my emotions when I feel volatile, come back down to earth and make a rational decision rather than an emotional one.
   
   
   
2. A framework, or step-by-step process for dealing with any situation in life as a mature, responsible, self-assured adult, regardless of how emotionally immature or escalated the other person is being.
   
   
   
3. The ability to slow my thoughts down and understand how thoughts create feelings/emotions that we sense in the body. Then step-by-step processes for handling whatever feelings/emotions I have. You can change how you feel by changing your thinking. You can change how you think by changing how you act. It's amazing.
   
   
   
4. So much more, if you're interested, just jump in head first and take the class wherever you can find it. Side note, as soon as I have money I'm going to work on creating a self-help online version of DBT to make it more accessible. It's still young, so it can be hard to find, but do your best and please contact me if you have questions or want help learning the skills, I love teaching them. Same goes to anyone reading this.
   
   
   So there I am, suffering like crazy, still having trouble with drug addiction but trying more and more to work DBT skills into my daily life. Some days I would just cry and cry and cry for hours on end. I would fall asleep on my floor crying and wake up in my clothes, and try to carry on.
   
   
   It was the worst hell I've ever been through. Worse than jail, or prison or anything else. It felt like I was on fire, but I could call my therapist to get advice at any time (also part of this particular style of therapy) and she would show me the appropriate skill to apply. I would apply it, AND IT WORKED. For a bit. Then I suffered some more. But there was always progress.
   
   
   Drugs and spirituality
   
   
   I had stopped using cocaine, and was trying to cut back on alcohol.
   
   
   I continued smoking weed and doing a lot of psychedelic drugs like mushrooms and LSD. LSD never felt good to me, it's just too intense and not intense enough in all the wrong places--if you've done both mushrooms and LSD, you might understand what I mean.
   
   
   Now might be a good time to say that I am as skeptical as they come. I have never believed in God or religion or spirituality. I am very practical in my beliefs. If I experience something myself, I still don't believe it as objective fact, because I know how pliable the human mind is. It has been proven that people can create memories to avoid remembering something painful, or sometimes for no reason at all. So I don't take my experience as objective fact. I wish more people knew and accepted this fact: that you can't every know anything with absolute certainty.
   
   
   If you had told me anything I am about to tell you at another time in my life, I would probably think you're insane. What I'm about to describe needs to be experienced to be fully understood--or at least approached with an open mind. I'll walk you through the logical steps to get you as close as possible to understanding, but you really have to see for yourself some day. If you seek this experience, it will find you at the right time.
   
   
   Your brain is a computer & data receiver
   
   
   Through my experience in life, I have come to believe that our brains are basically computers and receivers -- kind of like a radio -- that receives data from the spiritual plane of existence. Your soul or essence has a consciousness of its own outside of time and space, and is the true seat of your consciousness (not your brain).
   
   
   I'll explain why I feel this way in a minute, so if it sounds whacky, just hear me out...
   
   
   The Universe we live in is purely mathematic. If you're not convinced of that, check out this documentary.
   
   
   Also check out the movie Pi if you haven't seen it, cus it's tangentially related and really f&*ng good :)
   
   
   It has been scientifically proven that our brains are capable of rationalizing and creating a sense of motive behind actions we take, after we take them. I highly recommend everyone reads the book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: and Other Clinical Tales. It's a little dense, but find the part about split brain tests and read that if nothing else.
   
   
   Receiving help from the spirit world
   
   
   There are spirits that are not materialized here in the physical plane of existence. I don't know anything about them, except that I have experienced them.
   
   
   Two days before my therapist died an untimely death (she was young, apparently healthy, and seemed well), I had two dreams...
   
   
   I wrote them down on my personal blog because I felt they were premonitions of my own death and wanted people to know I called it (nothing like one last "told ya so" to all the friends and fam snooping through my personal stuff when I'm gone haha).
   
   
   I believe our dream state is the most open state our minds can be in. So we can receive data from the spirit realm--stuff that is drowned out in our day-to-day existence. Your brain takes that data and makes it into something you can understand.
   
   
   

Dear OP: I have a book recommendation for you!

The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat by Oliver Sacks (Amazon link)

>individuals afflicted with fantastic perceptual and intellectual aberrations: patients who have lost their memories and with them the greater part of their pasts; patients no longer able to recognize people and common objects; patients whose limbs have become alien

Understand that, of course, even the authors first impulse is "bullshit".

Then he started doing clinical tests and ... just read the book.

Brains ARE weird.