Musings of the Mind

False Agency, Real Agency Learning from What Almost Worked One of the most confusing parts of leaving an unhealthy attachment is this: It didn’t feel fake. It didn’t feel imagined. It felt real . That matters. If we dismiss the experience as delusion, we lose the most important information it contains. The state was real — the source was not sustainable In my own experience, a relationship produced something I had been missing: a sense of calm confidence, motivation, and agency. At the same time, it involved self-erasure and dependence. That paradox is the clue. The state itself was real — chemically, emotionally, somatically. But it was externally scaffolded . I did not possess it. I was borrowing it. Why externally scaffolded agency never lasts When agency is supplied by another person: it is fragile, it is conditional, it requires constant maintenance. The nervous system learns: “This state only exists if this relationship holds.” That creates: hyper-vig...

Codependency as Limbic Bypass Accountability, Addiction, and Moral Responsibility For a long time, I understood codependency mainly in emotional terms: need, attachment, fear of abandonment, control. Those descriptions are not wrong — but they are incomplete. What finally clarified things for me was understanding the mechanism underneath the behaviour, and then asking a harder question: Where does moral responsibility actually begin? A limbic problem before it is a relational one At its core, codependency is not simply about personality or love. It is about how two nervous systems attempt to survive without healing . The limbic system is a prediction engine. It learns from experience what leads to safety, agency, or threat. When that system is injured early, people often discover workarounds . In certain relationships, those workarounds interlock. Two complementary bypasses In what we commonly call codependent dynamics, I now see two distinct — but mutually reinforcin...

How People Accidentally Re-Strengthen Old Limbic Patterns (Even While Healing) One of the most frustrating experiences during healing is this: “I understand what’s happening. I’m doing the work. And yet it feels like the old reaction just got stronger.” That moment often leads to self-doubt or discouragement. But in many cases, what’s happening isn’t failure. It’s accidental re-reinforcement . A critical principle The limbic system strengthens patterns based on what predicts outcomes , not on your intentions. It doesn’t care whether you’re “working on yourself.” It cares about: what happens next what state you end up in whether danger or safety follows That means certain well-intentioned behaviours can quietly feed the very patterns you’re trying to weaken. 1. Over-monitoring the old pattern One of the most common mistakes is excessive checking: “Is it gone yet?” “Am I reacting again?” “Why is this still here?” This keeps attention locked on the old cue. Fro...

Why Old Limbic Patterns Don’t Disappear — and Why That’s Not a Failure One of the most confusing experiences during healing is this: “I understand what’s happening. I’ve done the work. And yet the old reaction still shows up.” That moment often triggers a quiet fear: “Does this mean nothing has really changed?” The answer is no. What it means is that you’re now encountering how the limbic system actually updates — not how we wish it would. The key misunderstanding Most people assume healing means replacement : old pattern gone new pattern installed trigger no longer exists That’s not how the limbic system works. The limbic system doesn’t delete survival patterns. It de-prioritises them. How limbic patterns really work The limbic system stores multiple overlapping pattern bundles , not a single rule. Each pattern includes: a cue (sensation, context, authority, internal state) an expected outcome (danger, safety, punishment, continuity) a response bias (app...

How I’m Re-Training My Limbic System Using Pictures, Not Arguments After understanding that the limbic system is a prediction engine, the next question becomes obvious: How does it update? The answer is uncomfortable but freeing: It does not update through explanation. It updates through experience . And crucially — imagined experience counts. Why arguments don’t work You can’t reason an AI model out of biased training data. You have to: provide counter-examples change the reward signal repeat new outcomes The limbic system works the same way. Words alone rarely enter. Words paired with imagery, sensation, and resolution can. Why pictures work Pictures succeed where explanations fail because they: compress context into a single gestalt show authority clearly encode outcome and resolution include movement and agency demonstrate safety after truth In other words, they supply the missing data. The three patterns I’m actively re-training After a l...

The Limbic System Is Not Illogical — It’s a Mis-Trained Prediction Engine For a long time, I assumed that my internal struggles were primarily emotional. Grief. Anger. Betrayal. Fear. And to be clear — those were real, and they needed processing. But after doing a substantial amount of emotional work, something unexpected happened: the noise quietened, and what remained didn’t feel like emotion at all. It felt structural. Not like a feeling. Not like a memory. Not like a belief. More like a system. What I eventually realised is this: The limbic system is not irrational. It’s not illogical. It’s not broken. It’s a prediction engine that was trained on bad data. The mistake we make about “emotional logic” We often talk about emotions as though they should respond to reasoning: “I know this isn’t happening now.” “I understand why I feel this way.” “It doesn’t make sense to be afraid.” And yet the body doesn’t stand down. The chest still tightens. The dread still appears...