Control freak vs stress vs hardship

You're doing books wrong atomic! You need to listen to audiobooks while also doing all those other projects -- 2 for 1! :P I love efficiency haha

Sincerely,
The "boy" mom fighting her husband's sperm :rofl:

But seriously, your write up has made me wonder now if the serotonin and endorphin levels associated with those little "boosts" (I know the feeling well!) or feelings of overwhelming/failures is what's having their role in the swaying!

Great explanation atomic!

Also throwaway I love reading what you write. You really do seem like such a boy mom personality. I hope so much it works out for you!


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Originally Posted by 3boysalready

Great explanation atomic!

Also throwaway I love reading what you write. You really do seem like such a boy mom personality. I hope so much it works out for you!


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That is so sweet of you! I hope so too, but you better believe I already have been meal prepping lots of red meat dishes for after this baby for a future blue sway :rofl:

I can’t thank you enough Atomic! It’s all very interesting. You are so right that everything is a challenge; even relaxing! LOL However, I actually feel so much better after reading this. I have a history of being all about work and projects. However, over the last year or so I’ve been more layed back than ever before. No time like the present. :)

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Originally Posted by Throwaway_panther

That is so sweet of you! I hope so too, but you better believe I already have been meal prepping lots of red meat dishes for after this baby for a future blue sway :rofl:

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I really hope it doesn't come to this TP but I was wondering where your head would be at IF this pregnancy turned out to be DD2. You're such a planner!

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Originally Posted by Throwaway_panther

That is so sweet of you! I hope so too, but you better believe I already have been meal prepping lots of red meat dishes for after this baby for a future blue sway :rofl:

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Haha! And here I am with 4 boys and haven’t eaten red meat since I was 12. I should all 4 girls! Life is crazy.


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Originally Posted by MiaMelb

I really hope it doesn't come to this TP but I was wondering where your head would be at IF this pregnancy turned out to be DD2. You're such a planner!

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Haha, you have me pegged for sure! If this is my longed for boy: we'll go back and transfer that healthy XX and abnormal XY we have frozen from IVF when DS is a year! We want 3 kids still, and even though I never wanted another girl, this has been my bargain with the universe lol. If this is a boy though, you better believe my planning will be going right back into me getting to the skinny I was before DD -- though hopefully in a healthier way!

If this is a girl, I'm going to keep... doing what I've been doing since at this point HE is more my lifestyle than anything else lol. But will do more extreme things if driven to it, which I hate to consider, but after everything I've been through... will not mess around. Already secretly saving for a possible Ericcsson IUI since we are fortunate enough to live very close to one -- and, like with this baby, I am realizing I have more hurtles than others because of DH's sperm and am already worried about further miscarriages. I can't go through all that again.

@3boys And haha, I know I mention the red meat 3boys -- I hadn't eaten red meat from 12 to 26! So the girl sways made sense for why I got DD -- but we also had tons of sex and I have a nutso boy personality. Every example atomic used for Martha/Jeanie (and herself, haha) have always been exact things in my life! I have had my moments of depression, but I usually just rant them out and then immediately go to planning again -- planning makes me feel better! My husband always calls me 'Liz Lemon' from the American show "30 Rock" with Tina Fey because there's a scene where she does what "turns her on" with a new boyfriend, and she goes to Office Max and rolls around in the organizing supplies lol. He ALWAYS brings that up because I practically get off on organizing and coming up with projects for things haha

But now I'm just so conscious of odds and statistics in all of this (and myself) that I'm just having to see how far I can push myself with these coin flips

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Originally Posted by Throwaway_panther

You're doing books wrong atomic! You need to listen to audiobooks while also doing all those other projects -- 2 for 1! :P I love efficiency haha

Sincerely,
The "boy" mom fighting her husband's sperm :rofl:

But seriously, your write up has made me wonder now if the serotonin and endorphin levels associated with those little "boosts" (I know the feeling well!) or feelings of overwhelming/failures is what's having their role in the swaying!

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Sadly, for some reason, even though I know "learning styles" have been entirely debunked, I can't listen and understand things very easily. I have to see things to comprehend them - even turn on the subtitles so I can read my TV shows!

Yep. I think we've gotten sooo hung up on "testosterone" that no one has ever even investigated any of this other stuff. There are gobs of different hormones in the human body, any or all of which could potentially affect gender ratio for all we know. People often ask me about cortisol too and there's just really not enough data for me to do anything other than the most broad sort of speculation, the type I prefer not to indulge in since then everyone starts focusing on my speculation rather than just doing what has worked for most people, most of the time.

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Originally Posted by atomic sagebrush

it is a major sway factor, though. That's the ONLY reason I bring it up because it's confusing and is by no means a magic bullet so there are plenty of exceptions and it takes an excessive amount of my time. If it didn't matter I would not even mention it but it DOES matter.

"Stress", that amorphous term, sways pink. But being a control freak and putting YOURSELF through lots of self-inflicted stress over details that are a) easily accomplished and b)largely meaningless and are basiclaly things we do to feel that we are in control our universes instead of accepting the reality that we really never are, sways blue. But we perceive these things to all be "stress" and so when I try to explain this to people, they don't get it because they don't differentiate between stresses that are external and those that are internal.

Being in a situation where you feel absolutely no control over your life/environment, like you've suffered a loss, are tormented at work, suffering health issues, things you cannot control and you have to basically force yourself to accept and endure them because we have no control over them, sways pink. This type of stress has been shown to sway pink in studies. But on the other hand, having the type of personality that is constantly trying to control EVERYTHING in the arenas that you deem important can FEEL very stressful but you never have the loss of control that accompanies the kinds of stress that sway pink.

Like, right now I have a project going to crochet Christmas scarves. I am feeling a fair amount of stress over this project (which I have taken on entirely by myself, the people who I am making scarves for do not even know about it and so any disappointment is entirely on me and is not coming from anyone outside of myself, and if I decide tomorrow not to do it any more, no one will ever know). Yet despite the stressfulness, I feel a little boost every time I get something done on it. So I'm stressed but constantly succeeding in lots of little ways and every time I do, I get a little reward of...something. I don't know exactly what that reward is, but I get it when I write an essay on this site and alphebetize my Campbell's soups too, LOL. It's like a reward and something about this project, stress, reward cycle is swaying blue somehow.

Not to mention the drive I feel to always be doing these kind of projects anyway, which is HUGE and out of all proportion to what other people seem to feel. my mom reads a book and I"m just like "My Gosh WHY, don't you have a million things to DO" even though I would really love to sit and read a book today and some of the things I "do" entail getting to a higher level on a video game, LOL. I have literal resentment when my husband wants to do relaxing things like watch movies or go to the lake because I have all these things I have a burning desire to do, even though those things are hard work, because I am getting some charge out of it that is completely more rewarding than doing anything "fun".

But part of what makes this personality stuff so hard to see clearly is that everyone does these types of things, and for some of us (ME) we get so caught up in these detail oriented accomplishments that are largely meaningless (like getting to a higher level on a video game) that we ignore lots of other details (like housework, important clerical tasks, LOL). In favor of doing all these superridick projects most of which no one ever even sees so from the outside we may appear to be disorganized disasters but on the inside there are tons of dreams and schemes and plans all in various stages of completeness. And we like to do all these things OURSELF with no help from anyone ever. What these dreams and schemes and plans are vary wildly by individual so there are no concrete things I can point to and say "it's this thing! it's that thing!" It's whatever the thing is that is the thing for you.

Blue swayers are often very together and focused (the Sloane factor) which to outward eyes may seem like they are control freaks, but that's not what i perceive. Blue swayers (girl moms) are able to be so together and focused not because they are controlling every detail but because they are good at letting go of the things that are unimportant and focusing on the obvious and necessary things to get them out of the way. They don't do things that are unimportant to do and are willing to let things go and/or turn over responsibility of things to other people even though they may not always like the way they do them.

So when it comes to swaying, what I see again and again with pink swayers is them hunting down every single detail that they can come up with and wanting to incorporate it into a sway. It is VERY difficult for them to let go of things and the reason is because (and I know this since I am one myself) we want that little boost, that little charge of reward emotion when we think we've crossed something off the to do list. We think that the more things we do, then somehow we are "earning" a reward of getting what we want and while this does actually work in many arenas of life, in swaying pink it DOESN"T work because something about all that sways blue in a big, bad way. I can almost, but not quite pick out the people whose sways are not going to work out because of this. If they send me pages and pages of questions about meaningless things, argue with me about every detail in their sway plan or in the diet - even things that cannot possibly matter, if they make schedules and keep diaries and chart their cycles for years in advance and freak out about the smallest thing not working out, that kind of thing. They want to control for everything and believe that they actually CAN, lol. So my advice to these people is just to chillax as much as possible and focus on the things that really actually are swaying and much to my great happiness, the past year I've been surprised quite a few times when people who I was thinking "augh that one's gonna be an opposite" ended up getting girls anyway so I really do want to point out that you guys, even with your control freaky personalities, can have swaying work for you. Just don't get carried away with the little meaningless details of it all.

What I see again and again from blue swayers is feeling overwhelmed by the idea of swaying, not even wanting to try because it feels undoable to them, putting it off indefinitely - I've had swayers doing HE Diet for a year and gaining tons of weight because they were so scared to try. Blue swayers are much more worried about getting it wrong because they feel they can't control things that are inherently uncontrollable, whereas the pink swayers are more like "not only will I not get this wrong in even the smallest detail, but I will do this better than atomic has ever dreamed of! mwa haha" (the evil laughter may be only in my imagination.) Conversely some blue swayers think swaying is just kind of open for interpretation since none of us can really control anything anyway and so it's really no big deal and they don't really need to do anything too hard or annoying since it's all out of our hands anyway. Blue swayers, interestingly, will often expect me to do much of the work for them and at times will even ask me "Why aren't you helping me more?" (a question I would literally never ask anyone at all ever because in my boy mom way, I see asking someone to help me - even when I have hired them to do so - as a sign I have failed as a human being LOL). Today - and please if you see this, dear poster, don't hold this against me - I'm not telling tales out of school, I'm just using this as an example to help other people - I had a blue swayer request that I go onto Amazon and pick out things they should buy and send them the links to make it easier for them. I would just never personally ask anyone to do that and the main reason I wouldn't is not because I think it's in any way wrong but because I'd think "well, I bet I could find those things cheaper, maybe even better versions of them, plus I could buy these things I needed for my scarf project at the same time and only pay shipping once..." etc etc etc. I would just never want to turn over any control of anything, no matter how dumb, to anyone else if I could possibly avoid it.

So long story short, too late, uncontrollable stress where you can't do anything about it and just have to learn to live with it sways pink. Being a control freak sways blue. But because being a control freak involves so much massive stress it is very hard to tease out when you're experiencing "stress" how it might sway and it's certainly NOT something I can give you a straight answer about because it's very likely different for every individual.

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This is very interesting atomic. You write so well! I have three boys and as I read you talking about about blue swayers (girl mums) feeling overwhelmed and worried to fail, I actually feel like that’s me now. I feel so so nervous at the thought of trying again for a girl, because I know I can’t actually control everything and have to believe that timing isn’t the be all answer and that’s just that. I feel like I need to get the diet thing part of my life far in advance and just let go of the little unimportant things in life. I can’t change who I am but I think just learning to let go and chill out a bit is going to help at least. Like not taking on these big effort projects that I know exactly what you mean about getting those buzzy feelings from. I’m so the same about resenting my husband being all relaxed, but hey if I join him maybe I’ll actually enjoy it. Rather than assuming these other things are more in need of my attention. Anyway, the whole defeated feeling is strong with me. I’m on the pill for now and before I had my children had bad endo, so have a suspicion a fourth child may not happen for us anyway. I just feel nervous at the thought of yet another sway fail and I am seriously thinking of getting a plan because I just can’t deal with working out what I should be eating etc etc so if I pay for the service I don’t need to worry. I’m quite happy with the timings aspect; Abstain isn’t a must but mainly all I need to do is test for ovulation and have sex once, right, lol! Nothing else apart from exercise is a big deal. So I just don’t want to be worried about squeezing loads of thinking and worrying into my day, have I remembered this, should I do that. I’ve asked questions as I go along and quite happy nothing else is super important to include. ....apart from hubby cycling and smoking!lol
I can totally see how I got my boys, i got fixated on timings in the wrong way and I was swaying boy in other ways, I am totally that person who wouldn’t really ask for help and think I could probably do things better and more officiantly, easily influencing my husband to do things my way, being a bit bossy etc but now I just feel deflated and a bit like I’m chasing something that I’m never going to get. When it comes to swaying i can’t do anything about it :(

It's natural to feel worried and concerned that your sway won't work out, but it's a matter of degree. Boy moms will think "I'm so worried that my sway won't work that I need to do more and more to make by sway better." Girl moms might think "I'm so worried that my sway won't work that I am not going to try." (so either not trying at all or not swaying because they're so sure that it won't work) It's really hard to describe until you've been through it but when I got pregnant with my daughter I just felt so out of control with everything in my universe and trying with her felt way more like stepping off a plank over a ravine and not knowing what was going to happen. With my boys it was this big deliberate thing that thought I had planned out perfectly - with the exception of my first who I got when we were young and super human, I always planned to get pregnant and went about it very methodically.

Now, if you think you already feel that way, great, just don't rush your sway because of it.