sexuality! finally!
specifically teenage sexuality.
also the overlap between my online friends in the kink and game studies circles, respectively, and the concept of the magic circle common to both.

using forgetfulness at some level as an aggressive defence of my assumed/enacted independent identity; and other reasons why i internalise anger: it avoids negotiation, my only experience with anger has been at the extreme, i don't know how to "use" anger except for destruction & self-confirmation.

therapy was cancelled this week, but how about this #tbt to this time last year. still working on this, still working on lots.
[birb] https://twitter.com/nickfourtimes/status/915585934653083648
#todayintherapy

still anger.
anger as assertion; how i've trained myself to hide/ignore anger to avoid challenging people, to maintain a status quo. how this plays out as a constant performance & self-denial, a lack of identity in any situation, of identity in general. could "practising anger" as assertion help/have helped my definition of self...

i see every failure as a sign that i don't belong/am unwanted. after decades of (mundane!) failures i feel absolutely lost, alone, without identity. i want understanding/rapport but don't know what that looks like b/c i feel alien & unknown to everyone, depersonalised from myself.

ha ha
on this day...

[birb]
https://twitter.com/nickfourtimes/status/920674199592755202

i feel inflexible and incapable of negotiation in the abstract sense. i hold onto an ideal of a static, fully-capable individual, and recoil when i don't meet that. i also want to achieve a more flexible, rhizomatic, insightful being. it'll take some work.

insecurity.
i've internalised the rhetoric of rationality and feel ashamed when i can't realise it; everything has to be earned, validated, and codified; at the same time i'm scared of others who claim to be purely rational; we've cauterised a part of ourselves. i want emotions, i want connection; i'm scared of fitting in & disappearing.
#todayintherapy

i feel disconnected from myself, dissociated, fragmented – there's a different me in different situations. i feel numb, alone, frustrated, misunderstood, and i've hurt a lot of people in trying to get them to mirror those feelings for me instead of communicating what i feel myself.

oh yeah! we had a break this week.
but i spent most of the day working from home, thinking of all the ways i've pushed people away. maybe i was hoping they'd want me back? maybe i'm scared of showing a face i do not know.

i am an egg. everyone is an egg.
i've internalised the fragility of others and myself to the point where i avoid confronting myself and others. for fear of breaking. the frustration builds, the meekness & depression spread.

self-mortification vs aspiration. the ideal i want, and the means by which i punish myself for moving towards it.

the usual running in place: wanting connection, fear of the negotiation, energy, and uncertainty that it requires. more self-denial.
#todayintherapy

fear (and anger) and (self-)loathing.
the usual.
my only understanding of anger has been frightening and physically dangerous, so i end up turning it back on myself and swallowing it. i want people to witness the suffering (cf. this thread). also, the desire for instant gratification, how that shapes and is shaped by anger.

catching up after the holidays. two prominent features:
~ family dynamics (at the dinner table, &c.); are we emotionally "enmeshed," feeding back into one another, instead of acknowledging our boundaries?
~ do i view/enact my depression (or internalised anger) as a martyrdom, if so for what cause? what is the reward or acknowledgment i'm seeking?

#todayintherapy

navigating the obligations i feel to both domesticity on one end (cf. https://friend.camp/@nicknicknicknick/101389784602002627) and self-fulfillment on the other; more about my need for and lack of intimacy; and then we talked about male intimacy so *of course* i talked about deep space 9.

well that's cheque #069 written to my therapist.

huh.

the possibility that what i think is low self-esteem is actually high self-esteem and entitlement hitting harsh realities/tripping over obstacles and turning to self-flagellation as manipulative call for attention/control. this is frightening to me.

also, returning to the feeling that everyone engages socially as if its their first language, and i'm only getting by in a third- or fourth-language that i read in a phrasebook.

i am bone tired. the ways i bully myself, the ways i act my emotions against myself and others instead of voicing them. the various reasons i enjoy smashing my ego against itself.

@nicknicknicknick what did your therapist just tell you to argue more on the internet

@charlesrandall
[birb]
https://twitter.com/microtrailers/status/1050394849847984129

@nicknicknicknick well, I wish you wouldn't feel that way 😅 but I know it's not that simple

@nicknicknicknick I won't forget you 😊

@nicknicknicknick sounds like a good day!