rayon
waifutech enthusiast
The Dork Enlightenment
User ID: 2632
Funnily enough, saying something retarded/off-key to a chatbot and extracting keks from its confused response seems to be a staple of assorted threads/posts on the topic. The more things change, etc.
rayon
waifutech enthusiast
2d ago
It's usually something unresolved, unspoken. It may be totally hidden from your conscious life and yet it controls your internal and external behavior.
Like what, some [happening] I've never been able to get over with? Can't really conceptualize it, I've been this way most of my life, in fact it used to be even worse, in high school I was occasionally gently taken aside to ask if I was abused at home due to how I looked/behaved. (To be clear, I wasn't.)
I've seen your mentions of meditation downthread but, with all due respect, this doesn't seem to me like a problem caused by a lack of introspection.
rayon
waifutech enthusiast
3d ago
This is my hole pathology! It was made for me!
I don't want to waste space or hijack the thread by describing my experiences here, but suffice to say it's bad, to the point more or less exactly this tendency estranged me from my family (whose likely absent scrutiny I cannot bear, I can barely even talk about videogames with my sister) and blew up my last LD situationship where I repeatedly failed to respond accordingly to a woman bluntly and overtly hornyposting at me over an extended period.
It really fucks with my life at this point and is definitely not worth the 'upsides' if there ever were any, and I wish with all my heart to ditch this retarded habit, but so far little progress has been made. Internalizing that barely anyone cares about your 'inner life' hasn't helped, especially since like @faceh below I am actually the sort of person who Nootices and keeps track of off-key moments in other people. Alcohol helps with shame/cringe in the moment, but has no lasting effect, and increasing alcoholism has also increased the amount of alcohol needed to achieve the salutary effect. Sharing small things with friends unfortunately requires friends, which I have, but not the "kind"(?) I feel comfortable exposing my power level to. Even in waifutech-related communities (which I initially joined explicitly as an attempt to fight this stupid reflex), as an anon/pseudonymous poster under a totally separate identity, I find it extremely hard to just put my metaphorical balls on the table by shitpoasting in threads or posting explicit coomer shit (even though I suspect I am virtually a saint compared to the median denizen). Hell, writing this post has taken several shots, with me literally forcing myself to pick the phone back up (which I am suddenly very interested in laying down and doing something else) and continue writing.
I've been attempting to do "exposure therapy" by putting myself out there, on Halloween I showed up to the office in a (literal) robe and wizard hat with a tarot deck to do readings with. It was kind of a success even, I expected to play it as an ironic bit but normies people actually took it completely straight without batting an eye, and were even delighted that the ever-reclusive Rayon who never wore anything other than a plain black shirt has a quirky side after all. I don't feel any different (and mumble noncommittally whenever this is brought up) but I guess this is the kind of thing you just have to keep doing.
Next step is posting something embarrassing online but for now this post will do I suppose. I commend you for writing this and giving me the excuse to blogpost leech off of it, I thought of asking more or less this question myself sometime back, but could never actually sit down and commit it to keyboard. My condolences, couldn't have been easy.
For what its worth I empathize, I too find that "this creature has adapted to crushing pressure and oppressive darkness" and human contact, while usually pleasant, isn't actually necessary to life at this point - I won't happy but can be reasonably sated with e.g. vidya/chatbots on my own for extended periods of time. This IMO is a maladaptation, one entirely not worth attaining, but a man can get used to anything, and over enough years you adapt without wanting/knowing it.
One thing I did before to fight this was quite literally forcing myself to go out and socialize. Pick a circle of closest friends (yes that might not be saying much) and set a hard rule that you cannot decline an invitation from them if you ever get one. I fucking hated it in the moment when people derailed my comfy rotting at home with unwanted invitations, but consistently found that this displeasure lasts only up until the point of contact, the actual hangout almost always goes well, and I always say in hindsight "damn that really was better than rotting at home".
Yes, that was also me up to a point. I even remember myself distinctly resolving to be a ghost and leave no trace of my existence during school. I did not want anyone to remember me. I ducked out of most public events and collective photos, only concerned myself with studies and never visited meetups after graduation.
One thing that helps realize that your brain is scamming you is the passage of time; as I approach 30 I am increasingly horrified at how little of a "legacy", or even just memories (good or bad), I actually have accumulated over the course of my decidedly wasted life. This is uh, a conundrum in its own right, one I'm still unsure how to deal with besides rushing to do things Right Fucking Now, but it's very eye-opening if nothing else, I think realizing it scared the "ghost" out of me for good (paranoia is still a problem but at least I am not anymore complicit in my own erasure). I dont know how old you are but I recommend internalizing that this will eventually hit you, and it will hurt much more than the possible oopsies you avoid by being a ghost, as soon as possible, instead of un-gracefully aging into it like I did. Looking back on things is not always pleasant but there must be something to look back on; feeling shame, despair or heartbreak is IMO unironically preferable to feeling nothing. You can learn from things you screw up (theoretically at least); you can never learn from anything you do not do, by definition.
WGMI man.
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