"What do you consider to be your flaws or the ways in which you devalue yourself?"
A sat with Bryce in a cafe one time and said to him 'I figure there's plenty of good guys out their for women, they're not losing anything by me not dating them.' or something to that effect and Bryce responding 'that's one of the most depressing things I've ever heard.'
Thing is I was sincere. I kind of see clearly now, or if not clearly, within the vicinity of clear that some devaluation has gone on.
I can see a legacy, of my dad's dad disappearing into a shed to invent or work, something he did around his grand kids when they visited as well, but must have characterised my father's childhood. And my dad caught workaholia long before it became the norm. He came home every night, while we were awake, and ate dinner with us, and he was at all my basketball games and shit, but you know, he was into his work. Really into his work. I see the same in me, how I isolate myself into projects and shit.
Even if I'm present for my friends, there's a value I place on work that isn't real. I don't really care about work as much as I care about people. From the inside the retreat is something about being unworthy of attention. Maybe it's just birth order shit, plain and simple. Not the youngest, most vulnerable and most demanding of attention. Not the eldest going through the learning curve and causing the most anxiety.
It's funny, I really can't point to when I started disappearing. It seems really hardwired, literally subconscious an assumption that I'm expendible, redundant, spare or leftover. Cognitively I can see the irony, it's this belief that lead me to take risks, figuring there was no real harm in my failing, and because of that I've become much more important to many people. A precious snowflake. Yet that assumption of expendibility remains, innate.
Then I'm sure as a combination of cultural conditioning, and post-fact rationalization, needing to be a hero. Stick my neck out for others, charge in the vanguard etc. is superficially admirable but really the result of a belief that I myself am not a sparkle princess locked up in a tower worth rescuing. If you can't be loved, sought after and desired, you can be the one that dose the loving, seeking and desiring. The hero is a hero because he doesn't have a hero to rescue him.
Prince charming isn't locked up in Maleficent's tower because he isn't important, nobody cares. He has to throw a tantrum and cut his way through.
Self reliance too seems admirable but allows me to avoid ever testing whether I can rely on anybody. I think I do ask for help, but there's still way too much Musashi in me, too much Batman, too much Abe Lincoln. Gotta have my own back and everybody else's.
It's all obliquely true. I don't believe in my own value - somewhere deep down. I crave people caring about me. I try to do this for others to vicariously rescue myself. I literally engage in reciprocal tactics to try and fill my esteem needs.
There are worse problems to have. But my problem's out there, I accept it and it is known to me. What next?
Thing is I was sincere. I kind of see clearly now, or if not clearly, within the vicinity of clear that some devaluation has gone on.
I can see a legacy, of my dad's dad disappearing into a shed to invent or work, something he did around his grand kids when they visited as well, but must have characterised my father's childhood. And my dad caught workaholia long before it became the norm. He came home every night, while we were awake, and ate dinner with us, and he was at all my basketball games and shit, but you know, he was into his work. Really into his work. I see the same in me, how I isolate myself into projects and shit.
Even if I'm present for my friends, there's a value I place on work that isn't real. I don't really care about work as much as I care about people. From the inside the retreat is something about being unworthy of attention. Maybe it's just birth order shit, plain and simple. Not the youngest, most vulnerable and most demanding of attention. Not the eldest going through the learning curve and causing the most anxiety.
It's funny, I really can't point to when I started disappearing. It seems really hardwired, literally subconscious an assumption that I'm expendible, redundant, spare or leftover. Cognitively I can see the irony, it's this belief that lead me to take risks, figuring there was no real harm in my failing, and because of that I've become much more important to many people. A precious snowflake. Yet that assumption of expendibility remains, innate.
Then I'm sure as a combination of cultural conditioning, and post-fact rationalization, needing to be a hero. Stick my neck out for others, charge in the vanguard etc. is superficially admirable but really the result of a belief that I myself am not a sparkle princess locked up in a tower worth rescuing. If you can't be loved, sought after and desired, you can be the one that dose the loving, seeking and desiring. The hero is a hero because he doesn't have a hero to rescue him.
Prince charming isn't locked up in Maleficent's tower because he isn't important, nobody cares. He has to throw a tantrum and cut his way through.
Self reliance too seems admirable but allows me to avoid ever testing whether I can rely on anybody. I think I do ask for help, but there's still way too much Musashi in me, too much Batman, too much Abe Lincoln. Gotta have my own back and everybody else's.
It's all obliquely true. I don't believe in my own value - somewhere deep down. I crave people caring about me. I try to do this for others to vicariously rescue myself. I literally engage in reciprocal tactics to try and fill my esteem needs.
There are worse problems to have. But my problem's out there, I accept it and it is known to me. What next?
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