My anxiety is now under control¹, so my therapist and I have moved onto other issues.

It’s funny that I started going to therapy for my anxiety attacks, but he keeps digging up issues I never knew that I had.

Not that any of it is as debilitating the way the anxiety attacks were, but it’s made me realize that they have affected my quality of life. All of it stems from my parents (as opposed to being teased, some kind of incident, etc.). Once again, I say that I don’t like to blame them, but the glaring fact is that I can now trace every issue back to my childhood.

The idea of a self-destructive pattern whereby we repeat the pain of our childhoods is called a lifetrap. They’re categorized differently, depending on the school of psychology one prescribes to, but my most significant ones (i.e. rated “very high”) are emotional deprivation, dependence, unrelenting standards, and punitiveness. When I first started, I also had pessimism, but this has mostly gone with my anxiety.

I’ll touch on two of them now:

Emotional Deprivation

• One of the things that sparked the realization that I didn’t have a regular childhood was when I was asked to fill out a diagnostic questionnaire. I was told to rate how strongly I felt about the statement “I have not had someone to nurture me, share him/herself with me, or care deeply about what happens to me”. I thought to myself, “That’s normal? People have that?”.
• This is why I feel alone and detached from the world. It’s not quite as clean-cut as this, as there are a bunch of other issues that factor into the issue, but it’s an overall feeling.
• Until that point, I never considered the idea that such people exist. I assume the parents are supposed to fill this role, and eventually a spouse.
• In many people with emotional deprivation, the lifetrap manifests itself in relationships where they remain emotionally distant. For me, it’s more of a difficulty communicating to my girlfriends about my needs, and then feeling disappointed when my needs aren’t met.
  • This makes me wonder how certain relationships would have worked out if I was a different person and didn’t keep breaking up with my girlfriends
  • Unfortunately, I could write a book on this.

Unrelenting Standards

• I’ve realized that I’m still being too hard on myself. This stems from the expectations put on me as a child, or simply the fact that I think being unsatisfied with stagnancy is healthy because self-improvement makes me a better person. Most likely, a bit of both.
  • Sometimes I have to compare myself to someone like Pat to give myself perspective on this issue. He’s a person who hasn’t “achieved” much when evaluated by my standards, but he’s happy and that’s what matters. It makes me question what I’m trying so hard to achieve. I think of an old Calvin and Hobbes strip, where Calvin says, “It’s hard to argue with someone who looks so happy”
  • I understand that it’s the pursuit of greatness, not greatness itself, that should make life worth living, so when I have this self-destructiveness as a result, it doesn’t quite make sense. I’m working on this. It helps me to keep a quote by Charlotte Cushman in mind: “To try to be better is to be better”.
  • A side effect is that I’m too hard on other people because I project my unrelenting standards on them as well.
  • A lot of people tell me that I wouldn’t have had so much pressure to be the best and perform well if I wasn’t an only child.

1. I don’t say solved because I don’t think one can completely eliminate anxiety [↑]

I’m thinking this and writing this and I have to say something to someone but Pat’s busy, Julie’s out of town, and John’s gone missing. Not that they would understand anyway. Not that even I understand.

De-loused in the Comatorium is cranked on my speakers right now because it’s how I feel. Last week, my neighbour told me he’s never heard a peep from me. Now I question whether I’m pushing my luck. It’s like I stepped out into the darkness of a cool night from a production of Equus. These synapses firing. The jitteriness. It’s ten, I haven’t had dinner, but I’m shaking too much to eat.

I feel like I could write for days and days and days and days. Maybe I’m just happy to have something to write about. Maybe I’m just happy to feel this way again. This self-destructiveness, even in the face of certainty.

A little clock in front of the turquoise man says I’m away, but I’m here. Talk to me, Darren. Where are you? Only you would get it. Only you know how I feel, because you’re probably feeling the same thing right now.

We’re drawn to that which hurts us. In this way, we reveal our vulnerability, and only those who are so vulnerable recognize their own.

It’s time I turned down this music. It’s time I put some food in my stomach. It’s time I scalded myself in the shower. It’s time I got some sleep.

Sometimes you don’t know you’re alive until you’re burning.

I’ve never been against any form of (non-permanent) self-mutilation, as long as it’s not considered a solution to a problem. After all, some people watch TV to get their minds off things, others pull out carving knives and make designs on their arms. Neither activity actually helps a situation, but are just ways to deal with things that can’t be helped.

I always make sure that I don’t have any razor blades handy. I figure that if it ever gets to the very rare point that I want to cut, I’ll be calm again by the time I go out and buy some, sort of like a cool-down period for firearms.

I’m proud of the fact that I’m strong enough now to resist, that if I did have a pack handy, I wouldn’t reach for it as a release.

FDR had nothing on me.

Some cut. Some burn.

I bash.