~today in therapy~
a need to organise for "ideal" outcomes; frustration w/myself & others for letting unexamined emotions govern behaviour.

~today in therapy~
where my anger goes, why i keep it in, where i'd like to let it out, where it ends up getting out anyway.

~today in therapy~
what a doozy.
social anxiety; abuse i've inflicted; watching people make the same mistakes; my anthropology minor, MRGS, and a gradual awakening to discourses of power; feeling isolated; feeling bullied; desire for attention; closets; nightmares; feelings of isolation and judgment; my family's expectations; internalised expectations; i am the monster in my nightmare.

~today in therapy~
shame stemming from the conflict b/w my desire for recognition & my valuing of self-sufficiency; the slow development of an acceptance of qualitative support over quantitative acknowledgment.

~today in therapy~
anger; anger in architecture; architecture in dreams; architecture as dreams; hypermasculinity as masks; masks in conscious and subconscious.
i left shaking at the power of the unseen, or i really enjoyed my cappuccino.

~ today in therapy ~
the ever-present fear of imagined embarrassment, judgment, and public humiliation as a self-censoring force in my relationships, work, and hobbies; the desire for more intimacy & the anxiety of imagined/potential tension & disappointment.

#todayintherapy

~ today in therapy ~
the exacerbation of being home for the holidays; my isolation from friends and family (teen years & now); how my parents' trauma may have passed down to me; guilt at not engaging with my parents; wanting only wins; my birthday isn't great.

~today in therapy~
CanLit, misogyny, and my own feelings of guilt and (self-directed) anger; bullying myself & constant self-hatred; shame at adult men (myself included) acting like children; "if you were angry at someone that wasn't you, who would it be?"

~today in therapy~
more on the need to feel valued, envied, respected, desired; how that manifests in relationships, familial, social, romantic, sexual; internalised belief that i'm either a fully-realised, masculine self, or nothing at all; internalised belief that i'm a cipher.

~today in therapy~
the various ways i relate to dwimbold the dim, my incredibly slow, very unlucky, but surprisingly charming dwarf character in d&d; my earliest, closest friends, & how i remember nothing about them save when they publicly spoiled my magic trick.
illusions, michael.

~today in therapy~
my therapist has to interject when i beat myself up too much.

~today in therapy~
my anger and how it interacts with my depression; how it interacts with the people close to me. my assumed and evolving understanding of intimacy with others.

~today in therapy~
my rationalist & emotionless habits, how i isolate myself from emotions & conflict, how many people that's hurt.

~today in therapy~
the image of the mysterious outsider, how i've internalised that and often try to perform it; attempts to "seek passivity" and escape from uncertainty and consequence; the many ways and venues in which i push back against my own self-control and mastery.

~today in therapy~
depression & ghost dreams & my fear of being seen; how i take a lack of control for a lack of competence; my resistance to deeper, intimate relationships & guilt over selfishness in past ones.

~today in therapy~
how i contextualise everything in terms of competition & optimal paths; my rejection of uncertain & disorganised processes; and an exhaustive, 50-minute catalogue of all the avenues in my life where i feel outclassed, incompetent, and inadequate.

~today in therapy~
i shut down when my competences are challenged; my ideal nick can cope or contribute to anything, but there's a masochistic satisfaction in letting people down; do i feel the need or the burden of being a scapegoat.

damn fine coffee today though, wow. consider me aeroimpressed.

i'll add that it's hard to make progress when i don't even have faith in my own thinking process. i don't think i can think well; i undervalue, undermine, and distrust everything my mind proposes; what kind of foundation is that?

~today in therapy~
my family and friends have always felt static, or at least on one path; i've spent my life fantasizing of such mastery, and recognition for such, assuming that failure is not an option, and pushing people, activities, and myself away when failure, weakness, uncertainty seems possible.

#todayintherapy

more and more lately i've been thinking how much benefit could be drawn from mentorship; or in my case in particular from having a space set aside for mistakes, learning, communicating with myself and from myself.

~today in therapy~
i define shitposting; and note how despite my gregarious needs and desire for intimacy, i pull away from any situation in which i might be judged; i must always present as in control.

~today in therapy~
i want easy solutions & i want them to come from myself; at the same time i'm cynical when simple tokens are used/offered by others. again, i want intimacy but shy away from the uncertainty/vulnerability of it, the lack of control.

~today in therapy~
i'm angry, angry, i am so fucking angry. i've been angry for years. i try to strictly control myself, and expect the same from others, and if it's not there i get angry. i want support and acknowledgement, but isolate myself; always afraid of judgment, always feel i have to perform, and i resent it. and it makes me angry.

#todayintherapy

~today in therapy~
longstanding anger at the lack of mentors in my life, the lack of interest – from myself and others – in my own development, my self-isolation and the desire for someone to talk (with) me through this thing.
this is my voice, this is my voice, this is my voice.

~today in therapy~
my impulsiveness means i allow present moment's success/failure to overdetermine my mood/self-worth; growing up with a culture/expectation of completeness or predetermined solutions.

~today in therapy~
my favourite pattern: feeling responsible for an outcome, feeling scared of an uncertain course of action, feeling shame for having failed to act. in everything from wanting to write, to wanting to express myself, to wanting to have opinions. i've made a habit of escaping that dilemma by retreating into myself.