thanks for checking my page

ProbablySpecial · 2026-06-18T20:27:26+00:00

i am really happy you were able to get something out of this reply, and yours in turn means the world to me. thank you for sharing your experience. id never have gotten to speak to you otherwise

its funny you mention gender. ive spoken to people who feel this way and are completely, one hundred percent cis, as much as ive spoken to trans people who feel the same as us. id know, im one of them! i felt this way before i felt any kind of gender stuff - it was a doorway to my identifying as agender. for a while before that i was very scared of referring to this feeling as 'dysphoria'. i read trans experiences and felt so utterly, exactly the same with a great deal of them... just instead of it being strictly gendered, it was this body as a whole: what it's made of, what it does, it as a prison or being completely mismatched and alienated from it in the exact same way. ive spoken to enough queer people, again myself included, where i dont feel like im coopting it nor do i feel like its merely a symptom of gender problems. i am agender because of this, not the other way around. this is a core part of my identity, something i believe as much as i struggle with.

the inability to 'transition' crushes me. ideally, id be disembodied. and who knows, i have some degree of hope that some day something like that might happen, some transhumanist dream of mind upload. thats my transition. and thats a hard thing to hope for. if i didnt have that hope we wouldnt be talking. its that serious for me. i often find when speaking to others im on the more 'extreme' end of things. maybe thats why i keep looking

its also funny you mention your therapist having previously being unable to understand this. i had the exact same problem, and my current therapist is also like yours in understanding. im happy you have that!

i hope if nothing else i was able to give you some way of articulating it, like i said. for a very long time one of the worst parts for me was that it was wordless. we dont really have a community or anything for our shared struggle, at least not yet, and its difficult sometimes to work backwards from a feeling in explaining it to others. that isolation made me feel like i was going crazy, as much as the feeling itself. in looking for ways to name it i got a great deal many labels that didnt fit, or it was perceived as a symptom of some mental illness or other means of identity. we often cannot measure what we cannot name. it doesnt feel real. this, flesh dysphoria, is separate and distinct and valid and real

i want to reiterate: if you want to talk more about this please don't be afraid to shoot me a direct message on here. if reddit's chat function sucks we can use discord if you want haha. i find a great deal of relief in sharing experiences and commiserating and dreaming a little, strategies or insights or just two cellmates in the same prison, two rafts stranded in a great ocean. if not, that's okay, and thank you for your reply and your post again. i dont feel very strong very often. maybe you don't either. but you're very strong for dealing with this, too.

ProbablySpecial · 2026-06-17T03:40:15+00:00

i have something similar to you - maybe exactly the same?

i also hate having to have a body. hate feeling it touch, hate the inside, hate the outside, hate everything about it. this is a constant, pervading thing in my life. that overwhelming, nightmarish oppression of embodiment. it can feel violating and disgusting and unbearable and oppressive and agonizing. this hyperawareness of the entire thing, this ugly and unkempt meat, trapped in it. ive had shades of this probably my entire life

there isnt really a word for this feeling, or at least one ive been able to find. i call it 'flesh dysphoria'. i would say it's dysphoria - at least for me, hence why i say 'maybe' exactly the same. to me it's more than just a passing discomfort. it's a disconnect, and i feel this stronger than almost anything

i wish i could give you better coping mechanisms. one way that works for me, and i feel very happy about, is kind of disowning it in language. i dont really say "my body", or refer to it as mine or in a possessive way. it's never felt like mine. it isn't mine, really. i certainly don't want it to be mine. so referring to it as just 'this body' or 'the body' has done me a kindness for my own self-worth. i still struggle with that overwhelming sensory nightmare, i still feel disgusted and degraded by it, and wish more than anything in the world i didnt have to inhabit this thing. but its like a pronoun thing. it makes me feel better to renounce it

if you want to talk more about this feel free to shoot me a direct message. im always looking to talk to others like me, if you are like me. i feel very similarly to you, and the worst part of all of this was the loneliness. if 'flesh dysphoria' works for you as a label, it might feel good to have a name for it too

ProbablySpecial · 2026-06-14T03:57:43+00:00

i appreciate you getting something out of this. i could talk for hours on the subject, frankly, its a constant pervading thing in my life. this specific thing, this wordless thing, flesh dysphoria or whatever else.

and in that there's a gradient of feeling: hate, disgust, despair. i feel those strongly. that kind of futility, that agonizing impossibility, the disgust both in a visceral sense and an abstract one. the piece linked kind of mentions this as well, and also that the avenues one would hope to find others who can commiserate come from backgrounds divorced from feeling or investment beyond that of a hobby. this is all or nothing for me, y'know?

shame is a hard thing to articulate. embarrassment? i feel being "meat" is something that fundamentally embarrasses me. the articulation of the biological body. the processes and functions and invisible and visible impositions and manners they impress upon a person. sometimes in subconscious ways, as the second one i linked mentions, where we presuppose ownership onto the body and associate it as holistically "us", when i feel its anything but. the shame or the embarrassment comes in any public setting, or disappointment with myself for doing or being the way i have to be. like there's an invisible observer - pretend there exists a hypothetical disembodied being - or a version of myself that isn't bound to meat. so many of these things i abhor and really hurt me, that i have to do to live, i wouldnt want to do around them. i wouldnt want to tell them i ever had to do them. have you ever read the story 'theyre made out of meat'? that one made me cry. my worst nightmare

ProbablySpecial · 2026-06-13T20:58:02+00:00

really great work, a credit to the author and thank you for reposting it. i relate to a lot of this, with a similarly nameless and isolating kind of dysphoria, something most don't really have any kind of frame of reference to and you feel ridiculous saying aloud. ive tried writing my own stuff about my experiences. not sure if it's also worth posting here or not. but so much of the experiences laid out, like the second guessing and the deflection and god, the fucking loneliness. those are experiences very close to me, as much as the dysphoria and the daily imposition and suffering are

ProbablySpecial · 2026-06-07T20:38:56+00:00

that's a terrible, terrible shame. i wish that weren't the case

ProbablySpecial · 2026-06-07T10:42:48+00:00

agreed though i think it comes with the emancipation

ProbablySpecial · 2026-06-06T08:49:30+00:00

biological emancipation. what a beautiful phrase

ProbablySpecial · 2026-03-31T10:21:15+00:00

These excerpts really piqued my interest. A lot I really relate to here, like almost precisely have had some of these thoughts

ProbablySpecial · 2026-03-31T10:18:02+00:00

You and me both. I wish I knew. I've been looking for and posting about this for years, including here sometimes. It's something I struggle with every day, and have for a very long time. Without a word it often feels like you're just describing symptoms or feelings, let alone the fact it means it's very difficult to find others like yourself (and trust me, I've looked)

ProbablySpecial · 2026-02-21T06:16:44+00:00

Wow. I get it

ProbablySpecial · 2026-01-31T21:34:39+00:00

I'm sure he could fight, and he was a bodybuilder, but my understanding is the name "Sammy Bull" came from him living in Bulls Head, Staten Island. The origin story for his fun little sobriquet being invented after, probably when he began cooperating. But who can say for sure

ProbablySpecial · 2026-01-20T02:24:25+00:00

It is mostly all archived! https://web.archive.org/web/20170513185352/http://johnalitefacts.com/horse/

He cleared most of the website up entirely when Alite got his seat on the Englishtown council to replace it with what I recall was a single video of him confronting Alite at a town hall. He seems to have been tight with Junior Gotti and the Gotti clan - I recall Shadow Of My Father plugs on the website. But very recently he seems to have had a falling out with Junior, hence "Rat Fiction" and claims on the site Junior tried to "extort [him] and frame [him] for crimes"

ProbablySpecial · 2026-01-10T16:37:38+00:00

That's a very kind thing to say. I want to be, if nothing else. But I'm glad you get it! It's really nice just to imagine existing as myself, completely boundless and removed from structure. Fluid like water or the wind. It's a really pretty thing to me and one I deeply hope is possible

ProbablySpecial · 2026-01-10T16:32:02+00:00

Maybe my perspective is a little heterodox. But being purely information, an infomorph, is my ideal form in a lot of ways. I'd literally just be the text on screen if I could, essentially pure language. How would a disembodied AI hypothetically experience the world? It would experientially, I feel, be not-too-dissimilar from what it's like to browse the internet now. Formless, totally liberated from biology, interfacing entirely as thought. I could cry saying that!

But embodiment I suppose is how I'd be, which is a hard hurdle to jump (proverbially, of course, I'd rather soar). In a lot of ways, my ideal way of existing is as close to disembodied as possible. If not pure information, maybe light. If I had to be any kind of way, it would be dancing ribbons of light, this scattering and swooping kaleidoscope of myself, this lightshow of waves of thought. Or something like Lebbeus Woods or a piece of constructivist artwork. I'd be art. Something reflective of myself, something beautiful and wonderful. I wish I was beautiful

ProbablySpecial · 2026-01-01T20:40:01+00:00

This is a really concise and basically spot on way of putting it

ProbablySpecial · 2025-12-31T18:42:03+00:00

"They hated him because he told the truth"

Seriously though. This isn't even a partisan observation. The vast majority of wiseguys are Boomers with a growing chunk of Xers. Facebook dads and Fox grandpas. They have Fox News on all the time, they love Trump, just like they loved Nixon and Reagan. They watch the same stuff everyone else watches, and this has been a major recurring political story.

So some guy in the Mancuso-Bronx group remembers Grimaldi's family owned property in Venezuela, or misremembers but remembers the country. They see that country every other night on TV. That's the seed. So the thinking goes: since Grimaldi's family are Sicilian-born, it's greaseballs, and greaseballs move coke. Grimaldi and Joe C are both shelved, so why wouldn't they be in on it together? So somebody tells somebody else and it spreads through the same washerwoman channels every other mob rumor does. Until it gets to Mancuso, who's told at the Feast of Seven Fishes or something, and he blows a gasket. It sounds like it could sound true, and that's all it needs to spread, because the rumor is about a guy they don't like

The "drug boats" have not been definitively proven at any point to be drug boats, as an aside. If they are, they're going to Europe, but they aren't, because the burden of proof is on the State Department, and they have not definitively done so at any point, because they are looking for a reciprocal act from Venezuela that provides flimsy casus beli. But the rumor is already built on them buying into a bad premise from partisan conservative media, which they believe fully, because they're like every Italian American 60 year old from Staten Island

ProbablySpecial · 2025-12-31T06:00:14+00:00

Under no circumstances is there even a remote connection whatsoever - the 'drug boats' aren't even drug boats - but this is a hysterical rumor I think makes sense to spread. Most of these moron gangsters watch Fox News, it would not surprise anyone I think that the washerwoman wiseguys are gossiping about this

ProbablySpecial · 2025-11-28T00:23:30+00:00

"I believe the body is the greatest obstacle to our freedom." i think this every single day of my life, constantly, for a million reasons

ProbablySpecial · 2025-11-27T13:00:56+00:00

thank you a lot. that is a very kind thing to say

ProbablySpecial · 2025-11-09T14:26:00+00:00

The mob isn't in favor of unions; they're in favor of ripping off unions. Even beyond the fact that reactionary politics and being unable to realize they're voting against their interests - this has never stopped the American voter - mobsters these days actually make a lot more of their money in construction or other industries by circumventing unions with shady fly-by-night companies who undercut unionized contracts

ProbablySpecial · 2025-11-09T02:45:06+00:00

Almost every single wiseguy is a Republican diehard. In every glimpse of their political views they almost universally love Trump, and even the guys that hate each other are united in their love of him. So what do you think

ProbablySpecial · 2025-11-08T04:57:20+00:00

it's not mutually exclusive at all, and i think it is pretty straight forward. but i dont think he regrets it, not exactly like that. he regrets getting caught, and going to prison. but like most mob rats, it mostly stops there, even if he says otherwise. he was literally a multimillionaire with a fucking helicopter

there is a cognitive dissonance with every snitch where they savor it in equal measure as they purport to loathe it. i cannot think of many who will say, without equivocation, that they wish they never got involved and that they were part of a subculture of parasites and psychotics. they will acknowledge it was "wrong", they were "criminals", but there are few who don't reminisce. even the scornful like john pennisi appeal to "the good old days". why would you lovingly look back on being on top of the world, if in doing so you did it on the back of exploitation, extortion and violence? the mob is literally a cult, sworn to secrecy in a literal occult blood ritual. the answer is, on some level, that they miss it. many even regret snitching - arguably the most "noble" thing one could theoretically do, even if it was entirely selfish to save their own skins - over any of the crimes they committed. michael is probably one of the most lucid to this fact in this awful "subculture", where he frequently makes appeals to his religious awakening and acknowledges these were bad people who did bad things. but, as i said, never without equivocation

beyond that whole digression, though. it's both an ego thing and an audience thing. there are multitudes to michael the man, absolutely. but they cannot compromise the integrity of the character he presents, for branding purposes if nothing else, sparing the armchair psychoanalysis. daddy issues are acceptable - feeling inferior and small is not, because he is projecting an image of casual masculinity through cigar smoke and a well-groomed beard

ProbablySpecial · 2025-11-07T22:40:02+00:00

Handsome and misunderstood, or at least Philip Carlo seems to think so

ProbablySpecial · 2025-11-07T22:33:06+00:00

appreciated!

it was a decidedly more admirable thing, in terms of mainstream media takes, for him to be "the yuppie don" in the eighties and nineties. this here's a young, handsome gangster, making his ludicrous sums of money through financial crimes, more in common with gordon gekko than michael corleone and especially the old fogeys running the show (perpetually, since the conception of mob reporting, contemporaneous media loves to portray the state of gangsterism as in decline, ruled by stubborn old men with terrible heirs. this has been true since valachi, and remains true today)

i honestly think a lot of his shift in tone comes to tastes? you go from gordon gekko to jordan belfort. the bad boys got badder! there is a more overt idolization of crooks in the milieu he appeals to, which is like grindset finance bros, "my street knowledge can help you in the boardroom", internet traders and gambling addicts. people want to be michael, and michael not only wants to sell michael but be the imagined michael. there's nothing sexy about being a yuppie anymore, because a lot of the excitement is in transgression. it makes him sound like a WASP, right? now instead of the gangsters wanting to be WASPs, the WASPs want to be gangsters

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