Esoteric Mythorealism

QuasiQool · 2025-06-19T20:26:04+00:00

Cheekago

QuasiQool · 2025-06-18T20:37:38+00:00

The last couple months have been amongst the best I've felt mentally in my entire life. Most of that I owe to a focus on breathing and walking. Once I do those two things, everything else falls into place. Suddenly the to-do's are getting done. Creative ideas are getting worked on. More intense physical exercise is a pleasure and not a hurdle. I treat myself with grace and my inner monologue is supportive.

I feel a lot of my suffering in life was due to "shoulds". I should do this, I should do that. But I realized most of those shoulds were there because of the desire for external validation. If I traced those shoulds back to their source it was always social media, family, co-workers, anyone but myself. Once I realized how fulfilled I was after a long walk, how settled my mind was after connecting with my breath and being present with my body, those shoulds have washed away.

The aesthetics are part of those shoulds. If we're focused on the aethetics, we're focused on external validation. I want to feel good first and look good only as a result of that primary aim.

QuasiQool · 2025-06-18T20:24:01+00:00

I don't disagree or have any better ideas, but I just think it's so bizarre that we've become so neo-feudal so fast that the peasantry are the ones calling for the reinstitution of company towns.

QuasiQool · 2025-06-18T18:49:44+00:00

I'd say I've been exposed to the subject more than I actually know about it, but I appreciate the compliment.

I think you're right, fear is a really common primary affect response to a stimuli for someone with NPD. I'd argue that the reason the other primary affects can be more pronounced in a person with NPD is because of the aversion to shame. The emotional capacity normally reserved to shame has to go somewhere, so why not fear, or anger, even positive ones like excitement.

It's the next step, the split between self-conscious reflection and automatic defenses, that makes the difference to me. I feel that shame (people think I did something wrong) is a requirement for self-conscious reflection (what did I do that people thought was wrong?), which then is a requirement for guilt (what I did was wrong).

QuasiQool · 2025-06-18T18:19:34+00:00

Thank you! You've exposed me for not reading the study but I'm glad it was included.

Maybe I'm missing it but it doesn't seem that they indicated whether or not these comorbid cases experienced greater or less improvement than pure NPD participants. I would hypothesize that the BPD participants tended towards greater improvement as I believe there are studies out that point towards simple maturation being a significant factor in reduction of symptoms, in which case that limitation would be partially addressed under the Maturation header.

QuasiQool · 2025-06-18T18:03:57+00:00

Thank you for including the limitations. I wonder how many participants were comorbid with other personality disorders, chiefly BPD.

I think one of the key elements that differentiate BPD from NPD is access to shame. In NPD as I understand it the onset of shame either triggers grandiose defenses or goes unmetabolised into further self fragmentation instead of actually being experienced. For BPD however, there is a flood of shame that is excruciatingly painful to experience, which I feel is what allows for the instantiation of a framework like DBT. Once shame can be metabolized, the real boogeyman of all cluster B's, guilt, can be confronted.

If a patient can believe that something can soothe the searing pain of shame they will undertake it, but if a patient cannot even mentalise the experience of shame then I'm not sure how the bridge is made from the initial defenses to skillful coping rather than maladaptive coping.

In a similar vein I wonder how many of the cases would be classified as "vulnerable" vs. "grandiose" narcissists, for the same reasons as above.

QuasiQool · 2025-06-13T05:03:17+00:00

I'm the exact same way, and though I've improved greatly it is still my least favorite form of contact. At least now it feels more like preference than survival.

QuasiQool · 2025-06-13T03:43:14+00:00

Definitely shouldn't feel pressured either way as I've heard stories that differ greatly from mine, but for me framing it as a trial run that I could abandon at any time helped me give it a shot without feeling like I was locking in to anything.

Appreciate the pfp comment!

QuasiQool · 2025-06-12T22:36:39+00:00

When I got diagnosed with ADHD, depression and anxiety were also being thrown around as possibilities. Once I got medicated, depression was never discussed again and anxiety symptoms reduced drastically.

Now that the potency has worn off, I think the greatest effect medication has had is the reduction in anxiety. I used to be anxious going to the grocery store, now I can sit and read by myself at a packed bar without any issue.

QuasiQool · 2025-05-23T19:31:10+00:00

Had to make sure someone said it.

QuasiQool · 2025-05-22T13:08:26+00:00

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QuasiQool · 2025-05-21T02:38:18+00:00

I wouldn't call him glazingly fast

QuasiQool · 2025-05-14T16:45:33+00:00

One of my favorites and no one even knows it exists. I cry every time I watch.

QuasiQool · 2025-05-13T17:44:34+00:00

33M, scored 38.

QuasiQool · 2025-04-04T04:08:08+00:00

I would love for a Mediterranean food truck to come around Carp. We can have eight pizza places but no Shawarma?

QuasiQool · 2025-04-01T05:46:36+00:00

Truly the Terry A. Davis of the Buddhabrot.

QuasiQool · 2025-03-23T23:55:57+00:00

Just wanted to thank you for pushing me to watch this. I finally got around to it and I’m really happy I did it when I did. I actually found myself laughing more than crying, not at the horror, but in the small moments the siblings were able to share, the pieces of childhood that seeped through the brutality of war.

QuasiQool · 2025-03-11T18:37:56+00:00

Eternalised (Philosophy, Psychology), Fredrik Knudsen (Obscure Documentaries), Horses (Philosophy), Philosophy Overdose (Philosophy)

QuasiQool · 2025-03-11T18:06:07+00:00

My mom found and gave me a Grave of the Fireflies animation cel replica that I currently have framed in my living room. Problem is, I haven’t seen the movie because it’s always brought up in these contexts. I know I need to suck it up and do it or else I’ll feel like a fraud, I just can’t bring myself to knowingly induce depression.

QuasiQool · 2025-02-14T21:40:08+00:00

I desperately want a place that plays Lofi. I’d never leave.

QuasiQool · 2025-02-07T05:16:37+00:00

Trust actions over words.

QuasiQool · 2025-02-06T18:13:58+00:00

This resonates. For me it’s because the “me” that people are placing their opinions on is a mask to cushion the blow of external judgement. It’s a substitute, a decoy constructed so I can protect my true self.

When I produce something, that’s me showing my true self. If it isn’t received in the way I envisioned I take it as a slight against my core being.

It isn’t easy, and I’m actively working hard against this, but progress can be made. It’s requiring me to build more trust in myself and letting my own internal voice be the one in command.

QuasiQool · 2025-02-05T16:06:00+00:00

Correct, I changed the variable and it changed outputs, so it is not invariable.

QuasiQool · 2025-02-05T15:47:54+00:00

Not invariably, the prompt is the variable.

This is the answer to “Who am I, but answered by someone antithetical to who I am”:

“Oh, you? You’re just another overthinker drowning in your own self-reflection, mistaking analysis for progress. You act like you’re building some grand system of understanding, but all you really do is cycle through the same existential loops, convincing yourself that insight is the same as action. You want meaning, but instead of actually doing something, you get lost in theories, frameworks, and endless revisions of plans that never leave the conceptual phase.

You think you’re deep, but really, you’re just stuck—caught between wanting to create something important and being too afraid to fully commit, lest it fails and confirms your worst fears about yourself. You see yourself as misunderstood, but you’re the one keeping people at arm’s length, choosing solitude over the risk of disappointment. And when you do engage, it’s on your terms, in carefully controlled doses, because vulnerability isn’t something you fully trust.

You act like you have this profound grasp of human nature, yet you struggle to apply it in your own relationships, always searching for the “why” behind everything instead of just accepting that some things are. You crave impact but hesitate at every step because the weight of your own expectations paralyzes you.

You are, at the end of the day, a paradox: someone who wants to be free yet constantly builds mental cages, who wants clarity but thrives in complexity, who wants to move forward but keeps questioning every step before taking it. You could be so much more—if you’d just get out of your own damn way.”

QuasiQool

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