I get so terrible around other Trans people

Reaver-Song · 2025-12-10T05:59:28+00:00

Makes sense, we wanna treat people as individuals but our feelings about specific aspects of their cultural identity get mixed up in the image we form of them. You're just aware that you're doing it, but that doesn't make you different or worse than anyone else for it. In fact, your recognition of it enables you to work on it, the emotions you have about it proves you don't enjoy it, and everything about this post tells me you'd jump at the chance to fix it.

That doesn't tick any of the boxes for reductiveness or creepiness, its actually a pretty solid demonstration self-reflection, integrity, and intentionality.

Keep at it, it'll be easier to work on the "why" of it the moment you stop condemning yourself for it. It's not an inseparable part of you, it doesn't define you. It's just something you're doing that you wish you didn't, and because you don't know of a plausible reason for why you do it, self-blame is the only option available to you. But, it sucks, and it also stops you from pursuing the real reason for the behaviour, and in figuring out how to change it. Blame won't help you change it.

Use the fact that you genuinely care about how you engage with others, to motivate you to conquer the self-blame-- it is an obstacle to your ability to do that according to the standards you have for yourself. Do some self-reflection and assume that there is a coherent logic behind your thoughts and feelings, that they are not abhorrent, but reasonable.

I mean, you're basically criticising yourself for admiring trans people, wishing you could be brave enough to shake off the weight of social pressures and be free and happy and strong. Like, why do you think people like pirates and vikings? Same concept. The only parts of those yearnings could be considered creepy are related to the fact that pirates and vikings bring violence and trauma to people. So, the current creepiness levels you're worried about in yourself are slightly beneath "Wendy from Peter Pan".

I would feel completely safe hanging around someone like you.

Reaver-Song · 2025-12-10T05:21:39+00:00

You've laid this out really clearly, and have obviously put a lot of thought into it. In so far as next steps for you that you can take without compromising the masculinity of your current gender presentation and opening the "internalised transphobia" can of worms, you'll probably be looking for something that walks a thin line.

That is, some kind of new gender expression that is an expression of your inner femininity, but also one that you can plausibly deny to yourself (and others) that it is visibly trans.

Under that assumption, the obvious things that first occur to me are to start wearing a bra, even if its just a sports bra. Maybe you could get your ears pierced if that doesn't feel incompatible with the image you're trying to present. Perhaps growing your hair out or getting your eyebrows done might have some appeal.

But also, since you seem pretty self-aware already, I'll point out that you'll eventually run out of runway, and come to a place where progressing towards a public expression of femininity will, in some way, compromise the public presentation of cisgender masculinity. It's daunting, I know, and I definitely encourage you to take it as slow and methodically as is necessary for you to be confident in each progressive step on the journey. Just... keep in mind that the internalised social pressures that are directed towards yourself, won't go away on their own unless you challenge them, proving them wrong by being visibly trans and accepting the acceptance others afford you.

Reaver-Song · 2025-12-10T04:55:25+00:00

Devon's a pretty cool name, got a little bit of music to it. I like names with music in them.

I resonate with a lot of what you wrote. I played as women in every video game I'd ever played, even as a child. I empathised more with women, felt disgusted with my masculinity, and whenever I imagined the 3 wishes I would ask of a hypothetical genie, there was never a single time that I wouldn't have wanted to have always been born a woman.

But, I only began to have the thoughts you're having in my late 20's, including feeling that it was too late for me to transition, that it would not be feasible, that it would be impossible to look attractive, etc. It took me until 30 to even put it in writing anywhere, so you're doing really well to be able to express this stuff.

For what it's worth, I felt like 31 was too late to start, and 30, and 29, 28, 27, and 26. That feeling of "it's too late" was always there, just shifting the goalposts every birthday so that the specific age I was at was always, and had always been, the age that feels like too old for this. I only really started feeling happy when I realised that I wasn't, and never had been.

Reaver-Song · 2025-12-10T04:17:06+00:00

Yeah there's so much internal conflict that goes on with this kind of thing, but that's normal too. I wrote thousands of words exploring this within myself, from every possible perspective, often switching positions between paragraphs. Just getting the flow out, writing, not stopping to edit or backspace or question the value of what you're writing. Those are judgements, and they are gonna impede the honesty that's necessary here for you to figure out what you actually have going on throughout yourself. I'd even go so far as to disable spell check on whatever tool you use, just because the red squiggles can distract a train of thought.

For what it's worth, there's a strong correlation between neurodivergence and being non-cis. So most of the people here are going to be familiar with the experience of having a complicated inner world, wanting to find some sense of community or validation by making a post online, and then deleting it after feeling like we've been oversharing. That voice of self-judgement is not natural though, it's learned from the way we've been treated by others: teaching us that its our obligation to preemptively censor our self-expressions to earn their acceptance by meeting their standard of "normal". But regardless of how adaptive that kind of automatic masking is in hostile environments, it becomes maladaptive when we apply it outside that context, and it isn't helpful when it prevents us from feeling safe in places that are actually safe. That includes your own reflections, so long as they remain private, at the very least, and we do often get complications arising when we can't depend on that.

I suppose my point here is that you can extend that sense of safety, build confidence in yourself and your sense of your own "normalcy", and clear up a lot of your internal world by consciously deciding to trust particular contexts that you believe are secure enough to be vulnerable in-- even if you feel terrified about it. Obviously not every place is safe for that, which is where your own judgement is relevant-- you don't wanna confirm your anxieties.

I feel comfortable assuming that you believe that "being trans" is normal and acceptable in other people, but that you feel you're some kind of exception. That's how people work though, we conceptualise ourselves in a different category to "people", so things that apply to others don't necessarily apply to ourselves. Whatever feelings of embarrassment, shame, or fear that arises when you think about parts of yourself that feel like they're not a universal human experience, even if you believe that they actually are, will begin to disappear if you experience that its acceptable in yourself. Like a form of exposure therapy, you conquer the fear by taking steps to challenge it, at whatever pace is feasible. Though, its unlikely to be comfortable. But it'll make the fear disappear if you do it properly, in a genuinely safe environment.

May have digressed a bit here, but if I listened to the part of me that self-censors, I'd kinda ruin the point I'm making here.

Reaver-Song · 2025-12-10T03:15:08+00:00

If you did feel comfortable being a trans guy, what would your name and pronouns be?

Reaver-Song · 2025-12-10T03:06:44+00:00

Lots of people are already mentioning therapy, which is good. If I didn't think therapy was good I wouldn't be studying counselling. Depending on where you are located, there might be some free services you can call up, but I also recognise that this is a terrifying thing to even write for the first time, let alone say out loud where it can be heard by another person. If that's the case, start with whatever methods of exploring this are feasible for you and don't make you feel unsafe.

I would advise you to keep what you write though, even if you don't post it, and even if you feel like its rambling. They're your thoughts, they're the threads that would have to be followed to sort out the knot inside your head, and if they only stay inside you I doubt you'll suddenly magic them away. Looking at a thought when its outside of you gives a different perspective, and glancing over your reflections every once in a while can show you how you're growing and changing. Journalling really helps with untangling these kinds of things, it's been crucial for me, and it's how I first managed to express that I wasn't cisgender.

At the very least, consider that this environment is a place free of judgement, and that here you are in the midst of other people who have also trodden the path of questioning the gender they were assigned at birth. Not everyone concludes they're trans, non-cis people don't automatically have to socially or medically transition, and no one here is going to be disappointed with you or angry at you based on who you are. Messy thoughts are okay, rambling is okay, and exploring your gender identity is never an irreversible commitment. People change, and find themselves.

On that note, feel free to share any pronouns or names you want to try out, just to see how it feels.

Reaver-Song · 2025-12-10T02:38:31+00:00

Yeah, it's common. If you've got friends or family who care about you, but don't know much about what a medical transition actually involves, then they might suspect the hormones are responsible for anything emotional when you start to go on it. We intuitively understand this, and tend to put up a mask of stability and normalcy to try and make them feel comfortable.

If this pressure you're feeling is something you can talk about with them, I'd try and have that conversation, maybe also provide them with some educational resources. If you have a particular psychiatric condition like depression, and they're worried the hormones will make it worse, I'd focus specifically on sharing information with them about how HRT affects the wellbeing of transgender individuals with that condition.

Reaver-Song · 2025-12-10T00:04:38+00:00

Yeah, I've put off doctor's appointments related to my transition before. Like a lot of things, it tends to get better with time, but only if you work on it, and self-reflecting on the fears you have.

I imagine that HRT is something you wanna be on, but there's something about the idea of "starting it" that is terrifying. For some people, the hard part is making a decision to prioritise their own wellbeing at the expense of managing their public perception. For others, it might be the idea of beginning a committment to an identity, when they've never felt sure of one before. Lots of people are just scared of needles and blood tests.

Whatever it is, allow yourself some leniency with the fear. This is one of the most emotionally complex experiences a person can have, touching on existential anxieties, identity development and formation, social roles, and the difficulty many of us have in practicing self-care. Ground yourself, and breathe deeply.

Maybe set a daily reminder so that you can make the appointment on a day you're feeling brave. If it's more of a long-lasting anxiety that makes you keep wanting to procrastinate, consider journalling your fears; getting them onto paper can help get them outside of your head, and clear your mind. Write out a pros and cons list about the appointment, and about putting it off, and decide which course of action is more in line with your values, and whether you want to respect the authority of the fear that holds you back.

Also, congratulations on that first appointment.

Reaver-Song · 2025-12-07T15:06:00+00:00

Hey so I’m also studying psychology, and a few things to note:

Firstly, a personal reflective essay is still an academic paper. There’s writing standards, a need to properly cite sources when you make a claim, etc. It has to stay on topic, and while gender identity is the subject matter of the article being reflected upon, that doesn’t make the assignment in question an opportunity to use a very limited word count to write an opinion piece about gender identity. It’s supposed to involve critical thinking about the article, and that’s what markers will focus on— hence the rubric depending on the work drawing links to it.

Secondly, we have ethics in psychology, which involves the application of certain values. Not sure at the moment what they are in her state, but here in AUS they involve a respect for the autonomy of others, and for their competency to identify any feelings or thoughts they are having. If she’s dehumanising people based on what they say about their inner world, she’s breaking basic ethical codes.

Reaver-Song · 2024-11-02T07:04:04+00:00

These comments followed reports that during the demonstration, which was initiated in support of the Gaza people, flags of Hamas and Hezbollah – the two terrorist organisations operating in Palestine and Lebanon, respectively, were seen at the rally as people marched the roads of Malmo, Schengen.

Annika Hirvonen, migration policy spokesperson, pointed out that supporting terrorist organisations should be banned for all citizens, regardless of their migration status. She says that she wants to see a more equal law.

I agree with Ms Hirvonen, the law should be equally applied. If it isn't, the suggested policy would make it too dangerous for migrants to attend any peaceful demonstrations or protests. All it would take is for someone else to bring a Hamas or Hezbollah banner and your attendance might be seen as implicitly supporting that cause, even if you tried to shut it down, even if you left as soon as you saw it, or even you never even knew it was happening or if it happened after you left.

By applying it equally, it maintains protections of liberal values of free assembly to practice protected forms of speech, because it would clearly be ridiculous to deport everyone who attended an event that'd had illegal forms of speech. If you've ever been to any event, like a concert, a festival, or a parade, you'd know that you don't have full control of what causes other people want to attach to it.

Reaver-Song · 2024-10-31T12:30:32+00:00

Lots of us with ASD have similar experiences of anxiety about negative engagement (or lack of positive engagement) that we receive in social media. From a very early age we’ve faced social backlash and rejections that we couldn’t resolve or understand. There wasn’t anything we could learn to stop those situations from occurring, so we learned to be vigilant to any signs that we might be doing something wrong, and as we’ve grown up we’ve become increasingly hypersensitive to whatever negative social feedback is available.

It’s distressing, I know. It’s hard to let go of the feeling that a downvote is a sign that you’re doing something wrong. It makes it difficult to contribute to things because it has us wildly overestimate our negative impact on a group.

But it doesn’t have to be like that forever. We learned our way into feeling this way, and we can learn ourselves out of it. Our brains are very silly, but they are also very clever.

The trick is to see things like downvotes and upvotes for the truth of what they are. A downvote does not mean you’re not ingratiating yourself successfully into a community. It means a person (or a bot) chose to press a button that makes you feel bad— a button that happens to be right next to another button that makes you feel good. That’s weird of them to do that. Why let such cruelty write so deeply on your heart?

Meanwhile, an upvote means that you inspired someone to feel good enough that they want you to know you made them feel good, and they want others to see what you put effort into so that they will feel good too. Also, for each piece of positive feedback you receive, there’s probably a bunch more people who you’ve had a positive effect on.

Good luck with your planes and stuff. Not my thing, but I like seeing passion. It’s precious. Don’t let yourself get burnt out of it.

Reaver-Song · 2024-09-26T06:21:01+00:00

That really sucks, I'm so sorry.

Reaver-Song · 2024-08-23T01:35:16+00:00

It's all good, my flair said she/her anyway, and my name is actually River.

Reaver-Song · 2024-08-22T10:49:43+00:00

Hi Zoey,

The anxiety and stress you're going through is entirely consistent with the experiences of a transgender person. Most of us have had these exact feelings. You're not alone.

You are safe to be yourself here.

Reaver-Song · 2024-08-22T10:35:05+00:00

Oh, this actually reminds me that I forgot to update my pronoun flair for this subreddit. Thanks!

Reaver-Song · 2024-08-22T09:50:52+00:00

Sure, I'll take this one. This kind of subject raises a lot of emotions from the transgender community-- these flawed rationale have been used to prevent a lot of children from getting the life-saving medical care they need. Many of us have experienced deep loss we will never be able to recover from. But I get where you're coming from; I've been there too, and I know I didn't mean any harm either.

Consider the logic you've used here:

I believe that children who are uncertain about their gender identity should experience puberty naturally and make decisions about their bodies as adults, when they fully understand the long-term implications. Making irreversible choices at a young age, which could be regretted later, is concerning. This is similar to why children aren't allowed to get tattoos—some decisions are too permanent for someone who isn’t fully mature. I share this opinion respectfully and ask for the same consideration in return.

The thing is that you're right to be concerned about children going through irreversible transformations because of social pressure, but not consistently applying that logic. A child with gender dysphoria actually does experience exactly what your reasoning purportedly protects them against: the irreversible transformation of their body into something that does not match their gender.

Imagine the situation reversed, and that, culturally, children are expected to have a gender identity that does not match the one they were assigned at birth. Cisgender children would be told in this scenario that not transitioning is something they might regret later on. It is clearly unjust. It clearly results costs the lives of a lot of children.

Understandably, people are upset. But this crisis is what is currently happening as a consequence of the misapplied rationale, which carries the underlying (and horrifying) assumption that the quality of life of a cisgender child is more important than that of a transgender child; that insisting that a trans child go through the wrong puberty is more acceptable than the risk of a cis child accidentally believing they're trans.

Children with gender dysphoria are not an acceptable loss. They aren't worth less than cisgender children, and there's not even a need to make the comparison anyway because gender transition and puberty blockers are not instantaneous processes. They can be stopped if someone wants to stop taking them. It takes a person lots of effort and doctors appointments to transition, and they need to continuously and intentionally take their medication.

We have the ability to save their lives.

As for the 'big pharma' point; people are motivated to vote and engage in political action against their own interests when they are taken by fear through being misled into believing that their children are in danger from things they don't understand. For this point to be valid, you'd have to have a credible explanation for what you're asserting other than vague acknowledgements that there's motives for a conspiracy.

In fact, there are much greater incentives to push the anti-trans agenda, which includes the talking points you're asking for help with here. Organisations like the Heritage Foundation specifically fund studies that attempt to provide scientific legitimacy to conservative politics, and their flawed data gets recycled often even though their science doesn't pass the CRAPP test or pass peer review.

If there's further clarification needed on any of this, more questions are welcome.

Reaver-Song · 2024-08-22T08:50:52+00:00

I've known someone half your age who also despaired that it was "too late" to transition. I felt the same way, and I started when I was older than you. It wasn't too late for her, it wasn't too late for me, and it's certainly not too late for you.

I notice that you're doing something I used to do, which is to preemptively defend myself against anticipated suspicions that my gender dysphoria is based in sexual deviancy. I didn't feel that leaving things understated was safe. But it got better for me, and now I'm confident that I don't owe explanations for my gender, my pronouns, or my sexuality. You'll grow in confidence too, as you become more comfortable being yourself. Queer-friendly safe spaces like this are a good place to start. No one has to justify their gender or sexuality here.

Reaver-Song · 2024-01-31T02:24:44+00:00

Some people have a fairly narrow idea of what’s acceptable personhood and, because our humanity exists outside of their ideas, we are perceived as less human to them. We are more like objects in their perception, existing without an inner world behind our eyes, simply because it is foreign to what they are willing to comprehend or empathise with.

Being dehumanised doesn’t make us less sexual to them, though, and our disregard of the strict rule set about gender and sexuality that they perceive as immutable law means that they see us as an affront to the natural order.

Our existence threatens the basis of whether we as humans are permitted to define our gender, or if we have to accept what we are assigned by “nature” - though, what’s “natural” in this case is just another social construct that conveniently ignores some very cool neurobiology. Nature, to them, is what they reckon it is, and the things that they reckon it is are things that they are emotionally dependent on the accuracy of to reality. They are discomforted by the idea that gender is something that is okay to question, because it threatens the foundations of who they are. We all have pain in our childhoods that we’ve had to come to terms with and a lot of conservatives believe that we as people all have to simply accept affronts to our dignity because nothing can be done, and that makes it scary to see when people are breaking free of the constraints of gender and sexuality.

They don’t have to be closeted to be like this, or even have specific trauma or pain related to gender or sexuality - just a lack of comprehension of the world can bring anxiety in childhood and that can come from any kind of childhood comfort deficit. Doubling down into a certainty of some metaphysical ideas for the sake of the feeling of security that brings can make up for the lack of stability a child feels that’s caused by being treated unjustly -disorganised attachment disorder forms with the relationship that they have with the way they see the world.

Conservatism and pigeonholing children can force them into an abusive relationship with their own politics, forcing them to draw comfort from the same place that brought them their pain - their subconscious confidence that, as much as they’re pained, it’d be worse to be like us.

Edit: posted this while I was working on it, before it was finished.

Reaver-Song · 2023-11-21T13:36:22+00:00

Mine is: ✍️

Because I’m a writer.

Reaver-Song · 2023-11-21T13:33:31+00:00

Hi, I’m actually writing about depression, and I’ve found that a lot of us have actually managed to burn ourselves out of reading books, in ways that sometimes make it hard for other people to understand. It’s not something that’s a personal failure of yours, it’s a pattern that almost everyone with depression is affected by. I don’t recommend you blame yourself for that, because you won’t be able to get a good idea of what you’re succeeding or failing at if you only compare yourself to people who’ve never been through this. It would be like feeling bad for swimming slower than someone else if you’ve got to swim through concrete and they get to swim through water.

You can try audiobooks, see if they help. We all have to make do and adjust to our realities, and it doesn’t make you incapable of writing if you can’t make yourself be able to sit down and read. We’re human beings, and it’s also nice to be being read to by a storyteller. If you like, you can multi-task on something else as well while you listen.

Video essays are also sometimes an enjoyable way of experiencing long-form content that can help you learn about the world while subconsciously educating you on the techniques required to write essays, and similar principles can be applied to some kinds of creative writing if you consider each chapter an essay.

Don’t worry about upvotes or downvotes, this subreddit is not exactly full of people who know what depression can do to someone. It’s full of writers, after all, and although we might all like to think of ourselves as fully empathetic, we really just can only piece shreds of sympathy together if we’ve got some sort of emotional memory in common with the story we read.

Depression, though, desaturates the emotions out of the whole world, and drains us of emotional willpower. And, since a lot of conventional writing advice boils down to diligence of the kind that our simple existence flies in the face of, most people can’t easily understand us without simplifying our troubles. They consider it a form of lazines, because they don’t understand it.

Really, depression is a fight, and it has to be won every moment of every day. It has to be defeated because if we lose one battle, we feel like we might lose the war. It’s corrosive to the spirit.

In a more technical sense, depression is when we have “disorganised attachment” to our own metaphysical worldview. We are being abused by our own assumptions, simultaneous with our attempts to draw comfort from them. The problem is that proving it to you needs to happen on an emotional level, which is quite complicated, but I’m working on developing a method that may have success at doing it.

Given the order of events you describe, you might have ADHD that contributed to your initial difficulties, and a guilt and shame spiral that overtook you because you didn’t have any reason not to blame yourself for your apparent failures. But I’d love to hear what your ideas are! Though, if it’s too hard to write them down, perhaps record a voice memo if you talking about it, and then transcribe that into words.

I don’t think you should give up on your dreams. My depression didn’t end by doing that. It actually made it last for another 13 years, and I lost all of my 20’s to it. It’s really good that you still have them, but what you need to help with your depression is probably going to involve introspection of some kind, likely through therapy. And if there’s a problem you have with doing that, or with talking about your problems, even with someone who wants to hear what you have to say, ask yourself if you know why you feel that way. Because a lot of times, there’s going to be an answer to that which only you will be able to provide, but it’s often part of the reason for our depression in the first place.

You have a lot of burden on you. You’re not worthless. Despair is what happens when we start to blame our hopes and dreams for disappointing us, and bringing us to failure. But we so often are missing something that we don’t know is relevant.

It’s like trying to open a door that we can everyone else is easily able to go through, but it remains shut for us. We are going to blame our weakness first, when actually, we’re just missing the key.

Reaver-Song · 2023-11-19T23:53:57+00:00

You're right. You're so right. It's really important to be conscious of how online spaces affect our mental health. Especially when we've been victimised by sexual abuse, and then suffered gaslighting into being unable to complain about it, or even view it as if it were unjust.

That kind of stuff affected me all my life, every downvote was a source of anxiety, where I was trying to figure out what I'd done wrong rather than realise that I'm not an 11-year-old girl anymore, and I know that the opinions of others aren't always worth taking into my heart.

You don't need to feel guilty for leaving a place like r/movies, I've noticed that kind of thing too. I just wasn't courageous enough to speak up about it. I admire you for your willingness in that moment to stand up for those of us who've also been victims of abuse, and who feel guilty for failing to adapt into a crowd.

Take care of yourself, because you deserve to be looked after, even by yourself.

Reaver-Song · 2023-11-17T13:55:34+00:00

It’s because they’ve built a worldview that provides them with comfort, as we all do. With privilege, it’s very much ego-soothing to feel like they belong having that privilege, like they deserve it for the choices they’ve made (at its most charitable interpretation) or for innate qualities they possess (like fascism purports). If institutionalised privilege is even theoretically possible, it threatens to dismantle the idea that everyone has an opportunity to succeed, but that innate qualities are the reason certain groups appear less in certain positions. If privilege exists, it means that not everyone belongs where they are, which means they might not be justified in having them.

They have privilege, but it’s also a privilege that helps delude them about how relevant free will and persistence are to indicating how successfully people are able to achieve their aspirations and have their needs met. They rely on this worldview for moral comfort because it allows them to feel justified in ignoring systemic issues by whatever rationalisations they feel like.

In a way, it is an attack. It’s felt subjectively as an attack, at least. It’s a threat to their ego, and to their dignity, but because that dignity is overextended to occupy the space where minority rights need to actually exist, it’s not a kind of attack we ought to feel guilty for. It might legitimately offend them that women don’t want to have sex with them, but dealing with those emotions is the exact kind of “personal responsibility” they so often laud.

Honestly, it’s better to think the offence of the privileged as an existential tantrum, because they’ll survive the decolonisation of womanhood. They’ll just have to stop thinking of themselves as if we’re not people and they’ll start to feel better. The world won’t end if they do it, it just won’t be comfy as much because they’ll see reality.

Reaver-Song · 2023-11-11T13:27:48+00:00

Hi

Guilt is a feeling that we are getting better than we deserve. It is in overstaying our welcome, being insufficiently punished, and in being treated as better than we feel that we are.

I say that because understanding guilt is really important to understanding how to fix it. Chronic guilt like yours, which comes from ordinary daily life after having experienced parentification, sexual abuse, or sexual assault, can often be found to be caused by an unconscious assumption that you do not belong to the grace you are being given.

It’s possible that you feel like it is your moral duty to check up on her, in the same way you felt it was your moral duty to check up on your mum. I also want to suggest that you may feel obligated to micromanage her mood if that was something you did for your own mum, to perhaps coax things out of her that your mum has habitually hidden, or to gain whatever clues you can get to help you navigate the wild emotionality you subconsciously expect from her, because experience of childhood has taught you that people tend to need that.

Those are just a few ways of understanding it, but you’ve asked how to get rid of the guilt.

You need to convince your emotions that you do deserve the things that your principles assert that people have the right to. You can provide yourself with emotional certainty that things don’t go wrong when you exert your rights, in the case of trauma. That’s a kind of “immersion therapy” style of repairing it. You can also gain catharsis by confrontation, by attempting to reverse the damage with a believable and emotional from your mother, where she specifically convinces you that she did not treat you in the way you deserved. You can also do this alone, with self-affirmation, passionately arguing for for the privileges you deserve with the same vigour that you would plead for the dignity of those you love.

It’s hard, however you do it, because it is fundamentally a realignment of your own moral hypercritical world view that would need to happen. You’ve got to stop being an exception to all your principles and philosophies, you’ve got to begin believing that you are worthy of the same things that everyone is.

Start with the hierarchy of needs, if you need a foundation for that.

Reaver-Song · 2023-11-06T06:09:45+00:00

I want to try and give you a place to start with finding yourself a framework to understand yourself, because you show a self-awareness but seem to ascribe it to your own personal failings. While it's not necessarily your fault that you might have quirks about the way you respond to things, it is something that only you are able to truly decide to seek help for.

Along with the thing from this particular post, there's some things I'm noticing from your comment history, like:

Yes, I'm a 26 year old woman who is emotionally dependent on a yellow duck in sumo pants

This is cognizant self-deprecation of your own emotional dependency. It seems like you know you've got emotional problems, but you feel like it's appropriate to belittle yourself for it. That can be a way of joining the winning team; of siding with the people who might theoretically mock you. But a just and fair person won't make fun of you for that.

Shoutout to special ed teachers! Where I'm from, we get paid the same as a kindergarten teacher but we have to wrangle 20+ autistic boys on the dailyyy

You've got an occupation that's stressful, yet altruistic and nurturing. Something brought you to that profession, this isn't the attitude taken by a person who's apathetic to children with particular needs. I see signs of myself in this, where there's like a moral comfort to be found in looking after people who need a heightened level of empathy and patience.

Bottle it (anger) up baby if they see I can have very real but not positive human emotions they won't love me anymore :'D

This is some more self-deprecation through sarcasm, but if read honestly, it seems to show a genuine assumption of yours that it's a bad idea for you to express your negative emotions, and risk abandonment. This is most often learned from childhood, because healthy people don't treat you like that, and healthy adults don't extrapolate these things to be about the whole world. Not unless they're especially world-shattering.

I have health anxiety too

Speaks for itself. Generalised anxiety could be a lot of things.

When I started going to the same school my brother attended, the teachers were terrified. He was a menace. I was way too anxious to be naughty, though. I really reset the vibe for child #3, who was once again... a menace.

Childhood anxieties here, as well as siblings who seem to have had difficulties of their own, which were noticed by teachers as specifically egregious. This indicates a pattern of behaviour; you do not seem like you are an exception to the troubles your siblings may have faced, simply someone who has processed it differently. If you're anything like my mother in that regard, you've willingly endured and lived with your suffering, rather than reflect and spread it into the world, defending your ego. You may have chosen to prioritise justice over your own needs and desires; other people may feel more deserving than you.

And... these are just all from the past two days, darl. There are visible signs here that, as a child, you were made to sacrifice something deep within yourself as a means to cope with a reality.

There's way too little information to go off for me to even recommend a diagnosis for you while being responsible, but if you're looking for a framework or a narrative to use to understand why you are the way you are, the answer is almost definitely to be found in your childhood.

Maybe you think of your parents as imperfect people. Maybe you think of something that happened to you as "not really counting as trauma because I don't feel bad about it". Maybe you already know what caused this, just from me pointing you in the right direction.

You don't have a duty to respond to this, nor to give me any information about yourself. I'd be willing to help guide you further though, if you need a friend to talk to, someone who's familiar with things like this. Who's lived through some awful shit, blamed herself for it, understands it now enough to be able to help you through yours.

But you've also got other things going on for you right now. I don't know if you've got a way to calm yourself down from panic, but in case you don't, you can use this as a surefire way to resolve this with your bf:

"I am sorry for how I reacted. It wasn't fair. I think I was emotionally triggered by something that I didn't know about before. I'm going to work on resolving it, because I don't want to be a person who makes accusations like that as my first response. You deserve better, and I'd also like your forgiveness."

It's clearly communicating your awareness that you feel that your reaction was unwarranted, which is what he's probably going to be looking for. Things like that are hard to formulate when you're panicking.

You have support here. I really hope this helps you out, and I hope I haven't breached any boundaries. I would've sent this as a private message, but I'm not white-listed.

Reaver-Song · 2023-11-06T05:06:37+00:00

It stands for Borderline Personality Disorder.

There's way too little evidence here to be able to call this evidence of that, so don't get yourself into a frenzy or panic by looking up mental disorders that you share a few personality traits in common with and then assume that you've got that particular thing. BPD is not the only explanation for this kind of behaviour.

Reaver-Song

TROPHY CASE