#again. idk if paranoia or delusions are the correct terms for what i experience. it sounds right but idk a trustworthy source to look it up

[aesrot]

the thing w my rsd is that i know that thats what it is and i avoid as much as i can talking abt it w people when its triggered bc i dont want them to think im being clingy or annoying, i understand that people dont owe me shit. but even when i know that its just my brain acting up, i still have these mean and suspicious thoughts abt myself and other people despite not having any reasons to believe in them, and it keeps ruining the good moments i have w others

[chicknparm]

There’s a degree of anxiety-induced delusion that most of us suffer from which is really important to unpack, and under broad strokes for most people it is best to assume good faith, and that everyone you’re interacting with isn’t Out To Getcha. broadly speaking a lot of peoples’ anxiety tends to bubble out into paranoia and misanthropy that is really maladaptive and needs to be actively fought and corrected in order to be able to interact with the world in a healthy way on a day to day basis.

But reinforcing that idea that, as Mogatrat the Wise once put it, “you’re a normal-ass person” does run into roadblocks sometimes when it just does not align with your material experience.

I was just thinking about my most recent session with my therapist, where (even in an attempt to give myself credit for being funny and charming!) I said “I know I’m not the type of person that people find interesting and desirable enough to approach and start a conversation.” She was like “what makes you say that?” Which was obviously an open door to get me talking about my assumptions about myself, which is a fair tactic, but all I could say was “because I’m almost 30 years old and literally nobody has ever approached me to get to know me, I have had to initiate literally every IRL non-familial relationship I’ve ever had.”

Like yeah, it isn’t healthy to assume that every time someone laughs in public they’re laughing at me. Or that someone looking in my direction is a sign of Danger, rather than just somebody’s gaze wandering as they walk down the street. But what do you do when you try to move past that, and then the only thing that’s left is just…absence? Invisibility?

How do you reconcile the notion that you’re not uniquely repulsive with the reality that you are almost always forgotten in social situation, and frequently *the only one* being forgotten in that way? How many people times can I be the only person in the theater club not invited to the party? The only person in my college suite left out of the next year’s apartment? The only woman in my department at work (including other trans women) not invited to “girls’ night out?”

Like yeah, I’ve logically come to terms with the idea that everyone I see isn’t actively disgusted by me, and I have enough evidence to know that once I’ve spent time with people they generally find me charming and interesting. But nobody wants me around more. An occasional sideshow is the best I can hope to be. People don’t miss me, don’t seek me out, don’t see me and think “I want to get to know her” (and let’s be honest, most people don’t think “her” when they see me anyway). There’s a reason that almost all of my long-lasting friendships are online, with people who don’t often have to visually look at me.

Idk I lost the plot and lost track of what my point even is. I’m just bitter that once again these women I work with are going around inviting literally everyone in the general vicinity to their burlesque show, organizing car pools and afterparty plans and whatnot. And I am literally the only person that nobody is talking to. I don’t even want to go, is the thing, but the context just makes it so obvious that I’m to be kept at an arm’s length at all times lest I get The Wrong Idea, right? Like if I see a hint of cleavage my Male Socialization will take over and I’ll become a sex criminal. At least, that’s where my mind goes, until I remember that they’re also buddy-buddy with a larger, louder trans woman who is frequently vulgar in ways that are indistinguishable from the men I knew in high school and college. So she can get an invite to the Nerd Strip Show, but I can’t even get a “Hi, how are you?”

Idk. Whatever. Hope people have fun screenshotting this and laughing at how pathetic I am. Talked myself back into self-loathing. Awesome, lol.