#and it’s a lot more worrying if you act like people being destressed and traumatized from a FUCKING GENOCIDE is some kind of moral failure

[willowways]

I hate a “starving kids in Africa” ass bitch

[finsterhund]

So I lay in bed attempting to sleep for several hours. Slept through some of them

Trying to regain some form of composure.

And thought about things.

The self is a construct. Who we are is something we make entirely.

It's based on past experiences. So it makes sense that mine is just starting to manifest properly. I can finally make my own personal identity free from abusive consequence. I can have my own interests and opinions. I've been free for a shorter length of time than I haven't. Not only do I want to regain my childhood but I need to recover from my old one too.

The psychiatrist seems to think that who I am, my core personality, is a role I'm putting in place, and that there's a “normal [legal age] guy behind it" but she has that reversed. The more mature personality I'll present in situations where it is needed is an unnatural state for me. Not the other way around. The civil, quiet, polite child may be an unrealistic persona that hides an admittedly more volatile, obsessive, and feral variation, but that's just my regular personality with me not caring stronger about politeness and being respectful. My periods of maturity are almost always to influence others in some way. Often by an attempt at intimidation or knowing it will make me be more respected. She told me I shouldn't describe things in "flavorful language" but to me that's what being "mature and intelligent" is. Using big fancy words that I know the meaning of to try and more efficiently get my point across.

She also tells me that I'm smart and that I know things. The fact that I have a high literacy and read lots does not mean I'm smart it means I'm knowledgeable. Smart is how you apply your knowledge which I struggle to do in good constructive ways.

I actually want to get better about things. Like being more independent, not being so afraid, standing up for myself and having confidence. But she is conflating not being who I am with those things. It goes back to something I've thought about. About how is curing trauma but wiping someone's personality in order to do it really a cure or is it killing who they are and replacing it with a new person. I'm certain there are ways to make me stronger and better without sacrificing things that are Me.

I made the mistake of describing the Andy hat as a magic feather (even though yes I know it is) and now she's talking about how it doesn't actually help and I shouldn't need it. Well it does help. It just isn't actually doing anything. And her going on to say that nothing could be real later really cements the fact that nothing could be real in which case there's no reason to adhere to anything based on how real that it is perceived. If nothing is real then why should we give the things that appear to be more real any higher agency?

I want to be safe and I want to be happy. Ensuring these things is more important than adhering to society's draconian expectations of how I'm supposed to think and feel and act based solely on how long the broken meatsuit has orbited the sun. Changing my interests, personality, and values to reflect the grown ups won't actually make me more confident or happy or strong. I attempted to mentally age and it didn't work. It was an act that brought more stress and made me feel guilty for the things that made me happy.

I'm really annoyed at her saying that [even a ten year old] being accompanied by a stuffed animal "isn't normal" like, how dare people find comfort in things? Like, she told me that smell can be used to ground myself, so am I supposed to do that? Or is that wrong too because a scent doesn't actually help and it just tricks the brain or whatever.

Her logic just throws me off and it seems based in sacrificing the self in favor of being homogenized into the socially acceptable traits of adulthood.

And I know I'm biased because of the amount of horrible adults I've had in my life. But you have to understand that there very much is a difference in how I am and how they are. It impacts socialization too. All my friends are adults and the friendships that are stronger are ones where my differences are not patronized, mocked, etc. Or ones where they are even shared. Have a few friends who similarly keep childhood identity due to traumatic pasts and we have a lot in common.

She brought up me needing to have long-term constructive goals, and in the past I wouldn't have had any because of just wanting to die. But now I actually do. I want my dog for real, I want to be a better artist, I want my body to be fixed (so can we maybe do this? Thanks.), but to her it should be things like secondary education (can't afford it, can't be on my own in classes yet) and getting a job (once again, you need to be hire-able to get a job. But even with that road block I do have ideas) and get adult things. And I mean technically I do have an intended career in literature but I can't write anymore and I don't know why and at this point I think it's due to frustration with not being able to do things.

And it's hard to have long-term goals when I didn't think I'd ever get this far, and I've been struggling to have a home that doesn't get pulled out from under me for years. And of course, what can I actually do by myself? I go to a clinic to fix my body and they find out I'm age regressed and make it all about stabilizing my mental health first instead. I can function with age regression. Listen, if my body was fixed and I had more confidence in my physical self it'd be a lot easier to build it up mentally. The fact that i don't want to exist because of being perceived by others could be alleviated somewhat of I fixed blaring problems in my physical health. If I was able to walk properly and stand upright and not have to worry so much about getting sick.

I don't know if I have a personality disorder. I know I'm traumatized. I know I'm regressed and repressed. I don't know what an official personality disorder diagnosis would change, if anything, about what it means to be who I am.

But I cannot stress that aspects of me that I AM proud of, should not be the things that change. I like how I don't have adult interests, personality traits, and values. I like how I find comfort in stuffed animals and juvenile interests. I like when adults don't expect me to act and interact like their equal but treat me with care. It's not always patronizing.

For me stability and normalcy is about fixing my body, about making it so that I'm less of a coward or a pushover. Of teaching me how to properly destress. Those are good and constructive. Telling me that I brought this on myself and was asking for it when I'm glared at and antagonized by adults because I don't act like they do is NOT constructive. And makes me LESS inclined to cater to their world and whims.

I'm glad my next appointment will be an actual one and hope that my desire to have my immediately fixable problems dealt with will be more respected in the future. Still annoyed that mental stability is a requirement before having a surgery to fix a glaring problem with the physical body. You think I'll regret being made better?