I wanna apologize to Lot's Wife, Summer, and some others for being a rude pos some months ago over an issue that shall not be mentioned.

But I wanna talk about some progress I noticed today on the subjects I have been posting about for 8 years-ish.

Something small, but something welcome.
My self-image is healing. What is this?

Your self-image is the third person view you have of yourself in your head and how you feel about it. Both men and women have self-image issues of different kinds, although the most common one for women may be how pretty she thinks she's not as she compares herself to other women. The man's version is feeling incompetent compared to other men, although there's a strong visual attractiveness factor there too, I just wouldn't say it's as strong a woman's. Mormonism is a memetic virus that hi-jacks these needs to be loved and to love being yourself to control you. It keeps them inflamed to keep control. It hyper-connects the neural circuits controlling your self-image to the fear trigger circuits. It thinks it does you service, and you yourself won't admit something is wrong as long as you wish to fit in with that cursed society of suffering people.

Even after we figure out that there's nothing to stay for except a true blue belief in the teachings at face value, which can't be true in light of the evidence, we suffer these self-image issues. Some more than others. But it does start to get better, because you're aware that you have been fear-conditioned by silly nonsense heaped on you by people who can't think in a straight line, although it still hurts.

Feelings matter. There's no such thing as a fake emotion. Emotions felt are real, even if the trigger was an illusion. This is why Halloween is so fun. As long as we know that our feelings were triggered by something that isn't real, a one-time fright can be fun. Adrenaline gets the heart pumping, gets the juices flowing, and makes you feel parts of your body you've perhaps been ignoring a long time. But prolonged fear of an abstract enemy, like a society of people who don't accept you enough to be real with you like they are with others for reasons you can't really pin down or can't change, is stress-inducing. The anticipation of this reality can be more damaging than when it finally comes as your anxiety runs through all the different fear scenarios and you try to control the things you can control to put off what feels like the inevitable sometimes.

I did something like this to myself. Overachievers or people who otherwise try too hard to be liked have something like this psychology going on underneath. After years of living like this, you start to wear out although you don't let your expectations slip. You just start hating yourself for the growing distance between who you are and who you need to be to avoid the rejection of others. If you will not ease up on yourself or find new social expectations to impose on yourself, you will resign to the worst ideas you've ever had about yourself and accept those things as religiously as you once tried to stave them off almost as it were a prayer to your fellow beings not to say the things outloud that you know they're thinking.

There are many problems with this kind of thinking, but it's so common to so many people that modern therapeutic culture was born to alleviate it. Feelings like these are probably why most people seek counseling for themselves. There is a soft science to "how others see you" that I've been slowly working out for myself with less tools for the job than human beings are usually born with. I have a profound capacity to anticipate the worst plausible outcomes and a foreshortened ability to inform my fears with data gathered from people's body language and such. Watching Mormonism mince others into pulp is enough for me to understand that I could get the same, even if I was from a locally-beloved family. It never dawned on me that those people didn't deserve it until years later.

This is my affinity for the exmormons, by the way. For so long who I thought an exmormon was was informed only by what people at church said and how they would not even talk to those who had been taken by "anti-mormon literature", which was said so often around me eventually people just started saying "anti" and you knew what they meant. "Oh, he got anti'd."

What's bizarre about my case is that in hindsight I don't think I was capable of offending my family very far away from me. So the way I feel about myself is more self-constructed than I thought. Knowing this doesn't undo the trauma I've inflicted on myself for many years, and it doesn't absolve the church for deliberately giving me these impressions many many times not understanding what I was going to do with it, but it begins to let the tension release. And after a while of letting loose by degrees and nothing bad happening, well, it rebukes the anxiety for a while and the anxiety recedes for a bit. This is so different from how things used to be where I'd leave my dwelling, realize the gaze of the world was upon me under the sun, and immediately recoil as though I'd been sandbagged but it was the automatic self-talk I had which was so toxic.

It didn't start out toxic. It started out as an effort to fit in, but what it became after many years of perfectionist failure was just self-punishment, although there was still an idea behind it that it was to help me fit in and avoid being cast off by society. It wasn't working out like that though. Things started to get better when I discovered what cognitive behavioral therapy was, but it was hard to believe the therapist when he told me I had a right to be happy unconditionally when my church and my society and my family were very obviously against the idea. I have to be happy in their way or I'm not allowed to have it, because they will withdraw from me. I knew this, and so even as things got better internally, my social life grew chaotic to offset it.

Part of this is probably just getting older and having my brain finish developing and having my hormones begin to taper. IDK. But I've begun to feel after 8 years like I can leave my dwelling without flinching. There is not the storm of negative self-talk waiting to take me; there is not the chorus of tbm scorn fingers floating above me in the air mocking me and accusing me. There is silence or there is the same thoughts I was just having before I stepped outside. I don't care anymore what other people think of me. I just don't. Not like I used to anyway. That's quite a hook to be on in hindsight: an autistic ADHDr captivated by how others think of him at the cost of his need to have a logically-consistent worldview. What a hell. I've seen hell. Hell is a state of mind, and I've been there, and I've left it. It's in my rear-view mirror now, and it's great.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/30/2022 01:40PM by Cold-Dodger.

Honestly, I don't even remember, C-D, so apology accepted. You're good.

Self-acceptance, and self-love, can be the hardest things. I'm always hard on myself when I spill something, or break a glass, or let food get too old, or any of the other little mistakes that humans make. So I have to tell myself that it's okay, that I don't live in "Perfect."

Religions can make you be very hard on yourself, because you are constantly on guard against sinning. Well, at least their definition of sinning. It can take years to shed religion-induced guilt. It's always a work in progress. And it's doubly hard in your case, when you have gotten so much negative feedback from the Mormon community. It's like living with an inner critic who doesn't like you very much. So you have to engage in positive self talk in response. There are plenty of times when I tell myself, "You know, Summer, you really are doing a great job." A lot of times you won't get positive feedback from your job or the people around you, so you have to set your own (reasonable, kind) standards, and give yourself a pat on the back when needed. I'm at a loss as to why certain religions constantly feel the need to tear people down. Isn't life challenging enough?

Excellent post, summer. Very well said indeed.

Kindness is mysteriously so very under-rated, sadly.

C-D, it's good to read that things are settling down for you. Likely all of us go through the growing-pains of figuring out life, if we're the least bit introspective. For the more sensitive ones, it can be a rough ride but hopefully with good rest stops along the way every now and then.

Gotta just keep pushing on and hopefully find a way to enjoy the ride.

I have rarely seen such introspection as well as a critical eye cast on everything around as your stone turning journey has been, CD. I see much bravery and grit. Reminds me in the end we don't wish to be on the road all alone, but even when we are with other people, we really still are. Alone. It's all solo?

We crave to be understood. It happens. But not that often. So understanding ourselves is our only hope.




So the other day I check out the Daily Chinese Horoscope for Ox as I do once in a while for something to do --for fun only as I don't give credence to daily horoscopes of any kind but the horoscopes are the one thing I like from China. And, I do relate to being an Ox , though, a wild one with no yoke. So, I like to see what Confucius say or at least what says someone who is pretending to be Confucius adjacent about Ox. Much nicer horoscopes than the ones in Vanity Fair which all come with a photo of tres expensíve jewelry and tips on buying stock.

That day the Ox was told: Oct 27, 2022 - You're likely to be feeling at the top of your game. Other people respect your down-to-earth approach and common sense. As a leader, you can truly shine.. . . ha ha yeah right.

But then underneath was this:

"Get to your authentic self with the guidance of a psychic advisor. Click here to get the first three minutes for free." I immediately pictured a circus barker delivering this.

Laugh I thought I'd die. I have major issues with the phrase, "Be your authentic self." How can you not be?

If there is such a thing as not being your authentic self? But society is putting it out there that you have an authentic self that you have not found yet. Like with all you have been through, wasn't every bit of that your authentic self? Even the BoM thumper for a while?


But, if one accept's that they need to find some elusive "authentic self", then the last thing needed to arrive at one's authentic self is a paid guide or a guide of any kind, like religion, a psychic, a Svengali, Kanye West or anyone considering themselves an expert because they have won an Oscar or have been anointed as a prophet. Right? And certainly not Dallin Oaks who is indeed being his authentic self. Isn't finding your self about shedding your tutors, your heroes, your overlords and throwing out every self help book and canon. Perhaps, instead, just look in a mirror and say out loud, "Ta-DAH! It' me! A big mess like everyone else . . ."

The myth of the authentic self. What the hell is that? How does anyone define that for someone else? What if your authentic true self is the self that is fooled by religion? What if that is the real you? What if being manipulative is the real you. What if greedy is in your genes and ignoring it would be inauthentic? What if your authentic self needs to be right even if wrong. Was Dahmer his authentic self? Strange thought but when it comes to the word authentic, who knows? I think most people are using the word authentic in very in-authentic way nowadays.

So, like Cold-Dodger, Pick yourself up. Dust yourself off. And start all over again. Good way to go sez I. And you don't have to get three free minutes to get started and then pay and pay forever after to go down someone else's fork in the road.

Maybe exploration is a better word than authentic?

Well . . . no maybe about it.