Emoblog/2017/12/01/watching myself crash
Rational Analysis of Irrational Reactions
One of the huge but subtle side-effects of transitioning has been that I can now observe a lot of my own non-rational/emotional reactions without feeling a deep sense of failure at their mere existence.
For example, a feeling of isolation at a social gathering could spiral down into a sense of utter worthlessness before I had any clue what was going on. The fact that I felt so terrible and isolated while everyone around me was having fun would just reinforce this idea that I was fundamentally inferior or broken in some way, which of course meant that nobody could possibly ever love me or even respect my actual self, which of course made me feel worse, and so on.
At least two or three times now, though, I've caught myself having the beginnings of those same reactions – and realized that this is just part of how I react to things. It's probably because of CPTSD from a long history of being emotionally neglected, abandoned, and rejected, but even if it's completely innate to me as a person (hard-wired from birth or irretrievably engraved in my psyche), that doesn't make me unworthy.
This is a very strange thing to find myself realizing. I'm still getting used to it.
I think I'd even go so far as to say that this is true even if I'm the only creature alive who experiences these reactions. I don't know that existence would be worthwhile if that were true, because then life would just be one long irredeemable stretch of feeling lonely and abandoned, but I wouldn't need to feel inferior or even unlovable. (It just might be that my love-sensors are broken, so I can never feel the love other people are sending me.) I'd just be dealing with this huge negative feeling a lot, and I'd have to decide if life was worth it. I know at least a couple of people who apparently decided it wasn't, so this is a serious question.
Although that's a scary thought, it's not the same kind of bottomless scary as thinking that you're completely unworthy of anyone ever. It's possible to look at the situation with some objectivity, instead of turning away from it in terror.
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