(no subject)

I feel like I need a place/context I can be more at ease, where I can let all the "monster" things I worry about, monitor, keep in check and hide, out. What I don't want is hanging out with people whose idea of freedom is being an asshole. I mean, yes, I worry about acting/sounding like an asshole, and often silence myself because of that; that's not what I mean. I don't want to devote any time to those who want to be mean, or to use "honesty" as a non-stick coating for cruelty. I've known (and probably, been) people like that, and feel even less myself in that company than in the wider world.

Hiding, holding in, is exhausting. I don't let my weird out enough, I know; I rarely talk about my own inner workings except on social media, and then only obliquely. My therapist has pointed out (accurately, I think) that this precludes the possibility of intimacy. The always-running disaster modeling in my head strongly suggests that the possibility of meaningful intimacy is tiny, but the possibility of even greater distance/alienation is substantial. I know this process arose out of a need for self-protection, and I appreciate it, yet I don't know how to deflect or acknowledge and move past it when the majority of my mind agrees with its assessments. I am lonely and starving in important ways, and the usual means of distraction are even less sufficient than usual.

I don't know that I even know how to release my monster traits, monster self.