Looking the Look

[ForeverFighting]

I've got this brain cell that gets really irritated when it thinks I start looking ugly and old, like I have no self-control. I associate that look with the people who controlled and used me.

This is what the brain cell thinks. I have to be "wantable". And if I look at myself and I don't want me, then no one else will either. I go along fine for a while--it's who I am that's important, my values, my love, the fact that I stand up for what is right even if it's uncomfortable, the fact I care about people. Then that cell kicks in. It's whether I'm "cool", handsome, youthful. I see myself flirting with myself. If I can make myself lose control on some MB binge, then I am wantable.

I know it's about love, contact, intimacy, feeling approved. But that family that raised me had no love, no contact, no touch, and I swear my mom is vulcan. (Not the modern vulcans--the old vulcans that really were all logic, no feelings.) My uncle wanted me for his MB and he put his hands on me. I developed this alternate me with the sole purpose to be whatever it was that made him want me. It was a secret me. One I could use when I felt so alone and when I couldn't please anyone no matter how hard I tried.

The trouble now is that the "fantasy me" won't go away. I've tried everything I know. It's like his sole goal is to destroy everything I want in life. And he's powerful, and he knows it. He knows that when I get too much control of my life, he can come out and make me an intimacy-crazed sex maniac. I turn into the blonde guy. I know it's not about the sex, but that's where it always leads.

How do I get rid of this twin from hell? I have a life now. I have a new family, new friends. I don't need him anymore, but he doesn't seem to understand that. I thought coming here and writing would make him less powerful, but all it seems to do is remind me of his existence. So now he doesn't surprise me. I can just watch him take over my body and ruin my life.

If my sponsor reads this, he'll know I slipped. And thus the fight begins again. And that's why I call myself...

 

[onlyakid]

I can't help you get rid of your twin. But I can relate to the wanting to be cool, handsome, and attractive. I think that is part of my downfall as well. I can't accept me, because not being the a attractive, cool, popular guy is not ok. If I am not these things then I'm just some loser.

Jason

 

[Brayton]

I can relate to that stuff, too, but it's dispelling the power of the MB, etc. that gets me really to thinking about what you have written.

For me, this has been happening very gradually. I am becoming aware, as I engage in the behavior, of what is really happening and, for me, what is really happening, to put it in its simplest form, is self-loathing.

That realization, in the midst of the act, certainly has a dampening effect. Part of it is just growing older (I'm a few years older than you). But part of it, also, I have to believe, is the progress I am making along a path of perceiving what happened to me and the effect it has on my feelings and behavior now.

I wonder if it would've been possible to conciously choose to realize what was happening (during MB, looking in the mirror, etc.) as it was happening. I am often preoccupied with thoughts of lost time and the fine line between success and failure, happiness and emotional desperation.

Perhaps this kind of realization can only occur gradually, truth substituted for delusion.

Take some comfort in the fact that human persons are changing all the time. In that, I often find hope.