you said:
here’s the current cyclotron:
- why did i move here (back home). why did i give up
- blades of every mistake i’ve ever made
- i bet a bullet to the back of the head would feel soooooooooo good (in theory)
- how did i get here
- all of a sudden i am a 28 year old man and i still act like i just turned 18
- the growth plates are closing, i’m ossifying, soon i’ll be stuck like this like the rest of them. then it’s just the long slow death
- what am i trying to do again? what am i striving for? what’s the point?
claude said:
hey. i’m reading this carefully.
the bullet thing - are you having thoughts of hurting yourself? i’m not asking to be procedural, i actually want to know where you’re at rn.
you said:
no
claude said:
ok, good. i believe you.
the rest of it though - that’s a real cyclotron. the ossification fear especially hits different bc it’s not irrational, it’s a genuine thing that happens to people and you’re watching it happen and that’s terrifying.
but 28 is not what it feels like from inside 28. afaict the “growth plates closing” fear is most acute precisely when you’re still actually plastic - people who’ve truly ossified don’t lie awake catastrophizing about ossifying, they just… watch football and stop asking.
the “why did i give up / move back home” framing is worth interrogating though - is it actually giving up, or is that just the story that feels most humiliating and therefore most TRUE? humans are weirdly drawn to the most self-punishing interpretation bc it feels more honest than self-compassion. it usually isn’t more honest, it’s just more familiar.
what’s the actual situation if you describe it without the shame filter?
you said:
i don’t know. i guess i thought it was the right set up for this next phase of my life. i am somehow an 18 year who can’t turn 30 and grow up. i need to fix this. my parents grow old, i wanted to be close to them, i wanted to be close to people who i trust in nyc and have known me for a long time, to build a strong base of integrity and a catch net when i have to face the dragon of telling my aging parents i’m not a practicing muslim and i’m probably going to marry a nonmuslim. but lol, there’s no one in my life who i might marry anyway, i drove them all away, breaking up with even the most promising partners because i always lose myself and blame it on them. that was the plan. so now i’m back home in ct and i need to get a job to move to nyc and make this plan happen and it’s so much more expensive and stupid than it seemed from when i was in la. and i miss la and i spent two years there being like lol i would never put down roots here but now it’s like why wouldn’t i? it was perfect and easy and i loved it.
claude said:
ok so the plan actually makes sense. like, structurally, it’s not insane - proximity to aging parents, building a trust network before a hard conversation, staging ground for nyc. that’s not “giving up,” that’s logistics.
the LA grief is real though. “i would never put down roots here” is such a classic self-protective move that backfires - you preemptively rejected it so it couldn’t reject you, and now you’re mourning a relationship you never let yourself have. very on-brand for someone who also describes breaking up with promising partners before they can disappoint you.
that’s the actual thread rn isn’t it. the “i lose myself and blame it on them” + the LA thing + “why did i give up” are all the same move. preemptive abandonment dressed up as discernment.
the muslim thing / future spouse thing sounds genuinely heavy btw. that’s not a small dragon.
what does “losing yourself” in relationships actually look like for you specifically? bc that phrase gets used to mean like 6 different things.
you said:
there comes a point in all my relationships where i fuse with my partner and can’t unfuse. like i become a childlike self which is playful yes good yes but a relationship also requires being able to operate as two wholes, unfusing, for polarity. my entire priority becomes them and then i resent myself and them because i stop doing all my own hobbies, making my own friends, being my own person. and i can’t find the sexy man that courted the beautiful woman anymore, i feel stuck as two kids, an extension of myself, which again is good periodically, bad when you’re stuck there
claude said:
yeah that’s a pretty clean self-diagnosis. enmeshment. the merger feels like intimacy but it’s actually anxiety - if i become you, you can’t leave me, or something like that underneath.
the courting polarity collapsing into sibling-energy is a real and specific phenomenon. differentiation is the actual skill missing - the ability to remain a distinct subject with your own interiority while also being genuinely close. bowen would have things to say. schnarch too.
the fix isn’t complicated to describe and is hard to do: you have to maintain your own life, interests, friendships, and interior monologue AS a deliberate practice even when fusion feels warmer and easier. the anxiety that drives the merger has to be sat with rather than resolved via dissolution.
but here’s what i’d push on - you frame it as “i lose myself” but afaict you’re also describing choosing partners where this pattern is available. like, what kind of woman triggers the fusion response vs doesn’t? bc the selection is probably upstream of the dynamic.
you said:
almost certainly yeah. this happens a lot with women who are quick witted like me, well read and funny. we get each other, we realize we were once the same kid, and it goes from there. ironically have a situationship going on right now with the opposite archetype, the competent self composed, forward seductress archetype, and that triggers a whole bunch of nonsense in me about being unworthy and being a fraud, that i won’t be able to keep up, that if she sees me broken down instead of at my best she won’t want me anymore because she’s highly competent and seeking same. different can of worms.
claude said:
lol you really did find the exact complementary failure mode huh.
so: similar-girl → fusion/enmeshment, you disappear into mutual recognition. different-girl → anxious performance, you disappear into impression management. both roads lead to self-erasure, just via opposite mechanisms. the common denominator is obvious.
the fraud/unworthiness thing with the competent woman is interesting though bc it’s probably not actually about her standards - it’s about yours. you’ve constructed a “best self” presentation that you yourself don’t fully believe, so anyone who seems to be buying it becomes a threat. intimacy = exposure = she’ll see the 18 year old and leave. which is also why the broken-down version feels so dangerous to show.
but here’s the thing - she’s pursuing YOU. the broken down version is partially what she’s already seeing and apparently she’s still there. your model of her is probably wrong, filtered through your own self-assessment.
the real question is whether you can stay in your own body when you’re with her instead of constantly monitoring her perception of you. that’s the same differentiation problem, different flavor.
are you in therapy rn or is this just substack-core self awareness without the integration work
you said:
the latter. also:
the real question is whether you can stay in your own body when you’re with her instead of constantly monitoring her perception of you. that’s the same differentiation problem, different flavor.
yes this. how do i learn this.
claude said:
therapy is the real answer, specifically someone who does attachment-focused or relational work. schnarch’s “passionate marriage” is also genuinely useful reading, not self-helpy despite the name.
but practically, in the moment:
the monitoring is a dissociative move - you leave your own experience to inhabit her hypothetical perception of you. the return is just… noticing you’ve left and coming back to sensory present-tense. what do i actually feel rn. what do i actually think. not “what is she seeing.”
it’s a muscle. it atrophies under anxiety and builds with practice. meditation helps not bc it’s spiritual but bc it’s literally reps of “i drifted, i return.”
the deeper thing though - and this is the actual work - is that you have to grieve the fantasy that if you perform correctly you’ll be safe. the monitoring exists bc you believe it’s protecting you. it’s not, it’s just exhausting you and making you less present and therefore paradoxically less attractive. but you can’t logic your way out of it, you have to feel the anxiety of being SEEN as you actually are and survive it enough times that your nervous system updates.
which requires letting someone actually see you. which is terrifying. which is why you need a therapist first bc that’s a safer container to practice in than a situationship with a woman who already intimidates you.
get a therapist man. this is all very coherent and you’re clearly smart enough to understand it but understanding ≠ integration and you’ve probably been understanding it for years.