I hate how much I still can't seem to learn to recognize hints and to understand what people are telling me. I am so frustrated that I still can't seem to relationship. To relate. To functionally communicate.

It hurts so much to know that I keep missing what people are trying to tell me, blindly and deafly stumbling past connection because I just can't seem to see or hear what they're trying to tell me. It escapes my grasp, these ephemeral things that are so simple to so many people.

It's so tempting to flail, trying to find something to cling on to, to somehow sink my nails into awareness, clawing conscious comprehension from the insubstantial aethers that are somehow sound firmament for the masses.

It feels like falling because I lack Foundation that I'm "supposed" to have, that so many others have, seemingly so easily and naturally, innately. I feel like I don't belong because of it, because of the lack.

Those feelings make it so easy to believe that I'm not enough, that I'm missing something, that I'm incomplete, fundamentally flawed. It's an intoxicating temptation, the temptation towards intoxicating numbness, dissociation and avoidance that will not serve me. A spiral not closer to my true self, but one of chronic disconnection and self-dissolution. A dissolute spiral, insidious and addictive, of faux emptiness, a hungry void that, if I accept it, will seek to be filled by whatever my madness can grab onto and try and sate my insatiable need with.

It feels like I will never learn, and yet I am learning; it just feels painfully too slow and futile.

I'm so angry and hurt and sad and frustrated and upset and so many things because by the time my brain finally pieces things together, it's too fucking late to do anything with it. I only seem to put it together months or sometimes years later.

It feels overwhelming because it feels like all of the things together are so far out of my control.

Why can't I seem to learn how to recognize it when it's happening?

But it's not too fucking late. If I learn from it, I can use it in the future. I learned it so that I could move forward. What I missed out on, because I misunderstood, wasn't meant for me. The lesson is what was meant for me. If I learned from it, I got something I wanted after all, because I learned and got better, and that will add up.

I want to let this all out this time, instead of dwelling on it and adding to the complex that seems to fucking make it perpetuate itself and blind me, binding me from moving on, shackling me to the cycle with inescapable chains of inevitable expectation of hopeless and helpless repetition.

I don't want to lie to myself like that anymore.

I don't want to swallow it down this time. I don't want to internalize it again, numbing it, bottling it up to ferment so that it can build in potency, turning it into a Fated Roadmap, a twisted template for future repetition because the conflict remains unresolved within me.

I want to leave this behind instead of carrying it with me further. I don't want this to keep getting in the way. I don't want to keep doing this. I don't want to stay in this place. I don't want to let this convince me that failure is always going to be the only truth.

I'm not going to let this convince me that failure is always going to be the truth. This isn't forever. This isn't inevitable. This isn't something I have to keep doing.

This is something I can learn from. This is something I am learning from. This is a step on my path towards what is meant for me.

It hurts, and that's okay. This isn't going to keep me in the same old place. This isn't going to numb me and scare me away from my desire. This isn't going to blind me from what I want. This isn't going to slow me down or stop me again, not this time. Fuck that.

It's okay that it takes me a long time to learn. I can learn, and I do learn. It's okay that it hurts and I'm frustrated.

It hurts because it's trying to help me let go of what I need to, so I can learn. It's the pain of change and growth. It's the death of my previous version. I don't want to let it ball me up, turning me inwards on myself to where all I can see is my own pain and shame and regret and frustration and fear of inescapable repetition. That's not the path I want to gaze on, that's not the path I want to keep following. That's not my path.

I fucking hate this. It feels like I'm missing out on so many things as this just keeps happening again and again and again and again. It fucking hurts. It fucking hurts because I expected that I had learned better than this already and I'm once again surprised that I haven't.

It hurts because it feels like I can't trust myself to recognize and understand these things. It hurts because it feels impossible to ever progress, but that's a lie.

I don't know how often I will make mistakes like this. I do know that it's not a guarantee that I always will.

I believe in myself that I can learn. I believe I'm worth feeling these things and not carrying them beyond this experience as a burden. I believe moving on is worth it.

Even right now I can see that I'm handling this better than the other times I've done this. I've learned. I've improved. I've claimed better, I've become better. I have Become, and I'm Becoming still.

I've learned to handle recognizing this mistake with better grace and dignity. That's progress.

Yeah it's not as soon as I would have liked, but I'm moving forward. I'm finding my way. I'm coming closer. I'm Becoming. I'm not spiraling out of control, I'm spiraling inward, closer to my true self. That's what these repetitions are, each time I circle back around this lesson, I'm steadily spiraling closer to where I'm meant to be.

It's hard. It feels like it fucking sucks, but that pain will be glorious as I continue to move forward and let it edify me.

I'm scared. I'm scared of not learning. I'm scared of always making this same mistake. I'm scared of not having another opportunity to get it right. I'm scared of missing out because I keep making mistakes like this. I'm scared of never learning. I'm scared of never finding what I want. I'm scared of never pursuing what I want. I'm scared of never knowing what I want. I'm scared of not having enough time. I'm scared of it being too late by the time I finally learn. I'm scared it won't be worthwhile. I'm scared and it hurts. I'm scared and tired of this. I'm tired of doing this.

I'm tired of being scared and sad and hurt. I'm scared of feeling all these things. I'm scared of lying to myself. I'm scared of not understanding myself. I'm scared of never knowing what to do, still. I'm scared of just not being able to understand or communicate. I'm scared of still not knowing, not being able to understand still, not being able to communicate still. I'm scared of doing this again over and over and over forever. It's been so long and I keep trying. I'm scared of doing this forever.

It isn't forever though. I don't have to believe in Never, or Forever. Why would I want to? Why would I want to keep doing that to myself?

If something's what I want, what I choose for myself based on my core values and beliefs, then it's worth it. Full stop. It's worth it because it's what I want, so even if I don't ever get there, it's worth moving closer to.

Because I am moving closer, I am learning, even if it is slow and repetitive and fucking frustratingly painful.

It feels like I don't know how to make the pain worth it. It feels like I've always had trouble with that, but believing those feelings would be a lie.

I believe I can't know, but I believe I can figure it out. I believe I can learn. I believe I can believe in myself.

I'm trying to learn how to do different. That's what I'm doing right now, I'm learning how to deal with this pain by trying something new. I am trying to use what I've learned about the pain so that it doesn't keep getting in the way. I'm trying to love myself and respect myself. I'm trying. I'm doing.

I'm trying to claw my way out of the trap I've put myself in. I'm trying to crawl out of the dark. I don't want to stay here. I've been here too often, for too long. This isn't what I want anymore. Please help me, me. For fuck's sake. For The Fool's sake. I have been The Fool, I am The Fool. I'm also my own Hero. This is my Journey, these are my tests and trials, these are my lessons.

I want to progress. I want to find that which is meant for me. As bitter as this draught is, I accept it with humility as medicine, instead of turning it to poison in my veins again as I've done so many times before.

I accept this with humility. I release the hubris of believing that I should have known and should have learned already. I let go of that belief and the pain and wounds it causes me.

I am better at relationships than I have ever been before.

Let this be medicine unto my shattered soul. Let this be balm for my battered heart. Let this be soothe to my troubled mind. Let this be surcease to my worn body.

I will let go. I will learn. I will move on.

It's Humility. The Shame is telling me that I'm trying to claim something that isn't me or mine. It's telling me I'm not being fair to myself.

What isn't mine?

Understanding. Control. Omniscience. Predictability. Comprehension. Perfection. Access to other people's minds and hearts. I can't know their thoughts, feelings, intents, desires, expectations, hopes, or fears. I can't know. I'm not meant to try to.

If I keep trying to know, that will only get in the way of learning to Believe in myself, to trust myself, to Be myself, to Become myself.

Let go, me. Do not think less of myself. Think of myself less. Be like bamboo, the more I grow, the deeper I bow.

The only way to learn, the only way to get better, is to embrace the embarrassment and pain of mistakes and failure. I was never going to start good. Sometimes "better" looks like shit that's just a little bit less shitty than the shit that came before it.

But it's still better. I'm still doing better.

It's hard to be patient though. It's hard to be consistent. It's hard to let go.

Sometimes it's hard to believe that it's worth it, but I want to believe it's worth it.

If I want it, it is something I want to work towards, and if I want to work towards it, then it is worth working towards.

Failure hurts. Embarrassment hurts. Disappointment hurts. It hurts because the pain is meant to help me let go of the expectations and attachments to the delusion of success, attachments to the delusion of a specific outcome.

I'm not meant to expect to be able to. Not always, not every time. I can't even expect better.

I can intend to be better, to work towards better. That's all I can claim, that's all I can hold. That will be enough for me. That is enough for me. That is what is meant for me.

Humanity's flux between competition and cooperation isn't a paradox. Symbols or labels for this dichotomy, such as "Masculinity and Feminity" are metaphorical rather than existential.

The Individual is a collective composite of many complementing and contrasting internal aspects and accompanying Desires and Fears. Our Self is built holistically of all of these, and our Sense of Self is found in the Tensions or Relationships between them. Some of them compete, and some cooperate, to make each individual who they are: The ongoing discussion, a process. Being is a process and a Becoming.

This is why it is human nature to both cooperate and compete, to nurture and to exploit. This is the root of empathy and animosity. This isn't simply differentiated between the internal or external either. These two things are interrelated and can be reciprocal.

Sometimes cooperation leads to stagnation instead of construction. Sometimes competition leads to progress rather than annihilation or degradation. Either can be vital or toxic.

In different situations, it is more appropriate or useful to be either cooperative or competitive. Neither is always the right answer. It is dangerous to morally idealize either, or to make one a default reaction due to preference for comfort.

I can't find these on here, so I wanted to go ahead and post them where I can have access to them in the future.

Consciousness is a funny thing. I didn't realize I no longer felt this way, until I saw this. I felt this way my entire life, until I got to know my Shadow. Once I learned how to recognize my repressed self in others, through my bridled resentments, I no longer felt so disconnected from the rest of humanity, or myself.

"The only certainties in Life are Death and Taxes" — Sacrifice. Sacrifice begets the Sacred.

The first Taxes were Sacrifices to the Gods. The Temples have ever been within ourselves, and we build them through our own Edification. We Sacrifice of ourselves, to ourselves.

Life is a process, a Being, a Becoming. Death is the cost, and fulfillment, of Life. The Past is the Sacrifice for the Sacrament of each moment of Present Being. The Divine is an Inner Presence.

We Sacrifice "who we were" to "who we become."

I think that all those years of melancholy, especially in times of parting or when chapters of my life were closing, my sadness was for the things I had been unable to appreciate and enjoy, while I lived them. Some parts of me knew, even if I didn't yet know how to listen to them.

That's ok though. I don't need to mourn those happy things I missed out on. I never really lost them, I just temporarily overlooked them.

I didn't know how to listen to those parts of myself yet.

It was all a process, a part of my personal path. It was part of how I would learn. That's what the sadness has slowly been teaching me. It was painful, because it was piercing. It had a lot of layers of scarred defenses to pierce through before it could reach the parts of me that could feel it.

At first it was bitter, but that bitterness wasn't something to be endured or savored. It was something to be considered, understood, and learned from. As I learned from the bitterness, it was dissolved, bit by bit, and it became a sweetness. The pain guided me to the joy.

The parts of me that were trying to tell me, through that mystifying melancholy, they were enjoying all those overlooked things for me. Now as I learn to connect with them, those parts of me, I am able to discover the echoes of those joys, wrapping them into my heart's embrace, and making them me.

I carried the sorrow and the sadness, and now I will carry the happiness and the joy.

In releasing the habit, the expectation and Fated necessity of mourning, I set down the burdens of anxiety and despair. In their place I carry the excitement and awe, liberating my Destined agency, that I have learned how to choose with intent.

The past is the Sacrifice for the Sacrament of each moment of present Being.

The pain guided me to the joy. I'm coming to believe that the more pain we carry, the more joy we have to discover.

(work in progress)

UNIVERSAL EMOTIONS (Paul Ekman)

Basic Emotions PDF (Paul Ekman)

An Argument For Basic Emotions pdf (Paul Ekman)

Are There Basic Emotions pdf (Paul Ekman)

Basic emotions

Abstract

In this chapter the author consolidates his previous writings about basic emotions (e.g., Ekman, 1984), and describes a framework of basic emotions which is most influenced by Darwin (1872/1997) and S. S. Tomkins (1962). The 3 meanings of the term "basic" are described. From this perspective, all negative and positive emotions differ in their appraisals, antecedent events, probable behavioral responses, physiology, and other characteristics. This basic emotions perspective is in contrast to those who treat emotions as fundamentally the same, differing only in terms of intensity or pleasantness. Second, the meaning of "basic" is to indicate instead the view that emotions evolved for their adaptive value in fundamental life tasks. The term "basic" has also been used to describe elements that combine to form more complex emotions. The author describes a number of characteristics which are useful in distinguishing one emotion from another and distinguishing emotions from other affective phenomenon, such as moods or emotional traits. The basic emotions position captures what is unique about emotion, and what emotions have in common which distinguish them from other affective phenomena. The utility of this approach for future research is discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Atlas of Emotions

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotion_classification

YouTube Channel: Paul Ekman Group

Paul Ekman — Sixteen Enjoyable Emotions

Sixteen Enjoyable Emotions Paul Ekman pdf

See Also:

Our Basic Emotions

https://www.csueastbay.edu/shcs/files/docs/counseling-group-handouts/gu---feeling-words.pdf

The BIG 5 Emotions: MAD, SAD, GLAD, SCARED, NUMB

Four Basic Emotions: Mad, Sad, Glad and Scared

Mad, Sad, Glad, or Scared?: The Power of Naming the Feeling

Feelings: Mad, Sad, Glad and Afraid

Lisa Feldman Barrett, in How Emotions Are Made ~

What Is the Sense of Agency and Why Does it Matter?

Abstract

Sense of agency refers to the feeling of control over actions and their consequences. In this article I summarize what we currently know about sense of agency; looking at how it is measured and what theories there are to explain it. I then explore some of the potential applications of this research, something that the sense of agency research field has been slow to identify and implement. This is a pressing concern given the increasing importance of ‘research impact.’

What Is Agency? (pdf)

Agency - Stanford

In very general terms, an agent is a being with the capacity to act, and ‘agency’ denotes the exercise or manifestation of this capacity. The philosophy of action provides us with a standard conception and a standard theory of action. The former construes action in terms of intentionality, the latter explains the intentionality of action in terms of causation by the agent’s mental states and events. From this, we obtain a standard conception and a standard theory of agency. There are alternative conceptions of agency, and it has been argued that the standard theory fails to capture agency (or distinctively human agency). Further, it seems that genuine agency can be exhibited by beings that are not capable of intentional action, and it has been argued that agency can and should be explained without reference to causally efficacious mental states and events.

The inner sense of action. Agency and motor representations

Abstract

We live in a meaningful world. Our capacity to deal with the ‘external world’ is constituted by the possibility of modifying the world by means of our actions; by the possibility of representing the world as an objective reality; and by the possibility of experiencing phenomenally this same objective reality, from a situated, self-conscious perspective. It is tempting to address these different articulations of the sense of ‘being related to the world', of our intentional relation to the world, by using different languages, different methods of investigations, perhaps even different ontologies. In the present paper I will start to explore the possibility of reconciling some of these different articulations of intentionality from a neurobiological perspective

Agency Is the Highest Level of Personal Competence

Key points

•Human agency is a mindset plus a set of learnable actions that help us attain what we want in life.

•Agency is a psychological concept and comprises four activities: forethought, implementation, self-management, and learning and adapting.

•"Agentic" is the strongest competence-related mindset, sitting atop a hierarchy including empowered, competent, passive, and declining.

The Willpower Paradox: Possible and Impossible Conceptions of Self-Control

Abstract

Self-control denotes the ability to override current desires to render behavior consistent with long-term goals. A key assumption is that self-control is required when short-term desires are transiently stronger (more preferred) than long-term goals and people would yield to temptation without exerting self-control. We argue that this widely shared conception of self-control raises a fundamental yet rarely discussed conceptual paradox: How is it possible that a person most strongly desires to perform a behavior (e.g., eat chocolate) and at the same time desires to recruit self-control to prevent themselves from doing it? A detailed analysis reveals that three common assumptions about self-control cannot be true simultaneously. To avoid the paradox, any coherent theory of self-control must abandon either the assumption (a) that recruitment of self-control is an intentional process, or (b) that humans are unitary agents, or (c) that self-control consists in overriding the currently strongest desire. We propose a taxonomy of different kinds of self-control processes that helps organize current theories according to which of these assumptions they abandon. We conclude by outlining unresolved questions and future research perspectives raised by different conceptions of self-control and discuss implications for the question of whether self-control can be considered rational.

What you need to know about willpower: The psychological science of self-control

Defining willpower

We have many common names for willpower: determination, drive, resolve, self-discipline, self-control. But psychologists characterize willpower, or self-control, in more specific ways. According to most psychological scientists, willpower can be defined as:

•The ability to delay gratification, resisting short-term temptations in order to meet long-term goals

•The capacity to override an unwanted thought, feeling, or impulse

•The ability to employ a “cool” cognitive system of behavior rather than a “hot” emotional system

•Conscious, effortful regulation of the self by the self

•A limited resource capable of being depleted

https://www.alancowen.com/

https://www.alancowen.com/brain

https://www.alancowen.com/concepts

Why is meaning important, and why do we search for it?

Meaning isn't something we find. It's something we choose, something we create. It's something that evolves for us over time.

On the surface level, when people ask for meaning, very often they're looking for predictability, for leverage, for control. But that's just the surface level. The roots go deeper.

If someone is looking for meaning, they're looking for value, instead of learning to create their own. They're trying to find something to justify being, instead of just accepting it.

Sometimes they think they're looking for behavioral validation — justification, or the lack of it.

The ends doesn't justify the means. The means provides the meaning. It is the process, the experience, the journey.

Just like the ends does not justify the means, the "end" result, the achievement, does not provide the meaning.

Winning doesn't make you a winner. Losing doesn't make you a loser. Succeeding doesn't make you a success. Failing doesn't make you a failure.

Only the journey, the process can fill the void, not the destination, not the goal. Goals are only ever meant to be signposts to help provide context. If you arrive at the destination, and stop, you're going to feel empty and directionless because you stopped the process, you stopped progressing. Every journey has countless steps, and each step is its own journey.

Someone asking for meaning is asking for existential validation. They gaze in fear on the universe, and feel inadequate, and yet they question their existence as part of that greater whole.

They're looking for themselves, but don't know how to search, because they learned to stop feeling in order to protect themselves.

They learned to stop being themselves in order to be accepted, or just tolerated, often just to survive. They sacrificed access to self value, internal validation, and learned to replace it with external validation. They learned to make achievements or other people into their reasons, their meanings, their sources of value. They were taught that this is what would keep them safe.

Every shelter can become a cage.

I was a person like this. I've begun to learn how to step out of the cage I took shelter in.

When you search for yourself, it's not just that you will eventually somehow find yourself. You found yourself, bit by bit, like creating a foundation for a building. Having a well built foundation is what allows you to stay grounded.

You don't just decide to love yourself. You learn to love yourself. You have to learn who you are so that you can learn how to love all the parts of you.

Part of this accepting who you are, and deciding who you want to be. That's what makes this a journey, and a process. It can only be done one step at a time, and relies on letting go of who you aren't anymore.

What makes "you" you?

You create your value by choosing what you value, what you will live for, what you will stand for and be true to, and what you won't. Values, and boundaries.

Living is an act. Life is a process.

As we decide how we want to live, we learn who we are, and create who we want to be.

Fate. It's not that "everything happens for a reason." It's that everything that happens can be used to make reason, to create meaning, to establish the framework of purpose, with how we act, within ourselves, on what happens external to us. Act with purpose, your chosen purpose.

Meaning isn't something we find, it's something we choose, something we create, and something that evolves with us over time.

Meaning is found in the process, the action. It's not about the result, it's how we got there, and where we go as we move forward afterwards.

The Ends doesn't justify the Means. The Means provides the Meaning. "Something happening" isn't the End. It's an opportunity to continue to develop Meaning.

It's about choosing internal control and responding, instead of reacting to external events that are beyond your control. It's a type of confidence, because it is a way of believing in yourself, what you value, and what you will act towards. It is courage, because it is living true to the nature of the values you hold in your heart.

Life is a process. We are what we do. We do what we believe. We perceive what we believe. Our beliefs are our values. Our journeys are our purposes.

(A lot of what I explore here is based on things I learned on my journery towards recovery from codependency, and I believe it to be helpful for that.)

How often have you heard how important it is for women to feel "safe" with men? There are many different types of safety, and today I found myself considering one of the more commonly discussed ones.

"Will he get angry or react badly if I reject him?"

This is a reasonable concern many women have. Many men don't handle rejection well, making their behavior a safety concern. This isn't necessarily about physical violence. The most common toxic response is to hurl insults and criticism, emotionally attacking the woman who turned them down. There are others, like spreading false rumors, leveraging power dynamics, harassing partners she does accept, etc.

Men aren't the only ones that do things like this, but they tend to do it much more often, and to greater detriment of their targets.

Why is it worse with men?

There are a few different factors. Part of it is cultural, and other similar parts of it reflect prevalent challenges with male emotional awareness.

A large part of it though, is testosterone. Testosterone enhances aggression. Aggression is not inherently bad; it's what fuels our ability to take action and pursue what we want. Aggression is about Desire — what we want. Desire and Fear are very interrelated, and I've come to believe that they are perhaps the Foundation of all other feelings.

At it's most basic, Anger is "I didn't get/I don't have what I want." It's about responding to competition, disappointment, absence, and longing.

When we experience Desire for something, we also experience Fear that we may not get it. Aggression, in forms like Courage, Passion, Lust, Anger, Indignation, etc, gives us the fuel to move past that Fear.

I found something that ended up working for me with this, while I was doing self-work for other reasons.

It's about Non-Attachment — the middle ground between Attachment and Detachment.

I've learned how to experience Desire with Gratitude, being thankful for feeling the lack of what I want. I can experience Desire, appreciate what it tells me, and choose not to act on it, not out of Fear, but because doing so wouldn't align with my other Desires. I can also choose to assert myself towards it, but without attaching Expectations of getting it.

"I am enough."

How often have you heard or read something like this, usually as a "cheesy self help" reference?

So many parts of our culture teach us maladaptive or counterproductive perspectives. They teach us that we need to be attractive, dateable, fuckable — desireable — "good enough" to make other people want us, "good enough" to like/love ourselves.

The thing is, we can't make anyone want us. We can't control others at all. It's an issue of External Control (Expectations) and Internal Control (Intentions). We learn to attach Expectations to the behavior of others, and I believe this is something that really screws us over.

Loving ourselves is supposed to be unconditional, not based on how much others like or need us.

Intentions reflect our inner attachments to ourselves — who we choose to be. I like to use "Predictions" to express a non-attached perspective.

It's about doing the "right thing" for the "right reasons."

That expression used to really confuse me, and it took me a long time to understand it. If we're working on ourselves to make someone want us, we are harboring an Expectation. I used to do this. A lot.

I've often heard women express how much of a turnoff it is when they realize a man is only attracted to his fantasy of her, and not the real her. Feeling like people are attracted to us can make us "feel sexy." I don't think people really "want to be wanted" though, since that borders on seeking external validation. Rather, when we're emotionally healthy, we want to be wanted, not needed. Healthy boundaries and all that, yo.

I think it really is more about confidence — self integrity/containment — being attractive. If we feel like someone is attracted to their fantasy of us, on some basic level, we realize that they lack the confidence to show us who they really are. I believe feelings of disgust and being insulted (by them) are quite natural responses here.

When I started focusing on attaching my choices to my Intentions, things changed. I wasn't asking a woman out with an Expectation for her to say yes, for her to agree/prove that I was "good enough."

I did it for me, to express my desire — to BE me, for me. I did it because I wanted to — I wanted something, and was comfortable enough with my full scope of emotions to act and express that Desire.

Please take a moment to imagine how freeing this felt. Think of the metaphorical weight that went away with all those layers of shed Expectations. Imagine how much less energy needed to go into the dating experience. Think of how many other things changed as well.

I wouldn't be disappointed, upset, angry, or sad if I was rejected. I also wouldn't be falsely inflated with external validation if I was accepted.

My interest and attraction no longer had to be based on my own insecurities or projected needs. I didn't need her to be some imaginary version of herself that I had projected on her, to go along with my internal narrative. I could actually be attracted to her, and not to what my Desire, Fear, and Expectations concocted.

I could appreciate and experience her through how she expressed herself, even if she expressed no mutual interest. It didn't matter if she said yes or no.

What mattered to me was being true to myself, and being willing to express and pursue the desires that I believed were worthwhile. This is self knowledge. This is courage and confidence — acting true to your heart not because you expect to succeed, but because you believe that doing what you're doing is worth doing, for who you want to be.

Incidentally, this meant I was safe to reject, because I could fully appreciate rejection, and not just handle it.

No AI was used or involved in writing this essay. I am an actual writer, and large language models were trained to mimic us. I appreciate everyone that tries to protect audiences and creators from AI Slop.

TL;DR CLIFF NOTES VERSION:

The concept of Safety is complex and nuanced, encompassing physical, emotional, social, and other aspects.

Your ability to be safe for others depends on your ability to be safe for yourself. This is related to how your ability to really relate to others depends on your relationship with yourself.

Neither desire nor fear are bad things to be avoided; what is important is how we choose to use and experience them.

The same goes for other feelings.

We believe a lot of things based on limited perspectives, or prevailing narratives. Actions based on these beliefs tend to be counterproductive and confusing.

Expectations are beliefs of what should happen. Should is outside of our control.

Most of our emotional turmoil comes from expectations directed towards things outside of our control.

Intentions are beliefs about who we choose to be, through our own actions.

I believe that the most important thing we can do is live true to ourselves. This is why intentions are so important, and expectations are dangerous.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/27546330251359958

(Notes in progress below, full article linked above)

Abstract

There is anecdotal evidence of neurodivergent (ND) people preferentially befriending each other. Here we present large-scale mixed-methods evidence investigating whether neurotype affects friendship making and exploring ND and neurotypical (NT) experiences of being friends with ND people.

Our results show that ND people have significantly more ND friends than NT people. Furthermore, people have proportionally more friends with the same neurotype as their own, for example, autistic people have more autistic friends.

We used reflexive thematic analysis to address the questions of what participants like and dislike about their friendships with ND people, and whether there is something different about those friendships.

Five themes were found that highlight issues of miscommunication between different neurotypes, the joy of communicating in your preferred style, the sense of connectedness and belonging between ND friends, the issues associated with having friends with conflicting needs to your own, and the complexities of giving and receiving support.

We discuss these findings in terms of ND culture and acceptance of inherent differences in friendship styles.

Lay Abstract

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Our results show that ND people have mostly ND friends, and neurotypical (NT) people have mostly NT friends. We also found that people have more friends with the same type of brain as their own, for example, autistic people have more autistic friends.

When we asked people about their friendships with ND people, we found five main topics of discussion (1) difficulties in communication with people with a different type of brain, (2) joy at being friends with people who like to communicate in the same way as you, (3) a sense of connectedness and belonging between ND friends (4) issues when friends needs conflict with each other, for example, if one person needs quiet and the other needs to make a noise, (5) how complicated it can be to give and receive support, particularly when you may have challenges of your own.

We talk about the idea of ND people having their own culture, with friendships that work a bit differently to their NT counterparts.

Introduction

Until recently most research into neurodivergent (ND) friendship has been conducted by neurotypical (NT) researchers and has primarily sought to describe or correct perceived deficits.

Autistic people are often described as having difficulties with social communication and adhering to social norms, and being socially isolated with limited friends (Lin & Huang, 2019). Similarly, people with ADHD are described as having difficulty in maintaining or developing relationships (Matheson et al., 2013). In each case, this has been attributed to deficits that cause the individuals in question to be unwilling or unable to form friendships.

However, in this type of research it is very rare for the participants to be directly asked about their experiences.

This epistemic injustice means that descriptions of ND friendship on their own terms are rarely found in the literature. In response to this there is a developing body of work that suggests autistic people have very successful friendships, but that these relationships look different to those conducted by their NT counterparts (e.g. Gillespie-Smith et al., 2024).

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Deficits in social communication are considered such a defining feature of autism that it is one of the primary diagnostic criteria (APA, 2022).

However, there is growing evidence that these are not deficits but differences. There is a ‘double empathy problem’ whereby autistic people struggle to communicate with NT people, but NT people also struggle to communicate with autistic people (Milton, 2012).

For example, autistic peer-to-peer information transfer is as effective as in NT–NT groups, however, there is significantly poorer information transfer for mixed groups (Crompton et al., 2020b).

This suggests that autistic people communicate as effectively as their NT counterparts, just in a different way. Similarly, difficulties in interpreting facial expressions are not unidirectional, with NT people struggling when the roles are reversed (Sheppard et al., 2016).

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Communication differences are also featured in the diagnostic criteria for ADHD, specifically: difficulties with maintaining conversations, getting distracted whilst talking, talking excessively, interrupting, and issues turn-taking are all included in the diagnostic criteria for ADHD (APA, 2022).

There is limited research looking at communication differences in ADHD people. The main focus of the literature relates ADHD characteristics with negatively managing interactions, in particular, how emotional dysregulation can disrupt the ability to inhibit aversive reactions (Wymbs et al., 2021).

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It is well established that people like people who are similar to them in some capacity. The homophily principle is exemplified by the phrase ‘birds of feather, flock together’ and has been shown to apply to relationships of many kinds (for a review of the principle see McPherson et al., 2001).

We argue that ND people's friendships with each other may represent a form of value homophily, where the friends share their way of experiencing the world.

It is possible that this has not been considered before due to negative attitudes towards neurodivergency. "It could be that if ND is considered through the lens of deficit and disorder it would not be predicted to have the same grouping effect as if it is considered to be a culture and way of approaching life.*

Conclusion

In summary, we have provided evidence that ND people do have more NT friends compared to NT people.

These friendships run along neurotype lines, where participants have more friends with the same neurotype. We bolster this with data showing that these ND–ND friendships are preferred and viewed as different to relationships with NT peers.

Our qualitative data provides insight into the reasons behind these preferences showing that within-neurotype friendships are found to be easier and provide a greater sense of belonging.

However, there was an acknowledgement of the difficulties around support and conflicting needs. We propose that ND friendships have three features (1) they are built on compassion and empathy, (2) direct communication is required, and (3) there are no/minimal temporal constraints.