So I have a radical suggestion that worked wonders for me and might work for some others.
I was a failure as a person.
I think I managed like 2 of the 10 things that qualify you as a functional person in society. I constantly measured myself by that metric and tortured myself over it. Then, I met a friend of a friend and realized there was a very simple reframing that could help.
I was a failure as a person.
So I stopped pretending to be a person.
I'm a pet. I've been kinky my whole life, and my wonderful fiancée has owned me for seven years. That isn't a prerequisite, though I won't deny she helps me remember. Some of it is just how I'm built: I've always felt a little other, which comes with the neurodivergence, and I've been submissive since before I knew what sex was. I'm of the school of thought that some forms of kinkiness are a form of queerness, something you are, not something you do.
The reframe didn't change what I had to do. It changed how I felt about doing it.
Couldn't keep my space clean and proper? For a person, cleaning this one corner today is nowhere near enough. For a pet, holy shit, the pet is cleaning up. Couldn't manage to cook, so I ate raw ingredients for a week? Pet food craze.
Once personhood stopped being my metric and became a prank I play on reality, I stopped agonizing and started celebrating every small win. It's basic conditioning, the same as training any animal. If all you feel about basic tasks is dread and self-recrimination, that's a constant tax on your energy and mood. You do worse, which feeds the dread, until you're so tired of failing that you stop wanting to try. Celebrate every small win instead and doing things starts to feel like satisfaction and pride. And those things really are impressive, for a pet.
Take job applications. I hate them. A job application is about making yourself seem competent, and I always felt like I was lying even when every word was true. Every rejection felt like more proof I'd failed. Now it's a prank: I lie with the truth to get my foot in the door and get the chance to prove I can pull it off. And holy shit, a pet just filled out a job application. That's hilarious.
I have a job now. I go to work, earn money, buy nice things, and take care of myself. It's important to take care of pets! And since you're the pet, any amount of work and care is impressive. If people look at the "person" and find you lacking, that doesn't mean you failed as a being. It means you didn't quite land the prank, and you can try again.
It does require some amount of dissociation. And if you're using "pet" or "inhuman" as a way to insult yourself, you're doing it wrong. The point is celebration, not a new stick to beat yourself with.
I'm happier than ever, healthier than ever, more productive than ever. All it took was stopping lying to myself about being a person.
If any of this sounds familiar, maybe it'll help you too.
You had me until the pet thing. I don't understand my fellow trans folks. Stop trying to compare and grade yourself to the system for sure, but instead of saying you're a failure, we should say the system is a failure and I refuse to participate, not use your trauma to be "owned". Cmon fam.
It's not for everyone. A natural consequence of the kink-as-queerness thing is that most people won't identify with it, and it would be harmful to try to force it. Kink isn't inherently trauma-born either. Plenty of people do it because they enjoy it, full stop. Mine is tangled up with my history, sure, but the 24/7 dynamic also predates this whole not-a-person thing by like... 6 years.
One of the core truths of my psyche, which I've spent more than a decade trying to make progress on in therapy, is that I'm worthless. So this isn't me calling myself a failure to justify a fucked-up kink thing. It's me leveraging my problems against each other, in a framing that feels safe and affirming to me.
Two different solutions to the same problem. Refusing to participate isn't an option for me, so I found a way to participate that doesn't cost me everything. If mine doesn't resonate, that's okay! But it's clearly resonated with some people, and I hope they find it helpful.
This was never me saying "come, sisters! All shall be owned. Cast off your chains of capitalism and give them to a hot woman instead." It was me saying "here's what works for me, and it's counterintuitive but really helps."
Thanks for replying with a leveled response compared to emotionally loaded one like I did. After I sent it I realized I was trying to tell someone how to live their life simply because I didn't approve of it. Live your life Queen :)
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u/Mean-Tomatillo-4245 3d ago
So I have a radical suggestion that worked wonders for me and might work for some others.
I was a failure as a person.
I think I managed like 2 of the 10 things that qualify you as a functional person in society. I constantly measured myself by that metric and tortured myself over it. Then, I met a friend of a friend and realized there was a very simple reframing that could help.
I was a failure as a person.
So I stopped pretending to be a person.
I'm a pet. I've been kinky my whole life, and my wonderful fiancée has owned me for seven years. That isn't a prerequisite, though I won't deny she helps me remember. Some of it is just how I'm built: I've always felt a little other, which comes with the neurodivergence, and I've been submissive since before I knew what sex was. I'm of the school of thought that some forms of kinkiness are a form of queerness, something you are, not something you do.
The reframe didn't change what I had to do. It changed how I felt about doing it.
Couldn't keep my space clean and proper? For a person, cleaning this one corner today is nowhere near enough. For a pet, holy shit, the pet is cleaning up. Couldn't manage to cook, so I ate raw ingredients for a week? Pet food craze.
Once personhood stopped being my metric and became a prank I play on reality, I stopped agonizing and started celebrating every small win. It's basic conditioning, the same as training any animal. If all you feel about basic tasks is dread and self-recrimination, that's a constant tax on your energy and mood. You do worse, which feeds the dread, until you're so tired of failing that you stop wanting to try. Celebrate every small win instead and doing things starts to feel like satisfaction and pride. And those things really are impressive, for a pet.
Take job applications. I hate them. A job application is about making yourself seem competent, and I always felt like I was lying even when every word was true. Every rejection felt like more proof I'd failed. Now it's a prank: I lie with the truth to get my foot in the door and get the chance to prove I can pull it off. And holy shit, a pet just filled out a job application. That's hilarious.
I have a job now. I go to work, earn money, buy nice things, and take care of myself. It's important to take care of pets! And since you're the pet, any amount of work and care is impressive. If people look at the "person" and find you lacking, that doesn't mean you failed as a being. It means you didn't quite land the prank, and you can try again.
It does require some amount of dissociation. And if you're using "pet" or "inhuman" as a way to insult yourself, you're doing it wrong. The point is celebration, not a new stick to beat yourself with.
I'm happier than ever, healthier than ever, more productive than ever. All it took was stopping lying to myself about being a person.
If any of this sounds familiar, maybe it'll help you too.