I never gave it a try because it was my intellect that got me through it.

That's pretty good as far as coping mechanisms to develop. I pulled the card for dissociation so all I can do is nope out at will (and by reflex) - I have been trying to not do this recently because it's interfering with other skills developing. I'm almost jealous, but I'd have to take the history with it and I'll stick with the devil I know.

As far as "oops" goes, have you considered what you would have had to do in the absence of that choice? I've thought a lot about what I could have done differently, and the other paths available to me either sound worse or were impossible with the information I had at the time. I try to live my life with no regrets, but sometimes I still wonder if maybe prisontime would have been better for me. I'd probably be a different person, at the least, but I don't hate myself so there's not much potential for regret there.

no way I could have used drugs to fix my problems, when my problems were primarily perceptual, and required introspection to fix

I should elaborate, then. I didn't mean to imply that pyschiatric drugs are actually helpful for real problems. The only person who should even consider long term use is a person with a chemical imbalance, and even then I'd recommend trying to find a different solution. I was largely just playing along with idiot professionals in an attempt to experiment on myself because I wasn't clever enough to think out my answers.

I suppose an exception would be drugs that have recreational value. Alcohol helped me get through high school and helped me walk out of my room. The short term, regulated meds I stockpiled work to help me through unavoidable scenarios I'm forced into that I can't afford to "nope out" from. But these are shitty solutions.

The conclusion I came to in my therapy is that my only path forward is to open a door inside me that was closed for a reason. It's great to know this. But I refuse to ever open that - I will choose death first.

He is highly sociable. Such that, he needs my anti-social perspective to analyze problems analytically, and he is personally responsible for the entirety of my social life.

Hmm, sounds similar to a friend I had during school years. I got involved in a lot of 'normal' activities and with a lot of 'normal' people through him. Only, I never really spoke my mind to him, so I was appreciated as a listener instead of as a friend. I'm grateful, regardless, and consider my debt paid. All of my "friends" betrayed me when I asked them for help and understanding. So I said fuck this shallow friend shit and never bothered again. Now, what I call friend is probably closer to family for other people.

Even if I misinterpreted your words, I'm glad you have at least the one friend. Life gets real bleak with no one to talk to.

Relatedly, your evaluation of how to make a friend sounds..well, correct, but I think all it can produce is shallow friendship. That may be useful for you in a self-mastery sort of way. I won't try to give advice there, as my process for friends and mates are identical and it created many years of trouble for me. The times I tried switching to a more normal method like what you describe would quickly veer off course - my bad there though because I thought it'd be okay to socialize with furries in college (people think fags are bad about promiscuity, holy shit they have no idea about furries).

I have one close friend and one mate right now. Feels bad sometimes, I know I can't fulfill my role in a romantic relationship properly with the state of my emotions, but I'm dang dumb enough to do it anyway.

Since that has never been my response, I'm not currently wired to respond in a similar way. I take different ways instead.

We should try to attract more gamers, which are bound to be kids in similar positions.

Y'know, I never really thought to pry with gaming buddies that vaguely mention abusive pasts. Perhaps I missed some. Though I wasn't in the mindset to look for a long time. I only recently found out that there's a psych label for it (to the best of my knowledge, and borrowing from my sister's expensive therapists): cptsd. Basically when you get ptsd and then instead of being allowed to recuperate you're damaged repeatedly for years. Not recognized by american psych institutes so no tendies for me. Your prior explanation of it was more in depth, but I think a normie might understand "ptsd squared" better. Rambling, sorry.

Perhaps I'm reading in too deeply, but the two quotes put together seems to make a decent case. The only real counter I have is that I'm unsure how to imagine a troubled kid getting mixed up in culture war. Kids should be focusing on cool stuff and learning. The topics we get into here kind of demand an advanced set of mental filters that I wouldn't expect a kid to have, similar to how a kid should never be bothered with political talk (real politics, not the political circus stuff). I can't imagine how I would have even reacted to having casualized internet in my youth, let alone gamergate. Maybe I could have instinctively sided against journos because I became disgusted with the emotional manipulation present in news media fairly young.

carry yourself (and present yourself) with confidence and affirmation.

It activates my grim humor sometimes when doing so. People so easily swayed, I reflexively look down on them. Ironically, one of my most common presentations is slave mentality - by that, I mean, present yourself as a beaten dog. But I spent a lot of time around lowlifes where it helped me blend in. Simple confidence is definitely more comfortable, but sometimes it just serves to increase my cognitive load by adding extra variables into my efforts to read the minds of everyone in the room - easier to go unnoticed on a slow brain day. It did take me quite a while to understand how to get confidence to draw on, though.

As far as faking...I get you there, but it ties into an advanced dissociative technique I learned at my first/last job, where I turn on autopilot and crank out a bunch of mimicry to get through any small social encounter. I'm good at it, but it makes me feel sick in my gut and heart afterwards. Like a tiny betrayal of my values, I dunno, it's been hard to figure out.

What I, and probably you, need to do is use disciplined regimentation to re-condition ourselves into intentionally engaging in beneficial social environments as a response to those stimuli.

I've considered it, but I always come back to "no way". I can always figure out a way to solve a problem caused by isolation, and I'll always justify it even if it's inefficient or ridiculous. I've accepted that. The biggest part of it that kills me is that one of my hobbies is pnp game design and playtesting is a monumental task when there's zero playtesters.

I never gave it a try because it was my intellect that got me through it.

That's pretty good as far as coping mechanisms to develop. I pulled the card for dissociation so all I can do is nope out at will (and by reflex) - I have been trying to not do this recently because it's interfering with other skills developing. I'm almost jealous, but I'd have to take the history with it and I'll stick with the devil I know.

As far as "oops" goes, have you considered what you would have had to do in the absence of that choice? I've thought a lot about what I could have done differently, and the other paths available to me either sound worse or were impossible with the information I had at the time. I try to live my life with no regrets, but sometimes I still wonder if maybe prisontime would have been better for me. I'd probably be a different person, at the least, but I don't hate myself so there's not much potential for regret there.

no way I could have used drugs to fix my problems, when my problems were primarily perceptual, and required introspection to fix

I should elaborate, then. I didn't mean to imply that pyschiatric drugs are actually helpful for real problems. The only person who should even consider long term use is a person with a chemical imbalance, and even then I'd recommend trying to find a different solution. I was largely just playing along with idiot professionals in an attempt to experiment on myself because I wasn't clever enough to think out my answers.

I suppose an exception would be drugs that have recreational value. Alcohol helped me get through high school and helped me walk out of my room. The short term, regulated meds I stockpiled work to help me through unavoidable scenarios I'm forced into that I can't afford to "nope out" from. But these are shitty solutions.

The conclusion I came to in my therapy is that my only path forward is to open a door inside me that was closed for a reason. It's great to know this. But I refuse to ever open that - I will choose death first.

He is highly sociable. Such that, he needs my anti-social perspective to analyze problems analytically, and he is personally responsible for the entirety of my social life.

Hmm, sounds similar to a friend I had during school years. I got involved in a lot of 'normal' activities and with a lot of 'normal' people through him. Only, I never really spoke my mind to him, so I was appreciated as a listener instead of as a friend. I'm grateful, regardless, and consider my debt paid. All of my "friends" betrayed me when I asked them for help and understanding. So I said fuck this shallow friend shit and never bothered again. Now, what I call friend is probably closer to family for other people.

Even if I misinterpreted your words, I'm glad you have at least the one friend. Life gets real bleak with no one to talk to.

Relatedly, your evaluation of how to make a friend sounds..well, correct, but I think all it can produce is shallow friendship. That may be useful for you in a self-mastery sort of way. I won't try to give advice there, as my process for friends and mates are identical and it created many years of trouble for me. The times I tried switching to a more normal method like what you describe would quickly veer off course - my bad there though because I thought it'd be okay to socialize with furries in college (people think fags are bad about promiscuity, holy shit they have no idea about furries).

I have one close friend and one mate right now. Feels bad sometimes, I know I can't fulfill my role in a romantic relationship properly with the state of my emotions, but I'm dang dumb enough to do it anyway.

Since that has never been my response, I'm not currently wired to respond in a similar way. I take different ways instead. We should try to attract more gamers, which are bound to be kids in similar positions.

Y'know, I never really thought to pry with gaming buddies that vaguely mention abusive pasts. Perhaps I missed some. Though I wasn't in the mindset to look for a long time. I only recently found out that there's a psych label for it (to the best of my knowledge, and borrowing from my sister's expensive therapists): cptsd. Basically when you get ptsd and then instead of being allowed to recuperate you're damaged repeatedly for years. Not recognized by american psych institutes so no tendies for me. Your prior explanation of it was more in depth, but I think a normie might understand "ptsd squared" better. Rambling, sorry.

Perhaps I'm reading in too deeply, but the two quotes put together seems to make a decent case. The only real counter I have is that I'm unsure how to imagine a troubled kid getting mixed up in culture war. Kids should be focusing on cool stuff and learning. The topics we get into here kind of demand an advanced set of mental filters that I wouldn't expect a kid to have, similar to how a kid should never be bothered with political talk (real politics, not the political circus stuff). I can't imagine how I would have even reacted to having casualized internet in my youth, let alone gamergate. Maybe I could have instinctively sided against journos because I became disgusted with the emotional manipulation present in news media fairly young.

carry yourself (and present yourself) with confidence and affirmation.

It activates my grim humor sometimes when doing so. People so easily swayed, I reflexively look down on them. Ironically, one of my most common presentations is slave mentality - by that, I mean, present yourself as a beaten dog. But I spent a lot of time around lowlifes where it helped me blend in. Simple confidence is definitely more comfortable, but sometimes it just serves to increase my cognitive load by adding extra variables into my efforts to read the minds of everyone in the room - easier to go unnoticed on a slow brain day. It did take me quite a while to understand how to get confidence to draw on, though.

As far as faking...I get you there, but it ties into an advanced dissociative technique I learned at my first/last job, where I turn on autopilot and crank out a bunch of mimicry to get through any small social encounter. I'm good at it, but it makes me feel sick in my gut and heart afterwards. Like a tiny betrayal of my values, I dunno, it's been hard to figure out.

What I, and probably you, need to do is use disciplined regimentation to re-condition ourselves into intentionally engaging in beneficial social environments as a response to those stimuli.

I've considered it, but I always come back to "no way". I can always figure out a way to solve a problem caused by isolation, and I'll always justify it even if it's inefficient or ridiculous. I've accepted that. The biggest part of it that kills me is that one of my hobbies is pnp game design and playtesting is a monumental task when there's zero playtesters.