The Wolf Comes Out at Night

In the shadows' grasp, where whispers confide,
A wary dweller lives, fear and sorrow coincide.
With a trembling heart, I navigate the night's shroud,
Living alongside the wolf, in darkness, I'm vowed.

Its piercing gaze, a chill that pierces the soul,
An eerie presence, elusive and untold.
Within these confines, secrets quietly reside,
A dance of uncertainty, where emotions collide.

In unspoken verses, solace seeks its way,
Amidst the wolf's presence, an unspoken sway.
But my words falter, emotions woven deep,
In the company of the wolf, where fears often seep.

Within this union, where shadows entwine,
A coexistence of whispers, intertwined.
I, a hesitant companion, grappling with fright,
And the wolf, a reflection of my own inner night.

Through the veil of darkness, mysteries unfold,
The wolf personifies unease, a tale untold.
Its mournful spirit, a haunting echo in the air,
A muse that stirs the depths of despair.

So I dwell in this coexistence, where fear finds its way,
In the company of the wolf, where emotions hold sway.
In the depths of shadows, our stories align,
A tapestry of enigmas, where darkness intertwines.

---

AI-generated. ChatGPT is addictive.

AI-Generated Story

Once upon a time in the vast and beautiful wilderness of the Arctic, there lived a white bear named INTJarg and a brown bear named INTPotat. INTJarg was a shy and timid bear, and INTPotat was no different. He was also a solitary bear who preferred to spend his days alone in the forest.

Despite her shyness, INTJarg was a truly beautiful bear, with gleaming white fur. She was admired by all the other animals in the forest, but she never paid them much attention. She was content with her solitary life, and didn’t think she needed anyone else.

One day, while INTJarg and INTPotat were out foraging for food, they stumbled upon each other in the forest. At first, they were both too shy to approach one another, and they simply stared at each other from a distance. But as they observed each other, they both began to feel drawn to one another in a way they had never felt before.

Finally, INTJarg mustered up the courage to approach INTPotat. She timidly approached him, and to her surprise, he welcomed her with open arms. From that moment on, INTJarg and INTPotat were inseparable.

They spent their days exploring the forest together, and they quickly fell deeply in love. INTJarg and INTPotat were able to support and care for each other, helping each other to overcome their shyness. And in the end, they proved that true love knows no boundaries, even when it comes to shyness.

Guilt & Shame Awareness Journal (2022)

26 November 2021:

I feel guilty that I’m not treating INTPatois in a loving way and not making him feel safe enough with me to be vulnerable with me.

• Expectation: I will always treat loved ones in a loving way, no matter what or when, and will always make them feel safe with me. And he’ll always feel loved and safe with me and he’ll always be vulnerable with me and always feel comfortable doing so.
• Realistic expectation (for others): I’m going to try to do my best to be loving and to create a sense of safety but also know that I will not always be emotionally available or equipped to do so and I’m not going to be perfect but it’s okay to not be perfect. He isn’t always going to be comfortable being vulnerable with me every second of every day and that’s okay and we’ll work through it together a step at a time.
• Innocence: I felt hurt by him sharing that he’s ashamed of me, which triggered my insecurities.
• Strategy: Acceptance, Acknowledging the triggers, Being kind to myself, Accountability, Talking things through calmly with INTPatois and Listening to him

29 May 2022:

I feel guilty for ignoring INTPatois, not communicating with him, and cutting off modes of communication with him (i.e. withdrawing from him). I feel guilty for feeling rejected when he’s not spending time with me.

• Expectation: There will always be smooth communication between us and we’ll always spend every moment together.
• Realistic expectation (for others): I’m going to try to communicate my inner turmoil and other difficult things with him when I’m comfortable to do so and when I’ve found the words to express myself. I could discuss this with him so that there’s an understanding between us that I may need time on my own sometimes to sort my emotions and inner turmoil out. It’s okay for us to spend some time apart from time to time. It’s okay for him to have his own time to himself sometimes too. It’s okay for us to spend some time on our own once in a while.
• Innocence: I was hot and bothered and tired and restless and didn’t have the energy to regulate my emotions well.
• Strategy: Acceptance, Acknowledging the root cause, Being kind to myself, Accountability, Talking things through calmly with INTPatois and Listening to him

30 May 2022:

I feel ashamed for not keeping up with shaving my body.

• Expectation: I will always have smooth and hairless skin.
• Realistic expectation (for others): It’s okay to let my body hair grow. It’s normal to have body hair.
• Innocence: It’s a lot of work and maintenance, and I’m busy and it isn’t my priority.
• Strategy: Acceptance, Being kind to myself

7 October 2022:

I feel guilty when INTPatois doesn’t get back to my texts immediately and I make inferences that he doesn’t care about me or that I’m not important to him.

• Expectation: He will always respond to my texts immediately and always pick up my phone calls.
• Realistic expectation (for others): He may be busy or sleeping or tired sometimes, or he may just forget the time sometimes or just not hear or realise that I’ve texted or called him.
• Innocence: It’s these times when my insecurity and irrationality getting the better of me.
• Strategy: Acknowledging that my inferences aren’t always right, Reminding myself not to jump to conclusions, Being open with INTPatois and letting him know calmly how I’m feeling and what I’m thinking

I feel guilty when INTPatois tells me he loves me and I don’t believe or trust it. I also feel guilty when I tell INTPatois that I love him and not feel completely certain or immensely strongly about it.

• Expectation: I will always feel it intensely.
• Realistic expectation (for others): It doesn’t lose its meaning even though I may not always feel it as intensely. We are at a stage of (more) comfort with each other now, having been together for a year. We both know that we are committed to each other for the long haul.
• Innocence: I have my insecure moments and irrational doubts sometimes.
• Strategy: Acceptance, Acknowledging the unrealistic expectations

I feel guilty about not being present and actively and intently listening all the time to INTPatois, especially when I expect that of him and other people.

• Expectation: I will always be listening intently to everything he says.
• Realistic expectation (for others): I’m going to do my best but know that I will not be fully focused all the time and that I will not be as interested in or be able to follow every topic he talks about.
• Innocence: I might be tired or just not as interested or well-versed in those topics.
• Strategy: Acceptance, Acknowledging the root cause, Being kind to myself, Accountability

This is painful and extremely difficult for me to write and even think about, but I feel immensely guilty about the lack of proper care for all the pets I had.

• Expectation: Every pet would have been perfectly taken care of by me and I would have been extremely well-educated and well-informed on how to take the very best care of every pet.
• Realistic expectation (for others): I did what I could and what I thought best with the limitations I had. I made some mistakes sometimes but it’s okay to not be perfect.
• Innocence: I was a small child when I had most of them, and my parents were just as ignorant about pet care. For the two dogs that grew with me into adulthood, I was depressed and suicidal and could barely take care of myself.
• Strategy: Acceptance, Acknowledging the root cause, Being kind to myself, Never voluntarily making the decision to care for a pet if I don’t have all the necessary information and tools and time and energy — only committing to it if I truly believe I am able to give the pet high quality care.

Wallowing in Sadness

The darkness is comforting to me. I’ve been here for so long that the darkness has become familiar to me. Any light is too blindingly bright for me. I prefer the darkness and I want to prolong my sadness. I like wallowing in sadness. Happiness is too superficial and fleeting. There’s depth to sadness. It just hurts a lot when I keep crying so much. Nothing helps. No one can help me. There isn’t anyone I can talk to about all this. I just drag others down with me and engulf them with my sadness.

The ennui persists. I’m so bored out of my mind, and I think it’s just an issue of mine. I’m the issue. I’m chasing after something that can never be, I’m hoping for an intensity that’s an impossibility, and it’s just me and my issues. I bore myself writing the same things over and over again. I just keep walking in tighter and tighter circles.

There’s going to be a lot of pain. That scares me the most. It may not be immediate, and I’m going to be throwing myself into the public eye. I don’t see any other viable option though. I don’t know what else to do. I just want out of here. I wish I’d never been born. I’ve never wanted to be here. It’s all just pain and suffering.

I’m not not stupid

I’m not smart. Time and time again, I keep proving that I’m stupid. I don’t do well in exams — never have. I still don’t know nor understand what studying is or what it entails.

People tend to think I’m smarter than I am. They don’t believe me when I tell them that I don’t know or understand something, or that I’m not good at something. They say, “Oh, it’s just because you’re not interested.” No matter how I explain myself, they are quick to fire back with their own reasons or rationale. It’s just too incomprehensible for them to digest the fact that I. Am. Not. Smart.

I’m not liked. I’ve never forged a friendship. I do okay professionally with my students, but I’m not liked professionally by my colleagues. I seem to be paid far lower than others in my field, but it’s what I have and what I have to hold onto for as long as I can. I don’t have an education; I don’t really have any qualifications. Who am I to be picky and fussy about the rate I’m getting? Especially when I’m unable to cope with a full-time job. This has to make do.

I’m too hypersensitive. Yes, a double positive. A super superlative. I still think about death a lot. I still want out of here. My life is cheap and worthless. And it’s just me. I just want the easy way out.

Lost and Confused

“So go,” then, “I don’t want you to leave.”
“I’m so emotionally drained that I won’t even feel anything if you leave,” then, “Please don’t leave me.”
— His words. Maybe we’re both fearful avoidant.

A: “I like red.”
B: “I don’t like red.” or “X likes red too.”
That, to me, is a bonding session and a sharing of experiences and perspectives. I had this student from China before who had a different (cultural) view on relationships and money. We shared our different points of view without any trying to persuade the other or talking down to the other. We just each took turns sharing our views, learning the other’s view. And in the end, we understood another perspective better but still held on to our own personal beliefs, and that was okay and everything remained cordial. To him, that’s not acknowledging his feelings and dismissive of what he’s saying and skewing the conversation to make it about me or what I want to talk about. When I said to him that I have nothing else, he responded with, “You think I do?” Isn’t that a ‘I like red’, ‘You think I don’t?’ kind of interaction? I’m so confused. Wouldn’t that be him ignoring what I was saying, dismissing my feelings, not acknowledging my feelings, and spinning the conversation to something about himself instead, from his point of view?

I tried asking questions about how he’d prefer things to be communicated and done or not done, but he was pretty unwilling to cooperate. He questioned if I was being genuine about my confusion and lack of understanding all of this, if I was lying about it or tricking him. He said that I can’t possibly be that unaware or that lost. It was like he was disciplining me. For what exactly? I don’t really know. For the way he felt I’ve been coming across to him, something I’m clueless about and that we have different perceptions of. I tried so hard to put my feelings aside and to remain in the conversation, continuing to get hurt and wounded in the process, trying to figure things out and get him to explain things so I can understand his perspective and where he’s coming from a bit better, because there’s been a lot of misunderstanding and maybe I’m just not communicating in a way that reaches him or in a way that he prefers/wants/needs to receive it. He wasn’t very communicative and told me that he’s not my father and that he shouldn’t have to school me on basic communication skills, and that if I still don’t understand, then I’m not ready for a relationship. (Great, am I to go back to the person who used to hit me when I was a child and call me ‘useless’?)

I’m still as lost as ever. I don’t know what’s different. I don’t feel like I’ve changed my ways of communicating with him, so I’m not sure what’s been different recently and why he’s taking things in a negative way now. Maybe he needs a more Fe approach of communicating? When I’m so Fi in that my feelings are mine, your feelings are yours, respecting each other’s feelings is something that’s mutually understood and unnecessary to explicitly state.

He said that this all stems from that one night. Which night? His night or my night? So many things have happened since. So many other things happened. I don’t know what he’s referring to exactly, and when I tried to ask, he refused to explain what he was referring to, other than saying that it was a couple of days ago. Because of our time difference, it might be 3 for me. And because he isn’t the best with time (the typical Einstein / mad scientist thing where they lose track of time easily), that approximation of time may not be accurate, so I might have to backtrack a little further and reread our conversations from about a week ago to try to figure things out and hopefully not start making wild assumptions.

He did mention, though, that the lack of trust wasn’t in relation to showing him my body, so that’s good. At least I’m not extremely uncomfortable with him, just uncomfortable.

He said that the matter has been resolved from our conversation — a conversation that I felt led to nowhere, which makes me even more confused. I have no idea where to go from here or how to proceed. Conversations with him are going to be really strained and uncomfortable. I wouldn’t know what to say or do, or what not to say or do. I wouldn’t know what would or would not set him off again. I want us to work out, but this doesn’t seem rectifiable.

The Pit in My Stomach

He said that the emotional rollercoaster only exists when he’s with me. So taking myself out of the equation might be more beneficial then. We just keep hurting each other.

I can’t tell him all this, about how I feel, because it feels like I’ll just be accused of not listening, of ignoring him, of just explaining my point of view — which is all I ever do and which is the only right one in my opinion, of turning it into a conversation about me and my own stuff, of only thinking about how I feel. It’s like we’re speaking in different languages and are on different wavelengths.

He said that the problem is when I do respond. But when I don’t respond, I’m being cold to him. I don’t know what to do. I’m so lost and confused. He said that I should already know, that I should just figure it out for myself because he’s made himself clear many times before, that if I don’t know, then I’m not capable of ever understanding, that even if he tells me, I wouldn’t understand.

These wounds are going to stay with me for a long time, even if this gets resolved. I’m not as comfortable with him anymore. I don’t feel as close to him anymore. I’m too scared of him to want to meet him in person anymore, but maybe that’s just my fearful avoidance talking. He said it’s been 3 months since we’ve been together and that I still don’t trust him even a little. I don’t understand that. If he means that I don’t trust him enough to show him my body, then that’s going to leave a very, very bad taste in my mouth. I’m going to be really uncomfortable with him.

It seems like the typical start of an abusive or toxic relationship, but maybe it’s just my misperceptions, and maybe it’s just a once in a blue moon thing said out of anger. He seems to be like a fearful avoidant lately with the push and pull, but maybe I’m just projecting. Something’s really wrong, and maybe it’s just me. It hurts to stay, it hurts to go. Whatever I do, whichever side I’m on, it always hurts.

Fearful Avoidant Traits

These descriptions speak to me. I relate to them so much.

• Deep subconscious belief that they have to earn love from others, that they have to earn their worth so they can be worthy of love.
• They have to give to be worthy of that friendship/love/connection/partner.
• Constantly trying to be better so they can be worthy of love and connection, which can sabotage them in relationships overall because they feel like they’re not quite there yet and they can leave and stay away from relationships for too long which can prevent them from learning those real-life lessons by having those relationship experiences themselves, and it can make them feel very inadequate if they are not in the “perfect space” they envision themselves to be in.
• They are big feelers, very sensitive, highly aware, and hypervigilent, but they can shut down as a coping mechanism.
• Read people extremely well (micro-expressions, body language, tone of voice, changes in patterns).
• Usually very interested in human behaviour (because it kept them safe).
• Tend to struggle with surface stuff (e.g. small talk) because they have an innate desire for depth and emotional connection even though they fear it at the same time. They really want it but they really don’t want to allow themselves to have it because of their fear.
• Subconscious associations with a lot of pain and a lot of pleasure around connections that it becomes confusing, and so they flip flop so much and it creates this inner storm and volatility which can create that chaos and tornado that they can become at times in relationships.
• Combination of being way too trusting/open/giving and being highly suspicious at the same time, and they may not ever express to you how suspicious they can be.
• As fast as they can open and connect, they can push back and close on the same intensity level on either side.
• Have chronic guilt and struggle with feelings of shame.
• Have an innate, repressed feeling of a need to feel seen, heard, understood, and significant, so they spend a lot of their life and personality structure around trying to make up for that void of that perception stored within them.
• “Am I worthy of love? Am I empowered? Do I matter? Can I run my life and feel safe, that nobody can take my power away from me? I don’t want to be helpless.” (a core wound of fearful avoidants).
• Combination of needing novelty but also craving space and time alone from other people.
• Huge fear of spending a prolonged amount of time with other people (e.g. An afternoon? Ok. An evening? Ok. But a weekend? Oh god.)
• Tend to feel like, to navigate relationships, they can be hyper-aware of everybody’s feelings, that they can’t hurt anybody and if they do, they feel guilty, and they have to save people and fix them, but only if they are okay enough themselves to have room for that.
• Vulnerability is very difficult because they have a lot of pain from childhood and because they notice everything, so they’re constantly picking up on everything and because they do, they often over-perceive things as rejection or other negatively oriented ways.
• Often feel a need to withdraw during challenging moments in their lives because they don’t often know how to navigate a relationship without feeling so much for other people.

I met someone recently

I met someone recently (although it doesn’t feel recent) and he’s my rock. I never thought it’d happen to me, especially after all this time. I’ve been waiting and yearning for this — for someone like this — my whole life. He’s my first everything and I’m learning a lot from him and with him. He helps fill the void within me and I don’t feel as empty anymore. There are ups and downs though — downs because of me, my issues, my fearful avoidance. Since this last night, I haven’t talked to him again yet. It still feels too raw. I’m not sure when I’m going to emerge from my shell to talk with him again.

Why doesn’t he want to read all the entries here? I gave him the key to something that’s locked and private. Why doesn’t he even bother to try reading all this in an effort to better understand me? It feels as though I’m not worth the effort. If the situation were turned around, I’d be so honoured to be granted access to this wealth of deeply personal information and I’d invest a lot of my time into carefully reading all his words, in an effort to try to understand him more deeply, especially since he’s allowed me into his inner sanctum.

I don’t know why he’s with me. I don’t know what he sees in me. It feels like I’m holding on tightly to something good, out of fear of losing it and out of pure selfishness and self-centeredness on my part. He does me well but not the other way round. I feel as though I’m manipulating him and deceiving him, falsely misrepresenting myself in an effort to sell him a faulty, damaged product — me.

If I leave

If I leave, and I explicitly state that it’s just me, that it’s nothing to do with him, would he still blame himself?

I just want to end it all. I don’t want to be here. I don’t belong here. It’s always going to be this way. It’s always going to be a point of contention between us.

I’m a let-down and a disappointment. And he doesn’t understand this of me or where I’m coming from. I’m too different; I’m too much of an alien.

It’ll snowball to even bigger problems, an even bigger point of contention.

Why does talking/writing about this make me so tired? I just keep nodding off. My phone keeps falling out of my hands, jolting me back awake.

They deserve someone better than me, right? Why am I holding them back? If I really care for them, I’d let them go. I’m only weighing them down and burdening them with my issues. They’re unable to fly because of me. I’m just tethering them to the ground with me.

I wish there was an easy way out. I’d have done it a long time ago, as a child. All this misery can’t be contained within me and it infects others around me. If I’d gone earlier, if I weren’t here, I’d have made fewer people miserable.

Why am I still here? Why can’t I just not exist? I’m such a coward.