Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt

Wed, 05 Jun 2013 08:39:16 GMT

I have a chronic fear of visible failure. This is especially true in the context of potential passive-aggressive and resentful behavior.

I attribute much of this to my heritage: among other social values, my family raised me to only present my best successes to the world and secretly hide all of my failures. Meanwhile, I grew up in an extremely extroverted and charisma-based society that was heavily obsessed with cataloging and preserving gossip.

This ill-equipped me to build an identity for myself, as identity construction took more of a back seat to manipulating my social image to prevent exposure. It made me paranoid: I simply couldn't let my non-Christian spirituality, my bizarre kinks, or my personal desire to be with other like-minded people, out of my head. I was quizzed for compliance regularly, and in middle and high school, openly attacked if I failed this compliance check on a semi-daily basis.

This acquired fear and manipulative tendency quickly made me a highly competent social chameleon in my then-home state. However, this failed utterly around people whom knew me better, spent longer amounts of time around me, and generally anyone with whom I tried to maintain a long-lasting and ongoing social relationship with or wanted to get to know better. They got to see someone that is extremely evasive, persnickety, and uncomfortable about people getting close to him, for the simple fear that they'll see through the facade and not like what they see. This even applies self-referentially: I'm not convinced I'm an especially good person, for the simple reason that I do not actually know the sort of person that I am.

Which is bizarre, in a way. Based upon my prior actions and early life, I am a primarily loving and caring individual. I am highly tactile; I love elegance, and I love bringing light and joy into this world. Yet this is all buried under a dour, faux-stoic veneer that makes me completely unapproachable by the people I'd like to do so.

I am trying to conquer this fear, because it's costing me dearly. I would also like the luxury of camaraderie, and of being able to develop my identity without seeming false. I certainly have some form of a current identity: I evaluate strongly between asexual and male, as otherkin, and certainly as a dragon on a very regular and healthy basis (among other recreational forms). But, there is this entire spectrum of matters I am too fearful, too evasive, or just plain too uneasy to talk about, for the simple reason it risks me exposure.

Perhaps as a result, I am deeply jealous of those I know whom have a public identity that works for them. I am more opaque; not by choice, but because I have yet to experience better.

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Goldkin's Journal: Musings of the Shiny Lizard

Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt