the good things, they disgust me

on existential kink, and the relatability of your misery

All my life, I have disappointed the people in my life with my built-in instinct of abandonment. The countless personality test quizzes on the internet have informed me that I am dismissive avoidant and what that means is, I run away every time I sense something too intense - grief or joy.

I have always embraced the belief that I don’t have to go looking for the good things in life. I just have to do the right things, and the good things will walk to me. And they have. And you know what I’ve done when those good things have come knocking on my door? Double bolt the entrance and shudder in fear sitting against the trapdoor, with the lights out and my hands on my mouth. Because as insane as it sounds, I have a deep fear of the good things in life.

There are times when these good things come sitting in my inbox, extending an arm out, and my impulse asks me to run away in the other direction because oh god, a person I like and admire has expressed they like and admire me and want to connect. I should coil away and not respond so I don’t have to deal with the sensation of something beautiful thing that might birth from this connection. I don’t respond to the good things in my inbox because I’m scared they will talk to me and realize I am actually not as cool, as smart, or as funny.

I close the door on the good things because I am scared I am broken inside and my house is a mess, and I do not want you to see the number of dead plants I am still nursing. I am scared you will smell the stench from the water to the flowers I received a few years ago that I refuse to throw because I do not know when I will receive flowers again. Because I told everyone I don’t like flowers. I love them. But a force inside me decided for some god-forsaken reason that I should tell people I do not like flowers. That they should never bring them to me.

I have a fear that if a good thing comes to me and I accept it, it will no longer be good. So all my life I have scrambled to find okay things to make better because I fear that a good thing when touched by me, will turn bad.

I like to believe I have made some of the deepest friendships a person can make in life. I have friends who have loved me and who, despite my dismissal of their love, persistently fight against me — to continue to love me. I have one such friend who would always pick me up from my house to go get dinner, and each time that they would be out at my gate, they would get out of their car, Bangalore traffic be damned, to embrace me and walk me in. The first time they did it, it was very cute. The second time they did it, it was very cute. The third time they did it, I told them they didn’t need to. They said they liked to. The fourth time they did it again, I told them they didn’t need to. They said they liked to. The fifth time they didn’t do it and I cried myself to sleep that night.

In high school, when the boy I had a crush on, confessed to me over facebook messenger one night, that he had a crush on me too, I sat the next day, on a bench at school during recess - and I do not exaggerate - sobbing myself, snot out because I physically could not handle a good thing happen to me.

There is a vlog I found of myself from three years ago - pandemic green hair, wrapped in a grey shawl, ironically talking about how I would hate to be rich because being broke makes me feel so much funnier. Like what will I make jokes about, if one day, I actually realize my dreams, and release the insecurity around personal finance? What a shame it would be to not have misery that is relatable.

Turns out, my subconscious has been trying hard, and for so long, to be relatably miserable on the internet, and I had not the slightest idea about it. (I call it the sarah-ali-khan-complex). I have to be relatably miserable because I’m scared for people to see how truly miserable I am, and I’m scared that if one day I actually elevate in life and cross onto the other side of my misery, I would no longer be likable. So I try my best to be ambitious enough, it’s inspiring, but never so much it’s intimidating. I can’t be so pretty, people get distracted from my personality, but I can’t be ugly or it’s unattractive. So I make sure I put out a mildly pretty, slightly chaotic, lukewarm self on the internet because I cannot bear the heightened sensation of being perceived too bad or too well

I have only now realized that I’ve been trying to be liked by everyone, but only a little bit and I’m sick of achieving things but only just enough. My subconscious ensures she sucks, without being deepthroated. Because she fears if people come, they will be done with her. And she is so scared of being done with. So she hedges against the number of people that can be done with her. My subconscious likes to play for play, but she hates to win because she thinks if she wins, the game will be over. My subconscious cannot bear the thought of the game being over. My subconscious enjoys edging because it gives her a mystery to mull over all the possible ends.

But she will never know what other games she can play if she doesn’t let one be over.

In case it wasn’t obvious, I am re-reading Existential Kink this month. And this is my public deepest fear inventory.