Plato's cave

the "in another universe" "in another life" posts are funny cause you only get one, this one, and you've already resigned to losing it too. try fighting in this one

thinking about how when you experience a lot of shame in your formative years (indirectly, directly, as abuse or just as an extant part of your environment) it becomes really difficult to be perceived by other people in general. the mere concept of someone watching me do anything, whether it's a totally normal activity or something unfamiliar of embarrassing, whether I'm working in an excel spreadsheet or being horny on main, it just makes my skin crawl and my brain turn to static because I cannot convince myself that it's okay to be seen and experienced. because to exist is to be ashamed and embarrassed of myself, whether I'm failing at something or not, because my instinctive reaction to anyone commenting on ANYTHING I'm doing is to crawl into a hole and die. it's such a bizarre and dehumanizing feeling to just not be able to exist without constantly thinking about how you are being Perceived. ceaseless watcher give me a god damn break.

even though there is no explicit sexual abuse in the picture of dorian gray, the themes of manipulation and violation and insertion / imposition of another upon one's sense of self and body in the picture of dorian gray echo the themes of such abuse leading from his childhood (his grandfather who called him vile and hated him as an inherently disgusting, evil creature produced by a marriage he disapproved of) to early adulthood (two older men imposing their own will upon dorian, reducing him to just a figure of his beauty which, when it fades, will make him meaningless) to the corruption of dorian's own view of his body in the portrait. the men in his life insert themselves deeply into his relationship to himself and his body and leave him tainted, believing but also hating their views of him, trying to change his perceived fate of withering away into his 'true nature' of an ugly, vile being, but ultimately he is doomed to become that even if it was not inherently in his nature at all. he's a boy afraid to become something and that fear is reinforced by authority figures throughout his life, leading the fear to take him directly down the path to corruption anyway