Status Updates From Understanding and Treating ...

This is cool. It's connecting dysregulation (affect) to disintegration (self) as integral to experiences of shame. It's not simply that one is dysregulated, it's that such dysregulation annihilates the self. Bpd spiral, narcissistic rage, depressive withdrawal, a relationship has collapsed, or perhaps been foisted on you so strongly, you're eclipsed by the violence of the other, perceived or real. Humiliation. Loss.

"almost all of what we think of as narcissistic pathology is not an expression of self, but rather, an escape from self"

mf shooting so many bullets at me rn 🫣

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though, there is a point where the narcissistic performance, replaced with vulnerability rather than perfectionism, transforms from dissociative objectification to embodied freedom

i.e. a role becomes a calling