Does antipatriarchal therapy exist?

(I don’t trust psychological institutions and I have good reason. The reality is that the structures we exist under are unsustainable for life. But when that truth is coupled with my belief that I’m always right, my ego gets dangerously inflated)

I have concluded that I fall into the oldest trope of the book. I genuinely do not feel, in my bones, the same feeling when I am being loved by women than when I am being loved by men.

Even though the love I receive from women has probably sustained me more than anything else, I don’t yearn for it.

Maybe I should start being more of a peace of shit to lose all the love I have so I can be grateful for it.

Catholicism did a number, huh?

I do know this. Women are absolutely more intelligent, talented, creative, and wonderful than men – especially on this campus. I will always use my voice to advocate for women to feel safe, loved, recognized, and embraced.

To attempt to infuse more gratitude in my life, I must say that the women in my life who have put up with me enough to love me have absolutely kept me alive more than anything else.

But in my bones I yearn for men’s love. To the point that I’ll take pretty mediocre versions. And I wish I could scrub it off my bones.

I think it’s comparable to drug addiction. The love I receive from women = sustaining, full of life, simplistic in a beautiful way. The love I receive from men = mostly a delusion, but if it’s real I clench my jaw to hold it in my mouth til my gums bleed.

Perhaps there’s an adrenaline rush that comes with hoping men will be better. There’s a pretty consistent supply of adrenaline, until it gets ripped out by their abuse or their abandonment.

I will end this by including an excerpt of one of my diary entries.

December 3rd, 2023.

“If he sees me cry all the time, when-if-when he leaves me I will cry but it will no longer mean anything. It will just be something I do.

The fear is crying and being watched, comforted through words but not through touch. And then I am left, for something better. Not necessarily someone better, just something better.

Because I am static and he is fluid. Because I bend but I do not move.

I will watch myself being watched, and as the tears stream I will beg and plead to move.”

And that’s what happened. I wrote that. I waited TWO FUCKING YEARS and that’s exactly what happened.

Woof. Nothing like being a colossal obstacle to my own growth.