Intense (emotionally and intellectually).
Serious.
Ashamed.

Words that don't describe me...

Playful.
Flirtatious.
Spontaneous.
Fun.

I was bemoaning my lack of the latter. My therapist asked me... 'How come? How come you aren't more playful?' Then he said 'you don't have to tell me...' I muttered something about shock. About shock for sponteneity.

How come?

Google... Eventually I managed to narrow the search down to 'shame' and varients on that theme. Some article about three ways that shame can come about. Reading... Reading... Reading until something resonates... Doesn't mean it is true, of course, but reading until something resonates...

My mother and I were chronically misattuned. I withdrew from her. Didn't seek a connection with her anymore because all I found there was misattunement. Intense shame that all I found there was misattunement. She would seek me out at times and I'd actively turn away. Must be my fault. Must be that something was wrong with me. My father turned away too. Left me. Was never very emotionally (or otherwise) responsive to me. Turned away from me. Must be that there was something wrong with me.

Spent a lot of time by myself. Most of my dissociation is about being able to lie perfectly still for hours at a time. To sleep for abnormally long periods of time. To be able to stay in bed for a couple of days dozing and dissociating. To be able to sit still in my room. To read or to play silently. Unobtrusively. Spent much of my childhood trying to be a shadow so that nobody (so that my mother) would forget I even existed. Trying to be... A non-existent.

Not consistent with playfulness, flirtatiousness, sponteneity.

:-(

Too ashamed to even look at therapist. Too ashamed to even look at most people. Can manage it in easy going conversations but nothing much more than that.

:-(