I've come to the conclusion that I'd like an emotional excision or somesuch. This repeated tendency to get involuntarily fixated on someone when I'd much rather just mind my own business and then getting thrown into a (temporary, mild) depression when my unnecessary obsession isn't reciprocated is really irritating and severely impedes my progress in actually trying to accomplish the things I want to do in life. I'm barely capable of doing adulting stuff independently as it is without my dumbass brain throwing a hissy fit and super-gluing all my emotional energy to a lost cause for a minimum of 6 months because I'm denying genetic propagation instincts. It's an unnecessary feature that kills my productivity and clashes with my philosophical values to boot.
There is a slight upside in this iteration, that being I managed to figure out a way to drastically reduce the risk of emotional repression, and judging by my analysis of my emotional arc this time around as opposed to the previous occurrence, also dramatically decrease the time elapsed until this episode is over with (turns out telling the person about your feels helps resolve them, who'd have fucking thought), but it still doesn't address the root problem that keeps these episodes of obsession recurring. Last time I had a mere two months of reprieve, and technically another month while this latest infatuation incubated within my mind but wasn't developed enough yet to significantly impact my reasoning or general thought patterns. Even going with my most optimistic predictions, where this cycle concludes a few weeks from now - unlikely - bringing the total duration to 6 months, 1/4 that of last time, and the period where my mind is unafflicted is similarly multiplied by 4, which I'd prefer not to expect since it seems to be dependent as much on random chance as it is on my emotional availability, that's still only 8 months at absolute max - going by the established trends I'd call 2 months if I'm lucky. That admittedly is far better prospects than I was looking at a few years ago; back then I wasn't even sure if the affliction I had at the time would even end at any observable point in the future. But just because I've reached a point where I can semi-reliably chart the course of my emotional attachments doesn't mean I want to stop there - my real goal of preventing the obsessive attachments from forming in the first place is still out of reach.
Doesn't help that I can't really discuss this with anyone I know IRL because it'd make me sound legitimately insane, and because every one of them has views on the matter that contradict with mine. I'm now capable of expressing my feelings for someone, but not (as a close friend believes) for the purpose of actually trying to get reciprocation, but because I understand that being open about them is a more efficient way to resolve them and avoid the trauma my previous method inflicted on myself. But on the rare occasions I've brought up to people the prospect that I'd be much happier if I could excise my capability of being romantically attracted, I get looked at like I'm malfunctioning, and they insist on trying to convince me otherwise with arguments that inevitably boil down to something along the lines of 'love is good because it feels good'. No one ever seems to consider the prospect that just because something feels good doesn't mean it is inherently good. But no, I'm the weird one for wanting to remove my capacity for attraction and not have to be bothered with my brain periodically trying to force the issue by dousing me with enough dopamine and oxytocin that I temporarily lose the capacity to formulate these thoughts.
Bah, I'll figure it out eventually. I just have to work out how to do it without completely severing my empathy in the process.
If anyone's actually read this whole thing then you've my applause, whoever you are - trying to piece coherence out of that tangled mess of a post isn't a chore I'd envy.
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Topic: Things that made you sad today thread. (Read 9524721 times)