Disorganized
November 10th, 2025
Point Lobos State Natural Reserve. It's morning, just eight o' clock. Sea lions bark in the distance on a rocky landing. I look on a cliff towards the sea.
For a brief moment, as the sun reflected over the water, gold was shimmering from the ocean. I could have aptly named the Pacific the Golden Ocean, and it would have made just as much sense in that moment.
I felt calm, and my nervous system regulated. I had a chance to just process all that had happened yesterday. And I was surprised by what I found.
I said hello to the passerbys and smiled naturally for the first time in months. I was on vacation until some time or another.
I stopped by Carmel-by-the-sea, Monterey, and Cannary Row—like the Steinbeck book; and then headed to San Jose for Vietnamese food. Then I came home.
Disorganized Attachment Style
I felt relieved J had said no. At first I was sad, listening to Radiohead, but there was also a part of me that was happy it was over.
It's like that with every girl I've asked out and been rejected by, I was actually glad it was over. I wasn't tortured by the thought of her abandoning me or hurting me anymore. I would mentally prepare myself to be rejected and for her to leave me, all the time.
I am afraid of intimacy. I thought I had "solved" myself by going to therapy, but frankly, I am no different than how I was when I was a young traumatized child.
It's called a "disorganized attachment style." My friend always remarked I seemed confusing: did I want or not want a relationship?
I want one in the sense it'd bring me safety, but I don't want one in the sense it'd make me feel unsafe.
Frankly in the many dates I've been on, when I become attached rather than detached, I start to lose my cool and feel insecure. I start to pull away randomly and then come back randomly, like the ebb and flow of tides.
When I was at Point Lobos I was watching the tide, and remarked how much detail and beautiful sound any rendition of tides had compared to the real thing.
ChatGPT says that those with disorganized attachment styles frequently intellectualize their emotions. It engages the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which inhibits the limbic system and down-regulates. Intellectualizing and philosophizing around emotions is a form of socially acceptable abstraction and dissociation.
Charisma only detached
I noticed I can be calm, confident, cool, and charismatic when I am wholly detached from the world. If nothing mattered, it appears I can do anything I want, because, well, nothing matters.
But if nothing matters, why do anything at all, why exist in the world at all?
On the first four dates I meet a girl, I can make a good impression, but the moment I get attached to the her and her quirks, it appears to all go downhill from there.
It's funny, isn't it? How I'm like this?
Oh, mom and dad. If only you see what trouble you've ended up causing me. I wonder if one day it'll ever be ever resolved.