(no subject)

[yvannairie]

Gotta say the "cringe positivity" movement isn't doing much for me as far as making me more shameless. All it is doing is reminding me that I am, on some ephemeral level, Doing A Bad, which leads to me having to jump through the extra mental hoop of either assigning the Bad as Good instead (which is not good for my mental health), or reminding myself that I am, indeed, Bad (which is even worse for my mental health).

Like people who wanna embrace cringe, more power to them. Sometimes you gotta let yourself be messy, other people have perfection neuroses that look different from mine and digging yourself into a nice comfortable trash can has helped me in the past, but at the moment the kind of positivity that would help me become more shameless is... IDK, value-neutrality? Like, positivity that aims to point to the feeling of cringe as something external to the creative process, something imposed from without or, in the worst case, from within. I wish for positivity that would help reinforce the feeling that when someone goes "you're bad and cringe!" at me, I can once again go "man, who cares? I'm not making you look at my stuff, your eyeballs are the ones doing that."

Anything else and I'm just constructing elaborate rituals around being sincere, which is exactly how I developed extremely debilitating OCD once upon a time.

Comments

[contrarianarchon]

Oh relatable. Real easy to turn affirmations or self-corrections into crippling rituals that just make the problem worse. No solution but so much sympathy.

[yvannairie]

Yeah it is fully wild how many of my issues are just my brain making up a rule and then going nuts if I ever break it. OCD is fucking comical.

[hellofriendsiminthedark]

Very true. Whether what I do or not is cringe is incidental; I'm just trying to live my life. Other people constantly trying to make a statement about what I do by filing it into the Cringe or Not Cringe box actually impedes the process of me existing as I am.

[yvannairie]

It is so frustrating because on the other hand I get that other people are more social than I am and find some comfort in building these... communal identities based on how they're perceived by others but I DO NOT!! I DO NOT WANT TO DO THAT!! Please leave me to be whatever it is you think that I am in peace, thank you!!

[numinousdread]

I also find "cringe positivity" unhelpful. It feels like ceding ground that anyone could find what I'm doing impressive or cool, and defining myself by "excess" (can be fun in some cases, but not what I want all the time).

Your "cringe is external" reframe seems useful.

[yvannairie]

Yeah, like, I'm just sensitive to shame. I am sensitive to social policing. Cringe isn't about anything I feel, cringe is a reactionary feeling and that I feel that I am cringe is a sign that my thinking has been influenced from the outside. I'm just not the kind of person who does things that I don't actively enjoy, and the reminder that some people actively don't enjoy the thing I do is just... Like, IDK, I've been asked to yield so much in my life, my hobbies are the one place where I will not do that. I would rather be a screeching fanboy stereotype than try to minimise myself down to avoid external judgement. I don't pass already, I am already visibly disabled, so why would I do it to myself more, y'know?