Existential Kink: Unmask Your Shadow and Embrace Your Power (A method for getting what you want by getting off on what you don't)

by Carolyn Elliott

Here's example “operating instructions” to get you started: I will guilt myself for at least three hours if I offend or disappoint anyone for any reason. Feeling supported and safe is utterly forbidden, no matter what. I must always find flaws with the people stupid enough to love me. I am totally, 100% committed to doubting my own value and worth. If I fail to meet any of my responsibilities, I will hate myself intensely. I am utterly not allowed to feel total self-forgiveness. Feeling a little bit of self-forgiveness is okay, but feeling total self-forgiveness is not allowed, ever. The more I reject my own work and being, the more I can get approval from authority figures. I completely agree that my value is fully dependent upon other people's perception of me. I decide to relentlessly shame and repress my aggressive and sexual feelings towards others so that I can only experience them as free-floating anxiety or depression. I am 1000% committed to insulting myself whenever I fail at anything. My deepest value is to feel bad about myself and to help my loved ones feel bad about themselves by relentlessly pointing out the ways they let me down.