Duncan Wingfield Week 21

 A problem I struggle with a lot and need to work on is my bizarre obsession with the idea of normalcy. At some point I got this idea in my head about what a normal person is like, and since I didn't match that I let it completely destroy my self esteem. Despite me knowing that this image of a normal person was completely arbitrary and even not wanting to fit my own standards of normal it still greatly effected my self esteem poorly for whatever reason. I eventually developed this mindset that I've dubbed the "lame matrix phenomenon" where I felt so alienated from everyone else that it almost felt like I was trapped in some sort of simulated reality where I was the only real person and everyone else was a construct created by whoever had imprisoned me, but my captors were not very good at creating these constructs so I could tell something was wrong because of how different I felt from them (please note I didn't actually beleive that it's just the analogy I used and I think it's funny). I eventually was able to recognize a cycle of how my fears and stuff about my social shortcomings were also the cause of said shortcomings and I have begun to break myself out of that loop. I still have a way to go but I am much happier with myself as a person.