Stop baiting me to soothe youLiana Kerzner on September 29, 2024 at 5:16 PM Mountain
See…
I still haven’t offered a full final analysis of this exchange.
But, as I’m re-anchoring it, I came across this one, as I have done several times.
I’ve written elsewhere, mostly on my prior social media accounts, that other people that I’m not comfortable with offering me comfort does nothing for me.
Much like how people, even close friends, telling me I’m a “good person,” when I know they don’t share my moral perspective doesn’t mean any more to me than when they say I’m a “bad person,” which is to say, none at all. I appreciate the sentiment, sure, when it’s positive, but that’s it.
At some fucking point, these words will have to be considered at face value, I swear to fucking Lucifur…
Strangers hugging me is really, just, nothing to me. I appreciate their care a great deal, but some rando nurse hugging me, or holding my hand, or telling me I’m a good perso… oh wait, sorry, slipped into Lianaganda territory there for a second.
It doesn’t initiate some feel_better subroutine within me because oh my gosh this random human approves of me and my suffering and wants to comfort me…
I don’t really feel all that better over it.
See, when Dr. Nagel told me “To trust [him,] you’ll be out of here in a week,” *that* meant something to me because I’d already seen him in two other hospitalizations I believe, and he had expressed such interest and care over my situation with specific details and language that indicated a great insight into what I was going through.
Thus, when he said that, it counted.
I had been crying, and I stopped crying, and I felt better.
But, the thing is… I don’t look for that. I don’t try to guilt other people into doing that for me because, if they do, then, what’s it actually worth to me? If they feel/think they have to do it, what do I actually care then?
I don’t.
I really don’t. If somebody does something for me out of guilt… I actually hate that.
I really do. I hate it. So why would I ask for it?
And if they do it thinking that’s what I want, but not really what they mean, then, likewise, it’s worth NOTHING to me… which is why I don’t tell people what to say to me, frankly, even when they ask.
So, even if I may seem like I’m trying to get someone to do that, I’m really not. When I ask a question like, “You don’t want to know that?” …
I’m dead serious.
You’re not “allowed” to say no by me, or anyone else. You just say no if you mean it and then I can stop bringing it the fuck up.
That’s why I fucking asked Liana that, not to embarrass they’re frankly tepid intellect into “soothing” me, and… again…
That’s the thing.
I actually *LOATHE* people I don’t *want* to soothe me trying to soothe me.
I don’t normally tell people this, so that they’re not encouraged to do it, but, there it is, it’s out in the open now.
Thanks Liana.
And yeah, “Thanks Liana,” because all their interpretations of my every word cause me to have to clarify this to everyone who keeps listening to this individual for some. ungodly. horrible. pathetic. reason. Someone who very clearly lives in a fantastical land where everyone *deeeep* down *really* agrees with her about everything.
NO WE DON’T!
When the “found family den-mother” starts mothering me or trying to comfort me and telling me I belong?
Yeah, I fucking loathe that shit.
That’s why I’ll say, rudely even, “I got a mother.” Because I do, and that’s who I’d like to “soothe me.”
Fuck, I don’t even go through life thinking about “soothing” at all, because I’m a fully grown adult male and that shit doesn’t even occur to me like it might a crying baby who needs their bottom powdered. Just ask Liana.
The idea of trying to look for reassurance, comfort, or “soothing” *blech* outside of my extremely close friends, like my mother or my husband, never occurs to me in daily life.
I did NOT want Liana to engage in some performative bullshit “soothing” ritual to placate me. I hate social rituals on their own anyway. Anybody up for a discussion on the necessity of male rites-of-passage? Just as Liana about that one too!
I was just asking a simple as fuck question because, hear me out, every time I started bringing up a response TO WHAT THEY THEMSELVES WROTE, which, unsurprisingly, consisted of my thoughts, Liana appeared to have a very negative reaction.
So I asked Liana, “You don’t want to know that?”
The answer, my friends, was NO.
But Liana didn’t have the SPINE to just say that and turned my question into an aggressive weapon of expectation.
Liana gets on camera, every week, and talks a big game about real talk, giving it to ya straight, confronting the bullies, and calling out bullshit, which, of course, makes her safe for those bullied… right?
And one little clarifying question of, “You don’t want to know that?” is so passive-aggressive it sends Liana into a trauma response that requires shitting all over my memories of my dead father when, in the end, it wasn’t even meant as passive-aggressive, it’s just that Liana is so afraid of being seen as a “bad person” they actually believe the only possible answer to that is an enthusiastic YES! like it’s an inescapable fact of life, when,
No, I really really really could’ve just used the actual answer:
NO.
And Liana is baffled why people are picking the alleged bear, and finally chalks it up to, well, they must be “terrible people” too because THEY CAN NEVER EVER BE THE PROBLEM.
And that’s because Liana, for all her big male-coded bravado is full of shit and shouldn’t be a peer counselor.
Here… let me lay it out…
Later in the conversation,
Liana Kerzner: Asher… are we clear on the boundary I have set? Please. It's important I am sure that you understand that — 9:54 PMSeptember 30, 2024
Asher Wolfstein: Yeah. Do you want me to tell Pablo about that boundary too so he’ll stop doing whatever he’s doing that’s instigated this? — edited 9:56 PM ✓✓
Liana Kerzner: Yes please — 9:56 PM
Asher Wolfstein: I have a boundary too. I’m not coming to you for therapy, just friendship. Please don’t act like my therapist. — 9:57 PM ✓✓
Liana Kerzner: I'm not intending to. That's fine. I accept that. ...
Earlier in the conversation,
Asher Wolfstein: I can see why it could seem that way, and I respect that. From my perspective, it is not accurate. I care a great deal about you, as I've also said, which is why I'm here. — 5:00 PM ✓✓September 29, 2024
Liana Kerzner: I don't CARE if it's accurate at the moment. This is an empathy exercise. If you don't want people to think that, stop doing it, because that's the reality of disappearing for that long — 5:01 PM
Liana Kerzner: It was NOT such a big deal that it was worth that — 5:01 PM
Liana Kerzner: You blew it up WAY out of proportion — 5:01 PM1
Asher Wolfstein: If I said that to you right now, how would you feel? — 5:02 PM ✓✓
Liana Kerzner: Oh you clearly have NO idea of the shit Pablo has said to me in this whole thing — 5:03 PM
...
Liana Kerzner: Yeah he transfers information pretty selectively and I've had words with him about that. I told him to stop trying to fix it 4 times — 5:04 PM
“… This is an empathy exercise…” sure as hell sounds an awful lot like pseudo-therapy to me, as if I’m the disgruntled client (rather than what I actually was, a frie- sorry, business associate) and Liana’s the wise teacher that’s gonna set me straight, almost like a found-family den-mother..
*ahem*
Here’s a “sneak peak” of my analysis. You can consider this the teaser trailer.
Oh, “did you notice” that Liana failed their own test?
Zena & Poppy - ... … You are splitting. Stop. (Sep 9, 2024)September 9, 2024
Asher Wolfstein: The part that pissed me off so much that I had literally had to go to another room (never happened before) is the fact that she's a therapist and decided to announce that I'm splitting and to tell me to stop. — 4:32 PM
Asher Wolfstein: The most offensive thing is that she's a therapist and in my opinion clearly trying to use my mental health diagnosis to deligitimize me. It leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. I understand if I did the same to her (leave a very bad taste, not deligitimize). — edited 4:36 PM ✓✓
...
Liana Kerzner: Asher, these trolls claim I'm a bad person. So you saying they're right because you had one fight where you both came in hot isn't something I'm going to respond well to. If those trolls are right, they're right about me too. You're entitled to your opinion but I have feelings and that comment hurt — 9:28 PM
Asher Wolfstein: Okay — 9:29 PM ✓✓
Liana Kerzner: Because those trolls quoted Schooley about me. So you saying they're right hit really hard. — 9:30 PM
Liana Kerzner: This will be hard to hear, but when you said that? That sure looked like a split to me.
Let’s step through like a proper debugger.
Liana Kerzner takes a message I had deleted from the chat, “The trolls were right,” and makes it about themselves out of the fucking blue.
I don’t object to Liana responding to the deleted message, which was made in a blinding fit of anger right before I isolated myself, laid down, and did nothing for a couple hours, as per my radio interview.
What I object to, since I need to make it crystal clear, is that Liana took a comment about Poppy and made it about themselves.
And I shouldn’t have deemed it worthy to overlook, but I did.
And trust me, I noticed.
I notice everything in things like this. Every word.
See, I said, in context, that the “trolls were right” about Poppy. I did not say, in context, that the “trolls were right” about Liana Kerzner. And Liana understands this, because, if they don’t, Liana truly is illiterate, and I’m not just making fun of them as they’ve complained.
If *I* may speculate on Liana’s entire psychological profile for a brief moment, as Liana has done for hours and hours about mine, the reason Liana does this is to immediately set themselves up as aggrieved, so that they become the most important person in the dialogue.
It places me at a disadvantage of having to defend against a slight, with the expectation that perhaps I should feel guilty for said slight.
Thing is, I wasn’t going to defend it, and I did not feel guilty, because I never made the slight in the first place.
I keep track of stuff like this in situations like this like I’m a dragon defending my hoard.
It was about Poppy, not Liana. And that’s how it would’ve gone after I told Liana that I didn’t think the trolls were right, which is why I deleted the message.
All I say is, “Okay.”
And I said that because I was stunned, and a bit confused over why Liana would make that comment about themselves, and so, before I started popping off, I wanted to see where this was going to go.
And it went somewhere I hadn’t anticipated.
A licensed therapist announces to the world, very publicly, that I’m experiencing symptoms I’m not experiencing. After 42 years of dealing with my personality disorder, I can tell you when I’ve split and when I haven’t. And if for some reason I can’t, my husband Maus can, because he’s been with me pretty much 24/7 for 21 years.
Liana Kerzner, someone who’s only background in mental health, allegedly, is being a high-school peer counselor, reaffirms a mini-diagnosis of a symptom I wasn’t experiencing.
My closest friend at that point, having been run through the ringer of Kiwi Farms, mind you, something only Poppy can suffer from apparently, is “siding” with someone who made it a point to diagnose me in front of everyone after a fight as experiencing one of the most profound symptoms of my personality disorder for the purposes of explaining why I was being so antagonistic towards her because… well, you see Liana today and everything that’s happened, you tell me.
At this point, as I’ve written over and over, I split on Liana Kerzner due to what I percieved as an existential betrayal.
Since I wasn’t experiencing those symptoms, then, it becomes quite clear to me, in the face of glaringly obvious mental health stigmatization that Liana Kerzner, my closest friend at that time (regardless of how they felt about it), was about to also delegitimize me by insisting I was *actually* *really* splitting the whole time, no matter what I said about it.
Why would I think that? Why would I assume that? Why would I see this as the most possible future?
At this point, if you’re seriously asking this of me, you haven’t been paying attention. And neither did Liana.
It’s like… I don’t know… it’s like, having lived with this disorder for 43 years… *sigh* I think I might have… maybe… some experience with this? Jsut a thought? Maybe? Possibly? … Fuck you.
You see, Liana watched me fight with strangers, mostly bigoted trolls, on Twitter. And in those exchanges I had a knack for remembering and putting together every point, every sentence, even every word someone said, like I had recorded it.
And that’s because I did!
Not only on my computer, but also in my mind.
See, I keep telling people this, but, whatever… I remember every single fucking thing you say to me when we’re in a fight. Every single thing for the most part. I’ll remember every single point you make in the ENTIRE exchange DURING the exchange, and for many of them, probably for days afterwards.
AND
Unles you really stump me, I have something to say about each point, often a rebuttal, but not always, IMMEDIATELY after you make it. If you don’t believe me, you can ask anyone who has ever fought with me both on a friendly basis and on a not-so-friendly basis.
It’s scary quick.
I live for this shit.
I have come to realize my brain is built specifically for this shit.
Liana didn’t keep track of this, and, to me, specifically, clearly thought that somehow that would all go out the window if I was angry enough.
No, see, I get even better at it when I’m angry.
And so, when I saw Liana, essentially, diagnosing me like Poppy, when they’re greatest claim to psychological credentials is peer-counseling at-risk youth as a high schooler, I knew the end was most likely nigh.
And it was.
Later, Liana brings up an empathy test, because they’re totally not intending to act like my therapist.
Well, Liana is now learning that intentions are important, but they aren’t actually the only thing that matters.
I mean, they’re allegedly a deontologist, according to their Mary Sue TV tropes page, so, rules matter more than intentions, or are they an intentionalist? Or a consequentialist? Does Liana even know? Do they even want to know?
What matters is that, to me, the other person in the conversation that always seems to be forgotten, that exercise sounds exactly like the group therapy I’ve been in. Exactly.
So, to me, the other person in the conversation, it’s acting like my therapist.
And after Liana FAILED their own empathy test?
Yeah.
Failed.
Liana failed so bad they fucking exploded.
So, what I just outlined above,
That’s not “big enough of a deal” to vacate the Internet for about 3 weeks.
But, Maus trying to reassure Liana that I’d be back, and that, Liana’s own words that they published themselves, he said he “would leave me at my mother’s if I didn’t have a good apology” was apparently worth so much more that the following would be an insult to her:
“It was NOT such a big deal that it was worth that. You blew it up WAY out of proportion.”
And am I downplaying Maus’ reaction? No, not really, not according to Liana:
Liana Kerzner: Yeah he transfers information pretty selectively and I've had words with him about that. I told him to stop trying to fix it 4 times — 5:04 PMSeptember 29, 2024 at 5:04 PM, immediately after Liana balked at her own words: “It was NOT such a big deal that it was worth that. You blew it up WAY out of proportion.”
Oh yeah, that sounds, just, horrible to have to endure.
Maus trying to fix it apparently was such an insult to her that it outweighed the fact my closest friend at that time was apparently hellbent on delegitimizing me because a licensed therapist who never met me either said so.
It’s. All. Asymmetrical.
It’s ALWAYS asymmetrical.
But, here’s an interesting part as well, a little bonus content:
The first exchange highlighted is also pretty wild.
Liana Kerzner: Asher… are we clear on the boundary I have set? Please. It's important I am sure that you understand that — 9:54 PMSeptember 30, 2024 (Reprise)
Asher Wolfstein: Yeah. Do you want me to tell Pablo about that boundary too so he’ll stop doing whatever he’s doing that’s instigated this? — edited 9:56 PM ✓✓
Liana Kerzner: Yes please — 9:56 PM
Asher Wolfstein: I have a boundary too. I’m not coming to you for therapy, just friendship. Please don’t act like my therapist. — 9:57 PM ✓✓
Liana Kerzner: I'm not intending to. That's fine. I accept that. ...
I’ll just say this for now:
- Liana “sets a boundary” where, clearly, the expectation was that Maus would stop doing something entirely, despite boundaries not being about controlling other people.
- Liana “not intending to [act as my therapist]” comes across, to me, the other person in the conversation, with the added expectation that somehow that trumps everything that actually happened.
- Liana feels the need to explicitly “accept” my boundary…
Yeah, no, bitch.
That’s not how that works.
You don’t “accept” my boundary. I state my boundary, and if you cross it, *I* fuck off.
That’s how it works.
The idea, even the semblance, that Liana must “accept” my boundary gives credence to the “allowed to” and “not allowed to” rhetoric that’s so fucking disgusting I gag at the idea of it now.
Trauma, I guess.
That’s not how Liana operates though. So, it makes sense.
You can see their failures at holding their own boundary here:
Liana Kerzner: You just said "I'm not Pablo" and then he fights your battles for you. THAT is why I need things on the record. I do NOT consent to any of this — 9:38 PMSeptember 30, 2024
There it is.
Liana continued on for another ~46 messages.
See… Liana hadn’t gotten me to say something “terrible” yet.
All of this is to push and pull,
All of this is to control people,
All of it.
Because Liana Kerzner, when anxious, *needs* absolute control.
I, in all of this utter chaos, clearly do not. I also do NOT need to be told I’m a “good person.”
LIKE, GAG ME WITH A FUCKING SPOON
…
“I do NOT consent to any of this”
Then stop talking bitch.
Problem solved!
Not for you! Bye bye!
- Just like how I “oversold” my childhood sexual trauma that they keep getting inaccurate? How do I “oversell” something that isn’t even true? How does ANYONE decide that FOR someone? THAT?
Oh, is that also like how Song oversold her abuse? Or how Moises oversold his abuse? Or…
“See the pattern there?” ↩︎