Today I was thinking of my relationship between my AAP/"him" and my actual kink/fetish (well it's technically a kink but I don't like the BDSM associations of the word kink and fetish is close enough so I will be using the term fetish from now on.)
But basically, it's like the Lacanian psychoanalytic concept of
jouissance. It's hard to define exactly especially since I never took a single psychology class in my life, but it's related to 'enjoyment that feels so good that it transcends enjoyment and becomes painful.' I rarely achieve this state by simply thinking about my fetish, but when I do, it's exactly like that. It feels so good yet it hurts so bad, I love it especially because it's my only way of accessing the feeling of true intimacy without "him" - everything else is filtered through the lens of "I'm not a boy/man, so I cannot have anything else."
The jouissance is my closest approximation to love because everything else is locked behind "him." I essentially created both "him" and my fetish because
real intimacy is terrifying on some strange level I cannot let myself access or truly understand. It's why I often characterize my female ego as a shell with nothing worthwhile to say while "he" is a brilliant boy/man full of life - "he" carries everything I find worthwhile to have.
I definitely remember the encoding and activation of my fetish but the encoding of "him" gets a little murky. It might have been my mother comparing me to my male cousin a lot when I was little, especially when I was very upset - as in the whole "Why can't you be more like him?" drivel. I guess it makes sense on some level, but it doesn't explain why I locked all of my emotions behind "him" and cannot truly feel anything but anxiety and the jouissance to my fetish. At least I don't think that explains it.
I hope some day I will be able to heal from these schemas/pitfalls/ykwim. I think I've developed a lot of self awareness than how I first starting off of as "Uhh I guess I wanna be a man so I can have a stronger libido." I think externalizing my thoughts helps a lot because I am a strong extroverted type in a Jungian sense. I'm curious what people here think.