Three things that I suffer from

[garran]

...and that I find useful to call to mind enough that they've at some point acquired names. (All of the names have 'syndrome' in them, which may or may not be technically accurate.)

1. Oki Syndrome: After Hiranabe Oki, my character for the Waitility project, because she suffers from this to a rather more pronounced degree than I do, and so it's sometimes easier to examine it through her. Oki Syndrome is the incorrect but sneakily convincing idea that one doesn't quite exist, in terms of having an impact on others; that you're the reader, not the protagonist; that you can observe without making a difference. It makes it startling and unintuitive to be looked directly at, and difficult to sensibly imagine taking part in a realtionship, even if it can clearly be observed that that happens.

(Tam Lin describes a difficulty of novel readers, which isn't this, but is sort of related: the desire to see how a situation will play out if one doesn't affect its course. Actually, this can be seen as a facet of the Oki thing, since that's sort of implied in the assumption that it's possible.)

2. Virtue Syndrome: After the Ani DiFranco song of that title. Virtue Syndrome is the way that I'm anxious always to be, and to appear, okay; that "I want to have good news to report, every time I come up for air", which makes it difficult, often, to discuss the ways in which I'm insecure or having trouble, because shouldn't I always be getting better? Why is that still there?

3. Paks Syndrome: After the title character of Elizabeth Moon's Deed of Paksenarrion, because it's pointed out to her that she has trouble with this, and that's what I draw from to recognize it in myself. Paks Syndrome is the tendency to assume that, because a person is one's friend, and usually treats one well, that person is generally good and decent.

Comments

[damionrequiem.livejournal.com]

I think it's contagious. Contagious enough to afflict you through the Internet.

In fact, I believe this particular malady is so malevolently contagious that, once you are infected, the bacteria build a time machine out of your appendix and go back to the day of your birth to retroactively infect you for the entirety of your life...

...

That, or it's just really damn common amongst people who read a great deal.

[verselogic.net (from livejournal.com)]

Not-oddly, I feel best about myself (high self-esteem) when I'm Producing rather than Consuming. Or being read rather than reading.

[synchcola.livejournal.com]

Hehe, does it inspire sympathy for the poor reader who does not write at all? Or is there such a person, I wonder?