Session — 2026-08-25

Arrival

• User did not complete formal arrival check; jumped straight to sharing therapeutic context document

• Context shared: ARFID_Therapeutic_Context.docx (childhood ARFID, masking, identity, social anxiety)

Material Shared

• Childhood ARFID: sensory-based, not fear-based; accompanied by diastema (gap teeth) and unusual hobbies

• Three independent lines of evidence convinced patient he was fundamentally different from other children

• ARFID resolved in teens; cosmetic dentistry fixed the gap in adulthood

• Core insight: “The cause is fixed; the operating system is not.”

• Current symptoms: hypervigilance, social anxiety, anticipatory/autonomic anxiety, projection of self-judgment onto others

• Thought pattern: “they’re going to think negatively of you” — used to flash with every interaction

• Therapeutic framing established: work is generative (building self for first time on safe ground), not restorative

• Mask = loyal protector to be thanked and retired, not false self to be destroyed

• Grief is specific: mourning a childhood of never being “just a kid” — always kid-who-managed, kid-who-forecasted, kid-who-hid

Patterns Noted

• Intellectualization as a protective strategy (highly articulate self-analysis)

• Self-abandonment / masking in relationships

• Hypervigilance as projection of internal self-judgment

Open Questions

• What is the somatic/emotional experience underneath the projection? (shame, fear, exposure, older wound?)

• How does the “mask debt” manifest in current relationships?

• What does the grief actually feel like in the body when given space?

Experiments

• (none assigned yet)

Next Session Carry-Forward

• Return to the question: what’s the feeling underneath the projection?

• Explore “mask debt” in existing relationships

• Somatic check-in: where does the hypervigilance live in the body?