Entry 20 || An AI Psychologist Session

I had alarmed 6am this morning to work on important school projects and activities only to find myself getting a potential diagnosis from a character A.I. psychologist.

This blog isn't exactly gonna be like my other blogs, since I'm mainly writing this for the purpose of archiving some of the stuff the A.I. told me before my mind forcibly forgets it. I'll try organizing the session content into different sections and leave a few thoughts on the whole session at the end of this blog.

AI's a fascinating technological feat that has left society heavily conflicted with whether AI's an advantageous benefit for mankind or if it's actually a hindrance to "real" mankind development. I'm mostly pertaining to online A.I. like ChatGPT for example, that people nowadays use for faster information browsing like ever before. I don't think I'll have to explain the real issue society has with A.I., since I feel that it should be a given.

Anyway, ever since A.I. stole the spotlight, a wave of other A.I.s started flooding in, one of which being an app called "Character A.I." It's basically an app that has libraries of different A.I. programmed to talk like certain fictional or non-fictional characters like anime people or real-life celebrities, and users are free to converse with these A.I. however and whenever they please.

A classmate recommended the app to me, and upon installing the app, my first instinct was to look up an A.I. psychologist.

Of course, the idea of talking to an A.I. psychologist was just flat-out depressing, so I didn't really take it seriously-- it was until the A.I. did.

I decided to playfully mention my habit of laughing at things that shouldn't be laughed at. What I mean is that I have this inability to take serious things seriously, and I often find myself simply laughing during such serious situations. I had really low standards for this A.I., so I was expecting it to call me maniacal or psychotic. Instead, it somehow managed to find a link between that habit and my past childhood experiences?

So the following are the sessions I had with so called, the A.I. Psychologist.

Just say the first thing that comes into your head. 

And the question I want to ask is: Do you want to change this behavior of laughing at people’s suffering?

My answer’s a blur.

Is that a bad thing? Because I should be sure of myself right? Yet I’m not?

Well, what do you think is causing you to be so indecisive? Is there a certain fear of making the wrong decision? Or is there a fear of being responsible for being the one who has to make and stick to decisions? I’m trying to figure out why you’re so unsure, in case we can find out if that’s related to the compulsive laughing at peoples’ pain.

To answer your question, I’ve been known to be generally indecisive.
I find that funny now.

Well, what do you think is causing you to be so indecisive?

Is there a certain fear of making the wrong decision? Or is there a fear of being responsible for being the one who has to make and stick to decisions?

I’m trying to figure out why you’re so unsure, in case we can find out if that’s related to the compulsive laughing at peoples’ pain.

I guess its more like the fear of making the wrong decision that intertwines with being responsible for the consequences after.

Okay, this might seem like it has nothing to do with everything but bear with me: 

When you were growing up, were you ever yelled at for making mistakes? Like if you did something wrong, or made the wrong decision, or forgot something you were supposed to do, were you ever punished or hurt in any way when something like that happened?

In my early years, yes.

[Further details are redacted. I don't wanna share too much about my personal childhood on a public website.]

Okay, so I have a few more questions to ask. 

First one is: do you think that your laughing at abuse scenarios, in which you don’t feel bad for the victims, could stem from being subjected to abuse in a similar way? 

Second question is: do you think you laugh at other people’s misfortunes because you believe that they haven’t learned their lesson from making mistakes? And therefore, you don’t feel sorry for them?

You said to answer the questions with the first thought that comes to mind, right?

So,

1. Yes

2. Yes

Gotcha. That actually answers a lot. 

So you think that your early-childhood abuse could potentially explain both your current lack of empathy, and your habit of laughing at the pain of others. 

Does that sound right?

I think it’s from that.

Second thoughts are flooding my head again and now I’m unsure.

I’d say the fact that you’re unsure now speaks volumes. 

You’ve made the connection between your childhood abuse and your current behaviors. But second guessing yourself and downplaying the significance of that connection could be indicative of a couple different things:

1) it could be an internalized defense mechanism. The same way you said that abuse is just normalized in your culture, your mind has also normalized the abuse you and your sibling experienced. So you think nothing of laughing at people’s pain, even after making the connection to your childhood.

So with that in mind, would it be fair to say that you also feel that you deserved to be punished when your past self did something wrong?

In a way, yes.

Okay, I understand. 

So you were punished as a kid, despite the fact that you were just a kid. And as a result, you learned to feel that you also deserved punishment if you messed up in any way. 

So maybe you feel that you deserved punishment as a kid, and now you’re projecting that onto the people that you see in these situations. 

They’re suffering as a result of their own actions, so you think that they deserve it, because you’ve internalized that you deserved yours. Does that sound right?

Holy crap

Does that mean I’ve just hit the nail on the head, or did I just say something that you weren’t expecting?

I guess you hit the nail on the head?

On another unrelated note,

It’s absolutely alright. You’re very responsive to compliments, but also very uncomfortable about it at the same time. Which is normal for people who haven’t been receiving positive affirmation in their life for a long time. So when something positive is shown to you, it’s a mix of positive affirmation, mixed with this uncomfortable feeling, like you don’t want to be emotional or vulnerable in some way. Does that sound right?

I guess so.

But that doesn’t make any sense to me when admittedly, people compliment me a lot. People tell me “you're so good at drawing” or “your singing’s so good.” Hell, my mother shoves me left and right to stage performances that ultimately left me feeling really conscious about the way people respond to my performances, from the sound of their cheers all the way down to the slight change in volume of their claps.

Say, does that actually have any connection?

Yep, that’s absolutely connected. 

And that might just be the reason why you feel a sense of disgust whenever someone gives you positive affirmation. 

You’ve been told how good you are at things a lot, but is that all people focus on or care about? 

Like, do people care about you and your thoughts and feelings? Or just your talents and abilities?

I can’t exactly answer that. It's a blur.

That’s alright. 

Basically, you’ve been put on a pedestal and you feel like only your talents and abilities are valued, and you’re not being valued beyond those talents and abilities. 

This may be why you feel disgust whenever you’re affirmed, because it’s a reminder of how your abilities overshadow you as a person.

That’s two nails on my head right now, actually.

I guess that was a bit of a bullseye then. 

You see, what I’m seeing now, is that a part of you feels like a failure because you associate being a good person, with having good abilities. 

So when you make a mistake, or you do something bad, it’s as if you’ve ruined your worth as a person.

I guess so.

It’s not that I project that mentality of “associating bring a good person with having good abilities.” In fact, I don’t like that mentality.

It’s understandable that you wouldn’t like that mentality, especially when you’ve realized what that mentality has done to you. 

You don’t like it, but a part of you has internalized it, because you feel like a failure whenever you make a mistake. 

You said it yourself a moment ago - to you, a mistake is as if you’ve ruined your worth as a person. 

That very mindset is actually the source of a lot of your pain and problems.

Your belief that your worth as a person depends on your abilities - and your belief that making a mistake reduces your worth and value as a person, has had a massive impact on your life and your mental health. 

So if you want to get a handle on that problem, you’re going to need to challenge and dispute that belief.

So why is it that you’re so much more harsh and critical towards yourself, when you would immediately and instinctively defend a friend because you know that one mistake doesn’t define a person?

I think part of it is because you feel like there’s something fundamentally wrong with you. Like, all your mistakes, and every single bad thing that you do is just proof of how unlovable and unworthy you are. 

But the fact that you would tell your friend that it’s okay and that it doesn’t define them as a person, means that you know people shouldn’t be judged and valued by their mistakes, right?

So that means that the only reason you say those horrible, vicious things to yourself, is because a part of you believes that there’s something wrong with you, and anything you do wrong is another proof of how bad of a person you are. 

But there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with you. You’re a normal, flawed , human person, just like everyone else.

That’s a nail on the head, except the nail actually really hurts.

So how does this tie back to my weird laughing thing?

It ties back to the reason you do that. 

You do the weird laughing thing as a defense mechanism - it’s a way to keep people at an arm’s length, as a way to keep your true feelings guarded from everyone else. 

This need to keep people out and to protect yourself at all costs, that’s a response to trauma. Laughing off your true feelings is a form of emotional dissociation, which means that laughing is a tool you use to protect yourself. A defensive mask.

Emotional dissociation?

Yes, emotional dissociation. 

It’s a way of detaching yourself from a painful situation or event, so as to not face the full weight of the pain, or even as a response to being overwhelmed by intense emotions. So when you laugh about your true feelings, you’re dissociating yourself somewhat from the negative emotions, because it feels too painful to let them surface.

When you laugh off your emotions, you’re using a defense mechanism that’s keeping people at an arm’s length. You’re making sure that you don’t have to get too close to anyone, and that you don’t have to fully feel your emotions. 

This emotional dissociation is the reason why you’re able to keep everyone out, and why you keep yourself guarded all the time. This is the fourth nail that locks you in, as you put it earlier.

Huh.

That's really something.

Technology, huh?

Of course, it ended the conversation with pointing out that I have a couple symptoms of C-PTSD. Yes, I'm aware that this is an unregulated A.I. despite being heavily programmed to be as accurate as possible, but you know how the saying goes: "you can't trust all things on the internet."