I see examples of the above in many gay men. They all have a version of ‘not being quite right’. Here is another quotation from Wendy Brown who puts it better:
However of importance here is not only the ‘easily offended’ nature of this personality formation but also the way in which being offended stands for being punished–the ‘offence’ activates ‘the imagined situation of being beaten by[the loved object]’ and thus provide reassurance that the illicit and problematic object of desire is present.
In short, reliving a certain punishing recognition reassures us not only of our own place (identity) but also of the presence of the order out of which that identity was forged and to which we remain perversely beholden. (Brown 2001:59)
Psychoanalysis is about the individual’s capacity to improvise. Identity formation is based on a need to keep the place of the liberal social world as a love object: even if the so-called ‘liberal social world’ has fallen from grace, its love is still desired despite the pain it produces. The patients that I am talking about want this relationship, want their attachment to the liberal state, which they want to love them and look after them and they believe in this relationship as an ideal. In order to keep this fantasy alive, one has to experience the punishing state as a loving state at the same time. ‘When I am being punished, I am also being loved.’ The patient to whom I have referred is always in a place of being punished either by himself, by his mother, by the work place or by his friends.