A Door Slammed Too Loudly

When a feeling is inadmissible, the psyche can express it as its opposite: tenderness as roughness, interest as contempt. This is reaction formation. The word “freak”, spat out a touch too fast and a touch too loud, is not a description of Simon — it is a door Jacob slams on something inside himself.

Priscilla reads it unerringly because she watches the form, not the content: excess is the giveaway. Where a person truly does not care, there is no pressure. Wherever it is too loud, too fast, too often — the opposite is hiding behind it.