Holy Crap, I Think I Might Have Mental Health.

Yesterday, I had a really irksome consult with a potential therapist. A few weeks ago, I crowd-sourced for depression advice and a facebook friend recommended a lady in the area who’s supposedly progressive.

It’s hard to compress 38 years into a 10 minute phone call, especially since it’s been such a complicated year. First, the lady said I couldn’t be depressed if I was having a good day—fair enough. Then she remarked that I sounded much younger than my age—maybe she thought I was pranking her? But who pranks by appointment? She was bothered by the fact that I sounded too cheerful: “You’re telling me these terrible things, but there’s laugher in your voice.” Jeez, I told you, I was having a good day and plus, what was I supposed to do, break down and cry about it to a stranger recommended by a facebook friend? Plus, in such a short conversation, I didn’t see there being time for histrionics.

Anyway, I wish this lady had just said “I don’t like you.” and left it at that, but she had to get a judgment in.  She said “I just don’t think I would be a good fit. I’ve worked with gay and lesbian clients but I don’t really work with polyamory—I think you have to be EXTREMELY mentally healthy for that.” The poly friend who recommended this lady can be proud of her squeaky-clean psyche, I guess!

I thanked the therapist for being honest, wrote her a strongly worded email (I really am becoming Greenberg…) and argued with her in my head all evening. Sweetie, being Sweetie, thought the lady was so wrong that she shouldn’t even warrant a mention, but she accidentally got me to some fantastic conclusions. Sometimes therapy happens in spite of incompetence, I guess.

First of all, having gone through a bunch of stuff doesn’t mean I’m not mentally healthy. In the past year, I’ve worked my ass off getting certified to teach, got hired right after graduation, and navigated several new relationships and breakups without major aftermath. By writing through it, I processed a lot of junk from the past on my own. My job is a nightmare sometimes but I end most days feeling happy anyway. I may need to find a better school but I know teaching is what I was meant to do.

And what The Man did was shitty, but it came nowhere close to breaking me. Yes, I cried, I freaked, I had pointless arguments on FetLife, but I also fought to change something that wasn’t right and I’m proud of that. When the fight was over, I walked, slept, read, hugged Sweetie, and went back to yoga and church.

I think that’s what mental health looks like. As I write this, I get a warm feeling in my back and shoulders that tells me it’s true. What I took for depression is just a transition, just a fucked-up breakup and a hard job.

There's nothing in my past or present that makes me unqualified for love, however I want to express it. It’s probably okay if people who don’t know me want to think I’m nuts. Yes, I have a lot of work to do. I have to practice hearing myself think, adapting to and working with jealousy, and being kind to myself in the presence of man-smell. But those things won’t be accomplished by delving into the past or by taking myself away from people. They’ll be accomplished by getting closer.

As a new teacher, people want to give me lots and LOTS of ideas to try, but I don’t need a mountain of ideas of how other people think I should be. What I need is to stop drowning out the voice inside me that knows what to do and how to get where I need to go. So thanks, mean stranger therapist-lady, for helping me realize that I had what I needed all along.

Worries, Wishes, and Resolutions, Post-Heartbreak

Sweetie says it’s not always the same story, but the last year is really looking like a pattern to me—girl meets dom, dom breaks limits, girl panics and feels unplaywithable. It takes so much to rebuild myself after each breach of trust, and it’s very hard to live with the fact that these kinds of things are happening all the time, that he’s out there ready to dehumanize the next girl.

I don’t want to be using words like “dehumanizing.” I want to have fun. I want to be the brave naked girl with a well-spanked behind and ropes in various shades of Hello Kitty, but that girl seems really far away. So I’ll start with the worries:

--I am worried that there isn’t a dominant guy in the world who doesn’t secretly want me to just shut the fuck up. No matter how clear I’ve made it that messing with my voice is a hard limit, I always seem to end up with a hand across my throat, literally or metaphorically.

--I’m worried that I’ll never be able to tell the difference between red flags and just fears. Since I’m a fairly anxious person anyway, I tend to dismiss intuitions and deal-breakers until it’s too late. In the case of the last guy, so much of my psyche was like a horror movie audience hollering DON’T GO IN THERE but somehow I always end up in there. It would save me a lot of trouble if, as Sweetie suggests, my intuition could please speak in complete sentences.

--I’m worried that I’m just someone who can’t gain respect for some reason. I worry about this a lot in my classroom, as well, on the days when the first graders won’t simmer down long enough for me to finish a sentence.

--I worry that submission is just something that I try to exchange for love, but I don’t think so. After a good, connected scene, I feel clearheaded and centered, closer to my better self. It’s only when I play without connection that things go off the rails.

Now for the wishes:

--I wish for a man who’ll be happy to belong to me, no matter who else he belongs to, no matter who else is at the table. I would love to sit there and know that he loves me, even as he gazes lovingly at his wife. I want to feel cared for and secure enough to enjoy the love between him and his other partner(s). I don’t mean belonging to each other in a M/s sense, only in the Breakfast at Tiffany’s buy-some-furniture-and-give-the-cat-a-name sense. This is the hardest thing to believe in.

--I’m trying to figure out a non-hurtful way to say I wish for a guy with a regular-sized penis that works most of the time. But it’s not really about the size or hardness; it’s more about having the depth of character to handle mishaps and insecurity with aplomb. In my somewhat limited experience, there seems to be a connection between frustrations in that department and misogynist tendencies.

--Speaking of depth of character, I wish for a man who is as good and careful with knots as my wife is. Learning ropes takes discipline, practice, and patience, all things that I need to be looking for in a partner.

--I wish to be able to make mistakes, talk things through, ask for compromise. It keeps getting to a point where I’m afraid to ask questions, and by then it is certainly too late.

--I am not a unicorn, and I do not want to date or bottom to his wife, girlfriend, friend, other sub, or anybody else, unless I expressly say so. I wish for a man who can have healthy boundaries between relationships and who can even (Do I dare wish for this in modern times?) PUT THE FUCKING PHONE AWAY on date nights. (Except for check-ins and emergencies, of course.) It’s not that I don’t want to know his people; I just would like a chance to know him first.

--I wish for a man who can see me broken and sobbing, who can see me at my ugliest and still think I’m beautiful. I know this is a possible thing because my wife has been doing it since 2001.

And the resolutions:

--I will not ignore red flags. If something in me says “RUN!” I will run as if Matt Smith himself were telling me to.

--I will not do things I don’t like. Even if other people seem to like them. This seems obvious but I need to tell it to myself.

--I will not date men whose other partners have “Veto power.” I will gladly meet folks but I won’t be vetted. I want to be treated like a potential friend, not a potential employee.

--I will not date anyone who makes me feel secondary or tertiary. I have room in my heart for a real second partner, and I want a man who does as well. This doesn’t mean I would need equal time, but if I see him once a week, I want the time to mean something.

--I have friends with whom I will happily play casually, but when I am on a date and someone asks me what I am looking for, I will not give some wishy-washy answer about “Oh, well, I’m open to however things turn out…” I will say “I’m looking for someone at whose house I could eventually leave a toothbrush.” and if he seems toothbrush-averse, I’ll move on.

A Helpful Tweet

You know I heart sexperts, and Bo Blaze is becoming a favorite. The other day I posed this beginner-submissive question to him on the Twitter:

How do I know when I am being seen as a person, not just as a collection of fetishes?


And he wrote back:


"Tricky, cause yr Dom might C U differently than they let on. Look inside & assess the connection between U. Is it there?"


I like that answer because it made me realize that somewhere, deep down, I might actually know what I'm doing. I can see myself referring back to that tweet often. Thanks!