Southern Charmer Postscript

 

My oldest cat is sixteen and she's been sick. The first time I turned on the heater this fall, she abruptly left her perpetual spot next to me on the couch and fled for more hide-y places upstairs. She sleeps on the vent under the vanity or on a big suitcase I took out when I changed the clothes over for winter.

This plus the coming (impending) election was giving all of life a way-too-urgent feeling. It's a feeling I had all the time when I was younger and unmedicated and would contemplate the shortness of the lilac season. I knew they'd be gone soon and I worried I wasn't enjoying them enough while they were here.

The one thing that WASN'T making me feel that way was The Southern Charmer. After our lovely night together, he told me that, considering his recent breakup, he felt like he'd gone too fast into sex with me. I took that to mean that he wanted to slow down, not stop. We chatted every few days and I hoped we'd eventually make it back to smoochtown.

I was lying on the floor next to Oldest Cat's ersatz suitcase bed, holding her paw, when I decided to check in with SC. His update was that he had made a new friend, a platonic one, and they'd hung out a couple times lately.

I thought he'd been laying low because of his breakup grief, but here he was making a lovely new confidante. I started to cry, realizing he'd left me behind a few weeks ago without me realizing. People will say literally anything when they mean "We're not a match" and no matter how many times it happens or how many paragraphs I've paragraphed, I still miss getting it sometimes. It's a thing that makes me feel every one of the seventeen points of my Autism Spectrum Quotient. https://embrace-autism.com/autism-spectrum-quotient/

I asked him why he hadn't spent some of that time with me. He said again the thing about having gone too fast, how he couldn't handle the emotional intimacy right now. I didn't even know we were DOING emotional intimacy! A true first. I heard it now, a break-off, not a slowdown. 

Knotty Thursday: Bowtie Karada!

 

*Choir of angels noise*

Friends, I don't think I really felt spring last year! I mean, I enjoyed it! The spring flowers and the flowers all year long were extra lavish and brilliant--it probably had something to do with climate change, but it felt like nature was loving me back, helping my broken heart take care and more forward. 

But yesterday, oh my, I could feel spring in every cell--fizzy, present, set-free. I know it's March and it'll probably get chilly again, but welcome, welcome, welcome spring.

I could also be feeling so loose and hopeful because I recently cut my work hours down a bunch--after a couple-month flare -up of depression, I realized that I need more margins everywhere, that I need to take care of myself or there will be no more work at all! This is an epiphany that always seems to arrive in February, because winter, because overwork, because my beautiful and cumbersome tapestry of traumas.

I'm so glad to be remembering what life was like before twelve-hour days!!! Art projects, field trips big and small, the spark coming back to me, like every year I doubt it will.

So, back to Rory's Brainworks! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8RzP5vML1g

The back of this one is really pretty, hope I get to try the whole thing before long!! I'm proud that the knots are so careful and specific, and I didn't space and start noodling around like I usually do. I really didn't think this picture was blurry when I took it! Maybe happiness just makes me blurry?

Sex, Love, and The Shy One, Part Two

 

I think it was Lottie on last week’s Yellowjackets who said it’s hard to form memories when you’re in an ecstatic state. Not like anyone should be going to Lottie for advice, but the idea’s relatable. I can’t always access the sensations and emotions of my lost love, my first real grownup love with a man.

Some nights, close to sleep and looking for a little extra. peace, I say a little prayer inside my head: “Come back to me.” Now that I understand that he wasn’t the right one (one of the right ones) for me, I don’t think it’s entirely a prayer for his miraculous somehow-return. It’s like, let me reclaim the experience. Let me remember and care for the beautiful things that happened between us without the shame of rejection or the grief of loss, or at least alongside them.

Of course, sometimes “come back” is just “come back.” That’s love and heartbreak and I hate it and I love it.

The love part, I handled so badly. Not the part about loving him almost-instantly and thoroughly and eternally, that’s all fine and on-brand. But when the love word crept into his side of the text thread, I think in a GIF of a cartoon bear with a wheelbarrow of hearts saying “Goodnight, my love!” and then didn’t come up again for a while, I freaked.

The thing, the ELUSIVE THING was so close. It might have been there all along, in its own way. He said the love word to my body the first night, easy and unencumbered. But no matter which way he said it, sometimes I just couldn’t hear it. Then, later on, in the highest heights of sex, he would withhold it. But first—

I freaked. He and Mrs. Shy One had fallen in love with the lady who came right before me, and in my worst moments, I wondered why she was easy to love and I was so impossible to love. This comparing, this sense of inherent inferiority, might be one of the things that makes it harder to love me and of course, sometimes I choose the situations that will trigger it the worst.

It’s a lifelong struggle—the thought that I’m missing some secret thing that other women have, like my orientation package was missing a map or some other vital page. In the background of that fear are my millstone words, or I guess my family’s words, probably both/and at this point: Stupid. Empty. Worthless. Here by mistake.

When someone loves me I think: Get out now or I’ll be humiliated. I’m already humiliated. I’m ALWAYS humiliated. Wish it was in the fun way a little more often.

I didn’t tell him the millstone words situation directly, but I did ask: Why is it easier to love (previous girl) than me? What was I missing? Jealousy tumbled out everywhere and he did NOT have the space for it, which made the panic worse. The shame of it is hard to argue with, even as I try to treat myself more kindly.

So when he, a day or so after all the jealousy and tears, texted “I love you” all friendly and sweet, I was overjoyed of course. Peace filled up my heart and spread warmth through the rest of my body, as it did again when I wrote the first draft of this post.

But as things fell apart, I couldn’t stop wondering (and I still wonder) if I’d manipulated him into saying it, it he’d offered that phrase to calm me down and keep me happy-enough.

When I look back at what happened, when I (so rarely, I swear) revisit the vacation WhatsApp thread or read his second-to-last email or putter around the apartment in either of the two robes he gave me, (One silky, one fuzzy) or see his fancy Eid-gift teacup at the back of the dish cabinet, I have to admit that his love was real, and I know I didn’t take good care of it.

What I’m trying to do with these paragraphs is to keep what’s mine, to honor whatever things belong to me so I can truly let him go. It’s hard, it’s sad, but I’ll keep writing.

For the Museum of Bad Advice, Part One (Hang Up)

Sometimes, I’m lucky enough to have paid someone to say exactly what depression itself would say, so I could hang up on them both.

Toward the beginning of quarantine, constant family contact, fear about my job, and general everyone-might-die-ness was making me worry that I might lose any of the mental health ground I’ve gained in the past few years. Insurance was in flux as I filled out every disaster relief form, so I took some of the extra money my brother had sent (He felt lucky to be able to work full time from home.) and subscribed to BetterHelp.

The first therapist I tried seemed insufficiently invested in science, letting slip some Trumpesque complaints about CDC guidelines. The second one was better, but I think she was mixing me up with another of her clients. Suffering from Quarantine Brain myself, I felt compassion for her, but didn’t think she would help with my growing sense of nonexistence.

The third one, I liked. She seemed sensible, grown-up, and (I’ve seldom in my life found this appealing, but in-these-times etc.) like she knew what I should do next.  She recommended The Four Agreements, one of the worst, victim-blamiest self-help books I’ve encountered, (By the Book sums it up pretty well: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/stitcher/by-the-book/e/59267477#/) but I decided to overlook that red flag. She sent me a so-detailed-as-to-be-sleep-PREVENTING Sleep Hygiene Diary, but she also seemed fine when I disregarded some of her advice and took other aspects to heart.

Last Tuesday during an early morning phone session, still weepy and off-balance from saying bye-sort-of to Quarantine Crush, I was sharing my pretty boilerplate 45-year-old-single-bi-woman worries when I heard (not for the first time in my may therapist lifetime.)  third therapist lady become audibly annoyed:

“Well, you have this air of desperation,” she said, and that can be really off-putting. If you really do what you need to do to love yourself, they’ll be more attracted.”

A.    Desperation seems like a TOTALLY REASONABLE EMOTION TO HAVE when:

1.      Tens of thousands of people are dying.

2.      My work life is fairly decimated.

AND

3.      I was relearning how to write poems with a friend I missed so, SO much.

B.     What did attracting anybody even have to do with it when I had:

1.      Fallen for someone who was both taken and

2.      A dear, important friend and

3.      2,500 miles away?!

“I just think you need to adjust what you’re looking for.” She said.

(Connection? Poetry? A creative spark? A window into meaning from the past? Hope? Songs? I know what she meant but it seems like she was oversimplifying.)

“What am I looking for?” I asked, joining her in irritated-voiceness.

“Well, romance might seem really nice in books, but in real life, you might be too sensitive for it.”

(Note: The Highly Sensitive Person book suggests this too, but it also suggests that communities with a lot of immigrants have fewer sensitive people, so I put it in the garbage. Not even good enough for the recycle bin.)

I tried a little bit to tell her how many different kinds of relationships I’d tried, certainly more than the average person.

“It’s just that I’m mostly happy being alone,” I said, “So I’d rather not keep trying casual stuff and then getting mad at partners for being too casual.” (Basically the theme for years of this blog.)

It really irked my soul that she was reading me as a commitment-hungry stereotype when I was willing to love someone I’m unlikely to even see any time soon—seems like maybe it was the opposite problem. I’m still arguing with this lady I unsubscribed to a week ago.

She told me that AT MY AGE (caps mine, she wasn’t yelling) I needed to start changing my expectations.

“Men don’t want commitment after they’re divorced, so you’re probably going to have to go with it and be grateful for the couple of weeks you might get.”

“Well, that is really…grim. I’m hanging up now.” And I did.

I called Sweetie and cried out the hurt and shock that someone who was supposed to be on my side, and also someone who was basically a stranger, could be that cruel.

Big Therapy Project, Week Four: Mini-Update

Well, the kids' interim reports are due tomorrow, so I'll just say it's been like this: panic, rest, write, repeat. As long as I keep the dishes up to date, keep writing reams, and! Outdoor recess! I think I can get where I'm going.

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.

Triggers and My Voice: The Story of a Hard Limit

Note: If you’re someone who gets triggered by mentions of non-consensual sexual violence, you’ll want to skip this one.

Last week I talked a lot about being protective of my voice and being subject to panics. I’m unsure if these facts about myself disqualify me from experiencing BDSM in the ways I want to. I guess I thought there would be failsafes or at least compassion in case someone’s triggered, but that doesn’t seem to be the case so far. I’m trying to not judge the whole “lifestyle” based on one group of people.

A lot of things contributed to me being an anxious girl with shaky self-worth. I had both a happy childhood and a terribly abusive one. Both my mother and father were physically and verbally abusive to myself, my siblings, and each other. They often fought loudly about sex. One night, I’m pretty sure I heard my dad rape my mom. I got it to stop, in fact, by crying loudly. “Now you made (me) cry.” she said as the action simmered down in there.

But the biggest factor in me being protective of my voice was something that happened when I was seventeen. I’ve been telling the story in the same stupid way for twenty years: I was promiscuous in high school and it lead to an inevitable conclusion of rape and assault. That is a bullshit way to tell the story—it’s sad that I only realized recently that there was no cause-effect relationship. It was a terrible, evil crime, not a path I put myself on.

What happened was, my friend Sheri and I lied and said we were going to each others’ houses so that we could hang out with her boyfriend and his friend and get laid. That didn’t take very long, so after the guys were done with us, they dropped us off in the park three doors down from my house. We were considering sleeping in the park when a pickup truck full of hooting and hollering people we vaguely knew pulled up and asked if we wanted to go to a party and we said sure—I thought of how mortified my mom would be if she knew I was riding in the back of a pickup truck.

They either put something in my drink or I drank way too fast. I don’t remember drinking very much at all, but we were playing Quarters around the time that the guys started asking, “So which one of us are you gonna fuck?” I was woozy and tired and I didn’t want to fuck anyone, no matter how known for it I was. But I knew I didn’t really have a choice—I wasn’t in any condition to stop anybody, and this was kind of who I was now. So I chose Willie, the cutest guy at the party. He was a tall, skinny African American guy, cute but with kind of a dismissive face. I chose him partly because he was there with his girlfriend, I think her name was Lisa, a blond in acid-washed jeans. I thought he couldn’t do anything with her there, but he sent her home.

Willie took me to the party host’s bedroom and told me to get undressed. “All the way,” he said, and I did. He got on top of me and put it in, humped quickly and mechanically. I opened my mouth to cry out, not for help, but to moan so I’d be doing a good job. He put his hand over my mouth and I shut up. When he was done, he left the door open so that the whole party could see me scrambling around for my shirt.  

That’s when I started to get sick, just throwing up copious amounts everywhere, so, so much. I must have passed out then and when I came to, I couldn’t see, and they were hitting me with something hard. (I found out later it was tennis rackets) and yelling at me for throwing up. They were screaming all kinds of names at me, but I just remember them saying I was bad. I’m not sure how many people were doing the hitting, but Willie and Lisa were two of them.

I screamed and screamed and screamed and some angel neighbor called the cops. When they got there, Lisa or some other blond girl took me into the bathroom to try and clean up the blood that had spattered all down my shirt. I remember she was talking to me so sweetly.

So far we have three reasons why my voice (which includes these paragraphs) feels like a lifeline that could get taken away: “saving” my mom by crying, Willie’s hand over my mouth, and the screams that maybe actually did save my life. But the fourth reason is much guiltier: I didn’t tell the police the sex part of the crime. They couldn’t get it out of me. Everyone knew, but I refused to say it on the deposition. I’d been drinking, I was a slut, I didn’t know how to prove I didn’t deserve what happened.

I didn’t know how to prove I didn’t deserve what happened. I’ve told this story so many times, but never understood it quite that way.

I felt like I couldn’t really say it was rape because I’d chosen him, I didn’t try to stop him. The Accused had somehow become embedded in my consciousness, having the opposite (?) of its intended effect. I knew the danger of being “put on trial” for it and I wanted no part of that. So I lied my face off and told the police the assault story without the first part. A few of them, including Willie, did some jail time for the assault, but the fact that I didn’t tell the truth about the rest of the crime makes me feel like a co-conspirator, like I didn’t do enough to protect myself or my fellow women.

The crying, the hand over my mouth, the screams that saved my life, the guilt over not telling, they’ll always be in my body. Sometimes they make me very hard to be close to, but they also make me brave, protective, and they make me try to be transparent.

I guess what I want people to get out of this is that you never know what stories can be inside someone’s body. Every single person you touch, even in the most casual way, sitting next to her on the bus, tying him up at a play party, or hugging them on a first date, has a body full of stories. Give up the idea that enough negotiation can make those complications got away. The stories inside us, even the screams, are beautiful and deserve to be treated with care.

Momentum Con Part Three: Megan Andelloux, Tina Horn, Sexual Side Effects

Megan Andelloux is a new hero of mine. Not only did she found the Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health, but her The Three P’s of Porn: Pleasure, Politics, and Personhood workshop yielded one of the best lines of the convention:

“People want to see their genitals on your face.”

Being a straight-A student type, I also have to brag that I won a vibrator from her for having this to say about food shopping as an analogy for porn:

“Well, I try to shop at the co-op for most things, but, there are things that aren’t so good for me, and I want to eat them anyway.”

Her conclusion was that it’s best to work for ethical pornography, that is, porn that represents many points of view and in which the performers have good working conditions and are doing things that they like to do.

(Queer Porn TV is a great example. In a later panel on Feminist Porn, dreamboat producer Tina Horn had this to say about genuine expressions of sexuality: “When people are given the freedom to do what they want, they do the nastiest shit I have ever seen.”)

Megan’s talk also included this video, which reminds me very much of some spanking-related conversations between me and Sweetie.

But what really knocked my socks off about Ms. Andelloux is that she let me ask her a really personal question in the restroom while she was in the middle of brushing her teeth. A friend of mine had texted and asked me to ask the sexperts if there’s anything that can be done about the sexual side effects of antidepressants—in this case, taking a superlong time to reach orgasm.

She said that there are anti-depressants that don’t have sexual side effects, but that people often don’t know that they can ask for them. Often the psychiatrist says

“This has some sexual side effects.”

and the patient says

“Okay.”

This makes me feel very pissed off and bratty and reminds me of what the Milgrim experiments taught us about our general willingness to follow authority.

For my part, I feel conflicted about antidepressants anyway. I’ve always refused them myself, figuring that if I was sad, there must be a reason, and I should change the circumstances instead of changing my body chemistry. On the other hand, I have friends who say they’re helpful, and I’m a big fan of my friends being happy and alive.

Either way, though, it seems really counterproductive to take away or impede something as happy-making as orgasms in order to chemically create more well being. It really seems to me that if genuine happiness were made a priority, lots of people could cut out the drugs and produce well-being for themselves.