That Wasn't Me

I remember when I was 18 and Moneypenny was trying to convince me to take meds for my depression. My biggest fear was that I wouldn't be me anymore. I had spent all my life feeling like I had. I thought that how I felt was just me. Six weeks later, when the meds finally hit, it was kinda the same feeling that I had when I got my first pair of glasses. I hadn't realized how blurry everything had been before. Each time I get a new med that works better, things come into focus more. That doesn't mean that everything is peachy-keen. It doesn't mean that all, or any, of my flaws have disappeared. It just brings a bit more clarity, a bit more control over and space between me and my emotions.

When you're dealing with mental illness, trying to become a better person, learning that your bad behavior was a result of a larger pattern in your mental illness that you can and should break, it's tough to figure out what was you and what wasn't. It's also difficult to explain, not just to others but also to yourself, that while you did what you did in the mental illness you still need to own it, make amends, and change. I often compare it to addiction. An addict has a disease that they need treatment for. Much of their personality and actions change. When they are in recovery, they are closer to who they are, but that doesn't mean that they didn't do what they did before, it doesn't absolve them of guilt. It means that they need to make amends, make positive changes in their life, and continue to manage their disease. I do too. I know I did more shitty things when I was more unwell than I do today. (I still do shitty things. We all do.) But I have to keep making an effort to put my actions in line with the person I think I am and then with the person I want to be.

This song really hits home on that and I hope that my loved ones know that wasn't me.


Hang on, just hang on for a minute
I've got something to say
I'm not asking you to move on or forget it
But these are better days
To be wrong all along and admit it's not amazing grace
But to be loved like a song you remember
Even when you've changed

Tell me did I go on a tangent?
Did I lie through my teeth?
Did I cause you to stumble on your feet?
Did I bring shame on my family?
Did it show when I was weak?
Whatever you see, that wasn't me
That wasn't me, that wasn't me

When you're lost you will toss every lucky coin you'll ever trust
And you will hide from your god like he never turns his back on us
And you will fall all the way to the bottom and land on your own knife
But you'll learn who you are even if it doesn't take your life

Tell me 
Did I go on a tangent?
Did I lie through my teeth?
Did I cause you to stumble on your feet?
Did I bring shame on my family?
Did it show when I was weak?
Whatever you see, that wasn't me
That wasn't me, that wasn't me

But I want you to know that you'll never alone
I wanna believe 


Do I make myself a blessing to everyone I meet
When you fall I will get you on your feet
Do I spend time with my family?
Does it show when I am weak?
When that's what you see, that will be me
That will be me, that will be me
That will be me

Can't you just pretend?

Most of the time, I can accept and deal with the fact that I don't believe what most other people believe and that I'm interested in things that most of my other friends aren't. And I don't want to live unchallenged. But sometimes, especially when I'm really excited about something, I really wish that I could get someone else to at least pretend to be excited about it. Or at the very least not be determined to pick apart every godsdamn thing. Can't you people let me enjoy anything without telling me how wrong I am?

I know it's contrary to most of the other thinks I say, but... I'm just so frustrated with everyone shooting down everything I get excited about lately. It just makes me not want to share anything. Maybe I should choose friends who aren't competitive at all, but I end up feeling like all that really matters is that they are right, not that I want share something I think is really cool or fun or interesting. I'm used to disinterest, which is what I usually get, but lately all I've gotten is everyone trying to tear it down.

I'd like to say that I think I'm just going to not talk for awhile, but we all know that isn't true.

In Defense of Damaged, Crazy, or Insane

It seems like people are always doing awful things. Each time they do, everyone else searches for the reason(s) why. The farther out of your own realm of experience, the farther what that person did from what you feel you could possibly do, the easier it is to see them as an "other," talk about them as the "other," as someone completely foreign to you and the world you live in. While I understand this impulse, feel it myself in many situations, I feel myself wanting to scream out about just how hurtful this can be to the "other" who isn't an other, to the people you know and love who might also be different in the way that you're dismissing the "other" as being.

After the murders in Aurora, CO, there has been a vacuum as to the motives behind why this killer did this, which I have heard many fill with the words damaged, crazy, or insane. Few that I've read use these words are interested in exploring these issues further, but instead use it in a dismissive way. "Why are we asking any questions about why he might have done this? Clearly he is damaged/crazy/insane." That's it. The story ends there for them. To me, it also seems to imply that the arrow works both ways. Not only did he do these things because he is damaged/crazy/insane/whatever word they chose, but people who are damaged/crazy/insane/etc do things like this, so what can you do? Let's all just throw our hands up and say that it's got nothing to do with me. But that implication hurts people like me, people like those that I know and love, people that I'm sure are present in everyone's lives, people who are damaged or crazy or insane. And, yes, if you read this (or any of my blog posts for that matter), thinking that it sounds like I'm angry, that's because I am. Nothing wrong with a bit of anger now then. Dismissing me because of my tone also means erasing my voice, my experience, my life. 

So I'm going to try to take things one by one. Let's look at "damaged." I read someone in the rather civil comment thread to this post say that the shooter was "clearly mentally and emotionally damaged, and almost assuredly was born that way" Asserting that someone was damaged from birth makes me ask if this damage is something that can be tested for, if this damage always leads to violent behavior like this, and, if so, what the commenter thinks society should do with people who test positive for this kind of "damage." I think that the more common use of the term "damaged" to describe someone who has committed an atrocity like this is that the trauma they have experienced in life has had such a profound effect that they are, if not broken, then severely impaired, in a way that leads them to commit these acts. So, the short of it is "people get fucked up when bad shit happens to them." Alright. That's true. If bad shit didn't happen to these people, they probably wouldn't have done these things. But bad shit happens to everyone. Some people get out mostly unscathed. Some people develop mental health issues as a result of that bad shit, especially when combined with "damage" they were born with. I've met many people when I was hospitalized and  people in my group therapy who have all had bad shit happen to them and been fucked up by it. I think that most of us would be insulted if you implied that we'd ever do something like what happened in Aurora. I also think that those people's loved ones would argue with you if you said that they would do something like this because of the trauma they've suffered. So where do you draw the line between what bad shit or the extent of the bad shit that happens and when you automatically commit mass homicide? And how much does that allow you to not attempt to deal with the person or the trauma they've been through, because, well, the damage is done?

Before I go into talking about the "crazy" label, I want to jump forward to quickly cover the "insane" label. Insanity is no longer in scientific or mental use, but is only legal terminology, referring to a person cannot tell right from wrong, or fantasy from reality. The perpetrator may very well have been insane, but very few mentally ill people who commit crimes are eligible for an insanity defense, as most mentally ill people still know right from wrong. I know that for most people it is impossible to think believe that someone who knows right from wrong could do something like this, but there is often an internal logic to the perpetrator which precludes an insanity ruling. Of course, most of the time when a person uses the term "insane," they aren't referring to legal terminology at all.

Closely related to both "damaged" and "insane," in fact what I think many people mean when they use those words to describe someone, is mentally ill or crazy. (I've written before about my own ambivalence about the current way that mental illness is treated, as well as the ways others are trying to reframe it. And, personally, I often use "crazy" to describe myself and behaviors that are closely linked to how my mental illness is exhibited, but I think of it as more of a reclaimed word than the word I think should be used by the general public.) The NAMI website states: "Mental illnesses are medical conditions that disrupt a person's thinking, feeling, mood, ability to relate to others and daily functioning." I think that it is safe to say that at least a few of those things would seem to be true of the anyone who did something like this, but, even if mental illness is an underlying reason, it is unfair to paint the whole of mentally ill people with that brush. Mental illness is such an overarching term for a wide variety of diagnoses which means that it includes a multitude of individuals who are just trying to live their lives the best they can. The majority of schizophrenics are not the homeless man, mumbling to himself. The majority of bipolar people aren't...well, whatever stereotype people have for us, especially after there's a widely publicized crime perpetrated by someone who has been diagnosed as bipolar. You get the picture. This erases the way that the majority of people experience mental illness, the majority of whom are law-abiding upstanding citizens. During my hospitalizations and experiences in treatment, I don't think I've ever met a felon. If my fellow patients had committed any crimes, even those in the hospital that was used by the cops as a dumping place for people that they picked up off the street but had dubious grounds or not enough room to hold in jail, they were misdemeanors- property destruction, petty theft, drug use, getting into fights- not causing serious premeditated harm to others. Even then, it is few and far between. I think that most of the people I've met during hospitalizations or in group therapy would be offended by the assumption that they are criminals as a result of their mental illness. 

Another big problem with dismissing the perpetrator as mentally ill is that it dismisses the idea that something more could be done to help mentally ill people, particularly this person. I think that there is a debate to be had about the benefits of long-term (often involuntary) in-patient (including commitment) treatment versus outpatient treatment, but currently those are both options that are proving too costly for most people, families, and even communities, especially in this economic downturn. As was pointed out after a mentally-ill man, who's family said that they "could see this coming," opened fire in Seattle's Cafe Racer in May, killing six, most community-based outpatient mental health providers are severely understaffed and overworked, which is only getting worse as states budgets are getting trimmed more and more each year. I would also add that the increased difficulty in getting someone involuntarily committed, which I see as good on many levels, means that there is less funding "needed" for those facilities, which results in fewer of them as well as poorer conditions in the ones that do exist. What do you think that means for the people who want to be voluntarily hospitalized, who know that they need the security and intensity of inpatient care during a particularly bad period or during a medication change? 

In my experience, it's difficult for many people to even get the mental health equivalent of a drug rehab program. Even though my family wanted me to do it shortly after my original diagnosis, there was no local facilities for that kind of treatment and it was hit or miss whether our health insurance would cover it. I know a family that had to liquidate their 401k so that one parent/spouse could get 90-day inpatient treatment and the only facility is over ten hours away. As for community-based outpatient treatment, I obtained services from our county's mental health facilities for over a year, both prescriptions for my medications as well as once monthly talk-therapy, for a very reasonable, sliding-scale fee. Through school and then my husband, I had medical insurance, and started treatment with a psychiatrist that had treated me during a hospitalization. Even when I no longer had health insurance, my family ultimately decided that it was worth it to pay for a psychiatrist that I could get an appointment to see within two business days if I had problems with my medications, as opposed to the very caring nurse practitioner at the county facility, who I had to wait a month to see when I had an emergency with my medication and who was mostly just happy when I was still taking my medication as prescribed. Last summer and fall, when I realized that things weren't getting any better with time after my uncle's passing, my parents decided that it was worth it to pay out-of-pocket for my intensive DBT therapy, instead of me going back to our county mental health facility for my on-going treatment. It was a tough choice but one I'm glad they made, glad we currently have the resources to make. 

So, using "he's crazy" as a dismissal of the motivations of this perpetrator erases all debate about the current state of mental health care in this country, as well as the hard work of so many people who are dealing with and seeking treatment for their mental health concerns in that system. It also perpetuates the stigma of mental illness, which can be a stumbling block to seeking or continuing treatment. Before you use "crazy" as a dismissal, think of the mentally ill people you know, or just those dealing with mental health issues that will affect most humans at some point in their life (grieving, mild depression, trauma, etc), and if you think that their "crazy" means that you think they will, or even could, do what this man did. And, if you think it's possible, ask yourself if you're willing to keep dismissing the possibility until you instead find yourself dismissing their actions. 

I don't claim to have any answers about why the perpetrator did this, but I don't think that those answers will ever be as simple as "he's damaged/insane/crazy," even if those things did play a role. It may seem easier to write these events off this way, but never very accurate. Only even mentioning being damaged or crazy in the context of criminal behavior means that it's the only picture of mental illness that you are acknowledging exists, even while your mentally ill loved one is right there. 

Mon Parrain's Definition of Sex

Emotional and [or] physical surrender of one or both parties of that which they identify themselves as the center of their sexuality.


In a previous post, I wrote about the difficulties of only calling penis in vagina (PIV) sexual intercourse, and sometime anal intercourse, sex. If "So did you have sex with/fuck/sleep with/get laid by him/her?" only means PIV sex, then it seems to render "less than" a good deal of the very sexual acts that I've done, as well as erasing quite a few of the partners that I did it with from the notches in my bed post. In writing that post, I was making public that what I felt was sex was much bigger than just PIV sex. 


But with new partners come new disclosures. Though I did tell a new potential partner the number he asked for, which was the number of men I have had penetrative sex with, I did also tell him that I didn't think that was my real "number," that my real number was quite a bit higher because it included much more than just penetrative sex with men. To his credit, he didn't say that those other notches didn't count generally, just that he didn't find them pertinent to what he was using the number to evaluate. 


After looking back at my little black book for the numbers, I had made some observations that I shared by texted Mon Parrain. Now, he tends to go for long periods of time and only pop his head up when he's both bored and I've texted something quite interesting to him. This seemed quite interesting to him. 


I found his thoughts on "what counts" quite interesting. Here is an excerpted bit of our conversation:


MP: Lol...No, that people with no dicks, or those who do not identify their dicks with their sexuality, are just as capable of fucking...
...
MP: And being fucked.
...
MP: Sex has nothing to do with penetration, even when there is a cock (or substitute cock)
Me: only orgasm?
MP: Nope...
Me: Then what?
MP: Emotional and physical surrender of one or both parties of that which they identify themselves as the center of their sexuality.
MP: For a masochist, it might not even involve genitals...
MP: If the surrender is there, for me its sex.
MP: There is no reason to force gender or physio normative standards.
Me: Can I put that def on my blog? I think of the bdsm play I did with [name redacted, person 1] as sex, though I'm not sure either of us orgasmed and there was rarely any penetration or "sex." He is a number for me, though I also know the PIV # and oral included # 
MP: Sure...you can even attribute it to me. 
Me: I don't plagiarize. Of course I'd cite my source.
MP: A m to f transgendered person can have sex despite the fact that she has a penis without having to be penetrated herself can't she?
Me:  I totally agree.
Me: And a f to m without penetration.
MP: Exactly... Although that is his choice.
MP: His only self identification with his own sexuality may dictate that he can't surrender his own sexuality to someone until he can penetrate.
MP: So its a tricky number to calculate.
Me: I thought it bad manners to push too much on how pointless I think PIV # is with this [new partner].  
MP: You may well have had sex with someone who didn't know that he/she was having sex with you.
Me: Quite possible.
MP: Ahhh but you miss the point. 
Me: He sees that as the only way to surrender?
MP: As a sub, its vital that you embrace his identity in your sexuality, at least in the moment. 
MP: So if he is heteronormative, then that's the number that matters if he is to connect with you.
MP: It's an insult to his sexuality to deny him the opportunity to feel that way.
MP: In an ideal world, he would tacitly acknowledge the same about you.
MP: But an ideal dom is hard to find.
Me: So what about [name redacted, person 2]? He sees PIV as the only thing he will call sex. He's done the rest, but not sex to him. BUT he does think the rest counts, even kissing.
MP: I see no harm in allowing [person 2] his personal definition
MP: And that he can only choose the center of his own sexuality. 
Me: I find sleeping in the same bed as him to be sex, more intimate than other "sex" acts. 
MP: Exactly.... I agree that sex with one partner may be very different than another partner with the same sex and gender.
Me: I try not to push on him what I think is sex, but I'm not going to change it for me.
MP: It's not the act, but the state of mind that surrounds the act.
MP: Any other definition denies that one who is unwillingly raped, does not have sex.
MP: And that it is possible to be raped regardless of penetration.
MP: Rape is the forceful taking from another that which they identify as sex when given to another.
...(While he and I talk about some other stuff, this is probably a good time to interject something for the new readers out there. I'm not good with secrets, mine or anybody else's. If you've heard me tell you something private about someone, you can probably guess that I've told them something of that same level of privacy about you. If you've seen me write something about someone else on this blog, I will probably write something of the same level of privacy about you on this blog. That's another reason why I use pseudonyms, so when someone searches "Mike Smith" to find about you, what I've written about you in this blog won't pop up. If/When I write my book, I'm sure some aspect of you, good or bad, will be made a part of some character in it. I would say I'm sorry, but, if I thought I was going to be sorry about it, I wouldn't do it in the first place, now would I? Mostly, you've been warned. Now we'll resume a little later in the conversation, with a last little bit of ego stroking.)
MP: You know, maybe the world would be a better place if sexually interesting people like us took a vow.
Me: What vow would that be? 
MP: Never have sex with someone who doesn't understand the spectrum of sex and gender. MP: Hold out until the world becomes enlightened. 




So, what do you think about this definition of sex provided by MP? Do you find it too broad and not based enough in the physical, bodily realities of what we intuit sex to be? Or do my "vanilla" readers disagree with the idea that sex is about surrender, rather than specific acts? As always, please comment!

So My Therapist Says, Vol. 3, Monogamy Edition

The idea of monogamy hasn't so much been tried and found wanting, as found difficult and left untried. - G. K. Chesterton


I should start off by saying that I am aware that my therapist's job isn't to be my friend or my yes person. Those of us who go to a mental health professional do so because we feel there is something wrong. Especially when dealing with people with bpd, therapists often have to point out to a client that the way they see the world not only isn't the way that most other people see it, but it also hasn't been very effective for them in the past. On the other hand, therapists have grown up and lived in the larger mainstream culture, just like the rest of us. For example, it wasn't until 1973 that homosexuality was removed as a mental illness from the DSM. I don't think that all the mental health professionals before 1973 who treated homosexuality as something that people needed to be cured from or treated for were stupid or wanted to do harm. I think they lived in a society that believed that. I also think that they also treated gay people who displayed a number of mental illness and addictions and thought that their sexuality was the cause of those of those problems, instead of those problems being a result of being gay in an intolerant society. I guess what I'm trying to get at is that I understand that my therapist is trying to open up my eyes to a more effective and healthy way of looking at and living in this world, but I think that she is still of this world with all of it's assumptions about what effective and healthy look like.

But this isn't just about stuff my therapist says. It actually started the day before my last therapy session, when I went to see my psychiatrist. To her great credit, her medication check-up sessions are 30 minutes and she often talks to me even longer than that. At this meeting, after we talked about my medications and a few other issues with the bipolar, she complimented me on my rainbow gay pride bracelet and she asked me a question that will be familiar to any bisexual person, "So do you date both men and women at the same time? How does that work?" I explained that many bi people are monogamous within their relationships but their next relationship could be with a man or a woman. I also said that I preferred non-monogamous relationships, though not because I am bisexual. While she was both respectful and genuinely curious about how I felt on this, I knew she probably did not agree. At one point, she asked me, "Do you think that now that you're using the [DBT] skills, that things are going better, your self-respect will increase and you'll start to think that you deserve a monogamous relationship?" I was pretty stunned, too stunned to really explain that I've never preferred non-monogamous relationships because I didn't respect myself. Instead, I talked about the book I've been reading, Sex at Dawn, which uses sociology and evolutionary psychology to question modern assumptions about marriage, monogamy, and human sexuality. I'll explain farther down what I wish I could have explained to her, but first let me get to my conversation with my therapist.

Yesterday, I had my individual therapy session. We ended up talked a good deal more about my developing relationship with a sexual dominant. We'll call him Dom Chaney here. He's in a non-monogamous marriage and, if he and I did begin a physical relationship, it would be his secondary relationship. I've known this since the beginning and am perfectly fine with that. At this point, I want someone I am sexually compatible with and I think that having a serious LTRPR (long-term romantic primary relationship) would be a trial by fire at this point for all my new skills. So, this is fine. Not surprisingly, my therapist questioned me a great deal on this. She started out by saying that she is coming, in large part, from being a therapist who sees couples everyday and she's never, professionally or otherwise, seen a non-monogamous couple who were both equally happy for very long with a non-monogamous relationship. I really wish I had been quick enough on my feet at this point to tell her that is because the couples that are happy with their non-monogamy don't need to see a counselor, and that there is too much stigma for most people to come out as non-monogamous to their friends or family, but I didn't. She also asserted that she wanted to see me in a happy relationship with someone I'm in love with where I can get 100% of what I needed [sexually]. I did interject here to tell her that I see no reason why I can't be in a happy relationship with someone that I love that isn't monogamous, as well as that I think it's unrealistic to expect that you will get 100% of what you need from anyone, sexually or otherwise, whether or not you chose for that relationship to be monogamous or not. Also, it's way to much pressure to be expected to be someone else's 100%. She did not seem swayed by this argument. She also went on to speculate both that no-strings attached sex was unhealthy and that there's a danger of becoming too involved emotionally when in a friends with benefits situation, which seems to  leave sex in a long-term relationship as the only possible healthy option.

I know that I will probably never change most people's minds. But I'm writing this for myself, so that I can put how I feel about monogamy and non-monogamy onto paper in a comprehensive manner for use in the next conversation I have about this, so that I don't regret all the things I didn't say in the conversation.

In addition to my own experiences, I think that the biggest contributor to my non-monogamous ideals, before reading Sex at Dawn, has been reading Dan Savage's advice column since I was a teenager. Through the years, he has answered many letters from people who are in long-term relationships with people they truly love, who they have built a life and a family with, but, for a variety of reasons, are not sexually compatible with. Sometimes this has happened because they were not honest about their kinks, with their partners or even sometimes with themselves, before the became committed. Sometimes it is just being with someone for so long and the waning of sexual interest. Whatever the reason, Savage discourages cheating, which, when found out, will almost always be much more hurtful than the current situation. He usually does suggest that the person talk to their partner about non-monogamous options. In a NYT article from last year, Mark Oppenheimer explores Savages views about monogamy, including that it is to everyone's detriment to ignore that it is often much more difficult that we are led to believe and:

“Given the rates of infidelity, people who get married should have to swear a blood oath that if it’s violated, as traumatic as that would be, the greater good is the relationship,” Savage told me. “The greater good is the home created for children. If there are children present, they’ll get past it. The cultural expectation should be if there’s infidelity, the marriage is more important than fidelity.”

For me, reading Savage's columns all these years, as well as reading his books and articles about him, opened my eyes to the idea that long-term partnerships are much more about the stability they provide, not just for children, if there are any, but also for the people inside them, than to be the end-all-be-all relationship in your life.


Before I wrote this blog post, I asked a few of the non-monogamous people I know to give what their answers are to the questions asked and concerns raised by my psychiatrist and therapist. Dom Chaney just explained how he and his wife had gotten to this moment in time. Without quoting him directly, my sense is that within their almost two decades long marriage, they opened up to each other about things that they wanted to explore and found ways to make that happen, both together and apart. This is something that I've run across several times in speaking with older people in long marriages. Not so much that their marriage needed "spicing up," but that either one or both partners had desires that had been left unexplored when they made the choice to marry, to not let this very special person slip away for wont of the road untaken, but at some later date they were able to be honest about those desires and their partner was either turned on by the idea as well, or accommodating enough to let them explore that. For TyRoy, it seems to be a combination of not wanting the obsessive love that requires one person to be everything to you sexually as well as a sense of sexual adventurousness. I would also venture to guess that he avoids people who require monogamy because of past bad experiences. Of course, I only obtained the opinions of men before I did this and mainstream culture believes that men and women do not think the same way about sex. I'd be curious to hear the opinions of any women who are in or who prefer non-monogamous relationships.


As for me, coming to non-monogamy was it's own journey. Like most people, I thought that monogamous relationships were the only way to go. I also bought into the romcom ideal of one's romantic partner being the ultimate relationship in their life, that if that person wasn't 100% of everything to you there was something wrong, that sexual infidelity was the ultimate betrayal and reason to end a relationship. When I was in monogamous relationships, I was possessive, crazy jealous, and checking up on my partner all the time, as well as scared as hell to completely reveal my own sexual desires because I might lose them, which would have been a disaster in my eyes. But being up my partners' asses all the time didn't help the relationship. They often felt the need to be secretive and lie, while still continuing the relationship, both out of fear for what new crazy would develop at the time of break-up. In addition to this, these "monogamous" relationships were never monogamous in practice. I cheated in all of them and I now know that most of my partners did as well.


When I was about 25, feeling like I'd missed out on all the sex I should have been having in new ways and with new people, exploring first dating and fucking non-exclusively and then exploring more committed but open relationships, I started to feel free from all that crazy codependent shit. I found that when my partners didn't feel like they would definitely lose me by being honest about their desires and actions with other people, I could trust them more and be that crazy jealous person less. I also felt more cared about when they still kept coming back to me, in spite of the fact that they could be with someone else. I also found that I didn't necessarily have to sacrifice being cared for or even loved just because the relationship was non-monogamous. Yes, there were times when I just had sex because I just wanted to have sex. But more often than not, I had friendships or romances with these people. Some of them I still do. Just as I didn't care less for them because I couldn't get all my need fulfilled by them, I don't feel like they cared less for me. Also, just because I would be open to developing a long-term partnership with one of these "friends with benefits," I don't feel like I have to do that or that I'm losing out when that is not the direction it takes. I still value the sexual and romantic time I had with TyRoy and I do not feel like that is diminished by the fact that he and I did not get married. I also don't love him less (love, not in love) or feel that he loves me less just because he loves and is in love with is current girlfriend. It does not have to be a zero-sum game.

I will stipulate that this does not mean that things have always gone perfectly, that I haven't overreacted to perceived (or actual) non-honesty. It doesn't mean that my sex partners have always been honest. Ultimately, the thing that ended my marriage was that my husband wanted to be monogamously committed to another woman, though it was not someone he started a relationship with open and honestly while in our marriage, but a woman who he loved before he ever met me who had finally become single herself. It seems like that could happen whether one is in a monogamous relationship or not. But, overall, I have found negotiated and open nonmonogamy to be the best way for me to negotiate the jealousy and codependency that I had in previous romantic relationships.

Dom Chaney asked me the other night what I thought my preferred non-monogamous long-term relationships to look like. Though I was less committal when I answered him than I am now, I think I'd rather have a monogamish situation, than a truly poly relationship. I want someone in an everyday relationship, every night in my bed, to be my partner. If that person and I were highly sexually compatible, which would include him being sexually dominant and me meeting whatever kink he had, I imagine we would have small dalliances outside of our relationship, but not necessarily anything long-term and on-going outside. If either of us had a kink that we couldn't get met in our relationship, I imagine we would have on-going relationships outside for the purpose of getting that need met. Either way, I think that the biggest components for me would be honesty and honest communication. I'm not as worried that my partner has needs that I don't or can't meet, as long as they express that. I'm not as worried about my partner having sex with someone else as I am about them not telling me about it. I'm not any more worried that my partner will leave me for someone else because they were allowed to have sex with them than I would be if we were monogamous and they weren't. And I do not begrudgingly agree to non-monogamous situations because I don't feel like I deserve all of the love and attention of one person. Maybe I do it because I think we all deserve to be honest about wanting love or attention or sex or kinky play from more than just our primary partner and to be honest about the fact that many, if not most, of our romantic partnerships are not monogamous in practice.

While I'll get to the rest of the things I think we should be more honest about when it comes to monogamy and human sexuality when I finish Sex at Dawn and write a blog post about it, I want to leave you with a few quotes from it:

"Monogamy is not found in any social, group-living primate except-if the standard narrative is to be believed-us." p 64

"Think about that. No group-living nonhuman primate is monogamous, and adultery has been documented in every human culture studied-including those in which fornicators are routinely stoned to death. In light of all this bloody retribution, it's hard to see how monogamy comes "naturally" to our species. Why would so many risk their reputations, families, careers-even presidential legacies-for something that runs against human nature? Were monogamy an ancient, evolved trait characteristic of our species, as the standard narrative insists, these ubiquitous transgressions would be infrequent and such horrible enforcement unnecessary." p 98  

Emptiness

As I drove away, headed back home, I felt a great emptiness rising up inside me, one I hadn't felt in some time.

I had spent the day in one-on-one contact with other people, people that are new to my life, that I am still getting to know. But when I transitioned from their presence back to my solitude, I was left empty.

Suddenly, all my life felt rather empty. Boredom is not something I have felt very often lately. There is always something more to do. I have lists and lists and lists of things I could do. Some of my time is spent simply avoiding the the things on the lists that I have to do. I know that the lists will never be finished and I bounce between pushing too hard to get as much as possible of the lists done and then giving up what seems an overall futile task.

All along in my now air-conditioned car, with the windows rolled up tight, I was lonely. I wonder how often I am lonely but do not realize it because I fill my time up with so much other stuff, because I do not let the alone-ness sink in long enough for me to ask myself if I am also lonely.

Last weekend, Moneypenny was visited. We spent almost every waking minute together, as well as some sleeping moments. I felt so comforted to have him with me, someone who knew me, someone I didn't really have to try for. It is the same feeling I have when TyRoy visits, though our visits are often shorter. There are so many people and groups of people around who I can still feel both alone and lonely, but not them. But what is better about Moneypenny and TyRoy is that even after they leave, I still feel sated. Maybe not overflowing, but satisfied. (And I don't mean that in a sexual way, or at least not only in a sexual way.) I'm never happy to see them leave, but I'm happy that I got the time I got with them. Where seeing or talking to most people is a chore, even if they are people I like, or love, or am excited about getting to know better, my relationships with these two men, even when they aren't sexual, have that extra something. I still get butterflies just talking to Moneypenny on the phone about how our week has been going. I get warm and smiley, like a good wine buzz, as I read TyRoy's daily email.

This isn't to say that there is anything wrong with any of my other friends, including the two I spent time with today. It isn't to say that I won't someday feel that towards either of these friends, or other friends currently in my life. But I long for that heat, that pull to and fire with another person. (I was about to add ",even if it's only in a platonic way," but who am I really kidding? Even when I feel that pull with people that I can only have a platonic relationship with, I don't think it is ever a platonic feeling for me. There is always some romantic and/or sexual longing wrapped up in it, even if that will never be fulfilled. I don't want my friends who clearly aren't interested romantically or sexually in me, whether because they're gay men, straight women, or just not attracted to me, to think I'm only interested in sexin' them up, because I'm not, that's not what I mean.) I know that it isn't something you can have with everyone. I"m also sure that feeling empty unless I'm being consumed is a very bpd thing, that most of the times that I do feel that intensity there is actually something either wrong with me, with the other person, or the way we interact, but I haven't gotten to a place of wise mind on this yet. Rational mind says all the parts of that last sentence before the "but" and emotional mind yearns for more of those relationships. There is no happy medium as yet.

So I keep working on things on the list, to the point of avoiding sleep  just so I don't have to feel that emptiness for too long.

All Along The Road

Have you been feeling that pull?
And are you hearing that call?
Cause you've got everthing that you need to make a start...
And I would love it sometime
If you would walk by my side
Going I don't know where to sing beneath the stars...
And when the world's laying you low
Why don't you let me carry your load?
When things get bad you know you'll have a friend
All along the road
...And when the world's laying you low,
Don't you let it rattle your bones
Sometimes the dream itself can keep you safe
All along the road

(Video embed might be too wide for the blog and you might not be able to see all the lyrics. If you want to go to a link to see all of it, a slightly more visually interesting video is here, and it has lyrics if you hit the CC button.)

In life, you can miss much if you're too dogmatic about anything.

In my DBT class, we don't just learn one skill for one sort of problem, because nothing will work well for every person or even for every person in every situation. During the interpersonal skill section, we learn a skill for trying to get what we want, another for trying to keep our respect in a situation, and another focused on keeping the relationship. We also learn way to evaluate which one might be best to use at any given time and with any given problem.

Lately, especially when looking to start new romantic relationships, I've been attempting to avoid relationships that I know will be chaotic. And, in the not too distant past, I've left friendship situations that I know to be particularly chaotic or that create instability in me. But sometimes you can't do that. Or at least I can't. Sometimes it's a relative that drives me up the wall but is part of the little blood I have left and who has done so much for me. Sometimes it's that friend that you keep re-enacting the same chaotic, hurtful patterns with, but who has always been there, all along the road. Sometimes the chaos and craziness is worth having someone, but most especially worth having them. Hell, I wouldn't have any friends if my friends didn't feel that about me.

Time Is Love

A good friend will bail you out of jail. A great friend helps you bury the body. -TyRoy


Another one of my strongly held personal beliefs has always been that a real friend is someone who is there for you, no matter what the hour is or how inconvient it is. When I had few friends and lots of time, it was really easy for that to be a two-way street. But I know that I haven't been the best at this in the past couple of years. I really haven't been there like I should for the people that I really care about. I've also found that the high level of expectations I have for a "real friend" is perhaps a bit to high, or leads to too much black & white, "you're either with me or against me" thinking on my part, especially as we all grow up and have other burdens on our time. This isn't to say that I excuse the behavior I talked about in a previous blog post, where people just f'n disappear forever. Just that I know I have disappearred or just taken longer than I would have liked to get back to someone, because I was being stingy with both my time and my love. But I am working to change that. I hope that other people in my life are too.

I thought I'd share this new song that I really like and that made me think about all this. Here's the official video, but it's not hugely interesting so the one I've embedded is something someone else made with the lyrics.


For those who can't watch the video/listen to the song at the moment (but who absolutely should listen to it as soon as they aren't at work and I don't care if it is country), here are the lyrics:
i know i gotta put in the hours,
make the money while the sunlight shines
but anything i gotta get done,
it can get done some other time

time is love, gotta run,
love to hang longer,
but i got someone who waits,
waits for me and right now
she's where i need to be,
time is love, gotta run

i only get so many minutes,
don't wanna spend 'em all on the clock
in the time that we spent talkin',
how many kisses have i lost?

time is love, gotta run,
love to hang longer,
but i got someone who waits,
waits for me and right now
she's where i need to be,
time is love, gotta run.

gotta fly
fly
before one moment
gets by

time is love, gotta run,
love to hang longer,
but i got someone who waits,
waits for me and right now
she's where i need to be

time is love, gotta run,
love to hang longer,
but i got someone who waits,
waits for me and right now
she's where i need to be,
time is love, gotta run.

time is love, gotta run

"Peeling in the heat. Vanish in the rain."

I've had several re-appearances as of late.

It's odd for me. I was just getting used to people leaving and not coming back. Just getting used to the idea that my life wasn't like a tv show or a movie, where someone from one's past shows up at the exactly wrong moment for the biggest dramatic effect. (At least that last part is still untrue.)

In my early 20s, I had several people that I had been friends with just stop picking up when I called, stopped returning my phone calls, with no explanation. The first time this happened, I was sure that something must have happened to this person. It wasn't until I called his mother pretending to not know that he wasn't living there any longer so that I could, in a round about way, make sure that he wasn't dead or injured that the truth started to sink in. Up until that point, I'd never experienced having someone I felt was a close friend just cut off contact, with no precipitating argument. In the next couple of years, it happened several times. I still did not understand it and did not handle it well. Usually I kept trying to contact them long after someone else would have realized that I was not helping my case any. I always felt like I could accept that they might not want to be friends with me, if only they'd actually tell me. I was able to confirm this when Moneypenny broke off our friendship for a time. Despite how much I wanted to contact him directly, I did not. It seemed that everything that could be said had been said. Though I didn't understand why any of this might have happened until very recently, I had come to expect that people would leave me, often suddenly and for no reason I would ever know.

One of those cliched things that I sincerely believe is that a person should trust zir feelings, instincts, guts. One of the dialectics in my therapy is that, while our feelings are valid, either they or how we express them has obviously lead us down the wrong path or we wouldn't be there. This therapy has given me a new construct in which to question life, though this doesn't mean that there aren't some times that I still come to the same conclusions. But looking at my emotions, my actions, my past, through the lens of the ways in which people with BPD tend to act ineffectively, I have a different insights into them.

Right there in the DSM IV diagnostic definition for BPD is says "a pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships." Then, one of the first of the criteria is "frantic efforts to avoid read or imagined abandonment." Is anyone else seeing how the combination of these two tend to feed each other, making each of them worse and worse over time? This is definitely a pattern that I've observed in my own life. With all this hindsight, I can see how the combination of my desperation to avoid abandonment along with my already chaotic relationships probably did a great deal to push those people into leaving. Of course, I can only guess at what happened. Their decisions may have had very little to do with me. I am starting to be at peace, to come to radically accept, that these friendships are over for reasons I will never actually know, that I can do nothing to change what did or didn't happen, and that there is nothing I can do to change the fact that I don't have relationships with those people. Thinking about it is only useful in how I can learn from it, in how I grow, in how I change in ways that both make me happier and make me more effective in my life.

Of course another thing that I don't have control over is if any of those people decide to come back into my life. As of late, several of them have, with mixed results. Long-time readers know that Moneypenny has been back in my life for 18 months now. Despite how my pervasive pattern of instability in interpersonal relationships may have contributed to it, I know now that his reasons for leaving were his own, just as his reasons for coming back are. The ways in which I have curbed the crazy things I used to do have made things easier, but they have still not always been easy. But we both choose everyday to be in it, which is how it should be.

On the other hand, a few weeks ago, BT made a surprise re-appearance, at 4am on a Saturday night. After having people just disappear on me, I hate to not respond when someone reaches out, even if I only try to explain why I don't want to be in their life. This doesn't usually go very well in the moment and it didn't in this situation either. Suddenly, I was a thieving lying cheating whore. While I will concede to seeing how he could think all but the very first one, my further analysis determined that, no matter how true or untrue any of what he said might be, it really had little to do with me. I rejected him and he was angry, all of which seem like fairly natural human responses. While I wish BT well, my decision is to not have him in my life, which is based more on what I know about myself now than about him.

It takes two to be in a relationship. Despite my tendency to try to maintain a white-knuckle hold on to those I like, love, or am infatuated with, my wise mind knows that I don't want to keep someone who doesn't want to be kept, just as I don't want to be forced to stay where I don't want to be. I am trying very hard to for my actions to reflect that.

And now you're back. The most enigmatic of them all. I kept sending emails and forwarding my blog posts because you'd said you were out there, listening, even if you didn't respond. I guess it's been a bit like prayer, talking to someone you have no evidence is actually listening, still feeling better in spite of that. When I saw the email, I think I forgot how to breath. Know even less about why you've reappeared than about why you left and you claim not to be entirely sure yourself. I have no faith that you will be around for long and no reassurances on your part. I want to grab this opportunity by the horns, communicate with you as much as possible, because you will probably be gone long before I would like. Yet when I think of texting you or emailing you, I find myself second-guessing, not wanting to come on too strong and drive you away. Most of all, I try to temper my happiness and excitement with a realistic view of who you are. Some people would advise me not to have contact at all with someone that I do not trust to stick around. But, for all the things you claim to be but might not be, you've never claimed to be the kind to stick around forever. Or even for another week. I find something very reassuring in that. My wise mind would never let me take you for a LTRR, but that's never really been what it was about, for either of us.

I guess this highlights another problem that I have been running into for the last several years. How do you keep things as loose, non-committal, and pressure-free as you want while also expressing how much you do care? One of those myths that I bought into was that caring for someone meant a tight grip while pressure-free meant that one didn't care. Both from recent experience and from how I really feel, I know that it isn't true. I just don't know how to express these things, especially in a way that might be believed by someone who also grew up with this myth.

So I write it here, so that you might read it, though I don't know if you'll believe it. I know you'll leave again, for reasons that have much more to do with you than with me, though I would hope that if there was a time when it was about me, you'd let me try to adjust my behavior before you did leave. Until then, I'm going to try to walk a line between grabbing on to my own life and trying to hold on to you.

When I raked the springtime across your sheets...

Something about this time of year. Seven-thirty, mild late-April evening, nowhere near cool enough for a jacket. Still light enough for me to see well-enough to write this on paper in my car, but the steel grey clouds promise rain tonight. No, not just yet, I can't smell the rain, but it's there.

At the house we owned just outside of the large Midwestern city, there was a lilac tree just like this one. It always smelled so good. When people talk about loving spring, it's usually because it's the end of winter, there's sunshine again, and everything is growing. May flowers and all of that. But I can't remember this tree without seeing it against a stormy sky, can't remember the smell of the flowers without also smelling a coming storm. It's not just the growth. It's the chaos and destruction that brings the growth. As a Midwestern girl, spring means thunderstorms and tornadoes. Autumn is lovely, with crisp fall days, the sound of rustling leaves, and the fear in October storms. But it is is all death, leading to a long cold winter. The fear in spring comes with the promise of life. It's probably no coincidence that this is usually when my depression eases up.

Last night, I sat out on the step in front of our house until the rain started. It felt like the wind was blowing in a huge storm, looked like the new green leaves were about to be pulled from the trees. But I felt peaceful, like I was the eye of whatever storm might roll through.

Spring has also always meant open windows for my family. The humid heat of our summers demands air conditioning and then of course there the heater in the winter, always gas, sometimes a roaring fire as well. But spring and fall call for open windows. The bedroom windows in our house outside the large Midwestern city were placed higher up in the wall, long but no more than 2 feet tall, if that. The roof hung over enough that, most of the time, you didn't have to worry about rain getting in the windows, so we left them open through all kinds of rainstorms and thunderstorms. No matter how bad the lightning and thunder were, it lulled me to sleep like few other things can. Still does. But, for a suburban girl who doesn't much like camping and the like, liking with the windows open in my house, with them rolled down in my car, feeling the breeze, makes me feel closer to whatever is out there. It can be soothing. But it can be scary too. Opening up to the things you like also opens you up to things you might not like.

I don't know how to end this, so I'll end it with a song, the one the title is drawn from, which seems quite appropriate for this post.

More Problems With Words

Upon further reflection, the other problem with using the word "dominate" in how you handled the relationship is that it implies I submitted. There might have been times when I surrendered or just plain gave up, but I never submitted. 


Maybe I'm feeling lazy today, but here is a sort of basic outline of what is expected of a submissive:

The behaviour/expectations of a submissive are that they should be open, honest and respectful, polite at all times as your actions will reflect upon your Dom/me and if inappropriate can lead to loss of trust, a break down in communication, or punishments and in severe cases your service terminated.  A submissive should be able to carry out instructions and obey his/her Dominant. Desires and needs should be discussed at all times and a realistic solution will be negotiated with the Dominant.  If you are in a 24/7 D/s relationship then you will have had specific training, acquired knowledge on how to carry out your every day duties and have a contract in place.  Communicating with a Dom/me is not an open reason to "whinge or whine" they are there to guide you and their word is final.  Share your concerns in a respectful manner and remain calm, sharing is good but done in the right way will lead to positive solutions.  If further training is required then your Dom/me can put this in place.  Accepting your Dom/mes decision if they feel scenes are dangerous or unsafe, remember they know best and you need to respect this.  If there is any disrespect, you must accept that you will be dealt with directly and to take whatever punishment is seen fit.  Understand your levels of submission and what is expected of you, this is all part of your training. 

Someone who is submitting is not, unless it's part of the established play, going to actively disobey or disrespect zir Dominant, or violate the existing agreement. A submissive should not attempt to push past the Dominant's own hard limits. Negotiations are not arguments and should not result in the submissive yelling, screaming, crying or threatening because ze did not get zir way. A submissive would work hard to be a good reflection on zir Dominant. A submissive would realize that zir Dominant is human, makes mistakes, and not nag them to death about every little thing. Or nag them at all. A submissive would strive to understand zir Dominant's particular and specific expectations and either strive to meet them or renegotiate in a calm and respectful manner. A submissive would know that zir Dominant loves zir, even if the Dominant cannot or will not give them everything ze wants the exact moment they want it. A submissive would not manipulate or cheat on zir Dominant because of that. Even in a relationship where one partner is dominant and the other submissive, both partners are equal in their humanity and adulthood and should treat each other as such. 


So I guess there are a great many words and phrases that describe me better than someone who was dominated. 

The Problem with Words

I google image'd "Dom husband" and got this.

You think it's funny that I bitched about your lack of dominance in bed but that I also still bitch that you dominated our relationship. 


I think I misspoke when I said the latter part of that.


Maybe I should have chosen my words more carefully. Maybe you think that my desire for dominance in the bedroom means I, naturally, also actually want dominance in my romantic relationships outside the bedroom. I can understand how someone who's never felt the desire to dominate or be dominated sexually, much less who's been involved in the lifestyle as it's typically practiced, could feel that way. Even if that was true, the way I use the word in the first context is not the way I use it in the last. Even so, I feel the need to clear things up, though I will not be using that word in the second context again.


Dominants do not actually set the limits in a relationship. Ze might have things ze will not do, which ze are upfront about during open vocal negotiations, but ultimately, no matter how far out zir limits are, ze cannot go past the hard limits of the submissive. Dominants test a submissive's capabilities while respecting limits, while paying close attention to a submissive's state of mind in the moment. Dominants express their expectations and swiftly voice when a submissive has transgressed, as well as set up ways for that transgression to be made right again. Dominants enthusiastically take on the responsibility for the safety and well-being of zir submissives. 


Though I might have once used the word this way, dominance is not deciding the parameters of a relationship without the input of one's partner and without telling even telling that partner. Dominance does not expect something that has not been expressed. Dominance leads gently, but firmly. Dominance does not lie. A Dominant is not ashamed of zir submissive or ashamed of what others think of them being together. A Dominant does not all the relationship to devolve into chaos or equivocate about the relationship. Like all humans and like zir submissive, a Dominant is fallable and will make mistakes, but, just as ze quickly corrects zir submissive, ze takes responsibility for zir own transgressions and corrects them.  


Through therapy, I currently know quite a few straight Christian women who believe the Biblical command that a woman should submit to her husband in all things just as people should submit to God in all things. Whenever someone mentions that, my mind fills up with all the shitty, unethical, immoral abusive things that people do to each other and wonders how one person could submit to another in the context of husband and wife. In those moments, I usually forget that the other side of that is that the husbands also have an ideal that they are supposed to live up to, which includes not doing those shitty, unethical, immoral, and/or abusive things. These husbands are supposed to lead, love, cherish, and pull their weight in the relationship, just as the wives are supposed to submit, love, cherish, and pull their weight in the relationship. (In Biblical times, the division of labor was different from now, but I think it's safe to say that both spouses had to work hard and the phrase "breadwinner" would have been pretty meaningless.) In fact, there actually is a Christian-based Dominance/submission movement.


In the end, I think there are probably several other words I should have used instead of the second usage of a variation of dominance. All of which I'm not feeling mean enough to write, but are probably quite apparent at this point. 

Oh, and I also got this pic from that search.

In case you didn't believe me...

In case you didn't believe me in the previous post, and you don't watch "Sex and the City" or read chick lit books, the us vs them in the straight dating world is alive and well. Obviously, I'm a little out of touch with popular music, as I was told this was a pretty popular song last year and I've never even heard of this band though all their albums have gone platinum. I think I prefer the hair bands to current rock, if this is it's pinnacle.

Ugh. I can't even bring myself to embed this song that I find pretty misogynistic in my blog. Here's the link if you dare: Theory of a Deadman "The Bitch Came Back" . Sample lyrics: "She's so fuckin' stupid bet she's singing along. The trouble with girls is they're all the same. Forget the diamonds and pearls they just want a ring...The bitch came back the very next day." blah blah blah.

Look, I'm all for a "he/she/you did me wrong" song, whether their conclusion is just "now I hate him/her/you" or "now I'm stronger and with someone way better than you." But those are very specific to individuals. I find less enjoyment in anything that says "all x are y." I know that people (mostly) write their experiences. These rockers have obviously had bad experiences with female partners in their lives. Rappers who's songs are mostly about crime and violence grew up seeing that. BT tried to convince me that all the violent, "women are all bitches only good for blowing me" songs from some band on the ICP label was tongue-in-cheek about the harsh, abusive world they grew up in. That's swell. And I'll defend their right to say, sing, make art about that. But that also means that I get have the right to not like their art and to think their art makes them seem like misogynistic, violent, abusive, criminal assholes (or some combination of those things.)

Also, if it didn't come across in my last post, I don't think that either side of the "us vs them" straight dating world divide is right. Everyone is different and shouldn't feel like they have to be squeezed into roles or desires. Straight men and women should feel free to want to get married or not want to get married, to want or not want children, to feel like the current ideal straight relationship roles are too constraining or are just right or something else along that spectrum. But, in case you hadn't figured this out about me, I think it's more important for an individual to figure out what they ultimately desire, and what they can work around, and for couples (or more-ples) to be honest with each other about those desires, find ways to for everyone to be as satisfied and happy as possible within reason, or to realize that they just aren't a good fit, without it being anyone's fault. Women, in general, are not bitches. Men, in general, aren't dicks or assholes. We're all just people living in this messed up world, trying to be as happy and fulfilled as possible given our cultural pressures and our unique histories. I think most of us want love, want loving relationships which nurture and support us. But those things mean different things to all of us and we have to find a way to make friends out of frenemies.

Consistency

So I've been thinking quite a bit about relationships, romantic and friendly, lately. Analyzing past relationships to learn from them, trying to figure out what people I'm currently in relationships with can give and what I can or should be giving in return, how I want all this to translate into future relationships. As evidenced by previous posts, Moneypenny and I are still having trouble navigating our friendship, which really isn't anything new, though I do think that we're being more candid earlier than we used to be.

I got this song in my head:

Official video won't embed but here's link: http://youtu.be/5mO2K-qkMU4

Completely complacent
So decidedly vacant
I keep waiting for something to give
But that something is always me
You consume what you’re able
I get crumbs from your table
You call this comfortably normal
But I call it getting by
Baby, it’s a fine line
I’m holding on, you’re holding back
Baby, it’s a fine line
Can’t you hear me knockin’ at your door?
But you’re taking your sweet time
In love, out of touch
Baby, it’s a fine line
Baby, it’s a real fine line
Do you feel the distance
Like I feel resistance?
If I pulled any farther away
Would you even come after me?
But the one thing I’m fearing
Is that I’m disappearing
How can I keep believing
If you won’t prove me wrong?
Baby, it’s a fine line
I’m holding on, you’re holding back
Baby, it’s a fine line
Can’t you hear me knockin’ at your door?
But you’re taking your sweet time
In love, out of touch
Baby, it’s a fine line
Baby, it’s a real fine line

Now the current situation with Moneypenny isn't that desperate by a long shot, but just a few weeks ago, this is pretty close to what I was feeling. I think that our biggest problems lately have come from the a simple misunderstanding. Moneypenny will tell me that he wants to do x or wants to be x, which I misunderstand to mean that x is his goal right now. What he really means is "I want to do/be x, BUT I'm not really able to." What makes it a bit more confusing is that sometimes he'll do/be x for a bit after saying that, but then things go back to how they were or go in the opposite direction, like yo-yo dieting. Then I bring it up, he tries really hard for a bit, then it goes back. The biggest area this has shown up in lately is our level and frequency of contact. He's said time and again that I'm his closest friend, that this is the biggest relationship in his life, which I am not denying is true, but for me that means fairly frequent contact, responding when someone asks you something in text or email, not disappearing for days at a time without a single word. (Yes I know this sounds more like I'm his girlfriend or his mom, but those of you out there with someone you call your bestfriend, what do you expect?) Now when he says he can't do that, when he's sick, when he's working lots of overtime, when he's got a busy week or weekend, I don't expect that. But, as we live in different cities and he's not one of those people who puts his whole life on Facebook, I don't really know that stuff. Maybe I do expect too much, but I feel like I try to expect something along the lines of what he says he'll do. (Me thinks the lady doth protest too much.) He's thought a bit about this too and thinks that it would be easier if we saw each other more often, as he's more connected in that way to local friends who he sees regularly. Of course, we're having a bit of trouble finding times when we are both free at the moment.

For a few years now, I've tried to both be aware of how I feel about other people, what I'd like from them or with them, but ultimately to know that they can only be who they are at that moment and they can only give what they can give at that moment. I'm not saying I always do this successfully, but I try. Even though it can be really awkward at times, I do try to ask the other person instead of making assumptions.

Looking back at my relationship with TyRoy, both the romantic period and the friendship period, I think that both of us being as honest as we could be about what we expected and what we could give, and accepting where the other person was, is what allowed us to stay together. I think most of the rather few, considering how long we've known each other, times we clashed were precipitated by my negative BPD coping skills getting the best of me and him having no clue what the fuck was going on. These always started with some crazy little thing that upset me way more than it justifiably should have, but at the time I didn't have the knowledge or the skills to take a step back from it. But looking at my relationship with TyRoy, the biggest thing it brought to my life was consistency. He is a very consistent person, lives a very consistent life, was present in my life in consistent ways, had consistent expectations of me, was consistently honest about who he is and what he wants and how I do or don't fit into that. It can't be overestimated how helpful this is for someone who has never felt consistent or stable.

Bipolar disorder is largely believed today to be a brain chemical imbalance that switches a person between depression and mania. Then let's add to that borderline personality disorder, which has a great deal of black and white thinking, living on the extremes in my personality, where I'm either experiencing unrelenting crisis or inhibited feeling, look completely competent or practice active passivity. I'm one crazy chick, right? Then you put me together with Moneypenny, who can easily get carried away in the early part of a new romantic relationship, but, in the long-term, is governed by a Ben Stiller's actuary character from "Along Came Polly." This means that once he's gotten over the heady falling in love period and knows a lady a bit better, he determines what risks there are to being with her, and, so far at least, those risks always outweigh the uncertain reward. So he pulls away, except not quite far enough away to actually leave, because he still does have hope, hope that she'll grow out of that risk. Not surprisingly, she doesn't. Usually, his pulling away only magnifies the qualities or behaviors he found risky in the first place. I'm not writing this to be judgmental or put him on blast. Honestly, while he has many qualities that are extra-ordinary, this all-in then pull-out seems to be rather typical (romantic) relationship behavior for many people, especially men, of our age and I think that cultural and socioeconomic factors, as well as being able prevent pregnancy, tend to allow it to go on longer without it being questioned. I'm not saying that any of those things are wrong or that I would want those contributing factors to change. Just that this is what is. But when culture still pushes (straight) women to think that their highest goal is to get married and have children, when their friends and family put pressure on them to get married, when they are barraged with stories about how not making babies as young as possible after their teens because they start losing fertility, but, on the other hand, pushes even harder on men to not get trapped, to not be invested, to put their male friendships first, to be the cop making sure that feelings don't speed in the relationship, to not feel like they can lose this woman if they don't act to shore up the relationship, well, for better or worse, this creates two people in a relationship with completely opposite motivations and goals. It's not a romantic partnership. What you have here are romantic frenemies.

After my romantic relationship with Moneypenny ended, I really thought that all straight men were like the above. BT showed me that a man my age could jump right in, all the way in, though maybe he only jumped right in because he knew he was physically leaving. On the other hand, he was from a completely different cultural and socioeconomic place than my previous boyfriends. TyRoy had jumped in completely to a fairly new relationship when he was my age and had done all he could to stay in it, though it ultimately didn't last. A bit older than me (or Moneypenny) and much farther along in his life goals than either of us, he seemed to be past the bullshit. More self-assured, he laid out what he wanted, didn't like to waste any time, apparently still felt that it was better to go for that relationship than let the potential (or obvious) risks get in the way. I think this came from age, experience, and, because of his career, not being allowed the extended adolescence post-college that many of us have today. Though I know of plenty of (straight) couples that seem to get engaged and married more out of the push of the female partner and the male partner's feelings of inevitability, this weekend, one of my uncle's close friend's boyfriend of five months surprised her by proposing to her while they were visiting her family for Easter. He wanted to get married as soon as possible, to start this new life together as soon as possible, but because he also wanted them to have a party to celebrate it, they're crunching the numbers to balance that out. She told my mom that he's already been out tasting cakes. Seeing both people so excited about it just makes me all criemy-wimey. It's nice knowing it's not all one way.

They say that the only constant in all your failed relationships is you. Looking back, I see how the tango between my poor BPD and bipolar coping skills and my partner's extreme all-ins then pull-back-outs spelled disaster for us. But I picked these guys, didn't I? So why was TyRoy different, so I can try to repeat the success of that one? Honestly, I think it's because I didn't really pick him. At least not for that. If I'd just went on a regular date with him, a romantic date which I hoped might become a romantic relationship, I honestly probably wouldn't have gone on many more. Gods love him, but he's a pushy, aggressive, stubborn, not traditionally romantic bastard. We became e-mail friends because we had shared losses at the time, with no intention to meet in person ever. We met in person because I also answered a kinky casual encounters ad that I didn't know was his. We were just supposed to be a sexual stop-over relationship for each other, so all those things that I would have rejected him for if I was going to date him didn't really matter to me. I think that we became closer as we found more and more common ground and the more the relationship proved to work for us in real time. While his consistency might have been a no go in someone I sought out for dating, I think it was a large factor in how successful we were. So I think my choosing is all of.

Of course, this doesn't help the situation with Moneypenny, now does it? *Sigh* Except that maybe I should work to be more consistent and to see the ways in which his behavior is consistent in itself, even if it's not consistent with what he says. Though I'm not a huge Oprah fan, I take lessons where I can find them. One of her favorite sayings, which is from Maya Angelou, is "When someone shows you who they are, believe them." I also remember a further quote from a relationship expert that she used to have on her show all the time, but had developed a rift with, just about the time the expert's own romantic relationship fell apart. When the two reconciled in Oprah's last season, the relationship expert said that she completely agreed with the quote, but would add, "And when someone TELLS you who they are, go to the other side of the street," meaning when someone tells you that they are in a negative sense, if that is something you don't want in a relationship, instead of thinking they're going to change or that you can fix them, don't proceed with that relationship. I don't think that the Maya Angelou quote has to be taken negatively though. TyRoy has shown himself to be very good at day to day life, to be completely open and honest and without guile with me, though, while he's never turned me away, he's also shown that he does not have a clue what to do with me when I'm in an emotional crisis. Moneypenny has shown that he's not very good at the everyday, but he's amazing when I'm in a crisis, knows just how to cut to the heart of the matter and make me see things in a different, more helpful light. If I could put the best parts of them together.... Nevermind. I can't control other people, so I always try to find what I can do to make situations more tolerable for myself. Here, I think I need to keep working on accepting and making the best us of who Moneypenny really is right now, and ignore anything he says that's not backed up by actions.

Finally, a closing number, by the Boss himself. How I often feel in life and relationships, but am trying to develop the skills to change, because time only moves one way, away from yesterday:

Woke up this morning the house was cold
Checked the furnace she wasn’t burnin’
Went out and hopped in my old Ford
Hit the engine but she ain’t turnin’
We’ve given each other some hard lessons lately
But we ain’t learnin’
We’re the same sad story that’s a fact
One step up and two steps back
[ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsfreak.com/b/bruce+springsteen/one+step+up_20025276.html ]
Bird on a wire outside my motel room
But he ain’t singin’
Girl in white outside a church in June
But the church bells they ain’t ringin’
I’m sittin’ here in this bar tonight
But all I’m thinkin’ is
I’m the same old story same old act
One step up and two steps back

It’s the same thing night on night
Who’s wrong baby who’s right
Another fight and I slam the door on
Another battle in our dirty little war
When I look at myself I don’t see
The man I wanted to be
Somewhere along the line I slipped off track
I’m caught movin’ one step up and two steps back

There’s a girl across the bar
I get the message she’s sendin’
Mmm she ain’t lookin’ too married
And me well honey I’m pretending
Last night I dreamed I held you in my arms
The music was never-ending
We danced as the evening sky faded to black
One step up and two steps back