“You Can Always Call”

It’s hard to feel accomplished when everything seems to be falling apart in a week’s worth of the wake of graduation. 3 1/2 year relationship over, in a way that one might expect a month or maybe six month relationship would be over.

I’m exhausted. and kinda glad right now to be alone. He wants or needs to be alone so bad, fine, good for him, but it’s very shitty to like essentially say good bye to the person you still profess to love as if you’ll see them next week. He claims it isn’t that far. Yet when….Oh I don’t care right now.

 

My head hurts.

Stale champagne

On the occasion that you find yourself in a mostly packed and emptied house with nearly all of your possessions sitting in a parked u-haul van while your (ex?)(current?)(significant other)boyfriend? (former[or current] Partner) is away working over time trying to finish up a project because his boss’s brother in-law just OD’d on heroin and died. And his boss’s debut solo show is happening in four days with at least a week’s worth of work to do and so said former or current boyfriend is going to work through the night to dutifully figure out how to mount/frame the photos of the aforementioned boss in the complicated way that even the incompetent yet some how talented boss doesn’t know how to do. ON this occasion, where not knowing the actual state of the three and a half year relationship, that you did not realize had meant as much to you as you thought. Or perhaps that good ol’ patriarchal Christian monogamy still some how haunts you more than you realize. It is on this occasion that drinking the stale champagne that was meant for celebration mimosas, which ended up being merely sad lonely mimosa that you didn’t even finish because you have shown a recent self harming impulse when drinking too much.

This occasion in which you find yourself, baby-sitting the beloved elderly dog of said former or current boyfriend in the mostly empty house surrounded by said former or current boyfriend’s things, because you both deeply love the elderly dog, and some how are still not quite ready to face what your life has become. Sure you finished graduated school, and yes that is awesome. But when you have a meager amount of sanity left, and the relationship that now you realize you are willing to work on is probably ending, but definitely feels like limbo. And you’re having to strongly consider going into some kind of intensive therapy program, oh and you’re broke, while so many around you seem to have their dreams being come true….

It is this occasion in which drinking that stale celebration champagne is acceptable. Check your bank account and order some fucking indian food for yourself and try to not be so fucking sad. Salty stale champagne is just too pathetic, even for you.

Breaking up with friends is hard

It’s not often that I am willing to turn my back on some one. I was raised to believe in the goodness of people, that no matter what dark hole people may be in currently they will come out on the other side eventually. I think that I was wrong. Sometimes people get so wrapped up in themselves and fall in love with their darkness or sickness and it becomes who they are, and too often they love it or at least they love hating it.  I haven’t had a friendship break up in this way since high school. When that one friend who decided to start lying about all of us and be super weird and we decided to not hang around her until she stopped being an asshole. And then I have my childhood friend who I was sorta in love with became so catholic she lived inside the pope’s ass. And well I suppose that sorta faded out, there were a few shifts but it took me years be like,”You know what? I just don’t care anymore.”

This however is different. I don’t know that many people here in Boston, and I have a tendency to put my eggs in few baskets or one pretty quickly, and then I usually I’ll spread them back out a little maybe? I don’t doubt that being my friend can be exhausting at times, I freak out and think that my friends will be there for me, every few months, but I also hope that my friends know that the same goes for them, I’m here is all I’m saying-I’ll listen.

And I’ve got my share of problems, ptsd making me act crazy, I have a slew of irrational fears mainly about leaving the house, and being attacked again, and yes I fantasize about death waaaay more than I ever let on. However, I deal with my shit. Sometimes not super well, and I need people to be like, look dude you are not dealing with shit well-fix that. And typically I do. I know things that help me, but it’s really hard for me to form the correct rituals and habits, because I have also this really bizarre thing against them, even though I totally function way better when I am living a more routine life. I fear that routine will bore me (which it does), and that it will prevent me from being able to be spontaneous, (which is silly, because I have to like psyche myself up so much to leave the house and socialize that I need anywhere from a week to months depending on the nature of the event)  However there are certain people that I will pretty much do anything with whenever, because I always have fun even if it turns into a disaster, it’s usually a great story.

I’m rambling.

My point is, this (ex)friend of mine has ptsd also, and she doesn’t do anything about her it, nothing, but complain. She complains about inequality continuously, but never does anything about it. And yes I am very aware that probably a lot of that has a great deal to do with the fact that she doesn’t feel like she has the power to do anything but  complain, but I can’t handle being around that. Especially when I simply state something that had helped me in the past and I get yelled at for telling her what to do. She’s kinda an asshole, at the very least she’s acting like a huge one and doesn’t seem like to be stopping anytime soon, so now I’m done. I was going to text her the other day when I felt super lonely instead I wrote to captainawkward saying:

I think that my best friend doesn’t want to be my friend any more. I moved here three years ago, and don’t know many people. I’m introverted, have ptsd, and so does she. I still have a great deal of my own issues, but I seek help for them. She doesn’t. And it’s exhausting to deal with. But she’s also really funny, insightful, and kind.

She has really high defenses, and they can go back up at any time. It seems like perhaps part of our falling out has to do with my boyfriend, and her new job.  I think she thinks that I’m changing for him. I did become vegan when we moved in together, because he’s vegan and has been such for ten years. I was already mostly vegan because of how often we cooked together, so to me it just seemed like a natural transition. Especially since I increasingly felt ill after eating things like dairy and eggs. And we’re all very feminist, some of our views don’t line up exactly.

And it seems that when some one disagrees with her, her ptsd kicks in and tells her that this person isn’t safe and can’t be trusted. We were all living together, so it exasperated everything.(and she never cleaned up after herself and was a very inconsiderate roommate, and didn’t even try to feign curtsy towards my boyfriend)

A few months back she decided to start camming, and said that I would be good at it, she was debating on it, and I was high or drunk and feeling impulsive and just signed up, but never followed through. And yes in part it was because my boyfriend was less than thrilled. But really it comes more down to me, I don’t think that I would feel comfortable doing it. She did it though, she is a cam girl now, and I’m happy for her, and that she even said that it was the best community she has ever been a part of. And she kept saying how good I would be at it, even though I told her I didn’t want to do it. She kept pressing it on me. I know that part of it was also that she wanted to do videos with me. Which made me really uncomfortable. I am bi and so is she, but I’ve never really been with a woman, and I’m still figuring things out and I’m in a committed relationship, and she’s my friend. I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing that, not when she’s married, and we’re friends. She’s mentioned to me before that she and her husband would be interested in a threesome with me. Honestly, when she told me that it made me feel almost as if she was only interested in me because of the way I looked, just like so many guys.

Now we’re moved out and my boyfriend and I and her husband and her, each couple we have our own respected places. I tried reconciling after we had a blow out, and wrote a letter to her apologizing for how things went down, but also standing up for myself, but she wouldn’t even look at me when I was saying goodbye.

At this point, I don’t even want to reconcile I don’t think. I miss her really bad. But I don’t know what to do, I want to talk to her and figure out what happened, what it is that I did to become an enemy.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that she probably wasn’t a good friend. But then I think that a lot of that has to do with her PTSD, but then I also don’t think that’s an excuse for bad behavior.

Do you have any advice on getting over friendships that have ended? Is it just like any other relationship?

I know this was long, I’m sorry, I just don’t really have anyone to talk to about this.

Best,

 

-L

 

She responded in such a clear frank way that other people had been saying to me a number of times that finally it clicked:

Awkward Mailbox	Sep 30 (2 days ago)
to me

 “You have to do porn with me because: PTSD” = NOT A THING

“You have to do (anything you don’t want to do) with me because: PTSD” = Not actually a thing.

Selfish assholes get PTSD, too.

Grieve for this the way you would after any breakup or loss, but this person is not good news and not a good part of your life anymore, and you’ve made absolutely the right choice in leaving her behind.

Best to you,

J

So yesterday I let myself mourn the loss and realize that our relationship revolved around smoking weed, eating pizza or sushi, and me giving in to being a bad vegetarian/vegan, then feeling sick (literally stomach hurt/problems),  her dying my hair whatever color she really wanted, and then cutting it, sometimes her doing my make up and making me remember what my junior high self looked like, watching drag race or some really bad movie/show. When things were good, when our relationship wasn’t so superficial we made art together and were weird together, and made each other laugh with inappropriate words, but that quickly faded away once we because roommates.  I don’t think that I have to agree with some one 100 % in order to be their friend. I don’t think that I have to believe all the same things, I don’t need people to bend to my will all the time, or agree with me, or be my clone. I want people to be themselves, I’m interested in other’s because I like them for who they are not because I want to change them or they’re exactly like me. If I wanted to hang out with an echo I would just find a cave and talk.  So yea I guess it’s over, and I’m okay. It took a couple of months, but now I’m done moping, because it’s been a year of rapid decent into darkness. And I’ve had a lot of darkness in my life, I don’t want or need my friends to pull me down. Friends are supposed to be there for you yea, and sometimes that means going into the darkness, but not to stay there, friends are there to help pull you out of that shit, they’re not the ones that are suppose to be dragging you back into it.

Marriage Bed

Through the velvet darkness
Camels and cheap beer on my tongue,
Bring me back to pain
I turn my head but you grabbed me back

 

The weight of your fat body I once loved
Now grotesque
Crushes my breath
Vice around my throat
I’m forced to swallow

 

The warm coat of black velvet washes over me
I know I’m not safe,
But here, ignorance is bliss

The struggle and agony inside my body
Lifts the curtain

 

I see my hands bound;
A knot at every eight
The dearest brown scarf
Tiny woven diamond bulls eyes
A thousand tiny eyes
Witness my torture

A thousand tiny eyes
Know the truth
No black velvet to shield them
They saw all
Every tear, every plea

 

The darkness took hold his eyes
That were once so full of life.
Making me believe in evil.

 

A thousand tiny eyes
Stare stone silent shaming
A whimper comes forth
Why are you doing this?

Because, I love you.

 

Mistake

You drove home
One more drink?
We talk theology
Passion rises as we kill our god
Minds expand as the night wanes
Falling into one another
I go to kiss you on your cheek
Your head turns
Ecstasy began
It was a dream so good
Better than it’d been in a long time

The sharp morning light
Cuts into my head
But your shadow
Still laid inside me
I open my eyes to kiss my husband

But you were there instead.

 

After

Heavy with pleasure
I fall transfixed
Melting into the billowing pillows.

Your scent lingers over me.

 

 

 

I wrote this after having sex with my boyfriend.

Landscape

This is a poem that I wrote for an online intensive that I did Called Digging Deeper Facing Self.  That was probably one of the best ways I could have started the new year, so now today I am trying to keep up with the good habits that I formed, even if it took a few weeks to get back at it.

Landscape

 

Tall Piney woods
Sway full-bodied in the wind.
The shadow of steeples always near
The dull, low, murmur of the prison count siren.
A giant blowing into an old glass bottle

 

Day in, day out surrounded by walls
The forest
The church
And prisons.

 

Preachers and Teachers are my people
Baptists as far back as I know
Proud people
Godly folk
Not ashamed of the twang in their voice,
Or the Bible that nuzzles up with the gun in the glove compartment.

 

Poor wandering preacher
A young wife who left school to fulfill her duty
Two small kids: boy, girl
Three hostages bound by holy matrimony. 

 

How often was my father told to be a man,
As tears from pain welled in his eyes?

 

A small boy
Beaten, switched, belted, and probably worse.
Did Grandad quote scripture,
While he whipped?
Or did the demons of his past take hold
And his eyes glaze over
The way my father’s later would?

Did the churches know?
Were there whispers at potluck?
Is that why he fled?
Church to church,
Was help ever offered to the poor wife?
Or did she have to make the bed,
She chose to lie in?

 

Only the boy was beaten
But all were terrorized.

 

I wonder what advent was like in that house
What did the Christmas tree look like?
Did my grandma play piano and warble Oh Holy Night,
While my dad and aunt hung the ornaments?

 

Father was always warm on Christmas morn.
We’d eat the sticky buns my mom had prepared
Sometimes though I’d see sadness in his eye

 

He did his best to break the cycle,
I think.
Sometimes it’s hard to say that:
My sister, screaming, beneath his bare back
Him holding her with one arm,
And the ping-pong paddle
Breaking across her back.
Not all his demons were mastered. 

 

I was so young;
My fear was born that day.

 

But Baptists are if nothing else,
One’s to forgive (on the surface at least)
Recommit to God
Atone, atone, atone for their sins
For all have sinned
Fallen short
Wanting, glory.

 

You don’t have to be re-baptized
That’s not strictly allowed
Once saved always saved
Whether you like it or not

 

So one day in Paradise
I guess I’m doomed to walk
Side, by side,
The miserable manipulative Abuser
That created my father. 

Squabble

So over the weekend, M and I had our first real argument borderline fight.

Last Friday night right before we went to bed I said something stupid. Something that I think I have a legitimate reason to run over and over in my head, but then never say out loud, because its my scumbag brain that needs to unlearn some things.

Here’s what I asked, “Could you do me a favor? Could you introduce me as L, my girlfriend, instead of my girlfriend, L”

To me(scumbag brain that needs to learn that I’m not in an abusive relationship anymore) the whole girlfriend before name thing was literally putting my identity behind my being M’s girlfriend. EVEN THOUGH, he has done nothing and I do mean NOTHING to suggest that he thinks he’s better than me automatically because he’s a man.

But you see here’s the thing my stupid brain hears/sees/feels/remembers initially with that kind of repetition (I seemed to have been getting introduced a bunch as of late)

So, first off. When I was in middle school, I was sexually harassed EVERY. SINGLE.DAY. And GROPED. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. So much so people stopped using my name, and simply referred to me as my ass. No joke. It was rather dehumanizing. I did not matter, only my ass. What a horrible feeling for anyone, but especially a person who’s at the stage in their life where they’re learning who they are.

Then, enter ex-husband, who at the start of our marriage referred to me as the wife or wife actually in a fairly possessive way, and used my name, less and less. And by the end of our marriage just referred to me as bitch. And then in our separation, bitch, whore, cunt, all of those were very common.

There are other things too, but really that’s enough for my brain to freak out now just for being in a relationship/opening up to some one emotionally and sexually. And there’s this part of me that is in full belief that everything will turn to shit, and I’m going to be the one getting hurt again. And I’m not sure how much more hurt I can handle. But at the same time, I also don’t think that I could ever put myself in any situation that would let me be as badly hurt as I was with my ex or that stranger.

Any way, I KNOW that M is different. Very different from anyone I’ve ever been with and most people I’ve met. But my stupid brain hasn’t unlearned that not every relationship is an abusive one. And so there is sabotage about. And before I had really stopped letting this all spin about in my head, and realize that I’m triggered and acting from a point of being triggered out, I spoke those words.

He said he could do that, but then pointed out that I was the one that had specifically brought up, “What do we call each other conversation.” And once we started talking I realized that I had listened to my victim part of myself triggered self, and not really me. Not the me that knows M, and knows how much he cares for me. And I apologized profusely, but the seed was there for the epic shit show that was the next night.

 

We both had, had really super shitty days, and went and got food to take to my house and make dinner. I had forgotten that one of my roommates had said that he was going to have a few old buddies over. Well I thought that he meant like two or three at most. Not what was it, four? five? Anyway, doesn’t matter, what does matter is that they got very drunk very quickly and one in particularly large in stature dude grew to be an even bigger asshole.

He quickly got black marked by me, by trying to explain to me that I don’t know how to cook because I didn’t know what a BTU was and some how more importantly that I didn’t know the difference of BTU’s for a gas stove vs. an electric. I told him, that I knew that gas burned faster, and that I knew how to cook, and then wait a minute I don’t have to explain or defend myself to you, I don’t KNOW you and YOU SIR, DO NOT KNOW ME. And then proceeded to start making cookies.

M, was very uncomfortable, this guy was very big, loud, and domineering.  I went into my dissociative survival mode and fixated on making these cookies that we had talked about making for a few weeks now. Actually this was the entire reason I wanted to go to my house versus M’s because I have a stand mixer. I did my best to ignore basically everything, looking up ever so often to see M, talking and or laughing about something, I thought he was having a better time than I was expecting. Little did I know that he was just putting on a good show. He sure fooled me. I mean, eventually neither of us could keep it up and we went up stairs to my room. And I asked him if he wanted to leave and go back to his house (which I had actually asked him a few times before we started cooking) And when we finally did decide to leave, we were packing up in my room, and it was revealed just how long he had been keeping face.

He vented on for a few minutes about how the same societal norms and stereotypes are forced upon men that are forced about women. Obvs he didn’t mean the exact same, but there are still these roles that men are “supposed to” fall into, which M, does not. (A good part of why I like him so much) And he was upset, about what I had said the night before, and why was because he felt that I was calling him that dick that was downstairs. I immediately felt horrible that something I had said had caused him so much pain. I told him again that I didn’t mean it in that way and that he was completely right that he had never done anything to indicate any of those things. And I just felt worse and worse and I tried to explain about my stupid scumbag brain that didn’t understand that I wasn’t in those situations anymore. But it wasn’t helping. I told him how wrong I was, and how sorry I was.

But he was also angry with himself. Angry that he felt the need to placate people like that and that it was best to do his best to fit in until he could get out of there. I told him to say fuck those people, if they didn’t like him for who he was, and that he should be proud of who he is, because he was so awesome and different and well spoken, and smart, caring, and just such a good person. And besides, I liked him for who he was, and if he was anything like that guy, I wouldn’t have looked at him twice.

I mean seriously, my biggest, and possibly only disappointment with M so far is that he doesn’t like massages.

Anyway, we made up, it was tense for a minute, but we did make up.

But there’s still that stupid stupid brain in my head that’s now whispering, “I told you so”. Because we had a squabble. One squabble.  And I’m doing my best not to listen to it. But man does it make me anxious.

But hey, I’m still not running away screaming, so that’s progress.

 

Counselor: “I noticed, L, that you don’t really bring M up very much in here, I’d love to hear about how that’s going sometime, if you wanted to talk about that.”

:silence:

Me: “I guess I feel like as soon as I talk about something in here there’s something wrong with it.”

Calling a Goat a Goat

So I’ve started seeing some one and by started I mean back in November.  Some one who is completely amazing, so good and caring, fun, and sexy… and I’m terrified by how much I’m *feeling* towards him already. Mostly due to the fact that I am, actually feeling things. Its still kinda new to me.

But this time I’m not running away from him. I’m not hiding. But he also isn’t prying or demanding more than I can give. He doesn’t act like he has a right to my devoutness or body.

I didn’t know people like him existed.

He said he didn’t own me.

He said I didn’t owe him an explanation when I started to explain why I wanted to go slow.

When I said, “It would mean a lot to me if we didn’t have sex tonight.” he said, “of course” and hugged me.

He wanted to take me to his parents because he wanted to make his mom uncomfortable by his opinionated, passionate, girlfriend. Not because I was something nice to look at. I can’t say how many times I have felt like some one else wanted me to meet some one else because I was a trophy. I think perhaps part of my reserve in admitting publicly that I was in a relationship with AB was because I felt that part of the need he had, was to show off his trophy. Because he never said things like, ” Well I’m not really interested in  you for your grace, but more your brute strength and unrelenting power.”

I mean, wow. I can’t believe I have this person. Some one who I’m romantically involved with, who champion’s me. He believes so strongly in me. But not in a pedestal kind of way. He doesn’t say that I’m perfect (which is awesome), he thinks I’m talented, smart, funny, passionate, bad ass, sexy, and apparently have unrelenting power.

Do you ever get uncomfortable when some one says something that they see in you, but you don’t see in yourself? That happens a lot with M. But its always something that I have this internal debate of whether or not I’m strong or ____. For Example on the strong thing: There is still a part of me that feels like (and thinks) if I was as strong as some people believe, like M, then I couldn’t possibly have been raped for three days by my scumbag ex husband, and then on top of that be raped a year later by a stranger. I wouldn’t or couldn’t have ended up in an emotionally abusive relationship, and now I’m starting to feel the whole sexual relationship I had with my ex was kinda on the iffy line of consent, or a great deal of it at least.
And every time M, makes a comment about how strong I am (its usually tied to a joke about how I could take some one or kick a few people’s asses) I think to myself, ” I wonder if he would still think that if he knew about my past.”

And last night he said something, and I got a little choked up and said, “You really are so good.” he asked what I meant, ” I mean so few people have been kind to me the way that you are. My life is so different now than just a few years ago. And I’m sorry for crying just, my body has this memory for traumatic events, I’m working on it, and the anniversaries are really awful for me. I was hospitalized two years ago.” I didn’t say anything beyond that, I thought about it. But really didn’t want to right then. I just wanted to eat the food we had made. So I made a comment about how he hadn’t even taken a bite yet. And he said, “I was listening to you, I didn’t want to eat while I was listening to you.”  That made me want to cry more so I turned to my sandwich and beer and took a bite. Besides I was close to being done with mine, because I was a little high and very hungry. And started eating before him, because I’m rude.

He then went on to say, “You know L, and you may and probably do actually already know this or feel this way, but I won’t judge you at all for anything that you did or happened or some way you used to think in the past, you can talk to me about it, if you want or need to.”

I do want to. I want to tell him so very much. I was ready to last night, and then he said those things, and I just wanted to hold on to those for a while, and not be high and already upset about the whole thing. And before those memories had come up, I wanted to have sex. And he seemed to, too. But when he came to bed he just held me.

This man, has opened my eyes and given me hope. Hope that really there are more than ten good people in the world.

A few weeks ago I asked him if he would feel better if he had something to call me, aside from my name, “You mean like my girlfriend?” And of course that word made me very uncomfortable and was like, well no, that’s not what I meant, I’m not a girl, and you’re not a boy, I just… there…”L, you might as well as call a relationship what it is, you can dance around the words or try and come up with new ones, but you’re just making words like boyfriend, girlfriend, taboo, and thus more powerful than they actually are. ”

“Okay…I see you point. I suppose, yes, girlfriend is good then. So does that make you my boyfriend?”

“Yep.”

“Alright then, we’re boyfriend and girlfriend.”

And then we made out a bunch.