(no subject)
I haven't had a computer in a long time. I fixed my chromebook finally, so now maybe I can start to write again.
I don't know where to start.
I got a crush on someone and told my partner about it, and he became very upset. It caused 3 months of fighting and visits to a couple's counselor and the worst behavior I've ever seen from him. Monogomy is gross, and our cultural ideation of it is SO HARMFUL.
But I have agreed to monogomy, and so that's where I am.
But what has come out of these three long months. . . Are some really powerful realizations, and some new ways of moving forward.
1) I have always given too much of myself to lovers and partners.
a) I am chosing myself over other people right now, and Chance is surprisingly supportive of that.
2) My parents, especially my father, have been neglectful and emotionally abusive my whole life. It's why I let men treat me so horribly - It's all I've ever known.
b) He never physically hurt me, my sister, or my mother. But things have come into my mind lately - My mom trying to leave him but him not letting her - Being made to feel like if I was anything other than a Good Christian Wife I was worthless in the world - He was never around when we needed him, he was always holed up in his office or away for work, especially when my mother was suicidal and trying to raise two children on her own. He couldn't take it, so he just. . . bailed. - The gaslighting, oh god. So much gaslighting. "Why are you overreacting Brenda?" After he'd told her she was worthless. "Mental illness isn't real, you just want attention." After she tried to explain that she thought she might need medication. "You need to go outside more." After she tried to kill herself. "Well, if you kept the house clean I wouldn't have to get mad at you." Shit like that. I grew up terrified of my father. I'm still afraid of him. Yet, I've also spent my whole life trying to get his approval. Thing is, I never will.
I NEVER WILL.
I am queer - Something my father believes to be not only wrong/immoral, but he views it as a mental illness. He wouldn't acknowledge my mother's major depression, but queerness? Isn't real, they're all just sick.
I have gotten divorced - When my mom told him I had decided to end my abusive marriage, he told her that she was a failure as a parent because she supported me. He told her she should have tried harder to convince me to stay. In an abusive relationship. She told him off, but you can tell he sees me as even less than I was before. A sullied woman.
I'm not Christian - If everything else remained the same, he would at least have this piece to be proud of. It is the one thing that would make me better in his eyes, at least a little bit.
In recent years, he's tried. He tries to tell me that he's proud of me. Tries to tell me he loves me. I can't hear it, or feel it. I'm so angry. So used to him preaching at me and telling me that God loves me, even if he doesn't. I can't hear it with any belief when he tells me nice things.
My hope is that I am able to set some boundaries with kindness and love. Because in spite of all of this, I love my family and enjoy their company. They're my family, and things weren't ever all bad. We had fun and times we felt close. My parents are getting into their later years now, and I do not want them to die with any feelings of regret on my heart. I want them to know me, even if they don't like me. I haven't been my authentic self around them for. . . I don't know, two decades? When I've tried it gets ignored or treated as an "issue."
I have felt like an issue for too long. I'm done.
I had a strange memory crop up this morning. It's not something I'd forgotten about, but. . . It just came to me. I've been sick the past few days, feverish, exhausted, so I'm in a kind of strange place in my mind. The memory came to me, I think, just as my fever broke. It was like a dream, but it was a memory.
I'm 11. I'm sobbing. I have been thinking of how I could kill myself for weeks now. I'd imagined every pretty way possible. For some reason, I was obsessed with the idea of wearing a white nightgown and just lying down in snow in freezing temperatures and. . . falling asleep. It seemed eerie and beautiful to me. But, I lived in New Mexico and I knew that wan't a possibility. I imagined it often though.
I've got my journal in my hand. I'm writing goodbye letters. Not one note, but a series of letters. One to each of my family members. I don't remeber if I had any for friends, I suspect I did not.
I can't really remember what I'd decided on. I think I was going to try to slit my wrists.
I was writing the final letter, one to my mom. I always remember this, because it's what changed my mind. I realized that she'd already lost one child, and that I could put her through it again. She would be devestated. I couldn't live for myself, but I could live for my mother.
What struck me in this memory, was the feeling of wanting to be done. Of wanting to quit before it began. It occured to me that I was 11, and that this was not the first time I'd felt that way. I realized, as I've been in kind of a mental health. . . flare up? For several years, that I feel exactly the same way now. Except, after that day I'd decided I was to live.
But, even from knowing all this, my life wasn't terrible AT ALL. Except for this: I was a queer kid, growing up in a strict relgious household. Of course I wanted to die.
I'm more than ready to stop running from the real me. Sometimes it's funny to me, becuase I've been out for a long time and I seem to have accepted all these parts of myself already. . . But I haven't. I display them externally to show that I'm not afraid, but on the inside I run for dear life. I run from those parts of me so hard, but it doesn't matter because they're literally already with me. So, I'm gonna stop running.
I've been attending some queer gathers. It's really nervewracking because I don't feel like I really belong in the queer community. . . Because I pass as cis and straight.
I mean, I have a live in cis-male partner, am not praciticing poly, and I'm mostly cis. Sooo. . . What right do I have to any queer spaces?
But the thing is, I am queer. I am. Whether or not it seems that way on the outside, I am as queer as a three dollar bill and it doesn't matter who's genitals I'm touching my genitals to. My identity is not defined by who I fuck. The only reason I've been allowing it to, is so that I can continue to try to fit into a box my father built.
It weirds me out that Chance has been supportive of all this. I don't know if we're really good together, but I know he wants me to find myself and be happy. He isn't getting in the way. In fact, he caretakes and gives me space, and fucking cleans the whole house and does laundry so I don't have to worry about it. When he fucks up, he actively takes steps to change his behavior. He doesn't just offer empty apologies. It's. . . shocking? I don't always trust it. But he is still here, supporting and hanging on even though I tried to break up with him several times over the last couple of months. I'm not sure if that's good or bad. He's not ok with being non-monogmous, yet has no designs on holding on to all of my time. I wonder if we'll make it work.
It's not my main focus though. It's there, and it matters. But more importantly I am doing some real work on myself. I am wrapping myself in love and practicing boundaries in ways I've never been able to before.
I have open wounds from the recent past that need attention still, but I'm almost certain that over time and with some changes to my situation (job) I will feel better about that.
I'm. . . going to go lie down. Like I said, I've been sick. Writing this took longer than I thought it would, and I've cried a whole bunch. I'm very tired now.
I don't know if I make sense, but whatever. I'm a slight mess, and making sense isn't a priority. Being ok is.
I don't know where to start.
I got a crush on someone and told my partner about it, and he became very upset. It caused 3 months of fighting and visits to a couple's counselor and the worst behavior I've ever seen from him. Monogomy is gross, and our cultural ideation of it is SO HARMFUL.
But I have agreed to monogomy, and so that's where I am.
But what has come out of these three long months. . . Are some really powerful realizations, and some new ways of moving forward.
1) I have always given too much of myself to lovers and partners.
a) I am chosing myself over other people right now, and Chance is surprisingly supportive of that.
2) My parents, especially my father, have been neglectful and emotionally abusive my whole life. It's why I let men treat me so horribly - It's all I've ever known.
b) He never physically hurt me, my sister, or my mother. But things have come into my mind lately - My mom trying to leave him but him not letting her - Being made to feel like if I was anything other than a Good Christian Wife I was worthless in the world - He was never around when we needed him, he was always holed up in his office or away for work, especially when my mother was suicidal and trying to raise two children on her own. He couldn't take it, so he just. . . bailed. - The gaslighting, oh god. So much gaslighting. "Why are you overreacting Brenda?" After he'd told her she was worthless. "Mental illness isn't real, you just want attention." After she tried to explain that she thought she might need medication. "You need to go outside more." After she tried to kill herself. "Well, if you kept the house clean I wouldn't have to get mad at you." Shit like that. I grew up terrified of my father. I'm still afraid of him. Yet, I've also spent my whole life trying to get his approval. Thing is, I never will.
I NEVER WILL.
I am queer - Something my father believes to be not only wrong/immoral, but he views it as a mental illness. He wouldn't acknowledge my mother's major depression, but queerness? Isn't real, they're all just sick.
I have gotten divorced - When my mom told him I had decided to end my abusive marriage, he told her that she was a failure as a parent because she supported me. He told her she should have tried harder to convince me to stay. In an abusive relationship. She told him off, but you can tell he sees me as even less than I was before. A sullied woman.
I'm not Christian - If everything else remained the same, he would at least have this piece to be proud of. It is the one thing that would make me better in his eyes, at least a little bit.
In recent years, he's tried. He tries to tell me that he's proud of me. Tries to tell me he loves me. I can't hear it, or feel it. I'm so angry. So used to him preaching at me and telling me that God loves me, even if he doesn't. I can't hear it with any belief when he tells me nice things.
My hope is that I am able to set some boundaries with kindness and love. Because in spite of all of this, I love my family and enjoy their company. They're my family, and things weren't ever all bad. We had fun and times we felt close. My parents are getting into their later years now, and I do not want them to die with any feelings of regret on my heart. I want them to know me, even if they don't like me. I haven't been my authentic self around them for. . . I don't know, two decades? When I've tried it gets ignored or treated as an "issue."
I have felt like an issue for too long. I'm done.
I had a strange memory crop up this morning. It's not something I'd forgotten about, but. . . It just came to me. I've been sick the past few days, feverish, exhausted, so I'm in a kind of strange place in my mind. The memory came to me, I think, just as my fever broke. It was like a dream, but it was a memory.
I'm 11. I'm sobbing. I have been thinking of how I could kill myself for weeks now. I'd imagined every pretty way possible. For some reason, I was obsessed with the idea of wearing a white nightgown and just lying down in snow in freezing temperatures and. . . falling asleep. It seemed eerie and beautiful to me. But, I lived in New Mexico and I knew that wan't a possibility. I imagined it often though.
I've got my journal in my hand. I'm writing goodbye letters. Not one note, but a series of letters. One to each of my family members. I don't remeber if I had any for friends, I suspect I did not.
I can't really remember what I'd decided on. I think I was going to try to slit my wrists.
I was writing the final letter, one to my mom. I always remember this, because it's what changed my mind. I realized that she'd already lost one child, and that I could put her through it again. She would be devestated. I couldn't live for myself, but I could live for my mother.
What struck me in this memory, was the feeling of wanting to be done. Of wanting to quit before it began. It occured to me that I was 11, and that this was not the first time I'd felt that way. I realized, as I've been in kind of a mental health. . . flare up? For several years, that I feel exactly the same way now. Except, after that day I'd decided I was to live.
But, even from knowing all this, my life wasn't terrible AT ALL. Except for this: I was a queer kid, growing up in a strict relgious household. Of course I wanted to die.
I'm more than ready to stop running from the real me. Sometimes it's funny to me, becuase I've been out for a long time and I seem to have accepted all these parts of myself already. . . But I haven't. I display them externally to show that I'm not afraid, but on the inside I run for dear life. I run from those parts of me so hard, but it doesn't matter because they're literally already with me. So, I'm gonna stop running.
I've been attending some queer gathers. It's really nervewracking because I don't feel like I really belong in the queer community. . . Because I pass as cis and straight.
I mean, I have a live in cis-male partner, am not praciticing poly, and I'm mostly cis. Sooo. . . What right do I have to any queer spaces?
But the thing is, I am queer. I am. Whether or not it seems that way on the outside, I am as queer as a three dollar bill and it doesn't matter who's genitals I'm touching my genitals to. My identity is not defined by who I fuck. The only reason I've been allowing it to, is so that I can continue to try to fit into a box my father built.
It weirds me out that Chance has been supportive of all this. I don't know if we're really good together, but I know he wants me to find myself and be happy. He isn't getting in the way. In fact, he caretakes and gives me space, and fucking cleans the whole house and does laundry so I don't have to worry about it. When he fucks up, he actively takes steps to change his behavior. He doesn't just offer empty apologies. It's. . . shocking? I don't always trust it. But he is still here, supporting and hanging on even though I tried to break up with him several times over the last couple of months. I'm not sure if that's good or bad. He's not ok with being non-monogmous, yet has no designs on holding on to all of my time. I wonder if we'll make it work.
It's not my main focus though. It's there, and it matters. But more importantly I am doing some real work on myself. I am wrapping myself in love and practicing boundaries in ways I've never been able to before.
I have open wounds from the recent past that need attention still, but I'm almost certain that over time and with some changes to my situation (job) I will feel better about that.
I'm. . . going to go lie down. Like I said, I've been sick. Writing this took longer than I thought it would, and I've cried a whole bunch. I'm very tired now.
I don't know if I make sense, but whatever. I'm a slight mess, and making sense isn't a priority. Being ok is.