Very Sane He Seemed To Me
crossposted from Lee Edward McIlmoyle's blog
The following post is very personal. It’s got a lot of personal details you may not want to know about me. In fact, the chances are, you will be disappointed with me if you read this expecting me to be positive or hopeful or emotionally validating. That said, I’d really like you to know me better, so perhaps you should consider reading this, even if it’s not what you want.
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
SPOILER SPACE… This is the point of no return. Everything after this space is going to irritate you and maybe even make you dislike me, if you’re so inclined. Whatever you may think of me, this is where you may have to reconsider. So this is sort of a spoiler space for those who want to think of me a certain way. If you prefer me as you know me now, I’ll understand if you want to turn back or go read another post. I have quite a lot of them on this site. Almost none of them with this level of introspective nonsense. …SPOILER SPACE
____________________
Okay, so I’ve been in a bit of a fugue state over the past few days. I wish I could explain everything I’m going through right now, but it’s really not easy to explain how I am to people who think they’ve got a really good grasp on how people are and ought to behave. I’m contradictory. I’m self-involved. I’m sensitive. I love. I hate. I comfort. I take advantage. I want to heal the world. I want to get my way. It’s not easy containing these multitudes.
I want lots of things I’ll never ask for, because part of me can’t get past the idea that I don’t deserve what I think I need, unless it’s been given freely. That sounds pleasant, but in truth, it’s irresponsible and weak. I should own up to my wants and needs and accept the consequences, the same as everyone else. But that’s not how I’m wired. Passive aggressive, avoidant, self-denial. I’ve been running from the spectre of my own weirdnesses for so long, it’s not a wonder I’ve never scaled the heights of fame like some of my heroes who simply embraced their freakness and moved on to better things. I’m flying in a very peculiar headspace, but tethered to a very dull world of my own devising.
And I talk around the subject endlessly.
Basically, I missed a few days of medication. Not all of it. My mood stabilizer was on hand, so I took that, but my ADHD meds had run out, and my renewal was late at the drugstore (my fault, in large part, this time). This lead to a few days of decreased productivity and exceptional flakiness. It also lead to me being a bit more diffused and introspective than usual. And of course, my personal demons, mostly attached to my id and in particular my libido, as such, have been running rampant. Entirely my fault. I’ve let my personal bullshit build up for too long.
What am I talking about?
My noble image is a facade. I work very hard to appear as you see me, but not because it’s a lie. It’s more of a role I wrote for myself growing up, because I never could get the hang of being around people. Standard bipolar introvert stuff, I’m sure. Introverts usually never really get the hang of other people, but bipolar people occasionally lapse into a mental state that forces extraverted behaviour, so I kind of needed to build a role for myself, a facade, a fiction skin of sorts, like my Sunday Best, for wearing on those occasions when extraverted behaviour is called for. I wear it mainly for TCB and partying, but it’s come in handy on other occasions, too. I don’t assert myself naturally. It takes practice. I have other things to think about.
So what does all of this rambling really mean? Let’s run an inventory of the things I don’t discuss in public:
Bipolar (Affective) Disorder: Type I with Rapid Cycling and Mixed States. I’m not so much one type as I am a kind of fondue of all of the above. I describe it as if my mood is like wheels within wheels, like a Spirograph. This is not, strictly speaking, a revelation, because I have talked about having Bipolar Affective Disorder before. But it’s relevant, so I mention it.
Like a wheel within a wheel…
Sexuality: Bisexual, or more probably polysexual, or pansexual, which I guess are the modern terms for those that are comfortable with more than just men or women or both. Some things don’t turn me on, but there are few things about gender that are off limits to me, strictly speaking. If I want you, or love you, I don’t really care what gender or sexuality you have chosen to express yourself as.
Relationship Status: Monogamous by marriage; Polyamorous by inclination. This took me a long, long time to come to grips with. Too long, in fact. But I finally figured out that this is how I’ve almost always been, even in my tweens, when I first started becoming sexually aware. I’ve always crushed on or been in love with more than one person at the same time. I’m in a very good marriage, but I’m constantly trying to share parts of myself with other people. I do it very naturally. My wife teases me about my flirty nature, but really, these days, that’s a largely suppressed trait. I’m more earnest than I was in my twenties and thirties. It almost always springs from either creativity or from trying to help people I know or work with in some capacity. I don’t do anything about it, these days. It’s just there in the sky, like some strange multicoloured cloud on the distant horizon, too far out of reach to engage with.
Partners: Officially, one. Unofficially, NONE. My head and heart have been in such a fugue state over my flagging sex drive that, in actual fact, I don’t express my sexuality with anybody anymore. My wife and I occasionally share intimacy, but not with any regularity. That’s all on me, really. I have had other partners in the past, and occasionally more than one at the same time. But these days, it’s just me, alone in the off-hours, masturbating fairly mechanically and impersonally, if at all. I HAD developed an addiction to pornography, but even that is changing now. Fairly recently, I reached the sad conclusion that most modern pornography is a serious turn-off for me. Not all of it. Just the really offensive stuff, which most of it is, if I’m really honest about it. Slapping, gagging, choking. Obvious woman-hating stuff. Pathetic.
So, sexual release has become a very private, very touchy subject with me, even though my philosophical views on the subject are extremely liberal. Sexual libertine with extreme self-repression issues. Figure that one out, Freud.
FYI: I’m probably in love with roughly a half dozen people, right now-aside from my wife, whom I love dearly, despite our current sexual estrangement-but I don’t think about it too much. None of them are intimate with me, and I don’t see that changing. People love being my friend, but the sorts of friends I make are usually at least as ethical and as well-behaved as I tend to be, so infidelity isn’t a serious threat. I think about it sometimes, but it just doesn’t go to the top floor for me. Aside from hurting my wife, who has had to put up with too much as it is, I just don’t think I can deliver the goods in an affair, these days.
Medically, I kind of crushed my libido with years of taking a mood stabilizer called Risperidone, which also killed my metabolism. Not an evil drug, but there are different side effects for everyone on it. Mine was weight gain and loss of sexual appetite. I’m on different meds now, but they haven’t reversed the weight gain, and my sex drive is now inextricably complicated with years of heavy baggage and self-esteem issues. These days, I’m an overweight, balding, vaguely sinister-looking troglodyte with a wilting erection and a bad back and creaky knees, so frankly, sexual gymnastics would be difficult, even if I could find the time to carry on a full-blown love affair. Which I am convinced I can’t.
I tell you all of this so you can understand parts of why I’m so quiet these days. My art is suffering due to financial and workspace limitations. My writing is suffering because I can’t get my head clear enough to deal with the heavy stories I’m telling right now. My music is suffering because I can’t find the time and freedom to make awful noises until they resolve into something listenable. My other interests are also suffering. No time for anything but volunteer work, feeding the cats, drinking coffee and reading the internet and watching documentaries with my wife, and the occasional maintenance wank. Really, it’s a pretty desperate piece of mediocrity in slow motion.
The point is, I’ve got nothing to talk about these days, because I’m not in touch with myself in any meaningful way. I tried to reduce the amount of activity I was tied up in, but I’m still too busy to really confront myself and make any meaningful changes. A friend of mine keeps asking me what I do for self-care. I laugh. Self-care? I don’t have time for that, because the amount of time it will take to unpack my baggage and really look at it frankly with an eye toward healing and getting a grip on my inner conflict just isn’t available to me these days. Some people think it’s so easy to just set things aside and do what needs taking care of most. Set priorities and get to work, right? Who are these people? I don’t know anyone who genuinely knows how to get their psychological baggage in order. I know a few who think they do, but I’ve been really sweet about not confronting them with their bullshit, and that’s the way it will stay.
So yeah, not the post you came here to read. Would you feel better if I’d stuck with talking about writing or design or painting or music from 1980? Really? If so, maybe you should think about why you’re here, because that’s what I’m doing.
But anyway, thank you for reading. You really didn’t have to. So I appreciate the gesture.
Lee.
The following post is very personal. It’s got a lot of personal details you may not want to know about me. In fact, the chances are, you will be disappointed with me if you read this expecting me to be positive or hopeful or emotionally validating. That said, I’d really like you to know me better, so perhaps you should consider reading this, even if it’s not what you want.
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
SPOILER SPACE… This is the point of no return. Everything after this space is going to irritate you and maybe even make you dislike me, if you’re so inclined. Whatever you may think of me, this is where you may have to reconsider. So this is sort of a spoiler space for those who want to think of me a certain way. If you prefer me as you know me now, I’ll understand if you want to turn back or go read another post. I have quite a lot of them on this site. Almost none of them with this level of introspective nonsense. …SPOILER SPACE
____________________
Okay, so I’ve been in a bit of a fugue state over the past few days. I wish I could explain everything I’m going through right now, but it’s really not easy to explain how I am to people who think they’ve got a really good grasp on how people are and ought to behave. I’m contradictory. I’m self-involved. I’m sensitive. I love. I hate. I comfort. I take advantage. I want to heal the world. I want to get my way. It’s not easy containing these multitudes.
I want lots of things I’ll never ask for, because part of me can’t get past the idea that I don’t deserve what I think I need, unless it’s been given freely. That sounds pleasant, but in truth, it’s irresponsible and weak. I should own up to my wants and needs and accept the consequences, the same as everyone else. But that’s not how I’m wired. Passive aggressive, avoidant, self-denial. I’ve been running from the spectre of my own weirdnesses for so long, it’s not a wonder I’ve never scaled the heights of fame like some of my heroes who simply embraced their freakness and moved on to better things. I’m flying in a very peculiar headspace, but tethered to a very dull world of my own devising.
And I talk around the subject endlessly.
Basically, I missed a few days of medication. Not all of it. My mood stabilizer was on hand, so I took that, but my ADHD meds had run out, and my renewal was late at the drugstore (my fault, in large part, this time). This lead to a few days of decreased productivity and exceptional flakiness. It also lead to me being a bit more diffused and introspective than usual. And of course, my personal demons, mostly attached to my id and in particular my libido, as such, have been running rampant. Entirely my fault. I’ve let my personal bullshit build up for too long.
What am I talking about?
My noble image is a facade. I work very hard to appear as you see me, but not because it’s a lie. It’s more of a role I wrote for myself growing up, because I never could get the hang of being around people. Standard bipolar introvert stuff, I’m sure. Introverts usually never really get the hang of other people, but bipolar people occasionally lapse into a mental state that forces extraverted behaviour, so I kind of needed to build a role for myself, a facade, a fiction skin of sorts, like my Sunday Best, for wearing on those occasions when extraverted behaviour is called for. I wear it mainly for TCB and partying, but it’s come in handy on other occasions, too. I don’t assert myself naturally. It takes practice. I have other things to think about.
So what does all of this rambling really mean? Let’s run an inventory of the things I don’t discuss in public:
Bipolar (Affective) Disorder: Type I with Rapid Cycling and Mixed States. I’m not so much one type as I am a kind of fondue of all of the above. I describe it as if my mood is like wheels within wheels, like a Spirograph. This is not, strictly speaking, a revelation, because I have talked about having Bipolar Affective Disorder before. But it’s relevant, so I mention it.
Like a wheel within a wheel…
Sexuality: Bisexual, or more probably polysexual, or pansexual, which I guess are the modern terms for those that are comfortable with more than just men or women or both. Some things don’t turn me on, but there are few things about gender that are off limits to me, strictly speaking. If I want you, or love you, I don’t really care what gender or sexuality you have chosen to express yourself as.
Relationship Status: Monogamous by marriage; Polyamorous by inclination. This took me a long, long time to come to grips with. Too long, in fact. But I finally figured out that this is how I’ve almost always been, even in my tweens, when I first started becoming sexually aware. I’ve always crushed on or been in love with more than one person at the same time. I’m in a very good marriage, but I’m constantly trying to share parts of myself with other people. I do it very naturally. My wife teases me about my flirty nature, but really, these days, that’s a largely suppressed trait. I’m more earnest than I was in my twenties and thirties. It almost always springs from either creativity or from trying to help people I know or work with in some capacity. I don’t do anything about it, these days. It’s just there in the sky, like some strange multicoloured cloud on the distant horizon, too far out of reach to engage with.
Partners: Officially, one. Unofficially, NONE. My head and heart have been in such a fugue state over my flagging sex drive that, in actual fact, I don’t express my sexuality with anybody anymore. My wife and I occasionally share intimacy, but not with any regularity. That’s all on me, really. I have had other partners in the past, and occasionally more than one at the same time. But these days, it’s just me, alone in the off-hours, masturbating fairly mechanically and impersonally, if at all. I HAD developed an addiction to pornography, but even that is changing now. Fairly recently, I reached the sad conclusion that most modern pornography is a serious turn-off for me. Not all of it. Just the really offensive stuff, which most of it is, if I’m really honest about it. Slapping, gagging, choking. Obvious woman-hating stuff. Pathetic.
So, sexual release has become a very private, very touchy subject with me, even though my philosophical views on the subject are extremely liberal. Sexual libertine with extreme self-repression issues. Figure that one out, Freud.
FYI: I’m probably in love with roughly a half dozen people, right now-aside from my wife, whom I love dearly, despite our current sexual estrangement-but I don’t think about it too much. None of them are intimate with me, and I don’t see that changing. People love being my friend, but the sorts of friends I make are usually at least as ethical and as well-behaved as I tend to be, so infidelity isn’t a serious threat. I think about it sometimes, but it just doesn’t go to the top floor for me. Aside from hurting my wife, who has had to put up with too much as it is, I just don’t think I can deliver the goods in an affair, these days.
Medically, I kind of crushed my libido with years of taking a mood stabilizer called Risperidone, which also killed my metabolism. Not an evil drug, but there are different side effects for everyone on it. Mine was weight gain and loss of sexual appetite. I’m on different meds now, but they haven’t reversed the weight gain, and my sex drive is now inextricably complicated with years of heavy baggage and self-esteem issues. These days, I’m an overweight, balding, vaguely sinister-looking troglodyte with a wilting erection and a bad back and creaky knees, so frankly, sexual gymnastics would be difficult, even if I could find the time to carry on a full-blown love affair. Which I am convinced I can’t.
I tell you all of this so you can understand parts of why I’m so quiet these days. My art is suffering due to financial and workspace limitations. My writing is suffering because I can’t get my head clear enough to deal with the heavy stories I’m telling right now. My music is suffering because I can’t find the time and freedom to make awful noises until they resolve into something listenable. My other interests are also suffering. No time for anything but volunteer work, feeding the cats, drinking coffee and reading the internet and watching documentaries with my wife, and the occasional maintenance wank. Really, it’s a pretty desperate piece of mediocrity in slow motion.
The point is, I’ve got nothing to talk about these days, because I’m not in touch with myself in any meaningful way. I tried to reduce the amount of activity I was tied up in, but I’m still too busy to really confront myself and make any meaningful changes. A friend of mine keeps asking me what I do for self-care. I laugh. Self-care? I don’t have time for that, because the amount of time it will take to unpack my baggage and really look at it frankly with an eye toward healing and getting a grip on my inner conflict just isn’t available to me these days. Some people think it’s so easy to just set things aside and do what needs taking care of most. Set priorities and get to work, right? Who are these people? I don’t know anyone who genuinely knows how to get their psychological baggage in order. I know a few who think they do, but I’ve been really sweet about not confronting them with their bullshit, and that’s the way it will stay.
So yeah, not the post you came here to read. Would you feel better if I’d stuck with talking about writing or design or painting or music from 1980? Really? If so, maybe you should think about why you’re here, because that’s what I’m doing.
But anyway, thank you for reading. You really didn’t have to. So I appreciate the gesture.
Lee.