Wherein I've Been Awake At Night
Since the beginning of the year, I've been awake during the late evening through early morning hours. This has left me with a lot of contemplative time. In fact, I did a kind of therapy technique. I altered it from it's original design and purpose to fit my needs. I've been using it for a while now and it's had an interesting effect.
Okay, since I'm awake when everyone else is asleep, I've not really had anyone to talk to for any length of time. I mean via IM or in real life. My father is my father. So he doesn't really engage me in conversation when he gets up in the morning. Mom only emerges from her bedroom when she's dressed and heading out the door for work during the week. On the weekends she sleeps in, so I go to bed before gets up or just as she is getting up. I've never really gone this long without any meaningful human contact before. So, it's interesting in that I found the need to talk to someone about my thoughts. Since everyone's asleep, I only have me to talk to. Yes, yes... talking to oneself is a sign of craziness. Kinda. That more refers to talking to the voices one hears in their head. Talking to auditory hallucinations that makes it look like a person is talking to oneself. That or taking an inanimate object and giving it "life" and "a voice." So the latter is actually is kinda what I've been doing. Let me explain why it's not a bad thing.
If someone is afraid of public speaking, a therapeutic technique is to make an outline of what the person plans to speak about, take that outline to mirror, look at themselves in the mirror, and giving the talk/speech/presentation to their reflection. This gives someone a faux-audience to talk, but because it's their own reflection, it's a friendly face. Thus it puts the person at ease. This is the first step in dealing with fear of public speaking or extreme shyness. So, in this case, a person is giving an inanimate object (a mirror) a "life" and the ability to "listen." This is the technique I've adapted to fit my need to talk out the things going on in my head. All the things I've learned about myself through self-examination during the quiet of the dead of night. I stand in front of the little mirror in the bathroom or the full length closet sliding doors that are mirrors.
At first I was just talking about the things that I enjoyed and didn't have anyone to share these things with. However, it quickly turned to me explaining my behaviors, how I came upon these behaviors, how it's effected my life, and, in general, a narrative of my life. I would go on for hours and hour talking to my reflection as though it were another person and starting with one subject. But I found that every time I started on one subject I'd end up sidetracking myself with asides and anecdotal para-stories. And these were nested asides and anecdotal para-stories. I'd find myself 7 asides deep from my original topic. I thought that it was keeping me from talking out the narrative of my life at first. However, I found these asides started to yield little nuggets of information on the deeper parts of my psyche. Some of which I had thought of before and other that I hadn't. The ones that I hadn't thought of before started to change the scope/perspective of things I had thought of before. Deeper layers of surface truths that I'd told myself for years. I'd like to share some of these things.
Now, after my relationship with First John ended with him telling me that he never really loved me, I thought that the relationships that I had after that were effected by that relationship in the form of me having a hard time trusting people who showed a romantic interest in me. But I found that it started to extend to people who showed me that they cared about me in any capacity. Whether it was worrying about me, trying to get me to talk about certain topics, etc. I found that I was keeping people I counted as friends at a distance. I didn't trust anyone other than myself. This, as some of you may recognize, manifested in the form of me always being there for my friends and trying to get them to talk to me about what was bothering them or tell me about their troubles/issues while refusing to give any real information about my issues. Sure, I'd bitch about my father being an ass, but that just surface stuff. Perhaps it's more that it was just the tip of the iceberg. You know, you see the top 10% of the total iceberg floating above water but 90% is hidden from view underwater.
I ended up coming up with a hypothesis to test about my difficulty trusting people, being open with people, and expressing my real emotional feelings to the people who matter in my life. At first I thought that the reason that had trouble trusting people was because First John used me for 2.5 years and Chris was verbally and emotionally abusive and cheated on me multiple times for 3 years. That's a part of it. Certainly those two relationships contributed to the extreme to which I distrusted people.
The only person I've actually fully trusted since First John was Second John. And we all know how that turned out. Now, no, I don't blame Second John for leaving me. He was killed in his car when another car slammed into his at a high rate of speed. But I've already talked about the emotional fallout of losing your soul mate. Though, I really honestly can't do it justice with words. The emotions behind it are... so strong and deep that I don't think I can actually fully wrap my mind around it much less come up with words that are adequate enough to explain it in a way that can be understood. The sense of loss is so profound that it makes any other loss I've ever experienced as thought it were a penny that rolled out of my pocket and into the sewers. The emotional pain is sometimes so intense that it is soul crushing to the point of praying for oblivion just to get respite. I've had someone I loved leave me. First John was that person. Now, yes, it was also my first love, so that always has an effect on relationship further down the road. I was pretty much death willing myself for 2.5 months after he said he never really loved me. Every so often I'd feel anger at him for using me and at myself for being used, but the strength of the sense of loss and emotional pain subsided to a dull ache at that point and never got stronger (until that rant where I... uh... kinda lost it). Second John has been gone for almost 5 years now. There are still days that I wake up and it takes every ounce of willpower I have to keep from crying out and wailing in intense emotional pain and loss.
I'm not trying to gloat over anyone who's never had a soul mate as thought I'm somehow superior for having had one. I'm just trying to explain the difference in the level of intensity between being in love with someone and finding your soul mate and having lost that person. When someone you love leaves you then you think, 'I'll never love anyone ever again. I'll never be able to trust anyone ever again. I'll never want to have sex again.' When you lose a soul mate you think, 'I don't need anyone to ever love me again in a romantic fashion. The love I feel from my soul mate who's passed will sustain me for the rest of my life. I might have relationships again, one day. I might even fall in love with someone, in time. Eventually, I'll be open to finding someone who I love who'll love me back. But if that doesn't happen, that's okay. I have all the love I need to last me a lifetime.' One speaks of anger and hopelessness about what is to come. The other speaks of hope and acceptance of what is to come. That's the best I can do to try to explain it. It's still a dramatic simplification of things, but... language is what it is.
But I figured out that it wasn't the relationships after First John that caused the difficulty in trusting. The way First John used me was a catalyst to bring it into romantic and platonic relationships, but it was already there. The relationship with First John was the first time I opened up and really trusted anyone who wasn't a member of my family. It started in the things I experienced in my childhood. How my early childhood through to my teenage years were when things happened that caused me to have problems trusting. Up until the relationship with First John ended the way it did I had hope that I'd meet someone who would actually love me, show me that they loved me, didn't feel an obligation to care about me because of bio-family links, and wouldn't let me down. Well, we all know that no one's perfect and no matter how perfect the relationship might seem (even with a soul mate), the other person will let you down at some point. They might not do it on purpose. They might not ever want to hurt you on purpose. However, they're not in your head and that means they won't fully understand how important some event or thing is to you and will let you down inadvertently without intending to let your down. That's just a natural part of human relationships. We're flawed beings and so everything we do or try to do is flawed in some way, too.
Let's examine my childhood and the people in it, so that you can understand where everything started and ties in:
I didn't realize this part until yesterday so it may seem like I should have already known how it effected me before now. But it's from my early childhood memories that the first part starts and the distrust and fear of being let down began. I hadn't thought of these memories until yesterday and connected it to being my foundation for distrust and fear of being let down.
First, my mother. As people are wont to do, she's not the same person, with the same beliefs, and behaviors now that she had 30-ish years ago when I was only 4 years old. At this point in my life, she cleaned the house (top to bottom) everyday, she cooked dinner, and she did laundry. She was a housewife who kept the house clean, kept the kids fed, and raised the kids. During these earliest of solid memories of being 2-4 years old, my life was very controlled. Very strictly routine. My mother would take me shopping in Lake Jackson (closest big mall) at least once a week, during the week. In order to get me to go along with her, not complain about missing cartoons or my toys, and behave she would tell me that she was just going to 2 stores, she knew what she was looking for, and that we wouldn't be in either store for more than 30 minutes. Now, at this age, I had a very vague understanding of what "minutes" and "hours" meant. If she had told me that we wouldn't be in the store for more than 90 minutes, I would have thought, 'At least it's shorter than an hour.' Because, kid logic, any number of minutes is shorter than 1 whole hour.
So we'd drive there and we'd go to the first place she wanted to go to. We'd spend forever in there and she'd leave without buying anything. Then we'd go to the second store and spend forever in there, too, and, again, wouldn't buy anything.
At this point I'm thinking that we've been to 2 stores so Mom must be done with the shopping trip and we'd be heading home. Then we'd pull into another parking lot. I'd ask Mom why we were stopping at another store and she'd tell me that she wants to just check and see if what she was looking for was in this store, that we'd only be in there for 20 minutes, and then we'd head home after that. She might or might not buy anything but we'd be in there for more than 20 minutes.
Then we'd get in the car and she'd drive to a 4th store. When I would ask her why we were stopping again she'd say that this was the last store she was going to look in, we'd only be there for 20 minutes, and then we'd go home. She might or might not purchase something and we'd get back in the car.
Then she'd stop at a 5th store. By this time we would have been been in stores for at least 4 hours "shopping." She'd get out of the car and I'd follow her out and start whining about the fact that she said the last store was the last store. Again, she'd tell me that she just wanted to check to see if something she was looking for was there or not and it'd be a quick in and out trip. We'd spend a very long time in the store. She might or might not buy something. While in the 5th store I would tell her that my legs were tired and I was really hungry. In order to placate me she'd tell me that once we left the 5th store that we'd get food, eat it, and head home.
So we get back in the car and I'm thinking that we're going to go get food. Nope, she was on her way to stopping at the 6th store. I'd ask her why we were stopping at this store. She would give the same line about seeing if the store had what she was looking for, it would only be for 20 minutes, and then we'd go get food. We'd be in there for more than 20 minutes, again, and then leave, with or without a purchase. By this point I was starving and my legs were really sore from walking to much. I'm thinking that surely now we'll get food, eat it there, and then head home.
Nope, there'd be a 7th store and possibly 8th store with the same routine of telling me she was just going to go in quickly and see if what she was looking for was in that store, we'd only be there for 20 minutes, and then we'd go get something to eat before heading home.
Finally, after the 7th or 8th store, she would tell me that we were done shopping today. I was thinking that we'd finally be getting some food. But she'd start to head out of town. I'd remind her that she said that we'd get food before heading home and she'd tell me that it was close to dinner time and she didn't want to ruin my appetite so we were just going to go home so she could start dinner. By this point my legs would be aching, my stomach would be growling, I'd have a headache (from being so hungry and physical exertion) which would make me feel nauseous on the car trip home, and when we got home I didn't get a snack to tide me over. She'd just put away what she'd bought tell me to go play until dinner. Of course dinner didn't come for another 2-3 hours.
Now, I ask you, how cruel is it to tell a 4 year old that you're only going to 2 store to pick up what she needed, lie continuously about the current store was the last store we were stopping at, that we'd get food, then just keep shopping, and then when it was time to leave town for home to tell the child that is sore, tired, had a headache, was nauseous, tell them that it was too close to dinner so they weren't going to get food, then it be another 3-4 hours until dinner actually happened!?
I learned very quickly that my mother would always lie about the number of places she wanted to go to, she'd lie about how long we'd be in there, she'd lie about getting food, and she'd ignore me when I told her that my legs hurt from walking so much and was really hungry. If I told her that I needed to stop while she was shopping in a store and use the restroom she would get very upset. So the woman that told me that she loved me would lie to my face multiple times a day at least once a week and get angry if I asked for food/drink or to use the restroom. This was the beginning of what blossomed into me not trusting people because she constantly lied to me about the length of the shopping trips, and it also taught me that if I asked for anything that she would get upset at me. I learned that what I wanted or how much I was suffering didn't matter.
As I got older, and I started school, the trip to Lake Jackson's mall happened every weekend. I figured out that she would lie about how many places she was going to in order to get me to go and not make a fuss in the car on the way there. Once we arrived she would tell me what stores we were really going to. I learned, over time, that the list she gave me when we arrived was the order of the stores in which we'd go to. If I suggested going in a different order then she'd ignore me. If I pressed for a change in the order of stores we were going to then she'd get upset at me and told me in no uncertain terms that the order she had decided to go in was exactly how it was going to happen. Still, I was ignored, gotten upset at, and lied to.
As I reached junior high school age, I realized that Mom never knew what she was going to buy on the trips to Lake Jackson. She was just looking for something to buy and find bargains/deals/sales. She only ever bought things for herself or decorations for the house. She never bought me anything or even offered to buy me anything. I had learned when I was 4 that asking for anything meant that Mom would get upset and tell me no, so I didn't ask.
During my senior year of high school, she and I were talking and somehow the topic of me sometimes wanting a toy or new clothes but never asking. She asked why not. I told her that she always told me no when I was a child and I asked for something on a shopping trip. She contended that if I had asked that she would have bought me something. I figured out after the talk that she was upset when I was small child when I asked for food/drink/restroom because it interrupted her shopping trip, she was super anal about keeping to her schedule, and as she aged that she learned to be much less strict and ridged.
Mom took me the mall for Back-To-School clothes and shoe shopping every year. That was when I got 5 new shirts, 3 pairs of blue jeans, and 1 pair of athletic shoes. That was all I got until Christmas. As a child this was when I asked for toys. As I got older, I got new clothes instead, which I was happy to have because I had been wearing the same set of clothes to school for the whole first semester of that school year. The only other time I got clothes or toys was on my birthday (which was right before school let out for the summer). Again, I had it my head the 4 year old kid logic that said that Mom got upset and said no when I asked for something. Every time I asked Dad if he would buy me something he always said no. So I had it in my head that I wouldn't get anything new unless it was Back-To-School shopping, Christmas, or my birthday. For my dad, that was true. For my mom, I could have asked for toys or clothes at any time and she would have probably have got me what I wanted but the kid logic told me that I couldn't ask for anything or Mom got upset and said no.
When I started 1st grade, my mother decided to go to work for the first time in her life. She told me that I'd be taking the bus to school because she wouldn't be able to take me to school or pick me up from school. I asked her why and she told me that she was going to work and that she was going to be working at a daycare center teaching a classroom of twelve 2 year old during the morning. Now, tell this to a child who's 5 or 6 years old, who's been lied to constantly, felt they couldn't ask for the things they wanted except at special times of the year, their wants ignored, and had been shown a general disregard for how they felt. Different children react differently but to me it said that I did make my mom happy enough and I wasn't good enough for her to take care of anymore, so she was sending me off to school while she took care of a group of other children. I felt abandoned. That's where the beginning of why I felt/sometimes still feel like I couldn't rely upon anyone else.
My mom wasn't the only factor in the distrusting of people and feeling like I couldn't rely upon anyone else, but she was the biggest factor. I'll go over some of the other things.
My brother is 4 years older than I am. As a child he was a perfectionist. He didn't be a B on his report card until his freshman year of high school (it was an 89 and the teacher wouldn't bump it up to a 90). He absolutely flipped the fuck out! He was angry and crying. This is the event that triggered him ending up having a nervous breakdown his freshman year of high school. To him, he could only make A's. Getting a B was unacceptable. Getting a B meant that he was a failure. Not just in that class but in everything he had every done in his life. He put so much pressure on himself (with the help of our father) that he just snapped. He ended up in a long-term residential treatment center. He was gone for 4 months. I didn't find out until years later why he had flipped out. I have no idea what he actually did to end up getting the neighbor's, who was a cop, backyard. To this day my brother won't talk to me, or anyone else, about what he did in that backyard. I know it was more than just trespassing. But the cop said that he wouldn't press charges if my parents got him the help he needed. So to keep my brother from having a juvenile record, they sent him away. I remember being picked up from school for every Friday and driving an hour away, where my brother was at and wasn't allowed to leave for; to be part of "family therapy" with a therapist who asked me questions about how I felt about my brother, how I felt about him being where he was, and what he did to be there without telling me anything about what was going on or why. All it did was confuse me and showed me that I wasn't important enough to be told what was going on. It wasn't until about 4 years later that I was told what had happened to my brother, but as I said, I have no idea what he actually did that warranted being locked away in a residential psychiatric treatment facility for 4 months.
Part of my brother's perfectionism was that he was very competitive in games. So, when I was young, before he reached junior high school age, we shared a room. Mom would make him play with me. Which what kid wants their sibling who's 4 years younger than they are tagging along everywhere and be forced to include the younger sibling in what they were doing?! At first it was board games that he played with me. Then the original NES came out and we got that right away and the games became digital. However, his competitive streak was very hard on me. If I lost the game, he would call me a loser, tell me that I was stupid, and that I was worthless along with other taunts about winning. If HE lost... it was much worse. He wouldn't just be verbally abusive but would also accuse me of cheating and be physically violent with me. He never broke the skin or left a mark or a bruise on me that showed up right away. He'd be inflicting the physical pain and I'd be calling out for Mom and crying. He always stopped actively hurting me and wasn't near me when Mom got to our bedroom. I'd be lying on the floor in pain and crying and she'd ask what happened. I would tell her that my brother had beat me up because I won at a game. Now, I was on the ground crying and my brother was acting like he didn't notice that I had been screaming and shouting, but Mom didn't catch him in the act very often so Mom just told my brother to be nicer to me, not to touch me, and that she didn't want to have to come back. He made sure that whatever pain he did inflict lasted long after Mom left. After a few years, I figured out that being called names was better than being called names AND being physically hurt, so I would purposefully let him win. He caught on pretty quickly. He told me that if he caught me not trying my hardest or doing my best to beat him that it'd be worse on me. So I tried to make it look like I was trying my hardest/best to beat him but holding back just enough so that he's win, but when he kept winning all the time he figured that I was throwing the game at least sometimes and he made good on his promise. So no matter what I did I was screwed. My options where 1) I win legitimately, accused of cheating, be called names, and have pain inflicted on me until I cried tears and screamed out in pain, 2) I lose legitimately and be called names, or 3) Throw the game so that he would win so that he'd just call me names and leave me alone but risk him catching me or accusing me of throwing the game and it was even worse on me than if I won legitimately. Yeah, I don't like competitions to this day. Well, not in games where the person can physically get to me. Mind games or strategy exercises where I confuse the other(s) and win the competition without them understanding how they lost or what happened I enjoy. Which is why I'm going into a field that you have to be very cunning in order to rise to the top. Sure, I want to help people succeed in their assigned projects, but I know that there will always be competition for who's group does best or who owes who a favor. Physical power will never be a factor... but mental abilities will show who's the superior mind and political game player and/or the best strategist.
My sister isn't worth mentioning, really. She was always grounded. My earliest memories that involve her are of her coming out of her room to the dinner table, eating dinner with the family, and then going back to her room and closing her door. I distinctly remember thinking she was just some random older girl who lived in my parent's house. So, growing up, she wasn't really an issue.
Finally, my father. Well, I've been over that cluster fuck of a non-relationship more than once on this blog. He just never showed that he love me, cared for me, or was interested in me. I was only ever made to feel like a disappointment and a failure because I was not as smart as my brother. I'm just as smart as my brother if not smarter. He had to study very hard to get A's. I've never taken notes to study for a test, exam, mid-term, or final. In junior high and high school I did all my homework, of course. In college there's not much in the way of homework. Sometimes there's a quiz over the material you just learned or you take notes for 3 weeks and then take a test. Not that I have ever taken notes or studied anyone else's notes. My college/university GPA is 3.65 (4.0 is if you make all As) and that includes an F and a C-. So had I made B's in those two classes, then I would probably have a GPA of >3.70.
And fuck my father and my brother! My brother did better than I did in junior high and high school because he studied all the time. I never studied and where his average at the end of high school as 96.x%, mine was 93.x%. He spent so many hours studying and not having a social life and only beat my cumulative high school average by ~3%. We know where I was after school hours most days during my Freshman year. Just more evidence to me that I was meant to hurt, abused, uncared for, and unloved. I started smoking as a Freshman. From my Sophomore year on I was always out of the house. I had friends who were Juniors, could drive, and would come pick me up. I was able to drive during their Senior year so I was able to go where they went.
I started drinking my Junior year. During my Junior year, when I left campus for lunch, sometimes I would go to Sonic and get a 44oz. Sprite drink or a vanilla milkshake and put alcohol in it to school with me so that I was nice and buzzed for the second half of the day. My Senior year, since I didn't have band first thing in the morning anymore, I started going to Sonic before school and getting a drink or milkshake and put in alcohol and be buzzed from the time the first class started that almost lasted until lunch. Then I'd go get a new drink or milkshake and add alcohol so that I was buzzed for the second half of the day. My Senior year I spent the second half of the year sneaking out every night to go drinking, partying, and/or have sex with the only other guy who was out of the closet at my high school. I was still home every night before either of my parents were awake.
I was sneaking out every night. Either to drink/smoke/party and go have sex with other guy who was out around midnight or just go have sex with the other guy who was out around midnight. And either way, I would stay with him in his bed until 5 AM, I think, when his first alarm clock went off, so that I could go back home, crawl back in the window that I jumped out of to sneak out in the first place, and get undressed and go back to sleep for a few hours before my alarm clock went off and I had to get up for school. My brother never sneaked out of the house, drank, smoked (I'm only talking about cigarettes here, I never did pot), went to party, or had sex during high school. I was buzzed, for half or the whole school day for the last 2 years of high school and my last year of high school I was out drink/smoking/partying and/or having sex every night. The second half of my Senior year the most sleep I go in a night would be, like, 6 hours. I was drunk half of the time, never took notes, never read the chapters assigned from the book, never studied, while my brother was the complete opposite and he still only beat me by ~3% over all 4 years of grades in high school.
My Sophomore year, my Biology I teacher told me that I was wasting my talent and wasn't living up to my potential. He told me that if I actually tried instead of just breezing through that I could be in the top 10% of my graduating class. I didn't understand what he was telling me at the time. I certainly do now. If he only knew about what I did the 2 years of high school after his class. lol Had I actually applied myself, like I do now... I would have easily beat out my brother.
He thinks he's so smart. He teaches high school math at a junior college to kids who were too stupid to understand it when they took the class in high school or people who've been out of school for so long that they've forgotten high school level math! His Masters degree is a Masters of Arts in Math. It's not even a Masters of Science in Math. He took the easy and cheap route to get a Masters degree! (Arts degree is much easier to get that a Science degree.)
At this point I could beat him in any strategy game. I have studied things that are so complex that most people can't grasp the scope of it that humans are able to observe, measure, or theorize is true because of math (even abstractly)... and I do it for fun! Do you know how many dimensions that they think exist in our universe? More than 20! In fact, in the last year a physicist had to add 3 new dimensions to make his math equation balance out! Heard of the Higgs-Boson? Well, they think they created one at the CERN supercollider. Only 1 in every 100000000 times they slam two protons together at 99.9999999% the speed of light lines up perfectly to create a Higgs-Boson. And the Higgs-Boson doesn't last long enough for our most sensitive sensors to measure it. They took the particles that the Higgs-Boson breaks into when it falls apart and looked for them. They found them and could trace the course of where they must have come from (ran the sensor data backwards to reconstruct the collision) and they meet up at a point that, when brought together would combine to create what they believe the Higgs-Boson to be made of and would have the mass of Higgs-Boson. And another theoretical physicist has put forth a theory that says that there isn't just 1 type of Higgs-Boson, but 5.
What was the ultimate lesson growing up? The person who was my mother, the person who's supposed to love you more than anyone else does, lied to me, denied me things I wanted (not that I asked because I thought she'd get upset and say no), and couldn't be relied upon. My father didn't love me and was never proud of me. I was only ever a disappointment to him. I wouldn't play anything competitive (games or sports) because if I lost then the other person would verbally abuse me and if I beat the other person then I'd get verbally and physically abused.
I was not loved, supported, trusted, given attention, cared about, told the truth, or had anyone that I could rely on. Is it any wonder I left Bay City and moved to Los Angeles a few months after I graduated from high school!? I didn't think that my bio-family loved me, cared about me, approved of me, and I had to know what it was like to be with other gay people. I thought that bio-family just used you and abused you and lied to you. I was raised to crave love and attention from someone and feel like I had to be provider and take care of myself and whoever I got love and attention from. Once First John showed me that "love" and attention, I was around other gay people on a daily basis, and I took part in furthering the cause of equal rights for LGBT people, I felt like I had found a place where I finally belonged!
Which was why, even though First John said he never really loved me and left me, I stayed in Los Angeles. I wasn't ready to go back to Texas and lose touch with people like me! With the help of the fellow stripper that I ended up having a pseudo-relationship with (it was a relationship but we just didn't call it that) and Pup Tim, I knew I had to go back home to Texas. I needed to properly lick my wounds and figure out what to do with my life so that I would be able to support myself. (The whole never feeling like I can rely upon others thing. Logically I know that I'm a person who would do whatever it takes to provide for myself and my significant other, work on myself to get to the point where I am able to express my feelings for them verbally and physically; and provide physical/sexual needs, emotional needs, always support them not matter what they choose to do, be there to help them pick up the pieces if their life starts to crack or shatter, give them the space they need, and respect and accept them for being who they are, then there have to be others out there like me. I found one and lost him to a car wreak. I hope that I find someone who can feel safe enough and trust me enough to lean on me, I can grow to trust and feel safe enough for me to lean on them, and that I can share my life with fully without hesitation.)
Okay, since I'm awake when everyone else is asleep, I've not really had anyone to talk to for any length of time. I mean via IM or in real life. My father is my father. So he doesn't really engage me in conversation when he gets up in the morning. Mom only emerges from her bedroom when she's dressed and heading out the door for work during the week. On the weekends she sleeps in, so I go to bed before gets up or just as she is getting up. I've never really gone this long without any meaningful human contact before. So, it's interesting in that I found the need to talk to someone about my thoughts. Since everyone's asleep, I only have me to talk to. Yes, yes... talking to oneself is a sign of craziness. Kinda. That more refers to talking to the voices one hears in their head. Talking to auditory hallucinations that makes it look like a person is talking to oneself. That or taking an inanimate object and giving it "life" and "a voice." So the latter is actually is kinda what I've been doing. Let me explain why it's not a bad thing.
If someone is afraid of public speaking, a therapeutic technique is to make an outline of what the person plans to speak about, take that outline to mirror, look at themselves in the mirror, and giving the talk/speech/presentation to their reflection. This gives someone a faux-audience to talk, but because it's their own reflection, it's a friendly face. Thus it puts the person at ease. This is the first step in dealing with fear of public speaking or extreme shyness. So, in this case, a person is giving an inanimate object (a mirror) a "life" and the ability to "listen." This is the technique I've adapted to fit my need to talk out the things going on in my head. All the things I've learned about myself through self-examination during the quiet of the dead of night. I stand in front of the little mirror in the bathroom or the full length closet sliding doors that are mirrors.
At first I was just talking about the things that I enjoyed and didn't have anyone to share these things with. However, it quickly turned to me explaining my behaviors, how I came upon these behaviors, how it's effected my life, and, in general, a narrative of my life. I would go on for hours and hour talking to my reflection as though it were another person and starting with one subject. But I found that every time I started on one subject I'd end up sidetracking myself with asides and anecdotal para-stories. And these were nested asides and anecdotal para-stories. I'd find myself 7 asides deep from my original topic. I thought that it was keeping me from talking out the narrative of my life at first. However, I found these asides started to yield little nuggets of information on the deeper parts of my psyche. Some of which I had thought of before and other that I hadn't. The ones that I hadn't thought of before started to change the scope/perspective of things I had thought of before. Deeper layers of surface truths that I'd told myself for years. I'd like to share some of these things.
Now, after my relationship with First John ended with him telling me that he never really loved me, I thought that the relationships that I had after that were effected by that relationship in the form of me having a hard time trusting people who showed a romantic interest in me. But I found that it started to extend to people who showed me that they cared about me in any capacity. Whether it was worrying about me, trying to get me to talk about certain topics, etc. I found that I was keeping people I counted as friends at a distance. I didn't trust anyone other than myself. This, as some of you may recognize, manifested in the form of me always being there for my friends and trying to get them to talk to me about what was bothering them or tell me about their troubles/issues while refusing to give any real information about my issues. Sure, I'd bitch about my father being an ass, but that just surface stuff. Perhaps it's more that it was just the tip of the iceberg. You know, you see the top 10% of the total iceberg floating above water but 90% is hidden from view underwater.
I ended up coming up with a hypothesis to test about my difficulty trusting people, being open with people, and expressing my real emotional feelings to the people who matter in my life. At first I thought that the reason that had trouble trusting people was because First John used me for 2.5 years and Chris was verbally and emotionally abusive and cheated on me multiple times for 3 years. That's a part of it. Certainly those two relationships contributed to the extreme to which I distrusted people.
The only person I've actually fully trusted since First John was Second John. And we all know how that turned out. Now, no, I don't blame Second John for leaving me. He was killed in his car when another car slammed into his at a high rate of speed. But I've already talked about the emotional fallout of losing your soul mate. Though, I really honestly can't do it justice with words. The emotions behind it are... so strong and deep that I don't think I can actually fully wrap my mind around it much less come up with words that are adequate enough to explain it in a way that can be understood. The sense of loss is so profound that it makes any other loss I've ever experienced as thought it were a penny that rolled out of my pocket and into the sewers. The emotional pain is sometimes so intense that it is soul crushing to the point of praying for oblivion just to get respite. I've had someone I loved leave me. First John was that person. Now, yes, it was also my first love, so that always has an effect on relationship further down the road. I was pretty much death willing myself for 2.5 months after he said he never really loved me. Every so often I'd feel anger at him for using me and at myself for being used, but the strength of the sense of loss and emotional pain subsided to a dull ache at that point and never got stronger (until that rant where I... uh... kinda lost it). Second John has been gone for almost 5 years now. There are still days that I wake up and it takes every ounce of willpower I have to keep from crying out and wailing in intense emotional pain and loss.
I'm not trying to gloat over anyone who's never had a soul mate as thought I'm somehow superior for having had one. I'm just trying to explain the difference in the level of intensity between being in love with someone and finding your soul mate and having lost that person. When someone you love leaves you then you think, 'I'll never love anyone ever again. I'll never be able to trust anyone ever again. I'll never want to have sex again.' When you lose a soul mate you think, 'I don't need anyone to ever love me again in a romantic fashion. The love I feel from my soul mate who's passed will sustain me for the rest of my life. I might have relationships again, one day. I might even fall in love with someone, in time. Eventually, I'll be open to finding someone who I love who'll love me back. But if that doesn't happen, that's okay. I have all the love I need to last me a lifetime.' One speaks of anger and hopelessness about what is to come. The other speaks of hope and acceptance of what is to come. That's the best I can do to try to explain it. It's still a dramatic simplification of things, but... language is what it is.
But I figured out that it wasn't the relationships after First John that caused the difficulty in trusting. The way First John used me was a catalyst to bring it into romantic and platonic relationships, but it was already there. The relationship with First John was the first time I opened up and really trusted anyone who wasn't a member of my family. It started in the things I experienced in my childhood. How my early childhood through to my teenage years were when things happened that caused me to have problems trusting. Up until the relationship with First John ended the way it did I had hope that I'd meet someone who would actually love me, show me that they loved me, didn't feel an obligation to care about me because of bio-family links, and wouldn't let me down. Well, we all know that no one's perfect and no matter how perfect the relationship might seem (even with a soul mate), the other person will let you down at some point. They might not do it on purpose. They might not ever want to hurt you on purpose. However, they're not in your head and that means they won't fully understand how important some event or thing is to you and will let you down inadvertently without intending to let your down. That's just a natural part of human relationships. We're flawed beings and so everything we do or try to do is flawed in some way, too.
Let's examine my childhood and the people in it, so that you can understand where everything started and ties in:
I didn't realize this part until yesterday so it may seem like I should have already known how it effected me before now. But it's from my early childhood memories that the first part starts and the distrust and fear of being let down began. I hadn't thought of these memories until yesterday and connected it to being my foundation for distrust and fear of being let down.
First, my mother. As people are wont to do, she's not the same person, with the same beliefs, and behaviors now that she had 30-ish years ago when I was only 4 years old. At this point in my life, she cleaned the house (top to bottom) everyday, she cooked dinner, and she did laundry. She was a housewife who kept the house clean, kept the kids fed, and raised the kids. During these earliest of solid memories of being 2-4 years old, my life was very controlled. Very strictly routine. My mother would take me shopping in Lake Jackson (closest big mall) at least once a week, during the week. In order to get me to go along with her, not complain about missing cartoons or my toys, and behave she would tell me that she was just going to 2 stores, she knew what she was looking for, and that we wouldn't be in either store for more than 30 minutes. Now, at this age, I had a very vague understanding of what "minutes" and "hours" meant. If she had told me that we wouldn't be in the store for more than 90 minutes, I would have thought, 'At least it's shorter than an hour.' Because, kid logic, any number of minutes is shorter than 1 whole hour.
So we'd drive there and we'd go to the first place she wanted to go to. We'd spend forever in there and she'd leave without buying anything. Then we'd go to the second store and spend forever in there, too, and, again, wouldn't buy anything.
At this point I'm thinking that we've been to 2 stores so Mom must be done with the shopping trip and we'd be heading home. Then we'd pull into another parking lot. I'd ask Mom why we were stopping at another store and she'd tell me that she wants to just check and see if what she was looking for was in this store, that we'd only be in there for 20 minutes, and then we'd head home after that. She might or might not buy anything but we'd be in there for more than 20 minutes.
Then we'd get in the car and she'd drive to a 4th store. When I would ask her why we were stopping again she'd say that this was the last store she was going to look in, we'd only be there for 20 minutes, and then we'd go home. She might or might not purchase something and we'd get back in the car.
Then she'd stop at a 5th store. By this time we would have been been in stores for at least 4 hours "shopping." She'd get out of the car and I'd follow her out and start whining about the fact that she said the last store was the last store. Again, she'd tell me that she just wanted to check to see if something she was looking for was there or not and it'd be a quick in and out trip. We'd spend a very long time in the store. She might or might not buy something. While in the 5th store I would tell her that my legs were tired and I was really hungry. In order to placate me she'd tell me that once we left the 5th store that we'd get food, eat it, and head home.
So we get back in the car and I'm thinking that we're going to go get food. Nope, she was on her way to stopping at the 6th store. I'd ask her why we were stopping at this store. She would give the same line about seeing if the store had what she was looking for, it would only be for 20 minutes, and then we'd go get food. We'd be in there for more than 20 minutes, again, and then leave, with or without a purchase. By this point I was starving and my legs were really sore from walking to much. I'm thinking that surely now we'll get food, eat it there, and then head home.
Nope, there'd be a 7th store and possibly 8th store with the same routine of telling me she was just going to go in quickly and see if what she was looking for was in that store, we'd only be there for 20 minutes, and then we'd go get something to eat before heading home.
Finally, after the 7th or 8th store, she would tell me that we were done shopping today. I was thinking that we'd finally be getting some food. But she'd start to head out of town. I'd remind her that she said that we'd get food before heading home and she'd tell me that it was close to dinner time and she didn't want to ruin my appetite so we were just going to go home so she could start dinner. By this point my legs would be aching, my stomach would be growling, I'd have a headache (from being so hungry and physical exertion) which would make me feel nauseous on the car trip home, and when we got home I didn't get a snack to tide me over. She'd just put away what she'd bought tell me to go play until dinner. Of course dinner didn't come for another 2-3 hours.
Now, I ask you, how cruel is it to tell a 4 year old that you're only going to 2 store to pick up what she needed, lie continuously about the current store was the last store we were stopping at, that we'd get food, then just keep shopping, and then when it was time to leave town for home to tell the child that is sore, tired, had a headache, was nauseous, tell them that it was too close to dinner so they weren't going to get food, then it be another 3-4 hours until dinner actually happened!?
I learned very quickly that my mother would always lie about the number of places she wanted to go to, she'd lie about how long we'd be in there, she'd lie about getting food, and she'd ignore me when I told her that my legs hurt from walking so much and was really hungry. If I told her that I needed to stop while she was shopping in a store and use the restroom she would get very upset. So the woman that told me that she loved me would lie to my face multiple times a day at least once a week and get angry if I asked for food/drink or to use the restroom. This was the beginning of what blossomed into me not trusting people because she constantly lied to me about the length of the shopping trips, and it also taught me that if I asked for anything that she would get upset at me. I learned that what I wanted or how much I was suffering didn't matter.
As I got older, and I started school, the trip to Lake Jackson's mall happened every weekend. I figured out that she would lie about how many places she was going to in order to get me to go and not make a fuss in the car on the way there. Once we arrived she would tell me what stores we were really going to. I learned, over time, that the list she gave me when we arrived was the order of the stores in which we'd go to. If I suggested going in a different order then she'd ignore me. If I pressed for a change in the order of stores we were going to then she'd get upset at me and told me in no uncertain terms that the order she had decided to go in was exactly how it was going to happen. Still, I was ignored, gotten upset at, and lied to.
As I reached junior high school age, I realized that Mom never knew what she was going to buy on the trips to Lake Jackson. She was just looking for something to buy and find bargains/deals/sales. She only ever bought things for herself or decorations for the house. She never bought me anything or even offered to buy me anything. I had learned when I was 4 that asking for anything meant that Mom would get upset and tell me no, so I didn't ask.
During my senior year of high school, she and I were talking and somehow the topic of me sometimes wanting a toy or new clothes but never asking. She asked why not. I told her that she always told me no when I was a child and I asked for something on a shopping trip. She contended that if I had asked that she would have bought me something. I figured out after the talk that she was upset when I was small child when I asked for food/drink/restroom because it interrupted her shopping trip, she was super anal about keeping to her schedule, and as she aged that she learned to be much less strict and ridged.
Mom took me the mall for Back-To-School clothes and shoe shopping every year. That was when I got 5 new shirts, 3 pairs of blue jeans, and 1 pair of athletic shoes. That was all I got until Christmas. As a child this was when I asked for toys. As I got older, I got new clothes instead, which I was happy to have because I had been wearing the same set of clothes to school for the whole first semester of that school year. The only other time I got clothes or toys was on my birthday (which was right before school let out for the summer). Again, I had it my head the 4 year old kid logic that said that Mom got upset and said no when I asked for something. Every time I asked Dad if he would buy me something he always said no. So I had it in my head that I wouldn't get anything new unless it was Back-To-School shopping, Christmas, or my birthday. For my dad, that was true. For my mom, I could have asked for toys or clothes at any time and she would have probably have got me what I wanted but the kid logic told me that I couldn't ask for anything or Mom got upset and said no.
When I started 1st grade, my mother decided to go to work for the first time in her life. She told me that I'd be taking the bus to school because she wouldn't be able to take me to school or pick me up from school. I asked her why and she told me that she was going to work and that she was going to be working at a daycare center teaching a classroom of twelve 2 year old during the morning. Now, tell this to a child who's 5 or 6 years old, who's been lied to constantly, felt they couldn't ask for the things they wanted except at special times of the year, their wants ignored, and had been shown a general disregard for how they felt. Different children react differently but to me it said that I did make my mom happy enough and I wasn't good enough for her to take care of anymore, so she was sending me off to school while she took care of a group of other children. I felt abandoned. That's where the beginning of why I felt/sometimes still feel like I couldn't rely upon anyone else.
My mom wasn't the only factor in the distrusting of people and feeling like I couldn't rely upon anyone else, but she was the biggest factor. I'll go over some of the other things.
My brother is 4 years older than I am. As a child he was a perfectionist. He didn't be a B on his report card until his freshman year of high school (it was an 89 and the teacher wouldn't bump it up to a 90). He absolutely flipped the fuck out! He was angry and crying. This is the event that triggered him ending up having a nervous breakdown his freshman year of high school. To him, he could only make A's. Getting a B was unacceptable. Getting a B meant that he was a failure. Not just in that class but in everything he had every done in his life. He put so much pressure on himself (with the help of our father) that he just snapped. He ended up in a long-term residential treatment center. He was gone for 4 months. I didn't find out until years later why he had flipped out. I have no idea what he actually did to end up getting the neighbor's, who was a cop, backyard. To this day my brother won't talk to me, or anyone else, about what he did in that backyard. I know it was more than just trespassing. But the cop said that he wouldn't press charges if my parents got him the help he needed. So to keep my brother from having a juvenile record, they sent him away. I remember being picked up from school for every Friday and driving an hour away, where my brother was at and wasn't allowed to leave for; to be part of "family therapy" with a therapist who asked me questions about how I felt about my brother, how I felt about him being where he was, and what he did to be there without telling me anything about what was going on or why. All it did was confuse me and showed me that I wasn't important enough to be told what was going on. It wasn't until about 4 years later that I was told what had happened to my brother, but as I said, I have no idea what he actually did that warranted being locked away in a residential psychiatric treatment facility for 4 months.
Part of my brother's perfectionism was that he was very competitive in games. So, when I was young, before he reached junior high school age, we shared a room. Mom would make him play with me. Which what kid wants their sibling who's 4 years younger than they are tagging along everywhere and be forced to include the younger sibling in what they were doing?! At first it was board games that he played with me. Then the original NES came out and we got that right away and the games became digital. However, his competitive streak was very hard on me. If I lost the game, he would call me a loser, tell me that I was stupid, and that I was worthless along with other taunts about winning. If HE lost... it was much worse. He wouldn't just be verbally abusive but would also accuse me of cheating and be physically violent with me. He never broke the skin or left a mark or a bruise on me that showed up right away. He'd be inflicting the physical pain and I'd be calling out for Mom and crying. He always stopped actively hurting me and wasn't near me when Mom got to our bedroom. I'd be lying on the floor in pain and crying and she'd ask what happened. I would tell her that my brother had beat me up because I won at a game. Now, I was on the ground crying and my brother was acting like he didn't notice that I had been screaming and shouting, but Mom didn't catch him in the act very often so Mom just told my brother to be nicer to me, not to touch me, and that she didn't want to have to come back. He made sure that whatever pain he did inflict lasted long after Mom left. After a few years, I figured out that being called names was better than being called names AND being physically hurt, so I would purposefully let him win. He caught on pretty quickly. He told me that if he caught me not trying my hardest or doing my best to beat him that it'd be worse on me. So I tried to make it look like I was trying my hardest/best to beat him but holding back just enough so that he's win, but when he kept winning all the time he figured that I was throwing the game at least sometimes and he made good on his promise. So no matter what I did I was screwed. My options where 1) I win legitimately, accused of cheating, be called names, and have pain inflicted on me until I cried tears and screamed out in pain, 2) I lose legitimately and be called names, or 3) Throw the game so that he would win so that he'd just call me names and leave me alone but risk him catching me or accusing me of throwing the game and it was even worse on me than if I won legitimately. Yeah, I don't like competitions to this day. Well, not in games where the person can physically get to me. Mind games or strategy exercises where I confuse the other(s) and win the competition without them understanding how they lost or what happened I enjoy. Which is why I'm going into a field that you have to be very cunning in order to rise to the top. Sure, I want to help people succeed in their assigned projects, but I know that there will always be competition for who's group does best or who owes who a favor. Physical power will never be a factor... but mental abilities will show who's the superior mind and political game player and/or the best strategist.
My sister isn't worth mentioning, really. She was always grounded. My earliest memories that involve her are of her coming out of her room to the dinner table, eating dinner with the family, and then going back to her room and closing her door. I distinctly remember thinking she was just some random older girl who lived in my parent's house. So, growing up, she wasn't really an issue.
Finally, my father. Well, I've been over that cluster fuck of a non-relationship more than once on this blog. He just never showed that he love me, cared for me, or was interested in me. I was only ever made to feel like a disappointment and a failure because I was not as smart as my brother. I'm just as smart as my brother if not smarter. He had to study very hard to get A's. I've never taken notes to study for a test, exam, mid-term, or final. In junior high and high school I did all my homework, of course. In college there's not much in the way of homework. Sometimes there's a quiz over the material you just learned or you take notes for 3 weeks and then take a test. Not that I have ever taken notes or studied anyone else's notes. My college/university GPA is 3.65 (4.0 is if you make all As) and that includes an F and a C-. So had I made B's in those two classes, then I would probably have a GPA of >3.70.
And fuck my father and my brother! My brother did better than I did in junior high and high school because he studied all the time. I never studied and where his average at the end of high school as 96.x%, mine was 93.x%. He spent so many hours studying and not having a social life and only beat my cumulative high school average by ~3%. We know where I was after school hours most days during my Freshman year. Just more evidence to me that I was meant to hurt, abused, uncared for, and unloved. I started smoking as a Freshman. From my Sophomore year on I was always out of the house. I had friends who were Juniors, could drive, and would come pick me up. I was able to drive during their Senior year so I was able to go where they went.
I started drinking my Junior year. During my Junior year, when I left campus for lunch, sometimes I would go to Sonic and get a 44oz. Sprite drink or a vanilla milkshake and put alcohol in it to school with me so that I was nice and buzzed for the second half of the day. My Senior year, since I didn't have band first thing in the morning anymore, I started going to Sonic before school and getting a drink or milkshake and put in alcohol and be buzzed from the time the first class started that almost lasted until lunch. Then I'd go get a new drink or milkshake and add alcohol so that I was buzzed for the second half of the day. My Senior year I spent the second half of the year sneaking out every night to go drinking, partying, and/or have sex with the only other guy who was out of the closet at my high school. I was still home every night before either of my parents were awake.
I was sneaking out every night. Either to drink/smoke/party and go have sex with other guy who was out around midnight or just go have sex with the other guy who was out around midnight. And either way, I would stay with him in his bed until 5 AM, I think, when his first alarm clock went off, so that I could go back home, crawl back in the window that I jumped out of to sneak out in the first place, and get undressed and go back to sleep for a few hours before my alarm clock went off and I had to get up for school. My brother never sneaked out of the house, drank, smoked (I'm only talking about cigarettes here, I never did pot), went to party, or had sex during high school. I was buzzed, for half or the whole school day for the last 2 years of high school and my last year of high school I was out drink/smoking/partying and/or having sex every night. The second half of my Senior year the most sleep I go in a night would be, like, 6 hours. I was drunk half of the time, never took notes, never read the chapters assigned from the book, never studied, while my brother was the complete opposite and he still only beat me by ~3% over all 4 years of grades in high school.
My Sophomore year, my Biology I teacher told me that I was wasting my talent and wasn't living up to my potential. He told me that if I actually tried instead of just breezing through that I could be in the top 10% of my graduating class. I didn't understand what he was telling me at the time. I certainly do now. If he only knew about what I did the 2 years of high school after his class. lol Had I actually applied myself, like I do now... I would have easily beat out my brother.
He thinks he's so smart. He teaches high school math at a junior college to kids who were too stupid to understand it when they took the class in high school or people who've been out of school for so long that they've forgotten high school level math! His Masters degree is a Masters of Arts in Math. It's not even a Masters of Science in Math. He took the easy and cheap route to get a Masters degree! (Arts degree is much easier to get that a Science degree.)
At this point I could beat him in any strategy game. I have studied things that are so complex that most people can't grasp the scope of it that humans are able to observe, measure, or theorize is true because of math (even abstractly)... and I do it for fun! Do you know how many dimensions that they think exist in our universe? More than 20! In fact, in the last year a physicist had to add 3 new dimensions to make his math equation balance out! Heard of the Higgs-Boson? Well, they think they created one at the CERN supercollider. Only 1 in every 100000000 times they slam two protons together at 99.9999999% the speed of light lines up perfectly to create a Higgs-Boson. And the Higgs-Boson doesn't last long enough for our most sensitive sensors to measure it. They took the particles that the Higgs-Boson breaks into when it falls apart and looked for them. They found them and could trace the course of where they must have come from (ran the sensor data backwards to reconstruct the collision) and they meet up at a point that, when brought together would combine to create what they believe the Higgs-Boson to be made of and would have the mass of Higgs-Boson. And another theoretical physicist has put forth a theory that says that there isn't just 1 type of Higgs-Boson, but 5.
What was the ultimate lesson growing up? The person who was my mother, the person who's supposed to love you more than anyone else does, lied to me, denied me things I wanted (not that I asked because I thought she'd get upset and say no), and couldn't be relied upon. My father didn't love me and was never proud of me. I was only ever a disappointment to him. I wouldn't play anything competitive (games or sports) because if I lost then the other person would verbally abuse me and if I beat the other person then I'd get verbally and physically abused.
I was not loved, supported, trusted, given attention, cared about, told the truth, or had anyone that I could rely on. Is it any wonder I left Bay City and moved to Los Angeles a few months after I graduated from high school!? I didn't think that my bio-family loved me, cared about me, approved of me, and I had to know what it was like to be with other gay people. I thought that bio-family just used you and abused you and lied to you. I was raised to crave love and attention from someone and feel like I had to be provider and take care of myself and whoever I got love and attention from. Once First John showed me that "love" and attention, I was around other gay people on a daily basis, and I took part in furthering the cause of equal rights for LGBT people, I felt like I had found a place where I finally belonged!
Which was why, even though First John said he never really loved me and left me, I stayed in Los Angeles. I wasn't ready to go back to Texas and lose touch with people like me! With the help of the fellow stripper that I ended up having a pseudo-relationship with (it was a relationship but we just didn't call it that) and Pup Tim, I knew I had to go back home to Texas. I needed to properly lick my wounds and figure out what to do with my life so that I would be able to support myself. (The whole never feeling like I can rely upon others thing. Logically I know that I'm a person who would do whatever it takes to provide for myself and my significant other, work on myself to get to the point where I am able to express my feelings for them verbally and physically; and provide physical/sexual needs, emotional needs, always support them not matter what they choose to do, be there to help them pick up the pieces if their life starts to crack or shatter, give them the space they need, and respect and accept them for being who they are, then there have to be others out there like me. I found one and lost him to a car wreak. I hope that I find someone who can feel safe enough and trust me enough to lean on me, I can grow to trust and feel safe enough for me to lean on them, and that I can share my life with fully without hesitation.)