Wispy Ideas

This is going to be complicated (I think). I am spending an awful lot of my thinking time trying to unravel the (to me, seemingly mysterious) questions and issues that are making me so "nutty" these days. If you are not particularly interested in mucking around in my mental meanderings and psychological wallowings, I'd suggest clicking off now and moving on to something more "juicy."

For those who are following the saga, I do have an appointment with a therapist on Monday evening. The person I / We found is male and "vanilla." I have sent him an introductory email that gives a broad, although brief, description of my lifestyle and circumstances, so he has some awareness going in of what my basic story is. I'll just have to take a deep breath and give this a fair shot.

Many of you have sent private emails offering encouragement and a variety of suggestions about finding "kink aware" or "kink friendly" professionals. I am most appreciative of everyone who has taken the time to reach out in friendship and concern. Thank you. We have already explored the "kink aware" option, and chosen to go this other route at this time. Let's just leave it at that.

Perhaps it is the fact that I've come to some acceptance of the necessity for doing this, but I am beginning to notice things about the way I think and perceive things and events that I believe are creating distress and frustration for me. I am, just now, beginning to notice patterns of thinking and reacting that I think have become habitual -- and in noticing them, I am not surprised that the messages that I am giving myself about myself are keeping me in a pretty constant state of turmoil, frustration, and anger.

In simple terms, I seem to have developed a pattern of thinking about myself that revolves around a series of assumptions that I am "bad," "wrong," "evil," etc. I have really not been aware of it in any conscious sense. Prior to this, I had really only identified an intensifying level of bitterness and anger over the whole idea and philosophy of "polyamory" even as I lived it. Now, while I have been aware of the paradoxical nature of that set of emotional reactions, I have not been able to logically talk my way out of the feelings. And so, everytime the topic of "poly" has come up in conversation, or on the news, or in some other context, I've felt myself tightening up, stiffening, bristling -- wanting to just stomp my feet, and declare the whole idea to be so much "bullshit." Of course, internally, all that raging was leaving me with the fundamental question of, "So where does that leave me?" Not a comfortable edge to be walking.

I have thought that I was mad about poly. Thought that I was mad because I was not poly and was IN a poly relationship, and so was a dreadful hypocrite; living a lie; yada, yada, yada... I think, though that isn't it at all. I think that what has happened to me has been a very insidious and powerful sort of communal brain washing/group think experience that has left me repeating a litany of negative self talk that is, almost literally, killing me.

Here's how I think this has maybe gone (and I may not have all of this exactly right -- I'm crazy remember, so cut me some slack):

It might be that the beginning of this is in my first recognition and acknowledgement of my own submissive nature. In allowing that part of myself to BE, I determined to drop the hard shell that had been my defensive shield throughout my whole life. To come into a place of giving over control and learning to allow someone to touch me in my most vulnerable places, I had to find a way to soften up and become more malleable, more pliant, more open. It didn't happen all at once, but over time, I have lost a lot of the sharp-tongued, cynical, sarcastic, caustic, fangy, defended psychic armor that saw me through most of my first 47 or 48 years. I'm way easier to "get to" nowadays -- for just about everyone.

What is getting through my armor is every barb that the world throws at the woman who doesn't toe the line in terms of the socially accepted morals and mores. I know that we have come to believe that all that sort of thing passed on in the aftermath of the countercultural revolutionary 1960's, but I know better. If you watch Oprah or read a little bit or listen to the news reports about polygamy trials and the like, you can get the flavor of it. If you live in the heart of the Midwest, as we do; right here on the edge of the Bible belt, as we do; in a state so red that even the Crayola boxes are missing the blue ones, as we do -- you would understand how really aghast the world is that a woman like me is allowed to exist and live as I do. I am one of those women who still cause decent people to raise their eyebrows and shake their heads in disbelief. I am one of those women who cause the married ladies of the world to hold on tightly to their husbands, lest I snatch them from their sides. I am one of those women who might do just about any sort of perverse or unnatural thing, so I bear careful watching.

Most of the world believes... thinks... says... that I am "BAD." It is simply impossible to live in this society, grow up in this culture, get raised in most pretty normal, average families here, and not absorb the models and messages and imprints that say that monogamy is THE WAY. No matter that it is false and faulty and facetious, the fantasy is sold everywhere, in every medium, through a thousand thousand different pulses of information every year of our lives until we cannot know from whence we learned it. White lace and promises...

And so... I catch myself doing it to myself now. For example: we went to a munch with some local kinksters last night. You would think that would be a safe and easy and accepting environment where we could feel at ease and comfortable and not have to be defended about who and what we are, and it was. Except that as we got to the restaraunt and sat down at the table and began to make introductions, Master explained to some people sitting near us that we were a poly triad; that T would be joining us a little bit later as soon as she got off work; that she was His wife; and that I had joined them about five years ago. I started to say, "I'm the other woman," but heard what that sounded like in my head, and stopped before I actually uttered the words. Still, I was stunned that the thought was there, in my mind, ready to come pouring out of my mouth. Clearly, I've absorbed the message of the culture; taken it deep into my psyche. Even when others do not look at me with negative judgement, I apply it to myself anyway.

I can't change the laws. I can't change the way society views marriage and family relatedness, and I can't make that all be fair. I can, however do something about the words I use to describe my own life, my own loves, my own self. I am not "bad." I am a good and worthy person, with a good heart and I don't deserve to hurt the way I've been hurting over all of this. I reject those judgements. I won't accept them from outside and I will surely not accept them from within. I am aware of the words I've been saying to myself now. I'm not sure how or when I got that set of messages going, or why. I am sure it needs to end. Right now. For good and all.

swan