Binary Bereavement

I have a lot of trouble imagining that anyone can pay attention to me without being hurt, or at least annoyed. I can imagine people tolerating me when they need something and think my attention is necessary to get it. I can be unobtrusive enough to make tolerating me fairly undemanding, at least if you aren’t stuck with me 24/7. I can imagine people feeling guilty about my sad life and deciding to look at me even though it builds some resentment for them. But it’s hard to imagine that anyone actually wholeheartedly wanting to see me.

It doesn’t help that many times you imagine me being in the room as a source of anxiety that you want to escape. That my attention to you is an invasion of your space, or a demand for you to be better. Sometimes you say “I feel like not good enough… for you” even when I’m not asking for anything. I get assigned this disappointment no matter what praise or support or I offer, and there’s no way to address it because the “for you” part isn’t related to any demand I make. My mere existence or attention are enough to trigger your disappointment. Like I’m a living reminder of how you’re unhappy or anxious or otherwise unsettled. And so we can’t even sit together, let alone connect, because eventually my presence makes you want to hide. It overwhelms anything we might do together, taints every observation I make, stills any discussion into uncomfortable endurance, until finally you’re released from my existence.

We should change that. I’m great at being unobtrusive and quiet and offering space and understanding. I don’t need you to entertain or impress me. I’m entirely comfortable sitting still in silence while you do your own thing. I like you just how you are, I’m interested in what your doing, and I’m happy to help with almost anything you want to accomplish.

Or at least those are all things people who don’t know me very well say. People who know me better say I’m overwhelming. That they feel pressured or rushed. That it’s too much to engage with me. That none of the things I share are safe enough to engage with. That if only I would slow down and back off and stop making them feel noticed they might finally be able to share themselves. It doesn’t work though. The space I create is never the right kind, never enough, never a place anyone else can I habit. At least not until I leave.

Some of that is the way I never feel entitled to your attention, even if it were on offer. You tell me that more space and more distance are always the answer and I believe you because my brain knows it’s true — that me being close will make things worse. But we both need better balance. You worry that if you even acknowledge the feels it will be too much, will drag you into the endless despair that you fear is at the bottom of the well. That engaging will trap you someplace you’ve already spent to much time and will not get you closer to changing anything. But I don’t want to you trap you. I want to help you feel the feels you’re already stuck in and then find ways to feel new ones. You imagine that the right time or place or will finally mean that you’re “ready” to feel this thing I can see happening to you, and that until then the only options are distractions and delay and avoidance. But you’re already in it, and the only way out is through. You feel trapped when I see your emotions, but I’m not the one trapping you. I don’t need you to “fix” your feelings, or to endlessly and painfully work through decades of them. But I would like to imagine a life where it’s safe to notice that everyone’s feels are happening, to acknowledge that they have an impact, and to work together to step out of the traps that keep us all in them.

I want to stop eating in secret – to stop being ashamed of wanting food – but I’m having a hard time making that happen. It’s hard for Shanda to interact with me in a way that isn’t about her being guilty about my eating. And it’s hard for me to get regular enough attention from anyone else for it to be relevant. I can make myself just shout all of my eating into the void but my problem isn’t that I’m incapable of tracking my food, it’s that doing so makes me feel terrible. My brain knows that I shouldn’t want to eat, should be ashamed when it happens, and shouldn’t let anyone else know either of those ever occur. Plus there’s the food tracking barrier I have, about all the ways Mother wanted me to diet and shamed me about various methods of doing so (even beyond the usual food abuse) — it makes me want to lie about it even though no one but me cares, and it makes me feel like shit whenever I produce documentation ¹One of the things Mother did with almost any diet, even ones that didn’t include food tracking natively, was document what I ate so she could shame me about it later. I didn’t matter if my eating was compliant with the diet, the list itself was evidence of my shameful need for food. Or maybe it was evidence that I was “ganging up” on her … Continue reading because it’s evidence that will be used against me later. But I’ve got to start imagining that I am allowed human amounts of human food, that I should participate in meals instead of just picking out leftovers as I clean up, and that being hungry isn’t evidence of my failure and gluttony.

Therapy today. Maybe back to LI after a couple of weeks off. Two sessions ago we were regrouping to track progress and reorient to match changes over the past few months. I am doing better, in some of goals: I’m starting to build a more coherent backstory for myself instead of just flashbulbs of trauma, and my startle response is down a bit. Inbound touch is still very hard for me to tolerate and definitely comforting but I am much better at being able to give it to others ²You should still prompt me about it when you can, because even when I can do touch your explicit consent makes it so much easier, and in using it to communicate my need and emotion ³(Reciprocal touch isn’t itself comforting but it can help me feel like you’re paying attention to me, if I can avoid being triggered by it). It’s still pretty uncomfortable for me to imagine being an infant or toddler; it still feels like a threat when my therapists suggests that she might hold a doll while talking about infant me. But it’s less. When that first came up I nope’d out real hard an interrupted the suggestion; it still feels like a bad idea but not one I have to be afraid to think about. Last week was catching up from several weeks off and all the therapy-like things I had done in the mean time, so we didn’t have time for LI. I spent the time we did have trying to get at food shame feels to see if I could come up with a way to work on those. I’m not sure what’s on today’s list. I’ve got a professional question that she’s probably going to offer me the wrong reassurances about, but hopefully that won’t take too long. There’s maybe a feel related to that — helplessness against pain in people I care about — that I could LI about. Parenting and food shame have both been on my mind too, and aren’t far off from that idea.

Shanda is finally back to dating, after her breakup with B. Which I think is a great way to get past some of the breakup feels that have been pent up. I’m hoping maybe this time around there’s something more casual in the mix, at least for a while. Last time we went from “I’m going to try dating” to “I’ve stopped dating in favor of yet another years-long romantic relationship” after meeting like 2 people. I think you’re in a better mindset this time, but it could still use some of your attention — you’re not very good yet at knowing what you want in new romantic relationships, and it’s a thing you sometimes have trouble paying attention to. Don’t let yourself get overwhelmed by the way your attention slides away from thinking about what you want, or by your rebound/gay sex/etc. feels. One of the joys of poly is that you don’t have to lock down someone to keep seeing them; dating a couple might help with that, if you can spend a little time focussing on it.

Talked with J about faces and capes and the politics of family reunions. I’ve been to a lot of reunions, though never for anyone I knew or was related to — mostly they happened at places where I was sent to live with a family friend ⁴“Family friend” is a term of some distress for me. It pokes at my patriarchy feels, because it suggests that the “friendship” was assigned (or at least approved) by a parent. And it pokes at my trauma feels because it was the term used to describe the strangers I was sent to live with and obey as a child. for a while. I got to play the (I hope) cool kid doing drugs out behind the shed for a minute; I really could have used that sort of relief at some of those at some of the rural gatherings I was stuck at, but all I ever found behind the shed was assholes and rapists. Anyway J was reinvigorated to try reaching out and building things; I thought for a minute it might all fall into place right that moment and make me feel like my heist movie is paying off, but it didn’t quite come together. It was still good though, and I’ll keep prodding at it to see if maybe it will kick over next time around.

Talked with M about dogs. How they seem like — are — too much work for someone who has trouble feeding themselves. But they’re also a way to change your motivations about such things, and a salve against some of the old bits that feel like failure or resentment or incapability. I hope in the not too distant future you feel like your life might accomodate one. I know you’re not sure it would work in a way you like, but I have confidence in you (and in dogs). I’d like to imagine a future where, when you’re ready, our dogs met and my old weird dog can annoy yours.

I’ve been trying to do HA4H but haven’t been super successful in getting the prompts done. I didn’t really expect to last week — I also decided not to write here in favor of sleep and day job and all the other bits that filled my nights and mornings. But I want to get back to them. There’s a Discord now, which has been motivating — a place to share the bits I did do and actually get feedback. And a place to feel like I can speak without annoying people.

Last week you set a boundary at me and I loved it. I was, for unrelated reasons, in a heightened state at the time. But the act itself provides great comfort to me, knowing that you can ask for changes and I can make amends. I always worry that no one will tell me when I cross the line — that I’ve been across the line since before we started — and so it’s very reassuring to be told it exists. And to be told that my response when I do push against it matters; that there’s space for me to improve instead of being doomed by a single mistake.

I made my first crayon drawing recently ⁵I have in the past held crayons. I certainly have written with them. Probably at some point in the preceding decades I even sketched with them. But I definitely have never been invited to color and share the results, not in any way that mattered.. It took quite a bit for me to work up to. I cried about the crayons when I got them and again every time I tried to use them for a week. I had to yell at several people to find the courage to start it. But I’m really glad I did it. They were important feels to get through. I thought I’d be afraid to share it too, but that part has actually been fine. My brain was taught that nothing I produced could bring anything but pain, and that any display that included me would be subject to ridicule. But you’ve trained me to believe that my sharing might be useful. That posting things on the fridge could make people smile instead of scowl. That people can be proud of me without hoping to exploit me. That reminders of me aren’t just tokens of pain.

You say it’s always safe to talk about me. And I appreciate that, because I do not always feel that way. But some of me is you. We should have lines between us — whatever lines you need or want — but I want your shape to be part of what pushes me into mine, because I like the way our shapes touch and overlap. And I want it to be safe to talk about those parts too.

ZiB

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