Originally Posted by *Anya*
Interesting thread. I know what has shaped me to be the person I am, I have insight into myself, my behaviors, how my thoughts impact my actions but yet, too many times I found myself back in the same place, saying WTF- u did it again?!
Sadly, it's validating for me to hear that a smart woman like you can be so dumb, so to speak—I'm fairly well endowed, intellectually, but it doesn't seem to help me much when it comes to relationships. I am convinced I have a romance-based learning disorder and always will. I hope that isn't true for you.
Physical/emotional abuse by parents/marry @ 18 to escape their prison to move into a new one with my physically/emotionally abusive bio husband, fell in love with my first GF but someting was missing- oh yes, she treated me like a queen. Unused to it. She was a dear but she was a femme and I didn't feel that powerhouse sexual attraction.
I fled my family at 16 to be an abusive teenage marriage. What I learned from my parents' marriage was, Stay no matter how bad it is—ironically I ran like the wind from my childhood, and still struggle with the flight impulse, which was my first way of protecting myself. And like you, I didn't date butch women at first... but I have to say just because they're butch, for me, doesn't mean the sexual match is ideal. I know you weren't saying that either.
Then I met my butch. Instant attraction. She was so bright, funny, charming, 3rd year law school (till the frontal lobe brain tumor took her logic, ability to make good judgments away but left her with lots and lots of id-the Fruedian type of id- where she would fuck any hot girl possible, followed bybtears, apologies, it will never happen again but it did, couples therapy, piles of emotional abuse for me and my two daughters that couldn't help but know the house was so tense it could have been cut with a knife. Yes, I took my daughters to counseling too, even though they hated to go. They needed a healthy place to process to.
Damn, I had no idea, though I really don't know you after reading only a couple dozen posts. Wow. My dad just had a stroke and I'm seeing the same scary release of id that you're talking about. (He gets mad in the car, slams on the brakes, it fishtails, I freeze as I did when I was a kid, and realize I've got the father of childhood back...) Others with family members who've had brain damage and strokes have shared with me that it's not an unusual behavior, that loss of impulse control. But it sucks.
Numb, yes, pretty much for 6 years. I haven't even really dated all this time.
It seems so simple to tell someone: just take a chance. That my be easier to say if 50% of the chances you have taken in your own life were good ones. It is not so easy when 80% of those chances were bad ones for you.
I am not totally numb now. I see sparkles of light coming through my living room curtains. I saw the sun shine on the water and heard the waves yesterday. I was reminded that there is still life to live. I don't exactly know how yet but have to believe that there is one more woman for me out in the world that I can fully trust and again open my soul up to some fresh air.
I really hope that is true. I don't believe there is someone for everyone and I don't think it's always our fault if we end up alone and I don't believe "it'll happen when you're ready"—I think dumb luck and the random nature of the universe has a role in things too. But whatever it is, I hope you find someone truly awesome and deserving of you.
I know this has not been a good day for me. The loss of my dogs is a trigger for me of abandonment-that I know. The whole thing is like a giant ball of yarn in all different colors. Each strand represents a loss I have had. I should probably put it on a barge and drop it in the ocean (as long as not harmful to fish, etc that live in the ocean). Maybe I will do one for myself, symbolic of the losses & then set it on fire or something. Have to give that thought.
Keep the metaphors coming. They buoy those unconscious things up to the surface, and help us process, IMO.
Sorry for the ramble. I can't sleep, it's 11:36pm and I have to go to work tomorrow. Good night.
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