The gender/sexuality blog
I've been on somewhat of a hiatus. For may many reasons. I can only come to you and try to explain, and I hope some of the people of GD may choose to know me better and to read this, and maybe eventually try and help me rebuild my ability to play.
So, people that have experienced me may be frustrated with me. But due to our explorations, I have learned much of myself. And though, I haven't been able to internalize every cost of these relationships, and my belief that I could handle them, I hope the remainders are forgiven for play in the future someday.
But here's what I've figured out, as we reach the beginning of March. Gender and sexuality are intertwined for me. Issues expressing what I believe could be my sexuality carry over to expressing what I believe could be my gender. I just don't feel like a full human being or justified in my feelings a lot of the time, and so both of these feel hampered. I believe I *could* be trans non-binary, and I think I'd enjoy life like this, and with the expression/ presentation it avails. I also think I could be pansexual. I experience all sorts of primary attraction to all sorts of people. However, here's the issue: I avoid intimacy like it's Michael Myers with the plague. And as you might have clued into, this seems to be an issue with expressing sexuality/gender. It requires some exposure that makes increased intimacy inevitable through momentary conflict or otherwise, regardless of how the clothes/ other aspects of presentation make me feel on their/ my own.
These issues have all sorts to do with career/academic never-ending failure/ shame. I think the repeated experience of failing for the last ten years straight has given me a rather traumatized response to every piece of school.
I think that play in this way taps into play in real life, whether joking with friends, or having a good time shooting pool. It shouldn't matter the result of the game. The fun is in the intimacy of sucking really bad or getting a really lucky shot and experiencing that in its totality with your friends. The more intimate you can be with your friends in a situation like this, and the more emotion you can share, the more fulfilling/ fun it is, at least from my perspective. And my experience of school has repeatedly robbed this from me.
There isn't a single aspect of feedback that I can receive positively, and at its worst, I have completely lost the ability to not be horrified by sex or really even lightly having fun with friends in even a barely-intimate way for weeks/ months after bad feedback. I think this is a traumatized response. This isn't anybody's fault. I just reacted to the failure, by trying to cut out other things, of which play was one (it also was combined with abuse at a certain point, and I think that it's been so long since I've explored actually playing, that I have had trouble separating the two).
I did not realize that I'd find life not worth living as I did this over the years. And living numb is no longer my goal (that I didn't realize I had), because it didn't work. I still wasn't able to succeed at school. And worse yet, I've nearly lost some of my best friends over it, and I've struggled intensely to build healthy relationships for years now due to my constant disapproval of myself and then unfair disapproval of others. It has also eroded the depth of intimacy/ emotion I can feel with others even in the meantime, regardless of the temporary increases in anxiety that come with failure. For example, even just the amount of time it has taken to be able to look some people in the face again after some of these school failings has eroded whatever level of connection we had for each other, even though I knew I couldn't be as intimate as our time together would suggest, nor to the level I wanted to, from before the time that I stepped away from the relationship whether purposefully or by facing the shame from failure and not feeling like I was able.
So, back to sexuality. My default state, which I am learning to better control with coping mechanisms, is very much numbed/ traumatized/ filled with shame through years and years of trying to run from problems. While in a shameful state, I really do not have sexuality with regards to others, and barely can find it for myself. So, whether I can communicate in an enjoyable way is really dependent on my mood, which rarely is in my control, and which can be ripped from my grasp. And that determines whether I am able to enjoy play. If I can escape to a happier place for long enough to start a kinky/ playful convo, it seems that more or less nobody I have found can keep me from dropping into sadness and losing the ability to play, including myself at the moment. And this isn't conducive to continuity in intimacy in a conversation, let alone a relationship, nor to really presenting sexually here, as it may get responses which I find extremely exhausting to respond to when "not in the mood," which can be a weekslong state -- during which, I may want to post on gd for my own reasons, if I am able to find the sexuality on my own.
So, to cap off, I am working on it. I remember what it was like to feel happy and enjoy playing. I have experienced it again infrequently with help from specific members of the Gd community, and even in a group setting nearby gd, which was very fun. And I want that again. But at the moment, it seems very hard to engage with play for layers of reasons. And so, with a constricted sexuality as such, people may say this is demisexuality, or maybe as most of my enjoyment/ the experience I want was a group setting, I may be specifically and only polyamorous. But I don't think either of these fit what I am if I am actually mentally free to play, and by this, I mean free in a way that allows for me to live like I want to and remember being able to during the day. It should be the state I return to daily, or maybe after a hard week, weekly and then daily again. And that state is pansexual, and generally joyful and happy. My common state however, is shameful, sad, numb, and closed off almost entirely sexually.
And finally here's to hopefully fixing this. If I had the choice of being able to play with my friends like I did at the start of high school, or having experienced any of the last seven years of schooling, including (to be) 2 degrees, and buckets of unfulfilled sad relationships, I'd choose the prior over and over again.
(for further reflection) And that play in high school was still abusive, and I can't decide whether I felt valued/ safe enough for it to be considered healthy (sometimes I would go home crying from physical abuse and group humiliation, with no one caring to check up on me but my "friends'" parents.) But I'd still prefer it over what I have emotionally available to me now, for the good times that undeniably did happen on other days.
Anyways, thank you all for reading. Thank you to those that have continuing relationships with me and that have helped me figure out what I do and don't like. I'm fighting the age old wisdom of the chinese buffet: "we take what we like, and leave the rest. just like your salad bar" (Big Trouble in Little China (1986)). I refuse to believe my buffet is the size of a side dish when so much looks so good. To healing and finding a way to enjoy life.
So, people that have experienced me may be frustrated with me. But due to our explorations, I have learned much of myself. And though, I haven't been able to internalize every cost of these relationships, and my belief that I could handle them, I hope the remainders are forgiven for play in the future someday.
But here's what I've figured out, as we reach the beginning of March. Gender and sexuality are intertwined for me. Issues expressing what I believe could be my sexuality carry over to expressing what I believe could be my gender. I just don't feel like a full human being or justified in my feelings a lot of the time, and so both of these feel hampered. I believe I *could* be trans non-binary, and I think I'd enjoy life like this, and with the expression/ presentation it avails. I also think I could be pansexual. I experience all sorts of primary attraction to all sorts of people. However, here's the issue: I avoid intimacy like it's Michael Myers with the plague. And as you might have clued into, this seems to be an issue with expressing sexuality/gender. It requires some exposure that makes increased intimacy inevitable through momentary conflict or otherwise, regardless of how the clothes/ other aspects of presentation make me feel on their/ my own.
These issues have all sorts to do with career/academic never-ending failure/ shame. I think the repeated experience of failing for the last ten years straight has given me a rather traumatized response to every piece of school.
I think that play in this way taps into play in real life, whether joking with friends, or having a good time shooting pool. It shouldn't matter the result of the game. The fun is in the intimacy of sucking really bad or getting a really lucky shot and experiencing that in its totality with your friends. The more intimate you can be with your friends in a situation like this, and the more emotion you can share, the more fulfilling/ fun it is, at least from my perspective. And my experience of school has repeatedly robbed this from me.
There isn't a single aspect of feedback that I can receive positively, and at its worst, I have completely lost the ability to not be horrified by sex or really even lightly having fun with friends in even a barely-intimate way for weeks/ months after bad feedback. I think this is a traumatized response. This isn't anybody's fault. I just reacted to the failure, by trying to cut out other things, of which play was one (it also was combined with abuse at a certain point, and I think that it's been so long since I've explored actually playing, that I have had trouble separating the two).
I did not realize that I'd find life not worth living as I did this over the years. And living numb is no longer my goal (that I didn't realize I had), because it didn't work. I still wasn't able to succeed at school. And worse yet, I've nearly lost some of my best friends over it, and I've struggled intensely to build healthy relationships for years now due to my constant disapproval of myself and then unfair disapproval of others. It has also eroded the depth of intimacy/ emotion I can feel with others even in the meantime, regardless of the temporary increases in anxiety that come with failure. For example, even just the amount of time it has taken to be able to look some people in the face again after some of these school failings has eroded whatever level of connection we had for each other, even though I knew I couldn't be as intimate as our time together would suggest, nor to the level I wanted to, from before the time that I stepped away from the relationship whether purposefully or by facing the shame from failure and not feeling like I was able.
So, back to sexuality. My default state, which I am learning to better control with coping mechanisms, is very much numbed/ traumatized/ filled with shame through years and years of trying to run from problems. While in a shameful state, I really do not have sexuality with regards to others, and barely can find it for myself. So, whether I can communicate in an enjoyable way is really dependent on my mood, which rarely is in my control, and which can be ripped from my grasp. And that determines whether I am able to enjoy play. If I can escape to a happier place for long enough to start a kinky/ playful convo, it seems that more or less nobody I have found can keep me from dropping into sadness and losing the ability to play, including myself at the moment. And this isn't conducive to continuity in intimacy in a conversation, let alone a relationship, nor to really presenting sexually here, as it may get responses which I find extremely exhausting to respond to when "not in the mood," which can be a weekslong state -- during which, I may want to post on gd for my own reasons, if I am able to find the sexuality on my own.
So, to cap off, I am working on it. I remember what it was like to feel happy and enjoy playing. I have experienced it again infrequently with help from specific members of the Gd community, and even in a group setting nearby gd, which was very fun. And I want that again. But at the moment, it seems very hard to engage with play for layers of reasons. And so, with a constricted sexuality as such, people may say this is demisexuality, or maybe as most of my enjoyment/ the experience I want was a group setting, I may be specifically and only polyamorous. But I don't think either of these fit what I am if I am actually mentally free to play, and by this, I mean free in a way that allows for me to live like I want to and remember being able to during the day. It should be the state I return to daily, or maybe after a hard week, weekly and then daily again. And that state is pansexual, and generally joyful and happy. My common state however, is shameful, sad, numb, and closed off almost entirely sexually.
And finally here's to hopefully fixing this. If I had the choice of being able to play with my friends like I did at the start of high school, or having experienced any of the last seven years of schooling, including (to be) 2 degrees, and buckets of unfulfilled sad relationships, I'd choose the prior over and over again.
(for further reflection) And that play in high school was still abusive, and I can't decide whether I felt valued/ safe enough for it to be considered healthy (sometimes I would go home crying from physical abuse and group humiliation, with no one caring to check up on me but my "friends'" parents.) But I'd still prefer it over what I have emotionally available to me now, for the good times that undeniably did happen on other days.
Anyways, thank you all for reading. Thank you to those that have continuing relationships with me and that have helped me figure out what I do and don't like. I'm fighting the age old wisdom of the chinese buffet: "we take what we like, and leave the rest. just like your salad bar" (Big Trouble in Little China (1986)). I refuse to believe my buffet is the size of a side dish when so much looks so good. To healing and finding a way to enjoy life.
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