eos_nyxia

TBH I would like to not be approached at all, but then I am in my late 30s, married, and with other priorities. When I was younger, people approaching me was a bit novel. But the novelty wore off very quickly as soon as it became clear that it was nothing about me in particular, or they just liked my look (which is what tends to happen when you don't know anything about anyone). Like I'm just another mark. The people who I felt the most comfortable around came off as naturally extroverted, that is, whether or not they were attracted to me, they still seemed like they were enjoying or getting something from the process of interacting with me, and we actually had something to talk about as well. I think cold approaching tends to select for women who have a very high appetite for novelty, are young/naive/vulnerable, and/or are traumatized. And also low self-esteem, a poor sense of self, and poor boundaries in many cases too, if you treat them disrespectfully and they go along with it. If I was single and interested... probably someone from a special interest group of some kind. Uni/college is probably the easiest place to do this. Actually have a real interest in whatever you join though. Where I live, I suspect the widest pool is probably outdoor sports and recreation, followed by indoor sports and recreation. There are tons of other hobbies for introverted and non-physical interests too though.

Haven't you seen teenaged girls, especially ones that are part of fandoms? Or grown women acting like teenaged girls? They only react that way if the guys are pretty.

Straight up, we tend to face more negative repercussions in our socialization from being too direct about our motives and what we think compared to boys/ men, and are strongly rewarded for agreeableness (even if it's just on the surface). Whether it's from parents, peers, the opposite sex, etc. If our socialization rewarded or at least didn't actively discourage or punish directness strongly and repeatedly, then maybe you'd get more directness and hopefully less self denial. To push back against our conditioning takes a lot of force and often a lot of thought and awareness about the risks (or else you face the consequences). Likely coupled with more risk aversion too on average.

I wrote a seperate post which touched on this this theme: Before I had written this one, I had written up an earlier post at least a month before which had gotten erased before I could post it. I could not be assed to rewrite it, since its main purpose was for my emotional well being and personal record keeping. I had already done the most essential thing which was writing it, and I wanted to move on and have a nice, worthwhile day. TLDR; I had recently realized that my limerent attractions across my lifetime were something so painfully embarrassing because of how simple and obvious it was. That is being uncontrollably and desperately attracted to men who have the best qualities of my father, but add emotional warmth and signs of interest toward me (including me hallucinating the latter). Add a genuinely spiritual man with spiritual gifts on top of that, so I would not feel so alone and weird and different. (Fun fact: the gifts that were there, IF they were there, were not up to my standard anyway.) Somehow that ideal man (projected onto specific individuals) was supposed to be everything I never had. This is embarrassing because even as a teenager, I prided myself on choosing someone who was NOT like my father, someone who was never there for me, who was too self absorbed into his own world, with his own creative and intellectual interests to really be interested in anything else other than the character he invented as me inside his head, that is if it could be bothered with me emotionally at all if I was not someone who he could talk at. And then it turned out, he expected ME to be the better person in all of this. The enabler in my family did what enablers do. You have to take the high road, but the abusers get to keep on doing what they do (especially in the case of my mom). While they also might present a strong unified front with the active abuser (my mom in this case), an enabler is not an emotionally strong person. Enablers never are. All of whatever high principles and ideals they might have otherwise have and are in love with are sacrificed at the altar of necessity and practicality (either fawning, looking the other way, or actively taking the obvious abuser's side). An enabler with high principles and standards... is often a hypocrite of the deepest sort. I should have known better. I gave up on receiving love from my parents entirely when I was 14. Forever. I should have seen it coming. My husband, I met him when I was 16. He is nothing like my father in the best possible ways. In his way with his excellent memory, he is the most important record keeper of both my present and past life. He remembers so much about me as I was that I would have already forgotten, the self that fully believed deep down that she must be unworthy of love no matter what she did, because why else all of this? (And now, my ability to trust and form long term connections period is in his hands, which also is a lot of burden for one person to bear.) The girl who was forgotten and felt safer being and staying forgotten. Especially a certain kind of intellectual arrogance and superiority reads as cheap, easy, and convenient to me. It shows up in plenty of men and wears a shiny veneer (if you like intellectualism and creativity, that is), but it's not so hard to see what it's covering. I mostly find it an utter bore or amusing if I am in a good mood because it's not a trait that deserves to be taken seriously (just don't give this type of person power, what harm they might do ought to be taken seriously). To this day, my parents wonder why I am a mystery to them. Gee, you just want to talk about yourself, so I let you. And I feel uncomfortable when you ask me too many questions about my adult life anyway so I would rather you not, so it works out for both of us. Like I don't trust you not to take personal information and my actual vulnerability (as opposed to me using it selectively and strategically which is.. by definition, manipulative) and use it against me again, as you have. I wonder why. It's not like either of you have really changed enough. I see it in their eyes: they are relieved that I've spared them my more of my rage, sadness, disappointment and the burden that I would be if I did. (One issue I have felt a bit stuck with lately: Am I really "a good daughter" because I don't have the heart to abandon my parents in their old age (and my father with his disability) or am a two-faced hypocrite because I always act civil, calm, and in control of myself in their presence, but I've hated them, had mixed feelings ("they're still your family"), and not respected their choices this whole time? .......am I fake? Is this the best I can do?) It hasn't been that long since I've written these posts, and I don't feel the shame and disgust toward myself anymore. Not in any corner of my self. I'm not angry at myself either anymore. Why should I hate myself for having emotional needs and feelings? For having been a child that couldn't defend themselves? For being human? For being bound to follow a certain developmental path? For being blamed by them or their deflection for what was inescapable for me and beyond my control? Why should I internalize their excuses or make excuses for them, as they make excuses for themselves because they are not actually that strong at their core? Logically, I know this is true. Knowing this emotionally to the core is something else. Accepting it fully is also another step beyond simply knowing this emotionally. An exponential leap of sorts. This is the reason why I refuse to be there for anyone who had the opportunity to be here for me in a way that I needed in a very specific time window, but was not there. Who chose to be elsewhere with other people doing more important things. It really was an extension of "the curse". I was muted. I could not speak properly, in a sense. I could not see clearly and wholly because of the sheer pain of it all. It was your choice to make, and I will honour that. Even if you didn't know what you were agreeing to, or that you were agreeing to anything. Which is why there is nothing there for me now. Literally just on principle and refusing to backtrack anymore. I really just needed to see the actual limits of how important I was to anyone. And I did. So thank you for the truth, from the bottom of my heart. Let's all move on..... ....but sorry, not sorry. I AM too good for this.

OUR PRIVATE WORLD// A FUTURE HEAVEN: If I could wipe out the knowledge and memory of everything and everyone except you, my love, I would seriously consider it. Maybe I would even erase good portions of the last 7 years. No, especially the first part of the last 10, where you suffered the most. It pains you to watch me not step into the sun, I know. And it pains me to not see you in a much better state. You deserve better. But seriously.... Thank you for all the love you've ever shown me. Thank you for your strengths, thank you for your warmth, your patience, your grace. Thank you for being what no one else has bothered to be for me. Thank you for not giving up. For showing up. For waiting. Thank you for turning against me as little as humanly possible. I have had a way... of making things difficult. Thank you for your sacrifice. Thank you for introducing me to both warmth and devotion. Thank you life, for sending you to me. Thank you. Thank you for being Real in the darkness. Thank you for being someone I can trust and believe in. It was not a fair deal for you. I am still sorry. I will keep learning to be more patient in the way I deal with whatever comes up between us. I will become what you need from me. I say this with all the love and strength that my heart can muster. You better believe that I'm going to get my way! (I know life wasn't a "fair deal" for me either, but one grief does not excuse causing another.) Do not feel bad that you showed up too late in my life... it is enough for me that you exist, and you were the first person to show me that not everyone lies about what is most important. Thank you for being the first person to touch my hair lovingly (and maybe the last, I care less and less about FOMO as days pass). (Thank you for being the first person to truly lovingly touch me, period.) Thank you for the endless amounts of affirmation. Thank you for your faith in me, that I am a person worth having faith in. Thank you for your huge heart and the endearing quality of your intelligence, your warm penetrating eyes, your feral qualities. I could have never done all of this alone. It was always too much for me. It would be for anyone. Life and humanity was always meant to be a collaborative effort. ..and You say you would do it all over again, and my heart hurts. Once was enough... Deep down, I feel like I have to make it all worth it for you. I must make every means possible for you to prosper in this world and this life, as I must for myself. I mean emotionally and physically, especially. Neither of us had much sense of a home. For what burdens you in yourself and in this world, I must do what I can to alleviate, as we must together. I promised you this: that you need not fear what happens after death. And I know I'm not allaying all your fears but... that is my greater gift. Something I've been waiting for all along, something that I have been furnishing even in my darkest, most alone moments. A gift that I am capable of giving... ....I waited too. For the moment I could fully be myself. I've carried this lifelong sense that I was born with a crown of Moon and Stars, as a figure of speech. What I want to do, is to take it off, and put it at your feet. And say... without reservation, this life is worth living, with you. No matter what. That you make me believe. ..and without you, the love I have carried inside me since I was a child would have no anchor, and nowhere to land in this world. I would simply have grown cold. Not angry. I mean, I would 100% walk away from whatever it was that I was capable of doing and let humanity be with itself, for sure. I know it's a lot of pressure when I say that I need you in the most human sense possible. You fear leaving me alone, as I was left alone for so much of my life. But I will alleviate that pressure too. You offered your body, your devotion, your time, your heart. I say, in this world, you risk wasn't foolish, you saw me, and you were brave. You say that there was no other choice for you. Nothing else was real and mattered. You wouldn't even be here anyway if it wasn't for me. But still... For you, I have all that to offer too, and more. For whoever was going to be there for me in this way, if he ever came and stayed and was Real, I was always wanting to offer.... ....something Eternal. .........and for this to be the first and last time I ever do this particular thing. All of it.

But before I can be DONE, I have to be fully committed to the Truth of it all. I have to BE Truth. It ends the contract. I could have done it before, I'm sure, but the grief........

WHAT I'VE AVOIDED SAYING TOO DIRECTLY// THE SHEER FUCKING BANALITY OF EVIL: Why is it STILL so hard to speak directly and plainly about everything that has happened to me? (And why must I always talk around it? And why do I have the urge to protect the people who couldn't be assed to protect me?) THE WORST OF MY PARENTS' SINS (from my perspective): The Jeopardy question of the day is.... ....and the answer is my father. Yep. I found CP on his computer because I was nosy child and my parents were very secretive, and I also never felt safe around them without fully understanding why until I was a teenager. I felt uncontrollably compelled to see exactly what type of people I was living with, even if I definitely did not have the means to understand at that age. Even up until very recently, I seem to keep "forgetting" that I found this. That this was a real thing that definitely happened. That the girl I most remember seeing.... had nearly the same hair cut I had at that age. The same stupid fucking hair cut that my mom forced me to have. The last time I brought this up to my husband, I was going through the motions of finding it impossibly hard to speak up, like I was mute, as if I was both making myself mute and being forced to be mute, as if there was some hidden contract I had "agreed" to and had been forced to keep all along. As if I had never told him this before (and up until now, he was the only person I have ever told this to). My husband was like... well, yea. I know. You've told me more than once. Also, remember when you were in uni? We found CP on his computer then too.... (it's not like he really went out of his way to hide it very well... and we certainly were not snooping around on his computer, I was just printing off something he helped me proofread for school.) And then I felt both embarrassed that I STILL keep forgetting that I told him about the CP more than once. --- then he asked me: do you think that girl was you? Nope, it definitely wasn't........... I'm pretty sure. As far as I know, he's never done anything to me. Unless....... (my soupy memories from 4 and under are not helpful here. But there is something still... not right.) ADDED NOTE: My father has been blind for a number of years now. (1) ""Dark Thought"": I sometimes help take care of him and I feel for his situation, but ""karma""... he doesn't really deserve eyesight...) My brother molested me between the ages of 5-10. 5 years straight. He is 5 years older than me. When I mentioned in an above post that he has taken great pains to make amends with me, this is the specific thing I am talking about. Anyway, when I first started journalling on here some years ago, I briefly mentioned that I had a moment when I was 7 when it felt like my own "Higher Self" left me, and told me that it would fully come back when I was an adult. This is why it left me. My "soul" fractured so that I could maintain a semblance of normality and safety as much as humanly possible to protect myself. Literally it was my best attempt at developmental preservation, to have a sense of childhood that I could build upon as an adult, and that requires salvaging some sense of orderliness and relative "safety", like maintaining a certain sanctity of mind and soul (I'm not sure how else to explain this...) I suspect that the age 7 is significant because that is when children start to have a concrete sense of reality, operational logic, and a rational sense of self, is it not? I lost my memories of everything that happened as well as the ability to form and keep memories about what was continued being done to me. Dissociation. But as they say now ---- THE BODY KEEPS THE SCORE. Anyway, I've heard the perspective of everything that happened in quite a lot of detail from my brother in bits and pieces. He always tends to "bubble wrap" it in his choice of phrasing (as to not retraumatize me and be generally disrespectful and gross), but honestly I might as well have asked for everything in a disgustingly graphic amount of detail so at least there is no sanitized ambiguity about every exact thing that happened). My motto when I was younger was to unturn every stone and find the Truth. To return to myself, as I must eventually. And this.... might be the real day. (...and why not today? Why must I delay the inevitable?) (ANOTHER ADDED NOTE: where I live, I have learned since my brother told me that he was willing to turn himself in because he feels that he deserves to be punished in some way. Which I myself find pointless (for myself, not speaking for others). The lawyer he talked to said that unless I was willing to prosecute him myself, he could not just turn himself in for something that he admitted. Basically a waste of time legally.) So both of my parents knew the whole time, according to my brother. I found out about my family's secret that they all kept from me because my brother's ex-wife (and then girlfriend) told me. My brother had gone to my parents while I was in uni and asked if he should tell me about what happened to me. My parents said no, don't disturb her studies. Later it turned into, you should have to live with the weight of what you've done and bear that burden in silence for the rest of your life (my dad said that, my mom doesn't give a shit lol). That is the only moral thing to do. About 3ish years ago before my brother moved to LA to live with his now wife, right after things fell apart with his ex-wife (a CSA survivor herself, which is why she was able to instinctively identify the dynamic between my brother and I without him revealing his shameful dark secret), we both sat down with our parents to talk about what happened. Honestly I'm surprised that my parents even agreed to it; they definitely did not want to. According to my brother, my dad tried to stop him from molesting me once, but never tried again. My dad admitted that he knew what happened. My brother also actually came to my mom while he was still molesting me. According to him, it is because he said that he knew deep down, without anyone telling him, that what he was doing was wrong but he just couldn't manage to stop himself... and that he wanted my mom, that he expected both my parents, to stop him, I guess. To be parents. Because he was very insistent on trying and trying to get them to be parents in the EMOTIONAL sense in a way that I would not be bothered with because I knew it was a waste of time, like trying to make a stone cry or have feelings. This is what she said back then when he came to her about what he was doing to me: well, did you do PIV to her? My brother: no. My mom: well, it's not that bad then. ....and then that was the end of that. He did not go to her again. His mental health continued to deteriorate. At that same family meeting: my mom aggressively and vehemently denied that she ever knew, and also that it ever was her responsibility in any way. My brother then called her a liar. At this moment in this family meeting: I do not feel anything except shaken and very open, yet at the same time I will not give them the privilege of seeing my vulnerability, because they always turn against me if it's anything close to "too much" for them to handle and/or be bothered with. In general, and what I do very clearly remember about my mom was her literally looking the other way when I was molested on public in on a bus when I was 13 when I was in Hong Kong for the summer, and then I wondering if I was insane because ... I could have sworn that I saw her see that happen, and I saw her hardened, dead expression as she half-registered what happened and then looked away. Not her problem. I was 13, and had not yet blown up in rebellion. At that age, it was inconceivable that my mom would see what happened and ignored me. How could that even be possible?? I still wholeheartedly believed my parents had my best interest at heart, lol. Sure, I didn't feel loved at all, but still........ I mean, my mom was also a victim of patriarchal thinking, by this I mean old school Chinese culture. Quite literally, a boy is intrinsically worth more than a girl as he carries on the family name. I know that her own father abandoned and went to start a family and went on to have the son that she could never be, the son that he later bragged to her face about. She deeply fears being abandoned even though she puts on that hard, fake front, like "no one has the power to hurt me!" and "hurt them first and cut them out of your life before they can hurt you" type of mentality. Dog-eat-dog shit. I know her fears about aging and apparently 18 is the prime beauty age of a woman. (Forever 21? Why not Forever 18?... is unfortunately one of her phrases that lives rent free in my head.) Great mom. We both know by 18, we both also mean younger too as well, right? ((Oh, by the way mothers, if you have body image issues and issues related to aging, your body image, your weight, you've probably already given it to your daughter(s). Whatever garbage cultural virus you've inherited. Your actions and how you treat and talk about yourself speaks a lot louder than anything else. Kids aren't stupid and can very often figure out even if you've said nothing, but chances are you probably have. Maybe you've forgotten. Maybe you don't know the true weight of your words.) Shit my parents have said to me as an adult: EXHIBIT A) my dad: oh, you were so good as a child, so well behaved. The ideal child. That it was easy to forget that you existed (unlike my brother, who would shove things in both of my parents' faces, especially my mom's) EXHIBIT B) My mom, very recently: telling me about telling her friends, when they keep commenting about how great I am, such a wonderful, caring, respectable, GOOD daughter. She said to me recently: You're not like a daughter at all, but more like a friend. (This is a positive thing, apparently. What I hear in this is that: I feel justified in whatever parental responsibility I assumed for myself on my terms only, and nothing else (because my mom never really apologizes) and I don't feel any parental responsibility now. Thanks mom!) EXHIBIT C: My dad: well, at least you turned out as well as anyone could have turned out given your circumstances. Thanks dad for that. I actually KNOW that already without needing you to fucking tell me that. Jesus if I actually had no self esteem it's not like you'd be complimenting me now because that's not in our """SOUL CONTRACT""", apparently. Now continue to ignore and gaslight me when I tell you that adolescence was very, very difficult for me emotionally, that I was very severely depressed and hallucinating left and right, when I told you that it's fortunate that I'm even alive at all. That that is the truth of it. That it was not a given that I should still be alive. Keep telling me that I somehow would have figured out myself (great! And I did! Wow! I am so strong and awesome! And I did it pretty much entirely alone except for my now husband, and even he didn't know how bad it was or that I was planning to die after a certain age if I could not manage to hit the reset button on this body and identity and actually start over cleanly with a life that wasn't a continuation of the same dynamics I inherited from my ethically deranged family.) The things I wrote above about emotional neglect in above posts, and then some. When I first started to try to understand what people were saying about their own experiences surviving multiple types of childhood abuse, I have heard this this sentiment multiple times and its echo has lingered still: the emotional neglect and the lack of love was worse than any of the (usually physical) abuse that I had experienced growing up. This has been very hard to wrap my head around when I was younger, and also I had never experienced normal "physical" abuse. But now, I am inclined to agree. ""THE CURSE"": There is a certain pattern that has happened across my life. I call it.... the Curse. These are some of the rules of my "soul contract" with my family, apparently. 1) If I truly need someone at my most vulnerable, there will be no one there, very conveniently. Both literally (physical absence) and figuratively (emotional absence). You could try though, if you like. 2) I try to articulate my needs as clearly as possible while trying to cause as little offense as possible, but it is dismissed. No, those are not real needs. They are imaginary. I am erased in plain sight. I am nothing. A mute shadow. I don't deserve to have needs. Therefore I don't have them... etc. etc. 3) Now this is the thing that trips me up the worst as an adult, like it's disturbing to me: After I make peace with myself, resolve to see the Truth in full clarity, to do the work to resolve what I can of my currently available layer of trauma with literally every possible resource available to me, to whatever intuitive powers and raw intelligence and sheer willpower I have... I feel as if I am manifesting the means from thin air, at times. Finally, I get to the point that internally at least, I don't give a flying fuck about anyone's approval, and certainly not my parents' approval. I am free to act benevolent and civil toward them (and not feel like trash about myself because I greatly dislike holding ill will against people, and if I have it, I am almost certainly stuck in some way because I DO NOT AND NEVER HAVE wanted to be like that. A small, sad hateful shell of a person, even if maybe there are some good reasons to feel the way I do. It manifests in like this: Like I stop seeking their love. ...and then suddenly, they decide to praise me when there was no praise as a child. Decide to say they love me. Hug me. (Which makes me viscerally recoil in disgust on some deep level, if I'm being honest.) Tell me that they are proud of me. ...what in the everliving fuck is this? They're afraid. I smell it. (great, more power games with my parents, and managing their guilt which they refuse to acknowledge. Because the surface must be maintained at all costs, right? They themselves, a mirror of civilization at this moment. You can't be fucking serious. Oh... they are............ so small. And scared. I see their fear in their hearts. I can't be mad at them, they are like children...) (God, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing........) (.... I'm still so angry... how can they be like this? how can they be..... so casually and negligently evil? So absent of Love? How do... human beings live like this? In such emotional squalor, in a world without the Real and the Colour? In the absence of Love? Why has my spirit been dragged down with these... people?) (you keep telling yourself, as you have your whole life, because this is just the way humans are. Our animality.) (......no animal has or would ever treat me this way though, so no wonder I often preferred the company of animals. I was also a witchy sort and had my soul-bonded Familiars. The saving grace of my years as a minor. They saw me when no one did, in the way that animals can often see your true emotions and other things you hide in your heart that other people cannot see because you mask those traits and feelings, even if animals do not cognitively understand you.) AN EXAMPLE OF SOMETHING WHICH DIDN'T MAKE THE LIST ABOVE: I've told this as a joke a few times before: My parents traveled somewhere new every year, and when I was 6, we went to India. I was at the Taj Mahal. It was about 40 celcius, probably a bit over. The joke was that my future claim to fame (and maybe something I'd put in my autobiography in the future if I ever wrote one) is that I threw up on the Taj Mahal when I was I was 6. Haha, I threw up on a very beautiful, pristine looking UNESCO World Heritage Site when I was 6. I was deathly mortified about it then. In reality, I was afraid. Afraid of my family. Afraid of being an inconvenience, afraid of them being angry at me, of being told I was too sensitive and a whiner, afraid of being an embarrassment to them. Other adults walked up to my parents and asked if I was ok. My parents had given me a bit of water reluctantly, because their thing was aggressively conserving and rationing bottled water so that we wouldn't be completely out of it if we "really needed it" in a place where none was available at that moment. What I felt was like was a horrible embarrassment to them. And that I better not pass out. That's not acceptable. Don't want to find out what happens then. That would definitely be my fault. This is already all my fault. ...why am I so weak? My husband: That is child abuse. Pretty sure you were having heat stroke... Me: I was fully willing to accept what they told me at that age, that I should toughen up. Not be so sensitive. That it was for my own benefit. My husband: That's not how you toughen up a child lol. They were physically and medically responsible for you. The reason they gave you was them justifying their own selfish priorities (and basically not doing their duties as a parent). (Wait....you mean this is not a normal childhood thing?) ....... (Oh, I guess I have been physically abused. Just not beat with a belt or slapped across the face. Actually, remember when you rebelled as a teenager? That was the only time in your life where you told both your parents to go fuck themselves. You asked them to treat you like an actual human being instead of a science experiment, and not like someone you could just mould into whatever idea of what I should be as a person based on whatever values they had. Your mother told you ... well, why don't you just call CPS if it's that bad? Lol you have food and a roof over your head, access to education, what could you possibly have to complain about? What, are you going to go live with a foster family? Do you think that would be better?) (Oh wait, remember all the times you spent traveling and your feet were bleeding because you were being forced to walk for hours and hours wearing shoes, on the rubbed raw, bleeding blistered skin? You recall your mother being annoyed at dealing with the evidence of your injury? As if you had personally done it to offend her? Do you remember how you felt like somehow that too was also your fault? That you tried to make yourself as small, pleasant, and quiet as possible, while you spent hours trying to psychologically numb the sensation of pain, but at times, the stabbing feeling of pins and needles was too much. Still, stay silent. Try not to look bothered, or else mom will take it personally. You look weak and like a whiner. I feel the shame. I try to employ the right level of dissociation to adapt perfectly to my situation. Watch where you're going, eos_nyxia. Don't dissociate too much and forget where you are. ....eventually, like some years later, my mom did help me get wide fit shoes.) ........I learned to bear psychological and physical pain to the point of learning to control my ability to dissociate. To hold what causes Memory and Unmemory. To run higher cognitive functions (enforced homeschooling because I was being a "bad kid" and rebelling) and higher extrasensory functions (the latter being much more energy consuming at the time), while under this type load. To leave no evidence of vulnerability that could be picked apart by people who are like animals drawn to scent of blood. .... like, haha. I already know that I had done the best a human could probably do with my particular situation. ......and there's always more to remember, if I wanted to. Which I do not. It always seems to go on and on and ON. I am DONE. I have done my best to specifically avoid situations which would result in me getting so angry I feel compelled to disown all of them, and I am very intent on wrapping up our karma as a family and I have believed disowning them to be running away, specifically in my case. And also, I believe that it is bad juju to curse (hold seriously ill intent in your heart) toward the woman who birthed you, regardless of what she has done. Mostly, you'll probably just poison yourself and divorce yourself from the Nurturing aspect of Reality, shutting yourself off from experiencing secure love and attachment, emotional safety, and groundness in the future, and honestly even a certain aspect of Presence along with it.) Anyway, At that point, I'll feel absolutely nothing about it, like I always have. And that's fine. Because I am done with it. Also at the very least, I need to admit to myself, these people tortured me. Not just that they hurt me and they had their reasons. I need to call it what it was, and what was actually true for me. I must stop dissociating and splintering myself in small and larger ways out of habit, returning and looping back to the inheritance I was born with. I must end this whole war within myself. I have to finally tell myself, this ends now, and believe it. To put it in place. To put things in place. To switch on all the lights and leave them on this time. .... .. .. I have been waiting for this moment my whole life. I want to use my real power now. I want to remake the world in my True Image.

Am I missing something here??? That's about as "lesbian" as the gay men who have their fantasy of finding "straight men" to fuck. If you are a straight man fucking other men and you enjoy it... you are not straight, by definition. Likewise, if you are truly lesbian... don't you just either feel nothing or are actively and viscerally disgusted at the thought of having sex with a man? Or something seriously feels seriously off or wrong, like you don't feel like yourself. Maybe they've convinced themselves that they still need male sexual approval to feel like a valid human being (comphet lol). Or are these "political lesbians"? (In that case, they would not fuck men either on sheer principle.)

Yep! I'm saying that a guy telling me that he has visited escorts doesn't really bother me by itself, but his motives for going matter. I mean I'm Canadian myself so I get the issue with directness. If anything, it's a curiosity if it's an unconventional choice. (I get very curious about why people do the things they do.) I'm also saying that I've thought about using escort/ sex worker services myself in the past too. Both men and women for different reasons, since I am not straight.

It wouldn't be a turn on, but it wouldn't be a turn off either, and whether I find it acceptable depends on the guy's motives. Things that are fine: Not being interested in spending time, money, and energy on the whole dating and sex game because you're actually too busy because of career or too many IRL obligations, or you find it pointless wanting to stay single and unattached, paying not to deal with people's emotions and messiness because you know you're not interested or can't handle it. The boundary is rooted in financial exchange, which is fine in and of itself. Wanting to get your own inexperience out of the way because it is a developmental road block, or even just wanting to get it out of the way and then going on to having a "regular" (non-paid) sex life Things that are not fine: not caring about trafficking or other ethical issues treating people like fleshbags that inconveniently happen to walk, talk, and have inner worlds and experiences of their own there's a whole list of reasons why a john might not be relationship material, but not bothering with getting into that. My hot take is that as a woman who has been with very few people (and I guess I'm considered conventionally attractive since people tend to wonder about what would woman would pay for it), I would rather pay for it and greatly increase my chances of having a good experience than doing the casual sex roulette where I have to expend the mental and emotional energy to figure who would be worthwhile, let alone who is SAFE. While I'm good enough at figuring out people's motives quickly, it's nice to have other options because vetting people and can be exhausting. I actually think that more women are opening up to this possibility, that a lot of casual sex is a waste of time for women's pleasure and often is unsafe as well. Pros: someone who is paid to prioritize your pleasure, especially if they are drawn to the sexual service aspect you can read reviews and stuff to get a better sense of their personality, sexual and emotional style, etc. also being paid to be left alone, like a person who won't try to extract emotional resources, a relationship, or time, etc. takes STI monitoring seriously (this is a very big one for me) Cons: anything above either not being true or failing in reality

My hot take on this is that men who are promiscuous aren't good at sex anyway, so I'm not missing much! And if they are, it's in spite of it. The lack of anything that would suggest otherwise is pretty telling. Like it's all there between the lines when you read someone's attitude toward sex. Or women. Etc. Same issue with a very large amount of porn. The men.... just can't fuck well, lol. And it's not just because it's for the camera.

I'm a woman (for perspective) and I'm trying to reserve my judgement because it is supposed to be describing a truly consensual situation, If I ever meet such a woman, I'd like to pick her brains and see what makes her tick. Because it's so rare, it'd at least be interesting. There's a lot of things I don't get on a personal level, but it's still worth learning about. For example: women who are more attracted to taken men. My attraction doesn't really work this way and never has, plus I have a lifelong tendency to suspect that people who make snap judgements about how safe/ worthwhile/ trustworthy a person is based on simply seeing them around other women are.... not very smart. Unless you truly trust and respect these other women because you know them well enough and know that they are capable of sound judgement on people's characters, why would their opinion matter? Be valid in any way? Still, I try to put myself in their shoes as much as I can. At least I want to understand how they became the way they have. Probably I would look very carefully for more subtle forms of self harm and self abnegation and not just whatever story they tell themselves and tell others, if it is there. It doesn't help that this particular desire is a dime a dozen and you're competing with all the other dudes who want the same thing. Saturated market, too many people looking for a unicorn (literally how the polyamory community uses the term "unicorn", an unattached bisexual woman looking to join a couple). Women don't usually seek to be the fully committed third wheel in someone else's "more serious" primary relationship either unless they don't know that game or they have very low self esteem.

A Solution to Limerent Tendencies: Become the "man" you always secretly wanted to be, that you felt like you couldn't be for whatever reason. Take on the qualities you most admire. Learn those skills. Develop the identity, the focus, the sense of purpose. Take it to its farthest logical conclusion and manifest those talents fully for some greater purpose (...or not). Show yourself off to the world... or don't. Be direct, be bold. (I know you don't really want to be small anyway.) More than anything, CALL IT TO YOU. Expect that you could call it perfectly and in full form and potency, with minimal effort (as in, struggle). Do not set up a specific sort of game and wonder why it plays through the way it does. (As in, the friction of a certain mindset when it comes to the attachment to "effort" often calls more of the same indefinitely.) For some reason, you projected that into an idealized form of a man. It made it all easier to survive. (Try not to hate yourself for doing your best to survive, at least you tried inhumanly hard, for as many times as you did, and to great inconvenience and pain to yourself, to minimize the damage you caused people.) You weren't even really the type to do that sort of thing either. It's not that any of this was ever inherently a competition, but it knocks the wind right out of the unhealthiest aspect for me. (In general, watch where I'm projecting my energy and account for it. Take it back already!) In general, outsourcing >insert positive trait or attribute< to the opposite gender, placing it outside yourself and then projecting onto it, is some dumb shit. ESPECIALLY if it's related to an intellectual or creative domain.

Focus on what you want, not what you don't want. It's that simple, right? At this point, it's far too easy to look around at everything I don't want. (And everyone that I don't.) At some point, the forever shadow work must end. It just... has to end. It's probably not going to wrap itself up nicely in a bow either.) Especially if I was never originally willing to live and die a full human lifespan on those terms. Why not now? Why always later? What reason do I have to wait to make a decision? I simply wanted to know the truth. And now I know. I understand my tangible value in this world as it stands (or lack thereof). It is not a crime to decide that the visible part of my story ends as well here, or is about to end. Even so, I've struggled with the guilt (otherwise what would I have to so strongly push back against, as I have above?). Because I feel like I OWE something, so much so that I've given away so much of myself that I never really wished to give in the first place, often without realizing it at the time. Inevitably, it continues what I was conditioned for growing up -- being accommodating by default. It's either that guilt after which I start to second guess myself, causing me to keep the door open, or not being able to rule out that I have left some important stone unturned. The latter is a serious issue for me and violates my premise for even being born into this specific life and identity to start with. I have nothing positive or negative to say about some future lifetime in which all the work I did in this lifetime paid off. While it might feel like there is no real separation between that self and this self, which surprises me very little given the sheer amount of psychological deconstruction and erosion that has occurred in this particular lifetime (both by choice and not), whatever I know is very little help for this life. Functionally, it's irrelevant. ... so now I suffer the burden of knowledge for what I felt compelled to go out of my way to look for. (I did that to myself though. It doesn't have to intrinsically be a problem but I've very much made it one.) ...........but is it any wonder, with my tendency to do things "backward", that I was 15 when I marked down its importance as a psychological function: erase your memory to lighten your load in every sense. On the body, the emotions, the higher psychic functions, what we call the rationalizing portion of the mind. Erase aspects of your identity. Erase all traces of your path. (And if you can't get yourself out of whatever bind you got yourself in, blow it all up and start over. Not doing this anymore though lol.) I don't just mean the traumatized self, I mean literally anything and everything. Like truly decide what it is that you need and what matters and shrug off the rest. Age: 13-14. I understand that I can play "character creation" with this life, this body, and this personality, before I even knew that such a thing existed in video games. (I always want to get to this point far earlier than what has been already set in motion and is still working through. Impatience. As if I had not already had enough patience waiting for the simple privilege to be alive and to not be in debt to people through. What do I have to show for that impatience? Pretty much nothing but some footnotes!)

Solid movement goal! I too wish to be a giant cat instead of a fridge.