nissaayen | Entries tagged with #poly

Wow. I started this about 2 hours ago and got overwhelmed by all the people I'd like to explain, define, and categorize. Life doesn't really work that way. So my plan is to add people to this post as I mention them.

Honey/Anita is my would be ex-girlfriend. That is we flirted with a relationship but it never came to fruition because our mental illnesses clash in a way that makes us both sick in the worst ways. She is the mother of my daughter and middle child. She was a primary and a secondary for my sadist at points in the last few. She is bipolar and borderline which i only mention because it is how she defines herself. We met June 2014. Addendum: i always knew honey was a placeholder until i could find the right moniker. Anita because she can be an awesome partner, the best, until her insecurities get the best of her and she picks at it until it cant be maintained anymore. See also Anita Blake books for the reference. Current status with the sadist co-parent and nothing more.

My sadist/Richard wasvmy primary relationship for nearly 10 years. We met in 2001 and we started seeing each other in 2010. He is the father of my daughter and my youngest son. He has many chronic health issues. I updated his name for the anita blake naming convention because it fits. He loves me so much and breaks my heart on the regular because im never who he expects me to be somehow. He almost never means to. We ended our relationship recently but still cohabitate and coparent. Financially its difficult to do anthing else. I hurt a lot about this.

The Roman is currently my only romantic partner. He lives in Kentucky. Ive known him since 1996 though we only started pursuing a relationship October 2015. He's nearly always been there for me. We also have a bdsm relationship and tried switching once upon a time but I really think living in close proximity would be the only way for me to get the comfort level required to try and be a D type. He's loving and supportive.

The nemesis is a lot of things and as the name suggests not many of them good. He's kinda like the bad guy in Jessica Jones without the superpowers. He was a witch... a damn good one. We were poly only not really. I met him in 2002 and i was seeing him full time for 2 years and off and on until 2005. He was abusive as fuck and bdsm. He broke my brain and when he left me i had no idea how i would live without him. I still follow thought paths he put in there from time to time. When he's with me i can't think, i cant get angry, i cant say no. He made finding healthy a super big problem. Delusions i have associated with him include him being the reincarnation of Alistor Crowley and a repeated pattern on the wheel of him trying to steal my soul.

The dream doctor.... ive known the dream doctor since 1999 when we worked together at mcdonalds. Sometimes we are best friends, sometimes we've been lovers, other times we've just kinda been nearby. We are done with all the labels but friend now though.

Leviathan; Lev is just lev. With his permission i left his name as is because i can't think of anything more appropriate than the name he gave himself. Lev and i met ... roughly 2006 before i was married. He's been many things. Spiritual guidance, friend, love interest. It shifts and chanes routinly. He lives in Tennessee however which can be a problem. We have a standing date Mondays to commiserate with and support each other.

Dark Angel first female love. There are a lot of things that could be discussed and defined here but most of it is irrelevant. I thought about writing about her today so i thought I'd drop a reference point to come back to. Her birthday is close to mine, the day before. We met i 1997 and were inseparable best friends until her abusive parents got in the way. We reconnected in 2005 breifly until same abusive parents got in the way again. I loved her and i wanted to date her but it never went that way. Had to let her go to be healthy with myself.

The marine first love period. We did a lot of things but never sex. We had that constant make up break up thing that teenagers do. I was not ready when it ended.

Rhiannon- i can and have in other places written pages and pages about the complexities of our relationship. She was my brother's ex-wife just about 12 years older than me (give or take) my best friend and my first female lover. She was my mother at times and my child at others. We practiced magick together. We shared everything. We were estranged near the beginning if my marriage. Even then we both loved each other deeply. She passed away a few years ago and its been a very hard blow for me.

The hard rock boyfriend got his whole own blog post for an intro but shortly.. the first boy i knew sex was for more than currency and i liked it too.

Romeo could be and may be a blog later. He was 15 and I was 19. He had been seeing Rhiannon before me. I loved him a lot and I cheated on him. I was young and crazy as hell I told him, i didn't get caught. We stayed friends somehow. He joined the army. We've been talking a little lately.

Merlin was my best friend for a long long time. What I didn't know is he felt "friend zoned" by me. No I didn't do the will I won't I shit. When he told me how he felt I told him that (rightly) boyfriends in my life have always been temporary and I wanted more than anything to have a best friend for life . He stopped talking to me early in his marriage.

Fenrys another long standing romance that started at the age of the internet . Relationship was toxic on both sides and I finally cut off contact. He has his own blog entry.

Until you've been in an emotionally abusive relationship or something similar you just don't know how powerful somebody else's mood is.

I realized today as the Roman had a bad mood thst tried to spin me off in a panic attack that I have this nearly irrepressible urge to fix it when these things come up.

With the nemisis, anita, and Richard- it's a thing. They aren't doing well and all the sudden whatever I was doing, whatever is going on, I have to stop and try to make it better, because if i don't sooner or later their bad feeling is going to bite me. I'm gonna get caught in an explosion, or suddenly this mood that I have no idea where it came from is going to be all about me. It's going to hurt me and I can't just leave it unattended and unwatcher. The nemisis would find a way to punish me for it later, Richard and Anita were more likely to just throw me off balance with their feelings then somehow both make it aboit me and make me feel selfish for making it about me.

I think I stopped it pretty quickly today, recognized what was happening and realized that at least with my Roman that it wasn't needed. His bad moods don't bite, I mean he's by no means perfect but when it's not my fault it's not my fault and I dont need to be afraid.

Now how to address the things that do. I've been having this fight with Richard for a little while. I guess i need to point at it each time it happens.

I shouldn't have to be afraid of other people's feelings. Mine are enough

You wouldn't normally think of fighting as an important relationship skill but it is for me.

The thing is even before my disastrous relationship with the nemisis i have been a chameleon in mu relationships. Not completely consciously but deaperatly eager for approval. "Love me, love me, love me... and give me an identity with your love for me." So i didn't ever buck about things, i didn't fight or argue, or put my stamp over everything because who i was changed from breath to breath and i didnt have anything to fight for.

After the nemisis things changed to make me more a chamilion a pleaser. In my head pleading for somebody to see me inside or somebody to take me over and make me something valuable. I didn't have much to trade but i sure tried.

Fighting in a relationship is wonderful and awful. Richard was the first one I'd go around with and instead of swallowing whatever hurt and anger i felt and letting our relationship rot from the inside out i'd say something. We used to have fights every 2 to 3 months. We'd yell at each other a few minutes then go our separate ways and think. In that time we'd always decide that our stubborn pride was in no way more important than our relationship and we'd open up and be vulnerable. . Talk about feelings and so move on and decide we loved each other more than the whatever we were fighting about. It spead out over time and normalized into a steady, if not conventional, method of conflict resolution.

It made me cocky. When Anita came around I kinda thought that if Richard and I could make it work that surely I had a chance with anybody else especially somebody who has DBTtraining.

instead I got pulled into an increasing cycle of crisis. I landed in a place where opening up emotionally just fueled the Fire of Demands that I was unable to meet. over explaining everything made me feel obligated and like an asshole when I couldn't do what she wanted me to do. it made me feel manipulated and unworthy it made me behave like a liar even though I try not to be one. worst of all it made Richard and and made Richard and I's system fail.

we are getting it back and that's why I started this entry. it's an uphill battle when the rudimentary tools that we were using were found to be inadequate for the task and when we turtod to each other, we were afraid of each other we were afraid any fight could be the one that ended Us

it is so important though that we are free to fight with one another and many come back and meet our differences with love.

So in a contrary expression I hope we can keep fighting and realizing that what we have is worth so much more than all our petty differences and are exhaustion and our poor Mental Health.

My relationship with my kink is complex and spun into knots with my ptsd tangled in the line. I started fantasizing about kink pre-sexuality when masturbation was a thing i used to manage my anxiety and to feel like i could sleep more than a few hours without intense and horrifying nightmares that were not only flashbacks . (Turns out nightmares of all kinds are increased with C-ptsd) i started cyber kinking and lying about my age around 13 to bring color to my fantacy. Me and the Roman created each other's kink persona with texualized fanctacies and hopes and expectations.

When i learned that kink was a real thing actual people did it was an open door and in my early sexuality i played with it a lot with more vannila partners who really didnt get what i was going for but hey.. it was a start.

The nemisis was my first real kink partner and along with all the other things he did and said to me he made me realize this need inside of me could be realized in the flesh, that i coukd be satisfied and calm (if not as safe as i thought at the time)

When he left me the bottom dropped out of my world nit just because of this re-occuring cycle of dependance, need, and neglect. I didn't know how to take care if myself anymore and that was a daily struggle that lead to an ill thought out marriage later but first this aching need for kink made me feel empty and aching. It felt like there was this raw dripping hole was ripped out of me and i coudlnt bandage over it or stop the bleeding.

It made me stupid. Not in the low self esteem because of buse and im just talking bad about myself kind of way but in the way a starving child will reach for poisoned fruit and know what it is when you bite into it because at least for a moment you are filled.

I set up a bdsm personals and and met a stranger. We had a social kind of date before we played and it was mostly okay... until it wasn't. I ended up in a seedy motel room with somebody who didnt love me or care about my consent and he ruined me. He raped me and caused lasting damage to my body. He shut me down and out and i thought in the next three days that i would die of the pain and the shame. I wondered if i could bleed out from emotions emptying into the water with me and if i ever would sleep again.

Clearly i recovered. When i got together with my sadist i found that i could both be safe and experiance the exchange i needed to be satisfied.

But with the grinding exhaustion of irish twins, finances, and Anita's relationship blowing up our lives there is little time for ink. The Roman, like me is lost and disheartened with the barriers between us visiting right now. This need i have is again a gaping would where parts of me have been scooped out and set to the side. I keep trying to plaster it up with bonds of friendship and love and maternal satisfaction but it aches and aches and the plaster keeps crumbling leaving me raw again.

And I'm starting to feel stupid when im not exhausted. I chat with the hard rock boyfriend from time to time as well as the dream doctor and it soothes me some. I'm working hard not to be dumb.

Boy is it difficult.

Without trying to sound as -goth- as possible (hey is goth even a thing?) Ive been living under a black cloud a very long time. My ptsd went from child sized to adult sized at 13. That means rather than a child that was a little awkward and wanted love but mostly preferred books to people i was a woman who dissociated frequently, had night terrors and flashbacks, and all the little eccentrics of having a mental illness of your very own.

My eccentricities include a previously mentioned belief that i would die violently by the age of 27. This was fed by nightmares, intrusive, thoughts and occasionally by my own fantacies when i was tired of hovering on the edge of a panic attack.

In addition to that is a powerful death wish that lingers to this day. There is a fine distinction between being suicidal and having a death wish. I made one suicide attempt which was aborted by cutting made me feel better. Took me years to get over that addiction but that's a diffrent story. Mostly a death wish leads to a high risk lifestyle when uncontrolled and a low level romance with a personified death figure when managed well.

Beyond That The Specter Of Death hovers around through the people I Love. Rhiannon had a heart condition her whole life. She had a pig valve and when we were together a murmer that made her heart go swish when I'd press my ear to her back and listen. She also had no insurance and couldn't work. This lead to many many trips to the ER because any infection could kill her and any panic attack could be a heart attack. Every trip could be the one that could kill her. In the end her chronic heath issues killed her years after we were together even knowing that the help i gave extended her life it still broke me several times.

It did not stop me from falling for the sadist with his COPD and uncontrolled athsma same lack of insurance and less frequent ER trips where i wondered in fear about all the diffrent ways athsma can kill you. Higher risk that your heart gives out under the strain. Beyond that theres the fear that if his breathing requires him to use oxygen or lowers his quality of life.

It's a hard burden go carry. That is not to say it is as hard or as stressful for me as it was/is for them. That is not a complaint just a statement of fact. When you love somebody you help shoulder their burdens. People who have chronic health problems carry heavier burdens than others. In the end it's still my choice though. I choose everyday not to walk away from problems that terrify me and leave me wondering when i could be left alone. I choose not to blame their conditons on them or try to get them to do more than they are capable of. I chose to love them, commit to them, and be with them to the very end no matter how much that hurts in between. People who say love shoudnt hurt are not paying attention. You love somebody so much that their pain is yours and that is only emphasized as you watch them struggle through things you can't help with and go places you cant follow them.

And it's worth every second.

Still every time the sadist goes to the hospital i wonder and worry about how i could possibly go through life without him and faced with the knowledge that someday (and I'll never know when) he'll leave me when im not ready or prepared. I wonder who will take care if me and make sure my children are well. I wonder who will help me make the dragon girl and superguy understand and how i will keep them together when i have no rights at all in this matter. There's a large portion of my relationship energy that is dedicated to accepting the thing i fear most will happen.

Im lucky because im poly. If the worst were to happen the roman would be here as soon as he was able and he'd help me carry my share ao i can do what i need to do. I know people will judge me for that and i know when he's insecure the sadist worries that im just waiting dir him to die so that i can move on. It's not true though. I never want it to happen. I need so many things that he gives me that are irreplaceable. I just need to know when the world ends somebody who loves me will be there to help me begin again.

I don't think that's remarkably selfish

If you know anything about me at all you know that books are my sanctuary and my dreams. Characters in my books have held me when i felt broken, they've cried with me in my greif, and they've loved me when i felt unlovable. They aren't a just a drug they are the drug above and beyond any high i couldever feel. Books have built my idealism up and held it there when thr world at large has shaken my foundations.

The sadist thinks that this makes it hard to love me sometimes (though not in those words) he thinks it leaves me pining for something that is unreal. That no one loves like that and so it separates me from the ones i love who cannot meet the high standards of more than half a life's worth of books.

Thing is that i -do- love like that. I grew up thinking that love should mean something and that it is a consuming force that changes you and your life. That good love hurts, not because they are hurting you butbecause you feel it so much that it presses against your walls and boundaries.

This has been a conflict in my world view for a long time. I've told a lot of people that i loved them but everytime ive said it i meant it. That also means that for the majority of the people ive said it too i still love, even if we don't ever talk again. There are a few that I've "fallen out of love with" because we've changed so much or something, I'd still really like to be happy.

This conflicted with my world view because i grew up thinking you only get one. I've turned away more love than many people are ever offered. The love that I've accepted if even for a little while is amazing.

I didn't know poly was a thing or there would have been a lot less conflict. Serial momgomy was my thing for a long time. The way i love is still kind of difficult for my partners the sadist because he loves diffrent than me.. the way i see it he wants the one "big love" before and beyond the others then lots if "little loves" for companionship, for support, for affection, so that he can get enough. The roman is more of a "one and only" kind of guy with an understanding of more short meaningless physical relationships as kind of a fetish. For me... all the loves are "big loves" and while i do put my relationship with the sadist first it's not really because i love him more or most it is because our relarionship is my home and my stability because i would be lost without him.

If i could have my greatest wish it would be that the two would do more than respect each other for the gifts they've given to me. I'd have them bond over their love for me or even the frustrations about my illness and my flaws. That they'd truly care for each other and be happy and excited for the joys and sucess in our relationships and know the loss of either one would diminish me terribly.

That's my fairy tale.. That the people i loved would be filled to overflowing until it spilled out upon everyone we're connected to, that it grows and grows.

Man i can't tell if that seems conceited or nieve.

It's my dream though. I can have it be however i want it to be.

Something I've been working on learning for a long time is that relationships get this trap. I call if the "if you love me" sandpit of longevity....

I dunno if this sandpit just happens to me more because im damaged and i tend to pick damaged people but after the honeymoon is passed and you contemplate building a life together you start wanting them to change, not out of malace but out of love. Quit smoking, eat healthy, start doing the things that will keep you here with me longer. Take care of yourself... but the thing is... the things that need to be changed are things that cannot be born from the love of another person but have to come from your love for yourself.

Like- I'd like the sadist to take better care of his athsma, excersise, lose weight, get insurance, file for disability

I'd like the roman to go back to school, get a job, build a social circle, go to the dentist...

I want those things not because i want to benifit from them but because it will better their lives, make them happy, keep them with me. It doesn't work like that though. I can get somebody to buy me a gift because they love me, or probably do the dishes when im tired and sick, i can get somebody to try new things and explore with me....but you cant get somebody to stop being an addict because they love you, as much as popular media tries you cant single handedly pull somebody out of a deep depression because they love you.

The things i want from my partners can only change because they love themselves enough to let go of the self destruction in their lives. I hated myself when i tried to get the sadist to quit smoking.

When i was cutting i lost a lot of people who were trying to save me because " if you love me you'd stop" very quickly turns into if you can't im leaving. Really, my answer was . That in no way helps me want to stop. I had to stop because i wanted to for me.

A lot of my current family drama and loss is a because you love e kind of stress. Honey needs constant reinforcement of that ove so every issue becomes "if you loved me" and the resulting stress therein broke us to pieces. After the nemisis my response to that question is... fuck you i love me more.

Anyways, I've run out of where i was going.

Peace

The thing about being out is... you can be out to 95% of the people in your life and you are still not really out. I really admire the people who can be 100% real in 100% of their life. I had dissociative disorder NOS for a long time so I'm not really entirely comfortable being 100% real with myself all the time clearly.

I'm working on that. I might never get there though.

It hinders my desire to participate in activism because how can i fight to make the world safe for other people when i can't even make it safe for my true unfiltered self?

Maybe that's my privilege speaking. Maybe because I'm white and the people i happen to love right now are men and one of them lives far away i do have the privilege of looking normal without crisis moving it forward. It's hard for me to view it that way when the dissociation was impacted by the need to look normal as a survival skill. If i wanted any needs met at all i needed to fit the standard.

Honey (introductions are next i swear) belives that we owe it to the world to be out. That things will never get better if everyone refuses to let go of their masks. In this I'm neglecting the community (just as i neglected her) by keeping my shit private. I do in fact see her point, however, in my humble opinion the primary imperative of any survivor is to continue surviving. Survival is one of my best things and I like to drag other people along whenever possible. I'm just sociopathic enough to continue to survive alone if i cant bring anyone else with.

Well okay I'm rambling again (get used to that)

So I'll just say... i might not love my closet but it is safe here and I'm not ready to leave.